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16
The famous reporter held the microphone directly under John J. Llewelyn's proboscis. The light was bright in the lieutenant's eyes, and the presence of both mike and camera made him nervous. He could imagine how his bald forehead would catch the light and glare like a cueball on TV. He tried in vain to recall the famed investigative journalist's name.
"So you feel the persecution of the L.A. police chief is unfair, is that what you're saying?"
"Look. I don't know the details of what's going on out there but you take any industry where the guy at the top is responsible for the actions of thousands of men…" He was finding it so difficult to concentrate with that microphone shoved in his face. "Some guy runs a big plant, and there's fifteen thousand employees, and fifteen hundred cases of pilfering, I mean—do you fire the top guy because he allowed pilfering? Do you go on a witch hunt and—"
"So you're calling the brouhaha in California a witch hunt?"
"I didn't say that." They could always twist your words. "I know we do our best here. I can't speak for other people in other departments outside the Kansas City area. We do a good job, I think."
"You never worry about your detectives beating someone up?"
"Our detectives spend their day beating on doors, not beating on citizens."
"Get up."
"Pardon me?"
"I said get up."
"Hey!"
"You're dreaming." His wife was touching his shoulders, gently trying to get him awake. The light was blindingly bright in his eyes.
"Jesus, turn the damn light out. What the hell—" He was still brain dead.
"John, honey, wake up. It's the phone."
He came out of the dream and took the phone from her hand, having to wipe his eyes to see if he was holding it upside down and if the switch was moved over. He pulled the antenna out and coughed into the mouthpiece, then realized she'd put it in the ON position already.
"Hello?" he said, in a sleep-fogged voice.
"John, I'm sorry, bud. Hated to wake you." Brown, from the night tour.
"S'okay."
"I was gonna wait but (whirr)…said…wanted you to…(whirr) to call." Llewelyn got up with the cellular phone and moved.
"Shit!" He'd slid the button to OFF as he held it, still half asleep. He pushed it back to ON and somehow Brown was still there. "Sorry. I couldn't hear you."
"Can you hear me okay?"
"Yeah, now. What time is it, anyway?"
"Five fifty-five. You wanna grab a quick cup and call me back in five? It ain't that urgent. Let you wake up a bit?"
"No. S'okay. Go ahead."
"Okay. Guy in a light plane, coming from K.C. International, dude we know, used to be PIO for Civil Air Patrol and so on, he's coming low over the river out by Mount Ely, just as the sun's coming up, 'kay? He says he sees bodies on crosses. Just like in the Bible—all right? Three dudes on crosses. He thinks it's some kind of prank." The words slice down past the sleep, cutting deeply, making something stand up on his skin, electrifying the hairs, prickling his skin. "He goes around and checks it out closer. Crucified, John. Three bodies look like men—headless men. He's pretty shook up. Said he damn near crashed into a power line going low for a closer look."
"You talked to him?" Llewelyn's mind was not receiving information.
"I talked to him myself. I said, 'Are you sure it isn't dummies?' 'No,' he says, 'it could be a hoax, but it looked like decapitated men.' Three of them on these crosses. They had to be fairly large crosses he'd see them from a plane, I tell him. He says he flies low like that whenever he comes to Mount Ely, he likes the view over the river. The sun is coming up in the background over the horizon, big red sunrise, and there are these bodies in the middle of an empty field. Captain says for you to come in when you can—er, forthwith. Meet him at the crime scene?"
"Tell him I'll be right there."
The sky was full of July sunshine, titanium silver clouds against great slabs of Cezanne blue and Matisse gray, the blue beginning to deepen as the sun rose higher.
The one in the middle had been put in place upside down. It was bad. Three of them. Nailed to poles and yardarms fashioned into crosses. They found a common Western Auto tool, an orange wrench with its grease crayoned 29.95 still in place. Dotted with the same dried blood as had coagulated in pools under the crucified, mutilated victims. Blood on a bright length of extension cord and pieces of wire, which would end up in evidence bags marked LIGATURES. I.D.s on two of the three. Heads completely gone. Two of them with the chest cavities opened up. Doer had taken the hearts. There were wounds that appeared to be bullet holes in the one whose heart had not been ripped out. No shell casings. Bits of exploded humanity all around. Insects having a field day. In the field.
Lieutenant Llewelyn needed a strong drink. He needed Special Agent Glenfiddich to get over there and pour him a tall one. The captain had fiddle-farted around and "supervised" the evidence techs and securing of the scene, grooming Llewelyn for serious barrel time. He did everything but stencil SCAPEGOAT on his forehead. John had, in turn, Marlin Morris soon at his side, and was trying to get the stencil transferred. Morris in his turn, would pass it on. On a case like this, it came down heavy, hard, and each time rank passed it down it smelled a bit worse. This one was only halfway to grunt level and it already stunk to high heaven.
There were all kinds of people rolling on this one from Clay to Jackson County sheriffs homicide units, the entire metro squad, and the lot of them were commissioned as field examiners. Every dick in the Crimes Against Persons Unit was, for that matter, There was a wealth of talent crawling all over this nasty puppy, and pretty much just grabbing ass.
Julie Hilliard got the nod from her crew sergeant and came over to where Morris was taking notes and snapping Polaroids.
"Do we know anything? I mean—besides the biker gang tie-in?"
"Well." He sighed heavily, looking at the mess. "These three are not going to tell us much."
Yeah, she thought. Right. They're pretty much confirmed kills, too, huh? She watched a tech make a cast of tire-tread marks.
This was one of the scenes she called hurters. After you'd been on a bunch of these it hurt you. It hurt your chances to recapture a strong belief in the hereafter. This was another of those crime scenes that makes a tiny voice inside whisper, "Hell is here. You've seen hell, baby."
Something more terrible than Steel Vengeance had done this to three violent, deadly streetfighters, binding them in baling wire and electrical cord, nailing them to wooden crosses…ripping hearts out…blowing heads off.
This was one of the moments when horror becomes a relative quality, and cops are nudged by the assertion that there are no fundamental truths. At such times, reality and fantasy blur, become indistinguishable, as that which exists and that which is illusion merge. Reality and imagined reality swirl disconnected around the black magnetic hole at the hub of a centerless void. One senses that one exists, at least for that horrific moment, in a universe without a heart.
Chaingang knew something was wrong when he saw the darkened home as he pulled into the driveway. An unobtrusively located, perfectly ordinary-looking small rental property in Overland Park, which he'd been using as a safe house. No broken windows. No lights on. But something elbowed him sharply. Danger. The presence of others. He was instantly wary, moving away from the car and into deep shadow, the killing chain in his powerful right hand, ready to lash out at whatever moved. He waited for a long time, letting the protective darkness circumfuse and protect him.