Her radio crackled. “Patrol Four Eight Seven Eight. Gap in the fence in the back, K. A local outside said he saw white male, heavyset, beard, exit five minutes ago, running. Bag or backpack. Didn’t see where he went or if he had wheels.”
“K,” Sachs whispered. “Call it in to the local precinct and ESU. Anyone in the back of the building? Source of fire?”
No one answered. But another officer radioed that the fire department had just arrived and were through the chain link.
Sachs and her colleagues continued up the dogleg of a corridor. Keep going, keep going, she told herself, breathing hard.
They were almost to the back of the wing. Ahead of them was a door. It wasn’t as intimidating or impenetrable as she’d expected: just a standard wooden one and actually slightly ajar. Yet still there was no smoke, which meant there had to be another room, on the other side of this portal, sealed up, where the victim would be.
Sprinting now, Sachs ran through the doorway, pushing forward fast to find the chamber that was in flames.
And, with a breathtaking thud, she slammed directly into Robert Ellis, knocking him off the wooden box. He screamed in terror.
“Jesus Lord,” she cried. Then to her backup: “In here, fast!”
She clutched Ellis around the waist and lifted hard to keep the pressure of the noose off his neck. Damn, he was heavy.
While Wilkes covered them once more—there was no certainty that the fleeing man was the perp or, if he was, that he was operating alone—Sachs and the other officer lifted Ellis up; Alonzo worked the noose off and pulled the blindfold from his eyes, which scanned the room frantically, like a terrified animal’s.
Ellis was choking and sobbing. “Thank you, thank you! God, I was going to die!”
She looked around her. No fire. Here or in an adjacent room. What the hell was going on?
“You wounded, hurt?” She helped him ease to the floor.
“He was going to hang me! Christ. Who is he?” His voice was groggy.
She repeated the question.
“I don’t know. Not bad, I guess. My throat hurts. He dragged me around with a fucking noose around my neck. But I’m all right.”
“Do you know where he went?”
“No. I couldn’t see. He was in the other room, I think. That’s what it sounded like. I was blindfolded most of the time.”
Her radio clattered. “Portable Seven Three Eight One. Detective Sachs, K?” A woman’s voice.
“Go ahead.”
“We’re in the back of the building. The fire’s here. It’s in an oil drum. Looks like he set it to burn up the evidence. Electronic stuff, papers, cloth. Gone.”
Pulling on gloves, Sachs removed the duct tape binding Ellis’s hands and feet. “Can you walk, Mr. Ellis? I want to clear the room here and search it.”
“Yeah, sure.” He was unsteady, his legs not working right, but together she and Alonzo helped him outside the building to the empty lot where the fire had been extinguished.
She glanced into the drum. Shit. The clues were ash, scorched metal and plastic globs. So this perp, the Composer, might be insane but he’d had the foresight to try to destroy the evidence.
Madness and brilliance were a very bad combination in a suspect.
She sat Ellis down on what looked like a large spool for cable. Two med techs turned the corner and she waved them over.
With bewildered eyes, Ellis scanned the scene, which seemed like a set of a bad dystopian movie. He asked, “Detective?”
“Yes?”
Muttering, Ellis said, “I was just walking down the street and next thing I knew he had this thing over my head and I was passing out. What does he want? Is he a terrorist? ISIS or something?”
“I wish I could tell you, Mr. Ellis. Fact is, we have no idea.”
Chapter 7
He sweated.
Palms, scalp, his hair-coated chest.
Damp, despite the autumn chill.
Moving fast, partly to keep from being seen.
Partly because the harmony of his world had been shaken. Like kicking a spinning top.
Like hitting the wrong notes, like losing the perfect rhythm of a metronome.
Stefan was walking down a street in Queens. Manic. Armpits prickling, scalp itching. The sweat ran and ran. He’d just left the transient hotel he’d been living, well, hiding, in, after slipping out of the horrible, silent world where he’d been for years.
He now carted a wheelie suitcase and a computer bag. Not all his possessions, of course. But enough for now. He’d learned that, while the kidnapping had made the press, no one seemed to connect him personally to it or to composing a tune that had a very impressive if unsettling rhythm section.
His muse…She was looking out for him from Olympus, yes. But still the police had come close.
So close!
That red-haired police woman he’d seen on the webcam. If he hadn’t set the thing up or if he’d missed the tone it uttered announcing their presence, he might have been captured by them and Harmony would be forever denied him.
Head down, walking quickly, fighting off a Black Scream—as he felt discord prickle his skin.
No…
He controlled it, barely.
Stefan could not help but think of the music of the spheres…
This philosophical concept moved him to his core. It was a belief that everything in the universe—planets, the sun, comets, other stars—gave off energy in the form of audible tones.
Musica mundanus, the ancients had called it.
Similar was Musica humana, the tones created within the human body.
And finally there was Musica instrumentis. Actual music played on instruments and sung.
When these tones—whether planets, the human heart, a cello performance—were in harmony, all was good. Life, love, relationships, devotion to the god of your choosing.
When the proportions were off, the cacophony was ruinous.
Now the spheres were tottering, and his chance of salvation, of rising into the state of Harmony, pure Harmony, was in jeopardy.
Stifling an urge to cry, Stefan dug into his jacket pocket and pulled a paper towel out. He mopped his face, his neck, and shoved the damp wad away.
Looking around. No eyes focused on him. No red-haired policewomen moving toward him, in four-four march time.
But that didn’t mean he was safe. He circled the block twice, on foot, and stopped in the shadows near the stolen car. Finally, he could stand it no longer. He had to get away. He had to be safe.
Pausing at the car, another look around, then he set his suitcase in the backseat and the computer bag on the passenger’s side in the front. He climbed in and started the engine.
The grind, the cough, the purr of cylinders.
He pulled slowly into traffic.
No one followed; no one stopped him.
He thought to Her: I’m sorry. I’ll be more careful. I will.
He had to keep Her happy, pleased with him, of course. He couldn’t afford to offend Euterpe. She was the one guiding him on his journey to Harmony, which, according to the music of the spheres, corresponded to Heaven, the most exalted state one could exist in. Christ had his stations of the cross, on his journey. Stefan had his too.