The Dark Communion (The Midnight Defenders) (10 page)

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12

The car Ape drove was a 2008 Lamborghini Reventon. It was one of only twenty on the planet, and for a cool million Euros, the car went 0-62 in 3.4 seconds. With all the hard angles and clean surfaces that reflected light like an alien spacecraft, it looked like the love child of Knight Rider and a time-travelling DeLorean. He mostly kept it in the garage, and it was rare as rocking horse shit he ever drove it.

Before I realized, we’d arrived in Crown Hill, pulled on to the Easters’ street, where twelve-year-old boys played hockey and parted for us to pass. Their game didn’t resume right away as the whole gaggle of them stood gawking at Ape’s car, and we climbed out to cries of, “Hey Mister, nice car,” and “Whaddaya think something like that costs, anyways?”

For a second, I almost remembered what it felt like to be young and adventurous and play sports. But everything I had seen ruined me, took the joy out of the mundane – hell, even the spectacularly ordinary. After throwing down with a murder of centaurs or a legion of demon-possessed pigs, the world’s largest ball of twine seemed somehow less…magical.

I didn’t turn to look at the kids or pay too much attention to their Lamborghini-inspired cat-calls, but I did give them the finger, over my shoulder, as we walked up to the house. I don’t know if it was them I was telling to fuck off or the innocence they represented that I knew I’d never get back. Probably both.

One of the boys said, “Ooooh, big man.”

Another said, “Come back here, old dude, and say that to my face.” I considered it a moment, decided against it.

As we climbed the stairs to the front door and Ape rang the bell, I couldn’t help but think that those little shits had no idea who they were tangling with. I’d gone toe-totoe with the old gods, been beaten this side of oblivion by a major demon, and skull-fucked a couple of serial-killing werewolves. Shit, just yesterday, I’d taken the head off a feral bum.

What were they going to do, hit me with a slapshot?

I caught Ape looking at me, a wry smirk playing in the corner of his mouth. “What?” “Those kids getting to you?”

“You wish.”

Ape rang the bell, and we waited another minute. “Are they home?” I asked.

“I called before we came. They told me they’d be here.”

“Maybe they’re having sex?”

And then like a summoning charm, the door opened, and there was the scholarly-featured Mr. Easter, glasses on his nose, sweater vest over a plaid shirt, dark hair greying at the fringes. He didn’t look sexually satisfied, nor happy to see us, though I can’t say I blamed him. He hired us to find his daughter and all we brought home was a sodding teddy.

He didn’t smile, just nodded, a look of understanding, and held the door open for us.

We crossed the threshold and he closed the door behind us, ushered us into the living room and asked us to have a seat on the sofa. “I’ll go get my wife,” he said. His tone was bored. “If it’s all the same, she’d like to be present.”

“That’s completely understandable,” Ape said. I just took a seat.

The man nodded. “Make yourself at home. Excuse me. I’ll be right back.”

Then Ape and I were alone, and I had a moment to look around the little room. It was formal, a fireplace set into the wall facing us, hardwood floors covered by a nice patterned rug that looked Indian or something just as fancy, probably expensive as fuck. The furniture was modern, spotless like it had never been used, a couch and a couple armchairs, some side tables, a coffee table, all dark woods and soft, welcoming fabrics. The walls were even painted a homely shade of red and hung heavy with family photos, the Mister and Missus and a little blonde girl.

In one picture, her fingernails were pink.

We were never given the grand tour of the house, but from what I’d seen, these people worked very hard to make it a home, what with the fancy art and photos and clean surfaces and a kitchen smelling like baked cookies and apple-pie potpourri. But there was something off, as well, because for all its pleasantries and decorations, the house didn’t feel any more like a home than a Holiday Inn. There was just something…missing.

Ape and I sat in silence, but we weren’t left for long as both our host and his portly wife entered the room and occupied the two armchairs.

Mrs. Easter, I noticed, would have been a knock-out fifteen years and fifty pounds ago. As it stood, it appeared she’d eaten most of the cookies baked in their kitchen and given up exercise for other, less physical activities, like pudding diving. I didn’t picture her as the type to starve herself with her grief and, no doubt, worrying about her daughter didn’t do much to suppress her appetite.

Slowly, carefully, Mr. Easter looked at us and said, “So you have news about our Julie?”

Ape looked at me with a gleam in his eye that seemed to implore I let him do all the talking. So I turned back to them and smiled weakly. I nodded.

“The man that took Julie didn’t make it easy for us to find him, but we did.”

Mrs. Easter’s eyes widened hopefully.

“From what we could tell,” he said, “He was a homeless man. We found him squatting in an old, abandoned house.” He nodded to me, and I set the teddy on the coffee table. “We found this.”

Mr. Easter stared at it blankly, but his wife gasped audibly and said, “That was her bear.”

“You’re sure?” Ape said.

“Of course.”

“I’ve never seen that bear before in my life,” her husband said.

She didn’t look at him, but her eyes filled with tears as she said, “She hadn’t had it long. She said it was a gift from her friend, Pierce. Of course, I never found out where she really got it. I assumed she found it at school or something, but I never knew…”

“I thought you said her friend Pierce gave it to her?” Ape asked, a bit confused.

I don’t know how I knew, but I did. I almost said the words for her. “Pierce wasn’t real,” she told Ape. “He was her…imaginary friend.”

My whole body began to tingle. Maybe she had mentioned this Pierce when she hired me, but it hadn’t registered as being that important if she had. Now, given the Gables’ case, there was a whole new light shining on things. And something that had just occurred to me, I had a clue that I’d been overlooking: that stupid bear. If Pierce had given it to her, the bear should remember him. And I’d get to see how make-believe he really was.

“You said imaginary?” Ape asked, confused and surprised. He didn’t know about Adam Gables’. “But what if…”

“How long had she known Pierce?” I asked, blatantly cutting through Ape’s words. I didn’t look at him; I didn’t care if I hurt his feelings. I could explain it later, but not in front of these two.

She thought for a moment and said, “About three, maybe four, weeks.”

“And she went missing on Monday, correct?”

Her reply was hesitant. “Yes.”

I nodded. Caught Ape in my peripheral as he studied me for a moment.

“Excuse me,” said Mr. Easter. “You said you found the bear in that old house. I’m assuming this man was there. Did you find my daughter? Maybe some evidence he was keeping her somewhere else?” There was a forced hope in his eyes, his tone, I could tell he didn’t really believe any of it as he said it. He knew the truth, but he was a fighter, this bloke, and he needed someone to spell it out for him.

“Mr. Easter,” Ape began, “what we found inside that house indicates…”

“We found pieces of her,” I said. I saw the horrified looks that all three of them gave me, the instinctive shrill cry of horror, the gasp of swift pain, that ushered from Mrs. Easter, but I had other things on my mind in that moment, and I needed it to be over. “The man that took her was depraved, and when I found him, he was squatting atop the remains of your daughter, picking her flesh clean with his teeth. He attacked me, and I took his fucking head off.” And then for good measure, I added, “I’m so very sorry. I just thought you should know.” No doubt it sounded real, sincere.

With that, I pulled the envelope out of my jacket pocket and slid it across the coffee table toward Mr. Easter. “There’s still the small matter of my fees.”

In pain and uncertainty, Mr. Easter looked at me and said, “Is this some kind of joke?!”

When I said nothing, the man’s face grew red. He began to shake, and veins in the side of his face began to bulge. He stood, and I didn’t even wait for the command before I stood as well, grabbed the bear from the table and took it with me. I was halfway to the door as he bellowed, “How dare you speak to us that way! I don’t know who you think you are, sir, but you get the Hell out of my house this instant! You don’t have an ounce of tact!”

Mrs. Easter was in tears, and Ape hurried to offer sincere condolences, apologizing furiously for having me as a partner and the shameful way I presented myself. There was something said by someone present about the ambiguity of my mental state, but I didn’t pay it any mind.

I reached for the door knob, froze. Turned back to the room at large and said, “Look, I’m getting out of here, okay, but I want to say this first.” I don’t know how I did it, but the room got quiet, and everyone looked at me. I squared off against Mr. Easter and said, “I’ve lost a daughter. It fucking sucks. But there’s no point in pretenses, mate. I’ve been stabbed, shot, shredded, runthrough, bitten, flogged, filleted and left for dead. I was in a coma for three months. But the one wound that has never healed, not by time, love or tenderness, is losing my Anna.

“I wake every sodding day and have to force myself to look in the mirror. I have to fake a smile and walk around and make myself talk to people like I bloody give a shit, when nothing really matters because the only thing that gave me any sodding joy has been ripped from my arms. You can act all high and mighty like you’re so much better than me, like it’s my words that make everything real for you and fill your life with so much fucking pain that you can’t look me in the eyes, but fuck that shit. Because as soon as the police get a positive ID on the body, they’ll be calling you or possibly coming to visit and telling you the same thing I just told you, and maybe they’ll do it with a little more tact, but they won’t fucking know the tear that it rends in your soul like I do. You can hate me, you can tell me to get the bloody fuck out of your house, but I feel your pain every single day and I have for the last twenty years. I am sorry, sir. I am so…fucking…sorry for your loss that it makes me want to vomit.”

I stopped, took a deep breath. My hands quivered. Then I turned to Ape and said, “I need your phone, mate.” He nodded, slipped it from his pocket, and tossed it to me. I caught it, said, “You finish up here, I’ll wait outside.” And turned and walked through the front door.

It was cooler outdoors and felt divine. I sat on the step, my body still shaking a little, and looked across at the hockey kids in the street. A few of them stopped and turned to me, stared absently. I dialed Anderson’s office.

After a few rings, he answered. “Detective Anderson.”

“It’s Swyftt.”

“Swyftt, you old goat, did you get that list of names I had faxed over?”

I’d forgotten about that. “No. I haven’t been by the office this morning.”

“Oh,” he said. Clearly, that was the topic of conversation he’d been expecting. “Well, I had it faxed last night, so it should be waiting for you when you get in. What can I do ya for this morning?”

“Well.” I talked slowly, not sure how much to give away, not sure how much he’d even believe. “I’ve just run across some new evidence in the Gables’ case that might link Adam’s disappearance to Julie Easter and that house yesterday.”

There was a pregnant silence. Then he said something to someone that wasn’t me, someone in his office. After another moment, he said, “How do you know the name Julie Easter?”

“I was hired to find her. Didn’t I mention that house? I thought at least Stone would’ve said something.”

“Well, boy….” Boy, that killed me. He was younger than me. “I think we both know those Feds play their hands close to their bellies. What they don’t share with me would fill a library.”

“Understood,” I said. “Listen, the reason I’m calling, Detective, is I was wondering if your boys had identified the bones in that house?”

“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about, son.”

“If I can be frank, Detective, we both know there were at least three bodies found in that bedroom. Plus, the messy one downstairs belonging to Julie Easter.”

“Well, if what you say is true,” the Detective continued, “I wouldn’t be able to share information on an active case with a civilian, professional courtesies aside.”

“I see.”

“Now, I suspect you’re wanting to know because of this new information you say you’ve found on the Gables boy. I can confirm to you that I have not received any new information on that case, especially the kind that would, say, place the boy in said location.” He may have sounded like a dumb hick, but he wasn’t stupid.

As an afterthought, I asked, “I assume your boys found the other bedroom. What do you make of that?”

There was a sigh. “That’s a real puzzlement, Mr. Swyftt. I can’t say’s I’ve ever seen anything like that before. Your thoughts and opinions are probably more informed than mine at present.”

I thought about that for a second and decided he was probably right. As bizarre as that shit was, I’d seen weirder. The general public was typically ignorant of such things, thanks to people like me.

“Thank you. You’ve been helpful.”

“Glad to be of service,” he said. Then I hung up the phone.

Anderson had said Adam’s body wasn’t in that house. I had another lead as to where he might be.

I took a few deep breaths, removed my glove, and grabbed the bear by the neck, stared willfully into those reflective glass eyes. Of course, what I saw was not unexpected. Little blonde Julie Easter, the lamp, the bedroom: the scene that played out when I first touched the bear. Second verse same as the first.

Somehow, I was only getting one memory, and one fairly recent, as well, from what I could gather. Mrs. Easter said she’d only had the bear maybe a month, and she went missing a week ago. Which means that what I was seeing wasn’t even the most recent memory. Somebody had to have taken the bear from Julie and placed it in the closet. But who? The bum? Pierce?