Dark Heart (10 page)

“Hey, Mac,” she murmured as she sat down. There were several odd-looking metal gadgets on his desk. Some of the gadgets looked almost lethal. There were also some lengths of nylon rope in various strengths and thicknesses, some nylon straps, and a funny pair of leather slippers with rubber on the bottom.

The hair on McKenzie’s balding head was in disarray. His wide, flat nose was wrinkled in the unconscious sneer he always wore when he talked to someone he didn’t want to be talking to. Probably his wife. He and Linda had been together for twenty years, and from what Sandra could tell the last nineteen years had been one solid squabble. They seemed to enjoy it, though.

“No,” McKenzie was saying, “I don’t touch that stuff! Why would I move it!? No. Look, Sandra’s here. I’ve got to go. Okay, I will. Good-
bye,
Linda. Okay, yes. Good-bye.”

McKenzie hung up. “So, you made it in. Congratulations.”

Sandra fingered the strange leather slippers on the desk. “What’s with the funny shoes?”

“Climbers’ shoes.” McKenzie grunted. “You asked what kind of shoes climbers wear. That’s them.”

She lifted them, looked at the soles closely, then dropped them. “So I guess the scratches on Madrone’s wall weren’t from climbers’ shoes.”

“Madrone’s partner was on vacation. Guy named Lyle Whitney. He’s due back tomorrow.”

“Okay, we’ll do him as soon as he gets back. Anything on Madrone’s case jackets?”

McKenzie shrugged. “We’ll have to go up to Twenty-three for them.”

She nodded, then picked up one of the metal gadgets, turned it over in her hand. It was a smooth, sturdy plastic rod with a mechanism of four hinged half-moons at the tip. A small bit of machinery on the stick connected tiny cables to the half-moons. When she pulled it, the moons swiveled back, narrowing the entire width of the mechanism at the end.

“What the hell’s this, Mac?”

“It’s called a camalot. Protection for climbers. Hey, you know how much this shit costs?”

“No idea,” she said, looking it over.

“A lot.”

“It’s kind of like a work of art, though, isn’t it?” The shaft of the implement was flat black; the cables were shiny silver. The half-moons were a rich, metallic lavender, perforated with irregular holes that reminded her of an industrial art exhibit she’d once seen.

“Yeah, sure, Bruce. Art.”

“What does it do?”

“You pull that plastic thing down and stick it in a crack in the rock. Then let go and you can hang on the rock all day if you want to. That’s what the lady at the rock-climbing gym told me.” McKenzie shook his head again. “It looks like a high-end sex toy to me. I sure as hell wouldn’t trust it with my life.”

“It’s metal. It could make scratches in brick or concrete, right?”

“I guess it could. But where are you gonna find cracks on the side of a building big enough to stick that in?”

“Hmmm. Maybe they have smaller camalots? Maybe he used the smallest kind.”

“Could be. I still think it’s too thin.”

“So what else have we got?”

“You’re going to love what the lab came up with.”

“Yeah?” She raised her eyebrows.

“Nothing.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing what?” Sandra asked.

“They didn’t find anything. They had the preliminary report here about an hour ago. Just the essentials. Which weren’t much, ’cause there wasn’t anything for them to study. No hair other than Madrone’s. All the fibers appear to match clothing or textiles found at the site. No prints except for his. No skin under his fingernails except his own. Even the blood on the doorknob was his. So we got zip. Zero. Nada.”

“Great.” She sighed and shook her head.

“Except…” McKenzie said slowly.

“Except what?”

He pushed his chair back and stood up, his hard mound of belly brushing the edge of his desk.

“We gotta go look,” he said. “C’mon.”

The lab at the morgue was crowded with equipment. In the middle of the room, a tech in a white coat was leaning over a microscope. Sandra recognized her but couldn’t remember her name. The woman looked up and nodded.

“The Madrone thing,” Mac said.

“Sure, Detective. Hang on, I’ll be right back.”

“You don’t know what it is?” Sandra asked while they waited.

Mac shrugged. “Just what the report said, and it didn’t make any sense to me.”

The tech returned with a small vial, uncorked it, and tipped its contents out onto the stainless steel working surface. She aimed one of the light armatures directly on the specimen.

“What is it?” Sandra asked.

“That’s a question, isn’t it?” McKenzie said.

“It looks like a scale.” She squinted at it. The teardrop-shaped thing, deceptively heavy for its moderate size, gleamed in multiple shades of translucent green. It started out dark green, almost black, on the curved part and gradually became lighter, almost clear, near the point of the teardrop.

“Where’d they find it?”

“They found it stuck to the lining inside the sleeve of his army coat, caked in blood. Hard to see,” the tech replied.

Sandra pursed her lips. “Madrone have some kind of pet lizard or something? I didn’t see anything like that.”

Mac grinned. “Madrone? From what I hear, the closest thing he’d have to a pet would be a box of animal crackers.”

Sandra turned to the expert. “Do you or your people know what sort of thing this scale is from?”

The tech shook her head. “We’re working on it.”

Sandra sighed. “You’re covering your butt, but you don’t have a clue, right?”

The tech grinned, but didn’t reply.

“So now what?” McKenzie leaned back against the counter and patted his top pocket for his pack of cigarettes. He paused, looked at the attendant who was pointing at the
ANYONE CAUGHT SMOKING WILL BECOME A
RESIDENT
OF THE MORGUE
sign, then let his hands fall slowly to his sides.

Sandra shook her head. She turned to the tech. “I want to take this with me.” She gestured at the vial, into which the tech had returned the scale.

“Sure. Do the paperwork, Detective.” She gestured toward a rack of official forms fastened to the far wall. Mac went over and brought a sheaf of paper back. It took them ten minutes to fill out all the releases and declarations that preserved the chain of evidence. When they were done, Sandra slipped the vial into her bag.

“Later,” Mac said to the tech.

“Not if I can help it,” the tech replied, bored.

“Ouch. Touchy,” Mac muttered as they left.

Sandra said, “I want to check out some S&M shops. You think?”

“Yeah? For what?”

“And maybe some specialty metal shops. See if they have any toys that might do the type of damage we saw on Baxter and Madrone.”

“I can handle that,” Mac said. “You comin’ with me?”

“Nah. I’m going to visit the zoo.”

They were so still. It was the first thing Sandra noticed about the reptiles in the zoo. After strolling around the circular room in the center of the reptile house, she came to a stop before the huge Komodo dragon. Its curled claws, its lethal snout didn’t move at all. The only way she could tell the animal was alive was the slow in-and-out movement of its sides as it breathed and the way its pupils contracted as it watched her walk around the room. She wondered how quickly it would move if there wasn’t an inch-thick glass pane between them. Would she be able to outrun it? Or would it run from her?

She looked at some of the other lizards in their glass cages, but the scale she carried could not possibly belong to the smaller ones. The Komodo dragon was the largest reptile she’d ever seen, and it still seemed as if it were too small to have a scale like the one in the vial.

She traced a half-circle on the glass with her finger. The flat, unblinking gaze of the dragon followed her smallest movement. So how did the scale get into Madrone’s sleeve?

She turned away from the dragon and leaned against the rail that kept visitors from getting too close to the residents. She remembered coming to zoos as a child, and rooms like this one always gave her an eerie feeling. The stucco walls were painted a shimmering green, as were the round metal rails. Each transparent cage was like a doorway to some other world, with its own special habitat. The lush jungle of the vine snake abutted the desert domain of the rattlesnake, both so lovingly crafted that Sandra felt as if her world was the fake one. Beyond the glass were lands of sand and rock, leaf and tree and the wondrous, though often poisonous, creatures who made those lands their home.

She heard something move behind her.

“Detective McCormick?”

Sandra blinked and turned around. “I’m sorry. You startled me.”

The white door marked
EMPLOYEES ONLY
stood ajar. A man in his mid-fifties with dark salt-and-pepper hair and glasses as thick as the walls of the Komodo dragon’s pen smiled briefly at her. The first thing that struck Sandra about him was that he wasn’t accustomed to smiling. The herpetologist was tall and gangly under his wrinkled white coat.

“Dr. Dawes?” she said, crossing the distance between them and extending her hand. He nodded and shook it rather timidly.

“I-I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” he stammered. “It’s just we had a kind of emergency here.”

“Oh?” she asked.

“Yes. One of the coral snakes took ill.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “There’s always an emergency here. It’s like dealing with a house full of children. Someone’s always sick.”

“I understand.”

“So,” he said, “how can I help you, Detective?” He pushed at his glasses nervously. “I must say that this is the first time I’ve had a police officer ask for my assistance. Usually when I’m called to deal with the public it’s some distraught mother who has a child with a limp boa constrictor, or a hysterical society matron with a grass snake in the middle of her lawn party.”

He’s babbling,
Sandra thought.

“Well, I do need your help, Doctor. We found something that I was hoping you might be able to identify for me.”

“W-well, of course, whatever I can do to help…”

She pulled the vial from her blazer pocket and handed it to him. “I need to know what kind of snake or lizard this belongs to.”

As soon as he took it, his eyebrows shot upward in surprise. He whistled and held it up to the light.

“I don’t…believe I’ve ever seen anything like this.” The light creases that marked his face deepened. Lowering the vial, he looked at her sadly. “I’m sorry, Ms. McCormick. I’d love to tell you what this is, but I’m afraid I don’t know myself.”

“It’s not a lizard’s scale?”

“Oh…” He stared at it again. “I don’t think so. It’s quite translucent, you see. Most lizard scales are designed to keep the light out, because most lizards live in such hot, bright climates. Built-in sunscreen. And, big as it is, the scale’s not shaped like an anaconda’s or a boa constrictor’s.” He turned the vial over and over again in his hands, watching the scale tumble around the small container. He seemed fascinated by it. “It’s such a strange shape…” he murmured.

“What about—I don’t know—an alligator or something? Could the scale have come from something like that?”

He shrugged. “It’s very unlikely. If so, it would be a species I haven’t seen before. Perhaps some deep jungle species. There are places in South America nobody’s been yet, even in these modern times.”

“Why couldn’t it be a normal alligator?”

“Oh, no. The scale’s much too thin and the shape is wrong.”

“I see.” Sandra leaned against the green railing. The chain of experts she had called had led her to this man. If he didn’t know anything, she wasn’t sure where she’d turn next. “Is there anyone else who might know what this is? Can you think of someone I might call?”

“I’ll tell you what…” he said slowly, “if it’s all right with you, I could keep the scale overnight and do some research. I might be able to discover its origin. At the very least, I may be able to come up with a contact that could help you.”

She nodded. “Okay. I’ve got a form for you to sign.”

She rummaged in her purse. “Let me call and clear this with my boss, and then we’ll turn you loose on it. If this has anything to do with the killer we’re after…well, he’s bad. Really bad. Anything you could do to help…”

“If you don’t mind my asking, how is the scale involved?” Dr. Dawes held it up to the light.

“I don’t know. I wonder if the reason the killer went after the victim was because of this scale. But if I don’t have any idea what it is…” She spread her hands and shrugged.

“R-right…” Dawes said, looking nervous. “I’ll do what I can.”

“Thank you.” Sandra pulled a card from her blazer pocket and handed it to him. “Let’s go make that call.”

She shook his hand, then followed him deep into the bowels of the employee areas of the building to use his phone.

Later, she pulled out of the zoo’s huge parking lot, grabbed her cell phone out of the glove compartment, and dialed McKenzie’s number at the station.

She got his machine.

Pity. She’d wanted to explain in graphic detail how much a small snake eating an egg looked like Mac eating a burger. “Hey, Mac, it’s Sandra,” she said. “Check with the lab and see what they have to say about the scale’s composition. Dr. Dawes didn’t recognize it and now I’m wondering if it isn’t something manufactured instead of shed. I’m gonna get some lunch, then go read up on lizards.”

She followed the streets to Greektown, parked near one of her favorite restaurants, and walked inside. Rain trickled steadily down the awnings. A few people moved along the sidewalk, mostly dry under their umbrellas, and she muttered at herself for forgetting hers as she shook the water droplets out of her hair.

After ordering a
souvlaki
sandwich,
tzatziki,
and a raspberry lemonade, she went outside, sat at a small patio table under the awning, and watched the street, trying to sort out what little she already knew.