City of Heretics

by Heath Lowrance

  At the first bedroom, he slowed down long enough to close the door. If the intruder somehow managed to make it that far without Crowe seeing his shadow—highly unlikely—he’d have to open the bedroom door again to come out and Crowe hear him. He did the same with the second bedroom.

  Right before the bathroom, Crowe crouched low and moved a little closer to the far wall. From an angle, he peeked in. The light was off in there, but it was small and there was enough light from the living room to show it was empty. The shower curtain was clear plastic, and no boogiemen were hiding behind it.

  Crowe straightened up and eased another step or two down the hall.

  He could see almost the entire living room now, all the furniture, the lamp, the tables. Nothing moved, nothing made a sound. He could’ve been lurking right at the doorway, waiting to jump him from there. But, no, Crowe remembered that one of the end tables was in that spot.

  So where did he go? Was Crowe imagining things after all?

  He took another silent step and the whole living room was visible and there was nobody there. The kitchen, then, just off the living room and on his other side.

  Crowe took a step into the living room and looked to his left, where the kitchen opened up. The back door, which he’d so carefully closed behind him, was now wide open.

  From the pale light creeping in from outside and the shadowy glow of the living room lamp, Crowe could see every nook and cranny of the kitchen, and the intruder—the intruder besides himself, that is—was nowhere around.

  Whoever he was, he was gone now, hustled back out into the cold, maybe waiting to jump Crowe once he got outside. But Crowe wasn’t particularly worried about that; if he was going to attack, he would’ve done it in the house. Why take the chance out there, where someone could possibly see or hear?

  Crowe relaxed a bit and started for the door.

  Just as Crowe’s hand closed over the doorknob, there he was, swooping in from Crowe’s blind left, hitting him with something hard along the upper part of his back.

  Crowe felt the stitches in the knife wound between his shoulder blades rip open and he fell into the side of the door and into the cabinet. The attacker kicked the door closed and came at him. It was the Goth-looking guy, with the long black overcoat and dyed black hair.

  Crowe lunged at him with the letter opener. Goth-Boy slapped it aside with his weapon—a heavy length of pipe—and with his other fist punched Crowe in the right shoulder.

  Crowe’s whole right side screamed at him and the letter opener fell out of his suddenly powerless fingers. The pipe came down toward his skull but because he happened to be half-stepping backwards on the linoleum it slammed against the countertop and pieces of Formica scattered all over the kitchen.

  Crowe backed into the stove, and the pots and pans above it clattered obnoxiously. With his left hand, he reached behind him blindly and grabbed whatever his fist closed around and swung it at the Goth-Boy.

  It was a hefty cast iron frying pan. Not bad. His swing had been sloppy, but he still managed to connect with Goth-Boy’s temple, and the thud sound it made was pretty satisfying.

  Goth-Boy choked back a sob of pain and reeled away. Crowe pressed the advantage, fighting through the lancing red agony in his right shoulder and between his shoulder blades. He wasn’t impervious to pain, like good old Leon Berry, but he was damn good at working through it. He swung again, catching Goth-Boy on his right shoulder, and Goth-Boy fell back against the counter that Crowe had been against a moment before.

  Crowe was ready to finish him off with the patented ‘frying pan to the skull’ routine, but Goth-Boy had more in him than Crowe reckoned. One clunky black leather boot shot out and nailed Crowe just below the knee. If it had been a fraction of an inch higher it would’ve shattered the kneecap, but as it was there was enough power in it to halfway drop him.

  The lead pipe swooshed, and Crowe pushed himself back and it breezed across his coat collar. He snagged Goth-Boy’s arm on the back-swing, jerked it down, and came up with his forehead into his nose.

  A crack, a wash of blood across Crowe’s face, and Goth-Boy stumbled back stiff-legged, the way someone knocked half-senseless will do. He dropped the pipe. Crowe didn’t let up. He jabbed the edge of the frying pan at his throat, heard him say, “Guh—,” and kneed him as close to his stomach as he could. He gripped the frying pan in both hands and let him have it in square in the face.

  There was a wet crunch and Goth-Boy fell back against the kitchen table and chairs clattered across the linoleum and he dropped.

  Crowe had learned the hard way that that wasn’t the time to stop and catch your breath. The kid looked down for the count, but looks can be deceiving. He bent over him, grabbed a fistful of his black hair, and slammed his head against the floor a few times. His eyes rolled back and that’s when Crowe knew he was done.

  Crowe dropped Goth-Boy’s head, stood up. Blood rushed to his skull and he almost fell down right there next to him. He steadied himself on the counter and let the adrenalin run its course through his body.

  His heart rate started slowing and the pain he’d been pushing down flared with every breath he took. He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out the bottle of pain killers, tossed a couple down his throat. His back and shoulder felt hot and sticky. The goddamn stitches.

  He went over and kicked Goth-Boy in the head, just to get it out of his system. The kid grunted but didn’t move.

  Still alive. Good. That meant he could answer some questions.

  But that particular plan didn’t work out. Crowe had just started to look through the kitchen drawers for some rope when a flashing blue and red light shone through the front window, and the familiar woop of a cop car siren disturbed the quiet neighborhood.

  A neighbor had seen one of them get into the house, or maybe someone had heard the scuffle in the kitchen, or seen the desk lamp burning in the study. Whatever it was, the cops had come quickly and the evening wasn’t working out as planned.

  Goth-Boy groaned, and Crowe edged away from him toward the door. If the cops were smart, one of them would’ve been out of the car by now, making his way around to the back of the house before the other one sounded the siren.

  Crowe had to bank on them not having that much foresight. He opened the door and stepped out into the darkened backyard, moved quickly across the patio and to the wood fence.

  A strip of light from the next door neighbor’s rear patio knifed suddenly across the yard, exposing him as thoroughly as a spotlight. At the same second, a cop appeared at the corner of the house. His gun was still holstered, but his hand rested on it, ready. He saw Crowe.

  “Freeze!” the cop said, a little predictably, and the gun started coming out.

  Behind the cop, Goth-Boy loomed in the doorway, bloody and battered but amazingly still conscious. The cop saw him from the corner of his eye, started to spin, when Goth-Boy slammed the lead pipe across the cop’s skull. The cop crumpled, firing off a shot as he fell.

  Goth-Boy stumbled over him, carried by the momentum of his swing, and from the front of the house Crowe heard the other cops, doors slamming, someone yelling into a walkie-talkie, shoes pounding concrete and then ice-crunchy snow.

  Crowe scrambled awkwardly over the fence and stumbled away.

  He’d cleared the next fence and was angling off between two houses and toward the street when he heard one of the cops screaming, “Freeze! Get down on your knees, now!” and for a split second he thought the cop had super-human vision and could actually see him. But it was Goth-Boy he was screeching orders at.

  When he made the street, Crowe kept running directly across it and through the next yard. The wound at his shoulder blade was bleeding. He could feel it running hot down his back.

  He cut through five backyards, jumped another fence, veered right between two ranch houses. Moving as fast as he could, he crossed another street, passed through another set of backyards.

  Behind a modest bungalow, he paused for a momen
t in the shadows, listening for the cops behind him. Silence. If he was lucky, the cops wouldn’t even know he had been there.

  He cut through another yard, angled left, made his way silently between two more houses, and came out on the same street the Wellings house was on, Findle Street.

  From the shadows between the two houses, he peeked up the block. The Wellings place was about half a block up, and he could see the police cruiser, lights flashing, and the cop who’d stayed behind. The cop stood next to the car door, radio in hand. Waiting for back-up.

  Right on cue, another blue light flashed, and Crowe ducked back into the shadows of the house. Another cruiser sped by and came to a quiet stop next to the other one. Two more cops got out. Crowe could hear them talking to each other but was too far away to make out the words. Radios squelched.

  Crowe looked up the other side of the street, trying to orientate himself. His car was on the street intersecting Findle.

  Right in front of him.

  He walked across the yard, got in his car, and drove away.

  He made it out of Bartlett without hearing another police siren or seeing any flashing lights. Every muscle in his body ached, and more than once his hand strayed to the pain meds in his pocket. He didn’t pop any more, though. He’d decided it was important to keep his head clear for the time being.

  Things were going to get worse before they got better. He knew that. He knew it, because the face he’d seen in the photograph, that smiling adult face on the periphery of the happy shot of Patricia and her friends, was a face that meant trouble.

  One photo, two victims of Peter Murke. No way that was a coincidence.

  Why was Jezzie Vitower in the same photograph with Patricia Welling?

  When he’d made Memphis, Crowe flipped open the cell phone and punched in Radnovian’s number. Rad answered on the first ring, sounding eager and not at all stoned.

  “You expecting someone to call?” Crowe said.

  Rad let out a disappointed breath. “You know,” he said. “Considering how, according to you, we aren’t buddies, you sure do call me an awful lot.”

  Crowe heard the click of the electric razor, and the whining motor as it came closer to the phone. “Stop shaving for a goddamn minute and listen to me.”

  “I can shave and listen at the same time.”

  “I’m sure you can. Turn it off anyway.”

  It clicked off, and Rad said, “Okay. There. Happy?”

  “I need another favor from you. The file on Murke. Get it for me.”

  “Right,” Rad said. “Just kinda… oh, stroll casually into Homicide, pull the file on Murke, smile at the boys in charge of his case and stroll right back out. That what you have in mind?”

  “That’s about it.”

  “Crowe, what do you think I am? I’m in Internal Affairs. That doesn’t give me authority to do whatever the hell I wanna do, you know.”

  “It’s not your position that gives you authority, Rad. It’s how you abuse it.”

  “You’re a sonofabitch,” he said. “I really hate you, you know that?”

  “Get the file on Murke. Meet me at my apartment tonight.”

  Rad said, “There’s no way I can do that. Not that soon.”

  “When, then?”

  “Tomorrow. Tomorrow night, I can do it by then.”

  “Fine,” Crowe said. “Tomorrow night, seven o’clock.”

  “Okay, Crowe. But eventually you’re gonna have to cut me some slack. I can’t keep—“

  Crowe flipped the phone shut.

  He hadn’t been in his apartment in about ten days. There was no mail. Harriston stood just outside his door again, smoking, and when he saw Crowe coming up the steps he said, “Well, hey there, Crowe, long time no see.”

  Crowe nodded at him and kept moving toward his door. Harriston said, “What the hell happened to you, son? You get in a fight or something?”

  “Yeah,” Crowe said. “I’ll tell you all about it another time, Harriston. I’m beat. I need some sleep.”

  “Sure, sure. Some sleep. Damn, Crowe, you sure do get yourself in some crazy shit.”

  Crowe unlocked his door, started to go in, when Harriston said, “Say, I reckon you’d wanna know, you had a visitor a couple-three days back. Said he was a cop.”

  Crowe looked at him. “Wills?”

  Harriston nodded. “Yeah, that’s right. Detective Wills.”

  “I talked to him.”

  “Okay. But, uh… listen, we don’t need any trouble in this building, you know? I mean, cops coming by? Tenants showing up looking like they been trampled by bulls? That’s just—“

  “No trouble,” Crowe said. “It’s all a great big misunderstanding. Everything’s already straightened out.”

  “Yeah. Except, you know, with your police record and all—“

  Crowe went in his flat and shut the door.

  The garbage can was starting to smell bad with apple cores and orange peels. Crowe ignored it, and stumbled into the bathroom.

  A hot shower took the edge off his pain but brought the fuzziness to the surface. He changed out his bandages and dropped into bed naked.

  But as tired as he was, he couldn’t sleep. He lay there, looking up at the dark ceiling, hearing the noise of traffic outside, the ticking of the clock by the bed, the sounds of the building straining against the earth.

  Jezzie Vitower and Patricia Welling, in the same photograph. The Society of Christ the Fisher. Peter Murke.

  He was too tired, too tired to make sense of any of it. He was no goddamn detective. When he needed to know something, he beat it out of the person who can tell him. But that wasn’t going to work this time; the sources who could tell him anything were either dead or missing.

  Or not even real. Like the Ghost Cat. It could tell him something, he thought, if it actually existed.

  But that was his exhausted brain, scrambling around in his head and grasping at phantoms.

  He eventually started to drift off, and his half-awake thoughts turned to Dallas. They were dark thoughts, full of flesh and sweat and heat, and they kept him from falling asleep completely.

  He got up and made some coffee.

  He sat at the window and drank coffee and thought about how he needed to stop thinking. It was one in the morning. He had another cup of coffee, got up, got dressed, left the apartment.

  He drove to Dallas’s house.

  “Crowe,” she said, blearily. “What are you doing here? It’s one-thirty in the morning.”

  He looked at his watch and shrugged.

  “What… what are you doing here?” she said again.

  “I don’t know.”

  She opened the door and let him in, peeked outside to see if any neighbors were around, and closed it behind her. She wore over-sized men’s pajamas. Her mascara was smeared down her cheeks.

  “You shouldn’t be here. Are you drunk?”

  “No, I’m not drunk.”

  “It’s one-thirty in the morning.”

  “We’ve established that. Chester still at Dr. Maggie’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about the boy?”

  “His name’s Tom, and he’s asleep. What, did you think he’d be up this time of night?”

  “No.”

  She stood there looking at him, and finally sighed and said, “You wanna drink?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t have any vodka. Only whisky. But it’s good whiskey.”

  “Fine.”

  She frowned at him and went into the kitchen. He sat on the sofa. The living room was tasteful and only slightly bohemian. The furniture was standard tan and black, the walls a muted lime green. There were knick-knacks in gleaming silver, a few art deco type pieces, and a slim curving lamp that lit the whole room. It smelled very delicately of Dallas, as if she’d scented the place lightly with her own perfume.

  She came back in carrying a bottle and two tumbler glasses. “It’s been in the fridge,” she said. “You don’t n
eed ice.” She sat down next to him and poured drinks.

  He tossed his back, grabbed the bottle and refilled his glass. She sipped hers, and said, “So. I reckon I should say Happy Birthday.”

  “What?”

  “Today’s your birthday, isn’t it? Don’t tell me you didn’t know. You’re fifty today, Crowe. That’s a big deal, right?”

  He shook his head. Was it his birthday already? And more importantly, who gave a shit?

  He said, “Okay. Thanks.”

  She said, “I didn’t get you anything.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “A card or something would’ve been nice, though, huh? Maybe sometime today I’ll pop down to the Hallmark and—“

  “Dallas,” he said. “Shut up.”

  She frowned. “Right,” she said. “You never liked it when I made a big deal about your birthday. I forgot.” Then, “Chester isn’t home yet, but if anyone saw you here there’d be huge trouble.”

  “Yeah, I suppose so.”

  “But you came anyway.”

  “Why not? You took the chance of coming to my place a couple weeks ago.”

  She said, “Well, you got me there. It couldn’t be helped, though. I really needed your help.”

  “So what if I need your help? What if that’s why I’m here?”

  “My help? With what?”

  He looked away from her and took a drink. “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Look. Obviously, you’re having a bad time right now. I don’t think—“

  “Scratch that. I don’t need help. I just came to give you this.” He reached into his coat and pulled out some of the cash he had left over from Vitower. It was about two grand. He shoved half of it in her hand.

  She looked at it blankly, and said, “How much is this?”

  “Enough to get you out of Memphis. You go somewhere, we’ll work out a way for you to contact me, and I’ll meet up with you.”

  “Meet up with me? Crowe, why?”

  He hated that she asked that. He took another long drink and said, “Why do you think, goddamnit? To… to give you more money.”