by Joseph Lewis
“Oh I see. So, who are you now?” Pressman had to keep up a running commentary to cover the 9-1-1 operator from trying to speak. “A fake, made up identity?”
“Something like that,” Dominico answered with a laugh.
“I suppose the name is going to match the strawberry blond hair you have now. Hell, you even dyed your eyebrows. You have to admit though, you look sort of gay, but then again, you must be if you’re raping young boys, right?”
Dominico snarled and put a bullet into Pressman’s left knee. Luke leaned forward and grabbed it. The pain was intense, and blood ran freely down his leg and onto his beige carpet.
“Jesus! What the fuck, Dominico . . . why?”
In the distance, there were sirens.
“Why?” Dominico repeated. “Why? Because I think the world would be better off without a hick like you. I have a list of assholes just like you that need to be erased. You’re the first one on that list.”
Pressman had to keep him talking until the cops arrived, but the pain was overwhelming.
“Are you that fucked up that-“
The gun spit again, this time in his right knee cap.
“Jesus!” Pressman yelled. “Fuck!”
“Oo . . . taking the Lord’s name in vain,” Dominico said mocking him.
Knowing Dominico was running out of non-lethal body parts to shoot, Pressman asked through clenched teeth, “A list? Who else is on that list?”
Dominico laughed coldly and seemed to be picturing the faces that went along with the names.
“We made a list of those we need to dispose of. Some are personal just to each of us. Some are common to each of us . . . those who ruined our lives.”
Pressman stared at him, and as the sirens got closer, there were several things that went through his mind.
The first was that he was never going to get married or have children. He had wanted one boy and one girl and a wife to come home to each night. He knew that facing Dominico with a gun, that wasn’t going to happen. The second thing that went through his mind was the question of who was going to find him. He didn’t know, but he also didn’t want anyone to mess up his house. He knew that thought was silly because he’d be dead. But it was a worry nonetheless.
The last thing that went through his head was a speeding hollow-point bullet that rocketed out of the barrel of the gun held in Dominico’s hand.
After that, there were no more thoughts whatsoever. Just . . . nothing.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Chicago, Illinois
Dilaudid is a powerful pain reliever that depresses the central nervous system, so the normal dosage is usually only one or two milligrams. Most pharmacies or hospital dispensaries have it in one, two or four milligram vials, and if one uses a three centimeter syringe, one can collect twelve milligrams of Dilaudid and inject it into an IV port with little problem. Of course, twelve milligrams would be lethal, especially if the patient had two milligrams of Dilaudid already in his system.
That was exactly what he had in mind.
It wasn’t hard to swipe a green orderly top and bottom and change into it in the disserted locker room. For good measure, he grabbed a stethoscope hanging in an open locker and slung it around his neck.
The man said hello to Juan Ortiz, the young officer seated outside Robert Manville’s hospital room on the second floor and chatted with him, asking him how the pervert was doing, telling him that he needed to check his vitals.
“He’s sleeping, but you can try.” Ortiz said doubtfully. “Do you mind if I go get some coffee and use the restroom? It’s been a while since I had a break.”
“Absolutely,” the man said congenially. “I’ll wait here until you come back, but take your time. I’m in no rush.”
The officer thanked him and left. The man watched Ortiz leave the floor and then turned and stood just inside the doorway.
Robert Manville, formally of the Chicago PD, lay sleeping in his hospital bed in dimmed lighting. An IV bag hung on a metal arm over the left side of his bed, and the tubing led to a port that had been inserted into his left forearm. His chest rose and fell in steady rhythm, and he had a slight grimace on his face. Every so often, his leg would twitch, as would his cheek.
He had been arrested and had been taken into custody when the boys were freed from captivity from the building in Chicago. He was found in one of the locked rooms with Tim and then was dragged off the boy and thrown on the floor and cuffed by Waukesha Police Detective Jamie Graff with FBI Agent Pete Kelliher backing him up.
At some point early that morning during the siege, someone, perhaps more than one person, had taken his nightstick and shoved it up his ass all the way to the handle, and then had taken his tazer and shot him, frying his penis into something that resembled a burnt hotdog. Hence, the hospitalization and the sedation using Dilaudid as a pain medication.
The man took the three centimeter syringe out of his pocket, which had already been preloaded with twelve milligrams of the drug.
He moved to the side of the bed and inserted the syringe into the port and depressed the plunger. Within seconds, almost instantaneously, Manville’s breathing slowed and then stopped. His face slacked, and his body went limp.
Quickly, but not desperately, the man wiped the syringe clean and dropped it into the bio-hazard container that hung on the wall. He watched Manville for any tell-tale signs of life and when satisfied that there weren’t any, stepped to the doorway and looked in both directions. Satisfied that he didn’t see anyone paying any attention to him, he walked down the hallway. He had never intended to wait for Ortiz.
Who he didn’t see was Tim, who had walked out of Johnny’s room just after the man left the cop’s room. Tim saw him from the side and then stopped to watch him walk the length of the corridor, thinking that he had seen him before.
Puzzled, he turned and walked to the other end of the floor and paused before he went through the doors back up to the third floor to find Brett, Stephen and Mike.
What Tim didn’t see was the man in disguise stop, turn and look down the hallway just before he went through the doors. He spotted Tim before the boy had disappeared into the far stairwell. As he watched Tim leave, the man wondered if he had been spotted and recognized.
If so, this would be a problem that would need to be taken care of.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Chicago, Illinois
Johnny died.
He died peacefully and soundlessly and with what seemed like a sigh. He stopped breathing and his heart stopped beating and Johnny stopped being.
Johnny’s mom wept. She had her head down with her lips pressed against his left hand. Brett held Johnny’s right hand, while Tim had one hand gently on the back of Brett’s neck and his other hand on Johnny’s chest. While Johnny’s mother cried silently, neither Brett nor Tim shed a tear. That would come later.
Mike and Stephen stood at the foot of the bed. Mike had his head down with his hands clasped tightly in front of him like he was deep in prayer, while Stephen stared at Johnny, shifting his gaze to Johnny’s mother, to Brett and then to Tim, watching them quietly, wondering what each was thinking and not understanding what his own feelings were. He stood next to Mike, his shoulder and arm touching Mike’s. He had the urge to slip his arm around Mike’s shoulders, probably more for his own support than Mike’s, somehow feeling the need to touch and be touched.
Jeremy stood in the doorway quietly observing the boys.
Next to Jeremy stood Skip Dahlke, head down, jaw clenched, hands balled into fists.
Behind Jeremy and Skip stood the boys’ parents; Tim’s, Mike’s, and then Stephen’s. Behind them all, stood Thomas and behind him, stood Victoria. The parents wept, except for Stephen’s father, Ted Bailey, and Thomas and Victoria. Ted looked rather bored, while Brett’s parents looked and acted bewildered.
After about fifteen minutes, which felt like fifteen days, Dr. Flasch came in and asked everyone to leave with the exception of Johnny’s m
other. She lifted her head, nodded at Tim and Brett and tried to smile, but the smile dissolved into a grimace and more tears. The boys went to the other side of the bed and embraced her, first Tim, then Brett. After they were done, Mike and Stephen did the same.
Brett turned back to Johnny, brushed his bangs off his forehead and then bent down and kissed his cheek, murmuring something no one heard. That was okay because whatever was said was meant for Johnny. After Brett, Tim did the same.
That completed, the adults filed out into the hallway, while Brett and Tim lingered in the doorway.
Without taking his eyes off of Johnny, Brett whispered, “Maybe Johnny had the right idea.”
Tim shook his head, slipped his arm around Brett’s shoulder, kissed his head and said, “He never had a chance.” He kissed Brett’s head again and said, “He was too sick.”
“It doesn’t seem fair,” Brett said tiredly.
Tim didn’t say anything, but gave Brett’s shoulder a squeeze, turned and walked out of the room leaving Brett alone with Johnny, his mother and Dr. Flasch.
And it was then that Brett wept silently and alone. Not just for Johnny and his mom, but for himself and Tim, for Stephen and Mike, and for Patrick and the rest of the boys.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Chicago, Illinois
Kelliher’s cell beeped.
He pulled it out of his sport coat pocket and glanced at it. The sender was Deputy Director Tom Dandridge, and it simply read, Urgent! Get your team to a secure location for a conference call!
Kelliher phoned Cochrane to meet him in the conference room and then told Skip and Jeremy to follow him, leading the way back to the first floor and the other end of the hospital. Kelliher didn’t volunteer any information on the way down and neither Jeremy nor Skip asked for any.
They entered the room and sat down facing each other with Kelliher and Jeremy on one side and Skip and Cochrane on the other. Using the phone in the center of the table, Pete dialed up Dandridge and put him on speaker. The four of them tensed, listening to the phone on the other end ring.
“Hold on a minute . . . I’m having MB Wilkey join us from Indianapolis,” Dandridge said, sounding a bit distracted. In the background they heard him yell at his assistant, “Rita, do you have her yet?” They didn’t hear an answer, but heard a ‘click’ and then Dandridge said, “MB, are you there?”
“Yes, Sir,” came the reply in a light, but confident female voice.
“Gentlemen, joining us are Agent Mary Beth Wilkey.” To Mary Beth, he said, “MB, on the other end of the line are Agents Pete Kelliher, Vince Cochrane, Skip Dahlke and an advisor we use in sex abuse cases, Jeremy Evans.”
“Gentlemen.”
“MB, bring them up to speed.”
Pete had never heard of her. Like the other three men in the room, he pulled out a pen ready to take notes on the yellow legal pad in front of him.
“Using his cell at 11:43 AM, Detective Luke Pressman phoned in a 9-1-1from his house in Indianapolis, with him was Detective Anthony Dominico.”
Skip raised his eyes up from his pad, glanced at Kelliher, who had set his jaw and who had paused in mid-word on the pad in front of him. Jeremy set his pen down on the pad and folded his hands in front of him, waiting.
“I’m going to play the 9-1-1 tape. It runs for three minutes and thirty-seven seconds... at least the pertinent conversation between Pressman and Dominico.”
Wilkey played the tape through once so Kelliher and the others could listen to it. Kelliher asked her to play it again, and this time, he and the others took notes.
After the tape played through a third time, Dandridge said, “Thoughts?”
“Who do you have running the crime scene?” Kelliher asked staring at Dahlke.
“No one yet. I have it sealed up,” Wilkey responded.
“I’d like to send you Skip Dahlke.”
Dandridge said, “Thought you’d say that.” Then to Skip he said, “How soon can you get there?”
“About two and a half hours,” Dahlke responded.
“We’ll fly you in so that will cut the time considerably,” Dandridge said. “Do you have any gear with you?”
“No, Sir. Most of it’s still in Wisconsin,” Dahlke answered. “The only things I have access to is the basics I brought with me to Chicago.”
“If you fax me a list, I can get you what you need from our CSI team in Indy.” Wilkey said.
“That’ll work. Give me the number, and I’ll get you the list.”
“Any other thoughts?” Dandridge asked.
Jeremy cleared his throat, leaned forward a little and said cautiously, “Dominico mentioned a list.”
“Yes, what do you make of that?” Dandridge asked.
“Actually... two lists,” Jeremy clarified.
He had never met Dandridge. He was also not fully an FBI agent, so he didn’t know how much input he should provide.
“Who is that?” Dandridge asked.
“That was Jeremy Evans,” Kelliher said. “Jeremy, what are you thinking?”
“Well, Dominico said the list was made up of those individuals who were personal to them, and the second group was made up of those individuals who were common to each of them.” Jeremy paused looking down at his notes. “We’d need to look at Dominico closely to determine who might be on each list.”
“Dominico also said, ‘we’ and ‘them’,” Cochrane said. “Who is we and them and how many are we talking about?”
They sat in silence, each thinking that over and then Pete and Jeremy began writing down names on their yellow pads.
“MB, what do you have on Dominico?” Dandridge asked.
“I’ve looked at his service evaluations and at best, they’re marginal. On one, he’s described as a loner, a sexist and a bigot. Not actually in those words, but that’s what his supervisor wrote. On another, there’s a comment about one of his confidential informants who turned up dead in an alleged drug deal. I was curious as to why it showed up on his evaluation.”
“Sounds like someone questioned the death,” Cochrane said.
“That’s what I thought,” MB said. “I can tell you that he wasn’t particularly liked by his superiors.”
“Why do you say that?” Pete asked.
“Well... it wasn’t so much in what they said. It was more in what they didn’t say.”
“Besides the evaluations, what kind of guy is he?” Jeremy asked.
“That’s Jeremy, right?” MB asked.
“Yes, Ma’am,” Jeremy answered.
“He’s described as a fitness freak and narcissistic, almost compulsive. He’s considered arrogant. His lieutenant said Dominico thought he was better than everyone else. His captain said that Pressman had lasted the longest of any of his partners.”
“What happened to the rest?” Cochrane asked.
“They put in requests for reassignments.”
Pete looked over at Jeremy.
“Back to the lists Jeremy mentioned,” Dandridge said. “What do you guys think?”
“The we part in the 9-1-1 bothers me,” Cochrane said. “Who are we talking about and how many are we talking about?”
It occurred to Pete that he had already mentioned that, but he didn’t comment on it.
Oblivious to Cochrane’s comment, Jeremy said, “I jotted down some names that came to mind.”
“Okay, let’s begin with the list that they... whoever they are, have in common,” Dandridge said.
“Well, you have to figure anyone connected to law enforcement that had a hand in freeing the boys,” Jeremy said.
“That would be me, Summer, Skip, Chet Walker, and maybe Logan Musgrave,” Pete said.
“But then you’d have to add Jamie Graff, Officer Gary Fitzpatrick, Captain Jack O’Brien, and maybe the others on the teams in Kansas City and Long Beach,” Jeremy added.
“And if he or they know about you, you’d have to add yourself and your son, Randy,” Cochrane added.
Jeremy nodde
d and said quietly, “I thought of that.” Then he said what the others had been thinking, “Probably George, too.”
Pete nodded and said, “They went after him once so what’s to stop them from going after him again?”
Cochrane’s cell went off. He looked at the number and name, excused himself and stepped out of the room to answer it, shutting the door behind him.
“Okay, those are the law enforcement guys. Who else?”
“I wrote down the McGovern family, especially Brett,” MB said. “Anyone on the Indy police force Dominico had a run-in with, which sounds like just about everyone.”
“Okay, now what?” Dandridge asked.
“We’ll need to put the McGovern family under surveillance, maybe protection,” MB said.
“That’s going to be hard,” Jeremy said. “Mrs. McGovern . . . Victoria, isn’t exactly cooperative.”
“Then I suggest we warn them and put someone on them undercover,” Dandridge said. “We can’t use anyone in Indianapolis either from the PD or from the FBI in case Dominico knows them.”
“What about using one or two who helped in the raids?” Jeremy asked.
Kelliher nodded, “I agree. They’re already vetted. We could use one or two from the Long Beach raid.”
“Unless the… they he referred to, know about them,” MB said.
Everyone was silent, and then Dandridge said, “Pete, can you call O’Brien and Graff and discuss this with them?”
“I will. Are you going to bring Summer and Chet into the loop?”
“They are. They came up with the same ideas you did.” Then to Dahlke he said, “Skip, Chet Walker is going to meet you in Indianapolis.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“At some point, we need to discuss protection for Stephen Bailey,” Jeremy said. “We know each boy was selected by someone in the ring. From what Jamie Graff said, we don’t know who targeted Stephen. That means he... or they are still out there. And that means both Stephen and Mike, and maybe their families are in danger.”