36 Hours

by B. J. Woster

  Chapter 38

  Daniel was beside himself with questions. He’d flipped on the television at precisely 11 p.m., but he hadn’t been able to locate the Atlanta news network. In fact, he’d only been able to pick up about four local channels because, in his haste, he’d chosen a motel with no cable. He was livid. He reached for his disposable cell, but then realized that he’d done what he always did—disposed of his disposable cell before departing a city in which he’d concluded testing.

  He picked up the receiver from the phone on the nightstand and dialed the front desk. When the night manager answered, he immediately launched into a tirade, “Clearly displayed on your sign out front are the words ‘Cable TV’, yet here I sit in my room with absolutely no cable television.”

  “My apologies sir,” the concierge replied politely, “but our cable is out. We had a storm blow through earlier today that knocked out service to most of the area.”

  “And you didn’t bother to inform me when I checked-in? Next, you’ll be telling me that the storm washed away your food stores and you won’t be offering a free breakfast either.”

  “My apologies again, sir. If it’ll assist any, I’ll be happy to take twenty—” Before the clerk could conclude his offer, Daniel hung up. He gathered up his wallet and jacket and then headed out. He was so agitated at being in the dark, that he nearly forgot that he was in a foreign city and it was rapidly approaching midnight. He nearly returned to his room, but a glance down the backstreet where his motel was nestled, revealed the lights of a convenience store on the other side of the main road, so instead of heading back to his room, he headed for his car instead. He wasn’t a drinker, but not knowing what was happening in Atlanta made him want to purchase a six-pack and drink every single can within minutes.

  He pulled into the deserted parking lot and headed inside the equally deserted store.

  “Evening,” the woman behind the register muttered unenthusiastically, “can I help you?”

  “Can you exchange this for a roll of quarters, please?” Daniel requested politely, placing a ten-dollar bill on the counter. “And point me toward a pay phone?”

  “I ain’t supposed to give out our quarters,” she said in a tone that suggested that even a moron knew that.

  He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, “I need to make an urgent long distance phone call, or I wouldn’t bother you for the quarters.” He slid another ten from his wallet and placed it next to the other. “For you; for your trouble.”

  She picked up the one bill and slid it into her pocket, and then went to the register to exchange it for the quarters, muttering beneath her breath about people buying cell phones nowadays for a reason. She placed the quarters on the counter, and then returned to her chair, completely disinterested in assisting him further.

  “The pay phone?”

  “Ain’t got one here. The nearest one I know of is down the road a spell. Down at the Cracker Barrel.”

  Daniel picked up the quarters and slid them into his pocket.

  “Do you have a location around here that sells burner phones? Pay-as-you-go type deals?”

  “Nothing open at this hour,” the clerk replied, and Daniel thought of the old adage of pulling teeth.

  “I was thinking more along the lines of when things did open,” he said, trying to keep his manner polite.

  The clerk sighed, annoyed at being bothered. It was apparent by her apathy that she chose this shift because she wasn’t a people person, “There’s a Walmart down the road from the Cracker Barrel. They might have something.”

  “Thanks,” Christian replied and headed toward the exit. When he reached the door, he turned back and cleared his throat loudly. When she looked up, he pointed left and then right, “Cracker Barrel?”

  She returned the gesture by pointing left, “Down Ringgold.”

  “Thanks,” he muttered, and headed for the car.

  Less than ten minutes later, he spotted the Cracker Barrel’s empty parking lot and pulled in. He slowly drove the length of the building, and finally spotted the phone booth near the front entrance.

  He pulled over, turned off his car, and slid out. He dug in his pants pocket and pulled out the paper upon which he’d written the Atlanta Police Department’s phone number, something he nearly forgot to do before he disposed of his disposable phone. There certainly weren’t enough coins in his pocket to dial directory assistance first. He laid the paper on the tiny ledge while he unrolled his coins. He fed the coins into the slot, then set about dialing the number.

  “Atlanta Police Department, Zone 5.”

  “This is Christian Price…”

  “Hold please.”

  While he waited, he tapped the ledge in impatience. He’d not used a payphone in more than a decade, but he knew that the calls weren’t cheap and he didn’t want this call interrupted. A minute later, the transferred call was answered.

  “Detective Hardwick.”

  “Well, Detective, still at your desk after midnight? I’m not certain whether that translates to good news or bad. Still, you can guess why I’m calling?”

  “To confess your crimes and turn yourself in?”

  “Touché, Detective, but no; I am merely calling to inquire as to the well-being of Officer Mendocino. I assume that the search was successful, especially as I saw, before departing Atlanta, that the lights in your precinct shone brightly?” There was an accusatory tone in Price’s query that Hardwick didn’t overlook.

  “I figured a man like you would be all over the news and would know immediately whether we’d located her.”

  “You’ve located her alive, I trust?”

  “Do you really care?”

  “I get that you’re attempting to stall, Detective, to attempt to run a trace on my location, so I’ll be candid. Even if you managed to run a trace, I already stated that I’m no longer within reach of the Atlanta Police Department, and am going to be long gone from this place also, very soon, so, you may as well let me know whether you found your officer alive, since it isn’t a likelihood that you’ll be able to find me. I must confess to being furious at seeing those lights blazing. Quite disheartening. I also must confess to being outraged at knowing you blatantly ignored my instructions for a complete power outage.”

  “So if you weren’t certain as to the outcome of the search, why did you leave Atlanta? I thought you didn’t quit as long as the police department continued to fail in its efforts.”

  Daniel sighed heavily, “Sadly, I felt as if your department was beyond hope.”

  Hardwick’s mind immediately agreed, which caused him to shake himself mentally in anger. He’d never failed so miserably at any investigation, and that had him questioning his own competence, which made him feel worthless. He certainly didn’t need a murderer confirming those feelings.

  “Your opinion is worth squat,” he spat in reply.

  “Maybe, but I’ll disagree. You know, I tried desperately to set you on a path to betterment, but my efforts were a complete failure. Thus, I felt it prudent to move on. Now, I’m going to hang up in just a moment, but I would like to know whether your officer is alive.”

  “I just bet you would. Well, you know what? You’ll have to find your information from a different news source. I’m not interested in easing your conscious—Daniel.”

  The line went dead and Daniel stood for a moment staring slack-jawed at the receiver in his hand. After a moment, he grinned, but it lacked any humor, “Kudos, Detective. No one prior has ascertained my identity. Well done.” He replaced the receiver, but his anger quickly elevated again at not having received the answers he sought. He would, indeed, need to locate an alternate source for his answers, but it wouldn’t come from the place he was staying the night, with no cable. Perhaps the Wi-Fi would be up and he could locate a web-broadcast of the Atlanta news. If not, he’d need to find a different motel in a different city, tonight, and set the alarm for early tomorrow morning. He couldn’t go too far, or he’d be outside the
Atlanta viewing area. He wouldn’t sleep anyway until he knew.

  “Gives me your money,” an African American man in tattered clothing spat at him from between two missing front teeth.

  “How about I just give you some money for booze?” Daniel patronized, pulling out his wallet. He was angry and in no mood to pander to the needs of the local degenerates. Had anger not overshadowed his common sense, he’d have thought twice about enraging a homeless man.

  “What? Yous think that just ’cause I’s in a hard way that I be a drunk or sumpin? Whos you think you is anyways?”

  “Fine, you don’t need money for booze. I’ll just give you a twenty for whatever it is you need money for.” Daniel sifted through the bills in his wallet, searching for the smaller denominations. He tossed the money at the man and then started toward his car. The man stepped in front of him.

  “And I says to give me the whole damned thing,” the man snapped, snatching at the wallet in Daniel’s hand.

  Daniel’s reflexes were sharp and he jerked back, “And I say that if you’re going to demand a hand-out, the least you can do is take what you’re offered.”

  “You thinkin’ that just because we homeless that we ain’t got our pride?” another voice interjected, slamming a foot into Daniel’s back. “You think that you can just throw money at us like we’re nothing?”

  Daniel hadn’t realized that there were two homeless men, which had likely been the intent. Keep him preoccupied so that the other could render him defenseless. It worked. Daniel had been completely unprepared for the ambush from behind. He fell to his knees as the throbbing in his back shot up his spine.

  The man in front brought his knee up and rammed it into his face, breaking his nose. Daniel fell on his back, his vision blurring from the pain somersaulting through his head.

  The second man slammed his foot into Daniel’s side and he bent over, and then another blow landed, and another. Daniel curled in on himself, trying to protect his body from the pounding of flailing feet, but his efforts were ineffectual. He felt ribs crack and bones snap, and wondered how battered he’d have to be before the two assailants stopped their abuse. Then they did stop.

  “Shoulda just given me the damned money,” the first homeless man snarled, without remorse, then reached down and snatched the wallet from the ground. The man turned away and Daniel was grateful it was over and that he would live, until the second man bent down next to him, eyeing him coldly.

  The dirty-faced, white kid cocked his head side-to-side, without uttering a word, watching Daniel intently. Then he grinned, and reached behind his back and slowly retracted a long blade from his pant pocket. He held it beneath Daniel’s nose, twisting it back and forth, flicking the tip threateningly beneath his nostrils.

  “Let’s go!” the older African American called, pulling the cash from the billfold. He flicked the empty wallet at Daniel’s beaten body.

  “He’s a witness!” the kid called back.

  Daniel stared at the boy, who couldn’t have been more than seventeen. He wanted to say something—barter for his life, but they’d already taken his wallet, so he had nothing left with which to barter. As if the kid read his thoughts, he grinned again, and jammed the knife into the side of his throat, then just as quickly, pulled it free and stepped back, watching the arterial spurt with a macabre fascination.

  Son-of-a-bitch, Daniel mentally screamed. He threw his hand over the wound, trying to stop his life’s blood spurting from his body. Tears glistened in his eyes as his vision started to blur. Son-of-a-bitch! Now I’ll never know if she lived.

  Chapter 39

  “Detectives! In here now!” the captain called loudly from his office. He was in the process of turning up the volume when his detectives sprinted in.

  “That’s right, Patricia. This is quite a surprise for everyone here at Channel 5 who knew the perpetrator as Christian Price; and were it not for an anonymous tip that came into the newsroom very early this morning, we never would have made the connection.”

  “What’s going on?” Wilson asked.

  “Shhh, listen.” the captain said, his gaze pinned to the television.

  "Again, for those of you just joining us, we’ve received reports from our sister station in Chattanooga, Tennessee that police in the small suburb of East Ridge found the body of Daniel Whittaker shortly before 1 a.m.; the serial killer that we, in Atlanta, knew by the moniker Christian Price. Police say that Whittaker was the victim of a mugging and was stabbed to death outside a local Cracker Barrel supermarket off Ringgold Road.

  We, at Channel 5, were astonished to learn that Daniel Whittaker was a scientist from Chicago who went missing shortly after the death of his wife, who was murdered. Her case remains unsolved. We have also learned that, in his role of scientist, Whittaker often worked with the U.S. military on developing methods in which to perfect torture techniques in order to obtain information from terrorists. The media in his home state of Illinois often criticized him regarding the use of human subjects in his experiments. Whittaker was forty-seven years old."

  The captain reached over and retrieved the remote, turning off the television before facing his detectives.

  “I’m trying not to get up and dance a jig,” he grinned.

  “Karma’s a bitch,” Harding said in a self-satisfied tone.

  “I take it you leaked the identity to the media?” Wilson asked, addressing Hardwick.

  Hardwick nodded, “Figures you’d jump to the assumption that I did that.”

  “Call it a hunch,” Wilson replied, “but I have a feeling that you weren’t going to let this guy get free of our clutches without a fight.”

  Hardwick grinned, “I couldn’t let it go, no. I needed the citizens of Atlanta to know they were safe now, and the best way to do that was to let them know that Christian Price was dead.”

  “Even though we hadn’t gotten the report from Chicago PD yet as to whether Whittaker was indeed our perp?”

  Hardwick nodded again, “Maybe I was risking something by playing that gut feeling, but when I typed in the search parameters and only one name came up, I’d say it was a fair intuition.”

  “What if you’re wrong? What if Whittaker wasn’t Price?” Wilson prodded. “What if the guy in Chicago was simply a man who lost his wife and has nothing to do with this case whatsoever?”

  “You never let things go, do you?” Cortez snapped. “Give the man a little credit, will you? He wouldn’t have leaked it if his intuition wasn’t backed up by something solid.”

  “Indeed,” Hardwick said with a satisfied grin.

  “How can you be so damned certain?” Wilson snapped.

  “Price…Whittaker…had an inclination that I started a trace on his location the minute he called. Since he was calling from a phone booth, he was convinced the trace wouldn’t bear fruit. He all but told me that I could run a trace because he wasn’t in our jurisdiction any longer. Just before I disconnected the call, the trace came back as a payphone in East Ridge, Tennessee.”

  “There could be hundreds of phone booths in—” Wilson started.

  “East Ridge,” Hardwick interrupted, “is a small city, with only about 21,000 residents and a whopping eleven phone booths. Most located along the stretch where Whittaker happened to be calling from—Ringgold Road. So, do you think it would be difficult for police to run down eleven phone booths rather quickly, given the proper impetus?”

  “What impetus would that be?” the captain chimed in.

  “Once the trace pinpointed a general location, I immediately placed a call to their local police department and told them to be on the lookout for him. Told them what he’d done here, which must have spurred them into finding him fast because I’m certain they didn’t want him setting up shop in their town. Anyway, they must have made a swing by the Cracker Barrel first thing after I called, and found a body…”

  “Okay, so a guy got mugged and killed,” Wilson persisted in his usual antagonistic fashion, “that doesn’t a
utomatically make him our perp, especially since we don’t know what our perp looks like—precisely. Too many different descriptions. And he could have changed his appearance again shortly after leaving Atlanta.”

  Hardwick grinned wide, refusing to allow Wilson to bait him. It was the first sincere smile he’d had since the whole affair with Price started. “It’s Price, and Price is Whittaker, and Whittaker is our serial killer. Why? Because first of all, our serial killer called from one of their eleven phone booths. Not too many people were making calls after midnight in East Ridge, Tennessee. Second, this guy gets killed right next to a phone booth, and third, the police called and told me it was Whittaker just before I leaked the news story here to Channel 5.”

  “They couldn’t have run his fingerprints—”

  “Didn’t have to,” Hardwick interjected. “He was using his own car; registered in his own name.”

  “Arrogant son-of-a-bitch,” Harding said, shaking his head.

  “You could’ve easily been wrong,” Wilson reprimanded, refusing to let the matter end.

  “Yeah, well he wasn’t wrong, so just drop it, Wilson,” Harding defended.

  “Hey, did you arrange the mugging too?” Cortez quipped, satisfied that they’d gotten their man.

  “If only I’d thought of it. It would have been poetic justice, in my humble opinion,” Hardwick said sincerely.

  “It still was poetic,” the captain interjected, “in my not-so humble opinion. Price…or Whittaker…whoever he was, met a justifiable end. He spent years murdering innocents in the name of perverted justice. He got what was coming to him.”

  “Yeah, like I said, karma’s a bitch,” Harding repeated.

  “You four, go home now,” the captain said. “Take the day off. The case is finally over. When you come in tomorrow, I expect to hear some really good ideas on how to make this department…”

  “…a well-oiled machine,” Hardwick finished.

  The captain nodded.

  “Yes, Captain.” Hardwick stood aside and shooed his fellow detectives from the captain’s office.