by Dane Hartman
Devlin came back at the first shout. He slowed from a run to a casual walk when he saw what was on the end of the hook. The round Irishman had stopped being shocked at Harry’s exploits quite some time ago. He said a few “Hail Marys” and “Our Fathers” to himself whenever he emerged from another Dirty Harry operation with his form intact. He was the only partner Callahan ever had who managed to do so for any length of time.
Fanducci, the first, Smith, the fourth, and Moore, the sixth, had all been killed. Deitzick, Gonsales, and DiGeorgio, the second, third, and fifth, respectively, had all come very close to buying it. Only Devlin, the man who filled in the empty space at Callahan’s side when Headquarters had nobody else to sit in what was jokingly referred to as the suicide seat in Harry’s patrol car, had never filed for sick pay.
“You all right, Harry?” he asked with a catch in his voice, unable to swallow.
Callahan considered the dead hitman, then glanced around at the other corpses. Like magnets pulled to the sight, the market workers began to drift back to the scene, pointing and mumbling in amazement and disgust.
“Yeah,” he said quietly to Devlin. “I’m going to call somebody to clean it up.”
On the way back to the green hulk the Justice Department supplied him with, Harry retrieved his gun from the depths of the stinking fruit crate. It came out reluctantly, dripping noxious citrus ooze.
“Shit,” Harry said, holding it away from him gingerly by the bottom of the butt.
The police car was unmarked. Otherwise the dark green exterior was beaten and battered about as much as Harry. They both had rough skin and a good variety of scars to show where they had been. Otherwise they both ran well and were dependable in a fix.
As Harry got close, letting the rain wash the dirt from his face and the fruit juice from his gun, he heard the radio burbling from inside the closed window. He quickly opened the door, threw the gun on the seat and sat behind the wheel.
“Inspector Seventy-one,” the crackling male voice on the speaker intoned. “Inspector Seventy-one, come in please.”
“Inspector Seventy-one,” Harry answered, pulling the mike up to his lips and hitting the Talk button.
“Where the hell have you been, Harry?” the less than professional voice on the radio continued.
Callahan thought about it for a second, then replied, “Fishing, Reineke. Been fishing.”
“Catch anything?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Harry answered. “But nothing I’d stuff and hang on the wall. Get a mop-up team out to the W.P.M. right away. They can skin and debone it if they like.”
Reineke didn’t have to ask details. Harry was the proverbial bull in the china shop. As far as HQ was concerned, he should be assigned a permanent sweeper to clean up the carnage he always seemed to leave in his wake.
“You’re a disgusting man, Inspector,” Reineke said with humor. “How can you live with yourself?”
“And you’re a Sergeant bucking for demotion,” Harry retorted tiredly. “What the hell do you want?”
“It’s not me, Harry. It’s McKay. He’s been burning everybody’s butt at both ends for close to an hour now. It got so bad that the Lieutenant put me in charge of finding you. The regular radio personnel gave up after more than a half-hour.”
Harry was intrigued. Ever since the “Enforcer” fiasco which left Kate Moore dead on Alcatraz Island, Callahan and McKay both had been very careful to steer clear of each other. And while they had worked together since, in a manner of speaking, it was only with the greatest of reluctance.
“What does he want? To explain this morning’s ‘Hagar the Horrible’ comic strip?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, Harry. Our only instructions were to send you down to McClaren Park.”
That wasn’t so bad. The park was less than two miles from the market. “Where in the park?” Harry asked. “The place is more than a mile long.”
“The northeast corner,” the homicide sergeant said. “Near the reservoir. He says you can’t miss it. The place is crawling with uniforms and medicos.”
Sounded like something big all right. At least all the coroners wouldn’t have to go very far themselves to examine the mess Harry had at the market. “OK,” Harry told the sergeant. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure, Inspector,” Reineke said with a flourish. “Having done my duty, I can now get back to my glamorous post, doing the thrilling job I always wanted to do: making out a report on a dead wino found on the Embarcadero.”
Callahan snorted. He only wished his own morning was as uneventful. “Sergeant,” he said, “about your earlier question concerning how I live with myself . . . ?”
“Yeah?” Reineke drawled. “What about it, Harry?”
“It’s a rotten job, but somebody’s got to do it,” the Inspector said flatly.
“Yeah,” Reineke repeated. “I know what you mean, Inspector. I know what you mean.” They both considered their dehumanizing lot for a second, then got back to the matter at hand.
“Inspector Seventy-one, over and out.”
“Keep dry, Harry.”
Reineke was right about one thing. They couldn’t miss it. All roads leading to and from the park had been blocked and the entire area was awash with blue uniforms covered with yellow, orange, and black rain slickers. The sun-streaked sky was colored with the flashing blue, white, and red turrets of a small fleet of patrol cars.
Flashing their badges numerous times to make their way through the roadblocks, Devlin and Callahan finally made it to the core. Even so, Harry still had to park the car and walk past at least a half-dozen other vehicles to get to the top of a muddy incline which was lined with police officials.
He slipped into the line, practically unnoticed, since he was wearing the same nondescript light brown raincoat all the other plainclothed cops were wearing. The only difference between him and the others was that he wasn’t wearing a hat—letting the still heavy rain beat down on his head like drumming fingers.
All the men in tan raincoats were standing at the top of the hill, unable and probably unwilling to help with the project occupying the many struggling medical officials at the bottom. Even as Harry watched, a team of interns were pulling the decomposing remnants of a corpse from its sticky makeshift grave.
As he looked around, he saw other medical units piecing another body back together, digging new holes in the hillside and loading the bones into a variety of waiting ambulances. Just as he was taking that in, an umbrella was opened behind him and held over his head. He turned to see forensic labman Walter White standing beside him, his black hand on the umbrella handle.
“McLaren Park ‘is melting in the dark,’ ” Harry said.
“They’ve been digging them out at the rate of one almost every five minutes,” the young black doctor informed him while looking down at the excavation site. “We’ve got more than a half-dozen now.”
“A half-dozen what?”
White continued, “The decomposition is bad, but the victims were also beaten either before or after death. Even so, there’s no mistaking it. All the corpses are women, Harry.”
Callahan grimaced, pushing a long exhalation of air through his nose. “Shit,” he said for the second time that morning. “Anything else?”
“All different shapes, all different sizes,” White mused with sing-song consideration. “By the looks of it, all different ages. They were buried at different times over the last few years though. That much is clear by the rate of decomposition on each body. Won’t know much else for sure until we get them back to the lab.”
Harry leaned over and looked up at the sky from under the umbrella’s lip. The rain was still coming down in near torrential fashion. It had been falling like this, on and off, for days. Harry thought that this graveyard would not have been discovered had it not been for the monsoon-like downpour. Judging from San Francisco’s usual rainfall, this cemetery could have remained undiscovered forever.
“How recent was
the latest victim?” Harry asked.
“A good six months at least,” White shrugged. “This could be one of those psycho cemeteries, Harry. The bastard could have done all this without anyone knowing and skipped town months ago.”
“And that’s just what I want you to find out, Inspector,” came another voice from behind the labman—stronger, higher, and less considerate than White’s. Callahan recognized it immediately. It was Captain Winston McKay.
Harry turned to look down at the five-foot-eleven inch police officer, who had his neatly coiffed black hair under a Captain’s rain-shielded hat. Behind him was a hulking sergeant carrying the additional protection of an umbrella. Harry said and did nothing, inspiring the smaller officer to continue.
“Nice of you to show up, Inspector,” he said sarcastically. “Isn’t it proper protocol for a lesser ranking officer to salute his superior?”
“Only in the military,” Callahan said, looking back to the corpse pit. “Otherwise it’s just a matter of perspective.”
“Perspective?” McKay echoed. “I don’t know what you mean.”
This time Harry looked at him. “One man’s superior is another man’s inferior,” he explained.
McKay’s lips vibrated and his fists clenched before he was able to bring up a retort. “You watch your mouth,” he exploded. “I could bust you down to nothing!” All of a sudden, the men who had been working in the excavation were watching the Inspector and the Captain.
Aware of this, but indifferent to it, Callahan shrugged. “So bust me,” he invited. “I don’t need this. I could think of better things to do than play politics while dead women are being dragged out of the ground.”
It was McKay who was not only aware of all the eyes on them, but was desperate to get the upper hand. “What could be more important than finding their killer?” he pompously demanded.
“What could be less important than talking to you about it?” Callahan countered quietly. Harry’s insubordination was a calculated risk on two fronts. First, demotions had no meaning for him. He had thrown away his badge before, and after everything he had been through—and not just this morning—he really didn’t care whether he was on the police force or not.
Second, he figured there had to be a good reason for McKay to ask for him personally. So if the Captain was hot for Harry’s body, there had to be something mighty pressing behind it.
Callahan watched as McKay struggled to control himself. With an obvious effort, he managed to swallow his wrath and pull back his lips for a snake-like smile. His facial pyrotechnics only offered more proof to Callahan’s theory that McKay was offering him the olive branch under duress.
“Oh no, Inspector,” McKay responded with something approaching pleasure. “I’m not going to demote you. That would be too easy. Especially with all these witnesses.” The captain motioned to all the other plain-clothesmen.
“No, Inspector,” McKay continued. “I’m going to do something worse. I’m going to assign you to this case. Under me. I’m going to give you the responsibility of finding the murderer of these women. Under my direct orders. I’m going to bury you down there with them, Callahan. You’re going to be up to your nose in rotting flesh. You’re going to have to do so much legwork and so much research that you’ll have to put in for a new set of eyes and feet.”
Harry well understood the threat. With the last victim being at least six months old, investigating would be like trying to travel back in time through Jello. The trail will have cooled and clues, let alone evidence, would be almost impossible to find. In fact, a major investigation would have to be launched just to discover who those corroding corpses were. And once that was done, their killer would be that much further away.
“What’s the matter, Inspector?” McKay pressed. “Cat got your tongue? You can’t think of some other insult all of a sudden? Come on, Callahan, I want to know what you think about that. Let everybody hear what Dirty Harry has to say on the subject.”
He was about to say what he thought when Devlin suddenly appeared behind the captain. His tapping McKay on the shoulder at that moment was enough to surprise the officer forward. He accidentally bumped right into Harry with a choked gasp. Grimacing, Harry stepped back and put his hands on McKay’s shoulders to keep the captain upright. Unfortunately, his right foot sunk into the mud on the edge of the incline, throwing the Inspector off balance.
Harry’s hands left McKay’s shoulders abruptly as he felt himself sinking in the goop and sliding over the hill’s lip. He fell back slowly and rolled through the muck, the earth unable to hold his weight. He drifted down and finally came to rest midway between the medical workers and the police watchers.
He looked up to see Devlin and White looking down with concern while McKay was shaking with laughter. Disgusted, Harry pushed his hands into the mud to attempt to stand. Instead, he looked between his arms to see something shiny beginning to appear.
Looking closer as the water completely revealed it, he could see that it was an old-fashioned silver tube whistle—the kind that consisted of a simple mouthpiece and a thin, elegant tube. Wrapping his hand around it, he saw that a chain was connected to the other end. Harry pulled on the whistle and two chain strands appeared, each sinking into the mud in a “V” shape, the base attached to the whistle. Rising out of the stuff on the left side was a tight, metal knot. Harry looked at it closely, seeing that someone with great strength had tied the chain together so that it held. Whoever it was had to be strong to be able to tighten links the way others could tie shoelaces.
Harry could feel whatever was holding the chain down giving way. As he pulled harder, he saw a ruined face emerging, washed as it came by the rain. It was a woman’s face, beaten until beauty had little meaning. But it was a fresh face. Harry could see that easily; he knew his corpses. This one was less than a day old.
He held it up as the rain washed the mud from her head, finally revealing a shapely, naked torso, and a rich, full mane of brown hair. Then, as quickly as it had started the night before, the rain stopped.
C H A P T E R
F i v e
The newspapers and television reporters were practically wallowing in it. It seemed to Harry that the anchor people could hardly contain their beaming smiles as they rattled off the rumors they had been able to barely substantiate so far. Harry heard it all on his black and white set with the coat hanger standing in for the broken antennae. As he changed clothes, showered and shaved in his third floor apartment, he corrected the report as the toothy local newsman went along.
“A scene of horror was uncovered today when the police discovered a burial ground on the side of Mount Douglas near John McLaren Park late last night . . .”
“Early this morning,” Harry said aloud.
“. . . At least a dozen bodies were dug up . . .”
“A half dozen.”
“. . . by Sheriff’s officials . . .”
“The Justice Department medical staff.”
“. . . All the victims were women.”
Callahan couldn’t argue with him there. What he could disagree with was that the report was given at all. It was just what some poor girl needed on her way to work. While it might make her a little more careful, it certainly wouldn’t illuminate the matter, which would lead to meaningless paranoia.
“For more on the story, let’s go to Ted Burnett at McLaren Park . . . Ted?”
The picture quickly changed to that of a neatly dressed man picking up the morning newspaper outside his quaint cape house.
“Thank you, John,” intoned another voice, although the speaker wasn’t the man who held the paper. “Little did Trevor Samuels know that when he went out early this morning to walk his dog, that he would be walking right into the middle of a gruesome murder scene,” the voice continued. “Samuels had always lived on this quiet residential street a few blocks from the park . . . seemingly an oasis from inner city violence . . . that is, until this morning.”
The scene shifted to
the face of a fat woman standing on her lawn in a moo-moo and slippered feet with a microphone stuck in her face. The legend on the bottom of the screen read ‘Mrs. Howard Fratellini’ and below that, ‘Neighbor.’
“We moved here to get away from all that stuff, you know,” the audio caught her saying in mid-sentence. “We didn’t like all that stuff so we came here for a little quiet.”
“But that quiet was shattered today when Mr. Samuels slipped near the McLaren Reservoir, letting go of his pet’s leash,” the reporter continued, the camera looking over the guarded, cordoned-off area near the hill. “It wasn’t only a lost dog he had to worry about. It was what the dog brought back clenched in its teeth. It was a skull . . . a human skull.”
“It was a human skull,” Harry saw Samuels say. “I couldn’t believe it. A real skull. Well, you could’ve knocked me over with a feather, I was so surprised. Nothing like that ever happens around here.”
“ ‘Nothing like that ever happens around here,’ ” Ted Burnett quoted ominously, now fully on camera in his tie and trenchcoat, holding the mike to his own chin. “Well, John, it looks like hoping is just not enough to keep the specter of violent crime away from any door in our city. And the major questions remain. Will the police be any more successful in finding these victims’ killers than they have been with all the other unsolved murders so far this year? Will this Mortician Murderer strike again? Is there anyplace safe? Is anyone?”
Here the reporter paused ominously, then signed off. “Ted Burnett . . . Eyewitness Action News.”
Harry went at the set from the bathroom. He just managed to keep himself from putting his leg through the picture tube as anchorman John continued with professional seriousness.
