Free Blood Wine by John Moss Page B

screamed too. No, I was silent, trying to block out the sound. It was penetrating, a man screaming. There was a loud crash, like an axe against wood, then the screaming stopped. I think he passed out.”
    â€œAnd what happened to you?” asked Miranda.
    â€œI waited. I could hear the sounds of a body being dragged.”
    â€œWhat does that sound like?” asked Morgan.
    â€œIt just does,” she responded. “Breathing, voices, scraping, rustling —”
    â€œCould you make out what they were saying?”
    â€œNot much English. It was another language. Not European, nothing distinguishable.”
    â€œAnd then?” said Miranda.
    Elke seemed to retreat inside herself, then flinched. “A shot, there was a gunshot.”
    â€œA pistol? The gun you were carrying?” Morgan asked.
    â€œNo, a rifle.”
    â€œNot a shotgun?” He wondered if she knew the difference.
    â€œA rifle,” she said.
    â€œOkay. Then what?”
    â€œA man rubbed his hands all over me.”
    â€œHow do you know it was a man?”
    â€œYou know! He touched my breasts, ran his hand up my skirt —”
    â€œDid you scream?”
    â€œNo, I was frozen. Then he stopped.”
    â€œDid he go inside your clothes?” Miranda asked. Swabs had been taken in the psychiatric ward, but there was no evidence of sexual assault.
    â€œNo. It wasn’t — it was, there was something cold about the way he touched me, clinical. Like he was doing a gender inventory. He was detached.”
    â€œDid you think you were going to be killed?” Morgan asked.
    â€œNo, I did not think I would die. I thought they would hurt me. I wanted to die.”
    â€œBut instead, what happened?” said Morgan.
    The young woman got up and walked around.
    â€œWe’d better call in the Provincial Police,” said Miranda. “And Spivak, he’ll need to know what we’re up to.”
    â€œWhat are we up to?” said Morgan.
    â€œGood point,” she said.
    â€œNo point,” said Morgan. “No point in bringing in reinforcements just yet.”
    Miranda realized, as far as Morgan was concerned, that this was their case.
    â€œOkay,” she said. “We’ve got a villain copping a dispassionate feel, we’ve got a chopped-off hand, that was the sound of the axe. We’ve got a rifle shot. What about the pistol? You said it had been fired recently. Maybe not here.”
    â€œSounds of a body being manhandled before the gunshot, not after — is that right, Elke?”
    â€œYes, it echoed but it was like a dull ‘thunk.’ I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.”
    â€œAnd did you hear clambering?” Morgan asked.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œOn metal?”
    All three of them looked at the steep steps leading up the side of the largest stainless steel tank, following them to the top with their eyes, where they could see a closed hatch.
    Miranda was first to start up. The other two stood back. When she got to the top, she leaned down and tried the hatch.
    â€œIt’ll open,” she announced.
    She hesitated, then swung the hatch up and reeled back from the fumes bursting free. She squatted down to look in, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness. The tank was half full. She reached around and found a measuring rod, then extended it down until it touched a shadow. As she prodded, the rod broke in half, and the shadow shifted. A dead man’s face drifted slowly into the disk of light below her.
    She gazed at the corpse turning in the murky darkness, struggling to make sense of her conflicting responses. The stump of a wrist protruding from a shirtsleeve confirmed this was the man with the gold ring. Her assailant, he was dead. But she did not feel vindication or relief, only anger and a vague sense of renewed violation.
    â€œWhat you got up there?” called Morgan.
    There was a large bullet hole in the dead man’s