Measure Twice

by J. J. Hensley

  Bursting through the opening, he stopped to listen. The scuffing sound was gone. This section of the building was as dimly lit as the previous. A small hole in the roof did little to illuminate the room. Channing’s eyes adjusted and he could make out outlines of typical warehouse equipment and furnishings. Forklifts sat haphazardly parked throughout the room. Wooden produce crates sat tossed into disorganized piles. Tall metallic equipment cabinets lined the walls. In the spring, Channing knew, the place would be alive with activity as wholesalers set up shop on Smallman Street. This morning, the building was vacant of employees. Channing suspected a skeleton crew would arrive in a few hours to accept deliveries for the local shops. One of them must have arrived early to open the doors, or someone forgot to lock up the previous night.

  In the distance, Channing heard Harris’s voice coming from the main entrance. The sergeant was calling the detectives’ names, trying to pinpoint their respective locations. Channing held his breath and tried to focus his hearing on the room laid out in front of him. After a few beats he started to yell back to Harris, but something stopped him. He thought he heard the sound again, coming from behind a stack of crates. Cautiously, he moved toward the pile.

  Channing kept the gun leveled at the crates and took slow sidesteps to change the angle of his approach. He cringed as the sound of his shoes crunching on unseen leaves of lettuce and onion skins echoed off the walls. The sound of his own footsteps seemed to be coming from everywhere in this place. Channing could briefly see his own breath as he passed through a ray of sunlight, the vapor vanishing before he re-entered the darkness. The detective moved between the pile and a forklift, completing the circle. He had begun to lower the pistol when he detected motion behind him.

  Without thinking, Channing raised his gun hand to protect his head. A steel pipe crashed into his wrist, shattering bone in the process. The gun disappeared from Channing’s hand and slid into the darkness. The detective lunged back, staggering over a box as the pipe slammed into his ribs and knocked him to the ground. The last thing he saw before his world went black was the face of the man he had been pursuing. Channing had just enough time to register the fact that he was about to die at the hands of possibly the most normal-looking man he had ever seen.

  He squeezed his hands around Jayakody’s throat. Channing’s hair was soaked with the same sweat that stung his eyes as he lay under his nemesis. Jayakody grabbed Channing’s wrists and fought for air. The man was starting to pull away and Channing screamed. Then, more hands appeared on the detective’s arms—not Jayakody’s hands, but hands of different sizes and shades. Channing looked to the side and saw a woman who looked to be Pakistani. She was telling him to let go. Channing looked at one of his own hands, which was constricting around a throat. It was not Jayakody’s throat. The man was Caucasian and was wearing a white coat. A hospital ID dangled from a lapel. Channing released his grip as an orderly rushed into the room. More hands were present now, all of them holding him down, though he had stopped fighting. Channing saw a nurse inject something into an IV tube, then drifted into the unconscious.

  A voice from across the room caused him to stir. “Mr. Channing? Can you hear me?”

  Channing blinked hard and raised his head. He nodded to the doctor he had tried to strangle. The nervous man was standing several feet away and looked ready to head for the door if necessary.

  “My name is Doctor Liningale. You’re at Allegheny General and I’m your attending physician. Do you understand?”

  Channing tried to sit up and pain shot through his body. He yelped and lay back down.

  Approaching the bed, the doctor said, “Don’t try to move. You have a couple of cracked ribs and a concussion. You have a broken wrist as well. We’ll put a cast on it today.”

  Channing tried to take a deep breath and immediately regretted it. Suddenly, a thought crossed his mind and he tried to sit up again.

  “Where’s Lambert?” he asked loudly.

  “Please, Mr. Channing. Lean back.”

  “Where’s my partner? Where is she?” Channing’s voice boomed.

  The door to the room opened and a large orderly entered. Channing realized the man must have been told to wait near the door.

  “Is she hurt? Is she...where is she?” Channing pleaded as he tried to get out of the bed. The orderly was immediately beside the detective, lowering him back down. Channing tried to push the man back, but the pain was too great. “Just tell me if she’s okay,” he begged as his eyes began to tear-up.

  The door swung open again and his partner walked into the room.

  “I’m fine. I’m right here.”

  Channing put his head back on the pillow. He uttered a breathless, “Okay,” and began to calm himself.

  When it became obvious that the injured detective was in control of himself, the doctor asked Lambert to leave the room so he could examine his patient. Five minutes later, the doctor and orderly were gone and Lambert was in a chair beside Channing’s bed. Standing beside her, Darrel “Backhoe” Hopkins looked down at his friend.

  Hopkins was the first to speak. “I’m getting real tired of visiting you in hospital rooms.”

  Channing allowed himself a smile and thanked his friend for coming. Lambert had called Hopkins after Channing was admitted. They asked Channing about his condition and he obliged them by giving them the rundown of his injuries.

  Over the next half hour, Lambert filled Channing in, explaining what had transpired at the warehouse. Upon entering the building, Lambert lost track of the man who had run from the church, so she took a guess and headed straight ahead into another room. All she managed to do was terrify the owner of a local store who had opened the warehouse in preparation for a morning delivery. After searching that part of the warehouse, she started back toward the main entrance where she found Harris. Both of them heard some sort of commotion coming from the room to the right of the main entrance and followed. By the time they found Channing out cold with a steel pipe lying beside him, the man they had pursued was gone through a side exit. That had been yesterday morning. He had been in and out of consciousness for over a day.

  “We caused a lot of excitement,” said Lambert. “The press saw us chasing that man and they are asking a lot of questions. The problem is,” she continued, “we don’t have any answers. I don’t even know why we were chasing that guy.”

  Channing squirmed in the bed and tried to prop his head up on a pillow.

  “He was just wrong,” he explained. “The man saw me looking at him and…I don’t know. He was just wrong. I think he’s our guy.”

  Lambert, having learned not to doubt her partner’s hunches, said nothing.

  “Who was the victim?” asked Channing.

  Lambert told Channing everything she knew about Chad Wayland, including his role as the manager of the city’s Office of Municipal Investigations. At the mention of OMI, Channing looked at both Lambert and Hopkins who had not forgotten Bryan Clifton’s story about being interviewed by a municipal investigator. Each detective agreed that it was not a coincidence. Channing was not surprised to also learn that Wayland had the same wounds as Culligan and Abdella, with one serious exception.

  “The skin and hair on his head was peeled off,” Lambert told her partner.

  “What?”

  “Nearly all of his hair, and the skin under it, were peeled off. I think any restraint you assumed the killer had is vanishing quickly, especially if that was him hanging out at the church yesterday. He’s escalating and getting careless.”

  Channing’s mind raced. Missing skin and hair—that means something, he thought. He felt like he was on the edge of figuring it out when Lambert spoke again.

  “Harris should be here in a minute. I should tell you, he’s taking a lot of heat on this. Calling us over to the scene and then assisting us in a foot pursuit we can’t explain has put him in a bad place. I heard Captain Wyche chewed him up pretty good and is talking about suspending the three of us,” Lambert exp
lained.

  “The guy ran for a reason,” Channing said, looking at the ceiling.

  “Well, Wyche isn’t the only one to point out that the guy may have simply had a warrant out for him and thought we recognized him. You have to admit, it’s pretty thin.”

  Channing could not argue with the logic. If he were in Wyche’s position and a cop with his recent history started initiating foot pursuits for questionable purposes, it would be a tough pill to swallow.

  Channing’s head jerked back to Lambert. “Did you say Harris is on the way?”

  Lambert said he was.

  Channing looked at Hopkins, who returned a knowing glance.

  “You sure you want to do that?” Hopkins asked.

  In response, Channing held up his broken and thickly bandaged wrist.

  With surprising speed, Hopkins whipped out a knife and started cutting off the bandages. Channing winced in pain.

  “What are you doing?” asked a stricken Lambert. “You’ve got a broken wrist!”

  Hopkins finished cutting the bandage and proceeded to the foot of the bed where he found Channing’s medical chart. In a flash, the entire clipboard holding the chart was stuffed under Channing’s mattress.

  “Would one of you knuckleheads like to fill me in?” Lambert exclaimed.

  Channing flinched as he used his left hand to gently place his right wrist down beside him. He was arranging the sheets on his bed, trying to not make it obvious that he was attempting to hide the worst of the bruising from view.

  Hopkins turned to Lambert and said, “A broken wrist gets you put on light duty. However, a…” he paused and looked at Channing, who took a brief break from moving the sheets around.

  “Bruised bone?” the patient suggested.

  “Right—a bruised bone means you go back to work and finish the case.”

  Lambert was beside herself. “It’s his right wrist! He can’t even draw his weapon. Of course, he has to get off the street for a while.”

  “Actually, I’m ambidextrous.” Channing interjected. “I prefer to shoot right-handed, but I’m pretty good with my left. I even own a left-handed holster.”

  Lambert threw up her hands in disbelief. “And the concussion? Do you think Harris can ignore the concussion?”

  “What concussion?” asked Channing. “Backhoe, do you know anything about a concussion?”

  With feigned confusion, Hopkins said, “Concussion? Let me check that chart again…oh my…looks like Detective Channing’s chart disappeared. And with all those damned HIPAA laws, the doctors can’t tell us, or anyone else, about the patient’s diagnosis. Such a shame. I guess Harris and the department will have to take the detective’s word for it.”

  Lambert stared daggers at both men.

  Hopkins told Channing, “Oh, and Clifton’s alibi did check out. I didn’t have a lot of faith that he’d follow up with you guys, so I paid him a visit and convinced him it was in his best interest to get those names to us. It all checked out.”

  Channing was not surprised. His mind jumped back to Wayland.

  “His body was facing more to the north than the others, wasn’t it?”

  Lambert said it was.

  Channing leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Then, his eyes shot open. A wave of adrenaline surged through his body and his pain vanished. How could I have not seen it? He silently scolded himself. He spoke aloud to the other detectives. “The project Clifton was working on for Harper Construction. Where in the city was it?”

  Hopkins and Lambert said they did not know.

  “I do,” said Channing looking at his partner. “Have you ever gone running along the Allegheny River trail?”

  “Sure. I still do sometimes.”

  “Ever run out to Washington’s Landing?”

  In an instant, everything clicked for Lambert.

  “My God,” she said.

  Channing nodded.

  “Care to elaborate for those of us non-city folk?” asked the large detective from Butler.

  “Along the river, there’s an island just off the North Shore. The west end of the island has a community of townhomes, a business park, and a marina. The other end is heavily wooded with some open recreational areas. If you drew lines of sight from where the bodies of Culligan, Abdella, and Wayland were displayed, the lines would all run into the island: Washington’s Landing.”

  Hopkins remained silent knowing there had to be more to Channing’s excitement.

  Lambert continued the explanation, “And in the middle of the business park there is a set of new office building for the city government. It was a huge construction project that took months to complete. And unless I’m mistaken, the largest of those buildings is the City Housing Authority.”

  Channing agreed and said, “Which was run by Tedla Abdella. And how much do you want to bet that the project was handled by Harper Construction, which received inside bidding information from Nicholas Culligan?”

  Hopkins, playing devil’s advocate, broke in. “Just because three bodies may have been positioned so they were facing in the general direction of the island, doesn’t necessarily mean the island is the key. There are lots of points beyond that island that could be important.”

  Channing answered his friend. “It’s called Washington’s Landing for a reason. George Washington supposedly visited and slept on the island during the French and Indian War. There is a historical marker on the eastern tip of the island that mentions his visit. I’ve run by it a hundred times.”

  “And?” Hopkins asked.

  “And,” Lambert said, “Wayland was scalped.”

  Hopkins thought about that. “So the killer is a culturally insensitive history buff?”

  Channing shook his head and said, “No. And I’m not sure it’s a message anymore. Like Tina said, he’s losing his ability to restrain himself. The seams are starting to come apart.”

  The three detectives let a silence fall over the room as they each tried to find holes in the overall logic. In the end, they concluded that if Harper Construction had worked on the municipal project on the island, then it was all too much to be a coincidence. Before they could discuss the revelation any further, Sergeant Ken Harris entered the room. Channing shifted his energy to acting as if his injuries were minor. There was no way he was going to get put behind a desk. For the first time in the investigation, he felt as if he was not running an uphill race. He was over the hump and picking up steam. He had a broken wrist, a concussion, cracked ribs, a bruised-up face, a gash on his leg, and was battling alcohol withdraw symptoms. But he finally felt like he had some momentum. In all his years, he had never failed to finish a race.

  – – –

  The old mattress creaked as he tossed and turned. Mayton could not believe how exhausted he was, yet he could not will himself to sleep. The pursuit through the Strip District made his decision easy. After taking out that cop and making it back to his van, he had rushed home and loaded the van with some necessities. The only non-essential item he had taken was the print of The Last Judgment, which was now propped against the wall beside him.

  He needed sleep, but could not force it to come. His thoughts were scattered, and at times, incoherent. One moment he was swinging the pipe at that detective, the next he was hearing Cindy’s voice telling him to relax. Had he killed the detective? If so, it had certainly not been intended. He did not have anything against the man. In fact, the man had been through an ordeal so horrible that Channing should have had an understanding of the evil that existed in people—people like Chad Wayland. But here was that detective back at work serving the same government that Culligan, Abdella, and Wayland had served. The man had been pursuing him, instead of seeing who the real offenders were. Mayton decided that if the detective were dead, then so be it. He was part of the same system as the others.

  The fire in the wood burning stove that warmed the room was dying out. Mayton got up and resupplied the stove. He sat in a wooden rocking chair, the fire from the stove
acting as the only light, and tried to quell the voices: Cindy telling him to loosen-up and live a little; his minister telling him to forgive and listen to God; God telling him—. It was then that Mayton realized he had not heard God’s voice in some time. He had tried to pull away from God and succeeded. Now, it was mostly Cindy’s voice that would not leave him alone.

  He had to sleep. His work was nearly complete, but he had to keep control of his faculties or it would all go wrong. The Spartan room he had relocated to was cold, but he started sweating. The room had been all but forgotten by others, only used as storage during the summer months. The only items left behind were an assortment of tools, buckets of paint, and an abandoned bottle of some sort of alcohol. His heart raced and he covered his ears while rocking back and forth. Things had to slow down or it would all fall to pieces.

  Mayton’s eyes searched the room for anything that would calm him down. The flickering light from the stove reflected off the half-empty bottle sitting on a shelf. Mayton stood and picked up the dusty container. The worn label told him the bottle contained rum. Other than a small sampling of wine, he had never allowed alcohol to pass his lips. But now, he thought, I’m free. Hearing his dead wife imploring him to live a little, he picked up the bottle and unscrewed the top. Mayton lowered his head and sniffed the liquid. The repellant odor caused him to turn away. Noticing his hands starting to shake from fatigue, he closed his eyes and forced himself to take a drink. He coughed furiously, nearly dropping the bottle. Once he regained his composure, he took another drink, then another—each sip becoming more tolerable. Cindy had wanted him to be more like other people. Mayton now knew he had failed her in that respect. Wiping his mouth with a sleeve that was still covered in the blood of a police detective, Mayton thought, I’ll make it up to you, my dear. I have one more thing I have to do.