Bad Wolf Chronicles, Books 1-3 Page 8

  “Okay,” he allowed.

  “Okay?” She spit it back at him. Was he completely dense? “Don't you get it? This is smoking gun territory, Gallagher. Look at it!”

  “Put it back.”

  “What?”

  “How did you find this?”

  She closed the notebook and squared it up on the table. “Like this.”

  He wrapped his hand round her bicep. “Time to do it your way.” He beckoned toward the stairs. “We get a warrant and seal this place off.”

  12

  THE SKY WAS dark when they came out of the decrepit little house. More rain coming. Of the dogs, there was no sign.

  “Can we call ahead, get things moving?” Lara dug for the car keys. “Maybe LaBayer can write up the warrant and have it ready to go.”

  “Yeah. Except one of us needs to stay here and seal off the site. Keep an eye open if this guy comes back.”

  Lara stopped cold. No way did she want to stay here alone. “Who goes, who stays?”

  He crossed the yard to the car. “Depends which judge we're going after for a signature. You friendly with any of them?”

  No response. He turned, saw her staring past him. “Mendes?”

  “Behind you.” She pointed. “Up the road.”

  A man stood in the distance.

  Fifteen, maybe twenty yards up the dirt path. Little more than a silhouette in this light. Tall and bearded, his face hidden under the hood of his tattered raincoat. A dog stood at attention at his knees, as still as the man. It was big. Gallagher guessed it to be a husky. The man watched them. He didn't move.

  Gallagher moved away from the car and into the road, facing the stranger. Like a scene in a western, two hombres staring each other down. He half expected the man to reach for his six-guns.

  “Easy.” Lara's voice was quiet. “Don't spook him.”

  The man moved. Turned and marched away with long strides. The dog at his heels.

  Gallagher went after him. “Hey!”

  The man broke into a run. Disappeared into a stand of trees. Gallagher hollered back to Lara. “Get the car!”

  Gallagher sprinted after the man, turned into the trees. Through a ditch and up the other side. A gravel lot of puddles and pot-holes. Two low buildings and a fence. No sign of the creep.

  A clang. Gallagher zeroed in on the noise. The man squeezed through a seam in the chain-link, holding it open for the dog to jump through. Fast mother.

  LARA slammed the car into gear and took off, spitting gravel behind her. She gunned it past the trees and farther down where the fence opened onto a lot.

  She caught a glimpse of Gallagher hoofing it across the gravel and spun towards him. The car bounced hard over the potholes, forcing her to slow down. She didn't see anything, no movement, no man—

  There. Bounding from behind a shed, the man and the dog. Both hurtling fast into the open. She stomped the gas pedal, steering right at him.

  The spooky man changed direction and ran right at her. Charging the car in a game of chicken. Jesus. She was going to splatter the crazy bastard. She braked.

  The man leaped and stomped up over the hood. Dented the roof and rolled down the trunk. A blur in the rearview mirror. The man sprawled to the ground, rolled to his feet and kept running.

  She cranked the wheel hard but Gallagher shot out of nowhere and slammed over the hood. He snarled at her, then bolted away.

  Gallagher lost sight of the man when he hit the car but he kept running. Lungs blowing hard. It was raining now. He wiped his eyes. Where the hell did he go?

  Movement in his periphery. A sooty building to his left, the door banging closed. That way.

  The inside was dark and musty-smelling. Windows a story above his head brought some light into the space but not much. Adjusting to the gloom, Gallagher could make out some heavy machinery. A track of conveyor trestle twisting through the air. The steel rollers sat motionless in the available light. Dust roiled the air, kicked up from the floor. Gallagher leaned over, hands on his knees. He listened for movement but all he heard were his own lungs sucking air.

  He slid his weapon from the holster and kept it trained on the floor. He hollered into the darkness. “Police! Show yourself!”

  Silence. He ducked under the conveyor trestle, past workbenches. Dust motes danced in the shafts of light, sucking into his lungs. He spat and called out again. “Hit the floor, asshole, and call out! Before I accidentally blow your head off!”

  Not a peep. Fine, he thought. We'll talk after I blow a hole through your heart. Where the hell was Mendes?

  Noise to his left. He swung the gun up. The dog came at him, barking and snapping. Gallagher drew a bead on it but the husky kept its distance. The barking rang off all the metal, deafening him.

  Something made him look up.

  The man was flying. No, not flying. Dropping from above.

  The man's full weight slammed him to the floor. Knocked the wind from his lungs. Couldn't breathe or even think. The gun knocked from his hand. He watched, almost amused, as it spun across the floor.

  He was being hit. The son of a bitch was pummeling him. Gallagher sucked oxygen and rolled, bucked. The creep came back for more. He kicked out like a mule and popped the man's knee. The bastard crumpled and Gallagher groped for the gun. Where is the gun?

  A freight train knocked him over. They rolled, tangled. Gallagher kneed, punched, elbowed and gouged. Forget the gun, he'd rip the bastard's eyes out with his bare hands.

  An elbow smashed his nose. Blind pain. He felt himself hoisted up and thrown. His skull rang off a machine press. White pixies in his eyes. Shit. Don't pass out. Don't pass out.

  Coarse hands locked around his throat, crushing his windpipe. The ragged man leaned in close, grunting obscenely. Long stringy hair, spittle threading into the foul beard. The eyes tweaked. A scar on his brow, a cross carved between the eyes. Words chopped out between the teeth.

  “You pigs. Always get in the way.”

  The man was strong. Younger, too. Gallagher couldn't hit back, couldn't get free.

  Pop. Pop. Gunshots. Mendes.

  Lara charged, gun up. Saw Gallagher flat on his back, the suspect choking him to death. She yelled at him to stop, then she fired. Two rounds to get his attention. It was the first time Lara Mendes had ever discharged her weapon on duty.

  “Get on the ground! Now!” She drew a bead on the assailant's chest.

  He bolted. Faster than she could follow, he was just gone. Swallowed up in the machinery. She sprinted after him, ducking under cables. A glimpse of the suspect scrambling up a trestle. He leaped into space and sailed clean through a broken window.

  She climbed up after him, slipping on the greasy metal. Her hands found the window frame and hauled herself up. A vista of rail cars and sea crates in a vast yard. No movement, no telltale dust cloud. The man was simply gone.

  She found Gallagher sitting on the floor, one hand folded over the back of his head. Lara knelt down next to him. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Just dizzy.”

  She took his arm to help him up, saw the blood on his fingers. She turned his head, saw more blood clotting his hair. “That looks bad,” she said.

  “Just help me up.”

  She pivoted backward and pulled him to his feet. He straightened up then teetered forward. She propped him upright.

  “Shit,” he said. His eyes rolled over white and he timbered down onto her. They both went down. She smacked his cheek, called his name. No response, officer down.

  EMERGENCY lights strobed the face of the dead building, red then blue over the mottled brickwork. Two prowl cars and an ambulance parked outside the entrance.

  Paramedics wheeled the stretcher out and loaded Gallagher into the bus. All they could tell Detective Mendes was that he was concussed with a lacerated scalp. She held back until the ambulance was away before turning to the uniformed officers waiting on her.

  Lara led two of the uniforms back to the rundown bungalow at the end
of the lane. She told them about the dogs trapped inside the house and warned there were others in the area. They searched the house again. The dogs locked in the bedroom went berserk, barking crazily behind the thin wooden door. One uniform, a kid in his twenties, shied away from the door as it jostled and banged in its frame. “If that busts open,” he said, “you all better duck, cause I'm just gonna start shooting.”

  The other chided him for being so willing to kill a poor dog. Did he hate animals? The young man loved animals as long as they were kittens or bunnies and such. Rabid street dogs he had no time for.

  When the property was cleared, Detective Mendes closed up the front and back doors to contain the dogs should the bedroom door fail. She called the precinct and spoke to detective Bingham, asked him to send out the crime scene techs. He took the information, offered his help. She thanked him for that. It was a small place but there was a lot of crap to sift through.

  The uniforms waited on her. The one who didn't care for dogs asked what she wanted to do next.

  “Seal off the property. One car here at the house, park the other up at the road. Stop anyone who turns in. Get their name and details.” Lara walked back to her car, a plastic evidence bag tucked under her arm. The officer followed. “Call the animal shelter, get them down here. Tell them we got two big dogs in the house and more strays in the area. I'll be back soon.”

  “Where you going? Isn't this your crime scene?”

  “It's the tech's scene now. I'll be at the hospital.” She climbed under the wheel, tossed the evidence bag onto the passenger seat. Inside was a cheap black notebook.

  13

  IN A BUSY emergency room, even a cop has a hard time getting a straight answer. Lara had to reach over the counter to find out where Gallagher was. Up to the third floor, east wing. Follow the green lines.

  She found the room, looked in the window. Gallagher sat on the bed, shoulders slouched forward. A doctor was in the room, speaking to him but Gallagher didn't seem to be listening. Quel shocker.

  There was a third person in the room, a girl in her teens. Lara put her age at sixteen, maybe seventeen years. Hair falling down her face, arms folded. Gallagher put a hand on her shoulder but the girl shrugged it off and flopped into the chair. The doctor kept talking. Gallagher's eyes went back to the floor. He looked defeated. Ashamed, maybe.

  Who was this girl?

  Lara pilfered a pair of latex gloves from an untended cart and found a chair. She slipped the notebook from the plastic bag. The handwriting was frenzied, the paper grooved from the pen strokes. Hard to decipher the words but the first entry was an obscenity-spewed rant against someone who had wronged him. It was a laundry list of torments planned to make the person suffer but the target of the rage was never mentioned by name. She found sketches scattered throughout. Dogs or maybe wolves. Nude women in supine poses. Skulls. A house bordered by trees. Then more pages of cramped writing. No dates. The entries, if that's what they were, separated by the crude star inside a circle.

  Lara fanned through the pages, hoping the suspect had scrawled his John Hancock somewhere in the book. Nothing. A face flipped by. She thumbed back through the pages, found a man's face taking up the entire page. Long hair, beard, the eyes shaded under the brow. A cross-shaped scar marred the skin between the eyes. Was this a self-portrait?

  Damn. The creepy dude provided his own police sketch.

  She tucked her feet under her and got comfortable. Flipping back to the beginning of the notebook, Lara settled in to decipher the gibberish.

  THE click of the door brought Lara's eyes from the page. The girl in Gallagher's room stepped into the hallway, her eyes tired and puffy. Is this who she spoke to on the phone when she called Gallagher's house? Lara put the book aside and peeled off the gloves. “Is he okay?”

  Amy looked at the woman in the hallway. Shrugged. “Doctor says so,” she said. “Not that it really matters to Dad. He doesn't much like doctors.”

  “You're Amy,” Lara said. The name on Gallagher's emergency contact was a daughter, not a spouse like she had assumed. “I must have frightened you when I called. I'm sorry.”

  “Yeah. Kinda freaked me out. But no, I'm glad you did.” Amy rubbed her eyes. “None of Dad's other partners ever called when he got hurt. I'd never know till it was all over. So… Thanks.”

  Lara swiped a pack of tissues from the cart, handed it to the girl. “Do you need a lift home? I can get someone to drive you.”

  “I'm okay. My friend's waiting for me. She has a car.” Amy turned to go then stopped. “What's your name?”

  “I'm Detective Mendes.”

  “No. Your first name.”

  “Lara.”

  “Thanks, Lara.” Amy gave a little wave and went down the hall, backtracking along the green line on the floor.

  Lara watched her go. Nice girl. How could she be Gallagher's kid?

  GALLAGHER fumbled the buttons on his shirt, still woozy. Why do doctors always make you strip for anything? The knock he took was to the head but still they insisted he remove all his clothes. Why? Probably so they could swipe every damn cent from his pockets.

  When the door opened he thought it was Amy, forgetting something like she always did. Mendes entered instead, a white box tucked under her arm. “How are you feeling?”

  “Who the hell told my daughter I was here?” He knew it had to be her but he needed to bark at someone.

  “My mistake,” Lara said. “I saw her name as your emergency contact. I just assumed it was your wife. Sorry”

  Gallagher slung the tie round his neck, measured the length.

  “She's a sweet kid.” Lara put the box on the bedside table.

  “You know why she's a sweet kid? Because she doesn't get calls about her old man winding up in the hospital.” He scooped up his keys, dropped them into a pocket. “You need to file that request. We made a break in the case so it won't look like you're giving up.”

  “Are you kidding me? This is just getting good.”

  He growled. “Mendes.”

  “I got a warrant on the way,” she said. “Not that we need it now. We got probable cause up the ying yang with this guy. Maybe you should go home, rest up.”

  He scalded her with a look. “What's in the box?”

  “Get dressed. I'm parked out front.” Detective Mendes left the room.

  Gallagher looked at the box on the table. He flipped the lid open. Donuts. Every one of them covered in sprinkles.

  TEETH popped and chomped, trying to bite Pablo, bite anything. Two loops of rope choking its neck, the Staffordshire twisted and jerked against the restraints. Pablo and another man kept the snapping dog at bay with restraint poles noosed around the animal's neck. Both men strained against the animal, pushing the Staffordshire to the truck marked Animal Services. Pablo dropped his pole, leaving the other man to hold the dog still, while he grabbed the tail and hoisted the animal into the cage. They slackened the cord, slid the loop off the dog and locked the cage.

  “I told ya we should of used the tranq,” said the other man, out of breath.

  “Lot of fight left in these hounds.” Pablo nodded at the first dog they removed from the premises, already caged in the truck. “Look at them.”

  “Is that your buddy?”

  The unmarked car trundled past the CSU truck to a spot on the weed-choked yard. Gallagher climbed out and waved to Pablo. The shelter director looked at the bandage on the detective's forehead. “What happened to you?”

  “Dog bit me.” Gallagher checked the dogs caged inside the truck. “These the two in the house, yeah? You find any others?”

  “There was one sniffing around when we pulled in,” said Pablo. “But it took off. We'll take a spin around, see if we can find him.”

  Gallagher thanked him and went on up to the house. Lara gave the penned dogs a wide berth and ducked under the police tape.

  Portable lamps trucked in from the CSU vehicle lit up every dingy corner. A crime scene technician sifted throug
h garbage on the floor while another popped photographs. Two uniforms stood in the kitchen clutching cold cups of coffee.

  Lara stepped over the cables running along the floor. “Forensics are still bagging stuff. I held off on the APB, you got a better look at him than I did.”

  “What's the story on this dump?”

  “Condemned. Our boy's squatting.”

  Gallagher picked through the litter on the kitchen table. “Any luck finding a name?”

  “Maybe. Come see.”

  The basement steps still creaked but there was nothing spooky about the place now, with floodlights pushing every shadow to the corners. Gallagher followed Lara to the little card table under the window. A shoebox sat on top. She upended it on the table. Credit cards and driver's licenses spilled out.

  “I found these all over the house. The guy likes his aliases.”

  “Any of these belong to our boy?”

  “You tell me.” Lara fanned the licenses across the table. A police lineup of DMV photos. “Can you pick him out?”

  He scrutinized each one. “He's not in here.”

  “Okay.” Lara pulled one of the notebooks off the crate shelf and flipped it open to a page she had dog-eared. “How about this?”

  Gallagher studied the drawing. The hair, beard and that cross-shaped scar, all rendered neatly in pencil. “That's him. Quite the Picasso.” He leafed through the rest of the notebook, skimming over the fevered handwriting. “You find a name in any of these?”

  “Nada,” Lara said. “But the techs lifted a lot of good prints. Fingers crossed, this guy's in the system.”

  “I can't read this chicken scratch. Is it even English?”

  “You're not going to believe what I found in here.” She took the notebook back. “At least the parts I can decipher. I told you how he describes this affliction he has? Sometimes he refers to it as a disease, a chronic ailment he tries to manage. Other times he calls it a curse.”