“I don’t have time for this. Tell me what you want, and if I can give it to you, I will.”
Kruk’s smile never faltered.
“Tell me about her.”
“Excuse me?”
The man interlaced his fingers.
“About her, about the one I took that day. The detective. Tell me about Chase.”
Drake was speechless. He had no idea what Dr. Kruk had wanted, but something like this, information about his ex-partner, that had never crossed his mind.
“Chase… what an interesting name. You see, I never knew her name until you got the better of me at the butterfly gardens. Chase… usually a man’s name, isn’t it?”
Drake saw red and did his best to calm himself.
“Leave her out of this.”
Dr. Kruk made a face.
“All I have is time, Drake. You, on the other hand, do not.”
“Oh yeah?” Drake retorted, knowing even as the words came out of his mouth that he sounded like a petulant child. “I have all the time in the world, too.”
Dr. Kruk shook his head.
“I don’t think so. When I arrived you were sleeping, suggesting that you hadn’t got much the night before. You’ve looked at your watch twice, and you also glanced at the door. I don’t even think you know that you looked at the door, but you did. All of these signs point to the fact that you’re in a hurry.” Dr. Kruk tilted his head and looked beneath the table. “And if that wasn’t enough, look at the way your feet are pointed.”
Drake resisted the urge to look, suddenly feeling self-conscious of being analyzed in such a way.
“They’re pointed at the door,” Mark informed him. “So, while it looks like I have all the time in the world, you obviously don’t. Oh, yeah, there’s also the fact that pretty Miss Hanna said you only have ten minutes. So, there’s that. If you want my help, Drake, tell me about her.”
Drake sighed and mulled over his options. He had come here, in part, to see if Dr. Kruk had any idea what kind of man they were looking for, if perhaps the preacher fit the bill. Takes a killer to know a killer, that sort of thing. In his brief encounters with Dr. Kruk, and his alias, he had come to believe that this man, for all of his psychotic and schizophrenic flaws, knew something about the human condition.
What did he call it? An imago? A mentalized image of oneself, something often influenced by parents?
At the time, this commentary had made little sense to Drake, but the more evil he saw in people, the more murderers he put away and even those he let go, the more it seemed to make sense to Drake.
There was evil in this world, of that he had no doubt, as to its origins, however, he was far from certain.
What harm can it do to tell him a little bit about Chase Adams? She’s off God knows where—the last I spoke to her, she was in Boston of all places—and Dr. Kruk isn’t getting out of here anytime soon.
“She was sergeant of 62nd precinct for a short time,” Drake began, unwilling to meet Dr. Kruk’s eyes or to look at that infuriating smile. “But that didn’t last long. She left and joined the FBI, and while I haven’t—”
Kruk shook his head, drawing Drake’s gaze.
“No, not that. That’s boring. Tell me something about her.”
Drake wasn’t sure what the man across from him was asking, and said as much.
Dr. Kruk started to look bored and didn’t even bother answering.
“I mean, we were only partners for a little while. I don’t know—”
“I think you know more than you are letting on,” Dr. Kruk said.
Drake chewed his lip and thought back to his time with Chase.
“She has a husband and a son,” he said softly. “Only she never told me about them right away. In fact, I didn’t find out until after I was working with her for a few months. Her son is five or six now and her husband works in finance.”
Sneaking a surreptitious glance to make sure that Kruk was following, Drake was encouraged to continue.
“But Chase… Chase has demons, as we all do. Demons that haunt her, that drove her to do things while undercover in Seattle that she wasn’t proud of. Demons that led her to put the job ahead of everything; ahead of her husband, ahead of her son, ahead of her own health. She has a dark past, a secret past.”
Dr. Kruk was veritably beaming now and Drake thought he could detect a flush to his cheeks.
“Tell me more,” the man said eagerly. “Tell me more.”
Drake shook his head.
“No, that’s it. Now you tell me what I need to know. Tell me what kind of killer I’m looking for.”
Chapter 51
Beckett sat in his car and watched the handful of people make their way toward the building. Thankfully, the man with the cigarette dangling from his lips, the one that Drake had nearly brained, hadn’t shown his face yet.
As he stared, Beckett fiddled with the switchblade tucked deep into his pocket.
After a deep breath, he got out of his car and joined a group of two other men.
This was like no church he had ever been part of, not that he had ever been very religious. In fact, the only time he remembered going to church was as a very young child after his grandfather died.
The people he walked with didn’t look like church parishioners, either. They had scraggly beards, their clothes were torn and dirty, derelict chic, if you will, and they walked with their heads low as if they had something to hide.
Beckett followed their lead, which wasn’t too hard, given that he too had a secret.
The building, unlike the parishioners, was well taken care of. Located on the upper east side, the brownstone was well-kept and looked expensive. Maybe even seven figures expensive.
Beckett followed the two men through a back door into a large, nearly empty room. The interior reminded him more of a warehouse than a residence.
There were three rows of eight chairs, Beckett counted, only half of which were filled. There was no stage at the front of the room as Drake had described in the basement of the community center, but there was a small pulpit.
Beckett slid into the fourth seat of the front row, giving him unobstructed access to the pulpit.
Thankfully, no one said anything as they waited, which was a relief to Beckett.
He wouldn’t know the first thing to say to these people.
Five minutes or more passed and just as Beckett was starting to grow anxious, all eyes were drawn to a man that came down a small staircase near the front of the room. He had dark black hair that was closely cropped to his skull and dark eyes to match. He was wearing a plain white T-shirt and jeans and moved much the way that everyone else had.
Head low, posture unassuming.
And yet, there was something different about this man, and Beckett would’ve known that this was their guy even if he didn’t fit the exact description that Drake had provided.
Beckett himself couldn’t place what this mysterious quality was, but he could feel it.
The preacher stopped just behind the pulpit.
“Welcome,” he said in a smooth and even voice. “Welcome to the Church of Liberation. For those who are new, let me be very clear before I begin. This is not a Church that worships Jesus Christ, or any other fictional Prophet or man of God. Our Liberation is our release. And our release is the only way that we can break the cycle of suffering that is humankind.”
Beckett resisted the urge to look at those around him, to see what their reactions were to this man’s preachings.
“I would like everyone to put their hands together now and applaud Aaron Walsh. He was to become the next Skeleton King, but things had to be expedited.”
When those around Beckett started to clap, not a voracious uproar of applause, but just simple, demure hand slapping, he did the same.
“Every minute that we remain alive, is one more minute that the suffering of the world increases. Aaron knew this. Aaron set fire to a house in which three babies slept, because of his suffering
. And when it came time for him to join the ranks of his fellow Kings, he didn’t hesitate. When Aaron died, there was slightly less suffering on Earth,” the man paused and took a deep breath. “But there is much work still to be done. There is one among us who is suffering more than others.”
Beckett fidgeted and wondered if now was the time to run up to the man and pull a switchblade out of his pocket. Watching the preacher speak, seeing the way he reacted to those around him, it was abundantly clear that he was the true Skeleton King.
He might not have directly killed Alice Monroe, Greg Horowitz, Aaron Walsh, Clay Cuthbert, Frank Simmons, or any of the other skeletons that had passed through Beckett’s morgue, but he was undoubtedly the one responsible. Without thinking, Beckett slipped his hand into his pocket and fondled the outline of the knife.
“This person is the perfect candidate to be our next King. As while no one can argue that he is suffering, the lives of those he snuffed out were responsible for worse. Much, much worse.”
Beckett swallowed hard.
“We should welcome this man to his first Church of Liberation meeting. May I recommend a round of applause for Dr. Beckett Campbell?”
Chapter 52
Dr. Mark Kruk listened in earnest as Drake told him about the information Screech had provided, about suffering, about the Church of Liberation.
When he was done, the doctor adjusted his glasses.
“Well? What do you think?”
Dr. Kruk cleared his throat before speaking.
“What you’re speaking of is a philosophy known as pro-mortalism. Essentially, these are people that believe that if humans didn’t exist, on balance, there would be less suffering in the world.”
“Yeah, I got that. But what kind of man am I looking for here?”
His thoughts turned to Beckett and the preacher, and he hoped that the former was okay.
“And how can I find him?”
“Pro-mortalism is a very difficult concept to wrap a person’s mind around. After all, millions of years of evolution have reinforced one goal: survival. Whether it is to survive as an individual, or to spread our genetics across this vast earth, this is our solitary goal in life. And yet, pro-mortalists propose that self-consciousness as a consequence of evolution was a mistake. The fact that we are aware of our mortality is a flaw in our engineering. We suffer; we suffer every day that we live, and the only way to stop this is total annihilation of the human race.”
Drake pictured the man with the dark hair and the beady eyes and wondered what he would do if he had a stockpile of nuclear weapons at his disposal.
“Yeah, well, that’s all good and dandy. Now can you tell me how to find this guy?”
“I am, Drake. I’m telling exactly what kind of person you’re looking for. This person has undeniably come to terms with their own suffering, likely as a result of a tormented childhood. Perhaps they watched their loved ones die, watched them suffer, and maybe they even facilitated their deaths to eliminate their suffering. This man will hold no relationships outside of those whom he preaches his pro-mortalist philosophy to. And even these will be entirely superficial. He will be a loner, off the books, so to speak. He may live under an assumed name, or might have escaped from a facility not much unlike this one, due to things that he did in the past.”
Drake drank all this information in, trying to formulate a profile that Dunbar could try and match.
We’re looking for a loner, a person who may have committed a crime against someone he loved when he was younger. Someone whose parents or brothers or sisters suffered.
“This man is incredibly dangerous because he truly believes that what he is doing is right. Think about jihadist terrorists. Are they crazy? Are they insane?”
Drake shrugged.
“Well, they ain’t normal, that’s for sure.”
“But they are, Drake. They are completely normal. They aren’t crazy, they aren’t schizophrenic, and they definitely aren’t insane. In fact, what they are doing is completely and utterly justified in their minds. They so believe in the faith that they follow, that this has become their reality. It isn’t a sham, it isn’t even a lie. They are doing what they well and truly believe is right, what they have been indoctrinated to believe since very early on. Which is why this man, the man you seek, must have grown up in an environment rife with suffering. And he too, likely by accident, became indoctrinated by this. And now it is his goal to eliminate suffering.”
“So, what you’re saying, is that I’m looking for someone who was abused? Maybe sexually? Beaten regularly?” Drake asked.
Dr. Kruk shook his head.
“No, I don’t believe so. In my practice, I came across many children who are now adults, who had been abused when they were younger. And almost exclusively, two common themes arise. One, the individuals are incredibly angry, furious at the person who had done them harm; or, two, they feel guilty, as if they had done something to deserve the suffering that they incurred. But this person you describe, this person is different. I don’t believe that their suffering was directly inflicted upon them. They suffered by proxy. This person will have extreme empathy, almost crippling empathy, that has driven them to do the unthinkable.”
Drake threw his arms up in frustration.
“I’ve given you valuable information, Drake. I have faith in you. You can find this guy. In fact, I’m pretty sure you’ve already met him.”
Drake squinted at Dr. Kruk, but before he could challenge the man, the door opened and Hanna peaked in.
“Drake, time to go. You gotta scat.”
Drake looked at her then and saw a completely different person than he had when she’d arrived at the police station that day, claiming to have been raped. That person had been an imago, as Dr. Kruk stated. Only, in this case, it was her own fabrication.
She was just acting.
This was the real her.
“You gotta scat,” she said quickly. “Make it quick.”
Drake turned to Dr. Mark Kruk, and for a moment, he almost thanked the man. But then, realizing where he was, he turned back to the door. As he did, Hanna slipped something into his coat pocket.
“If you need any more help, Drake, you know where I’ll be. And you know what my terms are. Next time, however, you can’t just tell me about her. You need to bring me something of hers.”
Drake followed Hanna out of the room.
“There won’t be a next time,” he said over his shoulder.
As he walked his way down the hall, he heard Dr. Mark Kruk start to laugh.
Chapter 53
Beckett didn’t even get a chance to pull out his knife. The man beside him, a husky fellow with a long black beard, grabbed his arm, while someone behind him slipped a forearm around his neck. He gasped and tried to spin away, but before he could do anything, several more hands clutched him and pinned him into place.
“What the fuck are you doing?” He shouted.
The preacher came right up to him, placing his arms behind his back as he did.
Beckett thrashed, but this just made more hands grab him, until it seemed as if everyone in the entire room was holding him down.
“Get off me! Get the fuck off me!”
The preacher just smiled.
“Beckett, so nice of you to join us. Will your friend Drake be arriving soon, by chance?”
Beckett glared at the preacher.
“How do you know who I am? How do you know about Drake?”
Another man started to descend the stairs, and it only took one look at his face to know who it was.
It was cigarette man, the one whose nose Drake had bloodied.
“I fucking told you what I’d do if you said anything,” Beckett hissed.
The preacher nodded his head, and the arm around Beckett’s throat became so tight that he could barely breathe let alone speak.
“Oh, I know about you and Drake,” the preacher said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a photograph. He unfolded it,
then showed it to Beckett. “I know about all of you.”
If it hadn’t been for the fact that he was being strangled, Beckett’s heart would have jumped into his throat.
In the picture, he saw himself leaning against the railing of the boat, looking over the side. When he squinted, Beckett could see a man in the water, his hand reaching toward the surface.
Donnie DiMarco.
“Where did you get that?” He tried to say, but nothing intelligible came out.
“You’ve been busy,” the preacher said. “And we are thankful. But now it’s our turn.”
With another nod, cigarette man approached. When he came near, Beckett realized that he was clutching something in his right hand.
Pliers… he’s got a pair of rusty pliers, Beckett realized in horror.
“No,” he blurted in a wet burst. He managed to free one of his arms and lashed out, and while it stuck something soft and he heard an organic thump, someone grabbed his wrist and pulled it painfully behind him before he could do more damage.
“Aaron Walsh was supposed to be our next skeleton, but I’m afraid that that won’t be possible,” the preacher said. “And now we are missing one. One that needs to be replaced.”
A final nod, and the man with the bloody nose and the road rash on his cheek, grabbed Beckett’s hand in his.
It took three of them to extend Beckett’s index finger, but it only took the cigarette men to squeeze the digit between the pliers.
PART IV – An End to Suffering
Chapter 54
Imbued with this new knowledge from Dr. Kruk, Drake sped across town toward Triple D. He called Beckett several times as he drove, his anxiety cranking up a notch every time the machine answered.
Drake hoped that his friend was still pissed at him, and that was the reason why he wasn’t answering.
The alternative was unthinkable. The preacher was far more dangerous than he had ever thought.
The man wasn’t just a serial killer; he possessed a set of morals that convinced him that his heinous acts were actually doing good.
Detective Damien Drake series Box Set 2 Page 16
