We'd called ahead and were expected. If we weren't exactly welcome, you couldn't tell it by Mrs. Moyle, who showed us into a living room that wasn't nearly as big as Dodger Stadium.
"Would you officers care for some tea, or coffee, or maybe something light to eat?" she asked.
"No, thank you, ma'am," I said. "We're good."
"A cocktail, perhaps?" She touched her fingers to her mouth in embarrassment. "Oh, that's right, you're still on duty, aren't you?"
"Yes, we are, ma'am. If you could just tell Mrs. Longworth we're here?"
"Oh, of course. Please make yourselves comfortable. I'm sure she'll be right out."
Karl and I sat down on a leather couch that was more comfortable than it looked. Mrs. Longworth kept us waiting exactly five minutes – the same length of time I'd spent cooling my heels in a few other rich people's homes. It must be in a manual somewhere, under "Appropriate Waiting Time for Visiting Tradesmen, Police Officers, and Other Representatives of the Working Class."
Emily Longworth wasn't more than five feet tall, but she hadn't let her height, or lack of it, give her an inferiority complex. Her hair was a shade of auburn that nature never thought of but should have, and she wore a simple gray wool dress that was probably worth as much as my pension fund. I assumed the pearls on the single string around her slim neck were genuine.
She looked at our ID folders closely, whether out of disdain or mere curiosity I couldn't tell. After we were all seated, she said with a tight smile, "So, gentlemen, what can I do for you?"
"First of all, ma'am, I'd like to offer my condolences on the death of your son. I know what a terrible thing that must be."
There was no point in tiptoeing around it. If she was going to vent about it, let her. She might be more talkative, afterwards.
The semblance of a smile was gone as Mrs. Longworth asked me, "Indeed, officer? You've experienced the loss of a child, yourself, have you?"
"Yes, ma'am, I have." In ways you can't even imagine.
She saw the truth of it in my face, even if she didn't fully understand what I'd meant.
"In that case, thank you for your... condolences."She'd been about to say "sympathy," I was sure of it – I'd seen the "s" start to form in her mouth, but then she'd remembered that one doesn't accept sympathy from social inferiors.
Next to me, Karl was looking at the carpet as if he wanted to memorize the weave. He'd been pretending that throwing that little bastard to the demon had been all in a night's work, but I knew better. It would be a long time before either of us forgot the screams coming from Richard Longworth as that demon had eaten him alive. The fact that it could easily have been me screaming, as Richard Longworth cheered, was some consolation, but only some.
Closing her eyes, Mrs. Longworth shook her head slowly. "It's been like a nightmare, except even in my most frightening dreams I never thought that my son would be set upon by werewolves..."
The word seemed to hang, vibrating, in the air. I opened my mouth to speak, then closed it. I'd been about to say, Werewolves don't do that kind of thing anymore – not outside the movies, then I remembered that case in Denver last year.
A guy had been arrested for molesting little kids. He'd been doing it for a while, apparently. The victims had kept quiet a long time, for the usual reason: the scumbag had threatened them, their parents, or their pets with terrible deaths if the poor kids talked.
But one of them finally did. When word got out, the dam broke and more victims came forward. One of them was from a supe family.
The pederast had made three major mistakes, the way I look at it. The first was giving into his sick desires instead of either getting serious psychiatric help or cutting his own wrists. The second was molesting the six year-old daughter of a werewolf. His third mistake, the fatal one, was somehow coming up with the money to make bail.
They call them "short eyes" in jail, and pedophiles are often the target of other inmates. Even killers and bank robbers have kids of their own. But this guy would have done better to stay behind bars and take his chances in the shower room.
What you hear about werewolves is true. The wolf part of their nature means that they tend to form tight social groups, similar to the packs you find in the wild. You think Italian families are close? They've got nothing on your average werewolf clan.
I don't think the Denver cops ever figured out exactly how many weres had been in the group that cornered the child molester after he left his bail bondsman's office. But there wasn't any doubt about how he died. He'd been eaten alive – and they figured he'd taken over an hour to die.
But this kind of thing was really uncommon among werewolves these days, and I was about to say so to Mrs. Longworth when Karl asked her, "Is that what the police told you, ma'am? That your son was attacked by... werewolves?"
"The police? I didn't speak to the police. There are some things a mother just shouldn't have to do. My husband spoke to them. He told me later, because I insisted on knowing."
"Is that also what your other son, Jamieson, says happened?" I asked carefully. "After all, he was there."
"He was not there. I wish you police would get that absurd idea out of your heads. Don't you think he would have tried to protect his own brother?"
Then he could have been eaten by the werewolves, too, I thought – if there'd been any werewolves.
"Jamieson spent the evening with some friends in Wilkes-Barre, and he had barely crossed the city limits on his way home when the stupid police pulled him over on some trumped-up murder charge. As if my son would have anything to do with a prostitute. It's ridiculous, that's all – it's just ridiculous."
Her face twisted, but she stopped herself from breaking into tears. That just wasn't done – at least, not in front of the stupid police.
I gave Mrs. Longworth a few seconds to pull herself together, then said, "Is your son home now, ma'am?" Fat chance of that, since we'd had to call in advance. And there's no way we'd get authorization for a raid on this place – not without a dozen witnesses and a signed deposition from the President. But I'd asked anyway, as an entry to some other questions I had.
"No, he's not here," she said. "He hasn't been for days."
"Doesn't he live here with you, ma'am?" Karl asked her.
"Yes, of course he does, but he's got another place somewhere in town, some kind of bachelor pad, if people still say that. I was against it, but his father said a boy needs to have some privacy."
The boy in question was twenty-seven years old.
"Can you give us the address of this 'bachelor pad' of his?" I asked.
"Oh, I have no idea. Somewhere in town – I don't know. He stays overnight, sometimes. I suppose he brings girls there." Mrs. Longworth looked at me. "Girls, decent girls, not... prostitutes."
I wondered how the young women who had sucked her son's cock in his 'bachelor pad' got to be considered decent girls, but I suppose everything's relative.
"Would your husband know where the place is, ma'am?" Karl asked.
"Perhaps he would, I don't know. You may feel free to ask him – once he gets back from Tokyo. That will be sometime next month, I believe." The tiny smile was back in place now.
"Can you give us a phone number where we can reach him? Or his email address?" I said.
"Oh, I'm sure I have all that somewhere, but I can't lay my hands on it right at the moment. Why don't you leave me your card, and I'll have my secretary locate that information and call you."
I was betting we'd hear from that secretary at about the time they opened a skating rink in Hell, but I took out one of my business cards and handed it to her. She immediately placed it on the nearby coffee table without even looking at it, as if afraid she might catch something.
"Would it be all right if we took a look at the room your son uses when he's here, ma'am?" I asked. "There might be something to help us find him – just so we can ask him a few questions."
"Would it be all right?" She pretended to consider it. "Well,
I suppose so." The smile widened. "Just as soon as you show me your warrant, or court order, or whatever it's called. I have my doubts that any judge in the city would sign such an order – everyone but the police, apparently, knows what a fine young man Jamieson is. But in the event that you should obtain one, I'll have to have my attorney present, of course."
Three minutes later, we were being shown out by the housekeeper. Following Karl out the door, I started to say something when I heard Mrs. Moyle's voice behind me.
"Detective?" She held up a folded piece of paper. "I think you dropped this."
It didn't look like anything I'd had in my pockets, and I was about to say so when I noticed the intense way Mrs. Moyle was looking at me. "I'm getting careless," I said, stepping back to the doorway. "Thank you."
Mrs. Moyle didn't speak as she extended the hand holding the paper, but I saw her mouth form words that I'm pretty sure were "I never liked the little prick, anyway." Then she closed the door in my face.
I waited until we were well aMrsom the house before unfolding the slip of paper. In a careful cursive hand was written "157 Spruce St # 304."
We were working a double shift, so it was just twilight when we left the Longworth place. That used to be my favorite time of day, when I was younger. The light gets softer and the world seems to quiet down a little, if only for a few minutes. But now I look at it as nothing more than the calm before the storm, and the storm comes every night.
As we approached the car, I was scanning the street and noticed a lone figure standing on the sidewalk three or four houses down. I tensed, and said, "Karl." to let him know we might have trouble. It would be just like that prick Jamieson Longworth to set up an ambush outside his own house.
Then I heard a woman's voice singing, an achingly clear soprano that sounded familiar. I relaxed. Nothing to worry about – except for the people living in that house.
"It's okay, but give me a minute, will you?" I said to Karl, and walked toward the woman in the gathering gloom. I saw her watching me approach, but her voice never paused in its melody.
If she'd been silent, I might have missed her in the near-darkness. As always, this stunningly beautiful woman was dressed in black – dress, hose, and shoes, with a black knit shawl wrapped around her thin shoulders. Seeing the outfit, along with her pallor, you might mistake her for a Goth, or maybe a vamp wannabe. Until you heard her voice.
She wasn't singing very loud, although I knew she had the ability to rattle windows up and down the street, if she wanted to. We'd had a conversation about it some time back – that, and the screeching. She'd eventually agreed that, tradition notwithstanding, she could carry out her duty without freaking out the whole neighborhood.
I didn't understand the words of her song, although I assumed they were Old Gaelic – very, very old. The simple melody was sad enough to get you crying without even knowing why. It didn't affect me. I'd cried myself out a long time ago.
I knew better than to interrupt her, but after another minute or so, she let her song fade away into silence. That was only temporary; she'd stay here, singing softly, until what she was foretelling had come to pass inside the house.
It was another big, ritzy place, and the people inside probably lived a comfortable life. But no matter how much money you have, or how nice your house is – if you belong to one of several Irish families, sooner or later you'll get a visit from this lady, or one of her sisters.
"Hello, Siobaghn," I said quietly.
"Sergeant," she said with a nod. "Tis a surprise seein' ye about, it not even full dark yet."
"Putting in some overtime," I said with a shrug. A few seconds passed before I said, "Can I ask who...?" I nodded toward the house.
"The clan Kavanagh. The youngest son, Edward, is about to hang himself in his room, over a love affair gone wrong." Her voice wasn't cold, exactly, just matter-of-fact.
If he hadn't done it yet, maybe there was still time. But before I could start toward the house, Siobaghn laid a gentle hand on my arm.
"No, Stanley, no. Tis already too late – else I would not be here. Ye know as much."
She was right, of course. The banshee doesn't bring death – she just foreshadows it, and she's never wrong. There was nothing I could do.
Nobody knows for sure why the banshee manifests for some Irish families and not others, or why it's only the Irish. I doubt Siobaghn herself could tell you. She just does as she is bidden, and she's been doing it for centuries.
p; I was about to say goodnight to Siobaghn when I heard Karl's voice shouting, "Stan! We got a ten double-zero! Come on!"
Ten double-zero is radio code for "officer down."
I was moving even before he'd finished, pulling the car keys from my pocket as I ran. Behind me, I heard Siobaghn take up her mournful song again.
A few seconds later, I was behind the wheel and reaching over to unlock the passenger door for Karl.
"Where?" I said as I started the engine.
"It's at 1484 Stanton."
I peeled away from the curb and hit the button that would get the siren going and start the headlights flashing red. We were halfway down the block before it occurred to me that the address Karl'd given sounded familiar, and we'd almost reached the first intersection when I realized why.
It was Rachel Proctor's house.
I wasn't surprised by the flashing red lights that greeted us as we drew within sight of 1484 Stanton Street. Ten Double-Zero doesn't just mean "Officer Down" – it also means every available unit within a one-mile radius is expected to haul ass to the scene at once. By the look of it, five or six black-and-white units had done that already.
Karl and I were just a block away when the radio sparked to life again: "All units, all units: be advised that the ten double-zero at 1484 Stanton has been revised to ten double-zero, Code Five. I say again, the call is now ten double-zero, Code Five."
Magic involved.
As if we'd been practicing for weeks, Karl and I said at exactly the same time, "Fuck!"
As we got closer, I saw two ambulances heading away from the scene. One was moving fast, lights flashing and siren screaming.
The other ambulance wasn't using its lights or siren, and was traveling at a normal speed. Whatever that one was carrying to the hospital, there was no hurry to get it there.
The ranking uniform on the scene was a sergeant named Milner. He looked so white, you could've mistaken him for a ghost, especially in the crazy light being thrown by all those squad cars. And this is a cop with fifteen years on the job, maybe more. He'd seen it all – or so you'd think.
Something else I noticed right off was the silence. Get a bunch of cops together, even at a crime scene, and they're gonna talk to each other – about the job, the wife, sports, who's screwing whose ex-girlfriend, something. But there were eight cops standing around here, and not one of them was saying a word. I could hear the radio calls coming through the lowered windows of their cruisers, but otherwise – nothing.
I had no intention of taking over command of the scene from Milner, even though I was pretty sure I had rank on him. A lieutenant was probably already on the way. Nobody had told me it was a case for Supernatural Crimes anyway, despite that Code Five on the radio.
We walked over to where Milner was standing, looking at nothing. I expected Karl to say "What do we got here?" But he was silent, too. Maybe he had picked up on the vibe, which was more like a wake than a crime scene.
Maybe that's what it really was.
Milner let go of his thousand-yard stare and looked at me. Before I could ask a question he said, "Lady across the street called 911. Said she saw lights in Proctor's place. She knew it was supposed to be sealed, pending investigation. She was thinking burglars, kids, something like that. So Ludwig and Casey got the call to go check it out."
Larry Ludwig, I knew. He'd been on the job a long time, but never tookv> rgeant's exam. He told me once that he liked the action of being a street cop. Casey's name didn't ring
a bell, which meant he was probably a rookie. Scranton PD's not so big that the cops don't get to know each other pretty quick, if only by name and face.
"Looks as if Ludwig sent Casey around back, then went in through the front door," Milner said. "We found him... or what was..." Milner stopped for a second and cleared his throat. "We found him in the living room."
I waited, but he didn't say anything more. Looking toward the house, I said, "Forensics hasn't been here yet."
"No," Milner said. "I called for 'em. They'll take their sweet fuckin' time, like usual." He cleared his throat again. "SWAT was on the way, too, but I cancelled it, after we went through the place. There's nobody in there. Nobody... alive, anyway. That Proctor cunt is long gone."
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