The Cold Room

Thirty-Five

The table ordered a round, and Wills Appleby suggested Memphis try the lager. Memphis had drunk beer at university, one of those things you do to fit in with the boys, but he’d never truly enjoyed it. He didn’t have the heart to mention he’d much rather have a nice glass of cabernet.

The waitress brought their drinks and he took a sip of the lager. There was a surprise. He had to admit, it wasn’t too bad. His cell rang, and he saw it was Pen calling. He put the phone to his ear, had just greeted her when Taylor Jackson walked into the room. His breath caught in his throat.

She was smiling, shaking hands, her full lips moving as she moved about the table greeting the team. She shook his in acknowledgment, and then she was gone, being introduced to that infernally tall Kevin Salt, who Memphis liked despite the fact that he had to look up at him. He had to look up to Baldwin, as well. But he and Taylor were exactly eye to eye. He couldn’t help but think what that would mean if they were horizontal.

“Memphis? Memphis!”

“Oh, Pen, sorry. Sorry. Got distracted for a moment.”

“A bit of skirt wandered by, no doubt.”

“You could say that. So, where were we?”

Pen had been feverishly tracing down the latest London movements of the man called Tommaso. He listened to her rant with half an ear-so far no one could recall renting to the artist; they were combing the hotels for his name. There were inquiries being made at the British Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the Saatchi, the Tate Modern, the Tate Britain, anywhere the man might have been working. The witness had fallen through. It would take a little bit of time, she was saying. Just a bit more time.

“Okay then, Pen. Call me when you have something.”

He hung up, turned back to his lager and his soup. To the woman who took his breath away.

The females on the team were greeting the Nashville interloper with good grace. The power had shifted in the room-the boss’s woman was there, and she was a force to be reckoned with. Both Charlaine Shultz and Pietra Dunmore were being deferential. Wills Appleby greeted her like an old friend, kisses on both cheeks-of course they’d know one another. Memphis had picked up on the closeness between Baldwin and Wills; they were two peas in a pod. Great minds, drawn together, with a long history. He had chums like that. Too bad they weren’t here, maybe he wouldn’t feel so fucking out of place.

He scooped a chunk of cheese from his soup. Everyone settled back into their seats, and the conversation became hushed. Now, if he could just turn off his senses, they’d all be better off.

Taylor ordered a Leatherhead Lager and a well-done filet. Memphis was stealing glances at her, as if determining if he’d stepped over the line in Nashville.

She shook it off. Stare away, poncy boy. If she didn’t reciprocate, he’d get bored by her soon enough. Though the thought of him flirting with someone else made a bloom of heat tear through her chest. She took in the restaurant’s decor to distract herself. The floor was covered in a tartan plaid carpet, the rooms stocked to the gills with every imaginable piece of Marine and law enforcement memorabilia. The walls were covered in military items, the ceiling a swath of donated shoulder patches from every conceivable police agency. The restaurant was named the Globe and Laurel instead of the Marine traditional Globe and Anchor to symbolize the inclusion of the entire international brotherhood of Marines. She liked that. She also realized that the only women in the whole restaurant, outside of a waitress, were at her table. Interesting.

Baldwin pushed his salad plate away. “Taylor, when we’re done here, Kevin’s going to take the laptop, see what he can find.”

“I’ll take it now, if that’s okay,” Salt said.

“Of course.” She handed it to him. “Password is DOLLS, all uppercase.”

He went to work immediately, balancing the laptop on his knees, tapping the keyboard at a frenetic pace.

“Taylor, why don’t you run through what you found for the rest of the team?” Baldwin was smiling at her. Encouraging.

“Of course.” She wasn’t prepared, didn’t have any kind of presentation to give. She just laid out her actions, covering everything from the initial murder at Hugh Bangor’s house to the victims from Radnor Lake, Manchester and Chattanooga, then went on to Gavin Adler’s home in Nashville. How they put together clue after clue to find their killer. They listened, rapt, until she finished.

“Word is Kendra Kelley will live. That’s the last that I know.”

Charlaine shook her head. “Wow. That’s a hell of an investigation in such a short period of time. Kudos, Detective.”

Taylor nodded her thanks. “We don’t have them yet.”

“I’ve got something, though,” Kevin interjected. “The message board was accessed through a number of different servers. It’s going to take me some more time to back trace exactly where-this guy isn’t stupid. He’s covering his tracks, sending packets through multiple servers. But they all originated in central Italy. There’s also another member of the private message board, call sign Necro. I’ve tracked him to someplace in the Caribbean. He doesn’t talk to IlMorte69, who is Tommaso, only to Gavin Adler. His screen name is hot4cold, by the way. Classy guy. Any idea who Necro might be?”

Taylor met Baldwin’s eyes. “It couldn’t be.”

“I wouldn’t put it past him.”

Memphis sat forward in his chair. “Do you mind sharing with the rest of the class?”

Baldwin nodded imperceptibly. Taylor said, “Last month, we had a run-in with a copycat killer in Nashville. He calls himself the Pretender, and he got away. One of my detectives, Peter Fitzgerald, phoned me from Barbados, said he thought he’d seen him down there. If he’s been communicating with Gavin Adler, it’s entirely possible that he’s Necro.”

“Which means we have more murders to look for, if he’s really copycatting Adler,” Baldwin added.

“Do you have any idea where they might have met?” Memphis asked.

She shook her head. “Seriously, I’ve had this information for a few hours at best. We don’t know if it’s him. It’s all speculation at this point.”

Pietra chimed in. “Detective, the DNA samples you sent up all match. I assume there will be more coming from today’s scene, and I’m still waiting for the sequencing to finish on the samples from Leslie Horne. But it all looks good so far.”

Salt unfolded himself, holding the laptop to his chest as if it was gold. “Okay. I’ll keep working on it. See if I can’t track the IP address closer to its origins. Will you excuse me? Charlaine, I need your help, too. We’ll grab our meals to go.” He loped away from the table. Charlaine excused herself and followed.

The rest of the meal arrived, the steak perfectly done, and they ate with gusto. But there was a sense of urgency not caused by hunger-they were all ready to get back to work.

“Okay,” Baldwin said. “Wills, now that we know Tommaso and Gavin are working together, what do you think our next moves should be?”

Memphis jumped in. “We need to find out why the Adler boy was adopted, see what his real name is. Look for the parents. If we can find that, we might have a shot at the real name of our Tommaso.”

“That’s a good plan,” Wills said.

“But adoption records…that will take weeks to sort through.” Taylor was getting jumpy. “I think we need to get ourselves over there and track them down on foot.”

Baldwin nodded. “I don’t disagree. The carabinieri’s on that, right now. But Memphis is right, our first step needs to be finding the adoption records. We need real names.”

Memphis finished his steak and went to work on his beer, watching Taylor openly. He set down his empty pint glass and flicked a lazy hand through his hair. “Then let’s go back to your offices. I think I know just the place to start.”