The Burning Time (11 page)

“Stop it, you’re gonna get me going again.” Kerwin held up a hand in mock surrender.

“What should we do with him?”

Kerwin shrugged. “Toss him in the river and let him turn into someone else’s problem.”

“All right. But let’s make sure we dump him way downstream from town. The last thing the chief needs is another stiff showing up.”

“Sounds good.” Kerwin opened the trunk. “I’ll get his feet. You grab his arms.”

“Wait!” Daw dug through the cruiser’s trunk until he located a green tarp. “Lemme lay this out. I don’t wanna be cleaning shit and blood later.”

“Okay. But let’s hurry. Our shift’s almost over.”

“I hear you. Hey, when we’re finished, wanna grab a beer?”

*   *   *

John Root leaned against the wall of his cell, doing his best to ignore the springs poking him through the thin mattress. The sheets stank of old piss and sweat, the odors hanging in the hot, moist air like foul balloons.

Even though the temperature had to be above ninety, John’s body trembled.

Something’s out there tonight, something evil.

He could feel it, a miasma wafting over the town, not unlike the tendrils of piss-stink swirling through the cell. Every now and then the dark energy would reach out and touch someone, infect them. Anger, envy, greed, fear, and frustration joined with the unnatural heat and brought out the worst in people.

John knew well enough where that dark cloud originated: the thing that currently posed as Reverend Christian. In other towns, other times, it had used different names. Amaguq, Discordia, Loki, Wemicus. The Native Americans of the Southwest knew him as Trickster and Coyote.

He was all of them and more.

He was the Agent of Chaos who’d killed John’s mother so many years ago, and his grandmother before that.

Unless he was stopped, Christian’s evil influence would grow until wife beatings, child beatings, rapes, murders, and suicides became as common as handshakes and how-do-you-dos.

That’s how it had happened in John’s hometown, back when John was just a boy. By the time she drove the Ancient One away, more than half the town was destroyed, and John’s mother lay on her deathbed.

Another shiver ran over him, and he prayed it was from fear, and not because another life had succumbed to the evil.

Please, God, don’t let anything happen to Mitch or Danni while I’m stuck in this cell.

He’d been thinking all night about the Andersons. He couldn’t help it, even if they no longer considered him a friend—at least Danni didn’t—and he had more important things to worry about. Like how he was going to get close enough to Cyrus Christian to stop him.

Of course, if he didn’t get out soon, it wouldn’t matter.

There’d be no town left to save.

*   *   *

The first two rings of the phone blended into the dream Harry Showalter was having about relaxing on a tropical beach with a margarita in his hand. Then the cries of the seagulls turned to a jangling electronic sound that roused him, and he fumbled for the phone on his nightstand. “Hello?”

He glanced at the clock and his gut clenched. Five-seventeen in the morning. A call that early always meant trouble.

“Chief? We got another floater.”

It took a moment for Showalter to make sense of the night officer’s words. “What? Where? I mean...never mind. Is it...?” He let the sentence trail off, afraid to give it voice.

“Yeah, another girl. Two fellas out fishing for muskies found her, ‘bout a quarter mile downstream from the bridge.”

“Shit!” Harry kicked the covers off. Next to him, Nora snorted in her sleep and turned her head away. After all the years of getting late night calls, she could sleep through anything. “I’ll be there in fifteen.”

With a curse, he pulled on the same uniform he’d worn the previous day, gave his armpits and shirt a liberal spray of deodorant, and hurried out to his car.

Three hours later, Showalter sat in the small meeting room in the police station, nursing his third cup of bitter coffee. Across from him sat Mayor Del Watkins, whose angry features went well with Harry’s own mood. A pile of reports and files lay scattered on the table between them.

“Goddammit, Harry. You said you had the bastard. For chrissake, I was quoted in the paper as saying the streets were safe. Now what the fuck do we do?”

Showalter exhaled, his rancid coffee breath evident even to himself. “You saw the evidence. Stranger in town. Last person seen with the victim. No alibi. Everything pointed to him.”

The mayor narrowed his eyes, a sign he was considering how to save his hide. Harry knew the look well. He and Del went back a long ways, back to high school, where they’d both been second-string on the football team and just smart enough to graduate.

Look at us now. People said we’d end up working down to Joe’s Citgo, and now we run this goddamn town. And I’ll be damned if Del, or some drugged out serial killer, is gonna ruin things for me.

“What if it’s a copycat?” Del asked. “Think that will fly?”

Harry shook his head. “No, she fits the profile perfect. Under thirty, pretty, and either having problems in her relationship or getting over a relationship. Whoever this guy is, he goes for the ones who are down. But we caught some breaks this time.” He tapped a file. “Guy got careless. Left a bunch of cigarette butts across the street from the bar she worked at. He must’ve been waiting a long time. We sent a few up to the crime lab in Buffalo, for DNA testing. And I got my boys dusting the whole alley for prints.”

“What about her car?”

“Too burnt to get anything from.”

Del stood up and started pacing back and forth. Harry had time to feel annoyed that the mayor looked refreshed and ready to go, his suit neatly pressed. By comparison, Harry felt like he’d just finished a ten-mile hike through the swamps. Mud and burrs stuck to the cuffs of his pants, and the sweat stains under his arms were spreading at an alarming rate.

The mayor paused to look out the window, which faced State Street. Shops and businesses were preparing for another scorching summer day.

“What about that fellow you got locked up?”

“I still ain’t convinced he’s innocent. Maybe he’s the killer’s accomplice.”

Someone knocked on the door. Before Harry could tell them to go away, Sergeant Mathers, the morning desk officer, stuck his head in.

“Sorry to bother you, Chief, but there’s someone out here to see you.”

“Not now, Mathers.”

“Um, he’s from the FBI. Agent Nova.”

“FBI?” the mayor asked. “What the hell are they doing here?”

A tall man in a dark suit, his short hair neatly brushed, pushed past Mathers and entered the room. “Apparently the chief forget to inform us you’ve had a series of murders all following the same MO? I’m assuming it was a clerical error, since I’m sure he knows the protocol. The FBI is always brought in on any case involving a suspected serial killer.” Nova pulled out a chair and sat down.

Mayor Watkins started to say something but Showalter cut him off. “We appreciate you wanting to help, Agent Nova, but you’re too late. We already caught the man responsible.” He allowed himself a small smile. “Seems like we’re not quite the small town yokels you FBI folk think we are.”

Watkins’s eyes went wide, but he kept his mouth shut.

Nova raised one eyebrow. “Is that so? Well, good for you. Still doesn’t explain why we weren’t called.”

The chief shrugged. “The first few, we thought they were suicides. Young girls dealing with bad relationships. Wasn’t until the last couple that the fella got careless.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Nova’s lips turned up in a small grin, and Showalter noticed the smile stopped far short of his eyes.

Watch out for this one. He’s trouble. “Anything else, Agent Nova?”

The FBI agent stood up. “Not now. But you won’t mind if I come back for the arraignment? Just to satisfy my own curiosity, of course. Since you’ve got your man, there’s no need for us to become officially involved.”

Showalter shrugged again. “Whatever floats your boat. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got a lot of paperwork to take care of.”

Nova nodded to them and left the room.

Watkins waited until they saw Nova crossing the street to his car before exploding.

“Jesus on a crutch, Harry. What the hell were you thinking, lying to the FBI like that?”

“Relax, Del. I didn’t lie. I still think Root’s involved in all this somehow. Nova can go sit on his gun and rotate for all I care. No hotshot FBI agent’s strolling in here and stealing my case. This is my goddamn town and I’m gonna find the bastard whose killing those girls. And when I do...”

He paused for breath, then crushed his empty coffee cup.

“The fucker is gonna pay, and pay big. Like the Good Book says, ‘Let he who sins against thee feel the wrath as if he sinned against the Gods.’”

“Amen,” Watkins said, nodding emphatically. “But that doesn’t solve our other problem. What am I gonna say to the paper when they find out you’ve released Root?”

Showalter sat back down in his chair. “Who says I’m gonna let him go yet? Until we find out who did that waitress, Root’s gonna cool his heels right where he is. Now, I really do have work to do.”

Showalter waited until he was sure Watkins had left the building before calling for Mathers.

“What is it, Chief?” the skinny sergeant asked.

“Round up a couple of the boys. No official vehicles. Agent Nova is on his way back to Buffalo. I think he might have an accident, if you catch my drift. Otherwise he’s gonna make our lives real difficult. And I don’t need difficult, understand?”

Mathers smiled. “Yes, sir.”

Showalter got himself another cup of coffee and returned to his desk. Now there was nothing to do but wait and see if any of the evidence panned out.

Twenty minutes later, his phone rang.

“Showalter here.”

“Chief?” It was Parsons, at the desk. “Just got confirmation on one of the prints in the alley. Belongs to a career low-life named Antonio Lopez. Rap sheet includes petty theft, aggravated assault, and possession. And get this, the Binghamton police suspected him of raping and killing four girls, but they didn’t have enough evidence to hold him.”

“Lopez? Where’ve I...shit on a shingle! That’s Billy Ray’s buddy. Where’s Wade Cullen?” He wanted the biggest officer on the force at his side when they went after this one.

“Last I heard, out by Miller’s Farm Road.”

“Tell him to come back. And start calling motels. I want to know where this scum bucket is keeping himself.”

He’d barely hung up the phone when an ambulance roared past the station, siren wailing, heading north on Route 16.

Toward Buffalo.

Showalter allowed himself a smile. The day was turning out to be a good one, even if it still felt like Death Fucking Valley outside.

Harry Showalter stood to the side, gun drawn, as Wade Cullen kicked open the door to Tony Lopez’s room.

“Hands in the air! You’re under arrest!”

“Hey!” Lopez, wearing only faded blue boxer shorts and a stained wife-beater T-shirt, jumped from the bed, dropping the latest issue of
Barely Legal.
His stiff cock protruded from his underwear.

“What’s goin’ on? I didn’t do nuthin’! I—” His words turned into a gasp of pain as Cullen delivered two quick kidney punches.

“Shut the fuck up, perv. You see that, Chief? Fucker was wackin’ it. Probably thinking about killin’ another one.” He punched Lopez again, then kicked at the magazine. “You like ‘em young, right?”

“You got the wrong guy,” Lopez gasped.

“Bullshit.” Showalter put his face even with Lopez’s, where Cullen had it pressed against the stained wallpaper. “Got your prints. Got your DNA. Now your ass belongs to me.” He straightened up. “I’m going back to the car,” he told Cullen. “You got five minutes to bring him down.”

Showalter closed the door behind him, but it didn’t do much to dim the satisfying sounds of flesh striking flesh.

The man Wade Cullen dragged into the police station barely resembled the Tony Lopez of an hour before. His nose angled sharply to one side and dripped blood; one eye was swollen shut. Both of his lips were split and bleeding, and when he opened his mouth to spit out some blood, there was a space where a front tooth once sat.

Cullen tossed the half-conscious man into a chair and headed toward the men’s room to wash up. Blood coated his knuckles, and splatters of red sat darkly on his tan uniform shirt.

Officer Mathers looked at Lopez and then over at the chief, one eyebrow raised.

“He resisted arrest,” Showalter said, a vicious smile pulling at his lips.

“Ain’t that a shame.”

“Yep. Keep an eye on this piece of shit until Wade books him. If he moves, shoot him.” Showalter went into his office and shut the door.

“You got it, Chief.” Mathers sat down on the corner of a desk across from Lopez, his gun drawn and resting on his lap.

“Go ahead,” he whispered, when he saw Lopez staring at him. “I knew one of the girls you killed. You picked the wrong town, asshole. Around here, we’re ready for the coming war. The Gods have told us what to do.”

For the first time in many years, Tony Lopez knew what real fear felt like.

*   *   *

John Root opened his eyes at the sounds of the chief and Officer Cullen dragging a semi-conscious man into the cell next to his. Cullen paused long enough to spit on the new prisoner and then left. Showalter, however, remained behind. He waited until the sounds of Cullen’s footsteps faded away, then took out his service pistol and aimed it into the man’s cell. Without hesitating, he pulled the trigger, the shots sounding like two explosions in the cement-walled basement.

His face expressionless, Showalter stepped over to John’s cell and stared in, hands on his wide hips and melon-sized sweat marks staining both armpits. John shrank back, fully expecting the Sheriff to end his life the way he had the other prisoner’s.

“You know what that was?” Showalter asked, nodding his head toward the dead body.