The Red Queen Dies Read online

  McCabe looked at him. “I think I can manage to get there alone.”

  “I thought with the tracker they found on your car—”

  “Someone—in all likelihood, Clarence Redfield—wanted to know where I was going. Now he won’t unless he’s willing to take the chance of trying to get another one in place. And he knows we’re onto him.”

  “What if it wasn’t Redfield?” Baxter said.

  “Who else would it be?”

  “Just remember what the CO said and watch your back.”

  McCabe opened the door of the sedan and picked up her field bag. “I always do that. And in this case, forewarned is forearmed.”

  On the way home, she passed a group of women gathered on a street corner. They were holding up huge glow-in-the dark signs that were obviously a response to Clarence Redfield and KZAC. One of the signs read WE’RE NOT AFRAID OF THE DARK. The other said THE NIGHT IS OURS TOO.

  They were on a corner that seemed safe. McCabe hoped so anyway. All they needed were victims who had become victims while refusing to be made afraid.

  20

  Sunday, October 27, 2019

  McCabe woke up at the first hint of dawn. She hadn’t closed the blinds completely, and light filtered into the room. She squinted, thought of going back to sleep, and decided instead to go for a run. If she moved quickly, she might be able to get out and back before the humidity began to build.

  Outside, she took a cautious breath of air and tasted a hint of the smoke drifting from the north. Best to start with a brisk walk to loosen her muscles, then build to a run.

  She had some time. She and Baxter had agreed to go in at eleven. She had nothing to do until breakfast at Stan and Chelsea’s house.

  Odd, the order of that in her mind. Not Chelsea and Stan’s house. Chelsea ran the restaurant. Stan ran the house. Ask her where she’d rather eat, and Stan’s place won out every time. Real waffles with real maple syrup and Canadian bacon.

  She’d deserve that bacon after putting up with this smoke.

  She had picked a route toward New Scotland Avenue rather than Western Avenue. Handy to be on the same street as two hospitals if she should pass out.

  But there was no point in being reckless. McCabe took out her mask and slid it on, glanced at her vitals monitor, then slipped into a loping run.

  Baxter’s friend with lung cancer and his question about cloning … was that something that Adam had thought about? But Adam didn’t need a clone. What he needed was an android body. One that looked like his own. Another body into which he could transfer what was Adam.

  Soldiers who had lost their arms and legs in battle were given new limbs, computerized body parts that their brains coordinated. Adam could not tell his own immobile legs to move. But he wanted to walk again on his own two legs.

  He had rejected the option of replacing his empty eye socket with a prosthesis.

  If and when he could chose, would he even be willing to take the other option. To leave his wheelchair to become Adam in an android body?

  If it were me, would I choose that? McCabe wondered.

  But even the possibility could be a long time away. Long before android hosts were available, Adam or someone else might have a breakthrough that would make it possible for him to walk without computerized braces on his legs or an exoskeleton.

  McCabe glanced at her monitor again and picked up her pace.

  * * *

  At the stoplight across from Washington Park, McCabe jogged in place, debating a run through the park versus heading toward downtown. Sunday-morning quiet hung over Madison Avenue, and she was tempted to turn toward the streets that would lead her to the Empire State Plaza.

  The shrill sound of a siren turning onto Madison Avenue sent her into the park.

  By the time she’d done the circuit around the lake, she would have logged over three miles. She would still have the return run home. More than enough when she hadn’t been out all week.

  Her mother would never have believed this would happen. That the day would ever come when Hannah, her “wild child,” would have learned how to pace herself.

  Now, if she could only manage to put the pieces of the serial killer case together before the commander reassigned her to finding stolen Zip cars. A task force, yes. But she and Baxter were still the primaries on the Jessup case.

  And she had been working on the other two cases since the beginning. They now needed a task force because she and Jay O’Connell and the other detectives who had been lending a hand hadn’t been able to figure out what was going on before another woman was killed. Clarence Redfield was right about that much at least.

  McCabe touched the button on her vest. Maybe music would help unfreeze her brain.

  First up, “Harlem Nocturne.” All she needed was a trench coat and a rainy night in the city.

  And the Wizard of Oz to give her a brain.

  What movie had the teaching assistant been showing that day?

  McCabe stopped, hands on knees, catching her breath.

  Silly question. But they hadn’t asked. Not that Sharon’s mother would probably have known.

  She touched the button to silence the music.

  “Ask Sharon’s mother if she knows what the movie was,” she said into the recorder on her vest.

  She walked for a few minutes, then started to run again.

  She stumbled to a stop when a fat gray opossum wobbled across the path in front of her. When he was out of sight, she ran on.

  Back to her playlist. By the time she’d reached the lake, Mike Hammer’s theme song had given way to Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring.

  It was only after the music changed that she thought of Lisa Nichols, the blonde who might be a femme fatale. No reason to think that except for the fact Nichols was beautiful and wore black. And she was the fiancée of a very wealthy man. And Vivian Jessup, the woman who might have been that man’s former lover, had been murdered.

  But even if she’d had a motive for killing Jessup, why would Lisa Nichols target two young women from Albany?

  That was the problem. Two of the murders might go together. Two of the victims had shared a common experience. But that left Jessup, who didn’t fit.

  But it had to fit, unless this wasn’t what it looked like. Unless there were two related murders … and then the third committed by someone else, copying the method of the first two.

  They had talked about that during the task force meeting. The KZAC radio host had suggested it when he was interviewing Clarence Redfield. Mike had brought it up, too.

  But the thing was, a copycat killer would have had to know how the first two victims had died. Clarence Redfield had hinted that he knew. But when they’d finally had a chance to question him about what he knew and the source of his information, Redfield had lawyered up.

  McCabe glanced upward as the starlings that had been sitting in an oak tree took off in a flutter of iridescent wings and squawks.

  Either Redfield knew enough about how the vics had died to know it was by the same method or he knew that and also knew what the method had been. Either he had an informant in the department or he had some other way of knowing.

  And the only other ways he could have of knowing was if he were the killer himself or in contact with the killer. Maybe that was going to be his next big thread. About how the serial killer had talked to him about the murders and the incompetence of the APD. It wouldn’t be the first time a killer had communicated directly with a member of the press … if you could call Clarence Redfield that.

  Redfield had even mentioned Jack the Ripper during his radio interview on KZAC. Someone claiming to be the Ripper had sent letters to the London press of his day.

  McCabe slowed to a walk to take a long sip from the water tube attached to her mask. One serial killer who had killed all three women. Or someone who had been able to duplicate the method of death of the first two and had hoped the police would attribute Vivian Jessup’s death to the same person who had killed B
ethany Clark and Sharon Giovanni.

  And if the first two murders were for revenge or some other such motive, the victims had not been chosen at random. The killer had gone after them one at a time.

  And then after Vivian Jessup?

  Science camp. Broadway actress. Alice, the Red Queen, and the yellow brick road.

  And Lolita thrown in for good measure. Ted Thornton had mentioned Vladimir Nabokov when he was discussing the mayor’s “It Happened Here” initiative. He had said Nabokov had come to Albany to capture butterflies in the Pine Bush.

  McCabe made another note to her recorder, “Check on Nabokov and Albany visit. Check link Lolita and Alice books and authors.”

  Had Lewis Carroll ever come to Albany? Probably not. If he had, then his number-one fan, Jessup, would have made the trip up from the City to see what he had seen. She had not come to Albany until she had learned about the John Wilkes Booth connection.

  McCabe broke into a run again. Feet pounding, she ran across the wooden bridge that arched over the lake.

  When the weather was pleasant, anglers came out to try their hand at the fish the city stocked in the Washington Park Lake. Most caught and released their catch. When the water in the lake was as stagnant as it must be now, that was a sensible precaution.

  She ran along the paved upper path, heading back toward the lake house and the amphitheater and bleachers. Summer theater in the park.

  Thornton had said that he’d appeared as Richard III in college. Did his aide-de-camp, Bruce Ashby, have any theater connections?

  This afternoon, she and Baxter were going to have to sit down and spread out all the pieces. Check and cross-check until they came up with another lead to follow.

  Maybe one more lap around the lake before she headed home.

  * * *

  McCabe was stepping out of the shower when her ORB buzzed.

  “Just calling to make sure you’re all right,” Chelsea said when she picked up.

  “All right? Am I late? I thought Stan said nine-thirty.”

  “You haven’t seen the story in the Chronicle?”

  “No. What story?”

  “Hold on, and I’ll send it to you.”

  Towel wrapped around her, McCabe stood there in the middle of her bedroom, reading the article.

  “Hannah?” Chelsea said.

  “Rain check on breakfast? I have something I need to do.”

  “What?”

  “Go see Adam before he reads this.”

  “He’s probably seen it already.”

  “In that case, I’m sure he’ll have a few things he’d like to say to me.”

  “That might be a good reason to stay out of his way for a couple of days.”

  “That’s not how it works. Talk to you later.”

  * * *

  Adam opened the door of his apartment in his bathrobe and pajama bottoms. His long-toed feet were bare on the footrests of his wheelchair.

  “Sorry, did I get you out of bed? Pop was still asleep, too, when I—”

  The sound of a cabinet door closing drew her eyes toward the kitchen. A woman with black hair to her waist, wearing white shorts and a blue T-shirt with Asian characters, smiled and waved. “Hi, I’m Mai. One of Adam’s colleagues at UAlbany.”

  “I’m Hannah. Adam’s sister.”

  “Nice to meet you, Hannah. Are you staying for breakfast?”

  “Thanks, but I just came by for a quick conversation with Adam.”

  Adam turned in his wheelchair. “Let’s go out on the balcony. Excuse us, Mai.”

  He closed the French doors behind them and brought his chair to a stop beside the balcony railing. “What’s up?”

  “This.” McCabe passed her ORB with the article on display over to him.

  She looked out across the green space that the four apartment buildings in the complex shared. If Adam stayed in Albany, he would probably buy a place of his own. He’d had a condo in Chicago.

  “Did you talk to this reporter?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “I didn’t know about the article until Chelsea called me this morning. But I was afraid this might happen. When they’re covering high-profile cases, reporters like to include human-interest stories about the people involved in the investigation.” McCabe cleared her throat. “I was hoping now that we have the task force, they wouldn’t notice me.”

  “According to the article, you’re the lead investigator.”

  “I’m the investigator who caught the case. I was there when the call came in and the lieutenant needed to send someone to the scene. Mike Baxter responded, too.”

  “Nothing much about Baxter in the article. In fact, he doesn’t seem to be mentioned at all.”

  “No. The article’s about you and me.”

  “‘Lead Cop on Serial Killer Case a Child Hero.’ Catchy.”

  “Adam, I am so sorry. I hope this…” McCabe glanced toward the closed French doors. “I hope this won’t be awkward for you with Mai and your other colleagues.”

  “Why should it be? They already know how I got in this chair.”

  McCabe’s breath caught in her throat. Before she could speak, Adam smiled.

  “Don’t sweat it, sis. You were the hero of our little saga. And it is just a newspaper article. After the hatchet job that guy Redfield did on you on his thread, you could probably use some good press.”

  “Right,” McCabe said. “I’d better go and let you and Mai have your breakfast.”

  He followed her to the door. “Drop by anytime.”

  “I’ll call first next time.” McCabe waved to the woman in the kitchen. “Nice meeting you, Mai.”

  “You, too, Hannah. See you again soon.”

  If Mai thought that, she must not know how many women had passed through Adam’s life. Of course, he might be more careful when it came to colleagues. And, of course, they might only be friends.

  But being in a wheelchair had not changed the attraction women of all ages seemed to feel for Adam. That at least was something that had been salvaged. But McCabe had never been sure if he considered that a blessing or a curse. Maybe it only made it worse when he thought of some day meeting a woman with whom he would want to spend more than a few months … and wondered if she would want him for a lifetime.

  * * *

  Her father was in the kitchen when she got back. Like Adam, he was in his pajamas and robe, but he had slippers on his feet and was moving between stove and counter.

  He was loading a tray with his breakfast, whole-wheat toast, scrambled egg whites, turkey bacon, blueberries, and green tea. Good. He was sticking to his diet plan.

  “You back from Chelsea’s already?” he asked.

  “I didn’t go. I had to go see Adam.”

  “See him about what?”

  She went over to the wall and brought up the Chronicle node. “This,” she said. “An article about me and Adam.”

  Angus put down his tray and came over to read the display. “What did your brother have to say about having the story rehashed?”

  “He said not to worry about it … that I could use some good press after Clarence Redfield’s thread. Did you see that thread?”

  “I saw it. Your brother’s right. If some reporter were going to do this story, it couldn’t have come at a better time. After Redfield’s thread, you needed some humanizing.”

  “Learning that I shot a burglar when I was nine should certainly humanize me for the readers of the Chronicle.”

  “What else would they expect you to do in that situation? Your brother was struggling with a man with a gun. The man shot him.”

  McCabe closed out the Chronicle node. “As Mama pointed out to me when we were waiting to see if Adam would live or die, he was shot because he was trying to keep me from being shot.”

  “I loved your mother. And she was distraught at the time, so you have to cut her some slack. But sometimes she could be full of crap. I’ve told you that.”

  “I know you have.”

&n
bsp; “Then why are you even thinking about it?”

  “Because it’s hard not to think about it. Aside from the Chronicle article, now that Adam’s back—”

  “Well, do you want him to go away again?”

  “No, I want us to be brother and sister again. The way we were that day when we walked into the house together laughing.”

  “You can’t go back in time.”

  “I know. If I could, I would turn as I’m walking out the door and remember to reset the security system.”

  “If your mother hadn’t thought a nine-year-old ought to wear deodorant—”

  “If I’d remembered to put it on when I was getting dressed—”

  “If Adam hadn’t told you to hurry up and get ready if you wanted to go with him to the park to watch him play soccer. Or if I hadn’t bought that gun. Or if your mother and I had stayed home that Saturday instead of driving to Boston. We can ‘if’ ourselves to death. And it’ll still come back to the fact that nobody was responsible for what happened except the guy who broke into our house.”

  “I know that. And I’d like to be able to make peace with it once and for all. But I look at Adam in that wheelchair—”

  “All right, then tell him to get the hell out of that wheelchair so you can get on with your life.”

  “Pop—”

  He glared at her. “It ain’t going to happen. Until your brother or someone else comes up with a medical or technological miracle, he is not going to have legs that function on their own. So you can either learn to live with the fact he’s in that wheelchair or you can make yourself crazy and drive your brother away once and for all.”

  “Drive him away? It isn’t just me. Adam—”

  “Adam what?”

  “Can’t you see that he … sometimes he … I think he resents the fact that I—”

  “You don’t think he ought to be pissed now and then that you’re whole and he ain’t? And did he ever tell you that he resents you?”

  “No.”

  “Then how do you know he does?”

  “You make it sound like I’m being childish—”

  “You are. He might be now and then, too. And, God knows, sometimes he can be his mother’s son. One of his little looks or the way he says something. But he loves you. You’re still his sister. Just the way you were your mother’s daughter.”