The Knight pbf-3

by Steven James

  “You two here to testify?”

  “He did last month. I’m about to.”

  He didn’t seem to be in any hurry to return my ID, and the line of reporters waiting to get into the courtroom was quickly growing behind me, so I plucked the ID from his hand and he backed up as I stepped through.

  He gestured toward my Wraith. “Two and five-eighths ounces. ATS-34 stainless steel blade. Made in the U.S. of A. Good choice.”

  “You know your knives.”

  “I work the evidence room,” he explained, “whenever I’m not stuck babysitting this X-ray machine. See a lot of knives come through. Always glad to see a Randall King. Gotta leave it here, though. The SIG too. You know the drill.” He placed them into a small metal locker attached to the wall. Turned the key. Handed it to me.

  After all the times I’d been called in as an expert witness, I was all too familiar with courtroom proceedings and protocol. While it varies between jurisdictions, I knew that here in Illinois no one was allowed to have weapons in the courtroom except for the two officers who stand guard by the main door. Some states allow judges to have guns hidden beneath the bench.

  But not Illinois.

  As I gathered my personal items, I saw Officer Fohay’s attention rove to the line of reporters forming at the checkpoint. “When you testify,” he said, “remember those women.”

  I remember them every day, I thought.

  But instead of replying, I picked up my things and headed toward the elevators.

  Yes, I remembered them; and now more than ever, because a mistake I’d made when I arrested their killer might be enough to set him free.

  8

  Basque used an abandoned slaughterhouse.

  That’s where he brought the women. That’s where he tortured them, always making sure he kept them alive long enough for them to see him surgically remove and then eat portions of their lungs.

  Based on the medical examiner’s reports, sometimes he’d been able to keep his victims alive for over twelve hours-a fact that still sent shivers down my spine.

  When I found him in the slaughterhouse, he was standing over Sylvia Padilla, holding a scalpel.

  I shouted for him to drop the knife, and he attempted to flee, firing a Smith amp; Wesson Sigma at me, nailing my left shoulder. When my gun misfired, I rushed him and swung a meat hook at his face. He ducked, and I was able to take him down and cuff him. Then I hurried to try and save Sylvia.

  And when I did, he mocked her as she suffered.

  And when her suffering was over, he mocked her as she died.

  So then, my mistake.

  I hit him. Hard. Twice. Even though he was handcuffed and wasn’t fleeing or resisting arrest. And in a dark moment of rage at what he’d done, I reached for the scalpel to go to work on him, but thankfully, I was able to hold myself back. As it was, I only broke his jaw.

  Later, for a reason I’ve never been able to guess, he told the interrogating officers he’d broken his jaw when the meat hook hit him, even though it never touched him.

  At the time, I didn’t want anything to jeopardize the state’s case, so in my official report I didn’t clarify things as carefully as I should have. “There was an altercation,” I wrote. “Later it was discovered that the suspect’s jaw was broken sometime during his apprehension.” It was the truth, it just wasn’t the whole truth. The physical evidence was enough to convict him, and the defense didn’t make a big deal out of the broken jaw, especially since Basque himself claimed it was accidental. The specific circumstances surrounding the fight never came up during the trial. He was convicted, sentenced, and that was the end of it.

  But that wasn’t the end of it.

  I still carried the memory with me. I’d physically assaulted a suspect and then omitted pertinent information in my report. It was a secret I wasn’t proud of. And Basque knew about it. And when someone knows your secrets, he has power over you.

  More than anything else, psychopaths crave feelings of power and control. So maybe that was it. Maybe that’s why he’d kept quiet all these years. There was no way to know.

  But one thing I did know: I didn’t like Basque having power over anyone. Especially not over me.

  I found Ralph waiting for me beside the elevator bank.

  Even though he’s not quite as tall as me, he’s still over six foot, and with his broad shoulders he seemed to fill the entire hallway. Lately, he’d been trying to bench as much as he did when he was an Army Ranger, before he joined the FBI. Maybe it was a midlife thing, I wasn’t sure. Last I heard, he was repping at 225-which meant he could probably max out at 405. Not bad for a guy who was pushing forty.

  “Let’s go up the back way,” he said. He was popping some kind of small white snacks about the size of M amp;M’s into his mouth. He pushed open a nearby door, and I followed him through a narrow hallway toward the back stairs.

  “Anything on Taylor?” I asked.

  “Nothing yet. If he’s here, he’s a ghost.”

  We passed a window and I saw the Cook County Jail encircled with razor wire fences lying just across an alley. That’s where they were keeping Basque.

  When I was still a detective with the MPD working the Basque case, Ralph was the FBI agent who’d been assigned to help us find him. After Basque’s apprehension, Ralph had encouraged me to apply at the FBI academy. It was a few years before I took him up on his invitation, but eventually I did, and we’d been close friends ever since.

  Ralph had shaved his head since the last time I’d seen him, and I decided it was worth a comment.

  “Nice haircut,” I said.

  “Brineesha’s idea,” he grumbled, rubbing a huge paw across his head. “Said it makes me sexy. I feel like a cue ball.”

  “I agree with your wife. You’re looking good, my friend.”

  Even though a few people crossed the far end of the corridor, we’d ended up in a relatively deserted part of the building. Maybe Ralph had chosen this route on purpose so we could talk without anyone eavesdropping on our conversation.

  He popped some more of his snack into his mouth. “Lien-hua’s gonna be jealous when I tell her you said that.”

  I felt a sting of regret as he mentioned her name. Lien-hua was the woman I’d been seeing for the last four months, a fellow FBI agent, a profiler. Ralph didn’t know our relationship was in its dying throes, and it didn’t seem like the best time to tell him, so I decided to change the subject. “What are you eating?”

  The stairs they used to transfer prisoners from the jail to the courtrooms lay just ahead.

  “Yogurt-covered raisins.” He slid his hand into his pocket and drew out another handful. Tossed them in his mouth.

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “Brineesha got me hooked on ’em last week.” He was talking with his mouth full. “Have you tried ’em? These things are amazing.”

  He offered me a handful from his pocket. A clump of lint joined them in his hand.

  “No thanks,” I said. “I’m not really a big fan of yogurt.”

  “Suit yourself.” He tossed the entire handful into his mouth, lint and all. “You’re the one missing out.”

  “I’ll try to make do.”

  We passed a drinking fountain, and he nodded toward a restroom near the stairwell. “Hey, I gotta take a leak.”

  I thought of how I’d be stuck in the courtroom for the next few hours and decided I should probably make a pit stop too.

  Ralph paused at the water fountain for a drink so I stepped past him and pushed the men’s room door open and then stopped midstride.

  Facing me, one meter away and flanked by a pair of mammoth Cook County Sheriff’s Department officers, stood Richard Devin Basque.

  9

  As soon as I saw Basque I felt a tightening in my chest, a sharp flare of anger and regret, the past clamping down on me. If only you’d kept your cool after Sylvia died… If only you’d gotten to the slaughterhouse sooner she might still be alive… If only you’d
pieced the case together one day earlier…

  He smiled at me. “Detective Bowers.” For some reason, I noticed that his teeth were all still in place, still flawless. His jaw looked perfect too; the surgeons had done a good job. “No, wait… it’s Dr. Bowers now, isn’t it? And an FBI agent? How time flies. So good to see you again.”

  I didn’t reply.

  Ralph wedged himself next to me in the doorway, blocking the path.

  “C’mon,” barked one of the officers, manhandling Basque toward the door. “Let’s go.” But Ralph put his hand on the man’s shoulder. At first the guy looked like he was going to swat it away, but then he noticed the cords of muscle in Ralph’s forearm and paused.

  “It’s OK, buddy. Let him be.” Ralph removed his hand when he was ready. “We can talk for a sec. We’re just here to use the john.” But Ralph didn’t enter the bathroom, just stood barring the doorway.

  I began to wonder what he had in mind; I had a feeling he was hoping Basque would try something so he could take him down. Hard. I hoped that wasn’t where things were heading.

  “For the record, then,” Basque said, “I waive all my rights to have my lawyer present. A chat might be nice.”

  “See?” Ralph said to the officers. “There you go.”

  Both of them sized up Ralph, and nobody made a move. They eased back, and we all stood facing each other.

  To be safe, I decided I wouldn’t speak to Basque before testifying and chance a mistrial.

  He eyed me. Thirteen years in prison had hardly changed him. He still had the handsome, confident good looks of a big-screen leading man and the incisive eyes and disarming smile that had served him so well in luring his victims into his car. Just like Ted Bundy and so many other killers, Basque had used his charm and charisma as his most effective weapon.

  Looks intact, his time in prison had only served to harden his features, lend a few creases to the edges of his eyes, and wrap him in a thick layer of chiseled muscles that flexed against the designer suit that his lawyers had undoubtedly purchased just for the trial. Overall, he looked as dashing and trustworthy and GQ as ever. Maybe more so.

  A handsome, respectable-looking cannibalistic killer.

  I used to get shocked when I met people who commit the most appalling crimes-torturing and eviscerating their victims, eating or raping decaying corpses-because the offenders almost never look like you’d expect. Instead of looking like monsters, they look like Little League coaches and college professors and church elders and the guy who lives next door-because all too often that’s exactly who they are.

  Basque shifted his attention to Ralph. Offered him a wide grin. “Special Agent Hawkins. I enjoyed your testimony last month. Very persuasive, I thought. And how is Brineesha? That’s her name, isn’t it? Pretty little thing. Taking good care of her, I hope?”

  Ralph’s face darkened. He stepped forward.

  “Not like this,” I urged him quietly, but I’m sure Basque and the officers heard me. “Not here.” I motioned to the two men escorting Basque. “Take him away.”

  One of them tugged at Basque’s arm, but he stood firm. After thirteen years of pumping iron all day, it was going to take both of them to move him. To make things worse, Ralph still blocked the doorway.

  I could feel the air tightening around us.

  “C’mon,” I said to Ralph, but he didn’t move. Neither did Basque or the officers.

  Basque eyed me again. A smooth, charming smile. “All these years I was so hoping you’d visit me in prison, Patrick. But there are so many cases to solve, I suppose? I read about a number of them in the journals. You’ve been a busy man.” He wet his lips. “Missed seeing you, though.”

  Ralph cracked his neck and said, “Yeah, it can get pretty lonely in there. I’m sure you found plenty of-”

  “Sometimes lonely, my burly friend, but never alone.” He met Ralph’s gaze. “Not with the good Lord by my side.”

  Oh, I’d almost forgotten. Seven months ago in prison, Richard Basque had found Jesus, just like so many convicts facing a parole hearing or a retrial seem to do. The prospect of freedom must be a rather strong incentive for getting right with God.

  Ralph’s eyes became iron. I put my hand on his shoulder to pull him back, but if Ralph wanted to do something to Basque I couldn’t imagine how I’d be able to stop him. The officers escorting Basque tensed as well. Everything was moving in the wrong direction. Basque let his dark liquid eyes drink in Ralph’s growing rage.

  “Last I heard,” Ralph said. He had squeezed his hands into fists. “The Lord’s by the side of the sheep, not the wolves. Someone like you is gonna burn in-”

  “No one is beyond redemption, Agent Hawkins.”

  I grabbed Ralph’s arm. “Come on. I need to get to the courtroom.”

  Finally, Ralph stepped aside, and the officers quickly directed Basque past us to the hallway. As they did, he called over his shoulder to me, “Patrick, when this is over I hope we can meet again under less awkward circumstances, perhaps break bread together. Partake of the body and the blood.”

  His words the body and the blood echoed down the hall as the door swung shut and Ralph filled the room with words I doubted Basque would find in his recently dusted-off Bible.

  I glanced at my watch. Time had been evaporating. I needed to hurry.

  We finished our business in the restroom, jogged up the stairs, and arrived at the courtroom just as a granite-faced female officer was getting ready to close the doors.

  10

  12:25 p.m.

  Everyone in the room was settling into their seats.

  I’d never been in this courtroom before and couldn’t help but think that, with its paneled walls, faux marble columns, and straight wooden chairs, it was reminiscent of the days when the building had been erected nearly a hundred years earlier.

  In the subdued light everything looked imposing-the judge’s expansive bench, the witness stand raised nearly two meters above the courtroom floor, seating for over two hundred people in the gallery. The scent of dust and old books filled the air.

  At the defense’s table on the other side of the room, a slim, intense woman in her early forties sat conferring with Basque. She had tight lips and stick-like fingers and was wearing the same charcoal gray pantsuit she’d chosen for an interview on Fox News last week. I recognized her right away: Ms. Priscilla Eldridge-Gorman, Richard Basque’s lead lawyer. Her legal team sat beside her.

  Thirteen years ago Basque had been tried and convicted in Dela-field County, Wisconsin. Since then, he’d always maintained his innocence and eventually convinced a law professor at Michigan State University to look into his case. For three years Professor Renee Lebreau had her grad students review the trial proceedings and transcripts, and eventually they uncovered discrepancies in the DNA evidence and in the testimony of one of the eyewitnesses who claimed to have seen Basque leaving the scene of one of the murders. Ms. Priscilla Eldridge-Gorman demanded Basque’s sentence be commuted, but after a careful judicial review, the Seventh District Court ruled in favor of a retrial instead.

  And so, here we were.

  A sharply dressed Hispanic man in his late thirties hastened across the room and slid into the chair beside me, interrupting my thoughts. “Good to see you, Pat.”

  “Emilio.” I knew Assistant State’s Attorney Emilio Vandez from a brief meeting we’d had last month in preparation for the trial.

  He pulled a stack of file folders from his briefcase and set them in front of us. He took a long time straightening them. “It looks like we’re in good shape for today.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  Emilio set two pencils beside the stack and then carefully positioned them parallel to each other. He took a deep breath. “I don’t know what’s wrong with this AC though. I should have brought a sweater.” Then he looked around the room as if he were searching for a clue as to why it was so cold.

  I’d heard Priscilla Eldridge-Gorman was good, really good
, and I began to wonder if Emilio Vandez was a match for her.

  Then the bailiff called for all to rise, the judge entered from his chambers, and the trial of Richard Devin Basque resumed.

  Twenty minutes ago, standing hidden and invisible in the crowd of protestors, Giovanni had watched Patrick Bowers enter the courthouse. Now, he returned to his rental car parked a block away from the police barricade.

  He’d flown in and rented the car under a false name and worn a disguise while waving his “Death Does Not Equal Justice” sign.

  No one knew he was here.

  He drove to a nearby alley, called Denver’s dispatch department, and left an anonymous tip reporting the location of Sebastian Taylor and Brigitte Marcello’s bodies. Then he tossed the prepaid cell phone into a dumpster.

  And so.

  Everything was in place.

  Through his contacts, he knew that Sebastian Taylor had tried to bribe members of the jury in order to get Basque set free. He still didn’t know why Taylor had wanted Basque acquitted, and the governor had stayed remarkably tight-lipped throughout the night about his motives, even as things progressed toward more and more discomfort. But that didn’t matter. None of it did. The jury wouldn’t even be giving a verdict.

  No, Giovanni had taken steps of his own.

  He turned on the police scanner he’d brought with him to monitor the afternoon’s events.

  And waited for the story to unfold.

  11

  The trial, which had been scheduled to start late last fall, had been bogged down in a legal quagmire for months-postponed five times by judicial reviews and a slew of recesses and interruptions.

  However, that was good news for me because it meant I wouldn’t have to sit through an endless round of opening statements, arguments, and counterarguments. We could cut right to the chase. And after the preliminary trial rituals and an hour of questioning from Emilio, Ms. Eldridge-Gorman strode to the middle of the courtroom and paused for a moment beside the table containing the bags, photos, sketches, and other physical evidence to begin her cross-examination.