Stuart Kaminsky - Deluge

"You're welcome," said Arthur, shaking his head and taking off his poncho. He covered the man with it and said, "What's your name?"

Waclaw took his wallet out of his pants, reached into it and pulled out a card. Arthur looked at it.

"This is my father. His name is Waclaw and he does not speak English. My cell phone number is 1-888-000-CHEM."

The name printed at the bottom was Alvin Havel.

Mac pressed the top of the mouse and the screen of James Feldt's laptop appeared with a musical hum. The computer sat on Mac's desk next to a cup of hot herbal tea.

The tickle in his throat had become a discernible soreness. He didn't have to use a thermometer, but he knew that he had a temperature.

He knew that cold and flu viruses came from human-to-human transmission and were not caused by cold or damp weather. Mac had also concluded, with reservations, that cold and wet weather might well create conditions under which the cold virus was more easily transmitted.

In any case, Mac Taylor had a sore throat and a cold and maybe some kind of flu. He drank some of the lukewarm tea and examined the computer screen.

Columns of numbers faced him each with an identification attached: "Woodrow Shelton, June Billing, $14,234; Monica Kobilski, June Billing, $18,333."

What interested Mac was the last entry on the page. It was a note that read:

*Primary associate billing and carryover billing adjusted is %12.23 higher than adam

Adam. Lowercase. No period. Mac could imagine a number of ways to end the sentence including something like "higher than adam predicted." But this was the last thing Feldt had written. "adam." No time for capitalization?

The tea soothed for a few seconds. Mac took a bottle of aspirin from his desk, removed three tablets and downed them with the help of the tea. Then he popped a lemon lozenge into his mouth.

Mac pressed more keys and pulled up the photos of the two mutilation victims. He scanned the photos and found the ones that showed the letters D and A carved into the thighs of the victims.

Time of death. Of course. If it hadn't been for the semi-fog of the flu, he would have seen it earlier. The body of Patricia Mycrant had been found first, a D carved into her thigh. Then Feldt A . But the temperature and condition of the two bodies indicated that Feldt had been the first one murdered, which meant first A and then D. Adam?

Were there going to be four victims? Another A and then an M ? Not enough evidence yet. He could be carving anything into the victims, perhaps his initials, A.D. Or the two letters were the beginning of another word they didn't yet know. It would take another corpse to confirm Mac's suspicion that the next letter would be another A.

The other corpse existed. And the second A was carved into his thigh. The mutilated dead man was Timothy Byrold. His body had just been discovered by Dorrie Clarke, who saw the partly open door to Timothy's apartment and pushed it open farther.

Dorrie had gone down the hall to retrieve a tennis ball she had thrown. Dorrie was six years old.

"Umbrella Man?" asked Flack.

"That's what he calls himself," said Achmed from behind the counter of the Brilliance Deli.

There were no customers. Those who had been there earlier to escape the downpour had all fled when the blood-red rain gushed through the awning. Most of them had hurried into the rain under umbrellas purchased from Dexter the Umbrella Man.

"No name?" Flack pressed. "The Umbrella Man?"

"Dexter," said Achmed.

"And he stepped out on the street?"

"As soon as the bloody rain started to flow through the awning," Achmed said. "Went out there and looked up toward the roof, just stood there looking for a little while like he saw something or someone up there."

"How did he look?" asked Flack.

"Frightened, I think. Then he crossed the street and was gone."

Flack had stepped into the rain a few minutes earlier and looked up at the roof. Dexter the Umbrella Man would have been looking up at the spot where Mac had found evidence that the killer had leaned on the edge of the roof. Dexter the Umbrella Man could have seen the killer.

"And you don't know his last name or where he lives?" Flack asked Achmed.

"No, wait," said Achmed. "I know where he gets the umbrellas. He told me he gets the watches he sells when it isn't raining and the umbrellas when it is from somebody named Alberto, yes, at Alberto's place, I think he said on 101st Street."

"I know the place," said Flack.

His phone beeped.

"We've got another one," said Mac. "I'm on my way there. Find anything?"

"Maybe. Possible someone who saw the perp. And I want another crack at the victim's mother. Something's off about her. I feel it."

"Stay on it," Mac said. "Let me know if something turns up."

"Right," said Flack.

"You all right, Don?"

"Fine. Any news on Hawkes?"

"They're still working on it," Mac said. "I'll call you if I hear anything."

They hung up. Flack had a lot of ground to cover and the rain showed no sign of letting up.

Stella knelt next to the body of Henry Doohan, bartender and owner of what had been Doohan's Bar.

The gun that had killed Doohan had been fired at close range, very close. The entry wound and powder residue indicated to Stella that the gun had almost touched the right temple of the dead man's head. There was a large, rough-edged exit wound. Somewhere among the million or more remnants of the blast was a bullet or what remained of one. Stella would look for it. She might even find it.

She probed the dead man's nose with a swab and pried his mouth open to examine his tongue and throat. The swab would have to be examined microscopically. Stella examined the dead man's hands and took prints and scrapings from his palms. Then she covered the hands with plastic bags.

She was reasonably sure that Doohan had not shot himself. For one thing, there was no weapon near the body. For another, if she calculated the entry angle of the wound correctly, he would have had to hold the gun at an awkward angle and he would have to have been left-handed. The ME could insert a trajectory rod into the wound to confirm the angle of the wound. Doohan's watch was on his left wrist which more than strongly suggested that he was right-handed. That too could be confirmed.

Stella searched with flashlight and hands, reaching into nooks and puddles in search of the bullet. Nothing. She stood up and carefully made her way to the pit no more than two yards away where Hawkes and Custus were trapped. A lone young fireman knelt at the edge of the hole and monitored the pump that dropped down the sides of the pit and out of sight in the darkness.

"Hawkes," she called.

"Yes," Hawkes called back.

"Your cell phone working?"

"Wait…it's working."

"Answer it," she called, punching in his number.

Hawkes's fingers were growing numb. He kept flexing them and changing gloves to keep them warm. He flipped the phone open.

"Hear me?" Stella said.

"I hear," said Hawkes, looking at Custus who was gritting his teeth and grinning.

"What can we do besides keep working to get you out?"

"Morphine. He needs it."

"Morphine?" Stella said to the young fireman.

"I'll get Lieutenant Devlin," he said, rising and moving off.

"Hawkes, we ran the photos and samples back at the lab. Custus is a bomb maker."

"I'm not surprised," said Hawkes.

"IRA," she said. "At least he was. Left Ireland six years ago. The explosive he used to bring down this building was not up to standard IRA quality. This wasn't a terrorist bombing."