American Devil (22 page)

Williamson was granite hard and chewed constantly, but his cold grey eyes were full of sadness. Harper shook his head. ‘He was playing us, Nate. It made no difference. He knew what he was doing. He knew that there was only one Elizabeth on that resident list. He knew what we would do, too.’

‘How did you know my guess wasn’t right?’

‘He’s an obsessive planner, Nate. He wouldn’t have dared to do this if she’d moved in two weeks ago. She had to be a phoney.’ Harper looked about him, embarrassed with Williamson’s awkwardness. Finally he walked away and opened the bedroom door. Garcia was already inside. ‘We’ve got a crime scene to get through. Let’s make like it matters.’

The crime scene detectives were combing the scene, taking photographs, sketching and lifting prints. Detective Williamson called to Garcia.

‘Anything gives?’

‘No, sir, nothing.’

Williamson lowered his head and slipped out the living room. The bureau chief, Ged Rainer, moved through to the bedroom. He was shaking his head as he passed Harper and Eddie at the door.

The two detectives looked at each other. Whoever Elizabeth Seale was, she clearly mattered. The top guys were already there. That’s what felt so strange. A crime scene was usually a lonelier place.

‘Who is she?’ Harper asked Ged Rainer.

‘Patty Seale’s little girl. The evangelist preacher - Mr Moral Outrage. This is going to be bad. That’s all I know.’

Harper felt nervy. The whine and flash of the cameras. The smell of death. Not good when you’re already about to puke your guts. And death scenes always smelled of shit. He didn’t feel ready for a lungful of putrid air and an eyeful of the grotesque. The things you never forget about a crime scene. Reluctantly, he led Eddie back into the bedroom. It felt harder second time round.

Elizabeth Seale was lying on her side on the bed, facing the door. It was like a film set in the perfect little room, like some sick fairy tale gone wrong. Her body was full of knife cuts. Harper felt the emotion but he went cold, like you have to. You either go cold or you lose your focus.

He stared at the vision of death. Except it was strange. From the door, her naked body was posed in a carefully arranged S-shape, upper torso upright, her arm modestly over her pudenda. Her mouth was closed in a smile and a black ribbon was tied around her neck. She had a scarf around her hair. It was crimson with a gold design. She looked like she was posing for a painting.

The body shocked you with its nakedness and direct stare. Harper felt as though he was looking at an exhibit in some sinister museum. On the white carpet beside the bed, the girl’s clothes were laid out, the dress, the brassiere, the panties, the nylons, the jewellery and the shoes. Each item was perfectly spaced.

Harper couldn’t do any more. He needed air. He walked out of the building. On the street, the crowds and the press had all come out. It was a mass of lights and cameras and perverts and people, all there to soak up the gruesome glamour of murder. Harper knew what this killer was doing, all right. He was showing off and this was just the beginning. He had started his show, the lights were bright, the audience was set.

The circus animals were all in town.

 

A
fter the main work was over, Nate Williamson left the scene. He was depressed by the whole thing and wanted to go home and hang his head. The truth was, he had nothing. There was a looming fear in his mind. He’d worked the Romario case dry and left the way open for a slick-looking hero to come in and clean up. If he came up with nothing on this one, with the city in a state of fear and the eyes of the nation on his back, then his whole career would have meant nothing. Retirement was getting closer and closer. Maybe it felt like this to everyone: time came calling and you weren’t the man you once were.

Maybe that’s all it was, the progression of time. Even so, Nate didn’t like it. Every day, the investigation grew more complex and he felt he was failing. He wasn’t just failing himself, though - that wasn’t the thing that shot him that look of hate he saw in the mirror each morning. He was failing the city. His city. He’d loved her his whole life long. He’d never once moved from the Bronx or wanted to. But now his city was turning her back. He felt it like a personal slight, like a lover saying no, like your own child pushing you away.

That’s what was eating Nate Williamson.

It was dark in the drive when he got home. Lillian, his wife, was out in Michigan visiting their daughter so the house was dark and unwelcoming. Nate thought of his daughter, Rose, a large girl with red hair. She always made him smile. She was just like him. Except she was six months pregnant. He was going to be a grandfather. Maybe that new role would save him. Maybe he should throw in the towel before the final round. He would’ve loved to drive through the night to see them both. He was smiling as he searched his pocket for his keys. The outside porch light had been broken for months. Williamson fumbled for the right key, but he couldn’t find it. He took out a small flashlight from his hip pocket and shone it into his hand.

The light hit the ground just by his feet. There was a line of small droplets on the stone. Williamson crouched and looked closer. The droplets were a dark red colour. He dipped his forefinger in one of the drops and then smoothed the liquid between his thumb and forefinger. He held his finger under the light. Blood.

Nate stood up straight and listened. The night was still. The rumble of traffic continued in the background, but closer to home he could hear nothing. He shone the torch to the left and right. The droplets continued to the right along the path that led to the side gate to the back yard. Nate moved towards the gate. Whatever it was, it was hurt. Probably a small animal, by the look of the droplets. There was a small copse behind the houses and sometimes small rodents or cats got injured on the road. But Nate feared something more. His wife’s precious cat. The droplets went directly to his front door, suggesting that the animal had tried to get in.

His wife’s cat, Emerald, was an eighteen-year-old Exotic Shorthair. She was the laziest cat you ever did see and rarely moved, but she had the kindest nature and a small grumpy face that everyone seemed to love. Lillian doted on the cat and the cat doted on Lillian. If something had happened to Emerald, it was real bad news.

The torchlight shone up towards the wooden gate. It was ajar, which was unusual, and the drops of blood continued on through the gate and beyond.

The backyard was dark, lit only by a bright, cold moon. The light wind was shaking the tops of the trees. Williamson shone the light across the lawn. At the centre was a small apple tree. The drops of blood carried on across the grass but were harder to detect. Williamson shone his light into the trees at the back of the garden. He felt suddenly alone in his own yard. Then the bright green eyes of a cat lit up in the torchlight.

‘Emerald,’ he called. He felt his heart warm to the small pudgy face of his wife’s pet. She was sitting close to the tree trembling and looking terrified, but she was alive. That’s what mattered. Nate strode across the lawn towards her. She might have been in a fight with some local cat who had no idea that Emerald wouldn’t raise a paw for a treat let alone to defend herself. She was real class. You even had to take the food out of her bowl to feed her. A true Williamson.

The grass by the tree was thick with leaves. They crunched under his feet. That was another of Nate’s failures. He hadn’t swept up the fall leaves and now they were heaped all over the yard. ‘Come here, baby,’ Nate called out but the cat didn’t move.

Nate padded round towards the tree trunk. It was very silent, but Nate could hear some creature noises and shuffling in the trees.

He took the final step to reach Emerald. His foot landed on a soft bedding of leaves, almost a small mound - not flattened like the rest. His head had just sensed this as his foot came down through the soft leaves and on to something hard. Not earth, but metal. His foot touched a wide plate.

A low creak rose from the ground followed by a horrifying clash of metal and a sudden snap as a great iron jaw sprang up and butchered his right calf like a shark bite - two huge tooth-filled jaws and a massive force.

The pain was explosive. It sent splinters into every part of his brain - horrific pain as the flesh split and the bone crushed and cracked. Nate buckled, his great weight thrown forward, and his fibula snapped at the weakest point. As his weight was falling, the bone ripped through the front of his shin. Williamson’s wild scream echoed along the back yards.

Williamson grabbed onto the tree. Against the pain, he lifted himself and looked up. He was panting. He gazed down at his leg, but was near to passing out.

What the fuck was it? Two great iron jaws clamped fast to his leg. A mantrap? A bear trap? Was this left here by accident? Surely not.

And if not, then what? Against the flood of pain from the injury and his body’s own pain-relieving releases, he managed to take out his gun. He searched around. Emerald was a foot away. He scooped her up in his arms and pointed his gun at the trees. In the corner of his eyes he saw lights flicker on in the adjacent houses. His scream had woken them.

‘Call the police!’ shouted Williamson. ‘Call 911!’ He turned back to the woods. ‘Come out and face me, you coward bastard, whoever you are!’ His courage had not faltered. He hid Emerald in the crook of his arm and stared ahead, feeling the surges of pain hit him in sudden waves, over and over.

‘Ready to die?’ a voice called from the copse.

‘Who are you? What the hell do you want?’

‘You’re a detective. Work it out.’

Williamson had heard enough. He raised his pistol and unleashed two rounds towards the voice. There was silence. Maybe he’d hit the bastard. He looked up. There was a long pause.

Then Williamson heard a strange noise. It was hardly a sound at all. Like a piece of wood twanging on a desktop. A wooden thrum. A moment later, an aluminium bolt thumped into Williamson’s chest. He cried out again. The guy had a crossbow. Williamson managed to lift his gun hand and let off another two rounds.

Then he heard a swish of air again and felt the thud of something landing in his thigh. He looked down, shocked. Another bolt was lodged deep in his leg.

‘You’re a fucking dead man!’ Nate screamed. ‘You’re fucking dead. They know I’m here, so screw you! This place will be crawling with cops.’ Williamson fired until his gun was empty, but the rounds zipped into the trees and no one screamed.

Again, the deep thrum of wood and an arrow hit him hard in the stomach. Then another hit his shoulder and threw his upper body backwards. Williamson was almost out. The pain and blood loss were taking his mind away. He was going to die.

Vvv-dumm
, sounded the crossbow. The thrumming of the shot echoed across the backs of the houses and the bolt ripped hard into Williamson’s arm. He hardly felt it. Then he heard something moving towards him and another bolt hit him in the stomach.

The killer emerged from the shadows, his face illuminated by the white light of the moon. Williamson focused his eyes and furrowed his brow in confusion. He saw the face of his killer silhouetted against a beautiful spread of stars. He opened his mouth to speak, to plead, to talk to this man, but before he could utter a word an arrow entered his brain through the roof of his open mouth.

The American Devil smiled down at his victim. ‘You’re just not good enough, Detective Williamson. I want a better challenge. I want Tom Harper.’

‘In each human heart terror survives The ravin it has gorged’

P. B. Shelley,
Prometheus Unbound

 

M
arty Fox wore plaid suits and still smoked, which almost no one else in the world did. He was forty-one, chronically unfaithful to his wife and wanted life just as it was - comfortable. Why he slept around was because he liked it. Why else do people do things? And he liked the sensation of new flesh better than flesh he knew. What was so odd about that? It was a proven fact that new experiences produced more serotonin than habitual ones. Man was hard-wired to go somewhere new for his fun and games, and the truth was Marty was just not strong enough to override the temptation.

Man, Marty maintained, is a primitive beast wearing a civilized coat. At times, the coat must come off or man cannot operate. It was his release valve, that was all.

He’d married his wife some long-ago distant time in the past, for hell’s sake. She had been pretty and vivacious. She was a bombshell, as they used to call it in the good old days of black and white TV. All platinum blond hair and squeeze-me tits. He smiled when he thought about her back then. She could excite a man from four hundred paces. Beautiful and dirty with wide hips and a come-to-bed smile.

Yeah, he loved her still. Hell, yes, he did. He stubbed his cigarette out on the back of the packet and watched the smoke twirl in a dying flourish. He felt the scab on his lip with his tongue. It was still cracking every time he moved.

No one disagreed with him. He was alone in his little office, but he liked to talk to himself. He found himself interesting. He knew that he’d fallen in love with his wife because she was the woman he most wanted to screw. But he didn’t fall in love with a 45-year-old woman and that’s what he had at home now, while in his own head he was not a day older than twenty-five.