After the Evil – A Jake Roberts Novel (Book 1)

by Cary Allen Stone

  * * *

  There are times when you can’t move fast enough. You claw desperately at space and time, but the harder you fight, the harder it fights back. Obstacles that would otherwise not have hindered your progress, find their way into your path. I can’t get to Ed fast enough to save him.

  I’m driving because I have to. I don’t care about Harmon’s complaints, or who is in the way. We narrowly miss pedestrians and other vehicles as I swerve. The tires screech, sirens wail and blue lights flash. Harmon is alternately screaming, and crying.

  I want Gates. I want him bad. I want to jam my Glock into his mouth and kill him. I want to save Ed. The second hand of the clock inside my mind sweeps faster. The seconds Ed has left are counting down. Ed believed in me. He taught me how to survive.

  One more street and we’re there. I can see the warehouse. SWAT teams leap out of their vans into the parking lot and surround the building. Black and whites cordon off the dirty street. Unmarked cars arrive from every direction. We all want to save him.

  We’re almost there, Ed. Hang on.

  I slam on the brakes and the car stops abruptly in front of the doorway. Two uniforms are already there with their weapons drawn. A vice detective from the house comes out of the warehouse with a nine-millimeter Berretta in his hand, crying. Kicking my door open, I jump out of the car. Harmon grabs the detective, Williams I think his name is. He is sobbing and can barely answer. He finally forces it out.

  “We’re too late.”

  “Where? Where?”

  “Second floor...back––”

  The detective’s voice fades as we sprint inside and up the back stairs. As “We’re too late” reverberates inside my head, I know there is no need to use precautionary entry tactics. My whole body is tense. My hands are trembling. I don’t want to go in. I can’t.

  “Oh, no.”

  I’m riveted by what I see, can hardly breathe, or look away. Collapsing inside, I fall back against a wall. My Glock is gripped tightly in my fist. Any justification I had for mankind evaporates instantly. I reach out for Harmon, but he is lost in his own horror.

  Ed is lying in a river of blood like a sacrificial lamb with his arms outstretched. He looks as if he is waiting for an embrace from God. My hand slowly rises to cover the open space of my mouth. Tears burn and sting my face on their way to the floor. After all the years on the job, I thought I could take it, was prepared, and desensitized.

  Harmon is weeping, everyone in the death chamber weeps. The room is awash in heartbreak. The paramedics push through us. They are the only ones at the scene still holding onto a glimmer of hope that Ed might still be faintly lingering. They are wrong.

  I don’t know how, but I make it to his bedside. His vacant eyes stare upwards as if he was searching for his Maker to save him. His body is mutilated. Blood is still foaming out of his mouth, nostrils and each wound. I reach out to touch his still warm face.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He cannot hear me.

  “I’m sorry, Ed.”

  Harmon comes up behind me and we lock in a hug. All of those who have raced to protect Ed Fairchild begin to slowly file out of the building. Nothing is right anymore. Nothing makes sense. Evil is still one step ahead of good.

  Right now, after the evil, it’s up to Harmon and I to find Ed’s executioner. It’s our case. The impersonal detachment necessary of one human being to investigate the death of another is now required of us. We’ll have to bury our pain and wait to mourn another day. We have to find the “Who’s Your Daddy” killer, or Runner—Michael Gates. It’s personal. I make a silent promise to Ed.

  I’ll find him, I swear. He’ll pay for this,

  Harmon asks if he should call Mika.

  I nod because I know I can’t do it. I know I will lose it for good. There is only one mind-set now, just one. I don’t care about anything else.

  Harmon turns away and heads for a corner of the room. His hand draws out his cell phone and the number is dialed. I watch him wipe away tears thinking about how it is going to devastate her. I can barely hear him say it.

  “Mika? Harmon. I’m afraid...you won’t believe...”

  That’s all I can take. I close my eyes and picture what his words are doing to her. I never could take it when she cried. My fingers press against my temples.

  His head shakes as he gives Mika the details. He stops talking and turns to look at me. Again, he shakes his head and stares at the floor, while giving her time to absorb it all.

  There is work to do. My grieving will have to wait. I draw two latex gloves out of my pocket to begin the process of evidence collection. The others have already put in a call for the crime lab along with every other resource the department has to offer. I already know the victim, the where, and the how. When I find Gates, I will find out the why. Right before I put a bullet in his brain.

  The process is simple and we can do it in our sleep. The cardinal rule is to not touch anything and contaminate the crime scene. Even in the initial dark moments, when each of us burst into the room, we were careful not to contaminate it.

  I shout orders. The paramedics leave knowing their attempts to revive him are futile. They did their job and know when to leave so we can do ours. Other homicide detectives search inside. Uniforms roam near and around the outside of the warehouse searching for any possible clues no matter how minute, or obscure. A few uniforms canvass for witnesses.

  SWAT, whose primary function is to take down violent offenders on-site, is not needed here. They offer to help in any way, but I tell them to pack it up.

  The crime lab truck arrives, and the technicians assail the area with brushes, tape and the other tools of their trade. The department’s photographer knows her craft and captures the scene properly on film. The flash goes off repeatedly. Because the latest victim is one of us, everyone works harder.

  Someone has to call Lucille. Notification of next of kin is difficult enough when you don’t know the victim. It’s impossible when you do. Again, Harmon does the dirty job. I can’t face Lucille, or the kids either.

  Outside, members of the media are swarming. I hate them almost as much as I hate Gates. They are demanding to come inside with “It’s the public’s right to know” as their litany. I try my best to protect Captain Edward Fairchild’s dignity, despite the fact I was unable to protect his life. I look over at him. A little over an hour has passed.

  Out of my pocket comes my recorder. I start recording the gruesome details. The initial significant notable difference between Ed’s murder, and Abrams’s, is this crime scene is ripe with clues.

  The postmortem changes begin with Rigor mortis decomposition, succeeded by the liver mortis skin discoloration. Ed’s body is cooling down. I feel it. The techs finish with the body and make room for the coroner’s people. The M.E., affectionately nicknamed “Quincy” by all of us, officially declares my captain, and friend, deceased. Even hearing the word sucks.

  The body bag is lying open on the gurney. With all due care and respect, they lift Ed’s body and place his remains inside. The sound of the closing zipper is like fingernails on a blackboard. The process is cold and clinical. It has to be even for Ed.

  Officers and investigators stop what they were doing and watch as he is taken away. Sobbing is heard everywhere. I watch scenes flash through my head of the good times with Ed.

  He always had that quirky smile. Not long ago, over a cold one, during a discussion of human mortality, he said we were actually dying every day of our lives, from the time we were born. I had learned a lot about life from the perspective of a man who had seen more than his share of it. Sometimes, I didn’t get what he was talking about, sometimes I did. Harmon broke into my memories.

  “Mika is on her way.”

  I never wanted her to leave. I thought of a million excuses to get her to come back, but not for this reason. Still, I was glad she was on her way.

  8

  The rage was there along with the control and domination. The
body position and the killing technique were the same, multiple stab wounds, and castration. Ed had struggled for freedom as evidenced by the wrist and ankle marks. There didn’t appear to be any sexual assault. Painted on the wall was––Ed. It was the same, but not the same. As I talk into my recorder, Harmon walks over with a CD hanging on a pencil.

  “It was playing when Williams first busted in. He turned it off just before we got here. The CD player is set to repeat song number three. Maybe Mika will be able to shed some light as to its significance.”

  “We’ll listen to it when we get back to the house. Did they get your conversation with him on tape?”

  “I got it all. I swear, I swear on my mother’s eyes.”

  “I know.”

  My hand finds his huge shoulder and I grab tight. I want to make Gates suffer, too.

  “Any witnesses?”

  “The guys are still out there looking. It’s a bright, sunny morning and it’s not even 9:00 yet.

  Someone had to be around, somebody must have seen something.”

  We keep our own anger and rage harnessed in as best as we can. We need to stay focused and check the emotional baggage. As I look to see how much tape I have left on my cassette recorder my cell phone rings.

  “Tell me it isn’t true. You tell me Ed Fairchild is alive. This is madness, absolute madness! The world has gone insane, I was just with him.”

  It’s difficult enough without hearing her cry. Nothing I say will make it any easier.

  “Harmon and I are still at the scene. We have enough right now to hang this guy, we’ll have more by the time you get here.”

  She struggles to say she’d be here soon.

  “I’VE GOT A CLEAN PRINT. I’ll take it to the lab and get started. I should have something for you by this afternoon.”

  The tech is ecstatic. The CD player and the CD have clean prints that appear to be the same. I have an uneasy feeling about his enthusiastic state of mind. The technician might very well lose them both. A vision of O. J. Simpson’s botched investigation passes through my mind. I watch the tech carry them as if they were a human heart being transported for transplant.

  “Fingerprints, CD, various fibers, and blond hair strands? What’s up with this guy? He’s never been this careless before,” Harmon says.

  “Game’s over? Time ran out? He wants to be caught? If he is as intelligent as we think he is, he probably has another plan, an out, you know like insanity. Who knows? Who can figure out what’s in his head.”

  Harmon tosses out “Mika?” to answer me. That one is easy to acknowledge. She would know. I don’t care why he wants to be caught. I just want to stop him. I’m willing to do that any way I can. A uniform bursts in shouting. He can hardly breathe from the hundred-yard dash he has just run.

  “We’ve got a witness.”

  We give him time to stop hyperventilating, but anxiously prompt him. Swallowing hard, the officer provides the information.

  “A guy down the street was walking his Doberman. He saw a male in his late twenties to early thirties, blond hair, ponytail, casually driving a late-model silver Lexus out of the parking lot right here.”

  He points to the floor.

  “Do you think it was Gates?”

  Harmon looks at me then turns to the officer and asks if he got a plate number.

  “Yes sir, Alpha-Nine-Three-Lima-Golf-Tango. He wrote it down, no mistake, He said it was as if the guy didn’t care if he saw it. I found him across the street, waiting. Said he didn’t want to interfere until we finished up. He said he didn’t want any of us beating him to death by mistake.

  “What a jerk,” Harmon says.

  Sometimes the public’s mentality is dumbfounding. You can only blame so much on the gene pool. Harmon shoves the officer in the direction he wants him to go.

  “Call in and tell them what you’ve got. Get me an address, telephone number––anything. He’s making this too easy,” Harmon says.

  “Who cares? We’ll follow the trail he’s leaving and take him down.”

  From downstairs, I hear another officer scream out my name. We converge halfway. I can tell he is seasoned because the information he carries is presented with urgency, but with far less drama.

  “Anything on the plate?”

  “Better, a black and white’s tailing him as we speak.”

  * * *

  Harmon shouts into his radio.

  “Do you hear me? Stop the vehicle, but do not take him. Advise that we’re on our way.”

  We vault into my filthy, unmarked car. We can’t have some angry, overzealous officer taking him out before his time, unless it’s me.

  Harmon doesn’t protest my driving this time.

  “Damn Jake, this is too good to be true. What’s up with this guy? Clever enough to elude capture through multiple murders, and then suddenly he’s brain dead? I don’t get it.”

  “Let’s just get there. We can analyze him after.”

  I stop talking and concentrate on driving, on Ed, and on a psychopath. Harmon’s hands wave in all directions trying to keep me from killing us, or someone else, before we get there. My adrenaline is maxed out. Harmon is the first to see where they have Gates boxed in, and his hands flail around blocking my view. Sure as taxes, it’s a late-model, silver Lexus. Sure as death, the plate numbers match. Sure as hell, inside waiting patiently, is Michael Gates. Officers surround the Lexus on all sides with weapons braced against their cars. Both of his hands are locked on the steering wheel. My braking technique almost costs Harmon some teeth as my car screeches to a stop.

  “WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU, MAN?”

  The senior officer on the scene approaches us as we exit my car. I study Gates from a distance of about thirty feet. With an emotional plea on Ed’s behalf, the sergeant suggests something, barely above a whisper, that would invite criminal charges against us. There is no doubt we all had the same thought. We have all seen the bad guys walk when they should have fried. Not an hour ago, I would have shot Gates myself.

  “Plate, car and perp’s description are dead on. I think we should finish it right here. I’d hate to see some lawyer, judge, or jury let him walk, you know what I mean?” the sergeant says.

  Harmon gets in the sergeant’s face and gives him a stinging reply.

  “I want him by the book.”

  “Just a thought. He’s all yours.”

  They all loved Ed. I hope my reassuring nod is enough. It’s hard to keep a cool head at a during a white heat moment. Emotions are peaked. It’s never easy, but that was where all of the training had to come in. I have to drop the personal side of it, at least for now. Surveying the area, I see the media hounds sniffing at the scene. Gates sits patiently knowing if he moves. He is a dead man. It’s not his time, yet.

  “I’m taking command of the scene, Sergeant. Order him out, and I don’t want to hear a single gunshot. I hear shots and I’ll personally shoot whoever fired them, clear?” Harmon says.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The officer turns rapidly and shouts the order into his radio. We watch as the officers holding a perimeter around the Lexus, execute their duties professionally as they are trained to do. Within seconds, it’s over. Gates is cuffed and in custody. They are reading him his rights as we approach. He stares at me the entire time as if he knows something I don’t. I can’t wait to get him to the house. For Harmon, this man outran him during the chase. He's the man responsible for multiple homicides. More importantly, this man murdered Ed. Harmon’s lower lip quivers. I squeeze his arm as he points an accusatory finger and shouts at Gates.

  “You have the right to an ass-kicking. Anything you say, or do to prevent one can and will be used against you. Do you understand what I’m saying, punk?”

  Harmon is blinded by rage. I bristle and take up a position between them, after I see Harmon’s hand twitch toward his service revolver during his terse reprimand.

  “Put the pin back in.”

  It’s the best I can come up with
to settle him down. I can only hope Harmon is listening to me. Then I hear the sound of Gates’ dispassionate voice. He is clear and calm as he watches Harmon.

  “I hate monkeys in monkey suits.”

  The statement alone could hasten his demise, but when he follows it by blowing Harmon a perverted kiss, I have to step in.

  “Easy son, I want you back at the station in one piece.”

  It was obvious he was fearless, daring, unapologetic and intractable. His has a contemptuous sneer on his face. I want to smack the sneer off his face. In my mind, I picture a 9mm bullet whistling and twisting through the air penetrating his smooth baby forehead. The cop killer is baiting us. Maybe he’s hoping for a “suicide by cop.” That’s what some of these crazy bastards really want. They’re afraid to pull the trigger on themselves.

  “I can’t wait to get you downtown. Are you responsible for the murder of Edward Fairchild?” Harmon says.

  Harmon’s inquiry is met with the opening act of the Michael Gates show.

  “The white man has been subverted by indulgent liberals, political prostitutes, corporate cannibals and the mongrelized media.”

  As he is escorted away for transport, Gates shouts to the media vultures. Every beady look, and ridiculous sound bite, is captured on videotape. It freaks me out that Gates’ remarks are the same ones the militia used. The last remark he makes, a reference to the death penalty, barely makes it out of the squad car, as he is placed into the caged back seat.

  All I have to do now is get him to the precinct alive, and get Harmon sedated. We walk back to the car, climb in and follow close behind the transporting black and white. I tell Harmon I will do the interrogation because he is excessively wired. He doesn’t argue with me. We make a pact along the way that assuming Gates is convicted, and whatever sentence he is given, after the trial––be it the drip, or the jolt, we swear to be there. If he does manage to be freed by some insane judge, we swear we will personally hold court and carry out our own execution of his sentence.

  Driving off, we snake through the ever-present disgruntled onlookers, who jeer at us because they have issues with law enforcement. Reporters are running alongside my car screaming asinine questions. It’s amazing. The job isn’t worth it.