Nowhere had she heard of the private collection based on Aristotle’s works.
Works that were coming to gruesome life. Mala should be appalled. And she was, she guessed. Maybe. But the biggest feeling was one of mixed determination and…excitement? That couldn’t be right. She had to admit, though, if only to herself, that she hadn’t just gone along to the house for Janey’s sake. Mala had to see Darc in action for herself.
Yet that had been nothing compared with their sparking off one another. Following a madman’s path, clearing the way for his capture.
Ms. Steinway began to take out another print, when Trey stopped her. “Yeah, thanks,” he said. “But I think I’ve exceeded my daily allowance for nausea.”
Mala thought ahead to what Darc would need from her. “To respond to these images?” she proposed. “To identify with them? The killer himself must have experienced some serious trauma.”
“Psychotic break,” Darc stated.
Even though it hadn’t sounded like a question, Mala responded. “I can’t imagine anything less.”
Trey waved a hand at the art dealer, who was carefully placing the prints back in her portfolio.
“Okay, whatever his drama…There aren’t many places where you can find body parts just flying around.” When no one responded, Trey continued, “Hello? Slaughterhouses, anyone?”
“That would fit,” Mala answered. Even Darc nodded.
Trey pulled out his phone, flipping it open with a flourish. “I’m putting out the call for a sweep. There’s only three, maybe four, slaughterhouses within driving dista—”
“Don’t bother,” Darc cut him off.
Slamming his phone shut with an audible snap, Trey huffed a breath of air straight up, ruffling his already messy hair further. “Never even gonna let me get a ‘hey, look, Trey actually contributed in some small way,’ are ya?” The shorter detective crossed his arms over his chest, facing off with Darc. That lasted for about as long as you would expect.
“Fine. Whatever,” Trey sighed. “So, are you going to give me an address, or what?”
And then Darc turned to Janey.
No. No. This was not happening again. Not on Mala’s watch. She squared off with Darc.
“Don’t.”
Darc turned that empty stare in her direction. Mala had already gone too far putting Janey’s mental health at stake because Mala wanted a taste of field experience.
“Don’t even think about it, Darc,” Mala said, crossing her arms, although she doubted that Darc would perceive that as determination. “You are not exposing her to a slaughterhouse.”
*
Darc stood motionless, the lines of logic snaking around the doctor, trying to get past her to the girl. Why did the doctor continue to act so emotionally? Had she not seen the same paintings as he? Did she not count the lives that would be lost if they delayed? Weighed in the balance, the danger to the girl would be minimal and more than likely temporary.
Perhaps if she understood why the girl was imperative. “I would not be exposing her to anything. We would simply be revisiting.”
The parents had been gutted at a slaughterhouse. Unfortunately, she had seen her parents slaughtered. Which, logically, meant that the girl had seen the slaughterhouse. Just as she had zeroed in on her own home, the girl could rule in or out slaughterhouses far faster than even an entire squad of police checking each one thoroughly.
“Darc, can’t you see that is even worse?” Mala asked.
It was strange to hear his name come out of another woman’s mouth. It was grey, nonsensical, and yet strangely pleasurable. What would it be like for her to say his first name, Robi? So few people spoke it. At times it felt his first name did not even exist. Or that it belonged to someone else.
However, that was a logic path to take another time. For now, he had to follow the strong, bright light. Could the doctor not see that? “She can pinpoint the crime scene.”
“Nice try, but I’m not signing off.”
His job would be accomplished with so much more efficiency if people simply did as Darc suggested. He would not recommend such an action if it were not the most logical path to take. If she could only see the glowing, pulsing light that shone all around the little girl.
Darc extended his hand toward the girl.
The girl took it without hesitation. Now both stared at Mala, who blocked their way.
“No, no, no,” Mala said. “Even I have a line I won’t cross.”
Darc cocked his head. “Like you wouldn’t with Baasim?”
Mala’s stern expression fell in on itself, making her normally pleasing features distorted and impossible for Darc to read. He must have done something that stirred the grey, as Trey reached out for Mala, putting his hands on her shoulders.
“Dude, no,” Trey said, stepping in between the two of them. “Just wrong.”
Even the art dealer, who had seemed to comprehend logic at a level far higher than most people in the creative field, recoiled, putting her hand to her mouth. A signal that something was direly amiss.
That made absolutely no sense. “You would not cross the doctor, your parents, the prosecutor, despite your brother’s wishes.”
“You…” Mala sputtered, “You heard?”
Of course he had heard. He had not had earplugs or other auditory restricting devices on. Did they think him impaired simply because he did not choose to respond to their attempts to get his attention?
“Yes,” Darc answered. The child’s hand, strangely, did not feel out of place. The weight of it felt right. Why was the doctor so resistant to this course? “And how is that different than now?”
Mala’s eyes teared as her lips tightened in a most unappealing manner.
“Rule eleven, man,” Trey said, then repeated, “Rule eleven.”
Darc did not need to remove the laminated card in his pocket to know that rule eleven stated that one should never discuss personal information with a coworker unless explicitly asked to do so. And with chicks? Wave off. Wave. Off.
Trey had a habit of repeating himself. Once this case was over, Darc would ask his partner why.
For now, he needed to get the child to the slaughterhouse.
He looked at Mala. “The patient is always right.” Darc repeated the doctor’s own words. Surely she would understand those. “How is this any different?” The woman still seemed reluctant, despite his excellent use of multiple logic points.
“If she is willing to risk so much,” Darc repeated Mala’s words to remind her of the choice she must make. “Then ‘how about you dig deep and do the same’?” Darc used Mala’s words from before. She had been correct then. She would see that he was correct now.
The doctor did not answer. Or at least not with words. Instead, she stepped aside.
Finally, a logical response.
With a squeeze to the girl’s hand, Darc moved them forward. Not to the slaughterhouse, but to a place. The next place. The next logical place.
*
Trey let his arm slide off Mala’s shoulder as she righted herself. “Sorry about that…” When she didn’t respond, he continued, “You just got the ‘full’ Darc experience.”
“It’s all right,” Mala said, seeming to pull herself together. “It only hurts because it is true.”
“No,” Trey stated. “Don’t go down that path.”
Mala gave a weak smile. “We both know that Darc would have walked my brother down to the courthouse and filed the papers himself. Functional or dysfunctional. Right or wrong, Darc would have seen justice done for Baasim.”
Damn if she wasn’t right. That didn’t mean that Darc had to use that as ammunition, though.
“But this isn’t your brother,” Trey reminded her. “It’s Janey.”
“And if I don’t let her go?” Mala asked. “And more people die? What if she can’t live with that? What if that weighs on her soul more than what has already happened to her?”
God, Trey hated these “damned if you
do, damned if you don’t” scenarios. His headache cranked up a notch.
Mala turned to the art dealer. “Thank you,” she said curtly, before turning toward the door. When Trey didn’t join, her eyebrow went up. “You coming?”
No matter that this felt wrong down to his very bone. What was he to do, though? Now he was outvoted by two megaminds. With a mumble to the creepy art chick, Trey followed Mala into the hallway. Ahead of them, Darc and Janey walked with determination.
“Great. Now they’ve formed a vocally challenged superhero team.” He sighed. “We’re so screwed.”
The doctor gave a crooked grin in response. Then Darc veered toward a door off to the right, taking Janey with him. What was going on? Weren’t they going to the slaughterhouse?
“Hey, brainiac, car’s this way.” Trey pointed down the hall to the exit. But Darc just walked through the door, the girl at his side.
Following, Trey pushed the double doors open to find himself in the hospital’s chapel. Yeah, he hadn’t seen this one coming. Not even a little bit.
The chapel was larger than most that you’d find in a hospital, the roof vaulted, with stained-glass windows that allowed light from the late-afternoon sun to filter in, catching the dust in the air. Like most houses of worship found in hospitals, it was nondenominational, while still giving a nod to the predominant religion in the States. Sure didn’t look like a synagogue or a mosque.
The high ceiling and the light gave the chapel a kind of bigness—like, wow, there might actually be something else out there kinda bigness. Looking closer, the total square footage was pretty small. Intimate. Standing at the front, someone speaking wouldn’t have to strain to be heard in the back row.
Trey brushed his hand against one of the pews, feeling the grain of the polished wood that gave way to the embroidered cloth of the padded backing. It had been a while since he’d been in a church.
“Now what?” He turned to Mala, hoping for an answer. She seemed to be good for those lately. “I just don’t…Did I miss a whole entire explanation?”
But the doctor seemed just as confused as he was. Mala walked up to Darc. “What are you—”
“Elysian Fields,” Darc responded flatly, cutting the doctor off.
Seriously? That was his explanation? Did smart people just talk in code all the time to keep the peasants from rising up against them? Trey was seconds away from looking for a pitchfork.
But it must have made sense to Mala, because she not only stepped back but waved him on toward the altar, where Father John was kneeling in prayer.
“Reverend?” Darc called out to the priest.
Startled, Father John turned to see the group, his eyes misty. He brushed a hand over his face and murmured, “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear…With all that’s…” He rose to his feet and came down to join them. “I guess I needed some solace as well.”
Trey and Mala stepped off to the side as Darc and the pastor talked. Trey whispered to the doctor, trying not to interrupt whatever the freak was happening over there. “Is there a word in the English language that means ‘way beyond confused’?”
“Darc is…” Mala’s words floated in the still air. “Do you remember the first circle of hell?”
Aw, great. Now he was getting a quiz on the art history lesson from upstairs. He thought back to the thin-lipped art dealer and her wacked-out paintings.
“That limbo pad?”
Mala nodded. “It’s for virtuous pagans and unbaptized children. Like Janey.”
“I still don’t…” Trey allowed his voice to trail off as the priest started what looked like a baptismal ceremony. Light from outside continued to stream though the chapel’s stained glass, painting the three figures in swaths of colorful illumination. It was kinda pretty.
Mala continued her explanation, her voice pitched to carry to Trey’s ear but not to interrupt what was going on at the altar.
“But if she is baptized…”
Trey clued in. “She wouldn’t be the killer’s type anymore.”
“Or…if she dies…”
Oh. Yeah. That. Trey gulped, then whispered back. “She’d go to heaven?”
Nodding her head once more, Mala watched as the priest completed the baptism, sprinkling Janey’s head with water. Trey was having a hard time believing that Darc had thought to do all this. He felt like he was watching a minor miracle happening right in front of him.
The pastor’s voice lifted up to fill the chapel.
“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
Trey murmured, “Amen” and crossed himself. Janey looked up into Darc’s face, her eyes questing and uncertain. A smile flickered over her face as Darc took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the water off her forehead. His touch seemed surprisingly gentle.
Man, that Darc. He could tear someone to shreds, then do something like this. Something so direct, so simple, so completely disarming that you couldn’t help but forgive him for every little slight you’d gotten at his hands.
As Mala followed Darc and Janey out of the chapel, Trey turned back to the priest.
“Hey, uh…John. Thanks.”
The cleric glanced up from where he was cleaning up the altar. His face was a mask of conflicting emotions.
“I’m always happy to bring another into the fold…I just hope she won’t be putting it to the test.”
Mala nodded. “I couldn’t agree more.”
Trey waved at Father John, who lifted a hand in return. Well, that had to rank up there with some of his weirdest firsts. He never would’ve guessed that he’d see a baptism while on duty.
He just wished it had made him feel better.
*
Darc allowed the rumble of the Rover’s engine to lull him into a state of quasi-meditation. He called it “quasi” only because meditation usually implied a purposeful action to find inner peace. Darc did not care for peace. Inner or any other type. He sought answers. He sought to untangle the leaping, brilliant, unruly logic lines.
As unfamiliar streets passed by, Darc allowed the sights and smells to help him wrangle the shimmering symbols. They were back in the south part of Seattle, although they hadn’t crossed over the Duwamish Waterway this time.
Darc had not spent much time in this part of town before. It was the industrial area of Seattle, filled with warehouses and business parks and all things dirty, bleak, and grey. It was not the “pretty” part of Seattle. He knew because there were no pictures of it on postcards and websites. There was no green. Anywhere. Although the dim light that filtered through the clouds did seem apropos when fit to the environment.
Darc surveyed the exterior of the slaughterhouse as they approached. It lay in the middle of the street like a slug, its dingy exterior a tribute to the fact that what went on inside was not something that most people cared to know about. It seemed to lurk, waiting for their next move
To Darc, the effect was tempered by the glowing blue lights surrounding the structure. There were glimmers of green, yellow, and red, but they were flashes. Troubling, but not enough to keep him from entering. Unknowns were a part of detective work. Unknowns were a part of life.
His partner was on his cell phone and had been for several minutes, calling for backup. His arms waved in a wide circle as he gesticulated at the air around him, nearly knocking Darc in the head.
As the car pulled to a stop, Darc put his hand on the handle, but Trey locked the door. That was unexpected. This was a new behavior from his partner. His partner whined and complained incessantly, but Darc couldn’t remember the last time he had physically blocked him from an action. Trey seemed almost as surprised as Darc, but he held his ground.
“Yeah, no,” Trey said. “We are not going inside that…thing without backup.”
Darc opened his mouth to explain the exigencies of logic that demanded their entrance, but Trey just shook his finger at him.
“I’m putting my foot down, or finger, or whatever, down. No.�
��
Observing the hard lines in his partner’s face, Darc weighed the possibilities. He could attempt to force the door open; however, with no tools at his disposal, the action would more than likely take longer than it would for the backup to arrive.
Darc chose to question the girl again. There was a possibility that more information could be gleaned while they waited, thus eliminating wasted time. He turned to the backseat.
“Do you recognize anything?”
The girl closed her eyes and squeezed them shut, her face bunching up with the apparent effort to shut out the visual stimuli with which she was surrounded. Trey reached back and patted her shoulder.
“Don’t blame ya, kid. That’s what I’d like to do right now.”
There was information inside the girl’s mind. Darc knew it. It lacked only the proper question to unlock what was waiting.
“Did you see anything inside?”
She opened up her eyes wide, blinking rapidly. Her eyes darted from before she turned her head away, refusing the sight in front of her.
The doctor spoke in a low voice from Darc’s side. “Please don’t make her relive that.”
Darc did not relish his task. He never harmed anyone without necessity dictating that he must.
People dying, many of them children like the one in front of him. He had no desire to damage the girl’s fragile psyche. But there were no lines that he could trace that did not include help from this girl. Even knowing that the child was a plant from the killer and they were following his game plan, without her there were no moves.
And yet, at every turn, Darc was thwarted by those around him.
Darc turned his attention back to the girl. At that moment, police cars appeared from all sides, their lights flashing but their sirens silent. Apparently, the wild gesticulating on his partner’s part had been about the size of the backup he was requesting. This seemed to be the better part of the Seattle police force. Trey pumped his fist in the air, unlocking the car doors.
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