Johnny Revenge

by Remington Kane

  “Why do you say of course?”

  Molly frowned. “Among his many faults, Chet was also a racist. Yolanda was good enough to bed, but not fit to bear his children.”

  “How old is Simon DeVeaux?”

  “He just turned twenty-three.”

  “Are you two close?”

  Molly cocked her head. “Why are you so interested in Simon?”

  “No reason, I’m just collecting background information.”

  “I see,” Molly said, while not sounding convinced.

  “The chief thinks Chet Revene was killed by Jude.”

  Molly waved a hand at that. “Gary would pin the Jack the Ripper murders on Joey if he thought he could get away with it. Chet died that night because he was a foolish drunk who crashed into a pole.”

  “Why are you so certain that Jude, or Joey as you like to call him, is incapable of violence?”

  “Because I’ve known that boy since the day he was born; Joey has a good heart, and he’s generous as well. He bought me this house; did you know that?”

  Erica nodded, as an idea came to her.

  “You must have also known his brother John well too. What do you think of him?”

  Sadness crept into Molly’s eyes. “I loved him when he was a boy, then, as he matured, he became more like his father. I witnessed him hitting his girlfriend once, like he’d seen his father treat his mother. John’s heart hardened after his mother went away; he felt like she had abandoned him. I don’t think Johnny was ever the same after that, and I know Joey missed his mama too.”

  “And how did Jude take it when his brother ran off later?”

  “Joey was hit hard by that… and it left him alone with his father,” Molly said; she looked as if she were in despair as the final words left her lips. Erica understood why.

  “You feel guilty over having missed the signs that Jude was being abused?”

  Molly shed more tears and wiped them away as she answered.

  “I should have seen what was happening sooner… I wish I had.”

  “Don’t feel bad. As I understand it, you’re the only one who was ever there for Jude, and I can tell he loves you.”

  “I love him back. He’s like the son I never had.”

  * * *

  Erica returned to town where Jude was locked up in a jail cell. Agent Carson, Troy, was there with Owens. The bodies that had been found were being autopsied by the FBI, and Owens had been awaiting word.

  After joining her colleagues inside the station’s small break room, Erica filled them in on her conversation with Molly Jackson. She included Molly’s guess as to who the bodies were.

  “Rowland’s mother and her lover? That’s a strong possibility. Those bodies looked to have been in the ground for some time,” Owens said.

  “Jude was six when his mother was thought to have left town,” Erica said. “Even the chief will have to concede that it’s unlikely he murdered them at that age.”

  Owens had opened his laptop as she was speaking; after striking a few keys, he spun it around to face Erica.

  “That’s the chief’s son, Zach Connors, notice the prominent scar over his left eye.”

  The face on the screen bore a strong resemblance to Chief Connors, only the man was bearded and had brown eyes.

  “Jude gave him that scar, and he’s reminded of that fact every time he looks in a mirror,” Erica said.

  Two cops entered the break room and Erica closed the laptop. Still, the men had an opportunity to glance at the image on the screen. The three FBI agents remained quiet until the pair had poured their coffee and left the room. Then, Agent Carson took a small notebook from his pocket and read from it.

  “Zach Connors was arrested for assault five years ago in Las Vegas. The charges were dropped soon after.”

  “Do you have the victim’s name?” Erica asked.

  Carson smiled. “I do. Her name was Keri Jones.”

  “She’s from this town too, but why do you say, was?”

  “Miss Jones is dead. She was murdered by an unknown assailant in August of last year. Connors, an ex-boyfriend, was questioned about it and had an airtight alibi. At the time Jones was murdered, Zach Connors had been a thousand miles away.”

  “How did Keri Jones die?”

  “She was beaten and strangled is what the report says.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to have a copy of the autopsy, would you?”

  Carson’s face fell. “I’m sorry, no, but I can get it.”

  “Do that, and good work, Troy.”

  “Tell Erica what else you uncovered, Troy,” Owens said.

  “I didn’t uncover it as much as I noticed it; it concerns the list of suspects.”

  Erica gave a little laugh. “I’d forgotten we had a list, given how everything seems to point to Jude Rowland.”

  “Rowland’s name was at the top of the list of writers who had negative reviews written by the victims, but there were sixteen others. After you add the newest victim’s reviews to that, the list drops down to twelve names, including Rowland.”

  “And what is it you’ve noticed?”

  “One of those remaining twelve authors has written two books that received negative reviews by all six victims of Wildcard. It’s the chief, Erica. It’s Gary Connors, although he published under his full name, Garrison Connors.”

  Erica stared at Owens. “Is that right? How did we miss that?”

  “You said it yourself. We’ve been so focused on Jude Rowland that we’ve ignored other possibilities. At the very least it’s a hell of a coincidence for the chief’s name to be on the list.”

  “And at its worst,” Erica said, “we may have been sent down a blind alley on purpose.”

  Owens’ phone rang. It was the coroner. Molly Jackson’s guess had been right. Pending dental records or DNA results, it appeared as if the chief had unearthed the bodies of Jude’s mother and her French lover, a man named Paul Boucher.

  Jude Rowland would soon be a free man again.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  SANGUINE, NEW HAMPSHIRE

  Chief Connors sat alone in his office with the door closed. His cheeks were damp with the tears he’d cried while mourning Sarah Revene, Jude’s mother.

  Whenever the chief thought of Sarah over the years, he’d imagined her strolling along a fashionable street in Paris, radiantly happy and still youthful-looking. The truth was, Chet Revene had strangled Sarah to death and thrown her body in a hole over twenty years ago.

  Connors moaned as he imagined it, and the terror she must have felt. God, how he had loved Sarah, still loved Sarah, and she had never given him a chance to prove how happy he could have made her.

  The chief got up from his desk and entered the small bathroom adjacent to his office. After splashing water on his face, he dried himself off and settled behind the desk again.

  The headline on the Techno-Tattler’s home page had changed. It showed a photo of Jude leaving the police station a free man.

  The words, ROWLAND OUTSMARTS THE COPS AND IS FREE TO KILL AGAIN, were in bold type above the photo.

  Anger welled up inside the chief. He had been happy when the Techno-Tattler went after Jude but now they were turning against him.

  Needing to cheer himself up, Connors opened a new window on his computer and brought up Jude’s book page. He grinned when he saw how low the ratings on Jude’s books had fallen as hundreds of people left taunting 1-star reviews. That smile morphed into an expression of dismayed disgust when he scrolled down and read the books’ sales rankings.

  Jude Rowland, author of the Johnny Revenge thriller series had the best-selling book in the store. The first Johnny Revenge novel was at the #1 slot, while the others occupied positions in the top thirty. The negative publicity might have been horrible for the books’ star ratings, but it was doing wonders for their sales numbers.

  The chief was about to sign off, then, he decided to check on his own two books. His first novel, COP HEAT, was listed as be
ing the 2,678,865th most popular book in the store, while its sequel, COP FIRE, was at 3,198,963. With those rankings, he was lucky to sell a copy two or three times a year. The books had poor star ratings as well, and a preponderance of the reviews contained the word, “boring.”

  The chief turned off his computer and slumped in his seat. It just wasn’t fair. The books he’d written about a hero cop languished in obscurity while Jude Rowland’s novels about a depraved killer made millions. It made him sick to think about it.

  Chief Gary Connors searched his soul then and asked himself if he was going after Rowland for personal reasons or because he believed the man was a murderer. This was not the first time he had queried himself about his motives. The answer came back the same as always. Both were valid. Yes, he held a personal antipathy toward the man, and yes, he believed he was a killer.

  Whether Jude was Wildcard or connected to the Traveler slayings, the chief could only guess. What he did know, what he held an iron conviction on, was his belief that Jude had murdered his own father. He had seen Jude’s face that night, and at seventeen, Jude had yet to perfect that stoic demeanor of his. Connors had glimpsed the satisfaction in the boy’s eyes that night, the glee he had felt over killing the man who had beaten and tormented him.

  Now, knowing that Chet Revene had slain his beloved Sarah, the chief knew if Chet were still alive, he would murder him himself.

  A knock came at the door. After releasing a sigh, the chief yelled for his visitor to, “Come in!” The man who entered the office was a cop named Curt Givens. Givens had gone to school with the chief’s son and sometimes he and the chief caught a football game together.

  “What’s up, Curt?”

  Givens closed the door behind him before moving toward the desk.

  “It’s about that woman, the FBI agent.”

  “What about her?”

  “I saw her looking at a laptop in the break room. Chief, Zach’s picture was on the screen. Are they looking into him now?”

  Connors sat up straight in his seat. “Are you sure that’s what you saw?”

  “Yeah, Chief. I’d thought you’d want to know.”

  “Good man, and keep it to yourself, hmm?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “Thanks, Curt, I’ll see you around.”

  Givens took the hint and left the office.

  The chief pulled out his cell phone. He brought up his son’s number and pressed the call button. The phone rang, then went to voicemail.

  “Zach, it’s Dad. Give me a call back as soon as you get this; it’s important.”

  The chief stood and looked out the window. Below, standing near the curb were Erica, Owens, and Troy Carson. The chief glared down at Erica.

  Just what are you up to, lady?

  * * *

  Jude returned home in a taxi and found a trio of news vans parked across the street from his house. The reporters and their cameramen closed in on him as he keyed in the code for the gate and questions were hurled at him.

  “Did you kill those people, Jude?”

  “Are there more bodies buried on the property?”

  “Why did the police release you?”

  “Are you Johnny Revenge?”

  Jude ignored them, squeezed through the gate, then keyed-in the code to close it again. Questions continued to be shouted at him until he disappeared from sight around a bend in the driveway.

  As he entered his home, he discovered the state of chaos the police search had left his house in. Drawers had been pulled out and their contents dumped, closets emptied out into the hallways, and trash had been picked through on the kitchen floor. Nothing had been put back the way it was. Even the neatly stacked dumbbells in his home gym had been removed from their rack.

  It irked him. Jude liked order and abhorred having his home in disarray. He would have to put it all back himself; there was no way he was going to leave it for Molly to deal with.

  On top of the disruption to his house, his dogs were still being kept at the pound and he wouldn’t be able to get them until morning. He hadn’t been home without the dogs since moving back to Sanguine; the house felt empty without them. Worst of all, he had missed a day of writing.

  Having not eaten since the previous evening, Jude went into the kitchen and heated up one of the meals Molly left for him. It was lasagna, one of his favorites. He also ate a good-size helping of peach cobbler for dessert.

  After checking the monitors and seeing that there was still a patrol car lurking outside the gate, Jude moved onto his back porch. As it always did, it took him a few seconds to locate the metal ring hidden among the weave of the mat. It was the large one positioned in front of the rear door that was made of coco coir fibers in a herringbone pattern.

  The police had come across the safe in his office and made him open it, but they had failed to detect the hidden compartment in the porch’s floor. The mat peeled back to reveal a hinged board, under that was a small space lined with cedar wood. There were two guns that had belonged to his father, an assortment of gold coins, a large brown envelope containing cash, and a cell phone.

  Jude was pleased but puzzled to see that the phone still held a charge. It had been quite some time since he’d powered it on. There was a text message waiting for him. It had been left by his brother, John.

  SAW YOU MENTIONED IN THE NEWS. WTF IS GOING ON? CALL ME NOW!

  Jude frowned at the phone. He had left a dozen messages for his brother over the last few months and John had never responded. Now, he wanted Jude to call him back immediately.

  As Jude admitted to Owens in the interrogation room, he had run into his brother in Pennsylvania while out on the road. However, Jude had left out the part where he’d given John a cell phone to keep in touch. His phone, and the one he’d given his brother couldn’t be traced back to them. If Chief Connors was aware that Jude had a way to reach out to John, he would have used it to track him down.

  Jude closed up the compartment, lowered the mat back into place, then carried the phone into his office. A look at the monitors revealed that a fourth news van had arrived on the scene. A second patrol car had appeared as well, and the reporters were being herded back across the road. Despite the circus forming outside his house, Jude felt safe enough to make the call. It was answered after only two rings.

  “Joey?”

  “It’s me.”

  “You’re all over the news… the cops think you killed some people.”

  “Not just me, the FBI is looking into you as well. Johnny, tell me what’s going on with you. Let me help you.”

  “I think I’m being framed, just like you.”

  “Did you write me anonymous letters?”

  “Letters? I didn’t write you any letters.”

  “Someone did, and I think I might know who it is.”

  “Who?”

  “Zach, Chief Connors’ son.”

  “That jerk cop Connors is the police chief now?”

  “He is, and he hates me. So does Zach. Maybe they’re working together, I don’t know.”

  “Okay, Zach might frame you, but why me? I barely knew the kid.”

  “His father remembers you; the chief says that you murdered a woman before leaving town.”

  “What woman?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ve heard him say that she was a prostitute, and you admitted to me that you robbed that store.”

  “Yeah, I was a stupid teenager back then and I robbed the corner store so I would have some money for the road, but Joey, I’ve never killed anybody.”

  “The FBI is trying to link you to a serial killer, someone named Traveler.”

  “Damn, Joey, this is all so unreal.”

  “I know, and Johnny… there’s something else.”

  “What?”

  “It’s about Mom, Johnny, and it’s not good.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  YOUNGSTOWN, OHIO

  John Revene powered off and then removed the battery from his phone
after the call with his brother Joey ended. He never wanted to talk with his brother again after running into him last year. Now, he was glad that they’d exchanged phone numbers.

  Jude had told him that the authorities had a DNA sample that belonged to the serial killer, Traveler.

  “Once my DNA results come back, we’ll both be in the clear of those murders,” Jude said.

  Not true, little brother, John thought. When those results come back, I’ll have every cop in America breathing down my neck.

  John Revene was Traveler.

  He was pacing around in a back alley behind the rooming house he’d been staying in for the past few days. As he walked, he puffed hard on a cigarette.

  After leaving Sanguine, John had fallen in with a gang in New York City that performed heists and also did loan sharking. Between robberies he became the gang’s enforcer. After a year, he’d lost track of how many deadbeats he had beaten up and the number of arms and legs he’d broken. He remembered the murders though. There had been two of them, both on late payers who were talking to the cops. When things got hot in Manhattan, John moved west to Detroit. At no time did he ever work a normal job or carry a driver’s license or other I.D.

  These days, John made his living by stealing high-end late-model cars. He did so by carjacking the vehicle’s owners while they were busy with packages or dealing with young children. Once they handed over the car, all he had to do was make it to a chop shop before the police were alerted and on the hunt. When he handed the vehicle over and collected his cash, the chop shop would expertly disable all tracking equipment. Because of time constraints, John tended to target drivers in the vicinity of the chop shops.

  John’s needs were few, and so he didn’t have to steal many vehicles to survive. He’d been a thief of one kind or another since he was in his teens, and then, there was what he liked to think of as his hobby, the murder of women.

  He never thought of himself as a serial killer. He killed prostitutes, that was true, and he had killed a lot more of them than the twenty-eight that were attributed to him. Still, he never considered himself to be like Bundy or Gacy. Men like that were driven by compulsion. They grew ever more reckless until the inevitable happened and they were captured by the police.