Croaker: Grave Sins (Fey Croaker Book 2)

by Paul Bishop

  Fey pulled away. “I’m tired of people like Kenny Kingston who think the terrible things that have happened to them are an excuse to do terrible things to others.” She backhanded her coffee cup, sending it spinning across the deserted squad room. “I’m sick of sheep in wolves’ clothing – sick of predators who claim they aren’t responsible for their actions because they’re victims too.” She faced Ash full on. “You’re dying. It’s over with for you. You don’t have to go on anymore. You can even pull the plug on yourself and do it early so you don’t have to face the suffering. Some of us have to stick around and deal with it. Nobody – and I mean nobody – had a more horrifying childhood than I did, but I’m not out there killing and maiming in revenge for what was done to me. People don’t have to do those things. There are choices.” Fey yelled.

  “My secrets have been blabbed all over the news thanks to Devon Wyatt, but that’s still not all of it,” she continued. “My father was a cop. One of the good guys while he was at work, but when he came home he was no better than Kenny Kingston or any other perverted animal out there.” Fey pointed an arm dramatically in the general direction of the outside world. “My father screwed me nine ways to Sunday, beat me to a pulp when he felt like it, and then let his friends have at me. But I was stronger than him. I wouldn’t let him defeat me. He couldn’t touch me inside. I could have turned out to be an animal – the seeds are all there – but I didn’t. Instead, I’ve spent my life protecting others, saving them from beasts like my father; trying to make amends for him, for what he did to me! But somebody always come along to drag everything back to the surface again. This time it’s Kenny Kingston. Next time it will be somebody else. But I’m telling you right here and now, Kingston is going down.”

  Fey stepped back to her desk, a sudden frightening calm seeming to slip over her. She picked up the phone receiver for the inside line that Hammer had called her on.

  “You still there?” she asked.

  “I’m here,” Hammer said.

  Fey realized she hadn’t put the phone on hold and Hammer must have heard all of her outburst.

  “You and Nails call the others,” she said. “Meet me at County Jail. We’re going to ruin Darcy Wyatt’s beauty sleep.”

  Ash and Fey were mostly silent in the car on the ride to County Jail. Traffic was sparse and Fey kept the speedometer hovering around the eight-five mark and above. It was Ash’s turn to ride shotgun.

  At one point, Ash spoke quietly. “You obviously think that I’m taking the easy way out if I don’t ride this disease out to its inevitable end.”

  “I’m sorry,” Fey said. She took a deep breath. “I had no right to say what I did. I’m not walking in your shoes. You have the right to make your own decisions.”

  “But you don’t think I’m right?” Ash persisted.

  “I’ve lived with pain all my life,” Fey said. “And the only thing I’ve learned from it is that you’ve got to spit in its eye and fight it with everything you have inside. You can’t let it win. You’re only a victim if you allow yourself to be a victim.”

  Ash went back to being silent.

  At County Jail, Fey jangled a sleepy deputy to arrange for Darcy Wyatt to be brought up from the cells. Fey and Ash were waiting when Darcy stumbled sleepily into the interrogation room.

  “Sit down,” Fey said.

  There was no nonsense in her voice. Darcy recognized that right away. Quickly, he sat in the wooden chair that was the only piece of furniture Fey had not removed from the room.

  Darcy realized that this was a whole different person with whom he was dealing. This might look like the same woman who’d originally interrogated him, but there was a universe of difference between the two. The first one had been calm and collected. This one was half a step away from going out of control.

  Fey stood in front of Darcy. She reached out and grabbed him painfully by one shoulder, bringing her face in close to his.

  “I’m not screwing around here, Darcy,” she said, her voice coming from the depths inside her. “You tell me where I can find Kenny Kingston, and you tell me right now.”

  Darcy’s eyes filled his face. His pupils darted to Ash leaning against the wall.

  Fey saw the movement. “Leave us alone,” she said to Ash.

  “Fey –”

  “Now,” Fey commanded.

  Ash didn’t argue. He simply turned and walked out of the room.

  Fey brought her face back to Darcy’s. “Kenny Kingston,” she said.

  Darcy swallowed hard.

  “Darcy, I know you know about Kenny Kingston, or you wouldn’t be trying to make a deal with Hammersmith.”

  “Deal,” Darcy said, hopefully. “I’ll deal.”

  “Maybe you’re willing to deal,” Fey said. “But I’m not. You’re an animal, Darcy. You’re no better than Kingston or any other perverted predator on the street. I’m not going to trade one of you to get another. You’re going down for the rapes. Period. No room for argument.”

  “But he was with me,” Darcy pleaded. “He started me doing it again. He knew I was weak. I couldn’t help it.”

  “I don’t give a crap, Darcy. You either tell me where Kenny Kingston is, or I will arrange for you to be sodomized every day that you’re behind bars. You won’t be safe for one breathing moment.”

  “You can’t do that.”

  “Oh, yes I can,” Fey said. “And I will. Do you feel like taking a chance that I won’t keep my word?”

  Darcy felt cold fear choking in his throat.

  “Kenny will kill me.”

  “Skip it,” Fey told him. “My time is ticking. I can protect you from him. Nobody can protect you from me.”

  Darcy swallowed again. Fear swept out of him in waves of body odor. His eyes were bigger than ever, big enough to swim in.

  “He crashes in an abandoned restaurant in Malibu,” he said. His voice was squeaky. “The Sea Something. I went there with him once to get stoned. The place is a death trap.”

  Fey reached over and slapped Darcy gently on the cheek. Darcy jumped a mile.

  “Good boy,” she told him. “Good boy.”

  Chapter 65

  “Fey, we should wait for SWAT and a hostage negotiation team,” Monk said.

  “You want to wait, go ahead,” Fey told him. “I’m going in.”

  “This is crazy,” Alphabet said. “There’s no blue van around.”

  “I’m not concerned about the blue van,” Fey said. “He’s too smart to leave it in plain sight. When we have more time, we’ll probably find it nearby.”

  Alphabet gave it another try. “We have no idea of the layout inside. We don’t even know for sure if this guy is in there.”

  “I’m going to find out,” Fey said. “Anyone who wants to handle it another way can stand back. Tommy isn’t much, but he is my brother, not yours. I’ll understand.”

  None of the detectives around Fey’s detective sedan said anything. Nobody stepped back.

  “Screw it,” Alphabet said, capitulating. “What are we waiting for?” He jacked a round in the Ithaca shotgun he was holding.

  When Darcy had given up the information on the Sea Something, Fey had immediately known what restaurant he was talking about. There was only one along the Malibu coast that had taken a hard enough hit to be left abandoned after the earthquake.

  Leaving Darcy in the loving care of the County Jail deputies, Fey had powered back to the parking lot dragging Ash in her wake.

  Outside, she found Hammer and Nails waiting for her along with Alphabet and Monk. Brindle Jones pulled in while they were talking.

  Everyone had their bulletproof vests and raid jackets in the back of their detective cars. There were shotguns also – one to a car – and everyone was carrying nine millimeter automatics, except for Fey who had her thirty-eight strapped on.

  Even in the light traffic, the ride to the coast took forty minutes. Hammer and Nails were in the black war van. Alphabet and Brindle had paired up in the rear ve
hicle, with Fey, Ash, and Monk in the lead vehicle. Moving in formation, the electricity of the situation crackled through the convoy.

  Half a mile from the target, Fey pulled into a MacDonald’s restaurant parking lot. Under the bright lights, the detectives geared up and then gathered around Fey’s car.

  After Alphabet and Monk had voiced their concerns, and Fey had offered to let anyone back out who didn’t feel right about the situation, the focus came back to the task in hand.

  “Darcy said this place is a death trap,” Fey said. “We all know it’s been condemned since the earthquake, making things doubly dangerous. Kenny Kingston isn’t the only concern. We need to avoid getting hurt by the structure itself.”

  Everyone nodded. Each of them was thinking, it won’t happen to me.

  “We wouldn’t be going in like this if there wasn’t a life at stake,” Fey said.

  Nobody questioned her.

  “Alright,” she said. “Once we get around the chain link fence, I want Alphabet and Brindle outside in front.”

  Both detectives nodded.

  “Hammer and Nails, you two take the rear. I don’t want you to go down in the water, but make sure Kingston doesn’t slip away.”

  “Understood,” Hammer said.

  “Ash and Monk will enter the structure with me.”

  The two men hefted pry-bars removed from the back of the detective cars.

  “Any ideas about this guy, monster man?” Fey asked Ash.

  “He knows you’re coming,” he said.

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Instinct. Experience.” Ash shrugged. “Kenny might not realize it, but it’s ultimately what he wants. It’s what the taunting game is about. Consciously, he thinks it’s about proving he’s smarter than the cops. Subconsciously, I would say he’s responding to you as he did to his father. He wants to submit, but he needs your approval of how brilliant he is before he can.”

  “I’m not planning on giving him the chance to submit,” Fey said. “If he shows himself other than in full surrender, he’s going down in flames.”

  She looked around her crew. “Everybody have good batteries on their rovers?”

  All heads nodded.

  “Everyone have flashlights?”

  More head nodding.

  “This is the sheriff’s area,” Fey said. “If they find out about the party and invite themselves, just play it cool. Make sure you identify yourselves. Don’t get shot by the good guys.”

  There were some knowing, nervous chuckles. Worse scenarios had happened.

  Fey checked her watch. “I think we’re going to beat the twenty-four hour deadline,” she said.

  The inside of the Sea Otter was almost pitch black. Even the powerful beam of Fey’s six cell Kel-Lite was sucked away into the darkness. All around creaking beams and unsteady foundations made it hard to listen for human movement.

  Behind Fey, Ash watched both sides with Monk acting as rear guard. All three had their guns out. Only Fey had her flashlight on. One lighted target was enough.

  Approaching the edge of the restaurant floor, which extended over the ocean, they heard the crash of waves against the rocks below. Nobody spoke, their senses too concentrated on the surroundings.

  They had entered the grounds by climbing around the end of the chain link fence where it stopped at the edge of a low cliff that dropped down to the sea. The pry-bars had been used to tear plywood away from the front doors and then jimmy them open. The bars were then abandoned in favor of freer hands.

  The consensus was it didn’t make sense to sneak in. It could take forever in the dark to find how Kenny came and went. He would probably hear them anyway, and he had the big advantage of knowing the layout. Moving slowly from the front of the restaurant, the three detectives hoped to secure each section as they passed.

  The lobby and bathrooms had provided no clues. In the kitchen, in the glow of Fey’s flashlight, they found signs of Kenny’s recent eating habits.

  Moving on, Fey flashed her light over the walls, stopping to focus on the jerry-rigged backboard and rim. She felt her heart thumping. Kenny had to be here somewhere. She had goose bumps, a sure sign danger was imminent.

  The abandoned restaurant continued to creak around them. Fey found herself straining to listen for screams or cries to indicate Kenny was working his perversions on Tommy. But Fey knew if Kenny was choking Tommy somehow, he might not be able to scream. The thought of Ricky Long’s bound, naked body again danced through her mind.

  Concentrate, she screamed in her head.

  What if Kenny wasn’t here? What if this was someplace he’d crashed once, but had moved on – moved on to someplace Darcy hadn’t known about?

  What if? What if? What if? The refrain ran through her brain over and over.

  There was a crashing sound.

  Fey whirled to see the top half of Monk’s torso sticking out of the floor.

  “Help!”

  In the light of her Kel-Lite, Fey saw Ash move toward Monk. Something dropped around her neck. She brushed at it and moved forward, but was suddenly jerked backward and up off her feet.

  Her flashlight fell and rolled away leaving everything in darkness. Fey lost her gun, grabbing at her throat with both hands. The rope around it was crushing her windpipe and cutting into the sides of her neck.

  “Urrrg…”

  She was swinging in space, with no idea how far above the floor she was. Ten feet or two inches it didn’t matter, the result was going to be the same.

  “Heehee.”

  Fey heard the laughter even over the pounding of the blood in her head.

  Kenny had come charging out of the darkness and crashed into Ash, with the power of a bull. Ash had gone flying into the darkness.

  Kenny turned on a flashlight and shined it in Fey’s eyes. “How does it feel, detective? How does it feel to get all choked up?” His voice was high, tinny.

  He suddenly pointed the flashlight down at the floor. “Look down, detective. Look down.”

  Fey was struggling. Her left hand was digging at the rope on the side of her neck. Her right hand was grappling with the rope that vanished into the darkness above her, trying to pull her weight up, release the pressure.

  “Look down!” Kenny screamed.

  Where was Ash? Where was Monk? Where was anybody?

  Fey looked down to where Kenny was shining the light. There was a hole in the floor beneath her feet. Kenny shined the light through the hole. “What do you see?” he demanded.

  Fey saw the sea below. It crashed in and then receded away. When it receded away, Fey looked down and saw Tommy still strapped to the infernal contraption Kenny had created. The plank and two-by-four structure had been wedged between the rocks below the restaurant floor. The waves crashing over it relentlessly, drowning Tommy again and again.

  Fey could see the silver duct tape across Tommy’s mouth. He stared at her with dead eyes.

  “Nuuug!” Fey’s screams caught in her throat.

  Kenny was dancing with delight when Ash hit him across the back with a board.

  Kenny went down, losing his flashlight. He was a strong man and the board hadn’t done too much damage. He rolled away and came athletically to his feet.

  “Come on,” He taunted in the dark.

  I’m dying. Fey screamed inside her mind. I’m going to die! He’s going to win. Images of Kenny mixed with those of the original monster in her life. My father’s going to win!

  She bounced around on the rope Kenny had secured over a ceiling beam. Panic welled up around her.

  Grunts and animal noises attested to the struggle of Ash and Kenny.

  She couldn’t swallow. Couldn’t get breath.

  Dropping her left hand to her side, Fey jammed it into the pocket of her jeans. Pulling her legs up toward her, she felt her fingers wrap around the small pocket knife she always carried when working.

  With her other hand, she was opening the blade when a body crashed into her and sent her
swinging. The pocket knife spun away as if it had never existed.

  Lights danced before her eyes in the darkness. She was slipping out of consciousness. She knew she was on her way to join Tommy.

  A body slammed into her again. With the desperation of a drowner, she grabbed at the head and pulled it back into her. Instantly, she knew it was Kenny. The hair was thick and long. Ash had a lawnmower cut.

  Kenny tried to pry her hands loose, but Ash was in front of him throwing punches into his midsection.

  Fey raked her nails across Kenny’s eyes, gouging and poking. Using his head for leverage, Fey brought her legs up and wrapped them around Kenny’s neck in a scissor’s hold that she locked with her feet and ankles.

  Raised up that way, the tension of the rope around her own neck lessened. With almost her last conscious thought, Fey flashed her hands to the rope and tore it way from her throat and over her head.

  She gripped the rope tightly in her hands, holding herself up as she gasped for air. Through all of it, she never released her scissor hold.

  Knowing there had been a hole in the floor directly below her when she’d been hanging, Fey pulled on the rope that had been choking her. By the force of her legs around his neck, she dragged Kenny backward. She felt him stumble below her, and then the rope was torn from her hands as Kenny stepped into the hole and collapsed.

  Fey crashed to the floor, but with the force of every angry wound she had ever suffered, she twisted her legs with a vengeance. There was a snapping noise that was deafening even over the yells and shouts of the rest of her crew dashing into the restaurant.

  “Freeze everybody,” Fey tried to shout. She wanted to warn them about the treacherous floor. The words didn’t come out. Her throat was a raw wound.

  Suddenly Ash was at her side. The flashlights of the other detectives were everywhere.

  “You okay?” Ash asked.

  He looks worse for the wear, Fey thought, seeing his face in the glow of a flashlight. She reached out and touched his face.

  “Monk?” she asked. It came out, “Mnnnk?”

  “I’m okay,” came a response from off to her right.

  “Tommy,” she said.