Destroying Angel

by Richard Paul Russo

  Tanner nodded. That sounded right. He wondered where she was now. Holed up somewhere, still afraid?

  They hadn’t gone more than a few blocks when Carlucci got a call on the radio. Another location had come up on Homicide’s computers—the lagoon by the Palace of Fine Arts—which meant more bodies. Carlucci said he was on his way, then pulled over to the side of the road. He looked at Tanner.

  “You want to go with me?” he asked.

  Tanner nodded, feeling a little sick. “Time, I think.”

  Carlucci nodded his head at Mixer. “What about him?”

  “We still need him to show us the basement. We’ve got to see it.”

  Carlucci shrugged. “All right.” He turned to Mixer. “Just stay the hell out of our way.”

  “Hey,” said Mixer.

  Carlucci turned back, pounded once on the air conditioner, which only spat out more fluids. “Fuck this thing.” He pulled away from the curb and shot out into traffic.

  O O O O

  The lagoon was on their left, large and expensive houses on their right. Tanner could see several cops standing in the rain at the water’s edge, down at the far end of the lagoon. Two of them were uniforms—called in to do the shit work, Tanner imagined. He wondered what the residents here were going to think of the Chain Killer’s victims being dumped in their exclusive neighborhood.

  When they were even with the group of cops, Carlucci pulled over and parked. He and Tanner got out and started across the grass, the rain drenching them. Mixer followed just behind them, and when Carlucci told him to stay in the car he just shook his head. Carlucci grimaced, said, “Then stay back, out of the way. Got it?” Mixer nodded, and they continued toward the water.

  Incredibly, when they were halfway to the lagoon, the rain stopped. But they were still wet, hot and sticky, and even the rain had not cooled down the air. The sun was a dim, orange glow in the west, barely visible through the dissipating cloud cover.

  The grass ended several feet from the water’s edge, and Tanner and Carlucci had to carefully work their way through the strip of mud that circled the lagoon. When they reached the group of cops, there was no round of hand shaking, no chorus of hellos and greetings. One of the uniforms, a big blond woman, pointed at the water and said, “There it is.”

  Tanner could see the top of the spike a few inches above the water, and the rope tied to it. Carlucci looked around the empty streets.

  “Coroner’s men should be here soon,” he said. He turned back to the uniform. “Go ahead and pull them in.”

  The woman nodded, glanced at her partner, a tall skinny guy with a mustache; he frowned, then nodded back. They got down on their knees in the mud and shallow water, took hold of the rope, and started pulling.

  It looked too easy, Tanner thought; the two uniforms were hardly straining. The woman confirmed that when she said, “Mother, this must be a solo. There’s hardly any weight.”

  Another solo? Tanner wondered for a few moments if it might be a phony, a sack or something, not a body at all. But that hope quickly faded as chained wrists appeared, tied to the end of the rope, and a mass of swirling, dirty blond hair.

  It was a solo, a small, naked body facedown. The two uniforms backed up and pulled the body the rest of the way out of the water, onto the mud slope.

  “Aw, shit,” the woman said. “It’s just a kid. That fucking son of a bitch.”

  A terrible, sick feeling went through Tanner as he looked down at the body still lying facedown in the mud, bound at the wrists and ankles by silver bands and chains. A kid, yes, a girl. He did not want them to turn her over.

  He took a few steps back, so he was just behind and to the side of Carlucci, but he still could see the body. The two uniforms slowly turned her over, and even though her face was mostly covered by wet hair and mud, Tanner recognized her.

  Sookie.

  Tanner felt dizzy, and his vision went funny on him, twisting slightly. The two uniforms carefully pulled the hair away from her face, then gently washed away the mud with lagoon water. Christ. Angel wings had been tattooed onto her eyelids. Tanner thought he was going to lose his balance and he reached out, grabbed Carlucci’s shoulder to keep from falling.

  Carlucci turned, said, “What is it?” Then he stared into Tanner’s eyes for a few moments. “What, Tanner, do you know her?”

  Tanner nodded, still staring at the body. He could not quite accept that he was seeing her. “It’s Sookie,” he said.

  “Sookie? The girl who found the basement?”

  Tanner nodded again. He thought he should stop looking at her, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t sure he was breathing. The cops were moving around, but he didn’t really hear anything, little more than a background hum. He felt Mixer push past him, heard the spikehead say her name, saw him kneel down at Sookie’s side until one of the cops pulled him back to keep him from touching the body. And then, as Tanner took in a deep breath, as he thought he was starting to pull everything back together, as he was about to let go of Carlucci’s shoulder, the vertigo got worse, and a paralyzing ache went through him.

  It was like seeing Carla dead all over again. As if she had been reincarnated, and now had died again, and he had to see her dead body once more. It was like seeing two dead people, both of whom meant something to him, both of whom he cared for in different ways—Sookie and Carla, he was seeing both of them. And then a third, as Connie’s face superimposed itself over Sookie’s. They weren’t that different in age, just two or three years. It occurred to him that it could have been Connie lying there, dead and chained. It could have been both of them, Sookie and Connie, dead, face to face in chains.

  “You all right?” Carlucci asked.

  Tanner shook his head and finally pulled his gaze away. He released Carlucci’s shoulder and took a few steps back, almost losing his footing on the slick mud. He looked around for a place to sit—a bench, a stump, a rock, anything—but there was nothing except mud and grass and water nearby.

  He stood motionless, feeling somehow stupid and lost. A phrase came into his mind, from a movie or a book, he couldn’t remember. “Catch the killer, and save the girl.” Something like that. They had definitely failed at the second part of that, and it was still uncertain whether or not they could even manage the first.

  He saw the coroner’s van pull up, the men getting out and starting across the grass toward the lagoon and Sookie’s body. Tanner finally moved, making his way through the mud and onto the grass, then walking slowly, unsteadily toward Carlucci’s car. He could not really figure out what was happening to him. As he walked he kept sensing the ground coming up at him as if he were pitching forward, crashing face first into the grass; but he was moving along just fine, maintaining his balance, walking upright.

  He reached Carlucci’s car, opened the passenger door, and dropped onto the seat. He glanced toward the lagoon, saw Carlucci talking to the coroner’s men, then looked away. He leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes.

  Tanner breathed slowly and deeply. He tried to concentrate exclusively on his breathing, blocking out all other thoughts. In, long and deep... then slowly out. In... hold... out... in... hold... out... He managed to induce a kind of trance; he focused on his breathing, the way it eased the pressure in his head, his chest.

  Carlucci’s voice intruded, breaking the trance. Tanner opened his eyes. Carlucci stood a few feet away, looking at him.

  “What did you say?” Tanner asked.

  “You going to be all right?”

  Tanner nodded. He sat up, swung his legs outside the car. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Have you known her a long time?”

  “No. But it’s not just her.” He shrugged. “It’s complicated.”

  Carlucci nodded, and did not say anything. They both were silent for a minute, and Carlucci looked back toward the lagoon. He ran his hand through his hair twice, then jammed it into his pocket.

  “Why do you think the angel wings were on her eyelids?”
Carlucci finally asked.

  Tanner shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe because she had seen him before? It could be that simple, I suppose. I don’t know. Right now I feel like I don’t understand this guy at all.”

  “Did you ever?”

  Tanner shrugged, then shook his head once more.

  Tanner looked back toward the lagoon. The coroner’s men were strapping Sookie’s body to the stretcher. Mixer stood nearby, watching them. They cinched the straps, checked them, then lifted her and started back toward the van. One of the men slipped and fell, dropping his end of the stretcher into the mud. Tanner half expected Sookie’s body to slide off the stretcher, but it remained secure. The man got to his feet, picked up his end, and they started again. They moved more slowly, carefully, until they reached the firmer footing of the grass. Mixer watched them for a minute, then headed back for the car. He seemed to be having as much difficulty walking back as Tanner had.

  When Mixer reached the car, he did not say a word. He and Tanner looked at each other, but neither spoke.

  “You feel up to going into the Tundra?” Carlucci said to Tanner. “I assume you want to be part of this.”

  Tanner turned to look at Carlucci. “Christ, yes, let’s just get this over with.”

  Carlucci nodded, then walked around the car and got in behind the wheel. Tanner got back into the car and closed the door. Mixer climbed into the back, still silent. Carlucci started the engine.

  “Wait a minute,” Tanner said.

  The coroner’s men had reached the van. They loaded Sookie’s body into the back, secured the stretcher inside, then backed out and shut the doors.

  “All right,” Tanner said. “Let’s go.”

  Carlucci put the car into gear and swung out into the street.

  THIRTY-NINE

  THEY CAME AROUND a corner, and Tanner saw four people standing on the sidewalk, talking to each other. He recognized the woman—Fuentes—and one of the men—Harker. The other two were probably Homicide detectives as well. Carlucci pulled the car up onto the sidewalk and cut the engine. He dug two flashlights from under the seat, handed one to Tanner, and then they got out.

  Mixer led the way into a narrow gap between two buildings. Fuentes and Harker joined them while the other two detectives remained out in the street. About twenty feet into the alley, Mixer headed down a flight of concrete steps to a basement. It was a lot like the way they’d gone into the Core, Tanner thought. He and Carlucci followed him down; Fuentes and Harker remained in the alley at the top of the steps.

  “Used to be this vent screen was open,” Mixer said. “How Sookie got in the first time. But the other day when she brought me here, it was boarded over. Solid. I had to bust my way in through the door.”

  He opened the door, and they went inside, Tanner and Carlucci switching on the flashlights. The room was nearly empty. A few rickety shelves hung from one wall, a steel cabinet was propped against another, and broken glass lay in two piles next to the cabinet. There was a hatch in the floor, and in the far right corner was a wooden door.

  “Through there,” Mixer said, pointing at the door. “She only found it by accident. She’d wanted to get to the underground lines, but the hatch was stuck or sealed or something, so she’d gone through the door.”

  “All right,” Carlucci said. “Fuck this room, let’s get right to it.”

  Carlucci led the way, and Mixer joined them. There were no locks on the door, and they entered a short, narrow passage, the room at the other end dimly lit but partially visible through an open door.

  One at a time they emerged from the passage and into a huge room filled with machines. The ceiling was high, and windows near the top, though grimy, let in light from outside. On the walls hung sets of silver bands and chains.

  Carlucci approached the wall and closely examined the chains without touching them. “Jesus,” he said. “This is the place.”

  Tanner stood and looked around the room. The machines were old, but clean and dust free. There were some he did not recognize, but most he did. A drill press, a grinder, two band saws, a router, a polisher. Toward the back he thought he saw a mold press and a die cutter. Sookie had been here. The Chain Killer had brought her here. He sniffed the air, smelling something odd, and wondered if it had anything to do with the machines. A kind of burnt odor.

  “Anyone else smell that?” he asked. He watched the others draw in sharp, deep breaths.

  “Yeah,” said Mixer. “Stinks, but what?”

  “Burned flesh,” Carlucci said. “I know that smell. Jesus,” he said again. “I wonder how recently that bastard’s been here.”

  No one answered him. Tanner wondered if any of them really wanted to know.

  “I’ll get Porkpie to come in and go over this place,” Carlucci said. Porkpie was one of the senior crime-lab techs. “Don’t know if he’ll be able to get anything that’ll help us, but I guess you can’t ever tell.” He shook his head and looked at Tanner. “He’s still in the Core, that motherfucker. But maybe, just maybe…” He shrugged. “Think about this, will you? Do we keep taking runs at the Core, or do we wait here instead and hope he shows up before he does the next one? I suppose it’s possible this isn’t the only place he’s got.”

  Tanner shook his head. “I don’t know. How likely is it, though, that he’s got another setup like this? Posting teams here around the clock just might catch something.”

  “Why not just bust your way through the hatch?” Mixer said. “That’s gotta be the way he comes and goes. Follow the way back, maybe to where he lives.”

  They looked at Mixer. What he said made sense. Tanner thought. “Might be something to that,” he said. “He’s probably got any alternate ways in sealed off, to keep people out of here, so maybe there’s only one place to end up. Like working a maze backward, from the finish to the start.”

  Carlucci grunted, said, “Worth thinking about, I guess.”

  Tanner and Carlucci wandered among the machines, working their way through them toward the back of the large room. Tanner wondered what the Chain Killer did with all these machines. Anything? He could not see a connection with most of them. Maybe they were just for effect. But then for whose benefit?

  In the rear of the room, the machines gave way to a large open area occupied primarily by an operating table. Beside the table were smaller machines and tools, including gas canisters, welding torches, and other tools he did not recognize. This was where he did it, Tanner realized, noticing the restraints attached to the table. This was where he fused the chains to his victims.

  Sookie had been on this table. Sookie had...

  He turned away from the table. “Carlucci,” he said. Then, “Something you should see.”

  He waited for Carlucci to work his way through the machines, scanning the area for anything else that might be significant. He felt numb again, slightly sick.

  “Jesus,” Carlucci said when he reached Tanner’s side. He stared at the table and tools, then said, “Jesus Christ, look at that.” He pointed to the floor, at something Tanner had not noticed—small pieces of what appeared to be melted or burned skin. “Something for Porkpie to sink into.” He sighed heavily and turned to face Tanner. “The spikehead’s right,” Carlucci said. “No more fucking around. We bust through the hatch, we get this fucker now, whatever it takes.”

  Tanner nodded, silent and still numb. There was nothing else to say, there was nothing else to do.

  O O O O

  Tanner stood in the Tundra basement and watched the two techs working on the floor-hatch locks; he did not much care about this anymore. Sookie was dead. Yet it was Sookie, however unintentionally, who had made this possible; it was Sookie who had led them here.

  Four people would be going through the hatch: Tanner, Carlucci, Fuentes, and Harker. More than that in the close, underground confines would make for too many potential problems. Mixer was not going, if only because Carlucci had proved to be more stubborn than the spikehead.

 
; Tanner himself was ambivalent. His part of this was over, it seemed to him. He had made his contribution. He had found, or been found by, Rattan, and had learned who and where the Chain Killer was. It no longer mattered if Tanner was along. Carlucci and the other cops would either find the Chain Killer or not, it made no difference whether or not Tanner was with them.

  He wondered if Sookie’s death should have enraged him, made him eager for revenge and justice, eager to be part of the Chain Killer’s capture. But it had always seemed to him that revenge was vastly overrated, and justice was far more complicated and far less easily attained than most people wanted to admit.

  Seeing Sookie’s dead, mutilated body had depressed him more than anything else. She had very likely saved his life after he’d gone out that window, saved him from Max, but he had not come close to saving hers. He had not even known she had needed saving. What the hell did that mean? Anything?

  Still, here he was, waiting with Carlucci for the techs to do their work. Why? If nothing else, he felt a need to see it through.

  He felt for the trank pistol jammed into his back pocket. They were all armed with tranquilizer weapons in addition to their guns. The other weapons were to be a last resort. They wanted the Chain Killer alive. The mayor and the chief of police, in particular, wanted to see him tried, convicted, and publicly executed. One more thing Tanner did not really care much about.

  “Got it,” said one of the techs. Lights were trained on the hatch as the techs raised it, swinging it open on its hinges. “It’s all yours.”

  Tanner and Carlucci crouched at the edge of the opening, aimed their lights through it. A metal ladder led down to a platform beside a set of rail tracks. The platform was empty, and the tunnel in both directions was silent. “Let’s go,” Carlucci said.

  Carlucci went first, then Tanner, and the other two followed. There was barely enough room on the platform for all four of them, and the ceiling was only a few inches above their heads. Tanner had the urge to duck as he moved, though it was not actually necessary. The walls were part stone, part concrete, part solidly packed dirt. The ground along the tracks was a mix of dirt, gravel, and rock.