Luxuria part ten
Disclaimers in part one
The pattern of the murders didn't make a pentagram. Vicki couldn't believe it. She and Coreen tried everything. Every orientation, every pattern of connecting lines-they all led to too many places that couldn't fit into a pentagram. Vicki checked the files again and again. These were the ones that felt demonic when she looked at them with her glasses off. She was sure of it. And the problem wasn't an incomplete pentagram; there were too many murders, not too few. They double-checked every location, every address. Nothing.
###
It was shaping up to be the worst day of Mike's life. After two hours he was aching, and after three he was in pain. Boredom mixed with fear ate at his mind, but worst of all was thirst. He noticed it suddenly, as if the damp and rain had somehow disguised it, but once he was aware of it, he couldn't push it away. He tried to distract himself from the thirst by thinking of the pain in his arms and back, but then he had to distract himself from the pain by thinking of the thirst. Both only got worse.
###
Vicki threw her marking pencil across the room in frustration, where it bounced against the wall and into the wastebasket.
"This makes no sense," she cried. "The last time it was a pentagram."
"You said he was disguising what he was doing, this time," Coreen said. "Maybe there's a different symbol that will work."
"Get on that, would you?" Vicki said, gesturing at the computer. "If only I had that book of Henry's here. Did you reach Segara?"
"She's away at a conference. I emailed, but . . ." Coreen shrugged and sat down at the desk.
"Okay, that's it." Vicki found another pencil and picked up a yellow tablet of lined paper. "We're going back to old-fashioned detective work. I happen to have an eyewitness to one of the murders right here." Vicki sat down on the couch and crossed her legs. "I'm sorry to make you go through this again, but tell me everything about your roommate's murder. Include what you all had for breakfast, what she was wearing, everything that was in the room. Everything."
###
By noon, Mike was in Hell. He might as well be; Hell couldn't be any worse. So why not drop the planking, let Fitzroy die, and let Hell come through to Earth? He had that thought every minute of every hour. Followed by an injection of terror-laced adrenaline. No! The cycle of pain, thirst, despair and adrenaline blast was exhausting him. And on top of it all, incredibly, his body remembered how desperately it needed sleep. Doubt, that insidious serpent, was slithering into his soul. Maybe, just maybe, he couldn't do this. Damn Henry, anyway. Damn him, damn him.
###
Vicki paced while Coreen ate the Chinese food they'd had delivered. Coreen had insisted. Vicki couldn't think of eating but Coreen said she was famished. Between bites of Kung Pao chicken Coreen told Vicki everything she could think of. Vicki quizzed her, but Vicki had long since stopped writing anything down; her over-stimulated brain couldn't seem to focus on the notepad. She downed cups of coffee, which kept her alert but worsened her concentration.
"Wait," Vicki said, interrupting Coreen. "You were watching a movie. What movie?"
"Edward Scissorhands."
No, that wasn't anything. But still, something nagged at her. "You know, I think the people in some of these other cases were watching TV, too."
Coreen swallowed some food. "Lots of people watch TV. And this was a movie."
Vicki rifled through the files. "That's what I meant," she said absently. "Tape or DVD?"
"DVD."
"Here's one. Guy shot his ex-wife. He and his little boy were watching a rented movie when she came to pick up the son. Do you own Edward Scissorhands?"
Coreen's eyes grew wide. "Renee rented it. What movie were they watching?"
"It doesn't say. Here's another one. Woman killed her neighbor while watching some rented movie. And here's another one!"
"But not all of them," Coreen said. "I read some of them."
"Cops might not have put it in the report. It wouldn't seem important, and they didn't know they were looking at a serial killer." Vicki snapped her fingers. "That symbol of Astaroth's name was on an entertainment center at one of the scenes. Your hearth. How close is it to the TV?"
"Pretty close, but it's really close to the fireplace tools."
"Where did she rent the movie from?"
"I don't know. Maybe the Video Tyme at the Student Union."
"Coreen, we have to get that DVD."
###
Mike was existing on will alone. Despite the cold, he was slick with sweat. No part of him didn't hurt. His muscles had long since gone past shaking and were now just globs of jelly that he kept pressed to the plywood with naked determination. His world had shrunk to a mantra he'd read in a survival manual. Feed the will, starve the imagination.
###
Coreen's townhouse was eerily quiet in the late afternoon, but the wet umbrellas in the stand said there were probably people home. Vicki hoped not to encounter Coreen's other roommates or any mourners. They didn’t have time for condolences.
There was some crime scene tape discreetly placed around the living room, but there had been no need to cordone off the house and no manpower for a guard. They had the murderer, after all, Vicki thought. What's left was for the lawyers.
Speaking in hushed tones, Coreen found the plastic bag with Edward Scissorhands and two other DVDs in it, and gave it to Vicki. The bag was from a large chain of many video stores, and Vicki's heart sank, but the receipt in the bag gave the address.
"Let me go change," Coreen said.
"Be quick," Vicki replied.
While Coreen was gone, she studied the room, trying to take in everything. The rainy day made the room too dark for her impaired vision, and she had to turn on lights. There was the small symbol of Astaroth's name, burned into a brick. She turned her attention to the DVDs, and removed her glasses. The first two looked normal enough, but when she opened Edward Scissorhands, the case was empty. The DVD must still be in the machine.
Behind her, the grey day darkened as the hidden sun set. First donning a latex glove she kept with her, Vicki pushed the power button.
###
Henry woke in a strange place, cold, hard, but not confined. Around him he sensed magic-evil magic-and he smelled terror, exhaustion, Celluci. A second later he knew where he was and a second after that he was overjoyed to be alive.
"You're-awake?" Celluci croaked, suffering in his voice. "Does that mean . . .?"
"The sun's set. Yes. Mike, you did it!"
Celluci collapsed to the floor with a quiet groan, not stopping his fall, heedless of the plywood that fell on top of him.
Without thinking, Henry moved toward him. From somewhere in his coat Celluci produced his gun and held it in two palsied hands, still lying on his side. "Stay back," he rasped.
Henry halted, startled. Given Celluci's condition, Henry could easily take the weapon from him before the detective could squeeze the trigger, but dominating the man who had saved his life at no small cost hardly seemed right. What had happened to bring this on?
Henry put his hands up at shoulder height. He studied the other man, senses alert, hearing his frantic heartbeat and smelling his perspiration. Celluci was hurting, badly.
"I bet-this would kill you-if I shot you in the head," Celluci said. His hands shook the gun so badly, Henry doubted he could hit his head, even at this range. Henry's initial impulse had been to embrace his fellow captive and savior, even though it was the irritating and once traitorous detective, and see if he could help him. Clearly this would not be welcome.
"I bet you're right," Henry said. "Mike, you're not going to save my life and then shoot me, are you?"
The shaking gun shivered out of Celluci's grasp. "No. Just-leave me alone."
"All right." Henry sat down against the wall across from the window that should have meant his execution. He said nothing, watching Celluci as he trembled and gasped with cramping, tortured muscles. For his own part, relief at being alive still had him giddy, and he longed to help. He was really good at massage. He forced himself to think about what Celluci had been through, and came to a tentative guess at the source of the detective's hostility. He was going to have to squash the remnant of his pride and dislike for the man.
"Mike," he said. "I can only imagine what today must have been like for you. I didn't think you could do it, and I'm more grateful than I can say. I didn't have the grace to thank you before dawn, but let me say it now. Thank you."
"Didn't do it for you," Celluci said.
For some reason, that hurt. "I know. To prevent the sacrifice." And he did know that. But it still hurt. "Thank you anyway."
"Can't do it again," Celluci said. "Not without sleep and water." Henry heard agony in the final word.
Water! Henry was thirsty, himself, and his own need for water was minor compared to that of the living. He'd forgotten how Mike would be tormented by thirst. Stifling an oath-now was no time to be racking up sins-Henry stood.
###
Vicki pressed "eject" and the little drawer glided open to present her with the disk. She took it in her gloved hand and frowned at it. This was Edward Scissorhands? The silver plate had a label on it, but the only printing was in a red font with unreadable symbols. Symbols?! Vicki whipped off her glasses. "Oh my God," she said.
"What?" Coreen asked, at her elbow. She was dressed in an all new outfit of black and purple, with straps on the arms that looked like veins in some insect's wings.
Vicki startled. She should have been more aware. Fatigue was wearing her down. "This is the disk you were watching," she said. "Don't touch. And I can read it."
"You can read that?" Coreen breathed. "What does it say?"
"'Control, kill, open, escape.' Something like that."
"What about those?" Coreen pointed at Vicki's wrists. "Can you read those?"
Vicki couldn't believe she hadn't thought of trying this vision of hers on her wrists. She looked now. "No trespassing," she read. "Violators will be prosecuted."
###
As Mike's body recovered, he had more energy for thought and some of his sanity returned. He thought he'd been out of his mind for most of the afternoon, and he didn't care to ever go there again. His thinking was still numb and shocky, but he could move his limbs again. Weakly. But he was thirsty beyond belief.
Henry had taken his tire iron and moved to a corner of the room. He pressed the side of his head against the corner, then withdrew and nodded.
"What are you doing?" Mike asked. He pushed the plywood off of himself, but decided against trying to sit up just yet.
"This is the corner of the building," Henry said. "This kind of construction usually has interior drainpipes. I can hear the rainwater in here."
"But those are cement blocks," Mike said, though hope grew in his chest.
"Not in the joints where the pipes go," Henry said. "They had to be able to reach them. This corner is drywall." He took aim and delivered three powerful blows with the tire iron to the corner. Sure enough, the drywall material crumbled. Henry had opened a half meter high gash in the wall.
Mike began gathering his strength to move to the corner without falling and embarrassing himself. Henry didn't look at him. He peered into the hole. "There's the drainpipe," he said, sounding pleased with himself.
Hope went a long way toward restoring Mike's mobility. Supporting himself against the wall, he limped to the corner and sat gracelessly down on the other side of the hole. "How do you know so much about construction?" he asked.
Henry grinned at him. "You have to know these things when you're a king, you know," he said, and peered back into the hole. "But there's a problem."
Mike had just begun to work on the problem of whether or not the 488 year old bastard son of Henry VIII had just quoted Monty Python to him. Now what?
"I can't reach it," Henry said with dismay. "This joint is full of rebar and iron conduit reinforcements." He poked the tire iron in experimentally, but withdrew quickly. He leaned back against the wall, sagging.
Mike took out his flashlight and lit the hole so he could see. Henry squeezed his eyes shut against the light. Mike's own eyes took a long moment to adjust, but then he saw the maze of obstacles between them and the aluminum drainpipe. If broken, the pipe would bend and fit, but no hand could contort that way.
Disappointment brought back Mike's exhaustion. He flicked the flashlight off and sagged against the other wall.
"I'll get it," Henry said quietly.
"How?"
He sighed. "I'll break my arm."
###
Coreen pulled Vicki's car into the videostore parking lot between a highly chromed motorcycle and a minivan. Vicki made a beeline into the store, leaving Coreen behind because her assistant tarried to admire the motorcycle.
"Your manager?" she asked the young man behind the counter. The employee gestured with his thumb to an older young man Vicki would still have classed as a "kid," but who did look managerial.
"Can I help you?" he asked.
"Yes, Tim," Vicki said, reading his name badge, "My name is Vicki Nelson and I'm assisting the police in a homicide investigation. These DVDs were rented by a young woman who was murdered yesterday." Was it yesterday? That was right. Time was going by too fast. The sun was already down and it was the night of Coreen's "black moon." Vicki had no time to waste. "This one," she opened the case and showed him the disk, "is not Edward Scissorhands. Have you seen a disk like this before?"
"Uh, yeah I have," he said. "One of my employees found one or two of those. Why? What is it?"
"Who found them?" she asked, glancing over at the other young man, who was now in deep conversation with Coreen. "I need to talk to him."
"Her," he said. "But, did you say . . . are you with the police?"
How Vicki longed to have a badge to flash. Or Henry's mojo. "No, I'm a Private Investigator assisting the police. It's a homicide investigation. This is very important." She couldn't just rough him up. He wasn't a recalcitrant bartender and he had every right to be protective of his people. She took off her glasses and glanced around the now oddly colored store.
"Well, I'm sorry, but-"
"I know, I know," she said. "Tell me this, then." She took out the city map that had the locations of the murders and the victims' names at every site. "Are any of these people customers of yours?"
"Look," said Tim. "I can't tell you that, either. I'm really sorry about the murder, but I don't know who you are. I'll be happy to talk to the police." He reached for the bag of DVDs. "I'll take those, though."
Clenching her jaw, Vicki snatched Edward Scissorhands from him, removed the disk and snapped it in two. "Hey!" Tim complained.
Vicki's gaze fell on the map. If Tim had anything else to say, she didn't hear it. With her glasses off, the map showed connecting lines between the murder sites, in a creepy black. The symbol was clear-the name of Astaroth. And the final stroke needed an endpoint in the warehouse district, on the waterfront.
Continue to part eleven.
###
The pattern of the murders didn't make a pentagram. Vicki couldn't believe it. She and Coreen tried everything. Every orientation, every pattern of connecting lines-they all led to too many places that couldn't fit into a pentagram. Vicki checked the files again and again. These were the ones that felt demonic when she looked at them with her glasses off. She was sure of it. And the problem wasn't an incomplete pentagram; there were too many murders, not too few. They double-checked every location, every address. Nothing.
###
It was shaping up to be the worst day of Mike's life. After two hours he was aching, and after three he was in pain. Boredom mixed with fear ate at his mind, but worst of all was thirst. He noticed it suddenly, as if the damp and rain had somehow disguised it, but once he was aware of it, he couldn't push it away. He tried to distract himself from the thirst by thinking of the pain in his arms and back, but then he had to distract himself from the pain by thinking of the thirst. Both only got worse.
###
Vicki threw her marking pencil across the room in frustration, where it bounced against the wall and into the wastebasket.
"This makes no sense," she cried. "The last time it was a pentagram."
"You said he was disguising what he was doing, this time," Coreen said. "Maybe there's a different symbol that will work."
"Get on that, would you?" Vicki said, gesturing at the computer. "If only I had that book of Henry's here. Did you reach Segara?"
"She's away at a conference. I emailed, but . . ." Coreen shrugged and sat down at the desk.
"Okay, that's it." Vicki found another pencil and picked up a yellow tablet of lined paper. "We're going back to old-fashioned detective work. I happen to have an eyewitness to one of the murders right here." Vicki sat down on the couch and crossed her legs. "I'm sorry to make you go through this again, but tell me everything about your roommate's murder. Include what you all had for breakfast, what she was wearing, everything that was in the room. Everything."
###
By noon, Mike was in Hell. He might as well be; Hell couldn't be any worse. So why not drop the planking, let Fitzroy die, and let Hell come through to Earth? He had that thought every minute of every hour. Followed by an injection of terror-laced adrenaline. No! The cycle of pain, thirst, despair and adrenaline blast was exhausting him. And on top of it all, incredibly, his body remembered how desperately it needed sleep. Doubt, that insidious serpent, was slithering into his soul. Maybe, just maybe, he couldn't do this. Damn Henry, anyway. Damn him, damn him.
###
Vicki paced while Coreen ate the Chinese food they'd had delivered. Coreen had insisted. Vicki couldn't think of eating but Coreen said she was famished. Between bites of Kung Pao chicken Coreen told Vicki everything she could think of. Vicki quizzed her, but Vicki had long since stopped writing anything down; her over-stimulated brain couldn't seem to focus on the notepad. She downed cups of coffee, which kept her alert but worsened her concentration.
"Wait," Vicki said, interrupting Coreen. "You were watching a movie. What movie?"
"Edward Scissorhands."
No, that wasn't anything. But still, something nagged at her. "You know, I think the people in some of these other cases were watching TV, too."
Coreen swallowed some food. "Lots of people watch TV. And this was a movie."
Vicki rifled through the files. "That's what I meant," she said absently. "Tape or DVD?"
"DVD."
"Here's one. Guy shot his ex-wife. He and his little boy were watching a rented movie when she came to pick up the son. Do you own Edward Scissorhands?"
Coreen's eyes grew wide. "Renee rented it. What movie were they watching?"
"It doesn't say. Here's another one. Woman killed her neighbor while watching some rented movie. And here's another one!"
"But not all of them," Coreen said. "I read some of them."
"Cops might not have put it in the report. It wouldn't seem important, and they didn't know they were looking at a serial killer." Vicki snapped her fingers. "That symbol of Astaroth's name was on an entertainment center at one of the scenes. Your hearth. How close is it to the TV?"
"Pretty close, but it's really close to the fireplace tools."
"Where did she rent the movie from?"
"I don't know. Maybe the Video Tyme at the Student Union."
"Coreen, we have to get that DVD."
###
Mike was existing on will alone. Despite the cold, he was slick with sweat. No part of him didn't hurt. His muscles had long since gone past shaking and were now just globs of jelly that he kept pressed to the plywood with naked determination. His world had shrunk to a mantra he'd read in a survival manual. Feed the will, starve the imagination.
###
Coreen's townhouse was eerily quiet in the late afternoon, but the wet umbrellas in the stand said there were probably people home. Vicki hoped not to encounter Coreen's other roommates or any mourners. They didn’t have time for condolences.
There was some crime scene tape discreetly placed around the living room, but there had been no need to cordone off the house and no manpower for a guard. They had the murderer, after all, Vicki thought. What's left was for the lawyers.
Speaking in hushed tones, Coreen found the plastic bag with Edward Scissorhands and two other DVDs in it, and gave it to Vicki. The bag was from a large chain of many video stores, and Vicki's heart sank, but the receipt in the bag gave the address.
"Let me go change," Coreen said.
"Be quick," Vicki replied.
While Coreen was gone, she studied the room, trying to take in everything. The rainy day made the room too dark for her impaired vision, and she had to turn on lights. There was the small symbol of Astaroth's name, burned into a brick. She turned her attention to the DVDs, and removed her glasses. The first two looked normal enough, but when she opened Edward Scissorhands, the case was empty. The DVD must still be in the machine.
Behind her, the grey day darkened as the hidden sun set. First donning a latex glove she kept with her, Vicki pushed the power button.
###
Henry woke in a strange place, cold, hard, but not confined. Around him he sensed magic-evil magic-and he smelled terror, exhaustion, Celluci. A second later he knew where he was and a second after that he was overjoyed to be alive.
"You're-awake?" Celluci croaked, suffering in his voice. "Does that mean . . .?"
"The sun's set. Yes. Mike, you did it!"
Celluci collapsed to the floor with a quiet groan, not stopping his fall, heedless of the plywood that fell on top of him.
Without thinking, Henry moved toward him. From somewhere in his coat Celluci produced his gun and held it in two palsied hands, still lying on his side. "Stay back," he rasped.
Henry halted, startled. Given Celluci's condition, Henry could easily take the weapon from him before the detective could squeeze the trigger, but dominating the man who had saved his life at no small cost hardly seemed right. What had happened to bring this on?
Henry put his hands up at shoulder height. He studied the other man, senses alert, hearing his frantic heartbeat and smelling his perspiration. Celluci was hurting, badly.
"I bet-this would kill you-if I shot you in the head," Celluci said. His hands shook the gun so badly, Henry doubted he could hit his head, even at this range. Henry's initial impulse had been to embrace his fellow captive and savior, even though it was the irritating and once traitorous detective, and see if he could help him. Clearly this would not be welcome.
"I bet you're right," Henry said. "Mike, you're not going to save my life and then shoot me, are you?"
The shaking gun shivered out of Celluci's grasp. "No. Just-leave me alone."
"All right." Henry sat down against the wall across from the window that should have meant his execution. He said nothing, watching Celluci as he trembled and gasped with cramping, tortured muscles. For his own part, relief at being alive still had him giddy, and he longed to help. He was really good at massage. He forced himself to think about what Celluci had been through, and came to a tentative guess at the source of the detective's hostility. He was going to have to squash the remnant of his pride and dislike for the man.
"Mike," he said. "I can only imagine what today must have been like for you. I didn't think you could do it, and I'm more grateful than I can say. I didn't have the grace to thank you before dawn, but let me say it now. Thank you."
"Didn't do it for you," Celluci said.
For some reason, that hurt. "I know. To prevent the sacrifice." And he did know that. But it still hurt. "Thank you anyway."
"Can't do it again," Celluci said. "Not without sleep and water." Henry heard agony in the final word.
Water! Henry was thirsty, himself, and his own need for water was minor compared to that of the living. He'd forgotten how Mike would be tormented by thirst. Stifling an oath-now was no time to be racking up sins-Henry stood.
###
Vicki pressed "eject" and the little drawer glided open to present her with the disk. She took it in her gloved hand and frowned at it. This was Edward Scissorhands? The silver plate had a label on it, but the only printing was in a red font with unreadable symbols. Symbols?! Vicki whipped off her glasses. "Oh my God," she said.
"What?" Coreen asked, at her elbow. She was dressed in an all new outfit of black and purple, with straps on the arms that looked like veins in some insect's wings.
Vicki startled. She should have been more aware. Fatigue was wearing her down. "This is the disk you were watching," she said. "Don't touch. And I can read it."
"You can read that?" Coreen breathed. "What does it say?"
"'Control, kill, open, escape.' Something like that."
"What about those?" Coreen pointed at Vicki's wrists. "Can you read those?"
Vicki couldn't believe she hadn't thought of trying this vision of hers on her wrists. She looked now. "No trespassing," she read. "Violators will be prosecuted."
###
As Mike's body recovered, he had more energy for thought and some of his sanity returned. He thought he'd been out of his mind for most of the afternoon, and he didn't care to ever go there again. His thinking was still numb and shocky, but he could move his limbs again. Weakly. But he was thirsty beyond belief.
Henry had taken his tire iron and moved to a corner of the room. He pressed the side of his head against the corner, then withdrew and nodded.
"What are you doing?" Mike asked. He pushed the plywood off of himself, but decided against trying to sit up just yet.
"This is the corner of the building," Henry said. "This kind of construction usually has interior drainpipes. I can hear the rainwater in here."
"But those are cement blocks," Mike said, though hope grew in his chest.
"Not in the joints where the pipes go," Henry said. "They had to be able to reach them. This corner is drywall." He took aim and delivered three powerful blows with the tire iron to the corner. Sure enough, the drywall material crumbled. Henry had opened a half meter high gash in the wall.
Mike began gathering his strength to move to the corner without falling and embarrassing himself. Henry didn't look at him. He peered into the hole. "There's the drainpipe," he said, sounding pleased with himself.
Hope went a long way toward restoring Mike's mobility. Supporting himself against the wall, he limped to the corner and sat gracelessly down on the other side of the hole. "How do you know so much about construction?" he asked.
Henry grinned at him. "You have to know these things when you're a king, you know," he said, and peered back into the hole. "But there's a problem."
Mike had just begun to work on the problem of whether or not the 488 year old bastard son of Henry VIII had just quoted Monty Python to him. Now what?
"I can't reach it," Henry said with dismay. "This joint is full of rebar and iron conduit reinforcements." He poked the tire iron in experimentally, but withdrew quickly. He leaned back against the wall, sagging.
Mike took out his flashlight and lit the hole so he could see. Henry squeezed his eyes shut against the light. Mike's own eyes took a long moment to adjust, but then he saw the maze of obstacles between them and the aluminum drainpipe. If broken, the pipe would bend and fit, but no hand could contort that way.
Disappointment brought back Mike's exhaustion. He flicked the flashlight off and sagged against the other wall.
"I'll get it," Henry said quietly.
"How?"
He sighed. "I'll break my arm."
###
Coreen pulled Vicki's car into the videostore parking lot between a highly chromed motorcycle and a minivan. Vicki made a beeline into the store, leaving Coreen behind because her assistant tarried to admire the motorcycle.
"Your manager?" she asked the young man behind the counter. The employee gestured with his thumb to an older young man Vicki would still have classed as a "kid," but who did look managerial.
"Can I help you?" he asked.
"Yes, Tim," Vicki said, reading his name badge, "My name is Vicki Nelson and I'm assisting the police in a homicide investigation. These DVDs were rented by a young woman who was murdered yesterday." Was it yesterday? That was right. Time was going by too fast. The sun was already down and it was the night of Coreen's "black moon." Vicki had no time to waste. "This one," she opened the case and showed him the disk, "is not Edward Scissorhands. Have you seen a disk like this before?"
"Uh, yeah I have," he said. "One of my employees found one or two of those. Why? What is it?"
"Who found them?" she asked, glancing over at the other young man, who was now in deep conversation with Coreen. "I need to talk to him."
"Her," he said. "But, did you say . . . are you with the police?"
How Vicki longed to have a badge to flash. Or Henry's mojo. "No, I'm a Private Investigator assisting the police. It's a homicide investigation. This is very important." She couldn't just rough him up. He wasn't a recalcitrant bartender and he had every right to be protective of his people. She took off her glasses and glanced around the now oddly colored store.
"Well, I'm sorry, but-"
"I know, I know," she said. "Tell me this, then." She took out the city map that had the locations of the murders and the victims' names at every site. "Are any of these people customers of yours?"
"Look," said Tim. "I can't tell you that, either. I'm really sorry about the murder, but I don't know who you are. I'll be happy to talk to the police." He reached for the bag of DVDs. "I'll take those, though."
Clenching her jaw, Vicki snatched Edward Scissorhands from him, removed the disk and snapped it in two. "Hey!" Tim complained.
Vicki's gaze fell on the map. If Tim had anything else to say, she didn't hear it. With her glasses off, the map showed connecting lines between the murder sites, in a creepy black. The symbol was clear-the name of Astaroth. And the final stroke needed an endpoint in the warehouse district, on the waterfront.
Continue to part eleven.
###