Icepick Read online

  His voice wasn’t edged with any kind of irony; he really did sound impressed. But I knew better. He was trying to point out to me what I already knew. The Fry’s Bay Police Department wasn’t capable of tying its own shoe in twenty-four hours, let alone conducting an investigation of that ilk in such an abbreviated timeframe.

  ‘How did you find out the identity of the victim?’ I asked, trying to match John Horse’s disingenuous tone.

  ‘From his driver’s license,’ Watkins said, a little tauntingly, like it should have been obvious to us. ‘And his American Express card.’

  Except that Sammy ‘Icepick’ Franks always removed ID from his victims. Always. Part of his professionalism. So, either the cops were lying, or Icepick had deliberately left Pan Pan’s wallet on the body.

  One way to find out.

  ‘You don’t have his driver’s license,’ I snapped, dialing up the irritable quotient.

  Watkins squinted, popped open the file, and held up a Xeroxed page of Pan Pan’s ID.

  Which meant Icepick had deliberately left it on the body. Which gave me a stupid ray of hope.

  ‘Any other tests or anything to identify the body?’ I asked.

  ‘What for?’ Watkins growled. ‘We got his driver’s license!’

  But I knew cops in Fry’s Bay. Hence my ray of hope. Dead black guy plus bad Motor Vehicle Department photo – swear to God, the stiff could have been almost anybody. Any black face equaled any other black face.

  ‘Can I see the body?’ I asked.

  ‘No!’ Watkins had decided to match my tone of irritability. ‘Only next of kin.’

  ‘He was a friend of mine!’ I said. ‘I’d like to say goodbye.’

  ‘Say goodbye at the funeral,’ he sneered, closing the file. ‘And if I were you, I’d get out of here before Brady comes in.’

  ‘Fine!’ I said. ‘But I’m still looking into the thing about the kids’ mother.’

  ‘Foggy …’ he began.

  ‘It’s my job, Watkins,’ I said, turning away from him. ‘That’s what they pay me for: protecting the child, and every child needs a mother. So.’

  I made a concerted effort to storm out. John Horse followed.

  When we were out on the street he said, ‘That went well.’

  I smiled. ‘I thought so.’

  The abandoned bakery smelled like rust and dead birds. I called out for Sharp, but she wasn’t there. John Horse took three steps into the building and began to shake his head.

  ‘Something terrible happened here,’ he muttered.

  I said, ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Can’t you feel it?’

  I looked around. ‘I feel cold.’

  ‘It’s …’ he began, and them something caught his eye. ‘Look.’

  He pointed to something in a far corner. Looked like a couple of bird corpses. He headed in that direction; got there before I did.

  There were feathers and bones and blood – desiccated guts of some sort.

  ‘Bad.’ John Horse stared.

  I looked around. All over the floor there were bird feces. The pigeons or whatever they were had made a home in the rafters of the joint for years.

  ‘A couple of birds died in the corner?’ I asked him.

  ‘Look closer, Foggy.’

  I did. ‘All right,’ I said after a second. ‘Some cat or small animal caught a couple of birds and ate them.’

  He sighed. ‘Look at the way the feathers are arranged.’

  I tilted my head and tried to see what he saw. After a moment, I thought I understood, even though I didn’t like it.

  ‘That’s not what I think it is,’ I began.

  He nodded. ‘Someone ate the birds raw. And then that person tied together the feathers and bones in that exact pattern.’

  ‘What is it?’ I stared down at the thing.

  ‘I believe someone was trying to imitate Stikini.’

  ‘I don’t know what that is,’ I confessed.

  ‘Evil owl beings. By day they look like Seminole people, but at night they vomit up their souls and their internal organs. They do that so that they can eat human hearts. All you have to do is speak their name and you might turn into one. So, don’t say their name out loud. I can do it because I know how to ward them off. But you – just in case, don’t say it, all right?’

  ‘Right,’ I confirmed. ‘What the hell is going on with this?’

  I touched it with the tip of my Florsheim shoe.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he answered, staring at it.

  ‘I mean, these aren’t owl bones or feathers,’ I said. ‘Even I know that.’

  ‘No, but doesn’t the desperation of eating a raw bird say something?’

  ‘It says, “don’t talk about it very much more or I’ll lose my breakfast.”’

  He nodded. ‘At least.’

  ‘The thing is,’ I began, looking around at the whole innards of the bakery, ‘the kids’ mother, and the other Seminole women, ended up here in a container. It was probably put on a truck and shipped out. We think their mother is a victim of human trafficking.’

  He closed his eyes. ‘I was afraid of that. And it makes this Stikini double trouble. One of two things. One of the women who’s been kidnapped has become an owl demon; or the creatures who kidnapped them were owl demons.’

  ‘Or,’ I said, squinting, ‘it could mean that the person who was so hungry she ate a raw bird was trying to tell us that these people who took her were wrong all the way to the ground.’

  He looked at me. ‘You mean she might have just been trying to convey the extreme nature of the kidnappers.’

  ‘Or raw pigeon gave her some kind of god-awful food poisoning and she, like, hallucinated or something.’

  ‘All good possibilities,’ he said. ‘But they all mean that the women are being mistreated on top of being taken against their will.’

  ‘Starved, held here or somewhere else for days before being shipped out.’

  ‘What could be worse?’ He swallowed.

  ‘I’ll tell you what’s worse,’ I said. ‘I think the cops are involved.’

  ‘In the kidnapping?’

  ‘Watkins and Brady gave me the runaround,’ I told him. ‘They also lied to me.’

  ‘Officer Brady has been a problem for us for a while.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I hedged, ‘that’s just it: I actually think Watkins might be a bigger rat.’

  ‘Really?’ John Horse was quite surprised. ‘He’s always so courteous.’

  ‘One may smile and smile and be a villain,’ I told him.

  ‘Hamlet,’ he said right back. ‘Act one, scene five.’

  ‘Really?’ I shook my head. ‘I only ever heard Red Levine say it.’

  ‘Your mentor. He was well-read, then.’

  I nodded. ‘I guess.’

  He turned my way. ‘You’re wondering where Sharp is. You’re worried about her.’

  I nodded. ‘She’s an odd kid.’

  ‘She can take care of herself, Foggy.’

  I shook my head. ‘If she can take care of herself, why did you send her to me? When she comes to me, I’m supposed to take care of her. That’s the job.’

  ‘I already told you: I thought if you met her, you’d want to help her find her mother before you tried to find out who killed your friend. It was completely selfish on my part.’

  ‘And that’s another thing,’ I said. ‘How did you know that Pan Pan was dead?’

  ‘I told you that, too, didn’t I?’ he asked. ‘I had a dream.’

  Just as I was about to object to that statement, we heard a noise upstairs.

  The open part of the bakery on the ground floor was all industrial ovens and shadows. The best light in the place came from high windows close to the ceiling. And up a rickety set of iron stairs were the offices, about a tenth of the footprint of the downstairs. That’s where the noise had come from.

  I headed right for the stairs. I thought that Brady was probably up there, maybe with other
people, like before. John Horse caught up with me and touched my arm; shook his head.

  ‘Who’s there?’ he called out in a voice that sounded like a sick, scared old man. Which John Horse was not, but it was a pretty good trick.

  No response.

  ‘Come down here,’ he called out again.

  Nothing.

  ‘I’m going up,’ I told him and took the first step before he could stop me.

  ‘Foggy,’ he began.

  But I was already bounding up the stairs. I wanted to confront Brady, ask him a few questions. Maybe punch him a few times, to make myself feel a little better.

  Top of the stairs, still no sound from anything or anyone. I peered into the offices, all glass fronted, all in spectacular disarray.

  I moved toward one of the three doors, and heard the noise again. I twisted my head around the doorway in the direction of the sound.

  Crumpled on the floor next to one of the steel desks was a nearly lifeless body. It took me a second to realize who it was. The big knife in her little hand was the clue.

  TEN

  For various reasons, I was known at the Fry’s Bay Hospital. Maggie Redhawk was the head nurse, and a friend of mine. She tried for the third time to explain the difference between the words unconscious and coma.

  ‘A coma is like the worst kind of unconsciousness,’ she said. ‘But it’s on the same spectrum, see? Being unconscious is like a deep sleep. Being in a coma is more like dead, except for biological functions. Did the kid have anything to drink or is she on any kind of drugs?’

  That last question was directed at John Horse. It was an offensive question, but Maggie was right to ask. Young Seminole people around Fry’s Bay were very interested in cheap wine and good weed.

  But John Horse shook his head. ‘This is Topalargee.’

  Maggie’s face changed. ‘Oh.’

  I’d never seen Maggie silenced by anything, but the mention of the kid’s name stopped her in her tracks. She just stared.

  After a moment, John Horse continued. ‘Who’s the best doctor in this place?’

  ‘Whit–Whitlock,’ she stammered. ‘Right.’

  And she was gone.

  ‘The kid’s got a rep in your community, I see,’ I said.

  ‘She was born dead,’ he told me. ‘And then she wasn’t dead. Do you have any idea what that means?’

  ‘Medically speaking, a little. Spiritually speaking, I think you’re about to tell me.’

  ‘Her body was born,’ he said right away, ‘while her spirit was still in the other world. She spent extra time in Great Beyond before she came into her body. She has extra knowledge, an understanding of things that you and I can’t understand. That’s partly what she’s doing now, being unconscious. She’s communing in the other world. When she’s learned whatever it is that she needs to know, she’ll come back to us.’

  ‘Do you actually believe that,’ I asked him, ‘or is that part of your performance as the “wise old Seminole”?’

  He looked over at the kid. ‘She believes it. That’s what counts.’

  I shook my head. Not because I didn’t believe what he was saying, exactly. More because I didn’t want to buy into his line. I admired the guy, but that didn’t keep me from being skeptical of everything about him.

  ‘Well, my only concern at the moment is finding whoever did this to her,’ I said, staring at the little kid’s bruised and bloody face, ‘and explaining to them why it was a bad thing.’

  A second later Maggie was back in, and a doctor out of some television show appeared in the doorway. Grey at the temples, spotless white lab coat, stethoscope around his neck, and a look of deep concern on his face.

  ‘This is Doctor Whitlock,’ Maggie explained unnecessarily.

  ‘Who did this?’ he asked, staring compassionately at the kid.

  ‘I’ll find out and get back to you,’ I answered grimly.

  He turned my way. ‘You’re Mr Moscowitz, from Child Protective Services.’

  I nodded once.

  ‘And you,’ he went on, sizing up John Horse, ‘are next of kin, I assume.’

  John Horse smiled. ‘Naturally you would assume that.’

  ‘This is John Horse,’ Maggie said instantly.

  The doctor took a small step backward. ‘Mr Horse,’ he said foolishly.

  ‘The girl is a unique element of our village in the swamp,’ John Horse said.

  He thought that would explain something or other, but the doctor didn’t understand.

  He just blinked and asked, ‘How long has she been unconscious?’

  ‘Can’t be more than an hour or so,’ I answered. ‘We found her like this in the abandoned bakery at the end of Blake Road.’

  ‘What was she doing there?’ he asked, moving toward the bed.

  ‘Investigating the disappearance of her mother,’ I told him.

  The doctor didn’t hesitate; he reached for his scope and put it on her chest. But he said, ‘Where is her mother?’

  ‘Missing,’ John Horse said before I could.

  ‘Do you know what happened to this child?’ he asked.

  ‘Looks to me like someone beat her up,’ I said.

  ‘We checked for broken bones before we brought her here,’ John Horse said at the same time.

  ‘You shouldn’t have moved her.’

  ‘You think it was better to leave her lying in a pile of bird crap in an abandoned building?’ I asked.

  ‘Her pulse is weak,’ he mumbled, ignoring me.

  ‘Foggy,’ Maggie said softly, ‘why don’t you take off? There’s nothing you can do here.’

  I nodded.

  ‘I’ll go too,’ John Horse announced. ‘We’ll check back in.’

  The doctor didn’t even turn around.

  John Horse and I didn’t speak again until we were outside the hospital.

  ‘I’m not complaining,’ he said as we turned on to the sidewalk. ‘But why is Topalargee still alive?’

  ‘I get it,’ I agreed. ‘Why beat the kid up and then leave her there? Unless she was able to fight off her assailants and she only collapsed after they took off.’

  ‘She still had her knife in her hand,’ he agreed.

  ‘Takes a certain kind of person to beat up a little kid,’ I mused.

  ‘Brady wouldn’t mind it,’ he said.

  ‘I’m still trying to figure all that out,’ I said. ‘Brady, Watkins, the manager over at the Benton. Who’s a bad guy and who’s just stupid.’

  ‘Why can’t they be both? Where’re we going now?’

  ‘Benton,’ I said, ‘make sure Duck’s OK.’

  The guy at the front desk was someone I’d never seen before. He eyed John Horse up and down.

  ‘Where’s Robert?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s not here,’ the guy said impatiently. ‘How may I help you?’

  I flashed my badge so fast he flinched. ‘Child Protective Services! How do you feel about obstructing a law enforcement officer in the operation of his duty?’

  ‘Child … child …’ He couldn’t seem to say anything more.

  ‘I’m looking for a Seminole kid of about eight or maybe nine,’ I went on. ‘He came over here asking about his mother.’

  ‘He did?’ The guy didn’t have a clue.

  ‘Maybe he went directly to the maids,’ John Horse suggested.

  ‘How would they help?’ I asked. ‘If they’re Cubans, imported from Miami, they wouldn’t know anything about this.’

  ‘They might know who told them they were coming to Fry’s Bay.’

  I glared at the clerk. His name badge said Tim.

  ‘So, Tim.’ I leaned forward and put my badge away. ‘How long have you worked here at the Benton?’

  ‘Three years.’ He swallowed.

  ‘Did you know any of the service staff? The maids?’

  ‘Those Negro women?’ he asked.

  ‘They were Seminoles.’ I sighed.

  ‘They were?’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t
think so.’

  ‘Did you ever speak to them?’

  ‘In passing,’ he said, unable to fathom why it would matter.

  ‘Any idea what happened to them? Why they aren’t working here now?’

  ‘They quit,’ he said. ‘Objected to the pay.’

  ‘They told you this?’

  ‘They were trying to negotiate higher wages with the help of an off-duty cop, a friend of theirs, apparently.’

  I turned to John Horse. ‘Watkins.’

  ‘Interesting,’ he said.

  ‘What’s this got to do with children?’

  John Horse tugged on my arm. ‘Come on, Foggy. He doesn’t know anything.’

  I looked at Tim’s face. Truer words had never been spoken: Tim really didn’t know anything.

  ‘Where are the maids now?’ I asked.

  ‘I … Third floor, I think.’ He squinted. ‘I really don’t think you should bother them while they’re working. They’ll be finished—’

  ‘Tim,’ I interrupted, ‘if you say one more word, I’m going to have to charge you.’

  ‘Charge me?’ He glared. ‘With what?’

  He was right to ask. I had nothing. But when you’ve been hassled by the cops as much as I have, you knew the right words to say.

  ‘Obstruction and resisting to start with,’ I snapped. ‘And I’ll think of a couple more things before we get to the police station. Come on.’

  I moved like I was coming around the desk to get him.

  ‘OK, OK,’ he said, holding up both hands. ‘Third floor. Fine.’

  But half an hour with the Cubans and another forty-five minutes looking around the hotel produced no new information and no Duck.

  ‘I don’t care for the way this is unfolding,’ I told John Horse as we walked out of the Benton. ‘One kid’s in an almost-coma, the other’s vanished altogether.’

  He nodded. ‘I should have told you something to begin with.’

  The sunshine wasn’t especially warm, or cheerful. But the street was bright, and the sky was cloudless. All I had to do was appreciate that until John Horse felt like going on. I was well acquainted with his penchant for the long pause. He’d used it on me in the earlier days of our relationship to get me to talk. See, a big silence in the conversation was a void that most people wanted to fill. But if you just relaxed and let the silence be silence, you could beat the old guy at his own game.