The Program

by James Swain

  “I just remembered something.” Reaching inside his sports jacket, he removed two folded sheets of fax paper, and handed them to her. “These were in the fax machine tray when I got to work. They’re for you.”

  “Thanks, Roger.”

  DuCharme walked up the path and entered EMS’s office. He showed the dispatcher his badge, and the dispatcher hung up the phone and smiled nervously. It was the way most people acted when confronted by the police, and she paid it no heed.

  Vick turned on the overhead light in her car, and read the cover page of the fax. It was from the company in San Francisco that distributed Swiss Sig bayonets in the United States. Per her request, the company had done a records search of the Swiss Sig bayonet that had killed Jewel Ladd’s boyfriend, and sent her the purchase form.

  The purchase order was stapled to the cover page. The typeface was faint, and she held it up to the light. The buyer was Adam Ladd, Wayne’s older brother. It was all there — date, time, amount paid, when the bayonet was shipped, tracking number, everything.

  She switched off the light and stared into space. The murder weapon had belonged to Adam, not Wayne. Had Adam talked Wayne into killing the mother’s boyfriend? It made sense, and added fuel to her belief that Wayne had been coaxed into committing this horrible crime.

  Hearing a voice, she looked up. DuCharme was coming down the path. The detective had someone with him.

  Chapter 41

  Renaldo was ready to call it a night.

  His shift had been filled with car wrecks with multiple injuries. Normally, he enjoyed looking at the twisted bodies as they were put into his ambulance. But tonight he’d gotten no thrill out of seeing the injured. He was taking tomorrow off, and had a full day planned with Wayne. He needed to go home, and get ready.

  Then his cell phone rang. It was an ambulance driver that he knew named Sid.

  “You hear the news?” Sid asked, sounding scared.

  “What news is that?” Renaldo replied.

  “An FBI agent and a sheriff’s detective are visiting the ambulance services, asking for lists of the drivers. I think they’re looking for me.”

  “What did you do?”

  “My girlfriend put a restraining order on me for beating her up, and I violated it.”

  Renaldo ended the call knowing he was in trouble. The FBI did not chase men who slapped around their girlfriends, but they did pursue those who cut people’s heads off. He’d pulled into a fast-food restaurant. He worked with two medics named Harry and Tommy. Harry and Tommy got out of the back of the ambulance, and went inside to get something to eat. They asked him if he wanted anything. Renaldo said no.

  Turning on the radio, he dialed through the Spanish-speaking stations until he found one playing traditional rumba music, and turned the volume up high. He’d grown up listening to rumba, and it helped him think.

  He had known that this day would eventually come. You could not kill prostitutes for as long as he had, and not expect to get caught. Only fools believed that the police would never find them.

  Renaldo was not a fool. He had prepared for this day. Inside his house was a shoe box filled with cash; in his garage, a 4-wheel drive SUV with tags registered in his sister’s name that he renewed every year. His getaway car.

  He would flee.

  He had a place to escape to — a small, cinder block house in the center of the state, not far from a migrant farm camp where his dark skin blended right in. He’d been visiting that little house for years, stocking up on canned food, installing solar panels and a generator, getting ready for the day when he’d need to get off the grid.

  That day had come.

  But first he needed to cover his tracks.

  The police did not know which ambulance company he worked for. If they had known, they would have already arrested him. The police would have to comb through the lists of drivers, and pick “persons of interest”. Then, they’d winnow those lists down to a few names, and haul those drivers in. That was how the law worked.

  It would take time, and time was always on a criminal’s side. He had read that somewhere, and committed it to memory.

  He would use that time to facilitate his escape.

  His shift ended at midnight. His employer, Emergency Medical Services, was located on a back street in Sunrise. He parked the ambulance in the garage behind the building, and said goodnight to Harry and Tommy. Going inside the main office, he signed the log sheet, and struck up a conversation with Joey, the dispatcher.

  “I hear the police have been sniffing around,” Renaldo said.

  Joey had a cup of coffee in one hand, a smoldering cigarette in the other, his eyes ringed from lack of sleep. His wife had given birth a few weeks ago, and the baby was keeping the parents up at night.

  “Who told you that?” Joey asked.

  “A driver from another company called me,” Renaldo said.

  “They haven’t been by to see me, I can tell you that. It’s probably nothing.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  Joey took a call on his cell. Renaldo stepped away from the desk, his mind racing. The police and the FBI had not visited EMS yet. It gave him an idea.

  Joey told his wife he’d be home in a few hours, and hung up.

  “No one told me having kids was this hard,” Joey said. “You have any kids?”

  “A son,” Renaldo replied.

  “How old?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “A teenager, huh. He give you much trouble?”

  “No, he’s a good boy.”

  “You’re lucky. I hear teenagers are murder.”

  “Why don’t you go home, and help your wife? I’ll take over for you.”

  Joey perked up. “Seriously? You know how to handle the calls?”

  “I’ve subbed before. Go,” Renaldo said.

  Joey did not need any more encouragement. He grabbed his cigarettes and cell phone off the desk and was out the door in a flash. Renaldo stood by the window and watched Joey’s car peel out of the lot. He told himself it just might work.

  Renaldo went outside. Harry and Tommy’s vehicles were gone. Popping the trunk of his car, he removed the Taurus .410 handgun, and went back inside.

  He sat at Joey’s desk, the chair still warm. He placed an upside-down waste basket beneath the desk, and rested the Taurus on top of it, within the reach of his hand. Then he waited for the law to come calling.

  Twenty minutes later, a blue Audi drove into the EMS lot and parked. Two shadowy figures sat in the front seats. Renaldo picked up the phone on the desk and pretended to be talking, his eyes glued to the figures.

  The passenger door on the Audi opened. A light came on, illuminating the car’s interior. Behind the wheel sat the cute blond FBI agent he’d seen outside the Broward Library. She was very young-looking, and perky. A keeper, he decided.

  A man climbed out of the Audi, and headed up the path. The man had a detective’s badge pinned to the pocket of his sports jacket, and had also been outside the library.

  Renaldo continued to talk into the dead phone. For the first time, he noticed the framed wedding photograph of Joey and his wife sitting on the desk. If the detective came into the office and saw it, he’d know Renaldo wasn’t the dispatcher.

  Renaldo cursed silently to himself.

  The detective suddenly turned around, and walked back to the Audi. He gave something to the cute FBI agent, which led to a brief conversation. Renaldo slipped the framed photo into a drawer.

  The detective came back up the path. Renaldo detected a slight lift to his step. Did the detective want the FBI agent? It certainly looked that way. Knowing this made her that much more desirable to Renaldo, and strengthened his resolve to possess her.

  The detective entered the office. Renaldo said goodbye and hung up the phone.

  “Can I help you?” Renaldo said pleasantly.

  “I’m Detective DuCharme with the Broward Sheriff’s Department,” his visitor said. “I need to get
a list of your ambulance drivers.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “I’ll ask the questions, okay?”

  “Certainly. I’m happy to help if I can.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Joey Gonzalez,” Renaldo replied.

  “What do you do here?”

  “I’m the dispatcher. My father owns the company.”

  “How long have you worked here, Joey?”

  “All of my life.”

  “How well do you know your employees?”

  “Very well.”

  “I’m looking for a Cuban ambulance driver who’s been linked to a series of abductions of teenage boys. Two of the boys ended up dead.”

  “How horrible.”

  “We need to find this guy before he kills again. The driver is in his forties. He’s about my height, and powerfully built. Ring any bells?”

  “That description matches several of our drivers. Can you tell me anything else about him?”

  “He’s a loner, and probably isn’t married,” the detective said. “He may have gotten into trouble with the law before.”

  Renaldo leaned back in his chair and rubbed his chin. It surprised him that the detective hadn’t asked to see some form of identification, but instead had chosen to take him at his word. The detective was either very tired, or very stupid, Renaldo thought.

  “There’s a driver named Renaldo Devine who matches your description,” Renaldo said. “He’s a bit of strange one. Always talking about beating up women.”

  Detective DuCharme perked up. “Has he ever been arrested?”

  “I don’t know. If he has, he didn’t tell me.”

  “Does he live alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ever married?”

  “No. He has no close friends that I know of.”

  “Have you seen Devine recently?”

  “He ended his shift a half-hour ago. Said he was going to a bar down the road for a beer. He likes to drink.”

  DuCharme smiled knowingly. He’d swallowed the bait whole.

  “How about taking us to this bar, and pointing Renaldo out?”

  “Us?”

  “Me and my partner. She’s in the car outside.”

  “Of course. Give me a moment to forward the incoming calls,” Renaldo said.

  Renaldo picked up the phone and punched meaningless numbers into the keypad. DuCharme moved to the door and went outside. Renaldo grabbed the Taurus, and followed him.

  Together, they walked down the path. Renaldo stayed a few steps back, and dangled the Taurus by his side, letting the detective’s body shield it from the FBI agent sitting behind the wheel of the Audi.

  The parking lot had several low wattage halogen lights. Nearing the Audi, Renaldo got a good look at the FBI agent. She was much prettier than he’d thought, and looked remarkably young. He couldn’t have asked for a more perfect victim.

  DuCharme walked around to the driver’s door. Renaldo stayed glued to the detective, his gun hidden. The FBI agent lowered her window, and poked her head out.

  “Who’s this?” she asked.

  “This is Joey Gonzalez, the dispatcher for EMS,” the detective replied. “You’re not going to believe this, but I think I found Mr. Clean.”

  “You’re kidding,” she said.

  “Nope. He’s down the road, getting drunk in a bar.”

  The detective’s voice was filled with swagger. Trying to impress the FBI agent, Renaldo thought. Lifting his arm, he placed the Taurus to the side of the detective’s head, then paused to look at the FBI agent before pulling the trigger.

  Chapter 42

  Linderman could not sleep. Each time he started to doze off, he saw Crutch brutally killing his mothers and three sisters, the dream a loop of horror that would not end. It was said that people only dreamed in black and white, yet his dreams were filled with red.

  He dragged himself out of bed. He’d rented a room at the Oakmont Hotel three blocks from the Allegheny River. It was small and had paper thin walls. Each time his neighbor flushed the toilet, it sounded like lightening had struck the building.

  He ate the remains of a take-out dinner from Outback while watching CNN. The food was cold and tasted like cardboard. He wasn’t hungry, only the scale in the bathroom said that he’d lost five pounds. Looking in the mirror, he’d seen bones where before there had been nothing but skin.

  It was not supposed to be like this. The good guys were not supposed to turn into the mad men. Their thoughts, and deeds, were supposed to protect them from that.

  Only it hadn’t worked out that way. He was losing it, his thoughts no longer under his control. He wondered what he’d done to deserve such a fate.

  Top of the hour, headline news. The lead story was out of Fort Lauderdale. A pretty brunette stood on a sidewalk, clutching a microphone while staring into the camera. Behind her, a riot of swirling lights and police cars blocking the street. He jacked up the volume, knowing something terrible had happened.

  “It’s a grisly scene here tonight in Fort Lauderdale,” the reporter intoned. “A little over an hour ago, the police received an anonymous tip that a headless man was sitting behind the wheel of a car in front of a local ambulance service called American Eagle. Upon arriving at the scene, the police discovered the car and the man, whose head was found stuffed in a garbage can. The victim has been identified as homicide Detective Roger DuCharme of the Broward Sheriff’s Department.”

  They cut away to a coiffed CNN newscaster sitting in a studio. “Do the police have any suspects in the killing?” the newscaster asked.

  “They’re not saying,” the reporter replied, the screen splitting so that both their faces were showing. “We have learned that Detective DuCharme was working on a case involving a serial killer known as Mr. Clean. Whether or not Detective DuCharme’s killing is related to that case remains to be seen.”

  “I see activity directly behind you,” the newscaster said. “Can you tell us what’s going on?”

  The reporter turned around, showing her back to the camera. Across the street, a CSI team was dusting a car for prints and vacuuming the floor mats for fibers. The team wore surgical masks, and looked like doctors performing surgery. Linderman got out of his chair and approached the TV. Kneeling, he brought his face up to the screen. The car the CSI team was checking was a blue Audi.

  Vick drove a blue Audi.

  He took his cell phone off the night table and called Rachel’s home number. Her voice mail picked up. He tried her cell phone, and got the same message. His next call was to Moody. The sheriff of Broward County answered on the first ring.

  “Sheriff Moody here,” a somber voice said.

  “This is Ken Linderman. I’m watching a news report on CNN about Roger DuCharme’s murder. Can you tell me what’s going on?”

  “It was Mr. Clean,” Moody said. “He shot DuCharme and cut his head off. He also got your girl.”

  “You mean Vick?”

  “Yeah. He left a note in DuCharme’s pocket, boasting about it.”

  Linderman brought his hand up to his face and covered his eyes.

  “We’re working on a lead,” Moody said. “Vick and DuCharme spent the past few hours visiting different ambulance companies asking for lists of drivers. Since we found Roger in the parking lot of an ambulance company called American Eagle, I’m thinking that Mr. Clean might be on their payroll. I’m going to have all the drivers pulled in, and questioned. Care to join me?”

  “I’m in Pittsburgh,” Linderman heard himself say.

  “Suit yourself. I’ll let you know what I turn up.”

  The phone went dead in his hand.

  He threw on his clothes and went outside. The chilly night air stung his face, and he stuck his hands deep into his pockets. He walked down a broken sidewalk, following the roaring sound of the river until he was standing by its edge. The black water was high, and moving along at a powerful clip. He longed to jump in, and let himself be carried
away to another place. Just to escape this madness.

  He took a step back, and the frightening urge went away.

  His thoughts turned to Rachel. He had turned over this investigation to her against his better judgement. His gut had told him that she wasn’t ready, yet he’d gone and done it anyway.

  He asked himself why.