Trail of the Zodiac - Debt Collector 10 (A Jack Winchester Thriller)

by Jon Mills

  “No, c’mon!”

  He turned up the volume on the service broadcasting the police radio, hoping to hear something, anything that might give him some reason to make staying in that traffic worth his while. Nothing. It was as congested as the traffic — just static, or mundane calls.

  He ripped the earphone out. “Fuck!”

  Jack slammed a fist against the wheel. He felt like he was running up against a wall. Out of frustration he took the next exit and decided to pursue what he’d set out to do that day — follow up on the four individuals who’d come forward claiming their father was the Zodiac.

  “Best of luck, detective,” Jack muttered under his breath. He wondered if she was dealing with the same frustration. Both of them were pursuing a ghost.

  Although there was a slim chance the police could nab him if he returned to the main public library, Jack figured that anyone with a lick of sense would have been monitoring the police radio frequencies. This man didn’t strike him as someone prone to make mistakes.

  * * *

  Two hours.

  That’s how long she stood inside that security booth watching those cameras. Not a damn thing. She’d even begun to wonder how the security guys could stand the job. Staring at people coming and going couldn’t have been exciting. The highlight of their day must have been when someone attempted to steal a book.

  “Romero, you got anything?”

  His voice came over her in-ear.

  “Yeah, cramp in my leg. How much longer are we going to be here? The guy’s not coming.”

  “Charley, anything online?” she asked.

  Charley was in the office with her monitoring online activity. Nothing had come up.

  “Not yet.”

  She shook her head and craned her neck from side to side to work out the tension. Why did she even bother? It was pointless. Her thoughts went to what her father told her many years ago. He’d been in the police force for twenty-two years until he was killed two months before retirement. It wasn’t even job related. He’d walked into a 7-Eleven to buy a pack of smokes at the same time someone was trying to rob the place. He’d tried to talk the guy out of it because he didn’t have a piece on him. The guy shot him. There wasn’t any need. He had the money from the till — all of eighty-two bucks and sixty cents. Her father had died over pocket change. She missed him every single day. He was the reason why she’d joined the department. Although growing up with a father as a cop had made her the focus of ridicule at times, most admired him, as did she. She could still recall being eight and going into work with him. She’d spin around on a chair as cops answered phones and others strong-armed lunatics. He’d waited until she was sixteen before giving her the chance to do a ride-along. At first he’d tried to talk her out of it. “I don’t want to burst your bubble, Nina, if you’re expecting a wild ride. It’s not like the movies.”

  “I know that,” she’d replied. He was right, it was hours of boredom and moments of sheer terror. Except the day she went along with him, even the slow moments seemed interesting. She’d sat up front as her father busted someone for drinking and driving. By the end of his shift as they drove home he asked her a series of questions.

  “You still want to become a cop?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s better than digging a ditch.”

  He’d probably expected to hear some long-winded reason about wanting to make a change in people’s lives, or stand for justice, or whatever reason an sixteen-year-old kid might have thought was the right thing to say. Except that wasn’t why she got into it. To her it was job security. Straight up. She hadn’t seen her father once asking for handouts, yet she’d seen some of her friends’ fathers barely able to put food on the table. Of course her reasons changed in later years.

  “Hudson. HUDSON!”

  She snapped out of her dazed state at the sound of Charley’s voice. “The video is online. He must have uploaded from one of the other libraries.”

  “But we have cops posted at all twenty-seven of them.”

  “Well, he obviously flew under the radar.”

  “Shit!”

  She learned forward over Charley’s shoulder and stared at the latest video of him approaching the couple fishing by the edge of the pristine Lake Merced. The look of shock on their faces as he confronted them with a gun and told the girl to tie up the guy before he moved in and bound her. Tears streamed down the young girl’s face, a mask of fear and terror. The final words of desperation caught in their throats as they pleaded with him to take whatever he wanted before he unleashed a violent knife attack. Hudson diverted her gaze at the sound of the steely blade puncturing skin. She clenched her jaw, then slammed a fist down on the table.

  Romero appeared at the doorway, wearing an expression that matched hers.

  Chapter 16

  It frustrated him to no end. Everything about the job was starting to piss him off. Even he had limits. He’d handled numerous jobs for his old boss Gafino — jobs that had him scouring the city searching for those who didn’t want to be found, and although he encountered a few hiccups along the way, he always came up gold. However, now it was a whole different story. If it weren’t for Dana, he would have turned the job back to the client. The risk of getting nabbed by the police didn’t compare to what would happen if Angelo got his grubby hands on him. Jack was fully aware that the event last night wouldn’t cause him to back off, no, not at all, it would only light a fire under his ass. It was fuel for the mob. Another reason to extend his suffering if they ever caught up.

  Jack stared down at the names on the list he’d compiled.

  One of the four individuals was listed as deceased.

  The other three were still local to the Bay Area.

  He had them listed in no particular order.

  Jack browsed through what little information the media had put out on William Roberts. Some believed his account; others said he was a hack looking to cash in on one of America’s greatest unsolved murder cases.

  William had come forward to the police in the late nineties claiming to have in his possession items that led him to believe his father was the Zodiac. Among the items he presented was a pair of glasses taken from one of the victims, along with the bullet shells. William had gone on to write a book that failed to reach its target audience when a family member came forward in the midst of his tour to say that he had admitted to fabricating the story. Though he flat-out denied it. Neither the police nor the family member could prove that he was lying. He eventually became background noise to others who came forward, and he vanished from the headlines.

  Jack had parked across the road in a small suburban neighborhood. He’d only been there ten minutes when he saw a tall unshaven man, with heavy sideburns, emerge from the home carrying two black bags down to the end of his driveway. He was in his late forties. He was wearing a red plaid shirt and had a shifty look on his face. He tossed the bags into steel trash cans, and pounded them down with the lids.

  Jack pushed out of his truck and shot a sideways glance for traffic as he crossed the road.

  “Mr. Roberts.”

  He stuck out his hand as he got closer and the man’s demeanor changed.

  “What do you want?”

  “Just a moment of your time.”

  A vehicle heading towards him beeped its horn and Jack moved back to let it go by. In those brief seconds as it passed, William turned and fled.

  “Hey!” Jack yelled, taking off after him. He double-timed it along the side of his home and through the back of his yard and was trying to clamber over a fence when Jack latched onto the back of his shirt and pulled him to the ground. He immediately went into defensive mode, putting his hands up and retreating like a wounded animal.

  “I didn’t do it.”

  “Do what?”

  He must have registered that Jack wasn’t there for whatever the hell he was running from as he flashed this confused expression. Jack grabbed
a hold of him and hauled the man to his feet. “Look, I just run a small business. If you have a problem with anything, there’s not much I can do. I’m just a drop shipper.”

  Jack screwed up his face. “What?”

  “You’re here because of a broken guitar, right?”

  “No.”

  A look of relief flooded his face and he let out a weak laugh. “Oh shit, you scared the crap out of me. I thought you were that guy who’s been hassling me for a refund.”

  Jack stared blankly at him as he began brushing off leaves and dirt from his pants.

  “I’m here to ask you about the items you presented to the San Francisco police back in the ’90s.”

  He frowned. “You media?”

  “Nope.”

  “A cop?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Well then I don’t have time for this. That was a long time ago. It’s behind me.”

  “Why did you back off after presenting the items?”

  “Ridicule. I was tired of getting ridiculed.”

  He crossed his yard heading for the back door and Jack mirrored his pace.

  “So it was false.”

  “No, it wasn’t false. That’s what those bastards online will have you believe.”

  “So you actually think your father was the Zodiac.”

  He chuckled and stopped walking. He stabbed a finger into Jack’s chest. “Let me guess. The recent string of murders has got you all interested in the case. It’s fresh. New. And you’re like some budding journalist, am I right?”

  Jack was about to reply when he continued rambling.

  “I get it. You want to be the one that cracks the case. Well do yourself a favor and get the hell off my lawn. People should have listened to me back in the ’90s. If they had, maybe this wouldn’t be happening.”

  “Then maybe you can shed some—”

  Before he could finish, he cut him off.

  “I could…” He climbed the three steps up to his porch and pulled the storm door open. It creaked, and he cast a glance over his shoulder. “But I won’t. Now I’m done talking to you. On your way or I’ll call the cops.”

  William disappeared inside and slammed the door. Jack stood there for a second chewing over what he’d said before he pulled the Beretta and followed after him. When he burst into his kitchen, the guy looked like he was going to piss himself. It was pretty damn clear this was no killer. He reeked of fear. He certainly didn’t have the balls to walk up to two strangers and control a situation.

  He threw up his hands and backed into the kitchen table causing it to screech.

  “Sit down.”

  No hesitation, he plunked his ass on a chair and began babbling. “Just take what you want. I’m not going to say anything.”

  “I’m not here to rob you, William. I’m here to talk but from what I can tell, you clearly aren’t going to give me the answers I was looking for, but I’m curious to know.” Jack kept the gun on him, not because he was a threat but because he was enjoying watching him squirm.

  “The glasses, and bullet shells. Where did you get them?”

  “They were passed on to me.”

  “By who?”

  “My father.”

  “The Zodiac?”

  “Actually I didn’t say that. That’s how the media spun it.”

  Jack went over to the fridge and pulled it open. “You got any brothers or sisters?”

  “A sister, she lives in Australia.”

  “How long has she been there?”

  “Since the nineties. You want her number?”

  Jack scooped up a beer and showed it to him. “Light beer? That’s all you got?”

  He shrugged. “I needed to lose a few pounds.”

  “Well I hate to break it to you, bud, but that involves not drinking this shit at all.” He twisted the top off and took a swig before returning to his seat. “Continue.”

  “Well, that’s it. After my father died, I presented the items to the media.”

  “You waited until he died?”

  “Of course. I figured if he was the Zodiac, I didn’t want him rotting in a cell.”

  “And the family member that came forward?”

  He pulled a face as if to indicate that perhaps they might have been truthful.

  “It was my sister. She said that my father bought them on eBay.”

  Jack chuckled. “Are you shitting me?”

  He shrugged. “Look, that’s what she said. My father told me he got it from the crime scene.”

  “Of course he did.”

  “And where are these items?”

  “The police still have them.”

  “They kept them?”

  “Yeah, they told me to stop wasting police time and that they had disposed of them so that I couldn’t continue being a problem. That’s why I disappeared. I didn’t have anything else to show.”

  “And the book sales?”

  “Dismal. The publisher dropped me before it went to print. I found some small publishing company, and they ran a thousand copies, but half of them are still sitting in a box in my garage.”

  Jack laughed and finished his beer. “And tell me, how’s your relationship with your sister?”

  “We haven’t talked since.”

  Jack got up, sniffed, tucked the gun back behind his back and headed towards the door. “Really, William. You should get in contact with her. Put the hatchet to rest. Life’s too short.”

  With that said he shouldered his way out of the home and headed back to his truck. He could scratch him off his list. After all the years of crossing paths with psychos of all kinds he liked to think he had a knack for determining those that were capable and those that were victims. William was a victim. Nothing more than an empty shell of a man seeking validation through items that the police had clearly ruled out, not because they didn’t come from the scene but because of who William was. He figured the police probably had run a check on William, along with his father, and determined there was no chance he was the Zodiac otherwise they wouldn’t have dismissed him so easily.

  He heaved out a sigh as he sank into his seat behind the steering wheel and gazed down at his phone. Then he brought up Dana’s number. As much as he wanted to see justice for Jason’s death, he was beginning to think that it wasn’t gonna happen. This wasn’t a hit, neither was it a small-town crime that could be easily resolved by chasing a few leads and banging on doors. Right now he felt like a fish out of water. He was chasing a ghost, a man that had given a lot of thought to these acts. They were the hardest to catch.

  Jack rubbed his eyes feeling a wave of tiredness.

  * * *

  The man stumbled forward, falling to his knees. His lip was busted up, and he was sporting one hell of a welt on the side of his face.

  After the previous night’s fuckup, Angelo was fuming. He’d known the two men Jack had killed. One of them was his cousin. He came around the large mahogany desk and then leaned against it waiting for the guy to look at him.

  “What’s your name?”

  He lifted his head, his eyes welling up.

  “Wyatt Donahue.”

  “You been a cab driver long?”

  “Twelve years.”

  He turned and cast a glance over his shoulder at Angelo’s men who had roughed him up. Fear. That was the one thing that Angelo saw on a daily basis. He’d become accustomed to it, along with the pleading and sobbing of people when they knew that his face was the last thing they would see.

  “You know who I am?” Angelo asked.

  He shook his head and Angelo chuckled to himself. “Twelve years working in the city and you’ve never come across a Marabelle?” He breathed in deeply. “Ah, I guess there is a first time for everyone.” He crouched down in front of him. “Well Wyatt, you want to tell me where he is?”

  “Who?”

  Angelo grinned before striking him across the face with the back of his hand. His bulky gold rings cut his skin causing him to cry in agon
y. His face whiplashed off the floor, with a hollow thud. Angelo grabbed him by the shoulders and straightened him up.

  “Let’s try that again. The man whose truck you took from the impound.”

  His eyes studied Angelo’s, and he either was suffering from memory loss or was a sucker for punishment. He went to strike him again, and he cried out. “Okay, I don’t know the guy. He got into my cab last night, I took him over to the shelter. You know Sanctuary, the one on 8th Street? He asked me to have someone fix the tire on his truck, tow his truck to the impound, and then pick it up and drop it off. I swear that’s all. I don’t know him. He paid me for my time and that’s it. Look, I’ve got a family and kids to support. If I knew this was going to happen, I wouldn’t have done it.”

  He smiled and slapped him slightly on the side of the cheek.

  “Good man, Wyatt. Now did you get a number, an address from him?”

  He shrugged. “No, he paid me and that was it.”

  Angelo pursed his lips together. “To be expected. So you don’t know how to contact him?”

  Wyatt hunched over as he rose to his feet. “I don’t have a clue where he is.”

  “It’s unfortunate. I was hoping to send a message to him. I guess we could still do it.”

  With that said, he turned and in one swooping motion yanked a gun from his waistband and fired a single round into Wyatt’s skull. His body collapsed, and blood drained from his head.

  “Take his body and make sure it’s left in an exposed area. I want Winchester to hear about this.”

  “You think he’s still here, boss?”

  “Of course. Unless they’ve caught the Zodiac, have they?”

  Vinny shook his head. Angelo watched him and another guy drag Wyatt’s body out. He went behind his desk and sniffed a line of coke. He sat back in his chair and lit a cigarette. The cogs in his mind turned over trying to make connections to what he’d said. Winchester had mentioned he was here because of a friend. Angelo tapped his hands against the table. “And who might that friend be?”

  He shuffled forward in his chair and brought up the Internet and did a search on the recent string of murders. So far six people had been killed. Their names were listed, along with the names of parents. He brought up video from the crime scenes and over the following hour observed those that the media spoke to. Now he knew that Winchester came to him just after the first two were murdered. Which meant his friend had to have been connected to the two teenagers killed over by Lake Merced Boulevard.