Second Horseman Out of Eden

'Maybe you've got a point,' McCloskey said, looking down at his feet.

I asked, 'Did you find the genitals, Lieutenant?'

McCloskey shook his head. 'There's no blood from the spike wounds in his palms or feet, and precious little from the hole where his prick and balls used to be. You can't see it from here, but he's got a bullet hole just behind his left ear. It looks like he was executed someplace else, then mutilated after he was dead; the corpse was brought here and put up for public display-all for the benefit of you two, of course. Somebody's trying to assure you that the girl's not going to be harmed anymore.'

'It looks that way, doesn't it?' Garth said in a flat voice.

McCloskey used the toe of his right shoe to draw a small circle in the snow and leaves on the frozen ground. 'It looks like you guys were right about the girl, Kenecky. . and maybe a few other things. I apologize to you if I seemed a little. . insensitive. You know I've got kids of my own. And grandkids. I guess seeing this creep hanging up there brings a lot of things home to me. It makes me think of my own. You know what I'm saying?'

'Yeah,' I said. 'Speaking of those other things we may be right about, want to bet that the lab people find traces of Amazon rain forest soil under his fingernails?'

'You've made me a believer.'

Garth asked, 'Any idea of how long he's been dead, McCloskey?'

'The coroner's people tell me that's going to be hard to pin down until they get him on a cutting table. The low temperature complicates everything. The initial estimate is that he died somewhere between six and fourteen hours ago. There are burns on the flesh that could have been caused as a result of the corpse being packed in dry ice.' He paused and laughed grimly, without any trace of humor. 'I guess whoever did this wanted him to look fresh for you.'

I grimaced in frustration. 'If he's been dead up to fourteen hours, and the corpse was packed in dry ice, he could have been brought here from anywhere in the country.'

McCloskey shrugged. 'Or he could have been killed only a few blocks away, and then kept on ice until now, Christmas morning, as a special gesture. Unless forensics finds something very special on or in him, it's going to be almost impossible to tell where he was killed.'

'We come back to the postmark on the letter,' Garth said to me. 'He had to have been killed somewhere around here, which means that the girl has to be close by. That's why they went to so much trouble to mask the time of death.'

I thought about it, then slowly, reluctantly, shook my head. 'I don't think we can assume that anymore. We know now that Kenecky was tied in with a multinational corporation, with operations all over the world. True, the letter was certainly mailed somewhere in the New York region; but now we have to consider the possibility that it was brought here from someplace else. It could have been written anywhere.'

'Shit,' Garth said with disgust. 'And all we thought we were looking for was a needle in a haystack. In fourteen hours, he could have been brought here from just about anywhere in the world. That's thousands of haystacks.'

'You two sound as if you're still worried about finding the girl,' McCloskey said carefully. 'If you don't mind my asking, what's the point? I thought you agreed that Kenecky was killed and hung up here to assure you that the girl was going to be all right. And you did say that was all you cared about. They got your message, and they sent back one of their own.'

'And their message is a mutilated corpse,' Garth replied evenly. 'Before, all we knew was that Vicky Brown was being sexually abused by a lunatic; now we find out that the girl is living with-or under the control of-a whole barrelful of lunatics who think that death doesn't mean a goddamn thing because they're all going to be resurrected and go floating up to the sky in a few days. And one of those lunatics is most definitely murderous.' He paused, looked at me. 'I don't think that sounds like a very healthy environment for a child. Do you, Mongo?'

'Absolutely not. And I'm sure the lieutenant agrees.'

'This is police business now,' McCloskey said curtly.

'Finding Kenecky's murderer is police business,' I said. 'Finding the girl in order to make certain she's all right is our business. I wouldn't be surprised if we met at the end at the same dirt pile.'

'You're probably right about that,' McCloskey said distantly. He was looking somewhere over my right shoulder; his face was grim, as if he didn't like what he saw there.

'The girl is our client.'

'Your client!'

'Right,' I said, and smiled thinly. 'We're acting in loco parentis for Santa Claus.'

Garth asked, 'Will you let us know if you find out anything more specific about when and where Kenecky was killed?'

McCloskey frowned. 'I don't know if I can do that, Frederickson.'

'I know you can't do it officially, McCloskey. How about unofficially? In return, we'll make sure you hear right away about any relevant information we may dig up.'

'You're legally bound to do that anyway.'

'You're not listening carefully to Garth, Lieutenant,' I said. 'He told you we'd get the information to you, personally. You wouldn't want anyone else-especially the F.B.I.-horning in on your case, would you?'

McCloskey looked at me, smiled grimly. 'You should negotiate for us with the Russians, Frederickson.'

'Is that a compliment, a yes, or a no?'

'It's a maybe. Give me a couple of days.'

'How long will it be before the autopsy is performed?'

'A couple of days.'

'That sounds fair, Lieutenant. Thank you.'

Garth said, 'Do you need us anymore, McCloskey?'

'No.'

'Then we'll be on our way.'

'Hey,' McCloskey said as we started to walk away.

We stopped, turned back. 'What is it, Lieutenant?' I asked.

The surly-looking man with the acne-scarred face jerked his thumb back in the direction of the crucified corpse on the tree behind him. 'I've never seen anything like that, and I don't want to again. I'm thinking that the famous Fredericksons should watch their asses.'

I nodded. 'You too, Lieutenant. Like Garth says, these guys are crazy; if you get in their way, the fact that you're a cop won't mean shit to them. Now they've shown that they'll kill others, as well as themselves, to keep their secret. If you do get a lead on the location of that dirt pile, I'd take a lot of firepower with me.'

'Yeah? What are you two going to use for firepower?'

'Ah,' I said, smiling. 'Garth and I have our stealth and cunning.'

'Merry Christmas, McCloskey,' Garth said.

Malachy McCloskey nodded to both of us. 'Merry Christmas to you.'

We went home. Incredibly, Beloved had not been towed; she was still at the curb where I had parked her, beneath the NO PARKING OR STANDING AT ANY TIME sign. I put her in our underground garage, then went to bed. However, despite the fact that I'd been up all night, I found I was too wired to sleep. It was the same with Garth; he called me on the phone and asked, without any trace of irony, if I was sleeping. We got cleaned up, then went out and ate a desultory Christmas brunch at Rick's.

'Can you think of anything we can do today, brother?' Garth asked as we finished our steak and eggs.

'No-except to have another bloody Mary or two. We need to get some rest.'

'Agreed,' Garth said, and signaled the bartender, raising two fingers.

'I may as well go back to Jersey City tomorrow and try to check out some more shipping companies. I may not find out anything, but it seems like a forced move; we don't really have any choice but to keep plodding on.'

'They're not going to be open on a Saturday which is the day after Christmas.'

'I'll check out the situation anyway. If there are ships coming in, somebody's going to have to unload