Drake checked his watch as Palmer approached.
It was almost one in the afternoon.
“Early,” he muttered under his breath. “The second body was early.”
“What the fuck happened here?” Palmer demanded.
Drake looked around before answering. Several other police officers had joined the fray and they were physically forcing people away from the scene.
With a sigh, he rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand.
“Jesus Christ, are you drunk?” Palmer asked. He leaned in close and took a whiff of Drake’s breath.
The accusation angered Drake. He wasn’t drunk, but he very much wished that he was.
“What’s wrong with you? What happened here?” Palmer demanded.
Drake finally looked the man in the eyes.
“You wanted the media to know… and now they do.”
For a split second, Drake thought that the Inspector was going to strike him.
He restrained himself.
“You’re finished, Drake.”
Drake laughed.
“I was done years ago. And I don’t fucking work for you, anyway.”
Yasiv tried to ease the tension, but Palmer wasn’t done yet.
“You may not be part of the NYPD, but you know that little side business you have? Triple D Investigations? Well, I’m going to shut that down.”
The threat struck a nerve with Drake. His business had nothing to do with the NYPD, and he had spent a lot of time and work building it up to a mediocre success. But it was more than that; the money made from Triple D supported Screech—it was half his, after all—and it also supported Jasmine and their unborn baby. And Suzan. Suzan also depended on him; the shitty pension and payout that Jasmine got from Clay’s murder wasn’t nearly enough to support them.
“You can’t—”
Inspector Palmer surprised him by not only not backing down, but actually moving forward aggressively.
“I can do whatever the fuck I want, because I’m not in an elected position, you dumb shit. Take one guess who appointed me.”
Yasiv finally managed to weasel his way between the two of them before it came to blows.
“People are taking pictures, let’s keep it together.”
Palmer scowled and took a step back. Then he shrugged and somehow managed to compose himself.
Drake, on the other hand, was still seething.
“Drake, you want to tell us what happened here?” Palmer asked in a remarkably calm tone.
When Drake didn’t answer, Yasiv chimed in.
“Drake? What happened?”
Drake wanted nothing more than to punch Palmer square in the nose. But Yasiv’s pleading expression convinced him otherwise.
With a heavy sigh, he recounted what had happened, only leaving out the mention of his name.
“He said that? He said that he was the Skeleton King before he killed himself?” Palmer asked.
Drake nodded.
“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”
“Drake…” Yasiv pleaded.
“And when you ran back inside, everyone was gone?”
Drake nodded.
A smirk suddenly appeared on Palmer’s face.
“Why are you smiling?” Drake demanded.
“Because we caught the guy.”
Drake looked quickly from Palmer to Yasiv, the latter of whom lowered his gaze.
Even if the man was the Skeleton King as he’d claimed, Drake knew that this wasn’t the end.
His thoughts turned to the preacher with the dark hair and the dark eyes.
“It’s not over,” he hissed. “Is not even close to over.”
Instead of answering him, DI Palmer turned sideways and addressed Yasiv directly.
“Sergeant Yasiv, we’re going to have to make some changes to that press conference speech. We should also move the timeline up a few hours. We need to tell the—”
Drake reached out and grabbed Palmer by the collar.
“This isn’t fucking over. This is only the—”
Inspector Palmer brought the blade of his hand down hard on Drake’s forearm, knocking it loose. Drake instinctively reached up with his other hand, but Yasiv blocked him.
Palmer’s eyes blazed into Drake.
“Damien Drake, I advise you to get out of here right now, before I arrest you.”
“You wouldn’t—” Yasiv began, but was cut off when Palmer reached behind his back and retrieved a set of handcuffs.
“I would, and I will. Get the fuck out of here, Drake. In fact, if you so much as look at 62nd precinct or come anywhere near this case, I’ll throw you in jail for obstruction.”
Drake was almost overwhelmed with the desire to punch the man again. But Yasiv… and Jasmine…
Someone shouted something behind them and Palmer turned.
“Go back to the station, Drake. Collect your things,” Yasiv said just loud enough so that only Drake could hear. “I’ll stall him for an hour or so.”
Drake, seething, turned his back on them.
Before he’d even made it back to his Crown Vic, he finished the bourbon in his pocket and tossed the empty bottle at Yasiv’s car.
Chapter 36
This time when Drake parked outside the precinct, not only did he not take a spot, but he drove halfway up onto the sidewalk.
Drake was furious, and he walked like he was furious. He barreled into the station, purposefully not looking at anybody. He went directly to the conference room, and when he found it empty, the first thing he did was tear the picture of Clay off the wall. Then he ripped them all down.
“This is not fucking over,” he grumbled as he started to throw all the photographs and associated notes into his folder. “It’s not fucking over—Clay wasn’t killed by a fucking pervert janitor, and Simmons wasn’t killed by an altar boy with one finger.”
Drake was so caught up in his own world, that he didn’t even hear the door to the conference room open.
“You need to learn to park, man.”
Drake whipped around, knowing that if he saw inspector Palmer’s face, or if it was that little prick Kramer, he wouldn’t have the resources or mental fortitude to stop from wrapping his hands around their necks and squeezing.
But it was neither.
“Screech?” He said in a strangled tone. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Screech cautiously entered the room and closed the door behind him.
It was only then, under the harsh lights, that Drake fully realized how terrible his partner appeared. He had looked bad when he’d seen him at Triple D, but now he looked veritably brutal. His goatee was scraggly and there were patches of hair on his neck and cheeks. There were deep crevices at the corners of his eyes, a hallmark of someone twice his age. And his hair… he had trimmed it down from the afro cue ball he used to have, to something much shorter months ago. But now, it was all messed up, growing at strange angles because of his double crown.
“What the fuck happened to you?” Drake asked.
“I could ask you the same damn thing. You look like a fucking hobo. You look even worse than the guy who threw himself in front of a bus on 41st street.”
As he spoke, Screech opened the folder in his hand and slammed it down beside the one that Drake was just in the process of filling.
“I tried calling maybe five hundred times, but as usual, your fat tyrannosaurus fingers can’t open your damn phone. And now I’ve gone and lost mine.”
Drake raised an eyebrow. He was aware that his phone had been ringing nearly nonstop, but he had assumed that it had been Jasmine this whole time.
“What’s in the folder, Screech?”
“Take a look for yourself,” he replied. And with that, Screech started to move about the room, observing what little notes and images remained.
Drake wasn’t in the mood for games. And yet, he found himself unable to resist opening the folder before him.
The heading on the first page re
ad: ANGUIS HOLDINGS. To follow was a list of all of their assets, most of which was real estate. Drake quickly scanned through these, noting that the house that Simmons had been found in was on it, as well as others that looked vaguely familiar.
Drake flipped over to the next page and was surprised to find a list of all individuals who owned a part of, or invested in, ANGUIS.
“How’d you find this? It isn’t a public company, is it?”
Screech, his back still to him, only grunted.
Drake scanned the names but didn’t see any he recognized. He turned to the third page, which was also a list of names, only this time, halfway down, he stopped.
“No shit,” he whispered. He tapped the name Frank Simmons with a dirty fingernail.
Drake continued scanning until he saw another name that he recognized.
And then he whistled.
“Raul Mendes,” he read out loud. He pictured the impish man with the strange tattoo on his forearm. “Why the hell would Raul be involved in this?”
Drake quickly flipped back to the real estate holdings.
“Bingo,” he said quietly, his finger landing on the condo that Ken Smith lived in. “What does this all mean, Screech?”
“How should I know? You’re the detec—the ex-detective.”
Drake turned to the very last page of the document, and his heart leaped into his throat.
There, in the center of the page, was the symbol of a snake eating an eyeball.
Chapter 37
“You sure about this?” Drake said, tapping the image of the snake and the eyeball. “You sure this is related to ANGUIS Holdings?”
For the first time in a long time, maybe even forever, Screech grew serious and seemed at a loss for words.
“I think—I think you need to be very careful, Drake. I think—”
The door to the conference room opened for the second time, and a blustered-looking Dunbar entered.
He looked first at Drake, then turned to Screech.
“What’s up Screech,” he said, and the two quickly shook hands. When Dunbar turned back to Drake, his expression wasn’t nearly as cordial.
“Look, I don’t want to be that guy, and I consider you a friend, but Yasiv just called. Palmer’s coming back and…” Dunbar shrugged.
Drake felt bad for the detective then, felt bad for everybody who had put up with his shit over the years. Maybe it was a mistake coming here. All it accomplished was putting everyone on edge, made it harder for them to do their jobs.
And maybe Palmer, and Rhodes before him, were right. What if Peter Kellington was the Skeleton King and that asshole altar boy was just a copycat.
Drake rubbed his temples.
I need to sleep, he thought. For a week.
“You okay?” Dunbar asked.
“Fine.”
Screech turned to look at them.
“Hey, what’s with these pool balls?”
Dunbar answered him.
“Your guess is as good as mine. A code, of some sort.”
“Shoot me a pen?” Screech asked. Dunbar, eyebrow raised, handed him a piece of chalk.
“Think it’s some sort of computer code? Password, maybe?”
Screech chuckled.
“You guys are funny. No, the numbers just represent letters.”
Dunbar shook his head.
“We tried that, had a computer program try all sorts of complex—”
Screech ignored him and started to write.
“Six equals F, five equals E—”
“Yeah, I know,” Dunbar continued. “And eight is H, nine is I, and the one ball is A. That gives us HIAFFE. Not a word in any language.”
“Maybe not. What if the eight ball is not an eight, but an eighteen. What if only the last digit counts—after all there is no eighteen ball in pool. That would make it not an I, but an R. The nine ball would then be an S, and the twenty-one either U or K. So, I’m thinking…”
As he spoke, Screech started to arrange letters on the board and a word finally started to appear.
“I’m guessing the twenty-one is supposed to be a U, after all.”
Drake blinked three times.
“Suffer?” Dunbar read out loud. He shrugged and then screwed up his face. “Yeah, I don’t—”
Drake suddenly bolted to his feet.
“Suffer,” he repeated. “Suffer.”
Screech and Dunbar both turned and looked at him.
“Yeah, I just said—”
Drake shook his head.
“That strange preacher guy, the one standing up on stage talking beside roadkill man? He kept saying that… suffering is the plague of humankind, or some shit.”
Screech, who was unaware of what happened back at the Church of Liberation, looked to Dunbar.
“He’s completely lost it, Dunbar. We all knew this was—”
“There was this crazy guy—” Dunbar began, but Drake cut him off.
“I was only partly listening. Something about how only humans suffer and that there is only one way to end it…”
“What do you think it means?” Dunbar asked.
Drake shrugged, his enthusiasm waning. It may be a clue, but it didn’t give them much to go on.
“I don’t know, maybe. It’s just hard to think that this is a coincidence, given that Alice Monroe and Greg Horo-whatever attended the church.”
“It’s not just them,” Dunbar said softly. “I haven’t searched it all yet, but I found that three of the other victims also either went to the church or donated money to it in some way or another.”
“What you talking about?”
Dunbar quickly pulled up a chair and opened the laptop that was sitting on his desk. Then he started to type furiously.
“I managed to pull up some of these tax receipts, you know, for donations to charitable causes and whatnot? If you make an anonymous donation, the information is always blocked, but if you ask for a receipt… look here.”
On screen was a list of names not unlike the one in the back of the ANGUIS Holdings file that Screech had given him.
“There, see that?”
Drake leaned in close. He saw the name Alice Monroe on the list of donors. There was no indication of how much money she gave, only that she made a contribution.
“What the hell was a girl pushing heroin donating to a church?” Screech asked, verbalizing Drake’s own thoughts.
“No idea,” Dunbar replied. He highlighted another name.
“Frank Simmons,” Drake read out loud. His throat suddenly felt parched again and he elbowed his way close to the keyboard.
“You mind if I do something real quick?”
“Go ahead.”
Drake leaned into the keyboard and then raised his head.
“Is there a way to search?”
“Control-F,” Dunbar and Screech answered in unison.
With trembling hands, Drake pressed control-F. As he started to type, starting with C, the cursor jumped around, highlighting names.
C-L-A-
The first hit was a man named Clams.
Clams? Who in the hell would name their kid Clams?
But when Drake added a ‘Y’, only one name popped up.
“No fucking way,” he muttered under his breath as he stared at the name Clay Cuthbert.
Chapter 38
“What are you still doing here?” Sergeant Yasiv said, poking his head into the conference room. “Palmer’s here and he’s going to—”
Drake held up the folder that Screech had given him.
“You have to see this, it’s not—”
Yasiv glanced up and down the hallway.
“You can’t be here, Drake. Listen, Palmer may not look like much, but he’s tough as nails. If he finds you here—”
Drake, ignoring the man, rose to his feet.
“We found something here, something that connects all of the victims. Something real, Yasiv. And Screech, Screech saw the—”
Yasiv raised a hand, and
when he spoke next, he did so in a tone that finally got Drake’s attention.
“No, Drake. You don’t understand. You need to leave. Now. I’m not asking you. I’m telling you.”
Drake scowled.
“This is because Palmer was appointed, isn’t it? Because he was appointed by the Mayor.”
Yasiv stepped into the room and Drake moved toward him.
“If you don’t leave now, Drake, I’ll arrest you myself.”
Drake looked at his colleague for a moment, sizing him up. He had never known Yasiv to be violent, or even aggressive.
Could Ken have gotten to him, too? For fuck’s sake, how many people does he have in his back pocket?
Drake allowed his shoulders to sag.
“I’m gonna go home and get some rest,” he said at last. “And then tomorrow, I’m going to be at Triple D trying to figure out how to catch this bastard. All of you are more than welcome to join me.”
And with that, Drake scooped up the rest of his files, ignoring the last few notes and photos still strung about the room, and left.
***
Even though Drake spent almost every night at Jasmine’s house, he still leased his one-bedroom apartment.
Which was where he headed now.
There was so much information rattling around in his brain, that Drake wasn’t even sure that alcohol would help at this point.
Clay… Clay is somehow involved in the Church and ANGUIS Holdings with Raul and Simmons and the other victims? What the hell is that all about?
Drake parked his aging Crown Vic outside of his apartment complex and then sat in it for a moment. He had considered going back to see Jasmine, but now that he had been gone for almost a day, he was afraid that more questions would be asked than he could handle in his tired state.
After this is all over, after this is all said and done, I’ll go to Jasmine and tell her that I found out who killed Clay. When I can do that, I’ll go to her and hold her tight.
With tired legs, Drake made his way up the stairs to his apartment. Somehow, he managed to drop his keys, and when he went to pick them up, he realized that the door to his apartment was slightly ajar.
Detective Damien Drake series Box Set 2 Page 12