Deranged

by Jacob Stone

  Sighing in his defeat, Henry dropped the hammer and chisel to the floor. He flipped Natalie over, and moved her so that she was against the wall and next to her daughter. A tinge of guilt fluttered inside him as he saw the way both their faces were crumpled in terror, but what was there to say?

  He took the iron pipe from the gym bag and moved to the door that led to the garage. He tried not to look at either of them as he waited for Brick. Sooner or later, this would all be over.

  Chapter Sixty-one

  Morris tried Natalie again after he left the hospital, and once again he reached her voicemail. He left a message, saying, “I was hoping third time would be the charm, but I guess no such luck. I should be home in twenty minutes and am heading straight to bed, but wake me when you get home. I hope you’re having a relaxing time at whatever spa you ended up at.”

  On the drive back to his home in West Hollywood, he called Walsh to see if there were any updates.

  “Nothing yet,” Walsh said. “I’ve got a couple of officers with me at his house in Simi Valley, and as soon as he makes an entrance we’ll have him in cuffs. His garage floor has a cement surface, but I’m holding off for now bringing in forensics. I don’t want a circus here. I want him surprised when he finds us waiting for him.”

  “Anything from the wife.”

  “She’s not talking. I’m not sure she’s able to. I don’t know if she was able to understand me when I tried questioning her. He’ll be back sometime today to take care of her. It won’t be long. I’ll call you when we have SCK in custody.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  Morris’s exhaustion hit him then. Like his namesake, he thought, smiling thinly. He just wanted to lie down and close his eyes. His mind drifted toward Natalie as he thought about how surprised she was going to be when he gave her the earrings and matching necklace. Antoine had insisted that he take them as his appreciation for what Morris had done, and he only put up a token fight before accepting them. He imagined Nat smiling brightly wearing her new jewelry, and the thought of her like that brought a lump to his throat. No question about it, he was a lucky man.

  Parker was lying on the passenger seat next to him, but as Morris pulled into his driveway the dog sat up, his ears straight up, and a harsh growl rumbled out of him. Morris stared at the dog for a moment and felt an iciness pushing deep into his skull. He called Walsh.

  “Someone’s inside my home,” he told Walsh. “Someone who’s not supposed to be there.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You think it could be SCK?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is your wife home?”

  “I don’t know. She wasn’t answering her phone, but I thought it was because she was at a spa.”

  “Okay, stay put. Don’t go in there. I’m sending over some cars.”

  “Have them keep their sirens off. I’m going in through the back. If SCK’s in there, he’ll be waiting for me by the garage entrance.”

  “Morris, stay out of there—”

  Morris disconnected the call, and turned off his phone. He took hold of Parker’s snout and quieted the dog’s growling, then opened the automatic garage door and drove in. Parker again started growling, this time more fiercely, but Morris again quieted him. He left the garage door open and took from his trunk a slim jim that he kept in case he ever needed to open a locked car. If he could’ve kept Parker locked in the car, he would’ve but he knew the dog would start barking if he tried that, so he took Parker with him as he snuck out of the garage and ran for the back of the house.

  He used the slim jim to break the latch on the laundry room window. He needed to replace that window anyway. Again he shushed Parker and warned the dog to be quiet, and then he noiselessly opened the window and started to crawl through it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the pipe swinging at his head, and he twisted enough so that it instead glanced off his left shoulder. It still hurt like hell and sent him crashing to the floor. Henry Pollard was on him in a second, his weight heavy on Morris as he fought to break free. He caught a glimpse of Pollard raising the pipe to smash it down on his skull when Parker leapt through the window and in a flash grabbed Pollard’s thick meaty wrist in his jaw. Pollard shrieked and fell backward. Morris scrambled to his knees, and climbed on top of Pollard while the man fought a losing battle to free his wrist from the bull terrier. Morris noticed the swelling on the side of Pollard’s head, and he punched him there as hard as he could, almost breaking his hand. Pollard shrieked again, then his eyes fluttered, and his body went limp. Morris punched him again, this time in the jaw, and got no reaction from Pollard.

  Morris hobbled to his feet and forced Parker to let go of Pollard’s wrist. His right hand throbbed, and he realized he must’ve broken a bone when he punched Pollard the second time. His knees hurt from when he landed after falling through the window, and his shoulder ached and he knew something wasn’t right there either, but he forgot about all this when he heard a muffled sound over Parker’s growling. He staggered as fast as he could out of the laundry room and his blood chilled ice cold when he found Natalie and Rachel both gagged and bound in the den. They were alive, though, and from what he could see, unhurt. Still he had to fight to keep from sobbing. It wouldn’t do either of them any good for him to break down then.

  Parker used the opportunity of Natalie and Rachel being helpless to lick both their faces as he went back and forth between them, whimpering.

  Morris removed their gags. He kissed Natalie’s forehead, then Rachel’s, and told them that he was getting a knife to cut them loose. “I have to cuff that sonofabitch first, but he’s not hurting anyone ever again.”

  Morris stumbled away from them, and found a pair of cuffs in his office. Pollard was still out cold as Morris cuffed his wrists together. He fought back the urge to bash Pollard’s skull in with the pipe that the psycho had brought, and instead went back to his wife and daughter and cut them free. They then huddled together, all three of them breaking down sobbing as they hugged. Parker bulled his way into the middle of the group, licking whatever faces he could.

  Chapter Sixty-two

  “I should be in the hospital,” Henry complained as he sat cuffed in the interrogation room, his voice not much more than a mumble due to his injured jaw.

  Walsh shrugged and said, “When we’re done here. Unless you don’t want to talk to us now.”

  “As good a time as any.” Henry’s lips folded into a severe frown as he looked around the room. “I’m surprised Brick isn’t here.”

  “He’s with his family. You met his wife and daughter when you abducted them.”

  “Yeah, but still, I would’ve thought he’d want to be here.” He raised an eyebrow. “Unless he’s observing this from behind that two-way mirror.”

  “He’s not back there.”

  “That’s too bad,” Henry said as if he were truly disappointed.

  Walsh had been standing with her arms crossed, but she took a seat across from Henry and dropped a folder onto the table. “We’ve already got enough to convict you for two of the murders,” she said.

  “The neighbor I left in the kitchen,” Henry said.

  “That woman’s name was Leanna Crowley. You admit to killing her?”

  “Yeah, sure. It would be pretty silly of me saying otherwise.”

  “Forensics also found evidence at your home linking you to Brenda Maguire.”

  “That was the blonde waitress?”

  “Yes. How much do you want to bet that the hammer and chisel you brought to Morris Brick’s home also ties you to Freeman’s and Hawes’s murders?”

  “A bet? Sure. A million bucks that it does.”

  “You admit you murdered them too?”

  “Yeah, why not? You got me dead to rights. I killed them all. The ones here and the ones in New York.”

  “Susan Twilitter also?”

  “Yeah, her also.”

  “Your wife had no involvement?”
>
  Henry squirmed in his seat. His voice held a cautious note as he said, “That’s absolutely true. Sheila knew nothing about what I was doing.”

  “Except that you told Natalie Brick that you were killing them for your wife.”

  “I made that up. Sheila had nothing to do with any of this.”

  Walsh pulled from the folder several creased and weathered pages that had been torn out of a diary over five years earlier. “We found these when we searched your home. What your wife wrote implicates her for the New York murders.”

  Henry winced noticeably as he stared at the pages he had kept as a souvenir.

  “Nothing to say about that?”

  Henry’s eyes shifted back to meet Walsh’s. A dull, inscrutable look had formed over his face. An impenetrable mask. “I wrote that,” he said. “I’d like to see you prove otherwise. And fat chance you’ll ever get a sample of Sheila’s handwriting to prove otherwise since she’s paralyzed now on her right side. I’m done talking.”

  Chapter Sixty-three

  As Morris had thought, an X-ray showed that he’d broken a bone in his hand. His doctor was fitting him for a cast when he got a call from Polk.

  “Sheila Proops,” Polk said.

  “What?”

  “That’s her real name. Sheila Proops. Monty remembered that she was from Tallahassee.”

  “Monty?”

  “Montgomery Hellinger. The apartment manager who took her application so she could get into that swanky Central Park West apartment. Once I found out she was from Tallahassee it wasn’t hard to get her real name. And guess what, she worked as a hospital orderly there. I bet she worked as an orderly also in New York. If she had, that would’ve given her access to that drug that paralyzes people. What did Goodman call it? Sux? I’ll bet also we find out she was the original SCK.”

  “We won’t be finding out anything. We’re bowing out now. Give all this to your FBI contact in New York. Julie Crasmore.”

  “Ah, you’re no fun.”

  “Right now I’m not. I’m in the middle of getting a cast for my hand.”

  “How’d that happen?”

  “Punching SCK’s lights out.”

  “I didn’t hear about that. All I heard was we had SCK in custody. How’d you end up being the lucky one to punch his lights out?”

  “He took Nat and Rachel and was going to butcher them. Me also. And the psycho succeeded in killing my neighbor.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “Unfortunately, no.”

  “Wow. I’m sorry about your neighbor. Everyone else okay? Other than your hand?”

  “Nat and Rachel survived physically unscathed. I’ve got a few other bumps and bruises, but I’ll be fine.”

  “Jesus. Well, if you want to know why SCK was targeting her victims, I’ll send you photos of her parents and sister, all long dead.”

  “I’m guessing the victims resembled them.”

  “Bingo. Give the man a prize.”

  “I don’t need to see them. I’ve had enough of SCK.”

  “Haven’t we all.”

  Chapter Sixty-four

  Saturday, Morris and Natalie stayed in bed as planned. Rachel had slept over in her room, partly because Natalie had insisted that she do so, and partly so that she could take care of Parker for them.

  Neither of them spoke as Natalie lay nestled against Morris, her head resting against his uninjured shoulder. They both seemed to crave the silence, and Morris was more than content with feeling Natalie’s body against his, even through the pajamas they were both wearing. He certainly didn’t want to bring up anything that would remind her of what had happened the other day, and he knew any conversation would circle around to Henry Pollard and his equally twisted wife, Sheila Proops. Sometime in the future they’d have to talk about what they’d gone through, but not that day.

  At noon Rachel knocked on the door, and carried a tray into the room with blueberry pancakes and freshly brewed coffee.

  “I figured you two could use some nourishment,” she said.

  “Thank you, dear,” Natalie said. “This is so sweet of you.”

  “Well, it is your birthday,” Rachel said.

  “How’d you keep Parker from barreling in here?” Morris asked.

  “We just got back from a two-hour walk. Right now I’ve got him tied up outside gnawing contentedly on a rawhide bone. Later I’ll be barbecuing him a steak. He earned it.”

  Morris hadn’t told anyone about how Parker had jumped through the window and grabbed Pollard’s wrist so that he could keep the maniac from smashing in Morris’s head. He didn’t want either Natalie or Rachel to know how close he had come to dying, especially not Nat. He knew they’d find out eventually, but he wanted some space before that happened. From what Rachel had said, and the gleam in her eyes as she looked at him, there was no question that she had found out about it. The police probably figured it out from the bite marks on Pollard’s wrist, or maybe Pollard told them about it. However it came out, Rachel must’ve either read about it in the newspaper or seen it on the news. She was tough, though, like him. If it fazed her at all to learn about it, she didn’t show it. Not that Nat in her own way wasn’t tough. It took an amazing amount of strength to willingly get into Pollard’s car.

  “He likes his steak medium rare,” Morris said.

  Rachel smiled at that. If Nat was confused about what Parker had done to earn a barbecued steak, she didn’t ask about it.

  “I checked the home messages,” Rachel said. “Most are from reporters, which I’ve deleted. You had a few from someone from the mayor’s office. Doug Gilman. He sounded annoyed that you weren’t responding to his text messages, so I called him back for you. The mayor wants you at a press conference tonight so he can give you an award.”

  Morris shook his head. “Not tonight. I’ve got plans. Could you call Gilman back for me?”

  “Sure.”

  Natalie said, “Sweetie, thanks again for breakfast.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  Rachel left them to their pancakes, coffee, and silence.

  Postscript

  Jason Dorsage shook with outrage as he watched yet another news story about Morris Brick, the hero. He lifted his Beretta nine-millimeter semi-automatic pistol and aimed it at the TV, but instead of pulling the trigger and laying waste to the TV, he used the remote to shut it off.

  He knew the hatred he’d been feeling toward Brick the last two days was completely irrational. Brick couldn’t possibly have known how he had ruined Dorsage’s detailed plans for his next Rube Goldberg machine. It was possible Brick had seen a video of one of Dorsage’s other Rube Goldberg contraptions—after all, several of these videos were on YouTube and had garnered millions of views, and had made Dorsage famous enough so that corporations paid him tens of thousands to build these contraptions featuring dominos, playing cards, ping pong balls, remote control toy cars, and other common household items for their events. These past contraptions he’d put together, though, had become nothing more than insignificant frivolities to Dorsage. The sequence of events that Dorsage had been carefully working on for over a year would’ve been something very different. Something real. Something horrible and beautiful that would’ve left thousands dead in Los Angeles and the city in flames. It would’ve been something Dorsage could’ve been truly proud of, but now his plans were ruined because of Morris Brick.

  Of course, Brick couldn’t possibly have known how important Alex Malfi was to Dorsage’s plans when he foiled that jewelry store robbery at Antoine’s of Beverly Hills. Now Malfi was in police custody being held without bail, and probably wasn’t going to be getting out of prison for at least twenty-five years. Dorsage’s plans wouldn’t be able to wait that long. They were so beautiful, so intricate, and now thanks to Brick’s meddling, they were garbage.

  Oh well, Dorsage thought, back to the drawing board. This time he was going to make sure Brick was in the middle of whatever he came up with.

  ACK
NOWLEDGMENTS

  I would first of all like to thank my editor, Michaela Hamilton, as this book wouldn’t exist without her. I first met Michaela in 2012 at the Cleveland Bouchercon, and that meeting led to a series of emails and phone calls during the fall of 2015, and it’s because of Michaela’s generosity of spirit and guidance that this new Morris Brick series was born.

  Thanks also to John Lutz, Reed Farrel Coleman, Paul Levine, and Vincent Zandri for taking time out of their busy schedules to read Deranged and providing their generous blurbs.

  In advance I’d like to thank the Kensington team who’ll be supporting this book and doing their magic to make it shine: Lauren Jernigan, Michelle Forde, Alexandra Nicolajsen, and Vida Engstrand.

  A big thanks also to my college buddy Alan Luedeking who, as with all my books, muddled through my initial draft and helped smooth out the language.

  As always, I’d like to thank Judy, my wife and best friend, for her encouragement and support, and for also helping to make my manuscript more readable.

  Don’t miss the next exciting Morris Brick thriller

  CRAZED

  Coming soon from Lyrical Underground, an imprint of

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  Keep reading to enjoy a tantalizing sample excerpt . . .

  Click here to get your copy.

  Chapter One

  Seattle, the present

  Griffin Bolling broke out laughing, partly from outrage, but mostly from the lunacy of what he was reading.

  “What’s so funny?”

  Griffin looked up to see that the soft, feminine voice asking this question came from the slight redhead who had taken his latte order fifteen minutes earlier. At the time she had blushed a nice pink as she flirted with him, making sure he knew she was interested. In her petite, tiny way, she was cute, and with the way her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, she looked like a fresh-faced teenager even though she had to be in her early twenties. She must’ve left the cash register to bus tables so she could continue flirting with him. Now she stood off to his right with this funny, lopsided smile, hopeful that he would show the same interest in her that she obviously had in him.