Shoofly Pie & Chop Shop: 2 Bugman Novels in 1

by Tim Downs

  “I put her to bed,” she said. “I think she’s a little overwhelmed.”

  Nick took her by the arm and led her down the hallway to a place where the elevator blocked them from view from the street. He reached up and twisted the incandescent bulb once, and the hallway instantly went dark.

  “Your sister doesn’t seem the type to be easily overwhelmed,” Nick said.

  “Sarah? She’s as tough as an old razor strop.”

  “Sounds like someone I know.”

  Their shadows came together and touched once, then drifted apart again.

  “This is a key to my room,” Nick said. “I’m in 213, just a few doors down. If you need me, call. If the phone doesn’t work for any reason, you come straight to my room—understand?”

  She nodded. “Nick—what are we going to do next?”

  “You’re going to get some sleep. I’m going to do some thinking.”

  Riley slipped the key into the lock and turned it gently; she felt the bolt give way. She pushed on the door, and it begrudgingly opened. The rubber weatherstrip dragging along the short-pile carpet made a sound like a stretching balloon.

  She stepped quietly inside. It was just before six a.m., but every light in the room was on. In the center of the room, Nick straddled a wooden desk chair. His chin rested on his folded arms, which draped across the back of the chair. He sat utterly still; he stared directly ahead at an empty spot on the dingy wall, and his floating eyes were as still as two rafts on a glassy sea. Riley started forward in alarm, then stopped, recognizing telltale signs of life. Every day at the Coroner’s Office she was reminded of the infinite difference between even a coma and death; Nick was lost in the depths of thought, but, thank God, he was still very much alive.

  She approached him head-on, but there was no look of recognition or even awareness of her presence. She leaned down and looked into his face; at this distance his eyes were truly overwhelming, and for the very first time she saw them motionless. She felt a sense of gratitude, as though some rare or endangered species had allowed her to approach unchallenged. They were soft and dark, and Riley understood why few people could bear to look at them directly. But somehow she loved them; she loved the way they floated over her, calming her, like a groom with two soft brushes.

  She reached out and stroked his chestnut hair. His eyes jumped suddenly like awakening birds and began to slowly take the room into focus. At last Nick straightened up and looked directly at her, but it was several seconds more before he spoke.

  “I’m going to Leo’s,” he said. “You two stay here until I get back.”

  “Good morning to you too. Do you always sleep sitting up?”

  Nick was still too lost in abstractions to engage in pleasantries. “I thought about it all night—what do we do next? We did the right thing first by grabbing Sarah and by sending Gabriella to her parents. But we can’t stay on the defensive forever; the only way to eliminate the threat to us is to expose the ones who are threatening us.”

  “But how do we do that?”

  “That’s what I spent the night asking myself. Whoever we call next, whoever we choose to trust, we’d better be right about it—because making that contact will be like sending up a flare. Our problem is that we don’t know who to trust. Santangelo is with the FBI; surely the entire Pittsburgh field office isn’t in on it—at least, I hope not—but we don’t know who would be safe to call. Your own office has been compromised—it may have been Lassiter’s lone involvement, but then again he may have had help. It seems possible that at least two of your deputy coroners are in on it; they pick up the bodies at the death scene. And that raises the question of the police. They’re at the death scene too—at least in cases like the drive-by shooting. Who can we trust within the police department? Who can we trust anywhere?”

  “And the answer is …”

  “The newspaper. We go to the Pittsburgh PostGazette.”

  Riley looked aghast. “Nick, that seems incredibly risky. First they’re going to think we’re nuts, and then they’re going to start calling around to make inquiries. That will stir up everything.”

  “I hope so. Look, we’ve only got two things going for us: first, they don’t know where to find us; and second, we have physical evidence. We have the shredded documents that prove that Mr. Vandenborre picked up a spare kidney somewhere along the way. And we also have my entomological report and specimens, remember? That report could raise all kinds of awkward questions. The trick here is to reveal the physical evidence without exposing ourselves.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “I’m going to swing by Leo’s and grab the reconstructed documents. Then I’m going to drop them off at the PostGazette and head back here.”

  “Why can’t Leo bring them here? Or why can’t he take them to the newspaper himself?”

  “Because I can’t reach him. I’ve left messages, but I haven’t heard back from him. This can’t wait, Riley. They’re searching for us right now, and they’re looking for Sarah too. The sooner we get this out in the open, the safer we’ll be—and the sooner I get this out of Leo’s hands, the safer he’ll be.”

  “I wish I could go with you,” Riley said.

  “You know better—Sarah needs you here. There’s a very rich person somewhere waiting for one of her kidneys, and you need to make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid. Don’t dial out. If the phone rings, don’t answer it. If it’s me, I’ll let it ring once, and then I’ll call again. Got it?”

  “Got it.” She stroked his hair again. “Are you OK? You didn’t sleep a wink.”

  “My species requires very little sleep.”

  Riley frowned. “If you’re not careful, your species will be extinct.”

  Nick stopped half a block from Leo’s apartment. He considered whether to park several blocks away and walk over, but he wanted to remove all the evidence at once, and it occurred to him that the sight of someone carrying an armload of trash bags several blocks would raise far more eyebrows than one quick trip to the street. He pulled his car into the same space he had occupied just the night before.

  “Leo,” he called out as he rounded the corner into the ever-open doorway. “Hey, Leo!” He headed directly for the bedroom. It was still early, and even tireless Leo might still be in bed. But the bedroom was empty, and the bed was unslept in—unless Leo was more fastidious than Nick remembered. He had hoped to find Leo here, to set his mind at ease and to brief him on their plans, but it didn’t really matter. Right now all he needed was to collect the evidence and deliver it to the proper person at the Pittsburgh PostGazette.

  He pushed open the bathroom door; it was empty. On a whim, he slid open the shower curtain and felt the inside; it was perfectly dry. It was possible that Leo made his bed and skipped his morning shower, Nick told himself. It was possible—but he moved to the kitchen with a crawling feeling on the back of his neck.

  The kitchen table was completely bare; even the black-and-white trash bags surrounding it had been moved. But where had Leo taken them? Nick had asked him to organize the evidence, not to remove it. He assumed it would still be here on the kitchen table, where it had always been. Now he would have to search the whole apartment for it. Now he would have to—

  He stopped.

  Over the Formica counter, on the white ceramic kitchen floor, Nick saw the edge of a crimson pool.

  He sat down hard on one of the kitchen chairs and stared at the wall below the counter that blocked his view of the kitchen beyond. He didn’t need to look on the other side. He knew what was there—he could see it in every detail. He could see Leo’s body stretched out facedown, just as it had first fallen, with a small slit below the rib cage or a gunshot wound through the occipital bone—or maybe even a crushed skull, depending on the savagery of his attacker. And somewhere on the floor there would be a wine bottle or a shattered cup of sugar, some small favor that Leo had been asked to fulfill that would cause him to pause momentarily in a vulnerable and accessible pos
ition. And in his mind he could hear the sound of the falling body, lifeless before it hit the floor without reflex or recoil, and the dull, flat sound of flesh slapping tile. Nick cringed and covered his ears with both hands.

  He turned and looked across the room at the long computer workbench. The monitors were still in place, and the printers and scanners too—but the two computer towers had been removed, and their hard drives with them, along with all digital record of the reconstructed prescriptions. Nick ran his hand over the empty kitchen table. Leo didn’t move the evidence—it had been removed by his attacker, and by now it was all completely destroyed.

  Nick rose slowly to his feet and stumbled toward the kitchen. He had already seen it all in his mind—why did he have to look? But he knew he had to be a witness to the horror of his oldest friend’s death—to do less would be cowardice. He owed it to Leo; somehow he knew that Leo would want him to look. “Drink it all, Nick,” Leo would say. “If you leave any behind, you’ll only regret it later.” When he remembered the sound of Leo’s voice, he felt alternating waves of rage and nausea. Why did he ever get Leo involved in this? How did he let things go this far? Leo was the most alive person he had ever met. He was all heart—he was Nick’s heart. And now his heart was dead, and all he wanted to do was climb back up into his skull and lock the door forever.

  He stepped into the kitchen and looked at the floor. He felt no additional shock, no fresh grief over the reality before him. Why should he? It was just as he knew it would be, down to the shattered bottle of claret and the deep green shards of glass lying in a stain of purplish red. He knelt down beside him; there was a trickle of red from the base of his skull. He leaned over the body and gently brushed back the wavy hair. Around the entry wound was the tattooing of gunpowder, indicating a close-range shot. There would be no exit wound; it was a small-caliber shell, intended to ricochet off the inside of his—Nick shut his eyes and pushed back the thought.

  He began to stroke Leo’s hair now. Teardrops gathered at the tips of his eyes and fell away into his glasses, pooling in the great lenses and washing all the terrible details from the image before him.

  Nick sat back on the floor. It would have been quick and painless—he was sure of that, because pain produces noise, and noise is something no assassin can afford—especially from a victim who lives with open windows.

  Open windows.

  Nick looked up at the cream-colored walls. Above the sink he saw a tiny black speck, and two more above the counter. He struggled to his feet and hurried out into the living room; there were dozens more, dotting the walls above the computer workbench, surrounding the paintings like tiny visitors to an art gallery.

  Mosquitoes.

  He rushed to the door and down the hall, down the three flights of stairs to his waiting car. He leaned through the back window and pulled out his aerial sweep net. They would not stay long; they were female Anopheles or Culex mosquitoes, both late-night biters, who had engorged themselves on a meal of human blood. All night long they had rested, using the blood proteins to allow them to produce their eggs—but when the daytime temperatures rose again they would depart, searching for a source of standing water and a place to deposit their clutch.

  Back in the apartment, Nick swung the net back and forth across the walls, allowing none of the tiny specks to escape. He was grateful that mosquitoes are slow fliers, reaching speeds of no more than a mile and a half per hour; Nick was used to netting far faster and more elusive carrion flies, and this was comparative child’s play. The important thing was that he let none escape. He searched the walls carefully, waving his hand through the air to stir up any late risers, continuing until the walls were spotless and the tip of his net was flecked with gray-black specks.

  He hurried back to the kitchen and began to open drawers, searching for a rubber band or clothes pin, something he could use to close off the tip of the net and trap its occupants until he could process them.

  Suddenly he heard a quick knock on the doorframe and the sound of footsteps approaching from behind. Nick spun around.

  “Hey, neighbor, I was wondering if you had any—”

  The young man stood in the kitchen doorway. He looked at Nick, then down at the body lying in the crimson pool, then back at Nick again. There was a moment of horrified silence—then the man began to back away, his eyes still glued to Nick’s.

  “Wait,” Nick said. “It’s not how it looks.”

  The man held up one hand and continued to back across the living room; at the doorway, he turned and bolted down the hallway.

  Nick took a last look at Leo, grabbed the aerial net, and ran for his car.

  Nick rapped twice on the door, then stepped back from the peephole so he could be clearly seen. In his left hand he carried the aerial sweep net; his right arm encircled two plastic containers and two metal tins.

  A moment later the door swung open. Riley smiled up at him, but Nick refused to meet her eyes. He brushed past her and charged into the motel room, heading directly for the small kitchenette.

  “What happened?” Riley said.

  Nick said nothing. He stepped to the counter and with a sweep of his arm sent a collection of small objects clattering onto the floor. He set down the net and peeled the tops off the two plastic containers.

  “Nick—what’s wrong?”

  Sarah stepped out of the bathroom in a knee-length robe and a terry towel wrapped around her blond hair. “What’s going on?”

  Nick unscrewed the lid from the metal tin and poured the acrid liquid into one of the containers. In the bottom, an inch-thick layer of gypsum absorbed the fluid and kept it from spilling.

  “This is ethyl acetate,” he said without looking up. “Don’t breathe it.”

  Riley stepped closer. “Nick, look at me.”

  “Somebody hasn’t had his coffee yet,” Sarah said, dabbing her ears with a towel.

  Nick took the sacklike end of the sweep net and shook its occupants down into the extreme tip; then he draped it into the plastic container and pressed the lid on tight. Now he opened the other metal canister and poured the transparent fluid into the second container.

  “I have to get them into ethanol as fast as possible,” he said. “I’ve got to dry them out—moisture degrades the DNA.”

  Riley stepped up close to him now. She put her hand on Nick’s arm and stared at him intently until he could no longer continue. He dropped his head and closed his eyes.

  “Whatever it is, you have to tell me,” she said gently.

  Nick slowly turned his head and looked at her—and when his eyes met hers, she instantly knew.

  Her knees buckled. Nick turned and caught her before she could fall. He pulled her in tight against him, and her body began to shake. She buried her face against Nick’s chest and sobbed.

  Sarah’s eyes widened. “You guys are freaking me out. Will somebody tell me what’s going on?”

  But it was several minutes before anyone could speak.

  “Leo’s dead,” Nick said to Sarah.

  “Leo? The computer guy?”

  “He was killed sometime last night.”

  Riley looked up at him. “How did it happen?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “I want to know.”

  “The pathologist in you wants to know—but you don’t. Just let it go, Riley. He’s gone.”

  Sarah sunk down on one of the beds. “Last night? But you two were just there last night.”

  “If we had stayed any longer, they would have caught all three of us together.”

  Riley took a towel and wiped her eyes. “We thought they didn’t know about Leo. How did they find out? How did they know where he lived?”

  “I’ve underestimated them every step of he way,” Nick said. “Not anymore.” He turned back to the specimens again. He removed the net from the killing jar and shook its lifeless contents into a tiny black pile in the very tip of the bag. Then he placed the container of ethanol into the net and gently ti
pped the contents into the clear liquid. They floated to the bottom like tiny pieces of ash.

  “What are you doing?” Riley asked.

  “I’m going after Santangelo.”

  “What?”

  “These are mosquitoes. I collected them from the walls in Leo’s apartment—he always left his windows open, remember? These mosquitoes were there last night when the killer arrived—and I’m betting it was Santangelo. At least one of these mosquitoes drew blood from the killer, and that blood sample is still in its gut. I’m taking these specimens to Sanjay at Pitt; he’ll do a DNA sequence on each of them. Now all I need is a sample of Santangelo’s DNA, and if there’s a match, we can prove that Santangelo was present at the murder scene.”

  “Now wait a minute,” Sarah said. “You want to go after this guy? Aren’t we supposed to be running away here? He just killed your friend last night.”

  “We have no choice—the physical evidence is gone. Santangelo took it all with him—the shredding, the computer hard drives, the trash bags—everything. Now what are we supposed to show the newspapers? What are we supposed to show anybody? If this mosquito evidence works out, we can shift to the offensive again.”

  “If it works out? How long will it take to find out?”

  “A few days, tops … I think.”

  “You think?”

  “Well, this has never actually been done before—at least, it’s never been used in a court case. But it’s been proven possible in a laboratory.”

  “And in the meantime we’re supposed to stay here? Nick, we’re still in Pittsburgh—surely they’ll check the local motels. This guy knows more than you think he does—you said it yourself. He’s just one step behind us. I think we need to put some distance between us.”

  “Sarah had an idea,” Riley said. “I think it’s a good one. We can go to our house in Mencken, remember? The place is deserted; no one would ever look for us there. There are no utilities, but there’s a working pump in the backyard—and we can take food and supplies with us.”