Jan Burke - Nine

Once this task was finished, he began to pace-anger and helplessness ruling in one direction, fear and restlessness in the other.

A man looked into the room and said, “‘And, as in uffish thought he stood…’”

Kit nodded.

The man looked at Moriarty with concern.

“He’ll be okay,” Kit said, trying to convince himself.

“Yes, sir, he will.” He left to stand guard outside the door.

Kit turned back to see Moriarty’s eyes open. “Kit?” he said through swollen lips. He looked confused.

Kit hurried over to him. “You’re going to be okay,” he said, with more conviction than he had felt when he had said the same thing to the bodyguard. “You’re at UCLA Medical Center. You were in an accident. But things will be fine now. Don’t worry about anything. Just sleep.”

Moriarty seemed to consider this. Kit could swear he saw the moment when the memories-whatever ones he had of the accident-came back. “Brat?”

Kit had never wanted to be a good liar as much as he wanted to now, but he couldn’t. “Everything will be all right,” he said instead.

Moriarty’s eyes closed, but his face twisted. “My fault.”

“No. You know that isn’t true. If she had been with me and this happened, what would you tell me?”

Moriarty didn’t answer.

“Your team is looking for her. Do you remember anything about the ones you followed?”

He tried. His frustration was evident.

“Moriarty, please-they’ll find her. You shouldn’t get upset like this-it’s not good for you.”

Moriarty was silent for a long time, then he looked at Kit and murmured something.

Kit leaned closer. “I’m sorry-I didn’t understand.”

“John O’Brien.”

Kit was puzzled.

“Brandon.”

He remembered then. “Alex Brandon’s uncle?”

“He’ll help. Tell him I sent you.”

His speech was slurred, but Kit understood it. Moriarty was wearing down now. Kit saw him struggle to keep his eyes open. “Okay, I’ll go to him. Get some sleep now.”

“Jabberwocky…tell O’Brien.”

“He knows it?”

“Taught me.”

“Okay, I’ll recite it to him.” He wondered if Moriarty was confused. If he approached John O’Brien and started reciting nonsensical poetry to him, he thought he might end up in a psych ward. Still, Moriarty had never given him bad advice, and Kit could certainly use help approaching Alex Brandon.

Kit promised to come back later, after Moriarty had been able to get some sleep. He started to go, then he came back to Moriarty’s side. Moriarty’s eyes opened again, but he seemed to have trouble focusing.

Holding on to the bed rail, Kit said, “I know you might have trouble remembering this later, but I’d better warn you anyway-I told them you were my father. I hope that’s not-you know-embarrassing to you.”

Moriarty reached over with his left hand-the one that wasn’t in a cast-and put it lightly on top of Kit’s. “Won’t ever forget. Always proud of you, Kit.”

Forty-five minutes later, Kit was standing on Alex Brandon’s doorstep.

He heard a dog barking and said, “Hello, Rusty.”

The barks turned to whines. Kit heard a gruff voice say, “Some guard dog you are. Who is it?”

“Mr. O’Brien? I’m-I’m a friend of Moriarty’s. He said I should come to you. I need your help.”

John O’Brien opened the door. He watched as Rusty gave Kit an enthusiastic greeting, then said, “I might know someone of that name. I might not. What’s your name?”

“Kit Logan.”

O’Brien’s gaze narrowed.

Kit took a deep breath and said, “‘ ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves…’”

“Everyone knows that part,” O’Brien interrupted, but Kit could see his interest was caught.

“‘One two! One two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.’”

O’Brien looked at Kit, and at the dog, and back at Kit. “What’s Moriarty’s first name?”

“Percy. Short for Percival.”

“Well, I’ll be damned. Come in, boy. Come in.”

LASD Homicide Bureau

Commerce, California

Thursday, May 22, 3:51 P.M.

Alex Brandon watched the viewers’ faces. He had already seen the tape of Knox’s torture and didn’t want to watch it any more often than he would have to-that would be often enough.

The room was silent. He glanced at Ciara-she had walked in during one of the worst portions. He thought she looked a little pale.

Maybe that was from coping with Laney’s troubles this morning, though. He had managed to get enough information out of Ciara to learn that Laney had indeed suffered another seizure and was now hospitalized. When Alex asked Ciara if she wanted to be with her sister instead of at work, she said, “I’ve done all I can for her. Now I’m desperate for distraction.”

He was sure a tape of two men torturing a third was not what she had in mind.

“If any of you want to watch the rest of this,” he said, pressing the stop button, “I’ll make sure you can do so. We don’t know who the torturers are, but neither are similar in stature to either Morgan Addison or Frederick Whitfield IV. So we’ve got two other individuals involved in these killings, and maybe more.”

“That should work in our favor,” Lieutenant Hogan said. “More people involved, more likely that one of them will talk to someone, or confess.”

Silence. Alex, too, was unconvinced that any of the Exterminators would talk.

“We’ve got tattoo specialists who will be comparing the number five on Mr. Majors-or, I should say, Knox-to the work of local tattoo artists and others we have on file. I should mention that there is a possibility he was not killed here in the U.S., however.”

FBI Agent Hayden Moore, who had watched the torture of Knox without so much as wincing, sat up at that. “What do you mean?”

“We’ve had a forensic entomologist look at the grasshoppers that were lodged in Mr. Knox’s mouth and nose. He wants more time to study them, but he is almost positive that they are…” He looked helplessly at the crime lab’s representative to the task force.

“Melanoplus femurrubrum,” he supplied.

“Thanks. It’s a small, red-legged grasshopper found in parts of the Midwest and in Mexico. The grasshoppers found on Knox were roasted and coated in what we are fairly sure is chili powder. That makes Mexico more likely. The entomologist said that in Oaxaca these are commonly caught in communal fields and prepared fresh to be sold in the city each day. A local delicacy called chapulínes. But these must have been caught last summer or fall and kept for some reason-perhaps for this.”

“So someone in Oaxaca was saving grasshoppers, hoping for this creep to show up again?” Ciara asked.

“Maybe ‘expecting’ would be a better word,” Agent Moore said. “We know from the snuff films that several of Knox’s victims were Hispanic. His wife said he had traveled to Mexico, Peru, and Brazil.”

“We’re asking Mexican authorities to help us to discover if anyone matching Knox’s description was in Oaxaca,” Alex said. “Do you have identifications on any of the boys who were his victims?”

“A few,” Moore said. “We’re still working on most of them. I’ll try to find out if any members of the known victims’ families have traveled to Mexico lately. I’ll also ask if the team that has been working on the snuff film cases has any more specific records of Knox’s travel.”

“Thanks,” Alex said.

“When will we have the results of these DNA tests?” the captain asked.

“Our backlog is six months,” the crime lab representative said, to a chorus of groans. “We’ve moved this work up to the front of the list, but it will probably be at least a week before we have anything for you.”