Darkness, Take My Hand (Kenzie & Gennaro 2)

Seven hours later, he’d been crucified.

Forensics teams had found evidence that Cal had spent several hours lying on his back on a rug. A cheap rug, the kind cut in sections unprofessionally, so that tufts of it stayed in his hair. The rug had also contained sediments of oil and brake fluid.

Under the nails of his left hand, they found type A blood and the chemicals used to form white Pan-Cake makeup.

Detectives had momentarily entertained the idea that they could be looking for a female killer.

Hair fibers and plaster casts of footprints quickly discounted the theory.

Makeup. Why were Rugglestone and Hardiman wearing makeup?

27

Around eleven, I called Devin on the walkie-talkie and told him about the makeup.

“Bothered me too at the time,” he said.

“And?”

“And it ended up being just one of those incidental things. Hardiman and Rugglestone were lovers, Patrick.”

“They were homosexual, Devin—that doesn’t mean they were cross-dressers or fems. There’s nothing in any of these files about them ever being seen wearing makeup.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Patrick. It never added up to shit. Hardiman and Rugglestone killed Morrison and then Hardiman killed Rugglestone, and if they were wearing pineapples on their heads and dressed in purple tutus at the time, it wouldn’t change those facts.”

“Something’s wrong in those files, Devin. I know it.”

He sighed. “Where’s Angie?”

“Asleep.”

“Alone?” He chuckled.

“What?” I said.

“Nothing.”

In the background I could hear Oscar’s guttural guffaw.

“Spit it out,” I said.

Devin’s amused sigh followed the squawk of the walkie-talkie. “Me and Oscar just made a little side bet.”

“Pertaining to?”

“You and your partner and how long you’ll be able to

stay cooped up together before one of two things happens.”

“And those things would be?”

“I say you’ll kill each other, but Oscar says you’ll get buck wild before the weekend.”

“Nice,” I said. “Aren’t you guys late for your political correctness training session?”

“Police department calls it Human Sensitivity Dialogues,” Devin said, “and me and Sergeant Lee decided we’re sensitive enough.”

“Of course.”

“You sound like you don’t believe us,” Oscar chimed in.

“Oh, no. You’re posterboys for the New Sensitive Male.”

“Yeah?” Devin said. “Think it’ll help us pick up chicks?”

After I hung up with Devin, I called Grace.

I’d been stalling most of the night. Grace was mature and understanding, but even so I wasn’t sure how I’d explain moving in with Angie to her. I’m not a particularly possessive person, yet I’m not sure how well I’d take it if Grace called me and said she was shacking up for a few days with a male friend.

As it happened, the issue didn’t come up immediately.

“Hi,” I said.

Silence.

“Grace?”

“I’m not sure I feel like talking to you, Patrick.”

“Why?”

“You damn well know why.”

“No,” I said, “I don’t.”

“If you’re going to play games with me, I’ll hang up.”

“Grace, I have no idea what you’re talking—”

She hung up.

I stared at the phone for a minute, considered banging it into the wall several times. Then I took a few deep breaths and called her back.

“What?” she said.

“Don’t hang up.”

“That depends on how much bullshit you try to sling.”

“Grace, I can’t respond to something if I don’t know what I did wrong.”

“Is my life in danger?” she said.

“What’re you talking about?”

“Answer the question. Is my life in danger?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“Then why are you having me followed?”

Canyons opened in the pit of my stomach and ice melted against my spine.

“I’m not having you followed, Grace.”

Evandro? Kevin Hurlihy? The mystery killer? Who?

“Bullshit,” she said. “That psychotic in the trenchcoat didn’t get this idea all on his own and just go—”

“Bubba?” I said.

“You know very fucking well Bubba.”

“Grace, slow down. Tell me exactly what happened.”

She exhaled slowly through the receiver. “I’m in the St. Botolph Restaurant with Annabeth and my daughter—my daughter, Patrick—and there’s a guy sitting at the bar checking me out. And he’s not being really subtle about it, okay, but he wasn’t threatening either. And then—”

“What did this guy look like?”

“What? He looked sort of like Larry Bird before Madison Avenue got a hold of him—tall, very pale, horrible hair, long jaw, and big Adam’s apple.”

Kevin. Fucking Kevin. Sitting a few feet away from Grace and Mae and Annabeth.

Considering various ways he could crack their spines.

“I’ll kill him,” I whispered.

“What?”

“Go on, Grace. Please.”

“So he finally works up his nerve and gets up from the bar and comes over to the table to try out whatever pathetic pickup line he’d use, and then, then your certifiable mutant friend comes out of nowhere and drags him out of the restaurant by his hair. In full view of thirty people, he banged the man’s face off a hydrant several times.”

“Oh, my,” I said.

“‘Oh my’?” she said. “That’s all you can say. Oh my? Patrick, the hydrant was just on the other side of the window from our table. Mae saw the whole thing. He smashed that man’s face in, and she watched. She’s been crying all day. And that poor, poor man, he—”

“Is he dead?”

“I don’t know. Some friends of his pulled up in a car and that…fucking lunatic and some midget henchman of his just stood back and watched as they dragged the man into a car and drove off.”

“That ‘poor, poor man’ Grace, is a contract killer for the Irish Mafia. His name’s Kevin Hurlihy and he told me this morning he’d hurt you to fuck up my life.”

“You’re joking.”