Apex Predator

by S. M. Douglas

  He cruised by the low slung wreck of an elementary school. Chain link fence posts stood forlorn guard around the building, the fencing long since torn out by scavengers trying to survive in a twenty first century America fast becoming a nation of Jawas. Next to the school wispy strands of black smoke reached skyward as crackling flames licked along the shattered roof of a century old Craftsman house - the fire department nowhere to be seen.

  On the opposite side of the street, a Rottweiler ambled along a buckled sidewalk. A massive scar ran down its muscular shoulder. Without breaking stride, the dog turned its head, locked eyes with Brody, and veered behind another abandoned home. Brody gripped the leather wrapped steering wheel, unable to shake the feeling the country stood on the precipice of a dark inflection point.

  He rounded the next corner and was there.

  A field took up most of the block, a smattering of homes in various states of abandonment or occupation clustered on the far end. He cruised up to where yellow tape marked a portion of the clearing. Nearby a couch squatted in front of a wrecked house, coil springs showing through ripped cushions. A couple of beat up squad cars, a work van, and an unmarked police car blocked the street. Brody parked and stepped out of the rental, the desolate cityscape bleached white by the late morning sun. In the distance gleamed the silver shining towers of General Motors world headquarters, thrusting into the sky like so many silos.

  A beat cop leaning on a squad car eyed him as he stepped by, Brody’s shoes crunching in the dry grass. The sickly vinegar smell of piss and decay filled the heavy air. He dodged empty liquor bottles scattered in the weeds, eying the decrepit house to his right. A graffiti covered plywood sheet hung diagonally over what had been the abandoned home’s front door. The bottom corner had been ripped apart as if something had clawed through it. Brody walked around the house in a big arc. His eyes never quite left the empty window frames, the hot air pushing strips of washed-out wallpaper hanging inside, blackness beyond, more darkness under the porch. He came around the house thankful to see other people.

  A short beer keg of a man picked at an object in the tall grass.

  Beyond him stood what had to be the local Bureau agent.

  To the agent’s left a grizzled street cop argued with a civilian as another cop observed.

  “Ok, Ray that’s enough.” The officer held his hands up to calm down a caramel colored older man, big ears projecting from his round head. The FBI agent watched. He was a rangy fellow that looked at least a decade older than Brody, hands on his hips, his eyes concealed behind Top Gun style aviator sunglasses.

  “I hear sounds at night. They ain’t normal, man.” Ray’s girlish voice carried across the field, sweat shining on his bald pate.

  A young cop lingering on the fringe of the conversation offered his two cents, “Look Bi—”

  Ray’s eyes narrowed.

  “Sorry…” The second cop stammered, “It’s probably just a pack of dogs.”

  The senior officer, a sergeant, glared at his partner. Everybody around here referred to Ray as “The Bitch” in part because of his high-pitched voice, but mostly because his ex-wife had cuckolded him with every swinging dick around. The sergeant sighed and directed the younger cop to get a statement. He could care less about Ray, but the dogs were an issue. The other day a pack of pit bulls took the hands and feet off some poor bastard.

  “You’ve got a bigger problem than dogs,” The man poking around the field said, standing up, brow furrowed, deep lines creasing his forehead.

  Brody sneezed.

  The sergeant nearly jumped out of his skin.

  “Jim Vance,” The FBI agent said, right hand extended in greeting, pointing with his left. “This here’s Sergeant Jefferson. And that’s the medical examiner, Dr. Elliot.”

  They strode toward Elliot, careful to avoid stepping on anything passable as evidence, the ripe odor of putrid flesh permeating the air.

  “Jesus Christ,” Brody gasped as he got his first glance at the remains. Even Jefferson, who had doubtlessly worked numerous homicides, breathed shallowly.

  “Not exactly,” Elliot said to Brody as he snapped on a fresh pair of surgical gloves, “but there’s a certain ‘quality’ to the scale of dismemberment.”

  Bile rose in Brody’s throat. He swallowed it back, fighting to hold his composure.

  “The head is nowhere to be found. A leg is over there,” Elliot said, gesturing toward a fly covered lump.

  Brody didn’t look, thinking of Cameron’s watch and the customized inscription that had proved key to the body’s early identification. It was a Panerai Luminor 1950 3 Days GMT worth as much as Brody’s rental car. Yet, it had been discovered out in the open and untouched. Even the scavengers had avoided what went down. In spite of the nausea roiling his stomach Brody willed himself to analyze the body, noticing the long hairs stuck in the bloody grass underneath the wrecked torso.

  “Cause of death?” Vance said.

  “Claws and teeth,” Elliot replied.

  “You sure about that?” Vance said. “Maybe he was killed somewhere else, dumped here, and then a pack of dogs got to him?”

  “The victim was alive when he entered this field,” Elliot said, his voice insistent. “There are no signs of man-made trauma such as that inflicted by a knife, gun, baseball bat, garrote, you name it.”

  Brody gritted his teeth. The mob had once used garrotes, but that had been years ago. Furthermore, they had nothing to link Cameron to any non-Wall Street initiated organized crime.

  “See how the skin’s been shredded?” Elliot said, driving home his point.

  Most of the flesh had been removed from the hipbone; cracks spider webbed across the abraded surface. In addition, a line of deep punctures ran in a semicircular row across the outside of the hip. Brody felt weak and small in the face of the carnage, clinging to the hope that the damage was man made.

  “These wounds are from teeth, big ones. They shattered the Iliac Crest,” Elliot said. “No dog can splinter a bone like that. Nor have I ever heard of a dog with teeth like this.” He pulled a plastic baggy out of his pocket; the curved cutting end of what must have been a six-inch long fang in the otherwise incongruous container.

  Elliot turned their attention back to the body, “Notice anything about the hole on the victim’s hip.”

  “It’s larger than the others,” Brody said.

  “That’s because this tooth was ripped free by our victim twisting away from whatever sought to disembowel him.”

  Vance snorted, running a hand across his close-cropped hair.

  “I sent samples to the lab at Michigan State University,” Elliot said, stretching his lower back. “You can expect the results back quick, maybe later today.”

  “Keep me in the loop Doc,” Brody said, nodding his approval as he strode off.

  “Christ, what a mess,” Vance said, falling in beside him.

  “That mess had a wife and two kids,” Brody said as he opened his car door, his skin crawling with nerves, eyes drawn to the derelict house and its shadowy interior. An irrational part of him wondered if Cameron’s killer was still around.

  “I ordered a review of local flights to see if the victim’s casino companions arrived in town recently,” Vance said.

  Brody nodded to indicate his approval. Procedure dictated waiting on the agent in charge but he wasn’t one to pull rank even on the rare instances he had it. A breeze kicked up, the plywood sheet over the abandoned home’s front doorway banging open and closed. He tensed, sensing something moving inside.

  “I also assigned someone to review the security camera footage from the casino.”

  “Good,” Brody said, eyeing the house.

  “Hopefully, we’ll get a better look at the suspects.”

  Brody stared at the house, sure he saw a shadow within a busted out window.

  “The
y got cameras in the parking garage. Maybe we can get a plate number on the perp’s car.”

  “Uh huh,” Brody said, craning his neck. There was no angle to the sunlight, leaving the home’s interior swathed in darkness.

  Vance drawled on. The beat cop appeared, shuffling through the grass next to the house, eyes glued to his smart phone, smiling as his fingers texted in a rhythmic pattern. The shadow moved in response to the approaching cop—

  “Look out!” Brody shouted, ripping his .45 free of its holster.

  The cop’s smart phone fell into the grass, his hand dropping to the Glock on his hip as Brody targeted something inside.

  “Stand down,” Vance yelled. “Stand down for chrissakes, it’s just a cabinet.”

  The light shifted. Then Brody saw it. A hutch in what must have been the dining room.

  He paused, and then holstered his pistol, an old Model 1911 semi-

  automatic.

  The beat cop glared at him as if he were out of his mind.

  Vance’s hand gripped Brody’s shoulder.

  He turned, seeing the agent’s lips moving, hearing nothing. After another moment Vance’s voice penetrated past the ringing in his ears, “Take it easy, Brody. Calm down.”

  Brody fell into the car’s driver’s seat, the door thunking shut after him. Confusion replaced by embarrassment.

  “With what happened in Dallas and Baton Rouge I get it,” Vance said as he squatted, head level with the open window. “We’re all on edge. But still, what the fuck was that about?”

  “Instincts a little off, I guess.”

  “You guess?” Vance said. “We’ve got a hedge fund manager gutted by an animal of some sort, and now you’re acting like this?”

  “I don’t know much more than you,” Brody said, “and not enough for that stunt I just pulled.”

  “Look, son. I’ve been playing this game a long time,” Vance said. “So don’t piss down my leg and tell me it’s raining.”

  Brody paused, sizing up his colleague. Vance couldn’t have been more than fifty-five, but he looked older, his face leathery in the way of certain folks that had spent a lifetime in the sun.

  “Fair enough,” Brody finally responded. “Now, if you don’t mind I’m gonna pay a visit to that blackjack dealer that last saw Cameron alive.” He shifted in the leather seat’s hot grip. Needing a distraction he turned on the radio.

  “I heard this ain’t the only banker that’s run into some misfortune,” Vance said

  “Forget that. If word gets out, it’ll turn into a clown show,” Brody said. He clicked on his seatbelt, stiffening at the news coming in over the radio: “The embattled CEO of Wall Street’s Biggest Bank, testifying today on Capitol Hill, to receive a 75 percent raise—”

  “DOJ hit Donnelly’s bank with $20 billion in fines, and now this?” Vance said.

  “You’re preachin’ to the choir,” Brody said, suppressing a flash of hatred at the mention of Donnelly’s name.

  “That may be, but the people aren’t stupid,” Vance said, stretching to his full height. “They see us looking the other way every time these guys ignore the law. You tell me breaking bad doesn’t seem like a good idea when you’re the one waking up to the fact hope ain’t change.”

  “That’s the catch, isn’t it?” Brody said. “Our job isn’t about to get any easier, is it?”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, friend. It’s more than our problem,” Vance said, glancing at the downtown skyline less than a mile away. “I didn’t take to Detroit at first. However, the city’s grown on me. Though, I’ll tell you something that hasn’t. There’s this ring of prosperity around the business district that’s nicer than ever. Surrounding it is a hundred square miles of misery. What happened to Cameron, part of me thinks it’s just the beginning.”

  Brody stared up at Vance.

  Seconds ticked by under the hot sun.

  Vance bit his tongue, sensing Brody was chewing on something good.

  “I had been looking into mortgage and securities fraud on Wall Street,” Brody finally said, a voice inside telling him he could trust Vance. “I compiled enough evidence to go after Donnelly. The Attorney General’s office shut me down. I pushed harder. They pushed back. I lost.”

  Vance’s eyes opened wider, drilling into Brody.

  “We had one of Donnelly’s underlings on the hook,” Brody said. “I was sure he would roll over.”

  “That’s right,” Vance said. “Sweat him and see what he gives up.”

  “The AG’s office and the SEC Chief of Enforcement claimed lack of evidence.” A bitter smile played across Brody’s lips, “Apparently the SEC Chief once worked with Donnelly.”

  “But how did you end up—”

  “If I screw this up that’s it.” Brody didn’t want to discuss the possibility that his life’s goals were slipping away.

  Vance’s right eye twitched. His new partner hadn’t told him everything but he had told him enough.

  “Thanks for listening,” Brody said. “I appreciate it, but I gotta skate.”

  “It’s your show,” Vance said.

  Brody pulled away, trying to ignore the sick dread eating at him. The blackjack dealer lived in Brody’s hometown. He felt a sudden need to check in on his parents. He didn’t have the time, but he didn’t know when he would be home again.

  He flipped the radio on: “The country’s biggest bank is the subject of at least six major federal investigations, and today’s testimony by its CEO is meant—” He punched the radio off, exiting the highway after thirty minutes of driving in silence. He cruised west into the heart of the township and the subdivision where the blackjack dealer lived. A half hour later he jumped back on the road.

  The dealer hadn’t helped. She claimed she hardly remembered Cameron, no less the couple chatting it up with him.

  He didn’t buy it. She was lying.

  The look in her eyes also told him something else.

  She was scared.

  Brody pulled onto a north-south running side street, leaving his hometown’s depressing main drag behind, a choked parking lot of congestion boasting three of the most dangerous intersections in the state. Meanwhile, the refugees from Detroit flowed in on the strength of the community and school district’s reputation, both now ghosts of their former selves, the once promising township lacking a downtown, an identity, and a soul.

  Chapter 8

  September 1977 – New Haven, Connecticut

  Jimmy Donnelly stopped midstride, cocking his head at the tantalizing sound of jiggling ice cubes and the chance to alleviate the frustration that had been plaguing him all week. The pledges had been depressingly perfect. Even when ordered to burn one hundred dollar bills in front of a homeless woman, not a single one of them had protested, no less blanched. That meant no one needed to be punished.

  Until now.

  Donnelly tried hard not to smile, his face screwed into an appropriate mask of rage as he adjusted the cuff of his navy blue blazer and spun on his heels. His immaculately shined loafers clicked across the hardwood floor, reflecting the subdued light from dozens of candles holding at bay the dark shadows enveloping the great room’s edges. He marched down the line of ten pledges, each stripped naked and sucking their thumbs while standing in a metal bucket of ice water.

  Donnelly’s eyes settled on his target, Herbert Rasher. Herbert’s double chin and narrow shoulders gave way to pepperoni-sized nipples protruding from the pledge’s pale shivering skin. Donnelly’s eyes scanned down further, before forcing himself to look away from Herbert’s feminine pear shaped lower body. The corner of Donnelly’s lip curled, the fat but oh so ambitious pledge was on his way to becoming a congressman every bit as venal as his dear old dad, a former chapter president. First however, Herbert would learn a lesson in power.

  “Explain that noise I heard,” Donnelly
said.

  “What noise, sir?”

  Donnelly’s hands curled into fists, Herbert’s lie a colossal mistake.

  “Mister Fitch,” Donnelly said, smiling cruelly.

  Fitch, the house treasurer, stepped forward from the line of brothers standing at heightened attention opposite the pledges.

  “Is Herbert being appropriately forthcoming?” Donnelly said, never taking his eyes off the pledge.

  “No, sir. Everybody heard the ice slosh in the bucket, sir.” Fitch’s voice rang clearly in the wood paneled room.

  “Thank you, Mister Fitch. What’s the penalty for failure?”

  “I’ll retrieve the paddle, sir.” Fitch said, hardly needing to remind anyone that the hazing ritual required the pledges to stand perfectly motionless in the frigid water for twenty minutes straight.

  “No,” Donnelly said, licking his lips. “Herbert lied to his president in front of the entire chapter. Bring out ‘Old Jake.’”

  A collective gasp swept through the room. The pledges eyes widened, not knowing what was coming but frightened by the stunned reaction of the upperclassmen.

  “But sir!” Fitch cried.

  “If you can’t perform your duties I’ll find someone that will.”

  “No, sir. I mean I will grab it right away sir,” Fitch said, hands shaking as he ran for the basement stairs.

  “Mister Cardle,” Donnelly barked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Take away all the pledges away, except Herbert. They’ve passed.”

  “Sir.”

  The freezing teenagers slipped away across the hardwood floors, casting terrified glances back. The double doors boomed shut behind them. The room fell silent, except for Herbert’s wheezing through his quivering lips.