Nocturnal

by Scott Sigler

  “Holy shit,” Pookie said. “That’s a dead-ringer for Father Paul Maloney.”

  Bryan took them all in, the drawings of pain, the drawings of death.

  His eyes fell on one, and he could not look away. It was a man with a snake-face, the same thing Bryan had seen in his dreams. The drawing stared back at him from the wall, as if it wanted to come alive and talk. Narrow yellow eyes seemed to laugh at him.

  Beneath the face was one word, written in a superhero-style typeface: Sly.

  “Bryan, you okay?”

  Pookie’s voice sounded distant. Bryan’s breath finally slid out in a long huff. He breathed in through his nose — that new scent flooded him. So much stronger in here, in the room where Rex had slept and played and drawn. The smell made Bryan relaxed and excited all at the same time; it made him want to do something, but he didn’t know what that something was.

  A hand patting his back. “Bri-Bri, you okay?” Pookie leaned in and whispered: “Is it the drawings?”

  Bryan nodded toward the snake-face. “You asked if a sketch artist could draw what I saw in my dream? Well, there you go.”

  Pookie looked at the drawing of Sly.

  “That’s messed up,” Pookie said. “There’s a lot of messed up going on around here today.”

  Sammy Berzon finally stood up. He dropped a crumbled piece of tissue into a clear evidence bag. “You guys see Birdman’s wound?”

  Bryan and Pookie nodded.

  “It’s terrible,” Sammy said. “Poor Bobbie, eh? You know how strong a guy would have to be to put a hatchet through the clavicle and three ribs?”

  “Damn strong,” Pookie said. “Probably as strong as you’d have to be to rip someone’s arm off.”

  Sammy thought, then nodded. “You guys thinking this is the same perp who took out Oscar Woody? He’d have to be like a pro football player or a bodybuilder or something.”

  Pookie pointed to the many drawings of the brown-haired muscle boy. “That kid looks like a bodybuilder.”

  “That kid, sure” — Sammy picked up a framed photo off the dresser and handed it over — “but not this kid.”

  Bryan looked at the photo. It was clearly the muscle-boy sketched in the drawings, only much skinnier, much smaller, and much dorkier. Something about that face … familiar? Bryan hadn’t dreamed of this kid. Or had he? He found himself waiting for some kind of reaction to the photo, but the image did nothing.

  The picture doesn’t affect you, but what if he was here and you SMELLED him?

  “We have to find this kid,” Bryan said. “He’s our man.”

  Pookie took the picture and studied it. “Our boy, anyway. Sammy, the gunshot blood in the hall might tell us if Oscar’s killer was the one who got shot, right?”

  Sammy nodded.

  “Cool,” Pookie said. “We also need some DNA from this Rex kid. He had run-ins with Woody and the BoyCo gang.”

  “Kid lived here, DNA is all over the house,” Sammy said. He held up the bag. “But I got you covered with this.”

  Pookie leaned in, squinted. “What’s that? Snot rag?”

  “Better,” Sammy said. “Jizz. Still wet, even.”

  Pookie leaned back. “That’s nasty, Sammy. Nasty.”

  Sammy shrugged. “If it’s from Rex, it’s what you wanted, eh? Listen, I’ll get it to Robin, but how about you guys clear out? I’ve got work to do.”

  Bryan and Pookie walked out into the hall and carefully stepped over the body once again. Seconds later they were out of the house, heading for Pookie’s car.

  Bryan couldn’t quit thinking about that smell. At a level he didn’t understand, he now knew his dream-hate, his lust for hunting those boys, it all came from Rex Deprovdechuk — a boy that Bryan had never met, never even known existed until just a few hours ago. What had the scrawny thirteen-year-old done to bring about the deaths of Oscar Woody and Jay Parlar? Was he sending out thoughts or something? Was he telepathic? That was completely impossible, and yet there was no question that Bryan Clauser was somehow bonded to this boy.

  They got into the Buick. Pookie had just started the car when a man leaned into the open driver’s-side window.

  “Shut it off,” said Sean Robertson.

  Pookie turned off the engine, then sat back so Robertson could see both him and Bryan. Robertson pushed his glasses higher up his nose. “What the fuck are you guys doing here?”

  “Our jobs,” Pookie said. “Officer down, we responded.”

  “It’s Verde’s case,” Robertson said. “You were told to stay out of it.”

  Bryan suddenly wanted to smack those glasses right off his face. A cop had been hacked to death, yet Robertson was going to keep playing this game?

  “Birdman is dead,” Bryan said. “Verde’s a mess. You gotta put us back on it.”

  “I gotta? No, Clauser, what I gotta do is kick your asses out of here.”

  This was madness. What the hell was wrong with Robertson and Zou?

  “Assistant Chief, listen to us,” Pookie said. “Rex Deprovdechuck had the same symbol in his room that was found at the Woody and Parlar murders. This is all connected. You can’t just ignore this.”

  Robertson nodded slowly. He seemed like he was trying to balance understanding against authority. “We’re not ignoring anything. There’s a BOLO out for Rex. The entire force is looking for him. We’ll get him.”

  Bryan leaned over in his seat to get closer to Robertson. “There’s a BOLO out on Alex Panos and Issac Moses. Has the entire force tracked down those kids yet?”

  Robertson’s lips pressed into a thin line. “Not yet, but that’s not your concern. You’re both fresh out of warnings. I see you anywhere near this case — and that includes anything involving symbols, Oscar Woody, Jay Parlar, Bobby Pigeon, Rich Verde, Rex Deprovdechuk or this house — and I’ll suspend you on the spot. Now get lost.”

  Robertson stood and walked toward the house.

  Bryan tried to control his anger. Robertson was part of it — whatever it was. And this bizarre cover-up seemed to extend to protecting cop killers.

  “Pooks, get us out of here.”

  “Where to?”

  Bryan shrugged.

  “I could go for a beer,” Pookie said. “The Bigfoot?”

  Leave it to Pookie to find just the thing. They’d been shut out of every angle involving this case — a beer sounded good.

  “The Bigfoot,” Bryan said.

  Pookie started the Buick and drove away from the scene.

  The Long Night

  The cold rain poured down, soaking sweatshirts, jeans, shoes and even socks — it made Alex Panos miserable.

  Alex and Issac walked north on Hyde Street, their sweatshirt hoods up and their heads down. They were careful not to bump into anyone. The Federal Building rose up on their right, part of a world Alex didn’t understand and didn’t care about.

  What he did care about was staying alive. To do that, he had to start taking some chances.

  “Alex,” Issac said, “I don’t wanna do this.”

  Alex’s lip curled up. “You should shut up now, Issac.”

  Of all the people to be stuck with, he had that whiney bitch Issac. Issac should have been the one to fall to his death, not Jay.

  “This rain sucks,” Issac said. “It’s been days, man. I’m cold and I’m hungry. Maybe we should just go to the cops.”

  Cops like Bryan Clauser? No way Alex would go to the police. No way.

  Without the Boston College gear, Alex and Issac were just two more teenagers walking the streets. They’d found places to sleep, but they had been careful not to break in anywhere or to do anything that would attract attention.

  Because someone wanted them dead.

  “Come on,” Issac whined. “If you’re going to your mom’s, let me go see my parents. I got to at least let them know I’m okay.”

  Alex stopped and turned. Issac stopped, too, wide-eyed with the instant knowledge he’d pushed it too far.

  “You�
�re not going home,” Alex said. Issac was a big kid, but Alex had a good three inches and at least twenty pounds on him. They’d scrapped once. After the beating Alex had dished out, Issac wasn’t going to try it again.

  “We stay together,” Alex said. “We’re going to my mom’s because we need the money.”

  “You spent like five hundred bucks on that gun,” Issac said. “That was all we had. And I don’t even get to carry it.”

  Alex nodded. No, Issac didn’t get to carry it. That was the breaks. Alex reached behind his back, patted the gun under his sweatshirt where he’d tucked it into his belt. He was checking it every five minutes, it seemed, just to make sure it didn’t fall out.

  He’d always wanted a Glock but had been afraid to get one. Being busted as a minor in possession of narcotics was one thing — being in possession of a gun was another. But now someone was trying to kill him, someone connected with the cops. Alex wasn’t going out like Oscar, and he sure as hell wasn’t going out like Jay.

  Issac looked like he was about to cry. “I know we need money,” he said, “but can you really rob your mom?”

  “I’m not going to put the gun to her head, stupid,” Alex said. “She probably won’t even be there. I know where she keeps the money. I’m done with your whining, man. If you’re going to act like a bitch, I’m going to treat you like a bitch. You got it?”

  Alex stared, waiting for an answer. He couldn’t let Issac go to his parents. That would bring the cops. Alex would do whatever he had to to stay safe, stay hidden. If Issac had to be shut up for good, well, that’s the way it was.

  Issac nodded. “Okay, man. I’m down for the ride.”

  “I know this sucks,” Alex said. “We don’t have a choice. Do this with me, then I think we can sleep in a house tonight. April’s parents are gone for a couple of days.”

  Issac smiled. “Shrek? Dude, no way.”

  Alex laughed and punched Issac in the shoulder — playful, but Alex wanted it to hurt a little, just a reminder of who was in charge. Issac winced, then forced a laugh of his own.

  “She’s putting us up,” Alex said. “So you call her April, not Shrek. We’ll get Mom’s cash, then we’ll go to April’s place.”

  “What then? What do we do when April’s parents come back?”

  Alex wished he knew. Maybe it was time to get out of San Francisco. They had a gun now. They could rob places, get money, just keep moving until he figured out what to do.

  “I’ll tell you later,” Alex said. “All I know is that tonight, when you’re all warm and dry, you’ll feel like a douchebag for making fun of me about April a few weeks ago, huh?”

  “I guess,” Issac said. “I mean, she does kind of look like an ogre.”

  “Yeah, and I’ll be the one getting my dick sucked tonight. You won’t be getting shit. She’ll do whatever I tell her. I might even tell her you get to watch.”

  Issac’s blue eyes widened. “Oh, wow, man.”

  Alex couldn’t tell if that was an oh wow of excitement or fear. Didn’t matter. Doing stuff in front of Issac would embarrass the hell out of April. Some girls liked humiliation.

  They passed a boarded-up doorway. A homeless guy completely covered in a soaking wet blanket lay there, trying to avoid the worst of the rain. Alex didn’t know who had it worse, him or the bum. Unlike the bum, Alex was young, strong, and would find a way to stay alive — but at least the bum didn’t have someone trying to kill him.

  The rain kept pouring down. Alex and Issac kept walking north.

  Pookie walked back to the table with a second round of beers — an Elizabeth Street Brewery IPA for him, a Bud Light for Bryan. Bryan had no taste in beer.

  Bryan sat on the bar stool, his elbows on the small, round table, his head in his hands. The table was right next to the bar’s namesake — a twelve-foot-tall wooden statue of Bigfoot himself. The statue made Pookie think of drawings of snake-men, and of an old lady talking about building-climbing werewolves.

  Pookie set the beers on the table.

  “Buck up, little Terminator,” he said. “Turn that frown upside down. Also, just insert your favorite peppy euphemism here.”

  Bryan lifted his head. “A do-it-yourself pep talk?”

  “Absolutely,” Pookie said. “The night is darkest before the dawn. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. If you don’t drink, I’ll keep talking.”

  Bryan picked up his bottle and drank.

  Pookie’s partner was angry and confused, and rightfully so. Bryan wanted to fight, he wanted to lash out at something. He was damn close to going off like a bull in a china shop. But it was Chief Zou’s china shop, and that would not end well.

  “Bri-Bri, we’ll get this figured out.”

  “You keep saying that. It just gets worse. A cop is dead because of this shit, Pooks. And Robertson gives us the boot?”

  “We’ll find the guy who did this,” Pookie said. “We’ll find out what’s up with your dreams, Rex’s drawings, the symbols, all of it.”

  Bryan moved his bottle in slow circles on the table. “I think I made those drawings because of Rex, because I saw the same stuff he saw.”

  Pookie couldn’t see how such a thing was possible, but he wasn’t about to rule it out. At some point, you have to believe what your eyes are telling you. Seeing the snake-face drawing in Rex’s room proved that there was some kind of connection.

  “Astral projection, Bri-Bri? Telepathy? Mind-controlling little green men?”

  Bryan shook his head. “I got no idea, man. All I know is Rex hates BoyCo. Hates them with everything he’s got.”

  “Hate is a valid motive to kill Oscar and Jay,” Pookie said. “But did he have the means?”

  “You saw Bobby’s body. Someone in Rex’s house did that, and it wasn’t his dead mom.”

  Pookie shook his head. “Sure, but it wasn’t Rex. Kid is a buck-ten after two trips to the pasta buffet. He’s working with adults, and big ones at that. Let’s not count your dreams for now. Based on what Tiffany Hine saw, and based on what Mister Biz-Nass told us about Marie’s Children wearing costumes, we have to assume that Rex is mixed up in that cult.”

  Bryan made more beer-bottle circles. “He’s thirteen. He’s an outcast. Maybe he gets recruited by Marie’s Children. Maybe he makes some kind of deal with them to kill his enemies. That’s plausible, but it doesn’t explain my dreams. More important, it doesn’t explain why anyone would cover this up. The body count is up to three.”

  “Four,” Pookie said. “Oscar Woody, Jay Parlar, Birdman and don’t forget Rex’s mom.”

  “Right, four,” Bryan said. “Why would Zou and Robertson let this happen? If Marie’s Children are behind the killings … maybe Zou is part of the cult?”

  That same thought had been rattling around the back of Pookie’s mind. It seemed that Zou had to be involved, somehow, but to think that the city’s top cop was part of some wacko witches’ coven? The idea shook Pookie’s beliefs to the core.

  “She’s been a cop for thirty years, Bryan. How would she have got hooked up with them?”

  “Maybe on the Golden Gate Slasher case, she found something. Or maybe something found her. Look at her career. She started out on patrol, she works a case with the symbols, winds up as an inspector” — Bryan snapped his fingers — “just like that.”

  Pookie nodded, trying to work through the possibilities. “Yeah, okay, so maybe she’s a shit-kicking rookie who gets a break on the Golden Gate Slasher case. That case brings her into contact with the occult freaks behind the killings, assuming that the John Doe didn’t act alone. Marie’s Children recruit her, or indoctrinate her, or make her wear a fez hat like those Shriners, whatever, and bam — they have someone on the inside of the SFPD.”

  Bryan slow-motion-slid his bottle from his left hand to his right, then back again. “Doesn’t get more inside than the chief of police. Someone with a lot of power gets control of Zou, then moves her up the ranks until she controls what cops get assigned to murder c
ases.”

  “Maybe,” Pookie said. “But it still doesn’t add up. We think Verde is in on this with her. Birdman was Verde’s partner, so wouldn’t that mean Birdman was in on it as well? Why send Verde and the Birdman somewhere they could get killed? And the BOLO out on Rex is no joke — every cop in the city is looking for that kid. If he’s in Marie’s Children, and Zou is in Marie’s Children, why wouldn’t she pull the BOLO?”

  The connections just weren’t there. On top of that, it didn’t jibe with Pookie’s instincts.

  “Chief Zou has been a superstar cop for thirty frickin’ years, Bri-Bri. She’s done every job, from patrol to inspector to administration. She’s been shot twice in the line of duty. She’s won every award the department has to offer. And we’re thinking she’d take money to cover up for serial killers? I can’t buy it.”

  “Might not be money,” Bryan said. “Blackmail, maybe.”

  Pookie’s cell phone buzzed: a text. He pulled out the phone and read it. It was from Susie Panos.

  SUSIE PANOS: ALEX IS HOME. HURRY!

  He showed the text to Bryan.

  Both men slid off their stools and ran for the door, leaving their beer and the giant statue of Bigfoot behind.

  Night had fallen. Under a small tree just inside Sharp Place at the corner of Union Street, Rex and Marco waited. Waited and watched. They each had a blanket. Not the warm kind, either — Rex’s blanket was already soaked. It stank. Marco said that was important, the stinky part. It made sure people kept on walking.

  The blankets were more complicated than Rex had thought. They were heavy because they were actually four blankets sewn together at one edge. Like the pages of a book, you could flip them so that a different color faced out: dark gray, brick-red, black and dark green. All the colors had lots of stains. The blankets also had hidden pockets. Marco kept his hatchet in one, safely out of sight.

  On the way to this spot, Marco had stopped to show Rex how the blankets worked. When Marco picked the right color and slid into a shadowy area, then sat perfectly still, he all but disappeared.