by Blake Pierce
“John!” she managed to shout up the stairs in a strangled, rasping voice.
She could hear rapid movements. The sound of footsteps from the kitchen. Then, nothing.
Adele bunched her hand in her shirt, wrapping the fabric around the wound, and switched her firearm to her weaker hand. She’d never practiced off-hand shooting much, but now it was all she had.
Then, desperately hoping John had woken, she moved toward the kitchen doorway, eyes forward.
“Give it up!” she called, still breathing heavily. “There’s only two ways out of that room. A body bag or cuffs. Don’t be stupid—this is over!”
No answer.
Adele scraped her shoulder blades against the wall, approaching the kitchen. They’d locked the door? Hadn’t they? She was sure they’d locked it.
“Give it up!” she called again, raising her voice louder than necessary in a hope to wake John.
Again, no answer. A pause.
Then, the sound of humming.
The strange, melodic noise sent chills up Adele’s spine and she swallowed back the fear in her gut. Something about bleeding, gasping, caught off guard in a locked house brought out a more instinctual part of her. But she needed to remember he training, to suppress her emotions. Fear was the enemy.
“Come out!” she called. Her shoulder pressed against the ridged wooden frame of the kitchen doorway.
She hesitated, feeling her cheek sticky against the wall. From within the kitchen, the humming persisted, low, eerie in the dark.
It was coming from behind the fridge.
Adele leaned in, keeping her eyes fixed on the fridge. She licked her lips and moved into the kitchen, stepping sidelong. She kept her weapon focused on her off hand, her injured palm still snared in the hem of her shirt.
“Get out from behind there!” she barked.
The large, metal fridge was like the belly of a broad man, blocking her vision of the alcove behind it.
She circled the room, keeping as much distance between herself and the fridge as she could as she tried to gain line-of-sight. She checked her weapon and felt her hand trembling—for a moment, she felt like Masse. With her weaker hand, she did her best to maintain a shooter’s crouch, but the strange whistling, the blood loss, the fear of the moment were weighing on her.
Finally, she rounded the wall across from the fridge, facing the darkness on the side of the appliance.
No man.
Still, though, the sound of humming.
A flash of silver. She yelped, but realized, a second later, as she peered closer, that a small recording device lay on the floor by the fridge.
She frowned, leaning in, then prickles erupted across her spine as there came the sound of rushing footsteps from the complete opposite side of the kitchen. A distraction. He’d been hiding beneath the table. She spun, weapon raised, and managed to glimpse a shadow bolt through the doorway, back out into the hall.
Adele cursed and spun from the recorder, racing toward the doorway as well. The man jerked out of the hall into the dining room. Adele didn’t move forward immediately, fearful of the man lurking just beyond the doorway again, waiting to ambush her.
She heard the sound of heavy footsteps above her now from upstairs.
“Adele?” John shouted.
“Downstairs!” she called back. “He’s armed. Knife!”
She circled, one step at a time, trying to keep her weapon fixed on the dining room doorway. But the room was empty. Adele cursed, her weapon still raised—then her gaze settled on the window behind the table.
It was open, leading into the backyard.
She shouted, “Backyard!”
Adele hurried to the window, gun raised. As she reached the sill and aimed into an empty grass lawn, she heard the sound of an engine firing; the red vehicle she’d spotted earlier jerked away from the garage, the tires squealing as it took off up the street.
Adele aimed, eyes narrowed, then squeezed—once, twice.
Two loud retorts echoed in the dead of night. The first bullet didn’t hit anything. But the second caught the front wheel.
A loud explosion—and the car suddenly veered sharply. The vehicle slammed into a fire hydrant, then rolled over it, sending a spray of water into the air.
Weapon in hand, Adele slithered through the window and sprinted across the backyard, racing toward the vehicle. She heard the back door to the house slam, and the sound of hurried feet as John made after her.
Adele reached the vehicle first.
A young man sat in the front seat, wearing a yellow hat. He was shaking his head dazedly, a thin trickle of blood creeping down the side of his cheek, but he was looking over his shoulder and talking to someone in the backseat.
“Get out of the vehicle!” Adele shouted. But the young man ignored her.
It was hard to make out much through the tinted windows. But the front window was rolled down halfway, and she could hear the words, “Hush now, Daddy… it’s going to be okay. It’s going to be fine. She’s a nice volunteer. We just have to reach an agreement. A very nice lady.”
Adele stared, stunned. “There’s two of them!” she shouted to John.
His heavy footsteps reached her on the sidewalk. John circled the other side of the car, his gun raised toward the front seat, then swiveling to the back through the tinted glass.
“Hands up, or I’ll spray your brains over the upholstery!” John shouted, his eyes wide as adrenaline coursed his body.
Adele kept her own eyes fixed on the young man behind the steering wheel, her gun leveled on his head. Her fingers trembled as she prepared to squeeze off a shot at a moment’s notice.
The man glanced toward her, blinking as if noticing her for the first time. He frowned and shook his head. “Thank you,” he said. He reached up, rubbing his eyes.
Adele grabbed the door handle, yanking the front side open. “Drop your knife!” she demanded, retreating a couple of steps now that the door hung ajar, providing a better view into the vehicle. The car was going nowhere from where it had stuck on the edge of a fire hydrant and jammed against a stone sidewalk barrier.
The young man glanced into the backseat once more. He began to whistle, soothingly, like a mother trying to placate a young child.
Adele felt a shiver up the back of her spine. She heard the back door open as John flung it wide.
Then there came a sharp hiss and a horrified gasp. “Adele, get him out of the car. Now!”
Adele felt chills, but reacted with the barest of hesitations, clearing her throat and shouting, “Get out, now!”
The young man was shaking his head, still looking confused. His eyes still had a vacant quality to them, but the more she shouted, the more alarmed he seemed to become.
“Get out of the car! I’m not kidding. I’ll shoot!”
At last, the man, like he was moving in a dream, emerged from the vehicle, his hands raised, shifting uncomfortably, glancing between the two agents. “Don’t hurt him,” he said. “Please, don’t hurt him. He’s sick.”
Adele shoved the man sharply to the ground; as he lay on the pavement, she kicked hard once, twice at his right hand, which still gripped the knife. The blade clattered free beneath the car. Adele twisted the man’s arms behind his back, and in three swift motions cuffed him. Then, keeping her eye on him, she stepped back, leaving the suspect handcuffed on the ground.
She circled the car to where John stood, staring.
“Securing the second suspect?” she asked, breathing heavily.
But John was just peering grimly into the backseat, shaking his head from side to side, his teeth clenched.
At last, Adele circled completely and stared into the back of the old red jalopy. Her gun lowered, and she felt bile rising in her throat.
A corpse was in the backseat. It looked like the corpse of an old man, but it was hard to tell. The horrific stench assailed her the moment she circled the car and leaned into the back.
The corpse had shrunken ey
es, the eyeballs milked over, the flesh putrid and decayed. The ghoulish, skeletal face leered out at her, and thin wisps of the final remnants of hair circled the old man’s mottled scalp.
In the corpse’s lap, there were three shriveled, decayed items.
Adele frowned, peering closer. “Oh, dear God,” she said.
“Think we found the kidneys,” John murmured.
The three kidneys, in different states of decay, were placed in the old man’s lap, his skeletal fingers, still displaying some levels of flesh, arched over the kidneys like the talons of some bird of prey protecting its young.
“I’m going to be sick,” Adele said, her voice strained.
“Don’t hurt him,” the young man kept repeating, pleading from where he lay on the ground. “Please, don’t hurt him.”
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
Adele stared through the glass one-way mirror, watching the interrogation. John stood next to her in the viewing room. They hadn’t been allowed in after the last time. Still, Adele studied the strange young man.
He was handsome, in a feminine sort of way. He kept tapping his fingers against the metal interrogation table as if he were listening to some unheard track in his mind. Adele fidgeted uncomfortably, examining the interrogating agent. If it had been up to her, she would’ve chosen someone else. Anyone else. But still, Agent Paige was good at her job, when she wasn’t trying to get even.
Adele watched as Paige leaned in, and through the interrogation room speakers, she heard, “Why did you do it?”
No answer.
“What’s your name?”
No answer.
John was bored, and had already maneuvered to the corner of the viewing room where he bounced an empty Coke bottle against the wall. For her part, Adele stood next to the third member of their viewing party.
This woman, standing next to Adele, had short, bristly hair and smooth, dark skin. Her expression was tender but intelligent as she peered through the viewing room glass, examining the suspect. Adele glanced over at the woman. “Well? Dr. Tyra? What do you think?”
The smaller woman regarded Adele, but then just as quickly returned her gaze to the spectacle from within interrogation.
“I don’t believe the questions are registering,” she said, softly.
Adele exhaled in frustration through her nose. “We found his dad’s corpse in the back of his car along with three rotting kidneys. The fact that he’s not riddled with disease already is a miracle. What makes someone do something like that?”
“Can I just say,” John called from the corner, raising his hand, “there is a chance…” He trailed off for dramatic effect.
Adele glared.
“That perhaps…” he said, still dragging out his sentence.
“John!” Adele snapped.
“I maybe,” he winced, “was wrong about the killer being arrested along with the organ harvesters.”
Adele reached down to rub her hand. It was bandaged, with twice as much gauze and padding as John’s had been. She also had stitches along her cheek and hand. Despite the pain and her frustration with Agent Renee, it would’ve been foolish to blame John for what had transpired that evening. She was the one who’d fallen asleep first. She had left the house, giving the killer opportunity for entry.
“Are his fingerprints in the system?” This question she directed at John.
The tall agent shook his head. He went back to bouncing his Coke bottle off the wall.
“It’s hard to say,” said Dr. Tyra, still peering through the glass. “He seems distracted, yes. Tired. But I need to be honest, I’m not sure how much I’m going to get just standing out here with you.”
Adele scratched her chin and looked into the room, watching as Sophie Paige launched into another line of questioning.
“Go in,” said John. He shooed his hands toward Adele. “I’m the one who slapped the Serb. You didn’t hit anyone.”
Dr. Tyra’s eyebrows flicked up ever so slightly, but she kept her peace.
Adele considered this, still staring at the see-through mirror. They’d been instructed to keep John out of the interrogation room. When she’d seen Agent Paige, she’d decided to sit out as well.
Through the glass, Adele watched as Agent Paige growled and began to shake her head. “What happened to your kidney?” she demanded, glaring at the victim.
At this, though, the suspect started babbling, shaking his head side to side. “Couldn’t help… Had to—he was going to die. I needed to, needed to save him. I was good enough!” He shouted this part. “I was good enough! Top of my class at Sorbonne! I was going to be a surgeon. I could do it. I know it. It-it was hard. But no one would help me. Please,” he said, his voice cracking now, his lips trembling. The dazed look had returned to his eyes. “Please, I didn’t know how painful it was going to be. I hadn’t done the anesthesia right. I thought I did. But it was so… so painful. I tried. I really did.” A sob creaked from his lips.
Adele stared at the suspect in alarm, trying to piece it all together. “Top of the class. He’s a medical student. He removed his own kidney to try to put it in his father?” she asked, glancing at Dr. Tyra.
The psychiatrist didn’t reply. She continued to watch through the glass as the man broke into tears which began slipping down his cheeks. “Of course,” he shouted at Agent Paige, “of course. I would do anything for him. He’s my best friend. Please, can I see him? I just need to speak with him.”
Adele felt confusion fading to be replaced by a welling sadness and horror. She felt a heaviness weighing on her, and she shook her head, no longer looking at the suspect; she addressed John. “I’m sure you’ll find his name if you talk to Sorbonne—ask for any dropouts from last year. I don’t think he’s lying.”
She felt a hand on hers and glanced down. Dr. Tyra looked up, meeting her gaze. The young, kind-eyed doctor stared at Adele, her eyes unblinking, her lips pressed together. “A psychotic break, most likely. He thinks his father is still alive. He avoids the question, or discussing it when it comes up. He doesn’t believe he’s dead.”
Adele ran a hand along the edge of her jaw, shaking her head in disbelief. “So he’s been driving his dead father around for nearly a year? That’s how long it appears he’s been dead.”
Dr. Tyra shrugged. “I don’t know how long. But he thinks his father is alive. And it sounds like he tried to take his own kidney and put it in his father. I can’t even imagine the psychological stress that would put on someone. Sounded like the operation didn’t work. Maybe that’s when his father died. Under his own son’s knife.”
Adele shivered, staring at the doctor.
The psychiatrist shrugged. “I can listen in for more—perhaps ask a few more questions. But I think you’re right. I think he’s telling the truth about medical school. About being a stand-out student. You’ll likely find his name with registration.”
Adele hesitated, then said, “Honestly, I might leave that up to Agent Paige.”
Dr. Tyra studied Adele, then nodded. “It is sad.”
They dwindled into silence once more, listening to the crying from the interrogation room. Adele felt her stomach twist, and she closed her eyes to stave off a dawning headache.
“Why?” she said, hesitantly. “Why was he calling me a volunteer? He said the same thing about his other victims—what was the point of the kidneys? Why did he kill them?”
Dr. Tyra hesitated. “Sometimes, with a psychotic break, you only see things you want to see, and you hear things you want to hear. For all I know, in his mind, he was in an operating room, with people willing to give their kidneys to save his father. I don’t know for sure. But whatever he’s been seeing this last year, isn’t the same as everyone else.”
“You’re saying he’s actually insane?”
Dr. Tyra paused. “I’m saying something broke. The weight of the world was put on his shoulders, and he couldn’t carry it. And a lot of people got hurt because of it.”
Adele swallowed
, shaking her head. The whole business left a bad taste in her mouth. A few moments passed with her standing in the viewing room, staring into the bleak, gray interrogation room.
The young man hadn’t seemed like a killer, and Adele had sat across from killers before. He had seemed like a worried boy, concerned for his father. Desperate. But he had also killed three people; he had almost killed Adele. It was like he didn’t even remember. Like he didn’t even think he had done anything wrong.
Adele muttered to herself, collapsing against the wall and passing a weary hand over her face. She had no doubt they would be able to find his name soon enough. But what was in a name? Did she even want to know it?
It would help them discover if there were more victims. There was some modicum of peace for the families to know their daughters’ murderer had been brought to justice. But it wasn’t much. The dead stayed dead, and grief only worsened.
“You okay?” a soft voice murmured from behind her.
Adele glanced back and saw John standing closer, leaning against the glass to the viewing room. As she regarded the tall, scar-faced agent, she felt her shoulders begin to tremble.
Strange, why was—
She realized she was crying. Dr. Tyra seemed mesmerized by the spectacle from within the room. But Adele still felt a flash of shame; John, though, didn’t seem concerned by an audience.
“Oh, Adele, it’s-it’s fine,” John began to speak, but then thought better of it, and instead gathered her in an embrace. Adele felt herself pressed against his warmth. She stood there, trembling, crying into his shoulder. Like a child.
She wasn’t sure what brought it on.
She thought of the boy losing his father. She’d not been much older when she lost her mother.
There had been a lot of pressure then as well. She wondered what she would’ve done if she thought she could have saved her mother. If there had been a moment when she had warning of what was coming, and to what ends she might go to prevent the horrible inevitability. And if she tried and failed, would the guilt have been manageable, or would it have swallowed her whole?
