Paul Johnston - Maps of Hell

Simmons smiled softly. “Me, neither. Then again, we haven’t exactly covered ourselves in glory here, have we, Vers?”

“You really think this is one of them?”

“I’m not sure.”

Simmons thought about the male corpse in the tent. He’d been naked when he was found, so the pair of knives in his chest had looked like the obvious cause of death. It hadn’t been until Dr. Gilbert had examined the skull beneath the dead man’s hair that other wounds had been found. The M.E. reckoned that the larger of the two skull fractures would have been lethal. Although it was hard to tell because of the body’s waterlogged condition, she thought that the knives had been inserted postmortem. The time of death was hard to calculate, but Marion Gilbert reckoned the victim had been in the water for at least twenty-four hours, and he had certainly been dead before he went into the river. Her initial evaluation was that the man was in his early forties, in good physical condition and in a profession that demanded substantial exposure to the elements-his hands and face had weathered, probably over the course of many years. The only distinguishing feature on the body was a tattoo on the upper right arm. It showed the Marine Corps insignia and the words Semper Fi.

“Let’s get out of here,” Pinker said, opening the car door. “I’ll tell you what I think.”

“Oh, yeah?” Simmons said, getting in the passenger side.

“Oh, yeah,” his partner mimicked, reversing out onto the road. “That guy wasn’t killed by the occult killer.”

“And your reasoning is?”

“For a start, knives were used instead of skewers. Plus, he hasn’t got a drawing pinned to him.”

Clem Simmons nodded. “True enough. Even if it had been pulled off by the flow of water, there would have been puncture marks.”

“Right. And we kept those collections of shapes out of the public eye. So whoever killed the floater didn’t know about them.”

“Mmm. You could be right. Or maybe the killer just ran out of time.”

“Yeah, sure,” Pinker said, shaking his head. “I’ll tell you something else, Clem. The murderer of the first three is a class act. He didn’t just toss his victims in the river. Why take the risk of being spotted when you’re smart enough to leave no traces?”

The daylight had almost gone. Simmons eyed the lights of central Washington ahead. “You’re forgetting the fingerprints at Monsieur Hexie’s place.”

“Matt Wells’s? They’re a ruse and you know it, man. The Brit isn’t even in the city.”

The big man closed his eyes. “Maybe,” he said, rolling his head on the rest. “But who gives a shit, Vers? We’re off the cases, remember?”

“Screw that,” his partner said, spittle flying from his lips. “Those Bureau assholes will come begging for our help in a day or two.”

Clem Simmons laughed. “Assholes? There was me thinking that you had a soft spot for Princess Maltravers.”

“Kiss my ass, big man. You know brunettes don’t do it for me.”

“I saw the way you’ve been scoping her.”

“Unfortunately it takes two to do the horizontal tango, Clem. She wouldn’t even look me in the eye back there.”

Simmons swallowed a laugh. He reckoned Dana Maltravers might have been warned off by her boss. Not that it mattered anymore. He didn’t trust either agent one little bit.

“Shame about Dr. Gilbert, though,” Pinker said, starting the engine.

“How’s that?”

“We won’t be seeing so much of her. Now, there’s a woman I could go for in a big way.”

This time Simmons didn’t hold back on laughing. “Jesus, Vers. You think you stand any chance with the M.E.? She’s way out of your league, man.”

Pinker shook his head. “See, that’s where you’re wrong, Clem. I’ve always had a good feeling about her.” He looked to the left. Marion Gilbert was heading toward a black SUV, her head down. “You notice a change in her recently?”

“How do you mean?”

Pinker raised a hand at the M.E., but she didn’t respond to the gesture. “I don’t know. She’s looks kinda stressed. Maybe these murders have been getting to her.”

Simmons shook his head emphatically. “You lovesick fool. Dr. Gilbert lives and breathes homicide victims. She’s got formaldehyde in her veins.”

Gerard Pinker pursed his lips as he drove away from the crime scene. Sometimes, he thought, his partner was surprisingly unperceptive.

The blonde woman was lying on the bed and looking out of the window. Her eyes were wide as she took in the trees beyond the high fence and the mist rolling down them. It made her think of a wispy summer dress, but she couldn’t remember ever wearing such a thing. She couldn’t remember much about herself at all. All she knew was that she was in hospital, the doctor had told her so this morning. After he’d gone, the friendly nurse had said she was doing very well and that her treatment was almost finished. But when she had asked what she was being treated for, the nurse had just smiled and said the doctor would explain everything soon.

The next person who came into the room wasn’t a doctor, though. She was dressed in a gray uniform with shiny black boots, and she wasn’t like the nurse-she was stern. Her brown hair pulled back from her face in a tight grip, and she didn’t smile once. She handed the blonde woman a file and told her to study everything in it. After she’d gone, the woman looked at the photograph and read about the man depicted in it. There was a lot of detail-where he lived, what he did when he wasn’t working, his family. Then there was a separate section about his work. The blonde woman read the words and committed them to her memory, but she didn’t understand all of them. They were written in her native language, but the writing was hard to follow in parts.

When the doctor finally came back, his questions made her even sleepier. He asked her for her name, her date and place of birth, her parents’ names and what she did. Her mind was completely blank and she couldn’t answer any of the questions. For some reason, she didn’t find that in the least upsetting.

Trucker Bo dropped me on the outskirts of Baltimore. The only money I had was a few dollars I’d got in change when Mary and I had stopped at a gas station-she had given me cash for gas when she went to the washroom. I had to assume the rail and bus stations in Washington would be being watched.

So I stuck my thumb out again. This time it took me longer to get a ride, but eventually a young man in a cargo van stopped. He was going to D.C. with a load of bathroom tiles for a house in Kalorama Heights. I played the Canadian tourist again and got him to explain where that was. My memory was playing games with me again-I had no recollection of where in D.C. my friend Joe Greenbaum lived.

The radio was playing and a news bulletin came on not long after I’d got in. I wondered if my name was going to come up, but the news was all local and the shoot-out at the motel in New York wasn’t mentioned. I found out more about the latest news on the occult killings.

“Good old D.C.,” the driver said, glancing at me and smiling wryly. “You get much of that kind of thing back home?”

I had a flash of the White Devil and the Soul Collector. “No,” I lied. “It’s pretty quiet where I come from…in Ontario.”

“Well, it sure ain’t been where we’re heading.” He laughed and lit a cigarette. “Go, you Redskins, go.”

I tried to make sense of what was coming from the battered speakers. It seemed that a body had been found in a river, and there was evidence to connect the unidentified male Caucasian to the previous murders. My name didn’t come up. Then I heard that the FBI had taken over the investigation. That was not good news.