Double Vision (7 page)

Y
ancy plopped down into his desk chair, jammed his headphones on. Time to save the world again—or at least save little boys from closet monsters and stupid teenagers who thought 911 existed so they could call and ask for directions when they were lost.

Before he hit his ready button to signify he was in place and prepared to take an emergency call, though, his cell phone lit up. He'd already turned it on silent, which was standard when he was on duty, but seeing the number glowing on the face, he couldn't help but take one more minute off work to answer this one.

“Hey, beautiful lady,” he said.

“Hi, yourself,” Jenna replied flatly, but Yancy could tell by the sound of her voice that she was smiling. “Listen, I'm on my way to interview someone about the case right now, but I just wanted to call and let you know I can have Irv check in on the domestic abuse vic call if you want, just to make sure it all went down without anything crazy happening. If you were worried, I mean. I know we all have cases that get to us, and sometimes closure is best.”

This wasn't going to go well. But, like his grandmother had tried so hard to beat into his rear end with a belt, honesty was the best policy.
Go ahead, rock star. Make her day.

“Um, that won't be necessary. I, uh . . .” Yancy cleared his throat.
Spit it out, moron.
“I went by her house.”

“You
what
?” met his ears, the shrill pitch something like what he expected, only a little louder and a little more angry than confused.

“Hey, before you give me the lecture, relax. I just went by on my walk with Oboe to see if I saw anything. The blinds were open, and I saw her vacuuming. I didn't knock on her door, throw pebbles at her window, nothing. She never knew I was there.”

Jenna's sigh echoed in his ears through the phone. “Yancy, it's not
about
whether or not she saw you. It's about protocol and professional distance! You can't get so personally involved. It never ends well. Ever. You know better than this . . .”

The back of Yancy's neck burned, the heat creeping up his cheeks. “Whoa, wait a minute—”

“It's easy to get invested in these cases that crop up a lot. I know. But self-control is—”

“Oh, self-control is important, huh? Not overstepping? But you didn't have any problem breaking protocol or having me overstep when it served your purposes last year . . .”

“Yance, that was different. You were part of the investigation . . .”

But Jenna's tone didn't match the words. She wasn't fooling anyone, and the hell if she was going to scold him about professional standards when she'd broken many bigger rules than walking by someone's house.

“Double standards much?”

“Yancy, I'm an FBI agent, okay? You could get fired from your dispatch position for something like this if anyone found out,” Jenna said.

The way he could tell the calm, slow cadence of her words was designed to ease the rising conflict just pissed him off worse. “Don't shrink me,
Doctor
. And don't forget, when you broke all the rules, you
weren't
an FBI agent anymore . . . yet . . . whatever the hell the right word is!”

Jenna's breathing had been even, but was he imagining it was getting heavier?

“Yancy, I'm only trying to protect you—”

He couldn't stop the cold laugh that escaped him. “Protect me? Protect me! That's a hot one. The poor one-legged guy needs his big, bad FBI girlfriend for protection. Can't even take care of himself enough to get a
real
law enforcement job instead of one sitting behind a desk answering the phone all day.”

“That's not what I mea—”

He cut her off again. “You know, believe it or not, Jenna, I'm capable of taking care of myself
and
other people. I'd have thought you'd know that by now, considering everything I've done to help
your
superhuman FBI agent rear end, but apparently I only get kudos for my past performances based on affirmative action,” he snapped.

“I didn't say tha—”

“Don't worry about it. I have to go now. My piddly little job calls. Talk later. G'bye,” he spat, ending the call and shoving his phone into his pocket.

He slammed the ready button with the heel of his palm, and his work line signaled immediately.

“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”

Heavy breaths, then an inaudible whisper.

“Are you there?” Yancy asked.

No answer, but breathing.
Deliberately rhythmic breathing.

“If you are on the line and unable to speak, press a button on your phone twice,” Yancy said, holding his earpiece closer to try to hear anything in the background. He glanced to the call window. No address attached to the number. Looked like a cell phone.

BEEP. BEEP.

“Okay, you are on the line and can't speak. If you can't speak because of a medical problem, press a button once. If you cannot speak for fear of an intruder, press a button twice.”

Silence.

A long ten seconds went by.

BEEP BEEP.

Yancy typed fast:

Caller intentionally not speaking for fear of alerting intruder.

He pressed the mute button so the caller wouldn't hear the panic tied to his next request. “I need a location on this cell number,” he yelled into the buzzing hub of the dispatch center. He let up on the mute button. “If you know that the phone you're calling from is a Verizon or Sprint serviced phone, press any button.”

Nothing.

That would've been too easy.
Verizon and Sprint used internal GPS tracking chips inside their wireless phones that activated upon a 911 call.
Damn. Triangulation it is.

Now, to get as much information as possible from someone who couldn't talk while he waited for tower signals to bounce around until he could isolate the caller's location. “Okay, someone is there. If you're hiding in a locked room, press a button one time. If you're hiding but there's no lock between you and the intruder, press any button twice.”

BEEP. BEEP.

Shit.

Yancy typed fast, his thoughts flying. He sent the report to dispatch, though it did no good since they didn't have a location yet. He glanced at the monitor. One tower pinged. He needed information, but he also had to keep this caller safe so when help arrived at the location, the officers would be handling a home invasion rather than a homicide.

“We're tracking your location right now, but I need you to stay on the line with me so we can get someone to help you. Breathe as slowly as you can. In through your nose and out of your mouth.”
And don't hyperventilate.
“If it's possible to move to a place where you can put some distance—and preferably a lock—between you and the intruder, do so. If not, stay put. If you're moving, press a button.”

Silence.
Another tower pinged on the monitor.

“Okay, I need some more information. If the intruder has a weapon, press any button twice.”

BEEP BEEP.

Yancy typed:

Intruder armed.

“If the intruder has a gun, press any button twice.”

Nothing
.

“If he has a knife, press any button twice.”

Still nothing.

“Press two buttons if it is a blunt object.”

BEEP BEEP.

Yancy struck keys to let the officer who would head to the residence when the triangulation finished know what kind of weapon the intruder had. He looked to the monitor.

The last tower pinged, and a bubble popped up on the map. A location he recognized met Yancy's eyes.

“CiCi?”

No words.

Yancy's pulse quickened. He'd taken so many of her calls, and she'd survived these disputes with her husband after each. Yet every single time Yancy talked to her, he couldn't help but think how this might be the last call she'd make. Every incident had the potential to be the one when she wouldn't make it.

Yancy called for the dispatch to the familiar Peake Road address. “Hang on, CiCi. Help is on the way.”

Please, God, let them get there in time.

A
fter following the balding history professor through the dining hall line and selecting the least offensive of the choices offered, Jenna sat down across from him at the rickety wooden table.

“I
do
love Salisbury steak day,” he commented enthusiastically as he cut into the mystery meat on his plate.

Jenna glanced down at her tray, which bore the same meal Dr. Etkin's did. However, she didn't see the lumpy, gravy-covered mess quite the same way he did. She wouldn't have known what it was at all if he hadn't just identified it for her.

Still, better to be casual, so she cut a piece and gingerly bit it off the tip of her fork. All in all, it wasn't as bad as it looked.

“I'm sorry I couldn't talk in my office, but I was famished. Now tell me again what information it was you were looking for,” he said, still chewing a mouthful of green beans.

Jenna swallowed and wiped her mouth. “No problem. I do need to ask that you keep our conversation to yourself to preserve the integrity of the investigation . . .”

He waved her off. “Of course, of course.”

“Right. I have a case right now that I'm pretty sure is steeped in Greek mythology. Or rather, the criminal's motives might be. Particularly as Greek mythology relates to the number three and death. What all can you tell me about the significance of the number?”

Dr. Etkin spooned a heaping bite of mashed potatoes into his mouth. “Hm, let me see. I've taught a Greek mythology course for about thirteen years, but I've never had to think much about all the ways threes could be connected to deaths before. Lots of Greek myth uses the number three. The number three typically symbolizes male gender in Greek mythology. Four is usually symbolic of the feminine, though threes show up in relation to the feminine, too, on occasion. Often certain lesser deities take the form of three separate entities, as in the case of the Fates, for example. The three Fates—Clothos, Lachesis, and Atropos—were in charge of the thread of life. The first spun the thread, the second measured it, and the last cut it to end life. That is one story that mixes threes with death. The three Gorgon sisters Stheno, Euryale, and the most famous, Medusa, had hair made of venomous snakes. Medusa was killed by the hero Perseus, who cut off her head. Any serpentine symbology in these crimes?”

“Not that we've found,” Jenna replied. Surely he would say something that would strike a nerve, light a color in her mind that connected. “Please keep throwing out ideas, though. Anything could be significant.”

“All right then. Three Harpies—mythical winged monsters. Hesiod mentions a set of three Cyclopes—Brontes, Steropes, and Arges—said in the
Theogony
to have provided the brothers Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades with the thunderbolt, trident, and helmet of invisibility that allowed them to defeat the Titans. However, that this group of three would be so well-known is less likely than some other scenarios. Of Cyclopes, one is more famous than all the others, Polyphemus, due to Homer's stories of Odysseus's encounters with him. Cerberus was the three-headed dog who guarded the gates of the Underworld . . .”

“The Underworld. Hades?” Jenna asked, latching on to the reference to the home of the dead.

“Yes, technically, though most people have a misconception of Hades. Unlike the modern day concept of hell where the ‘bad' people go, Hades housed all of the dead, good and bad alike. Some accounts give different sections that kept certain groupings of people. ‘Good' people went to the Elysian Fields in Hades, and the damned ended up in Tartarus. Some sources claim Tartarus wasn't a part of Hades at all, but rather, a place far below Hades itself. Either way, by most accounts, all the departed are said to reside in Hades, presided over by the god of the same name. One of Zeus's brothers. I suppose those three main gods are an example of threes in mythology themselves.”

“Right,” Jenna said, a blazing orange settling in her mind around the concept of Hades, the place. It didn't match any colors she'd seen so far while investigating this case that she could remember, but she filed it away for future reference. Even so, this seemed like a profitable route of inquiry. The sort of thing a paranoid schizophrenic might latch onto. “Any more threes associated with the Underworld?”

Dr. Etkin rubbed his mouth with his napkin. “That's tough. Let me think on it.”

“Perhaps you could just tell me more about Hades in general,” Jenna prompted.

“All right then. Let's see here. The Greeks believed death wasn't really the end of life, though they did not, I think, consider the dead to make any sort of progress, such as aging, after leaving the earth to go to Hades. The living could enter Hades in certain cases. Persephone, for example, was abducted to be Hades's wife. Different versions of the story quibble over whether what happened next was against Persephone's will or not, but I for one believe that Hades forced her to eat the six pomegranate seeds, which tied her to the Underworld, as this was a fruit linked to Hades. Note that six is the double of three, but I digress. So Persephone . . . she was one. Orpheus traveled to Hades in an attempt to bring his wife Eurydice back to the world of the living. She was bitten by a snake, so that's another serpent reference . . . No?” he said at the shake of Jenna's head.

If the Triple Shooter had been the Double Shooter, then maybe the bullets could be symbolic of fangs, but so far, nothing snakelike about any of these crimes hit her. But this concept of bringing
back
the dead intrigued her. Maybe the Triple Shooter was trying to do that somehow? The submissive shade of blue she'd seen at the grocery store flashed in. She still thought he was submitting to an urge, not missing a loved one who'd passed. The returning-the-dead angle didn't feel right. Still, it was worth a question or two. “Did Orpheus succeed?”

“Good heavens, no. He made it in, all right, though different versions of the tale have him employing different means. But when Hades allowed him to take his wife back to the living world, it was under the condition she walk behind him and he not look back. Before he got past the gates, he disobeyed Hades's order, and Eurydice was ripped from him and back into Hades.”

Jenna nodded, forcing away the powder pink of parallels that flashed in. The story had prompted her to think of the parallel biblical story of Lot's wife looking back at Sodom and Gomorrah. The thought was of the sort she always had to sift through in situations like these, to isolate the important associations her mind naturally made from the myriad of insignificant ones. The pink had cropped up because of her own purely anecdotal thought, not due to an impression she had that connected the story with the case. A subtle distinction, but it was a skill she'd honed over time.

“So, Persephone and Orpheus. Anyone else?” Jenna said.

“Odysseus also entered the Underworld alive. Blood offerings were required for the dead to interact, though. A life force offered in exchange for contact. Cerberus was charged with keeping all who entered Hades from leaving, but Odysseus escaped by sailing through an exit of Hades guarded by two monsters. Instead of trying to navigate the water between them, the mistake of most sailors, he stuck close to the tentacled monster, Scylla. He lost men—six—but otherwise he and the rest of his crew escaped. As far as I know, he was the only person who led a ship that sailed into Hades and also sailed out. Now the dead are another story entirely. The Greeks thought that at the moment of death, the soul and corpse separated. The soul assumed the form of a body itself, and that was the part which was taken to Hades.”

“By the boatman,” Jenna filled in.

“You are correct. Charon, the ferryman, was charged with sailing the shades of the dead to Hades, by some accounts across the river Styx. By others, Acheron, the river of pain.”

Jenna cleared her throat. “So there are a lot of discrepancies?”

Etkin nodded. “Depends on whose portrayal you're reading which river was the entrance to the Underworld. Homer said one thing, Euripides another. Everyone else usually something in between. But those are the more popular versions.”

“Mm-hm. And Charon was paid two coins over the eyes, correct?” Jenna asked, not mentioning the relevance to the case.

Dr. Etkin nodded. “Sometimes, but not as a rule. Another source of disagreement. Some tales say coins over the eyes, but most if not all instances in literature depict a single coin under the tongue. The eye coins usually appear as the myths are orally passed down as folktales and lose some authenticity.”

Jenna let the idea simmer. Apparently, if their killer
did
intend the pieces of evidence to appear as coins, he didn't know his mythology well. An interesting detail, considering their current theory said he was obsessed with it.

“Were coins over the eyes perhaps symbolic of . . . well, anything?” Jenna reached.

Dr. Etkin shook his head. “Not that I know of, young lady. But either way, Charon was a coin taker, and if the dead did not pay, they were condemned to wander the earth as ghosts.”

“A bad thing?” Jenna asked, unsure.

“Yes, in that culture. Many thought that reaching the Elysian Fields after death might provide a chance for rebirth. Reincarnation, as it is thought of in traditional society, wasn't on the table back then. There was a very specific set of circumstances the Greeks aspired to in order to have the prospect. And yet, I suppose the possibility comforted them. Ghosts, however, were doomed to a life of seeing but not being part of the world.”

“I see,” Jenna replied. It
did
sound awful. Seeing Ayana but not being able to talk to her, to touch her. She shook the thought away. “How did Charon land this special little job?”

“Eh, I don't think it's ever really told how the task came to him, though it no doubt happened in the same manner most of the gods acquired charge of their realm: either through being born with the inherent role, or by overthrowing the god or supernatural being who possessed it before them. Some artwork depicts Charon as a decrepit old man, but most portrayals allege he was more something of a demon than a human.”

Jenna closed her eyes for a second, swallowing the tepid potatoes in her mouth. Try as she might to force a color to flash in, none would come. Only discerning the colors her mind brought forth was an ability she could master. Grapheme–color synesthesia wasn't a skill or talent, no matter how much she wished it was at times. It simply
was
 . . . or, as in this moment, it wasn't.

“You know,” Dr. Etkin said, scooping banana pudding into his mouth, “one idea you might consider would be talking to Brody Gallagher. Teaches religion here. He'd be a wealth of knowledge on the numerological implications of the number three. Occurs a ton in Greek mythology surrounding deities, but it's a common integer in many religions. He might be able to give you even more insight than I on the Greeks and the numbers as they relate to deities.”

An eggplant purple flashed in as the word religion hit Jenna's ears. She put down her fork. “How can I find him?”