Dahmer's Not Dead

by Edward Lee

  Now Helen’s senses seemed prickling. “And according to the roster at the prison, Kussler was on duty that same morning. But…” Here was a snag. “Was it Kussler who beat up on Dahmer’s face, or Rosser, the guy who’s been charged?”

  “It had to have been Rosser, Captain. At least that’s my guess. Because the beating verifiably took place in the rec unit, and the only guys in the rec unit at the time were Dahmer, Vander, and Rosser.”

  “So Rosser must have been on it too, right?”

  “Had to have been,” Beck agreed. “Rosser agreed to beat Dahmer bad about the face. A short time later, Kussler gets into the infirmary and injects Dahmer with the succinicholine, or maybe Rosser did the injection himself. The prison physician pronounces him dead ’cos he’s got no vital signs. And the prints match every time they ran them because, up until the time he arrived here, it was Dahmer they were transporting.”

  “And Rosser beats Vander up too, to make it look like a psychotic break. And nobody’s the wiser.”

  “Sure, it’s just a theory at this point,” Beck said, now fiddling with comparison microscope, “but I don’t see any other possible explanation that could account for Dahmer’s survival. And that’s one thing we know for sure now. Dahmer’s still alive, and he’s out there, right now, killing again.”

  ««—»»

  Beck’s summation helped Helen see it all now, but why bother running it by Olsher? Waste of time, she thought. Not until I get more evidence or manage to find Campbell.

  Campbell, she thought. Your picture’s going to be in the paper today. Try hiding from that, asshole.

  Next duty on the agenda, of course, was to reinterview Tredell Rosser, who was upstairs right now in the precaution ward. But when she was crossing the lobby, she stopped in at the newsstand to pick up today’s Tribune. And—

  “Goddamn!” she complained loud enough for everyone in the lobby to hear. She tore through the paper, examining every page for the composite and announcement, and—

  It’s not here!

  Nowhere in the paper was there any sign of Campbell’s artist composite or the corresponding announcement she’d written revealing his last name.

  Helen was on the pay phone at once, to Olsher.

  “Damn it, Larrel! Why wasn’t my—”

  “Save your breath,” Olsher told her over the line. “You want to know why the Tribune didn’t run you sketch and blurb, well I’ll tell you. The Commissioner’s Office said no way. Shit, Helen, the PC himself howled about it.”

  “Why?” Helen griped.

  “Because it’s a liability. Think, girl. You don’t have enough evidence on Campbell—whoever the hell he is, if he even exists at all—to add up to squat. You go running a guy’s likeness in the paper, along with his name, saying he’s wanted for questioning by the state police violent crimes unit? You know what he does then, Helen? He sues the department for fifty million and wins. It’s defamation of character. It’s an assault on his rights.”

  “Aw, Chief, give me a break!”

  Olsher’s voiced turned rigid. “I gave you a break this morning when I convinced the PC to keep you on the case, Helen. He wants you off. He thinks you’ve turned into a loose gun.”

  Helen squinted her incredulity. “You’re kid—”

  “I’m not kidding at all, Helen. You’ve shitnamed yourself bad. That exhumation only stirred the press up more, and now this. I told the PC you’re still the best investigator we got, so he agreed to keep you on. But any more bonehead moves like this, and I can’t cover for you anymore.”

  Olsher hung up even before Helen could complain further. What’s the point! she thought, walking for the elevator, a headache kicking at the inside of her skull. If it had been such a bonehead move, why had Olsher suggested she attempt authorization? Are all the men in the world thick-headed morons, or is it me?

  So now she was on the PC’s hit-list. Great. Olsher was right about one thing, though: she could kiss her promotion goodbye.

  I could care less, she told herself.

  This news about the paper wasn’t good; however, the news once she got upstairs was worse.

  Helen obstinately flashed her badge to the charge at the reception desk for the psych wing.

  “I need to talk to Tredell Rosser,” she said, more distracted by her headache than anything else.

  “Sorry, ma’am,” the guard informed her.

  “Sorry?”

  “This morning during med call, Rosser was found dead in his cell.”

  — | — | —

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “Hey, man.”

  He turns.

  The sly smile fades a bit. The beautiful deep-blue eyes open slightly in curiosity. “We met, man?

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Funny. You look sort’a familiar.”

  The man smiles. That is, the man who was once the boy from Bath, Ohio.

  ««—»»

  The Dock. He wants something off a ways from the Circle. Too much heat there lately… Thanks to me, he thinks. Another harmless bar, like Friends. The hard-hitters all went to the trade joints. But he doesn’t want that.

  “Another?” he asks.

  Music flutters. Some old Carly Simon tune. The barlight only embellishes the guy’s beautiful face. Cuts it down to bare, visible parts.

  Maybe I’ll do that later, he thinks.

  “Look, man, I appreciate the drinks and burger and all, but you know the score. I ain’t on the street ’cos I like fresh air.”

  “Sure, I know. I just…like you.”

  “Great. But what’s the score? We going or what?”

  He nods. “Yes, yes, I’m interested,” he says a bit peevishly. But that’s not like him, is it? Not now. Not after his awakening. “I have…someone at my place.”

  “A lover, huh?”

  “Yes,” he says. But that’s not a lie, is it? “Can we go to your place? I…I don’t want to use a motel. I’ll even pay extra.”

  “Don’t sweat it. I cop what every guy on the street cops—fifty bucks for head, a hundred for an hour. Two for all night.”

  From his wallet, then, he slips out four fifty-dollar bills, then slowly slides them across the bar.

  “Straight up,” the guy says. He’s handsome: chiseled, poised but kind of tough, tight clothes, and all the right moves. “Yeah, man. This is solid. Let’s go.” Another smile, sexy and sly. “I’ll do you right. Count on it.”

  ««—»»

  Helen needed to kill time. Well, she didn’t need to—she wanted to. It was essential she talk to Tom—about Rosser’s death—but talking to Tom wasn’t something she felt too comfortable doing right now. Have some guts, Helen, she told herself. But she drove around rather aimlessly. Waiting. Stalling.

  No guts were forthcoming.

  She even switched on her radio as an excuse, but the hourly news highlights only offered one pulpy report about Dahmer after the next. “—entire city locked in a reign of terror.” “—when will he strike next, and where?” “—in a fruitless search for associates who helped Dahmer escape incarceration.”

  “I saw him,” some whack reported on a call-in show. “I saw Dahmer! It was up near Dudley Circle. He had a beard and dyed his hair, but I just know it was him!”

  “Call in your Dahmer-sightings now!” the talk-show host implored.

  Idiots. Helen switched the radio off, but at the same instant, she heard over her scanner:

  “Federal Signal 12. This is a Federal response request. All available city, county, and state units in proximity to Perry Point Apartments, east grid, Madison, please respond. We could use your help to secure the scene.”

  At least here was an excuse to put off seeing Tom. Helen didn’t know what a Federal Signal 12 was, but Perry Point Apartments? That was Madison, the northeast fringe. And it was just around the corner.

  She parked by a wave of throbbing visibars, which turned the winter twilight into a stroboscopic blue-red world. First thing sh
e saw was a Green van with the stenciled side panel T.A. TIRES. That much I do know, she thought. T.A. Tires was a phony acronym—for T.A.T.—the F.B.I.’s Tacticle Assault Team.

  We must have a hostage situation here, she realized.

  She flashed her badge and ID three times, trying to get through the phalanx of armed cops from multiple departments. Then a voice called out: “Captain Closs!”

  Helen jerked around to see Special Agent Eules, the Bureau’s M.F.O. SAC Chief, trotting toward an opposing apartment building. “Come on!”

  Helen trotted right alongside, impressed that she hadn’t yet lost her breath. Without realizing it, she had her Beretta .25 drawn. Eules huffed right beside her.

  “Barricade situation?” she asked.

  “Yep. It’s some guy our BR Squad had tagged for a month—bank jobs. He knocked over a First Federal this afternoon, and we been on his ass since. He ditched his getaway on Forest Avenue, jumped the fence and came here. Grabbed the first female he saw and dragged her up to her apartment. I got a cherry-picker in the unit facing him.”

  Cherry-picker, she thought. More federal parlance, but Helen knew what a “cherry-picker” was. A sniper.

  “What’s he packing?” she asked, trying to sound on Eules’s level.

  “Right now, just a knife. He was toting a Glock when he took down the bank, but he emptied the clip at our guys when we surrounded him here.”

  Aw, no, Helen fretted. She was no gun expert, but she knew full well that a Glock was an rather notorious, part-composite semi-auto pistol. With a big clip. Like fifteen or sixteen rounds. She dreaded the next question, as any cop would. “Did you…did you lose any men?”

  “Naw, naw,” Eules casually replied. “All our people wear Kevlar jackets, Threat-Level III, with titanium rifle plates. He hit a few of my guys but they got right back up and dusted themselves off.”

  Thank God.

  Their footfalls pattered the steps. Three floors up, Helen followed Eules as he barged into a unit. “Behind you, guys,” he announced. “It’s Eules. Don’t pop no caps.”

  Two men in suits greeted him with curt nods. Some relay equipment had been plugged into the apartment’s phone.

  “You got that running yet?” Eules asked, pointing to one of the components.

  “It’s up and running, sir,” one suit said.

  The other suit: “We already called him. He says he’ll talk to you.”

  “Good.” Eules smiled imperceptibly. “Put us on intercom—not now, but on my mark.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  In the apartment’s darkness, Eules led Helen on to the front family room plate-glass window. The glass had been intricately removed via a diamond cutter and suction frame, so not to risk shattering. Frigid winter air gusted in, and before the window’s opening stood a man in dark-blue utilities—FBI in pale gold letters stamped across his back—and a reversed blue ball cap.

  “Talk to me, Sandie?” Eules asked. “What’s the target’s status?”

  “Nervous,” the sniper replied without taking his eye out of his rifle site. It was a long, black rifle, black grips, black stock, black barrel—a Beretta M82—fit with an array of sitting equipment at the rear of the muzzle. A high power scope and laser site, Helen guessed. The sniper continued, “Jerky, sweating, lot of nervous ticks. He’s high.”

  “Still got the knife?”

  “Yeah. He’s standing in front of the window like he’s got brass balls, got the knife to the female’s throat. He knows we’re spotting him.”

  “Fuck him,” Eules said. “You say he’s nervous. Is he flashing the knife any? Moving it around?”

  “Yeah. Every time he tries to ring us on the phone, he waves the knife around.”

  “Good. That’s your firing mark.” Then Eules passed Helen a pair of Zeiss binoculars. In the infinity-shaped border, she saw the guy, strutting his stuff before the window, with a pallid-faced woman standing before him. Her cheeks were washed with tears. He held a large sheath knife to her throat, and every so often pulled it away to wave it at them. A neon-red laser dot hovered at his shoulder.

  “You’re going to shoot this guy?” Helen queried.

  “No. We’re going to play pattycakes with him. We’re gonna take him out for pizza and go for rides at the amusement park.”

  “What I mean, Agent Eules, is isn’t it imprudent to lay fire on this guy considering his position. He’s got a knife. Even if you fire when he’s got the knife off her throat, the inertia from the round might knock him back.”

  “Can’t happen,” Eules asserted, peering into his own set of binoculars. “Autonomic impossibility. My guy’s firing a custom-loaded .50 round, no deflection through the glass. We’re talking two-thousand feet per second, with a foot-pounds measure that would knock the Jolly Green Giant on his ass. We going for a head shot. Once he gets hit with that round, his brain synapses release a flood of stage histamines which instantly causes his entire nervous system to distend. He’ll drop the knife and be dead before he hits the ground.”

  “Okay, fine,” Helen objected. “But how can you be absolutely sure?”

  “Justice Department clinical statistics. They’re never wrong.”

  “All right,” she went on. “But what about this? What if your sniper misses?”

  Eules offered her a disapproving glance. “My men never miss.”

  Helen shrugged, still watching the scene in her binoculars.

  “What’s the problem, Captain?” Eules asked.

  “No problem. I’ve never done a barricade situation before. I’m just wondering if some other scenario should be considered. Do you really have to kill this guy to terminate the situation?”

  Eules lowered his binoculars. “I’d appreciate your input. You got a better solution?”

  Helen watched further, watched the guy strut, laughing, pressing the knife to the crying woman’s throat. His other hand, then, came around her front, mauled her breasts and molested her pubis.

  “Kill him,” Helen said.

  “Dial me up,” Eules instructed the suit. “It’s time Uncle Eules had a talk with Mr. Scumbag. Put me on intercom.”

  A rudely loud ringing was heard. Helen watched the perpetrator turn, then pick up the phone in the woman’s apartment.

  “Yeah?” she heard over the intercom.

  Eules, also a trained hostage negotiator, talked aloud, peering into his field glasses. “My name is Special Agent Eules; I’m with the F.B.I. Let’s talk a deal.”

  “No deals, fuckface. I want safe passage out of here, or I cut this dizzy bitch’s head off and throw it at ya. I want a fuckin’ armored car here in twenty minutes, to take me to Canada.”

  “That’s a long haul, man,” Eules said over the open line.

  “I don’t give a shit. You do it or I start cutting.”

  “Listen, pal. All you did was knock over a bunch of banks. You never hurt anyone. I’ll get you off easy if you drop your shit.”

  “I hit some of your pigs, so don’t bullshit me!”

  “They were wearing vests, man. You didn’t even muss their hair. We take you down our way, you’ll get twenty years max, parole in six or seven probably.”

  “Open your ears, jackass! I ain’t going to the fucking can!”

  “You drop the shank,” Eules continued, “let the woman go, and walk out of there with your hands up, and I guarantee you you won’t be shot. I’ll drop the assaulting-federal-officers charges, and I’ll even guarantee you don’t do more than five years. Keep your act clean, and you’ll be out in three on GB. You can do five years standing on your head.”

  Helen watched. The perp seemed to consider this, and Helen was impressed by Eules’s resolve. At least he was giving it a shot.

  Eules waved a finger, a flag for one of the suits to cut off the intercom. Then Eules told the sniper, “Watch for your mark. Tell me when you’ve got a good laser bead. It’s gotta be a head shot.”

  The sniper stood still as a granite statue. Helen watched a
t the same time, and noticed the tiny red laser dot high right on the perp’s chest. It began to raise.

  “Fuck you!” the perp bellowed back. “You’re bullshitting and you know it. I’m gonna cut this bitch’s head off if you don’t—”

  “Got it,” the sniper said.

  “Take your target.”

  Wham!

  It was like no gunshot she’d ever heard, more akin to a large door slamming. Nevertheless, the sonic distraction did not take Helen’s eyes away from the binoculars.

  “Target down,” the sniper calmly replied.

  But it had been something slower than a dream. Helen watched the whole thing. She saw the perp standing there waving the knife as he bellowed his objections into the phone. She saw the laser dot staying high on his forehead. Then came the report.

  The perp’s hand opened before he fell backward, just as Eules had cited. The woman ran away. The perp fell to the ground faster than a demolitioned building.

  “All units,” Eules barked into a Motorola radio. “Target is down. Enter the perimeter at will and clear the room. Watch for cross-fire.”

  Out of nowhere, then, probably fifty cops rushed the building in the throbbing light. At the same time, unseen F.B.I. rappellers dropped off the side of the building and flew feet first into the apartment’s front room.

  Eules watched intently until he heard a radio break: “Team Leader to Gunpost One. Perimeter secure. The target is dead. The hostage is okay.”

  Eules set down his mike and popped a stick of gum in his mouth. He winked at Helen. “All in a day’s work, huh?”

  Helen gulped. “I’m impressed.”

  ««—»»

  “It’s good to see you,” Tom said.

  Helen faltered hard. What could she think of him now? The hostage thing had been only a postponement of what she knew she must do. Go to him. Talk to him. Feel him out, she realized.

  Tom frowned, snapping on surgical gloves over the corpse.