14

Forty-Four

Nashville, Tennessee Tuesday, December 23 3:00 p.m.

The procession to the Marriott Renaissance Hotel on Commerce Street downtown was four cars deep. Baldwin and Taylor were in one, Lincoln and Marcus followed, Fitz trailed the medical examiner’s van, who had pulled in front of them as they left the CJC. A funeral cortege. They might as well all have their lights on and traffic stopped to show respect for their passage.

Taylor was quiet. She knew who this victim must be, had heard the brief details of the crime scene. A woman, dark hair, throat slashed, overwearing red lipstick. If she had just put it all together sooner. She had failed Jane Macias. In failing her, she had failed everything-her father, her coworkers, Baldwin. The guilt was more than she could bear.

They pulled into the valet section, mindful of the doors to the lobby of the hotel. No sense in advertising too much. There were already four patrol cars in the drive-through. No one would question that something was happening, but if they could keep the Snow White aspects from the case for a bit, perhaps the media wouldn’t seize upon it and start the vicious cycle all over again. Wishful thinking.

The manager greeted them in the foyer, a wild-eyed young woman with short, spiky blond hair and a considerable waistline. Taylor eyed her, unable to ascertain whether she was pregnant or just heavy. As a hotel general manager, she was as professional as could be expected, considering a serial killer had struck in one of her guest suites. The woman spied Sam coming in with her gear and snapped her fingers at a bellman, who intercepted the M.E. and guided her away. The service elevator would accommodate the stretcher.

She spoke over her shoulder as they trooped toward the elevators.

“I’m Deborah Haver. We’re heading to the seventeenth floor. The maid found her. There’s been a Privacy Requested sign on the door for two days, but the couple that checked into the room next door called down and insisted they smelled something. They called the concierge, we came up and agreed. When we got the room open…well. You’ll see.”

They were in the elevator now, jetting upward into the Nashville sky.

“Who is the room registered to, Ms. Haver?” Taylor asked.

They reached the seventeenth floor and the doors slid open. She bustled out into the hallway and they followed.

“Oh, I have that information…right here…damn it.” The woman was flipping through a notepad, and pulled up short in front of a room whose door stood open. Taylor continued into the room, looking over her shoulder at the manager, who exclaimed “Got it!” just as Taylor saw the body.

They said the name at the same time, one in a normal tone of voice, the other hushed.

“Charlotte Douglas.”

“What?” Baldwin had been lagging back, talking on his cell, but he slammed it shut and stepped into the room. Taylor felt the invisible blow as it hit his body. He didn’t move, his facial expression didn’t alter, but it was there nonetheless.

“Oh, no” was all he managed before he went to her.

The smell of decomposition was strong. Taylor just didn’t want to look closely, not yet. She crossed the room, mindful of her steps, and went to the window. The view faced west, and the sun was setting. The clouds were stacked one upon the other like swirls of icing, piling up in the sky, reflected by the setting sun. They looked drenched in blood, stained crimson like the froth from a lung wound. Taylor knew it was simple refraction, the cold, clear nights often caused this unusual sight. Red skies at night, sailor’s delight. It should have been a red morning instead, so Charlotte could have been warned.

Jesus, she wouldn’t wish this on her worst enemy.

Bolstered at last, she turned and took in the gruesome scene. The back light from the setting sun tinged the room in pink, giving Charlotte’s body an almost lifelike glow. The grinning wound across her neck was black with oozed blood, her red-tipped lips were painted into a gruesome smile. Blood had run into her hair, turning the coppery red mass into a tangled claret river, with tendrils spreading across the white pillows, tributaries of fatal essence running away from her heart.

Her limbs were spread-eagle on the sheets, her legs spread wide, open in reception.

Taylor stopped looking at Charlotte and took in Baldwin, who was still standing over her. He hadn’t said a word, but he turned to her now, face grim, lips thinner than she’d ever seen them. He looked like a different man entirely. As soon as he spoke, the spell was broken and they became a law enforcement team again rather than two people touched by a tragedy.

“You know what this means?” he asked her.

Taylor nodded. “Yes.”

“He’s broken the pattern again. This was personal. She wasn’t a random victim.”

“You’re probably right. But we need to check for the article. And the frankincense and myrrh. We need to make sure it’s him, Baldwin.”

He turned back to the body. “Oh, it’s him. I don’t think the message could be any clearer, do you?”

“No, but we have to follow procedure. Let’s let Sam in here, let her get the body, Charlotte’s body, back to the morgue.”

They stood together quietly for a moment, then stepped away. They had borne witness.

Taylor watched Sam work on Charlotte Douglas, touched again by how reverent her friend became when she communed with the dead. Just the thought made her realize how close she’d come to being in that position, that she could have died at the hands of L’Uomo. The thought was more than she could take. It was time for action. It was time to finish this.

She left the room and sought out Baldwin, who was in the hallway talking with Fitz. She watched them for a moment, knew that she would die inside if anything ever happened to him. Yes, their wedding had been a disaster. But she didn’t need the formality to assure that he was hers, and she was his.

She needed to find the answers, to help him lay this case to rest.

They greeted her, Baldwin giving her a tight smile.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Good. There’s nothing more I can do here. I have to get to the library, find the name of this man from my memory. I know he’s Snow White. If I can find his identity, we can stop him. We can stop his copycat. It’s time to end this.”

She reached up and kissed him softly on the cheek. The stubble scratched at her lips, but she didn’t care.

“You want help, little girl?” Fitz asked.

“No. Stay here, make sure Sam doesn’t need anything. I need to do this myself.”

Baldwin’s phone rang as he watched Taylor’s retreating figure. She tossed a wave at him as she entered the elevator. He saw the international area code and decided he needed the break. There was a window at the end of the row of rooms. He went there, gazed out on the city he loved and answered the phone.

“Hello?”

“John Baldwin? It is Juan.”

He answered in Spanish. “Hola, Juan.?Como estas? Gracias por responder a mi llamada tan pronto.”

“Sin problema. Lincoln dijo que era importante.?Por que no cambiemos al ingles? Tu no necesitas practicar el espanol como yo la necesito en ingles.”

“Okay. English it is. I have a question about a man who may be running people out of some South American countries. His name is-”

“Edward Delglisi.”

“How did you know that?”

“Oh, my friend, I was looking into the murder of your poor chauffeur over the weekend. His name came up.”

“Would you be willing to give me the context?”

“If you tell me what you are looking for, I would be happy to confirm or deny based on my discoveries at this point. Perhaps you will enlighten me, and I will enlighten you in return.?Bien? ”

“Si.” Baldwin scratched his head, trying to decide where to start. “Are you seeing a great number of cases of forced immigration? Illegals being imported into America for illicit activities?”

“Sex trade? Yes. Quite a bit. Human trafficking. The Border Patrol is corrupt in certain pockets, as are a few of the Immigration and Naturalization officers. There were many cases last year of both organizations’ employees exchanging immigration status for sex or money. Foreign governments are participating in this scheme, as well. It has become highly lucrative, yet it seems your government is looking the other way. Illegals smuggle illegals, bad men import little girls to sell. It is a very appalling state of affairs.”

“Do you have Edward Delglisi on your radar?”

“Yes. He has been under investigation by the Venezuelans, the Brazilians and the Argentinians, yet no one can touch him. He has a system that insulates him. False names, constant moves, safe houses, sophisticated accounting. We cannot get our hands on the cash.”

“We just had a run-in with him in New York. Does he keep the cash hidden there?”

“Oh, no, he is much too smart for that. He ships the money out of the country. He is an old-school criminal, does not use electronics to help hide his money. No, he physically moves cash from New York. We have not had any success catching him until recently. We seized a boat in the Caribbean. You may have heard of this situation.”

Baldwin stopped taking notes and leaned back in the chair. “A boat in the Caribbean. Was it called THE SHIVER? ”

“ Si.”

Oh, Taylor was going to hit the roof.

“What does the Mexican government have to do with this?”

“Ah, mi amigo, you know how these things work. You sometimes need to look one way, while you are moving in another.”

“The boat you speak of. Am I safe to assume the connection is sound and has been corroborated?”

“You are safe to assume that. We took nearly four million dollars off that boat. We did not capture the man sailing it, he was able to get away.”

“And you have this man’s name.”

“We do. Winthrop Jackson. The fourth, I believe. That is your woman’s-”

“Father. Yes. She doesn’t know.”

“Well, I wish you the best of luck breaking the news.”

“Thank you. Let’s talk about the chauffeur. What have you found out about his killer?”

“Only that we have a very dead American who was shipped back to the authorities in your country. It seems to be a case of mistaken identity.”

“You don’t believe that, do you?”

“I do not. But that is the most convenient theory for the moment. He is not important to the bigger picture, if you understand my meaning.”

A dead American national not of concern to the security services in Mexico meant they simply didn’t care to investigate.

“There was one piece of information that was relevant. An American flew into Mazatlan on the same flight as our dead friend and caught the evening plane to New York City. His name was unfamiliar to us. Dustin Mosko.”

Dustin Mosko. That was the name of the man Taylor had killed in New York.

“His name is not unfamiliar to me. And for the record, he’s no longer with us. But he worked for Delglisi.”

“Ah. Then your puzzle is complete, yes?”

They talked for a few minutes more, then Baldwin wrapped up the conversation. This was news he’d suspected, but didn’t particularly want to deliver.

His next call was to Garrett Woods.

After getting reamed for not phoning in about Charlotte’s demise sooner, Baldwin went over the details of his call with the mysterious Juan. Woods would take it from here. They had an opportunity, a chance to right so many wrongs. They discussed ways to apply pressure, to stop at least one bad guy from hurting the innocent anymore. But it would cost, and cost dearly. Baldwin didn’t know what Taylor would think, how she would react.

When they finished, Woods relayed the information he’d been trying to give Baldwin over the past few days. Charlotte Douglas’s legacy wasn’t looking bright. Woods was infuriated as he gave the details.

“We’ve been through all of her files. It looks like she wrote a sophisticated program that filtered both obscenely violent crimes and the accompanying DNA to a private site for her perusal. When she found something she liked, she’d assign herself the case.”

“That’s how she found the copycat?”

“Yes. The DNA should have matched with the California files when the Denver cops put it into the system. Instead, the information was sent directly to Charlotte. She’d been watching this maniac’s spree across the country. We don’t know the extent of her relationship with him, only that she was obviously in contact. Whether she was just another one of his victims or was a part of his plan, I guess we won’t know until we catch him.”

“Why did she choose to reveal the information about the multiple murders when she did?”

“She had no choice. She was playing a very dangerous game. The IT department confirmed that she called last week to see if they had accidentally discovered her Trojan horse. They hadn’t. They had rolled out an upgrade, rekeyed the entire system. The new database didn’t have Charlotte’s special codes, so the real information made it through to the proper channels. If she didn’t come forward, people would have gotten suspicious. This could have gone on indefinitely.”

Baldwin felt sick. “How could she do that? And how in the hell did she pass the psych profiles and get into the Bureau in the first place? She was always very enthusiastic about deviant behavior, but I never saw any signs that she could have gone this far over the edge.”

“I can’t tell you that, Baldwin. Believe me, we’re looking for the answers here. We’ve launched a major internal investigation. Oversight of the department has been in Stuart Evanson’s hands. I hate to say it, but he may have to go. He’s the one that brought her to her current position as deputy chief. As I recall, you pointed out that she wasn’t fit for that position when you transferred. You and I are fine. Evanson probably isn’t.”

“That will be a loss.” They shared a moment of sarcastic happiness. “As long as you’re insulated, that’s what’s important to me. Evanson’s a prick.”

The industrial-grade clock on Taylor’s wall clicked loudly, announcing it was nearly five o’clock. He rang off with Woods, promising to answer his phone if he called again.

Charlotte Douglas. He’d known the woman was poison.

Shaking his head, pushing away his own feelings of betrayal, he gathered his coat. It was time to seek Taylor out, run through the afternoon’s bombshells with her.