EIGHT
FALLOUT
After the aquarium, working the bar at Polaris was a surreal experience.
Donovan stayed on autopilot throughout the next night. Mindlessly he poured cocktails while navigating memories of the horror he’d seen, the anger it had inspired at the perpetrator, and the semi-guilty thrill of his actions in response to both. What he’d seen, what he’d done, stirred something within him that made both school and bartending unbearably boring and unutterably reassuring. Reality is flexible.
He wasn’t closing that night, so it was a pleasant surprise to see Joann enter as his shift was ending.
“I have had a bad day and I wish to get drunk,” she said. “Would you care to join me?”
Images of Katz being torn apart on the other side of the shark tank glass filled his mind’s eye. “Absolutely.”
***
The night was warm with a breeze chasing humidity from the narrow streets of Greenwich Village. Donovan parked on Seventh Avenue South, and they went into Sushi Samba. The bright tropical colors of the rooftop bar, the greens and oranges and reds, lightened the room but not the mood. They grabbed the last two seats at the end of the bar and settled in with a round of cocktails; Chopin martini, up, for her, a concoction with strawberry vodka called a nina fresa for him. He sipped it. Good thing I’m secure enough in my masculinity to order paper umbrella drinks. “I’m assuming the mayor’s press conference went the way you expected this afternoon?”
“Did you get to see any of it?”
“We had the news on at the bar at one point, but no sound.”
“It was quite a show.” She took a long swallow. “As expected, he singled out Raphael by name as one of the main causes why the Dinkins case was going nowhere. His poll numbers have been slipping, and Raphael is a probable opponent next election. Raphael had no choice but to pull me this afternoon and give it to Jesse.”
“He gave no credence to what happened at the aquarium?”
“Privately, yes. When we talked, I got the impression he would have been willing to give me more slack. But publicly…” She raised her glass. “Here’s to the mayor being the recipient of a nice, long taser shock.”
“Ow.” He rested a hand on her leg. “I’m sorry, Jo.”
“The thing is,” she said, putting her hand on his and holding it in place, “I’m sure that was Charming Man who tasered me. He sort of looked like the partial picture we have of him, but it’s more than that. His voice, the way he approached me, his manner—I know it was him. I know it.”
“That’s a pretty big ‘sort of’.”
She nodded and sipped more vodka.
“But if it’s true, it means Charming Man and Mister X are the same person, and the Dinkins Shelter case is part of the zodiac murders case.”
She shook her head. “I can’t do anything about it now.”
“You can’t do a little investigating on your own? I’ll help you. I’ve done pretty well with Sergeant Fullam so far.”
She regarded him with a worldly smile. “It doesn’t work like that. I appreciate the sentiment, but I have to follow orders. Raphael will find another high profile case for me, I’m sure. And speaking of Frank Fullam…” She dug into her purse and produced a folded envelope. “I had to go see him earlier. He gave me this to give to you.”
“What is it?”
“Consulting fee. After everything last night, he figured you had it coming.”
Donovan opened the envelope and saw it was a folded sheaf of papers with a check paper-clipped to it. The amount was not huge, but it was a nice, unexpected bonus.
“I looked the paperwork over,” she went on. “It’s all standard for police consultants. You have to sign them and get them back to him before you can cash the check.”
“Really?” Donovan looked dubious. “I was thinking I could do more good outside the system. You know, to avoid having the mayor kick me off the case.”
She grimaced. “Doesn’t work that way, either. Hugh Yarborough, the Chief of Detectives and Frank’s boss, was not amused that he brought civilians along on the stakeout. Father Carroll is already registered with the NYPD as an official consultant; you aren’t. You sort of have to sign these to keep him off the hook.”
“He works at Midtown North, right?” Donovan disliked being constrained but didn’t want to see Fullam get in trouble. “I’ll drop these off tomorrow.” He stuck the envelope in his pocket. “Why did you have to go see him?”
“Sketch artist. I got a pretty good look at Charming Man, or Mister X, or whoever he is. Hopefully Frank can make something out of it.” She finished her martini and waved for another round. When it came, she took another big swallow. “He told me what you did at the shark tank last night.”
“Not much. They got away.”
“He said you swung out on a rope over the tank while the sharks were still feeding.” Donovan could feel the weight of her disapproval. “What is wrong with you? What were you thinking?”
“That I could catch them.” He downplayed it even as his heart raced at the memory. “They were getting away, the other exits were blocked. It was the only way.”
“Sharks, Donovan? Do you have any idea what could have happened to you?”
“I couldn’t let them just get away with it. I had to do something.”
“Famous last words.” She took a deep breath. He could see the stress tightening her face, clouding the gold flecks in her eyes. “Well, talk to Frank. Maybe as an official consultant to the NYPD, you can get a carry permit or something.”
“Maybe.” The thought gave him pause. In spite of the circumstances that had created the possibility, and in spite of Joann’s perspective, he found himself intrigued by the idea. “I’ve never had a problem riding the subway late at night, or walking home after work, but this is a whole new world. A gun might not be a bad idea.”
“It is a whole new world, and a dangerous one. If you insist on being part of all this—and despite my fears, Frank seems to think you handled yourself pretty well—I want to be sure you come back to me in one piece at the end of the day.”
“Yeah, I’m a fan of that idea, too.”
“You’re my respite from all the political bullshit I face at work. You’re my connection to normal life, where people don’t shoot at each other, or chop each other to bits, or,” she raised an eyebrow, “jump over shark tanks. I need it. I need you.” She sipped again and waved a hand in front of her face as though erasing a blackboard. “I don’t want to think about investigations or work or the mayor or sharks anymore. We have really important issues to discuss. We have to set a firm date for the wedding. I was thinking next spring, maybe the beginning of April. April second, not the first.”
“We don’t want getting married to make us…April Fools?” He sipped his drink. “Careful. Might smile. Can’t have that.”
She stared glumly into her martini. “After today, it’s going to be a while before I smile.”
He leaned in and kissed the back of her neck, grinning at the goosebumps the kiss aroused. “That’s what you think.”
***
The next morning Donovan took the envelope from Fullam and walked to the Midtown North precinct house. Humidity layered the air even though it was barely ten o’clock. Every surface in the city smudged, slid or stuck to his hands.
He identified himself to the desk sergeant, who sent him upstairs to the detectives’ squad room. Fullam’s desk was in one corner. He was there with a young man who, in contrast to Fullam, was the kind of guy whose idea of style was to wear a baseball cap whose color matched his t-shirt. This t-shirt had a picture of a silhouette target with a smiley face shot out of it. Underneath, it read, “Police should be held in the highest regard. Our guns fire quick and our nightsticks are hard.” His baby face lit when Donovan entered.
“Hey, daredevil. How are you?”
“Do I know you?” Donovan asked.
Fullam made the introduction. “Donovan Graham, Josh Braithwaite.”
Braithwaite stuck out his hand. Muscles corded on his forearm as they shook. “Daredevil?” Donovan repeated.
“The shark tank.” The young detective tossed his head. “Man, I thought I was crazy.”
“Too bad I didn’t catch them.”
“Hey, you survived.”
Donovan looked at Fullam. “Got a minute, sergeant?”
“Josh?”
Braithwaite rose and offered his seat. “You want coffee?”
“I’m good, thanks.” Donovan handed Fullam the folded papers Joann had given him. “I guess this makes it official.”
Fullam glanced at and threw them into his “Out” basket. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks.”
The sergeant leaned back in his chair, a move he’d practiced enough to avoid hitting the wall behind him. They sat looking at each other for a moment.
“Now what?” Donovan asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Now that I’m official, what can I do?”
“Not much to do yet. The wheels of justice grind slowly. We got some good forensic stuff, but it’s still in the lab. The giant’s fingerprints were cooked onto the steel pipe next to yours.”
“You have my fingerprints to compare?”
“You’re in the system.” Fullam glanced at him. “You were on the list for the Academy but let it lapse. They still have your fingerprints on file.”
“My father’s suggestion.” Donovan shrugged. “School and work got hectic. I had to choose.”
“None of my business. If you ever decide to stop getting high and you want back in, give me a call. You handled yourself pretty well at the aquarium; department always needs good men.”
“Thanks.” The compliment made Donovan smile. “Have you got anything I could offer input on now?”
“I’ve got a pretty good idea Mister X is not working alone.”
“You mean besides Coeus the giant?”
“He had someone grab the cleaning truck and Katz. Someone also drove it and dumped it. We found it, abandoned and burned, out in Queens.”
“Really?”
Fullam cocked his head. “Something wrong?”
“After talking to Mabel Muglia, Father Carroll believes this is a satanic ritual. Satanists don’t usually work and play well with others,” Donovan said.
“They don’t have covens?”
“That’s witches, generally speaking. Satanism is different, darker. Its main tenet is the acquisition of personal power, so it tends to draw people who aren’t about sharing. People who are really serious about it, like Mister X obviously is, tend to be, ah, socially isolated.” Donovan shrugged. “Might mean nothing. Other Satanists need the immediate gratification of group worship, so they gather weaker people around them they can control. Charismatic leader kind of people. The people they gather don’t need to be Satanists, just pissed off or desperate enough to join a group whose leader tells or gives them what they want. That leader is the focal point for their emotion, which is what drives any magical ritual.”
“Pissed off or desperate enough? Kind of like the homeless?” His lips pursed. “Sorry about Joann. Raphael’s a good guy, but what I hear, he had no choice.”
“So Joann told me.”
“I told her I’d keep her in the loop if anything relevant comes up.”
“Thanks.”
“Speaking of relevant…” Fullam slid a file over to himself. “We found more of the red wax on the shark tank platform. I’ve got the chemical analysis. I emailed it over to Maurice. You want something to do? Give me an idea what it means.”
Donovan felt a charge. “Sure. Did it give you anything else?”
“There is some DNA—spit—in there, too, and human fat. Working on it, but no leads from it yet.”
“All right, sergeant,” Donovan said, standing. “I’ll get over to Father Carroll’s, see what we can come up with.”
“Listen—”
Donovan paused at the office door.
“Call me Frank,” Fullam said, with a slight angle of his head. “Sherlock Pothead Holmes or not, the aquarium was good work.”
***
Donovan rode to Father Carroll’s apartment with a grin that wouldn’t go away. He parked the Vulcan near a halal street vendor and waved at the priest coming out the building door.
“I was just heading over to my campus office to get a few books,” Father Carroll said. “Care to tag along?”
“Sure.”
“What’s so amusing?”
Donovan jerked his head towards the vendor, his grin widening. “Guy just said to him, ‘I don’t care. I’m hungry.’ Not something you ought to say to a man who sells mystery meat on a street corner. A hot dog guy, maybe. You can recognize a hot dog.”
“I’m more a fan of pretzels, myself.”
“Want to take my bike?” Donovan asked. Father Carroll looked at him over the top of his glasses. “Just asking. Inject a little excitement into the day.”
“I appreciate the offer, but I need my brains unscrambled for a little while longer.”
Donovan fell in step as the priest walked to the corner to hail a cab. “I’m coming from Midtown North. I just had an interesting meeting with Sergeant Fullam—Frank.”
“On a beautiful Saturday like today? Where is Joann?”
“Shopping, I think. Licking her wounds from the work stuff. She wants to be alone for a little while.”
“Ah.” Father Carroll let two regular-sized cabs pass before flagging down a mini-van one. “Yes, she told me a bit about it at the aquarium. I saw the mayor’s press conference Thursday, as well.”
“She’s being the good soldier about it, but it hurt. Raphael gave her Friday off and told her to lie low for awhile. She thinks he’ll come up with something else for her, but…” Donovan’s mouth drew tight. “I wish there was something I could do to help.”
“Giving her the freedom to address this in her own way is doing something.”
“Doesn’t feel like it.”
“Give her time. Including you in her affairs is something she has to do herself. You can’t force yourself into her life.”
“We are getting married.”
“Nevertheless.”
Donovan grunted and changed the subject. “What are we going to get at your office?”
“I want to see what I have in the way of herb and plant reference material.”
“Is this about the list Frank emailed you?”
“It is,” Father Carroll nodded. “Most of the chemicals in the red wax were botanical.”
“Anything specific?”
“Benzoin, agrimony, myrrh, rosemary, and amaranth.”
“Amaranth?” Donovan said. “In magic, isn’t that used to…call forth the dead?”
“It is a summoning agent, yes.”
“Summoning what?”
Father Carroll shook his head. “We won’t know until we consider how it is supposed to interact with the other plants. However, there was one other substance in the mix that bears commenting upon: a combination of white blood cells, calcium phosphate, nitrogen, sodium, potassium, water, chlorine and epithelial cells.” Donovan looked blank. “It doesn’t sound familiar? Remember your parapsychology.”
“What is it, a healing poultice or—no wait. MIT.” The priest nodded, encouraging him to go on. “MIT did a chemical analysis of a sample of ectoplasm after a séance in…the eighties, I think. That’s what they came up with, right?”
“Something very similar. I recognized this as an example of a substance called SELER—Solid Ectoplasmic Life Energy Residue. The remnant of ghosts, or…souls.”
“Get out of here.” Donovan laughed. “Mister X made candles out of ghosts?”
The priest shook his head. “SELER isn’t an ingredient, it’s a remnant. As the candle is burned, it draws life energy forth.”
Donovan thought about this as the cab pulled up to the building that housed the university philosophy department. “I’ve got to say, I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around these, ah, esoteric details.”
“You don’t believe in them?”
“I know what they’re supposed to do. I’ve certainly studied them enough to know other people, like Mister X, believe in them. I’ve seen a man eaten alive by sharks and fought someone—twice—who looks like he came off a mad doctor’s morgue slab. But candles with ghost residue? It sounds…ridiculous.”
“Now you’re getting into the spirit of things.”
“‘Spirit’?”
The priest realized his pun and smiled. “‘Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side; and be not faithless, but believing.’ John, 20:27. Your doubt is understandable. In this field, sometimes even experiencing isn’t believing.”
“So I’m wasting a lot of time, studying things I don’t believe in.”
“The doubt philosophical hermeneutics inspires. You have a sound foundation for what you seek, I think, because you are engaged in a pursuit of truth. The question you may want to consider is,” Father Carroll unlocked the door to his office and entered, “do you have the ability and the courage to accept that truth, whatever it is, once you’ve found it?”
Donovan stood just outside, wondering if he did.
***
Twelve killings of ridiculous complexity against the largest, best equipped police force in the world…
Smoking cigarette after cigarette, Valdes sat in shadow. When he’d returned to the Cancer Hospital from the aquarium, he’d bid the others have a good time before sequestering himself in his room. Although they knew nothing of what was to come next, they understood they were helping him, and that was enough.
Now he sat contemplating what he’d accomplished, allowing the deeds to reinforce his new perspective on how the world worked, a perspective begun months earlier…