Man Made Murder (Blood Road Trilogy Book 1) (24 page)

Light and warmth and jangles filled him. He drew back, panting. The woman’s body lay like a ragdoll on the kitchen tiles. She had a hand curled against her chest, like she was keeping something secret, but her fingers were empty.

Even the high-noted sting from her fingernails raking across his face had a sweetness to it. A reverence. He touched the side of her throat that hadn’t been mangled. It felt like silence.

The Eagles had given over to Linda Ronstadt, telling him he was no good.

He probably was.

A set of metal measuring spoons reflected light from the ceiling. He was mesmerized for a moment, his hand resting on her chest. His body full of her warmth.

A floorboard creaked.

His ears pricked.

He was on his feet in a flash, his insides still jangles and light. He shoved a kitchen chair out of his way and launched into the living room.

He caught the guy by the neck as he was grappling with the doorknob, trying to get back out of the house after what he’d seen. The fabric of his wool coat was cool. His hair smelled like outside.

He smelled like blood.

The guy yelled, “No!” as Dean’s weight slammed him into the door.

“No, please,” he whispered. “Please.” His voice cracked into a sob.

“You want me to let you go?” Dean whispered. It sounded like the biker’s voice. He felt the biker grinning right along with him. Light came off the biker. Off him. Light and heat.

“Oh please, God, what did you do? What did you do to Pam?”

Dean backed up a few steps, hugging the guy’s back against him. The guy whispered prayers, clutching Dean’s arm. His chest caved with a sob.

Dean murmured in his ear, whatever the biker came up with to say as he brought his arm across the guy’s face. Brought his teeth close to the guy’s neck, his skull pulsing with excitement.

He licked the side of his throat, tasting sweat, aftershave, stubble.

Feeling the beat of his pulse, fast under his tongue.

He didn’t have any room, though. His eyes slipped closed as he breathed and tasted, as the guy sobbed in his arms. He had no trouble holding him, this guy who had a couple inches and forty soft pounds on him. Sobbing in his arms.

Coming up along the guy’s jaw, he tasted salt.

The guy’s chest heaved as he gasped in air, still pulling at Dean’s arm.

You got it
, the biker said.
You got this.

Holding the guy’s body against him, he cracked the guy’s head to one side, sharp and hard. He felt the neck snap in the backs of his teeth.

There,
the biker said.
Just like I’d have done it
.

Fuck you.

The guy’s body dropped.

Dean stepped back, letting it thump to the floor.

Linda Ronstadt hadn’t even finished her song.

Let’s get this cleaned up
, the biker said.

“What do I do?” He glanced at the walls, the staircase. Pulled the toe of his sneaker from under the body. Back in the kitchen, the wife hadn’t moved. The radio played a commercial for a used car dealership. He stepped over her and knelt. He wasn’t sure feeding on her till her heart had stopped beating was enough to finish her off. She had no pulse. She wasn’t moving. But he sure as hell didn’t want to take the chance of her ending up like him.

He snapped her neck before getting up to find the door to the basement.

Pam wasn’t too difficult to drag down the stairs. Her husband had a good hundred pounds on her. The backs of his dress shoes thumped down each step. By the time he reached the bottom, Dean was panting—but he was energized too. Warmth and jangles and light, right to the tips of his fingers.

He left the bodies side-by-side near the boiler, sightless eyes pointed at the wooden joists in the ceiling.

In the kitchen, he righted the chair, picked up the drawer and fitted it back on its tracks. He collected the scattered utensils and dropped them inside. Pushed it closed. He left the skillet in the sink, and turned out the light.

He glanced toward the stairs again, on his way to turn out the foyer light. On a whim, he made a detour up them. He pawed through their bedroom closet until, in the back, he found a jean jacket, not even all that worn. He shrugged into it. It worked for him.

There ya go
, the biker said.

He gave him the finger as he headed out of the room.

The cardboard box was still there, by the porch. He clamped it under one arm. Enough for what he needed.

On the street, he pushed his fists into the jacket pockets, hunched his shoulders, and strode with his head down, back in the direction of the hotel, still all jangles and light on the inside, the edgy restlessness eased for the time being. He was breathing easy. This hadn’t gone badly. It wasn’t how he’d ideally be spending his nights off—but it showed he could do this.

He’d probably bought himself a few nights of peace. At least, he hoped he had.

T
he sun crept
across the parking lot, pinking the sky like a blood orange. Carl twisted on the back seat of the Cougar, his tee shirt sticking to him. He moved his jacket over his eyes. Traffic picked up, car doors slamming, shoes shuffling over pavement. His stomach rumbled, and he gave up and crawled out. 

By eight, he was at the police station, waiting for a turn at the desk so he could ask to see Bays, when he spotted the man’s balding head moving through the bullpen. He backed up and ducked around. 

Bays was bringing a jelly doughnut to his mouth when Carl caught up. 

“What can I do?” Carl said.

“What can you do about what?” Bays set a cup of coffee on his desk. With sugar-dusted fingers, he smoothed his tie, and his chair squeaked as he settled his weight in it.

Carl took a seat beside the desk. “To help. Is there anything you need from me to nail him for this?”

“Did he mention the Garcia girl before you left on your trip?”

“No.”

“Did he mention anything about any girl? Act strangely? Was there anything different about him before you took off?”

“No—but what about Soph?”

“What about her?” He slid a legal pad toward him and set the doughnut on it. Another detective stopped to say something to him—he nodded and waved two fingers:
In a minute.

“Is there anything I can do help you nail him for Soph?” Carl said.

“Son…” Bays sighed, wiping his hands. “Come on.” The chair squeaked again. “Let’s take a walk.”

They swerved through the desks in the bullpen, and Bays stopped and turned halfway up a dim, gray hallway. “The D.A.’s not charging him with Soph’s murder,” Bays said, and as Carl popped open his mouth to protest, Bays put a hand on his shoulder. “They’re going to use Soph and the girl from the Polaroids to see if they can pressure him into confessing, giving up some info on that girl so we can identify her and notify her family, but if he doesn’t crack, they’re just going to push the Garcia killing.”

“But—what the hell?” His cheeks felt cold. His pulse raced, reedy and distant.

“We have a…let’s just say he’s a very conservative D.A. He wants wins. He thinks he’s got a good chance with the Garcia girl—fresh in people’s minds, blood on his shirt, testimony of a witness who says the victim was unnerved by him.”

“But with Soph—”

“With Soph the D.A.’s thinking two things. First he’s thinking about what the defense is going to present. They’re going to look at the case, subpoena you—maybe as a hostile witness if they have to—and they’re going to have you admit that while you saw Timothy Randolph drop his brother off at the game, no one saw him anywhere near your sister. Then they’re going to force you to say that there
was
this other guy, a rough-looking character, you saw speaking to your sister right before she disappeared. And when they’re done with you, they’re going to call Detective Medina to the stand. You remember Medina?”

“Yeah.” 

“Not a bad guy, but they’re going to ask him who the suspects were in this case, and he’s going to tell him about this rough-looking character you saw. Then they’re going to ask him what eliminated that character from their list of suspects, and you know what Medina’s gonna say?”

“They didn’t believe me?”

“No, he’s gonna say they never eliminated him—they just couldn’t find him.”

“Okay…” Carl’s head felt tight. His temples throbbed. He was trying to grasp at the problem, but…so what if they didn’t find this other guy? He didn’t
do
it. 

“So the first thing the D.A.’s worried about is the defense’s next question to Medina—and the judge may overrule it, but it doesn’t matter, because the jury’s still going to hear it: Did you ever think you couldn’t find him because he didn’t exist?”

“He existed—” Carl’s face beat hot. "I
saw
him. He fucking—”

“You may well have,” Bays said, reaching into his jacket. “But that brings up the D.A.’s problem number two.” He unfolded a sheet of paper and turned it around for Carl to see—a half-legible fax on slick thermal paper, but legible enough to make out one important detail: they’d found Grip Gershon.

“He had the patch you described in your statement on his jacket. Same height and build, seems to match the sketch you said was a good likeness of what you saw. And he had an empty knife sheath strapped to his thigh, just like you said.”

“But he didn’t do it,” Carl said, the paper turning sticky against damp fingertips. “Tim— I mean, he killed the other girls the same way, and—”

“And this guy’s prints bring him up as a suspect in a killing in a military hospital. He’s been off the grid for years. Roaming the country, I guess. Involved in an outlaw biker gang.”

“But he didn’t—” He wouldn’t have sliced her throat and dumped her. He’d have killed her to feed. 

Bays took his arm and pulled him to the end of the hall, where it teed off and led to the restrooms, a utility closet. Sunlight came through windows on the opposite wall. “It doesn’t matter if he did it or not. It’s how the defense can present it. They can say, ‘It’s possible Timothy Randolph committed this murder, yes, but isn’t it
just as 
possible that this rough character”—he waved the fax—“this obvious criminal, could actually have killed this girl like her brother said he did two years ago?’ And if they can convince the jury that yes, that
is
possible, the D.A. doesn’t get his win.”

“This is bullshit,” Carl said.

“Listen, maybe Randolph will talk. Maybe something else pointing at him will pop up. But don’t hold your breath. If I were you, I’d consider him caught for
something
. He’ll go away a long time for the Garcia girl alone.”

“But that’s not—”

“The same? I know, kid, I know. I’ll keep tabs on if they find out anything about Gershon guy. Maybe something’ll turn up that says he was on the other side of the country when your sister was killed.”

“Are they investigating that?” Of course they were fucking investigating that. A dry heat itched across his eyeballs. Of course they were fucking investigating that—and now with Bays asking questions related to this case, there was going to be a connection, however tenuous, between him and the biker. Who was dead. 

“I don’t know that they’re going to knock themselves out over it, but the way they found him's got them a little curious.”

Carl swallowed. He figured he knew the answer to this, but Bays would expect the question: “How’d they find him?”

“He had no heart. I’ve seen a lot of things, but I haven’t seen anyone’s heart sawed out of their body yet.”

“What happens now?” Carl asked, shifting his weight to his other foot. Itching to get out of there. Out of Los Campos entirely. He just wanted to be in the middle of nothing so he could scream.

Bays took a breath, stretching his back. “Like I said, they’ll lean on him and see if they can get a confession. There’s a long road to go yet, but they’ll get him indicted, try him, hopefully get the Garcia charges to stick, and he’ll go to prison for a very long time.”

Carl dug his fingernails into his palms. He felt like he was being peeled apart on the inside. 

“You should talk to someone,” Bays said, clasping Carl's shoulder again. “I know this is a lot on you. I can get someone to get a few names to recommend you. And hey—everything I said just now? It’s between us. I thought you deserved to know, but you can’t go talking about what the D.A.’s going to do. Not if you want to see him go down for at least some of the shit he did.”

Carl gave a curt not. There wasn’t enough air in the police station. The sun streaming through the windows mocked him with its brightness. It heated his cheek and burned the eye that was still half turned toward it. 

He said, “Got it,” as he pulled out Bays’s grip.

“Do you have someplace to go?” Bays asked. 

“I’ll figure it out.” All he had was emptiness. No friends, no family, no enrollment in college. Not even his sister was here anymore, just an empty space he used to talk to, photos with eyes that looked out but didn’t see. He was a husk without a seed. “Thanks for your help. I’ll figure it out.”

“If you need those names…”

A young woman hauling a box of files in front of her stepped aside as he strode up the hallway. The bullpen was a burst of noise that immediately seemed to muffle. He felt like everyone was looking at him. The shells of his ears itched hot.

Back in the car, he clutched his keys. 

He needed to get the fuck out of Los Campos. There was nothing keeping him here—no family, friends, no job, no classes. Just a shitty apartment he never wanted to see again. And if he got connected with what had happened to Gershon, he didn’t want to be here for it. 

He hit the bank, fidgeting in line until he could close out his account and stuff the cash in his pocket. Back in the bright sunshine, he climbed into the Cougar and drove to the middle of nowhere—a dusty road, brown ledges of mountain the distance, nothing but scrub in between. 

No idea where to go.

He hit his steering wheel with his fist. “Fuck!”

He could stay. He could get a hotel room, find a job, enroll in school, move into a studio apartment on the other side of town. Visit his aunt and uncle. Try to piece together a normal life. Attend Tim’s trial—a bitter victory when he got convicted. Maybe the biker would never trace back to him. Ten years from now, he’d just be a regular schmo, maybe with a girlfriend, or even a family. Like none of this ever happened.

“FUUUUCK!”

The yell left the back of his throat raw, made the veins in temples throb. 

He slammed out of the car to piss on the side of the road, a hot breeze drying the sweat on the back of his neck. He was thirsty as hell—and he had
nothing
. Nothing but a duffle bag of clothes, and a stupid manila folder he should have destroyed before he booked out of town that last night he spent around the band. 

He popped the trunk now and dug it out. Back in the passenger seat, with the door open and one foot on the ground, he flipped through the reports. A semi rumbled past. He slipped the photo of the soldiers out and held it against the wheel. Sergeant David “Grip” Gershon, smirking at the camera. Sergeant David “Grip” Gershon who probably hadn’t killed his sister—but he’d killed someone. Probably a lot of someones. 

And the other bikers, they were probably just like him. 

And one of theirs had been killed. 

Did Dean know about these other guys? The rest of the biker club? They knew who Gershon’d been after before he bought it. If they were the vengeful type—and why wouldn’t they be—they’d at least be looking to see if the guy Gershon’d been after had had anything to do with why he’s not around anymore.

Tucked in the back of the folder was a stack of papers he’d taken from Dean’s house. On top was page two of the tour itinerary. The date at the top—New Orleans—was two nights away.

He looked up as a station wagon hurtled past, heading toward Los Campos. 

He’d be in Louisiana in plenty of time if he left right now.

D
ean was
on the bus when they pulled up to the venue because he’d gone back to his room after his kill for just long enough to collect his things. He’d climbed on board while the night was still dark, and he’d taken advantage of the darkness—sitting in the front lounge, stretching his legs. By the time the sun had risen, though, he was cocooned in his bunk.

The curtain scraped lightly against the cardboard he’d taped over the bunk’s opening.

“What’s this?” Shawn said, tapping it from the other side.

“Keeping the light out.”

“Still getting migraines?”

“Not as long as I keep the light out.”

“How long’s this gonna go on?”

“I don’t know. It lasted three weeks one time,” he lied.

“All right,” Shawn said with a sigh. “We’ll see you inside when you get there.” He started to walk away—then his sneakers scuffed back to the bunk. “People are going to talk, you know. You’re going to be the enigmatic, eccentric guitarist who doesn’t give interviews and no one ever sees until after dark.”

“That’s me.” He ran a thumb along the gaffer tape at one edge, smoothing it as Shawn left for good this time. He had no urge to light a cigarette; most of the smoke from the last one was still trapped in the air with him. He settled back on the pillow, hands over his stomach, and played the night before over in his head, one minute chastising himself—he should have worn gloves—the next letting his eyes roll closed at the memory of the woman’s blood hitting his system.

The jacket he had on smelled vaguely like the guy, with a trace of the wife’s perfume in its threads.

What did you do with all the hours?
he asked the biker, but the biker had no interest in talking back if Dean wasn’t on the hunt.

The bus swayed, the last of his guys getting off it.

He played with the knife, propping the pommel on his leg. He was going to need to explain to someone, sooner or later. Pull someone in to help keep his secret. Who, though, was the question. It had to be someone
in
the band—they’d be the only people with as much at stake in keeping him going.

Jessie’d freak out. He wouldn’t be able to deal with the truth of it. Dean could already see him shaking his head, his eyes wild—trying to get Dean to admit it was a joke. Backing away as he became convinced it wasn’t.

Nick and Shawn were tougher to calculate. He wanted to lean toward Nick, not because he trusted him more—there wasn’t anyone he trusted more than Shawn—but because he wouldn’t see the implications as clearly, over the awe of it—wouldn’t really digest the fact of what he had to do to survive.

The fact that he was going to be leaving a trail of dead people in their wake.

A fact he had a hard time being bothered by himself. An old part of him, standing a ways away from the new him, tried to work itself up over it, but it was a small voice, overwhelmed by the way his brain worked now. All the changes this thing had made in his body—the healing, the teeth, the blinding headaches—it hadn’t left his mind alone either.