by James Hunt
“The manhunt for the Baltimore Scribe continues. His latest victim? Beth Hamilton. She was a Baltimore native who moved out to California ten years ago, and a mother of two. She was also the sister of Baltimore Police Detective Adila Cooper, who was in the news a few years ago after she exposed her partner, who was involved in a money-laundering scandal. Detective Cooper testified against her partner, as well as current Central Precinct Captain Jonathan Farnes and his brother, Quentin Farnes, who was governor of Maryland at the time. Those charges of conspiracy against the Farnes brothers were eventually dropped by Maryland’s DA, but the fact that it was Quentin Farnes who appointed the DA led many to question the validity of his innocence. Channel Four News reporter Janet Kimmings has more.”
“Thanks, Mary,” Kimmings said.
The thumb drive. The reporter had given it to her, mentioning that it had something to do with Farnes. And if it had dirt on the captain, it could give her the leverage she needed to keep her on the case to find the killer.
Chapter 3
Cooper skidded into the parking space, ignoring the painted lines and letting her car straddle them. She hurried up the steps to her apartment building, juggling the box of evidence and her keys. She fiddled with the lock and shoved the door open, bounding up the staircase. When she reached her apartment floor, she nearly lost hold of the box. “Sarah?”
Her niece was at her apartment door, the landlord by her side. Sarah kept her head down while the landlord stepped forward. “You know this child, Ms. Cooper?” he asked, pointing back to her niece.
Without a word Cooper sprinted to Sarah and scooped her off the floor. Heavy sobs soaked her shoulder, and when she looked back over to the landlord, he had already left. Panic gripped Cooper’s heart like an icy glove. “What’s wrong? Did something happen to your dad? Where’s your sister?”
“No, nothing happened.” Sarah sniffled. “I just wanted to see you again. I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to go home without Mom.” She cried and buried her face in Cooper’s shoulder once more.
“It’s okay.” Cooper gently patted the back of Sarah’s head and rocked her back and forth. “C’mon, let’s get you inside.”
Sarah found a seat on the couch, and Cooper dropped the box of evidence on the kitchen table. Cooper opened the fridge but quickly closed it once she remembered that there was nothing but spoiled takeout inside. “Does your dad know you’re here?” She grabbed a cup and filled it with tap water. “Sarah?” But when she stepped out into the living room, her niece had her mouth open, gawking at the wall where the killer had written his message.
Sarah lifted her finger, her eyes rereading the words Cooper had stared at for hours. “W-what is that?”
Cooper set the glass down and blocked the image from Sarah’s view. “Nothing.” She clutched her niece’s face in both hands, trying to smile.
“The man that killed my mother wrote that, didn’t he?” Tears rolled down Sarah’s cheeks as she tried to look past Cooper. “Why did he do that? Why did he kill her?!” She broke down, the hysterics of the moment overtaking whatever reason the twelve-year-old possessed as she hyperventilated into Cooper’s shoulder.
“It’s okay, Sarah.” Cooper searched for the answers that she’d struggled to find, trying to offer comfort, but even now she couldn’t make sense of any of it. “I don’t know why he killed your mom. I don’t know why he took you and your sister and your dad.”
“Is it my fault?” Sarah asked through a series of choking sobs. “Is it my fault she’s gone? Did I do something to make her leave because of the fight we had last week?”
The frustration from the funeral, the anger Cooper felt toward the killer, the betrayal from the police department, all of it faded from her mind. “I want you to listen to me very carefully.” Strength returned to her hands as gripped Sarah’s shoulders. “What happened to your mom had nothing to do with you, okay? Absolutely nothing. So you get that out of your head right now, young lady. Understand?”
Still crying, Sarah nodded. She wiped the tears from her eyes and hugged Cooper tightly, the hysterics slowly fading. After a few minutes, Cooper led Sarah into the bedroom, where she passed out. Cooper called Tim. The conversation was short, neither party willing to apologize, and he said he’d be there soon.
While Cooper waited for Tim to arrive, she stood in the doorway to her bedroom and watched her niece sleep. She’d never seen anything look so peaceful as the slow rise and fall of Sarah’s chest. It’d been a long time since anyone had received any rest on that bed.
The knock at the door signaled Tim’s arrival, and he burst inside the moment it opened. “Where is she?” he asked, jogging into the living room.
But Cooper intercepted him before he maneuvered into the kitchen, shushing him, and pointed to the bedroom. He walked slowly, and she watched his entire body deflate in relief at the sight of his daughter. He leaned against the door frame for support and kept his voice low. “When I couldn’t find her at the hotel, I thought…” He shook his head, his back still to Cooper, then he finally turned around. “I can’t go through that again.” The color had drained from his face, and he collapsed into a kitchen chair.
Cooper hesitated but eventually joined him at the table. “She thought this was her fault.” Tim whipped his head around quickly, but Cooper raised her hand. “I told her it wasn’t. But she’s going to need to talk to somebody about what happened, Mary as well. Even you.”
“I’m fine.” Tim waved it off and rubbed his forehead.
“No, you’re not.” The detective instinct kicked in out of habit, and she leaned forward. “What you three went through was traumatic. You need to work through it, and it’s going to take time. And in these cases, it usually takes the adult longer than the child.” She gestured to Sarah. “Though with her hitting puberty soon, I don’t know if that’ll be the case.”
“They grow up too fast.” Tim traced a doodle on the table with his finger, glancing between the make-believe drawing and his daughter. “She had a boy ask her out a few weeks ago, and she asked me if it was okay.” He knocked on the table’s surface a few times with his fist, shaking his head. “I can’t do this without Beth.” And with just the mention of her name, tears cascaded down his cheeks, though nothing but muffled sniffles and quick breaths escaped his lips.
Cooper watched him, and a part of her felt sick for being glad at seeing him in so much pain. She’d never forgiven him for beating on Beth ten years ago in a drunken rage, though he’d tried time and time again to explain that it had never happened before, and it hadn’t happened since. Despite how much she hated him, he still had control over her nieces’ lives, and if she couldn’t learn to digest him now, it was never going to happen. “If you ever need help.” She paused. “I’m just a phone call away.”
Tim wiped the tears from his face. “I know the girls would like to see more of you.”
Cooper glanced at Sarah on the bed, lying there so quiet. Cooper couldn’t help but think of Beth when she had been that age. Mother and daughter slept the same way. “I’d like to see more of them too.”
Tim scooped the still-sleeping Sarah off the bed and carried her down to the car. She woke for half a second, and Cooper kissed her on the cheek and gave Mary a hug, who had remained with the FBI agents escorting them to the hospital. The FBI still had them under witness protection and would take them back to San Francisco, where they would have a unit with them until the killer was caught. For that much, she was glad Hemsworth was involved.
Tim lingered at the car door a moment before he stepped inside. Cooper watched him search for words he didn’t know how to speak, but after a prolonged silence, he only offered a slight nod, and then they parted ways. The agents in the SUV followed suit, and the small caravan of vehicles departed.
Cooper watched their taillights fade and suddenly remembered seeing the same image the last night she had seen Beth before she was taken. That had been less than a week ago, yet it felt years longer. So m
uch had changed, and there was still so far to go. She trudged back up the stairs to her apartment and went to the kitchen to retrieve the thumb drive. Her eyes lingered on the sight of the empty bed but then quickly found her laptop. She fingered the drive nervously, unsure of what it contained and whether it would help her catch the killer. The reporter who’d given it to her the week before had seemed convinced that it was important, and judging by the way she’d kept it to herself, whatever was on the drive was toxic.
With the computer finally booted up, Cooper inserted the drive and opened the folder. Inside was a video file, and when she double-clicked the image, it expanded into a full-screen view. She maneuvered the mouse over the play button and clicked.
The camera movement was jerky as the videographer crept through bushes. The picture quality was grainy, and the only sound was the crunch of branches, rustling of leaves, and the cameraman’s breathing. Suddenly the jerky motion ended, and the bushes parted to reveal the side of a building.
Cooper squinted, trying to decipher the location, but she couldn’t pinpoint it. The worn siding of the building suggested somewhere in the abandoned manufacturing district, but with nothing else to work on besides the fading paint and rusted awnings, she couldn’t be sure.
The image came in and out of focus as a man entered the frame. The operator zoomed closer, and Cooper’s jaw dropped as she saw the unmistakable features of Zane Marks. He wore a jacket with the collar flipped up and his face was bearded, but it was him. He paced back and forth in short, quick bursts, the cameraman following his movements with the same jerky motion.
After a short while, another man appeared, this one with his back to the camera, blocking Marks from view. He was a heavyset man, nearly twice as wide as Marks, and moved cumbersomely. Cooper turned up the volume, hoping to hear a piece of their conversation, but the mic on the camera phone was too far away, and their words passed in silence.
Then the big man finally turned around, and Cooper saw Probation Officer McKaffee’s red, sweaty face. She gripped the sides of the screen hard, as though she could strangle the piece of shit through the computer.
The video continued for another minute, both Marks and McKaffee just standing there, waiting for something. Cooper checked the time left on the screen and saw less than thirty seconds remained. She bounced her leg impatiently, the video telling her nothing other than Marks and McKaffee were meeting. There had to be something more, something else that—
Captain Farnes stepped into frame and gestured to the nearest door. The three of them stepped inside the building, Farnes looking behind him before he entered to make sure the coast was clear. The camera lingered on the door for a bit longer, and then the video finally ended.
Cooper reclined into the couch cushions, trying to wrap her head around what she had just seen. She rose and paced the living room floor. Twice she sat back down and rewatched the footage, hoping to catch something she may have missed before, but she found nothing.
But the longer she stared at the problem, the more Cooper realized what it meant. The first lead she had on the killer was an address linked to a bank account she believed the killer had used. But when she raided the house all she found was a Meth lab. And the drug dealers inside had affiliations with Zane Marks.
When Cooper was first investigating Zane Marks before they started chasing the killer, Farnes had been adamant about Cooper dropping the case, saying that it was Kate Wurstshed who was behind all of it and that her suicide was the perfect bow on an otherwise imperfect case. If Farnes had a connection to Marks and Marks had a connection to the drug lab, and the drug lab had a connection to the killer, that meant both Marks and Farnes were connected to the killer.
Cooper looked to the message still on her wall. She balled her hands into fists and punched the floor. “Son of a bitch!” If Farnes was connected to the killer, if he was trying to cover something up, if he had helped keep away evidence that she could have used to find the killer faster, then Beth could have made it out alive. And that meant her death was just as much his fault as it was the killer’s.
Rage and allegations, regret and grief, vengeance and justice, all of it swirled in the stormy seas of Cooper’s mind. She felt the balance of right and wrong tilt back and forth. She eyed the laptop still on the couch, and then her eyes drifted to the whiskey in the kitchen. She took a step toward the liquor but stopped, closing her eyes and clenching her jaw. Sweat collected on her face, and like lightning, she reached for the laptop, snapped it shut, and yanked the thumb drive from its port. She pocketed the drive and tossed the laptop onto her bed. She pulled her dresser drawers out, flinging clothes, and then reached for a revolver that lay beneath her shirts along with a box of ammunition. The serial number along the pistol had been scratched off, and she rested both the gun and the ammo on top of the piles of clothes. She opened the closet door and grabbed a duffle bag and started shoving clothes inside, along with a short hunting knife, duct tape, rope, handcuffs, and the revolver and ammunition. She left the laptop and phone, knowing the department could trace both. She flung the duffle bag strap over her shoulder and took a final look at the living room and bid it good riddance.
On her way down the hallway, she passed the counter, where her badge and service pistol rested. She quickly picked up the pistol and holstered the weapon, but she reached for her badge slowly. She held it delicately in her palm, running her thumb over the smooth indentations of the shield that she’d dedicated her life to uphold. She thought of all the times she could have crossed the line, all the moments in which it would have just been easier to let something slip, let something pass by, but she hadn’t. Even if it meant ridicule, even if it meant people would hate her for it. The law was the law, and she enforced it without prejudice. She returned the badge to the counter and walked out the door. She couldn’t play by those rules any longer.
Chapter 4
Cooper kept the seat leaned back in her car parked on the side of the street a few houses down from Captain Farnes’s residence. It’d been dark for a few hours, and she kept checking the clock on the radio impatiently. The duffle bag she’d brought rested in the passenger seat, and when she wasn’t checking the road or the clock, her eyes drifted to it and the revolver that rested inside. She fought the urge to remove it and use its anonymity, but that path would severely limit her options. And right now, she needed at least a few.
Another hour passed, and Cooper felt her joints grow stiff the longer she remained idle. A pair of headlights down the road caused her heart to jump, and she leaned forward in her seat slightly, keeping low behind the cover of the steering wheel and dashboard. She drew in a breath, and there it remained until the car pulled into Farnes’s driveway.
Cooper looked around, making sure no one was watching, and then snatched the duffle bag. She sprinted toward the house, her service pistol in her hand. Light footsteps padded the ground and stopped behind the six-foot hedge that ran along the captain’s driveway.
The car door shut, and Cooper watched the backside of Farnes waddle up to the carport. She waited until his keys were in the door then sprinted up the drive. By the time Farnes’s ears registered her footsteps, she already had the end of the pistol in his back and her hand over his mouth.
“Is your wife home?” Farnes trembled, remaining quiet for a moment before he nodded. She eyed Farnes’s car and looked around to make sure no one had spied them. “C’mon.” She made sure to keep her hand over his mouth, and the pistol in his back helped guide him to the vehicle. “Open the door.”
Farnes did as he was told and opened the rear driver’s side door. Once opened, she removed the pistol from his back and placed it under his chin. “Get in the car. Scream and I kill you here and now. Got it?” Another quick nod accompanied a muffled grunt, and Cooper slowly released her hand, and Farnes climbed into the driver’s seat without a word while she sat directly behind him, crouching low and keeping the pistol aimed at his head.
“What the hell do you thin
k you’re doing, Cooper?” Farnes’s face was slick with sweat. “You’ll lose your badge for this.”
“I’ll lose more than that if you don’t back out of this driveway and make your way toward the industrial district.” She rubbed her finger along the smooth curve of the pistol’s trigger and fought the impulse to just do it here. But there were things Farnes knew that she needed to understand. And a corpse made for poor interrogation. “I’m sure there’s a place there you’re familiar with. Why don’t you take us there?”
“This is outrageous! I don’t—”
“You don’t have any bargaining chips, Farnes.” Cooper pressed the end of the pistol to the side of his head and sandwiched him against the window. “Drive. Now.”
Without a word, Farnes started the engine and backed out of the driveway, and just before they drove down the street, Cooper saw his wife step out into the carport, a look of confusion on her face. The drive took half an hour, and Cooper kept a bead on the back of Farnes’s head the whole way. She watched every single muscle twitch and made sure his hands remained on the wheel.
“What do you think this is going to accomplish, Cooper?” Farnes asked, finally entering the industrial district. “You’re going to kill me because you’re upset about your sister’s death? Not exactly good police work.”
The car came to a stop, and Cooper reached for her duffle bag and the computer Farnes had left in the back seat. “Out of the car. Now.” Farnes shut off the engine and stepped out, Cooper mirroring his movements. She extended him the computer and motioned to the nearest building. “Walk.” Farnes turned slowly, keeping both hands on the laptop, and marched as instructed.
The door to the old building whined when Farnes pulled it open, and Cooper shut it and sealed them inside. The floor was dirty, covered in a thick layer of time that consisted of dirt, dust, and animal droppings. The smell was pungent and the place dark save for the moonlight coming through the windows. Farnes turned around, the laptop in his hands, most of his body cast in shadow. “Well, Detective? What now? Plan on shooting me, or am I supposed to bludgeon myself with the laptop?”