“Don’t worry, it’s just a formality.”
“I get it,” Luis said, uttering a nervous laugh. “You’ve got to do your job, right?”
“That’s right,” Ray said, slapping at a phantom mosquito. “Mind if we go inside? These bugs are brutal.”
“Uh, sure.” A vein ticked at Luis’s throat. His eyes seemed unable to focus.
Christ, Ray thought. All this time, right under our noses.
Luis led the way across his scraggily lawn.
“Looks like it’s time for a mow,” Ray said, keeping the conversation light as he followed a few paces behind and reached into his pocket for his phone.
As Luis climbed the porch stairs and fumbled with the lock, Ray sent the text he’d drafted earlier to Billy and returned the phone to his pocket.
The front door opened onto a small landing with a flight of stairs extending in either direction. The upper level had hardwood floors and crown molding throughout, and the living room featured leather furniture and a big screen TV. A surrealistic painting hung over the mantle, situated to the left of a bay window overlooking the backyard and the wooded expanse of Stony Brook Reservation beyond.
Luis motioned to a recliner. “Care to sit?”
Ray settled onto the edge of the chair, ready to spring into action if necessary.
“How about a drink?” Luis asked, walking into the kitchen without waiting for an answer.
Ray reached into his sports coat and unsnapped the holster securing Frank’s SIG Sauer 9mm pistol. He had an obstructed view of the kitchen and could only see the refrigerator and sink beyond the half wall separating the rooms.
Luis opened the fridge. “You want a beer?”
“Sure.”
Ray gazed down the hall to where several closed doors loomed in the shadows. “Nice place. What do you have, three bedrooms?”
“Four.”
“And you live here alone?”
“A bachelor’s paradise, my man.”
“I’ll bet.” Ray strained his eyes for a better look at a painting displayed at the end of the hall, which from this distance resembled a replica of The Suffering of Ages.
Luis returned to the living room carrying a Sam Adams in each hand. Ray took the bottle—slick with condensation—and set it down on the coffee table.
There were two ways Luis could play this—answer the routine questions and send Ray packing, or make Ray disappear and hope no one else came knocking. Either way, Luis would need to purge the house of evidence, and if he was keeping Suzie alive somewhere, that meant getting rid of her too.
Which was why Ray couldn’t leave without making an arrest. And while his lie had succeeded in getting him inside without a warrant, it also left no time for the normal precautions.
Luis sat on the sofa and took a long pull of beer. “What’s the matter? Don’t you like Sam Adams?”
In truth, Ray didn’t care much for the hops, or the prospect of being poisoned. “I probably shouldn’t drink while I’m on duty. But since you’re already halfway finished, why don’t you have it?”
Luis slid the bottle to the other end of the coffee table. “I’ll save it for later.”
Ray made a mental note to enter the beer into evidence. Odds were, it would test positive for the same barbiturate found in Finkleton’s bloodstream. “You ready for those questions?”
“That depends,” Luis said. “Are you going to play good cop or bad cop?”
Ray locked eyes with Luis. “I don’t like to commit. Now,” he said, “were you wearing gloves on the morning you prepped Finkleton’s body for transport?”
“You were there, you tell me.”
“Answer the question, Luis.”
“Fine. I was wearing gloves.”
“So how do you suppose your prints got onto the harness buckle?”
“I must’ve caught my glove on the body bag’s zipper and ripped one of the fingers.”
“And then what?”
Luis groaned. “Do I really need to spell everything out for you? I obviously brushed a finger against the harness buckle when the body was lowered into the bag.”
“Did you report the contamination?”
“I didn’t think I’d touched anything.”
“So that’s a no?”
“I didn’t report it because I didn’t think it was necessary. Will I get in trouble for this?”
“I can’t make any guarantees.”
“Who else knows about the print?” Luis asked.
“You mind if I have a look around?”
Luis blinked at him. “Didn’t I just answer all of your questions?”
“Only the ones I asked.”
Ray rose from the chair and gestured down the hall. “That’s an interesting painting you got there. You mind telling me about it?”
Luis stood up. “I don’t appreciate being made to feel like a criminal.”
“You’re not really afraid of spiders, are you, Luis?”
“What are you talking about?”
“During Finkleton’s autopsy, you practically clawed your way through the wall to get away from a spider. But when I saw you a few days later and said there was a spider on your shirt, you didn’t even flinch.”
“Are you serious? You’re going to draw that conclusion from a bad joke? When there obviously was no spider on my shirt?”
“I don’t buy it, Brendan. You’re not afraid of spiders.”
“Why the hell is that even relevant? And why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because I just called you by the wrong name and you didn’t even notice.”
“What are you talking about?”
Ray reached into his pocket and showed him Brendan Taritello’s mug shot. “That’s you, isn’t it?”
Luis shook his head. “I don’t know that person.”
“First time I saw that picture,” Ray said, “all I could see was the resemblance to the mayor. But this kid looks a lot like you. You may have packed on a few pounds, grown your hair out and dyed it black, but it’s you, isn’t it, Brendan? Or do you prefer to be called The Artist?”
Luis reached behind his back, but Ray grabbed his arm and slammed him against the wall. Ray drew a .22 caliber pistol from the waistband of Luis’s jeans and waved it in his face. “Is this what you shot me with yesterday? Lucky for me, you’ve got terrible aim.”
He pulled a pair of handcuffs off his belt and clicked them around Luis’s wrists. “I’m placing you under citizen’s arrest, seeing as your crooked father had me suspended.”
Luis glared at him. “This isn’t over. You haven’t won.”
“Oh yeah?” Ray asked. “What makes you say that?”
The words were barely out of Ray’s mouth before something crashed against the back of his head and the world went dark.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Ray awoke to a whining in his ears—almost like a mosquito, but bigger… angrier. His eyes felt like they were glued shut, his lids so heavy he had to strain just to move them. His head throbbed near the base of his neck, his pulse pounding in what felt like a nasty knot.
He tried to reach for the wound but found that he couldn’t move his arms, his legs, or his torso. His eyes snapped open and saw a rocky ceiling. He was lying down, strapped naked to a gurney. In some sort of a fallout bunker.
The room drew slowly into focus and he had to bite his lip to stifle a scream. He was in the Artist’s lair, and the Artist’s victims were on full display. One man had a pair of horns fused to his head, a golden ring pierced through his nose, and a red bull’s-eye tattooed on his chest. His arms were secured by heavy shackles, and a sign below his feet read, The Minotaur.
Suzie Coleman stood on an elevated platform beside the minotaur. She was chained naked to the wall, wearing a gold leaf headband above a sign reading, Aphrodite.
Another man’s head was mounted to the wall like a hunting trophy. At first, Ray thought it was severed, but then the man’s eyes shifted toward him and Ray
realized the rest of his body was hidden behind the wall. The sign for the exhibit read, The Rat, and Ray could see that the Artist had shaved the man’s head, blackened his nose, and attached whiskers to his cheeks. A ring of plaster surrounded the man’s neck—probably to prevent him from pulling his head through the wall—and Ray suddenly understood why they’d found traces of plaster embedded in Danny’s throat.
The man’s lips parted and he spoke Ray’s name in a gravelly voice. Ray shuddered at the sound and locked eyes with the freakish stranger, searching for a spark of recognition. And then it hit him: Larry.
The mosquito-like whine suddenly emanated on his left and Ray turned to see Luis standing beside him, revving the blade of a bone saw. “I told you this wasn’t over, Ray.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Why did Da Vinci paint the Mona Lisa? Or Van Gogh The Starry Night? Because they were visionaries, Ray. Artistic geniuses who were ahead of their time.”
“Is that what you call this, Luis? Art? Because it looks a lot like torture to me.”
“Maybe to the untrained eye. But if you look closely, you’ll see the art of human suffering is real, visceral, and four-dimensional.”
“Four-dimensional?”
“It changes over time.”
“So, you’re watching them die.”
“Now you’re getting it.”
“But haven’t they suffered enough? Isn’t it time you let them go?” Ray knew he had no chance of changing Luis’s mind, but he had to stall until Billy arrived, assuming Billy was coming at all.
“They deserve to be here, Ray. They must atone for their sins. And the beauty of their suffering will rival the greatest masterpieces of all time.”
“Let me go, Luis. People know where I am. If you hurt me, you’ll only make it worse for yourself.”
Luis shook his head. “You tried making a citizen’s arrest, remember? You’re on suspension and thought you could be the lone hero. No one’s coming for you, Ray. We both know that.”
The door to the bunker creaked open and a bubble of hope rose in Ray’s chest.
But it wasn’t Billy who walked through the door.
Jack Flaherty dumped an armload of supplies onto a plastic cart and grinned at Ray. “You must be shitting a brick, detective. I mean, get a load of this place! I had no idea any of this was happening until you started asking questions about my nephew. So thanks for the tip, because we’ve had a hell of a time catching up.” He nudged Luis in the shoulder. “Have you decided what you’ll do to him?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Luis asked. “This little piggy went to market, while that other piggy stayed home.”
Flaherty howled with laughter. “I like where you’re going with this! Why don’t you tell the detective how you’ll do it?”
“Well,” Luis said, shifting his attention to Ray. “First, I’m gonna shave your head and paint your body pink. Then, I’m gonna use this bone saw to shorten your limbs into stubby little pig’s legs. Lop you off right here above the knees and elbows. Cauterize the wounds so you don’t bleed out.”
Luis switched on the bone saw and brought it within an inch of Ray’s face. The mosquito-like whine filled his ears. “I can’t wait for you to see it, Ray. It’s gonna be a bloodbath. Which is why I brought my safety goggles and surgical scrubs. I wonder if you’ll cry when your arms fall away from your body and strike the floor. Finkleton did. He was drugged, but, my goodness, he bawled like a baby.”
Despite the raw chill permeating the bunker, sweat seeped from Ray’s pores and coated the gurney’s vinyl cushion in a slippery sheen. He glanced toward his feet and observed a series of industrial-strength Velcro straps stretched across his body, holding him so tightly that he couldn’t draw more than a shallow breath. For added measure, his wrists and ankles were secured to the frame of the gurney by reinforced fabric cuffs, limiting his range of motion to less than an inch.
“Do you know where I dispose of the bloody scrubs?” Luis asked.
“I don’t know,” Ray said, stalling for time. “Where do you dispose of the bloody scrubs?”
“I bring them to work and dump them in the biohazard trash in the autopsy room. Isn’t that genius?”
Ray grunted, testing the strength of the restraints. Maybe he could use his sweat as a lubricant to wriggle out of them. “What do you want, Luis? A merit badge for criminal insanity?”
Luis clucked his tongue. “I usually sedate my subjects when I’m hacking off their limbs, but Uncle Jack requested that we go natural this time, and who am I to say no?”
Ray drew a shuddering breath and prayed that Luis was bluffing, but a part of him knew better. Christ, was this how it was going to end? Would he never see his kids again?
Luis grabbed something off the cart and showed him a handheld instrument resembling a giant thermometer with a microphone at one end. “Do you know what this is?”
Ray shook his head. Where the hell was Billy?
“It’s a sound meter. And if it registers more than 120 decibels, I start to worry about disturbing the neighbors. I’d hate for one of them to call the police. You know what I mean? So how about we make a deal—if you promise to keep your screaming to a minimum, I won’t sever your vocal cords.”
Flaherty picked up a croquet mallet that was leaning against the wall. “Have him bite on this handle to keep quiet.”
“Good idea, Uncle Jack.”
Flaherty loomed over the gurney. “Pretty soon, you’ll be living on that wall, detective. And I’ll get to watch you die a slow and horrible death. So let me hear you oink like a piggy, or I’ll smash your nuts with this mallet.”
“Sorry, Flaherty. I don’t take requests.”
Flaherty hoisted the mallet over his shoulder. “Maybe this will change your mind.”
Ray clenched his legs and turned away, but the sudden creak of the bunker door froze Flaherty in place.
Billy stormed inside with his gun drawn and Ray let out his breath in a gust of relief.
“Drop it!” Billy shouted.
Flaherty lowered the mallet slowly, dropping his hand behind his back before releasing his grip on the handle and letting it clatter to the floor. Flaherty’s hand returned lightning-quick from behind his back, clutching a gun he’d drawn from the waistband of his jeans. Before Billy could react, Flaherty pressed the muzzle against Ray’s forehead.
“You drop it,” Flaherty said. “Or your boyfriend dies.”
Billy’s face went dark. “If you kill him, I’ll kill you.”
“No, you won’t,” Flaherty said. “You remember the arrangement. If I die, my attorney will release a certain video and your dirty little secret will be broadcast to the world.”
“What’s he talking about?” Ray asked, a cold dread stealing over him.
“Go ahead, Billy. Tell him.”
Billy’s shoulders sagged. “Remember that night we busted Danny at the docks? I stumbled across a shipping container filled with cash. Had to be over a million bucks. And that kind of money… I mean, holy shit, right? It was around the time I was going through my divorce. All that cash is just sitting there, and you know it’ll only end up going to the state to buy new cruisers or remodel the station. And guys like us, we put our lives on the line for peanuts. Where’s the justice in that? So I grabbed a few stacks of bills thinking no one would ever miss it.”
Ray glared at him. “You made a deal, didn’t you? You do favors for Flaherty and he keeps quiet about the money.”
“Just small things here and there.”
“You tipped him off about the sting operation, didn’t you?”
“I was hoping it would make us even.”
“Christ, Billy, how could you?”
“What the hell was I supposed to do, Ray? He had me by the balls. I would’ve lost everything.”
“You should’ve told me.”
“What good would that have done? If you didn’t turn me in, you would’ve been complicit.”
“Gr
eat,” Ray said, “so now here we are.”
“I might have a way out of this,” Billy said. “A win-win for everyone.”
“Go on,” Flaherty said.
“You drop the gun and walk out of here,” Billy said, “and we pretend like we never saw you. And then Ray and I arrest Luis and look like heroes.”
Flaherty nodded slowly, as if mulling it over. “Tell you what, Billy, you put your gun down and I’ll think about it.”
“We do it at the same time,” Billy said, “or not at all.”
“Alright,” Flaherty said. “On the count of three, we point our guns at the floor, lay them down, and take a step back.”
“Deal.”
But it wasn’t a fair one. Because as soon as both guns were on the ground, Flaherty reached behind his back and drew another one from the waistband of his jeans. Before Billy could register the double cross, Flaherty shot him in the face. The exit wound blew out the back of Billy’s skull, and Ray screamed as his partner’s brains splattered against the concrete. Billy’s body seemed to fall in slow motion, like a tree toppling in the forest.
Flaherty’s laughter echoed throughout the bunker. “I guess Billy and I had different ideas of a win-win. For me, it was two dead cops.”
Luis snickered. “Clean up on aisle five.”
Flaherty pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped off the gun before handing it to Luis. “I think this one’s yours.”
Luis placed it on the cart beside him, oblivious to the fact that Flaherty’s backup plan seemed to involve framing him for murder.
Flaherty stooped down to retrieve the second gun. “If you hear anyone coming, kill them all,” he said, gesturing to Ray and the other exhibits.
“Where are you going?” Luis asked.
“I need to make sure Billy came alone.” He glanced over his shoulder as he reached the bunker door. “Remember what I said. Anyone comes, you kill everyone.”
“I will,” Luis said.
Flaherty pulled the door shut and disappeared into the hallway beyond.
Luis grabbed a pair of hair clippers from the cart and switched them on. He leaned over the gurney and began buzzing Ray’s hair down to the scalp.
The Art of Dying: A Ray Hanley Crime Thriller Page 27
