Kiss Of Evil

47

Paris mounts the steps to the Levertov apartment, his sidearm drawn. He is followed by Carla Davis and two uniformed officers from the Second District. Paris has not pulled his weapon in the line of duty for more than eight months, and although he had requalified at the range since, it suddenly feels foreign in his hand, heavy.

Three scenarios are possible at the top of these stairs, Paris thinks, ten treads from the door. One. Nobody home. Isaac Levertov’s widow is staying with relatives, too grief-stricken to return to the apartment. Two. A dazed and confused and heavily medicated Mrs. Edith Levertov will come to the door, having never heard the doorbell or the ringing phone.

Three?

Well, three has too many variables, even for someone of Jack Paris’s experience.

The top of the stairs brings a collective breath from the four police officers. Paris tries the knob and the old door opens, just a few inches, creaking in protest. Paris makes eye contact with Carla, who is standing directly behind him. Paris will open the door wide, go in high. Carla will go in low.

After a silent count of three, Paris pushes open the door fully. The squeal of the hinge is louder this time, a shriek of rusty disapproval in the silence of the hallway.

No movement. No voices inside. No TV nor radio.

Paris waits a few heartbeats, peeks around the jamb. Small kitchen ahead, enameled yellow walls, a wrought-iron dinette table, plastic plants. He smells old frying oil, Lysol, cat litter. Whereas there had been no lights on when Paris had staked the apartment out earlier, now, it seems, every light in the small apartment is blazing.

Paris rolls in high. Carla follows. Spotless kitchen floor, except for the two slightly sullied size-eleven footprints made of melted snow. Paris silently apprises Carla, who skirts them.

To the left, an archway into the living and dining rooms. Paris sidles against the refrigerator, holds his position. Carla moves low, to the far side, glancing through the archway as she does. She stands on the opposite side of the arch, nods at Paris. Paris steps into the dining room, his 9 mm pistol at a forty-five degree angle to his body.

The shadow appears first, then the outline, then the form.

Someone is sitting at the dining room table.

Paris raises his weapon, draws down on the shape in front of him, his heart flying. Shoot don’t shoot. It never changes.

Shoot.

Don’t shoot.

Paris lowers his weapon slightly, the sweat now gathering at the nape of his neck, running down his back in a latticework of icy threads.

There is no threat from the person at the table.

Carla rolls the corner, weapon high, sees what Paris sees, hesitates-the macabre scene distracting her for a moment-then silently moves forward.

Ahead, a small cluttered living room: an old twenty-five-inch rock maple TV, a tall etagere full of glassine objects, overstuffed chairs. Empty, silent, ominous. Carla nods toward the hallway that certainly leads to the bedrooms, bathroom. Paris moves to the hallway opening, Carla spins into the hall. The two other uniformed officers position themselves in the living room. Paris nods to one of them, who then skirts Paris, and moves down the hallway. Paris repeats the action with the second officer. He follows. They search the rest of the apartment.

Bathroom. Empty.

Bedroom One and closet. Empty.

Bedroom Two and closet. Empty.

Paris walks back to the dining room and looks at the figure seated at the table. He returns his weapon to his shoulder holster.

“Clear!” Carla Davis yells from a bedroom.

Carla emerges from the hallway, her pistol at her side. The two other police officers-rookie patrolmen from the looks of them, pumped and full of adrenaline from the search-follow her out. It is usually a moment, a very special moment for police officers, to decelerate, to slap each other on the back, to take that deep, nervous breath that says we went where the danger was and we didn’t flinch.

But it is not a time for camaraderie.

Not this time.

“My God, Jack,” Carla says softly.

The two other police officers in the dining room holster their weapons, avert their eyes. They are both young enough to have living grandmothers and they are appalled at the sight in front of them. One of them leaves the room, ostensibly to cover the front door to the apartment. The other studies his shoes.

The old woman, Edith Levertov, is sitting at her dining room table, as she most likely had for many years-partaking of her kreplach, playing mah-jongg, diapering the parade of Levertov babies and grandbabies, dispensing her years of wisdom.

Except, this time, there is a difference.

This time, her head is turned completely around, facing the flower-print wall of cabbage roses and olive green vines. This time, her exanimate eyes are wide open and she appears to be staring at a symbol, roughly slashed into the plaster on the dining room wall. An ancient emblem made of six lines, two of them curved into a gentle arc.

Paris, suddenly the scholar in Santerian symbology, doesn’t bother to look.