The Rook pbf-2

by Steven James

  The scalpel was still in my leg, but if I removed it, the wound would bleed badly. It throbbed as I awkwardly dragged Basque to his feet to read him his rights.

  I couldn’t help but take note of his face. Hollywood handsome, and yet possessed with pure evil. He was staring at the motionless, blood-soaked body of the woman. “I guess we won’t be needing that ambulance after all.”

  And that’s when it happened.

  Something inside of me snapped.

  Rage and fear cascading through me. Rage, because of what he’d done to her. Fear, because if humans were capable of doing that, and I was human…

  Well.

  I lost it.

  I punched him as hard as I could in the jaw. The force of the blow sent him spinning to the ground. I dropped to my knees beside him and raised my fist. Punched him again. Drew my fist back, ready to unload a third time.

  When I was training for law enforcement, my instructors taught me to control myself. To avoid getting emotionally involved. But sometimes you can’t help it. The violence and suffering get to you.

  And in that moment, I was ready to hit him again and again and again until I’d made him suffer as much as the woman he’d just killed. Part of me wanted to take the scalpel and cut him. Cut him just like he’d cut her.

  He gazed at me and licked at the hot blood on his lips. “It feels good, doesn’t it, Detective? It feels really good.”

  It feels good, doesn’t it?

  And the thing I’ve never told anybody, never mentioned in any of my reports, was that it did. It did feel good when I hit him. A rush of fire and anger and power. And, to a certain part of me, it would have felt good to grab the scalpel and keep going, to give in to the primal drift in my soul. Part of me would have enjoyed the savagery.

  I didn’t answer him that day, but I think my silence spoke my thoughts.

  Later, Basque told the interrogating officers that he’d broken his jaw when the meat hook hit him in the face. And that’s what went in the case files and I didn’t correct them. So for the last thirteen years, by his silence and mine, we’ve shared a secret that has frightened me more than any killer I’ve ever faced. The secret that it felt good to take a step in the direction of evil. Yes, it did.

  I found out later that the woman’s name was Sylvia Padilla. She was his sixteenth victim.

  At least, that’s how many we know about.

  And that day, as she died beside me and I saw the extent of the horrors one human being could do to another, a cold shiver burrowed its way deep into my soul and has wormed around inside of me ever since.

  A shivering reminder of how close I came to becoming what I hunt.

  Tessa’s comments in the restaurant and on the beach had struck a nerve, because this month, after more than a dozen years on death row, Richard Devin Basque was being retried as the result of some DNA test discrepancies. And since I’d only caught him at the scene, not in the act of murder, the case wasn’t going to be a slam dunk.

  My buddy Agent Ralph Hawkins would be testifying tomorrow.

  The trial would probably go on for months, and eventually I would be called in to testify too. But that’s not what was bothering me as I sat beside my stepdaughter. I was thinking of the secret I shared with Basque.

  That, yes, it felt good.

  “You’re not like them, are you?” she’d asked me.

  And I’d told her no.

  But maybe I am.

  7

  Sitting beneath the pale moonlight, Tessa and I watched the hungry waves lap at the shore. And for a few moments it seemed like we had always known each other, that she really was my daughter, that I really was her father, and that we had a lifetime of shared memories stored up someplace, ready to take us through whatever rough times might lay ahead.

  But the feeling lasted only a moment. Then it was gone. Sea mist entwined us and the cold spaces between the distant stars landed on the beach all around us. I felt a chill. Maybe it was the wind. Maybe it was the deep night creeping slowly up the shore.

  “I’m getting cold,” Tessa said.

  “Me too,” I said. “Let’s go. It’s still a long walk back to the car.”

  As we stood, she gazed at the world’s only ocean one last time.

  “Being here, right now, with the wind and the night and everything.

  It reminds me of something I read once.”

  “What’s that?”

  She gave the moonlit waves a steady, thoughtful stare. “‘It was, indeed, a tempestuous yet sternly beautiful night, and one wildly singular in its terror and its beauty.’” And then, looking toward me, she added, “Poe. The Fall of the House of Usher.”

  “That’s eerie,” I said. “And beautiful too.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “It is. It’s both.”

  I thought for a moment about reaching over and putting my hand on her shoulder, but I decided not to. The wind blew salty gusts in from the ocean, and somewhere above us a gull screeched its way through the night. For a moment, the gull’s cry sounded like a human scream stretched out across the water.

  Like a woman’s scream echoing off the concrete floor of a slaughterhouse.

  I reached into my pocket, and as I pulled out the car keys, I remembered where I’d placed them on the table, behind the salad bowl.

  “Come on,” I said. “There’s something I want to show you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The future.”

  8

  Creighton Melice parked his car in front of one of the bottom-feeder bars in a gang-infested neighborhood of southern San Diego. He figured that at least half of the people in the place would be carrying, so he made sure he’d chambered a round in his Glock before stepping out of the car.

  A few women who’d ignored the cool weather and were wearing skin-tight wisps of clothing propositioned Creighton on his way into the bar, but he just brushed them off. He wasn’t interested in their kind.

  He wanted a girlfriend with a little more class.

  Some of the gangbangers lurking around the tables stared at Creighton as he entered. A few of them eyed his face and hands, focusing on the array of scars and burn marks he carried, but most of the bangers were probably just wondering if he was a cop. The attention didn’t bother Creighton. He knew how to act around bangers. After all, he’d been one himself back in the day.

  In a gang, it’s all about respect. So instead of staring down or provoking the little punks, he just gave them each a casual nod as he walked past.

  They seemed to accept that and, one by one, drifted back to their murmured conversations, keeping one cautious eye on him as he took his seat at the bar.

  Creighton ordered two beers and let his eyes browse the room.

  The woman sitting by herself beneath the Bud Light sign looked a little too drunk. Pass.

  The African-American woman who was checking him out from the booth by the end of the bar appeared a little too eager. Never a good sign.

  He took a long, slow drink and found his attention drawn to an attractive, dark-skinned brunette sitting alone at a table beside the window. She didn’t look like an untraceable, undocumented immigrant, but she was appealing to Melice for other reasons. She looked bored and was apparently confident enough not to feel the need to dress like a ten-dollar whore to find a guy.

  Hmm. Interesting.

  He grabbed the two beers and maneuvered through the crowd to her table.

  Being confident. That’s the key. It’s all about confidence. If you’re confident enough, people will go wherever you lead them, believe whatever you say. That’s how Jeffrey Dahmer did it. Complete confidence. He once convinced two cops that the drugged, naked guy in handcuffs wandering around the streets was his drunk lover.

  So the officers dropped the guy off at Dahmer’s apartment, where he promptly killed and then ate him. Another time some cops came to his place to investigate the smell seeping through the walls of his apartment, and Dahmer convinced them that i
t was just the aquarium he hadn’t gotten around to cleaning. They didn’t bother to check his bedroom, or they would have found the rotting corpse on his bed.

  So.

  Confidence.

  Creighton set both beers on the brunette’s table. “I need some advice.”

  She looked at the bottles of beer and then gave Creighton a slight grin. “Oh yeah? What kind of advice?”

  Over the years Creighton had discovered that people are more suspicious of you if you offer them something for nothing. The kinder you are, the more they think you want something from them. People trust need, not charity.

  He leaned his hand against the chair beside her. “I’m new around here. I need someone to show me around the city.”

  A raised eyebrow. A little sarcasm. “Do I look like a tour guide?”

  “You look like someone who’s tired of all the scumbags in this hellhole leering at you. You look like someone who knows you could do better for tonight, if only the right guy wandered into your life.”

  So.

  Now.

  Wait.

  Just wait.

  She’ll respond somehow, she has to respond somehow.

  Confidence. That’s the key.

  Creighton took a swig of his beer.

  She might just blow him off. Yes, she might.

  But maybe.

  “Well,” she said at last. “You’re right about this place. And I do know the city pretty well…” She stood and slipped her arm around his elbow. “All right. Tonight, I’ll be your guide.”

  “I can’t wait,” he said, and led her to the door.

  9

  Since I’m six-foot-three, I was thankful yesterday when Avis up-graded us to a full-size car. At least this way I could steer with my hands and not my knees.

  I turned off a street peppered with tattoo studios, car dealer-ships, and small ethnic restaurants and then cruised past a group of homeless immigrants who stared blankly at our car from the curb.

  “Patrick,” said Tessa. “We can go back to the hotel now if you want to. I mean, I don’t mind. Just so you know. It’s OK with me.”

  “Don’t worry, it’s all right. The neighborhood we’re going to isn’t so bad.”

  “How do you know?”

  “This is what I do.”

  We drove for another ten minutes and then I said, “So earlier you asked if I could tell where the next fire would be, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well.” I let the car roll to a stop beside a series of brown stucco homes lining one of San Diego’s many sagebrush-covered hills.

  “This is it.”

  “Here?” She sounded excited, like I’d just suggested we move back to New York City.

  “Yes. If I were going to predict the future, I’d say the next fire is going to be somewhere right around here.”

  We stepped out of the car, and she looked around the desolate neighborhood. Not much to see. A small tobacco store stood on the corner at the end of the block. The hills were fringed by palm trees and dotted with quiet homes now fast asleep. The traffic on the Five murmured to us through the night. A commuter train, which they call trolleys here, roared down the tracks in the distance.

  It wasn’t the worst neighborhood in the city, but I didn’t want to keep Tessa here too long, either.

  “Do you really think there’s going to be a fire here?” she asked.

  “Of course not. I already told you I can’t predict the future.

  It’s just that if I were going to… that is-based on the arsonist’s pattern; if I were him, this is where I’d choose.”

  She looked around expectantly. “So, when is it supposed to happen?”

  I looked at my watch. “All right, let’s see… three… two… one.”

  She turned slowly, eyes wide. “Are you sure?” she asked.

  I noticed a transient Hispanic man lurching across the street at the end of the block. He wore a tangle of scraggly clothes, and when he arrived at the curb he began to walk in odd circles around one of the murky streetlights. “Tessa, I already told you I can’t do this. What, do I look like Nostradamus?”

  She nodded, still scanning the neighborhood. “That’s a good line. I’d hang on to that one.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I don’t see a fire.”

  “Of course you don’t.” The homeless man was about thirty meters away. He appeared to be mumbling to himself. He looked our direction and then began to stumble toward us.

  “I think it’s time to go,” I said.

  Nearby, I could hear the rattle and hum of the trolley coming closer.

  Tessa slid into the passenger seat. “So, how much did you say graduate school cost you?”

  “Apparently, way too much.”

  As I pulled away from the curb, the vagrant began staggering down the center of the road toward us. He stopped directly in front of the car. I couldn’t safely pass him so I let the car idle. He stood only a few meters from us, frozen, staring into the headlights.

  “What’s he doing?” Tessa asked.

  “Probably just wants some money.”

  I was about to get out of the car and tell him to kindly step out of the way, when he let out a wild screech and rushed screaming toward our car, clambered up the hood to the windshield, and stared at us through the glass. I threw open my door. “Tessa, stay in the car. Lock the door.”

  She did.

  He looked at me menacingly, eyes wild in the night. “Brraynn,” he screamed. Before I could stop him, he slammed his face against the glass.

  Tessa scrambled back as far as she could. “Patrick!”

  Drugs. He’s probably on drugs.

  I grabbed his arm. “Sir, you need to settle down. Come on. Let’s get you off this car.” He pulled away, shook his head violently, and smacked his forehead against the windshield, sending an array of cracks flying across the glass. Then he looked at me with a crazed, twisted expression, his nose now bloodied and broken. His teeth were rotten nubs, his breath a putrid cloud.

  He was incoherent. High. Maybe drunk, although his breath didn’t smell of booze.

  “Ssslllleee,” he screeched. “Mergh. Whikl!”

  Restraining people high on crack is never fun. Inhuman strength.

  Combative. Out of control.

  But I needed to protect him from himself.

  I pulled him off the hood, but as I did, he let out a shriek, swung his head toward me, and buried his rotten teeth through my windbreaker and into the meat of my forearm. I jerked my arm away, and one of the stained teeth peeled out of his mouth and stayed lodged in my arm. He toppled off the car and sprinted with surprising speed toward the tobacco store, where a man in his early twenties had just exited.

  I rapped at the window, made sure Tessa was OK, and then I ran toward the tobacco store and called for the college kid to get away!

  The transient, who was either mentally ill or high-or both-was now holding a rusted tire iron. Whether he’d had it hidden nearby or just found it, I didn’t know.

  “Hey!” I had to yell loudly to be heard over the clatter of the approaching trolley. The guy was fast, frantic. I ran toward him.

  “Stop!”

  “Preehl!” he screamed.

  Rumbling from the tracks nearby, the trolley was accelerating.

  I sprinted toward the transient. “Put it down.” I reached for the plastic restraints I carry in my back pocket. “Do it now!”

  This was spinning off bad, bad.

  The vagrant turned in a circle, delirious. Disoriented. “Rrrrh-hhhkkk.”

  Finally, the customer who’d been standing outside the tobacco store backed away and slipped into the thick shadows beside it.

  Good, that’s good.

  But you still need to restrain this guy so he doesn’t attack someone else.

  I closed the distance to the homeless man, and he threw the tire iron at me, then bolted toward the trolley tracks. His impromptu weapon clanged to the sidewalk beside me as I
ran toward him.

  Only a few more meters.

  The rushing thunder of the trolley became more pronounced here, because just past us, the track descended into a tightly cut trench through the city. A stiff, black metal fence two meters tall lined the sides of the rift to keep people from falling in.

  Or jumping.

  Oh no.

  The transient grabbed the railing and began to climb. I sprang forward to clutch his leg. Almost had it. Almost.

  There. I had his ankle.

  But then he screamed one last unintelligible word, fiercely kicked my hand away, and threw himself over the top of the railing directly into the path of the oncoming trolley.

  10

  Even above the sound of the trolley rattling over the tracks, I could hear the wet, grisly sound of the trolley’s impact.

  No, no, no.

  I ran to the railing.

  The engineer was braking the trolley, but it wouldn’t matter anymore to the man who’d jumped. I wondered if the people aboard had felt anything, if they had any idea what had just happened. I noticed something wobbling to a stop beside the tracks. Then I realized what it was.

  The man’s shoe.

  And it looked like it might still have his foot inside it.

  A sour, churning flood of nausea swept through me. Some people grow numb to it all. To the death and blood and violence. You’d think in my job I would have, but it still bothers me. It still breaks my heart and turns my stomach.

  I took a deep breath to calm myself and then remembered Tessa.

  I swiveled around and ran to our car, part of my mind cataloging the scene.

  Entrance and exit routes-K Street and 16th. No mobile traffic.

  Check.

  License plate numbers-five parked cars, memorize the plates.

  Check.

  Potential witnesses-trolley riders? Unlikely. In the channel, they couldn’t see out… college kid, store owner? Possibly. Tessa, me.

  Check.

  Surveillance-no visible cameras.

  Check.