Measure Twice

by J. J. Hensley

On the walk down the stairs, beads of sweat formed on Channing’s forehead. When the three were nearly halfway down the staircase, he hesitated and reached for a railing. Visions of chains and blades filled his mind. His mouth ached for a drink and his legs begged him to retreat. Reminding himself that Mayton could be hiding out in the basement, he took a deep breath and drew his weapon with his uninjured arm. Lambert was already prepared for a confrontation, GLOCK in hand, and was keeping one eye on her partner.

  The security guard reached the door and swiped an access card across a scanner. He pushed the door open. A portable light in the corner of the room was fading, but laid out a path to the center of the basement. McKeand doubled over and vomited the second his eyes reached the end of the trail and the smell forced him to spin away. In the middle of the room sat a chair surrounded by blood and human excrement. Channing and Lambert used their flashlights to sweep the room for targets, then announced to each other that the room was clear. Lambert told the security guard to go wait in the lobby and watched him give a quick nod and flee up the stairs. She turned to see Channing lean back against the wall next to the stairs. He covered his mouth with the sleeve of his bandaged arm to filter out the odors in the room.

  She said, “Let’s go up and call this in. It will take the forensic guys a while to sort this out, but this has to be where Abdella was killed.”

  Her partner squatted down and pressed his back to the concrete wall. The light from the stairwell above him cast his shadow through the room. “I wonder what Abdella was thinking,” he said between breaths. “I wonder if he begged. He had to know it would be useless to bargain with a man who had lost his wife. I wonder if he prayed—if he thought God might forgive him for what he and the others had done.”

  “We should get out of here,” said Lambert.

  Channing did not seem to hear her. “I tried to kill myself the morning before we met.”

  Lambert froze, not knowing what to say.

  “I put my gun to my head and pulled the trigger. It was a misfire. The gun or the bullet in the chamber failed. It had never malfunctioned before—never.”

  Lambert spoke softly and said, “I know it’s a cliché, but things happen for a reason.”

  Channing was still not looking at her. He was staring at the empty, bloody chair where Abdella had been butchered. “A few months ago, I would have laughed at you. Or, more likely, told you to go screw yourself. But now…”

  He repositioned himself and took a seat on the stairs. He held his pistol up so it was in Lambert’s view.

  “I sent my GLOCK and the ammo I had to the department’s armorer to see if he could fix it. This…” He rotated the gun side to side. “…is a replacement. He left me a message earlier today. He said the gun and the ammo checked out fine. He fired through all the ammunition I gave him and never had a misfire.”

  “So, what do you think that means?” asked Lambert.

  Channing reached back and violently holstered his weapon. “I think there really is a reason some things happen. I think events can consume us, but don’t have to define us. I think I came out of that damned basement because my work in this world isn’t complete. But you know what else? I think Mayton is still in town and he’s not running. No, he’s not running and he’s not hiding. He’s lying in wait. He knows he’s running out of time, but he knows we are, too. I don’t completely understand the reason for me being alive, but if I had to take a guess, I’d say stopping Lester Mayton from hurting anyone else is as good a reason as any.”

  – – –

  The squad room was buzzing with activity long before sunrise. Through the night, the forensics team had processed the scene at the Housing Authority building. Channing and Lambert walked into the flurry of activity, unsure of the reason for the excitement. The only radio traffic they heard on the drive back to the station related to a double-homicide at a bar on the South Side.

  Sadly, a customer killing a bar patron and the bartender were hardly the cause for this much commotion these days. Exhausted and having planned only to file hastily written reports before heading to their respective homes, the detectives sought out their sergeant and found him in his office. Harris was barking orders into the phone and furiously writing notes on a legal pad. Hanging up the phone and standing, he kept scribbling and did not notice his visitors.

  “Ken,” Channing said. “What’s happened?”

  “The mayor’s wife called. He went out for a jog this morning and didn’t come back. His car was found at the park where he usually runs. A dog walker said they saw a man being shoved into a white van.”

  “Where was his protection detail?” asked Lambert.

  A realization hit Channing and he slumped into a chair and proposed an answer to the question. “Because, the detail was dropped when Mayton’s ID and weapons were found on the body outside the Pinkston residence.”

  “It wasn’t dropped by us,” said Harris angrily. “Mayor Wirrer insisted it wasn’t necessary. He called the chief and put a halt to all protective details.”

  Lambert took the seat in the chair next to her partner and said, “Why the mayor? I thought this was about Washington’s Landing.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Channing erupted and held his head in his hands. “I’m an idiot.”

  “What?” asked Lambert.

  “Mayor Wirrer wasn’t Mayor Wirrer back when the Washington’s Landing project started.”

  “My God,” said Harris, falling back into his own chair. “He was the head of City Planning.”

  Step 12

  Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

  S ix hours passed with no developments in the search for the city’s highest elected official. The squad room had been turned into a command post for the largest search operation the area had ever seen. All attempts to shut out media coverage had failed and reporters flooded the streets around the station, all asking the same question: Is Lester Mayton alive and has he abducted the mayor? Adding to the confusion, witnesses from the South Side’s double-homicide were telling detectives that the suspect in those killings had been intently watching news coverage of the attempted attack on the city’s Planning Director. While the witnesses described a man with a clean-shaven head and glasses, when the sketch artist had finished her work, there were obvious similarities between the suspect and Lester Mayton. Fingerprints from the broken beer bottle left at the scene matched those found in Mayton’s home, all but confirming he was the perpetrator.

  Channing and Lambert had sought refuge from the squad room and set up shop in a conference room. Spread out on the table were stacks of reports, crime scene photos, statements from Mayton’s friends and neighbors, and the killer’s financial records. Teams of detectives had dissected the life of Lester Mayton in the hours after the SWAT team found his house was empty. Lambert was pouring over the piles of information at one end of the table, hoping to find some clue as to where the mayor’s abductor would have taken him. At the other end of the table, Channing had his head buried in a laptop computer as he continued to sift through the hundreds of calls that had come into the department’s tip line. Lambert glanced up and saw gut-wrenching distress in her partner’s expression.

  “You couldn’t have known,” she said in an even tone.

  Channing moved a finger up to the monitor and kept scrolling through the logs. He should have seen this coming. Mayton never intended to get away with anything. He was just buying time. Now he either had killed or was preparing to kill the mayor and it was Channing’s fault. This can’t be the reason I’m here, he thought. I can’t still be alive just so I’ll have to endure more punishment. If I can’t make this right, how can I make anything right? I’ve known this man from the beginning. I’ve felt his pain. I have to end this. Nobody else. Me.

  Seeing her comment had not made a dent, Lambert frowned and returned to the interview notes in her hand. Another det
ective, a woman from Robbery, had interviewed some of Mayton’s former coworkers. According to the notes, Mayton had few friends and no hobbies. Besides attending church and volunteering at an outreach center, he appeared to be a reclusive individual. Officers were already searching the outreach center and the church.

  Without looking up, she said, “Do you want to go out there and see if the search parties found anything?”

  When she did not get a response, she turned and discovered she was talking to empty space. While she was engrossed in the interview notes, he must have slipped out of the room. Remembering the agonizing look on his face, and fearing he may have sneaked out for a drink, she decided she would give him no more than ten minutes before tracking him down.

  After enough time had passed, she walked into the squad room and searched for her partner. Having no luck, she pounded on the door of the men’s room and then verified Channing was not in there. She made a circuitous trip through the hallways surrounding the squad room and became more concerned about the man who had discussed suicide less than twelve hours before. Lambert withdrew her cell phone and called Channing, only getting his voice mail.

  She returned to the conference room, stopped to gather her thoughts, and then fixed her eyes on the laptop Channing had been using. No more than ten tip line entries appeared on the screen, and none of them had been investigated. She scrutinized them one at a time. The first four were obviously calls from conspiracy theorists. The fifth appeared to be from a psychic who stated the murderer was a Chinese man in a blue Volkswagen. The sixth entry made her pause and reread the words several times. She looked at the date and time of the entry. The call had been received early in the morning on the day Abdella’s body came down the Duquesne Incline.

  According to the call log, an anonymous caller stated he had received a call from a troubled soul and the caller feared something terrible was about to happen. The caller also stated, “The man is in pain and may be off the path. I fear he will make the city feel his loss. Please protect those in power.” The caller refused to identify himself or the man to whom he was referring. Lambert’s finger traced the row of the spreadsheet to the far right edge of the screen until she found what she was looking for. The department’s caller-ID had captured the phone number.

  Lambert, her pulse racing, pressed the keys on her cell phone.

  “Hello,” said a man’s voice.

  “This is Detective Lambert with the Pittsburgh Police.”

  “I’m sorry, but like I said before, I’ve already done all I can.”

  “Sir, please don’t hang up,” she said. “I think you may know the man who has killed all these people. We need your help.”

  “I’ve already explained my predicament. You know I’m in a tough situation here.”

  Predicament? Lambert adjusted the laptop’s monitor and read the entry for the fourth time.

  She said, “I don’t understand. Whoever you spoke to on the tip line didn’t explain any predicament.”

  “I didn’t mention it on the tip line. I told the man who called a few minutes ago. What was his name? Channing.”

  Lambert felt blood rush through her body. She said, “Please forgive me, mister…”

  The man hesitated to speak, but then said, “Ponstville. Matthew Ponstville.”

  “Please forgive me, Mr. Ponstville. Detective Channing is my partner, but I can’t reach him right now. Can you please repeat to me what you told him?”

  Another pause filled the air, and then the man answered, “I explained I can’t give you the man’s name, but I’m very concerned for him and for those he may still harm.”

  “Do you know the man’s name?” the detective asked.

  “Yes.”

  “But you won’t give it to me.”

  “I’m not permitted.”

  Lambert felt anger begin to rise. “What does that mean, ‘not permitted’?”

  “As I explained to your partner, I’m a minister. In fact, some of your officers were here asking to search my church a few minutes ago. Of course, I let them.

  Ponstville began coughing. To Lambert, he sounded elderly and frail. The coughing slowly subsided and he continued his story.

  “The man called me early one morning and said he was on top of Mt. Washington. He said he had done things people would consider terrible. He asked if I thought God would understand what he was doing.”

  “And your duty to the church is keeping you from revealing his name to us.”

  “Yes.”

  “What else did you tell Detective Channing?”

  “I told him that the man who called me was not a bad man. I said he had suffered a tremendous loss and how nearly the only thing that brought him pleasure in this life was gone.”

  “His wife.”

  Dead air filled the phone.

  “You said nearly the only thing.”

  “Other than church and his volunteer work, he has few interests.”

  “Mr. Ponstville,” said Lambert. “We know the man is Lester Mayton and we need to find him now. He’s obviously not at the church and not at the outreach center. I can tell you want to help and I sympathize with your situation, but we think he has the mayor and is going to kill him.”

  “I’m sorry, dear. I don’t know what else to tell you. I don’t think I was much help to your partner either. I told him all I could about the man without breaking my vow of confidentiality. I’m ashamed to say I don’t know that much about him. Like I told your partner, other than coming to church and helping the sick at some clinic, I don’t know what he does in his spare time. He once mentioned he would occasionally dress up as a settler, or colonist, or something like that, but I’m not sure why. Your partner seemed interested in that for some reason.”

  By the time Ponstville realized the call had gone dead, Lambert was sprinting toward her car.

  During the night, overcast skies and a northern wind had blown heavy snow down from the Great Lakes. Channing listened to the cool blanket of whiteness compress and creak under his feet. Beside his feet, a set of tire tracks were vanishing beneath new flakes. A chain that stretched across the entrance to the historical attraction had been broken, apparently pulled to its limits by the front of a car. Channing’s eyes followed the tracks past the shattered chain. Overhead, a handmade wooden sign read, Welcome to Historical Pioneer Village. Below it, a smaller sign that swung from hooks read, Winter Hours: 9:00 a.m.—4:00 p.m. / Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, and By Appt. Channing decided to leave his car at the entrance and follow the tracks into the complex. It was Wednesday, but he was certain he had an appointment.

  Located along the banks of the Ohio River, the village was nestled in an isolated area northwest of the city. Any concerns Channing had about jurisdictional lines, swept away with the frigid winds. The detective drew his service weapon with his functional left hand, held it at his side, and took cautious steps into the late eighteenth century.

  On his left, stood log structures and signs that advertised a courthouse, a rope maker’s business, a general store, and a blacksmith shop. To his right, Channing observed stables and what looked like a saloon. In front of Channing, the tire marks continued with no indication the vehicle had stopped.

  Another gust of wind intruded the replica town, and the coldness caused his gun hand to sting. Channing had not been completely honest with his partner. He could shoot left-handed, but not particularly well. Now with withdraw symptoms sending tremors down through his fingertips, he doubted he could hit anything at all. A deer sauntered across the road in front of him. Channing did not react and kept moving, occasionally swiveling his head from side to side. He forced his eyes up into the wind to look at the second story of a log house, but saw no movement in any windows. Pressing forward, the realization he was going to die in this place overcame him. Strangely, that knowledge consoled him. He felt no desire to escape his fate.

  As he passed a building labeled as a gunsmith shop, Channing noticed footprints next to the
tire tracks that continued through the town. Channing’s eyes strained to make out the shapes on the ground as the skies darkened from dense clouds. To the detective, it appeared that the driver had stopped the car and walked to and from the shop before continuing his journey in the vehicle. Channing approached the door of the shop and took notice of the splintered lock.

  Without bothering to raise his weapon, Channing nudged the door open with his foot. A low-pitched squeak came from the hinges and the door reluctantly swung open. Stepping in, he allowed time for his eyes to adjust to the blackness as floorboards ached underneath his weight. The shop was small and simple. A counter stood on one side of the room while crates and barrels filled the other. Channing followed traces of moisture from footsteps left not long before. The trail ended in a corner of the room. The detective knelt down and could make out a faint circle outline in the dust on the floor; a barrel had been recently removed and loaded into the vehicle.

  Channing stood and walked back to the damaged door. This wasn’t part of the plan, was it, Mayton? This was a last minute decision. You’re improvising. You’ve gone off script. Like killing those people in the bar—you’ve come unglued and now you’re making it up as you go along. He returned to the road and picked up his pace as the tire tracks became indistinguishable from the surrounding landscape.

  The road—at least Channing assumed it was still a road—led him into a remote, wooded tract of land west of village. He could no longer follow the tracks, so he looked for the areas where a car might be able to squeeze between trees. The wind picked up. Clumps of snow fell from the canopy of branches overhead and pockmarked the peaceful terrain. Channing arrived at a small clearing and halted. On three different sides were gaps large enough to allow a vehicle to pass.

  No, he thought as he closed his eyes. This can’t be how this ends. In the past few months, I’ve failed everyone around me: God, Mary, Alex…myself. My life is not without value and neither will be my death. I have to balance the scales and make things right.