The Violet Crow

by Michael Sheldon

  The Chief was shuffling through a stack of reports when Bruno entered. “We got plenty of prints off the note card, but they don’t match up with anything in the FBI database,” the Chief announced. “And we didn’t have any luck with the tire tracks. The soil out there is so sandy and there was so much traffic that night between Mr. Terranova’s truck, the Tabernacle cop and your pathetic excuse for a car …”

  “The Tabernacle cop destroyed evidence?” Bruno asked, brightening up.

  “Yeah. The only really good cast we got turned out to be Randy’s Daytona. We gave it to him as a souvenir.”

  The Chief held another report that he was not going to discuss with Bruno. The medical examiner had examined Maggie’s tail and determined that the instrument used was certainly not a samurai blade—at least not one that had been sharpened properly. It had taken several strokes to sever the tail. Maggie must have suffered terribly. But the poor quality of the blade may have helped to save her life. Clean cuts bleed more readily; the crushed tissues may have slowed the bleeding enough to enable her to make it as far as the Terranovas’ house.

  Officer Nancy O’Keefe walked in holding the carefully folded pile of Ginnie Doe’s clothing. “Say, Bruno, can you get a reading directly from Maggie?” she asked spontaneously.

  This took the Chief by surprise. He hadn’t thought of that. He looked questioningly at Bruno. So did Michelle. Bruno couldn’t believe it. All these people staring at him. “Are you kidding? Do you think I’m some kind of freak?”

  The Chief sensed he might be getting ready to go off on one of his tirades. He dismissed Michelle and tried to get the psychic to calm down. “OK. Never mind. She didn’t know. Let’s do something constructive.” He sat Bruno in his chair and put the clothes in front of him on his desk. “Do you need anything else?”

  Bruno didn’t reply. He was already working his way into the stack of clothes. He unfolded everything and laid it out, like someone planning the day’s wardrobe, on the Chief’s desk. None of it matched particularly well. There was a rust-colored cardigan, a cobalt blue long-sleeved T-shirt and green pants. Next to that lay a red wool overcoat with a hood lined with fake fur. A pair of red rubber rain boots, but no socks … and there weren’t any underclothes, either.

  “Here’s a clue,” noted Nancy. “Either she was color-blind. Or her mother was.”

  Bruno ignored her. He placed his hands on each article of clothing in turn. His eyes turned inward. His lips trembled. He was obviously deep in concentration. The room was silent. Nobody dared breathe.

  At length Bruno interrupted his trance. He asked the Chief to take notes. “I’m finding all of this very confusing. Just write down whatever I say. It may not make sense. But don’t interrupt me. We’ll try to sort it out later.”

  The Chief grabbed a notepad and Bruno re-entered his state of deep contemplation. He started with the cardigan. “This is strange,” he whispered. “I see an argument. With a woman. A gray-haired woman. I’m not sure who she is. But this is not about the murder. They are arguing about … the sweater.”

  He moved on to the pants. They were green cotton corduroy. “She’s climbing, climbing. Working her way higher and higher. Now she’s frightened. She’s scared. She’s coming down. Uh-oh, one of the pockets is caught on a branch. It’s tearing. She’s frightened. She’s scared.”

  Bruno put down the pants and moved to pick up the overcoat. At the same time Nancy reached for the pants; clearly, she wanted to check on the torn pocket. The Chief grabbed her wrist and gently forced it away. Nancy scowled, but obediently folded her hands and placed them on the table in front of her.

  “… she’s in a car,” Bruno continued. “With a man. A dark man. They’re driving. Driving. She’s cold. She needs the coat. She’s scared. She lost it. She needs the coat. She’s scared.”

  Nancy snickered. “Sorry. I can’t help it,” she whispered. “This girl sounds like an ordinary kid. Arguing with her mother about wearing a sweater. Tearing her pants while climbing a tree. And leaving her coat somewhere, probably the playground, and having to drive back with her father to get it.”

  Bruno was out of his trance, listening attentively. “She’s right. I have no sense of connection between these clothes and the girl in the morgue. These clothes are attached to memories of a girl with a close-knit family. Where are they? Why haven’t they been trying to find her? I don’t believe Ginnie Doe was wearing these clothes when she was murdered.”

  “That would be consistent with your theory that someone other than the killer moved the body into the meeting house,” observed the Chief. “Whoever moved the body also dressed her in these clothes. But why?”

  “Obviously there was something about her clothes that would have helped identify her,” Nancy suggested. “Alternatively, they could be secondhand.”

  “You mean, they belonged to some girl who’s totally unconnected to the case?” mused the Chief. “She outgrew them; the family donated them to Goodwill and then Ginnie Doe got them? So Bruno’s picking up on the emotions of the first girl and not the second?”

  “Yeah. Something like that,” agreed Nancy. “Maybe she was a homeless kid …”

  “Other than the neck, the body was in good shape,” the Chief reasoned. “She was well-nourished, had good teeth. Theoretically, homelessness can happen to anybody; maybe it was a recent thing for her.”

  Bruno had been following the interchange intently. Now he asked, out of the blue, “Were these clothes laundered before you stored them as evidence?”

  “Of course not,” growled the Chief. “They are evidence.”

  “They seem surprisingly clean,” Bruno persisted. “I don’t believe she was a homeless child, in the usual sense. I don’t think she’d been living outdoors. Let me try again with the overcoat. Since she wasn’t wearing it next to her skin, I figured I’d get a stronger response from her other clothes.”

  Bruno took the red wool jacket and hugged it to his breast. He shut his eyes and soon was back in his trance. Then his eyes shot open and he smiled broadly.

  “What is it?” Nancy and the Chief demanded in unison.

  “I recognized someone. The girl I just saw eating Chinese food with that kid with the funny name. The speed freak.”

  “Icky …?”

  “Yeah. This coat belonged to his girlfriend. I saw her trying it on and examining how she looked in the mirror; she hated it. She was sticking out her tongue and scowling. She was much younger. But there’s no question. It was the same person.”

  “Alison Wales,” said Nancy. “We have to find her and talk to her right away.”

  “She’s easy to find,” the Chief said. “We’ve been keeping an eye on Icky. Alison goes to school at Penn, but she comes here frequently to visit him. For all we know, she could be at the Lenape King with Icky right now …”

  As the Chief finished speaking a tremendous explosion shook the entire building. Out in the main hallway, people were shouting and running for the exits. Police Chief Buddy Black recovered quickly. He picked up his phone and ordered the entire force to assemble. He wanted everyone in full riot gear in case the Borough of Gardenfield was under attack.

  Chapter 42

  Black smoke billowed from a storefront in the heart of downtown—less than two blocks from the Municipal Building. A thin drizzle was falling and, already, the air was choked with fumes. From where Chief Black stood, just up the block and across the street from the firehouse, the alerts pierced his skull with their maddeningly insistent call to action.

  Debbie’s voice on the radio shook him by the lapels. Laced with static, her awful monotone blared, “The fire’s at the corner of King’s Road and Mechanic Street.”

  The meth lab? How could that be? Gary had told him the red-headed scum were still moving in. They could hardly have had time to get set up. How could they blow themselves up so soon? Never mind. Chief Black knew he needed to alert the firefighters about the hazards of the immediate situation. There were toxic chemicals
to deal with. And if those weren’t bad enough, often drug dealers booby-trapped their places with bombs rigged to go off when police or firefighters entered the premises. He doubted that Icky and his gang were that far gone. But it was protocol, and they’d have to take precautions just the same.

  Here we go again, the Chief found himself thinking. One more accident, one more violent incident in a series that simply had too many coincidences to ignore. What if this fire were somehow connected to the other killings? Maybe it was a trap laid, not by meth cookers, but by whoever was behind the other murders? What if there were snipers? Armed commandos with grenades and automatic weapons? Should he call in a SWAT team? The National Guard?

  Then he saw Bruno approaching from the back of the Municipal Building. Chief Black hated to say it, but trouble seemed to be following the psychic—and getting closer all the time. This was not what he needed right now.

  He grabbed his radio and tried to contact the Fire Chief, Norm Cushing. As a matter of practice, the police and fire departments deliberately use different systems—to avoid interfering with each other’s communications. This makes it maddeningly difficult to coordinate operations when necessary. After the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, Chief Black and Chief Cushing had set up an emergency communications channel dedicated to this single function. Chief Black fumbled for his radio and finally found it on his belt. He called Chief Cushing and waited. No answer. He rang again. Nothing.

  Now he noticed that Bruno was gesticulating wildly; the Chief figured he didn’t need any psychic help just now. He turned his back to Bruno, and rang Chief Cushing again. Still no response. He was so frustrated, he was ready to stomp the radio under his boots.

  Bruno tugged on his sleeve. “The Fire Department’s setting up a command post across the street from the fire. It’s right next to the Starbucks. Can I get you a latte or something?”

  Stunned, Chief Black tossed the useless radio on the ground and took off running. The light rain was not enough to retard the fire, but sufficient to create a natural lid that bottled in the smoke and made it difficult to see. Half a block past Garden Avenue, he found Chief Cushing giving multiple orders simultaneously.

  “Not now, Buddy,” Chief Cushing barked. “The volunteers are still coming in and I have to get them positioned.”

  “They may need police protection,” Chief Black barked back.

  Chief Cushing grabbed his helmet in both hands and pulled it off his head as though he wanted to slam-dunk it into the pavement. “What are you trying to tell me?” he roared.

  “First of all, we think the apartment in back was being set up as a meth lab. So there may be hazardous chemicals.”

  “We can handle that.”

  “Yeah. I’m also worried about booby traps. We’ll have to check for incendiary devices triggered to destroy evidence.”

  “I know the drill. That’s standard procedure. I thought you were talking about something else.”

  “Listen, Norm, I don’t have any solid evidence, but with all the crazy stuff that’s been happening lately, I don’t want anyone taking potshots at your guys.”

  Norm Cushing gave Buddy Black a long look, trying to assess whether he was starting to crack under pressure. Finally he replied, “I appreciate your concern, Buddy. But this fire’s a screamer. We could lose half of downtown if we don’t get busy.”

  Just then the police force arrived, armed to the teeth in riot gear.

  Chief Cushing took in the situation. “OK, the cavalry’s here. Can I go put out the fire now?”

  Chapter 43

  Although the plaque on the wall indicated the site had been Gibbs’ Tavern & Smithy in 1777, clearly the building dated from the early part of the 20th century. It was wood frame construction, with a brick facade facing Mechanic Street.

  It wasn’t clear if the fire had originated in the back of the aromatherapy spa and spread up to the meth lab, or vice versa. In any case, when the fire hit the meth-making chemicals it exploded like a bomb, blowing gaping holes in the floor and ceiling. Now the fire was threatening to spread in all directions. Mechanic Street was a natural firebreak on the north; unfortunately it was an unusually narrow one-way street. To the rear were several more shops and a parking lot. The biggest threat was to the attached buildings on Old Kings Road. Immediately adjacent to the south was Sahadjian’s Fine Oriental Carpets.

  Chief Cushing wanted to get a team on the roof as soon as possible. He needed to create a vent for explosive gases and, if possible, carve out a strip ventilation trough to keep the fire from spreading to the rug shop. Those would be the tasks for the ladder company. The two engine companies would attack the flanks of the building. One would enter through the rug shop and hose down the walls on that side. The other would head up Mechanic Street and create a water curtain. Once they’d controlled the perimeter of the fire, they’d turn in on the building itself and drown the fire.

  Simple to plan, difficult and dangerous to execute. The searing heat of the fire, toxic fumes from the chemicals, structural uncertainty of an older building and the X-factor, the danger of hostile activity, combined to make this an especially hazardous assignment.

  The ladder company wheeled around the block, turned at the Friends School and came up Mechanic Street from the rear of the fire. Chief Black asked the two engine companies to park parallel, close together, on Old Kings Road. The trucks formed a defensive rampart, providing some protection for the firefighters.

  Michelle and Harry were responsible for crowd control. They used wooden barricades to create a police line one block in every direction. Biff and Randy were armed with assault rifles and were stationed at each end of the two engines, keeping a lookout for snipers, assassins, terrorists, etc. Chief Black prayed that no poor fool would disobey the evacuation order and peek out from a second-story window. Biff would be all over him like a scalper on a corporate lawyer needing playoff tickets.

  Officer Gary Malone was assigned to the hazmat team working with the ladder company. It would be his job to enter the meth lab and check for booby traps. Once he gave the all-clear, he would pull back to help with security while the firemen extinguished the blaze.

  With the men deployed, the two Chiefs took control at the command station.

  “Any people trapped inside?” asked Chief Black.

  “Fortunately, the aromatherapy spa wasn’t open yet. Seems their clientele has already achieved health, wealth, and wisdom without getting up early, so now they’re free to pursue unwrinkled skin in the après-midi.”

  “That’s lucky. What about the apartments?”

  “Caught a break there, too. Seems that speed freaks are the only ones who can handle the stench of the aromatherapy oils, so that was the only apartment that was rented. All of those kids have families, right? So none of them actually lived there?”

  “That’s right,” Chief Black confirmed. “But this was a new deal for them. We can’t say for sure if any of them were in there or not. I’ll get Debbie to call the families.”

  Bruno was watching from the sidewalk in front of the Starbucks. Chief Black noticed him when he finished talking to Chief Cushing. He pointed in the direction of the Pine Barrens, as if to say, “You still hanging around? Go home.”

  The psychic held his ground.

  Chief Black realized he’d been coming down hard on Bruno all day. He stepped closer and said, “Look, whoever trashed your place may be somewhere in this crowd. I’m not saying you were the target here, but who the hell knows what’s really going on? So get inside someplace and stay out of sight.” Then he added an afterthought: “Check back in with me tomorrow. We need to talk.”

  Though he would have preferred to stay out on the street, Bruno ducked into the Starbucks as ordered. There, things were proceeding more or less as usual. The sound track was a jaunty Modern Jazz Quartet CD, with Milt Jackson on vibraphone and John Lewis on piano exchanging sophisticated riffs. The music seemed very out of place. Bruno felt worse than out of place
. He felt useless, guilty, and somehow responsible for the whole mess. He watched Gary suiting up in a brown fireman’s jacket with DayGlo yellow stripes. He would be one of the first in. He was capable—nimbly climbing up the fire escape—unselfish and heroic.

  In fact, Gary was numb with fear. An adrenaline junkie, he actually relished the challenge of working undercover with drug dealers and mobsters. But he was in his element there.

  Here, they wanted him to climb up a rickety old fire escape and enter a building engulfed in flames. Any sensible person would run the other way, he told himself. “But me? No. I’m goin’ to go right in. Why? Because I’m the black man. Every time they’s a tough job to do, who’s gotta do it? The black man!”

  Gary knew full well that every member of the Gardenfield Fire Department was white. They all had other jobs, many of them cushy white-collar jobs, but they all volunteered to drop everything and fight fires whenever they were needed. They were brave men and he respected them. He just needed to steel himself to face a truly dangerous and terrifying situation, and talking trash to himself was how he did it. “Worst thing is, they’re making me wear this ugly raincoat with a bulletproof vest underneath. How’m I supposed to climb up these old steps dressed like that? And once I get inside, I gotta go looking for—what: refrigerator door triggers for an incendiary bomb? Honest, I was just looking for a cold beer. DVD players packed with plastic explosives? I had my heart set on watching Die Hard again. Who else’d be fool enough to do something like this? The black man.”

  From Bruno’s perspective, the men of Ladder Company No. 1 seemed to have superhuman agility and courage. They scaled the ladder as though it were a toy and began attacking the roof with axes and chain saws. Almost instantly, gases rushed up through the vent, flared up and died back just as quickly. Somehow the firemen managed to dodge the blast of flame. And then the men from the engine company came up, aiming water from their pressure hoses at the blaze.