Blood Brother. J. Kerley A.

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СКАЧАТЬ inside before the cruiser roared into traffic. I looked at the driver: Koslowski. He wrinkled his nose at my used clothes, shot me a glance, and rolled his window down.

      “Where’s the scene?” I yelled over the siren. The traffic was mainly taxis. Koslowski kept his foot deep in the pedal, expecting cabs to open a path by the time he got there, and somehow they did.

      “SoHo. If I don’t get you there in five minutes, Waltz is going to chew my ass.”

      “I can’t imagine Waltz chewing ass.”

      “He does it without words. It’s worse that way.”

      “He’s an interesting guy,” I said, fishing for more info about the sad-eyed detective. “What’s your take on him?”

      Instead of answering, Koslowski pulled to a brick Italianate duplex, a FOR SALE sign in the tiny front yard. I saw one cruiser by the curb, and a battered SUV with NYPD TECHNICAL DIVISION stenciled on the door. Beside it was a van from the Medical Examiner’s office. A blue-and-white was sideways across two lanes to keep gawkers distant, its light bar painting the street in shaking, multihued bursts. I jumped out and hustled toward the house.

      “Hey, Dixie,” Koslowski called.

      I spun. “What?”

      “You asked me what I thought about Shelly Waltz.” He jammed the cruiser in gear. “When it’s nighttime for the whole world, and everyone is asleep, Shelly Waltz flies through the sky on a silver unicorn.”

      “What?”

      But Koslowski’s taillights were already flowing away. Shaking my head, I entered the house. A man and woman from the Medical Examiner’s office stood inside the door, opening a case of equipment. They looked shaken, ashen. They directed me down a hall to a bedroom. I smelled blood and my stomach shifted sideways.

      I entered the room. Like the front rooms, it was devoid of furniture. Shelly was alone, standing above a draped figure in the center of the floor. The white cover was turning red as I watched. Waltz was rubbing his eyes with his palms.

      “What is it, Shelly?”

      He shook his head, lifted the cover. A woman’s nude body. Her eyes stared wide from the center of her own belly. Blood and fascia and yellow fatty tissue surrounded the head, having squirted out when the head was jammed into the wound. I let it all register for a five count, then closed my eyes.

      “We’ve got a bad problem,” Waltz said.

      “Bad as it gets,” I affirmed.

      Waltz let the cover fall back over the corpse. When it fell it puffed out air, swirling hairs on the floor, the same amalgam I’d seen at Vangie’s crime scene: hairs of various colors and textures. Looking closer, I saw them scattered everywhere. On the tile floor, laying atop congealing pools of blood, on the window sill.

      We turned to a thunder of footsteps approaching down the hall followed by Folger’s bray.

      “Waltz? Are you back there?”

      The footsteps turned into three agitated faces, Lieutenant Folger and Tweedledum and -dee from this morning – the hulking Bullard and Abel Cluff, a smaller and older guy with bulging eyes and the forward-pointing facial structure of a stoat. Cluff was wheezing, like he’d run a dozen flights instead of walking up a five-step stoop out front. Both men were in dark suits and white shirts, Bullard’s plank-thick wrists hanging two inches from his sleeves, like he’d grown since he’d bought the suit.

      The trio moved past, stepping around the blood pools and smears. Cluff bent and lifted the cover from the corpse. His eyes showed neither surprise nor emotion and I figured being an older detective with the NYPD, he’d seen every possible permutation of horror.

      “Oh Christ,” Folger moaned when she saw the body. “Tell me I’m dreaming, we don’t have a mad butcher out there.”

      “Removing the head could be an attempt at depersonalization,” I ventured, trying to be helpful. “But inserting it in the abdomen could be a show of control: Behold my power. Or it might –”

      Folger snapped her face to me. “What the hell are you doing here?” She sniffed, wafting her hand past her nose at my scent. “Jesus, they don’t have soap or deodorant where you’re from?”

      Waltz said, “I invited Detective Ryder, Lieutenant. Given his experience with disturbed minds, I thought he might –”

      “He’s not needed,” she said. “Stick him on a bus and aim it south.”

      Bullard pinched his nose and gurgled a laugh. “You may want to spray him with something first.”

      “Have you seen all you need, Detective?” Waltz asked. He shot me a look that said he knew I hadn’t, but it was time to let the Lieutenant win one. I nodded yes for the sake of harmony, and we retreated outside. There were now three cruisers on scene, one ambulance, an ME vehicle, a forensic vehicle, a large command vehicle and Waltz’s dinged-up blue Chevy Impala. The area was cordoned with yellow CRIME SCENE tape. The kid from Tech Services, Cargyle, jogged by, phone to his face and a heavy case slung over his shoulder.

      I said, “Looks like you people are about to ramp into full investigative mode, Shelly. I’ll catch a cab.”

      “One question, Detective. The eyes of the two victims. What do you make of the eyes?”

      “That they’re open?” I said. “Not closed or covered or mutilated?”

      “Yes.”

      “He feels no shame at his actions, Shelly. There’s a good chance he feels pride his victims get to watch him at work.”

      Waltz nodded sadly and turned as white as a man struck by lightning. Photoflash. I spun and saw a photographer a dozen feet distant.

      Flash.

      “Hey, Detective Waltz, s’up in there? Who’s dead?”

       Flash Flash.

      I saw blue squares floating in the air. Waltz gestured for a uniform to move the guy away. The photog retreated on wide and flat feet, grinning like a donkey, holding his hands up in the I surrender pose. He was a short guy, round, round, and round – face, belly, and butt, respectively.

      I looked at Waltz. “One of the local media elite?”

      “That piece of waddling excrement is the infamous Benny Mac. The prize scribbler-slash-camera jockey from the New York Watcher. It’s the newspaper for citizens who don’t like to read. We’ll be in it tomorrow, unless something important takes the space, like a celebrity getting a DUI or a cat that uses a toilet.”

      I watched the guy pad across the street, shooting an arm into the air like an imperious wave. An engine roared to life down the block and a double-parked white Hummer sailed to Benny Mac’s side. He climbed inside, barked some command to the driver, and was whisked away, smirking through the window as he went.

       FOUR СКАЧАТЬ