Blood of Angels (28 page)

“Then take me to the cop who found him.”

Rayburn nods and leads me toward a patrolman about twenty yards away. “This is Glen Maxwell,” he says. “He found the body.”

The officer nods. “I got a call about an open 911. You know, no voice on the other end.”

“No voice?” I ask.

“Just an open line.”

“Any sound of struggle?”

“No. The operator recognized the name on the caller ID and called her supervisor. They traced the cell tower, which put the call in a sixteen-block area downtown. They called me, and I searched the area until I found the vagrants.”

“Four homeless people,” Rayburn says. “Maxwell found them arguing over Carl's coat.”

“They're regulars, usually too drunk and too much trouble to be admitted to the mission,” Maxwell says. “I searched the coat for ID, and there wasn't any. That's when I felt the blood on the inside.”

“Blood,” I repeat, feeling sick.

“When I found the body in the alley, I figured the vagrants rolled him. But then I saw what happened…. Look, I wouldn't trust those guys around a ten-dollar bill. But I don't see them taking it to that level.”

I look up warily. “What do you mean, ‘that level'?”

“Serrated knife, right through the ribs. Punctured the heart.”

Exactly how Bridges's parole officer died.
A wave of nausea rolls through me. “I'm going to need a minute.” I walk away and retch into some shrubs planted around a streetlight. I support myself on the post, heart pounding, gasping for breath. It takes a good minute and a half to pull myself together. Rayburn and Maxwell walk over, letting me get my breath.

“You OK?” Rayburn asks.

“Go on. I want to hear everything.”

Maxwell nods. “There wasn't anything on the vagrants, so what I figure is, the murder was earlier. These four came on the body later and started arguing over the coat. But you can ask them yourself. They're right over there.”

I turn and see Paul Landmeyer talking to four people by the forensic van. The vagrants look jacked up, like they had big plans for the night and Carl's death is a major inconvenience to them. Paul looks over, and our eyes meet. For once, his professional demeanor is rattled. He's keeping himself together by a thread. I walk up to Paul and embrace him. “You OK?” I ask quietly.

“No. I saw you talking to the officer. Did he tell you about the wound?”

“Yeah. Just like Kavner's.”

Paul nods. “It's Bridges.” He looks at the vagrants. “But if I'm going to have a shot at nailing him, I need these idiots to start cooperating.”

“Talk to me.”

“I need their clothes, mouth swabs, and hair samples. They're taking it personally.”

I start toward the group. “Give me five seconds…”

“No, not that way. They need to give it voluntarily, so nothing gets contaminated in a struggle.”

“You got something for them to put on?”

“Orange jumpsuits from correctional.”

“Give me one of them.” I pick up a jumpsuit and walk over to the little crowd. One of the men looks to be in charge, and I walk up to him, feeling a ringing in my ears. I start hoping he doesn't do anything stupid, because I am one wrong gesture away from beating the shit out of him where he stands. I hold up the jumpsuit. “Get behind the van and take your clothes off,” I say. “Officers will create a blind for you. Once the clothes are off, you can put one of these on.”

“Anybody tries to take my pants, he's gonna get a boot up his ass,” the man in front of me says.

“You don't want to piss me off right now,” I say. My voice cracks a little, betraying the ragged edge on which I dance.

“You can't take a man's pants,” another man snarls. “This is about dignity.”

I take a deep breath, which buys me a few moments of rationality, but not more. “You have ten seconds,” I say. “If you don't comply, I'm going to have each one of you booked for obstruction, resisting arrest, disturbing a crime scene, public drunkenness, failure to comply, and vagrancy. Then I'm going to put you on the shortlist of suspects for the murder of my best friend.”

“We're already suspects,” the first man says under his breath. But he heads toward the van, the others following.

I turn back to Paul. “They're going. Now tell me what you have so far.”

Paul shakes his head. “Here's the thing, Thomas. Even if we find this guy, I'm not sure we can make it stick.”

“What the hell do you mean?”

“The alley has immense debris. We've got fecal material, urine. The footprints of hundreds of people. It's not a crime scene; it's a chemistry lab. But that's not the worst of it.” He looks at me. “It's the
party,
Thomas. Carl's clothing is virtually opaque with debris. He came in contact with a couple of hundred people tonight. There was hugging, backslapping. I don't think there's a square inch of his clothing that doesn't have something on it.”

“How bad is it?”

Paul stares back at the alley. “To have a shot? I'll have to get DNA and clothing samples from every person at the party, same as the four on the street,” he says. “Then each one of them will have to be scientifically excluded.
Then
I can start.”

“He went to Seanachie's after,” I say. “Knowing Carl, he closed the place down.”

Paul grimaces. “Which introduces the random factor. Unless they were regulars, they could be hard to track down.”

“So how screwed are we?” I ask quietly.

Paul looks at me, and I know it's bad. “If I were going to plan the one scenario to get away with murder, I couldn't do better than this. A decent defense lawyer would have a field day.” He shakes his head and walks off. For the next hour or more, Carl is going to be pored over by Paul's forensic squad, reduced to nothing more than evidence, his humanity stripped. He will be measured, sampled, have swabs of chemicals placed on him, and generally treated like a piece of meat. I walk away from the scene, forcing myself to stay removed from a process I understand well enough to be repulsed by the thought of it being applied to someone I love.

I turn away, feeling sick again.
Two hundred people to exclude. It would take weeks, and that's without the cross-contamination. It's a nightmare.
I look up and see headlights appear on the edge of the crime scene; predictably, media vans are arriving. It's getting light, and within another hour cars will start streaming into downtown as the early birds arrive for work. But even though Paul's team will be working the location for hours, I overhear on a nearby radio that Paul wants to get Carl's body out sooner rather than later. A few minutes later, a gurney slowly rolls out of the alley toward the coroner's van. By now a few photographers have unloaded their equipment, and Carl's long trip along the crime scene to the van is lit up with the merciless glare of cameras. Carl is zippered in a body bag, the universal symbol of the victim. Two Tyvek-clad coroner's officers load the body into the vehicle; a door slams, and the van pulls out, taking Carl to the horrors of the autopsy tools. The lights suddenly vanish, signaling that the show is over.

Paul's words come back to me.
Even if we find this guy, I'm not sure we can make it stick.
I walk to my truck and see the officer tailing me pop up, ready to follow.
I've got to track Bridges on my own, and I'll never get anything done with this guy on my hip.
I go over to him. “Look, I'm headed to the office, and I'll be there all morning. Just have the next shift guy pick me up there.”

“That's not my orders,” the officer says doubtfully.

“There's thirty cops here, Nielsen. I'm driving six blocks. Give yourself a break.”

The officer looks around a second, then smiles. “Yeah. Listen, you'll probably have a guy named Barrickman this morning.”

“I'll look for him.” I nod, get into my truck, and drive out. To the left is 222 West. I turn right and head for the railroad tracks. Charles Bridges might be wearing a suit now, but his customers aren't. And one of them must know something.

 

IT
'
S LESS THAN TEN BLOCKS
to Union Station, which is completely still at this hour. I pull into the lot and drive to the metal stairs that lead to the railroad tracks. The hardest-core derelicts in Nashville are down there sleeping it off, and they are about to be rudely awakened. I park, push the Rock Island .45 into my belt behind my back, and descend into Nashville's most dangerous square mile, looking for addicts.

The sun is inching higher, splitting light across the railcars. I step over bottles and trash, threading my way toward the empty, decrepit cars. Ninety feet into the yard I pass two figures huddled together in sleeping bags, but the empty bottles tell me they're not the target.
Your drinking problem doesn't interest me, pals. I'm looking for the ice addicts.
The smell of urine is powerful, even in the outdoor space. A shadowed figure picks me up as I pass my first railcar, circling behind. I keep walking, ignoring him, knowing he'll show up when he's ready. Thirty yards farther on I hear him on the other side of a railroad car, making a hell of a racket as he goes. I reach behind my back and pull out the .45, not breaking stride. When I reach the end of the car he appears in front of me, holding a nasty-looking, homemade shiv. He's blind drunk, which means he's of no use to me. I shake my head and show him the gun; he stares a second, then vanishes back behind the railroad car, gone as quickly as he came. Alone again, I look in several open cars before I find a man lying on his side in one, asleep. I step up into the car, slide through the narrow opening, and stand over the figure, straddling him in the near darkness. There are no bottles, and a lighter is on the floor beside him. The man, who weighs almost nothing, sleeps on, oblivious, his autonomic system crashed after the previous night's whack. I push him over onto his back with my foot. Nothing. I nudge his side, which gets little more than a “mnff.” I cock the hammer of the gun with a metallic click, reverberant in the railroad car; like magic, one eye slides upward, then the other. The man stares up at me, crust in his eyes, snot in his nose. I bend down until the gun is a foot away from his face. “Don't move. You understand?” The man's head moves gently up and down. “Good. Now tell me where you buy your ice.” The junkie's eyes widen, but he doesn't speak. I push the barrel of the gun into his right nostril, forcing it upward. “Three seconds. One. Two. Thr—”

“Dude with a beard,” the man croaks. “Wears glasses.”

“Tell me everything you know about him.”

“Crystals. Good quality. Clear, no orange or brown.”

“He makes his own?”

“I don't ask.”

“What kind of quantities does he move?”

“Quarters, mostly. More when the state checks come in.”

“Where does he live?”

“I don't know.”

I press the gun harder up his nose, until he winces. “Don't fuck with me,” I growl. “I'm having a bad week.”

“I don't know, man. You think he invites me over for dinner?”

“Is he ever with anybody?”

“No. He works alone.”

“You ever see a car?” His eyes shift left slightly. “One. Two. Thre—”

“
Fuck,
man. Yeah. Once I seen him downtown. He drove by me, didn't see me.”

“What kind of car?”

“Four-door. A little shitty. Ugly tan thing. Maybe seven or eight years old.”

“What make?”

“You know, shitty. I ain't no car dealer, man.”

I stare at him a second, then slowly lower the trigger on the gun. “When are you due to see him again?”

The man stares up at me, his eyes hungry for more of what's killing him. “I was due yesterday, man. He's late already.”

I step over him, put my foot on the metal step, and turn my face back into the car. “Don't count on him coming back.”

 

I STEP INTO MY TRUCK
, and the phone goes off. The number coming in is unlisted, but I figure it's Rayburn, wanting to know where I am. It's not a voice call, however; instead, someone is sending me a picture. I start the truck and put it in reverse, ready to pull out. The picture scrolls down on my screen. Before it's halfway down, I stop and put the truck back into park. The photograph, taken from above and at close range, shows Carl, lying on his back, his face contorted in agony. I hold the phone, trembling, barely believing my eyes. I set the phone on the seat beside me and grip the steering wheel, trying to contain my grief and anger. I look out the window, wildly hoping to see Bridges standing there so I can empty my gun into his self-satisfied brain. I get back out of the truck and stand a few feet away, rage coursing through me. I walk into the shadows of a nearby building, pull out the gun, and fire off all six rounds into the ground, imagining each of them cutting through the body of Charles Bridges. I feel cold inside, but there is something deeply satisfying about each round as it shreds through the soft dirt. I push the gun into my belt and walk back toward the truck. Ten feet away, I can hear the phone ringing again through the closed door. I sprint forward and press “talk,” gripping the phone. This time, it's not a picture; instead, a text message crawls across my screen:
THIS ISN'T FINISHED.

I MAKE IT BACK
to 222 West just before 7:00 a.m., but it's ten minutes after before I trust myself to walk into the office. I'm barely hanging together, ricocheting between scarcely controlled rage and crippling grief, and neither will help me find Bridges. Using every ounce of discipline, I settle myself, doing my best to clear my mind. I enter the office and see the news about Carl has already spread through the staff; half the department is already here, gathering to commiserate. Each has his or her clothes from the night before in a bag, per Paul's instructions. Several are in tears, but most look numb, like they're in shock. After three decades of service, the city has repaid Carl Becker with his death. That violence has now come home to everybody in the office.

Paul already has an evidence ID team set up in the conference room. He looks exhausted—thanks to his work on the Browning shotgun, he's only slept about four hours in the last forty-eight—but he's quietly getting things organized. I catch his eye, and he walks over. I show him my phone; Paul stares at it silently a moment, then looks up at me. “When did you get this?”

“Just a few minutes ago.”

Paul nods. “So that's the kind of bastard we're dealing with.”

“Yeah.”

Paul looks at the picture again, this time clinically. I see the change in his face, emotion replaced with scientific acumen. “This is evidence, Thomas. The angle of the body, the details of the concrete around him.”

“That's why I'm here. There's a text message, too.” I scroll down and show Paul. He nods, his expression grim.

Paul motions over a member of his staff and hands him the phone. “Get everything on this downloaded onto a disk,” he says. “And do it now.” He turns back to me. “You did the right thing bringing it in so quickly. We'll analyze the picture and try to catch a break.”

“Is David around?”

“He's in his office with the ones who are the most broken up.”

I nod. “Tell him I need a trap-and-trace on this line, will you? All incoming calls for the last twenty-four hours. The provider's Sprint.”

“Knowing the way this guy works, the phone will just be stolen.”

“At least it's doing something.” I look over at the workers setting up their collecting equipment. “Last night you said it looked bad.”

Paul shakes his head. “You have Carl, already hammered. His responses are going to be slow. The killer comes up from behind. He runs the blade into Carl, steps back, possibly never even touching him. Now factor in where Carl was found, which was basically a petri dish of foreign material, throw in the massive human contact from the party, and top it off with the random factor at Seanachie's.”

An evidence ID technician walks up. “We're ready to set up the video equipment,” he says. “Which way is the line going to move?”

Paul nods. “Left to right, and get at least two views.” He looks back to me. “We've set up an assembly line. Clothes, hair, saliva, tagged and bagged. With so many people, the pressure will be to go too fast. We've got to be methodical, not make any mistakes.” Paul walks off, leaving me alone in the center of the room.

The office is winding up, beginning its morbid, wounded day. More than two hundred people will file through Paul's evidence line over the next several hours, yielding six hundred bags of evidence, each of which will have to be meticulously analyzed. More staffers arrive in twos and threes, each needing and receiving comfort from the group who's already here. After I see my third breakdown in as many minutes, I recognize the obvious:
This place isn't healthy for me right now.
If I stay in the office much longer, I won't be able to avoid falling apart like everybody else. I find the evidence ID officer and retrieve my phone; then I slide out of the room as inconspicuously as possible, retreating to the exit.

At the door, I look back and see the first staffers are starting through the assembly line; an ID officer with rubber gloves swabs the mouth of a woman, then stores it in a clear plastic bag. She bends down to write, and a flash from a camera goes off. The line of people behind her is swelling. Watching this, I'm sure of one thing: by the time Paul has cross-analyzed the DNA and fiber evidence of more than two hundred people, conducted Carl's autopsy, and examined the evidence from the crime scene, whatever it is Charles Bridges wants finished will be over and done. If I'm going to survive this, I have to find Bridges myself.

 

MY TRUCK ROLLS DOWN
Church Street, heading toward the DPC. I pull into the small lot behind the building, hoping to find Fiona's Volvo.
Not there.
I punch her number into my cell phone, and she answers. I skip the pleasantries. “Carl Becker is dead. Your friend Bridges killed him.”

After a shocked silence, she answers in a whisper, “My God, Thomas. How do you know?”

“Because he killed his parole officer the same way. And because he knew it would kill a part of me when he did it.”

“Where are you?”

“In the church parking lot.”

“I can be there in twenty minutes.”

“To do what?”

“Stay there, Thomas. I think I can help you find him.”

I hang up and get out of the truck, too wound up to sit. I push the .45 into my belt behind my back and pace the parking lot, waiting for Fiona to arrive. Finally, her Volvo pulls up the alley. She gets out and stands by her car, pale and washed out. “Are you sure it's him?” she asks. “Is there any doubt?”

“No. And he's not finished.” I walk up to her and show her the photograph on my phone. She covers her mouth and stifles a moan. “I'm so sorry,” she says, her voice a whisper. “So, so sorry.”

“Psychopaths like to take photographs of their atrocities. It plays into their sense of heroic self-importance.”

“I think I can take you to him.”

“Tell me.”

“I followed him once. It was right after he showed up at the church. We actually did some due diligence, you know.”

“We're past that now, Fiona. Just tell me what you know.”

“It will be hard to find the exact house. It's been a few months.”

I'm walking to the truck before she finishes the sentence. She follows, but the footsteps suddenly stop. “What's wrong?” I ask, turning around.

She points at my belt. “You have a gun.”

“That's right.”

“I won't help you kill him, Thomas.”

I walk up to her and push the photograph on the phone in her face. “You have to choose sides now, Fiona. This isn't some academic conference. You've got principles. Great. I applaud you. I just don't feel like dying for them.”

“And then what? Another killing? And another? Maybe after you and Bridges kill each other your families can fight each other. Maybe it can just be the Palestinians and the Israelis. That's worked out so well for them.”

“You don't mind if I defend myself, do you?”

She looks at me, her expression doubtful. “I know how anger takes people over.”

“Help me find him before he does something even worse, Fiona.”

“How can it be worse?”

“He's increasing terror, which is the classic tactic of the psychopath. He started small, by murdering my cat.” She screws up her face in disgust. “That's right, Fiona. He ran him through the water pump of my spa. Then he destroyed my father's truck.” I hold out the phone. “Now this. Do you see a pattern here? Somewhere in this city Charles Bridges is getting ready to take his final revenge on me, and if he's allowed to follow through on it, maybe I'll just
wish
I was dead. So this is it. You either help me find him, or what happens next is on your conscience.”

She stares at me a long moment, locked in indecision. “All right.” She walks to the truck, opens the door, and gets in. I jog to the driver's seat and start the truck. “So where are we going?”

“The Nation.”

 

I CATCH GLIMPSES OF
Fiona as I drive; she's grim, like she's on the way to a funeral. A part of me hopes she is: the funeral of Charles Bridges. I turn down Forty-sixth, pass the Harley-Davidson dealership, and pull to a stop. “So?”

“Four, maybe five streets ahead. I'm not sure.” I roll forward slowly, letting her get her bearings. I slow on the fourth street, and she nods. “Take this one, and look for a fire hydrant.” I drive down the street, rolling past the decrepit houses. We drive nearly ten blocks, near to where the street ends. “It wasn't this far,” she says. “Try the next street over.”

I go a street farther into the Nation, and head back toward Forty-sixth. Four blocks up, she points at a beige house with a sagging roof. “That might be it.”

“Might?”

“It was several months ago. Anyway, I didn't see him actually go in the house. He turned in, but I was a couple of blocks behind. I just remember it was near a fire hydrant.” She looks out of the window. “I'm pretty sure this is it. It's one of these three or four houses.”

I nod. “OK. Stay in the car.” I walk behind the truck and pull out a crowbar. When I come back around, Fiona's standing on the sidewalk looking at me. “You did good,” I say. “Now get out of the way.” I start off, but I feel her following behind. I spin around. “You know who always ends up getting killed in deals like this? The innocent bystander. Now get back in the truck.”

“Are you going to shoot me, Thomas?”

“No.”

“Neither is he.” She marches off toward the first house. There's nothing I can do, since standing on the street arguing with a woman while I hold a tire iron is pretty likely to attract a crowd. I start after her, when I catch a vague scent in the air. I move farther down the street, sniffing. I walk to the side of the next house over; it's not any stronger. I jog down the yard across the front of the building to the third house, testing the air as I go. There's a breeze, and I pick up something acrid, like cat urine. I look up at a nondescript brick ranch with a sagging roof and a sign for an alarm in the yard. The blinds are all closed, and there's a metal storm door on the front entrance. I hear Fiona tramping up behind me.

“What are you doing?”

“You smell that?” I ask, quietly.

She sniffs. “No. Wait, yes, I…that's foul.”

“Ammonia.” I turn around. “Look,” I say quietly, “just going in this place could be dangerous. Meth fumes can kill.” She starts toward the front door, and I grab her by the arm. “What the hell do you think you're doing?”

She wrenches her arm free. “I don't believe in violence, Thomas. That doesn't mean I won't stand up to what's wrong in my own way.”

Fuck, she has guts.
I grab her arm again. “If you're going to go in, at least go in behind me. I don't want you getting shot by accident.”

“Thomas…”

“I swear to God, Fiona, I'll put you over my shoulder if I have to. Now
get behind me.
”

She stares at me a second, then nods.

I lead her quietly around the house to the rear. There's a chain-link fence around the small backyard; I get a running start and climb, dropping down on the other side. Fiona follows. Keeping her behind me, I advance onto the back porch. The porch creaks as I walk, its timbers dry-rotted.
If there was any doubt, he knows we're here now.
There's another metal storm door; I reach out and jiggle it, but it's locked.
So. Here's where I officially step over the line.
I take the crowbar and force it into the lock of the storm door. Working the bar back and forth, the bar takes a good set; bracing myself, I jerk back on the bar and feel the lock mechanism explode outward. The door swings violently back, then flaps loosely on one hinge. I glance over at the windows, but there's no movement.
Whoever lives here, they're either not home, or they're on the side of this door with a gun.
The wooden door remains; there's a dead bolt, and it takes a solid minute to get the end of the crowbar between the metal plate and the wooden frame. Finally, I get a set between the metal plate of the lock and the wood of the door frame. The door is substantial, and it takes all my strength to raise the door a half inch against the frame and pull apart the lock. There's the sound of splintering wood, and the door swings open. I stand outside a moment, sniffing the air. The smell is pungent but not overpowering. I pull out the gun, take off the safety, and step into a narrow kitchen and a breakfast table.

“Is it safe?” Fiona asks.

“Yeah, since we're not dead.” On the table are three cans of Drano and several boxes of wooden matches. “Dishes in the sink,” I say. “He was here recently.”

I lead Fiona into the living room, which is furnished with a brown, sagging couch and a single folding chair. A small television sits on a card table, its rabbit ears sticking out at a crazy angle. The living room leads to a hallway with two closed doors, one on the right, one on the left. I start down the hallway, and the source of the smell is unmistakable now; every step nearer the last door increases the intensity. I open the door on the left, which leads to a bathroom. I step in and pull back the shower curtain; the bathtub is filled with containers of lantern fuel, paint thinner, muriatic acid, along with some funnels and several lengths of rubber tubing. “He's set up for a pretty good operation,” I say. “Profitable, but small enough to stay under the radar.” I walk back to the hall and try the door across the hall; it swings open, and I walk into a twelve-by-ten-foot bedroom. A single bed hugs the wall to the right; on the bed is a pile of old clothes. “Recognize those?”

Fiona nods. “His street clothes.”

I open the closet; four empty, wire hangers are on a rod. “It's almost like he's already moved on.” Straight ahead is a desk, which has a cheap-looking printer but no computer. Three cell phones—each a different brand—are stacked next to the printer.
Stolen, like Paul thought.
I start through the drawers, but they're mostly empty.