by J. D. Barker
“I told you guys to wait outside,” Espinosa said, frowning. “At least until I know what the hell we’re dealing with down here.”
“We’re dealing with a damn infestation,” one of the other SWAT members grumbled, before tossing another flare deep into the back of the room.
“You throw them back there, the rats are gonna come out this way. We need to force them back.”
“Force them where?”
“You’re shooting at rats?” Porter asked.
“That was Brogan, fucking idiot.”
“Hey!”
“Damn things are everywhere. Gotta be a thousand of them down here,” Espinosa said, kicking one off his boot. The rat sailed through the air and bounced off a far wall, then shook it off and ran toward the far corner of the room.
Nash stood perfectly still, his face pale white as rats scurried around their feet, running past in blind panic with their tiny yellow teeth bared.
Clair told them about the tunnels, suggesting that was probably how they got in and out of this basement.
Espinosa nodded and pressed a button on the radio at his shoulder. “Check the perimeter walls. We’re looking for some kind of tunnel entrance.”
“We don’t need to search,” Porter said, his eyes following the rodents as they crossed the floor, darting around the trash. “Just follow them.” His eyes went to the far back corner. They weren’t running in random patterns but streaming in that direction, a river of disease and filth. “Can I have a flare?” he asked.
Espinosa pulled one from his belt and handed it to Porter.
Porter tugged off the cap, ignited it, and launched the canister toward the back. It arched through the air and landed with a thud sixty feet away.
“Whoa! You’ve got a hell of an arm on you, Detective!” Espinosa exclaimed.
Porter chased after the flare.
Although the rats gave the flame a wide berth, they continued toward a singular spot, toward a closed door with a small hole at the bottom right corner, a hole large enough for them to squeeze through. And that was precisely what they were doing. In neat single file, they pushed through the opening, one after another.
Porter reached for the door, and Espinosa grabbed his hand. “Step back, Detective. We need to clear that room.” His voice was low, barely audible.
Porter nodded and moved to the side.
Gesturing with his free hand, Espinosa directed two team members to flank the door. He stood ten feet back with his weapon trained on the opening, then counted down from three with his fingers.
At zero, one of the SWAT team kicked in the door and ducked inside, moving swift and low to the left. The other officer trained his weapon above him and swept the barrel across the room before following his partner. Two other men streamed in behind him.
“Clear!” Muffled, distant.
Then another: “Clear!”
Weapon at the ready, Espinosa moved quickly and disappeared. A moment later the bright light of a red flare burned from inside.
“Porter—get in here!” Espinosa shouted.
Porter looked back at Nash and Clair, then stepped through the doorway, avoiding the rats running both in and out at his feet.
The room was colder than the rest of the basement, damp with mildew and decay. He recognized the scent immediately, the sickly sweet odor of rotting flesh. His hand went to his nose and mouth in an attempt to block the stench, but it did little good.
The five men stood before him, their eyes fixed, staring.
“Everyone out,” Porter ordered through muffled breath.
Espinosa turned, ready to argue, then thought better of it. He went back through the shattered door, motioning for his men to follow.
Porter stepped deeper into the room.
Hundreds of candles lined the walls and floor, most burned to nothing but piles of wax. The few that remained sputtered their pale light, a weak dance at best against the bright illumination of the flare.
He wanted to put it out. The flare, the candles.
He wanted to extinguish all of it and plunge this place back into darkness.
He didn’t want to see.
None of it.
Toppled on its side at the center of the room lay an old hospital gurney, its metal rails covered in crimson patches of rust.
Under the gurney, a naked body was handcuffed to the frame—a body that had been devoured by the thousands of rodents rustling hungrily about.
A bony pile of tattered meat.
35
Diary
Mrs. Carter must have understood the rules, because she didn’t scream this time when I removed the gag. She didn’t curse. If hateful thoughts floated through her head, she kept them to herself. Instead, she looked at me with tired eyes. “Thirsty,” she said.
I held the orange juice to her parched lips and tipped it just enough to allow the (now warm) liquid to fill her mouth, then gave her a chance to swallow.
“More, please.”
I gave her more. When she finished the last of it, I set the glass down beside her cot. “Banana or Cheerios?”
She took in a deep breath. “You have to let me go.”
“I know dry Cheerios may not seem very appetizing, but I guarantee you, they are. Those little round oats are a wondrous treat, perhaps one of my favorites.” I was tempted to eat some of them myself, but she needed the nourishment. I would reward myself with a bowl when I went back upstairs.
Mrs. Carter leaned closer. I felt her warm breath on my cheek. “Your mother and father are going to kill me. You understand that, right? Is that what you want? I’ve never been anything but nice to you. I even let you see me . . . you know, out by the lake. That was a special moment between you and me. Something only for you. If you let me go, I promise you there will be more of that, much more. I’ll give you anything you want. I’ll do things no girl your age could possibly know. You just have to let me go.”
“Banana or Cheerios?” I repeated.
“Please.”
“Okay, banana then,” I peeled the banana and held it up to her mouth. Her eyes fluttered for a moment, then she leaned forward and took a bite.
“I told you it was good.”
“You’re good,” she told me. “You’re a good boy, and I know you’re not going to let anything happen to me, right?”
I thrust the banana back at her. “You need to eat.”
She took another bite, slower than the last, her red lips slipping over the banana and lingering for a moment before pulling away.
36
Porter
Day 1 • 5:32 p.m.
As Espinosa and his team filed out the door, Porter stepped deeper into the room.
“Nash, Clair, grab a flashlight and get in here!” he shouted over his shoulder.
Kneeling down beside the body, he clapped his hands with as much force as he could muster. The loud crack echoed through the room, sending rats scurrying out from under the body. He clapped again and two more bolted for cover. His palms red and pained, he clapped a third time, and another shot out, bits of flesh dangling from clenched teeth. It looked like part of an ear.
A beam of white light danced across the far wall. Porter turned to find Nash standing behind him, the sleeve of his jacket covering his mouth. “Holy Christ,” he said.
“Let me see that,” Porter said, gesturing to the light.
Nash stretched and handed the flashlight to him, his legs firmly planted in place.
“Oh, bloody hell.” Clair coughed, covering her mouth. “Is that Emory?”
Without turning: “Clair, head back topside. Tell Watson to call in CSI and get down here. ME’s office too.”
“Yes, sir,” she replied before heading back the way they’d come.
“Brian, you don’t need to stay in here. I understand.”
Nash shook his head. “I’ll be all right . . . give me a minute.”
Porter turned the beam to the body.
Flies buzzed around the pale mou
nd wedged beneath the gurney and the concrete floor. As he leaned in toward the head, he noticed a fracture in the skull a quarter inch below the hairline. The skin around the fracture had been picked clean. Most likely the injury had bled and the rats honed in on the scent. “I think they fell off the gurney and split their head open on impact. No telling how long they were down here.”
Nash pointed farther down. “The right arm is handcuffed to the gurney. I think they pulled the whole mess down on top of them when they fell. Is it our girl?”
Porter ran the light up and down the body, then moved in close at the head again. “No, this person has short brown hair. I think they’re older. I see specks of gray, heavy wrinkling under what’s left of the chin. Emory is much younger, and her hair is darker.”
“Is it a woman?”
“Hard to say. Help me roll the body.”
Another rat pushed out from under the left leg and ran for the door. “Motherfuckers—” Nash jumped back.
Porter rolled his eyes at him and thrust out the flashlight. “Christ, I’ll do it. Hold this and follow my hands.”
Nash took the light and held it forward. “Sorry, damn thing spooked me, that’s all.”
“Didn’t you ever own a pet hamster or gerbil when you were a kid? They’re no different, just a little bigger.”
“They eat trash and carry more diseases than a Kardashian at Mardi Gras,” Nash replied. “One of those little fuckers bites you, and you’ll spend the rest of the night down at the ER getting rabies shots in your gut. No thanks.”
“In your arm,” Porter said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of green latex gloves.
“What?”
“The shots, they don’t get you in your abdomen anymore; they inject them into your upper arm.”
“Ah, progress.”
“They don’t typically carry rabies, either. There’s never been a recorded case of rabies resulting from a rat bite in the U.S. That’s a myth. Makes us feel better about killing them. Can you imagine how filthy this city would be without rats running around eating our waste? People are the real infestation, if you ask me. People do things like this.” His eyes were fixed on the body. “I need you to pick up the gurney while I roll the body. Get on the other side.”
“I never took you for a rat sympathizer.” Nash pinched the flashlight under his arm while pulling out a pair of his own gloves and snapping them on, then walked around the body and took hold of the frame. “On three?”
“On three.”
He counted them down. As Nash lifted the gurney, Porter took hold of the shoulder with his left hand and reached around to the back of the body’s leg with his right and pulled toward him, his aging back fighting the movement with a bolt of pain down his thigh. The body made a sick sucking noise as it pulled away from the concrete floor. The smell lofted up in a wave of stink both sweet and sour, rotten and damp. As the body fell onto its back, Porter realized half the stomach was missing. There was only a large cavity where the intestines and lining had been, pink and oozing melted fat infested with maggots.
Nash rolled the gurney aside, barely missing Porter’s head as he dropped the frame to the ground and doubled over, half-digested Kit Kat remnants splashing against the cinder block wall. The flashlight turned with him, and Porter was thankful for the moment of darkness. He needed those seconds to prepare himself before he could look back.
When Nash righted himself and turned back, he tried to apologize but Porter waved him off. “Give me the light.”
Nash nodded and handed the flashlight to him before wiping the corner of his mouth on his jacket sleeve.
The beam rolled over the body, slowly, from what remained of the face to the toes and back again. “Male, probably fifties.”
“Christ, how can you tell?”
The rats had made off with his genitals. Most of the meat had been picked clean, leaving bones, sinewy muscle, and an empty space where they had once been. It was an odd color, a mix of dark green, white, and maroon. Maggots wiggled and writhed through the layers, slowly digesting what remained of the rat’s feast.
“They made off with the eyes,” Nash said.
Porter directed the light back to the head. They had taken more than just the eyes. The empty sockets stared back at him with an unfaltering gaze. The white of the optic nerve at the center and the missing eyelids gave a cartoonish appearance—Little Orphan Annie from the old comic strips.
“How long do think he’s been down here?”
Porter sighed, regretting the deep breath the moment the putrid air entered his lungs. “Couple days, at least. I think he was alive for at least two before he passed.”
“Why?”
Porter pointed at the man’s neck. “See the beard stubble? He’s got at least a couple days’ worth. His hair is short, well kept. He even trimmed his eyebrows. A man like that shaves once, sometimes twice a day. He hadn’t shaved at least two days, maybe three. I’m sure the medical examiner will be able to get us something more precise.”
“Any idea on the cause of death?”
He ran the light over the body again. “No obvious wounds. I’m going to guess he was stabbed in the stomach area. That’s where the rats seemed to do the most damage.”
“They went for the blood from the wound first, like the crack to his skull.”
“Uh-huh.”
Nash took a step closer and pointed at the victim’s left hand. “What’s that?”
Porter followed his gaze. The hand was balled up into a fist, clenching something. He reached down and tried to pry open the fingers.
“Rigor?”
“It’s already passed. The rats chewed at the fingers, and the dried blood glued them together. Hold this again.” He passed the flashlight back to Nash.
Both hands free, he pried open the fingers. There was a piece of glossy paper clutched in the victim’s grasp. About five inches long, rolled up like a handmade cigarette. Porter plucked it free and delicately unrolled the thick paper. “It’s a brochure.”
“For what?”
Porter held the colorful brochure up to the light.
Nash leaned in closer and read aloud. “The Moorings Lakeside, a Talbot Estates Development. Where yacht and country club living combine.”
“Talbot’s real estate company?”
“Or his construction company, possibly both.” Nash reached for the brochure. “I’ve seen commercials for this place. They bulldozed dozens of warehouses and industrial facilities on the lake, buildings just like this one, and they’ve been replacing them with McMansions. The houses are huge, but on zero lot lines. It’s crazy. If you’ve got the kind of coin to afford a place like that on the water, why would you want to live right on top of your neighbor? I’ve got a buddy who works down at Harbor, and he said the water lots come with docks, but they didn’t dredge them out deep enough—you can’t get much more than a troller in there. If you want to bring in a bigger boat, they upsell you into paying a ridiculous fee to go deeper. Doesn’t do much good, though, unless your neighbors do the same; the sediment washes right back in. A couple years’ time and you’ll need to do it all over again.”
Porter forced his tired body to stand, his knees creaking under the strain. “We need to get outside and call Hosman. 4MK targeted Talbot for a reason; it must be tied to this development.”
“Maybe something sketchy with the accounting?”
“Big project like this? Could be anything. You step on a lot of toes pushing a large real estate project through.”
“Porter?”
Both men turned. Espinosa was standing at the entrance. “My men located the tunnel you mentioned. It was boarded over at some point, but someone busted through recently and covered up the opening with a few crates. The tunnel breaks off from the subbasement and heads north. Unless you need me here, I’m going to take a team and follow it, see where it leads.”
Porter wanted to get back outside. This room, the body, the rats, everything about th
is mess was making him claustrophobic. “Nash, wait here for the medical examiner. Get Watson to process the scene. I’m going with Espinosa’s team. I’ll touch base when we figure out where the tunnel leads.” He turned back to Espinosa. “Lead the way.”
37
Diary
“Hey, champ. Can you give me a hand with these?”
Father stood near the back stoop, my little red wagon beside him, piled high with small parcels about one foot square wrapped in black plastic bags and sealed with duct tape.
I must admit, I hadn’t used that wagon in a number of years. The last time I saw it, it was buried far back in our toolshed under assorted lawn care products and an old barbecue Father purchased on clearance at Sears many summers ago. Father liked the grill because it used gas; Mother disliked it because it did not use charcoal. To me, a burger off the grill was a burger off the grill, and I had zero preference as to how it was grilled as long as that burger ended up on my plate—perhaps with a dab of ketchup, a smear of mustard, and a little mayonnaise.
I didn’t like Father using my wagon without asking me.
I knew this was a silly thought. He’d purchased the wagon, but still, it was mine and it was rude to borrow someone’s wagon without first seeking permission. I would never do such a thing, and even at such a young age, I was bothered.
“I need you to do me a big favor, buddy. I need you to take these packages down to the lake, tape some heavy rocks to them, and throw them out into the water as far as you possibly can. Think you can do that for me? Can I count on you?” He handed me half a roll of duct tape. “I planned to do it, but I got called into the office. I’m afraid if I let this little task go until later tonight, we might find a tad of a stink permeating the house, and we don’t want that, particularly since we have a guest.”
