Nineteen

I took one last glance at Peter’s head, spun, ran down the steps, dashed through the living room, and burst out of the aluminum screen door. Ran right into Lt. Lee of the Boston Police Department, knocking him down the three steps leading to the entry.

“Shit—I’m sorry, Lee!”

I ran down the steps reached to help him up and heard a cop yell, “Freeze! Get on the ground! Get on the fucking ground!”

I looked up to see three police cruisers arrayed around Swift Street. The cruisers had delivered five cops, three of whom had guns drawn and pointed at me.

“Get on the ground!”

I lay down next to Lieutenant Lee. Whispered, “Sorry.”

Lieutenant Lee, an Asian man with black hair splayed across his forehead, sat up and looked at me as if he’d just scraped me off his shoe. Lee and I had a lot of mutually annoying history, the most recent of which saw me solving one of his cases for him.

“Hello, Mr. Tucker.”

I lay on my stomach, waved a little wave. “Can I get up?”

“That depends on what we’ll find when we go inside.”

“You’ll find Peter Olinsky’s head on his bedroom floor, next to his body.”

“Then I think you should stay on the ground.”

Rolled my eyes. “C’mon, Lee.”

Lee stood, looked around. Waved at the cops. “Please put away your weapons.”

One of the cops had run past me into the house. We heard a muffled “Holy shit!” from inside.

Lee said, “And naturally, you had nothing to do with this?”

Shook my head. “Left my broadsword at home.”

“What were you doing here?”

I thought about explaining the whole thing to Lee, decided against it. “Long story.”

Lee said, “Better told in an interview room?”

“Or a bar.”

“Let’s say that—”

Bobby Miller’s Chevy Impala pulled up next to us. Bobby and Hunter climbed out.

Bobby said, “Goddammit, Tucker!”

I waved from the sidewalk. “Top of the morning to you.”

“Why are you here?” Lee asked Bobby.

Hunter walked past us into the house.

Lee called after her, “That is a crime scene!”

Bobby said, “We know, Lee. To answer your question, that’s why we’re here.”

“It is not your crime scene. It’s a Boston Police Department crime scene.”

“I guess we’ll just have to share the crime scene.”

“What does the FBI care about a Boston murder?”

“We care about all of God’s children.”

Lee narrowed his eyes at Bobby. “Are you mocking me?”

Bobby looked down at me. Nudged me with his shoe. “I told you to leave Peter alone.”

Lee asked, “Peter?”

Bobby said, “The decapitated guy in the house is named Peter Olinsky.”

“How do you know this?”

I said, “Peter Olinsky was an FBI person of interest.”

Lee asked, “What are you talking about?”

“Can I get off the ground?”

“Fine.” Lee pulled me to my feet. “What are you talking about?”

“A hacker named Runway stole something confidential and left a trail. Bobby and Hunter had linked the nickname to Peter.”

Hunter joined us. “Jesus, Tucker, did you have to threaten to cut off his head?”

Bobby rolled his eyes. Put his finger to his lips. “Hey, rookie. Don’t talk. Just listen.”

Lee said to me, “You threatened the victim?”

“A little argument on the Internet.”

“Did you threaten the victim?”

“Sort of.”

“What do you mean sort of? You threatened him or you didn’t.”

“I only Internet threatened him.”

“What’s that mean?”

“People who make Internet threats never expect to meet the person they threaten. Nobody thinks they’ll actually carry out the threat.”

“Did you threaten to cut the victim’s head off?”

“That was a metaphor.”

“You metaphorically threatened to cut off his head?”

“I guess.”

“And now his head is cut off.”

“I can’t explain that.”

Lee asked Bobby, “Is there any reason I shouldn’t arrest Tucker? You seem to like interfering with my doing my job, so I wanted to check.”

Bobby said, “Beyond the fact that I need Tucker to help me now that Peter is dead, you don’t have enough evidence.”

“I have motive, apparently, and opportunity.”

“Yeah, but you don’t have means.”

“Tucker owns a broadsword.”

Bobby turned to me. “You own a broadsword?”

“I don’t own a broadsword.”

Lee said, “You just told me you did.”

“It was a joke. I was breaking the I-just-saw-a-head-on-the-floor tension.”

“I want you to come to the station for more questions.”

“How did you know Peter’s head was cut off?” I asked Bobby.

“Huh?”

“You knew Peter’s head was cut off when you got here.”

“Well … ”

“And you texted me at least thirty seconds before Lee got here.”

Lee asked, “Is this true?”

I showed him the text: Run!

Lee asked Bobby, “Why did you tell Tucker to run?”

“We didn’t know if the killer was still in the house,” said Bobby.

“Someone had been in the house,” I said.

“How do you know?” asked Lee.

“The front door was locked when I got here. I walked around the house, and when I reached the front again, it was open.”

Lee asked Bobby, “How did you know about the murder?”

“We saw a picture.”

“Where would you see a picture like that?”

I said, “On 4chan.org.”

Bobby said, “Yup.”

“What is 4chan.org?”

I said, “If there’s a hell, Lee—”

“There is.”

“Okay. In hell, 4chan.org is the only thing on the Internet. Somebody must have posted Peter’s picture there.”

“Bingo,” Bobby said. “It was posted with a Latin phrase.”

“What phrase?” asked Lee.

“Sic semper contumeliosis,” said Hunter.

“‘Thus ever to the insolent,’” said Lee, looking at me.

“What did I do?” I asked.

“Wow, Lieutenant Lee,” said Hunter. “You’re up on your Latin.”

“I am an alum of Boston Latin School. I took advanced-placement Latin to help with my Bible studies.”

“That would do it,” said Bobby.

Until now, I had been caught up in running away from a body, having guns drawn at me, and getting questioned by Lee. But the music had stopped, and images of what I had seen upstairs broke back into my consciousness.

Blood in a carpet.

Peter’s parted lips.

Hunter said, “The picture popped up just before we called you.”

The picture of Peter’s head.

Stale adrenaline, combined with images of blood and carpet, settled in my stomach and—I ran to the curb. Threw up in the gutter. Stood there, hands on knees. Panted a bit. More images of Peter floated into my head. I fought them, pushing them down, down out of my field of view. Wrestling them into a little box, I felt a hand on my back.

“I’m sorry you saw that,” said Hunter.

I retched a dry heave. Blew stale air out of my lungs. Stared at the splash in the gutter right next to a storm drain. So close. Spit some wet debris into the street. Hunter’s hand appeared in my field of vision bearing two Altoids.

“Mints?” she asked.

I took the Altoids from Hunter’s small hand.

“Thanks.” I popped an Altoid in my mouth. Chewed. Swished it around. Popped the next one, let it dissolve.

A cop whose nameplate said Hendricks walked up to us. “Thanks, Agent Hunter.”

“Special Agent Hunter,” she said. “Thanks for what?”

“Thanks for giving him a breath mint. He would have stunk up my cruiser between here and the station.”