by Scott Sigler
Pookie stood on the sidewalk outside the now-open black gate. He stayed close to Bryan. Badges hung from both of their necks. Pookie stared into the alley, watching crime-scene investigators Sammy Berzon and Jimmy Hung do their thing. They wore dark-blue windbreaker jackets with SFPD in white across the back. What they found might nail Pookie’s best friend to the wall.
But the truth had to come out.
Bryan looked horrible, his green eyes and pale white skin a harsh contrast to his dark-red beard. The guy seemed to be in shock, but this could not wait, could not be put off until he felt better.
“Tell me again,” Pookie said. He spoke quietly, loud enough only for Bryan to hear. “Where were you last night?”
Bryan tilted his head closer, responded in kind. “My apartment. I went straight there after Sharrow sent me home.”
Pookie remembered Bryan falling asleep on his desk — Bryan, who’d never missed a day of work or even exhibited the slightest sniffle.
“You were sick yesterday,” Pookie said. “Feel the same today?”
“Worse. Whole body hurts. I think I have a fever or something.”
Pookie nodded. Could the fever be so bad that Bryan somehow went out last night, during the dark hours the guy loved so much, and butchered this kid? And on top of that, didn’t even remember doing it?
“So you went home,” Pookie said. “What happened then?”
“I went right to bed. I slept pretty hard, I guess. The nightmare woke me up about two-thirty, maybe three A.M. I woke up, drew some pictures, went back to sleep.”
“And no one to verify that? No girls, neighbors, landlords, nothing?”
Bryan chewed on his lower lip, shook his head. Of course the guy didn’t have an alibi. He lived alone. He hadn’t even been on a date since he’d moved out of Robin’s place.
Bryan had led them right to this corpse, even described the state of the body. For him to have that kind of detailed knowledge, he had to have spoken with someone who saw this go down, someone who actually did it, or …
… or the obvious answer: Bryan had done it himself.
Impossible.
But was it impossible? People called Bryan the Terminator for a reason. He was cold, detatched, and — most important — deadly. Had the Lanza scene pushed him over the edge?
Pookie couldn’t believe that. If it weren’t for Bryan Clauser, Pookie wouldn’t even be alive. Maybe Bryan was a bit robotic, sure, but he was also everything a cop should be — brave, dedicated and self-sacrificing. He wasn’t a murderer.
Not a murderer, maybe, but he sure is a killer, isn’t he?
Pookie couldn’t think of anything else to say, to ask. He looked back into the alley. The boy’s body still lay under the tree’s shade, lit up every few seconds by the flash of Jimmy Hung’s camera. The severed arm was nowhere to be found. In its absence was a ragged, gaping, negative-space wound that ran from the neck down to just under where the armpit would have been had the arm still been attached. Part of the collarbone jutted out, red-streaked white gleaming bright every time Jimmy snapped another picture.
On the brick wall, between the thin trees, two-foot-high reddish-brown letters spelled out a message in graffiti, graffiti made with the victim’s now-dry blood:
Pookie gently nudged Bryan, pointed to the letters.
“And that? Ring any bells?”
Bryan looked, and when he did, Pookie saw the telltale signs of recognition. The words had meaning to Bryan. Would he talk about it, or would he lie?
“Something like that in my dream,” Bryan said. “Can’t remember, exactly, but there were some words … or thoughts, maybe … they were banging through my head like someone was sending a message.”
“A message like a phone call?”
Bryan shook his head. “No, not like a phone. Like … inside my head. Crazy, right?”
Yeah, crazy. That was the word Pookie kept trying to avoid. It was more palatable than psychotic, but still not a term one wanted attributed to one’s best friend.
Pookie nodded toward the boy’s body. “Maybe before we found him, it would sound crazy. But right now I’m ready to consider anything. Tell me more.”
Bryan licked his lips. Pookie waited.
“Something about a king,” Bryan said finally. “No, not a king, with the king.”
“You sure? Was that what you heard in your dream?”
Bryan Clauser turned away from the gory scene. He stared at Pookie. Bryan didn’t look all blank and emotionless anymore — the guy was scared.
“Pooks, you’re talking to me like I’m a suspect.”
There was no sugar-coating this. It was all Pookie could do to not call for the other cops on the scene, have them help slap cuffs on Bryan and take him in for questioning.
“You are a suspect, and you know it,” Pookie said quietly. “You led us right to the body. You even told me what we’d find.”
Bryan shook his head. “Just a dream. Just a fucking dream, man. Shit like this doesn’t happen, it can’t happen.”
Pookie glanced around at the uniforms, seeing if any of them were trying to listen in. They weren’t. “Just keep it together, Bryan. Don’t say another word about it. We’ll figure this out.”
Pookie started to walk away, but a strong hand grabbed his upper arm and pulled him back. Pookie turned to face Bryan, to see the look of anguish in his partner’s eyes.
“Do you really think I could do something like this?”
The logical part of Pookie’s brain said yes, but that, too, was crazy. Why the hell would Bryan have killed this kid? Where was the motive?
“If I didn’t consider you a suspect, I wouldn’t be worth a squirt as a cop and you know it,” Pookie said. “You shouldn’t even be standing here, and you know that, too. You should be in an interrogation room. But you’re my friend and I’ve been doing this job for a long time. We’ll figure this out, but for now just shut up and don’t touch anything.”
Pookie looked back into the alley and watched the CSI team. Sammy walked slowly, with very small steps. He had his head down, a camera around his neck and in his hands. When he reached the far side, he would turn ninety degrees to the right, still looking down, take one step, turn another ninety degrees, then start slowly recrossing the alley. Every three or four steps he would stop, point his camera down and take a picture, then bend to pick something up with tweezers. He’d drop the object into a brown paper envelope, seal it up and label it. Finally, he’d write on a small folded piece of white cardboard and put that in the object’s place.
Jimmy hovered around the body, shooting the grizzly corpse from multiple angles: far back, tight shot, practically sticking the camera into the missing shoulder, on and on. The blue windbreaker was too big for Jimmy’s tiny frame, making him look even smaller than he was.
Sammy stopped walking. He straightened. Still looking down, Sammy used the back of his gloved hand to wipe a few strands of blond hair out of his eyes. Moving only his head, he looked left and right, taking in a wider area. He looked up at Pookie and Bryan, then carefully walked out of the alley.
“Sammy,” Pookie said. “How’s Roger?”
Pookie didn’t feel like making small talk, but it was an automatic impulse. Sammy’s brother had been in a car accident a few days ago. Pookie didn’t remember where he’d heard that. He had no idea why such information always stuck in his head.
“He’s all good,” Sammy said. “Out of the hospital tomorrow, I’m told. As for your one-armed bandit back there, I got an ID for you.”
Sammy reached into a pocket and pulled out a plastic bag with an open wallet inside. A driver’s license showed a kid with thick, curly-black hair. It seemed impossible that this young, healthy face had once belonged to the one-eyed, mutilated corpse in the alley.
“Oscar Woody,” Sammy said. “Pretty sure that’s him, based on the stats. We’ll get confirmation as soon as we can. He’s had that license all of two weeks. Happy sixteenth, eh?”
Pookie watched as S
ammy turned the wallet for Bryan to see. Bryan’s eyes widened, just a little. Had he recognized the picture?
Sammy put the wallet back in his pocket. “That body is a real piece of work, eh?”
Pookie nodded. “You can say that again. What do you think ripped that kid’s arm off?”
“In the absence of any industrial machinery, I’d say a big animal. We found some brown hairs, about an inch long. Looks like dog fur to me.”
Pookie looked to the body. The kid had to be five-ten, maybe one hundred seventy-five pounds. “That’s not a toddler, Sammy. Tearing an arm off ain’t no easy thing. How big would a dog have to be to do that?”
Sammy shrugged. “Pit bull, maybe? Probably more like a rottweiler. Get a rottie that weighs one-thirty or so, could happen. Mastiffs can top two hundred pounds. Tear that arm off easy.”
Possible, but still … the patrol officers had already canvassed the area looking for witnesses and come up empty. Hard to imagine no one hearing a scream if a two-hundred-pound dog had bitten the kid’s arm off.
“I’m guessing the dog had help, though,” Sammy said. “There’s a security camera mounted up the building. The nice building, not the old laundromat. It was pointed into the alley, but it’s broke to shit. Looks like it was recently smashed. If the camera had been working, it would have caught everything that went down in the alley.”
Maybe the camera had been broken just before the murder. Maybe this wasn’t some random act of passion — maybe the killing had been planned. Pookie would track down whatever footage it had recorded, of course, but he already knew he’d probably find nothing of use. “Was Woody alive when the arm came off?”
“Oh, for sure,” Sammy said. “Blood splashed around like a fuckin’ fire hose, man. That’s what I want to show you. Come here and take a look.”
Pookie started following Sammy, then stopped when he realized Bryan had remained on the sidewalk. Bryan seemed to be waiting for permission. Pookie tilted his head sharply toward the alley: get over here, now.
Pookie Chang had seen many things that can and did change a person, but so had Bryan Clauser. Maybe Bryan had seen one thing too many.
Bryan walked into the alley. Pookie let him pass, then followed — he wanted to keep Bryan in sight at all times.
Nothing to See Here …
Bryan followed Sammy Berzon into the alley. He felt like he was returning to the scene of a crime — a crime he’d committed.
But he hadn’t done this. Couldn’t have.
Sammy held up a hand showing Bryan and Pookie where to stop. Then he pointed down. Not with a single finger, but with a palm-up, sweeping gesture that said take a look at all this.
“I can see how you guys missed this one,” Sammy said. “I mean, any bigger and it wouldn’t fit into the friggin’ alley, eh?”
On the pavement were two drawings, done in tacky dry blood clotted with dirt, pebbles, bits of flesh, pieces of trash and even a used condom. Each drawing was about fifteen feet wide, as wide as the alley, large enough that Bryan had mistaken the bigger picture for random, individual streaks of blood. Two big circles, both with lines through them, and was that … a triangle?… lines also running through that, maybe …
The image clicked home. Clicked hard.
Bryan knew one of the images all too well, because he’d made it himself.
And there was a second drawing, one he didn’t recognize.
“Interesting,” Pookie said. “Isn’t that triangle drawing interesting, Bryan? It looks familiar to me, but I couldn’t say why.”
Bryan said nothing. He had to force himself to take a breath. He’d sketched that same thing, and here it was, done in the blood of a murder victim. His body hurt. His face felt hot. He just didn’t want to think about any of this for one minute longer.
“You two are great observers,” Sammy said. “I mean, these drawings are only fifteen fucking feet across, eh?”
“Piss off, Sammy,” Pookie said. “Not a good time for sarcasm.”
Bryan stared at the two symbols. They were different, but both had that curve with the two slashes. What did it mean? What did any of it mean?
“And there’s two drawings,” Sammy said. “But anyone could have missed them, right? I mean you two geniuses could—”
Pookie turned fast, grabbed the shoulder of Sammy’s coat and shook, jostling the smaller man. “I said, shut up, Sammy. You got it?”
A shocked Sammy nodded. Pookie let him go.
Bryan looked around. All cop conversation had stopped. Everyone was staring at Pookie. Pookie, who never lost his cool. Pookie, who never said an angry word.
Pookie saw the other cops looking. He turned, glared at Bryan, then walked off to talk to the uniforms.
Bryan walked back out the black gate, careful not to tread on the blood drawings. He stood on the sidewalk, alone, wondering if Pookie was already regretting the decision to believe in his partner.
If so, Bryan couldn’t blame the man.
He felt a breeze on his face. He wiped the back of his hand across his forehead — he was sweating. Finding the body had brought on a big blast of adrenaline. Now that the surge was fading, his nausea, aches and chest pain once again fought for attention. He felt ten times worse than he had that morning.
Pookie returned. He was smiling, but Bryan could see it was fake — Pookie was putting on a show of normalcy. As far as the other cops would see, it was just good-ol’ Bryan and Pooks, working the case and doing their thing. Nothing to see here, please move along …
“The driver’s license picture,” Pookie said in a whisper. “You recognized that kid, didn’t you. You knew that face.”
Bryan thought of lying, but nodded. “Yeah.”
“From?”
Bryan shrugged. “From my dream, man. I don’t know what else to say.”
Pookie pursed his lips and nodded, an expression of anger, of frustration. “Go home,” he said. “Just for a couple of hours, okay?”
“But I have to help you with this, I have—”
“I’ll finish working the scene,” Pookie said. “We’ll have to talk to friends and family, so I’ll come grab you before it’s time to bang on doors. We’re not that far from your place, so just walk. I think it’s best if you’re not here right now.”
Pookie’s stare was hard and unforgiving. This wasn’t open to debate.
There had to be an explanation for this, but neither of them had any clue what that might be.
Bryan turned and started walking.
Robin and Spoiled Milk
Robin Hudson finished tucking her hair into a hairnet as she stood in the prep area, watching the van back into the loading bay. The back of the van opened. Robin was surprised to see Sammy Berzon and Jimmy Hung get out. They removed a cart loaded with a white body bag.
As crime-scene investigators, Sammy and Jimmy usually didn’t help bring a body back to the morgue — that was normally done by Robin’s co-workers in the ME’s office.
Robin smoothed out her disposable gown and hung a digital camera around her neck. She slid her face-shield rig onto her head, but left the clear plastic flipped up.
The men rolled the cart into the prep area.
“Fancy meeting you two here,” Robin said.
“Hello, pretty lady,” Sammy said. “Do you mind if we help with this one? We got a hundo riding on what did the killing. I say rottweiler or big dog, Jimmy is betting a more exotic animal.”
“Tiger,” Jimmy said. “Definitely a tiger.”
Robin nodded. “Sure, you can assist. Whatever floats your boat.”
“Awesome,” Sammy said. “I’ll load the crime-scene photos into the system as soon as we help prep the body.” He held up a clear plastic bag containing a blanket. “This was covering the vic.” He set the bag on the end of the cart.
Robin leaned down to look. Inside the bag, she saw that the blanket was covered with short, brownish hairs. No wonder Jimmy thought it was a rottweiler.
She pic
ked up the bag. “I’m pretty good at identifying dog breeds from fur. I’ll take a closer look after we finish with the subject. You guys get ready while I handle the x-rays.”
Robin shot x-rays while the corpse was still in the body bag. The digitized images immediately showed major damage: missing arm, jaw dislocated and fractured in at least two places, missing teeth, shattered right orbit. Bright white bits glowed from within the soft, multihued gray representation of his lungs — the boy had aspirated some of the teeth.
She finished the x-rays and rolled the cart into the prep area. Sammy and Jimmy were waiting. They had donned their own protective personal equipment: gowns, face shields and fresh gloves.
“You boys bring me the nicest presents,” she said. “Just what I needed to pep up my afternoon.”
Sammy smiled. “That’s what we do. Great case for your first day as the boss-lady, huh?”
“I’m not the boss-lady, guys. It’s only temporary.”
Jimmy shrugged his little shoulders. “We’ll see. I love Metz, but a heart attack at his age? Hard to come back from.”
“He’ll be back,” Robin said. She wanted the top job, absolutely, but she knew she wasn’t ready for it yet. Just another year or two with Metz, maybe, then she would be.
“Okay,” she said, “let’s get this party started.”
They unzipped the body bag. Instantly, she smelled urine. Strong, and somehow unique — the same smell as when Metz brought in Maloney.
“He’s a ripe one,” she said. “Must have had a full bladder when he died.”
Sammy shook his head. “Guess again. The perps pissed on him. Or the rottweiler did.”
“Tiger,” Jimmy said.
When a body died, the muscles in the bowel and bladder relaxed, often resulting in a corpse releasing feces and urine. That was why she hadn’t thought twice about Maloney’s body smelling as it had when Metz brought it in. But this scent was so unique — aside from this corpse and Maloney, she’d never smelled anything quite like it. Was it possible Maloney’s killer had urinated on him as well?
