by Chris Culver
I ran my palm across my face. I hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, so I was starting to feel like the Wolfman. I doubted Karen and her vampire buddies would care, but I preferred to avoid scaring small children with my appearance. I grabbed my toiletries from the bag I had packed earlier and went to the sink, stopping on the way to turn on the television for background noise. When I heard the anchor announce the lead story, I dropped my razor and sat on the bed.
The reporter stood in a parking lot in front of a familiar mottled brown cube. The building had narrow, rectangular windows and a banner hanging above the front door welcoming new students and parents to school. The camera panned past the front entrance to a mostly empty parking lot with basketball hoops and a softball field in the distance.
The last time I had been in that parking lot, Olivia and I had met Principal Eikmeier before interviewing some of Rachel’s friends. He wasn’t there anymore. Instead, there were uniformed police officers erecting a perimeter beside the tennis courts. The camera panned back to the entrance and zoomed in on an attractive female reporter named Kristen Tanaka. She was well known in the area for her ability to scoop other stations on law enforcement matters; what wasn’t quite as well known outside law enforcement was that she would sleep with anything that moves if it gave her a story.
“The scene here is still chaotic, and details are sketchy at this point. What we know is that two bodies, possibly students, were found near the tennis courts by a member of the school’s custodial staff. So far, the police haven’t officially released further information, but a source close to the investigation told me the bodies appear to have been burned repeatedly with a small round object. We’re still waiting for word on what could have caused those.”
I tuned Kristen out as she continued speaking. Multiple round burns. Some boy in blue was going to get lucky for that tidbit.
I leaned back on the bed and allowed my mind to wander. Multiple burns indicated intentionality, maybe even torture. It takes a special kind of person to do that to a kid. I took a couple of deep breaths. Coincidences happen, but no one was thick enough to think four dead kids from one school was a coincidence. Something was happening, and the game was changing. Robbie Cutting had been murdered, but his death was quick, neat, and private. Someone took his time with these kids and then dumped them in a public spot. They were a message, but probably not from Karen and probably not to me. So far, her messages had been subtle and targeted. This was neither. We had new players.
As soon as the newscast went to commercial, I went back to the sink and finished shaving. New players or not, Sunshine Blood Products was getting a visitor that night, and I needed to be ready. My muscles felt tight, and my brain was firing on cylinders I didn’t even remember I had. It was nervous energy. I used to get it before serving felony arrest warrants. It felt good to be that energized again. I had dusk prayers beside my bed, but it was difficult to pay attention. Hopefully God would cut me some slack.
Since I hadn’t eaten much that day, I stopped by a Quiznos within walking distance of my motel and grabbed a sandwich. No one followed me, which was nice. With luck, my visit to Sunshine would still be a surprise. After dinner, I watched a couple of local newscasts in my room, hoping to hear some new tidbit about the bodies at Rachel and Robbie’s former school. Unfortunately, the reporters seemed to be as clueless as I was. Olivia might have heard something, but I doubted she’d be in the sharing mood.
I forced myself to forget about the bodies and focus on my task that evening. Even if there was an alarm, I figured I had at least ten minutes inside Sunshine before anyone could show up. That was plenty of time to find something worthwhile. Ideally, I’d find a document titled ‘Secret plans to take over the world,’ but I wasn’t counting on it. There’d be something, though. I was confident of that.
I paced the short length of my room. My gun felt heavy in its shoulder holster. Part of me wanted to leave it behind. Breaking and entering was a felony, but it was a relatively minor felony. If the police caught me, I could plead to a lesser charge and get probation. It was a different crime entirely if I carried a deadly weapon while committing a burglary, though. I’d go to prison if I were caught. On the other hand, if Sunshine had a guard, chances were that he wouldn’t be happy to see me. I needed a firearm in case I ran into somebody hostile inside.
After a while, I got so tired of thinking about my plan that I flipped on the TV, hoping for a late–breaking news story about the kids at the school. I went through the channels twice but couldn’t find anything but sitcoms and crappy reality shows. I glanced at my watch. It was a few minutes after eight, and the sun was finally setting. I had another hour or so for darkness to settle on the area.
I decided that I couldn’t force myself to wait around anymore, so I changed into a black, long–sleeved shirt and dark jeans before heading to my car. Before leaving, I rooted through my evidence collection kit to make sure I had latex gloves. I had an unopened box of thirty–six. They were cheap and thin, but I didn’t plan to use them for surgery. They'd work.
It wasn’t quite full dark when I left the streetlights and strip malls of Plainfield behind me. The wind carried thick clouds that covered the moon and stars, leaving me in a world without shadow. My car rocked in the heavy gusts, making it difficult to drive. Half an hour after leaving my motel room, I was surrounded by dark fields, barns, and warehouses.
I pulled off the side of the road about a quarter of a mile from the Business Park. The soybeans danced around me in the wind. I shivered. Without streetlights, it was so dark that I couldn’t see anything in three directions. I drummed my fingers on my steering wheel. Unlike the surrounding fields, the business park was lit as bright as day. Aside from the plants blowing in the breeze, nothing stirred.
In a perfect situation, I’d survey that building for a week. I’d develop dossiers of the employees, I'd track their average arrival and departure times, and I'd probably even make notes on who drove what vehicles. If the complex had a guard, I’d track him around the facility. I’d probably also make a schedule of when the State Police drove by. In short, I’d be well prepared. It’s hard to catch a well–prepared criminal. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time for any of that. This had to end before another kid died.
I watched for about twenty minutes more, but the complex was dead. I didn’t see a single car come out or drive in. I reached into my glove box for the bottle of bourbon I had purchased a day earlier. I took off the cap and drank deeply. The liquid burned some of my nervous energy away and left me relaxed. It was going to be fine.
I drove the quarter mile to the main entrance but killed my headlights before going in. My knees felt stiff, and my chest felt tight. I could live with that, though. I parked in front of Sunshine’s building and got out of my car. The breeze whistled through the complex, and cool air hit me in the face. I'd be in and out in ten minutes. That should be easy.
Sunshine’s front door was glass in a steel frame. It looked flimsy, but from my years as a detective, I knew it probably wasn’t. I saw a surveillance video a couple of years ago of a suspect throwing a brick against a similar door only to have it bounce back, hitting him in the head. The ricochet cut a gash in his forehead and damn near killed him. That’s why I planned to use something a little less subtle than a brick.
I popped open my trunk and dug through my evidence collection kit until I found a Maglite flashlight. I put it in my pocket and reached back into the box for a twenty–four–ounce claw hammer. I hadn’t ever used the hammer to collect evidence, but I kept it in there in case I needed to pry boards or something else up. If it didn’t break the glass, I didn’t know what would.
While I was in the trunk, I also tore open my box of latex gloves and snapped one on each hand. I glanced at my watch. Ten minutes.
Now or never.
I jogged to the door and smashed my hammer against it. The sound was loud enough to hurt my ears, but the glass didn’t break. I hit it again, causing cracks to
form. Maybe I should have brought a sledgehammer. I broke through on the third strike, and after that it was pretty easy to clear a hole big enough for me to crawl through without cutting myself. I dropped the hammer beside the door and stepped in with my firearm in one hand and my flashlight in the other.
The lobby was long and dark enough that I couldn’t see the other end. I flipped on my Maglite and adjusted the focus to cast a wide beam. There was a receptionist’s desk in front of a hallway directly ahead of me and a seating area to my immediate right. I didn’t think old news magazines or appointment books would help my case much, so I skipped both and jogged towards the hallway. It was T–shaped with branches heading deeper into the structure to my left, right, and straight ahead.
I jogged straight and tried the first door I came to. It opened into an employee's break room. Nothing helpful for me. I closed the door and went to the next. The building creaked as the wind raked against it. I shivered. The place was creepy and not simply because its owners thought they were vampires. There were dark corners and doors everywhere, and there could have been someone waiting behind any of them. I didn’t like it.
I threw open the second door I came to and stepped through with my firearm in front of me like a shield. I caught the smell before I saw anything. Wintergreen. I was in the right spot, at least. My adrenaline level spiked each time the building shifted in the breeze. I cast my light around the room quickly. I could see folding tables along the far wall, but the room was otherwise.
I shined the light on my watch. Eight minutes left. I breathed deeply to calm myself before jogging back in the hallway. I went through a door immediately across from me, but like the room I had previously checked, it was empty. It smelled like a nail salon. Acetone. Mack had mentioned something about that in his cocaine lecture. I may not have found any drugs yet, but my circumstantial case against Sunshine was growing.
I jogged back down the main hallway and hung a left. I found another empty room. It also smelled like acetone. If Karen used that building solely to process coke, she had quite an operation. Mack processed five grams of cocaine on a desk; Karen had to have been moving kilos at a time to need a building like that. I may not have found out what she was doing, but there was more than enough evidence in the building to bust her for narcotics trafficking.
I had a few minutes left, so I checked out the last room in the building. According to the nameplate, it was the office of Dr. Karen Rea, CEO. The door was locked, so I took a step back and kicked it below the doorknob. The impact rocked me back and vibrated my teeth, but the door didn’t move. I kicked again, this time ready for the jolt. The frame held, but I heard the crack of splintering wood. I kicked it a third time, and the door burst open.
The room was simply furnished with a desk in the center of the floor and filing cabinets along the walls. My heart beat a little faster. I skipped to the filing cabinets and pulled open a drawer. Invoices, receipts, certificates of inspection from US customs. It looked like Karen was moving about two cargo containers of blood products from South America to her warehouse every week. If they were all agua rica, that was a shit ton of coke.
I closed the drawer and tried two others, finding similar information both times. Karen’s company kept better records than most accounting firms. If we could prove those invoices were about drugs, we’d have enough to send her to prison for ten lifetimes. I didn’t think that’d be a problem, either. A lot of dealers write in code; there have even been Law and Order episodes about it. Once we proved there were trace elements of cocaine all over the building, even the most obtuse judge would have to see the documents for what they were.
I stopped for a moment, thinking. The situation wasn’t ideal, but with as much material as I had, I could probably get Detective Lee from narcotics on board. We could claim one of his more reliable confidential informants gave us a tip about the building. That wouldn’t cost us much more than a simple payoff. Once we had that, we could apply for a warrant. With that, Karen and Azrael would be done for. If we made a big enough bust, Lee might even get a promotion out of it.
I felt pretty good for the first time in a long while. Things were coming together as they were supposed to.
I didn’t bother looking at the rest of the filing cabinets. Instead, I started pulling open drawers on Karen’s desk. I didn’t see anything interesting until I came to one on the bottom left. It wouldn’t budge. I ran my flashlight over its face and found a keyhole beside the handle. A locked drawer in a locked office in a locked building. With any luck, she’d have a stash right there.
I jogged back through the lobby and grabbed the claw hammer I had brought with me. Despite Karen’s security measures, the drawer didn’t take long to pry open. The drawer held an inch–thick, manila folder. I opened it, feeling my stomach twist. It was my police jacket, the one from Internal Affairs. It had my contact information, copies of complaints against me, even psychological evaluations from the station’s psychiatrist. She claimed I had mild post–traumatic stress disorder after being shot, moderate depression, anger issues, and serious issues with authority. That report was probably why I was bounced from homicide. I hadn’t even seen it.
I turned pages slowly as the implication sunk in. Karen had a cop on the payroll, and whoever he was, he wasn't a rank–and–file officer. She had someone with access to personnel files. That meant Captain or above, which meant I had stepped into something way over my pay grade. That’s when I heard it.
Crunching glass.
Sunshine had new visitors.
Chapter 16
According to my watch, I had been inside for twelve minutes. That was a pretty good response time if someone had called the police. Knowing what went on in the place, I doubted I was about to run into my colleagues, though. I extinguished my Maglite and grabbed my gun, sweat dripping down my neck and back.
Without a flashlight, the building’s interior was almost too dark to navigate. I could see the edges of walls, but that was about it. I crept into the hallway, hoping my footsteps weren’t really as loud as they seemed. None of the new arrivals said anything, but I heard their feet plod forward softer than they had before. A thin, opaque wall separated us. Six inches of insulation, drywall and building studs. It wasn’t much protection.
My muscles felt tight, and I had to fight the urge to spring forward, gun blazing. I paused against the wall, my breath coming in tight bursts. As I did that, I heard a shrill buzz, and then the air conditioner kicked on, creating a slight breeze that carried a whiff of gasoline. The air conditioner masked my footsteps, so I crept across the hallway and peeked around the corner. There were two men in the lobby; I couldn’t see one well, but the other carried a subcompact machine gun. I only caught a glimpse of it, but it looked like an MP5. Our SWAT guys carried them on missions. It was fast, accurate, and definitely not what I wanted to see at that moment.
I crept forward to see if I could get behind the receptionist’s desk for better cover. As if sensing my presence, the guy with the machine gun looked over. Our eyes locked at the same time, but he was the first to act. Automatic gunfire ripped through the lobby. I dove and landed flat on my Maglite. Pain ripped across my ribcage, while bullets pierced the drywall around me like paper. They thwacked into the receptionist’s desk, causing shards of particle board to smack into my face. I stopped thinking. The world only had three things at that moment. Me and the two shooters.
The shooters yelled at each other, but it wasn’t English. I army crawled back to Karen’s office for cover and squeezed three shots into the lobby. Glass broke and a bullet ricocheted against something metal. I knew I wasn’t going to hit anything, but I needed room to breathe. If they thought I was unarmed, they’d storm the corner, and there was no way I could win a toe–to–toe fight against two guys with automatics.
One of the shooters returned fire in controlled, three–shot bursts. The bullets smashed through the drywall inches above my head, causing my eyes to sting with sweat and dust. The gasoline
smell I caught earlier became stronger, almost overpoweringly so. I realized something, then. They didn’t need to shoot me; they needed to keep me contained long enough to light the place up.
It was too dark to see clearly, but I could see shapes with my peripheral vision. I cast my eyes about the hallway, hoping I’d missed a window or emergency door earlier. I didn’t have that kind of luck, though. My body tingled, signaling that it was ready to move at a moment’s notice. I ducked my head around the corner to note the relative positions of the men.
My flashlight had served me well for a few years, but I’d rather lose it than my life. I crouched and threw it into the lobby. The heavy Maglite clanged against the far wall. The guy with the MP5 turned and fired at the noise. I fired five shots at his muzzle flare. In a movie, his finger would get stuck on the trigger, and he’d fall back, firing at random. Reality isn’t like that. He thudded against the ground. I stepped around the corner, my weapon in front of me, searching for the second guy.
For a moment, the world moved impossibly fast. The air was thick with the smell of gasoline. I saw a blur as the second shooter ran towards the exit. Before reaching it, he stopped, flicked open a Zippo lighter, and threw it at the seating area on the far side of the room.
The gas smell disappeared, and the air was ripped out of my lungs as a fireball engulfed the sofa, love seat, and carpet near the door. The top layer of my skin felt as if I were under a broiler. I didn't have enough oxygen to breathe anymore. I had to move.
As I crossed the room, I spotted the guy I shot sprawled out in front of the receptionist’s desk. His lips moved, but no sound came out. Attempted murderer or not, I couldn’t let him burn to death. That wasn’t right. I bent at my knees and hoisted him on my shoulder. He was heavy, but I was running on adrenaline and barely felt his weight. My ribs throbbed dully where I landed on the flashlight. I coughed, nearly choking on black smoke.
