"Why alive?"
"So Grant will do exactly as we say."
Van looked across at Ian, the determination on his brother's features reassuring him. All these years Ian had taken care of him, helped him, made amends for eleven years of torture that he alone endured physically while Ian, upstairs in a comfortable bed, sleeping with the lights on, endured the mental anguish of Van's plight, since they were connected.
In fact, they were so connected that Ian felt the creature's anguish and pain. Ian, even as an infant, knew—had always known—that he had a secret other self locked away, mistreated and detested by his mother and father. He saw images vague but real of his other self there in the dark basement. He knew that Van—as his parents spoke of the other in hushed tones—was denied even the barest of animal needs. He was Ian, and Ian was he, but they could not understand this. They set about a course of torture and abuse bent on allowing Ian's second self to die once they were told, and it was then that Van's consuming hatred of their parents consumed Ian as well until together they exploded in a killing rage.
Now a man named Grant was trying to hurt Van, and Ian wouldn't allow it, not ever.
Sid Corman knew why he was left with the results of the Scalpers’ work here in the den of perversion, surrounded by wall hangings of human hair, furniture covered in human skin, bedding stuffed with scalps. He knew now why Dean had to leave the cleanup to him. This was far worse than any floater case, far worse than anything in Sid's experience. The sour odors he could manage, and the sight of the walls and furniture he could stomach. Sid had never in all his entire professional life as a coroner felt so sickened as he did now. Never in all his time as a medic in Korea had he been made ill by the sight of a corpse with missing head, limbs, gaping holes. Nor had there ever been a diseased corpse that he could not deal with professionally, coolly, objectively. Not even a floater could cause Sid's strings to come apart. But this ... this diced-up floater was wholly different from anything he'd ever witnessed. This carnage and boiling of portions of Mrs. Jimenez and her fetus to feed the perversions of two distorted minds, this was more than any man should have to bear.
After some time in the hidden room, taking photos, collecting the necessary evidence, putting off the inevitable, Sid scooped out the remains still intact. He tried not to allow it, but jarring the mush got to him, and he threw up repeatedly on the hearth below the black cauldron, which remained scaldingly hot, the steam rising with the smoke of embers still red.
"You okay, Dr. Corman?” asked Mark Williams, Peggy Carson's partner, who along with Staubb had remained behind. The kid had rushed to the kitchen, found a cup, and brought Sid some water.
"Thanks, Williams."
Staubb was outside, preferring it that way. With a few other officers he'd called in, he was beating about the bushes, just in case the murderous little dwarf was out there somewhere watching the proceedings. Staubb, Sid had decided, had become spooked considerably, but Sid could understand why. Williams, normally a happy-go-lucky, bright-eyed kid, was currently somber, his face green, his eyes forlorn.
"I'm fine now ... I'll be okay,” replied Sid.
"Ain't nothing to be ashamed of."
"I'm not ashamed,” said Sid, taking a syringe and sucking up the residue left in a deep brown soup bowl on the little table. He then took forceps and lifted the bowl itself into a plastic bag.
"Why ... don't you take these bags carefully out to your squad car and ... put ‘em in the trunk,” said Sid, handing Williams some of the items he'd chosen to take downtown. Both men knew Sid was fighting down bile.
"Sure, sure ... no problem.” Williams rushed to it, knowing Sid wanted to be alone with his stomach. Williams plowed through the wooden-floored house noisily.
Sid controlled it, got hold of it, fought it back just long enough to allow Williams to return as he lost it again at the hearth, where now he was on his knees and bent over, pushing the vomit into the embers with a fireplace shovel.
Williams continued to make Sid uneasy. “Enough here to drive any man to his knees, turn you to religion,” muttered Williams. “My mother always says you got to have religion in your life to ... to fend off the bad times, she says, the real bad times ... calamities, but I don't reckon she meant anything like this, but she does worry ‘bout me all the time, being a cop.” The kid was going on out of nervous hysteria, Sid realized. He'd seen it before.
"Why don't you go on outside with Staubb, huh?"
"Sir?"
"Staubb may need your help outside."
"Yes sir, I'll check on that."
Williams was only too glad to return to the outdoors. Fifteen minutes later Staubb turned up, informing Sid that the woods around the house had been secured, and that nothing was found. He had his units returning to their normal duties.
Sid said a thank-you, but kept working.
"Me and the kid will be just outside. Give a holler if there's anything you need."
Sid got ahold of himself now and returned to the necessary work. He wanted to nail Benjamin I. Hamel to a cross, really crucify the bastard with every nail of evidence he could compile now, nail both him and his sick little accomplice.
Sid allowed his anger and hatred for what they had done to flood his mind. He would work better, faster, and more efficiently if he could hold that thought over those that made his stomach turn. “Going to nail the scum,” he repeated to himself in a kind of mantra as he completed his part in this nightmare.
Sgt. Joe Staubb, and Peggy's partner, Mark Williams, were having a smoke, even though Williams didn't smoke. Each man, the one in his second year and the other an old veteran of policing, had a case of shot nerves from what they'd seen deep inside the house. It dredged up in Staubb an old, forgotten line out of a poem or something he'd read somewhere, something to do with how when a man stared into the unknown, he could count on it staring back. Yeah, that was it, and he shared the thought with Williams, but Williams hadn't seen as much as Staubb—he'd remained away from that cauldron. All he'd seen was what was half-hidden by Sid Corman's broad shoulders. All the kid knew was that the coroner himself was losing it inside, and that told him to keep a safe distance if he wanted to “maintain."
Staubb, trying desperately to find something to laugh about, pointed to the brown-and-gold sign out front of the house and lightly chuckled, saying, “This place puts a whole new meaning to those real estate ads, don't it, Williams?"
Williams chewed on the inside of his mouth, tossed down the cigarette only half-burned, crushed it out, and said, “Over two million sold..."
Staubb smiled and added, “We're the neighborhood professionals."
Williams laughed, and Staubb, caught up in the macabre humor, now laughed with him, giving him a whack on the back.
Williams and Staubb felt a surge of manliness return to them, Staubb feeling it to his core, when each heard one of the radio units crackling to life out in the dark ahead of them.
"Yours or mine?” asked Williams.
"Yours."
"Be right back."
"Right"
Staubb knew from the little time he'd spent with young Williams that the kid would make a better-than-good cop if he stuck with it long enough. Most cops got out of it long before they gave themselves a real chance to gain a true understanding of police work. That it was, after all, public service work, seldom as glamorous as Hollywood portrayed it, or as gory and horrifying as tonight.
Staubb saw the lights in Williams’ unit come on as the kid settled in behind the wheel and snatched up the radio. Something seemed to agitate the kid, his relaxed posture going stiff, his free hand going to his face, rubbing it all about, as if concerned he'd forgotten to shave.
"Something up?” Staubb called to him as he neared the unit.