Backfire

29

Sheriff Hibbert motioned them back. He opened the creaking wooden door, his gun drawn. They heard him suck in his breath.

He stepped back, his face set and pale as death in the dim light. “You’re not going to like this.”

The shack was a single room, maybe twelve by twelve, the floorboards rotted through. Part of the roof had caved in, probably years before, and rain flooded in. A single metal cot was shoved against the back wall, beneath some remaining roof. There was a dirty blanket hanging off the bed, nothing else.

The blanket and the mattress were soaked with blood, dried black. There was blood splattered on the wooden floor planks, even on the walls.

Cheney pulled out his cell phone. “Joe? We found the kill site. I need you to bring a couple of your people over to us.” He handed Sheriff Hibbert his cell.

“Ask Deputy Millis to show you the way. The shack is off Mason’s Cross Road. You’ll have to walk a ways.” He handed the cell phone back to Cheney.

None of them said any more. They all knew Mickey O’Rourke had spent the last three days of his life tied down to that cot, alone, knowing in his gut he was going to die. And he had. He may have wanted to die at the end. By the look of the shack and the spattered bloodstains, he’d been beaten. For information?

It was difficult to step back, cut off the rage and sadness, to force their minds to focus on what was in front of them. Sherlock said, “There’s a chance he left fingerprints.”

Eve said, “He hasn’t missed a single trick so far, but he never expected anyone to find this shack. So maybe you’re right.”

Harry asked Sheriff Hibbert, “Do you have any idea how long this shack has stood vacant?”

“At least twenty years, maybe longer. I haven’t heard of anybody staying out here since I’ve been sheriff. We get some homeless people squatting in our abandoned buildings now and then, but not here, because it’s too remote.” He looked up at the boards sunk in on the crumbling ceiling. “It’d be safer to camp under a tree.” He looked toward the bed. “How I hate this smell, the smell of death.”

Cheney took one last look around the room, and said, more to himself than to the rest of them, “It’s up to me to tell Mrs. O’Rourke her husband’s dead. I’ll take a chaplain with me.” He sighed. “As if that will help.” He looked up. “This guy doesn’t deserve to walk the earth.” He paused for a moment. “I know a woman didn’t do this. If this was Sue, then Sue is a man.”

–

It was odd, Eve thought, looking out the Suburban window as Harry drove them back to the city, how the ride home always felt quicker.

She listened to the windshield wipers clapping steady as a metronome, the rain, now that they weren’t getting soaked standing in it, oddly soothing, somehow comforting.

She saw Cheney’s eyes were on his hands, clasped in his lap. He had to be thinking about Mrs. O’Rourke and the girls and what he would say to them-it couldn’t be the truth, at least not all of it.

Harry looked stiff, mechanical, as if he was afraid to express anything for fear he’d yell with it. Savich and Sherlock, too, were without expression, but Dillon was pressing his wife’s open palm against his thigh. She wondered how much horror they’d seen. Too much, she thought. What were they thinking?

Eve felt a wave of despair, not just because of the bloodbath they’d found in the shack but because it was the naked proof that some people were simply evil, some people were simply missing all compassion or any human feelings at all. How else could this monster have killed Mickey so brutally?

RIP Mickey. She wanted to kill him herself.

She met Sherlock’s eyes. Sherlock said, “How’s your back, Eve?”

She snapped back from the edge. “Thanks to Harry the Hands, I’m feeling fine.” She added, “Harry was at my condo this morning, and let me tell you he’s got the greatest hands. I think he even got a moan out of me, it felt so good.”

No one said a word.

Where had that come from?

Eve cleared her throat. “What I meant to say was that he massaged my back with muscle cream and-”

“Let it go, Eve,” Harry said. “No one thinks there were any prurient thoughts in your head or mine. Your back is purple and green, and you were hobbling around like a crippled old deputy marshal retired lady.”

Insanely, Eve wanted to laugh.

When they arrived at the Federal Building, Cheney said, “I’m going to pick up the chaplain in my own car and drive over to see Mrs. O’Rourke. As for the rest of you, it’s Sunday. Take some time off, try to let go of all this. We need all your brains ready tomorrow morning. We can bank on hearing from forensics and the medical examiner first thing.” He paused for a moment. “Wish me luck.”

They did, all of them grateful they weren’t walking in his shoes today.

Eve said her good-byes and went walking in the rain. She realized her mistake a couple blocks later when every step made her back hurt. She saw a taxi, and, miracle of miracles, it stopped for her. She directed the Ukrainian driver to Saint Francis Church on Larkin, a fixture in her Russian Hill neighborhood for nearly a hundred years. The rain was coming down heavier when she opened the side door and slipped inside. It was warm and dim and ancient. She breathed in the soft air scented with incense. She always felt safe here. She sat awhile, absorbing the quiet and gazing at the many symbols of hope that surrounded her, hope she knew was embedded in the very walls. She eased forward on the pew and sent a prayer of gratitude that Eleanor and Rufino were alive. She prayed to find this man who’d wantonly killed Mickey O’Rourke, who’d tried to kill Ramsey. She didn’t pray that she would kill him; she didn’t think she should push God on things like that. And she prayed for Mickey O’Rourke’s soul.

When she walked back to the vestibule, she saw Father Gautier standing by the big closed double doors, arms crossed over his chest, an umbrella open at his feet to dry. He was St. Francis’s longtime pastor, always soft-spoken and patient. Father Gautier gave her a long look. “I hope you found what you needed, Eve. I noticed you weren’t in church today. Is something troubling you?”

She told him that Mickey O’Rourke, whom Father Gautier had known as his parishioner far longer than she had, was dead, a violent death. She gave him no details.

He took her hand as he closed his eyes a moment. He whispered, “I am so very sorry, for his family, for all of us. Requiem in pace.”

They stood quietly for a moment, then Father Gautier said, “You’re wet,” and his voice held a touch of humor, bless him.

Eve said, “Not so much now. It’s so very warm inside. I think I’d like to stay that way.”

When Father Gautier left her, she pulled out her cell. “Harry, sorry to call when you’re just getting home. Would you come get me at Saint Francis Church on Larkin? It’s not too late, and I could use the company. I can make us something to eat, if you like.”

“If you’re up to it, so am I,” he said.