B008M2IEII EBOK Page 14

  A tired smile grows on my face as I think of the last text I got from Erica, ‘Don’t blow anything up’, I’m pretty sure cities fall into that request. I should probably be taking baby steps for the time being. My day with Mr. Black was coming and I would need to be prepared, but putting myself in the hospital again wasn’t going to help that in any way.

  For now, I am satisfied. I have found the answers to my questions and feel stronger. Tomorrow is another day, another push, another test but also one day closer to the nightmare I know is coming.

  On the drive home the radio talks about the fourth body discovered in a wooded area near the freeway over Snoqualmie Pass. All four found in bizarre circumstances but the county coroner had ruled all four as death by natural causes. I think it may be time to look up an old friend of mine. It has suddenly become crystal clear why Mr. Black has been absent.

  Chapter Seven

  Now is the Time

  “How sure are you about that Doc?” I looked at the man in his white lab coat. His Darkness left little room for half-truths. He didn’t even seem capable of telling a lie, his old wise Darkness swirling slowly around him like a storm viewed from space. The colors subdued, stoic even. Not a hint of folds anywhere in the man. Just a flat calm pool of black-mercury.

  “At this late stage pretty close to one hundred percent. I would say that there is not a chance I am wrong but I really hate to be wrong on these things so I leave myself an out.”

  I smiled at him, “I’m guessing people get pretty angry when they have a blue nursery for their brand new daughter?”

  “They do but that’s now why I say that. They come in with a name picked out for a boy, something like George. They wind up with a girl but already told someone they were naming the child after him so they quickly change the name to Georgina or some such. Brutal if you ask me.”

  “So you aren’t going to fully commit to it being a girl?”

  “Not completely,” he then added with a smile, “it wouldn’t be the first time I had it wrong but it’s rare.”

  Erica leaned on my shoulder and smiled as she looked at the small curled piece of printed out paper the doctor had handed to her.

  “You can see things pretty clear in this scan. This is her head, she is kind of on her side, this is her shoulder and her right leg tucked up here,” he pointed to several blurs in the ultrasound. “This is her, well, girlie parts,” he added with a slight blush.

  “We’re going to have a girl, Adam,” she said with a warm smile.

  I hugged her and looked at the picture. I couldn’t see anything even close to what the doctor did but I took his word for it.

  “Speaking of names, have you two chosen a name yet?”

  I looked at Erica and answered him, “We are going to name her after Erica’s mom, Carol and my Grandmother, Jane. Carol Jane Carter.”

  “Good choice! That is a very good name. Did you two have any questions at all? The nurse said that you have been feeling good and eating well. The weight gain looks healthy, you look healthy. None of your tests have come back with anything that would be a concern. It looks like a textbook pregnancy if you ask me, a downright boring pregnancy, which is exactly what we shoot for every time. Keep doing what you’re doing and you should have a happy healthy baby.”

  “Good, that’s exactly what we hoped to hear. I don’t think we have any questions at all. I feel great and have been trying to get lots of rest. I make Adam do all the heavy lifting; I think I have followed every direction you have given to a T.”

  Erica looked at me and I nodded a silent agreement.

  “Then I think we are good here,” he finished cleaning the gel off of her belly and pulled her shirt down. “I think we are scheduled again in two weeks, correct?”

  “See you in two weeks,” I smiled as he walked out of the room.

  “I’m glad we decided to find out, I really wanted to do the nursery with some sort of girl or boy motif. Are you happy?”

  “That we found out?”

  “That she is a girl?”

  I turned her to face me, “I’m happy because you and Carol are healthy. Anything else is just icing on the cake. You know I wasn’t hoping for a boy or a girl, just healthy.”

  She smiled and kissed me as she struggled to get around her growing belly.

  With a smile, I opened the door for her. I had a little more than six and a half weeks to go before I would be a dad. How can someone be so excited yet so utterly terrified all in the same instant?

  ~1~

  I saw Mike walk into the waiting area of the restaurant and I stood up to wave him over. I was actually relieved to see that he was out of uniform. I didn’t want the extra attention that always went with sitting at a table next to a badge and a gun. Wait staff tend to make a point of keeping his glass full and I would need to be confident that only he could hear me today.

  “Adam, buddy! Long time no see! How the hell have you been man?”

  He held out his hand and I leaned over the table to shake it, “I’m good, Mike. I’m glad you could make it. What’s it been? Like seven or eight months maybe?”

  “Dude, it’s been almost a year. The last time I remember seeing you was at Jim’s bachelor party. Remember? We all met for drinks then hit that strip club down on Pacific Avenue. You wound up bailing pretty early if I recall though. I don’t think you were actually in the club for more than ten minutes before you ran out looking like you were going to blow chunks. I didn’t even remember you drinking that much but you were done for the night pretty early, had a cab waiting and everything.”

  I had a quick and painful flashback to the party. The sheer quantity of Darkness in the small club was far more than I could deal with and I nearly ran out of the place with my eyes closed. So much anger and hatred bottled up. Lust and desire are fairly ugly when they aren’t tempered with respect and love. It was hard to find anything in that atmosphere arousing when their Darkness’ held so much contempt for the person they were giving the lap dance to. The entire room had been swirling with it. I briefly entertained the thought of doing more research on the subject but then realized I would have a hard time convincing Erica it was for anything to do with learning to read the Darkness.

  “Wow, it has been a long time. Sorry Mike, I guess time kind of got away from me. There has been a lot going on lately.”

  “So I heard. That was you down at that Lakeland shooting, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah, that was me. I try not to remember that to be honest.” I wasn’t lying, but I still to this day would frequently flash back to the look in Willy’s blue eyes when he passed.

  “Sorry to hear about it, I talked to one of the officers that interviewed you. The way he described it didn’t sound like the Adam I know, hiding in bushes and all.”

  “That was me.”

  I did my best to maintain small talk for about ten minutes but then finally got down to why I would want to talk to a police officer off the record, someone I could trust.

  “So I kind of had an ulterior motive for calling you up. I feel kind of bad for setting you up but I don’t know who else to turn too that I can trust,” I looked around nervously but could tell with a small push that no one was paying any attention to us.

  “I figured as much. Wondering if I can take care of a parking ticket or something for you? I’ll tell you right up front that I can’t. At best I might be able to ask the officer not to show up to court and you could walk on a technicality but even that is asking a hell of a lot.”

  “No, I wish it was something that simple. I’m wondering what you know about a serial killer in the area. Specifically what he looks like or what kind of vehicle he is currently driving, any rumors on where he lives. Anything.”

  Flashes of dark blues and sprites of red. Waves ripple out through the black mercury. A small crease forms at the center and flows outward.

  I could already see that I had struck some truth so I pushed forward, “I have a feeling the media is not being told ev
erything. I ran into a guy. Let’s just say I found him interesting.”

  “I really don’t know what you are talking about, Adam. There have been a few random killings in the area but that is really all they are, most of them involved drugs. They certainly aren’t related in any way that we have seen.”

  “I’m not talking about the killings; I’m talking about the strange deaths I keep hearing about on the radio. The deaths that look like they are natural causes but you and I both know they are not.”

  Dark-red sprites form on the sharp creases spreading out from the center.

  “Really Adam, I just don’t know what you are talking about,” he stares at his glass of water as he talks to me.

  The waiter came up to take out orders. Mike stared at the menu as he ordered. Once the waiter had finished and headed back to the kitchen, Mike still refused to look at me.

  I can clearly see he is telling lies now, “Come on, Mike. This is just between you and me and the man I ran into on several occasions that is now threatening me. He knows where I live, he knows where I work, and he even knows my damn cell number man. I’m not asking because I want some inside scoop. I’m asking because I think they are related. No, I will go a step further, I know they are related. I don’t have one single ounce of proof I could show you, but trust me, they are tied together. I know that it’s the same damn guy and I’m on his list of victims. If you can’t help me, I will wind up dead in some strange place and no one will know how I died.”

  Linings of thin blue roll into sprites of red then back to blue. The ripples settle and the creases lose their sharp edge.

  He looks around to see if anyone is within earshot, “Ok. This is just between you and me. I could lose my job if this gets out, it’s that serious. Check that, actually I could probably go to jail if this gets out and fucks up the investigation. There are some very high level people working this case and they don’t have much right now.”

  I could see the struggles he was making with the decisions but the blue and green seem to have won out and he continues. He was going to gamble his career and freedom against our friendship.

  “What you are saying is true,” he looks around one more time to verify no one can hear us, “There is some freak show of a ritual killer in the area. He has already killed six people that we know off. You have no idea how many man hours have been put into this and they can’t find one thread linking the victims beyond their actual death. They are completely random and that’s why we are trying to keep it quiet. Two of them were taken from right in front of their own homes in broad daylight without a sound. One man was within twenty feet of his wife and she didn’t hear a thing. He was just gone. He was the one they found last night. All ages, sexes, racial backgrounds. There isn’t one single thread of commonality among these people beyond their death certificates.”

  “So it makes sense to keep it quiet. I guess you don’t want general panic on the streets with nothing to warn people about.”

  “Not only that but we don’t even have anything to send out to the other departments in the area. We aren’t even sure he is a man, hell, we can’t even figure out how he is killing people, they are just simply dead. The coroner is having issues even listing it as anything but natural causes, he can’t find one single thing wrong with these people other than they are freaking dead. There is very little pattern being followed other than they are dumped in the middle-of-the-road, miles from their homes. People don’t die of natural causes and lay sprawled out on the pavement like they just rolled out of a truck bed.”

  I found myself feeling immense remorse for those people. They weren’t just dead, they were stripped of their life essence, their souls consumed and discarded like bits of tissue paper in the wind. Most of them probably never knew what was happening beyond the brief flash of cold terror as their life essence was violently stripped away, blasted away into the nothingness.

  “Every single body we find looks untouched. Not a single bruise or cut. No drugs in the system, no sign of struggle, not one damn clue. They are simply dead and dumped as if they were trash. No effort is made to hide them. The coroner has not been able to classify a single death as suspicious. They are just dead. You want to know the worst part?”

  “It gets worse?”

  “This has happened three other times in three other cities as far as we can tell. He kills thirteen people and moves on. Thirteen average everyday folks. We didn’t even put that little tidbit together until one of the computer geeks got curious and started doing some tinkering in the database. Thirteen bodies in three other cities, all left in the middle of the road with no visible sign of trauma, no poison, no suffocation, nothing. Hell, two of the cities hadn’t even linked their own murders yet; they had just put it down to a rash of accidental deaths without cause, whatever the hell that is. Thirteen people don’t wander out into a street and fall down dead.”

  “So he has at least five more victims here before he moves on? Are you counting that county cop in this too?”

  “That is what we are guessing,” he looked up at me startled, “How the hell do you know anything about him? We are still debating on calling that one a suicide. What makes you think your guy is the guy we are looking for?”

  What do I say? How do I tell a cop that I know their killer because I was forced to bathe in the man’s soul? That I felt the evil core of his being wash over me like a vile wave. That I may very well have been the one who led him directly to the cop and his subsequent death? I felt my throat getting dry and I could see Mike’s Darkness notice my change.

  “How much of your job is instinct, Mike? How much of what you do in your day-to-day work is simply what you feel in your gut? Educated guesses that lead to real leads?”

  “I would say a good portion of it is. The running joke is fifty percent instinct, twenty-five percent procedure, fifty percent paperwork. The math doesn’t work out but it is always good for a laugh. I still want to know what you know about Benson. He was found thirteen miles out of the county in the passenger seat of his patrol car. His cause of death was listed as gunshot though, single round through the head, that doesn’t fit his MO at all. Not to mention the weapon that killed him wasn’t the one in his hand. We are keeping that quiet until the entire investigation is done. The media has been happily reporting all the exciting random deaths and hasn’t gotten wise to it yet. The conspiracy guys have been going nuts over it though.”

  Why would Mr. Black bother to shoot anyone? I know he must be responsible, hell he was in the car with the dead man, he had to be. There wasn’t any other way! It just didn’t make sense!

  I sighed and lied, “I just assumed it was, Mike. I’m sorry. Did you know him?”

  “I had bumped into him at a convention up in Bellingham. We talked for quite a while, he likes,” he paused for a second, “liked to fish Rattle Snake Lake and we talked about meeting up there some time but that was all. Nice enough guy, he had called in a stolen car. That was the last report they had from him. When his backup arrived he was gone and the stolen car was empty. They found his cruiser the next morning at a trail head up near Snoqualmie Pass. You have a description of the guy? A name? You said he has your cell phone, you get a return number?”

  “The only thing I could give you is an average description and the make and model of his car. The phone number showed up as private so I don’t think I can help you there. He goes by Mr. Black but I know that isn’t his real name it’s just what he wants me to call him.”

  “You saw his car?”

  “Yeah. He followed me home one night. Black Lexus with blacked out windows and chrome wheels.”

  “Shit, that is the same car that Benson had found wrapped around a guard rail. I think you may be right about that but I’m not sure how to report it. If I so much as whisper what you have told me, you are in for several days of grilling and I’m guessing they won’t get half of what you have just told me.”

  I nodded silently and started to question whether this was the
right thing to do, “I’m sorry, Mike. I really wish I just needed help with a ticket. I don’t know who else to turn too, this guy could come for me any day.”

  Mike sat silently as he stared at me for a moment, “You did the right thing. Do you carry any sort of protection?”

  What can I say? ‘Sure mike, every day I practice attacking boats on the lake with my mind’. I’m guessing the conversation would take a turn for the worse at that point.

  “No. I have thought about getting a stun gun or something. Maybe some pepper spray but I haven’t really followed through with it.”

  He leaned forward slightly with both hands under the table. I heard the unmistakable tear of Velcro. He sat up placing something under a napkin and slid it across the table, “You didn’t get that from me, hell, for the most part you and I haven’t even had this conversation yet. If we get anything on what you told me you can bet we will talk again though, and you can count on having one of my superiors in the conversation. I will shield you the best I can but I’m already breaking several laws by not calling this in,” he looked at the napkin, “along with, other things.”

  I lifted up the corner of the cloth and saw the black grip of a small automatic pistol, “Damn!” My comment came out far louder than I had intended and I lowered my voice to a whisper, “Holy crap, Mike. Won’t that get traced back to you?”

  “Actually, it will get traced back to a drug dealer in Pioneer Square that made a seriously bad choice one night. He is no longer with us to testify whether he gave you the gun or not. It has eight rounds with one in the chamber. Grip safety so all you do is squeeze and shoot. It will kick and it will be loud but it makes a mess on the other end.”