Dead Man's Song (Pine Deep 2)

“Boyd apparently dribbled blood onto the faces and throats of both corpses. There’s no pattern I can see except that there are a few drops of blood on the lips of each and more on the throats of each. ”

“Holy Mother of God,” Gus whispered and his face went gray.

Ferro grunted. “Sounds like Boyd’s really lost it. Extreme violence, apparently senseless acts such as stealing Ruger’s body, and now blood rituals. ”

“I’ll back you up on that,” Weinstock said. “In purely clinical terms I think it’s safe to say that this Boyd character is a total freak-job. ”

Sanchez nodded. “That part of it will be up to you to sort out, Doc. For my part, I also took some measurements of footprints and such. ”

“The ones in the hall?” Head asked doubtfully.

She shook her head. “No, there was some water on the floor and he walked through it. Clear limp evidenced by the gait and spacing, and a step-scuff pattern that suggests he was partially dragging his right leg. ”

“And yet he carried a two-hundred-pound man out of here over his shoulder?” Terry asked skeptically.

“If we hadn’t had that tape, sir,” Sanchez said, “I’d have argued pretty strongly for an accomplice, but the tape is the tape. You should watch it. ”

They did, crowding into the small morgue office. Brad Maynard came down with a copy and they played it half a dozen times. On the sixth replay Vince LaMastra joined them, his face still puffy from sleep, his square jaw rimed with yellow fuzz. He watched the tape over Ferro’s shoulder and when Boyd, disheveled and very clearly limping on a twisted right leg, staggered out with Ruger’s body slung over his shoulder, he said, “That’s sick. He looks dead. ”

“He is dead,” Terry snapped. “That’s why he was in the damn morgue. ”

“No,” LaMastra said, reaching out to tap the screen. ?

??Him. Boyd. He looks dead. It’s weird. ”

They watched the tape a seventh time, and Boyd looked dead that time, too. No one said anything for a while. Finally Gus murmured, “I wish to hell he was dead, the bastard. ”

Later three of them—Ferro, LaMastra, and Gus met in the doctors’ lounge. Terry left for home, and Weinstock was overseeing the post-forensic restoration of his morgue. Gus made a pot of coffee and they settled down with cups, looking over the staff rosters for that evening. “Most of the staff don’t have access to the door keys and security codes,” Gus said. “That leaves the maintenance staff, the security people, a few of the top docs, and the officers eating in the cafeteria—Head and Chremos from Crestville. And Jim Polk, who was here visiting Rhoda Thomas. ” He consulted a chart. “Call it twelve people in all who were here at the time of the break-in. ”

“Okay, then we need to interview each one,” Ferro said.

Each person with potential access was brought in separately and interviewed by the three of them, with Ferro taking point on most of the interrogations. No one admitted to having tampered with the codes, and when asked to turn out their pockets—a request that was met with flat hostility by almost everyone except Head, who understood the drill—no keys turned up that shouldn’t be there. Each person was made to write out a detailed list of where they were all night and who they spoke with. “So where does that leave us?” LaMastra asked in disgust as the last of the interviewees left.

“Nowhere,” Ferro said with a sigh.

“God,” murmured LaMastra, “I love police work. ”

(2)

When the car passed Vic rose up out of the tall weeds and continued moving down the bank to where the iron leg of the bridge was fitted into its massive concrete boot. He paused for a moment and took set down his backpack, unzipped it, and then removed first a pair of 12-power binoculars and then a high-resolution Nikon digital camera with a telephoto lens. He sat down with the weeds above shoulder height and put the binoculars to his eyes so he could study the old bridge that linked Pine Deep to Black Marsh. The bridge was a two-lane affair with close-fitted railroad ties stuffed between steel I-beams. It was sturdy enough, and though it rattled and shook, it would probably not even need rebuilding for another decade. That thought caused Vic to smile. He set the binoculars down and picked up the digital camera. It was very expensive, with a two-gigabyte memory card that took ten-megapixel images. Vic rested his elbows on his knees to study the camera and then took over fifty ultra-close-up photos of the bridge and each of its supports. The morning sun was clear and bright, perfect for high-res photography.

A farm truck came along the road and Vic just lay back in the weeds, invisible. His pickup was parked fifty yards up a curving access road that was almost never used. When the truck had passed, Vic sat up and then stowed his gear back in his bag. He rose, leaving the bag in the weeds, and moved farther down the bank to the closest iron leg, keeping a weather eye on the road. Confident that no one was coming, he pulled a Stanley tape measure off his belt and spent the next few minutes measuring both the concrete base and the steel leg of the bridge support, pausing to jot some numbers down in a notebook. The last measurement done, he pocketed the book, clipped the tape measure onto his belt, and climbed the hill to recover his bag. He checked the road carefully and then headed up the access lane to his truck.

Pine Deep was completely surrounded by water, with the Delaware on its eastern flank and the Pine River on the west; the Crescent Canal bordered it in the north, and a hooked arm of Pine River swooped down to meet the Delaware again in the south. In colonial days, before the town was officially organized it was generally called Pine Island on old maps. There were four bridges connecting the town to its neighbors: Crescent Bridge, Old Corn Bridge, Swallow Hill Bridge, and this one—the Black Marsh Bridge.

Vic glanced at his watch. It was just 7:00 A. M. He smiled. There was plenty of time to quietly measure all of them and still have most of the day left to do some other chores. At home he could download the digital pics onto his computer and make a closer study of stress points to pick just the right spots to plant the dynamite.

After that he could settle down and have a nice long conversation with his new houseguest. That should be enlightening. He was whistling a happy tune when he pulled his pickup off the access road and headed north up A-32.

(3)

Karl Ruger sat in darkness while Vic was out. There were basement lights he could turn on, but he preferred the darkness. It was less dark to him, he knew, than to others, and that knowledge pleased him. It made him feel like a cat. Not a little housecat, but a big hunting cat. A leopard slinking through the jungles, eyes seeing all the way through the shadows. Like that.

Ruger used the time alone to prowl through Vic’s library, and what he read was enlightening. Such as the fact that it didn’t matter that it was bright sunshine outside. There were no windows in the cellar, and all he needed was to stay out of direct sunlight, out of the heavy UV. That was just one of the things he learned in his first hour of browsing, his searches through the pages nudged along by the voice in his head. The voice of his god; the same voice that had spoken in his thoughts moments before Tony had crashed their car the other night. Tony and Boyd hadn’t heard anything—the message wasn’t for them. Ruger, you are my left hand. While Griswold had whispered to him time had seemed to slow, to revolve around Ruger’s need to hear the message of his god. Vic Wingate has been my John the Baptist…he has paved the way; but you, Karl…you will be my Peter, my rock, and on this rock I will build my church.

“Yeah, you’re damn right,” he said to the darkness, and there was great love in his voice. Dark and twisted, but as passionate as any monk who whipped himself by night in the darkness of his cell.

He wondered how much of the Plan Vic really knew. He knew a lot, sure, had laid the groundwork, and even Ruger had to admire the attention to detail as Vic had outlined it all a few hours ago. When the Red Wave hit the poor bastards in this town wouldn’t have a chance. Not a prayer. Props to Vic on that. And Vic seemed to know a lot about what Ruger was, and what his limits were, pro and con. He kept that pistol with him all the time, with its special loads. Another point for Vic. Vic had even drawn up a list of the locals who were least likely to be missed while the Man’s army grew—loners, families in isolated farms, unpopular assholes who wouldn’t be missed under any circumstances. Vic called it his Greatest Hits, which Ruger found funny; it was the only time he and Vic had laughed together. Boyd had started the recruitment, but now that Ruger was in the game the whole process would accelerate so that they would be completely ready on Halloween.