Stuart Kaminsky - Blood On The Sun

Wearing latex gloves, Mac lifted the shoe and saw the blood. He bagged the shoe and put it in his kit.

Mac had a few ideas. Some were simple, some- one in particular- were bizarre, but he had dealt with more than the bizarre before.

There were at least six linden trees in the area Mac covered. He had examined leaves from beneath some of them. Most of them had the edges gnawed off or an irregularly shaped hole in the middle of the leaf. It didn't take much searching to find silken threads on the trees and then cankerworm larvae on the still-living leaves of the linden tree.

Magnified 120 times and focused, the leaves revealed two secrets.

There was one small bite mark at the edge of one leaf near the stem. There was also a trace of something else, something white and pulpy. Mac increased the magnification until he was convinced the small white dot was animal material, almost certainly from a dead caterpillar very much like the one he had found on the linden leaf in Jacob Vorhees' room.

Back in his office, Mac checked his watch. He had a busy morning ahead. He sat back in his office chair and looked down at the two items on his desk, the fragment of leaf and a credit card printout, items related to the murder of the Vorhees family.

When Danny came through the door holding a folder and a book, Mac didn't look at his hand or ask him any questions about his session with Sheila Hellyer. Instead he asked, "What do we know about Kyle Shelton?"

Danny opened the folder and scanned the report. He already knew what was in it.

"Age twenty-five, degree from City University of New York, in philosophy. Did three years in the marines, enlisted. Served on the Iraq-Syria border. Purple heart. Punctured spleen from a mine. Got out, took a job delivering flowers. Had a fight in a bar on the Lower East Side, The Red Lamp Lounge. Some guy, a little drunk maybe, got in Shelton's face about Middle East policy. Shelton shut him up by breaking the guy's jaw with one punch. Shelton spent three months at Riker's and then got a hearing and was given probation. And last, but maybe not least, our fleeing Beast wrote a book, War and Rationalization. Published by a respectable small press. Got a short favorable review in the Times on a Tuesday. The book didn't sell, only two thousand copies."

Danny handed Mac a copy of the thin book. Mac opened it to the inside back flap and saw the face of a serious young man looking back over his shoulder at the camera.

Early that morning, before he went to the woods just before the sun rose, Mac, warrant in hand, had gone to Shelton's studio apartment in a gray, uninviting prewar stone building. He had found lots of Shelton's prints. He felt certain they matched the bloody ones at the Vorhees house.

Shelton's room was clean, dominated by a gleaming all-purpose exercise machine. One solid dark wood bookcase was filled with books, mostly about philosophy and psychology: Jung, Freud, Nietzsche, Sartre, some names Mac didn't recognize. The bottom shelf was filled with CDs. Shelton's taste, like Mac's, ran to the Baroque: Bach, Vivaldi, Hayden, Mozart. There was a slightly faded futon against the wall across from two windows, which had recently been cleaned. A heavy dark wood chest with six drawers rested against the wall. A round well-polished wooden table with two metal folding chairs stood next to the refrigerator and built-in pantry. A small desk with a chair stood against the last wall. A computer, slightly past its prime, sat on the desk. Mac checked the computer files and e-mail.

The Beast was a puzzle. He received and sent e-mails about the need for a massive movement to send troops or mercenaries into lawless African countries. He was ready to go fully armed and ready to kill if a mercenary army could be organized. He also received and sent e-mails about children starving and dying in third world countries, and abuse of children in all countries. Some of the e-mails were clearly written in a rage. In all of his e-mails, Shelton quoted philosophers, novelists, poets and psychiatrists.

There had been no copy of Kyle Shelton's own book in his apartment.

"So," said Mac. "Shelton is smart."

"Looks that way," said Danny.

Mac looked at the credit card printout on his desk and said, "If he's so smart, why did he use his Visa card for gas a few hours ago in New Jersey?"

"No cash?" Danny guessed.

"He could have gotten cash from an ATM in Manhattan," said Mac.

"He wants us to know he was in New Jersey," said Danny. "He wants us to think he's running west or north. Or he could also be doubling back and heading south."

Mac nodded his agreement, his eyes on the credit card statement.

"My guess is that he's on the way back here," said Mac. "Probably here already. There's something he has left to do."

When Danny left, Mac removed the leaf from the sealed see-through bag and twirled it by the stem.

You have something important to tell me, Mac thought. But what?

A second check of the Vorhees neighborhood turned up a single linden tree in the backyard of Bob and Shirley Straus.

Mac found the Strauses, who were in their early sixties, wearing shorts, broad-brimmed hats and loose-fitting long-sleeved shirts as they worked in their garden. The Strauses knew the Vorhees family casually, but they had never visited each other's homes or belonged to the same church or club. Bob Straus, who wiped his sweating neck with a red bandana, assumed the Vorhees' were Republicans, but he didn't know where he had gotten the idea. Had any of the Vorhees family been in the Straus backyard? Both Bob and Shirley said it was possible, but they didn't think so. No reason for them to.

Mac had walked over to the linden tree and picked a leaf up off the ground. It was a good match for the one he had taken from Jacob Vorhees' bedroom.

"We're going to save that tree," said Bob, pointing a trowel at the trunk.

"Inchworm infestation," Shirley said, pushing back the brim of her hat so she could get a better look at Mac. "Late in the year for it, too. Thank God it hasn't gotten to this neighborhood, but if it does come, we'll be ready for them."

To Mac she sounded like a feisty character from a horror movie saying she and Bob would be prepared when the zombies came ambling down the street.

"Think the worms will miss us," said Bob. "They only live a few weeks."

"And then there's something else," said Shirley.

Bob nodded in agreement and said, "Mites. But we've kept them from touching our trees.

"Trade-off," Bob continued, returning the bandana to his pocket. "We use chemicals. Maybe add a little pollution into the ground and air, but if we didn't, it would be the end of our trees."

When Mac turned to leave, Shirley Straus said, "Detective?"

Mac turned back to look at her.

"The boy," she said. "Jacob. Is he…?"

"We don't know yet," said Mac.

"I can't…" she began.

Before she could cry, her husband was at her side, one arm around her shoulder.

"We have two boys, men now," said Bob Straus. "Can't imagine what it would be like… I hope he's alive."

His wife nodded in agreement, holding back tears.

"We'll find him," said Mac.

He didn't say whether he expected to find the boy dead or alive. Mac thanked them and drove back to the lab.

Arvin Bloom's furniture shop on Eighty-second Street just off of Second Avenue was small, but in a good location near dozens of antique shops, many specializing in furniture.

When Stella, Flack and Aiden entered, they could hear a soft buzzer sound in the rear of the shop and they could smell the mixture of new and old wood.

The shop was packed with furniture, large armoires, dressing tables, desks, a few ornate lamps and four huge crystal chandeliers overhead.