A Dream of Death (10 page)

The ambulance pulled down the ramp to the emergency room
entrance and Kara and I exited out the back, her hand still in mine. I began
walking toward the door and tried to let go of her hand, but she pulled me
back. Her eyes met mine again.

“How did you know?”

“I’m not sure. I had a dream, and in it someone told me I
was too late, ‘she was already dead’. I woke up and thought about how you were
home alone, living out of town, and that Grant was on night shift. I figured my
dream was talking about you.”

“Do you always believe your dreams are telling you the
truth?”

“Only lately, but that’s a story for another day.”

She hated the cryptic answer, I could see it in her eyes but
she didn’t push it.

“My cellphone died and I forgot to plug it in,” she said.
“You must have called the house, the phone rang beside my bed and woke me up.
He was standing over me. If you hadn’t called, I never would have got my hands
under the rope.”

I didn’t speak, just gripped her hand tighter then let go.
We entered the hospital, and between my stab wound and being recognized as
police we were tended to in short order. The police work very closely with
hospital staff, often spending entire shifts in the hospital guarding patients
or bringing people in for mental health evaluations. Our treatment would never jeopardize
anyone else, but we can jump the queue in non-emergencies. Besides, in this
case, we had a killer to catch. The longer we stayed in the hospital the
further he got away.

Kara was examined to ensure that there was no major damage
to her throat or esophagus. She received a clean bill of health. I on the other
hand was not so lucky. The trauma doctor wanted to run a number of tests to
ensure that I had not suffered any internal injuries. It was David vs. Goliath
in terms of medical knowledge, but I had stubborn on my side.

“I’m not staying for any tests. It’s been over an hour now,
the bleeding is minimal, just stitch me up and let me get on my way.”

“I can’t do that, Detective. If an organ even got nicked it
could cause serious problems.”

“With all due respect, Doctor, I don’t give a shit. Either
stitch me up or I’ll go down the street to the drugstore, buy a needle and
thread and do it myself. You can’t keep me here.” I was livid now, every moment
counted, including these, which were running down the drain.

“Actually, I can, if I think you’re a danger to yourself,
which you are right now.”

He was right, I’d forgotten the mandatory psych eval rule.
Time for a different approach. “Nice wedding band, Doctor. Platinum?”

“Yes.” Confusion.

“Do you have kids?” I assumed not, the ring had barely begun
to dull.

“Not yet.”

“So right now your wife is home alone?”

More confusion. “Yes. Why?”

“Because the killer we’re trying to catch, you may have
heard of him, the papers are calling him The Strangler—very original—preys on
women who are home alone while their husbands or boyfriends are working
nights.” A nervous look. “He escaped from us after failing to kill my partner
and I. Last time he made a mistake he killed again almost the next day. How
many more shifts are you on for?”

“I see your point, Detective. But if you bleed out
internally, how do you expect to catch him?”

“Touché. My wife is home alone now as well, and I can’t do
my job from in here. Stitch me up and if I get worse I know who to call to get
back here. Please.”

He nodded then walked away and returned with a suture kit.
Twelve stitches later and with orders not to move around too much, I was on my
way out the door with Kara by my side. A cruiser was waiting to take us back to
the place where we had both almost met our end.

We spent the rest of that day trying to disassociate from
reality. Kara was searching her own house, ducking under crime scene tape and
showing her badge to the officer guarding the front door just to get in. It
could not have been easy for her, her quiet existence thrown into chaos. She
had called Grant, the boyfriend I had instantly become jealous of, to tell him
what had happened and to let him know that he’d have to find another place to
stay during the day before heading back into work that night.

Grant had not taken the news of Kara’s near death well. He
had not turned into the white knight riding to her rescue, and offered little
in the way of compassion or sympathy.

I recognized the symptoms. He had shut down. The fight or
flight response is one of the most basic systems wired into us, no amount of
civilization can erase millions of years of instinct. Grant had chosen to flee.
Kara took it well, even seemed relieved that she would be alone and wouldn’t
have to describe her ordeal or keep saying that she was fine.

My call to Kat was short and sweet. I apologized for running
out in the night and not having called her but that I somehow knew Kara was in
trouble. I told her about the killer, about how he’d tried to kill Kara but had
gotten away. I left out the part about me being stabbed—no need to worry her.

We searched Kara’s house, seized the rope and took a blood
sample from the wall, then raced down the 401 to Toronto. We arrived at the
Centre for Forensics Science in the heart of the city and moved through with
purpose, delivering the evidence and seeking DNA results as fast as possible.

The possibility that our suspect had no criminal record
scared me. If his DNA was not already on file we would still have little to go
on. I was not a pleasant person by this time, demanding that the blood be
tested against all known offenders and if no result was found it was to be
tested against offenders with eleven of thirteen matching alleles—a familial search.
That could be enough to link the killer by direct lineage to another offender,
a son or daughter if he had one. The rope was to be swabbed and tested for DNA
as well then compared to samples obtained from the victims.

These were all complex, involved processes and, unlike on
television, could not be done within minutes. I would have the results by
tomorrow they told me—twenty-four hours was the fastest turnaround time
regardless of my telling the scientists to take over the DNA lab and forgo all
other cases.

A bruise was forming on Kara’s neck, and the rope in a
plastic evidence bag was a perfect match and a constant reminder. She had been
happy to get it out of the car and out of her mind.

Technically, I had driven to Toronto against doctor’s
orders, but I wasn’t sure if Kara’s level of concentration was suitable for
highway driving. She remembered as we passed through Mississauga that I wasn’t
supposed to be driving, that I wasn’t supposed to be doing anything at all if I
wanted to keep my stitches in, and she made me promise to let her drive on the
way home. I had little choice—Kara had stubborn working for her, too.

We stopped in Kitchener on the way home, getting dinner at a
Viet-Thai restaurant with unbeatable pad thai and tom yum soup. Kara and I both
had the pad thai, I added a soup and we split an order of deep fried spring
rolls and BBQ pork fresh rolls. To drink, given that we were working and unable
to enjoy any adult beverages, we each had a bubble tea—a mix of fruit and tea
with tapioca beads at the bottom. It was a more expensive meal than we usually
allowed ourselves on the OPP’s dime, but given what we’d endured, the province
could foot the bill.

We left the restaurant after ten. Red lights streamed ahead
of us, white toward us as we drove down the highway. We had been driving for
only a few minutes when my phone rang, something it had been doing all day. It
was Kat calling. I had ignored her calls many times today, not wanting to
explain everything to her again, not wanting to hear the worry in her voice.

Not wanting to face my guilt.

I pressed ‘ignore’ and put the phone away. Within seconds it
rang again. I almost didn’t even look at it, but the call display showed a
different name: Chen-Chen.

I answered the call as fast as I could. “Chen? What have you
got?”

“I’m fine, thank you. How are you?”

“After the day I’ve had Chen, I don’t have small talk in
me.”

Chen knew what that was like. The job wore on a person and
some days were too much to handle. Granted Chen had never had a day like mine.

“Okay. That park ranger, he was right about our guy. William
Jeffries; born April sixteen, nineteen-forty-six. Reported missing July twenty-fifth,
nineteen-eighty-four. Coroner determined cause of death to be a stab wound
through the back, severed the two ribs and tore through the heart. Would have
been a long blade and wide too, like a hunting knife.”

I already knew that. “What else?”

“Here’s the kicker. His date of birth had been entered wrong
on the missing persons file. We got medical records that matched the old
injuries, checked the right date of birth and found a bit more.”

“You going to share?”

“You know me, I like suspense. He had two convictions from
the early seventies for masturbating in public and in seventy-seven he was
arrested and questioned in an attempted abduction of a seven-year-old boy. Cops
liked him for it but they didn’t have enough evidence, had to cut him loose.”

Makes sense. If I was his last intended victim and my father
interrupted him… I’m surprised there was anything left of the body.

“Interesting. Not many people would have missed this guy
then?”

“Just his family. They said he was a perfect angel.”

“Of course they did. Would you tell your parents if you got
arrested for milking it in public?”

Kara looked over at me and tried not to laugh. I looked back
at her and mouthed the words, “I’ll explain.”

“My dad would have lopped it off if I did that,” Chen said.
“Anyway, that’s all we’ve got so far. Still looking into who might have killed
him. I hope he’s still alive so I can shake his hand.”

Lincoln Charles Munroe the Third. “I’m sure you’ll find the
guy, definitely did some kids a favour.”

“Yeah, I’ll let you know what else we find.”

“Thanks, Chen.”

I hung up the phone and put it back in its place on my belt.
“That murder in Algonquin,” I said to Kara, “the guy was a public masturbator
and may have been into kids as well.”

“Ahhh. Parents thought he was a stand-up guy?”

“Don’t they always?”

We shared a laugh, the first one today and for a moment
everything seemed right with the world.

An hour later we were parked outside of Kara’s house. She
was keeping the unmarked car overnight on account of hers being in a sealed
garage.

“Where are you staying?”

“They’re putting me up in a hotel for the night. The Ramada
by the 401.” I must have looked concerned. “Don’t worry, I’ll be armed and
there will be a cruiser at each end of the hotel. I’ll have a radio on me as
well.” She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek, “I’ll be safe.”

I put my hand on her thigh but couldn’t speak. I didn’t want
to acknowledge my fears, it was easier to get out of the car. “I’ll see you in
the morning then, shoot anything that moves.”

“I will.”

I shut the door behind me. My own car was still in the
driveway. I wanted to just sit behind the wheel for a few minutes, to try to
compose myself before returning home, but I knew Kara would wait for me to get
on my way before she left. I wondered who was protecting whom at this point. I
backed out of the driveway and started down the street, Kara was right behind
me. We stayed like that, a convoy of two, until we reached Wonderland Road.

She went south and I turned north then drove until she was
out of view and pulled into the nearest parking lot. I turned off the car, shut
down every light and turned off the radio. I sat in silence, but my mind was
anything but. Thoughts raged about in my head and forced me to turn the car
back on, turn up the radio and keep driving.

No matter how fast I drove I would never escape what I was
really afraid of.

As late as I returned home that night, Kat was still awake.

My intentions had been to update her frequently during the
day—she was the worrying type—but I had either forgotten or not wanted to. My
day and the night before had been too busy, too intense, for me to remember to
do anything. Kara and I had developed tunnel vision, our eyes and minds focused
on one thing and one thing only: catching the killer. There was another focus
in there, one we tried to push away. Everything else was secondary, even my
family. It pained me as I walked in the door, like walking into an alternate
reality I had forgotten existed.

So much had changed in these past few weeks. Once the
perfect family man, I was losing myself to this case, to my work, to my past,
and now to my partner. My family had become an afterthought, if I even thought
of them at all. I had been away from home before on courses and cases, and I
had always debated if there was another way to fulfill my duties at work. If
there was a way to stay home—to work only the hours I needed to work—I found
it. My family had been everything to me, and even leaving for two or three days
made me feel like I had abandoned them. Yet when Chen called, I only phoned in
a quick goodbye before I was on the plane and gone.

That wasn’t all. I had broken my vows to my wife and put our
entire existence in danger. Kat and the kids deserved so much more, I just
couldn’t find it in me to give it to them. So much had been lost in the past
few weeks, so much of myself, that I no longer knew the man I saw when I looked
in the mirror—when I was even capable of doing so. My eyes were so full of
sadness, fear, doubt and confusion that I couldn’t bear to look into them.

I was surprised anyone else was able to. Especially Kara.
She saw through this new me, this abomination. If only Kat could have done the
same.

“I’ve been calling you all day,” she started as I walked in
the door just past midnight. “You could’ve at least picked up, told me you were
still alive.”

“I’m sorry. I got lost in the case, there’s been so much to
take in, so much to do.”

“I don’t care, Lincoln. Your family always came first. Do
you even remember us anymore?”

If one knife wound wasn’t enough, now she was plunging the
dagger of guilt into me. I wanted to cry, I should have cried. A month before I
would have, but now there was nothing left.

“I know. It’s tearing me apart. I’ve barely seen the kids
lately but this case, Algonquin, Kara, it’s too much.”

“Deal with it. Your family needs you.”

“So does everyone out there. This guy keeps on killing. What
if you’re next? Think about that one.”

She paused, the thought sinking in.

“You said he only kills women who are home alone.”

“So far. He attacked Kara. You think that was fucking
random?” My anger was getting the better of me, it did that now whenever I
thought of Kara and what he had done—what he tried to do.

“I… don’t… know…,” stuttering now, fearing she could be
next. Saving yourself by scaring the shit out of your wife. Well done, Lincoln.

“You could be next for all we know, he targeted Kara. He
wanted to send us a message. Maybe he’s pissed off now that he got stopped.” My
blood pressure was rising, my face was getting warm. “Maybe he’ll change his
game plan, stop coming after women. I stopped him, how do you think he feels
about me?”

She was pale now, her hands shaking.

Her eyes moved to my side, to a drop of fresh blood that
stained my shirt. “You’re bleeding. What happened?”

I hadn’t told her, it would have been too much. “I’m fine,
just some stitches, but… he stabbed me.”

She turned and sat on the stairs in the foyer. “You never
even told me. I’m your wife, Lincoln. I should have been there beside you in
the hospital holding your hand.”

“I didn’t want to worry you.”

“That’s my right.” She folded her arms across her chest.

“I’m sorry, I should have called. It’ll be over soon.”

“How long do we have to wait?” Her edginess was coming back.
“How long until the kids get their father back?”

“We’ll get him,” I said.

“And then what? You’ve still got your past to figure out.
Back to Algonquin and your murderer father?”

“Fuck you.”

She froze, I had never spoken to her like that. But, at
least at the moment, I wasn’t sorry. Maybe that would come later.

“If you came to me,” I said, “and told me you thought your
father killed someone while you were there—just a kid for Christ’s sake—that it
was making you hallucinate, that you had to work on the crime scene, I’d be a
little more supportive. My world is crumbling around me, and it turns out the
pillar I thought I had at home is made of fucking sand.”

I turned to walk away.

“Never swear at me again,” she shouted at my back, “and do
not take the Lord’s name in vain in this house.”

That wasn’t what really bothered her, but in her pain she
held on to the only thing she had left to believe in. Still, I was stunned. I
had to turn back. “Born again, are we? Going to church twice a year or whenever
it’s convenient isn’t enough anymore?”

“Every Sunday you work, Lincoln, I go. And I take the kids
with me.”

This was news. We had always said we would let the kids make
their own decisions about religion. I believed if you raised a child Christian,
they would remain Christian, Buddhist, Buddhist or Muslim, Muslim. I wanted the
children to be informed of all viewpoints so that when the time came they could
make their own decision.

“Anything else that you’re brainwashing them about? And we
really thought we should have another?”

“Get out,” was her answer. “Get out.”

I didn’t think twice. I walked past her and went upstairs
first into Kasia’s room. I roused her, kissed her on the head and told her I
loved her but that I would be busy at work for the next couple of days. I don’t
know if she got it all, she was notorious for being difficult to wake up. Link
woke up more easily and said he’d miss me before telling me to go out and get
the bad guys. Life was still a game to him, a game that I was losing.

Kat still stood by the door when I returned downstairs,
standing guard and waiting for me to leave. I didn’t speak to her, I didn’t
look at her. I set the house alarm—my last caring act—then walked out the door
letting her slam it behind me.

I only had one place to go.