by Luis Samways
I coughed up half my lung a few more times as I walked by some early risers working in the offices. None of them really paid much attention to me. You would think that being held at gunpoint would earn me a few hello’s, but I was afraid most of the early risers were probably sucking their thumbs in bed last night and ended up missing all the action that took place.
I walked by some mechanical-looking detectives going over a shooting that occurred last night. They said hello to me, and one of them even smiled. I smiled back and made a sharp left into the bathroom. I heard someone shout something as I walked into the restroom.
“Out of toilet paper. Janitor should refill it soon,” someone said from behind me. I raised my right hand in the air as a thank-you and let the door close behind me. I didn’t need any toilet paper anyway. Wasn’t planning on getting anything dirty.
I took a piss and rested my head against the cold tile wall. I knew it wasn’t exactly the cleanest of areas to catch a few seconds of shuteye, but I figured that closing them for a second or two would help the redness go away. I heard the automatic flush go off and opened my eyes. I could see the lime scale caking the outer perimeter of the urinal as I lifted my head from its resting place and went to wash my hands. I turned the tap on and watched as the water gushed out from the wonky-looking fountain. I reached into my jacket pocket and fumbled around for something. I could feel the pill dispenser in my pocket. I shooed it away and found the little wrap I was looking for. I quickly took the tinfoil wrap from inside my jacket and placed it near the sink. I opened it and pinched some of the powder onto my thumb. I raised my hand to my nose and gave it a sniff.
I immediately felt better. The coke had hit me fast. It was just the wakeup call I needed. That and some water to the face, and I was ready to get back on the case. It didn’t occur to me that taking cocaine in the workplace was wrong; what did occur to me, however, was how damn good it was.
Those cops working the drug busts sure knew how to help a fellow good guy out.
Sixty-Seven
Olivia Cormack was trying to sit herself up on the gurney. She couldn’t quite manage it. The straps were digging into her skin, preventing any movement without significant pain. She was in agony and didn’t know where she was. She still hadn’t figured out what was going on. The only thing she was aware of was the fact that the guy who’d kidnapped her had told her that she was going to die that day. She didn’t know when or even how, but she decided to take the guy at his word and believe him.
She didn’t feel overly scared. She’d thought that she would be screaming for help but she managed to avoid crying out, which she hoped would please her captor. She figured he didn’t want her screaming at the top of her lungs, so she was quiet for the most part, only letting out the occasional murmur of dissatisfaction. Obviously, silence was difficult when someone feared for their life; even she knew it would be impossible to not make a sound. She knew that she would crack at some point. She was human, after all, and she figured that her mind was preventing her from acting out her true feelings, because inside she was far from calm. She knew it was just a matter of time until she broke.
She could feel her hands get clammy as she struggled through her pain. She tucked her chin into her bust and watched her breathing go from erratic to calm, all in the space of a few seconds. That was a trick her daddy taught her when she was young. She used to fear the monster under her bed; now she feared the monster keeping her prisoner.
She looked around at her surroundings once again when her breathing simmered down to a slow, burning gargle. She watched as the shadows in the room played with each other on the walls. Meshes of blacks and whites danced around the tiled walls, making unworldly caricatures that matched her irate imagination. She felt as if the room was feeding off her feelings, deep from within. It was as if a projector was playing out her deepest thoughts as she scrambled for the last bit of sanity that surely lay ingrained in the fibers of her being.
“Somebody help me!” she finally screamed, breaking like glass shattering on the floor. “I’m in here!” she bellowed. “I’m in here!”
With that her breathing started to pulsate, much like her beating heart in her chest. She was back to square one; this time the monster under her bed was a mere few feet away, standing behind the door she was imprisoned behind. He had a smile on his face. She had finally succumbed to his masterpiece. She was a strong one indeed, but in the next few hours she was going to be a dead one.
Sixty-Eight
Officer Mullins looked at Sal and Roger Smith as they nodded at his previous question.
“So you two and Mr. Foster got along. Neither of you had a problem with the man?” he asked, to another nod.
“No problems whatsoever? No fallouts over business? No disagreements over employees?”
Sal shook his head. Roger shrugged. Both elderly gentlemen were far from their perky selves. It had been a long night, and it showed on their tired-looking faces.
“Mr. Mullins, we have already confirmed this a few times now. Do these questions really need to be repeated?” Sal Smith said in a dreary voice.
“I’m afraid so. We need to get to the bottom of this. There seems to be a connection between Foster Industries and the murders that have been going on.”
Sal Smith’s eyes widened.
“Really? Now, that is interesting indeed!”
“How so?” Mullins asked.
“Well, it just is. I never would have guessed it, that is all,” he said.
Mullins looked annoyed. He wasn’t enjoying the case at all. Too many loose ends and not enough people in the know. That was police work for you. Never easy — at least, that’s what Mullins thought of it.
“Is there anything else you could tell us about Mr. Foster?” Mullins asked.
“No, not really. Well, he was a nice man. A good-hearted man, in fact. It wasn’t his fault, you see,” Roger said.
“What wasn’t his fault?”
“The company shipping off to Mexico. He didn’t want it to happen, but money and growth surpassed his sense of loyalty to his employees,” Sal interrupted.
“So you think an employee could have done this?” Mullins asked as he jotted down some notes on his pad.
“No, I don’t think so. You see, the people who worked here were all big fans of Mr. Foster. He was a good man. He had given everyone a very healthy severance package. He paid for it out of his own paycheck. He was like that, you see. Twenty-seven grand for each employee. A goodbye gift,” he said.
Mullins nodded. “Twenty-seven Gs? That’s a lot of money,” he said.
“Yeah. That’s why I doubt anyone from here killed him,” Sal said.
Mullins looked at his watch. He sighed.
“It’s been a long day, fellas. Maybe it’s best if you two go off and get some sleep. I’m sorry I kept you so long. It’s just we are desperate for a lead. This case is nothing but dead end after dead end,” he said.
“It’s okay. We’d probably better be going anyway. It’s a shame it ended like this. We came looking for Foster after the meeting. He didn’t show up, you see,” Sal said.
“Meeting? What meeting?” Mullins asked.
Sal smiled at him as if he had forgotten telling the detective about it earlier that day.
“The meeting with the investors and board of directors. We got a call from an associate telling us he didn’t show up. We came looking for him. The associate had to take Foster’s place and call the meeting. She was quite nervous about it,” Roger said.
“She? What’s her name?”
Roger stopped for a second and rolled his eyes, trying to think.
“Her name is Olivia Cormack. Nice girl. One of Foster’s top people at the company. I think she’s a VP or something. Well, she was. She, too, got a big check.”
Mullins nodded, and then something clicked in his head as he looked at the two men standing in front of him.
“Thank you so much! You two are lifesavers!” he said to the su
rprised expression on both of their wrinkled faces.
Mullins quickly got his cell phone out and dialed the Chief.
Sixty-Nine
I stretched out my arms as I sat in the chair and contemplated the case. I was yawning a lot, even though the cocaine I’d taken should have perked me up. It didn’t, though; I was still dog-tired. I guess the body gets used to certain things, like the mind gets used to certain thoughts and the heart gets used to certain breaks.
“You okay, man? You look like you’re seconds away from calling it a cold case,” Santiago said as he sat down next to me and handed me a cup of Joe.
“Nah, man, I’m not nearly half done with this case. There must be something we are missing. There’s always something. We just need to work it out. An empty stomach isn’t helping,” I said, even though I wasn’t hungry, but I noticed my stomach was betraying my brain and telling me differently.
“There’s always something,” repeated Santiago as he took a sip of his coffee. “What do we have so far?” he asked, as if he didn’t know what we had been investigating. He always did that. It was like he was trying to refresh his brain. It usually worked. We had him to thank for a lot of late breaks.
The police precinct was picking up. More day cops were flooding in and fiddling with cases on their desks. Santiago and I were not the only gloomy-looking cops on duty. Everybody had a certain look of despair on their faces. Boston was getting us all down.
“We have a dead waitress at the café, a kidnapped, later-found-dead Toby Johnson — he’s connected to Foster Industries. We have a bartender and Nick Evans, both found in the same drinking establishment, and we have a potential John Doe that may be Mr. Foster himself,” I said, running through my notes on the legal pad I had in front of me.
“One woman, four men. Two innocents, two connected vic’s,” Santiago stated.
“This Foster Industries place seems to be moving places. Off to Mexico — all the employees have been made redundant. That Nick Evans guy is a high-ranking executive at the company. He seemed to have been involved with the killer. Our suspect was seen at the bar where the murder was captured on CCTV. The night before, they seemed to be devising some sort of plan together at the bar, like they knew each other or something,” I said.
“A plan? We don’t know that. To me it looked like they knew each other, but, judging from Nick Evans dying, it seemed they were not in cahoots together. Don’t hold me to it, though — I’m just speculating.”
I squinted my eyes and rubbed them for a few seconds. I was on a serious come-down.
“Fuck sake. What is up with this case?” I said to myself. “We have connections, but we can’t put it all together. We have no motive, just a bunch of possible hypotheticals,” I said.
“So three people are dead who worked at this Foster Industries. An intern, an executive and possibly Mr. Foster himself. When do the blood samples come back?” Santiago asked.
“Soon. But I don’t know. I’m not sure whether or not this case is as linked as we believe. Sure, they all worked at the same place, but I don’t think there is a conspiracy here. I think it’s random, and the killer has a grudge or something,” I said as I bit down on my thumbnail.
“A conspiracy? Of course there is a conspiracy. You don’t honestly think that these guys working at the same place aren’t connected? That’s a stupid thing to assume,” Santiago said crossly as he cracked his fingers.
“I’m not saying that, I’m just saying that maybe this isn’t as clear-cut as we want it to be,” I said.
“Be that as it may, this case is definitely connected. Everyone is dead for a reason,” he said.
“The waitress?” I said as I took a sip from my coffee and studied the files in front of me. I had a picture of the dead girl in my folder. I could see the innocence in her eyes. And then I remembered how she died. Reading her book and getting shot in the skull. What a way to go.
“The waitress is collateral damage. So is the bartender. Wrong place, wrong time. The killer has been planning this out. He called it his masterpiece, remember? A masterpiece is well thought out before it is put together. He is doing it for a reason. It’s our job to find out why,” Santiago said as he snatched the picture of the girl out of my hands and gave it the once-over.
“Our job is to catch him. I couldn’t give a shit why he did it — I just want him off the streets. I’m telling you, San, we are missing something,” I mumbled as I looked through the other pictures I had of the victims. I was studying the crime scene pictures like a hawk. Scrutinizing every aspect of the scenes. Looking for anything that caught my eye.
“Knowing why he did it will lead us to where he is,” Santiago replied.
I didn’t bother answering. I was too clued into the evidence in front of me.
“Hats,” I said out loud. “What’s up with those little red hats?” I whispered under my breath.
“Party Essentials,” Santiago said.
Both of us looked at each other for a while. We didn’t say anything; we just stared into each other’s eye whites until our thoughts met one another.
“Are you kidding me?” I shouted.
“Please tell me you checked the address out,” Santiago pleaded.
“I didn’t! I thought you’d have done it,” I said.
We both shook our heads. Both of us realized what we had just stumbled on.
“Look here — the killer left ‘Party Essentials’ products throughout his crime scenes. This has been staring us in the face since the beginning,” Santiago said.
“I thought PD would have checked it out,” I said under my breath in dismay.
Santiago grabbed the laptop from his bag and hit the power button. It was in sleep mode, so it just powered on with no wait time. He opened up a search window and typed something in.
“There are six Party Essentials shops in Boston. Forty-two in MA.”
I shook my head in defeat.
“I knew it was useless. Probably just a prop. Nothing of any relevance,” I said as I grabbed my legal pad and crossed out the words Party Essentials.
“Not so fast, Tiger,” Santiago said. “Party Essentials had a warehouse here in Boston. There was a fire a few years back. Since then they moved their MA warehouse to Cambridge,” Santiago added with a smile on his face.
That was the first time in three days either of us had smiled. It wouldn’t be the last time that day, either.
Seventy
“Does it hurt when I do this?” The Mexican said to a blood-curdling cry from the woman as he put the knife back in his pocket.
He stood there in the empty-looking room that was filled with nothing but fear and an operating table. He looked down at the screaming woman who lay flat out on a gurney, shaking with pain. The woman in question was Olivia Cormack. She had just been tampered with. The Mexican had cut off her right ear with a switchblade. It was easy enough, he thought. Her ear came off like a knife through butter. He had sharpened it well. That was evident by the clean cut he had made. Where her ear used to be lay a bloody puss-like wound. She was still screaming when he took his attention off her and started to clean up the severed ear on the operating table where the ominous red bag sat, overshadowing the light coming from a lamp.
The light rays that his back were blocking made the room go a deathly black for a few seconds. It was when he turned around that the bright light had hit her face, blinding her vision for a moment or two. Specs of dust and black shadows were all she could see. Her terrified voice was all she could hear.
“Why are you doing this to me? What do you want from me?” she screamed in defiance, trying to sit herself up on the gurney but failing because of the tight shackles that crushed her sternum as she struggled.
“I’m not doing nothing to you, Miss Cormack. You have done this to yourself. You and your damn company. You are the ones responsible for your own fate. Not me. I’m just the messenger,” The Mexican said as he gave her a cocked smile and made his way to the door.
Nothing but pain and darkness was left as Olivia tried to calm herself down.
Seventy-One
Officer Mullins leaned his back against the cold wall in the dingy-looking hallway. He looked up the stairwell and saw nothing but darkness. He thought he saw a faint glow of light in the distance, but when he blinked it was gone again. He turned his head to his right and saw the four police officers covering him from behind.
“On my mark, up the stairs. Quietly does it. I don’t want to spook anyone who may be in the apartment,” Mullins whispered.
The lead officer behind him gave him a nod. He was a big-looking fellow. Strong arms and a tight jaw. He was the type of man one would want as backup in a situation like this.
“Go,” Mullins said loud enough for his entourage to hear him, but quiet enough to be inaudible to anyone in the vicinity.
The men and Mullins walked up the staircase in a single-file formation. All of them had their guns out, pointed to the ground. Police-issue handguns glinting in the low light. Someone behind him had a shotgun. The man cocked it. On that signal they ran, taking massive strides up the staircase, soon hitting the landing. The hallway looked dark and smelt of stale smoke. Mullins carried on in front, finding himself a few paces ahead of his team. He was eager to intercept the target apartment. So much so he was breaking the formation. Before he knew it, he had dived into the room, both feet forward, holding his gun out, pointing it in a three-sixty degree motion, covering all bases. His team reached him seconds after, mimicking his movements to a “T.”