The Night Is Alive

Page 26

“Wow. Lord. Oh, God,” Roger moaned when they pulled into the parking lot at the tavern. He looked at Abby as if everything that had happened today was finally hitting him. “There was a dead girl in the tunnel. Not long dead. Newly dead.”
She laid a hand on his arm. “You brought us there and we found her. That’s a good thing, Roger.”
“She’s dead. How can that be good?”
“Finding her could help us catch the killer,” Abby replied.
“She’ll still be dead,” Roger said dully.
“But,” Malachi added, “the fact that her body’s been found could bring some solace to her family. For those left behind, there’s comfort in knowing that a killer is brought to justice.”
Roger got out of the car. “Uh, did you want more of a tour?” he asked.
“Not today,” Malachi said. “But if I have any questions about the city, I’ll call you.”
“Yeah, all right. I’ll probably be in the Dragonslayer later,” Roger muttered. “Might see you then.”
They watched him walk to his car. “That was good of you,” Abby told Malachi. “It was really kind of you to speak to him the way you did. I know he was afraid he was a suspect.”
Malachi looked at her. “He is a suspect,” he said.
Abby frowned.
“Everyone’s a suspect right now,” Jackson explained. “Let’s go into the Dragonslayer. We’ll see what Will’s managed with the cameras so far.”
Abby walked slowly toward the restaurant. She had a sick feeling inside. She believed in Roger; they’d gone to high school together!
But she believed in Dirk as well, and their other customers and Macy and...
It didn’t have to be anyone close to her. Maybe the Dragonslayer had been used, just as, perhaps, the Black Swan had been used.
She took a deep breath and entered the restaurant.
It was after lunch but before dinner. Will Chan was at the bar talking to Dirk, Aldous and Bootsie.
Malachi walked over as if he’d known the four of them all his life. “Hey, Dirk. How are you? Have you heard that our Mr. Chan’s a fine actor and magician?”
Dirk nodded absently. “I’m all right,” he said. He didn’t look all right. He was parchment-white. He turned to Malachi anxiously. “According to the TV news, another body was just found in a tunnel. A woman.”
“It wasn’t Helen,” Malachi assured him.
“But how do you know?” Dirk asked.
“Poor girl was dead long before Helen disappeared,” Malachi told him. He rested a hand on Dirk’s shoulder. “The bad news is that a number of young women have lost their lives. The good news is that the local police and the feds are working hard on the case. The streets will be full of police and agents who know what they’re looking for and I’d bet money that, with these combined efforts, the truth will come out and the killer will be caught.”
Dirk nodded. “Did you work today?” Malachi asked him.
“I took the first tour group out. I let the guys handle the second. My other actress was back so...I’m okay.”
“Yeah, he’s doing fine,” Bootsie said.
“I was telling him that if he wanted, I’d head out with him tomorrow,” Will put in. “I’d love to play pirate.”
“The tours are fun,” Abby said. She felt as though she was playing a part at that moment. Pretending everything was normal. Pretending that the Dragonslayer would go on as it always had, and that Gus would be there in spirit. Women were not dead and missing—and Gus had not been suspicious of anything before he died.
Malachi’s phone rang and he answered it, stepping aside. When he hung up, he and Jackson seemed to share some kind of intuitive exchange.
“I’ve got to run out,” Malachi said.
“We’ll show Abby the cameras we’ve got set up.” Jackson nodded to Will, who nodded back.
“See you all later,” Malachi told them. He offered her a strange smile. She sensed that he was trying to tell her he wasn’t avoiding her, but that he didn’t want to be heard by anyone else. That the connection between them was private. She smiled in return.
As he left the restaurant, Macy came up to her. “Have you eaten anything?” she asked.
“I’m not hungry right now. I’ll eat soon, Macy, I promise,” Abby replied.
“We’re going to show her what I’ve been up to all day,” Will explained to Macy. He slipped an arm around Abby’s shoulders. “Come and see your new security system. We’ll start upstairs.”
He headed up the stairs, Abby behind him and Jackson at her heels. “First camera,” Will said, “covers the hall here, in front of the apartment. It’ll show up on computer screens in the parlor area of the apartment, and in the living room at your house.” He opened the door to the apartment. A large screen, divided into eight sections, was set up on a portable table with a chair in front of it. “Down at the bottom—with the strange light filter—that’s the tunnel. Here, upper left, you have the hall. Then you have the storage room and the employee lockers and lounge area. Below that you’ve got the bar and the front entry, and the two back-to-back dining rooms. Your last camera covers the outside, the whole structure of the building. I want to make sure we can see anyone trying to get in through any other entrance.”
“That’s fantastic. Very high-tech,” Abby said.
“Thanks. I do love computers and cameras,” Will told her. “But I plan to be on Dirk’s ship tomorrow. We’ll have Kat and Angela manning these cameras, just watching what’s going on—and trying to see if anything is going on. Frankly, I think this guy moves around. I think he uses different routes to get to the river.”
“You’re right,” Abby murmured.
“The cameras will help.” Will smiled at her. “I guess you have a guardian angel of sorts.”
“Oh?”
Will looked at Jackson.
“The pirate,” Jackson said, smiling, too.
“Did you get Blue on film?” she asked incredulously.
Will shook his head. “He passed by while I was setting up the camera in the tunnel. He didn’t speak to me, but he nodded, as if he approved.”
“I haven’t seen him. I haven’t seen Blue since he led me to Gus,” Abby said.
“I assume he’s keeping watch. That’s what he does for the Dragonslayer. He really is your guardian angel,” Jackson said. “We’ve all learned that there’s really no point in questioning how and when the dead choose to communicate with us. Or why some stay—and some leave. We just work with them whenever they’re willing to work with us.”
Abby nodded. “Thank you for coming here.”
* * *
“We’re looking at very much the same thing as with the other killings,” Kat told Malachi. “She was struck on the head. But the actual cause of death was drowning. And, as I’m sure you already noted, third finger of the left hand is gone. I’d say she’s been dead a good three to four weeks. Do you see the marks on her wrists? They suggest she was bound by some kind of rough rope. But, you’ll notice, there are bruises on her arms. I think she fought back.”
Malachi nodded. This poor girl didn’t look real anymore.
“Has she been identified?” he asked.
“The police are going through missing-person reports,” Kat said, “and Jackson has sent what information we have to the national database back at the offices. So far, we don’t have an identity for her.”
“That would probably put her into the same category as the other women,” Malachi said slowly. “She was a tourist, perhaps on her own. Or maybe she was here looking for work. Maybe she was just passing through—so people are searching for her somewhere else.”
“I wish there was more I could say, more I could tell you.”
Malachi took a step closer to the corpse, setting his hand gently on her arm. He felt nothing except her cold, lifeless skin.
“I tried that,” Kat murmured.
Malachi nodded; he wasn’t surprised.
“I’m going over the other autopsies, looking for anything,” Kat said. “Oh, there’s one other thing I should tell you. We did match the finger to a victim.”
For a moment, he blanked. “Who?” he asked.
“It belonged to the first victim, Ruth Seymour.”
“The killer must have been carrying it around,” Malachi said.
“David has all the information for the reports. He was disturbed, of course, that Gus hadn’t called the police. But it’s too late to ask Gus why he didn’t. Maybe he was afraid he’d be a suspect himself? We’ll never know. But at least we found out where the finger belongs.”
“Thanks, Kat.” He sighed. “I’ll get back to the Dragonslayer now. There’s something forming in my mind. I’m not sure yet what it is. But—”
“Hurry it up if you can,” Kat broke in. “We have a girl out there who might still be alive.”
“I know,” Malachi said. “I know.”
* * *
Jackson Crow left the Dragonslayer to head back to Abby’s house on Chippewa Square to meet up with Angela. They were doing character studies on everyone associated with or working in the area of the river. He didn’t tell Abby that they were concentrating on employees and frequent customers of Dirk’s tour ship and the Dragonslayer. He didn’t need to tell her, she knew.
Alone in the apartment, Abby watched everything revealed by the newly installed cameras. She was fascinated as she went from screen to screen; once the dinner hours began, customers came and went.
Bootsie, Aldous and Dirk remained at the bar. When he wasn’t busy with other customers, Sullivan hung out there and chatted with them.
She watched as Macy spoke with Grant Green, giving him the day’s report. She could see Macy go up the stairs and into the manager’s office. Macy gathered up her belongings. She hesitated at the door to the apartment as if she meant to knock, but didn’t. Instead, she walked downstairs, obviously preparing to leave.