THE FOURTH BULLET: A Novel of Suspense

by Patrick Dakin

  “I want you to stop this silly routine you’ve gotten into, where you think you have to protect me from the realities of life, Tristan,” he had said. “The killer has contacted you and I want you to tell me about it. Now.”

  This pronouncement had left her shaken and thoroughly disturbed. “Okay, you’re right, Daddy,” she had finally relented. “I don’t know how in the world you seem to know these things but, yes, the killer has contacted me.”

  “Tell me everything,” Jake had said.

  Her reluctant revelations, divulged succinctly and with as little emphasis as the facts would allow, have an effect far beyond what Jake allows his daughter to see.

  It is two weeks later when Jake tells the doctors in charge of his case of his decision to be freed from his head restraints. There is, of course, strenuous opposition to this. “You have to understand, Jake,” Dr. Bolger says in an effort to talk some sense into him, “if you so much as stumble, it could kill you instantly. A sudden turning of your head, a mild bump in a crowd, could prove fatal.”

  “I understand,” Jakes responds. “And don’t think I’m not grateful to you for everything you’ve done up to now. But I want you to get me out of this bloody contraption immediately. Please.”

  Bolger shakes his head in reluctant consent. “All right,” he says. “It’s your life, after all.”

  Removal of the head restraints is a harrowing experience. At Bolger’s insistence, the procedure takes place with only medical personnel in attendance. Jake, Bolger, and a nurse wonder whether his first movement will be his last.

  After the restraints come away Bolger directs Jake to dip his head slightly forward. Apart from experiencing the expected stiffness in his neck, nothing untoward happens. He turns his head a little to the left. A violent jolt of pain courses through his head and he grimaces agonizingly while the pain slowly dissolves. Everyone holds their breath, waiting for Jake to recover. Very slowly he does recuperate and a range of movement is explored. Jake comes through this initial test well.

  Next on the agenda is to attempt standing. But after six and a half weeks flat on his back, his legs don’t work the way he remembers they should. It takes another week of therapy to get anything resembling proper movement back into his limbs. The bullet wounds to his chest have healed well but, as one of them punctured a lung, his breathing is labored with even moderate exertion.

  What seems like a lifetime eventually passes until the day comes when Tristan, accompanied by Bobby Schultz, arrives to take him home.

  At home Jake is enthusiastically greeted by Crocker. He’s one of those crossbreeds that defies logic - his Spaniel Poodle heritage seeming entirely unlikely given the large head, thick body, and stubby legs that make his attempts to get up on furniture humorously improbable. He’s white with dark brown and black ears and tail. Impossibly cute. The dog, acquired as a puppy three years ago, has always been unquestionably Tristan’s pet but now, for some reason, he ignores Tristan and trails closely behind Jake. He seems to understand that something has changed. Jake is different and ailing and needs comfort.

  Three nights after his arrival home, while sitting at the dinner table in their North Hollywood abode - a blue and white parked conspicuously across the street - Tristan stares intently at Jake. “You’re different now, Daddy. Quieter, more ... pensive.” She has spent the previous three days frightened witless that every movement he makes will cause the bullet in his head to shift, terminating his life instantly. At first strongly opposed to his decision to remove the head restraints, she has resigned herself to the new reality her father has imposed on their existence. To appease him she tries fiercely, although largely unsuccessfully, to act normal around him.

  But she’s right, of course. Jake is different. Never mind that his every waking hour is now occupied with how he’ll find the maniac that killed his partner and threatened his daughter, there are things going on in his head that defy rational explanation. How, he wonders for the thousandth time, does he routinely know that the phone is about to ring? That Keith Abrams, who often accompanies Bobby on his visits, has some very strong feelings about Tristan? How is it that he can tell things about people just from meeting them that he shouldn’t be able to tell? Why are their worries, their fears - vivid depictions he neither wants nor solicits, but that inundate him nonetheless - telegraphed into his brain like some unbidden satellite transmission?

  Once or twice he has accidentally revealed to Tristan this novel attribute he has somehow developed but, for the most part, he has been able to keep it to himself. What he doesn’t need now is to add to his problems, assailed by a bunch of headshrinkers wanting to analyze his newly acquired abilities and treating him like a freak.

  “Me?” he says in response to Tristan’s pronouncement. “You just can’t get used to the fact I’ve got a shaved head now. I’m the same loveable old bear I’ve always been.”

  She squints at him, at first introspective, then resolute. “No, Daddy,” she says, “you’re not. Even Crocket knows something has changed in you.”

  Jake looks down to see the dog staring intently at him. Jake says a silent ‘You’re a good dog, aren’t you, boy?’ Crocket immediately puts his front paws up on Jake’s lap. He whimpers softly and licks Jake’s hand.

  Just coincidence, Jake muses.

  7

  Despite his determination to get himself into some kind of reasonable physical condition, and quickly, Jake cannot help but be influenced by the time bomb as he has come to think of it wedged in his brain. He wants desperately to jog, lift weights, and do calisthenics, and although something tells him his time is finite - that if he expects to accomplish this goal he has set for himself before it’s too late he had better get to it - he cannot bring himself to push too hard. Still, he is spurred on by the knowledge, or at least the strong sense, that finding the Goddess Slayer is up to him, that Bobby Schultz and his team will not get the job done.

  His exercise regimen begins with gentle walks around the back yard. It astounds him how wearied he is by the simple act of moving fifty feet at a snail-like pace. He perseveres, remembers it was scant months ago that doctors were preparing him for a life of paralysis. Buoyed by this realization, he pushes himself a little harder each day, gradually increasing his strength and endurance, building his confidence. But still never forgetting that the little piece of lead in his head could blast him into eternity at any moment without a second’s warning.

  It annoys him that Tristan constantly hovers nearby, cringing if he moves too fast or turns too sharply. They’ve had several heated discussions about her continued presence at home. He wants her back at UCLA, graduating with her classmates. She has lost some ground but she’s not so far back that she can’t make it up.

  Finally, she grudgingly admits, there’s little Jake will allow her to do for him at home anyway and she decides she might just as well resume her studies. She talks to Bobby Schultz about her plans and he arranges for continued police surveillance for her at school. Jake won’t hear of maintaining a watch over the house in her absence. After Bobby supplies him with a replacement for the .44 he lost to the Goddess Slayer, Jake insists, with ludicrous certainty, he can damn well look after himself.

  Far more time than he is comfortable with goes by. Tristan returns to school full time. Jake works as hard as he feels he can at his convalescence but, as frustrating as it is for him, he cannot seem to rush the process. His healing will take place in it’s own good time and there is little he seems capable of doing to alter nature’s design for him.

  He uses the abundance of time at his disposable as a result of his physical limitations to strain his mental abilities to the maximum, to plot his activities once he’s recovered enough to move about freely. He is in regular contact with Bobby Schultz and so knows what progress, or lack thereof, is being made on the official investigation. As much as he would like to find fault with Bobby’s handling of the case, the fact is he appears to be going by the book, doing everything right.
The one concern he has is that Bobby seems to have booze on his breath most of the time.

  Of course the FBI, with all it’s resources, could very likely help. But all the evidence so far indicates the killer has confined his victims to the city of Los Angeles. The FBI has no authority to become involved unless there’s substantive evidence that points to the killer having committed a crime outside the state of California. And there’s no way the LAPD will bend the rules. This is their baby and they’ll damn well deal with it. Too much loss of face to back down now. When all is said and done there is always the politics of law enforcement - the refusal by one agency to admit that another is any better at bringing criminals to justice than they are.

  One day a thought comes to Jake. He’s reminded of an FBI profiler he has worked with several times over the years. A woman by the name of Lillian Hudson. Jake has had no contact with her for five years but she was then the best there was at what she did. Her most notable success: a meticulous, on-the-mark analysis of the infamous ‘Freeway Killer.’ Without it, a cross country killing spree by Lyle Anthony Cobb which culminated in Los Angeles, might have taken years longer to bring to an end.

  Given Lillian’s age the last time Jake saw her - he figures she was in her late forties at that time - she may well be retired by now. He can only hope so. If she is, and she’s agreeable to helping him, it would avoid the problem of inter-agency politics.

  * *

  Spokane lies like a shiny jewel in a vast expanse of dreariness. Marius Dupree enters the city with a feeling of relief. He has no appreciation for the beauty of wheat fields and country roads that stretch off to the horizon. He is a man of culture. He craves big city lights, crowds, even traffic. Definitely not for him the back roads of rural America.

  It takes only a day in Spokane, however, to realize that despite it’s charm, it is still too small town for his liking.

  He is growing restless and is tired of the open road. The thought now of making the trek all the way to the mid-western states, or New England, has lost all appeal for him.

  Vancouver, British Columbia, seems the obvious choice. It isn’t more than a two day drive from where he now ponders his options. With a population of around three million it should be big enough to get happily lost in for a while. And who knows? Maybe it's even big enough to provide some of those wonderful opportunities for pleasure that Los Angeles has bestowed upon him in the past.

  * *

  About the time Dupree is crossing the border into Canada, Jake is summoning up memories of the last time he and Lillian Hudson worked together. They had developed a good working rapport during a couple of cases over the years but the Freeway Killer case had drawn them closer together than ever before. He smilingly recalls her as one of those highly intelligent, no nonsense women who have unlimited tolerance for work and little time for bullshit. Attractive in a natural way. Not big on makeup or fancy clothes. Although she was a few years older than him there had been a hint of sexual tension between them. He doubts the age difference would have made any difference to Lillian. Not that either of them had pursued any kind of relationship beyond their professional one. Some harmless flirting maybe, but that’s all. That had been when Anna was still alive and very ill - in the middle of chemotherapy treatments and radiation. Sick all the time. The last thing in the world he’d have done was chance adding to her pain by sullying their close bond. Still, Lillian was the kind of woman you had a hard time putting out of your mind.

  She’d be into her fifties now and, as he dials her number, he wonders if she has changed much.

  After two rings she picks up. Her “hello” is as recognizable as if he’d talked to her earlier in the week.

  “Hello, Lil. It’s Jake Foley.”

  “Jake, my God! How are you?”

  Unless he’s very mistaken she sounds genuinely glad to hear from him. “Still kickin’. You?”

  “Never better. It’s so nice to hear your voice. It’s been a long time. How on earth did you find me?”

  “I checked with a friend of mine in the Bureau’s San Francisco office. Figured he might be able to run you down for me. Turned out you and him are friends, too. It was as easy as that.”

  “Ernie Platt?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “How is Ernie anyway? Haven’t seen him in a long while.”

  “He’s okay. Envies you your retirement. Looking forward to joining your ranks in the next two or three years.”

  “And your wife, Jake. She’s okay?”

  “Anna died four years ago, Lil. About a year after we last worked together.”

  “I’m so sorry to hear that. I know how close you two were.”

  “Thanks. So, you’re happily retired?”

  “Yeah, well, retirement’s all right. But it’s not all it’s cracked up to be either. Once the weeding’s done, the housework’s finished, and the grandkids are shipped back home, whataya do then? But, the truth is, I’d had it, Jake. Getting inside the minds of serial killers has a way of wearing you down over time. I just felt I couldn’t do it anymore. How about you? Still kicking ass with the LAPD?”

  “Not exactly, no.”

  “No? Don’t tell me you quit police work.”

  Jake hesitates for a few heartbeats. “More like police work kinda quit me I guess.”

  “No shit. Tell me about it.”

  “Listen, Lil, is there any chance we could get together and talk? There’s been some stuff happened that I’m going to need some help with. There aren’t many people I’d trust with this and it’s not something I feel too comfortable talking about on the phone.”

  Now the hesitation comes from her end. “I don’t …”

  “Please, Lil. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

  “I know you wouldn’t. It’s just … oh, hell. Yeah, sure. Are you coming out to Sante Fe?“

  “Well, I hate to be such a pain in the ass, but I’m afraid I’m not up to traveling at the moment. If you could come out here it’d be great. On my tab, of course.”

  “You been hurt, Jake?”

  A few more heartbeats. “Yeah.”

  “Jesus, I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Can you come out?”

  “Hey, I’m as free as a bird. When do you want me?”

  “How about yesterday?”

  “I’m as good as there, kiddo. I’ll throw some stuff in a bag and get a flight out tomorrow. You got room for me at your place?”

  “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  “Gimme your address.”

  “You won’t need it. I’ll have my daughter, Tristan, pick you up.”

  “Okay, sounds good. You got e-mail?”

  “Sure.” He gives her his e-mail address.

  “I’ll e-mail you later with the flight info. Meanwhile, you sit tight and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “You’re a saint, my dear.”

  “Shit, some saint. Tomorrow.”

  “Thanks, Lil.” He re-cradles the phone with thoughts of how Tristan will take to the idea of another woman in his house.

  8

  When Tristan exits UCLA’s Commerce & Administration building the next day, Keith Abrams is sitting on the concrete steps waiting for her. “Detective Abrams, what are you doing here?” she says.

  Abrams’ cheeks redden a little. “I’m …uh, today’s official protection officer.”

  She’s aware of Abrams’ rather obvious romantic interest in her and in other circumstances would be mildly flattered. But romance is the furthest thing from her mind these days. Between trying to catch up on her studies and worrying about her father, there is little energy left for a romantic life. “And is this part of an up and coming young detective’s normal job description?”

  “Not exactly,” he admits. “Actually I’m on my own time.”

  Tristan sets a quick pace on her way to her car with Abrams nervously scuffling along beside her. “I see,” she says. “Bobby has mentioned how devoted
to duty you are.”

  “Yeah … right. Actually, I was wondering if you’d like to grab a coffee or something.”

  She stops and turns to him. “Detective Abrams, are you asking me out on a date?”

  He finds her condescending attitude annoying. “No, Miss Foley. I’m asking you if you’d like to grab a damn coffee.”

  “Sorry,” she says, with at least a hint of contrition. “But I can’t right now. My dad asked me to pick up a friend of his at the airport. She’s flying in from Sante Fe at 4:30.”

  He shrugs. “I’d have to tail you anyway. Why don’t we drop your car at your place and take my car?”

  “All right,” she says with a shrug. “If that’s what you’d prefer.”

  “So who is this lady we’re here to pick up?” Abrams asks an hour later as they pull into the short term parking lot at LAX.

  “Her name’s Lillian Hudson. She and my dad have been friends for years apparently although I’ve never met her. Dad gave me this sign to hold up with her name on it so she’ll know who I am.” From her purse she pulls a rolled up piece of foolscap on which Lillian’s name has been printed with a heavy black marker.

  “Not by any chance the Lillian Hudson of FBI fame?”

  Tristan looks at Abrams with a surprised expression. “I don’t know. He didn’t mention that. He said she was retired but didn’t say from what.”

  “Well, if it is her she’s quite a legend. She was a profiler, credited with bringing down several of the worst serial killers in history.”

  Tristan fumes at the news that her father, despite being officially retired and on medical disability from the LAPD, is planning to embroil himself in the search for the Goddess Slayer. A move she is, of course, vehemently opposed to. This is exactly the kind of thing he has been warned to avoid. The kind of thing that could very well kill him.