Malevolent (Lieutenant Kane series Book 1) (7 page)

A rectangular dining room table sat center stage in the garage—no chairs. Plastic from rafters to floor separated his work area from the other sections of the three-car garage. The yellow of the taxi cab could be seen beyond the makeshift plastic wall. Plastic sheeting covered the surface of the table and floor to catch any spatter of blood. His cleanup after the last had been far too time-consuming. He laid Diane’s body on the table and positioned her for the procedure. He went to his rolling work cart, which held his tools.

Earlier in the day, he’d made a trip a few towns over to steal a lobotomy book from the library. He needed to get more structured with his attempts. The results from the previous methods were too hit or miss. He opened it to the first dog-eared page. His head nodded as he read it over for the umpteenth time. He headed back inside to change.

Dressed in white coveralls and latex gloves, he walked back into the garage. He plugged electric hair clippers into the extension cord hanging from the ceiling and buzzed her right temple. A razor from the tool cart shaved away the stubble that remained. He finished prepping the area with a swab from an alcohol pad.

Measuring out three centimeters back and six centimeters up from her orbital socket, he marked the area with a felt-tip pen. He took a scalpel from his tool cart and cut the skin from the area. He placed the flap in a small dish of saline solution to reattach later. A squirt bottle of the same solution flushed away the running blood. A postage-stamp-sized area of white skull shone through the blood with each squirt of saline. The drill came next. He secured a half-inch hole saw to the chuck. He’d modified a bit with a collar that wouldn’t allow it to cut deeper than 7.1 millimeters. From his recent research, that was the correct thickness of an adult female skull. He placed the drill bit against the bone and squeezed the trigger. He flushed the area with water while he worked and kept a mindful eye on the depth. From the collar on the outside of the bit, he could see he was close. He slowed the drill’s revolutions until the collar bottomed out. He set the drill on the cart and flushed the opening with saline. The bone moved freely when he touched it with his forceps. He pried the piece of skull away and exposed the inside of her head.

With a scalpel, he cut away the casing to reveal her brain. He then slipped the blade between the white matter in the prefrontal lobe. He made a number of small slices, as shown in his book. Even with his reading and searching online, he hadn’t found a solid reference on how to reattach the bit of skull he removed. Doctors used a thin wire that became permanent, to reattach pieces of removed skull. He didn’t have the capacity or materials to complete that part of the procedure. The removed bit of skull found the hole it had come from. It would have to do. He used the forceps to place the removed flap of skin back over the area and sutured her up.

He stepped back from his patient and looked over his work. In a few hours, he would see how successful his new procedure was.

My list of cab companies that worked the airport was getting shorter. I gave our victim’s description and time of pickup to each dispatcher. A few companies were checking with their drivers and had agreed to call me back. While I wouldn’t get paid for my efforts, I wasn’t comfortable leaving a murderer on the streets any longer than I had to. If it took a few off-the-clock hours to make some headway, I’d damn sure work them. The clock on my cable box read a quarter after eight when my phone rang. I figured it was someone from one of the cab companies.

I caught the number on the phone’s caller ID. It was my sister, Melissa.

“Hi, Mel.”

“Hey, bro. What are you doing?”

I plopped down on the couch and let out a deep breath. Butch stared at me. He didn’t look pleased that I was encroaching on his living space. “I’m working from the house.”

“It’s after eight. Why are you working from home?”

I didn’t feel like getting into the case with her on the phone. “I’m making phone calls and checking up on a few things.”

“Oh. Are you done?”

“I guess. What’s up?” My nephew chattering and making noise in the background came through the earpiece.

“We need to talk about Dad.”

“What about Dad?”

“He came over last week. It seemed like he was having a hard time remembering things.”

I looked at the ceiling. My sister had a flair for the dramatic. “Like?” I asked.

“Well, he called Scrambles, Oscar. Oscar has been dead for years.”

“Really?” I asked it in the most sarcastic tone I could muster.

“Why do you say it like that?”

“It’s the same damn dog. They are the same breed, same color, and same size. Oscar lived to be fifteen. Fifteen years of Dad calling your brown fluffy dog Oscar. Now you have a new one that’s—again—identical, and you think Dad is getting senile because he called it by the old one’s name. I can pretty much guarantee you that I’d do the same thing. I didn’t even remember the new one’s name until you just said it.”

“That’s because you’re never around. Besides that, he’s having problems remembering other things too.”

“Like?” I asked.

“A lot of little things.”

“Mmm hmm.”

“Fine, if you don’t care… You know he’s going to be sixty-eight this year.”

“Sixty-eight isn’t that old, Mel.”

“He’s starting to slow down. It’s been a while since you’ve seen him.”

Her last sentence made me lean back and rub my eyes. My sister was about to take the conversation to her normal guilt-trip territory. I didn’t have the energy.

“Hey, I have a work call I’m expecting in a couple minutes. Let me talk to Tommy quick before I have to go.”

She didn’t respond, but I could hear her call him. A rattling on the other end of the phone followed.

“Hello?”

I put on my best talking-with-little-kids voice. It was a touch higher pitched and upbeat. “Hey, buddy. It’s Uncle Carl. How’s it going?”

“Hi, Uncle Carl.”

“How are you doing, pal?”

“I’m good. I got a new car.”

“You got a new car? You’re driving already?”

He giggled into the phone. “A toy car.”

“A toy car? What’s it look like?”

“It’s red and big. It has fire on the sides. When I pull it, it takes off real fast.”

“Sounds cool.”

“Yeah.”

Static and thumping came through the phone. He talked to someone in the room—my brother in law, Jeff, maybe. I had exhausted the attention span of a child on the phone.

“Okay, buddy. Love you. Be good.”

“Okay.”

“All right, Tommy, give the phone back to Mom.”

I heard more thumping through the earpiece. He ran the phone back to my sister. She came back on.

“You need to come up here, Carl.”

“I know. I’ll get something scheduled. I’m getting that call any minute, and I need to get some paperwork arranged first. I’ll call you soon.”

“Fine. I just e-mailed you some pictures of Tommy. Call me tomorrow.”

“Okay. Tell Jeff I said hi.”

“All right, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Yup. Bye.”

I hung up and blew a giant breath from my mouth. Every conversation with her went that way. A
nephew sandwich on guilt trip bread
was what I liked to call it. She laid on the guilt, I had a quick talk with my nephew, and she finished with a touch more guilt. When the sandwich was finished, I made up an excuse to get off the phone. The call did make me wonder about my dad’s state of mind. I made a mental note to call him in the morning.

I went through the cabinets and refrigerator for anything resembling food. No luck. The search reminded me that I was still out of coffee. I had zero interest in leaving my condo and going to the grocery store. A magnet on the refrigerator from a pizza joint down the street caught my eye. I called and put in an order. Some pizza, combined with the couple stray beers I had left in the refrigerator, would hold me over until breakfast. Sarah McMillian’s file lay spread out across my table. I dug back into it until the food arrived.

My pizza showed up a half hour later. I tossed the box on the coffee table and flipped open the lid. Butch perked up and came to investigate. He bridged himself between the couch and the table.

“No, Butch! People food. Not for cats.”

He cocked his head, looked at me, and then leaned in closer to the pizza.

“Butch!” I tried to put a tone of authority in my voice.

He dismissed my scolding and stuck his nose into a piece of the pepperoni.

“Get out of there! Bad cat!”

I was just about to shoo him away when he followed up his sniff with an exploratory lick. The piece was his. I’d seen what he licked in his free time.

“Fine, you want some pizza?” I took the slice from the box and stood. He hopped from the couch to follow. His collar bell jingled as he bounded along at my feet. I tossed the slice into his dish. He gave it a sniff, looked at me, and then walked back to the couch.

I shook my head. “Stupid cat.” I would have been surprised if he’d eaten it. The only cat food he would eat was forty dollars a bag. He had a taste for the finer things in life. Greasy pizza wasn’t on the menu.

Two cab companies returned my call as the night progressed. Both had had fares coming from the airport around the time Sarah McMillian went missing, but neither went to the Imperial Suites, and neither was a female. I read over her entire file and all my notes again. My eyes began to strain. I decided they needed a little resting and leaned back into the couch.

A little after one in the morning, I woke up. The case would have to resume later. I was beat. A sleeping, purring ball of cat lay on my lap. I gave Butch a few pets on the head and then slipped him off my lap onto his couch pillow. He was a good cat when he wasn’t awake.

Sarah McMillian’s file was spread across my couch and coffee table. I gathered the papers up, tossed the file onto the kitchen table, and went to my bedroom. My shift wouldn’t start until nine, and I needed to get a good night’s sleep.

It had been an hour and a half since he’d checked on her—he’d inserted an IV into her arm. Buprenorphine, a synthetic opiate, filled the drip bag. He had picked it up when he acquired the Xylazine to deal with his illness, but it was too strong for his tastes. Watered down, it could work to keep her docile when she awoke.

The lever to engage the deadbolt was on the outside of the door. He flipped it open and entered the bedroom. In his arms were fresh bandages. He closed the door behind him as he walked into the room. Diane Robins lay motionless. Straps across her chest and thighs secured her to the bed. He approached her from the side. She was still out. He grabbed her by the jaw and rocked her head back and forth to wake her. “You alive?”

She blinked her eyelids while she stared at the ceiling. Her face was blank.

He sat at the edge of the bed and shook her by the head again. “Can you hear me in there?”

She didn’t respond. A line of drool rolled from the side of her mouth.

He leaned over her and removed the bandages around her head. He examined his work. A small amount of blood was still seeping from the bottom of the sutures. He dabbed the blood away. She didn’t make any movement. He wrapped fresh dressings around her head and tossed the old ones out. He sat next to her on the bed. Her eyes rolled to the side. They stared at the wall.

“We’re going to do the other side in a bit.”

Her eyes shot to the right and focused on him. Unanticipated rage filled her face.

He glanced at her arm. The IV wasn’t there. He looked further down to see that the straps holding her to the bed were no longer attached to the bed frame. Her left arm flew up from her side, wielding the IV needle. She plunged it into his neck as he tried to spring up from the bed. He stumbled across the room and crashed into the closet doors before falling to the ground. His hands went to the side of his throat. He fumbled at the needle embedded in his neck. Blood was running from the open end.

Diane scrambled from the bed and got herself to her feet. She ran for the door. As she flung it open and attempted to flee, he caught her by the ankle. She kicked him in the face and rushed through the doorway.

He pulled the needle from his neck and tossed it on the bedroom carpet beside him. He was lucky it had missed everything vital. A half inch farther forward, and it would have punctured his jugular—two inches farther forward, and it would have hit his windpipe. He pulled himself to his feet and burst from the room after Diane. He could hear her running through the house. He found her at the glass patio door leading outside. She was fumbling with the door’s lock.

When she saw him, she ran to the kitchen and pulled a knife from the knife block. She had her back to the sink. A wild look filled her face. The knife was at her side, the blade pointed out, ready to strike. A granite-topped kitchen island separated the two. He rounded the side. She headed two steps in the other direction.

She poked the knife at the air in front of her. “What did you do to me, you son of a bitch?”

He took two quick steps toward her. “Give me the knife.”

She mirrored his movement, taking two steps to the side, still holding the knife out in front of her. She glanced toward the living room. A look of horror crossed her face.

He rounded the side of the kitchen island to flush her out. He thought she would make a run for it. She didn’t. Instead, she held her ground and stabbed at him. He dodged to the right as soon as he saw she wasn’t fleeing. The knife tore a hole through his shirt and sliced against the skin of his side.

“Now you’re just going to die, you stupid bitch.” He grabbed her blade-wielding hand and slammed it into the granite countertop. After only two strikes, the knife flew to the floor and skidded across the kitchen tile. He grabbed her other hand as she tried to claw at his face. With both her hands in his control, he reared back and head butted her in the nose with all the force he could muster. He saw a flash of colors on impact and felt her body go limp. The blow left his vision blurred as he opened his eyes. Blood covered her face, her nose broken. The head butt had knocked her out. He let her go. Her body fell to the floor.