Case of the Claw

by Keith DeCandido

  Super-City Police Department

  THE CASE OF THE CLAW

  By Keith R. A. DeCandido

  First Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press & Macabre Ink Digital

  Copyright 2011 by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  Cover art by Mike Collins

  Cover colors and design by Glenn Hauman

  LICENSE NOTES

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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  This book is dedicated to the memory of Gene Colan.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  In general, this book owes its inspiration to all the comic books and cop shows and books on police that I've consumed over the years. Some of the more obvious inspirations include Kurt Busiek's Astro City, The Wire, and David Simon's Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, but there are plenty more beyond that, far too numerous to list here.

  Many thanks have to go to Wrenn Simms, Laura Anne Gilman, Tina Randleman, Lucienne Diver, and GraceAnne Andreassi DeCandido, who all provided tremendously useful feedback that made this book far better than it would've been if they hadn't read the book first.

  Also to David Niall Wilson for publishing the book, Glenn Hauman for creating the cover, Mike Collins for designing many of the characters and for the artwork that graces the cover, and Darick Robertson for Knight Dude.

  Finally, thanks to them that live with me, be they human, feline, or canine, for the continued support.

  PROLOGUE

  SUNDAY

  11.45pm

  A yellow streak flew overhead, stirring up the litter on 20th Street. Officer Sean O'Malley didn't even notice it until the sonic boom rattled the windshield of the blue-and-white police car he was driving.

  O'Malley steered the cruiser down 20th. From the seat next to him, Officer Paul Fiorello stuck his head out the window. "Was that Spectacular Man?"

  Shaking his head and hitting the brake as the cruiser approached a red light at Jaffee Avenue, O'Malley said, "Christ, Paulie, how long you been livin' in this town? If it was him, it'd be blue and red. It was yellow, so that means the Flame."

  This late on a Sunday night in the SimonValley neighborhood, the streets were dark. Nothing was open, plus the street lights hadn't been repaired since the Bengal tangled with the Dread Gang last month.

  "I can never remember," Fiorello said, "is he Ms. Terrific's brother or husband?" Flame and Ms. Terrific were two-thirds of the Terrific Trio.

  O'Malley grinned as the light turned green and his foot moved from the brake to the accelerator. "Hope it's her brother, 'cause that lady's hot. I'd do her in a cold minute. Y'know, there's nude pictures of her on the Internet, right?"

  "Gimme a break, Sean." Fiorello shook his head. "That's some skank they found at Bitches With No Brains dot com and Photoshopped the Terrific lady's head on it."

  Frowning, O'Malley asked, "Seriously?"

  Fiorello rolled his eyes. "Yeah. And Santa ain't real, either."

  "Damn." O'Malley let out a long breath. They were some fine pictures.

  "So yellow's Flame?" Fiorello started counting on his fingers. "Spec Man's, like you said, blue and red."

  "Nice rhyme."

  Fiorello gave O'Malley a nasty look before continuing. "So green's who? Major Marine?"

  "Yeah. And purple's Amethyst and if it's all rainbow-y, then it's the Prism."

  Shaking his head, Fiorello said, "I don't know how you keep track of the costumes like that."

  "In this town, it's the job." O'Malley couldn't believe that his partner was still having trouble keeping it straight after all these years.

  Fiorello's face looked sculpted: perfect Roman nose, dark hair that never got mussed no matter how crazy things got on the street, and friendly brown eyes that always calmed down the craziest of citizens. Which meant, of course, that women paid more attention to him than to O'Malley with his bad skin, messed-up nose thanks to an attempt to stop a bar brawl when he was a rookie, and crappy hair.

  Still, Fiorello was good police, and he always had O'Malley's back—certainly more than the other assholes he'd been paired with over his six years on the job—so O'Malley put up with him as best he could.

  Even if Fiorello always left Manny's with someone on his arm while O'Malley went home alone to an empty apartment.

  The next street was Ayers, and O'Malley slowly turned the wheel to the right. Even on a Sunday night, there was always something happening on Ayers.

  Sure enough, there was movement to O'Malley's left, as well as the sound of metal grinding against metal, though still no lighting. It was the Tavares Pawn Shop, which stayed open until midnight, though it looked like they were closing a few minutes early. The sound had come from a man pulling the grate shut; a woman was crouching down and pushing a padlock shut. O'Malley didn't know their first names, but he knew the Tavareses had always cooperated with the cops, reporting stolen merchandise and such.

  Slowing down the cruiser, O'Malley leaned out the rolled-down window. "You guys all right?"

  Mr. Tavares looked over and smiled when he saw the cops. "Yeah, we're good, Officer. Headin' home."

  His wife, having applied both padlocks, stood upright. "Hey, guys, if you see the Bruiser tonight, could you do me a favor and thank him? Some guy tried to jump me on the way in to open this morning, and he drove 'im off."

  "If we see him," O'Malley muttered. "Get home safe."

  "Thanks!"

  "What the hell?" Fiorello asked as they continued down Ayers. "'If we see him'? Sounds like DeLaHoya saved her ass."

  "I guess."

  Fiorello stared at his partner. "C'mon, DeLaHoya's one of the good guys. And you know how I know that? You said it when we first partnered up. 'Most'a the costumes,' you said, 'they're assholes, but the Bruiser's okay.' So what the hell?"

  O'Malley sighed. "You know that double MacAvoy caught last week? DeLaHoya fucked with the evidence—they had to toss the case 'cause'a him."

  Fiorello shook his head. "He doesn't usually do that."

  "Yeah, well, he ain't police. None'a them are." O'Malley went through an intersection, ignoring the octagonal stop sign.

  His heart suddenly hammered into his chest as he saw a square block of a man dressed all in black jump into the middle of the street right in the cruiser's path.

  "Dammit!" O'Malley slammed on the brakes and tried to get his breathing under control. It wouldn't do to run down the Bruiser, since in that confrontation, the costume would still be standing, and the front grille of the blue-and-white would be smashed in. The last thing O'Malley wanted to do was call in a damaged cruiser again—not after that time the Brute Squad totaled the unit, and he had to ride a desk for a week.

  Fiorello smirked. "Hey, now you can give him the Tavares lady's message."

  "Kiss my ass," O'Malley said.

  No one knew what exactly happened to Jesus DeLaHoya to make him super-strong, invulnerable, and big as a house, but ever since it happened, the former amateur boxer—who'd acquired the nickname of "the Bruiser" when he was a Gold Gloves champ back in the day—had taken it upon himself to clean up Simon Valley. Unlike most of the costumes, he usual
ly cooperated with the cops, and even testified in court when he helped put someone away.

  DeLaHoya walked around to the driver's side. The verb to walk was probably not giving what he did enough credit. The Bruiser tended to stomp, on account of he weighed a ton, and O'Malley was just waiting for the day that the pavement gave out under him and he fell into the sewer.

  "Officers, how you two doin'?" the Bruiser said. He was bending over and staring into the window at O'Malley, getting so close that he could smell the cheap coffee on the costume's breath. DeLaHoya kept his dark hair close cropped, and it just accentuated that his head looked like a trapezoid, with no noticeable neck—just went straight from the jaw line to the shoulders.

  "Whaddaya want?" O'Malley asked.

  "Got somethin' you two'll wanna see."

  O'Malley looked at Fiorello. "You believe this?" He turned back to the costume. "Look, DeLaHoya—"

  "It's serious." With that, the Bruiser stood upright and stomped toward an alley between two apartment buildings.

  Fiorello got out of the car.

  "Hey, Paulie, what the hell?" O'Malley asked, but his partner was already crossing in front of the blue-and-white to follow the costume.

  Shaking his head, O'Malley said, "Fine." He turned off the ignition and got out, pulling his ballcap out of his back pocket and putting it on his head. Technically, the plain black ballcap wasn't proper uniform, but O'Malley had always hated the blue department-issue hat. Fiorello, of course, wore his, with the SCPD logo on the front and the word central under it—and it never messed up his hair. O'Malley really had no idea how he did it.

  Adjusting the bill of the cap as he walked toward the alley, O'Malley asked, "You wanna give us a hint, DeLaHoya?"

  "I got a tip that some of Turk's boys were dealin' outta here."

  This was starting to annoy O'Malley as he followed his partner and the Bruiser, pulling out his flashlight so he could see. "Turk's boys been dealin' outta here forever." His nose started to wrinkle, as the alley smelled like half a dozen homeless guys had taken a shit and then all croaked. O'Malley started breathing through his mouth.

  "Not the last six months, they ain't," the Bruiser said, and O'Malley could hear the pride in his voice. "So I was checkin' it out, and I found this."

  The Bruiser and Fiorello had stopped walking, the costume pointing between two Dumpsters. O'Malley shined his flashlight where the Bruiser's meaty finger was aimed, and Fiorello did likewise.

  Barely, O'Malley could tell that it was the body of a man—and then only because the face was more or less intact. The rest of the body, though, had been torn apart. Organs and bones were sticking up through ripped flesh and torn clothes, and blood was all over everything. The limbs, what he could see of them, were all pointed in different directions than legs and arms usually went.

  Something was stuck on the man's forehead.

  The light got dimmer, and O'Malley turned to see Fiorello run across to the other side of the alley to throw up. He almost made it. His retching echoed off the brick walls of the two buildings. Uncharitably, O'Malley wondered what all those women who ignored him and chased Fiorello would think if they saw the two of them right now.

  O'Malley shined his flashlight directly on the victim's forehead. It was a yellow Post-It with a pen-and-ink drawing of an eagle's talon on it.

  The Bruiser said, "That's what I think it is, right?"

  Nodding, O'Malley said, "Yeah." He turned and flashed his light on Fiorello, who was still doubled over, and was now dry heaving. His regurgitated dinner was doing nothing to make the alley smell better. "Guess I'm callin' this in."

  "Look, I still gotta find Turk's boys. Can you just say this was an anonymous tip or something?"

  "You didn't touch nothin', right?"

  The Bruiser sighed. "Look, I'm sorry about what happened. That was a mistake, and I already apologized to Detective MacAvoy—twice. I didn't touch anything, okay?"

  O'Malley was about to argue some more, but there wasn't any point. Besides, he now had bigger problems. "Yeah, fine, go beat the shit outta Turk's boys. Oh, and hey—Mrs. Tavares, from the pawn shop? She says thanks."

  At that, the Bruiser actually broke into a big grin, which made his ugly face even uglier. "Tell her she's welcome." And then he stomped back out of the alley.

  Fiorello was now standing with his hands on his knees, dry heaving. O'Malley grabbed the radio that was clipped to his right shoulder. "PCD, this is Unit 2202 with a signal 85. We got a dead body in the alley on the 400 block of Ayers. Need crime scene and Homicide."

  "PCD roger."

  "And hey, PCD?" O'Malley looked down at the mangled corpse and the distinctive Post-It. "Tell Homicide that the Claw's back."

  PART ONE

  MONDAY

  6am

  "Good morning SuperCity! And welcome to News 6 at 6. I'm Mindy Ling."

  "And I'm Chuck Ortiz. Later on, we'll tell you how you can win a date with a real-live superhero, give you the latest on the reconstruction of Kirby Park's south lawn, and reveal new secrets to sleeping better straight from the Terrific Trio—plus, Spectacular Man is gonna be on Broadway! We'll also have Ian Michaelson with sports, Debra Fine with weather, and Donna Brodsky with traffic. But first our top story. Mindy?"

  "It's not good news, Chuck. The Claw is back in town. The mutated spree killer, who has never been captured or identified by his real name, has come back to Super City and claimed four victims—two in Simon Valley and two in Leesfield. We go now to Matt Barnett. Matt?"

  "The corner of Kanigher Avenue and 38th Street is a quiet residential block in the Leesfield neighborhood of SuperCity. That quiet was shattered late last night when a mutilated body was discovered in a garbage can cubbyhole in front of a three-story apartment building. This is one of four sites where bodies were found, each horribly mutilated, and each with the distinctive eagle talon trademark of the Claw on a Post-It affixed to the victims' foreheads. I was able to talk to Erik Golden, who found one of the bodies, and he had this to say…"

  "I gotta tell you, man, I lost my freakin' dinner on 'at one. I was just takin' out the trash, y'know? Garbage trucks come first thing Monday mornin', so I was takin' it out, y'know? An' bam! There's this body all messed up and covered in blood an' stuff. And it had that eagle mark, an' I remember from a couple years back, that's the Claw. So I called 911 right away, an' the cops, they came faster'n I ever saw, an' I been livin' here all my life, yknow?"

  "At first, police were unwilling to confirm that all four bodies were the handiwork of the Claw, but in a brief conference call with the press, SCPD spokeswoman Regina Dent confirmed that they are proceeding on the assumption that the Claw is responsible, pending final examination of the bodies. The identification of the four victims is being withheld until their families are notified, and Ms. Dent said that Mayor Sittler will be holding a press conference at eleven o'clock this morning. In the meantime, the Superior Six has already released a statement saying that they are investigating the Claw's return and hope to capture him once and for all. For News 6 at 6, I'm Matt Barnett."

  "Thanks, Matt. The Claw is a half man, half bird who first appeared in SuperCity six years ago. He killed five people with his bare hands—or, rather, bare claws—including Officer John Mulroney of the SCPD. The Claw has returned to SuperCity twice since then. On his first return four years ago, one of his victims was the superhero known as Herakles. A founding member of the Superior Six, Herakles had recently left the group due to undisclosed differences with his teammates. At the Claw's second return two years ago, his third kill was interrupted by the Bengal, who only managed to drive him off. Counting last night, his death toll has now gone up to fifteen. Chuck?"

  "The Claw's return comes at a time when the federal government is considering tougher laws regulating superheroes—or, 'costumed loonies,' as Congressman F. Richard Wert refers to them. The congressman, from the first district in Montana, has authored legislation that will compel anyone who has enhanced abilities
to report them to the federal government. At a press conference last night, Congressman Wert had this to say…"

  "I know that this isn't the first time a bill like that has gone to the House floor, but I think this time it has a good chance of passing. The situation has gotten out of control, and we need to do something about it before it irretrievably damages the very fabric of our great nation."

  "Critics of Congressman Wert's bill point out that it would be difficult to enforce, especially given the limited resources legitimate law-enforcement has to combat enhanced abilities. In addition, SuperCity would be one of the locales that would bear the brunt of this new legislation, should it pass into law, due to the high concentration of enhanced people in this metropolis and its outlying areas. Mindy?"

  "It's Spectacular, Man! is a go! The new Broadway musical loosely based on the life and career of Spectacular Man, is finally set to open at the Schubert Theatre in New York City next week. The production has been beset by legal difficulties, as well as last-minute financing problems that almost closed the curtain before it could be raised. Because so little is known about Spectacular Man's life, the playwrights have taken numerous liberties, and that has been the source of the legal problems. While Spectacular Man himself has made no comment, several other people who are portrayed in the play, including wealthy SuperCity philanthropist Marc McLean, have attempted to get the play stopped. The McLean Foundation owns the trademark to the Superior Six, and also provides financing and marketing for the group. The play stars Tony Award winners Hugh Jackman as Spectacular Man and Terrence Mann as McLean. Chuck?"

  "There's still more to come, including Donna Brodsky telling you how to avoid the inter-dimensional portal that opened up on the Goodwin Expressway during the Superior Six's battle with the Pantheon yesterday."