“What?”
“I don’t know. I can’t explain it.”
Jennings kept his attention focused on the young officer. “What is it you think you saw, Myers?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Come on, this is important.”
Again the officer licked his lips, his eyes darting to Cavanaugh, then back to Jennings. “This is gonna sound stupid.”
“So what’s new, Myers?” Cavanaugh said.
“Shut the fuck up, Frank!” Jennings snapped. “Let the officer speak. Tell me what you saw, Myers.”
“I think it was a...ghost, sir.”
“A ghost?” Cavanaugh said. “What are you, some kind of fucking fruit loop—?”
“I said shut up, Frank!”
Cavanaugh glared at Jennings.
Myers stared down at his feet in embarrassment. “It was a woman,” he said. “She had on a white gown. Her hair was dark and it hung in her face. Don’t ask me to explain it, because I can’t.”
“Jesus Christ!” Cavanaugh muttered.
Jennings gave Cavanaugh a hard stare. “Where did you see this...apparition, Myers?” Jennings asked.
“Over near the corpse. She had her hands out like she was trying to...” The officer seemed at a loss for words.
“Convey something?” Jennings said.
“Yeah, that’s the word. Convey something. And she looked afraid.”
Jennings nodded thoughtfully.
“What’s going on here?” Cavanaugh asked, the confusion evident in his tone. He was glancing appraisingly between Jennings and Myers.
Neither Jennings nor the young officer answered him.
Another of the uniformed officers had ventured over to the pool. He was standing beside Jennings staring dreamily down at the corpse trying not to breathe through his nose. “Oh...fuck,” he said, raising his hand to cover his mouth, fingers splayed. He did a mechanical-looking about face and vomited on the ground at his feet. His partner turned away, gagging.
“What the hell’s wrong with you pussies?” Cavanaugh exploded. “Ain’t you ever seen a corpse before?”
The sick patrolman, whose face was mime-white, said, “Not like that one. And I hope I never do again.”
“Crime lab’s on the way,” Jennings said. He was still looking at Myers. “Don’t touch anything! They’ll want to scour the area immediately around the body. And if you guys are gonna puke, move back. I don’t want you messing up the scene.” The stench was so powerful that even he was having trouble keeping his breakfast down.
He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket, clapped it over his face and stood examining the corpse. The body lay on its back, arms fanned out to the sides, legs splayed. The upper half lay partially submerged in the green pool. Nets of dark hair floated around the head like dirty cobwebs. The vacuous eye sockets were open and staring. There seemed to be an uncommon amount of greasy, dark makeup smeared around their orbits. The first victim had looked pretty much the same way and Jennings wondered if the killer had put the makeup there, and if so, then why. She looked like one of those blow-up sex dolls. The mouth was open in an O of surprise, frozen in a silent scream. Jennings’s eyes roamed up and down the body, left to right. A shiver of revulsion rippled through him. He was bothered most by the cross. He’d seen the exact same thing a week ago on a victim strapped to a cross-shaped tombstone at Oak Hill cemetery. And he’d seen a similar one five years ago on a walking trail in Falmouth that he was not supposed to talk about. Now this one, killed in exactly the same way.
Jennings looked up and glanced around at his surroundings. He turned and did a slow but complete three-sixty. The four other officers watched him carefully. “I don’t think we’ve got ourselves a crime scene here, Frank,” he said finally.
“No?”
“No! I think the body was dumped. And I’d say by the look and smell of it that she’s been here a while. Perhaps as long as three or four days. You see that old telegraph pole?” He pointed to an old wooden pole not twenty feet from where they stood on the opposite side of Land Fill Road. There was an entire line of them that followed a rusted and long abandoned railroad spur, but this one was the closest one to the crime scene. Old rotted telegraph lines hung from them like errant cobwebs. “Those poles are from the days of Morse code and probably haven’t been used in more than half a century.”
“Yeah, so?” Cavanaugh said again.
“What’s it look like to you?”
Cavanaugh frowned. “Looks like a telegraph pole.”
“Use your imagination.”
Cavanaugh made a face and shrugged.
Jennings sighed. “Oh yeah, I forgot, you don’t have an imagination, do you, Frank? Listen, I’d be willing to bet the killer was planning on hanging her from that pole and someone came along and surprised him. So he just dumped the body. I think he covered her over with trash and the wind uncovered her.”
“Why would he hang her from the...?” Cavanaugh stopped as what Jennings was trying to say began to sink in. “That’s quite a stretch, ain’t it, Rick?”
“After what happened last week I don’t think it’s a stretch at all. Just look at it, Frank.”
Cavanaugh frowned but followed Jennings’ hand. It seemed like an ordinary telegraph pole to him. About ten feet up there was a horizontal cross piece with old blue and green glass insulators still attached, some of them broken by rocks or BB guns. “Maybe you’re right,” he said. “It sort of looks like a cross, I suppose. If you have an imagination.” He grinned smugly at Jennings.
“More sicko Christian shit,” said Myers.
“Will you stop with the Christian bullshit, Myers?” Cavanaugh said. “This guy is a sick pervert. Period! Christ, look at her.”
“How can you say it’s not religious?” Myers said.
“I don’t think you can deny the religious connotations,” Jennings said. “That woman found at Oak Hill cemetery last week had a bunch of blasphemous tattoos, she had a cross carved on her and she was strapped to a large cross-shaped tombstone. This guy is definitely hung up on religion and that pole over there is just too close for comfort. Coincidence? I don’t think so. And I’d be willing to bet forensics won’t find much evidence around the scene. The body was almost certainly dumped.” Jennings bent closer to the corpse, staring down at the artwork, both horrified and entranced. “Jesus, why would anyone do such a thing?” It was a rhetorical question spoken in a near whisper. He didn’t really expect an answer.
“Maybe she was fucking around on her old man and he decided to teach her a lesson,” Cavanaugh said.
Eight astonished eyes turned to the detective.
Chapter 20
Did he just say what I thought he said? Jennings asked himself.
Cavanaugh saw all the staring eyes. “What?” he said. “I was just sayin’.”
“You cold son of a bitch,” Myers said in a voice that choked with disgust. “What kind of man are you? How can you even think thoughts like those? Look at her, man. What if she was your daughter, or your wife?”
Cavanaugh smirked. “If my daughter or my wife had decorated her body with filth like that I wouldn’t have been this easy on her.”
Myers went for the detective’s throat. Jennings took two lumbering steps and came between the two men, his rugged face darkly troubled. “Knock it off,” he said in a voice that was much too calm. “And Frank, grow the hell up.”
“Me?” Cavanaugh said with a hoarse laugh. “He just told you he saw a fucking ghost. I don’t think it’s me who needs to grow up.”
“I know what I saw!” Myers said. “So screw you, Cavanaugh.”
“Oh, really,” Cavanaugh said. “You’re a religious man, aren’t you, Myers? Go to temple, get down on your knees, wear the little skull cap and all that bullshit?”
“Fuck you, asshole! What’s that have to do with anything?”
“You Holy Roller types see all sorts of things the rest of us don’t. Isn’t that right? Holy ghosts. Bur
ning bushes. Shit like that.”
“You asshole,” Myers said. “You’re talking about Christian symbols again. I’m a Jew!”
“Same difference,” Cavanaugh said dismissively. “Fanatics are fanatics. Jews, Muslims, Christians. You’re all a bunch of fucking fruit loops.”
Myers tried to move around Jennings to get at the detective, his face purple with rage. “You bastard!” he said. “I’ll break your neck—”
Jennings grabbed both men by the lapels, one in each hand, a surprisingly swift maneuver for a man of his bulk, so adroit in fact that it shocked those who were witnessing the act. His clenched fists were the size of hams. “I told you guys to knock it off, or so help me God you’ll both be scrubbing latrines down at city hall for the next six weeks.” He was a much larger man than either the detective or the officer and one got the impression that he could do more than put them on latrine duty if he decided.
The young officer shrugged free of Jennings’s hold and stumbled away, head down, weeping.
“This may be just a walk in the park for you, Frank,” Jennings said. The fist on the detective’s lapel tightened. Jennings drew Cavanaugh to within inches of his face. His eyes were small black beads of carefully controlled rage. “When these men see something like this they see their wives—or their sisters—or the girl next door. You think any of us like this? What the fuck’s gotten into you? That kid over there is doing the best he can do.”
“He’s talking about ghosts, Rick.”
“He was just telling us what he saw.”
“I don’t need you lecturing me, Rick. I’ve been around way too long for that.”
“Then act like it. Myers is right. Your trash talk is inappropriate and I don’t want to hear any more of it out of your mouth.”
Jennings released his hold on the Detective’s shirt. Cavanaugh stumbled back almost falling. “This is his first body, Frank, and it’s not a very pretty one. You remember your first?”
“I remember I wasn’t blubbering like a fucking baby.”
“Sounds like you’re due for a nice little vacation, old buddy.”
“Nine out of ten of these young guys coming onto the force today have this idiotic, romantic notion about what this job’s all about,” Cavanaugh said. “We’re nothing but garbage collectors! That’s reality.”
“It may be your reality,” Myers said, wiping dusty tears from his face with the back of his hand. “Not mine.”
“Will you grow up, for Christ’s sake,” Cavanaugh said. “Look at you. Sniveling like some snot-nosed little fuck.”
“You know something, Frank?” Jennings said. “You are one cold-hearted son of a bitch.”
Cavanaugh smiled but there wasn’t an ounce of mirth in it.
“You like being an asshole, don’t you, Frank?”
“Oh yeah, Rick, I’m just having a fucking vacation here.”
“Let me tell you something,” Jennings said, pointing an unsteady finger at the detective. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but as long as the city’s issuing your paycheck and as long as I’m your supervisor you’d better clean up your attitude. No one around here is exempt from the rules, not even you. When the day comes you don’t think you can handle the job—”
“It’s not me who can’t handle the job.”
“Enough!” Jennings said with cold finality.
Cavanaugh glared at him.
“Okay,” Jennings said. “Listen up. We’re wasting time. I want you guys to spread out and comb the area. I don’t know what we’re looking for. There’s a lot of junk out there, but if you find anything even remotely suspicious leave it alone and mark the site. Take your time. When in doubt, assume it’s a clue. I’ll stay here and wait for the crime lab. Now let’s get going.” The three uniformed officers trudged off toward the landfill.
“You too, Frank.”
Cavanaugh glared at Jennings before turning away and following the other three officers.
Chapter 21
Jennings leaned against the car and lit a cigarette with hands that shook. The first drag caused a spasm of uncontrollable coughing that began in his solar plexus and moved up through his lungs, nearly bending him over with pain. When it was over he eyed the cigarette with disdain before flicking it away. He knew he had to quit. He just didn’t know when that day would come.
Maybe when you’re dead of cancer, this nagging little voice said. First the booze now the butts. Next it’ll be steak and potatoes. A fine fucking how-do-you-do.
He pushed the voice aside and thought about Cavanaugh, about the way he had acted. The son-of-a-bitch. He was his friend, had been for a lot of years, but he was one of the most stone-hearted bastards Jennings had ever known. He was more than likely having trouble with Kate again. Every time the man had a fight with his wife he came to work wearing an ugly suit. The fucker had a real problem controlling his anger and always ended up taking it out on somebody.
But Jennings couldn’t think about that now. He needed to focus on these murders. His thoughts went to the dead woman in the pool of stagnant water. How undignified she would feel if she could indeed feel. Ah, but she was beyond feeling or caring, wasn’t she? He wondered, not for the first time, about death. When you were a homicide detective you spent a lot of time thinking about death. How incredibly easy it was to die, how when you were least expecting it, death had a way of coming out of nowhere and snatching the life right out of you. He supposed that this was as good a place as any for death to happen. A place where people discarded things they no longer needed or cared for. But even as he was thinking these thoughts he knew that leaving her in a pool of stagnant water hadn’t been the killer’s intention. No, Jennings knew instinctively that the killer had intended to hang the victim from that pole over there like some crucified Christ thing. But if the killer was acting alone then he would have to be very strong to do something like that. Maybe he wasn’t acting alone. The thought sent a chill through him.
Jennings left his place against the side of his car and slowly covered the distance between the body and the telegraph pole. There were tire tracks and human tracks everywhere. And junk. So much junk.
He looked down. In the dry soil there was one set of impressions that intrigued him. They were obviously made during or just after that hard rain several nights before because they were sunk deeply into the soil. Now they were dry and ridged. He got down and inspected them. No, impossible, he thought. He could tell they were made with some sort of rubber or synthetic sole because of the small wavy, yet worn pattern. But that’s not what bothered him. What bothered him was their size. They were the biggest feet he’d ever seen. Perhaps a size sixteen, maybe larger. The feet of a giant. There were very few people with a shoe size that large. Again he remembered a cold case from five years ago and his blood ran cold.
He followed the impressions. There were quite a few of them, back and forth, almost to the pole and then back toward the body, and then back toward the pole again. He followed them beyond the pole until he came to the wide ditch where the railroad tracks ran. Beyond the ditch there was a field of tall, yellow swale grass, now blowing in the breeze looking like a carefully executed impressionist painting. It was at least two hundred yards across the field to the main road where cars sped and trucks roared.
He decided not to cover the distance himself. He did not want to leave the body. Forensics could handle it. He came to a stop. At his feet there were three distinct coils of what appeared to be nylon rope. They’d been walked on by the giant footprints and were partially pushed into the dry soil. Could it be? Although they were coiled, they looked to be about the right length. Maybe three or four feet in length each. Just the right size to strap a person’s arms and legs to a pole. Unlike all the other junk around, the rope looked relatively new.
Jennings did not touch it. Instead he went back to his car, leaned against the door and waited.
He thought of what Myers had said about the ghost woman, and a shudder worked through him.
Unfinished business. Yes, that’s what Myers had said. And that’s exactly the way he, Jennings had felt at the first crime scene when he’d seen essentially the same sort of phenomenon Myers had described. He had not mentioned it to anybody, basically because he had refused to believe his own eyes. Now he wasn’t so sure. This was turning out to be the most surreal case he had ever worked on. He watched his men comb the landfill in the distance where above and around them seagulls shrieked as they glided on the chill morning air.
Chapter 22
The hackles rose on the back of his neck. He felt static run in the hairs on his arms as something flickered across his vision. One minute it was there, gauzy, shimmering, and in the next it was gone. A feeling of dread washed through him. Whatever he’d felt, or seen, it was not good.
Jennings blinked then shook his head, feeling slightly off kilter. A twist of wind scooted past him and the air filled with dust. He held his breath. The dust swirled around him. He squeezed his eyes almost closed, but did not dare shut the world out completely.
Then he saw her over near the body. The same apparition he’d seen at the last crime scene, and what would appear to be the exact same apparition Myers had described moments ago. She was beautiful; a tall, slim woman in a clinging white gown with dark hair. Her eyes were black and staring. Looking into them made Jennings’s heart ache.
“Who are you?” he asked, his voice a soft murmur. “Why are you here? What are you trying to tell me?” Her expression turned cold and afraid, the terror on her face palpable. He saw her mouth open as if to scream but no sound came out.
“Please.” he said. “If you know something about this, tell me.” The apparition did not answer him. He took a couple of tentative steps toward her. A strong gust of wind fragmented her image. “No” he said. “Don’t go away.” But it was too late. She was gone.
He stood frozen in place as a single sheet of paper, swept up by the insufflation came to a stop against his left shoe. He stooped, picked it up, and read. It was an advertisement flier for a local rock band known as Bad Medicine. Jennings’ blood turned cold as he stared at the flier. The photograph showed the four band members standing against an old wall of soiled bricks, their indifferent expressions typical for a group of serious rock ’n rollers. But the most striking thing about the band’s trademark image was the giant and jagged cross painted in red on the wall behind them as though it was an open and suppurating wound in the flesh of some gigantic creature.
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