by Lyle Howard
“And you’ve got a better theory, wise guy?”
Lance cracked the window to relieve some of the musky animal odor coming from Rex now sleeping harmlessly in the back seat. “Maybe he sees himself as those animal’s self-proclaimed redeemer.”
Lincoln switched on the right signal and turned west onto Fort Lauderdale’s main drag, Broward Boulevard. “You’ve lost me, kid … What do you mean?”
Lance shrugged indifferently. “I don’t know… maybe an animal saved his life or something. He’s acting like he owes them some kind of immense debt. In his mind, he’s judge and jury, skipping the judicial process and executing the people who have thoughtlessly sentenced these animals to die.”
Lincoln furled his eyebrows. “And you accused me of seeing too many movies? I think you must have whacked your noggin jumping off of that jet-ski, kid!”
Lance rubbed his forehead. “No, not a bruise.”
“Well, we’ll find out soon enough.”
Lance eyed the clock on the dashboard and noticed it was just after ten o’clock. “What about your wife?”
Lincoln frowned. “I called her while you were changing. Everything is smooth at home.”
“Are you sure?”
Lincoln pursed his lips. “Let’s not talk about it, okay?”
“That bad, huh?”
“Yeah … that bad.”
Much to Lance’s surprise, the B.S.O. headquarters came and went in a blur of brown marble and steel. “Where are we going?” he asked. “I thought we had to go back to the station?”
Lincoln handed Lance a slip of paper. The interior of the car was dark, but Lance had no trouble reading the address scribbled in Lincoln’s nearly illegible handwriting. “Cohen’s address?”
Lance could see Lincoln grinning in the faint green light emanating from the instruments on the dashboard. “Since it took you so damned long to change clothes, I had all the time in the world to have county records track down the address!”
“What does this mean? One eighty-three and a half?” Lance asked, curious upon seeing the fraction.
Lincoln pointed upward with his thumb. “I think it means he lives above another address … like over a garage or something.”
“How far away are we?”
“Just another few minutes.” As the police car wound through the middle of the city, both men sat quietly and contemplated what might be awaiting them.
“What about calling for a back-up?” Lance asked after a few minutes of awkward silence.
Lincoln shook his head. “I don’t want to scare this guy off. If he lives upstairs, he could see them coming.”
“So we have to do this alone?”
Lincoln snickered confidently. “He’s only one guy, Cutter!”
“Yeah, but … “
Lincoln reached under his coat and pulled out his gun. “The great equalizer.”
“Sure, that’s fine for you…”
“Open up the glove box.” Lance reached forward and opened the small compartment to find another pistol inside.
“Take it,” Lincoln offered.
Lance hesitated. “I don’t think so….”
The detective shrugged. “It’s up to you, kid, just don’t ever say that I didn’t offer it.”
Lance closed the glove box. “I’ve never….”
Lincoln smiled sympathetically. “It’s okay, kid, you don’t have to explain.”
The police car turned down a street lined with grimy commercial buildings painted with conventional names such as Red’s Auto Paint and Body Shop, and Big Al’s Window Repair….
“Are you sure this is the right road?” Lance asked as the car crept slowly down the pothole-ravaged street.
“According to the address it is.”
Lance scanned his eyes from one side of the desolate avenue to the other. From out of the doorway of one of the gray, lifeless buildings, the car’s headlights struck an alley cat darting across the road. Lincoln had to jam on the brakes to avoid hitting it. “Damned cat!” he cursed under his breath.
Lance pointed through the windshield as the car barely picked up momentum again. “Look, up there!”
“Where?”
“Slow down!” Lance cautioned.
“What is it?”
“Two buildings down, on the left side.”
Lincoln slowed the car to a stop. “What are you looking at?”
Lance directed the detective’s line of sight to a window above an air-conditioning company’s storefront. “There’s a light up there.”
Lincoln strained to read the address he had written and then looked back at the window. “That may be the one, kid.”
“What should we do now?”
Lincoln looked into the rearview mirror. “I want to back up so that he doesn’t see our car. We stick out like a sore thumb in this thing.”
Lance glanced backward over his shoulder as the car discreetly rolled away from the lit window. “What’s our next move?”
Lincoln slipped the transmission into park at the end of the block. “Now we go the rest of the way on foot.”
“What about Rex?”
Lincoln checked the rounds in his gun. “Rex will be fine. If we unlatch the partition, he’ll keep an eye on the car for us.”
Lance reached back and flipped the mechanism that held the wire mesh partition in place. It slid down far enough so that Rex had total freedom in the car. “That should scare off any would-be car thieves.”
Satisfied that his gun was loaded and secure, Lincoln stepped out onto the pavement and Lance did the same. “Look at you,” Abe griped.
Lance was standing on the far side of the car. “What’s the matter?”
“You’re dressed like a signal flare!”
Lance inspected the bright orange jumpsuit. “What do you want me to do, walk down the street in the buff?”
Lincoln shook his head dejectedly. “Just try to stay in the shadows, okay?”
Lance had no problem agreeing to that demand. The hair-raising sounds of an empty beer bottle rolling across the concrete sidewalk, and of hidden nocturnal creatures scavenging through half-filled dumpsters, filled the stale-smelling night air.
As Lincoln prowled from doorway to doorway with Lance trailing closely at his heels, he was reminded of the carnivals from his childhood, where he would creep through the haunted house, gutlessly squinting around each darkened corner, half-paralyzed with fright, expecting some headless fiend or some ax-wielding manic to send him screaming out through the exit. He laughed to himself about how asinine he must have appeared to his friends, but when Lance unexpectedly tapped him on the shoulder, he still flinched.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Lance apologized in a whisper.
“What is it?”
“How much farther?”
“Just a few more yards,” Lincoln responded out of the corner of his mouth.
“Does this feel as creepy to you as it does to me?”
Lincoln put his finger over his mouth. “Shh … keep your voice down!”
A faded page of discarded newspaper tumbled down the center of the street, prodded along by whatever slight breeze there was, and wrapped itself around the base of a mailbox.
“What was that?” Lance asked, wheeling around at the sound of the crackling piece of periodical.
“Pipe down! We’re almost there!” Lincoln growled. One-eighty-three and a half East Fifteenth Avenue was nothing more than a narrow doorway which concealed a flight of stairs leading to a second floor garret above Coolie’s Air Conditioning Repair Shop. Flakes of tan paint came off on Lincoln’s palm as he pushed open the unsecured door.
“What do you see?” Lance whispered.
Lincoln lifted his gun up beside his face and pressed his back against one of the graffiti-stained foyer walls. “I can’t see anything up there … it’s too dark.”
Lance remained out on the sidewalk, but close enough that he could peer through the portal. “Twenty stairs …
ten straight up to a landing … and then they go up to the right.”
Lincoln looked at Lance standing cautiously beyond the doorway. “How can you see that?”
Lance moved inside and stood against the opposite wall facing Lincoln, the stairwell rising between them. “I eat a lot of carrots.”
The detective rolled his eyes cynically. “I guess it’s showtime.”
“How do you want to do this?” Lance whispered.
Lincoln strained his eyes to see up the pitch-dark staircase. “I guess we just take it one step at a time … I sure wish I could tell if anyone was inside.”
Lance cocked his head. “I hear voices.”
The detective glared at him with incomprehension. “How can you hear anything from way down here? I don’t hear a damned thing!”
“Trust me, there’s someone talking inside the apartment.”
Lincoln grimaced. “Trust you? Look where it’s gotten me so far! Let’s just take it nice and slow … we don’t want to announce our arrival.”
Lincoln warily set his left foot onto the first stair and it creaked under his excessive weight. “Damn, I knew it,” he cursed, pulling his foot back.
“Let me try,” Lance offered.
Lincoln shook his head. “Forget it, kid,” he whispered. “These stairs are too old and brittle. We’re gonna have to go up, full steam ahead.”
“Do we have to?”
“On three … are you ready?”
“No,” Lance admitted reluctantly as he prepared himself behind Lincoln at the base of the steps.
“Tough crap … one … two … three!” Lincoln rumbled up the stairs like a linebacker with his gun stretched out at arm’s length in front of him. Lance followed behind him with his adrenaline already kicking into overdrive. In the tight confines of the foyer, the two men’s thunderous footsteps sounded like a herd of buffalo climbing the stairs.
“Stay down here on the landing!” Lincoln shouted as he rounded the corner and continued upward toward the door of the apartment. Lowering his shoulder, the big man hit the old door with a crushing blow, splintering its rusty hinges. Falling to the floor inside the apartment, Lincoln instinctively began rolling from side to side, searching with his gun for any signs of opposition. Finding none, he rose to his feet, only to find himself face to face with an indescribable spectacle of horror.
For a moment that seemed like an eternity for Lance, there was no sound coming from above. The dirty stairwell that he stood on was now bathed in a pallid yellowish glow that seeped like sludge through the violated apartment’s threshold.
Lance stared up toward the illuminated doorway and then back down toward the security of the street. His feet wanted him to move in the direction of safety, but his conscience kept them in place. “Abe,” he whispered. “Abe … what’s happening?”
Like the moon passing in front of the sun, slowly the light coming from inside the apartment became eclipsed in darkness as a shadowy figure filled the doorway.
“Abe?” Lincoln stood motionless, and Lance’s heart leapt into his throat. “Abe, are you all right?”
There was no response. “Abe?”
“You’re … you’re not going to believe this, Cutter,” the detective stammered, “I’ve … I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.”
Lance knew it was physically impossible for Abe Lincoln to blanch white, but the detective was as pale as coffee and cream.
“What is it?” Lance asked, stepping upward. Lincoln warned him to stay back with a wave of his hand, and then leaned over the banister and threw up.
Lance stepped through the open doorway, past the incapacitated detective who was still retching uncontrollably over the railing. The numbingly sharp odor of pine-scented disinfectant burned at his nostrils as he stared in spellbound horror around the interior of the dimly lit apartment.
Stainless steel tables filled half of what would have normally been considered a living room. On these silver tables, dogs and cats of diverse breeds and sizes … their mouths bound by muzzles, their eyes turned lifelessly dark … were poised in various stages of vivisection. The helpless animals were secured to the metal counters by limb shackles, the flesh of their midsections peeled back to expose their vital organs. One small dog, which looked to be a spaniel puppy no more than a few months old, had a length of clear hose running out of its punctured abdomen which siphoned out its blood with a sickening drip … drip … drip into a ordinary metal pail beneath the table.
On the far side of the room, pasted to the chipping paint like a vile pattern of wallpaper, newspaper clippings describing the series of fiery deaths were stuck at odd angles on the wall. On another wall, freshly skinned animal hides of assorted proportions were pinned to the wall to dry, with a heat lamp mounted on a tripod pointed at them. It quickly became apparent why the room smelled like a pine forest. Without the disinfectant, the stench in the apartment would have been intolerable.
To his left, assembled on a divider which separated the main room from the kitchen, Lance spotted a row of glass specimen bottles, each containing an indistinct mixture of internal animal organs floating in a cloudy yellow liquid. “I don’t believe what I’ m seeing here,” Lance muttered, finding himself mimicking Lincoln’s words.
His instinct told him to turn and run from this deadly domicile, or to throw up like Abe Lincoln was still doing, but a morbid curiosity compelled Lance to move onward into the kitchen.
Stepping cautiously over to the stove, he examined a cold frying pan sitting on one of the front burners. At first glance, he thought that the chunk of food surrounded by a bed of grilled onions might have been a cold piece of steak. But, on closer review, he realized it was a half-cooked animal heart! This hideous revelation brought Lance’s lunch up into his throat. He stepped back and covered his mouth to stem the wave of nausea that was pouring over him like a hot shower. Behind him, he could hear that Abe had come back inside.
“Are you okay, kid?” Lincoln asked. “You don’t look so hot.”
Lance looked away from the stove. “He’s been eating them, Abe.”
Lincoln slid his gun back into his shoulder holster, but his hand was shaking and moist as he pressed the snap to secure it. “I was wrong when I thought I had seen it all, kid.”
Lance pointed out at the tables. “What is he doing with them … tests?
Lincoln shook his head. “Unfortunately, it looks more like a smorgasbord to me.”
Lance gestured toward another doorway off the kitchen. “It sounds like the television is on in the bedroom. Those are the voices I must have heard when we were downstairs.”
Lincoln stared at Lance. “You know, kid. Someday you’re gonna have to tell me how you do that.”
Lincoln’s attempt at easing the situation missed its mark by a country mile. “But why would he leave the apartment with the television on?” Lance wondered aloud.
Lincoln couldn’t take his eyes off of the poor animals splayed out on the operating tables. “Maybe our friend had to leave in a hurry.”
Lance motioned to the stove. “That makes sense. It looks like his cooking was interrupted, too.”
“Are you gonna be all right?” Lincoln asked with fatherly concern in his voice.
“Probably not.” Abe walked into the kitchen. “I’m going to search the bedroom. Why don’t you look around here and see what you can find?”
Lance instinctively nodded his compliance, but the truth was: his mind was having a hard time accepting the butchery surrounding him.
The kitchen table was set for one, with a placemat, stoneware, and a full set of utensils that included two forks. This lead Lance to believe that Jacob Cohen wasn’t just some demented lunatic, but an educated and cultured psychopath.
Lance had his fingers wrapped around the handle of the refrigerator door when he heard Lincoln call out to him. “I think I’ve got something here, Cutter!”
Lance opened the door without looking inside. “What did y
ou find?”
Lincoln came back out into the kitchen holding a small, black, leatherbound notebook. “A diary … I found it on the nightstand next to the bed.”
Lance turned to Lincoln, his arm still resting on the opened refrigerator door. “He kept a diary?”
Lincoln flipped quickly through the pages. “Everything’s in here … names … dates … he even has something about the day you showed up at Animal Control.”
“I can’t believe he kept records,” Lance said, sounding baffled.
“I told you our boy was methodical, didn’t I?”
Lance bent over and looked into the refrigerator.
“Shit,” Lincoln cursed, as he read the last entry.
Lance reached in and examined a rack of corked test tubes containing a clear liquid. The wooden rack was attached by small metal bolts to one of the clear plastic shelves. It appeared that the bolts were used to keep the rack remaining upright in case the refrigerator was jarred. The rack had room for six tubes, but it only contained four. “These must be the chemicals Toby Bilston said Cohen needed to generate the fires,” Lance observed, running his finger down one of the sweating tubes. “Toby told me they would have to be kept chilled.”
“Listen up,” Lincoln warned, “this is not good … not good at all. What time is it?”
Lance closed the refrigerator door and glanced over at the clock on the stove. “Ten forty-five.”
Lincoln shook his head. “He must have been listening to the ten o’clock news.”
“What are you talking about?” Lincoln poked at the last inscription with a trembling finger. “His last entry reads: ‘Made a terrible mistake today…could be trouble … injured an innocent man … bad feelings about this man Cutter … must be stopped … tonight … I’m going back!’”
Lance thought that hearing the menacing words would have stirred a tidal wave of rage in his soul, but instead, his spirit was flooded by a sudden fear … fear for the life of Julie Chapman!
TWENTY TWO
The acidic smell of disinfectant was starting to sicken Lance, so all he wanted to do was leave. “What now?”
Lincoln closed the diary and slipped the thick leatherbound journal into his inside coat pocket. “Now we call for some back-up!”
