by Skye Knizley
The two technicians started off with the body. Pocock made to follow them, but Raven stopped him.
“One more thing, Harvey.”
Pocock blinked and glanced at Levac before meeting Raven’s eyes. “Yes, Detective?”
“The rope. What can you tell me about the rope?”
Pocock flipped through his clipboard. “I’ll have to do some more tests, but my guess is that it’s one and three-quarter inch Manila hemp. It was once used in train track construction because it shrinks when wet and burns like the dickens when set on fire. It can also be found on ships and in old mines.”
“Thanks, Harvey,” Raven said. “At least that gives us something to go on. Give me a call when you get the dental records back. I’d like to know who the victim was as soon as Zhu can get the molds done.”
“Will do, Detective,” Harvey replied.
Raven watched the chubby coroner’s assistant waddle off and again felt the distant ache of her missing friend.
“What do we do with rope?” Levac asked.
Raven turned and looked up. “Rope, salt and blood, Rupe.”
She reached out and ran a finger through the still wet blood. She sniffed it gingerly and then wiped her finger on the wall, something Angus was sure to be proud of. “He was B positive with a vitamin deficiency.”
“And that tells us?” Levac asked.
“That I need a donut,” Raven replied. “But we should probably poke around here and see if anyone saw anything last night, don’t you think?”
Levac looked around Old Town with its antiques, ancient structures hiding monsters he now knew were real and gothic wrought-iron fence and shook his head. “Personally, I’d rather go get the donut.”
Raven gave him a look and led the way around the side of the building. She lowered her chromed sunglasses and let her vampire eyes and sensitive nose guide her. Drops of blood led down the sidewalk and toward the eastern entrance to Old Town. On the far side was Club Purgatory and the old Warehouse District.
Raven started to pass through the gap, but her sensitive nose detected the coppery scent of blood. She turned and spotted a handprint on the iron gate. She held up her own hand and whistled at the size of the print.
“Gigantor apparently came through here with a handful of blood,” she said, kneeling and rummaging through her kit. “Look at the size of this person’s hand.”
Levac also held his hand up to the print and looked at Raven in disgust. “Whatever happened to plain old crimes of passion?”
Raven pulled a spray can and a jar of amido black from her kit. “Those went away when you got assigned to be my partner.”
She sprayed down the handprint with what amounted to sterilized hair spray to set the blood then used the amido black to get a clean print. She examined the lifted print and frowned. Each finger was twice the size of one her own.
She slid the lift into a folder in her kit and stood.
“What do you think we’re looking for?” Levac asked.
Raven shrugged. “Maybe a guy who crushes bones to make bread and has a bean fixation, how should I know? Let’s see if anyone heard or saw anything and then check out the warehouse district. With any luck someone saw a disgruntled wrestler carrying our vic and we can wrap this up.”
Levac frowned. “You don’t believe that any more than I do.”
“Nope. But it would be a nice change.”
RAVEN AND LEVAC SPENT THE next hour knocking on doors and waking the denizens of Old Town. Unsurprisingly, no one had seen or heard anything, not even Angus MacLeod, owner of Isle of Night, though the old Scot was disgruntled at having been awakened twice to “answer the same stupid questions I nay have answers to.”
The sun had climbed from behind the city’s building and was burning away what remained of the night’s spring fog when Raven set her kit in the trunk of the Shelby. Levac walked all around the car, admiring without touching. He stopped next to Raven, set his kit next to hers and leaned against the back bumper.
“Where did you find another old Shelby like your dad’s?” he asked.
“I didn’t, though I had guys looking all over the place,” Raven said. “This one was custom made with my own little twist on the engine and paint.”
“And this is why you didn’t kill me for wrecking the Bass?” Levac asked.
Raven shrugged. “Partially. I knew it would be coming sooner or later, and like I said yesterday, the important thing is you’re alive and not in Mercy General nursing a coma.”
Raven closed the trunk and fished her keys out of her jacket pocket. Levac slid into the passenger’s seat and leaned back.
“What’s our next play?” he asked as Raven brought the engine to life.
Raven backed the Shelby into the street and nosed it toward the warehouse district.
“See what we can find between here and the water. If we come up with another big fat zero we start checking grocery stores to see who sold a massive amount of sea salt recently,” Raven replied.
“And you’re not going to say anything about yesterday?” Levac pressed.
Raven guided the Shelby through the narrow alleys of the warehouse district. “What’s to say? You were wearing a four point harness and the car has more airbags than a family reunion. You got lucky.”
“I seem to be getting lucky a lot lately,” Levac said.
“Then stop grousing, most of my partners have had rotten luck,” Raven replied. “You’re alive and healthy. The rest are either dead, insane or eating through straws.”
Levac opened his mouth to say something, but closed it and turned his attention to the buildings around them. Graffiti and gang signs covered most of the walls on either side of the alleyway; some dated back to the sixties while others were new.
“Looks like Paco has a new sign,” he said, pointing.
Raven glanced at the stylized yellow P with a pink heart in the center and tried not to laugh. “He tries so hard to be tough and just can’t get around that soft heart of his.”
Raven rolled down the window and leaned against the frame, letting her nose guide her. The scents of old fish, rotting meat and smoke rode on the wind, but there were fresher smells on top; blood and salt. Whoever had carried the victim to old town had come this way.
She turned down another alley and slowed to a halt. Empty and collapsing buildings stood on either side of them. Ahead was an old root beer bottling plant that hadn’t been touched since the 1980s when a vampire had tried to use it to bottle blood. His plan hadn’t gone well.
The plant, with its two towers, massive central building and long-fallen sign now stood silent and still at the end of the road like a castle abandoned on some concrete moor. Weeds made a futile effort to push through the dirt and rails that lay outside the brick building, old crates and barrels lay among fallen bricks and the back stairway leaned crazily to the side, a casualty of abuse more than old age.
Raven climbed out of the car and loosened her pistol in its holster. Levac joined her and shaded his eyes with one hand, looking at the plant.
“What is it?”
“Blood,” Raven replied. “Can’t you smell it? That place stinks of blood and it isn’t twenty years old, it’s fresh. I’d bet my badge that our giant was here.”
She led the way through the weeds and debris toward the loading dock. She avoided the old wooden stairs and simply jumped from a barrel to the concrete dock. Behind her, Levac followed, joining her in front of a wide steel loading door. The steel was pitted and rusted from old age, but a fresh, thick layer of grease covered the chain and rails that would operate it; someone had used it recently and planned to do so again.
Levac gripped the chain and pulled, raising the door in a swift hand over hand motion. Raven ducked under when the door was only a few feet off the ground. Levac was right behind her, wiping grease on his coat.
Inside was a neatly organized warehouse. Crates lined one wall, some apparently full of old root beer bottles, others empty and waiting
for loads that would never come. A wooden staircase led to the second floor and two doors led deeper into the building.
In the center of the floor was a pool of drying blood slowly draining into a floor grate. A bloody floor squeegee sat nearby as if someone had been using it only moments before. Raven drew her Automag and motioned for Levac to check the eastern door. She watched him move off before turning her attention to the northern door with its flaking paint and “Do Not Enter” sign so faded it now read “DoN Entr”. The knob turned easily with only the faintest of squeaks and she nudged it open with her toe to reveal a pitch-dark room. She glanced back at Levac who nodded and passed through his door into a dimly lit room that appeared to be full of old bottle tracks.
Raven clicked on her mini Maglite and slipped into the room. The chamber smelled like the ocean mixed with the cloying scent of death and blood. Raven shined her light around the room, the powerful beam picking up more empty crates, another door and a metal table smeared with blood and chunks of bloody salt.
Raven approached the table, her beam sweeping it from one end to the other. A bloody, wood-handled skinning knife and a tool with a short, wide blade lay on a cart next to the table alongside a large half-empty barrel of salt. Raven dipped a finger in the blood and sniffed it gingerly. Whoever had leaked all over the place was B positive with a vitamin deficiency. More than likely the poor man they’d seen carted away to the morgue only a few hours before.
She donned a pair of gloves from her pocket and took a sample of the salt for possible matching with the crust on the victim. She was just putting the sample in her pocket when she heard Levac’s voice and a gunshot. She turned toward the room’s second door and kicked it open. She slid through and turned, her green eyes immediately picking out Levac on the catwalk above. A huge, grey-skinned man, bald and naked from the waist up held Levac at arm’s length, strangling him with one massive hand while the detective flailed ineffectively, trying to get loose. Raven reached for her pistol but realized from this angle the .30 carbine bullet would pass through the grey-skinned man and into Levac unless she went for a head shot. And she needed the giant alive.
With a snarl Raven jumped toward a nearby conveyor. She pushed off and flipped backwards onto the steps above, placing her behind the giant. From there she could see Levac’s eyes bulging and him mouthing the words, “Shoot him! Shoot him now!”
“Chicago Police!” Raven yelled. “Let him go, you are under arrest.”
The giant dropped Levac and turned, his fists clenching. Raven held up her badge. “Lie down on the floor and put your hands behind your back.”
The grey-skinned man growled and charged. Raven back-peddled and drew her pistol. She felt the comfortable weight in her hand and raised the barrel toward the charging figure, aiming low and to the right. She squeezed the trigger and the gun bucked in her hand, the barrel spitting flame and a silver-jacketed round. The bullet caught the target in the shoulder, spinning him sideways and causing him to stumble. He crashed through the rusting handrail and fell, impaling himself on the bottling equipment twenty-five feet below. Raven leaned over the edge and looked down at the body, her pistol at her side. The man’s blood was slowly filling a collection of old root beer bottles much more efficiently than they’d been filled back in the 80s. Not a drop was going on the floor.
“Swell. That’s a lead that won’t be answering any questions.”
Levac joined her, one hand rubbing the bruise on his neck. “Frost is going to be annoyed you killed another suspect. Thanks, by the way. You missed me by about an inch.”
Raven turned away and walked back down the stairs. “At least I missed you. Come on let’s get Harvey and the boys in here so I can go face the music.”
TWO HOURS LATER RAVEN SAT in Lieutenant Frost’s office, her legs crossed primly, one foot waggling. The office looked like something out of a B cop movie with grey filing cabinets, a wide grey desk with an antique telephone, windows that overlooked the city and blind-covered windows that looked into the squad room. The only decorations were a handful of photographs, including one of the Lieutenant and Raven’s father when they’d been partners, and a few dozen commendations, many with Raven’s name on them.
The Lieutenant sat behind his desk, a collection of files beside him. The thin, white-haired man was flipping through Raven’s report. It didn’t take long. When he looked up his steel blue eyes were angry and Raven had to stifle a grin. Anger just didn’t look right on Dick Van Dyke’s face.
“You and Levac were doing a good job…right up to the point where you killed the only potential suspect in this case,” he said, closing the folder.
“I didn’t actually kill him,” Raven replied. “I shot him in the shoulder. It was the fall and sudden stop on top of a few hundred broken bottles that killed him.”
“Maybe if you weren’t using that damn cannon of your father’s it would have been a smaller wound and he wouldn’t have fallen!” the Lieutenant growled back.
Raven rolled her eyes. “Get serious, Chris! You saw the body, that guy was seven feet tall and five hundred pounds, easy. He could have palmed your head, do you really think a nine millimeter or .38 would have done anything but irritate him? The initial report says he had enough speedball in him to drop a rhino; he probably didn’t even feel the .30 hit him.”
Christian Frost ran a hand through his thick white hair and visibly made himself relax. “You’re almost certainly right, Ray, but I’m really getting heat for you carrying that thing and your shoot first methods. Your apprehension rate is through the roof, but your arrest rate is almost non-existent. Criminals are supposed to be brought in for a fair trial not shot on sight. You aren’t judge, jury and executioner. You’re a cop, dammit. The Captain is furious and it’s my ass he’s chewing on!”
“There is nothing wrong with shooting as long as the right people get shot. Look, lieutenant, if you want me to stop shooting at the bad guys stop giving me and Rupe all the weirdest cases,” Raven said, leaning forward. “You know what we’re up against. What kind of slime we have to deal with. These aren’t the kind of perps who are going to let us arrest them and even if we do manage to bring them in, they will be back on the street in a few hours. Most of them are connected all the way to the top and if they aren’t they have other means.”
“I can’t take you off those cases and you know it. Everyone else who gets a weird one ends up in Mercy General, or worse. What do you want me to tell IA?” Frost asked.
Raven shrugged. “Just tell them the truth. I went for the good wound and this clown fell, probably because he was higher than a kite. If they want my badge, fine.”
Frost bobbed his head and made a note on the file. “I’ll give it a shot, but no promises. It would help your case if you didn’t shoot anyone else today.”
Raven stood and shrugged into her jacket. She tossed her hair over her collar and turned to leave. “I’ll give it a shot, but no promises. This one is already stacking up at the top of my weird shit meter. If IA comes calling, you’ll know where to find me and I’m happy to give Jordan a seven point suppository. Please give Cappy my best between chews.”
She let the door close behind her and turned toward her desk. The rest of the squad watched her as she crossed the room and she smiled at the three new detectives, Evans, Reed and Sanchez who all looked at her with a mix of awe and terror. She took a seat behind her desk and started flipping through her files, aware of their eyes on her. Levac pushed off his desk and rolled his chair over next to her.
“There was less yelling than usual, is everything okay?” he asked.
“Just peachy,” Raven replied. “Infernal Repairs is as happy as always with my work, the Captain wants my Automag and my butt and the rookies are looking at me like I’m Harriett Callahan. Did we hear from Zhu about an ID on our vic?”
Levac stretched and plucked his notebook from his desk. “He called around the time Chris was pulling some hair out. He identified our vic with dental records and DNA a
s one Wade Franks from Logan Square. His profile says he’s a high end bouncer for Club Black downtown.”
Raven whistled. “That’s an expensive part of the city. Did you get an actual address from the DMV or are they insisting on a warrant?”
“I did a little sweet talking and nabbed the address. I even got us a search warrant for his apartment. Some of us were working while you were in the principal’s office. Franks lives on West Palmer in a four story apartment building where he’s got a loft apartment, very sexy.”
“Yeah, I bet they shoot porn there. It’s worth a try, let’s go check it out,” Raven said.
Levac stood and Raven watched as he pushed his chair back in the general direction of his desk. He then emptied his pockets of cheeseburger wrappers and mustard packets.
“Are you feeling okay, Rupe?” she asked.
Levac grinned. “We’re going upscale. I need a pocket full of Starbucks and Wendy’s if I am going to impress the locals.”
“I think you’ll need a clean coat, a suit that hasn’t been slept in and a haircut, but hey, some people like the scruffy look; maybe you’ll get lucky. Let’s roll.”
Raven turned toward the back stairs. She was just through the door when she heard Levac mutter, “Who’s scruffy looking?”
THE SHELBY RUMBLED THROUGH AFTERNOON traffic like a wolf stalking prey, the black and grey paint glistening in the pink-tinted sun. Raven tilted her shades back to look up at the oddly colored sun, ignoring how much it hurt her sensitive eyes.
“It usually happens only a couple times a year,” Levac said. “This year is a little strange with two so close together.”