Chapter 71 #17
He stared at the body, at the mutilated face. No eyes, no ears, and he would bet the medical examiner wouldn’t find a tongue. Pinned to the chest with long hat pins were five IOUs marked paid.
“Jesus,” Kuhn said, looking over Tom’s shoulder. “Someone must have told them where to find her.”
Tom nodded. “Someone who knew certain people would respond by taking body parts in lieu of other payment.” Or would those debts be settled once proof was received that Bonnie Wilson would no longer cause trouble?
A thought occurred to him. “These apartments wouldn’t have much soundproofing. He studied the body, then looked at Gibson. “Broken neck?”
She nodded. “The rest was done postmortem.”
There was some mercy in that, but he doubted mercy had anything to do with it.
“Do you think the Arcana did this?” Gibson asked.
“Not Lucas Frost or his people,” Tom replied. Frost was dangerous, but Tom couldn’t see him ordering this.
“I need Detective Fahey to come in and make a statement as soon as possible.”
“We’ll keep trying to contact her.” And God help him, he was going to have to call Frost again and tell him about this.
As Tom and Ian stepped out of the apartment, the chain rattled on the door across the hall before it opened. The elderly woman eyed them warily until Tom showed her his ID.
“You work with Beth?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied.
“Such a nice young woman.” She tried to look between them to see whatever could be seen through the open door. “Those men made a mess of her place, didn’t they?”
“Yes, they did.”
“It’s a good thing her friends came over the other day for the decluttering party.”
“Ma’am?”
“A girl about Beth’s age and two young men.
They all live in small apartments and had rented a storage space together.
They came over the other day and took away all the things Beth didn’t have room for in her apartment but didn’t want to discard.
Winter clothes and books and things like that.
” She paused. “At least, that’s what they said, but I wondered if Beth was planning to move soon. I guess she will be now.”
Tom’s heart pounded. “Do you recall any names?”
“Oh, yes. They were such polite young people. There was Ashley, Ethan, and Jack. They brought over a large pizza. Beth dropped off a couple of slices for me before going back to work.” She sighed. “I’ll miss her. She was a good neighbor.”
Back in the car, Tom closed his eyes for a moment. “The neighbor doesn’t know about the body.”
“Maybe Bonnie Wilson was the one who broke the lock, intending to hide in Fahey’s apartment,” Kuhn said. “The spine crackers found her, killed her, and slipped away before the other men showed up.”
“And they were quiet. The old lady was already listening for trouble after calling the cops once that night.” Tom sighed. “It’s Gibson’s problem.”
“You going to call Captain Forrester?”
“Have to now. And Frost.”
“You think Fahey is all right?”
Tom started the car. “Let’s hope so.”
61
Colin stood outside the building that was a combination bus depot, taxi stand, and the equivalent of a UPS Store where you could drop off packages to be delivered to…
somewhere else…if the somewhere else could still be reached.
He had the suitcase his dad had sent when he’d first arrived in Llamalidia, and he had a box of gifts he’d picked up at the trading post, along with the woven place mats and the primer that Tia told him he could keep so that he could continue studying the Llamalidian language.
Tia came out of the building. “There’s a bus arriving at eleven o’clock this morning.
Its route depends on where the passengers intend to go, but it has a fixed stop at a place where you can transfer to a Destiny Park shuttle bus.
We can stow your bags in the depot and go across the street to the diner if you want something to eat. ”
“That sounds…” Colin spotted the man who stepped out of an alley across the street at the same time the man’s attention fixed on him. As the man hurried across the street, aiming straight for him, Tia took a half step in front of him.
The man hesitated, then seemed to ignore her as he approached Colin. “Hey, buddy. Got any spare change?”
The man carried a day pack over one shoulder, but he looked like he hadn’t changed clothes in days, and the body odor was strong enough to knock Colin back a step.
But it was the look in the man’s eyes that made him wary.
Something wrong. Something off. Drugs, maybe?
Or had the man been lost in the neighborhoods for so long that he was mentally whacked?
“Change for what?” Tia asked, her stance suddenly reminding Colin that she had been a soldier and had been trained to fight.
The man tried to move closer to Colin. Tia blocked him, forcing him to answer her. “A meal. Maybe a bus ticket?”
“To where?”
He didn’t like her asking questions, requiring answers. He turned to Colin. “Where are you headed?”
Tia reached into a pocket, then held out a gold coin. “This will get you a meal at the diner across the street, although they may make you eat it outside.”
The man hesitated, then snatched the coin and hurried to the diner.
“You’re not getting on a bus with him,” Tia said. “Doesn’t matter where he says he’s going, you don’t get on the same bus.”
Colin was glad she’d said it. “He’s…”
“Some people get addicted to wanting to see what’s around the next corner.
It’s not so different from saying “this will be my last drink” and then going on a bender or “this will be my last hit” and then going out the next day desperate to score another hit.
He wants to experience the next buzz of the strange, and if the people around him aren’t vigilant…
He won’t be able to pull everyone away from their intended destinations, but he can make it harder to reach those stops.
” She looked at him. “He can make it harder for you to get to Destiny Park because you’re young, and he sees you as someone he can manipulate—and I don’t think he wants to reach the park where he’d have to deal with someone like the Sorcerer King. ”
The man came out of the diner. He had a paper bag in one hand. He looked down the street, then hurried across, his attention fixed on Colin again.
“Bus is coming,” Tia said quietly.
Colin looked the other way, wondering what excuse he could give for not getting on the bus when he spotted a black SUV making the turn at the intersection. It was dirty, as if it had traveled a lot of miles.
The woman in the passenger seat pointed at the man who was trying to crowd Colin despite Tia’s efforts to stay between the boy and the man. When the SUV pulled up close to the building, the woman hopped out and said in a commanding voice, “Yaron Kali!”
The man turned, hesitated, started to back away. But the SUV’s driver came around behind him.
“I’m Detective Fahey from the Penwych police. You need to come with us now.”
Kali shook his head. “I’m taking the bus to…I’m taking the bus.”
“No, sir. You’re coming with us to Destiny Park. We’ll get you home from there.”
Before Kali had time to escape, the driver had a handcuff around one of Kali’s wrists, had marched him to the vehicle, and forced him into the back seat before attaching the other half of the cuff to some part of the vehicle.
Colin eased around Tia. “Detective Fahey?”
Tia looked surprised. So did the detective, but she had been focused on apprehending the man instead of noticing a teenage boy.
“Colin?” She gave him a big, delighted smile. “Colin Forrester? What…? Have you been here all this time?”
“No. I was…someplace else. But my friend”—he indicated Tia—“helped me reach this town. I was waiting for the bus to go to Destiny Park.”
“Is that what you want to do? Take the bus? Because we’re headed for Destiny Park and can take you with us.”
“He’ll make it hard for you to get to the park,” Tia said, nodding toward the man who seemed to be arguing—or pleading—with the driver.
The driver who was standing outside the vehicle with the door open. In an enclosed space, the body odor would be awesome.
“We’ll get him there,” Fahey said grimly. She turned to Tia. “I work with Colin’s dad, Captain Forrester.”
Colin saw Tia relax when he said, “I’ll be safe going with Detective Fahey.”
“Jack is Arcana,” Fahey said. “He’ll be able to counter any resistance from our passenger.”
Tia sucked in a breath. “Jack…Frost?”
Fahey nodded.
Frost. Like Lucas Frost. Who was the Sorcerer King.
“Is there room for my stuff?” Colin gestured to the suitcase and box.
“We’ll make it fit.” Fahey picked up the suitcase. “Can you get the box?”
“Yeah.” He turned toward Tia. “Thanks for everything.”
“It was a pleasure to have you around.” She looked a little embarrassed. “If you can, send a message and let me know you got home okay.”
“I will.”
She patted his shoulder and stepped back. Colin picked up the box and went around to the SUV’s storage area. As he watched Jack rearrange things to fit in the suitcase and box, Colin wondered why they were carrying so many gas cans.
“They’re empty now,” Fahey said. “Turns out Jack wasn’t kidding when he said we would be traveling in places that didn’t have gas stations.”
He had a ton of questions he wanted to ask, but only one he really wanted answered since he figured he would be the other person in the back seat. “Could we open the windows?”
“Oh, yeah,” Jack said, looking at Kali. Then he looked at Fahey and added, “He’s going to be a problem. Keep your weapon secure.”
“Come on, Colin,” Fahey said as she opened the back door for him. “The sooner we get started, the sooner we’ll get home.”
“I’d like to talk to you about that,” he said quietly.
“When we reach the park,” she said just as quietly. “Until then, I need you to help me stay focused on reaching the park. Understand?”