Pure Hate (11 page)

“Whoa! Whoa! I was just throwing that
out as a possibility. These aren’t exactly political targets he’s going after.
He could’ve picked it up in a book or one of those survivalist magazines. Hell,
they have whole websites on the internet about physical interrogation
techniques, tips on assassination, anti-personnel techniques. He could have
learned this trick almost anywhere. But to do it so quickly and confidently, so
automatically, means he’s been practicing.”

“That much I’m pretty sure of myself.
I think this guy has been killing for a long time. We may never know what his
real body count is”

“Well, he certainly knows what he’s
doing. There’s no way anyone without medical training and equipment could have
stopped the bleeding in time. He must have bled completely out before the
paramedics even arrived. Drowned in his own blood.”

“Did we find the murder weapon? He
usually leaves it behind, sticking out of his victim’s body.”

“No, no murder weapon.”

“The scene wasn’t secure when we
arrived. There were people walking all through here. I can’t say one of them
didn’t walk off with it.” Captain Kelly grumbled, looking like he was getting
angry all over again.

“Great.”

“Detective? Can I speak to you for a
moment.”

“Yes, sir.”

Captain Kelly and Detective Baltimore
stepped around into the free-weight room, into the hamstring and quadriceps
area and leaned up against the squat rack.

“Have you made any progress?”

“Well Captain, I haven’t gotten any
leads on Malcolm’s whereabouts, but I think I might be close to some evidence
that just might link Reed Cozen to the murders.”

“That’s just great, Baltimore. But
right now, Reed isn’t the one on a murderous rampage! Malcolm Davis is our
primary suspect. So far, he’s butchered Mrs. Cozen and her two kids, beat the
shit out of Mr. Cozen, murdered this guy in broad daylight and mutilated his
accomplice, plus who knows how many other murders he’s committed? Did you hear
that James tried to track down one of Malcolm’s ex-girlfriends? He went to her
house and there was no trace of her or her family, but CSU found blood
everywhere. We’re pretty sure they’re dead. This Malcolm guy is out of fucking
control. Fuck, Reed! You get me this Malcolm Davis guy!”

“But Captain, I . . .”

“Shut the fuck up. We need results!
And we need ’em fast! Now I’ve already talked to James and now I’m gonna say it
to you, too. You two are partners. You WILL work together. I don’t want to see
you cruising around in your Mercedes while James is out doing god knows what. I
don’t give a fuck if you don’t like each other. You put your heads together and
you solve this thing. Did you know that we just found Malcolm’s accomplice?
Yeah, James said he could be Reed’s twin. He found him trussed up in some kind
of S&M contraption cut to ribbons. Finish up here and then you drive over
there and take over.”

“What’s the location?”

“See? If you were in your damned
patrol unit with your partner instead of that Mercedes you’d have heard it on
the radio. It’s over on Eighth and South by that little gift store.”

Baltimore left, wondering if Captain
Kelly would have been as adamant about him riding with James in the patrol car
if he had pulled up in the old Mustang instead of his dad’s new Mercedes.
Perhaps he was being too cynical. Maybe Captain Kelly only wanted to see him
and James acting like partners instead of two teenagers competing for the same
spot on the football team. Maybe he was just tired of getting his ass chewed by
the Police Chief, the DA, the Mayor, and whoever else had their canines dug
into his backside these days. Baltimore was smart enough to know that whatever
pressure he was feeling to solve these murders was nothing compared to the
pressure the Captain was under. He made his way back to his car, reciting his
mantra at the ghouls. It wasn’t working and they surged forward, engulfing him
in their insensitive and insipid questions. Baltimore pushed his way through
and drove off in a hail of flashbulbs. Now, they had the pictures of him
actually in the Mercedes. He’d probably be getting a call from IAD in the
morning.

If the Atlas Gym scene was a circus,
the scene at the Paul Cooper homicide was appropriately, if not excessively,
funereal. There were more than a few officers still on the scene, two of whom
were outside throwing up in the bushes. Another was regurgitating in the
kitchen sink while James berated him about contaminating possible evidence.
Still more were standing around, gawking at the swinging carcass gruesomely
suspended from the ceiling like some kind of carrion stuffed scarecrow. The
coroners had not arrived yet, but the crime scene techs were already busy
reducing Paul’s entire existence to a few dozen zip-lock bags with serial
numbers on them. The only two cops who did not appear to be in shock were
filling a box with S&M paraphernalia and carting it and a huge box of
violent pornography out to the squad car. More evidence. None of which was
going to lead them any closer to Malcolm.

“Hey, Baltimore.” James started to
stride quickly toward him. For the first time, Titus noticed how powerfully James
was built. He looked into James’s angry bloodshot eyes and took an involuntary
step back.

“Look Titus, let’s step outside. We
need to talk.”

James rushed past him and out the
door, not waiting to see if Titus was following or not. Baltimore followed,
wondering if the big blow up that had been building between the two of them all
year was about to happen. He knew James had once been a pretty good boxer,
while he’d never been in a fight in his entire life. Titus’s only consolation
was that James would be suspended if he beat him too badly and at least then
they would no longer have to be partners. He felt like a punk when his legs
began to shake and wobble slightly as he stepped out the door. He berated
himself for not taking karate when his dad had suggested it. He’d be a black
belt by now if he hadn’t wanted those damn piano lessons.

“Uh, what’s wrong, James?” He wanted
to sound strong, but his voice came out hoarse and squeaky.

“Relax, Tight Ass. I’m not going to
hit you.” Titus’s entire face turned red. James knew Titus would think that he
was calling him out for a fight. He had made him think that on purpose and now
he was laughing at him. Baltimore went from relief, to embarrassment, to anger.

“Okay, James! What the fuck did you
call me out here like this for?”

“We need to get together on this case
and we can’t do it by ignoring and working against each other. The Captain is
right. Malcolm is out of control and we aren’t going to catch him like this.”

Baltimore calmed down. He hated the
fact that James had done the right thing, the mature thing, before he had, but James
was right and Baltimore couldn’t help but be impressed that the man actually
seemed to care. He was beginning to think the old bastard didn’t give a damn
about whether the case got solved or not and was relieved to discover he’d been
wrong.

“Okay, so how should we start?”

“First, I gotta say you’re completely
wrong about Mr. Cozen. I know you think he had something to do with his
family’s murder, but you’re wrong. The only complicity he might have had in
this was in pissing Malcolm off.”

“You have no idea what I’ve found out
about that scumbag. Do you know he might have been molesting his daughter? Did
you know that?”

James was shocked.

“Can you prove that?”

“Not yet, but if he was and the wife
found out about it, that’s a strong motive for killing them. And he could have
found out how to copycat the Family Man by talking with Malcolm, finding out
all the juicy details we’ve been keeping out of the papers so that he could
duplicate the crime well enough to fool even us. Malcolm may have even helped.
Because one thing’s for sure, Malcolm is definitely the Family Man and the fact
that he’s best friends with Mr. Cozen certainly makes things look suspicious.”

“Well, Reed was telling the truth
about there being a guy who looked just like him working with Malcolm. We found
this guy’s prints all over the crime scene.”

“That doesn’t prove anything. The guy
could have been coerced into it. Especially considering how he ended up. And
we’ve got a morgue full of guys who look like Reed courtesy of his buddy,
Malcolm.”

“Okay, then we obviously can’t
proceed until we eliminate Mr. Cozen as a suspect. But first I want to head
over to Malcolm’s mother’s house and get a little more background info on our
suspect. Perhaps she might be able to tell us something that’ll give us a clue
to where he might be hiding. We’ve had her house under twenty-four-hour
surveillance, but Malcolm may have found a way to sneak in past the stakeout.
He might be sitting in there with his mother right now, eating biscuits and
drinking tea. ”

Just as they were talking, the black
ME’s van pulled up and Dr. Medoff popped out, looking harried and flustered.

“Two for one, aye boys?”

In a rare moment of serendipity, both
detectives had the exact same thought at the exact same moment.

I’ve been seeing entirely too much of
that guy lately.

Malcolm was running out of options
and he knew it. The cops were all over Paul’s apartment. Malcolm knew that was
inevitable. Even if they hadn’t tracked him down, the body would have started
to decompose soon and the smell would have brought them. Now, Malcolm had
nowhere to stay and cruising around all day and night in the Impala was
dangerous. If a cop stopped him for so much as failing to use his turn signal, it could be all over and Reed would be off the
hook. Besides that, he was tired and tired people made mistakes. He had to stay
alert to finish this. Reed had betrayed him again. This time to the police. Of
course, Malcolm knew he would, but he had warned him that it was between the
two of them. That anyone else who got involved would wind up just like his
family. He would make Reed understand the depth of his conviction. But first he
had to rest.

Malcolm drove deep into North
Philadelphia, headed toward the Raymond Rosen housing projects where police
fear to tread. He passed rows and rows of burned out, ill-kept, and plain old
run-down homes. The worse the neighborhood got, it seemed the more people were
out in the street. By the time the Impala rolled cautiously past the Raymond
Rosen projects, it looked like he was in the middle of some kind of street
fair. Teenaged prostitutes were everywhere, trying to raise money for the next
hit of crack or heroin. Drug dealers of the same age strolled up and down the
street, brazenly selling their product to their somnolent consumers. Young kids
were all over the place with basketballs, making jump shots in milk crates
nailed to telephone poles and playing handball against heavily graffitied brick
walls. Malcolm went almost unnoticed as he cruised to a stop in an empty lot
that was the community trash dump. He lay back in the Impala’s long bench seat
and rested his head on the passenger door’s armrest. He began to dream about
Reed before his eyes had even fully closed.

In Malcolm’s mind, Reed was the cause
of his madness, the one who stole the twinkle of hope and wonder from his eyes.
Not the stepfather who filled his head with horror stories about the Vietnam
War, who made his pre-adolescent years basic training for an imaginary invasion
he was convinced was just around the corner. The man who woke him up at five
o’clock in the morning to run military drills in which he shot live rounds at
his stepson and punched and kicked him mercilessly to toughen him up. In his
mind, he had been a good kid before Reed, a shy, sensitive kid who read horror
and sci-fi novels and daydreamed most of the day. Not the kid who, at age ten,
tortured a cat in his stepdad’s basement, imagining that he was a Vietnamese
soldier interrogating captured GIs. Not the kid who, at age twelve, would
expose himself to the old ladies at the nursing home around the corner from the
house where he grew up and who, at age thirteen, burned it to the ground,
masturbating as he watched the flames engulf it, imagining the old ladies burning
alive inside.

He didn’t remember setting fire to a
homeless man at the train station on Tulpehocken Street, dousing him with
lighter fluid as he lay passed out drunk on a bench and tossing the match just
to see what it would look like when his skin melted off his bones, watching as
the man writhed and cried out in agony to see how long he would scream before
he died. He didn’t even remember stalking a female jogger in Wissahickon Park,
dragging the frightened woman into the woods and raping her at knifepoint,
telling her, “You should be honored. You’re my first.” as she struggled. He
only remembered the poor, awkward, oversized black kid that everyone picked on
in junior high before he got smart and started to fight back, before he learned
to walk, talk, and dress like the superior human being he always believed
himself to be. Malcolm was one sick puppy long before Reed, but that was not
the way he saw it.

Malcolm saw Reed as the villain in
his tragedy. Reed had ruined him, shattered the safe illusion of karmic balance
and order the rest of the world enjoyed. Reed had shown him that life was a
cruel and capricious bitch.

So how could he not flirt with death?

Now, Reed was the famous novelist and
he was . . . a monster. Malcolm used to dream of being a novelist just like
Reed. It seemed ridiculous to him now, like he must have been someone else
entirely, the dreams of another man in another time. But once, Malcolm had
wanted to be an author, a poet, a philosopher. Back then, Malcolm believed he
had a lot to say to the world that it needed to hear. Now, it had no choice but
to hear him. He was telling his story in blood, a story that was nearing its
climax, Reed’s denouement.

For as long as he could remember,
Malcolm had thought of life as something that had been done to him, inflicted
upon him against his will, something to be endured like the torture his stepdad
had told him about and inflicted upon him. Life was what people did before they
died. His stepdad had taught him that. He had taught him about survival. And
that is all living was about. Survival and domination. Renee’ and then Natasha
had been the only things in his life to ever contradict that philosophy. Then
their actions had quickly reinforced it. Life was cruel, capricious, and
pointless and no one got out of it alive. The best anyone could hope for was to
take their abusers out with them.

Malcolm thought
about his mother, the only person who had never let him down and never betrayed
him. He knew the cops would be putting her through hell. Especially that white
GQ sonuvabitch who was on the news talking about how the cops would have
Malcolm in custody by the end of the night. Malcolm knew that guy was probably
the one knocking on his mother’s door with a search warrant, tearing her house
apart. In all of this, that was the only thing Malcolm regretted or felt any
guilt about, putting his mother through the hassle of dealing with the gang in
blue.

“Don’t worry, Mom I’ll make sure that bastard
pays for any pain he causes you.”

The activity in the streets became
more hectic as two rival drug dealers began arguing in the street in front of
Raymond Rosen. They both reached for their guns, spitting out a vituperative
stream of truncated English and brutal profanity. Malcolm fell asleep to the
sound of gunfire, police, and ambulance sirens and screams. He was home.