The 8th Circle (11 page)

T
he migraine had kicked into high gear by the time Andy’s driver let Danny off at home. He peeled off bills for a tip and stumbled into the kitchen. Tomorrow, he’d go back to Black Velvet and try to find out what happened to Zach. He’d talk to Kate, but he couldn’t think straight with hammers beating inside his skull. He pulled an ice pack from the freezer.

Michael had a package. Kate confirmed that. Did the police now have it? No. He thought not. What the hell could be so important that Michael would drive out to Valley Forge rather than go to a hospital?

Michael had left something for him, and he didn’t want it to be found right away. Why?

The phone wouldn’t stop ringing. He finally picked it up.

“Danny Boy, how are you?”

Danny recognized the low-pitched tone. “What do you want?”

“You know what I want. I want my package, and I want you to go away.”

“I don’t have your package.”

“I don’t believe you, Danny Boy.”

Danny squeezed the ice pack until his fingers went numb. “Fuck you.”

“Oh, no. Fuck you. Maybe you better listen or you’ll end up like your wife and kid.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Not everything in life is an accident.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“You had a real nice dog. You figure it out.”

Danny dropped the phone on the floor and fell to his knees, doubling over to clutch his stomach as wave after wave of agony rolled over him. Pulling himself to his feet, he slammed the phone back in its cradle and staggered to the back steps. This was a hallucination. It had to be. Everything was askew, and the floor listed so badly he fell against one of Beth’s antique drum tables. Something smashed. An accident. Accidents were accidents except when they weren’t.

Streams of moonlight blurred in front of him, and Danny tripped on the uneven floorboards. Damn steps. He should sell this house. It seemed to expand around him, yet every inch was crowded with memories.

Memories. Wasn’t that a song?

He reached the bathroom and groped for the medicine cabinet door. Moonlight lit the room in silver, and he thought of Kate. She was like moonlight. He rested his head against the cold wall.
A moonlit maiden. What the hell is wrong with me?
His hands shook as he gobbled down painkillers, took a swallow of water, and then jabbed the Imitrex syringe into his thigh. For good measure, he grabbed a Xanax.

If I’m not careful, I’ll overdose
.

Oh, Jesus. It was cold. The windows in the bedroom stood open, and the sheer white curtains billowed in the breeze, filmy ghosts dancing. Danny stood transfixed, the drugs seeping into his system, the gooseflesh rising on his arms.

He hadn’t left the windows open. Had he? He wasn’t sure of anything right now.

Something’s wrong. Someone was here. Not everything’s an accident. Everything happens for a reason. Pain is good. Shut the fuck up
.

Danny slammed the windows shut and pressed the ice pack against his forehead. He never should have drunk with Andy. He needed sleep. Work tomorrow.

Danny went to the bed and kicked off his shoes. He didn’t bother to undress, just jerked up the comforter and slid underneath, careful not to disturb Beth. The pain began to ebb, like the tide moving out. Danny closed his eyes and took a deep breath, but his heart still skittered too fast.

“By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.”

His grandmother liked to quote Shakespeare. She used to make him say his rosary.

His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He should have gotten more water. He could still taste the bitter pills. Deep breaths.

Michael was a guard dog. The Inferno. Not everything’s an accident. Happiness is a holiday heart. Why is it so goddamn cold? Someone was in my house tonight. Let go. I can’t. Beth. Something about Beth.

Why did we spend so much time fighting?

“Something wicked this way comes.”

I need to shut down. So tired. Too many thoughts. Like maggots. That was it. Maggots. That slightly fetid odor. Decay. Death. So very close. Beth.

Christ. Beth can’t be here. Beth is dead
.

Danny jerked up. He groped for the light on the nightstand and winced when it exploded against his eyeballs. When he saw the lump under the covers, he sprang out of bed, ripping the comforter and top sheet with him. He slammed against the wall and tried to focus.

“Holy God!”

The naked woman lay rigid on the bed, mouth agape, eyes bulging and coated with a milky glaze. Her chest gaped open, the skin hacked apart and her protruding ribs a shock of white against her mottled flesh. The chain that connected her pierced nipples was intact, though it stretched taut. In the middle of it hung a red crystal heart.

“J
ohn, wake up!”

Novell stared at Sean McFarland. He rubbed the heels of his hands against his gritty eyeballs. Dammit, he’d fallen asleep in his desk chair again. The bones of his spine ground together when he moved. “What time is it?”

“Time to go home. Shift ended two hours ago.”

“Why’re you still here?”

Sean’s clothes still looked fresh, though his face was chalky with fatigue. “I’ve been trying to get a line on Michael Cohen’s last day.”

“You find anything out?”

“Nada. He never came home that night according to his mama, and she’d know because the Cohens have a high-tech security system. You punch in an access code to gain entry to the estate. It seems Michael never punched in.”

“So we have no clue where Michael spent the last day of his life.”

Sean sat on the edge of Novell’s desk and pushed aside some files. “He wasn’t home. He never showed up for work. Never made a phone call. Didn’t go online or send an e-mail. Nothing until he crashed into Danny Ryan’s duck pond.”

In the beginning, Novell had thought Sean was too much of a Boy Scout with his suburban upbringing and his laid-back disposition. Too polite, too naive, and in way over his head, but he now understood this kid was thorough, the kind of cop who was obsessive about getting the details right. He just wanted to get the bad guys.

Novell shuddered. “Ryan claims Michael Cohen didn’t say anything to him, and he didn’t tell him what he was working on.”

“Ryan’s lived like a hermit since that accident last year. We know that kid was his life. That’s what everyone—friends, neighbors, nanny—said. He hasn’t done anything since the funeral. Until now.” Sean’s voice trailed off.

Novell thought of the picture of Conor Ryan, the one from the soccer game. He couldn’t get it out of his head. What would it be like to lose a kid that young? It would shatter you. Given his background, Danny Ryan should have been a raving alcoholic. Novell gave him grudging points for remaining sober.

“So where does that leave our victim?” Novell rubbed his eyes as Sean shrugged. His phone went off. He fished it out of his pocket and squinted at the name and numbers, then looked up. “Guess who?”

“Michael Cohen’s murderer calling to confess.”

“Close. It’s Danny Ryan.”

K
evin Ryan watched his brother slump over the table in the interrogation room, his head in his arms. Detective McFarland, who had been trying to coax a statement out of him, looked up and shook his head. Kevin turned to Novell. “No phone calls.”

“He’s got rights.”

Detective Novell spoke without inflection, and Kevin assessed him. He had that look, the FBI, uptight, in-your-face righteousness that Kevin always associated with feds. But something about the cynical droop in Novell’s mouth, the faint glimmer in his gray eyes betrayed a deep-burning anger underneath. Yeah, he was the kind of guy who’d get nasty after a half-dozen scotches. Kevin was surprised Novell had been dumb enough to get caught drinking on the job.

“He’s got nothin’ if the DA decides to charge him with murder,” Kevin said.

“It’s hard to say how the DA will want to proceed. It’s a difficult situation.”

Novell was right. Finding a body wasn’t a crime, any more than finding a heart. Other than the body itself, no physical evidence tied Danny to the murder. The body appeared to have been dead for more than twenty-four hours when Danny found it. In
his bed. He certainly hadn’t hauled it back from the city in Andy Cohen’s hired limo. And it hadn’t been in the house in the afternoon when Kevin and his partner had headed out to check, just to be sure, after getting a search warrant. Everything had been normal, except there was no Beowulf to greet him at the door.

According to the Crime Scene Unit, there was no blood spatter at the scene. In fact, the body had been exsanguinated and hosed down with great care before it was arranged in the bed. Whoever did the killing was playing some kind of mind game. Maybe the killer knew how fucked up Danny’s head already was.

Goddammit, why couldn’t Danny just go back to writing his stupid column? Tormenting politicians was what he did best. Kevin didn’t always agree with him, but he had to admit Danny had a way of saying things that got people fired up. This poking around shit was going to get him killed.

“Your brother have a substance problem?” Novell said.

“It’s the headaches.” Kevin turned back to Danny, who cradled his head in his arms. He took a deep breath. “He fractured his skull when he was a kid.”

“Excuse me?”

“Danny. He fell down the stairs and fractured his skull. He started getting them after that. The migraines. The doctors said it happens sometimes.” Kevin tried to unclench his fists.

So much goddamn blood
. It’d soaked into the floorboards in the front hall. Some nights, Kevin would dream it all over again. He’d hear the crack of Danny’s skull against the radiator and wake up in a cold sweat. Those nights, there wasn’t enough whiskey in the world to drown his guilt.

“Maybe you could let him sleep for an hour or two?” Kevin said.

“We can proceed however you’d like, Detective Ryan. I’d say we have a jurisdictional nightmare here. It’s going to take some time to straighten it out.” Novell was all business now.

“Agreed. Though the Philly PD will probably get priority. We got the heart when it was fresh. That means in all probability, the murder occurred in Philly, and the body was dumped out
here. Assuming the DNA matches. The heart definitely belonged to a female.”

“Which means it’s unlikely your brother had anything to do with her death since his time is accounted for from at least three thirty
AM
yesterday on.”

Kevin knew Novell was waiting for him to say something, but he continued to stare into the interrogation room. He wanted to break through the door and grab Danny by the throat. Goddamn him. Why couldn’t he listen?

“But you still want us to treat him like he’s the number one suspect. Mind if I ask why?”

Kevin turned back to Novell. Novell might turn out to be a rat bastard, but there was no point trying to lie. Novell was too smart a cop. Those cold eyes of his didn’t miss much.

Kevin took a deep breath. “All right. It won’t make much sense to you, Detective, but I’m trying to save his life.”

D
anny lay on the narrow cot and stared at the ceiling. As cells went, this one wasn’t bad. It was clean and relatively quiet, and he didn’t have to share quarters. He’d been able to sleep for a few hours at least.

The fuzz from the medicine had worn off, but the world around him seemed gray, like the color had bled out, and he hovered somewhere between substance and shadow. Wasn’t that the first sign of mental illness? The world around you became unreal? Danny pressed the heels of his palms against his cheeks. That felt real enough.

He heard Novell’s voice down the hall and then approaching footsteps. The cell door rolled back. He sat up and swung around to face Novell.

“Good morning,” Novell said. He looked pretty wrecked himself. Eyes bloodshot, cheeks stubbled, face wan. He held out a container of coffee. “It’s black, but I can get you cream and sugar.”

Danny took the cup. “Thanks. I take back every bad thing I ever said about cops.”

“How about we stop dancing around and you talk straight to me.”

“Are we dancing?” Danny eyed Novell and wondered why they were going through this routine here instead of an interrogation room.

“What did Michael Cohen say to you?”

“How do you know he said anything?”

“Because whenever there’s a weird murder, you’re right there. And before that, near as I can determine, you qualified for zombie of the year.”

Danny ignored the dig. “I think I should call my lawyer.”

“You aren’t being charged with anything. The DA doesn’t think we have enough to proceed to a grand jury; therefore, no indictment. Yet.”

He wanted to tell Novell, but something held him back. His residual distrust of cops, his natural inclination to hate authority. Who could he trust? He wasn’t sure anymore. But he knew this whole situation was getting out of control.

“Michael was dying,” Danny said.

Zach had said the Inferno was management. Maybe Michael found out who those managers were.
Maybe that was the information he was bringing the night he was killed.

“Answer my question, Ryan, or you’re on your own. And trust me, right now, you really don’t want to be on your own.”

That sounded ominous. “Because?”

“The press has gotten wind of your heartless girlfriend. We have media guys all over the place. Looks like you’re a celebrity again.”

Danny could almost hear the cameras and feel the heat of the klieg lights. He could hear the old man laughing.
The vultures are after you now, boy. Serves you right
.

Danny looked at Novell. “He said ‘Inferno.’”

He thought Novell would laugh, but instead he sat down on the edge of the cot. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I’m sure. I think it’s tied to sex clubs in this area.”

“Michael Cohen told you that?” Novell’s face turned the color of ash.

“What do you know about it? I can tell you know something.”

Novell hesitated and patted his pockets as if feeling for a pack of cigarettes or a flask. “A few years ago, there was an FBI investigation into the Inferno. They turned up nothing, but two agents were killed. It was a clusterfuck from the beginning.”

“You ever hear of Tophet?”

“I heard a lot of things. But nothing panned out. The investigation was shut down. Lack of evidence.” He looked at Danny, his eyes tired. “I’ll tell you this much. If you’re poking up that particular sewer, get out. Some things were meant to be left in the dark.”

“You don’t believe that.”

Novell sighed. “Maybe not. But you’d better.”