by Anthony Izzo
Clarence looked down at his boots.
“I’m gonna talk to the girl, then I’m gonna look at that body.”
Thumbs in his belt loops, he hitched up his pants and went through the door to the cell block. He opened the door to the interrogation room.
A blond girl of about fifteen sat on the chair, her knees drawn up to her chest, arms wrapped around her legs. She had bony knees and her collarbone jutted out underneath the skin. Someone should start feeding the kid.
He would start off playing the good guy.
“You cold, honey?”
“Yes.”
“Clarence!”
Clarence poked his head in the doorway.
“Get this young lady a jacket.”
“Right,” Clarence said, and disappeared.
He returned with one of the winter coats from the storeroom. It was three-quarter length, midnight blue, with a fuzzy blue collar and lapel.
Rafferty took it from him and draped it over the girl’s shoulders.
She wrapped it around herself and held it closed at the throat.
“So you saw something in the park? Something unpleasant.”
“Yeah.”
“Would you like some hot chocolate?”
“No.”
Rafferty pulled out a chair and sat down, hands folded in front of him on the table, trying to appear the epitome of concentration. “Where were you going?”
“I already told this to the detectives. Do I have to tell it again?”
“What detectives?”
“The ones at the park.”
“We don’t have detectives here. The town’s not big enough.”
“If you say so.”
“Do you remember their names?”
“Rand and Willis. No, Wilks! That’s it.”
She set her feet on the floor and sat up straight, nestling into the coat.
“Why don’t you tell me what happened anyway.”
She told him she was walking home from her friend Laura’s house, where they had spent the past few hours in-line skating.
When she got near the shelter, she saw three large men crouched over a woman, who was lying on top of a picnic table. She was struggling, and Sally said the woman screamed.
“It sounded like an animal getting killed,” she told Rafferty.
Lights had come on in the houses bordering the park, and the three men hopped the fence, ran through a yard and were gone, she told him.
“Then what happened?”
“I ran to see if I could help her, and ...”
“And what?”
Tears rolled from her red-rimmed eyes. She wiped them on the sleeve of the jacket.
He was getting impatient. “Tell me!”
She recoiled from the force of his voice.
“It was Carla Reese, all bit up.”
“Two questions. How did you know who she was, and how could you tell they were bite marks?
“She went to my school, Fillmore. And there were chunks taken out of her. Can I go now?”
“Not yet. Tell me more about these detectives.”
She slipped the jacket off her shoulders and sat forward on the edge of the chair. She nudged the jacket and it slipped off the chair, rumpling on the floor. It was as if she didn’t want it coming in contact with her skin any longer.
“One was a fat guy. He had on a flannel shirt.”
“How old?”
“About fifty.”
“And the other one?”
“Young. Dark brown hair. He was cute.”
“I don’t care about cute. How old?”
“About twenty-five.”
His blood began to hum like motor oil through a V-8. Thrusting the chair away from the table, he stood up. The girl winced.
He turned his back to her and put his hands on his hips, the vein over his right eye pulsing and twitching, close to blowing his cool. If he didn’t control himself, someone might be dead soon. The whole situation made his stomach churn and go sour.
First he had phony detectives poking around asking questions, and absolutely no idea who they were. Or worse, maybe they really were from Buffalo Homicide and had gotten word about the killing.
It was only a matter of time before people from the state or county came nosing around. He couldn’t keep covering things up much longer.
He took a deep breath.
Facing the girl, he said, “Don’t talk to anyone about what you saw. No reporters, no other police, no one except me. There’s things about the murder only the killer would know, and we need to keep that private. Understand me?”
“Yeah.”
“You’d fucking better.”
His explanation about only the killer knowing certain details was bullshit, but she didn’t know that. If it kept her quiet, then it was okay with him.
“Get up. I’ll drop you off at home.”
Rafferty returned to the station house afterward. Before Sally got out of the car, he told her again not to mention what she saw to anyone. Normally, he would’ve threatened violence, but there was enough trouble stirred up right now without some girl telling her parents the cops hassled her.
He walked into the station. The front of his shirt was moist with sweat, and he peeled fabric away from his chest.
Clarence sat at the deputy’s desk hunched over, entranced in a game of solitaire.
He didn’t look up as Rafferty approached the desk.
“Anyone else here?” Rafferty said.
“Nope.”
“Good.”
He grabbed Clarence by the hair, just above the crown of his scalp, yanked his head up and then smashed his face into the desktop. Cards flipped and scattered onto the floor.
Rafferty let go.
Covering his face with his hands, Clarence rolled away from the desk in the chair. He took his hands away from his face; rivulets of blood trickled from his nose and lower lip, which would be fatter than Dom De-Louise in no time.
“Jesus, Ed.”
It came out “Jeethus, Ed.”
“Don’t act fucking surprised. You knew you had that coming.”
“Could’ve at least given me a warning.”
“What fun would that be?” Rafferty said.
Clarence pulled a white hanky from his back pocket and dabbed at the blood running from his nose.
“We’re getting in deep, Clarence.”
“Deeper than deep,” Clarence agreed.
“I got dead people showing up all over my town. Killed by our own kind. Other things I can go after like a regular crime, but when one of us kills, it gets hard.”
Clarence leaned back, his head over his knees, pinching his nostrils together with the handkerchief.
Rafferty almost never had to discipline Clarence, but he knew better than what he did tonight, and he had to be reminded that mistakes were costly. “I can’t have you making mistakes like this. Got it?”
“You’re right.”
“I’ll need your help.”
“You got it. You know that.”
Rafferty rubbed his chin. “Let’s go look at the body.”
They walked out into the garage. Next to a patrol car on the oil-spotted floor was a blanket with a clawed foot sticking out from underneath.
Rafferty went to the blanket, squatted down and pulled it back.
Someone had killed one of his kind, something that had never happened while he was chief.
The skin was charred black and blistered. Shit. This made it tough to ID. Once one of Rafferty’s kind switched into their true form, it was impossible to identify the human it had once been. If they died while in that form, they stayed that way, unlike those werewolves in the movies, which turned back into humans after being killed by a silver bullet.
“Any idea who it was?”
“None.”
“Did anyone see it?”
“I covered it with a blanket I had in the squad car. I don’t think the medics saw it.”
“Who took
it here?”
“The van.”
“And who took the woman to the hospital?”
“The paramedics.”
Rafferty draped the blanket back over the thing’s face.
“Have it taken to Krasner’s. You took the Reese girl’s body there, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
Elliot Krasner owned Krasner’s Funeral Home and Crematorium, and he was one of Rafferty’s kind. Sometimes when Rafferty needed to dispose of a body, he had it brought to Krasner’s and cremated. Looking at the corpse, he hoped it would fit in the oven, for he’d never had to burn one of his own kind before.
Rafferty stood back up and motioned for Clarence to follow him.
Once inside the squad room, he sat at his desk, opened the middle drawer, and took out a pad and Number 2 pencil. He flipped the first page over the top of the pad and touched the tip of the pencil to his tongue.
“Bring a chair over.”
Clarence wheeled his own chair to the front of Rafferty’s desk. His nosebleed had stopped, but he continued to blot blood from his lower lip.
“I’m moving the Harvest up.”
“Can you do that?”
“No choice. It won’t wait until October. Someone’s gonna come in with all the commotion here and find us out. It has to be sooner.”
He wrote at the top of the page:
TO BE ELIMINATED
“We got some planning to do.”
Jill fanned the neckline of her blouse, trying in vain to cool herself off. The temperature had spiked to eighty-three degrees and it was only quarter to seven in the morning. She felt sticky already.
She entered the break room to find Cora putting her Masterlock on her locker.
Jill knelt down and opened her own locker.
“You hear about the one they brought in last night?” Cora kept her ear to the ground, and she was always the first to have the hospital gossip.
“I just got here,” Jill said. “What happened?” She put away her purse, clicked her lock in place and stood up, holding her bag lunch.
Cora grabbed a Styrofoam cup and poured herself some java from the Mr. Coffee. “They brought in some woman. Sheriff’s deputy. No, wait, Chief of Police. Marshall, I think. Minor burns on her back, laceration on her arm.”
Cora pulled out a chair from the break room table. She sat down, Jill wondering with shame if the chair would hold under her weight.
“They pulled her out of a burning house.”
“What was she doing in the house?”
“Chasing a suspect.”
“That’s a little strange. Not that unusual, though.”
“Hold your horses. I’m getting there.”
Cora took a loud sip off of her coffee. “She came in raving about some sort of monster that attacked her. Over and over again. Wanted to know if the cops killed it.”
Jill dropped her lunch. A container of yogurt and an apple spilled out, rolled onto the floor. Cora’s statement left her feeling numb.
“You gonna catch your lunch, honey?”
A monster. The lady had to be delirious.
Jill bent down and gathered her lunch off the floor.
“You all right?”
“What room’s she in? They admitted her, right?” Jill asked.
“Yeah. Don’t know what room.”
Jill put the yogurt and the apple back in the bag and stuck it in the refrigerator. Cora tilted her cup back and shook it, as not to miss a drop of coffee. She got up, crushed the cup and tossed it in the trash can.
“Who told you the story?” Jill said.
“Renee Tutweiler. She was leaving when I came in.”
Matt Crowe might be telling the truth after all, Jill thought. She would have to hear the woman’s story herself to be certain.
Cora left the break room.
Jill realized she still held the handle of the open refrigerator door. Feeling foolish, she let go and the door closed.
Lunchtime. She would see the patient at lunchtime.
Jill stepped onto the elevator holding copies of People and The National Enquirer. She had stopped at the gift shop and bought them, hoping to use them as a peace offering.
Being stuck in the hospital could be about as exciting as watching grass grow. She hoped Donna Ricci would like them. Besides, if she showed up empty-handed to visit a sick person, she would feel guilty.
She pressed the button for the fifth floor. Maggie Clark at the admissions desk had given her Donna Ricci’s room number, five hundred two. The doors closed and the elevator shot up, her stomach lurching at the rapid ascent.
The elevator stopped and she stepped out. She swung by the nurses’ station and got an idea of Donna’s condition: arm laceration, minor burns on back, some bumps and bruises. Donna would be released in a day or two.
She thanked Donna’s nurse. Then she went to the end of the hallway and found Donna’s room, number five hundred two.
Jill entered and found the woman laying on her side, facing the door. She had spiky blond hair. A bandage covered her right forearm. Her arms were thin but corded with muscle.
She looked up at Jill as she entered the room.
Donna Ricci had a pouty mouth and brown eyes that radiated toughness without saying a word. Cora had said she was a cop; that toughness must’ve served her well on the force.
“Let me guess, more needles.”
“Not this time. Donna, right?”
“Yeah. Who are you?”
“Jill Adams. I’m an ER nurse.”
“What’re you doing up here?”
“I want to ask you some questions.”
She pointed to the magazines tucked under Jill’s arm. “What are those?”
This was going to be tough. “Thought they might help you pass the time.” Jill set the magazines on the hospital tray next to the bed.
Donna propped her head up on her hand. “Did the hospital send you up here?”
“No,” Jill said. “I want to know something for myself and you can help me.”
The room had one other bed, which was empty. Jill shut the door and pulled up a chair next to Donna’s bed. Donna looked at her as if she had just discovered a new species of insect.
“What did you see in that house?” Jill asked.
“None of your damn business.”
“Please, I need to know.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Donna winced as she spoke.
“Do you need more painkiller?”
“I’m fine.”
“Will you tell me what you saw?”
“Don’t waste my time. All I saw was a scumbag junkie. I chased him through the house.”
“The ER nurses told me you were raving about a monster.”
“I was delirious.”
“How did the fire start?”
“Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about. And you’re getting on my nerves. I want to get some rest, so why don’t you leave?”
“Okay,” Jill said. “Hope you feel better.” She paused at the door. “It smelled like rotten eggs, didn’t it?”
Donna’s brow creased, a slight frown. Perhaps she was trying to ignore Jill’s comment. Not show any chinks in the armor.
“All right, then. I’ll go.”
Jill turned the door handle.
“Wait.”
Jill returned to the chair and sat down.
“Tell me what you know. Maybe I saw something in that house and maybe I didn’t. I want to hear your story first,” Donna demanded.
Letting out a sigh of relief, Jill told Donna about the encounter in the warehouse, meeting Matt, her encounters with Rafferty, and the story of Matt’s family. As she spoke, she began to think that the stories sounded less absurd. The more she talked, the more she convinced herself that the nightmares were real.
When she finished, Donna scowled at her. Maybe she was wondering whether or not to believe Jill’s stories. After a moment, she took a cup off of
her hospital tray and sipped out of it.
“What you’re telling me would be pretty hard to make up,” Donna said.
“I’ve had trouble dealing with the whole thing, but I’m becoming a believer. The worst part is I may have alienated someone because of it. Will you tell me what happened in the house?”
“You’re sure you’re not a reporter or something?”
To ease her suspicions, Jill unclipped her hospital ID badge from her blouse and handed it to Donna, who took a good, hard look at it before handing it back.
“All right. This is what happened.”
She told Jill about her meeting with Rafferty, Rhonda Barbieri’s murder and the incident in Rhonda’s house where Dietrich changed from a man to a monster. She finished by telling Jill how she tried to off the creature by setting it on fire and nearly wound up a human barbecue herself.
“It took guts to fight it off like that. I probably would’ve had a heart attack,” Jill said.
“I’m not so sure about that. From the way you said you clubbed that guy with the pry bar in the warehouse, I’d say you got some piss and vinegar in you.”
“Thanks. What’ll you do when you get out of here?”
“Well, my days as police chief are probably numbered. I entered a crime scene out of my jurisdiction and burned it to the ground to boot. I don’t think the town council will be all too pleased,” Donna replied.
“What about your sister-in-law?”
“I’m going to have a talk with Rafferty. Tell him about the junkie.”
“He’s one of them, you know,” Jill said.
“Doesn’t matter. Someone I care about is dead, and he’s the one in charge. I want to see what kind of half-ass explanation he offers me about the investigation.”
“That guy I mentioned, Matt, wants to kill him.”
“Not a bad idea. Not a smart idea, but not a bad one.”
That led Jill to wondering what she should do about staying in Lincoln. The town was full of murderous creatures, the Chief of Police one of them. If she went back home, her mother would think she’d won. Jill would be little Jilly who couldn’t handle being a nurse. Her mother would all but hang an I told you so banner across the front of the house.
Going home was out of the question.
It would take months to find another apartment and another job, and who knew what could happen by then? What if Rafferty didn’t just harass her and go away the next time? What if he changed into a beast like the junkie had and chased after her?
