Mitch leaned forward and squinted at the image. Roadrunner – well, Roadrunner dressed as a prostitute – was draped over the wings of an enormous stone angel, looking quite dead. ‘What the hell . . . ?’
‘Neat, huh? I really got some incredible backlighting here . . .’
‘It’s grotesque. Where did you take this?’
‘Lakewood Cemetery.’
‘That statue’s huge. How could anybody hoist a dead body up there?’
Harley nodded in approval. ‘Good question, Grasshopper. That’s something you’ve gotta figure out, because it’ll give you a clue.’
Mitch cocked his head, more curious now than repulsed, relaxing just a little. ‘Actually, it’s not so bad. I was expecting more gore.’
Harley beamed. ‘See? Tasteful, isn’t it?’
‘There’s just a little spot of blood, right there . . . looks like she was shot.’
‘Right. And when you click on it, you get a nice close-up of the brain matter splattered on the . . .’
Mitch pinched his eyes shut. Harley gave him a gentle punch to the arm that nearly knocked him off his chair. ‘Kidding. You get the ME report. Cause of death: a single .22 caliber bullet to the brain; and when you punch on another part of the body you get info about other stuff – any defensive cuts, ligature marks, blood type and chemistry, time of death . . .’
‘What’s that?’ Mitch pointed to a shadowy smear on the concrete at the base of the statue’s pedestal.
‘That’s a footprint. Click on that and you get a pull-down menu of the police workup. Rubberized sole, jogging shoe, Reebok, men’s size 11 . . .’
Mitch cocked his head. ‘Hmm. So you figure it’s a man . . .’
‘Or a really large woman, or a smaller woman wearing men’s shoes . . .’
‘No way the killer is a woman. A woman wouldn’t have the physical strength to hoist a body up there. It’s gotta be a man.’
‘Maybe, maybe not. You gotta figure it out.’
‘So then what? How do you solve it?’
‘There’s a list of five hundred possible suspects in the game’s databank. It lists their stats, stuff like occupation, hobbies, DOB, where they live, criminal records, shit like that. Every crime scene has a lot of clues, but some of them are really hard to find, and only a few of them help you eliminate some of the suspects in the databank.’
‘How?’
‘There’s a million ways. We didn’t actually use this, because it’s too simple, but say for instance you found a clue that proves the killer was right-handed. Then you eliminate all the left-handed people on the suspect list.’
‘Oh-h-h.’ Mitch’s eyebrows went up. ‘That’s cool.’
Grace and Annie exchanged a glance, then silently rolled their chairs a little closer to Harley’s station. Mitch never noticed.
‘Anyhow,’ Harley continued, ‘since the murders are all committed by the same perp, the deeper into the game you get, the more suspects you eliminate and the more you learn about him. Or her. Our killer has fifty-seven profile characteristics. Identify two of those characteristics, plus find the right clues and eliminate the right suspects from the list, and then, and only then, will the program move you from the first murder to the second.’
Mitch was nodding. ‘And then you get a few more clues about the killer from the second murder, and you eliminate a few more suspects . . .’
‘There you go. You’re getting it.’
Mitch leaned forward and pointed at the screen. ‘What’s that?’
‘Gotta click it to find out, buddy.’
Mitch’s right index finger was poised over the mouse when he heard Grace chuckle softly behind him and say, ‘Gotcha.’
Mitch jerked his hand away from the mouse and spun in his chair. They were all there: Grace, Annie, Roadrunner; so close he couldn’t believe they’d gotten there without him noticing. And they were all grinning. ‘What?’
‘You’re playing. You’re playing the game, Mitch,’ Roadrunner needled him.
‘I’m not playing. I’m just trying to get a handle on this thing. And I really don’t have any more time for this.’
The others watched as he got up in a huff and headed for the glass-block wall that divided his office from the rest of the loft. He turned at the last minute. ‘Grace, you got a minute?’
‘Sure.’
‘And, Harley?’
‘Yeah, buddy?’
‘This thing on my computer?’
Harley grinned. ‘Always has been.’
Grace followed Mitch into his office and dropped into the client chair. She watched as he went through his arrival ritual.
Suitcoat on the wooden hanger, button top button.
‘How was Diane’s flight?’
‘Long.’
Suitcoat in the closet, closet door closed.
‘She called me from LA last night.’
‘She told me. Said you talked for half an hour.’
Cross the room to the desk, unfasten cuff links, drop them in the center compartment of the center drawer.
Grace watched him, smiling to herself. ‘She was funny. Giddy. Still high from the show.’
‘Well, she made a pile of money. Sold out every painting in the first hour or so. Again.’
‘She’s our star. Does she know we put the game on-line this week?’
Roll up sleeves, three turns each, sit down.
‘She knows. Why?’
‘I don’t know. She didn’t mention it. Seemed a little strange.’
Mitch grunted softly. ‘There’s nothing more either one of us could say at this point. It’s out there now. Too late to stop it.’
Wet-dry out of a pack, wipe desktop.
‘It’s just a game, Mitch.’
‘Would I be stating the obvious if I said murder isn’t a game?’
Grace blew out a short, exasperated puff of air. ‘This from a man who created Time Warrior.’
‘That was different. The Time Warrior is a good guy fighting evil . . .’
‘So’s this. Good detective, evil serial killer.’
‘ . . . and the Warrior uses an atom shifter. No blood, no guts . . .’
‘Oh, I get it. Murder is okay as long as it isn’t messy.’
‘No, damnit, it’s more than that. For one thing the Time Warrior is fighting a war. He’s a soldier.’
‘Oh-h. Murder is okay as long as it isn’t messy, and as long as you wear a uniform and couch that murder in the paper-thin cloth of patriotism . . .’
‘Goddamnit, Grace, don’t start this again.’
‘You started it.’
‘It’s totally off the point, which is exactly where you wanted to be. So you muddy the waters with an esoteric argument; Bob Greenberg’s argument, for God’s sake, which is not to say there aren’t a lot of Bob Greenbergs out there who are going to think we’re all a little twisted for putting out something like this. But the real point is that when he called the whole concept sick today, all I could think of was, buddy, you don’t know the half of it.’
Grace pretended he hadn’t said that.
He moved a pencil cup an inch to the right. ‘So what is it? I’ve been wondering ever since you came up with the idea. Catharsis? Empowerment?’
She pretended he hadn’t said that, either. She simply crossed a jeans-clad leg and looked over at the side wall, away from him. One of Diane’s first paintings hung there; a quiet abstract with a lot of white space. ‘Can I ask you a question?’