Dead of Knight (45 page)

“Yeah, I seen the morgue dudes takin’ her out a while back.” He sat on a milk crate. “Her kid’s here, though.”

“Shut the fuck up, Tyrell! Shit!” Lamar said.

“What kid? What are you talking about? Becky had a kid?” Staal grabbed Tyrell by the collar and slammed him against the wall. “Tell me.”

“Don’t know what you’re on about, cop,” Tyrell said. 

Staal pulled several bills from his pocket and held out the money. “Tell me.”

“Shuddup, Ty,” Lamar ordered.

“Show me the kid and you’re five hundred bucks richer!”

Tyrell looked at Lamar. Lamar nodded and grabbed the cash.

“Rita!” Lamar yelled toward the stairwell. “Rita, you stoopid bitch, answer me!”

Staal pointed to the stairs and waved Tyrell and Lamar to lead. He touched for his Glock through his shirt. Shit! Stashing the pistol in his luggage would never have worked. He didn’t have the time fill out the proper documents to carry a service weapon onto the flight from Vancouver. “Rita!”

“That baby’s okay. Becky quit using when she found out she was knocked up. Strangest thing; she just quit cold turkey,” Tyrell explained.

“After the kid was born she went back on the junk, hard,” Lamar added.

Staal doubted that a longtime addict, pregnant or not, could just give up her dependency without help. At the top of the stairs was a row of electronics, TVs, VCRs, and so on, obviously all stolen. He heard a baby crying and instantly recognized the tone. It was the eerie, sick wail of an infant born addicted to its mother’s drugs.

“Rita, get your fat spic ass out her!” Lamar commanded.

Rita appeared in the third doorway on the right with a Caucasian baby in her arms. Rita’s black hair was greasy and tangled, and bruises marked her face. Needle marks ran the length of her arms from her biceps to her fingers.

“What you niggers want now?”

Staal had no doubt the child was Rebecca Reynolds’ baby.

“Get lost, pig!” Rita spat when she noticed him. 

“I’ll give you a thousand dollars cash for that baby,” Staal said. “Don’t be stupid, Rita,” Lamar said. “That’s good money.”

“Screw that! Jorge said he could get ten grand for the kid,” Rita said, stepping away.

“Shit, bitch. Jorge’s been rapping about ten G’s for weeks. What we get so far? Dick,” Tyrell said.

“Two thousand,” Staal had no more cash. “Give me the kid now, Rita.” Her expression told Staal that this was going to get out of control.

“Fuck off, pig. Get me ten or get the hell out of my face!” Rita reached for something in her ripped jeans. The blade of a switchblade clicked into place. She put the cutting edge to the child’s throat.

“Give me the kid, Rita!” Staal reached for the baby and pushed Tyrell out of his way. “Do it now!”

“Get back, pig. I’ll cut her. I swear it!” Rita moved toward the staircase until her back was up against the railing. The baby screamed louder and louder.

“Fuck, Rita, what are you doin’? Let’s take this dude’s money and get lost,” Lamar said. “Hand the brat over and let’s party.”

Staal glanced at Tyrell as a glint of light from a hole in the roof flashed on the polished nickel of Colt .357 Magnum.

“Put that thing away, Tyrell!” Rita shrieked.

“How ‘bout we keep the kid—and the cash, cop?” Tyrell said, barely able to keep the heavy revolver steady.

Rita looked to Staal like she didn’t trust Tyrell or Lamar any more than she did him. “Fuck dis!” Rita lifted Rebecca’s baby up and held her out over the railing. The lobby was four floors below. “Get back!”

“No!” Staal screamed. Images of the Samantha Van Allen flashed in his mind. “Shit! Oh, Christ. No!” Rita’s arm trembled in her effort to hold up the child.

Staal stepped toward Rita. Tyrell raised the Magnum a few inches. “Back off, pig!”

“Safety’s on, Ty!” Staal pointed.

“Huh?”

Tyrell took a second to look at his revolver and Staal lunged. He snatched the revolver from Tyrell’s unsure grip.

“Ah, shit!” Lamar said, his voice cracking.

Staal took the revolver in the grip of his right hand, turned to his right, without looking away from Rita, and pumped two rounds into a 27-inch TV. The screen imploded. The baby stopped crying for a moment and then let a horrified wail. Staal stepped forward and pressed the muzzle of the Colt against Rita’s cheek. It sizzled burning her flesh. She flinched.

“The next one takes off your fucking head. Hand me the kid or die right here, right now!”

Staal’s heart pounded in his chest and thundered in his ears. Rita stared sideways at the revolver. Staal gently squeezed the trigger.

“Ah-ight, you’re fucking crazy.” Rita brought the child in, handed her to Staal, then slumped to the floor and crossed herself.

Staal dropped the cash at Rita’s feet, put the Colt in his waistband, and turned to face Tyrell and Lamar. They were gone. He was on the street in less than a minute.

Staal sat in the Taurus holding the baby in his lap. She looked up at him with her blue eyes and sucked at his fingers. “Let’s take a look at you.” He took off the filthy rag that was wrapped around her. “You’re a little thin, but not bad, considering.” He bundled her in his sweatshirt and drove away from the vacant lot.

On the way home, he stopped at a Quick-E mart to pick up diapers, formula, and a baby bottle. In the parking lot, he fit a Pampers to the baby’s bottom and then went to work on the bottle. He mixed white formula powder with imported water. He lifted her into his lap and held the bottle for the child. When he saw that she was drinking, he dialed his phone.

“Detective Lesley Degarmo. How can I help you?”

“Hi, Les, it’s Staal. Sorry to bother you, but I need a favor.” The baby finished her bottle and looked ready for another.

“Well, Jack, I still owe you about nine times over, so shoot.” She sighed. “Rachael was—I can’t believe it.”

“I know.” There was a long pause. “Could you run a check on a Rebecca Anne Reynolds, born January 10, 1987, in Surrey, B.C? I need to know if a death certificate has been filed in Toronto or Brampton.”

“Ontario? That will take a bit. I’ll have to make a few calls. Guess you need this yesterday?”

“Um, yeah, if you’re not too busy.” He wiped a dribble from her chin.

“Did you find Wendy Reynolds’s daughter?”

“Yeah. I’ll tell you about it soon.”

“Okay, I’m running it now. I’ll call you when I have something.”

Staal was surprised how much he missed this stage of child rearing. Many years had passed since his Brenda needed bottles and diapers. He pulled out of the market parking lot, thinking about how he could become the child’s guardian, when the baby didn’t even have a birth certificate.

It was careless to drive with the baby on the floor of the rental car, but he didn’t know where to go to pick up a proper car seat. He smiled at the youngster, who looked back at him from the passenger-side footwell. He knew he would have to stop and feed a second bottle after he burped and changed her. He knew that the child was Rebecca’s; checking Lamar’s story with Degarmo was only a formality. His phone rang.

“I’ve got a summary of the Coroner’s report here, Jack. Rebecca died two weeks ago.”

“Cause of death was an overdose?” The baby continued to drink.

“Yes, enough heroin to stop a horse.”

“Anything about her being postpartum?”

“Uh, yes, only a few days before she died.”

“Who identified the body, Rachael?” Staal asked.

“A Brampton patrol cop, Randal Whitt.”

“Thanks. Oh, Jesus. Did I just call you Rachael?”

“Don’t worry about it, Jack.”

Staal said goodbye to Degarmo.

He drove to the Marriott hotel, trying not to think about how he would get the Reynolds baby back to Vancouver or what he would do once he did. Airport officials wouldn’t react well to a single white man traveling with an infant without the proper paperwork to identify the child. He would call Child Services in Hanson and then Wendy Reynolds.

But first, he dialed Gina Hayes’ cell number.

“How are you?” Gina asked.

“I’m done here. I’ll catch the first available flight home in the morning.”

“Did you find her, Jack?”

He inhaled. “Yeah.”

“Good, I’m happy for you.”

There was a few seconds of silence.

“You got him Jack.”

“Huh?”

“Campbell confessed.”

Staal wasn’t sure how to respond. “Good.”

Gina told him that both Inspector Ross and Staff-Sergeant Barnes were going nuts not knowing where Staal had disappeared to.

“Ross and Barnes just want to begin the formal investigation into my conduct that lead to Rachael’s death.”

Gina was quiet.

Staal said goodbye.

At his hotel room, he bathed and changed the baby, bundled and held her for over an hour as she slept. He set her on the bed and then opened a can of Budweiser and flipped on the TV.

Maybe he was right; maybe he didn’t have it anymore. Maybe he couldn’t keep the faces of his past controlled well enough to continue as a detective or even as a patrolman. His position at Hanson was now in the hands of the Internal Investigations squad and the shrinks. But whatever became of his career, Jack Staal knew that his father was right; he was a good cop. He just wasn’t sure if that was enough.

Coming soon from RealTime Publishing.

AN APPETITE FOR REVENGE

A Jack Staal Thriller

By

WILLIAM R. POTTER

A relentless killer has targeted the Staal family. Jack Staal’s brother was murdered, his sister is missing and his daughter kidnapped at gunpoint. Staal must scour every case file he has ever worked and the depth of his soul to catch a killer with
An Appetite for Revenge.