Robert Crais - The First Rule

Pike checked the body, but found no identification. He had been shot twice in the back. A black nine-millimeter Ruger pistol lay in the dirt by his hand.

Pike left the man and the gun, and went to the window. The barking inside grew louder as he approached, then abruptly stopped.

The old Airstream was much smaller than the double-wide. It contained only three small rooms-a kitchenette, a living room, and a single bedroom with a bath. Pike looked into the kitchen first, saw nothing, then looked into the living room.

The inside pit bull had stopped barking because it was eating. The dog tore a strip of flesh from a man’s neck, gulped the meat down, then lapped at the wound. The dog’s face and chest were matted with blood, and its feet were red boots. A second male body was half on a couch and half on the floor. The flesh on the second man’s left forearm had been partially eaten, but his right forearm was intact. The numbers tattooed there were easy to read.

187

187

187

187

187

One for each of the people he put in the ground.

Pike said, “Good night, Moon.”

Pike stood at the window, deciding what he needed to do. He wouldn’t leave the dog trapped in the trailer, and he wouldn’t leave the bodies where the red, white, and blue girls could find them. Pike would call the police, but he wanted to search the premises first. While Pike was thinking, the dog stopped lapping the blood and looked at him. It cocked its head, squinting as if it couldn’t see so well, and wagged its tail. Then a fire grew in its eyes, and it lunged against the window.

Pike said, “Let’s hope I don’t have to kill you.”

Pike wasn’t afraid of the dog, but the trick would be controlling the animal without harming it.

Pike found a length of two-by-four by the double-wide. He unclipped the chain from the tow hitch, fashioned a noose, then looped it around the two-by-four. The dog tracked Pike’s location by sound, and followed him around the inside of the trailer, barking and snarling.

When Pike approached the trailer’s door, the dog slammed into the interior side like a linebacker.

Pike said, “Easy.”

The door was hinged to open out, which Pike figured would work to his advantage. He pressed his shoulder against the door, unshipped the latch, and the big dog immediately tried to push the door open.

Pike let it open enough to offer the end of the two-by-four. The dog crunched into the wood, shaking its head as if trying to break a smaller dog’s back. Pike let the noose slip off the board over the dog’s head, then pulled the noose tight, and dragged the dog out of the trailer. The dog spit out the two-by-four and lunged, so Pike lifted its front legs off the ground. The pit twisted and snapped, streamers of drool flying. The dog wasn’t trying to get away; it was trying to bite.

He worked the dog to the tow hitch, and wrapped the chain so the dog’s head was held close to the steel. The dog’s head and shoulders were blistered with scars, its nubby ears were shredded, and the left eye was milky. Mangy scabs covered its rump. A fight dog, tossed in the pit with similar dogs because Moon and his friends dug watching them rip each other apart. The dog licked the dried blood on its muzzle.

Pike said, “Guess you had the last laugh.”

Pike entered the trailer, picking a careful path around tendrils of blood that spread from the bodies. The chemical stink of decay gases, dog shit, and spoiled human meat was terrible. Pike pulled on a pair of latex gloves, then noticed that Williams’s right elbow appeared injured. The inside of the elbow above the 187s was badly discolored, showing a prominent lump under the skin as if Williams had two elbows instead of one. Pike felt the lump and realized it was bone. Moon’s elbow had been broken.

Pike thought Frank Meyer might have done the deed, and the corner of his mouth twitched, Pike’s version of a smile.

Pike searched Williams first, and found a nine-millimeter Glock in Williams’s back pocket. Pike checked the chamber, then the magazine, and counted thirteen cartridges in a magazine designed to hold seventeen. With one remaining in the chamber, this meant three shots could have been fired. Pike wondered if the bullets found in Frank’s house had come from this gun. SID would test-fire the weapon, and run a comparison, and then they would know. Pike put the clip back into the gun, and the gun in Moon’s pocket.

Moon’s remaining pockets produced a wallet, a ring of keys, a blue bandanna, a pack of Kools, two joints, a pink Bic lighter, and a PayDay candy bar. The wallet contained three hundred forty-two dollars, seven Visa cards in seven different names (none of them Earvin Williams), and no driver’s license. Pike examined the keys, and found one with worn teeth bearing the Buick emblem. He kept the keys.

The second body yielded another nine-millimeter Glock, this one missing two bullets. Elsewhere on the body, Pike found eighty-six dollars, a pack of Salem Lights, a stick of Juicy Fruit, and another set of keys, but no wallet or cell phone. Neither Moon nor the man outside had cell phones, either, which made it three for three.

Pike moved to the door for some fresh air, and looked back at the scene. Open beer bottles, two crack pipes on a wide ceramic ashtray, and a plastic baggie of rock-these guys were chilling when they were shot, and Moon had been trying to dull the pain of his damaged elbow. Moon had been shot twice in the face. The other man had been shot once in the chest and once in the head. Both were armed, but neither had drawn their weapons, suggesting they had been caught off guard by someone they knew. The third man probably bailed when the shooting started, but was chased down outside and shot.

Pike studied the floor, wondering if the murders had been committed by more than one person. The dog had been trapped for days, endlessly moving from door to windows, in and out of each room, and on the furniture. Blood, dog crap, and piss were smeared everywhere, obliterating any footprints.

Pike found three shell casings. He examined each one without touching it, noting that all three were nine-millimeter casings. He wondered if the bullets in Moon and his friends would match the bullets in Frank, and if Michael Darko had killed them.

Pike quickly searched the rest of the trailer, but found no evidence that a baby had been present. He decided to check the Buick, but when he stepped outside and saw the dog, he stopped. The pit bull made a low, huff ing bark, then pawed the earth. Its tongue lolled like a strip of purple liver.

Pike pulled the metal water pan from beneath the trailer, found a hose, then set the pan at the dog’s feet. The dog strained to drink, but the lead was too short, so Pike played out enough chain for the dog to reach the water. The dog slurped noisily, splashing most of the water out of the pan.

Pike laid a hand on the dog’s hard back, and the dog spun fast as a striking snake, exploding out of the water as it went for Pike’s throat. The dog was fast, but Pike was faster, one instant beside the dog, the next a pace away, just out of reach. The dog clamped its jaws in a frenzy.

Pike felt no fear or anger at the dog. He simply got the hose, and refilled the bowl from a safe distance. He figured the animal had been beaten regularly to make it mean. Wasn’t the dog’s fault. Even now, the dog tried so hard to reach him that its neck bulged over the chain and its eyes rolled with rage.

Pike said, “It’s okay, buddy. I understand.”

The dog strained even harder to bite him.

Pike went to the Riviera.

Moon’s key opened the Riviera perfectly, but Pike did not get in. He pulled on a fresh pair of latex gloves, then searched the glove box and under the front buckets, hoping for a cell phone or some hard link to Michael Darko.