Murder Mystery McKenzie (Frank McKenzie complete collection so far)

by Luis Samways

  Olivia sat in the tub in shock for a few minutes. She wasn’t sure what to think of what she’d just heard.

  “Has Boston gone mad today?” she said as she decided to get out of the bath and dry herself.

  She was starting to feel cold. Maybe it was time to go to bed, but she had bigger plans. The TV was calling her, and she could also hear the ice cream in the freezer beckoning to her. The night was still young, after all.

  Fifty-One

  “I want you to bark like a dog, Mr. Detective,” the voice said on the other end of the phone.

  I couldn’t believe the audacity of this guy. The fact that he was dictating orders to me was far beyond the reality I usually lived in. Felons don’t tell me what to do. Killers don’t order me about like some lackey in the army. I am a damn officer of the law, and this sick asshole is telling me to bark like a dog? That will be the day.

  “Look here, you fuck. You shot me in the damn leg. Luckily for you, it’s just a flesh wound, but let’s say you had hit me in a vital spot. Let’s say you had managed to knick an artery. I’d be dead now, and you’d be up for a cop killing. Can you handle that sort of truth? Do you like prison food? Is homosexual sex in a prison cell your type of thing? Do you want to be raped? Do you want to be executed? I ask these questions because I want to understand you as a man. Not that I’m against sex with men, but you seem like the type that would scream in pain when someone bends you over in the shower. You play a real hard game, but I’m sure you’re nothing but a pussy. You see, if you were tough, you’d stop aiming that damn rifle at me and come meet me halfway. Maybe we could sort this out man to man. A few punches, maybe some shivs, and see who comes out on top,” I said in a bluster of incoherent anger.

  I could hear him laugh uncontrollably on the other end of the phone. It was as if my anger was entertaining him. I felt like an isolated ant on a hill with a kid picking my legs apart one by one.

  “You are so funny, Mr. Detective. I like you. I’ll let your comments slide. I’m a Catholic man — homosexual sex doesn’t interest me one bit. Murdering you does, though,” he said.

  “Does it now? So why don’t you do it? Do it now. I’m ready. I tell you what, I’ll make it easier. I’ll lie down for you. That way you can’t miss. Something is telling me you didn’t mean to hit me in the leg. Am I right? Did you miss? Aww, too bad. Next shot you fire will give your position away, and I’m afraid our cops don’t miss. We shoot to kill, and believe me, you fuck, we will kill you,” I said, looking down at my leg in pain.

  I was trying to make him angry. I wanted him to fire his gun. Maybe the SWAT guys would notice and shoot him down. I wanted this to be over and done with.

  “You there?” I asked, not hearing anything on the other end of the phone.

  “Yes, I am. I was just thinking about what you just said. It seems as if you have a death wish. I don’t know many men who would gladly say those things you just said to a man with a rifle. I don’t know many men who are obsessed with homosexual sex in prison like you are. Is that a dream of yours, Mr. Detective? Do you want all those things you spoke about to happen to you?”

  The guy was clever. He was trying to make me angry. I thought I’d go with it. Maybe he’d feel like he was winning and lay off the trigger for a while. Earn us some time. Maybe enough time to blast this asshole back to where he came from.

  “How fucking dare you, you cocksucking spic! You dare insinuate I’m into homosexual sex? You want me to kill you, don’t you?” I said.

  “Oh, Mr. Detective, such racist remarks from someone who is supposed to protect the people, serve the people, all of the people. I am not a ‘spic,’ and you shouldn’t be using those sort of words in the company of a Latino man.”

  I could hear his voice crack under pressure. I was testing him. I was learning from him. Many would say my methods are unethical and unorthodox. I say fuck them. Come stand where I am standing and see if you can keep your head. Today’s police force is full of do-good assholes who would rather lick the cream off the top, then get down to the center. PC gone wild.

  “Racist? I’m not racist, pal. I tell you what, though, for you, just for you, I’ll harbor all the racist hate that exists and aim it straight at your damn beaner head,” I said into the phone.

  I’ll admit now, I was a bit apprehensive about using such language. It wasn’t me at all. I don’t hate blacks or Hispanics — I just hate criminals, no matter what their color is. I needed to get to this guy. I wanted him to lose his cool with me. I needed to know what made him tick.

  “Beaner? You stoop to such lows, gringo. You see, I can play that game, too. But let’s not ruin the moment. I’ve been playing a game with you, and soon you will find out the rules. And after that, who knows, anybody could win,” he said.

  Suddenly the phone went dead. No dial tone. The fucker had hung up. I was still bleeding. I was still trapped in the tent. Life couldn’t be any worse, and to top it off, the killer wasn’t revealing anything of importance to me. Sure, I had contact with him, but only on his terms. There was no way for me to call him back. I’d have to wait for him to make second contact. In the meantime, I needed to tie something around my leg.

  I grabbed some rope from the piñata and tied it around my leg. I winced in pain as I did so. It stung something rotten. Then something hit me like a ton of bricks. The killer could call back. He would most likely call within the hour, giving me time to mull over his so-called game. That was the perfect opportunity to trace the call. I’d have to call the Chief and tell him about the possibility of a trace. He’d be pissed off at me for not informing him of the contact I’ve had with the killer, but better late than never.

  I opened my cell and hit speed dial.

  Fifty-Two

  “Okay, I’ll get to it. By the way, Frank, you should have contacted me earlier. I don’t care if you just got off the phone with him. You should have conferenced it so we could all hear. It could be vital to the case. I’ll get onto getting you out of there, okay, buddy? Don’t go and do anything stupid now. You have top people guarding your back for you. Don’t forget that, okay?”

  Chief Shaw hung up the phone and turned around to a few of his men who were standing next to him.

  “That was Frank. Put a tracer on his incoming calls. The killer has made contact with him. I don’t know where he got his number, but it looks like our guy is a smart one. It seems like he is toying with us. More the reason to toy with him, don’t you think?” Shaw said.

  The group of men nodded in unison and took off, each of them going in a different direction. The Boston Common green was a hive of activity. The cops were rushing around, fixing command posts and doing their duties. Some other officers were guarding the perimeter and stopping the accumulating press and public from entering the area. Chief Shaw was dumfounded by the bloodlust of the scene that lay in front of him. He was mesmerized by the spectacle of the whole thing. Never in his career had something as Hollywood as this case happened to him. It had everything the press ever dreamed of. A merciless killer on the prowl. A policeman held at gunpoint. Snipers on the roof. It was sure turning out to be a blockbuster of a case, and that made Shaw and everybody else in the force worried.

  Cases like this one were few and far between. There was a reason for that. They usually didn’t end too well. Shaw was used to dealing with so-called normal killers. Killers who slipped up, not killers who basked in intelligence and had a game plan. Killers like that were notorious for winning. Eventually they would be caught, but at what price? Shaw wasn’t willing to pay any price. He was being cheap on this case, and that was how he intended to keep it. Only a fool would prefer it any other way.

  Shaw turned around and saw the press vans and reporters standing behind tape. Each one of them were reporting on what was going on. Shaw could hear some muffled and distorted bits of their stories. It was as if a jumble of voices, all different-sounding, had gone off at the same time. Looking at the reporters all standing in a line, all looking
at their own cameras, always amazed Shaw. He always wondered how they all managed to report live without picking up each other’s voices on their own reports. Modern technology astounded the hardnosed chief. He loved it and hated it at the same time.

  He walked over to the operations table, where a few technicians were working away.

  “The tap on Frank’s phone, ETA?” he asked.

  “A few minutes, sir. We have it partially done; Frank hasn’t received a phone call yet. The last one he received was fifteen minutes ago. It was an unknown number. We are doing our best to get through to the phone company,” the technician said as he continued to work on some wiring.

  “Good. I want to hear this bastard’s voice. I want to hear the fear in his voice,” Chief Shaw said.

  Fifty-Three

  It had been two hours since The Mexican called Frank McKenzie. He was biding his time, adding and subtracting his plans in his head. Everything was going to plan so far. He hadn’t missed a beat. Frank had fallen for his trap; he had gold on him. He not only had Frank in his sights through the crosshairs attached to his rifle, but he had him where he wanted him emotionally. He needed Frank to think that he had a chance at getting out of this alive. He needed the police to think that they had a madman on the prowl. He needed everyone to fear his voice.

  Sure enough, after today, that was coming true. The news channels were playing his interview with them on a loop. He had switched on the radio for clarification on what the world was saying about him. Not that he needed his ego massaged, but he appreciated the spotlight for the time being. He wanted the light to be so bright on him that it was nearly impossible to see through it. He wanted it to be so bright that he was hiding in plain sight, and they wouldn’t even see it coming.

  “I guess it could work,” he said to himself as he replayed something on his tape recorder. He switched the loop button on, and sat back in his chair and smiled.

  “How fucking dare you, you cocksucking spic! You dare insinuate I’m into homosexual sex? You want me to kill you, don’t you?” the recorder’s speakers bellowed. The tape clicked and reset once again. “Racist? I’m not racist, pal. I tell you what, though, for you, just for you, I’ll harbor all the racist hate that exists and aim it straight at your damn beaner head,” the voice from the recorder snarled.

  “Perfect,” The Mexican said with a smile on his face. “Perfecto,” he laughed.

  He got up from his seat and placed the recorder down on the window ledge next to the rifle. He looked around the room in curiosity. He saw the smashed landline he had ripped out of its socket earlier strewn all over the place.

  “Shit,” he said.

  Without hesitation he grabbed his cell phone and clicked “redial.” After a short period a voice answered on the other end.

  “Hello, I have something for you,” The Mexican said as he stood overlooking the Boston Common from his partially closed drapes.

  Fifty-Four

  Roger and Sal Smith were standing next to the Coca-Cola machine in the lobby of Foster Industries. Roger Smith was banging on the side of the Coke machine with his hand. He had a look of contempt on his face as he smacked the cold surface of the vending machine.

  “Roger, my chum, you might find it worthwhile to heed some patience while you’re at it,” Sal said as he watched his longtime friend bang on the surface of the machine.

  “Maybe if I bang on its side hard enough, I’ll get my drink out. Who knows, I might get the money back as well,” Roger exclaimed as he banged on the vending machine once again.

  “I’m not disputing that fact. I just think that it would be wiser not to hit a vending machine at your age. You could pop your hip, or worse, the darn thing could topple over and land on you. Now, that wouldn’t be very nice, would it?”

  Roger gave his friend a stern look.

  “Don’t you advise me on how to go about my business. You aren’t one to talk anyhow. Remember last year? Remember me telling you to take it easy? Remember the mini stroke you had?”

  Sal Smith nodded as if he agreed wholeheartedly with his friend.

  “Yes, I do. That is precisely why I am advising you against your current actions. We can learn from each other, you see,” Sal said as he squeezed his friend’s shoulder. “It will be okay, Roger. The police are here now. We will be fine.”

  Roger nodded and turned his attention to his friend. He had given up on the Coca-Cola machine. It wasn’t worth the backache.

  “It’s not our wellbeing I’m afraid of, Sal. It’s Jesse Foster’s. Where do you think he is?”

  Sal shrugged his shoulders and twisted his moustache.

  “God knows, Roger. But wherever he is, there better be a blood transfusion, for his sake. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t put my house on him being alive without one.”

  Roger looked glum. At that moment the vending machine behind him chucked out a can of Coke. Sal smiled at his friend.

  “I’m not even thirsty now. You have it,” he said.

  Sal reached in for the Coke and popped the can open. It pinged in the open air, and little fizzy bubbles hit his nose as he swigged a mouthful in delight.

  “Let’s go back upstairs and see what we can tell the nice officer.”

  Roger nodded.

  “Okay, as long as we get out of here as quickly as possible. This place is giving me the creeps,” he said.

  Fifty-Five

  I was annoyed, that was for sure. It had been two hours since the killer called me, and between that and the case, I didn’t feel all too well. Funnily enough, my voices had made themselves present at the worst time possible. I had managed to forget my pills in Santiago’s car, so I wasn’t going to get rid of them anytime soon.

  I would have better luck curing cancer at the crime scene with no tools than getting rid of my voices. They sure liked to keep up appearances, and who was I to deprive them of my attention?

  “Ahhhh!!!!” I screamed as I kicked the dirt from under my feet once again. “Go away!” I said as I held my head in pain.

  It was a terrible ailment — the voices, that is. Terrible in the sense that you wanted to take your eyes out and squish them underneath your feet. Terrible in the sense that you wanted to scoop your brain out from within its casing and rip it in two. It sure is hard living with the voices, but even harder living with them and working as a homicide detective.

  There were times when the department wanted me gone. You see, I passed my physiological test within the first try. It was only after them being notified by my doctor that I had early signs of schizophrenia that they wanted me out. The board told them that if they fired me, then it would make them look bad.

  “Equal opportunities” and all.

  I guess it was a good thing, really. To be honest, they didn’t have anything to worry about. If they had fired me, I would have probably joined the Marine Corps. That, or I’d have joined a motorcycle club and torn ass all over the country. That would have been the best. But it didn’t happen. Here I am now, all by myself, in the middle of a psycho with a rifle who has already shot me and the police up my ass trying to save me. Yeah, things sure did work out for the best.

  I had been sitting down with my legs crossed for a few minutes. I found that helped with the pressure on my wound. The bloody bandage around my leg looked worse than it was. It was crimson by the time I noticed it. It smelt of copper and felt like a bee was constantly stinging the fuck out of my calf muscle. I decided to take action and finally tell somebody. So I called Shaw, and was he glad to hear my voice.

  “The hell you say? Goddamn it, McKenzie, why the hell didn’t you tell me two hours ago? You could have bled out, and we wouldn’t even know! Get yourself together, man!” he bellowed down the phone.

  It was just the encouragement I was looking for.

  “Fuck you, Shaw. You guys wouldn’t have done shit. You are acting like you weren’t aware. I find it hard to believe with all the snipers you have perched up on the roof. I guarantee someone knew.
Maybe they didn’t tell you, but they knew. I bet they were wishing I was dead. Well, I’m not, so fuck them and fuck you,” I said.

  I could hear Shaw’s veins popping in his neck. He always stuttered when he was mad, like, real mad.

  “F-f-fuck me? Fuck you, you stupid shit! I am out here in the freezing cold working my tail off, trying to get you out of there. And you say we aren’t worried? That we aren’t trying? Well, I’m sorry, McKenzie, if I’m not sucking your dick or anything, but I need to find the killer.”

  I started to laugh. Shaw was always an asshole, but sometimes he was quick with the comebacks.

  “Oh, my heart bleeds, and so does my fucking leg! Get me the fuck out of here and then we can talk,” I said, hanging up the phone.

  Ha, good one, McKenzie, the voice in my head said.

  I didn’t bother giving it the satisfaction of a reply. As far as I was concerned, he could go and fuck himself, too.

  “Fuck all of you,” I said, flipping the bird in a 360-degree angle as I got back up and kicked the dirt under my feet again in protest. “I don’t care — I’ll contaminate the fuck out of this place,” I screamed.

  Fifty-Six

  Olivia Cormack was sitting down on her sofa with a bowl of ice cream and a fudge milkshake on the side. She was overindulging as she sat and gawped at the TV screen as it sputtered out the day’s big news story: A KILLER IN BOSTON. A COP HELD HOSTAGE. BREAKING NEWS.

  She remained fixated on the screen for what seemed like a few hours. She was taking in all that the channel had to tell her about the day’s events. By the time midnight came, they had all sorts of analysts in giving their take on the situation involving the unnamed cop.

  “I say we let him shoot the cop. Just be done with it. In my opinion, these types of situations never resolve themselves. By next week someone else will be copying what this guy is doing. Better to let him do the unthinkable and make an example of him than let him get away with it,” one caller said to the dismay of the anchorwoman broadcasting the show.