Black Beast: A Hard Boiled Murder Mystery (A Detective Bobby Mac Thriller Book 1)

by R. S. Guthrie

  “B-be kind?”

  “And just shoot you.”

  “I d-do not know of whom you speak, sir.”

  “Just as well,” I said. “’Cause that means you should be all the more motivated.”

  “H-how’s that?”

  “The no mercy, bolt-cutter scenario.”

  “Sh-shit, why would you fuck me over like that?”

  “You’ve got yourself one awful tell, Wendell.”

  “T-tell?”

  “Never mind,” I said. “I thought I would do you a favor, bring you up here so there was no chance of Calypso finding out we talked. C’mon. Down to central booking. Time for everyone to find out about Wendell Worthy the rat.”

  “W-wait. W-wait! Say I kn-knew who this guy was, and also what h-he’d do to me if I was to be labeled a rat?”

  “Then you’d probably be able to answer a few of the easy questions I have and we’d be finished with our discourse.”

  “D-dis...”

  “Our talk, Wendell.”

  He seemed to be mulling over his options, which of course, were extremely limited. Tell me to fu-fuck myself, I leak his name, and Calypso would take the blowtorch to him. We both knew that. Talk to me, he maybe had a crack to wriggle out of.

  “Okay,” he said. “What do you want?”

  First time he hadn’t stuttered the whole afternoon.

  “Okay,” I echoed. “I’m going to say some words; you tell me what comes to mind?”

  “W-what?”

  “Stop saying ‘what’, Wendell.”

  “W-what?”

  “You ever watch Pulp Fiction, Wendell?”

  “N-no.”

  “Forget it. This is an easy game, son.”

  Wendell nodded.

  A good solid choice.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  MY SON hadn’t said much to me in the years since his mother died. I know all teenagers go through a messy time with parents around these years, but something happened between Cole and me that I still have a hard time understanding.

  We were so close. Growing up, it wasn’t just that I had to be there—I wanted to be around him. I enjoyed the moments we spent together and I tried to let him know that while I was still a father. He needed to know that I normally knew what was best but that I also respected him and wanted him to feel he could confide in me.

  I always believed he did feel that way about us—about our relationship. And I was probably kidding myself to think that it began with Isabel’s getting sick. Cole had begun lying to me long before that. But these things build up over time. It sneaks up on us, particularly when it’s someone who we care about so much.

  It’s one lie and then another. And you don’t want it to be true. You see the fissure forming in your relationship, but you can’t admit it. Not when things have been so good between you.

  And then his mother getting sick, wasting away in front of us both, and then leaving us to sort out the rest, on our own, doubly compounded things.

  I knew he blamed me for her getting sick. I knew he felt I couldn’t protect her—that if she hadn’t been a worried cop’s wife; if I had been there more—that the lumps wouldn’t have appeared. And if she hadn’t waited up so many night wondering if the messengers were going to show up at her door with the long faces and practiced condolences—the treatments would have worked.

  I had to admit I felt the same way. Of course the guilt consumed me; of course I blamed myself. But knowing your own son blamed you—well, it made living with myself that much more difficult.

  He never actually said he did. Oh, we’d had our conversations about my hours, and about the job. But when she died, he just clammed up. Thankfully, his grades stayed decent, and he poured himself into playing hockey. He actually became a better player in the year or so following Isabel’s death.

  Bemidji State in Bemidji, Minnesota—one of the top Division I hockey programs—ended up offering him a full ride. The thing is, he could’ve stayed home and accomplished the same thing, at least from a hockey and an educational standpoint. The University of Denver and Colorado College were both perennial hockey powerhouses, and very good schools. Either would’ve been glad to have him. In fact, they courted him for six months.

  I had never missed a game or a practice. Neither had Isabel. Had he played closer to home, I could’ve been there in the stands watching him. Cheering. It was clear that was not a top priority. This, I suppose, is understandable. Just a tough punch for my ego. I still loved the kid something fierce.

  But it became more and more clear that Cole wanted to get away from Denver. Away from his father. Away, I suppose, from his past.

  Which is an awful thing for a boy of eighteen to have to feel. So I didn’t stand in his way. Not that I would’ve anyway, but now more than ever I knew he needed to clear a path for himself. I hoped that his absence might begin to heal the wounds between us.

  And he’d agreed to come home for his first summer. Of course, I knew the fact that his girlfriend still lived here in town—attending Metro State—was more likely the motivation. But I had no complaints. He was home again.

  Though they’d pretty much always gotten along, Greer’s presence wasn’t helping matters. It’s difficult under the best of circumstances for a boy to see his father fall for another woman. And we were not living under anything resembling good circumstances. Greer knew. She could sense Cole’s uneasiness. And it was all the more reason to keep herself at a distance.

  “You want to get a pizza tonight?” I said to my son.

  We were home together for the first time in a while. I was hoping for a bonding opportunity.

  “I’m going out,” Cole said.

  “Okay.”

  He continued to play video hockey on the Wii.

  “I could use a talk,” I said.

  It was something we used to say to each other when he was younger. He looked up at me with his mother’s eyes.

  “What’s up?” he said.

  “We’re kind of like ships in the night,” I said.

  “Ships in the night.”

  “It’s an old guy’s reference. Means we just pass each other in the dark.”

  “Hmm,” he said, and returned to the television.

  “You have anything on your mind?” I said.

  “Nope.”

  “Can we talk a little?”

  “Dad, everything’s cool. I’m going to pick up Nikki in a bit.”

  “Ten minutes,” I said.

  He put down the controller.

  “Sure.”

  “You want something to drink?” I said.

  “I’m good. Can we make this kind of quick?”

  “I’m glad you’re home for the summer, Cole. I don’t know if I told you that.”

  “In between shifts, you mean.”

  “I’m home now. I’m off for two weeks. I thought we could take a tent up. Me, you, the dogs. We could camp for a night or two.”

  “What about Greer?” he said.

  “She’s got summer school. Fast pace, a lot of work for her. I think it’d work fine.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Anything else?”

  “No. Have fun tonight,” I said.

  “Yep,” he said, and turned back to the television.

  Not long after our talk, Cole left in his Toyota compact to pick up Nikki. She’d been his girlfriend since their junior year in high school. He didn’t say where he was going and I decided not to ask.

  I didn’t lie about Greer. Not exactly, anyway. She was at her own place, and she was grading summer school papers. But there was a time when she’d grade the papers while I worked on her back, or gave her a foot massage. If nothing else, she would’ve done her homework at the kitchen table, not several miles away at DU.

  So it was just the dogs and me—a threesome I was becoming more and more used to, if not something I preferred.

  I drank a few black and tans and fell asleep with the Rockies losing an away game to the Dodgers 10-3.
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br />   It was around midnight that I heard the intruder.

  Tina and Sketch were still sleeping, curled up on the floor next to my recliner. The sound that reached into my dreams and pulled me awake was that of someone bumping into a patio chair in back.

  I reached for my gun, sitting on the table next to me, and quietly unholstered the pistol. Luckily the dogs were too zonked to have heard the noise. If they did hear it, or if they figured out that I was stressed, they would go crazy and probably scare off the bad guy before I had a chance to lay hands on him.

  Now that I was really tuned in, I could hear the person moving along the back of the house, toward the sliding doors in the kitchen. I couldn’t turn the lamp or television off because it would tip off whoever was planning to pay me a visit. I felt vulnerable in the light. I also needed to get to the door before they did. I edged my way off the recliner, careful not to disturb the pups. Sketch looked up sheepishly with that “I don’t have to get up, too?” look and went back to sleep. Tina never budged.

  I stayed low, keeping to the shadows, moving slowly toward the kitchen. I ducked below the windows and took the weapon off safety. Just as I reached the kitchen, I heard the jiggling of the latch on the sliding door. It was locked, so they were either going to have to break in or…

  I heard the latch click.

  Stun or gun? It’s a question police officers are taught to ask themselves, but the answer is a lot more complicated when the outcome could mean your ass. Truthfully, you never want to end up shooting someone, but when your family is at stake—cop or not—you don’t take chances.

  Since no one was home, however, save for the dogs, I opted to subdue. When the intruder stepped into the kitchen, I brought down my elbow with all the force I could muster. I connected with a large man’s neck and he dropped like a burlap sack full of auto parts.

  I turned on the kitchen light, gun leveled; hoping I’d at least paralyzed the bastard for life.

  Father West lay on the tiled floor in an unconscious heap, something wrapped in cloth lying there with him.

  “Damn,” I said.

  It looked like I’d killed him.

  I patted the paramedic on the shoulder.

  “Thanks for coming by on your night off, Pete,” I said.

  Pete Rawlins and I had met on the job and become pretty good friends. I figured unless I had killed West, it was probably better if no official report of the incident surfaced. So when I checked and found a pulse, I called Pete on his cell.

  “No problem,” Rawlins said. “The Rockies got clobbered and I needed to get some fresh air. Have to tell you, Mac, this is one for the books.”

  “Don’t start making cracks,” I said.

  “Near killing a priest is no way to make it into Heaven, is all I’m saying.”

  “Go Rockies,” I said, and let him out the door.

  Father West had not said a word. I walked over to where he was sitting, rubbing the back of his neck.

  “He says your spine is probably okay,” I said.

  “I was here,” West said. “I heard.”

  “Hey, Padre—I’m not the one breaking and entering.”

  “Yes, yes. I know. It’s not something I make a habit out of.”

  “No pun intended,” I said.

  West sighed. His night was obviously turning out for the worse.

  “Why did you break in?” I said. “Not very priest-like. Plus, there’s the whole doorbell invention thing.”

  “I was hoping to avoid a confrontation,” he said.

  “Good plan.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “Shoulda remembered who I was dealin’ with.”

  It was the first time West let loose with his brogue. And it was the first time I had paid much attention to his features. He looked familiar, in a way that was actually a bit unsettling.

  “There wouldn’t happen to be any Macaulays hiding back in any West family woodpiles, would there?” I said.

  “My mother,” he said. “Ruth.”

  “Which makes you?”

  “Cousin Meyer.”

  Father West.

  Turns out religion actually did run in the family.

  “Sounds cliché, but can I get you something?” I said.

  “No, it’s I who have something for you,” West said.

  He unfurled the cloth around the object he obviously meant to deliver to me. It was a large dagger of some kind, forged in the shape of the cross and with what appeared to be nail heads on the top and sides.

  “It’s the Crucifix of Ardincaple,” he said. “It’s been in the Macaulay family for four to five hundred years. Perhaps a lot longer.”

  He held it before me, and it was very impressive. Formidable. The tip looked to be as sharp as any sword I could imagine and came to a fine point.

  “Its history is of some dispute, particularly in the Church,” West said. “But those who have handed it down claim it was forged, in part, from the nails that crucified the Christ.”

  I remained silent. What did I have to say? I carried a semi-automatic pistol and hunted elk as a kid…but as I took it in my hands, I could feel its strength, its history. It was dense, but not unwieldy. The hilt was formed to be held in battle.

  “Why have you brought it here?”

  Of course, these are the games we play—the things we ask and say—when we already suspect the answers.

  “Father Rule foresaw the shadows that would fall over you after his death.”

  “Over me?”

  “Legacies are untamable things. We don’t control them, cousin. They are living things. Your legacy waits to confront you.”

  I continued to look at the dagger. The Crucifix of Ardincaple.

  Father West continued.

  “Ardincaple Castle, built in the 12th century, was the birthplace of the Clan MacAulay. In 1472, a great evil cast a plague over all of Scotland. The castle priests formed a council—designed at first to address various cases of demonic possession. It was a few passing moons later that the true history of Samhain was uncovered.”

  “Uncovered?”

  “A document was discovered, buried deep with the catacombs beneath the castle.”

  “The Book of Ossian,” I said.

  “Aye, you’ve been reading your grandfather’s journal.”

  “Standing in line and buying a ticket are two entirely different acts.”

  “Are you familiar with Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man?”

  “The man in the circle, arms spread wide?”

  “Exactly. Did you know there are many interpretations as to what Da Vinci was attempting to say with that drawing? The applications and assumptions—at least those documented in the mainstream—are mostly architectural and scientific in nature. The perfect design of the human anatomy and such.”

  “Okay.”

  “Let me show you something,” West said. He removed another parchment from his bag and unrolled it on the table. It was an old rendering of Da Vinci’s drawing.

  “Did you remember that the man in the drawing—that his arms and legs—were in two different poses?”

  “Now that I’m looking at it, I guess. Yeah.”

  West pulled a piece of thin paper and laid it over the parchment. He took out a pencil and drew lines through the four spread arms, the two spread legs, and one line straight down—through the pair of legs that stood together as one foundation. He added heart at the core, and the mind over them all.

  “A seven-pointed star,” West said. “The book of Ossian contained a drawing of a man very similar to that of Da Vinci. Some say Da Vinci may have copied his from that old book. Others say it is a coincidence.”

  “Why seven?” I said.

  “The seven virtues of man,” he said. “Honesty, integrity, temperance, and fortitude, nearest the mind. Faith, hope, and charity, the bedrocks of humanity. All seven completely reliant on the heart.”

  The seven points of the patrol officer’s badge.

  “Drawn like this in the book of O
ssian in a different order,” he said, and began writing them in a clockwise motion around the seven-pointed star of man. When he was finished, he looked up at me with quiet, understanding eyes.

  I stared at the left leg in the drawing.

  My lost left leg.

  Faith.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I’D BEEN back on duty about a week when Shackleford asked to see me. I figured he’d called me into his office to give me hell for coming into the squad late. Of course the dark-haired woman standing in his office in front of the desk busted up that theory.

  She was tall, slender, with a smooth, tanned face and wearing a pantsuit. Everything about her suggested “Fed”. Even her stance, which was not unlike a few ex-football players I knew. Aggressive. Ready to engage at the slightest offense.

  “Detective Bobby Macaulay, this is Special Agent Amanda Byrne,” Shackleford said.

  She extended her hand and I took it in mine. Nice strong grip.

  “Ma’am,” I said. The Marine training taking over. I meant it respectfully; she didn’t appear to take it that way.

  “Amanda,” she said coolly.

  “Bobby,” I said, attempting to quell the sarcasm. This was going well.

  “Your new partner,” Shackleford said, and went to arranging the things on his desk.

  “Come again,” I said. The words got tangled with the air I was choking in.

  “We’re partnering with a federal task force. Can’t approach Calypso otherwise. Byrne here is who they sent over.”

  I could feel Agent Byrne’s face studying mine. See her in the peripheral. No doubt she was waiting for my objections. I had to admit, there were more than a few bubbling up.

  “Fine, no problem,” I said.

  “Good,” Shackleford said. Byrne deflated. Another fight, another day.

  “Show her the squad, introduce her, and then catch her up on your investigation,” the boss said.

  I motioned for Agent Byrne to follow.

  “I never understood why they put ‘Special’ in front of ‘Agent’,” I said.

  “Again?” she said.