Campbell
was a giant, at least ten feet tall. In his right hand, he held the severed heads of Kim Walker, Gabby Haywood, and Stephanie MacKay. In his left, he held Sean Moore by the scruff of the neck. The eyes of the dead stared at Staal, begging him for help.
Staal charged, firing his weapon at the beast Campbell as he ran, pulling the trigger over and over until he had emptied the fifteen round magazine. Campbell was gone.
“No!” Staal yelled.
“Jack. Jack, it’s okay.” It was Gina’s voice. Staal opened his eyes, but he couldn’t see. He smelled Gina’s perfume and tried to reach for her.
“Jack. You have to stop struggling or they’ll put you back in restraints.”
“Rachael?”
“Yes, Jack, I’m here.”
“Cap-all id bird day boy,” Jack murmured.
“Shhh, Jack. Honey. Be quiet. Just rest.”
“Cap-all id bird day boy,” Staal tried again. “Shid!”
“What’s he saying?” Fraser said. “Something about Birthday Boy.”
Staal turned toward him and tried to rub his eyes, but he couldn’t move his hand.
“Jack, please—stop it,” Gina begged. “Can you give him anything?”
“This should help.” Staal felt a prick in his right arm, and a wash of comforting warmth spread through his body.
“He’ll be all right now.”
Everything went blank.
When Staal woke next, his eyes were sleep-encrusted, his head throbbed, his body ached, and he felt like shit. He couldn’t remember the fight, but he was certain he had been knocked out. When he finally pried his eyes open, he found he was in a brightly lit room. He felt marooned in the desert hot. His tongue tasted like something from that desert had crawled into his mouth and died. He could see someone in the room, a blonde woman in light pink overalls.
“Oh, my gosh. You’re awake!” she said.
Staal tried to talk, but his throat was so dry that all that came out was a croak.
She wiped his face with a damp towel and said, “I’ll get the doctor.”
Doctor? Okay, the room and that disinfectant smell made sense now. Staal tried to remember the events that would have hospitalized him. He recalled driving to Campbell’s neighborhood and finding the house was on fire. Arson. He couldn’t remember much after that, though, and the nurse returned with the doctor, distracting him from further thought.
“Detective Staal, this is Dr. Sterling,” she said, standing out of the doctor’s way.
“Well, well, what a surprise. It’s nice to meet you, Detective,” Sterling said.
“Gooda meed yoo-too,” Staal said, embarrassed that his voice had not returned. “Waz goin’ on? Where is dis?”
Sterling
and pink nurse were already going fuzzy in his vision. Sterling was talking and Staal wanted to ask more question about what happened, but he couldn’t keep his eyes open.
Staal turned around in time to see the yellow Pontiac slam into him. He flew in slow motion and landed on the hood. Suddenly, he was watching himself lying on the pavement between the parked cars. George Clooney was there and he kept saying, “I’m not really a doctor; I’m an actor.”
This time when he woke, he could see clearly. The nurse in pink was in the room with him.
“Oh, hello!” she said. She pushed the intercom button and spoke. “Sheila, could you please page Dr. Sterling?”
“Who,” Staal croaked, “are you?”
“I’m Jo-Anne Breen, your day shift nurse,” she said.
Jo-Anne was tall, or perhaps it only appeared that way because he was lying down, but he thought she was at least 5’10”. She had brown hair cut short and looked to be in her late twenties. When she knelt to wipe his face, Staal noticed that one of her eyes was brown, and the other green. She grinned at him, with a smile that could melt a glacier.
“You have often said the name Gina in your sleep. Is that your wife?” Jo-Anne asked. “Because I can call her if you like.”
“Oh, uh, Gina is a cop on my squad.”
“Detective Hayes?”
“Yes.”
“She’s visited you every day and I hear that she stays late into the evenings.” Jo-Anne smiled. “She normally comes in around this time.”
“Could I—” he coughed. “Get a drink, Jo-Anne?”
“Well, certainly. I’ll be back in a sec.”
Staal noticed that his right arm was in a sling. He felt around his face and found several bandages. He poked at a dressing that went across his forehead and all the way around his skull.
“How are you feeling, Detective,” Sterling asked when he entered the room.
“Lousy.” His voice was raspy, but no longer jumbled.
Jo-Anne reappeared and held a plastic cup with a bent straw to his mouth. Tap water never tasted so good.
Sterling
took Staal’s pulse and blood pressure. He didn’t look like the doctors on television. He was overweight, balding, with a comb over that was comical. He took Staal’s left foot and held it firm. “Can you feel that?”
“Yeah, but it feels weird. Kinda numb and tingly.” He was out of breath. “What’s going on, Doc?”
“You’re fine, Detective,” Sterling poked the sole of Staal’s foot with a blunt needle. “Feel that?”
“Shit, yeah!” Staal attempted to pull his leg away from Sterling. He felt a stab of pain and discovered that he could barely move his leg. “Doc, if I’m fine then why is my leg so sluggish and why the fuck are you checking for sensitivity in my feet? Is my back broken or something!”
“Gosh, no; you have a bone fragment in your left leg that is pressing on the sciatic nerve. That is why you are experiencing tingling and numbness.”
“So, I’ll need an operation to get the chip?”
“Yes, but it’s not serious. Just uncomfortable. We won’t be able to book the surgery for at least six—maybe eight weeks.” He paused for a moment before starting again. “Mr. Staal. When you first woke up you were confused about where you are and about what happened to you. Do you remember the incident?”
“Yeah, and call me Jack. At first, when I came to, I drew a blank and couldn’t remember. Now I remember I was hit by a car and knocked out. I’m at the hospital—but I don’t know which one.” Staal smiled.
“Welcome to Lake Hanson Regional Hospital, Jack,” Sterling said.
Sterling
made several notations in the chart at the foot of Staal’s bed and then he left the room. With an IV in his arm and a catheter elsewhere, Staal couldn’t relax in his bed. If he moved, it hurt and if he didn’t, it was worse. His back and butt were numb; itchy, actually, and he needed to get up and stretch for a while.
When Jo-Anne returned, Staal opened up with a salvo of questions. “When can I get out of here, Jo?”
“Jack. You have a dislocated shoulder, deep tissue bruises in both legs, a concussion, and a mild skull fracture.” She smiled at him.
“So tomorrow isn’t likely?” Jo-Anne shook her head. “Jesus, Jo. I’ve got bad guys to put away. You couldn’t sneak me out the back door, could you?” It was Staal’s turn to grin.
“I’m sure the police can make do for a few days without you, Detective. What I can do is get you something to eat, if you like.”
“Yeah, that would be great. I’d give my left you-know-what for a cup of coffee. Speaking of which, you think I might be able to get this drain pipe out?”
“Huh? Oh, the catheter. I can take that out for you.”
“That would be great. Instead of using a bedpan, do you think you could help me over to the john?”
“Well, first we would have to work on sitting up. Next we’d attempt a wheelchair. But, first, I’d have to check with the doctor. It may be too soon to move you.”
“Jesus.” Staal felt like an invalid. He envisioned a career-ending injury. What if the doctor wasn’t being straight with him? What if the bone chip was more serious than it sounded? Staal couldn’t handle a desk job, not for another decade at least.
“Jo-Anne? Am I going to fully recover from this? I mean—will I have trouble walking?”
“You’re a little banged up, but you’ll be back catching crooks in no time.” She flashed him a reassuring smile. “You may limp for a few days and you’ll probable suffer from Post Concussion Syndrome, but you’ll be fine.”
Removing the catheter was more uncomfortable than wearing it. Jo-Anne left Staal’s side to find some food for him. Staal was embarrassed when he thought about how he must have appeared to Jo-Anne. Afraid. However, Breen had reacted in a calming, professional manor. She was used to all of this. He closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of the hospital.
“Room service!” Gina Hayes bustled into his room with a tray of food. “Oh, Jack. How are you?” Gina had on her brave face. However, behind the smile lurked trepidation.
“I’m fine, babe. Don’t worry.” He tried to ease her anxiety with a happy smile of his own. “Doctor says I’ll be up and around in a couple of days.”
Gina set down the tray and sat beside Staal on the bed. She took his free hand and squeezed. “I thought I was losing you.” A tear slipped down her cheek.
Staal gave her hand an answering squeeze and said, “It’ll take more than that jerk-off Campbell and a hit and run to finish me off, babe.” He pulled Gina close. “Did you put him down? Campbell, I mean.”
“No, Jack, Campbell’s still in the wind. No one has seen him in three days.”
“Three days? Shit! How long was I out of it?”
“It’s July seventh.” She stood and reached for the food tray. “Your nurse said that you can only have liquids for now. So, chicken broth and coffee.”
Staal took a minute to think about the fact that he had been unconscious for over a hundred hours. Campbell could have made it to the states or somewhere in the Yukon by now. He shook his head. No, he was sure that Nathan Campbell was still in town.
Staal made a weak attempt at humor. “Shit, five days. Think I’ll get paid for that?”
“Jesus, Jack. Try and eat your soup.” Gina pushed aside a stack of magazines and sat next to him.
“What happened with Hennessey and his crew?” Staal sniffed his meal and wrinkled his nose.
“Nothing, really. Freeman’s team became interested in the DFA angle. Drummond and the Mounties’ lab people looked over everything and found nothing solid. Crown Counsel is trying to make something stick, but Hennessey’s attempt to buy a sex slave—well, it’s thin.”
Staal sipped a cup of salty broth, and then traded the tepid liquid for black, stand-a-spoon-up in it coffee. The back cover of one of Gina’s magazines featured a smiling Joe Camel in an outdated bid to sell cigarettes. The ad caught Staal’s attention, but he wasn’t sure why.
“You find those mags in a museum, babe?” Staal said, smiling.
“Huh?” She returned his smile.
Across the hall from Staal’s room, another patient listened to the television with the volume turned up high. A Coke commercial gave way to a familiar sit-com’s theme song. “Taxi!”
“What’s that, Jack?” Gina asked. “Is that bothering you?”
“No, I, uh…” A flood of thoughts rushed through Staal’s mind. “That cab driver, from the tip line, Dhalliwal. He picked up a fare two blocks from the Walker scene, who did not want his ride entered in the computer. He was about Birthday Boy’s size, spoke with a fake sounding accent, and was dropped off near the Thirsty Gull Pub.”
“Yeah, so what are you saying, Jack?”
“We know that Campbell was at the Gull that night getting into it with Sean Moore. We are pretty sure that Birthday Boy is around five-seven, takes a size eight shoe and smokes Marlboros.”
Gina nodded.
“Will Drummond’s guy took shoe-print casts—size eight at the Moore scene and bagged five Camel butts. I saw a Camel pack at Campbell’s mother’s place.”
“So?”
“The casts were size eight, and Sean Moore was ambushed, like the three women. The killer knew he would be in the park at that time of day. He doesn’t just shoot or stab his victims—he takes his time—learns their routines and then makes his move.
“Jack, this is crazy. Nathan Campbell isn’t Birthday Boy.” Gina stood up.
“I don’t know. It feels right to me.” He searched his mind for the key to his gut feeling. He remembered the Damian Knight faxes and the video surveillance tape and the old timers and....
“So, Campbell smokes Marlboros when he is killing women on their birthdays, and then, to throw us off, he switches to Camels when he whacks guys from his school days?”
“Shit, Gina. It’s just a theory.”
“Jack, they got him,” Rachael Gooch said, entering Staal’s room.
“Who, Birthday Boy?” Staal tried to sit up, then fell back in pain.
“Antoski’s team came on the case, full time,” Gooch said.
“There was another Birthday Boy victim on the third,” Gina told him.
“What? Shit! Where?”
“This time it was different,” Gooch said.
“Different, how?”
“She’s alive, Jack,” Gina said.
“Alive! Did you get a description? What about a composite photo or a sketch?”
“IHIT had it all. We were on the sidelines,” Gooch said.