FOCUS is everything.
So much of Shooter’s early life had lacked it. He’d wasted so many years of his life because of desperate rage that couldn’t be vented.
Then he’d learned.
The hard way, of course. The way the best lessons of life are drilled in and remembered forever.
There’d been a teacher, a powerful bear of a man who’d made his life hell. He’d failed him on tests. Humiliated him in class. Threatened privately to “beat the living crap” out of him. For a whole year, this teacher had ground him down.
Shooter had thought long and hard about what to do—how to clear the pain from his mind and assuage the anger eating away inside him.
He’d waited two long months to put his plan into action.
On the last day of term, art teacher Harry Hennessy had kissed his wife and kids good-bye. He’d driven his old Chevy convertible off the drive of their modest home and set out early to beat the traffic into school.
A mile out he’d hit the brakes.
A mile and twenty yards out he’d careered across an intersection and slammed into a wall.
Hennessy hadn’t died.
Nor had Shooter intended him to.
He had been crippled, though. The impact had thrown him through the windshield, breaking several bones and blinding him.
Shooter had seen the way Hennessy drove—fast, reckless, never buckled up. The thought of an art teacher not being able to see, not being able to criticize—well, that was too delicious to resist.
So he’d focused on it.
He’d waited until the night before the last day of school. Then he’d rolled under the car and cut the brake pipes. Not all the way through, of course, just enough for them to work once or twice before failing. He’d rightly figured that the teacher would be happiest and most careless on his last working day before the long summer break.
That day had changed Shooter’s life.
It had empowered him. Shown him the alchemy of taking base thoughts and turning them into golden memories.
Now he was ready to focus again.
Shooter showered and changed.
There was no time for food or rest. He went straight to the room he called Death Row.
He’d erected a shelf below the corkboard and placed electric candles there to create a greater sense of occasion when he opened the door. The effect was wonderful. Everything he’d hoped for. Little Amy looked so lovely in the flickering light. Gina, too. And Zach was handsome. Handsome and proud of the new ladies in his life. His afterlife.
Sadly, the twelve newcomers, the ones from the mall, didn’t seem at home yet. They looked displaced. Awkward. Even uncomfortable at being there. Strangers in a strange land. But not for long. The world was getting to know them—to ask why they’d been united in death—and once he focused, truly focused and delivered what he’d promised himself, Shooter would reveal all the answers.
6
Douglas Park, Santa Monica
Jake left Angie propped up on a pillow and sleeping while he showered and shaved.
It had taken her an age to doze off. Normally, she slept on her side, but the busted elbow had stopped her doing that. Dawn had broken by the time she finally closed her eyes and drifted into anything like a restorative rest.
He pulled on a soft, taupe-colored shirt and smart black jeans, kissed the top of her head and left a note by the side of the phone.
I’ll call your office on the way into SKU and tell them what happened and why you’re NOT going in today. Let me know if you want me to get anything for you. I’ll fix dinner tonight, so don’t worry about that. Rest up!
Love you,
J x
The note said much more than he’d written.
He knew Angie would interpret his commitment to be there and look after her as a growing acceptance of the baby.
And perhaps it was.
Deep down, he still wasn’t fully on board with that idea. But he knew he had to be. He loved her, so he had to accept it and grow to love it.
And he would.
He was sure he would.
During the drive to the office, he thought of work and what had to be done. He needed to see Dixon and explain the bloodbath last night at Murphy’s Ranch. Wayne Harris’s death wouldn’t be a problem. No one was going to shed a tear for the drug-crazed scumbag. But Emma-Louise Bakker was different. The press might try to paint her as a victim of trigger-happy law enforcement officers.
Fortunately, the ME had confirmed last night that she hadn’t been hit by any of the SKU bullets. The teenager had simply lost control of the big motorcycle while simultaneously firing a machine pistol and being off her head on PCP. Jake had never understood why they called phencyclidine angel dust. Devil dust would be a much better name for that brain-frying shit.
Once all that paperwork and ass covering was done and dusted, he’d be able to buckle down and do the important stuff.
Hunt two Sprees.
He needed to review the Strawberry Fields shootings and appoint a senior SKU agent to run possible leads on that inquiry, while he and Ruis concentrated on the Sun Western slayings.
Jake turned the radio on and learned a memorial service was going to be held at the mall tonight, out of respect for those killed there. It was a nice gesture but he’d be expected to go show his face and that meant leaving Angie on her own longer than he’d hoped.
He turned down the news and called Terry Gibbs, the unit medic. “Sorry to hit you early, Tex; I’m just wondering how our guys are?”
Gibbs was an early riser and had just come out of the shower. He spoke as he toweled his hair. “No problem, boss. They’re both doing good. Young Sammy didn’t even go to the hospital. I walked him around awhile after you’d gone and the concussion cleared. He’ll have a headache this morning but will be fine.”
“And Chuck?”
“Yeah, I spoke to the hospital. They dug out the slug and kept him in overnight for observation. Whole place is scared shitless of these MRSA bugs, so they don’t want to risk infection. Plus it tore up a bit of muscle and they want to check him again this morning.”
“Sound like a long layoff?”
“He’ll need a lot of physio, that’s for sure.”
“Okay, thanks, Tex. Let me know of any changes. I’ll call Sammy later and cut some time this afternoon to go see Chuck.”
“I’m sure he’ll appreciate that.”
As Jake hung up, he was hit by an impulsive thought. One strong enough for him to call Ruis and act on it.
Unlike Tex, Costas was not an early starter. He answered still sounding asleep, his voice like a dying motor. “He-ll-o…”
Jake put on his brightest tone. “Morning, buddy! How you feeling this fine my-ass-is-still-here summer day?”
“Little rough.” He coughed a couple of times. “Too many tequila shots. Too little sleep. The guys and I sank a few late ones after we wrapped in the hills.”
“No harm in that. D’you think you and your hangover could go and slump over my desk for an hour or so? I need to sort something out before coming in.”
“Yeah.” Ruis felt like death as he looked at his watch. “We can be there by ten. Does that work?”
“It does. Thanks. I’m on my cell if or when a shitstorm breaks. Don’t worry about Dixon; I’ll text him and ask him to call me. We can sort out the paperwork on last night when I get there.”
“Already looking forward to it.”
Jake smiled and hung up.
He thought a little more about his sudden impulse. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea after all.
Nevertheless, he found himself driving straight past the office.
7
Angie’s cellphone rang.
Far off, in the distant world, on the other side of her shuttered lids, it trilled like an exotic wild bird.
Angie woke and felt like she was having a heart attack. Her body wasn’t ready for movement. She stared across the bedroom. It was flooded with
daylight. To her surprise, she was sitting up. The pain in her right arm filled in the blanks. All the horrors of last night hit her like a bucket of cold water.
She eased her legs out of bed and felt dizzy. The ringing phone was on the dressing table across the room. It would be her office. They’d be wondering where she was, why she wasn’t in. The bird trilled persistently as she took slow steps across the carpet.
“Hello.” She was surprised by her own voice, how it sounded as weak as she felt.
“Doc, it’s Cal O’Brien.” He’d picked up on her tone as well. “How you doing?”
Her bleary eyes read Jake’s note as she answered him. “I guess I’m okay. Hang on.” She pulled out the padded chair that matched the dressing table and sat on it. “How can I help, Lieutenant?”
He gave her the news. “A few hours ago, a young male with a gunshot wound was found collapsed in the street. A couple going home from a party had been driving by and guessed he’d been the victim of a gangland hit. They called 911 and he was taken to the emergency room.”
“You think it’s our guy?”
“Pretty certain. The slug dug out of his bicep matches the caliber Eva Hart fired, but we still have to do rifling checks and prints on it. Get this, though—a beat cop who turned out with the parameds found a ski mask in a Dumpster ten yards from where the punk was picked up. It had the word RAPIST on the forehead.”
Angie was fully awake now, her brain back in investigative mode. “Forensically, can you tie it to him?”
“No, not yet. We’ve got hair and skin from the mask and a warrant to take body samples from him, so we’re on the way. CSIs are all over the rape kit you found. No prints, but they will find DNA—they always do. I’d say sometime soon we’ll have strong links to the mask or rape kit, as well as irrefutable ballistics on the slug.”
“I can’t help but ask, is he of mixed race? I’ve been guessing white mom and black father.”
O’Brien blew out a breath. “Yeah, yeah, he is. How’d you know?”
“Well, the extension of the profile, the racial component you were sensitive about, predicts his father is black, pure black, though, and is involved in local gangs.”
“Then you were right. You want in on the interview when he’s fit to talk, or you too beat up for that?”
She eased herself out of the seat and headed for the shower. “What do you think?”
“I’ll let you know where and when it is.”
8
California
Shooter worked hard all morning.
He scrutinized his planning and double-checked all his physical preparations. What he’d learned from his two separate sprees was that nothing went exactly as he imagined.
Take the baldy teacher and the fat kids.
They should all be dead. But they weren’t. They’d escaped because he’d presumed the bullets had killed them. “Presumption” wasn’t a mistake he’d make again.
In the mall, he’d done better. He’d counted the victims and finished them off.
Shooter paced his sanctuary and wondered about the world outside. It was disappointing that no one had yet made the connection between the Strawberry Fields massacre and the Sun Western slayings. Granted he’d used different guns, and the mix of victims had probably thrown the media, but he’d assumed the cops or the FBI would have spoken about possible links.
And the note.
At first he’d been upset that there’d been no mention of the cute little message he’d left in the mall. Then the penny dropped. The LAPD must be keeping it secret from the public. They’d seek to use it to eliminate cranks who rolled up at a precinct and claimed to be responsible for the killings. If someone didn’t know what was on the note, then they’d be immediately flung out on their ears.
He took a bottle of water with him as he left the sanctuary. It was important to be properly hydrated. The brain functioned better that way. A busy afternoon lay ahead. There were people to see. Arrangements to be made.
By tonight, everything would be perfect.
Dead perfect.
9
LAPD Detention Center, LA
Angie’s arm hurt too much for her to drive, so Chips had fixed a cab to North Los Angeles Street, where the wounded man, his arm also in a sling, sat waiting in an interview room with his state-provided lawyer and two cups of the world’s worst coffee.
O’Brien met Angie in reception. “His name is Alfonso Cayman,” the cop said as he guided her through to the interview suite. “He’s twenty years old and hasn’t said anything except that he wanted an attorney and more painkillers.”
“Any progress with the DNA and ballistics?”
The lieutenant smiled. “Bullet is a perfect match to Miss Hart’s .22 and prelim DNA says the scumbag’s head was in the ski mask.”
“Then I guess the interview is more a plea bargain than anything.” Angie waited for him to open a door for her. “Thanks.”
“I hope so. Would be good to know that what he admits to is everything he’s done, not only what we know of.”
“Which, I guess, is where I come in?”
“If you don’t mind.”
“Glad to help.”
He lifted his hand and passed over a beige folder. “These are rap sheets. Kid has no previous, but his old man is a different story.”
“Let me guess—wounding, drugs, guns…?”
“The full set. Seven kids by four women. Never paid a dime to help raise them.”
“Real nice guy.”
O’Brien halted outside the interview room. “I’d like to play things in two stages. First off, I run through the evidence with him and his lawyer. Once he sees there’s a world of grief heading his way, I call you in and you open him up for full disclosure. Are you okay with that?”
“Uh-huh. I’ll just sit on the other side of the glass, read the rap sheets and sort out my interview strategy.”
He smiled. “You have a strategy?”
“Yeah, the FBI likes to do it that way. You should try it sometime.”
“Sounds too advanced for a lowly cop like me.” He opened the door to the mirror room for her. “I think I’ll stick to forensics, polygraphs and beating confessions outta people.”
Angie wandered into the darkened room. It was cool and dusty. Stank of others who’d stood there. Cheap male cologne. Old damp jackets. Cigarettes. Through the glass she saw Cayman.
This was the guy who’d tried to choke her.
A man who would have raped and maybe murdered Eva Hart if she hadn’t been there.
He didn’t look like a monster but he was everything she’d thought he’d be.
Not a giant or a dwarf.
Not fat, thin, ugly or overly handsome.
His whole body and demeanor shrieked with what he was not, rather than what he was. And then there was the biggest not of all.
His race.
He wasn’t black. He wasn’t white. He was caught midcolor.
Mixed.
And therein lay the answer to the young man’s rage. What had set him against the world and made him angry enough to rape and kill.
Angie knew LA’s streets well. Mixed-race kids were dogs that got kicked by both black and white gangs. Alfonso would have been constantly brutalized. And when it came to blaming someone, he’d have laid his victimization at the door of his white-ass mother—after all, she’d diluted his blackness, made him what he was. But boys are boys, and for a plethora of psychological reasons, beating Mom wouldn’t have been an option. So the anger displaced a generation and passed back to his deepest surviving root, his mother’s mother.
Angie saw her breath mist the interview room glass. She backed off a little and listened as O’Brien went through all the standard niceties with the scumbag’s attorney, a sour-faced woman in her fifties. The public defender was dressed in a plain blue, long-sleeved top and the kind of flared bold-print trousers she should have been arrested for even looking at, never mind wearing.
The l
ieutenant laid out the evidence—hairs, fibers, DNA, ballistics—the full lexicon of implied guilt. He let every word sink in. Nothing was rushed. Second by second the young man across the table grew increasingly worried. Finally, O’Brien got round to saying he wanted a colleague to join them, an FBI profiler who’d been working the case. Mrs. Sourpuss said she had no objections.
As Angie walked in, she caught Alfonso’s eye.
He looked straight at her and then away.
She settled in the seat alongside the lieutenant.
O’Brien had seen the moment between them. “You recognize Doctor Holmes, don’t you, Alfonso?”
He shrugged.
Angie kept her eyes locked on his. “How is your arm?” she asked sympathetically.
He stretched the sling a little but didn’t answer.
“I’m asking, not because I give a damn, but because I’m wondering what the hard black boys in County are going to say when they hear you got capped by a frail old white lady.”
His eyes widened a little.
“Tough gangster boys—like your pop—they’re going to be mighty amused.” She saw him close his mouth and mask his fear. “Come to think of it, some guys in the can maybe ran the streets with your old man. Tyler Cayman’s been around some. What do you think, Alfonso?”
“Shut up ’bout him!”
Angie put the folder down and slid the rap sheet out. She spun it round so a mugshot of the father faced his mug of a son. “Tyler Cayman: Crips soldier, drug dealer and all-round bad guy. Nothing he wouldn’t do and no one he wouldn’t do it to.”
She pushed the picture across.
Alfonso sat back in his chair. Stared down as though even the celluloid might hurt him.
“Tell me about your mom, Alfonso.”
“Fuck you, bitch.”
“Hey!” O’Brien stepped in. “Talk nicely to the lady.”
Angie’s eyes were burning holes in Cayman’s skull. “How did the pure white girl from Brentwood end up with the bad black man from Watts?”
He started a slow rock on his bolted-down seat.
Spree Page 17
