by B. A. Morton
“I’m asking you, Connell.”
“And I told you, we met to discuss property.” Connell smiled again, even though he knew he probably shouldn’t. He was skating on thin ice and should really quit with the game playing and just come clean about everything. Hamilton ignored him. It appeared he was playing a game of his own.
“What were you doing in the alley, Connell?”
“Getting the shit kicked out of me.”
“Huh?”
“You could ask Gibbons about that as well, and while you’re at it, ask him about the sawed-off he carries in the trunk of his car. If you’re real quick about it, you might even find some DNA evidence on the stock where it made acquaintance with my head.”
Hamilton studied him silently, reached out, closed the file with a resounding slap and narrowed his eyes. “So what you’re saying is that Gibbons and Scott followed you to the alley, beat up on you and warned you off?”
“Yeah, that’s about it.”
“Why didn’t you report them?”
Connell rolled his eyes, “Because sometimes you gotta let out a little line to catch a big fish.”
“But you were pretty pissed at them?”
Connell saw where he was leading. “Not especially. Not enough to disembowel one of them, if that’s what you’re saying.”
Hamilton frowned. “So, why were you in the alley?”
He’d been in the alley chasing down the kid, the kid that nobody wanted found, the weird little runt who was hiding from someone, the little girl with no friends who was relying on him to keep her safe.
“I was on the phone,” he said, pushing all thoughts of Molly to the back of his mind.
“Talking to ...?”
“Calling home, letting my significant other know when I’d be back. Check my phone records if you don’t believe me.”
“Your significant other, correct me if I’m wrong, but would that be the girl at the center of the ruckus that cost you your job? Mrs. Jones, wasn’t it, the rogue agent’s daughter?”
Connell glared at him. “Could be.” Hamilton smiled slyly and Connell realized he’d just given him one hell of a freebie. He’d just revealed his Achilles heel.
“You have an interesting group of friends, Connell.”
Connell shrugged. “At least I have friends. How about you?” He didn’t much like the way this conversation was arcing back to his past. His gut protested too and he stifled a wince as it twisted mercilessly.
“Sure I have friends, all law-abiding, as it happens. But you know what, Connell, I can honestly say, hand on heart, that no one’s laying six feet under because of me or any of my friends. Can you say the same?”
Connell didn’t answer. He held the man’s gaze and swallowed down the taste of something nasty which was threatening to bubble to the surface, along with his stomach contents.
“Were there any witnesses to the attack?” Hamilton continued, no doubt content that he’d rattled Connell’s cage sufficiently and happy to let him stew a while longer.
Connell cleared his mind, thought again of Molly and shook his head. “No.”
“So, pretty much your word against his?”
“Not if you check the shotgun stock.”
Hamilton considered him a moment longer before turning to Wilson.
“A word, outside.”
They gathered their things and left him sitting alone at the table, stewing in the crap that he found himself knee deep in. He watched them through the glass door, heads together, deep in conversation. And beyond them his attention was drawn once again to the incident wall. He couldn’t make out the details, just the general layout.
Okay, so he knew three of the victims. Big deal, they were cops - he’d been a cop. Probably most of the guys in the incident room knew the victims also. Musgrave was meant to be in jail for his part in the killing of three FBI investigators. How he came to be the victim of a serial killer in the middle of New York, when he should have been languishing in a cell, was interesting. Sutherland, he hadn’t seen for years, but from what he recalled of him, if anyone was due a little non-elective abdominal surgery, Sutherland probably fit the bill. And then, finally, Scott. Okay, not his favorite person, far too handy with his feet, but his sudden demise was just a little too convenient. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think Frankie was tidying up loose ends. Frankie was no serial killer but that didn’t mean that Frankie didn’t know any serial killers.
The guys had moved away from the doorway. Something was going on. The majority of the detectives had left in a big hurry, with a flurry of activity and noise. Maybe they’d finally uncrossed their wires and headed out to look for the real killer. Taking advantage of their temporary lack of interest in him, Connell got to his feet, sauntered to the door and studied the wall through the glass, trying to make out the other victims.
They all looked pretty much the same in the crime scene photos, gutted and waiting for some poor bastard to come and scoop up their innards. He wondered at the mind of the killer. Murder was one thing, multiple murders another, but this guy was something else.
He focused on the map; so many murders in such a small area. He wondered how the guy did it without leaving any trace, any clues. Connell was interested, despite his reluctance to get involved, and his interest took him through the door and across the room. There were only a couple of guys left, in addition to Hamilton and Wilson, and nobody was paying any mind to him. Supposing he had been the killer, he could have walked out the door with a load of evidence without anyone being the wiser. No wonder the guy was running circles around them.
He stood casually propping one elbow on the water fountain and studied the locations marked in red. There were eleven different addresses in fairly close proximity to each other. The bells in his head were starting to peal ominously but he couldn’t quite get what it meant.
He turned at the sudden sound of shouting, furniture being knocked aside, men running and saw as in slow motion Gibbons launch himself past Wilson, weapon raised.
“Connell, you’re a fuckin’ dead man,” he roared. Spittle sprayed from his mouth as he fought past Wilson to get at the man he blamed for his partner’s death.
Connell swung his bewildered gaze to Hamilton, saw the words of warning forming on his lips and instinctively stepped back. Gibbons was grappled from behind by Wilson in a fairly neat tackle. The force of the joint momentum of two heavyweights carried them forward and they barreled into Connell who hit the water cooler with his full weight, knocking it from its housing, exploding the glass and its content. Connell hit the floor, felt the force of the explosion against his back, and stayed right where he was until the ringing in his ears subsided.
“Connell!” Wilson climbed over Gibbons in an effort to get past, leaving the thrashing mass of outrage to be subdued and disarmed by the men behind him. He rolled Connell over and when he realized his back was spotted with blood, pulled him roughly to his feet out of the water and shattered glass. “You okay?”
Connell winced. He could feel shards of glass pricking his skin and yanked at his dripping shirt. “I told you that guy was crazy. Help me get this damn thing off.”
Wilson roughly tore the shirt from his back and tossed it in a sodden heap on the floor. Connell’s back was flecked with cuts of various sizes and depths, some bleeding, some smarting, more of an irritation than anything else. Just one more thing to ruin his day.
“We need a paramedic in here. Now!” Wilson yelled and somewhere in the background Connell was aware of movement, commotion, as Gibbons was manhandled away. He took little notice, just sat where he was put, dripping wet, and waited for someone to come and patch him up. He took notice when the commotion stopped, raised his head and brushed wet hair out of his eyes, to find Hamilton, Wilson and, better late than never, Gerry Gesting, all staring at him.
“Hey, Gerry, about time you showed up. You missed all the fun. Your guy Gibbons tried to drown me in the cooler.” Connell tried to crack a smile but i
t died on his lips. He was just a little weary at how the day was turning out. He’d had such high hopes when he had kissed goodbye to Lizzie. Things just weren’t panning out the way he’d envisioned them. He wished he’d stayed home and finished what he’d started on the kitchen counter. The memory put a little spark back in him, a little attitude. “You know, guys, my mom told me it’s rude to stare, and if you want the truth, it’s freaking me out a little too. What’s going on? None of you have ever seen a guy without his shirt?”
Gerry broke the trance. “What have you been doing now, Tommy?”
Shrugging painfully, Connell raised a ghost of a smile. “Spending time in the cooler, Gerry.”
Gerry shook his head. “That’s not what I meant.”
Connell flinched as the paramedic started to attend to the cuts on his back. “You mean, why am I holed up here, carrying the can for every serial killer in town? You better ask these clowns, Gerry, because I’m fucked if I know. I’m just minding my own business - well, minding your business actually - when I’m hauled in here like some one-man vigilante and water-boarded by your number one suspect.”
“That’s not what I meant either.”
Connell shook off the medic, waving him away impatiently “Well, you better tell me what you do mean, because I’m about ready to walk out the door.”
Gerry exchanged a look with Hamilton and Wilson, and taking Connell firmly by the arm, he propelled him back into the interview room. When all four men were seated and the door was closed, Gerry fixed Connell with a look that said in no uncertain terms he wanted no wisecracks, no smart mouth and definitely no games.
“How did you get that mark on your chest, Tommy?” he asked.
“Huh?”
Gerry knew all about the shooting, knew he carried the scars from it. “You’ve got a short memory, Gerry. You forget how we met?”
Gerry shook his head. “I’m not talking about the bullet wound. I’m talking about the burn on your chest, Tommy. How did that happen?”
Connell found his hand drawn to the area subconsciously. “Some weirdo zapped me.”
“Where was that, Connell?” asked Hamilton, and Connell shot him a glance.
“Why do you want to know?”
“Just answer the question, Tommy,” said Gesting.
Connell cocked his head, tried to second guess him, but couldn’t. He found he was increasingly reluctant to mention anything relating to Molly, so he decided to keep Molly’s apartment out of the conversation. “I was checking out your guys, earning my pay, Gerry, you’ll be pleased to hear, and this weirdo obviously took exception to my sniffing around. I confronted him. He zapped me. End of story. What’s the big deal?”
“What did he look like?” asked Hamilton
Connell wasn’t likely to forget, “Tall, thin, dark eyes, a bit creepy, to be honest. Like he maybe should have had a forked tongue.”
“When did it happen?” asked Gerry.
“I dunno - last night, about six-ish.”
“Was that before or after your run in with Gibbons and Scott?”
“After. Why?”
Hamilton looked at each of the men in turn and returned his gaze to Connell. “It appears that you’re a very lucky man, Connell.”
“I am?” he didn’t feel very lucky. He’d been beaten up, knocked out cold, dragged in on some bullshit charge, and had his back shredded by a psychotic cop.
“I saw you taking an interest in the incident board,” said Hamilton.
“Doesn’t mean I’m your killer.”
“Didn’t say you were.”
“So?”
“So, did you notice anything about the bodies, other than the fact they’d all been disemboweled?”
Connell shrugged and felt the adhesives strips on his back pulling. “I don’t know. They were all cops …”
“Yeah, funny guy, they were all cops. If you’d looked a little closer, though, you would have seen that they all carried a fresh burn similar to yours, Connell. You see, all of our victims were zapped with some kind of taser or stun gun prior to being killed.”
“You think it’s the same guy?” asked Connell slowly, recalling the unease he’d felt in the guy’s presence.
“How many freaks do you think we have running around town with a zapper?”
“It was more than a simple taser,” said Connell. “I was out cold for half an hour.”
“He’d need that time to get busy with the knife,” said Wilson. Connell glared at him. Oh, so now he had something to say.
“So, how come I’m not carrying my innards round in a carrier bag?”
“Maybe he was disturbed.”
Connell thought about it, recalled the strange look on the guy’s face, amusement maybe. If he had been disturbed, there was only one person who could have done the disturbing. He turned his gaze back in the direction of the wall. The layout on the map, the locations of the murders, he had seen it someplace else. Suddenly Connell wanted out of there.
“You got a spare shirt?” he asked Wilson.
“I’ll find you something,” he replied, rising from the table and leaving the room.
“Cool,” he called after him. “Just make sure that it hasn’t got ‘Property of Rikers Island’ written all over the back.”
Wilson smiled shrewdly. Connell decided he’d come back with an orange jumpsuit.
“There’s a flaw in your thinking,” he said as he reached around for his jacket, hooked over the back of the chair. “All those guys, those victims, were on the take.”
“And you’re not?” asked Hamilton. Connell sent him a withering glance. “Maybe our guy thinks the same as most others, that you walk a little close to the line, that there’s rarely smoke without fire,” continued Hamilton.
“What are you saying here?” said Connell, leaning forward in his seat. He could feel his hackles rising and was glad they’d decided to join in. They were a counterbalance to the churning in his gut.
“He’s not saying anything that hasn’t already been said before, Tommy,” interceded Gerry. “We both know its crap but maybe our perp doesn’t.”
“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“Well, you’re still alive, aren’t you? What more do you want?”
Connell shook his head. “You always were a funny guy, Gerry.” He turned back to Hamilton. “So suddenly I’m not a suspect, I’m your number one witness.”
“Looks that way.”
“I take it that I’m free to go then …”
Hamilton exchanged a look with Gesting. “You need to tell us everything you know first.”
Connell raised a brow at Gerry. “Oh yeah, I think we need to have a similar conversation, Gerry. I’m getting that feeling again.”
Smiling, Gerry leaned back in his seat and folded his arms across his chest. “What feeling is that, Tommy?”
“The feeling that I’ve been staked out with a rope around my ankle so you guys can sit back with a big net.”
“Would I do that?”
“Sure you would, Gerry.”
They stared at each other and Connell considered his options. If he had just had a lucky escape, then he was probably the only person who could identify the killer, which made him a little too valuable for his own good. The good cops would surely want to keep him close, keep their hands tight on the end of that leash; the killer, well, if he had any sense at all, he would be looking for a way to get back and finish the job. Good old Frankie and the bad boys wouldn’t need to worry about him screwing up their plans anymore. They could just sit back and enjoy the fun. That would have been bad enough, but Connell had a growing suspicion that little Molly Brown was more involved in this than anyone could guess. That suspicion was beginning to set those bells a tinkling and it wasn’t a melodic sound. Something was very wrong and that little girl held all the answers.
Wilson returned, breaking the awkward silence by throwing a plastic-wrapped shirt at Connell who caught it one-handed. He ripped o
pen the package and shook the plain white shirt free of pins and creases before slipping it on and doing up the buttons. “It’s a little roomy,” smirked Wilson. “You need to work out some, Tommy.”
Connell ignored him. It was far too late to act like they were good buddies now. “I’m outa here,” he said as he grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair. “I see any freaks with sharp knives, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
“You can’t just walk away. You have information we need.” Hamilton rose, Wilson stepped to block the door and Connell eyeballed him, giving him the look that said quite clearly he was done playing games.
“You want bait, use Gibbons. I do things my way or not at all.” He turned to Gerry. “You coming?”
Gerry shrugged at Hamilton. “Leave it to me. We’ll get back to you.”
“You damn well better. This isn’t a game, Connell. We got eleven dead guys already and it looks like you’re marked as number twelve. You may not like authority, you may have a chip on your shoulder about the way you were treated before, but we need to help each other here, or someone else is going to end up gutted. And, Connell, keep in mind, that it might not necessarily be you. Could you live with that?”
Chapter Eleven
Connell found Marty waiting outside, leaning on the hood of his car. Shoulders slumped, eyes half closed, he’d been hanging around like he’d nothing better to do for some time. He had a worn out look, like a parent who’d just about had it with the kid who wouldn’t learn how to behave.
“Where’s my car?” asked Connell, ignoring the look. He didn’t need to be reminded.
Marty shot him a weary glance, took in his disheveled appearance, damp finger-combed hair and rightly concluded Connell hadn’t waited for Gerry to show up before opening his smart mouth. “In the pound, waiting for you to pay the towing fee.”
“Oh yeah, pay it with what exactly?” Connell pulled out the linings of his pockets with frustration. He knew he was behaving like a spoilt child but he was pretty much worn out too. Defending his honor to those who preferred to think badly of him was hard work. It gnawed at him but none of it was Marty’s fault.