34

Lazarus had to be examined by the paramedics; the back of his head bled, and they feared a concussion. They insisted he go to the hospital, but he resisted for now.

In the back of a police cruiser, the assailant sat flanked by two LVPD officers. Following a hospital visit, he would be transported to the station for booking. So far, he stayed silent.

Lazarus didn’t wait for anyone to take his statement.

When the paramedics weren’t watching, he slipped away to his car and then headed to the station. After retrieving the murder book from the Dungeon, he positioned himself near the interview rooms, anticipating the arrival of the man. His head throbbed, and occasional waves of dizziness washed over him, only to recede into the background.

He sat down in a chair in front of the interview rooms and closed his eyes. He opened them when he heard footsteps.

Two officers brought in the man and took him into an interview room. Lazarus didn’t get a good look at him. He rose and went to the one-way glass and watched as the little man was seated at the table and the two officers cuffed him to the metal ring on the floor.

His clothes were rags, his hair roughly shaved with something dull. Some patches of hair had grown longer than others. The right side of his face was deformed from a burn. The scarring curled around the side of his head. His right eye was blackened, but not fully. It gave a discomforting appearance of the eye being burnt out of the socket.

He was small and unremarkable. He appeared soft and weak, but Lazarus had felt his strength. It didn’t match his body.

The elevators dinged, and two detectives stepped off. Lazarus knew them both. Gilroy and Hobbs. Gilroy was pudgy and had a thick mustache that didn’t fit his face, and Hobbs could’ve been his brother. Both from Homicide.

“Heard you got him,” Gilroy said.

“We got someone.”

“Been a bit. How you been?”

“Skip the small talk. What d’ya want?”

The two glanced at each other and Hobbs said, “We thought you could use some help, that’s all.”

“I don’t. Thanks for stopping by.”

“Don’t be like that.”

“You didn’t mind kicking this case ’cause you had nothing, and now that I’ve done all the work for you, you wanna walk in here and say you got an arrest for the cameras?”

Gilroy said, “You want help or not?”

Silence a moment as the two glared at each other.

Lazarus finally said, “Lieutenant said this was mine. I’m gonna see it through.”

Hobbs said, “Have it your way,” and gave him some papers. It was a booking sheet.

Lazarus watched them get back on the elevator. They wouldn’t have tried to take this from him without the lieutenant’s approval. But it didn’t matter what the lieutenant wanted. The reason the case was taken from Homicide was because Judge Dawson had asked the lieutenant to give the case to him. The lieutenant was a climber, and Judge Dawson was a good person to have on your side if you wanted to climb.

Lazarus read the booking sheet.

Owen Alistair Whittaker.

Twenty-nine years old. A rap sheet longer than Lazarus had ever seen. The charges were from all over the country. There were criminal histories from Louisiana, Georgia, Colorado, Idaho, California, Florida, and Texas. Over eight hundred arrests in his short twenty-nine years, mostly crimes related to homelessness. Camping in a public place, public indecency, public intoxication, resisting arrest. A burglary conviction back in ’05 and an assault with a deadly weapon charge in 2016, but nothing that would have him locked up for long.

Lazarus murmured under his breath, “You ride the trains, don’t you, my man?”

Then he went to the vending machines and bought an orange Fanta before going into the room.

He liked the interview room cold. The few times Lazarus had seen a cop drama on television, cops always seemed to be messing with the temperature to get people to talk. Though that was certainly a tried-and-true tactic—alternating extreme temperatures, withholding food and drink or providing as much as the perp wanted and then withholding the bathroom, sleep deprivation, sitting or standing in uncomfortable positions ... he knew and had studied them all, and found them all ineffective. Too many false confessions, too many cases reopened later. He preferred more civilized—if there was such a thing—means.

He shut the door behind him and set the Fanta on the table.

He sat down and watched Owen Whittaker. The man was looking down at the cuffs on his wrists.

“You know what happens next?” Lazarus said.

Owen didn’t reply.

“You’re gonna be held in the holding tank until we’re done. Then you’re going down to the jail, and that’s where you’ll be for your trial. When you’re sentenced, you’ll get transferred to death row.”

The man lifted his gaze slowly. The eye marred by the burn had a milky gray iris. His head seemed oddly small for his body, his arms strangely long. Everything about him was disproportionate.

“The bloody chef tattoo on your leg, that real or fantasy? You ever actually done it?”

Owen went back to staring at his cuffs.

Lazarus reached into the murder book. He took out the color photo of Ava Mitchell smiling for her college ID. Then he pulled out another photo and placed it next to that one: her on the medical examiner’s table.

He pushed the photos closer to make sure Owen could see.

“She was beautiful, wasn’t she?” Lazarus said.

Owen gazed at the photo of her corpse, his burnt eye lagging a fraction of a second behind the other when he blinked. His voice was raspy as he said, “I like her more this way.”

Lazarus nodded once and leaned back in the chair. He took out his cigarettes and placed them on the table but didn’t light one. “I figured you would.”

Owen swallowed and was so thin Lazarus could see the full movement in his throat. He took out photos of Emily and Sullivan Grace and put them in front of Owen.

“Two years between Ava Mitchell and the Graces. Why so long?”

Lazarus watched the man in silence. The way his mouth pulled back from his face because of the heavy scarring created the appearance of a skull with skin wrapped around it.

“I got a history on you. It’s quite a journey round the country. Looked like a train route to me. You ride the rails?”

Owen blinked slowly.

“I knew a guy, successful lawyer, who took a month every year to ride the rails. Wouldn’t take any money with him. Said it kept him human. Reminded him there was somethin’ still to live for.”

He pulled the cigarettes closer to himself and lit one. He held it out to Owen, who didn’t move.

“Take it, it’ll relax you.”

Owen simply blinked.

Lazarus took a drag and said, “Two years is a long stretch if you’re itchin’ to kill. I wager we dig into some of those missing persons cases along those train routes, we’ll find some of your work, won’t we?”

Owen moved his hands, and the cuffs rattled.

“I carried Ava’s photo for a time. I’d stare at it to see what you saw, but I couldn’t see it. Only thing I could come up with was that you’re a man who likes making beautiful things ugly.”

Owen took a breath, and Lazarus could hear the gravelly sound of scarring in his lungs.

“Where you from, Owen? Least tell me that.”

“Hell,” he whispered.

Lazarus exhaled smoke through his nostrils. “They speak Creole in hell? ’Cause I know bayou when I hear it. I’d say Terrebonne Parish.”

Owen remained silent, his breath continuing to rasp in the quiet room.

“I started as a cop in N’orlins when I was eighteen, and that was the drinking age on account a’ Mardi Gras. Governor figured if you’re old enough to get drunk, you’re old enough for a badge. So, I hitchhiked from Utah to N’orlins with a hundred bucks in my pocket, got hired the day I arrived, and was sent to the academy the next week. Fate.”

Owen was staring at him now, giving his full attention.

“N’orlins had the highest rate of police corruption in America at the time. A system more corrupt than the criminals. It was like somethin’ dark had crawled out of the city ... rotting it from the inside.”

He paused, staring at the smoldering ashes on his cigarette.

“Katrina destroyed everything. Police force had to be rebuilt ’cause so many people left the city. I’m sure they all think it’ll be better, but there’s no such thing as better , is there?”

He hesitated.

“I noticed the Bible in your belongings. It was worn out. You a man of faith?”

Owen grinned now, his dry lips cracking as they spread wider.

“You hid in the Mitchells’ cabin. Some campers saw you the week before hiking up there. How long you hide in the Graces’ house for?”

Owen looked back down to the table, losing interest.

“Why is Sophie Grace still alive? You killed everyone else, why not her?”

Owen said nothing, and Lazarus could see the interest fading.

“Some native tribes here used to believe if you murder someone, they’ll be your slave in the afterlife. What do you believe, Owen?”

Owen blinked, the lid of his burnt eye looking like it scraped down the flesh as it closed. Then he leaned back and sat motionless. Lazarus knew Owen wouldn’t be talking again, so he left the room. When he looked back through the glass, Owen was staring blankly at the can of Fanta. He wasn’t there anymore.