A knock on the door brought him out of his reverie. He looked at his watch, surprised. He strode over to the door, his ability to control his legs much improved since the year before, and opened it. “You're early, Detective.” The blur of a hand, gripping something, greeted him. He ducked, but too late, the blow hitting the side of his head, knocking him out cold.
Small awoke, the searing pain in the side of his head reminded him of when he regained consciousness in the Blackhawk used to medevac him. He hadn’t felt his legs, it was the impact his head had made with the side of his Humvee that hurt. The real pain, followed by the phantom pain, came later. He opened his eyes and found himself tied to one of his kitchen chairs, his mouth taped. A young man stood in front of him, holding out a phone, a video of the subway attack playing on it. It froze on an image of his face. The man raised his gun and pointed it at Small's head. He watched the man’s finger squeeze the trigger.
Never thought I’d go out like this.
A rapping sound at the door startled them both. His attacker whirled around, a look of panic in his eyes. The detective! He knew he had to warn him somehow, but couldn’t move, he had no leverage with his artificial limbs. Trying to use his upper body to raise the chair, he managed to make a loud bang as the chair legs slammed back down on the hardwood floor. He was rewarded with a pistol whipping that sent him flying backward.
Eldridge, hearing some sort of commotion inside, drew his weapon and kicked open the door. Taking in the scene before him, he cautiously entered the small apartment, checking first to make sure no one was hiding behind the door. He heard a noise deeper inside, and as he entered the living room, saw movement coming from what looked to be the kitchen. His weapon leading the way, he rounded the corner and saw a man tied to a chair, lying on its side, then a flash of movement from outside the window. Running forward, he saw somebody on the fire escape, already two floors below. Looking back at the victim, their eyes met and he knew he was telling him, Go!
Eldridge jumped out the window and ran down the steps after his target, the rusted metal swaying dangerously under his feet. He heard the final steps slam to the ground, shaking the entire structure, and watched the suspect sprint from the alleyway, his blonde hair confirming what Vinny had discovered earlier. A few seconds later Eldridge launched himself off the final level and onto the ground, racing after the man. He exited the dark alleyway and ran headlong into a thick crowd of pedestrians. Desperately he looked around but found no sign of his suspect.
“Fuck!” he muttered, pulling out his cell. He ran back to the apartment as he called for backup and an ambulance. As he stepped back into the kitchen, he found Small where he had left him. Eldridge knelt down and removed the tape covering the man’s mouth as gently as he could.
“Did you get him?” the defiant man asked.
“No, he was gone before I could get out of the alley.” He pulled a small utility knife from his pocket and cut the tape binding Small’s wrists and ankles. He noticed the prosthetics and was momentarily taken aback. “Are you a vet?”
Small gripped Eldridge's extended hand. “Afghanistan. Second tour, roadside bomb.” He groaned as Eldridge helped him to his feet.
Eldridge nodded with respect. “My dad was in 'Nam.” He looked up as two officers raced into the apartment, their weapons drawn. “Secure the scene, there should be a bus here any moment.” Turning his attention back to his witness, he asked, “Can I get you anything?”
Small shook his head. “No, I'll be fine. Bastard pistol-whipped me a couple of times, though. I'll be feeling that for a while.” He headed to his couch, the fiercely independent man waving off any assistance, and sat down.
Eldridge sat across from him. “Did you ever see your attacker before?”
“No, never.”
“If we set you up with a sketch artist, do you think you'd remember enough to help us out?”
“Absolutely. You better hope I don't catch that punk before you do. I'll beat him to death with one of my legs if I have to.”
Eldridge smiled, not doubting him for a moment. “Last year on the subway, did you see a gun?” asked Eldridge, deciding to go ahead with the questions he originally planned on asking, since his witness appeared determined to act as if nothing had happened.
“No, I didn't see anything. But I came on the scene late. I was in another car and came to help, but,” he gestured at his legs, “these things held me up.”
“Did you happen to see anybody vomit during or after the incident?”
“Huh?” Small looked surprised at the question. “As a matter of fact, yeah, some kid upchucked right in front of the door, on the platform. Why's that important?”
“Nothing, just clearing up some loose ends. Would you recognize him if you saw him again?”
Small shook his head. “No, I saw him from behind. I was more concerned with those two bastards.”
Eldridge rose to his feet as the paramedics arrived. “Thank you, Mr. Small, I'll be assigning a protective detail just in case he tries to come back.”
“Save your money, I don't need it.”
“I'm sure you don't, Mr. Small, but I'll feel better knowing you're protected.”
As Eldridge rode the elevator down, he called Vinny. “Have you started those DNA tests yet?”
“You mean you can't smell it from where you are?”
“I'll take that as a yes,” laughed Eldridge, thankful he wasn’t anywhere near the lab. “Test anything found on the platform, nearest the doors, first.” Eldridge hung up and called Frank. “Hey, Romeo, any luck tracing the call Messina received?”
“Sorry, Detective, it was a disposable cell phone, no way to trace it.”
“Okay, thanks.” Eldridge was about to return his phone to his pocket when it rang. It was Shakespeare.
“Hiya, kid, it's me. I got someone down here you're gonna want to talk to, pronto.”
“Who?”
“A priest, says he's got some info on your case.”
“I'll be there in thirty minutes, keep him comfortable.” Shakespeare grunted an acknowledgement and Eldridge heard him offer the priest a donut before hanging up. Walking quickly to his car, he mentally crossed his fingers, hoping he might be about to get a break in the case, every other clue so far leading to dead-ends, both literally and figuratively.
Aynslee was interviewing a clearly bitter man. If he wasn’t careful, the police were going to start to suspect he was the killer. So she decided to ask him.
“Mr. Teague, did you kill your ex-wife?”
He laughed. “No, but I'd like to thank whoever did. That bloodsucking bitch took me for everything I had.”
“You're glad she's dead?”
“Absolutely! She got my house. My house! I paid for the damned thing! Not her! Why the hell should she get to live there, and me, I have to live in this shithole of an apartment and send her four grand a month in goddamned alimony. There's barely anything left!”
Aynslee, content to let him ramble on, knew she already had quite a few great quotes from him that would make for a juicy segment, but she wanted to know something about the victim other than her ex-husband's thoughts on the subject.
“Hey, do you think I can get the house back?”
“No clue. Can you tell me anything about your ex-wife, like what she did for a living?”
“Nothing.”
“Charities?”
“Nothing. Okay, that's not true, she did volunteer work for some hospice. I don't know, I didn't pay much attention to that. We mostly just fought.”
“What did she do with all of her spare time then?”
“She took up Karate, I think.”
“Karate?”
“Yeah, something happened about a year ago, I guess it scared the shit out of her.”
“Any idea what that might have been?”
“No, I didn't give a shit.”
Aynslee sensed no point in continuing. “Well, thank you very much for your time, Mr. Teague.”
Steve nodded.
“I'd just like to say thank you to the guy who did this. You've saved me a fortune in alimony and if they catch you, I'll help fund your defense!”
Aynslee signaled for Mike to turn the camera off and quickly headed from the apartment.
“Holy shit, I don't think I've ever met anybody that bitter!” exclaimed Steve.
“You've obviously never been divorced.”
Steve turned to Mike. “You mean to tell me you hate your ex-wife that much?”
Mike paused for a moment. “No, definitely hated her for a while, but I guess I'd have to admit I was never at that level. That guy's really fucked up.”
Aynslee nodded in agreement. “Let's get back to the station and see if there's any of this we can use, then we'll try to follow up this Karate angle, see what happened a year ago that scared her.”
“You think it might be connected to the case?”
Aynslee shrugged her shoulders. “No idea, but it's worth a look.” She typed an email to a lackey at the station to start tracking down what Karate studio their victim had gone to.
Chelsie sat on her mattress, satisfied enough time had gone by for any drugs she was supposed to have taken to have worn off. She looked at her nails, clipped short. So I can’t scratch him? She grabbed a handful of her hair and examined it, the bright blonde almost unnatural. Why would he dye my hair? Is he trying to make me into someone else? She remembered reading about serial killers who kidnapped people who reminded them of someone from their past, but she had never heard of one kidnapping someone that didn't look like that person, then trying to change them. Then it dawned on her. She had been blonde until several weeks ago. Could he have been watching me for that long? She shuddered, realizing she may not be a random victim after all. She wracked her brain, trying to remember anything out of the ordinary. But she couldn’t. Everything had been normal. Mundane. She went to school. She hung out with her friends occasionally. She studied. She worked.
Work!
Could it be the creepy guy who had given her the huge tip? She tried to picture him in her mind, but drew a blank. He was faceless, like so many other customers. Nameless, faceless, sources of frequent annoyance, and rare pleasantness. And occasional moments of creepiness. She was sure she hadn’t seen him before however. She knew she would remember if she had recognized him.
Who else?
The bum sniffer? He was definitely weird. Assuming she hadn’t imagined the whole thing. She couldn’t be sure anymore. Her imagination was now in control, filling in the blanks with outlandish ideas, to the point she was no longer sure of what had happened.
Her stomach grumbled.
All she did know was she was starving. Which probably wasn’t helping her memory. She hadn’t eaten in three days and she felt weak. She knew she would have to eat the next time food was lowered. A thought dawned on her. Walking over to the hole in the floor, she reached in, fishing around for one of the sandwiches. She grasped something momentarily but it broke apart in her grip. Removing her hand she saw the leftover paste of the bun stuck to her fingers. Yuck! She shoved her hand back in the water and shook it to clean off the mess that was her hidden meal, no longer as hungry.
Eldridge was surprised to find Shakespeare and the priest laughing together and eating donuts. Correction. Shakespeare was eating donuts, although the priest did have evidence of an earlier dalliance, a little bit of powder on his otherwise perfectly black robe.
“Ahh, here he is, Father,” said Shakespeare, rising to his feet. “Detective Hayden Eldridge, this is Father O'Neil.” Eldridge shook the priest's hand. He was a tall, lean man in his seventies with brilliant silver hair and a thin, deeply lined face, weathered by decades of exposure to the elements. His simple, black robe, in immaculate condition, his collar as brilliant a white as the day he first slipped it on. The genuine smile on his face disarmed Eldridge, he at once felt like he could tell this man anything. Which if he was lucky, would be exactly what someone else had done. “Father O'Neil was my parish priest when I was a boy,” explained Shakespeare.
“You went to church?” Eldridge hoped he didn’t sound too incredulous.
“Mr. Shakespeare was an altar boy when he was younger.” O'Neil looked back at Shakespeare. “But we don't see him that often anymore.” Shakespeare looked briefly at the floor. “Something tells me you'd have quite the confession if you were to come in, son.”
“Father, you don't have the time to hear my confession,” smiled Shakespeare. “It would take way too long.”
Eldridge had to agree. If only the Father knew what had become of his altar boy. “Perhaps we can take this into an interview room where we can have some privacy?” suggested Eldridge. “I understand you may have some information on a case?”
O'Neil nodded and followed Eldridge to a nearby room. “Yes, I think one of my parishioners might be involved.”
“What makes you say that?” asked Shakespeare.
“Well, you understand, if I heard anything in my confessional, I couldn’t say anything, but something I stumbled upon got me worried.”
“We understand, Father,” said Eldridge. “Please continue.”
“There's a young man who has been coming to my church for probably four or five years,” explained O'Neil. “He’s shy and awkward, probably what you would call a ‘loner’. He always came to church alone, several times a week and always sat as far back as he could in the pews. The first few weeks I respected his privacy, but after a while I decided maybe he was needing to talk to somebody. I approached him and we struck up a conversation. Over the following months we continued to speak and eventually I was able to discover that he was living on his own in a nearby apartment, his parents and older sister had been killed in a car accident and he had been on his own since he was seventeen.”
“What was his name?” asked Shakespeare.
Father O'Neil raised his hand. “Patience, Justin, I see we still have the habit of jumping to the end of the book first.” Shakespeare, suitably admonished, sat back and fidgeted with the arm of his chair. “Over the years we became closer but he never truly opened up until about three years ago.”
“What happened three years ago?” asked Eldridge.
“He asked if he could help us on the computers. He was quite good at it and ended up helping me around the office. He became quite a whiz. He read about computers, networking, the Internet, everything, voraciously, at the library. Not a day went by where I wouldn't see him with a book under his arm.” Eldridge and Shakespeare exchanged excited glances at this. “He networked my office, set up a web page, really brought us into the twenty-first century. Anyway, one day, about two years ago, he came to me very distraught, and said he had run into a man who said he was his uncle. He said he remembered the man vaguely from when he was a teenager, but hadn't heard from him since. He said the man had told him his mother had given up a child for adoption when she was a teenager and he had a sister out there somewhere.”
Eldridge leaned back in his chair. “How did he take the news?”
“He was excited by the possibility and asked what he should do. I told him he should try to find her but to be prepared for her not wanting to have contact with him. From then on almost every free moment was spent looking for her, months of visiting adoption agencies, searching on the Internet, looking over birth notices, everything.”
“Did he find her?” asked Shakespeare, the arm of his chair no longer of interest.
O'Neil nodded. “Yes, he did. He knew what hometown his mother had been born in, and somehow, I don't think this part was legal, got access to her hospital records, found out the date she gave birth and the name on the birth certificate. He used that to find his sister on a website that apparently caters to adoptees looking for their birth parents.”
Eldridge leaned forward in his chair. “When did he find her?”
“About a year ago. They arranged to meet and as far as I know, he w
ent to that meeting. I didn't see him for days afterward and I began to get worried it hadn't gone well. About a week later he showed up at the church and was a different man. He continued to help out, but never spoke of his sister again. I decided not to press it, figuring she had rejected him for some reason.”
“But why do you think this relates to our case?”
“Two weeks ago he was doing something on the computer and turned it off as soon as I came in the room. He was acting a little strange and left quickly. I was concerned, so I decided to look at his computer. He hadn't shut it down properly, it was still stuck on a program and I saw one of the videos that's been on TV.”
“Millions of people have been downloading those,” said Shakespeare.
“Which is why I didn't think too much of it at the time. But then when he didn't show up for a couple of weeks, I decided to look at his computer and found these.” He pulled a folder from a leather case he had brought with him. Eldridge flipped open the folder and whistled at the printouts of the same biblical threats the Rochester family had received. “I found these on the hard drive so I called Justin right away.”
Eldridge examined the pages and nodded. “You were right to bring this to us. Do you have his name and address, we'll need to check him out.”
O'Neil pulled another folder out and pushed it toward Eldridge. “His name is Jeremiah Lansing. This is everything I have on him.” He turned to Shakespeare. “Please Justin, he's still just a boy inside who's been through an awful lot. Make sure nothing happens to him when you arrest him.”
Depraved Difference (A Detective Shakespeare Mystery, Book #1) Page 21