JACK AND THE GIANT KILLER

by Christopher Greyson

  Jack and Replacement walked up to the double glass doors. The glass shook when Jack pulled on the locked door. A tall, overweight man in his mid-forties with thinning hair rushed over and unlocked it.

  Jack read his nametag: JERRY.

  “I’m so sorry but we’re closed,” Jerry said as he opened the door a crack.

  “Hi, Jerry. Jack Stratton. Alice Campbell. We’re with the special task force investigating this incident.”

  “I saw you on TV. My wife’s worried because I am so big. I tried to tell her I’m only six two and this maniac is going after guys over six eight or something, but she’s a worrywart.” He wrung his hands. “Boy, this is going to make her bananas.”

  “Were you here during the attack?” Jack asked.

  “Yes, sir. I was in the office, though. It was pretty slow, but Tommy, he’s the drive-thru teller, came in saying someone was screaming in the parking lot.”

  “What happened then?”

  “I told Tommy to call 911. We have a zero-involvement policy. We always call the police. Then I ran to the drive-thru.”

  “What did you see?”

  “Nothing. The drive-thru faces directly toward the back, but he was parked over there.” Jerry pointed to the corner of the parking lot. “I tried looking out the window, but I could only hear someone screaming and a car horn.”

  “You could hear the horn?” Replacement asked.

  “I think everyone within ten blocks could. There was a diner in the front parking lot who began honking. I guess she wanted to attract attention. It worked. Lots of people came. The police were here right away too.”

  “So you didn’t actually see the assault or the assailant?” Jack asked.

  “No. I checked with the cook and the cashier and they didn’t see anything either. Tommy is the only one who heard anything.”

  “I’d like to take a look at your security footage,” Jack said.

  “Sure. Certainly.” Jerry backed into the restaurant. “There’s one minor problem.” He wiped his hands on his pants. “The outside cameras aren’t working. They got knocked out in the storm. I told corporate, and they were going to send someone to fix them, but—”

  “None of the outside cameras are working?” Replacement asked.

  “I’m sorry, no.” Jerry looked around. “The inside ones are.”

  “The police are going to need that footage. The techs will want to take a look at the system. They may be able to get something. Please don’t touch it,” Jack instructed.

  “I won’t, sir.”

  “Can we talk with Tommy?” Jack asked.

  “Yeah. He’s still here. He already spoke with a few policemen, but they said a detective wanted to speak with him too. I’ll go get him.”

  Jerry hurried out and came back moments later with a teenager whose trembling demeanor made him look even younger.

  “Hi, Tommy.” Jack stuck his hand out. “I’m Jack, and this is Alice. You were working the drive-thru window when the attack happened?”

  “Yes, sir.” Tommy’s head bobbed up and down as he thrust his hands deeper into his pockets.

  “What did you see?”

  “Nothing.” Tommy’s baggy pants fanned out, and he shrugged while he kept his hands in his pockets. “I just heard him screaming.”

  “What did he say?”

  Tommy thought for a second. “I couldn’t really make out any words. It was more like ‘AHHH.’ You know? Like something in a horror movie where there’s noise but no words.”

  “Did you stick your head out the window and look?” Replacement asked.

  “I tried.” Tommy cast a quick look at the manager.

  “I didn’t think it was safe for the employees to go outside. I had already called the police,” Jerry said.

  Jack rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Do you remember seeing anyone in the drive-thru who seemed nervous or raised any suspicion?”

  “No.” Tommy’s pants flared again. “I remember the guy who got stabbed. He was in a big truck.”

  “Do you remember if anyone drove up behind him who maybe looked out of place?” Jack asked.

  “Nope.”

  “How did the guy seem?” Jack asked.

  “I don’t know. He seemed okay? I just took his order. I didn’t talk with him.” Tommy looked at his feet.

  “What did he order?” Replacement asked.

  Tommy fidgeted before he shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “You took the order, right?” Replacement continued.

  “I took a lot of orders.” Tommy finally took his hands out of his pockets. “I don’t remember his.”

  Replacement looked at Jerry. “Can you please look up his order in the POS?”

  “Certainly. Right this way.” Jerry hurried over behind the counter. He pressed a few buttons and then froze. “Do you know his order number?”

  “You couldn’t have been open long after he ordered,” Jack said. “He ate and then was attacked. Let’s start with the end and work our way up.”

  “But then we have to know what he ordered, right?” Jerry’s fingers still hovered over the keys.

  “I have an idea. Just start scrolling back through the orders.” Replacement leaned over the register. As the screen scrolled, her green eyes scanned the listing of food. “There.” She pointed at a huge order. “Five orders of chicken nuggets, five sodas, five fries, a double cheeseburger, and a milkshake.”

  “He didn’t get that.” Tommy shook his head. “That was the mom with the screaming kids.”

  “I know.” Replacement rolled her eyes. “But she said she was in front of him so…” She pressed a button and the screen switched to the next order. “He ordered just a regular soda?”

  “Is that it?” Jack asked.

  “Yeah,” Tommy said. “Now I remember. He just wanted a regular soda. I thought I missed part of the order, but he got no food.”

  “Some customers do that,” Jerry said.

  “We’re going to take a look out back.” Jack stared down at the register and the order with only one item: O’Rourke’s soda. “Don’t touch the POS or the surveillance systems.”

  “I won’t, sir.” Jerry backed away from the register.

  Jack and Replacement walked out the back door and headed over to look at the truck.

  “I just want to look from back here. Don’t get too close to the truck,” Jack instructed.

  As they started to get closer, Replacement wrinkled her nose. “Is that from the trash?”

  “Summer and trash.” Jack looked back and forth from the truck to the trash can and then the dumpster. “This doesn’t add up.”

  Replacement nodded. “I don’t get it.”

  “What don’t you get, kid? Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “I have questions just flying around my head.” Replacement waved her hands next to her head. “Like why would you come to a burger joint and order just a soda? And then why go park and drink a soda? But…”

  “But what?” Jack pressed.

  “O’Rourke was stabbed in the stomach.” Her hands pressed against her own stomach. “No one would do that to themselves. Right?”

  “Facts are stubborn things. Keep going with what seems off.”

  “But Kendra and Donald were here. They didn’t see anything off,” Replacement protested.

  “One, you don’t know that. Two, that’s not their job right now. Donald needed to get a statement and secure the scene. He did that. Kendra is making sure it stays secure. Once the detectives get here, they’ll ask the same questions we are, but right now that’s our job.”

  “Okay.” Replacement exhaled. “Then why would you park next to the super smelly trash? The whole parking lot back here is empty.”

  “Where he parked is my biggest question.” Jack pointed. “It’s the most secluded spot, but you have a dumpster, then his car, and then over there is the trash can. Look at the inside of the truck.”

  They stood twenty feet away but with the doors op
en, they clearly saw inside.

  “There’s trash on the floor in the truck,” Replacement said.

  “And his drink holder is empty. Why throw out the cup? Then if you did want to throw it out, why not open the door and toss it in the green dumpster? Instead, he gets out, goes all the way around the truck, and walks twenty feet to the trash can?”

  “It makes no sense,” Replacement said.

  “And what about the attacker? O’Rourke said he came from over there.” Jack pointed to the open field.

  “Are you really going to start there to attack someone? It’s the worst spot.” Replacement walked toward the building and pointed behind the green trash bins. “Why not come at him from there?”

  Jack picked up his phone. “Undersheriff Morrison? Has O’Rourke come out of recovery yet?”

  “Not yet. Castillo is almost on the scene with you. What have you got?”

  Jack ran down everything they found out. The more facts he relayed, the tighter the grip on his phone became. When he finished, there was a long pause.

  “We need to keep looking at it like it’s legit,” Morrison said. “I’ll send Castillo to talk to the techs and see what they have. I’ll leave the APB up.” Morrison sighed. “O’Rourke raised flags because the change in MO and the description of the suspect, too. No car and a generic description that matches the majority of the male population. I’ve talked to the operating doctor. The first wound is superficial. Couple of stitches. The stomach wound didn’t come near anything vital, but it did go deep. I’m waiting for the background on O’Rourke now.”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “Good work, Jack.”

  “Undersheriff, we need to quiet this down with the press.”

  “How am I supposed to do that, Jack?”

  Jack rubbed the side of his face. “I don’t know, but if this guy killed Freeman because the mayor said it was a cowardly act, what do you think he’s going to do now that someone said the Giant Killer failed and ran away?”

  There was silence on the other end of the phone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  They Should be Afraid

  Jack and Replacement walked up to Vicki’s desk.

  Replacement set her takeout coffee in front of Vicki. “It’s mine, but I haven’t taken a drink yet.” Replacement smiled thinly. “You look like you need it more than me. It’s a regular: cream and two sugars.”

  Vicki was in her late twenties, but the dark circles under her eyes made her seem older. Today she went with her gray wardrobe: gray jacket, gray skirt, and gray shoes. It was a bad choice because the lack of sleep gave her skin a matching grayish tint.

  Vicki smiled as she took the coffee. “Thank you. I haven’t had a second to make any.” She held the cup with both hands and took a long sip. “I don’t mean this to sound callous but there is so much going on, beyond a serial killer. The mayor is dealing with a water-rights issue, two new housing developments, the River Bend Restoration…it’s an endless list.” She sighed and held the cup in her lap. “And now he attacked another man? Please tell me you have good news.”

  “I need to speak with the mayor about that attack,” Jack said.

  Vicki closed her eyes and nodded. “I guess I’m so used to seeing things like this solved in an hour on TV.” She stood up, snagged her tablet, and moved to the door to the right of her desk. She held up a hand as she cracked open the door and then peeked in. “The mayor will see you now.” She held the door open for them.

  Mayor Lewis stood up behind her large oak desk as Jack and Replacement entered. She gestured to another table with four chairs in the corner. “Mr. Stratton. Ms. Campbell.” The mayor shook their hands as all four of them took seats around the table. “I just got off the phone with the undersheriff.”

  “I saw him at the hospital. Did O’Rourke come out of recovery?”

  “He did.” The mayor folded her hands on the desk. “Both he and Detective Castillo spoke with O’Rourke.”

  “They did? What did he say?” Replacement sat forward in her chair and then straightened up.

  The mayor’s eyes leveled on Jack. “He’s reaffirmed his earlier statements. He insists he was attacked. The undersheriff also informed me of your suspicions about O’Rourke’s attack.”

  Jack fought back the urge to stand and deliver his report. “I know you’re short on time, so I’ll keep it brief.”

  The mayor nodded. “It was my expectation there was little my office could do while the investigation proceeds. Do you need my authorization for something?”

  “You need to do something Undersheriff Morrison may not want you to do.”

  Jack felt a twinge of guilt for not speaking to Morrison first, but that would also alleviate Morrison’s accountability if the request came directly from the mayor’s office.

  The mayor raised an eyebrow.

  “First, you need to get interviews with the victims’ families on the air,” Jack said.

  The mayor closed her eyes briefly and Vicki shook her head. “Putting grieving widows and crying kids on TV is a recipe for disaster.” Vicki’s hand smacked the table as she turned to the mayor.

  Mayor Lewis’s pale blue eyes coldly stared at Vicki’s hand on the table, and her eyes narrowed slightly. Vicki slowly straightened up and put her hands in her lap.

  “Why?” Mayor Lewis asked Jack.

  “To slow the killer down. O’Rourke’s lying. It was a staged attack.”

  “Morrison is not a hundred percent sure of that.”

  “He’s ninety-nine percent sure of that, but he needs to give the victim the benefit of the doubt and investigate it. You don’t.”

  “How can you be sure that he faked the attack?” the mayor asked.

  Jack ran down everything they discovered. As he continued to talk, the mayor’s expression never changed. She sat there with her eyes locked on his. When he finished, she angled her head slightly. “If he did fake the attack, what do you need from me?”

  “You need to announce your office has no evidence the crimes are linked. You need to say the Giant Killer’s still out there and dangerous. You had a press conference and called him a coward. He killed Greg Freeman and hung him from the Welcome to Darrington sign. What do you think he’s going to do when he sees reports that, not only did he fail to kill, but he ran away?”

  “You think Mayor Lewis saying he’s dangerous will stop him from killing?” Vicki arched her neck.

  “This guy’s progressing. We’re looking at a serial killer who likes to watch men die and takes his time doing it. Something in the last week has made him snap even more. We need him to cool off. We need to humanize the victims and stroke his ego.”

  Vicki flicked her hand. “He wants people to be afraid.”

  “They should be.” Jack’s voice was even.

  “So you want us to get the victims’ families on network TV?” Vicki didn’t look at him as she pounded away on her tablet.

  “It doesn’t have to be network. Local’s fine. He watches channel three. But we need them to really humanize the deceased.”

  Vicki looked up, wide-eyed, and the mayor cleared her throat. “How could you possibly know what television station he watches?”

  Replacement spoke up. “Greg Freeman was featured on an ad for Pat’s Towing Company. They only played the ad on channel three.” She squeezed Jack’s leg under the table.

  “What about Daniel Branson?” Vicki asked. “The police have been unable to locate any family.”

  Jack thought for a second, but Replacement said, “Linskie Lumber, the secretary there. She may not have much, but she can say something. Daniel was also a poet. We can get some of his poems and have someone read them.”

  The mayor’s fingers tapped the table, and she looked at Jack with as much emotion as a poker player. “The man’s a killer. What if he doesn’t care? What then?”

  “Then more people die.”

  “What?” Vicki’s hand slammed down on the table, and the mayor’s glare was
withering.

  Jack held up a hand. “He’s a killer, and he’s going to kill again. It’ll be someone else’s father. Someone else’s son. He’ll kill unless we stop him, so until then we need to slow him down.”

  The mayor exhaled and looked at the table for a few moments. She closed her eyes, straightened her neck, and then spoke clearly and evenly. “Vicki, arrange an interview with Three News and the victims’ families—including the secretary from Linskie Lumber and any fellow employee of Daniel Branson. Have them use his poems too. Start preparing a statement from our office. In it, we’ll do exactly as Mr. Stratton has recommended.” She turned to stare at Jack. “I’ll contact you with the statement before it’s released.”

  She’s got backbone.

  Vicki didn’t look up as she typed. “I’ll reach out to my contacts in the media and see what they can do to quiet the coverage on O’Rourke.”

  “I pray this buys you the time you need, Mr. Stratton.” The mayor nodded.

  Me too.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  That’s Big

  Jack flipped through the pages Replacement printed out while she scanned the monitor. “The police reports are a little thin,” Replacement mumbled as the pen in her mouth bounced around.

  “I called Bob. The ME’s report on Daniel is still not done.”

  “What about the one on Freeman?” Replacement asked.

  “They both should be ready tomorrow.”

  Replacement took the pen out of her mouth. “I went through the database Gary gave us and the one from the animal shelter. I looked at all the data, and I don’t see any pattern with big dogs. There was one instance of animal abuse of cats, but it was a young kid, fourteen. He moved to Colorado with his mother a year ago.”

  Jack got up and walked over to the window. “We’ve gone over the Davis report from every angle. There’s nothing new on any of the missing persons.”

  “You might have bought us some time. Don’t you think the mayor’s statement helped?”

  “It’s a good thing Vicki has some connections in the media. I think it should. That and the fact that O’Rourke has hired a lawyer now. I have to give it to Castillo. Bob said he tore O’Rourke’s story apart.”