“Beneath the jaw, something stuck out of the ground. I didn't know what it was; a root, a hunk of metal. Janeke saw it too. He jumped into the grave beside me and yanked it out. When he wiped it off, we saw it was a tarnished green metal rod, pointed on one end like a tent stake. He thought he'd spotted treasure. Turned out it was a murder weapon.
“When you make war for a living, you're not easily frightened. But I'm telling you, something about this was wrong. I wanted nothing to do with the thing. I jumped from the hole and ordered Janeke up. I told my men to come away, that we'd dig elsewhere. We left the grave and the creepy feelings. The men thought I was crazy; said one hole was good as any, asked what difference another body made? I told them to knock it off. I couldn't help it. Touching that skull got to me. Several hundred yards on, I had them start a new grave and told them to be quick. I couldn't tell them, couldn't understand, how terrified I was. We'd exposed more than a skeleton. I felt it to my core; we'd unearthed a dormant evil.
“With my men sweating blood, with five corpses growing ripe in the jungle heat, all I could think of were the stories I'd heard from Soomnalung.”
“Soomnalung?” Ben asked. “There is a Soomnalung?”
“There was,” Ruzicki replied. He took another sip of water, suffered another wave of pain, dabbed at his eyes, and when he mastered his agony, continued. “He was a priest from the nearby village. The island was his parish and he volunteered as chaplain for the Army unit.” Ruzicki laughed. “With us heathens it was mostly an honorary position. Still, he was one of us.”
Ben nodded. “I saw the dog tags.”
“Yeah, the tags,” Ruzicki said, taking in air with a hiss. “I'm getting to those. Soomnalung was an old man but with a mind as strong, a spirit as fierce, as on the day he'd arrived in the mountains from Manila five decades before. We got to be friends of a sort. What he told me… In the late sixties, the world was in revolution. But he found his new parish, there on that island, in an uproar of its own having nothing to do with the world. Nothing to do with this world at all. He found the island tortured by a hellish plague. The people, particularly the children and pregnant women, were dying in the night. The superstitious villagers blamed their evil gods. The priest resisted that notion.”
Ruzicki coughed and shuddered. “Soomnalung never explained, the memories were too painful. And I've talked too long. I've about had it,” the mercenary said. “Skip ahead. Soomnalung came to believe, then to know, that evil – honest to God evil – was responsible for the killings and the terror. A creature, a demon from Philippine mythology was attacking the women and killing their children in the womb. Soomnalung believed the creature ate the souls of the unborn children.”
Despite his pain, Ruzicki nodded. “I see your look. I know. I thought the same when Soomnalung told me. I won't try to convince you… Ben, isn't it? I won't try to convince you, Ben. You've promised and I'm going to hold you to it, so I'll just tell you… Fifty years ago this creature—”
“But fifty years…?” Ben interrupted.
“Listen!” Ruzicki cried. “Listen, I'm out of air. It wasn't a plague on that island, it was a creature. It attacked the women, killed their unborn children. It killed any who tried to defend them. I don't know what it was; I don't know that the priest knew. He called it a worldly manifestation of evil. He said it walked in human form and called itself Vong. But when it attacked, it changed form and became aswang.”
Ben fought every urge to walk out as the poor fool, clearly out of his mind with pain, droned on.
“The young Soomnalung led a few courageous men from the village to Vong's lair. They trapped it and destroyed it. Understand, Ben, they did not kill it. Aswang isn't human; it's a demon. They destroyed it and buried the detestable thing in unhallowed ground in the jungle. It lay in that unmarked grave for fifty years, locked between death and its hideous life.” Ruzicki was crying again. “Last year, burying the corpses of five executed men, we dug it up again.
“I'm not superstitious,” Ruzicki insisted. “If you'd told me this story two years ago, I'd have laughed louder than anyone. Now I know different. We unearthed an aswang called Vong. I don't know what limbo it occupied while buried. But I'm proof, the last surviving proof, the creature did not appreciate its resurrection. Vong turned the island into a charnel house, attacking every night; our camp, the base, the village. It satisfied its lusts on the women, its needs on the children, and its hatred on the men.
“It killed dozens. It toppled the unfinished tower. It burned the Army camp, destroyed most of our munitions. It burned the church and exacted its revenge upon the priest.” Ruzicki suffered a coughing jag. He sipped water but his voice and strength were fading. He fought for breath, winced, and hissed at the pain. “I found Soomnalung dying in the ashes of his church. With his last breath he begged me to take up where he had failed; to destroy aswang and return it to limbo. I did. I promised because my friend was dying in my arms. He pushed his dog tags into my hands to seal the promise. Then he died. But I'd lied to him. I had no intention of staying to fight that thing. I didn't tell you… I married a village girl named Corazone. She was in danger because of me; she was pregnant. I had to get her out of there, off the island, away from the horror we'd unleashed.
“I couldn't fight it in its world, I told myself. I took what weapons I could, and my wife, and I got out. I had no way of knowing the extent of its hatred. Vong chased us, from the islands to South America, to Mexico, then into the modern world. It followed us, across the border into the United States, up the Mississippi. Over and over it attacked. It became clear there was no escape, no rest while the creature lived. I had to fulfill my promise. I had to make a stand. But the creature struck before I was prepared. It attacked our home, here. I couldn't get to Corazone, couldn't save her or our child. I had no choice but to… I blew up the house, I killed my wife, destroyed myself, to save our child's soul. I thought I destroyed it. But you tell me I failed; that the creature still lives.” Ruzicki grabbed the front of Ben's scrubs, pleading, “You must take it over. You must destroy this creature. I must atone for what I did, but Vong must be destroyed and that is beyond me now. You must find the creature's hiding place and send it back to Hell.”
Ben stared incredulously. Behind him, Bennie watched helplessly. Behind Bennie, unannounced, the door came open. An angry growl escaped a livid nurse. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“We're… we're the paramedics that brought Soomnalung in,” Ben said, easing Ruzicki's hands back to his sides on the bed. He forced a smile. “We were just seeing how he was.”
The nurse darted her eyes from the patient to Ben, to Bennie. Her gaze lingered on the kitchen transporter as if in recognition. “You're going to have to leave now. The danger of infection…” She opened the door and pointed to the hall. “He isn't allowed visitors.”
Twenty – One
Erin stared into the box of grenades, just stared. She was a trained marksman, could handle any gun you gave her, could turn a Danish into a donut with one shot at forty paces. But she couldn't make heads or tails of a hand grenade and didn't want to. What she'd wanted was to see all of the evidence Peter Chandler had collected. The grenades, though not on any inventory list, and not to be spoken of, were part of the evidence. But what were they doing in the Garfield basement? She closed the box again, turned, and took in Chandler's office. She sighed, backed up and tried the thought again: her office.
She stared at the city map, the crime scene photos, the stacked files, considering for the umpteenth time where to begin. She needed a crack through which to sneak a peek at the answer. She needed a clutch to get her murder investigations into gear. Hell, she needed a decent metaphor.
She stared at the Garfield Street photographs (selected by Chandler from hundreds taken during the Fire Inspector's investigation). She thought of the victims.
The press knew the corpse was female and the fire of undetermined origin. They did not know it was a homicide. They d
idn't know about the stomach wound, originally thought to be a gunshot but known now to be a stab wound from an unknown weapon. They did not know the victim was pregnant. The investigation, they'd been told, was ongoing.
The surviving burn victim, known only as Soomnalung, had yet to be interviewed. His dog tags suggested he was Philippine; that guess had yet to be confirmed. Outside of gibberish at admission, the subject hadn't uttered a word. Arrangements for an interpreter had been made, then postponed, when the hospital refused the interview. Normally cooperative with law enforcement, the hospital claimed this case was different, the threat of infection too great. No one saw Soomnalung but his doctors and nurses. And, according to the nursing supervisor even their attempts at communication had netted only screams of pain. Soomnalung's knowledge of the incident on Garfield Street remained his own.
Who were those two, Erin wondered? Were they man and wife? Companions? Enemies? What caused her death and his torture? Was he a murderer? Or had he failed in a rescue attempt? Was a perpetrator still out there? An interview, perhaps, held the answers. But that would have to wait.
She studied the pictures of the other victims each in their turn.
Linnea Keddy, attacked in an alley, left dead on the locked and inaccessible opera house roof. What was thought to be a gunshot wound in her stomach was, like the basement Jane Doe, found during autopsy to be a puncture. The same weapon? Probably. No weapon was found.
A question entered Erin's thoughts and she dug through the files for Keddy's folder. She examined Stanley Pickles' autopsy report; this time for a specific fact. She'd read it before but hadn't considered it in connection with the others. There it was; Linnea Keddy was pregnant. She dug further, found the autopsy report for Crystal Evers, the victim in the Fourth Street Elevator crash. A glance showed a similar puncture on the stomach. And, yes, Evers was pregnant too.
Catherine Herrera was obviously pregnant, eight months along, the night she was attacked. The night Shane was killed and Chandler disappeared. The children had been turned over to child services, and Erin understood, taken home by their maternal grandmother. But Herrera had no matching wound. Why? Had Chandler halted the attack? Herrera was hospitalized, out of danger, resting, and awaiting a second interview. But the first talk with her had offered little. She'd guided her children from the restaurant to the sidewalk like ducklings. There she was hit on the head. She woke in a hospital with no memory of the incident whatsoever. A rap on the door startled Erin.
“Sorry,” Traer said, waving a pair of notes. “The mayor called to remind you a press conference has been scheduled for—”
“There is nothing new to report,” Erin barked. She took a breath. “I'm sorry, Traer. I shouldn't kill the messenger. Thank you, Mayor Light's summons has been duly noted. What's the other one?”
“From your snitch, Mickey.”
Erin grinned. The snitch was an invaluable weapon in the arsenal of the street cop. But to afford Mickey Cooke that title was a stretch even the athletic Detective Vanderjagt doubted she could make. He was an incorrigible gambler and small-time criminal, a bottom-feeder who occasionally swam close enough to the surface to do her a favor in return for a little folding money. She'd had no luck tracking down the elusive Garfield Street landlord, and with nothing to lose, had put Mickey on the trail. The note, his call back, read: 'Landlord – Horace March. Garfield house rented Corazone Quezon. No prev. address. No ? Asked. 3 months paid in full.'
That was it. Missing the mayor's call had been okay but Mickey's note inspired a dozen questions to which Erin wanted the answers. They had a name now, Corazone Quezon. But was it the name they wanted? Was it Filipino? Was she, if it was a she, the burned Jane Doe from the basement? What, if anything, were Corazone and Soomnalung to each other? More, if Corazone and Soomnalung were the victims, there was still a perp out there and that perp stayed somewhere. Erin thought of another shot in the dark Mickey might take. She needed a check of all the realtors in town, this time for apartments and houses recently rented or sold to foreigners or furtive individuals. It wouldn't be much to go on, and she'd need to define furtive for Mickey, but they were grasping at straws. She tried his number and got what she expected. No doubt he was off to the casino, his usual haunt.
She'd barely hung up when Traer appeared in the doorway again. This time, he carried nothing but a curious expression. Erin returned the look. “One of the Fire Department paramedics is here,” he said. “Wants to have a word with you.”
Erin's heart jumped into her mouth. “Oh?” was all she managed. It had to be Ben. But, if it was Ben, what was he doing? Both agreed the relationship would be kept quiet. That meant he was either breaking their agreement or the visit was official. But if it was business, what business? She hadn't seen him since she'd left The Castle with Nestor. She wasn't sure how he felt about her hauling his best friend off. She wasn't sure how she felt about what he'd done. She was proud he'd taken action and mad at the action he'd taken at the same time. It made no sense but that's how she felt. She loved Ben Court, but just now, she didn't like him very much. “I'll see him.”
Traer disappeared and, a moment later, returned with the paramedic. Yes, it was Ben, wearing his yellow turnout coat and smelling of smoke. Erin excused herself and walked Traer back to the squad room. It wasn't that he needed an escort, or that she had anything of import to tell him, she simply wanted Traer as far away from her office as possible. And to give herself another moment before she faced Ben. She wouldn't be kissing him at work, she knew. But she couldn't guarantee she wasn't going to bite his head off.
She returned to her office to find Ben studying the corkboard of crime evidence. He was holding several file folders she didn't recognize, that he'd apparently brought with him, and wearing a sheepish expression. Erin moved to her chair, putting the desk between them, and sat. Her heart, briefly in her mouth, had returned to her chest where it was madly racing in place.
“Hi,” Ben said. “I wanted to… You got Nestor to the hospital?”
“Safe and sound.”
“I wanted to thank you—”
“It was my job.”
“And I wanted to apologize to you. If I made your job harder.”
Erin nodded. That was all. Ben cleared his throat and waved the folders. “I was snooping through our recent paramedic reports. I saw a few similarities came up with a few questions, and thought I might run them by you.”
“Such as?”
“Such as a recurring round wound over the stomach. I don't have access to your autopsy reports. You are probably aware, but I wanted to make sure. The wound was noted on the opera roof victim, the elevator victim, and on Angelina. Several of the women were pregnant too. I thought you might want to double check the rest.” He set the files down. “If you ask me, there've got to be connections.”
“Why do you say that?”
Fact was, he said it because of his interview with Dylan Ruzicki. He'd stopped at the station afterwards, and grabbed the files for an excuse to see Erin and feel her out, and to decide how much to tell her of what Ruzicki had said. But he hadn't been all that happy with his reception. He was less happy with Erin's attitude toward him personally. And he wasn't sure now he was going to tell her a thing.
“You're a cop. Don't you think the evidence suggests the same killer?”
“Yes, Ben, I do. But 'suggests' is a long way from 'got to be'. The world is full of coincidence.”
“Maybe. But little Duncan, Iowa is not. We've had three homicides, Erin. And an attempt on a fourth. Whoever he is that's doing this—”
“There have been five homicides. Shane's doesn't feature a stomach wound. In fact, his wounds are entirely different from any we've seen. And, to the best of my knowledge, he was not pregnant. You didn't come to apologize or share information. You came looking for information. Right?”
“You don't want to give any out?”
“I'm not paid to give out information. But, for free, I'll agree with you. If these cr
imes are connected and we do have one killer, it's most likely a filthy man.”
Ben smiled pleasantly and waved it away “I don't know what killed them.”
“Don't you mean – who?”
Ben didn't answer and an uneasy moment of silence passed between them. Then he said, “I want you to quit working nights.” And a much longer, much more uneasy moment passed.
“People in Hell want ice water.”
“I'm serious.”
“That's what's so sad, you probably are. But I'm not taking you seriously.”
“Can't they move you to days?”
“What's the matter with you? I'm the lead investigator now. There are no day or night shifts. I'm on them until they're closed. Or until Peter strolls back in and takes them over again. If there were such a thing as a day shift, I wouldn't take it. I have a sworn duty.”
“I'm worried about you.”
“In another setting, I would probably appreciate that. But you're breaking our agreement by trying to have this conversation here.”
“You're right and I'm sorry. I came to tell you something else.”
“What?”
“Nothing. It isn't important. Let's just leave it at a lame, I was worried about you.”
“If I get into trouble,” Erin said, “I'll call the Fire Department and you can rescue me.”
Now the silence was on Ben's side. Finally, with no way around it, he said, “Not for the next three days. Castronovo has suspended me for butting in on your standoff with Nestor.”
“That isn't fair. You resolved the situation. That's why I called you. Do you want me to—”
“No.” Ben raised a hand. “Thank you. One of the things we have in common is the need to fight our own battles.” Erin nodded. Ben leaned on the corner of her desk. “Did Nestor say anything to you on the way to the hospital?”
When The Tik-Tik Sings Page 13
