Deadly Consequences

by Lori Gordon

  Sam recoiled, sickened by the story. Back then, Thorpe’s only crime had been being poor, working his way to a better life by cleaning up the privileged kid’s trash and mopping their floors. One single cruel act twenty years ago led to the deaths of three people, possibly four, if Victor Vasquez didn’t make it.

  Thorpe boiled with rage. Sam took a step back. “You said they, you had two dates?”

  “How stupid are you?” He screamed. “They got me two years in a row.”

  Jesus. After what he’d endured, he’d found the courage to believe another girl cared for him enough to invite him to her prom. Thorpe had a devastating need for acceptance, making her wonder what his childhood had been like.

  Sam hesitated. Thorpe was damaged, and in need of psychological help. The hesitation cost her. He grabbed her by the hair, and threw her down, pinning her arm to the floor with the knife. She screamed in agony, feeling the blade rip through flesh and muscle, and rolled to her side, trying to pull the knife out. Cassie shrieked behind her gag, rocking in the chair, struggling to distract him.

  Thorpe kicked Sam’s free arm to the floor, stepping on her hand with his foot. “Maybe I should show you what it feels like. Maybe then, you’ll understand.”

  Her eyes widened as he reached for his zipper. Grunting in pain, she brought her legs up to her chest, kicking him hard in the stomach. Thorpe stumbled backwards. Clenching her teeth, she ripped the knife out of her arm, holding it out in front of her.

  The old coal shaft swung open. Her body sagged in relief as Alec and Lombardo dropped to their feet, aiming their weapons at Thorpe’s head.

  “On your knees,” Alec yelled.

  Thorpe’s gaze darted toward the exit. Rafe burst through the doorway. “One move and I drop you.”

  Alec swung in front of Thorpe, jamming the barrel of his gun into Thorpe’s temple. “On your knees, now, hands behind your head.”

  Thorpe stood there, a dazed expression on his face. Alec used his knees to knock Thorpe to the ground, slapping a set of cuffs on him. “Keep an eye on him,” he called to Rafe.

  “Lombardo,” Sam’s voice trembled, “Check on Cassie, make sure she’s okay.”

  She clutched her arm, trying to staunch the blood. Alec gathered her into his arms holding her tight. Sam rested her head on his shoulder. “Thank God, you’re okay,” his voice turned gruff. “I couldn’t bear to lose you.”

  Sam felt a strange tingle at the base of her spine, feeling Alec’s heartbeat against her chest. His arms warmed the chill lingering deep in her soul, making her wish she could stay there forever. She tipped her head back, and gave him a weak smile. “It took you long enough to get here.”

  “The passage was blocked. We had to dig our way through.” He searched her face. “How are you doing?”

  She shrugged, sinking to the ground as a wave of dizziness rippled through her.

  “You’ll be okay, sweetheart.” Alec’s eyes darkened as he smoothed the hair off her face, keeping his arms wrapped around her as her legs buckled and she dipped to the floor.

  Light headed, she watched Alec take off his shirt, and tear it into pieces. Sam’s throat went dry, wincing in pain, as he used his shirt to fasten a makeshift tourniquet on her wound, wrapping the wound with leftover pieces. “Better?”

  She nodded, struggling to stay alert as a grey mist clouded her vision.

  “Let’s get you to a hospital.” Alec wrapped an arm around her waist.

  “Wait.” Sam staggered towards Cassie. “Did he hurt you?”

  Cassie shuddered, rubbing her wrists where the rope chafed her. “Not physically.”

  Sam nodded her understanding. “You’re safe now. You’re going to be okay.” She fished in her pocket and pulled out a crumbled card. “But if you need someone to talk to, here’s my number.”

  Cassie took the card, and placed it on her lap. “Thank you,” she said softly.

  Sam raised her eyes towards Lombardo. “Get her to a hospital, so she can be checked out.”

  “Detective,” Cassie said. “I know you got hurt on account of saving me and I want you to know how much that means. You showed me something tonight, something I’ll never forget. I want you to know I’m gonna go to college, and after that, I’m gonna be a police lady like you.”

  Tears sprang to her eyes. “Thank you, Cassie. You’re a brave young lady, and one day you’ll make an excellent cop.”

  Cassie nodded. “Thank you, for my life.”

  Before it was over, they recovered nine more amputated legs, one for each year William Thorpe served as the zoo curator.

  Victor Vasquez recovered from the head injury and found another line of work.

  Hannah Phillips maintained her position as the zoo’s director, implementing a rigid screening process for all future employees.

  Each week, like clockwork, Sam Black received a letter from the prison in Joliet. And each week, like clockwork, she tossed the envelope into the trash, unopened.

  Lincoln Park Zoo is one of the oldest zoos in the nation and served as the city’s cemetery in the 1800’s. The Couch Tomb is located within the park, and remains part of the zoo. “Deadly Consequences” is a work of fiction, and not an actual depiction of the zoo, actual person’s living or dead, and fictionalizes the location in keeping with the story. References to any actual buildings are based purely on the author’s imagination.

  Enjoy an exciting sneak peek of

  Till Death

  A Sam Black psychological thriller

  Chapter One

  Saturday, July 23

  Harold Franklin huddled in the back of the ambulance. A near-by street light cast a bizarre spider web of shadows across his body. He was a big man, shrunken by fear. His robust face was the color of ash; the whites of his eyes reflected the pulsating blue and red strobe lights from the emergency vehicles descending on the area.

  Sam Black stood in the middle of a torrential downpour keeping an eye trained on their star witness. She struggled to balance an umbrella and a mug of fast cooling coffee while scribbling a list of questions in her leather-bound notebook.

  It was a losing battle. A vicious gust of wind whipped her backwards, ripping the umbrella from her fingertips.

  “Damn it.” Sam lunged after the umbrella — the fourth she’d lost so far this year — upending her coffee in the process. A dark brown stain soaked into her summer slacks. Driving rain pelted her from every direction, plastering dark blonde hair across her face. She swore under her breath, pushing the hair from her eyes in time to see her umbrella hurtle through the air and crash into the gurney. The timing couldn’t have been worse. The Medical Examiner was zipping up the body bag.

  “Oh, Lord.” Sam cringed as Mark Matsuda ducked from the flapping umbrella and the unmistakable sound of metal crashing into metal. Even from a safe distance, she could see the M.E.’s cheeks flush with embarrassment when he realized he’d bolted to avoid an umbrella attack. Feigning innocence, she bit her upper lip to keep from laughing and turned on her heel to confront their witness. She could feel Mark Matsuda’s eyes boring into her back and wisely chose to ignore him.

  She had a job to do, and it wasn’t a laughing matter.

  Sam shoved her hand in her purse and dug out a Hersey’s kiss, popping it into her mouth. With Alec Winters out of commission, this was the first case she’d caught solo. Screwing up wasn’t an option. Sucking on the candy, she advanced on Harold Franklin.

  He was older than she’d first thought. Sam slowed her pace, gesturing to the paramedics. After a brief exchange, the younger of the two lopped over towards her, head bent against the rain. He was a green around the edges, a result, she was certain, of catching an earlier glimpse of the victim’s body.

  “He’s okay,” the paramedic nodded. “Still a little shaky though.”

  Sam studied the witness’s face. The elderly man looked like he’d been through the wringer —twice over. Who could blame him? The mutilated, savaged body of the victim was enough to
make the hair on the back of her arms stand on end. Her jaw tightened. Violence in this city spared no one, not even the bystanders. She glanced at the paramedic, “So no heart attack?”

  “No Ma’am. What Mr. Franklin experienced was a massive panic attack. We gave him something to calm him down. He should be okay to talk to you now.”

  Her gaze swept the scene. Something bothered her but she couldn’t get a handle on it. Shielding her eyes, she could see the John Hancock building looming in the background, dwarfing the famous Water Tower, a survivor of the great Chicago Fire. Crime scene techs swarmed the area in a fevered effort to collect evidence despite the violent summer storm. The other two witnesses, a young couple who had the misfortune of choosing tonight for a romantic carriage ride, stood wrapped in each other arms beneath the awning of a nearby boutique in a vain attempt to stay out of the rain. A patrol officer hovered beside them taking their statements. The victim’s body was in the process of being loaded into the coroner’s van. The M.E, stripped off his gloves, wiping his forehead with the back his hand. It was clear things were wrapping up – at least on his end. Sam fished in her bag for a kiss, tossing one to the paramedic. “Can you do me a favor and stay with Mr. Franklin for a couple more minutes?”

  He stared at the candy in the palm of his hand. “Uh…sure.”

  “Thanks.” She ran towards the van, praying she wouldn’t slip and fall in her new summer mules and land flat on her ass. “Matsuda, wait up.”

  Sam was out of breath by the time she caught up to him. Running into the path of a fifty mile an hour wind was harder than it looked. “Did you get anything off the body?” she gasped.

  He pulled up the hood of his jacket, jerking his head towards the sky. “Do you want to hear something strange? Today is the anniversary of the storm we had last year — when we broke a hundred year record for rainfall. The way it’s coming down, I bet we beat that record tonight.”

  Sam eyed his hood with longing, remembering the last big storm all too well. She’d gone away for a rare weekend after her break-up with Chad the Cad. When she returned home, her heart wasn’t any less broken and her precious garden was in ruins. The colorful flowers she’d taken such pleasure in planting drowned, cracked, or had beaten down, just like her relationships.

  “Thanks for the reminder,” her tone was dry. “The body?”

  “Oh, right. I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. It’s not likely any evidence survived this monsoon. Not a good night to be killed,” he shouted over a gust of wind.

  Her shoulders sagged. “Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of.” She cupped her hands around her face, to keep the worst of the driving rain out of her eyes.

  “Good thing you got witnesses.”

  Sam turned a skeptical gaze towards the trio. “I got a bad feeling about this one.”

  Mark peered out from beneath the hood of his windbreaker. “It’s one of the worst I’ve seen in a long time, just like this storm. In this city, that’s sayin’ something.”

  “Mr. Franklin?” She kept her voice low and sympathetic. “I’m Detective Sam Black. I need to ask you a few questions. Is that okay?”

  Franklin’s eyes took a moment to focus. The hands held grasped in his lap were shaking. He took a shallow breath and blinked a few times, glancing down at his bus driver’s uniform as if he was surprised to find himself still clad in his work clothes.

  She laid a hand on his shoulder. “You are going to be okay, sir. The paramedic’s assured me that you’re going to be just fine. Unfortunately, the victim wasn’t so lucky. Can you tell me what you saw tonight?”

  The man blew out a long stream of air, taking time to compose himself. He stared down at his shaking hands for a moment and then wiped them on his pant legs. “In all my years, I ain’t never seen anything like this.” He raised his gaze to hers, deep sorrow etched in his weary expression. “It’s inhuman, that’s what it is — the things people do to each other. We’re turning into a country full of savages. Mark my words, young lady, sooner or later them savages are gonna win, make no mistake about that.”

  Sam didn’t have the heart to disagree. The things she’d seen and learned during her short time as part the major case unit were enough to sour a soul on humanity. She had firsthand knowledge of how swift and hard tragedy could strike. She thanked the Lord that she was made of strong stuff; otherwise, she’d never be able to stomach the job.

  “I understand, sir, which is why I need you to tell me what you saw so we can catch the man who did this.” There was false bravado in her tone. She was making a promise she wasn’t certain she could keep.

  “Let me tell you something, young lady.” He shifted in his seat. “I’ve been a bus driver since the early seventies. Long time ago now, when I think about it. Thought I’d seen it all, and been through it all…but this? This defies reason.”

  Sam swallowed her impatience and decided to wait him out. The man had a story to tell and he would do it at his own pace. Pressing him at this point could cause him to skip over an important detail.

  Franklin rubbed his face with his hands, shuddering as he recalled what happened. His eyes took on a hollow quality. Sam restrained the urge to look at her watch. In her former life, before her sister’s disappearance, she’d had a lucrative career as a psychologist. She prided herself on being able to read people. Often times what they didn’t say, they gave away with a gesture or expression. But the clock was ticking, with every passing minute they were that much further away from catching the assailant.

  “You tell me, Detective Ma’am. How am I supposed to go home and look my grandbabies in the eye? Promise them a good life, and that the Good Lord is looking out for them?” His voice cracked on each word, desperate for reassurance. “After I’ve seen this happen?”

  Sam sat down beside him, gathering his cold hands in hers. “Mr. Franklin, I want you to be able to make those promises to your grandbabies, that’s why I need your help.”

  “Harry,” he sniffed, swiping at his nose with the back of his hand. “Call me Harry. Mr. Franklin was my daddy.”

  “Okay, Harry.” She smiled, knowing she’d gained some ground. “Tell me everything, from start to finish, don’t leave anything out.”

  He took a deep breath to steady his nerves. He ran his hand over close-cropped salt and pepper hair, leveling his gaze as if he were watching the events play out a second time. “It was nearing the end of my shift, I was thinking about getting back to the station and calling it a day. Up until this storm here hit, it was a real pretty night. I dropped off my last passenger two stops earlier.” His voice trailed off. He squeezed his eyes shut and took another breath, gathering the strength to continue. “I stopped at a red light, was getting anxious to go home. The wife made breaded pork chops tonight and I knew she fixed a plate for me and had it waiting for me to pop into the microwave. I wanted those damn pork chops, could just taste them, you know? Anyway, when the light turned green, I hit the gas slow because I couldn’t punch out early. That’s when I heard it, a frantic pounding on the door. Now that ain’t unusual so I didn’t make nothing of it. People a block or so down see a bus idling up ahead and they make a run for it. Normally I keep watch for them, but this time I wasn’t paying attention.

  “It was bad, Detective Ma’am, real bad.” He shivered. “First thing I noticed was the bloodstains streaking across the door as it opened. Bloody handprints still trickling red. Lord help me, I froze — I just sat there for a good long minute on a count of I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. But then there was the odor, smelled like burnt meat. That poor boy, he’d been burned bad, I could smell it on him. And I knew what I was seeing was real.”

  The big man broke down, balling like a baby. She didn’t blame him. The bus looked like the inside of a butcher shop. “So much blood spewing from every part of him so that he was slippery with it. Stab wounds all over his body, like someone had taken a meat cleaver to him. And the terror in that poor boys eyes, pure animal terror so bad, he could
n’t speak. But the worst of all, Jesus help me, when he fell onto the steps of my bus…in his hand…in his hand…he was clutching his privates. Someone severed them from his body, chopped them clean off. What kind of savage does that to a man, leaving him naked, burned, and castrated, running for his life? And nobody saw nothin’ or tried to help him? What the hell is this world coming to?”

  Sam closed her eyes, wondering for the umpteenth time if anyone had tried to help her sister. Knowing it was a useless question, she pushed the thought aside. There wasn’t time to dwell on that now. “Did you see anything else, Harry? Anything that would help us identify his attacker?”

  “I wish I could help, but the truth is, I didn’t see nothing besides that poor boy. You see something like that, it wipes everything else clean from your mind. But I did get a good look at his face just before he fell and I swear I’ve seen that boy before tonight. With a woman. A real looker too.” He shook his head, brown eyes filled with grief. “I just can’t remember when or where.”

  Chapter Two

  Her feet pumped a thousand miles an hour. Chest heaving, she gulped down precious mouthfuls of air, afraid to look back.

  What if he was following her? This might be her only chance to get away from the monster.

  She’d been planning this for years. Ever since the night he’d taken her.

  The stitch in her side felt like a knife slicing through her. She gripped the painful area and kept on running, blinded by the wind and rain.

  Low hanging tree branches, heavy with rain, tore across her face, leaving narrow bloody lines on her cheeks and forehead. She swiped at them with her hands and pressed forward, hoping the trees would help keep her hidden. She couldn’t give up, couldn’t fail. An anguished cry ripped from her lungs — she’d rather die than go back. Rather be dead than be forced to endure one more day of his cruelty.