Whiskey Sour

by J. A. Konrath

  I had four teams coming with me, plus me and Herb. Evanston PD was meeting us there with more men. Herb placed an obligatory call to the Feds, but called the local branch to stall for time — it would take a while to get the message to Agents Dailey and Coursey, and by then it would all be over.

  In the black and white, siren screaming, Dispatch filled us in on Chuck’s record.

  “He’s thirty-seven years old. Eight arrests in the past nineteen years. Convictions for aggravated sexual assault and attempted murder. Last stretch ended in 1998. Since then he’s been clean.”

  “Not clean. Just careful.”

  The team heading to Diane Kork’s arrived first. She wasn’t home, and her place showed no signs of disturbance.

  I hoped we weren’t too late.

  Three miles from the target we killed lights and sirens. The houses here were one-story one-family dwellings, middle-class income. I was hyper-tuned to my environment, noticing many things at once; the streets were pitted with potholes, the dusk air smelled like leaves, my chest felt confined in the tight vest, Herb had sweat on his forehead.

  This was it.

  Benedict parked behind a row of squad cars, all waiting for his signal.

  “Ready?” he asked me.

  “It’s your show.”

  We got out of the car.

  Suddenly, tearing down the street with much squealing of tires, a black Mustang convertible bypassed the police barricade and bounced over the curb and onto the sidewalk. It screeched to a stop on Charles Kork’s front lawn, digging up four rolls of sod.

  A man in a trench coat, holding what looked like a gallon jug of milk, leaped from the car and ran up to the porch.

  I cleared leather with my .38 and limped in pursuit. Someone with a megaphone yelled, “Freeze! Police!” At ten yards away I dropped into a Weaver stance and kept a bead on the figure.

  “Freeze! Hands in the air!”

  The man put his hands up, still clutching the jug.

  “Turn around! Slowly!”

  I felt my backup fill in behind me. There was a tense pause. Then the man slowly craned his neck around and stared at me.

  “Kinda funny how history repeats itself, huh?”

  Harry McGlade.

  Chapter 39

  WAKE UP, MY LOVE.“

  He slaps his ex-wife across the face, watching the blood rush to her cheek. She whimpers, eyelids fluttering.

  “It’s Charles, honey. Wake up.”

  Diane Kork opens her eyes and stares at the man standing above her. She tries to move but can’t.

  “Charles, what are you —”

  He cuts her off with another cuff to the mouth.

  “You talk too much, Diane. Always talking. Always criticizing. I don’t want to hear it anymore. All I want to hear are your screams.”

  He walks away. Diane lifts her head, looking at what restrains her. Twine. Her ankles and wrists are bound with twine. She’s in her bra and panties, stretched out on a cement floor. Her hands and feet are tied to posts that have been driven through the concrete.

  “I’ve got four tapes.” Her ex-husband is standing off to her right, next to a video camera mounted on a tripod. “That’s four hours. Most women can’t scream anymore after the third hour, but I’ve got high hopes for you. You’ve got such a big mouth.”

  Charles Kork walks to a table and picks up a hunting knife.

  “Charles, please, untie me. This isn’t funny.”

  “You don’t think so? I think it’s high comedy. This is the American Dream, Diane. Killing the woman you married. For four years, I listened to you bitch and nag. And I took it. Why? First of all, because you were a perfect cover. Cops look for loners, not married guys. A single guy gets attention. A married guy is invisible.”

  “Charles —”

  “I’m not finished!” He hits her again. “Do you want to know what I was doing on those nights I never came home? You thought I was cheating on you, right? That’s why you left me.”

  Charles leans over her, gets in her face.

  “I was really out killing people, Diane. Stalking and killing people. Not cheating. Not really, anyway. I may have fucked them before I killed them, but I wouldn’t say I was having any affairs.”

  Diane squeezes her eyes shut. “This isn’t happening.”

  “Was I a bad husband, Diane? I spent time with you. I took you places. We even baked cookies together. Remember?”

  He grabs a lacquered gingerbread man from the table, the last one, and thrusts it before her eyes.

  “Look familiar? I was your perfect little suburban husband. I mowed the lawn. I paid the bills. I went out with your stupid friends and took you to movies and bought you flowers. I kept up my end of the bargain.”

  He bends down and smashes the cookie in her face.

  “And then, out of the blue, you decide to leave me. Leave me! On television, in front of millions of people! Who do you think you are? Nobody leaves me!”

  She’s crying now. “Charles, please —”

  “You don’t get it, Diane. I’ve killed almost thirty people. Your younger sister, who ran off? She didn’t run off. I buried her in a shallow grave in a forest preserve in the suburbs. Sneakers the cat? I broke his goddamn little neck. Haven’t you been watching the news? I’m the Gingerbread Man.”

  Diane’s eyes get wide as Charles kneels beside her. She begins to hyperventilate.

  “We’ve got four hours of tape to fill.” He brushes the tip of the knife over her quivering lips. “Four hours of quality time.”

  “Please, Charles. I’m your wife.”

  The Gingerbread Man cackles. “Till death do us part.”

  His knife enters her flesh.

  Chapter 40

  DAMMIT!“ I UNCOCKED MY PISTOL.”Hold your fire!“

  I stormed over to Harry, who was smiling ear to ear.

  “I hope you didn’t scare away the bad guy with all that screaming, Jackie.”

  “Drop the milk and put your hands on your head, McGlade. You’re under arrest.”

  “It’s not milk. It’s filled with concrete.”

  “This isn’t a game, Harry. Now put —”

  Before I had a chance to finish the sentence, McGlade rushed the front door, swinging the milk jug at the knob like he was bowling. The door burst inward, momentum taking McGlade into the house.

  I saw the entire bust fall apart before my eyes, and without even thinking I hobbled in after him.

  “Around the back!” I yelled to whoever was listening. “Cover the perimeter!”

  The house was dark and silent. All the curtains had been drawn. There was a sickly-sweet smell in the air, disinfectant masking something else. Something rotten. I tried a light switch, but it didn’t work.

  “He’s cut the power.” McGlade was halfway down the hall, moving in a crouch. He’d dropped his plastic jug in favor of a .44 Magnum. It was the kind of gun I’d expected Harry to have — big and loud.

  “McGlade, you asshole!” I whispered viciously at his back. “You’re blowing this arrest!”

  “Just say you deputized me.”

  “I’m not Wyatt Earp, McGlade. Now put down —”

  “Hey, Charlie!” he yelled. “You’ve got company!”

  Somebody screamed. A woman.

  “Basement.” Harry rushed through the house opening doors. Closet. Bathroom. Stairway.

  We peered down. The stairs were dark and old, curving slightly so we couldn’t see the bottom.

  Behind us, cops flooded in.

  “Cover me.” McGlade headed down the stairs.

  “We’ve confirmed a woman in the basement,” I said into my lapel mike. “We’re going down.” I followed him, keeping one hand on the railing, trying to keep the weight off my bad leg.

  “Don’t shoot me in the back of the head, Jackie.”

  We made our way down several more steps, the soupy darkness engulfing us. I heard a jingle of keys and tensed, and then a little light went on in Harry�
��s hand.

  “Key light. Best buck-fifty I ever spent.”

  The basement floor came into view, and the smell wafted over us like a fog.

  “Christ.” Harry wrinkled his nose. “Something dead down here.”

  A noise at the top of the stairs made us turn. Two uniforms.

  “Flashlight!” I whispered.

  They shook their heads. They’d taken off their flashlights when they put on the Kevlar.

  “There’s the circuit breaker.” Harry played the light over a wall near the bottom of the stairs. “Go turn on the electricity. I’ll cover you.”

  I cleared my throat and passed McGlade on the stairs. There was a sound to our left.

  “Help me.”

  A growl followed, and then a heart-wrenching scream.

  I ran for the circuit breaker.

  Chapter 41

  THEY’VE FOUND HIM.

  He has barely started on her, barely even drawn blood, and now it’s all going to end.

  He curses, controlling the urge to cut her head off, forcing himself into action.

  The Gingerbread Man can handle this. It isn’t expected, but he’s planned ahead far enough to foresee this possibility. He puts the knife in his belt, checks his pocket for the lighter, and grabs his gun.

  He hears the front door burst in and he hits the circuit breaker, plunging the house into darkness. Someone yells his name.

  Diane screams. He walks to her in the dark, guided by the flame on his Zippo.

  “Scream again and I shoot you.”

  The gun goes into her mouth to drive his point home. Then he uses the knife to cut her free.

  “Kneel, bitch.”

  She kneels on the concrete floor, whimpering. He flicks his lighter again and finds the master fuse on the floor, running along the back wall.

  Voices.

  Charles listens.

  One is Jack’s.

  Light the fuse and get out of here, he tells himself.

  But Jack is so close.

  Charles wants to see her one more time.

  He goes to his wife and crouches behind her as Jack and someone else descend the stairs.

  One last time, Charles thinks. One last dance.

  Before everything goes boom.

  Chapter 42

  I RUSHED THE CIRCUIT BREAKER, OPENING the panel door and flipping on the main.

  The basement exploded in light. Spotlights. Set up on stands and hanging from the ceiling like a TV studio.

  And in the center of the lights…our killer.

  “Hi, Jack.” He was squinting against the glare, hiding behind a kneeling half-naked woman. She had blood running freely down her torso from several dozen cuts. A gun was being pressed under her chin.

  My gun.

  “Take it easy, Charles.”

  “I’ve got him, Jack.” McGlade assumed a shooting stance. “I can blow his head off from here.”

  Charles brought his free hand around to the woman’s front and flicked a Zippo lighter. He held it next to her hand. In her trembling fist was a length of rope. I followed the rope to where it divided into six segments, each leading to the base of a large barrel. They were spaced far apart along the walls of the basement.

  It wasn’t a rope at all. It was a fuse.

  “Hold it, Harry! Everyone fall back! I don’t want anyone within fifty yards!” In my earpiece, I heard the commotion of my men complying.

  “Such a good cop, Jack. Such concern for her people.”

  “What’s in the barrels, Charles?”

  “Gasoline. Enough to take out the whole block.”

  “Stand down!” I yelled into my mike. “Clear out the houses on both sides and call the FDP! It’s all wired to burn!”

  The word spread quickly. Panic. Evacuation. Herb came over the air, begging me to pull out. I ignored him.

  Only McGlade and I remained.

  “You can’t get away, Charles. There’s nowhere to go.”

  “You’re wrong there. You’re the one who can’t get away. Once I light this, the whole place goes up. You won’t have time to piss your pants.”

  “I’m shooting him,” Harry said.

  “Both of you drop your guns. Now, or I light it.”

  I took a step closer. “It’s over, Charles. Give up. Maybe you can do a Trainter show from your cell, let him interview you live.”

  Charles Kork grinned, pure malice, pure evil.

  “Good-bye, Jack. I’m sorry we never got to know each other. I guess I’ll just have to look up your mother after you’re dead.”

  He lit the fuse, and then dragged Diane backward, retreating to the other side of the basement. Next to the furnace was a back door. Charles yanked his wife through it and disappeared into the night.

  But Harry and I had our own problems.

  “Uh-oh,” McGlade said.

  I dove for the fuse, which was burning at about three inches a second. I grabbed and just missed, watching the fuse separate into six different flames, each one heading for its own full barrel.

  Enough gas to burn the whole neighborhood.

  I yanked at the nearest fuse, searing my hand but pulling it free of its gasoline tank. It harmlessly burned itself out.

  Scrambling on all fours, I hunted down a second flame and pulled that out as well.

  “It won’t go out! It won’t go out!” Harry stomped up and down on a lit fuse with both feet. He looked a lot like Daffy Duck throwing a fit.

  “Yank it!”

  I turned my attention to a barrel several feet away, the lethal flame streaking toward it. I took two quick steps, pain searing through my leg, and I launched myself into the air, ramming into the barrel, pulling out the fuse and watching the last six inches burn away in my hands.

  I looked at Harry, who was standing on the far end of the room, tossing two burning fuses aside. His eyes tracked the floor, following the last flame as it snaked its way to the final barrel.

  It was less than two feet from its target, and too far away for either of us to get to in time.

  I drew my gun and aimed.

  “Jesus, Jackie, ricochet!” Harry crouched down and covered his face.

  I fired three times at the flickering spark, my .38 slugs bouncing off concrete and turning the basement into a deadly pachinko game. Cement chips peppered my feet. Harry howled with fright. I exhaled slowly and fired once more, my fourth bullet neatly severing the advancing flame from the rest of the fuse.

  Stillness. I took a deep breath.

  McGlade peeked through his fingers. “Are we dead?”

  Herb’s voice in my ear. “Jack, are you okay? Suspect on foot, in the backyard. Has a woman with him.”

  “Move in!”

  McGlade walked over to the last barrel, examining it. He pulled out the remaining fuse, about the length of a cigarette.

  “Nice shooting, Wyatt.”

  I limped past him, pushing through the back door. The backyard was cool and dark, and I couldn’t spot any movement. Red and blue lights swirled from a few houses away, washing over the lawn in waves.

  “The bomb is defused, Herb, close the perimeter. Perp ran out the back door. He has a hostage. Do you have a visual? Over.”

  “Negative, Jack. We were falling back. We’re coming in now.”

  A hand on my shoulder. I spun, bringing around my gun.

  McGlade.

  “Don’t tell me you lost him.”

  I walked away before I did something I’d regret, like shoot him. The important thing was finding Charles.

  I couldn’t allow him to kill his wife.

  In my ear, Benedict and his men swept the block, while I took a walk across the backyard lawn. I gripped the .38 in both hands, holding it at an angle away from my body, ready to point and shoot at anything that grabbed my attention.

  “Jackie! I found something!”

  McGlade was holding up some kind of hook.