Patricia Cornwell - Predator

“I asked theBrowardCountyexaminer the same thing,” he replies, trying with all his might not to sound obtuse and dull. “He said after he test-fired the gun, he returned it to Hollywood PD.”

“Well, I can promise you it’s not there now,” Dr. Wesley says as if Tom is a simpleton.

Tom chews on a hangnail, making his cuticle bleed, an old habit that annoys the hell out of his wife.

“Thanks,” Dr. Wesley says, getting off the phone, dismissing him.

Tom’s attention wanders to the NIBIN microscope where the shotgun shell in question is mounted, a red, plastic twelve-gauge shell with a brass head that has an unusual drag mark made by the firing pin. He made the case a priority. He has been sitting in his chair the entire day and now into the night, using ring lighting and side lighting and proper orientations of three o’clock and six o’clock positions and saving each picture as a file, doing this repeatedly with breech marks, the firing pin impression and the ejector mark before searching the NIBIN database.

Then he had to wait four hours for the results while his family went to the movies without him. Then Thrush was out to dinner and asked him to call Dr. Wesley but forgot to give him a direct phone number, and Tom had to call theMcLeanHospitalanswering service and be handled, at first, as if he were a patient. A little appreciation is in order, he thinks. Dr. Wesley couldn’t bother to say “thanks” or “job well done” or “I can’t believe you got results so fast or got them at all.” Does he have any idea how hard it is to run a shotgun shell through NIBIN? Most examiners won’t even try.

He stares at the shell. He’s never had one that was recovered from a dead person’s ass.

He glances at his watch and calls Thrush at home.

“Just tell me one thing,” he says when Thrush answers. “How come you made me talk to Dr. Fuck-B-I. And a thank-you would be nice.”

“You talking aboutBenton?”

“No, I’m talking about Bond. James Bond.”

“He’s a nice guy. I don’t know what you’re talking about except you got such a thing about the Feds, you constitute what I call a bigot. And you want to know what else, Tom?” Thrush goes on, and he sounds slightly drunk. “Let me give you a word to the wise. NIBIN belongs to the Feds, meaning you do, too. Where the hell you think you got all that pretty equipment to work on and all that training so you could sit there and do what you do every day? Well, guess who? The Feds.”

“I don’t need this right now,” Tom says, the phone tucked under his chin as he types on the keyboard, closing out files, getting ready to go home to his empty house while his family enjoys the movies without him.

“Besides, just so you know,Bentonquit the Bureau a long time ago, doesn’t have anything to do with them.”

“Well, he should be grateful. That’s all. It’s the first time we got a hit in NIBIN on a shotgun shell.”

“Grateful? Are you fucking kidding me? Grateful for what? That the shell from this dead lady’s ass matches up with a dead man’s gun that’s supposed to be in the custody of the fuckingHollywoodpolice or sold as scrap metal by now?” Thrush says loudly, and he tends to say fuck a lot when he’s been drinking. “Let me tell you, he ain’t fucking grateful. Like me, all he probably wants to do right now is get shit-faced drunk.”

It is hot inside the ruined house, and the air is heavy and doesn’t move. It smells like mildew, mold and rancid food, and stinks like a latrine.

Hog moves with self-assuredness through the dark, from room to room, knowing by feel and smell exactly where he is. He can pick his way nimbly from one corner to the next, and when the moon is bright as it is tonight, his eyes hold the moonlight and he can see as clearly as if it ismidday. He can see beyond the shadows, so far beyond them they may as well not exist. He can see the red welts on the woman’s neck and face, see the sweat shining on her dirty, white skin, see the fear in her eyes, see her cut hair all over the mattress and the floor, and she can’t see him.

He walks toward her, toward the stinking stained mattress on the rotting wooden floor where she sits up, leaning against the wall, her shiny, green-draped legs straight out in front of her. What is left of her hair stands straight up, as if she’s got her finger in a wall socket, as if she’s seen a ghost. She was wise enough to leave the scissors on the mattress. He picks them up and with the toe of his boot rearranges the bright-green robe, hears her breathing, feels her eyes on him, like damp spots on him.

He took the beautiful green robe that was draped over the sofa. She had just carried it into the house from the car, from the church, where she’d had it on hours earlier. He took the robe because it pleased him. Now it is wilted and wrinkled and reminds him of a slain dragon in a crumpled heap. He captured the dragon. It is his, and his disappointment in what has become of it makes him edgy and violent. The dragon has failed him. It has betrayed him. When the brilliant green dragon moved freely and beautifully through the air and people listened to it and could not take their eyes off it, he coveted it. He wanted it. He almost loved it. Now look at it.

He drifts closer to her and kicks her green-draped wire-bound ankles. She barely moves. She was more alert a while ago, but the spider seems to have worn her out. She hasn’t preached the usual lowbrow drivel to him. She has said nothing. She has pissed since he was in here not even an hour ago. The ammonia smell is sharp in his nostrils.

“Why are you so disgusting?” Hog says, looking down at her.

“Are the boys asleep? I don’t hear them.” She sounds delirious.

“Shut up about them.”

“I know you don’t want to hurt them. I know you’re a nice person.”

“It won’t do any good,” he says. “You can just shut up about it. You don’t know a damn thing and never will. You’re so stupid and ugly. You’re disgusting. No one would believe you. Say you’re sorry. This is all your fault.”

He kicks her ankles again, this time harder, and she cries out in pain.

“What a joke. Look at you. Who’s my little pretty now? You’re filth. Spoiled little brat, ungrateful little smart aleck. I’ll teach you humility. Say you’re sorry.”

He kicks her ankles harder, and she screams and tears fill her eyes and they shine like glass in the moonlight.

“You’re not so high and mighty now, are you. Think you’re so much better, so much smarter than everybody else? Look at you now. Obviously, I’m going to have to find some more effective way to punish you. Put your shoes back on.”

Confusion touches her eyes.

“We’re going back outside. It’s the only thing you listen to. Say you’re sorry!”

Her glassy, wide eyes stare at him.

“You want the snorkel again? Say you’re sorry!”

He pokes her with the shotgun and her legs jerk.

“You’re going to tell me how much you want it, aren’t you. Thank me because you’re so ugly no one would ever touch you. You’re honored, aren’t you.” He lowers his voice, knows how to make it scarier.

He pokes her again, pokes her breasts.

“Stupid and ugly. Let’s get your shoes. You’ve left me no choice.”

She doesn’t say anything. He kicks her ankles, kicks them hard, and tears roll down her blood-caked face. Her nose is probably broken.

She broke Hog’s nose, slapped him so hard his nose bled for hours and he knew it was broken. He can feel the bump in the bridge of his nose. She slapped him when he did the bad thing, when she struggled at first, the bad thing that happened in the room behind the paint-peeled door. Then his mother took him to that place where the buildings are old and it snows. He had never seen snow before, he had never been so cold. She took him there because he lied.