Blood of My Blood (7 page)

It was three in the morning when the cell phone at his bedside blasted just enough of an old Eric B. and Rakim song to wake Detective Louis Hughes from a sound sleep. He flailed around in the dark for a moment, still half-waterlogged by dreams, then finally slapped at the phone to shut it up. The caller ID showed the dispatch desk at the 76th Precinct.

“Hughes,” he said. “I’m not catching tonight, so who the hell—”

“Captain Montgomery said to call you,” the dispatcher said apologetically. “We caught a call about Duncan Hershey, and Montgomery said you’re the guy to talk to.”

Duncan Hershey. It took a moment for the name to bleed through the layers of dissipating sleep fog. Hershey. One of the men they’d interrogated about the Hat-Dog killings.

Oh, Jasper, you sick son of a bitch. Were you right? Were there two of them?

“What did he do?” Hughes demanded, vaulting out of bed, halfway into his pants already.

“He didn’t do anything,” the dispatcher said, and then kept talking as Hughes, now fully awake but numb with both fascination and dread, kept getting dressed.

Less than twenty minutes later, Hughes stood in the entrance vestibule to Hershey’s apartment. Farther inside and out in the corridor, cops and crime-scene techs milled about.

Hughes stood over the body, careful to keep his shoes from disturbing the pool of blood.

Who knew the old man had so much blood in him?

Shakespeare, right? Not quite a hundred percent, but close enough for government work.

Sometimes Hughes’s mind did this trick at crime scenes, at the really bad ones. He started dredging up random bits of trivia, quotations from books read back in college.… The brain’s way of coping with horror, maybe.

In the apartment, he could hear a child crying, wailing over and over. And a woman—Hershey’s wife, no doubt—sobbing as she told a uniformed officer, “… and I thought maybe I dreamed the noise, but Duncan wasn’t in bed, so I went looking and that’s when I saw…”

Duncan Hershey—according to Jasper’s theory, the “Hat” in Hat-Dog—wouldn’t be killing anyone ever again. He wasn’t just dead; he was
severely
dead. He was one of the deadest people Hughes had ever seen, and Hughes had seen quite a few.

The eye sockets were pools of blood and glistening jelly
that Hughes suspected the ME would confirm to be Hershey’s own vitreous humor. One ear lay nearby against the baseboard, as if tossed or—Hughes’s gut seized—spat there. The nose was busted, and a crust of blood fanned out from both nostrils like a half mask, covering almost his entire lower face.

The neck had been clawed open at one side. Enormous gout of blood there.

Stomach cut to ribbons. More blood. Blood everywhere. Splashed up the walls. Running in rivulets along the floorboards.

At Hershey’s crotch, there were what appeared to be stab wounds, as well as more bloodstains. Hughes did not relish the moment when the dead man’s pants were pulled down. Hughes had seen and experienced a hell of a lot as a New York homicide detective and had become inured to most of it over the years, but genital trauma still skeeved him out.

“
Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?” That’s what it was
. Macbeth,
right?

“
Macbeth
had the bit about ‘who would have thought the old man,’ et cetera, right?” he asked a crime-scene photographer crouched down near the body.

The photog’s expression clearly revealed that she thought Hughes had been to one too many crime scenes. “How the hell am I supposed to know?” she asked.

“Well-rounded education?” Hughes suggested.

Maybe it was a falling out. If the Dent kid’s theory held, then Hershey had been working in concert with Oliver
Belsamo. Maybe they disagreed about something. Maybe Dog decided to eliminate Hat from the Monopoly board.

But here? In the man’s own home, with witnesses right down the hall?

Hughes remembered Jasper saying,
It’s probably the only thing in the world that makes sense to him, actually
.

“Done here,” the photog said, standing up. “You can take a look.”

Hughes hunkered down, careful to keep the long train of his overcoat from dragging in any stray blood. There was now a complete photographic and video record of the crime scene, but no point messing things up.

No point getting blood on his clothes, either.

The widow Hershey was still sobbing in the other room. The kid was pitching a fit, too. And now a third voice—another kid—joined the chorus.

You people are better off
, Hughes thought.
You have no friggin’ idea
.

Next to the body, he focused on two playing dice. He’d noticed them immediately upon entering the apartment, but he hadn’t touched or disturbed them yet. They were translucent red, with white pips. Boxcars. Nothing exceptional about them.

But now that he was closer to them, he noticed that they held down a slip of paper that was beginning to sop up some of Hershey’s blood.

“You get a picture of this?” Hughes called to the photog, who had just gotten out the door. She turned around, saw where he was pointing, and rolled her eyes.

“Yes, Detective. I pointed my camera at the paper and made clicky noises with the buttons.”

Hughes hated the world.

With a pair of tweezers, he prized the now-sticky paper out from under the dice.

There was a bit of writing on it:

“Oh, in the name of all that is holy,” Hughes whispered. A headache sprung full formed behind his left eye, pulsating so badly that his eyelid began to twitch.

“Shut down the block!” he screamed, rising from his crouch. “Shut down a five-block radius! Do it now!” he roared when the uni next to him only blinked in surprise. At the roar, the uni rushed into the hall, barking instructions into his shoulder mic.

“I need every available unit and man in this area, and I need it ten minutes ago!” Hughes went on. “We are going to personally search every unit and every room in every building in this area. I don’t care how long it takes. Billy Dent was here no more than twenty minutes ago—move it!”

He watched for a moment as the chaos around him shuffled and shimmied into some kind of order. There could be no doubt in his mind that this was half of the Hat-Dog Killer, just as Jasper had suspected. Then, looking down at the body, another thought occurred to him.

“And get me Jennifer Morales! Now!”

Howie’s phone reported the time as well past three in the morning when he decided to creep forth and surveil. The hospital was quiet, and Howie’s parents were long gone, having been somewhat mollified by the usual lies and half-truths. Howie had slept most of the evening, thanks to whatever Dr. Mogelof had shot into him, so he was wide-awake now.

Perfect time for some snooping.

“I am the best sidekick in the history of sidekicks,” Howie muttered to himself as he swung his legs out of bed. “I will be promoted to bona fide action hero any day now. It’s a lock.”

They had turned off his monitors once his vitals stabilized, so he didn’t have to worry about any sort of alarm going off. His IV stand—miracle of miracles!—was well greased and didn’t squeak as he pushed it along the floor. He made a quick pit stop in the bathroom and checked himself in the mirror. Yikes. It was pretty bad. He could see why
Mom had been spazzing. There was a massive bandage strapped to his forehead, and his face was puffy and more black-and-blue than its usual pasty white. He looked as though he’d gone several rounds with a heavyweight champion, and he decided instantly that that would be the story he’d tell at school. Followed by “You should see the
other
guy!”

I conveniently will not mention that the other guy is a middle-aged woman
.

Thinking of Samantha brought him back to the present. He had to figure out what had happened to her. The best way to do that was to find Jazz’s grandmother. Sam would be with her, no doubt, and Howie decided that—as long as she didn’t actually turn out to be a serial killer—he would forgive her for hewing to her mother’s side and not his. G. William claimed she’d disappeared, but that could just mean she was off on a Starbucks run somewhere. If she brought Howie a latte, he’d forgive a lot.

But if she’s a serial killer, all bets are off. Unless… conjugal visits? Hmm
…

The only problem immediately before him was actually right behind him. His bony ass was hanging out of the hospital gown. He rummaged around in the room’s dresser and closet, finding nothing, then spied a plastic bag under his bed. It contained his clothing, minus his shirt, which he imagined had been soaked in blood.

I lose more shirts that way
…

He slipped into his jeans and left the gown on, then stealthily opened the door to his room, creeping along with
infinite patience. He couldn’t be caught. This was too important. Too big.

Cracking the door just enough to slide through, he eased into the silent corridor.

“Going for a little walk?” a nurse asked as she breezed by. “Great! Just watch your IV line on the door handles!”

Howie watched her recede down the hallway.
I totally saw that coming. Totally
.

He made his way to the nurses’ station, where a tired-looking woman in her fifties (or nineties—Howie couldn’t tell once people hit forty) barely glanced at him. He had to clear his throat several times before she finally looked up from her phone screen, where she was fiercely texting what looked to be roughly fifty percent emoji.

“I need to find a patient,” Howie told her.

The nurse’s eyes flicked from Howie’s battered face to his IV pole.

“A patient
besides
me.”
Smart-ass
, he added mentally.

“Patient confidentiality—”

“You can tell me if someone is
here
, right? I’m not asking for a diagnosis and a copy of her X-rays.”

Howie could tell that the nurse was about to say something like,
I don’t have time for this
or
I’m busy
, but she caught herself, realizing that her now-chirping phone put the lie to those notions.

“Patient name?” she asked, resigned.

Howie had an awful moment where he couldn’t remember Mrs. Dent’s first name. He almost blurted out “Gramma.”

“Uh, she was admitted today. Old white lady.” The nurse
herself was kind of an old white lady; Howie hoped she wouldn’t be offended. “Last name: Dent.” Helpfully, he spelled it out.

She paused in her typing at the computer. “First name?”

“Oh, come on. How many Dents are there in this town? For real.”

“Too damn many,” the nurse muttered under her breath. “She was admitted earlier to—well, late yesterday, technically. Room two-zero-zero-seven. She’s in a step-down unit from ICU. But she’s on the no-visitors list.”

“That’s fine. I just want to send flowers,” Howie said, backing away, giving her his best, most flirtatious smile. She grimaced at it. Must have been the bruising.

Room 2007 was one floor up. Howie sought out the elevator and spent the brief ascent practicing his seduction rap on a cute doctor with uncute bags under her eyes. As he got off the elevator, she stayed on and told him, “Psych is
down
two floors.” Which was random, but helpful, he supposed.

Even if he hadn’t been given the room number for Gramma Dent, Howie would have found it easily. He was fairly certain that only the mother of Billy Dent would have a uniformed Lobo’s Nod deputy parked outside her room.

And oh, lucky day! It was Howie’s favorite: Deputy Erickson. Howie’s wrists still ached from Erickson handcuffing him to a bench in the sheriff’s office last October, all for the minor, minor sin of breaking into the morgue. And examining a murder victim. And photocopying a confidential medical examiner’s report.

“Hello, Erickson.” Howie sniffed.

The deputy sat on a folding chair, scrolling through something or other on his cell. “Howie. Glad to see you’re up and about.”

“I bet you are.”

“Come on, Howie. Bygones and all that.”

Howie knew there was some kind of kick-ass rejoinder involving “bygones” and flipping it to “gone by,” but he couldn’t manage to wrap his brain around it at the moment.

“I’m not here for you, Erickson. I’m here to see Jazz’s grandmother.”

Erickson slipped his phone into his pocket and stood, folding his arms across his chest. Howie towered over the deputy by a good three inches, but what Erickson lacked in Howie’s height, he more than made up for in sheer muscle mass. And in not being a hemophiliac.

“Can’t let you in. No visitors. G. William is worried about press wanting pictures of Billy Dent’s mom in a hospital bed.”

“I’m not press.”

“He’s also worried about victims’ families looking for a little revenge.”

“I’m also not—”

“Come on, Howie! No visitors means no visitors. I’m not messing around here. Go back to your room and get some rest. You look like hell.”

“I just want to check up on her.”

“She’s resting. There. You’ve checked up.”

“And I need to talk to Sam.”

“Sam who?”

Howie sighed. “Man, I lost a lot of blood today. I’m in no
mood. Samantha. Jazz’s aunt. She’s in there, right?” He jerked his head toward room 2007.

Erickson seemed genuinely baffled. “There’s no one in there but the old lady.”

That didn’t sound right. Sam had been extremely protective of Gramma every time Howie’d seen them together. He couldn’t imagine Sam abandoning her mother like this, despite G. William saying she’d disappeared.
Disappeared
didn’t have to be sinister—it could be as simple as being in the hospital john when the cops checked your mom’s room for you.

“You’re playing with me. Sam
was
there, right? When did she leave? Where did she go?”

The deputy shook his head, frowning. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Other than doctors and nurses, no one has gone in there.
No
one.”

But Sam would stay with her mom. At least check in with her, right? Unless
…

“According to G. William, the nine-one-one call came in from the Dent house landline. By the time the ambo got there, all they found was you on the floor, bleeding, and the old woman nearby. That’s it. No one else.”

Unless Sam turns out to have more in common with her brother than just hair color. Crap
.

“If that’s true, then there’s a good chance Samantha is working with Billy. You gotta let me see Gramma. There might be some kind of clue—”

“No visitors, Howie.”

“Look,” Howie begged, “just let me go in and—”

“No. Absolutely not.” Erickson refolded his arms across his chest, as if that made some kind of point.

“Fine.” Howie shuffled away down the hall. After a moment, he turned back.

“I’m still pretty sure you’re some kind of serial killer, Erickson.” It was the best insult he had in him at the moment.

“You’ve got serial killers on the brain, Howie. You’re seeing them everywhere.”

Howie snorted. “Well, yeah. That’s only because they
are
everywhere.”