Crime Spells Part 16

"Then do something about it." He moved a little closer and pulled something out of a pocket of his robe. A glint of metal, a sparkle. "I don't know why I haven't given this to you before now. But now... feels right."

The metal was like nothing I'd seen. In fact, my mind must've been playing tricks because the light was very poor. The metal wasn't smooth but woven: gold filaments, I thought, and maybe silver? A hint of blue in the weave. I made out a five-by-five grid. A different gem sparkled in every square, both illuminating and magnifying a strange character-were they letters?-incised in the metal beneath. I counted five different symbols. Two were like runes, but the other three looked more like crude Egyptian hieroglyphs.

The center square was unique, with a character repeated nowhere else in the grid: a squashed teardrop canted right, tip down, broader bottom adorned with inwardly curved hooks or p.r.o.ngs. I thought: Georgia O'Keeffe. I rubbed my thumb over the gem there. A glitter of purple. Amethyst? "What is this?"

He opened his mouth, but my pager brrred again, and too late, I remembered I hadn't called in yet. "Sorry, I have to take this. I didn't want to use the phone in the house. But thank you." I slipped the charm into my trouser pocket. "And don't be sorry."

"It's fine, fine. We'll talk later." He made a shooing motion. "Go. Save the world."

The crime scene guys had finished with pictures and were working the room. Kay Howard, the deputy M.E., was hunkered over the body. My partner, Rollins, was downstairs talking to the night clerk, a diminutive Indian with c.o.ke-bottle gla.s.ses and an accent that got thicker the more questions we asked.

I waited, resisting the urge to crowd Kay, something that comes easy when you're as big as I am. People say I look like Patrick Ewing, except Ewing has the beard, and I'm two inches shorter and about eighty billion bucks poorer. I saw an opening when Kay bagged the hands. "Anything?"

"Well, she went right for the eyes." Her gloved finger traced a b.l.o.o.d.y orbit. "Very clean, no ragged edges, no evidence that she hesitated at all. She got him a good shot on the right." Kay gestured toward the evidence bag with a black-handled, blood-soaked pocketknife. The blade was serrated along two thirds of its length, then tapered to a sharp, slightly upturned point. A quarter inch was missing from the tip.

"We'll probably find the tip somewhere in the brain, or maybe wedged in the sphenoid at the back of the orbit, but that's not what killed him." Kay indicated a deep, ragged, fleshy necklace extending from MacAndrews's right to his left ear. Congealing purple blood sheeted the dead man's chest and there were drippy arcs painted on the wall immediately above the headboard. A slowly coagulating river of purple-black sludge stained his forearms, though I could just make out what looked like a tattoo on his left bicep. (Or it could've been a c.o.c.kroach. If his toenail fungus was any indication, personal hygiene wasn't among MacAndrews's finer qualities.) "She got both the arteries and didn't stop. Sawed right through the trachea." She looked up, and I saw a glint of steel in her eyes, a little defiance. "If it wasn't so politically incorrect, I'd say good riddance."

"The guy was an a.s.swipe pimp. Won't hear me disagree."

"I did not hear that," said the tech. He was fiddling with the DVD player. "I'm not even in the room, and if I am in the room, I've turned off my hearing aid." His tone changed. "Whoa, we got a DVD here."

"So let's see what our bad boy here was watching," I said.

The film was clearly homemade but grainy, as if it might be a transfer from a VCR tape. It felt... old.

The room could've been anywhere, and the camera stayed tight on a single bed with a dirty brown blanket and a single pillow. No pillowcase. Nothing on the walls I could see right off the bat, though there might have been something on the corner of a night table protruding into the frame. Cigarette pack? And something green and white on the bed, near the pillow. Something else propped alongside. No sound.

A girl lay over the blanket, her head propped on the pillow. Ten, maybe twelve years old. She was Asian, with long black hair sc.r.a.ped back in a ponytail. She was naked and when she moved, she did so sluggishly as if moving through water. Drugged.

The man was also naked except for the black ski mask. There might have been something on his right a.s.s cheek-a large mole, maybe-but I couldn't be sure. He loomed over the bed, then turned and flashed a V. Then he reached to his right, somewhere off-camera.

When his hand came back, I saw the tongue of a clear plastic bag in his fist.

"Oh, Jesus Christ," said the tech.

Kay let go of a small, sick gasp. "G.o.d."

I didn't say anything, but I knew: G.o.d had as much to do with it as the Tooth Fairy.

It took perhaps eight or ten horrible minutes, and that was only because he didn't flip her onto her stomach and tighten the plastic bag until the very end. Even then, he prolonged the moment, teasing her, rolling the plastic away from her gaping mouth so she might gulp a precious breath or two before cinching the bag tight once more.

Kay was crying. The color was gone from the tech's face. I was dry-eyed and shaking, my guts in knots, a black rage blooming in my chest.

Made me want to make an arrest somewhere dark and faraway. Maybe have a little accident, or something.

Something.

III.

Jane Doe, mute and catatonic, had been taken to George Was.h.i.+ngton University Hospital.

The ER was hopping, so the bars must've closed. In the waiting room, the air smelled like dirty socks, musty and close; there was a motley a.s.sortment of frightened relatives, squalling kids with dead-tired moms in do-rags, the odd broken arm or leg.

In back, I waited behind the nurses' station. Nothing really going tonight. An MVA in one trauma bay: a weeping young blonde girl in a neck brace and torn blue jeans. A couple of heart attacks-that high mosquito whine of defibrillators charging, someone bawling, "Clear!"

One big moose with steely Old Testament prophet hair and a scruff of white beard. A Sixties throwback: black leather jacket with matching leather chaps, boots, aviator sungla.s.ses in a breast pocket. He was Bay 4, very drunk, very busy bleeding all over his Grateful Dead t-s.h.i.+rt and loudly hara.s.sing an earnest-looking female medical student, yelling that he'd taken worse in 'Nam and just needed a "G.o.dd.a.m.ned needle ..."

Across from Jerry Garcia's stunt double, I spotted an Asian family. Two women in their, oh, forties, fifties and one middle-aged guy cl.u.s.tered around a gurney. A shriveled, skeletal-looking guy with sickly yellow skin lay motionless as a mummy, tucked beneath a sheet. His bald head was cadaverous, the skin stretched tight across his skull. His black eyes were dull, fixed. Not just old. Ancient. There were blue-black sooty smudges on his forearms and several more on his neck.

Hmmm. In a fire, maybe?

Maybe it was because they were Asian, and I'd just seen that d.a.m.n film. To this day, I don't know why they drew my attention. Now very curious, I tossed a glance at the whiteboard. which listed, in blue felt marker, each bay by problem.

Jerry Garcia was in 4: ETOH, lac. Doctorese for a drunk done busted his head.

My Jane Doe was in Bay 8: ?Sz.? Head trauma Neuro. Little red dot signifying she was a police case. As if the s.h.i.+ny black shoes visible beneath the drawn curtain weren't the uniform a.s.signed to keep tabs on my suspect, and her being cuffed to the gurney wasn't like, you know, a giveaway.

The Asian family occupied Bay 7: .

Psychiatry. Hmmm.

"Detective Saunders?" A squat, utterly humorless doctor with gimlet, pewter-gray eyes and pale, nearly translucent lips stuck out his hand. The words Phillip Gerber, M.D. and Neurology were st.i.tched in blue above the left breast pocket of his white doctor's coat. Ten to one, no one called him Phil. "Dr. Gerber. I'm the neurologist on the case." Just in case I couldn't read.

Gerber's palm was soft. Like shaking hands with a grub. "So what can you tell me about our Jane Doe?" I asked, taking back my hand.

"Well, she's no longer mute, for starters. Her name's Lily Hopkins. Don't have an age or place of residence, but we're running her through the NCMEC, but that's only good if she's been reported missing."

"She's responsive? Can I speak with her?"

"Yes, in a moment." He'd fingered up a chart and was now flipping pages. "Her neurological examination is unremarkable. Blood work was negative except for some alcohol in her system..."

I waited while he droned through the negatives. In Bay 4, I saw the medical student twitch a curtain around Jerry Garcia's gurney. She was p.i.s.sed but trying to look as though getting cussed out by a drunken, b.l.o.o.d.y Sixties throwback was something you just took in stride. Her eyes briefly flicked my way. Lingered a sec, a sparrow of some emotion flitting across her face. I raised my eyebrows in my best yeah, you really got an a.s.shole there expression. She got that. The corner of her mouth twitched in a tiny smirk as she slid behind the nurses' station, wrote Surg and on the whiteboard, then sat with the chart about two chairs down from where I stood with Gerber.

When Gerber came up for air, I said, "So you're thinking...?"

He didn't look pleased at being derailed. Good. "I'll be honest, Detective. For the record, I'm not a fan of psychiatric diagnoses, though I'm no expert. They're only descriptive, not etiological. Having said that... You're familiar with multiple personality?"

"A little."

He stared at me a moment. "Well, you took that in stride. Mention DID to a detective or lawyer, and they roll their eyes."

I chose my words carefully. "I've seen a few things. Is she a multiple?"

Gerber's lips thinned to a paper cut above his chin. "Personally, I think Dissociative Ident.i.ty Disorder is ludicrous. But, no... Ms. Hopkins is not a multiple. She doesn't claim to have alters. I don't know about her past, but trauma in and of itself does not induce dissociative phenomenon."

Over Gerber's head Jerry Garcia hove into view, swaying. He'd changed into one of those flimsy hospital gowns. A wide gauze wrap stained with rust was wrapped around his scalp like a bandana. He listed, pulling hard to port, tacking for the wall to hold himself up.

I said to Gerber, "So what are you saying?"

To my right, a slender doctor rounded the corner behind the nurses' station and touched the medical student's shoulder. I laid odds she was the shrink. Just... something about her, the way she carried herself like an eye of calm in the center of a hurricane. Self-possessed. Confident.

She was also stunning: a long graceful neck, auburn hair she wore in a French knot, green eyes. Heart-shaped face exaggerated by a widow's peak.

Her name was embroidered in blue thread above the left breast pocket: Sarah Wylde, M.D. Below that: Psychiatry.

Wylde. A little ding in the back of my brain. That name...

As soon as I saw the two women together, I knew: sisters. And maybe she felt my gaze because she did the same thing her sister had. Her eyes touched on my face-and lingered there.

A tiny jolt of... recognition.

In my pocket, a strange heat. Puzzled over that a second and then remembered: that charm. What...? I trailed my hand over the metal. It was warm, the gems almost pulsing, as if keeping time with a hidden heart.

What?

Gerber was saying, "The EEG findings are clear."

I wrenched my attention back to Gerber. "Clear?"

"Yes, you can't fake an EE-"

"Hey." Garcia bawled. Then louder: "Hey! You!" Gerber looked over his shoulder. The usual bustle quieted as people paused.

The student pushed to her feet. "Mr. d.i.c.kert, if you wouldn't mind..."

"f.u.c.k you say." d.i.c.kert was out of the bay now, maybe twenty feet into the ER. The student started forward, but her sister smoothly interposed herself between the two.

"Mr. d.i.c.kert," she said. "I'm Dr. Wylde. Can we speak for a few moments?"

d.i.c.kert's eyes jerked to her face, and then they got buggy. An expression that was equal parts horror and rage contorted his features. "No." He took a step back, swaying, and pointed with a finger that shook badly enough to be visible from where I was. "You, you stay away from me."

Wylde advanced slowly. "I'm sure we..."

"Gook." Saliva foamed on d.i.c.kert's lips. "You're a f.u.c.king gook." Then he seemed to see the Asian family for the first time. "f.u.c.k you staring at?"

"Hey." I stepped around Gerber. I saw the curtain to Bay 8, Hopkins ' bay, move as the uniform poked her head out to see what was going on.

"Please, Detective." (How did she know?) Dr. Wylde held up a hand but didn't turn around. "I can handle..."

That's as far as she got, but I saw it coming. "Doc!"

A fraction of a second too late.

With a ferocious bellow, d.i.c.kert launched himself at Wylde. He was on her in a second, his fist cras.h.i.+ng into her jaw.

Her sister screamed. "Sarah!"

Wylde tottered, but he'd wrapped her up, an arm clamped round her throat in a stranglehold. "This is a f.u.c.king trap! You're all gooks! You think you can fool me? You're not smart enough, Charlie. You can't fool me!"

"Sarah!" The student started for her sister. "Sarah!"

Pandemonium now: a nurse jabbering into a phone, two security guards muscling their way through, the uniform drawing her service weapon.

"Holster your weapon!" I shouted. The last thing we needed was gunfire. "Now!"

"Gook c.u.n.t!" d.i.c.kert had a hand clamped around both Wylde's wrists. Whirling her around, screaming, spit flying-and then his voice changed, went guttural: "Be gone until I com..."

Without warning, his head jerked, a whiplash snap, and then he was staggering back one step, two. Blood spurted from his nose, and he dropped.

In my pocket, the charm heated. And that's when I saw it, or maybe it was a trick of the light. But in the s.p.a.ce between the two-between d.i.c.kert and Wylde-the air danced. It quivered, rippling like the surface of an ocean breaking apart.

What sprouted from Wylde's body was white then black. Cohering in a roiling ball of vapor, it verged on the brink of solidity. Of reality.

And then in my head: Not yet time.

I didn't stop, didn't think what that meant.

"Dr. Wylde!" Closing the distance, I grabbed her by the arm and yanked, hard. A queer electric thrill, like a charge jumping from a Van de Graaff, cracked, but I hung on. "Wylde!"

Either I'd broken her concentration, or she-it-was done.

Or I was nuts because n.o.body said anything like Hey, you see that? Or Jesus, she's a witch!

And ten to one, they weren't hearing voices, either.

The air pruned. Whatever that thing had been-it vanished.

On the floor, d.i.c.kert drew in a wheezy, rattling breath. His nose was streaming blood.

Wylde turned. And then, for the briefest of moments, Sarah Wylde was not... all there.

Superimposed upon her body, like the ephemeral penumbra of a darkened sun, was the smeary translucent avatar of the girl from the DVD. The girl's imago drew in upon itself, folding into Wylde's body until she was gone.

And then it was just Sarah Wylde, her brilliant green eyes firing to emeralds.

"I'm not a gook," she said, reasonably. I saw where d.i.c.kert had split her lip. Blood dyed her teeth orange. Her eyes rolled. "Devaputra-mara."

I caught her before she hit the floor.

Later, when I remembered, I drew the charm from my pocket. But it was just a pretty piece with weird symbols and gemstones, and cold.

IV.

"... What you'd expect after extensive blood loss," Kay was saying. "Official cause of death is cerebral anoxia secondary to exsanguination."

"No surprises there." I stood beneath the ER's breezeway off Was.h.i.+ngton Circle. Freezing my a.s.s off, but you can't use a cell in a hospital. Messes up the machinery. The sun had staggered up to lighten the clouds to pewter, and the traffic was picking up. "Anything else?"

"Just interesting: MacAndrews served in Vietnam. Army, Third Brigade. He even had this funky tattoo on his bicep. Rollins could run down his service record if you want."