Without moving her head an inch, Lacey said, in that flat, scratchy voice, "Do you have cyanide?"
"
What
?"
"I asked if you had cyanide on the menu."
"Why… of
course
not!"
"Then coffee will have to do."
The waitress looked like she wanted to give Lacey some shit, but the realization that she'd be taking her life in her hands must've sunk in. She just turned and stomped away.
"So, what–" I began.
"Not yet," she said, not moving anything but her lips. "Coffee first, then talk."
The waitress didn't waste any time bringing coffee. After she finished pouring, Lacey said, still without moving, "Thank you."
Looking at me, the waitress asked, "You folks want menus?"
I knew better than to ask Lacey about food, so I told the waitress, "Just coffee, for now."
Lacey took hers black, and, as usual, there was no nonsense about waiting for it to cool. She'd blow on it, take a sip. Blow on it, take a sip. Lacey Brennan could finish a cup of coffee before most people would dare start one.
When her cup was empty, I gestured the waitress over. She refilled Lacey's cup and warmed mine up without a word. She didn't bother to ask about menus again.
I figured rather than ask any more questions, I'd let Lacey talk when she was ready. After a couple of fearless sips from her new cup of java, she did.
"What do you know," she said, "about the people who made this… video?"
"On that subject, facts are few, but theories abound," I told her.
"Start with the facts," she said.
"Maybe the most important fact is that there are four others – at least."
"Four other versions of… what you described for me the other night?"
"Almost exactly the same," I said. "Only the victims differ."
She closed her eyes for several seconds, then opened them and asked, "Why did you say, 'at least'?"
"This isn't the kind of… product… that you can put on the shelf at Target," I said. "It's sold clandestinely, so the FBI – they're running the case, supposedly – had to rely on snitches and CIs for the copies they have. There's no way to know if there are others that haven't floated up out of the sewer, yet."
"Dear sweet fucking Jesus," she said softly. "This is a – a
business
? I was assuming it was just the latest wrinkle in serial killer perversity. Most of them take trophies of one kind or another, and I figured that one of the sickos had decided to sell a video version of his
fun
. But people are doing this for…
money
?"
"That was the assumption the FBI was making – still is, I guess."
She pressed her hands against her head again, as if to keep it from exploding. Then she put her hands down and said, "The way you just put that suggests an alternate assumption. Is that where those 'theories' you were talking about come in?"
"Yeah. One of them, anyway."
Lacey turned her head slowly and looked out the window. There wasn't much to see. Plenty of parked cars and trucks, a couple of guys poking around under the hood of a big Peterbilt, a young couple holding hands as they walked toward the diner's front door, a stray mutt wandering around the parking lot sniffing the trash.
Maybe Lacey needed to remind herself that there was another world out there – one where people weren't abducted and tortured for the amusement of some and the profit of others.
Then she turned back and glanced at her near-empty cup. "We need more coffee."
We each put away three more cups over the next half hour while I told Lacey what I knew, and what I suspected. I made a mental note to leave the waitress an especially good tip – she'd done a lot of running back and forth for what was going to be a pretty small check.
"The Church of the True Cross," Lacey said musingly, when I was done. "I don't think I've heard of them before."
"I probably wouldn't, either, except that they're based in Scranton, for some reason. Their head honcho, or whatever they call him, is an excommunicated bishop named James Navarra. Maybe I'll know more about him and his church after I talk to the Jesuit expert tonight."
"So these guys are trying to start Helter Skelter by killing humans to make the supes mad, and killing supes get them pissed off at humans? It's
crazy
, Stan."
"No argument from me, Lace. But then, Charles Manson was crazy, too."
"But if the idea is this huge worldwide struggle, with supes and humans at each others' throats all over, they're sure as shit not gonna cause it from
Scranton
, for Chrissake."
"Maybe it's a pilot project," I said. "Try it on a small scale, and if it works, then go national – or bigger."
"Sort of like a weed in your garden. First there's one, and after a while there's a bunch of them – unless you stamp out the first one before it has a chance to spread." Lacey drank the last of her coffee. "I want you to keep me informed of developments in this case, Stan."
"Not a problem," I told her. "I'll copy your office with all the stuff that comes in and the reports that go out."
She shook her head. "No, don't do that – I'd like you to keep in touch with me, personally."
I must have looked at her funny, because she said, "I'm on an indefinite leave of absence, Stan. The official story is that I'm grieving over the death of my sister – and I would be, too, if there weren't more important things to attend to."
"Leave of… Jesus H. Christ." I shook my head slowly. "You should've told me that before I started running my mouth, Lacey. If you're a civilian, for however long it lasts, you've got no right to that information."
"On the contrary, Stan," she said in a voice that chilled me. "Who has more right to that information than I do? Can't you hear my sister's spirit, crying out for vengeance?
I
sure as hell can."
"Lacey…" One of her hands was lying flat on the table, and I gently covered it with my own. "You can't go running around like some kind of vigilante. This is real life, not some fucking Charles Bronson movie, for Chrissake."
"Movie? There's already a movie being filmed, Stan. You described one of the scenes for me yourself, remember? I'm just planning to add to the cast of characters – and maybe change the ending, too."
Something moved behind her eyes, then. I can't say what it was, exactly – but it made me very glad that I wasn't one of the people who had put her sister in front of those video cameras.
"Lacey, you'll just get yourself killed – either that, or arrested. You know what happens to cops who end up in prison, even a women's prison."
"That doesn't scare me, Stan. And anyway, if I should end up in the slam, I guarantee you that within a week those other bitches will be afraid of
me
."
I believed her, too.
Lacey covered my hand with her other one, as if we were choking a bat to see who had to play left field. "Stan, you want to stop looking at my civilian status as a problem, and think of it as an opportunity."
"An opportunity? For
what
?" I asked her.
"An opportunity to get things done that the job won't let you do yourself. I don't have to worry about warrants, Stan, or about probable cause. I can go where you can't, and do the things you'd never be allowed to."
As I thought about that, she gave me a crooked grin. "And besides, your chances for getting in my pants will be much improved."
"Lacey, I'm going to risk my career by letting you know about this case as it develops – but it's not because of interest in your body. In fact, I'd rather you didn't bring that up again until this business is over, assuming we're both still alive and at liberty, and maybe not even then. Now, give me your personal contact information."
She pulled out her business card and began to write on the back. Then she stopped and looked up at me. "You're an unusual guy, Stan – and not in a bad way, either."
I got home still wired from all the coffee I'd had in the diner with Lacey, but I needed to get some sleep. Carbohydrates usually make me sleepy, and I was hungry anyway, so I had a plate of rigatoni with spaghetti sauce over it. I make great spaghetti sauce – it's all in the way I open the jar.
Then I checked on Quincey, gave him some food pellets, and went to take a long hot shower. The warm water, combined with the digesting pasta and extreme fatigue, helped make me drowsy, so I decided to try and get some rest.
A while later – which turned out to be an hour and twenty minutes – I found myself wondering why music was playing while I was in the process of undressing Agent Thorwald. Then part of my brain registered that I was listening to "Tubular Bells". Thorwald and her French bikini underwear disappeared, my eyes snapped open, and I grabbed the phone.
"Yeah. This is Markowski."
"Stan, this is Harry West, over at the squad."
It took me a couple of seconds to process this, then I remembered that Sergeant Harry West was head of the day shift at the Supe Squad. McGuire's the boss and usually works nights, but Harry supervises the detectives who work the non-peak daylight hours. I don't see him too often.
"Yeah, Harry, what is it?" I was just awake enough to start feeling worried. West wasn't calling because he wanted my recipe for clam dip.
"I got a call from Homicide about something that went down a little while ago. Even though you're off duty, I figured you'd want to be in on it."
"What happened? Where?" I said.
"There's been a shooting. One dead that I know of. It's at 1440 Monroe, apartment 4-C."
Until that moment I wasn't fully awake, but the effect that address had on me was like being dropped into the Susquehanna in January.
"Fuck, that's Karl's place!" I said. "Is he all right?"
"The shooting vic is human, but that's all I know right now. You heading over there?"
"Bet your ass I am."
There was a black-and-white unit in front of Karl's building with its lights going, next to an unmarked car with a portable flasher that I assumed belonged to Homicide.
The elevator brought me up to Four, and even if I hadn't known which apartment was Karl's, it wouldn't have been hard to find, since only one had a cop standing at the door. I realized that my badge wasn't on display and I was reaching for my ID folder when the uniform at the door said, "It's all right, Sarge. Go on in." He opened the door for me and stood aside.
When I walked into Karl's living room, Scanlon looked up from the corpse he was kneeling over and said, "Took you long enough to get here."
"Jesus, Scanlon, don't you
ever
sleep?"
"Sleep is overrated. I'd rather work – especially if it involves coming to little parties like this one."
The party in question was small, but colorful. It consisted of me, Scanlon, a couple of his homicide guys, and the forensics techs. I wasn't sure whether to include the corpse on the floor, or not. As for the color – I'll get to that.
In life the deceased had been a human, probably male. He wore fancy cowboy boots, new-looking jeans, and a light nylon jacket of dark green. I'd based my assessment of his gender on clothing, body size, and the look of the one hand I could see. I couldn't be certain because he didn't have a head anymore. Most of it was decorating one wall, looking like a painting by that Jackson Pollack guy I'd once seen a movie about.
The only thing I knew about my partner right then was that he wasn't the one lying dead on the living room floor. "Is Karl OK?" I asked Scanlon.
"Far as I know. I assume he spends the day in there."
Scanlon jerked a thumb at the door to one of the bedrooms. When Karl joined the ranks of the undead, he had some modifications made to the place. One of them involved installing a lock on the bedroom door – and not just any lock. This thing was a double-bolted monster made by Gardall and the only way to open it, short of blasting, was by touching the right sequence of numbers on a keypad. Since a lock is only as good as the door it guards, Karl had installed a new one of those, too – iron, surrounded by a steel frame.
"Yeah, that's his bedroom," I said.
"For obvious reasons, we couldn't go in there and check on him. You got the lock combination?"
"Yeah, he gave it to me."
Scanlon nodded toward the monster of a door. "You mind?"
"Not in the least," I said. In fact, he'd have had a hard time stopping me from going in there.
I tapped in the eight-digit code, being careful to shield the keypad with my body. I trusted Scanlon, but with
this
information, Karl didn't trust anybody – except me.
I heard the lock disengage after I'd touched the final digit. I turned the knob and pushed the door slowly open.
Karl's bedroom looked the way it had the only other time I'd been here – a couple of bureaus, matching nightstands, and the bed – that was it. The human-sized lump in the bed was covered by a heavy blanket, which I carefully peeled back to reveal the sleeping bag where Karl spent the day. I pulled the zipper down a couple of feet and looked at my partner. Karl Renfer looked dead – but that time of day, he was supposed to. More important, there was no sign that anything had been done to change him from "undead" to "true dead".
I only realized I'd been holding my breath when I started breathing again.
I zipped up the sleeping bag and replaced the blanket. I left a note where Karl would be sure to see it, briefly explaining what had happened in his living room. I didn't want him to freak when he got up at sunset and went in there. Then I left the bedroom, closing the door firmly behind me until I felt the lock catch.
"Karl's fine," I said to Scanlon. "You don't need to let anybody else in there, do you?"