Deadeye

by William C. Dietz

  “I’m looking for Mr. Nurri,” Lee replied.

  The man had dark hair, a two-day growth of beard, and hungry eyes. They looked her up and down. “My name is Feo,” he said. “I’m the manager here. Maybe I can help.”

  “And maybe you can’t,” Lee said as she flashed her ID. “How long has it been since the city’s safety inspectors took a tour of this dump anyway? Maybe I should give them a call.”

  The greasy smile disappeared from Feo’s face. “There’s no need to get your panties in a knot. I was trying to help. Follow me.”

  Feo led Lee back through the shop to an office in the back. It was glassed in by windows salvaged from a teardown somewhere. Feo entered through an open door, and Lee followed him in. “Sorry to bother you, boss,” Feo said. “But Detective Lee wants to talk to you.”

  Nurri was a small man with a partial head of hair, eyes that peered over wire-rimmed glasses, and a dark complexion. He was wearing a gold ring, a gold watch, and a gold bracelet. His sport shirt boasted an upscale logo, and he made no effort to rise. “Thanks, Feo. I’ll take it from here.”

  As Feo left the room Nurri brought his fingers together to form a steeple. “So, Detective Lee . . . What can I do for you?”

  “I’m looking for a car,” Lee replied. “This car.” She dropped a flyer onto Nurri’s cluttered desk. The photo had been taken on the day of the West Hollywood Shootout. Her name and phone number were printed at the bottom.

  Nurri scanned the flyer and shook his head. “I haven’t seen the car, but maybe my employees have. I’ll put this on the bulletin board. Who does it belong to?”

  “A guy named Cherko, street name Popeye. Do you know him?”

  Lee thought she saw a glimmer of recognition in Nurri’s eyes when she said, “Popeye.” But there was no way to be sure. “Nope,” Nurri said, “I’ve never heard of him.”

  “Okay,” Lee replied. “Put the flyer up and call me if you see the car. It’s the kind of gesture that your parole officer will appreciate.”

  Lee watched the words hit home and smiled sweetly. “It’s been a pleasure, Mr. Nurri . . . Let’s stay in touch.” And with that, she left.

  It felt good to step out of the noisy body shop into warm sunshine. But as Lee paused to put her sunglasses on she felt an unexpected chill. As if something evil was looking at her. Popeye? No, that didn’t seem likely. But there was an even scarier possibility. What if the Bonebreaker was following her? Tracking her the way a hunter tracks his prey?

  Lee felt a rising sense of fear and struggled to bring it under control. Then, starting from the left, she began to scan the buildings on the other side of the street. They were low, one-story affairs for the most part, all part of a ramshackle strip mall, at least a third of which was empty. She could go over and look around—but if someone was watching, they would fade.

  So Lee returned to the car, performed a 360, and got in. She kept a sharp eye out for a tail but didn’t see one. Maybe it was nerves then . . . Plus an overactive imagination.

  There were fifteen body shops on Lee’s list, and she managed to visit ten of them before it was time to go home. But Lee couldn’t go home. Not until she put in some time on job number two.

  Her task on that particular evening was to visit Dr. Nathaniel Seton at his home in the community of Venice Beach. Seton had been the LA County Coroner prior to his retirement three years earlier. So he hadn’t performed the autopsy on her father, but he had done autopsies on victims four, five, and six. Something Lee knew, having read all of his carefully written reports.

  But what brought Seton back to her attention was an article that had appeared in the Sunday edition of the LA Times online. Although the story wasn’t about the murders so much as Seton’s collection of torture devices. One of which was described as “. . . a contraption inspired by the serial killer known as the Bonebreaker.”

  That sentence was more than sufficient to capture Lee’s interest. So she called the doctor, introduced herself, and made an appointment to see him. But first she would need to get some dinner, and Venice Beach was a good place to do that.

  The 110 took her to the Santa Monica Freeway. Then she turned south onto the San Diego Freeway, took the exit at Sawtelle Boulevard, and headed west. Venice Beach had been a separate city until 1926, when it became part of LA. Then oil was discovered, and the area entered a long period of decline prior to becoming a hip place to live during the late twentieth century. And it was still known for its canals, beaches, and oceanfront walk.

  Lee took a right onto Abbot Kinney Boulevard. She’d spent a lot of time in the area while part of the Pacific Division. And there, on the right side of the street, was a takeout joint called Guido’s Pizzeria—home of the BIG Slice.

  Lee pulled over, got out, and locked the car. A short walk took her to the front door and the familiar odors within. Most of the restaurant’s business consisted of takeout, but there were six miniscule tables, two of which were available.

  Lee chose the one that put her back to the wall and provided a clear line of sight to the front door. Then it was time to fire up the tablet and check her trap. The mailbox was registered under a fictitious name—and three messages were waiting in it. The first was an ad that promised to make her “bigger and better” for her girlfriend. The second was a formulaic response from a parts house. And the third was an invitation to attend a law-enforcement convention. So nothing from Popeye. Not yet anyway.

  “Can I help you?” Lee looked up, hoping to see a face from the old days. No such luck. The bored-looking teenager had been in middle school back then.

  “Yes. A slice of pepperoni, please. And a Diet Coke.”

  “Got it,” the young woman said, and continued on her rounds.

  Lee was working her way through a long list of routine e-mails when the waitress returned. “Here you go . . . One slice of pepperoni and one Coke,” the girl said. “Will there be anything else?”

  Lee said, “No thanks,” and watched two cops enter the restaurant. It was a big police department. Too big to know everyone, but she’d been a street cop once and missed the simplicity of it.

  The pizza was good, very good, and by the time she finished the slice, it was time to go. Lee paid the bill, returned to the car, and circled it prior to getting in. As the engine started, the radio came on. It seemed that 2-Adam-5 was in hot pursuit of a stolen vehicle, and the watch commander was ordering them to break it off. That’ll piss ’em off, Lee thought as she entered an area called Toledo Court.

  It consisted of mostly one- and two-story structures that usually had garages out back. Seton’s house was a modest affair which, unlike the neighboring structures, had bars over the windows and was surrounded by an unkempt garden.

  There weren’t any open slots on his street, so Lee had to turn a corner before finding a place to park. It was dark, and Lee didn’t see any other pedestrians as she walked back. Cracked concrete steps led up to what looked like a sturdy door. The dark brown paint was flaking away to reveal the red below.

  Lee pressed the doorbell button, but there was no response. So she waited for a bit and knocked. Then she heard the clump, clump, clump of footsteps followed by silence. There was a peephole, and Lee figured that Seton was looking at her.

  The door opened to reveal a man with closely cropped white hair. He was dressed in a shirt, a tie, and a jacket. For her? Or was that the outfit he wore around the house? “Dr. Seton? I’m Cassandra Lee. Thank you for agreeing to see me.”

  “You were on television,” Seton said levelly. “You shot nine people, including seven men and two women. Your partner was killed.”

  The information was delivered without a hint of emotion, and as Lee looked into Seton’s pale blue eyes, she wondered how many flat one-dimensional reports the man had written during his years as the county coroner. Hundreds certainly—maybe thousands. “Yes, sir. Detective Conti wa
s a good man.”

  “Come in.” It was more like a command than an invitation. Lee could tell that Seton was single as she entered the living room. No woman she was acquainted with would tolerate the mismatched shelving units that lined the living-room walls or want to live with the items displayed on them. There was an entire row of skulls, assorted bones, and lots of jars. One was filled with eyeballs. “Follow me,” Seton instructed. “We can talk in the kitchen. There’s no place to sit here.”

  The kitchen was small and in desperate need of a makeover. There was barely room for a tiny table and two chairs. They sat, Seton offered to make tea, and Lee declined. Then without the slightest attempt at small talk, the ex-coroner cut to the heart of the matter. “The Bonebreaker killed your father, and you are looking for him.”

  “Yes.”

  “But you aren’t authorized to do so.”

  “No.”

  The pale blue eyes stared at her. They blinked. “Everything I had to say is in the official records.”

  “I know,” Lee said. “I read them. More than once.”

  “So?”

  “So I read that you have a collection of torture devices. One of which is a cage called ‘the Bonebreaker.’”

  Seton nodded. “Yes. After performing autopsies on three of the victims I came up with what I believe to be a replica of the device that the Bonebreaker uses on his victims.”

  Lee frowned. “How is that possible?”

  Seton looked at her the way a demanding teacher might regard a slow pupil. “Inference is the act of reaching a logical conclusion based on factual knowledge. So by looking at the size and depth of an elephant’s footprint, one may infer how large the animal is. In this case, I was able to look at the victims’ bodies and deduce the manner in which they were tortured.”

  “I see,” Lee said. “May I see the replica?”

  “Of course,” Seton said as he stood. “I invited the detectives in charge of the Bonebreaker case to look at it, but they never got back to me.”

  Lee knew that the detectives in question were on the receiving end of crap from all sorts of whackos and probably consigned Seton’s message to the “We’ll check it out someday” pile. Still, the man had been a coroner . . . So the failure to respond was careless to say the least.

  Seton led Lee through the house and into what had once been a garage—but had since been converted into a private museum and workshop. During the next fifteen minutes Seton introduced Lee to more than a dozen medieval devices, including a head crusher, a breast ripper, and a knee splitter. Seton explained that all of the “tools” had been purchased in Europe and brought to California by a collector prior to the plague. Subsequent to the collector’s death, Seton had been able to purchase the entire lot from the man’s wife. Since that time, more items had been added, including some he’d made himself, the full-scale rack being a good example of that.

  And there, next to the rack, stood what looked like a very complicated cage. “Here it is,” Seton said proudly. “You’ll notice that it’s made of wood. But it’s possible that the one the Bonebreaker uses is made of metal. Go ahead,” Seton suggested. “Step through the opening and sit down.”

  Lee stepped between a couple of uprights into the small area within. There was barely enough room to turn around and sit on a sturdy chair. “Good,” Seton said. “You’ll notice that there are four sets of two uprights. Stick your arms and legs through the gaps. That’s right . . . The uprights function in a manner similar to the squeeze chutes that farmers use to restrain cattle.”

  Lee felt a sudden stab of fear, and was about to pull her limbs free, when Seton threw a lever. There was a series of loud clacking noises as a system of cables, pulleys, and ratchets caused the vertical pieces of wood to close in on Lee’s arms and legs. She tried to pull them free but couldn’t do so.

  Seton nodded grimly. “You see? Let’s say the Bonebreaker forced you to enter the cage at gunpoint. Or maybe you were drugged. It wouldn’t make any difference. You’d be helpless either way.”

  Lee fought to control a rising sense of panic. She’d been stupid. Very, very stupid. No one knew where she was—or what she was doing. She couldn’t access her weapons, and it was quite possible that the Bonebreaker was standing in front of her. And that made sense. Seton had been inside the system, where he could monitor the efforts to find him and laugh at how stupid the police were. She was. Yes . . . They would find the car. But it was more than a block away. Would they make the connection? The odds were against it.

  “Now here’s where it gets interesting,” Seton continued. “Notice where the clamps are. At your wrists and ankles. That’s important because much of what you’ve heard is wrong. The first thing the Bonebreaker wants to do is destroy a victim’s joints. You remember the knee splitter? Same idea.”

  Lee was breathing faster, there were tiny beads of perspiration on her forehead, and her eyes were darting back and forth. “Take your knees for example,” Seton said. “Imagine the pain associated with having your anterior cruciate ligament, the posterior cruciate ligament, and the medial collateral ligament all ripped apart at the same time!

  “It would be excruciating, not to mention debilitating, making it impossible for you to flee even if the Bonebreaker left the front door open. As for two knees . . . Well, you would be reduced to little more than an animal begging for mercy.”

  Talk to him, Lee thought to herself. Stall. Try to reason with him. “But why?” Lee inquired. “Why would someone do that?”

  Seton frowned. “To punish them, of course. Now pay attention because this is important. The easiest way to break a joint is through the use of lateral force. See the way your joints are exposed? If I were to swing this hammer, and hit any one of them from the side, that would do the job.”

  Lee hadn’t seen Seton go for the hand sledge, so it must have been nearby. She saw him grasp the wooden handle with both hands, pull it back much as a batter would, and prepare to swing at her left knee. That was when she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

  But the blow never came. Lee heard a rapid clacking sound, felt the viselike jaws release their grip on her limbs, and opened her eyes. “So,” Seton said. “The rest is easy. Having immobilized his victim, the Bonebreaker can proceed in any way that he wants to. Since you read the reports, you know that tourniquets were used on some of the victims to keep them from bleeding to death while their arms and legs were being sawed off. Then the Bonebreaker would release all of the tourniquets at once. You can imagine the spectacle! Blood would spurt in every direction, and if my guess is correct, the Bonebreaker takes a great deal of pleasure in that.

  “The flensing and boiling would be carried out later. And it wouldn’t be until all of the flesh had been removed from the bones that the killer would ritualistically break them.”

  Lee did her best to respond. But she was so shaken, so nauseated, that it was all she could do to maintain her composure long enough to thank Seton and leave. The experience had not only been extremely frightening—it had shaken Lee’s belief in her own competency.

  Looking back, it was easy to see where she’d gone wrong. Just because Seton had once been in a position of authority, she’d been stupid enough to trust him. It was a mistake she would avoid in the future.

  So was he the one? Had she been face-to-face with the Bonebreaker and managed to slip through his fingers? No. He had allowed her to leave . . . And the Bonebreaker wouldn’t have done that.

  The trip home was spent thinking about Seton’s cage and wondering if her father had been tortured in one like it. She made a note to reread the autopsy report to see if his injuries were consistent with those that Seton described.

  When morning came, and the alarm went off, Lee attempted to slap it and failed. And that was because she had placed it on top of the dresser rather than on her nightstand. The sound was loud enough to penetrate the pillow
she had pulled over her head.

  So after half a minute of nonstop beeping, she got up, turned the alarm off, and padded into the bathroom. She emerged fifteen minutes later, feeling refreshed and curious. Was a message from Popeye waiting for her?

  Lee found the tablet sitting next to the Smith & Wesson. She pushed the power button and went looking for clean clothes. That wasn’t easy because her laundry was piling up.

  Once she was dressed, Lee went online and checked the “bait box.” There it was: “I have the following items to sell,” the e-mail said, followed by a list of parts. The message was from a person named, “Henry Peters.”

  Lee brought up a copy of the message Cherko had sent to Mr. Fuentes and read it. The two e-mails were virtually identical. The only difference being Gary’s name and that of the sender. “Peter Henry” rather than “Henry Peters.”

  Lee uttered a whoop of joy and sent her response along with a blind copy to Jenkins. Then it was a mad rush to get in the car and drive downtown. Jenkins had offered to give her some help, and she was going to accept it.

  * * *

  Popeye was extremely tired and had been for days. But he couldn’t sleep. The primary reason for that was a substance called speed, clavo, ice, glass, jib, crank, tweak, and half a dozen more. All of which were slang terms for methamphetamine or meth. It was a highly addictive drug, which, in spite of all the efforts by law-enforcement personnel, was still available throughout the nation of Pacifica.

  Taken in low doses, meth could increase concentration and boost the user’s energy level. That was the good news. The bad news was that people who were addicted to crank were subject to headaches, heart irregularities, elevated body temperature, diarrhea, constipation, blurred vision, dizziness, twitching, numbness, and insomnia. Which was why Popeye hadn’t been able to sleep.

  Black plastic had been taped to the windows in order to keep the room dark, but daylight still found its way in through tiny holes and projected gold dots onto the wall to his right. Popeye looked to see if Gina was awake and saw that she wasn’t. How old was she anyway? Fifteen? Something like that. She looked even younger in her tee shirt and pink panties.