Paul Johnston - Maps of Hell

Owen glanced at his notebook. “Patrolmen were called by a neighbor who heard a scream from the vic’s apartment on the top floor. He looked through his peephole and saw a figure in a hooded jacket come down the stairs-didn’t see the face. The call was logged at 8:26 p.m. Our heroic citizen stayed behind his locked door. He says he didn’t look down at the street.”

“Can’t blame him for prioritizing his own skin,” Simmons said. “You ready?”

Pinker nodded. The pair headed into the building.

“Check out the buzzer panel,” Owen called. “Second button from the top.”

“Crystal Vileda,” Pinker read. “Diviner.” He looked at his partner. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Means she read the future,” Simmons said, walking into a hallway that had once been elegant but was now very shabby.

“Oh, yeah? Unless she had a death wish, she couldn’t have been much good.”

Clem Simmons shook his head. Sometimes he found Vers too much.

A CSI was working at the elevator, so they walked up to the fourth floor. The house was narrow, one apartment per level. The door at the top was open, another technician dusting the panels for prints. They went inside, stepping around a CSI who was on her knees, examining the rug.

“Gentlemen,” said Dr. Marian Gilbert, stepping back from a large armchair. Her face was flushed. “I was wondering where you’d got to.”

“Jesus,” Pinker said involuntarily.

The detectives took in the naked body sprawled across the chair, arms wide and legs sprawling. The woman was white, though olive-skinned. She looked to be in her thirties and was in good physical condition. Pinker was reminded of poses taken by women in porn movies-except they didn’t usually have chopsticks projecting from their nostrils.

“Quite,” the M.E. said, glancing at the police photographer. “Are you done?”

The man nodded and stepped back.

“What do you see, Doc?” Simmons asked. He was trying to resist the temptation to throw his coat over the victim-he felt ashamed to be looking at her in such an exposed state.

“I see a very unusual cadaver,” Marion Gilbert replied. “I-”

“Are those chopsticks?” Pinker interrupted.

She nodded.

“Are they the cause of death?” Simmons asked.

“I don’t see any other.” She pointed to broken skin on the left temple. “I doubt that blow would have done more than knock her out briefly. Assuming the chopsticks penetrated the brain, they would certainly have caused major trauma. I think they’re ivory, which is strong enough to do the job. I suspect they were sharpened to ease penetration.”

Pinker groaned. “Thanks for that, Doc.” He looked at his partner. “Two murder weapons like the others…but not skewers.”

Clem Simmons nodded. “And no paper with drawings on it. We need to turn her over.”

Marion Gilbert nodded to her assistants and they slowly turned the victim onto her front, keeping her face off the chair.

“No diagram there, either,” Pinker said, exhaling rapidly. “With the change in murder weapons, that gives us a chance of keeping the case.”

The M.E. looked at him and then shook her head. “I rather doubt that, Detective.” She pointed to the table at the far end of the room.

The two men went over. There was a pile of cards at one corner. They were larger than the ordinary playing kind. In the center were three more, arranged in a row, and next to them, in a clear plastic sheath, was a piece of paper. An array of squares and rectangles had been drawn on it in black ink.

“Shit,” said Pinker. “More squares and rectangles.”

“I’m guessing the killer didn’t waste time attaching this to the vic after she screamed,” Simmons said. He bent closer and took in the tarot cards. “Death, the Devil and the Seven of Swords.”

Gerard Pinker squinted at the garishly colored and grotesque illustrations. “You know what they mean, Clem?”

“Not really,” his partner said. “The Devil and Death are obvious enough.”

“Actually, they aren’t.”

The men turned to find that Dr. Gilbert had joined them.

“Tarot is a hobby of mine,” she said, smiling briefly. “The Devil may appear to fit the pattern of the occult murders, but the card actually has more to do with the subject being bound by fear and temptation, by material things or addictive behavior. Negative thinking is in there, too.”

“There’s nothing more negative than being murdered,” Pinker interposed.

The M.E. shook her head. “No, that isn’t it. I think this shows that the killer is rather ignorant of the tarot.” She paused. “Assuming it was the killer who arranged the cards, of course. The victim might have laid them out before her death.”

Simmons was watching the M.E. curiously. “What about the other cards?”

Marion Gilbert pointed at the skeletal horseman. “Death has to do with change, with new beginnings as much as with endings. As for the Seven of Swords, that suggests…could suggest greater knowledge on the part of the killer. The hooded man running off with the swords represents deception and subterfuge.”

“Plenty of that around here lately,” Pinker said. He looked at his partner. “So what are we saying happened here? The murderer hit the vic on the head and, while she was unconscious, arranged the cards?”

Simmons raised his shoulders. “Could be. Then Ms. Vileda came round and screamed before he could stop her. He left the diagram here and went to kill her, then ran out.” He looked back at the dead woman. The M.E.’s people had put her on her back again, and the chopsticks protruded from her face like a pair of ill-fitting teeth.

Just then, Peter Sebastian walked into the apartment wearing a white protective suit, its hood over his head. Dana Maltravers was behind him in a matching outfit.

“Aw, hell,” Pinker said, only partially muffling his voice. “Dickhead and Princess on parade.”

I went to the Woodbridge Holdings office, but I only walked past, making sure I didn’t attract attention. I wanted to take a look at the enemy’s lair-not that I knew who the enemy was exactly. I was planning to do some research into that. Then my cell vibrated against my thigh.

There was a text from Joe: “New occult murder reported. Watch yourself!”

That took the wind from my sails. Presumably Clem Simmons or some contact in the FBI had let him know. I wondered if there would be any evidence linking me to the murder this time. I had to move things along. That took me back to Karen. The case notes she’d brought from London were either with the FBI or had been returned to her office, so there was no accessing them. That left me with one option-the Internet.

I headed for Union Station and found a cafe. I bought a large coffee then I sat with my head in my hands, trying to concentrate. There was information in the depths of my memory-I was sure of that-but it wasn’t obliging right now.

I went back over the events since I’d escaped from the camp in Maine. What hadn’t I followed up? I remembered the underground building, the violence, the armed men and women in gray…and there it was-they had worn badges bearing the letters NANR. I had asked one of my pursuers what they stood for. What was the reply? It came back to me after some thought. North American National Revival. I typed the words into a search engine.

Thanks to the glorious lack of censorship on the Web, I found the organization in seconds. The problem was, the North American National Revival seemed to have nothing to do with anything in Maine. Its headquarters were in Butte, Montana, and its manifesto, riddled with spelling and grammatical mistakes, didn’t seem particularly offensive-it called for reductions in federal taxes, a halt to immigration, especially from Mexico, and more teaching of traditional Christian beliefs in schools and colleges. There was nothing overtly anti-government, and certainly no references to an armed wing or camps ringed with barbed wire. Then again, they would hardly have mentioned those in public. I went back to the site’s home page and clicked on “Local Centers.” Glory be-there was an address in Washington, D.C. I wrote it down and then logged on to a city map. I found that the location on Q Street was close to Dupont Circle Metro station. It was well into the evening and the office would probably be closed, but I decided to check it out all the same.