by Peter Parkin
He had developed into quite the motivational speaker, giving rousing speeches on leaving the past behind and embracing the future as 'better people.' He worked on his diction, handing over the money he earned in prison to hire a speech therapist. The therapist came to see him once a week for two years. Apparently, Travis' command of the English language was now superb.
Dennis observed the happy family scene on the doorstep and was taken by how different Travis looked from when he had seen him in the lineup sixteen years ago. He was now clean-shaven, short styled hair, elegant black suit. He knew he worked as an assistant actuary at a local life insurance company. The man was a junior executive now—able to afford all the things his little family deserved. And he seemed to adore them.
Dennis wanted to put a hole in his head.
He could have identified him in the lineup sixteen years ago, but that would have meant a trial, which if convicted, might have added another twenty-five years to his ten-year sentence. That wouldn't have been good. Not good enough.
Dennis wanted him out, wanted him free as a bird.
He could have contacted Travis when he first left prison six years ago.
But China had taught him to be patient, be disciplined. Focus and wait for when it would mean more than just vengeance.
Dennis wanted Travis to have a life—to fall in love, have a child or two, get a great job. Things that added value to a life. Things a person wouldn't want to lose.
It would have been too easy and less impactful earlier. There would have been no fear of loss, no fear of leaving behind people who loved him and depended on him. The pain would have only been partial—Dennis wanted him to have total pain. Pain that tore at his gut. The kind of pain Dennis had been feeling for the last twenty years. The pain his mom had felt before she lost her mind. And the pain that Melissa had felt so strongly that day of the funeral—so strongly that she had to be drugged into an almost comatose state.
Dennis wanted all of that for Travis.
So, he had waited.
And it was almost time.
He had been doing surveillance on Travis for six years now. He had been a very good boy and most definitely had turned his life around. He was probably the ex-con's poster child. Proof that evil can turn into good, or at least be suppressed so that good could prevail.
As a police officer, this is exactly what Dennis wanted to see happen with ex-cons.
Except for the one who had killed his father.
He enjoyed seeing it happen with Travis only so that he could see the fear in the whites of his eyes when it suddenly dawned on him that he could lose it all. And that the ones he loved could lose him.
Soon. Very soon.
Dennis and Travis had one final match to play. One more game of Russian Roulette.
CHAPTER THIRTY
"Denny, I'm so sorry. They called me in and asked me a bunch of questions, and I couldn't lie. You know me. I hope what I told them doesn't mean anything."
Dennis got up from behind his desk and came around to hug his secretary. She was sobbing and he handed her a tissue. "Calm down, Nancy. Who are 'they' and what did you tell them?"
"Oh, Denny, I know they're digging for something. Be careful. They asked about your martial arts training. I don't know how they knew, but they did. They asked about your workouts, times away from the office, things like that."
Dennis gently rubbed her back. "Again, who were they?"
"Well, you know Grant Folsom of course, Chief of Police; your friend Bart Davis, Chief of Internal Affairs; and someone named Bill Charlton with the Pentagon."
"The Pentagon?"
"I don't know what he was doing there. He didn't say a word—just took notes. A rather cold fish, to be honest."
"Nancy, you did the right thing by telling them the truth. I have nothing to hide. So, don't worry about it, okay?"
Nancy Willis stretched up on her tiptoes and kissed Dennis on the cheek. "You're everything to me, you know that. Be careful. And...they want to see you in half an hour—in the Capitol Board Room."
Dennis shrugged. "I'll see what they have to say. Don't worry about me, Nancy, okay?"
"Dennis, if they fire you, I'm quitting."
He smiled tenderly at her. "That's sweet, but it's a bit premature for that."
*****
The Capitol Board Room was the most officious of all the meeting rooms. It had dark lighting and a monstrous board table. There were windows but Dennis had never seen the blinds open. It seated twenty people. Seated at the head of one end of the table was his boss, Grant Folsom, Chief of Police. To his right was Dennis' buddy, Bart Davis, Chief of Internal Affairs—the one who had refused to help him and actually warned him about snooping around the Department of Defense. To Grant's left was the Pentagon guy, Bill Charlton.
Dennis was told to sit at the other end of the table, which he thought was weird. From that alone, he knew this wasn't going to be a friendly chat. It was going to be a formal inquisition, and he'd either conducted or sat in on dozens of them during his career.
Grant started it off. "Dennis, you've had a storied career with the Department. There is no one who could question that. In fact, you've been one of the top candidates to succeed me in my job."
He paused.
"But we have a serious situation here that we need to discuss. There's a serial killer on the loose and we received indications from one of the major media outlets a few days ago that they're going to break the story if we don't release something ourselves first. You've been in charge of this investigation—and there have been no results whatsoever."
Dennis stared right back at Grant without blinking. "This is not an easy case. Whoever the killer is, he or she is a pro. Let's say for now it's a 'he.' The extent of the injuries and the apparent strength of the killer lead us to believe it's a man. But that's where it ends. We have no leads, no witnesses, and our customary informants have picked up nothing on the street. I can't just manufacture a suspect from thin air."
"I know that, Dennis. But the three of us are very concerned."
Dennis pointed at Bill Charlton. "You say 'the three of us.' Who on earth is this guy, and what is he doing here? This is a police matter, not at all a matter of interest to the Department of Defense. Please give me the courtesy of an explanation."
"Mr. Charlton is here because one of the victims was a Defense Department employee."
"Which one?"
Charlton finally spoke. "I'm not at liberty to say. It's not important." Dennis scoffed. "Well, it might be important to the investigation, you don't know that. You people want us to share everything with you, but you don't feel it works both ways, do you?"
"No, we don't, for obvious reasons."
Dennis scoffed again. "So, I'm wasting my time addressing you, aren't I? I won't bother. If you have a question of me you can submit it to my secretary, you arrogant prick."
"Now, now, Dennis. Calm down. There's no need for that." Bart Davis finally opened his mouth.
"Fuck off, Bart. And what are you doing here? Am I under investigation?" Grant could tell he was losing control of the meeting. "Okay, emotions are high here and you're obviously frustrated Dennis, about the investigation. Let's just cool our jets. What we want you to do is simply walk us through each of the murders attributed to the serial killer. Give us a brief synopsis."
Dennis took a deep breath. He was angry and he seemed to be on the carpet due to the actions of an ingenious killer. He reached over to the water jug and poured himself a long cool one.
"I figured that was what this meeting was about. So, I came prepared. I'll briefly talk about the six murders that we definitely attribute to the serial killer. They've all occurred within the last five years, and with definite similarities in the fatal wounds.
"However, we have had a lot of debate between you and I, Grant, and many other members of the department about a missing person. I disagree that it's the work of the serial killer. You feel it is. Do you want me to address that o
ne too?"
"Yes, I do. And there's one more missing person we want you to add to the list. We'll discuss that one after."
"Who?"
"We'll discuss it after."
Dennis frowned and opened his binder. "Okay, then, if you want the missing person included, then the first work of the serial killer was the husband of my own secretary, Nancy Willis. His name is Keith. Keith Willis. They were divorced about six years ago and he simply disappeared a year later. No one has heard from him, and we can't find any trace of him anywhere. We assume he's deceased. He was a philanderer and an abusive husband. He assaulted her once at a women's shelter. Nancy refused to press charges. Several months after the divorce we presume it was he who assaulted her once again. A terrible ordeal, it put Nancy in the hospital for a month. Once again, she refused to press charges. She was afraid for her life. Then he just disappeared. That was five years ago."
Dennis looked around the table. "Any questions?" Slow deliberate shakes of all three heads.
"Okay, I'll continue then. The second victim of the serial killer...er, let me clarify...in my opinion, the first victim of the serial killer, was a man by the name of Melvin Steed. He was a convicted child murderer and a known pedophile, having been convicted of ten rapes before the one murder pinned on him. We suspected there were more killings, but he wasn't talking. Anyway, for some reason the parole board felt he deserved early parole from his thirty-year sentence. He went to a halfway house, and we suspect he used that as a base for more attacks on children—or at least planning more attacks. At the scene of the murder—in a park—we found his backpack, which contained a number of items that a parolee shouldn't have had. Anyway, the fatal injuries to Melvin consisted of a severely crushed skull—crushed from the sides. Equal force on each side of his head. In short, his head shrunk inward, causing severe bleeding. His brain basically exploded within a few seconds of impact. We'd never seen an injury like this before—almost as if a vice grip had been applied to his head."
Dennis raised his head. "Any questions from the floor?" Silence. All three were writing notes.
"Well, the next murder was six months later. A man by the name of Fraser Benton, a notorious heroin dealer. Spent half his life in prison, and never showed an inclination toward reforming himself. In fact, despite his admission of this to the parole board each time he came up, they kept letting him out. He was suspected of having stashed millions in drug money somewhere in the city. Some lucky gangbanger will no doubt find it one of these days. Fraser's specialty was selling drugs to kids—teenagers. He'd get them hooked, then jack up the prices and eventually sell the kids into prostitution. A real charmer. His body was found in a parking lot, one of his forearms smashed into two pieces hanging together by a shred of skin, and both legs had been crushed by the wheels of a large vehicle. But oddly, he had injuries to his chest and forehead that resembled bullet holes at first glance. But the diameter was too wide. Both holes had penetrated about three inches deep and they were almost perfect circles. Possibly a blunt object, however forensics turned up nothing."
Dennis took a sip of water and could feel sweat forming under his arms and inside the collar of his shirt. The silence was unnerving. "Chief, you seemed anxious to hear about these killings, but none of you are showing any interest whatsoever. Am I not addressing certain aspects that you want to hear about?"
Grant looked up from the table. "No, Dennis, please continue. You're doing fine and you have our full attention."
"Alright then. The third murder—and please note that when I give numbers to the murders, I'm talking about actual known murders. I'm not including the disappearance of Keith Willis in my count. So, the third one was a man named Cliff Tonkin, killed about a year after Fraser Benton. This guy was charged with the home invasion slaughter of an entire family, including the rape of the mother. However, we screwed up—didn't get a search warrant for his apartment and didn't read him his Miranda. Needless to say, he got off. Cliff was killed in his own apartment—no signs of forced entry. Either he let the killer in, or he was waiting for him. Injuries to this victim consisted of trauma to the throat region consistent with a hard kick or punch, and a deep puncture wound through his abdomen right through both the front and back walls of his stomach. Again, possibly a blunt object. A stab of some kind, although the wound again was more circular in nature, not at all consistent with a knife. Death would have been slow for this victim.
"I'll move on to the fourth murder. This was a mere month after Cliff Tonkin. The victim's name was Salvatore Badali, an ex-marine who was suspected of being the infamous pawnshop killer. He was arrested on suspicion once and had been under surveillance for a time, but he was a slippery character. Nothing we could pin on him, and never any witnesses. There were four pawnshop killings that matched the same modus operandi: the robber would kill the proprietor as soon as he entered the store and then take all the cash from the drawers. In and out quick, no messing around. Anyway, he was found dead in his car, just around the block from another pawnshop. We suspect he was casing it. Salvatore died from a crushed skull that resulted in severe bleeding of the brain. The interesting fact of this death was that the skull was crushed from the top, as if a heavy object had been smashed directly downwards onto his head. At first, we thought the murder had been committed elsewhere and his body was placed in the car afterwards. But, no, the blood spatter evidence pointed to the murder being committed in the car. A strange murder, this one. The car was a Camaro, a low ceiling vehicle. Hard to believe anything would be able to hit him from above with that much force as to actually crush his skull when there wasn't much ceiling room."
Dennis looked up again. "I'm getting tired of asking this, but are there any questions? Anything at all?"
Heads shaking.
"The fifth murder was almost a year to the day after Sal Badali's death.
Jim Morton was his name, and he was a four-time loser. A rapist who had raped more times than he'd been convicted of. We tried to lock him up eight other times but the evidence wasn't strong enough. He'd spent a total of twenty years in prison, but once again, we kept letting him out on parole. We found his body in an alley; horrific injuries. He'd been attempting to rape a young lady, and someone stepped in and prevented the attack. His penis was impaled onto the zipper of his jeans, and he had a hole through his throat, three in his forehead and three in his chest. This time we had a witness. A young lady came forward to report the attack, and the only description we have of the killer is that he was tall, dressed in black, and wearing some kind of ski mask. She was traumatized and that was the most we could get out of her. She said the man was gentle with her, and guided her out of the alley away from the rapist. She didn't even know what had happened to her assailant until after she reported the attack to us. We then told her he'd been killed.
"Okay, the sixth and final murder happened just four months ago. The victim was high profile: Lloyd Foster, an accomplished surgeon, who was charged with slaughtering his family with an axe—well, actually a hatchet. An axe would have been better—there wouldn't have been as much painful trauma to the victims. He went to trial and was declared legally insane at the time of the murders, thus totally exonerated. He went to an asylum for five years after which he was considered safe to return to the community. The murder of Lloyd Foster was particularly gruesome. He also had a deep hole in his stomach and...a pop can was rammed into his mouth so deep it broke his jawbones and ended up partway down his throat. His face and throat were completely distorted—the can would have to have been shoved into his mouth with incredible force for it to lodge as deep as it did. But that wasn't the end of Lloyd's ordeal. His torso was found in the trunk of his BMW, with his head on the ground behind the trunk lid. The lid had been slammed shut on his neck, decapitating him."
Dennis folded his binder shut, and looked down the table at his rapt audience. "You must have some questions now...or comments? Anything?"
Grant cleared his throat. "Dennis, it seems clear to
me that we have a vigilante at work here."
"Yes, I would tend to agree. But I implore you—we can't even hint at that to the Press. The citizens will be behind this guy, whoever he is, and we could have a rash of copycats. No one is going to sympathize with the deaths of these characters; perhaps some will feel sick at the manner in which they died, but for most people there will simply be applause."
Bart jumped in. "Denny, while these six murders bear the signature of one person, probably a vigilante, and probably someone on the police force, we need to include the disappearance of Keith Willis in this string of crimes too. I know you disagree, but we feel strongly that it's the same perpetrator."
Dennis just nodded.
Finally, Bill Charlton spoke up. "There is one other disappearance we need to include as well. A nurse who attended to your mother—Felicity Dobson—disappeared shortly after the death of your mom. There is no trace of her whatsoever."
Dennis glared at him. "Is that the Defense Department employee who was referred to earlier? Are you in the habit of employing nurses for private care, courtesy of the Pentagon?"
"I told you before; I'm not at liberty to discuss who our employee was." Dennis was starting to lose control. He hated the 'holier than thou' demeanor of this prick.
"You may think the rest of the world is stupid, Mr. Charlton, but it's a simple process of elimination here. I doubt if your employee was an abusive husband, a pedophile, a drug dealer, a home invader, a rapist, a pawnshop killer, or a family killer. So that leaves the nurse—geez, am I on the right track?"
Dennis wasn't prepared yet to admit what he knew about the Casper Agency being a front for the Defense Intelligence Agency. It was better that this spook didn't know what he knew.
"I'd rather not comment."
