Book of Shadows

Chapter Twenty-eight

The patrolmen who assisted Garrett in leading his collar to the squad car were no more happy with this particular job than Garrett was; he noticed one of the young uniforms fighting not to gag at the smell emanating from the huge man. The other uniform, stronger-stomached, muttered, “Get the gas mask,” under his breath. The collar, an African-American male who looked to be in his early thirties, was six feet four if he was an inch and nearly three hundred pounds, almost certainly schizophrenic at the very least and way off the meds—if he’d ever been on them. Garrett recognized the “word salad” aspect of his speech (and even without that the shoelessness and overall state of filth would have been a pretty good indicator). They had themselves a classic “dirty man,” one of the homeless chronic mentally ill who lived out of grocery carts and garbage bags, and more often than not wore their entire meager wardrobe at once, at all times, winter, spring, or summer. The parka and frayed cuffs and blackened feet were pathetically characteristic.

The man was docile as they led him out of the construction site; apparently exhausted by his rush at and struggle with Garrett.

The uniforms had parked their black-and-white at the curb outside the park. As they led the big man out of the construction site toward the patrol car, Garrett played a hunch and steered the man on the path leading toward the center of the park. “Take him this way,” he told the officer holding the man’s other arm.

“How come—” the uniform began, then thought better of it. “Sure.”

Garrett guided them toward the bench… and the footprints. Their captive was completely passive, head down and lumbering along like a child, but as they came closer to the bench the big man jerked his head up. “No!” he screamed, with eyes bulging, the cords standing out in his neck. “No no no no no. Bad bad bad bad bad. Dragonfly demonbite eat her eat her.” He flailed in their grasp, all the power in that hulking body suddenly alarmingly apparent.

“Shit!” yelled the younger uniform.

Garrett yelled back, “Take him that way!” He jerked at the homeless man’s arm, pulling him away from the burned footprints. And on impulse, he added, “Run!”

Their collar was more than happy to run with them, pounding across the paths.

As they reached the sidewalk Garrett halted, panting. The man had completely ceased his struggling and screaming and stood limply between them as the officers gasped for breath.

Garrett and the officers exchanged a look, then the officers loaded the huge man into the back of the patrol car. He curled up on the seat and burst into tears.

Garrett stood on the sidewalk, still breathing hard as he watched the man weeping in the backseat. Garrett was fighting an adrenaline buzz and massively conflicting feelings. His strong suspicion was that he was not looking at Erin’s killer. The man was barely functional; Garrett could not imagine him bringing Erin’s body onto the landfill without detection; that was the work of a much more crafty, outwardly sane, and organized killer.

And if the big man had killed Erin the blood would still be on those clothes, Garrett noted, without a trace of humor.

Yet somehow, he was sure the homeless man was a thread of the case, a potential witness at least, and he intended to follow that thread where it led.

The stronger-stomached uniform turned to Garrett, then glanced back out toward the stone bench. “What the hell was all that about?”

Garrett looked back in the direction of the footprints. The streetlamp cast a sickly yellow light around the empty bench; the angel looked down from the fountain. “I don’t know,” he answered.

But maybe he did.

One of the privileges of rank was that Garrett did not have to be the one trapped in the squad car with this particular cargo as the officers transported him to the nearest BPD substation. Garrett was already at the counter with the desk sergeant when the two uniforms brought the homeless man in. A couple of passing detectives gave them wide berth, turning their faces away from the smell as the uniforms led him down the dingy corridor.

The official “reason for arrest” was “assault on a law enforcement officer.”

“But I just want to talk to him,” Garrett explained to the desk sergeant. “He may be a witness in a case of mine. If I can just have a room to question him—chances are I’ll be releasing him.”

The desk sergeant snorted sympathetically. “Good luck with that.”

“Yeah,” said Garrett.

He called Landauer from the substation, the guilt now perfectly overwhelming. It was pushing midnight. It was an uncomfortable conversation.

“Hate like hell to do this to you, Land, but I might have a witness to that prostitute’s disappearance,” Garrett began.

“You might.” Landauer was sleepy and pissed, not a good combination.

“It’s not much to go on, but the guy has been hanging out in the park. It’s just a hunch, but I’m going to question him and I just wanted to make sure you were in the loop.”

Garrett listened to his partner breathe on the other end of the phone. Finally he spoke. “This is hella weird, G. Where you going with this?”

“I don’t know. That’s what I need you for, pal.”

Landauer showed up half an hour later, rumpled and disgruntled, and the partners walked the scuffed floors of the substation—an older building, almost medieval compared to the modern, airy halls of Schroeder. They passed a row of vending machines, headed toward the interview room.

“What the hell’re you doin’ here, G?” Landauer asked pointedly. “We got our guy. Slam dunk, remember?”

“What if there’s another one?”

Landauer narrowed his eyes. “On the witch’s say-so, you mean?”

Garrett stifled a sigh and tried to avoid thoughts of Tanith in that candlelit circle. “We got a missing girl, Land. Same age as Erin Carmody. Gone missing on one of those—holidays. I don’t like it.”

They stopped in front of the interview-room door and Landauer looked through the two-way mirror at the hulking, filthy man at the table. “That’s your witness? Jesus Christ, G…”

Garrett was about to answer when his eyes fell on the vending machines across the hall. “Hold on.” He shoved his hands in his pants. “Got any change?”

Landauer cursed and dug in his pockets.

They entered the interrogation room and Garrett saw Landauer’s face curdle from the smell. He shot Garrett a baleful, you-so-owe-me-for-this look. Garrett gave him an apologetic grimace, then sat down in the chair across from the homeless man. Landauer leaned against the wall, as far from the witness as he could get. Garrett cleared his throat and spoke gently to the big man, as if to a child.

“Hello. My name is Detective Garrett. Can you tell me your name?”

The man did not respond. He stared dolefully at the table in front of him, tears rolling down his ample cheeks.

Garrett took a Mars bar out of his coat pocket and set it in the center of the table. The big man’s face lit up and he grabbed for the candy. He tore off the wrapper and stuffed it into his mouth like a little kid.

After he’d scarfed the chocolate, Garrett spoke. “Can we be friends now? I have more candy if you’ll talk to me.”

The hulking man looked at him with red-rimmed eyes and said nothing.

“You’re not in trouble, okay? We just want to ask you a few questions.” Garrett took Amber’s photo out of his pocket. “We’re looking for this girl.” He put the photo down in front of the man. “Have you seen her?”

To Garrett’s surprise the man put his shaggy head down on the table and wailed.

Garrett and Landauer exchanged a glance. “You have seen her,” Garrett began.

“Noooo… Noooo… No…”

“I think you have seen her,” Garrett said firmly. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“Dragons,” the man said tearfully. “Huge! Whoosh!!! Ate her up.”

Landauer stroked his chin and looked at Garrett impassively.

“Dragons,” Garrett repeated.

“Dragons dragging down down deep.” The big man began to rock in his seat. “Dark entropy current formless malformed malfunction…” The chair was tipping back and forth, thumping against the floor, faster and faster as he rambled. “Entropic current chaos. Beep… bee-eeep… bee-eeeep…”

The partners stepped out of the interview room, with the big man still ranting behind them.

“Well. Case closed,” Landauer said with a straight face. “Dragons got her.”

Garrett was silent, standing in the sickly glow of the vending machines. Chaos. Entropy. Dispersion. Current. The words were in no order that made sense, but he’d heard them before. On Jason’s Current 333 CD.

Landauer glanced back toward the observation window of the interview room. “So what are you going to do with Dragon Man, drop him off at a shelter?”

Garrett sighed. “Psych intake. I’ll see if anyone has a bed open—” Of course the chances of an empty bed in any mental facility when winter was approaching were next to nothing. Then into Garrett’s mind, unbidden, came a picture of the sign on the front of Tanith’s shop: Psychic Healing. And he fell silent, midsentence. Land looked at him questioningly. Garrett shrugged. “But you know how it goes. He’ll be back on the street tomorrow. I’ll take him back to his cart I guess—”

Landauer’s hand suddenly closed around his arm. “None of my business, bro, but from where I stand you are looking in grave danger of fucking up your fast-track gravy train.”

Garrett looked at him, startled. But he didn’t have to ask what his partner meant.

Landauer released his hold on Garrett, shook his head. “Ain’t no way I see Miz Carolyn putting up with a witch on the side. I would think long and hard about my next move, ’f I were you.”

The men locked eyes. Garrett found his whole body tensing, his fists clenching. He took a breath, releasing the stance. “Appreciate you coming out,” he said neutrally.

Landauer gave him a cynical smile. “Your funeral, my friend.”