Shattered

by Jay Bonansinga

  From behind the bathroom door came a low, gravelly voice, coarse with irritation. “For shit sake, Mosely, I’m in the middle of a whiz!”

  “I lost the deputy, sir!”

  Behind the door: “Gimme a chance to shake the dew off the daisy, will ya?”

  Mosely shoved the door open and lurched into the men’s room, which was a small, reeking enclosure of tile and exposed pipes, with two urinals on one side, and a sink and a single toilet stall on the other. The sheriff was at a urinal, maneuvering his flaccid penis back into his trousers. He was a portly, rheumatic man well into his seventies, with a widow’s peak of wispy gray hair and a noble hooked nose. Mosely averted her gaze, babbling, “I’m sorry, Sheriff, sorry…but something’s wrong, I lost him…no contact.”

  The old man went over to the sink and ran water on his gnarled fisherman’s hands. “Slow down, Nursey. Gimme the chronology.”

  The younger woman told him about Deputy Elkins’s radio call-in at 11 Black River, and how the deputy never transmitted back.

  “What time did he get there?” the sheriff wanted to know as he dried his hands on the towel roller.

  “Seven minutes after one.”

  The sheriff looked at his watch. “It’s almost two, what the hell is he doing out there?” Shaking his head in exasperation, the old man turned and pushed his way out of the restroom. The dispatcher followed. The sheriff made his way down the dusty corridor to his cluttered office. “That’s all I need,” he said, storming into his inner sanctum, grabbing the phone receiver off the extension. “Feds breathing down my neck, and now Elkins out there playing footsie with this fancy profiler’s wife.”

  “That’s not all.” Sarah Mosely stood in the doorway, wringing her slender brown hands.

  He looked at her. “Go on.”

  “Tommy left his radio on, and I think I heard something.”

  The sheriff let out a sigh, the mounting frustration etching his lined, sagging jowls. He forced himself to breathe deeply (instead of screaming). “Sweetheart? Honey? Can you be just a tad more specific?”

  She licked her lips. “I’m not sure what it was, but it sounded like a grunt.”

  The sheriff stared. “A grunt?”

  She nodded. “A human grunt.”

  Pause. Then the sheriff slammed the phone back down. He turned and grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair. “Listen, I want you to call Roger Lakehurst over at Salt Lick station, and Rudy Berger up at HQ.”

  The dispatcher pulled a small spiral notebook from her breast pocket and started madly scribbling names and places. “HQ? You mean Indy?”

  “That’s right, sweetheart, I’m talking about Indianapolis, c’mon, chop-chop.” The sheriff snatched his hat off a bentwood rack behind his chair and started back around his desk.

  The dispatcher scurried after him. “You want the whole SWAT team?”

  “Just call Rudy, tell him we got a possible ten-ninety going down and it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

  Sarah Mosely nodded. “Will do.”

  The sheriff stormed across the lobby, out the door, and into the ever-darkening night.

  THIRTY

  The basement at 11 Black River was similar to the one on Cottage Creek Drive in Alexandria, sunken below ground level but not completely subterranean. This one was unfinished, comprising about four hundred square feet of exposed wall studs and insulation, with a ceiling hewn out of tangled plumbing and furnace ducts. The cracked cement floor was marbled with water stains. The forced-air furnace was off in one corner, a squat, square, metal monolith filmed with grime. A washer and dryer sat on the opposite wall under bare lightbulbs, next to a dull white vertical hot-water tank. There was a single narrow, shuttered window, high on the north wall, and several boxes and paint cans from former tenants, crowding the space like the errant pieces of a Rubik’s Cube.

  The first time Maura had laid eyes on the basement, three days earlier during her move-in, she wondered what kind of people would have chosen those paint colors or filled those boxes with expendables. What kind of person washed their underwear and towels down here? Had they been Mafia informants? Government snitches? Hit men? The families of hit men? The paint colors that had dripped and streaked down the sides of the cans were so benign and cheery—buckwheat beige and periwinkle blue—that they only served to emphasize the creepy incongruity of the place, the bad karma. In fact, Maura had felt these vibrations from the moment she had entered the bungalow, a kind of leaden gloom, a rankness, like an odor that won’t come out of the drapes. People dealing with death and dismemberment had lived here, leaving behind traces of their anguished existence like a spoor. And in no other room was it stronger than right here in the cellar.

  Now, as she descended the wooden stairs toward the dark, dank space, holding the Ruger out in front of her, the flashlight pressed against the barrel like a beacon, she remembered something critical about the sublevel from her WITSEC orientation. It was a hidden feature known only to a few select people such as the two federal marshals who had moved her into the house. Unfortunately she had very little time to think about it now that the cellar was host to some kind of intruder.

  She reached the bottom of the stairs and aimed the flashlight at the narrow window.

  Panic trickled cold and bracing down her midsection as she gazed at the hole, the frame pried away from the wall, the glass pane hanging by a thread of rubber weatherstripping. No raccoon could have done that. Mice did not pry open windows. She backed toward the bottom step until her heel bumped the riser, her breath sticking in her throat. She wanted to turn and run back up those stairs, run screaming from this terrible place. She forgot she had a gun. She couldn’t get air into her lungs, couldn’t make her legs work anymore.

  The feeling was overwhelming that somebody or something was hiding down here in this musty basement. She managed to shine the light on the wall to her left, the beam gleaming off white-painted surfaces, the washer and dryer, when a creaking noise startled her.

  It came from her immediate right, and she swung the gun and flashlight over toward the furnace, the beam falling on the oxidized metal skin of the water heater tank. Something moved behind the tank.

  Maura aimed the gun and held her breath.

  A graying head of hair peered out from behind the water heater, and Maura cried out in a strangled, bellowing wail: “Don’t goddamn move of I’ll goddamn blow your head off!”

  The furry gray object kept coming as though completely deaf, as though utterly oblivious to Maura’s eardrum-shattering cry, and all of a sudden two things happened in quick succession, almost too quickly for Maura to even parse in her brain, her body moving almost involuntarily: a pair of beady, feral eyes shimmered in the beam of the flashlight, and Maura squeezed off three hard, quick blasts, the noise and heat popping like balloons in her ears, the muzzle flash lighting up the basement.

  Only one .22 caliber round struck the animal.

  The other two blasts went high, one of them piercing the skin of the water heater with a spark and a dull thump, a tiny geyser of H2O blowing out of the hole, the other bullet chewing a divot into one of the studs. Maura reared back at the clamor and unexpected pain in her eardrums, blinking, swallowing the panic acid on the back of her tongue. Still clutching the gun with both hands, she aimed it at the dull gray lump on the floor. The lump twitched and Maura—momentarily dazed and uncomprehending—gawked at it, ready to fire again at a moment’s notice. She stared at the twitching mass of fur and scales as it expired and became still.

  At last she recognized the animal: Curled into a fetal death pose, its matted fur beaded with rubies of blood, the little fat possum had probably nudged the damaged window open earlier that evening, which would explain the musky stench wafting out of the basement.

  Maura had seen her share of possums as a kid growing up on the edge of the Muir Woods in Northern California. She remembered west coast possums being a little nastier, a little faster moving and sinewy than their Midwester
n counterparts. The Midwestern variety was a strange creature that moved with the lazy, drugged-out quality of a sloth, and looked like a giant rat crossbred with a raccoon. This one, especially in death, especially in the darkness of the basement, was downright repulsive. Its long snout and black-pearl eyes looked almost artificial, its reptilian tail resembling a coiled worm. Purplish entrails bloomed from its white, scaly belly.

  Ears ringing from the muzzle bark, Maura lowered the gun and tried to breathe normally, a sense of relief passing through her body. She felt her muscles relaxing, but in the back of her mind a tiny spark of doubt had kindled a question: So who cut the phone lines?

  Right at that moment, as if in answer to her silent query, came the sound of muffled footsteps.

  Maura whirled toward the bottom of the staircase, the gun still gripped in her right hand. It wasn’t just the sound of the footsteps that made her midriff tense up and raised the hackles on the back of her neck. It wasn’t just the fact that they were heavy, rhythmic, male footsteps, or the fact that they were approaching.

  The reason that Maura was paralyzed with terror at that moment was because the footsteps were coming from above. From somewhere upstairs.

  From inside the house.

  A beefy, middle-aged federal marshal named Normann Edward Pokorny gripped the steering wheel of the SWAT van as it roared toward the Fox Run town limits. Dressed in bulky Kevlar and ammo-pouched pants, the marshal was standing on the gas pedal, the van screaming at ninety-five miles an hour over the pocked asphalt of Highway 231. The cargo bay behind him was loaded to the gills with armed personnel, the extra weight making the van vibrate wildly as vapor lights passed in a blur, the outskirts of town coming into view on the horizon.

  He was tossing a cigarette through the vent when the radio sizzled with voices. “Mobile One here,” he spat into the handset after snatching it off the dash. “Go ahead, Base.”

  Through the radio came a voice, stretched taut with nerves: “This is Special Agent Ulysses Grove, just touched down at Grissom, en route now, still a ways out, who do I have?”

  Pokorny told him.

  “What’s your ETA, Pokorny?”

  “About five minutes.”

  “We’ve lost contact with the sheriff, they’re supposed to be out there at the site already.”

  “Copy that,” Pokorny said into the mike. “We’re almost there.”

  “Almost is not good enough.”

  “Copy that, sir. Doing all we can.”

  “This is my wife and my child we’re talking about here,” the voice on the radio wanted Pokorny to know.

  “Understood, sir.”

  “Get there, Pokorny. You got thirty-five minutes on us. Get there.”

  “Copy that. Will advise when we do. Out.” The marshal slammed the handset back onto its cradle, thinking of his own children at home in bed.

  He started searching the dark horizon for a shortcut.

  Maura stood at the foot of the basement steps, gazing up at the half-open door leading into the kitchen. She swallowed her panic and listened.

  The footsteps sounded as though they were maybe two floors up, perhaps descending the living room stairs, but how was that possible? She was just upstairs not five minutes ago. Her pulse raced as she thought of Aaron up there alone in his room. She told herself to stay calm, think, focus. She listened and thought she heard Aaron crying.

  It occurred to her in a flash of wishful thinking that it might be help coming, one of the marshals maybe, but why weren’t they saying anything? Wouldn’t they be calling out for her?

  “Hello?”

  Her voice was thin and reedy with terror. There was no reply.

  She raised the .22 and aimed it up at the dim light spilling down the basement stairs. The footsteps were approaching, that telltale crackle of heavy soles on linoleum. Another sound, muffled but familiar, accompanied the footsteps, like the mewling of a cat.

  “Please answer me!”

  The pungent undertow of adrenaline and horror swam in her brain, but she managed to keep the Ruger raised and ready, despite her wobbling knees, holding it in the commando position, left hand cupped under the hilt, right hand around the grip, which her father had taught her so many years ago.

  A shadow fell across the doorway at the top of the stairs, and Maura froze. The light from the kitchen illuminated Henry Splet.

  The man held little baby Aaron in his arms, a grimy hand over the child’s mouth.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Sheriff Eugene Tomilson arrived at 11 Black River Drive at exactly 2:06 A.M.

  The old man sat in his cruiser for a moment, considering his course of action.

  Transcripts of the evening’s events vary as to how long the sheriff lingered in that vehicle, trying to figure out what to do. Most experts suggest it was something like three to four minutes—long enough for Henry Splet to force Maura to drop her weapon and lie prone on the basement floor. It is also believed that Sheriff Tomilson remained in his car long enough for the killer to descend the basement stairs with the wriggling baby, and proceed to bind and gag both mother and child to the wall beams in the cellar. But regardless of the exact duration of Tomilson’s repose, one thing is certain: Tomilson smelled trouble the instant he laid eyes on the property.

  The first thing he noticed was that Elkins’s prowler was still idling. The dome light was still on, and the radio was still operational. The sheriff could hear the engine and the crackle of static coming through the vent. The next thing Tomilson discovered was that everything seemed oddly tranquil at 11 Black River Drive. The house was quiet, a light burning in the living room window, nothing out of place. But the third and final thing he noticed was that his gut was clenched with tension. The air seemed to ooze wrongness.

  He got out, unfastening the safety strap on the Colt .357 long barrel pressed against the side of his belly. He hadn’t shot the thing since Ronald Reagan was in office, and the last time he even unsnapped it was way back in ’99 when Jubal Finnegan over in Salt Lick killed his wife and barricaded himself inside his dairy barn with a nine millimeter. Old Jubal took his own life that night, saving Sheriff Tomilson and Knox County the cost of one liquid-tip .44 caliber round. But tonight, it seemed things were already a lot more complicated.

  And dangerous.

  The old man ambled up the sidewalk with his eyes wide open, scanning the dark yard for any sign of foul play. His hearing wasn’t what it used to be, and he now wished he had taken his wife’s advice a few years ago and gotten fitted for one of those fancy Bell hearing aids. He needed a new prescription for his eyeglasses, as well, and to make matters worse, his reflexes had deteriorated to the point that he had a hard time poking magnetic cards through automated slots and slamming on the brakes in time to avoid fender benders.

  He crossed the porch and knocked on the front door. He noticed there was a doorbell mounted on the door frame, but for some reason he elected to knock instead. It just seemed too late to ring the bell. From inside the house came the sound of footsteps, first creaking on rickety wooden risers, then crossing a linoleum floor.

  The sheriff gently placed the heel of his palm on the Colt’s trigger guard.

  Henry Splet marched across the living room as though he were in a dream.

  Clad in a rank, moldy winter coat torn from the body of a murdered homeless man, Splet walked with a stiff, self-conscious gait, like a bad actor in a bad play. He carried the Army .45 with the makeshift silencer discreetly at his side. He tried to ignore the chaos in his skull—the strange new voice overriding all the others—as he approached the door.

  There was a little oval window embedded in the front door, through which occupants could see who was standing on the other side. As Henry reached the door he got a fleeting glimpse of the old man in the sheriff’s uniform waiting on the porch on the other side.

  Splet opened the front door and shot the old man twice in the forehead.

  The back of Sheriff Tomilson’s head erupted. The old
man toppled backward and landed on the grass, expelling an involuntary, watery grunt. One big Timberland boot sprawled on the sidewalk, the other one wedged into a bush.

  It was over so quickly the sheriff never even knew what happened.

  Splet glanced up and down the street. Amazingly it was still deserted. The killer emerged from the house, crossed the porch, and descended the steps to where the sheriff lay still warm and twitching.

  Hennnnnrrreeeeee…te possssssi audirrreeeeeee.

  Splet had been hearing this hollow, papery voice in his head since he left the storage facility. He did not speak the language of the voice. But he somehow understood every breathy, hissing phrase. In fact, he could respond simply by nodding or thinking his reply.

  The new voice sounded like a million voices, all speaking in unison, all in different languages, dead languages, languages that Splet could not begin to understand. But there was also an Over Voice translating everything into some kind of supple oily tongue, echoing, penetrating Splet’s auditory canals. It knew things. It knew how to travel in the shadows, how to kill silently and quickly, and how to manipulate the physical and virtual realms. It also told Henry of the master plan, which was now unfolding amid the encouraging whispers.

  Tu facerrrreeee multa…

  He nodded, then crouched down by the dead sheriff and grabbed the old man by the boot heels. He began dragging the limp body toward the side of the house, its breached skull leaving a trail of pink frothy tissue and blood across the front lawn. The sound of sirens keened in the distance.

  Festinaaahhhhtio Henreeee.

  Splet hurried. He laid the sheriff’s warm corpse down on the grass in the shadows next to the deputy. Then something snapped inside Henry Splet like a circuit breaker or a fuse cracking apart.