Gina saw him first, through the dining room’s bay window. Actually she saw smoke, wafting by in a relaxed, almost sensuous trail that led to a burning, stick-like bundle being waved in slow circles by a meaty hand as it disappeared around the front exterior wall. “Someone’s here.”
Gunner smelled the air coming in the open window. “Yeah, that’s him.”
Ross entered, casually waving the small burning bundle, long strands of sage bound together at one end by thin, white string. About five foot ten, medium build, with the walk of a retired athlete, Ross had an elfin face framed by gray hair and an almost white beard. A bandana covered the top of his head. Bright blue eyes smiled out from under bushy eyebrows. A faded blue flannel shirt hung open over a well-worn T-shirt featuring an eagle flying over a gorgeous mountain. His jeans were loose-fitting, faded. Worn, comfortable moccasins covered his feet. He hugged Mallory, nodded to Gunner, bowed a bit to Gina, those arctic blue eyes glimmering. “Hey Gina, long time,” he smiled.
He continued slowly waving the sage, spreading a cloud of vaguely sweet-smelling smoke wherever he went. “We should open a few windows, let them out,” he spoke quietly.
Gunner followed him around, curious. “Who? Demons?”
“The guy who invaded our home is no demon, he’s a psychopath,” Mallory snapped.
Ross kept waving the smoking bundle of dried leaves casually. “Neither label matters, Bo; the path is the same.”
Gunner stood before Ross, raised his arms level with his shoulders. Ross began to “sage” him, waving smoke all around the large detective. “This guy is striking out at you from whatever darkness he’s immersed himself in; possession, psychosis, whatever.” He did the same to Mallory, then to Gina, who, though confused, mimicked what the detectives had done. “Just cleansing your spirit, Gina, making sure nothing has attached itself,” he whispered to her. “Good to see you again.” His smile seemed to hold delightful secrets. He spoke to the detectives. “Rather than debate the source of his actions, what we need to do is stop him from hurting anyone else.”
Mallory shrugged. “Any ideas about how are we going to do that?”
“Can’t say until I know what you know; tell me everything.”
Gina finally agreed to call in sick for herself and the boys, and decided to let them sleep awhile more. But she could not sit still, appearing occasionally with more coffee and tea, adding toast, eggs and bacon during the second round. Otherwise she stayed out of sight, though Mallory could hear her cleaning incessantly.
Mallory, Gunner and Ross sat around the cards. To the latest batch they added copies of all the material from the earlier crime scenes, now spread across the family dinner table. It was chilling to see murder descriptions lying where the fellas’ birthday cakes usually sat.
Mallory arranged the cards in order, not chronologically, but by using Bryan Joseph’s Dante’s Inferno map. The murders formed a clear, vividly detailed pattern now. “So, he’s playing out Dante’s journey…”
Ross eyed the cards. “Interesting choice. You gotta remember that Dante’s journey was one of personal redemption. He went through Hell to get to heaven.”
Gunner slurped some coffee, put down the I-heart-Mom mug. “Our guy thinks all this will get him into heaven? He’s killing people.”
Ross shrugged. “Maybe he sees this as a cleansing act. Doing wrong for the greater good; ridding the world of sin, symbolically at least.”
“Oh, he’s a hero now?” Gunner quipped.
Mallory tilted his head, made a face. “In his mind he probably is. Have we ever arrested anybody who thought they had done wrong? Not even in history; look at Hitler. But here’s what I’m trying to figure out: is this guy playing Dante’s role or is he acting out as one of the supposed demons?”
Ross patted his hand on the table. “You’re getting way ahead of me here. Let’s start from the first murder and work our way through.”
By including the Daily News photo of Will’s parents, the detectives were able to reconstruct their suspect’s version of Dante’s first five levels of Hell.
“If we go by Dante structure of Hell, this explains why Will wasn’t assigned a Roman numeral,” Mallory offered. “He didn’t even merit a level, according to this. Our guy wrote on the first set of cards that Will was ‘pre-level,’ which could be interpreted as…” he scanned Bryan’s notes a moment, then continued, “‘…uncommitted, willing to pursue whatever looks good at the moment.’ That fits Will’s bottle toss well enough. From our suspect’s point-of-view Will betrayed The Who, chasing momentary glory. For that he got thrown not into Hell proper but into the ‘vestibule’ of Hell.”
Gunner chuckled. “Is there a foyer of Hell, too? A breakfast nook of Hell?”
“Dante’s term, not our guy’s. But you know what? The vestibule was where opportunists are punished, in the dark, never getting anywhere, stung by insects, running after a red flag through blood, puss, maggots, all outside the gates of Hell. Remember that first murder scene?”
Gunner nodded, turned to Ross. “We found the victim outside a gated subway entrance way uptown.”
Mallory nodded. “I checked; it’s the northern-most subway entrance in Manhattan. That gate, if it was open, would’ve serviced the downtown train, which could be viewed as a descent through the underworld. Also, there were vermin all over Will, and the bloody T-shirt blown by the subway breeze was a red flag of sorts waving overhead. All of that matches the description of the vestibule of Hell given in Bryan’s notes. Our guy must’ve been paying attention when Bryan described it to him.”
“Or our guy actually is Bryan,” Gunner countered, “or our friendly neighborhood priest. Come on, Mal, are you telling me this wackado gave our guy a packet of Dante information like he did for us? What’s he do, carry spare copies around?”
“Hold on a minute,” Mallory reached for Bryan’s reconstructed notes, the thicker package that had been tacked up in his bedroom. “Bryan had more information on his talk with the guy next to him in this set, anyone could have heard him. Here it is. He writes that his new friend didn’t understand, so he explained the vestibule of Hell: look, he’s got vermin, the red flag, everything.”
Ross raised his bushy salt-and-pepper eyebrows. “Your boy Bryan gave this guy his first scenario. Impressive that he was able to use it so quickly.”
Gunner nodded. “Or he gave a potential witness a description of his first planned murder, set himself up as the fall guy, acted all Rain Man at the station, building his alibi. We’ll wrestle with that later. What about Will’s parents?”
Mallory read the notes for Level One, looked at the news photo, returned to the notes. After a minute, out came a familiar “hnnh.”
“What?” Gunner asked.
“A stretch, but I see what he means. Level One is Limbo, where the ‘virtuous pagans’ — good people who are not given salvation because they worshipped the wrong gods — exist in longing, waiting to be freed from their meaningless existence.”
Gunner leaned back, frowned. “Will’s parents are virtuous pagans?”
“Your guy is expressing sympathy for them,” Ross said.
Gunner shook his head. “If he feels so bad for them, why put them into Limbo?”
Mallory hesitated. “That’s where I’d be if anyone murdered a child of mine.”
Gunner’s eyes immediately swung across the dining room, to framed black-and-white photos of the kids, including his favorite, a close-up of Max at about a year old, climbing up his knee, hair wild from the August heat, eyes enormous, smiling directly into the camera. “I’d be right there witcha, brother. Right there.”
“Level Two—”
Ross grunted a deep, humorless chuckle. “The lustful. Probably wasn’t hard to find potential victims for this one. We’ve all spent time there.”
Gunner spread crime scene photos onto the table. “Mr. and Mrs. Carnal Knowledge found in the freezing hotel room; fairly easy one there, even though I don’t understand all the positioning.”
“Symbolism,” Mallory said.
Ross leaned over the cards. “What symbolism?”
Mallory showed him the cards, then handed him a police report describing the arrangements of the bodies, the glued fingers, tattered clothes flapping in the air conditioner-produced winds.
Ross studied the photos, read the short report, glanced at the photos again, then looked up. “Your boy made a mistake.”
Mallory scanned the report. “Where?”
“Here he’s portraying Paolo and Francesa, whom Dante called down from their punishment in that level of Hell and spoke to briefly.”
Gunner made a face. “Who are they?”
“Dante included Italian politicians, mythical characters, historical figures into The Inferno, including these two. Around 1250, 1275 or so, this deformed warrior, Giovanni the Lame — no really, that was his name — was given Francesa in marriage for political reasons. But Francesa didn’t love Giovanni, she was hot for his younger brother Paolo, even though Paolo was married and had a few daughters. They had a secret affair until the day Giovanni found them in the sack, and killed them both right then and there. For giving in to lust over loyalty to their sacred vows, these two joined the lustful, who are buffeted about by horrendous winds, forever passing each other, but eternally unable to touch, to comfort, to make contact with the source of their passionate sins.”
“That’s fucked up,” Gunner admitted.
“We are talking about Hell,” Ross shrugged. “Fucked up is their business.”
“You said they were ‘eternally unable to touch.’ So gluing their fingers together was our guy’s mistake; tells us he’s not as well-versed in Dante as he thinks. He is just a man,” Mallory said.
Gunner raised an index finger. “Or he wants us to think that he’s not.”
“Or he could be a guy who fucked up here,” Ross interrupted. “Doesn’t matter. Let’s keep looking at the big picture. We can split hairs on this later.”
Mallory continued. “Then we have the gluttons, Level Three. But why did he pick our pal Mr. Hanky? That guy was rail thin.”
Gunner pressed his thumb against his fingers, aimed them up, then shook them at Mallory, Bronx-Italian sign language for ‘don’t be stupid.’ “A little respect, will ya? It’s Hanky Man. And I’ve got a theory on this one, but it’s giving me the willies.”
Mallory nodded, took a sip of quickly cooling tea from his huge Yankees mug.
“If our guy caught any of Hanky’s act, even in passing while we walked from the garage to his office, it would have been easy to see what he was all about: this guy loved procedure, reputation, etiquette, the bureaucracy of the hotel, the elite power structure, the exclusiveness. He lived for all that happy horseshit.”
Ross spoke. “Did he flaunt his position?”
“Always.”
Mallory added, “He couldn’t get enough of it. Hanky Man was—”
“A glutton for it.” Gunner showed Ross the relevant cards and paper work, recounted that murder scene. “So, our guy gave him more than he could handle. You could say he was buried in his work.”
“Ouch. Your puns are showing.” Mallory pointed to Whitfield’s cards. “So Whitfield becomes Level Four; the avaricious. Everything we heard supports his being a rich, greedy, nasty monster. So, home run on that. Which brings us to… us; Level Five, the angry and the sullen.”
“Bastard made us into both,” Gunner sneered. “Angry at getting fired upon, sullen over being played for suckers.”
Mallory reviewed for Ross the details of the hotel room shooting, the fire alarm, the subsequent chaos.
Gunner fumed. “And he pulls the whole reverse pickpocket move on the Lieu not only to make sure we know, but to make sure that we know he knows we know.”
Mallory reviewed the notes on Level Five. “This guy had his plan down, I’ll give him that much. Says here Level Five’s punishment is ‘attacking each other’. He fired on us while wearing a fellow officer’s uniform.”
“It’s like he has all the time he needs to script everything out,” Gunner said, then downed the last of his coffee. “How can that be?”
Ross nodded, smirking. “That’s exactly his point. He’s finding out perfect examples easily. What’s that tell you?”
Gunner shrugged. “That his luck has been freaky.”
“Luck is not what this guy’s about,” Mallory frowned. “He’s saying to us that it’s so bad out there he can find examples for any level of sin he wants almost anywhere he looks.” He paused. “The bastard’s got a point.”
“Say something like that again, I’m gonna arrest your ass.” Gunner gave his partner a quick frown. “He might be losing his edge, though. Level Six was less well thought out. Maybe he’s running out of ideas.”
“I disagree.” Ross was comparing the copy of Bryan’s Dante notes to the copy of the index card the Lieu found in his pocket. “I think he actually got better with Level Six. When the detectives stared at him, he met their eyes with his own steady, brilliant blue gaze. “You have yesterday’s Daily News? I’ll show you.”
Mallory rescued the paper from the paper recycling bin in the garage. Ross flipped through the pages until he found the fourth page of coverage on the hotel chaos. Three columns wide and taking up the top third of the page, a ghostly picture showed shadowy hotel patrons standing in the street. Many of the faces were lit by the glow of cigarettes, others lit partially from nearby neon. Other details included one woman clearly dressed in lingerie, another whose ample cleavage was completely on display. Others wore thick furs. One older guy huddled in a tight circle with two semi-dressed, much younger beauties, all holding martini glasses.
“According to Bryan, Level Six is populated by heretics, those who commit to beliefs denounced by the church. You can see examples of people that fit such a description in this photo. In The Inferno these lost souls are encased in burning tombs.” He held the picture up to them, pointing to the cigarette glow, the encircling smoke. “Then, this guy threw Molotov cocktails down on these people, right? How many?”
Mallory consulted a Xeroxed police report, found what he needed. “Hnnh,” he grunted, looked at Ross. “Six.”
“More burning tombs. He is finding his symbols everywhere he looks.”
Gunner stared into his empty coffee mug. “We’re gonna need more caffeine.”