Joe Mac nodded slowly.
Tiredly, Brightbarton looked at Jodi as he said, “A blue dye operation is when you put dye in a stream, rookie, and then watch to see where it comes up downstream. Usually it’s done with false information, but the truth works just as well. It’s one way of finding a mole.”
Jodi pursed her lips.
With a groan Brightbarton stood, folding his legal pad. “You two will turn in your hot weapons to Crime Scene. Don’t worry about your backup weapons. You’re probably gonna need them. Then go to the nearest hospital, get some air, and be in my office at eight tomorrow morning with your reps to answer some questions. Whether you want to continue your investigation for the rest of the day, that’s up to you. I’ll see to Mrs. Morgan’s safety. We’ll put her in a hotel with a man at the door.”
“Last time we were in a live shooting incident you told us to go home until you interviewed us the next morning,” Jodi noted. “Now you’re saying we can keep working until tomorrow?”
Brightbarton’s mouth parted and his brow hardened in the look of someone incredulously watching a zombie rise from the grave. Then he said, “Little girl, you’re neck deep in an investigation that might see you dead before tomorrow morning whether you’re working it or not. If it was me, I’d like to spend my last hours going after whatever scumbag just signed my death warrant.” He shrugged, “Even if I die going after him, at least I won’t go down like some kind of meaningless nobody that don’t own the job because I didn’t have the guts to make the hard call.” A stare. “A call like this.”
Without any readable aspect, Brightbarton walked away and out the screen door. After a brief pause, Jodi focused on Joe Mac.
“What, exactly, does that mean, Joe?”
Joe sighed heavily before he said, “It means that when you go up against true evil, it’s justice that you need to decide. Not the law.” He paused. “It means that, sometimes, what pulls the trigger is … something bigger than you.”
* * *
Back in the squad car it took less than a minute for Jodi to run an NCIC check on the name, but it came back negative on active warrants. Still, she got an address, and it was on a stretch of Long Island inhabited exclusively by the I-don’t-want-to-be-bothered.
“You know this area?” she asked.
“Yeah, I know it,” said Joe Mac. “Been out there a few times. Not too many people. And nobody’s on the beach this time of year. You get in trouble on that strip and you might as well be on the moon. You sure you’re up for this?”
“Yeah. Of course.”
“Let’s go, then.”
Jodi pulled onto the remarkably empty road and began cruising before she asked, “What are we getting into, Joe? I mean, that old woman made it sound like these psychos kill people all the time and get away with it. Is this the Mafia?”
“No. This is a lot worse.”
“So what are they?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to give me a few minutes with What’s-His-Name.”
“Jacob Statute.”
“Give me a few minutes with Mr. Jacob Statute, and I’ll see if I can’t get him to answer a few questions.”
Jodi kept glancing from the road to Joe Mac’s hardening face. “Joe?” she began. “Joe, if you beat him to death, we’ll never find out who killed Aaron. You’re gonna remember that, right? When we get there?” A pause. “Joe? Are you listening to me?”
“I ain’t gonna beat him to death,” Joe Mac rumbled. “I’m gonna practice the golden rule. Do unto others as they do unto you.”
“That’s not the golden rule.”
“It’s good enough for who it’s for.”
* * *
The house of Jacob Statute would more appropriately be described as a “hovel” in comparison to the vast estates that ran the length of Long Island. Not everyone on the island lived palatially but Jacob Statute had a house that Jodi quantified as a “shed.”
It was set back much closer to the road than the usual Long Island mansion where privacy was a high – and expensive – priority. If Jodi hadn’t suspected Statute of attempted murder she would have guessed that he lived in a guard house.
With Joe Mac at her side, his hand shoved deep in the pocket of his coat, Jodi knocked rapidly and waited. When no one answered, she walked to the garage and opened the door. Inside was a dark blue Ford Taurus with a shattered front windshield and bullet holes along the left side. The passenger side window was also blown out.
Jodi pulled her Glock.
Walking to the driver’s side window, she saw the seat was heavily soaked with blood. Looking in the back seat, she saw an AK-47.
“We got blood and a rifle, Joe.”
Joe Mac nodded and removed his hand from his coat; he held a Springfield .45. “Come on,” he said and signaled with the pistol. “We’re going in.”
“We’re not gonna wait for backup?”
“I want a chance to question him before they get here. Let’s go.”
Jodi returned to the front door and knocked again, but there was no answer, so she kicked it with all her might; the stout oak door didn’t move an inch as she staggered back.
“Whoa!” she exclaimed.
“Let me try,” said Joe Mac.
He grabbed the door knob with his left hand, his arm outstretched. Then he surged into it with his shoulder and the door was blasted open with a thick portion of the splintered door frame falling like a tree.
Jodi was in the door quick, scanning left and right before she saw blood on the floor. “We got blood,” she said. “It leads down the stairs. Looks like a basement.”
“I’m behind you.”
Descending slowly, Jodi reached the basement floor to see a man lying across a couch. Blood coated his entire body and there was a bullet hole in his right temple. A gun was still in his hand, and Jodi almost holstered her weapon, but remembered her training.
She scanned the room, insuring they were alone, then cuffed him before she told Joe Mac, “He’s dead. A bullet through his right temple. Looks like a suicide.”
“Look around before you call it in.”
Jodi began searching the low coffee table set before the couch, and there was nothing but two bloody panels of a shredded bullet proof vest, a bottle of morphine tablets, and an open box of large gauze pads.
“What do you see?” asked Joe Mac.
“Well, first; he was wearing a ballistic vest, but that hog-leg .45 of yours blew a hole clean through the front and the back panel. There’s a dark blue Navy peacoat on the floor soaked with blood. There’s a second full-size Beretta 92FS laying on top of it. The left sleeve of the coat is torn up real good. Looks like shrapnel. I guess one of us did hit him in the car.” She put on her surgical gloves and searched the coat. “No cell phone.”
“Check the rest of the room.”
Jodi walked further and began searching cardboard boxes and drawers. She found a lot of carpenter and mechanic tools, a high stack of maps, a reloading machine, empty cartridge boxes, various types of gunpowder, caps, and a small arsenal of weapons.
“We’ve got maps,” she commented. “Lots of maps.”
“Keep the maps.”
“Okay. We’ve also got tools, and it looks like he was a survivalist. He’s got a whole arsenal of rifles, shotguns, pistols, all kinds of ammo. He’s got a big, wooden crate of what look to be genuine military hand grenades. Some vests still in the box. He’s got a first-rate EMT bag complete with bandages, tape, splints, whatever you might need. Then we have a whole lot of different kinds of unused tennis shoes still in the box, all size ten.” She was still. Then, “Why do you think this guy killed himself? This guy was a survivor; he had everything he needed to hang on for a while. And surely a scumbag like this would have a nurse or a vet or even a real doctor on call.”
Joe Mac was standing with his face slightly raised.
“Keep looking.”
Jodi opened a closet; “Oh, man, Joe; I wish you could see this.”
“What is it?”
“There’s some kind of Satanic-looking robe. It’s black with some … very … intricate gold embroidery. There’s a big circle – like a tunnel – and inside that circle is a crescent moon and thirteen stars with a bunch of lines joining them in a constellation or something. I don’t know astronomy. Or astrology. Whichever it is.” Joe Mac heard her moving around before she continued with, “There’s some Exorcist masks – demon masks. Linda Blair on a really bad hair day. We’ve got half a dozen Rambo knives. We’ve got … wow … We’ve got what look to be genuine human skulls, Joe. There’s … seven … complete skulls. The jaws have been wired at the hinge by someone who – it looks like – knew what they were doing. And there’s, like, black and red leather straps around the neck like they hang these things up for Christmas.”
“Are they fresh?” asked Joe.
“Fresh?” Jodi asked. “How is god’s name do you determine whether a human skull is fresh or not?”
Joe paused. “Go on.”
“We have every stylish working girl’s dream – your beautiful Belk necklace of human finger bones strung together on a red and black-beaded Catholic rosary sans crucifix – so elegant. And, finally, we’ve got the proverbial cherry on top of the cake. He has what I swear to god is a human heart preserved in a pickle jar of what has to be formaldehyde. Oh, my god, how … awful.” She took a moment. “Jesus, Joe, this is decadent, man.”
“I get the picture. Take another look at the dead guy.”
She walked back and bent. “It’s a contact wound. Powder burns. Typical five-point starburst. If he didn’t do it himself, someone sure knew how to make it look like a suicide. And he must have trusted them because he had a .38 backup on his ankle.” She stepped back, still staring. “It looks like a suicide to me. And I’m pretty sure it’s gonna look like a suicide to everybody else. But you don’t believe it, do you?”
Joe Mac frowned, then shook his head.
“No,” he said. “I guess I don’t.”
She removed her cell phone. “Time to call it in?”
“Go ahead.”
It took her less than ten seconds to make the call.
“Now what?” she asked. “He wears size ten tennis shoes, so this is gonna be our man. He’s the one that killed Aaron. And he probably killed the rest of them, too. But I bet you there’s not a thing in this house that ties him to any crime scene. He burns everything.”
“He’s just part of it,” said Joe Mac. “He’s the arm but I’m after the head, now. I want whoever’s behind this.”
“So this isn’t the end of the road?”
“No, but you can see it from here.”
“Well, you can count me in.” She looked up, studying the rafters. “I’m gonna go put these maps in the unit and wait for a local.”
“Call Brightbarton. Tell him what you’ve got.”
“You mean what ‘we’ got?”
“I’m just an observer.”
“Yeah, right; you staying down here?”
“For a minute.” He moved his head toward the staircase. “Go on. Make sure you tell Brightbarton.”
Jodi ascended the stairs more quickly than she intended and wondered if the blood and the tension wasn’t beginning to affect her. She wasn’t aware of any conscious fear, but she was aware of the possibility that it could be beneath the surface and rising.
Still, she knew the job: She would wait for the locals, give them the story, and let them handle it. It would be entirely up to Brightbarton whether he wanted the NYPD Crime Scene Unit to respond, but she was confident that the FBI would send their best forensics people and take charge of the whole scene.
Walking into the sea fresh air was a rush and for a moment Jodi simply stood on the porch, gun in hand, staring at the blazingly bright, beautiful blue sky which seemed another universe compared to the dark, bloody pit below her. And she felt a distinct desire not to go back down the stairs but wasn’t worried about her nerve. She wasn’t even close to folding. Then she wondered why Joe Mac had chosen to stay with the body.
Half-turning her head, she almost entered the house again but thought better of it.
Whatever he was doing, he wanted to do it alone.
* * *
Head bowed, Joe Mac listened.
He could hear the hot water heater spinning. He could hear the wind rising. He heard his own heartbeat.
The smell of blood was strong, and Joe Mac doubted this man would have lived whether someone finished him off or not. The .45 had worked like it was designed to work – a single big round to put a man down. That’s why it was invented. A .45 was usually a one-shot stop but there are no guarantees in life.
Not for anything.
He was keenly listening for a car arriving in the driveway or steps on the floor above. He certainly didn’t’ want to be caught executing an illegal search and seizure outside their jurisdiction but estimated he still had a little time.
Doubtless, whoever killed this guy already removed everything from his coat and pockets. Almost anyone would possess the presence of mind to do something that simple and essential. But there were other places to hide things – places Joe Mac had only learned about after thirty years of searching people who were professionals at hiding things.
He’d sent Jodi upstairs because he wasn’t sure what he would find, and he didn’t intend to drag her to where he was willing to go. It would all depend on what he found. If it was something neutral, like a clue, then he’d share it with her. But if it had a name, then he would go it alone. She was a good kid; he wouldn’t let her be party to murder.
He found the body, the leg, and felt down until he reached the boot. Joe Mac pulled off his right boot, searched inside it, then twisted the heel; it didn’t move. He removed the other boot, searched inside, then twisted the heel.
The heel rotated ninety degrees.
Inside the hollowed-out heel was what felt to Joe Mac like a plastic tab. and then he realized it was a tightly folded sheet of paper wrapped in cellophane. Almost as soon as he dropped it into his pocket Joe Mac twisted the heel back into place and stood.
He would be pushing his luck to stay down here any longer, so he carefully found the stairs and began climbing. And almost as soon as he reached the plateau, the front door opened and Jodi was speaking to someone in a subdued voice.
“We‘ll take it from here,” said the man.
Joe Mac nodded and continued out the front door. He tapped his way down the two-step rise to the sidewalk and along the driveway as other cars arrived. In another few moments he was innocently sitting in Jodi’s squad car.
The driver’s door opened and Jodi sat. She took a moment, apparently staring at the parade of officials arriving and entering. “Brightbarton said NYPD isn’t going to respond because the FBI is already on its way and there’s already too many chiefs on this island. So what’d you do down there?”
Joe Mac removed the paper from his pocket.
“What’s this?”
Jodi unfolded it and was silent: “I really can’t tell you, Joe. It looks like some kind of weird map.”
“A map?” Joe Mac turned his face. “What kind of map?”
“I said it was ‘a weird map.’”
“Chose another adjective.”
“A really weird map.”
“I think you’re missing the point.”
She laughed. “There’s a bunch of dots running in one direction from what I assume is a road. The dots go to a box that’s inside what looks like a bell. Or maybe it’s a hill. And there’s a name – Fortinus. Then the dots run in a completely different direction for a long ways. Eventually the dots reach four small circles that sort of box in, or square off, a big circle. And inside this big circle there’s a smaller circle right in the center.” She was still and silent before she exclaimed, “What is this thing?”
Jodi twisted at a knock on her window. She rolled it down, and Joe Mac heard a voice; “Do you know whether the F
BI is asserting jurisdiction in this case, Detective Strong? Our crime scene guys want to know before they start moving things around.”
“Yes,” Jodi replied, “the FBI is on its way, so if I were you guys I’d just secure the scene and not touch anything.”
“Works for me.”
She rolled up the window, and Joe Mac felt her stare.
“Now what?” she asked.
“Run Fortinus through the data base. You’ll get the phone book, but let’s see what we got to work with.”
“And then?”
“Let’s go to the museum.”
“For what?”
“Let’s see what Marvin can make of this map.”
Jodi started the car.
“And round and round we go …”
* * *
Marvin’s face lit up when he saw them approaching through the vast first floor of the museum, and he assumed a joyous posture until Jodi stuck out her hand with the map and said, “I got a bone to pick with you, Marvin.”
He froze. “What did I do?”
“Who did you tell about us going out to see Mr. Montanus on Long Island last night?” Jodi put both hands on hips. “Tell me exactly who you told.”
Quickly searching left to right Marvin replied, “I, uh, asked four or five staff members if they knew anybody who might talk to you guys about Druid activity.” He shook his head. “Then I asked Professor Graven for the same thing, and he gave me a name. Why?”
“Because the guy’s dead now! He was shot dead last night when we were trying to question him!” Jodi watched for a reaction; there was plenty. “I thought I told you not to talk to anybody else, Marvin. Did I not tell you that?”
“Yeah!” Marvin was electrified. “But I didn’t think you were talking about people I work with every day! They’re my friends! How did Mr. –”
“Not now,” Jodi waved off the question. “But from now on you don’t tell anybody what I tell you! Do you understand? People could get killed, Marvin! We almost got killed!”
Marvin seemed to be growing more upset by the second. “No! I won’t! Oh, my god! I swear! I won’t! Is the guy really dead?”
“Yes, he’s dead.” Jodi handed him the paper. “Tell me what this means.”
DARK VISIONS Page 12