A Killing Rain

by P J Parrish

  Vargas chewed at his cuticles as he stared at the parade of uniforms. Things had gotten fucked up again.

  They still weren’t sure Outlaw was dead. Hell, now they weren’t even sure that had been Outlaw last night. The TV said he was dead, but Byron said they couldn’t trust it, that they had to be sure this time.

  So now Byron had a new plan. A way to find out for sure.

  Vargas turned on the wipers to clear the drizzle, his eyes watching the cops. They seemed to travel in pairs. He needed a guy by himself and he was getting tired of waiting.

  For once in your life, Adam, be patient. Don’t kill the first cop you see and don’t take a cop from Sereno Key. It’s a small department. They know each other. Get one from the county sheriff. They got lots of them.

  Vargas looked up at the darkening sky. The heavy clouds were lead-colored, but the rain had turned misty, hovering in the air like gray wet ghosts. He knew it was only five P.M. but it was almost dark. That would probably be better anyway, doing this after dark.

  A tall guy came out, pausing to zip up his dark green jacket. Good...he was the right size. His hair was dark, clipped short, high above his ears. He walked with long strides, arms bent, eyes jumping around the parking lot.

  Vargas sat up in the seat, watching as the cop put on black leather gloves.

  The cop climbed into a marked cruiser and drove out of the lot, turning east. Vargas followed.

  The cop didn’t seem to be in a hurry, barely doing the speed limit. Vargas could tail him easily, the cruiser’s bubble lights visible even in traffic.

  Vargas followed him for over an hour. He watched the cop make a traffic stop, cruise through McDonald’s for a burger, stop and chat with a guy in another cruiser, and finally pull into one of those huge convenience store plazas with a Pizza Hut counter inside and fifteen gas pumps outside. Vargas pulled in after him and watched as the cop disappeared toward the back of the store.

  Piss stop. Perfect.

  Vargas got out, and pulled his T-shirt over his belt, covering the sheath of the knife. He hurried through the rain into the store and back to the restrooms. He pushed on the door with his shoulder, afraid it might be a one-person bathroom and the door would be locked. But it swung open. And it had a latch-type lock on the inside that he could flip closed.

  It was a big john with bright florescent lights and white tile floors. The porcelain urinals and sinks gleamed from a fresh rub-down of Formula 409. The stalls were painted aqua blue, the handles as polished as rich people’s silverware.

  As Vargas let the door wheeze close, the cop turned to look at him over his shoulder. Vargas gave him a friendly nod. As the cop turned away, Vargas coughed, watching to see if the cop looked his way. When he didn't, Vargas hacked again, using the sound to cover the click as he used his elbow to lock the door.

  Byron’s words were there in his head again, guiding him.

  You can't slit his throat, Adam. You’ll mess up the uniform. Use this. It has a knot in the middle. Come up from behind and get this on his throat right in the middle. You’ll have to jerk it real good.

  Vargas put his hand in his pocket and drew out a small cord that Byron had cut from the drapes at the motel. He unzipped his pants with the other hand as he approached the urinals so the cop would hear the sound he was expecting to hear. The cop was shaking himself off when the cord went around his neck, and Vargas could feel it catch in the folds of skin as the cop’s chin instinctively came down toward his chest.

  Vargas gave the cord a quick snap, drawing it tight.

  The cop started to struggle, one hand raking at the cord around his neck, the other grappling for the gun on his belt. The cop managed to grab the grip and was fighting to free the gun from the holster.

  Vargas slammed him sideways into the stall partition, smashing the right side of his body against the wall. He heard a clatter of metal and saw the gun skitter across the tile.

  Vargas jerked the cord again, pulling it so tight he could feel the loop getting smaller as it cut deeper and deeper into the cop’s neck. The cop was weakening, his sputtering starting to fade to gasping whispers. Vargas gave him one last shove forward, ramming his head into the top of the urinal.

  The cop’s head hit with a fleshy thud and he crumbled to the floor, the upper part of his body supported only by the cord still in Vargas’s hands.

  Vargas dropped the cord and leaned against the sink, drawing deep breaths.

  Jesus. Motherfucking asshole wouldn’t die.

  The door rattled. He had to hurry.

  Vargas dragged the cop to the last stall and flopped him down. Pulling off his own jeans and T-shirt, he bent and started stripping the cop. He was dead weight, and damp and fleshy, and nothing was coming off easily. Vargas broke a lace trying to get the shoes off.

  Damn it. Damn it. He was going to blow this. He knew it.

  He worked quickly to dress himself, his fingers shaking as he buttoned the dark green uniform shirt.

  The door rattled again.

  Vargas zipped and hooked the pants, hoisting up the utility belt and pulling it tight across his belly to buckle it. He was surprised it was so heavy, even without the gun.

  The gun.

  Vargas dropped to his knees and searched the tile floor. He spotted the gun in the first stall and quickly retrieved it, careful not to touch the stall wall.

  When he stood, he caught sight of himself in the mirror.

  Shit...

  The white shirt stretched tight across his chest and the gold star gleamed under the florescent lights. The gun belt was snug on his hips, the stripe down the green pants perfectly aligned.

  It fit. It fit...perfect.

  Vargas took a step back, staring at himself in the mirror, a smile creeping onto his face. He spread his feet and cocked his hand over the gun. With a jerk, he moved to draw the gun. But it sat too high on his belt. The barrel caught in the holster as he tried to whip it out and the gun almost spun out of his hand.

  Damn it.

  He’d have to lower the belt so it rested more on his hip.

  Another rattle of the door.

  Vargas hurried back to the cop, and wedged his own sneakers onto the man’s feet. He almost touched the door handle but stopped in time, grabbed a wad of toilet paper and used it to lock the stall door. He crawled out underneath on his elbows. Grabbing the green nylon Lee County Sheriff’s Department parka, he threw it on, and stuffed his T-shirt and jeans inside before zipping it.

  Using his forearm, he flipped up the door lock. A guy was waiting outside, his knees kind of squeezed together. But he took a respectful step back, seeing the uniform. Vargas didn’t acknowledge him, walking from the store.

  Outside, he reached into the jacket pocket and retrieved the cop’s black gloves, pulling them on as he walked.

  He walked slowly, holding himself tall. Tall and perfect.

  Perfect. This was fucking perfect. Byron would be proud. He had done good so far...didn’t leave a print, didn’t make a sound.

  Perfect. All he needed now was a hat.

  When he reached the cruiser, he paused for a moment, admiring it then pulled the door open. He stared at the radio, at all the lights and gadgets and buttons and things. And the big locked-down shotgun between the seats. He eased into the driver’s seat.

  He started the car, and sat there for a moment, hands resting on the wheel. His eyes went to the brimmed hat sitting on the passenger seat.

  He picked it up and put it on. He sat higher in the seat to look at himself in the rearview mirror. He smiled.

  It wasn’t exactly a cowboy hat, but it would do.

  He was inside the door. He couldn’t believe how easy it was. The asshole outside hadn’t given him a second look. The cop inside had even opened the door for him. His name tag read A. JEWELL. Vargas figured him to be about his own age, maybe twenty-three or twenty-four. He had fair, scrubbed skin, short blond hair, a shaved neck, and lots of ear showing. A rookie.

  “The
sheriff asked you to stop by?” Jewell asked.

  Vargas smiled as he took off his hat. “Yeah, wanted to know if you guys needed anything. I had a few extra minutes.”

  “I could use a hot meal. We’ve been living on soup, peanut butter, and coffee.”

  “I'll stand watch if you want to run and get something.”

  Jewell looked toward the back bedrooms then shook his head. “No, I better not. I need to stay here.”

  Vargas shrugged. “No problem.”

  Jewell’s eyes lingered on him a few more seconds.

  The gloves. He's looking at the gloves. No, the gun belt is too low. Shit.

  Jewell finally wandered into the kitchen. Vargas came deeper into the living room and looked around, edging toward the hallway. One of the bedroom doors was open and inside he could see a black woman. She was folding towels and stacking them on the bed. She had to be the mother. She didn’t look very happy.

  She looked up and saw him, and Vargas tensed, his heart jumping at the thought she might somehow know he wasn't a cop, or somehow know through some weird maternal thing that he was the man who had taken her child. Her brown eyes remained on him for a moment and he gave her a nervous smile. She didn’t return the smile, but instead reached out and softly closed the door.

  Vargas set the hat down on the table near the front door and went to the kitchen. There was a weird black contraption hooked to the phone, a bulletproof vest hanging on a chair, and a tape recorder on the kitchen table. Next to the recorder was an empty coffee cup and a manila folder. Paper-clipped to the front of the folder was a black and white photo of Byron Ellis.

  Jewell was pouring himself a cup of coffee. For a second, Vargas thought about shooting him but knew the cop outside, the woman, and anyone else in the house, would hear the shot. Plus he wasn’t sure how quick he could get that damn gun out of that dipshit holster. Especially with gloves on.

  “Where is everyone?” Vargas asked.

  Jewell didn’t look up as he added sugar. “The Chief is back at the station, Detective Frye is staying out on Captiva at Mr. Kincaid’s place. And I’m not sure where Mr. Kincaid is.”

  Vargas turned away. He wasn’t sure who any of those people were, but he did know that Jewell didn’t mention Outlaw. Outlaw was either in the morgue or in this house.

  He moved back to the hall, glancing behind him. The second bedroom door was cracked, and Vargas placed a gloved hand against it, pushing it open gently.

  There was someone on the lower bunk bed, a nightlight illuminating his dark brown face and curly black hair. His hands were under his head and he was snoring softly. This was Outlaw. He could see it now. This was the guy they had first seen in the park. How the hell could he have mistaken that other guy for this asshole?

  Vargas’s hand moved to the knife hidden under his jacket and he wondered if he could do it now. But then he heard Byron ragging on him again.

  Don’t try anything in the house unless you are sure you can get away. Don't be a fucking cowboy, Adam. I need you to come back safe.

  If he did Outlaw now, he would have only a few seconds to get out of the house and back across the causeway. He’d have to do the woman and the cop, too.

  “What are you doing?”

  Vargas spun around and he found himself face to face with Jewell. His hand almost came out with the knife. But Jewell stepped back quickly, too far for Vargas to get a quick swing. Jewell’s hand was resting on the butt of his gun, and his holster snap was undone.

  Vargas brought his hand from his jacket, empty. “Just looking.”

  Jewell was staring at Vargas’s chest and it took Vargas a second to realize the sheriff’s jacket was open far enough to reveal the gold star, name badge, and everything else on the shirt.

  “Lieutenant Zompa,” Jewell said, a new hint of respect in his voice. “I’m sorry. But we should leave the man alone. He was up most of the night.”

  “Right,” Vargas said. “No problem.”

  Jewell turned his back and started back into the living room. Vargas’s hand went into his jacket again.

  Another door opened. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Vargas turned to see the black woman.

  “It’s bad enough I have to have all of you in my house day and night,” the woman said, glaring at Vargas. “But you don’t have to keep looking in my son’s room like it was some kind of freak show.”

  She put out her hand and gave Vargas a shove. He stumbled, surprised the woman would even touch him. She pushed him again.

  “Go do whatever it is you do here outside. I’m sick of all of you!”

  Vargas hesitated.

  “You’d better go, sir,” Jewell said.

  Without a word, Vargas turned, grabbed the hat off the table and left. He was in the car and down the street before he realized how hard his heart was pounding.

  That bitch. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. He had been so close. He had almost done it. But he knew what Byron would say. Almost wasn’t good enough. Almost was never good enough.

  His eyes dropped to the clock on the dashboard. He calculated how long he’d been gone overall. Less than thirty- five minutes. How long did it take before cops started wondering why some dead cop in the john wasn’t answering his radio?

  Vargas made the causeway, cruising through, the Sereno Key cop in the parked cruiser giving him a wave. He hit the traffic of Fort Myers and took Cleveland Avenue back to the convenience store. He slowed a few blocks south of the store, looking for some sign that the dead cop had been found. But he saw none.

  He pulled into a mall, parking the cruiser between a van and a motor home as far away from Cleveland Avenue as he could. He got out of the cruiser and locked it, his T-shirt and jeans stuffed inside the hat he carried under his arm.

  He walked quickly across the parking lot, over to Winkler. He went around the back of a deli and disappeared behind some Dumpsters. Except for the gloves, he stripped again, the wind biting at his skin as he struggled back into his jeans and T-shirt. He put the cop’s gun in the waistband of his pants.

  He looked at the hat.

  He wanted to keep it but if there was some kind of setup back at the convenience store, he’d be busted big time walking back to his Camaro carrying this. He couldn’t risk it.

  He wrapped the hat inside the uniform shirt and placed it gently on top of the trash in the Dumpster. He’d come back for it later.

  CHAPTER 29

  Tuesday morning, January 19

  Louis and Joe emptied their pockets into plastic trays and handed over their guns and IDs to a tight-faced correctional officer. He studied the IDs, checked a long list of names then handed them back. They were searched, patted down, then scanned with a wand. Another officer flipped through Joe’s manila folder, then handed it back to her without a word.

  Louis followed Joe to a second building and they were searched again by officers as stone-like as the structure itself. Another short walk down a narrow hall, not deep into the prison at all. The correctional officer opened a door and they went inside a small room.

  It was plain and damp, only a table and two chairs. The metal table was secured to the concrete floor with bolts.

  They heard Yancy Rowen coming before they saw him. A steady rhythm of clanging chains and shuffling feet.

  Two corrections officers moved him in through the doorway. Yancy Rowen was a tall man, thin but heavily muscled, his arms hanging from the sleeves of the blue prison smock like thick lengths of knotted black rope. There was a heavy chain around his waist that fed into a black lock box. A second chain went down to the cuffs around his ankles. His hands were cuffed to the box, so he couldn’t move his arms more than a few inches.

  Rowen’s face was long, with a wide jutting chin at the bottom and a smoothly shaved scalp at the top. His lips turned down at the corner and his hooded eyes were set deep into the sockets. Under his left eye was a small tattoo of a teardrop.

  His gaze shifted from Louis to Joe and came back
to Louis. They didn’t leave Louis’s face as a guard locked the handcuffs to a metal loop embedded in the small table. The other guard was working on locking the ankle cuffs to one of the table’s legs.

  Joe waited until both the officers had retreated to their posts flanking the door. She had a copy of Rowen’s record and she set it down on the table between them.

  Louis had read Rowen’s sheet already. A short history that began with grand theft motor vehicle and ended with a series of armed robberies committed with his older brother where a man was shot and killed. Louis remembered that Byron Ellis had been a car thief, too.

  “Mr. Rowen, my name is Detective Frye. Miami Police Department,” Joe said, slipping into a chair.

  Rowen’s eyes drifted over to her face. “What you want from me?” he asked.

  “Help.”

  “What kind of help?”

  “Information about Byron Ellis.”

  Rowen just stared at her.

  “Ellis has partnered up with someone that we think he might have met inside. It’s important we identify this other man.”

  Rowen’s stare grew colder. Joe held it for a few more seconds then sat back in her chair. She glanced at Louis.

  “Ellis has abducted a boy,” Louis said.

  Rowen’s eyes swung slowly back to Louis. “Boy? How old?”

  “Eleven,” Louis said.

  Rowan gave a small snort. He tried to slump in the chair, but the wrist loops held him in place.

  “We need to find Ellis,” Joe said. “We need to find the man he’s with.”

  Rowen didn’t move. But Louis could see a vein pulsing in his neck.

  Joe flipped through Rowen’s papers. “You have a parole hearing coming up in six months. How about we tell the board you helped us save a boy’s life?”

  Rowen’s lips tipped into a smile.

  “Mr. Rowen?” Joe said.