The Cruelest Cut

by Rick Reed

  “Right now, not much,” Jack said. He told Liddell about the telephone call from Eddie and the clock in the classroom.

  “So we have until midnight?” Liddell asked.

  “Who knows with Eddie?” Jack said, feeling sick. He didn’t have to say that she might already be dead. But somehow he felt that she was still alive. Eddie would probably want to play this out longer to make him suffer. If Eddie was trying to punish him, he’d done a fine job. If he was trying to commit suicide by cop, that could be arranged.

  “What’s the next move, Jack?”

  Jack had no “next move” in mind. He was running purely on instinct now. His gut told him to get back to the war room and gather his team. The storm was coming, and he’d need them.

  “Let’s let Franklin’s guys do the questioning here. We need to get back to the war room,” he said to Liddell, and pitched him the car keys.

  “Don’t ever leave me behind like that again,” Liddell said seriously.

  Susan was sitting at a table near the window of the Main Street Café on the Walkway, cell phone pasted to her ear. Katie was supposed to meet her for lunch almost an hour ago, and it wasn’t like Katie not to keep an appointment, much less not to call and say she wasn’t coming. And now it seemed that Katie’s phone was turned off.

  She pushed the last of her wilted salad around her plate and listened to Katie’s phone go into her answering service for the third time. She closed the phone and put it in her purse. Where is she? Susan wondered.

  She thought about how quickly she and Katie had become friends. Here she was dating Katie’s ex-husband, and neither of them had a jealous thought about the other. In fact, she sometimes felt that she got along better with Katie than she did with Jack. He could be distant and focused only on his work, where Katie was attentive and didn’t look through her when she was talking. She knew Jack meant well, but his job occupied most of his waking thoughts. When he’s not thinking about sex, that is, she thought and smiled.

  “Oh well,” she said out loud, and gathered her things. Katie would call her when she had time, and then would explain what had kept her. Maybe there had been trouble in her class. She had told Katie once that the students Katie taught were the same ones that would grow up to be Susan’s clients, and on parole. Katie had laughed. But Susan firmly believed that kids that grew up in a violent environment, without love or affection, would always end up in a bad way. And that described most of the kids at Harwood School.

  Susan took one more look outside and watched the businesspeople scurrying up and down the street on their way to lunch or back to work. Main Street had been refurbished when the Blue Star Casino had opted to build a floating riverboat casino in Evansville. But the casino hadn’t brought the prosperity to the downtown area that the politicians had promised, and now it was starting to look shabby again. She sighed, put a generous tip on the table, and left the Café.

  She looked up at the clear blue sky and wished now that she had walked to the Café instead of driving. But she had planned on a short lunch and then to do some much-needed clothes shopping before returning to work. Waiting for Katie had used up all of her time, and now she would have to hope she could find a parking spot back at work. Parking, anywhere in the downtown area, was always at a premium.

  Susan turned left and headed down a wide alleyway between the buildings. She was digging in her purse for her keys and almost didn’t notice the van parked in the narrow alleyway. It was faced away from her, and she could tell the hood was up. Bad place to break down, she thought, and began to squeeze between the van and the wall, when she became aware of a presence. She barely had time to turn her head before she was propelled sideways into the open side door of the van. Then rough hands were on her throat, and a knee stomped down into her ribs, forcing all the air from her lungs. She thought she heard a buzzing sound before she lost consciousness.

  The fifty thousand volts Eddie had administered with the tiny stun gun hadn’t been necessary, but it tickled him to see the parole officer jumping and jiving like a fish out of water as he held the device to her neck.

  “Yippy-ki-yaaay,” Eddie said, shocking the unconscious woman’s body again and again.

  “Where’re Susan and Dr. Shull?” Jack asked when he entered the war room. Garcia looked at Crowley, and they both shrugged.

  “Jack, I’m so sorry about Katie,” Garcia said. “But listen to this.” She looked at Crowley.

  Crowley’s face was hard as stone. “Jack, my friend with CID was able to pinpoint the cell phone. It was last used in the downtown area. He’s sending me a piece of equipment that we can use to manually track it. But I was wrong about the phone not needing to be turned on. Apparently we don’t have that capability yet.”

  Jack was pleased. It was the first break they’d gotten in a long time. “Let’s get everyone together, and then we’ll tackle this monster,” he said.

  Garcia, who had been on the phone, said, “Susan’s phone didn’t pick up.”

  Jack pulled out his phone and called Susan’s cell. The call went to her answering service. “Her phone’s turned off,” he said.

  “Maybe she’s with Shull? Maybe the battery’s dead?” Liddell suggested.

  Jack shook his head. “She’d never turn her cell off.” Not even when we’re in bed, he thought to himself. “Besides, she’s too efficient to let the battery go dead.”

  Garcia had picked up the desk phone, and held a finger up, motioning everyone to silence. “Hello, Dr. Shull,” she said into the phone. “Yes. Angelina. Yes. Yes. Thank you, Dr. Shull, I like my name, too. Listen, Doctor Shull, is Susan with you? No? She’s not? Okay, thanks. If you hear from her please call us. No, nothing is wrong.” She thanked him and hung up.

  “Jack, he thought she was meeting Katie somewhere downtown for lunch,” Garcia said.

  “Downtown!” Jack said, and an uneasy feeling settled in his gut. He tried Susan’s phone again, and was surprised when it was answered. “Susan, where are you?” Jack asked, feeling relief.

  “Don’t worry, Jack. She’s with Katie,” came the reply. It was Eddie’s voice. Jack’s legs turned to rubber, and he sat on the edge of a desk as a feeling of despair washed over him. Eddie has both of them, he thought, and the line went dead.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  After the mayor had removed Marlin Pope from his position as chief of police and replaced him with Richard Dick, the first move Dick made was to relocate Pope to the nether regions of the Civic Center. Pope had been relegated to a sparse office on the third floor of the Civic Center with no windows and the closest restrooms at the far end of a long hallway.

  His new duties were to oversee two sergeants who monitored the accreditation system for the Police Department. The sergeants’ offices were moved from an office near the chief of police, and had been relocated in the basement area near the maintenance facilities. Apparently Chief Dick didn’t value the work of the Accreditation Unit as much as Pope had when he was chief of police. But he knew the real reason for putting him in this broom closet was to keep him out of sight and out of mind.

  As it turned out, Dick had done him a favor. His office was so removed from the police department that he could come and go as he pleased without attracting much attention. He was now sitting in Penny Lane Coffee Shop, and across the table was a nervous-looking Detective Larry Jansen. Pope was rather pleased with his investigative abilities, having been removed from the action for so many years. Of course, if Chief Dick found out that Pope was talking to Jansen, there would be serious repercussions.

  “So. What’s this about, Chief?” Jansen was saying.

  “First of all, I’m not the chief anymore, Larry,” Pope said, wanting to be clear that he was not acting as the chief. “This is a social call.”

  Jansen looked suspicious, and then a smile played across his face. “Dick don’t know dick, does he?”

  “No. He doesn’t know I’m here, Larry,” Pope said.

  Jansen smiled at some
secret knowledge, but the smile soon faded, and was replaced again with a suspicious look. “You’re playing a dangerous game, Chief,” Jansen said.

  Pope was more than aware of Richard Dick’s reputation for retribution, and how long he could hold a grudge. Many a policeman’s career had been ruined by Dick over the years, and sometimes for as little as a perceived personal slight.

  “I’m not playing a game, Larry,” Pope said, locking eyes with Jansen. “More than careers are at stake here. Maddy’s dead, and now Katie Murphy is missing.” Pope saw the startled look glimmer in Jansen’s eyes for a microsecond. So. He hasn’t heard about that yet, Pope thought. He decided to drop the bombshell while he had the man off balance.

  “I know you were leaking things to Maddy,” Pope said.

  Jansen had committed a mortal sin against law enforcement policies. He just hoped that Jansen still had a little fear or respect for an ex-chief of police.

  Jansen started to get up, and Pope said, “Sit down, Officer. I still outrank you, and I can make your last years of work a living hell.” He delivered this stone-faced, no menace in his voice, only a promise. Jansen sat down, and his hands covered his face.

  “What do you want?” Jansen said, with the practiced tone of a habitual victim.

  Pope smiled and leaned across the table. “I want it all, Larry,” he said.

  An hour later he was on his way to Two-Jakes with a reluctant Larry Jansen sitting in the passenger seat. Pope had arranged a meeting with Captain Franklin, Jack Murphy, Liddell Blanchard, and the city attorney, Dan Grossman. He hoped that Grossman didn’t go running to the mayor before he heard Jansen’s story. It would ruin all the fun of telling the asshole himself.

  Dan Grossman, Larry Jansen, Captain Franklin, Marlin Pope, Murphy, and Blanchard sat around the large table in the meeting room at Two-Jakes. Jack looked impatient, and understandably so, thought Marlin Pope.

  “First,” Marlin Pope said, “let me assure you, Dan, that I in no way am representing the chief of police. I’m acting alone as my duty as a lieutenant in rank demands. These other men, with the exception of Detective Jansen, know little to nothing of what we are about to discuss here.”

  Grossman smiled and said, “That’s a load of bullshit, Marlin, and you know it. But…” He shrugged as if to say, It’s your funeral.

  Pope looked at Jansen, who was looking at the door as if he was wondering what his chances of escape were. “Tell them,” Pope said sternly.

  Jansen looked pleadingly at Grossman, but saw no help from that corner. He knew he could tell now, or he would be forced to tell in a full internal affairs inquiry. Even the chief of police wouldn’t be able to stop that if the public got wind of what had been happening within the ranks of the police department.

  “I’ve been doing—” He stopped and cleared his throat. “I’ve been doing certain things for the chief over the years,” Jansen began.

  “What chief?” Grossman demanded.

  “Richard Dick, sir.” Jansen took a deep breath, let it out, and then continued like many criminals that need to get things off their chest. And like most criminals, he started with an excuse for his actions. “My wife, Annabelle, has been sick for many years. Many, many years! She’s got lupus. The doctors have done everything they can, but there’s no cure. Over the last ten years, it’s been hell for her. And for me. I used up all my savings and cut into my pension money to get nurses at my house round the clock.”

  Everyone just looked at him. He took another breath and continued, and for the next half-hour he told how he had been approached by then Deputy Chief Richard Dick, with an offer. All he had to do were certain “tasks” for Dick, without question, and Dick would make sure that Jansen would be in jobs that would allow him to spend as much time at home as was necessary to curb the costs of medical care for his wife. For the last five years he had done things that he knew were wrong, but it wasn’t his fault.

  Jack was stunned, but now it was clear to him how Jansen had earned the reputation of being a “missing person detective.” Jansen was missing almost all of the time, and instead of being fired for absence, as any other detective would have been, his absenteeism had been kept quiet by Double Dick all these years. He wanted to have some compassion for the pitiable figure of Detective Jansen, but it was because of people like Jansen and Double Dick that Katie had been so easily kidnapped in broad daylight.

  When Jansen was talked out, and staring at the tops of his shoes like a dead man, the first one to speak was Dan Grossman.

  “The city owes you a huge debt, Detective Murphy,” he said sincerely. Or at least as sincerely as an attorney was capable of being. “And we owe you an apology, Marlin,” he said.

  Pope noticed he had used his first name, meaning of course that Grossman was trying to suck up to him and limit the damage to the mayor and the city.

  “Of course we’ll take immediate action. I believe the first thing is for me to contact the mayor and hopefully have you reinstated as chief of police immediately,” he said to Pope.

  Liddell Blanchard spoke for the first time since entering the room. “It’s about goddamn time!”

  The soon-to-be-reinstated chief couldn’t agree more.

  Within an hour, Richard Dick had been removed from the office of chief of police and was on temporary leave with pay until his fate could be decided. Marlin Pope had been placed back in his old position, and his first act as chief was to declare all-out war on Eddie Solazzo. He had started amassing enough forces to search the tri-state area if necessary, calling in county police, FBI, and anyone else that was able-bodied.

  But even with all this, Jack left the meeting with a sense of gloom. Pope coming back as chief was a dollar late and a day short. Eddie had already done his damage, and there seemed to be no way of stopping him now. The only chance they had now was to use the tracking equipment that Chief Deputy Mark Crowley had borrowed from his friend.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  Back in the war room, Jack and Liddell met with the team, including an anxious Dr. Don Shull, but minus Susan Summers.

  “Let’s see where we’re at,” Jack said, and pointed to the map of Mother Goose Land on the wall. “We finally figured out there was a pattern, but now Eddie has seemingly abandoned that. Doctor?”

  Shull was standing in front of the map, arms crossed, looking at each scene marker. “I’ve never seen someone so confused. And that’s saying a lot.”

  He pointed to the first murder scene. “Anne and Don Lewis. It seemingly started there, with the murder of his court-ordered psychiatrist.” He looked at the photos and descriptions of the victims.

  “Anne was very good at what she did, Jack. If she had a chance to talk to Eddie, she probably would have been able to talk him down. That fits with what you told me of the scene. The unprovoked attack on the husband and then the savage killing and staging of the scene. I would say he probably displayed her husband’s dead body to her. The rage was controlled until the actual killing occurred. The killing was animalistic. However, the initial attacks were ritual. Planned. Well thought out. And that’s what is most confusing still.”

  Shull looked at each person in the room, and then continued. “There are two minds at work. One planning and one killing. Until the killing of Maddy Brooks, it appeared that the planning mind was in control. That would be Bobby. Now Eddie is in control. He has become strong enough to resist what he thinks Bobby would do.”

  “This is taking us backwards, Doc,” Liddell complained.

  “No. It is deciphering the mind of your killer,” Shull replied. “Maybe I can explain it this way. Eddie was so lost without his brother’s guidance that he invented his brother. Like a kid with a secret friend that no one else can see. It was Bobby’s influence that kept him from killing Jack. He’s probably still holding on to his brother’s memories, discussing his moves with the imaginary brother. But make no mistake, Eddie is in charge now.”

  “How do we know that for sure?” Crowley asked.r />
  “We don’t know anything for sure,” Shull replied. “But from what you’ve all told me, Bobby wasn’t suicidal. Some of the things that Eddie has done recently indicate a death wish.”

  “Are you saying he wants to be killed?” said Liddell.

  “Well, yes and no,” Shull answered.

  “Typical psychiatrist answer,” Crowley said.

  Shull grinned and said, “Typical police interpretation.”

  Liddell cringed. “Ouch! I think he got you there, Mark.”

  Crowley apologized and said, “Okay, so what does your answer mean, Doctor?”

  Shull looked at the map again, and said without facing the others, “He wants to die, but he just won’t admit it to himself. And in particular, he wants Jack to do it. If he can.”

  “Oh, I can,” Jack said, matter-of-factly. “So. How do we find him?”

  “That’s the point I’m making, Jack. I think he will be the one finding you.”

  They looked at each other, and were all wondering the same thing that Shull now voiced. “He’s likely to come here if he doesn’t lure you somewhere alone.”

  Liddell leaned in toward Jack’s ear and said, “We’ve gotta talk. Now!”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  “I’ll handcuff myself to you if that’s what it takes to make you do this the right way,” Liddell was saying heatedly. A couple of uniformed officers, who had been standing in the hallway chatting, moved off quickly. Liddell was the size of a gorilla and just as strong. You didn’t want to be in this man’s face when he was mad.

  “It’s not about me, Cajun,” Jack said as forcefully as his angry partner. “He’s got Katie and Susan, and every minute we play patty-cake here he’s spending with them!” Jack had tried not to think about what might be happening to the women, but he had not realized the full extent of Eddie’s sickness until Shull brought it to his attention. Now he couldn’t get it out of his mind. They must be frightened beyond fear by now. If they’re not dead, he finished the thought. And with that thought he rushed back into the war room.