Nocturnal: A Novel

message. Sure it couldn’t be MS13? Don’t they cut off limbs?”

“And hands and heads,” John said. “But MS13 uses machetes. Look at that kid’s body, Pooks. He wasn’t cut apart, he was torn apart.”

“Could it be a new gang? What about that blood-graffiti symbol?”

“That’s where we’ll start. Let’s get this scanned in and see what the computer says.”

John scanned in both the photos, then opened them up in his computer and accessed the Regional Information Sharing System. RISS coordinated nationwide gang data, including suspects, organizations and weapons as well as visual imagery of gang members, gang symbols and gang graffiti.

“Huh,” Pookie said. “And I thought the Internet was for porn.”

“Oh no,” John said. “We don’t look at porn down here, Pooks. There are filters and then if you’re caught —”

“Kidding,” Pookie said. “Jesus, man, you haven’t changed a bit.”

John sighed. Even when they’d been partners, he only caught about half of Pookie’s humor. “Anyway, the RISS software identifies key points much like a fingerprint, marking the degree of curves, the thickness and relative length of lines. It breaks down individual segments of the symbols into a hundred minisymbols. Then I feed it into the database and it searches for matches, partial or full.”

“Does this crap really work?”

John nodded. “Oh, hell yeah. It’s amazing. It can even build a graphic profile on individual artists so accurate we can tell the genuine artist from an imitator.”

The computer beeped.

John opened a window to read the results. “Huh. Nothing in San Francisco.”

“Anywhere else?”

John scanned the results. “Looks like one hit in New York City a couple of decades ago. A serial killer. Looks like he murdered four women, then killed himself. That’s all it says. I’m sure there’s more info, but we’d have to reach out to the NYPD to get it.”

As John read the lines of information, he saw something strange. “This is weird.”

“What is?”

“Well, I see incoming links on these symbols from that old case in New York, but what those links connect to was deleted from our system. Oh, look at this! Here’s a local request. It’s old, must have been the early days of the SFPD’s efforts to computerize. Let’s see … twenty-nine years ago. But there’s no images associated with it, so we can’t know if the request was answered.”

Pookie absently scratched at his jaw. “Why would someone delete info on this symbol?”

“Probably a mistake,” John said. “You have thousands of people accessing this stuff. Systems and software conflict, databases purge, things can get accidentally erased.”

“That local request,” Pookie said, “Can you tell me who made it?”

John looked. He followed database links to a dead end. “No, those fields aren’t there. The information is too old. Probably migrated from sytem to sytem to system as the department continued to modernize. I can keep looking, though. Give me a couple of days, I’ll see what I can find.”

Pookie sighed. He gathered his papers and pictures, stuffing them once again into the abused manila folder. “While you’re at it, can you get the details on the New York City case?”

“Sure thing.”

“One more favor,” Pookie said. “Keep all your searching on the down-low. Polyester Rich has what might be a similar case, and I want them both. Don’t need him hearing about you looking into it.”

Pookie’s rivalry with Rich Verde was still alive and well, it seemed. “Not a problem, Pooks.”

Pookie opened the door to leave, then turned, a grin on his face.

“Come on,” he said. “Do it for me just once.”

John laughed, then affected an evil smile. He held his hands in front of him like claws, touching the tips of his left fingers to the tips of his right.

“Excellent, Smithers,” John said. “Exxxxcellent.”

Pookie nodded sagely, as if John had just said the most wise words in all the world. “Mister Burns should have been black.”

“He is. The networks just decolorize him because America fears a rich black man.”

Pookie nodded, then walked out the door, leaving John to look at the symbols scanned into his computer.

Pookie’s Flashback

It had been almost two decades since Pookie Chang’s high school graduation, and yet a principal’s office still gave him the creeps.

Pookie had given Bryan a few hours to himself. That hadn’t seemed to help much — when Pookie picked Bryan up, the man still looked scattered, a little freaked out and sick as a dog. At least Bryan hadn’t fled. Maybe it would have been easier if he had. That would have forced Pookie’s hand, saved him from deciding if he should either trust Bryan or arrest him.

You just couldn’t dream crime-scene details like that. Could someone be setting Bryan up? Maybe, but how would that work? Was someone hypnotizing him? Maybe drugging him, then sneaking into his apartment and whispering sweet nothings in his ear? Could this be some massively convoluted revenge plot from someone Bryan had put away?

Maybe, sure, or maybe Pookie could pull his head out of his ass and accept the obvious answer — that Bryan Clauser had gone out last night and butchered Oscar Woody.

No way. I’ve known that man for six years. NO WAY.

That thought echoed constantly through Pookie’s head, fighting for space against but he’s already killed FIVE people. The bottom line, however, was that Pookie owed Bryan Clauser his life. So did Black Mr. Burns. Therefore, Bryan got the benefit of the doubt. However unlikely, there could still be a valid reason why Bryan knew those crime-scene details. To find that answer, Pookie had to do his job — beginning with Kyle Souller, principal of Galileo High.

“Principal Souller, we need to know who Oscar Woody may have had a beef with.”

Souller had the tired look of a man who knew his entire career involved fighting a losing battle. His suit seemed to hang on him like a convict’s stripes.

Souller threaded his fingers together, rested the clasped hands on his desktop. “You think a student did this?” He didn’t say that with shock or disbelief, just a sense of resignation. “We have violence here, like any school, but this is on a different level.”

“Could be a student,” Pookie said. “A stronger possibility is a student hired someone to do it. We understand Oscar had incidents here?”

Souller let out a single, sad laugh. “Yeah, you could say that. We don’t have much of a gang problem at Galileo. That lets a pissant operation like BoyCo kind of rule the roost. They pick on a lot of kids.”

“Which kids?” Bryan said. “We need names.”

Souller sat back in his chair. “Inspector, I can’t just give you names of everyone BoyCo has crossed. I’m not going to subject those kids to police questioning when they’ve done nothing wrong.”

Bryan started to talk, but he winced before any words came out. He cleared his throat — painfully, judging by the expression on his face — then tried again. “Don’t give me that civil rights bullshit,” he said. “We need leads. We …”

His voice trailed off. He closed his eyes and leaned back. He rubbed his temples.

Pookie reached out and supportively squeezed Bryan’s shoulder. “You okay, man?”

Bryan slowly shook his head. “Yeah, I … got a headache. Is it hot in here?”

Souller pointed to his office door. “There’s a water fountain in the hall. Quite cold.”

Bryan nodded. “Yeah, that’ll help. Pooks, you mind?”

“I got this,” Pookie said.

Bryan stood and walked to the door. He moved slowly, swaying just a little bit. Maybe he had a split