by Ford Murphy
David Kirk was parked there in a rental car. Finn climbed into the back seat and lay down. Finn had enlisted David’s assistance over a week ago without actually filling him in on all the details. David was glad to help and knew enough not to pry too much. He trusted his best friend completely and knew Finn did likewise. That was good enough for him.
“Are we good?” David asked.
“We seem to be. Now let’s go. We don’t have much time.”
Finn changed into an old track suit and sneakers as David drove to the house where the gang members were meeting. “Did you check that everything is still on out there?”
David nodded. “No issues. I was out there less than thirty minutes ago. They look well settled in.”
“What about the back window? Were you able to double check it?”
“It’s good, Finn. It will open quietly and without effort.”
“Great.”
David stopped the car down a secluded lane about half a mile from the house and turned off the lights. Finn was going to make the rest of the journey on foot, taking advantage of the darkness and avoiding the risk of the car being spotted.
Before he got out of the car he gripped Dave’s shoulder. “Hey Dave, this wouldn’t be able to go down without you.”
“Just be careful. Don’t take any unnecessary risks. If it’s not on, abort and we’ll come back another night.”
“You got it.” Even as he said it, he knew as well as David did that backing out now was not an option unless there were extremely unexpected circumstances.
Finn put two latex gloves on each of his hands and a black skull cap on his head. He nodded at David and quickly got out of the car.
He ran silently in the pitch darkness. He had memorized the route this week and knew exactly where he was going. He ran easily, his body fluid and responsive.
Within minutes he saw the house. There was only one light on in the living room. The rest of the house appeared to be in darkness. Perfect. Just perfect. He reached the house, went around to the back and found the window David had opened earlier that day. He listened for a moment but the only sounds were those of muffled voices from the front of the house.
The window opened soundlessly and Finn crawled in carefully. He stopped in the kitchen to make sure nobody had heard him or was moving around the house, then he locked the window. He was going to exit through the front door and he didn’t want to leave any sign of a break in.
Here we go. His heart rate increased and the adrenaline began to course through his body. He raced into the front room, surprising the hell out of its occupants and set about his business. He attacked with a rage and a force that surprised even himself but he still managed to stick to his plan and inflict the damage he had set out to cause.
It was all over pretty quickly. As tough as the four gang leaders were, they had never encountered anyone with Finn’s combat skills and with the element of surprise completely in his favor, they were no match for him. Once he had completed his task, he walked to the phone and called the emergency services. He gave the address of the house and told the operator there had been an attack and that four people had been severely injured and were in need of ambulances.
He made a point of saying, “It is now eleven thirty-five, how long before the ambulances will get here?”
The operator replied that they were being dispatched now and would be there as quickly as possible.
Finn hung up, even though the operator was still talking. He had established a time for the attack and that was the last thing he needed to do. He took one glance around the room at the four figures all lying crumpled on the floor. They would never create problems for anyone ever again.
Once he had closed the door behind him, he set off running back to the car. This was where all his training and fitness kicked in. He had just expended a huge amount of energy but he still felt loose and alert.
He reached the car, climbed into the back seat and yelled, “Floor it before the ambulance gets here.”
David did it without question. In the distance they could hear the approaching sirens but by the time they passed the ambulances, they were on the main road and just one of many cars heading into town.
Finn changed quickly. David had brought damp towels for him to clean himself with and dry ones to finish off. He also had thought of deodorant. Smart man.
“All good?” David finally asked.
Finn smiled. “Oh yeah. This will really set the town off once it gets out. Now we just have to get back into town and get me into the pub.
David drove quickly back but not so fast as to attract attention. The last thing they needed was to be stopped for speeding. Once Finn was safely back in the pub, David would drive to West Cork and dump the clothes, shoes and gloves there.
David parked near the pub and they got out. Finn hugged him. “Thanks, brother. I’ll never forget this.”
David just smiled at him. “Hey, that’s what friends are for.”
~ * ~
Finn headed up the back alley towards the back door of the pub while David headed towards the front door.
This was the trickiest part. Technically, it was too late for a drink and the pub should be shut. The owners of Nutt’s Haven, however, usually took a liberal interpretation of the licensing laws around closing times especially on a Saturday night so there was a hope that David might get in. He knocked quietly on the door and waited.
Nothing.
He knocked again, this time a little louder. Again he waited. Shit. What do we do now? He was about to leave when the door opened.
The doorman stood in the doorway. “Sorry mate, we’re closed.”
“One pint,” David pleaded. “My girlfriend just had a baby and I could really murder a pint. Please. Just one.”
The doorman stared at him, then cracked a smile. “Boy or girl?”
David grinned. “Boy. A big bruiser at that.”
The doorman stood aside. “Congratulations! But just one quick one, okay?”
“Absolutely. Thanks again.”
David entered the bar and saw that there were about twenty-five or thirty people there, some of them looking worse for wear. He quickly ordered and paid for a pint then headed to the bathroom. Once he knew the coast was clear, he let Finn in through the side door and left through it himself.
“Travel safely, brother,” Finn said and headed into the bar.
~ * ~
Finn reengaged with the various groups he had been with earlier, none of whom seemed to have noticed that he had disappeared for over an hour. He made himself as visible as possible and was among the very last to leave when the pub finally shut down.
“What time is it?” he asked the doorman as he was leaving, in what he hoped was a voice that sounded drunk.
“Twenty past one in the morning. Time you were in bed.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” Finn laughed and started to walk home pretending to stagger a little while he knew the doorman was watching. “I couldn’t agree more.”
~ * ~
Earlier that night, Margo Kirk sat in a bar in Cork City. Everything was fucked up with Finn. But what had she done? Nothing, that’s what. She’d only told the truth to get the bitch to back off of her man. Since when was telling someone the truth wrong? But the mewling bitch fell apart. And Finn blames me. She shook her head. It’s not my fault. I just went after what’s mine and now I’m the one out in the cold.
The guy sitting next her to her had already bought her two drinks and was hitting on her hard. He wasn’t much too look at and his breath stank along with the rest of him. She shrugged. Still, it’s better than being alone.
She leaned closer to him and whispered, “If you come to the ladies bathroom, I’ll fuck you there.”
He looked at her first in surprise, unsure if she was serious. Then, when she surreptitiously took his hand and slid it up her short skirt, revealing that she wore nothing under it, he looked as if all of his Christmases had come at once.
<
br /> She winked at him. “I’ll go first. You wait outside until I let you know the coast is clear and you come in then.”
“You bet.” He nodded with a stupid smile plastered on his face, showing his ugly, yellowed teeth.
She shook her head as walked to the bathroom. She’d fuck him but she would not kiss that mouth. Margo hovered in the bathroom impatiently as two women applied makeup and bitched about their husbands. After what seemed like an age they finally left and she motioned to the still-grinning guy who was hanging around outside the door. “Quickly. We can’t lock it.”
She bent over one of the sinks and lifted her skirt. She felt him enter her and she watched in the mirror as he thrust inside her over and over. Margo looked at her face in the mirror and wondered when it would be over. That was a stupid thing to wonder—it was over very soon.
He grunted, came inside her and immediately pulled out. “Thanks. That was grand.”
“Mmm,” she mumbled, “it was. You go first. I’ll wait a few minutes and meet you back at the bar. I’ll take another drink.”
“Okay,” he said and snuck out.
Margo straightened her skirt, fixed her hair and left just as a woman entered. Good timing. When she got back to the bar, he was nowhere to be found. His coat was gone and his drink was empty. “You bastard. Fucking lowlife prick.”
She ordered another drink and then another. Eventually, a guy wandered over and started chatting to her. This one bought her three more drinks and she was well on by closing time.
They left the bar together and headed towards Margo’s friend’s house where she was staying tonight. Margo had made it clear to him that he was going to get lucky tonight. As they passed a laneway, he caught her hand and pulled her into it.
When they were halfway down, he stopped and they started kissing. At least this one doesn’t stink.
He opened his fly and took out his dick and pushed her head down towards it. “Come on baby, show me what you can do.”
Margo took his dick in her hand, stroking it a bit before putting it in her mouth and starting to suck it.
“Oh yeah, baby.” He moaned as he started to shove it farther and farther into her mouth with increasing force. By the time he came in her mouth, she was almost choking. When he pulled out, she gagged, spitting out his cum and gasping for air.
“What’s the matter, bitch? Isn’t it good enough for you to swallow?”
Before she could respond, he swung his fist hard and caught her flush in the jaw. She dropped to the ground and he kicked her twice in the stomach.
“Fucking skanky bitch,” he said viciously as he stormed away.
Margo lay there for a few minutes. She could feel the blood flowing from her mouth and she was sure he had broken a rib. She got slowly to her feet. “Fuck you, Finn Lane. This is all your fault. You’ll be sorry. Mark my words. You’ll be so very sorry.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
February, 1984
Edgarville, Kentucky
Paul looked up at Finn and asked if he had anything to drink. The only thing he had was a very expensive bottle of bourbon that he’d planned to bring home to his father as a gift. He poured them both a stiff measure.
Paul chugged almost all of it in one gulp. “Thanks. I needed that.”
“Now tell me, why you think something terrible has happened?”
“You know what a radio buff I am.”
Finn smiled. “Everyone knows that.” Paul liked nothing better than spending hours in the college media studio where there was equipment with which he could tune into radio stations all over the country. He was obsessed with finding remote, obscure stations in the most far-flung parts of the country and listening to local news, sports reports and music. He had obtained special permission from the college to indulge his passion and frequently spent the whole night channel surfing to his heart’s content.
“Well, earlier that night, I decided to tune into to some stations in the Chicago area.”
“To see if Whitney and Morgan made the news? Why would they?”
“They wouldn’t, if everything was okay. I hoped like hell I wouldn’t hear anything.”
“But you did?”
Paul nodded. “I found a local news station and listened for a while. They broadcasted a report that a body had been found in a dumpster in a back alley in a dangerous part of the city. The victim was a white female, estimated to be in her mid-twenties. She was about five foot ten with shoulder length blond hair and blue eyes.”
“They don’t know who she was?”
“No. There was no identification found. She’d been badly beaten and had suffered severe sexual trauma. Her throat had been cut. The police were appealing for witnesses to come forward with any information that might help them identify her or shed some light on the case, how she ended up in the dumpster. They think she was killed four or five days ago.”
A chill came over Finn.
“I think it’s Whitney,” Paul said despondently as Finn refilled their glasses.
Finn wanted to argue against it. The rational side of him knew this description would match hundreds of thousands of American women, but the similarities to how Whitney’s mother had been killed were eerie, to say the least. “Look, Paul. I’m going to tell you something but you have to keep it to yourself, okay?”
“Absolutely. Do you know something?”
“Not about the case in Chicago, but Whitney told me some things about herself right after I got here. Apparently, her mother—her real mother—was a prostitute in New Orleans and was killed in exactly the same manner.”
“You’re fucking with me.”
“I swear, I’m not.”
“Jesus Christ. That’s freaky. What the hell. Does it mean something? Could the two of them actually be murdered the same way? What are we going to do?”
“We shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Let’s go back to the college and see if we can pick up any additional information from that radio station.”
After listening to seven different stations over the course of four hours, they finally heard an update. A witness had seen a woman matching that description on Sunday night in a bar not far from the dumpster where the body had been found. She had been in the company of an unidentified white male who looked like he was also in his mid-twenties. He was about six feet tall, well built, with dark brown or black hair.
Paul looked at Finn in horror. “That sounds like Morgan.”
Finn stood up and paced the room. He wanted to disagree; just like the description of the victim, it could be anyone. But he couldn’t. Something deep within him knew the victim was Whitney and if it was, the man was Morgan.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” was all he could say. Still, he didn’t want to believe it.
They stayed there until the morning listening for more news on the case. Hoping, praying that the victim would be identified as some other poor girl. But there were no further updates.
Paul switched the equipment off. “We have to go to the cops. It might not be her, but we won’t know unless we tell them.”
Finn nodded. “But let’s go over to the labs first and see if they’ve turned up or if there’s been any word from them. Maybe we’ve been worried all night for nothing. If no one has heard anything, we’ll go to the cops.”
They only news they learned at the lab was bad news. There had been no word from Whitney or Morgan. But Morgan’s parents had called several times looking for him. It had been over a week since they last heard from him and they had become worried, since they were expecting him to call on Monday. Finn knew no one would be calling about Whitney. She was estranged from her parents.
Finn turned to Paul. “I want to tell Spaulding first. He has a right to know.”
The professor was shocked and upset. “You’re right though, you need to report this to the police, even if it is just to assure ourselves it isn’t Whitney. But, Finn, keep this to yourself. This could all still be a tragic coincidence. You don’t want to ring alarm
bells only for the two of them to turn up safe and sound after partying for the week.”
Finn and Paul went to the local station and told them every detail they knew. The detective said he’d relay the information to the Chicago police department and would get back in touch if he needed anything else.
Finn had planned to go and take a nap but when he got to the apartment, he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep so he changed and went for a long run which he followed up with a grueling session in the gym. He could see people looking at him strangely as he worked out with such ferocity, but no one approached him or said anything.
The next few days ground by interminably. The tension and concern in the department was palpable as rumors started to leak that something bad might have happened Whitney.
On Monday afternoon, Finn was in the lab trying to wrap up the last of his work when he looked up from his desk to see a visibly shaking Paul standing there in the company of two grim-looking police officers. His heart sank like a stone and a lump rose in his throat.
“Is there somewhere private we can speak?” one of officers asked.
Finn nodded. He stood up shakily and walked in a daze to the little break room that the post grad students used. There were four students already there but they left silently when Finn asked if they could have the room.
“I’m afraid we have some very bad news. We relayed the information you provided to our colleagues in Chicago. They were able to access Whitney’s dental records through her foster parents. A positive identification had been made. The body found in the dumpster was indeed Whitney Campbell.”
Although Finn had been expecting the worst, actually hearing the officers confirm that Whitney had been murdered shook Finn to the core. He sat there, too stunned to say anything. Filling his thoughts was that wonderful night in Lexington when he had held Whitney in his arms, as they listened to Bruce sing Thunder Road. He remembered the warmth of her body against his as they swayed slowly to the music and how her eyes had shone with tears when the song ended. She had been truly happy at that moment. And now she was gone. Brutally murdered and dumped in a back alley, just like her mother.
