by J. L. Drake
“To think, we spoke to him last night, and now, his head is ready to pop right open,” Cheyenne muttered, not sounding sentimental in the least. Jason skimmed a bookshelf lined with dozens and dozens of highly intellectual texts about the basic moral principles that have defined the universe and mankind since the dawn of time.
And they were all covered in dust. Of course.
A thick, leather-bound volume stared back at him. Gold lettering on the spine shimmered along with all the glossy chrome.
“An adulterer!” she kept on ranting. “What a cheating kook. Again, just like with Adam and Max, his sin was turned against him. If he hadn’t kissed that other woman, he’d still be alive. Thou shall not commit adultery: the seventh commandment. This is Abel’s handiwork, all right.”
Jason pulled the leather book from the shelf. It was the Bible Jack had mentioned the night before. A gift from a friend. No, a fan. “Alan Bertram Edward Larkin…”
“Hmm?” She shook off all the nasty things she wanted to say about the “cheating kook” and moved to Jason’s side.
“Why didn’t I see that before?” he said.
“See what?”
“The initials: A.B.E.L. Our buddy Abel sent Jack this Bible.”
Cheyenne gazed at the book in Jason’s hands as if it was a poisonous insect. Odd way to look at God’s Word. This situation Abel had created seemed to twist and rewrite the taboos Jason had known all his life.
“During dinner, didn’t Jack mention some character Larkin had compared him to?” she said, trying to remember.
Jason finished her thought. “Malachi. A Jewish prophet, author of the Biblical book of the same name.”
He began flipping through the pages even before he finished speaking. The thin pages fluttered, and millions of itty-bitty words blurred past his eyes as he searched for the last chapter of the Old Testament.
The pages settled on top of each other, and the book of Malachi stared up at the detectives. Tiny text dotted the paper, but a gigantic message had been scrawled over it in red ink. Abel’s handwriting, no doubt. Jack hadn’t even opened the Bible—otherwise, he would’ve seen the writing.
Jason read out loud, Abel’s grating voice whispering mockingly in his mind.
Such a shame, Jason.
He paused already. Abel had sent this message to Jason, not Jack.
You could’ve saved him. You’ll be able to save all of them. Look closer. Just think, what is here that belongs somewhere else? G:4:8.
Cheyenne looked at Jason. “G:4:8? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Genesis 4:8 would be my guess. The verse in which Cain kills his brother Abel. Looks like he’s trying out a calling card instead of a name, like the Zodiac Killer or the KKK. Remember, he thinks he’s going to change the world forever. Symbols and emblems are more everlasting than flesh and blood. He’s preparing himself for immortality.”
She sighed, looking more worried than Jason had ever seen her.
“What is here that belongs somewhere else?” He closed the Bible. “What’s that supposed to mean? Here, as in here in the study?”
“I think ‘here’ means the general area,” she said, hands on her hips. “Or maybe the site of the killings? The Just Dropped Inn, Adam’s apartment, the alley on Flight Street? It sounds like he intentionally left clues for us.”
“Yeah, he’s laughing right in our faces. ‘You’ll be able to save all of them,’ them being the remaining seven victims.”
“Sinners, as he’d call them.” Despite her optimism and sharp thinking, Jason could tell she was worn out. Her steps sagged as she walked to Jack’s desk and leaned against it.
“Right. We’ve turned all those locations inside-out and upside-down, though. If there was something out of place, some sort of clue Abel planted for us to find, we’d have noticed it by now.”
“All right, maybe ‘here’ isn’t the murder locales. Keep thinking on that.”
“Sure. Just one more thing to add to my list.”
Cheyenne opened her mouth to say something, but closed it immediately. Her expression was sympathetic, which made Jason laugh. He must look awful.
“What is it?” he asked, still smiling.
She seemed to consider whether or not to answer, which made his smile fade.
“Jason, this morning, I took a message for you from the precinct station. It was from a Mr. Rupert Snare.”
A deep thud pounded from Jason’s chest. He knew what she was going to say next.
“He asked me to tell you that, this Friday, Rick Neves is going to be released from County.”
Jason felt sick. He staggered to the desk and sat next to her. Just being near her eased his aches a bit, but the fact remained that he felt like he was about to implode and explode at the same time.
“Tell me, Jason.” She was very soft and gentle, but firm in her confidence that sharing his pain would help. He didn’t agree, but arguing with her was the last thing he wanted to do.
“Who’s Rick?”
The memories prodded his heart more than his mind. Painful jabs and bites. These things didn’t go away, did they? Sooner or later, they reappear and get released from the prison he thought they would die in.
“Rick Neves,” he said, throat clenched by an invisible grip, “killed Keri eight years ago.”
The air turned silent. Cheyenne kept her lips pressed together, and she joined Jason in staring at the chrome floor. There was an unspoken question drifting through the air. It had been at the very tip of Cheyenne’s tongue ever since the two of them became good friends years ago.
What happened to Keri?
His wife’s death was evident in every action he took, every word he spoke. The single event had changed his way of thinking and acting. The Jason Flynn that Keri had loved and married vanished when she did.
And that was what troubled him the most.
He had changed so much as a man. He still loved his departed wife and always would, but if she were still alive, would she return the affection?
If Rick Neves had never entered the picture, things would be very different to this day. And now that same catalyst for disaster was stepping right back in where he’d left off.
He glanced sideways at Cheyenne.
With all the sore memories resurfacing, clawing and biting, he took a short breath and began.
“I was nearing my first anniversary of being a homicide deck for L.A., along with my seventh anniversary with Keri. Garth and I were pretty close, mostly because of the case that’d been nailing us for weeks: a sixth-grade teacher named Kenneth Barab. Single, twenty-eight-year-old Caucasian with a degree in history education. And every three weekends, like clockwork, he would abduct a beautiful teenage girl and bring her back to his classroom. There, he would rape and abuse her for hours, and then gut her alive like a pig, eat the muscle, then crack the bones and suck out the marrow.”
Cheyenne rested her face in her hands and shook her head, completely sickened and disbelieving. Jason wouldn’t have believed it either if he hadn’t seen the aftermath with his own eyes.
The images were seared into the front of his memory. Things as innocent as school buses and teachers bring back the horrid stench and maniacal grin of Kenneth Barab.
He would’ve preferred to not believe it instead of seeing it.
“We got an anonymous tip about him and the disappearing girls. Me and Garth went up to his school one Tuesday morning in order to catch him off guard. I took one look at Kenneth and knew he was our guy. He had the look. Hollow gaze, wiry build, baggy eyelids. And he was so calm and collected. He smiled at us the whole time, but it was really a sneer. Of course, he apologized for not knowing anything about the girls, and his background was clear. No suspicious traces anywhere to be found in his classroom.”
Jason felt the words flow out easier, as if they had been building up behind a dam for years, and suddenly the dam had cracked.
“But I knew he was the guy. I knew it. I saw the cruelty
within those innocent little eyes. He had no reaction at all to the news of the girls, and that confirmed it. Eight girls had already been blasphemed and slaughtered by this man. Not only were they killed, but they were violated and desecrated. Yet, red tape about lack of evidence prevented us from getting him. Kenneth was careful.”
It seemed irreverent to talk of such personal, grisly affairs in the late Jack Magnum’s office, but Jason continued.
“I sneaked behind my superior’s back and started to search Kenneth’s life without any warrants. Where he walked, I investigated. After scouring his classroom for the dozenth time and finding nothing, I approached him. Asked him about the girls and said I knew he was the killer. He chuckled and said, ‘Prove it,’ and walked away, whistling ‘I Believe I Can Fly.’”
Silence hummed. Jason crossed his arms.
“I decided it one day, maybe during lunch, maybe while in traffic. I had mulled the idea for a long time, but that day, I decided, without any hesitation, to plant evidence in Mr. Barab’s classroom.”
Cheyenne glanced at him, but didn’t say anything.
“So, I took a sample from one of the girls’ bloody, mutilated remains…Remains, they were. Not even a body. I filled a pipette with a drop of blood from a girl named Kendell Janney. I had seen pictures of her before Kenneth had gotten his hands on her. She was lovely, wide brown eyes, happy. So happy. It felt right that she would help bring him down.”
Cheyenne nodded, then caught herself and returned to a neutral stance.
“That night, I went home with the blood-filled pipette wrapped up securely. Keri welcomed me home so joyfully, like she always did. She hugged and kissed me like I was some hero. Ted was just a year and a half old. His hair was fuzzy and…”
His words got caught and he coughed a bit. The image of baby Ted conflicted with the images of murdered girls and demented lunatics. It made him shudder. Somehow, the memory of his little boy rose over all the others and made him smile.
“He was awesome.” Jason laughed to himself. “He had started talking in these random spurts, sometimes he’s clammed up, sometimes we can’t get him to shut up. That night, Keri sat Ted on her lap and flipped open her Bible. She read him the story of Zacchaeus, singing the little song with him. I stuck my head into the room, and they both looked up at me. She smiled and waved and said, ‘Jason, God yearns for you.’”
The room was silent again.
“Then, Ted started screaming the Zacchaeus song at the tops of his lungs. Keri laughed and joined in until they were both breathless. I went to sleep that night before both of them, the idea of planting the blood the next day wearing me down. I never felt her get into bed beside me. I guess I was out like a light. I woke the next morning and found a note from her:
Gone to the bank. Be back soon. Connie is with Ted.
Connie was our sitter at the time. Nice college girl who Ted loved,” Jason explained.
He continued quoting the rest of the note.
Catch some bad guys, bring home the bacon, all that jazz. Yearn for God, because he yearns for you!
I felt pretty good about planting the blood now. Keri’s note mentioned catching bad guys, and I was about to do just that. I felt like it was a sign from God. Only a tiny drop of Kendell’s blood, placed under his desk. Took ten seconds. I called in Garth and some forensic technicians to sweep the room again. They all grumbled, saying this was the fiftieth time. But, of course, they found the blood. Everybody was dumbfounded. And ecstatic. Finally, a break we could use! We swooped in on Kenneth, much to his surprise and horror. It was amazing! I read him the Miranda rights, which I had been dreaming about for weeks.”
Jason glanced at Cheyenne quickly before looking away.
“We booked him. I would find out his fate a few months later: he was sentenced to thirty years of solitary confinement and then execution by lethal injection. I got home that night on top of the world. Things couldn’t be better. I was excited to see Keri and Ted for the first time in weeks, now that the terrifying burden Kenneth had caused had been lifted.”
Pause. Like the stillness at the peak of a roller coaster, just before the passengers careen back to earth.
“There was a message on the phone. The little red light blinked at me again and again, a mischievous little monster.”
Neither he nor Cheyenne breathed for a few moments. The quiet was too sacred to break. Or perhaps too frightening.
“Keri had been killed at the bank.”
Cheyenne cupped her hand over her mouth to silence her gasp. Jason gulped down a lump of bile in his throat, wanting to stop talking. But he didn’t. He finished the story. His story. Her story.
“She’d been at the teller’s booth, making a deposit, when some punk kid that had been waiting in line behind her whipped a gun out of his sweatshirt pocket. He put it to her head, screaming at the teller to give him the money.” Jason closed his eyes. “‘Give me the money, now! All o’ it! I’ll blow her head off! I will! I’m not playin’ games here! Give me the money!’ That’s what witnesses quoted the kid saying. Over and over again. He was obviously close to panicking. The teller said the kid was shaking, pale as flour with bloodshot eyes, that he probably really would shoot Keri.”
If I had been there…Jason shut off the thought immediately.
“The teller also said Keri was very quiet. She was scared, obviously, but not petrified. Her eyes were soft, and she tried to talk to the kid, but he was shouting so loud she was drowned out. Slowly, the teller began to get the money out. The kid roared out something about hurrying up. He whimpered then, and he started blubbering like an idiot, bawling his eyes out. Keri turned her head a bit and said, ‘Please listen…’”
If I had been there, that kid would have been dropped in less than a second…
“Then the gun went off. She was blown to the ground, dead long before she realized what had even happened. A hole in the back of her head. A giant, gaping, staring hole.”
If…If…
“The kid dropped the gun and collapsed beside her body. He began really crying, ripping at his hair, rolling around. Later, once the police had grabbed him, he told what his plan had been. He needed money. For rent. His crumbling, maggoty apartment needed to be paid for. So, he grabbed his uncle’s gun, an old .38 revolver…and went to the bank. He emptied out all the shells first, though. He said he never wanted to hurt anyone. He had hoped he could take the money and leave, no repercussions. But he had accidentally left a bullet in the chamber. Just one bullet. The one that flew through Keri’s head. She was shot…by accident.”
He poked his eyes with his fingers to stop them from crying.
“The kid’s name is Rick Neves. His lawyer, Rupert Snare, got him off for manslaughter, and now, eight years later, he’s being released. I’ve thought about what she said all this time. The last words she said to me…”
Cheyenne wrapped an arm around his and began to sob.
“If…” he snarled, making Cheyenne recoil. “If I hadn’t gone out that morning, to catch…” he corrected himself, stating the sick truth, “to frame Kenneth Barab, I could’ve gone to that godforsaken bank. Or at least say good-bye one last time, or hear her sunny little laugh, or hug her, and say how much I love her.”
He shrugged. His anger was long past. All he had left was numb resentment.
“But no. That so-called God had other plans.”
He closed his mouth and let Cheyenne cry beside him. But he didn’t cry. And he didn’t finish the story.
That night, after Kenneth Barab had been captured and Keri Flynn had been shot, Jason had walked into his house. The sitter, Connie, and Ted both looked at him somberly, the news of Mommy’s death like a gas in the air they all were breathing. He had walked into the bedroom. The mattress was still crumpled from where she’d slept that morning. He grabbed her Bible off the bedside table and stared at its flimsy pages. Her handwriting was peppered throughout the book, notes and ideas written in the margins between scriptures. Notes
like:
How great is our God! and Dear Lord, help me apply this to my everyday life.
At that moment, his heart froze and shattered. God and his everlasting love seemed like a joke. Keri was the kindest, most wholesome human being on the planet, and look at what happened to her.
A God of love and compassion?
More like a cynical tyrant that hopeless zealots had dreamt up.
He had held the book in his fist for a long, long time, and then dropped it into the garbage can. The lid had closed with a deep thump, and he’d walked away from it.
Chapter 8
“But even in case you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed. Do not dread or be afraid of their threats, nor disturbed by their opposition.”
—1 Peter 3:14
Another bright, sunshiny day arose in the City of Angels. Nobody expected any less.
Clouds were rolling in, though. Thick, lead-like sheets that made everyone cautious as they went about their business. Thunder boomed on the far-off horizon, along with a slice of white lightning, but nobody paid them any attention. The storm was hovering somewhere over Palm Springs, miles and miles away. When it rolled into their town, then they would worry.
Jason rolled out of bed, shaved the stumps off his neck, gargled some mint mouthwash crap, slipped a pre-tied necktie over his head, and grabbed a Dr. Pepper on his way toward the door.
“Breakfast of champions,” Ted muttered from behind the newspaper’s crossword.
“Just eat and be merry,” Jason responded, adjusting his tie and shirt. “I’m sure Dr. Weston and Alex are bringing over some of those maple donuts they love.”
Ted nodded, making the paper rustle. The Westons had been over for the past three days, and Jason couldn’t figure out whether or not their presence was making the boy reassured and relaxed or sad and even lonelier.