The Sixth Wicked Child

by J. D. Barker

  “Don’t leave me,” Libby pleaded, stroking my cheek.

  I went to the desk in the corner of the room and scribbled out my address in Simpsonville. I pressed the paper into her hand and brushed the hair from her eyes. “Help Tegan and Kristina. When they’re done with Finicky, get the money from the barn and load up Finicky’s car—as much as you can fit. If we’re not back in two hours, or you have to leave sooner, meet us at this address—in the trailer behind what’s left of the house.” I leaned in close and lowered my voice. “We’ll get far away from here, just like we planned. I promise.”

  Vincent had Welderman’s gun tucked in his belt. He handed the revolver to Libby. “It’s empty, but Stocks might have some more bullets in his pockets.”

  Libby held the gun with a loose grip, as if it were hot.

  “Kristina knows how to use one if you’re not comfortable,” he told her. “You may need to take The Kid to the hospital. If you do, don’t use real names.”

  Paul was at the front door. “They’ve got nearly ten minutes on us. If we’re going, we need to leave…now.”

  I kissed Libby again. “I’ll see you soon.”

  Her eyes glistened with tears. She must have known there was no talking me out of it. She only nodded.

  From the floor near the couch, I picked up the knife and wiped the blade on one of the cushions. I felt Libby’s eyes on my back, but I couldn’t turn around. I knew if I did, I wouldn’t have the will to leave, and this was something I had to do.

  Vincent, Paul, and I ran out the door to Welderman’s Chevy.

  With Vincent driving, we shot down the driveway, the farmhouse disappearing into the dark behind.

  We knew where they were going.

  I tightened my grip on the knife and waited for the lights of Charleston.

  124

  Diary

  “There!” Paul shouted. “There they are!”

  Vincent hadn’t driven much, and this was clear as he negotiated some of the more narrow roads. He nearly put us in the ditch twice, and when he ran a stop sign on Bulford, a tractor-trailer approaching from the west almost clipped our back end. By the time we reached the highway, he’d improved, if only a little.

  He drove far too fast.

  We were all covered in blood. We had a gun belonging to a dead police detective in the car, the knife too. There were the bodies back at the farmhouse. Any one of these things would get us in far more trouble than I was willing to consider.

  It was on the highway we spotted them—the white van and a Charleston Police cruiser following behind by several car lengths. Vincent fell in behind both of them, keeping several cars between us. He said he knew the route to the motel, so there was no reason to risk getting too close.

  Ten minutes later, when we reached the motel, things went wrong.

  “Park over there,” I told Vincent, pointing at the lot across the street between McDonald’s and the auto parts store. I knew we’d be able to watch from there without getting too close. The plan we came up with was a simple one—we’d wait for them to take Weasel into one of the rooms, Paul and I would get him out while Vincent watched Van Man and the cop. He’d only show himself if necessary. The gun was a last resort, but we’d use it if we needed. Whatever we had to do to get Weasel.

  None of that happened.

  The van pulled into the motel parking lot. The police cruiser pulled up beside it and came to a stop.

  We were still moving when the back door of the van flew open and Weasel jumped out, running in the opposite direction with the green bag in his hand. Tegan’s camera was on a strap around his neck, and it slapped against his back as he bolted through the parking lot and disappeared between two rows of buildings behind the motel.

  “Shit!” Vincent cried out, yanking the gearshift back into drive.

  He jumped the curb, tires locked up all around us. Somehow he managed to shoot across Crescent as the police cruiser took off down Klondike with the van heading around the block on Boise, no doubt an attempt to box Weasel in.

  Vincent’s head jerked back and forth, watching both as we rolled through the motel lot. “Which one do I follow?”

  I spotted Weasel about a block away, darting between several parked cars, then down the side of a brownstone. “He’s running between the buildings. Let us out!”

  “You can’t catch him on that leg, he’s—”

  I didn’t hear what he said next. I jumped from the car while he was still slowing. Paul came out behind me with a grunt. We both took off running toward the back of the motel, in the direction Weasel had gone. Behind us, tires squealed as Vincent gave the car a little too much gas attempting to turn. He overcompensated, nearly sideswiped a parked station wagon, then righted the Chevy before bouncing back onto Church, going after the van.

  Paul was much faster than me. I tried to keep up, but each footfall on my injured leg hurt more than the last, and that was nothing compared to my broken arm rattling around in the cast. Over the past hour, the fingers on that hand had swollen and gone red. They felt hot, and while I couldn’t see under the cast, I imagined things there were far worse. In my mind’s eye, I pictured both ends of the broken bone scraping against each other, tearing muscle and who knew what else. I imagined the arm continuing to swell and tried not to think about what would happen if it ran out of room to expand in the plaster cast.

  I pushed these thoughts out of my head. I willed the pain away, and I chased after Paul as he chased after Weasel, all three of us disappearing into the mess of buildings, side streets, and alleyways behind the motel.

  More than once, I lost track of Weasel. At one point, I even lost sight of Paul. He kept glancing back at me, slowing down, and I waved him on, told him to just keep going. I was covered in sweat, and that light-headedness had returned. Breathing became hard, and I had to stop for a moment, bent over with my hand on my knee, sucking in air.

  When I stood back up, I caught a glimpse of Paul up ahead. He was halfway down a narrow alley when the Charleston Police cruiser from earlier screeched to a stop on Cumberland. A uniformed officer jumped out and rounded the car before disappearing down a cobblestone alleyway on the opposite side of the street.

  Paul was moving so fast he smacked into the front of the police car and nearly went over the hood. He regained his footing and scrambled around the car into the alley.

  I was still on the wrong side of Cumberland when the first of three shots cracked through the air. Pop, pop, pop!

  125

  Diary

  By the time I reached the police car, Paul was darting back out of the alley, waving me off with both hands. “Run!” he shouted.

  “What happened?”

  I was standing near the trunk of the Charleston PD cruiser. The driver-side door was still open, the engine running. Inside, muffled voices rattled from the radio.

  Paul didn’t answer. He ran past me, down the sidewalk on Cumberland. Didn’t even slow down.

  I looked back toward the alley, but from where I stood, I couldn’t see anything.

  I still had the butcher knife, so I went to the open door of the patrol car, leaned inside, and cut the microphone cable. Back outside, I stabbed the left front tire before following after Paul as quickly as I could.

  From the mouth of the alley, someone shouted, It sounded like Van Man, but I didn’t turn around to check.

  Up ahead, Vincent came around the corner from Church and slid to a stop, blocking the intersection. Paul yanked open the back door and dove inside. Horns blared all around. I staggered up, fell onto the seat, and managed to get the door closed behind me as Vincent gunned the engine and we raced back down Cumberland. Van Man was gone when we passed the alley on the way back. I tried to get a look, but it was too dark.

  “Where’s Weasel?” Vincent said, leaning over the steering wheel. He yanked the wheel hard to the right, and Paul rolled into me as we made a quick turn.

  Paul shook all over. His face was horribly pale. He mumbled something
, but I couldn’t make it out.

  I grabbed his shoulder and shook him. “What happened? Where is Weasel?”

  Paul looked at me. His mouth fell open, but nothing came out.

  “Paul!”

  He spoke between gasps. “He’s…oh, God…he shot him…he’s dead. Weasel’s dead.”

  I tried to get more out of him, but he buried his face in his hands and broke down into heavy sobs.

  Lights blaring, another police car shot past us heading in the opposite direction, toward Cumberland.

  “We need to get out of here,” Vincent said, turning down another side street.

  Two more police cars were approaching. Sirens blared everywhere.

  I slumped down in the seat, Paul screaming beside me. “Should we go back to the farmhouse?”

  Vincent looked at the clock on the radio. “It’s been nearly forty minutes, and we’re a half hour away.”

  “I told Libby two hours. Go back.”

  And we did.

  We pulled into the driveway in record time.

  Finicky’s car was gone.

  126

  Diary

  The drive to Simpsonville was a silent one. Vincent didn’t speak, and neither did I. On the backseat beside me, Paul had curled up against the door—his screams became sobs, those becoming whimpers, and finally nothing at all.

  In Welderman’s glove box, Vincent found a bottle of ibuprofen. I swallowed four of the pills dry, followed by two more thirty minutes later. The pain in my arm and leg reduced to a dull throb, and while the swelling didn’t go away completely, it did go down, and I was thankful for that.

  I watched the lights of various cities and towns fade behind us until the thick of night engulfed everything. All three of us were in desperate need of sleep but unwilling to rest for even a moment.

  “We’re almost out of gas,” Vincent said.

  “It’s not much further,” I told him.

  And it wasn’t.

  My street, my woods, my house, all as I left it. Waiting for me to return.

  “Turn there,” I told him.

  He was leaning forward again, up over the steering wheel. “Where?”

  “At the mailbox, up there on the right.”

  Vincent whistled as the headlights rolled over the remains of my old house, the burnt out husk of my childhood.

  “There’s Finicky’s car—they made it,” Paul said, pointing toward the Carters’ place off to the side. This was the first thing he’d said since we left Charleston.

  We pulled to a stop next to the remains of Father’s car. Weeds had claimed it as their own, and I was glad for that. I didn’t want to see it. Vincent killed the motor. The engine noise was replaced with soft clicks as the motor cooled.

  The front door to the Carters’ place was open. Several backpacks and bags sat in the dirt near Finicky’s car.

  Vincent was first out. He ran up the steps with Welderman’s gun at the ready. “Kristina! Tegan!” he shouted. “Libby!” His voice dimmed as he disappeared inside.

  Something was wrong. I think Paul felt it too. As we both got up out of the car, the air was thick with it.

  Vincent came back out a moment later, a puzzled look on his face. “They’re not here.”

  I was only half listening to him. I thought I saw someone in the back of Finicky’s car, slumped down.

  I wanted to believe it was the girls, sleeping maybe—of course they would sleep in the car and wait for us—my mind said. I so wanted that to be true, but as I got closer, I knew that it was not. In the back seat was a man’s body.

  “That’s Welderman,” Paul said.

  We found Stocks’s body in the front. Someone had belted him into the passenger seat.

  Vincent cupped his hands around his mouth. “Kristina!”

  She didn’t answer.

  Nobody answered.

  Vincent opened the driver-side door and we all saw it—there was blood on the steering wheel. I couldn’t tell if it was from Welderman, Stocks, or someone else.

  “This is bad,” Paul said, stepping back and turning in a slow circle. Looking all around us.

  “Open the trunk,” I said, moving around to the back.

  Neither Paul or Vincent moved.

  “Somebody open the trunk.”

  Vincent found the release switch and pulled.

  There was a loud clunk. The trunk rose.

  I didn’t want to look inside, but I forced myself to do it anyway. My breath catching as I bent forward.

  Empty.

  For a moment, I felt relief. Then I saw Libby’s locket in the dirt near my feet.

  “There’s a note pinned to Stocks’s shirt,” Vincent said from inside the car.

  “What’s it say?”

  “You’ve got an hour to take out the trash before I call the locals. Forget the girls. Don’t follow. It’s signed Sam Porter.”

  Six Months Later

  127

  Porter

  Day 198 • 3:18 PM

  Porter shifted his weight, and that bought him about thirty seconds of relief before the hard wood of the bench went to work on the opposite side of his ass—happy to have something new to chew on. After nearly three months of trial, he knew better. He should have brought a pillow.

  Room 209 of the George N. Leighton Criminal Court building located at 2600 South California Avenue in Chicago was the largest of the building’s courts. Able to hold nearly two hundred people in the gallery, there was not a single empty seat today, nor had there been for the duration of the trail.

  Early on, there had been motions to hear the case somewhere else in the country—Bishop’s lead attorney, a man named Curtis Ruhland, said Bishop would never get a fair shake in Chicago, and while he was probably right about that, his defense team, prosecutors, and the judge were unable to find someplace where he would get a fair shake. Bishop and the 4MK murders had been well known long before February seventeenth of 2015, but the events of that particular day had gone global. Whether newspaper, television, or grandmother’s Facebook page, the capture of 4MK was on everyone’s lips, the subject of much of the world’s Internet traffic.

  On February seventeenth, nearly a dozen bodies were found inside the Guyon Hotel, all in varying stages of decomposition. Eye, ear, and tongue removed on each, I am evil carved into their flesh, and the words Father, forgive me written somewhere nearby. Each of the bodies found matched a name in 4MK’s final diary, the one Klozowski had given Nash. Each responsible for some role in the enormous ring of human trafficking laid out in that book. The FBI found three more still buried in the salt dome behind the hospital, right where Klozowski had said they would.

  In a video left on his computer at Metro, Edwin Klozowski confessed to all these recent murders. He provided evidence of their crimes, information detailing how he found them, and claimed their deaths would each pay a bit of the toll amassed by their wrongdoing. Klozowski also confessed to the murders of Stanford Pentz and Christie Albee. As “The Kid,” after sustaining life threatening injuries at the hands of Welderman and Stocks, he was brought to a back-alley medical practice run by Stanford Pentz. Along with Christie Albee, Pentz stabilized Klozowski before loading him into the back of his car and dropping him at the nearest emergency room.

  Klozowski was not one to forget a face.

  Mayor Milton was dead.

  FBI Special Agent in Charge Foster Hurless was dead. Poisoned. Although Poole was able to offer a detailed description, neither the FBI nor Chicago Metro (who finally found a way to work together) had any leads on the man who delivered coffee that day. He knew enough to offer Hurless sugar. He was also willing to gamble on whether or not one of the others would reach for that cup first.

  Both Mayor Milton and SAIC Hurless were linked to the criminal trafficking enterprise in enough ways to justify nearly twenty pages in that little book. They’d wielded their power and influence as both a shield and a weapon to facilitate their crimes. Shortly after the death of his supervisor,
Special Agent Frank Poole found an offshore account belonging to Hurless containing nearly three million dollars. Those funds, along with most of the mayor’s assets, had been seized.

  Edwin Klozowski was dead.

  The bomb strapped to his chest had gutted the former Cook County Hospital. The flames left nothing but a charred husk of a building behind. The mayor’s partial remains were found, still bound to the statue once called Protection.

  Nash’s report detailed Klozowski’s final moments, his confession, his accusations. Nash described Anthony Warnick with a fatal gunshot wound in the tunnel leading from Stroger to the old Cook County Hospital building. A day later, when Warnick’s apartment was searched by both the FBI and Chicago Metro, substantial evidence was found that left no doubt as to his actions—on orders from the mayor, Warnick had systematically hunted down Kristina Niven and Tegan Savala, killed them, and left their bodies in the cemetery and the subway station. There were also boxes of information on Vincent Weidner, Paul Upchurch, and Anson Bishop. While there was no proof, it was believed he killed Weidner and placed the body in Porter’s apartment. Warnick had been tasked by the principals of BackPage with finding all the children from Finicky’s and told to make their murders look as if 4MK were responsible.

  When Porter had first woken in the hospital from an induced coma, three surgeries and nearly a week after being shot, Nash had been there. Nash told him Klozowski insisted Porter had been working with Warnick, attempting to track down all the children from Finicky’s foster home in an attempt to silence them. Nash told Porter he didn’t plan to put that in his report. Porter insisted that he did.

  “No more secrets,” he had told his partner in a voice barely loud enough to be considered a whisper. “Don’t leave anything out.”

  Nash reluctantly agreed.