Nocturnal

Pay the Piper

Bryan stood in the corner of the private autopsy room, as far away from the open body as he could get — which wasn’t far. What crap was Zou going to pull now?

Pookie stood next to the table, looking down at the bearded man with the missing chest. “Did Robin say this hunka burnin’ love was Birdman’s killer?”

“Yeah. Her tests confirmed this is the guy Bobby shot. But he’s not Oscar Woody’s killer, so that guy is still out there. If Zou is protecting Marie’s Children, or whoever the killer is, then—”

“She’s not,” Pookie said. “I mean, yeah, she’s protecting a killer, but not some cult. She caught me out in the main autopsy room. She was on me like a bum on a baloney sandwich. I’m looking at her, and for once I’m not thinking about how she’d be in bed, and then some pieces clicked. Remember how I told you that the bowman drew down on me, but missed on purpose?”

“Yeah. How does that connect with Zou?”

“Think about it — first time the arrow thing comes up is thirty years ago, when the Golden Gate Slasher turns up dead. Cops bury the case, they remove any and all mentions of an arrow. We now know Blackbeard is a murderer, and he was killed by an arrow. These archers think they’re vigilantes — that’s who Zou is protecting, not serial killers.”

“That doesn’t add up. Zou took us off the case to keep us from catching Oscar and Jay’s murderer.”

“Close, but no cee-gar,” Pookie said. “She got us out of the way so someone else could find the murderer.” He held a palm-up hand toward the body on the white porcelain table. “Someone who would do this, unburdened by laws, rights and procedures. Metz is in on it. He fudges the autopsy reports to eliminate any presence of the archer, just like he did for the Golden Gate Slasher case.”

Bryan looked at the body, thought of Pookie’s angle. If Zou wanted to protect a vigilante, that would explain the missing parts of the Slasher case files. Verde could pay lip service to finding the killers. Once a killer was taken out, Metz could handle the rest. If that was what was going on, Robertson was also in on it … but was the mayor?

“What about Collins? If you’re right, why would he be involved?”

“Maybe this is really big,” Pookie said. “Maybe the mayor, or someone else way up, makes sure the right people run the police department, so that no one goes after the vigilantes. Remember that a bunch of Marie’s Children were burned at the stake over a hundred years ago? What if that was the same vigilante organization we’re dealing with now? What if we’re talking about a group dedicated to taking out Marie’s Children whenever they show their little masked heads?”

Bryan remembered how Sharrow and Robertson had stared at the blood symbols from Oscar Woody’s murder scene, how they’d played right along when Zou took Bryan and Pookie off the case. There had been symbol-killer cases before: the Golden Gate Slasher, that mob hit from the sixties, that serial killer in New York City. Maybe there were even more cases that Zou and company had made disappear. Father Paul Maloney? Verde had been on the scene, Metz at his side. Maybe if it wasn’t for Bryan’s dreams leading him to the murder site, no one would have ever known about Zou’s game.

The door opened. Chief Zou came in, as did Baldwin Metz helped by Sean Robertson. Zou closed the door. She, Metz and Robertson stood on the side of the room near the RapScan computer. Bryan and Pookie were on the other side. The hacked-up body separated them.

Zou looked at the body for a few moments, then she looked up and spoke. “Congratulations, Clauser. You brought down the BoyCo killer, the man that also killed Inspector Pigeon.”

Here we go, she isn’t wasting any time. Well, fuck that …

“I didn’t kill this guy.” Bryan pointed to the arrow resting on the body. “Someone put that through his heart.”

Chief Zou looked over at Metz. “Doctor?”

He reached out a trembling hand, picked up the arrow, then set it on a counter behind him. “That’s not the instrument of death,” he said. He pointed to the portable computer rack. “Assistant Chief, would you mind?”

Robertson reached out and rolled the rig closer so Metz could get at it. The old man tapped some keys. An x-ray appeared on the screen. He stared at it, then pointed to a bright white dot below the right nipple.

“Bullet,” he said. “I’m sure it’s forty-caliber and will match the ballistics of Inspector Pigeon’s weapon.” He examined the picture again, then pointed to two slightly fainter white spots. “And in my expert opinion, these will be forty-caliber bullets from Officer Clauser’s weapon.”

Robertson reached across the body, held his hand palm up. “Clauser, your weapon, please.”

Bryan looked at Zou. “Am I suspended?”

She shook her head.

“But you want my gun,” Bryan said. “What am I supposed to use on the street, harsh language?”

“Pick up another tomorrow,” Zou said. “Give the assistant chief your firearm so we can run ballistics.”

“Ballistics are on record,” Bryan said. “They are for every police-issued weapon.”

Zou smiled. “We just want to be thorough. You know how the media can be.”

She and Metz would cook the evidence. Bryan’s gun would be confirmed as the weapon that killed the bearded man on the table. He looked to Pookie, who shook his head slightly: don’t fight now, we can’t win.

Bryan drew his Sig Sauer, ejected the magazine, then pulled the slide back and checked the chamber. He handed the weapon and the mag to Robertson.

“Your lies won’t hold up,” Bryan said to Zou. “Too many loopholes.”

She pursed her lips. “Really? Rex Deprovdechuk was being bullied by BoyCo. Roberta Deprovdechuk hired an aspiring hit man to kill the bullies. That hit man is lying on the table before us. Forensic evidence will confirm that this man killed Oscar Woody and Jay Parlar. It seems that Roberta refused to pay for services rendered, so the hit man killed her as well. The hit man didn’t know what to do about Rex, so he waited at the Deprovdechuck home and kept Rex hostage. Inspector Verde and Inspector Pigeon were investigating the murders of Woody and Parlar. They tracked a lead to Roberta and found the hit man at her house. Gunfire was exchanged. Inspector Pigeon died in the line of duty. The hit man was wounded, but he escaped. Rex fled the scene and has been missing ever since. The hit man decided he needed to protect his newfound reputation by completing his original contract, so he went after Alex Panos and Issac Moses. The hit man killed Issac. Alex’s mother got caught in the crossfire. Alex got away, but I’m sure we’ll find him. We’ll find Rex as well.”

She was so smooth, so quick. Her story wasn’t just plausible, it connected all the dots in a seamless, streamlined fashion. The doctored “evidence” would make it real.

“There’s witnesses,” Pookie said. “A lot of people saw that arrow sticking out of the body. Paramedics, Doctor Hudson, bystanders, other cops … how you going to explain that?”

Zou smiled. “I don’t think the paramedics want to contradict me. As for Robin Hudson, she has a pretty impressive promotion coming up and I’m betting she wouldn’t want to risk that. I’ll also talk to every cop on the scene, personally, to make sure they remember things correctly. This man on the table killed Bobby Pigeon — do you think your fellow officers will care about the details of how a cop killer died?”

She was right about that, too. Even if word got out about the archer, most cops would want to give him a medal, not try and throw him in prison.

But Bryan wasn’t most cops.

“I care,” he said. “A vigilante is killing people, and we’re going to get him.”

Metz started tapping keys on the RapScan touch screen. Bryan saw the karyotypes come up on the screen, then vanish, one by one — he was deleting the information.

Zou rested the knuckles of her fists on the edge of the porcelain table. “Bryan, this is the sixth person you’ve killed while on duty. And, I might add, the second in the last week.”

He stared at her, not knowing what to say. Where was she going with that? “But I didn’t kill this guy.”

“You did,” Metz said. “I hope you get a commendation for it.”

Zou smiled and nodded. “He will. So will Inspector Chang. Clauser, the department needs you. You’re too good to lose. You’ll have to go through the usual review board, as well as some counseling. Considering the brutality of these attacks on the BoyCo members and the death of a cop, however, I’m thinking that I can make the review board perfunctory.” Her smile faded. “Or I can suspend you pending a full review, a review that I assure you won’t go well. Considering you’ve killed six people, I imagine the recommendation will call for you to be dismissed and barred from ever again serving in law enforcement.”

She would have him banned from being a cop? She had to be bluffing. “Chief, this vigilante is a murderer. He’s got to pay. You have to see that!”

Pookie crossed his arms and shook his head. “You know that Oscar Woody’s real killer is still out there. So is the killer of Jay Parlar and Susan Panos. You can’t tell us you’re just going to wrap this up.”

Zou leaned closer. Her eyes seemed to soften a little. “Men, I’m asking you to let this go. I can’t tell you why, but this is the best thing for the city. Trust me.”

Bryan threw up his hands. “Trust you?” Trust you to handle a case with those symbols like the way you handled the Golden Gate Slasher?”

He regretted the words as soon as he said them. He’d played a card they needed to keep close to the vest.

The softness slowly faded from her eyes, replaced by her normal, stone-cold expression. “The board might dig into your older incidents,” she said. “What if there was a mistake in the review of one of your prior shootings, and they uncover some new evidence? Why, you could wind up in prison.”

Prison? He looked at her, waiting for her to flinch, to fold — but her expression didn’t change. Zou meant every word she said.

All this time, Bryan and Pookie had been playing checkers while Zou had been playing chess. Metz’s flawless reputation would let him create any evidence Zou needed. In trial, any district attorney would paint Bryan as a power-mad cop, killing at will. Even if that wasn’t enough for a jury to convict, Bryan’s career would be over.

A hot, sudden rage swept over him, the likes of which he’d never felt anywhere outside of his fucked-up dreams. He’d hurt people before, sure, but he’d never wanted to hurt them. Now, however, he felt the urge to smash her face in, knew how good it would feel to grab her throat, to squeeze, to—

Pookie’s strong hand gripped the back of his right arm, fingers and thumb digging into his biceps. The urge faded away. Bryan blinked in shock — had he really been thinking such horrible thoughts?

“We understand,” Pookie said. “Chief, you’ve made your position clear. And our positions, apparently. If there won’t be anything else?”

Zou flicked her hand toward the door. “Go.”

Bryan stumbled when Pookie yanked him around the table and through the door. The larger autopsy room was empty save for the five white tables. Pookie kept squeezing, kept pulling, dragging Bryan into the administration area and toward the main door.

“Pooks, you want to ease up on—”

Pookie suddenly stopped and turned. His nose was only an inch from Bryan’s. His eyes went wide with anger and frustration.

“Bryan, not another word until we get where we’re going, you got it?”

His partner was furious, maybe even madder than Bryan was if such a thing was possible. He’d never seen Pookie like this.

“Sure,” Bryan said. “Where are we going?”

“We’re making a social call. Time to gather the troops.”