by J. L. Drake
Just as they were pulling into the parking lot of the hotel, McCoy’s phone rang—he answered it.
“Hello?” he said.
“Hi, this is Detective Jones,” a feminine voice said.
“Oh, Detective Jones, it’s good to hear from you. Were you able to get someone undercover for me?”
“Yes, we got your man in, no problem…” she said.
“That’s great news,” he said, and paused to listen as she continued.
“…but there’s an issue. He just got a call from someone who said they’d have a sizeable amount of organs to unload this weekend.”
“A sizeable amount of organs? I’m scared to know what that means.”
He listened to Jones for a couple more moments before he ended the call. When he did he was smiling, but he wasn’t sure that was the appropriate response to have when he knew people were going to die if he didn’t figure things out fast.
“What did you find out?” Croce asked.
“Do you want the good news or the bad news first?”
“Good,” she said.
“Okay…” he said, “…the undercover officer who was putting out feelers for human organs was contacted by someone in the area that said they would have a ‘sizeable amount’ to handle this coming weekend.”
Croce grinned broadly at the news and then frowned.
“And the bad news is…?” she asked.
“Oh, you know, if we don’t figure out who these people are in the next day or so, they’ll be killing a few people, apparently,” he said, frowning as well.
“Damn,” Croce said. “No pressure…”
David laughed bitterly. “Exactly. I guess we’ll just focus on the good—we’re on the right track. But we need to put all the pieces together as fast as we can. Hopefully Limmon will be here sometime tomorrow. If I don’t get an email I’ll call Agent Mallory at the Memphis office in a little while to find out when we should expect him.”
“Is there anything I can do?” Croce asked.
“Could you start going through the paperwork we’ve collected from the morgues?” he asked as he climbed out of the car. “I’ll take some of it with me too.” He opened the back door and took half of the paperwork they’d collected in an evidence box in the backseat.
“Will do,” she said.
“Oh, and we’ll need to start early tomorrow morning,” he added. “We have to get through the other hospitals tomorrow—we don’t have an option.”
“I can pick you up here at seven,” Croce said. “Will that be early enough?”
“Perfect—see you then,” David said before standing and shutting the car door. He waved as he headed into the building.
Croce waved back and drove away.
Chapter 36
When Agent Croce arrived to collect him at the hotel the next morning, David and Agent Limmon were ready and waiting. He hadn’t found anything they’d missed the day before in the paperwork and he’d been pleased to find out Limmon was to arrive late in the night. The young agent had gotten a couple hours of sleep and was ready to help attack the investigation.
When David had asked Limmon about Mallory’s willingness to lend him out, he’d told David that she’d wanted to help close the missing persons cases in Nashville. She felt they had a responsibility to help, since the perps had been in their backyard and gotten away. David could appreciate that.
“Agent Limmon, meet Agent Croce,” David said, opening the passenger’s side door of the sedan so Limmon and Croce could see and talk to each other while he put the morgue files he had in the backseat with the rest. They both said hello.
“Limmon is going to take a taxi to the field office and set up shop there,” David said, shutting the back door, “while we go and check out the rest of the hospitals on the list.”
“Okay,” Croce said. She leaned over toward the open door so she could have a better sight line with Limmon. “Ask for Agent Miller—he’s the director. I’ve been keeping him up to speed on the case as we go. He’ll set you up with anything you need. Hopefully we’ll have something more to report this afternoon.”
“Thank you,” Limmon said. “I’ll be sure to do that. I’m hoping to have a better picture of the woman—or at least have her license plate number—from the camera footage from the bar I plan to go through today.”
“Keep us informed,” Croce said, sitting back up as McCoy climbed into the car.
“Thank you again for coming,” David said. “I hope you can find something. We’re under a tight timeline…”
“I know,” Limmon said. He smiled and waved when David shut the car door and they headed off to the hospitals.
A couple of minutes later his taxi arrived and he headed off to the Pittsburgh FBI office.
***
“Did you find anything of interest in the paperwork?” Croce asked David as they pulled away from the hotel.
“No,” he said with a sigh. “Did you?”
She shook her head.
“What are you hoping to find in the paperwork?” she asked, frowning as she negotiated the early morning traffic.
“I don’t know,” David said. “Anything that would seem out of the ordinary, like organs when there was no death—something like that.”
“They would have to be pretty stupid to try and pull something like that off,” she said. “Don’t hospitals have anything set in place to watch for those kinds of things themselves?”
“Honestly, I don’t know,” David said, frowning. “I’ve never tackled a case like this before.”
Croce was quiet for a couple of minutes. “Where do you think they take them?”
David was confused, having been following his own train of thought along the lines of her previous questions.
“Take them?” he asked.
“Take the people they kidnap…” she said. “I mean, they couldn’t take them to the hospital to kill them and harvest their organs. That I know for sure. So, where would they do the operations? It would have to be somewhere close-by, I would think.”
“I like where you’re going with this,” he said. “I’ve been so focused on the hospitals, I hadn’t gotten that far.” He paused to think. “You know the area pretty well—where do you think you would take someone to chop them into pieces without someone seeing you?”
“They would need privacy—somewhere where they wouldn’t be seen or heard,” she said. “I suppose if I didn’t want to be found doing something like that, and since it couldn’t be done out in the open in the woods or anything, I guess I would find an abandoned building or something. We have quite a few of those since the economic downturn. Factories have been going out of business left and right.”
David’s mouth fell open in shock as he thought about it.
“Brilliant!” he all but screamed. “I’ll call Detective Jones and see if they can have a couple of patrols check out areas where there’s abandoned buildings, just to look for anything suspicious,” David said, pulling out his phone and dialing.
Croce was shaking her head, grinning, as she pulled into the parking lot of the next hospital on their list.
***
Butch drove into the parking lot of the building they were vacating at eight o’clock sharp; Roger was already there, sitting in the moving truck waiting for him.
He parked his truck beside the larger vehicle and got out, shivering slightly in the crisp morning air after being overly warm from his truck’s heater.
Roger climbed out as well, but didn’t offer to shake Butch’s hand like he normally did; he got straight to business.
“We moved most of the large stuff yesterday, so we only have a little bit to do today,” he said. “We should be able to get everything in one load. After we unload at the new location we’ll come back and clean really good to cover our tracks better.”
Butch nodded and teased, “All business this morning, aren’t we?”
“We need to get this done with no fooling around,” Roger said, and turned
to walk up the ramp to the building. “We don’t have time for joking and playing today if we want to do the harvest tomorrow.”
“Bossy, bossy,” Butch muttered under his breath and followed Roger.
They entered the building together. Roger headed toward the stairs that led to the basement, since they’d already removed the generator that had previously powered the elevator. Butch paused to prop open the door with a heavy cinder block they’d found the previous day for that purpose, before he followed the other man down the steps.
Roger turned on one of the flashlights they’d left at the bottom of the stairs and proceeded to gather up anything he could find that they hadn’t moved the day before.
Butch picked up the other flashlight and did the same.
In less than an hour, they had everything else loaded in the truck.
“Why don’t you drive your truck over too,” Roger suggested, not wanting to talk to Butch any more than he had to. “That way when we’re done, you can go. Jennings said he had a side assignment for you and that I shouldn’t keep you any longer than necessary. I can clean by myself later.”
Jennings had told him no such thing. He’d made it up because he didn’t want to be around Butch any more than necessary. He wasn’t a homicidal man, but he wanted to kill Butch for what he’d done to Sonya, and for lying about it. The things Butch had done in the past were bad enough without him trying to turn the team against each other—at least any more than they already were. He knew Butch was poison and he wanted as little contact with him as possible. Working with him was like working with a slightly smarter Jack. While Jack had been ignorant about how his actions would affect people, Butch was pulling everyone’s strings and pitting them against each other intentionally. Butch’s meddling was far worse.
“Sounds like a plan,” Butch said, suppressing a chuckle. “I do still have a lot to work on for that side project.”
I just bet you do, Roger thought, waving and climbing into the moving truck.
He started it up and took off out of the parking lot slowly, giving Butch plenty of time to get into his truck and follow him at a decent distance. He figured Butch would be able to find the new building on his own, but he didn’t want to take the chance of him getting lost—they didn’t have time for any bullshit.
The drive was peaceful for him. He thought about how soon everything would be over and how he’d be free to go his own way; freedom was so close he could taste it. But at the same time, every time he glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Butch’s truck, he was reminded of the very real peril that he still had to face to achieve that freedom.
Chapter 37
“Nothing again,” David growled. “One more hospital to go and it’ll be over.”
Croce nodded and sighed.
“When we’re done with the next hospital, we’ll check in and see how the building search is going,” McCoy said, and glanced at his watch, noticing that it was only eight minutes until ten o’clock. “If they’ve even started yet.”
“If they haven’t, we can go,” Croce suggested. “I know the general area pretty well.”
David nodded. “We just might.”
He kept checking for messages on his cell phone to see if there was any new information.
“How far are we from the next hospital?” he asked Croce.
“Oh,” Croce said, squinting as she thought about it, “about a twenty minute or so drive, depending on the traffic.”
“Great,” David said, increasing his pace and reaching the car in less than a minute. Croce rushed to keep up.
“The time frame is really getting to you, huh?” she asked as she climbed in the car beside him, buckled up, and started the engine.
“Yeah,” he said, and sighed. “I’m sorry if I’m getting cranky, but I feel like a wild panic is building inside me.”
She chuckled. “I feel the same. Just remember I’m on your side before you try to bite my head off.”
David laughed. “I will.”
They were out of the parking lot in no time, heading for the last hospital morgue in the city.
***
Roger and Butch finally made it to the new building, parked, and got out. First they checked on the locks, windows, and doors to make sure no one had tampered with the place and then did a quick perimeter check. Once they knew everything was secure, they went back to the truck and started to unload its contents.
“I got us another contact to move some of the parts from the harvest,” Butch said smugly as they carried their first loads inside.
Roger frowned. “Does Lloyd know? I thought that was his job…”
“Yeah,” Butch said, “I told him. He thought it was a good idea.”
“I thought he had enough contacts to move everything,” Roger said as he set down the stuff he was carrying and turned to head back out the door for another load.
“Apparently not,” Butch said, putting down his stuff too and following him. “Besides, it’s hard to move a lot of parts all at once because some contacts won’t take it in bulk.”
“I know that,” Roger said. “But I thought Lloyd had enough contacts to move everything without trouble. He didn’t say anything about having any problems.”
Butch shrugged. “Maybe he just doesn’t want to look like he can’t get the job done, especially in front of his woman.” He stopped and snickered. “But then, you wouldn’t know about that, would you? Since you’re gay and all.”
Without warning, Roger straightened up from where he’d been half-bent over to reach something in the back of the truck. He balled his right hand into a fist and slammed it into Butch’s face.
Taken by surprise, Butch stumbled back a few steps before falling to his knees, dazed.
“I’m not gay, you bastard!” Roger screamed, breathing fast with his eyes wide and wild. “Stop saying that I’m fucking gay. I’m so sick of your damn mouth.”
He took a couple steps forward and swung at Butch again.
Butch saw the punch coming this time and raised his arm to block it. He rolled halfway over on his side from the force of the blocked blow.
“You stupid fuck,” he snarled, spitting blood on the ground.
Roger kicked Butch’s midsection with an almost unnatural speed, knocking the slightly larger man to the ground.
Although Butch was larger, Roger wasn’t a bit scared of him. He’d been a kick boxer and had studied martial arts when he was younger, so he knew his speed and agility would even whatever odds there were between them.
“You’re a fucking pussy,” Butch snapped, spitting again as he rolled away from his attacker, holding his ribs as he climbed to his feet. “You had to sucker punch me because you know I’d whoop your ass otherwise!”
“What the fuck ever!” Roger yelled, advancing toward Butch once again.
Butch backed up a couple of steps and pulled a switch blade out of his pocket. He opened it deftly and held the small, shiny blade in front of himself.
“Keep comin’, you dumbass,” he taunted. “I’ll shred you into rainbow ribbons your boyfriend can wear in his hair.”
Roger let out a frustrated roar and charged Butch, putting his shoulder into the man’s already bruised ribs.
Butch dropped the knife as his breath was knocked out of him and he hit the ground hard.
They wrestled around, punching, kicking, head-butting, and assaulting each other any way they could.
Neither of them heard the advancing vehicle, intent only on the damage they could do to the other.
“What the hell is going on here?” Jennings screamed, climbing out of his car and rushing over to the fighting pair. “Stop it! Stop it right now! We don’t have time for this childish shit.”
He grabbed the shoulders of the man on top, which happened to be Roger, and pulled him back, finally getting some attention.
After one more swift punch to Butch’s face, Roger yanked himself free of the other man’s grasp and stood, panting and bloody.
Butch
was in much worse shape, lying on the ground, disoriented, blinking rapidly, and shaking his head.
“Why the hell were you fighting?” Jennings asked, kneeling beside Butch so he could check him out and make sure he wasn’t seriously hurt.
“He…” Roger paused to swallow and gasp in some air, “…kept saying I was gay.”
Jennings looked up at Roger with a disbelieving expression on his face that said: Really?
“Well, since you had to be so immature about it,” Jennings snapped, “you’ll be working by yourself for the rest of the day. Butch will need to get some extra rest so we can do the harvest tomorrow.” He paused and shook his head. “Damn it, Roger, you know better than this. I can’t believe you couldn’t control yourself because of a stupid taunt.”
“Whatever,” Roger said, and kicked Butch’s knife toward his prone body. “Here’s your pig sticker, you little bitch.” He wiped away the trickle of blood coming from his nose and got back to work on the contents of the truck, ignoring the other two.
***
“This is the last one,” David said, stepping through the automatic doors to the last hospital on their list. “Let’s get this over with.”
Croce nodded and headed over to the reception desk where two women were chatting; they looked up at her when she spoke.
“We need to talk to your medical examiner,” she said, and motioned to McCoy, who’d come to join her at the desk after checking his cell phone for messages. “This is Agent David McCoy and I’m Agent Croce with the FBI.” She pulled out and opened her badge to show them her credentials.
The women seemed a bit flustered at first and then directed them downstairs to the morgue.
“Thank you, ladies,” David said, smiling at them politely.
They nodded their heads and watched the agents as they walked away.
“They’ll be talking about this for a year,” Croce said, pushing the down button on the elevator. The door opened instantly with a ding. She stepped inside and David followed. “Those ladies sit there all day with no action and then the FBI visits the morgue.”