The broken pane lay inside on the floor. Duct tape held the glass shards together.
As the two detectives slipped on latex gloves, Jose said the necessary words. “Indications of felony breaking and entering.”
Before Jose finished, Frank had turned the knob and swung the door open. He eased his pistol out of its shoulder holster. Without looking, he knew that Jose had switched his flashlight to his left hand and had his Glock in his right. Frank stepped through, into the kitchen.
Drawers had been dumped, cabinet shelves swept clean. Scattered across the floor were knives, forks, and spoons, pots, pans, and broken crockery.
The wreckage conveyed a savage intensity, not the mindless, universal destructive energy of a tornado, but the focused precision of a human hunter.
Avoiding as much of the debris as possible, Frank and Jose picked their way across the kitchen. Near the doorway into the hall, they switched off their flashlights and stood stone still.
Frank felt his pulse beating in his throat, then his stomach contracting.
At first he thought it might be something off his clothes, a leftover from the garage rooftop or Upton’s autopsy suite. Then he knew it wasn’t. Leaning close to Jose, he whispered, “Smell that?”
In the dimness he saw Jose nod. The two stood quietly another few seconds, then switched on their flashlights. Down the hallway toward the stairs, they passed the living room, with its furniture turned over, upholstery slit, stuffings spilling like the intestines of some gutted animal. At the end of the hallway, Frank ran his flashlight beam up the stairs.
Again the scratching sounds of small scurrying feet. The flashlight stopped on a hand frozen in the act of reaching out over the top of the stairway.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Frank watched as Randolph Emerson, nose wrinkled in distaste, looked around the upstairs room. Along one wall, a neatly kept workbench with speakers, wiring, and circuit boards. In contrast to the orderly workbench, an adjacent wall cabinet had been ripped apart: expensive sound and video components hung by their wire guts and lay strewn across the floor.
Past Emerson, through the open doorway, in the hall, the woman’s body lay sprawled on the landing.
“Jesus… two in one night.”
“Tony Upton says it was about the same time somebody did Pencil, two, maybe three days after he’d gotten back on the street,” Frank said.
“All this… that… that mess downstairs…” Emerson began, “who…”
“Skeeter left a big business,” Frank said. “Maybe somebody didn’t want Pencil to inherit it.”
“Or maybe somebody thought that Pencil had something they wanted,” Jose added.
“Or both,” Frank said.
“Okay,” Emerson said impatiently. “So we got two rotting bodies and a tossed house. You got me out of bed and down here for that?”
“We got you out of bed,” Frank said calmly, “so you could call Renfro Calkins and put him back to work.”
“What?” Emerson looked as if someone had waved a snake in his face. “What?” he repeated.
“We need him,” Jose said. “We need him now… here.”
Emerson’s anger was edging out his incredulity.
“Calkins was put on suspension because…”
“Because, Randolph,” Frank finished quietly, “you were covering your ass.”
Emerson’s eyes narrowed. He worked his mouth but then stopped, as though something inside him had sounded a warning.
“We had a heart-to-heart with Milton,” Jose explained.
Frank bore in. “You pressured him into making that admin closure on Gentry.”
“You can’t prove that.”
Emerson said it coolly, but Frank detected a deep uncertainty beneath.
“If IAD squeezes Milton,” Frank said, “he’ll recite chapter and verse.” He saw in Emerson’s eyes that he knew it was so.
“Look, Randolph,” Frank continued reasonably, “these two on top of Skeeter and Gentry are gonna cause all kinds of shit to roll downhill. You know how good Renfro is. We can’t afford to keep him out of this.”
Emerson shut his eyes as though to blank out what was around him. He opened them and everything was still there.
“And if you don’t get him back,” he said bitterly, “you two will make sure the shit ends up on me.”
Frank and Jose said nothing; both gave Emerson a poker player’s “Don’t call my hand” look.
Emerson surrendered. His shoulders sagged and his mouth drew up in a grimace.
“You two are bastards, you know,” he gritted, “real bastards.”
Jose teased him with a smile. “Aw, but we’re your bastards, Randolph.”
Frank had his cell phone out. He punched in some numbers and waited until someone answered.
“R.C.?” he said. “Wake up. Captain Emerson wants to talk with you.”
And he handed the phone to Emerson.
Two hours later, Renfro Calkins told Frank and Jose, “I’m releasing the body.”
Nobody had said anything when Calkins walked in. But Frank had sensed a ripple of discipline that spread among the techs, notes on a piano striking now with more authority, with greater certainty.
Jose motioned up the stairs with his chin. Toward where the woman’s body lay and where the room had been ripped apart.
“How long’s it gonna take to get through this?”
Calkins gave Jose a disapproving look. “Long’s it takes, Hoser. Long’s it takes.”
“Nice havin’ you back, R.C.,” Jose said.
Calkins shot Jose another shaft of disapproval, then turned and made for the stairs. At the same time, the front door swung open. Blessingame stuck his head through.
“Frank, Hoser, you got a visitor.”
At the police line set up across the front walk, Brian Atkins chatted easily with one of the uniformed patrol officers. Atkins wore a raincoat against a mist that was off and on turning into real rain. He saw Frank and Jose, and half waved, half saluted.
“Crappy morning,” he said, glancing skyward. “Robin called. Said you’d found Pencil and this…” he gestured toward the house.
Frank waved him in.
Atkins took in the destroyed living room.
“Guy did a job.”
Jose pointed to the stairs. “If you want to see, M.E.’s gonna take the body away.”
The three men climbed the stairs in single file, watching their footing, keeping to one side.
At the top of the stairs, the stench hovered over the corpse like an invisible predator guarding its kill. Frank had been in the house for hours now, but the odor still caused a trembling in the back of his throat.
“Shot twice,” Jose said. “Once through the shoulder, in the room back there. She makes it out here. Shooter follows. Hits her in the back of the head before she gets to the stairs.”
“Any idea about the weapon?” Atkins asked.
Frank shook his head. “Have to wait for the M.E. report.”
“No cartridge cases?”
“Nothing yet.”
Frank led the way into the room.
“Combination office and electronics hobby shop,” Atkins observed, looking around, stepping carefully to avoid a patch of dried blood.
Frank nodded.
