The Kiln

This is my entry for Bruce Bethke's Friday Challenge for 2/26/09

"The Kiln"
by snowdog

I bent down for a closer look. It was another of those hard-shelled chewy pieces of brightly colored candy. This one was green. To make sure, I took the pen from my breast pocket and poked at it to reveal the white "S" printed on the under side. This was the second one I had found less than twenty yards from the crime scene. Either some child had been careless or...

Glancing back toward the rowhouse where the body of the woman had been found, in the general direction of the first candy, I drew a mental line outward and started a slow sweep in the direction of where another might lay. Burger wrappers. Condom packet. People in this city are swine.

A child involved in something this heinous? At the back of my mind, I dreaded this trail leading me into a domestic situation. Why do people have to drag law enforcement into family business? In my four years on the street, I had managed to avoid arresting anyone in a spat with relatives. It's a place the law just doesn't belong. These days, of course, cops are required to make an arrest.

As I stepped over a section of sidewalk that had been partially upended, probably by a tree that had long since been removed, I spotted another one. Another green candy lay glistening in the hot sun. That confirmed my suspicion. I flipped through my yellow pad for a blank sheet and started making notes of their locations, using the lines on the paper to make a rough scale approximation of the distances.

This had been one of the more gruesome crime scenes I had witnessed in my time as a detective. Immediately after ducking under the yellow tape, I had begun to notice the red stains: a footprint on the welcome mat, bloody ax on the white sofa, a smear along hallway wall.

The occupant of this middle rowhouse had harbored a number of arcane interests. Strange shapes cast in glossy ceramic lined the shelves and bookcase. I didn't recognize any of them--fertility gods perhaps. All of them were vaguely human-shaped creatures with grotesquely distorted parts. One had arms that bent backward and wrapped twice around a helpless female victim. Another had hands on the end of its legs. A third had huge, frightening eyes.

Presently, another candy lay at my feet. This one was red.

After updating my pad, I glanced around the street, a nervous habit formed in my early years. No one gave me a second glance; in fact, there few people about at all. I picked up my pace a bit, confident that I knew where to find the next candy. And there it was. Purple.

Now I stood on the corner of a busy intersection. The light had southbound traffic backed up as far as I could see along Warren Street. Which way to go? I decided to first try going straight across. Hopefully the child had been careful enough to mark the intersection closely. And, with any luck, the next candy wouldn't have been eaten by one of the many rats that inhabited the homes in this area.

The officers had led me down into the basement of the house where the body had been found. This was the source of the obscene statues: a dimly lit ceramic workshop. More grotesque shapes adorned the shelves in this darkly paneled room in various states of completion. A woman with overly long arms and legs and giant, shark-like teeth sat next to several open jars of paint. A man with octopus tentacles for arms sat half dried, awaiting his turn in the kiln.

The kiln. That was where what was left of the body lay. The woman had been hacked into pieces and left to bake there, probably for the better part of a day. My stomach had churned at the odor of cooked flesh.

After walking fifty yards along the street, I had spotted no more candies, so I turned and backtracked to the intersection, crossed the street again and headed South, with traffic. Store fronts lined Warren Street beckoning passersby inside with carefully displayed wares, protected by wrought iron bars. There it was. Another yellow one wedged into a crack in the walk.

I noted the location and picked up my pace again. A purple one. A green one. Another green. Then no more. I strolled back to the last candy and found myself beneath the awning of a doughnut shop. Through the window, a policeman chatted with the cute female clerk, either unaware or uncaring about perpetuating a stereotype.

A staircase to the right of the shop led up toward the second floor of the building and a sign in the window offered an apartment for rent. It seemed like a long shot, but I decided to check it out. Halfway up the stairs, I noticed a red piece of paper, as if someone had torn open a candy wrapper. I had stumbled into the right place.

On the landing at the top, I found a black door with three flower pots, all containing dead plants. Just as I was about to knock, the door flung open violently and a thin man stormed out.

"Forget it, Jeanne!" he shouted back into the apartment, pulling on a ragged baseball cap. "I'm not gonna do it again! You deal with them!" He turned to leave and was startled to notice me standing there. After a moment he shook his head in resignation. "Have at her," he said and took the steps down two at a time.

My first impulse was to stop him and ask some questions, but that was preempted by the sound of a child screaming inside. I drew my pistol and banged on the door.

"Open up! It's the police!" I shouted. No answer. The door was unlocked, so I invited myself inside.

The kitchen was tidy, but spartan, sporting only a bare dining table and four chairs. Pistol in front of me, I made my way to the right, into a hallway.

"Police!" I shouted, checking the bedroom to my left. Empty. A tall, middle-aged peroxide blonde woman appeared at the end of the hall.

"Police?" she rasped, "Oh, Jesus, that's just what I need." She took a long draw from a cigarette, stared at me for a moment, then turned away and walked back into the living room.

"Ma'am, I need you come back here."

"No," she shouted, "You come here."

Cautiously, I followed her into the living room. She stood with her hands on her hips and nodded toward a pretty teenage girl who was curled up defensively on the sofa.

"I'm sorry," the girl said. "I didn't mean to scream."

She appeared to be about fifteen or so. I dropped the pistol to my side. "Then why did you?"

She looked hesitantly at her mother.

"Because she doesn't want to be sent away again," the older woman answered impatiently and then blew out a billowing cloud of cigarette smoke.

"You sent her away?"

She motioned around the apartment. "Look around! Do you see any food in here? In this economy, we're lucky to keep ourselves alive, much less two children."

"Two?" For the first time, I noticed a small boy hiding behind the arm of the sofa. I waved. "Hi kid." Then on a hunch, I asked, "Where did you get the candy?"

"I stole it," the girl said, now scowling at me slightly.

"Okay, why don't you tell me what happened, honey. No one's going to hurt you."

She sighed and glanced at her mother again. Then she focused on my eyes and pointed.

"My mother made her boyfriend take us out into the city, trying to get us lost. He..." she paused for a moment and wiped away a tear. "He got into a car with another man and left us on the street!"

"He left you?" I looked at the mother.

She just shook her head. "He was supposed to take them to a shelter. At least they could get food there!"

The girl glared at the woman and continued. "Jared left a trail of candies, but on the way back, we smelled cookies coming out this rowhouse... gingerbread. They smelled so good and we were so hungry. I knocked on the door. This woman answered and invited us in!"

Completely mesmerized, I sat down in on the edge of a rickety coffee table and looked in eyes. "And she gave you the cookies?"

The girl nodded. "But they made us sleepy. She made us go downstairs with her. Then she..." Tears welled up in her eyes again.

"What did she do, honey?" I asked, images of the grotesque statues filling my head again.

"She said she was going to eat us!"

The room was silent for several seconds.

"I know!" she sobbed "I know you don't believe me! But she tried to put Joshua into this big oven she had in the basement! I had trouble standing from the drugs, but I found an old ax behind the wood stove!" With that, she buried her face in her hands and wailed.

I stood and pulled the cell phone from my belt. The mother looked at me suspiciously.

"Who are you calling."

"Someone I swore I'd never call, ma'am." After a couple of rings, a woman's voice answered. "Hi Susan, get me Child Protection Services, please."