Night Mask

by William W. Johnstone

  “You don’t threaten me, Brownie!” the judge warned.

  “Oh, I’m not threatening you, Judge. I’m just telling you the way it is.”

  “Brownie, those kids have not yet been convicted of anything. They still deserve protection, just like any other citizen. I shouldn’t have to tell you that.”

  “Oh, I know the law, Homer. Look, ask the governor to call out the National Guard. Ask him to send the Highway Patrol in here. Do something . . . anything! But don’t lay all this strain on us. Even if we could do it, it would bankrupt the city and county in overtime pay.”

  The judge held up a hand. “All right, Brownie. All right. We’ll work it out. I’ll hold this order until I can get you some help. If I can get you some help. And there are no guarantees of that.”

  “Thank you, Homer.”

  “You’re welcome, Brownie.” The judge smiled. “You can be a real horse’s ass at times, you know that?”

  “Homer, you don’t have any idea just how much of a horse’s ass I can be.” Brownie walked to the door of the judge’s chambers. The judge’s voice stopped him.

  “Brownie, did you really bring in a psychic?”

  “One of the CBI people did, yes.”

  “So it’s come to that?”

  “Homer, I’d solicit the help of the devil, if I thought it would help bring this case to an end.”

  Brownie had no way of knowing just how close he was to doing just that.

  Chapter 26

  A massive manhunt was undertaken to find Dick Hale. But after the second punk was shotgunned, Dick had anticipated that and shifted his base of operations. With a smile, he moved back into his home, located in the most exclusive neighborhood in La Barca. With his kids dead and his wife a babbling idiot and not likely to ever recover, the police had sealed the house. But Dick knew where the hide-out key to the basement was located, and entry was easy. Once he gathered up food, clothes, underwear, and toilet articles from upstairs, he never went back to the main part of the house again. The windowless basement had been turned into a game room and office, with toilet and shower, so Dick had all the amenities of home . . . so to speak. He showered and trimmed his beard and ate a quiet meal. Then he cleaned his shotgun, while his cape and longhandles were in the washing machine. He had his next victim all picked out. He would strike that night. And this time he wouldn’t botch the job.

  * * *

  The airlines had no record of Stacy, Carla, and Patricia ever flying off to Mexico. The trio had obviously booked seats under assumed names. Another lead that fizzled out.

  Agnes Peters ended her silence about the cops with a blistering article in the morning paper, reducing the capability of the La Barca PD and the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department to the level of the Keystone Cops, Abbot and Costello, and Larry, Curly, and Moe. She had learned about Anna Kokalis and wondered if the cops were going to bring in a witch doctor next. They might as well, she concluded, since all the cops seem to be capable of doing was stumbling around and tripping over their big, flat feet.

  “She’s such a lovely person,” Leo said, carefully folding the paper.

  “She is in grave danger,” Anna said somberly.

  “Good,” Lani said.

  “I’m serious,” Anna said.

  “So am I,” Lani replied, just as seriously.

  “She’s going to be killed,” Anna said.

  That got everybody’s attention. “How do you know that, Anna?” Ted asked.

  “I can’t explain it in a way that you would understand. But the woman is in terrible danger.”

  “I have this mental picture of us going to Agnes and telling her our resident psychic feels that she is in danger,” Leo said. “With all due respect to you, Anna.”

  Anna smiled. “I know. And I’m not right all the time. But this time the thrust was very strong.”

  “The thrust?” Ted asked.

  Lani pushed back her chair and stood up. “I’ll go see the bitch and warn her. But I won’t mention Anna.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Brenda said.

  “Good luck,” Leo said.

  * * *

  “And just how do you know this?” Agnes said, leaning back in her chair and glaring at the women.

  “Dick tried once before,” Brenda said. “And you’ve been writing about him in your articles. It just adds up, Ms. Peters.”

  “I have a legal firearm now,” Agnes said. “And a permit to carry it. I’ve been taking shooting lessons out at the range. If there is a next time, I’ll be ready. And I’ll plug that silly son of a bitch.”

  “I thought you were opposed to handguns, Agnes?” Lani just had to say it.

  “Get out of my office!”

  “With pleasure,” Lani said.

  * * *

  “You did warn her about the possible danger?” Brownie asked the women.

  “Oh, yes,” Lani told her. “And we made sure the door to her office was open and coworkers heard it.”

  “Then we’re clear. If Agnes chooses to ignore our warnings, that’s her business. I just want to be sure we don’t have any comebacks on this thing.”

  “How about the guarding of the dip-shits?” Brenda asked.

  “Highway Patrol is sending some people in, along with personnel from other city and county departments. I’ll still have to pull some people off the road, but not enough to cripple the department. How’s the tie-in with Pat Sessions going?”

  “It isn’t. We’re at another dead-end.”

  “What else is new?” Brownie said drily. “I’ve got a meeting with the tourist board this afternoon. They’re bitching about all the money the town is losing because of the Ripper.”

  “Have fun,” Lani told him.

  Lani and Leo, Brenda and Ted, and Bill Bourne spent the rest of that day going over the statements taken from the young people in the hopes that they had missed something, anything, that might bring them a step closer to the identity, or identities, of the Ripper. But any clues they did not already have had died with Dick’s kids.

  Weeks back, the investigators had been given their own private office. Now that office was filled with boxes of files. There was scarcely room for them to move around.

  A car had been provided for Anna to drive around in ... alone. That was her request, even though the cops had tried to dissuade her from doing that, since she had been publicly named in Agnes Peters’s column. Bill Bourne was tagging along behind Anna.

  “She’s a wonderful person,” Ted said. “But my, she certainly is headstrong. It really surprised me when she said she was very proficient in the martial arts.”

  “Did she say what form of martial art?” Lani asked.

  Ted shook his head. “I didn’t ask.” He cut his eyes to Leo. “You haven’t said a word in quite awhile, Leo. What are you thinking?”

  “Just wondering when the Ripper is going to strike again.”

  “Or Dick Hale,” Brenda said. “AKA the Caped Avenger.”

  “Dick is concentrating on the released little monsters. . . and Agnes Peters. Now that the darling, little sweethearts are under around-the-clock protection, I figure Dick will go after Agnes again. Then go after the kids.”

  Lani looked at him. “Leo, you’re not thinking of us protecting Ms. Liberal Cop Hater, are you?”

  He shook his head. “No. Not at all. She was offered protection; she turned it down. If she wants to trust her .44 mag to do the job, that’s fine with me.”

  “Something’s eating at you,” his partner persisted.

  “I don’t like to be played with,” Leo said, his eyes narrowing. “The Ripper is playing with us. He, she, or it, threatens my family. Then nothing happens. And it isn’t the security around them that’s stopping him, them. The Longwood boys are wealthy enough to be able to buy any sort of weaponry or to hire killers. All they had to do was order some of those kids to attack and they would have, even knowing it would be suicide. They’re playing with us. The Ripper calls in a little poem ch
allenging us to stop them, then he does nothing. The whole thing is an evil, perverted game to him, them. The Ripper knows we’re all running around, banging our heads against brick walls, getting more frustrated every day. And the Longwood boys are loving every minute of it.”

  “Finish it, Leo,” Lani said, a flatness to her voice.

  “I was in the service with a guy who went to work for the CIA right after he got out. Operations. He was station chief and then promoted and now works out of Langley. We keep in touch. I saved his life in Vietnam. Twice. He owes me. The Longwood boys went to court to get a new name. I want that name. Vince can get it. He knows the right buttons to push in Washington.”

  Ted shook his head. “I don’t even want to know about this. Any time the CIA gets involved, you can bet they’re going to want something in return.”

  Leo grinned. “Friend, that’s another way that Vince owes me. I’ve been helping the Agency in various ways for years.”

  Ted’s mouth dropped open. “But the CIA can’t work inside the borders of the United States. That’s the law! If your friend did find out what name the Longwood boys are now using, it would not be admissible in court, because it was obtained illegally.”

  Leo laughed. “Ted, you don’t really think this case is going to court, do you? The Longwood boys are not going to be taken alive. They’ll die right here in Hancock County. They’ve played out their string, and they know it. And what’s worse, when they die, not a damn one of those young monsters we arrested will ever be convicted. They’ll walk. Every goddamn one of them. Unless Dick gets them.”

  “But they’re guarded twenty-four hours a day now,” Ted said. Ted really believed in the judicial system. He still had enough naivete in him to think it worked. Sometimes it does. But not often enough.

  Lani smiled. “That won’t stop Dick. Ted, you don’t really believe those cops are going to risk their lives protecting that pack of perverted, evil horrors, do you? Many of them probably helped torture and mutilate Tony Moreno. They’re going to be on guard... loosely speaking.”

  Ted rose from his chair and walked to a window. He stared out for a moment. Without turning around, he said, “Brenda, do you agree with what Lani just said?”

  “Yes,” the woman replied.

  Ted whirled around. “Then God help us all. For if we all believed that, then the judicial system would be nothing but an ugly, profane joke.”

  “That’s exactly what it is, Ted,” Lani said. “Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

  “You can’t believe that!”

  “Ted,” Leo said softly. “Wake up and smell the coffee. Punks toss concrete blocks off of overpasses and kill and injure people. If they go to prison at all, they’re out in a few years. Rapists spend a couple of years in the bucket on an average. Murderers spend about seven years. If a citizen uses a gun to defend life, loved ones, or personal property, there is a good chance that citizen will go to jail and/or face civil trial. A lot of states allow their officers to put people in jail for minor traffic violations, while allowing known drug dealers and others of their ilk to walk free. A person with an expired driver’s license or expired inspection sticker sometimes gets harsher treatment in the courts than a mugger. Money talks and bullshit walks, Ted.” Leo smiled. “You know why, after all the years on this force, I’m not a lieutenant? I’ll tell you: I’ll nail anybody, Ted. I don’t care who they are or what their social standing is in the community. I gave one of Dennis Potter’s kids a ticket, while I was uniform. Unknown to Dennis, the kid went to the DA and the DA fixed it. When Dennis learned about it, he took the kid’s car away and sold it. The son of one of the richest men in California walked for a year. But that’s the exception, not the rule. I’ve stepped on toes all over this county, and I’ll continue to do it as long as I wear a badge. I’ve made a lot of enemies, Ted, and I’ll retire a sergeant. Brownie’s a good man, but he’s still a politician.” Leo chuckled. “You know why Brownie assigned me to this case? Because he knows that I’ll bend the law to solve it. And so will Lani. I’m not nearly so keen on law and order, Ted, as I am in justice. You keep a cold gun, Ted?”

  “Certainly not!” Ted said, indignantly.

  “I do. I have a whole box of them at home, very carefully hidden. I always keep one in my unit. There are at least six people in this county walking free and working and paying taxes and obeying the law and being productive citizens right now, who owe it all to me ... and my cold pistols. You see, I’m flawed, Ted. I believe strongly in the right of a person to be safe and secure in their homes and papers and possessions. And Brownie knows this.”

  Ted was astonished. “Are you saying that you’ve planted cold guns on dead suspects?”

  Leo and Lani would only smile.

  Ted looked at Lani. “And you? You go along with that?”

  “I believe in justice,” she replied.

  Ted turned around and once more stared out of the window. “What you both are saying is that you will do anything, anything, to close this case. You have no plans to bring the Longwood boys into custody, do you? You plan to hunt them down and kill them, don’t you?”

  Ted didn’t really expect an answer, and that is exactly what he got. After a long moment of silence, he turned to look at Brenda. “You go along with them, don’t you?”

  She met his eyes with an unwavering stare.

  “My God!” Ted said. “What happened to honor and decency in this country?”

  “What happened to justice for all the innocent?” Brenda challenged.

  Ted’s shoulders sagged as hard reality settled heavily on him. The blindfolded lady holding the scales of justice lifted her robes and shit all over him.

  “You’re a good investigator, Ted,” Brenda said. “But you’d better put all that prep school crap out of your head. Welcome to the real world.”

  “I feel dirty,” Ted said softly.

  “Sure, you do,” Lani told him. “We all do. Every cop does. For Christ’s sake, Ted, we deal with the scum of the earth. We wallow and wade in the gore left behind by people who are walking advertisements for the justification of abortion. Nobody can play with shit without getting some on them. And you never really wash it all off, Ted. It clings to you.”

  Ted nodded his head. “I should have guessed it; should have put it all together long before this. I’ve read your files. Both of you. Both of you have been involved in some pretty damn dubious shootings, yet you always come out smelling like a room full of roses. Dirty Harry and Dirty Harriet. Boy, was I stupid!” He looked at Brenda. “And you, you jumped at the chance to work with these . . . hired guns. You practically tore down the boss’s door to get assigned to this case. You knew about these two. You knew all along, didn’t you?”

  “I knew they were rated as two of the best investigators in the state, Ted. The top team for the past three years.”

  “You want out, Ted?” Lani asked. “Just say the word.”

  He shook his head. “If I did that, my career would be on hold for the next twenty years.”

  “Then hang on and let’s wrap up this case,” Brenda said.

  “Hang on to shooting stars?” Ted said sarcastically. “No play on words intended, of course.”

  Chapter 27

  Agnes Peters slowed her car to a crawl and carefully eyeballed her street as she rolled along. No dogs were barking in alarm. Everything appeared normal. Except for the house across the street with the ruined front porch, clear plastic was hanging all over the place. That had been a wild night. The homeowner had popped the preacher on the snoot, and the preacher had then proceeded to beat the shit out of the homeowner before the cops could separate them. For a preacher, he sure knew some fancy cuss words. To Agnes’s delight, the homeowner had kicked that pig sergeant, Gene Clark, right in the nuts.

  Agnes pulled into her drive and hit the automatic garage door opener she’d had installed. The garage door slowly swung open and the lights came on. All clear. Agnes pulled into the garage and the door close
d behind her.

  “The door closed,” Agnes muttered. “The door closed!” It wasn’t programmed to do that. Agnes looked toward the door that led into the kitchen. It was open, ajar just a bit. “Oh, shit!” Agnes said. She jerked the gearshift lever to R and floorboarded the newly repaired BMW. Tires squealing and smoking on the concrete, she blasted through the garage door just as Dick, dressed in mask and cape and boots and longhandles, stepped out of the kitchen and leveled his shotgun.

  Buckshot blew a very large hole in the windshield, showering Agnes with glass. The BMW careened out of the driveway and collided with a car that was passing by, knocking the second car up onto the sidewalk, taking a fire hydrant with it. The air was suddenly filled with water.

  “You crazy, goddamn bitch!” the driver of the second car yelled at Agnes, whose own car engine had died upon impact.

  “Fuck you!” Agnes yelled, grinding the starter.

  The homeowner across the street, expecting any moment to see another car come crashing into his house, shooed his wife and kids into the backyard.

  “I wouldn’t fuck you with Godzilla’s dick, you ugly bitch!” the irate motorist screamed.

  The Caped Avenger stepped out of the garage and leveled his shotgun just as Agnes got her car started and floored the gas pedal. The stunned motorist ducked just in time, as the load meant for Agnes blew out his rear window. Dick pumped another round in and Agnes lost part of her trunk. The trunk lid banged open and Dick shot out a back tire. She lost control of the car, and it went up onto the sidewalk and into the front lawn of a man who had just paid a small fortune to have the front porch closed in and turned into a day room. Agnes reopened it. She not only reopened the porch, she drove right through the living room and into the dining room. But this time Agnes was mad clear through. She grabbed her .44 mag and two speed loaders and struggled out of the car, paying no attention to the screaming of the homeowner’s wife and the homeowner’s cussing. She ran stumbling and mumbling through the rubble, and stood on the now-open porch and leveled the .44 mag at Dick, about a block away. She didn’t come within five feet of Dick, but she sure raised hell with her next-door neighbor’s house, who, fortunately, had taken his family to see a movie. When the family returned, they would find that Agnes had plugged the TV set, the CD player, the answering machine, the fax machine in the study, and gave the family’s cat the shits.