While they waited for the elevator to arrive, Tachyon turned back to Jay. "One thing," he asked. "You never said where you teleported Ti Malice."
"Funny thing about that," Jay said. "The way my power works, I have to visualize a place real good before I can teleport anyone there. I have to be able to get a clear picture in my head, really see it in my mind's eye. I got a bunch of places like that, places I know inside out. Sometimes it's just reflex. I don't have time to think about what I'm doing or where I'm going to send someone. I just point, and they wind up the first place that pops into my head."
"Yes?" Tachyon said politely.
"I made a lot of phone calls from the hospital. Ti Malice hasn't shown up in any of my usual places. Somehow, though, I didn't think he would. I looked right into that son of a bitch's face when he was crawling toward me, and the only thing that popped into my mind was this nightmare I've been having since I was a kid." Jay coughed apologetically. "I know that place real well," he said. "So you figure it out."
Dr. Tachyon thought about it for a moment. There was the sound of a chime. The elevator doors opened. Tach nodded slowly to Jay, turned, and entered the car.
1:00 P.M.
Brennan heard the outer door to the suite open, tired voices, then the door close. He stood up, framed in the doorway leading into the bedroom portion of the suite, gun in hand. Tachyon, Ackroyd, and Worchester stood clumped together, astonishment on their faces as they saw Brennan. "Daniel! What are you doing here?"
Brennan knew that Tachyon had lost a hand, but that knowledge didn't prepare him for the pale, drawn, bedraggled figure before him. Tachyon had obviously been through a lot the past week, but, Brennan thought grimly, it wasn't quite over yet.
"Tracking Chrysalis's killer," Brennan said grimly. Tachyon's bloodshot eyes went wide with astonishment. "Surely-"
"What the hell are you talking about?" Ackroyd interrupted. He looked a little worse for wear, himself. His face was puffy and bruised and he seemed to be favoring one side.
Brennan shook his head and gestured with his gun. "Sit on the bed," he said in a cold voice, "and I'll tell you a story about a murder."
Hiram hung back for a moment, then did as Brennan ordered. Ackroyd sat down next to Worchester and kept his hands carefully in his lap.
"Oh, God," Hiram moaned. "Will this never end?"
"Let's give him a chance," Tachyon said.
"Why?" Ackroyd asked truculently.
"Because I know who killed Chrysalis," Brennan said softly.
Ackroyd frowned. "It was Malice's joker goon. Chrysalis had discovered him-"
"No, it wasn't." Brennan took a deep breath so that he could speak in a calm, even voice. "I was Chrysalis's lover," he said. "Perhaps even her friend. That alone might have brought me back to track down her killer. But the murderer added insult to that injury. He tried to frame me for her death." He stared unblinkingly at Ackroyd. "Even you admit that was a clumsy job."
Ackroyd nodded reluctantly. "Yeah. It had me going for a while, but it didn't take me long to realize it was a setup." Brennan nodded, switched his gaze to Tachyon. " I had no idea why Chrysalis had been killed. Any number of things could have triggered the murder. I couldn't isolate the motive, so I concentrated on finding an ace strong enough to crush Chrysalis. But that, too, proved to be a blind alley, because Chrysalis wasn't killed by an ace with super strength."
"What?" Ackroyd said. "That's ridiculous."
Brennan shook his head. "I knew something was wrong at the crime scene when I first saw it, but it took me a while to figure it out. There was very little blood in Chrysalis's office. She'd been killed before being pulped. Her heart had stopped pumping so there was no blood sprayed on the walls, desk, or floor."
Tachyon nodded. "That makes sense."
"Someone was covering his tracks again, pretending that Chrysalis had been battered to death by an ace with extraordinary strength. But who?" Brennan shook his head. "The list of suspects had again become endless, but I thought I could narrow it down by questioning Sascha. He was a telepath, he'd been on the murder scene, and he was acting peculiar. I figured he knew more than he was admitting. He'd disappeared, but I thought I could track him down."
"You couldn't have found him," Ackroyd said. "He was here in Atlanta."
"That's right," Brennan agreed. "But during the investigation I found out that he was in thrall to a mysterious master, someone called Ti Malice. Then I found Malice's apartment, and in the apartment was a closet, and in the closet was a coat, and in the coat were these." He carefully reached into his hip pocket with his broken arm and took out a deck of playing cards. They were ornate, but worn and tattered and of great age and apparent delicacy.
"So what?" Ackroyd asked with a frown.
"These are the cards," Brennan explained, "that Chrysalis played solitaire with, the deck from which the murderer took the ace of spades to frame me. The deck he then absentmindedly put in his coat pocket and took with him after he left her office. Isn't that right, Worchester?" Brennan stared grimly at the huge ace. Hiram tried to speak, but no words would come out. He stuttered, sputtered, and fingered the angry sore on the side of his neck, his face pale and beaded with sweat, his hands trembling.
Brennan dropped the cards on the floor and took from his jacket pocket the ace of spades that Chrysalis had left him in her will. He scaled it at Hiram. The card flew true, struck Hiram's broad chest, and tumbled to the floor where it landed faceup, black and ominous against the carpet.
"Cute," Jay said as the card fluttered to the floor at Hiram's feet. "That mean you're going to start killing people now, or what?" He started to get up.
"I told you not to move." The barrel of Brennan's automatic slid a few inches to the right, until it was fixed on Jay. "So shoot me," Jay said. He got to his feet, looking right at Yeoman. "You got any idea what Hiram has just been through?"
"I don't care what he's been through."
"Aren't you the fucking soul of compassion?" Jay said. "I don't waste my compassion on killers," Brennan said. "Oh, I forgot, you're Mother Teresa," Jay said with bitter sarcasm. "Well, pardon the hell out of me. Thing of it is, though, seeing as how you hate killers so much, I can't help noticing you're the only one in the room with a gun in his hand."
"Jay, Daniel, please," Tachyon pleaded. His good hand cradled his bandaged stump, and he sounded weak and sick at heart. "Can't we work this out like civilized people?"
"He's trying to protect a killer," Yeoman said icily. "You got a hell of a lot of nerve calling anyone a killer, Danny boy," Jay snapped back.
"This isn't about me," Yeoman said.
"Stop it!" Tachyon cried. He looked over at Brennan. "Daniel, there must be some mistake. I know Hiram Worchester. I have known him for close on two decades now, in good times and bad. He is a good man. Even if I believed for a moment that Hiram was capable of such an act, he was here in Atlanta at the convention while Chrysalis was being murdered in Jokertown: He couldn't have done it."
Jay glanced back at Hiram uncomfortably. "Well," he admitted with vast reluctance, "that's not quite true. I checked the airline schedules. If he took the last flight out and the first flight back, he'd never have been missed. But Carnifex could have caught the same flights. Same for Braun, or any of them."
"That can easily be verified," Tachyon pointed out. "Even if Hiram used an assumed name, a man of his size would have been noticed."
"Then check it if that's what it takes to convince you," Brennan said. "I have all the proof I need."
"What about a motive?" Jay demanded. "Or don't you bother with things like that? Motives, chains of evidence, courtrooms, what a fucking nuisance, right? Your way is a lot simpler. Danny Brennan says he's guilty, time to kill the poor bastard."