Storm Prey

they’re adopted brothers, with different parents. They don’t look too much alike—I guess we could ask.”
    “They don’t look much alike, but they both sort of look like Ike,” Lucas said. “They weren’t adopted.”
     
     
    THE RIDE to Mack’s took twenty minutes: Marcy left her truck in Lucas’s driveway and rode with him, the better to eat the sticky buns—both of them—and drink her coffee. “Is Weather working on the twins?”
    “Not sure. They’re better, but they might get a little better if they go another few hours, or another day. It’s a mess. If they don’t move soon, one of them’s going to die.”
    “Man—sometimes it’s better being a cop.”
    “Yeah. Like when we were talking to MacBride’s kid,” Lucas said.
    “Jesus, Lucas: you still got that depressive thing going, huh?”
    “You don’t?”
    “Not like you. For me, MacBride getting murdered was seriously annoying. That’s different,” she said. “You gotta handle the rage, big guy.”
     
     
    THEY’D PLANNED to take Mack at his house, but the place was locked up, and when they looked in the garage windows, the garage was empty. While they were looking, a car pulled into the driveway next door, and Marcy hustled over and talked to the driver, an old guy, and then hustled back. “Neighbor’s been up since six, and didn’t see or hear anybody over here. He says Mack usually goes to work around ten.”
    “Jeez, I hope he didn’t skip,” Shrake said.
    Lucas shook his head: “Ah, he’s probably just out early. Like us. Let’s check the bar.”
     
     
    AND MACK’S CAR was parked next to the dumpster behind Cherries. They got out, and Shrake and Jenkins walked around to the front, while Lucas and Marcy went to the back door. The door was locked, and they banged on it, with no response. Lucas looked around, couldn’t see a camera. Banged on the door again.
    Shrake came around the corner and said, “It’s all locked up, up front, but the neon’s turned on. The ‘Open’ sign.”
    “You bang on the door?”
    “Yeah, but it’s locked.”
    A cop car pulled into the lot, and a uniformed officer got out, looking at them, talking on a radio. Marcy said, “Poop,” and walked over to him, her badge out. They talked for a minute, then Marcy waved them over.
    “We’re going to get his push bar right up by a front window,” she said. “Shrake, you’re the tallest, see if you can look in.”
    The cop pulled up to the bar, and Shrake stood on his push bar, using a hand to block reflections. After a moment, he said, “Well, I can see ... yeah.”
    He hopped down.
    “What?” Marcy asked.
    “I can see a leg on the floor on the other side of the pool table.”
    “A leg. Like he’s hiding?”
    “Like he’s dead,” Shrake said.
     
     
    THE CITY COP wasn’t sure of the technical entry procedure, so Jenkins took a long switchblade out of his pants pocket, punched a hole in the front-door glass, and flipped the interior lock. Lucas led the way in, Marcy a step behind.
    Lucas called, “Mack?” but then they walked out of the main bar area and saw the body on the floor next to the pool table. A wooden chair sat over Mack’s neck and chest, with a wooden crossbar at his neck, so that somebody sitting on the chair could keep Mack from sitting up or twisting away. His hands and feet were taped. He had a hole in his forehead, with burn marks around it, and a puddle of blood under the head and the legs. The front panel of the pants had been cut away, and Mack’s groin was a mass of jellied blood.
    “Aw, man,” Shrake said.
    Marcy asked, “What’s that?” pointing at Mack’s stomach.
    Jenkins bent over, then straightened up and stepped back. “I do believe that’s the gentleman’s testicle,” he said.
    The city cop, gagging, mumbled something about calling it in, and dashed for the door. They stood there, the metallic smell of blood infusing the air, and listened to him retching in the parking lot.
    Then Shrake said, “You know what? When they did this, somebody was sitting in that chair, looking right down at his face.”

    LUCAS GOT everybody moving, BCA crime scene, the ME’s investigators, while Marcy called her chief. Lucas went into the back and found Jenkins in the office, with plastic gloves on his hands, going through Mack’s parka. “Anything?”
    “Cell phone, I think. I can feel it, but I can’t find the pocket.” The pocket was under a hidden zip flap, and Jenkins pulled it out,