Down These Strange Streets

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A PUZZLE AND A MYSTERY by M. L. N. Hanover

Big-city police detectives have to get used to dealing with killers and junkies and whores. Dealing with demons, however, is definitely raising the bar . . .

New writer M. L. N. Hanover is the author of Unclean Spirits and Darker Angels, the first two books in the Black Sun’s Daughter sequence. Hanover’s most recent book is Vicious Grace. An International Horror Guild Award winner, Hanover lives in the American Southwest.

THE GUY WASN’T WHAT DETECTIVE MASON EXPECTED. GIVEN EVERYTHING about the case, he’d figured on someone with a big black trench coat, maybe a priest’s collar. An air of mystery anyway. Instead, he got this chubby guy in his forties, balding, with an uncertain expression that he’d worn so long it was etched in his skin. His button-down shirt had fit him about fifteen pounds ago. The knot in his tie was so tight, it had probably been there for years, lifted over his head and put back on without ever being remade. When the desk sergeant brought him back, the guy had bumped into Winehart’s desk hard enough to splash coffee out of her mug, then apologized like he was afraid she’d mace him. Now he sat down across from Mason at Anderson’s empty desk, put his hands between his knees like a kid in school, and smiled nervously.

“You’re Detective Mason, then?”

“Am. And you’re the exorcist.”

The man bared his teeth and shook his head.

“No, not really. I wouldn’t put it that way. Richard Scarrey. Like the children’s writer, but with an extra e.”

“The who?”

“Children’s writer. Illustrator too. He wrote the Busytown books? Pigs in lederhosen, things like that? He spelled it with the double r, but I also have an e. Still pronounce it ‘scary,’ though.”

“Okay,” Mason said. “I’m Detective Mason. Chief told you about me?”

“A little. He said you’d arrested a man, and that he thought I might be of some assistance.”

“Nothing more than that?”

Scarrey shook his head again, more firmly that time. Mason leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. Winehart’s phone rang, and she took it out of her pocket and walked away with one hand over her free ear.

“So five months ago, this girl Sarah Osterman goes missing,” Mason said. “College age. Had a fight with her boyfriend, stormed out of the house, never came back. He’s freaked out, but it just looks like a bad breakup. No one pays a lot of attention. About a month ago, her body shows up in a warehouse down by the rail yards. She’s been dead about a week, but she wasn’t having any fun before that.”

“I’m sorry, Detective,” Scarrey said, and the way he used the words made it seem like he really was sorry. “I appreciate your professional reserve, but I will need the details. Had she been tortured?”

“Yeah.”

“Um. Assaulted?”

“Raped, you mean? I’ve got the coroner’s report. Chief said you might want it.”

“Thank you then, yes. That’s fine. Go on.”

“The scene had some elements that made us suspect there was an occult angle. Writing on the walls. Wax from a black candle. And there was some blood spatter, and the forensics guys said there was a clean spot in it where maybe someone had an inverted cross, then took it away again after.”

Scarrey was nodding with every detail, his head almost vibrating, but his eyes were flickering now, moving across the air like he was reading. It was what Mason saw people do when they were trying to remember something. When they were making things up, their eyes were stable.

“How old was the girl?” Scarrey asked.

“Twenty-three.”

“Was she pregnant?”

“No.”

“On her period?”

“What?”

“Was she menstruating when she died?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s in the report.”

“We can ask if it isn’t. I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“We start investigating. Turns out the girl’s been seen with this scumbag, Maury Sobinski, so we find out where he is. We lean on him. He’s one of those assholes who’s read a book about cops and thinks he knows everything. Acts like he’s practically on the force himself.”

“Talks too much?”

“You know that whole give-a-man-enough-rope-and-he’ll-hang-himself thing? This son of a bitch would have strung himself up on dental floss. He screws up everything. Practically makes our case for us, doesn’t even know he’s doing it.”

“But not a confession.”

“No. Just stupid things. Saying he wasn’t with the girl on a particular day when we hadn’t asked him yet. Talking a lot of shit about how some people invite bad things happening. Hanging out big neon I-did-it signs. We ask for a DNA sample for elimination purposes, he finally figures out that we’re not just there because we enjoy his company, he stops talking. Can’t remember anything. Hears his mommy calling. Like that.”

Winehart came back to her desk, her expression sour. He tried to catch her eye, but she wouldn’t look at him. Mason felt a pang of anxiety. Had it been Anderson? Or, worse yet, the assholes from Internal Affairs?

“And then?”

“What? Oh, yeah, we get a warrant, go through his house. He’s got all her stuff there. We know he knows her, but there’s nothing conclusive. No witnesses, no forensics that we can take to a jury. We know he did it, and we need a confession. So we bring him in.”

“And he lawyers up?”

“Lawyers up,” Mason said, pointing a finger at Scarrey. “That’s good. That was the kind of term he’d throw in too. Show us he knew how it all works.”

Scarrey blushed and tittered.

“It’s just something I picked up. Television or . . .”

“He doesn’t, though,” Mason said. “Ask for a lawyer, I mean. He starts talking funny. Starts moving weird. We’ve got a camera on him, and he’s not just doing it when he knows we’re watching. Does it all the time. Calls himself Beleth, the King of Hell. Every now and then, he stops doing the whole voodoo thing, sounds like himself again, and he says he’s the victim of a huge satanic conspiracy. Asks us to help him. Begs, cries, shits himself. Then Beleth shows back up, and . . .”

“Ah.”

“Chief saw the act, told me to expect you. Said you might be able to help, and that I ought to cooperate with you, but maybe we don’t document anything. Keep it informal.”

“And you said?”

“I said ‘Yes, Chief.’”

Winehart, at her desk, turned around. Whatever that call had been, she had her composure back. She looked her question at the back of Scarrey’s head. Mason coughed a little to hide his nod. Yeah, that’s the one. Winehart wiggled her fingers, faking spooky. Scarrey sighed, just as Mason realized the guy could probably see her reflection in the window glass. The guy didn’t say anything about it, though.

“May I speak with the prisoner?”

“YOU DON’T HAVE TO TALK WITH ME,” SCARREY SAID. “IT’S NOT REQUIRED. I’m not a policeman or a psychiatrist or anything like that.”

In addition to bars, the holding cell had a thick metal mesh too narrow to fit even a finger through. The floor was concrete, the three walls were brick painted with high-gloss cream-colored paint that came clean with a little Windex and a paper towel no matter what was smeared on it. The cot was a metal shelf bolted to the far wall with the small steel toilet beside it. The whole thing wasn’t more than six feet by eight, and most days it would have three or four people in it.

Sobinski sat on the floor, legs crossed, glaring out. His eyes were rimmed red, his mouth slack. Hanks of greasy hair hung down over his face, but there was an awareness in his eyes. He wasn’t zoned out. He was watching them both. Mason stood a step back, letting the expert do whatever he was going to do. Scarrey waited a long moment, then sat down himself, just outside the cage, looking in at Sobinski with their heads on a level.

“I was hoping I could talk to you about why you’re here,” Scarrey said. “About what happened.”

Sobinski’s elbows moved out to his sides with a sudden jerk. His head seemed to shift at the neck, putting his face at an angle that left him looking like someone had snapped something important in his spine. His voice was thick and greasy. The syllables ran into one another, sliding and slipping. Scarrey made a small, embarrassed noise in the back of his throat.

“Yes, I’m sorry,” Scarrey said. “I wanted to speak with Maury, please.”

“There is no Maury,” Sobinski said, his voice sounding like something forced out through raw meat. It was too big for the body. Too big for the space. It made Mason’s flesh crawl. “I am Beleth, King of Hell. This body is my property, ceded me by right.”

“I understand,” Scarrey said. “And with all respect, Your Majesty, I’ve come to speak with Maury, please.”

Sobinski’s jaw opened so wide it seemed in danger of coming unhinged. His tongue spilled out, lolling down toward his crossed legs.

“You want little Mo to come out and play?” the voice said again, each syllable wet and angry. The tone was mocking.

“Yes, please,” Scarrey said.

The prisoner chuckled. His shoulders shifted back into place, his face lost its expression of malefic glee, and the broken-necked angle of his head slithered back to true. Sobinski looked around like he was seeing them both for the first time.

“Maury?” Scarrey asked.

The prisoner nodded uncertainly.

“My name’s Rich,” Scarrey said, smiling. “I wanted to talk to you for a minute about why you’re in here. Will that be all right?”

“Are you a psychiatrist?”

“No,” Scarrey said. “I’m not anybody in particular. I understand you’ve been possessed by a demon?”

Sobinski looked from Scarrey up to Mason and back. His skin was pale and fragile looking. He swallowed and nodded. When he spoke, it was barely more than a whisper.

“They don’t believe me.”

“I know,” Scarrey said.

“I didn’t kill Sarah. I’d never kill Sarah. I’d never kill anybody.”

“All right.”

“The demons. They’re everywhere. They take people over and ride their bodies around. You can’t tell. No one can tell until they let you see them, and then it’s too late. They control everything. The president? The pope? You don’t know. You have to believe me.”

“I do believe you. I do. How did Beleth get into you, Maury? Can you tell me what happened?”

Sobinski rose to his feet. He looked like someone getting out of a hospital bed for the first time after surgery. Every movement was uncertain, every step tentative. Like he was waiting to see how far he could bend before it hurt again. Scarrey stayed sitting on the floor.

“It was maybe five years ago?” Sobinski said, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. “I was working at this place in Detroit. Chop shop. They sold some drugs too, but I was strictly on the car side of things, right? There was this black guy. Jamaican. They called him John Zombie.”

“John Zombie,” Scarrey repeated, nodding.

“He was crazy. Into all kinds of weird shit. I didn’t believe any of it. Figured he was just trying to look like a badass, you know? Scare people.”

“Did he ever mention Carrefour? Marinette?”

“He did. He used those names. But I can’t—” Sobinski said, and then without warning he leaped at Scarrey, screaming. The prisoner’s body clanged against the metal, his shriek like a saw going through meat. Mason found his hand on the butt of his pistol and made himself relax.

Sobinski was yelling the same strange syllables he had before. His spine humped up and his arms shifted in repulsive jerks. Flecks of spit wetted the mesh cage. When Sobinski beat his fists against it, the metal rang. Mason stepped forward.

“Okay, asshole, you can stop that now,” he said.

Scarrey rose, wiping spit from his nose and cheek.

“I think we’re done here for now, Detective. I may want to come back later.”

“I know you, little man,” Sobinski said in his deep, demonic voice. “I know your heart. I will find you in your sleep.”

“You can come back if you want to,” Mason said with a shrug. “It goes like this pretty much all the time.”

Scarrey nodded politely to the screaming man, and Mason led him away. With the holding cells behind them, Mason led the man to the break room and poured him a cup of coffee.

“Well?” he asked as Scarrey poured cream and sugar into his mug.

“I’ll want to look through the reports. I may also need to see the crime scene? If you can take me there? As to the man himself, it’s early to say. But there are some points of interest. This John Zombie he talks about may be worth remembering, but . . .”

“What about that nonsense he keeps babbling?”

“Hmm? Oh, yes. It’s Aramaic.”

“Yeah? How’s his accent?” Mason asked.

Scarrey looked up, confused. Then, catching the joke, smiled.

“Terrible.”

SCARREY ADJUSTED ANDERSON’S CHAIR FIVE OR SIX TIMES WHILE MASON brought over the reports. It had everything from the original missing-person report the ex-boyfriend had filed through the medical examiner’s write-up through the report Mason had written covering the arrest. Scarrey looked it over like he was trying to make up his mind where to start on the buffet line.

“You need anything else?” Mason asked.

“Could I have a few sheets of paper? Just printer paper would be fine. For notes.”

“Sure,” Mason said.

“And a pen?”

Once the guy was settled in, going over the paperwork with his face squinched into a comic mask of concentration, Mason headed for the break room. Having someone else at his partner’s desk felt too weird, and he could use a little caffeine anyway. He was still there, drinking the last black dregs, when the chief found him.

He wasn’t old, but he’d seen a lot, and he wore it in the angle of his shoulders and the way he held his back straight. He nodded to Mason when he came in and poured himself a cup of coffee.

“He’s here?”

“He is, sir,” Mason said. “I gave him the files. Full access. Just like you said.”

“Good. That’s good.”

“Sir? About Anderson—”

“I’m not going to talk about that,” the chief said, stirring nondairy creamer into the black.

“He’s a good cop,” Mason said. “I’ve worked with him for six years now, and he’s the sharpest guy we have on this team. We lose him over this, and it means bad people walking.”

“I’m not talking about it, Mason. And neither are you. When the Internal Affairs review is finished up, we can—”

“It was a couple hundred dollars,” Mason said. “This department goes through more than that in free cappuccinos every week.”

The chief put his cup down, leaned against the counter, and crossed his arms. His expression was the empty calm that meant Mason had come close enough to see the line, but he hadn’t crossed it yet.

“I respect your concern for your partner,” the chief said. “I share your high opinion of Detective Anderson. Speaking as a professional law enforcement officer and as your superior, I’m telling you right now that we are going to toe the line on this. Whatever IA wants to know, you tell them. Whatever they want to see, you show.”

“Yes, sir.”

“When Detective Anderson is exonerated of all wrongdoing, I don’t want anyone thinking it was on some kind of technicality, or that we pulled one over on IA.”

“No, sir.”

“And speaking as myself, don’t worry. I’m taking care of it.”

Mason fought not to grin.

“Thank you, sir.”

“I don’t need gratitude. I need a confession out of Sobinski.”

“All right, then.”

The chief took his coffee, nodded, and walked away.

Back at his desk, Mason glanced over at the expert, who was still frowning over the details of the dead girl, sighed to himself, and started filling out the death investigation reports for a homeless man who’d either walked off an apartment building or else been pushed. An hour later, Scarrey appeared at his shoulder, clearing his throat as an apology.

“Find what you need?” Mason asked.

“No, no. Only what I expected. I was hoping we might stop by the crime scene? Possibly Sobinski’s apartment?”

“Okay. But you understand that the crime scene’s not going to be like it was. After the forensics guys are done, we release it. Let people start using the place again. They usually get the cleanup guys in pretty fast.”

“What a world it would be otherwise,” Scarrey said, and then, seeing Mason’s blank look, “I was just thinking what it would be like if we froze a room every time someone died in it. We’d run out of places to eat and sleep. Store food. We’d have to find some way to clean the space. Start time moving again. But then, I suppose we do that when the forensics team leaves, don’t we? Try to take a room or alleyway or whatever out of the world while they go about their work, and when they make their mark, put it back in.”

“Sure,” Mason said. “I guess.”

“The power of ritual,” Scarrey said, pleased by the thought. “Well. Would you like to drive, or shall I?”

THE WAREHOUSE WHERE SARAH OSTERMAN HAD DIED WAS ONE OF HUNDREDS like it squatting in the rough triangle where the river and the railroad intersected. The morning sun pressed the shadows out of the concrete and steel. The only pedestrians were the homeless, and the traffic was all big-rig trucks and clunkers. Mason liked the district for its authenticity. That was about all it had to offer.

In the passenger seat, Scarrey hummed to himself and leaned out, peering at the addresses they passed. His thick, stubby fingers tapped on the seat beside him, almost but not quite keeping time with the humming. On the one hand, Mason could turn on the radio, try to drown the guy out. On the other, if he did, the guy might try to sing along.

They parked in front of the manager’s office. A block of tall buildings with rolling garage doors and loading docks stretched off to the south. Three big rigs stood parked at the docks, but nothing was moving in or out of the warehouses. The manager, a painfully thin woman with a nasal cannula running down to her portable oxygen supply, gave him the access code and universal key. As Mason walked down the loading docks, Scarrey trotted beside him.

“The company that was renting the warehouse legitimately,” Scarrey said. “Have they reported anything odd about the space since?”

“Nope. Nothing going bump in the night. At least nothing they’ve told me about.”

“Hm.”

“Expecting something?”

“Well, you’d expect people to be nervous at least, wouldn’t you?” Scarrey said. “Something terrible like that happens, and people draw back or they lean forward. It’s very rare that they can remain unaffected. Of course, it would have to be something significant to deserve official mention.”

“Sounds like you don’t think our boy was really trying to call up the devil.”

“Oh, I didn’t say that,” Scarrey said.

Mason stopped at the door. M-15 in black on flaking yellow paint. He keyed the passcode into the button pad beside the door, put in the manager’s key, and, with a loud clank, the warehouse door began to rise. Scarrey ducked under it, hurrying inside. Mason waited until he could walk in standing straight.

The place looked innocuous. Simple. Innocent. The boxes and shelving that Sobinski had moved aside were back where they belonged. The air smelled like car exhaust and WD-40, not incense and blood. The chalked words and diagrams had been washed off the floor and walls. Mason pulled back his shoulders, stretching until something in his spine cracked. Scarrey was walking around the place like a tourist in Times Square, blinking and craning his neck. He walked once around the whole place, fingertips trailing on the wall, touching the boxes of cheap DVD players and third-rate audio equipment, his eyes squinting up into the blue-white fluorescents.

“Did you see her?”

“I did,” Mason said.

“What did it feel like?”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, that’s the problem with reports, isn’t it? They never tell you the really important parts. I know she was here,” Scarrey said, standing as near to the right place as the shelving would let him and raising his arms as if the chains and hooks had been in his own flesh. “And I’m thinking suspended from that rafter and the pipe over there, yes?”

“That’s right.”

“That’s the kind of thing reports tell you. They never say what it felt like. When you saw her, did it make you happy?”

“She was a kid,” Mason said. “She was tortured and killed by a sick asshole, and we were too late to help her. What do you think?”

“I don’t know, but it’s important. Did seeing her body here make you happy?”

“No.”

“Sexually aroused?”

“Yeah,” Mason deadpanned. “Absolutely. Boner you could drive nails with.”

“Don’t do that,” Scarrey said. His voice was low now, and very serious. “Don’t joke about this. I can’t tell what you’re joking to cover. Did the body arouse you sexually?”

“Fuck no, it didn’t,” Mason said.

“Good. Good good good.”

“What about you?”

“Me?”

“Did what happened here make you happy?”

“Lots of things have happened here,” Scarrey said. “Some of them were terrible. Meaning what happened with that girl. Some of them were quite pleasant.”

“Like?”

“Like me finding what I expected to find.”

“Which is?”

Scarrey grinned and spread his arms, gesturing at the walls, the boxes, the light.

“A warehouse,” he said.

“Yeah,” Mason said. “Well, glad we got that solved. What’s next?”

“Lunch, I’d expect. Would you like some lunch? I’ll pay.”

IT WASN’T THE SORT OF RESTAURANT MASON USUALLY WENT FOR. GIVEN his options, he usually went for a good local Mexican place or else a steakhouse. If it looked like the kind of place where he might have to wait for a table, he’d discount it out of hand. When they walked through the glassand-chrome doors, Mason expected the woman at the maitre d’ station to ask if they’d like a reservation for next month, but instead, she’d shown them back to a little cream-colored alcove with an art deco halogen lamp suspended from wires above the table. So maybe Scarrey knew something.

“What’s good here?” Mason asked, looking over the menu. Fourteendollar BL T. Forty-dollar lamb shank.

“I usually get the salad with feta on the side,” Scarrey said.

“Right,” Mason said.

“There’s a coffee-crusted steak that’s good too. You could try that.”

Mason tried to figure out if the guy was joking, and almost decided he wasn’t. And if he was, it would serve him right for making the offer.

“All right. I’ll give it a shot.”

Scarrey waved the waiter over, and they ordered. Their drinks arrived before they’d finished. Scarrey got a European lager. Mason stuck to iced tea, and for iced tea, it wasn’t bad.

“So,” Mason said. “You believe all this stuff. Beleth, King of Hell. Demonic conspiracies. Like that?”

“Absolutely, I do,” Scarrey said. “I’ve seen it. I take it you don’t believe it?”

“I’ve seen a lot of things,” Mason said. “I’m just the cop, though. You want judgment, you want a judge.”

“I’m not sure being on the bench necessarily gives someone a deeper spiritual insight.”

“Amen,” Mason said, and Scarrey caught the joke immediately that time. The maitre d’ looked over at the sound of his laughter, smiled, and turned away.

“I didn’t always believe it,” Scarrey said. “But I hoped. I always hoped.”

“Hoped? That there was a global satanic conspiracy controlling the government and the police so it can sacrifice babies and worship the devil?”

“Well, not when you put it that way. But I hoped that there was a world more magical than my physical, obvious, mundane life. I was like that when I was young. Always looking for something miraculous. A visitation from God. Or a UFO abduction. I wanted to be a vampire all through middle school. Used to stand by my window every night and invite any vampires who happened to be around to come in. They can’t come in unless you invite them, you know. I was a bit ahead of the times on that. I wasn’t picky, though. I just wanted something to turn the world on its head.”

“Sounds like you needed a girlfriend,” Mason said.

“Oh, I did,” Scarrey said. “No, I stumbled into riders because I hoped to.”

“Riders?”

“It’s what people in the trade call them. The things that live just outside the world, trying to get in.”

“Why not just demons?”

Scarrey took a long drink of his lager, his frown drawing lines in his forehead. He smacked his lips.

“What’s the difference between an angel and a demon?” he asked.

“One’s good, the other’s evil.”

“What’s good, though? What’s evil? I mean, yes, you and I agree, I’m sure about almost everything. Hurting people who don’t deserve it is bad, being compassionate is good, and so on and so on. We likely even agree on particular cases. But even if every man and woman and child straight out of the womb agreed that something was a wrong thing to do, does that make it true or absolute? I doubt you’ll find anyone who approves of tuberculosis qua tuberculosis, but we haven’t asked the bacilli’s opinions.”

“So Beleth the King of Hell’s an angel?” Mason said.

“If you agree with him, why not?” Scarrey said. “If he destroys the things that you think should be destroyed and protects the things you want protected. Read the Old Testament; you’ll see that angels are terrible, frightening things. But they work in the service of God, and since you’re reading the Bible, you likely believe that God is good, and so . . . The difference between an angel and a demon is whether you both vote Republican.”

“And how would you agree with something like . . . what we’ve got locked up?”

Scarrey’s face lit up. For a moment, all the ingrained uncertainty and apology and awkwardness were gone. Mason felt like he was seeing someone different from the man who’d come in to see the prisoner.

“That’s the mystery, isn’t it? The mystery, not the puzzle. What kind of man would invite that into himself? One who hates women. One who enjoys sadism, or . . . or finds it reassuring somehow. One who is driven to it by fear.”

“Or is a fucking nutcase,” Mason said.

“Oh, Detective,” Scarrey said, chuckling, “if you don’t like my ideas about good and evil, you aren’t going to be satisfied with my opinions on sanity.”

The food arrived. The steak was black as a lump of coal, with a thick crust that bubbled and sizzled. Steamed carrots and broccoli florets adorned the side of the plate, alternating with the regularity of soldiers in formation. The dab of mashed potatoes smelled of hazelnuts and butter. Mason took a bite of the steak, and his eyes went wide. The forty-dollar price tag made more sense. The waiter put Scarrey’s salad in front of him, and a carved crystal plate with crumbled feta beside it.

“Gentlemen,” the waiter said, “the manager wanted me to tell you that all of this will be complimentary today. If there’s anything else I can get for you, just let me know.”

Scarrey made a little clicking noise with his tongue and teeth and shook his head.

“Tell her that she’s really entirely too kind.”

“Yes, sir,” the waiter said, and backed away with professional and wellpracticed grace.

Mason reevaluated the man across the table from him, but he kept coming back to the same place. Even now, on his home territory, he kept his elbows in at his sides, and he smiled unconsciously, nervously. But the chief could ask favors of him, and fancy restaurants downtown fed him for free. It didn’t fit. Scarrey sensed the attention and fidgeted.

“The manager and I go to the same church,” he said around a mouthful of lettuce. “Your chief attends services there too.”

“Really?” Mason said. “I wouldn’t have made him for the pious type.”

“Unitarian. Do you like the steak?”

Mason took another bite. The burned taste of the coffee crust, the salt and juice of the meat. The blood.

“It’s great.”

SOBINSKI’S APARTMENT WAS THE UPPER LEFT QUARTER OF A FOURPLEX. THE neighborhood was a mix of lower middle class and the wealthiest ranks of the poor. Dogs ran loose on the street in a ragged pack that watched Mason and Scarrey with the wariness of locals for outsiders. As they walked up the battered steel stairway, footsteps chiming, the smell of cooking sausage wafted up at them from the downstairs apartment. After the steak, it was a little nauseating.

Mason cut the seal, unlocked the door, and let Scarrey through. The place looked the same as it had the first time Mason had seen it. Tiny kitchen. The stovetop hadn’t seen much use, and the door of the microwave was spotted with splatters of brown. Narrow living room with a big flatscreen TV that was the only high-end appliance in the place, a beige carpet that couldn’t hide the drips and stains, and a floral couch with a rip at the side that leaked yellow-white stuffing. Scarrey walked around the rooms slowly, his hands in his pockets. Mason wondered whether it looked different to him, and if it did, how.

“Did you arrest him here?”

“Yeah,” Mason said. “I think he knew it was coming.”

“And he tried to run?”

“Out the back window. Fire escape. We caught him in the alley.”

“Mmm.”

Scarrey went down the two steps’ worth of hall to the bedroom. Single bed, unmade. Dresser with a pile of junk mail and bills. Socks on the floor. Scarrey squatted on the floor, looking under the bed.

“This was where you found the box of occult things?”

“The robe,” Mason said. “A bunch of fucked-up DVDs. Some books. They’re all back in evidence if you want to look at them.”

“That’s all right. There are other boxes down here, though.”

“Yeah. Crap storage.”

Scarrey went down on his hands and knees, fishing the white cardboard out into the room. Old clothes in wads. A book on how to pick up girls. A stack of pornographic magazines. Two old bricks. A pile of yellowing paperbacks held together with a wide rubber band. A collection of DVDs teaching magic, juggling, unicycle riding. Scarrey ran his fingers over everything like he was flipping pages in a book. He paused, eyes narrowing.

“Missing,” he said.

“What?”

“The circus training disks. One’s missing,” Scarrey said. He picked up the one on juggling. On the box, a guy in clown-face makeup was grinning, a cartoon circle of blue dots and streaks standing in for actual juggling balls. Scarrey read through the text on the back, his lips moving. He made a satisfied grunt.

“Something?”

“Nothing unexpected,” he said. “Contortion.”

Scarrey dropped the disk back into the box and picked up the pile of paperbacks.

“Contortion?” Mason said.

“Bending,” Scarrey said. “It’s when someone—”

“Yeah, I know what it is.”

“More to the point, it’s the one he lost. Or got rid of. I don’t know whether he intentionally removed it, or if it was just something he had out often enough to misplace, but it hardly matters. And these, ah look. From a church library. Chariot of the Gods. Releasing Your Inner Light. Satan Among Us. Ah! Look. The True Meaning of the New Testament, by Reverend J. Linklesser. As if there were only one meaning! But . . .”

The rubber band came off with a snap, and Scarrey let the book fall open. Mason saw underlined passages flicker by.

“Aramaic?” Mason said.

“If English was good enough for our Lord and Savior . . . except, of course, it wasn’t.”

“It’s crap then,” Mason said. “All that shit Sobinski’s pulling. He’s not possessed.”

Scarrey looked up from the floor, baffled.

“Of course not. I mean, I had to check the site of the sacrifice to be totally certain, but really. John Zombie?” Scarrey grimaced and shook his head. “Semitic languages like Aramaic are Afro-Asiatic, not Afro-Caribbean. And Mait Carrefour and Marinette are very specific loa, neither one associated particularly with Jacob’s Ladder. You were quite right about the man, he really isn’t very good. Not that he’s evil. I mean he is evil, he killed that poor girl, but he isn’t very good at what he does.”

“Wait a minute, you knew he wasn’t possessed?”

“Of course.”

“Then, excuse my saying it, but what the fuck are we doing here?”

“Oh,” Scarrey said. “I’m sorry, Detective. I’m not here to find whether he’s possessed. I’m here to find why he’s pretending to be.”

“Insanity plea,” Mason said.

“No, that won’t do. For one thing, in practice that defense never works. Even if it did, life in prison isn’t appreciably different from indefinite detention in a mental institution, except that the prison is more pleasant. Now, given how badly he’s done everything else, your man Sobinski might not have realized that.”

“Straight-up insanity.”

“He could have had some kind of psychotic break. Not to the degree that he couldn’t plan and carry out a complex crime. And he didn’t seem to have any signs of Beleth the King of Hell before he was arrested. Possibly being caught induced psychosis as a way to distance himself from responsibility, but . . .”

“But?”

“Well, there are some problems with it,” Scarrey said, softly. “I have a hard time saying that a man who did what he did is well, mentally, but I think, I think, I know what he was looking for.”

“I’VE ALREADY TOLD THE POLICE WHAT I KNOW.”

The sausage cooker downstairs was a thick-boned Korean woman in her late forties named Anna. Her kitchen was exactly the same layout as Sobinski’s, but with less light and more cooking. She stood at the stovetop, stirring a pan of sizzling meat. The smell of hot gristle and salt hadn’t gotten less repulsive by being closer. Scarrey didn’t seemed bothered by it.

“I’m not a policeman. Did he seem to have many friends?”

She scowled at Scarrey, then up at Mason, then at the food cooking before her.

“He didn’t have any for very long. He was one of those people who knows someone really well for a little while, then moves on. Drank too much. He was always . . .”

She shook her head. Scarrey looked at his own clasped hands. For a moment, he could almost have been praying.

“Frightened,” he said.

Anna glanced at him, then nodded.

“Could put it like that. He was always talking about how the liberals were going to take away our rights, or how George Bush was really working with the Saudis. He was pretty evenhanded about his politics. Give him that. Hated everybody.”

“Did you know him well?”

“For a little while.”

“Did he frighten you?” Scarrey asked.

“No, never.”

“Does that frighten you, considering what he did?”

“Yeah,” she said, turning off the burner under her pan. “Yeah, it does.”

She turned to the refrigerator and took out a round loaf of uncut bread. The place was so small, she didn’t have to shift her feet.

“How did the two of you end your acquaintance?” Scarrey asked. Mason shifted his weight to his left foot. Anna took a knife from its stand and slit the loaf of bread down the side. She was quiet for long enough that Mason started to wonder if she’d heard the question, and, if she had, whether she’d answer it.

“He didn’t hit me,” she said. “He didn’t even get mean. He just drifted off. Didn’t come down for dinner anymore, and so, after a while, I stopped cooking for him.”

She pushed a lock of hair back over her ear, put down the knife, and bent the opened bread, the crust cracking under her fingers, and the soft white tissue of the loaf blooming out.

“I was going to cuss him out,” she said. “But I never got around to it. I wonder. If I had . . .”

“Did he take up with another woman?” Scarrey asked.

“No. He was in a band. Teaching himself guitar. Only lasted about a month. Then there were a bunch of Jesus freaks he had over for a while, until they stopped coming. I stopped paying much attention after that. I don’t think he was the kind of man that ever knew much peace.”

“Would you call him depressed?”

She opened the refrigerator again and took out a tub of fake butter and used the same knife she’d cut with to spread it.

“No,” she said. “He wasn’t happy, but he wasn’t depressed. He was . . . hungry? Scared? Shit, I don’t know what you want to call it. He was messed up. Bad childhood or something. He was always looking for something, always had a scheme for how it was all going to be okay this time. Only it never was.”

She was still scowling, but the angle of her shoulders had changed. Her guard was coming down. Mason tried to keep his own expression soft and unintimidating. He wasn’t much in practice for that.

“You guys want some food?” she asked.

Jesus no, thought Mason.

“Please,” Scarrey said. “That would be lovely.”

“None for me,” Mason said. “Just ate.”

She brought a plate over to the small, peeling-laminate table. The meat was gray with flecks of brown, surrounded by a haphazard fall of half-cooked onion. The bread and fake butter perched on the side.

“All I got’s water,” she said.

“Water would be lovely,” Scarrey said with a big, goofy grin. “Most important nutrient there is. Hydration.”

As she got a glass from the tap, Scarrey tucked into the meat as if it were the best thing he’d seen all day. Mason made a point of not noticing that Anna had wiped the water glass clean before she filled it. When she handed it to him, Scarrey nodded his thanks. Anna sat across from him, her lips pressed thin, as if offering them food had exposed her weak spots and she regretted it now.

“I know it’s an odd question,” Scarrey said around a mouthful of sausage and onion, “given everything you said about him, but I have to ask. With all the fear and the reaching out and letting go, all the brief attachments to people and causes and so on, did he strike you as hopeful?”

Anna furrowed her brow.

“Yeah,” she said. “That’s a weird way to put it, but . . . Yeah.”

“Ah,” Scarrey said, and his smile left him looking satisfied.

“WHAT DID YOU MEAN, THE MYSTERY, NOT THE PUZZLE?” MASON ASKED. They were driving down Central toward the university. The afternoon traffic was starting to thicken, the distant early warning of rush-hour gridlock.

“Have you ever considered the difference between them?”

“Can’t say I have,” Mason said.

“You should. It’s important, given what you do.”

“Solve mysteries?”

“Sometimes,” Scarrey said. “But more often, I think, puzzles.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. What’s the difference?”

A van moved up beside them, gunned its engine, and tried to pass. Mason sped up just a little to stop it, and the van slowed back.

“Puzzles have solutions,” Scarrey said. “Do you have a napkin? My fingers are . . .”

“There’s some wet wipes in the glove box,” Mason said.

“Thank you. Puzzles have solutions. The lock opens. The wine bottle comes free.”

“You figure out whodunit,” Mason said. “I get that.”

“Mysteries aren’t like that. With them, there’s an element of judgment. Guesswork. Not just to reach the solution, but within the solution itself.”

“That sounds really deep,” Mason said, “but I don’t know what the fuck it means.”

“Which makes it a mystery,” Scarrey said. Mason laughed.

Back in the office, Anderson was at his desk, grinning and high-fiving everyone who passed by. His wide-set face and too-handsome looks didn’t have the haunted look they’d acquired in the past few weeks. Mason grinned.

“Good to see you finally showing up for work, slacker,” Mason said.

“Smoked all my dope,” Anderson said, returning the joke. “Figured I’d better come in, hit up the evidence locker, eh?”

From across the room, Diaz growled.

“Take it outside. I’m trying to work here.”

Mason lifted his eyebrows, but Anderson shook his head and pointed to the door. They paused in the hallway, Scarrey looking from one to the other in confusion.

“What’s up?”

“The perp on Miawashi? Yeah, he’s gone. Not at his mom’s place. Not with his girlfriend.”

“Knows we’re looking at him,” Mason said. “Well. He’s got to be somewhere.”

“Makes it a puzzle,” Scarrey said, cheerfully. Anderson met Mason’s eyes with an empty expression. He didn’t get the joke.

“Internal Affairs finished chewing you over?”

“I’m not getting a written apology or anything, but yeah. That’s done,” he said. “What about you two? Good day?”

“Possibly excellent,” Scarrey said.

“Track down the global satanic conspiracy?”

“Wouldn’t go that far,” Mason said. “Pretty well established that Sobinski’s full of shit, though.”

“Even with the . . .” Anderson moved his arms back into an awkward pose, mimicking the prisoner.

“Even with,” Mason agreed. “I’m thinking we get some of the stuff we found, and we can use it pretrial if his lawyer tries to get him declared incompetent. Still no confession, but . . .”

“Well,” Anderson said, nodding slowly. Maybe impressed, maybe pretending to be impressed. “Go with God.”

“Yes,” Scarrey said. “I was hoping I could see the prisoner one last time, though. If that’s not too much trouble?”

“Fine with me,” Mason said.

“Um,” Scarrey said, looking pained and embarrassed.

Mason hoisted his eyebrows.

“Yes, I was wondering if I might speak with him alone.”

THE INTERROGATION ROOM WASN’T BUILT FOR COMFORT. A SINGLE METAL table, bolted to the floor. A plastic chair for the perp, light enough that even if he threw it at someone, it wouldn’t do any real damage. The walls were a dim, unhealthy green. The CCTV camera sat in the corner, so that the image on the monitor was tilted like something in a funhouse mirror. Maury Sobinski looked up into the camera sometimes, like he was trying to decide whether it was on or not. Mason had disabled the red light-emitting diode on the side months ago. Sobinski’s wrists were in cuffs, his ankles hobbled, and a chain ran around the bolted desk. If Scarrey got himself hurt in there, it wouldn’t be because Mason hadn’t tried to keep him safe.

“This is a bad idea, partner,” Anderson said.

“If I leave them in lockup, someone might overhear, right?” Mason said. “Interrogation rooms are soundproof. No one goes in or out without making enough noise to know they’re coming. Chief’s guest wants privacy, I give him privacy.”

“Except for the part where you put him where you can snoop on him.”

“Yeah, except for that.”

“This is a bad idea.”

“Shh. Here he comes.”

At the table, Sobinski sat up a little straighter. Mason turned up the monitor’s volume a little. Scarrey’s footsteps came before the little man walked into the frame. The relative positions of Scarrey and the camera meant that Mason could only see the back of his head, and that from the top. Perfect angle to see how much the guy was balding. Sobinski’s head shifted in the weird almost-broken way he had. His voice through the monitor was perfectly clear. What had seemed creepy and ominous before came across as theatrical and pretentious now.

“You return, little man. You’ve come for Maury, but you cannot have him.”

“That isn’t entirely true,” Scarrey said. “You can stop. It’s all right. I understand.”

Sobinski’s laughter rattled his chains and scooted his chair across the floor.

“You will bow before the King of Hell,” Sobinski said. “Beleth will eat your heart, little man. Only open up. Let him in. Everything will end for you.”

“Maury, you should stop this. It’s undignified.”

“I am the angel at the gate!” Sobinski screamed, his shoulders twisting in ways that looked unlikely and painful. “I am the archon of the last days!”

“You’re Maury Sobinski. And you’re a very bad person. I’ve come here to fix that.”

Anderson leaned forward, his hand on Mason’s shoulder.

“Mason?” he said. “What’s he mean, fix that?”

But Sobinski was already lost in a peal of maniacal laughter. On the screen, Scarrey shrugged. His voice was quiet, almost gentle, but it carried over the prisoner’s pandemonium.

“Really. Stop.”

They were standing five feet apart, maybe six. But Sobinski coughed, choked like someone had him by the throat. His eyes were on Scarrey, and the fake demon show was gone.

“I don’t know what happened to you,” Scarrey said. His hands were in the pockets of his slacks. “You were bullied when you were a boy? Abused, maybe? That’s how it is with some people. Or you just never found a place in the world. It was like that for me.”

“What’s he talking about?” Anderson asked. He was whispering now, even though there was no way Scarrey could hear him. Without thinking, Mason whispered back.

“Fuck if I know.”

“Vampires. Did you ever want to be a vampire? God, I did. The interesting thing about them is that they have to be invited,” Scarrey said. “I think you were like I was. Never comfortable in your skin. You can’t keep friends very long. You can’t keep your mind focused. The chances are very, very good that you’re mentally ill and undiagnosed. But it doesn’t matter. Here’s what does. You killed that girl because you wanted something. You wanted to let go, am I right? You wanted someone else to take over the hard parts. You wanted to be safe from the world?”

“What do you want?” Sobinski asked.

“Nothing you wouldn’t be willing to part with. What do you say? Only open up? You’ll go to prison, of course, but it will be much, much easier with our help. And afterward, we can take care of things for you. Keep you from hurting anybody unintentionally. Keep you from being lost. And we’ll be there, with you. It’s what you’ve been looking for. And the price is very, very small. Considering.”

“Who are you?”

“We’re legion,” Scarrey said, almost apologetically. “But we have to be invited.”

“Come in,” Sobinski said. Scarrey nodded.

“This is going to hurt, but it won’t last long.”

“What game is he playing?” Anderson whispered, and Sobinski screamed, bent backward, and collapsed. Mason was halfway to the interrogation room before he knew that he was going. The door was open when he reached it. Scarrey’s wide back was retreating down the hall, his hands in his pockets, his stride casual and at ease.

“Hey!” Mason called.

Scarrey turned to look over his shoulder, grinned, and waved like a man seeing an old friend. He didn’t stop. Mason leaned into the interrogation room. Sobinski sat on the floor; his chair had skittered away. He looked dazed. Mason went to him, his belly tight. If he’d let a civilian hurt a suspect in custody, there would be hell to pay. But already he didn’t think that was what had happened.

“You okay?” Mason said.

“Hey, Detective,” the prisoner said. He sounded winded, like he was trying to catch his breath. “Good you’re here.”

“You need a glass of water or something?”

“No, no,” Sobinski said, with an odd, lopsided grin. “It’s cool. What I wanted to say is, I killed Osterman. It was a dick move, but y’know. Anyway, it was me that did it. On the record. D’you know what I have to do to plead guilty?”

“You’re confessing?”

“Sure,” Sobinski said.

“Why?”

“Because I did it.”

When the man smiled, he looked like Scarrey.

MASON SAT AT HIS DESK. THE WEEKEND HAD BEEN BUSY. TWO CORPSES AT a hotel down by the river in what might have been a bad drug deal or else a queer love affair gone badly wrong. A dead six-year-old in Presbyterian Hospital with head wounds that didn’t match the story his dad told. A woman living down by the country club who had gotten her head caved in by burglars, except that she’d just filed for divorce. Plus which, the perp in the Miawashi vehicular homicide was still hiding out.

The week was going to be hell.

“Hey,” Winehart said. “Diaz and Roper are taking the hotel gig. You and Anderson want the kid or the rich bitch?”

Before Mason could answer, the chief stepped in. He looked old. He looked tired. He looked human. Mason figured he looked just the way he wanted to look. Their eyes met for a moment, each daring the other to look away. They both knew that Mason had seen something he wasn’t supposed to see. Knew something he wasn’t supposed to know. The question was, what were they both going to do about it?

“How’s it going, Detective?” the chief asked, carefully.

“Just another day doing the work of angels, sir,” Mason said. Winehart seemed confused when the chief chuckled. She didn’t get the joke.