The Boat Man: A Suspense Thriller (A Reed & Billie Novel Book 1)

by Dustin Stevens

  She paused, seemingly hoping Reed would pick up on what she was saying, only continuing once it was clear he didn’t.

  “At first, after what happened, none of us really knew how to. After a while it became apparent there was no point, he didn’t want to anyway.”

  The familiar feeling of pressure returned to Reed’s stomach, again bits of prickly heat accompanying it as it climbed his back.

  “Really? That was almost two years ago, nobody has spoken to him since?”

  The woman looked from Reed to the house again, a bit of wistfulness crossing her face, before finally shrugging.

  “Best guess? Try the church down on the corner of Knox and Edgewood. Sometimes I see his car parked there. Maybe you’ll get lucky, or find somebody that knows where he’s been.”

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  The name Rigas should have tipped Reed off, though for whatever reason he never once thought the church he was being sent to was Greek Orthodox. Not until he pulled up in front of the white stucco building, twin spires on either front corner extending up into the darkened sky, did it even occur to him.

  “Well, this is different,” Reed whispered, turning the engine off and climbing out, leaving Billie behind.

  A quick scan of the parking lot showed there to be only two other cars on the grounds, both of them a long way from BMW’s.

  Had he any other leads at the moment, if he had not already invested so much time and energy into finding Rigas, he would have gone somewhere else. As it stood, he didn’t. If this too turned out to be a dead end he would have no choice but to slink back to the precinct, call in a BOLO for Rigas’s car, and hope Brandt could wrestle something useful from her nephew.

  The thought made Reed shudder, his heart continuing to race, his body somehow knowing that he was close, that at any second the last bit of information he needed was going to fall into place.

  The front door was thick and heavy, made of wood and painted white, as Reed tugged it open and stepped inside. The smells of incense and candle smoke assaulted his nose simultaneously as he entered, his feet sinking into heavy carpeting.

  Pausing just inside the door, Reed took stock of the small front holding room he found himself in, a second set of doors standing open before him, beckoning him into the main hall of the church. Glancing to either side he made his way forward, stepping through as the space opened up before him, bright light and color almost blinding him.

  The space was much larger than it appeared from the outside, over twenty rows of pews lined on either side of the main aisle, all painted white with red seat cushions. Overhead massive chandeliers hung down, their lights twinkling through ornate crystal arrangements.

  One step at a time Reed moved forward, heading towards the front altar. In the center of it rested a wooden pulpit with a Lent banner draped over it, an organ rising along the back wall. Standing silent to the side was a table for the necessary implements of communion, a half dozen miniature pews set aside for the choir.

  “Hello?” Reed asked, his voice echoing through the room.

  “Hello,” a voice said beside him, jerking his attention to the left.

  Tucked along the wall was a pair of confessional booths, both standing just seven feet tall, constructed from the same wood painted white, a latticed screen covering the length of the doors. Kneeling at the foot of them was an older man in slacks and shirtsleeves, a paintbrush and bucket by his side.

  “Good evening,” Reed said, sliding himself through the second and third rows of pews, making his way towards the man. “My name is Detective Reed Mattox and I was told I might be able to find Michael Rigas here.”

  At the mention of Rigas’s name the man’s face fell flat, his shoulders slumping by his side. Carefully he sat his brush down atop the can of paint and stood, his total height falling six inches shorter than Reed.

  He walked forward and met Reed before he reached the end of the pew, extending a hand. “Peter Galanos, priest here at the church.”

  “Father,” Reed said, reciprocating the handshake.

  Galanos waved a hand at him and said, “That won’t be necessary, but thank you. Please, have a seat.”

  The urge to tell Galanos he didn’t have the time to be sitting and engaging in idle chit chat crossed Reed’s mind, but he opted against voicing it. He could tell from the man’s demeanor, from his instantaneous reaction to Rigas’s name, that he had something to be shared.

  He only hoped it would help with what he needed to do.

  “May I ask,” Galanos said, “why it is you wish to speak with Michael?”

  Reed opened his mouth to give the same canned response he had given the woman a few minutes earlier, but closed it just as fast. Something about the gravity of the situation, of the clock he knew was ticking, of sitting in church speaking to a priest, just wouldn’t let him.

  “We have reason to believe Michael may be involved in a series of murders that have taken place,” Reed said, his voice low, careful to ensure anybody else that might enter would not hear.

  Beside him Galanos’s eyes slid shut, his shoulders somehow falling another inch in height. “The Bottoms, right?”

  Feeling his heartbeat rise again, Reed nodded. “That’s right.”

  A mournful sound passed from the man as he remained with his eyes closed, his entire upper body jerking with a shudder. He remained that way a long moment, his body fighting off the sobs in the silence, his cheeks growing wet with tears.

  For three minutes Reed let him continue without a word before reaching out and touching his shoulder. “Why do I get the impression you’re not surprised to see me here?”

  Galanos passed the back of his bare wrist over his face, wiping away the moisture, before shaking his head. “You have to understand something. The Michael that exists today, the Michael that you’re now looking for, isn’t the same Michael that I know.

  “What happened that night was monstrous. It changed him. I truly believe it broke his spirit.”

  All Reed knew about that night was what Pierce had told him, which was bad enough on its own. There was no doubt though that enormous chunks of it had been left out, parts that only someone as terrified, as helpless as Michael was to stop it, would understand.

  “So he spoke to you about it?” Reed asked.

  “No,” Galanos whispered. “Not really. He didn’t have to though. The things he did talk about made it clear what was in his heart, what he was thinking on.”

  At that he started to weep again, his voice dipping lower. “I tried to talk to him. I thought I was getting through to him, but it’s clear I wasn’t.”

  Unsure how to respond, Reed reached out and laid a hand on the old man’s back. There was much he needed to know, many questions desiring to be asked, but he knew this wasn’t his interview to conduct. He was at the mercy of Galanos’s emotions.

  “Maybe he was right,” Galanos whispered. “Maybe it would have been better if they’d killed him, too.”

  Too.

  The word shot Reed’s eyebrows up his forehead, his eyes opening wide. In his ears he could hear Pierce saying some of the guys had done things in the park, though he hadn’t taken part.

  “They killed her,” Reed whispered.

  For the first time since sitting down Galanos turned to look at him, his mouth formed into a perfect circle. “You didn’t know?”

  All Reed could manage was a shake of his head, no words escaping him.

  “Janice Rigas was a beautiful person, in every sense of the word. The daughter of a Japanese father and a Greek mother, she was hopelessly devoted to Michael, to God, to everything that was right in this world.”

  He paused again, fresh moisture coming to his eyes. “The injuries she sustained were just too much though, the stab wound, the slices across her stomach...”

  Fireworks exploded in Reed’s mind as he heard the words, realizing that Pierce had lied about the end of that night. The visceral reaction he had to the pictures wasn’t from seeing his
friends, it was from seeing those wounds, so similar to what had happened before.

  “By the time that jogger happened by, she was already gone.”

  He looked at Reed a long moment before turning to face forward. “They did the same to Michael, but somehow, whether it was the grace of God or a cruel trick of the Devil, he hung on. Spent over two months in a coma, didn’t even get to go to her funeral.”

  It had taken almost a solid week, a lot of false starts, a serpentine route, but finally Reed understood what this was all about.

  “He never took it to the police?” Reed asked.

  “No,” Galanos said. “By the time he woke up, he was a different person. Gone was any of the baby fat he once had, the jovial nature that colored his cheeks. In their place was a hardened man, someone that spent a lot of time asking me questions about vengeance.”

  Vengeance. The word resonated through Reed’s mind, linking back to so many conversations he’d had in previous days.

  “Charon.”

  Raising a gnarled, paint-splotched hand, Galanos pointed to a stained glass window high on the wall beside them. Following the direction with his gaze, Reed raised his attention to find the same image Jim Shatley had showed him stretched over six feet in height, depicted in vivid color.

  “I tried and tried to get him to talk about what happened, to come to grips with all of it,” Galanos said, “but it never took. Instead he wanted to discuss God’s wrath, to hear what the heavens had to say about justice.

  “To find out everything he could about Charon, the Boat Man, the one responsible for escorting souls into Hell.”

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Reed bypassed the cell phone, going straight for the radio hanging beneath the dash. One hand he kept draped over the steering wheel, the other he used to hold the microphone just an inch from his face, his fingers squeezing the spring loaded release on the side.

  “McMichaels? Jacobs? Gilchrist, you there?”

  If anybody else was listening on the line they might have balked at the complete lack of protocol, but it was the furthest thing from Reed’s mind as he sped down the freeway, his front lights flashing. He released the lever on the side of his radio for a long moment, fuzz coming in over the line as he waited for a response.

  “Come on, come on, come on,” he muttered, glancing into the rearview mirror to see Billie pacing as much as the confines of the car would allow. The sound of her paws working over the plastic filled his ears, her hot breath fogging up the rear windows as they drove.

  “McMichaels, Jacobs, Gilchrist, you there?” Reed repeated, his tone relaying the urgency he felt.

  Everything he had learned in the last few hours, both from Pierce and Galanos, proved that Michael Rigas was their man.

  Two years before, the Kings of The Bottoms had attacked he and his wife, unprovoked. They had killed her and left him for dead, putting the man in a coma that he was two months coming out of.

  Once he did wake, he was no longer the same person, not interested in forgiveness or even society’s general idea of justice. As far as Reed could tell, no police report had ever been filed about the incident, no formal investigation launched.

  Instead, the man had shown up talking to his priest about notions of wrath, about Greek mythology and the purveyor of souls into Hell. That very same purveyor was known to require a toll for passage, a toll that was found in the throat of previous victims.

  Whether they realized it or not, the Kings had turned Michael Rigas into the Boat Man.

  “Yeah, this is Jacobs and McMichaels, go ahead,” the voice of Jacobs called over the line, pulling Reed from his thoughts.

  “Gilchrist, Greene, you guys out there too?” Reed asked, keeping the receiver pressed tight against his lips.

  “Yes, sir. That you, Reed?” Gilchrist responded.

  Nodding grimly, Reed pressed the plunger and said, “Yes, everyone, this is Reed Mattox. I am currently tearing down I-270 with the flashers going, making like hell for The Bottoms.

  “I have strong reason to believe that Michael Rigas, the man responsible for the murders there this week, is en route if he is not already on site.”

  Over the line he could hear somebody mutter, “Jesus,” though nobody addressed him directly.

  “Suspect is to be considered extremely armed and dangerous. His targets are a pair of African-American males in their late-twenties to early-thirties named Willie Pryor, aka Dub-P, and Marcus Knighton, aka Mac.”

  Reed paused a moment as he glanced over his shoulder, making sure the lane was clear before drifting off the freeway, hitting the exit ramp at seventy miles an hour. As the car drifted he could feel Billie sliding for purchase, her tail slapping against the passenger door.

  “I could use all of you, and anybody else from the 8th that is listening, at the abandoned Mobil station on the corners of Scanson and Duvall. Right now I am just leaving the freeway, ETA eight minutes.”

  “Roger that,” Gilchrist said. “We just left the station, be there in five.”

  “On the opposite end,” Jacobs added, “be there in the same. Please advise on how to approach upon arrival.”

  Reed answered without pause, almost yelling the response into the receiver. “Take targets into custody. Once scene is secure, will begin immediate sweep of the area.”

  Both parties confirmed and signed off, Reed dropping the microphone onto the passenger seat beside him.

  For the last few nights Pryor and Knighton had both been baiting Rigas, standing out in the open, daring him to act on them. Even if he wasn’t there at the moment, Reed still had to get them off the streets and out of sight until he could be brought in.

  Something told him though that wouldn’t be an issue.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  The Boat Man ran his hand up under the black knit fleece he wore, letting his fingertips trace over his stomach. Moving slow, he inched them just past his navel, to the ridge of furrowed skin that ran from his midline to his ribs. Rough and uneven, the healed flesh made a clear line across him, separating his navel into two parts.

  In the preceding months, the Boat Man had come to think of the scar as a metaphor for his life as well, severing it into two parts. On one side of it was Janice, their years together, the future they had planned for. On the other was nothing, an empty shell of an existence, a life that was predicated on only one thing.

  A single thing that was now just hours away.

  What the world held for him after the task was completed, or even if there would be any place for him in it once it was, didn’t much matter to the Boat Man. Everything he had done, from the months of rehab, to exhaustive physical training, to the tedious research and preparation, had been with an eye to this.

  It was for that reason that he had not gone to the police, had not been able to open up to Father Galanos about his true intentions. This was his task to complete, his oath that he had sworn to the memory of his wife.

  Stepping forward from the shadows of the room, the Boat Man could see the twin cars of Willie Pryor and Marcus Knighton parked in the Mobil parking lot, just as they had been the night before, just as they had been most nights for the previous three months.

  In either of their hands was a bottle wrapped in brown paper, each taking occasional sips as they leaned against their respective front hoods. He was too far away to hear what they were saying, though he could see them gesturing as they spoke.

  The mere sight of them brought a white hot rage to his chest, gripping his entire body, causing his every nerve ending to twitch with fire. The fingers on either hand curled into tight fists as he stared down at them, remembering their faces so clear from that night, having waited so long for this time to come.

  Hefting the gun up from its makeshift hold, the Boat Man rested the barrel of it onto the edge of the window sill and lowered himself to a knee. He braced the stock of the gun against his shoulder and slowly exhaled, again sweeping the area through the magnified lens of the scope.


  Sweat droplets formed along his brow, streamed down the side of his face as he inched the barrel forward out the window, feeling the cold night air flush on his skin.

  From where he was positioned both cars were parked at an angle, Knighton’s back to him, Pryor facing forward. One at a time the Boat Man settled the lowest range sight of the scope on each of them, counting off the seconds in his head, imagining the first shot and then the second.

  It was time.

  Setting his aim on Pryor, the Boat Man curled his finger around the outside of the trigger guard, feeling the cold steel against the pad. There he left it for a long moment, drawing in deep breaths, making sure his hand was steady, before shifting it to the inside, flush against the trigger.

  The first shot made only a slight popping noise, the sound swallowed up by the light evening breeze. A single flower of orange was emitted as the muzzle flashed, his round drawing center mass, the target crumpling to the ground.

  Beside him the Boat Man watched as Knighton grew rigid, too stunned to move, the bottle falling from his hand. A second squeeze of the trigger punctured his back in the same spot as Pryor, the impact of the blow knocking him forward, draping his body over the front of the opposite car.

  Keeping his sight focused in on them both, the Boat Man drew one more deep breath, watching as Marcus Knighton’s body rested atop the hood, his arms outstretched beside him.

  With one last curl of his finger he fired a solitary parting shot directly through Knighton’s right forearm.

  Chancing a few last seconds, the Boat Man watched through the scope as Knighton’s body slid down the side of the car, a trail of smeared blood spatter in his wake. The entirety of his corpse disappeared from view between the automobiles, hidden from sight, tucked away beside Pryor.

  A feeling of deep satisfaction settled into the Boat Man’s chest as he pulled back from the window, lifting the barrel of the gun away and carrying it from sight.