Т Паркер - Swift Vengeance

“I do,” said Lindsey. “And how damned hard it was to get him up and out of there. Didn’t the manager help?”

Voss nodded irritably and knocked again. He looked at Lindsey, at me, then took hold of the iron opener and pressed. The thumb pad clunked down and the door opened, swung in six inches, then came to a stop.

My first thought on entering a quiet home, uninvited, is: Where are they hiding and how are they armed?

Seven weeks in Fallujah.

Seven years as a cop.

Six years as a hardworking private investigator and the sudden, wicked surprises sometimes sprung on us.

For such surprises I carry a forty-five autoloader in a strong-side inside-the-waistband holster. I wear it far back so the gun is easily concealed by a jacket or an untucked shirt. I’m right-handed.

I made a deal with myself early on as a freelancer, one that favors my personal survival: I carry the heavy, tumorous, soul-damaging gun even when I’m not expecting to need it.

Such as now, meeting with friendlies in a public place in these peaceful and secure United States of America.

“Let me do this,” I said to Voss, unstrapping the gun. He eased away as I pushed the door open with my foot. Indoor air wafting out, hard and metallic. A thick slick of blood on the tile entryway.

Adrenaline blast, game on.

I drew the forty-five in my right hand, pulled Voss away with my left, then pushed the door hard. Shivered the wall when it hit. Never step past a half-open door. I threw it wide open, jumped inside, and slammed it shut. Nothing. Spun fast to sweep the room, eyes and laser sight moving as one, across, then back, eyes focused on everything and nothing, the doorways, always the doorways, and the stairs, always the stairs, for movement and the shadow of movement concealed: Fallujah.

“Lindsey, Voss!” I barked over my shoulder. “Trouble here. Nobody in, nobody out!”

When you’re clearing you can get a rhythm and it’s the rhythm of your life. Note the big revolver lying on the carpet a few feet away from the entryway tile. Note the sand-colored carpet showing blood. You follow the blood. See the living room is spacious but sparsely furnished. Sweep across, sweep back. Breakfast nook empty. Your legs stable, eyes clear. See the small kitchen and a utility room behind it and a door to the attached garage. Garage for defense. Garage to hide. Follow the blood back to the living room. Silence outside the front door. Up the stairs slowly, one at a time, eyes and gun on the landing. Blood shows the way.

I made the landing, felt the warmer upstairs air pressing close. Scanned the hallway. A wall sconce knocked loose and dangling on its wires. One room right and another left, doors wide open. On the pale carpet a crimson drag pattern like a paint roller might make, all the way to the end of the hall, then through the open door.

Carpet is quiet. I stayed to the left of the blood. Stepped slowly, gun raised. Cleared the right-side bedroom, then the left-side bath. Stood outside the door at the end of the hall where the drag marks went through, knowing that death had gotten there ahead of me.

A quiet breath, then in.

Stillness only. Sunlight through vertical blinds, slats of light and dark on the bed. Nightstand lamp still on. Big bed, still made up, two pillows side by side, a man’s head lying on one of them. Looking up. Eyes half open. Lips parted as if ready to speak. Neck severed, now a crusted red-black stump. A fly on his forehead in a bar of sunlight.

On the floor, in the narrow shadow cast by the bed, lay the headless body. Arms and legs splayed, facedown if there had been a face. Jeans and socks. Neck flared.

I cleared the bathroom and the walk-in closet and came back, stopping close to the bed. Lowered the gun. Breathed even and deep. Heart in my throat. Tire hiss outside. A fly in the room.

And cop training:

UNSUB, black male, 30–40 years old.

Decapitated.

Height and weight TBD.

Defensive wounds on arms and hands.

One long slit over the heart, probably an entry wound, the blade apparently wrenched upward to cut the aorta and vena cava, then swept up and out.

Which had happened so fast Kenny Bryce didn’t have time to fire his weapon. And would have left him only a few seconds of waning fight. Which would have caused the first lurch of his blood to land on the entryway tile, where I had seen it, where he was stabbed. And allowed it to surge and spread and sink in as he was dragged across the living room, up the stairs, down the hall, and into the room in which he slept.

What strength to accomplish all that, I thought. In another man’s home. What ferocious resolve. What stone calm. And speed. Kenny Bryce’s heart was Caliphornia’s first strike. Deep and final. The beheading was a ritual. Something to inspire terror in the living.

Which it did.

I headed down the stairs, weapon face-high and pointed up. Felt the jab of panic, whirled. Heart racing and ears screaming. Empty stairs. Empty landing.

I cleared the garage, came back inside to the front door, and looked through the peephole. In the distorted distance, Lindsey and Voss had taken opposite ends of the porch. They stood in oddly similar postures, arms crossed and feet wide. Lindsey in the sun and Voss in the shade.

I cracked the door. “Kenny’s been murdered,” I said quietly. “Don’t come in. You’ll contaminate more evidence. Stay put. I need a few minutes.”

“I came here to see Kenny,” said Lindsey. “I’m coming in.”

“Think,” I said. “The police are going to question all of us, long and hard. I’ll take the heat for going in. You stay ignorant. A tampering charge won’t help your custody fight.”

“We didn’t know it was a damned crime scene,” said Voss.

“That’s my best defense,” I said. “So let me go collect some things we’ll need. We’ll never get them if I don’t get them now. A few minutes. Then we’ll call the cops.”

Lindsey looked to Voss, defaulting to the old order.

“He’s right,” said Voss.

She glared at Voss, then at me. “Did they cut off his head?”

I nodded, shut the door, and turned the deadbolt.

Got my phone into camera mode and shot the bloody tile and the bloody inside of the front door, and the revolver on the floor, and the carpet and steps and landing and hall and bedroom. The terrible bedroom. Shot his head and body. Macro to close-up. Video.

Then to the bed stand, where the reading lamp spread its cool light. Where waited Bryce’s phone, charging, and placed to hold down the top of a handwritten letter that looked very similar to Lindsey’s. An AF Falcons money clip, thick with bills, anchored the bottom.

Dear Lt. Bryce,

To cause another’s death is to cause your own.

I am going to decapitate you with my knife. Like the swords of the great Saracen warriors, it has a name. It is Al Ra’ad. The thunder.

Watch for us. Listen for us. Believe every fearful thought.

Your end is our beginning.

I rattled off ten shots on auto-drive. Ten more. Wanted that letter cold.

The spare bedroom was Bryce’s office. The desktop computer was sleeping. I tried some passwords based on Kenny Bryce’s name, and Headhunters, USAF, and Air Force Falcons, which were featured on a wall poster, a coffee mug on the desk, even a mouse pad, in addition to the money clip. No luck. Looked over the last three months of a hardcover appointment calendar and found nothing of particular interest. Dinner with Ron and Kaya last Saturday. An appointment with Dr. Leising one day previous. Haircut next week. I shot the September through December calendar pages anyway.

In the bathroom I tore off some toilet paper, then went back to the meaty hell of Kenny’s bedroom. The horror of a body and its severed head is not describable in the language that I know. There, I hovered over Kenny Bryce’s cell phone. Hoped he’d left it on while charging. Figured the chances were fifty-fifty. Covered my fingertip with the toilet paper, hit the screen control. Clean blue light. Icons. A fly buzzing. Such a lucky day for Kenny and me and the world. I opened Contacts and scrolled down for Ron and Kaya, then Dr. Leising, wrote their numbers in my notebook. Noticed that my handwriting was forceful and shaky. Searched his contacts for anyone of obvious utility. Got Mom and Dad. I chose a few first-name-only contacts at random, on the theory that they were close to him. Brandon Goff’s name jumped out at me like a clown from a dark closet.