by H. P. Bayne
“If it goes the way I think it will go, you’ll hear all about it on the news,” Dez said.
Ara offered him a small smile. “Okay. I guess we’d better go then. It was nice seeing you again, Dez.”
“You too.” Dez turned to Emory. “Hope you’re back up to par very soon. Oh, and I’m sorry about what happened to your dad.”
“Don’t be,” Emory said. “I found out more about him recently. Someone I know at Lockwood told me they found out Larson was helping that nut-job psychiatrist with some sort of experiment on patients. Turns out my father was a worse human being then I even thought.”
“Well, if it’s any consolation,” Dez said, “you are very much not your father’s son.”
One side of Emory’s mouth turned up. “Thanks, man. That means a lot, especially since I think your brother was one of the patients. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for what happened to him and for whatever role Larson played in it.”
“I appreciate that.”
Dez exchanged a parting hug with Ara and a handshake with Emory before seeing the two off. He waited, offering a wave as they drove off down the block.
Then he returned to Sully.
By the time he got back into the basement, Sully had managed to pry up the rest of the floorboards around the spot in question and tear up the underlay. Unfortunately, he’d run up against another problem: cement.
“We’re kind of screwed,” Sully said as he studied the floor. Then he met Dez’s eye. “They leave?”
“Yeah. But there’s no guarantee they’ll stay gone. They’re curious. Really curious.” Dez shared what he’d told Ara and Emory, ending in a further warning. “When we leave, you’d better keep your hood up and head down. And walk different or something. Last thing we want is Ara making you if she’s hiding in the bushes.”
“I’ll do that,” Sully said. “In the meantime, how are we going to blast our way through this? Shovels and spade won’t do it.” He eyed Dez. “Don’t you have a sledgehammer? I doubt Andie keeps a jackhammer around the place.”
“Yeah, in my garage,” Dez said. “But that might cause a further problem. If we start hammering away at the floor, we could end up damaging the body. The good thing is if Thackeray’s been encased in cement all this time, it probably prevented quite a bit of decomposition. Any evidence on him should be more or less intact. Last thing we want to do is destroy it.”
Sully pulled out his phone and spent a couple of minutes tapping and swiping the screen. “It says some types of acids will dissolve concrete. Any way we can get our hands on phosphoric acid and trisodium phosphate?”
“That’s no good either,” Dez said. “That stuff will cause its own kind of damage to the body. I hate to say it, but we’re probably going to have to bust up more of the basement than we’d planned to. I can go grab the sledge and we can work on another section of the floor. That way, we can get a sense of how thick the pour is.”
“Either that, or we can call in Forbes and ask him to get forensic investigators in here to do it right.”
“I would love that, believe me. But they’re not going to come in here without good cause. And a panicky woman reporting ghosts in her house doesn’t count.”
Sully had placed the tools they’d borrowed against the wall, and Dez picked up the shovel. It appeared solid and sturdy, its weight heavy enough in his hands.
“How sure are you about the exact location of the body?” he asked.
Sully’s response was delayed while his gaze travelled to a spot next to him at approximately eye level. “Harry?”
Sully’s eyes tracked downward, back to the spot on the floor they’d already uncovered.
“He’s sure,” Sully told Dez. “This is it.”
“And which way is he laying?”
Another pause. Dez waited, watching Sully for some indication as to answer. He’d hoped one of the ghosts would simply point. Instead, it seemed someone was intent on showing Sully firsthand.
Dez dropped the shovel and caught Sully before he collapsed to his knees under the weight of whatever he was being shown. As the only sounds coming from him at this point were of pain, there was no way to know whose thoughts were being impressed on him. He could be watching Thackeray’s death through his own eyes or those of one of his parents.
As a parent himself, Dez didn’t know which would be worse.
Dez hated Sully’s visions, hated thinking about what he was going through when he had one. He knew value came from them, given how often they’d helped solve the mysteries behind people’s violent deaths. But they also meant Sully constantly experienced death in new and horrific ways—usually firsthand from the perspective of the victim, agony and terror included.
So when this vision didn’t stop after a solid minute, Dez decided he needed to end it.
Supporting Sully with one arm, Dez waved the other through the air around him. He felt the unmistakable cold spot just behind and to his left, and Dez focused his anger there.
“That’s enough!” he shouted. “Stop it!”
A second later, Sully’s rigid posture relaxed, allowing Dez to settle him on the floor in a seated position.
“What the hell was that?” Dez asked.
“Harry.”
Dez scoffed. It figured. Harry had never shown much concern for Sully’s well-being. “Naturally. What did he show you?”
Sully shifted so he was sitting fully on his butt, knees up and elbows against them to allow him to prop up his head in his hands. “His son’s death.”
“Yeah, I figured that much. What, exactly?”
“It was like we figured. Lowell did it. Only it wasn’t quick. He basically tortured him first. He wanted information—everything Thackeray had told me, what he’d told his mother or anyone else about Harry’s visions. But I don’t think what Lowell did was just about getting info. The bastard enjoyed it. He beat Thackeray for no reason besides the fact he wanted to hurt him. Harry and Betty saw all of it. And they couldn’t do anything about it.
“Lowell used a hammer for most of it, and at the end, he beat Thackeray to death with it.” Sully pointed down at the spot they’d been working on. “Right here. This is where he died. When they check the body, they’ll find broken kneecaps, several broken fingers and toes, probably some ribs. But in the end, his head and face got it the worst.”
“Jesus, Sull.”
“One other thing. The blood under his nails, it is Lowell’s. The assault started in the kitchen. Lowell thought he’d knocked Thackeray out and was dragging him down the stairs to interrogate him. Thackeray came around halfway down and fought. He managed to gouge Lowell’s arm pretty good—maybe good enough to leave scars. They’ll find Lowell’s DNA under Thackeray’s nails, maybe even on other parts of his body or clothes. The scratches were deep enough to cause bleeding.”
Sully took a deep breath, then pressed on. “Anyway, his head is closest to the wall and his feet are near where the couch was. How he’s buried, I mean.”
Dez dropped a hand onto Sully’s shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze, allowing him an extra few moments to come back around. “Okay, so if I move a few feet to the left, we should be in the clear,” Dez said.
Another breath and Sully raised his head. He met Dez’s eye and nodded. “Yeah.”
Dez watched him another long moment. There was something else, something on the tip of Sully’s tongue.
“What?” Dez asked.
Sully opened his mouth as if to speak, but shut it again. “Nothing. Let’s just do this.”
Dez stood and gave Sully a hand getting to his feet. Then the two of them pried up a few more floorboards and the underlay beneath to expose the concrete.
With nothing else easily moveable in the way, Dez gritted his teeth for impact and brought the blade of the shovel down hard. His teeth rattled in his mouth, but he tried again a couple more times, and the concrete gradually broke up beneath the weight of the shovel. A number of additional hard strikes—he didn’t bothe
r counting how many—and the cement crumbled. Dez dropped the shovel and shook out his arms while Sully knelt to sweep the debris from the spot.
“It’s not that thick,” Sully said. “Just an inch or two. I think Lowell must have buried Thackeray in the dirt and then cemented over him.”
Dez braced himself for an impact of a different kind. “So he might not be as intact as we were thinking. Bugs and all that.”
Sully’s face took on an apologetic appearance as he peered up at Dez. “Sorry, man. No choice.”
“I know.” He returned to the spot Sully had indicated. “I’m going to break into this stuff. I’ll avoid where you think the head is and hope to hell I can miss the hands too. All we need is a glimpse of a body, just enough to take to Forbes. Sound good?”
“I wouldn’t use the word, ‘good,’ ” Sully said. “But, yeah.”
Dez raised the shovel. “Sorry, Thackeray,” he said before bringing the blade back down.
He hit the spot at least a couple dozen times, and the concrete gave way bit by bit beneath the blows. At last, Dez stopped and allowed Sully to scoop out the debris. As predicted, dried earth showed beneath the crumbs of cement. The newly created hole was only a few inches in diameter, but hopefully it would be enough.
Sully provided further relief by telling Dez he’d take over from here. Dez sat on the couch, getting his wind back as he watched Sully use the blade of the axe to scrape away at the dirt. After a few minutes of work, Sully sat back on his haunches.
“What?” Dez asked.
“I’ve got some clothing here,” came the response. Sully’s voice was quiet, sad. “It looks like it might be the same shirt he was wearing the last time I saw him.”
Dez stood and knelt next to Sully, taking a look for himself. Covered by a dusting of dirt, the material he saw was a pale denim colour, a small white button marking it most definitely as a shirt. Dez grimaced, preparing himself mentally for the next part. He hated handling dead bodies despite several years of experience doing it as a police officer, but there was no way to avoid it. A shirt was one thing; it was what lay beneath it that counted.
Dez reached into the shallow hole and unfastened the button, then pulled at the material to create a gap.
Flesh. Rotted, but definitely flesh.
Dez released the material and fell back on his butt, wiping his fingers against his jeans. “Goddammit.”
The two of them sat there, side by side.
“Do you think Harry foresaw this?” Dez asked. “Maybe this is why he was so intent on using you to kill Lowell.”
“Maybe,” Sully said. “Probably. I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like I don’t know anything, like I’m always one move behind Lowell. He keeps doing this, hurting people, killing them. And I never see it until it’s too late to stop him.” He paused, heaving a heavy sigh. “Maybe we shouldn’t get so hung up on busting him. Maybe I should just turn the hangman loose on him, let him take him down for good. Can we ever really be safe if he’s out there? Even if he gets sent to prison, he’ll get out eventually. Then what?”
Dez looked over at Sully, waited until he’d met his eye before speaking. “Then we’ll deal with it when we get there. I’d love to see Lowell dead. Hell, part of me would love to take him there myself. But you’re not a killer, Sull. I won’t let you turn into one.”
“I might not have a choice. If it’s the only way to stop him—”
“It isn’t. There’s always another way.” Dez smiled, waited until he received an answering one from Sully. “We’ll get there, okay? One step at a time.”
Dez patted Sully on the shoulder, then pulled out his cellphone. He didn’t know what their future moves would entail, but the next one was obvious.
Get the police over here now. After that, with any luck, it was only a matter of time before they buried Lowell right alongside the people he’d killed.
Figuratively, of course.
6
Dez sent Sully off into the park across the road before calling Forbes. Sully was still shaken, but he had Pax with him. The dog’s playful company would soon set Sully right, Dez told himself.
Dez was looking for a little of the same just as soon as he could get out of here.
For now, though, he was waiting on the first police vehicle to show up so he could reveal the find and turn over the scene.
To his surprise, it wasn’t a marked patrol unit arriving first, but Forbes.
“Let me guess,” Dez said. “You don’t believe me.”
“I wanted to see for myself before calling in the cavalry,” Forbes said.
Dez crossed his arms. “Just to make sure.”
Forbes shrugged. “Okay, yeah. Just to make sure. Didn’t want to waste anyone else’s time if you’re out to lunch.”
Dez shook his head and led the way into the house. “Asshole.”
Forbes trailed behind Dez as he led the way to the basement. “Hey, I may be an asshole, but I’m a cautious asshole. If I’m bringing a bunch of units in here, including our rather-busy Ident section, I want to make sure about what you’re telling me. Where’s Sullivan?”
“I sent him across the road, into the park.”
They’d reached the basement, allowing Forbes his first glimpse at the grave he and Sully had unearthed.
Forbes knelt over the hole while Dez remained back by the stairs. Forbes reached in with a latex-gloved hand, presumably to check and prod beneath the exposed shirt as Dez had done. A few seconds of that, and he was back on his feet, peeling off the glove inside out and discarding the crumpled item on the floor as he returned to Dez.
“Tell me something,” he said. “What exactly am I supposed to say to my colleagues about how you stumbled across this body? I mean, I need to say something about how you knew it was down here in the first place and knew precisely where in the basement to find it.”
Dez jumped at a voice coming from behind him, on the stairs.
“I’ll explain it to them.”
Dez turned, narrowing his eyes at Sully as he came down the stairs with Pax. “How are you going to manage that, being as you’re supposed to be dead and all?”
“What’s the point of staying hidden any longer?” Sully asked. “Gerhardt’s not a danger to me anymore. The Dules apparently know I’m still alive. The only one who still matters is Lowell, and he’ll find out soon enough, anyway. Forbes is right. It’s going to be damn hard for you to explain how you found the body.”
“No offence,” Forbes said. “But your explanation’s not going to be a whole lot better. You’re seriously going to say a ghost led you here?”
“Yeah. Why not?”
“Because it’s unbelievable,” Forbes said. “Listen, Sullivan, I’m well aware you aren’t the one who killed Betty Schuster, but your name is still listed on the file as a suspect—the main suspect at that. You haven’t officially been cleared, and you won’t be until we’ve got evidence of someone else’s involvement. If you come forward now, talking about how you just happened to locate the body of Betty’s son two years later, you’ll be locked up as a suspect in a second homicide as well. I believe you on all the ghost stuff. I’ve seen too much to not believe you. But others will take a lot more convincing.”
“I can’t believe I’m about to agree with Forbes on something, but he’s right,” Dez said. “The time will come for you to show yourself, but it isn’t now.”
“There’s DNA evidence under Thackeray’s fingernails,” Sully said. “It’ll point to Lowell.”
“DNA results take time,” Forbes said. “Are you prepared to stew away in jail in the meantime?”
Sully’s gaze returned to Dez. “So what are you going to tell them then?”
“He’s not going to say anything,” Forbes said. “I want you both out of here. I’ll say I got a source tip. What names did you give the renter?”
“Sully gave her his usual fake name,” Dez said. “And he told her I was Lachlan. If I had ID’d myself as a Braddock, she might hav
e said something to Lowell.”
“Good plan. Okay, get ahold of Lachlan and apprise him of the situation. My staff sergeant will probably insist on a statement from my source, and if you can get Lachlan to take credit for the find, he’ll be able to hold his own in an interview room situation without revealing anything he shouldn’t.”
Dez fired a glare at Forbes. “You saying I couldn’t?”
Forbes snorted. “Please. You’re a lousy liar, Braddock, and you wear your heart on your sleeve. It’s not about trying to locate the place to pick at with you, it’s deciding which spot to pick at first.”
Dez felt a hand settle on his arm, looked to see Sully staring at him imploringly. “He’s right, Dez. Let’s go.”
Dez glared between the pair as a final protest. He couldn’t deny the truths they were touting, but he didn’t have to like it.
“Okay, fine,” he said. “But you might run into some problems once Andie gives a statement. She saw us, not Lachlan.”
“I’ll handle her interview,” Forbes said. “She’ll answer what I ask. She’ll give me Lachlan’s name. I don’t need to ask for physical descriptions.”
That helped, but Dez wasn’t quite finished. “One more word of warning, Forbes. Make sure the nail clippings don’t go to LOBRA for testing. In fact, keep this as quiet as you can. As soon as Lowell finds out about this, he’ll go into attack mode.”
“I didn’t become a police officer yesterday, Braddock. I know, all right? Now get out of here. Both of you.”
They’d barely driven two blocks when Sully asked Dez to pull over.
Dez found a spot next to a defunct corner store and turned to face him. “What’s up?”
Sully’s eyes locked onto Dez, his expression—upturned brows and dropped jaw—suggesting inner torment. “You didn’t tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“That I tried to kill you.”
Dez snorted. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Two years ago. In your bathroom when I slashed up. You smashed in there to stop me, and I tried to stab you in the neck with a piece of glass. He showed me, Dez. Harry showed me.”