“Well Professor, if he's becoming more like the old Dombrowski, maybe we should be thinking about the last time he did this particular killing. This one should be the 'Veronica Station' if I'm not mistaken. What happened with the last time he did this ‘Station’?”
“Let me think. I remembered our sense of relief that it turned out to be only one woman as we thought it would be two. We were afraid he would snatch another woman for the Veronica role, like he did with the 'Jesus and Mother Station', but he didn't. So it would seem that we can't try to match Diane's disappearance with someone else's, not if were following the Denver pattern. The victim was Hispanic. I don't think the color of the women's skin has anything to do with it, such as he specifically took a woman of color this time just to be like the old days. Remember in Denver the selection of the victim was based upon availability and the access of the kidnapping site to an interstate highway. So in some sense of symmetry, these killings match up, he's basing the worth of the victims upon the ease in which he can get them.”
“The death in 'Veronica' was particularly brutal, not that any of them weren't, but he used acid to wipe Jesus' face. Then he went through the rest of the ritual, the beating, the sodomy and rape, and so on. The woman suffered immeasurably before she died.”
Carly tried his hardest not to think about Diane, knowing that soon she may be facing the same horrendous torture. Choking back a swell of emotion, he continued, “Everything else was the same as the others. All the rituals, a whipping with a leather strap. I remembered he snatched her early on a Wednesday. We assumed that because the scrutiny was getting pretty tight in Denver, and people were getting more careful as the first Fridays rolled around, he felt compelled to take the victim early and hold her for a couple of days. Obviously that's not the case here. This guy is pretty damn brazen or pretty damn stupid this time. He had to know we'd be out in force every Friday from now to doomsday until he was caught. Then again, we thought the same about Dombrowski the first time. It turned out it was just Dombrowski, blindly plowing forward towards his own ends.”
“That it?” Hernandez asked, “For Dombrowski, it was pretty routine. Eh?”
“As routine as hell can be.”
They continued on in silence. Occasionally some squawk would come across the radio as a car might find a suspicious van or a vehicle that resembled the one they thought took the Inspector away. Otherwise, they continued a restless pattern throughout the area, enlarging their route with each pass.
“Carly!” Sully barked, in a tone stronger than either of the others had heard before, “when you told us about the killings when we first met in the Inspector's office, I remember you telling us one thing special about that particular murder, it was the very reason why you all thought Dombrowski was getting pretty brazen at the time?”
“Yeah, he went in and out of hundred damn cops on patrol in LoDo it seemed.”
Something clicked in Carly, it was one of those moments that a student of the mind never understands, but drawing himself up in the seat he leaned forward into the front of the car. “You're right, I did tell you something that was special about that murder. Dombrowski was getting real nervy, so much so he did his 'Veronica' killing in the same damn spot as the first murder.”
Hernandez hit the brakes, as Sully choked out the words, “You don't think he's doing it again do you? Using the same spot as the first?”
“He's becoming more and more like the old killer, isn't he? What else do we have?”
“Hernandez, where was the first murder?”
“The Palomino Motel over on Sixth, near Harper.
Lord, we're about five minutes away.”
Sully took charge. Snapping up the radio as he told Hernandez, “No lights, no siren. We can't risk spooking him. We'll need back up, lots of it. We can't screw up again.” For the first time, he broke with formality and referred to his boss by name, “Diane won't get any more chances if we blow it this time.”
Grinning a wide toothy smile for the first time since he and Carly had chatted before the accident, Hernandez crushed the accelerator to the floor. “Buckle up this time professor. I'm a helluva lot better driver than Sully but we don't want to take any chances. Three knocks to the head in one week, and I would be afraid to take a look inside that skull of yours.”
“It'd probably scare you anyway, detective. But just in case....” Cesar smiled to himself as he heard the metallic click of the seat belt.
While Sully called in for silent backups, and Hernandez expertly darted the car through the city traffic, Carly sat in the backseat, white-knuckled as he peered out the side window. He tried not to hope against hope, but he had one chance…one chance that was based on a fifteen-year-old hunch.
Hernandez pulled up a quarter of a block from the motel. In the distance the seedy building sat bathed in the red glow of a towering neon sign, calling out PAL MINO in its best-misspelled tradition.
From the back of the patrol car, Carly offered up the obvious question in a nervous voice, “What's the plan guys? The Inspector might not have the time for us to draw up an elaborate battle plan. Once the support units show up, even the dumbest of bad guys has to know something's going down.”
Sully, turned to Hernandez, “This was your beat once, wasn't it?” With the positive response, he continued, “What do you know about the motel? Windows? Doors? The parking lot? Exits?”
Hernandez began what turned out to be an assault briefing, “It's a dead end parking lot, the building's horse shoe shaped, same way out as in. Single door rooms, everyone has a front window. I can't tell you about the back exits. I'd imagine there's a window out the bathroom. Maybe. It could be barred, it's a tough neighborhood.”
Reaching behind his back, he drew a pistol out of his belt and handed it to Carly. “Remember how to use one of these things? Lord knows you couldn't be any worse that old Sully here.”
The silhouette of a nine-millimeter pistol was outlined before him, as he took the gun into the back seat. Carly took the pistol, he liked the feel of its heft in his hands. A good weapon for the task at hand, he thought to himself. He knew how to use it. When he had left the force, he had stayed with a regular regime of target practice in the foothills west of Fort Collins. It had always been a good way to blow off steam, a noisy catharsis so to speak. He and Joy had gone out on many Sunday afternoons, just to shoot and get some high mountain sun. When it came time, he'd be better than Sully. A lot better.
Sully, ignoring the casual insult, laid out a plan, “Drive a few feet past the motel, enough that we'll be out of sight. That way we can see if the van is in the lot. Carly and I will go in and see what the desk clerk can tell us. Once we get a room number we'll go to the door. Hernandez, you cover the back of the building. If he comes out the back, you probably have a better chance to handle him than just me and we can't send the Professor back there alone. The D.A. gets pretty perturbed when we get his consultants shot up. I think we've got to move now. I don't think we can wait for back up. It's been forty-five minutes since the Inspector disappeared. I don't want to wait another minute for that madman to do any damage.”
The other two nodded in agreement. Sully's plan was simple and to the point. Part of its value lay in the fact it was the only plan they had. They knew Sully was right about not waiting. Back up could be another five minutes or more and that was more time than Dombrowski needed and maybe more than Diane had left.
As the sedan slid past the motel drive, they spotted a dark colored van just to the left of the middle of the horseshoe. Once parked, they slid out of the doors quietly. Carly could feel his heart pounding, but remarkably he felt calm with an alertness he hadn’t felt in years. The lights were brighter, the air was crisper, he could hear every noise on the block…he felt very alive.
Hernandez popped the trunk of the unmarked car. He grabbed two shotguns, one for himself and one for Sully. Quickly a shells disappeared into the chamber, several ending up in his coat pocket.
To his pa
rtner, he sent words of caution, “Sully, don't go using that thing at the drop of a hat. You don't want to go shooting up the Inspector or the Professor in a little motel room.” The bespectacled little detective nodded and removed his coat, draping it over his arm and the bulk of the shotgun's length.
“Only if I need to, amigo, only if I need to,” he smiled back. “Now let's go.”
Grabbing a long handled flashlight from the front seat, Hernandez slid off towards the rear of the building. Sully and Carly walked quickly to the front office. Past a tattered screen door, they could see a large fat man in a stained T-shirt inside, his eyes glued to a miniature TV set on the counter. He made little movement as they came through the door.
With little fanfare, Sully slammed open the screen door as the man sat motionless refusing an acknowledgement of the two men's entry.
“Police. We're looking for a guy. Short, stocky with blond or brown hair. Drove in that van almost an hour ago. Might have had a black woman with him,” Sully snapped.
Without moving his eyes from the TV set, the fat man spoke in a slow thick Southern drawl, “Lemme' see some badges.”
Raging at the time passing, Carly slammed the TV to the floor. Sully dropped his coat to the floor brandishing his shotgun, “Fuck the badges, tell us where the guy is? Now!” Sully barked.
“Number nine,” the fat man spoke with a much quicker drawl. “Number nine.”
“Got a key?”
Cautiously he slid a key over the counter towards the two men he assumed were hired guns. “Just keep me out of it, okay?” he pleaded. “I didn't see nothin'. You do what you gotta do.”
Sully snatched the key from the counter. As a parting gesture he grabbed the man’s cell phone from the counter and deposited it outside the door when they hit the fresh air. “What do we do, Professor? Key the door or just bust it in?”
At a near trot, Carly gasped out the words, “Bust in. If Dombrowski hears a key, he'll cut her throat. I'll kick, you go low, I'll go high. Sort of fits for the two of us.”
Outside the room, each took a side by the door. With a long slow draw of breath of the night air, Carly held up three fingers. Slowly he dropped one, then the second. When the third finger fell he squared himself to the door and sent his size eleven boot crashing into the wood, a few inches above the lock.”
The door splintered and popped abruptly before Carly could ready himself for another kick. Charging through just under his arm was Sully. The little man hit the floor with a thud. As Carly went through, both hands held Hernandez' nine mill at arm's length, a crushing grip turned his knuckles white on the gun butt. Unable to adjust to the darkly lit room Carly could see little. He could barely make out the inert dark form on the bed before him. His heart sank when it didn't respond to the noise of their entry. Turning quickly to scan the room, a figure loomed towards him from the side.
As a sharp pain descended into his arm, he caught sight of what appeared to be a caricature of Dombrowski's face in the glow of neon from the street. Thinner, more predatory looking, Carly recognized the sense of death in a pair of eyes that could have only been Dombrowski's. He managed one squeeze of the trigger before the knife could swing again, cutting deeply into his arm. Before he could overcome the pain enough to raise the gun again, he was blinded by the flash and deafened by the roar of Sully's shotgun. Before he could raise his hands to cover his ears, Sully fired again. By the time Carly's hands were firmly over his ears, Sully fired a third time.
The tableau unfolded in slow motion desperation as Dombrowski staggered back out of arms’ reach for Carly. Each roar of the gun sent him tumbling further away from Carly. His face contorted, his arms flailed wildly in the air, his mouth uttered words never heard, and the eyes bloodied. By the fourth roar of the shotgun, Dombrowski was momentarily pinned to the far wall. In less than seconds, Sully had completed a task nearly a decade old.
Petr Dombrowski, the Crucifixion Killer, ceased to exist…again.
Chapter Seventeen
Hernandez started to laugh again, a high pitched squeal almost girlish in nature, not the kind of laugh one would imagine coming from a man so stern looking, so formidable in appearance. The mirth racked his body, as tears welled in his eyes. He tried to control himself, but he couldn't as the humor washed over him, clearing away months of nearly unbearable stress and frustration.
“Will you stop that,” Diane whispered from the hospital bed in a throaty voice that sounded more painful than it was, “that's an order. You're making my headache all the worse. If you don't knock it off I'll have a nurse throw you out, and by Monday you'll be doing midnight security at the impound lot. Okay?”
“Hell, I'm sorry Inspector, I don't mean it but every time I look over at Sully, I can't help it. I can't stop thinking about last night. In my entire life I will never, ever see a sight like that again. Inspector, when I finally made it around to the front of that motel it was like something out of a movie. One hundred of L.A.'s finest surrounding that dirty little dive, listening to the echo of all those shotgun blasts coming out of that room. When I got to the door, there's poor old Carly on the floor covering his ears, you're stretched out on the bed as close to being dead as I could tell, and Sully trying to shove more shells in that twelve gauge. On the other side of the room, there in all his infamy was Petr Dombrowski or whatever was left of him that wasn't painted across that motel room wall. Lord in heaven Sully, did you really get off four shots with a twelve gauge? In that tiny little room?”
Pretending to be indignant but obviously full of pride, Sully cast an exaggerated look of anger at his Mexican friend. “You know me. I've been getting by at the range by hook or crook the last few years. You all chide me about it all the time. There was no way in hell that I was going to take the chance that I'd miss the biggest bad guy that's ever come down this cop’s pipe. Once I saw him put that knife in Carly's arm, I figured I'd let rip with everything I had, and then some.”
“But Sully, forensics said the professor's one shot took Dombrowski out. Nailed him right in the heart. He was dead before he knew it.”
“Right. They also said he was executed a few years back in Colorado. This time we know for sure...damn sure. I took no chances.”
“And I for one, am quite pleased that you didn't,” Carly chipped in to the conversation. “I was lucky getting that shot off, let alone being sure it would have stopped him. Another knife blow and you would be calling me 'Lefty' instead of Professor.”
Carly looked over at Diane. Despite the tremendous beating she took…she survived, a testimony to her fortitude and courage. After Sully obliterated any memory of Petr Dombrowski-Jonathan Carter, they had turned to the supine figure on the bed. Face down, nude from the waist up, Diane had been gagged and bound to the bed frame with leather thongs. Dombrowski had administered a scourging of biblical proportions, the pain driving her into unconsciousness. As he readied himself for completion of his insane ritual with her, Carly and Sully entered his perverted sanctuary. Although Carly managed the killing shot, he had no remorse in seeing his diminutive partner adding insurance to the death sentence. Like Sully, he was glad someone made sure the beast was dead. Had he been able he would have added a couple of rounds himself, just for good measure.
Working feverishly Carly had managed to revive Diane before the EMT’s to all their relief and escorted her to the hospital in the ambulance. Sully and Hernandez had stayed behind to supervise the final investigation and wrap up the grisly conclusion to the L.A. 'Torture Killings'.
Hernandez had stayed with Dombrowski's body all the way to the coroner's office, where he turned it over to another member of the squad. As they all had agreed after the shooting, it was decided that until the body was put into the incinerator for cremation, it would not be left out of the sight of an armed member of the original investigation unit. It seemed highly unlikely that Merriwhether or any of his lackeys would show up to try and claim or steal the Dombrowski/Carter last remains, but Carly and Sully agree
d that no chances were to be taken. The final ashes would sit locked in a safe in the district attorney's office, awaiting final disposition, after the autopsy was done. It was assumed there would be a lot of interest in Carter, as every medical research school would want his brain for study. The governor of California said, once the autopsy was over, Carter would be cremated, brain and all. The governor figured there had been too much experimentation on him already.
Diane took a sip of water and raised her head to speak. “I've got to go easy boys, I've got a lot of pain, despite the medicine drip. You've got to forgive me but almost getting strangled has a tendency to cramp my speaking style.”
“Diane lie back, we can wait until you're better. We got all the time in the world,” Carly cautioned. “After all you don't have any pending cases right now, so you'll have the time later.”
“But, I do want to talk about it, before I have nightmares though,” she protested. “That son of a bitch gave me a scare that I will never ever completely get over. It's better to start talking now and as long as I feel the need. You're the psychologist, Carly. Am I not right?”
“Absolutely. Get it out in the open and deal with it, rather than submerge it. If Merriwhether had believed the same way, we'd probably never had the second-coming of Dombrowski. Plus, you are going to have to give an official statement soon enough. A little practice won’t hurt.”
Starting from the beginning, the attractive woman spoke quietly, pausing occasionally to adjust her pillow, or sip water from a nearby tumbler, “I heard Hernandez take the call from Team Three. I saw you guys start up. There was no way I could miss hearing the roar of that van. At the same time, you fired up, the van pulled up. At first I figured I would just walk away, but then again I hadn't been on the street in a couple of years. You all were off to catch the bad guy, I figured it might be safe enough to make a soliciting collar. I wanted to do something. Here was Team Three bringing down the bad guy, I guess I wanted a piece of the action. I've got to admit I was a little envious when I thought I wasn't going to be involved in cracking the biggest case in L. A. in ten years.”
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