One Kill Away

by Alex MacLean

The hallway outside the office was packed with kids. Audra and Daniel began making their way to the front exit, Audra looking over faces as they walked.

  “The principal’s not going to do anything,” she said. “You know that, right?”

  Daniel flipped his hands. “She might.”

  “Nope. Unless Daphne told Scinto herself. You know, right from the horse’s mouth. Then Margi might get a suspension. Plus it’s too late in the school year. Two weeks left. Margi will be someone else’s problem after that. She’s…” Audra made air quotes. “Moving on.”

  “You think Scinto’s looking at it that way?”

  “Yeah,” Audra said. “I do.”

  She suddenly stopped when she caught a glimpse of Tabitha Landes down a side hall, poking around her locker.

  “You go on ahead,” Audra told Daniel. “I’ll catch up.”

  Daniel gave her a quizzical look. “Why?”

  “Just go on ahead.” Audra watched Tabitha pull a textbook from her locker. “I have something to do.”

  Daniel touched the back of her elbow. “What’re you doing?”

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “Don’t.”

  Audra turned to him. “Don’t what?”

  “Whatever it is going on inside that head of yours.”

  Audra pulled her arm away. “Go on, honey. Please. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Daniel held her gaze for a few seconds, then he lifted his hands and stepped back.

  “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

  He spun around and walked off. Audra thread herself through the crowd, drawing curious looks from a few kids. She reached Tabitha just as she closed the locker door.

  “Mrs. Price.” Tabitha’s eyes flashed and she pressed her back against an adjacent locker, hugged her textbook tightly to her chest.

  Audra leaned in close to her. “Don’t be afraid,” she said in a low whisper. “Margi. Do you see her?”

  Tabitha swallowed and her voice leaked out as a mumble. “I think her locker is down the other hall.”

  Audra drew back. “Can you check for me? Tell me if she’s there? Just don’t make it obvious.”

  Tabitha paused, tentative. “Okay.”

  Audra watched her walk to the corner ten feet away and peer down another hallway. Moments later, she came back.

  “She’s there.”

  “Describe her.”

  Tabitha swallowed. “Black hair. Skinny. Jeans. Gray T-shirt. She also has a silk ribbon bracelet on. A pink one. She’s about twenty lockers down.”

  “Thanks.”

  Tabitha gave her a sheepish nod and began to leave.

  “Think about stopping by the hospital,” Audra said to her retreating back. “Daphne would love to hear your voice.”

  Tabitha stopped, lowered her head for a few seconds. When she glanced back over her shoulder, her eyes looked wounded.

  “K,” she said softly.

  Audra walked to the end of the hallway and gazed down another one to see a throng of kids getting their stuff ready for class. She found herself counting lockers until she saw the girl with the pink ribbon bracelet. Margi Tanner.

  Audra looked her up and down.

  Just a kid, she tried to tell herself. Like Daphne. A kid showing her cell phone to friends gathered around her and all laughing at whatever was on the screen.

  Just a kid.

  Still it did nothing to calm the fire blazing inside Audra.

  40

  Dartmouth, June 14

  9:15 a.m.

  Corpse. Devil.

  Devil. Corpse.

  Allan shook his head. What did it all mean?

  Killers who left behind messages for police weren’t new phenomena. They had done it many times before. Blood on walls. Lipstick on mirrors. Cryptic symbols daring to be cracked.

  But what psychological purpose did the words serve the suspect in this case? He’d written them for a reason. Were they taunts just meant to leave everyone scratching their heads? Or did the words have real meaning?

  The suspect had obviously spied on Todd Dory and Blake Kaufman before he killed them. He learned their routines, familiarized himself with their neighborhoods. That’s how he’d known of the outside security camera at Atlantic News. That’s how he’d known Kaufman went out earlier. Had he followed him to Dooly’s, then came back to lay in wait?

  Allan sat in his car on Primrose Street, just down from the crime scene. Officers continued to guard the perimeters set by the barrier tape. Earlier, the employed tenants of buildings 28 and 30 had to take a cab to work. Until Ident gave the okay, the rear parking lot and the vehicles within it remained off-limits.

  Morning burned bright. The rain had left a pleasant freshness to the air, rinsed it clean of the urban funk. The sky was a rich blue, piled with cotton clouds.

  Allan glanced at the media personnel camped out across the street, filming and snapping pictures, hoping for a spot on the evening news or paper. A pretty blonde reporter stood in front of a camera, speaking into a microphone.

  Blake Kaufman, like Todd Dory, would get a paragraph, maybe two in the Chronicle Herald. He’d get a mention on the 6 o’clock news. Then he’d be forgotten until a suspect got caught. It wasn’t that dead gangbangers didn’t matter; their crimes just mattered more because they usually involved innocent people.

  Allan let his gaze roam up the brick face of 28 Primrose, stopping at the top-floor windows. He wondered if Kaufman’s apartment hid any clues, any breadcrumbs that could lead to a suspect.

  The folder on the seat beside him had grown thick with the canvass reports he’d compiled over the last five hours of working the street, banging on doors and rousing people from their beds. Little more than rumor and innuendo had resulted from it.

  Some people wouldn’t answer. Others, even if they had known something, wouldn’t talk. Allan knew they were probably afraid of retaliation or being labeled as a snitch in a neighborhood accustomed to crime, violence and police sirens. In the past five years, seven percent of all serious calls to headquarters had come from here. Drugs. Assaults. Murders. Robberies. No one wanted to get involved in any of that. Witness cooperation was a big issue in most homicide cases.

  Allan leaned his head back in the seat, trying to blink away the grittiness from his eyes. A kind of sickening languor gripped his body. The effects, he knew, of being up for over twenty-eight hours straight.

  He cringed at the task still ahead of him. Interview staff that had worked at Dooly’s last night and view the security videos during the time Kaufman had been there. Check businesses in the area for cameras that looked out at Primrose Street and Jackson Road. Screen the surveillance footage at the two toll bridges. If the suspect lived in Halifax, he had to have driven over one of them, unless he’d taken the scenic route through Bedford.

  Allan had to return to the addresses that never answered during the initial canvass. He also wanted to release the video from the Atlantic News security camera to the media. It might jog the memory of potential witnesses. Even someone close to the suspect might recognize the clothing, the bag on his back.

  Jim Lucas appeared from the alleyway between the two apartment buildings. Allan watched him carry a few evidence bags and envelopes to the Ident van parked in front of him. His camera dangled in front of his chest.

  Allan leaned his head out the window. “Find much?”

  Jim looked over and held up his index finger. He opened the rear doors of the van and put the bags inside. When he closed the doors, he walked over, unzipping the front of his coveralls down to his stomach.

  He said, “We searched every square inch of that parking lot and backyard. Rain’s fucked everything.”

  “I figured that.”

  “We did find a shotgun pellet,” Jim said. “Double-aught Buck.”

  “Where’d you find that?”

  “Next to the building. There was a deflect in the brick beside the window of a basement apartment.”

  Allan nodded. “Cou
lter told me one had gone through Kaufman’s leg. He dug out eight of them.”

  “Same caliber?”

  “Yeah. Double-aught.”

  “Were there any other wounds we didn’t see?”

  “No,” Allan said. “Coulter told me that stab wound through the eye lacerated Kaufman’s brainstem. Death was pretty quick.”

  “Do you have any idea who this guy is?”

  Allan shook his head. “He has a history with the Black Scorpions. If I can figure out what it is, I’ll find him.”

  “He’s ballsy. I’ll give him that.”

  “Yeah. Ballsy and determined.”

  “He’s likely to go after Higgins next.”

  “Let him,” Allan said. “We have eyes on Higgins now.”

  Jim grunted his disgust. “Seems like a big waste of manpower if you ask me.”

  “I know. But it’s our job.”

  Jim leaned against the car, his palms on the roof, and the camera swayed in the open window. “Harvey and I never found much else back there. A wad of chewing gum behind the dumpster. Still soft. Two cigarette butts that looked like they were recently smoked. Not sure how relevant any of it is.”

  “Anything and everything can be evidence, right?”

  “That’s right,” Jim said. “If the lab can profile the items, this guy might have a record. He might be in the COI.”

  Allan shook his head again. “Still can’t see him having a cigarette while hiding behind there. The smoke would be a clear giveaway to anyone who came outside. Now the gum?” He twitched his shoulders. “Maybe.”

  “You might be giving this guy too much credit, Lieutenant. People are stupid. They do stupid things. He gets bored. Not thinking, he lights up. Tosses the butt on the ground. Blamo, leaves part of himself behind.”

  Allan cocked an eyebrow at him. “That might be a stretch.”

  “Maybe,” Jim said. “But hey, I’m just trying to be optimistic. Better than being a wet blanket.”

  Allan smiled. “Did you find a spent shell anywhere?”

  “No. My guess, the guy never pumped the action.”

  Allan leaned toward that premise now. Until he saw the word written on the knife, he’d wondered if the suspect had jammed the shotgun. But that wasn’t the case at all. He’d wanted to use the knife so he could leave his strange message behind. He’d used the shotgun only to handicap Kaufman first, a bigger and tougher opponent for him to handle otherwise.

  “Find anything else?”

  “Nothing.” Jim drummed his fingers on the roof. “The guy kept to the grass. Never stepped in any soil. The impressions he left behind only suggested his direction of travel. We couldn’t even work out the size of the prints.”

  “What’s Harvey doing?”

  “Going over that parking lot on Jackson Road.”

  Allan gave another nod.

  “Did you get the warrant for Kaufman’s apartment?” Jim asked.

  Allan picked it off the dash, held it up. “Just got it.”

  Jim tapped out the first five beats of Shave and a Haircut. “Let’s go.”

  41

  Dartmouth, June 14

  9:38 a.m.

  Nikki answered the door wearing the same sleep pants and black T-shirt she had on earlier. Her hair was mussed, her eyes baggy and rheumy. She hugged a big blue pillow.

  “What is it now?” she asked in a voice less curious than tired.

  “Sorry to bother you again.” Allan showed her the search warrant. “We’re here to look around your place.”

  Nikki stretched her mouth into a tight line. “For what?”

  “Anything to help us find Blake’s killer.” Allan held out the warrant. “Everything’s listed on here.”

  She glanced at it in his hand, but made no effort to take it. Instead, she stepped aside, the gesture grudging, almost angry.

  “Do whatever you want,” she said.

  Allan hesitated, then walked inside. Jim followed him and set his field case on the floor. Nikki shut the door and crossed to the leather sofa where she sat down in a warm ribbon of sunlight streaming through the window. Allan laid a copy of the warrant on the coffee table in front of her.

  “You can keep that,” he said.

  Nikki slumped back and picked at the pillow. She appeared to be in shock, desolate and alone. Quieter than she’d been earlier.

  “You okay?” Allan asked.

  Flinching, Nikki turned her face away, said nothing. Her jaw muscles bunched and rolled under her skin.

  “I can call Victim Services. Have a counselor come over. Might be good to talk to someone. It helps.”

  Nikki curled forward, squeezing the pillow tight and burying her face in it. “I don’t want to see anyone right now.”

  Allan threw a glance at Jim and Jim shrugged.

  “Did Blake own a cell phone?” Allan asked her. “We never found one on him.”

  With painful effort, Nikki lifted her head and her eyes misted. “In the kitchen. By the toaster.”

  Allan looked through the doorway, saw it on the counter, an iPhone juicing up inside a charger dock. Before entering the kitchen, Jim snapped off some overall shots, lighting the entire room with bursts of the flash. He went to the counter and took a few more close-ups of the phone itself.

  Allan produced a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and slipped them on. He opened the oven and refrigerator. He poked through the cupboards, around boxes of cereal and canned goods, a jug of whey protein that he opened and looked inside. He rifled through a junk drawer packed with takeout menus, gas and grocery receipts, bread clips, and batteries.

  Jim took the iPhone out of the charger dock and placed it inside a Faraday bag. Then he wrote the case details on an evidence card and slipped it into the back pouch. He sealed the dock in a separate bag.

  Allan went back into the living room, looked under the sofa, an adjacent chair. He checked through a closet by the entry door, found nothing of value.

  Nikki sat quiet, staring at the window and playing with a strand of hair. The pillow lay across her lap.

  “Do you have family or friends you can turn to?” Allan asked.

  Nikki’s throat worked. “A few.”

  “Should call them. A support group can help you. It’s hard facing this alone.”

  Pale, she closed her eyes. “I have a lot of shit to sort through right now. More than you know.”

  Allan watched her. He found she tapped some deep well of pity inside him and he knew he had to shut off that valve and step back. He’d lugged around too much emotional baggage over the past year, carried too much nagging guilt and frustration back home and into his dreams.

  At the end of the day, Blake Kaufman was dead, probably the victim of his own gang culture. You live in that world of drugs and violence, you risk becoming a casualty. Too bad, so sad.

  As terrible as it sounded, Nikki was better off without him. He’d been bad news for years. Just like Todd Dory. Just like Lee Higgins.

  Jim came over, whispered in his ear, “Not much out here.”

  Allan nodded. “Bedroom.”

  Jim headed there first. Allan took the bathroom at the opposite end of the hallway. It was small, messy. Lotions, cosmetics, and a blow dryer cluttered the vanity. Two towels hung off the shower rod. Dirty laundry brimmed the plastic hamper.

  Allan moved back to the threshold and took out his camera, fired off a photograph to document the state of the room as he found it. He went over to the hamper and sorted out three pairs of jeans belonging to Kaufman. Carefully, he checked the pockets. Nothing.

  There was a wastebasket tucked between the toilet and vanity. Allan removed the trash piece by piece. Styrofoam cup. Crumpled foil pouch. Burnt-out bulb. Empty shampoo bottle.

  Then, at the very bottom, amidst some blister packs and clothing tags, he saw a pregnancy test strip. Two distinct bands on it revealed a positive hit.

  Frowning, Allan shook his head. He began to absorb Nikki’s isolation and responsibility; th
e long, bumpy road she now faced. Did Kaufman even know he was going to be a father?

  And what about the child? Would he or she have a fighting chance with Nikki or end up another urban tragedy like so many others Allan had seen? Poor. Alone. Unloved. Kids with stories that broke the heart.

  Allan put the garbage back inside the wastebasket, then left the bathroom. He stopped at the living room doorway, looked in at Nikki. She was still on the sofa, her head bowed, her body a profile of tension.

  Allan cleared his throat to get her attention. Nikki turned to him, a quick twist of her body, startled from thought.

  “Did Blake know?” he asked softly.

  “What?”

  “The baby.” Allan gestured his head toward the bathroom. “I saw the test strip in the trash.”

  Nikki held his eyes, her own beginning to well up. Spasms ripped through her chin.

  “No.” Her voice sounded like someone clenched a hand to her throat. “I just found out this morning.”

  Allan watched tears begin to fall down her cheeks. Her head bent to her hands and her body shook with sobs. The sounds coming out of her were like keening.

  Allan fought back sympathy.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  He went down the hallway and found Jim in the bedroom on his hands and knees, pulling stuff out from under the bed. Sneakers. Ball cap. Random socks. A pool cue.

  He had pulled the bedcovers off the mattress and heaped them to one side. The room itself was of average size, the furniture sparse. Magazines and newspapers filled four wooden shelves in the corner. The beat-up dresser pushed against the far wall had a crack in the mirror. There were scratches all over the wood and the first drawer had remnants of a sticker someone had tried to peel off. Folded pants and T-shirts were stacked on top.

  “Find anything?” Allan asked.

  Jim looked up from the floor. “Not yet. Nothing under the bedding or mattress.”

  “How far did you get?”

  “This far. Still have the dresser and closet.”

  Allan’s gaze fell on a black gym bag in front of the closet door. He picked it up and swung it onto the bed, yanked the zipper down. As he pulled back the folds of the bag to peer inside, a smell like sweaty socks hit him in the face.