The Angel of Knowlton Park (47 page)

"Looks like it." Burgess raised the radio. "Can we get some help over here? Martin is out of his mind."

At that moment, Martin roared up, knocked Kyle onto his back, then went after him with his feet. Burgess hauled him away, pounding him until the man lay silent on the ground. There was no satisfaction in it. Martin would just keep rising up like a Zombie until they could get a sedative into him. He put a foot on the man's neck and raised the radio. "Stan? We got him."

"Dead or alive?"

"Alive."

"That's too bad."

Perry should know better. They might share the sentiment, but you kept a comment like that off the radio. "You find McBride? The kids?"

"It's bad, Joe. Worse than bad. You better get over here."

The knife in his gut went deeper. "Stan says it's bad," he told Kyle. "We'd better get over there."

Around the perimeter of the cemetery, blue lights were descending on them like mutant fireflies. He and Kyle hauled their prisoner to his feet, marched him to the street, and handed him over to the approaching officers with a string of warnings about his condition. Then they went to find Perry.

Chapter 36

Perry and Aucoin stood at the door of an old brick building, ringed by uniformed officers. The door was open and dim light from inside spilled out. Aucoin looked sick and green, Perry not a hell of a lot better. As they came up, he said, "Sheesh, Joe. It's a bloodbath in there."

"The Mallett kids?"

"He looks like he's gone. I can't tell. She won't let me near him. Take a look and you'll understand, but be careful. She may be only a kid but she's got the biggest fuckin' knife you ever saw."

Burgess started toward the door. "And watch your feet," Perry added. "It's slippery as hell in there."

It
was
a bloodbath. The average human body contains about twelve pints of blood and most of the contents of Matthew McBride's was pooled on the floor or ran in glistening red streaks down the walls. McBride's mutilated remains lay in the middle of the floor, the close air saturated with the mingled smells of blood and death. It didn't take a crime scene expert to see what had happened. Two men totally strung out on drugs had gotten into a disagreement they had resolved with knives. Ricky Martin, already the bigger of the two, bulked up with prison muscle and made out-of-control violent by drugs and steroids, had won the fight and not known when to stop.

Beyond the body, a naked, bloody Nina Mallett crouched like something feral against the far wall, making a low growling sound. In her hand, she held a mean-looking knife. Her naked brother lay on the floor at her feet, his face swathed with bloody silver duct tape. In the dim light, Burgess couldn't tell if the boy was breathing. Wrapped like that, it would have been difficult.

He took another step into the room. Then another. The girl's eyes fixed on him, glittering with terror. Her growling grew louder. He wondered what they'd given her, whether there was any chance of making a human connection. Keeping his voice calm and steady, he said, "You know me, Nina. Joe Burgess. We talked this afternoon, remember? Is Neddy all right?" He took another step, bringing him closer to the body on the floor, the ancient bricks around it slick with blood. He felt his feet sliding.

He stopped. He had to get close enough to Nina to get the knife while trying not to mess up the crime scene or fall on his ass.

"Neddy's dead," she said, dully. "Everybody's dead."

"I don't think he's dead, Nina. But we have to get that tape off his face so he can breathe." He studied the inert figure. Detected no movement in the chest. Neddy Mallett certainly looked dead. But he couldn't let her think that.

"No," she said. "No. He's dead. That big, dark man killed him. He killed Matt, and he killed Neddy, and he wants to kill me. But I'm not letting him." With a shaking hand, she swung the big bloody knife in a wide arc in front of her. The parts not covered with blood gleamed lethally, even in the poor light.

"That man can't hurt you," he said. "The police have him. They've taken him away. You're safe now." He watched to see if she understood. There was no comprehension on her rigid face. "Let me take you out of here, Nina, you and Neddy."

She shook her head vehemently. "You stay away from me. Stay away," she screamed. She didn't recognize him. Wasn't seeing anything but the horror.

"Nina. Your brother needs our help." He kept talking in a steady, soothing voice, trying to penetrate the fog of her terror.

"No. No. Keep away." She slid along the wall, away from him, her head bobbing in a litany of refusal. "No. No. No." She stopped suddenly as her foot came up against her brother.

She looked at Neddy, then at the knife. "This is all my fault. It's always all my fault. I'm bad. That's what my father said, too. That it was my fault. I'm hopeless. I don't listen. I don't mind. And see what happens?" She wasn't talking to him. She was talking to herself. She slid a finger along the razor sharp tip of the blade. Her skin split and blood gushed out. "I should use this. I should..."

He lifted his foot, trying not to think about the gaping, gutted thing that had been McBride, trying to get to her and get the knife away before she hurt herself further. Focusing on her, he hadn't seen the single bulb hanging from the ceiling. As he stepped carefully over the body, he hit it with his head. It swung wildly back and forth, the chain creaking, casting crazy shadows around the room. Nina screamed, an arcing, lingering sound, and curled into a deeper crouch, throwing her hands over her head. He leapt across the remaining few feet of floor, slipping on the scummy, bloody bricks, twisted the knife from her hand, and thrust it onto a high window ledge, momentum slamming him hard against the wall.

He rebounded and turned. Stan Perry, right behind him, handed him a blanket. He bent to the cowering girl, wrapped her up, and swung her into his arms, handing her back to Perry. Then he knelt and began tearing at the tape masking the small boy's face with clumsy, blood-drenched fingers, breaking nails and splitting skin as he clawed it loose. The second it was off, he scooped up the almost weightless child and rushed him out the door. Skidding on the precarious floor, jamming his bad shoulder into the doorframe, finally making it back out into the night where he handed the boy off to the nearest set of arms.

Unburdened, he stumbled around the corner of the building and tried to heave that knife up out of his gut. The smell of the place told him he wasn't the first one to have that reaction or choose that spot. Then he staggered back to the crowd that stood outside the door, centered around Lt. Melia. Behind them, working in pools of light supplied by officers with flashlights, EMTs bent over the two children. He felt lightheaded. Disembodied. Almost beyond the realm of thought or feeling. He passed the group without speaking, walking out into blackness and the silent rows of stones, feeling a million years old and thoroughly sick of the human race.

He probably hadn't been in that room more than two minutes, but they'd been a long two minutes. Whatever else this day brought, he'd acquired a hideous new image for his brain to serve up when he tried to sleep. McBride hath murdered sleep. This was what Regina McBride, in her desperate and misguided efforts to protect her son, had brought him to.

They weren't done with her. She would be charged and tried, but perhaps this was punishment enough. Although punishment enough, his sick sense of humor suggested, would be to make her reassemble her son's body and then clean the room. She liked things neat and clean.

Footsteps crunched toward him over the dry grass. A flashlight beam trained on the ground illuminated only a pair of blue legs and dark, shiny shoes. The legs came up to him and stopped. "Excuse me, Sarge. I'm sorry to bother you." The voice halted, then resumed. "I know you're... that is, I don't guess you want to talk to anyone right now, but..."

He wanted to say "spit it out, Remy," but didn't. This wasn't an easy night for any of them.

"The little girl... she was asking for you. She..."

"What about the boy?"

"EMTs think maybe a massive drug overdose?"

"Is he alive, Remy? Is he alive?" His voice, even to his own ears, gratingly harsh.

"Just barely, sir."

Probably drugged him to keep him from fighting back like Timmy Watts had done. McBride had been a quick learner, hadn't he? Quick and smart and already a monster. Assaulted by his father. Taken up by pedophiles and gently nurtured in the way he should go. Ricky Martin and Matthew McBride had been an unlikely pair of predators, but maybe it was the simple pleasure of predation that brought them together. The thrill of the hunt. The sating of lust. Young girls. Young boys. What did it matter? To be so bad so young, they hadn't had much in the way of natural inhibitions. Drugs had taken care of what was left.

He now understood what Jason Martin, seized by conscience on his deathbed, had tried to tell them. Not petal file. It wasn't some clue hidden in a book of dried flowers. He'd meant pedophile. How like the Martin family to keep it to themselves, even when one of their own was affected. But one of their own had been involved as well. And the family had perfected the art of protecting criminals.

His mind, long trained in putting together the jigsaw puzzles of crime, had automatically begun assembling the pieces. But he didn't want to think about this yet. He wanted to think about the children. Who would put their pieces back together? Iris, bound and helpless and left in a crypt to die. Nina Mallett, twice forced to witness horrible deaths and left believing she was responsible. Little Ned Mallett with his cockscomb of rusty hair, barely alive. Just barely was something. What if they'd been any later?

Could they have been earlier? This was no time for second guessing. As he could have told any raw recruit, it was important to learn from your mistakes, equally important not to beat yourself up when your best wasn't good enough. When the world proved itself imperfect. They'd done their job. Done it despite Cote's interference, Bascomb's malice, and so much public indifference. They'd pushed and probed and plodded. Found the killer and saved three victims. This time he wasn't walking away no matter how much anyone screwed up the evidence. Was he sick to take some pleasure in that?

He wanted to drag Captain Cote into that blood drenched slaughterhouse and scream in the man's face, "You see! You see! We did it despite your best efforts. If you'd had your way, Kyle and Perry would still be combing through Payson Park, I would have sat home playing solitaire, and they all might have died horrible deaths." He wanted Cote up close and personal with the stench of severed guts, his immaculate person slimed with blood.

"Sir?"

He pulled himself back. "Nina's asking for me?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then I'd better come." Aucoin offered a hand and Burgess wasn't too proud to take it. "Remy..."

"Sir?"

"This is probably the worst thing you'll ever see."

"I hope so, sir."

He followed the bobbing flashlight and slim figure back to the teeming noise and commotion. Adrenaline-deprived now, he felt dull and logy. Distant. Melia met him. Set a hand on his shoulder. Solid, steady, conveying volumes that didn't need to be spoken. "Joe." Just his name, hanging a long time in the night air, then, "You did it. Thanks."

The credit wasn't his. "It's team work, Vince. Thanks for letting me back in. But what about Cote? How'd you..."

"I didn't ask."

Burgess understood the enormous risk Melia had taken. If Melia's gamble, his faith in them, hadn't paid off, it could have been his ass as well. That was what kept them loyal. Knowing that Melia was good police. That he understood what they were all trying to do and what it took, sometimes, to get results.

"It's not neat and tidy but you did a hell of a job. No one can fault us on this."

"He'll find a way."

"Let's worry about that tomorrow. How you doin'?"

"Give me another five, I'm gonna fall on my face."

Melia laughed. "That'll be the day."

"I've gotta go see the girl."

"Go home, Joe. Get some rest." Melia patted his shoulder again and turned away. Burgess nudged his tired legs into motion again, heading for the pool of light surrounding Nina Mallett. Just one pool now. Ambo had already taken Neddy away. Behind him, Kyle and Perry were taking charge of the scene. He should have been helping. Had to admit he had nothing more to give.