Jack Daniels Six Pack

by J. A. Konrath

  Bains placed a slim electronic unit on his desk. I put it in my pocket.

  “When can I meet with him?”

  “You’ve got a meeting scheduled in an hour. Good luck, Jack. I’ll expect a full report on my desk in the morning.”

  Libby stood, shook my hand.

  “You know, you could have saved us all this trouble if you’d just aimed one inch lower.”

  I was beginning to think the same thing myself.

  CHAPTER 25

  We’d folded ourselves into the colorful plastic extrusion chairs of a nearby submarine sandwich chain, Herb eating and me staring out the storefront window. It was raining, and gray clouds smeared together with the muted brown and black tones of the city and its dying trees, the few that it had.

  Maybe somewhere in the suburbs there were piles of colorful autumn leaves waiting to be jumped into, but here we only had torn brown dead things that turned into mud when wet.

  “When I was a kid, every fall, my mom would take me up to Wisconsin to watch the leaves turn. I never appreciated it. Maybe beauty is wasted on the young.”

  “Could be,” Herb said, mostly to the meatball sandwich opened up and splayed out before him. The low-carb diet he was following restricted bread, and he’d pushed it off to the side, giving the protein his full attention.

  “What do you think of when you think of autumn?”

  “Thanksgiving turkey.”

  “How about winter?”

  “Christmas turkey.”

  “Spring?”

  “Easter ham.”

  “I sense a theme here.”

  “You gonna finish that roast beef?”

  I allowed Herb access to my half-eaten sub, and he used a fork to pull out the meat.

  “I don’t understand how eating all of that fat is healthy.”

  “Got me.” Herb opened up a packet of mayo, slathered it on the beef, and crammed it all in. “Works, though.”

  “Yeah. You look great.”

  He grunted, as if not believing it.

  “Herb? Something on your mind?”

  He grunted again.

  “Got some cholesterol caught in your throat?”

  “It’s Bernice.”

  “Is she okay?”

  He shrugged.

  Usually, I got daily Bernice updates, but since I’d been out of work, I’d only seen Herb three times. Each time, I’d been unloading my problems, without bothering to ask if he had any.

  Some partner.

  “What’s wrong, Herb?”

  “We’re at odds. She doesn’t like my new lifestyle.”

  “What? Low carb?”

  “The weight loss is only part of it. She doesn’t like my car. She told me she’s sick of all the constant sex. Vacation is coming up, and we always go to California, to visit her friends in wine country. Been doing that for twenty years. This year, I want to go to Vegas.”

  “You can compromise. Spend a few days in Las Vegas, a few with her friends.”

  “Screw her friends.”

  Which was as spiteful a thing as I’d ever heard come out of Herb’s mouth.

  I wanted to pursue the issue, but Benedict checked his watch, shoveled in the last meatball, and stood up.

  “We’re going to be late.” Which is what I think he said, cheeks full.

  He walked out of the restaurant, and I followed. I tried to bring up the topic in the car, but Herb insisted he didn’t want to talk about it.

  Cook County Jail stretched from 26th and Cal to 31st and Sacramento, making it the largest single-site pre-detention center in the US. Eight thousand six hundred and fifty-eight men and women resided there, give or take, divvied up among eleven division buildings. Most of the inmates were awaiting their trials, after which they’d be freed or more likely sent someplace else. Others were just commuting their short sentences, ninety days and under.

  I did a quick voice test of the tape recorder, and found it in working condition.

  After being cleared through the perimeter fence, we located Division Eleven, where they held Fuller. From the outside, the clean, white building looked more like a government office than a maximum security prison.

  Inside, however, was all business. We were met by the assistant division superintendent, Jake Carver, a beefy man with a moist handshake. We signed in, checked our weapons, and followed Carver into the bowels of the prison.

  “Been a model prisoner.” Carver had a voice like a buzz saw. Smoking, drink, or both. “No problems at all.”

  “What’s the security on him?” Herb asked.

  “He’s in isolation. Can’t put a cop in with the general population.”

  “Have you met him?” I asked.

  “Sure. Chitchatted for a while.”

  “What’s your impression?”

  “Seems like a nice enough guy.”

  “Is he lying about the amnesia?”

  “If he is, he’s the best liar I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been with the DOC for almost thirty years. Here we are.” We stopped at a white steel door with a six-inch-square window at eye level. “Visiting room H. Got it to yourself for half an hour. Just bang on the door when you want to go, or if he starts getting rowdy. I’ll be right here.”

  Carver unbolted the door and allowed me entrance. I hit the Record button on the tape player in my pocket, then went in.

  The room was small, twelve by twelve, lit by overhead strips of fluorescence, one of them flickering. It smelled like body odor and desperation. In the center of the room stood a folding chair, facing an inch-thick, pitted and scratched Plexiglas barrier, reinforced with steel bars, that divided the space in half.

  Barry Fuller sat on the other side, a pleasant look on his face. He wore prison clothes; a Day-Glo orange jumpsuit with his number stenciled on the breast. His hands were cuffed, and a chain trailed down, connecting to his leg irons. A large, puffy scar ran from his eyebrow to the top of his head, his crew cut unable to conceal it.

  “Thanks for coming, Lieut. Please, have a seat.”

  I nodded, sitting across from him. I kept my knees together, both feet flat on the ground, my back ramrod-straight.

  “Hello, Barry. You look well.”

  He smiled, lowering his head so his finger could trace the scar.

  “Healing pretty good. How about you? They told me you took two in the stomach?”

  “I’m managing.” I kept my tone even. “Much better than your wife.”

  Fuller’s face seemed to deflate. His eyes got red and teared up.

  “Holly. My love. I can’t believe I did that.”

  “Well, you did. I was there. I watched her bleed to death, right in front of me.”

  Fuller sniffled. He rubbed his eyes, which made them even redder.

  “I know how it sounds, Lieutenant. Imagine if you woke up one day, and everyone started telling you about all of these horrible things you did. Things you have no memory of.”

  “It was the brain tumor, huh?”

  “I loved my wife!” Fuller’s voice cracked. “I never would have killed her if I knew what I was doing. Jesus, Holly.”

  His shoulders sagged. A good actor? Or someone who really felt remorse?

  “Why did you ask me here, Fuller? Without lawyers? What did you want to say to me?”

  “I wanted to thank you.”

  That threw me.

  “What?”

  “To thank you. For stopping me, before I hurt anyone else. Also, to apologize for shooting you.”

  I gave him a once-over.

  “Touching, Fuller. I’m deeply touched, really. Your tears make up for all of those women you butchered.”

  “I don’t remember butchering any women. I’m thankful for that, actually. I don’t know if I could live with myself if I remembered.”

  “You don’t remember Davi McCormick? Cutting off her arms? Putting my handcuffs on her wrists, so your sicko buddy Rushlo could leave them in the morgue?”

  Fuller shook his head.

&
nbsp; “How about Eileen Hutton? You bit her so hard she was missing chunks of her flesh.”

  “Please stop.”

  “What did she taste like, Barry? Can you remember that?”

  “I can’t remember anything.”

  Time to get serious.

  “I bet you do remember it. I bet you remember what a rush it was, to cut off her head. I bet it gave you such a sense of power and control. You fucked her too, didn’t you? Do you remember if it was before or after you yanked out her heart?”

  Barry was really putting on a show now, sobbing loudly. But I wasn’t buying.

  “Drop the act, Barry. I know you’re lying. You remember every sick little detail. I bet you jerk off to those memories every night in your lonely little cell. You make me sick. I hope they fry your ass in the chair, tumor or no tumor, you piece of shit.”

  When Fuller pulled his hands away from his face, he was grinning. I’d expected anger or outrage, but he looked outright amused.

  “You’re wearing a wire, aren’t you, Lieutenant?”

  I didn’t reply.

  “You want me to be honest, but you won’t be honest yourself? Let me see the wire.”

  I considered my options. Knowing Barry was faking this seemed more important than proving it. I took out the recorder, then switched it off.

  “Fine, Barry. Just you and me. You ready to drop this stupid amnesia ploy and come clean?”

  Fuller closed his eyes and clasped his hands together, as if in prayer. Then he lifted his arm and rubbed his face on his sleeve, back and forth.

  “Onions.” He blew his nose. “Under my fingernails. Instant tears, courtesy of the wonderful chicken soup served up nice and hot by the Department of Corrections. Pretty good performance, huh? Anything I need to improve before I give it in court?”

  I felt myself get very cold.

  “How much do you remember, Barry?”

  “I remember everything, Jack.”

  “The murders?”

  “Every detail. And you were right. At night, when I’m all alone in my cell, I abuse myself thinking about them. Spit and a fist are a poor substitute for a bleeding, screaming whore. But I have to make do until they let me out.”

  He made a kissy face and winked at me. My stomach rolled over, and I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time.

  “So there was no reason for this? Just bloodlust?”

  “Just bloodlust? You say that like you’re disappointed. What’s a better reason for murder than that? Money? Revenge? Lust is so much purer.”

  “So you’re a sociopath.”

  “Actually, no. I’ve had a lot of time in here to read, sort things out. According to the DSM IV, I suffer from disorganized episodic aggression. I feel empathy, I just choose to ignore it to get high.”

  “High on killing?”

  “Headaches, Jack. Terrible headaches. Caused by the tumor, probably, but I’ve had them my whole life, and they tell me the tumor can’t be more than a year old. Killing makes the pain go away. I figured out it has something to do with endorphin. Endogenous morphine. The body manufactures it to block pain, and it’s a hundred times more powerful than an equivalent dose of heroin. Killing gives me an endorphin rush. At least, that’s what I think. I’d like to ask all of these shrinks watching me 24-7, see what they think, but I’ve got to keep up appearances.”

  “So now that the tumor is gone?”

  “Tumor doesn’t matter, Jack. I’m addicted to killing.”

  He grinned, his eyes as black and lifeless as a shark’s.

  I stood up, not needing to hear any more. I got what I came for.

  “Leaving so soon, Jack? But I haven’t told you my plans yet.”

  “What plans?”

  “For after they let me out. I’m going to be looking you up, Jack.” He waggled his tongue at me, and began to rub his crotch. “We’re going to have a real good time, Lieutenant. I got something special planned for you, and that fat partner of yours. I hated you before, because you wouldn’t take me in Detective Division. Since you put me in this hellhole, I’ve grown to hate you even more. I’ll show you, soon.”

  I turned my back on him, and tried to walk to the door without shaking too badly.

  “Don’t worry, Jack. It won’t be right away. First I’m going to kill everyone in your life. Everyone you know and care about.”

  I pounded on the steel, harder than I intended.

  “Give my best to your mom and boyfriend, Jack. Be seeing you soon.”

  I pounded again, and Carver opened up.

  “You okay, Lieutenant?”

  I nodded. But I wasn’t okay. My hands were quaking, and I had an overwhelming urge to vomit.

  “Jack?” Herb had concern in his eyes.

  “He’s faking, Herb. Faking big time. We can’t let him get out.”

  “What happened in there? Do you have the tape?”

  I held Benedict’s eyes and grabbed his arms, squeezing hard.

  “We can’t let him get out, Herb. We can’t. No matter what.”

  CHAPTER 26

  “Open cell eleven.”

  “Opening cell eleven.”

  The electronic lock disengages with a clang, and the cell door opens. Fuller eyes the prison guard escorting him; the man is eight inches shorter, with a neck so thin Fuller could strangle him with one hand.

  The skinny guard unlocks Fuller’s ankle irons, while the second guard, a fat guy with a face like a bulldog, stands at the ready palming a can of pepper spray.

  Keep looking tough, punk. If I wanted to, I could take away that mace and stick it so far up your ass your breath would smell like jalapeños.

  “Thanks,” Fuller says instead. He smiles, playing his role. The thin guy takes off his handcuffs, and Fuller enters his cell. It’s tiny, cramped. A lidless steel shitter dominates one corner, next to a steel sink. In the other corner is a steel cot, a two-inch-thick cotton mattress resting on top.

  There isn’t enough room in here to do a decent push-up, so Fuller compromises, putting his palms on the cool concrete floor and his feet on the sink.

  “One, two, three, four . . .”

  He touches his chin to the floor with each tip, feeling the burn build up in his shoulders and chest. His face begins to turn red, and he smiles.

  Jack’s expression was priceless. I practically made her wet her panties.

  “Eighteen, nineteen, twenty . . .”

  Fuller looks at the cot. There’s a small slit in the mattress, along a seam, with more pieces of onion and some other things. Things that will produce dramatic court theatrics.

  “Thirty-seven, thirty-eight—”

  The lie detector tomorrow will be fun too. He still has the staple, secretly liberated from his attorney’s paperwork. A staple is all he needs to pass with flying colors.

  “Sixty-five, sixty-six . . .”

  Everything is going his way. His bitch of a wife is dead, finally. He got his lawyer to pass on word to Rushlo to keep quiet—and the little toady will no doubt follow orders. If all goes as planned, Fuller will be back out on the street soon—probably in a few weeks. Then he’ll pay Jack a visit, make good on his promise.

  “Eighty-nine, ninety, ninety-one . . .”

  Only one thing is bothering him. Though the doctors assure him his tumor is completely gone, he’s still getting headaches. They aren’t as sharp as before, but they’ve been increasing in intensity over the past few weeks.

  “Hundred twenty, hundred twenty-one . . .”

  So far, aspirin is helping. But he foresees a time when that won’t be enough. He’ll need to kill again. Soon.

  “Hundred fifty.”

  Fuller’s feet touch the floor and he stands and stretches, knuckles dragging across the ceiling. He’s breathing hard. There’s a metallic taste in his mouth—he’s bitten his tongue.

  The taste is arousing.

  After a minute’s rest, he puts his feet back on the sink and begins another set of push-ups. His teeth work
on the cut in his tongue, making it larger.

  “Twenty, twenty-one . . .”

  He closes his eyes, pretending the blood he’s swallowing is Jack’s.

  CHAPTER 27

  I dialed Libby from Benedict’s car and gave her the short version. The excitement in her voice was obvious.

  “I knew he was playing us!”

  “We don’t have evidence.”

  “But now that we know for sure, we’ll get some. The polygraph examiner we’ve got is the best. He pegged Ted Bundy. He’ll get Fuller too. You did good, Jack.”

  “Thanks.”

  Except I didn’t feel like I did good. I felt like I’d just gotten my ass kicked.

  “You want to be there? Tomorrow?”

  “For the lie detector?”

  “Sure. It’ll keep him off guard.”

  I wanted to say no. I didn’t want to be there. Fuller unearthed feelings I thought I’d buried.

  Feelings of fear.

  In crisis situations, cops need to have a certain amount of fear. It precedes adrenaline, which makes reactions faster. When I shot Fuller, months ago, I’d been afraid. But the fear worked for me then, heightening senses, forcing me to act automatically, as I’d been trained to do.

  Now—the sick feeling in my stomach, the sweaty palms, the dry mouth, the runaway imagination—did me no good at all, other than add to my pile of neuroses.

  “Jack? You still there?”

  “I just came back to work, Libby. I’m not sure what’s going on tomorrow.”

  “The polygraph is at nine A.M., back at Division Eleven. I’ll talk to Bains to clear some time for you.”

  “Thanks,” I managed. “See you tomorrow, then.”

  Herb stopped at a light, squinted at me.

  “Jack? You look sick.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You let him get to you. Fuller.”

  I tried to smile. “Not a chance. I’m just tired, Herb. Nothing more.”

  The light turned green, but Benedict didn’t go.

  “I know you, Jack. You’re not yourself.”

  Rather than answer, I played the role-reversal card.