by Steven James
Ms. Eldridge-Gorman went on, but the evidence had caught my attention and I was only half-listening to her. “Isn’t it true”—she was pacing theatrically in front of the jury—“that when you were investigating the crimes for which my client was . . .” She hesitated, searching for the right phrase. “A person of interest . . . that you compared the timing of the crimes to the work schedules of the suspects to try and narrow down the suspect pool?”
I shifted my focus back to her. “Yes. The nature of these crimes would have required the offender to be present while they occurred.”
But in my mind I was clicking through the items on the table, now removed from the plastic evidence bags: the Smith & Wesson Sigma that Basque had fired at me . . . the key to the slaughterhouse freezer where he’d kept four of the women’s lungs . . .
Something about the positioning of the evidence on the table didn’t seem right.
“Dr. Bowers.” Priscilla Eldridge-Gorman stalked across the courtroom toward me. “Do you think justice is served when a man is convicted of first-degree murder based on his days off from work?”
She was twisting my research around, trying to make it sound ludicrous. And even though I couldn’t believe any jury would give credence to her line of questioning, by the way the jurors were staring at me, it looked like at least some of them did.
The room still hadn’t warmed up.
Still chilly.
The evidence.
Something about the evidence.
“Given the timing and location of the crimes,” I said, “Mr. Basque’s schedule would have allowed him to be present at the site of each of the murders.”
Ms. Eldridge-Gorman held up a file folder. “And so could at least six other employees of the acquisitions firm he worked for.” She slapped it down, loudly, onto the table. “I checked. And that’s just one company. Thousands of people could have committed those crimes.”
The recorded message in Colorado said, “I’ll see you in Chicago.”
Is Heather Fain’s and Chris Arlington’s killer in the courtroom? I let my eyes drift from the evidence table to the faces of the people in the room, but Priscilla Eldridge-Gorman paced in front of me, blocking my view. “Did you actually witness my client attack Sylvia Padilla?”
One of the men in the gallery made eye contact with me and then quickly looked away.
“No. Mr. Basque was leaning over her body when I arrived.”
The man was wearing a black armband, which meant he was a family member of a victim. But which one? Which victim?
“So you admit,” Ms. Eldridge-Gorman said, “that it’s possible my client heard Sylvia Padilla’s screams, went to offer his assistance—like any conscientious citizen would do—and was reaching down to help the poor woman when you ran toward him.” She looked at me sympathetically. “No doubt with the simple intention of fulfilling your duty as an officer of the law, and then when you aimed your gun at him, he understandably feared for his life and was forced to defend himself by firing his legally registered firearm. That’s possible, isn’t it?”
“He was holding the scalpel.”
The man with the armband was still avoiding eye contact.
“My client found it lying on the woman’s chest and was moving it so he could help stop her bleeding.”
I felt my patience slipping again. “He mocked her as she died.”
She held up a file folder. “According to the police report you filed, my client said, ‘Looks like we’ll be needing an ambulance, detective.’ And then, ‘Looks like we won’t be needing that ambulance after all.’ He was simply showing concern for her.”
This was ridiculous.
I mentally flipped through the faces of the family members of the victims. It’d been thirteen years, and the man I was watching was shielding his face, glancing at his watch.
If I could just get a clear look at his face . . .
“Dr. Bowers,” Priscilla said, once again interrupting my train of thought. “Is it possible you arrested the wrong man?”
“I’m confident we made the right—”
“But is it possible?”
“It’s possible,” I said impatiently. “Yes.”
The man with the armband finally looked my way.
Yes. I recognized him. He was the father of Celeste Sikora, the second-to-last known victim, one of the women I could have saved if only I’d pieced things together a little faster.
“But,” I said, elaborating on my answer, trying to quiet the growing frustration in my voice, “as I mentioned a few moments ago, all investigations deal in terms of probability rather than certainty. We don’t live in a perfect world. The jury isn’t asked to determine a person’s guilt with absolute certainty but rather beyond reasonable doubt—”
“I am well aware of the legal requirements of American jurisprudence, Dr. Bowers.”
Yes, Celeste’s father, Grant.
Ex-military. I remember because he’d reacted so violently when I notified him that his daughter’s wounds had been fatal that he’d needed to be sedated.
The trial, Pat. Focus on the trial.
“But as I was saying . . .” I continued speaking, but my attention was split. “The evidence strongly supports the conclusion that Richard Basque was—”
“Dr. Bowers.” Her voice had turned to ice. “Did you physically assault my client?”
The room spun around me. Dizzy. A swirl of colors. Then everything dialed into focus.
She closed the space between us. “Back in the slaughterhouse? After you handcuffed him?”
So, Basque told her. She knows.
Grant Sikora looked at the clock on the wall. A bead of sweat glistened on his forehead.
You swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
“Did you break Richard Basque’s jaw with your fist?” she asked. “Did you attack him after he was handcuffed?”
You can’t let Basque walk. You know that, Pat. You can’t admit that you hit him.
Time slowed.
Sweat? Why is Sikora sweating?
I looked from Grant Sikora to Priscilla. Beyond her I saw Basque smiling, as if the moment he’d been waiting for all these years had finally arrived. If I told the truth, he might walk, but if I lied I’d be committing perjury and going against everything I’d worked toward all these years.
Another bead of sweat formed on Sikora’s forehead.
It’s too cold in the courtroom to be sweating. Too cold.
Unless.
“Dr. Bowers!” Ms. Eldridge-Gorman had stepped in front of me and now planted her hands on her hips, her two elbows jutting out like bony wings. “Are you having trouble remembering that night at the slaughterhouse?”
Grant Sikora began to discreetly make his way toward the side aisle. It’s not unheard of for people to slip out of a courtroom while a trial is in session, so no one else seemed to take notice. Their eyes were riveted on me.
The evidence table.
The hatchet . . . the knife . . . the gun . . . a weapon . . . is he going for a weapon?
“I’ll ask you one last time.” Her words were cold stones dropping one by one into the still courtroom. “Did you or did you not physically assault Richard Devin Basque after he was in your custody in the slaughterhouse?”
Nothing but the truth.
Answer her, Pat. You have to answer the question.
My eyes flashed across the evidence table, scrutinizing, examining the positioning of the items. I noticed the Sigma’s witness hole, the small groove that allows the operator to observe the brass case of the bullets if there are any chambered rounds.
Ms. Eldridge-Gorman’s voice rang out, “Judge Craddock, please direct the witness to answer the question!”
Inside the witness hole I saw a brassy glint . . .
“Dr. Bowers, I advise you to answer the counselor’s question.”
That glint could only mean one thing.
Ms. Eldridge-Gorman threw her hand
s up.
That gun was loaded.
“Will you answer the counselor’s question?” the judge said.
Sikora’s going for the gun!
“No,” I whispered.
“No?” the judge shouted.
Grant Sikora reached the aisle and ran toward the evidence table.
You can’t let him get the gun.
Stop him, Pat. You have to stop him!
I grabbed the railing of the witness stand and launched myself over the edge.
12
My shoes slipped as I landed. I smacked onto the floor, and by the time I’d made it to my feet, Grant Sikora’s hand had found the gun.
The next three seconds seemed to take forever and happen all at once.
I sprinted toward him. Time collapsed, then expanded. A series of terrible thoughts raced through my mind. The gun’s loaded. He’s Celeste’s father. He’s going after Basque.
Sikora raised the gun, and the two officers stationed at the courtroom’s main doors drew their weapons.
I instinctively reached for my SIG. Found only an empty holster.
All around me, blurred sounds, elastic words that somehow slowed as they moved through the air, in between the creases of time. Screams . . . shouts . . . the frantic scuffling movement of people diving for cover . . . I felt like I was in a scene from a movie where the bullet slides in slow motion through the air, only this time the bullet hadn’t been fired yet. And I had the chance to stop it.
The judge had disappeared behind the bench, and Richard Basque had risen from his seat and turned toward Sikora. Standing as still as death, he watched Grant sweep the gun in an arc toward the officers who were shouting at him to drop his weapon.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Ralph on his way toward the gunman, plowing through the crowd of people seated in the gallery. But I was closer. A lot closer.
Priscilla Eldridge-Gorman’s shrill voice cut through the room calling for Basque to get down! Get down! She threw herself beneath the table, but he didn’t move. Just remained stoic and still.
I was almost to Sikora.
The two officers leveled their weapons. One of them fired and the bullet whirred past my face and shattered the wooden railing of the witness stand behind me.
I reached Sikora, but before I could grab him, he squeezed off a shot, and one of the officers wrenched backward with a sharp cry and crashed to the floor. The female officer who’d closed the courtroom doors earlier hesitated, glancing momentarily down at her partner.
Grant Sikora stared down the barrel, looking stunned that he’d actually pulled the trigger.
And then I was on him.
I snagged his arm and went for the gun, but he slithered free, whipped around, and leveled it at my face. “Out of the way.”
Time caught up with reality and froze. I’d had guns aimed at my face before, but it doesn’t matter how many times it happens, you never get used to it. I felt my heart slamming against my chest. Easy, Pat. Easy. I raised my hands to show I meant no harm.
“Put down your gun!” the uninjured officer yelled. Only then did I realize I was in her line of fire. She didn’t have a clear shot at Sikora, only at me.
Out of my peripheral vision I could see the other officer laying sprawled on the floor, blood from the gunshot wound soaking through his shirtsleeve, but it was only his arm. It didn’t look life-threatening. Good. That buys us some time.
“Drop your weapon!”
“Shut up,” Grant shrieked. “Everyone, shut up!” He took one step closer to me. The officer on the floor was slowly drawing his weapon. “Drop your guns,” Sikora yelled to the officers. “Or the FBI agent dies.”
Three meters to my left, Ralph silently slid into position beside the prosecution’s table. Everyone else except Basque either lay on the floor or knelt low to the ground. A few people peered over the edges of chairs and benches to watch things unfold. Neither officer dropped their guns. Basque still stood calmly watching everything unfold.
“Put them down!” Grant hollered. “Slide ’em here!”
I saw his finger on the trigger and felt my heart twitch. There was no way he would miss me from there. No way.
“Drop ’em!” Ralph bellowed. “Do it!”
Sikora didn’t seem to care that someone else had yelled the words, he just kept his eyes glued on me. Kept his gun steady.
The two officers gauged the situation for a moment, and finally both of them shoved their guns toward us.
“Nobody else move!” Sikora yelled, then glanced toward Ralph. “And you. Back off. Now!”
“Easy.” Ralph raised his hands and shuffled one step away from us toward the wall. “I’m backing up. OK?”
“Farther!”
“I am.” One more step.
“Go on.”
Two steps.
Sikora glanced at the officer standing beside her partner. “Get outside the door! No one comes in here. If anyone tries to, I mean anyone, if that door opens, Bowers is dead.” He tipped his head to the left. “The bailiff and the judge, you go with her. Go!”
After a moment, the judge appeared from behind his bench where he’d been hiding. His face was etched with anger, but he said nothing. He and the bailiff followed the officer out the door, and then she swung it shut behind them.
Ralph and I still had a chance at diffusing things if only we could get close enough to take Sikora down, but to do that I needed to focus the man’s attention on me. “It’s Grant, right?” I said. “Your name is Grant Sikora? I met with you after your daughter’s death?”
He eyed me, didn’t answer. Took in two choppy breaths.
I pointed. “The officer you shot, he’s going to be OK.” I spoke slowly, trying to calm him down. “End this now. I understand you’re angry—”
“No.”
“You have a right to be angry—”
“No!”
“But shooting people won’t help to—”
“Quiet!” Rage in his voice, but his jaw was quivering. A tear escaped the corner of his left eye.
He’s sorry, so sorry.
“No one else needs to get hurt.” I edged toward him. “You’re not a killer.”
He shook his head violently. “He killed her. He killed my Celeste.”
Are there other agents in here? Where are they?
Sikora shouted past me, into Richard Basque’s general direction, “You killed my daughter, you son of a—”
“Did she believe?” asked Basque, cutting Grant off.
“What?”
“The Lord said that those who live and believe in him shall never die. Did your daughter believe?”
“Shut up.” Grant was shaking, possessed by grief and rage. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!”
His eyes locked on Basque again. He’d made his decision.
He swung the gun away from me toward the man who’d tortured, killed, and eaten his daughter.
My chance. My only chance.
Now or never.
Now.
13
I lunged toward Sikora and grabbed for the gun, locking my fingers around his wrist and pivoting at the same time. I pulled the barrel away from the crowded courtroom and toward the empty northern wall. And this time I made sure Grant Sikora couldn’t jerk away.
He must have slipped his finger off the trigger because the Sigma didn’t discharge. With strength fueled by adrenaline, he tried to pull free again. I twisted his arm around his back, trying to control him, to disarm him, but with his other hand he snagged something from the evidence table and slammed it against my side; a crushing heat, a burst of pain cruised through me and I wondered if he’d broken my rib.
Whatever he’d grabbed, Grant pounded my side again, but I wouldn’t let go.
A flash of movement—Ralph on his way toward us, but it would be a couple seconds before he could help me.
Then I realized Grant was holding the hatchet Basque had used on three of his victims. Thankfully, he’d only been able
to swing the handle at me and not the blade, but still, it hurt enough to make me gasp for breath.
As he swung the hatchet handle at me again, I sucked in a breath and chopped at his forearm, sending the hatchet clattering to the floor.
Now, for the gun.
We were facing each other with the Sigma between us. As we wrestled for it, Grant pivoted and we smashed into the witness stand.
“Drop the gun!” Ralph flipped the evidence table aside, scattering its contents. Rushed toward us.
Grant Sikora’s face was set with determination, and I realized that if Basque had slaughtered someone I loved, I would have been just as determined, just as enraged as he was. “He . . .” His teeth were clenched with the effort of fighting me off, but he managed to speak through them. “He . . . killed . . . her.”
“Please,” I said. My side was throbbing so much it was hard to breathe. “Don’t—”
“He ate her,” Grant said. “Ate my Celeste—”
I felt the barrel pressing into my bruised ribs. I tried to pull it away, but Sikora pitched to the side. The soles of his shoes slipped, and together we crashed into the wall.
And that’s when the gun went off.
14
Everything can change in an instant.
I felt the gun’s jarring repercussion ride up my arm and jolt into my shoulder.
So this is it.
Time clicked forward.
After all these years, it ends like this.
I waited for the ache of the bullet’s impact to sweep over me.
Felt nothing.
And then I saw Mr. Sikora’s face.
No.
His eyes losing focus, his grip on my arm loosening.
No, please, no!
Liquid warmth spread across my abdomen, but the wound wasn’t mine.
Ralph was beside me.
“Get an ambulance,” I said. He rummaged through his pockets for his phone as I eased Mr. Sikora to the floor and onto his back.
After pulling the gun from his hand and sliding it away from us, I cradled his head as gently as I could while applying pressure on the gunshot wound with my other hand.