Hard Spell (19 page)

  "Would it be all right if we took a look at the room your son uses when he's here, ma'am?" I asked. "There might be something to help us find him – just so we can ask him a few questions."

  "Would it be all right?" She pretended to consider it. "Well, I suppose so." The smile widened. "Just as soon as you show me your warrant, or court order, or whatever it's called. I have my doubts that any judge in the city would sign such an order – everyone but the police, apparently, knows what a fine young man Jamieson is. But in the event that you should obtain one, I'll have to have my attorney present, of course."

  Three minutes later, we were being shown out by the housekeeper. Following Karl out the door, I started to say something when I heard Mrs. Moyle's voice behind me.

  "Detective?" She held up a folded piece of paper. "I think you dropped this."

  It didn't look like anything I'd had in my pockets, and I was about to say so when I noticed the intense way Mrs. Moyle was looking at me. "I'm getting careless," I said, stepping back to the doorway. "Thank you."

  Mrs. Moyle didn't speak as she extended the hand holding the paper, but I saw her mouth form words that I'm pretty sure were "I never liked the little prick, anyway." Then she closed the door in my face.

  I waited until we were well aMrsom the house before unfolding the slip of paper. In a careful cursive hand was written "157 Spruce St # 304."

We were working a double shift, so it was just twilight when we left the Longworth place. That used to be my favorite time of day, when I was younger. The light gets softer and the world seems to quiet down a little, if only for a few minutes. But now I look at it as nothing more than the calm before the storm, and the storm comes every night.

  As we approached the car, I was scanning the street and noticed a lone figure standing on the sidewalk three or four houses down. I tensed, and said, "Karl." to let him know we might have trouble. It would be just like that prick Jamieson Longworth to set up an ambush outside his own house.

  Then I heard a woman's voice singing, an achingly clear soprano that sounded familiar. I relaxed. Nothing to worry about – except for the people living in that house.

  "It's okay, but give me a minute, will you?" I said to Karl, and walked toward the woman in the gathering gloom. I saw her watching me approach, but her voice never paused in its melody.

  If she'd been silent, I might have missed her in the near-darkness. As always, this stunningly beautiful woman was dressed in black – dress, hose, and shoes, with a black knit shawl wrapped around her thin shoulders. Seeing the outfit, along with her pallor, you might mistake her for a Goth, or maybe a vamp wannabe. Until you heard her voice.

  She wasn't singing very loud, although I knew she had the ability to rattle windows up and down the street, if she wanted to. We'd had a conversation about it some time back – that, and the screeching. She'd eventually agreed that, tradition notwithstanding, she could carry out her duty without freaking out the whole neighborhood.

  I didn't understand the words of her song, although I assumed they were Old Gaelic – very, very old. The simple melody was sad enough to get you crying without even knowing why. It didn't affect me. I'd cried myself out a long time ago.

  I knew better than to interrupt her, but after another minute or so, she let her song fade away into silence. That was only temporary; she'd stay here, singing softly, until what she was foretelling had come to pass inside the house.

  It was another big, ritzy place, and the people inside probably lived a comfortable life. But no matter how much money you have, or how nice your house is – if you belong to one of several Irish families, sooner or later you'll get a visit from this lady, or one of her sisters.

  "Hello, Siobaghn," I said quietly.

  "Sergeant," she said with a nod. "Tis a surprise seein' ye about, it not even full dark yet."

  "Putting in some overtime," I said with a shrug. A few seconds passed before I said, "Can I ask who...?" I nodded toward the house.

  "The clan Kavanagh. The youngest son, Edward, is about to hang himself in his room, over a love affair gone wrong." Her voice wasn't cold, exactly, just matter-of-fact.

  If he hadn't done it yet, maybe there was still time. But before I could start toward the house, Siobaghn laid a gentle hand on my arm.

  "No, Stanley, no. Tis already too late – else I would not be here. Ye know as much."

  She was right, of course. The banshee doesn't bring death – she just foreshadows it, and she's never wrong. There was nothing I could do.

  Nobody knows for sure why the banshee manifests for some Irish families and not others, or why it's only the Irish. I doubt Siobaghn herself could tell you. She just does as she is bidden, and she's been doing it for centuries.

p; I was about to say goodnight to Siobaghn when I heard Karl's voice shouting, "Stan! We got a ten double-zero! Come on!"

  Ten double-zero is radio code for "officer down."

  I was moving even before he'd finished, pulling the car keys from my pocket as I ran. Behind me, I heard Siobaghn take up her mournful song again.

  A few seconds later, I was behind the wheel and reaching over to unlock the passenger door for Karl.

  "Where?" I said as I started the engine.

  "It's at 1484 Stanton."

  I peeled away from the curb and hit the button that would get the siren going and start the headlights flashing red. We were halfway down the block before it occurred to me that the address Karl'd given sounded familiar, and we'd almost reached the first intersection when I realized why.

  It was Rachel Proctor's house.

I wasn't surprised by the flashing red lights that greeted us as we drew within sight of 1484 Stanton Street. Ten Double-Zero doesn't just mean "Officer Down" – it also means every available unit within a one-mile radius is expected to haul ass to the scene at once. By the look of it, five or six black-and-white units had done that already.

  Karl and I were just a block away when the radio sparked to life again: "All units, all units: be advised that the ten double-zero at 1484 Stanton has been revised to ten double-zero, Code Five. I say again, the call is now ten double-zero, Code Five."

  
Magic involved.

  As if we'd been practicing for weeks, Karl and I said at exactly the same time, "Fuck!"

As we got closer, I saw two ambulances heading away from the scene. One was moving fast, lights flashing and siren screaming.

  The other ambulance wasn't using its lights or siren, and was traveling at a normal speed. Whatever that one was carrying to the hospital, there was no hurry to get it there.

  The ranking uniform on the scene was a sergeant named Milner. He looked so white, you could've mistaken him for a ghost, especially in the crazy light being thrown by all those squad cars. And this is a cop with fifteen years on the job, maybe more. He'd seen it all – or so you'd think.

  Something else I noticed right off was the
silence
. Get a bunch of cops together, even at a crime scene, and they're gonna talk to each other – about the job, the wife, sports, who's screwing whose ex-girlfriend,
something.
But there were eight cops standing around here, and not one of them was saying a word. I could hear the radio calls coming through the lowered windows of their cruisers, but otherwise – nothing.

  I had no intention of taking over command of the scene from Milner, even though I was pretty sure I had rank on him. A lieutenant was probably already on the way. Nobody had told me it was a case for Supernatural Crimes anyway, despite that Code Five on the radio.

  We walked over to where Milner was standing, looking at nothing. I expected Karl to say "What do we got here?" But he was silent, too. Maybe he had picked up on the vibe, which was more like a wake than a crime scene.

  Maybe that's what it really was.

  Milner let go of his thousand-yard stare and looked at me. Before I could ask a question he said, "Lady across the street called 911. Said she saw lights in Proctor's place. She knew it was supposed to be sealed, pending investigation. She was thinking burglars, kids, something like that. So Ludwig and Casey got the call to go check it out."

  Larry Ludwig, I knew. He'd been on the job a long time, but never tookv>  rgeant's exam. He told me once that he liked the action of being a street cop. Casey's name didn't ring a bell, which meant he was probably a rookie. Scranton PD's not so big that the cops don't get to know each other pretty quick, if only by name and face.

  "Looks as if Ludwig sent Casey around back, then went in through the front door," Milner said. "We found him... or what was..." Milner stopped for a second and cleared his throat. "We found him in the living room."

  I waited, but he didn't say anything more. Looking toward the house, I said, "Forensics hasn't been here yet."

  "No," Milner said. "I called for 'em. They'll take their sweet fuckin' time, like usual." He cleared his throat again. "SWAT was on the way, too, but I cancelled it, after we went through the place. There's nobody in there. Nobody... alive, anyway. That Proctor cunt is long gone."

  I looked at him. "Rachel Proctor's the suspect?" I wasn't sure yet what she was suspected
of
, but for something to get to a cop like Milner's experience, it had to be real bad. "Was there a witness?"

  "Nah, not that we know about. But it's her house, ain't it? And she's a fuckin' witch, ain't she?" He pointed toward the house as if he was aiming a gun. "What went down in there wasn't done by no fuckin' Girl Scouts."

  Arguing with Milner about what Rachel Proctor was capable of was going to be a waste of time. Anyway, in her current state, I wasn't sure
what
Rachel was capable of.

  "Guess we better check it out," I said. "Okay if we open the front door?"

  "Yeah, I guess," he said. "Just don't go inside and fuck up the crime scene."

  That's something every police trainee learns the first week at the academy, but I wasn't giving Milner the fight he was spoiling for. Let him take his feelings out on somebody else. His wife was in for a rough few hours, I figured. I hoped Milner wasn't a hitter.

  "Let's go," I said to Karl, and we followed a narrow, meandering sidewalk to the front door of Rachel Proctor's house.

Three creaky wooden steps led up to the front door, which was painted white, with a light blue trim. Part of the doorframe near the knob was splintered and broken. Somebody had kicked the door in – either Officer Ludwig, or whoever came before him.

  Using the back of my hand, I pushed against the door. After a moment's resistance, it came free of the frame and swung wide.

  The thick, coppery scent of blood hit me in the face as soon as the door opened. Nothing else in the world smells like that. Once you've had it in your nose, it can stay a long time – maybe your whole life.

  All the lights were on in the living room, which made it easy to see what had got Milner acting like he'd had a personal glimpse into Hell. It was hard to imagine Hell as bring much worse.

  The walls were giant abstract murals done by an insane artist who had a thing for red. And you could add the ceiling to the exhibit. Display the whole thing in the
Night Gallery
.

  And it wasn't just blood, either. Sticking to the walls, the ceiling, the furniture were globs of flesh that I figured had once been bodily organs. I saw what looked like a kidney wrapped around the leg of the coffee table, and flattened against one wall was a fist-sized ball of flesh that might once have been a human heart.

  Next to me I heard Karl mutter, "Dear sweet merciful Jesus." I couldn't have put it better, myself.

  The room looked like a World War II bunker that somebody had thrown a grenade into, except for one thing: the furniture.

  Apart being covered in gore and guts, Rachel Proctor's living room furniture was intact and in place. All the window glass was still there, too. Whatever kind of explosion had caused the human damage, it had left the surroundings untouched.

  How was that possible? There's only one answer, and it's the same one that had occurred to Milner, and probably to the other cops out there, too: magic. The blackest of black magic.

  Which left Rachel off the list of suspects, as far as I was concerned. Rachel didn't practice black magic – I was sure of it.

  But indications were that Rachel wasn't exactly traveling alone these days. And, judging by the books and gear we'd found in his house, George Kulick had known a few things about black magic. Enough to do this? I was hoping for the chance to ask him about it, and soon.

  "Seen enough?" I asked Karl quietly.

  "More than enough," he answered, his voice hoarse.

  We walked back to where Milner was standing. "I assume that what we saw in there was... came from Ludwig," I said.

  Milner nodded. "It was like he just... exploded from inside. They took what was left of him to the morgue. There's enough to bury, I guess." He looked at me. "Ludwig was a good cop, put in a lot of years. He didn't deserve to go out like that." Milner said it like he was expecting an argument from me, but I didn't give him one.

  "What about his partner, what's-his-name, Casey?" Karl asked.

  "We found him in back, on the ground, screaming. Know why?"

  Karl shrugged. "Because he saw what had happened to his partner?"

  "No," Milner said, "Casey was screaming because he was covered with spiders – fucking tarantulas, dozens of them."

  "I know tarantulas are poisonous," I said, "and they look gross as hell. But their bite's not fatal to humans – probably not even a bunch of bites."

  "It wasn't the poison," Milner said. "One of the other guys knows Casey, they're cousins or something. He says Casey had something-phobia. Fear of spiders."

  "Arachnophobia," Karl said.

  "Yeah, that's it. The cousin said Casey had it bad. Guess somebody else knew that, too, and covered him with the one thing he couldn't stand. He was still screaming once they got those things off him and loaded him into the ambulance."