BLUE MERCY (31 page)

There was a crackle of static, then: “Yeah.”

“I’ve got a vehicle in the alley. I need backup and I need someone on the front.” She swung open the car’s door, blinked away the drizzle that hit her face. “Where are you guys?”

“We’re on our way.”

“I need you here
now
. I’ve gotta check it out.” A last burst of static, then silence. Only the rain and the hollow clicking of the chimes.

Rounding the Lumina’s hood, she paused at the top of Keystone, watching the light spilling out of the alley, then searching for any sign of the two officers. The car in the alley idled.

And then she was moving. She crossed the wet lawn of 315, the end row house, and followed its brick side to the fence. The mortar was rough under her palm as she felt her way to the corner. At the fence she stopped, taking in the damp air. Her heart hammered as the darkness settled on her.

She clipped the radio to her belt and took another shaky breath. She dried her palm on her hip, drew her nine, and stepped beyond the corner of 315.

For an instant the headlights blinded her. In the harsh glare, the alley looked foreign, even though she’d spent hours here last week when Beggs’s body was discovered. She couldn’t remember the layout, which porches were covered, which were open. Which had sheds or fences.

Three houses down, the car sat roughly parallel to the rear of 311. Kay could make out only shapes and silhouettes in the alley and backyards. No movement. The only sound was the car’s engine, and some hip-hop tune pulsing from its stereo.

Past it, several of the houses at the end of the block had their lights on. But up here, at the top of the row, the porches were dark. She struggled to decipher 311’s yard, a narrow, fenced-in chunk of concrete. The headlights caught the edge of the four-foot fence, but reached no farther. And the partition that separated 311’s back porch from its neighbor blocked any view she might have of its rear door.

With her free hand she brought the radio up: “Where the hell are you guys?”

“We’re almost on Keystone.” Giordano sounded out of breath.

“The front’s wide open. I need you there.”

She didn’t like leaving it without surveillance, but she had no options. Drawing in a stiff breath, Kay stepped into the flood of headlights. No cover. No way to conceal her approach.

Squinting, she searched for any movement beyond the glare. Was there someone past the dark windshield, behind the wheel? Ready to gun the engine and hurtle up the alley at her?

Kay held the gun tight, barrel down, pressing the sidearm to her thigh as she moved past the rear of the first row house, then the next, her senses spiking.

She focused on the car. Through the blaze of headlights she thought it might be a hatchback. The engine sounded small. Four-cylinder probably, and something rattled under its hood.

And then Kay heard a screen door slap in its frame. Training made her bring the nine up. Fear made her flinch. The hip-hop tune on the car’s radio ended. There was a four-second break, then a rapper assaulted the airways. And in those four seconds of silence, Kay spotted the figure on the concrete porch of 311.

AVERAGE HEIGHT.
A lean build. Just as Gaines had described his tenant.

He must have come home, spotted the uniforms in the neighborhood, and figured he’d use the alley, clear his things out of the house, and make a quick getaway.

Kay inched toward the back of 311. The rapid-fire rhythm of her heart pulsed inside her iron grip on the Glock. She held the nine high now. Ready.

He could be armed, Delaney. Watch.
Had he already seen her?

He came down the back steps casually in a half-skip and headed to the car. He was carrying something. Not a gun. Something big, tucked under one arm.

Removing evidence from a suspected crime scene. She could take him
and
the evidence. Didn’t need any warrant.

Kay moved steadily along the fence. Fifteen feet from the car now. Twelve. How could he not see her?

He adjusted the cap on his head, pulling it lower over his eyes. In the dark there was no discerning the man’s features.
Scott?
No. But she couldn’t be sure.

Crossing the shallow yard, he kicked at the already open gate, stepped into the alley, and reached for the driver-side door. Then he saw her.

“Baltimore Police. Stay right there!” She stood firm, bringing the gun into position. “I want both hands on the roof of the car.”

He stopped two feet from his vehicle, frozen. The haloed edge of the headlights’ beam caught his blue jeans and the bottom of a dark red Windbreaker. What little she could make out of his face was ashen.

“Up against the car. Now!”
Could he see the nine shaking in her hand?
She hated that she couldn’t see the bastard’s face.

The rapper on the radio kept belting. Under her shirt she felt herself sweat. She took three steps forward. “Put the package on the roof and get up against the car. I swear to God, I’m not going to ask again.”

This time he complied. The package hit the roof, and the second he turned to the car, she lunged. Grabbing a fistful of his jacket, she spun him hard into the side of the vehicle. The air came out of him in a rush and she ground his chest against the car’s roof molding.

Pinning him, she holstered her nine and patted him down. Her hand slid expertly into his jacket pockets, coming up empty. And when she reached his denimed waist, she saw the decal stuck to the side of the panel of the old car. She stopped. “Christ.” The word came out on her breath.

“What the fuck’s going on?” He sounded young. Blubbering.

“What’s your name?”

“Don. Donny Hansen. What the hell d’I do wrong?”

“What are you doing here?”

“What’s it look like?” he nodded at the package on the roof. The insulated pizza-box pouch smelled of cheese and pepperoni. “Deliverin’ a motherfuckin’ order.” He was trying hard to sound gangsta tough, instead of scared shitless with a cop pulling a 9mm on him in a back alley.

“Somebody ordered a fuckin’ pizza.” He tried to look at her over his shoulder.

Kay relaxed her grip, allowing him to turn cautiously, arms coming down. He tilted the beak of his cap to block the rain, and she wished she’d brought her flashlight. Wanted to see his face more clearly.

“He home?” she asked, nodding to the house.

“Naw. Boss musta got the wrong goddamned address again. No wonder the fucking moron’s going outta business.”

“So you didn’t make the delivery?”

“Naw. Like I said, nobody’s home. G’on. Bang on the door yourself if you don’t believe me. I bin hammerin’ for two goddamned minutes now. So much for a fuckin’ tip. What’s this about anyway? Somethin’ goin’ down?”

“No.”

“You on a stakeout or somethin’? You with Narcotics?”

Kay stepped back, straightened the edge of her jacket around her holster. “Nothing’s going down.”

“You can tell me. My cousin, he’s a cop with the Southern.” His tone changed. Softer, more conciliatory. “Still uniform, but he wants to be a narc. Maybe you know him.”

“I doubt it.” Kay surveyed the rear of 311. Blinds drawn. Windows closed.

“I tried out for the Academy myself. Didn’t pass the physical though. Got a fucked-up knee …”

His yapping faded from her awareness as realization took slow hold. Too slow.

“This guy who ordered the pizza,” she interrupted him, “did he specifically ask for you to deliver it to the back entrance?”

“Yeah. That’s what my boss—”

“Son of a bitch.” Kay spun and sprinted down the alley. Groped at her belt for the radio. “Giordano, where the hell are you guys?”

“We’re just coming up the front.”

“You see anyone?”

“What?”

“Do you fucking
see
anyone?”

“No. Nothing.”

“Hey! You done with me?” Behind her, the pizza boy stood next to his car, his arms at his side, the delivery pouch still on the roof. “Cuz I got more deliveries here. If you don’t need me—”

“No. Get out of here.” She waved him off and started across the side lawn of the corner house.

When she reached the street, Madjarian and Giordano were on the sidewalk in front of 311. “What the hell’s going on?”

“The son of a bitch might’ve gone out the front,” Kay started to explain just as Finn’s Lumina turned onto Keystone. Another radio car followed, then stopped at Gaines’s house.

“I don’t know if it was a setup,” she told Finn once he joined them and she’d filled him in. His tie hung loose and he smelled of cigarettes. “Or if it was really a wrong address.”

“Well, let’s get inside and see.” He handed Kay the warrant. “And let’s hope we find more than they did at Bates’s house. I checked while I waited for the warrant. Nothing.”

To her right Kay was aware of the pizza-delivery car coming around Rockrose. She heard the engine whine as he geared down and passed them. Rap music pulsed into the night. Giordano waved him on, and Kay watched the taillights disappear.

“Come on,” Finn said. “Here’s Gaines.”

The landlord’s shoulders bowed inward against the rain. “Gotta go round back,” he told them. “Only key I got’s for the back.”

“Does your tenant have a key for the front?” Kay asked him.

“Yeah. But I think he’s been using the back.”

Kay mentally flashed an image of Patricia Hagen being
dragged down the rear steps and shoved into a car trunk. She stopped at her car for her Maglite, then led Gaines and Finn, along with one of the uniforms, to where she’d frisked Don Hansen only moments ago.

Through the gate, across the concrete yard, and up the steps, Kay tried to pace herself.
Take it slow. Expect the unexpected.
Easier said than done with the frustration of three open murders weighing on her.

Gaines turned the key in the lock and the bolt slid free with a muted thud. Wordlessly, she ushered the landlord aside. In the tight confines of the porch, she felt Finn behind her. She slid her nine from its holster for the second time tonight, steadied the short-barreled Glock, and aligned it with the flashlight in her left hand as she nudged the door with her toe.

She didn’t like the dense silence that greeted them. She liked the smell even less. Recognized it. Like damp stone and copper.

The gun’s black muzzle went in first, following the sweep of the Maglite’s beam across the small kitchen and into the maw of hell.

Behind her Finn whispered, “Sweet Jesus.”

THERE WAS NOTHING
to describe the smell of that much blood, the miasmic odor of a fresh kill.

His name had been Jason Beckman. They got it off the wallet in his jeans. He was seventeen, his teeth still in braces above the wide gash that had opened his throat. The killer’s blade had left a swath of exposed muscle, tendons, and severed arteries. According to the ME’s investigator, the kid
had bled out in a matter of seconds or, more likely, asphyxiated on his own blood, inhaling it through the opened trachea and drowning. Even if Kay had known what lay beyond that dark porch, even if she’d gotten there the moment the fatal slash had been delivered, there would have been no saving the kid.

Gaines had taken one look into his rental unit and thrown up his beer into the bushes out back. Kay had almost joined the landlord. The thought of the teenager having died on the other side of the door, less than thirty feet away from her, as she’d let his butcher drive away, sent Kay’s stomach reeling.

She’d had him. The bastard had looked her in the eye. She’d felt the heat of his breath. And she’d let him go.

While the Mobile Crime Lab began their painstaking work, Kay tried to remember anything she could about the guy she’d pinned against the car, tried to recall the bastard’s face, but couldn’t. A sketch artist would be useless. It had been too dark. Too fast.

And staring into the dead teen’s fixed gaze, Kay guessed that he too had probably gotten no real look at his killer.

The bastard was slick. His escape smart and controlled. He wouldn’t have risked throwing on any lights, even for a second. He’d probably cajoled the boy into the dark kitchen, or …

Kay circled the pool of coagulating blood. Its edges had thickened, ridging up almost a quarter inch from the floor. She squatted next to the victim, his body acting as a dam against the spill of blood. Snapping on a fresh latex glove, she took the boy’s chin between her thumb and index finger. Her stomach lurched when the kid’s head slopped to one side, all connective tissue ravaged.

“I need some light on this,” she instructed a technician. And then Kay saw it. On the back of his neck. The same
two circular contusions Jonesy had found on Valley. The guy must have lured the boy in, then hit him with the stun gun.

She surveyed the cramped kitchen again. Clean dishes sat in a wire dry-rack, a Baltimore phone book lay on the counter along with the pizza, still warm in its box. There’d been no struggle, and he wasn’t a small boy. In fact, Jason Beckman was bigger than the man she’d had up against the car. It would have been impossible to slit the boy’s throat while he was standing, not without some struggle. And there should have been more blood on his assailant.

Kay didn’t remember seeing any. Sure it had been dark, but she’d seen his jeans in the edge of the headlights. She didn’t recall any spatter.

Kay studied the arterial spray against the humming ice-maker.
You didn’t cut him until he was already down.

So much blood.

You knew the kid wouldn’t have been able to ID you, but you killed him anyway. Pulled your knife while he was unconscious
. Stepping back from the body, she stood over the boy as she imagined his killer had.
You knew I was watching
.