The whole place was a red nightmare. What had Conan Doyle called it? A Study in Scarlet? Yeah. That. Outside Monk could hear the nightbirds screaming, even beneath the droning hiss of rainfall.
Monk stuffed his blackjack into his pocket and tried to figure out how much trouble he was in. His left hand was bleeding through the bandage and there was probably some of his own blood in the mix on the floor. He tore some electrical cords out of the wall and used them to bind Spider’s wrists and ankles, and also checked his vitals. He was out and hurt, but alive. The swatted fly now appeared permanently inked, and the fact of that was freaking Monk out.
Monk forced himself to look at the three corpses, but there was not enough left of them to identify. He held his palm over the flayed skin, but there was almost no warmth left. They’d all been dead for hours, maybe all day.
He searched around for clothing and found a heap of rags in a corner, each item sliced by a very sharp knife. Amid the debris were wallets, and Monk was bemused to discover that one of the dead men was Dirty Gus.
How and why he had been selected as a victim was beyond understanding. Monk could not begin to construct a scenario that connected his hunt for the bail skip to this bloodbath. Or to what was happening in town. Nothing.
“The world is fucked in the head,” he told the dead man.
The other two men were strangers, but Monk made a startling discovery as he went through their ID cards. One of them was named Alan Carney, but his business cards had the name Carnival Al on them, and an address in South Philadelphia. The other man was from out of state. Way out of state. California license in the name of Marcus P. Sanders. He also had business cards that gave his trade name. Malibu Mark.
Both of them were tattoo artists.
Monk was studying the cards when his cell vibrated. It was Patty.
“Hey, Pats,” he said, forcing his voice to sound normal. “You okay?”
“No,” she said quickly. “Nothing’s okay. You need to get back here right now.”
“I’m in the middle of something and—”
Suddenly there was a different voice on the line. “Mr. Addison? This is Chief Crow. I’m with Ms. Trang at her store. There have been some developments on her case and I’d appreciate it if you could come here right away. We stopped at your house and you were gone.”
“I’m out of town,” Monk said.
“How far out of town?”
Monk hesitated, but remembered what Jonatha had told him about this man.
“I’m in Doylestown,” said Monk. “And … there’s been some trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“The really bad kind and I’m not sure I want to tell a cop about it.”
“Mr. Addison,” said Crow, “it might be better if you think of me as an ally in this fight rather than a cop.”
“And which fight would that be, exactly?”
“The fight to keep some kind of goddamn vampire from feeding on the memories of Tuyet Trang,” said Crow. “The memories stolen from Patty and the ones stolen from you. How about we start there.”
Monk closed his eyes and leaned against the wall. The storm was building again outside and it felt to him as if it were raging even more ferociously in his chest.
“Sure, fine,” he said. “You want to know what’s going on? How’s this? I broke into a tattoo parlor in Doylestown and found three people tied to chairs. Dead people, and they’d been skinned by the guy who owns the place. That son of a bitch attacked me and I beat the shit out of him. During that fight I saw one of his tattoos moving—actually crawling—on his skin. How’s that?”
There was a pause, then Crow said, “Was it a tattoo of a fly?”
The world was so still that even the storm seemed to hold its breath.
“Mr. Addison—Monk—I really do think you need to come back to Pine Deep.”
“Yeah,” breathed Monk. “But what about this shit right here?”
“Did anyone see you go in there? No? How about you do this: wipe down every surface you touched and get the fuck out of there. I’ll call it in as an anonymous tip and make sure the right people show up to take control of the scene. These are all small towns in this part of Bucks County. Everyone watches everyone else’s back. I can make sure none of this falls on you. So, clean up and get out of there right damn now. We need you here. Patty needs you here.”
Monk looked around and took a ragged breath.
“Okay,” he said.
Monk found a rag and began wiping down any surface he might have touched. His hands shook as he did this. And while he worked his mind spun furiously. What the hell was happening? As if in answer there was a crack of thunder so loud it seemed to split his head in half. Outside the rain was so heavy that he could barely see twenty feet. No one could see him, that was for sure. He turned his collar up, ducked his head, and ran like hell for his car.
Despite the storm and the wind, the nightbirds followed.