Ragman, page 6
“We both know that ain’t true,” Reardon said. “Mummies exist. There are thousands of them all over the world.”
“Fine. There’s no such thing as a mummy that can walk around and kill people.”
“Maybe somebody stole one and used the old wrappings to make a wacked-out disguise. Remember what Leslie Prescott wrote: Rags Man.”
Dan shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense. Why such an elaborate MO?”
The phone interrupted them again. This time it was the Video Lab. Dan listened for a moment and then said they’d be right down.
“They’ve got the video from Prescott’s apartment.”
Reardon stood up.
“What are we waiting for?”
Joanna Reese stared at the phone for a long moment after she hung up.
Dan and Tom working together again.
She didn’t know how to feel. On the one hand they were an amazing team, even if they didn’t want to admit it. Two pieces of a machine that didn’t operate properly when separated, but when joined together, they created a powerful force.
On the other hand, having Tom around was going to cause problems for all three of them. Especially Dan.
It hadn’t always been that way. She’d met Tom at a bar while out with some of her friends, and although there was a definite physical attraction, she could tell after a few minutes he wasn’t her type, that all he wanted was a one-night stand. Or a weekend at best. She’d told him she wasn’t interested, she wanted a man with substance, and he shrugged and walked off. Ten minutes later, he showed up with Dan Reese at his side.
“I think you two might be perfect for each other.”
He was right. They’d hit it off instantly. Dan was everything she wanted in a boyfriend. Intelligent, funny, yet with a serious side. And unlike Tom, he preferred real relationships to random hookups. Within a year, they were engaged.
Tom was happy as hell for both of them. He’d become family, the brother neither of them ever had. She drove him and Dan home when they got drunk. They had him, and many of his dates, over for dinners more times than she could count. He’d been Dan’s best man at their wedding and over the years they’d laughed at his constant woman troubles. Especially his knack for finding the ones who started talking marriage after three dates.
They’d been there for Tom when he’d needed an emergency appendectomy, and he’d been there for them when Joanna’s father died of cancer.
It was Tom who convinced Dan to take the detective’s exam and her to follow her dream of getting out of medical technology lab work and joining the CSU.
And then a year ago, everything got ruined in one stupid, drunken night.
They’d been celebrating Joanna’s promotion to the Hair and Fibers department. Nothing crazy, just the three of them and Stacy, Tom’s first really serious girlfriend, at the apartment with some champagne and beer. Dan decided they should do tequila shots and somehow after that they’d gotten the idea to play strip poker. They’d all ended up in their underwear, and when Joanna lost another hand and had to take off her bra, she’d hesitated. Stacy offered to take hers off as a gesture of solidarity. The men cheered them on, but afterward, Joanna decided that if she was buzzed enough to show her tits to Tom and Stacy, it was time to call it a night.
Except that wasn’t the only reason she’d stopped playing.
Although she’d never admitted it to anyone, not even their marriage counselor, it had excited her to be seen that way, and with tequila fueling her courage, she’d spontaneously given everyone a big, open-mouthed kiss good night. Tongue and everything. Even Stacy.
Dan and Tom had laughed and said maybe she shouldn’t leave, the party was just getting good. But even drunk and horny she knew better, so she went to bed, figuring she’d find everyone passed out on the couches in the morning. It wouldn’t be the first time.
She’d barely shut her eyes when she heard the bedroom door open. She rolled over, expecting to see Dan. Instead, Tom stood there. He told her that he and Stacy had taken their hint and decided to go for it.
The next thing she knew they were making out like two teenagers. That’s when Dan walked in on them, after spurning Stacy’s advances.
Furious, he’d told Tom to get the hell out and never come near either of them again. Tom attempted to explain that they’d thought Dan and Joanna wanted to try something different, that it was just a big misunderstanding.
Dan refused to listen.
Joanna tried to calm everyone down, said Tom hadn’t taken advantage of her, they were just all drunk, but Dan wouldn’t accept that. He’d disowned his friend completely, cut him out of his life like a tumor. Months of counseling had enabled her and Dan to patch the gaping wound in their relationship, but the scab still remained, at least for Dan.
Now, hardly a year later, Tom was back. Would his presence scrape that wound open again, or would this case be the thing that finally healed it?
More importantly, which conclusion did she want?
Because there were still nights she lay in bed, remembering Tom’s hands on her body.
Ahmes the Second struggled to hold back a howl of joy as he read the headline of the Daily News a second time. Things were moving along perfectly. Soon his revenge would be complete and Sokar appeased.
RAGMAN KILLS AGAIN!
Police baffled by recent string of murders among prominent members of high society.
Ah, if only they knew the truth! But they wouldn’t. Not unless Gordon made a grievous error. Unlikely, given the detailed instructions he’d provided the man. Still, one could never be too sure.
How much easier it would have been if I could cast the spells myself. But Sokar wouldn’t allow it. There was always the chance Osiris would discover the calling of the ushabti and seek to discover the reason for it. Sokar would have no choice but to reveal his part in allowing one of his priests to return to Earth for the purposes of revenge, an admission that would lead to painful consequences. In turn, Sokar’s wrath would be immeasurable and his punishment swift and merciless. An eternity of the worst tortures possible, and no escape from the Duat for the Ka of a priest who dared defy the rules of the gods, even if for good reason. It had taken more than one hundred and thirty years for his spell to be activated so that he could escape the Land of the Dead. He couldn’t take the chance of being sent back until he completed his revenge.
Although he hadn’t realized it at first, Fate had smiled on him when he’d woken in the modern world. He’d been denied the chance to take the lives of those who’d defiled his temple, but in return gained a greater opportunity. Not only had he woken in the exact same city as the eldest living descendent of Simon Gordon, he now had the opportunity to regain all the artifacts stolen from the temple and take the life of the eldest male from every family involved in the desecration, cursed be their names forever. All thanks to the money and connections of Henry Gordon.
The greed of Gordon’s forefathers ran strong in Henry’s blood, and he’d instantly offered the lives of the other nine in return for his own. Despite his desire for revenge, Ahmes knew delivering ten souls instead of one would return him to the Duat a hero in Sokar’s eyes, worthy of a place of honor in Maat, his Ankh living forever in paradise.
Of course, if for some reason he didn’t fulfill his end, or Osiris discovered their plot, the agony of Sekhmet’s fiery braziers awaited him.
Such are the bargains made with the gods of the Underworld.
But for now, at least, I can savor victory in the spilled blood of the guilty, and the knowledge that their Kas will endure everlasting torture. Ahmes lifted his espresso and toasted Henry Gordon.
“A pity you won’t live to enjoy your wealth.”
Chapter Six
The Crime Lab’s video room was a small space crammed with six networked computers on a large table. Each had their own monitor, but they were also all connected to a large flat screen hanging on one institutional-gray wall. Dan stood behind the senior video tech, Eileen Murphy, a middle-aged woman with glasses whose fingers moved in a blur over the keyboard. Reardon leaned against the back wall, his eyes glued to the main screen.
“There was some damage to the system when the camera got shot,” Murphy said. She kept licking her lips, and Dan wondered if it was a personal tic or a nervous reaction to the video. He’d already noted the haunted look in her eyes when she’d told them it was the weirdest thing she’d ever seen.
“How bad?” Dan asked.
“A lot of static. The system’s digital, but not state of the art. No cloud backup or internet connection. Just a memory chip inside the camera.”
“With her money? That doesn’t make sense.”
“Actually, it does,” Tom countered. “It’s common when people don’t want anyone else seeing what’s been recorded. A lot of CXOs do it.”
“Great. Okay, start it,” Dan said. All of a sudden, he had to pee.
Judging by the way Reardon kept tapping his fingers against his leg, he was just as anxious.
Murphy hit a button and the screens came to life. Mrs. Prescott’s study, rendered in black and white. Static lines scrolled up the screen in random waves, making it look like the video had been shot through a window in bad weather. From the vantage point of the ceiling, Dan saw the two vics, Mrs. Prescott and Oliver, bent over a stack of papers on the desk. Mrs. Prescott’s back was to the camera. She looked up sharply and touched something under the desk. A second later she jumped from her chair and ran out of the picture. Oliver glanced in the direction of the door, which lay beyond the camera’s coverage area, and then took off after her, a terrified expression on his face. For the next few seconds, there was only an empty office.
Then Dan found himself leaning forward as something else moved into view, a grayish, vaguely man-shaped blur that seemed more like cloud or mist than solid object.
“What the hell is that?”
The shape moved rapidly from right to left across the screen and disappeared.
“We don’t know,” Murphy said. “We’ve tried slowing the video down, and we still can’t get a clear picture. At first we thought it was an artifact from chip damage.”
“So they were alive when—”
“Look!” Dan interrupted.
Three guards entered the picture from the right side, presumably through the door. Dan cursed the lack of sound when they drew their guns and shouted at something.
The foggy shape reentered the picture and charged the guards, who fired at it with no visible effect. When it reached the first guard, a pseudopod of mist wrapped around the man’s neck and a second later his head separated from his body. Blood sprayed from the ragged wound. The ghostly thing pulled the dead guard’s left arm off and smashed it into another guard’s chest like a baseball player swinging for a home run. The apparition knocked the third man to the ground and tore one of his legs away. As it did so, it turned, and for a fleeting second the camera captured its face.
Black holes occupied the places where the eyes and mouth should have been.
The screen went blank.
“Mother of God,” Dan whispered.
“What the…?” Reardon turned toward Murphy. “Where’s the rest?”
“Sorry. That’s where the bullet hit the camera and knocked it out.”
“Play it again,” Dan ordered.
It was no less gruesome the second time. Or the third. The opaque form, larger than any of the guards. The way it moved like a solid thing, yet all they could see was a grayish blur. The empty spaces on the face, like openings into another dimension.
“Captain Green is going to freak,” Reardon said.
Dan agreed. Everything about the video screamed ‘hoax’. Ghosts didn’t exist and there was no way any man, no matter how strong, could tear someone’s body apart like that.
But we saw it happen. The fucking thing ripped those guards to shreds like they were made of clay. Just thinking about it made him want to puke. He couldn’t imagine a more horrible way to die, except maybe getting burned alive.
He’d hoped for answers and instead ended up with more questions. It took an effort but Dan forced his mind to think logically. This was no time to let fear get the best of him.
A logical explanation….
Not possible.
“It’s not real.” He said the words just as they came to him.
One of Reardon’s eyebrows arched.
“An inside job, like we thought?”
“More than that. The whole thing is an elaborate setup. We’re being played.”
“But…but we saw the video.” Murphy looked from Dan to Reardon and back again. “And the crime scene. You were there. The bodies….” Her voice trailed off, and Dan figured she’d gotten a look at the crime scene photos. Probably half the precinct had seen them. Nothing stayed secret for very long.
“Yeah, they match,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean a thing. You’re the tech. How hard would it be to replace the chip in that camera with a different video on it? We know Leslie Prescott had the video running before Oliver arrived. So that part has to be real.”
“Maybe it doesn’t.”
Murphy rubbed her chin as she continued speaking, her expression changing from confused to thoughtful.
“Digital manipulation. With the right equipment, it’s pretty easy. You just need pictures of everyone’s faces. Then you film the murder scene against a green screen with people wearing the victims’ clothes and the guards’ uniforms, and edit in their faces after. The rest is done with special effects. It’s all recorded ahead of time.”
“All right, let’s say they did that.” Dan chewed at his lip. “They’d still have no way of knowing Oliver would be there at that time.”
Reardon snapped his fingers.
“Except they did. Oliver was the intended victim, remember? If they had Oliver’s phones and email hacked, they’d know about the meeting ahead of time.”
“They’d still have to stage the crime scene to match the video,” Murphy said. “Which means knowing what Prescott and Oliver would be wearing. And which guards would show up.”
“All possible if it’s really an inside job. Especially if someone on the security team is in on it.” Tom looked at Murphy. “The guards all wear the same uniforms. If that part of the video was shot ahead of time, how quickly could someone take the real video and edit clips from it into the fake one?”
Murphy thought for a minute before answering.
“Not long, if they knew what they were doing.”
“So, someone’s doing that while another perp is getting into the panic room because he has the code—”
“Or maybe he’s already in there,” Dan interjected.
“—and then the two people are killed and door shut again.”
“There’s still one problem,” Dan said. “How did the perps get in and out without being seen? Not just this time, but for Collingsworth and Prescott?”
Tom smiled.
“It all goes back to security. Inside men on every team. Maybe weeks or months ahead of time. They’d know the security systems and layouts better than anyone. That could be what ties all the cases together.”
“Why, though?” asked Murphy. “Why go through all that? Why not just kill Oliver somewhere else, like his own house? Or on the street?”
Tom went to answer but Dan spoke first.
“Chaos.”
“What?”
“He’s right.” Reardon nodded toward the screen, which was mercifully blank again. “This will make everyone jumpier than grasshoppers. The press is gonna go nuts with stories of a mysterious serial killer on the loose. The police have no description to go on. We’re talking mass hysteria, especially if this video gets out. And the real criminals are safely hidden behind a wall of fake evidence while we’re chasing our tails.”
Dan stood up and took two copies of the video Murphy had put on flash drives. One for him and one for Captain Bellows. The original would go into evidence.
“This sucks.” Dan frowned as he stuck the drives in his pocket.
“Tell me about it. I work for the damn security company. I might actually know some of the people involved in this.”
Left unsaid was the fact that Reardon’s job put him back on the list of potential persons of interest. Dan saw in his old partner’s eyes that he understood the ramifications.
“I’ll tell you what’s worse,” Dan said. “Fucking Driscoll might be right with his voodoo theory. That’s how the Caribbean gangs operate, through psychological fear. But why? Are we talking drugs? Smuggling?”
Before Tom could answer, Dan’s phone pinged with an incoming email.
“It’s Trace. They’re done with documents that were on Mrs. Prescott’s desk. And check this out.” Dan’s voice rose with excitement. He handed the phone to Reardon, whose eyebrows rose as he read the screen.
“Well, I’ll be damned. I think we have our connection.”
Although he’d been in the old man’s office a hundred times, if not more, it felt different now. The room seemed darker, the air heavier. Maybe because he wasn’t supposed to be in there. Which was why he’d waited until the apartment was empty, and even then he’d worn a hoodie to hide his face from any cameras or neighbors.
He noticed right away that the folder wasn’t on the desk anymore, but a quick search turned it up in a drawer, sitting atop some candles, a lighter, and a ceramic bowl. After shutting the office door, the hooded figure opened the folder and took out the papers. His first thought when he started reading them was it had to be some kind of joke.
Until he remembered the morning headlines.
Seven identical sheets, with some kind of spell or incantation printed on them in large, easy-to-read lettering. From what he could recall, it was the same spell he’d heard the old bastard reciting. The last two sheets contained a set of instructions for how to cast the spell and a list of names. Three of the names had been crossed out.
