Comes a Horseman (7 page)

“Afhverju í veröldinni ertu fúl?”

Recognizing Olaf 's teasing tone, the animal leaned back on her haunches and moaned at him.

“Hvao?”

The dog shimmied closer and lowered her head. Olaf scratched the heavy fur between her ears and ran his hand down her neck and back as far as he could reach. Despite her position as runt of the pack, she was a massive animal; ninety pounds at least. Olaf had trained her to take down her prey by hurling herself into their chests. He knew from experience that the blow could break ribs. He felt the bands of muscles under her pelt and shook his head at the power they represented. Breeding wolf-dog hybrids had been a part of his people's culture for as long as the storytellers could remember. They had perfected the genetic composition of the breed: the wolf's strength and hunting instincts mixed with the teachability and loyalty of the German shepherd. To their masters, they were attentive servants and companions; to their masters' enemies, they were as lethal as lions. After a minute of scratching and rubbing, he gave the animal several pats and returned his hand to the wheel.

He approached a junction and saw a break in the trees across the road. He eased off the gas. The van slowed abruptly, as if it were underwater. When he reached for the stick shift, he felt Freya's moist nose. She'd known just where to position herself. Olaf scolded her sharply and shoved her muzzle away. “Not now,” he mumbled in his ancient tongue. She scurried into the back, where one of her companions promptly snapped at her.

He pulled off the road, aligning his tires with two deep ruts from previous excursionists: local revelers and hunters, no doubt. Before passing beyond the first copse of aspens and pines, he stopped and switched off the headlamps. Lights from another vehicle headed toward him from a few miles off. Otherwise, he was alone. He allowed the van to drift into the forest, guided as if on rails by the tire tracks. Shortly, he reached a clearing, pulled into an obvious turnaround, and killed the engine.

He swung the door open into the utter stillness of an alpine meadow. When he'd purchased the van two weeks ago, the door hinges screeched like hawks. A few minor adjustments and WD-40 gave them the silence he required. He had also installed a new starter and battery and performed a major tune-up. He liked the harmlessness the aging van exuded, but he couldn't have it stranding him after a killing. Outside, he called to the dogs; they bounded over the driver's seat and out the door. They zigzagged their way through the long grass to the trees at the far end of the meadow, where they sniffed the air and sprayed the foliage to claim their territory.

The moon gave the area a dreamlike luminance. It reminded him of home. The ache in his chest, the pain he tapped to fuel his rage when his tasks necessitated it—this ache deepened and left him short of breath. Around the passenger's side, he opened the sliding door. A stained paper cup and crumpled magazine fell out. He pushed back the trash that had not yet escaped. Another of his modifications was a false floor. The van was old enough and odd enough that most people would not immediately suspect anything wrong with the elevation of the rear compartment; plus, he had covered the plywood not with wall-to-wall shag but with rusty sheet metal and patches of the original carpet. He reached under the van to a small button and pushed it, causing a section of the floor to pop up.

In the compartment were two aluminum cases and a long bin of assorted hand weapons: knives, axes, spearheads. He removed a long pouch from the top of the pile, and from it he pulled a bearded ax—named for the triangular shape of its blade—with an oak handle the length of his arm. Tossing the pouch back into the compartment, he raised the ax to examine the blade. It was smeared with gore: blood and filaments of flesh, a few strands of hair. The handle near the blade, too, was caked with brownish-red globules. He retrieved a canteen and a rag from a plastic crate and walked to the trees ten paces away. Leaves removed most of the offal, then he poured water over the blade and began rubbing.

He heard the car engine before seeing its headlights.

It was coming through the trees slowly, almost to the clearing. He turned quickly to see the dogs huddled together, their long faces pointing toward the intruder. As he watched, their heads—all three at once—came down in a hunting posture. The car was turning into the clearing, its headlamps making a clockwise sweep across the landscape, seconds from capturing the dogs in their glare. No time to call them back, to get them into the place he had designed for them under the false floor.

“Fara!”
he yelled, and they faded into the trees before the lights panned past.

Olaf held the ax behind him as the car came around, catching first the van, then him with its blinding white eyes. He donned a toothy smile.

Then the flashing red and blue lights on the car's roof came on.

7

R
obocop.”Someone behind her whispered it, causing a ripple of quiet laughter. If only they knew how unoriginal the observation was. It was also accurate, at least superficially. The helmet alone was an intimidating black dome, extending from shoulders to crown, with a formation of gadgets marching up one side and down the other. The weight of the helmet necessitated a collar not unlike a deep-sea diver's, giving the shoulders a large share of the burden and making them appear unnaturally stout. The faceplate was a convexity of opaque plastic. Special boots, belt, and equipment strapped to each shin and forearm completed the “Robocop” ensemble. The official name of the system was Crime Scene Digitizer—a moniker that managed to be both uninspired and awesome in a techno-geeky kind of way. Her preference was CSD.

She turned to Detective Lindsey. “I'll go in first.”

Transmitted through small speakers in the front and back of the collar, her voice sounded tinny and far away. A microphone also picked up her voice and fed it back to her through an earpiece, which resulted in an echoing feedback only she could hear. She had reported the problem, but until it was fixed anyone using the helmet was doomed to suffer a horrendous headache. Fortunately, the gremlins had fiddled with only the ancillary systems, like the microphone and a few creature-comfort devices. If the core systems malfunctioned, it would jeopardize the crime scene analyses they were conducting, and the Bureau would never get funding to push the project into everyday investigations.

“How about if only you and one technician follow me on the first pass, to help preserve the scene? The CSD will generate a plan of attack for the other technicians afterward.”

Appraising the outfit, Lindsey made such a comical expression of disbelief that Alicia was sorry she had not yet switched on the cameras.

“All right,” he said tentatively. He managed to pull his jaw closed and turn from her. “Fleiser,” he snapped.

A bespectacled man in a long white lab coat nodded and picked up a leather doctor's bag.

Alicia positioned herself at the bottom of a flight of wooden steps in the garage. According to the responding officer, the steps rose to a combination laundry and mudroom. From there a hallway led to bedrooms and another corridor, which accessed the home's front rooms.

“Systems on,” she said.

Instantly the staircase became clear and shadowless under the hot-white light of halogen lamps mounted to her shoulders and shin pads. A display, showing the view of the digital video camera on top of the helmet, flickered to life inside the visor. In her abdominal muscles, against which a black box was strapped, she felt CSD's hard drive whirl up to speed.

“Mapping on.” The high-pitched whine of a small motor started. There was a vibration against the top of her skull that radiated to her jaw. Another problem to report. The red beams of a dozen lasers flashed past her field of vision. They would be a thousand times more visible in the area around her not washed by the halogens.

“Whoa!” Lindsey said.

She used a button located on her left forearm to switch to a rear-viewing camera. Lindsey's expression of sheer incredulity had returned.

“They're used to help an optical range finder map the crime scene. CSD will create a detailed, accurate blueprint—furniture, evidence, and all.”

“Whatever.”

She started up the stairs. “The perp came down this way,” she said. She pointed to a three-inch gash in the unpainted drywall, deeper on the downward side. It was crusted brown. “I'll mark it on the map.” A red beam shot out from her fingertip. When the dot on the wall touched the gash, she pushed a button. A beep sounded, and the laser disappeared.

“Fleiser,” Lindsey said behind her, “wanna tag that?”

She stopped again in the laundry room. “Hold on a sec.” The lights dimmed like dying suns; the rotating lasers clicked off. A single laser sliced the dark. It stopped on the floor. “Shoe print,” Alicia said. “Big, size twelve or thirteen, coming into the laundry from the hall.” The halogens flashed on again; the range-finding lasers restarted their rotation. She was holding her finger toward the spot.

“I don't see—”

“I used infrared. That's why I turned off the lights. Can you get around me and tag that?”

Fleiser leaned forward and set down what appeared to be a miniature pylon with a number on it. Alicia instructed CSD to map the print as well.

They stepped over the pylon and invisible print into the hallway. The soles of her boots consisted of half-inch rubber posts at each of the corners and insteps, designed to minimize disturbance of the ground and leave unique tread marks. They also contained sensors that identified the type of surface upon which the wearer trod. When the diagram of the house and crime scene was complete, it would show that this part of the house was floored with hardwood. The hall was narrow and lined with framed photographs chronicling the formation, mitosis, and activity of an average American family: school portraits, weddings, births, vacations in sand and snow and places with giant plaster dinosaurs.

Alicia's throat tightened. Death stole so much more than a person's future. For the victim, the universe ended. All that was and is and will be—gone. For the family, even happy memories were suddenly tinged with the sadness of knowing a principal player was no longer making new memories.

A light housing on her shoulder clipped one of the photographs. Alicia spun and caught it before it hit the floor. She handed it to Lindsey. She stepped through an open doorway on the right. The lasers danced around the room, noting dimensions and the placement of furniture. The room's simplicity and dustiness implied a seldom-used guest room. It contained one window. Behind its raised lower half, a circle of glass was missing, corresponding to where a brass lock would latch when the window was closed.

“Point of entry,” she said, stepping nearer. “There appears to be a clump of animal fur stuck on the wood frame. The screen's on the ground outside. Mud on the sill . . . dirt, pine needles, leaves on the carpet inside.” She pointed at each with the fingertip laser.

Lindsey and Fleiser swept in behind her.

“Going infrared again,” she said, and the lights faded. After a few seconds, the laser, bright in the darkness, touched two spots on either side of the window. The halogens reignited. “Got prints on the window casing, twenty inches from the bottom on the left, nineteen and a half on the right. Looks like a couple of fingers and a palm.”

“Well, I don't see a dang-pickin' thing,” Lindsey said stupidly.

That's why they're called latent,
she almost countered, but checked herself. Instead, she said, “They're there.”

“No gloves? That doesn't make sense.”

“They found prints at the other crime scenes as well,” she informed him. “Maybe the killer simply doesn't care.”

She stepped out and moved down the hall. Two more doors, both closed. The first was an office of sorts. A computer monitor on a small desk, the computer itself stashed underneath. A chair, a printer, a smattering of mail and printed pages, a metal filing cabinet. The rest of the room contained teetering columns of stacked plastic wastebaskets.

At the last door she powered down the halogens for an infrared look at the area. Light was spilling from beneath the door. She backed into Lindsey, who had come up behind her. “Light,” she whispered. “Did the responding officer—”

“He rushed out of here so fast, he might not have cleared it. Turn those airplane lights back on.” He edged around her, his pistol already drawn. Slowly he turned the knob—and burst through, Alicia on his heels. He moved quickly, swinging the weapon around the room. He cleared it, the closet, and a small bathroom in six seconds.

She rotated to face the room. The first thing that struck her was the bed. It was king-size with a fat down comforter and green sheets, purled in ivory lace. On one side, the top half of the comforter and upper sheet were folded back. Two pillows lay fluffed against the headboard. An open paperback formed a miniature tent by the pillows. A ceiling fan rotated lazily overhead. Though the halogens overpowered it, she knew the small lamp on the nightstand was burning.

“Looks like she was in bed when something disturbed her,” Lindsey said.

“No, the sheets are too smooth.” She hoped the tinny speakers were filtering out the melancholy in her voice. “This was her reward. A comfortable bed and a good read at the end of a long day. She prepared it ahead of time, perhaps just after dinner, so it was waiting for her. She didn't want to have to work for it when she was tired. She wanted to simply fall into bed and enjoy.”

“How would you know that?”

“Because that's exactly what my mother did. Every day of her life. Sometimes she would . . .” Her voice trailed off. Why should she share her memories with some guy who couldn't possibly give a squat? She'd spoken without thinking and regretted it.

Lindsey eyed the neatly arranged items. “She was probably getting ready for bed when the intruder broke in.”