“How did he die?” Mark asked, his gaze averting the huge area of black-caked blood that made him realize that he didn’t really want to see Levi turned over. Right now, the kid was just Levi. Dead, but Levi.
“I need a look at the A side,” Grant said to a crime scene guy, and the analyst gave him a nod. The African-American detective bent and gingerly eased Levi over onto his back, as if not wanting to hurt him.
Levi was way past hurting — the young man’s throat had been cut, ear to ear, probably from behind, and then he’d been gutted like an animal, his shirt ripped to shreds, his insides spilled out like an overturned nest of snakes. That was vicious enough. But what had been done to his face managed to trump it.
His right eye had been carved out, none too carefully.
“The kid crossed Shaker Boulevard,” Grant said, “hit the sidewalk, and somebody was waiting in the trees. Grabbed him from behind, yanked him back here, did his thing. We haven’t found it, by the way.”
“What?”
“The eyeball. So be careful where you step.”
Mark was glad he hadn’t taken time for breakfast before he left; right now, acid was burning his throat.
“Not a mugging,” Grant said.
“Butchery,” Mark said.
Every fear Mark had tried to keep at bay roiled up. He prayed that Jordan had followed his advice, and that she had called the others and they were being similarly cautious. Somehow, Levi had stumbled onto something and the killer had discovered as much.
Lynch trundled up beside him. “Weird shit, huh, the eyeball deal, huh?”
“His right eye,” Mark said.
Grant said, “That’s significant?”
“It’s Biblical,” Mark said, his voice steady, cool. “Matthew 5:29. ‘And if thy right eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck it out, and cast it from thee.’ ”
Lynch wore a skeptical smirk. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means I’ve been right all along — a serial killer has been running loose for years, and the CPD has done jack squat about it.”
“I would tend to agree,” Grant said. “Is there any sign of this perp taking souvenirs before?”
“Maybe,” Mark said. But he didn’t go into detail. “In any case, I don’t think we have to worry about stepping on the thing. That it’s gone is a message.”
Grant asked, “How so?”
Mark ignored that, asking, “Was his cell on him?”
“No,” Grant said, shaking his head. “Wallet’s missing, too.”
“That’s funny,” Mark said.
Lynch said, “Funny ha-ha, or funny fucked-up?”
“He tries to make it look like a mugging, a robbery, and then does this crazy eyeball routine.”
“Maybe he was filling an order from an organ donor.”
Mark wasn’t sure if that was a dark joke or if Lynch was that dumb.
“It’s another stabbing,” Mark said to Grant. “That girl’s picture you showed me — gotten anywhere with that?”
“The married boyfriend is cleared, but she had a lot of boyfriends, and a few johns. You’re right that this has a few surface similarities, but that was a female victim.”
“The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run had male and female victims.”
“You know your history. But I don’t see how that hookin’-on-the-side waitress has anything to do with this poor kid.”
Unless that waitress’s resemblance to Jordan had been some kind of perverted callout...
The young detective stepped out of the crime scene area and removed the booties.
“Where are you headed?” Grant asked. “We need to talk.”
“I have a class,” Mark said.
A gymnastics class.
He followed Shaker Boulevard, State Highway 87, west. Even as the street changed names, Mark stayed on 87, weaving through traffic to its intersection with I-271, which he took to I-480, the Outer Beltway. He continued westerly, headed for Havoc’s center. There, he planned to confront Carlyle and finally get some answers.
His tires squealed as he made the turn into Havoc’s parking lot. To Mark’s astonishment, Carlyle, blond hair bright in the sunshine, was strolling toward his car, probably headed for lunch.
Finally caught a break, he thought.
When he slammed on the brakes just short of Carlyle’s car, the man turned, gave him a wide-eyed startled look, and ran.
Mark flew out of his own car, barely jamming the gearshift into park as he exited. “Cleveland PD, halt!”
That worked about as well as it usually did.
Flippin’ criminals, did they always have to run?
Carlyle took off around the north side of the structure, between it and the credit union.
Mark took pursuit. This guy had less of a head start than Perry the Perv had, but Carlyle was in way better shape. Another parking lot waited on the backside of the building, and Mark was barely keeping up as Carlyle turned back south, going behind Havoc’s business and heading for the woods at the far south end of the parking lot.
If the gymnastics coach made it into there, Mark would have a hard time keeping up, and might lose the guy in the shadowy landscape.
Kicking it up a notch, Mark sprinted after his prey. Slowly, the gap narrowed. Just as the first runner’s feet left the pavement and hit a patch of grass at the edge of the forest, Mark leapt.
He caught Carlyle by the waist and the two men rolled to the ground. Even a place kicker knows how to tackle, he thought. As he struggled to his feet, Mark knew he had ruined another suit.
Carlyle got to one knee, but Mark was ready, pistol out.
“Stay down,” Mark said.
Carlyle slipped back onto his stomach and, without being asked, spread-eagled.
“You’re under arrest,” Mark said.
“Arrest? What the fuck for?”
Cuffing the man’s hands behind him, Mark said, “Resisting, obstruction of a police officer in the performance of his—”
“You’re not workin’ for my ex-wife?” Carlyle asked, twisting his head around, watching as Mark frisked him.
“No, Carlyle. I’m not private. Your tax dollars pay my freight.”
He helped the suspect up.
Carlyle’s eyes were wide and he was spitting as he talked. “I’m under arrest because I ran? How the hell was I supposed to know you were a cop? You didn’t have a police car — how the fuck was I supposed to know you weren’t sent by that bitch to serve me papers or beat the crap out of me, or—”
“I said ‘Cleveland PD.’ ”
“That doesn’t make you Cleveland PD.”
“This does,” Mark said, and read him his Miranda rights.
As Mark marched the suspect back around the building, Carlyle asked, “What’s this really about? Never mind me obstructing shit, what’s the real charge?”
“You’re gonna love it, Coach Carlyle,” Mark said, and couldn’t hold back the grin. “First-degree murder.”
Chapter Seventeen
Though she had buzzed Mark into the building just moments before, Jordan remained jumpy as she peered through the peephole, waiting to see him fill her vision. And when he had, she flung open the door, ready to rip him a new one. Hadn’t he essentially hung up on her, after hitting her with Levi’s murder? Without providing any goddamn details! What the fuck?
Then, when she saw him with his disheveled hair, grass-stained suit, and torn suit coat and pants, she blurted, “Jesus, are you all right?”
“Hard day at the office,” he said, and managed a small smile as he brushed by her into the apartment.
Jordan — in Indians T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers, her hair trailing down her back — had in her right hand the switchblade she had commandeered from that mugger out back.