Wittek was different, the comments from Irma Bowdoin only confirming that. He had the capacity to act as a functional human being, a productive member of society. He was simply choosing not to, instead carrying out a vendetta on behalf of someone that was themselves a convicted criminal.
The thought brought a sour taste to Reed’s mouth, his face twisting up as he marched straight to the front door and pounded on it with his flat palm, the sound carrying through the chilled air. There was no doubt every person on the block could hear it echoing out as he paused and pounded again, though he found himself incapable of caring.
This had dragged on long enough. No matter what wrong Wittek thought had been done to his friend, it was damned sure no reason for him to be out shooting police officers.
It was time he was stopped.
“Anthony Wittek! This is the Columbus Police Department! Open the door or we will be forced to come inside!”
The call was louder than necessary, louder than intended, Reed unable to stem the heightened vitriol roiling through him. Raising his hand once more he pounded three times against the door before stopping and taking a step back.
“Everybody ready?” he asked, his head aimed toward the ground, seeing Glenn and Greene in his periphery to either side, Billie just inches off his hip.
“Do it,” Glenn muttered, the words still in the air as Reed rocketed forward and smashed the door in, his second in just over an hour.
The front gate was of a much heavier cut than Vazquez’s had been, the deadbolt thick and sturdy. It tore through the door jamb, sending a shower of impromptu toothpicks to the floor, the sound of them cascading against tile audible.
“Clear!” Reed snapped, he and Billie hitting the door at the same time. Moving directly to the side, he kept his weapon raised, waiting as Greene and Glenn both entered, the trio fanning out through the home.
The interior floor plan read much the way the outside indicated, the right half of the building a combination living room and kitchen, the floor covered in white tile. The design and the color scheme made it seem bright and open, a contrast in every way to Vazquez’s.
The furniture looked newer and fairly well appointed, most likely hand-me-downs from whenever the Bowdoins last upgraded next door. A loveseat and two arm chairs were arranged in a horseshoe shape, all light blue in color, a coffee table with a glass top between them.
In the kitchen was a small blonde wooden table, a pair of white chairs on either end.
The trio was still inching forward as Billie appeared from the opposite side of the house, making no sound. She stood in the kitchen before them, watching, her body rigid but without anywhere to aim her energy.
“It’s empty,” Reed whispered, lowering his gun just a few inches, following Greene as he moved into the left side of the house.
A short hallway extended straight away from the living room, the floor underfoot changing from tile to beige carpet. On the walls were a couple of landscape prints, small bedrooms extending out in either direction.
Going first, Greene moved to the right, toward the back of the house. Behind him Glenn moved to the left, Reed following her, finding a small bedroom with what looked to be a spare bed, the covers tucked down tight.
“In here,” Greene called, pulling Reed and Glenn’s gazes toward one another before moving across the hall.
In the back quadrant of the house was a second smaller bedroom, a portion of the area carved out for a bathroom. The light inside it was on, Reed glancing in to see a basic toilet-sink-shower assembly, a few toiletry items strewn about on a shelf positioned between the sink and the mirror above it.
Standing in the middle of the room was Greene, the closet door open in front of him. On the floor of it were a half-dozen gun cases of varying sizes and lengths, boxes of ammunition stacked in the corner.
Tacked on the wall above it were hundreds of photographs, most of them black-and-white with time stamps in the corner, looking like they had been printed from security camera footage.
The only pieces of furniture in the room were a bed and a desk, the bed unmade, the desk with a handful of papers strewn across the top of it.
Greene and Glenn took up spots in front of the closet, staring in at the back wall, as Reed went straight for the computer. Using a corner of the bed sheet to avoid leaving fingerprints, he lifted the top of it, the machine springing immediately to life, prompting him for a password.
Pulling his phone from his hip, Reed went to the most recent call in his log and hit send, dropping the phone on the bed beside him. The sound of it ringing filled the air as Reed leaned forward, his face just a few inches from the screen, and waited.
“My God,” Glenn said. “Look at all these pictures of Gilmore. He must have been watching him for days.”
“There’s Ike and Bishop,” Greene added.
The phone made it to the third ring before Deek answered, sounding the most alert Reed had ever heard.
“What’s up?”
“I’ve got a laptop here,” Reed said, “asking for a password. Any chance you can get in and see what’s inside?”
“Is it online?” Deek asked.
“There’s a thick white cord and a black power cord both connected to the back of it,” Reed said. “That work?”
“That’ll do it,” Deek said. “You at the address I gave you?”
“Yeah.”
“Give me a minute here,” Deek said, his voice sounding distant as he went to work.
Pushing himself upright, Reed moved a few steps to the side, looking over Greene and Glenn’s shoulder as they continued assessing the cluster of images on the wall.
“That’s Dennis Weston and his wife, Diedra,” Glenn said, stepping forward and motioning to a cluster in the top right corner.
“How about this here?” Greene asked. “He’s a uniform, but not one of ours.”
His attention was aimed downward, the combined bodies of him and Glenn blocking the pictures from view.
Reed waited a moment for them to part before glancing over to see a mouse on the screen begin to move under its own power, Deek having gotten access. He watched as the password screen dissolved before him, a bright blue desktop appearing, a series of icons scattered across it in a haphazard formation.
“What am I looking for?” Deek asked.
“Anything,” Reed said, dropping to a knee and lowering himself in front of the screen. On it the cursor continued to move, going straight to the gray bar across the bottom.
“Alright,” Deek said, “let’s start with whatever he was doing before he shut down.”
The cursor blinked twice before the icon at the bottom maximized to full-screen, an image frozen in place. Just like many on the wall it was black-and-white, appearing to be a closed circuit feed of some sort.
The picture was not live, but it didn’t need to be.
“That’s the same guy on the wall over there,” Glenn said, she and Greene having both moved behind Reed without his realizing it.
“Still don’t know who it is, though,” Greene said.
Reed’s tongue felt too sizes too large for his mouth as he stared at the image. His entire body prickled with sensation as heat rose to the surface, his gaze locked on the screen.
“I do.”
Chapter Fifty-Five
The fact that Kyle Dawkins’s home had a basement was a stroke of good fortune for The Kid. It made what could have been a logistical headache much simpler, not having to worry about overtaking him elsewhere, or even worse having to move him somewhere.
Had his only goal been something like the detectives, or even Vazquez before them, it would have been easy. He could have preyed on the innate hero complex that every cop seemed to possess, playing himself out to be in need, waiting for the man to come close enough before dispatching him.
Such a finale would have been too easy, though. It wouldn’t have done Big justice, it would not have imparted the proper lesson to Dawkins.
The way
he had handled the investigation of Big’s murder, or rather not handled it, was appalling. The Kid knew who had killed him, had told the police exactly who it was.
It didn’t matter. They didn’t care about the death of Big. Just one more ex-con they wouldn’t have to worry about, another car thief off the streets, out of their hair.
Couple of days of pretending to look at Vazquez, the whole acceptance of a weak alibi corroborated only by his mother, and that was that.
Case closed, not to be reopened.
For six months after the fact The Kid had stopped by the precinct at least twice a week, wanting only to know where things stood, why an arrest had not been made. With each visit it became more apparent that his presence was beginning to wear thin on them, The Kid noticing the grimaces and sideways glances, but not caring.
His loyalty was to Big. If becoming a nuisance himself was what it took to give him peace, he would do it.
Not until Dawkins finally told him to leave and never come back did he realize if anybody was to ever get closure, he would have to do it himself.
The memory of that day still brought a scowl to The Kid’s face, a bitter taste to his mouth, as he stood in the basement of Dawkins’s own home. Constructed of solid concrete block, the door at the top of the stairs was closed tight, the two small windows for the wells on the back half of the house blacked over.
The setup wasn’t something terribly elaborate, Dawkins himself having given The Kid the original idea for it. For everything he had engineered in the preceding days it was almost a bit anticlimactic in appearance, though at this point what it represented was far more important than any message that could be relayed.
Standing in the center of the room was Detective Kyle Dawkins. A thick braid of rope was wrapped around either wrist and looped over one of the exposed ceiling joists, his arms raised high above his head, leaving him just enough length to balance on his toes. His upper body had been stripped bare, his slacks cut off above the knees.
Striping his entire body was a series of shallow cuts, none more than a couple inches in length, over two dozen in total. Every bit of him, from the hair plastered to his skull to his exposed feet, was soaking wet from the warm water The Kid continued to splash on his body, keeping the cuts open and seeping, preventing them from clotting.
Long red rivulets painted his skin, running south from each of the wounds, drops of faint red spatter covering the floor beneath him in a wide arc.
“Why...why are you doing this?” Dawkins asked. His voice came out weak and raspy, between pants, saliva and water dripping from his chin.
The Kid ignored the question, stepping forward and tracing the tip of his Buckmaster hunting knife against the outline of Dawkins’s exposed bottom rib. The sharpened blade cut through the skin without opposition, pink flesh appearing for just a moment before bright red blood rushed in, filling the space and beginning to race down his torso.
The muscles in Dawkins’s abdomen flexed as his body squeezed tight, a pained gasp escaping his lips. On the first few cuts he’d tried in vain to kick free before realizing he didn’t have the freedom of movement to go anywhere of consequence.
Even his yelling had already subsided, reduced to nothing more than holding his breath before panting in agony, asking broken questions while trying to keep himself just above consciousness.
Hidden under the same black cotton mask he’d worn at the Weston’s, The Kid said nothing, watching the dark blood run straight down until it touched the waistband of Dawkins’s pants before dipping into the five gallon bucket of warm water beside him. Using a plain red plastic cup he had taken from the kitchen, he tossed the water high under his captive’s armpit, letting it run down, washing over the new wound, purging it of any initial globules, pushing everything south.
“Why? Why?” Dawkins moaned, his head raised toward the ceiling, his eyes closed tight. “Take whatever you want. It’s all upstairs.”
The Kid remained silent, feeling his contempt rise for the man across from him.
Today was the third time he’d been inside Dawkins’s home, each time longer than the one before. On this particular afternoon he had sat and waited over an hour for the detective to get off work, rushing straight home and going for the beer in the refrigerator, just as he always did.
If there was a single thing of value in the home, The Kid could have taken it any time he wanted.
For the man to even suggest such a thing was beyond insulting, displaying he still had no idea of the skill of his captor.
“Why?” Dawkins asked again, his eyes pressed into slits. “I’ve done nothing.”
For a moment The Kid stood and stared at the man. He squeezed the Buckmaster tight in his hand, feeling his pulse race, his acrimony somehow growing even more pronounced.
“I know,” he finally said, unable to control himself. “You did nothing, and that’s why I’m here!”
His voice reverberated through the enclosed space, relaying everything that The Kid had felt for the past year. It pulled Dawkins’s gaze toward him, his eyes fluttering open as he stared.
Knowing he finally had his attention, that his prey was pushing through into lucidity for what may be the last time, The Kid reached up and tugged the mask off of his head. The air in the basement felt cool against his exposed skin as he stepped forward, making sure Dawkins got a good look at him.
“Remember me?”
It took all the effort Dawkins could muster to focus on The Kid, his features blank for a moment before a flicker of recognition set in.
A cruel smile stretched across The Kid’s face as he stared, seeing the look of knowing in the man’s eyes. “Do you remember what you told me the last time I came to see you?”
He paused, waiting for an answer he knew was never coming.
“You told me my showing up all the time was like death by a thousand cuts. I was just keeping wounds open, not letting anything ever truly heal.”
Standing just a few feet away, he made a show of sweeping his gaze the length of Dawkins, starting at his hands and moving to the floor before following it back up in the opposite direction.
“I’d say at this point we’ve got about 970 left to go, wouldn’t you?”
Chapter Fifty-Six
Somehow the afternoon, the entire day for that matter, had slipped by without Reed realizing it. Between going to Vazquez’s and Wittek’s, hours had slid past, completely obliterated in an adrenaline-fueled haze.
The first notice Reed even paid to the advancing hour was the need for headlights as he drove toward the home of Kyle Dawkins. This time he went with lights and sirens both, a bevy of red brake lights erupting in front of him, vehicles peeling to the side to let him pass. In his rearview he could see Greene and Gilchrist, the two cars driving in tandem toward the address Grimes had given them, going into the CPD personnel files from his desk to provide the information.
Working in the western suburbs, Dawkins had taken a similar tact as Reed, though not resorting to quite such an extreme measure. Opting against living within the jurisdiction of his own precinct, or even in the dense urban confines provided by the outer belt, he had pushed a ways to the northwest, residing in Marysville.
The address indicated that his house was within city limits, Google Earth showing it was located on a residential street, neighbors close on either side.
Four previous phone calls had all gone unanswered, Glenn continuing to dial on a loop from the passenger seat. After each one went to voicemail, she swore softly before disconnecting and trying again, pressing the implement to her face.
Reed knew the feeling. There was no chance Dawkins was going to suddenly appear and answer, but she had to keep doing something, as much to keep her own psyche in check, to keep the combination of nerves and anticipation from becoming all-consuming.
If not for the fact that he was driving, he was sure he would be doing something similar, whether it be making repeated calls, checking his weapon, or any of a number of other thing
s Glenn would find equally annoying.
In the backseat Billie seemed to feed off the collective nervous energy in the car, her pacing audible against the plastic seat cover beneath her.
This would be the fourth house that they had rolled up on in the previous 10 hours, though it felt distinctly different. This time they not only had a pretty good idea of who they were looking for and where he would be, they also had an opportunity to save a potential victim. Unlike the others, where they were called in after the fact, this would be a chance for them to get there in time, to protect one of their own.
To do what they couldn’t do for Ike or Bishop, for the Westons, for Dan Gilmore.
Eighteen miles separated Hilliard from Marysville, Reed making slow progress before accessing the freeway and then picking up speed tremendously. By the time a basic green sign welcomed them to Marysville, 21 minutes had passed, enough for Reed’s system to be supercharged with adrenaline, his heart rate spiked, veins bulging in his forearms, his entire back wet with sweat.
He kept the lights and siren on as he entered town, the bucolic streets ready for Halloween, carved pumpkins lining nearly every front step, plastic bags filled with leaves meant to resemble jack-o-lanterns dotting most of the lawns.
Overhead, curved light poles extended out from the sidewalk, illuminating the street in bright orange light.
The automated voice in the GPS system on the dash told Reed to take a right, followed by a left. It deposited him in a street running parallel to the main drag, a near copy of the previous two they’d been on, single family dwellings lining both sides, leaves piled high along the curbs.
“I’m guessing that’s it,” Glenn said, extending a finger in front of her and pressing the tip of it to the windshield. She held the pose a moment before pulling it back, a smudge visible on the windshield.
Ahead of them, Reed could see a loose tangle of cars arranged in a semi-circle in the road, all of them positioned to hem in a house on the right side. A handful of dark silhouettes could be seen moving about behind the pale blue cruisers, all of the men in uniform, their attention trained on the house.
The Kid: A Suspense Thriller (A Reed & Billie Novel Book 3) Page 24
