Sinister Justice

by Steve Pickens

  “Are you sure, Jake? I mean, Professor Mills? How can it be? Why?”

  “I don’t know. You heard that impassioned speech he gave at the town meeting. You know his feelings on the environment and how much this town has come to mean to him.”

  “But what—is he off his rocker or something? I can’t see him murdering anyone, Jake. I just can’t.”

  “Maybe he’s off his meds or something. We’ve got to call the police.”

  “I—I’m not sure, Jake. I can’t…I can’t just call the police on him. I’ve known him for so long! So have you.”

  Jake sighed. “Go to his house. We’ll see if we can’t convince him to turn himself in.”

  Sam fired up the Outback and slowly backed out of the driveway, both silent as they drove over to Professor Mills’s. Sam stopped in the driveway and shut the engine down, looking up at the cheerful yellow Cape Cod style home with white shutters, the lower floors ablaze with light.

  “What do we do?”

  “We go in, we talk to him. He’s not really dangerous, Jake.”

  “Sam, he trained a two-hundred-pound dog to turn Reed Longhoffer into a dinner snack.”

  “He wouldn’t hurt us, Jake. I know he wouldn’t.”

  “That is exactly what Lord Milton said in Geneva Glaspar and The Venomous Violets right before the Mad Baron cleaved his head neatly in two with a fire ax,” Jake whispered harshly. “We’re violating Rule One!”

  “He won’t. I just know he won’t,” said Sam, getting out of the car. He jogged up the narrow path up to the front door, Jake hot on his heels.

  “Be careful, damn it.”

  Sam knocked on the door, pushing it open as he did so. The door had been left partially open.

  “Rule One, Rule One. Every horror movie I’ve ever seen ends badly when that happens, Samuel. Now what?”

  “Nice and casual. We go in.”

  Sam stepped into Professor Mills’s tidy living room. A fire in the gas stove burned merrily, and a book off to the left, the dining room opened into the kitchen. The stairs leading to the second level were directly ahead, in shadow.

  “Professor Mills?” Jake called.

  “Where’s Gretel?”

  “Upstairs maybe?”

  “I’ll check upstairs, you check down here. That way if he corners one of us, the other can call for help.”

  “That violates Rule Three. That’s a stupid idea. He could stick one of us with a needle and the other would be none the wiser.”

  “Okay, okay,” said Sam. “Five minutes. If I’m not back down by then, call Sharon Trumbo.”

  They split off, Jake still feeling it was a stupid idea. After checking the closet in the kitchen and the downstairs bathroom and bedroom, Jake didn’t find Professor Mills on the lower level. Sam was just coming down stairs as Jake made his way back to the foyer, where the door was still partially open.

  “Nothing,” said Sam. “I checked the closets. Even under the bed.”

  “Nothing down here, either,” said Jake, examining the living room again. Next to the chair on an end table was a half consumed cup of coffee. He held his finger to the side and found it was still lukewarm. “He hasn’t been gone long.”

  “Basement?”

  “This close to the creek and the bay? Wouldn’t it be flooded with the tide?”

  “It’s solid rock right here,” said Sam. “Pillow basalts millions of years old. Same land that’s under the Chinook.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Are we going to actually go in the basement or talk about geology all night?”

  “I was considering my options,” said Jake, walking around to the backside of the stairs. A somewhat smaller door with a black china knob was set into the wall. Jake looked at Sam and then slowly pulled the door open.

  Light came up from the basement. Against every fiber in his being, Jake forced himself down the steps. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw a figure with its back turned to him sitting in a chair in the corner of the room in front of a television set which was turned off.

  The top of its head looked familiar. He walked around the figure, where he came face to face with a bound—and sleeping—Adam Haggerty. A piece of duct tape was over his mouth, but he appeared no worse for wear.

  Jake poked him sharply in the shoulder. “Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” he whispered sharply.

  Haggerty’s eyes flew open and he jolted back in fright. He then saw Jake, and his head dropped, slowly shaking.

  Jake thought for a second before he quickly yanked off the duct tape, taking a fair amount of Haggerty’s goatee with it.

  “Ouch!”

  “You could look a little happier at being rescued, you know,” said Jake.

  Haggerty gazed at him dejectedly. “You’ll pardon my disappointment. I had hoped one of my coworkers would figure this out and be the one rescuing me.”

  “I can always leave you here if you’d like,” said Jake, watching Sam come down the stairs.

  “No, don’t do that. Have you called Sharon and the police?”

  Jake and Sam looked at one another.

  “Well, no,” Jake said. “We know Professor Mills. We think we can talk him in to turning himself in.”

  “I don’t like it,” Haggerty said. “You may have a point, though.”

  “Where is the Professor?” Jake said.

  “I’m not sure. I’ve been out of it for quite some time. He dosed me pretty good on something.”

  “Rohypnol in your coffee,” said Jake, while Sam worked on Haggerty’s ropes.

  “That would explain why I can’t remember anything after breakfast. I woke up about two hours ago, and here’s this squirrely little guy telling me he’s not going to hurt me, but he has to keep me out of the way for a few days. I hadn’t seriously pegged this guy for the killer. I dismissed him for lack of strength.”

  “That was a mistake,” said Jake. “Had you asked me, I could have told you about the time Professor Mills hauled a large potted Japanese maple out to my car single-handedly. You suspected him?”

  “Only just,” Haggerty said. “It was that note to Milly Crawford.”

  “You examined the flowers that came with them?”

  “Yes. I didn’t think much about them at first. Just stargazer lilies. You can get them at any supermarket.”

  “You missed the orchids. Professor Mills specializes in them.”

  “I knew that,” Haggerty said. “About the orchids. And Mills. It was in his dossier. I was actually going to check with him about the species they were.”

  “Which is probably why he kidnapped you,” Jake said. “You were getting too close. Not being an ‘enemy of Arrow Bay.’”

  “I think I know why he’s doing this. Aside from the enemy of Arrow Bay angle—”

  “Damn it, I can’t get these knots undone,” said Sam. “Is there something to cut the rope with?”

  Jake fished out his Swiss army knife and handed it to Sam. Thinking for a moment, he said, “He’s got to be in the greenhouse, Sam.”

  “Can you wait until I am done?”

  “I’ll be right back,” said Jake, heading toward the steps. “I’ll just see if he’s in there.”

  “That’s an extraordinarily bad idea,” said Haggerty. “This man is very clever. He could easily get the drop on you.”

  “Could, but won’t,” said Jake, and headed back upstairs, not entirely sure he believed his own words.

  He left the basement door open a crack, so as not to arouse suspicion if Professor Mills returned. Jake walked down a short hallway through the back door, emerging on a short porch. Down a concrete path, a small greenhouse blazed with light.

  He walked down the path toward the greenhouse, his heart thudding in his chest. He stopped at the greenhouse door, which was thick with condensation, and slightly ajar. He eased it open and looked inside. There was no one to be seen. The length of the room ran thirty feet and was no more than twenty across. However, every table
was crammed full of the most beautiful array of orchids and lilies Jake had ever seen. He stepped carefully inside, pausing to look at an orchid that was so like a stargazer in miniature, breathing in the soft fragrance of the delicate flower.

  “Yes, I thought it might be you.”

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Jake whirled around. He had somehow walked half the length of the building. Professor Mills now stood between him and the door.

  “Professor Mills.”

  “Dear Jake,” said Mills, his voice suddenly taking on a very definitive edge, a hardness Jake had never heard before. “If you have a fault, Mr. Finnigan, it is that you are entirely too trusting of people.”

  Mills had strapped an explosive device around himself and was holding on to the detonator in his right hand, his thumb above the trigger.

  “Where’s Gretel?”

  “I’ve left her with my housekeeper. Poor Minerva has no idea what I’ve done. I don’t suspect you have either until fairly recently.”

  “I figured out your method some time ago, Professor,” said Jake. “I have to admit, that was very inventive.”

  “I thought it was creative, though I am truly sorry about the wolfhound. Magnificent creature. I hadn’t intended for him to get killed by that miserable bastard. He was in such poor condition when I found him. I had hoped to give him the feast of his life, but Reed Longhoffer proved to be every bit as difficult in dying as he was living. And that’s quite close enough, Jake. You’re more than strong enough to overpower me, but I’ve got enough explosives here to level this building and completely obliterate both of us. As I’m rather fond of you, I’d rather not do that.”

  Jake stopped moving forward. He had been creeping toward the professor, intent on getting the detonator away from him.

  “I suspect you know why I chose to do what I did? And why it had to be done?”

  Jake nodded. “The Sky to Sea trail.”

  “Well, that was merely part of it. I was eliminating those who were attempting to destroy the very thing I spoke so passionately about at the first town meeting. They were working to destroy the uniqueness of this city. They were going to crush it and make it like every other little bland suburb in the state. The Sky to Sea trail is a part of that, a grand vision for blending the community in with the natural world around it, something very unique in this part of the northwest that has lost so much of its natural heritage. Wilde Park was going to be the crown gem of the entire system.

  “But then Longhoffer and Weinberg tried to make sure that we’d have another faceless corporate box store forced upon us. I knew there were probably no legal grounds for it, so I decided to take care of things myself.”

  “But why, Professor, after Leona…at the second town meeting, Reed had been thwarted by the documents Baldo Ludich produced. There was no need to…”

  “To kill him? My dear boy, you do exhibit some of the tendencies of that annoying Pollyanna character.”

  “I do not.”

  “When it comes to human nature, you do. Do you really think that Reed Longhoffer would let something like a little piece of paper stand in his way? Particularly with the unlimited resources of Blackburn behind him? He and Blackburn were already looking into ways to overturn that, and believe me they could have done it.”

  “But…”

  “No, Mr. Finnigan, I know what you’re going to say. There was no other way. Blackburn, aside from being a truly loathsome individual, was poised to take over some of the last bits of original farmland within the city limits and develop it into some gated monstrosity. I was not about to wait around to see which would happen first—his mind collapsing or his succeeding with his plans.”

  “His mind collapsing?”

  “Surely Jake, you do not think that punching one’s son out in public is the action of a rational man? No, Alexander Blackburn’s mind was rapidly deteriorating. Had been since young Alex took over the company. He had been prone to violent rages and irrational behavior for months. It was only a matter of time before Vivian Blackburn would have been forced to put him away. I chose not to wait that long.”

  “No, you chose to bake him at four-fifty for several hours.”

  “He was already dead, dear boy. I couldn’t see actually cooking him alive. That was beyond even me.”

  Jake sighed, knowing what he was about to say was probably the lamest thing he could possibly utter. His inner English major rebelled at such a clichéd notion, but here he was, faced with the criminal again. He knew he had to give it a try even if it was just for Sam’s sake.

  “Professor, you have to turn yourself in. Please, it’s the only right thing to do.”

  “On the whole, I think not,” said Mills. “You see, well intentioned as you may have been, you did interrupt my work. There were at least six more viable threats to this city I had planned to dispose of, but alas, I don’t think now I shall get to that. I also do not see myself going to jail. I don’t particularly fancy another long stay at the state hospital, either. No, on the whole, I think this is the best solution.”

  “What are you planning to do?”

  “Simple enough. You shall see. When I tell you to run, you will do so, right past me, out the door and up my back porch and into the house, slamming the door firmly behind you. You should have just enough time. Do not dawdle, Mr. Finnigan. You’re a fine, handsome man, and I do not wish any flying shards of glass to harm you.” He depressed the plunger on the bomb. “I’d suggest you run, Mr. Finnigan.”

  Jake tore past Professor Mills without a second glance. He ran out the greenhouse door and up the path, nearly tripping up the stairs. He threw the back door to the house open and slammed it shut, sinking to the floor, his hands over his ears.

  The roar was deafening, the explosion immediately followed by a high-pitched crystalline sound as the greenhouse shattered outward. The entire house shook, the plaster of the walls cracking. All the windows at the back of the house smashed, and Jake’s ears began ringing. He had felt several solid thumps into the door behind him. Outside in the driveway, Sam’s car alarm went off, as did several others up the block.

  Then all was still. The basement door flew open, Sam bursting through it. Seeing Jake crouched behind the closed door, he swooped down upon him and took him into his arms, saying repeatedly, “Are you okay? Are you okay?”

  “Sam, you’re squeezing me to death. I’m fine, I’m fine.”

  “What happened?” Sam asked, as Jake slowly got back up to his feet.

  Jake sighed and slowly turned around, facing the door. He opened it cautiously. As he opened the door, he saw a dozen or more shards of glass embedded in the wood. Stepping out onto the porch, he looked at the backside of the house, which was peppered with shards blown into the siding by the explosion. Jake turned, his eyes following the concrete pathway that now terminated at the smoking black crater.

  Just then, something landed on his nose, making him flinch. He reached up and pulled off the material, expecting it to be ash, but it wasn’t. The fragrant smell of stargazer lily hit him and he realized that it was a piece of Professor Mills’s plants. Another piece softly landed on his shoulder, and Sam said, “Look!” pointing upward.

  The sky was filled with the soft fragments of flowers now falling back softly to the earth. Jake watched them fall slowly toward the ground, feeling a hollow pit in his stomach. He sighed and said, “Good-bye, Professor.”

  * * *

  This time there was no way to keep Jake’s name out of the papers. He was being described by most papers as a hero for ending the reign of terror in Arrow Bay. Jake, for his part, gave all the credit to Detective Haggerty, saying he’d only made the discovery about Professor Grover Mills by accident when he’d dropped by to see Mills that evening to ask him about a plant related matter.

  Haggerty, for his part, remained quiet about the entire incident, not wishing to discuss his drugging or abduction by Professor Mills. Jake told Randy Burrows on KABW that Haggerty had been on the Pr
ofessor’s trail and that Mills had come after him before Haggerty could put a stop to his plans. Haggerty had watched this in a bemused fashion, with a Mona Lisa smile, then turned and left the studio quietly. Jake had not seen him since.

  Jake refused to let his photo be taken and refused interviews other than to the Examiner and KABW. He and Sam had retreated home and let Barnaby out to bark at anyone who approached. After a few days, the people pressing to see and speak to Jake dwindled as more important news stories took over the headlines. The nut who had killed a few people and blown himself up in a small town in the San Juan Islands faded away, and Jake’s fifteen minutes of fame diminished quickly.

  Notes from friends had arrived in a sudden flurry of mailings. Gavin had called from San Francisco and given both of them a thorough talking-to about getting involved with homicidal maniacs. They couldn’t disagree with him and only after getting the promise of a visit to see both he and Jeff soon had they been able to mollify him.

  On the plus side, Jake had been moved from the pariah list in Port Jefferson to most notable local celebrity. He suspected his mother had something to do with that. When the principal of William Henry Harrison High School asked him to speak at a school assembly, he politely declined. He was also asked to relate his experience to the Arrow Bay Book Club, the Arrow Bay Writing Club, and for reasons he wasn’t quite sure why, the Arrow Bay Plant Society. He declined them all.

  Jake was having problems sleeping. Every time he closed his eyes, he could see the Professor in the greenhouse, surrounded by orchids, the bomb strapped to his torso, looking for all the world normal as can be, then hitting the button and exploding into a shower of stargazer lilies. He’d awakened from these dreams in a cold sweat, wondering what had happened to turn the mild mannered and seemingly gentle professor into someone who murdered three people.

  “I don’t understand, Sam,” Jake said in bed one night. “Professor Mills was just the sweetest man. I wouldn’t have thought of him being remotely capable of something like this.”