had to guess, I’d say your so-called vic Cruz was responsible for a handful of each, so to my thinking, whoever whacked him did me and the decent citizens of this city a favor. You want to poke around, that’s your business. But if you want to stand here and gripe that the file’s a little thin, feel free to fill it out yourself. I got better things to spend my time on.”
De Silva stood, yanking open the conference room door. It slammed against the wall, rattling glass. Then he left, red-faced and fuming.
Thompson fumed as well. If Garfield had played it differently, maybe De Silva would have been more cooperative. She eyed her new partner with distaste, but if Garfield noticed, he sure didn’t let on. Instead, he smiled and shook his head, saying to Thompson, “Some fucking detective he was. Probably couldn’t find his own dick with both hands and a flashlight.”
“Ass,” Thompson called him.
“Excuse me?” Garfield replied.
Thompson stared at him a sec, an expression of blank innocence honed in many a late-night poker game pasted on her face. And then she said, “What? That’s the saying. Couldn’t find his own ass with both hands and a flashlight. ”
“Right,” said Garfield, somewhat mollified. “Now whaddaya say we go take a look at that crime scene?”
8
Engelmann, comfortable despite Miami’s heat in a linen suit and woven cowhide loafers, sipped his espresso and watched the two federal agents bicker in the shadow of the Morales Incorporated Building. From his table at a sidewalk café across the street, he’d watched them parade up and down this stretch of Brickell Avenue for the better part of the afternoon, alternately examining the scant physical evidence Cruz’s murder had left behind, and sniping at each other like an embittered married couple.
Engelmann spent most of his life observing from a distance. Even as a child, he’d felt set apart from his family, from other children, and from the string of governesses in whose care his parents placed him—and whose emotional states he slowly destroyed with his sadistic manipulations. It was by impulse, rather than design, that he tormented them—an omnipresent itch that he could never truly scratch, an urge to ruin and destroy that could be quieted but never quelled.
It wasn’t until he discovered killing that he’d felt truly present in this world.
His first was a pheasant at his family’s summer manor, which was nestled in the Inn River Valley in southwest Switzerland. He was ten. The house chef mistook his interest in the process as culinary in nature, and after he’d observed a slaughter without crying, the chef allowed the boy to bleed a bird himself. In that blissful moment when knife parted flesh, and the headless pheasant began to thrash within his grasp, the air had never seemed so crisp, the sky never quite so true a blue. But if the wizened old chef took note of his aroused state—as Engelmann suspected he had, for Anatole never again allowed the boy to partake in the daily slaughter—he never breathed a word of it to anyone.
Engelmann’s path had nevertheless been determined. So transformative was the experience, young Engelmann spent the better part of that afternoon traipsing about with hands coated red, only grudgingly washing away the stains when they’d crusted dry, the blood’s color fading to rust— and with it, the colors of the world around him. As he watched those flecks of spent iron swirl downstream on the icy waters of the River Inn, he knew they represented the compass by which his heart had been set—a conclusion reinforced weeks later when he took his first human victim, a local farm boy, and experienced an emotional and physical release so thunderous that mere words failed to do it justice.
Today, he watched, as he’d watched the village children decades before, his mind calm and appraising. Of course, he had no intention of harming these investigators. Not that he wouldn’t have
De Silva stood, yanking open the conference room door. It slammed against the wall, rattling glass. Then he left, red-faced and fuming.
Thompson fumed as well. If Garfield had played it differently, maybe De Silva would have been more cooperative. She eyed her new partner with distaste, but if Garfield noticed, he sure didn’t let on. Instead, he smiled and shook his head, saying to Thompson, “Some fucking detective he was. Probably couldn’t find his own dick with both hands and a flashlight.”
“Ass,” Thompson called him.
“Excuse me?” Garfield replied.
Thompson stared at him a sec, an expression of blank innocence honed in many a late-night poker game pasted on her face. And then she said, “What? That’s the saying. Couldn’t find his own ass with both hands and a flashlight. ”
“Right,” said Garfield, somewhat mollified. “Now whaddaya say we go take a look at that crime scene?”
8
Engelmann, comfortable despite Miami’s heat in a linen suit and woven cowhide loafers, sipped his espresso and watched the two federal agents bicker in the shadow of the Morales Incorporated Building. From his table at a sidewalk café across the street, he’d watched them parade up and down this stretch of Brickell Avenue for the better part of the afternoon, alternately examining the scant physical evidence Cruz’s murder had left behind, and sniping at each other like an embittered married couple.
Engelmann spent most of his life observing from a distance. Even as a child, he’d felt set apart from his family, from other children, and from the string of governesses in whose care his parents placed him—and whose emotional states he slowly destroyed with his sadistic manipulations. It was by impulse, rather than design, that he tormented them—an omnipresent itch that he could never truly scratch, an urge to ruin and destroy that could be quieted but never quelled.
It wasn’t until he discovered killing that he’d felt truly present in this world.
His first was a pheasant at his family’s summer manor, which was nestled in the Inn River Valley in southwest Switzerland. He was ten. The house chef mistook his interest in the process as culinary in nature, and after he’d observed a slaughter without crying, the chef allowed the boy to bleed a bird himself. In that blissful moment when knife parted flesh, and the headless pheasant began to thrash within his grasp, the air had never seemed so crisp, the sky never quite so true a blue. But if the wizened old chef took note of his aroused state—as Engelmann suspected he had, for Anatole never again allowed the boy to partake in the daily slaughter—he never breathed a word of it to anyone.
Engelmann’s path had nevertheless been determined. So transformative was the experience, young Engelmann spent the better part of that afternoon traipsing about with hands coated red, only grudgingly washing away the stains when they’d crusted dry, the blood’s color fading to rust— and with it, the colors of the world around him. As he watched those flecks of spent iron swirl downstream on the icy waters of the River Inn, he knew they represented the compass by which his heart had been set—a conclusion reinforced weeks later when he took his first human victim, a local farm boy, and experienced an emotional and physical release so thunderous that mere words failed to do it justice.
Today, he watched, as he’d watched the village children decades before, his mind calm and appraising. Of course, he had no intention of harming these investigators. Not that he wouldn’t have
Similar Books
