by B. J. Woster
“I’ll tell you what it means,” Christian answered the query in a treacherous tone, “it means that in order for the Atlanta Police Department to take me seriously, I’m going to have to hit closer to home. They’re going to stop blaming me for their incompetence and start taking my calls.”
Chapter 25
Solemn faces filled the captain’s office an hour later. No one spoke for the longest time as each processed the results of yet another failure.
All four detectives sat around the room in deep contemplation, but the captain had officers Johnson and Peters remain standing at attention. He sat glaring at them and then finally felt confident enough to question first, not kill them both first.
“Tell me again what happened,” he asked, keeping a tight rein on his calm demeanor.
Johnson and Peters glanced at each other, and then Johnson began to relay the details again, “When we arrived at Bank of America Plaza, we inspected all of the maintenance closets, but when we arrived at the lower level, there was a maintenance vehicle parked in front of the last closet. We made an erroneous assumption that the worker would’ve informed APD if he’d found a body. With time in short supply, we felt we’d be better served searching our other locations. We didn’t know, until we returned to APD that we’d likely made an error in judgment.”
“Explain to me why you thought you could make that sort of major decision without consulting a superior officer,” the captain barked after the officers relayed, again, their version of events after seeing the utility vehicle, “especially when you knew the direness of the situation, and were explicitly instructed not to overlook a single solitary closet. One radio call…” The captain closed his eyes and drew in several deep, calming breaths as he felt himself rapidly losing control of his temper.
“We assumed—” Peters started, but was interrupted.
“Well, you assumed wrong, you jackasses,” Cortez snapped.
“Easy, Cortez,” Hardwick interjected. “Precious time was lost because of the decision you two made. Had you not assumed, had you consulted with the captain, then there is no doubt that Sequoia Richardson would still be alive. I’ve checked your records. You called in the search of the Bank of America Plaza two hours before deadline. Two hours. That venom wasn’t released into her system until Price’s deadline was reached, so if you’d have checked the closet…” It was Hardwick’s turn to stop talking and take deep breaths. If he had his way, he’d strangle these two officers; draw out their very life force, run to the morgue, and inject that into Richardson’s lifeless body.
After several more minutes of silence, the captain finally spoke up again, “Because of your blunder, a woman lost her life and Price, in all likelihood, is going to abduct someone else, so, someone else’s life will likely now be on the line. Therefore, I’m recommending to IA that they forgo an investigation and terminate your employment with the Atlanta Police Department, posthaste. Based on the overwhelming evidence available and your own admission of incompetence, I see little need to drag things out with an investigation that will draw the same conclusions and result in the same outcome. You are, of course, entitled to seek council and are, of course, entitled to request an investigation despite my recommendations; however, be advised that if you try to change your stories or place blame at anyone’s doorstep but your own, I will also recommend that you be charged with accessory to murder. You also know that this interview is being recorded, so any attempts to weasel your way out of this won’t work. At this point, IA may very well turn you over to the DA for prosecution without even consulting me. You’re both just fortunate that the press didn’t get wind of your royal screw up because if anything causes them to shift focus away from the lunatic that we are trying to stop onto the ineptitude of the APD, I will end you myself. Now get out of here and clear out your desks. You’re both suspended pending further notification. If I thought it was safe, I’d have you both out of this building before the shit hits the fan again; however, I can’t risk someone seeing two members of the APD leaving to go home, so you’re to stay in the building until this is over.”
“When do you think that’s likely to happen, precisely?” Wilson asked solemnly, as Johnson and Peters shuffled from the room. “The shit, I mean. Any word from Price?”
The captain shook his head, “No, we haven’t heard a peep, which I’m certain, in this case, does not translate to good news.”
Chapter 26
A few blocks from the precinct office, Price sat watching the activity of officers milling about the grounds; his gaze narrow, his breath fuming. He parked along the curb next to an adolescent oak, with branches just high and wide enough to cast his car into the shadows. His purpose for selecting this spot was simple—he needed a place that would obscure him from any traffic or building cameras that might be in the area.
Had he been thinking rationally at this point, he would simply abandon this city and chalk this experiment up to a disastrous failure. It was obvious after the Sequoia Richardson fiasco that this particular department was beyond hope and that made him feel a deep sorrow for its citizens.
The sorrow vanished and his ire elevated when he thought about how simple it should have been for the police to locate Richardson. He’d given them every opportunity to find her in time, had all but drawn a map with an ‘x’ marking the spot. Still, he’d realized that the scene had been set for possible failure, with the arrival of the maintenance worker. He knew that a passing patrol could very well assume that the worker had accessed the closet already. Perhaps the failure had been his in crediting the officers with more reasoning skills than they actually possessed. He sighed heavily. It didn’t matter, for they’d still botched her rescue.
He didn’t know what he was going to do yet, but he knew that it would need to send a message that no officer at the APD would be able to overlook. First though, he needed to locate a place nearby to set up his equipment. Remaining in his car at the upper level of the parking structure had seemed a logical choice at the time, but the number of police officers coming and going had made him more nervous than he’d ever been prior. It had become an active crime scene, so he was very surprised that he’d been able to leave without being waylaid by any number of police officers nearby. Apparently, they hadn’t thought that the murderer would be casually leaving the scene of the crime, so no one attempted to stop or question him. As far as they knew, he was just another employee being asked to leave the area.
He certainly needed to leave this area. It wouldn’t be long before someone noticed his vehicle, so he started up his engine and pulled onto Ted Turner Drive in search of the nearest apartment complex. He didn’t have time to find the perfect patsy this time; there simply wasn’t time. He needed a place to set up, lay low, and start planning.
No matter who he decided to abduct this next time, he was going to need days to plan, now that he’d gone past his self-imposed safety time zone. To him, it was like starting over in a new city, and starting over required planning. The thought had his nerves skipping. He’d never remained in a city this long and never had to arrange so many abductions, which caused him to shiver nervously. If he didn’t prepare carefully, he’d be on death row after this, and he couldn’t allow that to happen.
“Think,” he whispered, rapping on his head. “How can you make the APD really sorry for messing things up this time?” He continued to rap on his head as he pulled into an apartment complex’s parking lot around the corner from the APD. He slowly drove in circles to ensure there was no activity around the building. No police presence or heavy pedestrian traffic. If he were going to find a place in this building, he’d need to come and go unseen.
When he was as confident as he could be that he could find an apartment here without fear of detection, he parked in a far corner, climbed out of his vehicle and approached the first apartment he came to on the lower landing. He knocked sharply and waited. There was no response.
“Possibly at work,” he muttered. He looked about surre
ptitiously and leapt over the patio railing. He hoped that the current tenant felt secure enough or was careless enough to leave their patio door unlatched. He tugged at the door and grinned as it slid open. He couldn’t believe his luck, and once more, attributed his good fortune to fate’s intervention.
He walked in, trying to ascertain just how many people resided there. If a family, he’d have to move on to another apartment and prayed his luck held. Subduing one person was tricky enough. Subduing parents and children…he didn’t want to risk it. His fortune continued to hold as he moved about the place. It was a studio apartment, which meant either a single person or a couple. He made his way to the bathroom to see if he could clear up that question and was nearly giddy when he found only one electric toothbrush on the counter. His relief waned slightly when he also saw the men’s razor next to it.
This left him with a choice to make—attempt to take the resident by surprise when he arrived home or attempt to find another place to occupy. He paced the small studio and quickly came to a decision.
With a quick peak out the door, he made his way back to his vehicle and hauled everything back to the apartment. He didn’t know what time to expect the arrival of the resident, but he had work to do in the meantime. When the resident arrived back, he’d just have to be ready for him.
He’d just set everything down when he heard a movement outside the door. He nearly jumped out of his skin, but quickly composed himself, rooting quickly in his satchel for the chloroform and cloth. As soon as he had both firmly in hand, he dashed to stand out of sight next to the front door. It was then his gaze fell on the lock. He’d not secured it again, which meant the apartment dweller may become suspicious…the doorknob turned.
As always, Price knew he’d need to act fast if he were to subdue his prey. He only prayed that the man entering wasn’t over six feet, or getting the chloroform over his nose was going to prove difficult.
The door swung open and the shadow of the person filled the room. It was a big shadow.
Damn! Christian exclaimed tacitly and for the first time in a long time, he found himself having to think on his feet, to act without forethought.
Without hesitation, Christian lowered his stance and rammed into the door as hard as he could, knocking the person against the jamb. It was a sharp enough thud to daze the man, but not enough to knock him off his feet. Christian needed to move fast. He recovered his footing quickly and then moved swiftly around the door, kicking at the man’s knees sharply. The man grunted and fell. Christian moved behind him and slapped the chloroform rag over the man’s mouth. If the chloroform didn’t work quickly though, or if he’d failed to apply sufficient liquid to the rag, he knew he’d be in for a world of hurt since this man was so muscular as to raise suspicions of steroid use.
Christian pressed the rag more firmly over the man’s nose and mouth, as the man’s arms started to flail slightly; however, it was too little effort too late. The chloroform began to do its job. As always though, he wasn’t taking any chances that it was ruse, bending so he could keep the rag firmly in place. His nerves were on fire as he waited for what seemed an interminable amount of time. Not only was he at risk of this man not becoming fully unconscious, but also that someone else would come strolling along and witness the goings on.
When he was fairly certain it was safe, he tugged at the man’s arm until he cleared the portal and then shut the door. Muttering about inconveniences beneath his breath, Christian went back to his satchel and retrieved a syringe of his sleep formula. He always kept plenty on hand, in the event he needed to incapacitate someone efficiently and speedily—as now.
“Now to ensure you don’t awaken from your nightmare anytime soon.” Without hesitation, he grabbed his limp, bulky arm and jammed the needle into the vein. Under any other circumstance, when he wasn’t so agitated, he would take his time, reassuring the person on the receiving end of his machinations, that they would be just fine. He would coo and stroke; all to ease those nightmares that he assumed they’d have for years to come. He knew the Rohypnol would erase a majority of their memories, but memories didn’t necessarily remain gone forever. He’d also, under optimal conditions, drag the occupant to their bedroom to position them cozily on their beds. That wasn’t going to be possible in this circumstance because of the man’s weight.
He knelt down next to his current detainee, sighed heavily and sighed again, “Just using you would make this far more efficient. I could simply call in that the next victim is at the Highland Walk Apartment Complex. The police would swarm into the area, lock it down, and find you in less than three hours. By the time they arrive, I could be in my car and headed on to the next city on my list. That would be the smartest move, since I’m running low on supplies and even lower on ideas, but what good would that do? That wouldn’t require any detecting on their part. Of course, telling them where Sequoia Richardson was located didn’t require any detecting either. Come to think about it, no detective work has ever really been required by the local police.”
Daniel—better known to law enforcement as Christian Price—stood and started pacing, angry again.
“I’m not effecting any change at all, am I? The only detective work that’s been done was when Hardwick was after me. In every other circumstance, the victims were only located because I fed the police clues as to their whereabouts. Just how is this making the police more efficient, less apathetic?”
Daniel started pounding on his head again, now trying to justify his taking of lives in an attempt to improve local law enforcement procedures. “How can I make them truly accountable for the individual I seize, if all they have to do is follow a few crumbs to the location? I need to change that. I need to find a way to make them use what limited brainpower they seem to possess. Think, Daniel, think!” He began pounding on his head again as he paced about the room, like an unwilling fighting pitbull in its captor’s cage. When the pounding produced no more than a headache, he sat down, and started breathing in and out slowly through his nostrils, "Okay, let’s review what transpired here: With Sandra McIntyre, I didn’t offer the police any clues at all. The husband simply reported her missing, just as I did with my wife. After thirty-six hours, I placed an anonymous call to the police informing them that there was a body found in the warehouse district. That was the same length of time it took for someone to locate my wife’s body and report it to the police.
“Up until I kidnapped Brooke Madison, the McIntyre case was still open, still ongoing. No clues, no apparent chance of solving it. In every initial case, that’s been the case; which drew me to the conclusion that a simple reporting of a missing person was next to useless, so to give the police a fair shake; I upped the ante, to see if they could solve a crime with clues. Therefore, I had Brooke call 911 and, sure enough, she provided a clue that connected her to McIntyre—a warehouse. I provided the second clue connecting the two—the thirty-six-hour window. That should have provided sufficient information for them to locate her in time, but no, Hardwick had to shift his focus to finding me. And that’s where the dissimilarities with other cities truly began.” He laughed shortly, “I do have to give Hardwick credit, though. He did some fine detective work there. He nearly had me ensnared. The difference here is that, detectives in the other cities focused on using the massive clues provided and got to their second or third victim with hours to spare.”
Daniel sighed again, “Okay, third victim here in Atlanta. I’m going to assume that someone overlooked a key location simply because they drew an incorrect assumption. Still, even had the officer had not messed up, there was still no detecting going on. I all but told them that Sequoia Richardson was in a parking structure; so, in truth, it was just an all-out manhunt? Now, looking back at every city I’ve been in, it’s been the same. Give the police a chance to do their job, and when they fail, I feed them a tiny nibble to see if they can succeed. When they fail again, I turn it into no more than a manhunt requiring no policing skills at all. I’ve done absolu
tely no good. What I can’t fathom is how I didn’t see this before.”
Daniel slapped himself hard on the head, winced, and then did it again, “I got derailed somewhere along the line. What started out as a test of police competency after failing to find my wife’s murderer has turned into no more than my own murder spree. I have to find a way to shift it back, to find my purpose again. I’m not a killer, I’m a scientist, and I have to make my experiments mean something again, make the deaths purposeful.”
He checked the man lying on the floor once more, to ensure he was in a deep sleep, “It would be easier to simply use you, but I don’t think you’re important enough to the APD; I think they need to care about the victim to make a truly phenomenal effort. Time to get to work.”
Chapter 27
“It’s been four days,” Hardwick observed, pouring a cup of coffee before heading toward a chair in the little commissary, “and not a peep out of Price.”
“Maybe the bastard’s moved on,” Wilson offered, moving to pour his own cup.
“Nah, he’s just yanking us,” Harding said before shoving the rest of a muffin in his mouth.
“Yeah, that’s the impression I’m getting,” Cortez added, taking a sip of his apple juice. “I think the sick son-of-a-bitch is playing us. Making us suffer for letting Richardson die.”
“He’s a son-of-a-bitch all right, and he’s out there, right now, planning some major retribution,” Harding concurred, “and it ain’t gonna be pretty.”
“You don’t think he’s done with the APD then?” Wilson replied, settling at the table with his oatmeal and coffee. “I mean, doesn’t he usually quit each city after three victims?”
Hardwick shook his head, “Yeah, that’s been his M.O., but we screwed up the last one, remember? I don’t think he’s going to forgive us for that one. No, I think Harding is right. He’s working on something else, and I think this time he’s not going to be so forthcoming with the details needed to find the victim so easily.”
