BLUE MERCY

by ILLONA HAUS

  53

  AVERAGE HEIGHT. A lean build. Just as Gaines had described his tenant.

  He must have come home, spotted the uniforms in the neighborhood, and figured he’d use the alley, clear his things out of the house, and make a quick getaway.

  Kay inched toward the back of 311. The rapid-fire rhythm of her heart pulsed inside her iron grip on the Glock. She held the nine high now. Ready.

  He could be armed, Delaney. Watch. Had he already seen her?

  He came down the back steps casually in a half-skip and headed to the car. He was carrying something. Not a gun. Something big, tucked under one arm.

  Removing evidence from a suspected crime scene. She could take him and the evidence. Didn’t need any warrant.

  Kay moved steadily along the fence. Fifteen feet from the car now. Twelve. How could he not see her?

  He adjusted the cap on his head, pulling it lower over his eyes. In the dark there was no discerning the man’s features. Scott? No. But she couldn’t be sure.

  Crossing the shallow yard, he kicked at the already open gate, stepped into the alley, and reached for the driver-side door. Then he saw her.

  “Baltimore Police. Stay right there!” She stood firm, bringing the gun into position. “I want both hands on the roof of the car.”

  He stopped two feet from his vehicle, frozen. The haloed edge of the headlights’ beam caught his blue jeans and the bottom of a dark red Windbreaker. What little she could make out of his face was ashen.

  “Up against the car. Now!” Could he see the nine shaking in her hand? She hated that she couldn’t see the bastard’s face.

  The rapper on the radio kept belting. Under her shirt she felt herself sweat. She took three steps forward. “Put the package on the roof and get up against the car. I swear to God, I’m not going to ask again.”

  This time he complied. The package hit the roof, and the second he turned to the car, she lunged. Grabbing a fistful of his jacket, she spun him hard into the side of the vehicle. The air came out of him in a rush and she ground his chest against the car’s roof molding.

  Pinning him, she holstered her nine and patted him down. Her hand slid expertly into his jacket pockets, coming up empty. And when she reached his denimed waist, she saw the decal stuck to the side of the panel of the old car. She stopped. “Christ.” The word came out on her breath.

  “What the fuck’s going on?” He sounded young. Blubbering.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Don. Donny Hansen. What the hell d’I do wrong?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “What’s it look like?” he nodded at the package on the roof. The insulated pizza-box pouch smelled of cheese and pepperoni. “Deliverin’ a motherfuckin’ order.” He was trying hard to sound gangsta tough, instead of scared shitless with a cop pulling a 9mm on him in a back alley.

  “Somebody ordered a fuckin’ pizza.” He tried to look at her over his shoulder.

  Kay relaxed her grip, allowing him to turn cautiously, arms coming down. He tilted the beak of his cap to block the rain, and she wished she’d brought her flashlight. Wanted to see his face more clearly.

  “He home?” she asked, nodding to the house.

  “Naw. Boss musta got the wrong goddamned address again. No wonder the fucking moron’s going outta business.”

  “So you didn’t make the delivery?”

  “Naw. Like I said, nobody’s home. G’on. Bang on the door yourself if you don’t believe me. I bin hammerin’ for two goddamned minutes now. So much for a fuckin’ tip. What’s this about anyway? Somethin’ goin’ down?”

  “No.”

  “You on a stakeout or somethin’? You with Narcotics?”

  Kay stepped back, straightened the edge of her jacket around her holster. “Nothing’s going down.”

  “You can tell me. My cousin, he’s a cop with the Southern.” His tone changed. Softer, more conciliatory. “Still uniform, but he wants to be a narc. Maybe you know him.”

  “I doubt it.” Kay surveyed the rear of 311. Blinds drawn. Windows closed.

  “I tried out for the Academy myself. Didn’t pass the physical though. Got a fucked-up knee …”

  His yapping faded from her awareness as realization took slow hold. Too slow.

  “This guy who ordered the pizza,” she interrupted him, “did he specifically ask for you to deliver it to the back entrance?”

  “Yeah. That’s what my boss—”

  “Son of a bitch.” Kay spun and sprinted down the alley. Groped at her belt for the radio. “Giordano, where the hell are you guys?”

  “We’re just coming up the front.”

  “You see anyone?”

  “What?”

  “Do you fucking see anyone?”

  “No. Nothing.”

  “Hey! You done with me?” Behind her, the pizza boy stood next to his car, his arms at his side, the delivery pouch still on the roof. “Cuz I got more deliveries here. If you don’t need me—”

  “No. Get out of here.” She waved him off and started across the side lawn of the corner house.

  When she reached the street, Madjarian and Giordano were on the sidewalk in front of 311. “What the hell’s going on?”

  “The son of a bitch might’ve gone out the front,” Kay started to explain just as Finn’s Lumina turned onto Keystone. Another radio car followed, then stopped at Gaines’s house.

  “I don’t know if it was a setup,” she told Finn once he joined them and she’d filled him in. His tie hung loose and he smelled of cigarettes. “Or if it was really a wrong address.”

  “Well, let’s get inside and see.” He handed Kay the warrant. “And let’s hope we find more than they did at Bates’s house. I checked while I waited for the warrant. Nothing.”

  To her right Kay was aware of the pizza-delivery car coming around Rockrose. She heard the engine whine as he geared down and passed them. Rap music pulsed into the night. Giordano waved him on, and Kay watched the taillights disappear.

  “Come on,” Finn said. “Here’s Gaines.”

  The landlord’s shoulders bowed inward against the rain. “Gotta go round back,” he told them. “Only key I got’s for the back.”

  “Does your tenant have a key for the front?” Kay asked him.

  “Yeah. But I think he’s been using the back.”

  Kay mentally flashed an image of Patricia Hagen being dragged down the rear steps and shoved into a car trunk. She stopped at her car for her Maglite, then led Gaines and Finn, along with one of the uniforms, to where she’d frisked Don Hansen only moments ago.

  Through the gate, across the concrete yard, and up the steps, Kay tried to pace herself. Take it slow. Expect the unexpected. Easier said than done with the frustration of three open murders weighing on her.

  Gaines turned the key in the lock and the bolt slid free with a muted thud. Wordlessly, she ushered the landlord aside. In the tight confines of the porch, she felt Finn behind her. She slid her nine from its holster for the second time tonight, steadied the short-barreled Glock, and aligned it with the flashlight in her left hand as she nudged the door with her toe.

  She didn’t like the dense silence that greeted them. She liked the smell even less. Recognized it. Like damp stone and copper.

  The gun’s black muzzle went in first, following the sweep of the Maglite’s beam across the small kitchen and into the maw of hell.

  Behind her Finn whispered, “Sweet Jesus.”

  54

  THERE WAS NOTHING to describe the smell of that much blood, the miasmic odor of a fresh kill.

  His name had been Jason Beckman. They got it off the wallet in his jeans. He was seventeen, his teeth still in braces above the wide gash that had opened his throat. The killer’s blade had left a swath of exposed muscle, tendons, and severed arteries. According to the ME’s investigator, the kid had bled out in a matter of seconds or, more likely, asphyxiated on his own blood, inhaling it through the opened trachea and drowning. E
ven if Kay had known what lay beyond that dark porch, even if she’d gotten there the moment the fatal slash had been delivered, there would have been no saving the kid.

  Gaines had taken one look into his rental unit and thrown up his beer into the bushes out back. Kay had almost joined the landlord. The thought of the teenager having died on the other side of the door, less than thirty feet away from her, as she’d let his butcher drive away, sent Kay’s stomach reeling.

  She’d had him. The bastard had looked her in the eye. She’d felt the heat of his breath. And she’d let him go.

  While the Mobile Crime Lab began their painstaking work, Kay tried to remember anything she could about the guy she’d pinned against the car, tried to recall the bastard’s face, but couldn’t. A sketch artist would be useless. It had been too dark. Too fast.

  And staring into the dead teen’s fixed gaze, Kay guessed that he too had probably gotten no real look at his killer.

  The bastard was slick. His escape smart and controlled. He wouldn’t have risked throwing on any lights, even for a second. He’d probably cajoled the boy into the dark kitchen, or …

  Kay circled the pool of coagulating blood. Its edges had thickened, ridging up almost a quarter inch from the floor. She squatted next to the victim, his body acting as a dam against the spill of blood. Snapping on a fresh latex glove, she took the boy’s chin between her thumb and index finger. Her stomach lurched when the kid’s head slopped to one side, all connective tissue ravaged.

  “I need some light on this,” she instructed a technician. And then Kay saw it. On the back of his neck. The same two circular contusions Jonesy had found on Valley. The guy must have lured the boy in, then hit him with the stun gun.

  She surveyed the cramped kitchen again. Clean dishes sat in a wire dry-rack, a Baltimore phone book lay on the counter along with the pizza, still warm in its box. There’d been no struggle, and he wasn’t a small boy. In fact, Jason Beckman was bigger than the man she’d had up against the car. It would have been impossible to slit the boy’s throat while he was standing, not without some struggle. And there should have been more blood on his assailant.

  Kay didn’t remember seeing any. Sure it had been dark, but she’d seen his jeans in the edge of the headlights. She didn’t recall any spatter.

  Kay studied the arterial spray against the humming ice-maker. You didn’t cut him until he was already down.

  So much blood.

  You knew the kid wouldn’t have been able to ID you, but you killed him anyway. Pulled your knife while he was unconscious. Stepping back from the body, she stood over the boy as she imagined his killer had. You knew I was watching.

  If she hadn’t been parked outside, the kid would still be alive. You killed him for me, didn’t you, you son of a bitch. You had to show off.

  “It’s not your fault, Kay.” Finn stepped into the kitchen behind her. “You couldn’t have known. Guy comes out the back with a pizza sack under his arm, tells you there’s no one home. I’d have let him go too.”

  She felt his hand on her shoulder. Normally she’d rebuff any public show of affection, especially in front of other cops, but tonight she welcomed Finn’s support. If she could, she would have let Finn hold her while she cried for Jason Beckman.

  “They found the kid’s delivery car,” he said. “It was ditched down on Clipper Road. Other side of the expressway. No way to know if the killer hiked from there or if he had his own vehicle down there on Clipper. If we’re lucky, maybe he parked up around here, closer to the house, and the uniforms got his tag number.”

  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but luck hasn’t been beating on my door lately,” she said, hating that she sounded sorry for herself. “Who the hell is this guy, Finn? Cuz that sure as hell wasn’t Jerry Bates or Scott Arsenault I slammed up against the car tonight.”

  There was a beat of silence, then Finn gave her shoulder a final squeeze. “Come on,” he said. “We got lots of work here. There’s more.”

  55

  IT HAD BEEN SHEER BRILLIANCE.

  Roach steered the Park Avenue into the sweep of Jones Falls Expressway that curved under Preston Street. Traffic was thin, trickling south into the city. His heart still raced, and his knuckles were white around the wheel.

  Divine opportunity. That’s what it had been. Not impulse, but providence. As if the Angel of Death had just handed him a freebie.

  And Lady Luck too. He might have parked his Buick closer to the house, but after his trip back from Leakin Park this morning he’d needed to unwind, needed the six-block walk. So, he’d left the car down on Clipper Road.

  And if necessity was the mother of invention, then, tonight, necessity had bred absolute genius.

  The whole thing had taken no more than two, maybe three, minutes from the moment the delivery boy arrived to when Roach finally stepped onto the back porch. The kid had barely knocked when Roach opened the door. “Sorry, my power’s been out.” The kid lapped up the lie and stepped into the dark kitchen. That’s when Roach nailed him.

  Kid had barely hit the floor before Roach was emptying the delivery pouch; it was still warm as he’d slid in his laptop and the few belongings he’d gathered from the house. Using the penlight on his key chain he’d grabbed the kid’s cap, taken one last look around, and drawn out his knife.

  He’d thought twice before doing it. But the temptation to leave something for Delaney had been too great. The Spyderco’s blade had gone in to the hilt. Clean and smooth, nicking once across bone.

  It had been almost as exhilarating as the moment in the alley, standing right there, in front of Delaney, looking her in the eye while he boasted the kid’s blood on his red Windbreaker. And Kay Delaney had no fucking idea.

  Roach didn’t realize he’d been smiling until a horn blasted next to him. He jerked the wheel to the right, bringing the Park Avenue square into his own lane. The SUV passed him, and Roach caught the guy’s hand gesture in the light of the truck’s dash.

  Then, in his side mirror, Roach spotted the radio car in the left lane behind him.

  Careful, you brilliant son of a bitch. Last thing you need is to be pulled over on some traffic violation.

  But it was too late. The cruiser tucked in behind him, its light-bar flashing in his rearview.

  56

  KAY KNEW THEY’D FOUND the killing house.

  Although the threadbare furnishings had seen years of use, nothing in 311 Keystone indicated anyone actually lived there: no soda can on the coffee table, no ashtray or TV Guide, no shoes by the door. Even the fridge sat empty, except for grease-stained containers of leftover takeout.

  Finn turned on the TV, flipped through snowy channels. According to Gaines, the basic BG&E usage and phone were included in the rent. But the tenant hadn’t hooked up the cable. Why? Kay couldn’t imagine the killer not following the local news coverage. Did he live somewhere else? With a girlfriend? With his mother?

  Kay turned several times in the middle of the living room, trying to conjure up an image of the man who, only a short time ago, had probably stood on the same spot and devised Jason Beckman’s slaughter as his escape.

  And why this house? Anonymity was the obvious reason. But why this dump when the bodies he left were so clean, his crimes so organized? Was this all he could afford? Was it a retreat from his real life? Was the house significant? Or merely convenient?

  Through the living room and past the foyer, the smell of bleach and Lysol intensified, becoming almost overwhelming as she moved once again to the full bath at the bottom of the stairs.

  When she’d first stepped into the bathroom, she hadn’t been surprised to find it scrubbed clean. The 1930s honeycomb tile on the floor and partway up the wall gleamed. Even the faded enamel of the claw-foot tub sparkled, and what little chrome wasn’t tarnished on the old fixtures held a sheen it hadn’t probably seen in years.

  She’d sent in Lenny DeSousa, one of the best techs with the Mobile Crime Lab. Now he crouched over the tub, ang
ling a high-intensity light.

  He shook his head. “There’s nothing here.”

  “Anything in the sink trap?”

  “Nothing earth-shattering. Looks like your guy shaved recently. Got some stubble out of the drain. No good for DNA though without the roots. But we found a couple head hairs that should give us something.”

  “And what about the tub and surrounding area? You getting anything there?”

  “I’m not seeing anything.”

  Kay imagined the killer on his hands and knees, scouring each tile with a toothbrush.

  “Can you tell me why we’re going over this room when the body’s in the kitchen?” DeSousa asked.

  “This is a separate scene,” she said. “Separate crimes.”

  The scent of death was here, beneath the bleach and the lemon cleaner. Kay wondered if anyone else could smell it. If they could taste it in the air the way she did, feel it crackling in the room around them. It reminded her of Eales’s house; sitting empty for a year, but still she had felt the death there.

  “This is where he killed them,” she whispered to Finn, standing next to her. She scanned the pristine room again. Again, no evidence of anyone living here. No toothbrush or glass on the wall-mounted sink with its exposed plumbing. No magazine on the back of the ring-stained toilet. No meds in the cabinet. Only a single bath towel hanging perfectly folded over the rack by the sink.

  She nodded to the new AC unit mounted in the high window behind the tub. “He kept them cool,” she said to Finn.

  “So what exactly are we looking for?” DeSousa asked.

  “Blood.” The blood of B. J. Beggs and Patricia Hagen for sure. Kay prayed there weren’t others.

  “You want us to luminol then?”

  “Luminol the whole damn room,” Finn said before she could. “Every inch. I want to see exactly what happened here.”