Evil Dark (31 page)

  "Most religious nuts don't have millions of dollars to play with," Duvall said. "And Navarra preaches a gospel of hate, pure and simple. He's like Hitler, in the 1920s – except Navarra wears a clerical collar, to which he is not entitled. And I'm no longer sure that he's all talk and no action."

  I leaned forward, which didn't make the chair any more comfortable. "Father, I think you'd better tell me exactly what you mean."

 

"Duvall says there's supposed to be twelve of these guys," I said. "You know, like the twelve apostles."

  "Twelve enforcers," McGuire said.

  Karl looked at me. "There's eleven of 'em now."

  "Apparently, they've been trained by some ex-special forces types," I said.

  "Commandos," Karl said with a snort.

  "Duvall said he's pretty sure these guys do the Church's dirty work," I said, "although he had no specific idea of what that work might be."

  "But he mentioned the witch burnings," Karl said.

  "That's what he thought of when he saw them on the news – that it was the kind of shit these guys might be willing to do."

  "Why the fuck didn't Duvall come in?" McGuire said.

  "He has no proof," I said, "and without that, he figured we wouldn't be interested in talking to him."

  "If only he knew how desperate we've been for a lead," Karl said. "Hell, speculation without evidence would've been an improvement over what we had, which was nothing."

  Whatever McGuire was going to say was interrupted by the ringing phone on his desk. He never did get around to finishing the sentence.

  "McGuire. Yeah." I watched the knuckles of his phone hand slowly turn white with the pressure of his grip. For some reason, he glanced at me. "Of course." He wrote something on a pad. "I'll put somebody on it right now. Thanks."

  He hung up the phone and sat staring at it. "Looks like the Church's enforcers have been busy." He spoke softly, as if talking to himself. Then he looked at me.

  "There's been another witch burning," he said. His voice was not quite steady.

  I immediately thought of Rachel. Did they send someone to finish the job, with Rachel not expecting trouble anymore?

  "They have an ID?" I asked, my chest tight.

  "No. All I've got is this." He pushed the pad toward me. Written on it was "921 North Webster Ave."

  "Son of a motherfucking bitch," I said. "
That's my house
."

 

As Karl and I walked, very fast, out to the parking lot, I opened my phone and keyed 911.

  The woman who answered was not Christine.

  "Emergency services. How may I assist you?"

  "I want to talk to Christine Markowski – she's one of your operators. Put her on the line."

  "Sir, I'm sorry, but this number is only for–"

  "This is Detective Sergeant Stanley Markowski, Scranton Police Department, badge number 4341. I don't know who you are, but if you don't put Christine on right now, I promise you'll be charged with obstruction of justice. Now do it!"

  "Y-yes, sir."

  The line went silent. God doesn't hear from me all that often these days, but I was praying in my head now, for all I was worth.

  "Hello, Daddy. What's wrong?"

  You can have your symphonies and concertos and angelic choirs singing. As far as I was concerned, the sweetest sound in the universe right then was my little girl's voice.

  "Chris–" I tried to speak, but my throat was clogged. I cleared it noisily and managed, "Christine."

  "Yes, I'm here – what's going on? You scared Roberta half to death."

  We were at the car now. It was my night to drive, but I flipped the keys to Karl, who didn't need any explanation. I got in the passenger side and slammed the door.

  "Christine, in case we get cut off somehow, you need to know this: do
not
go home this morning. Do. Not. Go. Home. Understand me?"

  "Yeah, OK, sure. I can crash at a friend's place. But what the fuck is going on?"

  "There's been another witch burning – apparently at our house."

  "
What
? Our house? Why?"

  "I dunno," I said. "But they haven't ID'd the victim yet, and for a second I thought the evil bastards had moved up from witches to vampires, and the charred body was you."

  "Oh, my God, you must've been – no, I'm fine. I've been here the last three hours or so."

  "Baby, I am
so
glad you're all right," I told her. "I've got more calls to make, so I have to go. I'll call you tomorrow night. Don't go home until I tell you it's OK – all right?"

  "Sure, Daddy, that's no problem. Make your calls – I'll talk to you tomorrow."

  "OK, bye."

  Karl had the flashing light on the dash going, and the siren screaming. Under other circumstances, he'd have been grinning like a kid. But his face was serious as he glanced at me.

  "Christine's OK, then?"

  "Yeah, thank God."

  "Thank God is right."

  I brought up the directory in my phone and pressed a number.

  "Who're you calling now?" Karl asked.

  "Rachel."

  Rachel's line started ringing. One. Two. Three. If she didn't answer, that didn't necessarily mean anything bad. She could be out getting a cheeseburger, or something. Four. "Come on, Rachel, answer the fucking–"

  "Hello?"

  "Rachel, it's Stan."

  "What's wrong? It's bad, I can tell."

  "There's been another witch burning. I was afraid it was you."

  "
Another one
? But I thought the man doing that was dead!"

  "He is. Apparently he'd got friends."

  "Oh, goddess – that poor woman, whoever she is."

  "That spell you used the other night," I said, "the freezing one – I'd reactivate that, or whatever the proper term is."

  "Yes, of course. I'll do that at once."

  "And you might want to call your sister witches and put the word out. Tell them the danger hasn't passed."

  "All right, Stan, I'll take care of it."

  "The other witches are probably OK for tonight," I said. "These bastards have never done more than one a night. But then, they never did one in my yard, either."

  "Your
yard
! Oh, Stan, that is so awful–"

  Karl made the corner onto my street on what felt like two wheels. Ahead, I could see flashing lights.

  "We're almost there. Gotta go. Talk later. Bye."

  I wasn't even surprised to see Scanlon anymore. He stood at the bottom of my front steps, hands in his overcoat pockets, and watched me approach. Karl went to talk to the uniformed officers who'd responded first.

  I took a few seconds to look at the tree, a poplar that I'd planted on the day Christine was born. But I saved most of my sympathy for the victim. Like the others, she was reduced to a charred lump of meat, tied to the tree with rope at her chest and shins. The odor was – well, it was all too familiar by now, although I never imagined that I'd be smelling it here.

  "Ten minutes ago, McGuire said you didn't have an ID on the vic. Anything change since then?" I asked.

  "No, she's still a Jane Doe," Scanlon said. "We'll do the usual – send dental work out, DNA, look for a missing persons report that fits. We'll probably have an ID in a couple of days, if the earlier cases are any indication."

  I made myself look at what was tied to the tree. Without taking my eyes away, I said, quietly, "I wonder what husband is asking, right about now, where his wife is, or what kid is worried because Mom is late getting home. Or what father– " I had to stop for a second. "What father is going crazy because his daughter's missing."

  "You talk to Christine?" Scanlon asked.

  "Yeah, she's fine."

  "How about Rachel Proctor?"

  "Talked to her, too. She's OK."

  We stood there in silence, gazing upon the remains of one of the cruelest things one human being can do to another. Finally Scanlon said, "I thought this was supposed to be done with."

  "Yeah, we all did."

  "As that partner of yours would say, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?"

  "I'm pretty sure I know what happened," I said. "Problem is, I can't prove diddly-squat."

  "Tell me what you think."

  He listened closely as I told him what I'd learned about the Church of the True Cross.

  When I was done, he was quiet for a bit, then asked, "What do you figure the point was of doing this in your front yard? Revenge? Defiance? A warning?"

  "I think it was their way of saying,
This isn't over, motherfucker
. And you know something?"

  "Um?"

  "They're right."

 

I had to let homicide detectives traipse through my house, to make sure there wasn't anything in there connected to the atrocity out front. I guess Scanlon had told them not to be annoying about it, because they weren't – for the most part. But just having a couple of cops walking around inside your home is enough to annoy most people, me included.

  Finally the forensics techs had all the photos and soil samples they wanted, the body of the victim was on its way to the morgue under a Jane Doe tag, and I was free to go back to work.

  Once we were in the car, I pulled out my wallet and started sorting through all the junk I've stuck in there and keep meaning to get rid of.

  Karl watched me for a few seconds. "What're you doing?"

  "Looking for – ah, there it is." I retrieved from amidst all the crap a piece of paper with a phone number on it. I got my phone out and, before Karl could ask, said, "There's an ogre I need to call."

  Karl looked at me. "An ogre."

  "Yep."

  As I started touching numbers, Karl nodded calmly.

  "Makes perfect sense to me," he said. Maybe he'd read somewhere that you're supposed to humor lunatics.

  Midway through the second ring a voice answered. "Yuh?"

  "I'm looking for Ivan." If he asked me for a last name, I was sunk. I didn't know if ogres share phones, or what the hell they do.

  "This Ivan."

  "This is Sergeant Stan Markowski, Scranton Police Department."

  "Mark who?"

  I tried not to sigh into my mouthpiece. "The cop who could've shot your brother Igor, but didn't."

  "Oh, yeah, Markowski. OK, I remember. Hi."

  "You said you owed me a favor, remember?"

  "I did? Oh, right, 'cause you didn't kill Igor. Yeah, I owe you, Markowski."

  "Well, tonight's the night I collect on it. I need to talk to you somewhere, face-to-face."

  "You wanna talk? That's the favor?"

  This time, I couldn't stop the sigh from escaping.

  "No, I want to talk to you and tell you what the favor
is
."

  "Oh. OK."

  I waited, but the ogre didn't say anything more. "Where can I meet you?" I asked, finally.

  "Meet? You mean tonight?"

  "Yeah, tonight. Soon."

  I listened to several seconds of heavy ogre breathing before Ivan spoke again.

  "How about Leary's Bar?" he said. "Nice place."

  That idea was so brilliant, I knew something must be wrong with it. In a moment, I knew what the flaw was.

  "I think maybe they're closed," I said. "For remodeling."

  "Nah, I pass by there last night. Didn't go in. Bar is open. Look like all new stuff inside."

  "That's a
great
idea, then. How soon can you get there?"

  "I leave now, maybe… ten minutes?"

  "OK, Ivan, I see you in Leary's Bar. Ten minutes."

  God, now he had me doing it.

  "See ya," the ogre said, and the call ended.

  Karl was looking at me. Of course, he'd only heard my end of the conversation.

  "Do I have this right?" he said. "We're gonna meet an ogre who owes you a favor – in
Leary's
?"

  "That's about it."

  Karl turned the ignition key. "Then we better get a move on. I wouldn't miss this for the world."

  As we pulled into traffic he said, "Siren and lights a little too much?"

  "What the fuck," I said. "Go wild."

 

Leary's place looked good as new. Of course, a lot of the stuff in there
was
new.

  He'd replaced the tables and chairs – not just the broken ones, but all of them. I guess he wanted everything to match. The mirror behind the bar still had manufacturer's stickers on it, and if Leary hadn't completely restored the collection of bottles that usually lined the shelf in front of the mirror, a lot of them seemed to be there. I checked the ceiling lights – yep, repaired or replaced. Even the floor looked as if it had been refinished.

  I took all this in during the time it took Karl and me to walk from the door to the highly polished bar and sit down. I checked out the two waitresses, but neither one was Heather, who'd had such a stressful time with Igor the other night. I wondered if she'd ever come back to work here.

  Leary came through a door behind the bar, saw us, and swaggered on over. He was one of those guys who look like they could strut while sitting down.

  "Well," he said with false bonhomie, "look what the bat dragged in!" When he caught the look Karl was giving him, Leary just smiled and said, "No offense, of course."

  "I'm amazed how fast you got this place put back in order, Leary," I said. "Must've cost you a fortune to have it done in only a few days."

  The shock of red hair bobbed up and down. "That it did," Leary said. "But if I'm closed, I can't make money. And if I stay closed very long, my regulars'll find someplace else to do their drinkin', that's for sure. Besides, I plan to stick the insurance company with the bill for most of it."