On their way back to pick up his car, Meredyth Sanger explained to Lucas Stonecoat what she'd gotten herself involved in, bringing him up to date on the Mootry investigation. As they drove, the images of the city floated by the car windows, rolled up tightly against the heat and city noise. He noticed that she ran her AC at full-tilt, so that her police band radio crackled with static as loud as a child's popgun.
“Hobby?” he foolishly asked.
“Business. Never know when you might be needed. The movies are the movies, the streets quite another.”
He groaned. “How I know that.”
“Anyway, when a first-timer discharges his weapon, we know he's going to have to talk to the likes of me. And sometimes… many times, in fact, even a vet needs my help. Sometimes I'm called in to help a victim or a family member, sometimes children who're involved.”
“I guess you've seen a lot here, more so than in Washington?”
“I saw my fill in Seattle, but yeah… this place is wild.”
“So, fill me in more on this Mootry case.”
“Mootry was a rarity, a well-liked Texas politician for most of his life, more recently a retired appellate court judge, although from a close scrutiny of his dealings, you might say he pretty much bought his way into the appellate court. He had amassed a fortune, led something of a Ross Perot life. A generous man, though.”
“Where were his views on abortion?”
“I've thought about that. He took the unpopular view that a woman's decision was a woman's decision where her body was concerned. He hedged a bit, calling the fetus a seed before the end of the first trimester. Anyway, I don't think he was killed by fanatical pro-lifers. His body was found mutilated, the head severed and taken away, along with other parts of him. I've never heard of an abortion-related murderer also being a hacker.”
“Sex organs?”
“Among other things.”
“What other things are there?”
Damn, even his dark humor is subtle, she told herself.
“His hands and feet.”
“Both hands, both feet?”
“You got it.”
“Cut at the wrists?”
“Forearms, actually. “Feet?”
“At the calf.”
“Somebody really wanted this dead man hobbled. You're the shrink, maybe you can help me.” She smiled, nodding. “However I can.”
“I'll never fully understand hacking up the body in such a way after the guy's dead.”
“Indians did it.”
“Sioux, Cheyenne, and other Plains Indians did it to mark a kill during a battle to send a message, to demonstrate to all other enemies just who had sent this particular enemy-say George Custer-over to the other side. So why do white murderers do it?”
She shrugged. “An FBI profile would likely come to the same conclusion as it might in a lovers' quarrel, that such an overkill means only one thing: that the killer knew his victim, had a vested, highly charged emotional interest in mutilating the body.”
“Yeah, so the killer loved Judge Charles Mootry?”
“Loved him or hated him. The emotions are, while opposites on the spectrum, extremely close if the spectrum is a circle.”
“So, in any case, the killer wanted Mootry deader than dead. By eating an enemy's heart, a warrior takes on the courage of his enemy. Taking his head, I don't begin to understand, nor his hands or feet, unless…”
“Go on,” she encouraged.
“Old and foolish notions come to mind.”
“I'm listening.”
He shrugged. “There are ancient tribal stories among the Alabama that speak of supernatural creatures that fed on men; they were like vampires, and the only way to kill one was to strike it through the heart with a stake or spear.” He paused to look up at her, to see if she was getting this.
“I'm with you so far,” she said, as if reading his mind.
“It's foolish, but the old ones say you then cut off the monster's feet, so it can't walk, and the hands so it can't crawl, the head so it can't see, and the genitals so it can't reproduce.”
She nodded. “All very sound reasoning when dealing with a supernatural enemy, I would think. Meanwhile, we're left with the torso sporting a high-tech, high-density, huge aluminum crossbow arrow straight through the heart. He died on impact.”
Lucas's eyes widened, his breath coming short in a dry mouth. “He was killed by a… a crossbow, really?”
“Really.”
“I guess I should've heard about this, if nowhere else than in the locker room.
Where'd it happen?”
“In his bed.”
“In his bed? Whereabouts?”
“At his home in the Bay area, where the killer somehow gained entry without using so much as a screwdriver.”
“Another indication the killer knew the man…” Lucas lingered over the suggestion, finding himself naturally caught up in the mystery.
“It was believed he either forced his way in at gunpoint or talked his way past the threshold. Or he was someone known by the judge. Other than these possible scenarios… well, there's the sexual proclivities angle. Was the judge into sex games, auto erotica, anything of that nature? But this monster arrow made for one pretty deadly toy, if that's what was going on.”
“Assuming it wasn't a lover of one sort or another, what's left? Who had reason to kill the judge? Was he a sentencing judge?”
“He had some big and well-known cases, but he was one of a number of judges on the court, so really, he had no known enemies. He adjudicated cases all his life, both criminal and civil offenses, nothing major except for the money involved.”
“Until he bought his way into the hearts of the rich and powerful and found a seat on the appellate court, you mean?
People who lose appeals are generally at the end of a long rope. Good enough reason for most people to take a life.”
She tried to steer him back on course even as she steered the car. “The brutalization of the body… you see, there were no signs whatsoever of a struggle, or that Judge Mootry had the remotest chance of escaping, since he'd made no attempt to do so.”
“No signs of a struggle? No blood trails? Coroner puts it as death first, mutilation afterwards,” he stated.
“You hit the nail right on the head.”
“So, how did the killer waltz in with a spear gun?”
“Crossbow, actually,” she corrected him. “Very expensive, very high-tech. Sort you find in gun magazines for collectors.”
“Sure, I've seen some at the gun shops. I've even hunted deer with one.”
“Nobody knows for sure just how the killer got in or out. He got past Mootry's gates, his guard dogs, his alarm. Nothing, it seems, could save the judge that night. It's as if it were fated.”
“Or well executed…”
“Another pun and I'll execute you.”
“Certainly must have known the place well. I don't suppose anything useful was left at the crime scene by the killer?”
“Only a message written in the judge's blood.”
“Really? What, on a wall?”
“No, with pen on paper.
“Really? Interesting…
“It figures to be an old quill pen, according to the guys in Documents.
They're studying the wording, the handwriting, everything.
“What'd the message say?”
“It's pretty straightforward: 'Cut off the limb of Satan.
“Sounds biblical.”
'They're running it down, but I have a girlfriend who is a biblical scholar, and she tells me it's not a direct quote from any of the various translations of the Old or New Testament.”
“That's interesting.”
“Joanna says that although the sentiment sounds Christian enough, it's not specific to any texts she knows. Still, I'm guessing that this guy has some kind of fixation on himself being some sort of savior, and that for some reason, he singled out Mootry as one of the demons he is meant to destroy-the so-called limb of Satan, maybe… you see?”
“Or someone wants the authorities to believe it's all part of some bizarre shit.”
“I knew you'd love it.”
“You did, huh?” She had indeed read his record, he surmised. She simply knew too much about him. From the start, she had known all about Dallas as well. She was playing him like a fiddle, and he liked it.
They were back at Tank's Place, the shabby little neighborhood bar with the unlit neon Schlitz sign in the window and the peeling tiles and the raunchy awning. Meredyth pulled in beside Lucas's car, an olive-green, departmental issue, unremarkable, and unmarked Ford. Lucas remained cautious, unsure of her motives or if he ought to get involved, so he promised that he'd make no promises beyond going over the files she'd logged in and out during the past week. “Can't promise you much beyond that, since all I am is a rookie in care of dead files in the necromancy chamber.”
“Thanks, that's all I ask, Lucas.”
“Until I scan the files, I'll reserve judgment.”
“Fair enough.”
He slid from her car and closed the door and leaned in when she automatically lowered the window. “My ancestors teach me caution in all matters…”
“Oh, in all matters, no exceptions?”
“A careless step can leave a man without a moccasin and perhaps some other vital items,” he joked.
She liked his easy way, how he joked about his heritage. “Such as?”
A heart, he wanted to say. “You name it,” he said. “All things in moderation, angels rush in where fools fear to tread…”
“Now I know that's not sage Cherokee wisdom.” She smiled wryly. “And besides, you've got it backwards. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”
“Maybe it's not so backwards.”
“What're you giving me, a compliment and a lecture? Rather backhanded of you.”
“Did I say all that?” He quickly stepped away from her car and limped to his own.
Something about him made the limp almost admirable, certainly distinguishable; he wore it like a badge of honor, something he'd earned, she thought, despite the fact that in earning it, he'd almost died, and he had lost a partner, a wife, a home, and a career in one fell swoop. The facial scar, too, disappeared once she'd gotten to know him a little better, and she had enjoyed watching this big, powerful man talk to the animals as he doled out tiny food pellets like a Scrooge. She liked the way he had shown respect for the trapped, domesticated zoo animals, as if each had a soul.
Meredyth now watched his car pull from the curb, allowing Lucas to move off well ahead before she pulled into traffic. She wasn't any more anxious for people to see her with him than he was to be seen with her. She certainly didn't want anyone at the station house to see them returning together. God only knew what great palaver that'd create around the water cooler. Besides, the less others knew of her plans at this point, the better, including Lucas Stonecoat. “And another besides,” she told herself and the empty car, “he's dangerous.”
She had heard and read enough about his accident, and his run at suing the City of Dallas for damages, to know that he was indeed a dangerous ally, and she knew enough about herself to know that she liked having a little danger in her life. She knew that this particular, tall, handsome Cherokee man was a tinderbox ready to explode at the slightest provocation. If rumors started flying that he was seeing her personally, there was little telling what might happen. One thing was certain. She didn't want to frighten him off now.
Despite the automobile accident that had nearly cost him his life, Lucas Stonecoat barked his tires and rammed home his fist into his horn at every turn. He drove with the abandon of a man who truly believed that every other driver on the road was completely insane, and that to escape any injury or accident, he must race ahead or around the maniacs surrounding him. He had long since lost any sight of Dr. Sanger's vehicle.
Lucas thought about Dr. Meredyth Sanger all the way back to the Thirty-first Precinct house. Meeting her in a social setting, opening up to her, strolling about the city zoo alongside her… it almost made going back to his cell bearable. The two bourbons hadn't harmed him any, either. Maybe there was hope for him here in Houston, despite the shock of the Cold Room and the rather nasty possibility that Phil Lawrence had placed him there due to both his past history and his genes.
But it had to figure that Dr. Meredyth Sanger-Mere, as he liked to think of her-also had her ulterior motives, since she was both white and a shrink. He'd had his fill of shrinks and others who talked in riddles and circles and never-ending meanderings, their meaningless loops like so many petroglyphs so far as he was concerned. Not that his own race wasn't guilty of the same. Some of his grandfather's talk was like falling into a bottomless spiral, the riddles within riddles endless. When it confused an enemy, true Indian gibberish was a thing of beauty, he told himself now.
Maybe Sanger was different, maybe not. Either way, she certainly seemed to delight in challenging him at every turn, and how gracefully she carried that disquieting little smirk which magically turned into a disarming smile whenever she wanted her way. As charming as a multicolored diamondback rattler; he thought. The more colorful, the more poisonous, and she could mean plenty more trouble than he'd been looking to find-in more ways than one.
Maybe if she wasn't a psychiatrist… then there might be a snowflake's chance; since she was, he wondered why the question was even wafting through his head. It was a preposterous notion, that maybe he and Dr. Sanger could be more than just friends, when in fact they weren't even friends and weren't likely to become friends… ever.
Still, she wanted an alliance against Phil Lawrence, who represented a threat to her. “And that's all she wants, you fool,” he told himself, “an alliance, backup, to build her case… possibly a fall guy if things go badly, and that's all she's interested in.”
He wheeled the car sharply at the next corner, squealing already burning tires. The police band calls rattled about the cab, still nothing he might reasonably respond to.
Lucas was just glad that he'd remained cautiously aloof, and wary of her motives-the reserved Indian. There was little telling what her hidden agenda might be.
He didn't care for her constant need to know everything about him, her prying questions, yet he'd volunteered much. Still, what was there to volunteer? She had known it all before in one form or another. On the drive back to the bar, she'd asked him where he had grown up.
“Born and raised on the Coushatta Indian Reserve,” he had replied.
“But you got out… ahh, off, I mean?”
“Scholarship to Yale,” he'd joked, making her laugh again. He liked teasing a laugh from her.
“You'll have to tell me about it sometime.” Which translated to: You'll have to tell me the truth sometime.
He made no such promises.
For all he knew now, an alliance of any sort with Meredyth Sanger could make matters worse for them both, and he was particularly concerned about his rookie standing, and the fact that one day he wanted very much to get shed of the Cold Room and all the duties that went along with it. After all, Lawrence was holding the cards, yanking the chains, in charge in toto, so pissing the man off would be sheer suicide. Maybe if he played by the rules for a while… maybe if he could impress Lawrence…
Obviously, he wasn't going to impress Lawrence by joining Meredyth Sanger in some crusade to declare Mootry's death one of several in a series, the work of the same killer.
Dr. Sanger had obviously never been turned down by a man before, or perhaps she'd never known a real man before. Most certainly she'd never lost a fight-or perhaps anything else, for that matter-in her life. He guessed she came from money; old or new, it mattered little to him. She was white and upper-crust. Used to getting her way, having others do what she said was best. Spoiled, well-off, no dirt ever beneath the nails.
Lucas thought momentarily of his parents, an alcoholic father who provided nothing and a mother who slaved at two jobs to provide Lucas with creature comforts and books to feed his insatiable appetite. They had little else besides corn and books in the house, and one day his father, in a drunken rage, made a bonfire of Lucas's books. It was then, after he'd struck his father and almost killed him with a single blow, that the nearly full grown Lucas knew it was time to leave the reserve and his home, his mother and his grandfather, to seek a new life in the larger world. He found himself in downtown Dallas, where he applied to the police academy, sailed through the tests, and was soon a rookie in a patrol car.
At that time, the Dallas PD had been delighted to place an Indian on the force: It looked good on the books, having a Native American alongside the Chicano and Black officers. After a series of failed partnerships, he was put into a car with Wallace Jackson.
Lucas now spied a Texaco gas station, pulled over, and went inside, asking for the newspapers. He wanted any back issues the Star Mart might carry, as well as today's paper. They had two back issues and today's. He purchased them, along with a bag of chips, and stared out at a rust bucket just pulling into the station. Something told him that the two characters inside the car were hardened rednecks who were out for more than just a pleasant drive this morning.
He'd already paid, and the cashier looked curiously at him now, wondering what else he wanted. “I'm with the Houston police, son,” he told the young man behind the counter. “You got a couple of toughs coming through the door who look a bit suspicious to me. Don't argue with them if they want you to open the cash box. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You got a back room, a john, anything where I can duck outta sight?”
“Yeah, straight back,” came the nervous reply. “Should I call the cops?”
“Not yet. No crime's been committed,” Lucas replied over his shoulder as he went for the back room. He positioned himself behind the door.
The two scruffy-looking men who came through the door looked as if they'd stepped from a bayou swamp. Each wandered different aisles and sections of the store, one passing near where Stonecoat lay in wait. The man reeked of booze and looked as if he'd been snaking or frog-gigging or involved in an old-fashioned crawdad hunt the night before. Both men had forgotten how to bathe or shave or trim hair. But it was more than their appearance and smell that alerted Lucas to their purpose; it had been their actions, the way they moved, the shifting of their eyes since the moment they had driven up. Best-case scenario, they'd come in to shoplift, he told himself now, since they were browsing. Worst case-but the thought remained incomplete when the man closest to the register suddenly pulled out a. 22 and shouted for the money. The second man was hopping, hyper, a gun in his hand, too. It looked like his first job ever. He let his partner do all the talking while he grabbed at the bills in the register.
“On the floor, faggot! Now!” ordered the guy in charge.
Both men were white. The younger one called the boss Gerald, asking if they should rifle the clerk's pockets, saying there looked to be only a few hundred dollars in the register.
“Do it, pinhead!” shouted the boss.
Stonecoat saw this as his chance. He silently moved to within inches of the brains of the outfit and leveled his gun against the man's temple.
'Tell your pal to toss his gun over the counter and squat back there, friend. Police! Now do it!”
“Jesus, Joseph, and Mary.”
“Shut up and do as I said!”
“Mickey… Mickey, some cop out here's got a gun at my freaking brain, so do what he says!”
But Mickey had other ideas. He rose with the clerk held in front of him, his gun at the young man's head. He somehow had gotten some nerve. “Looks like a Mexican standoff. You blow Gerald away, I kill the kid,” he said. “Otherwise, you drop it and you let us walk out of here.”
“No way I'm dropping my weapon, mister,” replied Stonecoat. “You let the kid go, and I'll let you two walk, but I'm not so trusting that I'm going to be at the mercy of you two without my weapon. Is that clear?”
“You mean that?” asked Gerald.
“We can't believe he's going to just let us go, Gerald,” replied Mickey, whose gun hand was shaky at best.
“I'll lower my gun,” suggested Stonecoat. “And you let the kid go, and you two can get back in your car and go.”
“With the money,” negotiated Mickey.
Lucas hesitated, pretending to give this serious thought. “Okay… all right, with the money.”
“Deal… deal,” shouted Gerald, reaching about the floor for his gun, which Lucas held firmly beneath his boot.
“Let it up, man!” Gerald ordered.
“No, I can't have two guns trained on me,” Lucas coolly answered.
Gerald raised up again and shouted, “Come on, Mickey, let's get out of here. Now!”
Gerald hurried over to the counter, shoved the kid away, scooped up all the money, and started out, while Mickey's gun remained firmly trained on Lucas, who had lowered his own weapon. For a second, Mickey stared down the top of the barrel, itching to fire, to kill the obstacle before him.
Lucas calmly said, “Don't do anything stupid, Mickey. Don't do anything you'll regret for the rest of-”
“Shut up! Just shut up, man!”
“Lucas. My name's-”
“Shut up!”
“Come on, Mickey! Let's go, damn you!” cried Gerald, who was halfway out the door as another patrol car approached. “Give Gerald his gun back, now!” shouted Mickey at Lucas.
“All right… all right, kid.” Lucas booted the. 22 across the floor toward the door and Gerald, who crouched for it, his hands already full. At the instant he kicked, Lucas brought his gun up and Mickey fired, the bullet creasing Lucas's ear, bloodying his shoulder, while Lucas's bullet sent Mickey sprawling into the cigarette display behind him.
Gerald, still crouching for his gun, was now frozen in that crouch, looking like some stone gargoyle.
“Go ahead, Gerald,” said Stonecoat. “It's your turn now.”
Gerald's mouth had fallen open after repeated shouts of Mickey's name. It was almost certain they were related, perhaps cousins, down on their luck. Gerald had gotten himself into much more than he'd bargained for, and young Mickey had “proven” himself a man-proven nothing, in the phony ritual of the street.
Gerald crawled toward his friend or relative, whimpering, but Lucas grabbed him and yanked viciously, sending him far across the room and ordering him to stay put there on the floor. He had taken charge of Gerald's gun again, and he wasn't sure what he might find behind the counter. The clerk had raced from the store and across the street to a Jiffy Mart to dial 911 there.
“Now, Mickey, if you can hear me,” began Stonecoat, “I don't want to hurt you anymore, so don't do anything more stupid than you already have here this afternoon. You got that? Answer me! Answer me!”
But only silence answered from behind the counter.
Lucas rounded the counter with great care and caution; Mickey still had a gun back there with him somewhere. But one look told him that the young man was unconscious and bleeding profusely from his shoulder, where the bullet from Stonecoat's. 38 had penetrated and exited his back.
“Damn it, Gerald, he's bleeding to death! Get me one of those trash bags off the shelf! Hurry!”
Gerald instantly reacted, racing over with a box of bags.
“Open 'em, damn it!”
Gerald slammed a fist into the box and tore out a large plastic bag, black and shimmering.
“Whataya doing?”
“Locate some string, rope, fishing string, anything we can use to tie with.”
Gerald did as instructed, racing about the store for the needed items even as a siren blew into the lot outside. He rushed back to Lucas with a large ball of twine, kite string.
By now Stonecoat had ripped the bag with his Bowie knife, which he kept in a scabbard in the middle of his back, and he now quickly forced a large section of the black vinyl into both the front and back wounds to stanch the flow of blood. He now worked furiously to tie the string round and round the shoulder to hold the plastic pads in place.
“Whataya doing?” Gerald asked again.
“This will help keep the blood flow in check, help the coagulation.”
“Damn, you sure shot hell out of my brother-in-law; why'd you have to shoot him? All over a measly hundred dollars! You had to force it, didn't you? Damn you cops. Is he going to die?”
“You two come in here using deadly force, placing people's lives in danger, and you're shifting the blame for your friend's condition onto me? Listen, Gerald, you got no one but yourselves to blame for this goddamned mess.”
“How'd he miss you at such close range?” Gerald wondered aloud.
“His hand was shaking like a leaf when he pulled the trigger. He might just as well have put a bullet through my head or heart. Did you talk him into this stupid business?”
Now the paramedics rushed in alongside uniformed police, who ordered Stonecoat up and away from the shooting victim.
“I'm a cop with the Thirty-first,” he announced, flashing his badge. “Best call my captain, Phil Lawrence, and he'll take it from there. You men want to take this punk into custody for attempted armed robbery?” He shoved Gerald toward the uniformed men.
“Be glad to.”
“Hey, you're new with the Thirty-first, aren't you?” asked the other.
“Yeah, first year.”
“Way to go, rookie. Looks like a righteous collar and shoot. You keep up the good work and you'll see promotion soon.”
“Just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”
The clerk had returned through the other side door and he piped up, saying, “He saved my life, and he read these goons like a book; he knew they were going to rob the place before they ever got into the store, before they ever got out of their car out there.”
“Impound the vehicle, will you?” Stonecoat asked the two uniformed cops, who appeared to be unsure about what to do next.
The paramedics shouted for everyone to get out of their way as they hoisted Mickey from the ground on a stretcher and carried him from the store, one of them congratulating Stonecoat on saving the kid's life. “Good improvised dressing! Did the trick. His vitals aren't great, but they're better than they might have been.”
The two uniformed cops took Gerald toward their waiting squad car. Other police vehicles had arrived, strobe lights flashing. One patrol sergeant, who apparently knew the terrain well, huddled with the cops in the know, then he came into the store to find Lucas.
“I'm Brady, Jim Brady,” he told Stonecoat. “Watch commander for this area. Seems you're a little ways off from the Thirty-first, officer.
What's your name, officer?”
“Lucas, Lucas Stonecoat.”
“Rookie with the Thirty-first, my men tell me. Oh, yeah… think I've heard some talk about you.
Used to be in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, didn't you?”
“Yeah, yeah… that's right, Sergeant, but I don't see where that has anything to do with this occurrence here today.
“I sure hope not.” He sized up Lucas, circling him and talking the whole time. “IAD's on the way. Your captain's on his way, too.”
“It was a righteous shoot, sir,” replied Lucas, knowing the man wanted to hear him say the word sir.