John Saul - Black Lightning

“Aw, Mom!” Kevin groaned. “Come on! It was me that found her!”

“Go on,” Anne told him. “If Detective Blakemoor has any questions, we’ll come and find you. And be nice to your sister,” she warned as Kevin reluctantly started back toward the house.

Easing the dead cat clear of the deck, Blakemoor studied the carnage that had been its chest. The rib cage had been cut open and the lungs pulled out, just as had those of both Shawnelle Davis and Joyce Cottrell. But somehow the mutilation of the cat looked different.

Neater.

The word had come unbidden into his mind, but as he repeated it silently to himself, Blakemoor realized it was the only description that was truly appropriate. Whereas both Davis and Cottrell seemed to have been ripped apart in rage, the animal — at least where the cut up its chest and the opening of its rib cage had been performed — looked almost as if it had been dissected.

“Any idea what might have happened to it?” he asked Glen Jeffers, who was standing now, staring numbly down at the body of his daughter’s pet. Blakemoor watched him carefully, but saw nothing in his expression except shock at the mutilation.

Glen shook his head. “I didn’t even know she wasn’t in the house,” he said, his voice dull, his eyes fixed on the bloody corpse. “Christ, I feel like maybe this is my fault.”

“Your fault?” Lois Ackerly asked.

For a moment Glen made no reply to the detective’s question. Ever since Kevin had yelled out to Heather and Rayette and he’d gone to see what the fuss was about, he’d been trying to remember the last time he’d seen the cat. She’d been there this morning, after he’d gotten back from the park and the kids had left for school. But after that?

He didn’t know. But he’d been in and out of the house a lot that morning, and Kumquat could have slipped out any time the door was open. He hadn’t bothered to check on her whereabouts when he’d stretched out to take a nap. Nor had he looked for her when he woke up, after sleeping a lot longer than he’d intended to.

As he remembered the care with which Heather checked each morning to make sure there was no way her pet could escape from the house, his sense of guilt increased. All he’d had to do was keep half an eye out.

Instead he’d slept half the day away. “She probably got out this morning,” he said finally. His gaze shifted to Mark Blakemoor. “It might even have been when you were leaving.”

“You mean you weren’t even watching her?” Anne asked. “For God’s sake, Glen! You know how careful Heather always is! The least—”

“Hey, look!” Glen protested, suddenly angry. “I said this might be partly my fault, okay? But it’s not like I killed her. Jesus!”

“Oh, God, I know,” Anne sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m just upset, and—” Leaving the rest of the sentence unspoken, she turned to Blakemoor. “I know I shouldn’t have asked for you, but when the kids told me what happened, it just seemed like too much of a coincidence.”

“It’s okay,” Blakemoor assured her. He turned questioningly to his partner. “Think we’d better take it downtown?” he asked, inclining his head toward the body of the cat. “And what about pictures?”

Lois Ackerly shrugged, no more certain than Blakemoor as to proper procedure. One thing she did know — if someone was going to call for a full forensics team, it wasn’t going to be her. Not for a dead cat. “I don’t think we need them,” she said. “We both know where the cat was, right?” She turned to Anne. “Do you have a plastic trash bag?”

Anne, her eyes fixed on the cat, made no reply, and finally her husband spoke again. “I’ll get one.”

As Glen headed toward the house, Anne glanced up just in time to see Mark Blakemoor watching him, a speculative look in his eyes. “Come on, Mark. You don’t think Glen did this, do you?”

“Hey,” Mark replied, trying to inject a light note into his tone, which he was very far from feeling. “He was the last person to see the victim alive, right?”

“That’s not funny, Mark,” Anne said, her voice tight.

Her words stung, and Blakemoor instantly regretted his attempt at humor. “Look, why don’t you just let us take the cat down and have someone look it over, all right? I can see exactly why you’re so upset, but we don’t know that there’s any connection at all between this and—”

“Don’t we?” Anne interrupted, her shock at the sight of the dismembered cat fading in the face of the detective’s obvious attempt to dismiss what had happened. “I didn’t see Shawnelle Davis, but I did see Joyce Cottrell. I found her, remember? And you can’t tell me that poor Kumquat wasn’t mutilated exactly the same way that she was. So first there was Shawnelle Davis, whom I admit I don’t know, but next was my next-door neighbor. Now it’s my daughter’s cat. This is literally in my backyard, Mark. I want some answers.” She turned to Lois Ackerly. “I know what you think about what I’ve been writing—” she began, but Ackerly silenced her with a gesture.

“What we might have thought yesterday doesn’t mean a thing today,” she said. “We’re going to take this seriously. Whether this creep had anything to do with Richard Kraven or not, it sure looks like he’s trying to copy his style. If this had been reported from somewhere else in town, we would’ve sent someone out to take a cruelty report. But after what happened last night, believe me when I tell you that we want to know what happened to this cat just as badly as you do.”

Anne’s jaw setting and her eyes narrowing, still not positive that Ackerly was doing anything more than placating her, she turned back to Blakemoor.

“We’ll call you,” he promised. “We’re not going to take the cat to the pound. We’re going to have the same medical examiner look at it who worked on Davis and Cottrell—”

“Davis and Cottrell?” Anne cut in, her reporter’s instincts suddenly surging. “Are you saying you are treating them as being connected?”

Mark Blakemoor and Lois Ackerly exchanged a look, then Mark sighed. “Off the record, of course we are. The M.O.’s aren’t identical, but they’re close enough that we aren’t about to rule out a serial killer. And very much off the record,” he went on, his eyes moving to Kumquat’s bloodied corpse, “I’m going to tell you that I’m going to have a very hard look at what happened to your cat. But if you write so much as a single word implying I’m investigating a cat’s death as a murder, I swear I’ll make sure no cop ever talks to you ever again. About anything. Clear?”

Anne hesitated, then nodded agreement. “Clear.” She glanced around, then, satisfied that she was still alone with the two detectives, said, “What should we do?” Her gaze fixed on Kumquat’s body. “Is this a warning? Does it mean he’s coming after me or one of my kids next?” Her eyes were troubled, a mirror of the emotions churning within her. She shifted back to Mark Blakemoor. “I’m scared. I’m really scared.”

Again Blakemoor had to resist the impulse to put his arms protectively around her and gently stroke her hair. And again, when he spoke, he was careful to keep his tone perfectly even, the matter-of-fact inflection of any policeman talking to any frightened citizen. “Let’s not get too worried until we know what’s going on,” he told her. “This could be someone’s idea of a sick joke, or someone just wants to scare you and figured out the best way to do it. For now, we’ll make sure you have a steady parade of cars going by all night, and if anything frightens you — anything at all — call 911. I personally guarantee there’ll be someone here in less than a minute.”