At What Cost

by James L'Etoile

  The levee bank was steep and slippery with dew-covered grass. John stumbled and fell facedown in the muck as the boat-engine sound pulled away. He clambered up the levee bank to the gravel maintenance road on the crest. The sound of the engine reverberated in the river channel, but John couldn’t make out a boat, only a silver sheen in the water from the vessel’s receding wake. John stood on the levee road and scanned both directions, hoping for, and fearing, a glimpse of Tommy.

  He sidestepped down the levee bank toward the waterline, slipping on the slick grass. With his left arm against the bank for support, John edged closer to the bottom, moving crablike down the embankment. John tracked the ripples from the vanishing boat’s wake to a spot fifteen feet upriver and discovered a deep gouge in the mud marked where a boat had touched ashore, similar to the track left when Cardozo’s body was dumped.

  He had no reason to trust that Winnow would deliver Tommy. The message the Outcast Killer had left on the computer screen had meaning beyond the crazed ravings of a madman. Any other explanation took John to a dark place, void of hope. His mind drifted to memories of his son calling out for him.

  “Daddy?”

  It was the plaintive cry of a lonely, lost boy. John shook his head to rid the imaginary voice from his mind.

  “Daddy?”

  John popped up, facing the direction of the voice. Even in the dim light, he could see that his son wasn’t there. His pulse raced. He knew his son’s voice; there was no mistaking it. It was the sound Tommy made when he was scared. But Tommy wasn’t here. Was this what it was like to go insane?

  John slogged through the river muck toward the sound. Tommy sounded close, but there was no one there. He pivoted, not trusting his senses, looking for his son.

  “Tommy?” he called out to the invisible voice.

  Silence.

  John peered into the brush along the riverbank and into the rushing current, looking for the boy.

  “Daddy?”

  John knew he was close.

  A light-blue flicker shone two paces ahead.

  John tumbled over a slick rock and landed chest first into the mud.

  He scrambled on his hands and knees, closer to the sound, and reached for the blue object. When he touched it, John knew what it was: the sleeve of Tommy’s favorite jacket poked through the mud.

  The cries for help from the unseen boy continued, buried in the mud underneath him. He clawed into the mud, pulling on the exposed section of the sleeve, and uncovered the rest of the jacket, less than an inch under the surface.

  Tommy’s voice came through much clearer now.

  John followed the voice that came from the jacket. He felt a lump in the sleeve, and bile collected in his throat, knowing the rancid gifts Winnow left behind. A glow illuminated through the fabric, and John found the source of his son’s voice. It wasn’t imaginary; it came from a cell phone.

  “Tommy? Tommy, where are you?” John said, holding the cell phone to his ear.

  After there was no answer from his son, John looked at the screen. The phone showed an incoming call from a blocked number. Tommy’s voice was set as the ringtone.

  John stabbed at the green accept-call button, held the phone close to his ear, and said, “Tommy?”

  It wasn’t Tommy’s voice that greeted him. “I was nearly ready to give up on you, Detective,” Brice Winnow said.

  “Where is he, you son of a bitch?”

  “Oh, he’s around somewhere, or maybe around several somewheres. You know how I tend to leave bits and pieces.”

  “What do you want from me? You left that message so I’d come out here. Well, here I am.”

  “Just want to get right to it, eh? No exchange of pleasantries or idle chitchat, as they say? Fine. Are you listening closely, Detective? I provided you a cell phone. Think of it as your son’s lifeline.”

  “What do you want, Winnow?”

  “Interrupt me again and we’re done here. You understand?”

  “Tell me,” John said, kneeling in the mud.

  “If I disconnect our call, your boy dies. If you hang up, the boy dies. This connection must remain open or the boy dies. You contact anyone, he dies. Understand? Do you understand?”

  “I understand,” John said. “How do I know you have him and that he’s okay?”

  Winnow laughed. “Not a trusting soul, are you? I get it. Pull up the camera on your phone.”

  The phone shook in his hand, and John hesitated to push any button for fear of disconnecting the call. He found a small icon with a picture of a camera on the screen. He pressed it, and the screen flashed, then went dark.

  “Hello?” More than a small edge of panic seeped into John’s voice.

  Over the cell phone’s small speaker, Winnow said, “A surveillance camera feed is linked to your phone. Look at it all you want. That comes with a risk, as your phone battery will burn away each second you linger.”

  John picked up a slight movement in the picture on the screen. The camera provided a grainy, jumpy video feed, but it was enough to show Tommy, curled up on a filthy mattress.

  “Tommy! Tommy, it’s Dad!” John cried.

  “Oh, Tommy! Tommy!” Winnow mimicked. “He can’t hear you. Turn the camera off, or you won’t have enough battery life and neither will Tommy.”

  John hesitated and took one more look before he made the video feed vanish.

  “So we begin. If you do exactly as you’re told, I will release your son.”

  “Why should I trust you?”

  “Trust, Detective? This isn’t about trust, it’s about keeping the boy alive.”

  John’s thumb hovered over the camera button, longing for another glimpse of Tommy.

  “Warehouse, northeast corner of Tenth and R Street. Go there. Fifteen minutes.”

  “I can’t get there in fifteen minutes,” John said, already scrabbling up the levee embankment.

  “You don’t have a choice, Detective.”

  “Winnow!” John said, with no response. He looked at the phone to ensure the call remained connected and the screen counted up the call time.

  John reached the top of the levee and ran across the open field toward his parked sedan. Mud clung to his feet and caused him to trip on an exposed tree root. He fell forward, still cradling the cell phone. He couldn’t risk breaking his fall with his arms and took the full force of the fall on his chest, knocking the wind from his burning lungs. The concussion dizziness returned, fogging his mind for a moment.

  He pushed up to his knees and struggled to pull air into his chest. With a half breath, he stood and slogged to the car. The cobwebs in his brain loosened. He held the phone up and reassured the fall hadn’t broken his line to the killer, or rather his lifeline to Tommy.

  John reached his car and didn’t waste time knocking the river mud from his shoes or the slime from his shirt before he jumped behind the wheel. The detective started the engine, threw the transmission in reverse, and jammed the wheel to the left, spinning the car around on the slick surface.

  He punched the accelerator and shot out of the park entrance, entrusting his son’s future to vague promises from a sadistic serial killer.

  THIRTY-SIX

  The section of R Street near Tenth was a mix of commercial businesses, restaurants, and a couple of trendy bars. As directed, John pulled up to a warehouse on the northeast corner, and it appeared abandoned, with a faded sign that read, For Sale or Lease.

  “I’m here,” John said into the cell phone.

  “Good. The door is locked with a combination lock. Spin the dial to 23-30-7 and go inside.”

  John held the phone against his chin as he worked the combination. The lock unsnapped on the first attempt. He pocketed the lock and hefted the rust-covered door, only to find it opened on smooth, well-oiled hinges.

  “Is Tommy here?”

  “Go inside. Light switch, on the wall by the door.”

  “You didn’t answer me,” John said.

  “No, I didn’t.
Now do as I say, quickly.”

  John felt around the doorframe and located the light switches. He remembered his near electrocution at the last warehouse, but he pushed forward until he found the switch plate. He toggled the switch up, and heavy-duty industrial lights buzzed overhead, the bulbs growing brighter as they warmed. He closed the door behind him.

  “All right, I’m inside,” John said.

  John peered into the cavernous warehouse. A separate structure sat squarely in the center of the floor. As the lights brightened, John recognized the building as a metal storage shed, large enough to cover two full-size cars. All along the outside walls of the shed, cotton pads, old mattresses, and insulation were draped over the panels—makeshift soundproofing to deaden audible noises from inside the box. The thought of Winnow eviscerating his victims in this place brought bile into John’s throat.

  “See the table, in front of my workroom?” Winnow asked.

  A folding table, with a stained white plastic top, sat on one side of the shed. Cardboard boxes, glass bottles, and coils of clear rubber tubing covered the table’s surface. Under the table, five-gallon containers of industrial solvents and cleaners lined the floor.

  Mud fell from John’s shoes in large clumps as he approached the table, but his attention honed in on the sliding shed doors. A sliver of light slipped through the crack between the doors from inside.

  “Penley, pay attention here. On the corner of the table, there is a Bluetooth earpiece for the phone. Get it. You’re going to need to use both hands.”

  John put the phone on the table while he put the earpiece in his right ear.

  “There, you should be able to hear me now, Detective,” Winnow said.

  John wheeled around. The only way Winnow would know that he had picked up the earpiece was if he watched him do it. He only half expected the man to show himself and wasn’t surprised when he spotted the camera mounted on a beam above.

  “Yeah, I hear you,” John said, staring back at the camera’s black eye.

  “Good. Pocket the phone. You have a lot of work to do in very little time.”

  “When do I get my boy?” John said. He noticed the battery meter on the cell phone registered 20 percent.

  “Maybe the boy is behind those doors.”

  John shoved the phone in his pocket, sprinted for the shed’s sliding door, and shoved it aside. The garage-sized space was a fully equipped surgical suite. Monitors, wires, and tubes hung limp from stainless-steel racks. Meat hooks, reminiscent of those John had stumbled into at the Layton barn, draped from an iron frame. Two huge boom lights shone down on a pair of autopsy tables. The lipped tables had a slight angle to contain and direct blood and bodily fluids out a drain at one end. One-inch rubber tubes connected the tables to a floor drain, and the brown discoloration was evidence of repeated use.

  John’s knees buckled when he recognized that one of the tables held a body, covered with a plastic tarp from the neck down. An instant rush of guilt and relief washed over him when he registered that the body was too large to be Tommy’s.

  He approached the body, and from the gray pallor of the skin, John knew this man was long dead. He pulled back the tarp and found the trademark Outcast Killer incisions and empty chest cavity.

  “You haven’t come very far from your stepfather’s barn,” John said.

  “Layton was an animal!” It was a momentary loss of composure, a fissure in the cool facade Winnow projected.

  “Whatever—Patrick. Enough of your sick game of show-and-tell.”

  “It is my game, don’t forget that.”

  Winnow paused, and his voice came across cold and composed once more. “Meet James Lind. Mr. Lind’s donations will allow more than a dozen transactions to occur. His A-positive blood type is very popular in certain Asian countries. That’s what it’s all about. The high-demand blood types, A positive, AB positive. We track them and go find them.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because you are going to help me,” Winnow instructed.

  “I can’t do this.”

  “Want to see little Tommy again?”

  “You can’t ask me to cut somebody up,” John said.

  “No, no, Detective, I couldn’t trust you to handle such a delicate task. I’ve harvested the good bits from Mr. Lind. See the three briefcases on the floor?”

  John turned and spotted the cases, identical to the one left at the old ice plant. “Yes, I see them.”

  “Take them to the worktable out in the main room. I will guide you through the next steps.”

  John hefted all three cases at once and brought them to the worktable, setting them atop one another. The odor of chemicals, especially acetone, near the table and Lind’s body burned his nose. “Okay, what am I supposed to do?”

  “You are going to replace the perfusion pump in each case with a new pump and battery pack.”

  “I don’t know how to do that.”

  “You’d better learn fast. You are on a deadline here, remember?”

  “What do I do?”

  “Open one of the cases. The perfusion pump is the clear, circular object with tubes attached to each end. Take a new pump from the boxes to your left, clip on a new battery pack, and swap out the old one in the case.”

  John recognized the pump from the discussion he’d had with Dr. Kelly. His fingers trembled as he popped open the first case. He raised the lid and revealed a thick, foam-padded interior with sections cut out for the battery, perfusion pump, and a clear plastic container. The case held a human heart submerged in icy-cold perfusion fluid. Liquid coursed through the pump to the stolen heart with a low hum. John winced at the grotesque display.

  As instructed, John took a new pump from the box, clipped on a new battery pack, and removed the old mechanism from the case. The pump stopped its low purr when John disconnected it. He expected a burst of perfusion fluid, but the one-way valves in the lines prevented the frigid solution from escaping. John finished the swap, then closed and secured the locks on the case.

  “Good. Quickly now, get to the next two,” Winnow said.

  John quickened his pace and swapped out the pumps and battery packs in the other two cases. One held a pair of kidneys, while the other container had a mass of tissue, which could have been liver, pancreas, or spleen to John’s harried mind.

  “I’m finished.”

  “Almost.”

  John faced the camera. “What?”

  “Take your gun, badge, and wallet and place them on the table. No, I didn’t forget about the gun, Detective. Then take the cases to the car.”

  “I’m your delivery boy now?” John questioned. Following the killer’s instructions, the gun, badge, and wallet went on the table.

  “Before you leave, look behind you.”

  John swiveled, hoping that the madman would reveal Tommy. Instead, an electronic click-click-click rattled inside the shed, followed by a quick, bright flash of flame. The Outcast Killer torched his acetone-saturated workroom by remote control.

  The flames spread quickly, pouncing on Lind’s body and the equipment inside. The insulation on the walls of the shed served as tinder to the flames, intensifying the height of the inferno. John put up a hand to shield himself from the heat, and in his earpiece, he heard, “Better hurry, Detective.”

  John lugged the cases and made it to the door as a chemical explosion lit up the interior of the warehouse. Within seconds, flames licked through the roof. The fire spread quickly; clearly, Winnow had wired the place to burn.

  Patrons from a nearby bar started coming out onto the sidewalk and pointed at the burning warehouse. A couple of them yelled while John put the metal cases in his trunk. He couldn’t hear what they said, but he knew what it looked like, fleeing the scene of a fire. A dozen witnesses watched him in front of the burning building, loading containers into a car that would trace back to the police motor pool. He wished the gawkers were more interested in calling the fire department than in taking cel
l-phone videos of the blaze.

  John started the car, spun the rear wheels in reverse, shifted into drive, and sped off down R Street. In the rearview mirror, a blonde woman pointed her cell-phone camera and captured video of his escape.

  “I’m not your errand boy! Let me have my son.”

  “I prefer to call it insurance. Don’t make me cancel the policy.”

  John’s knuckles seized hard on the steering wheel when he saw a swarm of red emergency lights flock toward him. They would stop him, arrest him for the arson, and find body parts in the trunk. Human remains would take time to explain. He couldn’t afford the delay in finding Tommy.

  “What am I supposed to do?” John demanded.

  “Don’t get caught,” the voice said through the earpiece.

  “I’ve done what you asked.”

  “Go to Mather Field.”

  The blaring siren from a fire engine drowned out the killer’s instructions. A second truck followed close behind, bleating an air-powered horn. No black-and-white police units converged on the intersection to cut off John’s escape.

  The moment the sound diminished, John said, “Mather?”

  “There is a chartered Learjet parked and waiting on the tarmac. Get there and deliver the containers to the air ambulance staff.”

  “How am I supposed to do that?” he asked, turning east on B Street.

  “Figure it out. You have fifteen minutes.”

  “I can’t get there in fifteen. I need more time.”

  “You have those containers on that plane in fifteen minutes, or Tommy takes their place.”

  John whipped the sedan around a white-and-blue Regional Transit bus, cutting off traffic in the lane to his left. He sped up, taking advantage of the light night traffic.

  “I need more time!”

  He heard nothing in return from the killer, only an extended silence.

  “You hear me? I need more time!”

  The cell phone remained silent.

  John lifted his hips up off the seat and pulled the cell phone from his pocket. He glanced down at the screen. The call timer ticked off second by second, confirming he hadn’t lost his connection. John tapped the camera icon. As before, the screen flickered, and an image of Tommy appeared. The boy faced the camera, curled up with his knees to his chest, rocking back and forth.