Opening Moves pbf-6

by Steven James

  This was way unorthodox, but Calvin would be safe in the back of the car and I could pick his brain as we drove.

  “Don’t tell anyone I’m doing this.”

  He closed up his laptop and headed with me for the elevators. “Mum’s the word.”

  88

  No one was at Radar’s house.

  Ralph radioed me that he’d spoken with the principal again and, providentially, she’d been able to stop Gayle Walker and Angie just as they were leaving car line. “A squad’s on the way to pick them up.”

  “But Tod’s not with them?”

  “No.”

  I was parked beside the curb in front of Radar’s home, trying to figure out what the next step should be. Calvin had been quietly working through Euclidean distance and linear decay models, and now he said, “I might have something, my boy. The west side of the city. Industrial district.”

  “His anchor point?”

  “It’s the best I can do with the data we have.”

  “You sure about this?”

  “Not at all.”

  If Radar and Tod weren’t here and Gayle and Angie were safe, then sitting around waiting for something to happen wasn’t doing anyone any good.

  You still don’t know if there’s one offender or two. Basque might have Tod. The timing from when he left the acquisitions firm works.

  If anything came up here with Radar, I could always come back, but if Basque was our guy and he’d gone to the anchor point for his crimes, we might have a chance at tracking him down. And even if he wasn’t there, if we could somehow locate it, there might be something there that could lead us to him.

  I radioed Ralph, who said he’d station another car at the house, then I pulled onto the street.

  The industrial district Calvin was speaking of wasn’t far.

  “Alright,” I said to Calvin. “Which street?”

  “Head toward Bracken Street. We’ll see what we can find out from there.”

  I called in to have squads focus the APB search for Basque’s car in that area of the city.

  As we drove, Calvin tried to explain his calculations, but most of it was beyond me. As far as I could see, the labyrinth was just becoming more and more complex.

  We were failing, yes.

  But it didn’t seem like we were doing so on our way to success.

  Five minutes later as we were about to turn onto Bracken Street, we got word that the more directed, focused search had produced results.

  Two officers had spotted Basque’s car about a half mile from us in the parking lot of a textile factory. A squad was there now and the officers were checking inside the factory.

  I said to Calvin, “I doubt he’d park right in front of the building where he takes his victims.”

  “I concur. I believe he would want seclusion. And taking potential victims to a working factory would provide very little isolation.”

  “He could take them to someplace private, restrain them, drive the car to another location.”

  “And then return on foot.”

  I got on the radio again, gave dispatch our location, and asked if they could identify any abandoned buildings or closed businesses nearby.

  “How nearby?”

  “Half a mile.” I figured we could start with that, move out from there.

  After a moment of checking, the dispatcher told me there was an abandoned slaughterhouse less than a quarter mile away.

  That worked for me as a place to start.

  I whipped the car around the corner and found the side street we were looking for.

  89

  3:56 p.m.

  29 minutes until the gloaming

  The slaughterhouse loomed in front of me, a giant black corpse of a building.

  I parked, then called dispatch and requested backup and an ambulance. They asked if there was a victim. “Not that I know of.” It’s possible Tod is here. “But I want to be prepared if there is.” They told me one would be here in four to five minutes.

  Yesterday at the farmhouse in Fort Atkinson I’d needed to wait for backup because I feared that Mallory might be in danger. There, we rolled in with sirens blaring. Here, I’d come in quietly. As far as I could tell, I had the element of surprise on my side.

  And I was going to use it.

  “Calvin, you’re staying here.”

  “On your toes in there,” he cautioned me.

  “Right.”

  I left him by the car and went to find a way into the slaughterhouse.

  Radar rolled to a stop in the bank’s parking lot.

  He took a deep breath, paused for a moment to try to calm his nerves, then went inside to meet the kidnapper’s demands.

  I ended up having to crawl through a broken window on the second floor. Fortunately, the climb hadn’t been hard at all, nothing compared to the bouldering problems at the gym.

  Gun out, I descended the stairs.

  The slaughterhouse looked as though it hadn’t been used in years, but still somehow, the air was filled with the damp smell of decay and rot, as if death had never left this place.

  My thoughts raced. I couldn’t keep them still and they flipped through all that we knew about the crimes this week, the earlier homicides, the missing persons.

  Locations and travel routes.

  Trying to thread everything together.

  The mattresses…the mission on West Reagan Street…the location of Basque’s car…

  I reached ground level. Abandoned offices on my left. Dull patches of light fighting their way through the grimy windows.

  No sign of anyone. No sounds except for water dripping somewhere out of sight. As I moved forward, half a dozen rats scurried across the concrete floor in front of me.

  I passed through a long narrow corridor that led to a winding chute that cows would’ve evidently been led along on their way to the slaughter.

  There was an opening up ahead on my left that appeared to lead to the pens where Brantner Meats used to keep their cattle.

  As I was approaching it, I heard the sounds.

  Maybe someone gasping; I couldn’t be sure. Whatever it was, someone was hurt and the wet, strangled cough that followed sent an unsettling chill dipping into my stomach.

  I leveled my gun and edged forward, peering around the corner.

  And saw him.

  Basque.

  He was holding a scalpel, standing over a woman. Blood all over her, spread across her neck and chest and abdomen.

  I whipped around the corner. “Drop the knife! Back away from her!”

  He was only four, maybe five meters away.

  He did not comply, just stood as still as death and looked at me thoughtfully.

  “Hands up! Back away from the woman, Richard!” But he didn’t move, he just eyed me, the blade dripping red at his feet. His gaze was fastened on my gun, as if he were curious about it, as if it were something he’d never seen before and he was wondering what exactly it was for.

  I stepped closer to him, reminding myself that backup was on its way. “Richard, drop that knife and put your hands in the air.”

  Above us, on long tracks, hung rusted meat hooks, somber and still-which only served to make the scene more macabre.

  Another step.

  Careful, Pat.

  All at once Basque spun and started for the far door. Barring an immediate and direct threat to someone’s life, I wasn’t about to shoot him in the back, but I could catch him and I could take him down. I yelled for him to stop even as I dashed toward him.

  But after we’d both gone only a few steps, he spun and fired a handgun at me, but he was off balance and missed. I squeezed the trigger, but my SIG refused to fire. Odds were ten thousand to one against it, but it jammed now when I needed it most and before I could process that, he shot at me again. This time he hit my left shoulder, sending me spiraling sideways, off balance. I landed hard on the ground, and hot pain exploded from my shoulder and seared through my whole body.

  Ju
dging from the pain coming from both the anterior and the posterior of my shoulder, it was probably a through and through, entering just below the bone of my shoulder and exiting near my armpit. I still had mobility of my arm, but it was sure going to hurt to move it.

  Too bad.

  I jumped to my feet and rushed him, snagging one of the meat hooks hanging above us as I did. I swung it fiercely toward him and it traveled down the track even faster than I thought it would. Basque managed to dodge it, but while he was distracted it gave me just enough time I needed to close the space between us, and then I was on him, tackling him just like I’d taken down Vincent Hayes on Sunday night. My shoulder screamed at me as we collided with the concrete.

  Behind me I could hear the woman coughing, struggling to breathe.

  At impact, Basque’s gun spun across the ground, but he still had the scalpel and made use of it, driving it into my right thigh. A fresh burst of pain sprayed through me, but I was able to wrench his arm back to control him. The scalpel was still sticking out of my leg when I cuffed him. Looking toward the woman, I knew I needed to clear her airway if she was going to make it.

  His gun wasn’t jammed, so I picked it up and aimed it at him. “You move, you try to run, you’re going down.”

  He didn’t acknowledge that, just lay there, cuffed, watching me silently, not trying to escape. Reserved and calm. He still hadn’t spoken a word.

  I ran to the woman. As gently as I could, I tilted her head to the side to help drain blood from her mouth.

  Now that I was this close to her, I was able to see the extent of her injuries. There were ghastly wounds in her abdomen, her chest, her throat. I’d never seen anything like it. Maybe Basque had heard me coming and cut her in ways to make sure she wouldn’t survive in case he was caught or killed.

  I couldn’t imagine that there was any way to save her. Not with injuries like this.

  Come on, Pat! You have to help her!

  She spit out a mouthful of blood and grabbed a breath.

  As I tried to stop the bleeding from her throat, I heard Basque from behind me: “I think we may need an ambulance, don’t you, Detective?”

  He sounded cool and relaxed, and that just served to make his mockery all the more infuriating.

  I could feel myself slipping into the furious darkness, the abyss that lies within each of us.

  The demons.

  Keep the demons at bay.

  I refused to acknowledge Basque and focused on the woman.

  But she’d almost bled out.

  I wanted to reassure her, tell her that everything was going to be alright, that help was on its way, that she just needed to relax, but I knew those words would be lies. This woman was dying. Sirens were approaching-from the sound of it, a couple squads and at least one ambulance, but the paramedics were never going to make it in here soon enough to save her.

  There are times when a lie can be a gift, if even a small one, and now I told her, “Shh. It’s going to be okay. You’re alright.”

  She nodded and instead of terror in her eyes, there was a sweep of peace. She knew I was lying. And she forgave me.

  She closed her eyes, maybe so I wouldn’t have to be looking into them when she died. Then the gurgling stopped, her hands went limp, and though I tried to stem the bleeding and revive her, it was impossible.

  At last I rose, hands bloody from trying to save her. Pain raged through my shoulder and my leg, but it was nothing like the pain ripping through my heart.

  I faced Basque.

  A tight fist of anger balled up inside me.

  Going to him, I yanked him to his feet to read him his rights, but he was still focused on the woman. “I guess we won’t be needing that ambulance after all.”

  That did it.

  Brutality.

  Evil.

  Man’s inhumanity to man.

  I punched him. Hard. Connected solidly with his jaw and he flew backward, still cuffed, and slammed to the ground.

  And then I was on him. I hit him again, heard the bones in his jaw crack. The back of his skull smacked solidly against the concrete.

  I raised my fist a third time, thought of that scalpel still in my leg, what I could do with it, thought of yesterday when I’d left Griffin’s knife beside him, thought of justice and what it means and how it fails and what to do when it does.

  A life for a life, isn’t that what they say? Justice the way it was meant to be?

  Radar told me he believed in a reckoning. Well, we could have reckoning right here and now.

  The sound of sirens in the parking lot rang through the slaughterhouse. The officers, the EMTs would probably be here in less than a minute.

  “Why do you do this, Pat?” Taci had asked me.

  “To keep the demons at bay.”

  Basque was looking directly into my eyes and I was looking into his, as if we were poring through each other’s souls, seeing if, perhaps there was no difference there after all.

  His lip was split open from when I’d punched him. Blood smeared across his teeth. His tongue tapped at the blood, then retreated into his mouth. Then he spoke, even through the pain of his broken jaw. It must have taken great effort, hurt terribly, but he managed to keep his tone calm. However, even he couldn’t stop his words from sounding juicy and uneven from the shattered bones. “It feels good, doesn’t it, Detective? If feels really good.”

  I felt a final tug toward the darkness, toward the part of my heart I’ve tried to tell myself isn’t there, toward the things that lead us over the edge.

  Dark things.

  I squeezed my fist tighter. Cocked it back.

  I could hear officers calling, entering the slaughterhouse.

  The scalpel.

  The gun.

  End this.

  No! You’re not like him, Pat. You’re not capable of the unthinkable.

  Yes, you are.

  We all are.

  Anger is a response, not a choice. We can only choose what to do with it. Let it lead us around on a leash, or-

  “Do you know where Tod Walker is?” I asked Basque.

  “No.”

  “This week, these abductions, was that you?”

  “No.”

  “Do not lie to me.”

  “It was not me.”

  Two officers flared into the room, weapons raised. “Down!” one of them yelled. “Step away from-”

  “No, that’s Bowers,” the other one cut in.

  I saw the ice in Basque’s eyes again, just as I had at the acquisitions firm, and the realization of what he was capable of, what all of us are capable of, struck me, chilled me, repulsed me.

  I stood, then stepped back and let one of the other officers lean over Basque.

  A scalpel is a good slicing weapon but not a good stabbing one and even though the blade had gone into my thigh a couple centimeters, it wasn’t nearly as severe a puncture wound as it could have been. It might bleed a little, but I was tired of having that thing sticking out of me. I reached down, braced myself, pried it out.

  One of the officers was watching, his mouth agape. I tossed the scalpel to the ground. “Evidence doesn’t leave the scene of a crime.” Jammed or not, I retrieved my SIG.

  More officers flared into the room and it was over. We had Basque, we were taking him in. He would spend the rest of his life in a cell. Justice? Maybe not, but at least it was a step in the right direction.

  I was splashing the blood off my hands in a pool of dank water near a cattle stall when Ellen came jogging around the corner. “Pat!” She was out of breath. “We found Radar.”

  “What? Where?”

  “At a bank. He’s at a bank.”

  “A bank?”

  “Holding up a bank.”

  “What?”

  “First Capital.” She paused long enough to catch her breath. “In Wales.”

  Wales? That’s where the bank was that the Oswalds held up, the one that led to them being chased and apprehended…It should have be
en staked out!

  “He has hostages,” she said. “He’s asking for you.”

  My thoughts buzzed: The kidnapper took Tod. He’s forcing Radar to do this just like he forced Vincent to abduct Lionel, like he forced Carl to skin that corpse…

  Basque spit out a mouthful of blood as the officers hoisted him to his feet. “Read him his rights,” I called, then turned back to Ellen. “He has hostages?”

  “Yes, and he said you have to be there by four twenty-five.”

  “Or what?”

  She shook her head. “We don’t know.”

  I looked at my watch. I had twenty-four minutes.

  A half-hour drive? I’d never make it in time.

  Oh yes, I would.

  “Call it in.” I was hurrying toward the door, trying hard not to limp. “And get word to Radar that I’m on my way.”

  90

  The paramedics were unloading a gurney when I got outside.

  I didn’t want them to hassle me. So I was thankful I was still wearing my leather jacket and that the blood from my shoulder hadn’t seeped through too much. “There’s a woman inside,” I told them. “She didn’t make it. The suspect’s jaw is broken. Don’t give him anything for pain.”

  Calvin was standing beside my car. He gasped when he saw me, and gestured toward my leg. “My dear boy, you’ve been shot!”

  I looked where he was pointing. “Stabbed, actually.” I didn’t mention my shoulder.

  “That must hurt, terribly.”

  Yes, it does.

  “I’m okay.” On my way to the car I was able to grab a pressure bandage from a paramedic and tighten it around my thigh. At the last minute I went ahead and threw one around my shoulder too, then opened the driver’s door.

  “You can’t be serious, my boy,” Calvin said. “I’ll drive.”

  For just a moment I actually thought about letting him. It would’ve given me a chance to put pressure on the gunshot wound and quiet the bleeding. Besides, using my injured leg to work the gas and the brake was not something I was looking forward to, but letting him drive was too far outside of protocol even for me. “I’m good.”