The Death Box

by J. A. Kerley

  We parked and headed to Roy’s office, and found the door wide as usual. Roy wasn’t a closed-door kind of guy. “There’s my man,” Roy said as I knocked on his door frame. “I left some real-estate brochures in your office, though you’ve probably already found a—”

  “You should call Morningstar, Roy,” I interrupted, running on hope and adrenalin. “She’s out at the site.”

  “Is there a problem?”

  “Not any more, maybe.”

  Roy frowned and was talking to Morningstar in seconds. Or listening, mainly. After a minute he tapped the phone off and gave me a raised eyebrow. “I understand what you’re trying to do. But most of the column …”

  “Yes indeed, Roy. But I can live with dual ownership.”

  What I was proposing was not something Roy wanted in his day, but the big hands clapped together in a decision made. “I’ll have the interested parties pow-wow at the site. Rayles ain’t gonna be a happy pup, you know that, don’t you?”

  Like a bouncing ball, we headed back to the site. Roy, Gershwin and I arrived first, the HomeSec twins a minute later. Morningstar handed them a copy and photos of her latest findings, then retreated to the fringe of the conversation.

  “What does all this mean?” Rayles asked me, scanning the report. I saw him wince and figured he’d got to the amputated penis part. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “It’s in the files, Major. There were two bodies in the lower section of concrete, both hideously mutilated, one sexually. I can show you mutilations on the actual bodies if you wish. They’re over in the—”

  “I’ll trust the photos.”

  “The bottom line is that the assault was savage and meant to create extreme pain and fear, the kind of action I associate with a psychotic mind.”

  “And this leads you to think—”

  “That it’s our case, FCLE. At least the two bodies in the lower section of the column. You can have the upper section.” I smiled with all the charm and bonhomie I could muster. “We’ll investigate the case together, Major, like a team.”

  The look on Rayles’s face told me my idea was not bringing joy to his day. He looked to Roy. “Your thoughts, Captain McDermott?”

  “Detective Ryder has a point,” Roy deadpanned. “He’s looking forward to working with you, Major.”

  Rayles was irritated, not, I figured, at sharing a case that would go nowhere from a national security point of view, but at being bested by a guy whose credentials lacked the gravitas of a command at Gitmo.

  “It’s inefficient,” he said. “Meetings alone would be problematic.”

  “I’ll come to your department every morning to review findings, Major. How’s the coffee at HomeSec?”

  He was now looking less angry than ill.

  “Or …” I said as if the idea had just occurred, “FCLE can handle both investigations. If you’re looking for efficiency, Major Rayles, I think that may be the best solution.”

  I watched Rayles mentally juggle his options for several seconds. Though his chin was on full and clenching jut, his words came out in an even tone. “Given that the investigation was initiated by FCLE and the bulk of the investigative material has been generated by FCLE, the appropriate response is that jurisdiction reverts to FCLE. For the time being, at least.”

  Rayles’s assistant, Robert Pinker, eyeballed his boss. If anything, he looked more pissed off than Rayles.

  “That’s it, Major?” Pinker snapped. “The guy wins? You’re gonna hand it back just like that?”

  “It’s a criminal investigation, Mr Pinker,” I corrected. “Not a competition.”

  Pinker moved close and looked ready to swing on me. A surprised Rayles stepped between us, eyeballing Pinker. “Detective Ryder is correct, Robert. We’ll leave the investigation to the capable hands of the FCLE.”

  The capable was nice, though a political frippery, like congressfolks addressing each other as honorable colleague when all they wanted was to gut one another. Rayles turned to leave, but paused to turn back, needing to end with a note of command.

  “I expect to be copied on every aspect of the case, Ryder,” he instructed. “Do you read me?”

  “In triplicate,” I said, holding up my fingers in the Boy Scout salute.

  We were back on the case.

  31

  Minard Chalk is sleeping in his expansive home in Key West, sweat beading on his brow, the red silk sheets jumbled from his tossing and turning. The white suit worn at Orchids restaurant is hanging in the closet and freshly laundered. Every day Chalk leaves the house at one-fifteen p.m. for lunch at one of the nearby restaurants. The staff arrives at one-twenty to gather laundry for dry cleaning, drop off fresh laundry, and to pick up, dust and vacuum. A prepared dinner is left behind, as well as a snack for later in the evening. The dinner and snack combined must not tally beyond eight hundred and sixty-five calories.

  The staff must be gone by two-thirty. Chalk never returns before three-fifteen. When Chalk is at one of the other residences – Seattle, San Clemente, Minneapolis – the house receives a total cleaning.

  Chalk is dreaming of a girl. He does not want this dream, but his moaning, rolling body cannot fight it off. He always loses to the dream.

  The girl’s name is Xaviera Teresa Santinell and her sixteen-year-old skin seems to glow with its perfection. Her hair is as black as polished coal and her eyes as gentle as the eyes of a faun. She is dressed in a simple pink dress that ends well above her knees. Her legs are long and slender and when she stands with one small foot on the ground and the other cocked in the air behind her, she reminds the young Minard Chalk of a beautiful flamingo. Xaviera moves through the Chalks’ sprawling San Clemente household like a vision, an ethereal presence in the eyes of Chalk, eleven years old.

  Minard Chalk is in love. He’s been in love for four months, since his eyes first fell across Xaviera, entering the Chalk household beside her mother, the Chalks’ newest housekeeper. The previous housekeeper, Maria, had disappeared after a shouting match with Mrs Chalk, a door slamming as she ran crying from the home. Mrs Chalk is a demanding woman who goes through several house staffers annually.

  They are alone, Minard and Xaviera. Her mother is visiting relatives in Los Angeles and Chalk’s parents are in Spain or Italy or wherever the jets fly, though Minard has never been further than a private academy in New Mexico. The Chalks do not vacation with Minard because it makes them look old enough to have a child of that age.

  Sometimes when all the parents are gone Xaviera has her friends over, other teenage girls who swim in the pools – one inside and one outside – and giggle into one another’s ears. They wear tiny swimming suits and move like cats. When they use dirty words it makes the eavesdropping Minard feel sweetly crawly inside, though he doesn’t know why.

  Later, in his room, he repeats their words and feels sweetly crawly yet again.

  “Fucking. Boobies. Pussy. Dick. Rubbers.”

  Minard has been watching Xaviera from the furthest shadows of a darkened room across the hall from the room Xaviera had been dusting. She has just done something truly amazing: plucked a feather from the duster and lay down on the wide bed in the guest room, dusting herself where Minard could not see, below her belly button, her pink dress hiked high on long legs ending at pink tennis shoes. Her hair is tied in a red silk bow and splays across the bed, dark locks cascading over the side. Her pink tongue pokes from lips like a fresh rose. The sun blazes through the window across the room and the space seems filled with golden light.

  She turns and sees him watching. Her eyes widen. The sun explodes and the room turns to pure white.

  Minard rolls and moans and his fingers dig into the pillow.

  The room shivers back into view, at first just an outline of Xaviera, then filling with color. She is cross-legged on the bed now, the feather on the floor. Chalk’s hand covers his genitals over his khaki shorts.

  “Come here, little one,” says the rose mouth of Xaviera. “I w
ant you to show me what’s under your hand.”

  “I … I … I …” Minard Chalk’s breath has frozen in his throat.

  “Don’t be frightened, little dove. Maybe we can have a trade.”

  “T-t-trade?”

  “If you show me what’s in your hand, I might show you what’s in mine. Would you like that?”

  Xaviera’s hands are cupping her breasts. Her teeth shine like stars. The girl’s hands fall from her breasts, their points visible under the thin fabric. Minard wants to stare at the tiny perfect moons but knows that is rude.

  “You do this a lot, do you not?” Xaviera says, her voice as quiet as a prayer. “Watch me?”

  His eyes drop to the floor. His tongue is a rock in his mouth.

  “I’ve seen you, Minard. I know all of your watching places. You’ve watched me since the day I arrived, no?”

  “It just l-l-looks like I’m …”

  “Shhh, Minard. I’m not angry. I like to be watched.”

  “R-really?”

  A pink finger slips to one of the moons and brushes over it. “It makes me feel special. Why do you like to watch me?”

  “Because I-I love you.”

  “You’re so smart, Minard. Don’t shake your head, everyone knows it. Tell me in smart words how much you love me.”

  The boy tries to search his mind but he’s frozen by the girl’s beauty. Twenty years away Minard Chalk moans into his pillow.

  “I-I can’t.”

  “You don’t really love me then,” she says, her face dropping. Even sad she is so beautiful that Chalk wants to cry.

  “I do, Xaviera. I really do. I-I want to marry you.”

  “What? I didn’t hear you. Tell me louder.”

  He swallows hard and takes a deep breath. “I love you and I want to marry you,” he says, his voice filling the room.

  A wide smile. “Oh? What will we do, Minard? If we are married?”

  “Go to another country. China, maybe. Or Australia.”

  “Why so far?”

  “To be happy.”

  “I think you should kiss me, Minard. Will that make you happy?”

  The boy’s mouth drops open. He has practiced kissing in the mirror a hundred times. The world turns to stillness as he leans forward with his lips on fire. But her hand touches his chest and holds him back.

  “Not on my mouth, my dove. Kiss me down here. On my panties.”

  She scoots forward on the bed and opens her long legs. Her panties are revealed, cotton, as white as snow. The amazed Chalk begins to bend.

  “No, Minard. Don’t lean down. Get on your knees and kiss me with your tongue.”

  His knees are on the floor and her thighs graze his ears. His tongue reaches out and licks at her panties. Xaviera shifts her hips, angling them higher. “Yes. Eat it, Minard. Eat it like candy.” She laughs happily.

  “What?”

  “Keep going like that. But … uh, make some noise.”

  “Mmuuum …” Minard moans as he kisses and licks at the panties. “Mummph.” If he died now there would be no regrets; his life ended in perfection.

  Xaviera giggles strangely, like hearing a joke. “Are you hard?” she asks.

  “What?”

  “Your dick, Minard. Is it big and hard?”

  “Y-y-yes.”

  “Stand up and open your pants. I want to see it.”

  He stands and with trembling hands lowers his shorts and briefs. His erect penis is small and uncircumcised and curves downward, the hood extending past the tip like a rumpled wizard’s hat. Her hand reaches down and her middle finger gently strokes the top of his penis from his body to the tip of the hat.

  “When will it get big?” she frowns.

  “It … it is.”

  “There’s all this skin, Minard. Why don’t you fill up your skin?”

  “I … what?”

  Minard Chalk feels a pain like his thing has caught fire. He screams and his eyes snap open to see Xaviera’s fingers closed tight on his flap, pinching hard. He tries to jump away but excruciating pain holds him in place. His hands go to her wrist but she squeezes harder still. It’s like teeth have closed on his thing.

  Wild laughter fills the air. The slatted door of the long closet rolls open and a half-dozen of Xaviera’s friends pour out, pointing at the spectacle and howling. They have been watching everything.

  “Dios mio, is that a pito or a crayon?”

  “Stretch it out, Xavie! Nasty little Minnie. This will teach you to spy on Xavie.”

  “That’s it, Dolores, his name will be Minnie! Minnie-Minnie-Miney, why is your pito so tiny?”

  With a yip of laughter Xaviera releases Minard’s penis. His face is on fire as he bolts to the basement to hide in a corner until Xaviera and her friends scamper out the door. Alternately screaming curses and crying, Minard Chalk runs upstairs and flushes four of his mother’s earrings down the toilet. When his parents return Xaviera’s mother is accused of theft and fired.

  Though he never sees Xaviera again, her laughter never leaves his brain.

  “Minnie-Minnie-Miney, why is your pito so tiny?”

  When Chalk wakes – the sheets, as always, soaked with sweat and, oddly, semen – he will phone a number in Miami and close a recently discussed deal.

  With the HomeSec twins out of our hair – at least for now – we could catch up on the latest from the front or, in this case, the pit. Roy had a meeting in Tallahassee and booked for the airport to catch one of the department’s Cessnas, another gift from the drug lords.

  “So we’ve got two bodies,” I recapped to Gershwin and Morningstar. “One with a neatly severed penis in its mouth and a severed head, and the other with his hands removed and throat cut.”

  “But the chopped-off hands were in the matrix,” Gershwin said. “So it wasn’t to hide fingerprints. By the way, Doctor …”

  “I just heard from the lab,” Morningstar said. “The skin got dissolved. But whoever killed the vics was someone who keeps a sharp blade nearby. Of course, your Carosso body …”

  “Yep,” I nodded. “Blade again.”

  We had a perp who liked to use a knife, a truly ugly inclination. I pulled my cell and called Vince Delmara.

  “How you doing, Vince?”

  “I’m doing scut work at a sleazebag massage parlor off I-95. The Taste of Heaven, how do you like that? Place burned down last night, looks like arson. Or maybe a concerned citizen doing the city a favor.”

  “Anyone hurt?”

  “A bouncer got burned bad hustling the chickadees out. Naturally, nobody’s saying a thing. I don’t know whether to hand the case off to the fire investigator or Vice. Whatcha need, Detective?”

  “How’s your snitch network, Vince?”

  “A thousand tiny stars shining in the dark, Detective. Some a lot dimmer than others.”

  I asked if he could check his snitches for anyone known for using a blade. There were plenty of bad people who favored knives, but the one we sought would be borderline or fully sociopathic, the type to kill for an audience to enhance his reputation.

  “I’ll put out the word.”

  “And I’ll copy you FCLE reports of everything we dig up. And what we have to date.”

  I could hear his grin. “Cooperation and information? You’re an odd guy, Ryder.” He rang off. There was little for Gershwin and me to do but keep digging. Vince Delmara would work the Miami-Dade snitch angle, trying to find if anyone out there knew of a cutter.

  It was a long shot.

  32

  Leala lay in her hideaway, the muted light telling her the sun was fading. It was hot and Leala had shed her dress to keep from spoiling its freshness. She wiped her brow with the scarf, ate her last banana and waited until night arrived.

  The door creaked open and her eyes checked the house, still black, still safe. Cars and motorcycles roared on nearby streets and when a vehicle swerved into the alley Leala slipped into shadows, grateful for trash cans to squat behind.
/>   She slipped to the house with the pool and slid into the cool blue water. It was bitter on her lips but delicious against her skin. She was submerging when the night exploded into light, hard and white and everywhere.

  “Someone’s out there!” a voice screamed from the house. “Someone’s in the pool! YOU! GET OUT OF HERE!”

  An alarm was tripped and a sonic blade knifed the air. Zeee-yup, zeee-yup, zeee-yup. Leala grabbed her dress, running naked across the grass and out the gate. Shaking uncontrollably, she threw the dress over her head and shook it into place, sprinting across front yards before dashing toward the alley. Dogs were barking now, each alerting the other to an intruder in the neighborhood.

  Orzibel and Morales were crisscrossing the grid of blocks forming Little Havana and searching for Leala. Orzibel grinned. “Did I tell you, Chaku? Cho called Amili an hour after our match man left, probably while the flames were highest. Said she’d like to continue our business relationship.”

  Morales snorted and slapped the steering wheel in delight. Orzibel went back to scanning the street. He paused and canted his head toward the window.

  “What is all that noise, Chaku? Roll down the windows.”

  Hot air poured into the cool vehicle. Orzibel stuck his head out the window, listening. “Head down the street. Toward the sounds.”

  Morales turned onto the cross street. His eyes stared in disbelief as a flash of blue crossed a hundred meters ahead.

  “Her!” Morales yelled. “There, by the white house.”

  “Go!”

  The big engine roared, tires squealing as it spun and headed in the reverse direction. “She’s jumping that fence,” Orzibel said. Morales stood on the brakes, Orzibel’s feet hitting pavement before the vehicle halted.

  “Come here NOW or I will kill your madre!” he screamed, seeing a small body tumbling over a fence and disappearing between a house and a garage.

  “She’s going for the alley. Head her off, Chaku!”

  Morales burned rubber around the end of the block. “Come to me, bitch!” Orzibel howled. “Or I’ll SLICE OFF YOUR FACE!”