by Art Bourgeau
He heard Paul’s voice: "Looks good. Maybe you ought to take it to your sister's wedding." He applied a smile, looked at himself in the mirrors. Parts, angles, angles of parts winked back, but something was wrong.
The coat didn't fit. It was too large for him. He looked at the sleeves in the mirrors. Far too long. They needed to be taken up at least an inch and a half. Maybe it’s the way I'm wearing it, he thought, as he shrugged his shoulders and tugged at the lapels to make sure it was correct.
He dropped his hands to his sides and looked in the mirrors to check the sleeve lengths again. If anything, his adjustments had made matters worse. Now the sleeves seemed to cover his hands, leaving only his fingers exposed. He adjusted the coat again. It seemed far too roomy.
"Claude, I think you’ve made a mistake," he said. "This isn't my coat. This one's too large." Not wanting to cause Claude undue embarrassment he added, "It's the same kind of suit. You probably picked up the one next to it."
Claude whipped out his glasses and checked the sales slip with Guido.
"No, Mr. Weatherby," he said, "the ticket is right. You're a forty-one long. This is the correct suit." He added, "The trousers were right too."
Loring tugged it together in front. He could see in the mirrors that there was enough excess material to turn it into a double-breasted. Any fool could see it. The suit was just too large.
"It doesn't fit," he said.
Claude sighed and looked at the sales slip again. It made Loring angry. He wanted to shout out, "Don't look at the paperwork, look at the suit," but he didn’t. Instead he said, "I'd like to try another suit."
Claude was not pleased and managed to convey it.
"Certainly, sir," and turned to go.
Guido was at the ready with the requested second suit. He and Claude exchanged looks as he slipped the coat off the hanger.
Loring stepped off the platform in the lighted mirror area and into the dimness to exchange the coats. Claude accepted the offending garment while Guide held the new one open for Loring to slip on. The way Guido tugged and smoothed reassured Loring that he had been right and the new coat was going to look much better.
But when he stepped up on the platform surrounded by the hexagon of mirrors he saw he was wrong. In his reflection the new coat was worse than the first. Not only did the sleeves appear to cover his hands, fingers and all, but the coat seemed to reach halfway to his knees.
"What's wrong with you people? This one’s worse than the first. . ."
Claude stepped to the edge of the platform. "Come here and let me check the sleeve tag."
While Claude checked the tag Loring caught Paul's eye with a look that seemed to say, "I don't understand what's happening." Paul smiled. "It looks fine to me. They both do."
Claude agreed.
Loring stepped back to the center of the platform and looked at himself in the center mirror, although in doing so he saw his reflections bouncing back and forth from the other five mirrors. The coat was still too large. He looked like a teenager wearing something which belonged to his father — and then he understood. It all made sense.
It was the mirrors. It was like being in a hall of mirrors in a sideshow. What did they say about magic tricks . . . all done with lights and mirrors? Only this time he was the light, and they were the audience and they were draining him, sucking him dry . . . and he was shrinking. . .
He saw his eyes widen in his reflection and tried to calm himself but could not. He felt like a prisoner, held there by bonds of force. Words from Revelation came to mind: "One woe is past; and behold there come two woes more hereafter. His heart began to pound. He could hear it. Holy Michael, the Archangel, he began to pray, defend us in battle, be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of. . . He stopped. No more words would come.
Keeping his eyes on the mirrors he forced himself toward the edge of the platform, his heart pounding louder and louder as he stepped carefully off it. He was wrong. To be alone was no protection. He knew better than that. Then where?
Guido slipped the coat off him, and Paul stepped up with his old jacket and Burberry. "Are you okay?" he said, the worry clear in his voice.
Good old Paul. He could have hugged him at that moment. Even though Paul didn't understand, at least he was there with his support. But no words would come.
Paul had reached out and touched his arm now. "Loring . . ." His touch seemed to break the restraint and Loring was able to speak. But his heart was still pounding, and he had this awful fear — of death. So strong that it was like a smell, a noxious enveloping black cloud . . .
The thought of being alone was terrifying. He forced calm into his voice as he said, "I’m not feeling too well, Paul. Would you go with me to my doctor’s? He’s just around the corner."
Paul nodded and helped him on with his coat.
That night the wolf came to Loring in a dream.
CHAPTER 2
THE WIPERS made a clicking sound as they swept back and forth across the windshield. The one on the driver's side was worn, leaving a crescent-shaped smear on the glass with each stroke, making it difficult to see.
Nate Mercanto looked at his watch, a Seiko, a gift from his brother. Three-thirty a.m. His shift was not even half over. Eight o'clock seemed a world away.
The radio in the blue-and-white was quiet. It had been that way since he had come on duty at midnight. The rain had helped create that. Not that there was ever much happening in the vastness of the Wissahickon section of Fairmount Park. It wasn't like Central Park in New York, he thought. No muggers, no purse snatchers, no street gangs. No action of any kind. lust peace and quiet. Which was why the men of the Park Squad were known throughout the department as "squirrel chasers."
Through the night he had used the slack time to do his ki exercises, the meditative part of his Aikido training. They were simple breathing and concentration exercises, Buddhist in origin, designed to give the fighting spirit a sense of inner peace. Done correctly they could make even a trip to the dentist bearable by sharpening and refocusing the practitioner's mental focus away from the unpleasantness at hand. In the quietness of the third shift they were the only way he could keep his mind off Rudy Gunther's death.
He pulled into the parking lot near the entrance to Forbidden Drive. The white limestone gravel of the lot reflected his headlights upward, making the rain shimmer like a curtain of Christmas tree icicles. Beyond that all was dark. For a moment he relaxed his concentration, and that night came back to him, as always. It had happened near South Street while he was working undercover and had discovered Gunther breaking into a parked car. When he identified himself as a police officer Gunther attacked him, and during the fight Mercanto shot him. It sounded simple but it wasn’t.
The officer who headed the investigation for Internal Affairs had recommended suspension. "A hothead," was what he had called Mercanto. The suspension was granted, and it was months until the FOP lawyers could plead his case before the American Arbitration Association. He was found blameless and restored to duty, but those intervening months had changed him. As the suspension time dragged by he had been forced to admit there was some truth in the allegations against him. He had not contained the situation, not called for backup.
He had violated procedures, let his ego rule his head. A man was dead, and he was at least in some measure to blame.
* * *
He drove slowly, peering through the rain. There was no need to hurry. It was not until he was about halfway down the parking lot and beginning to make his turn that he saw the car — a black BMW. It was parked in the lower corner of the lot and was facing the Wissahickon Creek.
"Probably just some folks making out," he muttered to himself. He drove closer, stopping the blue-and-white a discreet distance away to give whomever was in the car a chance to rearrange any clothing, and get themselves together.
He got out, shoving his nightstick into the ring on his belt, and picked up the five-cell flashlight from the front seat.
He looked back at the walkie-talkie lying on the seat. Should he bring it? No, he could handle it. If there was trouble, this time he would back away . . .
The chill of the rain felt good. Bracing. He pulled his cap lower on his face and switched on the flashlight. As he started toward the car he turned up the collar of his leather coat to keep the water from running down his neck.
The heavy double-breasted coat with its two rows of silver buttons always made him feel a little like a movie version of a Nazi U-boat commander. In fact, with his dark looks and perpetual five o’clock shadow, at thirty-three he looked more like the swarthy captain of a Greek freighter.
Under his feet he heard the crunch of the gravel as he closed the distance to the BMW. To his left he heard the sound of Wissahickon Creek bubbling over the rocks. He could not see it. It was about fifty yards lower than the parking lot and in darkness. Up ahead he sensed rather than saw the entrance to Forbidden Drive, a dirt lane cut through the forest that paralleled the creek and was closed to cars. The Park Squad patrolled its length on horseback from here in the Valley Green section all the way to Lincoln Drive. To his right, about halfway up a steep and wooded hillside, he could make out the bare outlines of a white farmhouse that was a French restaurant called Maison Catherine. There was no light inside, it had long since closed for the night.
When he made the same rounds on the other two shifts Catherine Poydras, the owner, would often bring down coffee for him and they would chat for a few minutes. She had owned the restaurant for over twenty years and knew everything that went on in the Wissahickon section of Fairmount Park.
A noise to his left startled him. He turned and flashed his light, holding it well away from his body. The light showed a garbage can. It was full. On the ground, next to a rock, he saw an empty Miller Lite bottle. He shined the light back up the can and saw several others heaped loosely at the top. Probably it just rolled off from there and hit the rock — then he heard the second noise.
It also came from the area of the garbage can but further back. In the woods where his flashlight beam would not reach. It was not a single noise like the first but a series of shuffling, scuffling sounds, as if someone or something was headed down the hill toward the creek. As he walked toward the can he figured that it was probably nothing more than someone's dog all set to have a little sport with the can until he had been disturbed. A far cry from the kind of noises he’d known when he worked undercover.
He bent down and picked up the bottle, placing it back in the can and directed his light into the woods behind. The noise stopped. He moved the light from left to right but couldn't see anything. The darkness and woods were too thick.
"Go on home, boy. You’ve got no business out here in the rain on a night like this." From the way he said it, it wasn’t clear whether he was talking to the dog he imagined out there in the darkness or to himself, but suddenly the rain didn’t feel good to him anymore.
He wondered why the presence of the police car hadn't caused some activity in the BMW. Maybe asleep. He started back toward it.
About fifteen feet from the car his light picked up a dark shiny stain on the ground, roughly circular in shape and two inches in diameter. A couple of feet closer he saw another one, this one slightly larger, then a third still larger. Someone’s car has a bad oil leak, he thought.
He raised his flashlight to play on the black BMW. Still no sign of movement inside its dark, rain-streaked windows. He moved to the right so he could come up on the driver’s side from the rear, transferring the flashlight to his left hand as he did. His right hand touched the snap on his holster. As he did he thought of Rudy Gunther and pulled his hand back.
"Don't be so jittery," he muttered to himself.
He approached the car and shined his light at the back window but couldn't see through the window’s dark tint. He let the light play up the side of the car. The other windows were similarly tinted. No wonder he didn’t see any movement inside the car. He shook his head. Most cities had ordinances against windows tinted this dark. Why didn’t Philly? He stepped closer and tapped the window on the driver’s side with his flashlight.
"Hello in the car," he called out.
No response.
He thought for a moment about moving up and shining his light through the windshield, decided that was stupid, he'd be giving someone a clear head-and-chest shot.
"Hello in the car, this is the police," he called out and rapped the window harder with his flashlight.
Still nothing.
Mercanto shrugged his shoulders to relieve the tightness. It was a movement like a fighter would make. Maybe the car’s empty, he thought, but who would park a BMW in a deserted spot like this? That was just asking for someone to steal it or trash it.
Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly ki style, he transferred the flashlight back to his right hand and reached for the doorhandle with his left. If there was a problem behind those windows he was going to be in trouble with both hands occupied like that. Might as well be holding two bags of groceries.
"Let’s get it over with," he muttered, and pulled the doorhandle. The door did not budge. Locked. He felt a sense of relief, and anger. Someone did leave it parked here. Stupid ass.
But to be sure he moved around the rear of the car to check the passenger side. Which was when he saw the door ajar. It wasn’t open much, maybe six or eight inches. He shone the light on the ground. Near the door were more stains. He moved the light back to his left and reached for his gun. Presenting as little target as possible he reached out and shoved the door open wider with his foot. The inside light did not go on. He hesitated, then moved.
The smell registered almost before the sight. The air was thick with it. The metallic smell of blood. And fainter the smell of burned gunpowder. And fainter still the rose-ash smell of charred flesh.
His light illuminated the front seat. Behind the steering wheel was a man of about forty with a neatly trimmed mustache and no beard. His head was back against the headrest like he was sleeping, but his eyes were open, staring up at the roof.
Mercanto quickly shone the light into the backseat. Empty.
He flashed it again on the man. His hair was wet. Clearly visible in his right temple was a small black hole, and from it a line of blood had dripped down his cheek and neck, losing itself in his collar. Mercanto directed the light beyond the man's head and onto the window beside it. The window was clean. No blood or brains on it. Which meant no exit wound, making the gun most likely a small caliber pistol, probably a .22 since they were so common. Short and sweet. No muss, no fuss. Then he remembered the smell . . .
He started to move the beam down the man's body. He was wearing a raincoat and under that a blazer, navy-colored, and a gray-and — black-striped shirt, European in cut, and a dark, narrow tie.
It was then he saw the cause of the smell
The man's right hand was resting palm-up on the seat. Only there was no palm. The skin and the flesh had been torn away. Through the pool of congealing blood where the palm had been Mercanto could see the whites of the bones leading to the fingers.
Blood was spattered on the leg of the man's gray trousers. Mercanto let the light follow the splatters. The leg of the trousers appeared to be ripped near the inside mid-thigh, and more blood leading to a dark pool between his legs, staining both trouser legs.
Mercanto did not like his back to the dark. Pulling away from the car he played the light over the front seat and the floor mats below. There was no sign of the weapons. Neither the gun, nor whatever else had been used.
He felt shaky as he looked around at the darkness. In his decade of police work he had seen many dead bodies, but the shock of the mutilation had broken through his professional distance, making it personal.
The rain seemed colder. His beam showed the water was already breaking up the stains on the gravel. He still had his gun in his hand, and he kept it there as he started back to the blue-and-white.
The radio snap
ped and squeaked, its reception and transmission made worse by the weather, as he called in, but the warmth of the car felt good, a shelter from what he had just seen. While he waited he tried to make some sense of this. He did not go back to the BMW, he might disturb some piece of evidence if he did. His first duty here was to secure the crime scene. Well, he had done that.
Most crimes, he knew, were simple. They showed a certain pattern, even orderliness, but this one . . . He thought of the body. Death was almost certainly caused by the gunshot wound. He stopped himself. Why did he think that? The mutilation of the hand and thigh would have involved arterial bleeding that could have caused death. He remembered the victim’s face. It was strangely peaceful. No sign of the agony that would have shown itself if the mutilation had taken place before death. In fact, as Mercanto thought about it, there wasn't even a look of surprise. Damned odd.
So what was the sequence of events, as the manual liked to call it? The wound was in the right temple. The mutilation was on the right side. Which would indicate the killer was sitting in the passenger seat when it happened. No surprise on the victim’s face might mean that he knew his killer, that he even drove his killer here. He shook his head. What about the kind of rage that caused the killer to mutilate the body so violently. It must have shown itself before the act. But the face of the dead man didn't lie. It was peaceful, no surprise, no agony.
He drummed his fingers on the rim of the steering wheel. All right, look at it from a different angle. The killer finished up, then what did he do? If he came with the victim how did he get away? A second car, an accomplice? Or did the killer meet him here? A romantic encounter, maybe? One that went off the rails? Sex crimes often involved mutilation. The anger there was so great.
