Chapter 15: Is your grave unscathed

Joe groaned; his knees sliding up to his chest as the bastard above him took a step back. Each breath was becoming increasingly more painful and he was sure his ribs had been bruised if not broken. What bothered him the most, though, was lying on that damn dirty carpet. It was stained and kind of smelled and who knew how many Johns had jerked off on the exact spot he was laying in; not a stretch given that the place was nothing more than a sleazy spot on the road for prostitutes. It seemed just his luck, fucked over by an old friend and beaten to death in a whores trick spot.

He couldn’t help the dark chuckle that burst from him in painful jabs, earning himself another boot to the face. He supposed the men just wanted to toy with him a bit, make him suffer, before feeding him a shot of metal and splattering his brains across the walls along with any other stains that lay hidden there. It wasn’t that he wanted to die, but he didn’t see a way out of his situation either.

If I can’t die in the arms of girl I might as well go out laughing.

Fate seemed to have other plans for him; before the men could react to his amusement again the sounds of sirens blaring outside filtered into the room moments before the door burst open, emitting a handful of men in blue. It seemed his two captors weren’t armed, or if they were their pieces weren’t in arms reach. One tried to make a break for it, running for the bathroom as though he meant to jump from the window, but was instantly restrained, encouraging the other to go along quietly. As soon as the men had been cuffed and dragged from the room, someone approached Joe to free him of his own restraints.

“You’re really fucking useless,” a condescending voice said from above him as the cuffs were pulled off his raw wrists.

“Well if it isn’t the great Detective Genet,” Joe responded back, his voice dripping with distain and sarcasm. “Sorry we can’t all be as perfect as you. I’d like to see how well you’d fucking do when cuffed and beaten.”

“I’d never be stupid enough to get myself caught in the first place,” Sam shot back.

Despite their banter Sam offered a hand down to him and Joe gratefully accepted it, pulling himself up and allowing the detective to lead him the two steps to sit on the edge of the bed. If nothing else at least he was off the ground.

“How’d you find me,” Joe questioned, rubbing the back of his hand across his cheek to catch the trickle of blood before pressing gentle fingers to his busted lip, trying to gage how swollen it was.

The officers bustled around them, gathering evidence or whatever they thought they were doing, but Sam seemed to have no worries. He lazily pulled out his carton of cigarettes and lit one, passing it to Joe before pulling out another for himself.

“We weren’t looking for you,” Sam replied bluntly. “We caught another set of guys who said their partner was here.”

They shared there cigarettes in silence before the paramedics finally came over, giving Joe a complete once over to assess all damage. It wasn’t any worse then he had expected; bruised ribs and a colorful face. He was grateful not to have to go to the hospital and instead sat through them placing ointment on his wrists and bandaging them, slapping on a few butterfly Band-Aids to his cheekbone, then finally sending him off with an icepack to the bruising.

With Sam supporting half his weight they finally left the room well over an hour after the police’s arrival. They both hesitated outside, taking a breath of fresh air; it had begun to snow thick flakes that stuck in their hair and eyelashes. Uncaring of the cold, Joe turned his face up to the darkening sky, smiling and just barely managing to suppress the laugh of relief that bubbled in his pained chest.

“Turned out to be one hell of a night huh?” he chuckled instead, resuming his labored stride to the police cruiser that would take them home.

“Seems to be the case,” Sam grumbled back around another cigarette.

The sky was pitch-black by the time they pulled up to his apartment and the weather only emphasized his desire to drop into bed and end the night. Sam helped him up to the door, letting the cruiser take off as he said he would catch a cab. Joe’s mind was selfishly on resting; he didn’t care that the lights in the apartment were out even though it technically wasn’t that late. He also didn’t notice that Hank’s jeep wasn’t parked out front either.

It seemed Sam, however, had taken stock of all this and once they entered the apartment asked, “Where’d Hank go out to?”

Joe, finally pulled from his own reverie, turned back around and cast squinting eyes to the dark lot to scan for the jeep. He was almost surprised not to see it and mentally ran down the events of the evening before his unfortunate detaining.

“He said he was going out for an hour, but that was hours ago. He should have been back by now,” Joe finally admitted, entering the apartment only to be tripped up by Jeff curling around his legs.

“Did he say where he was going?” Sam asked, following him into the living room.

“To see Hannah. I know he’s been acting weird lately, but it didn’t sound like a suicide quest so I figure he was going to the old house or cemetery or something.”

Joe let out a small groan as he sunk down onto the sofa. He was a little ashamed with himself that he didn’t even know if Hannah had been buried. This had been the first time that Hank had said he was going to see her and, despite the weird behavior of his room mate, Joe had had no reason to worry. He supposed he found it a little strange that Hank hadn’t returned since he said he’d be back some three hours ago and he usually wasn’t late – certainly never this late – when he gave a time he’d be back at. But then again, this was Hannah he was going to see.

“It’s getting late though,” Sam mused, echoing Joe’s unvoiced feelings. “It’s dark out and the cemetery should be closed.”

So she is buried then.

Both men kept silent, each wondering what it meant for Hank not to have returned, playing through scenarios and wondering if this was something to worry about. Joe was so use to worrying over Cody that transferring his paranoia to Hank wasn’t a far stretch, but he didn’t see how the latter could have someone trailing hi and planning out his death. Hank was too good natured to have enemies and too smart to get himself mixed up with the wrong people.

“This is ridiculous,” Sam finally groused, breaking the silence. “I’m going home. Have him call me when he gets in.”

Joe could see something unspoken in Sam’s eyes, like a worry he wasn’t voicing, but he didn’t press; too afraid of what he would discover if he did.

“So you caught the bastard they were working for?” he asked rhetorically. “I can’t believe that asshole, sticking my ass on the cutting board as payment for his fucking debt.”

“You were being held hostage as payment?” Sam asked, coming to stand before him.

Joe nodded. “I don’t know how killing me would have done anything, they still wouldn’t have their money.”

“Someone wanted you out of the way,” Sam mused as though to himself then turned to leave. Over his shoulder he reminded, “Have Hank call me when he gets in.”

Sam walked into the house and was instantly greeted by darkness and the voice of Alistair Sim claiming that his hallucination was nothing more than the result of something he had eaten. Once he stamped off the gathered snow from his boots before removing them and hung his coat in the front closet he made his way toward the sound of the television. As per usual, Cody was curled up on the sofa, swimming in a blanket with only his head showing, and his attention riveted on the screen as though this wasn’t the fifth time he’d watched the beginning of the movie.

The teen seemed so enthralled that he didn’t even notice Sam until the detective dropped down on the sofa beside him, making Cody jerk in surprise. In an instant, though, the wide-eyed shock melted away and Sam watched partially amused as Cody fought to untangle himself from the covers.

In a rush, his words stumbling over themselves mimicking his legs as the teen stumbled to the kitchen, Cody asked, “Would you like some coffee? How was your friend?”

It took Sam a second to realize he was referring to Jim. “They haven’t called with an update on his condition,” Sam answered vaguely, not wanting to think about what that meant.

Cody returned with a steaming cup of coffee and offered it to him; his eyes, now shadowed from the dim glow of the television, looked sincerely sympathetic. Sam ignored him and instead took the cup with an appreciative inhale of the coffee before taking a gulp. In contrast to the heavenly aroma the consistency of the drink was that of mud; the taste was that of something much darker. Trying to hold back a grimace, Sam forced down the questionable drink through dry heaves that threatened to bring it back up.

He cast a narrowed look at Cody, but the teen naively smiled back and gently pressed, “You’ve been gone a long time, was it a really serious accident your friend was in?”

“No,” Sam answered, planning to again evade the questioning, “it was your idiot friend that wasted half my time.”

“Huh?” Cody straightened in his seat, his eyes once more going wide.

“Joe got himself mixed up with some guys or something. Found him hostage at one of my busts.” Sam sunk back into the sofa, closing his eyes, but anticipating Cody’s next question he pressed on before the teen had a chance to voice anything, “He’s fine, just a little bruised. Hank’s the one that’s gone missing now. Went to the cemetery and hasn’t come back yet.”

He had tried to sound nonchalant, but if the waves of tension he felt rolling off the teen were anything to go by he had not succeeded in relieving any worry. He could feel the sofa dip and sink as Cody shuffled around and repeatedly resettled himself.

“Um,” Cody began hesitantly, his voice muffled and Sam could picture the teen with his chin leading against his drawn up knees – his pose a sure sign of uncertainty. “Maybe we should go look for him. You know he hasn’t been feeling well lately and he’s been acting strange…” Cody’s voice trailed off at Sam’s tired sigh, but then pressed on again, “Whenever we go out lately he’s always looking around like he expects to see someone.”

“You’re imagining things,” Sam growled, even while a voice in the back of his mind reminded him that Joe had also mentioned Hank’s acting strange and he had even noted Hank’s wandering gaze himself. “Besides, the guy has no enemies.”

Cody considered the statement for a moment. “Well what about the Dark Crows he wiped out?”

“You said it yourself, he wiped them out,” Sam answered back tiredly.

“You know,” Cody continued thoughtfully, “especially for gangs that rely on the support of street kids to act as foot soldiers they make it feel like they care. They take kids who are abused, from broken homes, or living on the street and they offer them a family.”

“I’m aware of how they brainwash kids,” Sam growled in frustration, taking the coffee cup to the kitchen to dump it out just so as to avoid the conversation. Cody, however, insisted on following him and so he continued, “I’m also aware that none of them have tried to revive the gang since there has been no activity in their name since the fires, which means what was left of them was probably absorbed into the surrounding competition in territorial wars.”

Cody sat at the table as he watched Sam make a fresh pot of coffee following his every move with a frustration that matched his own. “So then you must also be aware that the Centipede had a protégé who set out to create his own branch of the Dark Crows.”

Sam froze in his movements, turning back to the teen that was staring at him with an impudent challenge in his eyes. Sam cast him a challenging look of his own and demanded, “Where the hell did you hear that?”

“I told you,” Cody began, his anger fading to a sort of sadness, “they take homeless kids and pretend to offer them a place to belong. When I was staying at a shelter once, they would come do the rounds to recruit kids. They tried to get me to join and told me about the boss like it was supposed to impress me.”

Cody hesitated as though lost in thought before asking, “You don’t think he could have known about Hank right?”

Sam took his fresh cup of coffee to the table, responding, “I don’t see how he could. The records were sealed and the press was never involved.”

Cody nodded mutely and they fell into another silence filled only by the voices of the movie still playing in the living room. Again, Sam’s mind fell into sorting through events as he contemplated this new information. He didn’t see how the new gang leader could have heard of Hank even if someone had informed him of the death of the Dark Crows, but he couldn’t rule out the idea right away either. Then there was the unexplained matter of Cody and Joe’s kidnappings.

If Cody’s kidnapping wasn’t related to the scriptures than whom and for what reason would someone want him out of the way? Also how did they know to find him at the mall that day unless they were following him? Or someone he was with. Then Joe had summed up his own dilemma: how would killing him provide a beneficial enough result to serve as payment for a debt? It didn’t seem like it should be a possibility, but Sam began to consider the theory that the events were related. Perhaps Cody and Joe hadn’t been the primary targets, but there was still the matter of figuring out how their being out of the way accomplished anything.

As he mulled over the matter Sam watched Cody sit at the table across from him. The bruise on his cheek from his run in at the mall had deepened to dark blue, now tinged with a muddy green around the edges. It had been too similar to his experience with Soren not to have them all worried. Sam recalled how panic-stricken Hank had been over the teen and filled with what Sam clearly recognized as a self-chastising as though Hank thought he could have prevented the matter.

As his thoughts began to roll over that day the pieces of his theory began to fall into place. Perhaps Hank had been the real target all along and Cody's and Joe’s kidnappings were the pinnacle meant to upset Hank on a deeply emotional level. Perhaps there were even other instances he simply wasn’t aware of, which would all explain for Hank’s declined mood and health. Of course the theory also meant that someone from the new Dark Crows gang had found out about Hank’s identity, and he still didn’t see how that was possible.

Rising from the table, Sam abandoned his mug and walked back to the front entrance, jerking on his boots and coat before grabbing his car keys and cell phone. Cody followed him, clearly confused at the abruptness of his movements and surprised at his getting ready to leave again.

“Where are you going?” Cody questioned just as he yanked the door open, shivering from the gust of cool air that swept past them.

“I’m taking a drive down to the cemetery. Stay inside and lock the doors.”

When Sam arrived a few minutes later the gates were closed as he had expected. He found a security guard on duty at the main office, however, and managed to convince the elder man to leave the warm coziness of his office to traipse through the snow to Hannah’s grave. Even at a distance Sam could see that the area was empty, but still he went to the marker. The snow above the grave had been shoveled aside and the new falling snow had not accumulated enough to completely cover the stone again. A wilted plant with blackened leaves sat in the snow mound beside the grave. Beside it was a small trail of flattened snow as though someone had fallen; maybe even dragged a little.

Sam tried to think back to what Cody had said about the street gangs being like a family. If the Centipede’s protégé really was the one behind this than surely he was after revenge, but where would he have taken Hank to claim his vindication?