Decker smeared his hands down his cheeks. "No place, fast. I think I'm going to call it a night."
Cab walked around his desk and looked at his computer screen. "You should let that lie. No point in picking your scabs."
"I don't know. I keep having these weird thoughts about Cathy and I'm wondering if my brain's trying to tell me something. Like, maybe there's some kind of connection between what happened to her and what happened to Alison Maitland and George Drewry."
Cab laid a hand on his shoulder. "You're a good cop, Martin, but don't start getting all inspirational on me. Don't lose sight of what matters, and that's the evidence."
"Maybe you're right. It's just that, in this case, I think the most important evidence is that there is no evidence."
Cab turned his head away and let out a violent sneeze. As he was stentoriously blowing his nose, Decker's phone rang. He picked it up and said, "Mackenzie?"
"Hi, Lieutenant. It's Jimmy Freedman, down in the sound lab. Listen, I cleaned up that 911 call from the Maitland case. Thought you might be interested in hearing it."
"Sure. Give me a couple of minutes."
From behind his handkerchief, Cab gave him a wave, which indicated that he could go.
Jimmy was furiously chewing gum. "I went through it with Bill Duggan from the phone company. He's the Stephen Hawking of line faults. He even talks like Stephen Hawk‑
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ing. He said that Alison Maitland's 911 call was interrupted by an EMP."
"A what?"
"An EMP—electromagnetic pulse. This induces kilovolt potentials that can burn out integrated circuits, interfere with telephone systems, or randomize computer data."
"I get it," Decker said, trying to sound as if he did. "So what causes it, this EMP?"
"Usually a flux compression generator, which is an explosive used to compress a magnetic field."
"Explosive? Ah, you mean like a bomb?"
"Exactly. They even call them 'pulse bombs.' They're pretty simple to build if you have a basic knowledge of electronics and demolition. The military have developed even more powerful ones, which use high-power microwaves. They dropped them in Iraq to take out Saddam's communications systems."
Decker said, "That's very interesting. The only trouble is, there was no explosion that day in the immediate vicinity of the Maitland house. In fact—so far as I know—there was no explosion that day anywhere in the Metro Richmond area."
"Well, that's right."
"So what caused this particular EMP, if it wasn't a bomb?"
"Bill was puzzled by that, too. But he reckons that it must have been some kind of natural phenomenon. A sunspot, maybe."
"So, actually, we're none the wiser?"
Jimmy looked upward for a moment, as if there were an answer printed on the ceiling. Then he looked down again and said, "No, you're quite correct. We're not."
"You said you managed to clean the tape up. Is it any clearer?"
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"Hear it for yourself."
He hooked on his earphones and flicked a row of switches. Decker heard the first blurt of noise, and then the emergency operator saying, "Emergency? Which service?" This was immediately followed by a deafening crackle, and a man's voice screaming, "Help me! Oh, God, help me!"
Decker looked at Jimmy and Jimmy raised an eyebrow. "You hear that? That sounds distinctly like a fire burning. A bonfire, or brushwood, maybe. Maybe the guy's screaming because he's going to be burned."
Decker said nothing, but he felt a deep sense of foreboding, as if the floor were slowly creeping away from him, beneath his feet.
"Yes, ambulance----" That was Alison Maitland. "Urgent—bleeding so bad!"
Then more crackling—closer, sharper, and a man's voice calling, "Muster at the road, boys! Muster at the road!"
More crackling, more screaming, and then a heavy crunch like a falling tree. Decker raised his hand and said, "Thanks, Jimmy. That's enough. That's very helpful."
Jimmy blinked at him in surprise. "You don't want to hear the rest?"
"That's okay. I don't have to."
"What? It makes some kind of sense?"
"I don't know. Maybe."
Jimmy stared at him. "Are you okay, Lieutenant? You look kind of—"
"Fine, Jimmy. I'm fine. I'm absolutely fine."
As soon as he opened his apartment door, he became aware of a smoky, perfumed aroma, like incense. He hefted his revolver out of its holster, cocked it, and cautiously pushed the door a little wider. The smell could have been coming
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from the apartment below, where a young married couple regularly burned incense (they were either potheads or Buddhists, or both). But it seemed too intense for that.
Sliding his back against the wall, he made his way along the corridor to the kitchen. He jabbed his revolver into the open doorway, but the kitchen was empty. He crossed to the other side of the corridor and carried on sliding toward the living area.
There was nobody there, but three sticks of incense were smoldering in a small sand-filled urn that he usually used as an ashtray. And on the wall behind them, in jagged blood-red letters that were over two feet high, somebody had
scrawled SAINT BARBARA.
Decker slowly approached the lettering and touched it with his fingertips. It was still wet. It had the consistency of blood, but he couldn't be sure that it actually was, and he certainly wasn't going to taste it. He walked crabwise across the living area until he reached his bedroom door. It was about two inches ajar. He stopped, and listened, but all he could hear was the muffled sound of traffic outside, and the burbling of a television in the next apartment.
He took a deep breath and kicked the door wide open. His bedroom appeared to be empty, although he ducked down and checked under the bed, and then threw open his closet doors. Nobody there.
It was then that he heard a trickling sound coming from the bathroom. He edged his way toward the door and pressed his ear against it. It was a small, steady trickle, more like a faucet left running than anybody washing their hands. He carefully grasped the doorknob, and then, when he was ready, he flung the door open.
The bathroom was empty, too, except for his own reflection in the mirror. But the hot faucet hadn't been turned off properly, and the washbasin was streaked with scarlet. It
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looked as if somebody had quickly rinsed their hands and then left.
But where had this somebody gone? The bathroom window didn't open, apart from a small louvered skylight, and nobody could have passed him on the way in. He dragged back the shower curtain, just to make sure, but there was nobody there, either.
He turned off the faucet, holding it with only two fingers, in case there were fingerprints on it. He put the plug in, too, to prevent any more of the gory-looking contents of the basin from draining away.
He looked at himself in the mirror. You're not losing it, Martin. You're as sane as everybody else, and you can prove it. But apart from the incense and the scrawling on the wall, there was an almost palpable sense that somebody had been here, going from room to room, disturbing the air.
He went back to the living area and snuffed out the incense. Then he stood and stared at the lettering. SAINT BARBARA. What the hell was the significance of Saint Barbara? Cathy had whispered her name in his nightmare, and now here it was again, in letters that could have been blood.
He searched the room again, prodding his revolver into the drapes, even though he knew that he wouldn't find anybody. Then he locked his front door, fastened the security chain, and holstered his Anaconda. He picked up the phone and dialed directly through to Lieutenant Bryce in forensics.
"Helen?"
"Lieutenant Bryce went home about an hour ago. Can I help?"