The woman’s cheery voice seemed filtered through distance.
“Hello, Mr Kern? This is Miss Barstow again. Are you comfortable? Yes, it’s a lovely place. I’m calling about our little proceedings? Your special viewing of the materials will be in just a few minutes…”
The voice got louder. Whatever had taken me down, I was coming out fast; not a gunshot or head trauma. A white ceiling resolved into view. My chest burned, and I looked down at red pinholes in my shirt.
Stun-gun pricks.
I’d been zapped senseless with one of the new major-voltage weapons, like mainlining 50,000 volts. A few inches down and to my sides were my hands, a dozen inches apart, multiple strands of heavy gauge picturehanging wire between them, strands looping both wrists. I wiggled my fingers, but my elbows had been drawn behind my back and locked in concrete. My back and shoulders ached.
I looked to my side and saw the business end of a broom, handle on my other side. Why was I lying on a broom?
I tried to roll to sitting position, but couldn’t, something held my back flat on the floor. I blinked at the broom until things made sense. The handle had been placed in the crooks of my arms before my hands were secured, drawing the damned thing tight against my back.
I grunted my feet up a few inches, saw my ankles secured with more wire. Though my bindings had taken minimum effort, they yielded almost total immobilization. The woman’s chipper voice continued.
“I’ll drop by in a few minutes, take you to the viewing site. I agree, Mr Kern, an exciting day. Rubin will provide instructions on auction procedures, he’s looking forward to meeting you…”
Lydia sat at the counter dividing the kitchen from a small dining alcove. She’d changed into a white silken blouse, pressed denim jeans and running shoes, perfect for blending into the upscale beach scene. Her shape was far more impressive than the sack-shaped work dresses had revealed. She spoke in a distinctly un-Lydia voice, charming and musical and oh-so-southern, holding just a smidgeon of command - a business belle.
“Casual dress is just fine, Mr Kern. Rubin’s wearing shorts. But he’s been out in the heat today, making sure everyone’s prepared for the event. See you soon.”
Lydia hung up the wall-mounted phone. Seeing my open eyes, she smiled like we were old friends. “You believe that idiot, Ryder? He wanted to know if the auction was formal.” She smiled mischievously. “Should I call him back, tell him to wear a tux?”
“It’s all fake,” I said. “Everything.”
“The money is as real as real gets. And speaking of money, it’s time to make a withdrawal.” Lydia stood. She’d lost the slouch, the frumpiness, the aura of dejection. This version moved like a leopard. She stripped duct tape from the roll, covered my mouth, then disappeared out the door. My scream produced a muffled hum that wouldn’t carry to the deck.
I tried to roll and discovered the broom prevented it. I threw my heels a few inches to the side and pulled, but that only pivoted me around the axis of my pinioned back. I gave up after a few minutes of spinning like a faulty compass, finding no direction save lost.
Lydia returned in twenty minutes by the wall clock, another suitcase in her hand. “Thanks for lending me your truck,” she said, shaking my keys at me. “Sorry I left it a couple streets away.”
I shut my eyes; anyone coming to my house would think I was gone. Lydia’s foot gave me a nudge. “Behave and I’ll pull the tape back.”
I nodded and she peeled tape from my lips. I looked at the most-recent suitcase. “What was the take, Lydia?”
She pushed the suitcase to its side, opened it, tilted it my way. I saw ranks of banded bills. “Mr Kern brought one point one million. Mrs Birchman a flat mill. Mr Carothers brought nine hundred thousand. Mr and Mrs Dalesandro brought seven hundred grand in bills, another hundred in Kruggerands.” Lydia winked. “Two more bidders to visit and my retirement fund will be fully vested.”
“Five or six million for you and Coyle. Speaking of our mystery man, when will he be here?”
A sly smile came to Lydia’s face. She walked into the kitchen and out of sight. I heard knocking. Was Coyle in the Martins’ laundry closet?
“Rubin? Honey? It’s OK to come out now. Detective Ryder’s in the living room. He’d like to meet you.”
I saw her from profile as she rounded the corner. I couldn’t understand why she’d donned Dorie Martin’s oven mitts to carry a gray cooking crock. Lydia turned to me. Not a cooking crock: between the mitts was a frozen head.
Rubin Coyle stared at me.
“Say hello to Rubin, Detective Ryder.” She dropped Coyle’s head to the floor, set her foot on his face and pushed. The frozen head slid like a curling stone and stopped against my leg. I jerked away from its icy touch. Lydia returned to the kitchen, stripped off the mitts. She picked up the wall phone, dialed.
“Hello, Mr Barncamp? This is Miss Barstow. Ready for today’s activities? Wonderful! Your special viewing of the art will be in two hours. You’ve seen the authentication materials - the articles from the press, the videotape of the detective specialist? Expert testimony, Mr Barncamp, like we promised…”
She looked at me and winked, then returned to her phone duties. I studied the ceiling and listened to Lydia manipulate her quarry with assured, perfect lies, the kind of manipulation that had drawn Harry and me into the case, set us on the trail of Rubin Coyle. Employing little more than drab clothes and demeanor, worried eyes, and a weary, vulnerable posture, Lydia Barstow had moved us like chess pawns.
I glanced at the frozen visage of Rubin Coyle, eyes wide at what must have been the terror of his final moment. Had she struck from behind, as with Borg? Or smiled into his eyes as the death-blow arrived? From the front with Coyle, I suspected. Borg was an employee, Coyle a player. The entrance with the head told me Lydia had the horrific, gleeful sort of sociopathy that needed to let Coyle know he was about to die; to see it in his eyes.
I considered how she must have studied the structure of the Mobile Police Department, discovered how and when the PSIT was activated. She manipulated it with dexterity, gamed the rules.
She’d claimed to be in her late forties, but cosmetic surgery is almost a drive-through-window commodity today. I now figured her for the mid fifties. She was a superb actress. She seemed fearless. She manipulated people through an uncanny instinct about their needs and desires. I could smell a hunger rising from her - for money, for power, for the game.
Invisible lines grew bright in the dark, and I started to put it together. By any rational notion, the thought forming in my brain was an impossibility, but my gut had the edge, and I knew what it told me was true.
Lydia Barstow was, or had been, Calypso.