Blood Angel

by Bernard Schaffer

  For years, non-verbal communication courses had taught criminal investigators all around the world that a suspect was guilty by the way they folded their arms or what direction they looked in when they had to answer a question. It was all snake oil.

  Some cops graduated from those courses and tried to testify in court that even though the bad guy never confessed, and even though they had nothing but circumstantial evidence, the suspect looked right when he should have looked left, or yawned before giving an untrue answer, or some other bullshit. This kid Tucker had creepy, dead eyes.

  None of those bio-linguistic quacks ever said anything about a dead-eyed kid just staring right the fuck at you, Waylon thought. He didn’t think Tucker blinked even once and watched him, waiting to see if it was true.

  Tucker’s parents sat on either side of him. They’d arrived in a pristine Mercedes S-Class and parked it in the handicapped spot next to the Hansen police station’s front door. Thad Pennington sat with both his hands on the interview table, resting his heavy gold watch on the same surface Waylon had seen countless rapists and drug addicts sneeze and bleed on. Grace Pennington was a sniveling wreck. She rubbed her little boy’s back incessantly and dabbed at the cuts and bruises on Tucker’s face with a balled-up handkerchief. She had a tiny nose that curled upward at the tip, like a ski slope. Through it all, Tucker just stared.

  “This kid doesn’t blink,” Waylon said. “I’ve been watching him this whole time, and I’m serious. Not once. It’s freaking me out.”

  “He’s doing it. You just can’t see it.” Rein pulled pages out of various police reports and reassembled them. He examined them, then rearranged them again into a new order and examined them again.

  “He’s trying to Anthony Hopkins us.”

  “What?”

  “ Silence of the Lambs?”

  “Ah, another illuminating reference from the mind of Bill Waylon. I didn’t see it.”

  “Are you kidding me? Anthony Hopkins played Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs. He never blinked once on camera. It’s just one of those subtle things you don’t notice at first, but just shows how terrifying Lecter really is. The guy’s a supergenius, right? He knows everything about wine and foreign languages and opera. He’s like James Bond, except he’s also a cannibal.”

  Rein tapped the bottom of the papers against the desk. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “No, man. It’s great. And by the way, I’ve been watching this whole time, and this kid still hasn’t blinked, not once. He’s definitely trying to Anthony Hopkins us. We’ll have to ask him if he listens to opera when he eats people.”

  “Have you ever met a cannibal, Bill?”

  “No, of course not.”

  Rein closed the case file and slid it into a brown shopping bag from the local supermarket that had been donated when the local police departments couldn’t afford actual evidence bags. “They aren’t into the opera.”

  “Oh, bullshit,” Waylon said, rolling his eyes. “You never met no cannibal. Wait, did you?”

  “Sometime when you’re tired of sleeping at night, I’ll tell you about The Blue Worm.”

  “Whatever. You know, I’m surprised these assholes haven’t lawyered up yet,” Waylon said. “Most rich folks start screaming for one right away.”

  Rein peered through the window to study Tucker and his parents. “What makes you say they’re rich?”

  “The dad is Thad Pennington,” Waylon said. “As in Pennington Real Estate. Signs all over the place with his face on them. Jesus, you really aren’t from around here, are you?” Waylon glanced at his watch. “It’s been half an hour. I say we give it another twenty minutes. He can’t sit there being a non-blinking hard-ass too much longer, not with Mom falling apart. A few more minutes of basting in there and he’ll be ready to talk.”

  “Disagreed,” Rein said, moving past him toward the door.

  “Hey, wait a second, partner,” Waylon said. “This kid’s not ready to talk yet.”

  “He’ll talk to me,” Rein said.

  Waylon stopped him from opening the door. “Don’t you want to game plan this a little first before we rush in there?”

  “Why is this one any different? You take notes and I do the talking.”

  “Hey, I’m serious,” Waylon said. “What’s the rush?”

  “We have to get back to Krissing. I’m not waiting on this little fool any longer than we need to.”

  Waylon made excuses for his partner in his mind, telling himself the man was one of those people who was so talented that it made him an asshole. One of those artistic, genius pain-in-the-ass types who people had to put up with between masterpieces.

  Jacob Rein’s police work, Waylon liked to think, was akin to abstract art. The kind critics and college professors creamed their khakis over, but no one else understood. The kind of work important people celebrated, but that normal people had absolutely no clue what to make of. To folks like Waylon, it was all just a bunch of colors splashed around, without form or pattern, too bright and confusing to be assimilated into anything resembling, well, anything. Or everything. He didn’t fucking know.

  Bill Waylon’s police work was more like paint by number. He was aware of it and wasn’t ashamed of it either, because after years in law enforcement, he realized almost everybody else in the field was still doing preschool-level finger painting. Hell, that was being generous. Half those idiots were probably eating the goddamn paint.

  “It’s about time, Officers,” Thad Pennington said as Rein opened the door.

  Grace Pennington pounded the table with her fist. “I want the names and badge numbers of every single officer who contributed to injuring my son. I also want to know how we go about pressing charges against that Brenda Drake slut for setting my son up! He told us what happened, Detective. It was some kind of sex game. Her idea, by the way, and when the police showed up, she lied. I want to press charges, and I want to press them this instant!”

  Rein set the paper evidence bag on the floor and sat down across from Tucker at the table. He stared back at Tucker, both of their eyes locked.

  Great, Waylon thought. Now neither one of them is blinking. Hard to tell which of them is crazier.

  Waylon cleared his throat and pulled a yellow rights card from his shirt pocket. He laid it flat on the table in front of Rein to read aloud. Rein didn’t move. He stayed locked on Tucker and Tucker stayed locked on him.

  “Just have to do this little piece of business first,” Waylon said. He slid the card back toward himself. Walking the family through the Miranda and Juvenile Rights process was tricky, but integral. You had to inform them several times that they had the right to speak to an attorney, and that they could stop the questioning and confer privately anytime they wanted to.

  Saying it all without being cut off was one thing, but the real magic was in getting them to sign it.

  Anything you say can and will be used against you. But it’s in your best interest to talk to me anyway. Sign here please.

  Not an easy sell, Waylon thought. And he wasn’t nearly as good at selling it as Jacob was.

  Having two excitable, entitled, pissed-off parents in the room didn’t help matters at all.

  Waylon cleared his throat. “Listen, I realize you have a lot of questions for us, and we have questions for you. But before we can talk to you, I need to read you this.”

  “Is my son under arrest?” Thad Pennington asked.

  “Let me just read this off first,” Waylon said.

  “Do we need to hire an attorney for him?” Grace asked.

  “Now, hang on a second,” Waylon said. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves here.”

  “I know a little something about the law, Detectives,” Thad said. “You’re only required to read someone their rights if they’re in custody and being asked guilt-seeking questions, isn’t that right?”

  Waylon glanced at Rein, waiting for him to jump in. Any day now, you pain in the ass. “Yes, that’s correct,” Waylon
said. “For juveniles there’s some extra information as well.”

  “So if you’re reading my son his rights, that means he’s under arrest, and that also means you’re about to ask him questions to prove he’s guilty. Therefore, we should probably get him an attorney,” Thad said.

  “Well, now, see,” Waylon said. This was a tricky part too. As long as they didn’t specifically ask for one, it was not a technical invocation of the right to an attorney. The fish was on the line and it was dancing, jerking, but it was still on the line. Waylon knew he had to reel them in slow. “How about you just let me read this. I’ll explain what we’re doing here, and then we’ll make that decision.”

  Waylon reached to pick up the card and slide it back in his pocket, but instead Rein grabbed it and crumpled it into a ball. His eyes never left Tucker’s as he cocked back his hand and pitched the wadded-up paper card across the room.

  “We don’t need this because I didn’t come in here to ask you anything,” Rein said. “I came to tell.”

  Rein lifted Tucker’s black Bible out of the evidence bag and laid it on the table between them. Both Thad’s and Grace’s eyes widened in surprise. It was clear they’d seen it before, most likely being carried around like a precious thing by their son, but had never bothered to look inside of it. Rein patted the book with both hands. “I only had a few moments to look through this, but that’s all it took. The Master. Is that you?”

  Tucker didn’t speak, but his eye and lower jaw twitched each time Rein touched the book.

  Rein coughed into his hand and wiped it on the book’s cover. Tucker’s hands tightened into fists.

  “Last year, someone stole a bottle of concentrated sulfuric acid from the science lab at your high school,” Rein said. “Six months later, that same acid was thrown into the crowd at the Winter Ball bonfire. Most of it hit a sophomore named Alexis Dole in the face, leaving her disfigured for life.” Rein opened the book and read a line from the first page. “‘A visage perfected.’ ”

  He looked down at the next entry. “ ‘Blood of a virgin,’ ” Rein said, taking a minute to examine the red ink used to inscribe the words there. “I don’t need to get this page tested to know it’s written in blood. Is it yours, I wonder? You look like a virgin to me.”

  “This is ridiculous, Detective!” Grace Pennington cried out. “That is nothing more than red pen. A child’s prank, nothing more. Thad, stop this nonsense immediately.”

  “If I had to guess, the blood belongs to one of your relatives,” Rein continued. “Probably younger than you, someone you’ve been assaulting for a long time.”

  “That is enough!” Thad Pennington said, slamming his hand down on the table. “You will not sit there and accuse my son of such disgusting things.”

  “Don’t play foolish with me, Thad. You already know who I’m talking about,” Rein said. “Who is it? What little girl used to come around all the time, but now refuses to come to the house anymore? Who refuses to be with him? A family member? A neighbor?”

  Neither of the parents spoke, unable to do anything but blink stupidly, trying to process what he was saying.

  “That’s right,” Rein said. “You’re thinking about who she is right now. Don’t bother. I’ll find her soon enough.”

  Rein looked down at the book again. “ ‘The purified flesh.’ Obviously, that brings us to Brenda Drake. Poor, poor, Brenda. I won’t even need her to testify, Tucker. I saw it all for myself. I was impressed you brought the fire extinguisher along to make sure she survived. The court might see that as an act of mercy, but you and I know different. You were trying to imprison her in a body of melted flesh for the rest of her life. Now, I’m a bit of an expert on sadism lately and I must say, for such a pathetic little shit like you, that’s really swinging for the fences.”

  Grace Pennington gasped, and her husband reached into his pocket, digging for his cell phone. “That’s enough, Detective. I’m calling my attorney.”

  “Call him,” Rein said. He closed the book. “Precious little Tuck here is never going to see the light of day outside of custody again anyway.”

  “Listen,” Waylon interrupted, trying to regain control of the situation. “Before you call your attorney and we keep going back and forth like this, we really just want to help your son. Tucker, we want to ask you what happened tonight, because there’s two sides to every story.”

  Waylon got up to walk around the table and pick up the crumpled rights card but was stopped by Tucker Pennington speaking for the first time. “Apostate,” he said. It was nothing more than a whisper of the word, directed at Rein.

  “What was that?” Rein said, cupping his hand to his ear. “I’m an apostate? With pride, Tuck. With pride.”

  “My son is still a juvenile,” Thad said, holding the phone to his ear as he waited for someone on the other end to pick up. “You cannot intimidate or fool us, Detective. Even if he’s arrested, it all goes away when he’s eighteen.”

  “See, that’s where you’re wrong, Thad,” Rein said. “After he turns eighteen, the Commonwealth can enforce what’s called a civil commitment. You know what that is, Tuck? Oh, you don’t? It’s for people deemed to be psychotically dangerous violent predators. We don’t need a conviction. We don’t need a judge or a jury. We just need a doctor. One doctor says you’re too deranged to go free, and we can keep you for the rest of your life in a hospital. Let me tell you what kind of people you’ll be with in there, friend. People who make you look like Disney animation. People who make all the sick little things you dream about doing look like Sunday afternoon at the park. I’ll visit you there in twenty years, if there’s anything left of you after all the shock treatments and lobotomies. Just try not to drool on me.”

  Grace Pennington cried out at Rein’s words like he’d physically struck her with them.

  “Hello?” Thad said into his phone. “I’m at the police station with my son. He’s been arrested. They’re threatening him and terrifying my wife.”

  Rein dropped the black book into the evidence bag and stood up.

  Thad covered the phone’s mouthpiece and said, “My attorney says this interview is over and you are not to ask us any further questions until he gets here.”

  “Tell him to take his time,” Rein said and turned for the door. “I never needed to ask him anything anyway.”

  * * *

  Waylon made sure one of the uniformed officers was standing by the interview room who could keep an eye on the family. He ran his fingers through his damp hair and took a deep breath, trying to collect himself. His face was so red with anger, it felt hot.

  Rein was in the back office, typing. His fingers flew across his computer keyboard’s keys, hammering the details down of the juvenile petition that would get Tucker placed in the detention center that night. The paperwork for a juvenile arrest was minimal and the rest could all be filled out in the following days. Rein hurried through the last of it and pressed PRINT.

  Rein hovered by the printer, impatient for the pages to emerge. He saw the look on Waylon’s face as he came into the room and said, “Before you say anything, I was just offering a cold dose of reality to people who have never had any. That’s all.”

  Waylon’s teeth clenched. “You didn’t even ask him any questions.”

  “I didn’t need to. We’ve got charges on him for the Brenda Drake job, even if he doesn’t testify.” He tapped the printer, waiting for the last page to come out.

  “How many times have you told me we need to talk to these people and see what else they give us? There could be other victims. There could be stuff at his house we need to get a search warrant for. You didn’t even bother trying to lock him in on the acid case!”

  Rein yanked the last page free and carried it over to the desk to sign. “Right now there isn’t time for that. We have a larger case to deal with and something a lot worse than that little pissant is out there.” He grabbed a pen off his desk and scribbled his name on the line marked AFFIANT. “I need y
ou to call juvenile probation and make sure Tucker is placed tonight. Fax them this and give me a call after you take him to the detention center.” Rein slapped the petition into Waylon’s hand as he walked past him, heading toward the door.

  “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Waylon called out.

  “Back to get eyes on Old Man Krissing, which is what we should have been doing this entire time, instead of playing games with Anton LaVey Junior in there. You stay here and handle the light work while I stay focused on the big cases.”

  “Who?” Waylon said. He looked down at the juvenile petition paperwork and started to sort it. “At least people understand my cultural references, asshole.”

  3

  The security risk section of the Vieira County Juvenile Detention Center was filled with screams and high-pitched laughter that sounded like the insides of someone’s soul being scraped raw.

  “This way, Pennington.”

  The guard was a tall man with mahogany skin that rippled with thick veins and muscle. His arms looked ready to burst the seams of his polo shirt if he bent them.

  Tucker Pennington followed him down the hallway, past a series of locked rooms. Each door had a window made of reinforced glass. Groups of children were gathered inside the rooms, but Tucker was led past them too fast to see much. They passed a large gymnasium with children younger than him playing basketball. Another room had a gang of girls cornering another girl, about to fight.

  Everyone was dressed in dark maroon, short-sleeve jumpsuits and white slip-on shoes, just like the ones he’d been issued upstairs.

  “Here you go,” the guard said as they reached the last door on the right-hand side. He grabbed the keycard dangling from his neck and bent forward to hold it up to the door’s sensor.

  Tucker stuck his head in and peered from the doorway. The walls were lined with shelves holding books that were obviously donated to the detention center and never read.