INHUMANUM: A THRILLER (Law of Retaliation Book 1)

by Bradley Ernst

  Gibberish. The actual cause of death was the bug spray—sprayed down the victim’s throat.

  “Why take so much time on him? Were you playing? Experimenting? Learning?”

  The scene of the crime was huge.

  There was a trash can fire. The perpetrator burned some things but didn’t do a bang-up job of it. The bug spray had some manufacturing marks. Some bits of shoes were recovered. The grommets on the shoes were traced to a company in Japan. It was a martial artist’s shoe—a sparring shoe. There were no witnesses.

  The precinct tried a new thing: a morning “think-tank.” Tuesdays and Fridays, unsolved cases were presented to a group. He was required to go. He didn’t need the jokes. It didn’t give him leads. It just provided some of his less productive peers the opportunity to be hucksters. Last Friday he’d presented the Central Park case to the group. They had a merry time with him. Some fool posited a theory that involved a band of ninjas. They read meeting highlights from surrounding precincts also. The information was too dilute. It was a waste of time, however being forced to explain the case aloud had made him realize a few things.

  “You’re a tough character alright, but you do some very stupid stuff. Why the fire? Did you think you’d be caught with the stuff you burned? Was it a distraction? The fire was a bad idea—likely nobody would’ve checked the trash can if you hadn’t set it aflame.” Without witnesses there were no tangible leads. The killer made boutique weapon choices—no Japanese medical students or black belt respiratory therapists were implicated in interviews with known associates. A police baton might be able to create the devastating trauma, but the medical examiner nixed the idea.

  Detective, a man couldn’t generate those forces with something as light as a baton. It’d take a silverback gorilla.

  And now, here they were. Eight youths shot by an unseen sniper. Ninth kid beat nearly to death.

  The only survivor.

  That kid was still in the ICU—not expected to make it.

  Minimal brain wave activity, the doctor had said. He’ll never prove useful as a witness. Even if he woke up and recounted the whole scene, it wouldn’t be reliable information.

  He wasn’t beat by the shooter either; to Terrence it looked like the shooter took advantage of the fight. The gunman had capped all the other kids as they milled around. It felt good to be out of the car. Stella spoke with a crime scene investigator then joined him to stare at a patch of grass. She caught him talking aloud again.

  “That no one ran when the shooting started speaks to a suppressed rifle.” Stella shrugged, unimpressed. She pointed to a body.

  “He was shot while he took a leak.” Terrence frowned. He expected that level of hardware from a mob contractor, but mob contractors don’t typically off high school kids. They watched a spatter-monkey scrape brain matter from the grass while Stella told him where the technicians were at with the scene. Tissue patterns indicated the shooter was platformed in an old oak tree about 300 yards off. It always upset the crime scene investigators when he wanted to see a fresh scene.

  He generally disliked the technicians, but appreciated their work.

  Lab-geeks swarmed the tree but found no DNA. The tree was recently pruned, however. The technicians worked to match the saw marks to a known tool—no luck yet. The lead arborist for the park was no help. Terrence held up his pen—he looked down the body of the implement at the oak tree as one of the scientists approached. Terrence disliked small talk and didn’t greet the man like he expected.

  “How fresh are the pruning marks?”

  “Within the past two weeks, sir.”

  He’d guessed as much. This was opportunistic. The sniper was on an elongated stakeout.

  “And no DNA in, on, around the tree—not a hair?”

  “No, sir. Not yet. Some rope marks. Nothing useful. Rope fibers were collected. They’ll look at them in the lab.”

  Terrence shooed the forensics expert away and continued his thoughts out loud. “The kids were probably raising hell, and at some point, the guy—who’d been camped out waiting for someone to pop—decides: ‘Yeah, you know what? They’re bad enough. I’ll shoot the lot of ’em.’”

  Stella chimed in. “If he just wanted to pop someone and get away with it, Ham, he’d have popped a jogger.”

  “Yeah—not entirely random, but a little bit random—maybe two clicks from random. We’ve got ourselves an opportunist.” Stella sat on his cooler, squinting. She had found his cheese sticks.

  “Most of these teenagers had knives,” Stella said as she chewed. “They’re small-time thugs, Ham. Basically bored kids and they just happened to organize their night near a sniper camped out for weeks in an oak tree? See, Ham, when you say things like, ‘two clicks from random’ it makes me wonder several things, like what comprises a click? Ham, you’re no sniper and you were never in the military, so when you use the word ‘click’ it makes me wonder about you. I might be touchy because I’m hungry and thirsty and I’ve gotta pee, but I wish you wouldn’t say things that don’t mean anything to anyone.” Terrence stretched and rolled his shoulders. She wouldn’t appreciate his specific thoughts just then.

  He’d wait to share.

  “Don’t let the baby have any of that cheese. It’s stolen. It’ll shoot right through him.” Stella rolled her eyes and took another stick. A technician approached. He had recovered a bullet, which he dangled in front of him in a small bag.

  It wasn’t a regular bullet, so that could be something.

  “It is approximately .300 caliber diameter, but not exactly .300 …” He showed Terrence and Stella the evidence bag and filled them in. “.3034 caliber diameter at the unexpanded base—400 grain recovered weight. Beautiful expansion. I don’t know how they accomplished that in a subsonic. Some sort of alloy. If it were a .303, we’d have two archaic rifle calibers to choose from, but not this. This was probably shot out of a home-made rifle.”

  No casings. Fastidious shooter. Rope fibers. Bonsai Sniper strikes again.

  Terrence didn’t like it when the lab-geeks were impressed.

  Stella swallowed the last of the cheese sticks and tossed the empty wrapper in his dwindling cooler. She opened one of his sodas and took a big drink. A different tech brought her a stack of papers from the van. “Ham, these were high school kids. Not angels, but not card-carrying gang members either. Three of these guys though? Recently acquitted. Rape charges. Two others were on juvenile probation. One for assault, one for shoplifting. Somebody’s taking out the trash. Boys don’t gather in groups like this to help senior citizens get their grocery shopping done.” Terrence sat on a nearby park bench.

  “So how do you judge character from three hundred yards away?” He spoke softly to himself. The Mick had been hard of hearing and didn’t try to be helpful.

  He missed him.

  “Did you read lips through the scope or was the fight enough? You don’t break up a fight with a rifle. Was the fight enough to justify killing everyone except the kid getting kicked to death? Were you trying to help that kid?” Stella looked thoughtful for a moment. A crime scene investigator brought her a telephone bagged up. Stella pushed buttons on the phone through the bag and looked at the screen.

  “Ham—there’s an outgoing call that would’ve been placed around when this all happened.” Stella dialed the phone number from her own phone. A man answered in a shaky voice.

  “Hello?”

  “Detective Estelle Castillo calling, sir. Would you identify yourself please?”

  “Is Bobby in trouble? I’m sorry—this is Bobby’s dad. He called a bit ago, but we got cut off. He didn’t answer when I called back. He said somebody got cut? Is everything OK?”

  “Sir, I’ll need your address. My partner and I will come speak with you.” Stella wrote down the address and hung up the phone. Terrence knew she hated that part—telling people their loved ones were dead. She shivered. He didn’t mind it. It helped to be matter-of-fact with people. “Ham, it sounds like the kid calle
d dad to tell him about a knife fight that got out of control. We should head over there. He sounded like he knew about his boy already, but I don’t want to make him wait.”

  “Give me a minute.” Terrence slid down on the park bench and put his hands behind his head. “None of the boys were cut or stabbed. None of the knives had blood on them. There was a big fracas—things were out of control—no one knew what was happening, they just saw their buddies all over the ground. There was a suppressor on a weird rifle fired accurately from a faraway tree. It was quiet enough not to raise suspicion—since none of them heard the rifle and most of them had knives on them, the kid deduced it was a knife wound—he panicked, which was appropriate. He called Dad just before he got popped—” Stella was visibly upset. Perhaps not about the phone call, or him talking to himself, but something was certainly brewing. Terrence finished his thought. “So we’ve got an opportunistic sniper in a tree, out of earshot. What’s missing?”

  Stella ignored his question. “You don’t know anything about women, Ham. I’m using that cheese as a binder. Otherwise, we’re going to have oatmeal smoothie soft-serve to deal with and it’s gonna be really distracting. Ham? I’m so serious—you know what I’d give to have a normal bowel movement right now? I’m eating bananas and cheese to slow my guts down. My midwife says it’ll help—and Ham? If you paid attention to women at all, you’d know that you only see us desperately eating cheese when our bodies have been sabotaged by either spicy food that’s turning us into an airbrush nozzle, or by a little baby who thinks your colon is his hammock—either way? Don’t mention any stolen cheese to me, Ham. In answer to the question I asked you? What would I give to make a normal-looking slow-moving light brown turd with a gentle taper on each end? I would give you up. Yes, Ham. I’d give up my relationship with you as my partner.” Terrence had stopped listening. He was down on a knee looking under the park bench. Stella squinted her eyes, as if something besides her bowels just occurred to her. “And for perspective, Ham? I respect you. I respect you and I’m starting to like you a little—that, Ham—that’s how bad I want my body back. Hey, why do I think this is our guy? The one from before? The open case—”

  Terrence waved down an investigator and he came running. “The bench is wired. Shooter could hear everything down here. There’s a little microphone taped under the bench. He might be listening to us right now.”

  ~The Myth Of Closure

  Ruka always smelled the same. Henna felt thankful for that. She kept the window down despite the light rain and the flecks of mud that found their way into the car from the bumpy old road. She needed to smell the sweet wet smells of the local foliage. She needed the mountains.

  She needed Alvar.

  She wouldn’t tell him what happened. Just being home would be enough. The farm seemed smaller than she remembered, but more orderly. A stack of beekeeping materials lined the garden fence. There were more goats and their faces were different. A woman came out of the little stone cottage. She wiped her hands on a towel she had tucked into her apron as she approached the car.

  “You must be Henna?” The beaming woman looked in her mid-seventies. Her big smile showcased straight long teeth that bore the honest stains of a life in the country—a diet consisting of starchy root vegetables and dark juicy berries—dental care only when there was a problem.

  “Hello, there—”

  Maybe she was the bee lady?

  Alvar stood sheepishly in the doorway. The lady bustled back to Alvar. She handed him the towel then patted his hand.

  “You two catch up. I’ll see you in a bit.” She leaned forward and tackled Henna in a running hug. Henna was enclosed in the woman’s soft arms before she knew it. Henna hugged her back, polite, but unsure and the woman became even softer. She sighed contentedly then chirped like a warbler and grabbed Henna by her face with her plump, warm hands. “Maybe you could all come to dinner? Not tonight, of course, but soon?” She lunged into another embrace, but thought better of it at the last moment and offered her hand. “I’ve forgotten my manners. Perhaps Alvar hasn’t mentioned me—I’m Akka.” Alvar fidgeted on the porch. His face turned red but he remained silent.

  “Very nice to meet you, Akka—” The soft-armed woman walked to an old bicycle propped against the chicken coop. She whistled happily as she mounted the bike then bared her long teeth in a smile. She pedaled out of sight. Henna hugged her grandfather.

  “I didn’t know how to tell you—I have a girlfriend.”

  Henna jabbed a playful finger into her grandfather’s ribs. “I see that. She seems nice.” Alvar opened his mouth to speak, then grumbled and closed it again. Henna smiled at Alvar and admired his face.

  He looked younger somehow.

  “Should we go for dinner then, or are you shopping around?”

  Alvar blushed some more. “She’s the bee lady. Sometimes she brings me food.”

  “Sometimes? Well, I approve, in case you need my approval. She gives warm hugs. I could get used to them.”

  Alvar fidgeted some more. “I was going to tell you this week. I wanted to tell you in person.”

  “Sounds serious.” She hoped her hug felt as warm as Akka’s did. Alvar put his hands on her face. Henna smirked and he gave her a dismissive pinch on the cheek.

  “She wants to impress you. She left us a peach pie.”

  It was good to be home.

  “Well, let’s go have a piece. I’ll want to make sure she can bake before I commit to dinner.” Henna brought her things inside. The pie was still steaming. There was brandy in the filling.

  Akka, indeed, could bake.

  Alvar stoked the fire like he always did. They sat where they’d always sat. Henna fed a bit of piecrust to the curly-faced dog. He wagged his tail and dozed by the heat of the hearth. Henna thought of Mortimer and glanced up at the mantle-wolf. Alvar seemed to read her mind.

  “That dusty old beast doesn’t have much use without Mortimer around—maybe in the morning we should go bury him somewhere. If we get up early enough, we can have a basket of berries ready when Akka comes over.”

  Henna couldn’t shake the feeling of dark, deep melancholy. She was happy for her grandfather—it wasn’t him—she was different now. She was no longer the girl who really knew this place. Henna put her hand on the stone fireplace and thought of all the lessons she’d learned there—lessons she used every day. The dusty wolf skin was a lesson. Alvar probably never wanted it there. It was hung there for her: to remind her of monsters.

  Enjoy the pie, but there are monsters—

  I love you. Watch out for monsters—

  Monsters exist, Henna—be ready.

  Henna looked away from the wolf pelt. She knew monsters too well now. “Berry pie, Grandpa? Are you using poor Akka for her pie-baking skills?” Alvar played along, but he could feel Henna’s tension. This wasn’t a simple visit.

  “I think she wants me for my money.”

  Their smiles died down. Henna watched Alvar wring his hands. For decades he’d sat by the hearth and loaded his pipe. Now that he’d quit smoking he didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands.

  She looked at the mantle-wolf. “Let’s burn him.”

  ~Truth

  The building on 79th came along nicely—bureaucrats were bribed.

  With enough money, most problems could be solved.

  Permits were granted quickly. The biggest expenditure was time. The concrete had to cure between pours. Although the polished stone and green mirrored glass building appeared light from the outside, it contained more concrete than the Empire State Building—and it went up in less time. Most of the windows were a façade: if a tank fired upon the first five floors, a concrete wall would be visible behind broken glass. The base of the hardened structure lay four stories below street level. The walls were fourteen feet thick and hardened with fly ash. The walls thinned at each level. On the top level the walls were a mere four feet thick and there were real floor-to-ceiling windows. No structure was literally i
mpenetrable, but it would take some time for even the military to breech this building. Underground parking, blast doors, biometrics—the structure had it all. A tunnel led to an adjoining building, which Bonn also owned. Three sets of blast doors separated the two.

  Bonn was pleased. The Germans had understood his vision.

  There was a situation room with solid-state computers. There were secure phone lines. Flat screen monitors showed the exterior of the building. Images were recorded on immense redundant hard drives kept in separate Faraday cages. His cellphone rang. It was Henna Maxwell.

  “Ms. Maxwell?”

  “Yes. I got the parcel. I’ve tried to call a few times. My texts don’t seem to go through, so I’m thrilled I reached you! The ring arrived just fine. I’m going to send you an appropriate thank you, but there was no return address on the package. How did it even get through customs like that?”

  Bonn wasn’t prepared to answer that question, so he indicated with his silence, that he considered the question rhetorical. Soon enough, the attractive toxicologist continued.

  “Anyway, I want to reimburse you the postage and send along a box.”

  Bonn shook his head. “You’re very kind—that is unnecessary. I’m pleased the package reached you.”

  “Flowers then.”

  “Thank you. No. Good karma should suffice.” Bonn smiled into the telephone, as he’d been told to do as a child.

  It was evident in some way to those on the other end of the line.

  “You believe in karma? Very nice.” Henna laughed, “A kilt then? A kilt will bring you some seriously good karma.”

  Bonn didn’t know what to say. He was no good at banter. “You think it would?”

  Henna smiled. “Sincerely now—you’ve no idea what the ring means to me.”

  She was insistent.

  “How did you find it anyway?” Bonn had prepared for this particular question. He had prepared to tell her an elaborate lie about a blind man. A blind man at a crosswalk who had waited next to him for the light to change. A blind man who had thought Bonn dropped the ring. A blind man would hear the ring drop. He would ask Bonn if he dropped something. He had prepared to tell Henna he had looked up, saw her crossing the street, but missed the light and saw her enter the hotel. He had planned to tell her he made it there too late and left the note.