His laugh is raucous and unaccompanied. He tries to nudge his partner in the ribs, but succeeds in reaching only as high as his solar plexus. Kravitz recoils, slightly winded, but also looking faintly embarrassed and irritated.
Doyle shakes his head in apparent pity. ‘Folger, get a life.’
He turns away, but Folger decides he hasn’t finished.
‘Get a life! That’s rich! You hear that? Get a life. From the guy who has people dropping dead all around him. From the guy who doesn’t get cases any more serious than traffic offenses. From the guy who’s so fucked up he thinks all the crimes in the city are the work of one evil mastermind. This is no comic book, Doyle. There ain’t no such person as Lex Luther. Get a life. Jesus, what a joke.’
Doyle knows he should keep on walking. He should maintain his cool and leave all this behind. Doesn’t matter what they think. Doesn’t matter what they might say about him when he’s gone.
Like hell it doesn’t.
He does an about-turn and strolls back to Folger. The Homicide detective stands his ground, but Doyle knows it’s only because he’s given himself no choice. You can’t throw out a pile of shit like that and then take refuge behind your partner when it starts flying back at you.
‘Nah,’ says Doyle. ‘That ain’t the joke. You wanna know what the real joke is? It’s when people say that short people make up for it with big dicks. It’s just not true. I know that because I spoke with a hooker named Alicia.’
Doyle hears a collective intake of breath from around the room. It’s been rumored for a while that, through sheer desperation, Folger has been getting it on with a fat old prostitute, but nobody has had the temerity to raise the topic in his presence.
Until now. And Doyle isn’t keeping his voice down as he reveals all.
‘Alicia told me yours is the tiniest she’s seen in her whole life, and she’s gonna be fifty this year. That’s a lot of dicks to compare against. She did say you’ve got stamina, though. Said you were grunting and gasping in that bedroom for over an hour. Until she got tired of waiting and helped you climb up onto the bed.’
The room erupts. Folger erupts too, but it’s with uncontrollable fury rather than laughter. When he lashes out, Doyle is ready for it. He’s expecting it. In fact, he wants it.
He swats away Folger’s telegraphed punch as though it’s a mere inconvenience, and then he responds in the way he has been planning all along. Grabbing Folger hard by the throat, he pushes him backward. Only by a couple of feet. Just enough to send him ass over tit into the bathtub.
‘Holy shit!’ somebody says.
Folger pulls himself up in the water and starts to drag himself out of the tub.
‘Oh, you did it now, Doyle. Your career is over. It was nothing anyway, but now you are so finished. You are fucked, boy.’
He steps onto the floor, water pooling around him. He stretches out a finger, then slowly circles his arm so that the finger takes in everyone in the room. ‘You all saw that, right? You saw him assault a fellow officer.’ His finger finally lands on Kravitz. ‘You saw it too, right? For the report. You saw what he did.’
Doyle sees Kravitz look down on his partner. And what he realizes is that the man is looking down not just through altitude, but through attitude too.
‘Yeah, I saw it. I also saw you throw the first punch. You want that in the report too?’
That’s when Doyle decides it’s time to go. He takes one last look at the face of Tabitha Peyton, then walks out the door. Nobody in that room is going to report him for standing up for himself. If anyone’s career is over, it’s Folger’s. At the very least, there’s probably a divorce about to take place between the Homicide cops.
He trudges down the staircase. He should feel better after putting Folger in his place, but he doesn’t. Folger is an irrelevance. The face at the forefront of his mind right now is not Folger’s but Tabitha’s. Tabitha’s beautiful, innocent face, now reflecting the peace she once craved. Maybe she was right to feel so disenchanted with this city. It finally claimed her, didn’t it? And there was nothing he could do to prevent it. Nothing he could do to turn her life around and provide her with the opportunity to discover happiness.
When he hits the street outside, his heart is filled with darkness. There is the potential for murder in that heart.
And he’s not sure he wants it to go away.
TWENTY-FIVE
He pounds on the door. Which in itself is a favor, because what he really wants to do is kick it right down.
When it opens a crack, Doyle slams his palms on it and sends Gonzo reeling across the living room.
‘What the fuck happened, Gonzo? You were supposed to be looking after her. How could you take your eye off the ball like that?’
Gonzo’s jaw moves up and down, but nothing comes out. It’s like someone has pressed his mute button.
It’s only then that Doyle notices the absurdly large, white-framed spectacles that Gonzo is sporting. Only then that he sees the swelling on Gonzo’s cheek, distorting his face into that of a hamster with a peanut in its jowls. Only then that the truth dawns on him. He lowers his voice to a more respectable level.
‘Oh shit. Tell me what happened.’
‘I. . I don’t know, Detective. I went down to the laundry room. I didn’t want to, but Tabitha insisted. She wanted clean sheets. So I went. I thought it would be okay if I wasn’t going out of the building. Only the light wasn’t working down there, and all the windows are boarded up. I couldn’t see a thing. And then somebody hit me. They put a bag over my head and tied me up. I was down there for hours. I’m sorry, Detective. I did my best. I really did.’
Doyle stares at the pitiful wreck before him. He knows that Gonzo is absolutely right. There’s nothing more he could have done. He’s not a cop. He doesn’t know how to fight. He’s just a kid. A kid with really bad glasses. What the hell was I thinking?
Except that I didn’t think it would come to this. There wasn’t supposed to be any fighting. The killer was never supposed to find Tabitha. How did he do that? How does he always manage to stay one step ahead?
‘You think she’s okay, Detective? You think you’ll be able to find her?’
Doyle hears the optimism, and is saddened that he has to quash it. ‘We found her, Gonzo. She’s dead.’
Gonzo tilts his head, blinks. ‘Tabitha? Our Tabitha? The one who stayed here last night?’ He steadies himself on the back of a chair, then gently lowers himself onto the seat. ‘How could that be?’
Doyle has no answer.
Gonzo suddenly straightens in his chair. ‘I didn’t tell anyone. I swear. I didn’t tell anyone she was staying here.’
Doyle puts out a hand to calm him. ‘It’s okay. I know you didn’t. Somehow the killer figured it out. I don’t know how he did it, but he’s damn smart. Did you pick up anything on him in the laundry room? His voice, his height, his clothes?’
‘Nothing. I just walked in there, and bang! That was it.’
Doyle gestures toward Gonzo’s face. ‘You should get that looked at.’
‘I’m okay. It’s sore, but I’m okay. My glasses got broke, though. These are my old pair. I don’t see so well out of them.’
‘Get some new ones. Send me the bill.’
‘You don’t have to do that.’
‘Yes. Yes, I do. I got you into this mess.’
‘You couldn’t have known. It wasn’t your fault.’
‘Gonzo! Stop being so fucking nice to me. It is my fault. It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have brought her here. I shouldn’t have asked you to watch over her. You could have been killed, do you understand that?’
‘But I wasn’t. I’m okay. I was glad to help out. I like you. And. . and I liked Tabitha too.’
The purity of motive hits Doyle hard. There is no selfishness here, no hidden agenda.
‘Yeah,’ he answers. ‘I liked her too.’
He moves to the window. Across the street, a low-rise school building in concret
e and glass occupies most of the block, but he doesn’t really take it in. Doesn’t really see anything. It’s just a meaningless geometric shape. His head is too crowded with other thoughts. He’s been outsmarted. Again. The killer said this one would hurt, and it does. God, it hurts.
The others hurt too. Their names will be forever seared into his memory. Cindy Mellish. Lorna Bonnow. Sean Hanrahan. Andrew Vasey. Helena Colquitt. And now Tabitha Peyton. A roll call of lost souls. And all reaching out for Doyle. All calling to him from beyond the grave. And isn’t there a note of blame in their plaintive cries?
He thinks it’s time.
Time to do what he should have done at the very beginning of all this. Time to surrender.
He thought he could win. He was arrogant enough to think he had the intelligence to catch this evil bastard. But now, humiliating as it might be, he has to accept he was wrong.
The killer is laughing at him. Ridiculing his puny efforts. He could easily have killed Tabitha here, in Gonzo’s apartment. Instead, he chose to make a statement. By taking Tabitha back to her apartment and killing her in the way he intended last night, he was saying, I can do what I want and you can’t stop me.
And Doyle is starting to realize he’s right about that. The killer does what he wants. He goes where he wants, murders who he wants. He’s like a ghost. He can’t be seen or touched or caught. But if he chooses to haunt you, then you’re condemned. He will pass through your walls and he will whisper in your ear and you will do his bidding. And then you will die.
‘Detective? Are you okay?’
Doyle turns his gaze on Gonzo. ‘That attitude of yours? The way you just want to be of some value? Don’t ever lose it, okay? No matter how many times life kicks you in the balls, stay just the way you are, Gonzo.’
He starts heading for the door.
Gonzo calls after him. ‘Where are you going?’
Doyle pauses, just for a second.
‘To catch a ghost.’
He should be proud. What he did with Tabitha Peyton today was practically a work of art. Nobody would have been expecting that. It was a stroke of genius. He should open some champagne.
And yet. .
The kid. The geeky red-headed fuckwit with the stupid name. Gonzo.
What the hell was he doing there? Again! Seeing him outside Vasey’s place not once but twice was disconcerting enough. But this!
Why would Doyle take the Peyton girl to him? He can’t be a cop. Cops don’t look like that. And they certainly put up a better fight than he did in that basement.
So what the fuck?
I should have killed him, he thinks. Yes, that would have been the best thing to do. It would have been so easy. I missed an opportunity. He’s starting to get under my skin, and I can’t let him interfere like this.
There are people who need my help.
Doyle works his shift. He spends most of it going through the reports on the various murders, over and over again. Hoping to catch something he’s missed. Praying that he’ll find something that will mean he doesn’t have to go through with his decision. But it’s fruitless. He knew it would be. He’s looked at all the paperwork before, dozens of times. Other than the link between Vasey, Hanrahan and Cindy Mellish, there is nothing. And even then it could be that Hanrahan and the girl were killed simply as pointers to Vasey as the next victim. There may be no more of a connection than that. There is nothing to suggest that any of the other victims were linked in any way to Vasey.
So that’s it, then. He is left with no choice.
He gets up from his desk. Steps toward the door. He passes Holden’s desk. Holden is typing at a keyboard. He has pulled overtime on the murders of the two girls. He looks up at Doyle.
‘You wanna talk?’
Doyle considers the offer. He wishes Holden hadn’t asked. It would be so easy to say yes.
‘Tomorrow,’ he says. ‘We’ll talk tomorrow.’
Holden nods slowly and returns to his typing. Doyle moves out into the hallway and enters a storeroom. He opens a wall cabinet and takes down what he needs. He’s supposed to sign it out but he doesn’t bother. He drops the item into his pocket and returns to his desk.
Then he waits.
It’s almost one-thirty in the morning when he gets home. He’ll be back on duty at eight. It’s a tough switch-over. Doyle knows a number of detectives who don’t even bother going home, especially if they live way out in the sticks. Some of them grab what sleep they can on a cot in the station house. Some even go partying between the shifts. Family man that he is now, Doyle always goes home. He goes home and he slips into a warm bed with his warm wife and he sinks instantly into a deep and reinvigorating slumber.
But not tonight.
Tonight his brain has no plans for winding down. It has too much to consider. Too much to worry about.
His future, for instance. Or, to be more precise, whether he has one.
So, instead of going to bed, he switches on a lamp and fetches a cold beer from the kitchen and makes himself comfortable on the sofa. And then he raises his beer bottle in a farewell toast to his career.
Because it’s over. One way or another, his life as a cop is over.
Maybe his liberty too. And his marriage.
Hell, his whole life is over.
Fuck it.
He takes a long swig of beer. God, that feels good. Enjoy it while it lasts, Doyle. It could be a while before you have the opportunity to get good and drunk again.
He drains the bottle. Goes to the kitchen again. Comes back with a trio of bottles. Already open, because he doesn’t plan to waste any time.
He’s halfway through the second when his cellphone rings. He’s not surprised. He’s been expecting this.
‘Talk,’ he says. ‘Tell me what a good job you did.’
‘Hello, Cal. You answered quickly. What’s the matter? Can’t sleep? Now why would that be?’
‘Don’t fuck with me. I’ve had it. Say what you gotta say, and then fuck off. I’m tired of this shit.’
‘Don’t be like that, Cal. You knew it would be painful. I told you it would. You didn’t really think you could keep Tabitha hidden from me for long, did you?’
‘You didn’t have to do that to her. She did nothing wrong. She never did anything to hurt you.’
‘And I never said she did. Jesus, Cal, you still don’t get it, do you?’
‘Get what?’
‘You don’t understand what’s happening. Brain power. That’s what’s missing here. Find it, Cal. Use it.’
‘You finished? I need another beer.’
‘Depends on what you mean by finished. Tabitha’s death was a hell of a showpiece, but she wasn’t the finale. There will be others. But if you mean am I finished giving you help, well that’s up to you, buddy. Like I told you, I’m not going to sneak anything in. You want my help now, you’ll have to ask for it. So what’s it going to be?’
‘I need to think about it.’
‘So think about it. I’ll give you one hour, and then I’ll call you back. It’ll be up to you then. You decide if you want my help or not. Either way, somebody else is set to die in the next twenty-four hours. Maybe you’ll get lucky this time. This could be your chance to shine, Cal. What have you got to lose?’
When the call ends, Doyle almost laughs. What have I got to lose? Everything, that’s what.
Tabitha wasn’t the finale, the caller said.
Well, she was for Doyle. He can’t have another death on his conscience.
He’s in a lose-lose situation now. If he continues to play along with his mysterious caller’s little game, then there’s every likelihood another innocent life will be lost. Experience has taught him that he’s not a strong enough player to prevent that outcome.
And the alternatives?
Well, he could do what he did before: cut the bastard out. Refuse to take his calls. The sonofabitch hated that. Couldn’t handle not having an audience, someone to play with.
But i
t didn’t prevent further deaths. All it did was reduce Doyle’s chances of catching the killer from infinitesimally small down to nil.
So there’s only one move left to make.
He has to pass on everything he knows to the Department. Let them handle this. Give them a half-decent chance of stopping this insane genius. A person whose existence they’re not even aware of right now.
They’ll throw the book at Doyle, of course. That’s a given. Probably throw the whole fucking library. He’s left them no choice. Maybe if he’d gone to them much earlier he could have gotten away with a mild disciplinary charge. But not now. He’s covered up too much, for too long. Some people on the force are already looking for ways to kick him out. They’ve been just itching for him to step out of line. Well there you go, guys. I’m so far off the line I can no longer even see the fucking line. Go ahead, string me up.
And if, by some miracle, the PD displays even an ounce of sympathy for his plight, that’ll go straight out the window once they hear what else he’s been up to. The killer knows things about Doyle. Lots of things. Things even his own wife doesn’t know. And if he chooses to divulge that information — as he undoubtedly will once it becomes apparent that the cops have heard all about the calls he has been making — then Doyle can forget about any mercy pleas.
Unless, of course, the killer has been bluffing all along. Maybe he’s been exaggerating the extent of his inside information.
Not that it matters now. With or without any revelations the killer is able to make, Doyle’s ass is toast. It’s only a matter of degree now. Severely burnt or completely carbonized.
‘You coming to bed?’
Rachel, standing in the doorway. Wearing just a long T that barely covers her modesty. She peers at him through half-closed eyes. Her hair looks as though it’s just been hit by a blast of wind.
‘Soon. I need to unwind first.’
He hopes she’ll go back to bed, but instead she comes over to join him on the sofa. She tucks her legs beneath her and rests her chin on his shoulder.
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