The Tracker

by John Hunt

  Simultaneously they said, “Yes, sir.”

  Owen held up a finger to the two and said, “And be careful.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Get going then.”

  The two officers ran around the side of the house and Owen opened the screen door slowly, hoping the damn thing wouldn’t squeal and then thinking it wouldn’t matter with the front yard lit up with police lights and steeling himself, he darted inside. He kept his gun in front of him and wherever his eyes went, so did the barrel of his gun.

  “We got blood here. Lots of it.”

  Earl said, “Be careful. It’s a crime scene.”

  “I know.”

  Owen moved into the kitchen, kicking aside wood splinters and keeping his gun up and ready. Dark blood covered the linoleum floor, emanating from a lump in the hallway. At first he thought the lump must be Rosie and he felt rage run along his body until it wanted to spill out into a scream of anger but then he stopped, seeing the lower back hair and remembering Rosie had a boyfriend and thought it must be him. Roger, was it? The rage emptied out of him and sadness made a nest. Owen had seen his share of dead bodies. He had investigated death by natural causes and homicides and no matter the end, a dead person didn’t seem real. Whatever animated the person, be it spirit, electrical impulses, whatever, when they died all that was left was meat. And that is what a dead person looked like: meat. The essential self of the person inside left after death. In contrast, when speaking with someone he liked, a friend, a parent, he thought of them as magical. Owen would sometimes be stunned by a genuine smile or laugh because they could transform a taciturn, ugly person into someone beautiful because their inside magic showed through. And that was more than just meat, chemicals and evolutionary programming, wasn’t it? He thought so and he would never consider himself a spiritual person. And when a person saw you, truly saw you, it made you feel real as well and there was a deep satisfaction in that.

  Looking at the body on the floor, another body, he felt a clinical detachment. All the blood on the floor make the skin appear paper white and Owen saw Roger as evidence. He wondered, not for the first time, what this job was doing to him inside.

  Behind him, Earl said, “We have to clear the house.”

  “He’s not here.”

  “Yeah, but we don’t know until we know. Besides, Rosie could be here.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Me either.”

  A hard rap on the back door startled them both.

  Owen uttered a nervous laugh and said, “The fucking rookies can’t get in.”

  Smiling, Earl said, “Where are they hiring these guys?”

  “Don’t give them too hard a time. Snowflake millennials are sensitive.”

  “Snowflake whats-it?”

  “Later. Can you get over him? Without ruining the scene too much?”

  Looking at the giant pool of blood, some black and some a bright red with bits of what? Brain? Earl shook his head and said, “No. No way.”

  “Okay. I’ll stay here. You go let the turds in the house and we’ll clear it. After that, we find Rosie.”

  ***

  The house had been cleared. No Rosie, no Taylor. And her cell phone had been left beside the bed which meant they had no way to track her. They set up a perimeter at the house waiting for crime scene officers to be done at the hospital and at the same time, intelligence officers, detectives and uniform officers were setting up roadblocks on all the main roads out of town. If Taylor took a side road, they would be shit out of luck and so would Rosie. Owen tried not to think about that.

  Rosie drove an older red Ford escort. They got the licence plate and circulated it to all the officers and to the police services in neighbouring jurisdictions. An older lady stepped out from the house next to Rosie’s wearing a housecoat over cat pyjama bottoms with running shoes. She watched from her porch with her arms crossed under her breasts.

  Owen said, “Hello. Do you know the woman that lives here? Rosie?”

  “Not really. She kept to herself mostly.”

  “Did you see her car at all?”

  “The red rust box?”

  “Rust? It had rust on it?”

  “My husband said the only thing holding the car together was chicken wire and duct tape. The muffler hovered inches off the ground and made an awful noise.”

  “Where was the rust?”

  “Oh, all on the doors. Along the seams I guess. And the trunk had a big hole in it. You could probably fit your fist in it.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “I hope so.”

  Owen let dispatch know about the updated description to broadcast to all the units. Owen chewed at his fingernail. He worried they were too late. He should have thought of this. After the way Taylor reacted in the interview room when he heard about Rosie, he should have known this could happen except it happened so fast. The escape, two cops dead, he didn’t have time to think. He needed some time and he didn’t think he would get any. Already the media were screaming for someone’s head. How could this happen? Didn’t the police know how dangerous Taylor was? Why wasn’t there more security? All the political scrambling will distract everyone from what really mattered: getting Rosie back alive.

  It had taken them almost half an hour to get the roadblock set up. A half hour was a long time and if Taylor drove straight down to the Hanlon, he could make it to Highway 401 and be anywhere by now. Owen then asked dispatch to notify border services just in case he tried to make it across. What else could he do? There had to be something. He worried Taylor might have walked into another home with Rosie, killed everyone inside and set up shop. If Taylor went to ground, hiding, there wasn’t a whole lot they could do. It would be a snake hunt, plain and simple.

  -27-

  A forced reunion…

  “Where are we going?”

  Rosie pressed herself into the door, as far from Taylor she could get without actually being outside the car. Her eyes wouldn’t stop leaking tears and she swiped at them constantly. The repeated movement irritated the skin under her eyes and along her cheeks but she couldn’t stop herself. She could smell it, her tears. Crying left her nose raw and sensitive. She could also smell sweat and blood. She glanced at Taylor’s hands gripping the steering wheel and the dried blood almost made her think Taylor was wearing dark red gloves. Her body would tremble from time to time, an involuntary jerk and her teeth would clack together as she tried to stop it.

  Taylor started straight ahead, the grin creating a bulge on the side of his face. Didn’t it hurt? Smiling for so long? The size of him filled the car. The steering wheel disappeared in his fists. He had always been big. Tall and really overweight and upon a time, so had she been. But now, he swelled with muscle and strength. She reminded him of the Undertaker, some wrestler her dad used to watch while holding a beer in one hand and a smoke in the other. She remembered thinking what could a person do against someone so big and powerful, like the giant at the top of the beanstalk who would grind your bones. And now a person she had once thought her best friend, who at one point she loved and in her wildest childish aspirations believed she would marry, broke into her home, murdered her boyfriend and is holding her captive. And what scared her the most, what made her body jerk spasmodically was not only the image of her boyfriend’s brains on the tile of her floor, but what was he going to do to her when they got to wherever it was they were going?

  She knew he heard her but she asked again, “Where are we g-going?”

  He didn’t turn his head.

  In the console sat a gun. The barrel rested in the cup holder. The handle shon
e tacky with blood. A quick snap of her hand and she would have it. The gun jiggled in the holder. She thought it would fall out and onto the floor if they went over a big bump. It could fall into her foot area, which would be good. It could fall into his and that would be bad. But if she grabbed it…

  “You can try and Taylor will snap your wrist if you do. Taylor has another gun on the backseat too. If you try for that, same result. So, in Taylor’s opinion, don’t try.”

  She cringed at his voice and studied the passing scenery out the window. She didn’t look at the gun, not anymore. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been this afraid. Nothing could come close. Not only did this thing not act like Taylor, it didn’t sound like Taylor at all. And he continued to refer to himself as Taylor, in the third person but still, he called himself Taylor. So it had to be Taylor. It couldn’t be anyone else right? Clearly Taylor had taken a ride on the crazy train, then moved up to the conductor and is now owner of the whole damn company. His brain must have short circuited or something. Missed a connection somewhere and then he turned his attention to self-improvement for the sole purpose of being strong enough to go on an endurance run of murder and revenge. Only Rosie had never seen this in him. And wouldn’t she have? At some point? An inkling of the cruelty and rage inside? But crazy isn’t something visible is it? No. It was an invisible bucket, being filled drop by drop with mean comments and brutish, callous actions until the bucket overflowed because it couldn’t hold anymore. How much can a person be expected to take?

  The morning, though warm, didn’t alleviate the chill in her body. She wished he had let her put her shoes on. Simple thing, shoes, yet without them she felt vulnerable. Probably because she planned on running if given the chance. Taking in Taylor’s body, she hoped she would be fast enough. The body of her boyfriend, broken and lifeless, flashed behind her eyes and she thought of the gun beside her. She knew one thing: she wasn’t faster than a bullet. She could run but he’d shoot her in the back and walk up to her while she crawled on her forearms to get away and maybe stomp on her head or unload more bullets into her back.

  She pulled her eyes from Taylor and concentrated on looking out the window. They were outside of the city now and Taylor turned down a dirt road, the gravel crunching and kicking out from under the tires. She didn’t think her car would last too long on these roads. She hoped it wouldn’t last long. Rosie didn’t want to get where they were going. She had a feeling she wouldn’t like what would happen at the end of this road trip. It’s not like this forced reunion had been a blast so far.

  She wrung her hands and when doing so, noticed blood splattered on the outside of her fingers. Blood? Where? Taylor had stomped on Roger’s head in the kitchen. She didn’t look. She couldn’t look. The cracking noise followed by a wet, squishing noise, no, she didn’t want to see that. She felt the wet drops hitting her but in the terror of the moment, she had not been able to process it. She only knew she didn’t want to be next. Rosie held her hands up to her eyes and ran them along her forearms. Roger’s blood. Tears spilled down her cheeks and for a second, it annoyed her, to be crying so much. Frowning, she spit on her hands and used the saliva to wipe the blood off her hands and arms. It became very important to get it off her, Roger’s blood and she concentrated on rubbing at the red smears and dots until her skin burned.

  A green John Deere tractor chucked dust in the distance. They were going slow because the rough road punished the car and Taylor knew not to push it. She could open the door and spill out before Taylor could stop her. It would hurt though and she may be too injured to do much but hobble into the field. If she did it right after they passed the tractor, the person would stop and maybe they would help. There might even be two of them inside the cab. It could be worth a shot.

  The tractor grew close and she waited. She wanted to appear calm and casual only she couldn’t help it. Her body betrayed her. Her hand hovered over the door handle. She licked her lips. A traitorous thought flitted, you’re not going to make it, you won’t even push out from the car far enough to clear the tires. You’ll be run over by your own piece of shit car, and gritting her teeth she dismissed the idea while focusing on the tractor. Closer, closer, the rear tires taller than her car, she grabbed the handle as they pulled alongside the chugging slow-moving John Deere and Taylor’s hand snapped over her wrist and squeezed. She winced and a gasp escaped her when the bones ground together.

  “Taylor wouldn’t like that.”

  A brief, simple sentence thick with dire meaning.

  Her hand came away from the handle. They eased past the tractor. Taylor’s hand tightened on her own and a cry sprung from between compressed lips. Only when the tractor fell behind them and the sound of its engine faded did he let her hand go.

  Taylor said, “We are almost there.”

  “Where? Where are you taking me?”

  “To the place that grew hate in Taylor’s heart and allowed me to enter.”

  -28-

  Don’t tell a grumpy person

  they are grumpy…

  Seventy-eight minutes since Rosie had been taken, Owen and Earl still had nothing to go on. They got the bulletin out to all neighbouring police services, contacted the border services and recently got the radio stations to broadcast the description of the car for the early morning commuters. A huge pain in the butt to get that approved. The powers that be held out a hope Taylor would be caught before they had to release the embarrassing detail of his escape. The first mass murderer in Guelph turned himself in, wasn’t caught by police, no, he walked into the station on his own and a few short hours later he escaped from police? Owen could sense the tension on the other end of the phone when he suggested to his Inspector what needed to be done.

  The Inspector, a twenty-eight year veteran, said with a tremor in her voice, “Are you sure he won’t be found soon? Like real soon?”

  Owen said, “Inspector, for all I know he’s walked back into the front door of the station. Point is, I don’t know where he is and more importantly, I don’t know where Rosie is and the longer she is out there, the less likely it is she’ll remain alive. We need the public’s help on this. We need to get on top of it and move fast. We need to be in control of the information that is released. I mean, do you really think the hospital staff haven’t already called the press about this? I’m surprised the news stations aren’t already here.”

  “We’re going to get crucified.”

  At the end of his patience for politics, Owen said, “Yeah, well, maybe we should be. We’ll be a lot less fucked by the media if we get Rosie back alive though. Shouldn’t that be our focus? Being police officers and all?”

  “Alright, alright. I’ll make a few phone calls and get the information out. Can you send me an email with descriptions and car details?”

  “Will do.”

  He knew he hadn’t been very diplomatic with his boss but he was tired and desperately afraid for Rosie. He had told Taylor about her after all. He had explained to Taylor how they found out the killer was him and that Rosie had known something would happen to him at the party. Taylor already knew Rosie fucked him over about the party so that wasn’t actually a surprise to him so that begged another question: did Taylor plan all of this? Even the escape? Owen ran a hand through his hair while shaking his head thinking it through. Owen didn’t know how Taylor could have possibly foreseen his own escape but he still felt guilty about it. If he only insisted on more police to guard Taylor immediately. He could have went himself, to make sure.

  He knew why he was grumpy and irritable. He felt responsible and he was operating on almost no sleep for the past two days. Knowing why didn’t help to alleviate the feeling. He needed to be doing something, anything instead of standing here waiting for a call of a Taylor sighting or a report of another dead bo
dy. He wanted to kick something. Shortly after the phone call with the Inspector, the news vans encroached upon the police tape. CBC News, CTV News and Global News vans spewed out attractive people carrying microphones and asking inane, obvious questions. Owen moved away from them knowing a media officer would be there soon. In the meantime, Earl had corralled them into an area and told them they would get their answers soon, and they had to be patient because they were still investigating, blah-blah-blah.

  Owen walked back to his car and climbed in waiting for Earl. He couldn’t just sit here. He had to do something. The police radio chirped beside him and he tapped the steering wheel while hoping to hear Taylor had been caught and Rosie was fine. He caught sight of Earl stopping to talk with an officer on the lawn and anxious to get going, he honked the car horn. Earl started and shot an angry glare Owen’s way. He shook the hand of the officer and got into the passenger seat beside Owen.

  Earl said, “Done being a jerk?”

  “You done socializing?”

  “Man, you’re a grumpy ass.”

  “Fuck, Earl, you know better than that.”

  “What?”

  “Telling a grumpy person they’re grumpy.”

  “Well, you are!”

  “I know! I just can’t stand sitting here! How is this helping us find Rosie?”

  “It’s not, but what do you wanna do? Drive around? Anyplace in particular, smart guy?”

  “Huh? Now that you mention it, I do.”

  Owen started the car and pulled away from the curb.

  “Mind telling me where?”

  “It’s a long shot but it’s the only one I got. We have to go back to the office first.”

  “For what?”

  “Rosie’s statement. She said the party where Taylor got humiliated was at a barn, only I don’t remember the address or the family name.”