Knight, The

by Steven James

  “Did you or did you not physically assault Richard Devin Basque . . .”

  And arresting Basque.

  And the satisfying crunch of my fist against his jaw.

  “. . . after he was in your custody in the slaughterhouse?”

  Truth and justice always wrestle against each other in our courts.

  Always.

  On Friday I’d told Calvin that justice isn’t served when truth is censored.

  Now, I realized Basque wasn’t the only one on trial.

  So was I.

  So was my past. My conscience.

  I opened my mouth to answer Priscilla’s question.

  And hesitated.

  “Once again,” Priscilla said petulantly, “we wait for an answer.” I made a decision.

  “So here we are—” she began.

  “This is what happened.” And then I told the court the truth about what happened that night in the slaughterhouse.

  96

  As I related the facts, all of them, I knew I was signing a death warrant to my credibility, and probably to my career. Even worse, I realized I was creating empathy for Basque among the jurors and that those feelings would most likely influence their verdict.

  But unlike the midwives or the people in the other biblical stories, at the moment, I wasn’t being asked to hand innocent people over to certain death. I was only being asked to tell the truth. If Basque were set free I would deal with that when the time came.

  “I hit the defendant in the jaw,” I said. “I hit him twice after he was handcuffed, after he was in custody. It wasn’t the meat hook that broke his jaw, it was my fist.”

  Judge Craddock leaned forward and actually seemed interested in the trial. I thought the jury would be surprised by what I’d said, but most of them just looked disappointed instead.

  Priscilla smiled. “That’s all I have.” And for a moment she reminded me of a snake that had just swallowed a mouse. “No further questions, Your Honor.”

  “Does the prosecution wish to redirect?” Judge Craddock asked.

  “Yes, Your Honor.” Emilio stood.

  I glanced at the clock on the east wall.

  12:04 p.m.

  Still plenty of time to get to O’Hare for my 1:59 flight, if Emilio didn’t drag things out.

  But he did.

  He composed himself, and before asking me any questions, took his time distancing my actions in the warehouse from the crimes Basque was accused of. “Agent Bowers’s reaction only reflects the deep anger any of us would have felt coming face to face with the scene in the slaughterhouse that day,” he told the jury. “The evidence tells the story of Mr. Basque’s guilt, and it is the evidence, and the evidence alone upon which you must base your verdict.”

  Finally, he asked me a few questions, and I answered them, but in the end I suspected the damage had already been done. Regardless of how guilty Basque was, the fact that I’d assaulted him and then apparently tried to cover it up by not being more forthcoming in my original police report would be enough to discredit my testimony.

  And as every defense attorney knows, discrediting even one of the prosecution’s witnesses—especially the arresting officer—is enough to raise questions in the minds of the jurors. And since our court system requires a jury to unanimously find a defendant guilty beyond reasonable doubt, a few questions were all you needed for an acquittal.

  When Emilio finished, Judge Craddock called for a brief recess for lunch, I stepped from the witness stand, and my duties in Chicago were officially over.

  12:28 p.m.

  As I collected my things and got ready to leave, Emilio came toward me. “Well,” he said. “That was a little rocky, but I think we’ll be all right.” He was putting his best spin on what had just happened, and I could tell. “And I don’t think you need to worry about Basque pressing charges. The statute of limitations in Wisconsin for physical assault have—”

  “Run out. I know. That isn’t really what concerns me.” I noticed that Richard Basque was watching me, shaking his head slowly as if to reprimand me for telling the truth.

  And then he called to me, “No one is beyond redemption, Agent Bowers.”

  The old, familiar anger churned inside of me, searching for an opportunity to get out. I didn’t reply, just turned away before I found myself giving in to my urges and attacking him like I’d done the night I arrested him.

  He didn’t say anything more.

  Why did he ask you to lie?

  I still had no idea.

  Emilio was watching Ms. Eldridge-Gorman, who was chatting amiably with her legal team. “However,” he said, “it is true that things have become a bit more complicated.”

  I thought of the weight I’d been carrying all these years, the subtle power Basque had exerted over me by knowing my secret. Now, there were no secrets. “No,” I said to Emilio. “Things were complicated. They just became a lot simpler.”

  Then he stepped away, and I checked my watch.

  12:32 p.m.

  My flight left in less than ninety minutes and I still had a forty minute drive to O’Hare. It would be cutting it close.

  On the way to the hall I called Kurt, asked him about Calvin, and he told me rather bluntly that he would have let me know if he’d found out anything and that I didn’t need to keep bothering him about it. OK?

  I wasn’t sure how to take his sharp tone, and for a moment neither of us spoke, then I said, “Kurt, what is it? What’s up?”

  “Yeah, it’s the . . .” Kurt was a tough man, but I could hear defeat creeping into his voice. Whatever was bothering him was something big. “It’s Cheryl,” he said finally.

  I felt a rush of concern, and I paused beside the door. “What happened?”

  Silence.

  “Is she all right?” I said. “Did something happen to—”

  “She left me.”

  The words slammed into me. Left me groping for what to say. “Kurt, I’m so . . . I’m so sorry.”

  “She went to her sister’s place up in Breckenridge.” It seemed like there was more he wanted to say, but he left it at that.

  I wanted to encourage him, to tell him it would all work out, but I knew how long he and Cheryl had struggled to make things work, and there are no easy fixes when things got to this point. Finally, I asked him if there was anything, anything at all, I could do.

  “I need some time,” he said. “I’m not trying to bail on you, but I need to go up there, maybe take a couple days, see if I can salvage this thing. I can’t just let everything—”

  “Go. We’ll be fine. We’ll get John. And if there’s anything you need, call me. OK?”

  He told me that he would. “Cell reception up there in the mountains is terrible, but yeah, I’ll give you a shout.” We ended the call, and I was left wishing there was more I could do, but since I didn’t have a direct flight, I wouldn’t land in Denver until almost six.

  Maybe Cheyenne could check in with Kurt before he left. I decided to call her, but first I needed to get a cab, so as I headed to the security checkpoint to collect my SIG and my knife, I phoned for a cab and arranged for it to meet me two blocks from the courthouse. Then I punched in Cheyenne’s number.

  “Pat,” she answered. “That’s weird, I was just picking up the phone to call you.”

  “Did you hear about Kurt and Cheryl?”

  A brief silence. “Yeah,” she said. “I hate that this is happening.”

  “I thought maybe you could stop by, see him before he leaves.”

  “We just spoke in the hall.”

  Silence spread between us. It was clear neither of us knew what to say.

  At last, Cheyenne took a small breath. “I need to tell you: we found the bodies of Benjamin Rhodes and Adrian Bryant at Bryant’s house.”

  Something heavy and dark sank inside of me. “It was the toothpaste, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. They died after scrubbing toxins against their teeth, just like Simona and Pasquino did in the
seventh story. And they didn’t just die. You know how 5-MeO-DMT and bufotenin are psychedelic drugs?”

  “Yes.” I remembered an excerpt from the research notes in the case files: “Often characterized by hallucinations of bugs crawling across the subject’s body.”

  “Based on the smears of blood on the wall”—her voice was strained and somber—“Bryant must have pounded his face against it twenty or thirty times before he died. Rhodes got hold of a knife and . . . well . . .”

  She left it at that.

  More death. More faces to haunt me. More guilt for what I might have done if only I’d pieced things together faster. “OK, let’s—”

  “Wait,” she said. “How did you know John had targeted them?”

  “When he called me yesterday he said dusk would arrive like it did in London. This morning Calvin told me he suspected John killed England’s leading Chaucer expert last year in London on May 19th—one year ago, exactly, today.”

  “What? You’re kidding me!”

  “No, I’ll fill you in later. I’m just saying, that’s what made me think of our Boccaccio expert, Professor Bryant. Last night, I logged into his Internet browser, and it was pretty clear what his sexual preference was. I put that together with John’s pledge to make Boccaccio’s story more politically correct.” I arrived at the security checkpoint, picked up my knife and gun, and headed for the back door of the courthouse. “Then, when you told me Rhodes went to Bryant’s house last night, I remembered they had the same screen saver.”

  “The same screen saver?”

  “An aquarium—the point is, I don’t believe in coincidences.”

  “And the toothpaste?” she asked.

  Our exchanges were quicker now and marked with urgency.

  “The hypodermic needles and toothpaste tubes at the ranch. John must have been practicing his delivery method. We never had the toothpaste from Elwin’s house checked for bufotoxins, did we?”

  “No. I can’t think of any reason we would have.”

  “John was probably counting on that.”

  “But all those details are a little sketchy, aren’t they?” Her tone had turned the question into its own conclusion. “Even with all that, you still needed to rely on your instincts.”

  I hesitated. “I guess so. A little.”

  As I waited for her to respond, I thought about Bryant and Rhodes—fatally poisoning themselves simply by brushing their teeth. I would never look at a tube of toothpaste the same way again.

  “One more thing,” she said. As she spoke I realized that during our conversation, for the first time since I’d met her, Cheyenne Warren sounded rattled. “I wondered if I should wait until you got here but—well, here it is: John left you a note in Bryant’s medicine cabinet.”

  I paused, stared out the window at the razor wire fence encircling the nearby Cook County Jail. “Read it to me.”

  A short pause, and then, “‘Agent Bowers, I think we’ll do the last three stories tonight after you’re back in Denver. It’ll make for a great climax. See you soon.—John.’”

  Anger. Rage. Building inside me.

  “Any word on Calvin?” My tone had become iron.

  “No,” she said. “Get back here, Pat. We—”

  “I’m on my way.”

  I was at the back door when Ralph caught up with me.

  He didn’t look like he was bearing good news, although I wasn’t sure how things could get much worse. “Talk with me on the way,”

  I said as he jogged toward me. “I need to catch my cab. What’s up?”

  We stepped outside. “Assistant Director Wellington just called.”

  “Wow. Word travels fast.”

  “Yeah, well, she’s always had it in for you. And now . . .” He let his voice trail off, but I could fill in the words.

  “Let me guess. Internal Affairs wants to speak with me?” We crossed West 26th Street toward South Francisco Avenue, where I’d requested for the cab driver to meet me.

  “Well, that and you’re released from your current duties in Denver until further notice. And your interim teaching position at Quantico has been put on hold pending a full review.”

  Even though his words weren’t a complete surprise, they struck me deeply. Margaret had told me yesterday that she could make my life miserable, but this time I’d helped her along by telling the truth on the stand.

  “And,” Ralph added, “she didn’t think the report you submitted last night was ‘adequate in scope and depth.’”

  “Of course she didn’t.”

  We made it to Francisco. A cab pulled up to the curb about twenty meters away, and we headed toward it.

  “So here’s the thing,” he said. “I was gonna tell you the news about the suspension, but unfortunately you’d already left for Chicago when I checked my messages. And since your cell is broken, it took me until ten o’clock tonight before I could reach you at home with the news.”

  “Thanks, Ralph. I owe you one.”

  “It’s a lot more than that by now.”

  “Right.” The cabbie nodded toward me and I opened the door.

  “I’ll deal with Margaret and Internal Affairs,” Ralph called to me. “Get things straightened out from this end. Just catch that psycho in Denver.”

  “I intend to.”

  I climbed into the cab.

  So, two things to do: find Calvin and catch John. And I needed to do them both before ten o’clock tonight when I would officially be released from my duties with the FBI.

  Denver, Colorado

  11:56 a.m. Mountain Time

  Amy Lynn Greer parked beside the abandoned warehouse.

  The man who’d contacted her earlier in the morning had given her the address, but she didn’t see any other cars. Maybe he hadn’t arrived yet.

  Even though she knew that coming here alone was taking a chance, in truth, she was more excited than frightened. This story was worth taking a few chances.

  She stepped out of the car.

  Since leaving Reggie and Jayson at the house after breakfast, she’d spent the morning driving to locations related to the murder spree: Cherry Creek Reservoir, police headquarters, the Bennett and Nash residences, and so on. At each location she’d taken photos and notes and dictated observations into her handheld voice recorder so she would be able to accurately describe the scenes in her book.

  But through it all, her thoughts had been on this rendezvous.

  In his email, her contact had told her about an opening in the southwest corner of the chain link fence that surrounded the warehouse, and an unlocked blue door that led into the shipping area. It took her less than a minute to find the broken section of fence.

  She slipped through.

  Saw the blue door to the building. Went inside.

  Thick, dusty air. High windows letting in layered sheets of dirty light.

  “Hello?” Her voice sounded thin and small in the room.

  “I liked your article.” The words came from a shadowy corner on her left.

  She didn’t recognize the voice, couldn’t see a face. “Thank you.”

  “The profiling elements of it were strong, showed a lot of insight.”

  She still couldn’t see who was talking to her, and now, for the first time, she began to question her decision to come here alone. “Step out so I can see you.”

  She was surprised when he did.

  A handsome man, slightly older than she was, approached her. He explained that he was a profiler, showed her his FBI credentials, and told her his offer.

  As he spoke, she could see how much they had in common and how similar their goals were. They spent a few minutes discussing ways they could mutually benefit by collaborating, and then he explained that even though the police weren’t releasing any information to the public until they could contact the family members, the Day Four Killer had struck again that morning. “Two people you know,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “Benjamin Rhodes and Dr. Ad
rian Bryant.”

  She felt a mixture of grief and surprise, but it was soon overwhelmed by a flush of excitement as she realized her unbelievably good luck: with her close personal connection with the victims—working for one and being the ex-student of the other—she was the perfect person to write the book; almost certainly the only writer who was both personally and professionally qualified.

  It would veritably guarantee a contract.

  Maybe the profiler knew that.

  Maybe that’s why he’d contacted her.

  She noticed that he was still waiting for her to respond to the news of the two deaths. “Oh,” she said. “That’s terrible.”

  “Yes,” he replied simply. “Now listen, you can’t mention that you have a source at the FBI until the book comes out.”

  “Of course not.”

  “And don’t post any more articles until I tell you. The timing has to be just right.”

  She wasn’t too excited about the stipulation, but at last she agreed.

  “We both know this is the story of a lifetime,” he said.

  The story of a lifetime.

  Yes, yes, it is.

  “I want to see any contracts before you sign them.”

  She felt a thrill. It was happening. Things were finally coming together for her. “Yes. OK.”

  Then, they nailed down the details: he would remain anonymous until the book launch, and then he would resign from the FBI and travel with her to promote the book. She liked the idea. He was cute. Who knows, maybe their friendship could blossom into something more mutually satisfying than just a working relationship?

  She took a moment to dutifully remind herself that she was “a happily married woman.” And instead of fantasizing about the cute profiler, she allowed herself a brief reverie thinking about the money and almost certainly the subsequent movie rights for the book.

  The franchise would be worth millions.

  Yes, especially if the Day Four Killer were able to finish his crime spree and complete all ten stories—

  “I get 55 percent,” her contact said. “And my name on the cover.”

  “No.”

  “Argue with me and I’ll make it 60.”

  “I’m not going to—”

  “All right.” He turned to go.