“Well?” Nelson gripped the armrest.
“We’re going to a development called Carpenter Woods. A little while ago a neighbor noticed that the basement window at the house next to hers was totally smashed. She called it in, and guess what the county police found?”
“The owner.”
“You’re partially right.”
“Meaning?”
“They found most of the owner.”
CHAPTER 45
On the Ball
Chang stopped around the corner from the crime scene in Carpenter Woods. “Walk around back and I’ll sneak you in.”
“We break the chain of evidence if I go in unregistered.” Nelson stared at him and didn’t move.
“We’ll ask for forgiveness later.”
“What if we screw up the case?”
“You see what the guy’s doing. You really think it will come down to lab results?” Chang didn’t care what happened afterward. This one wasn’t going to slip away because of paperwork.
Nelson’s face scrunched up. His own internal debate, probably. His expression cleared, and he gave Chang a little smile.
“I was bored with computers anyhow.”
Chang had never heard Nelson admit that before.
“Go to the back. I’ll wave you in.”
Chang drove up to the tape, and the officer allowed him to enter. The police concentrated their barricade efforts on the main road. Maybe Nelson could climb over a couple fences.
Chang signed in, put on his paper suit, and went in the front door.
Inside, he saw rage’s hangover. It looked like someone had taken a huge red roller and redecorated the house with savage feng shui. His emotions caught up a moment later. All blood.
The evidence flags on the blood spots were so redundant that he choked back a bitter laugh. Need more sleep.
Chang went to the back door and looked out. He saw movement in the bushes, and Nelson’s scratched-up face popped out like a crazy flower. One uniformed officer stood nearby and turned at the sound.
Chang opened the back door and shouted to the officer.
“Keep this yard clear! There’s press coming in, and I don’t want any of them to sneak around the side.” Chang pointed. The uniform moved close to the window where the killer had broken in. Chang heard rustling, but Nelson was out of sight.
“The last thing we need is to let some clever photographer sneak in through the window. I wouldn’t mind seeing them get cut, but we can’t have more blood down there. I’ll lock the back door.”
The overall chaos out front helped. Chang returned inside and saw Nelson crouching below the windows.
“Are you okay?”
“Thorns.” Nelson wiped blood off his face. “I’m fine.”
They went down the hall, and Chang noticed the hall closet ajar. He peeked inside with a penlight.
“He hid in there.” The closet faced the living room. Smears of blood led into the hall. He stepped into the living room. The scuff marks and spray of blood on the wall told him where the victim went down, but not out.
The rest of the hallway revealed a far more intense struggle.
“Brave boy, you clobbered him from behind.” Nelson looked around while he spoke.
Chang saw from the pictures in the room that Mr. Stiles was a big man. The rug in the living room bunched up in one place and told him the killer had dragged the body instead of carrying it. He followed the marks to the second-floor stairs.
“Got tired? Heavier than you thought. Going for the tub?” Nelson asked the empty house. The sticky pool on the floor showed where the killer had dragged the body to the basement.
They both jumped at the rattle of the front doorknob.
“Get downstairs; I’ll buy us a couple minutes,” Chang said.
Chang picked up the coppery scent even before he got to the mess in the basement.
Nelson was standing over the body. “What happened?”
“Rookie tech wanted a look, forgot to check if I was done. I bit her head off. I’ll apologize later.” Chang winced at the inadvertent choice of words.
He did his best to block out the horror of the headless corpse face down, if there had been a face. A large amount of blood puddled near the neck. Bits of tissue on the bow saw next to the body left little doubt about the method of decapitation. Chang saw the other wood saws on the wall. Another improvisation, like at the Hubberts’. He felt Nelson stare at him.
“What?”
Nelson pointed down with his finger. “It’s personal.”
Chang shifted his attention to the stump.
A crimson-soaked tennis ball was lodged in the base of the severed neck. Chang checked his gloves and tugged at the soggy felt. His fingers slipped, and then the ball came free with a wet sucking sound. He held the ball up and saw a silvery painted smiley face with “Have a nice day” scrawled on the side.
“See the fancy ink? Wanted to make sure you could see it.”
“Stands out well from the blood.” Chang took a deep breath. The ball felt heavy and cold in his hand. He put it back near the stump.
“Why that now?” Nelson began to rock.
Chang refused to allow the kaleidoscope of images to disrupt his train of thought. Dead faces from the near and distant past jockeyed for his attention, and his trash can swirled in the mix. Out of instinct he tried to put the faces in the can. Topper first…The sharp pain in his temple told him the can belonged with the images. It wasn’t another teak box. He saw his mangled bonsai tree. The trash picker?
Chang felt scales rub the bars of its cage. The killer was stalking him? “Come on, then!” The Dragon’s voice filled the basement. Chang tried to conjure the sneak’s masked face. He reached for the tennis ball to burst it in his fist. Red curtains shrouded his vision.
“Evidence.” Nelson’s voice arrowed into his mind, and Chang stopped. He saw Nelson had backed away from him.
“Flannigan might have told the killer things about me. He didn’t pull any punches. Some guy went through my trash…” Chang took three deep breaths. The Dragon curled up again.
Chang looked back to the body for any other personal statements, and a patch of blood patterns on the floor brought him back to his task. The dime-sized droplets of blood a few feet from the body made no sense at first. Then he understood.
“He held the head up here to drain. See how the blood fell a few feet? Is he into trophies now?” Chang turned to Nelson.
Nelson looked more pale than usual. “Welcome back. Was that…”
“Never mind.” Chang heard the hitch in his voice and fought for control.
Nelson looked at him. “I’ve seen enough. You better get me out of here. We can’t afford to get thrown off the case now.”
CHAPTER 46
Details, Details
Patriot Motors, Thursday evening
Shamus drummed his fingers on his desk. Ever since he’d learned the police wanted to speak with him, he couldn’t focus. Jake said they were tying up some loose ends around the death of Heather Cleary.
“One of them wasn’t even a real cop, I don’t think. Did Heather ever call you to cancel the deal? We don’t have a request form for the refund of her deposit.”
“I haven’t heard a peep from her since before last Friday. I called her house a thousand times to find out where she was. Poor kid. I wonder what she was mixed up in.” Shamus shook his head.
“Yeah. Well, they might be back in the morning, so try not to schedule any appointments if you can help it. But we need to pick it up this month, so do what you have to do.” Jake sounded bored with the topic. Good.
“I doubt I’ll be much help. Hey, maybe they want a car!” Shamus faked a smile.
“Might get rid of them quicker.” Jake walked away.
Dammit, I told you, Gran! Shamus knew he should have left that spoiled worm alone. His mouth felt dry at the idea that they’d linked Heather to him. A smart cop might start to see other connections, and that could lea
d to problems.
Shamus pretended to listen to Hank rant about some customer who came in last week and wasted his time, as if that didn’t happen to all of them.
Then something about what Hank had just said broke into his train of thought. Shamus felt the tingle of an idea.
CHAPTER 47
Miles to Go
Newark, early Friday morning
Colleen used to call Chang’s occupational insomnia “case-lag.” Since he’d left Nelson’s, his mind had been racing and he hadn’t been able to calm his thoughts despite his best efforts. He needed sleep, but wouldn’t get it. He lived in interesting times.
When he’d checked his answering machine earlier, he was still on the case. Bad news, one of the officers at the Stiles crime scene had spotted Nelson when he left the house. It was his friend D’Agostino, and he let Chang know that his secret was safe. It wouldn’t last. The security would tighten at each scene. But Chang knew they’d break the case if Byrd didn’t break them first. Chang felt like an ant in the bottom of an hourglass. The sand pressed down…
Shu opened the door. Chang didn’t bother to scold him for not checking who it was.
“She is asleep.” Shu stepped aside.
His mother was a reliable night owl. She must have had a difficult day. Shu read the question in his eyes.
“Pain better now.”
“You should have called me.”
“It passed.”
“Shu, it’s not indigestion.” She never tired of complaining that the colon surgery from several years back only spread her cancer, despite tests to the contrary. She did have painful flare-ups, not that it stopped her from enjoying Shu’s cooking.
Some days the pain made her an old woman; others she looked like she would live forever.
“Always eye out for one trouble too many. Come downstairs, Master Paul.”
Chang followed.
Soon he was bathed in sweat on the bare wood floor. His aching muscles protested the stretches. He held still and forced his mind to clear. Shu ran him through the mental purification steps.
“What see now?” Shu stood behind Chang and carried his bamboo stick.
Chang kept his eyes closed. In his mind he paddled across a lake, floated across the snowy plain, and climbed up a barren mountain. “I’m near the top.” He jumped at the sting from Shu’s stick.
“Start over.”
“But—”
“If hear me, not lost in moment. Again.”
He looked at the clock and saw it was after two o’clock in the morning Shu’s stick scolded.
Chang returned to the lake and began to paddle.
CHAPTER 48
Gone in a Blink
Chang reached home before dawn. He saw the message light blinking on his answering machine. His cell never rang, so it must not have been an emergency, but he crossed the room and hit the button before he hung up his keys.
“Paul, it’s Colleen. Sorry to call so early, or is it late?”
What kept her awake at night?
“Guess who I saw, in the creaky flesh, this afternoon in the editor’s office? Handshakes and everything. You may not have to worry about Flannigan kicking you around much more. That’s good news, right? I’ll keep you posted…”
She paused, and Chang could picture her chewing her knuckle until she could find her cigarettes.
“I read his pieces. Scary. You got a bad guy down there. Be careful, huh?”
Gone. Chang stared at the ceiling. Why couldn’t Colleen have been at her mother’s house when the Nightmare came? Anywhere but next to him.
He didn’t need to be asleep to see the Tong, poised over his bed with the moonlight’s glint on the edge of the blade.
He still didn’t know whether to thank or curse his reflexes. He failed to block the knife slash on his neck, but he reacted fast enough to keep his arteries from pumping his life onto the sheets.
He could smell the spice on the assassin’s black shirt and see the eyes filled with manic purpose. The killer never got another chance to fulfill his contract. The Dragon snapped awake, and Chang held the attacker’s wrist with one hand and used his other fist to batter the man’s windpipe.
Chang watched the man die struggling for air that had no way to reach his lungs. He looked like a fish, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly. Chang held the phone with one hand and a blood-soaked pillow against his bleeding neck. He made sure the man was dead before he called the ambulance, but he passed out before they arrived. The first Nightmare came in the hospital. No Colleen to worry about back then, only the tubes he pulled out before he woke up, and the killer he’d fought disappearing with the mists of his dream.
For years the Nightmare stayed buried. After they moved to Delaware, Chang thought maybe it was gone forever. He never knew why it eventually returned, but he doubted a psychiatrist would have shed any light.
What he did know was that the Nightmare did return, and he’d woken up to find his fingers wrapped around Colleen’s throat. He let go instantly, but she never shared a bed with him again. She couldn’t understand why he didn’t believe in Western psychoanalysis, but she was just as stubborn about giving Shu’s training a chance.
After each shooting in New York, he was required to see a department psychiatrist. Worthless. Colleen refused to entertain the possibility that an ancient culture might yield a better approach.
Soon it didn’t matter who was right. The guest bedroom wasn’t far enough. A couple months after the Nightmare, she was gone.
CHAPTER 49
Click Click Click
Wilmington, Delaware, Friday morning
Chang felt a sense of déjà vu. He and Nelson sat in the car near Patriot Motors and waited. Shamus Ryan was due in for the early shift.
Nelson looked haggard. Chang hadn’t slept either, but his mind was clear.
Still no sign of Larry Stiles’s head. The media had pounced on the story, and a tasteless cartoon appeared in the press that showed a severed head and a talk balloon that said, “Could be worse. I know where the cops’ heads are!”
The retraction and apology carried an attorney’s warmth.
Chang learned from neighbors that Larry lived alone, had few friends, and led a quiet life. He asked whether Larry had recently purchased a new car, possibly a Honda?
No, he owned a red Dodge pickup only a year or two old. One neighbor said he kept it immaculate.
How Stiles fit in was still a mystery. The cops combed the house without success. Nelson was sure the killer had taken the head. The media obtained a picture of Stiles for the evening news, but unlike the stupid cartoon, the photo might bring out a witness. For now, the killer was accelerating faster than they could pick up clues.
Chang and Nelson compared the timeline of the killings and the work schedules of Walt Kerry from Marlo and this guy Shamus from Patriot. Both were off on Tuesdays, and the dealerships were closed on Sundays.
Heather Cleary was killed sometime in the morning last Monday. Phone records showed a call came in to her cell from the pay phone at the nearby gas station around nine thirty in the morning. Walt Kerry was scheduled to be at work that morning, though Shamus wasn’t.
After they talked with Shamus, Chang was going to give the manager at Marlo a call to confirm that Kerry was actually at work that day. He’d also catch up with the salesman who’d worked with the Hubberts.
Chang checked his watch again and tried to remain calm. Nelson would pick up on his anxiety. “Are you sure you want to go in alone?”
“I need to read this guy. You’d scare him and jam me.” Nelson picked up his notebook. “Besides, it’ll be in a public place. What’s he going to do?”
“Shoot you? Stab you? Cut your head off?” Chang tamped down his frustration.
“It’s my plan.” Nelson opened the car door. “You have the number for my new cell phone?”
“On my speed dial.” Chang felt a drop of sweat crawl down his ribcage.
Shamus sat in t
he break room and pretended to read the newspaper. Ideas ricocheted around his mind until Jake came in.
“Famous Shamus, one of the guys from yesterday is here to see you.”
Nice of him not to say police, but it wouldn’t take long for word to get around. He followed Jake to his office.
Was this a joke? He saw a middle-aged scarecrow with black hair on top of a hungry face. The dark eyes glittered, only spark about the guy.
“Shamus Ryan, this is Nelson Rogers, with the state police.” Jake left after they shook hands. His fingers felt like eels.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Ryan, and I’m not exactly ‘with’ the police. More like the world’s oldest intern.”
“Call me Shamus.” Big smile.
“Very good. And make it Nelson, please. I get enough Mr. Rogers jokes as it is.” Fake laugh. The guy acted nervous, but the eyes seemed to drill into Shamus.
“Sorry to have missed you yesterday.” That name sounded familiar.
“The officer I’m assigned to help out was called away. Maybe you saw the reason all over the news.”
Where are you going with that, Mr. Not-a-cop? “Yes, terrible. Are you any closer to catching someone?” Shamus’s voice was smooth, but his heart rate picked up.
“They don’t tell me much. I’m just helping chase down pesky details.”
“Is that what I am? A pesky detail?” Shamus saw the guy begin to sweat. Better.
Shamus wasn’t fooled. If anyone heard more lies than a cop, it was a car salesman. Nelson knew more.
“That came out wrong, didn’t it? My partner talks to the critical witnesses. So in this case, it’s good to be less important.” Nelson gave another nervous laugh. “We noticed that Heather Cleary put down deposits on several cars. We thought maybe she said or did something that might be useful.”
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