The Keeper of Bees ARC

by Gregory Ashe

  “You’re new here,” Hazard said. “So I’ll explain things for you. Simply. I’m a police consultant. I work with John on his cases. I’ve had experience with this killer before, and together, John and I are your best bet of closing this case. So shut the fuck up, get the fuck off me, and let me do my fucking job. Go polish your fucking nameplate until I need you.”

  This time, Somers groaned.

  “Officer Lansdown,” Riggle said, his face purple under the halogen lamps, “Officer Russell. Mr. Hazard is under arrest.”

  “John,” Hazard said, “get this asshole away from me.”

  “Ree, you need to go.” Somers fished the keys out of his pocket, the metal jangling and too loud in the stillness. “Take the Mustang; when Dulac gets here, I’ll catch a ride with him. Chief, he’s going. There’s no need for this to escalate.”

  Hazard turned his attention back to the Keeper’s tableau. Distance made it impossible to confirm the details, but Hazard could picture it because he had seen what had been done to Phil Camerata: a hole blown in Susan’s head; a queen bee and her attendants in a queen-excluder sack forcibly inserted into the cavity; the swarm of bees drawn by the imprisoned queen. Hazard could hear the low droning, although he knew it was only memory. And, of course, the differences: Susan had been staged outside, in a weedy lot of an industrial park, instead of in the cramped cells of a college sub-basement. The lights were different too. This display had more sense of spectacle; the lights positioned around Susan were intended to draw the eye, control the gaze, direct the attention. If it had been possible, Hazard thought the Keeper might have wanted to shine a spotlight on her; this was the next best thing.

  A hand on his wrist.

  “—let’s get to the car and talk about this,” Somers was saying.

  “Russell,” Riggle was shouting, “slap cuffs on this piece of shit before I have to do it myself.”

  Hazard glanced over his shoulder; Russell was apparently the name of the pimply-faced kid who had been stringing the tape. He was coming at Hazard with a nasty grin on his face, fumbling with the cuffs on his belt, obviously unpracticed at how to use them. Another officer, a bigger, butcher version, but still looking like a schoolyard thug, was also approaching. Presumably, this was Lansdown. Farther back, a few officers Hazard recognized, men and women who had worked with him under Cravens, watched, frozen and silent.

  “This is getting out of control,” Somers was saying, putting himself between Hazard and Riggle. “It’s a misunderstanding, Chief, and it’s my fault. I assumed Emery would be working as a consultant on the case; under Chief Cravens—”

  “Cravens is gone, son,” Riggle boomed. “As of this moment, your boyfriend is no longer a contracted employee of the Wahredua Police Department. How’s that for clarity? I don’t want him at another crime scene ever again, and I sure as hell want him off of this one. The last thing I need is a distraction while we try to find the maniac who did this.”

  It was the word that gelled everything in Hazard’s mind; the rapid firing of neurons, the cold blaze of conscious and subconscious logic that Hazard was already running through, all of it froze in an instant.

  A distraction.

  Grabbing Somers’s shirt, he dragged him toward the Mustang, breaking into a run. He caught Russell with his shoulder and sent him ass-first to the ground, and he just kept running.

  “Ree, what the hell—” Somers said.

  “Mitchell,” Hazard said. “He’s going for Mitchell right now.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  JULY 2

  TUESDAY

  1:44 AM

  WHEN THEY REACHED MITCHELL’S apartment building, the street was so silent that Somers’s pulse rang in his ears. Ignoring the red curb, he parked at the front entrance. Behind the glass doors, the lobby was awash with a soft glow.

  “Ree,” Somers began.

  Hazard launched out of the car.

  Swearing, Somers went after him. He caught up with Hazard at the intercom, where Hazard was depressing the button next to Mitchell’s unit number. The panel emitted a soft buzz.

  “Ok,” Somers said.

  Hazard kept his finger on the button, and the buzzing went up and down Somers’s spine like the teeth of a saw.

  “Ok,” Somers said again, grabbing Hazard’s wrist this time. “He can’t answer if you hold it down.”

  But in the quiet that followed, the only noise was the hum of the sodium lamps, and down the block, the rumble of a truck coming to life. Headlights swung out across the black river of asphalt, and then the light narrowed, vanished, and taillights drifted off into darkness.

  Hazard jammed the button again.

  “Ree, he’s not answering. He’s asleep or he’s out with friends or—Jesus Christ, will you stop?”

  In answer, Hazard jammed the button harder.

  “I’ll call the super,” Somers said. “He’ll let us in, and we can go upstairs and knock on his door. Maybe he’s not answering because he’s scared. Maybe he just needs to hear your voice.”

  Hazard jabbed at the button. For a man so ruthlessly pragmatic, he seemed suddenly incapable of varying his behavior. He just drilled into the button again and again.

  Somers found the number he wanted, placed the call, and listened to the phone ring. He wrapped his hand around Hazard’s wrist again. Hazard tried to twist free, but Somers held on, and after another moment, Hazard staggered away from the intercom panel, breaking Somers’s grip.

  “Son of bitch,” Hazard swore, spinning and coming back at the panel, fists coming up. “You cock-swallowing fucking whoreson piece of shit.”

  “You’re going to hurt yourself,” Somers murmured, stepping into his path, cradling the phone against his shoulder.

  “I’m not going to do anything.”

  “Ree, just take a breath.”

  “I’m just going to rip that fucking intercom panel out of the fucking wall and use it to break down the fucking door.”

  “Maybe one more deep breath.”

  In Somers’s ear, the phone continued to ring. No voicemail. No sign that the call would ever connect to anything. In the darkness, with the flutter of the streetlights like moth wings, that seemed very real. Maybe he was calling a number that didn’t connect to anything. Maybe it went all the way out to the end of the universe.

  “No answer,” Somers said.

  Hazard spun away. He paced to the end of the block. Fists at his side, back arched, head thrown back, his whole body was an arrow aimed at the sky. Then he let out another vicious string of swears and came back.

  “I’m not going to do anything,” he said, and this time, he sounded like he even knew what he was saying. Taking Somers’s arms, he moved him a yard to one side, and then he approached the panel.

  “I’m not feeding you if you break your hands,” Somers said, disconnecting the call. He placed a new call to Dulac, wondering why he hadn’t heard from the younger detective yet, and added, “I’m definitely not wiping your ass. You can look forward to itchy, stinky months all by yourself if you break your hands.”

  Hazard pressed the button again. It took Somers a moment to realize that it wasn’t Mitchell’s, but it was the unit next door. Hazard held down the button as he had the first time, but this time, he released it after thirty seconds.

  “—fucking kill you, you fucking moron, I’m trying to sleep and if you buzz me one more time, I’m going to fucking—”

  Hazard jabbed the button again. And again. And again.

  “Ah,” Somers said, while the call to Dulac went to voicemail. “The old catch-more-flies-with-honey routine.” Then, “Gray, call me. Where the hell are you?” To Hazard again, “Elevator.”

  Hazard released the intercom button and moved to stand in front of the lobby doors. The elevator indicator ticked down the floors, and a moment later, the stainless-steel doors opened. The man who emerged was balding, probably in his late forties, and wearing what Somers thought
might be Teddy Ruxpin adult pajamas, threadbare from an estimated thirty years of wash and wear. He was carrying a baseball bat.

  “If he breaks your arm,” Somers began.

  “For fuck’s sake, John, I’ll figure out how to wipe my own ass.”

  The man threw open the door as Hazard was delivering this piece of reassurance, and it caught him off guard. He hesitated, obviously not having expected something like that, and Hazard kicked him in the shin. The man howled, hopping on one foot, and Hazard wrenched the baseball bat from his hands. Then he gestured for Somers to precede him into the building.

  “Very gentlemanly,” Somers said as he stepped past the injured man, who was clutching one Ruxpin-covered leg to his chest in a remarkable display of agility for his age.

  Hazard grunted and followed; they left their new friend hobbling in circles outside the building.

  “Old fashioned,” Somers said as he pressed the up button.

  Hazard was silent.

  They were passing the fourth floor when Somers tried again: “Courtly.”

  Hazard was pale and trembling; his hand loosened, and the bat rolled free, clanging against the metal panel of the elevator.

  When the elevator dinged at the eighth floor, Somers said, “I think you should stay here.”

  “No,” he said. “It’ll be worse.”

  “Maybe no gun,” Somers said. “And I want you to stay in the hall.”

  Nodding, Hazard bent and picked up the bat. Somers led the way out of the elevator, drawing the Glock and keeping it low as they approached Mitchell’s door. Somers counted his steps; the only noises in the world were the hammering of his pulse and the brush-rasp-brush of his sneakers against the carpet.

  The door to Mitchell’s apartment was open an inch.

  “Call it in,” Somers said over his shoulder.

  “No, I—”

  “Absolutely not. Call it in, Emery. Right now.”

  Somers had just long enough to register the shock on Hazard’s face, and then he kicked open the door and launched himself into the apartment. Part of his brain had already gone quiet, instinct and training taking over, the flood of adrenaline making higher-order thinking difficult. He cleared the corners. His movements were fluid, sure, the Glock drifting like an extension of his body. He charged down the hall, a sprint that felt effortless as every muscle in his body burned a high-octane fuel. He cleared the rooms one by one.

  Inside Mitchell’s apartment, every light was burning. Every room was empty.

  “Clear,” Somers shouted, and then he moved back toward the front of the apartment, his breathing suddenly heavy and difficult, and he had to try twice to holster the Glock before he got it right.

  At the apartment’s front door, Hazard was shouting into his phone, “—because he’s in there, alone, risking his fucking life while the rest of you sit around with your thumbs up your asses, so get the fuck over here right now and—John?”

  “It’s clear. It’s ok. Mitchell’s gone.”

  Hazard shook his head once, the long, dark hair flying, and then he disconnected the call. He was still shoving the phone in his pocket when he grabbed Somers, dragging him into a hug, crushing Somers against him.

  Somers ran his hand through Hazard’s hair, carding it slowly, letting his fingertips trace the shape of Hazard’s skull and the strong lines of his neck, his shoulders. “Is that a baseball bat,” Somers whispered, “or are you just happy to see me?”

  “You already used that one.”

  “The old ones are the best.”

  “You need new material.”

  “Sometimes audiences like familiar content.”

  “No,” Hazard said. “They don’t.”

  “You just say that because you’ve never read a book more than once.”

  “That’s not true; I read Bacon’s Novum Organum twice.”

  “Ree,” Somers said. “I need you to do what you’re good at. Right now. Before they get here and lock this place down. Before Riggle kicks you out. Understand?”

  After a moment, Hazard nodded and started moving around the room. Somers kept an eye on him while taking an opposite course. Hazard checked the front door, examining the locks, the strike plate, some kind of electronic device that Somers guessed was a sensor for an alarm, and the frame for a security bar mounted on the inside. Then he moved toward the windows, checking some sort of film on the glass, the cam locks, and more of the electronic sensors. Somers was working his way through the kitchen. No drawers torn open. No signs of a search or a frantic attempt to lay hands on a weapon.

  “Unplugged,” Hazard said, and Somers glanced over to see him standing by a security camera and pointing at the power cord and plug, which lay on the floor. “Lot of fucking good.”

  “Maybe the cameras recorded something before they were unplugged. A lot of these do-it-yourself kits can upload directly to the cloud.”

  Hazard swore under his breath and moved to examine the alarm console. Somers lingered in the kitchen; something about the space prickled in his gut, but it took him a moment to put his finger on it.

  Water in the sink. Big, fat beads glittering against the stainless steel.

  Tearing a paper towel from the roll, Somers folded it until only a corner stuck out, and then he dabbed it against the inside of the drain.

  “Fuck,” he muttered as he pulled the towel back, and then he displayed the red-stained paper for Hazard.

  Hazard couldn’t get any paler, but somehow, his face seemed even more washed out as he nodded.

  They moved through the rest of the apartment together.

  “He was going out,” Hazard said, pointing to the anal douche left on the rim of the bathtub. “I fucking told him not to go out, and he did it anyway.”

  “Or someone came over,” Somers said. “That just means he was expecting sex.”

  Hazard just nodded. He ushered Somers all the way into the bedroom and closed the door. He pointed to a floor-mounted door lock that Somers hadn’t ever seen before, and then his finger drifted up, to a single spray of blood arcing across the back of the door.

  “He didn’t set the lock,” Somers said, his brain suddenly wooden, as though all the gears had stopped. “He was back here when he was attacked, but he didn’t set the lock.”

  “Because he knew his attacker,” Hazard said, his voice dead. “He trusted him.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  JULY 2

  TUESDAY

  8:42 AM

  SOMERS WAS AT HIS DESK, working through preliminary photographs and video of the crime scene, when Dulac came out of Riggle’s office. The younger detective’s cheeks were red, and he hung his head as he came across the bullpen. Although Riggle had kept his door shut, Somers had heard the chief’s every word. So had everybody else in a mile radius.

  “Bro,” Dulac said as he slumped down at the desk opposite Somers. He eyes filled with tears and he blinked them away before dropping his head onto his arms. “I know I fucked up.”

  Leaning back in his seat, Somers rearranged the crime-scene photographs on his desk. He had tried a chronological organization, copying Norman and Gross’s approach to Susan’s body as they documented and processed the scene. Then he had tried organizing them in terms of importance: evidence that might lead to the killer, close-ups of Susan herself, anything that might give Somers a place to start. Blowing out a breath, Somers shuffled the photographs again and tried laying them out spatially, with the pictures of Susan at the center and then moving out, arranging the other photographs as best he could to correspond to a sketched layout of the scene.

  “Dude,” Dulac finally said, looking up. “Man. Bro.”

  “I guess you’re ok,” Somers said, the glossy paper of the photograph sticking to his thumb. He flicked it free. “That’s a positive thing, right?”

  “Darnell and I really got into it last night. I slept on the couch. My phone died. It’s not like I was trying to be irresp
onsible, ok? Any other night, it would have been fine.”

  “I didn’t say you were trying to be irresponsible,” Somers said, flattening another photo against the desk. Then, channeling a voice that sounded suspiciously like Emery Hazard, he added, “Nobody tries to be irresponsible. That’s the whole point.”

  “Look, I fucked up. I get it.”

  Somers gave him a thumbs up while settling the next image into place.

  “Dude,” Dulac said, dragging out the word into a whine.

  “I don’t know what you want me to tell you. Riggle tore you a new asshole; hopefully, you learned your lesson. End of story.”

  “Can we go work or something? Christ, I’m fucking embarrassed enough. I don’t need to sit around here. Let’s go take another look at the crime scene. Or we can swing by Dr. Boyer’s office—”

  “Nope,” Somers said. “And nope. Christ, Emery Hazard is too deep in my brain these days. What does this pattern look like to you?”

  “Um, a circle.”

  “Not a Celtic triquetra?”

  “What?”

  Somers rubbed his eyes. “Never mind. Long night.”

  “Bro, I know you’re pissed at me, but punishing me by keeping me away from the case isn’t—”

  “I’m not punishing you. About two hours ago, the FBI showed up. Somebody called them. Somebody screamed until they dragged their collective asses out of bed and got down here. They took over the scene, which, fair, they’ve got way more resources to handle it. We were politely asked to wait for them to finish processing the scene. I’m lucky Riggle didn’t put me back on the exploding-mailboxes investigation, for Christ’s sake.”

  “They told us to stay away from their case?”

  “Politely,” Somers said, gathering up the photographs. “Come here and I’ll show you what we’ve got.”

  Scooting around the desks in his chair, the casters squeaking like mad, Dulac said, “They can’t do that. This is our case, our crime scene, our killer. Where the fuck were they when the Keeper took Mitchell and Phil and Rory?”