Graveyard

by William C. Dietz

  Lee groaned. With no witness to support his account, and no gun other than the .45, Kane would look guilty as hell. “So you’re on it? You took the case?”

  “Of course I took the case,” Codicil answered. “And I’ll try to get him out on bail.”

  “I’ll visit him as soon as I can,” Lee said.

  “No, you won’t,” Codicil replied. “Remember, you’re living with him, and he killed the man with a weapon that you gave him. Your public profile is iffy already . . . Imagine the headline: ‘Controversial Detective Visits Boyfriend in Jail.’ How would Chief Corso like that?”

  Lee sighed. Codicil was correct. Going to visit Kane could generate a lot of negative publicity and might be viewed as unethical. “Okay,” she said. “Please tell Lawrence that I love him.”

  “I will,” Codicil promised. “Gotta go. I’ll keep you in the loop.” And with that, the call came to an end.

  Lee drew the curtains and crawled into bed. Kane’s situation was disturbing to stay the least—but the weight of her exhaustion pulled her down. There were dreams, but they were filled with conflict, and when the alarm sounded, Lee was happy to escape them.

  She turned the alarm off and swung her feet over onto the floor. It was 5:00 P.M., and she was supposed to be at the Street Services Garage by 6:00. Lee cleaned up to the extent that she could, hauled the arsenal down into the lobby, and was pleased to discover that a shuttle had been set up to ferry workers to and from city buildings. Bear was there, too . . . And they garnered some strange looks as they boarded the bus carrying a wild assortment of weaponry.

  They got off at the Street Services Garage and were able to hand the artillery in before going to the meeting. It was held in what had been a supervisor’s office. Ferris was waiting for them and passed out copies of the report he’d been working on while they slept. “Take a look,” he instructed. “If you agree with what I said, please sign above your name and date it. If you take issue with something, let’s step outside and talk about it.”

  Lee read the report and was struck by how professional it was. Even where Getty was concerned. “At that point,” the text stated, “a two-person helicopter arrived to take Mayor Getty north.” There was no mention of the fact that she hadn’t informed Ferris about the chopper in advance—or her apparent lack of concern about what would become of the team after she left. None of that mattered. The purpose of the mission was to rescue Getty, and that had been accomplished. So what if she neglected to say, “Thank you?” She was the mayor and had things on her mind. So Lee signed the sheet of paper and handed it in. The rest of the team did likewise. “Thanks,” Ferris said. “Deputy Chief Jenkins would like to speak with you . . . Then you can go home.”

  Ferris left the room and returned with Jenkins in tow. He still looked fresh, and Lee wondered how he did it. “Welcome back,” Jenkins said soberly. “The team did a terrific job. I was sorry to hear about Worley. He’ll be recognized along with eighteen other police officers who lost their lives during the last two days.”

  Jenkins had green eyes, and they swept the room. “I wish everyone could take a few days off at this point, but we were shorthanded to begin with, and the situation is even worse now. The army and the marine corps are cleaning up down south—but nearly a thousand prisoners escaped from jail during the attack. They’re on the loose, and we’re already seeing the effects of that. And the cases you were working before the attack are still open. So it’s going to be necessary to put in some long hours in order to catch up.”

  Jenkins smiled. “But that’s for tomorrow. Go home, see if it’s still there, and take care of your families. I’ll see you here at 9:30 A.M. tomorrow. At that point, it might be possible for most if not all of you to return to your normal duties.”

  The 9:30 A.M. roll call meant Lee would have two extra hours, and she was grateful. Would she be able to get a car? That problem was foremost in her mind as the meeting came to an end—and Quigley came over to speak with her. “Have you got a couple of minutes?”

  Lee wanted to leave, she wanted to go home to see if Kane’s condo was still there, but she forced a smile. “Sure. What’s up?”

  “It’s about the way that Maxim died,” Quigley said. “I didn’t go into detail at the time, but it took a while. The ’tecs broke in, Maxim shot one of them, and took a bullet in the chest. I managed to kill the rest. Then, when I went over to help, I saw there was a lot of blood. Too much. I put a towel over the entry wound, but I could tell that it wasn’t going to be enough.”

  Lee could see it in her mind’s eye. The drift of gun smoke, the sprawl of bodies, and a pool of blood on the floor. The whole thing was sad—but why tell her about it? Unless Quigley felt a need to vent. She forced herself to listen. “Max knew he was dying,” Quigley continued. “That’s why he gave me this.”

  Quigley offered Lee a thumb drive. She took it. “Why?”

  “Max told me to give it to Getty,” Quigley replied. “He said it was a going-away present. And then he died.”

  “So why not send it to Getty?”

  Quigley smiled, but there was no humor in it. “I’m a cop Cassandra . . . A has-been, but a cop nevertheless. I was curious. So I asked the hotel manager to let me use his computer. There are five video clips on the drive—and I think you should look at them.”

  Lee opened her mouth to speak, and Quigley raised a hand. “No, I want you to form your own opinion.”

  So Lee shrugged. “Okay, Peter, I’ll check ’em out.”

  Quigley said, “Thanks,” and turned away.

  After seeking directions, Lee found her way to a desk labeled, MOTOR POOL. A middle-aged civilian was there to greet her. She was fortysomething, her hair was an improbable shade of red, and she had nails to match. “Hi, hon, what can I do for you?”

  “My name is Cassandra Lee, and I need a car.”

  The woman turned to her computer, ran a bright red nail down a list, and nodded. “You have the necessary authorization—but we don’t have a car to give you at this time. I suggest that you check back with me later tonight. Maybe something will come in.”

  Lee tried to imagine how she would get home and couldn’t. “Are you sure?” she inquired plaintively. “I’ll take anything.”

  “Well,” the woman replied, “there is the paddy wagon.”

  “The what?”

  “You know . . . The old-fashioned truck that the benevolent association uses in parades.”

  Lee had seen the old-timey vehicle loaded down with some of the LAPD’s finest all dressed as early-twentieth-century Keystone Kops. A rowdy group that the city’s citizens had come to love. “Really?” Lee said. “That’s all you have?”

  The woman smiled. “I’m afraid so.”

  “Okay,” Lee said. “I’ll take it.”

  The woman typed some information into a form, hit a key, and was there to receive the sheet of paper the moment that the printer produced it. “Give this to the guard.”

  Lee thanked her, went outside, and towed her suitcase over to the motor pool. And sure enough . . . The paddy wagon was parked in a corner right next to a badly mangled creeper. A member of the police reserve unit was there to accept the form. He looked up into her face. “You must be joking . . . The paddy wagon?”

  “Yup, I’m in the mood for something different.”

  The guard laughed. “Okay, the key is in the ignition. Be careful out there.”

  After putting the suitcase in back, Lee slid behind the wheel and turned the key. The engine started with a roar. So far so good. But, as she drove the truck out of the lot, Lee learned two things: The paddy wagon was top heavy and underpowered. That didn’t matter in a parade, but it was going to be a problem out on the streets, and it wasn’t long before Lee’s vehicle attracted the ire of fellow motorists. Not all of them, though . . . One man smiled and waved.

  Lee couldn’t take the t
ruck onto the freeway, so she was forced to use regular streets all the way to Santa Monica. She had no idea what to expect. Had the condo been leveled? The way other beachfront buildings had? Or looted? There was no way to know until she was half a block away and saw the lights. The condominium was still there! And untouched insofar as she could tell.

  Lee’s spirits began to rise as she pulled into the parking garage and into one of the two empty slots that belonged to Kane. Where was his sports car? Sitting in an impound lot somewhere racking up charges. She would need a power of attorney or something to get it out. Still another problem to take care of.

  After riding the elevator up to the top floor, Lee towed her suitcase to the condo, unlocked the door, and made her way inside. Everything was just the way Kane had left it, which was to say immaculate. It was weird to be in a relationship with a man who put things away. The place felt empty without him, and that was something she would have to remedy.

  Lee locked the door and went straight to the kitchen, looking for something to eat. But the power had been out for a long period of time, so when she went to open the refrigerator, most of the food inside was spoiled. The next twenty minutes were spent making trips to a Dumpster down on the parking level and cleaning the inside of the refrigerator.

  Then it was time to open a can of tomato soup, heat it up, and add a handful of crushed soda crackers. Lee watched the news as she ate. It seemed that most of the ’tecs in and around LA had been captured or killed—but the city of San Diego was still in enemy hands. So Pacifica and the Republic of Texas had entered into a formal alliance and declared war on the Aztec Empire. That meant norms and mutants were fighting a common enemy. Would that lead to a better relationship in the future? Or was the alliance a short-term marriage of convenience and nothing more? Time would tell.

  After dinner, Lee took a shower, did a load of laundry, and went to bed. It seemed as if less than a minute passed before the alarm went off, and it was time to get up. That had always been difficult, but Lee knew if she put her feet on the floor, the rest of her body would follow. It did.

  Lee arrived at the Street Services Garage half an hour early . . . A first for her. Then she parked the paddy wagon and went inside to request a car. A different person was in charge of the motor-pool desk by then and promised to do the best he could.

  After sitting through roll call, and all of the bullshit that went with it, Lee followed some other detectives out into a garage that had been converted into temporary office space. There were rows of mismatched desks, cables that snaked overhead, and the faint odor of exhaust fumes in the air. After some searching, Lee found the tent card with her name written on it. It was sitting on top of an old metal desk that had probably been in storage somewhere. The chair squealed like a stuck pig when she sat on it and made a rattling noise as it rolled.

  But by means of some sort of technological wizardry, the geeks had been able to bring her computer over from the heavily damaged LAPD building and make it work! That gave Lee’s spirits a welcome boost, and it was only a matter of minutes before Yanty arrived carrying two cups of coffee. “Welcome back,” he said as he put a cup on the surface of her desk. “There you go . . . Complete with all the crap you like to put into it.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Lee said as she took a sip. “You’re so nice.”

  “That’s what they tell me,” Yanty deadpanned as he sat on the corner of her desk. “I hear you took a stroll through Hawthorne.”

  “Anything to get out of the office,” Lee agreed.

  Yanty nodded. “So, slacker, while you were sucking up to the mayor, I came up with a lead.”

  “On the face case?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Way to go . . . What have you got?”

  “During your interview with Dr. Kottery at the UCLA Medical center, she mentioned the need to perform a tissue match, prior to carrying out a face transplant.”

  “Right,” Lee said. “It’s called KLA typing—or something like that.”

  “It’s HLA typing,” Yanty replied, “and it turns out that only two labs can perform the procedure.”

  “In LA? Or the whole country?”

  “In LA,” Yanty responded. “I figured we could widen the search if necessary.”

  “Right . . . That makes sense.”

  “I approached both labs and asked to see a list of companies or individuals who had submitted requests for HLA typing during the last six months. The first lab gave me three names, and the second one sent five, four of which were well-known institutions like UCLA. One stood out however . . . And it is called ABCO Medical Technologies. None of the lab folks knew much about the organization, and when I tried to call ABCO, all of my calls went to voice mail. So I drove to the company’s street address, and guess what?”

  “It was a drop?”

  “Exactly. The office belongs to a guy named Joe Pody. He sells insurance, provides payday loans, and stands ready to do your taxes.”

  “But you didn’t tip him off.”

  A pained expression appeared on Yanty’s face. “Give me a break.”

  “So we wait for ABCO to submit a test, follow the results to Pody’s office, and wait to see who comes to get them.”

  Yanty smiled. “You’re smarter than you look.”

  Lee laughed. “Nice work, Dick . . . I’ll take your plan to Jenkins. And, assuming that he approves it, we’ll track these people down.”

  Lee’s phone rang at that point, and Yanty waved good-bye. She lifted the receiver. “This is Detective Lee.”

  “I promised to keep you in the loop,” Codicil told her. “And here I am.”

  “Thanks,” Lee responded. “So give . . . Can we bail him out?”

  “Not unless you have two million nu lying around,” Codicil replied. “That’s what the judge set bail at.”

  “But why?” Lee wanted to know. “Lawrence is a well-respected psychologist, for God’s sake. A man with no criminal record.”

  “If only that were true,” Codicil replied. “Unfortunately, Dr. Kane was accused of murder once before.”

  “Murder? What? Of who?”

  “His wife,” Codicil replied flatly. “So that gave the DA grounds to request a higher bail. And he got it.”

  Lee wanted to ask, “What wife?” but knew she wasn’t ready to deal with the answer. So she thanked Codicil, promised to call him soon, and broke the connection.

  It felt as if her entire world had come apart—and she didn’t know how to put it together again.

  FIVE

  IT WAS EARLY morning, a thin scattering of stars was visible in spite of the city lights, and military helicopters were flying low as they searched LA for mutant soldiers. That meant the Bonebreaker had to stop work occasionally and take cover as engines roared and blobs of white light drifted over the graveyard. But the Bonebreaker was tired, so such breaks were welcome.

  First, it had been necessary to drag each soldier through the ossuary’s tunnels and up to the surface. Then the Bonebreaker had to dig a grave deep enough to accommodate three bodies. And making a difficult task even more arduous was the fact that the graveyard had been the site of a so-called recovery camp during the early days of the plague, so there was lots of debris mixed in with the dirt.

  Of course, that made the graveyard hallowed ground insofar as the Bonebreaker was concerned—and the decision to bury the Aztecs there hadn’t been made lightly. But after giving the matter a lot of thought, the Bonebreaker concluded that, like those interred all around him, the soldiers were victims, too . . . And as deserving of a hole in the ground as anyone else. Even if the digging was hard.

  It was almost 4:00 A.M. before the Bonebreaker could pull the ladder up out of the hole and roll the bodies into their final resting places. Ruiz went first, followed by Lopez, and Alvarez. He fell facedown, so when the Bonebreaker scattered loose soil into the grav
e, it landed on the soldier’s back. “Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God to take unto himself the souls of these mutants, I hereby commit their bodies to the ground. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, and dust to dust.”

  Having completed the funeral service, the Bonebreaker went to work shoveling soil into the hole. At one point, his shovel turned up a toy truck, still yellow after thirty-plus years in the ground, and an object that could have been his.

  Tears streamed down the Bonebreaker’s cheeks as he finished the job and paused to look around. He was surrounded by row upon row of identical markers, all made of cheap metal, all covered with a patina of rust. The Bonebreaker could hear the familiar babble of voices in his head. They were asking for justice—pleading with him to make things right. “I hear you, my brothers and sisters,” he told them. “God sent me to kill those who put you in the ground, and some are in hell already. More will follow.”

  And with that, the Bonebreaker carried his tools back to the carefully camouflaged door, the ramp that led down into the ossuary, and the bed that was waiting for him. Dreams were waiting—but none of them were sweet.

  • • •

  The sun was up, and after a long, mostly sleepless night, Lee was on her way to the MDC. Lee knew she was about to take a big risk and didn’t give a shit. She felt angry, hurt, and confused all at once. Kane had been married? Okay, she could live with that. A lot of men had been married. But why hadn’t he told her? And what about the murder charge? The whole thing was eating away at her—and that’s why she had decided to ignore Codicil’s advice and visit Kane.

  Although Lee had entered the MDC on many occasions in the past, it had always been as a police officer rather than a friend and lover. That meant the process was new to her. First, it was necessary to show ID. Then Lee had to fill out a form and surrender her weapons. Then she was required to pass through a metal detector and submit to a health screening before entering the waiting room.