by Joe Hart
Stevens stared back at Sullivan through the falling rain as the boat slowed and finally idled through the last few yards of water. His eyes said several different things, but Sullivan read one the clearest: Really? Fucking really? Sullivan tilted his head to the side and shrugged his shoulders. There would be no turning back now. They were here.
The blacktop growled against the aluminum as the boat slid up onto the rough shore. Stevens climbed out and horsed the small craft up farther, to ensure it wouldn’t escape with their disembarkment. Sullivan’s hand ran across his poncho and pressed against the familiar form of his Heckler & Koch .45 ACP. The weapon had been with him for years and he needed nothing else to feel secure. He wondered absently if the barrel still smelled like his hands, or if the solvent he’d used to clean it was more powerful than the soap he’d washed with.
Barry steadied the boat as Sullivan climbed over the side and felt the blacktop meet the sole of his shoe. Jaan slid out of the boat last, and gazed up at the oppressive building behind the two agents.
“Well, this is where I leave you,” the sheriff growled.
Both men turned toward Jaan, and then looked back and forth to one another.
Stevens stepped forward and flinched as a blast of thunder erupted over their heads. “Aren’t you accompanying us to the crime scene?”
The sheriff shook his head. “No, I’ve been up since yesterday morning and I need some rest. I boated your buddies here, so they should be able to tell you more than I ever could.” Jaan eyed the prison’s walls again and bit a cracked lip with a few yellowed teeth. “Most fucked-up thing I ever saw. And boys, I seen a lot.” He groped for a moment beneath his slicker and then produced a business card with his information, which he handed to Barry. “You can call me in a while if you have questions or you need to get back to the other side.”
Without another word, the sheriff proceeded to push the boat back off the road and hopped inside. A few seconds later the motor roared to life, and the sheriff was gone behind the last turn in the channel, leaving a small wake.
Lightning flashed above the agents and they both turned to look at the sandbags, the fence, and the prison beyond.
“Well,” Sullivan said.
Stevens breathed in deeply and blew water from the overhanging poncho hood as he exhaled. “Yeah, let’s go.”
Both men started walking up the wet, rising road to the gate.
Chapter 2
The guard house was empty.
Sullivan cupped his hands to the glass and looked into the small space, then reached out and pressed the red button mounted beside a battered-looking speaker. The button elicited no response, and he wondered how long they would have to wait outside in the rain before someone noticed them standing here. He pressed the button again, beginning to lose his patience, and squinted through the rain at the front doors, willing one of them to open.
“This sucks,” Stevens said, as he turned in a slow circle, taking in their surroundings.
Sullivan muttered his agreement and punched the button again. “And what’s up with the sheriff not coming to the crime scene? I know he’s been up all night, but come on. You don’t just toss this kind of shit off to someone else.”
Barry shook his head, equally agitated. “Let’s just get up there and take a look at the dead guy and get out of the weather. I’m getting fucking soaked through this plastic.”
Sullivan was about to press the button a fourth time when both men heard a sound and looked up to see a covered Rhino speeding toward the gate; a lone occupant sat in the driver’s seat. The agents watched as the figure tapped in a code on a control box next to the gate and the chainlink began to roll to the side. After a few seconds, the ATV sped down to them. Once he arrived, the driver stared at them from beneath the plastic canopy.
The man looked to be in his early thirties and had narrowed eyes, which Sullivan doubted had ever fully opened, and a large nose, which sat obtrusively on his thin face. He wore a dark blue guard uniform that consisted of a button-up long-sleeve shirt, matching cargo pants, and a baseball hat that had the words SINGLETON PENITENTIARY outlined in bold white letters.
Sullivan stepped forward and offered the man his hand. “Hi. Special Agent Sullivan Shale, and this is Senior Special Agent Barry Stevens.” The man looked down at Sullivan’s hand for a moment before returning his narrow stare back to the agent’s face.
“Everett Mooring. Your people are already in the cell.”
Sullivan dropped his outstretched hand when he realized that there would be no reciprocation, and glanced over his shoulder at Stevens. Barry rubbed his forehead, and then walked around Sullivan, sitting down in the rear seat of the vehicle. Sullivan followed suit and sat next to Mooring.
The prison guard spun the Rhino around and accelerated up the wet drive toward the still-open gate. Sullivan studied the prison’s exterior again. The dull brick walls were reminiscent of several schoolhouses he attended as a child. A small but intricate arch of stone sat atop the building just above the entrance, the prison’s name carved deeply into the rock. Two paved pathways led to either side of the building. To the left sat a forlorn basketball court, its hoops devoid of nets and its floor covered with standing water. The path to the right disappeared into a thick grove of trees. Mooring pulled the Rhino under the awning that covered the entrance of the building and stopped a few feet from the doors.
Without bothering to look at either agent, he said, “The desk attendant will direct you to your friends.”
Sullivan saw Stevens lick his lips and then begin to say something, but Sullivan cut the other man’s words off before they began. “Thank you, Officer Mooring.”
Without a glance back, Sullivan stood from the vehicle and relished the feeling of being out of the insistent patter of rain. He heard Barry exit the Rhino, and then watched as Mooring drove from under the awning and disappeared around the side of the building.
“What a fucking ass,” Barry said. “I’ll have to send a special thanks to Hacking for this one.”
Sullivan turned and looked at him from beneath his still-dripping hood. “That guy’s not just an ass. He’s not happy we’re here.”
Stevens nodded in agreement, and both agents turned to the swinging double doors and made their way inside the prison.
The lobby wasn’t very deep, but it ran the width of the building, and with a ceiling that opened into the second story, it gave the impression of a large space. To the left a door led off into an area encased in reinforced Plexiglas, with several rooms containing simple desks and chairs. To the right was an unmarked oak door with a brass handle. A nameplate sat at eye level, but Sullivan was too far away to read the name etched there. A wooden desk shaped like the prow of a ship sat directly in front of the two agents, and their wet footsteps clacked and echoed off the poly-coated concrete floor and slate walls as they approached it.
A heavyset black woman in a uniform that matched Mooring’s sat behind the desk typing on an aged keyboard, and only looked up from the screen before her when Sullivan placed his hand upon the desk and leaned forward.
“Yes?” she said, looking surprised to see them standing there.
“Special Agents Shale and Stevens from the BCA. We’re looking for the rest of our crime-scene team.”
“Identification?” she asked. Sullivan and Barry both pulled out their wallets and opened them to their photo cards that confirmed who they were. The woman studied both IDs, then nodded and turned in her seat. “See that door there?” she said, pointing to a solid steel door set into the back wall of the room. “I’ll buzz you through in a moment. An officer is positioned on the other side. He’ll direct you to the rest of your team.”
“Thank you,” Sullivan said before stepping around the desk and heading for the door. A moment later a loud buzzing sound filled the lobby and Sullivan grasped the cold handle and pulled the heavy door open with a resounding clack.
Behind the steel door the prison expanded into an impressive
two-story block of cells that ran away from the men in an almost illusionary impression of infinity. Two steel staircases shot up from the floor on opposite sides of the enormous room and ended on the second level. Doorway after doorway encased with chunky bars of iron lined both the first and second stories. The white paint that covered the cells no longer remained intact and chunks were missing here and there, giving the rows a speckled, shabby look. Several sets of disembodied hands could be seen poking out from the mouths of the cells, but other than the sound of the door slamming solidly shut behind them, the holding area was silent.
A young prison officer sat behind a wooden desk to their immediate left, and he shot up out of his seat as the two agents stepped through the doorway.
“Are you BCA agents?” the officer asked in a voice that cracked with what could have been something bordering on panic.
Sullivan nodded and opened his billfold again, revealing his ID. “Special Agent Shale, and this is—”
The young prison guard moved around the desk and began walking down the long first-floor corridor, his footsteps snapping like gunshots off the concrete. Sullivan looked at Stevens, and the other man merely shrugged.
“You have a more intimidating name anyway,” Barry said and brushed past Sullivan, with a smirk on his face.
The prison stretched out before them like an indoor runway. Sullivan looked back and forth from one side of the walkway to the other. Inmates of all ethnicities, wearing orange jumpsuits, stared back at him. Most sat on their beds and their heads turned as the guard and two agents passed by—new scenery in an otherwise drab and routine-enforced world. A few prisoners stood at the doors to their cells, but their eyes did not meet Sullivan’s as he looked at them. Instead, they stared either at the floor or to the side, the direction in which the group headed.
As they walked, Sullivan realized that the prison’s shape was that of a T. At the very end of the corridor, the building shot outward in either direction and ended in a solid brick wall. Two more staircases accessed the upper level of the rear wall, and he could see a few more sets of eyes peering out at him from both the first and second floors. Their footsteps were the loudest noise in the airy space, and soon Sullivan realized why he felt the edges of unease grating against him: there were no yells of anger or defiance from the cells. No catcalls or agitated mutterings filtered out to them.
The prisoners were quiet.
Sullivan looked around again, searching for a jeering face or a middle finger being raised behind the bars, but saw only darkness and silhouettes.
The guard swung left at the far end of the vaulted hall and proceeded toward a set of steps that turned 180 degrees on a wide landing and descended into an eerie yellow glow. Stevens threw a look over his shoulder and Sullivan followed.
The stairway dropped down two levels and emptied out into a narrow passage, the floor they walked on earlier closing over their heads like a cave. The right side of the hall was poured concrete, unpainted and stained from things Sullivan didn’t want to guess at. The left held five doors made of solid steel and resembled the entry into the holding area. All of the doors were shut tight and had small portholes at head height roughly the size of a softball and reinforced with wire mesh. A thin slot only a few inches wide and a foot long had been cut in the middle of each door. The entire area felt like being in a submarine—the bolted bulkheads, the painted doors, and the close ceiling.
Sullivan gazed past the shoulders of Stevens and the guard. The last door in the line was wide-open. Sour light cast a pale urine-colored wedge onto the floor of the hall. He could see one of the forensic specialists standing outside the swath of the door. Sullivan recognized the man as Don Anderson, a veteran and the technical head of the crime-scene unit. Unshakeable, Don was easily the most calm and collected man on the team. At the moment he had both hands shoved deeply into the wide pockets of the white smock over his street clothes; elastic booties encased both of his feet. His graying and partially bald head drooped toward his chest.
The guard leading them suddenly stopped several yards from the open doorway and leaned back against the wall opposite the doors. Barry and Sullivan stopped before him and eyed the young officer, who seemed to want nothing more than to melt into the surface behind him.
“Are you okay?” Stevens asked the guard.
The young man nodded tightly and Sullivan saw his jaw clench, the muscles beneath his cheek going taunt. “I’m going to go back up. If you need me, I’ll be at my desk.”
The guard tried to slip by Sullivan, but he reached out and snagged the younger man’s uniformed wrist, stopping him in his tracks.
Sullivan leaned closer. “Are you the one that found the victim?”
The guard’s eyelids fluttered, and then he nodded in a jerky motion, his head snapping up and down.
“Are you okay?” Sullivan repeated Stevens’s inquiry, studying the pale unlined face of the officer.
The man roughly pulled his sleeve out of Sullivan’s grasp, and without looking back, hurried away from the two agents and disappeared back up the stairway.
Sullivan glanced at Stevens. “Shaken up.”
“Hacking said he’s fresh here. Probably the first body the poor kid ever saw,” Barry said.
Anderson turned toward the agents as they approached, and his eyebrows rose in surprise at the sight of Sullivan alongside Barry. “Wow, that’s not much of a mandatory leave,” the forensic specialist said.
Sullivan shrugged. “I guess Hacking just loves me that much.” Don huffed laughter as both men stepped into the mouth of the doorway. Sullivan was about to ask what had been done so far, when he looked into the interior of the cell and blanched.
The room was small, about half the size of the other cells on the level above them. A single incandescent bulb jutted from the ceiling, encased in a steel cover that leaked light through the gaps. A bed extended from the left wall, just wide enough for a man to lie on. A stainless toilet-and-sink combo sat against the far wall.
Blood. Everywhere.
Gore splashed each wall like a paint mixer had exploded within the room. Chunks of what could only be flesh and bone were speckled here and there among the stains. Something dark and misshapen protruded from a small heating-cooling vent in the floor. Two other members of the forensics team stood in the only bare patches of concrete within the room. Their eyes found Sullivan’s, and he registered the same thing he felt at the moment—revulsion. The room smelled like a slaughterhouse, coppery with a hint of decay at the edges.
“What—in—the—fuck?” Barry said in a low voice.
Anderson shuffled closer to the doorway and leaned into the threshold. “Yeah, my sentiments exactly. We were just beginning our layout, but I’ll tell you what we’ve got so far, and this is mainly from the file we were given by the sheriff when we arrived. Victim is male, Mexican descent, age thirty-four. As you can see, there’s not much left of the body.”
“Not much left?” Sullivan asked as he stepped into the doorway, keeping the tips of his shoes a few inches away from the nearest pool of blood. “I don’t see anything.”
Anderson motioned the closest forensic tech out of the room, and pointed to the spot he’d been standing in. “Step in there and look at the vent.”
Sullivan moved carefully over a stream of blood and took the vacated position on the island of bare concrete. He bent at the knees, drawing closer to the vent in the corner of the room. It was three to four inches in diameter and circular in shape. A thick grate cover matching the vent’s width sat on the floor; the headless bolts securing it were snapped in the middle and lay strewn in the blood.
The dark shape growing from the vent’s mouth looked like a squashed mushroom. The top was flattened and broken in places, and its sides were crushed and disappeared into the floor. It took Sullivan a moment to realize the dark top of the object had strands that were matted together, giving the illusion of a solid piece.
Hair. He was looking at the top of a head.
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Sullivan sucked in a breath and leaned back, horrified at the state of the remains. Slowly, mangled features began to take shape on the decapitated head. A flattened nose here, two smashed orbital sockets there, fractured bone stained black with blood poking through flayed cheeks.
Sullivan pivoted on the dry spot and looked at Anderson and Stevens, who still stood in the doorway. “They jammed his fucking head into the air vent?”
Don nodded. “It appears so. Severe blunt-force trauma to the top of the skull. The jaw was fractured as it was forced into the vent, but it looks like the zygomatic bones were too bulky, along with the rest of the skull’s rigid structure, to be pushed farther in.”
Sullivan turned back to look at what was left of Victor Alvarez as he heard Barry curse under his breath. He ran through what he was looking at again, beginning the process of categorizing and committing the facts to memory. Head cut off, shoved chin-first into the narrow vent. Skull crushed.
Skull crushed, blood arcing out in a halo around her body.
Sullivan closed his eyes and shook his head. He blinked as the room swayed and then steadied. Not now. He had too much to think about. Not now.
“So where is the rest of him?” Sullivan heard Barry ask behind him. Sullivan stood and faced the two men in the entry.
Anderson rubbed his balding pate. “Off the top of my head?”
“That’s not funny,” Barry said, grimacing at the forensic specialist. Sullivan smiled grimly.
“I would say whoever did this dismembered the victim systematically, then shoved the pieces down the vent. I guess we’ll know for sure once we extract the remains from the floor and see for ourselves,” Anderson said.
