by J L Aarne
“What do you mean?” Gonzales asked.
Ezekiel didn’t wait to hear what he meant. He pushed the doors open and walked through them and the motion alerted both agents. Brockden’s eyes went wide and Gonzales paled when they saw him.
“Don’t the two of you have more important things to do right now than stand around gossiping about my personal life?” Ezekiel snapped. “There’s a serial killer out there who has taken two more victims in a week, so I can’t imagine you’re short on leads to follow. That’s not what good, reliable agents do, is it, Al?”
“Uh… no, sir,” Brockden said.
He wouldn’t look Ezekiel in the eyes, which only made him madder. “Let me tell you something, Al. My crazy brother has put more sick people away than you have ever dreamed of. Men and women who would make you vomit on your shoes. He’s seen things that would break your mind right down the middle and he’s pulled himself together and pushed through it, so don’t you talk about my brother and what he can’t take.”
“I—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
Ezekiel cut him off without a word; the murderous look on his face was enough to silence him. “You’re suspended, effective immediately,” he said.
“Wait,” Brockden said quickly, color rising in his cheeks. “Wait just a damn minute, you can’t—”
“I can,” Ezekiel said. “Immediately. Now get out of my sight.”
Al stared at him, looked like he wanted to argue, but he ultimately decided against it. It was the smart thing to do. Ezekiel would not fire him and have him reassigned as it was, but he could and he would if the man argued with him about it. Brockden would be suspended and out of Ezekiel’s hair for a week or two and maybe he would learn his place and grow some respect in his absence. He watched him turn and walk to his desk, get his coat and then walk by him through the doors to the elevators.
Gonzales looked like she was waiting for her execution. The other members of his team stopped what they were doing at the sound of his voice raised in anger and they shared embarrassed glances.
“You got anything else to say, Gonzales?” Ezekiel asked her.
“I’m sorry, sir. I shouldn’t have been… I mean, I know your brother was—is a good agent and I never—”
“Good, then get back to work,” Ezekiel said.
“Yes, sir,” she said softly. She retreated to her desk and sat down, trying to look busy.
The whole incident made Ezekiel angry when he had already been in a bad mood, but he might have let it slide if Brockden had restricted his caustic complaining to Ezekiel himself. Brockden didn’t like him, he resented him, thought he was unqualified to be his superior and everyone, including Ezekiel, had figured it out not long after Brockden was assigned to the team. Talking about Jacob like that when he didn’t know anything about it had tipped the scales though. There was just some shit Ezekiel would not eat even to keep the peace.
Beatrix Crewes stepped out of the break room with a paper cup of coffee in her hand, stirring it with a red swizzle stick. “Good to see you back, Agent Herod,” she said.
Ezekiel nodded and started up the steps to his office. Then he stopped, turned and pointed at Crewes with his first two fingers and made a beckoning gesture. “You, come with me,” he said. “Catch me up.”
She blinked at him once, then hurried after him up the stairs, “Yes, sir. Uh… you’re not going out in the field looking like that, are you?”
Ezekiel didn’t answer that. He went into his office, Crewes right behind him, and sat down behind his desk. “So, two more victims. Tell me what happened,” he said.
“Jill Rothschild—twenty-six, single, exceptionally attractive—was killed first, on Tuesday night,” Crewes said. “Then Wednesday, a young man, Phillip Conway, was killed. He was twenty-five. Apparently he had a boyfriend though. Both of them cut open and eviscerated, body cavities filled with the lamp oil mixture, oil spread around the body and the removed organs and then lit with a match. The first one, the woman, was found in a foreclosed home in the middle of the kitchen floor. He tied her up. The man was found in a vacant building, kind of a warehouse with a dirt floor, tied up and well…”
“What?” Ezekiel prompted when she hesitated.
“There was a spike, like a piece of small rebar drove through his wrists into the floor,” she said. “Went right between the two bones. Then he did that one middle of the day instead of the dead of night like he always did it before. It’s kind of an anomaly, so some are saying maybe it’s not him. Not The Lamplighter. Like maybe it’s someone else copying him.”
Interesting.
Ezekiel put his hands on his desk in front of him and laced his fingers together. “What do you think?” he asked.
“I think it’s the same guy,” Crewes said. “Can’t imagine what bug got up his ass and caused him to throw a fit like that, but I think we’re looking at the same killer. They’re also saying he’s getting sloppy and maybe he is, but I ain’t so sure about that either. Scene’s still clean as they come. He just got real mad.”
“Did you look into the second victim?” Ezekiel asked. “I want to know everything about Phillip Conway. If he was angry maybe that one was personal. There might be a connection. Find it.”
There was a knock on his open door and Agent Zipporah Murray stuck her head inside. “Sir?”
“Yes?”
“Hello, sir. Glad to have you back,” Murray said. She pushed her glasses up her dark nose with one polished finger. “I was looking into the oil. Ah, sorry to say, but it looks like our pyromaniac psycho’s fuel of choice is pretty common. Can be bought at any hardware store or well, really anywhere. We ran the samples from the last two scenes against the other murders and it’s the same, but it’s not special. I have a list of purchases over the last week, but if he didn’t buy it with a credit card or if he has a lot of it stored somewhere, it’s probably… well, it’s probably worthless.”
Ezekiel put out a hand for the list and Murray walked over to give it to him. “Too bad he doesn’t use kerosene,” he said, setting the list aside. “Might have been easier. No one uses that anymore.”
“Because it stinks,” Murray said.
“Yeah,” Ezekiel said. He picked up a file on his desk, looking for something. “Jeong was supposed to get me stills of all the people who interacted with the victims before they—”
Murray reached over and plucked a file from beneath a stack of them and gave it to him. “All there, sir.”
Ezekiel took it and sat back to look at them. “You and Jeong look into Phillip Conway,” he said. “Look for any connections.”
“Uh, connections, sir?”
“With the killer. I mean, anyone who might be the killer. In case it’s personal. I want everything. His classmates, his teachers, girlfriends or boyfriends, his family, his coworkers—everything. Crewes, we’re going over to that crime scene.”
“Well, it’s been processed already, but all right,” Crewes said.
“I’ll let the detective in charge know you want access, sir,” Murray said. She retreated to the doorway and when he didn’t call her back, she turned and walked away, returning to the office she shared with Danny Jeong.
“Agent Schechter’s been trying to work up a geographic profile,” Crewes said when the silence stretched too long and Ezekiel didn’t dismiss her.
“And how’s that going?” Ezekiel asked. He turned to another photograph.
“Well, he seems mighty upset about it, so I’m gonna say not too well,” Crewes said. “Can’t say I understand it or him most of the time. That boy got Asperger’s or something?”
Ezekiel snorted laughter and glanced at her. “Or something.”
“Well, that explains the rudeness then,” Crewes said.
“He’s been getting better about that, but if he’s stressed, well, his manners tend to fall by the wayside.” Ezekiel put the photographs aside. Rainer was not in any of them. “So, what’s this mess Brockden made that I’ve got to clea
n up?”
“Oh, well, you see… It’s been smoothed over now. Well, for the most part,” Crewes said. She was reluctant to snitch on one of her fellow agents even if she didn’t care for the man. “Agent Kenner handled it.”
Ezekiel tapped his fingers on his desk. “What was it?”
Crewes sighed. “Well, in the course of things, Agent Brockden might have implied that the local police—the lead detective in particular—are incompetent and—”
“Goddamn it,” Ezekiel said, resting his head in one hand.
The lead detective in The Lamplighter serial murders was a woman named Candice Parker and Ezekiel knew her a little. Well enough to know that she would not have taken Brockden’s shit for a minute or seen it as harmless criticism from an older, wiser, more experienced comrade and brushed it off. She would have been pissed and he didn’t blame her.
“They didn’t withdraw the invitation for our help, but that’s only because Kenner took her aside and they talked a bit, I think,” Crewes said. “And they’re desperate.”
Kenner had been a detective in D.C. before Ezekiel selected him for his team. He was a lot more diplomatic and charming than Brockden. Ezekiel didn’t imagine that would mean he did not also owe Detective Parker an apology when next they spoke.
Ezekiel got up and went around his desk to the table across the room where he kept his coffee pot and began readying it to brew some of his black as hell coffee. “When my brother gets here with my clothes and I get changed, we’ll go over to that second crime scene,” he said. “There a lab report yet on the spike?”
“No, sir,” Crewes said.
“Where do you think it came from?”
“Probably something he found around the lot somewhere would be my guess.”
That was also Ezekiel’s guess.
“Pounded it in with a hammer, probably, but there wasn’t a hammer at the scene, so maybe a rock,” Crewes said.
Ezekiel filled the coffee pot with water from the water cooler beside the table, poured it into the machine and closed the top. It began to make a pleasant burbling sound and he went back to his desk.
Jacob walked through the open door with one of Ezekiel’s suits in a bag over one arm and a bag from Subway in his other hand. He knocked on the door with the back of his hand and walked around Crewes into the room.
“I got you lunch, too,” he said without preamble, setting the bag down on the desk before him.
“Agent Crewes, this is my brother, Doctor Jacob Herod,” Ezekiel said.
“I thought he was an agent, too,” Crewes said, eyeing Jacob.
Jacob was dressed casually in faded jeans, a brown T-shirt with an owl on it and worn motorcycle boots. His black hair was loose around his shoulders, tucked behind his ears in a way that revealed the thick steel hoops in both lobes. He had been wearing sunglasses outside, but they were folded and tucked into the collar of his shirt. He looked nothing at all like a doctor or an agent.
“I’m on disability,” Jacob said. He gave Crewes one of his rare, genuine smiles and said, “We’ve already met.”
The smile was for Ezekiel, he realized, because Jacob knew what his reaction was going to be when he said that. And he wasn’t wrong. “You’ve already met?” he said. “Of course you have. She came by the house to speak to me and what? You wouldn’t let her in?”
“I let her in the kitchen and offered her a drink, but no, I wouldn’t let her see you,” Jacob said. He glanced at Crewes and nodded to the door. “You should probably go. This is an old argument, but we’re about to have it again.”
Ezekiel nodded his assent for her to go and Crewes backed out of the room. “I’ll be at my desk when you’re ready to go, sir,” she said.
Jacob closed the door behind her and hung the suit on the hook there. “For what it’s worth, she didn’t want to go without seeing you. I threw her out.”
“You threw her out,” Ezekiel repeated.
“I was nice about it,” Jacob said. He opened the clothing bag then went to sit on the corner of Ezekiel’s desk. “You needed to sleep.”
“I need to catch this crazy fucking guy who’s killing people and lighting them on fire,” Ezekiel said. He snatched the Subway bag up and opened it to see what Jacob had brought him. “What is this, turkey?”
“You’re not going to catch anybody when you might fall down at any moment and yes, it’s turkey,” Jacob said. “On wholegrain bread. With mustard and mayo and spinach.”
“And cheese?” Ezekiel asked hopefully. He took the sandwich out and unwrapped it. “No cheese,” he said with a frown.
“There are jalapeños,” Jacob said.
Ezekiel grunted, still irritated about the cheese, but slightly mollified by the peppers. He picked up half of the sandwich and took a bite as he flipped open another file and began to read.
Jacob watched him for a minute. Then he got up and went to pour coffee for him from the pot. He set the coffee on a coaster by Ezekiel’s arm and returned to his perch on the desk. “Zeke, eat your food,” he said when Ezekiel hadn’t taken a bite in several minutes, lost in what he was reading.
Ezekiel glared at him, but he took a bite. Jacob flipped the file closed and he grumbled. “I have to do my damn job, Jake. I’ve been gone over two days and things have gone to hell.”
“Uh-huh, I’m sure it’s all horrible and completely unfixable,” Jacob said. “Eat your lunch and I’ll leave you alone about it.”
“You couldn’t even get me fries?” Ezekiel asked. He grabbed up his coffee, took a drink and scalded his tongue. It didn’t matter, he could already feel it working and waking him up.
“I got you a bag of chips and some cookies. White chocolate macadamia nut,” Jacob said. “So hush up and eat it.”
Ezekiel looked in the bag and found the chips, which were sour cream and onion flavored. “You’re still trying to feed me health food,” he complained. He opened the bag of chips and ate some. “Wholegrain bread, turkey, no cheese…”
Jacob rolled his eyes. “You always do this,” he said. “Doesn’t matter what I get you. I get you a steak sandwich and it’s ‘but Jakey, this has bell pepper on it.’ I get you tacos and you want to know where the sour cream is. Can you just this once do what I ask? You cooperate without arguing with me maybe once every twenty-five years. Make that day today.”
Ezekiel grinned and ate another chip. “And donate to the Feed a Brother Foundation—”
Jacob’s eyes narrowed. “I will kill you,” he said. “Right here in your hot-shot office with all of your baby genius agents right outside, I will murder you.”
“What do I get out of it if I agree?” Ezekiel asked. He was already eating though.
Jacob saw his angle and raised an eyebrow at him. “A full stomach and I won’t cut you,” he said.
Ezekiel smirked and took another bite of his sandwich. “You’re unarmed,” he said around the food. “You had to go through security.”
“I do not have to list for you the number of things in this very room I could turn into a weapon if I chose to,” Jacob said, smiling back. “So I won’t.”
“Is it weird I think your empty threats upon my life are kinda sexy?” Ezekiel asked.
Jacob laughed. He leaned over the desk, still smiling and said, “You want to lock the door and do something other than murder here on this desk?”
It was tempting, but Ezekiel sighed and shook his head. “Can’t. Everyone’s out there and you’re really bad at being quiet.”
Jacob sat back up and hopped off the desk. “I know. Besides, you need a shower almost as bad as you need that sandwich,” he said.
“And I’ve got important work to do,” Ezekiel said. He had finished the first half of the sandwich, but the other half lay forgotten on its wrapper. It wasn’t bad, but it would have been better with cheese. He ate one of the cookies and drank his coffee while he watched Jacob pace around his office.
He stopped behind Ezekiel and finger combed his hair. It had been standing up
in places and Jacob made it lay back down. “Your hair’s greasy,” he said. “Come home tonight when you’re done doing whatever important shit you have to do and take a shower. You haven’t had one in days.”
Ezekiel finished his cookie and washed it down with coffee. He tilted his head back to look up at Jacob standing over him. “What do I get if I agree?”
“Really? I have to bribe you to keep up with your personal hygiene now?” Jacob said.
“You don’t have to,” Ezekiel said. “I’ve got a ton of work to do. A lot of it here in the office. I can get most of it done tonight.”
Jacob threaded his fingers through his hair, petting in a way Ezekiel loved, and leaned down to speak low in his ear. “You know, in some cultures they believe that if a man doesn’t ejaculate regularly evil spirits and poison will build up inside of him.” Teasing, he tightened his hand briefly in Ezekiel’s hair, lightly pulling. “Tell you what, my darling, I’ll suck and fuck all the bad juju out of you any way you want me to if you come home tonight.”
Ezekiel turned his chair and Jacob was standing between his legs, leaning over him close enough that if Ezekiel tilted his head a fraction, they could easily kiss. He didn’t kiss him because the door was not locked and after a few moments, Jacob stood up.
“You have a deal,” Ezekiel said.
Jacob smiled and walked around the desk to the door. “Of course I do,” he said. He opened the door. “Eat your sandwich. I’ll see you at home.”
He left and Ezekiel did finish the sandwich and the chips and the other cookie and two cups of very strong coffee. Then he locked the door and changed out of his pajamas and into his suit. When he was dressed, he filled his thermos with coffee, turned off the pot and went to get Crewes.
