Spree

by Michael Morley

  The camera went into the house. It panned over the spattered walls and dipped as the box was put down. It swung up and showed a landline phone cable being ripped out of a socket. A cellphone was plucked from Nate Payne’s pocket.

  The next shot was a pan over the bodies on the floor. Nate Payne groaned and moved. “The husband’s alive,” relayed Chips. “He’s bleeding from a shoulder and ankle. Looks bad.” In a long wall mirror came the briefest glimpse of a black man in a chocolate brown UPS shirt and cap. The lens swung onto Robyn Payne’s exploded head. It lingered. Zoomed in. Then out.

  A gloved hand appeared to be mopping the remains of her brow. The camera tilted to the wall above her. The hand wrote two words in the dead woman’s blood.

  BE JUST.

  25

  Trinity Park, LA

  Shooter cut the video feed.

  He’d been running it through his server on a five-minute delay. Should anyone be sitting across the transmission, then those three hundred seconds might prove precious. So, too, should the decoy he’d thrown out—a glimpse of the replica UPS uniform he’d created. With any luck, it would make the cops assume he’d parked a parcel van nearby.

  He stripped in the hallway and revealed a plain gray tracksuit, which he also removed. He put the UPS uniform minus the cap back on and covered it with the tracksuit. He stuffed the cap down his briefs and opened the large box he’d carried in.

  It had been more than just a ruse to bring Robyn Payne to the door. Inside was a black cloth sack containing his means of escape. He pulled it out and then positioned the empty box upside down, so it appeared still unopened. He restarted the camera and fixed it on the now empty box and the bodies.

  While the feed was still stuttering into life, Shooter left by the back door.

  He knew the garden well. The couple had tended it lovingly and the overhanging trees near the potting shed gave excellent cover to hide behind as he climbed the rear fence and dropped into the alley at the back.

  Shooter stood up on a pile of old wood and checked the coast was clear. The sack he’d taken from the box was heavy but he was strong enough to lift it and lower it over before completing the journey himself.

  Once on the other side, he walked to the corner so he could see the end of the entry to the road. Off on the not-too-distant streets he heard police sirens. It meant someone had alerted the cops to the footage. Shooter pulled a knife and cut the string on the sack. Inside was a folded bicycle and a box of baby wipes. Within a minute he’d cleaned off his colored makeup, opened up the bike, locked it rigid, pulled up the seat, twisted the handlebars into position and ridden away.

  Once he rounded the corner, he pedaled lazily into the flow of busy street traffic. He knew not to rush, not to draw attention to himself. The sun shone high and hot. The sky unfurled cloudlessly as Shooter glided along in the jammed-up city traffic.

  He came to a stop at a red light and leaned against the side of a city-bound bus. A noise tilted his head skyward and he smiled as an FBI helicopter flew right over him.

  26

  Comms chatter from the copter spilled through the radio on the dash of Ruis Costas’s Jeep. “Red Leader, this is Eyeball One—we have no sighting of assailant. Repeat, no sighting of a black man in brown delivery clothing. Over.”

  The SKU agent punched the steering wheel of the SUV. “Eyeball One, keep in observation formation until otherwise instructed.”

  Angie was next to him, her cellphone pressed to her ear. Chips relayed off-screen commentary to her and she passed it on to Ruis. “The husband has just moved. He’s bleeding out near the box but he’s moving.”

  Ruis knew what she was thinking. “I can’t let paramedics in, Angie, not until we’re sure the UNSUB is not still in there and we’re certain what’s in that box. Jeffreys is on the way with the Bomb Squad; they can get a robot in to snoop, then we’ll know.”

  “He’s gone, Ruis,” she argued. “He’s just buying time with this box. Believe me, there’s nothing dangerous in it.”

  “I can’t take the risk. We got a good description of him from that video grab Chips sent through. It’s on the screen in the copter and the flight crew say he’s not out on the street. That means he could still be in the house.”

  She still wasn’t satisfied. “We’re a block away. You and I can take this creep if he’s in there.”

  He shook his head. “No one’s going through that door until I know the killer is out of there and there’s no risk of a bomb going off.”

  “It’s not a bomb.” Angie sounded frustrated. “If he wanted to blow people up, he’d have hidden it, like he did at the mall memorial.”

  They were still arguing when they turned the corner to enter the tree-lined street where the Paynes lived. Black-and-white cruisers blocked the way. Ruis rolled the Jeep to one side and they got out.

  The FBI helicopter circled low and loud as he and Angie badged their way through the cordon. They passed an ambulance with the back doors hinged open. Paramedics stood in the sun, waiting alongside two roller stretchers laden with emergency equipment.

  Angie put on shades. She could see clearer. Two hundred yards away, a number of houses were still being evacuated, reluctant residents forced out at the far end where two more police cruisers were closing access. The scene gave her flashbacks of the blast at the mall. The dead. The wounded. The shocked. She’d sat with them all. And with those who’d lost loved ones. That night, Jake had held her in bed and kept the tears and demons away. Without him she would have struggled.

  “Twelve Sixty-two.” Ruis pointed fifty yards ahead on the right. His finger sighted a modest wood-fronted home with an open gate, a patch of well-cut lawn and bending blossom trees. “That’s the Paynes’.”

  “Where the hell were the protection officers?” asked Angie.

  “That’s a question for later. Probably the usual excuses—they went to an old address, no one was available, the detail wasn’t marked urgent.”

  She turned her wrist and looked at her watch. “I really don’t want to be here. I want to be with the crew kicking Hendry’s door in.”

  “I know. Me too.” Ruis checked his own timepiece. “It’s almost seven. He doesn’t start work until nine. I’ve got covert units heading to both his home and place of work.”

  “And the supervisor—Dudek?”

  “On the list as well. Everything’s in hand, Angie. You don’t need to be second-guessing me.”

  “Sorry.”

  They stood in the shade and she called Chips again. “How’s Nate Payne doing?”

  He was glued to the monitor. “He’s dragged himself alongside his wife and is holding on to what’s left of her.” The young profiler tried not to choke. “It’s awful. He’s cradling her face, and it’s such a mess. He knows she’s dead. Knows it. But he just keeps holding her and talking to her.”

  Angie remembered the operating room. Kneeling in Jake’s blood, refusing to believe he was dead. Kissing him. Believing in God, in magic, Mother Nature, anything that could bring him back.

  “I can see his blood everywhere,” said Chips, sounding more distressed. “It’s like he’s ready to die with her.”

  “We won’t let that happen, Chips.” She turned the phone off and started walking.

  The street was silent but for the thwack of the copter overhead and the crackle of comms radios from nearby uniforms. Her heart quickened as she broke into a jog. She slipped her hand beneath her jacket and unholstered her weapon.

  “Angie!” Ruis shouted.

  She glanced back.

  He was racing toward her.

  She checked the safety was off on her gun and started sprinting. Her eyes were focused on the house. The Paynes and the package were in the hall. She was going in through the front window. If the motherfucker was still in there and wanted a gunfight, so be it. And if today was the day she got blown up, then so be that, too. What she wasn’t prepared for was standing around while a wounded man died.

  She s
lowed and turned in the gate.

  The window was ten yards away. Six strides and a jump. She’d take it good shoulder first, head turned away from the glass.

  Ruis grabbed her. Caught her round the waist and pulled her down onto the grass.

  “No!” Angie tried to fight him off. “Let me go.”

  He kept her pressed to the turf. Climbed over her. Smothered her body with his while his eyes and gun stayed on the door. “We can’t do this, Ange. We have to wait.”

  She stopped struggling. He was bigger, heavier and stronger. “Okay, get the fuck off me; you’re pressing on my bad arm.”

  He eased off. Shifted warily, still not convinced she wouldn’t try again. “Come on, let’s get to a safe distance.”

  She got up and trudged with him. Walked silently back in shame toward the waiting ambulance and idling cruisers.

  He looked her over. “I’m sorry if I hurt you, but that was crazy, Angie.”

  She was annoyed he didn’t share her point of view. “I can’t stay here, Ruis, and watch someone else die. I’ll fall apart if that happens. Give me your keys; I’ll go back to the office and help Chips.”

  “You sure?”

  She nodded.

  He dug in his pocket. “Are you okay to drive?”

  “I’m fine.” She rotated her injured shoulder a little to prove the point. “Will you call me, keep me updated on the raids? Let me know if and when you find this bastard?”

  “I will.” He handed over the Jeep keys, then carefully hugged her. “We’ll get him, Angie. I promise you that.”

  27

  Trinity Park, LA

  An orchestra of police sirens filled the smoggy evening air. Two-tone horns rose and fell, near and far, as Shooter cycled steadily through gridlocked traffic.

  There were cops everywhere.

  A cruiser had just blocked off a brown delivery van and LAPD’s finest were pointing weapons into the cab and screaming their lungs out.

  It was all too close for comfort.

  Shooter had a handgun and a UPS cap stuffed down his briefs. If they did a stop and search, he was going to have to blast his way out.

  He veered right, then across the dusty forecourt of a Mexican fast-food joint before taking a left to get himself back on the route home. It was longer this way but safer. The sooner he got out of sight, the better.

  Shooter thought of the kill as he rode the last stretch. Robyn Payne had always been next on his list. He’d been working through the order in which jurors had been chosen, and she was the wife of the fourth. Had he not overslept, he’d have killed her earlier in the day, right after her shift at a charity shop when she stopped to buy freshly baked bread on the way home. It was an indulgence betrayed by the multiplicity of bakers’ receipts in her trash, complete with amount, date and time. Despite missing his window of opportunity, he’d adapted to his mistake and done something daring. Something for Elysia as well as his brother.

  The “live” camera he’d left in the house was simply a tech adaptation to an iPhone he’d bought from a secondhand retailer. He’d seen the rapper Chris Brown use a similar capture device to make live smartphone broadcasts on his Entrago talent channel and had just copied the functionality.

  Now he was keen to know what she thought of it—and to work out how the cops had closed in on him so quickly. Perhaps that geek Snowden was right; maybe the Feds were constantly monitoring everyone and everything online.

  He cycled the alleyways toward his old factory unit, got off at the corner of the block and scrabbled the padlock keys out of his pocket.

  “Yo!”

  The shout was from across the road. He continued opening up.

  “Hey, dude, hold up.”

  The voice was so close he had to turn.

  At first he didn’t recognize the big guy in blue jeans and brown bomber jacket jogging his way. Then he realized who it was.

  Mike Hanrahan.

  The stick-his-nose-in-where-it’s-not-wanted cop.

  “What you doin’, man?” He grabbed the handlebars of Shooter’s folded cycle. “You really ride this joke?” He swung a leg over it and laughed.

  “Yeah, it gets me around.” He looked him over. “What’s with you?”

  Hanrahan ran hands down his sides. “Day off. It’s good to be out of the blues.”

  He put his right foot on a pedal, held the back brake and pulled the cycle up into a pretend wheelie. “Man, you should not go into any kickass hood riding this junk; they’ll eat you alive.” He looked him over. “Or come to think of it, dressed like that.” He passed the cycle back and put a big hand on the young man’s shoulder. “You got a beer for your new friend? I’ve got a little business to talk to you about.”

  Shooter slowly moved away. Hanrahan was much bigger and stronger than he was. He’d be no easy fall like Dudek. “I don’t want to sound unfriendly, but now’s not good. I’ve gotta get ready for my night job.”

  “There’s never a good time with you, is there, buddy?” His tone had changed. “I’m starting to feel that you’ve got stuff in there that you don’t want me to see—that you don’t want no police to see.”

  “It’s just bad right now, that’s all.”

  Hanrahan nodded. “I know about you, Warren. I did a little re-search after you gave me your name the other day. Brother of a tough guy gangbanger who got the needle in the Big House.”

  Shooter looked fazed.

  The cop read his face. “Pretty soon I’m going to become a de-tec-teev, so don’t think you can go hiding shit from me.” He slapped him on the back. “Now, how about you let me into your Aladdin’s Cave over there and we sort out some business a-range-ment on those computers you mentioned?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  He flashed his pearly whites as he laughed. “ ’Course you do. There’s always a choice, man. You can fuck me off now and regret it for the rest of your life, or you can play the game and stay cool.”

  Shooter knew what he had to do. “Cool it is, then. Come on in.”

  28

  Angie drove the Jeep around the corner. She went half a mile, then pulled over and sat with the engine off and her head in her hands.

  If she was going to cry, she sure as hell wasn’t going to do it in front of the FBI and LAPD.

  Ruis had played things by the book. He’d done nothing wrong. First lesson of being a law enforcement professional was thinking about personal safety. Endanger yourself and you endanger others. If she’d gone through the window, then she might have been blown up and so might he. But by doing nothing, they’d practically ended Nate Payne’s life. There was every chance he’d bleed out before the paramedics got to him.

  Angie sat up straight behind the wheel and tried to stop a hundred thoughts banging into each other. She needed some clarity. Nothing had ever been what it seemed with this offender. He’d gone out of his way to trick and deceive them. The Spreelike killings to distract from the focus on specific victims, the different weapons he’d used, the switch from guns to a bomb and back again, the changes of clothes—and if she and Chips were right, even changes of his skin color.

  She remembered the sports bag in the mall. The canvas bag in JZ’s Saloon. It followed that the cardboard box left at the Paynes’ house was simply a variation on the bag. He’d probably had a change of clothes in there as well. Then she remembered the video frame Chips had pulled and the alert that had gone out for a man in a brown UPS uniform.

  It was obvious now that the UNSUB had played them.

  He’d known they’d grasp at straws, and that flash frame in the hallway mirror had given them a handful of false hope to clutch hold of.

  She called Ruis.

  It went to his voice mail. “It’s Angie. I had a thought. I think Hendry played us. My bet is that he had a change of clothes in that box and we’re wasting our time looking for a delivery guy in a brown uniform. He’ll be dressed down, casual, messy even, certainly not in a uniform. And remember: he might be black or white
, or even dressed female as he was at the mall. He looked black in the video grab so one thing’s for sure—he probably cleaned off the makeup as soon as he could.”

  She hung up and called Chips. “Hi there. I’m just checking to see how you’re holding up.”

  “I’m okay.” His voice said he wasn’t. It was full of emotional strain. “SKU are getting a monitor team up and running to watch the feed at the Paynes’. I won’t have to focus like I did.”

  “That’s good. We’ll talk things through when I get back. Meanwhile, can you do some things for me?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “You sure you’re okay?”

  He dug deep. “If you can be okay, then so can I. What do you want me to do?”

  “We need to respond on Twitter to the video Hendry fed us, get a coded message into his Minos account.”

  “What do you want to say?”

  “Let’s work it through. Hendry either sees Elysia as a fan, or is just feeling desperately isolated and in his madness needs some kind of contact. I guess he’s an emotional mess right now.”

  Chips followed her train of thought. “He’s going to be elated and anxious at the same time. The kill today will have had his adrenaline pumping like crazy and now he’ll be coming down after the rush.”

  “You’re right. We need to manipulate those emotions, reflect his own mood.” Angie paused, then added, “Just write ‘OMG! AMAZING! RU OK?’ ”

  “I’ve got it.”

  “And I need you to dig, Chips. Find whatever you can on Warren and Winston Hendry. I know they have no other siblings or living relatives, but I want a friend, an ex-girlfriend, anyone who can give me a lead on him.”

  “I’d already started searches. I’ll go back over them.”

  “Make it quick. Feed me texts on the cellphone. There’s no time for reports. I want to know Warren’s schooling, employment, anything that tells me where this mastery of disguise came from.”

  “I’m on it.”

  “Thanks.” She hung up and dialed Cal O’Brien. “Lieutenant, it’s Angie Holmes. Can you talk?”