by Tim McGregor
An hour later, Mockler was still the only detective on scene. Officer Walton, who had shifted easily into secondary investigator, had called into Division One for another homicide detective only to learn that all of them were occupied. Mockler found himself stranded on his own for his first case as primary on what could easily be described as the most gruesome murder scene of his career so far.
Almost, he reminded himself. Top spot in the gruesome category went to the victim in the unresolved Gantry file. He pushed that notion away. Just thinking about Gantry made him see red.
He watched from a distance as Sozen and his team poured over the scene and started removing the remains. A long and tedious process as every bone and fragment was photographed, recorded and slipped into an evidence bag. Working the phone, he corralled an officer at the precinct to dig up the owner of the abandoned property and another to search the record for any previous police calls to this location.
“I heard you were on your own down here,” said a voice.
Mockler turned to see Sergeant Gibson crossing the floor toward him. “You heard right.”
The Sergeant stepped aside as the forensic crew swept past with a rubber bin. “This looks bad.”
“Bad doesn’t begin to describe this.” Mockler nodded at the opening to the hidden chamber. “It’s a ten-alarm freak show.”
Gibson eyed the scene before her. Her demeanour dropped a few degrees. “That’s why I came down. What do you have so far?”
“A handful of nothing,” Mockler said. “At last count, seven bodies. Decayed to the point of bone, all of it messed together. Nothing else on the scene. No clothing, no bits of material or wallets or purses. Just bones.”
Sergeant Gibson ran her eyes over the cellar. “Who owns this building?”
“The name on the deed says Redkauer. Some foreign investor or something.” Mockler looked over to where Walton was taking notes. “Walton, what was the name of that company that owns this place?”
“Red-a-kauer,” Walton answered. “Foreign company. Based in Stockholm.”
“I called but there’s no answer,” Mockler said. “I don’t know what time it is over there.”
“Keep trying,” the sergeant said. “What else?”
“We can start canvassing the neighbourhood in the morning, see if anybody nearby has seen or heard anything. We can get to the clerk’s office and dig up records on the building. Find out what this place used to be. Hopefully the coroner can tell us something once they’ve examined the remains.”
Gibson stepped closer to the crumbled gap in the wall. “Tell me about this.”
“It’s some kind of root cellar.” Mockler pointed to the brickwork around the gap. “See how the masonry is different here. The doorway was bricked up a long time ago.”
Gibson leaned in for a closer look. “So someone placed the bodies in here and sealed it up.”
“Yeah. But I don’t think it was all at once.”
“What do you mean?”
“The bricks here were never mortared into place,” Mockler said. “They were just stacked up to form a wall. Sozen and his team took it down in minutes.”
“Meaning what? They were in too much of a hurry to do it right?”
“Or they wanted it accessible.” Mockler wagged his chin at the vast cellar around them. “From a distance, this un-mortared patch looks no different from the rest of the brickwork. It’s sealed up and hidden but, with a few minutes work, someone could still open it up.”
Sergeant Gibson folded her arms, mulling it over. “So the perpetrator brings the body down here, dismantles the bricks. Puts the body inside, puts the bricks back in place and leaves.”
“Until next time,” he added.
“Christ almighty,” she said. “For now, keep both theories working until you know more.”
A member of the forensic team crawled out of the breach at their feet. Mockler and Gibson stepped back to get out of the way. The Sergeant watched the detective rub his eyes.
“You all right?”
“Yeah. Long night.” His phone went off but it stopped ringing before he could answer it. He dropped it back into his pocket. “Any chance we can get some more help down here?”
“Odinbeck’s on his way. Singh said he’ll be here soon as he can.”
“Good.”
Gibson made for the stairs, sidestepping the puddles and debris on the floor. She stopped and looked back. “For your first case as primary, you sure landed a doozy.”
“Lucky me,” he said, more to himself than to his sergeant. Remembering the phone, he took it out to see who had called. The name displayed there made him blink.
Billie Culpepper.
7
BILLIE DROPPED THE phone away as if it was poison, letting it fall to the bedroom floor. A moment later she got out of bed and took the phone out to the kitchen where she left it on the table. Then she went back to bed.
Stupid girl. No restraint.
Since the jolt earlier in the evening, she had been unable to stop thinking about the police detective. What did the jolt mean? Was he in trouble? Was he hurt? She would have dismissed the whole thing but it had happened once before, a zap out of the blue that she somehow knew was from him like a psychic call for help. It sounded ludicrous but so did her ability to talk to the dead. That first time she had been zapped by him, Mockler was in danger from something terrible. Was that the case this time or was it something worse?
She dismissed it and forced herself to think of something else but nothing came. Crawling into bed only made it worse, her mind working overtime while the numbers on the bedside clock ticked on and on. She turned on the radio and cued in a local station to listen to the news. Fetching her phone, she scrolled through a local news feed but there was nothing. No reports of any emergency involving the police. It settled her for only a moment, realizing it meant nothing. Unable to stop her mind from racing through awful scenarios, she dialled Mockler’s number but hung up after the first ring.
Mortification set in. She had called his cell before which meant that her name would most likely pop up in the display. What would he think? Would he think anything at all or dismiss it as an accidental pocket-dial? For all she knew, he didn’t even remember who she was.
A new flood of worries kept her up after that, fearing that he would call back. She strained her ears to listen for the sound of her phone going off in the kitchen but it failed to ring. She was relieved when it didn’t and miserable the rest of the night when it stayed silent.
When it finally did ring, Billie was dead asleep, the pillow damp with somnambulist drool. She spasmed awake, unsure of what she was hearing before recognizing its annoying chime. She bolted for the kitchen, stubbing her toe on the door frame and hopping the rest of the way.
“Hello?” she said, breathless from the pain.
A man’s voice. “Billie? What the devil’s going on over there?”
It wasn’t Mockler, that much was certain. The voice was familiar but, with the pain and disorientation, she couldn’t put a name to it. “Who is this?”
“Did you forget about me already? You’re breaking me heart, luv.”
The accent bit hard and Billie’s mouth dropped. “Gantry?”
“Are you high?”
“What? No.”
“Then wake up. What the hell are you up to?”
“Nothing,” Billie said, flustered at his tone. “What do you want?”
“Are you sure?” Gantry asked. “Something’s going on in that smelly old backwater of yours. What is it?”
“Are you drunk?”
“Not nearly enough,” he said. “Did you call me?”
Billie took the phone away from her ear and looked at it. She crooked it back under her ear. “How can I call you? You don’t even have a number.”
“No. Like psychically or something.”
“How would I do that?”
“Don’t ask me, luv. You’re the psychic.”
“I’m han
ging up now.”
“No, you’re not.” There was a pause, broken by the snap of a lighter before his voice resumed. “So nothing odd is happening? Nothing out of the ordinary?”
“No. Why would it?”
“Just a feeling. So calm on all fronts, then? No weirdness from the dead?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“What does that mean?”
Billie shivered. The kitchen floor was cold against her feet. “It means I’ve learned how to shut them out and it’s gonna stay that way.”
“Have you lost your marbles? You need to open up, Billie. Learn to master it. Christ.”
“No. I don’t.” Billie marched back into the bedroom and crawled under the covers. “Where are you?”
“At the moment, I’m stuck in the nastiest armpit of the Commonwealth.”
“Where?”
“Wales,” he said. “Billie, I warned you about this before. You can’t shut it out. You need to learn to control it.”
“Why? So these awful ghosts can drive me insane? No thanks.”
“It will drive you to the nuthouse if you don’t. Do you want that?”
Billie didn’t respond. She craned her neck, trying to work out the kink that had settled in the muscles.
His voice crackled down the phone line. “Did you nod off on me?”
“You’re just using me, aren’t you?”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because,” she said. “That’s what people say about you. That you use people. Manipulate them into doing your dirty work.”
“Who have you been talking to?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Come on. Out with it. Who said that?”
Billie chewed her lip before answering. “Marta Ostensky.”
“Marta! I’m gonna have to word with her when I get back.” A hiss filled the line. “How is the Ukrainian Bombshell anyway?”
“She hates you. She doesn’t like me much either, to tell you the truth. Did you have a thing with her?”
“That’s none of your business. How much, if you had to measure it, would you say she hates me?”
“I think she’d kill you if she had the chance. Or cripple you at the very least. Did you two have a fling or was it something more?”
“Nosy, aren’t we?”
“So you did!”
“Never mind,” he huffed. “So nothing odd is happening? No blips in the occult radar?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Maybe me radar’s off then. Billie, have you ever heard of a place called the Murder House?”
“Never heard of it. Why?”
“Not sure—”
His voice was cut off by noise in the background. The sound of voices yelling, like there was a riot going on. Then his voice resumed. “I gotta run. These Welsh retards are getting restless.”
“Jesus, Gantry,” she said. “What have you done now?”
“Never mind. Get back to your training, Billie. Don’t shut out the dead. Talk to them—”
More noise filled the line. Yelling and jostling, as if her caller was caught in a scrum.
“Gantry?”
“Keep your ears peeled for anything dodgy,” he hollered into the phone. “Anything out of the ordinary. Call me if you do.”
“How am I supposed to call you?” she fumed.
The phone hissed and went flat, the connection cut short.
Billie tossed the phone down and nestled under the covers, trying to shake off the chill from the kitchen. The alarm clock went off a minute later.
8
THE REMAINS WERE laid out on stainless steel gurneys in the examination room. All seven of them, reconstructed from the gruesome pile of puzzle pieces they were found in. Not all of the pieces were there, leaving each set of remains without hands or the smaller bones of the feet.
Detective Mockler tugged at his collar. The room was too hot and the bank of lights overhead too bright. He hated the smell of this anti-septic, white-tiled room. He prayed for it to be over soon. “So,” he said. “What do we have?”
Marla Tran was the deputy Medical Examiner. She stood before the tables of assembled remains. “Seven bodies,” she said. “All female.”
“That’s all you got?”
Tran dropped her hands into the pockets of her lab coat. “I’ve only had them for a few hours, Mockler. I’d say that’s a lot.”
“Sorry.” He tugged at his collar again. “I’ve been up all night. So you put them all together?”
“It’s not precise,” she said. “More of a best guess at this point. But at least they look more presentable. Sozen told me the state they were found in. Awful.”
It had been surreal, that terrible jumble of bones. This was almost worse, seeing them carefully reassembled and treated with some manner of respect. It brought home the fact that these were once human beings.
He took a step closer to the nearest gurney. “Do you have any idea what happened to them?”
“No. There’s not much to go on, given the state of the remains. But it’s early days yet.”
“How do you know they’re all women?”
Tran gestured at the nearest set of bones. “From the shape of the pelvis.”
“How old do you think these are? Even a ballpark? This year or a hundred years?”
“They’re not recent, I can tell you that,” Tran said. “At least a decade old, maybe two. Anything beyond that is a guess.”
He pointed at the left leg of the remains before them, where the bones disappeared below the ankle. “What about the parts that are missing. The hands or feet. Anything to that?”
“Probably just lost. It happens with the smaller bones. They may have been disturbed by rodents or something.”
“Maybe they’re still at the scene.”
Tran shrugged. “I doubt it. Sozen and his team are really thorough.”
“He is.” Mockler tugged at his collar and scratched his chin, unable to be still.
“You really hate it in here,” she said. “Don’t you?”
“It’s not my favourite place. Anything else?”
“Just one thing. Take a look at this.” She led him to the table at the end and gestured at the ribcage resting there. “Do you see this? The powdery grit on the bones?”
Leaning in, he could just make out a fine sand dusting the surface of the ribs. “What is it?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s lye. I haven’t tested it yet but I know how lye smells.”
“Lye? It’s an acid or something, isn’t it?”
“Technically it’s a base, not an acid. But it’s caustic and can be used to dissolve flesh.”
“I see. Someone used it to get rid of these?”
Marla nodded. “Yes. But there’s a fair amount sprinkled on these remains, and two others but not on the rest.”
“Meaning, it was used at different times?”
“I think so. As each body was treated with lye, the excess settled onto the older bones and stayed there. Does that help?”
“Yep. Thanks, Marla.”
“You can go now. I’ll call you when I find out more.”
He thanked her again and marched quickly for the exit.
~
As the sun went down on the western rim of the city, Detective Mockler stood alone at the crime scene, torturing himself to see what, if anything, had been missed. The sound of dripping water echoed around inside the vast cellar like a sonar ping of loneliness. The frenzied momentum of the previous night had ebbed away until it took on a glacial pace, grinding to a halt. Returning to the broken brickwork to study the crime scene was the only thing Mockler knew to do. There had to be something he had missed, something no one else saw but his eyesight was long past blurry and he knew in his gut that he wasting his time.
Footfalls sounded from the floor above and then a shadow drew long on the stairs. A voice called out. “You still at it, chief?”
Mockler turned to see Detective Odinbeck d
escending the steps. “I am,” said Mockler. “What’s up?”
“I came to drag you out of here and send you home.” Odinbeck came alongside the younger detective and cast his eyes over the broken length of wall. “So that’s it, huh?”
“That’s it. Where were you today?”
“Stuck in court,” said Odinbeck. “The Dickerson inquest.”
“How’d it go?”
“Don’t ask.” The older detective bent at the waist to peer into the broken gap in the wall. “This is a nasty piece of work you found.”
“You heard?” Mockler said.
“The whole city’s heard by now. Gibson gave me the details when I got back to Division. So, what do you got?”
Mockler rubbed his eyes. “A heaping pile of nothing. The whole thing has flat-lined.”
“You just need some fresh eyes on this,” Odinbeck said. “And you need some sleep. How long you been at this?”
“I don’t remember.”
The senior detective straightened up. “Fill me in.”
“According to Marla, the bodies are all female. And they’ve been down here a while. They were dusted with lye to decompose them. The bodies were hidden here at different times behind this patch of wall. The persons responsible would dismantle the bricks, hide the body and rebuild the wall until next time.”
Odinbeck looked up when the younger detective stopped talking. “And?”
“That’s it. The property is owned by some foreign outfit who won’t return calls. The records of any previous owner can’t be found because of some clerical mishap. We canvassed the area all day. No one has seen anything.” Mockler swept a hand over their surroundings. “This building has been empty for so long, no one even sees it anymore.”
“There’s gotta be more than that.”
Mockler scratched his chin. “There was nothing else found out here or in the room where the bodies were. I called in a mason to look at the break in the wall but he said there was nothing unusual there. The only thing left is the missing persons file going back ten or twenty years. But all I have to go on is gender.”
“Marla will come up with something,” Odinbeck said. “She always does.”