Play dead

SEVENTY-EIGHT

2:20 AM

Five Detectivesstood on the corner, blank-faced. The sixth detective, Kevin Byrne, paced like a wild animal. There was no consoling him. EMS had arrived at the scene, as had an investigator from the medical examiner's office. The girl was pronounced dead at 2:18. There had been no air in the red lacquer trunk. She had most likely suffocated.

They had just over ninety minutes to find the next girl.

Jessica took the laptop out and clicked on the killer's GothOde web page. There were still only four performance videos on the page. The fifth video, the one with the killer in front of City Hall, had been deleted.

"Anything?" Byrne asked.

"Nothing yet."

"We have to think like he does," Bontrager said. "We have to get inside his head. There's one diamond, and one square left."

"I'm open to suggestions here," Byrne said.

The homicide division was an investigative unit that ran on interviews, forensic data, time inside an interrogation room. Everything was quantifiable, except the whims of a madman.

Jessica refreshed the page, over and over again. Finally, there was change.

"There's another one," she said.

Everyone crowded around the laptop.

THE GIRL IN THE SUB TRUNK

The video opened with the same curtains as the first four videos.

This time, center stage, was the Chinese red lacquer box covered with gold dragons. The box was on a pedestal. After a few moments the killer stepped into frame. He wore the same cutaway tuxedo, the same goatee, the same monocle. He stood no closer to the camera.

"Behold the Sub Trunk," he said. He gestured offstage. Moments later a teenage Asian-American girl stepped onto the stage, and then on top of the box. She reached down, picked up a large hoop of silken fabric. She looked terribly frightened. Her hands were shaking. "And behold the lovely Odette," the man said.

The killer walked offstage. The girl lifted the fabric to just beneath her chin. From off camera a shout could be heard.

"One, two, three!"

On three the girl lifted the hoop over her head, then immediately dropped it. It was now the killer standing on the trunk.

Fade to black.

There was no doubt in anyone's mind that the girl in the video was the girl they had just found in the box.

Byrne raised Hell Rohmer on radio. "You watching this?" he asked.

"I'm watching it."

"I want hard copies of that girl's face in every sector car in East Division as fast as possible."

"Yougotit."

Byrne's phone rang. He belted his handset, answered. It was David Sinclair.

"I'm going to put you on speaker," Byrne said. He put the cell phone on the hood of the car.

"I got your e-mail," Sinclair said. "I think I know what's going on here."

"What is it?"

"This is a pretty famous tangram. The puzzle is in the shape of a bird. A problem invented by Sang-hsia-k'o."

Byrne told Sinclair of the most recent crime scene. He left out the gruesome details.

"Was this anywhere near the other buildings?"

"Yes," Byrne said. "Another corner building."

"Is it northwest of the Shiloh Street address?"

"It is."

"East of Fifth?"

"Just."

"So that makes five triangles."

"Yes."

"And this was the largest so far, so I'm thinking it is the central part of the problem."

Suddenly, the night fell quiet. For a few electrifying moments there was no music, no traffic, no barking dogs, just the sound of a distant barge on the river, just the buzz of the streetlamps overhead. Byrne looked at Jessica. Their eyes met in wordless understanding, and they knew.

They were on the phone with the killer.

The man who called himself David Sinclair was Mr. Ludo.

Jessica walked quickly away, out of earshot. She opened her cell phone, dialed the communications unit. They would begin to triangulate this call.

The killer spoke first.

"In the world of magic, do you know what a flash is, Detective Byrne?"

Byrne remained silent. He let the man continue.

"A flash is where the audience has seen something it was not supposed to see. I know that I just flashed. You did not give me the address of the latest crime scene, so I could not have known it was the largest. Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about just so you can buy some time to trace this call. If you do, I will kill the next girl now, while you're listening."

"Okay." Byrne thought of the man sitting across from him at the Magnolia Grill in Chester County. His anger built. He fought it. "What do you want?"

There was no hesitation. "What does any puzzle master want? To be solved. But only by the best and the brightest. Are you the best and brightest?"

Byrne had to keep the man talking. "Hardly. I'm just another flat- foot."

"I doubt that. A flatfoot wound not have seen the Jeremiah Crosley clue and followed it to the Girl Without a Middle."

Thunder rumbled above. A second later, Byrne heard the thunder on the cell phone. The killer was not in Atlanta. The killer was in North Philadelphia.

"Did you see the clock tower?"

"I did," Byrne said. "Nice trick."

The man drew a short breath. There was a nerve here somewhere. Byrne had found it. The first crack.

"Trick?"

"Yeah," Byrne said. "Like that stuff we used to see on the commercials during those late night horror movies. Remember those? The deck of cards that turn into all aces. The multiplying little foam bunnies. 'Tricks anyone can do,' the guy said. 'Magic is easy, once you know the secret.' I bought that cheap plastic wand that turns into a flower. It fell apart."

There was a long moment of hesitation. Good and bad. Good because Byrne was getting to the man. Bad because he was unpredictable. And he held all the cards.

"And this is what you think I've done? A trick?"

Byrne glanced at Jessica. She twirled a finger in the air. Keep him talking.

"Pretty much."

"And yet you are there, and I am here. Between us, pretty maids all in a row."

"You have us there," Byrne said. "No argument."

"The question is, can you solve the puzzle in time, Detective? Can you save the last two maidens?"

The man's composure was back.

"Why don't you just tell me where they are, and you and I can meet somewhere, work this out?" Byrne asked.

"What, and give up show business?"

Byrne heard a loud hiss, a crackle in the connection. The storm was moving in. Jessica took out her pad, wrote on it, dropped it on the car. It's a land line. We have him.

"By the way. You said the puzzle was a bird. What sort of bird?" Byrne asked.

"The sort that can fly away," the killer said. "Can you hang on for a second? I have to produce a flower."

The man laughed, and the line went dead.