The Sixth Wicked Child

by J. D. Barker

  “I’m not sure what I saw. I don’t know if he can come back from this.”

  Clair went quiet for a moment. “Does that FBI agent know you’re there?”

  “Yeah, he knows. He set parameters.”

  “Parameters?”

  Someone knocked on Nash’s window, and his heart nearly leaped up his throat. “Jesus!”

  “What?” Clair asked.

  Nash turned to the side. Lizeth Loudon from Channel Seven News was standing next to his car. She shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her fur-lined jacket and danced from her left foot to her right in an effort to stay warm.

  “I gotta go, Clair. I’ll call you back.”

  He disconnected the call and switched off the engine. The motor sputtered, as if undecided about shutting down, then silenced. He climbed out of the car, slammed the door, and pushed past Loudon toward the subway entrance. “I’m not talking to you.”

  “You don’t, and I’ll just have to make something up,” she replied, chasing after him.

  “Where’s your cameraman?”

  She shot a thumb back toward her van, parked three spaces behind him. “Staying warm.”

  “Maybe you should join him.”

  “I know you have a body down there. A possible 4MK victim.”

  “There’s no body.”

  She thrust her phone out. A FaceBook post was loaded on the screen. “That looks a lot like a body.”

  Nash made a mental note of the username. “Looks fake to me.”

  He ducked under the crime-scene tape. When she tried to follow, the uniformed officer reappeared and told her to step back.

  “I’m with him,” she said.

  Nash shook his head and started down the steps. “No, she’s not.”

  “Where’s Detective Porter?” she called out after him. “Shouldn’t he be here?”

  Nash didn’t answer her. He followed the steps to the platform, toward the hum of voices.

  Although fluorescents glowed on the ceiling, the four large halogen lamps erected down on the tracks glowed brighter, a bubble of white light under the yellow cast down from above. A train had been stopped near the east end of the tunnel, and a Ford F150 outfitted with special rims sat on the track and blocked the west side. The headlights were on, pointing down the tracks. They petered out about fifty feet down, no match for the thick darkness.

  At the edge of the subway platform, Nash was directed to a set of steps. He took them down to the tracks.

  “The third rail is live. We can’t shut it down without impacting the rest of the route,” someone said behind him. “Careful where you step.”

  More yellow crime-scene tape created a large square around the section of track between the pickup truck and the train. The halogen lights had chased off every shadow. About half a dozen people stood outside the tape—several uniformed officers, two crime technicians from Chicago Metro, three more from the FBI. Nobody stood inside the tape. All eyes were on him. All conversations muffled and died away.

  Nash ducked under the tape and walked to the center of the tracks.

  He knelt.

  He took his phone back out and called Poole.

  “Describe it to me,” Poole said when he picked up. “Every detail. Take your time. Don’t leave anything out.”

  Nash snuck a quick glance back at the three FBI agents behind the tape, the CSI agents from Metro beside them, all watching. None of them looked happy about standing on the sideline.

  The moment they discovered there were two bodies and Poole tried to claim jurisdiction, Warwick called the mayor, the mayor called the FBI director, and the director called Poole’s supervisor. Within five minutes, Poole was under orders to not only keep Chicago Metro in the loop, but to include them in his team. Apparently, the powers that be felt working together was the best way to save face publicly. Poole had objected and was immediately shot down. Nash was under no illusion as to why Poole’s supervisor had so readily agreed—the FBI wanted to keep a scapegoat at arm’s length. If this went sideways, they wanted someone to blame, someone not FBI. Our lovely government at work.

  Nash cleared his throat. “She’s, ah…I’m not sure on age. I’d guess thirties, maybe forties. It’s difficult to gauge. She’s wearing a white negligee. Thin material. Nothing else, from what I can tell. No shoes, no undergarments, no coat or anything else lying around the scene. Her skin is covered in some kind of white, powdery substance. Her hair, too.”

  “Is it on her clothes?”

  “No.”

  “So she was dressed postmortem?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “What else?”

  Nash removed his black leather gloves and pulled a pair of latex from his pocket and tugged them on, pairing them with a surgical mask in case the white powder was some sort of contaminant. He leaned a little closer. “Her eyes are closed, but I think the right one has been removed. There’s a little dried blood in the corner.” With a slow hand, he pulled her hair back. “She’s missing an ear. She’s posed, positioned…looks like she’s praying. She’s on her knees.”

  He reached for her mouth, tried to open it. “She’s stiff. I can’t get her mouth open.”

  “Rigor?”

  “Doesn’t feel like rigor. Maybe it’s the cold.”

  “Don’t force it,” Poole told him. “The medical examiner can confirm her tongue has been removed. Do you have three boxes? Tied with black string?”

  “Yeah,” Nash said. “But this isn’t typically how we find them. Bishop usually mails the boxes, one at a time, over about a week. He doesn’t leave all three like this.”

  “He did with the body you found in the tunnels with Porter. Talbot’s CFO,” Poole pointed out.

  “Gunther Herbert,” Nash said.

  Bishop had told Porter he tortured Herbert for information about Arthur Talbot’s finances. Information that incriminated the Chicago real estate mogul in a number of underground crimes.

  “Same with Libby McInley,” Poole added. “He left the three boxes on her coffee table.”

  “Our unsub wrote on her forehead with some kind of blade.”

  “What does it say?”

  “I am evil.”

  Libby had also been cut. Thousands of tiny razor blade cuts, all over her body.

  “Herbert and McInley were both tortured for information,” Nash said softly. “Different from his other victims.”

  “What else?”

  Nash leaned in closer. She looked more like a statue than a person. He’d never seen a body positioned like this.

  Praying.

  His eyes narrowed. “Her fingertips…”

  “What about them?”

  “They’re…burned.”

  “Her prints have been removed?”

  “I think so,” Nash said, trying to get a better look without moving her hands. “He’s never done that before.”

  “Is there a sign?”

  “A sign?”

  “A piece of cardboard, paper…anything written near her?”

  Nash looked around her. “Nothing that I can see…oh, wait.”

  “What is it?”

  Nash stood, walked toward the wall. He glanced up at the various members of law enforcement watching him. “Does anyone know if this is new?”

  Nobody answered.

  “What?” Poole said again.

  Nash reached up and touched the paint. It was still wet.

  FATHER, FORGIVE ME

  Spray-painted on the wall of the tunnel, nearly lost in all the other graffiti.

  8

  Poole

  Day 5 • 6:22 AM

  Poole’s eyes didn’t leave the body as he spoke to Detective Nash. The woman knelt at the pond’s edge—looked like she was praying. A silver serving tray in front of her held three white boxes tied with black string. Father, forgive me on a sign propped against her. I am evil carved into her forehead.

  A team of bureau crime-scene techs watched him from a distance. Someone from
the medical examiner’s office, too. Like the scene at the subway station, they had all been told to hold back.

  Poole knelt down in the snow and took a closer look at her fingertips. Although her hands were pressed together, he could see her prints had been burned away. A chemical burn of some kind, probably acid—sulfuric, maybe hydrochloric.

  He reached for her mouth and tried to force it open, but it didn’t budge. Just like Nash had said. Too stiff for rigor. Possibly frozen. The temperature was currently in the teens. Last night had hovered in the single digits with wind chill in the negatives.

  There was the white powder, too. She was covered in snow, so it was difficult to see, but it was there. Some kind of thin film covering her body but not the gown she wore. She’d been dressed after it came into contact with her skin. It shimmered slightly, crystalline.

  Salt?

  With Bishop’s help, Paul Upchurch had drowned his victims in a saltwater tank. Could this be some kind of residue from that tank?

  Poole’s phone rang. He fished it from his pocket and didn’t recognize the number.

  “This is Agent Poole.”

  “Hey, this is Sheriff Banister down in Simpsonville. I’m sorry to bother you so early. Are you still in New Orleans?”

  “Back in Chicago,” Poole replied. He rose to his feet and signaled for the investigators to begin documenting and cataloging the scene. “What can I do for you, Sheriff?”

  “I’ve…I’ve got a body down here.” She sounded rattled. Her voice was shaky. “Found it right on the courthouse steps about two hours ago. Just…just kneeling there. Praying, almost. That’s what it looks like, anyway. There’s three white boxes wrapped up with string. Someone wrote on the steps next to it, too.”

  “Father, forgive me,” Poole muttered.

  “Yeah. How did you know that?”

  “Any idea who she is?”

  “It’s not a she, it’s a he. I know exactly who he is.”

  9

  Clair

  Day 5 • 6:29 AM

  Clair sneezed and plucked another tissue from the box on the table beside her.

  “We’re gonna need a bigger box,” Kloz said in his best New England accent, which wasn’t very good. He inhaled, sucking snot back up into his nose.

  Clair glared at him. “I really don’t want to die here with you.”

  Kloz leaned back in his chair. The old metal squeaked. “If you could die anywhere, with anyone, who would you pick?”

  She thought about this for a second. “Matthew McConaughey. I always thought he was sexy for a white guy. Forty-something McConaughey, though, not the young one from Dazed and Confused. He didn’t grow into that face until he got older.”

  “Where?”

  “Maybe a beach in Barbados.”

  Kloz shook his head. “Oh, I don’t know about that. The only way to die on a beach is from a shark. Nobody wants to get eaten by a shark.”

  “This is a stupid fucking game.”

  Kloz ignored her. “I’d go with Jennifer Lawrence, but only if she was wearing that leather outfit from The Hunger Games.”

  “And where exactly would you want to die?”

  “Toledo, Ohio. No question.”

  “Why Toledo?”

  He shrugged. “No sharks.”

  “Obviously.”

  “There’s also nothing to do in Toledo, so if I’m trapped there with a leather-clad Jennifer Lawerence, locked in some seedy motel room with nothing but—”

  Clair pinched her eyes shut and covered her ears. “Enough. I don’t want to know what’s in your head. Not now, not ever.”

  “I’m just trying to lighten the mood.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t want to die here.”

  “I know.”

  “We can’t leave the building, and I’m getting stir-crazy.”

  “I know.”

  Using his right foot, Kloz pushed against the floor and started turning his chair in a slow counterclockwise circle. “The SARS virus has an incubation period as long as ten days. Our friend from the CDC hasn’t come out and said it yet, but their protocol dictates this place remain on lockdown for no less than ten days from the last known case. If the virus doesn’t kill us, there’s a good chance we won’t be allowed to leave for nearly two weeks.”

  “They won’t hold us here that long.”

  “Why not?” Kloz replied. “We’ve got beds, food, access to all things medical, and we’re isolated. Can you think of a better place to hold all of us? They won’t risk the virus leaving this building.”

  “Bishop has the virus. He could be anywhere.”

  “And if he infects other people, the CDC will most likely bring them here for treatment for the same reasons they’ll try to keep all of us here—beds, medical, food, isolation. They’ll keep us here with the doors locked and let the virus work through us, burn itself out. Without treatment, nothing else makes sense. Nobody will risk an outbreak. Even if they catch Bishop today and shut him down, they won’t let us out. Not until this runs its course.”

  Clair knew he was right, but she wasn’t about to admit that. She wadded up her tissue and tossed it toward the trash can. It landed about a foot short.

  Three quick knocks at their door.

  They both looked up.

  Jerome Stout pushed into the room before either of them had a chance to say anything.

  As head of hospital security, he hadn’t slowed down since they arrived, and he looked as beaten down as the rest of them. Stubble was beginning to show on his otherwise shaved head, and his uniform had sweat stains under the pits. She'd heard he’d taken the job at the hospital after retiring from Chicago Metro at fifty, five years ago. He hadn’t signed on for this. He wore a white surgical mask over his mouth, and it muffled his tired voice. “Detective. I need you to come with me.”

  “Why?”

  His nervous eyes glanced at Klozowski in the back corner, then back to her. “We’ve got a body. It’s bad.”

  “Oh, hell,” Kloz said in a low tone.

  Clair stood and started toward the door.

  “Wear that,” Stout instructed, nodding toward the mask they’d given her.

  She pulled it over her head and fitted the straps over her ears, hustling after him.

  Clair didn’t want to pass through the cafeteria, but before she could ask him if there was another route, he had started through the room. The moment everyone saw her, they erupted. When the police had brought Bishop’s eighty-seven potential victims to the hospital, they were instructed to remain within this room and the two adjoining employee lounges. Aside from Klozowski, she was the only representative from Chicago Metro on-site, and they recognized her immediately. Some wore masks, others didn’t, all were shouting. People stood, started toward her, their eyes angry. They wanted answers, no different than her, but she had nothing to tell them. She pushed through as quickly as she could, telling those around her to remain calm, it would all be over soon. They smelled bullshit, though. Many of them were doctors. They knew the score. Their children had been brought here, their spouses. Tables had been pushed aside, and many had begun constructing tents with hospital sheets, segregating themselves from the others. At least twenty or thirty people were missing. From what she had been told earlier, some families were given rooms, but there weren’t enough for everyone. Since many were staff members, those who had them went to their offices, others took over the locker rooms. A few had even gone on rounds as if nothing were happening. They’d tried to gather them back up before they spread the virus, but most of the staff knew it was already too late for that. The building, not the cafeteria, would contain the virus now, just as Kloz had said.

  Stout led her to a bank of elevators. She sighed as the doors closed, sealing out the angry mob.

  When they were alone, Stout said, “A few of them tried to break through the glass doors in the lobby and get outside, but Metro has SWAT out there. They’re in full riot gear. I’m trying not to think a
bout what would happen if someone crossed that line.”

  Clair had been the one who suggested they position SWAT, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. During her years with Chicago Metro, she found herself in the middle of three “escalated civil events” (the police didn’t like to call them riots). With each, there had been something in the air first, a precursor. This hospital stunk of precursor, and she hadn’t been the first to notice. The staff moved about their business in near silence, their eyes on each other and the crowd of strangers in their cafeteria. Parents coddled their children, and death stares were issued at the slightest cough or sneeze from someone nearby. There was talk of isolating the sick by the CDC. They’d been speaking to senior staff about cordoning off a wing on the second floor, but if the plan had gone further, they hadn’t shared the details with her.

  They rode the elevator to the fourth floor.

  When the doors opened, Stout directed her down the hallway to the left. A sign on the wall said Cardiovascular. “A nurse found him about ten minutes ago.”

  “Found who?”

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he turned down another hallway, then a third, entering some type of administrative wing. Most of the doors were closed, blinds drawn. “Second one there on the left,” Stout said, pointing.

  Clair followed his finger. A placard on the closed door read: Dr. Stanford Pentz. Her hand dropped to the butt of her service weapon holstered on her hip.

  “You won’t need that.”

  Clair unsnapped the leather strap on the gun anyway and tightened her grip as she reached for the doorknob with her other hand. The door swung in on the office. There was a couch on her left and a mahogany desk on the right grouped with two plush leather chairs. Various degrees covered the wall, and a single family photo sat on top of the desk, three people—a man in his sixties, his wife, and a boy of around twelve—all smiling and dressed to the nines.

  In the center of the room, turned away from Clair and facing the large window occupying the back wall of the office, a man kneeled. His head slumped forward, his chin on his chest. He wore no shoes. A pair of black loafers sat beside him.

  Clair stepped closer.

  At the door, Stout cleared his throat but otherwise said nothing.