SUSPENSE THRILLERS-A Boxed Set (10 page)

The police car stopped. As Jack pulled up behind it, two doors swung open and the driver unsnapped his holster to place his hand on his gun.

Jack killed the headlights and turned off the ignition. . Sam was already out of the car and standing by the fender, looking toward the men and flashlights clustered on a demolition site.

Jack slowly got out of the car. He felt drained. Never in his life had he felt so frightened, so utterly vulnerable.

Men rushed everywhere, a swirl of endless activity. Squawk boxes sounded off and blue bubble lights whirled. Voices were raised and orders given and carried out.

Sam turned and took Jack by the shoulders. "Let me see about this. Stay here and let me go."

"What if it’s…?"

Sam shook the young father by the arms before he knew he was doing it. "No! Just stay put and I’l1 find out what’s going on."

"Not Willie..." Jack’s voice trailed away.

Sam clenched his teeth. "Of course not." His gruff tone was as severe as he could make it. He left Jack and entered the bright circle of light a few yards away.

"I’m sorry, sir, but if you’ll just move back. This is a police matter..." The patrolman’s voice trailed at the look of authority on Sam’s face.

"I’m Bartholomew, detective sergeant, retired." The name registered immediately, and the patrolman stepped backward at once. He stuttered apologetically, but Sam ignored him.

A plainclothes detective came toward Sam with an outstretched hand. "Sam! What the hell are you doing here?" Lieutenant "Garbo" Kranz asked with a bit of awe in his voice.

Sam ignored the question. "What have you got?" he asked.

Garbo had to catch up with Sam to answer. "It’s a kid," he said, walking beside the older man. "Messy thing. We got an anonymous call. Body in a lot. Well, we found the body all right, but..."

"Boy or girl?" Sam interrupted, his heart almost stopping at the mention of a child.

Garbo showed his displeasure at the interruption by a down-turning of his mouth. “Boy. I’d say about ten or so."

"Let me see him."

"But Sam..."

"I said take me to him, you son of a bitch!"

Garbo was astonished. He had never worked with Sam Bartholomew, but he knew the man’s reputation as a tough old buzzard. And here he was calling an officer in charge a son of a bitch and demanding to be led to the crime scene. Incredible gall.

“Who do you think you’re talking to, Sergeant?”

“I thought I was talking to a responsible commander in charge of homicide, but if you’re any indication of the competence of this force lately, then the whole city’s in a peck of trouble."

Sam knew he was lashing out at the officer unfairly, but the body must be only a few feet away from where they stood, and he had to get to it.

Garbo stared hard at Sam for a moment, then he sighed and led Sam to the body.

The first thing Sam’s trained, observant eyes took in was the seemingly mindless activity of two blue suits on their knees in the tall, parched winter grass. They looked comical with their asses arched high in the air, heads lowered almost to the ground. They were knocking aimlessly at loose boards and clumps of weeds. "What in God’s name have you got your men doing?"

Garbo gave a strangely soft reply. "They’re looking for something."

“The murder weapon?"

"No. They’re looking for the boy’s head."

The blunt words stopped Sam dead in his tracks. His heart jumped so suddenly that Sam felt a moment of searing pain.

Garbo felt, rather than saw, Sam’s reaction. He waited near one of his men, who scrabbled through debris at his feet. "Well, you wanted to see the body, didn’t you? Isn’t that what you got so hot about, Bartholomew? It’s over here and it’s decapitated. Maybe with your renowned expertise we can get this cleared up before the night’s over. Our problem happens to be two-pronged, however. We can’t seem to find the kid’s head, and without the head we can’t make an ID. Bit of a sticky wicket even for you, don’t you agree?"

Sam looked so stricken that Garbo came over to him and took his arm. "Look, that was a cheap trick. I admit we’ve got a bag of snakes here. I for one have never been called in on something like this before. It makes me sick to my stomach." As soon as he said it Garbo knew he was understating the facts. He was not only sickened, he was as shocked as old man Bartholomew. Who would do such a thing? And the press and TV--would they have a heyday! If the police did not find the boy’s missing head, there was sure to be a wave of fear sweeping through the city.

"My neighbor’s son is missing. He was supposed to be home by sundown." Sam’s voice faltered, died away on the word
sundown.

"Oh, shit." Garbo shifted uneasily.

"Yeah, that’s about it."

Garbo squinted against the lights, trying to see the young man Sam had come with, but the glare hurt his eyes and all he could make out were shadowy figures.

"It’s DeShane," Sam said almost in a whisper. "You know him?"

Garbo was struck speechless. He nodded. He said, "Oh no."

"Show me. I’ve got to know," Sam said.

They crossed a pile of broken bricks and Garbo fumbled in his pocket for his flashlight. Where was the damned photographer? Where was the forensic team, the ambulance? Where was...?

Scrunching his eyes as if to keep out what he did not want to see, Sam moved forward to a lump of brown lying in the high grass. The brown was a corduroy jacket. The brown was a pair of Sears’ Tuff jeans. And that was all it was. Torso, arms, legs, feet. The ghastly sight stirred something primeval in Sam’s insides.

First he felt revulsion. Then a pure, icy rage at the indecency the killer had inflicted on a small, helpless little boy. Then Sam felt the futility of all his many years as a cop. He had put some of the maniacs away, but he could not get them all, and his time had passed. It was violence beyond the normal cop’s understanding.

It was violence beyond all understanding.

Garbo tugged at Sam’s sleeve. "Here comes the forensic guys and the ambulance team. We have to move back, Sam." Garbo’s voice was dulled and professional. He had one more question to ask. "Is it DeShane’s boy? Can you tell?"

Sam nodded and one solitary tear ran down his cheek.

Garbo swore beneath his breath. "Okay. Then get back there to him, and for chrissake keep him away from here. We need you now, Sam."

Sam tried to nod again, but his head was too heavy. He had never felt such terrible despair. Behind the lights Jack waited for Sam’s news. He had to tell him. But how could he ever? Ever?

As Sam trudged away, he saw the scramblings of two men on their knees in the night--searching for the rest of little Willie DeShane. For some inexplicable reason Sam knew it would never be found.

He stumbled between two squad cars and, momentarily blinded, felt his way along a car where he was stopped by two hands pressing against his chest.

"Sam?" It was Jack, his voice tremulous. "Sam, they told me it’s a kid. A boy, Sam. A boy!"

Sam turned away, unable to meet the young father’s eyes.

"Sam, tell me. You have to tell me I’m wrong. It’s can’t be, it’s not…"

When Sam could not find the strength to form the words, Jack rushed to fill the growing silence.

"Hey, some kid. I know that’s bad, that’s... But we gotta get moving. We need to get out of here and back to the house. Wi1lie’s probably home and hungry for his supper.”

Sam began to shake his head. His bald pate glistened with sweat.

Jack ignored him. "We’ve been here too long and we can’t help, you know that’s the truth. The door’s locked at home. Willie carries his own key, but the house is dark, and he won’t know what to think. Sam?"

Jack’s voice was pleading, desperate, on the edge of a hysteria he could barely control.

Sam knew he had to say it, say the truth right away before Jack went any further. "It’s Willie."

The inhuman howl from Jack DeShane’s soul was unlike anything Sam had ever heard. Every hand stopped in midair, every foot was rooted to the ground. Sentences went unfinished.

Jack DeShane’s despair made every man within the sound of his cry recoil with a sudden, nameless sense of loss.

JACK HAD TO BE SEDATED while he still crouched, grief-stricken, on his knees, his forehead pressed to gravelly earth. Although he was a trained peace officer, psychologically sound and emotionally strong, it was no surprise to anyone at the scene of the murder that DeShane broke. Who loses a child and goes blithely about his business? What man was so strong he would not give into the blinding, bludgeoning grief?

Sam drove him home and helped his friend into the house. He put Jack to bed, removed his shoes and his belt, opened the neck of his shirt, and pulled a chair near to watch over his friend until he was no longer needed. At two in the morning Sam himself fell into an exhausted sleep.

Jack woke, the sedative worn off and the death of his son dragging him up from unconsciousness into the full reality of his loss. Tears tried to form in his eyes, and a sob tried to come from his throat. He ached so badly. Desperately he tried not to think about Willie.

He saw Sam slumped in the chair beside him. The older man’s face was slack and his lips parted. Jack studied every age line on Sam' s face as if they might impart some secret wisdom to help him survive.

Finally he looked at the ceiling overhead and the circle of light reflected from the bedside lamp. He had to get out of the house. He hardly remembered being led inside and placed on the bed. His mind had been a jumble of contradictions. Dimly he remembered babbling on and on about Willie while Sam shushed him and loosened his clothes and held him fast to keep him from going to Willie’s room. What had he wanted in Willie’s room? Oh, yes. A baseball glove. A polo T-shirt. A postcard Willie had bought in New Orleans of the courtyard of the Seven Sisters Restaurant.

Without further thought, Jack slipped his feet over the side of the bed and bent to lace up his shoes. A sickening wave of dizziness hit him, and he had to let it pass before standing up. A thin golfer’s jacket lay over the dresser. Jack put it on and felt in the pockets for some cigarettes. Finding them, he zipped up the jacket and left the room. The early morning air was bracing and smelled faintly of the sea. Jack inhaled great drafts of it and wondered at how far the Gulf breezes could carry inland. It was not at all cold to him, though he knew the temperature must be in the low forties.

He got in his car and drove downtown near Hermann Square. Unlike Hermann Park, which housed the zoo and acres of wooded lawn, the square was small and overlooked by glass and steel office buildings. Mostly it was inhabited by the unemployed, the winos, men who were the flotsam of society. In the square they were safe for a while. The police were instructed not to bother them. It was said the land developer George Hermann had marked the square for his hired men, who, after a weekend of revelry in town could sleep it off and be close to the wagons that would take them back to the job of cutting timber each Monday morning. Something in the will Hermann left behind told the city of Houston they could not harass anyone desiring to lounge in Hermann Square. And so no one did.

Jack walked and wrestled with his despair. He had come to the right place to do it. Despair slept on park benches covered with newspaper, and it leaned against tree trunks swigging from paper bags. No one accosted the newcomer or questioned his right to be there. The square was for anyone who needed to face pain, anyone who had no place else to go.

Jack circled the park a dozen times, smoking cigarettes, trying to get even a tiny grip on his life.

Grinding his last cigarette beneath his shoe, Jack got back in the Monte Carlo. He had come to the conclusion that neither Sam nor the isolation of the square was a sufficient buffer against the war that raged out of control inside him. But there was someone who might rake away the pain that was killing his soul.

Yet as he drove to the luxury condominium where she lived, he heard a tiny voice rejecting his plea for sympathy.
You’ll have to do it alone,
it taunted.
You must accept what’s been done. Willie’s gone. Willie’s never coming back home from playing in the dark…

#

Eileen McKenna, the most exclusive call girl in Houston, luxuriated in an enormous black marble bathtub playing with heaps of bubbles. She was tired, but not overly so. The bath was to prepare her for sleep. The most strenuous part of her workday was over, and the councilman snored softly just beyond the bathroom door. She had been instructed to wake him after her bath was completed. He could not be seen slipping out of the building in the morning wearing the same suit he had worn the day before. His wife did not give a tinker’s damn, but his reputation demanded he not be caught in even vaguely compromising circumstances.

While Eileen soaked, Tobias, her Angora cat, sat atop the black marble vanity licking the fur beneath a hind leg. As Eileen raised the drain lever and started to lift herself from the tub, the doorbell rang. Once, twice, three times. Tobias spat and ruffled his hair. Eileen grabbed a terry cloth robe and shrugged into it. As she passed the bed, she saw the councilman sitting up in surprise, his lips working idiotically.

"It’s all right," she soothed, her voice honeyed and calm. "I’ll close the door."

Shooing the cat before her, she pulled the door to firmly and crossed the living area. The doorbell was much too loud. She needed to do something about that.

She opened the door with the safety chain still in place. In the hall stood a wild-eyed Jack DeShane.

"My god, Jack, what’s happened?" Eileen closed the door before he could answer and unfastened the chain.

She opened the door wide.

Jack walked into her arms and smothered his face in her hair. "Eileen, I need help."

Eileen was stunned. "Come and sit down." She closed the door and led him to the sofa. Only then did she remember the councilman in her bedroom.

"Jack, I have someone here." Her voice trailed away.

Jack turned his head and covered his eyes with one hand in a gesture of great weariness.