City of the Sun (13 page)

“Break him,” said the seventy-year-old coroner when he arrived on the scene. “Straighten him out.”

“Sir?” Behr asked.

“Step on the joints, they’ll give.”

Behr rolled the corpse to the floor and did as he was told, as only the young are able. It was like crushing corrugated cardboard refrigerator boxes underfoot. Sasso hadn’t even helped. It was a question of seniority, youth being served. The older you got, the closer you came to death, the more you wanted to avoid it, Behr figured.

Eight months later Behr was transferred to Haughville, where death was a much more frequent occurrence. He never did get too comfortable with it though. He just learned to put the thought of it away as the body bags were zipped shut.

Rooster arrived on Tad’s street and drove it once at speed. The maroon El Camino wouldn’t attract any attention in this part of town. Still, after checking the building, Rooster planned on parking a few blocks away and hoofing it over in the shadows so that no one would notice his plates. He wasn’t sure how he’d actually do the thing. Maybe he’d push his way through the lobby door, then knock at Tad’s apartment. Tad wouldn’t be expecting him and in his surprise, since Rooster wasn’t a stranger, would probably open the door. Or Rooster could buzz from the lobby and call Tad down for some spurious reason. He could even call him with the cloned cell phone he’d picked up a week earlier. First he wanted to get the lay of the land, though, and even as he passed Tad’s building at twenty-five, thirty miles an hour, something felt wrong to him. He didn’t know exactly what he felt. Maybe he was just jumpy. He made three consecutive rights and wound up at the head of the block once again. He killed the lights coming around the last corner and rolled alongside the curb, shutting the engine. From his position Rooster could just make out Tad’s building a few hundred yards away. There were a dozen dormant cars dotting the street between him and it. None of them were patrol cars or seemed to be unmarked police vehicles. There were no people out at all. An instinct kept Rooster in his car, though, slouched low in the driver’s seat, his fingers drumming lightly on the wheel. He waited. Fifteen minutes. Forty-five. He didn’t know what he was waiting for, but he didn’t want to hurry, either. It would be an act of extreme ego to walk straight into that building carrying a gun, and ego, Rooster knew, was dangerous.
Better to be smart
, he thought.

It had been five and a half hours and Behr looked ahead to his next move. No one was coming to meet with Ford. It seemed unlikely that Ford was on his way out to meet anyone, either. Behr’s pressure tactic was a bust. It had been a slow night for the Indy P.D. as well. A few DUI arrests earlier; an alarm response at a Hooters, but no one apprehended at the scene; a speeder resisting; domestics; the usual drunk and disorderlies outside the bars on Lafayette. Then the low static of the scanner was punctured by a call.

Units respond. Eagle Creek Park
. It was a recreational area ten miles northwest of the city with golf courses, boating, archery ranges, and crosscountry jogging trails.

Human remains discovered by a dog walker. Advanced decomposition. Appears to be Caucasian youth. M.E. in route. …

Icy pinpricks ran up Behr’s arms. He turned over the car motor and jerked it into gear.

Son of a bitch
. Rooster jolted aware at the sound of the engine. He might’ve been in a heavy-lidded state of rest and missed it, but he was almost sure that no one had just gotten into a car. He hadn’t heard a door slam. No, the driver starting the Olds down the street near Tad’s building had been
in it
. For a long time. It didn’t seem like a coincidence. The son of a bitch was staking out Tad. Rooster had the idea to drive down the street quick, box the guy in, and do him. But he resisted. Then the car lurched away from the curb and once again the street fell silent. After several hours of stiffening waiting, Rooster felt a charged looseness instantly return to his limbs. His breath came in knifing jabs and he worked to slow it down. He touched the gun handle in his right jacket pocket and felt the outline of the speed loaders in his left. He considered moving his car off the block and walking back to Tad’s place.

Fuck it
, he decided. He’d already been sitting there long enough to have been ID’d by anybody looking. He reached behind his seat for a faded ball cap and pulled it down low to his eyes. He exhaled hard and stepped out into the cool morning air. His feet hardly made a sound as he walked down the sidewalk. He looked around as he neared the building. Not a soul was in sight. He approached the lobby door and tried it. It opened right up with a slight rattle. The latch bolt had rusted to the faceplate in the unlocked position. Good luck for Rooster, bad luck for Tad.

Rooster went up the stairs toward Tad’s apartment door. He’d only been there once, but the building layout, everything, seemed familiar to him, like he’d lived there his whole life. He thought about whoever had been around to the Lady questioning Tad, wondered if it was the same guy who was outside.
Probably was
, he figured. Even dumb-ass Tad would be on his guard after being talked to, Rooster realized, and decided he’d better go into the apartment unannounced. He walked quietly down the hall and reached Tad’s door. It was cheap hollow-core, painted builder’s white, with six fake inlaid panels. It had a brass knob lock with no extra dead bolt.
That’s just penny wise, Tad
, Rooster thought, as he held his breath and listened at the door. He heard some muffled sounds, a rustling from inside. He focused on a spot a few inches to the right of the knob. He flexed his knees and felt his thighs, thick with new muscle.

Tad had reached the dregs of the Wild Turkey and at some point below the label had taken to crying. It was a quiet weeping that had no real direction. The air in the apartment had grown stagnant and close, and not sure what to wear and what to pack, he had taken off his T-shirt and jeans and was down to his skivvies and socks. He touched his stomach, lapping over his underwear band, and felt wretched and cried some more. He was spun out. All his decisions during the past year or so had led him here. Maybe his poor judgment went back even further than that. He had done bad things for money, and he hadn’t quit soon enough. Selling the bikes had been plain stupid, and not even that profitable. The smoking didn’t improve matters, and he hadn’t tried to quit that soon enough, either. Now that he had to leave, he could admit to himself that things at the club — with Michelle — weren’t going to work out any better than the rest of it.

“I need help,” Tad said aloud, his voice sounding weird and pathetic to his ears. He wasn’t religious. He didn’t go to church like Mr. Riggi, and he didn’t know how to pray. But something about speaking aloud felt right. It wasn’t talking to himself. He just felt someone, Jesus, was listening. He put down the bottle and moved out of the chair onto his knees. He moaned as his tender shin met the floor and took his weight.

“I need help,” he said again. “Please. I want to change my life. I know I can be good.” He thought for a moment, unsure of how to continue, of what words to say. He wasn’t exactly waiting for a sign, just a thread to follow. Then there was a loud bang and the front door jumped. A current of fear shot through Tad’s chest. There was another bang. A bright piece of brass, part of the lock, broke free and flew through the air. The door swung open, moving through its arc in slow motion, and revealed a stocky man in a cap and a windbreaker.

Rooster
, Tad realized after a second, all muscled up. He saw himself there in his underwear and with a tear-stained face. Embarrassment flooded over his skin like hot water.

“Rooster,” he said aloud, seeing his old partner’s lip curl up in a smirk. Then Rooster’s hand went into his pocket and came out holding a pair of scissors. He pointed them at Tad.
It’s not scissors
. Tad’s mind struggled to catch up.
Gun
. He saw fire.

BEHR ROLLED PAST
the entry booth, still unmanned due to the early hour, and drove into Eagle Creek Park. He followed the road around the lake until he saw a string of official vehicles, cruisers, unmarked cars, ambulances, and the M.E.’s meat wagon. A young uniform waved Behr to a stop. He put down his window.

“Officer.”

“How ya doin’?” the kid asked. They’d never met, but he read Behr as on the job or retired.

“Frank Behr,” he said, sticking his hand out the window and shaking with the officer. “Who’s controlling the scene?”

“Detective Petrie for now.”

“Don’t know him. Is Cale here?” Cale was a lieutenant, a veteran Behr went way back with.

“Vacation, I think.”

“Who’s down from the coroner’s?”

“Gannon.”

Behr smiled. “Good. She’ll vouch for me.”

The kid shrugged, showing fatigue, and pointed. “Pull your vehicle onto the shoulder.” Behr did it and got out.

“Have someone radio back that you’re cleared or I’ll have to come find you.”

Behr nodded, then tried to make his last question sound breezy. “Captain Pomeroy’s on his way, right?”

“Yep.”

Behr made his way to the scene at a more than casual pace.

There was a semicircle of backs standing in tall grass twenty yards from the road. They were ringed around what Behr knew was the body. There were the familiar sounds of a crime scene: radio static, boots on gravel, keys and flashlights swinging on belts, hot coffee being gingerly sipped, the rustle of nylon parkas. Evidence collection kits, looking like orange tackle boxes, were open, tamping down winter-yellow grass at their feet. A few yards off, speaking on a cell phone, was Dr. Jean Gannon, a sturdy woman just past fifty, dressed in cargo pants and a polar fleece top. She began shaking her head at Behr’s approach. “Uh-huh, and send down those dental records, too. Bye.” She closed her phone. “Oh, shit, you’re not here. You are
not
here.”

“I am, babe, get used to it,” Behr said. She smiled despite herself. “Can you make me bona fide?”

“Hal, let ‘em know at the perimeter that my guest found me,” Jean called out to a cop nearby.

Behr had worked with Gannon a bit when she first joined the M.E.’s office. She’d been a housewife and mother before going back to school and starting her career in her forties. Her husband left her after her first year, thanks to the job and its long hours. “He was leaving me, anyway, the job just gave him an excuse,” she’d said when Behr consoled her. She loved her work, and they’d built a friendship over long discussions about forensics.

“So you were out for a morning bike ride and figured you’d say hi?”

“Yeah, about like that. I’m on a case and your rise and shine might have something to do with it.”

“Don’t tell me you’re on a case.” Her brows pinched together in regret. “You know you’re persona non grata and veal piccata.”

“Okay, I’m not on a case, then. Can you tell me what you’ve got?”

Jean looked up the road in concern, scanning the cluster of uniforms there.

“He’s not here yet,” Behr said of Pomeroy.

“Oh, all right. C’mon.”

Behr followed her over to the body, and Jean shooed away the cops, crime scene photographers, and medical assistants.

Body
wasn’t quite the word for what lay at their feet. It was skeletal, with brown scraps of flesh hanging off the shinbones and ribs like old banana peels. The hair and facial skin were largely eroded. The eyes were gone, the nose as well. The jaw jutted out and the teeth grinned in a silent scream. The corpse was on its right side and curled, so Behr couldn’t tell how tall the person had been, but he or she couldn’t have been much over five feet. A wave of dread rolled through him at the possibility that this could be Jamie Gabriel. It vied with a feeling of hope, one that Behr tried to reject, that it
was
Jamie and that he would have his answer.

“Did it happen here?”

“I don’t think so. The position shows placement, and the grass has grown up through the body, so he’s been here for some time.”

“He?” Behr steeled himself for the information.

“Yeah. White male. The hyoid bone shows some damage, so it might be a strangulation.”

“How old?”

“Around twenty.”

Behr breathed again. “You sure on the age?” Jean shrugged, a gesture loaded with information. It told of her thousands of hours of study and experience in unraveling the secrets the dead hold. It was committed and sure, and yet it surrendered to the utter mystery of her trade. “What’s your outside minimum age?”

“Tough to tell. There’s been so much weather degradation. Seventeen, sixteen at the youngest.” Alive or dead, Jamie Gabriel’s fifteenth birthday wasn’t until the next year.

“Thanks, Jean.”

“Well, I hope that’s what you needed to know.”

“I should go.”

“Yah.”

No closer to an outcome in his case but glad of it, Behr took a last look at the remains on the ground and turned to leave.

As he drove out of the park, a gleaming Crown Vic was coming down the one-lane road toward him. It was piloted by a man holding an aluminum travel coffee cup to his lips. Behr and the opposing driver locked eyes through their windshields as they squeezed by each other. The man driving the Crown Vic was Captain Pomeroy.

Numbers streamed through Carol Gabriel’s mind as she pulled her running shoes from the back of the closet and tied them on her feet. Awful statistics she’d come to know. More than eight hundred thousand were currently listed as missing persons across the country. Eighty-five to 90 percent of them were children. Two thousand cases a day were logged into the National Crime Information Center. Most of them were family related — a divorced parent violating custody orders — and 90 percent of them were recovered without incident. But there were still so many of them who were kids, and who weren’t recovered. Of those, the ones who weren’t recovered, 40 percent were determined dead. One was the number of the missing that she cared about. And four hundred and fifty-six was how many days Jamie had been gone. It was a sickening figure that made her feel weak even as she stretched for her run of two miles.