Still, Hughes rationalized, he was going to be on the sheriff’s turf. It was only fair—and protocol—to let him know. Hughes was well within his rights and powers as a New York City detective to chase Billy Dent and Jasper Dent over state lines, but it was only polite to let the folks in South Bumweasel know he was coming.
He scrolled through his phone until he found the number Tanner had called him from before he’d been throttled by Jasper Dent. A woman answered far too perkily, “Lobo’s Nod Sheriff’s Office! Lana speaking. How may I help you?”
“I’d like to speak to Sheriff Tanner. This is Detective Louis Hughes calling from the NYPD.”
To her credit, the perky woman had Tanner on the phone almost immediately. From the static and background thrum, Hughes surmised that she’d patched the call through to Tanner’s car radio.
Quick reintroductions dealt with, Hughes dropped the bomb: “We have reason to believe that Billy and his sister and/or Jasper may be headed back to Lobo’s Nod. So I’m on a flight out of New York in about an hour, and I plan on being in your town this evening.”
“I see.” Tanner spoke with a placid equability that no doubt belied his outrage. “Billy, I get. But Jasper… You sure about this? He’s still a suspect?”
“More than a suspect, Sheriff.”
“You got a warrant and all?”
“Sure do. Breaking and entering. Robbery. Assault. Battery. Assaulting a police officer, multiple counts.” He paused to let the big one sink in. “Wanted for questioning in connection with the murder of a federal agent.”
“You don’t think Jasper had anything to do with that, do you?”
“I’d like to ask him myself.”
“I’ve known that boy a long time, Detective.”
“Are you going to tell me that you don’t think it’s possible he did these things?”
To Tanner’s credit, he didn’t answer right away. “Let’s just say I think it’s unlikely.”
“I don’t want us to be at loggerheads, Sheriff. But the NYPD wants the son in addition to the father. If it makes you feel any better, I’m not happy about it, either.”
Skipping the issue of whether he felt better, Tanner said, “And I suppose the FBI will be joining us, too?”
“Depends on how persuasive they find the Hall girl’s testimony. But one of their agents is dead, so I imagine they’re going to want to cover all the bases.”
Tanner sighed a long, staticky sigh. “Hell. Just got those boys out of my town, now they’re comin’ back in.”
Hughes checked the time and the traffic flow. “Sheriff, I’m almost at the airport. Of course, once I land and get a rental car, I’ll check in at your office—”
“Don’t bother,” Tanner said. “Text me your flight info, and I’ll pick you up at the airport myself.”
After Hughes left, Connie sent her dad to scrounge something from the hospital vending machines, claiming a sudden jones for dark chocolate. Alone, she wondered if the tear had been too much. If she’d overdone it.
But she didn’t wonder long. Hughes, she knew, was her best hope to help Jazz. Hughes was the only tool she had at her disposal to catch him before he caught up to Billy.
Because if Jazz caught up to Billy, Connie knew only one of two outcomes would follow: Either Billy would kill his obstinate son for refusing to follow in his footsteps…
Or Jazz would kill Billy, thus cementing his transition to “the Crow King.”
Both were unacceptable. Better to have Jazz caught. Even if he ended up in jail. At least he would be safe.
At least he would still be whole.
“I’m so sorry, Jazz,” she whispered, and this time the tear wasn’t faked. “But even if you never want to speak to me again, at least you’ll be alive to hate me.”
CHAPTER 30
When the hospital alarm went off, Erickson fumbled his phone into his pocket and was on his feet in seconds, one hand to his sidearm. The idea of drawing his weapon in a hospital, where it would be too easy to hit someone innocent or blow a hole in some crucial piece of lifesaving equipment, made him uneasy. But he was prepared to do it.
Billy Dent. They were right. He’s coming.
Just then, two white-coated doctors and a trio of nurses burst into his vision from around a corner. One of them was the cute young nurse from before, but this time she wasn’t even looking at Erickson.
“Out of the way!” one of the doctors shouted. Erickson realized he was interposed between the doctor and the door to Mrs. Dent’s room. At the same time, he realized this wasn’t a security alarm.
He stepped aside, and the doctors and nurses rushed in. Erickson—one hand still on his gun’s grip; you never know—peered inside. Mrs. Dent’s EKG trembled a sine wave for a moment before flatlining, its death whistle audible over the alarm from the nurses’ station. “Shut that down!” one of the doctors snapped, and Erickson’s favorite nurse flipped a switch. The room fell into a loud silence for a moment.
“What the hell?” someone complained. “Cardiac arrest?”
“She was fine—” the young nurse protested.
“Start CPR,” a doctor ordered. “Get a crash cart in here and intubate her.”
As Erickson watched, they fed a plastic tube down her throat. A doctor and nurse tag-teamed CPR: one performing chest compressions, the other breathing into Mrs. Dent with a handheld pump. Seconds stretched into protracted minutes, and Erickson was frozen at the door, his hand still poised at his gun, as though he could shoot and kill whatever threatened Mrs. Dent.
“Do we have her?” a nurse asked.
“I don’t know,” said a doctor. “She’s breathing again, but I don’t know. Let’s get her back to ICU.”
The young nurse headed to the door. Erickson grabbed her by the arm. He didn’t want to be rough, but he had to speak to her.
“Look,” he said, his voice low, “I’m going to have to tell them.”
She glared at him and shook his arm off. “I don’t have time for—wait, tell them what?”
He grimaced. He didn’t want to have to do this. But it would be unethical and probably illegal for him not to reveal what he knew. “I know you screwed up her IV. The other nurse told me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She moved aside as the other medical professionals came through the door, pushing Mrs. Dent’s bed, shouting at one another. Before Erickson could say anything more, they were all gone, the cute nurse included.
Erickson stepped into the room after they left. It had been quiet the last time he’d been in here, but it was somehow even quieter now. Maybe if the old woman didn’t die, he could keep his mouth shut. It would be a shame for someone to get in trouble so young, so early in her career.…
On the way out, someone had knocked over the trash can. Erickson bent to right it. As he did so, he noticed something inside.
It was an IV bag.
He plucked it from the trash can and hefted it in his hand. It was full.
Oh, no.
Yeah, someone was going to get in trouble. And it wasn’t going to be the cute nurse.
Erickson triggered his shoulder mic. “Erickson to dispatch. Lana, we got a problem at the hospital.…”
CHAPTER 31
MSNBC had already moved on from the Billy Dent story. Oh, sure, they ran a crawl in the lower third with occasional updates, but Doug Weathers didn’t think much of crawls. No context. No real opportunity to expound.
CNN was updating the story once an hour. Fox was doing the same, but had also announced a rushed-into-production hour-long special with the baroquely lurid title Dent & Son: The Bloody Saga of Butcher Billy.
Weathers had offered his expertise to all three, but they’d declined.
Well, screw them, he thought, sitting on his sofa with a bowl of cereal in his lap. He had been glued to the TV since waking, occasionally dashing to the kitchen for a refill of the cereal bowl during commercials.
Weathers knew that he could do a bette
r job than any of the press hacks in New York. Or any of the gibbering morons on TV. He was a real reporter. Old school. He wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty in pursuit of a story, and he didn’t care whom he pissed off. When Billy Dent had been arrested years ago, Weathers didn’t hesitate to put himself right there in the story. And why not? He’d been covering the deaths of the two girls from the Nod whom Billy had killed from the get-go, keeping Sheriff Tanner’s feet held firmly to the fire. He fulminated from the front page of his paper, and when his editor claimed the story had “cooled” and moved updates below the fold and then inside, Weathers had fired up his old blog and started a series of scathing attacks on the Lobo’s Nod police force. He’d gotten the attention of the national media—finally—and become a darling of the major cable news networks.
But when Billy had been caught, all the attention had gone to Tanner, who prissily and steadfastly refused offers of interviews and book deals and all the other sundry trappings of fame. Suddenly, the man who’d kept the story alive and kicking and in the limelight was thrown over for the man who’d finally gotten off his fat ass and done his job at Weathers’s constant prodding.
It was more than insulting. More than infuriating.
It was wrong.
And no matter what he did, he couldn’t force himself back into the story.
He shook his head. He had to focus. He’d been trying everything for the past few years. But even Billy Dent’s sister had stonewalled him, speaking to him only through the closed door of the mother’s house. All she would tell him was that her nephew was in New York.
The CNN hourly update came up. Pictures of both Dents, then a screen showing the various disguises Billy could be wearing. Weathers grimaced. They needed someone on who knew Billy. He knew a producer at CNN—Dhuti, her name was. Or Dharti. He couldn’t keep them straight. But he remembered that it started with Dh and that she’d worn a small ruby in her nose and had spoken with a delightfully unexpected southern accent. Pure Georgia, that one.
Would she return his call? He thought maybe she might. She’d been an assistant five years ago, and her work with Weathers had propelled her up the ladder to producer. She owed him one.
He fumbled with his phone to look up her number, but before he could scroll to the Ds, the phone vibrated.
BLOCKED.
“Yeah?” He wasn’t expecting any calls. He deserved them, but he wasn’t expecting them.
“Mr. Weathers? Mr. Douglas Weathers?”
It was a woman’s voice. Unconsciously, Weathers gathered his robe around himself, covering his nudity.
“Speaking.” Deep down, he knew that this would be a telemarketer. Or maybe another aggressive repo caller hired by his ex-wife.
But maybe it wasn’t.
“Mr. Weathers, I have an opportunity I’d like to offer you.”
“Oh?” Definitely telemarketer. Weathers was already refocused on the TV, where the NYPD’s disastrous press conference was being replayed.
“How would you like some exclusive information about Billy Dent?” the woman asked.
Doug Weathers stared at the TV. As though by magic, as she’d said the name, CNN had decided to flash another photo of the man himself.
Weathers cleared his throat. “What did you say?”
Doug Weathers belted his overcoat tightly and turned his collar up against the cold. He lingered near his car for a moment, gazing up the short driveway to a ramshackle old Victorian, shutter eyed and board mouthed. Shingles hung from the rooftop, and thick curlicues of paint peeled from the columns holding up the porch roof. The house couldn’t be described as on “the edge of town”—it was actually just past the town line, in what was technically unincorporated territory. County land, not town land. It sat roughly a football field’s length back from the main road, partly concealed by spindly white pines and near-dead American beeches.
The mailbox was rusted shut. The word DAWES could be made out in faint, sun-faded black paint.
The woman on the phone had given him explicit instructions—he was to tell no one about this visit. He would be allowed a notepad and pen, but no laptop or tape recorder. Yes, he could bring his cell phone, but it would be surrendered when he arrived and given back before he left.
“Who are you?” he’d asked. Natural question, even for someone who wasn’t a reporter. Weathers had had enough bad leads in his life to retain a healthy level of skepticism, especially in the face of an open treasure chest.
“Someone who knows Billy Dent very well,” the woman answered. “Maybe too well. Are you interested?”
He’d hesitated. Of course he’d hesitated. Crackpots and lunatics overflowed the world’s borders.
“Maybe you need proof of my bona fides?” she asked. “Let me give you a scoop: Billy Dent’s mother recently passed away at the hospital in Lobo’s Nod. Confirm with your sources, if you’d like. I’ll call back in ten minutes.”
The line went dead, and Weathers could almost hear a stopwatch’s rhythmic, near cricket-like clicks as he stabbed at his phone with a now-sweaty finger. He still had a source at the hospital—the perfect one, in fact. Dale Carbonaro, one of the attendants in the morgue. Dale had given Weathers access to the body of one of Billy’s victims from the Nod back in the day, allowing Weathers to scoop other news sources with illicit details held back by the cops.
“You on duty?” Weathers asked as soon as Dale answered his phone.
“Weathers? This you?” Dale hawked and spat. “You still owe me fifty bucks from last year. Slipping you the report on the Myerson chick.”
Myerson. Ellen. Or Helen. He couldn’t remember now. One of the Impressionist’s victims. He’d forgotten all about the money he owed Dale.
“Do I? I could have sworn I paid you.”
“You’ve been avoiding me for months, you prick. You know you owe me.”
“I need to know about a new body.”
“Screw you, Weathers.”
“Dent’s mother!” Weathers screamed into the phone.
The other end of the line was silent for so long that Weathers checked to make sure he was still connected. Sure enough.
“How did you know about that?” Dale asked in wonder. “Sheriff’s department has locked us down on that and we—”
“Thanks, Dale! Drinks on me soon!” He hung up and let the phone lie across his palms, the screen facing him.
What ensued were the slowest, most painful three and a half minutes of Doug Weathers’s life, but the phone finally vibrated again, and he had to force himself not to kiss it before answering.
“Do you believe me now?” No preamble.
“I do.”
“Are you ready to meet?”
“Absolutely.”
And so he had been given the name Jack Dawes and told to go where it led him. He begged for more information, but received none.
A quick check of the county property records had brought him here. A house so nondescript and decrepit that Weathers had probably driven past it a hundred times in the past six months and never once noticed it. Property owned for twenty-odd years by a Mr. Jack Dawes, though from the look of it, Mr. Dawes was no longer an upstanding member of the community.
Before Billy Dent had been unmasked as Green Jack and Satan’s Eye and the Artist and the others, he had masqueraded as a solid citizen. This looked like the kind of place Billy Dent would go to hang out. A beer. A ball game. And maybe, just maybe, a bull session with his good buddy Jack Dawes, reliving murder and mayhem and torture and rape, the two of them howling over it like schoolboys zapping ants with a magnifying glass.
Had Dawes known what Dent was? Maybe even serial killers had best friends. Weathers didn’t know.
He grinned.
Sure, he didn’t know. But he would. Soon. That was his specialty. His gift.
He learned. Eventually, he learned everything.
He patted his pockets, feeling for his pad and pen. His cell was in one, and he was ready to surrender it. There was a
lso a tape recorder in the other. He would pretend to forget it until the last minute and then hand it over sheepishly—“It’s just reflex; I take it everywhere.”—which would keep Jack Dawes or the mystery woman from looking for the second recorder, the tiny digital job he had tucked into his waistband.
No one told Doug Weathers when to go off the record. Off the record was for people who didn’t really want the story.
The steps to the porch didn’t so much creak as whine when he put his weight on them. The porch itself made dangerous cracking noises as he walked across it. A storm door was loose on its hinges, vibrating slightly in the cold January breeze. He wrestled it aside, fearing it would blow off entirely, then rapped at the front door with a rust-spotted knocker.
Waited.
Nothing.
He knocked again.
He shouted, “Hello!”
With a shrug, he tried the doorknob and it turned easily, more easily, perhaps, than it should have for such an old house.
“Ms. Dawes?” he asked, stepping inside. He didn’t know if she was a Mrs. or a Miss, so Ms. seemed safe. Not that it mattered to him. She could call herself empress for all he cared—as long as her information bore out. She could have been Jack Dawes’s mother, sister, wife, daughter.… Who knew?
“Ms. Dawes? It’s Doug Weathers.” He closed the door behind him. The corridor before him was lit by a Coleman lantern placed on the floor, about five feet from the entrance to the house. A set of surprisingly sturdy stairs ascended to his right, its terminus doused in murk. The hallway straight ahead shivered with shadows.