The Pressure of Darkness Read online

  This was a room possessed, overflowing with books of all shapes and sizes. In contrast to the rest of the pristine house, Burke's office was an ever-evolving chaos where yellow Post-its with scribbled notes lay randomly and crookedly tacked to cork bulletin boards or taped to the lips of crowded shelves. A row of blue plastic tubs contained obese files, facts garnered from random readings, reference papers unlikely to be read again. Burke fired up his computer. He scanned the papers Nicole Stryker had given him, the list of potential enemies and suspects, and e-mailed them to his office with a note: Gina, check these folks out for alibis. If anyone could make sense of such a complicated assignment, it would be his partner.

  WEREWOLVES. The name in the search engine brought over two million hits. Some of the first hundred were useful, including one that assembled data from medieval times. Another contained an entire translation of The Book of Werewolves by Sabine Baring-Gold, first published in 1865. There were websites clearly created by mental cases, people claiming to know or actually be werewolves, people just looking to have sex with some. Burke was an old hand at research. He tried the word LYCANTHROPY. He printed out whatever seemed useful, grabbed another soda, and studied the printer as it grunted away. Next, LOUP-GAROU. Half a million hits. A few more selections at random.

  When he had nearly two hundred pages of reference material, Burke returned to the living room. He parked on the plain brown couch, flicked on the bronze lamp, began to read. He scanned the pages, fingertips moving rapidly, and absorbed as much information as possible. Burke had no idea what he was looking for. He was merely following what he presumed to be a trail similar to the one blazed by the author of that last novel. He wanted to see what Peter Stryker had seen, go where he had been, in the hopes that path would eventually lead him to the truth.

  Finally, Burke turned out the light and sat alone in the darkness. He had learned nothing of import. For a few uneasy moments, he pondered his time in combat: the taste of fear, sight of fresh blood, the split, pulsing flesh of the wounded. He tried to fathom a genuine craving for the taste of raw, human meat, but couldn't manage it. And yet the conceit of the novel had seemed fully plausible to him, unusually compelling. Was Peter Stryker simply an author of true talent, or did his final obsession have something to do with his ugly, agonizing death?

  After a time Burke assumed the cross-legged, lotus position. He started to breathe slowly and deeply. He observed the vague sound of traffic outside, released it. Burke observed first his body, then stray thoughts, fall away. He entered a fugue state. Burke knew that the area of his brain that regulated the position of the physical self to other objects was slowly fading into gray, as if controlled by a dimmer switch. The powerful sense of "oneness" was soon palpable. Burke savored it, even as it began to recede and the external world returned. He rose refreshed, tossed the stack of papers into his messy office, and got dressed for the night.

  SEVEN

  Jack Burke drove the misty streets with no radio playing, windows up and mind closed. His body knew the route. He sat in his car in the nearly deserted parking lot and prayed for several long minutes, then entered the plain, antiseptic building. Visiting always made him think about death, and death made him feel too achingly alone for words. Burke signed in and walked alone down the corridor; hesitant footsteps booming, quick breath harsh and thin as sandpaper. He slid into the room, moved the chair to the window. He rubbed his eyes and sat back.

  "Hello."

  Burke closed his eyes and after a long, weighted moment offered a disconnected, whispered response. "I love you."

  "I love you, too."

  A rubbery, elongated section of silence followed. "I got a new job," Burke said, finally. "It pays very well."

  "Oh?"

  "It's digging into a probable suicide. A horror author. Guy butchered himself, or at least it looks that way. I spent most of the day reading his trashy novels. The last one wasn't bad, actually."

  "You?"

  "Yeah, I love to read. What can I say? Figured I might as well see what he was up to near the end, right? Besides, I have to do something to stay on the payroll. Like I said, the money is good."

  The wet hiss of sprinklers outside: way down below, a man with a resonant voice was sprayed and bellowed in dismay.

  Burke hunched forward. "Scotty got me the job. He still looks pretty good, you know? Of all of us, he's the one who learned how to play the game. He's even better than Cary Ryan, and that is saying something."

  "Oh?"

  "Yeah. Scotty kisses just enough ass. He can bob and weave and slide around like a champ. You remember how many times he came through for me? Still slips me jobs now and then when he really shouldn't." Burke knew he had told her all of this many times before, but was suddenly groping for words. "I pay him a taste for the contacts, but I think he's a loyal guy. That's a rare quality these days."

  He rose, stretched. Cracked his neck and peered out the window. "They really should try and change this view once in a while, just for the rest of us. It's getting old. Maybe plant some new flowers or something."

  Too much time passed again. His broad chest clenched like a fist, tired eyes begin to sting. "I miss you." The words ached, came flowing out on a faint rush of sadness to hover momentarily and then dissipate.

  "I know."

  Burke cried softly, for the sweet voice was now suddenly as faint as the sprinklers down below, almost as intangible. "I miss touching you."

  She had already gone back to sleep. He knelt by the bed, rested his fingertips on her ivory arm like a man sitting down at an expensive piano. Burke closed his eyes and fell backward, inward, seeking a place where pure consciousness existed, but no longer a lonely, isolate self.

  EIGHT

  TUESDAY

  It was a hazy morning. The filthy parking lot known as the 405 Freeway was packed with multi-colored metal dominoes that belched smoke and barely contained their outraged drivers. Burke listened to a cassette copy of an old jazz record, his fingers doing snare drum rolls on the steering wheel. John Coltrane's phrasing captured lines of rage and pain and manipulated them into smoky bursts of sexual heat. Coltrane was both stimulating and relaxing, like the company of a beautiful woman.

  Upon arrival, the asphalt was already packed and busy people in expensive suits were milling around the foot of the steps. Though still young, Burke had that rugged, slightly florid face worn by Irish cops the world over. Everyone thought they know him. His years with the Vegas PD had given him an aura of legitimacy the average street cop was loath to challenge. He breezed past the first guard at Van Nuys City Hall and strolled down the hallway toward the CAS, or Coroner's Ancillary Station. He pinned on a plastic badge lifted during the previous visit. Doc Washington was not in his office. Burke checked his watch and walked toward the back of the building.

  The explosion in DNA research and new technologies created a need for a discrete substation. Some bodies were brought there and refrigerated, but most of the heavy lifting was now done in cyberspace by men using high-tech computers. Men like Lincoln 'Doc' Washington. Burke heard clacking sounds and ribald taunting from the end of the hall. He smiled.

  "You kidding me, right? You think you got game? Think you can take my black ass? Well, come on, then! Come and get some! Yeah, that's right, get some!"

  Burke peeked into the commissary. Doc and a new PA were seated at an empty table playing high-speed chess. Each player had five seconds to make a move and slam the clock so that it started again. The physician's assistant, a slender blond man in greens whose badge read Frank Abt, was already perspiring profusely. Doc whooped, slapped the clock, and rolled his wheelchair back two feet. He had a bicycle horn mounted on the chassis. He honked it. "Yo, cracker! That's checkmate, motherfucker!"

  The kid called Abt whacked the table in disgust, flashed a rueful grin. "Another round, Linc? Let me get even again?"

  Doc spied Burke. "My man!" His face lit up. "No rematch at this very moment in time, yo. I have a man I have to se
e about a hearse. Maybe tomorrow?"

  Abt sighed. "Deal."

  Burke was already moving away. He stepped into Doc's laboratory, found a chair. Moments later Doc rolled into the lab, which was a wide room filled with stainless steel, computer screens, and file cabinets. He paused to give Burke a high five. "Brothers. What's up, man?"

  "I'm fine, Doc. Doing good, just working too much." Burke's worn face and sunken brown eyes told the truth. "You know how it is."

  Doc nodded. "Maybe I do." He turned to the computer keyboard, fingers a blur. "And you want to hear about this Stryker thing, right?"

  "Right." The room tilted, rolled. Burke leaned back and closed his weary eyes. "Just give it to me in your own words, okay?"

  Doc started the printer, which rattled and wheezed then spat out several pages. "I'll give you a copy of the full ME report, which you never even fucking talked to me about, right?"

  "Of course."

  Doc scrolled down the screen. "Okay, here is the gist of it. Looks like the dude checked into the hotel around dinnertime under some other name. He orders up a room service salad and two pots of coffee. Then he used his own ass as the main course. This shot here," gestured at the computer screen, "ain't a piece of shrimp. It shows an amputated little finger sitting on the bathroom counter on a neatly folded square of paper towel. Now get this, exactly—and I do mean exactly—twelve inches away, the little finger of the other hand."

  Burke, eyes still closed: "He did that to himself? Not once, but twice?"

  "Washcloth in the bathroom has bite marks and saliva, lab says both his."

  "Give me that report, too."

  "Will do." Doc hit the printer again. "Can't be sure about the sequence, but the next event is technically known as enucleation. See this photo? No, ain't no oyster, Jack. That's his right eyeball. Now get this, he has an entire surgical bag with him and doesn't use it. Popped the sucker out with a teaspoon."

  "And you have that spoon?"

  "A true gross-out, my man. No fingerprints, because he was wearing surgical gloves on both hands, but yeah, we have it. Damn, this had to have hurt like a mother, even with all the drugs."

  Burke sat up, intrigued. He rubbed his neck. "What drugs did he have in his system, Doc?"

  "First the cancer painkiller, Oxycontin, and lots of it—which I can personally testify is some good shit. In fact, he had enough in him to make the average guy nod off, but I use it myself for chronic pain and believe me, a man can get used to anything given enough time. But we also found a syringe and some bottles in with the guy's surgical kit. Check this out. He had some really top-notch, high grade synthetic cocaine in him too."

  "Synthetic coke?"

  Doc rolled closer to the keyboard and manipulated a few keys. He turned with a wry smile. "They use that shit for surgeries sometimes, Jack. When the person stays awake, that is. Let's you ride it out without worrying too much, even when you're awake for the procedure."

  "He was in medical school for a while. Would have known about stuff like that."

  "Yeah, but this type of junk distorts depth perception, your sense of time, even makes you laugh a lot. It's hard to imagine anybody having all this in his system and still doing relatively delicate surgery on his own damned body."

  "Unless, like you said, he was pretty used to large amounts of dope."

  "Well, there you go," Doc said. "Prove that and we figure the dude just shot himself up. Case closed. So he checks in, has a light supper, pumps himself full of painkillers and stimulants. Over the next few hours he slices off several patches of his own skin and then cauterizes the wounds with a small blowtorch. He cuts off his little fingers and the tip of his nose. He then sets a mirror up at the end of the tub, gets in and lightly turns the faucets, opens up his own belly and watches as his guts fall out. This is not the dude you want dating your daughter."

  Burke grinned. "He was a nut job for sure. But let's be thorough anyway, okay? I need to know if anything, anything at all, looks out of place to you. Check it out."

  Doc sorted through the files. "Mr. Stryker wasn't dead more than six to eight hours, not quite long enough for serious rigor to set in, so he was a little stiff, but not too bad. Everything in the suite was clean and organized, which I'm told is in keeping with this dude's anal and obsessive personality."

  "Seems like."

  "Okay," Doc continued. "Like I said, six to eight, so we have some distinct lividity in the lower body, even though he bled out. Kind of a purple patch on his ass, and more on the soles of his feet hanging out the tub. That fits with the time frame, too."

  "Okay." Burke was actually feeling a bit queasy, picturing what happened.

  "Get this," Doc said, grinning, "along with this lividity thing. The guy probably stops somewhere and buys some decals to stick to the tub so he won't slip in the mess and the blood, I guess. Little yellow duck decals. So now he's got the imprint of one on each ass cheek, like a tattoo. Nice touch, huh?"

  "Go on. I don't like hearing this shit as much as you do." He ticked a fingernail on the metal desk. The sound boomed.

  "He skinned himself exactly thirteen times," Doc continued. "He took strips about two inches wide and six to seven inches long each time. He sliced the pattern in a fatty area, well clear of arteries, and flayed his own body. We found a pile of alcohol swabs and some strips of bandage."

  Burke shook his head. "How could he tolerate that kind of pain?"

  "Drugs would help, but believe me, he felt it."

  "Why." It is a statement, not a question.

  Doc arched an eyebrow. "Pain seems to have been the point, man. Very self-punishing behavior. He doped himself up enough that he wouldn't pass out and be discovered before he could finish the job, but not enough so that he didn't feel every hellish second of the agony. Tissue samples indicate about twenty to thirty minutes went by between sessions of skinning and peeling."

  "Jesus."

  "Jesus had nothing to do with this one, Burke." Gears whirred as Doc turned the wheelchair. He pointed to a particularly grisly crime scene photo on the monitor. It showed an angry, reddish patch of flesh that had been blackened by flame. "He dabbed the open wounds with alcohol just a few minutes after inflicting them, see? Damn, that would hurt. Beats me why, since if he was planning on dying he didn't need to worry much about infection, but he did it. And then he fucking burned the wound with the small torch. After that he'd start again on some other part of his body."

  Burke stood. He massaged his stomach unconsciously. "How did he stay silent? The classical music?"

  "I guess," Doc replied. "That and the chewed dishrag he had in his mouth. Somewhere toward the end he fixed it to his face with some surgical tape."

  Burke paced, thinking aloud. "After maybe five or six hours he cuts off the little finger of one hand. Where did he do that?"

  "Like most of it, in the bathroom."

  "He just sets the finger on the damned sink, cauterizes the amputation, and does the other. Then one of his eyes."

  "Appears that way."

  "So the finale is, he puts the mirror in place, steps into the tub, and does the Samurai Sayonara?"

  Doc shrugged again. "Stoned out of his mind by then, not to mention grossed out and sick from the pain."

  Burke closes his eyes. Ugly pictures danced. "Okay, give me how he would have done that part. Reconstruct it for me."

  "He did it the clinical way, I'd guess. Began the incision at mid-center, just about the pubic hair, dead on where it had to be. He cut in and then out to the right and upward in a curve. Remember, the large and small intestines are packed in there like a mile of chitlins in a small pail, so once the abdominal cavity was opened they wouldn't have rushed out, not if the guy was sitting in a reclining position."

  Burke opened his eyes. "But they were out?"

  Doc nodded. "Part way. He probably tugged on them a bit."

  "I think I'm going to throw up now."

  "Pussy." Doc hits 'print' one last time. "Seriously, if I had
n't been doing this shit for so many years I'd come with you. Although I got to say the little ducky prints on his butt cheeks kind of take the heaviness out of it for me, you know?"

  "Yeah. Sure."

  "Tell you something, this guy knew his drugs."

  Burke tilted his head like a man listening to a tune played far, far away. "How's that?"

  "Because he used just enough to keep him in the loop, all the time. Like he didn't want to miss a single thing, you know?"

  "Any other angles?"

  "Okay," Doc said, warming to it. "Another way you could look at it is that somehow somebody gets in there with him. They tie him up."

  "No ligature marks on his wrists or ankles."

  "Maybe he is wrapped with towels. Or they drug him with something else, something that leaves the bloodstream in a hurry? Not out of the question. I'll keep looking."

  "Then they torture this poor bastard for hours over something they think he knows, Doc. Maybe he even tells them near the beginning, but they don't believe him. So they go on until he finally dies. They set it up so it looks like he did himself and sneak back out again."

  "No 'they,' Burke. I guess maybe one guy could have, though."

  "Or a woman."

  "Okay, point taken. But all the damned DNA is his. At least the preliminary tests say that. Blood drops, saliva, tissue samples. Of course, good luck finding useful fiber or print evidence in a hotel suite that's been rented to a gazillion people."

  Burke grimaced, looked down. "I'll talk to Gina. Might be worth seeing if there is anything on the voice mail."

  "You really think somebody did him?"

  "Who knows? But something weird is going on here."

  "No kidding."

  "Do you buy all this, Doc? That he committed suicide?"

  The smaller man rolled his wheelchair to the right. He stretched his upper body. Doc still lifted weights and took pride in his upper torso. "I've seen stranger shit, Burke. On the surface it looks like this guy hated his life and wanted to punish himself for something nasty he did along the way. Besides . . ." He looked away and his voice trailed off.