The Ackerman Thrillers Boxset: 1-6

by Ethan Cross

  As Marcus stepped out, the snow crunched beneath his feet and came over the top of his tennis shoes. He wished that he had invested in a good pair of boots, but it was too late now. His socks were already soaked from his last walk in the snow, and his feet were freezing.

  He pressed the doorbell, but nothing happened. Knocking instead, he heard movement inside, and a light came on. He tried to glimpse the interior through the glass in the front door, but thick blue curtains covered all the doors and windows. After a moment, the door cracked open and a groggy man peeked out, wearing red flannel pants and a white T-shirt that was yellowed from age and sweat. His gaze was wary, darting around the small porch, and he left the chain lock in place. His hair was long and had an oily sheen. The stink of body odor crept out from behind the door.

  “What do you want?”

  “Rudy Kolenda?”

  “Yeah, what’s this about?”

  “Sorry for disturbing you at such a late hour, sir.” Marcus raised his ID. The man squinted at it, and Marcus pushed it closer. “I’m from the Department of Justice. I’m just here to ask you a couple of quick questions, and then I’ll let you get back to sleep.”

  The man shook his head in confusion. When he spoke, his voice was thick, as though his tongue was too big for his mouth. “Questions about what?”

  “About a string of abductions and murders that have been taking place in the Chicago area.”

  The man was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, “Just a second.” He shut the door again.

  Marcus stamped his feet against the cold and blew into his hands. He expected the man to be unlatching the chain or maybe slipping on a coat to step outside. A guy like this could have drugs sitting out on a coffee table and would never willingly usher an officer of the law into his home.

  There was some rustling and shuffling on the other side of the door. Then there was a sound that Marcus recognized immediately. The sound of a shotgun being pumped back.

  He dove away from the door just as it exploded outward. Fire and flame. The heat of the blast searing his skin. Pieces of wood and fiberglass filling the air. Ears ringing. Heart pounding. He landed in a rose bush and rolled away, the thorns clawing at his face and hands.

  Purely on instinct, he pulled the Sig Sauer pistol from his shoulder rig.

  Then the greasy-haired man in the yellowed T-shirt threw open the door and raised the shotgun to fire again.

  54

  Marcus rolled away as the shotgun boomed again. Snow and black dirt twisted up and into the air a few feet to his left. Without really aiming, he opened fire with his P220 pistol. Ten .45 ACP rounds tore into the ruined frame of the house’s front door. He dropped the mag and popped in another, but Rudy Kolenda was already gone.

  Weapon at the ready, Marcus approached the house. Kolenda was probably heading for the back door, and Andrew would have heard the shots and been ready for him at the rear of the building. But Marcus wasn’t taking any chances. He did it by the numbers, scrutinizing the rooms from cover and checking all the corners.

  The inside of the house was disgusting. The walls might have been white at one time, but now the drywall was yellowed down to the studs. The whole place stank of cigarette smoke, sweat, and moldy food. Stacks of newspapers, plates of half-eaten meals, candy wrappers, and piles of dirty clothes nearly blocked out the dull orange carpet. A brown and white couch sat in the living room. Long slashes exposed the couch’s innards. Cigarette burns scarred its arms. The bedroom was just a mattress on the floor surrounded by dirty clothes, loose change, and pornography. The only clean spot contained a square mirror covered by a pipe and small white rocks of methamphetamine. Dirty dishes covered the kitchen counters and table. Drawers and cabinets had been opened but never pushed back shut, exposing overturned boxes of food.

  Marcus reached the back door. “Andrew?”

  His partner stepped around the corner, a .40 caliber Glock 22 in his hand. Marcus said, “Did he get past you?”

  “No way. He didn’t come out the back.”

  Marcus swore under his breath. The only door he had ignored had opened onto a set of bare wood stairs that descended to the house’s basement. He hadn’t expected Kolenda to trap himself down there, but maybe he had more firepower stashed below. Or another way out. “Did you see an egress window or a cellar door out there?” he whispered.

  “Nothing like that.”

  “Okay, cover the basement door. I’m going to do another quick sweep of the upstairs. I don’t want to give him our backs.”

  He proceeded into each room as if he hadn’t already checked it. The search of the small house only took a few seconds. All clear. He rejoined Andrew at the top of the stairs. Nodding, Marcus pushed the door inward as Andrew covered him and shone his flashlight down into the murky depths of the basement. They were silent for a moment, listening. Nothing from below.

  Andrew stepped toward the stairs, but Marcus stopped him with an outstretched arm. “Did you hear that?” Marcus moved back to the bedroom and heard it again.

  Just a creak of the house as it contracted in the cold?

  The house was silent except for the hum of the furnace and the distant drone of cars out on Route 43.

  But there it was again.

  This time he tracked it back to its source. It wasn’t coming from below, but from above. The attic.

  Andrew started to open his mouth to speak, but Marcus placed a single finger against his own lips and the gesture silenced him. Marcus crept slowly over to the bedroom closet and looked up. The closet was missing the expected clothing rod and instead contained a faded mahogany bookshelf. The shelving could be used as foot and handholds to reach an access panel set into the ceiling.

  He found an umbrella on the floor, and steadying himself with a hand on the top of the door frame, he climbed up onto the third shelf. He just needed to extend his reach enough to push open the panel. Guiding the umbrella toward the ceiling, he pressed the panel inward.

  A sound like thunder reverberated from above. A shotgun blast destroyed the access panel and shredded the top of the umbrella. Marcus fell back down and rolled away from the closet as three more shots tore through the ceiling and into the bookshelf. Drywall dust and fibers of pink insulation filled the air like a sandstorm. He responded by raising the P220 pistol and placing several shots of his own into the ceiling.

  The dust and pink insulation floated down on him, causing his skin to itch and burn as he got back onto his feet and listened.

  Silence answered him.

  Then another blast, but this one more distant. Not directed at them.

  Andrew said, “What’s he doing?”

  At first, Marcus had no idea. But then he cursed and said, “He must have blown out a vent or something. He’s trying to get out through the roof. Head outside and try to cut him off!”

  Andrew took off around the corner, and Marcus scrambled up the bookshelf and into the attic. The space was empty except for exposed beams and insulation below and exposed rafters and OSB sheeting above. A ragged hole had been torn in the side of the wall ahead of him where a circular vent had once hung. On his hands and knees, he moved forward and through the hole. An old TV antenna clung to the side of the building, and he used it to help him descend to the ground.

  He caught a glimpse of a shadowy form hurrying away through the alley. The sound of frantic footfalls crunched in the new fallen snow. Once on the ground, he took off in pursuit. Andrew came around the side of the building, hard on his heels.

  The air was freezing and heavy in his lungs, but Marcus willed his legs to pump faster and faster. He was gaining on Kolenda, the greasy-haired man encumbered by the shotgun he still clutched in his right hand.

  Kolenda wheeled around and opened fire, but he was too far away and didn’t take the time to aim. The blast tore into a wooden fence beside a red-brick home. Marcus didn’t slow down.

  Dropping the shotgun, Kolenda stumbled through the snow. Tripping through backyards, fumbling
his way over side streets. A Beretta came up from his waistband, and he fired again. His shots were wild and undisciplined, but Marcus feared that one of the stray bullets would find a nearby house. The man was screaming. But the angry shouts contained only primal sounds of anger, nothing coherent.

  Kolenda was nearly at Route 43. From there he could try to grab a car or stumble into one of the many businesses lining that road and take hostages.

  Marcus wanted him alive.

  He took cover behind a light pole and sighted in low. The .45 boomed, and one of Kolenda’s legs buckled. The man wailed in pain and anger, but he wasn’t down. He stumbled the last few feet into the four-lane traffic of Route 43.

  Cars came to screeching halts, sliding into each other on the slush-filled road. The sounds of squealing tires, protesting brake pads, and twisting metal assailed the roadway. One of the cars, a red Ford Festiva, slammed into Kolenda and sent him sliding across the ground. He rolled through the icy brown slurry covering the road, but somehow he kept hold of the Beretta. The crystal meth had given him extra strength. He probably hadn’t even felt the impact.

  Marcus took aim. “Drop the gun! You’ve got nowhere to go.”

  Kolenda laughed. His eyes were wild. He radiated an air of madness. He was either truly insane or so hopped up on drugs that he had lost his faculties. Maybe a bit of both.

  “Don’t do it!”

  Blood was on Kolenda’s teeth as he smiled and raised the Beretta.

  Marcus fired three times. Each round struck its intended target. One in the brain, two in the chest. Kolenda fell back into the dirty sludge of the roadway, his blood adding its own taint to the mix.

  55

  Marcus called in the incident, although he was sure that people in the neighborhood had already reported the shots. Two black-and-whites arrived from the local PD within a few minutes. Andrew flashed his credentials and respectfully directed the cops to cover the body and secure the perimeter. They had only a short time before word of the incident leaked out to the detectives and Belacourt and his crew from the Major Crimes Task Force showed their faces. Marcus wanted to get a look at Kolenda’s basement, and he wasn’t in the mood to fight his way past Belacourt and his cronies in order to do so.

  Returning to Kolenda’s filth-ridden home, Marcus descended the stairs. The bare boards creaked beneath his weight. The air was cool and moist, but he also detected the smell of mold and a strange chemical musk. The basement had a concrete floor, but it was covered with a layer of dirt, probably the legacy of a previous flooding. Red metal jacks supported the floor above. A furnace and a large blue and white water heater sat in one corner, but most of the space was open and unused. The only partition was a makeshift wall of old mismatched wood paneling. The door was just another section of paneling with hinges mounted on one edge. But a padlock secured the opening.

  Marcus gripped the padlock and yanked. The wood was thin and brittle, and the screws of the lock plate pulled away easily from the wall. The home-made door swung open with a moan. Its lower half grated over the concrete floor and caught at the halfway point. But the opening was more than big enough for Marcus to slip through.

  Inside, he found an old wooden table. A screwdriver and two butcher knives sat atop it. Dried blood was caked on all three. If he had to guess, he would have said it was chicken blood or that of a stray cat that Kolenda had used as a sacrifice. But it could just as easily have been human. The far wall contained a mixture of strange satanic-looking symbols and jumbled, incoherent writings, but none seemed to match those from the previous crime scenes. The strangest aspect of the room was the countless sheets of thin book pages hanging from the rafters above on lengths of fishing line. Marcus looked closely at one of the pages. It had been torn from the Book of Revelation. Several passages had been furiously underlined in red ink.

  He recalled Kolenda’s medical records that they had borrowed from the dead man’s former psychiatrist’s office. The files stated that Kolenda was paranoid and delusional. Add crystal meth to that equation, and you got a deadly combination. But something still wasn’t right.

  Judging by the look on his partner’s face, Marcus guessed that Andrew had come to the same conclusion. Andrew said, “It’s not him, is it?”

  “I don’t think so. Our guy is a highly organized offender. This place is a mess. And Kolenda lives alone. I still think the Anarchist has a family. Kolenda was definitely a nutjob. He’s just not our nutjob.”

  They searched through the basement for a few more moments but then heard the sound of someone heavy and out of breath descending the stairs. “You down here, Williams?”

  Marcus rolled his eyes. He had hoped to avoid Detective Sergeant Belacourt, but that would have been too easy. “Over here.”

  Belacourt slipped through the makeshift door and took in the scene. Stupak was close behind him. The thin black man was perfectly groomed and wearing a suit more suitable for a high-priced attorney. Belacourt was sweating like a pig, streams of perspiration running down his forehead and collecting in his hair. Marcus wondered how anyone could break a sweat in such cold weather. Maybe the detective had the flu or a penchant for certain substances, legal or illegal, himself?

  The detective shook his head and rubbed at his mustache. “Second time today that you’ve discharged your weapon in public. Congratulations. You know, I’ve got cops that have been on the force for over twenty years and the only times that they’ve fired a weapon on duty is when they’ve had to put down an injured animal hit by a car.”

  “Good for them.”

  “Maybe you can help me out. I’ve been trying to decide whether trouble follows you around or if you go looking for it.”

  “Just lucky, I guess.”

  “You’re a real smart-ass, you know that?” Belacourt stepped close, within a foot of Marcus. The cop’s eyes were full of an abnormal amount of hatred. His breath smelled of cigar smoke and meatballs.

  Marcus didn’t shy away. Instead, he smiled. “I’d rather be a smart-ass than a dumb-ass like you.”

  “Stay the hell out of my investigation! I won’t say it again.”

  “That’s good. I’d hate to have to keep ignoring you. You might develop a complex.”

  Belacourt shoved him.

  It wasn’t really a violent or powerful shove. It was the act of someone who couldn’t come up with anything intelligent to say and was not really meant to start a fight. Marcus knew that. He could have ignored it. He could have turned the other cheek and walked away. He had nothing to prove, nothing to gain.

  But he also was sick of the cop’s crap, dead tired, and sore all over. Plus he had a thousand thorns piercing into his brain that needed his attention more than some suburban detective staking out his territory. The thorns needed to be pulled before he could rest. Maggie. Ackerman. Missing tapes. The Anarchist. The abducted women, maybe still alive out there somewhere, scared and alone. The night his parents died.

  He didn’t need anything more to worry about, but at every turn, there was Belacourt, complicating things, aching to butt heads with him.

  Marcus moved before he realized what he was doing. It was as if he had momentarily stepped outside himself and had taken on the role of spectator rather than active participant. His right hand clamped over Belacourt’s left fist, and he squeezed hard. Belacourt’s face contorted into a mask of agony, but Marcus didn’t stop there. Before anyone else in the room could react, he twisted Belacourt’s arm behind his back and slammed him against the concrete wall.

  Marcus screamed at the cop, but it didn’t sound like his own voice. It was deep and frightening. It frightened even him. “Who do you think you’re playing with!”

  Then he felt other arms wrapping around his back and more screaming. They pulled him away from the detective. He didn’t resist. He let them drag him to the dirty ground. Someone shoved his cheek down against the concrete, the grit there grinding against his face like sandpaper. The sound of shuffling feet, more people coming down the st
airs.

  He heard Belacourt yelling. “Cuff him! I’m pressing charges!” Then someone slapped on the restraints. Marcus closed his eyes. He really didn’t need this right now.

  Day Five – December 19 Morning

  56

  As they were getting ready for school, Melanie Schofield grabbed her father’s hand and dragged him out of the kitchen to the dining room table. She had assembled a paper lunch bag, cotton balls, construction paper, crayons, and scissors. She looked up at him with her large green eyes, curly brown hair cascading down the shoulders of her pink shirt, and said, “I’m sorry, Daddy.” She was on the verge of tears.

  “Why are you sorry, baby?”

  She stuck out her bottom lip. “I was supposed to make this Santa Claus picture with you last night, but I forgot. The teacher’s gonna be mad. We’re supposed to hang them up on the wall today for the parents to see when they walk into the gym for the Christmas play. But I forgot, and now I’m gonna be the only one without a Santa picture.”

  “Honey, don’t worry.” Harrison Schofield bent down and placed a hand on her shoulder. He smiled warmly as he checked his watch. “I bet we’ve got time to finish it before we leave. And if not, then we’ll take your brother and sister to school and then Daddy will call work and tell them that I’m going to be late, that I’ve got more important business to take care of. It will all work out. Trust me.”

  Melanie grinned, showing her missing front teeth. “Thanks, Daddy.”

  “Oh, no. You’re not getting off that easy.” He tapped a spot on his cheek, and she strained up on her tiptoes and kissed him. “Who’s your best buddy?”

  “Daddy is.”

  “And who’s the awesomest, most super-cool dad in the whole wide world?”

  She rolled her eyes and giggled. “You are, Daddy!”