Styx (5 page)

“He's a key part of the investigation. Maybe there were things he saw that were gone by the time we got there.”

“Like what?”

“How do I know?”

“Listen, John. This is just more of the same thing we've already been through. Serial killers don't change their spots. They're predictable. They play the same song, over and over. All we know is that Madeleine Bohy was well liked, lived to help others, practically a saint, just like the other two victims. Spilliaert isn't going to tell us any different.”

“You sound tired.”

“You'd be tired too if you were in my shoes.”

“Madeleine Bohy was strangled,” said Crevits, out of the blue. “It was hard to tell, because of the beheading, but they found evidence of strangulation on what was left of her neck.”

“What's your point?”

“I wasn't sure you knew.”

“I didn't notice,” said Styx. “I was busy looking at that fishing line.”

“You given any more thought to taking some time off?”

“John, we're in the middle of a homicide investigation, in case you've forgotten.”

Styx knew the meaning of the silence that followed. The commissioner didn't have to say it aloud: no cop was irreplaceable. So far, there'd been three murders, and Styx had gotten precisely nowhere. Was Crevits suggesting that it was time to turn the reins over to someone else? That was hitting below the belt. But it wouldn't be the first time the commissioner had pulled an inspector who wasn't getting results off a case.

“Maybe you're right,” Crevits said at last. “Maybe we should be concentrating on the killer instead of a possible witness.”

“The bastard's trying to be the next Banksy.”

“The next what?”

“Banksy. He's a street artist, goes around the world painting graffiti.”

For some reason, Styx found himself wondering if Victor had studied Banksy in art history. Or maybe the current generation of artists hadn't made it into the textbooks yet.

After hanging up with Crevits,
Styx took the dog, Shelley, out for his nightly walk in the dunes. He kept a tight grip on the leash, since he knew the pit bull had a short fuse. A year ago, Shelley had gone after a resident of the neighborhood so violently that the man had had no choice but to defend himself with the ferrule of his umbrella. Since that incident, Shelley had gone through life with only one eye.

“They need to put that rotten beast down,” most of the residents of the Milho Apartments would have agreed. “It's dangerous.”

But Styx couldn't bring himself to part with the dog. He believed that even the world's lowest creatures deserved a guardian angel. So every evening he and Shelley strolled along the dike, out onto the
beach, and then back home past the Kursaal. It was either that or a lethal injection—if dogs could suffer from dementia, then Shelley had it bad, and the “new and improved” Shelley grew meaner and more aggressive by the day.

“Why can't you just let the poor thing go?” Isabelle had asked him more than once. Shelley was yet another bone of contention between them. “He's had it, can't you see that? You keep him alive for yourself, Rafe, not for him.”

“That's not true,” said Styx.

But the more time passed, the more the animal's temperment came to resemble its owner's.

“The exercise helps my hip,” he argued.

And above all else, their half-hour walk—late in the evening, when the streets were quiet and peaceful—gave Styx an opportunity to think.

It also gave him a reason to visit the harbor once a week, to stroll past the cargo ships painted in primary colors and between the long rows of containers, stacked in their hundreds like so many giant Legos. Styx knew that the Ostend harbor was riddled with crime, everything from drug smuggling to weapons dealing and even human trafficking. Last year, a dozen refugees had been discovered trapped in a mildewed container. Half of them hadn't survived their confinement, and the half who had were deported back where they came from—in that case Kosovo.

The only thing that distinguished Ostend's harbor from others around the world was Gino Tersago, a notorious crook who over the years had served Styx as a valued stoolie in exchange for the cop's willingness to overlook certain of Tersago's malfeasances. What goes around comes around.

Tonight, they met by appointment in the rusted dark-blue container in Sector D that served as Tersago's headquarters. Tersago had
washed up in Ostend after washing out as the owner of a pizzeria elsewhere in Belgium. These days Tersago dealt mainly in counterfeit designer goods he imported from China and Thailand.

With Shelley on the leash, Styx slipped into the container, where he found the tall, rail-thin gangster with the black brush cut and the scar from a surgically corrected harelip sitting at a rickety metal table, sipping from a can of beer.

“Yo, look what the wind blew in: Chief Inspector Styx.”

“Terry,” said Styx. He checked behind him to make sure no harbor police were in the area.

“Welcome to my world. To what do I owe this honor?”

Honor
, Styx thought.
Nope, honor's got nothing to do with it
.

“Where's your crew?”

“I was just closing up shop,” said Tersago. “It's dead tonight. I sent 'em all home. You can see they put in a full day today.”

Tersago waved a hand at the empty container, as if it were a chic boutique on the day after Black Friday.

“What's new, Styxie?”

“I was about to ask you.”

“Oh?”

“You haven't heard? The Stuffer's notched up another one.”

“Yeah, I heard it on the radio,” said Tersago. He'd told Styx once that his childhood dream was to be a policeman. “Didn't happen on my beat, though.”

On his beat, as if he actually
was
a cop on patrol.

“You didn't see anything?” asked Styx.

“If I had, my friend, you don't think you'd already know about it? What, you don't trust me anymore?”

“Just making sure, Terry, that's all. This case is really starting to piss me off.”

“I know where you're comin' from,” said Tersago empathetically,
as if he and Styx were buddies, “but I've got something else for you, man. Something to take away your pain and put you in a better mood.”

Styx was so preoccupied with the investigation into the third murder that he'd completely forgotten today was payday. Tersago pulled a bulging white envelope from an inside pocket.

“Don't spend it all in one place,” he grinned.

Styx looked at the outstretched hand and the envelope it held, but made no move to take it.

“Yeah, I almost forgot.”

“Almost forgot? What's the matter with you? You don't need it? What, did you win the Lotto? Get a raise?”

“I just forgot,” said Styx.

“You really
don't
trust me anymore, do you?”

“It's got nothing to do with trust,” said Styx.

“No? What, then? There's three thousand euros here, Styxie. That's a month's pay for doing nothing.
Specifically
for doing nothing.”

“I know, but—”

“But what? You understand it usually works the other way around, right?
You
pay
me
for information, if information's what you're after.”

Styx stared so intently at the thick white rectangle that Tersago finally looked down at it, too, as if he didn't know how it had gotten into his hand. Shelley barked, putting his own two cents in, and Styx took the envelope. The dog's barking echoed off the walls of the container.

“Good boy,” Tersago told them both. “Your friend there smells a treat.”

Styx stuffed the envelope in his back pocket. This wasn't the first time he'd been greased to keep his mouth shut about the shady goings-on in the harbor, but it was beginning to eat at him that he did so little to earn the bribes he received. He didn't even have to look the other way. All he did was pass along a container number and location,
and let Terry know when the harbor patrol would be making their rounds on the other side of the harbor.

“I think this is the last time,” said Styx.

“What?” Tersago looked stunned. In the empty container, his voice rang out like thunder. “I'm not paying you enough?”

“That's not it.”

“You want more?”

That
wasn't
it. It was something that had almost completely died away, but that still hung on in a dark corner of the broken-down wreck called Raphael Styx: one last shred of human decency.

“This got something to do with Amanda?”

“No,” said Styx.

“What, then?”

“How is she?”

“I have no idea. Last I heard from her, she was in Thailand. I didn't send her in a container, in case you're wondering. I bought her a plane ticket, straight up. I heard she's got some rich fuck there wants to marry her.”

“Yeah, well,” said Styx. “Nothing to do with me.”

Tersago sighed.

“Look, I don't know anything about the fuckin' Stuffer, Styxie. But I'll ask around, okay? If it'll make you feel any better.”

“Thanks,” said Styx. “I appreciate it.”

Tersago got to his feet. “It was just a bunch of counterfeit shit, man.” Tersago sounded almost apologetic.

“What?”

“Italian fake-leather handbags, designer jeans, cigarettes, the usual shit.”

Styx put up a palm. “That's none of my business, either.”

“Calm down,” said Tersago, laying a hand on Styx's shoulder.

“I
am
calm.”

“You just let me know about the next job. End of the month, I'm getting in a load of cars from the East Bloc. I figure I'll need two, maybe three containers. You'll take care of your contact in customs, right?”

Styx wanted to say,
Don't worry about it
. But he couldn't get the words out. When Tersago locked up the container behind them, the emptiness within looked way too much like Raphael Styx's life. Something had to change, but how long had he been handing himself that line? Too long.

Maybe it was too late for him to change. What was he doing, messing around with a second-rate thug like Gino Tersago? Styx was prostituting himself, and the harbor was his whorehouse.

“I don't know,” he said. “You might have to set that up with my replacement.”

Tersago's hand dropped to his wrist and held it tightly.

“Hey, Styxie, you're not gonna nark on me, are you?”

Styx didn't answer.

“I pay you, man.”

“Yeah, you do.”

“Well?”

“Don't worry, Terry, I won't rat you out.”

Why would he betray Tersago's trust? Even that seemed too low for him.

Heading for home, he walked along the dike, past the fancy hotels, some new, others old and in disrepair, their glory days behind them. He was about to come down the steps to the street when he turned around and looked back. He'd walked right past it without realizing where he was.

He retraced his steps to the Rubens apartment building in the
Hofstraat. Where was the officer who was supposedly staking the place out? Nowhere to be seen.
Typical
, Styx thought.
The idiot's shift ended, and he went home
. He would rub Joachim Delacroix's nose in it in the morning.

Styx led Shelley into the lobby and checked the list of tenants. The pit bull plopped himself down on the floor.

Styx pressed the bell labeled S
PILLIAERT
.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Spilliaert?”

“Who is it?”

“My name's Raphael Styx, chief inspector with the Ostend police.”

“And?”

“I wonder if you can spare a few minutes?”

“For what?”

“Can I come up? My understanding is that you reported a crime this morning.”

“That's right,” the voice said.

“A woman was murdered.”

There was no response. Styx expected to hear the door click open, but it didn't happen.

“I need to ask you a few follow-up questions, sir. It's urgent.”

“I told the police everything I know this morning.”

“Yes, we've spent the whole day trying to reach you, but—”

“I've been at work. I just got home.”

Still no buzzer. Styx's hip began to protest. Shelley was also getting impatient, and he pulled on his leash. He wanted to go back outside, back to the beach. He'd had enough of this stuffy foyer. Styx looked into the lobby camera's lens and could feel Spilliaert looking back at him.

“I can show you my ID,” Styx offered.

“That won't be necessary,” said Spilliaert's voice. “I know who you are, Chief Inspector. What exactly do you need to ask me?”

“If you don't mind, I'd rather not discuss it like this,” said Styx.