Valknut: The Binding (11 page)

“What’s that? Fourteen? Good God, Briggeman,
I don’t need tell you we can’t afford to have some serial killer
scaring off any more clients.”

Or getting blood all over our nice, clean,
freight cars, eh, Hank? “Trust me, sir, I don’t want any more
people killed, either. But there’s not much to go on. This murder
looks just like the others—same white string, same kind of
black-handled bronze knife. The string’s on its way to Los Alamos
by now, but I’ll bet you a dozen donuts those coneheads’ll be as
stumped by the stuff as they were the first thirteen times. And I
don’t hold out much hope for the knife.”

There had been no latents on the knives from
the other crime scenes. No manufacturer’s markings, either.

“I’m doing the best I can with what I’ve got,
sir. And so’s the DMPD and the FBI.” He added that last bit hoping
Willowbe would get the hint that Briggs wasn’t the only one who was
stymied.

“Obviously your best hasn’t been good enough.
You’re going to have to expand your limitations.”

Briggs suppressed a snort. And here I was,
trying to go beyond them. “Frankly, sir, unless the killer slips up
bad, we’re going to need a lot more resources to nail him.”

“Like what? You said yourself that the police
up and down the line are involved, not to mention the FBI.”

“Yeah, but they can’t inspect every train car
that passes through every yard. Even if they could, the killer can
get on and off a train without ever going through a yard. He can
kill and be hundreds of miles away before we ever find the body.
What we really need is people on the inside.”

“On the inside,” said Willowbe.

“Yes, sir. Decoys—lots of ’em.”

With a pang, Briggs thought of Douglas
Harding. He had all but given that very assignment to the young
captain a year ago and no one had heard from him since.

The sound of Willowbe’s pencil tapping on his
desk traveled down the phone line.

“Where are we going to get decoys?” The
belligerence left his voice, exposing poorly controlled anxiety. “I
don’t suppose you’d volunteer?”

“Love to. I’ll just let those smuggling and
theft cases slide for a few weeks—or months—while I hunt the killer
down—”

“No, no...that won’t be necessary.” Willowbe
was suddenly businesslike. “I’ll make some phone calls…see what I
can do. Let me know if you find anything more.”

More than what? He hadn’t found anything,
yet. Hanging up, he pushed away from the desk and paced the three
steps of available floor space. If he thought it would help, he’d
have gone undercover months ago, smugglers be damned. But the odds
of one undercover agent—two, if you counted Harding—tracking the
killer were painfully low. He had ruined Harding’s career, and
probably his life, for nothing.

“Man, I don’t need this crap.”

That’s what his brother Hammond had told him
when he had urged him to take that Northfield P.D. job. “You don’t
need that crap, Harry. Settle down. There’s plenty of college
chicks in Northfield—get a wife or something while you still have
most of your hair.”

Briggs had passed a hand through his short,
thick brown hair and eyed his brother’s receding hairline. “Right,
Ham—I figure I got more time for that than you do.”

In truth, he liked the challenge of his
position. Vandalism, drug smuggling, theft, arson, murder—as the
sole detective for a shrinking regional railroad, it all fell under
his purview. But now he wished he had listened. Over the last year,
the BRR had become a real power, swallowing or destroying any
competitive gangs along the line. The crime rate had risen from a
steady trickle to a tsunami flood. And these serial killings…

Fourteen murders on his tracks and
he had no leads whatsoever.

The idea of having nothing worse to think
about than speeding tickets, a few drunken students, and the
occasional cow-tipping incident was sounding damn good. But he
couldn’t quit until he got this mess cleaned up. If he
could clean it up.

Restless, he returned to his desk. A stack of
files blocked his computer monitor. He moved it to the floor, sat
down, grunted, got up again, wheeled the broken chair out the door
and pushed it down the stairs. There was a lot of banging and
clanging, and a satisfying crunch when it hit the gravel below. He
shoved the folding chair he kept for guests in front of his desk
and turned on his computer.

He made a point of searching the Internet
periodically in case the killer was psycho enough to start a blog
or website about his activities. A stretch, but checking made
Briggs feel like he was doing something. He tapped in the keywords
“hobo” and “killer.” The usual crap appeared—games, music, hobo
spiders, and an ever-growing clutter of irrelevant, self-indulgent
blogs. He refined his search and found links for Robert Silveria,
who bludgeoned hobos in their sleep, and Resendez-Ramirez, whose
victims lived near the tracks. Solved crimes, unconnected to the
current slayings. There were historical references to the Mad
Butcher of Kingsbury Run and current references to the Brotherhood
of Rail Riders. The Mad Butcher was ancient history—no connection
there. And the BRR was just a glorified street gang on wheels.
Typical gang violence, obviously unrelated to the bizarre
killings.

He scrolled through dozens of links, looking
for something relevant. Something he hadn’t seen before. Then he
spotted a title that made him pause: 
Hobo Spider Claims
Another Victim
. He clicked on it and sat back, stunned.
Austin Harding’s bloody face filled his screen, the black handle of
a knife protruding from his mouth.

Outrage crackled through Brigg’s brain. This
was a confidential police photo. Some greedy bastard had leaked
it.

He wrenched his cell phone from its case,
ready to chew some ass, but forgot to dial when he read the photo’s
caption. 
Another bizarre murder claims a traveler of the
iron road. Could the Butterfly Killer be at it again?

What the hell? He skimmed the article, at
first hopeful, then incredulous. The author tried to claim a
supernatural connection between the Hobo Spider and some old
murders. The website, an online tabloid, was hardly a trustworthy
source.

Even so...Butterfly Killer.

He set the phone down and entered keywords
for a new search. A fresh set of links filled his screen, all of
them irrelevant except for one: “Butterfly Killer Cocoons 10th
Victim.”

An old newspaper article appeared. The
accompanying photo showed a body wound in stark white string. The
scene bore an uncanny resemblance to the crime scene Briggs had
visited during the night—body curled within its cocoon, wedged
against the wall of a boxcar. The coat draped over the victim’s
face didn’t hide the pool of blood underneath. The article
indicated that a knife had been thrust through his mouth. Just like
the victims of the Hobo Spider.

The cases were never solved, but the last
murder took place in 1942. The killer was undoubtedly dead by now.
Even if he weren’t, he’d be too old to commit these crimes. So,
what? A copycat? Or some weird family thing, son inheriting from
father?

Briggs sent the page to print and sat back,
gnawing an abused thumbnail. There had to be a connection. He
picked up the phone and speed-dialed the FBI contact for the
case.

“Parker. Briggs, here. I got something for
you to check into and you’re not going to believe it…”

Chapter 7

Junkyard strode away from Lennie, too
agitated to deal with her questions or even her presence. She might
have good reasons for riding the rails, but that wouldn’t stop her
from getting killed. He didn’t want to go through that again.

He should get away—leave Lennie, Jim, and
this whole damn city behind. The killer wasn’t going to strike in
broad daylight in the middle of a crowded city. Junkyard should be
on a train somewhere, moving on. Alone.

But he had lied to Lennie. He did owe Jim,
though not for money or food, the way she might have thought. He
couldn’t leave the simple hobo unprotected. Once you started taking
care of someone on the road, you might as well adopt him for
life.

The first time he had met Jungle Jim,
Junkyard was still Douglas Harding, the photos from his brother’s
police file fresh in his memory. Doug had only to blink to see
Austin’s face stained black with blood. Absolute terror lingered in
those lifeless eyes; Austin might have died of it before the knife
ever touched him. When Doug slept, Austin’s dead face pleaded with
him, lips moving around the blade until the blood ran fresh.

So Doug didn’t sleep. He grew hag-ridden and
wild with rage, stalking through hobo jungles like a mean drunk
looking for someone to pound. Most hobos avoided him. The few who
got in his way never challenged him a second time.

One cold November night, Doug crashed a
riverside jungle near Fergus Falls. Beet harvest was over and the
last of the temporary help waited to catch out for a place to
winter over. The rage was bad that day, swelling in Doug’s chest
until he thought his rib cage would burst. In the dark, he saw a
lone man hunched over a trashcan fire to warm his hands, his jacket
collar pulled up and hat pulled down so only a bushy black beard
showed between. Doug snarled something at him, he couldn’t remember
what, and hoped the man was the sort to fight back.

The man lifted his head and glared at Doug
across the fire. He drew himself straight, slowly, so that Doug
could appreciate the full extent of him. The long shadows cast by
the firelight made him look seven feet tall, but Doug figured he
couldn’t be more than six foot six. Red and black plaid flannel
hugged a pillar of a neck. The fabric of his jacket strained around
broad shoulders and thick arms. If he had an ax, he might be Paul
Bunyan.

Doug nodded. Should be a good fight.

The man crossed his arms over his chest and
looked Doug over. No doubt he saw Doug as some scrawny upstart, not
even six-foot tall—easy meat. Doug smiled. Then boots crunched over
the frozen ground. A beer can clattered and rolled to a stop at his
feet. Tall shadows stepped into the dim circle of light.

“Got a problem, Blackie?”

Three men lined up next to the first. They
might all have come from the same litter—broad-shouldered,
barrel-chested, neck circumferences matching their hat sizes. The
one who spoke smacked a crowbar into his palm and sneered at Doug.
Most of his teeth were missing. He growled an order and the others
spread out to surround their prey. Doug figured he could take two,
maybe three, before the fourth caught him from behind. He
swallowed. For the first time since starting hobo life, he felt
something besides rage.

He backed away, hoping to escape into the
dark. The skin between his shoulder blades tingled a warning. A
hairy hand slapped down on his shoulder and shoved him back into
the circle. A deep, coarse voice above his head said, “Not leaving
before the dance, are you?”

Doug looked up at the speaker. If grizzly
bears could talk...

The circle closed behind Doug. Sweat prickled
under his arms and his flesh twitched in anticipation of pain. He
didn’t try to apologize to Blackie. The mood had shifted. His
attackers sensed sport. Any sign of fear would only add to their
fun. Ignoring the icy wind, he shrugged off his jacket so he could
move better.

The toothless man poked at Doug with the
crowbar and laughed when Doug jumped away. “Hey, Blackie, looks
like we got us a chicken to pluck.”

The others chortled as if it were a good
joke. Their jeers echoed across the river. Doug’s insides churned
with fear and self-disgust. After they’d finished with him,
whatever remained would probably wash away in the next rain. His
brother’s killer would go on killing.

Grinning, Toothless hefted the crowbar.
“Let’s see how well this chicken can dance!”

He swung the crowbar like a baseball bat.
Doug ducked and it whistled over his head, ruffling his hair.
Dodging the backswing, he swept a leg through Toothless’s ankles.
Toothless crashed down and the crowbar flew out of his hand. Doug
pulled his knife and turned on the others before the crowbar hit
the ground.

The pack closed ranks. They weren’t smiling
any more.

Then a weird apparition bounded from the
shadows, landing between Junkyard and the beet pickers. “A dance,
didjya say?” it yelled, sounding ludicrously cheerful. “Jungle Jim
can dance, yes siree. Jus’ watch me!”

It was a crazy thing to do. A Jungle Jim sort
of thing to do. In the weeks that followed, Doug saw him do the
same thing in half a dozen similar situations. The simple hobo did
it on impulse, without a clue that he was stepping into a pack of
rabid dogs. But intentional or not, if Jim hadn’t been there, Doug
might have died that night.

Jim hopped into the circle next to Doug and
stuck his arms up in the air like an arthritic ballerina. He
attempted a pirouette, stumbled, caught himself, and leapt with
bent knees and cocked feet. Distracted, the men seemed to forget
about Doug. He should have been edging toward the woods, but he
could only watch, as bemused as the rest of them, as Jim pranced
with the grace of a three-legged goat, yodeling 
The Dance
of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

I gotta get out of here, Doug thought. But he
couldn’t leave this goofy simpleton to be pulverized in his
place.

After one particularly energetic display of
elbows and knees, Jungle Jim tumbled spectacularly and landed on
his back, legs stuck rigidly in the air. One of the men began to
grin. Another laughed and said, “Di’n’t he say he’s Jungle Jim? I
heard of him. Arizona Stu said he saw ’im pull a whole wrench from
his nose, one time.”

The men started telling Jungle Jim stories,
each more outrageous than the last. They hardly seemed to notice
that the man himself was lying at their feet.