The Love Killings (8 page)

CHAPTER 16

Matt switched on the circuit breakers, and the mansion came back to life as if hit with a defibrillator. Wires replaced veins as lamps snapped on, and the hum of the heating system took over the building.

As Matt led the way back to the front entrance, he couldn’t help noticing how bizarrely the mansion was furnished. Every room they passed seemed showy and forced, and there was a certain ignorance to the way everything had been put together. Matt assumed that price was no object, yet the feel of room after room came off cheap and overdone. But it was the art on the walls that really stood out. The paintings were modern, mostly portraits rather than landscapes, and decidedly angry. It looked like most of the paintings came from the same artist, and that his or her psychological issues were a decade or two past neurotic. It was the choice of only using primary colors and the raw brushstrokes that gave the artist away. Every painting Matt looked at reminded him of a concrete wall he’d seen by Thirtieth Street Station last night. Every painting in the house came off like graffiti with no meaning, no subtlety, and no soul.

Matt wondered how anyone could be comfortable living in a place like this. He couldn’t imagine waking up every day and thinking that he was still asleep and trapped in a nightmare. A world reduced to visual noise.

They reached the entryway, and Baylor waved the Glock 17 toward the staircase. When the doctor spoke, his voice was riddled with sarcasm.

“Nice art, don’t you think? You can’t buy taste, Matthew. That’s one of life’s secrets. You can’t buy class either.”

Matt caught the wicked glint in the man’s eyes, the look of curiosity and amusement that wouldn’t go away, then started up the staircase. The power was back on, and his view of the crime scene would no longer be limited to the narrow beam of a flashlight. The second-floor landing would be just as it had been when the Holloways were murdered. The horror elements would be amped up. They had just passed the French doors. Matt counted ten more steps, and knew that he needed to prepare himself.

The first thing he noticed was the lights on a large Christmas tree that stood between the fireplace and the five dead bodies. The second thing he noticed was the heads mounted on the wall. Big game heads. They were hanging right above the victims, and Matt couldn’t believe that he had missed them.

Baylor must have noticed him gazing at Holloway’s trophies. When he spoke, his voice was muted.

“They’re known as the
big five
,” he said. “The African lion, the elephant, a Cape buffalo, a leopard, and the rhinoceros. They call them the big five because these are the five most difficult animals to hunt on foot.”

“Is that why you killed the Holloways, Doctor? Because this man shoots big game and you’ve got a problem with it?”

Baylor laughed, then moved in for a closer look at the bodies. He seemed so fascinated by the horror, his eyes wagging back and forth through the corpses. He pointed his pistol at Holloway leaning against the wall with his two daughters. Beneath the coating of blood, they were naked and holding hands just like the Strattons had been found.

“His name’s David Holloway, Matthew. He runs a software company, and before tonight, he was doing quite well. That’s his wife, Mimi, holding their son, Nicholas. He’s sixteen. The two girls are Sophie, age twelve, and Victoria, who’s nineteen. And yes, I have a real problem with people who shoot big game. They’re cowards.”

“That’s why you killed them?”

Baylor flashed a faint smile that came and went. “David didn’t hunt animals on foot. That would have been too risky. Too dangerous. And it would have made things difficult for the film crew he used to take with him. David had self-esteem issues and always seemed to need proof that he was on top. With every kill there was a video and a head, even if it had to be smuggled out. I was told by one of his macho friends that he used to wear makeup and a costume when he moved in for the kill.”

“He fits your list, Doctor. He fits it like a well-tailored suit.”

“He does, doesn’t he. David Holloway was a real shithead.”

Baylor took a step closer to the nineteen-year-old girl and knelt down to take in her body.

“How did Holloway ever come up on your radar?” Matt said.

The doctor’s eyes were still pinned on the naked girl. “He shot a lion a few years back. Not the one over his head. He shot a special lion. A tourist attraction that made money for an entire village. Holloway lured the animal off the reserve and then shot it and claimed he didn’t do anything wrong. Apparently, the lion experienced a tortured death. It ran off, wounded. They found its remains two days later. A pack of hyenas had dragged the lion into the brush and were feeding on it. It’s a real jungle out there, Matthew. And David Holloway was a lot more than a coward. Look at the size of the diamond he’s wearing in his right ear. The world’s better off without him. I’m glad he’s dead.”

Matt’s eyes flicked down from the head mounted on the wall to Holloway’s pierced ear. The diamond was almost the size of a grape and appeared stupid and crass, even embarrassing. When he turned back to Baylor, it looked like the doctor was examining the girl’s teeth.

“They were your audience, Doctor. You murdered the Holloways here because of the animal heads. Look at their eyes. It feels like they’re watching us.”

“I think you’re right about that, Matthew. The Holloways were murdered here because of the animal heads. They witnessed the spectacle along with Holloway and his two daughters. It’s worth noting that the landing is out in the open. There’s no door. No expectation of privacy. No doubt, murdering them in an almost public space heightens the thrill.”

Baylor’s words about the need for an audience struck a nerve. Matt had been thinking the same thing. It was about the order of the deaths. Holloway would be last because he needed to be punished. The two girls would go next to last because they were needed as witnesses. But who would’ve been murdered first?

His eyes moved back to Mimi Holloway and her son, Nicholas. The answer seemed so obvious that he didn’t know why it had taken him so long to see it. It was in the way the mother was holding her son. It was a death embrace. The boy’s corpse had been draped over his mother’s body while she was still alive. She was cradling him in a fit of despair and hopelessness as she died.

“Ah,” Baylor said. “Victoria’s got a secret.”

Matt ignored the pun, then stepped over a pool of blood and knelt down beside the doctor. “What is it?”

“She’s pregnant.”

“How can you tell?”

“See these small red growths on her gums?”

Matt moved in for a closer look. They were there, on her gums and between her teeth.

“They’re called pregnancy tumors,” Baylor said. “They only show up in about five percent of pregnant women. They’re not dangerous, but I’ll bet she experienced some degree of discomfort.”

“They know that you’re not who you say you are, Doctor.”

Baylor gave him a thoughtful look, but remained quiet.

“Before I was shot the FBI gave me access to the chronological record they keep on the Internet. They think you murdered the real George Baylor. He was jogging and you ran over him with your car fifteen years ago. The man lived in Chicago and graduated from medical school. Six months before his death, he’d completed his internship and residency at the University of Chicago Medical Center. The FBI thinks you met there, or somewhere along the way. That you were running from something in your past and needed a new identity. Someone who shared your medical background. Someone who fit.”

Baylor bowed his head and lowered his voice, still amused. “Everybody needs a new identity from time to time. A new outlook on life.”

“They found out that you traveled to the East Coast, and that you did it every year. They have receipts from your visits to Princeton and Greenwich and your hotel in New York. They think that’s where your history is. That you grew up somewhere on the East Coast.”

“That was a long time ago, Matthew.” The doctor stood up with the gun in his hand. “It’s getting late. I want you to unbutton your shirt. I want a look at your wounds.”

“Why?”

“Open your shirt,” Baylor said. “Do it quickly. Do as I say.”

Matt got to his feet and unbuttoned his shirt. Slowly. Reluctantly. Once he pulled it open, Baylor switched on his flashlight and began his examination of the four gunshot wounds. The one the doctor, a former plastic surgeon, had mended himself in Matt’s shoulder, and the three shots in the gut that had nearly killed him.

“Sloppy work,” the doctor said. “I can fix those if you like. It would take time to heal, but after a year or two, the scars would go away.”

Matt looked at Baylor’s eyes still fixed on the four wounds. “Why won’t you let me take you in, Doctor?”

“Because you need me.”

Matt shook his head. “But I don’t need you. Let’s drive into the city. Let’s end this before anyone else gets hurt. I know there’s something inside you that’s worth saving. You wouldn’t have saved my life if there wasn’t. You did it twice. You mended this wound, and you saved me from the fire.”

The doctor met Matt’s eyes finally, his voice almost a whisper. “You still need me. You just don’t know it yet.”

“You murdered these people. You murdered the Strattons. Even by your own standards, you’re out of control. If they find you, they won’t waste time fooling around. They’ll shoot you. It’s easier that way. It’s safer.”

Matt watched as Baylor’s gaze turned inward. It looked like he was sifting through his past. It seemed like he had become lost in the darkness.

“Jim Stratton, MD,” the doctor said with another faint smile. “Can you imagine a doctor using chemotherapy and radiation treatments on patients who were perfectly healthy?”

“Nothing surprises me anymore. It’s the world we live in. Generation
Me
.”

“The world we live in,” Baylor repeated pointedly. “And now Jim Stratton, MD, is finally dead, and again the world is a better place. I knew his daughter was home for the holidays, Matthew. I’d done my research, I’d made my plans, and I went to the house a couple of hours after midnight to scout the location and make my final preparations. When I got there, the front door was unlocked. I walked in and found them on the second-floor landing. They were already dead.”

Matt paused a moment to think it over. “If they were already dead, then why did you touch the bodies, Doctor? Why didn’t you just leave?”

“But I didn’t touch the bodies.”

“Yes, you did. The FBI has your fingerprint.”

“From where?”

“The girl’s nipple. I read about it in the murder book this afternoon. They examined her entire body. You touched the girl’s nipple. And you painted her fingernails. You left a print there, too.”

Baylor was inside himself again, that odd glint burning in his vibrant blue eyes.

“So maybe I did,” he said finally in a softer voice. “Maybe I left those prints for you, Matthew. The truth is that I left a total of five.”

Matt shook his head. “You left five fingerprints, and now you’re saying that you left them on purpose and want me to believe you. If you’re ever questioned, you’ll need to do better than that, Doctor. A lot better.”

“I like to think of them as calling cards. I wanted you here. I wanted to make sure you got the call.”

“Where are the other three?”

“In the library you’ll find something hanging on the wall. It’s a page from the
Philadelphia Inquirer
’s society section. Jim Stratton, MD, poisoned his patients and got rich hurting them and killing them, but he liked to think of himself as a kind and generous human being. Don’t they all? He sponsored a charity event for one of the hospitals in Center City. A golf match at his country club for, of all things, kids with cancer. It made the society page. He had the story framed. I touched the glass with one finger, and the lower right corner of the frame with another when I straightened it on the wall.”

“Where did you leave the third?”

“The most obvious place of all. The kitchen sink. I washed my hands and touched the faucet.”

Matt gave him a hard look. “Why are you doing this? What do you expect to gain by playing let’s pretend? You’re saying that you just happened to show up at the Strattons’ house on the night they were murdered? And now I find you here, and the bodies are still warm? Really? You just happen to be here tonight?”

“It’s a coincidence.”

Matt frowned. “A coincidence?”

“A striking occurrence of two or more events all at once, and apparently by mere chance, Matthew. We call it a coincidence. Three thousand years ago, they called it magic. Two thousand years ago, it was called a miracle. Words change over time.”

Matt laughed sarcastically. “Call it anything you like, Doctor. Call it anything you want, anytime you want. It doesn’t make any difference that Jim Stratton, MD, and David Holloway were whores or even monsters—it doesn’t matter what they did or who they were. You murdered these people. If I’d been here any sooner, I would have caught you in the act.”

Baylor met his eyes. “You’re here because I sent you an invitation.”

A beat went by. And then another.

Matt remembered the text message he’d received. It seemed so long ago.

Baylor cleared his throat. “You’re working with people who have their heads in the sand, Matthew. It’s the corporate way, you know. Special Agent Rogers and Assistant US Attorney Ken Doyle have blinders on and can’t see who and what they’re really dealing with here. They want it to be me. They need it to be me. They get more stuff if it’s me. Bigger headlines and better jobs. That’s why I left my fingerprints. That’s why I sent you that text message tonight.”

Matt let it settle in as he buttoned his shirt. All of it. Everything Baylor had just said. The five corpses at his feet. The five animal heads mounted on the wall. The diamond in the dead macho man’s ear that was so big it looked cheap and crude. The twenty-foot-high Christmas tree with its bright lights and decorations, even the gifts already wrapped with bows and ribbons.

The word
nightmare
didn’t cover it. He wished he could call it a hallucination, but that wouldn’t work either. It felt like he was trapped in something more potent, more terrifying, more everything.