Known Devil

by Matthew Hughes

  Karl thought about that for a bit. “That might just do the trick. Slattery’s got a big lead in the polls, but I don’t guess he’s willing to chance any bad publicity this close to election day.” He gave me an approving nod. “Pretty good, Stan – you’re developing a devious mind. I like that in a partner, even if he is warm.”

  I was about to thank him for the compliment when McGuire stuck his head out of his office door and yelled our names.

  When we were standing in front of his desk, McGuire said, “We’ve got a report of another explosion.”

  “Aw, fuck,” I said. “How bad is this one?”

  “Not like the car bomb at Ricardo’s, I’m glad to say. In fact, Scanlon says it might not be the same kind of bomb at all.”

  “Scanlon’s there already?” Karl asked.

  “Yeah, and he says there’s a couple of dead vampires at the scene – so you two better get over there.”

  The address he gave us turned out to be in the 1800 block of Spruce Street. Using the flashing lights and siren, we were there within ten minutes. This time out, the siren didn’t bother me at all, thanks to Rachel. I’d been remembering the sweet taste of her lips when Karl brought the car to a halt, and my thoughts came back to the present.

  The yellow crime scene tape marked off an area in front of Cassidy’s Bar and Grille – a place that I knew drew a mixed clientele of humans and supes. Despite what McGuire had told us, I was expecting something along the lines of the devastation we’d seen outside of Ricardo’s, or at least the kind of damage that that had accompanied Victor Castle’s murder. But all the klieg lights showed us was a lot of broken glass from Cassidy’s front windows and numerous small holes in the masonry – along with two dead bodies sprawled in the middle of the street.

  There was also a hell of a lot of gore – splashes of blood, hair, and tissue spread out from the bodies at a wide angle and for maybe fifty feet behind them. It was as if somebody had been using a machine gun and hadn’t been worried about conserving ammunition.

  Scanlon was about twenty feet from the corpses, staring as if he expected them to get up and tell him what the hell had happened.

  “When we got word there was another explosion, I was expecting something a lot worse than this,” I said by way of greeting. “Not that I’m complaining.”

  “I had the same kind of reaction myself when the call came in,” he said. “But this was no car bomb – we can be thankful for that.”

  “What’s Dennehy think?” I asked him.

  “Bomb squad’s not here yet,” he said. “But I got a couple ideas of my own. Come on.”

  He led us away from the bodies and toward the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street from Cassidy’s. Although the area was still within the area cordoned off by crime scene tape, it wasn’t nearly as well lit as the area around the corpses.

  Before I could ask him, he said, “The crime scene people are short of lights tonight. There was a bad car crash on the South Side, and they had to take some of the kliegs over there. But check this sucker out.”

  From his coat pocket, Scanlon produced what I assumed was a flashlight, thick around the middle but less than a foot long. Then he clicked it on, and I found myself squinting against a sudden glare that was far brighter than I would ever have expected from something so small. Karl can see in the dark, but even he seemed impressed as he said, “What the fuck, Lieutenant?”

  “Nice, isn’t it? One of those new quartz tactical flashlights. Puts out 860 lumens, whatever that means.”

  “I think that’s tech-speak for pretty fuckin’ bright,” I said. “How come Homicide gets those and we don’t?”

  “Homicide doesn’t,’ he said. “I bought it myself from a catalog. Set me back eighty bucks. Now, take a look over here.”

  We’d reached the curb, and Scanlon’s super-flashlight gave a clear view of what there was to see: a lot of scorched asphalt, a chunk of what looked like melted green plastic, and a small piece of shiny metal in a V shape.

  “This was the bomb?” Karl asked, disbelief clear in his voice. I didn’t blame him.

  “I don’t think it was a bomb at all,” Scanlon said, “in the accepted usage of the term. I’m pretty sure that this here is what’s left of a Claymore mine, after it’s been detonated.”

  “That’s military ordnance, isn’t it?” I said.

  “It sure is,” Scanlon said. I figured he’d know. Scanlon was in the Army when he was younger, and I knew he’d served in the Transylvanian war, although he never talked much about it. He probably used Claymores himself or saw them used.

  “I thought a mine was a round thing that you hide just below the surface of the ground,” Karl said. “Somebody who doesn’t see the detonator steps on it, or drives over it, and boom.”

  “They still use those,” Scanlon said. “But this is a different kind of weapon.” Scanlon brought out his smartphone. “I looked it up on the Internet for you,” he said, and handed the phone to Karl. “Here.”

  I looked over Karl’s shoulder, even though I’d seen pictures of a Claymore before.

  The photo on Scanlon’s screen showed a curved rectangle of green plastic, on its side, with “FRONT TOWARD ENEMY” stamped on it in big letters. It had a small metal attachment on top that looked like a rifle sight, and from the underside protruded two pairs of scissor legs that would stand the thing upright. The shiny piece of metal that lay on the road in front of us looked an awful lot like one of those legs.

  Karl scrolled down to see the details. “Seven hundred steel balls embedded in plastic explosive,” he read aloud. “Kill zone is fifty meters wide, extending back more than a hundred meters.”

  He handed the phone back to Scanlon. “Pretty impressive. Thanks, Lieutenant.”

  I said to Scanlon, “McGuire said that the vics were vampires – that’s why we were sent over here.”

  “They are,” Scanlon said. “I checked for fangs, and they’ve both got ’em.”

  “Then this impressive weapon here” – I nodded toward the asphalt in front of us – “should have been worth shit, since we all know that explosive devices don’t kill vampires.”

  “You’re right – they don’t,” Scanlon said. “Unless they’ve been specially modified.” He took something small and round from his coat pocket and tossed it to me underhand. “With these.”

  As I tried to get a close look in the uncertain light at what I was holding, Scanlon said to Karl, “I could have given that to you, but it would have been kind of like pulling a nasty practical joke – and I have no use for people who do shit like that.”

  I was holding a metal sphere about the size of a pea, and when I heard what Scanlon said to Karl, I was pretty sure I knew what it was. “Silver?”

  “Seems to be,” Scanlon said. “Technically, that little item should be in an evidence bag. But there’s so many of them back there – embedded in the building, the road, the vics, and God knows where-all – that I figured it wouldn’t hurt to hang on to one.”

  “A vampire-killing Claymore mine,” I said. “What will they think of next?”

  “You got any ID on the vics yet, Lieutenant?” Karl asked.

  “Philadelphia addresses on both of their driver’s licenses,” Scanlon said. “Those could be bogus, of course – we’ll check with DMV in the morning. And their prints will go out on the wire, too. Their fingertips were about the only parts that didn’t have holes in them. Well, one guy did lose a finger in the blast, but his other nine are intact – more than enough for an ID if he’s ever been fingerprinted.”

  “I’m guessing both of them will have prints on file,” I said. “They’ve been busted a few times, most likely.”

  Scanlon took the little silver ball back from me. “Delatasso Family, you figure?”

  “Makes sense, all things considered,” I said.

  “Yeah, it does. And while I was waiting for you guys to show, I radioed one of my detectives back at the station house and told him to check NCIC. I
was wondering whether there’s been any reported thefts of Claymore mines lately. You don’t exactly pick those things up at Vlad-Mart.”

  “And the fact that you’re telling us about it,” I said, “means your search rang the cherries somewhere.”

  “Uh-huh,” Scanlon said. “A National Guard armory in Newton, Massachusetts reported a case of Claymores missing two months ago. But since they only do their weapons inventory once a year, there’s no way to nail down precisely when the theft occurred.”

  “Newton,” Karl said. “Is that anywhere near Boston?”

  “Hold on.”

  Scanlon consulted his phone again. It seemed that damn thing would do everything but walk the dog for you. There was probably an app for that, too – but Scanlon wouldn’t have bought it, because his apartment building doesn’t allow dogs.

  “Looks like Newton’s about ten miles west of Boston,” Scanlon said after a minute or two. “Was that just idle curiosity, or do you know something?”

  “We know something,” I told him. “Whether it’s relevant you’ll have to decide for yourself.”

  Karl told Scanlon what his confidential informant had said about Boston hit man John Wesley Harding, and I added that the Calabrese consigliere, Loquasto, had all but confirmed it for me earlier in the evening.

  “Hit man from Boston, Claymore mines stolen from near Boston, modified Claymores used to take out a couple of Delatasso soldiers in Scranton,” Scanlon said. “Could be a coincidence, I suppose.”

  “You see that a lot in our business?” I asked him.

  “Not so much, no,” he said. “If this guy Harding has got any kind of a rep back home, Boston PD’s Organized Crime Unit should have something on him – maybe even a picture or two. I’ll talk to a guy I know on the force there, see what he can turn up.”

  “Anything you get, we’d appreciate a copy,” I said.

  “Oh, good,” he said, “because I always feel like crap at the end of my shift unless I’ve done at least one favor for the Occult Crimes Unit.”

  Sarcastic bastard.

  After everything that had happened – official and unofficial – so far tonight, I was hoping that the rest of our shift would be quiet. It was quiet, alright. For a couple of people, it was quiet as the grave.

  As luck would have it – whether good luck or bad you can decide for yourself – our route back to the station house took us down Penn Avenue, right past the apartment building that Roger Gillespe had called home. I might have forgotten about that fact, if it wasn’t for those flashing red lights coming from around the corner on Spruce Street to serve as a reminder.

  As we approached the corner, I said to Karl, “Slow down. I want to see where all the action is coming from.”

  Karl looked sideways at me but did as I asked. “You thinking it’s what’s-his-name, Gillespe?”

  “No – I’m hoping that it isn’t.”

  Yet another one of my hopes hit the ground with a thud as we reached the corner and I saw the squad cars parked in front of Gillespe’s building, along with the ambulance. Each vehicle had its red lights going, and I bet Roger Gillespe’s neighbors just loved that – especially the ones who had to get up the next morning.

  “Find some place to pull over, will you?” I said to Karl. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

  “You’re not the only one,” he said.

  Karl found a parking space, and we walked the half-block or so back to what was clearly a crime scene. Our badges got us past the uniform who was stationed at the yellow tape to keep the morbidly curious away, and they got us in the front door of Gillespe’s building, as the two uniforms standing there stood aside to let us pass.

  “Which apartment?” I asked one, a tall guy with a big nose named Zawatski, who’s a third-generation cop. I’d been seeing him at crime scenes for years.

  “It’s number nine, Sarge,” he said. “Upstairs.”

  “Have they got an ID on the vic?”

  “Not that I know of, but the name on the lease is ….” He pulled a small notebook from his pocket and checked it. “Gillespe, Roger J.”

  I didn’t exactly fall down with shock. That’s the problem with my bad feelings – they’re almost always right. I asked Zawatski, “Who’s ROS?” I wanted the name so that I’d know what kind of lies to get ready, if any.

  Zawatski stowed his notebook away. “Homicide dick named Eisinger.”

  Behind me, I heard Karl mutter, “Great. Just fucking great.”

  “Thanks,” I said to Zawatski.

  The other uniform opened the door for us, and Karl and I went past him and started up the stairs. Nate Eisinger was the kind of cop who would probably refer to black people as “niggers,” except Scranton’s African-American population is so small, he doesn’t get much chance. But there’s no shortage of supes in this town, and Eisinger doesn’t exactly have warm and fuzzy feelings about them, either.

  Maybe he’d keep his bigoted opinions to himself once Karl and I got to apartment nine , either because 1) I outranked him, 2) racist remarks to another cop could get him brought up on charges, or 3) Karl might be tempted to tear his throat out.

  Once we got to the second floor, it wasn’t hard to figure out which apartment had belonged to Roger Gillespe, since only one had a uniformed cop standing in front of it. As we walked down the hall, I said softly to Karl, “Don’t let Eisinger get under your skin. It’ll only make him happy.”

  “I’ll try to make sure he stays miserable, then.”

  Whether he recognized us or just saw the badges hanging over our jacket pockets I don’t know, but the uniform at the open apartment door just nodded at us and stepped aside. Past the door was what I assumed to be the living room of the late Roger Gillespe, former busboy and drug dealer.

  The big-screen TV mounted on one wall, along with the DVR and fancy-looking DVD player hooked up to it, were the only signs that Gillespe had been earning more than a busboy’s salary. Otherwise, the place was a dump, with peeling wallpaper, a puke-green carpet that was worn through in several places, and furniture that Goodwill probably would have turned down. It wasn’t a big room, and it felt crowded. In addition to Karl and me, the small space now contained another bored-looking uniformed cop, a couple of forensics techs crawling around on their hands and knees, and Detective Second Grade Nathan Eisinger, the pride of the Homicide Squad, who was writing something down in a small notebook. Roger Gillespe was there, too, but I didn’t think the extra company bothered him.

  He lay on his back, arms spread wide, as if he’d been held down while he died. His eyes were bulging and red – it looked like every blood vessel in them had burst, which is probably just what happened. A thin stream of blood had trickled down from his nose to stain Gillespe’s lower face as well as the torn blue “AC/DC” T-shirt that he wore.

  You can’t judge a book by its cover, or a werewolf by his fur. And just because Nathan Eisinger looks like he could’ve been a poster boy for the Waffen-SS, with his crew-cut blond hair, square jaw, and blue eyes the color of Delft china, doesn’t automatically make him a racist, fascist, low-rent asshole. In Eisinger’s case, I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.

  He finished what he’d been writing, looked up, and saw Karl and me for the first time. His pale eyebrows went up theatrically. “Well, if it isn’t the Supe Squad! Welcome to our little crime scene,” he said with the exaggerated courtesy that’s always intended as an insult.

  I said, “Eisinger,” and Karl just nodded.

  “So what brings you two… detectives over here this evening? One of the neighbors thinks she saw a ghost?”

  I just shook my head, and Eisinger went on. “Because I sure didn’t call for you – no reason to. The corpus delicti here” – he nodded toward the body on the floor – “ain’t one of your supes, far as I can tell.”

  Corpus delicti has nothing to do with a corpse, even though it sounds like it should. The term refers to the legal doctrine that you have to be able to prove a crim
e’s been committed before you can charge somebody with it. Eisinger knew that as well as I did. He was misusing the term deliberately, for the same reason he threw in “ain’t” despite being a college grad. He thinks it makes him sound like a real street cop, somebody not to be messed with.

  I’ve never heard Scanlon say stuff like that, but then he doesn’t have to. He already knows he’s tough.

  “No, we already made sure,” Eisinger said, and took a couple of steps toward the corpse. “Ain’t no skinner – we checked that with a moonlight test.” “Skinner” is a term some people use for “werewolf” – although if you say it in front of one, you’re going to have a fight on your hands, whether the moon’s out or not.

  Looking down at the body, Eisinger said, “You can sniff his breath without needing to puke, so I’d say that rules out him bein’ a baby-muncher.”

  There some urban legend that says ghouls like to hang around outside abortion clinics so that they can feast on the undeveloped tissue that’s discarded every day. Except that clinics don’t throw that material out with the trash – and even if they did, most ghouls wouldn’t have any interest. They’ve got too much class – which is more than I could say for Eisinger.

  Then he slipped on a thin white evidence glove and dropped to one knee next to Roger Gillespe’s still form. Peeling back the upper lip, Eisinger said, “And this shows he wasn’t no leech, either.”

  He looked up at Karl as he finished saying that, and his face had the kind of smirk you want to wipe off with a blunt instrument. “That’s enough,” I said, and my voice might’ve had a bit more snap to it than I’d intended.

  “Oh, gosh, that’s right,” Eisinger said, playing all naive. I thought he sounded about as innocent as Adolf Eichmann. “I completely forgot that one of the bloodsucking undead was among us.” He looked at Karl. “No offense intended, Renfer.”