For Everything a Reason (16 page)

Chapter
Thirty-One

Considering the kind of events that had happened at the
hospital, the homicide department was almost empty. Chairs were left scattered,
some with forgotten jackets resting over them, and desktops had been left
cluttered. The room looked as if it had been vacated – en masse – in a hurry.
No doubt it had, once the call had come in from St Mary’s.

Joseph shuddered. The night
seemed to have worked itself inside the building, searching out warm bodies to
drain heat from living tissue. Joseph sat at Carter’s desk, alone, watching,
waiting for the arrival of his wife and son. He turned towards the department’s
clock. Only three minutes had ticked by since he’d last looked. It felt like
three hours.

The nurse who had accompanied
them was now dozing in Captain Mendoza’s office, stretched out in the captain’s
chair. Earlier, once they’d arrived, she’d administered Joseph his medicine and
then carried out a series of simple motor-functional and neurological tests.
Joseph had been forced to act out different positions with both arms and legs,
recite a short passage that was printed on a card – the body of text printed in
tiny letters – and finally, identify certain objects throughout the room, to
prove he wasn’t suffering any form of dysphasia. His brain worked fine -
apparently. Although he could not be considered as being in ‘good health’, he
was at least not slipping any further towards sickness.

Joseph checked the time again.
Two more minutes had ticked by slowly. He turned his attention to the object
before him. Folded up and propped up against the desk was the wheelchair he’d
arrived in. Joseph grunted slightly with disdain. Doctor Greenwood wasn’t
taking any chances of legal action, should Joseph receive injury whilst still
in the hospital’s care. Once they’d entered the department, Joseph had swapped
chair with wheels for one with legs, not wishing for Marianna or Jake to find
him in such a state.

Detective Carter appeared on
the other side of the Department, carrying two cups of coffee. He reached his
desk to place both down, before absentmindedly licking at his fingers in an
attempt to clean away a trickle of the dark liquid.

“Hope you like it black,”
Carter said. “‘Cos that’s all we’ve got.”

“Black’s fine – as my mum used
to say,” Joseph responded. “She wasn’t a big fan of cream. Said her hips liked
it though – liked it a lot.”

Carter laughed slightly. “Yeah,
I like cream too. The machine out in corridor must love it also, as there never
seems to be any left.”

Joseph reached out to take the
hot brew. He took a sip, swallowing a mouthful of muddy liquid. The stuff had
more bite than a rattlesnake – and he imagined this is what was used when long
hours into the night were required. Like tonight.

“Any news on my family?” he
asked.

“Hey – sorry, should have said,
Tyler just rang to say they’re gonna be here shortly. Got caught up in
traffic. Rangers game just finished.”

“Oh.”

A few moments of silence
stretched out before them, both lost in their own thoughts, thoughts that were
dark, worrying and full of dangers.

Finally, Carter said, “You’ve
had an eventful couple of nights, to say the least.”

Joseph nodded. Felt like an
eternity had gone by since he’d been slugging it out with the Warrior from Queens.
He sighed, understanding for the first time that that had been the end of his
career – carried out on a stretcher, unconscious for the entire world to see. A
harsh laugh escaped him.

“What?” Carter asked.

Joseph shrugged the act of
bitter amusement away. “Nothing – just thinking, that’s all.”

“Right,” Carter said,
absentmindedly.

“It usually this quiet?” Joseph
asked, scanning around the room.

Carter looked around too, as if
he’d not had the time to register something as mundane as whether or not people
were at their desks.

“Nah… Usually five or six work
the nightshift, ghosts who like the darkness almost as much as night itself.”

“They busy tonight?” Joseph
asked, foolishly, forgetting that the two bodies left by the killer were work
enough for a hundred cops.

“You could say that,” Carter responded.
His face softened slightly and he said, “It’s better that they’re not here.
Some of them are a bit pissed with you.”

“Me?” Joseph asked, a stab of
fear twisting in his gut. What had he done wrong?

“They lost money.”

“Money?”

“Yeah – from the fight.”

“Oh – right, sorry.” He paused.
“For the misunderstanding. Not the fight.”

The corner of Carter’s eyes
creased slightly. “No worries. Everyone gets tagged sooner or later.”

Joseph opened his mouth, ready
to defend himself, eager to explain that the fight had been stopped because of
the mini-stroke and not by the hands of the ‘Warrior’. His lips came together.
Not a single word left them. What would he say? Did it matter? If he started
now, justifying his defeat to the ignorant, uninformed masses, then he’d never
stop. Because individuals out there, he realised, thrived on other people’s
misfortune.

“Tell them they can take it out
of my ribs,” Joseph responded. “Once I’m better.”

The faintest suggestion of
humour flickered across the detective’s eyes. “Don’t worry, they will. Me too,
I lost fifty bucks on you.”

Joseph just grinned back, then
gave the detective a shrug of his shoulders.

They fell silent again, each
focusing on their steaming cups. Finally, Joseph was unable to contain the
worrying sense of responsibility.

“Did those two cops die because
of me, Detective?” he asked.

Very carefully, Carter placed
his cup on the desk. He looked at Joseph straight and held his gaze for a long
moment.

“Did you get out of bed and
kill them both with your bare hands?”

Joseph sat back in his chair,
the question almost too obscene to answer.

“What?” he managed to say.

“Did you kill them with your
bare hands?”

“Hell no.”

“Then don’t ever ask yourself
that again,” Carter said, understanding that Joseph hadn’t been looking for
just an answer, but more an atonement, a purging of his soul – the very same
thing that Carter had asked and sought many times during these last three
months. Was he responsible for William’s death? Had he in some way been
partially responsible for the shooting of his son? He’d come to understand
after many nights agonising, that he wasn’t.

“Look,” Carter began,
“whatever’s happening has nothing to do with you. Not directly anyway. The old
man’s fate had been sealed well before you arrived, and I guess the killer
returned tonight to make sure he finished what he’d started.”

“Which is what?” Joseph asked.

“His cover-up.”

“What?”

“Our killer revealed something
tonight by his actions. He came to the hospital to cover up a mistake. And went
to great lengths to do so. Goes against every profile we’ve got with regard to
serial killers.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Okay. Serial killers are very
meticulous about choosing their prey. They go to great lengths to select the
right candidate: right age, hair colour, shape, eyes, and then plan down to the
minute detail how they’re going to torture, rape, brutalise their victim. But,
surprisingly, they use very crude techniques to capture the victim.”

“Such as?”

“Pretending they need help, a
flat tyre, unable to carry groceries to their car, wrapping an arm in bandages
to fake injury, or just tailing the victim until an opportune moment arrives.”

“And then what?” Joseph asked.

“And then they usually knock
them out cold or use a sleeping agent like chloroform. It’s when they arrive at
the killer’s house that all the preparation starts to take place.”

“Okay, so what did our killer
reveal tonight?”

“That he was desperate enough
to return to the hospital, two nights running, risking detection, to carry out
what should have been finished the night before.”

“What, to kill me?” Joseph
asked, fear tightening around his chest.

Carter shook his head. “No, you
were just an oversight. Wrong place, wrong time. The killer was there to slay
Henry Jones, or more correctly, get the attention of someone close to the old
man.”

“Like who?”

“In truth, Joseph, I don’t know
– yet.”

“But why come back for me, if
his message had been sent?” Joseph asked.

“Because this guy’s a pro – a
real talent – and doesn’t like the thought of leaving potential witnesses
behind.”

“But I didn’t see anything,
remember?”

“Yeah – I do. But how certain
was he? Considering you were meant to be someone else, waiting to die that very
night.”

“So I’m just a loose end –
nothing more?”

“It’s a shitty world we live
in,” Carter said. “Conversely, Joseph, you may have just become the pivotal
point in this investigation.”

“Why?”

“Because now you have seen the
killer, and he isn’t gonna like that – not one bit.”

“Christ…” Joseph cursed. “Who
the hell is this guy?”

Carter scratched at his chin
for a moment. “Wait here,” he said finally. He stood and worked his way over to
Detective Tyler’s desk. He rummaged around for a second, clearly looking for
something in particular. Then, putting a thin folder under his arm, he returned
to Joseph.

“Thought you might want to take
a look at this guy,” Carter said, slipping out a black and white photograph.

Joseph took it. Turned it to
the light to get a good look. The picture was mostly filled by shadow – of
deepest inky black – and the rest a mass of grey shapes. This was hardly an
award-winning portrait, something with artistic flare, or something to be found
on the cover of a magazine. The face – if that’s what it truly was – was barely
distinguishable.

“Is this a joke?” Joseph asked.
“This could be anyone. Or anything.”

Carter grumbled, “Agreed. The
Lab’s still working on it. It takes the digital recognition software an age to
process the light and shadows available, and then turn it into something more
accurate.”

“Tell them to keep trying,” Joseph
advised, before handing the photo back.

Carter slipped it inside the
folder. “Maybe we’ll have something better to work with later – once the techs
have done their thing.”

“So, who is this guy?” Joseph
asked.

Carter raised the folder off
the desk slightly. “What – the guy in the photo?”

“No,” Joseph replied. “Who the
hell is – was – Henry Jones?”

Carter looked deeply into
Joseph’s eyes. “I don’t think Henry Jones is anybody. Just your average
law-abiding citizen. What we need to find out is who the hell is connected to
him, and connected in a big way?”

“So what have we – sorry, you –
got so far?”

“Well, we now have a
nationality. Russian, right?”

“I guess,” Joseph agreed. 

“So let’s start digging – see
what we can uncover.”

“You think this guy is trying
to get someone’s attention?”

“No,” Carter replied. “I think
he’s just the hand to the body that is trying to get the attention. And a very
large body at that.”

“Like who?”

“Not sure, but I’d be guessing
the Russian Mafia or some other Eastern European crime syndicate.”

“Good God,” Joseph moaned, sick
by the prospect of unwittingly becoming the target of such ruthless a group.
“So who have I got after me? Some sort of hitman?”

“There are a lot of highly
skilled, cold-blooded professionals out there. Ex-KGB, Cold War spies, Russian
army, criminal underworld, all just looking to get a piece of the action.”
Carter got up and moved towards another desk. He pulled the chair back, ready
to seat himself before a computer system.

“What you doing?” asked Joseph.

“See if I can find anything on
recent disputes involving Russian gangs.”

“Such as?”

“Similar grisly killings.”

“Jeez…”

Joseph ran a hand over his
face, as if that simple gesture would be capable of wiping away the vision
before him, returning him to the world he’d once known and leave behind this
insane alternate reality. He looked beyond the empty desks and a face caught
his eye: dark-skinned, elegant, yet tired-looking, but full of strength and
determination.

Marianna entered the
Department, closely followed by Detective Tyler.

Joseph straightened in his
chair, wanting to look strong and in control for his wife and son. He smiled at
Marianna and then looked beyond her in anticipation of Jake.

He didn’t appear.

“Where’s Jake?” he asked.

Marianna stopped at the desk.
She switched her gaze from Joseph’s face to Carter’s, finding concern on both.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“Jake. Where is he?” Joseph
repeated.

“He’s with Eugene, asleep. I
didn’t want to wake him. Why?”

Joseph looked back, uncertainty
striking him dumb. What were these worrying thoughts and feelings that had him
gripped now? Did he really want his son here, when dangerous times were ahead?
He turned to Carter to find his own fears mirrored on the detective’s features.

“What is it?” Joseph asked,
looking for understanding.

“Not sure. Doesn’t feel right.”

“What doesn’t feel right?”
Marianna demanded.

“You think they could move that
fast?” Joseph asked.

“Who move that fast?” Marianna
questioned.

Carter climbed to his feet, his
chair scraping noisily along the hard floor.

Joseph reached forward to use
the table. He stood on unsteady legs.

“Where are you going?” Carter
asked him.

“I’m coming with you.”

Marianna grabbed Joseph’s arm.
“Going where?”