The Truth Collector (Demon Marked Book 1)

by Corey Pemberton

  Malcolm pointed at her. “She's the one we need to talk to.” They weaved around staggering drunks on their way over to her. The way these people moved looked too similar to how… those things moved behind Eric and Miranda's house. By the time they made it to the bar every muscle in Malcolm's body was firing. He squeezed between some stools and looked at the bartender.

  She flashed him a flirty smile perfected by years of experience. “What are you having?”

  “We're looking for a guy named Craig Fielder. You know him?”

  These words stopped her beer-pouring, rag-rubbing tornado of movement. They got through to her somehow. She pointed to the end of the bar. “Over there. We can talk easier.”

  Her smile disappeared when they met her there. Her posture turned defensive now – defiant. “What is it about Craig?”

  “We work with him at Henson and Geary,” Malcolm said. “We're trying to get a hold of him about this case we're working on. One of the janitors says Craig likes to come here after work sometimes.”

  The bartender nodded. “He's in here almost every night. Drinks a J and B or two and hardly ever says a word. Nice guy though. But I think that job is killing him.”

  “Was he here tonight?” said Paul, stepping forward.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Sure. About an hour and a half ago? Time goes by fast when we're busy. He didn't stay long – maybe five minutes.”

  “Any idea where he went?” said Malcolm.

  The woman shrugged. “He just sat over at the end of the bar, pounded his J and B, and left.” She leaned closer. “He looked awful. So bad I didn't even recognize him at first.”

  “He didn't say where he might be going?”

  “He didn't say anything at all. Like I said, I hardly even recognized him. How he drank was different too. He usually sips it real slow – he enjoys it, you know. But this time he just slammed it down like it didn't even matter to him either way.

  “And the way he looked. Oh my God. His eyes were so sunken. And some of his hair had turned white almost overnight. It looked like he aged thirty years since last time I saw him. I'm worried about him, guys. So worried I almost called the cops myself.” She looked around the bar like someone might be watching her. “Once I recognized him I tried making conversation like I always do. Just small talk stuff. He usually humors me… but this time he just sat there rocking back and forth on the bar stool with a grin on his face. His lips were moving – he was talking to himself – but it wasn't anything I could understand.” She sighed. “It's like I wasn't even there.”

  Malcolm and Paul looked at each other, frowning.

  “Hang on a second,” the bartender said, waving at a drunk man who'd crept up to the end of the bar to demand another fix. She turned back to them. “One time he told me how much he liked walking down by the river – especially when he was stressed out. You could try looking there.” She shrugged. “That's all I know. I hope you find him, but I don't think he's going to be able to help a lick with your case. He's more fit for a hospital bed than a courtroom.”

  “Thanks,” Malcolm said. “We'll keep looking.”

  Paul was already halfway out of the bar. He looked over his shoulder and watched Malcolm hobble over on his hurt ankle. “The river's just a few blocks from here.”

  “Lots of places for homeless people to hang out,” Malcolm said.

  “Yeah,” said Paul. “But it's also perfect for someone trying to slip away – to drop off the radar after they've done something horrible.”

  “We'll find out.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Malcolm and Paul slipped away from the business district and all the bars and late-night restaurants that served it. They passed diners where loners sat sipping coffee at street-side windows, liquor stores from which shells of men staggered with brown paper bags, and abandoned corner stores whose windows advertised nothing more than graffiti.

  Grittier and grittier the city became as they drifted to the edge of the business district. Wide boulevards narrowed. Endless rows of apartment buildings squeezed in on them from both sides, many of their windows shattered. Malcolm could smell the river here. Its rotted-fish stench mixed with the cocktail of smells coming from the dumpsters and storm drains.

  The outskirts awaited at the end of alleyways and one-way streets. They worked their way towards them and the river beyond. The people were fewer out here, and their faces were unfriendly. They eyed Malcolm and Paul the same way predators eye prey. A man like Craig Fielder – a man whose soft hands were more comfortable flipping the pages of a book than throwing a punch – had no business being out here.

  And maybe that was the point.

  The company he kept wouldn't come looking for him out here. They'd write him off as a victim – they'd accept that the streets swallowed him up and he'd never come back. Then he'd skip town. Or maybe Craig Fielder wasn't thinking at all. Maybe he'd gone completely mad and retreated to his old haunts out of reflex instead of a savvy criminal mind. Paul led them into a little alley and Malcolm could almost see Craig walking in front of them, staggering along, talking to himself and rubbing light brown hair that had turned white.

  Then there were footsteps.

  They came from somewhere behind them in the alley. Paul whispered for them to pick up the pace. Their ears were lying to them, he said. They must have been. Malcolm didn't see any shadowy figure weaving among the dumpsters and junk piles lining the alley. Yet still those footsteps came. Dainty, shuffling footsteps. Someone – or some thing – trying to be quiet but unable to silence the echo in the alley. Malcolm and Paul walked faster as those footsteps grew louder.

  Malcolm turned back. “Hey.”

  The footsteps stopped as suddenly as they began. But they started again when Malcolm and Paul pressed on, shuffling along to keep pace. Malcolm looked back into the alley – an alley that was and wasn't empty – then at the riverbank waiting at the end of it in front of them. “Run.”

  Paul took off, slapping his dress shoes through puddles and dumpster drippings and cracked pavement. Malcolm followed as fast as his hobbled ankle allowed. One more block. One more intersection then a little stretch at the end. Cockroaches skittered in front of him in all directions, and from behind some dumpster hideaway a rat squealed. They kept on, filling the alley with footsteps and ragged breathing. Maybe whatever was chasing them paused. Maybe it didn't. Malcolm didn’t bother to check. His eyes were on the little strip of riverbank in front of them. The moon cast its light down there unobstructed. There, they could face their pursuer instead of playing shadow games.

  Paul went through a little intersection where their alley ran into another. His ankle burning, Malcolm followed a dozen paces behind him. He looked over his shoulder just before he reached the intersection. Nothing moved there. No footsteps disturbed the lairs of rats and cockroaches. But he kept running anyway. The river was right there – right past the intersection.

  He went through it…

  Something seized his arm.

  He cried out as his momentum was redirected at the elbow and he crashed into a puddle of putrid water. He slid his hands beneath him just before his teeth hit the pavement. Little pieces of asphalt and glass broke off from the alley and into his palms, creating a hundred cuts and a pool of blood in the puddle beneath him. Malcolm looked up, found Paul facing him in the alley. “Get off of him,” he said.

  Only then did Malcolm notice someone was on him. They wrapped him up in a tangle when he tried to get up. A warm, fleshy tangle. A woman. Malcolm cried out and kicked at her. The way they lay entangled – the vacancy in her eyes – was almost identical to the scene that unfolded at the murder house. She held him by the arm with one hand and used the other to rub a bruise that had formed on her forehead. Her touch was gentle, and the harder Malcolm tried to scramble away the gentler it felt. But somehow she held him there without moving… or even rearranging the sad smile on her face.

  “Get the hell off of me,” Malcolm said. He finally manag
ed to unhook his arm and scooted back across the alley, struggling to put his legs beneath him.

  The woman wore a dark dress which ended halfway down her thighs. Its tassels swished as she got to her feet and adjusted her hairband. “You and your friend looking to have a good time?”

  His bloody hands slid across the alley walls for something to hold on to. “What?”

  “Don't play coy with me,” she said. “I can blow your mind.” She batted her eyelashes a little and fiddled with the strands of pearls around her neck.

  “I'm sure you can,” said Paul. He bent down to help Malcolm up. “But we're done here. Stop following us.”

  “You sure? Give me five minutes. I bet I can change your mind.”

  Malcolm towered over her. “Stop following us. I mean it. Now get lost.”

  She laughed at him. “Not much of a threat – I already am lost.”

  “Whatever,” said Malcolm, turning away. “Thanks for all the cuts.”

  “Something to remember me by.” Then she reached for him. “I need to talk to you. This is serious.”

  “Come on, Paul.” They walked away and left her in the street. Malcolm held his hands together, unable to stop the bleeding. It seeped out of him no matter how hard he tried to staunch the flow – just like his hopes of getting out of this without wearing an orange jumpsuit the rest of his life.

  Paul guided them through the final stretch of the alley, checking behind him every few seconds. Finally their shoes found soft earth, and Paul looked back one last time. “That was weird. I guess she scrammed.”

  “Maybe she just really wanted to get some action,” Malcolm said.

  Paul shrugged. “Maybe. Or she just really wanted our money.”

  “What money?”

  They both laughed at that. It was all they could do to defy the polluted, garbage-strewn wasteland that lay in front of them. On the other side of the strand the riverbank fell off into blackness. Water slapped against the shore, pulled by a current and churning an endless stream of sludge. They dodged glass shards, rocks, and used needles as they made their way onto the strand.

  “Ever been out here?” said Paul.

  “Hell no. Why would I ever come out here?”

  “I don't know. Maybe for a case or something. They call this place Junkie Beach.”

  Malcolm nodded. He was watching the hunchbacked vagrants and travelers further up the riverbank. Most of them traveled alone, combing the beach like sand crabs that only emerged from the waves in the middle of the night. But some of them sat congregated around a makeshift fire. It wasn't wood that burned, but some other industrial substance. They inhaled the fumes, laughing as a wine bottle made its way around the little circle.

  “You bring your gun?” said Paul.

  Malcolm shook his head. “It's not exactly… legal. I didn't want to risk it. We have enough heat already.”

  “So we just go up there and ask those fine gentlemen if they know a guy named Craig?”

  Malcolm produced a picture of a man wearing glasses and a business suit. “This should help. I took this from Fielder's office. If they know him they'll tell us. I have a way with that, remember?”

  Paul shook his head and started to walk. “You know, that woman didn't look like a hooker. And what's the deal with her clothes? It looked like something showgirls wore a hundred years ago. She wasn't showing enough skin.” His words broke up when they passed the first vagrant on the riverfront. He looked up at them, but the curiosity in his eyes faded quickly. He turned his attention back to a fishing line that he'd dangled into the water. Malcolm and Paul moved on.

  “She didn't act like a hooker either,” Paul continued. “Way too pushy. But she seemed familiar. I've seen her somewhere before. I remember faces. Maybe at a show or my cab or –”

  “Or the park,” Malcolm said. “Where we talked to Miranda and her friend.” He glanced over his shoulder. “I'm pretty sure she was the woman feeding the squirrels.”

  Paul gasped. He stopped walking and held up his hands in little fists. “Why didn't you say something, man? You were just going to let that slip by?”

  “I didn't want you to freak out.”

  “Yeah? Well I'm already freaked out. I'm freaked the hell out. Why would she be in that little podunk town and then back in Lemhaven? Why would she be right where we are?”

  Malcolm shrugged.

  Paul grabbed his shoulder and turned it back to the alley. “We have to go back. We gotta find her, man.”

  Malcolm pointed down the strand. “I think that's our man.” Their eyes settled on a man pacing up and down the riverbank. He held a garbage bag and looked out at something in the water – something they couldn't see – and shivered in the warm night. The white dress shirt he wore shined in the moonlight, only half-buttoned and spilling out of a pair of gym shorts. He was barefoot, but walked across rocks and all kinds of pointy things without slowing down or making any effort to avoid them. Towards the water he rushed, like a surfer about to catch a wave to remember.

  Except there were no waves to speak of. There was only sludge and a thin man with a garbage bag in his hand.

  Malcolm and Paul ran after him.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Paul grabbed him by the ankles just before he made it to the water.

  He snapped back at his captors, teeth bared like a crocodile caught in a trap. His limbs flailed with a wiry strength that outsized his frame. He snarled and lashed out without ever taking a hand off his garbage bag. He clutched it against his chest and screamed when Malcolm began to pry at his fingers.

  “Craig,” Paul said, holding his ankles. “Cut it out. We just want to talk.”

  Craig grunted a reply. He cried out when Malcolm grabbed his wrists. He writhed in their grip, splashing them with oil-slicked water and spit. There wasn't a man in there but an animal, backed into a corner and fighting desperately for its life. He jerked again and water nearly splashed onto the tape recorder in Malcolm's coat pocket. Then Malcolm picked up a rock and slammed it down on the back of Craig's head.

  His body went limp in their arms. Blood splashed onto the riverbank when they dragged him away from the water. Paul was berating him for beating the poor guy over the head and Malcolm was ignoring him, looking for a half-decent place where they could get some privacy on a beach teeming with hobos on the edge of civilization. “There,” he said. He pointed at a stack of half-burned tires near a pile of trash. “Let's take him there.” Eyes followed them, but they paid little enough attention. Violence and someone in the throes of a drug withdrawal – or whatever was going on with the unconscious dude – were about as ordinary as river birds flying and shitting above them.

  They got to the tires and dropped his unconscious body on the dirt. His cut wasn't too deep, but it still bled freely. Malcolm grabbed a piece of an old t-shirt and wrapped it around Fielder's head.

  “Now what?” Paul said. “What happens when he comes to?”

  Malcolm pointed to the garbage bag on Craig's chest. “Go through that. Whatever's in there matters to him. Maybe it matters to us too.”

  Paul grabbed the bag and dumped its contents onto the ground. Clothes fell out – a dress shirt and slacks and shoes – all wrapped up together in a careless ball.

  All of them covered in blood.

  Paul separated them and laid them out on the ground. “Holy shit...” There was nothing else to add. The bloody clothes told the story well, and Malcolm and Paul had already seen how it ended: two corpses returned to life.

  “He did it,” Paul said, staring at the clothes. “He must have.”

  Craig's eyes fluttered open.

  Malcolm pressed his shoe onto the man's chest, increasing the pressure as an adrenaline shot of energy flowed through Craig's limbs. His eyes flashed down to his torso. The bag – his precious secrets – was gone. He screamed and writhed and snapped his teeth. Malcolm held the bloody rock above his head, but that only spurred Craig on. He looked up at it and sneered, daring Malcolm to
drop it right between his eyes and end it all right there.

  Malcolm put the rock down instead. He reached for the rag around Craig's head and ripped it off inches away from his gnashing teeth. Paul piled tires on Craig's legs. Then Malcolm stuffed the rag into Craig's mouth and held it there. “Shut up,” he said. “Just shut up if you want your precious bag back.”

  Craig thrashed around, trying all of his limbs. But there were tires and arms and shoes pressing down from every direction. Finally he went limp and looked up at the moon.

  “Will you stay quiet if I take this rag out?” Malcolm said.

  Craig nodded – not at Malcolm, but past him. He stared at the sky or into other worlds with all the awareness of a hospital patient under anesthesia. When Malcolm removed the rag Craig sucked in air but stayed silent.

  “We just want to talk,” Malcolm said. “Ask you a few questions.” The tape recorder was already running, flipped on during their trip across the little beach of trash.

  “Questions,” said Craig. “It always starts with questions.” He jerked his head up and burst out laughing. The sides of his face were sunken into his skull. He still wore his eyeglasses, though the lenses dangled uselessly off his nose like tumors. Malcolm grabbed him by the hair and shoved him back to the ground. Some of the hair clumped into his hand and he flicked it aside, watched it fall on the beach in little white wisps.

  “Jesus,” Paul said. “What happened to you?”

  But Craig didn't answer. He lay on his back in a pool of blood with a smile on his face.

  Malcolm grabbed his face and forced himself to look at it. “You might not answer him, but you're going to answer me, Fielder. Look into my face. Look at me – now.”

  Craig obeyed.

  “Did you kill Eric and Miranda?”

  Craig stayed silent for a moment, considering it. Then the impact of those words spread across his body. It started in his eyes, bulging and twitching, and traveled to his fingers and toes and everything in between. He sobbed as a convulsion took him, shook him and slammed him into the ground. “Miranda is… d-d-dead?”