by C R Trolson
“You’ve got a bunch of loose ends is what you’ve got.” The Chief exhaled and stretched his hands out on the desk. He was not impressed.
“Face it,” Reese said. “You’ve been swinging wild all along, arresting Rusty, then Rawlings.”
“Rawlings killed Father Ramon and Thomkins. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Rawlings even had rooster gaffs on him, same as Thomkins had stuck into his heels. And I had to arrest the girl. I had no choice, not with her fingerprints all over the murder weapon. I figure, now, that Rawlings must have picked up her sickle in the garden before he got to Ramon.”
“I’ve got another body.”
“Who is it now?”
“Dean Everett.”
The Chief sat up. “Dean Everett? Christ, I thought he skipped town with a girlfriend. I really did. Where? You have a body? You sure it’s him?”
Reese pulled out the clear plastic sandwich bag containing Dean Everett’s wallet and slid it across the desk. “It’s him. Buried behind the mission cemetery. Ten feet from the third set of bones.”
“Buried?”
Reese explained.
“Christ. Buried alive?”
“The coffin’s not hard to find. It’s the one with the inverted cross. I threw some dirt back on the lid.” The Chief shook the baggie as if it would tell him something, then put it back on the desk slowly.
“Why didn’t you tell me last night?” the Chief demanded. “And what gives you the right to interfere with a crime scene? You’re no cop. Not now.”
“This whole town is a crime scene,” Reese reminded him. “Besides, I was busy, and Dean Everett was not going anywhere. You might also like to know that he had a little argument with Ajax before his untimely burial. He was going to meet with Ajax. Expose his plan to poison the world, when he disappeared. That’s five people who died after being with Ajax. Then again, maybe Rawlings killed Dean. That would tie things up nicely for you.”
“Well,” the Chief said, “shit.”
“It’s shit all right,” he said. “Let me tell you about a little incident down in Los Angeles.” After he told him about the blood transfusion, Unicorn Medical’s blood, the three bodies and counting, plus Ajax’s connection to Unicorn Medical, the Chief, unfazed, lit a cigar.
“And you think Ajax has something to do with it?”
“You know it’s Ajax, don’t you? But you want me to do all the dirty work. And after the dust settles, you want to see who’s still standing. You want to back the winner. You’re framing Rawlings to keep Ajax happy and distracted while I kill him.”
“Just make sure you’re the winner,” the Chief said grimly as the phone rang. He picked up the phone and listened for a moment. Reese saw his face break a little. The Chief put the phone down quickly. “That strange old guy that owns the Palms?”
Reese nodded. Had Rupert finally cracked and taken a shot at Ajax?
“We’d better get over there.”
29
Reese stomped on the emergency brake, locking it. Before the Mustang had swerved to a stop, he was out and across the sidewalk. There was already a fire truck, ambulance, and police car crowding the street. Above him a cop pounded on Rupert’s door, two firemen stood ready with their axes. Two paramedics wrestled a gurney from their red and white van.
Below Rupert’s window he saw the word “Kill” painted in red, the letters one-foot high. Blood? Above the letters a severed hand, the fingers splayed and pointing skyward, nailed to the stucco with a spike.
He ran up the stairs. The firemen swung their axes, splitting the door, standing back as the cop kicked the rest of the door down, leaving the black tread of his sole on the splintered wood as he ran in, gun out, the firemen right behind.
He was on the landing when the cop came out trembling and the two firemen came out and dropped their axes, their faces pale. A paramedic, carrying a large blue bag, started to move in but a fireman told him to wait.
He pushed around them and went inside.
Rupert Amos hung from the wall, his forearms run through with butcher knives, stamping him spread-eagle. A fireplace poker was stuck in his belly. His right hand was missing. Blood trailed down the wall to the carpet.
Rupert’s skin had been removed, turned inside out and refitted, and then scrubbed to a healthy, bright pink. The face was the worst part, the hide glistening over the facial features, all webbed with blood vessels and the inside-out mouth frowning dismally.
He had been turned out like an old sock and crudely stitched back together, a zipper of blue knitting yarn up his middle holding him together. A spray bottle of cleanser and a scrub brush from the kitchen sat neatly arranged on the hearth.
Reese walked out and told the paramedics to leave. There was nothing for them to do. He told the cop to let no one in.
He walked into the bedroom. The 20mm anti-tank rifle remained perched on its steel post, aimed at Ajax’s window. He checked the closets. Clear.
He heard a muffled groan and ran to the living room. The body squirmed on the poker. He could barely hear Rupert through the stitched mouth. The eyes bulged under the sewn lids. The legs jerked spasmodically, the heels beat the wall.
Breathless and sick, Reese put six quick shots below the breastbone. The body stopped quivering. He dropped the gun and fell into the chair.
The Chief rushed in holding his pistol. “Still alive,” Reese told him. His head was pounding. He felt like throwing up. “He was still alive.”
The Chief looked at Rupert hanging there. The six shots grouped the size of a beer can. “Alive?” The Chief turned his gun on him. “What are you talking about?”
“He was alive.”
In his dream, Reese watched the Chief float outside. The paramedics threaded the empty gurney up the stairs with much determination, desperate for something to do. In the distance, on the sidewalk, a fireman broke ammonia under a cop’s nose. The Chief was outside now, floating above the sidewalk and screaming, “Who painted that shit on the wall? Is that a hand? Goddamn it! Wash it off! Take that hand down!”
He saw and heard it all through a haze. He holstered his pistol. He walked down the stairs and past the Chief who said sternly, “There’s a law against desecrating the dead.”
He drifted past him and into his car.
The Chief yelled again at the firemen to wash off the wall.
He started the Mustang, the engine muted and revving from a distance. The Chief now next to him yelling in is ear, “You can’t go around shooting dead people. It’s not right.”
He heard his own voice faintly, spoken from a distance, “And if he wasn’t dead?”
“It still ain’t right.”
The firemen snaked the hose out. One yelled to start the pump. An engine howled. The flat hoses plumped. Air escaped the nozzle. The blood-written letters disappeared under a flood of water. A pink sheet ran down the wall, finally turning clear. His bullets had gone through the body and formed a ragged “O” on the outside stucco, three feet left of the hand. He saw the vacant lot where the bullets probably landed and was glad it wasn’t a schoolyard the way things were going.
The hand, as if alive, swiveled on the spike, the fingers splayed downward, the index finger prominent as if pointing to a solution. He released the clutch, the tires spun, he drove away.
Hannah hung his jacket in the hall closet. She wore a flower print dress, loose at the waist. He watched her eyes, huge under steel rimmed glasses, take in the shoulder holster. She led him into the kitchen. “You’re just in time for lunch,” she said slowly, a bit suspiciously, as if sensing why he’d come. “I’ve just put on the tea.”
“I don’t want you to think I’m coming over just to eat,” he said, already regretting what he had to tell her. He felt embarrassed by the pistol. It seemed out of place in the peaceful kitchen.
She turned and put her hands on her hips, a no-nonsense stance. Behind her he saw blue gas burning under a yellow tea kettle, steam curling from the spout.
&nb
sp; “There’s been an accident,” he said and sat down.
This did not faze her. “There’s been a lot of accidents, lately.”
The kettle started boiling softly. A large fly bounced against the windowpane. She took a small enamel cup from the cupboard, added a packet of tea, turned off the kettle, and added the water. “I heard the sirens. I always think it’s some old man having a heart attack when I hear the sirens.” She put the steaming cup in front of him. “Or an old woman, for that matter.”
“Rupert Amos is dead.”
“Oh, my,” she said. “That poor man. This town. We went to high school together years ago. We went to a dance once, he wore black and white shoes, nothing ever came of it….” Her voice trailed off, she pulled a Kleenex from her sleeve and dabbed under her glasses. “He was a hero, once. How did he die? You said accident?”
“Ajax.”
“It wasn’t an accident.”
“I want you out of here.”
She went to the window and unconsciously touched the flowers, pink and yellow, reaching for the sun from a clay pot. “I want you to leave,” he said. “I have some money. You can stay in a motel out of town.”
She turned to him, her eyes dry, mouth hard. “If you don’t want to give me the details then at least tell me why he killed Rupert?”
“I don’t know.” He had to tell her about Dean and was dreading it. She already knew he was dead. She’d known for a year. She could handle it. She might even feel relieved.
She put her hands on her hips again and glared at him. “You don’t know? But you want me to leave?” She stamped her foot. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me the truth. Do you need a drink first?” She opened a cupboard. “I have a bottle of whiskey around here somewhere. Men.”
“We found Dean.”
She nodded abruptly, as if suddenly hit with her own prophecy. The moment she had been dreading was here. She did not look relieved. “Where?”
“At the mission. Buried.”
“Ajax?”
“I think it was, yes.”
“And the body?”
“It’s being taken care of.”
“Buried? Tell me.”
He told her the main facts but did not mention the torn lining, Dean’s last moments inside a coffin, in the black, scratching to get out. He’d hold his anger, hold it for Ajax.
“How did he die?”
“We’ll have to wait for the medical examiner,” he said and told her about Rawlings. He told her about Rusty, the help she’d been.
“She sounds like a good girl,” Hannah said. “Like a good person. She’s smart and tough and might even be honest. And that’s hard to find these days. Remember that.”
“Leave Santa Marina.”
“A nephew lives up the coast.”
“How will you get there?”
She turned off the blue burning gas under the kettle, moving slowly, the shock setting in. She had known her husband was dead, he thought, but hearing it was different. “I still get around. I still drive. I’ve got Dean’s Ford Galaxy. Forty years old but only twenty thousand miles on the speedometer. Nevertheless, he changed the oil every month.” She looked at him. Reached out and touched the pistol. “You’re going to kill him?”
“You sent silver bullets?”
“Dean made them for Ajax. I thought he was crazy at the time, melting down old silver dollars and pouring them in his little bullet molds. He bought a reloading kit, he called it, especially for Ajax. I guess he knew what he was doing. Ajax was his special project.”
“I killed Homer with lead.”
“It’s not exactly science.”
“You called in the tip? About curare?”
“Dean’s theory. A homeless fellow came up missing and Dean found a disposable Anectine syringe in the bushes where he was last seen. He figured Ajax used it to paralyze him. Dean told the cops, but they ignored him. Did Halloran find Anectine in the victims?”
“The boy who ran the vampire store.”
“I told him,” she said. “I specifically told that fool what was going on.”
“Why silver bullets?”
“You know or should know. Silver’s the only thing that will kill Ajax. And, I figured the silver would give you a sense of purpose. The Lone Ranger used silver bullets.”
“He also had Tonto.”
“You have the girl.”
“I still can’t believe it.”
She went about the kitchen, tidying up, arranging the towels hanging on the oven door, trying to act like things were actually as they should be. “You’d better believe it.”
There was a lot of whispering in the police station when Reese walked in. He sensed apprehension. The cops looked shell shocked, as if they weren’t sure what would happen next and didn’t particularly care as long as it didn’t happen to them. None of them looked as apprehensive as he felt. He heard the Chief yelling, a strangled roar, and walked down the hall to the Chief’s open door.
The Chief yelled something unintelligible into the phone with a lot of spit before slamming the handset down hard enough to crack the base
“Goddamn,” the Chief said to him and wiped his red face with a pearl colored hanky. “That was Hard Print. The TV show. Christ. They show up here, I’ll throw their butts in jail.”
“It’ll get worse.”
“Dumb bastards.”
“How’d they find out?”
“One of these smart-ass reporters we’ve got, I guess. They didn’t get a picture of Rupert Amos’ body, what was left of it, but they heard the rumors.” The Chief lowered his eyes on him. “There’s been speculation.”
“I want night vision goggles and a pump shotgun.”
The Chief went on, “And then, of course, First News Fix called, and the National News Empire. 20/20 and 60 Minutes called, too, but they sounded so damn snotty I told them to go to hell. Vampires they say I’ve got.” The Chief slapped the desk hard. “Any leads yet?”
“I’ve been telling you,” he said. “But you don’t hear good. William Rawlings, aka Lung Butter Bill, deceased, did not kill my landlord. I talked to Rupert after I killed Rawlings. Rasmussen did it or had it done.”
The Chief ignored him. “I’ve sworn everyone to secrecy, all my men I’ve sworn, because if it ever got out, what happened to Rupert - ”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Oh, and by the way, your landlord just burned up. Poof. In front of witnesses. Which lets you off the hook for shooting a dead man. There’s not enough evidence left to convict you of littering.”
“Poof?”
“During all the excitement, when the firefighters finally finished fucking around and checked on the body, it was ashes. Just like Rawlings. One of my men dug a .357 slug out of a wall across the street on the other side of that vacant lot. He said it looked like silver to him. Silver? Know anything about it?”
“A pair of night goggles and a twelve-gauge pump,” Reese said again.
The Chief put his boots on the desk, leaned back in the chair, looked at the ceiling, and scratched his ear as if he hadn’t heard a word.
“Twelve gauge,” Reese said. “A pump Ithaca if you have one with the long tube. Double-ought buck. The three inch. Not the riot load, the killing one.”
“Oh? The killing load?” The Chief brought his boots down and shook his head. “The fucking killing load? Let you loose in my town? No way. No. No. No.”
Reese had another brief vision of a million vials floating around the world. He’d like to have the Chief on his side. He was hoping the Chief would see that. “I don’t have a lot of time.”
“You’re the original boy who cried, ‘Wolf,’” the Chief said mockingly. He eyed him, lit a cigar, and blew out the smoke. “If you actually manage to kill Ajax, I’ll never hear the end of it.” The Chief took another drag on the cigar, cocked his head. “You have a plan?”
After Reese told him, the Chief had himself a good laugh.
The miss
ion office smelled like wet towels. Lavour’s desk was covered with an assortment of papers and miniature statues of Jesus. Father Lavour had already drank three brandies, running his hand over his eyes and face after each one, almost as if hoping, Reese thought, that when he opened his eyes, he would be gone. But he did not leave, and it only took him one brandy to tell Lavour what he needed. Lavour told him that, yes, there had once been an aqueduct, in the eighteen hundreds, that ran from the mission’s cellar up to the springs at the top of Ajax’s hill.
Lavour described the doors that Reese would have to use, the corridors he’d have to walk through, but Lavour doubted that the aqueduct was still passable. In any event, Lavour explained, the tunnel was not safe. Not after the last earthquake, anyway. Then Lavour fetched the bundle wrapped in brown paper.
He thanked Lavour. They both walked outside. He put the package in the trunk, thanked Lavour again, and drove away. In his rear view mirror he watched Lavour make the sign of the cross before walking back inside.
At the Palms apartment complex there were no obvious signs that Rupert Amos had been recently killed. The blood had been washed off the outside wall, leaving a red tint on the sidewalk. The police tape was gone except for three yellow strips looped across the open doorway, a paltry blockade at best. Reese guessed there had been little, if any, crime scene investigation. The Chief had been more interested in getting rid of evidence than gathering it.
Another day at the beach, Reese thought, and walked to the front of the building. Tourists and tall sloping palms. The stucco beneath Rupert’s window was whiter than it had ever been. The ring of bullet holes was barely visible. Who would he pay the rent to? Who would the other tenants pay?
Come to think of it, he’d only seen one other person at The Palms, besides Rupert, and that had been a guy, about twenty, who’d been too busy talking on his cell phone to say hello. He knocked on several of the doors but got no answer. The blinds were all closed. Maybe he and the cell phone guy were the only tenants. Maybe the other tenants were working or on vacation. Maybe Rupert hadn’t given a shit about making money and only had the one tenant.