I lookedback at Lemon. “We playing this game?” We’d gone to school together. We’d neverbeen friends. Jeff Lemon hung out with the druggies even then and I was a jock.I’d probably thumped his head against the wall a dozen times back in the dayand I could tell by the look he was giving me that he remembered every timewe’d caught each other the wrong way.
“I didn’tsee anything.”
“Don’t bestupid.” I’m not above using intimidation to close a case. I loomed over Lemonand stared hard into his eyes. That was normally enough to get himtalking.
Not thistime. He stood his ground, which was not at all like the Lemon I’d known fortwenty-odd years.
There was areason for that, of course, but it took me a while to realize what itwas.
When we weredone at the scene and the forensics guys were going over the whole place, thetwo of us headed for the office. By that point, Lemon had been released andallowed to go home. He’d have the next few days off, because I intended to keepthe crime scene barricaded for as long as possible. He inconvenienced me and Ireturned the favor. The two sleeping beauties had been incarcerated, and Domwas yawning so much I expected his face to crack.
It wasduring the drive that I realized Lemon wasn’t growing a backbone. He was stillscared. Whatever he’d seen, whoever had done the murders, scared him a lot morethan I did and he didn’t think I could protect him.
* * *
Nicesurprise. Jeff Lemon actually had security footage in his piece of shit bar.There were four cameras, all of them with VHS connections instead of digital,but it was still a lucky break. My old pal didn’t much want to give thetapes without a search warrant, but I convinced him. I wound up getting awarrant, because I like doing the paperwork, but I made sure Jeff remembered tobe afraid of me. My grandfather and my father both worked this job. Being a copruns deep in my family. I learned the loopholes from them. Sometimes you needto make sure the perpetrators you run across stay honest with you.
Dom lookedover the tapes. He was always better with that sort of thing. He liked staringat blurry images. Meanwhile, I followed up with our two junkies, both of whomactually did sleep through the murders, and I talked to the M.E. aboutthe murders. The woman I talked to was strictly business, and young enough tobe my daughter. Hannah Lindsey was round, had black wire hair that she managedto beat into submission with a lot of hair gel and normally was as cheerful asa pissed off badger. Not that she was ever rude, really, but she could havetaken lessons on smiling.
“All threeof the victims were hit at least twenty times apiece, and look to have beenbeaten with brass knuckles or a similar weapon. If they were knuckles, theywere custom jobs. The markings aren’t familiar with any of the brands we haveon file, and we have everything on file.”
Those wordswere innocent enough, but I felt a cold dread sneak up my back and nest in mystomach.
“Custom?What sort of markings?”
Hannahshowed me a photo from her digital files. It was a close-up on one of themarkings. The indentations drove deep, as I had been warned, but the flesh wastorn so looking for the exact shape of the knuckle tips was challenging. I ranmy finger just across the surface of her iPad screen and asked, “Is that askull?”
“Yes. Butlook here.” Hannah moved to the next picture in line, her dark brown eyes halfhidden behind her thick lenses. Still, I could see the slight shimmer ofexcitement. This was something out of the routine and when you get down to it,after a while we all want to see something new. The next photo was anotherextreme close-up of a wound. This time the design was different, a crescentmoon shape that had been hammered into brutalized flesh. Before I could sayanything she threw up another image, this one more obscure. It took me a secondto see the shape of a cat arching its back and hissing.
The chillcame back again. Only this time it was different; there was a layer ofexcitement, too.
“Let meguess. Last one is a Jack O’ lantern?”
Hannahpinned me with her gaze. “How did you know?”
“Back inthe day, there was a pulp character that had special markings on brassknuckles. He was one of those guys like Doc Savage, or The Shadow. There was aradio show, printed stories. There were even a few movies, but almost no onehas copies.”
“Really?What was he called?” She actually sounded interested, which was amusing. Mostof the women I mentioned this stuff to had their eyes glaze over in thirtyseconds or less.
“DoctorSamuel Hanes, also known as The Black Wraith.” Nostalgia tugged at me. Unlikemost everyone I knew I’d seen the old movies. I’d read all of the books. When Iwas growing up The Black Wraith was my hero as surely as Batman was.
“Neverheard of him.”
“Like Isaid, not as popular as some of the others.” I shrugged. “They all had theirgimmicks, right? The Shadow could see into the hearts of men. Doc Savage wasbasically the earthbound version of Superman. He was from Earth but had beenraised and trained to be as close to superhuman as he could be. The Spiderpretended to be a criminal and wore a ring that left spider-shaped marks on hisvictims’ faces. The Black Wraith was supposed to have been shot dead butcame back on Halloween night to offer up justice from beyond the grave. Hadspecial guns that were oversized and in one story used a Tommy gun. Then themovies came along and the brass knuckles got added. They’d have close ups ofhis fists in their black gloves, each knuckle with a different Halloweenthing on it.”
“How do youeven know about that?”
I smiled ather. “I watched them all growing up. They were kind of awesome.”
Turned outHannah was a fan of the old pulps, so I wrote
