Crime Rave (3 page)

“Wasn’t he wearing gloves?” Günn asks. “Idiot.”

Mazzotti leans over and picks up another bag. “Check it out. Whatever’s on this body ate right through the gloves.” Red Feather sees the gloves are full of holes, moths gone wild.

“How’s it not eating through that baggie then?” Günn feels a familiar sense of anger arise when things don’t make logical sense.

“I thought of that, too. Must be a reaction to the sweat from his hands inside the glove. Reacted with whatever is on this woman’s skin.” Mazzotti shows them.

“Woman?”

“See here? That’s the top of her uterus.”

Red Feather and Günn’s eyes widen.

Mazzotti bends down and picks up another bag. “Another strange one. Look.” Mazzotti pulls the plastic tight over the kneecap of a whole lower leg and foot. “It appears her bones are made of metal.”

“Surgery? Implant, maybe?” Red Feather asks, turning the bag over.

“Nope, it appears to run all the way through and look at the vessels around the bone—also metal. If I didn’t know better, I’d say this is some kind of cyborg.” Mazzotti raises his left eyebrow and sighs.

“What, like The Terminator?” Günn wishes she still smoked. Then again, the day’s still young.

“Exactamundo, Detective. But that’s not possible. We’re years from that kind of tech.” Mazzotti rifles and picks out a bag that could either be a thigh or a fleshy arm. “Last strange one. Check it out.” Mazzotti squeezes and blood seeps from each amputated end.

Red Feather and Günn are speechless, a unison gasp.

“Yeah, I barely believe it and I’m looking right at it.” Mazzotti clears his throat, giving the dumbfound a moment to clear. “So, anyway, Detectives, I let you know when I get this all back to the lab and we do our tests. In the meantime, we’ll keep sifting through all this and see what else we got under all this dust.”

“Thanks, Pete,” Red Feather says, his voice returning, “we’ll check back in later.” He nods, Günn follows suit and they head back to the car.

Mazzotti turns and surveys the strange pile of body parts that should not exist. He sees a hand with long acrylic nails about to burst from its bag. “Goddamn rookies,” he mutters, taking note of whom originally processed the item and puts it in a larger bag. Mazzotti checks the rest of the baggies, sees that many of the body parts look like they’ve been forced into too-small receptacles. He growls, striding off to give his team a what-for.

Kaleanathi, the Smog Goddess

Y
ou are the daughter of Kali and Athena, banished from the heavens by your angry grandfather Zeus, and Kali’s jealous husband, Shiva. In the pantheon of Ethereals and Elementals, you are a hybrid, a goddess between the ephemeral and the actual. A borderdweller with no place. A new goddess with no value to the old ones, left to your own devices without a thought.

You made your home in the smog above Los Angeles as the eater of souls. So many to choose from here. Gang violence, gun violence, car crashes, drug overdoses. You eat them all, trapping them in a limbo of your own creation, drawing power from their pain. Oh, the feast you had tonight over the Charles Wallace Crane mansion. Thousands upon thousands of oblations, screaming into your poison womb. The first night of its kind. You’re already hungry for more. Your goal is to surpass Kali and Athena’s powers. Maybe even Mother, The Ancient One’s. You’re almost there already.

However, The Ethereals have stolen some of
your
tribute. Four souls who walked away from
your
night. You will have these offerings back. They’re marked by your stain. Their lives belong to you, and only you. Finally, you have the power to match the pantheon of your ancestors as you manipulate human fear in a toxic alchemy.

Double, bubble, toil and trouble. Your black skies percolate over the city in anticipation of your next bold move. The dozens of thousands of souls in you wail in protest as you feed on their sadness, savoring every drop of misery.

3:00 AM Hollywood Police Department

T
he Hollywood PD station is a squat brown frog of a building set back from the street, demarcated by a line of trees, and back-up cop cars. The station’s a ten-minute drive from the site of the Crane Mansion Massacre without traffic. And there’s no traffic today. Inside, Detective Finian Murphy, also squat and frog-like with a wide jowly face, watches as patrolmen cart Preston Reid, and Frank and Tommy Cullen in through the back, press vultures already gotten wind that the punks are here. The “Bad Vibe Kids” they called themselves in their initial statement to the press before they were arrested on charges of mass murder and conspiracy to commit terrorist acts. Their response? Some nonsense about wanting to purify the party scene, whatever the hell that means. Murphy had been waiting to see a bunch of leather-clad black-coat goth weirdos courtesy of Columbine, not these three fresh-faced and colorfully bedecked youngsters. If he didn’t know better “All American” would be the description that sprang to mind. But he knows better.

Captain Anderson, back at the station after his interview, gives Murphy a cursory glance. With two complaints for sexually inappropriate and racist comments already under Murphy’s belt, he’s the last person Anderson wants anywhere near this case, what with his scarily low IQ and general sense of entitlement. The slightest fuck-up from this end and Anderson imagines every single person under his watch will have a compromised job. Anderson prays for the day Murph’ll screw the pooch ‘til Sunday and he’ll finally have an excuse to park him behind a desk for good, or better yet, give him a nice early retirement package. Captain Anderson sighs. If only Murphy’s dad hadn’t been the one to save his life in the cartel shoot-out that earned them both medals of honor.

“When do I get to interrogate ’em, Boss? I passed my cert with flying colors, you saw.” Eagerness drips from Murphy’s too-high voice.

“Murphy. You listen and you listen good.” Captain Anderson pokes a finger in Murphy’s chest and speaks slowly to make sure the mental deficient gets it. “You are not to go near those suspects. This is a terrorist case. Means the FBI will come in with their best confession-wrangler. You are not even
assigned
to this case. I’m still waiting for your report on those break-ins in Silver Lake. You make that your priority. Have it on my desk by the end of the day.”

Murphy puffs up. “No way, Boss. Not if you’ve given Tonto and Tweaker first dibs on the Crane Massacre. No way, nuh uh.”

Captain Anderson gets right in Murphy’s grille. “You cut that shit out, you hear me. The next complaint you get is gonna bring you back a pay grade. I won’t care who your father is. Got it?” Murphy deflates, looks to the floor. Captain Anderson nudges him in the chest again. “Detectives
Red Feather
and
Günn
are on site. I repeat: You have not a goddamn thing to do with the Crane case.
Got it
?” Anderson has to work not to yell.

“Yes, Boss.” Nothing gets through to Murphy like threatening his cash flow. How else would he keep himself in noir-inspired custom tailored suits and video box sets of black and white detective films? Anderson shakes his head and walks to his office, leaving Murphy to pull himself together.

“Fuck that,” Murphy whispers, thinking of all the times he’s heard his colleagues and patrolman snickering about him behind his back. How they call him half-wit. Retard. Dumbo. How his daddy pulled so many strings to get him into the academy he should be a puppeteer for a second career. Murphy’s gonna show ’em, and show ’em good. He’s gonna crack those kids open like Christmas chestnuts. “Ok, punks,” he sneers as he turns up his collar, thinking he looks like Humphrey Bogart but looking more like an Irish Joe Pesci. “Here comes papa.”

3:15 AM The Wreckage

C
SI Mazzotti is in a state and a half at the site of the Crane Massacre. He waves baggies of body parts in the faces of his team. “What the hell is wrong with you people? Your eyes don’t work? You can’t fucking manage to bag these pieces in appropriately-sized receptacles?”

Tina Vasco, slight, long dark hair pulled back into a bun, vintage cat’s eye glasses with gems in the sides, steps up. “Calm down. This isn’t our bad!”

Mazzotti, red-faced furious, picks up a bag with Tina’s initials on it. “Look here,
you
bagged this one, Tina. How the hell are you gonna tell me this isn’t
your bad?
”

“Mazzotti, when I put that hand in there it fit and there were three inches of space on the top. I photographed it. Just check. Why would any of us shove these parts in there like that?” Tina’s heart pounds.

“Then explain this to me!” The bag in Mazzotti’s hand bursts with a long-nailed hand and forearm, the forearm bending to fit in the bulging plastic sack.

“I can’t. I have no idea how that’s happening.” Tina hates it, but she feels tears pricking at her eyes.
There’s no crying in forensics,
she tells herself, over and over.

Tina fishes in her crime scene tote and pulls out her stack of Polaroids. She glares at Mazzotti for singling her out. A silent promise:
I’ll get you for this,
as she finds the photo she snapped. “There! That’s the bag you’re holding, take a good damn look,
Boss.
” By boss she means shithead, and he knows it.

Mazzotti takes a long look at the Polaroid. “This can’t be right.” His brow furrows. Confusion is not his natural state.

“Evidence doesn’t lie, Boss. Only people lie. And I’m not fucking lying.” Arms akimbo, she stares him down.

Mazzotti’s hand trembles as he hands Tina’s photo back. “Okay!” He half shouts to get his team’s attention. “I want you all to go through and match your pics with the items bagged. Now!”

Detectives Red Feather and Günn walk back over.

“What’s going on here, Pete?” Günn doesn’t fail to catch the hurt look thrown Mazzotti’s way by Tina Vasco.

“Oh, you know, the usual incompetency,” Mazzotti sighs. “They didn’t bag these properly. Just shoved ’em in instead of putting them in bags that fit. Look at this shit!” Mazzotti hands one of the bags in question to Red Feather, who turns it over in his hands noting how the digits scrunch against the top and the forearm wraps around the bottom making a balloon shape of the thick plastic. Mazzotti sighs. “But actually, there’s something else that’s just…weird. Tina, give me that Polaroid again.”

Tina hands it over, the glare not leaving her eyes.

“This is what the hand looked like when Tina bagged it.” Mazzotti’s disbelief is palpable.

Red Feather and Günn stare, brows furrowed at the incongruous images of the same body part: in one, a perfectly bagged remnant of a hand, acrylic nails even intact. The second, a hand plus forearm.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Günn frowns at Tina. “You sure
this
is the hand you bagged?”

“Detective, absolutely. Look here. My CSI code, my handwriting, matches the bag you got there. I told Pete this wasn’t what it looked like and it really isn’t.”

Red Feather stares at the Polaroid and the now-forearm bursting out of the crime scene bag. “It’s growing.”

“Nope. Not possible.” Günn’s stomach lurches.

Red Feather feels gooseflesh break out over his body. “It’s right here, Günn, just look. No denying it.”

Günn would be happy to deny it until kingdom come.

Mazzotti calls another CSI over, gestures to bring their evidence. “Here’s that cyclops girl we found. Look here, when we bagged her she was just a head. Now there’s a neck and half a shoulder.”

“Give me that!” Günn grabs the bag and studies it. This was strange enough when just a one-eyed girl. But now it’s something else altogether.

“This isn’t happening. No way.” Günn shakes her head, getting that feeling when you get into a turbo elevator and the ground drops from under you making your ears pop.

“You’re holding the evidence in your hand.” Red Feather knits his brow at his partner while handing the baggie back to Mazzotti. “Just get everything into bigger bags.” Red Feather pauses to think. “In fact, overcompensate. Use the biggest bags you’ve got.”

Günn moves to protest. Red Feather shakes his head and turns back to Mazzotti.

“Those would be body bags, Detective.” Mazzotti wonders what’s up with these two.

Red Feather considers, fighting the urge to look up to the sky and ask if the course is already set or if this action would seal the fate. “Do it. Re-photograph them. Make sure it’s all documented. I’ll call the captain, see what we do next.”

Günn puts her incredulity aside for the moment.
There will be a scientific explanation.
“Let’s just get what we’ve got over to the morgue, okay? If you find more body parts send them later. Maybe the heat is affecting the bags, maybe there’s some kind of post-explosion radiation we haven’t picked up. Whatever the case, I want to get moving on results of the DNA tests. Got it?” Mazzotti nods. Günn continues, “We’re going off-site, to the hospital, to see if the survivors are awake and talking. You call us if you find anything else.”

Mazzotti nods again. “Listen, I’m really sorry about these bags. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

Red Feather and Günn acknowledge the apology with curt nods. Red Feather takes out his phone to call the captain with the newest strangeness to report. They take one more look at the collection of body parts, ash, and rubble, all the CSIs, cops, firemen sifting through the mess.

“What a cluster,” Günn says, opening and closing her hands to stop the shaking.

“You OK?” Red Feather notices her left eye twitching.

“Fine.” She rubs her hand against her eye, hard. Gives him the look that says:
Drop it or I’ll drop you
. They walk through the devastation to their Crown Vic and hit the road, their siren cutting through the paparazzi yells, and Mazzotti’s frustrated cry as another foot bursts through a baggie.