Fatally Bound

by Roger Stelljes

  “I take it the fire marshal is not in attendance,” Wire quipped.

  The first fight started, two mid-sized white guys stood in the octagon. “What are those guys?” Mac asked. “Maybe one hundred fifty pounds?”

  “’bout that, I’d say. They both look ripped.”

  “It’s a little hard to tell with all the tattoos.”

  Mac and Wire kept scanning the crowd for Lewis but he wasn’t in the bar. The Nittany Lion crowd started roaring in the second round, when the more tattooed of the two fighters was sitting on top of the other, on his knees, leaning in and furiously pounding on his opponent with lefts and rights, the ground and pound. His opponent was squirming, moving his head side to side, shielding with his arms.

  “The guy is defenseless. Geez,” Wire yelped and grimaced as the man on the mat took a wicked right hand to the face.

  “That’s the nature of the fight,” Mac answered as the man on the mat gave in and tapped out. The referee frantically waved his arms to end the fight and the winner ran and jumped up to the top of the ring’s fencing, holding his arms up in victory. “Like I said earlier, it’s nothing more than human cockfighting.” Mac looked away from the television towards the back of the bar and to a man who walked in wearing a black hooded sweatshirt over his head. He had a beard, was over six feet with broad shoulders. A man, even in an extremely crowded bar, people gave space to.

  “Casually turn to your right, Dara, ten feet inside the back door. See the guy in the black hoodie? Is that our guy?”

  Wire did as instructed, peering over her right shoulder, looking to the back of the bar. She turned back and looked down to her phone and then slowly back again. “Maybe.”

  Mac dialed Stiglitch, who answered on the second ring. “From your position, look 10:00 to 11:00, maybe ten to fifteen feet inside the back door and the guy wearing the dark hoodie. What do you think? Is that Lewis?”

  “I’d say it’s worth a look.” Mac casually slid out of the booth and led Wire down the walkway, casually glancing to his left in the direction of the hooded man. Detective Lee, dressed in the red Phillies pullover, pushed himself up off his barstool and slowly maneuvered his way through the mass of bodies toward the hooded man while Stiglitch was approaching from the front, coming down the opposite side of the bar dividing the Nittany Lion.

  Wire watched the hooded man’s eyes. Instinctually, the man sensed someone or something boring in on him. He looked straight ahead, the direction from which Stiglitch was approaching. The two locked eyes and Stiglitch halted and hesitated for just a split second. The hooded man took a step back. Mac and Wire saw it.

  “Mac?”

  “We’re blown.”

  It was Lewis, who bolted out the back door.

  Stiglitch and Lee gave pursuit, losing distance, getting caught in the wash of the crowd. Mac barreled his way through the crowd, yelling “Move! Police! Move! Police!” Dara was right on his six, hand on his back, pushing.

  Out the back door, Mac could see Stiglitch and Lee running twenty yards ahead, across the street and into a block of old two-story houses slotted tightly together. He and Wire sprinted to the edge of the block and the houses. Behind them Dorsett pulled by, yelling they were driving around to the north side of the block. The other unmarked car, the silver Dodge Charger, was driving down the street on the south side, aiming the spotlight in between the houses. Sirens were approaching from the distance.

  “Come on.” Mac led Wire into the grouping of houses, quickly picking their way along, listening and looking. Then there they heard a loud grimace of someone in pain and a crash up to the left. Mac pushed ahead and found Lee lying on the ground, moaning. “Stay with him,” he whispered and Wire leaned down to the detective who was holding his right arm.

  Mac looked up and took two steps forward and heard another crash up to the left. The spotlights, filtering through the gaps between the houses, illuminated them, a quick flash of a silhouette on the side of a white house of two men battling. One man was on top of and pounding on the other. McRyan sprinted towards the silhouette. As he came around the corner of the house, he was tackled violently off his feet and down onto his back by Lewis, who began pounding on him with his fists one after the other, Mac trying to block them with his arms, unsuccessfully.

  Wire charged from the left, lowering her shoulder. Lewis sensed her coming and at the last second ducked and Wire flew over him. As she did, her right knee caught the top of Lewis’ head, dazing and pushing him enough to give Mac room to free himself, roll to his left, get on his feet, reach back and draw his gun.

  Lewis was up “cat” quick and charged Mac, who sidestepped just to his right as the man wrapped him in his arms and pushed him back into the side of the house.

  Mac, his right arm free slammed down on the back of Lewis’s head with the butt of his gun, dazing him, eliciting a groan, loosening the bear hug and freeing Mac’s legs. With both feet on the ground now, Mac up kicked the man in the chin with his right knee, which caused his head to snap back. With a round-house right, Mac pistol whipped him again on the side of the head, sending him crashing to the ground. He jumped on top of Lewis, rolled him over onto his stomach and pulled the man’s right arm high up against his back, causing him to groan again in excruciating pain, immobilizing him. Wire, still a bit dazed, was up, stumbled over and quickly slapped her handcuffs on his left hand and pulled the left arm up to meet the right and finished cuffing him.

  Mac rolled off the man and onto the ground, lying on his back, breathing heavily. “Jesus,” he exclaimed as he lay on the ground, trying to catch his breath.

  Wire kneeled down, her right hand on his chest, “Mac, your face, you’re all bloody.”

  He sat up and wiped at his face. His hand was smeared with blood and he could feel the wetness in his scalp. “I’m just cut, I think. Are you okay?”

  Wire nodded.

  The commotion on the block had porch and floodlights turned on and people coming out onto their back steps to see what all the commotion was. To their left, Mac and Wire saw two people leaning over and tending to Lee. Gesch, Delmonico, Dorsett and another plainclothes officer came running between the houses from the north side of the block and found everyone lying around. “Are we all right here?” Dorsett asked, holstering his gun and turning off his flashlight.

  Stiglitch was up, walking slowly and woozily towards them. “He looks relatively okay,” Wire said. “But Lee?” She pointed twenty feet back to the east and the two neighbors. “He’s in tough shape. I think he has a broken arm and maybe more.”

  Gesch leaned down and pulled the hood back on the man’s head. “So you’re the Reaper.”

  “Reaper?” Lewis replied, confused. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Might be an untapped genius.”

  It was after 1:00 A.M. by the time McRyan and Wire made it back to the Harrisburg Police Bureau, returning from the emergency room. Mac was now the proud owner of eleven stitches covering two gashes in his upper forehead, one in his scalp, the other just below with a butterfly bandage over it. The doctor said he was likely to end up with a shiner in a few days as well and he had bruising around his right eye already. He looked like he’d been in a bar fight, which to a certain degree he had been.

  “Mr. McRyan, I’d suggest a lot of Ibuprofen, ice and rest to keep the swelling down.” Mac had no doubt there would be plenty of Ibuprofen, perhaps some ice, but little if any rest in the coming days.

  The ice pack was applied on the ride back in the car, but Mac dumped it in the garbage can once they went inside. The arrest was already on the news with headlines that the Reaper may have been caught.

  Sally and the Judge called upon seeing the reports and video footage on the cable channels, “Is it true? Did you get him? That’s what all the cable news channels are reporting.”

  Wire looked to Mac, who shook his head and stated, “Don’t believe everything you hear.”

  The Judge hear
d the tone, “Mac, you don’t think he’s the guy, do you?”

  “Just don’t get out ahead of this yet.” Something about Lewis didn’t compute to him. He couldn’t put his finger on it yet.

  Mac was then cross-examined by Sally for five minutes about his medical status. Sally had seen the footage of him with his bloody face, in fact it was plastered all over the cable channels. “Just a little wrestling while trying to subdue the suspect is all,” he answered. “I have some stitches, no big deal.”

  “Riiiight,” Sally replied. “I guess that’s why the media is reporting two Harrisburg cops are in the hospital for observation after a little wrestling to subdue the suspect.” He thought about trying to deflect some more but decided not to. It would only inflame her. Instead, he tried a different tact, with a lighter tone, “Hey, you volunteered me for this duty.”

  That didn’t work either.

  “Yeah, and I can un-volunteer you in case you’ve forgotten who I work for,” she retorted, a sternness in her voice.

  “I’m fine,” and with a little extra growl in return, added, “And I ain’t leaving,” His tone said the conversation was now closed and Sally backed off. Sometimes he thought she cross-examined him just so she was on the record and later could say, “I told you so,” which he swore were four of her favorite words.

  They both liked to be right.

  They both rarely admitted defeat.

  They both were usually smart enough to know when to walk away from the fight before they said things that were really hard to take back.

  Instead, they let it go and made nice to each other for a few minutes and by the time he hung up he felt like smiling.

  “Is everything all right?” Wire asked. “I wasn’t listening but watching suggested it got a little heated.”

  “Nothing you haven’t seen or heard before. She just worries.”

  “And she’s feeling guilty,” Wire added. “She pushed you into this case. If something happened, she’d have to live with that for the rest of her life.”

  “She pushed, sure, but I decided. It was my call.”

  “Trust me,” Wire answered, stopping, looking Mac dead in eye so he understood. “I led men and women into going undercover against the mob, Mac. It can be your decision all you want it to be, but if something happens to you, if this thing does go all sideways somehow, she’ll blame herself. I know. I did.”

  Mac took the measure of Wire and asked, looking her right in the eye: “Do you ever get over it?”

  “No. You learn to live with it but you never get over it.”

  “Good to know, I guess,” he said as they started walking back down the hall.

  Dara talked as they walked, “Look, the point is, at the end of the day you’re right, it was your decision, Mac. You’re a cop. She knows that when you walk out the door every day that there are big risks with that job. In the past, that was your call and she had nothing to do with it. But this time, she played a role in you walking out the door and into the line of fire. That isn’t something she usually would do. So if something happened, she’ll spend the rest of her life asking herself ‘what if?’ So just cut her a little slack on this one, is all I’m saying. She’s going to be edgy.”

  Mac thought about it as they kept walking and then said quietly, “You’re right.”

  It wasn’t a bad thing to get some perspective on where Sally was coming from. As much as he missed Lich, Riles and Rock, Wire gave him insight and advice he wouldn’t otherwise get from that crew.

  Cedric Lewis, given his history, was quite familiar with the mechanics of the legal system and immediately invoked his right to an attorney. His criminal lawyer, accustomed to late night phone calls, was now meeting with his client. While they waited to deal with Lewis, Mac and Wire found Gesch and Delmonico waiting in another interview room.

  “According to Dorsett, Lewis’s attorney is an old pro who knows what he’s doing and is walking through things with Lewis,” Gesch reported.

  Mac and Wire, sipping coffee, were tag team reading through the file on Lewis, each pointing at various pieces of information as they read through his background.

  Cedric Lewis was twenty-six years old. His current employment was twofold, as a roofer and he was a mixed martial arts fighter, although his record suggested it wasn’t a long-term career path. “He’s six and six in his professional matches,” Wire noted.

  “He’s six and seven now, I took him tonight,” Mac replied.

  “Typical,” Wire snorted, shaking her head at Mac.

  “What?”

  “I think you had some help.”

  Mac mockingly rolled his eyes, “Okay, correction, we took him tonight.”

  “Thank you.”

  Dorsett stuck his head in the room, “They’re ready for us.”

  Gesch and Dorsett took the interrogation. Mac, Wire and Delmonico watched from the observation room. As the ground rules were laid, Mac continued to read through Lewis’s file, and what bothered him about their suspect finally crystallized in his mind. As Gesch was about to begin questioning, Mac blurted: “Twenty bucks he’s not our guy. No, make that a hundred. In fact, make it a grand.”

  Wire knew Mac and the look. She said: “No bet.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Delmonico asked, skeptical. “He’s got a history of violence against women. You said it yourself that serials often start with someone they know. Lewis is a regular or at least semi-regular at the Nittany Lion where he came across Melissa Goynes. He’s the right size, has the beard, the hoodie look tonight and he did his best Running Man routine tonight to get away.”

  “He’s probably guilty of something. but not this.”

  “Why not?”

  “Our killer is organized, methodical, a planner, gets away from each crime scene without leaving any evidence, knows to keep his head down around surveillance cameras, attacks and kills these women in the perfect places so as to not be discovered and administers an anesthetic before carving them up. I mean, three for three and the best we’ve got on him is a grainy surveillance image of the lower half of his face and he has a beard.”

  “So?”

  “Would you agree that takes a certain amount of intelligence?” Mac asked Delmonico.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, our boy Lewis here never graduated high school. He has a menial job as a roofer and a mixed martial arts fighter, although, from his record, you might as well stamp Everlast across his forehead because he’s nothing more than a punching bag. Sure, he has a police record for violence and as Gesch said, he likes violence, is drawn to it. So he’s a bad guy, a thug who smacks women around when he’s not getting smacked around in the octagon. He’s a hammer in search of a nail. But is he the Reaper?” Mac shook his head. “He just doesn’t have the brain power for it.”

  “Might be an untapped genius,” Delmonico speculated, more hopeful than convinced.

  “No,” Mac replied, shaking his head. “He’s not our guy. Are you going to take my bet Grace?”

  “I’m thinking,” she answered.

  She wanted nothing to do with the bet.

  It took about twenty minutes of the interview to see Lewis wasn’t their guy. He ran because he and his girlfriend got in a fight, he hit her and he thought she’d called the police. When he saw the detective at the bar, he ran. He had an alibi for Donahue’s death. He was sparring with a top heavyweight fighter out at a farm where he trains in Altoona, two hours west of Harrisburg. Lewis claimed to be doing the same for the date of the murder of the second victim. Janelle Wyland, in Salisbury, Maryland. He wasn’t sure about the night Goynes was killed but vehemently denied killing her.

  “We’ll need to run the alibis,” Delmonico said dejectedly.

  A Harrisburg detective came into the observation room and handed a piece of paper to Delmonico. “We have the search warrant for Lewis’s place. Let’s go take a look.”

  Lewis lived in a rundown three-story 1970s-style apartment building. His one-bedroom unit
was on the third floor. The man did not keep a neat house, with dilapidated furniture, little in the refrigerator and clothes strewn about the apartment. His television was an old box kind that sat on a fabricated entertainment center well into its third decade. There was no organization, cleanliness or frankly, signs of intelligent life.

  “We’ll get the crime scene people through here,” Delmonico suggested. “Just in case,” she was warming to Mac’s theory.

  Four hours later, the alibis were confirmed. Lewis was not their guy. In the observation room, Mac, Wire, Delmonico, Gesch and Dorsett talked about next steps. Lewis would technically remain a person of interest for a while, but he wasn’t the Reaper. Mac looked at the surveillance photo of the Reaper and said to Gesch, “I want to ask Lewis a question, is it okay if I go in?”

  “To do what?”

  “Take a long shot.”

  Mac stepped into the interrogation room. “My name is Detect …” he had a hard time of thinking of himself as a federal agent, “make that Agent McRyan, I’m working with the FBI on the task force looking for the Reaper.”

  Lewis recognized him from their earlier fight, “How’s your head?” he asked mockingly, pointing to the butterfly on Mac’s forehead.

  “How’s yours?”

  “They don’t allow pistol whipping in MMA.”

  “Yeah, but that vicious upkick I put into your chin with my knee is allowed, right? I mean, as I analyze our encounter, that was the critical momentum turning blow, was it not?”

  Lewis shrugged and nodded, massaging his jaw.

  Mac looked to the lawyer, “I want to ask your client a question about this picture.” He put the surveillance photo in front of Lewis.

  “That’s not my client,” the lawyer stated.

  “That’s not me,” Lewis exclaimed, thinking the questioning was beginning again.