Stuart Kaminsky - Blood On The Sun

Denton was fully gray, military cut, average height, a face that had seen much and stored it with loyalty.

"He killed two men," said Mac, handing an envelope over the table to Denton, who was missing the small finger on his right hand.

Denton put on his glasses and looked at the fingerprint record in front of him.

"You got these…?" asked Denton.

"When the suspect had a DUI twenty-two years ago," said Mac. "Name comes up Arvin Bloom, only it's not Arvin Bloom."

They understood each other.

Mac said, "I'd bet these are the only prints on file of the Arvin Bloom who isn't Arvin Bloom. These are the ones that turn up whenever we check his prints."

"And," said Denton, putting down the sheet, "you think the day of this DUI is the day the new Arvin Bloom was born."

"He's off the charts, Tony," said Mac.

Denton nodded. He owed Mac. Mac owed him. It was possible Denton could come up with something. He was military intelligence. It was easier to track such things down since the Homeland Security laws and the "or else" orders for all agencies to cooperate with each other.

"You think he's one of ours," said Denton.

"Kills like it," said Mac. "Possibly military. Possibly CIA."

"Won't be easy," said Denton with a smile.

"Didn't think it would," said Mac. "He's lost it, Tony. He'll kill again."

Denton sat silently for a moment and then said, "As I said, give me what you've got and we'll take care of the problem."

Mac's unblinking look was a familiar one to Denton.

"It's New York's problem," said Mac. "You wouldn't let him walk, but there are others who might depending on what he knows and what he's done. You know it. I know it."

Denton reached for the phone and said, "I'll call you."

Mac nodded and stood up.

"Make it urgent," said Mac. "This one knows how to kill and how to disappear."

"You up for dinner, a drink?" asked Denton.

"Sure," said Mac.

"You holding up all right, Mac?"

They both knew he was referring to 9/11, to Mac's dead wife. Denton had been at the funeral, had stood at Mac Taylor's side.

"Fine," said Mac, forcing a small smile.

"Lieutenant Rivera," said Denton into the phone. "Get me Longretti in Washington."

Mac left the room, closing the heavy door behind him.

Stella had sat at Joshua's bedside, recording his statement, which, she concluded, would probably be worth very little because the man was clearly delirious, guilt-ridden and flashing back to feverish moments in his past.

A physician named Zimmerman, slightly overweight, dressed in whites with the stethoscope of his profession around his neck, watched, fascinated, while his patient was questioned. Zimmerman could not have been more than twenty-eight.

"I killed Glick," said Joshua, wide eyes blinking. "I killed Joel. I was going to kill the priest."

"Go over each murder for me again," said Stella.

Joshua licked his lips and looked at the doctor as if he had never seen the man before.

"I was guided by the hand of a demon," he said.

"Could you be a little more specific than that?" asked Stella.

"Don't remember," said Joshua. "He called me on the phone, found me in a bottle, spoke to me in tongues. Can I request execution by crucifixion in this state?"

"No," said Stella. "Nor in any other one."

"I think he's bleeding again," Dr. Zimmerman said in a deep voice. "Right foot."

Stella nodded, clicked off the tape recorder and tucked it into her kit.

Joshua hadn't killed anyone. A case could be built against Joshua, not a strong one, but one that if taken to a jury might be enough.

Stella rose.

Joshua looked up at her and smiled.

"Anything?" asked Mac, looking through the one-way mirror.

"Lulling 'em. Making nice," said Detective Buddy Roberts, who stood with hands in pockets.

"They say anything?" asked Mac.

"No, Shelton knows we're listening."

Mac's eyes were on Shelton and Jacob Vorhees, who sat silently.

He wasn't looking forward to what was going to happen when he stepped inside that room. He wasn't looking forward to what he was going to do to the frightened boy. Mac told himself that this would hurt Jacob Vorhees, but as with most wounds, after the pain the healing would begin.

Mac looked at Roberts, who shook his head "no" in answer to some inner question.

Roberts, two months from retirement, was big and bald with deep bags under eyes that had seen almost any horror the inhuman mind could come up with. He had built a fragile wall between himself and the images of children mutilated by their own parents, women torn from between their legs up to their bloody faces.

Roberts' wall had been breached a little less than a year ago after he saw the body of a six-year-old boy who had been cut open, his liver removed. The cutter was the boy's father. It was less the horror of the dead boy, which he could block, but the reaction of the father.

"I want to be a liver donor," the father had said with a grin.

The father was a thin weasel with nervous hands and long dirty hair. The reason the father gave for what he had done was that he had been watching a rerun of Lost in Space when he suddenly got the idea of cutting out his son's liver. The weasel had thoroughly enjoyed telling the story, and that he had hidden the liver.

Mac had been on the case, had followed a trace trail of blood from the apartment building to a deli across the street. Roberts had watched Mac, who had simply stood inside the deli doorway, looked around and walked to the ice cream freezer. The deli clerk watched as the two policemen removed frozen fruit bars, ice-cream sandwiches, chocolate-topped cones, half gallons and quart blocks of ice cream.

And there it was at the bottom of the case, still red, frozen inside a zippered see-through bag. Roberts remembered thinking that the liver was no larger than one of the ice-cream sandwiches.

So, when he had interviewed the father, Roberts knew where the liver was: in the CSI lab being examined.

"Freezer at the deli," Roberts had said.

"Good," beamed the father, rubbing his head. "What say we have it for lunch?"

Roberts' wall had not come down completely, but he knew it soon might. He didn't want to see what was on the other side. He had already seen it.

"Buddy?" said Mac, pulling Roberts back from his thoughts.

"Yeah," said Roberts.

"They told them that Shelton can have a lawyer and stop talking and that Jacob must have a lawyer."

Roberts smiled, now fully back in the room.

"Shelton wants no lawyer," said Roberts. "We've got it in writing with witnesses. The Vorhees' family lawyer is on his way here now. We advised the boy that he say nothing till the lawyer gets here."

Mac looked through the window. Shelton looked tired. Jacob looked frightened and determined. Danny said something. Shelton nodded.

A few minutes later there was a knock on the door followed immediately by a lean man of about seventy in a designer business suit. The man who introduced himself as Lawrence Tabler shook Roberts' offered hand.

Mac knew who Tabler was, a high-cost, aggressive and convincing advocate for his clients. He turned his blue eyes on Mac and said, "Detective Taylor."

"Mr. Tabler," Mac acknowledged.

They didn't shake hands. A little over a month after 9/11 Mac had testified as an expert witness in the trial of a man who had brutally beaten his pregnant wife to death.

Tabler had relentlessly attacked the forensic evidence, suggested alternative scenarios to explain the evidence and, finally, attacked the integrity of the entire CSI unit, finishing with Mac. Tabler had done his homework or, more likely, had someone else do it.

"You want my client convicted, don't you, Detective?" Tabler had asked in court.