Five Knives: A Will Finch Mystery Thriller (Series Prequel)

by D. F. Bailey

  “Cecily, you here?”

  He peered into the living room. An open, all-in-one space, it served as kitchen, dining and living room. At the far end, sliding glasses doors opened onto a narrow deck that overlooked the neighborhood.

  Next to the lounger, he spotted the red light blinking on the Panasonic answering machine. He pressed the PLAY button and heard his two messages to her. The third was from her to him.

  “Hey Will. Guess what? I left my keys at the office. You got my note, I hope. So this is just a reminder that I’m at Gillian’s for book club tonight. Anyhow, I should be back around eleven. Unlock the main door when I buzz, okay? Love you.”

  Her note?

  He sauntered over to the table next to the balcony where they ate their meals. At the place where he usually sat lay a slip of paper torn from a memo pad she kept in her purse. The note read: “I’m off to book club at Gillian’s tonight. Back around 11. xx oo.”

  He exhaled a long sigh of relief. He reread the note a second time and wondered about his mental state. Again, in his morning rush, he’d missed this. And he’d completely forgotten about the book club, a group of nine women who meet each month. This time around they were going to discuss Earl Derr Biggers’s crime novels from the 1920s and 30s. The Charlie Chan series, of all things. Obviously, his fears and anxiety had been stirred by too little sleep and not enough food. No wonder he’d been paranoid.

  He moved to the refrigerator, scanned the contents and decided to prepare a ham, pickle and cheese sandwich on rye bread. He ate at the table next to the balcony doors and gazed through the window. The wind tugged at the shrubs along the side of the fence. The lamppost cast a yellow glow onto the damp driveway. No sign of Cecily. No sign of Madden.

  He moved to the futon sofa and propped his legs on the coffee table that he’d bought last week at a garage sale on Derby Street. At the same sale, Cecily had picked up a crystal cake platter, the old-fashioned kind that stood on a single, three-inch glass stem. She had a “nesting instinct” she said. She planned to bake cookies and cakes and display them on the platter so that when the baby came, visitors could enjoy a small treat. There’d be coffee, tea, wine, cheese. And the new baby, of course.

  He reread Cecily’s note and chided himself for missing it during his morning rush. He knew he’d overextended himself and the pressure had made him sloppy. His errors pointed to the same lesson that he’d learned one too many times in Iraq: Waste yourself, waste your life.

  He brushed his teeth, stripped off his clothes and climbed into bed. Counting backward from his next seven AM shift at the Post, he decided to set the alarm for five-thirty. As he drifted off, he commanded himself to remain alert for Cecily. She’d buzz him from the lobby, and he’d let her in, then he could crash. If things went his way, maybe he could get in six hours of rest.

  ※

  He’d fallen far into the abyss, and now he drifted in a dead, unbroken sleep. On the third ring, the sound of the door buzzer shot him bolt upright. His eyes blinked open, and he clicked on the bedside lamp.

  As he swung his legs onto the floor, he remembered. Cecily. He glanced at the clock: 11:21. He raked his fingers through his hair and padded across the hall carpet wondering if he should throw on a bathrobe. If she wanted to, they could sit up and talk. On the other hand, he felt so tired that he knew he’d make miserable company. Forget it, he whispered to himself.

  He buzzed down to her.

  “It’s me,” she called through the intercom. Her voice sounded bright, but weary from her long day.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m in bed. It’s open.”

  He unlocked the door and swiveled the swing bar lock between the doorframe and the entrance to ensure it remained open until she arrived. Then he returned to the bedroom and slipped under the covers. In his mind, he could see himself crawling back into the emptiness of sleep. It had been such a good, dreamless sleep. After a few seconds, he thought he’d found the edge of it, the lip where he could roll over and fall in. Then he heard her cry out.

  “Will! No. Stop it! Will!”

  Her voice dashed a chill through his veins. In an instant, he knew what had happened. In three steps he leaped through the bedroom into the hallway. Cecily’s head was pressed against the wall. Her face was mottled with red splotches, her eyes wide with terror.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  Finch studied the man beside her — glowering back at him. The thick ridge of eyebrows, the square face, the dimple punctuating his chin. Shaggy, jet black hair. Lips so thin they seemed invisible. In his left hand Felix Madden held a narrow open blade with a slight curve at the tip. An eight-inch filleting knife.

  “Do as I tell ya or I slit her ear to ear,” he whispered.

  “No problem.” Finch held up two hands in a defensive gesture.

  “I see you forgot to dress for the ’casion.” Felix Madden’s voice had a hoarse, raw tone. With his right hand still pinning Cecily’s head to the wall, he kicked the door behind him with a foot. It swung shut, and the deadbolt clicked. Then he pushed Cecily ahead of him into the living room. Will stepped forward so that he stood between them.

  “So you’re the reporter.” Madden’s mouth curled into a downward sloping smile. He waved the knife at Finch’s belly with a casual swing of his arm.

  Finch covered his genitals with his hands. “Let me get dressed.”

  “No. This is better. I’m sure your wife likes it, too. You prancing around all buck naked like that. Maybe if things went right, she’d have one in the oven, huh?” His face widened, and he broke into a laugh. The sick, cynical sneer matched his voice. “You ever had one, honey?”

  Cecily stared at him, unable to speak.

  “I said, you ever had one?”

  “What?”

  “A baby.”

  “No,” she whispered and glanced at Will, terror haunting her face.

  Finch drew a long breath. He knew what was coming. Knew he had to prepare.

  “Well, they say first baby’s the hardest. After that” — he made a long slicing motion with the knife — “they’re supposed to jus’ slide out.”

  Cecily whimpered and drew her hands over her mouth.

  “Felix, your business is with me.” Finch narrowed his eyes. Somehow he had to establish some leverage. He moved his hands from his crotch and set them on his hips. A gesture to show Madden that he wasn’t afraid. “Let her go. Then we can settle up.”

  “Settle up?” Another laugh. “Nope. She stays.” Madden’s eyes wandered over Finch’s body. He shook his head with a kind of false gaiety. “Hey now, you been keepin’ yourself in good shape. Yeah, real buff.”

  Finch tried to imagine what he could seize for a weapon. The dinner knife he’d used to cut his sandwich in two. That was on the table near the balcony. Cecily’s glass serving platter on the coffee table. His baseball bat stowed under the futon.

  “Let’s everyone sit down. Have a little chin-wag. You know, sociable.” He swung the knife in a wide arc. “Before the main entertainment begins.”

  “Cecily, sit beside me.” Finch moved toward the futon sofa. He sat on the right, just above the baseball bat. He kept it there along with his catcher’s mitt and a few baseballs. Cecily sat beside him. She covered her eyes with a hand. The coffee table stood between them and the lounge chair where Madden settled into place. Finch noticed a dark bloodstain on the knife blade.

  “How’d you find me?”

  Madden pointed the knife to the telephone next to his chair. “You get a landline, you get a free listing in AT&T’s phonebook.”

  “And then?” Finch wanted to keep him talking. Make time so that he could find a vulnerability of some kind. A weakness that he could exploit.

  “Then I just followed your sweet piece through the door when you buzzed her in.”

  Cecily glanced at Finch and shook her head as if she couldn’t bring herself to acknowledge what she’d done.

  “Not your fault,” he said.


  “Maybe not,” Madden said, “but let’s talk about whose fault it is that young girl died. Huh?”

  As he spoke Madden’s eyes widened. The pupils appeared to be fully dilated. Finch wondered if he was high on methamphetamines. Or maybe crack cocaine. When the time came to fight him, he’d be barbaric. Finch knew he’d have to move fast. The battle would last three, maybe four strokes, and be done.

  “You mean Jojo? The one you cuffed to the bed.”

  “Me? That was Henman. He was all about the chickies.”

  “She said she knew you.”

  “Oh yeah, we had our time or two.” He laughed again. “Or three or four. Young wildcat she was.”

  Finch shrugged and glanced away. “Tell me something, Felix. How did you and Julian Blomquist hook up?”

  “You wanna know? Really?” His bright mood continued. But it was all a sham. Finch doubted Madden was capable of expressing an honest emotion.

  “Yeah. I do.”

  “We’re cousins. On my mama’s side.”

  “Cousins?”

  “Grew up on opposite sides of the track. But as they say, blood runs thicker than water.” He raised his free hand as if he were pledging an oath. “Ha. I can testify to that.”

  Finch tried to conceal his disbelief. He wondered how much Madden would reveal about Seamus Henman. “Speaking of Henman, how did that work?”

  “What’d’ya mean work?”

  “You know. The five knives thing. Where’d you get that?”

  “You wondering about that, huh?” Madden crooked his head to one side to emphasize just how clever he’d been. “Let me put it this way, a lot of stories run through Ironwood.”

  Ironwood State Prison. Cecily had found it in her research of the telephone numbers. “You spent a little time there I understand.”

  “More than a little.” He spat on the floor.

  “So?”

  “So men have ears. Men have lips. In a place where’s there’s nothin’ more to trade than stories, you hear things.”

  “Like the five knives murders in Wichita and Reno.”

  When Madden didn’t respond, Finch pressed him. “And you thought you’d try it on Henman.”

  “Got your attention, didn’t it?”

  His face revealed a bland indifference. Finch wondered how much longer he could stall. Then it occurred to him. He’d crossed paths with Madden before. In the corridor outside the Versatile Property Group office where Gio Esposito had cooked up his mortgage packages.

  “You know, I’ve seen you before.”

  “Don’t think so.” Madden rubbed his left hand over his right shoulder. “I remember faces. Not yours.”

  “That’s because you had your mind on other things.”

  “What other things?” He seemed curious now.

  “Tuesday afternoon. Just outside Esposito’s office. Think back.”

  Madden’s eyes narrowed as he tried to summon the memory. “Yeah?”

  “I was just going in the door and you were coming out.”

  “Maybe.” He waved a hand. “Who gives a shit?”

  Finch paused. “You’d just gone into Esposito’s office. You found his laptop, didn’t you?”

  He blinked and turned away as if to deny this petty theft.

  “And you took it to Blomquist. It was the one thing he had to get, wasn’t it?”

  “This is getting tired.” He drew a deep breath and switched the knife to his free hand.

  Finch knew that he’d finally found some leverage and had to keep the pressure on. He decided to turn the conversation back to Jojo.

  “So why’d you kill her, Madden?”

  “Jojo?” He grimaced as if he regretted it. “After I saw her name in your paper. Then she just had to go. Specially with my face on the cover.” His voice hinted at some surprise. Perhaps he never expected to see his mug shot — the same image Julian Blomquist had faxed to Seamus Henman — on the front page of the Post. He turned away as if he needed to sort out the details. “Same reason you got to go, my friend. Jojo said you were up in the apartment with her. Like my cousin used to say, ‘witnesses never prosper.’ Sad but true.”

  “That doesn’t mean shit, and you know it. You didn’t have to kill her. You did it for pleasure.”

  Madden’s leathery face tightened, and the muscles around his jaw clenched. “You know Finch, you get boring real fast.”

  “Boring?” Finch’s laugh sounded hollow. A mockery. “The cops are all over this. You’ve got one, two days at the most before they bring you down.”

  Madden shifted the knife to his right hand and rubbed his right shoulder. A glint of pain flashed through his face. After massaging the shoulder, he transferred the blade back to his left hand.

  Was he left-handed or did he favor that side? Then Finch knew. An injury to his right shoulder. Maybe it was slight, perhaps little more than a torn rotator cuff — but it was an opening.

  “Enough talk.” Madden snorted, and his nostrils flared. “Sweetheart, I want you to come over here now.”

  “No.” Finch put his hand on her forearm. “She doesn’t move. It’s time for you to leave, Felix. Before it’s too late.”

  “Too late? Fuck you, asshole.”

  Madden stood up and took a step to the left to move around the coffee table. On his second step, Finch stood to face him. As he rose up, he grabbed the crystal platter by the stem and thrust it forward like a shield.

  Madden swung the blade in a broad slash aimed at Finch’s belly. The steel chinked against the glass and broke off a long splinter that exposed a sharp edge. He lunged again at Finch and cut a three-inch laceration along his left forearm. At the same time, Finch made a second thrust with the platter and caught Madden under the chin and just above his larynx. The blow shattered the glass into a dozen pieces that fell to the floor.

  “Fuck!” Madden gasped and stepped to his left. He pressed his free hand to his throat and examined the smeared blood in his palm.

  Finch ignored his wound, reached under the sofa and drew the baseball bat into his hands. He kicked the coffee table toward Madden. It brushed against Madden’s left shin as it thudded to the floor. Finch now had room to move. He held the barrel of the bat in front of him with the knob end at his waist. He could see the cut on his arm was bleeding, but Madden’s injury seemed more dangerous.

  “Your throat’s cut bad, Madden. Time to call this off.”

  Madden’s face lit up with fury. “Fuck you!”

  He shifted the filleting knife to his left hand — an awkward move that assured Finch that his opponent was right-handed and forced by an injury to fight with his weaker hand. He began slashing the knife through the air from side to side.

  With his eyes steadily focused on the knife, Finch parried with the bat. He pumped the wood spindle in narrow bunts that kept Madden at bay. Madden’s face knotted in frustration. After a moment a blind rage overtook him, and he lunged forward. With a firm slap, Finch smacked the knuckles of Madden’s hand and the knife flew against the near wall and clattered against the floor. Finch then speared the bat into Madden’s chest just above his solar plexus. Madden gasped for breath and took a step backward. Then another back-step, and another, struggling for breath as he moved. Finch moved forward, stride for stride, keeping Madden in his range, waiting for the right moment. When he saw it — Madden clutching at his throat with his left hand — Finch raised the bat over his head and swung it down into Madden’s right shoulder. Will heard the taut pop as the collarbone snapped and Madden collapsed on the floor. As he lay on the carpet, he began to inhale short sips of air. His eyes fluttered with pain. A dull moan erupted from his mouth.

  Finch stood above him and threatened him with the bat. “You want any more?” His voice brimmed with outrage and anger. He tried to lock it down, but the adrenaline surged through him.

  “I said, you want any more?!”

  “Will … stop.”

  Cecily’s voice washed over him. A whisper, a wish — a warm bre
eze from another world.

  With his eyes fixed on Madden, he drew two deep breaths. The fight was over, but he knew he couldn’t let Madden up. Never again. He drove the heel of his right foot into Madden’s ribcage, a bruising kick to serve as a warning.

  “Cecily, call 9-1-1. Then get me something for this cut,” he gasped. He coughed to clear his throat. “And toss me my pants, too.”

  The blood seeped steadily along his arm to his wrist and into his hands where he gripped the baseball bat in his fists. His flesh had been pared away on his forearm, exposing the bands of extensor muscles. None of his arteries appeared to be severed, but the wound was deep, and now the pain began to sharpen and intensify.

  From somewhere in the back of his mind he asked himself, Do I have your attention? Yes, he answered. This is real. This is here and now. And it’s over.

  Cecily made the call to the police. As she moved to the bathroom to find a compress and bandages, Finch peered into Madden’s black, dilated eyes.

  “You try to get up, and I’ll take your fucking head off.” He could still feel the adrenaline pumping through him. “Do you hear me?”

  With one hand cradling his shoulder, Madden blinked and twisted away.

  “I said, do you hear me?” He swung the bat above Madden’s head, and a dash of blood from his arm flecked along Madden’s right cheek.

  “Yeah,” he whispered. “I hear you.”

  ※ — FIFTEEN — ※

  FINCH NEEDED SEVEN subcutaneous stitches to repair the damage to the muscles in his forearm. He also required a tetanus shot, a “necessary precaution,” the doctor said after the forensic team determined that Madden’s filleting knife was the same blade he’d used to kill Jojo.

  Then came the question of HIV infection. Jojo’s autopsy revealed that she’d been HIV-positive. The news sent Finch into a funk. If Madden hadn’t murdered her, her health would be hijacked by a course of antiretroviral drugs. And if her luck didn’t hold, she’d have to fight a day-to-day battle against AIDS. One more hurdle to jump. Perhaps one too many. Fortunately, she never knew her condition.