The Burning Season

by Jeff Mariotte

  “Sam, arrest these men,” he said. “There’s blood on this saw.”

  “You heard the man,” Sam said. “You’re all under arrest. On your knees, now, hands behind your heads.”

  Ray was making notes on the envelope his Hemastix sample would go into, and he almost missed what happened next. If the man hadn’t dropped a wrench, he wouldn’t have seen it at all. The man did, though, and the clatter of the tool on the concrete floor snapped Ray’s head around. He saw the man rushing toward a rear door, hand snaking inside his work suit.

  When it came out again, it held a gun.

  The man had his hand on the doorknob, but he was looking back into the garage bay, his eyes wide with fear. Sam had drawn his own weapon, and the uniformed cop had hers raised. “Sir, stop!” she commanded. “Drop that weapon!”

  The man yanked open the door. At the same time, he jerked the trigger of his gun. The shot was loud in the small space, echoing off concrete walls and floor, but his shot went wild.

  The patrol officer’s didn’t.

  The man was barely through the door when her first round caught him on the shoulder. The impact drove him to the pavement outside.

  Ray crouched by his field kit. In this small space, even a few shots fired could turn into real trouble. Ricochets off concrete or steel could do just as much damage as direct hits.

  As if the two shots had turned off some kind of governor, weapons appeared in the hands of other workers. Vega and the uniformed cop called out warnings and took what little cover they could find. Ray could make for the door, but sticking his head up would likely result in getting himself shot, and he couldn’t move fast enough to dodge trouble.

  The scene was frozen like that, a moment suspended in time and space, until the sound of rushing feet and the tinkle of falling glass came from the front. “Police!” Mitch shouted. “I heard shots fired!”

  At that, the tableau thawed. The men in work clothes opened fire and charged the back door. Vega and the two unis returned that fire. A spray of blood erupted from one man’s thigh, and another crumpled to the ground just outside, almost on top of the first man shot. A sudden flurry of smoke and muzzle flashes, the deafening roar and high-pitched whine of bullets flying, the bitter tang of gunfire, gave the distinct impression of a war zone.

  The battle was over as suddenly as it had started. The man with the clipboard, who had never drawn, threw himself onto the oil-soaked floor, hands splayed out ahead of him. Two other men in work clothes threw their guns down and dropped to their knees, folding their fingers together behind their heads. The cops moved swiftly to them and handcuffed their wrists, then went to those who had fallen, kicked their weapons clear, and did the same to them. The female officer called in a request for backup officers and a medical bus for the wounded.

  Ray followed Vega out the back door. A tall fence encircled the property, topped by coiled razor wire. The hulks of old automobiles sat quietly rusting away on the pavement. There was a back gate, but it was closed and chained shut, the chain held fast by a large steel padlock.

  If the men weren’t heading for that—and it would not have offered a quick escape route, unless someone had a key on him—where were they going?

  Then he saw, behind a stack of car carcasses, the straight lines of another structure, low and flat-roofed. “Sam,” he said, “there’s a building back there.”

  “So there is,” Vega said. “You can barely see it from here.” He beckoned one of the uniformed cops. “Mitch? Come back here with me.”

  “Right,” the cop said.

  Vega and Mitch approached the outbuilding with weapons drawn, Vega once again calling out a warning.

  In return, Ray heard a muffled cry, and then a louder sound, an angry voice and a thumping noise.

  “Someone’s in there.”

  Vega nodded. “You’re surrounded!” he shouted toward the building. It was bigger than a shed, but not much. There was a single-car garage-sized door, and beside that a regular wooden door with a flaking metal knob. “Come out with your hands on your heads!”

  The knob turned and three men filed out, hands locked behind their heads. They wore jumpsuits, but these were spattered with fresher, red liquid instead of grease. Unis handcuffed them, taking them out into the open concrete area.

  Vega and Ray entered the smaller building. Ray scented blood before he passed through the door.

  Inside, Mickey Ritz sat in a straight-backed steel chair. His hands were bound behind his back, and a length of chain was wrapped around him. A dirty rag had been stuffed into his mouth. Fresh scrapes glistened on his cheeks, and his right eye was swollen, almost shut. Blood had dribbled from his mouth, caking at the corners and streaking down to his chin. His eyes were wild with fright.

  “Mickey,” Ray said. “It’s me, Ray Langston. The police are here. You’re safe now.”

  Ritz had not seemed to recognize him at first. When he started talking, the bound man struggled against his tethers. But then Ray’s words sank in. He went still, his eyes settled, and he started trying to speak against the gag. Ray yanked it from his mouth. It was wet with blood.

  “Are you all right, Mickey? Paramedics are on the way.”

  “They . . . they worked me over pretty good,” Ritz said. “Wanted me to tell them . . . tell them who I mentioned Ozzie to.”

  “You give them my name?”

  Ritz spat blood onto the grimy floor. The shed, Ray decided, was where they did their dismemberment. A steel workbench had old, dried blood all over the surface and coating the legs. Contented flies buzzed around it. If the garage had vaguely resembled a torture chamber, this place, lit only by a single bare bulb hanging from the rafters on its cord, could have been nothing else. Here there were chains of various sizes and more tools—saws, screwdrivers, iron bars and pipes, knives, even a machete—all apparently caked in blood. The stink was horrific.

  What was worse was something that, in another context, would have brought Ray a sense of satisfaction. On a workbench he found human shapes made of wire and hardware scraps. They weren’t set into a scene yet, but he had seen enough of Ruben’s work to recognize it. He picked up one of the wire men, and he was holding it when Ritz answered the question Ray almost forgot he had asked.

  “I gave ’em nothing,” Ritz said. “Bastards threatened to cut off both my hands. I told ’em where to stick it.”

  Ray had Ritz pegged as tough. But this went above and beyond. He believed Ritz—even sitting there, lashed to the chair, the man looked strong and defiant.

  Ray guessed a guy who ran a community center for those society neglected or forgot or didn’t want to acknowledge in the first place had to have a core of steel. He knelt behind the man and worked loose the ropes that bound his hands. “Thanks,” Ray said. “A lot of people would’ve cracked. Most people.”

  “These are the bastards who took Ruben, right?”

  “We think so, yes.”

  “I think so too. I wasn’t going to give them the time of day.”

  Ray got the ropes loose, and started to unwind the chains from Ritz’s chest and arms. “Ray,” Vega called. He was on the far side of the workbench, standing by an open door.

  “I got this,” a uni said, lifting the chain from Ray’s hands.

  “Easy with it,” Ray said. “He’s been through a lot.”

  “Just get the damn thing off me,” Ritz said. “I can take a few more bruises if it’ll cut me loose.”

  Ray left him and the officer to negotiate the chain, and joined Vega. The door was iron, about twenty inches square. Inside it was a small chamber carpeted with ash.

  “An incinerator,” Ray said.

  “I figure this is where the bodies went. After they lost their hands.”

  “That ash will tell the tale,” Ray said. “If those are cremains, it’ll be easy enough to figure out. Harder to determine who all went in there.”

  “We’ll look around more,” Vega offered. “Maybe we’ll find something else.”<
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  “All the blood in here,” Ray said. “We’ll have to try to isolate individual samples. If we can, that’ll help ID the victims.”

  “That’s a big job.”

  Ray looked outside at the sunshine. “Day shift can tackle it.”

  “Works for me.”

  Ray closed the door gently, to keep the ash from being contaminated any further. He was pleased to find Ritz alive, but that pleasure was cut by the fact that Ruben wasn’t on the premises. His belief was that Ruben had gone into the incinerator, like who knew how many others.

  He owed it to Lucia to stop by, tell her that he had found the gang, but not Ruben. He couldn’t definitively tell her that her brother was dead, but he had to let her know that the prospect was grim.

  It would break her heart. But, like in Mickey Ritz, he sensed in her an inner strength. She would survive.

  When he left the dark, stinking shed, Vega was waiting outside, just putting away his phone. Ritz was standing with a couple of uniformed officers, near the back door to the garage bay.

  “Carrizoza’s been picked up at Cougars,” Vega said. “He’s already lawyered up.”

  “No surprise.”

  “He’ll claim plausible deniability. He owned this place, but he had no idea what went on here, that kind of thing.”

  “He can try,” Ray said. “But if we find the slightest trace of him on these premises, that goes out the window. As it is, we already have his sweaty-palmed henchman putting the snatch on Ruben Solis. I’ll bet Erwin’s DNA is all over this place, too. He drips it off his hands everywhere he goes.”

  “That’s action I’ll have to pass on,” Vega said. “I don’t bet against sure things, and I’m sure you’re right.”

  Ray glanced to the east, where the sun had added a golden tinge to the sky. “Thanks, Sam,” he said. His voice was soft, his manner gentle.

  “For what?”

  “For being there tonight,” Ray said. “Or last night, I guess. Every case is important, but this one—it got to me. I appreciate the help.”

  “It’s the job,” Vega said.

  “I know it’s the job. But you’re good at it, and your input was invaluable.”

  Vega shrugged. “You’re welcome.”

  Ray wished he could explain better. Ruben Solis was in this country illegally, and Ray couldn’t overlook that. But that crime had made him vulnerable to a crime that was far, far worse, in Ray’s eyes. A lot of countries wouldn’t have wanted any effort put into figuring out what had happened to him. A lot of Americans, for that matter, and Ray saw their point of view, understood what they felt.

  A victim was a victim, though. Ray’s task was to do whatever was within his power to help crime victims, and to prevent others from being victimized. He hadn’t been in time to save Ruben, but—and he allowed himself the slightest, grim smile at the image—but Ruben had given him a hand shutting down the ring, and that would no doubt help others, down the road.

  The smile only lasted an instant, and then it was gone, and Ray was limping toward the door, where Sam Vega and a blood-drenched, battered Mickey Ritz waited for him.

  32

  “WE’RE GOING IN,” Saenz said. He had been huddled with his team for a couple of minutes. The gunfire from the skeletal structure of the hotel-in-progress had stopped. “We think the shots came from the fourth floor, but that place is wide open and they could be anywhere.”

  “I’m going with you,” Brass declared.

  “Me too,” Vartann said.

  “You wearing body armor?” Saenz asked.

  Both detectives answered in the affirmative. “Wish you’d put on helmets,” Saenz said. “This is still a construction site, officially. Hardhats required, even if there weren’t bullets flying.”

  “We’ll let your people take the lead,” Brass volunteered. “We’ll hang back. But I want the Kirklands alive, if at all possible. And that’s a big place, you’ll need every eye you can get in there.”

  “We’ll go too,” Catherine said.

  Brass whirled on her. “Absolutely not, Catherine.”

  “We’re armed and qualified, Jim.”

  “You’re CSIs, not cops. I want you out here and under cover, not inside there.”

  She wanted to argue, but tamped down her thoughts. “You’re the boss,” she said. “Is that an order?”

  “Call it whatever you want. Discussion’s over, Catherine. You and Greg stay out of that building.”

  “Fine. But if there’s trouble, we’re coming in.”

  Brass agreed, as Catherine had known he would. He worried about her safety—about every cop’s safety, and that of the CSIs who worked alongside them. But stubborn as he was, she could outdo him every time, and he knew it.

  Saenz and his assault team made a quick, final check of their armor and gear and rushed toward the Empire’s dark interior, holding shields up to defend against any potential gunshots. None came. Vartann gave Catherine’s hand a quick squeeze. She inhaled his scent, but before she could speak, he and Brass dashed off after the SWAT officers, the other uniformed cops accompanying them. She and Greg stayed behind the squad car, watching them go.

  Catherine watched the men as long as she could see them. Greg sat with his back against the car, studying the blueprints with a penlight. “Find anything?” she asked, crouching beside him.

  “This place is strange. It’s got an open central area where sporting events were supposed to take place.”

  “The modern-day equivalent of gladiatorial combat.”

  “I guess. Check out how the hotel wraps around it. Some of the rooms would look out toward the parking lot and the city and others would face onto the central sports field.”

  “Those were probably the more expensive ones. Or would have been.”

  “It’s just a strange place for a last stand, if that’s what they have in mind,” Greg said. “I would have expected camera crews, an organized presence of some kind, so they could show the world how the evil law enforcement agencies are mistreating them. They’d want it to be front page news.”

  “Maybe they just didn’t expect to be found so quickly.”

  “Could be,” he said. He used the light’s thin beam to direct her attention to the blueprint. “And look at this. There aren’t many ways in or out.”

  “That’s typical of casinos. Once you’re in the door, they don’t make it easy to find an exit. Or a clock.”

  “Right,” Greg said. “But the construction work was being done from bottom to top. Look at the building.”

  Catherine rose high enough to see through the car’s windows. The upper levels were wide open, and she could see sky through them, lightening slightly in the east. The lower floors were a solid block of shadow.

  “So what you’re saying is, once our guys are inside, they might not be able to find their way back out in a hurry, if they need to.”

  “That’s how it looks to me. But I don’t know why they’d need to.”

  “Unless—” Catherine didn’t finish her thought. The metallic chunk of car doors closing softly traveled across the parking lot. She yanked her phone open and speed-dialed Vartann, noting as she did that she had less than a full bar of service out here.

  When he answered, she could barely understand him over the static and moments of sudden silence. “Lou,” she said urgently, “get everyone out! It’s a trap!”

  He said something back, but she couldn’t tell what, or even if he had understood her.

  “I’ll go get them,” Greg said.

  “No. The radio, in the SWAT bus. They’ll all be on the same frequency. Get them out, now!”

  “Okay,” Greg said. “But what are you—”

  She didn’t wait for the end of his question. The engine of the Mercedes SUV had started. It purred like a contented cat, not far away. She supposed its occupants were waiting for the concluding act of their little drama before driving away. That distraction would also make it easier for them to get past the lone officer po
sted at the end of the driveway, though they would have no compunction about shooting him, if need be.

  The SUV was about twenty-five yards from the police cars, and facing away. She raced across the pavement. When she came to a stop, weapon drawn, she was just feet behind the Mercedes. Six people were inside. Only three had left the Orpheus in it, so those who had come in the Nova and the Mustang were abandoning those cars and leaving with the Kirklands.

  So far, no one had seen her. She meant to change that.

  The driver shifted gears. Catherine hoped Greg was having luck with the radio, but didn’t dare look.

  Instead, Catherine approached the vehicle, pointed her gun at the elder Kirkland’s head, and tapped on the glass with the barrel. He sat behind the wheel. Six surprised faces swiveled toward her, an effect she might have found comedic under other circumstances.

  “Cut the engine,” she said.

  Immediately, weapons were pointed her way, through the windows. She had known that would happen, had to stand her ground. Reinforcements, she hoped, would not be far behind. “You can shoot me,” she said. “But not before I kill your leader.”

  “I’m nobody’s leader,” Steven Kirkland said. He thumbed the window button and it slid down. Offering her, she realized, an easier shot, if she needed to take it. “This is an organization of equals.”

  “But some are more equal than others, right? I’ve heard that song before.”

  “Lady.” Troy Kirkland brandished a revolver from the seat beside his father. The rest, all men, were crammed into the backseat. “There’s no way you get out of this alive, unless you drop that piece and run, right now. I’ll give you ‘til a count of three, then I blow your head off.”

  “I’m an officer of the Las Vegas Police Department, and I’m placing you all under arrest,” Catherine said. Her calmness surprised even her. It was as if she had always known this moment was coming, and was utterly prepared for it. She didn’t want it to end badly—she had a daughter who depended on her, and she had lost too many loved ones not to think that her death wouldn’t hurt people—but she found that she wasn’t afraid of it, either. She was, almost startlingly, at peace. “Come on, guys. Let’s not make this any harder than it has to be. It’s been a long night.”