“Explosion?” Nestor asked in disbelief. “Another explosion?”
“That's what the lady said.” Ben acknowledged the call.
“What the hell?” Nestor lit the lights. “What is there in Cable Car Square to explode?”
Ben killed the siren. Nestor maneuvered 1-Boy-16 across Bluff Street and into the square where both paramedics peered through the night and the swirling fog at the answer to Nestor's question. As if scripted, the same phrase escaped their mouths in unison: “Holy shit!”
The Fourth Street Elevator had been one of Duncan's most charming tourist attractions. It was built in 1882, believe it or not, to shorten lunch breaks. With the business district below, and most residences on the bluffs above, it took working men a half hour by horse and buggy to travel one way; morning, noon, and night. Add in lunch and it was two and a half hours a day, with no business conducted, for the worker to travel 200 feet as the crow flies. A funicular railway – 'the elevator' as the locals called it – was the answer. As the auto gained popularity the elevator became less a necessity and more a unique attraction, a symbol of the city. That's what it had been; now it was a pile of wreckage.
Somehow the steel cable had snapped. The top car had dropped the length of the track and crushed the bottom one. Like dominoes, the wreckage of the conjoined cars smashed into the motor house at the track base. The devastation was eerily visible in the fog because the motor house was on fire.
A police squad was already there, and before Nestor could park the rig, the officer – whose forearm was bleeding – hustled over to report a female victim (cops never say patient, it's always subject or victim) in the wreckage. He'd tried, but had been unable to get to her.
Engine 1 arrived and backed in. Engine 2, right behind, parked outside the square. Captain Rosenka had his boys, from the clean side of town, pull a line and head for the fire. Tuck and Arbuckle joined Ben and Nestor at the wrecked cars. Lieutenant Pontius stared.
Ben climbed the bottom tram to peek into the folded car on top. Flames licked at his rear and he sent up a grateful prayer for fireproof clothing. Still it was hot as Hell. “She's here.” Ben jumped down to give the truckies room. To a chorus of loud cracks, Tuck and Arbuckle peeled the tram wall back.
Nestor shouted, “Don't stay too long!”
Ben slipped through the fissure. His partner's advice had been sound. The heat inside the car was oppressive. Only a few feet away the motor house was totally involved and the lower tram catching. The engine crew, ready to douse the fire, were waiting for him to get the patient out.
Ben found the girl upended, her head on the floor, her legs pinched by the collapsed roof. He lifted with his shoulder and freed her legs. Then he felt for her carotid. Her face was soaked in blood but that meant little. The head teemed with blood vessels and the smallest injury could bleed buckets. But there was no pulse. From the unnatural twist of her head, it was obvious she was gone. But he wasn't going to leave her to the flames. Ben lifted her through the hole as the superheated air in the building flashed over. The wreckage erupted.
Engine 1 revved. Her team opened the nozzle on their attack line and went to work.
Clear of the fire, Ben laid the girl in the lot. She was torn and bleeding from top to bottom. Her feet were bare and her top shredded, the buttons gone. He tried without success to cover her.
“I'll get the jump kit,” Nestor shouted, starting away.
“Forget it,” Ben said. “Her neck is broken. Just get a sheet.”
The girl at their feet was now merely a body, one hundred and five pounds of decaying meat. As only Jesus and Hollywood could revive a corpse there was nothing for them to do but call the coroner. Ben radioed dispatch. Then he stared again at what had been Crystal Evers, another Jane Doe to him. She'd had a hell of a tussle with someone. She also had track marks on her arms betraying a heroin addiction. She'd apparently had a hell of a tussle with life, too.
Nestor covered her. “Another one.”
“Another what?”
“Another murder. Another gunshot.” He lifted the sheet and pointed to a round red puncture on her stomach. “The same wound the Keddy woman had.”
Still distracted, Ben asked, “Keddy woman?”
“The D.O.A. Pierce and I had this morning. On the opera house roof. They found her purse in the alley; name was Linnea Keddy.” Nestor grinned. “Erin was there.”
“Yeah, yeah. Get to the wound.”
“I'm just saying it's the same or a lot like it. The roof lady had it.”
Ben examined the small deep wound about four inches above her navel.
“Cops think it's a gunshot,” Nestor said. “Looks like it. But it's a hell of a way to commit serial murder. Shooting people in the stomach?”
“Serial murder?”
“Yeah. He might have been talking crap,” Nestor said, “but Shane, the detective, said there was another. He must have been talking about the Garfield Street Jane Doe because he said it was on the 'crispy critter'. The same wound as the roof lady. The other dick, what's his name…?”
“Chandler.”
“That's him. Shane must have given away a state secret or something because Chandler told me to scram, then chewed on Shane's bootie.”
Ben exposed the wound again. “What do you think, Paco, is it the same?”
“I know nothing from nothing, pal, you know that. Looks the same. But who shoots women in the stomach? And, if it's not a gunshot, what makes a puncture like that? The others had it, so it's not from the tram. It's too big for an ice pick or an awl. It's too round for a knife or bayonet. There was no room on the roof or inside the tram for a horse, so she wasn't jousting.”
“Be serious.”
“I am.”
“Are you sure the first body, the house fire fatality, had the same mark?”
“Am I sure? No. I told you I was eavesdropping. I'm no better at that than I am at window peeping. I think that's what Shane said. But maybe he's delusional. I don't know the guy. What difference all this?”
“Three victims. Three identical wounds. Two explosions. There's something we're not seeing.”
“There is,” Nestor agreed. “If you look at the patch on your shoulder, you'll see Fire Department. Sleeping with a cop don't make you one.”
“Goddammit, stop bringing that up. Do you know what 'Keep your mouth shut' means?”
Ben felt like an ass before he'd finished shouting. Nestor threw his hands up in surrender. Their mutual looks of apology were lost in darkness as a cloud of steam joined the rolling fog and the inferno that once had been a set of historic tram cars went out. What the hell else, Ben wondered, can go wrong with this day? He froze as the foggy night answered his question. From the top of the bluff and the height of the destroyed railroad came a high-pitched, terrified scream.
Eight
Ben and Nestor were half-way up the bluff when the call came: ambulance needed at 600 Fenelon Place, atop the destroyed Fourth Street Elevator. Rosenka dispatched his Station 1 ambulance. Nestor, at Ben's suggestion, countermanded the captain's order. “1-Boy-16, City Fire. We're 10-8 and en route. We'll take that call.” The captain barked, but thanks to scanners everywhere, had to choke off a tirade. They arrived up top a few minutes later to find nearly as much chaos as below.
The fog had thinned slightly. The flashing reds and blues of their ambulance matched the muted auras from the patrol vehicles already there. Ben slid the rig between two squads to the right and an unmarked sedan with a dashboard light to the left, and eased it near the Thatcher House overlooking the tram. Nestor slipped into the rear compartment for their jump bag.
Detective Chandler was there, Johnny-on-the-spot, interviewing a disheveled, middle-aged woman. Several uniformed officers looked on. Shane met the medics. “What's happening below?”
“Fire's under control. Occupant's D.O.A.” Ben pointed at the woman. “Is she the screamer?”
Shane nodded. “We thought we'd need you. Now I don't know. Sh
e's Mrs. Helen Playford.”
“Playford?” Nestor asked, scribbling on his clipboard.
“Yes. The victim below is tentatively identified as Crystal Evers, her daughter. Mrs. Playford saw the incident from up here. Or as much as she could have seen in this fog. Like I said, it's tentative but likely. It's about as sad a deal as can be. She's a hungover mess; belligerent, defensive, and a drama queen. I think the screams are for attention, not her daughter. Says she can't breathe.”
Few, Ben knew, were at their best at a scene of violence. Allowing for that, and the familial trauma she'd endured, the woman was still no treat. She was thin, gray, moving with the stilted half-speed of an inebriate, holding a bloody handkerchief to her cheek, with a cigarette bobbing in her mouth. Ben greeted Chandler with a nod and the patient with a muted smile. “Mrs. Playford? We're with the Fire Department. We're here to help. You cut your cheek?”
“I fell down,” she replied in a voice made of gravel.
Ben nodded. “I understand you're having a little trouble breathing?” He plucked the cigarette from her lips, dropped it to the pavement, and crushed it out.
“Hey! I just lit that. Those are expensive.”
“They are. But you're having trouble breathing and you can't smoke around oxygen.” Ben gently took her wrist and moved the hanky to examine her face. Her cheek had a lovely case of road rash. Nestor cracked the seal on an O2 bottle and was opening a nasal cannula.
“I don't need that,” Mrs. Playford insisted. “I'm just upset.”
“You wanted help,” Chandler reminded her. “Let these guys help you.”
They did, across the sidewalk and onto a chair on the wrap-around porch of the Bed & Breakfast. Ben assessed her vitals, Nestor applied the oxygen. In the same tone used to ask if the morning paper had arrived, or if the dog had finished its business in the yard, Helen Playford asked, “She dead?”
“Yes,” Ben said. “I'm sorry.”
“Dead,” she repeated blankly. “Crystal never was nothing but trouble.”
Ben nodded an acknowledgment, sorry he'd wasted the apology.
“Can you tell us what happened?” Chandler asked. “How you discovered there was trouble?”
“Heard banging on the door.” She pointed. “Heard banging, shouting. Didn't know what it was, who was banging. I hadn't seen anyone come up to the house.”
“Were you looking?”
“No. I was out of it.”
“You were sleeping?”
“I was out of it. I didn't know it was Crystal 'til I seen her going. Don't know how she got here. Where she come from. She's a night person. I just don't… The banging woke me up. Time I got to the door… When I looked, I saw Crystal across the way, running for the elevator. Then she disappeared in the fog. Something… something disappeared after her.”
“Something?” the detective asked. “Do you mean someone?”
She ignored the question; perhaps she hadn't heard it. She stared blankly. The cop frowned, flipped his notebook closed, and shrugged. Ben touched her arm. “Mrs. Playford? Mrs. Playford?”
Her eyes slowly focused. “Crystal? She left before I could open the door. She ran…” She pointed to the top of the tracks. “Ran like she was being chased. I ran after them. I ran… crossed the street.” From wherever she'd gone, Helen reported in a dull monotone. “Got to the far corner of the Thatcher House and looked down. Crystal was there, hard to see in the fog, screaming, and scratching, ducking back into the cable car. He was going in after her. Jumped right in after her. Right on top of… my baby girl.”
“Who was it? What did he look like?”
Helen shook her head. “He was dark. It was dark and the fog was so… He had long black hair… and a big black cape.” She turned first to Chandler, then to Ben, staring past both. “He was flying. He was jumping and flying and Crystal… she backed into the elevator. Screaming.”
She continued the incoherent nonsense, and Ben, Nestor, Chandler and Shane listened; hogwash, all of it, lubricated with alcohol. Any one of them might have told her so had Helen Playford not started to cry again. But this bout was different. For the first time, Ben believed she really was crying for her daughter. “Couldn't see,” she went on. “The dark. The fog. Her screams were so loud. Crystal! It was a man flapping around in a cape. Then it wasn't a man at all. It was a woman. Then it was nothing at all, just a dark thing made of shadows. Big wings made of shadows. But it couldn't have been that.” She touched her cheek, tears racing over the wound, then looked at Ben, pleading in a drunken haze, pleading in terror. “Who was it? What was it? Followed Crystal into the car?”
“Mrs. Playford,” Chandler said. “What happened after Crystal climbed into the car?”
“The car was rocking,” Mrs. Playford said. “I heard Crystal screaming. I ran as fast as I could. I slipped and fell. It wasn't my fault. I have arthritis. The doctor says I need a knee… It jumped out of the car. The cape flapped all around and the shadows and the fog. Everything was spinning. I felt so sick.”
Chandler scowled. Mrs. Playford was again the center of attention. The perp had gone full circle from a shadow, to a man, to a woman, to a shadow again. Not very helpful. Her speech grew more slurred, whether from her swollen face or the effects of alcohol, Chandler didn't know.
“The car dropped. It started forward and down by itself with Crystal inside. I don't know how that could happen. That's not supposed to happen, is it? The car disappeared down into the fog. And the sound when it hit…”
“The man,” Chandler said. “Where did the man go?”
She stared silently past him into the sky.
Ben told Helen she needed stitches, a tetanus shot, and x-rays and tried to talk her into going to the hospital. She seemed not to hear him at first, and when she did, refused to go.
“If you won't have the ambulance, Mrs. Playford,” Chandler said. “You'll have to go with these officers. We're moving your daughter. The medical examiner will need you to identify her. It's the law. Maybe, if you feel more like it then, someone can take a look at you.”
Without argument, Helen Playford went with the cops. With a “Thanks, guys,” Chandler returned to his work.
With an “Oh, Shit,” Nestor spotted a red and white 4x4, with flashing lights, appear out of the fog and park near their ambulance. It was Fire Chief Castronovo, wearing his white bell cap and his ever-present scowl. He waddled past a growing number of on-lookers, including Mark Forester, the newspaper reporter who apparently never slept, and straight toward his paramedics.
Nestor sang under his breath, “We're going to catch he-ell.”
“What else is ne-ew,” Ben sang back, before switching to a whisper. “I better get to church. When you worry what the chief thinks, it is clearly a sign of the apocalypse.”
Castronovo was on them, barking like a junkyard dog. “Who do you think you are, countermanding your captain's order? Why did you leave your patient below?”
“The girl below is dead,” Ben said. “Rosenka's right there. She's surrounded by cops and firefighters waiting for the coroner. When we heard screaming up here, as far as I was concerned, our duty below was discharged. We can do more for a screamer than we can for a corpse.”
“It wasn't your choice to make.”
“I'm the senior paramedic,” Ben said, refusing to retreat. “The captain's sitting on his ass in the Engine 1 cab. It was my call. If you have a problem with that, chief, you have remedies through the Civil Service Commission. Howling at me in the street is not one of them.”
Castronovo sneered. “You think you're so smart, Court. Well, hear this; this station house lawyer routine of yours is wearing thin. But keep it up. Every time you pull it, you're one step closer to looking for work. You have no idea what's hanging over your head.” Castronovo stormed away, grumbling.
None of them had any notion what was over their heads. Helen Playford had been mistaken. The dark thing had not gone. It hung above them, on a branch in the top of a tree, w
atching the commotion through the slowly thinning fog. It watched the engine company put out the fire. It watched Coroner Pickles, with the firefighters' help, zip Crystal Evers earthly remains into a vinyl bag. It watched the fire chief leave in a huff and Ben Court and Nestor Pena pack their gear wearing grins of minor victory in their skirmish with the powers that be. It watched the neighbors, passers-by, and media sluts end their rubber-necking and call it a night. It relished the taste in its tongue, and lusting for more, sniffed the thick air for that special scent.
The odor it wanted was no longer present. The humans below no longer interesting. Unseen, the dark thing took to the air; searching.
Nine
“To vacation days,” Ben muttered. “And romance.” Smiling wearily, he drank his toast alone.
What had been intended as a relaxing day of laughter, good food, and great sex had ended up one long trudge through Hell. Thank God it was over. Thank God for fermented grain. While he was at it, thank the furniture makers for his comfy bar stool.
The Well, a watering hole on the fringe of the Port District, had once been his home away from home. When he'd started seeing Erin, that changed. They'd never gone together. It was in public, after all, and Erin despised the place, called it a dive. Ben liked it for precisely the same reason.
In his civvies, relieved by the returned Pierce, off duty and back on vacation, Ben was in The Well aboard his stool, guiding a lime sliver with a cocktail straw around a submerged olive and through a gauntlet of ice cubes in a tall gin and tonic, when Mark Forester slid uninvited onto the stool beside him. Ben didn't say hello, and when Forester did, didn't reply. Forester, an old hand at Public Relations, put it down to preoccupation with the day. Why else would anyone be so rude to a harmless newspaper reporter? He struck a bargain with the bartender for a scotch and soda and, after a gulp, a cough, and a second gulp, asked Ben, “Heck of a day, huh?”
When The Tik-Tik Sings Page 6
