Cause to Save

by Blake Pierce

  “What now, Mom?” Rose asked.

  It was a good question. And she hated herself for not having any answers. She had run herself ragged today and had nothing to show for it other than two dead cops, a dead former co-worker, and a dead ex-husband.

  He’s calculating it all, she thought. He’s on a schedule. Nothing random. He’s got some sort of order to it all, presumably with me at the end of it. He went for Rose after Jack. So would I be next? If so, why did he run so easily? Yes, I shot him but if he set this whole thing up for me, he wouldn’t have just retreated like that, would he?

  That particular train of thought was trying to lead somewhere. Maybe if it wasn’t so late and she weren’t dealing with Jack’s death, she could figure it out. She tried following it where it was leading her but before she could find where it ended, a large shape came marching across the parking lot.

  Mayor Greenwald looked like some sort of elongated shadow as he neared her. It was clear that he was not used to being awake at this hour. He looked pissed—almost aghast at the situation before him. Avery almost wished the bodies of Sawyer and Dennison hadn’t yet been covered up. She knew how Greenwald hated the sight of blood.

  As Greenwald neared the room, Avery saw Connelly also running over. He could apparently see the tension between them, radiating like telekinetic energy in a superhero movie. He could sense an explosion on the way and was trying to stop it.

  He was a few steps too short, though. Greenwald came up to the doorframe, his face red with pent-up rage. Avery stood her ground, though. She had never been intimidated by fabricated power and she sure as hell wasn’t going to start now.

  “And where the hell were you when this happened?” he asked, basically growling at her.

  With just as much force, she responded, “I was at a crime scene where I found my ex-husband’s body. So if you really want to get into this with me right now, you might want to rethink your approach.”

  He chuckled, but his eyes shot beyond her shoulder and to Rose, sitting on the bed and staring blankly at the wall. “You threatening me, Black?”

  “If you’re planning on getting in my way of finding this bastard, then yes. Consider it a threat.”

  “Wait, now,” Connelly said, finally making it over. “The two of you need to take a moment to—”

  “Did you put her on this case?” Greenwald asked, interrupting.

  “Yes,” Connelly said. “She’s the best I have and I’d do it again. Now, however,” he said, “Avery…after your ex-husband, I have to ask you to sit out. You’re too close to it.”

  “I was too close to it after a cat came crashing through my window with a note attached to it,” she said.

  “I can’t believe the gall of the two of you,” Greenwald said. “When this is over, I’ll see to it that heads will roll through the A1. I’ll have you know that I—”

  “You’ll do nothing,” Avery said. “Because you want Biel caught as badly as I do. You have votes to consider, after all.” With each word, her voice grew louder and louder until she was shouting into his face. “You have two cops dead, and that makes at least six people this asshole has killed in one day! So if you want it to stop, you’ll keep your nose out of business it knows nothing about and stay the fuck out of my way.”

  “You can’t—”

  “Captain,” she said, ignoring Greenwald and looking straight at Connelly. “Could you please remove the mayor from my doorway so I can close it and be alone with my daughter during this difficult time?”

  Without waiting for an answer, she reached out for the broken door and forced it closed as Greenwald stood there, forced to take a step backward. The door would not close all of the way because of Biel’s attack, but she got her point across.

  She looked to Rose and saw that even though there were tears coming down her cheeks, she was grinning. “You can be a bad ass when you want to be,” Rose said. “Have you always been this cool?”

  “No.”

  She sat down beside Rose and took her in her arms. As Rose wept openly against her, Avery let her own tears out. She had never been so conflicted. Should she stay with Rose and be the supportive mother in her time of need or should she head back out to look for Biel?

  The more she thought about the decision she needed to make, the more she started to lose it. She and Rose wept together and through her tears, Avery said something that seemed to come out of her mouth with ease.

  “This is my fault,” she said. “Rose…the things I’ve done in the past. I’m sorry. I threw Biel’s case. He’s coming after me and because of that you’re at risk. Because of that your father is dead and—”

  She stopped there, feeling a torrent of sorrow coming on that she feared she would not be able to stop.

  “No way, Mom. You didn’t make this guy nuts. You weren’t part of the system that allowed him to get out on good behavior.”

  “But I am the one that sent him to jail. The evidence was flimsy and I…I should have done my job. But he’s sick, Rose. The man is sick and I had to make sure he went to prison. I don’t know which job made me lose more of my soul—defending people like Biel or chasing them down with a badge and a gun. Kiddo…I’m so sorry.”

  She didn’t know how long they sat there together. At some point, Rose fell asleep against her shoulder. Avery gently laid her back, her head on the pillow, and quietly got out of the bed. She checked the bedside clock, saw that it was 1:36, and went to the door. She opened it and peered outside. The news crews were still there; she counted at least four of them now.

  But she also saw six police cars and two black cruisers. In the crowd of police, she spotted O’Malley. He was speaking to Connelly beside a patrol car. Finley was also in the crowd, speaking to someone on his cell phone.

  Checking back on Rose one last time, Avery stepped outside. The night was cold, but that was good. It kept her awake and alert. She walked directly over to Connelly and he gave her a grave expression.

  “That was some shit you pulled on Greenwald,” he said. “If I don’t fire you in the next week or so…”

  “We’ll worry about that later,” she said. “What can I do?”

  “Nothing,” Connelly said. “Spend time with your daughter.”

  “She’s asleep and there are easily fifteen cops here right now. She’s safe. So I ask you again, what can I do?”

  “Look,” O’Malley said. “We’ve got every available man looking for Biel right now. They’ve even started reporting it on the news—for citizens to be on the lookout for him. They’ve put up his picture and everything. Six murders in a little more than a single day. Boston is a city that takes care of itself. With the public in on this, we’ll find him.”

  Avery found herself wishing Ramirez were there with her. She was so unsure of what to do with herself, and Ramirez had always grounded her. She was at her best when he was at her side. She thought with precision and was always sharp and on point, With Ramirez, she…

  Ramirez.

  Her thoughts came to a halt as she looked back to O’Malley. “You said you have every man on this?”

  “Yes. This fucker is going to meet his end sooner rather than later.”

  She almost voiced her concern out loud but kept it to herself. What about the guard outside of Ramirez’s hospital room? she wondered. Was he called away, too?

  If she raised this concern, there would be too much time wasted with Connelly telling her not to worry about it and sending someone over to stand guard. And she was sensing that time was not something she had very much of. With Jack dead and an attempt made on Rose’s life, there was only one other person Biel might go after that she cared about.

  No…he can’t. Not in a hospital.

  But she then thought of Sawyer and Dennison, watching over Rose. Trained policemen, now dead.

  “Can I get a ride to the hospital, then?” she asked. “I hate to ask but I don’t trust myself to drive. I need to see Ramirez. Please.”

  “Sure,” Connelly sai
d. “As long as you stay away from this. We have this covered, Black.”

  “I know,” she said. “And can you please just make sure Rose is taken care of?”

  “I’ll stay here myself until you get back,” O’Malley said. “Me and at least four others.”

  “Thank you.”

  “In the meantime,” Connelly said, “tell Finley to give you a ride. It might help him. He and Dennison were pretty good friends.”

  With a nod of appreciation, Avery did just that. She found Finley’s face in the crowd and walked over to him quickly. Her watch read 1:43 now and she could sense something very close to finality in the air. The morning was on the way but she had a feeling that by the time the sun broke the horizon, this would be over.

  For her, or for Biel—that was the question.

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  Finley did seem glad to leave the scene at the motel but as he drove Avery to the hospital, he said very little. The night had taken its toll on most of the officers in the A1 as news of Sawyer and Dennison had made the rounds. She could also tell that he was very uneasy about being with her and not knowing what to say about Jack’s death. Finley was a real sweetheart but he was not so good with consoling.

  As they came to the parking garage, Avery realized that somewhere between screaming at Mayor Greenwald and getting in the car with Finley, a spike of adrenaline had coursed through her. She was wired and jittery, leaning forward in her seat as Finley flashed his card to the guard in the little parking shack.

  As he made his way to the first available spot, Avery heard his phone ringing. He answered it right away, ever diligent and eager to please. Avery only halfway listened in to the conversation as he parked the car.

  “This is Finley.”

  There was a heavy silence in the car after this. Avery looked to Finley and saw a momentary flinch to his expression. He had just gotten some news that had rocked him and he was trying to hide it.

  “Who is it?” Avery asked.

  Finley rubbed at his forehead and shook his head. “Shit,” he said.

  “Finley…what is it?”

  He looked to her, the phone still to his ear. His eyes were wide and she could see tears glistening in them.

  Avery said nothing at all and moved quickly. She opened the door and the moment her feet hit the pavement, she was running. A few seconds later, he heard Finley’s voice calling after her.

  “Avery! No. Wait!”

  But she was already out of the parking garage and running across the thin strip of road that led to the hospital. The look she had seen in Finley’s eyes remained fixed in her mind’s eye and she prayed that she wasn’t just jumping to conclusions. But when she came to the sliding doors and opened to the primary waiting room, she saw five members of the hospital staff and security huddled behind the desk. One of them looked up and saw her. As they were about to say something to her, she held up her badge and kept running.

  She didn’t bother with the elevators, opting for the stairs instead. She took them two by two all the way to the fourth floor. She basically slammed into the door that opened up to the hallway.

  Her cell phone rang in her pocket but she ignored it. Ahead of her, almost all the way down the hall in the direction of Ramirez’s room, several people were milling around. Some were doctors but at least two were hospital security.

  “No,” she breathed.

  But the distant wail of police sirens in the faraway distance told her everything she needed to know.

  She barreled down the hall. She ran fast and with hitching breaths. As she neared the crowd at the end of the hallway, she didn’t even bother with her badge anymore. When the first guard tried stopping her, she shoulder checked him, sending him toppling backward into a nurse. The commotion caused just enough of a distraction for her to make it into Ramirez’s room.

  She pushed through the door and stepped inside.

  She nearly tripped over the body of a man in a black shirt and pants, similar to what hospital security was wearing. When she halted and nearly stumbled over him, she looked to the bed.

  Ramirez was there, lying in bed. His head was tilted slightly to the right, peering in her direction as if he had been waiting for her. His eyes were open and that, to Avery, was the most heartbreaking part.

  Because it was clear that he was dead.

  Her knees buckled as she walked toward him and when she hit the bedside and took his hand, she screamed into the mattress, so hard that her lungs hurt, so hard that for a moment, she lost herself in it and she was dead, too.

  ***

  She knew a few things for certain and managed to patch them together about half an hour later.

  In the midst of her screaming, another security guard had come into the room and dragged her out with the help of another doctor. She was then escorted into another room where she continued to scream and cry. Her throat went hoarse and she was given water. At some point, Finley showed up and his face was the only real beacon of hope in the place. He tried to hug her but she wouldn’t let him.

  She sat in a chair and rocked back and forth. Finley came in and out of the room. After a while, Connelly was also there. He kept going in and out of the room. At some point, he brought her coffee. She drank it slowly as she kept seeing Ramirez’s dead eyes staring at her.

  Time slipped by. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed when her mind seemed to tether back to reality. It could have been five minutes, it could have been a day. When she did finally feel her mind come back to its former self, Connelly was in the room with her. Just the two of them. He was simply staring at her, holding his own cup of coffee in his hands.

  “How?” was all she asked.

  “There are parts that are still uncertain and it’s an utter embarrassment on this hospital’s part,” Connelly said. “But here’s what we know for certain. “At exactly one fifteen, a man came into the emergency room with two gunshot wounds to his upper torso. The name he gave—get this—was Ronald Randall. He waited about three minutes before a doctor saw him. That doctor was found dead around one forty-five. At exactly one forty-seven, a nurse went into Ramirez’s room just to check up on him. She found the hospital guard that had been placed outside of his room dead on the floor, a scalpel in his throat. Shortly after that, it was discovered that Ramirez was dead.”

  “How?” she asked again.

  “Avery…what’s it matter?”

  “How?”

  “Suffocation,” Connelly said. “Pretty sure it was a pillow over his face. “We’ve got the staff checking over footage of the hospital from the time span between one fifteen and two o’clock for any sign of Biel. He can be seen in one shot, heading for the elevators on this floor, and then again, thirty seconds later, walking right out of the emergency room doors. That was at one fifty—exactly an hour and a half ago.”

  “No one has found him?” she asked.

  “Not yet. And look. There’s one more thing. And I need you to listen to me. You are not to go back into his room. You try it, and I will arrest you. But…this was found on the wall.”

  He handed her his phone, with a picture pulled up on it. She studied it and found another message from Biel. This one was written in Sharpie, in his unmistakable handwriting.

  Two words. That was all. And it was like he was starting to taunt her all over again.

  Just sittin’, the message read.

  She handed it back to him as her heart flared with rage.

  “That mean anything to you?” Connelly asked.

  In her head, she could picture Biel sitting in the visitation room just before the trial. He’d hated silence and would often fill it with whistling softly. And of course, as it had over the last day or so, it came down to that whistling solo from Otis Redding’s “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay.”

  She heard it in her head in that moment. Too clear, as if the bastard was in the room with her. She recalled some of the lyrics and again, a surge of anger roared through her.

  Jus
t sittin’ on the dock of the bay.

  Just sittin’.

  “Avery? Anything? Does it mean anything to you?”

  “No,” she lied.

  “Avery…what can I do for you right now? Is there anything at all?”

  “I need to get back to Rose,” she said.

  “OK. I’ll have Finley take you and—”

  “No. Just…I need to be alone. Please.”

  “Of course,” Connelly said. “Whatever you need.”

  Avery got to her feet. Her blood was boiling. She could feel tension forming in her shoulders and even in the way her jaw was set. She tried her best to seem defeated and relaxed, almost lethargic as she stood in front of Connelly.

  “We’ll get him,” Connelly said. “By the time you wake up in the morning, Biel will be in custody. There’s no way he’s getting away this time.”

  “I know,” she said. “Thanks, Connelly.”

  “Sure. Go get some sleep.”

  “I plan on it,” she said.

  Of course, that was another lie. Because as she left the room and headed down the hallway like a ghost not sure where to haunt, the little whistling tune from “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay” whispered through her head in a broken loop.

  And she was suddenly sure of where this was all going to end.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  First, she went back to the Weston Motel. It was 3:45 when she arrived. Even before she was able to make it to her parking spot, she saw a flurry of activity among the two police cars that were parked in front of her room. O’Malley came rushing over to her right away as she stepped out of her car.

  And he kept coming. He came in close and did something so unexpected that Avery nearly fell down on the pavement.

  He hugged her.

  “Avery, I’m so sorry about Ramirez.”

  She hugged him back because it seemed like it was the right thing to do. She was pretty sure he was weeping, but she did her best to ignore it. She knew she had some genuine sadness lurking within her and when the time was right, she’d let it have its moment. But right now, everything felt almost mechanical within her. There was no time for sadness or grieving right now. Currently, she had only two things on her mind.