Deadline

by Craig McLay

  He hopped down on to the sidewalk and started up the street. Two uniformed cops were walking straight towards him.

  Fuck.

  Nothing to do. It was too late, now. He would just need to walk right past them. If he changed course or crossed the street, he would only look suspicious and draw attention to himself, like a car screeching to a stop ten yards short of a RIDE checkpoint.

  Colin wiped some of the raindrops off his forehead and ducked his head down against the rain as he passed them on the inside. He had to force himself to keep walking at the same pace. Every part of him wanted to break into a run.

  All I have to do is get to the corner, he thought. If I can do that, then I’m home free.

  He looked up. The corner was about 30 yards away. Ten yards shy of that was a bus shelter. As he got closer to the shelter, he could see his reflection in the glass. He could also see the reflection of the two cops. They had both stopped and were looking back in his direction. One of them was talking on his radio.

  Fuuuuck.

  Colin kept walking. The cops were moving toward him now. One of them even broke into a jog.

  “Here we go,” Colin said under his breath.

  Without looking, he jumped off the sidewalk and sprinted across the street. A taxi leaned on its horn and swerved wildly to avoid hitting him, crashing head on into a paid parking machine. Colin closed his eyes and kept running. If he made it to the other side of the street without getting killed, he was going to consider it a great personal accomplishment.

  -50-

  Giordino and Betts were en route back to police headquarters when the call came in over the radio.

  “We spotted Mitchell!” said the voice. Giordino recognized it as belonging to one of the uniforms that did the foot patrols on the downtown circuit. There were two of them who were so close in appearance that they had picked up the nickname “the twins”. They were very similar, both having 18-inch necks and more devotion to gym time than any other aspect of their jobs. “He’s on foot! Just left city hall! Headed east on Carlyle!”

  City hall? Giordino wondered. What the hell was he doing in there?

  “Shit!” Betts exclaimed. “That’s only two blocks from here!”

  Betts spun the wheel. Giordino felt her head smack against the window as the cruiser made a wild U-turn and rammed up over the curb, nearly killing an old man out walking his dog.

  “Watch where you’re going!” Giordino yelled as Betts swung the car back onto the road and gunned the engine. She had seen him do this kind of thing before, and the end results often involved the Special Investigations Unit.

  Betts screeched around the corner against a red light onto Watson and then made a sharp left onto Carlyle. Giordino could see the Church of Our Lady up ahead and mentally crossed herself. She did not want to end her career in a coma. Or in traction.

  “There he is!” Betts yelled, pointing. “South side!”

  Giordino peered through the rain and saw Colin racing down the street towards them. The two uniforms were about 100 yards behind. They were coming up to the intersection of Carlyle and Norfolk. That was where the north- and southbound lanes of Norfolk widened out around Grant Park, which sat in a large rectangular island in the middle. Locals nicknamed it central park because of the way it took up an entire block. The park was surrounded by a ten-foot high iron fence and had large gates at the south end. At one time, it had been a gathering place for families, but now it was mostly rundown. The large stone fountain in the middle had been donated by Westhill’s sister city of Pallacio in Italy. Many cynical voters believed that the sister city selection had been made solely because counsellors got a free trip to Tuscany. The motives of the residents of the Italians, however, were a mystery.

  Betts pulled the car to a screeching halt across the intersection that put it on an angle and blocked almost all four lanes. Before Giordino could say anything, he threw open his door and jumped out, grabbing the shotgun from the centre mount in the process.

  “Freeze!” he yelled, pointing the barrel of the shotgun in Colin’s direction. There were pedestrians running all over the place, but he put them out of his mind. As far as the public was concerned, Mitchell was a dangerously disturbed serial killer. If somebody else got nicked in the process of apprehending him, well, they could just suck it up and thank him later.

  -51-

  Colin heard the screeching tires and looked up to see Betts pointing a shotgun at him.

  Colin froze. He didn’t doubt that Betts would fire as soon as he got a clear shot. It didn’t matter that it was a public street in the middle of the day with eyewitnesses all around. Betts was so wound up that he’d probably empty the tube before he was even aware that he’d squeezed the trigger.

  Colin could hear the uniforms coming up behind him fast. He looked around wildly. There was a city bus stopped next to the sidewalk near the park’s south entrance only ten yards away. Without thinking, he dropped his head and made a beeline for it, trying to use the other stopped cars for cover as he ran.

  He heard a boom as Betts squeezed off a shot and tinkling glass as the pellets tore through the window of the electronics shop behind him, blasting a massive hole in a 70-inch plasma flat screen TV that was supposed to be first prize in a raffle designed to raise funds for a new MRI machine at the hospital. Colin kept running. He didn’t hear any screams, so maybe no one had been hurt. He didn’t really have time to check.

  Colin sprinted along the side of the bus as the two uniforms behind him stopped to help a woman who had been sprayed with glass when the window was blown out. A marked police cruiser squealed to a stop on the far corner, forcing him to turn left into the park.

  “Betts, you fucking idiot!” Giordino yelled, getting out of the car.

  Betts ignored her, tossing the shotgun back into the driver’s seat and then slamming the door. He pulled his sidearm roughly out of his shoulder holster and took off in pursuit.

  Colin entered the park and ran to the left around the large marble fountain. Poseidon stood on a platform in the middle, pointing a trident into the air in silent rebuke to the pigeons who routinely crapped all over him. The waterfall that was supposed to run down between his feet was not running because the pump had been improperly installed. Fixing it would apparently require the dismantlement of part of the fountain and the shifting of 13 tonnes of imported stone, which no one in city management was keen to do.

  Grant Park was named in honour of the city’s first mayor, Angus Grant, whose family mansion was currently home to the Black Light Gentlemen’s Entertainment Club. The park attracted fewer junkies and homeless people than Coughlin Park three blocks away because there was no shelter and only one entrance, which made it hard to clear the scene if the cops decided to do one of their periodic rousts.

  The fact that he had run into a place with only one way out did not enter Colin’s mind until he reached the edge of the fountain and saw the ten-foot iron fence that now blocked him in on all sides.

  “Shit!” Colin gasped as he ran. “Who builds a park with only one exit? Idiots, that’s who.”

  Colin looked quickly over his shoulder to see Giordino and Betts run through the gates behind him. Giordino appeared to be trying to say something to Betts that Colin couldn’t make out, but it didn’t matter, because Betts didn’t appear to be paying any attention, either. He stopped and shakily pointed his gun at Colin, but Giordino grabbed the weapon with both hands and pushed the barrel to the ground just as a jogger stumbled in front of them.

  “Outta the way, fuckwad!” Betts yelled, shoving the jogger aside and taking off after Colin again. The jogger stumbled to the ground and rolled up into a protective ball as the heavy detective scrambled over his legs.

  Colin reached the other side of the fountain and scanned the ground up ahead. On the left was a memory garden for emergency services workers. It had a bench and a few small trees, each one with a plaque identifying which police or fire department it had been planted for. At the
back corner on the right was a maintenance shed. The ground rose steadily towards the shed and then dropped off steeply to the bottom of the fence.

  The only exception to that was the ground immediately around the shed. The city had wanted the shed tucked into the far back corner so that it took up as little usable space as possible. As a result, there was a concrete foundation about a foot wide on all sides. Because the ground dropped off so steeply, the base of the foundation was almost level with the top of the iron fence. There was maybe six feet of open space between the back of the shed and the fence.

  Colin aimed for the shed and started running faster.

  “Where the hell’s he think he’s goin’?” Betts huffed. He had only run about 50 metres, but his face was already puffy and red. “There’s only one way in or outta here!”

  Giordino saw where Colin was going and reached down to grab the radio off her belt to advise one of the uniforms to get moving around the park to cut Mitchell off, but the radio wasn’t there. She had left it in the cruiser and had gotten out in such a hurry that it was still sitting on the floor of the passenger side.

  Colin reached the shed. The concrete ridge on the left was narrower than he thought, but he was going too fast to stop now. He ran along the top of the ledge, closed his eyes, and threw himself forward into space.

  -52-

  Janice was frantic.

  The day hadn’t started out as a gigantic mess, but that was sure as hell where it was now. She had gotten up, taken a long shower, gotten a coffee and bagel from the place in the plaza down the street, and then settled in with her laptop to try to see if the Knights had left any digital traces of themselves. The next thing she knew, a news alert had flashed up with Colin’s face on it saying that the police wanted to arrest him for the murders.

  What on earth had they found at his apartment? It must have been serious if everyone was looking for him all of a sudden. Janice didn’t think Colin had killed anybody, but what did she really know? She had really only known the guy for a few days. Didn’t they always say that about serial killers after they were caught? He seemed like such a nice, quiet, normal guy…

  She had been so panicked that she had actually picked up the phone and tried to call the police to tell them everything she knew about the Knights of the Holy Thorn, but the guy on the other end didn’t seem to take her seriously and told her that Giordino was out and wasn’t expected back for a couple of hours. With a case like this, they probably got a thousand crazy tips an hour, so it wasn’t a surprise that she didn’t exactly get top priority.

  She paced the floor of her small living room and tried to figure out what to do next. Colin had said he was coming here. Should she stay and wait? Should she get in the car and drive straight to the police station and tell them everything she knew? Should she go to the newsroom? What?

  The doorbell rang.

  Janice stopped pacing. Colin had said not to answer the door. Why shouldn’t she open the door all of a sudden? Why was it suddenly so unsafe? Maybe it was Colin. Or maybe it was someone Colin didn’t want her to talk to. Maybe it was the police.

  Oh, what the hell.

  Janice ran to the door and pulled it open. On the front step was a man in a dark black jacket with a hood covering a fringe of grey hair that made him look like a monk. Despite the fact that he hadn’t been photographed in many years, Janice recognized him immediately.

  “Good afternoon, sister,” he said in a gravelly voice. “I have come to show you the pathway of light.”

  -53-

  Colin cleared the fence by less than an inch, sailed over the sidewalk, and landed on the roof of a minivan idling in the inside lane.

  Colin felt the wind squeezed out of him in a whoosh as his momentum carried him forward, off the roof of the van and onto the street, where he landed in a heap. Colin got to his knees, gasping for air, and looked up just in time to see the word “MACK” screech to a stop within two feet of his nose as the driver laid on the horn. He was too full of adrenaline to be aware of whether or not he might have done himself an injury. All he knew was that he somehow wasn’t dead and was no longer in the park.

  Colin got up and staggered out from behind the minivan just in time to see Betts reach the maintenance shed. The big detective wasn’t moving quite as fast as Colin had, but appeared to be trying to make up for that with sheer force of will.

  All the willpower in the world wasn’t enough to overcome gravity, however, and when Colin saw Betts stumble after bumping his elbow against the side of the shed, he knew the rest of the jump was not going to go well.

  Betts made it surprisingly high up into the air, but forgot to pull up his legs. His right foot caught the top of the fence, tripping him up in mid-air. The big detective spun around and landed virtually head-first on the sidewalk, where he crumpled like a sack of potatoes. Blood started streaming out of his ears and nose. Colin couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not. It was entirely possible that Betts was dead. He felt absolutely no urge to run up and see if the detective was still alive. This was, after all, the guy who had just tried to kill him with a shotgun.

  One of the uniformed cops was the first to reach the fence, sliding down the steep embankment and almost running straight into the stone wall at the base. He spotted Betts lying prone on the sidewalk and grabbed the walkie-talkie on his shoulder.

  “Officer down on Regent next to Grant Park!” he shouted. “Repeat! Officer down! We need paramedics here now!” He spotted Colin standing next to the minivan and pulled his gun, trying to point it through the vertical iron bars of the fence. “Freeze!”

  Shit, Colin thought. Now they probably think I’m a cop killer. Is it possible for this situation to get any worse?

  Colin had no intention of freezing. He turned around and ran across the street as cars honked and swerved to get out of his way. His right knee was sore from where he had whacked it against the roof of the van, but otherwise he felt okay. At least he hadn’t broken anything.

  Behind him, the uniformed cop tried to get a clear line of fire and couldn’t. In addition to the fence, there were just too many cars and pedestrians to risk a shot. A middle-aged man with a brown overcoat and hat crouched down cautiously next to Betts.

  “I don’t think he’s breathing!” the man said, tilting his hat back for a better look.

  “Get back, sir!” the uniform barked. He could see Betts’s sidearm lying in the gutter next to a mailbox, where it had landed after flying out of the detective’s hand on the way down. Fortunately, Mitchell hadn’t seen it. He thought about trying to climb the fence, but it was ten feet straight up and there was nothing to hold on to. “Mitchell’s headed east on Regent! I can’t get to him!”

  Colin dodged around a courier van and turned to see Giordino sprinting towards him along the south side of the park on Norfolk. She must have figured out what he was going to try to do and doubled back to the exit to try and cut him off. She was a lot lighter on her feet and was closing in fast. He saw her hesitate and think about stopping to line up a shot, but then she kept going. She wasn’t going to give him another chance to bolt or risk shooting an innocent bystander in the process. She clearly intended to take him down personally.

  He could hear sirens converging on him from all directions. It was time to get off the street. He ran across the sidewalk and pulled open the first door he came to, which happened to be a laundromat.

  Machines were humming as Colin ran inside. A guy in a black leather jacket with a do rag on his head and an elaborate handlebar moustache was standing at the front window, along with a skinny girl in a dress that looked more like a hospital gown. The two of them had been drawn up there by the commotion on the street and looked curiously at Colin when he burst inside.

  “Hey, what’s goin’ on out there, man?” the guy asked. “I swear I heard shots!”

  Colin ignored them. He had spotted a door at the back marked “Staff Only”. It was handwritten in pen on a sheet of paper and mounted with a coup
le of thumb tacks, but it marked another way out and that was all that mattered. Colin ran down the long row of machines, pulling open the doors of some of them as he went. Water and clothing gushed out onto the dirty linoleum floor.

  “Hey man!” the moustache guy said, watching his favourite Metallica shirt hit the deck. “What the fuck?!”

  Colin grabbed the back door and yanked it open just as Giordino arrived at the front. She noticed the water on the floor, but not soon enough to stop herself from slipping and landing on her back in the warm, soapy water. Her elbow hit the floor, causing her to inadvertently squeeze off a round from the 9 mm she was carrying in her right hand. It ricocheted off a dryer and went through the suspended ceiling, where it severed one of the pipes supplying the sprinkler system. Water immediately began to pour down from around the central bank of overhead fluorescent lights.

  This was enough for moustache guy, who threw his arms up over his head and ran out the front door. Most of the laundry was his girlfriend’s anyway. If she wanted it, she could come back and get it herself. The skinny girl in the white dress just stood and watched it all with a vacant expression of disbelief.

  Giordino cursed and pulled herself to her feet. Her back and her head were soaked and now more water was pouring down from above. She checked to make sure her gun hadn’t jammed and then moved quickly towards the back, using the machines to help stay upright. There was a drain in the middle of the floor, but it appeared to be plugged because no water was actually draining into it. The mess on the floor was ankle-deep and getting worse by the minute. She was grateful that she hadn’t worn her new leather shoes.