Isle of Dogs
PATRICIA CORNWELL
Isle of Dogs
PATRICIA CORNWELL
One
Unique First fit her name like a glove, or at least this was how her mother always put it. Unique came first and was one of a kind. There was no one else like her–and this was a damn good thing, to quote her father, Dr. Ulysses First, who had never understood what genetic malignancy blighted his only child.
Unique was a petite eighteen-year-old with long, shimmering hair that was as black as ebony, and her skin was translucent like milk glass, her lips full and pink. She believed that her pale blue eyes could mesmerize whoever looked into them and that by casting as little as a glance at someone she could bend that person’s mind to fit her Purpose. Unique could haunt someone for weeks, building up unbearable anticipation until the final act, which was a necessary and frenzied release, usually followed by a blackout.
“Hey, wake up, my car’s broke down.” She knocked on the window of the Peterbilt eighteen-wheeler that was parked all by itself at the Farmers’ Market on the fringes of downtown Richmond. “I’m wondering if you got a phone?”
It was 4:00 A.M., pitch dark, and the parking lot was poorly lit. Although Moses Custer knew very well that it wasn’t safe to be out here alone at this hour, he had ignored his usual good judgment after fighting with his wife and storming off in his truck, where he intended to spend the night, alone and missing in action, out by the vegetable stands. That would sure show her, he always thought when their marital routine turned ugly. He opened the door of his cab as the knocking on the glass continued.
“Lordy, what’s a sweet little thing like you doing out here at this hour?” Moses asked, confused and drunk, as he stared at the creamy, delicate face smiling at him like an angel.
“You’re about to have a unique experience.” Unique said the same thing she always did right before she moved in for her Purpose.
“What’chu mean?” Moses puzzled. “What unique ‘sperience?”
The answer came in a legion of demons that kicked and pounded Moses and ripped at his hair and clothes. Explosions and obscenities erupted from hell, and fire seared his muscles and bones as savage forces beat and tore him to shreds and left him dead and drove off in his truck. Moses hovered above his dead self for a while, watching his mauled, lifeless body on the tarmac. Blood streamed out from under his head as rain smacked down, and one of his boots was off and his left arm was at an angle that wasn’t natural. As Moses gazed down on himself, a part of him was worn out and ready for Eternity while another part of him regretted his life and grieved.
“My head’s ruined,” he moaned and began to sob as everything went black. “Ohhh, my head’s ruined. Lord, I ain’t ready! It ain’t my time yet!”
Complete darkness dissolved to a floating airspace from which Moses watched pulsing emergency lights and urgent firemen, paramedics, and police in yellow rain slickers with reflective tape that glared like white fire. Flares hissed on wet pavement as a heavy cold rain fell, and voices were excited and loud and made no sense. It seemed people were yelling at him and it frightened Moses and made him feel small and ashamed. He tried to open his eyes, but it was as if they had been sewn shut.
“What happened to the angel?” he kept muttering. “She said her car broke down.”
Unique’s car was fine and she drove around downtown for a couple of hours, listening to radio news-breaks about the mugging and hijacking at the Farmer’s Market and the speculation that it had been committed by the same gang of highway pirates that had been terrorizing Virginia for months. But this time Unique enjoyed the afterglow a little less than usual. She could have sworn that old black truck driver was dead, and she was irritated that her accomplices had been in such a hurry to run off that they had robbed her of a complete release. Had it been up to her, she would have finished what she started and made sure the truck driver never talked again.