Old School (7 page)

The kid still had the Cub Scout shirt on, still had the kerchief thing on. But that was all he had on. Pants were gone, socks gone, shoes gone. The kid was hanging from a low branch of a burr oak, a couple feet off ground. DeGatano came at the body from the side, his flashlight out now, going around behind the kid. The kid’s hands were tied behind his back in some complex looking knot, a thin gruel of blood and shit and something else drying along the back of the kid’s legs and the inside of his thighs. DeGatano was pretty sure he knew what the something else was. He had to stretch up a little to reach the neck, check for a pulse, but the skin was already cool.

DeGatano started yelling for the other cops who were strung out through the park.

“Somebody get back to a car and call it in. We got a body down here.”

***

“Sheepshank,” the ME said. “Man-o’ war sheepshank, actually.” He was looking at the knot holding the kid’s hands. Full dark now, the kid finally down out of the tree, lying on his stomach on a tarp on the ground. Fire Department had brought some lights in, the light bouncing off the kid’s buttocks, DeGatano taking in the sight of that, the blue Cub Scout shirt, the little yellow triangle of kerchief on the back of his shoulders, hands tied behind him, that crap on his legs dried to a paste now, all of that burning a hole into him. He’d dump a lot of shit into the hole over the next forty years trying to close it up – a lot of skin of his knuckles, booze, a couple of marriages, his relationship with his son – but the hole just got bigger and bigger.

“What’s this sheepshank shit?” DeGatano asked.

“Sailing knot,” the ME said. “Old man used to take us out when I was a kid back on Long Island. That’s a sheepshank.”

“Long way from the ocean,” DeGatano said. “But it’s something.”

Something, but not enough. Three more kids that summer, all boys, all left hanging from trees up and down the rail line, all raped, all with the fucking sheepshanks, papers calling the guy The Hangman. Last kid was in August, the week before school started. And then it stopped. And they never caught anybody. Never even got close.

***

DeGatano had to piss. Rolled over, looked at the clock again. 4:17 am. Hadn’t sleep at all, hadn’t even bothered to close his eyes, that whole scene from the day room running on a continuous loop in his head, the kid bumping the new guy, the look in the new guy’s eyes, the way the guy’s tongue ran along his lips, sheep stank sheep stank sheep stank . . .

Lou’s insides were boiling. Used to be, nights like this, he get out of bed, tell his wife he was taking a walk. What that meant was he’d walk downtown to one of the shit-ass bars on New York Street, maybe over on River – the Chatterbox, the Web – and he’d put on a drunk, and he’d hope that some asshole would get loud, and then he’d get in the fucker’s face, give the guy no room, and the guy’d either have to show his ass or take it outside, and then DeGatano would bust the fucker’s head. If he was lucky, the guy’d put up a little fight, and DeGatano’d end up hurt enough to take his mind off things.

Now he had to just lie there, play that day room scene over and over again. Got up to piss, even knowing how that was going to go, hoping maybe he’d wear himself out. And he did, so then he had to lie there, sweaty as hell, barbwire thing going on in his chest again, still feeling like he had to piss. Looked at the clock. 4:23.

Finally dozed off, next thing he knew Clarence was shaking him awake. Some dream scurrying off like a roach when you turn the lights on, something about ropes and trees and shiny little white buttocks glowing up in the sky like a moon.

“Don’t usually have to wake your ass up old man,” Clarence giving him a little shove.

Clarence was a bald black man, pushing fifty, running to fat, had been an aide at the home the whole time DeGatano had been there. But that wasn’t where they’d met. Twenty-five years back, when the crack thing was just getting going, Clarence had been one of the dumb fuck kids moving rock around town, ended up being one of DeGatano’s snitches. Finally got himself into some jam DeGatano couldn’t get him out of, did a short jolt down in Joliet. When he paroled out, DeGatano had vouched for him at Sunnybrook. That was better than twenty years back, a few years before DeGatano retired. Clarence had been there ever since, ex cons not having a lot of job options. Lou never figured he end up in here with him.

Clarence got DeGatano out of bed, into the bathroom, cleaned him up, got him into his clothes.

“We ready to roll, Lou?’

“In a sec. Whattaya know about the new guy?”

Clarence gave a little snort, shook his head.

“You know how it is with all that HIPPA shit, my man. I can’t tell you nothin’ ‘bout nobody, less I wanna lose my damn job.”

“Yeah, and that song and dance I pulled for you back in ’89? How long you think you’re gonna have a job if I decide to have a chat with somebody?”

“Fuck’s with you man? Just ‘cause that sour old fucker likes to park his chair in front of you?”

“What’s with me is my damn business. Just give me what you got.”

Clarence gave a shrug. “Guy’s name is Novak. Stan Novak. Short for Stanislaus. Got a kid sister in town somewhere, she’s the one brung him in.”

“He private pay? Insured? What?”

“Man, I clean shit off people and dress your sorry asses up. What I know about any insurance crap?”

“Find out.”

Clarence snorted, shook his head. “You mother fucker. One other thing I can tell you. That sister, she brung him in, but she ain’t been back since. Man’s a dump and run.”

So what, DeGatano thought. We got plenty of those, people in here, they got family right in town, and they never see anybody, or they don’t for months on end. Hell, DeGatano’d lived on West Park for forty years before he made the move, less than a mile west of here. His kid had the house now. When was the last time he saw him?

“You want the chair today, Lou?” Clarence said. “Or you still trying to prove you a badass?”

DeGatano hated the fucking wheelchair. “Just get my damn walker.”

Clarence got DeGatano’s walker, helped him down to the dining room, parked him at a table with Muttering Hank. Oatmeal and toast. DeGatano would have preferred eggs, maybe some bacon, not that he could really taste anything anymore, and not that he really needed to eat much seeing as how his body was using maybe a hundred calories a day now. He shoveled some of the gruel into his mouth.

“Sheep stank, sheep stank, sheep stank.” Hank muttering to himself while he ate, a gluey line of oatmeal and drool hanging from his chin.

“Do me a favor Hank,” DeGatano said.

Hank looked up at him, the spoon stopping halfway to his mouth, the line of shit on his chin snapping, dropping back into his bowl.

“Shut the fuck up.”

Hank blinked a couple of times, like somebody’d pushed his reset button, the spoon going into his mouth, back to his bowl.

“Shove a duck cup shove a duck cup shove a duck cup . . .”

DeGatano sucked in a couple deep breaths, bracing his hands on the arms of his chair to push himself up, grabbed the walker, headed over to the day room. Thirty-nine steps. All he needed. Clarence caught him at the door to the dining room, got him up under the arm. When they were out in the hallway, Clarence talked low.

“Novak’s date of birth is September 6, 1948. He gets some kind of VA money. Guess he was in the service. And that’s all you get from me you old bastard.”

DeGatano nodded. That would have made Novak twenty-three back in 1971. Right age, based on what the girl in the parking lot said.

DeGatano sat in his usual chair, by the window, looking out on the four-lane that ran past the front. Cubs had a 1:20 start today, Brewers in town. It would be game shows and soap operas until then. Some time to think.

It just stopped, that was the thing. Back in ’71, they didn’t have these FBI psych doctor types doing this profiling bullshit, but they knew enough about this sort of fuck to know he didn’t just stop. But Viet Nam was going full bore. And now he’s got this Novak fuck in here on a VA ride. Guy got drafted maybe? Packed off to the land of bad things? And that’s why he stopped leaving kids in the trees around town? Easy enough to find out.

***

DeGatano had one chair in his room, recliner his kid had bought him. It’s what the kid did instead of visit, bought him shit. Flat screen, DVD player, fancy-ass little bookshelf stereo, all of it run off some universal remote the kid had programmed up, thing with about a hundred tiny little buttons on it that DeGatano couldn’t read. So he spent his time down in the day room where he understood the TV.

Matt McBride was in the recliner. DeGatano sitting on the edge of his bed.

“I feel weird taking your only chair,” McBride said.

“You don’t want to sit on the bed. I’ve pissed it like a thousand times.”

McBride nodded. McBride was Chief of D’s on the force now, probably a year or two out from retirement unless the chief slot opened and he wanted to goose his pension. DeGatano had been McBride’s training officer when McBride was a rookie. They went back, and McBride was one of maybe three people who kept in touch with him. DeGatano filled him in on the new guy.

“So,” DeGatano said, “can you run this Novak fuck for me?”

McBride sighed. “Don’t do this to yourself, Lou. You got some old fart, you think you hear one goddamn word, and you’re gonna go all Don Quixote on this thing again?”

“Whattaya mean I think? I heard the fucker. He’s licking his chops over some little Cub Scout and he says ‘sheepshank.’”

McBride said something, too low for DeGatano to hear.

“What? Speak the fuck up.”

“I said sometimes you hear what you want to. And I wasn’t talking that quiet, Lou. You’ve always had a bug up your ass over this hangman thing. And I don’t blame you. I mean I was in Junior High at the time, and still remember it all pretty good. Being the first guy on scene, seeing that kid, yeah, that’s gonna stick with you.”

“Simple enough favor I’m asking,” DeGatano said. “Take this Novak, and run his ass. Turns out he was already in the service when those kids were killed? Then I’m done. Turns out he was in town, but he didn’t go into the Army until later, one of those guys couldn’t get a job when the economy cratered in the ‘70s so he signs up and spends a few years turning wrenches on tanks over in Germany? Then I’m done. Because if this Novak is the guy, and he was still in town, then he would have kept killing kids until we caught him. But maybe it turns out this fuck got drafted up in 1971 and left town in September or so. Maybe instead of killing kids he was killing gooks. That’s how the timing works out, then I’m gonna run this out. Give me some credit here, Matt. I ain’t one of the mental cases – it’s my ticker that’s fucked up, not my brain. When is the last time you heard anybody say the word “sheepshank?”

McBride shrugged. “Watching Jaws the other night. Quint tosses that guy a rope, what’s his name, the one that Dreyfuss played? Anyway, Quint tosses him a rope tells him to tie me a sheepshank. And there’s that other movie, the one with Morgan Freeman and what’s his face, Robbins?”

“That was Shawshank.”

“Yeah, okay, that one was Shawshank. Thing is, people say shit that sounds like shit all the time. And it’s not like you haven’t gone a little nuts on the Hthing before. That BDSM killing back in 1990? Just ‘cause the guy used some fancy-ass knots, you’re all up in everybody’s grill pushing to bounce everything off the hold Hangman files looking for a fit. And then you strong-armed Peterson into letting you fly down to Phoenix back in what, ’87? Just ‘cause some Cub Scout got strangled? You ended up with internal affairs up your ass thinking you were just angling for a free trip. ‘Course it didn’t help you busting up some guy outside a strip joint while you were there. You don’t think straight about this Hangman shit, Lou. You never have.”

“So I’m on my own is what you’re telling me.”

McBride leaned forward, elbows on his knees, squeezing his hands together, shaking his head at the floor.

“Goddamn it, Lou. I was hoping I could come down here, be reasonable. But that is exactly not what I’m telling you. What I am telling you is to leave this Novak alone. You got no police powers. You got no probable cause. Jesus Lou, people think well of you. I mean cop-wise anyway. Off duty you were kind of a famous asshole, but cop-wise? You’re on a short clock now. Way it stands, they’ll bring out the flags, the bag pipes, honor guard, whole nine yards. You got my word on that. But you get out of bounds, start playing Nancy Drew on this thing, then you’re just an embarrassment. You’re gonna go into a hole alone, people laughing up their sleeves at you.”

DeGatano hawked up a wad of phlegm, grabbed a glass of the nightstand, spit into it.

“You think I give a shit? I’ll be dead. Best case, I’ll just be dead. Worst case, if the sisters were right about all that Satan crap, then the devil will be roasting my wienie. I ever strike you as the type of guy who tried to duck a shot I had coming? My kid lives like a mile from here and I see him maybe four, five times a year. ‘Cause you’re right, I was a famous asshole. So I ain’t whining about it. I made my bed. I may piss in it, but I don’t whine in it. You think I’m worried about how many uniforms are gonna show up at my grave, pretend they ever really gave a fuck?”

McBride shook his head, stood up. “OK, Lou. I had my say. You made the call, and the department has responded. We got zero interest in this Novak, okay? Cold case doesn’t want to touch it, I checked – they should have DNA on account of the guy left plenty on the bodies, but you know how it was back then. He didn’t get any on the clothes and nobody saved any off the bodies because we weren’t doing DNA yet, and there’s no way in hell we’re going to try to get exhumation orders just because you’ve got a bug up your ass. Funeral homes would have cleaned the kids up anyway. We got no prints. In short, we got no real way to tie this guy in even if you get anything that starts making sense, which right now you don’t. Chief doesn’t want to touch it because it will look like he decided to turn some poor old fuck’s life inside out just on account of some old cop friend called in a marker. DA doesn’t want to touch it ‘cause this Novak’s got Alzheimer’s and couldn’t stand trial even if they had a case, which they don’t. Which you don’t. So you get no rhythm on this, Lou. And if you get out of line, then we are gonna slap your ass down hard. Nobody wants that.”