The Defenseless (9 page)

Chapter 16

His breath exited through clenched teeth. He bucked against the restraints but he couldn
’t break free or even loosen their grip on him. He had been fighting against his bonds for what seemed like hours.

He had craned his neck back, and the nausea tightened its hold on him and forced him to empty his stomach contents. His arms were hoisted above his head and the chains were secured to the hitch of a truck.

The reason he was here had become clear. He had read about the guy who was found dead in an alleyway beside a dumpster. He must be next on the psycho’s list.

He should have taken the bullet. There would have been less pain, he surmised, and a higher probability of survival.

“Let me out of here!” he screamed, but reaped silence.

The smell of gasoline and oil wedged up his sinuses and
the concrete was like iced slate against his back. He was aware of each bone in his spinal column.

“Let me go.”
His last word lost strength.

Bright lights flickered on overhead, and the truck’s engine rumbled as it came to life.

His captor was in the cab.

He squinted his eyes, trying to help them adjust.
“Let me—”

The man came around the back of the truck, tapping a crowbar in his palm.

“You make me this person. I am not this person.”
His captor
’s mouth curled, twisted, and contorted as if he fended off tears.

Did madmen cry?

“What do you want from me?”

“I want you to die.”

Any evidence of conflicting emotion retreated—slipping beneath a radiating murderous intent.

“Why?” His single-worded question echoed back to him. He was aware of the answer.

“You know why, Clyde. You know.”

He dropped the crowbar.

Clyde shimmied to avoid having it become one with his leg and escaped its impact by a mere few inches. It hit the concrete, the metal ringing out.

The man laughed.
“You will be experiencing so much more pain than that, but nothing more than you deserve.”

Clyde envisioned freeing himself and stabbing this man to death with the crowbar. The visualization fed him bravado.
“You won’t get away with this.”

“I do all the time.”

The way peace and relief blanketed the man
’s face sent a tingle up Clyde’s back.

“As soon as things get dark, we’re going for a little drive. Until then, rest up. It’s going to be a long night. Especially for you.”

He returned to the cab of the truck. The door didn
’t close behind him and the engine was turned off.

Now what? He was just being left here to wait?

His captor
’s boots fell heavy against the concrete as they advanced.

“One more thing—I can’t stand crying and pleading, so do me a favor and shut the fuck up.”
He kicked Clyde in the ribs and blinding pain stole both his vision and his breath.

Blinking back tears, he made out the man coming toward him with a roll of silver duct tape.

“I won’t say…a word…promise.” Clyde could barely form the plea.

“Now, now. A man like you. Your word means noth—” His captor’s head pivoted toward the front of the garage.

Clyde had thought the banging he had heard was his mind playing tricks on him, but it seemed the man heard it too.

Chapter 17

We were headed out to pick up Craig Bowen and were going at it full force.

We met up with Paige and Zachery on a side street and planned an organized attack that would see us both pulling into Bowen’s driveway at the same time.

McClellan and Hogan had taken an unmarked sedan past Bowen
’s house and had confirmed the suspect’s vehicle, a black Dodge Ram, wasn’t in the driveway, but his secondary one, a compact car was there.

We made our move.

Within seconds, I was pounding on the door. Jack was to my left with his gun readied. Paige and Zach were around the back of the house.

I knocked again.

No sounds came from inside.

“FBI! Open up!” I yelled.

“Looks closed up back here.” Paige’s voice came over her headpiece to the rest of us.

“We go in. Nice, slow, methodical,” Jack directed.

I worked the lock, something that had become a specialty of mine these days. I twisted the handle and, in seconds, I opened the door for Jack.

The seal of the door broke and we stepped inside. I heard Paige and Zachery coming through the back about the same time.

We swept the house in less than a minute.

“He’s not here,” I said, stating the obvious and making it tempting for Zachery to retort with something smart.

He let the opportunity pass.

I continued.
“There’s only one other place he might be. We know he’s not at work, based on time of day. He might be at the animal activist center.”

“Great thinking. Let’s get over there,” Paige said.

All of us were racing for the front door with no concern over the unlocked house.

*****

“What are you doing here, Mother?” He hugged her, putting as much love into the embrace as he could muster. If she realized her son was a killer, she’d drop dead of a heart attack. “Why don’t you come inside, out of the cold?” He took a couple of steps back.

She smoothed his hair and studied his face. The skin around her eyes creased, the result of aging, but her spirit hadn
’t advanced much beyond her thirties. She was mature, but held a spunky nature that he adored. He only hoped that his life’s work would make her proud, but his real calling was one he would never share.

“I’m going to guess you’re working?”

He conducted a quick visual examination of the garage. His captive was bound behind a truck and out of sight, the space there only appeared occupied by dark shadows.
“Look where you found me, Mom.”

“Yes. You spend way too much time in this bloody place. Make your mother some coffee.”

He regarded the pickup, thinking more of the man tied behind it, ready to grant him his fifteen minutes of fame, but he’d have to wait.

He smiled at his mother.
“I always have time for you.” He guided her to the small kitchen, hoping the tape gag held out.

*****

McClellan’s voice came over the speakers in the SUV. “Cars are already on site. There is a vehicle in the lot, but it’s not Bowen’s. Maybe he’s parked out back.”

“Just keep an eye on the place. We’ll be there soon.” Jack disconnected,
pulled out a cigarette, and lit up. He balanced the wheel with the heel of one palm.

I hated it when Jack didn’t have two hands secured on the wheel when he drove. To make things worse, s
now had started to fall while we were searching Bowen
’s house.

“There it is.” I pointed to the warehouse-type building that the activist group rented. According to the record, they only occupied a portion of it.

Jack connected with McClellan.
“Run the plates on the car.”

Two seconds passed and we had our answer.

“It’s registered to Felisha Fields. That’s Bowen’s mother, who married Kent Fields’s father.”

“Got it.”

Chapter 18

The Advocate waved with a smile. His mother was buying his pleasantries as he wished her a good day. He had dismissed her with an excuse of work piling up and the need to attend to it. She wasn’t aware of what he did, except for “tinker” in the garage, as she’d put it sometimes.

After he had come into money, she never
cared to pry into his affairs and how he occupied himself.
No, she just took the generous gift he had given her—a few hundred thousand—change compared to the twenty million he’d netted after tax.

Life was late showing up with its bounteous hand extended to him and it was only by a random stroke of luck he had experienced it.

Now, as he had told his mother, it really was time to get back to his work in progress. Phrasing it that way made it sound more official, punching up the emphasis that what he did mattered. Which it did.

While he was certain the law wouldn
’t feel the same way about his passion, he didn’t need their tainted and distorted perception to touch what was just and right.
Those he sentenced to the grave were told why they were chosen. He viewed this as a courtesy to the Offenders when they were deserving of none. Their future was sealed in indelible ink from the point they’d thought they could inflict harm on the Defenseless and get away with it.

The back lights of his mother
’s Lexus faded from view down the road. With the observation, it was time to act. It was dark, and the hand of destiny need not tap him on the shoulder. He was ready.

*****

The garage door lifted and Clyde’s eyes bulged open. He tried to yell but it came out as a garbled mess behind the silver tape his captor had secured in place.

Footsteps came closer, and the overhead lights flickered on, causing his eyes to pinch shut in an instant reaction. He reopened them, hesitant, wondering if he wanted to face his death.

Pain from his shoulders slithered up his neck and shot down his spine.

The man looked down on him.
“It’s time to go for a little ride.” He cocked a single eyebrow, and the other barely twitched with the action.

“Why?” The single word was clear in his mind but became jumbled when it exited his mouth.

“Now, now. You know what you did to poor Benjamin.”

This
was
about the dog!

The thought occurred to deny the allegations that had been levied against him, but the truth would show in his eyes. Despite all his misgivings, the one thing he was incapable of was lying—ironic enough, seeing as it paled in significance to his other offenses.

“Nothing to say?” His captor smiled. “I guess we’re done here.” He took a few steps. “I must say it’s kind of disappointing, though. I’m used to speeches about innocence and why I shouldn’t kill people. Oh well.” He accompanied his words with a shoulder shrug and walked away.

“Stop. Plea—” He, again, sounded like a man whose mouth was numbed by a dentist’s needle.

The man
’s steps became faint, only to be superseded by the roar of the truck’s engine.

Chapter 19

Jack told me it was my turn to handle this interrogation. That suited me just fine.

I spun the chair around, straddled it backward, and tossed a photograph of the letter from Lyons’s collection across the table.

Bowen lifted it up, skimmed it, and set it down.

I had yet to question a suspect who came across so calm. He didn
’t appear to be sweating, or cold—either extreme was evidence that the body was experiencing stress. He returned eye contact and didn’t shy away from it.

“What about it?”

“This letter was sent to Gene Lyons.”

“I see that.” He pointed to the address on the envelope and the salutation at the top of the letter.

“You sent it.”

“That is my name right there. I don’t understand why you had to raid the place and bring me in, right in front of my mother.”

“Where did you take Lyons?” I ignored his protest about the timing of his arrest and tossed another photograph across the table, this one of Lyons on his wedding day.

“A little dated, isn’t it?”

“So we’ve established you sent a letter threatening his life and you know what he looks like.”

Bowen rolled his eyes.
“Put me in prison already.”

His easygoing nature in this situation had me attempting to ascertain whether or not we may have jumped to conclusions about him, despite his tainted background and connection to the victims. I shook any hesitancy about his culpability aside. This man had the perfect setup.

“We spoke to your brother.”

“
Step
brother. Don’t forget that part.”

“He thinks that you’re setting him up to take the fall. That you’re not man enough to own up to what you’ve done.” I was playing it up to see if I could illicit a reaction.

“The man’s a bastard. He’s not loved.”

“The world seems to love him enough. He’s had a very successful career. Your resume doesn’t seem quite as impressive. First jail, now you work as a garbage man.”

“Waste management technician.”

I smirked at the man’s ego, recalling Zachery’s correction from the other day. Bowen nailed it word for word. It was time to bring the man down a notch. “You did time for stealing investment money from seniors.”

“As I told everyone back then, I was the victim there. I knew nothing about what was going on. The owner of the firm was the crooked one. Set up a front, collected their money, and took off.”

“The problem with that is you were the one collecting the money and handling the deposits.”

Bowen took a deep breath.
“That’s in the past. I know my innocence.”

I stood and paced the perimeter of the room.
“What about now, Mr. Bowen? Do you know your innocence?”

He watched my every move.

“You come to the defense of those poor and abused animals. Many people would applaud you for getting even.” I bent to reach his ear. “You’d probably even make your mother proud.”

“I didn’t kill that man.”

I slammed a photograph on the table in front of him.
“Darren Simpson was his name. He left behind a wife who loved him. You stole him from his family.”

“I didn’t.”

“What about Karl Ball? What did you do with him?” I put his photo on top of Simpson’s. “He went missing in two thousand and ten. He left behind a wife. And this guy.” I layered Dean Garner’s face on top of Ball’s. “He left behind a wife too.”
I walked a few steps.
“Now, I know you’re not a husband.
Either you never married because you didn
’t find the right girl, or you’re just not suitable for that lifestyle. Maybe all of the girls you asked said no. I don’t really care.”

Again, I was striving to obtain a reaction, but received none. Despite the fact Bowen took pride in his work, he wasn
’t narcissistic, and that aspect didn’t fit with the killer we hunted. Our unsub had his own agenda in which he justified his actions. The reasoning would require someone to think highly of themselves, viewing themselves as above the law.
I was starting to wonder if we had the right man, but for now I would do my job and continue on as if I didn
’t experience any nagging doubts.

“Darren Simpson,” I blurted out.

Seconds passed. I said nothing more.

“What about him?” Bowen asked.

I sat back down.
“We spoke to his first wife. You remember her?” We had mentioned her at the city yard, but I thought I’d approach things from another angle.

“How the hell do you forget someone like that?”

I hadn
’t met her, but the breakdown from Paige and Zachery was sufficient to provide a clear picture. I continued. “She said that she had quite the fight with you over a letter you sent on behalf of the activist group you run.”

“I thought we went through this, and that was a long time ago.”

I leaned on my elbow, and lowered my eyes as if I were not simply disinterested but utterly bored of the subject.
“You can’t have it both ways. You remember her, but it was a long time ago?”

“Fine. Yes, there was a letter. Yes, we got into a heated argument, but I never killed anybody. If I was going to, I would have done it long before now. Don’t you think?”

“Actually, we’re thinking it’s rather genius to target those with charges dating so far back. It muddles the trail.”

“Muddles the trail?” Bowen laughed. “I live in the heat of the moment. I was ready to strangle her, but you know what? My conscience kicked in and told me it wasn’t the right thing to do.”

“But it’s okay to threaten people’s lives.”

“There’s quite a difference between making a threat and acting on it.”

I collected the photos and stood.
“In the eyes of the law, both are considered crimes.”

*****

The rest of the team and Detective McClellan were in the observation room. Only Paige paid me any attention when I entered.

McClellan kept his nose pressed against the glass as he spoke.
“He was right in front of us.”

I stood beside him and joined his surveillance of Bowen.
“There’s still a lot more to prove.”

“You don’t think he did it.”

“It’s too soon to tell.”

“Brandon?” Paige said.

“You heard everything I did. You saw him. He doesn’t project guilt. We haven’t found any evidence of the victims having been at his home, or at the animal activist headquarters.”

“He has a history of threatening people’s lives.”

“Unless we can pin this murder and the disappearances on him, I’m not sure what else we can do.”

Disappointment washed over the team
’s faces, except for Jack who remained expressionless. His attention was on me, but I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

“The unsub we’re seeking would have a narcissistic ego,” I began, knowing I didn’t need to elaborate on my earlier internal reasoning.

“Bowen doesn’t really demonstrate that,” Zachery said.

I shook my head.
“Besides taking pride in his job, which I consider healthy, I don’t think so either.”

McClellan leaned against the wall with crossed arms.
“If you weren’t so sure of his guilt, why did we go in so hot and heavy?”

“Between the hate mail, and his past and current position with the activist group, he was a likely suspect,” Paige said.

“Too much so.” The words slipped out and e
veryone looked at me.

Zachery gestured to the room.
“I think our killer is hiding in plain sight.”

Something about his words hit me. The ideal suspects were shelter volunteers, the journalist, members of the activist group. Our killer might not fall into any of those categories
.