Read Parker 02 - The Guilty Online
Authors: Jason Pinter
closer. "Listen, I've got a contact in the medical examiner's
office. As soon as this little soiree breaks up I'll have him on
the phone. I want you to talk to him before we file any copy."
"What do you want me to do?"
"He owes me a solid. After you talk to him, I want you to
go back and canvas the area around the Kitten Club. People
don't like talking to cops. Answering questions makes them
feel like they're being accused of something. Too many
freaking
Law & Order
spin-offs. Anyway, tell them who you
are. A newsman, their voice, the voice of the people. You
make 'em believe it, they'll let you hold their newborn."
"Got it."
At that moment, Mayor Perez said, "And now I'd like to
turn the podium over to Police Commissioner Alan Bradley,
who will answer further questions."
"Might be worth leaving now," I said. "Get a head start."
"Not yet," Jack said. "Leaving early is how you miss the
big stuff."
Commissioner Bradley, a stocky bald man in his early
fifties, shook hands with the mayor and Costas Paradis. He
stepped to the podium with a look of gravity and sincerity.
Then I noticed something strange.
Joe Mauser was flinching. He brought his hand up to his
eyes, as if shielding the sun. I took the binoculars, followed
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his line of sight. He was looking at a building across the way.
Then I saw what he saw--a faint glimmer of light off
of...
something--
and then all hell broke loose.
Mauser dove to his left a millisecond before the air was
shattered by a deafening crack. I saw a fountain of red explode
by the podium, and suddenly hundreds of people were
screaming and running and cursing and fleeing.
I heard someone yell, "He's been shot!" EMS workers
sprinted up the stairs. I watched in slow motion detachment,
arms and legs pummeling me as they flew past. A man and a
woman in white knelt down beside a fallen person atop the
stairs. Police had their guns drawn and were yelling into
walkie-talkies. Their eyes were all looking up, guns drawn.
At the rooftops. Where the gunshot had come from.
I looked through the binoculars to get a better view of
the carnage.
I could see a group of cops ushering the mayor and Costas
Paradis inside city hall. An ambulance was trying to get
through the pandemonium but was having no luck. The cops
were shaking, ready to fire at an instant's notice.
I saw the EMS crews working as fast as they could on the
downed officer, but through the binoculars I could see one of
them shake her head. Watching fingers of blood drip down
the steps, I knew what she was thinking. This one can't be
saved.
As they placed the cop on the stretcher, I increased the
magnification. I could just make out the face.
My breath left me. I dropped to my knees. Panting. Felt
Jack's hand on my shoulder. Felt the world swimming away.
Saw the face again. Saw his brother in-law's face. Both men
lying in a pool of their own blood.
The downed cop was Detective Lieutenant Joe Mauser.
8
She was lying on her back. Propped up against three pillows.
One more across her chest. One more by her right arm. She felt
warm, safe, comfortable. Henry made fun of her for this. Said
she was building a fort every night.Yet when the lights went out,
after Amanda had burrowed into her pillow castle, she would
push the pillows aside and gently lay her head on his chest.
She would listen to Henry breathe. Listen to his heart beat.
She knew when he was thinking about a story--his heart
beat a little faster. She knew if the day had been long and challenging, or fast and invigorating. All this from his heartbeat.
She would glide her finger down his chest, tickling his side.
She knew he was sensitive, but he never told her to stop.
Sometimes she would run her finger along the scar where the
bullet had come so close to ending his life. She knew that in
some way she was responsible for that scar. For some reason,
despite the pain it had caused Henry, she was glad it was there.
She knew he was awake. His breathing was shallow.
Henry's eyes had sunk. His body looked as though it had been
sapped of all energy, like one of those video game characters
after some evil shaman sucks their soul right out of their
body then yells something cheesy like "Fatality!"
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Another death. Reporters weren't supposed to see lives end
in front of them. Henry wasn't off in a tank in Iraq. How much
more could he take?
Henry's breathing had grown steadier. Maybe he had fallen
asleep. She hoped so.
And then the shrill noise of Henry's cell phone broke the
silence, and Amanda kicked herself for forgetting to change
the ring tone.
Henry didn't stir, so Amanda reached over to the nightstand and picked it up. She expected to see Wallace Langston
or Jack O'Donnell calling about some urgent scoop.
But no, it was Mya Loverne. Undoubtedly calling again
in the desperate and pathetic hope that her old boyfriend
would return her affection. That some previously severed
synapses would again begin firing.
Amanda stared at the phone and felt a terrible pressure beginning to settle behind her eyes. She pressed and held the
power button until the phone went dark. Then she gathered
all the pillows, held them close to her chest and hoped sleep
would arrive soon.
For both of them.
9
The Boy sat on the bed. Elbows on his knees. Feet planted
on the floor. He read the newspaper again. Third time he'd
done so. Then he put it on the chipped wooden nightstand and
turned off the light.
He lay in the dark. He could feel his heart beating fast. It
wasn't just the thrill of the kill that did it, it was the beautiful anticipation. Then the memory of the blood.
His hands still tingled, gravel still stuck in the treads of
his shoes. Amazing how he could read about himself in the
newspaper mere hours after the killing, the ink drying
quicker than the blood.
He thought about last week. He thought about the grave,
that headstone he'd visited so many times, wanting to wrap
his strong hands around the necks of all those idiots who'd
stolen God knew how many marble replacements. It had
gotten so bad that the graveyard proprietors had to construct
a metal fence around the headstone. Didn't matter much.
They couldn't afford good metal, and twice a year some kid
would use a pair of eleven-ninety-nine wire cutters and steal
it just the same.
After visiting the grave for twenty years the Boy didn't
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care about the headstone itself. All he cared about was the
bones that lay underneath. The body that lay buried in that
hard earth for over a century. People thought they knew the
truth. They saw movies, read books, figured they knew everything. He was here to change that. Through blood and
lead, they would know the truth, and they would know exactly
why he died. The Boy's legacy, and now he was being
baptized in the blood of the damned.
Every now and then he would bring a fresh bullet to the
grave, dig a small hole with his hands and place the ammunition inside. It's what He would have wanted--to be close
to the bullets. Up until now, those bullets were the only link
between them. Until Athena. Until that cop. Now blood linked
them, and blood was thicker than lead.
All those summers in the broiling sun, pretending to ignore
his birthright. Watching that ungodly woman tarnish their
family's name with that demon. He got through the day because he knew eventually the day would come when he could
take up the mantle. When he could finally finally
finally
come
out from the darkness and show the world that the throne was
his now. It had merely been waiting for the new blood to carry
it into the new century.
You'd think things would have changed in a hundred and
thirty years,
the Boy would say to the headstone. He would
always say it out loud. He didn't care who heard him. If he
didn't have the courage to take a few errant glances, he wouldn't
be able to pull the trigger when the time came.
You'd think
they'd have changed, but they haven't. A hundred and thirty
years and you'd be so sick of it you'd dust your guns off, brush
all that dirt off your old, old bones and do what I'm doing.
His hands and legs ached. The rifle had a mean kick. The
Boy hadn't gotten a chance to practice much with it, but the
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gun was every bit as true as he knew it would be. That gun
had a reputation, and not the kind that came from some pussy
who talked his own game up. This was the kind of rep that
came through force, violence and blood.
He looked around the room. Grime covered the walls, and
he could hear insects scurrying behind the plaster. Nothing
bothered him. He tapped the rifle with his fingers and thought
about the next kill.
He'd read the newspapers that morning. Read the ongoing
coverage of Athena's murder. Only today it was sparring for
coverage with the murder of Joe Mauser. He was surprised
to see that he'd killed the cop rather than the mayor. But the
more he read about this cop, the better he felt. He read how
the cop tracked down and nearly killed an innocent reporter
named Henry Parker. The same Henry Parker whose words
the Boy had used before killing Athena Paradis.
The Boy read about how the death of officer Joe Mauser's
brother-in-law had driven Mauser over the edge, how he relentlessly pursued Parker across the country before nearly
dying at the hands of the real killer. And even though the
Boy's bullet hadn't been meant for Mauser, fate was on his
side. Joe Mauser was just as guilty as the rest of them.
The Boy looked out the window at the night sky, the beauty
that was so close, and the beauty that he would help create.
Then he closed his eyes, dreamt of blood, blood that purified,
blood that seeped back into an old, old grave. He dreamt that
he was lying in the grave next to the man whose legacy he
was carrying on, and the Boy slept in peace.
10
I'd only met with a medical examiner once in my career
as a reporter, and that was back in Oregon when I covered
a B and E that turned ugly when the home owner confronted
the burglar. The home owner was stabbed twice in the chest,
the knife stolen from his own bedroom. The ME confirmed
the murder weapon was some fancy German blade, which the
victim had bought on the black market. I ended up uncovering an unauthorized dealer ring in Portland, and was subsequently nominated for a Payne journalism award. The ME in
Portland was a woman in her midforties, professional as hell,
and willing to part with any and all information I needed for
my story. From that encounter I assumed most MEs were
similarly professional.
But when I met Leon Binks, New York County Medical
Examiner, behind the rusty Dumpster on Thirty-first and First,
let's just say it wasn't quite the professionalism I was hoping for.
Leon was wearing blue jeans and an unbuttoned work shirt,
both dirty and disheveled. My guess was they were spare clothes
for the times he had to run out and meet people behind Dumpsters. He was a fairly young man, mid to late thirties, with a wisp
of a mustache and hair in desperate need of some Pert Plus.
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He rubbed his hands together as he spoke, and I wondered
what sort of compulsion that came from.
"So you know Jack," Binks said, more of a statement of
fact than a question.
"I work with him at the
Gazette,
" I replied.
Jack had called Binks and told him to meet me as soon as
possible. Didn't ask Binks. Told him. I wondered what sort
of coverage Jack had given--or shielded--to have the New
York City medical examiner wrapped around his little finger.
"Good guy, O'Donnell," Binks said, his hands rubbing
rhythmically.
"Yeah, he is." I waited for Binks to continue.
"Had a lot of good times with him," Binks said. "Well, not
good times, but good conversations. Like he's always been a
good egg with me, a good egg. I figure any friend of Jack's
has gotta be a friend of mine."
"That's right," I said. "So, Leon, if I can call you that..."
"You can call me Binky," he said. "S'what my friends
do, anyway."
"Right. So...
Binky...
you've done the initial on Joe Mauser?"
Binky nodded. "You'd be correct. Listen, Henry." Binky
leaned in close. I could smell chemicals. Iodine and cheap
aftershave. "Did Jack tell you about that...
thing?
"
"Uh..."
"I get it, you're playing dumb. It's okay, better you don't