The Big Kill

by Michael Morley

  He froze at the cupboard, one hand on a clean mug. “Maybe I’m going mad but I thought just a few hours ago my boss told you to stay the hell away from this case.”

  “Yeah, he did.”

  “And that made it irresistible?”

  “Kind of. You want to hear my theory?”

  “Theory?” He topped her mug up and filled his own. “We’ve gone from an anagram to a whole theory now.”

  She carried on tapping left-handedly on her keyboard until he came in with the drinks and settled alongside her.

  “So go on.”

  “Judge and Jury.”

  “That’s the anagram?”

  “Yep. Danger Judy-Ju makes a few other things, but nothing as clean and clear as Judge and Jury.”

  The words settled in Jake’s brain. “And you think—what? That this was his statement to the world?”

  “I do. I think he’s saying he is going to be society’s Judge and Jury. He will decide who is guilty and innocent. Who lives and dies. He’s showing us his absolute power.”

  Jake thought on it. “It’s certainly the crazy kind of shit killers come up with.”

  “Serial killers.”

  “Oh, my God, just because he plays anagram games, that doesn’t make him a Serial.”

  “It pretty much does. He is a Serial, Jake. Serials move from location to location, too.”

  “So do Sprees, and they also communicate. They send notes. They make calls and they run and hide just like Serials.”

  “But Sprees are generally dumbasses. They get caught quick, whereas Serials don’t.”

  “Mostly,” he conceded. “But then there are the likes of Charles Starkweather.”

  “What?” She hoped she’d misheard him.

  “Starkweather. He went on a two-month spree.”

  “Is this the shit that Danielle Goodman is feeding you?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Christ, Jake. The woman’s way out of her depth. This Starkweather shit was what led you to almost getting killed by Wayne Harris.”

  “No, you can’t hang that on her. Bad intel was what got people hurt that day, not anything Danny said.”

  Angie still wasn’t done. “Aside from the anagram—and that should be enough to convince you—there are so many other things screaming Serial and not Spree.”

  His voice said he was tired of arguing. “Like what?”

  “How many people died in that store?”

  “Eleven.” He corrected himself. “No, twelve.”

  “Twelve. Exactly. And how many letters in the anagram?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Twelve. And on a floor plan of the mall, which number shop is Judy-Ju’s?” Her stare provided the answer before she did. “Twelve.”

  Jake laughed. “I think they gave you too much lidocaine at the hospital. How many letters are there in your full name, Angela Holmes? I’ll tell you, twelve.”

  “Okay, I get it. You’re skeptical. There are coincidences. But what about the message I made from the anagram?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, that’s interesting, I give you that. And I buy the power and control stuff—the idea of him being Judge and Jury.”

  “So you’ll take it to Dixon?”

  He closed his eyes and imagined telling his boss about Angie’s overnight thoughts on the case he’d warned her off. “Yeah, I’ll take it to him.”

  “You don’t have to say it was me. I just want you to catch this guy.”

  “Oh, I’ll catch him, honey. Don’t you go worrying your little lidocained brain about that.”

  21

  Skid Row, LA

  Locals in LA say the city is divided into “Bucks.”

  “Big Bucks” is home to the thousand-dollar-an-hour law firms, the marble-floored investment banks and blue glass skyscrapers of the multinational businesses.

  “Shopping Bucks” is the air-conditioned oasis where glitzy brands hang and get hunted by hordes of platinum-carded designer junkies.

  “Anything-for-a-Buck” is the block or so where hookers will do whatever anyone wants, providing they have enough dollars to buy lunch or their next fix.

  Then there’s “No Bucks.”

  “No Bucks” is another name for Skid Row. It lies between Third and Seventh and is just a short walk and a whole world away from everything else.

  Even crack whores don’t fall that far.

  Today, the trash-strewn sidewalk was hot enough to cook eggs on. A raggedy old man with clumped, unwashed hair bent his world-weary shoulders over a supermarket trolley and squeaked it toward a patch of shade. In it was everything he owned: a sleeping bag, a sweater full of holes and lice, and garbage that he’d picked from Dumpsters. He’d come across a store trashing a tray of sandwiches and they’d let him have them.

  Christmas in August.

  He couldn’t believe his luck.

  Old Joe steered his trolley toward two blankets spread in an alley back of Seaton. The red-checkered one was home to Wheelie, a diabetic in his sixties who’d lost a leg because he couldn’t afford his meds. At night, he chained himself to his chair so people didn’t steal it and sell it for scrap.

  The mustard-brown blanket opposite belonged to Fat Mamma Cas, and not many people were fool enough to try to steal from her. She’d punch their lights out. But Old Joe knew he was welcome.

  “I got something to eat,” he announced as he parked the squeaky trolley against the alley wall. “Woman down at the sandwich shop was throwin’ stuff out. Can you believe that?” He fished in the rusty wire basket and pulled up a part of his catch, careful not to show the rest of his precious haul. “I got toona and mayo-nayze. I got ham. An’ I got somethin’ odd called bry. It looks like sick-assed cheese’n’pickle but without any pickle.”

  Fat Mamma cracked a yellow smile. “Man, you got a beggars’ banquet there. What you do, sell that body of yours?”

  “Wouldn’t have got three sandwiches for a rack o’ ribs like his,” snorted Wheelie, rolling himself forward. “He wouldn’t have got crumbs, never mind sandwiches.”

  “Ain’t you the funny one,” answered Joe. “So who’s wantin’ to share my food and who’s wantin’ to bad-mouth me an’ go hungry?”

  “I think you’re a fine, mighty fine lookin’ man, Joe,” beamed Mamma Cas. “An’ the only thing I want more in my mouth than you is that sweet tuna mayo.”

  Joe tossed her the sandwich. “Which means you get the bry, Wheelie, coz hungry as I am, I ain’t eatin’ that shit.” He tossed the wrapped triangle onto the disabled man’s lap.

  Wheelie squinted at it. “Ain’t no bry, you fool. It’s Brie.” He laughed. “You done give me the most expensive sandwich there is, that’s how piss-stupid-dumb you are.” He cackled again and started unwrapping it.

  “I got some water for us,” said Mamma Cas. “Bitch from the Mission came by and left some.”

  “Not until she’d gone and prayed the holy living shit outta us both,” added Wheelie, sucking Brie off his stumps of teeth. “She says to Mamma, our church is prayin’ for you and Jesus has a special place in his heart. You know what Mamma said?”

  Joe knew he had to ask. “What’d you say, Mamma?”

  “I said, if it’s just the same to you, lady, I’d like to swap my prayers for an all-you-can-eat dinner and trade the place in Jesus’s heart for a condo down in Glendale.”

  They all laughed then set about chewing.

  “Mmm. It’s real good, man.” Wheelie lifted the half-chewed sandwich in a gesture of thanks. “Can’t remember when I las’ tasted somethin’ like this.”

  Mamma unscrewed the cap on the two-liter bottle of water and passed it around. By the time she got it back there was so much bread floating in it, it looked like a fisherman had laid down ground bait.

  The sound of tinny music spilled around the corner from Alameda.

  Single instrument. Brass. A B-flat trumpet. Out of tune.

  Everyone knew what it meant.

  “Fin
ish quick,” said Mamma. “Trumpet Man is a comin’ an’ he’s one food-stealin’ mother.”

  Backlit by the blistering sun, a thin black guy appeared at the end of the alley.

  He was dressed in a dusty brown suit that finished three inches above bare ankles and busted boots. On his head was a tatty felt hat that never left him, not even when he laid his daft old skull on the sidewalk at night.

  Trumpet Man raised a dented old brass to his big, scabbed lips and blew hard. Out came the only tune he knew—“Family Guy.”

  Old Joe got to his feet somewhere between a mangled E flat and a murdered D. “I’m gonna roll. I ain’t got time to have my ears blasted by that fool.”

  Neither Wheelie nor Mamma Cas questioned his exit. Joe rolled in and Joe rolled out. You had to respect other people’s ways.

  “Take care, man,” shouted Wheelie, sucking the last of the cheese from his gums. “Thanks ’gain for that de-lish-us Brie.”

  “Bring doughnuts an’ coffee tomorrow,” hollered Mamma with a laugh in her voice. “An’ may the good Lord keep a place in his heart for you, brother.”

  They both roared as he pushed his trolley away.

  Joe lifted a hand in acknowledgment. Dust rose as the trolley wheels cut along the blacktop.

  He was done for now.

  He’d lapped several blocks and shown his face to all the regulars.

  Kept up his identity, one of his back stories.

  Now he could return to his other life.

  The one the whole of America was talking about.

  22

  SKU Offices, LA

  Jake was on his way in to work when he got the call from Crawford Dixon. The one he knew was going to screw up his day.

  His boss needed to see him. Urgently. Whatever it was, it was too important to even mention over the phone.

  None of this was good news.

  Jake found the section chief grim-faced at his office desk. Opposite him was a large African American man, who’d planted his feet and set his shoulders like a former soldier.

  “Jake, this is Tom Jeffreys from the Bomb Squad. He has news on last night.”

  “Heard a lot about you, Jake.” He rose and shook the SKU leader’s hand. “I had a friend served with you, said nothing but good things.”

  “Your friend’s probably a very generous and forgiving man, sir.” Jake took a chair opposite them both.

  Jeffreys rubbed a palm over his bald head. “We found enough chemical traces to discern that the bomb was 90 percent cyclotrimethylene trinitramine. Diethylhexyl was used to plasticize it and then polyisobutylene added as a binder.”

  Jake recognized the ingredients. “We’re talking C4?”

  “Yes. Composition Four. Plastic explosive. From the blast pattern and rerunning the TV footage, we pinpointed a clay statue put down by a kid who said he was the grandchild of a Mrs. Tanya Murison.”

  Jake looked surprised. “A kid?”

  “Uh-huh. He’d turned up late and flustered. A cop looked at it, saw the tag that said ‘Grandma, I’ll always luv you,’ and ushered him through.”

  Jake was still stunned. “Did the kid detonate it?”

  “No. He was a patsy. Some asshole sent him in there with it. There was a timing-based high-energy detonator cap inside the clay.”

  Jake could see how that would have worked. “C4’s heavily controlled,” he added. “Whoever got it and detonated it had to have special contacts to obtain it.”

  “In theory, yes,” said Jeffreys. “Distribution is strictly monitored and needs end-user certification. But quantities go missing. And you can buy the chemicals separately through companies and countries that aren’t as scrupulous as they should be.”

  “Last night, Al-Qaeda denied any involvement,” Jake recalled. “Has anyone claimed responsibility yet?”

  The two bosses shook their heads.

  “And the kid’s family? Have they shed any light on who he’s been hanging around with, who might have set him up as a walking bomb?”

  “We’ve been working overnight with the LAPD,” explained Jeffreys, “and we’ve managed to ID the kid as eleven-year-old Leroy Danziel. He was certainly no rebel or political activist. Lived out in Watts. No father. Mother is either on the game or on ketamine, or on both. Neighbors said the boy came and went as he chose. No one to account to. No one to account for him. He lived mostly on the street, doing whatever people wanted him to in return for food or cash.”

  “So we’re thinking, what?” asked Jake. “Some heartless crazy just paid him a shitload of cash to carry the clay tribute?”

  “That’s the main theory we’re looking into,” said Jeffreys. “That and a feeling that maybe the crazy is the UNSUB who shot up the mall.”

  “That’s what Angie figured last night,” Jake said to Dixon.

  “She did,” he conceded. “Did the labs come back to you on that piece of paper you thought might be a note he left?”

  “They did.” He wasn’t sure he should disclose it in front of the Bomb Squad commander.

  Jeffreys sensed the uncertainty. He put his hands on the chair rests and made to stand up. “You guys need privacy and I need to go. I’ll call you later, Crawford, please keep me apprised.”

  They all stood and shook hands.

  As soon as the door closed Dixon wanted the story. “Okay, Jake, out with it.”

  “The labs cleaned up the note and through the bloodstain you could make out twelve letters that said DANGERJUDYJU.”

  “Judy Ju being the name of the store?”

  “That’s right. Angie figured it was an anagram and worked it out to be Judge and Jury.”

  “Angie? She’s been doing a lot of figuring on this case I told her to forget.”

  Jake skipped the trap. “Her theory is that the killer is setting himself up as a supreme power over the state. One with the right to decide who lives and dies.”

  “Let’s back up a second, Jake. Do you and Dr. Holmes remember my remarks last night about her not working this case?”

  “I do. Of course I do.”

  “Then for now, forget them. I reserve the right to change my mind during times like this. Pull together a full briefing for late this morning. Ask Jeffreys back. And Pryce too. I want all bases covered. I’ll talk to Sandra McDonald and have her okay Angie’s attendance—but to be clear, it’s just to voice her theories, that’s all. This is still Danielle Goodman’s case—you may want to help prepare the ground on that basis.”

  “I will.” He got to his feet to leave.

  “I pity you, Jake. Crossfire between Angie and Danielle could be worse than anything you faced in Afghanistan or Yemen.”

  23

  A call from the press office gave the SKU leader the only good news of the morning. He was off the hook vis-à-vis facing the cameras. The mayor and the governor were both holding media conferences before midday and the Bureau figured everyone would benefit from staying out of their spotlights.

  Instead, he was able to spend most of the morning chasing operational loose ends and calming Danielle down. The news that Angie Holmes had theories on “her” case and had secretly watched footage of the shootings in the mall had sent her into orbit.

  Peaceful hours passed, until the two women came face to face at 11:00 a.m. in Briefing Room A. Jake witnessed an exchange of laser-beam glowers across the long dark wood table, and he was thankful their respective bosses, Dixon and McDonald, were there to keep the peace. Jeffreys settled down next to his number two, Katherine Mitchell, a tall, long-faced woman with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was dressed in an old sweater and jeans, and the discomfort on her face gave away that she had worked most of the night and not expected to be bumped into a high-powered meeting like this one. Opposite her was the immaculately blue-suited Connor Pryce, who as well as being LAPD SWAT was now also Chief Rawlings’s personally appointed liaison officer on the triple joint inquiry with the FBI.

  Jake settled into a seat next to Ruis Costas and ki
cked things off on a note of solemnity. “I’ve just been told that unfortunately the Sun Western death toll has risen again. Two of the bomb victims in ICU didn’t make it. Total count for both incidents at the mall is now twenty-nine dead. It will most probably clear thirty by the end of the day.”

  Dixon briefly interrupted. “In a couple of hours’ time, there will be public announcements that all known terror groups have denied responsibility for the latest attack. That will let the White House off the hook, as it clearly means the incident is a local problem, not a foreign policy one. There is no country for us to attack, no religious fundamentalist to vilify, so the president will stay out of things—for now. But you can bet your asses we’re gonna get calls from his office, and the mayor’s and the governor’s. In other words, the shit is on our shoes and everyone is going to blame us for the resulting mess that gets spread, so we need to clean up fast.” He nodded to Jake to carry on.

  “Okay, I’m presuming you’ve all read and understood the briefing from the Bomb Squad?” The faces around him said they had. “A clay model put down by a child at the scene contained C4 and a shockwave detonator. Top of our agenda is the question of whether the same man was responsible for the shooting spree and the bombing.”

  Danielle Goodman jumped in. “I think it would be very dangerous to go along those lines. I’ve already submitted a detailed profile on the ‘Sun Western Slayer,’ as the press are calling him. I think psychologically it is at odds with the psychopathy of a bomber.” She pitched to Dixon. “The UNSUB is impulsive and emotional. He is of low intelligence and probably derived sexual satisfaction from killing at close quarters. Watch him on the footage and you can see he is a sexual voyeur enjoying an orgy of violence. While the bomber, well, he is totally different. He clearly has intelligence, know-how and expertise. I think he’d been planning an explosives attack for some time and simply seized the moment. He may even have been annoyed that the Spree got so much news coverage at a time when he was planning to strike, so he sought to use the Memorial Service as a way to upstage him.”