The Sixth Wicked Child

by J. D. Barker

  I nodded my head, but I didn’t understand. I wanted to know. I wanted to help her.

  Tegan went after Libby, and after a soft knock at the door, was ushered inside. When Kristina and I were alone in the hallway, she reached into her purse and took out a wad of cash. “There’s three hundred and fifty dollars here. Give it to Vince. Tell him we’ll get the rest next time.”

  Before I could reply, she shoved the money in my hand and disappeared down the hall and into the bathroom. If the three of them spoke, I couldn’t hear them, and as much as I wanted to press my ear against that door, I didn’t. I told myself Libby would talk to me about it when she was ready.

  Vincent’s door was locked, and he didn’t answer when I knocked.

  53

  Poole

  Day 5 • 4:01 PM

  Poole and Nash left the SUV sitting in traffic and ran the last few blocks to Metro. Most of the staff was outside on the sidewalks. Some had gone into area coffee shops and restaurants to keep warm. SWAT stood guard at the door, and nearly forty minutes went by before they were permitted back inside.

  Both interview rooms were empty.

  Bishop and Porter were gone.

  The walls, floors, furniture, everything was wet. The text on Porter’s whiteboard was an unreadable mess, and Poole did everything in his power to keep from punching a hole through the wall while Nash spoke to his captain out in the hall.

  He stepped into the surveillance room. The equipment was all ruined. Shorted out. He’d hoped to at least watch the minutes before their escape. This was a closed system, unlike building security, which had already proved to be useless. From what they pieced together, someone hacked the building. Like the video footage at Montehugh Labs, the prison in New Orleans, and the Langham Hotel, that someone had planted a virus that scrambled everything—time codes, footage, everything. None of it was cohesive anymore. Completely useless. They then overrode every electronic lock in the building and triggered the fire suppression system in order to create cover. Poole had no doubt whoever did it, did it to free Bishop, Porter, or possibly both. CCTV at Stroger had also been compromised. By the same perpetrator. Had to be.

  This wasn’t just about escape, it was about creating chaos. More noise.

  He needed to focus. All these dead bodies. All connected.

  Bishop. Porter. Both.

  Neither?

  The thought popped into his head. A whisper at best.

  Focus.

  Opening and closing drawers, he found a notepad and closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath, calmed himself. He pictured Porter’s whiteboard as he last saw it, a snapshot in his mind. Poole tugged the board close, brought it into focus. When he could see it clearly, he began recreating all the text, writing everything out as Porter had organized it. Within a few minutes, he was done.

  EVIDENCE BOARDS

  LAKE / RESIDENCE / SIMPSONVILLE, SC

  12 Jenkins Crawl Road

  Simpsonville, SC

  • Anson Bishop’s childhood home

  • Destroyed by fire (ruled arson – Bishop’s mother = suspect)

  • Three male bodies found inside / COD undetermined due to fire / unidentified (one thought to be Bishop’s father)

  • Mother never found

  • Only survivor = Anson Bishop / transferred to Camden Treatment Center (closed now). Age 12

  • Trailer behind house rented to Simon and Lisa Carter / both missing

  • Five complete bodies found in lake (unidentified)

  • One dismembered body found in lake (believed to be Simon Carter)

  CHICAGO / INITIAL VICTIMS

  1. Calli Tremell, 20, March 15, 2009

  2. Elle Borton, 23, April 2, 2010

  3. Missy Lumax, 18, June 24, 2011

  4. Susan Devoro, 26, May 3, 2012

  *5. Barbara McInley, 17, April 18, 2013 (only blonde)

  6. Allison Crammer, 19, November 9, 2013

  7. Jodi Blumington, 22, May 13, 2014

  8. Emory Connors, 15, November 3, 2014 (alive)

  *Gunther Herbert / Talbot’s CFO

  Arthur Talbot

  CHICAGO / SECONDARY VICTIMS / WITH PAUL UPCHURCH

  Floyd Reynolds

  Ella Reynolds

  Randal Davies

  Lili Davies

  Darlene Biel

  Larissa Biel (alive)

  *Libby McInley

  Kati Quigley (alive)

  Wesley Hartzler

  TERTIARY VICTIMS (CHICAGO & SIMPSONVILLE, SC)

  Jane Doe – Rose Hill Cemetery

  Jane Doe – Red Line tracks / Clark Station

  Tom Langlin – Simpsonville courthouse steps

  Stanford Pentz – Stroger Hospital

  Christie Albee – Stroger Hospital

  *Not Bishop’s victims?

  FROM DIARY

  Finicky Home for Wayward Children

  Camden Treatment Center

  3 girls, 5 boys, ages 7-16

  Anson Bishop

  Paul Upchurch

  Vincent Weidner

  Weasel!

  The Kid

  Libby McInley

  Kristina Niven

  Tegan Savala

  Detective Freddy Welderman

  Detective Ezra Stocks

  Other Locations of Concern

  Montehugh Labs

  426 McCormick

  54

  Poole

  Day 5 4:06 PM

  Poole was studying the notepad when Nash came into the surveillance room and closed the door. When he spoke, he kept his voice low. “Whoever is pulling the strings on your boss is working mine too,” Nash said. “By all accounts, I should be suspended right now. The press is playing that video of me with Bishop on a damn loop. Even I hate me. But he told me the same thing Hurless told you—until the mayor is found and we have this under control, I’m to stay on it.”

  “What about Bishop and Porter?”

  “They’ve got everyone with a shield out looking for them—feds and Metro combined. Airports, buses, trains, they’re all locked down. They know 4MK has a male victim, but the captain said they told everyone the man’s identity is unknown but he’s believed to be alive. He said I can’t discuss the mayor with anyone other than you, not even Klozowski or Clair. Which is bullshit, because I tell them everything.” He held up a scrap of paper. “I got an address on Carmine’s Pizza. I think we should go there next. I don’t trust Warnick. He may be right, but—”

  Poole didn’t look up from the notepad. “I’m going to Charleston.”

  “Now? Do we have time for that?”

  “We keep chasing leads, and we’re only getting deeper. I want to get ahead of whatever is happening. We need to take control. You said it in the SUV: Everything points to Charleston. I think if we figure out whatever happened there, we’ll know who’s killing these people and why.” He tapped at a name on the notepad. “There’s this, too.”

  Nash looked down. “Weasel?”

  “It’s the name of the kid who shot Porter. According to this, he also appeared in those diaries.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe the diaries?”

  Nash looked around the room, then through the one-way window into the interview room where they had last seen Porter. That’s when he understood. “Porter took the diaries,” he said softly, still working it out. “If he paid Upchurch to fake them, he would have left them here for us to read.”

  “Maybe he just didn’t want them to get ruined. Maybe he just stashed them somewhere else,” Poole said, but he knew he didn’t sound convinced.

  “He took them because he wasn’t done reading,” Nash went on. “He doesn’t know what they contain any more than we do.”

  “I don’t want to jump to conclusions.” Poole held up his phone. “I have a digital copy on here. I’ll read them, too. Maybe it will help me get inside his head.”

  “Or Bishop’s.”

  Poole looked back down at the notepad. “Real or fake, those books are bread
crumbs being followed by one or both of those men. Something from their past resurfacing. Everything we’ve learned points to Charleston. We need to understand what happened there. That’s the missing piece. We figure that out, we get out in front, we solve the murders and find the mayor.”

  Nash looked out the small window back into the hallway before lowering his voice even more. “They’re not gonna let us go. Not now. They want us here.”

  “That’s why we’re not going to tell them.”

  55

  Diary

  I didn’t remember going back to my own room, but I awoke lying on my own mattress, the sun on my face. I heard Weasel and The Kid playing in their room, but everyone else was missing, including Paul. The girls’ doors were all open. They were gone too.

  I found Vincent in the barn, the hood of the truck braced up and parts lying all around. When I handed him the money, he just shoved it in his pocket. “How are we supposed to get to the store to buy anything?” He pointed at various engine parts on the ground with the head of a Phillips screwdriver. “Spark plugs, piston rings, air filter, belts, wiring harness for the plugs…the more I dig, the worse it gets. At least the tires aren’t completely shot. Looks like they just need air, but we’ll need a pump or compressor for that…” His head was back inside again, and I didn’t hear the last part.

  “We should hide all this. What if Ms. Finicky sees it? She’ll know what we’re doing.”

  Without looking up, he waved a hand through the air. “Finicky never comes out here. She sticks to the house. Those detectives, neither. Not that I’ve seen, anyway. They just—ah, fuck!” He jumped back out of the engine compartment and looked at his finger. It was bleeding. He put it in his mouth. His hand was black with grease and oil, but he didn’t seem to care. “Goddamn piece of shit!”

  I found a rag on an old workbench and handed it to him. He wrapped it around his index finger. The cut didn’t look deep enough for stitches, but I bet it still hurt. He slumped down on the bumper. The metal groaned under his weight. “How are we going to get parts?”

  I had no idea. “Can you make a list? Maybe the girls, when they’re out can—”

  “They don’t leave us alone,” Vincent interrupted. “Finicky takes the girls to town to buy groceries and some clothes, but she’ll keep them all close. Even if we found a way for one of them to somehow sneak off and get to the auto store, they’d never be able to get all the parts back here without her seeing. We just need too much. These aren’t the kind of things you can hide in a purse.”

  If Father were here, he’d tell me to puzzle it out. He always said every problem has at least three possible solutions, and even if you think you know the perfect solution, you should spend the time to determine the other two so you could weigh them all against each other. Sometimes the easy or obvious wasn’t the best, and sometimes the best wasn’t obvious or easy. “I’ll puzzle it out.”

  “You’ll what?”

  I hadn’t realized I said that aloud. “I’ll figure it out.”

  “You’re fucking weird,” Vincent muttered before standing and returning to the engine.

  “You found tools,” I said, changing the subject. There were several screwdrivers and two wrenches on the ground at his feet.

  “Under the sink up at the house,” he replied without looking up. “Not everything I need, but it’s a good start.”

  Although we didn’t speak much, I stayed in the barn with Vincent most of the day, handing him tools, helping when I could. It was a welcome distraction.

  Ms. Finicky returned with the girls at around six in the evening. All of them climbed out of her Toyota Camry with shopping bags in hand. Libby wore a yellow sundress and white tennis shoes. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She didn’t see me watching her from the field.

  When I returned to my room, I found a new pair of black loafers, dark slacks, and a light blue button-down shirt on my bed. A note written in Ms. Finicky’s hand sat atop the pile of clothes. It read—

  After dinner, shower and change. Make yourself presentable. Be ready to leave by eight.

  Paul was on his bunk, but he didn’t speak to me. Instead, he eyed the clothing for a moment before turning his back to me and facing the wall.

  56

  Clair

  Day 5 • 4:58 PM

  Clair’s eyes fluttered open in utter darkness. Not a scrap of light, and her first thought was of Emory Connors handcuffed to a gurney at the bottom of an elevator shaft.

  Her second thought was of 4MK, and she quickly raised her hands to her head, checked both ears (still there), and rubbed at her eyes (still there, too). She was on the floor, her back slumped against the wall, and even through her congested nose she was able to smell mildew, must, and rot.

  She wasn’t handcuffed.

  She hadn’t been injured.

  There was no gurney.

  Clair screamed, and even though her throat was raw, she forced out the loudest, most frightening, bone-chilling scream she could muster. Anger, fear, and frustration vocalized in a primal cry that would go unmissed by anyone within earshot. Her voice echoed off unseen walls, back at her from above, and off the damp floor beneath her, and when she finally stopped, she listened to the echoes as they faded and died.

  Then the space went quiet again, all forgotten as if it never happened. Nothing left but the sound of her breathing.

  Her fingers went to her neck, found the tender place where she had been injected. Someone had taped a cotton swab over the injury, cleaned things up nice and neat. She tore it off and tossed the bandage aside.

  Her gun was gone, but the holster was still clipped to her belt.

  When she forced herself to stand, her head swooned as if it were filled with water sloshing from side to side. The start of an epic headache pressed from behind her eyes, at the bridge of her nose. She forced herself to breathe in the stale air. “Hello?”

  The echo again, but nothing else.

  As Clair began to feel along the wall, taking slow, tentative steps, thoughts of Emory again came to her. The girl had recounted how she had done the exact same thing when she first awoke. Emory had circled her prison several times before realizing there was no door.

  Clair moved no more than eight feet before she found one.

  Metal, both door and frame. The knob turned and rattled. The dead bolt above it did not. There was no thumb latch, only a keyhole. The door itself didn’t move at all, even when Clair slammed her shoulder into it.

  She beat on it for a minute or so with the back of a closed fist, because it felt like the right thing to do, but she knew nobody would come running.

  She ran her fingertips over the wall again. Not concrete or cinderblock, but stone—course and rough. Stacked and cemented together.

  Clair reached up, felt nothing. She bent her knees and jumped, still found nothing. She knew there was a ceiling; the echoes told her that. She was also in good shape and knew her reach—the ceiling was at least nine or more feet above.

  The floor was damp concrete. Filthy.

  She wiped her fingers on her jeans.

  Clair had been in enough old Chicago basements to recognize the similarities, but this didn’t feel residential. She couldn’t put her finger on exactly what was off, but something was. Whoever drugged her had done so in the hospital stairwell. Theoretically, they could have gotten her to the hospital basement unseen, but she had been down there several times and this felt different from that space, too. Older, maybe?

  Could someone have gotten her out of the hospital?

  She held up her wrist to check the time but couldn’t even make out the shape of her watch in the dark, let alone how long had passed.

  Klozowski would be looking for her. Stout, too. Even Barrington was unlikely to go very long without trying to find her to complain about something. The security staff, her officers, Sutter, someone…

  Then she thought of her missing officers, Henricks and Childs. Nobody had looked for them, not really.r />
  She should have. Who else could be expected to?

  Too much commotion. Everyone was worried about themselves. Nobody would look.

  Clair shivered, wrapped her arms around herself. She knew she had a fever, which would not be helped by this damp and musty room, and had meant to take something for it. Some aspirin or ibuprofen.

  But you didn’t. Did you? And now you’ll die here. Wherever here is.

  Clair screamed again. Not because she wanted to, but because she needed to. And when she did, she heard a loud click.

  Above her, fluorescent lights sparked to life, and when her eyes adjusted, she realized the metal door had a thick window, the kind with wire mesh embedded in the glass for security. The kind that can’t be easily broken.

  From the other side of that glass, a face watched her, tilted slightly as he watched her.

  Clair froze. “Sam?”

  57

  Nash

  Day 5 • 5:03 PM

  Carmine’s Pizza occupied the bottom floor of an old three-story building on West 26th in an area of the city known as Little Village. Nash partially skidded, partially jolted his Chevy Nova into a parallel parking spot on the north side of the street and listened to the motor cough as he studied the red, green, and white storefront. Several employees pushed out the door into the cold with insulated pizza bags in their hands. Some walking up and down the street, others heading to cars parked in the alley two buildings over. As Nash sat there, a man in his sixties held the door for one of them and stepped inside. He came out five minutes later with a pizza box in his hand. A teenage girl clad in a puffy pink coat, scarf, hat, and gloves ducked in a moment later and came back out holding two boxes and a bag before running back to an idling car driven by a woman who was most likely her mom.

  From the street, not a damn thing screamed escort service. In fact, the longer he watched, the hungrier he got. His stomach had started rumbling about five minutes ago. The report he received from Vice said the escort business had been running out of here for the better part of a decade. They also said Carmine’s had a four-and-a-half star rating on Yelp.