“Well, they probably tried,” Levin said. “The liver is remarkably durable, by far the hardiest of any organ in the body. A portion of the liver can be removed from a live donor and implanted into someone, after which it will regenerate itself in both parties.”
“So why go through all this?” Reed asked. “Why not just go under the knife, give a chunk, and be done with it?”
“The liver is tough,” Levin said, “but it’s not indestructible. There are still compatibility issues that must be cleared and there is always the chance of rejection.”
“So, like you said,” Reed said, “they probably did try, it just didn’t work.”
Chapter Forty
Time was not The Good Son’s friend. He could feel it pinching inward on him from all angles. Every hour his mother sat on the couch was one spent wasting away. Each day her conditioned worsened, her weight plummeted, her skin grew a little more yellow. At her last consultation, the doctor said her liver had basically stopped functioning and was down to its final days, though from the looks of things, she didn’t even have that long.
The thought of losing her, now, after all he had done, was too much to bear. It caused The Good Son’s chest to constrict, his breathing to become short.
Despite everything she had inflicted upon him - the beatings, the hunger, the cold – he still couldn’t bring himself to consider a world without her in it. It was his fault she was in the predicament she was in. He had been unable to save his father, but this he could do. This situation was salvageable. He’d already proven that. Now, all he had to do was get it right one more time and everything would be okay.
Before that, though, he had something else to do.
Never before had he seen the police so blatantly go on television and proclaim their failure, asking for the assistance of the public-at-large. It was a bold move, one that reiterated the magnitude of what he was doing, of the necessary lengths he must go to in order to see things through.
Nothing was changed though. It was a new hurdle, but he still had tasks to complete, a charge to oversee. He now had to be more careful, but he could not slow down.
There just wasn’t the time for it.
The reality of the situation struck The Good Son as he pulled up in front of the overgrown two-story house. Just six blocks from the home of Henry Ruggles, less than two miles from his own house, there was very little resemblance to either. Situated on the edge of The Bottoms, the house looked like most every other The Good Son had seen in the area, like at any moment a health inspector would arrive and condemn the place.
At one point the building had been constructed of wooden siding and painted white, a lean-to front porch stretched across the front. Over the years, the paint had flaked away, leaving only misshapen streaks behind. Large splotches of mold and mildew dotted the wood, enormous chunks having crumbled away, the combination of termites and weather having done their worst.
A single elm tree stood in the front yard, easily the only salvageable item on the property. Its branches hung out in a wide canopy, serving as an umbrella, blocking out the late afternoon sun. Below it the yard was nothing but a dirt patch, the occasional thistle or milkweed sticking up at odd intervals.
Seated behind the wheel, The Good Son took it all in. Again, the feeling of doubt, of uncertainty, seeped in around the edges of his resolve. No part of him wanted to leave the car, much less walk to the front door and knock. The sun was out and he was in plain sight. He had no prior chance to scout, no way of knowing for certain who or what else was inside the house beyond his reason for being there.
Closing his eyes, he drew in a deep breath, trying to steel his resolve. The obstacles between him and completion did not matter. All that was important was reaching his objective.
The driver side door let out a wicked squeal, a spur of adrenaline shooting through The Good Son. His first reaction, ingrained from the last week, was to crouch low, watching for anybody nearby. Just as fast the response faded, his legs extending back to full height.
Forcing an uneasy smile, The Good Son walked around the front of the car. He hopped the short curb and cut a path through the lawn, puffs of dust rising around his ankles with each step. Halfway across the expanse, his path intersected with the concrete sidewalk.
Up close, the house looked even rougher than from the road. Gouges were visible in the wood, giant slivers that had been torn away collecting on the ground. Mixed with flakes of paint, they were scattered on the floor of the porch like dead leaves in the fall.
The smell of garbage and decay found The Good Son’s nose, tightening his stomach even further.
Finding the address had not been easy. It had taken a considerable bit of digging, both through his mother’s records and through Henry Ruggles’s. Even at that, he had only the faint hope that he was in the right place, no signs of life anywhere to confirm or deny it.
The wood of the front porch bowed beneath his weight as he stepped onto it, emitting a low creaking sound. With each step more of the same became audible, only adding to the unease, the trepidation roiling through him.
A few more steps. That’s all he needed, a few more steps, and he would be there. He could step inside and finish what he needed to.
A ragged door hung at an angle across the front opening, the screen covering it torn in several places, one entire corner hanging down. Reaching through the gaping hole, The Good Son knocked against the solid structure behind it, hearing the sound echo through the house. He paused, letting the sound die away, before knocking again and taking a quarter-step back.
There he remained until finally the old building creaked with movement. He forced himself to remain rigid as every nerve ending in his body hummed, the sound growing closer, the door slowly easing back on its hinges.
Chapter Forty-One
Five men were seated around the table as Reed walked in. Each of them turned as Reed and Billie entered, their faces ranging from curious to hostile. Reed barely noticed any of them, knowing that whatever expression they wore now would soon be shifting once they heard what he had to say.
Tucked away on the third floor, the space was called a conference room, though the half dozen men and Billie more than filled it.
“Thank you all for being here,” Reed said, swinging the door shut behind him.
There was no response from the table. To his left were Officers Greene and Gilchrist, both already dressed in their black uniforms. Their faces bore neutral expressions despite being called in an hour early, their hands folded in front of them.
On the opposite side were Iaconelli and Bishop, both showing the effects of a long day. Heavy sweat rings underscored Iaconelli’s armpits, his face even redder than usual, more pronounced by the shirt he wore of the same color. His hair was soaked and plastered back against his head, and he was sneering as always. Beside him Bishop looked like he might keel backward at any moment, his skin still void of any color, his long arms folded in front of him.
Captain Grimes sat at the head of the table. He had been the last person Reed called with the request to meet, not especially happy about it and insisting the meeting should be no more than half an hour. At the longest.
“I know we’ve all got places we’d rather be,” Reed said, ignoring the chair and standing, “so I’ll get right to it.”
He turned his attention to the left and said, “Officers, were either of you able to pull anything from Henry Ruggles’s home or the canvas of his neighborhood?”
Gilchrist glanced to Greene before looking down at his hands, deferring to the senior man. Greene leaned forward, resting his forearms on the edge of the table.
“Ruggles’s house came back clean. No signs of forced entry, no signs of a struggle. We told the crime scene crew to be on standby, but there was no reason to call them in. All indicators seemed to be that he was taken somewhere else, if not the park itself.”
Reed nodded. There were few reasons he could think of as to why Ruggles’s body would be left out
in the park, the primary one being that it was a location of convenience. The killer probably knew that Ruggles’s appearance would lead responding officers to believe it was drug related, hoping to focus attention in that direction.
The only other reason that remotely fit was if somebody had seen the killer enter Ruggles’s house, requiring them also be seen leaving together.
“As to the second part,” Greene said, “given the early hour, nobody on the block saw anything. One lady thinks she might have seen a silver car pull in around 6:00, but she couldn’t be certain. Just happened to see headlights and glance outside while she was making breakfast.”
Reed grunted. It only confirmed that the park was an easy place to get rid of the body. There was no need to get Ruggles to the hospital fast, so it didn’t matter where he was left, just that he was already dead when he got there.
“Okay,” Reed said. “Thank you guys for doing that. I got pulled in a couple different directions today, but appreciate you coming in early to debrief.”
“Yeah, so what about us?” Iaconelli asked, making it clear that he did not appreciate being there, despite technically still being on the clock.
“Sandy Jurgensen,” Reed responded, not rising to the bait, floating the name out in hopes of immediately putting Iaconelli on his heels.
It didn’t have quite as much effect as intended, but it was enough to stop Iaconelli before he could object further. “Yeah? You call up your old buddies at the 19th and get some inside scoop?”
Reed paused. When Bishop mentioned earlier that things were locked in a jurisdictional quagmire, he hadn’t even considered calling on anybody from his old unit. Just as Franklinton was barely a slice of the 8th, no more than a couple of neighborhoods of Hilliard extended into the 19th.
“No, actually, I worked backward from Esther Rosen and Ira Soto.” He made a quick pass around the room, seeing no signs of recognition from anybody. “The Night Stalker cases.”
Bishop and Gilchrist both nodded at the name. Greene and Grimes remained motionless. Iaconelli assumed his usual position, his hands resting on his stomach, a glare on his face.
Starting with the map, Reed laid out everything for the men just as he had for Dr. Levin. He outlined the various locations where each of the victims had been killed, beginning with Rosen and ending with Ruggles.
Once the obvious geographic pattern emerged, he placed Jurgensen at the center of it, just inside the circle outlining Franklin Memorial Hospital.
There he waited for any questions or comments, and when none came, he went on with his working theory. He showed each of them the driver’s license copies for Rosen, Soto, and Jurgensen, followed up with a few of the pictures from the autopsy of Ruggles.
After he had the interest, however begrudging, of every man in the room, he raced through what Dr. Levin had shared with him. They all listened in silence as he left out most of the technical jargon, the scoring charts and blood samples and such, instead seizing on the facts that there was a list and that his working theory was feasible.
Somewhat misguided, maybe a bit choppy, but feasible.
Just like every single crime scene they’d found so far.
From start to finish the explanation took 13 minutes, in that time Reed being the only one to speak. Gilchrist nodded enthusiastically throughout much of it. Greene and Bishop both made sufficient eye contact to let him know they were following. Even Iaconelli dropped his hard-ass demeanor halfway through, listening as Reed made his case point by point.
At the far end of the room Grimes sat with his gaze aimed at the opposite wall, his arms folded, a frown in place. To some it might have appeared he was brooding, bordering on an explosion, but Reed had seen the pose often enough to know it merely meant he was processing.
Once his theory was completely outlined, Reed released his death grip on the back of the chair and pulled it out a few inches. He left the map and various papers strewn before him and lowered himself into the seat, slouching back against it.
“Obviously there are holes,” he said, “and still a lot left to do, but I truly think this is where we are.”
The statement was meant to open up the floor, to let it be known that they were moving from presentation to discussion, though nobody said a word. The men to either side stared at him briefly before averting their eyes, Gilchrist beginning to fidget as the slightest hint of awkwardness appeared.
“Assuming this is all true,” Grimes said, his voice thick, as if he hadn’t spoken in quite some time, snapping the attention of each man in the room in his direction, “what’s next?”
Reed placed a hand on either arm of the chair and raised himself up a few inches.
“Start with the holes,” Grimes instructed.
“Okay,” Reed said, “right now, first thing has to be identifying our suspect and protecting the other liver transplant candidates in the area.”
“That all?” Iaconelli asked, a touch of the earlier bitterness present.
Reed ignored it. “It is very clear that someone is trying to manipulate the donor system. I tend to agree with Dr. Levin, that there is no way someone experiencing end-stage liver failure could possibly do this, meaning we’re probably looking at someone with a close personal connection to a particular candidate.”
“I thought you said the list was protected?” Bishop interjected.
“It is,” Reed said, “but I think I have a way around that. It’ll be my first priority once we break here.”
“And if you don’t?” Iaconelli asked.
“Henry Ruggles’s ex-wife mentioned a support group. We’ll start there, get as many names as we can and work our way out. There might be 20,000 potential candidates awaiting donors, but how many of those can be down to their last days? Especially living right here in the greater Columbus area?”
He glanced around the room, waiting for another remark from Iaconelli that never came.
“After that,” he said, “we work through them. Run their names, their families, start whittling things down.”
It was rough, and would require a great deal of luck, but it was the best they had to work with. Eight hours ago there were four open murders without a single credible lead. Now, at least, they had a heading, something to be moving toward.
Again, the room fell silent. There were a few exchanged glances, a couple of looks to the paper still spread on the table, but nobody said a word.
Reed decided against adding anything further. He had stated his case. It was now up to the captain to decide what to do with it. Like him, every other man in the room knew it, one at a time looking to the head of the table for direction.
Oblivious to the stares, Grimes continued to focus his gaze on the back wall. He raised a hand to his chin and rubbed vigorously, his late-day whiskers scratching against his fingers.
“Ike, you and Bishop start with the ex-wife,” Grimes said. “Get a list of names, whatever she has, and start working through them.”
True to form, Iaconelli glanced up at the clock on the wall and scowled, Bishop simply nodding beside him.
“Greene, Gilchrist, you guys be on standby. Once these two get a list, they’ll split it with you. I’ll have someone cover your patrol tonight.”
Both men nodded in unison.
“How do we handle it?” Greene asked. “Bring them into protective custody? Just tell them to be alert?”
Grimes paused a moment, his mouth half open, pondering the question. “For the time being, just tell them to remain indoors, to keep things locked up tight. Our guy hasn’t used a gun or knife yet, so they should be okay. If we do get our hands on the list and are able to narrow things down, we may bring them in later.”
A short grunt was Greene’s only response, Gilchrist removing his notepad from a chest pocket and scribbling notes.
“And you’re going after the list?” Grimes said.
“I am,” Reed said. “I’m also going to have my guy take a look into the financials of our three female victims.
The only way he could have possibly known they were all organ donors was to have seen their driver’s licenses, which probably means he works in some kind of service industry job where he has to check ID’s.”
“That opens up a hell of a lot of possibilities,” Bishop said, glancing over to him.
“True,” Reed said. “I’m hoping something in their spending history will show a commonality. Might help speed up the identification.”
Eight feet away Grimes nodded. He looked at Reed, his arms still folded, and asked, “This contact of yours, he wouldn’t be the same one who helped us out a few months ago would he?”
Chapter Forty-Two
The number of things Riley taught Reed in their time together was too many to count. She was two years younger, but somehow had managed to cram more life experience into her days than most people who lived two or three times as long. Rarely did a day go by that Reed wasn’t reminded of one of her lessons, never more so than when he was approaching the bucolic house in Worthington.
“If I teach you nothing else in our time together,” she would say, “let it be this. Never, ever, show up at this house empty handed. The man inside provides a very specific set of skills which requires a very specific type of payment. This might be the only place on earth where cash isn’t going to get it done.”
It was the first time Reed had been back to the house in three months, since the incident Grimes had alluded to in the conference room. In the time since, he had made a point to call twice, if for no other reason than to not only show up when a favor was needed.
Derrick Chamberlain and Riley were classmates together at Ohio State who somehow had managed to meet, tolerate one another, become friends, and remain that way for nearly a decade after graduation. To see them together was to witness a true Mutt-and-Jeff pairing, one a detective with an increasingly cynical view of the world, independent to a fault, the other a man stuck in a state of arrested development, content to live in his grandmother’s basement, playing video games and insisting everyone call him Deek.
The Good Son: A Suspense Thriller (A Reed & Billie Novel Book 2) Page 17
