“Then explain this to me!” The bag in Mazzotti’s hand bursts with a long-nailed hand and forearm, the forearm bending to fit in the bulging plastic sack.
“I can’t. I have no idea how that’s happening.” Tina hates it, but she feels tears pricking at her eyes. There’s no crying in forensics, she tells herself, over and over.
Tina fishes in her crime scene tote and pulls out her stack of Polaroids. She glares at Mazzotti for singling her out. A silent promise: I’ll get you for this, as she finds the photo she snapped. “There! That’s the bag you’re holding, take a good damn look, Boss.” By boss she means shithead, and he knows it.
Mazzotti takes a long look at the Polaroid. “This can’t be right.” His brow furrows. Confusion is not his natural state.
“Evidence doesn’t lie, Boss. Only people lie. And I’m not fucking lying.” Arms akimbo, she stares him down.
Mazzotti’s hand trembles as he hands Tina’s photo back. “Okay!” He half shouts to get his team’s attention. “I want you all to go through and match your pics with the items bagged. Now!”
Detectives Red Feather and Günn walk back over.
“What’s going on here, Pete?” Günn doesn’t fail to catch the hurt look thrown Mazzotti’s way by Tina Vasco.
“Oh, you know, the usual incompetency,” Mazzotti sighs. “They didn’t bag these properly. Just shoved ’em in instead of putting them in bags that fit. Look at this shit!” Mazzotti hands one of the bags in question to Red Feather, who turns it over in his hands noting how the digits scrunch against the top and the forearm wraps around the bottom making a balloon shape of the thick plastic. Mazzotti sighs. “But actually, there’s something else that’s just…weird. Tina, give me that Polaroid again.”
Tina hands it over, the glare not leaving her eyes.
“This is what the hand looked like when Tina bagged it.” Mazzotti’s disbelief is palpable.
Red Feather and Günn stare, brows furrowed at the incongruous images of the same body part: in one, a perfectly bagged remnant of a hand, acrylic nails even intact. The second, a hand plus forearm.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Günn frowns at Tina. “You sure this is the hand you bagged?”
“Detective, absolutely. Look here. My CSI code, my handwriting, matches the bag you got there. I told Pete this wasn’t what it looked like and it really isn’t.”
Red Feather stares at the Polaroid and the now-forearm bursting out of the crime scene bag. “It’s growing.”
“Nope. Not possible.” Günn’s stomach lurches.
Red Feather feels gooseflesh break out over his body. “It’s right here, Günn, just look. No denying it.”
Günn would be happy to deny it until kingdom come.
Mazzotti calls another CSI over, gestures to bring their evidence. “Here’s that cyclops girl we found. Look here, when we bagged her she was just a head. Now there’s a neck and half a shoulder.”
“Give me that!” Günn grabs the bag and studies it. This was strange enough when just a one-eyed girl. But now it’s something else altogether.
“This isn’t happening. No way.” Günn shakes her head, getting that feeling when you get into a turbo elevator and the ground drops from under you making your ears pop.
“You’re holding the evidence in your hand.” Red Feather knits his brow at his partner while handing the baggie back to Mazzotti. “Just get everything into bigger bags.” Red Feather pauses to think. “In fact, overcompensate. Use the biggest bags you’ve got.”
Günn moves to protest. Red Feather shakes his head and turns back to Mazzotti.
“Those would be body bags, Detective.” Mazzotti wonders what’s up with these two.
Red Feather considers, fighting the urge to look up to the sky and ask if the course is already set or if this action would seal the fate. “Do it. Re-photograph them. Make sure it’s all documented. I’ll call the captain, see what we do next.”
Günn puts her incredulity aside for the moment. There will be a scientific explanation. “Let’s just get what we’ve got over to the morgue, okay? If you find more body parts send them later. Maybe the heat is affecting the bags, maybe there’s some kind of post-explosion radiation we haven’t picked up. Whatever the case, I want to get moving on results of the DNA tests. Got it?” Mazzotti nods. Günn continues, “We’re going off-site, to the hospital, to see if the survivors are awake and talking. You call us if you find anything else.”
Mazzotti nods again. “Listen, I’m really sorry about these bags. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
Red Feather and Günn acknowledge the apology with curt nods. Red Feather takes out his phone to call the captain with the newest strangeness to report. They take one more look at the collection of body parts, ash, and rubble, all the CSIs, cops, firemen sifting through the mess.
“What a cluster,” Günn says, opening and closing her hands to stop the shaking.
“You OK?” Red Feather notices her left eye twitching.
“Fine.” She rubs her hand against her eye, hard. Gives him the look that says: Drop it or I’ll drop you. They walk through the devastation to their Crown Vic and hit the road, their siren cutting through the paparazzi yells, and Mazzotti’s frustrated cry as another foot bursts through a baggie.
Detective Synthia Günn
Your lineage hails from fourth generation Norwegian immigrants. People of the cold. Save your mother, who craved warm climes and warmer personalities. In the middle of winter, 1969, your mom packed up her summer clothes and just enough coats to get her out of Minnesota and drove to California. Communes were the buzz. She was gonna find one and never come home.
Find one she did. A haven of free love and no birth control. You’re the oldest of five commune kids. None of you know who your fathers are. “It takes a village to raise a child,” that non-specific African proverb thrown around so often you get hives when you hear it. “You don’t need to know who your father is, Syn, all the men here are your relatives,” says your mother, puffing on a joint and sipping a glass of local merlot.
But you were fixated. Sixteen years old, with an unfortunate side effect of puberty that you could smell lies. Not a metaphor: Lies scent the air around you and often make you ill. Until the arrival of this new talent, you had never realized how many of the people in the commune not only compulsively lied to others, but to themselves as well. Not just about small things either. You’re sure several members are criminals on the lam from the law. Every time they said their own names you could smell the dishonesty, like old sweat that’s baked into fabric, no soap able to get it out. The place stunk to high heaven.
And to make matters worse, some of the men in Nirvana started to ogle your filling-out teenage figure. The portrait of your mom at your age. You couldn’t even meet their eyes, any of them could be your dad. You couldn’t date the commune boys, who knew if they’re your half brothers. This wasn’t a life that was working for you.
Your mother favored several of the men over the others, so you started with them. You collected DNA and hair samples for paternity tests. You pitched a fit until your mom finally let you work part-time at the ice cream shop in town. You had your first boyfriend. A townie who worked at the video store. He was cute and down to earth, not like the pretentious hippies who surround you. You lost your virginity to him in his basement rec room, with Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon playing in the background. You felt safe with him, but you knew there was no future.
All the while you saved and saved and saved to pay for each blood test, picking up overtime and extra shifts at the I Scream Shoppe whenever possible. The one benefit of homeschooling: flexibility. In the end, you never found out who your father was. He was probably one of the many drifters who passed through the commune, only staying for a season or two.
That ach
e of not knowing drives you toward forensics. You run a DNA test on every man you date. You take no chances. Your compulsion toward structure leads you straight to law enforcement. But not the easy way.
The early nineties. There were no female detectives in the LAPD. You’d been stuck in vice, standing on street corners, your trim frame half naked in sparkling tops and too-short skirts, hoping for petty john busts. You wanted more, but crime scene investigators didn’t have any women lab techs either. Boys clubs, everywhere you turned.
Your sergeant gave you a break: infiltrate a meth ring out in San Dimas and he’ll think of recommending you for homicide. Only problem was, to get in the circle you have to use, and soon you’re not using, the rock is using you. You got the bust, though. Paid with the price of addiction. The review board almost passed you over for homicide after your stint in rehab. But Sarge stuck by you, the father you never had, and recommended the hell out of you.
In 1998 you become the LAPD’s first woman homicide detective. You’ve hardened. Granite woman now encased in petrified soul amber. How else would you have survived?
3:45 AM Spruce-Musa Hospital
The closest to the wreckage is Los Angeles’s premier hospital to the stars, an ultra modern, über luxurious structure that looks more like a spa than a place of blood and birth and the occasional celebrity death. With eight floors and only a few hundred rooms, the hospital would never have been able to handle the inflow of survivors had there been more than the handful there were. For that, the hospital administrators are thankful. They have a reputation to uphold, after all.
Spruce-Musa is almost business as usual when Detectives Red Feather and Günn pull into the parking lot. With the exception of a few crazed parents looking for their partygoing children in spite of instructions to convene at the designated LAPD recovery site of Beverly Center, there’s nothing to hint that just a few hours ago almost thirty-five thousand people were murdered. Detective Red Feather visualizes the bizarre reverse funnel that witnesses claim sucked the majority of the debris and bodies into the sky. Who knows what toxic ash and gases would abound had physics not gone on holiday for the morning. Günn is desperate for her left eye to stop twitching, not just because it’s annoying (because it really fucking is), but because it’s a crack in her stone fox face. It tells people she’s not unbreakable, and she can’t have that.
The two detectives make their way inside and locate the four survivors, all housed on the fourth floor. The detectives check in at the nurse’s station and ask for the doctor on call.
“I’m Detective Red Feather, LAPD,” he flashes his badge. Günn follows suit. “We’re here to interview the Crane Massacre survivors.”
“I’m Nurse Pratchett. The doctor is in surgery at the moment, but I can help you.”
“Pratchett? That’s an unfortunate name for a nurse,” Günn says, thinking about One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and giving the nurse a sideways look.
Nurse Pratchett lets out a huge breath. “Actually her name was Ratched.” The nurse spells it out then points to her own nametag which reads Nurse Anne Pratchett. “See?” Red Feather can tell this is a rote introduction for the woman, and why she’s the only one they’ve seen wearing a nametag.
“My bad. Sorry,” Günn says, not sounding sorry at all.
Pratchett shakes her head, “Nevermind.” Her accent places her as a Londoner, and a fancy one. “Come on then. But first I must tell you, that girl in the werewolf costume?”
Günn and Red Feather nod.
“She’s not wearing a costume.” Pratchett waits for their reaction.
“Come again?” Günn is annoyed at this timewasting.
“I’ve never seen anything like it. Except in movies, that is. But this isn’t a movie.” The nurse keeps thinking that any moment she’ll wake up.
“Not as far as we know,” Günn scowls. “So you’re saying she’s a teen wolf?” She snorts, an ugly sound from a pretty woman.
“Not fully, she’s some sort of hybrid human. Maybe there’s another word for what she is, but as far as we and the doctors can tell, she’s at least part wolf.”
Red Feather and Günn exchange a glance.
“But that’s not even the strangest part,” Nurse Pratchett looks pained, as if by uttering the next words the detectives would lock her up in the loony bin instead. “Well, seeing is believing, so just come with me. I’ll show you.”
Nurse Pratchett’s rubber soles make a squige squige sound on the tile floor as she takes the detectives to the wolf girl’s room. “Here we are. See for yourself.”
Red Feather and Günn set eyes upon a hirsute woman, passed out and snoring. Her hands end in hooked claws and her palms are cracked and leathery like an old dog’s paws. Her feet are also clawed, but flat and long, also with that tough dog-like skin. This one could walk on broken glass and not get cut.
“Nurse, will you just get to the freaking point already.” Günn is not known for her patience. Or her people skills.
Red Feather stares at the supine woman, thinking back to the crime scene and having watched her carted off in the ambulance. His eyes widen. “Oh my God. She has two legs.”
Nurse Pratchett nods, relieved. “So you saw her when she came from the wreckage?”
“She was bleeding profusely from her left leg. It ended just above her kneecap.” Holy hell.
“That leg is one hundred percent accounted for now, Detective.” Pratchett shakes her head. Disbelief is the word of the day.
“There’s no way…” Günn starts but doesn’t finish, her eye twitching so badly it might be an eyelash trapped in there.
“The proof is in the pudding, Detective Günn. I’ve never seen anything like this before, and before you ask me how it’s possible, I’ll tell you that it’s not.”
The two detectives and the nurse stare at the wolf girl whose amputated leg has grown back and wonder which dimension they’ve inadvertently entered. Nurse Pratchett curses getting caught on this shift. All she wants is to get home to her dying son.
3:55 AM Hollywood PD
Detective Finian Murphy slams the door of the interrogation room and lets loose an ear-splitting “FUCK!” Goddamn little Bad Vibe punk Preston Reid won’t sing! Not a word, not a peep! Just staring at him, cool as a cucumber, snug as a bug in a rug, ignoring his clever interrogation tricks. Nothing, nada, zip. And then Murphy gets mad and the little shit lawyers up! Goddamn crime shows! How are we supposed to catch bad guys if they know all our tricks! Captain Anderson is gonna kill me, he thinks. I am so screwed. Forget promotion, forget the noir convention, forget respect. I took the training course. What did I do wrong? Murphy scratches his balding head and makes his way back to his desk.
Captain Anderson hangs up his phone. He’s not sure whether to look around for Candid Camera or call Agents Mulder and Scully to help him out with this one. A hill is vaporized but four people walk away from it, one of whom grew back an amputated leg. Body parts remain, and now those are growing, too? “This shit is above my pay grade,” he mutters to himself. There’s no protocol for this kind of whatever it is.
Murphy knocks on his door, a timid mouse in a four hundred dollar silk suit. “What the hell you want, Murphy?” Anderson barks, he certainly has no time for this little shit.
“Sorry, Boss.” Murphy kicks his foot like a petulant child. “You remember how you told me to stay away from the suspects?”
Dread creeps into Anderson’s belly.
“I went in there just to chat, you know, see if I could get us something to work with…” Murphy’s voice trails off.
“You did. WHAT?” Anderson sees spots.
“He lawyered up! Goddamn crime shows! How we supposed to catch bad guys when they know all our tricks!” The speech he rehearsed sounds useless, even to him.
“You’re blaming your incompetence
on crime shows? I don’t fucking believe this! Do you have any idea what you’ve done? To this investigation? To this department?” Anderson stands up, and Murphy flinches. Anderson’s heart palpitates. Bad.
“Sir, I just really thought I could help!” Tears well up in Murphy’s eyes.
Captain Anderson’s fists are clenched so tight his close-cropped nails dig into his palm, cutting through the skin. “Detective Murphy. You are suspended for insubordination, without pay, until further notice. You are further under arrest for obstructing a murder trial. I’m sure the FBI will have their own charges against you when they get here.” Anderson grabs Murphy by the arm and drags him from the office.
Murphy bawls outright. He can’t help weeping as Captain Anderson flings him into the nearest patrolman with such force all three stagger to not fall down. “This idiot is under arrest for tampering with a federal case. Somebody put him in lock-up until the FBI gets here.” Anderson sits back down, takes a nip from the flask he has hidden in his lock box for these very occasions. The whiskey burns his throat, yet brings with it a familiar calm. His heart still skips beats. Rubbing his chest, he picks up his phone and dials. Waits. Takes a moment to appreciate that the screw-up only affects one of three caught perpetrators. He hopes.
“Mr. Mayor, we’ve got some developments on the Crane Massacre you should be aware of before the Feds get here.” Captain Anderson feels an uncomfortable tightening in his lungs as he flexes his newly stiff left hand.
4:15 AM LAPD Morgue
The morgue is housed in the basement of the LAPD’s oldest building—one of the few dating back to the early days of the police force—the place where Hollywoodland stars and starlets were brought for their photo ops with the press after whatever infraction was à la mode. The lobby walls feature graffiti by Marilyn Monroe, Rudolf Valentino, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Charlie Chaplin, and a host of others. The wall’s the reason why the building is still as it was; no other way to protect these brighter slices of the LAPD’s spotty history without losing their value.
Crime Rave Page 3
