"Yeah."Joe paused.
"Spill it."
"Spill what?"
"Whatever"s on your mind. You"re among friends here."
Joe smiled. Carla was one of the sweetest and most perceptive people he knew. Another reason why she always got the guys.
Joe took a deep breath and told them about hear-ingAngela"s voice in his room the night before. To his surprise, they didn"t look at him as if he were totally crazy.
"Are you sure you weren"t dreaming?" Howe asked. "I mean, after what you"d been through, you were already thinking about her."
"You"re talking to me the same way I talked to my daughter the other night. It wasn"t a dream. I stood up and turned on the light. The voice was still there, and it sounded like Angela"s. I"m sure that"s what Nikki heard."
Howe frowned. "Each of the victims heard voices in the days before their deaths."
"This is different," Carla said. "Those weren"t specific to anyone that they knew. Joe knew this voice." She turned back to face him. "Did you go over the room with your spirit kit?"
"Yeah. I couldn"t find anything."
"I don"t like this," Carla said. "If you"re convinced that it"s not your wife-"
Joe interrupted her. "IfI"m convinced? Surely you don"t believe-"
"I don"t know what to believe, Joe, but someone could be doing a number on you. It could be the same person who"s killing these people, and he was actually in your home. home."
"Believe me, I"ve thought of that. The fingerprint guys have already been out to my place. There"s nothing more anyone can do right now."
carla pursed her lips. "Have you told Nikki?"
"No, not about hearing Angela"s voice. I want to keep this from her as long as I can."
"I don"t like this, Bailey. If you notice anything else, let us know right away."
"Don"t worry."
Two uniformed officers entered the squad room with a young man with dark shoulder-length hair. "Detectives?"
Howe stepped forward."What"s up?"
"We picked this man up on a trespa.s.sing charge. Some neighbors called it in. He was poking around Thomas Coyle"s residence."
AKA victim number four, Joe remembered. The man who was dragged behind his car.
"So?" Carla asked. "The crime scene has been broken down. Did he take a swing at you or something?"
"He was unresponsive," the officer said. "He said he"d talk to only one of you."
Joe looked at the man. There was something familiar about him.
"Okay," Howe said. "You have our attention. But first, why don"t you give us an idea who the h.e.l.l you are?"
The man flashed a smile that was unnaturally bright."Of course. My name is-"
"Barry Roth," Joe finished for him.
Roth looked flattered."Yes."
"You know this guy?" Carla asked.
Joe nodded. "You would too if you had an eleven-year-old daughter. He"s another psychic. He has a call-in show on the music video channel."
"I flew here from New York to help you," Rothsaid. "You really should listen to me, Detectives. I"ve helped several police departments."
Howe nodded. "And I"m sure you have a stack of testimonials from small-town sheriff"s deputies, right?"
"Yeah. Small towns like New York, San Francisco, and Chicago. I helped them, and I can help you."
"And help yourself too," Howe said caustically. "Hey, we"d all win."
"That"s why you were at Coyle"s place?" Carla asked.
Roth nodded. "I"ve been trying to arrange a more formal meeting with your department, but no one has been interested in returning my calls."
"Look, we"re really not interested in seeing this case played out between Snoop Dogg videos," Joe said.
"This isn"t for my show," Roth said. "I play to the Clearasil set. They want to know if their boyfriends are going to ask them to the prom or if their parents are going to give them cars for graduation. Trivial things like life and death have little appeal for my audience."
"So why are you here?" Joe said.
Roth pulled a felt-tip pen from his pocket, uncapped it, and wrote something in the palm of his left hand.
"I"ve had enough," Howe said. "Carla, we have an appointment with the medical examiner to discuss this report. Why don"t we just-"
Joe grabbed Howe"s arm."Wait a second."
Roth held up his hand and showed them a circlewith two intersecting lines, much like the ones they had found on Monica and the murder victims.
"Aw, s.h.i.t," Howe said. "Now we gotta talk to this son of a b.i.t.c.h."
"I"ll do it,"Joe said. "This is my thing." He motioned to Roth."Follow me. You just bought yourself a ticket to the Cave."
"What?"
Joe led Roth to Interrogation Room A, known in the squad as the Cave due to its lack of windows and drab pencil-lead color scheme. The hue had been suggested by a high-priced behavioral psychologist, who maintained that it would throw criminals off kilter and elicit faster confessions. As far as Joe could tell, the Cave only threw the cops off kilter.
He pulled Roth"s arm across the table, raised his digital camera, and snapped a picture of the circular symbol. He inspected the picture in the camera"s LCD screen. "Okay, tell me how you knew about this marking."
"I saw it in a dream. I"m not sure what it means, but I think it"s related to these killings."
"You know that this could make you a suspect, right? We"ve withheld any mention of this to the media."
Roth snorted and placed a fat manila folder in front of Joe. "I guess I was the perp in all of these cases too, huh?"
Joe opened the folder and thumbed through its contents. It was packed with newspaper clippings, magazine articles, and written testimonials from grateful relatives and law enforcement officials. "I"mfamiliar with some of your cases, Mr. Roth. On the face of it, you"ve done some amazing work."
"Only on the face of it?"
"For what it"s worth, I think you"re probably better at your craft than Monica Gaines. Before you started on the music video network, you were a.s.sociated with some fairly high-profile cases."
Roth shrugged. "I usually donate my services to criminal investigations. Television is where the money"s at, I"m afraid."
"Don"t apologize. But tell me this, have your gifts ever enabled you to identify a criminal who wasn"t already a suspect?"
"Sure."
"By name?"
"By initial."
"Ah. Let"s see.... His last name begins with S or J. Right?"
Roth stared at him.
"If I look through this file, will I find out that in those cases, the eventual suspect"s last-name initial is S or J? Because it"s the most common last-name initial in the English language. If it turns out not to be true, it"s either forgotten or you can find someone connected to the case whose last name begins with those letters."
"Perhaps I"m talking to the wrong man. Is there someone else-?"
"No. What do you want, Mr. Roth?"
"I want your department"s cooperation. I think I have something to offer."
"I"m afraid that our department"s cooperationwith the psychic community began and ended with Monica Gaines."
"You"re not even willing to listen to me?"
"Sure, I"ll listen. Why don"t you start by telling me how you found out about that symbol?"
"I told you. I dreamed about it."
"Right. But have your dreams told you anything that we don don"tknow? Something we can verify?"
"Not yet."
"Mr. Roth, you don"t need our cooperation. Most of the crime scenes have been broken down, and you can go there yourself with permission from the property owners. There"s a task force tip line you can call if you get any more insights. I"ll make sure the receptionist gives it to you on the way out."
Roth nodded. "I know the drill. But you have to realize that this isn"t a normal murder case, Detective. That"s why I came all the way here. There are forces at work here that you don"t understand. That I don"t understand."
Joe stiffened. "What do you mean?"
"I wish I knew. Thank you for your time."
Roth reached for his folder, but Joe scooped it up first. "Mr. Roth, would you mind leaving this with me? I"d like to look it over."
"Sure. I"d be honored."
Joe stood and walked him out of the interrogation room.
Forces at work here that you don"t understand.
Roth"s words probably wouldn"t have affected him so much if he hadn"t been still reeling from hearing Angela"s voice the night before.
Keep it together, man.
"Another gla.s.s of wine, Tess?"
Shawn Dylan motioned for the waiter. He and Monica Gaines"s producer were comfortably seated in the lounge of the Buckhead Ritz-Carlton. A piano played softly in the lobby nearby.
Tess Wayland leaned back in her chair. "I really shouldn"t."
"Why not? You"ve already taped tonight"s show, right?"
"Yes, but there"s still tomorrow"s show, and the day after."
"You have to learn to relax."
She laughed. "I don"t even know why I"m here. I don"t usually do this."
"I"ll bet you say that to all the guys."
"No, seriously. I don"t even know your last name."
He smiled."Maybe that"s because I never told you."
"Maybe I didn"t care to know. Maybe I still don"t."
"Oh, you care."
She gazed at him. "You"re right. What"s your last name?"
"After you finish your next gla.s.s."
As if on cue, the waiter brought two more gla.s.ses of Chardonnay and took away the empties.
Tess smiled.
It was working, Dylan thought. He"d trained for this, and although it had worked for him dozens of times before, he was still amazed it was so effective. A few hours in his hotel room perusing online databases had helped him enormously. An article in Working Woman Working Womanhad told him about her background, hobbies, and extensive collection of Murano gla.s.ssculptures. He"d waited in her hotel lobby and complimented her on her crystal lapel pin, remarking on its similarity to the Dark Mystique Dark Mystiquesculpture he"d always admired. How could she know that he"d seen the sculpture"s full-size replica in the magazine layout of her Vancouver home?