Dead of Knight

by William R. Potter

  Staal knelt, clutching the chair.

  “Back in a sec,” she whispered.

  Gina could have easily stopped at the nurses station, but she returned with a wheelchair and positioned it in front of Staal.

  Ten minutes later, he was in Gina’s Grand Cherokee. His nausea had not left him, nor had his embarrassment over vomiting in font of her. A wave of heat washed over him. He opened the window, and closed his eyes.

  Chapter 24

  Knight began to panic after ringing Duncan Quinn’s doorbell for the third time and receiving no answer. He took long, deep breaths and tugged his sweatshirt into place. He wished he were wearing the outfit. The dark clothing completed him, shielded him from self-doubt and weak thoughts.

  He knew that Quinn was at home because he had called on the way over. He glanced down at the copy of the Vancouver Sun still sitting on the second step. He picked it up and read the headline.

  Hit and Run Cop Wakes From Five-Day Coma.

  He smiled.

  More than twenty members of the Integrated Homicide Team had joined the hunt and were confident that this pussy Zimmerman was their Birthday Boy. Knight had a gut feeling that Jack Staal was not convinced. Staal, concussion or not, would keep coming.

  “We’ll cross paths again, Detective,” he said, steadying a tremble in his hands.

  He glanced behind him. “Shit!” His bike had toppled from its hiding spot in the laurel shrubbery bordering the property. He reached for the doorbell once more.

  The door swung open and a balding man in his sixties, with a beer gut straining a filthy Seahawks shirt stared out at him. His high school gym teacher had really let himself go.

  He could remember the older man’s taunts. “Jesus Christmas, kid. You can’t catch, throw, hit, run, or jump. You is one sorry sack-of-dung, if I ever saw one.”

  “Well,” Quinn said, “What the hell do you want?”

  “I, um,” Knight could hear a small dog barking somewhere in the house. “I’m collecting for the SPCA.” His heart began to pound as he looked up at the old man.

  “Yeah? Well, what would my hard earned donation be going toward?” Quinn stepped back. His breath reeked of stale beer even though it was only ten in the morning.

  “Ah. The spay and neuter program, sir,” He said.

  “All right. I think I got ten bucks here for you. You have any ID?”

  “Sure it’s right here.” Knight reached into his pants pocket, removed his wallet, pulled out a white card with a photograph on it—his old student ID—and handed it to Quinn.

  Quinn took the card and held it away from his eyes. “This is you?”

  “Of course,” Knight said. While Quinn stared at the card, he reached inside his jean jacket. “Maybe this will help you remember.” He struck out fast with the stun gun and caught Quinn with a full jolt between his eyes.

  Quinn staggered into the hallway and toppled onto his back. Knight closed the door behind him and stood over his victim. Quinn’s body shuddered and convulsed.

  “Quinn, you sack of shit! Drop and give me twenty.” He stunned Quinn on the right side of his face. “Make that thirty, boy!” He jabbed the weapon into Quinn’s abdomen again and again until the battery lost power.

  “You didn’t die on me, did you old man?” He knelt beside Quinn’s unconscious form and put his ear to the man’s face. “Nope,” he leapt to his feet. “Takes a shit-kicking and keeps on ticking.”

  Knight pulled a roll of duct-tape from his backpack, tore off several strips, and covered Quinn’s mouth. Then he used tie-straps to bind Quinn’s hands and feet together. Dragging Quinn’s two hundred fifty plus pounds along the hallway was harder than he had imagined. He dropped his burden and opened the basement door. On the way down the stairs, he made certain that Quinn’s skull bounced off each step.

  “Watch your head, Coach!”

  Knight surveyed the underground room and saw that Quinn was a packrat. Every inch of the floor space was covered with old workout equipment. Free weights, a Universal Gym, treadmill, fixed bike, Quinn had it all, and it all was covered with a thick layer of dust. In the farthest corner of the area was a workbench, with a well-stocked tool board, table saw, and a drawer of power tools both corded and rechargeable.

  He couldn’t resist opening the only door in the basement, a cellar under the concrete front stairs. He wasn’t surprised by the state of the room, stacked floor to ceiling with bundled newsprint and magazines, rotting vegetables, and canned goods. He cleared the floor of debris before he hauled Quinn’s prostrate form through the cellar doorway and then stuffed an old shirt into the ventilation pipe. He dusted off his clothes and then noticed Quinn’s horrified expression.

  “You don’t remember me, do you, Duncan?” Knight smiled. “Bedford High, 1994 to 96. You were supposed to educate me, guide me, and help me become a man. Shit, you were nothing more than a bully with a teacher’s license.” He reached up to the top shelf and removed a can of Campbell’s Chicken Soup, held it in front of Quinn close enough for him to read the label, and then dropped it. The can made a loud thud when it struck Quinn’s face.

  “Bye, bye. It’s been nice catching up.” He slammed the door behind him.

  He used up the roll of duct-tape sealing the cellar doorjamb. Then he smashed the door handle off with a two-pound sledgehammer and then carried four sheets of 5/8” plywood from a pile near the workbench. He fastened the plywood over the door with three-inch wood screws.

  Stepping back to admire his work, he grinned when he thought about how dark it now was inside the cellar. Perhaps if he plugged the vent on the outside the old bastard would suffocate. Later. Now he had to take care of the dog still barking in the kitchen upstairs.

  After he silenced the mutt, Knight cleaned up and pulled on a navy blazer and burgundy necktie from Quinn’s closet. Next, he would take his former teacher’s car, a nearly new Cadillac STS for a drive.

  The Cadillac was smooth and powerful, and it didn’t take long to make the trek to Morgan Creek. The Creek was Hanson’s most affluent neighborhood, a secure community with nine-foot high concrete and steel fences, video cameras, and a guarded main entrance. No one got in without an electronic push-button remote opener or by voicing a special code to the guard.

  Knight had previously followed vehicles leaving the Creek and broken into them to get his hands on a clicker. Conveniently, he had found a list of entrance passwords in Neal Hooper’s Jaguar coupe. Seven former U.S. presidents’ names were listed, one for each day of the week.

  He drove up to the main gate in the Cadillac, wearing the blazer, but when he thumbed the button on the Hooper clicker, nothing happened.

  “Shit.” Knight reached out the window and pressed the intercom. “My remote’s not working,” he said into the speaker. “Is the code changed?”

  “Yeah, we had a car broken into. Do you know the password for today?” The voice was foreign, but he didn’t recognize the accent.

  “Yes. Carter 1980.” The gate opened and he drove by the security office and nodded to the guard.

  Morgan Creek featured 104 rancher style homes with perfectly manicured gardens and lawns that would rival the greens on the nation’s best golf courses. Number 44 belonged to Gregory Newsome. Newsome was a pilot for Canadian Airlines and worked a flight from Vancouver to Paris, with stops in Chicago and New York. Knight looked at his watch and guessed that Newsome would touch down in O’Hare in less than an hour. Ten years earlier, Newsome had married a flight attendant named Amber Nicole Wright.

  Knight drove by 44 for a third time, and then parked the Quinn STS at the man-made pond in the center of the complex. He changed out of his blazer and tie and into a shadowy dark outfit. He was strong and ready.

  On previous visits to the Creek, he had learned the layout of the development and that each of the homes whose addresses ended in fours had pools. The homes all sat on 35x72 foot lots with six to eight foot tall cedar hedges for privacy as well as fences. He forced his body b
etween two cedars, grimacing as branches scratched his face and hands. He shifted until he found a spot that gave him the best view of the Newsome pool, hot tub, and pool house.

  If Amber Newsome’s habits were as set as Knight thought them to be, she would be along in the next fifteen minutes. He checked his watch. It was 8:51. He checked again at 9:14, and by twenty-five past the hour he was growing impatient. It was getting dark. Finally, at 9:30, Newsome emerged from the rear door of her home.

  Newsome wore a dark, one-piece swimsuit. Her blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail. Her body was trim, tight and curvy. Light glinted off a diamond stud in her navel. Most men found her attractive, lusted for her; however he would never see her in that way.

  The only emotion that registered in his mind when Knight saw Amber Newsome was hatred and the urge to burst out from the bushes and act was overwhelming.

  “No,” he whispered. “Stick to the plan.” Knight released fistfuls of soil that he didn’t remember clenching. He took in long, deep, recuperating breaths.

  Newsome dove into the water and stayed under for far longer than he had ever cared to. Knight knew she would swim fifteen to twenty lengths of the pool before climbing the diving platform and making three to six graceful dives from the ten-foot height. Next, she would spend up to half an hour in the hot tub.

  He counted seventeen lengths, five dives, and twenty-two minutes in the whirlpool before he heard someone approaching on the trail. He slowly pulled his legs up close to his chest. He heard something sniffing around close to his buttocks. He didn’t have time to deal with some prick and his damn dog. He detested the so-called man’s-best-friend, and this was his second little fleabag of the day.

  “What you got there, Dusty?” asked the dog walker. Knight thought it was a white male in his seventies. “You got a squirrel?”

  Dusty drove himself deep enough into the bush to lick Knight’s face. He reached up and felt around for the canine’s collar and when he found it twisted it quickly. Dusty yelped, turned, and bolted from the bush.

  “Shit, you old mutt. I told you to leave them squirrels alone.”

  Knight listened to the old-timer chattering to his dog as he walked further away down the service trail. When he returned to watch Amber Newsome, she was gone. He glanced at his watch and noticed that it was thirty-six minutes since Newsome had entered the hot tub. He knew she was in the pool house, most likely showering.

  The old fart and his mutt had screwed up his surveillance and deserved punishment. Knight crawled from the hedge on his hands and knees and quickly rose to his feet. He removed the stun gun from his jacket pocket and stepped rapidly to catch up to the old man. The geezer wore shorts, making his bare legs a perfect target for the electronic weapon.

  Knight could see in his mind’s eye the old-timer drop to the ground and convulse after taking a 50,000-volt charge from the prod. The guy would no doubt have a heart attack and croak right there in the lane, with the dog yapping and barking like crazy.

  No, he it’s not worth it, he thought. It would bring police attention to the area before he served justice to Newsome. Knight turned and walked in the opposite direction of the dog walker and stopped to change his clothes for a third time. Now in blue jeans and a gray sweatshirt, he made his way to the Quinn Cadillac. Three different outfits would make it difficult for witnesses to accurately describe the stranger they saw in the Creek.

  But before he could reach the Cadillac, the pull to finish the mission became too strong, and he turned away from the vehicle and walked back toward the service trail. He needed this business to be finished. After checking for the dog walker, he pulled open the bushes and peered through an opening until he could see the rear door of the Newsome home.

  Chapter 25

  Jack Staal had accomplished little in his first day home from the hospital. He was tired and too weak to move from the couch in his living room for anything more than a trip to the toilet. His legs throbbed, and his headache continued to pound away unless he lay down or, at the very most, reclined. Gina hesitated to go to work until Staal convinced her that he would survive without her care and attention.

  Inspector Ross had called at nine AM to ream his ass for leaving the hospital against medical advice. Ross had said that it would probable screw up his compensation claim, but Staal knew the real reason for the lecture was that the Inspector was afraid of a lawsuit. After numerous calls from reporters, Staal unplugged the phone, downed a handful of Tylenol, and went to sleep.

  That was yesterday and Staal couldn’t afford another wasted day. He would work alone to find Nathan Campbell and if he couldn’t prove that Campbell was Birthday Boy, Staal would get him for the Sean Moore homicide.

  Staal looked over his notes on the Birthday Boy case. He had to establish a timeline of the events of the murders. He had prepared a line at 565 and had a copy with him at home. He would begin with the death of Stephanie MacKay in March. He wrote her name and the estimated time of death on a sheet of 9x11 white bond. Every event particular to the case was entered on the line starting from the left of the page. In past cases, his time-line workups had stretched over dozens of pages as he taped each sheet to the next in one long line.

  Staal had trouble keeping his mind on the time-line. He continued to drift to the flashbacks and dreams that had plagued him for almost a month. He left the time-line work on the living room table, shuffled to the den, and sat in front of his PC. His legs felt better, but were far from one hundred percent. Something about the call from Wendy Reynolds had triggered the return of the visions. The same intrusive dreams that were so disruptive two years ago that they had jeopardized his career in law enforcement.

  Perhaps if he found Rebecca Reynolds, his life might be able to get back on track. He called Rudy Vaughn’s number.

  An automated message from the phone company told him the number was not in service. Staal’s frustration mounted. Pain shot down his back, and pounded in his temple. A whirlwind jumble of thoughts flashed his mind.

  A missing junkie hooker.

  Zimmerman taking the fall for killing Walker and the others.

  The yellow coupe bearing down on him.

  The giant dream version of Karen Van Allen. “You’re a killer!”

  Staal pushed away the one thought that had haunted him for twenty-two months. The one he could not allow. Brenda…his Brenda…dying in the field grass…from a gunshot wound…a bullet—from his pistol.

  He struggled for breath as his heart hammered in his chest.

  Staal made his way to his room to grab his Glock pistol and shoulder holster. Campbell was undoubtedly monitoring his recovery and knew that Staal was awake and on the mend. The little bastard had won their first encounter, gaining the upper hand by surprise, and Staal would not let the freak go up two zip.

  In the garage, he swung himself into his 1968 Mustang Fastback. He cringed as a jolt of pain shot through his legs. The old car had been a part of Staal’s life for more than twenty-five years. His father, Travis Staal, had bought it in 1982 as a rusted out project car. Staal and his Dad did most of the work and two years later, the car was his high school graduation present. He turned the ignition key and the big block V-8 roared to life.

  Staal had relied on his father’s advice many times over the years. Travis, now retired, had spent thirty years on the force. Although he never worked in homicide, Jack always welcomed his opinions and support.

  “Flagstaff,” he whispered.

  Travis had made his yearly pilgrimage to the Spring Show and Shine in Flagstaff Arizona. His ’56 Thunderbird would most likely take best in show again.

  Staal found himself on Highway 99 heading west at almost a hundred miles an hour. He made his way to Abbottsford International Airport and a mostly unused service road that ran out behind runway two. How many races had he won with the ’68 here, and how often had he and Dana steamed up the windows on countless Friday nights? He parked and reached for his cell phone. The device was capable of e-mail.
He wrote....

  Dear Mr. Vaughn,

  My name is Jack Staal. My father is Travis Staal. I’m looking for Peter Reynolds’ daughter, Rebecca. Her mother has reported her as missing. I would like to talk with your son, Jonathan, as I believe Jon might be able to help me locate Becky. I would only need to talk with Jon—so please contact me.

  Sincerely, Jack Staal.

  He read and re-read the message before he sent it. Waste of time, he thought. He dialed his phone and received Lesley Degarmo’s voice mail. He left a message for his former partner.

  The Mustang shuddered as a 747 thundered overhead on take-off. Staal fanned the throttle and watched the tachometer needle zip up to 3500 RPM. He popped an old mix tape into the deck. AC/DC, featuring Bon Scott, played Highway to Hell. Perfect, Staal thought as he eased out the clutch, and then stamped on the gas again. The rear wheels spun and the Mustang fishtailed to the right. A cloud of sooty smoke enveloped the car. “Oh, yeah!”

  Staal let his foot off the brake and nailed the accelerator again. The Mustang bolted forward, snapping him back into his seat. Van Halen rocked with Panama, as Lee Roth sang, “Piston’s poppin’/There’s no stoppin’ now!”

  Before the road ended, he eased down and then shut the motor off. The hot engine pinged and his heart pounded. A smile emerged on Staal’s face so pronounced that you couldn’t knock it off with a shovel as Travis had often said. The race, however therapeutic, could not wash the strange feeling that overcame him. He thought he heard a child’s soft crying, and he searched for the source.

  “Jesus, Staal. See a lot of kids on airfields?”

  The nightmare vision of his Brenda injured and bleeding in a grass field flashed his mind. Anxiety flooded over him, an overpowering feeling that his daughter, was in danger. His first thought was to shake the emotion off, however apprehension would not leave him. He gunned the engine and headed for Brenda’s mom’s house. Staal pushed the old car so hard that it overheated and a cloud of steam floated from under the hood when he parked in the driveway. He charged up the front steps, rang the bell, and pounded on the door with his fist.