The Colour of Death (14 page)

She told Fox everything.  “What does it all mean?” she said, exhausted.

“First of all, it validates your death-echo synaesthesia.  One of the murdered girls was blonde, exactly as you described, and had a bullet hole in her skull.  As for the stuff from your dreams, that’s less clear.  The dark unknown character chasing you could be a symbolic expression of a repressed fear.  Perhaps you were running from something before your amnesia?”

“Or someone?”

“Possibly.”  He shrugged.  “We’re only speculating here but when you sensed the girl fleeing, you may have identified with her terror and decided that enough was enough.  You had to fight back — even if it was against
her
demons and not your own — so you found the axe and went inside.  The stress of fleeing from whatever was terrifying you, combined with what followed in that basement, may have contributed to your fugue state.  Rare retrograde amnesia like yours can be triggered by intolerable stress.”  He paused and studied her face.  “But aside from this connection to the dreams you’ve been having, do you remember anything else?  Any glimpses of your past life?”

“No.”  He had obviously hoped for some kind of breakthrough and this wasn’t it.  She searched his face for disappointment but he gave nothing away.

He smiled.  “Well, it’s a start.  We’ve validated your death-echo synaesthesia and you appear to have made some kind of connection with your past self.”  He checked his watch.  “Which we’ll explore another time.”

She felt she had failed him and wanted to do more.  “I could try again now — for longer.  I might have a breakthrough.”

“Or a breakdown.  You look exhausted.  It’s getting late and I’ve already pushed you harder than I should.  I’ve got a time slot tomorrow.  We’ll come back then.”

“But I’m here now…”

His phone rang and he checked the screen.  “Sorry, I better get this.”  Fox put the phone to his ear.  “Hi, Karl.”  Something the caller said made Fox glance at her.  “Sure.  Yes.  Why?”  His face flushed.  “What kind of development?”  Then he walked away toward the car, out of earshot.  When he returned, moments later, he looked pale and troubled.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m not sure yet.  But you’d better get back in the car.  I’m taking you back to Tranquil Waters.”

Chapter 20

As they left the site of Jane Doe’s rebirth, Nathan Fox was disappointed her death-echo synaesthesia hadn’t helped her make a more profound connection with her past self.  He was, however, convinced of her gift now.  It made him think of the Chevron garage and the yellow demolition sign they had passed on the way back from his aunt’s.  What would Jane Doe have sensed if he had stopped the car and led her into the garage kiosk?  Could she have filled in the missing minutes that had haunted him these long years?  More importantly, did he have the courage to find out?

Not yet, he decided, pushing the thought from his mind.  Jordache’s call had raised more pressing concerns: 
How the hell could Jane Doe be connected to three homicides?
  After returning her to Tranquil Waters, he drove on to meet the detective, who had directed him to the Grand Hotel Excelsior, a run-down flophouse a couple of blocks from the Willamette River that rented out rooms by the hour.  As Fox parked he was grateful for the battered state of his ancient silver Porsche.  This wasn’t a neighborhood in which to leave expensive cars.  Noticing that the G in Grand and the E in Excelsior had blown on the illuminated sign, Fox pondered why the sleaziest hotels so often boasted the most luxurious names.  A crowd of reporters had gathered so he walked around to the side, where Detective Phil Kostakis escorted him through the cordon.

Jordache greeted him in the lobby, led him down a dark corridor that smelled of damp, and filled him in on the homicides.  “This is the latest.  We’ve had three in as many days, all with the same signature.”

“What’s the link to Jane Doe?”

“I’ll show you.  Walk the scene with me, both as her shrink and as a forensic psychologist.  I need to know
why
the guy’s doing this.  There’s no obvious financial motive, no evidence of sexual activity and no real link between the victims, except they all were male, over fifty and scumbags.”  Jordache pointed to an open door ringed with yellow crime scene tape.  There was an emergency fire door beside it, which led directly outside.  Men in white forensic suits were already in the room.  “The guy at the check-in desk vaguely remembers a large man paying cash for the room.”

“Any other description?”

“This ain’t exactly the Four Seasons, Nathan.  The staff here make a point of
not
remembering clients and the man was wearing a large hat that obscured much of his face.”  Jordache checked his notes.  “All the guy at the desk remembers is he had fair skin, intense eyes and a low rumbling voice.  The description fits one we have for a suspect on the other killings.”  He read out the statement from the witness at the thrift store.

“What about the bad smell?”

“The guy at the desk here had a cold and didn’t pick anything up.  The smell might be a dead end.  The killer could have stepped in something or have been carrying some food that was off.”  He indicated the fire door.  “We figure the killer cased the joint out earlier, paid for the room keys then carried his victim into the hotel through that fire door.”

“Carried him in?”

“Yeah, the pathologist took a blood sample and found traces of ketamine again.  The killer waited for the guy to wake up in the room, then killed him.”  He pulled back the crime scene tape and led Fox into the room.

The first thing Fox noticed was the blood spatter.  No Luminol was required here.  Sticky blood matted the threadbare carpet, and marked the furniture.  Part of the pine wardrobe in the corner had been stained as dark as mahogany.  “Where’s the body?”

Jordache pointed to the small adjoining bathroom.  The door was open and a police photographer was inside taking pictures.  “In there.”

Fox walked in and saw a man’s naked body crammed into a bath, brimming with rosy soup.  The smell of blood hung in the back of Fox’s throat.  The bled-out corpse was pale, its hands were bound with blue twine and it had no head.  There were cut marks on the neck but otherwise the break was butcher-clean.

“All three victims were changed out of their own clothes,” Jordache said.  “The first two were found in female clothing, this one was naked.  Forensics say the killer used a knife, large and razor-sharp but pretty standard.  Not surgical.  The kind of thing you’d find in most hunting and gaming stores.  It was almost certainly the same weapon used at the other two scenes.”

Fox grimaced.  “The killer’s got to be a pretty powerful guy to carry a man as big as him in here, tie him up, undress him and cut off his head with a knife — however sharp it is.”  He stared at the body, which no longer looked human, more like a gruesome mannequin or a sick prop from a movie.  But this had once been a person with a life, perhaps a wife and children.  “Who found him?”

“The cleaner.”

“This dump has a cleaner?”

“Comes in once a day, would you believe.”

“You got a name for the victim?”

“An old guy called Luis Paz.  Was a small-time enforcer for the local mob.  Retired some years back.  We got an ID from his head.”

Fox looked around the bathroom.  “Where is it, by the way?”

The detective led him back into the bedroom, donned white latex gloves and pointed to the wardrobe.  “In there.”

“Where’s the link to Jane Doe?”

“I’ll show you.”  Jordache stepped forward and, with a flourish, opened the wardrobe.  Fox was not easily shocked but what he saw made him step back a pace.  The interior of the wardrobe was divided into hanging space on the left and shelves on the right.  On the middle shelf, sitting in a pool of dark congealed blood, was a severed human head.  The skin visible around the pale lips and on the jowly chin was already turning gray like that of a diseased fish but the eyes and upper half of the face were obscured by a sheet of newspaper, which had been stapled to the victim’s forehead.  Despite the blood, Fox could see a message written in colored marker pens.

He read the message aloud:  “
Serve the demon, save the angel.
”  This the same as the other killings?”

“Yep.”

“Written in the same way?  In capital letters of different colors, on two lines with no punctuation?”

“Exactly the same.  Look at what the message is written on.”  Fox stepped closer to the wardrobe, ignoring the butcher’s-shop smell of cold, bloody meat, until his nose was inches from the severed head.  Suddenly, he understood the connection.  The message had been written over the photograph of Jane Doe’s face featured in all the news stories.  “All three male homicide victims had the same newspaper photo from the
Oregonian
stapled to their foreheads,” Jordache said.

“You think the killer knows Jane Doe?”

“It’s possible.  More to the point, she might know the killer.  I want to talk to her, Nathan.”

Fox considered this for a moment.  “But Jane Doe doesn’t even know her own name, Karl.  How do you expect her to know the killer’s?  You’d only scare her for no good reason and this may have nothing to do with her.”  He thought of the messages.  “The killer might
think
he knows Jane Doe but he’s just as likely to be obsessed with the guardian angel persona presented by the media.  The only connection could be in his head.”

“But she’s the only connection we’ve got, Nathan.  The killer
might
know her and she
might
know him.”  Jordache frowned at him.  “Why are you being so protective, Nathan?”

“I’m her doctor.  It’s my job to protect her.  The point is, even if she does know the killer, she won’t
remember
knowing him.  She has no recall of anything before the night of the fire.  Before we involve her, we need to go over the three crime scenes and work out what’s going on in the killer’s head.  What are the messages all about?  Who’s the angle and who’s the demon?”

“Jane Doe could help us do that,” Jordache persisted.  “Perhaps she’ll remember something when confronted with all this?”

“You’ve got to be kidding.  People lapse into fugue states because they’ve undergone or remembered something so traumatic they retreat from their own identity.”  He spread his arms wide, taking in the bloody room and the photo of Jane Doe stapled to the severed head.  “Speaking of traumatic, how the hell will confronting her with a fresh crime scene help her remember anything?”  Even as the question left his mouth, Fox knew the answer.

“I don’t mean to expose her to the goddamn bodies, Nathan.  We’ll remove those.  I mean tell her about the murders.  Show her mugshots of the victims.  Who knows?  Perhaps she’ll recognize one of them.  Explain how her photo was stapled to their faces, and show her the messages.  See if anything registers.”

Nathan thought for a moment.  “I’ll make you a proposal.”  Jordache frowned but said nothing.  “I’ll talk to her about this, but you’ve got to let me do it my way.  Jane Doe’s fragile and her condition’s complicated.  OK?”  He extended his hand.

Jordache frowned but took it.  “Whatever you say.”

“Good.  Now show me the other two crime scenes.”

Chapter 21

It was late by the time Fox left the final crime scene.  As he drove home he received a call from his aunt, who was in good spirits and had enjoyed meeting Jane Doe.

“What a lovely and beautiful girl,” she said at least three times.  “It was obvious you liked her too, Nathan.”  He could see her teasing smile in the tone of her voice.

“She’s a patient of mine, Samantha.  That’s all.”

“If you say so, Dr. Fox.”  He decided against telling Samantha about the murders and their connection to his patient but after he hung up he could think of nothing else.  Images of the three victims kept surfacing in his mind, and each time he kept seeing Jane Doe in their place.  He imagined pulling back the photo stapled to the severed head and revealing her face beneath it, skin gray with death, eyes milky with decomposition.  The thought made him nauseous.

Fox believed the killer had become fixated with Jane Doe’s media persona and didn’t know her personally, but that didn’t neutralize the threat.  Statistically, most victims know their killer, but strangers often target media personalities because they
think
they have a relationship with them, even though they have never met.  Fox opened the car window, breathed in the fresh night air and reassured himself that Jordache had assigned a discreet police protection detail to Jane Doe, starting tomorrow, once Fox had briefed her on the murders.

What about tonight?

Fox considered calling Tranquil Waters, but the thought of disturbing one of the night nurses and having to explain why he wanted her to check on a sleeping Jane Doe stopped him.  In the rearview mirror his tired eyes stared back at him. 
Get a grip, Nathan.  You’re losing perspective.  She’s a patient, asleep in a clinic.  She’s absolutely safe.  You’re the one who’s exhausted.  Go home and get some rest.

He breathed deep and tried in vain to heed the advice he had given Jane Doe earlier, and distance himself from the fears invading his head.  He tried all the mind games in his arsenal but, despite his best efforts, nothing helped him shrug off the irrational but obsessive certainty that Jane Doe was in danger, or soothed his sudden and overwhelming compulsion to check she was safe.

Lying in her bed at Tranquil Waters, Jane Doe took some time to fall asleep but tonight it was excitement that kept her awake, not anxiety.  After Fox had returned her to Tranquil Waters she had gone for a run on the marked trail in the grounds.  She had pushed herself hard and it had felt good getting to know her body again.  After a shower she had eaten surprisingly good pasta in the canteen and met some of the other residents — as Tranquil Waters liked to call its patients.  Some of them had made her realize that she didn’t have it so bad.  She had watched a cheesy movie in the TV lounge with a few of them before going to bed.