The Getaway God (Sandman Slim 6)

The Shonin goes to a table nearby and throws back a blue hospital sheet revealing arms, legs, hands, a whole buffet of body parts.

“These are what Marshal Wells’s men brought back from the scene. Four arms. Four legs. Four hands. Four feet. You get the idea.”

“Yeah, they butchered two poor slobs or two of them committed suicide before and let themselves be cut up.”

The Shonin shakes his head.

“You were closer to right on your first guess. The marshal and his men saw this collection of wretched humanity and logically assumed that with this particular inventory of parts, they were the remains of two bodies.”

“But there’re more, aren’t there?”

Wells goes to the table and pulls the sheet back over the limbs.

“The Shonin expressed some doubts after examining the remains, so we ran DNA from each limb. There are parts of twelve bodies here. I seriously doubt they butchered twelve of their own members just so that thirteen more could commit suicide.”

“So, what are you saying? They’re part of some kill-­crazy Charlie Manson gang?”

“You’d like it to be that simple, wouldn’t you, lazy boy?” says the Shonin.

Wells picks up a manila envelope from a nearby desk.

“This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this kind of corpse desecration. Limbs severed and mixed together.”

“I saw something like that in Hobaica’s head. Body parts in the fire.”

Wells opens the manila envelope. Looks at a ­couple of pages.

He says, “Have you heard of a killer called Saint Nick?”

“I think maybe I saw something when Kasabian was channel-­surfing. A killer running around in the rain. So what? L.A. cranks out more serial killers than shitty sitcoms. He sounds like cop business to me.”

“To me too until yesterday,” says Wells. “Do you know why they call him Saint Nick?”

“Because it’s close to Christmas?”

“Half right,” the Shonin says. “He’s Saint Nick because he likes to give his victims a little cut.” He laughs.

“You mean he chops them up?”

Wells nods.

“And removes some of the parts. Different combinations of limbs and organs with each killing.”

“Why?

“We don’t have a motive yet,” says Wells. He tosses the manila envelope back on the desk. “But we found some notes and coded e-­mails that lead us to think that this Angra bunch wanted to die by his hand. They thought they’d draw him out by imitating him.”

“That explains all the mystery bodies.”

“Right.”

“But he never showed up,” says the Shonin. “Hobaica was afraid that they’d been rejected by their God.”

“So, this Saint Nick guy is an Angra worshiper?”

“Who knows?” says Wells. “But this bunch thought he was, and when they felt rejected they did the only thing that made sense to them.”

“To prove their loyalty to the Flayed One, they sacrificed themselves imitating Saint Nick as best as they could,” the Shonin says.