Cut to the Bone

by Shane Gericke

  “A respectful riot?”

  Annie chuckled. “Never been in one of those,” she said, repositioning three sharpshooters to other parts of the roof. “But I’ll give alms to all their gods if it stays that way.”

  3:01 a.m.

  “That was . . . swampy,” Emily breathed, rubbing his pillow on her drenched face.

  “Least I can do for you saving my life,” Marty said, stroking her hair. “Friends?”

  “Friends,” she said, putting out her hand. “We can do better than that,” Marty said, flicking the top from the Redi-Whip.

  3:14 a.m.

  “All right, Bowie,” the Executioner said, holding up the checklist he’d been preparing for two years. “Let me know if I’m missing anything. Gun, swallowing knife, honey, keys, letter . . .”

  3:22 a.m.

  “If I’m your birthday cake,” Emily purred, licking melted whipped cream off her hand, “where’s the candle?”

  “You already blew that out,” Marty said.

  She started giggling. A few seconds later, he joined her. It turned into full-blown laughter, which they muffled in the sheets.

  “Since we’re friends again,” she said when she could talk again. “Tell me about your son.”

  His breath caught. Then released.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Everything.”

  He sighed. “Not much to tell.”

  She gave him the hairy eyeball.

  “Honest,” Marty said. “There isn’t. That’s one of the problems.”

  “But you do know Alice.”

  He nodded. “Her name was Alice Caldwell. She was my first true love.”

  “I had one of those,” she said. “Didn’t go further than kissing, though.”

  “We did,” Marty said. “We fooled around after prom. Didn’t go all the way, but let’s just say I slid hard into third base. A few months later, she tells me she’s pregnant.”

  She winced.

  “Tell me,” he said dryly. “Her folks were deeply religious, so they decide she’s going to have the baby whether she wants to or not. In February, she delivers a bouncing boy.”

  “Happy Valentine’s Day, Daddy.”

  Marty chuckled. “He was all spit and vinegar, with hazel eyes and a full head of hair.”

  Like you, Emily thought. “Was he healthy?”

  “As a lumberjack. Huge lungs on that kid.” He said it a little proud. “Hospital thought there was an earthquake one night, but it was him, crying for mommy’s attention.”

  “All you boys do,” she teased. “So, you saw him?”

  “I did,” Marty said. “I even got a photo. Curled-up little Polaroid of him and me. Have to dig it out now, since you know.”

  “I’d really like that,” Emily said, meaning it. Annie was right. Even though that boy was another woman’s son, he’d been born to Marty, too. That made it part of him.

  Part of her.

  “So why was Alice calling?” she asked. “And why did you return her call that night?”

  “My son needs an operation. He’s got a brain tumor.”

  Her breath sucked in like a vacuum.

  “It’s OK,” he said, squeezing her hand. “Tumor’s benign. Just in a very tough place to get out, which makes it an extremely expensive surgical procedure. He can’t afford it.”

  “He doesn’t have health insurance?”

  “No. He started his own business a few years ago and couldn’t swing the premiums.”

  “How much does he need?”

  “Quarter million. Maybe more.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Yeah,” Marty said. “Alice doesn’t have it, so she called me. I have no idea where I’m going to get it. With the mortgage, my house isn’t worth that much. I’ll have to borrow it, I guess.” He shook his head. “I wish I’d told you about all this, Em. I really do.”

  “So damn selfish,” she murmured.

  “Yeah, I was,” he said.

  “No,” she said. “Me. Giving you such a hard time. I issued an ultimatum. You told me. I bit your head off, Wicked Witch of the West. I’m really sorry, Marty.”

  He squeezed her arm. “Me, too. For hiding him from you so long. Truth is, I was scared.”

  “Of losing me?”

  “Of losing us,” he said.

  She kissed his chest.

  “Losing that, too,” he said. “Anyway, to finish the earlier story, Alice took off. Her family, our son, everyone. One week after the birth.”

  “Did you try to track them down?”

  “No,” Marty said, reddening a little.

  “Why not?”

  He shrugged. “I was sixteen. Had no interest in playing house, and my folks sure didn’t want me saddled. Seemed a blessing in disguise at the time. Now it’s a dull ache in the back of my head. Never hurts, but never goes away. Alice’s phone call turned it into a full-blown migraine, worrying about a boy - well, a man, now - I only know from a photograph.”

  How could you give this man up, Alice? “What’s your son’s name?” she asked.

  “Don’t know,” he said.

  That startled her. “Didn’t Alice name him at birth?” she asked, sitting cross-legged.

  “She wanted to wait, see what sounded good. Then they disappeared.”

  “Huh,” Emily said, marveling at the coldness of that act. I should talk. “Did you ever think of a name for him?”

  “Me?” Marty said. “No.”

  “Want to now?”

  He blinked, pulled back a little. “What purpose would that serve?”

  “None,” she said, the idea warming her. “Just think it’d be nice, that’s all. I don’t want to keep calling him ‘Baby X.’“

  “Huh. Well, I don’t know.” He dug whipped cream from her ear. Licked it. “Maybe. Let me think on that. If we give him a name . . .”

  “He might become real. Not just a photo anymore.”

  Marty nodded. “I don’t want that causing a wedge. You’re too important to me.”

  Emily kissed him full on the lips. “It won’t,” she said. “Not ever again. I promise.”

  They fell silent.

  Comfortably.

  “You did a great job on that powder room,” she said. “It was exquisite.”

  “Course it was. Thought of you while I did it.”

  She squeezed his arm.

  More silence.

  “Wonder if the boy has brothers and sisters?” he mused. “If he likes beagles . . .”

  Another thought occurred as he talked. She debated bringing it up. Decided honesty wasn’t just the best policy, but the only.

  “Is that why you beat Corey Trent so viciously?”

  “Come again?” Marty said.

  “Think about it,” Emily said. “He murdered a newborn in front of you. A newborn boy. The reaction you had was so out of character for you, maybe your own boy was on your mind. Remember what you said during our fight?”

  He shook his head.

  “‘That’s right, Emily, a son,’” she quoted. “‘That’s why I’m a witness Friday. That’s why I’m a hypocrite. And that’s why I’ll happily dance on Trent’s melted face. Because I couldn’t save that dead little boy.’“

  “Have I mentioned how distressing your memory can be?” he grumbled.

  “Useful, though,” she said. “So?”

  He considered it. Blew out his breath.

  “Maybe you’re right,” he said. “It was the rottenest thing I’ve seen on the job. Even those psychotic bikers I lived with never did anything that inhuman.”

  She took his hand. “Want to tell me?”

  He nodded, settled back in the pillow.

  “We were out in the sticks to see an informant,” he said. “Me and Branch. One of those joint investigations you cook up. I’d drunk a lot of coffee, had to take a leak.”

  She moved closer.

  “Branch was driving. He found a boarded-up gas station. I hopped out, did my business. Peek
ed inside as I zipped up, saw a butchered young woman.”

  “Whose baby had been stolen.”

  “Didn’t know that then,” he said. “Just that she was dead and her end of the umbilical cord was ripped out. We looked around. Heard a wail. Spotted a shadow running for a car.”

  “Corey Trent.”

  “Yup. We chased him. Younger then, so we moved lickety-split. We were closing in fast, so he took the kid by the ankles and swung for the fences. Figured we’d have to stop.”

  She knew that from the reports. Hearing it firsthand made her ill.

  “No God that night, that’s for sure,” Marty said. “Branch kept chasing. I stopped. It was a boy. Hazel-eyed, full head of hair.”

  “Like your son.”

  “Yeah.” Long pause. “Boy laid in that dirt like a seed sack. Gurgling. Crying. Bleeding out of his mouth and ears, busted all to hell. Then he quit breathing.” She felt his heart race. Gripped his hand tighter. “I did CPR. Didn’t help. That boy died in my arms, and Corey Trent did it.”

  “So you went crazy.”

  “The state’s attorney ruled I applied the appropriate amount of physical force to effect the arrest of a fleeing homicide suspect,” Marty said.

  “You went crazy.”

  “Yeah,” he said, smiling thinly. “I broke both Trent’s arms. Kicked the hell out of him, snapped off that tooth. Would have killed the bastard if Branch hadn’t pulled me away. To this day, I wish he hadn’t.” He traced a finger from eye to chin. “That’s how Branch got slashed, you know. Trent had a knife.”

  Emily nodded, recalling the captain’s omnipresent scar, which wiggled when he clenched his teeth. “That’s another reason you went crazy,” she said. “Because he’s your best friend.”

  “You are,” Marty said. “But he’s my brother. No way I let that slash go unanswered.”

  “I wouldn’t either, if he was you.”

  Marty’s nod said, I know. “We arrested him. He went to jail. He pays tomorrow.”

  “Today,” she said, glancing at her watch.

  “Even better. It’s closer to noon.” He snorted at her unasked question. “Yes, I hate the death penalty. Yes, they should ban it. Yes, I’m happy Trent’s getting it. Yes, I’m a hypocrite.”

  “And I’m the hypocrite’s biggest fan,” she said, kissing him.

  Marty reached for the second can of whipped cream.

  “Ah-ah-ah,” she said, rolling into the bedside chair and slipping on her clothes. “We already had dessert. It’s time for the main course.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We identified the serial killer.”

  “What?” Marty said, bolting upright. “Why didn’t you mention that when you walked in?”

  “I missed you,” she said.

  He thought about that, chucked her chin. “I like the way you think, Detective. Now spill!”

  3:23 a.m.

  “Awfully darn good how you worked out that bus swap, Reverend,” a congregant said. “We’d have never gotten here otherwise.”

  “The Lord provides,” Danny said, smiling. “But it’s nice having earthly help, too.”

  3:24 a.m.

  “His name is Daniel Monroe,” Emily said. “Brother of Earl Monroe, a minor-league gangster executed in 1972 for-”

  “Blowing up cops,” Marty finished. “And the grand jury witness they were guarding.”

  “Branch said you’d remember,” she said. “Did you know Daniel?”

  “Never met the man. Or Earl. But the crime was fairly fresh when I joined the sheriff’s. The old-timers ground that tragedy into us rookies - that this is what can happen on even the dullest assignment, so pay attention.”

  She thought of Rayford Luerchen.

  “When did you figure it out?” he asked.

  “Last night,” she said. “We’ve been nailing down details ever since.”

  “And you’re able to come here why?”

  “You complaining, big boy?”

  “Not hardly,” he said, squirting whipped cream into his mouth.

  She squeegeed a glob off his lip. “At one-forty-five, Chief Cross said those of us working the execution should get a few hours’ sleep,” she said. “I told him I’d stop on my way home, let you know what we found. He said take my time because you’re pretty slow on the uptake.”

  “Remind me to kick his half-an-ass later,” Marty said. “After buying him a martini.”

  “Flatterer,” Emily said, feeling herself blush.

  “What about motive?” he asked, back to business. “I get Danny whacking the warden or guards to avenge Earl. Our victims weren’t even born, though. Why them, why now?”

  She fished Appendix F from her purse.

  “These are our serial victims,” she said. “Zabrina Reynolds, Frank Mahoney, Sage Farri, and so forth.”

  “And?”

  “They’re also the grandkids of the twelve official witnesses to Earl Monroe’s execution.”

  Marty whistled. “Talk about revenge being best served cold. Danny waited three generations to avenge his brother.”

  “Not just Earl.”

  He arched a single eyebrow.

  “Verna Monroe was supposed to be the family witness that day.”

  “That’s Danny and Earl’s mom, right?”

  “Mm-hm,” she said. “But Danny went to Stateville. He told the case detectives, Burr and Rogan, that she’d gotten ill that morning and begged Danny to attend in her place. Later, they discovered Verna with her wrists slashed.”

  “Danny’s one sick puppy,” Marty said, rubbing his own. “Murdering his own mother.”

  “He didn’t. He’s the one who found her,” Emily said. She explained what Rogan told her from his Florida retirement home, and how Johnny Sanders’s bombshell helped them recreate that long-ago Execution Day.

  Marty shifted to his other hip. “No wonder Danny went nuts,” he said. “Finds his mom in a pool of blood, watches his brother fry, sees twelve rubbernecks watch like a day at the races. So Danny delivers his own death penalty.”

  “Because they murdered his brother,” Emily said.

  “Symbolically, if not literally.”

  “Right. The big question is, Why now?” He scratched his heavy stubble, thinking. “It would have made sense killing those folks in the seventies. But he let it go. What changed?”

  Emily played air piano. Movement helped her think. “Something profound,” she said, finishing the Minute Waltz in thirty. “Drastic enough to trigger a nationwide serial spree-”

  “The chair,” Marty said, snapping his fingers. “That’s the trigger.”

  “How?”

  “Earl was Illinois’s final execution,” he said. “The Supreme Court banned them nationwide that same day.”

  She strained to remember the law lectures from the academy. “Uh, Furball versus Georgia, right?”

  “Furman. The Supremes issued the ruling right during Earl’s electrocution.”

  She made a face. “Talk about rotten timing.”

  “Yeah. Then four years later, the Supremes said whoops, executions are constitutional after all, so y’all go ahead,” he said. “Illinois obliged, but in the interim decided to mothball the chair for lethal injections. Needles were more warm ‘n’ fuzzy than flaming eyeballs.”

  “Don’t start.”

  His grin said, Who, me? “Danny came to grips with Earl’s death because the electric chair had been scrapped,” he said. “We know that because he spared the twelve witnesses. Then Covington gets elected and brings it back.”

  Emily sprang to her feet. “The exact same chair, too,” she said, pacing. “He retrieved it from Stateville for his new center. Announced it to the planet, and none too subtly.”

  “‘Rabid dogs must die,’“ Marty recalled from the campaign trail.

  “‘Condemned prisoners have no souls,’” she said. “‘Fry ‘em like onions.’“

  “The chair and Wayne’s hyperbole were such a staggering insul
t, so personal, that Danny snapped,” Marty said. “Now he wants to kill the people who watched his brother die. The ones who stood shoulder to shoulder while Covington killed Earl.”

  “But they’re dead,” Emily said. “Or otherwise unreachable. So he takes out their families. Like the witnesses and Covington took out his.”

  “Speaking of Covington, I assume he knows?”

  “Chief Cross told him.”

  “Only good news in this mess,” Marty said. “At least he’ll stay out of Dodge.”

  She sighed.

  3:47 a.m.

  “Goddammit, Wayne, don’t be an idiot,” Cross snapped into his cell. “Tell Angel Rogers to issue a press release saying you caught the flu and-”

  “Show fear to a predator, he tears your throat out,” Covington said. “Face him down, let him know you’re in charge, he cowers and slinks away.”

  “This isn’t George of the Jungle,” Cross said. “Danny Monroe is the brother of the man you electrocuted thirty-five years ago. He won’t be impressed you’re alpha wolf.”

  “So find him.”

  “We’re trying,” Cross said. “He left Idaho with a busload of congregants-”

  “Congregants?”

  “Danny’s the minister of a small church in Boise. According to their cops, he’s a wheel in the Idaho anti-death-penalty movement. Branch just talked to his wife. She says they’re traveling here to protest the reintroduction of the chair. They don’t have cell phones, so she can’t contact them. He’s undoubtedly here already, with the bazillion other buses. We’re checking every license plate, and I’ve circulated Danny’s picture to all hands.”

  “Needle in a haystack,” Covington said.

  “A lethal needle, Wayne. He’s here to kill you.”

  Covington harrumphed. “And that man calls himself a good Christian.”

  “So do you,” Cross said.

  3:52 a.m.

  “It’s much too early to be awake,” the water crewman grumped.

  “Cry me a river,” the crew chief said, passing over coffee. “We need that pump running and our butts out of here by noon. Or be stuck in execution traffic till our pensions kick in.”

  4:02 a.m.

  “Just follow the yellow brick road,” the uniformed cop said, pointing to the bright yellow glow-sticks marking the path to the chain-links. Branch decided to line the fence with holy protesters, figuring they were less likely to start trouble. The strategy was working, the cop saw. These folks fell over themselves to be polite.