The Chilling Spree

by LS Sygnet

  “You knew about Belle Conall?” I asked.

  He snorted softly. “The guy’s been railing about the fact that she’s dead to him for the past three years. Apparently, he didn’t approve that she married some closet faggot while he was out on tour with us.”

  It was a link Johnny and I hadn’t once considered.

  Within minutes, we were in the car, Johnny on the phone asking for a police presence outside Madden’s house while I waited impatiently to ask the question burning the tip of my tongue. He disconnected the call.

  “Where did Belle and Crevan get married?”

  “Foundation’s Baptist,” Johnny said grimly. “Guess that explains why Underwood felt it reasonable to gut the uncle on the altar. He didn’t pick up on Crevan’s preferences either.”

  Chapter 37

  Johnny didn’t argue. Instead, he flipped the police lights on in the Expedition and sped silently through the city once again. We’d been back and forth so many times in the past few hours that I’d lost count.

  Neither one of us spoke. Somehow, the motive for the murders of Kyle Goddard and Bobbi Tippet paled in comparison for what Underwood seemed to be doing now. He was purging the family tree of its abominations.

  The unspoken fear was that Crevan was in grave danger, despite the police presence in his apartment building. I didn’t have to suggest why Crevan was in danger.

  “If I find out that Maverick lied to us about Underwood’s whereabouts, I’m charging him as an accessory after the fact,” Johnny said.

  “If you can arrest him before I rip his arm off and beat him to death with it.”

  “Helen, I seriously hope that’s fear and frustration talking.”

  “Yes and no.” He figured it out anyway. I’m Wendell’s daughter. “You know how I feel about Crevan, Johnny. If these guys hampered our investigation and anything happened to him –”

  “We’d know. There were six cops over there, Helen. Crevan is going to be fine.”

  “Don’t lie to me. You’re as worried as I am.”

  The words weren’t even out of my mouth yet before Johnny punched redial on his cell phone. It rolled immediately into Crevan’s voice mail. “Fuck it,” he muttered and dialed a different number.

  “Shelly, it’s Johnny. I need more officers over at Crevan’s apartment.”

  “Why? I had more than enough over there earlier.”

  “Had?” I nearly choked on panic.

  “Helen, is that you?”

  “Shelly, Crevan is in danger. Please tell me that you didn’t send everyone home.”

  “I left two guys outside the building. In case you’ve forgotten, we had a major crime committed tonight. I need all hands on deck.”

  Johnny hung up on her and called OSI. Apparently he really was done messing around with everyone. “We’ll be there in fifteen, twenty minutes tops. I want the building secured and a search initiated. Every apartment, every closet, every nook and cranny where someone might hide. I want a perimeter set up a mile around the place. No one in or out without being identified and giving their reason for being in the neighborhood. If you see Underwood, arrest him on sight.”

  “Hurry, Johnny.”

  I couldn’t explain it. My heart filled with a terror not my own this time. It was the oddest sensation. Crevan was in trouble – I knew it without proof. He needed us now, not in twenty minutes.

  “What’s wrong?” Johnny sensed the spike in my anxiety.

  “He’s already there, Johnny. Don’t ask how I know. Shelly’s cops are either dead or simply missed Underwood when he entered the building.”

  He tossed his phone into my lap. “Call Finkelstein. Get her on the line with whoever she left outside that building. Make sure her men are on the job.”

  By the time we reached Crevan’s apartment, the block was lit up in red and blue lights. No ambulance. My heart tattooed the back of my sternum. God, not again. No more dead friends. Please. Let him –

  “Helen, stay in the car.”

  “Are you insane? I’m armed.”

  “Stay behind me.”

  We dashed up the stairwell seven flights without breaking a sweat. The hallway was crowded with uniforms – mostly black and gray of the state police under Johnny’s command. Two Darkwater uniforms lurked at the periphery.

  The door to Crevan’s apartment stood wide open. Voices floated down the hall.

  “Drop the knife, Underwood. We can talk about this.”

  “There’s nothing to say!” Underwood shrieked. “I have a duty to God and my family, and I will not stop until the stain on my name is washed clean.”

  “Let’s talk. Whatever this stain is –”

  The elevator doors chimed and slid open. Briscoe, red faced and huffing, charged out with his gun drawn.

  “Are you nuts? Are all of you people blind?” Underwood’s incredulity bled into the air. “He’s a queer! He married my sister! He’s been laughing at me all week because I got conned by two of the same filth that tricked me into believing they were women!”

  Confession time. Unfortunately, it outed my friend at the same time.

  Briscoe’s jaw dropped. His gun hit his thigh.

  I pushed forward. “Let me through. Let me talk to him,” I said.

  Crevan’s pale face stared at the door. He blinked back the surreal horror when our eyes met. I gave him a reassuring nod, despite the fact that Underwood had a very lethal serrated blade pressed against his throat.

  “Woody,” I said. “It’s all right. We understand what happened. That thing Sunday, it wasn’t your fault. Kylie lied to you. He didn’t have the right to trick you that way.”

  “You’re a liar,” he hissed. “I know all about people like you, Detective Eriksson. That’s what you do – lie. Isn’t that what you said?”

  Johnny’s rage crowded my back. Maverick lied to us about knowing where Underwood was hiding. My brain groaned at the idea that Underwood might’ve been hiding in Maverick’s room and heard our conversation. Accessory after the fact my ass. Maverick was a co-conspirator as far as I was concerned.

  “I never lied. I know that Kyle didn’t tell you that he was a man, Woody. That’s what we call a mitigating circumstance. If you do this, if you hurt Crevan now, in front of all these witnesses, any leverage, any justification defense you might have in court flies out the window,” I said.

  “He killed my sister,” Underwood rasped. “He killed her, do you hear me?”

  “Put the knife down, and we can talk about it. I want to hear your side of the story.”

  “No way,” Underwood said. “I drop my weapon, and what’s to stop you from killing me right here and now? I know how things work in this city. You’re all corrupt. That’s what the cops in this town are famous for.”

  I holstered my gun. “Everybody, take a deep breath,” I said. “Put your weapons away. We’re just going to have a conversation here, and prove to Mr. Underwood that things are different in this city now.”

  My attention refocused on our perp the second my peripheral vision sensed obedient motion. “Look at me, Fulk. You know I’m not from this city. Whatever made cops do the wrong thing in the past, I’m not part of that. I’m former FBI. You know that. I want to see justice done here. If that means we’ve got more dirty cops to expose, then that’s what we’ll do. But I can’t help you if you keep threatening Detective Conall. It looks like you’re the one who’s wrong if you can’t put down that knife and let me take you someplace safe where we can talk.”

  “I don’t trust you.”

  “I trusted you,” I said. “I put my gun away. Everyone else did what I asked too. Talk to me. Tell me why you think this is the answer to what happened this week.”

  “My sister was a good person, a devout Christian before this son of a bitch tricked her!”

  “All right, let’s start there,” I said.

  Crevan’s eyes widened.

  Sorry, buddy. Looks like we’re gonna have to go there if you want out of this
with your jugular intact. “How did Crevan trick Belle?”

  “He married her, didn’t he? Doesn’t that imply that he wanted a wife and not just some rube to cover up what he really is?”

  “Do you think that Crevan was unfaithful to your sister?”

  “It doesn’t matter. For all that is in this world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. The Bible says that, Detective Eriksson. It means something to me.”

  “And you think Crevan lusted after someone other than his wife?”

  “Of course he did!” Spit flew from Underwood’s lips. “Matthew 5:28 – But I say unto you, that whosever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”

  “Her,” I said softly.

  “Leviticus 18:22 – Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”

  “What if I were to tell you that Crevan hasn’t done any of those things,” I said. “He hasn’t lusted after anyone. He hasn’t lain with another man.”

  Underwood laughed evilly. “He’s thought about it. He sure as hell wasn’t interested in having a normal relationship with my sister. She told me, you know. She told me that she made a horrible mistake marrying him. She told me that he’s gay.”

  “And you’re certain that she couldn’t have made a mistake?”

  “I can spot that filth from a million miles away,” he hissed.

  “Can you, Fulk? Can you really?”

  His spine stiffened. “I can.”

  “Then how did Kyle Goddard deceive you? If you know the difference, if you can tell just by looking at someone who and what they really are, how did Kyle manage to seduce you to the point where you didn’t realize that you gave a man an orgasm until it happened?”

  A terrible snarl tore from the depths of Underwood’s soul. “I did not know what he was! They’re getting better and better with the deception, with their perverted desire to corrupt sane men into committing unspeakable acts. I have to stop them! It’s what God wants me to do.”

  I pulled my gun in a flash. “Either you drop the knife and let Crevan go right now, or I’ll drill a hole in your head, Underwood. Don’t think I’ll miss. I’m that good.”

  He smirked. “See? I knew you were lying.”

  The same out of body experience I had the night Rick died settled over my left hand. No control. No free will. Just the unstoppable pressure of an index finger, squeezing harder and harder.

  A crack sounded over my shoulder. Blood blossomed at the juncture of his right rotator cuff. The knife clattered to the floor. Crevan darted away from Underwood’s body before it crumpled.

  Johnny stepped around me and holstered his gun. He gave me a look. Damned man really did know me better than perhaps I knew myself. “Somebody call a bus to pick up the trash. He’s gonna survive this injury and go to prison for his crimes.”

  I rushed to Crevan. “Are you all right?”

  He trembled in my outstretched arms. “Shit, Helen. Now everybody knows.”

  “He could’ve killed you, and that’s what you were worried about?”

  Crevan pulled away from my embrace and stared with such a stricken expression, I had no choice but look behind me. Briscoe.

  Son of a bitch.

  So much for the truce. He looked like he’d been betrayed on the same level Underwood felt.

  “Tony –”

  “Crevan, don’t worry about him.”

  “Let me explain.”

  Briscoe held up one hand, shook his head in disgust and walked out of the apartment. I grabbed Crevan’s arm and prevented him from following.

  “Give him time, Crevan.”

  “Let go of me,” he hissed. “Tony’s been my partner for twelve years, Helen. I owe him an explanation.”

  “Gonna have to wait, Crevan. I need your statement about how Underwood got in here and what happened before I arrived,” Johnny said.

  Meanwhile, Underwood bled all over Crevan’s floor.

  “Helen, go find Briscoe and calmly try to settle him down.”

  Unbelievable. I couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity.

  Johnny’s fingers manacled my arm. “Peacefully, Doc. If you care about Crevan at all, you won’t make this worse.”

  I silently cursed Johnny’s wisdom, and followed Briscoe out the door.

  Between his huffing and puffing and the slow elevator, I caught him before he got out the front door of the apartment building.

  “Briscoe!”

  “What, you gonna threaten to blow my brains out too, Eriksson?” The gloves came off and the vituperative Briscoe I remembered from Christmas Eve returned. “I ain’t scared of you. Johnny and… hell everybody around here’s gonna see you for what you are sooner or later.”

  “He’s your partner,” I said. “Why won’t you let him explain what happened up there? Or has it escaped your astute eye that Underwood is a raving lunatic?”

  “Is that an official diagnosis?”

  “When it comes to the religious bullshit he used to justify premeditated murder? Absolutely. Make no mistake, Tony. He still knew what he was doing was against the law.”

  “Are you tellin’ me that freak was lyin’? Made a mistake about Puppy?”

  “It’s not my story to tell. You’ve been his partner for twelve years, Briscoe. Don’t you owe it to him to at least hear what he’s got to say?”

  “You already knew,” Briscoe sneered. “Twelve years is supposed to mean somethin’ when you, the great stranger waltzes into town and he tells you before he tells me? Huh-uh. I don’t think so, Eriksson.”

  I gripped his arm before he could turn away completely. “He never told me anything, Tony. Not until I confronted him.”

  “On account of how Belle blackmailed him?”

  I nodded.

  “Je-sus tits.”

  “Don’t make this worse for him, Tony. Please. If he’s your friend, what difference does it make who he loves?”

  “That part don’t make a damn bit of difference,” he muttered. “The fact that my so-called partner never bothered to tell me the truth for all these years, well, that matters.”

  Chapter 38

  The record company’s legal vultures did not descend on Downey Division to bail poor Fulk Underwood out of his current legal jam after emergency treatment patched the hole from the expertly fired through-and-through shot that ended the threat on Crevan’s life. I wondered at it. Perhaps Madden was paranoid in his belief that the management company protected Underwood unduly. Either that or they had grown weary of his penchant for firing people on the whims that history recorded in his rather storied career and decided that it was time to exercise their right to rein Madden in.

  Whenever the lawyer did make his appearance, I suspected that they’d go for an insanity defense. I made sure that my official report on Underwood’s arrest, as well as the conversations we shared prior to that time, gave no indication that he didn’t comprehend the consequences of breaking the law.

  On the contrary, the way Fulk Underwood tried to use Crevan as a bargaining tool told another story all together. He knew full well that the gig was over, that he was caught.

  I’d seen it before. The crazy rambling confessional when the perp was cornered. In my opinion, it was nothing more than the first step in claiming mental incompetence.

  Johnny’s hands fell on my shoulders and massaged gently. “Relax. He’s not wiggling out of this, Helen.”

  “Did I say anything?”

  “No, but I’m not blind. You’re radiating tension like crazy. Don’t worry. There were tons of cops who witnessed that confession, watched him use Crevan to try to worm his way into justifying what he’d done. It was really stupid of him to accuse Crevan of killing Belle.”

  Right. Crevan, who had the most ironclad of alibis for Belle’s time of death couldn’t be linked to the crime in any way, shape or form.

  “Did you talk to Zack
Carpenter?”

  “I did,” Johnny pulled a chair next to mine at the desk and slid into it. “He’s up to speed on the hate crime. Honestly, I can’t foresee a single problem on this one.”

  “As opposed to the other cases I’ve closed where litigation is pending or hanging in limbo,” I muttered.

  “Honey, Jerry Lowe will see his day in court. You know it as well as I do. As for that meth lab bunch, those who survived have pled out. There won’t be a trial.”

  “But Datello –”

  “He’ll take his chances with the jury. My money’s on Zack, and the case you, Ned and Devlin made against him. Stop worrying.”

  “This is just another trial to hang out there in some nebulous future, something to suck me back into this world.”

  Johnny leaned over and nibbled my neck. “I talked to Shelly while you were out here hammering away at this arrest report.”

  “Oh yeah?” I held no hope for a happy ending. Just more of the same soul-sucking work stretching interminably into a future I didn’t want.

  “She’s gonna talk to Hardy and Weber about letting you go right away.”

  My eyes lifted. “You’re kidding.”

  “Until it’s settled, she’s agreed that it’s high time you actually finish your physical therapy – just in case someone doesn’t succumb to my impeccable powers of persuasion right away. If you have to come back to active duty, you’re gonna be at a hundred percent physically first.”

  “Thank you, Johnny.”

  “Anything for the girl of my dreams.”

  I cleared my throat, conscious of our surroundings. “So where’s Crevan right now?”

  “I gave him the keys to the penthouse at La Pierre Tower. I figure he may as well move in since I have a new home now.”

  “That’s very generous of you, Johnny.”

  “OSI has had some phenomenal successes of late. Joe is green-lighting some additional personnel. Crevan’s considering a change of jobs.”

  I nodded. “That would probably be for the best. Briscoe didn’t respond to any of this the way I’d hoped.”

  “Thank you for trying,” Johnny said.