T. Parker - Summer Of Fear

"Copies ready?" asked Winters.

"One hour," said Karen.

"Stay on it, choose the best and load up the press with them. Get a separate phone-bank number for the public, for anyone with information on the photo. Everything okay out there?"

"The phone lines are overloaded, so the bank isn't happening yet, the air conditioning is broken, and everybody pissed off at me because Russell here has the inside track."

"He owes us," said Winters, fixing me with his black eye "Karen, get down to the dungeon and wait for Russell. You know what to hold and what to release. Marty, roll that dub for Monroe."

Parish lumbered to one of the three TV monitors lined up to the right of Winters's huge desk, pushed a tape into the VC that sat below the middle set, and pushed a button.

"What you're about to see is the first Citizens' Task Force evidence we can really use," said Winters. "Pure accident. Pure gold. The neighbor-Lisa Nolan-brought it to Wald."

The screen flickered to life, a front-yard scene, daytime. The date and time appeared in the upper right: July 3, 4:26 p.m. Three kids-two blond girls and a plump red-haired boy-race on the grass of a suburban lawn, chasing each other into a new red four-wheel-drive Jeep. A panting golden retriever followed them in. The camera moved to the front of the truck, holding for a still on the shiny bumper and winch, the dealer advertisement on the plate holder, the entire gleaming front end. A smiling woman of perhaps forty sat on the passenger's side. While she waved, a similar vehicle (but this one was white) tracked past slowly on the street, stopped, and the driver-a pleasant-looking Asian man in his early forties-leaned out the window and said "Rick, you like to trade?"

"Lisa would kill me, Tran!" yelled the camera operator. The lens dipped as he answered and chuckled. Lisa nodded and pointed a finger at the camera in mock warning. The drive in the white Jeep admired the new red one. A woman was visible beside him, leaning forward so she could see. Three children had their faces pressed to the glass of the rear windows-two small boys and a girl.

"Recognize the girl in the white Jeep?" asked Parish.

"Kimmy Wynn," I said.

"Affirmative," said Wald. "Now take a look at her shadow."

A white Taurus came into the picture from behind the white Jeep, the driver pulling the car to his left around the stationary Nolans. When the Taurus came around, the driver looked briefly at the camera, then quickly away. He had just turned to profile when his vehicle disappeared off screen.

Parish stepped forward and rewound the tape for another look. On the second pass, I saw him more clearly: the bulk of his huge body stuffed behind the wheel, his red plaid shirt, his thick tangle of red-brown beard and matted hair, his apparently sunburned face, black sunglasses, and his arm and hand- broad and strong as a peasant's in a Rivera painting-hanging from the window, fingers spread in perfect relief against the white body of the car. Marty played it again. The focus was excellent, and the Taurus passed by about fifty feet from Rick, the cameraman. For almost a full second, this man-very possibly the Midnight Eye-was center screen, a star.

Winters shook his head at the now-blank screen. "Russell, play up in your Citizens' Task Force article the fact that a citizen- Lisa Nolan-was bright enough to bring this evidence to our Task Force sheriff-adjutant, Erik Wald. We can't stress the need for public input enough. I'm praying somebody can ID this ape from a picture. If not, Chet has some physical that will help. Karen's waiting for you in Autopsy. After that, talk to Chet. After that, get to work and find a way to keep that county out there from going ballistic."

"He's big, heavy, and strong," said Karen, taking a deep breath and leading me into the autopsy room-the dungeon.

It smelled as it always did-a sweet putrescence of formaldehyde, blood, flesh. The overhead lights are bright but give no warmth. A chilly draft stays down low, clinging to your knee: easing into your joints. I hated this place, not for what it made me see but for the dreamlike unreality it forced upon me. To work the dungeon was always, for me, a matter of trying to chase detail through the silent, obscuring fog that surrounds the dead. The second I walked in, the ceiling dropped, the light lowered, the walls crept in a few yards. The longer you stay ^ the worse it gets.

"Six foot two, two ten," she continued once we were inside. "Right-handed is our guess, but it's still just a guess. Yee told me he struck Mr. Wynn too many times to count. There were parts of his gums and a molar stuck to the ceiling."

I asked her how they got height and weight.

"Size twelve foot from the blood tracks, a very wide foot, deep imprint. The spray painting was done from a six-two height. Give or take some, Russell. You know that."

"Blood type?"

"None, but we've got his hair."

"Latents?"

"Dream on. We've found bits of black acrylic material where we might expect prints."

"Gloves."

"Gloves."

"Semen?"

"He's kept that to himself, so far. Or put it where we haven't found it."

We stopped short of a stainless-steel table where examiner Glen Yee was working on Mrs. Wynn. The light seemed to dim again. I breathed deeply the sickening chemical-flesh air. You think it's never going to wash out of your nose hairs. My throat felt sudsy.

Yee, elbow-deep, looked up at me and actually smiled. "All B-I-T," he said. "Except for Mr. Wynn."

I nodded. B-I-T-blunt-instrument trauma. It struck me that it shouldn't take a doctor to figure out that much. But I had been wondering how the Eye had managed two adults and two children with nothing but a club.

I looked at Karen, but she was staring at her own feet, arms crossed, hands clenching and unclenching.

Yee reached into a plastic basin that stood at the head of the table and held up something with his fingers. Between them was the instantly recognizable shape of a. 22 long rifle bullet, slightly mushroomed, lopsided, bent from the middle.

"One in the head for Mr. Wynn," said Karen without looking up.

"He didn't really have much of a head left," I said. It wasn't supposed to sound like it did: It was just a numb observation.

"Oh, he did," said Karen. "It was just spread around the room. The techs brought it back in bags. Dr. Yee used all his skills to put it back together. Shit."

Karen, blanched and sweating, hustled across the autopsy room to a big stainless sink, into which she vomited. Yee watched her go by, looked at me, and shrugged, giving a small embarrassed smile. He carefully put the bullet back. The air conditioner-which can run by generator in case of power outage-blew a death-heavy breeze by me. The ceiling came down another foot.

Yee sighed. "I've never seen anything this traumatic in seventeen years, except the car accidents."

Karen, her back still to us, shook her head, coughed, spat.

"Did you get a shell to go with that bullet?"

"CS brought in no shell. Revolver, maybe, or a single shot. He used a knife to disembowel."

I nodded, staring stupidly into the open carcass of Maia Wynn. "I'm done in here if you are, Karen."

"Take your time," she said. "Don't rush a good thing.

"I said, I was done."

We passed through the sliding doors and down the hallway, the residual sweetness of formaldehyde lessening in my nostrils. Karen Schultz's heels hit the linoleum with a hurried resolve.

"The bullet we don't release," she said. "We don't wanr him ditching the gun. The knife we don't release-same reason. Don't talk about the wall writing or the tapes-we don't want to put any ideas into any other sick heads. We're trying to get a better description from Kim, but she won't tell us anything all. She gave me what she gave you back at the house, then went mute. I've never in my life felt sorrier for another hum being. All she does is stare."