A lot of movement near me. I heard fabric unrolled from the bolt.
“Don’t you need the artist?” I said, straining to hear anyone else.
The Russian ignored me and carried on. “Lay half on the floor, then hang the rest on the clips.”
Clips. I was handcuffed to something metal. A rail? If they were hanging fabric then maybe I was in the middle of a frame and the fabric would be hung around like a shower curtain.
Fuckadoodledo.
Surely they didn’t drape the crime scenes with fabric and let the blood fly? It’d have to be treated to preserve it.
Oh jeez, that wasn’t paint cleverly mixed to look like blood. It was blood.
I revisited the gallery in my mind. I looked at the tags on the pieces. One apron had a tag that contained the price and a blood type. O negative. A cushion had a price and the words AB positive. Didn’t make me feel any better. What looked like cute labels were blood types of the victims? I scrambled through my notes in my mind. Blood types. Violet Cramer. O negative. The apron I saw could be Violet.
God, you really fucked up!
With more braveness than I felt, I asked another question, “How do you stop the blood clotting and breaking down when you’re using it?”
The young one perked up at that question. “It’s quite clever. I use a mix of potassium oxalate and sodium fluoride for some.”
“And they do what?” Without Kurt to interpret I had no idea what those things did to blood.
“Potassium Oxalate is an anticoagulant and the fluoride is a preservative.”
“That is clever.”
I got the idea from specimen collection tubes.”
Still keen to impart information. “
“You said for some, what about the rest?”
We’re talking a lot of blood. A death a day. They weren’t using it all at once, surely? Maybe there was quite a bit of waste in the process.
My mind flowed over the thought that they drained as much of the victims’ blood as possible, while they were alive, then stabbed the bodies to make it look like they bled out via stab wounds. There had to be a wide-bore needle involved. I thought about Jane.
Maybe the first cut to the wrist gave them access to a main vein. No outward needle marks if they cut into her first and approached the vein that way. But that would require some skill. Cutting the vein would defeat the purpose.
One of these bozos has medical training.
The young one spoke again, “Same as blood banks for larger quantities. Flexible collection bags containing sodium citrate, phosphate, and dextrose.”
The older male hissed, “Shut up.”
The younger one sounded too pleased with his own cleverness to heed the advice.
“You work in a medical field,” I said, not a question. A statement. Another piece of the jigsaw fell into place. George Mason University: a nurse or similar in the student medical facility. That could be where he met Jane. Or he knows a mutual friend of Jane’s. I threw a name out to see what happened next.
“Matt Collins.”
The younger male laughed. “You’re not clever enough to work it out.”
I doubted he knew Collins and moved on to thinking about Violet and Winchester. Because he was from there and went back for whatever reason.
“You’re not from Fairfax but you worked at George Mason a few years ago.”
The second hissed warning to shut up from the older male confirmed it. I heard clips being attached to something. Fabric probably.
Why Violet?
What was it about her?
Crap! It was unfortunate timing. She turned him down. Didn’t want to know.
“Violet didn’t want to go out with you.” Again a statement. He could refute my observations at any point.
“You talk too much,” the older male growled and kicked my feet.
I pulled up my feet and kicked out hard. My boots slammed into something solid. The solid object buckled and yelped. The yelp became uncontrollable coughing.
The younger male spoke quietly. The coughing drowned out the words. And there I had the connection between the young and the old.
They met through the older man’s illness. Possibly a private nursing company or even in a hospital. So the older man needed constant care or just liked having someone on hand and the means to ensure that happened.
“Hank’s a friend of yours?”
My words drifted into the coughing and mingled with the quiet voice of the nurse. I’d decided to call him The Nurse. So, I had The Russian and The Nurse.
A partnership made in heaven.
The Russian coughed more.
“And Kristopher Lette is Hank’s son. Guess you knew that too. Made it easy to twist him around. Get the artist to help you … he isn’t killing, though. He hasn’t evolved enough for that yet.”
I spun back to Violet. It all started with Violet.
Spatter patterns filled my mind. Violet started the whole thing. Unwittingly. Patterns created by her blood squirting up the walls triggered something, not right away, but some time later Lette became involved and started dreaming up his forensic apron and bag idea.
“How did you get Lette fired up enough to create pieces of art?” I listened, trying to detect another presence in the area. “And shouldn’t he be here for this?”
Violent coughing ensued. My mind darted over bits of information.
“Shut up!” the nurse said. “You don’t know anything.”
Touchy. Must’ve been a nerve. Ideas fitted together. Hank had a hand in his son’s participation but how would he know Kristopher would be interested?
“Photographs. You showed Hank pictures of Violet and the blood pattern on the wall. He told you to get his kid involved. The struggling artist needed a break.”
A break? More like a bucket and a mop. He wasn’t destined for greatness in the art world.
So who sewed everything?
That’s what the freaking money was for!
Mallory Stevens.
Kurt needed to hurry up before all the puzzle pieces died with me.
“We have to move her,” the nurse said.
“Why?” The Russian’s coughing finally ceased.
“The order, the new gallery wants pooled blood and transfer patterns.”
New gallery. Branching out. Nice.
“Was that the duvet cover order?” His voice weakened with each bout of coughing.
“Yes.”
“Where’s the boy?”
“We were told to leave him alone today.”
“Now we’re artists and that little shit gets all the credit …”
Artists? I’ve seen monkeys with more talent.
“He sent instructions.”
“He should be here. Splashing the red around is his job, not ours.”
The whiff of dissension gave me something to exploit.
“He? Are you talking about Lette? He’s the talent, right?” The lack of derision when I said talent impressed me. “He should definitely be here. Why should you do all the work? Must be hard, being so sick and having to do everything.”
“Shut up!” the Russian said, the violence of the delivery threw him into another coughing fit.
It took several minutes to subside.
“I’d make Lette come down here and do his part.”
“Shut up!” he said, giving my foot a kick. His wheezing worsened. He couldn’t project his voice much beyond a hoarse whisper. “What did he say to do?”
“Treat the fabric once we have the pattern on it, he said it’ll be more authentic if we let it pool naturally.”
I was going to be a duvet cover.
Come on, Kurt, any minute now.
“Let’s do the cast off first,” the Russian said. “She’s a little too feisty to move yet.”
That didn’t sound good.
The nurse complained about the state of me. I found that rude.
“This is why I like the coffee/shower thing,” he said with a sigh. “She’s not compliant and one of us will have to remove those clothes.”
“Good luck,” I said with a smile.
“You’ll have to spray her again,” the nurse said.
Not keen on that idea.
“Then we’ll have to wait until she wakes again,” the Russian said. He didn’t sound impressed with the idea. “We don’t have time for that.”
Good to know.
“You undress her then,” the nurse replied. It sounded like a dare.
“Yeah, you do it,” I agreed. “No drugs. How hard can it be?”
My free hand, now mobile, meant I could sit up more. I wasn’t sure how much movement the handcuffed arm allowed me.
If I could stand it’d be even better.
My feet being tied was annoying but I’d already proved it possible for me to inflict damage. Ignoring the pain, I used my free hand and pushed myself to a sitting position, turning more toward my cuffed hand to relieve the strain. That allowed me to try lifting that arm. It moved upward. Standing may not be beyond my reach.
My movement didn’t go unnoticed.
“Stop,” the Russian cautioned.
“Make me,” I retorted, moving some more. Nausea returned in a massive wave, threatening impending messiness. I knew I was sitting up enough that I wouldn’t choke on my own vomit. Wondering what a regurgitated salmon bagel would be like kept my mind occupied for a few seconds. I could smell the Russian close to me. He coughed. Within arm’s reach. I needed him nearer. “I’m wearing a stab proof vest under my shirt,” I told him. Being helpful.
I heard him move then felt the heat radiate from his body. Too much heat. He was sick. He’d bent down, his hands tugging at the buttons on my shirt.
He coughed in my face. The salmon bagel mixed with bile flew up my esophagus and spewed out my mouth. For once I didn’t mind vomiting.
The squawk of disgust and horror made it all worthwhile.
“Fucking bitch,” the Russian said, retching.
The sound caused more vomit to spray from my mouth.
A surprised yell morphed into a thud and a wet splash in front of me. Guess the Russian slipped and fell in my vomit. Nice.
Nice.
I remembered the water near me when I woke up. Water. That would make my puke go further. Ignoring the pain of the broken bones, I scraped my sore hand along the floor, gathered vomit and liquid and flung it as far as I could.
The nurse yelled, “Stop that!”
I did it again.
Playing in my own vomit – what had I come to? I had to fight not to laugh like a lunatic.
More puke left my hand. I heard it splat onto something. The fabric I hoped. That’d ruin their little attempts to turn me into an art collection. Derision rose along with more bile. Pretty hard to make chunks of salmon bagel look like art. I was glad I’d eaten.
I grabbed the blindfold with my dripping vomit-covered hand and pulled it down.
What a mess!
Now I could see the Russian and the nurse.
Should’ve done that sooner.
A crash sounded somewhere beyond the room and the mess. Followed by booted feet moving quickly. Years of training with SWAT flooded back. Only move as fast as you can shoot. No point running if you can’t hit shit when you shoot.
Before I could refocus on the approaching noises, I saw a flash of metal from the corner of my eye. I pulled myself out of the way using my cuffed hand. Not far enough. I felt pressure on the top of my right arm. I pulled up my legs. The Russian slashed at me again; this time I could see him coming and kicked him. Both feet straight in the lower abdomen. He expelled foul air as he doubled over. The knife fell and landed in his own boot.
My fingers just reached it. I stretched as far as I could and grabbed the hilt. One sharp pull released the knife. The Russian wheezed and coughed.
I pulled back. As he straightened up, I threw the knife, slamming it into his chest. Wide-eyed, he stared at me.
A loud voice from the end of the room called, “Hands in the air. Turn around!”
Just past the Russian, five men in SWAT gear moved into the room.
The Russian turned. The nurse tried to run. A single shot rang out. With a sickening thud, the nurse hit the ground.
Booted feet ran across the floor to the Russian. Within seconds, he sat handcuffed in the middle of the floor with two rifles trained on him. Andrews appeared in front of me.
“Hey, Conway, you good?”
“Yeah, I’m great. Sorry about the mess.”
And the smell.
He chuckled. “We expect a certain amount of mess when you’re involved.” He undid the handcuffs and cut the tape from my ankles. “Can you stand?”
“I think so,” I replied, letting him help me to my feet. “That bastard cut me.”
I glanced at my arm. Blood soaked into my shirt sleeve.
Andrews pulled a dressing pack from his pocket, ripped it open with his teeth and pressed it against the wound. “Before or after you vomited on him?” He looked at the floor and the fabric hanging near me.
“After.”
Andrews laughed. “And you threw puke?”
“Slowed the Russian down a bit.”
And I ruined the fabric. Definitely a win.
Andrews shook his head and laughed. “Resourceful, Conway.”
I stepped closer to the handcuffed Russian. His dark cold eyes looked up at me.
“What?”
“Why the notes and the poem?” I needed to know.
“Someone told me the FBI liked poems.”
“Who?”
He shook his head and closed his mouth.
“Hey!” Kurt called, walking toward me. “Did you have to make this much mess?”
“I didn’t have a lot at my disposal and I needed to buy some time, you took too long.”
He wrapped his hand around the wound dressing on my arm and led me toward the door.
“You need a shower …”
Pass.
Respectable
I don’t know why Kurt let me in his car covered in vomit and reeking but he did. I felt a sense of relief once in the parking garage under our building.
That much closer to cleanliness.
“Take off your boots, wipe them with this and put them over there …” Kurt threw me a rag from the back of the car and pointed to the wall by the door. “Then come back and stand over the drain.”
I did. He unrolled a hose from a reel on the wall and turned the nozzle. Water squirted across the concrete. We had several hoses on each level. Sometimes our cars needed to be cleaned before being valeted professionally. Sometimes we needed to decontaminate our trunks. Sometimes it’s us that need decontaminating.
“This will be cold,” Kurt said as I stood over the grating in the floor. “You ready?”