calm that meant Mason had come close enough to see the line, but he hadn’t crossed it yet.
“I respect your concern for your partner,” the chief said. “I share your high opinion of Detective Anderson. Speaking as a professional law enforcement officer and as your superior, I’m telling you right now that we are going to toe the line on this. Whatever IA wants to know, you tell them. Whatever they want to see, you show.”
“Yes, sir.”
“When Detective Anderson is exonerated of all wrongdoing, I don’t want anyone thinking it was on some kind of technicality, or that we pulled one over on IA.”
“No, sir.”
“And speaking as myself, don’t worry. I’m taking care of it.”
Mason fought not to grin.
“Thank you, sir.”
“I don’t need gratitude. I need a confession out of Sobinski.”
“All right, then.”
The chief took his coffee, nodded, and walked away.
Back at his desk, Mason glanced over at the expert, who was still frowning over the details of the dead girl, sighed to himself, and started filling out the death investigation reports for a homeless man who’d either walked off an apartment building or else been pushed. An hour later, Scarrey appeared at his shoulder, clearing his throat as an apology.
“Find what you need?” Mason asked.
“No, no. Only what I expected. I was hoping we might stop by the crime scene? Possibly Sobinski’s apartment?”
“Okay. But you understand that the crime scene’s not going to be like it was. After the forensics guys are done, we release it. Let people start using the place again. They usually get the cleanup guys in pretty fast.”
“What a world it would be otherwise,” Scarrey said, and then, seeing Mason’s blank look, “I was just thinking what it would be like if we froze a room every time someone died in it. We’d run out of places to eat and sleep. Store food. We’d have to find some way to clean the space. Start time moving again. But then, I suppose we do that when the forensics team leaves, don’t we? Try to take a room or alleyway or whatever out of the world while they go about their work, and when they make their mark, put it back in.”
“Sure,” Mason said. “I guess.”
“The power of ritual,” Scarrey said, pleased by the thought. “Well. Would you like to drive, or shall I?”
THE WAREHOUSE WHERE SARAH OSTERMAN HAD DIED WAS ONE OF HUNDREDS like it squatting in the rough triangle where the river and the railroad intersected. The morning sun pressed the shadows out of the concrete and steel. The only pedestrians were the homeless, and the traffic was all big-rig trucks and clunkers. Mason liked the district for its authenticity. That was about all it had to offer.
In the passenger seat, Scarrey hummed to himself and leaned out, peering at the addresses they passed. His thick, stubby fingers tapped on the seat beside him, almost but not quite keeping time with the humming. On the one hand, Mason could turn on the radio, try to drown the guy out. On the other, if he did, the guy might try to sing along.
They parked in front of the manager’s office. A block of tall buildings with rolling garage doors and loading docks stretched off to the south. Three big rigs stood parked at the docks, but nothing was moving in or out of the warehouses. The manager, a painfully thin woman with a nasal cannula running down to her portable oxygen supply, gave him the access code and universal key. As Mason walked down the loading docks, Scarrey trotted beside him.
“The company that was renting the warehouse legitimately,” Scarrey said. “Have they reported anything odd about the space since?”
“Nope. Nothing going bump in the night. At least nothing they’ve told me about.”
“Hm.”
“Expecting something?”
“Well, you’d expect people to be nervous at least, wouldn’t you?” Scarrey said. “Something terrible like that happens, and people draw back or they lean forward. It’s very rare that they can remain unaffected. Of course, it would have to be something significant to deserve official mention.”
“Sounds like you don’t think our boy was really trying to call up the devil.”
“Oh, I didn’t say that,” Scarrey said.
Mason stopped at the door. M-15 in black on flaking yellow paint. He keyed the passcode into the button pad beside the door, put in the manager’s key, and, with a loud clank, the warehouse door began to rise. Scarrey ducked under it, hurrying inside. Mason waited until he could walk in standing straight.
The place looked innocuous. Simple. Innocent. The boxes and shelving that Sobinski had moved aside were back where they belonged. The air smelled like car exhaust and WD-40, not incense and blood. The chalked words and diagrams had been washed off the floor and walls. Mason pulled back his shoulders, stretching until something in his spine cracked. Scarrey was walking around the place like a tourist in Times Square, blinking and craning his neck. He walked once around the whole place, fingertips trailing on the wall, touching the boxes of cheap DVD players and third-rate audio equipment, his eyes squinting up into the blue-white fluorescents.
“Did you see her?”
“I did,” Mason said.
“What did it feel like?”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, that’s the problem with reports, isn’t it? They never tell you the really important parts. I know she was here,” Scarrey said, standing as near to the right place as the shelving would let him and raising his arms as if the chains and hooks had been in his own flesh. “And I’m thinking suspended from that rafter and the pipe over there, yes?”
“That’s right.”
“That’s the kind of thing reports tell you. They never say what it felt like. When you saw her, did it make you happy?”
“She was a
“I don’t know, but it’s important. Did seeing her body here make you happy?”
“No.”
“Sexually aroused?”
“Yeah,” Mason deadpanned. “Absolutely. Boner you could drive nails with.”
“Don’t do that,” Scarrey said. His voice was low now, and very serious. “Don’t joke about this. I can’t tell what you’re joking to cover. Did the body arouse you sexually?”
“Fuck no, it didn’t,” Mason said.
“Good. Good good good.”
“What about you?”
“Me?”
“Did what happened here make
“Lots of things have happened here,” Scarrey said. “Some of them were terrible. Meaning what happened with that girl. Some of them were quite pleasant.”
“Like?”
“Like me finding what I expected to find.”
“Which is?”
Scarrey grinned and spread his arms, gesturing at the walls, the boxes, the light.
“A warehouse,” he said.
“Yeah,” Mason said. “Well, glad we got that solved. What’s next?”
“Lunch, I’d expect. Would you like some lunch? I’ll pay.”
IT WASN’T THE SORT OF RESTAURANT MASON USUALLY WENT FOR. GIVEN his options, he usually went for a good local Mexican place or else a steakhouse. If it looked like the kind of place where he might have to wait
