Sunday, October 2009
Red-blue, red-blue. The red and blue lights flashed against the stone walls of the Church. Responding to the emergency call were six police cars and two ambulances. It was a Sunday evening in the city.
An unmarked car pulled up. A Crown Victoria. Black. No hubcaps
“Full moon,” observed one of the detectives; the driver Hank Schwartz. Thirty years in the force. Thought he had seen it all. Perhaps he had. Thirty years on the force had destroyed his marriage, his liver and his belief in God.
His partner; David Fiddler was an ambitious detective. Five years in uniform before getting into investigative work. Sometimes he rubbed Hank the wrong way. Hank drank. David didn't. Hank was on his second marriage and his second mistress. David was gay. David was a flashy dresser. Hank was...not.
“You don't believe that full moon shit do you?”
Hank opened the car door. “This church is bad news.”
David dutifully followed the older man out.
Hank had been shot at twice in his years on the force. Had seen some terrible things but nothing could compare to that case thirty years ago, when he was just a rookie cop and responded to a call here at this same church. At that time the church had a large congregation and that night, on a dare, some kids broke in to party in the basement. Three boys. Two girls. One of the boys suddenly lost it and turned on the others with a hunting knife and carved them up. Each of the kids was stabbed about a hundred times. Incredibly vicious. The attacker was an altar boy.
He remembered they had the perp cornered in the basement. There was gunfire. Flashes of deadly light, flashes of thunder. He had seen the boy fall, but then they couldn't find his body. One of the girls was still barely alive. Her face was unrecognizable. From her purse, he could see that she had been a pretty girl, but when he first saw her, curled up in the fetal position in a corner of the basement, she was a mess. Her lungs had been punctured and she was breathing blood. She did not last long. That night had haunted him, turned him to drink. You hate to see something like that happen to kids.
