The Killings (16 page)

The garage was well-lit but deserted. Carmen’s vehicle sat alone at the back of the large concrete structure. There were only three other cars in the garage and one of them was Albert’s nine-hundred-dollar-a-month money-green Jaguar.

What a douche,
Carmen thought as she passed the ridiculously expensive vehicle. She was sure that Albert didn’t make much more than she did and payments on a car like that would have cost a third of her monthly salary after taxes. Someone was really overcompensating.

Carmen was halfway to her car when she heard footsteps behind her. She turned and faced an empty garage. There was no one there or else they were hiding, which was an even more terrifying thought because, if they were hiding, that strongly suggested they meant her harm. She reached into her purse for the .38 Colt revolver. She relaxed almost immediately when her fingers closed around the hard plastic handle of the gun and her finger found the cold steel trigger. When she heard the footsteps again, she turned and pointed the Colt, dropping into a shooter’s stance with knees bent and arms straight out in front of her, aiming at the figure ambling toward her in an awkward lumbering gate. It was Albert again.

“You idiot! Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

“Did I scare you again?” He was smiling now, just like the idiot she’d accused him of being.

“It’s not funny, Albert. I could have shot your stupid ass. I
should
have. It would have served you right.”

Albert walked closer, still grinning stupidly. “Awww. You don’t mean that.”

“The hell I don’t!” Carmen shouted, rolling her eyes. She tucked the pistol back into her purse and turned away, walking toward her car. “Goodnight, Albert … asshole!”

“What?”

Carmen felt Albert’s hands seize her shoulders and jerk her backward. She slammed against his chest and then his arms wrapped around her waist and throat. She reached into her purse, but Albert snatched it from her and tossed it away. With her back pressed against him and Albert’s mouth pressed to her ear, she could smell the alcohol on his breath. She’d been right. He was drunk.

“What did you call me?”

“Albert. Let
go
of me!” Her voice was calm and deliberate. She didn’t want Albert to know how frightened she was.

“No! What did you call me? Why are you always so fucking
mean
to me?”

“Because you’re an asshole, Albert. Now, get the fuck
off
me!”

Now she began to fight, struggling to break free of Albert’s surprisingly powerful grip. She whipped her head back and was delighted to feel the satisfying crunch as the back of her skull impacted with Albert’s teeth.

“Ooof! My mouth! You broke my tooth, you fucking bitch!”

Carmen whipped her head back again and felt another crunch. This time she was sure she’d struck the bridge of his nose. He cried out and his grip loosened. She jerked free of him and turned. Albert’s face was a bleeding rictus of white-hot rage. He raised his fist and Carmen turned away and threw her hands over her head to ward off the blow.

“I’m gonna kill you!”
Albert roared.

She closed her eyes, anticipating the blow. It never landed.

A third voice was suddenly there. “You ain’t killin’ nobody. Put your fuckin’ hands down!”

The guy holding the gun looked about as dangerous as an armed Teletubby. He was just under six feet tall, pudgy, wearing glasses, baggy jean shorts, and an Atlanta Braves jersey. He looked like he was in his mid-twenties, fresh out of college. He was pointing Carmen’s revolver at Albert’s head. Carmen looked from the chubby guy to Albert and back.

“I wasn’t going to hurt her,” Albert said through his bloody mouth. He was looking up at the newcomer with a sense of pleading in his eyes. “I promise.”

The pudgy guy smiled and shook his head. “Sure you were. You should have seen the look in your eye. I know that look.
Believe me,
I know that look.”

“You piece of shit!” Carmen stepped forward and kicked Albert in the balls as hard as she could. He dropped to the ground like he’d been short-circuited.

“My balls! You fucking whore!”

“That’s what you get for attacking me, you piece of shit!” Carmen screamed at Albert, who lay on the floor in a fetal position. She spat at him and kicked him again. “I’m reporting you to HR
and
I’m calling the police!”

“No, you’re not,” the pudgy man said, and then he pulled the trigger and put a nice neat hole in one side of Albert’s head and a fist-sized crater opened in the opposite side as the bullet exited. Blood and brain matter exploded, spraying against the concrete. The pudgy guy was still smiling. Carmen screamed.

“Shhhhh.” The pudgy guy pointed the gun at her. “Let’s go for a ride. We’ll take
your
car.”

TWENTY

August 21, 1911, Atlanta, Georgia

“I’m sorry, son, but I don’t know how I can help you.”

“Please, Pastor Marcus. Can you just tell me if there’s anyone in your congregation who seems a little weird? Stays to himself, doesn’t go to any church functions, never talks to anyone? He’s probably been coming here for years, every Sunday, but no one knows him?”

Pastor Marcus was a thick, barrel-chested man with a large belly and a deep, booming voice. He sat behind a huge desk in a room dominated by large bookcases filled with books on religion and various translations of the Bible. His eyes looked tired, like he’d seen every horror in the world and had grown weary of it all, resolved that humanity would destroy itself or be destroyed by its creator for its vast sins.

“I don’t know anyone like that.”

Robert dropped his head into his hands and let out a big sigh. “With all due respect, sir, I think ya do. There has to be somebody in the church like that. Somebody who just don’t fit in. There’s one in every church. I used to go to Big Bethel and there was this guy who would wear this coonskin cap pulled down low on his head. Everybody would be dressed in their Sunday best, you know? But not this guy. He’d come in there wearing dungarees and cowboy boots and that coonskin cap. Had a big knife strapped to one leg and wouldn’t talk to nobody, but he was there every Sunday sure as the sun rises.”

“Well, there ain’t no Davy Crocket characters in our church.”

Robert could see that he wasn’t going to get anywhere with the pastor and he had several other churches he wanted to check. He planned on stopping by Ebenezer Baptist Church next.

“Okay, Pastor Marcus. You just let me know if you think of anything. You know where to find me. I ain’t seen you in my shop lately. You find yourself a new barber?”

Pastor Marcus smiled, obviously happy for the change of subject, and rubbed the wooly tufts of hair that formed a nappy halo around the bald spot in the center of his scalp. “Does it look like I’ve been seein’ another barber? I just don’t want to get scalped by that kid you got workin’ there. I can wait until you’re back workin’ again.”

Robert smiled. “Fair enough, sir. You let me know if anything comes to you, okay?”

“I’ll do that.”

Robert shook the pastor’s hand and walked out of the church. He opened the massive church doors and took two steps out when he spotted him. A jolt of adrenaline dumped into his bloodstream, preparing Robert to run or fight. Then he remembered that he wasn’t just your average Negro anymore. He was an officer of the law and he had (almost) as many rights as any White man. He continued walking down the church steps toward the sidewalk. Waiting at the bottom of the steps on a motorcycle was Officer Lacey.

“How’s the investigation coming, Detective?’ Lacey asked with a grin.

Robert ignored the jab. “Nothing yet.”

“Well, I got something.” He was leering at Robert. It was obvious he had something on his mind. There was something he wanted to tell Robert and whatever it was, he was thrilled by it. That cruel gleam was in his eyes as he dragged out the moment.

“Get on, boy. We’ve got some business to take care of.”

Robert stopped at the bottom of the steps. “What business?”

Robert could tell by the vicious smile that ripped across the redheaded bastard’s face that Lacey had been waiting for him to ask that question.

“We’re going to see your friend Henry Parker. He’s wanted for questioning ... about the killings.”

There was no need to explain what killings he meant. There was only one set of murders that everyone in Atlanta was talking about, only one group of murders that Robert had any interest in: the Atlanta Ripper.

Robert frowned and walked forward a few more steps. “Why? Why are you questioning him? He don’t know nothin’.”

“Well, I think he does.” He pointed his nightstick at Robert. “I think you do too. All you jungle bunnies stick together.”

Robert shook his head vehemently. “I’m trying to
find
the killer and so’s Henry.”

Lacey smirked. “Yeah, that’s what you say. Then get on the bike and let’s go pay him a visit. If he’s innocent then he ain’t got nothin’ to be worryin’ about now, do he?”

“He ain’t did nothin’ wrong.”

“He’s done a lot wrong. You and I both know that. He’s done more wrong than any ten niggers in this city.”

“I mean he ain’t have nothing to do with killin’ them women.”

Lacey slipped his nightstick back in its holster. He smiled and licked his teeth. “Yeah? Well, we’ll see about that now won’t we? I wasn’t gonna let your Black ass ride on this here motorcycle with me no how. What would it look like with you all hugged up on me like that? I ain’t no nigger lover. But I’m gonna find Henry and I’m gonna throw his murderous Black hide in jail. You can believe that.”

Officer Lacey started the engine and gunned the motorbike’s throttle. He winked at Robert and then took off down the street in a cloud of exhaust fumes.

Robert watched Officer Lacey ride off with a sense of impending dread.
I’ve got to warn Henry,
he thought. Heart racing madly, Robert raced away from the church, determined to get to Henry before Officer Lacey did.

TWENTY-ONE

August 21, 2011, Downtown Atlanta

“What do you want?” Carmen was trembling. Just seconds ago she was afraid she was about to be raped. She had been rescued by the man who was now pointing a gun at her, the man who’d just murdered Albert in cold blood. She was beginning to think she might have been better off with Albert.

“I just want to talk.”

Albert lay convulsing on the floor between them. He was dead. His body just hadn’t realized it yet. Blood poured from the rupture in his cranium. Carmen backed up as the pool of blood touched the tip of her pumps.

“You - you shot him. You shot Albert. Oh, my God! You shot Albert!”

“I said, I want to talk to you.”

Carmen didn’t know who the chubby guy was, but it was obvious from the nervous excitement in his voice and the erection in his pants that he wanted to do a lot more than talk. She knew enough about kidnapping cases to know that if she got into a car with him and drove out of the parking garage, odds were high she’d never be seen again.

“What do you want to talk about?”

The chubby guy looked around the garage, making sure they were alone. They were in a remote part of the parking garage. She and Albert had been the last employees to leave the building. Carmen had to restrain herself from lunging for the weapon, but it was still pointed at her chest and she could see no way to get past it without catching a bullet.

The chubby guy seemed satisfied that they were alone. He gestured with the gun, motioning toward her car. “I don’t want to talk here.”

Carmen held up her hands and spoke in as reassuring a voice as she could manage. “L-Look - look - I really appreciate your helping me with that jerk, but somebody probably heard that gunshot. You should get out of here. It’s my gun that shot him. Y-you can just wipe your prints off and no one even needs to know you were here. I’ll just tell the police he tried to rape me and I shot him in s-self-defense.”

The chubby guy smiled, and for the first time Carmen realized how dangerous the guy really was. He was enjoying this, her desperate attempt to save herself. This was all part of whatever sick game he was playing.

“No, I’m not leaving. Not without you. But you’re right about one thing, someone might have called the cops. So I don’t have time to fuck around with you.” He poked the gun into her stomach. “Now get the fuck in that car!”

“I’m not going anywhere with you. You want to shoot me? Then shoot me. The cops will be here any minute and they’ll find your fat ass standing over my dead body. What do you think’s going to happen to a guy like you in prison?”

The pudgy guy grabbed the sides of his head, covering his ears and closing his eyes as if he was trying to think through a cacophony. He grimaced as if he were in pain.

Oh, shit. He’s hearing voices. He’s schizophrenic.

She watched as he lowered the gun and reached underneath his shirt and into the waistband of his shorts, pulling out a big, old-fashioned straight razor. He opened his eyes and something about them seemed different, less focused ... as if he wasn’t completely there.

“If you don’t get into that car, I’m going to hurt you really, really bad. Now pull out your keys, open the door, and
get in the fucking car!
”

The pudgy guy was shaking with fury. He didn’t look so harmless anymore. He looked batshit crazy. And if he was crazy, Carmen knew her attempts to reason with him were probably useless.
I’m so fucked,
Carmen thought.

“My purse is over there behind you.”

“Then go fucking get it!”

Carmen walked slowly over to her purse, keeping distance between her and the chubby guy with the gun. She kept her eye on him as she reached down and picked up the purse.

She fished around inside for her keys.

“
Hurry the fuck up!
” the chubby guy yelled.

Carmen was running out of time. She ran a dozen escape scenarios through her head and they all ended with her being gunned down in the parking lot or taken somewhere else and raped and mutilated. She froze and began to tremble. A new, terrifying possibility had just entered her mind.