Jonathon King - A Visible Darkness

All right, I thought. Show of force. Couldn't argue with that.

"They used the bullhorn on the place already. No answer. Now they got guys coming in through the alley and it's sealed from the front by a sniper," he said, pointing up to the roof over our heads.

I looked around the corner again and watched a three-legged dog limping down the middle of the empty street, snuffling the ground and then tilting its muzzle to the air trying to figure out the smell of clean leather and fresh gun oil.

"All right, detectives, we're set in the back with the door ram. Let's get this done before it gets any darker," said the SWAT lieutenant. Richards nodded her head.

The lieutenant whispered an order into his radio, and he and his partner stepped around us and out toward the street. We heard the muffled splintering of wood and then a series of shouts from the target house. Everyone seemed to hold their breath, waiting for a crack of gunfire we would all recognize and dread. A few seconds later we heard another whump from inside and then nothing.

The lieutenant spoke into his radio, and when he raised his hand and motioned us, we moved up behind him.

"All clear inside," he said. "Nobody alive."

Diaz led the way in. The SWAT team had opened the front door and we could smell the stench spilling out on the porch. An officer coming out shouldered his MP5 machine rifle and offered Richards a tin of jellied Vapo-Rub.

"Bad in there, ma'am."

She dipped a finger and dabbed it up at her nostrils. I took him up on the offer. Diaz declined.

What furniture there was inside had been shoved up against the walls. It was hot and stale and others on the team were snapping up the window shades and trying to force open the windows. The light that washed in gave the place a gray cast. The lieutenant directed us to a bedroom door just off the kitchen that had been splintered open, but as we approached, another black-suited team member opened the nearby refrigerator door and jumped back.

"Jesus Christ," he yelped.

On a bottom shelf stood a huge glass pickle jar that at first glance seemed to be full of a caramel soda that had been shaken and was fizzing over. On second look, a boil of brown cockroaches was streaming out of the jar in an effort to flee the officer's flashlight beam.

"Shut the damn door, Bennett," the L.T. snapped, and the kid slammed the door and danced into the next room.

Richards still had her eyes closed when we went into the bedroom.

"Signal seven in the closet," said the lieutenant.

I stepped forward and looked. Folded up in a small linen closet were the remains of a woman. Her gray hair was matted on skin that wasn't far from the same color. She was curled up in a fetal position and looked too small to be an adult. There was a swatch of silver duct tape wrapped around what was left of her mouth.

"Been here a while from the looks of that decomp," said Diaz.

I turned away and noticed that all the windows had been sealed with the same duct tape. The bed was still made up. But the dresser top had been cleared of anything remotely valuable.

"Lets get the M.E. out here," Richards said. "And let's call Hammonds."

Another twilight was spun through with red-and-blue light bars from a line of squad cars. Another visit by the M.E.'s black Suburban. Another body bag.

I leaned up against the driver's door of Diaz's SUV while Richards talked on a cell phone inside, filling her boss in on the details. I was thinking about crisp new hundred-dollar bills, doubting that they were going to find any in this house. The detectives were playing their theme: A former psych patient goes wacko for some reason, tracks down the shrink that treated him in jail and robs and kills him.

"Uh, yeah. We've got a mug shot from the jail and a physical description, sir," Richards was saying into the phone.

Diaz had turned on the overhead light in his truck and was looking through the jail and arrest reports on Eddie Baines. He handed a sheet to her.

"We've got a black male, thirty-seven years of age, approximately five-foot-ten and 250 pounds. Brown hair, uh…no eye color here. Some scars on his forearms, possibly knife wounds it says here, sir. No marks or tattoos.

"Yes, sir. I believe we've already got the BOLO out, sir," she said, passing the sheet back to Diaz.

I was staring down the darkened street, seeing something big and thick and menacing in the back of my head.

"Uh, no, sir, I don't believe so." She turned to Diaz. "Anything in there about a vehicle?"

"Uh, nada," he said, reading through the arrest report. "Looks like he was stopped by patrol on foot while he was pushing some kind of shopping cart. Like a junk man or something."

I reached in through Diaz's window and plucked the sheet out of his hand.

"Yo, Freeman," he snapped.

"What?" Richards said.

I read the line about the shopping cart, the description.

"He's our guy," I said, as much to myself as to them. "That's him."

The detectives were watching me.

"Um, yes, sir. Yes, Freeman, sir," Richards was saying into the phone.

An hour later we were in Hammonds's office, on the sixth floor of the sheriff's administration building. Richards had taken up a spot leaning against a bookshelf. Diaz took the most comfortable chair off to one side, leaving me with the chair directly in front of Hammonds's desk.

"All right, Freeman. Let's get past the fact that you didn't reveal information that you had. That investigative flaw is not surprising, but bolsters my assessment of your lack of professionalism. So convince me of this theory of yours."

He was up tight against his side of the desk, his palms flat together, his tie cinched up and the sleeves of his dress shirt showing an ironed crease.

I told him of the paper trail on Marshack, the confirmation that the doctor had collected the finder's fees on the South Florida viatical policies. I told him about McCane and his tailing of Marshack to the northwest side liquor store and the detail about the new hundred-dollar bills, the same kind found in Marshack's glove box.

Hammonds peaked his fingers, touching the tips on his chin. Without him asking a question, I elected to go on.

"I made some contacts in the zone and they picked up the word from one of your local drug dealers that a man fitting the description of Eddie Baines had been paying for heroin with new hundred-dollar bills."

"So we've got a psychotic with a heroin addiction walking around in Three Zone. He may or may not have been getting money for his habit from his jail psychiatrist. He may or may not have killed that psychiatrist. He also may or may not have killed his mother and left her in her closet to rot," Hammonds said, turning to Richards. "You have any reason to believe this guy has any connection with the rapes and killings you're supposed to be working, detective?"

"Location. Opportunity. Knowledge of the streets. And now, the possible propensity to violence," she said.

Hammonds let that sit for a moment.

"I ask you the same question, Mr. Freeman."

"If Marshack was paying this guy with hundred-dollar bills to get high, what was he getting in return for his money?" I said. "And if he was collecting a finder's fee on viaticals, was he lining up Baines as his hit man?"

Hammonds shook his head.

"Those aren't reasons, Freeman, they're questions," he said. "But since you have built these so-called contacts in the zone, it's my suggestion that you ride with Detective Richards and see if we might be able to find this junk man.

"And Detective Diaz. I want you to get with a computer tech and go through all the files Marshack may have had over in his office at the jail. Going on the supposition that Marshack's killer was also looking for something, let's see if what our burglar was looking for might have been stashed in a place even he couldn't get into."