Page 95 of Cold, Cold Bones
I booted my laptop and, using my password, logged into the MCME system.
“Sanchez was three years ago,” I said. “If he’s part of the pattern, he died before Kwalwasser’s head was stolen.”
Slidell and I thought about that. Then he made a connection my overzealous hindbrain and I had missed.
“That kid found at Lake Wylie, what was his name?”
I looked at him blankly.
“No head? No innards?” Slidell prodded.
Images exploded. A gutted torso. A demonic symbol carved in flesh. A good man gunned down in the street. Memories from a time too painful to relive.
“Jimmie Klapec,” I muttered, keying in the name. “But that was more than ten years ago.”
The file was in the archives. I swiveled the screen so Slidell could read. The similarities between Klapec and Sanchez were frighteningly obvious.
More spit, more jotting. “Next was Boldonado.”
“His death was a copycat of Noble Cruikshank,” I said. “Garroting, then hanging to make it look like suicide.”
“When did Boldonado go missing?”
I checked that file. “Also three years ago.”
“Now this bucket thing.”
“Yes.”
“You crack the sucker open?”
“With Hawkins’s help.” I told him about the Joker mask and the snapshot of me inserted into the hollow.
Slidell scowled. “When was the pic taken?”
I shrugged. Who knows? “I’ve owned that jacket and those boots for a decade.”
“Sonofafreakingbitch.”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“The eyeball. The torso. The garroting. The bucket. You think this guy Hunt offed himself?”
“Maybe,” I murmured, barely loud enough to be heard.
“You believe that?”
“Not for a second.”
“Whoever’s doing this knows way too much.”
“Agreed,” I said.
“We’re shorthanded, so I can’t put a tail on you, but I’ll ask for drive-bys on your place.”
“You really think I need protection?”
“Look.” Barked more than spoken. “Hunt was your squeeze.”
