Case one, a bunch of happy night-lifers executed. Forensics had completed time of death as near as they were able; most of those people had died within the same narrow window. A homicide on a grand scale, the ferocity of the killings strangely at odds with how the killer — or killers — had stacked the bodies in a neat pile. Carlisle was liking her multiple-killers theory on this, because it just didn’t make sense otherwise. You didn’t get one guy who killed people that messy, but who also tidied up after himself. If you did, she was going to be famous with a new killer type — there might even be that job promotion at the end of it. The case was bizarre — no survivors, which meant no witnesses. Except for one Valentine Everard, and there was doubt if Everard had ever been there now, because the man clearly had both hands. Best to assume Everard was a red herring here, guilty only of police procedural error when they initially recorded his evidence details. If it was a simple error, it meant the lab or — God — a cop had mixed up results. Untangling that mess looked ugly, but it’d be someone’s job well below her pay grade once they had their hands on new prints.
What really gnawed at Carlisle was that she didn’t like coincidences. In her experience, there was no such thing. And it seemed an unlikely coincidence that an evidence error on a crime scene had tagged Everard — who turned up related to a case involving multiple homicides.
That case two, now that was equally interesting. A bunch of low life scum killed in the middle of a street. That they were killed didn’t really bother her at all — from what was left of them, they’d dragged up some prints and found a collection of crimes that meant the world as a whole wouldn’t weep for their loss. All of them were destined to end up in a gang, or prison, or dead anyway — someone had just sped that process up some. Finding out if Everard had been there wasn’t a question of prints or even DNA — she had a witness on the scene who placed him there. Witnesses were unreliable, but Carlisle was riding free on a hunch that John Miles wasn’t the kind of guy to make stuff up. No, the interesting bit was that there were no witnesses other than her one survivor, who’d been — conveniently — unconscious for the whole thing. So — no witnesses.
Again.
How was it that someone killed whole groups of people without a single witness managing to stay alive? It spoke of a thoroughness that was — in some warped way — as admirable as it was unusual.
The drunk guy on the street didn’t count. A homeless vagrant at the scene of case two claimed to have seen everything, and had exuded half truths, lies, and fabrications on breath strong with old booze. Carlisle wasn’t buying that some wild man had come busting out of an alley and tore people in half. If the bum had wanted to be taken downtown for a statement and the free hot meal that implied, he might have put a bit more effort into a believable lie. Carlisle had left him to deal with a pissed off Elliot as she’d walked the scene.
Truth be told, both of them were getting pissed off — a good night’s sleep would go a long way. Why didn’t these assholes have the common decency to murder people in the light of day? Back when she’d been younger, she’d had more fire in her belly and a willingness to get up before the dawn. She’d thought they spoke for those who’d been robbed of their voices by the cold of the grave.
Carlisle sighed again. The longer she did this job, the less clear cut it seemed whom the wicked were. It wasn’t often that people got killed who didn’t deserve it. Still — it was hard to chalk up a whole nightclub of people as villains. Those people still needed justice. Case two, not so much.
Her phone rang, derailing her train of thought. She dragged the big car to the side of the road, nosing it half into a park and fumbling in her jacket for the phone. She managed to get it on the fifth ring.
“I thought you didn’t love me anymore.” Elliot’s voice seemed subdued, the wisecrack more habit than feeling.
“I hate your voicemails more than I hate talking to you. It’s like you leave everything in some ten minute epistle I have to listen to rather than just asking me to call you back.”
“I figure you love detail.”
“I admire detail. I love brevity. There’s a difference.” Carlisle rummaged about in the glove box for her notebook and a pen. “What’s up?”
“Yeah. So I found a piece of CCTV footage.”
“An actual piece of video we can use? What’s it got?” The pause drew out. Carlisle tried again. “You still there? Did you hear me?”
Elliot’s sigh came through, tinny over the cell. “I heard you. I just … I just don’t know if you’re going to … shit.”
“Vince. What’s going on?”
“You’d best have a look.”
“This isn’t funny, Vince. Just tell me.”
“Nah, boss. You won’t believe me. I’m not sure if I believe it. I don’t want you to think I’ve lost it. Just … you need to see this. Get down here fast.” Elliot rang off, leaving her staring at her phone.
Carlisle pocketed the phone then looked down at her notebook. The page was blank, and she tossed the thing into the footwell of the passenger seat. It wasn’t going to be much use to her without stuff written in it. Rubbing her chin she considered Elliot’s words. You need to see this — get down here fast. The man was not usually prone to strange outbursts — if anything, Carlisle liked having him as a partner because he was so delightfully unimaginative. Dependable, sure. Loyal, absolutely. Emotional or creative, shit no. Whenever Elliot’s gut was telling him something, it was a sure sign that was exactly the opposite of what was going on — he had the intuition of a cinder block.
Best get downtown then. See what all this was about. Carlisle tugged the big car into gear, then grinned. Elliot had said fast. Fast it would be.
She flicked on the lights and siren, the big car roaring back into the street.
• • •
Carlisle found Elliot in the video evidence room. He was surrounded by a collection of DVDs arranged in piles, some of the cases open, their contents scattered about. Elliot had fortified his position with empty coffee cups. An old chipped saucer sat on top of a monitor screen, an unhealthy pile of ash building up in there.
“When did you start smoking again?”
Elliot’s shoulders were slumped. He looked tired, worn thin. “This morning.” He took a couple of gulps from the Styrofoam cup in his hand, grimacing. “Crap. Cold.”
“Well, don’t let them catch you smoking in here. It’s not worth the pain of the paperwork, and you know it.” Carlisle looked at the ceiling. “You pulled out the smoke alarm in here? You must have needed that cigarette bad.”
Elliot fumbled through his jacket with his free hand, liberating a crumpled box of cheap cigarettes and a lighter. “They can go fuck themselves. If they watched this video they’d be smoking too.” His hand was shaking as he mumbled a cigarette into his mouth, lighting it on the third strike from the lighter. He took a deep drag, then blew smoke into the ceiling fan.
“What video?”
“I … I thought about just throwing it out. Losing the evidence. It’s happened before. It’d be easier.”
“What video?”
Elliot borrowed more strength from his cigarette. “It wouldn’t be good police work, but it’d mean I could just forget about this. Put the case on hold.”
“Vince.” Carlisle put a hand on his arm. “What video?”
“Yeah. The video.” Elliot flicked on one of the monitors, fiddling with some buttons on a remote control. “This video.”
The scene before them was high up, probably on a lamppost. The grainy black and white footage showed the street where Carlisle and Elliot had spent the early hours of this morning as they’d cleaned up bodies. Front and center was a bus stop, lighting from its panels spilling out into the street. She could see two men — Miles and Everard — crossing the road from off-camera towards the bus stop. The video was time-lapsed, each frame a few seconds from the last, giving their walk across the street all the authenticity of an old stop motion movie.
From up the street a group of thugs — all bodies now, still and cold in the morgue — came onto the screen, running towards Miles and Everard. They were surrounded, the inevitability of the situation clear to Carlisle. She could see one of the thugs pushing Everard, and then Miles stepping up to help. She could feel where the fight of it started, and noted how quickly it was over as Miles was knocked unconscious.
“I’m waiting for this to get interesting.” She pushed a pile of DVDs aside, sitting herself on the table.
“Quiet.” Elliot’s voice was hushed. “It’s coming.”
They both watched as Everard was stabbed and then dragged himself off camera behind the bus shelter. Elliot gestured at the screen with a remote control. “It’s not easy to see here, but there’s an alley behind there.”
“That’s a fucking lousy place to not have CCTV, isn’t it? A dark alley couldn’t be a more clichéd place to have shit going down.”
“I don’t install ‘em. Wait. Here it is.”
One of the thugs broke off from the group. It was hard to tell which one it was through the tumble and jumble of forms but Carlisle suspected it was the one who’d done the stabbing. “This video quality is crap. This is exactly why we can’t get prosecutions from these things — I can’t tell which one of those fools that is, and he could be carrying a Barbie Doll for all I know.”
Elliot didn’t reply, his attention fully on the screen. That’s when Carlisle saw it.
“What the fucking fuck is that?” She grabbed the remote control from Elliot, jamming a thumb onto the pause button. The image froze, the creature clearly visible. It was holding up one of the thugs by one hand, the CCTV catching a full view of it. It was humanoid, standing taller than the thugs around it. If it’d been a man, Carlisle would have said it was over four hundred and fifty pounds of lean muscle — not something to get in the ring with. Shaggy hair draped its body. But it wasn’t — it can’t be! — a man. No man looked like that. Unbidden, the vagrant’s words came back to him from this morning. A wild man, he’d said.
“Thank God.” Some of the tension seemed to blow out of Elliot. “I was … I was sure I was going mad.” He took another drag from his cigarette. “Even so … I’m not sure what’s worse. Going mad, or having to work out what that—” and he waved his cup at the screen “—is.”
Carlisle leaned closer to the screen. “It’s some kind of animal.”
“That’s what I said at first. What kind of animal is it?”
“I. Um.” Carlisle stood up. “A wolf?”
“Right. It’s the head that makes you think that, right?”
“Right.”
“How many wolves you seen with fucking hands, girl? It’s got fucking hands!” Coffee sloshed out of the sides of the cup as Elliot gestured, some of it running down his fingers. “I had a friend once, owned a dog. Cleverest fucking dog you’ve ever seen, could open a beer cooler and bring him a cold frosty. He trained that dog to do all kinds of tricks. One of them was to walk on its hind legs. It could do a few steps before it would fall back over. Dog’s got no toes, right? So just remember your wolf theory when you see the rest of it.” He took the remote back from Carlisle, clicking a button.
They watched the rest of it in silence. Saw the creature tear through the thugs, the ferocity of it clear even through the stilted images of the CCTV. It was impossibly strong, impossibly fast. Carlisle gestured for the remote. “Lemme see that.”
Elliot handed it over. “I’ve been through this thing frame by frame. It’s not a trick, not some guy in a suit.”
“No, it’s not that.” Carlisle fiddled with the remote for a few seconds until she found the rewind function. “Just a hunch. Bear with me.”
“Sure, whatever. I’m going to get another coffee. You want one?”
“What? Oh. Yeah.” Carlisle hit the pause button, then turned to Elliot. “Vince.”
“I know.” Elliot was looking at his shoes. “We probably shouldn’t talk to anyone about this.”
Carlisle nodded. “Not just yet. We want to find out what the fuck that thing is. A story like this, without some evidence better than this Blair Witch shaky cam? We’ll get busted back to walking a beat. Also, you’ve probably had enough coffee.” Elliot nodded, shuffling out. The light streaming in through the open door seemed to be from another place — a reminder of just ten minutes earlier, before the world turned crazy.
Pulling a chair in front of the monitor, Carlisle skipped the video back until she found what she was after. She played the segment through three times to be sure. The creature had killed all the thugs without a qualm, that was clear. The really curious part was how it had sniffed Miles’ unconscious body on the ground. Carlisle froze the video again at that point. She could see the creature crouched over Miles.
“What the actual fuck.” The idea was crazy — as crazy as anything in the last few minutes. But the creature wasn’t attacking John Miles.
It was protecting him.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Val wished John would answer his phone. He’d lost his own phone somewhere along the way and had picked up a new one this morning. It’d be bad coincidence if John had lost his phone too — what the hell had they been up to last night? He really needed some advice. It’d been a long time since he’d been on a date, but he remembered enough about it to know that turning up at her work around lunch time was a sure sign of desperation, so he was going to leave it a while longer. Beyond that, he was lost. Still, John wasn’t answering.
So, coffee.
He knew a little place, run by some Italians — they roasted their own beans, you could smell the place on the air before you got close enough to see it. He hitched his pants up again. It seemed crazy, but he was sure his pants were looser now than when he’d seen Barnaby Phillips in the morning.
No: that was definitely crazy.
Val reached the coffee shop, the door frame chipped and peeling. A little bell rang as he walked in, the smell of fresh brewed coffee hitting him. There were a few smells sent right from Heaven. Baking bread. Mowed lawns. Coffee.
“Oh hey, mister Everard!” It was Tulip, the daughter of the owners. She was running the register today.
“How you doing, Tulip? How’s school?” He walked towards the counter, eying up the food displayed in the glass-fronted cabinets. Muffins went very well with coffee.
She made a face, pushing up her glasses. “You sound like my Dad.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. Just asking. What about Robby, then?”
“We broke up.”
Val looked up from a tray of caramel slices. “No way. I thought you two were going to get married some day. I’m sorry about that too.”
She giggled. “Don’t be silly. Anyway, it’s fine, I’ve got an exam this week. The usual?”
Val nodded. “Sure. And could I grab one of those slices too?”
“Sure thing mister Everard. Say, have you lost weight?”
“I guess.” Val put some cash down on the counter as she bagged up the slice for him. He’d always been interested that food that was bad for you was bagged just like porn — brown paper bags that you couldn’t see through. That might be a sign of some kind, but he wasn’t going to get philosophical before he’d had his coffee.
Tulip rang up his order then started counting out his change. He held up a hand. “Don’t worry about it.”
She tilted her head a little. “You sure? You’ve got over ten dollars in change!”
“Yeah, I’m sure. I know your Dad’s allowance doesn’t stretch that far these days.”
“Thanks, mister Everard. You’re the best!”
As Val waited for his coffee, he stared out the small window of the coffee shop. It’s possible that John was just busy today and not picking up his phone, but he’d usually get a text from him during a break. Whatever — he’d stop by the gym. He needed to pick up some new clothes anyway, and his usual menswear store was nearby. That way he could talk to John about tonight and get some adv
ice on a good first date dinner venue. He grabbed his coffee off the counter, waved to Tulip, and headed back out on the street.
• • •
She looked at him over a magazine with a casual disdain he was used to. It wasn’t just the way her eyes kept checking out his gut, or the way she chewed her gum, but how she wasn’t really paying attention to him. Her name badge said Marcy.
Val tried for a smile anyway. “Is John here?”
The gum popped, a small but perfect bubble breaking over glossed lips. “John who? We got a lot of Johns.”
Val kept the smile plastered on his face. “John Miles. He works here.”
She glanced up. “John Miles?”
“That’s right. You seen him today?”
“No.” She looked back down at her magazine.
“Wait. You haven’t seen him today, or he hasn’t been in today?”
She sighed with the gravity only a late teenager could muster. “Haven’t seen him because he hasn’t been in. Had a lot of his clients calling up.” She looked at Val’s gut again. “Are you one of his clients?”
“No, but—”
“Thank God. I am so over taking his messages for him.” She turned another page in her magazine. It was some kind of gossip rag with too-thin women doing things with too-fat men.
“Well, did he call? Did he say why he wasn’t coming in?”
“No.” She didn’t look up this time.
He was used to people looking past him because he was fat, but today it was important. No one had seen John, he wasn’t answering his phone, and this tart was giving him attitude? Val slammed his hand down over the counter on the surface of her magazine, making her start back in alarm. Her name badge jiggled. “For fu—”
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