The Finders

by Jeffrey B. Burton

  I threw all I had into an uppercut that skimmed against Landvik’s ear. The man knew defensive moves and parries, but he dropped his right hand and I charged with everything I had. A left smashed into his ribs.

  Landvik grimaced and I knew that one struck home.

  Somewhere in the background was Vira yowling, wild and fierce on the porch, unable to get into the mix. I threw another right that glanced off Landvik’s chin … but all of a sudden he was walking past me, heading into the dining room, heading toward Kippy.

  I felt I’d somehow been dismissed—unceremoniously dropped from the high school team—but soon discovered I had trouble moving.

  For some reason I’d been short-circuited.

  CHAPTER 65

  Everyman went into Muhammad Ali’s classic rope-a-dope, falling back and dropping the skillet, giving Mason Reid the apparent upper hand, drawing him in, making him pounce closer until Reid was on him like wallpaper. Everyman saw the confidence grow in the younger man’s eyes. Dog Man Reid was, after all, taller and heavier, and what Reid’s blows lacked in form, they made up for in power.

  Everyman rolled off some punches and took a solid hit to the ribs—it hurt—as he slipped the ESEE-6 out of his jacket pocket. Then, like the master surgeon he could have been, Everyman slid the knife into Reid’s lower abdomen, below the Dog Man’s navel—saw the disconnect flicker through Reid’s eyes—and then stepped around him as though Reid were nothing more than an aged pedestrian on a crowded street corner.

  Everyman left the ESEE-6 protruding out of Dog Man’s gut.

  He would come back for Reid—if there was anything left for him to come back to—but for now he had a cop to kill. And Everyman needed to move fast since Officer Gimm had recovered from her fall and even though one of her hands was red with a couple fingers misshapen, jutting sideways at impossible angles, she was going for the gun.

  CHAPTER 66

  I staggered backward into the dining room, had trouble thinking, and wondered what the hell was going on. Why wasn’t my body functioning properly? If I’d been knocked out, why wasn’t I on the floor? I then glanced down and spotted the brutal-looking handle of a brutal-looking knife sticking out of my stomach. I was stunned, at a loss, had no idea how that had occurred or what it was doing there … or why my blood appeared to be trickling down my legs and onto the floor.

  Kippy had retrieved the handgun, a difficult task since her left hand was crimson, two of her fingers crooked in unworkable positions. She was rising, but Landvik was on her.

  I heard Vira, now somehow on the back deck—going apeshit, calling for me—throwing herself against the sliding glass door. She must have rocketed about the house, leapt up the wooden steps, and here she was, trying to break in. Our roles suddenly reversed, Vira now issuing commands.

  And though I could barely remember my name, I read my golden loud and clear.

  Get … Me … In …

  I stumbled toward her, hitting the doorframe with a shoulder, listening to Vira’s upheaval as though she were miles away instead of inches. I slipped the latch and shoved. Didn’t budge, not an inch. No sawed-off hockey stick in the door track like I have, but spotted a foot bolt—like what my parents have—built into the bottom rail. Step down on bolt to lock, press side knob inward to pop free. Convenient as hell—easy-peasy for those on the run—but today it was Everest in a blizzard.

  I stepped forward on limbs of rubber and pressed the tip of my boot against the release. The security bolt popped open but my legs gave out and I began to tumble. I grabbed at the handle with both hands, and let my falling weight slide open Landvik’s heavy glass door.

  I was on my knees and then a sideways drop onto my ass, now watching Kippy battle Landvik—up-close, heated, a headbutt and elbows—but she was losing. I pawed at the screen door with my left hand, trying to glide it open, but it was a bridge too far. I had nothing left to give, and my fist dropped to the floor. A screen door stood between us—not much thicker than paper but the consequences could be no clearer. Vira smashed against it, and then smashed herself against it again. The screen thrust inward, a slash in the lower half, maybe six inches, and I knew she’d brought her teeth into play. My golden retriever backed up against the deck railing and threw herself forward.

  I turned to Kippy. Landvik had wrestled the gun from her broken hands, and he was swinging it toward Kippy’s face. She held tight to his wrist, a couple fingers still pointing in absurd directions, but it was a lost cause. The Baby Glock was inches from her face and closing fast.

  Then a ripping sound as the screen split open—a violent emancipation—and Vira burst into the household. She shot across the dining room, suddenly hanging from Landvik’s wrist—his gun hand. My golden had gone full pit bull—sixty pounds of clawing and scraping and twisting and wriggling—a tornado that bites.

  It was no match.

  The Glock fell to the floor a second time and Kippy went for it.

  Landvik shook Vira loose, blood flowing off his arm. He kicked at Vira, realized Kippy now had the gun, spun about and shot for the screen door that Vira had just broken through. With Vira on his ass, Landvik hurdled the deck rail, dropped ten feet to the ground and tore off at a sprint across his yard. He was heading toward the corner of his lot, heading toward his hidden pathway—his death trail.

  Vira leapt down the deck stairs, now hot on his heels.

  I started to sag, but bobbed back up as Kippy followed Landvik through the screen, stopped at the rail, aimed the Baby Glock with her right hand only—steadied on the forearm of her wounded limb—and shrieked, “Vira!”

  I’d turned my head sideways and watched through the deck slats as my golden screeched to a halt. A split second later Kippy shot, and then shot again and again. I have no idea which shot hit Bernt Landvik, but there was a sparkle of pink mist. Landvik sputtered a step but kept on running, so I figured a glancing blow.

  Vira was back on his heels … barking and biting at him, barking and biting.

  I blinked and Kippy was next to me. Her eyes moist and telling me to stay with her, to stay with her. I blinked again and there was Hanson and Marr, looking concerned, and a team of paramedics setting down their gear.

  And then everything went dark.

  CHAPTER 67

  Everyman raced through the brambles and dirt and muck, sometimes successfully scuttling across plywood that had been laid down, more often misunderstanding their worth.

  That’s how he lost both of his dress shoes to the mud.

  He touched the side of his head, where something he didn’t understand had occurred. His fingers slid in the blood along the exposed bone … and something else, but he could make no sense of it.

  He was no longer Everyman or Bernt Landvik or whatever other names he’d lived under these past decades, but a simple organism scampering away on the most basic of instincts—flight—somehow intuiting he was the prey in this particular scenario.

  A creature was behind him. And gaining. He could hear it growl and snarl, and if he slowed for even a second, he felt the teeth—nipping at his calves and thighs and arms.

  If Everyman were still with him, he’d know that he was being guided someplace from behind, that he was being shepherded to a destination.

  But Everyman was gone.

  Everyman was dead.

  And he didn’t dare turn around.

  He didn’t dare.

  And so he ran into The Pond. And he kept running until the muddy bottom caused him to stumble and trip to his knees. He sucked in air and stared forward into the gloom.

  He had a final thought or, to be more accurate, a final intuition.

  He knew this place.

  He thought it might be home.

  And then he fell forward and sunk beneath the surface.

  CHAPTER 68

  Vira sat on a thin strip of grass along the shoreline, away from the red muck.

  It didn’t take long for the man she’d chased there to sink to his knees in the shallows
, waist deep in the weeds and algae.

  Not long after that the man slumped forward into the green waters.

  Not long after that the bubbles stopped.

  Not long after that Vira turned and headed back to the farmhouse.

  CHAPTER 69

  TWO WEEKS LATER

  I was rushed to Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital in Geneva, where I had emergency surgery to stop the bleeding and fix the damage done to my large intestine. The doctors informed me later that I’d lost nearly twenty percent of my total blood volume. It would have been more had I not received first aid at the scene—thank you, Officer Kippy Gimm. My second day at Northwestern Medicine, additional surgery was required to remove an inflamed appendix.

  I’ve taken to referring to the web of scars about my abdomen as the Caesarean.

  Kippy had two dislocated fingers treated at the hospital, one of which she’d popped back into place herself in Bernt Landvik’s dining room as she scuttled between making phone calls while applying pressure with kitchen towels to yours truly. Her left hand had taken the brunt of Landvik’s cast-iron skillet. Kippy had a couple dozen stitches to show for it as well as an updated tetanus shot.

  I somehow managed to keep my mouth shut for a change, but did find myself thinking that even Kippy’s bandaged paw looked kind of cute.

  That first night she stopped by to see me and sit in my room a spell. I have no memory of Kippy’s visit but she claims that, though the TV was off and the remote control lay on a nearby tray, I had an intense concern over the whereabouts of the clicker—which I slurred on about nonstop—up to and including accusing her of having taken it.

  I thought she might have been confusing me with Sue.

  The next day, a few hours after my appendectomy, Kippy stopped by again and we had a vaguely more coherent chat.

  Kippy had initially been damned with faint praise by the powers that be at the Albany Park District Precinct. Her captain felt she should have had Landvik on the ground, in cuffs, as soon as he stepped out from the IDOT vehicle, but—in her defense—Kippy was off duty, on the suspect’s property on unofficial business, had no warrant or solid proof at that point in time that a crime had been committed. She’d also had no backup except the idiot dog trainer who crossed in front of her and gave Bernt Landvik a final chance to kill.

  Plus, Kippy was right to stay out of Landvik’s reach. Her captain was wrong. I suspect if she’d attempted to place Landvik in handcuffs, she’d have been the one sporting the wrong side of the commando knife instead of me.

  Fortunately, Detectives Hanson and Marr provided Kippy with their highest accolades in both police reports and press interviews. And they’d personally informed her Albany Park captain that—yes—Officer Gimm had been working with them in her downtime and was keeping them apprised every step of the way regarding her theory on how this rash of disappearances was somehow related to the rest stop facilities along the Illinois interstate highways.

  Soon after—when they began hauling body after body out of Bernt Landvik’s pond—the damnation via faint praise came to an abrupt halt.

  If I ran the circus, she’d be first in line for a promotion. Hopefully, there are some great minds at CPD that think alike.

  Both Hanson and Marr stopped by a half week into my eight-day holiday at Northwestern Medicine Delnor. Detective Hanson, of course, brought with him a Canadian bacon and pineapple pizza. After two days of a liquid diet and two more of what the hospital deemed I should be eating, I wolfed down the single slice the floor nurse allowed me to consume and swore to the CPD detective I’d never badmouth Hawaiians again.

  “You should have seen the look on the diver’s face after he swam back to shore,” Marr told me. “White as hell—he said it was a graveyard down there.”

  Not long after, the nurse chased them away so I could get some rest. Hanson picked up the half-filled pizza box and said, “Your girlfriend put one in the side of Landvik’s head.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend.”

  “Like I keep telling you, that’s a damn shame.” Hanson stared off into space and said, “Her bullet took out more than a piece of Landvik’s skull. The medical examiner can’t figure out how he made it to the pond.”

  “Of course he did have Vira on his ass.”

  “Vira the vigilante,” the detective said and chuckled. “She’s playful, gentle around children, but if she finds out you’ve hurt someone … you’d best be on the next train out of town.” Hanson looked at me. “You ever going to go back to training dogs, Reid? And leave the serial killers for us?”

  I lay in my hospital bed those eight days and nights, staring up at the ceiling tile, and wondering why Landvik let me live, why he didn’t kill me outright. It would have taken him an eighth of a second to yank his commando knife upward. Then I’d have never made it to the sliding glass door, much less open it for Vira to get in. And it wouldn’t have slowed him down one iota on his way to deal with Kippy Gimm.

  But I suspect I knew why.

  Bernt Landvik or whoever the hell he really was—CPD was still trying to piece his true identity together—wanted me to witness him blowing Kippy’s brains out. Then he wanted me to witness him shooting Vira.

  Then, and only then, he’d come over and finish me off or leave me to bleed out.

  Once again I owed Kippy and her partner the highest debt of gratitude for taking care of the girls and Sue while I was laid up at Northwestern Medicine Delnor. They were able to caravan the gang from the safe house in Park Forest back to my trailer home in Lansing. They were then able to hook up with Paul Lewis and his team as well as with Dick Weech—my always-reliable neighbor from down the street—to figure out times for feeding and walks and time in the yard and tucking them in at night.

  When I was finally able to return home, the kids mobbed me as though I were a rock star on tour. I wasn’t able to roughhouse, but I rubbed heads and tossed Milk-Bones. I even showed Sue my scars. He nodded in what I took to be genuine approval.

  I then sat on the floor with an arm around my golden retriever a long while before saying, “There aren’t enough Milk-Bones or pretzels in the world for me to thank you, Vira.”

  She looked at me as though it were no big deal, gave my elbow a poke with a wet nose, and headed off to see what trouble Maggie and Delta were getting into.

  Hard to believe I’d made it through nearly three decades of life only to be shot and stabbed over the course of the same month.

  But I’m a cup-half-full kind of guy … I got to meet Kippy Gimm.

  And today was a special day.

  Kippy was coming over to take the girls out for a walk as Sue—though in much improved condition himself—continued his boycott of walks and other mundane activity. I’m not positive, but I got the impression Sue wanted me to score him a subscription to TV Guide.

  It was the first time Kippy had been over since I’d been home.

  It would be great to see her again.

  It was always great to see Kippy Gimm.

  Perhaps we could compare scars.

  Sue wasn’t the only one to observe my Kippy’s coming over routine this go-round. The four musketeers followed me about the house as I changed from a dress shirt to a casual shirt and then back into the original dress shirt, as I kept ducking into the bathroom to run a hand through my hair and put on more deodorant, as I made sure every dirty dish was in the dishwasher and all countertops were wiped clean, as I doused the kitchen and bathroom with Lysol.

  The dogs knew something was up and when Kippy’s Malibu finally pulled into my lot, the three girls got excited as they knew a walk was in their imminent future. Meanwhile, Sue sat at the top of the doorway steps, his back arched, and an I told you so glint in his eyes.

  “I brought a frozen pizza,” Kippy said as she stepped out of her car and held up a bag.

  “Perfect.”

  “It’s a Hawaiian.”

  “Why not,” I said.

  “I’m just messing with you,�
� she replied. “Is sausage and black olive, okay? I don’t do pepperoni.”

  “I love sausage.”

  I watched as Kippy petted, scratched, and spent time with each of the kids, both individually and jointly, even Sue—who discovered unconditional love in his heart for Kip as soon as she spooned a wad of peanut butter the size of the Sears Tower into his dinner bowl.

  I tossed the pizza on the table and walked Kippy and the girls back outside.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “What?”

  There was a lump in my throat, but I soldiered on. “Vira was kind of wondering if you—you know—were still off guys?”

  “I’m sure she was,” Kippy replied. “It’s been a crazy month, Mace, and the dust has yet to settle. To be honest, I don’t know where I’m at.” She held up the leashes for Delta, Maggie, and Vira—all three chomping at the bit to get the show on the road. “But I know one thing for certain—I’m game for a walk.” She smiled and said, “Would you care to come along?”

  I stared at Kippy’s smile a moment longer and said, “I’ll go get my leash.”

  ALSO BY JEFFREY B. BURTON

  The Eulogist

  The Lynchpin

  The Chessman

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  JEFFREY B. BURTON is the author of The Chessman and The Eulogist. He is an active member of Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, and the Horror Writers Association and lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, with his family. You can sign up for email updates here.

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  St. Martin’s Press ebook.