by David Grace
“It’s done. He’s not escaping in that car.”
“OK.” Kudlacik idly glanced in Neddick’s direction then turned back to his paper. “The waitress just delivered his burger,” he told Quinn a few minutes later. “I figure we’ve got awhile before he heads out.” Kudlacik disconnected a moment later when the waitress arrived with his club sandwich.
* * *
Kyle pushed his plate away and checked out the restaurant one more time. As far as he could tell everything seemed normal, but he was getting that shivery feeling again that something wasn’t quite right. He grabbed his check and walked to the register. Waitresses passed him with carafes of coffee; a kid doodled smears of ketchup with a soggy fry. After paying he stood for a moment just outside the front door. The afternoon was crisp and sunny. The drone from the interstate competed with the dinging of the mini-mart’s opening and closing front door. It all seemed painfully normal. Kyle shook his head, pulled out his keys and rounded the building, heading back to his car, but when he looked at the Dodge he froze. Both tires were flat! What could have . . . Shit!
Kyle looked around and now everything seemed different. A man had suddenly appeared from around the back of the building and was heading straight for him. Kyle spun around and spotted another man crossing the driveway that separated the restaurant from the gas station. Operating on instinct alone, he ran back toward the cafe’s front door. He calculated that he’d be able to reach it before either of the men could catch him, and a few seconds after that he’d be through the building and out the back door. From there he might be able to steal a car or maybe he’d just use one of the civilians as a shield and come back out the front door shooting. If he took down those two he might be able to get away before anyone could bring in reinforcements.
Kyle pulled his gun from under his shirt at the small of his back. Risking one quick glance over his shoulder he raced the last few feet to the front door, but just as he reached for the handle a man suddenly appeared on the other side of the glass and smashed the door open against Kyle’s chest. The impact threw him backward and he smacked his head on the asphalt when he hit the ground. For an instant the world spun and he couldn’t seem to catch his breath then he struggled to a half sitting positions and found himself staring at a barrel-chested man holding a gun.
“Marie Randazzo says ‘Hello’,” Stan Kudlacik said just before he fired five rounds into Kyle’s chest, the last two of which turned out to be completely ornamental.
Virgil ran to the body and kicked the pistol from Neddick’s lifeless hand.
“Are you all right?” he asked Kudlacik whose weapon was still loosely pointed at the corpse.
“I’m fine,” Stan said, then took a breath and holstered his gun.
The two Indiana plainclothes detectives froze then turned and began shooing bystanders away from the body. Half a dozen of them were already recording the scene on their cell phones. As he walked to Kudlacik’s side Virgil heard the sirens from the cruisers that, until now, had been held back out of sight. Both men looked down at Kyle Neddick’s body that, in death, seemed almost artificial.
“Sooner or later, a man like that was always going to end up on the wrong side of a gun,” Virgil said, but Stan didn’t seem to be listening. A few seconds later Virgil heard Kudlacik mutter, “He lived like an animal. He died like an animal.”
Virgil thought about it and decided that Stan was pretty much right.
Chapter Fifty-One
A car from the Mayor’s office pulled up to the hangar before the jet’s engines had even fully spun down.
“Marshal Quinn?” the driver asked.
“Home are the conquering heroes,” Virgil said to Kudlacik in a sour tone.
“It’s just nice to know they care.” Stan laughed and made for the open door. “I’ll find somebody to come back here for our car.”
“Uhhh, sir,” the driver said, looking from Kudlacik and back to Virgil, “I’m only supposed to pick up Marshal Quinn. I’m not allowed to take any other . . . passengers,” but by then Stan had already made himself comfortable in the back seat.
“That’s OK,” Virgil said, patting the driver’s shoulder. “I’ll authorize it. Let’s go.” Virgil gave him a big smile, climbed in and closed the door.
“Too bad we’re on the job,” Stan said, pointing at the liquor cabinet built into the panel behind the jump seat. Virgil leaned back and closed his eyes. His lungs had started to burn as soon as the jet had come up to altitude and a couple of times he’d caught Jane/Nicole’s smiling face reflecting off the glass. He spent the rest of the trip with his eyes closed.
Stan found a cop at City Hall who agreed to give him a ride back to headquarters then gave Virgil a wave as Quinn was hurried off to Peter Fineman’s office.
“He was the last one, right, the man who was killed?” Fineman asked as soon as they were alone.
“Yes,” Virgil said, “The other–” but Fineman waved his words away and punched a button on his phone. “Yes, Mr. Mayor, Quinn’s people got them all. . . . Yes sir, that should work.” He hung up and turned back to Virgil. “We don’t have a lot of time. The press conference is in an hour and I need to get the details for the Mayor’s statement.”
Fineman tapped a couple of icons on his phone then set it on the edge of his desk. “Marshal Quinn, please summarize for me who was in the so-called Mad Dog Gang and give me the disposition of each person.”
Virgil stared uneasily at the glowing screen, then began to speak. Fifteen minutes later Fineman finally ran out of follow-up questions.
“Excellent work, Marshal, excellent. The Mayor will make the formal statement. You’ll just stand there and look . . . official. If they ask you any questions say as little as possible while giving the Mayor and the PD as much credit as possible for bringing these criminals to justice. Actually, use that phrase ‘brought to justice.’ It has a nice ring to it.”
Virgil stared at Fineman for a moment, lost for words.
“Are you sure you want me there at all?” he finally asked. “After that YouTube video of me in Los Angeles I may not be someone the Mayor wants to be associated with.”
“Are you kidding? The law and order crowd loved what you said to that lawyer and it’s the law and order types who’ll put the Mayor over the top for his new term.” Fineman caught the uncertainty in Virgil’s eyes. “Don’t worry about it. The law-and-order vote is why the Mayor brought you here in the first place, plus, of course, he needed someone who could actually get the job done. . . . Look, here’s how it will go down.
“The Mayor will start with a summary of the situation – vicious killers, blah, blah, blah; the city needed a top expert to track them down; understanding all this the Mayor arranged with the U.S. Marshals’ service to borrow one of their best men to join the investigation; you and your old partner, herself a former Deputy U.S. Marshal, immediately began to track down the criminals until you were both viciously attacked; though injured you came back to lead the team and bring these monstrous killers to Justice; The End. It practically writes itself.”
“The Marshals didn’t ‘lend’ me to you. I was put on involuntary, unpaid leave because I got myself caught on camera reaming out a low-life lawyer.”
“None of that matters. Here’s what counts: you’re an experienced man hunter who came here at the Mayor’s specific request to help us find a gang of vicious killers while on a break from your regular job with the U.S. Marshals. The key point is that the Mayor recognized the problem; the Mayor figured out what was needed to solve it; the Mayor implemented that strategy – bringing you in to take over the investigation; the Mayor gave you his complete support in pursuing the case, and you justified the Mayor’s confidence by successfully implementing his plan.
“Today the citizens of Detroit can rest easy knowing that the Mayor has and will do everything necessary to keep them safe. The Mayor looks good. You look good. The Marshals’ Service looks good. Everybody wins. Any other questions?”
Virgil paused
for a moment. “Just one,” he said. “What happens next?”
“Next? You mean to you, after today?”
“Am I done here? Do I turn in my badge or what?”
“Do you want to be done?”
“I still need a job until my unpaid leave is over,” Virgil said, frowning.
“How long will that be?”
Virgil shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m guessing at least until the first of the year.”
Fineman looked past Quinn and seemed to find something interesting in the sprawling streets beyond his window. “Hmmmmm,” he hummed then turned back to Virgil. “Well, assuming the Mayor is re-elected, which after today is pretty likely, I guess the DPD could keep you on the payroll for a couple of months more. You could retain command of the Felony Fugitive Squad, track down parole jumpers and whatever.”
Virgil thought about that for a moment and then a strange idea popped into his head. “There is one other thing I could do,” he began hesitantly.
“What’s that?”
“I was looking over a murder case for one of your detectives. If you don’t mind I’d like to keep working on that.”
“A murder? Do you think you can solve it?”
Again Virgil shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably not.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re too honest for your own good? You need to work on that.” Fineman shifted his gaze and hummed again. “But that just might work,” he said, smiling.
“Work how?”
“Politics is all about appearances. People don’t want to know what is. All they care about is what seems to be. I mean, you could stay with the fugitive squad and pick up half a dozen missing burglars or whatever and who cares? That will never make the papers, well, the media. But,” Fineman added, his eyes twinkling, “if you track down another killer, that’s another press conference right there. I like it. Get me the details, who’s got this murder case right now and such and I’ll arrange the paperwork with the chief.” Virgil started to say something, but Fineman was already out of his chair. “Wait out there,” he said pointing at the door to the lobby. “I’ll walk you over to the press room as soon as I finish writing the Mayor’s statement.”
Fineman sat down in front of his computer and began to type. Virgil let himself out.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Elaine no longer thought of herself as “Nicole”, her “pre-escape” life seeming more like an old movie where she was merely an observer instead of a participant. Lately, that feeling had expanded to encompass her entire world. In the last few weeks her mother’s condition had deteriorated to the point that Elaine was forced to drop out of college, well, she thought, community college, because Phyllis could no longer manage on her own.
“Elaine.”
She looked at her watch. She’d only gotten Phyllis settled in front of her computer twenty minutes ago.
“Elaine!”
She found Phyllis twisting nervously in her chair. As usual a QuickBooks screen filled the monitor in front of her.
“I have to use the bathroom.”
“All right, mom.”
Once she had her mother settled, Elaine got her laptop and stationed herself in the hallway. With the progression of the disease the wait could be anywhere from five minutes to half an hour, and she flipped from screen to screen, mindlessly passing the time. Unlike her friends she had never been drawn to Instagram or YouTube. Her phone was a twenty-dollar model that didn’t even connect to the Internet.
She did a quick check of RDHMag to see if there were any new articles that might help with her classes, but that just made her nervous, thinking about how much work she would have to do to make up for lost time, and she switched to BoredPanda.
The beautiful pictures soothed her. She closed her eyes and imagined herself standing in a silent forest, surrounded by a torrent of orange and yellow leaves. Then her mother made a little cry. Elaine opened her eyes and for ten seconds stared at the bathroom door until the silence grated on her and she skipped to BusinessInsider where she read some mindless article about which fast-food chain had the best French fries and what were the top ten trends in women’s fashion.
She scrolled past stories on the secret flaw in Japan’s high-speed trains and the drug revolution that Big Pharma was trying to kill and the controversial cop who had brought down the Mad Dog Gang, and then she stopped and went back.
The picture above the headline showed a large black man in front of a crowd of reporters, and behind him, off to one side, was a slightly out of focus face with a circle around it and an arrow with the text: “Deputy U.S. Marshal Virgil Quinn.”
Quinn? Elaine thought. Deputy U.S. Marshal? Her father’s name was Quinn, Victor Quinn. Wasn’t it Victor? Then she remembered. Her mother had told her that it was Victor Quinn but that she was the only one who called him ‘Virgil.’ And he was a policeman. Were Marshals policemen?
She read through the story for more details. The Mayor had brought in Deputy U.S. Marshal Virgil Quinn to catch a ruthless gang of killers and in only a few weeks all of them had been captured or killed. The story said that the Marshals had placed Quinn on leave after he was recorded berating a defense attorney in a parking garage. There was a link to a YouTube video and Elaine clicked on it.
The image was grainy and under exposed, but it was the same tall man in a dark suit and in a voice that cracked like a whip he was shouting: “You took money to help a vicious killer get free so that he could kill again! You took money from a psychopath so that he could rape and murder young girls. ‘I was just doing my job’ is not a defense you disgusting excuse for a human being!”
Elaine froze the picture and zoomed the screen. Virgil Quinn? Victor Quinn? Police officer? Deputy U.S. Marshal? She stared at the grainy, half-blurry picture and tried to compare it to the fuzzy image in the tiny photo that she had worn down almost to invisibility. This was him, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?
“Elaine? I’m ready.” Elaine glanced at the bathroom door. “Elaine?”
She hesitated for a second then closed the laptop.
“Coming, mom.”
Chapter Fifty-Three
“Hey, Denny,” Virgil said and stuck out his hand. Today Ivers was wearing a dark blue suit, a pale, pink shirt and a blue, silk tie with thin, pale pink stripes. “Nice threads.”
“A detective’s got to look good when he’s taking down the bad guys, am I right?” Ivers said with a big smile. “So, how’s this supposed to work?”
“I’m just here to catch the bad guys.” Ivers gave Virgil a questioning look. “Let’s get a cup of coffee.”
“So, you’re really going after The Limping Man?” Ivers asked when Virgil finished explaining his deal with the Mayor.
“Sure. Why not?”
“Maybe because he doesn’t exist?”
“He might,” Virgil said with a shrug.
“Maybe he’s roommates with the Abominable Snowman. They live just down the street from the Loch Ness Monster,” Ivers said, laughing, then he stopped, suddenly serious. “You’re not dragging me into this, are you? Because I’ve got real cases to solve.”
“Relax. This is a special job. I just wanted to say hello, that’s all.”
“It’s a special job, all right,” Ivers said, shaking his head. “How’s the LT taking it?”
“Pissed off. I don’t blame him. If the Mayor shoved some outsider into my department with orders that he was going to go after a killer everybody thinks doesn’t exist I’d be pissed too.”
“Jesus, and I’m sitting here talking to you?”
“Relax. I waited until Bointon was out of the office. When he gets back you can say nasty things about me if you want.”
Ivers seemed to consider that for a moment then shook his head. “Nah. I’ll just pretend that you’re invisible.”
“Works for me.” Quinn slapped Ivers’ shoulder. As if goaded by some inaudible signal, both men walked back toward the Major Crimes Squad room, but Ivers paused just ou
tside the door.
“Hey, if you need somebody to back you up . . . .” he said and let the sentence drag.
“Thanks.”
“What? Oh, not me. I was thinking of Kudlacik. The lieutenant can’t do anything to him.”
“My mistake,” Virgil said, smiling, and headed over to his new desk.
* * *
“Everyone has patterns,” Virgil muttered to himself, then flipped through the notes he’d made when he’d first started looking at the Limping Man crimes. His description consisted mostly of what he wasn’t – probably under six feet tall and under one-hundred-eighty pounds; brown or black hair because people tended to notice blondes and redheads; other than the limp, no obvious physical characteristics; not bald; didn’t have a large beard; didn’t have a tattoo of a devil on his forehead; white, between thirty and fifty; physically small, ordinary, unthreatening, forgettable.
What else do I know about him? Virgil asked himself, then answered — because the crime scenes are all over the place he has a vehicle of some kind. It’s not a motorcycle because, again, someone would have noticed that. It’s not a fancy car. It’s not pink or orange or electric blue. It’s ordinary, like him, black, blue, brown, old, but not too old because that would get noticed too. It’s a Chevy or a Toyota, something like that. It’s a sedan, like a Camry or a Civic, maybe an SUV like an Escape or a van, a Caravan or a Sienna.
Virgil made notes as he worked through the “nots.” When he got done he realized that, except for the limp, he had described someone smack in the middle of the Normal Curve. There had to be something more.
One-by-one, Virgil re-read the nine files he had originally gathered and gradually a psychological profile began to take shape.
The killer was quiet, restrained, a back-stabber rather than a brute. He was the sort of person who wouldn’t raise his voice, wouldn’t threaten, wouldn’t do anything to draw attention to himself. No, he was the kind of guy who’d smile and swallow his anger then sneak off into the shadows and wait for a chance to stab his victim in the back.