by Rick Reed
It rang half a dozen times and went to voice mail. “You have reached Evansville Police Officer Hurt. I’m busy fighting crime right now, so leave a message.”
Jack tried two more times with the same result.
“Didn’t Hurt say he was working this detail tonight?” Jack asked.
“I don’t know, pod’na. You talked to him.”
“If he’s sleeping, I’ll kill him,” Jack said.
Jack pulled up Sister Aquinas’s phone number. No answer. He tried again and still no answer.
“Shit! Step on it, Bigfoot. No one’s answering their phones.”
Liddell stomped down on the gas pedal and took Highway 41 to the Division Street ramp. “Should we call backup, pod’na?”
“We’ll see,” Jack said, drew his .45, checked the action, and didn’t reholster.
They were on First Avenue, a block from the church, in less than a minute. Officer Hurt’s marked police cruiser was in the parking lot of Hacienda Restaurant, the front pointed toward the church. A cloud of mist came from the exhaust.
Liddell flashed his bright lights several times to get Hurt’s attention, but Hurt didn’t respond.
“You check him. I’m going across,” Jack said and was out of the car and running across First Avenue, gun in hand.
Liddell approached the police car and saw a spray of blood on the driver’s window. Hurt’s head was against the window, a black sock hat covering his face. Liddell opened the car door, and Hurt’s body slid toward him. Liddell pushed the body back up in the seat, checked for a pulse, and got on his portable radio.
He keyed the mic and said, “Signal ten traffic, Signal ten.” Without waiting for dispatch to respond, he gave his location, requested an ambulance and backup. He heard dispatch acknowledge and begin the dispatches as he was running across First Avenue after Jack.
Jack ran up the steps to the convent and, ignoring proper police procedure, he tried the front door, found it unlocked, and entered into a dark hallway. He shut the door behind himself to avoid being backlit and held the .45 at shoulder height, finger on the trigger, trying to control his breathing, and listening. He could hear the slap-slap of shoes on pavement. Bigfoot.
Jack heard the front door opening behind him and said, “Go to the back, Bigfoot.”
As the door closed, Jack had a sick feeling that they were too late. The place felt empty of life. He saw a beam of light splash against the end of the hallway. Liddell was in the back door. They now had both ends covered, so the need to be quiet was outweighed by the urgency of checking for life.
“Sister,” Jack called out. “It’s Jack. Sister.”
Not a sound. Jack moved forward to the stairway and took the Vipertek flashlight from his coat pocket. He held it away from his body and flipped it on. The hallway lit up like somebody had turned on the sun.
“Check down here, Liddell. I’m going up,” Jack said, and trained the light at the top of the stairway as he climbed. His thoughts turned to the weapon of choice, a twenty-two-inch-blade bayonet, and he wished this asshole preferred a gun. Jack had gone against a large knife before and almost lost his life. He still carried the long scar from his ear to his nipple.
At the top of the stairs he peeked around the corner, trained the beam down that hall and then turned it off. The light was bright enough that it was like throwing a flash-bang without the explosion. No response. He found the light switch on the wall and turned the lights on upstairs.
The rooms along the hall were all empty until he came to the small bedroom at the front of the convent. He opened the door and said, “Aw shit!”
Liddell called from the bottom of the stairs, “All clear.”
“Joe,” Jack called out and could hear Liddell doing the same downstairs.
Jack checked the closet in the bedroom. It contained a few items of clothing and some boxes stacked in one corner. This was all Sister Aquinas had to show for a life of generosity and service to her God and her community.
He went back to the dresser by the bed. Sister Aquinas was on her knees, propped against the dresser, palms together and held that way by a rosary. Her head was leaning forward as if in prayer. The white nightgown she’d gone to bed in was soaked in blood at the shoulders and down her front, and some puddled on the floor around her legs.
He called out, “Joe!”
No response.
He started to leave the bedroom when he heard a muffled whine.
“Joe!”
He heard the whine coming from the closet. He opened the door. The dog had knocked down a stack of boxes that were hiding a cubbyhole off to the side. The dog pushed her head between two boxes and bared her teeth at Jack. He still didn’t see the boy.
“Joe, you can come out,” Jack said. Joe didn’t answer. “Joe? Are you okay?”
Jack pulled the top boxes off onto the floor and found Joe scrunched down against the back wall, his eyes and mouth clenched into straight lines. The dog’s leash was pulled up short in a tight grip, but its eyes were on Jack, and it was smiling.
“Liddell,” Jack yelled. “Up here.” He could hear Liddell bounding up the stairs.
Liddell came in the bedroom and turned the lights on.
“Turn the lights back off, Bigfoot,” Jack said, and Liddell did. Jack didn’t want the boy to have to see Sister Aquinas like that. How the killer hadn’t found Joe was a mystery, but then Jack remembered, he himself had checked the closet and missed the hiding place.
Jack got to one knee in the closet to talk to Joe. “You’re safe now. I need you to come with me.” He held a hand out to the boy. Shadow growled but didn’t bite. Joe took Jack’s hand and was coaxed to his feet. “Come on, Joe. You’re alive. Shadow is here with you. I’m here too. I won’t let anything else happen.”
Joe said in a quiet voice, “Grandfather promised me we would have a better life here. Now he is dead. Everyone that cared for me is dead, and it’s all my fault. I should have stayed with those men. Maybe I would be with my sister?” He lifted his eyes to Jack’s, and Jack could see the pain in them.
“Let’s go downstairs. I’ll let you make me some coffee, and I’ll tell you what I know. Agreed?”
“Shadow goes too? She’s hungry,” Joe said.
“We’ll find something for Shadow. Come on.”
Jack led the way past Liddell, past two burly uniformed officers coming up the stairs wearing grim expressions, past a crime scene tech struggling with two large cases of forensic equipment, past the boxes of clothes stacked in the hallway that would be delayed in finding homes now. The clothes made him wonder how he would find Sister Aquinas’s next of kin. The nun had to be in her nineties.
But he had to worry about the living right now. Joe needed him. He wanted to promise that he could protect him, but he had failed to protect Freyda and Sister Aquinas. He’d almost lost the boy. Maybe it was time to get someone else involved.
“I’m calling a friend,” Jack said. “She will help you and keep you safe.”
“You are giving me to them,” Joe said. “To ICE. Sending me back.”
Jack was surprised to hear that word come from this boy’s mouth, but how could he not know the terminology. His grandfather had warned him.
“No. My friend will find a place for you here. She will try to help you stay. If that’s what you want?” Jack said.
In the kitchen, the boy sat on the floor with Shadow cradled between his legs while Jack called Anna Whiteside and filled her in on the night’s happenings.
“We know who he is now, Jack. He can run, but he can’t hide for long,” Anna said.
“I’ve got to ask for another favor.” Jack asked the favor without much hope it would be given.
“I have a local agent in Evansville as it so happens. She’ll pick the boy up and take him to a safe house. Hang on,” Anna said. She came back on the li
ne. “She’s been notified. Where are you?”
Jack told her, and she gave an ETA—estimated time of arrival—of ten minutes.
Joe, who had been listening to the one-sided conversation, said, “I will never see you again, so thank you for helping me, Detective Murphy.”
The boy held a hand out to shake, and Jack felt his throat constrict at the boy’s bravery. Jack took his hand and pulled him into a hug. “I will see you again if I can. I can at least promise that, Joe. And there’s always email.”
Joe smiled. “Bigfoot said you suck at using computers. If I see you again, I will teach you.”
Jack noticed Joe had been clutching something in one hand the whole time. “What’s that, Joe?”
“He dropped it.”
“Who dropped it?” Jack asked.
Joe said, “The sister came into the room and hid me and Shadow in the closet. She said be very quiet. I heard the man come in the room, and the sister told him she would pray for him. It was quiet, and then I heard the closet open, and the man was looking for me. I hurt Shadow keeping her quiet, I think, but she didn’t make a sound until she heard you. When the man was in the closet, I think he dropped this.” Joe held out a small and very worn spiral notebook.
Jack took the notebook. The cover was rough and warn and wouldn’t produce any usable fingerprints. He asked Joe, “Did you open it?”
Joe said he hadn’t. Jack slid the notebook into his pocket and helped Joe into a seat at the table. They talked about Joe’s life in Honduras until the ICE agent showed up. She introduced herself, bundled Joe into her heavy parka, and took him out the front to her car.
Liddell joined Jack and watched the too-thin boy getting into a black Suburban.
“He set us up, pod’na,” Liddell said to Jack. “This guy is slick.”
“I didn’t expect him to go after Freyda,” Jack said. “I didn’t even think he would come back to Evansville.”
“He’s done St. Louis twice, pod’na.”
“You’re right, Bigfoot. But I don’t think the trooper’s killing was intentional. I think that was an escape route and she was in the wrong place. He surprised her while she was still in her car. I think he was on his way back here to kill Joe.”
“Why would a little boy be a threat to him?” Liddell asked.
“Maybe he wasn’t a threat. Who knows how this sick bastard thinks. Maybe he was just making sure everyone from that truck was dead,” Jack said. “Like pride in his work.”
Chapter 39
Coyote had staged the woman’s body so that Murphy would be called to the Coffee Shop. He’d kept the 9-1-1 call short and disguised his voice, but it was a mistake to make the call from her phone. He had barely made it before the police arrived. He hadn’t counted on such a quick response.
When he’d hurried across town to the convent, he could hear sirens getting closer, and the police cars had passed him going the other direction. He didn’t know if he’d have time to complete his mission when he spotted the police car sitting on the parking lot of the Mexican restaurant across from the convent. The officer inside had a sock hat covering his face. He’d quietly put the cop to sleep permanently.
Gaining entry to the convent had been easy enough. The locks were old, and there weren’t any deadbolts. He’d been quiet enough getting in, but he hadn’t counted on the old nun’s hearing being so good. He’d seen her with the boy when Murphy brought the dog to them, and she was at least in her nineties. Old people were supposed to have poor hearing.
He’d been prepared for the dog. When he’d killed the old woman, he found some ground beef in her fridge. He’d taken some of it to the convent for the dog, but he hadn’t needed it. He found the nun, but she wouldn’t give the boy up.
He had searched the convent, and she’d quietly followed him around. She hadn’t tried to stop him. She wasn’t afraid. Instead she had blessed him and asked him to pray with her. She said no matter what he’d done, he would be forgiven. For just a moment he’d felt different. Like when he was a boy and his parents had told him about the power of prayer. But he was beyond prayer. He’d had no choice but to kill her. If she was right, He would forgive him that too. She said she’d pray for him. That was when he’d killed her.
Murphy must have moved the boy. Murphy reminded him of himself. That was bad.
The whole night had been for nothing. He didn’t have a plan, and when you didn’t know what to do, you just moved and kept on moving. He had to go forward. Cut his losses. After what he’d done tonight, Murphy would have to turn the boy over to the Feds for protection. From what he’d read about the detective at the library, Murphy would come after him with everything he had. Like him, Murphy wasn’t squeamish about killing.
After he got a safe distance away, he could call his source to find out where they were keeping the boy, just in case. If he had another shot, he’d go back. That would most likely burn his source, and that would put Coyote out of business.
He’d made it to Interstate 64 and gone west instead of east toward Indianapolis like he’d planned earlier. Zig when you planned to zag, but keep moving. It had served him well in the Border Patrol and saved his butt more than once in Vietnam.
Another hour or so of driving and he could spend the day at a real hotel if he wanted. Get a decent meal for a change. In the morning he would move on. Head home. He regretted what he’d had to do tonight. He didn’t intend to kill civilians or innocents, but his country was asleep to the danger they were in. As a people, they were incapable of stopping the waves of illegal immigrants washing over this country, stripping it of its resources, changing its way of life to something he no longer recognized. Instead of being angry with the illegals, American citizens were angry with their law enforcers, their military, always limiting and restricting their ability to carry out the job. He felt sorry for the ignorance, whether it was deliberate or caused by an ill-informed news media. Everyone likes to eat chicken, but sometimes to eat, you have to be the one to kill the chicken. They had forgotten that.
He crossed the Mississippi for the third time in two days and took the first exit. He drove back roads, not knowing where he was going, not needing to, just moving, needing time to think.
He needed to record the day’s events in his journal. Maybe he could discover what had gone so wrong? He had hesitated to kill the nun. That was the first time he’d hesitated since he was boots down in Vietnam. Back then he’d learned a lesson; you hesitate, you die. He hadn’t hesitated to kill the woman trooper at the café this morning, but her death was gnawing at him. He rationalized that he was protecting American citizens and that she was sworn to do the same thing. She hadn’t died in vain.
He spotted a red neon sign ahead, pulled in and parked outside the last run-down room of yet another dump motel. It wouldn’t have surveillance systems, hence no need to kill again. Maybe now he could have privacy, write until he got it all out, and maybe tonight he would sleep.
The clerk had zits on his face and was more interested in the titty magazine he was perusing than in Coyote. He paid cash for the room with new twenty-dollar bills, plus one for a tip. The kid hadn’t thanked him for the extra. Things had changed.
He took the key, got a Diet Coke from the machine outside his room, and opened the door to his home for the night. The smell of disinfectant hit him so hard he thought he’d ask zit-face for another room. It wouldn’t matter. All the rooms probably smelled the same.
He left the door open. He’d rather be cold than suffocate on the smell. He sat at a small table with a stubby shadeless lamp and reached in his coat pocket for the notebook. It was gone!
Chapter 40
Jack stood in the front door of the convent, watching the pulsing blue-and-white emergency lights, and felt like a fool for being played so easily. There were three more dead tonight because he couldn’t get a handle on the killer, and he wondered what he should h
ave done. Was it his fault? Sister Aquinas’s death was on him. He knew that for sure. If he’d done what everyone else had suggested and given Joe over to ICE, maybe the guy wouldn’t have come back? But he hadn’t. A gentle soul had been savagely taken. Coté killed a nun!
Jack watched as Officer Hurt was removed from his police cruiser and placed in a body bag. This was placed on a gurney and loaded into the back of the black Suburban that would ferry the policeman to the morgue.
Joe had been examined by the paramedics that arrived but refused to be taken back to the hospital to be seen by an ER doctor. He had glued himself to Jack, and Shadow had done likewise to the boy. The arriving ICE agent had been gentle with Joe and cautious with Shadow, but both had been taken peacefully, leaving Jack with the memory of the last words he heard the boy say. “I’ll never see you again, Detective Murphy.”
Liddell cut into Jack’s thoughts. “Crime Scene is done up there, pod’na. They said they’re ready to turn the body over to the coroner’s crew.”
Sister Aquinas was still in her room. Jack had requested they not move her until he could be present.
“Let’s do this,” Jack said, and he and Liddell climbed the stairs. Every light in the convent was turned on, and Jack’s mind flashed back to grade school again when the convent had been a spooky place. It was still spooky, but now empty of any mystery.
Jack took in the threadbare carpet in the hallway upstairs, the worn-through carpet entryways to the rooms; the paint was as old and faded as the building itself, every inch spotless. The sisters had taken a vow of poverty and service. They never complained; they cleaned, they taught, and they prayed.
It was with these thoughts and feelings he reentered the crime scene and saw the pitiable, emaciated body of the little nun. The killer had posed her, propped her up, buttocks on heels, hands folded in her lap in a prayer position with a rosary around her hands. Blood spattered the front and pooled around the hem of the faded white gown.