by J. A. Kerley
“A little touch of the bug,” Debro says. He winks.
“I know that bug,” one says. “For me it’s wine mixed with margaritas.” The others titter like birds and continue. Inebriation is as common here as the cabs on the streets.
“Shhhh, Jacob,” Debro says as Eisen struggles to speak. “We’re almost there.”
Eisen turns to Debro and swallows hard to dampen his constricting vocal cords. “I din tloo- muh nm.”
I didn’t tell you my name.
“You just forgot, Jacob. You’re sick.”
“Nuh,” Eisen chokes. He tried to push Debro away. “Ehm-ee-co.”
Let me go.
Debro sees only the receding backs of the quartet. He opens his vehicle’s rear door and grabs Eisen by his hair. Eisen screams. Though veins stand out on his throat and forehead with the effort, all that flows from Eisen’s mouth is a stream of warm air. Debro pushes Eisen into the back seat and puts a knee into Eisen’s spine, easily pulling his struggling arms back for the handcuffs, the man’s muscles like boiled rubber bands.
“Do you see us, Brother?” Debro grins as he takes his position behind the steering wheel. “Are you with me tonight?”
8
My inability to contact my brother – combined with his odd behavior – sparked strangely concocted dreams rooted in childhood, and this night was no exception. I dreamed of my father tied to a kayak I was paddling across my cove, screaming as sharks ripped away his flesh. I turned to my deck to see a two-headed man there, one face Jeremy’s, the other mine. The three of us exchanged looks of approval as my mother sat knitting silently in a chair on the strand, never acknowledging the blood-stained water moving her way.
I was enjoying the show when my phone turned the dreamscape into a shadowed pillow. I blinked my eyes, realizing I’d overnighted at the Palace, my empty glass on the bedside table with my phone. The clock said 5.48 a.m. and the phone’s screen was showing MORNINGSTAR.
“Why did I buy an alarm clock when I have you?” I mumbled.
“I stopped in to see Dale Kemp,” she said. “He’s regaining consciousness.”
I snapped upright. “What’s he saying?”
“Where? What? Water.”
“I’m on my way, Doc. Gracias.”
Wondering about Morningstar’s sudden fixation with the hospital, I found her sitting beside Kemp like a mother, her eyes scanning the chart on her lap. The heart monitor played a soft tone into the room.
beep … beep …
“He was just here,” Morningstar said, patting the hand and setting it on the sheets. “A minute ago he drifted off.”
“I’ve got to talk to him,” I said, fearful Kemp might again tumble into the cavern of his mind.
“He needs to stabilize. I’ll leave word with Dr Costa. Then when Kemp is—”
“I hear people talking about me.” Dale Kemp’s eyes fluttered open.
“Hi, Dale,” I said. “I’m Carson Ryder. I’m with the police.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“You didn’t do anything, Dale. You were drugged and abducted. But you’re safe now.”
Morningstar frowned and put her lips to my ear. “I’m not sure this is the best time for—”
“What do you remember, Dale?” I said, pressing ahead.
He tightened his eyes. “I was … getting ready to go out to a bar, uh, the Scarlet Fox. I’m trying to decide what shoes to wear. And then …”
“What?”
“Jesus,” he whispered. “They’re coming.”
“What?”
… beep … beep beep …
I heard the heart rate monitor blip more rapidly.
“Dale? Memories?”
beep, beep, beep …
“They’ve got wings.” He eyes were getting wider and he tried to push to sitting. “They’re … insects. Ahhhh SHIT!”
beep beep beep beep
“Easy, Dale,” I said. “It’s over. You’re safe.”
He looked down at his arms. “They’re eating me! Oh, Jesus … HELP ME!”
beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep …
“What the hell’s happening here?” We turned to see Costa, the attending physician, fortyish, dark and slender with angry eyes. “What are you doing to my patient?”
“I just asked a couple questions,” I said.
“SAVE ME,” Kemp howled, tubes pulling from his arms as he raised them to fend off invisible creatures. “THEY’RE EATING ME!”
Costa scrabbled in the bedside cart and came up with a syringe, deftly plunging it into Kemp’s arm. Kemp’s eyes rolled back and he sank to his pillow. Costa checked his vitals and looked between Morningstar and me, his eyes holding on her.
“Who’s idea was this?”
“It was my fault,” I said. “Dr Morningstar was against my questioning the victim. I pushed ahead anyway.”
He aimed the eyes at Morningstar. “I’m not sure you should be spending so much time here, Dr Morningstar. What can a pathologist add to my patient’s care, if I may ask?”
I objected to his conveniently impaired recollection. “She’s the one you called in to identify the toxins,” I reminded him. “When you and your people came up short.”
“My patient needs to sleep,” Costa snapped. “I want no one here but hospital personnel. You can question him when I say, but only when I say. Got it?”
We glared at one another for the required time, then Morningstar and I retreated to the lobby. “Sorry,” I said, leaning the wall by the exit. “I should have listened. I’ll come back tomorrow.”
“I should have protested harder. And I was afraid it might be your lone chance to get some information.” She sighed and turned her eyes skyward. “I guess I just burned Costa as a reference.”
I was about to ask what she meant by “reference” when my phone rang, Roy.
“Another victim with symptoms similar to Kemp entered MD-General a half-hour back. A young male found in the Glades west of Miramar. Whoops … here comes the vic now.”
I paid closer attention to background sounds and heard voices and clattering wheels, a gurney, probably. “You’re at the hospital, Roy?”
“You got me interested in this thing.”
“Roy … can you stop things long enough to look at the vic’s back? It’s important.”
“Hey, Doc …” I heard a hand cover the phone, voices. Twenty seconds later Roy was back. “The victim’s in front of me, Carson. He’s as limp as a wet rag. What am I looking for?”
“Check carefully between the shoulder blades.”
“They’re lifting him. Uh … it looks like a figure eight with some scratching under it.”
I blew out a long breath. “It’s the same perp. I’m gonna head to the scene and see what the techs found.”
I called Gershwin and gave him directions to the scene. It took me fifteen minutes to arrive beside a lock separating a pair of drainage canals a few miles west of Miramar, the landscape flat and thick with swamp grass and mangrove, the sound of birds and insects as thick in the air as the scent of water.
I saw a taped-off section along a rise between the road and the canal. The crew supervisor was Deb Clayton, a pixyish woman in her mid thirties whose button nose, large bright eyes and close-cropped sandy hair would make her a perfect Peter Pan on Broadway. But instead of Pan’s tight green uniform Clayton wore a white tropical shirt, baggy brown cargo pants and red sneakers. She flanked a forensics unit step van, labeling evidence bags. One held a fishing bobber. Gershwin pulled up in a motor-pool cruiser.
“Who found him?” I asked Deb.
She walked us to the edge of the canal, green and still. “Two guys in a boat. The victim was only visible from the water.”
“Any eyes nearby?”
She nodded to the east. “The nearest house is back on Highway 27. All the perp had to do was pull off the road and drag the victim over the rise.”
I checked the sightline from the road. All you saw was
wild grass. I turned to Gershwin. “The guy was probably supposed to die from exposure.”
Gershwin shook his head. “Not if the perp knows the area. This lock is where the Big Miami Canal intersects the South New River Canal. Heavily fished, more traffic on the canals than on the road. He was on display.”
“You’re sure?”
“At daybreak this becomes a parade of fishing boats.”
I crouched beside the shallow water, seeing a dark garfish hunting the shoreline for minnows. It seemed we’d just gotten a glimpse into our quarry’s mind.
“He incapacitates his victims and assaults them, Zigs. But maybe our boy doesn’t need to kill.”
“Didn’t you tell me these freaks never ramp down,” Gershwin said, looking into the flat expanse of sawgrass. “Only up?”
Debro was lazily reconnoitering bars and bistros in the near-Miami area, gauging escape routes. He’d visited most of the places, studying the seating, the lighting. The crowd. It used to anger him, the skinny little twinks finger-flicking hair from their glistening eyes as they minced from one clique to another. They’d look at him once and ignore him.
He was invisible then, too. This way was better.
Debro turned toward downtown. He’d finished his morning’s work – up before dawn, take the package to the Glades, dump it.
Buh-byee, Brianna. Did the boats dock enough for you, bitch?
He drove carefully, signaling turns, stopping fully at signs, avoiding speeding through yellow lights. If he drove poorly, his invisibility would falter. But with proper care, he could remain invisible for ever.
He saw a street sign. The comic-book shop was five blocks away, too close to let the opportunity pass. He tossed his knit cap to the seat beside him and turned the corner, pulling to the curb a dozen feet from the window glowing with neon signs. He reached for the outsize sunglasses in the glove box, but paused. He had his own mask, he realized. Right here in his hands.
Even better, he could flash the sign.
Debro pulled the cap low and strode to the store. He paused beside the building, pinched his thumbs and forefingers together before lifting his elbows skyward. The mask in place, he stepped to the window and leered inside, seeing a shape behind the counter. He pushed his groin against the window, his belt buckle clicking against the glass. If the clerk wasn’t looking before, he was now.
He turned and walked calmly back to his vehicle and climbed inside, pulling to the curb three blocks away. He pulled off his cap, set it on the dashboard, and once again made the mask with his hands.
Do you see us now?
9
The new victim’s room flanked Dale Kemp’s room and we peeked in on Kemp. He had fallen back into himself after the delirium, his face seeming a somber mask waiting only the closing of the casket lid.
We stepped to the next room and found Morningstar and, to my surprise, Roy McDermott, who offered a sheepish grin. “I couldn’t help myself, Carson. After your tutorial in the case, I got interested. I’ve got some free time, since it ain’t like I’m J. Edgar, right?”
Roy was referring to J. Edgar Hoover’s involvement in every aspect of the FBI, micro-managing, they call it now. Roy was hands-off, hiring the best people and trusting them to get the goods on the bad guys. “I don’t really care what y’all do,” Roy had once told me. “I just want to see files stamped Case Closed.”
My eyes moved to the patient on the bed, victim two. Light brown hair with a buzz cut. Closed eyes. Had I not known the vic was male, I would have thought him female, the features small and delicate. His hands lay outside the sheet and I saw digits smudged with fingerprint ink. The fingernails showed traces of red polish. I lifted the edge of the sheet, again the fading abrasions of ligatures on wrists and ankles.
“Got a hit on prints from a bust last year, Carson,” Roy said. “No biggie, caught at a traffic stop with a half-doob in the ashtray. Name’s Brian Caswell, works under the name Brianna Cass. He was reported missing eleven days ago.”
“Works as what?”
“Female impersonator, drag queen. Day job is at a nail salon.”
“How’d you find this out?”
“Checked with Missings at MDPD. I also called to see if anything new had come up, but nothing.”
“You talked to Rod Figueroa?”
Roy nodded. “Nice guy, eager to please. He asked if we could handle it as a joint case with the FCLE in full lead. Basically it means we copy him on reports.”
I shook my head in disbelief. If Figueroa had any more faces to spin he’d need gimbals in his neck. But at least it was cooperation. I studied Caswell’s motionless face. He would have been good at the cross-dressing thing, I figured, given the bone structure and lips so full I suspected collagen enhancement.
“Age?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“Injuries the same as Kemp?”
Roy’s eyes went to Morningstar, so mine followed.
“Semen found orally and anally. Lots of tearing, like the attacks were violent and repeated.”
Eleven days allowed a lot of time for attacks. “Under the influence of the datura, you think?”
“It makes sense, Carson. After feeling ill, the victim starts hallucinating violently, then crashes into semi-consciousness, unable to fend off attacks or even comprehend them. If the toxins are administered on a regular basis …”
“The mind could be permanently wounded.”
“So even when a vic recovers,” Gershwin said, “we’re screwed?”
Morningstar nodded. “Ask who he saw raping him and the answer might be a purple dragon.” She looked at me. “You saw the effect on Dale Kemp.”
“It’s insane,” I said. “And yet totally rational and brilliant. After the initial capture and restraint, the perp has no need to keep victims bound. He drugs them so heavily that they’re trapped inside themselves. When he tires of them, he simply trades them for fresh meat. Even if they recover, they’ll never ID him.”
I paused as a nurse entered the room, a guy in his mid twenties, intelligent green eyes, chestnut hair just long enough to cover his ears. He had a runner’s carriage, slender and with a bounce in his steps, as if about to break into a sprint. A stethoscope hung around his neck.
“Uh, excuse me, Nurse …” Roy said.
“It’s OK, sir,” the guy said. “I’m cleared.”
The exact facts of the case were being tightly managed, the suggestion being druggings with rohypnol – more common, unfortunately. We were keeping the ingredients of this particular cocktail under wraps for three reasons: keeping secret a fact only the perp knew, legal reasons there; avoiding panic when the press dubbed the altered drinks Devil’s Cocktails or Loco-tinis or whatever; and avoiding nutbags wandering the woods with bad intentions and a botanical field guide.
Roy had outlined the situation with the hospital administration and the nurses were chosen for competence and ability to keep a secret. Plus MD-Gen was where ill or injured criminals were sent, so the staff were used to cops taking over rooms. It was, after all, Miami.
The nurse did nurse things, writing numbers from the monitors on the chart, checking the fluid drips and wires, listening through the steth. He popped the protective tip from one of the syringes loaded with the anti-robinia preparation and injected the victim. Roy stood and approached the nurse.
“You look familiar. Your name is …?”
“Patrick White. We met once before, Mr McDermott. Last fall when, uh, Mister Green was here. I was one of his nurses.”
Mister Green was Sergio Talarico, a narcotics smuggler who’d suffered a heart attack while in solitary confinement. He’d been rushed to MD-Gen where he’d had a triple bypass and seven weeks of convalescence, all without attracting the notice of his enemies, who wanted him dead so they could usurp his territories.
Roy grinned and pumped the guy’s hand. “I remember now. Past midnight and the floor’s goddamn security cameras blew a fuse or whatever, went black. Everyone freake
d, thinking Talarico’s enemies were coming down the halls with AKs. All the other staffers disappeared out the exits.” Roy turned to me. “It was just this guy and two cops hunkered in Talarico’s room, not knowing what was going on.”
“Why’d you stay?” I asked White.
He winked and made a syringe-plunging motion with his fingers. “No one messes with a Patrick White patient, sir. I am one bad-ass dude with a hypodermic needle.”
I chuckled despite the grim surroundings. The guy not only had cojones, he had a sense of humor. “You been here long, Mr White?” I asked as he turned to drop the used syringe into a receptacle on the wall.
“Trained here, work here. Now I’m going for my Nurse Practitioner license here.”
The three of us wished White well as he blew out the door to his next patient, our eyes returning to the man on the bed, Brian Caswell, AKA Brianna Cass. No one spoke a word as I approached, put my hands on the bed rails, and leaned low.
“Where have you been, Brian? What did you see?”
All I heard back was the hiss of oxygen into nostrils.
10
Checking Caswell’s digs took us to the cheap side of Lauderdale, the upstairs of a two-story on a dead-end street. The lower apartment was unoccupied and the landlord’s name was Tom Elmont, a solid guy in his forties with an outdoorsman’s tan and a Marlins cap over a balding head.
“He’s a good kid, Brian is,” Elmont allowed as he led us up the steps. “People judge them too hard. Think they’re sick.”
“Judge who too hard, Mr Elmont?” I asked.
“Kids that dress up in ladies’ clothes. Brian explained how it’s like a talent show.”
He stopped outside Caswell’s door. “I used to be a hardcore metalhead back in the day,” Elmont continued. “Metallica, Def Lep, Sabbath, Kiss. One day I thought about all that stuff they were wearing … net hose, high-heel boots past their knees, ratted-out hair, black leather corsets for cryin’ out loud … and started laughing. I was a tough, super-ass-masculine young buck and here I was listening to music by guys that dressed like hookers.”
I couldn’t stop the chuckle. I turned. “Thanks, Mr Elmont. We’ll take it from here.”
