When The Tik-Tik Sings E-Book

Doug Lamoreux

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

In a sleepy, historical Iowa town, tourist season is in full swing, and the strangest serial killer the world has ever known is roaming at will.

It begins with a house explosion, a severely burned man, and an unidentified female body. More victims follow, each bearing an identical wound and accompanied by eerie, musical ticking.

When the lead homicide investigator goes missing, Police Sergeant Erin Vanderjagt is forced into the fray and a personal hell she never imagined. As the murders continue, what can Erin do, where can she go, how can she fight the horror... When The Tik-Tik Sings?

Leseprobe

When The Tik-Tik Sings

Doug Lamoreux

Copyright (C) 2015 Doug Lamoreux

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2021 by Next Chapter

Published 2021 by Next Chapter

Cover art by http://www.thecovercollection.com/

Edited by D.S. Williams

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

This book is for Barbara Anderson in case she has nothing to read

Acknowledgments

Thank you, Eduardo Bagtas, for sharing a terrible moment with me so long ago.

Thank you, Gar Lamoreux, for loaning me a spooky notion.

Thank you, Jenny, always.

One

You hold in your hand the record of a nightmare. It began as many nightmares do, in the deceptive tranquility of the dark. It began with an early morning jog.

Since her college days, when she was known on campus as 'that runnin' broad', every day of Erin's life started with a pre-dawn jog, to work the muscles, and get the blood flowing. A workout to ready the body for work with just enough pain to feel alive. She puffed her way up from the lower tier, her fourth and last time around, three miles, climbing back to the famous point of Eagle Point Park. Every morning without fail, summer, autumn, winter (more a slog; the point was never plowed), and spring. Especially spring when the cool forties of night ushered in glorious days in the mid-sixties.

This was a spring morning in late April just before Easter. Tik-tik. Tik-tik.

Erin reached the top of the upper circle, left the poorly-lit drive for the unlit footpath and, in gloom, headed for the bluff peak. Tik-tik. Tik-tik.

She halved the distance and was passing the Julian Duncan Memorial, a twenty-five-foot-high tower crowned with cornices like a medieval castle; burial site of the city's founder.

Tik-tik, Tik-tik, tik, tik, tik…

When the dark thing jumped – out and up, Erin darted left, lost her balance, landed on her backside on the wet grass. Gasping, from the run or the fright she wasn't sure, she brought her hands up in defense. But from what? Whatever it was, a big bird, or a bat – she didn't know – burst from the top of the tower flapping like billowing canvas, with a high-pitched ticking sound, eerily musical like bird song from Hell. Did they have birds in Hell? Erin wondered. It didn't matter; the sound had gone. The dark thing, whatever it was, had gone too and without her getting a look at it. She stared into a sky the poets' (or Churchill, or someone) had said was darker just before the dawn. Dark but empty.

It had been there, hadn't it? Something had leaped out – well, up, at least – from the top of the tower. Maybe a kite, lodged in the stone parapet, had come loose and flapped away? But it hadn't flapped or flitted like an aimless moth. It had launched itself like an owl from the barn rafters, taken to the air with speed and force, with size and the sound of powerful wings, and an awful ticking noise. It frightened her out of a year's growth and Erin wasn't easily frightened. But where was it? She stared, searching the skies overhead, but there was nothing. She laughed nervously, then spoke aloud. “Enough.” Erin forced her thoughts back to the here and now.

She caught her breath, rose to her runners, and dusted her rear. She groaned and pulled a face. Her sweats were soaked and stuck to her tush. It had rained the night before (and would probably rain again that night). But she'd gone for a run, not a sit, and not a soak. The breeze came up, the clammy cold set in, and her sweat turned to a chill.

On a normal morning, she'd have reached the point and would be cooling down, gauging her pulse and respirations. Thanks to darting shadows, there was little point in checking them now. Still, she had her other tradition and even flying phantoms couldn't stop it. She followed the path to the peak, leaned on the retaining fence, and took in the view. For Erin, her breathing evening out, it was the one great moment of the day when the city of Duncan and all the river valley below came awake.

The night sky had begun its change to deep blue with pink, crowning the Mississippi River to the north. Across the river, southwestern Wisconsin remained in country dark and East Duncan, Illinois was aglitter with pinpoints of light. Barges slept in line from the lock and dam below, past the island, the bridge, and the Port District to the south.

A first glance made Duncan look shabby with its rusting barges and dusty industrial plants hugging the river north of the port. But a look beyond, to the glitz of the greyhound race track, the convention center, water park and river museum or, on this side of the port and into the city, to the nineteenth century charm of carriage rides, Bed and Breakfast houses, and the quaint beauty (if not the historical importance) of the river town, showed so much more. Erin turned to the west end of Fourth Street where the cars of the funicular rail elevator rested on steep tracks. The sight would vanish in three weeks when the budding trees shrouded the bluff. She looked east to the town clock at the old city center, two blocks further to the golden dome of the City Hall, and back again to the port. The water was quiet. The steam dredger rested in her moorings, awaiting museum guests. The casino bided its time for tourists as well. Despite dark things, real or imagined, that burst into her life, created chaos, then vanished, all appeared right with the city she'd sworn to protect. There was nowhere else on earth Erin would rather be.

She made her way back to the path and past the tower. Free of leaping shadows, it looked harmless. She entered the upper lot where her cruiser sat alone. Erin Vanderjagt was a cop, a sergeant, and the city's Police Training Officer. Her run was finished and her day about to begin. She had no idea it would be the first day of a week she would remember with fear for the rest of her life.

She pulled from the lot and followed the twisting Memorial Lane along the bluff, into the dense trees and out again where the lane became a 'Y'. Southern Gate Road forked back into the park on her left. It passed under the log cabin, available to rent for family gatherings beside the playground, then the wading pool. Erin eased the squad car to the right, starting down Eagle Point Drive between the tennis courts and the rock-tiered (and currently empty) koi fish ponds, and out of the park. She passed the private residences bordering the bluff and the river above Mississippi Pool 11, then switch backed onto Shiras Avenue looking down into town.

Erin had her mind on a million things. The job, yes, and the day ahead. There were always those and they were important. Law enforcement was her passion but there were other things in life. Her mother, lately feeling ill, had been a nagging monster. Why do you have to be a police officer? Why must you carry a gun? (The cyclical argument.) When will you find a man? When will I be a grandma? (The sickening argument.) Why can't you be like Phyllis' daughter? Her favorite straw man! Then there was Tony, her brother, with business trouble again. Poor Tony, at twenty-three, two years her junior but always the baby of the family. Who didn't have trouble keeping afloat nowadays? But none of it mattered, not her mother, not Tony, not really. What mattered at that moment was… him. Outside of policing there was another passion. So far, to govern stress, a secret passion. He was on her mind again.

But only for a fleeting, bittersweet second. One second later, she saw a black Lexus tearing down Orchard Drive. Erin hit her brakes, controlling a slide on the wet pavement and bringing her squad to a stop, fortunately, as the Lexus crossed into the empty oncoming lane at the Orchard – Shiras merge. The Lexus clipped the 'Stop' sign in front of her and the sign cracked his windshield, cartwheeled over her squad (yes, she ducked), and disappeared into the weeds on the road shoulder. The car, with a maniac driver and a spidered windshield, kept going, careening across the lanes, headed for town.

Erin's day had truly begun. She took a deep breath, flipped a switch lighting the bluff in blue and red, and squashed the accelerator. On the move, she grabbed her radio mic, and using enough 10-codes to give scanner geeks orgasms, told dispatch she'd witnessed a hit and run by a possibly drunk driver. “In pursuit, south on Shiras; a black Lexus missing its rear license plate.”

Her quarry was all over the road past the front entrance to the park. From there it was a race and the Lexus had a lead. Shiras had only two bends the whole way to Ham House at the edge of downtown. At that speed, they were there in no time and, of course, the runaway driver blew the light. He shot across Lincoln without slowing and crossed Rhomberg as if neither existed. Then, to Erin's disbelieving eyes and ears, he laid a patch of rubber with a cringe-inducing screech. The luxury car fishtailed, somehow avoided flipping, and when the driver regained control (with a turn signal, no less), eased onto Garfield Street.

Erin hit her brakes, without his slide, and turned after him. Amazingly the car sat parked at the right-hand curb, the lone occupant quietly waiting behind the wheel. She pulled up behind, told dispatch the vehicle was stopped, and studied the situation. It had gone from a high-speed chase to a peaceful traffic stop in seconds; it was too odd. Without a plate, no progress would be made until she discovered the operator's main malfunction, checked his registration, insurance, and for wants and warrants. Then she'd see. Without taking her eyes off the driver, Erin lifted the mic to tell dispatch she'd be out of her vehicle.

Of course, that would have been too easy. The driver's door was opened.

Erin swore. She flipped the squad's Public Address on and said, “Stay in your vehicle.” Ignoring her, the driver stuck out a leg. Erin was out of the car quickly, hand to her hip, only to realize she was still in sweats and not wearing her service belt. Her gun, her uniform, and probably her brain was in the trunk. “Sir,” she shouted, “Stay in the vehicle.”

It took a moment but the leg was retracted and the door closed. Erin breathed a sigh of relief, and would have thanked a lucky star but the sky-full had vanished with the rising sun. Her luck vanished too. The driver, who for a moment seemed co-operative, lowered his window, poked out a bad toupee and, unable to turn a full 180 degrees, demanded of the sky, “Who the hell do you think y'are?”

Great. Erin wasn't on the clock, wasn't in uniform, hadn't even had coffee. But she had her first loudmouth of the day, giving the world a hard time. She slipped her flak jacket on. She doubted she'd need it, but the vest would identify her as an officer once she stepped away from her car.

It was forbidden, and darned stupid, to approach a vehicle without your side-arm. But Erin wasn't about to embarrass herself by digging it out of the trunk and strapping it over her jogging outfit. She already looked the fool. Luckily, this guy had proven himself the bigger fool by far. She approached the Lexus down the blind alley behind his left shoulder, hearing him mumble abuse as she neared. She reached his window and interrupted his tirade to ask for documents. He demanded she repeat herself. But Erin wasn't listening anymore. Her attention had been diverted. Tik-tik. Tik-tik.

Though farther away, it was the same sound she'd heard on her jog. Erin was certain. She listened, and though she had no idea what it was, knew what it wasn't. It wasn't wood or metal scraping. It was not mechanical. It was a natural sound; unnaturally natural, if that made any sense. It was a song from some living creature, eerie as cricket song or the call of a Mourning Dove. It came from nothingness, a chilling Tik-tik. Tik-tik. Tik. Tik. Tik…

Then Erin heard the unmistakable shatter of glass and afterwards, from somewhere nearby, an all-too-familiar sound in her line of work… somebody screamed in terror.

Whether the screamer was male or female, Erin couldn't tell. She shushed the drunk, but by the time he quieted, found the scream had stopped. She studied the houses in gloom, looking for movement or light, listening for anything. A chill ran up her back. The driver mumbled something. Erin shushed him again and grabbed the keys from his ignition.

“Hey! Give those back! This is 'merica, sugar tits. You can't—”

“Shut up!”

Silence. Then, from the right, came another scream. The drunk froze. Standing over him Erin saw the hairs rise on the back of his neck. She was paralyzed too, but from frustration, not fear. Erin wanted to get her gun. She wanted to run to the screams. She was trying to pick which one to act on first, when a two-story house, yellow with black trim, three houses down on the right, suddenly exploded.

Two

In the wake of the explosion came fire and a chaos alien to the residential area of the laid-back tourist town. The source house, the fourth of seven on the right side of the street, was gone; just gone. Those parts of the walls, ceilings, floors, furnishings and contents not obliterated by the concussion had taken to the sky in flaming shards and were already dropping back as scorched hail, or drifting back as blackened confetti. What was left collapsed into the basement which burned like the sixth circle of Hell. An exception was the front door frame. The door was gone but the frame still stood over the three-step stoop, over the flaming pit, like a grave marker. The front third of the roof had blown off in one chunk. It cleared the sidewalk, Erin, the drunk, and his Lexus and landed in the street in one burning piece. Having dropped to the pavement and covered her head, Erin did not see it land. But she heard it, tons of burning wood, ripped shingle, torn flashing, landing ten feet away with a crack and crunch that rattled her teeth. Hot embers pelted her and the Lexus like shrapnel. Finally, the hot rain stopped and Erin's world was deathly quiet.

“Sugar tits, what the fuck was that?”

The Fire Department was there in no time, attempting to deal with the catastrophe. 'Attempting' because, despite their best efforts, the man-power from the city's four stations wasn't enough to do the job. The roof burning in the street, the yards peppered with fiery shrapnel, were merely their first discoveries. In minutes, they found that thanks to radiated heat, the houses on either side of the pit were ablaze, along with a four-stall garage facing the street behind. If that wasn't enough, the explosion, or the fires, or perhaps the flying roof had cut a neutral line in front of the blast house. This electrical short crossed the street and set two residences there on fire. That threatened an auto body shop on the corner. It was a beautiful start to everyone's day. 'A' Shift wasted no time calling the chief. The chief wasted no time calling the troops; every firefighter in the city.

Among these was the Station 2, 'B' Shift gang, firefighters, paramedics, friends, and department rejects all. Stationed together in the low-rent district because each was considered a trouble-maker, they arrived as a gang, in their personal vehicles, loaded down with gear. Benjamin Court and Nestor Pena led the way with Ben riding shotgun in the New Mexican's SUV. Josh Tucker and Dewey Arbuckle, massive truckies, weightlifters and beer lifters both, were behind in Tuck's van, with their little sister, rookie paramedic Kristina Pierce. All found their progress arrested by, considering the hour, an impressive crowd of rubber-neckers at the Garfield – Shiras intersection. It was as close as they were going to get. They piled out wearing helmets, bunker pants and boots, carrying coats and gear, and hoofed it through the cars and crowd to the scene a half block north.

Erin's squad, now crossways on the street, kept the crowd back. But Erin, Ben noted, was nowhere around. Five-inch hydrant lines from both ends of the block fed two engines, going opposite directions, fighting a ridiculous number of fires. Part of a roof lay smoldering in the street. One house was a door and a burning basement. The gang saw immediately they were joining a cluster.

Then came Erin, wearing a flak jacket and a stylish jogging ensemble, running down Garfield toward them. A Fire Department ambulance, Station 1's 1-Boy-16, followed her with lights flashing, apparently with a patient on board, headed out.

“Who they got?” Tuck shouted. “A taxpayer? Or one of those dumb asses from 'A' shift?”

“Citizen.” Erin backed up her squad to clear the way for the ambulance. She leaned out the open window. “He was inside the house when it went.”

“Balls!”

“Both balls,” Nestor agreed.

“And a big cock,” Pierce added. Ben smirked, looking from Pierce to Erin, and shook his head. The gang broke up laughing. Not at a burned man, but at the pain life dished out and at the way their rookie had quickly learned to deal with it; the way they all dealt with it every day. 1-Boy-16 sounded its siren and eased through the crowd. Erin pulled her squad forward, closing the street back off.

It was then the 'B' Shift gang noticed the dark Lexus at the curb. A man inside, handcuffed to the steering wheel, gave Nestor a new reason to laugh. “Should we ask?”

Erin shook her head. “Just another day at the office.”

The gang moved past Engine 4, with three lines pulled, two from the bed, one from a side mount, charged, and snaking to three separate structures. “What a fucking circus!” Tuck said.

It was that, Ben thought, taking it in. A circus with five rings. Only the Calliope music was missing.

Without an air pack, face-piece dangling from his neck, Ben moved through an open overhead door into the burning garage, eating heat and dragging a charged 2½ line on his shoulder. The fire was floor to rafters in the back wall. He opened the playpipe nozzle and unloaded seventy-five gallons a minute across the base of the flames. Wet on red, that was the name of the game. Everything was pie until he saw movement on the right. Three hunched Duncan Rural firefighters had entered the opposite end of the garage through a walk-in door. Blue lighters! It wasn't that pro firefighters had anything against volunteers; they were well trained, energetic guys. But they faced the monster for love instead of money. How screwed up was that?

The band of men, three in a conga line, wore full air packs and gear but gave themselves away in black turnout with white reflective tape, as opposed to the yellow and orange of Duncan city. That and the sad fact that between them, they carried one red 1¼ grass hose that made them look like the Three Stooges taking a garter snake for a walk. And they were messing with his fire.

In the movies, this would have been the instant when an angel appeared on Ben's right shoulder to say, Don't do it, followed by a devil on his left sneering, Go ahead, let 'em have it. But this was real life, where firefighters and incorrigible rogues made split-second decisions. Before his conscience stopped him, Ben pivoted the nozzle blasting the fire, heat, and smoke across the garage and at the volunteers. The trio had no choice but to retreat.

Ben heard a guffaw and turned to see Nestor, portable radio in hand, leaning on the overhead frame laughing his keister off. “Nice,” Nester said. “Now… if you're done harassing the whistle pricks?”

“Maybe.” Ben shut down his line and lowered the nozzle. Gray smoke swirled around him. “Why?”

Nestor waved his radio and pointed at Ben's. “You forgot to turn yours on.”

“Yeah. Let's go with that. I forgot.”

Nestor smiled impishly. “Ethridge is politely requesting our presence.”

The day when 'A' Shift's commanding officer, Captain Booker Ethridge, politely requested anything would be one chilly day in Hell. Both knew it. Even if it had been true, it wasn't by the time the pair arrived at the Incident Command Center. Ethridge was a good guy, but tactless. The grizzled captain, talking to Art Blackmore, his engine driver, when Ben and Nestor walked up, growled, “Grab 1-Boy-18 and get over to the 800 block of High Street. 1-Boy-16 has been in an accident.”

Nestor moaned. “This is the best fire I've had in years.”

“Sorry to ruin your good time, Pena.”

“Can't you send a couple of rookies?”

“I can,” Ethridge barked. “But I'm not going to.”

“How bad is it?” Ben asked.

Blackmore butted in. “We're not there, Court, are we? What do we look like? Swamis?”

Ben smiled. Blackmore was an ass – which was his problem – but he was also their Union president, which was theirs. Blackmore liked himself a lot. Neither Ben nor Nestor shared his opinion. The result was rancor and a perpetual verbal shoving match. “The man I was addressing looks like a captain,” Ben told him. “You, Art, look like what you always look like, a penis with ears.”

“Enough,” Ethridge barked. Five fires and he had to play referee? Goddam firefighters and their nonsense; like psychotic kids. “Can we get back to work? I don't know how bad, Ben. They were hit by another vehicle. They're out of service and their burn patient needs to get to the hospital. When you get there, you'll know. Then you can tell me.”

Ben lost the coin toss on the way to the rig. Nestor got to drive and he was stuck with patient care. There were a hundred places on earth Ben would rather have been.

Being hit by a taxpayer while operating an emergency vehicle was worse than traumatic, it was embarrassing. And a screw up a city employee couldn't live down. It was a shame because it was rarely the firefighter's fault. Nine times out of ten, the blame lay with the citizen. Despite blazing red, bright white, or electric green paint, despite sirens and pulsing phasers, despite reflective tape and the yellow, red, white, and blue flashing lights from stem to stern, one day a citizen was going to slam into your fire engine, truck, or ambulance and claim they 'Didn't see you' and 'Didn't hear you'. That was the situation 'A' Shift paramedics Bennehoff and Cooper were in when Ben and Nestor rolled up. A Caddy had blown a red light and broadsided 1-Boy-16 in an intersection.

“Take Roger Ramjet, will you?” Ben asked Nestor. “I'll check the patient and crew.”

Nestor eased past a cop directing traffic and parked 1-Boy-18. Ben tossed their jump kit into his vacated seat, for Nestor, then headed for the wrecked ambulance. Nestor started for the Cadillac.

It took the New Mexican a minute to track down the driver, who was out of his steaming vehicle roaming, and several more to get him to stand still. He denied injury and angrily refused to be touched. As he had no acute distress, Nestor called another ambulance, from one of the volunteer Mutual Aid groups, to let them argue with the guy.

1-Boy-16's patient compartment had been stoved in. The same could be said of the pride of the ambulance driver, Shug Bennehoff. Ben found him unhurt but genuinely pissed. “The chief's head is going to explode.”

Unable to disagree, Ben offered the only salve available. “It'll be an improvement.”

Sandy Cooper, the paramedic treating the patient when the accident occurred, was sporting what looked to be a broken arm. Ben could barely hear her moans because the burn patient on the cot was screaming his head off. “Has he been like this since the accident?”

Cooper shook her head. “Before. Been screaming since we left the fire. I don't blame him.”

“Me neither. What's his name?”

“No idea,” Cooper said, wincing as she held her arm.

Ben and Nestor transferred their empty cot to 1-Boy-16 and moved the patient, and Cooper, into their ambulance. Bennehoff, opting to remain with his crippled rig, refused to join them. They took off for the hospital.

In the back, Cooper treated herself, tying her arm in a sling while Ben busied himself over the burn patient. Sadly, there was little he could do. Cooper, estimating second and third-degree burns over eighty percent of his body, had established an IV and oxygen at the scene before they'd run. All that remained was to keep the wounds clean and the patient cool without sending him into hypothermic shock. To that end, Ben covered him with a sterile sheet and poured saline on the burns. The patient screamed non-stop. But no doctor, Ben knew, would authorize painkillers in the field for burns that severe. There was no point asking. The patient continued to scream while Ben radioed an 'inbound' report to the hospital. Ears ringing, he cradled the mic, silently wishing Nestor would get them there.

Up front, Nestor was in paramedic heaven. Legal speeding, carefully weaving through the maze of downtown one-way streets, without the stress of patient care. He alternated their emergency tones with a switch in the steering wheel. An ear-splitting 'siren' for the straight-a-ways, a flick to 'wail' for the intersections, and the god-awful 'phaser' reserved for assholes who ignored the others. He gave some phaser to a soccer mom making love to her cell phone. “Curb right for sirens and lights!”

Northeast Iowa wasn't New York but it wasn't a desert island either. There were plenty of folks in need of medical attention, and in Duncan, they got it at the 300 bed Duncan Memorial Hospital on the edge of the Port District. It had an ER, an Intensive Care Unit, a Psychiatric Unit, and its own Burn Unit; music to the paramedics' ears. In Ben's case, make that the paramedic's numb ears. The patient was still screaming. The intensity of his shouts had lessened since Ben had applied the saline, and what seemed to be a word or two were finding their way out between the shouts. But, if they were words, they were foreign and meant only more noise to Ben. “Any idea what language he's speaking?”

“Nope,” Cooper answered with a frown. “Don't know that either.”

Though his burned rags had been cut away, the patient still wore a set of dog tags. Ben examined those, found them as foreign as the patient, and returned them having learned nothing. In a way, it made things easier. His inability to decipher the man's cries isolated Ben from the pain. Thankfully he would soon be handing the problem off.

Nestor took the curving drive to the Emergency Room and backed into a stall. Ben abandoned ship and helped Cooper down. He released the cot and he and Nestor rolled it out. They dropped the wheels to the carport pavement and pushed through the sliding doors as the patient perfectly summed up the trip by screaming at the top of his lungs.

Three

Scrub suits and lab coats came out of the woodwork as the paramedics rolled their cot into the exam room. The patient screamed on, pain peppered with, apparently, his three or four favorite words in a language nobody spoke. And he'd added a new trick, struggling to get off the cot. “Aswan,” he cried, or something like it. Then a scream. “Mennon! Gal!” Then another scream. And then, God knew why – Ben certainly didn't – the patient shouted, “Tick. Tick!” as if he were a clock. It wasn't funny; the guy was hurting. Still it was hard not to laugh as he started over. He had the attention of all assembled; pharmacy tech, lab tech, respiratory therapist, two nurses, and the ER unit clerk. “Aswan!”

“Whoa!” one of the techs said, covering her ears.

Ben caught the O2 bottle trying to jump the cot rail. “You should have been in the rig.”

“Mennon! Gal! Tick tick! Tick tick!”

The charge nurse shushed the patient, with little result, and rolled the bed sheet in her hands. “One. Two. Three.” The patient was lifted to the bed. The hospital staff moved up. The doctor entered, looking grim.

“Sorry, Doc,” Ben said, “I treated the burns, but failed in rendering psychological aid.”

The doctor slipped between an x-ray and a lab tech, took one look, and told a nurse, “Start another Ringers, wide bore. What's his name?”

“No idea,” Ben said. The patient screamed again. “That's been his whole conversation.”

“Any notion what he's saying? What language it is?”

Ben shook his head and looked at his partner.

Nestor shrugged. “Some of it's sort of familiar, but it's mostly gibberish. Don't think it's either language I speak. Not sure – I got a C in Spanish.”

“He's wearing dog tags,” Ben said. “But I'm not certain what army they're from.”

“If they're from an army,” Nestor put in. “Lot of people wear those as decorations.”

Snapping on a glove, the charge nurse lifted the tags. “The surname is… impossible to pronounce. The first name looks like Soomnalung.” She let it roll off her tongue. “Soom-na-lung? Asian? Korean? Filipino? Do we have an Asian translator?”

Nestor snorted. “There's no such thing as an Asian language. Asia is fifty different countries.”

Ben stared in amazement.

“What?” Nestor asked defensively. “I can know things.” Stray laughs were cut off when the patient screamed again. Nestor pointed. “That one word he keeps shouting, Aswan or whatever, that's familiar for some reason. My wife is from Manila.” He stole a look at the tags over the nurse's shoulder. “Yeah,” he said. “The letters look Filipino.”

“Can you read it?”

Nestor shook his head. “Recognize it; seen their money. They speak over a hundred languages on the islands. Mostly Tagalog. And English. And something my wife calls Taglish.” The New Mexican smiled. “It's all Greek to me.”

The nurse frowned, giving up on Nestor, and turned to the doctor. “Should we see if there's a Philippine translator in the hospital?”

“No. Let's worry about keeping him alive first.” The doctor eased the buds of his stethoscope into his ears. “Make soothing noises to him now. We'll talk to him when and if we get him stabilized.”

Ben and Nestor filled out paperwork in the conference room while their patient screamed in his room across the hall. It remained the same, agonized squawks, repeated gibberish, and the tick, tick of a spastic clock. Finally, with an infusion of morphine, it had gone from toe-curling to just annoying. Still, the paramedics were ready for someone to change the record.

Cooper wandered in, her iced arm supported by a nifty new sling, and took a chair.

“Broken?” Ben asked.

“No break, thankfully.” Her relaxed smile suggested the burned man wasn't the only patient with a pain killer on board. “How's our Garfield guy?”

“His name's Soomnalung. He's just like you found him,” Ben said. “Well done and screaming.”

“He wasn't.”

“Wasn't what?”

“He wasn't screaming when we found him. He wasn't doing anything.” Cooper adjusted her arm. “He crawled out of that basement like something slithering up out of Hell, then he just sat down on the stoop. That's how we found him. House exploded, basement burning, and him quietly sitting there like he was waiting for the mail. He didn't start screaming until we loaded him up.”

“Must have been the shock,” Ben said. “Before his mind got the message he'd burned his ass off.”

Across the hall, Soomnalung shrieked again. “He's making up for lost time.”

“Well, I've had enough,” Nestor said. He turned to Ben. “Ready to get out of here?” Then to Cooper. “We're going to see if they left any fire for us. Want a ride?”

Cooper eased back into the plush chair. “I'm going to sit here and enjoy the meds for a while.”

On the way to the exit, cot piled with replacement equipment, Ben felt a tug on the gurney. The New Mexican had stopped and was staring into the waiting room at a middle-aged man, checking the coin returns of the vending machines. Nestor whispered, “It's Rickie.”

Before Ben Court or Nestor Pena were thought of, Richard Savage III had been a Duncan mainstay. Called 'Rickie' by the locals, even transplanted locals like Ben and Nestor, he was as recognizable as any tourist attraction in town. Every day, without fail, Rickie could be seen riding his bike, delivering newspapers, collecting bottles, and checking the coin returns of every pay phone, soda box and candy machine from one end of town to the other. For thirty years he was the 'slow' guy or the 'retarded' man. Then the city's mental health professionals cheered themselves by labeling him, first, 'emotionally and educationally challenged', then, 'developmentally disabled'. Rickie didn't know the difference and couldn't have cared less. None of the titles changed his life a bit. He was sixty-ish; with the mind of a twelve-year-old. His ever-present crew cut had gone gray. His stomach had grown round. But after half a century of riding the Mississippi bluffs, Ben guessed, the guy probably had the legs of a Greek god.

“Rickie,” Nestor repeated, this time to Rick Savage himself. “How you doing?”

Ben sighed. “Don't pick on him.”

“Who's picking? Did you ever talk to this guy?”

Only once, Ben thought, remembering the incident too vividly. He'd talked to him as a patient and the child-like Rickie was deathly afraid of ambulances. It had been no treat.

Nestor was going on. “He's smart as hell. If he played his cards right he could be the next fire chief. Hey, Rickie!”

Stooped and about his work, Rickie answered without looking up. “Hi.”

“Find anything?”

Rickie stood, empty-handed, but not disappointed. He picked up a cold can from the table beside him. “Got a pop. Want to buy it?”

“Nah. You keep it. Hey, Rickie, there's a big fire across town.”

“Six fires,” Rickie said, correcting him. “Five houses, one garage.”

“Oh, you know about it?”

“Yes.”

“Aren't you going to go watch?”

“Did. Can't get near.”

“Those mean firemen keeping you away?”

“No. Police.”

“Yeah. You gotta watch those cops, Rickie.”

Rickie tilted his head and stared. Apparently there were a few paramedics he thought needed watching as well. He gave up on Nestor and lifted the can toward Ben. “Want to buy it?”

“How much?”

“Dollar.”

“I can get it for a dollar from the machine.” Rickie just smiled. “No, you keep it. You found it.”

Outside, Rickie tucked his soda into a heaped plastic bag in the front basket on his bike, climbed aboard, and pedaled happily away. Ben and Nestor, reloading 1-Boy-18, watched the old guy go.

“Tough life, huh?” Nestor asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Being challenged like that.”

“Don't you have any challenges? From my little experience, life seems pretty tough for everybody.”

“Yeah, but how would you like to survive by checking pop machines for change?”

“I wouldn't. But maybe it works for him.”

“Nobody would choose that life.”

“Nestor, you're a snob. You've got everything in life; a beautiful wife, a child on the way, an incredible house, a decent job that lets you sit on your ass all day. So you pity Rickie. Why? Because he wasn't lucky enough to be born you? Then you give yourself points for compassion. And none of it helps Rickie a bit. Outside of the fact he hates ambulance rides, I don't know a thing about him. Could be you're right. Could be Rickie's miserable and I should be ashamed; or maybe he's happy. Maybe he gets laid three times a week. Maybe he's rich as Caesar. For all I know, he fingers pop machines because he's kinky. Maybe he's trying to do the best he can with what life's handed him, like the rest of us who weren't lucky enough to be born you. All I know is… I don't know.”

Nestor eased the ambulance through a larger crowd on their return to Garfield Street. Judging by the remote vans, lights, and notepads in evidence, most of the increase came from the media. Ben spotted Mark Forester, whose picture and by-line he'd seen in many an edition of the Eagle Dispatch, Duncan's paper of record. At Forester's elbow was his rival in news gathering, Jamie Watts, a reporter for the local television station, WKLD. Each looked exactly as you'd expect; Forester with uncombed hair in an unkempt suit, Watts conservative, but camera-hot. There were others, plenty, Ben knew by sight if not by name, all eager for a taste of blood.

Erin's squad remained in place but another officer, a recent Police Training graduate named Parker Traer, manned the post. Now a full-fledged flat-foot, rumor had it Traer might make a good cop, if he didn't take house explosions as welcome parties and let it go to his head. Erin was nowhere to be seen.

Never one to let dogs lay, Nestor (unwisely, Ben thought) asked, “Where's the prisoner?”

Traer didn't seem to understand. That was all right, Nestor frequently had diarrhea of the mouth. Unfortunately, Forester overheard. As reporters care about everything until they ask enough questions to discover they don't, he shouted to Ben, “What does that mean? Hey, what's your partner talking about? What prisoner?”

“No idea,” Ben said with a shrug. “Must be an inside joke.” He hurried Nestor away from the reporter, the crowd, and the cop, whispering under his breath, “One of these days you're going to get your tit in a wringer. Yours or someone else's.”

The charged lines had been pulled from the houses on the far side of the street. Ben's garage was extinguished. Activities around ground zero were reduced to hanging smoke ejectors and chasing hot spots. At the Incident Command Center, Fire Chief Anthony Castronovo, his white helmet shining like a coin in a beggar's cup, led a huddle of department bugles thinking great thoughts. Near Quint 2 some kind soul had laid out coffee and donuts. Several firefighters were there, refilling their personal tanks.

“Want a donut?” Nestor asked. “Or should we report our return?”

Ben didn't feel like a donut. Neither did he feel like visiting the bugles. “I'm going to take a look at 'A' Shift's basement. Do me a favor and report for us; Castronovo hates my guts.”

“Take things too personally. He hates everybody's guts.” Nestor laughed. “If he doesn't saddle me with a crap duty, meet up with you in a few minutes.”

Nestor went while Ben turned slowly in a circle. The few still at it were overhauling, without shifting evidence more than necessary. Ben headed for the pit of debris that earlier had been a basement. He studied what he saw, and as his fire scene 'sixth sense' kicked in, he got a feeling.

Making an effort to avoid attention, Ben lifted a scuttle hole ladder from the nearest engine, dropped it to his side, and strolled toward a rear corner of the pit. He wore his bunkers, with gloves in one of the thigh pockets, but otherwise only his uniform shirt. His coat and helmet were in the ambulance. Going near a fire without gear was against every rule and not very smart. But donning turnout, while everyone else was standing down, would make the reporters and bugles howl questions. He didn't have answers, just a feeling from an item he'd spotted below and wanted a closer look at. Phfffttt to the rules. As nonchalantly as he was able, Ben snapped the ladder open, lowered it into the basement, and started down. He'd barely reached the scorched floor when—

“See something?”

“Geez! Don't do that!” Nestor stared down at him, laughing. “I think so. I wanted a better look.”

“Here. Before you catch hell.” Nestor tossed his coat down. He followed it with his helmet and truck belt, then moved for a better look and to block the view of officers and press behind him. “Don't do anything stupid down there. My name's on the coat; they'll think you're me.”

“If they think I'm you, they'll expect me to do something stupid.” Ben carefully moved through the steaming, smoking mess scanning the mounds and spaces for the object. He found it and pointed.

“Is that plastic?”

“Looks like.” Ben moved a toppled ceiling joist from its resting place. He grabbed a bright red melted hunk on the floor, struggled to get it up, and pulled it free. “A gas can.”

“Okay. Not a good idea to store gas beside the water heater. But a lot of folks probably do.”

Ben directed his partner's attention to another red melted blob. “Another.” He pointed again. “And another.” He shoved the remains of a wooden box aside. “There's another one.”

Nestor whistled. “I'm convinced. Obsessive lawn mower or not, that's a lot of gas.”

Ben reached the least damaged corner of the cellar, protected by another collapse, grabbed a handful of fallen floor, and pulled. The wreckage fell exposing shelving and a waist-high metal cabinet. The cabinet door bulged at the top. Using Nestor's spanner, he pried it open, then pushed the helmet back on his head, staring in wonder. Inside were four gray metal boxes with GRENADES stenciled in black on their sides. “Get a load of this,” Ben called up, backing off. “Hand grenades.”

Every firefighter Ben had ever met was a pyromaniac who thought explosive ordinance great fun under the right conditions. Unexploded munitions discovered at a fire scene, on the other hand, meant get away. It also meant keep it quiet, as the reporters would love it.

“Pena! What's going on?”

The bellow was unmistakable, Tony Castronovo on the stomp. Before Nestor could answer, the chief was beside him and glowering at Ben in the basement. “Well? What are you clowns doing?”

“I'm watching Ben discover evidence of arson,” Nestor said.

“I'm discovering evidence of arson,” Ben added. He pointed. “There. There. There. And there.”

“Gas cans,” Nestor explained. “As far as the eye can see. And that ain't all.”

“Yeah?” Castronovo demanded. “What else?”

Still backing away, Ben tripped and fell over more tented debris. He rolled to his hands and knees facing the steaming pile on the floor. “You all right?” Nestor shouted.

“Yeah,” Ben replied, staring into the debris.

“Well?” the chief shouted. “What else did you find?”

Though they'd been a top priority a moment before, the boxed grenades were no longer on Ben's mind. Instead, he pointed into the steam and smoke beneath him to a thin object protruding from the rubble. Nestor and Castronovo, following his gaze, saw it too. One of them, Ben wasn't sure which, swore. He agreed. The object was a burned and blackened human foot.