With Ben’s attention focused on keeping the van on all four wheels—although I wasn’t convinced we had stayed that way the entire time—conversation between the three of us had been non-existent. I wasn’t about to distract him with chatter, idle or otherwise. Unless it was earth shattering and I felt he desperately needed to know, I was keeping my mouth shut. Felicity’s silence told me that she had either adopted the same attitude or was simply too frightened to speak.
We had just blown beneath the first overhead girder of the eastbound bridge when Ben’s cell phone began to ring. My heart jumped into my throat as he swerved around yet another oblivious driver, while at the same time fumbling for the warbling device. After barking an angry slur at the vehicular obstacle, he flipped open the cell and pressed it against his ear.
“Storm… Yeah… Yeah… Dammit! Any sign of ‘er yet? Jeezus… No, nothin’ here… Yeah, but she had a good ten minutes on us, so she could show up at any minute. Better keep an eye out… Yeah… Good deal… What? Yeah, we’re just crossin’ the river now. If the idiots’ll stay the fuck outta my way, we should be there in ten, fifteen tops. Yeah… See ya’.”
Folding the phone shut with a flick of his thumb, he shoved it back into his pocket then grabbed the steering wheel. I felt better now that he was guiding the van with both hands instead of just one—but, only slightly better.
“Hubcap chasers didn’t find Beebee,” he said, casting a quick glance at me before returning his attention to the road.
“I pretty much gathered that from your reaction,” I replied, breaking my self-imposed reticence with more than a little internal trepidation.
He huffed out a heavy breath. “Shit… Guess I can’t really blame ‘er. I’d prob’ly do the same if it was my kid. Know what I mean?”
“Knowing you, probably,” I agreed. Obviously he expected an answer, so I had little choice but to talk. Since we were still traveling in a straight line, I went ahead and asked, “By the way, did you know about that little secret?”
“Hell no.” He gave his head a slight shake to punctuate the response even more. “I was told she was a niece. But, lemme tell ya’, I’m bettin’ somebody up on high knew about it.”
“It kind of explains something I was wondering about,” I offered. “I wasn’t quite sure how she reconciled her particular set of strict values with a niece who was involved in the whole vampire scene—and apparently bisexual at the very least. That didn’t really seem to fit with her holier-than-thou attitude.”
“Yeah,” he grunted. “Extended family is one thing. But your own kid is somethin’ completely different. Ya’ love ‘em no matter how much you think they’re fuckin’ up.”
“Yeah…” I replied. “I suppose that might explain why she claimed she was her niece, too. Some part of her still had to spare herself the perceived embarrassment.”
After a brief pause Ben shot another quick glance my way and asked, “So, you two doin’ okay? Both of ya’ been pretty quiet.”
“As well as can be expected.”
“What about you, Firehair?”
“The same,” she replied, her voice pitched slightly higher than usual.
“You havin’ a Twilight Zone moment or somethin’?”
“No. Just a fear of low altitude flight.”
“Of what? Oh… you mean… Jeez, c’mon, my drivin’ ain’t that bad. I don’t hear Firehair complainin’.” On the heels of the comment, he jerked the van to the right then quickly back to the left while growling, “Fuckin’ assholes.”
Felicity yelped in time with the maneuver then a few seconds later sighed and said, “Yes, Ben, it is that bad.”
He shot a look over his shoulder. “Yeah, well, that’s just how it is sometimes.”
“Please keep your eyes on the road then,” she appealed. “I’m not ready to die just yet.”
“Gimme a break.”
“Just keep your eyes on the road, please?” she appealed.
“Relax. I know what I’m doin’.”
I heard my wife quietly mutter, “Gods, I hope so.”
“So anyway,” Ben reverted back to his original train of thought without ceremony. “No Albright yet, but you can bet that’s where she’s headed. As far as the house itself goes, the Overmoor coppers are pretty sure they saw a light go on then back off through one of the basement windows.”
“That’s where the killer was in the vision,” I acknowledged. “The basement.”
Ben snorted. “So, were ya’ plannin’ ta’ tell anyone about that part?”
“Sorry. But, I had enough trouble convincing you about the address as it was, don’t you think?”
“So you’re blamin’ me?”
“The situation, mostly. But, yeah, maybe just a little.”
“Yeah, whatever,” he replied in a dismissive tone. “So you pick up on anything else we should know?”
“The vision was a bit disjointed, and some of the imagery was classic la-la land, as you call it. But, if I’m remembering correctly, just beyond the front door is what appeared to be a living room…”
He interrupted. “You got a floor plan?”
“Some,” I answered. “Not all.”
“Hold on,” he snapped.
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his cell and flipped it open once again. With a quick stab he hit redial and then speaker. The phone beeped then trilled briefly. On the second ring it was answered.
“Sergeant Madden,” a woman’s voice said.
“Sergeant Madden, it’s Detective Storm, you got anyone from SWAT handy?”
“Yeah, just a second…”
There was a brief pause, and we could hear a mix of voices, then someone else came on the line.
“This is Lieutenant Penczak.”
“Lieutenant, Detective Storm, Major Case. I think I might have a partial floor plan on the house for ya’.”
“I’ll take it,” the man replied.
“I’m handin’ ya’ over ta’ Rowan Gant,” Ben told him then thrust the phone at me.
I took it from him quickly out of an attack of self-preservation since he was already paying more attention to it than the road. As I grabbed the phone I stabbed my finger toward the windshield and shook it. My friend just rolled his eyes but returned his focus on the blurred white lines in front of us.
“Lieutenant,” I started. “The front door opens into what appears to have been a moderate-sized living room. Maybe fifteen feet wide by fifteen deep, best guess. There’s trash everywhere, but I don’t recall any major obstacles. On the back wall, there’s an arched doorway that leads directly into a hallway running parallel to the room. If you go to the right, it T’s with another corridor coming in on the left. Down that corridor, there is a charred door that leads to the basement. It’s on the right, about mid way.”
“What about the back?” Penczak asked.
“Sorry, I’m afraid that’s all I have.”
“That’s all right. It’s more than we had a minute ago,” he replied. “So how do you know all this? Have you been in the house?”
“Sort of.”
“What do you mean, sort of?”
Ben reached over and snatched the cell phone from my hand. “Trust me, Lieutenant, you don’t want ‘im to explain it. Are you ready to go?”
“We’ve got spotters on the house. There hasn’t been any activity for almost fifteen minutes now, so we’re setting up to move into position soon.”
“Good deal,” Ben grunted. “We’ll be there in five.”
“We’ll hold the party until you get here.”
“Yeah, thanks,” he replied with a definite note of sarcasm. “Captain Albright show up yet?”
“Not that…” The lieutenant’s reply was cut short by a burst of static and a voice in the background. When he spoke again he simply said, “Hold on…”
There was a clatter as if the cell phone was dropped, or at least tossed onto a hard surface. Over the tinny speaker, we could hear the muffled sounds
of physical activity along with several unintelligible words being barked. Even though we couldn’t make them out, the brevity and tone told us they were probably a series of commands.
“What’s happening?” I asked Ben.
“Dunno, but it doesn’t sound good.”
We exited the highway and shot through an intersection, slowing only enough to avoid a collision and make a quick right. A languid forever later, a voice came back on the line.
“Storm, you still there?”
“Yeah, Madden, what’s goin’ on there?”
“It’s gone to hell in a hand basket,” she replied. “A spotter just put eyes on a woman entering the back of the house. He’s pretty sure it was Captain Albright. SWAT is already moving.”
“Goddammit…” Ben moaned. “Don’t you have a friggin’ perimeter set up?”
“Of course we do,” she replied harshly. “We have no idea how she breached it.”
“What a fuckin’ mess,” my friend huffed.
“Yeah, tell me about it.”
“We’re about three minutes out,” Ben told her. “Do what ya’ gotta do.”
He snapped the phone shut then tossed it onto the console as he slowed at another intersection then quickly accelerated the van while threading it through the cars that were still coming to a halt.
CHAPTER 32:
Three minutes became five when Ben missed a left turn from his hastily scribbled directions, and we were forced to double back up to the main thoroughfare from a narrow dead-end street. A quick flash of his badge saw us through the vehicular barricade at the end of South Millston, and thirty seconds later we had coasted down the block-long hill to a cluster of emergency vehicles scattered haphazardly around the T intersection at the bottom.
Splashes of luminance played across the fronts of the houses from active lightbars, casting an angry harshness across the entire scene. However, the strobing lights seemed to be the only things garish about the tableau. Everything—and everyone—else appeared to be almost somber.
Ben levered the van into park then switched off the engine as he watched the uniformed officers milling about in the street. On the sidewalk we could see a few members of the SWAT team who appeared to be casually chatting, their weapons pointed toward the ground in a somewhat relaxed posture.
“Yeah…” my friend breathed. “It’s all over but the paperwork.”
I scanned the area as I unlatched my seatbelt and allowed it to slowly recoil through my fingers. The metal buckle eventually struck the upper stop with a dull thunk as if to highlight his comment. After several seconds and multiple sweeps with my eyes, I said, “I don’t see Albright anywhere.”
“Yeah…me neither,” Ben muttered with a slight nod. “And that ain’t good. Let’s just hope she’s either bein’ a nuisance or warmin’ a seat in the back of a patrol car.”
We climbed out of the vehicle and into the cold night air. There was a palpable chill that transcended the physical, for me at least. I glanced over at Felicity as she slid the door shut on the side of the van, and from the way she shivered then cast her eyes around, I could tell that she was feeling it too.
“Detective Storm?” a questioning female voice called out from several yards away.
I heard my friend respond, “Yeah. You Sergeant Madden?”
By the time Felicity and I came around the front of the vehicle to join him, Ben was facing a sprightly, uniformed woman with a shoulder length shag of medium brown hair. She was resting one forearm casually atop her high-riding sidearm with the thumb of her other hand hooked into her belt. Being of average stature like the majority of the people on this planet, she was forced to look up at the tall Native American cop in front of her.
They had dropped their voices back down to a normal level, so the ambient noise of radios and other officers kept us from making out their conversation until we drew close. We probably hadn’t missed much, but when we were only a few steps away, the first intelligible thing we heard was the tail end of a sentence from Madden. “…still inside. I’ll warn you, it’s not pretty.”
“It never is,” Ben sighed.
“These two with you?” Madden asked, leveling a stone-faced gaze on us as we stopped near Ben.
He nodded. “Yeah. They’re consultants for Major Case.” He wagged his index finger between us. “Rowan Gant, Felicity O’Brien. This is Sergeant Madden, Overmoor Police.”
“Sergeant,” I said, reaching out and briefly shaking her hand. Felicity did the same.
Madden lowered her forearm back to its waist level prop then jerked her head toward the house. “I’m not sure what kind of consultants you are, but I was just telling Detective Storm it’s definitely not for the squeamish in there.”
“Unfortunately we’ve seen our share,” I replied.
“Sorry to hear that.”
“So, how many?” Ben asked.
“Two that they’ve found, and that’s counting the one Captain Albright shot,” she replied, focusing back on him. “Both of them are in the basement. The upstairs is pretty much empty, but they’re going through it again just to be sure.”
“Was it a clean shoot?”
She shook her head. “I’m not the one to ask. It was already going down when SWAT made entry. We heard two shots coming from the interior. Sergeant Gordon was first in, and from what I understand, he saw what was probably a muzzle flash light up the stairwell. But he was still in the hallway and hadn’t made it to the basement door yet.”
“Same weapon?”
She shrugged. “One of the vics has two holes in him, center mass. Two shots, two holes, so that’s how it looks.”
“He have a weapon on ‘im?”
“That’s being determined,” she offered carefully, glancing at us then back to him. “We’ll know more as soon as they talk to Captain Albright.”
“Yeah,” my friend muttered in response to the veiled comment. “I got ya’… So how is Albright doin’ anyway?”
Madden shook her head. “I’m not really sure. Physically she looks fine, but she hasn’t said much. Just surrendered her weapon, flashed her badge, and then sat down in a corner. They’re working on bringing her out right now.”
“Yeah, well I’m sure ya’know one of the vics is prob’ly one of ‘er relatives. Her…” He gave a barely perceptible pause as he caught himself and then quickly finished the sentence with, “Niece.”
“Would that be Judith?”
“Yeah.”
Madden shook her head again. “Then I don’t think so. That’s about the only thing she has said so far. Where are you, Judith?”
“Hmmph,” he grunted as he furrowed his brow. Then he asked, “So, you okay with us goin’ in?”
“Let me check with the crime scene guys just to be sure,” she said. “The scene is pretty straightforward as far as the physical evidence goes, so I doubt there will be a problem.”
The sergeant left us and engaged in a short conversation with someone who appeared to be the technician running the scene. He glanced up in our direction as she pointed at us and then gave her a quick nod. A few seconds later she returned, pausing briefly to point us out to someone else.
“Sign in with Officer Fisk,” she told us, gesturing in the direction of the uniformed man she had most recently spoken with. “He can give you shoe covers and gloves too.” Then she leveled her gaze on Felicity and me. “Are you two really sure you want to go in there?”
“I never want to,” I sighed through a heavy frown. “But I do my job.”
“Yeah…” She nodded. “I hear you on that one.”
“Ya’know, this is pretty much over,” Ben said, looking over at us. “You can prob’ly skip it… I don’t think anyone’ll blame ya’, and you’ve already done what the brass asked ya’ to do.”
“No,” I replied. “I’m going to need to go in.”
“TZ?” he questioned.
I didn’t miss the inherent meaning behind the initials. “Yeah. Pretty much.”
&nb
sp; He shot a glance at my wife. “Firehair?”
“Aye,” she said with a slight nod. “I need to be there for Rowan.”
“You gonna need any salt?” he asked.
Sergeant Madden cocked an eyebrow and gave Ben an odd look.
Felicity nudged me, so I glanced at her then shook my head.
“No,” she replied. “Not here.”
“Yeah, okay…” Ben said with a nod. “Then let’s get this over with.”
I could feel Sergeant Madden’s curious gaze burning into our backs all the way to the door.
* * * * *
The upstairs interior of the house was just as I had earlier described it. What I had seen of it in the vision, anyway. The basement itself was no more and no less than I expected. It was in large part barren. Little more than a low-ceilinged rectangular room with pock marked cement walls and peeling paint—and of course, the two slowly cooling bodies that occupied it.
I had seen worse, but that didn’t make the garish scene any easier to look at. The first horror to befall us when we reached the bottom of the stairs was the nude corpse of a young woman, hanging upside down from the rafters. Her flesh was pallid and so devoid of color as to appear ghostly, just as we had seen before. Her arms were bound tightly behind her in such a way as to bend her shoulders back into what had to be a painful curve. As with the two victims resting in metal drawers downtown, a starkly defined swan tattoo stood out on her right upper arm.
The odor of the musty basement mingled with the smell of old smoke from the fire that had partially destroyed the upper level. A sharp note of urine pierced through the aged funk, most likely where one or both of the victim’s bladders had evacuated upon death. As bad as it was, the intermingled malodor was an almost welcome change to the sickening stench permeating the atmosphere upstairs. It turned out that my stomach-churning ethereal brush with improperly prepared liver was nothing as compared to how it truly smelled in this plane of existence. I was beginning to think I would have to swear off the dish for some time to come.
Blood Moon: A Rowan Gant Investigation Page 27
