Connie’s eyes suddenly teared up. “This is different, Del. This time people’s lives are at stake. And you don’t know . . . I’ve played his simulations before.”
“And?”
Connie turned. “And I never won.”
Delta took her into her arms and stroked her back. “But you’re not playing this game alone.”
Connie backed away and wiped her eyes. “We’ll need help on this.”
“You’ve got it. Whatever you need, we’ll get it.”
Connie nodded, already deep in thought. “We’ll have to get as
much of Leonard’s information as possible.”
“Done.”
“We should call in some major think-tanks for this.”
“Done.”
“We may need Leonard’s assistance.”
“Leonard? Are you serious? Can you imagine him standing still long enough to even listen to our story? He’ll die laughing before he gives us any information.”
“We need his help, Del. I can’t stay up twenty-four hours a day playing the game. Besides, we don’t have all of the reports. The more data we have, the better our chances will be.”
As much as she didn’t want to, Delta saw her point. “What else?”
“We’ll need to get big scrolls of butcher paper, so we can map where we’ve been and make a map of your beat.”
“Good. And we’ll get a bunch of different colored markers, too.”
Connie nodded once. “We’ll have to write down everything we do. We have to look at everything as if it had a potential clue. Nothing can escape our grasp. Nothing.”
“What’s our first step?” Delta asked, rising from her chair.
Connie glanced over at the phone. For a moment, the air in the room felt as if the temperature had just dropped twenty degrees. “I’m going to find out just what happened to the boys from M.I.T.”
Shortly after nine, Gina pushed open the door with her knee, her hands full of butcher paper. “I’m back,” she said, setting the rolls down.
Delta was busy mapping the streets of her beat when Gina walked in.
“Where’s Connie?” Gina asked, grabbing one of the rolls before it fell on the floor.
Delta looked up from her drawing. “Out for a walk.”
Gina sat across from Delta and folded her hands on the table. “What happened?”
The room was so quiet, it seemed to be listening as well. “She found out what happened to the guys from M.I.T.”
Gina bowed her head, afraid to hear, afraid not to. “Dead?” The word seemed to hang in the air as if it were a stage prop held by a thin wire.
Delta nodded. “All of them. Dead.”
Gina slowly raised her head. “How?”
Laying her thick marker down, Delta exhaled and ran her hands through her hair. “One died of an overdose of cocaine, one was hit by a hit-and-run driver, and one apparently committed suicide.”
“Apparently?”
Delta shrugged. “Hung himself. No note. Nothing.”
“Were there any others?”
“One other. Douglas Rowe. No one seems to know where he is. Con thinks he’s wearing cement booties or is in a thousand Ziplock baggies. Evidently, Elson hated him the most. He never had a nice thing to say about anyone. Even Con said she had a hard time with him.”
“And she thinks Elson murdered them all?”
Delta nodded. “I’m afraid so. This Elson creep is one fast worker. He was able to murder four men living all across the United States in less than two weeks. One lived in New York, one in Lubbock, Texas, one in Boston, and Doug lives, lived, whatever, in Tallahassee.”
Gina rested her head on the table. “And now he’s after my lover.”
Delta stood and walked over to Gina. During their years of friendship together, Delta had never seen a more devoted, more supportive partner than Gina. She never seemed to get upset about the long hours Connie put in and she was always there to lend a hand, personally or professionally, when they needed it. She was a great friend to Delta and Megan, and a wonderfully giving partner to Connie.
“He’s not going to get her. I promise you, Gina. I’ll die before I let some whacked-out psycho even come close to Connie. He may be calling the shots for now, but he’s playing on my turf. That, my friend, is to our distinct advantage.” Taking Gina’s hands in hers, Delta spoke softly. “I swear to you, Gina, I won’t let anything happen to her. He’s messing with the wrong women, and I’ll blow his brains out if I have to. No harm will come to Connie, if I have anything to say about it— and I do.”
Gina swallowed back the tears and nodded. “You forget. I’ve seen you and Con in action. Whoever this Elson is, he’s grabbed a tiger by the tail.”
“Two tigers.” Delta smiled.
Gina forced a grin. “She’s your best friend and my lover. If you can’t keep her from harm, no one can. But I have a bad feeling about giving that disk to Leonard. If we give up that disk, we might be giving Connie’s life up as well. I’d rather we try than have someone else try and fail. I couldn’t live with myself knowing we gave up the only chance we had to catch him.”
“We need help on this, Gina. You’ve heard Connie say so yourself.”
“I know. But Leonard? I’ve heard both your opinions on the man. Isn’t there any way around him? Can’t we bypass the system just this once?”
Delta inhaled slowly and shook her head. “Not this time. I’m not going to do anything to put Connie’s life and the lives of others in danger. The least we can do is see if Leonard will be of any help. And we can’t find that out until we at least talk to him.”
“Fine. Talk to him all you want, but please don’t give up that disk.”
Suddenly, the back door swung open, and Connie walked in. The tear streaks on her face and her red eyes were tell-tale signs of her emotional state.
“Delta’s right, hon,” Connie answered, striding over to the fireplace. “People’s lives are at stake here, and I don’t know if I can figure this out on my own.”
Gina rose and put her arms around Connie. “Baby, are you okay? You look exhausted.”
Connie shrugged. “I don’t have much choice but to be okay. We have a lot of work ahead of us. I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I think we have to ask for help. We can’t afford to go out on a limb by ourselves with so many lives involved. The amount of time it might take to move the game forward before we stop him is enormous. It may take more than what the four of us can do.”
Delta rose. “You sure you want to give up the disk?”
Connie looked into Delta’s eyes and Delta saw eyes reflecting the pain and loss of the people roaming around in the alleys of her memory. “I’m not sure of anything anymore. It’s like living a nightmare, and I don’t know how to wake up. I, I can’t believe anyone could be so vindictive, so vengeful. And for what? Stupid college pranks?” Connie sat down heavily on the couch and held her head in her hands. “They were good men, and now they’re gone. Gone because they teased someone who never let go of his anger, who never forgave them their childishness.”
Delta knelt in front of Connie. “You can’t blame yourself, Con. He’s twisted and he’s killing again; people who don’t even know him; people who did nothing to him.”
Connie looked up, her face haggard from the stress and sadness. “That’s why we have to get help. It would be different, Delta, if he took me one-on-one. But to go out and kill people who never did him any harm . . . We can’t afford any mistakes. We have to see what Leonard can tell us.”
Delta reached out and took one of Connie’s hands. It was clammy and cold. “Then we’ll play it your way. It’s your call, Con.” Delta cast a quick glance over at Gina, who turned away. “If that’s how you want to do it, then the case is closed. We’ll take the disk to Leonard and see if he’s willing to work with us.”
Connie looked at her with red-rimmed eyes and nodded. “Thank you. I think I need to lie down and take a nap. The news about the boys was . . .” Connie stopped and shook her head sadly before standing up. “I still can’t believe it.”
Watching Connie move slowly down the hall, Delta hurt for her. She knew too well the numb feelings of losing a loved one. It was a pain almost worse than death because it seared her soul like a branding iron, scarring her for life. And there was no medication, no miracle drug that easily healed that kind of deep pain. Only time.
And unfortunately for them, time was the one luxury they did not have.
“Yu’re joking, right?” Leonard picked his teeth with a ballpoint pen and rose from behind his shabby wooden desk. “You’re standin’ there telling me that if we figure out some dumb game the killer sent you, we’ll be able to catch him?”
Connie nodded.
Delta didn’t. The heat of the office seemed aimed directly at them, as a tiny bead of sweat rolled down Delta’s spine. She knew this wouldn’t go over well with a man who founded his reputation on the concrete. There was a running joke in the department that Leonard would I.D. his own mother on the street if he ever stopped her. Leonard was scrupulous in his efforts to find tangible, plausible, and irrefutable evidence no matter what kind of case he was on. If he couldn’t touch it or bring it to court, he tossed it out.
Not that this was a bad trait. It just wasn’t conducive to an open mind. And Delta needed him to open his mind. The disk, the story, the whole case rested on what Leonard called a game. It was simply too abstract for a man with concrete underwear to grasp.
Leonard looked intently at Connie, his beady eyes staring hard at her. “So, you think he wants to get caught? Is that it? Psychologically speaking, the bastard is doing this so we can catch him, right?” Sarcasm dripped off Leonard’s tongue.
Connie shook her head. “You weren’t listening.”
“Well, I’m listening now.”
“I wouldn’t categorize him with all of your other nutcase profiles. The man is brilliant. He’s also vindictive and psychotic. This has nothing to do with his desires to get caught. It has to do with revenge and the lengths he’ll go to ensure that retribution.”
Leonard nodded and pulled half a cigar out of his pocket and stuck it between his teeth. “Somethin’ about proving he’s smarter than you, isn’t that what you said?”
Delta twitched. Leonard was mocking them now.
Connie sucked her breath in through her teeth and continued. “That’s part of it, yes. Detective, this man is not a run-of-the-mill murderer. You will never catch him if you box him with the others. He’s bright. He’s scrupulous to details, and he doesn’t care who he kills.”
Leonard took the cigar from his mouth and studied it. “Excuse me if I have a hard time swallowing the fact that this kook is carving people up because of some college pranks done to him over twenty years ago.”
“Stranger cases have happened,” Connie pressed. “don’t turn away because it’s not found in the textbooks. Look at Ted Bundy! He was brilliantly insane. This is one time, Leonard, when you have to stray from the books and try something different.”
Leonard chuckled. “Different? Yeah, I’d say that was a good word. And you want me to put some men on this . . . bizarre game?”
Delta felt her muscles tighten. For a second, she saw herself grabbing him by the throat and shaking him.
“Not just that, Sergeant. We need men to know what you know. We need to work together on this. If you could at least take a look at the game and see some of the parallels that have transpired, maybe you’d see that we have to work together to stop him.”
“Together.” Leonard’s voice was void of emotion.
“Yes, together. If we knew the evidence you’ve collected, it might help us in areas of the game where we’re stumped. And if you knew where we were going and what we were doing in the game, we might be able to lead you right to him.”
Delta nodded. “Think of it this way, Leonard. We may have what you need to bring in a suspect.”
Leonard ran his hand across his stubbly chin. “I know that the D.A. is getting uptight for clues, Stevie, but not even she is going to buy this. We’ve got nothing here but supposition, and it’s strange supposition at that. Sorry, ladies, but as desperate as our D.A. is for a suspect, even she would wonder if you two have been sniffing bottles of white out.”
Connie leaned over the desk, her neck veins bulging. “It’s the best lead you’ve got or are going to get. You and your men could use a clue right about now because I know for a fact that you’ve got nothing. Zip. Zero.
Nada.
”
Leonard stiffened. “You don’t know that. we’re on top of it.”
“Oh yes, I do. I know you’ve come up empty-handed. I’ve gotten my hands on just a few of your reports and right now, you’re chasing your own ass.”
“Those reports are under lock and key, Rivera.” Leonard glanced over to Delta and frowned. “Oh, yes. I forgot. Departmental rules and regulations don’t seem to apply to you two.”
Delta took a step forward. She had had enough. “Listen, you sonof-a—”
Connie grabbed Delta’s arm and squeezed tightly. “Look, Detective, people out there are being killed every third night. So far, they’ve been whacked with some kind of weapon that was stolen from the last crime. There are certain patterns he’s established if you’ll only detour from your manual and take a look at them. What you need is something to help you on your way, and I’m offering it to you. Because right now, you’re spinning in circles.”