“Jesus Christ, Jack. It’s nice to see you’re feeling better, but Dr. Sterling says you’ll be in here for at least a week. Plus if you get that close to the victim’s families after IHIT has grilled them for weeks one will surely make a complaint to Barnes.”
“I can’t wait a week. I want Birthday Boy before he hits again.” Staal palmed his left temple where the throbbing pain still stabbed behind his eye as though some creature worked to escape from inside his skull.
“Sure, I can see you’re just fine.” Gina said sarcastically. “Barnes says you’re on compensation leave, so that means you’re down for two weeks. Then you’ll have to pass the physical and then a little more shrink work with Connelly.”
“I don’t care about all that shit. I’m working the case and I need your help, Gina.”
Staal stared into Gina’s eyes. She tried to break the gaze, but Staal held it.
“Okay, Jack. What do you want me to do?” She sat on the corner of the bed.
Staal picked at the nylon adhesive tape holding the intravenous into his arm. He carefully removed each piece and stuck the ends to the bed frame. He then folded the last remaining napkin from his dinner into a two-inch square dressing and set it on the edge of the mattress.
“I want you to get me the fuck out of here.” He yanked the IV stick from his left arm, reached for the napkin, and used the tape to fasten the bandage over the wound.
“I don’t like this, Jack. You could really hurt yourself.”
Staal could see the worry in her eyes. “I’ll be fine. Help me collapse this bedrail and grab my clothes from the locker. Okay, here we go.”
Staal sat up slowly and felt a spin of dizziness. After a full minute of rest, he gradually flung his legs over the edge of the bed. He slipped out of his robe and pulled on his pants, shirt, socks, and shoes.
“Jack, you don’t look so good. You sure you wanna do this?”
“I’m good; just dizzy. We got to roll before that Dolton checks in on me.” He held the rail running the length of the bed with both hands and stood up slowly, testing if his legs still worked. After a moment, he tried a step toward Gina. Big mistake. The room spun and his stomach clenched. His legs buckled and he dropped to his knees. Gina reached out and slowed his decent to the floor.
“Aw, shit!” Staal turned his head to the right and vomited his liquid diner onto the floor. “Wheel chair,” he hissed to Gina.
Gina kept him steady and then she turned and pulled an armchair toward her and placed it in front of Staal for him to hold himself up.
Staal knelt, clutching the chair.
“Back in a sec,” she whispered.
Gina could have easily stopped at the nurses station, but she returned with a wheelchair and positioned it in front of Staal.
Ten minutes later, he was in Gina’s Grand Cherokee. His nausea had not left him, nor had his embarrassment over vomiting in font of her. A wave of heat washed over him. He opened the window, and closed his eyes.
Knight began to panic after ringing Duncan Quinn’s doorbell for the third time and receiving no answer. He took long, deep breaths and tugged his sweatshirt into place. He wished he were wearing the outfit. The dark clothing completed him, shielded him from self-doubt and weak thoughts.
He knew that Quinn was at home because he had called on the way over. He glanced down at the copy of the
Vancouver Sun
still sitting on the second step. He picked it up and read the headline.
Hit and Run Cop Wakes From Five-Day Coma.
He smiled.
More than twenty members of the Integrated Homicide Team had joined the hunt and were confident that this pussy Zimmerman was their Birthday Boy. Knight had a gut feeling that Jack Staal was not convinced. Staal, concussion or not, would keep coming.
“We’ll cross paths again, Detective,” he said, steadying a tremble in his hands.
He glanced behind him. “Shit!” His bike had toppled from its hiding spot in the laurel shrubbery bordering the property. He reached for the doorbell once more.
The door swung open and a balding man in his sixties, with a beer gut straining a filthy Seahawks shirt stared out at him. His high school gym teacher had really let himself go.
He could remember the older man’s taunts. “Jesus Christmas, kid. You can’t catch, throw, hit, run, or jump. You is one sorry sack-of-dung, if I ever saw one.”
“Well,” Quinn said, “What the hell do you want?”
“I, um,” Knight could hear a small dog barking somewhere in the house. “I’m collecting for the SPCA.” His heart began to pound as he looked up at the old man.
“Yeah? Well, what would my hard earned donation be going toward?” Quinn stepped back. His breath reeked of stale beer even though it was only ten in the morning.
“Ah. The spay and neuter program, sir,” He said.
“All right. I think I got ten bucks here for you. You have any ID?”
“Sure it’s right here.” Knight reached into his pants pocket, removed his wallet, pulled out a white card with a photograph on it—his old student ID—and handed it to Quinn.
Quinn took the card and held it away from his eyes. “This is you?”
“Of course,” Knight said. While Quinn stared at the card, he reached inside his jean jacket. “Maybe this will help you remember.” He struck out fast with the stun gun and caught Quinn with a full jolt between his eyes.
Quinn staggered into the hallway and toppled onto his back. Knight closed the door behind him and stood over his victim. Quinn’s body shuddered and convulsed.
“Quinn, you sack of shit! Drop and give me twenty.” He stunned Quinn on the right side of his face. “Make that thirty, boy!” He jabbed the weapon into Quinn’s abdomen again and again until the battery lost power.
“You didn’t die on me, did you old man?” He knelt beside Quinn’s unconscious form and put his ear to the man’s face. “Nope,” he leapt to his feet. “Takes a shit-kicking and keeps on ticking.”
Knight pulled a roll of duct-tape from his backpack, tore off several strips, and covered Quinn’s mouth. Then he used tie-straps to bind Quinn’s hands and feet together. Dragging Quinn’s two hundred fifty plus pounds along the hallway was harder than he had imagined. He dropped his burden and opened the basement door. On the way down the stairs, he made certain that Quinn’s skull bounced off each step.
“Watch your head, Coach!”
Knight surveyed the underground room and saw that Quinn was a packrat. Every inch of the floor space was covered with old workout equipment. Free weights, a Universal Gym, treadmill, fixed bike, Quinn had it all, and it all was covered with a thick layer of dust. In the farthest corner of the area was a workbench, with a well-stocked tool board, table saw, and a drawer of power tools both corded and rechargeable.
He couldn’t resist opening the only door in the basement, a cellar under the concrete front stairs. He wasn’t surprised by the state of the room, stacked floor to ceiling with bundled newsprint and magazines, rotting vegetables, and canned goods. He cleared the floor of debris before he hauled Quinn’s prostrate form through the cellar doorway and then stuffed an old shirt into the ventilation pipe. He dusted off his clothes and then noticed Quinn’s horrified expression.
“You don’t remember me, do you, Duncan?” Knight smiled. “Bedford High, 1994 to 96. You were supposed to educate me, guide me, and help me become a man. Shit, you were nothing more than a bully with a teacher’s license.” He reached up to the top shelf and removed a can of Campbell’s Chicken Soup, held it in front of Quinn close enough for him to read the label, and then dropped it. The can made a loud thud when it struck Quinn’s face.
“Bye, bye. It’s been nice catching up.” He slammed the door behind him.
He used up the roll of duct-tape sealing the cellar doorjamb. Then he smashed the door handle off with a two-pound sledgehammer and then carried four sheets of 5/8” plywood from a pile near the workbench. He fastened the plywood over the door with three-inch wood screws.
Stepping back to admire his work, he grinned when he thought about how dark it now was inside the cellar. Perhaps if he plugged the vent on the outside the old bastard would suffocate. Later. Now he had to take care of the dog still barking in the kitchen upstairs.
After he silenced the mutt, Knight cleaned up and pulled on a navy blazer and burgundy necktie from Quinn’s closet. Next, he would take his former teacher’s car, a nearly new Cadillac STS for a drive.
The Cadillac was smooth and powerful, and it didn’t take long to make the trek to Morgan Creek. The Creek was Hanson’s most affluent neighborhood, a secure community with nine-foot high concrete and steel fences, video cameras, and a guarded main entrance. No one got in without an electronic push-button remote opener or by voicing a special code to the guard.
Knight had previously followed vehicles leaving the Creek and broken into them to get his hands on a clicker. Conveniently, he had found a list of entrance passwords in Neal Hooper’s Jaguar coupe. Seven former U.S. presidents’ names were listed, one for each day of the week.
He drove up to the main gate in the Cadillac, wearing the blazer, but when he thumbed the button on the Hooper clicker, nothing happened.
“Shit.” Knight reached out the window and pressed the intercom. “My remote’s not working,” he said into the speaker. “Is the code changed?”
“Yeah, we had a car broken into. Do you know the password for today?” The voice was foreign, but he didn’t recognize the accent.
“Yes. Carter 1980.” The gate opened and he drove by the security office and nodded to the guard.
Morgan
Creek
featured 104 rancher style homes with perfectly manicured gardens and lawns that would rival the greens on the nation’s best golf courses. Number 44 belonged to Gregory Newsome. Newsome was a pilot for Canadian Airlines and worked a flight from Vancouver to Paris, with stops in Chicago and New York. Knight looked at his watch and guessed that Newsome would touch down in O’Hare in less than an hour. Ten years earlier, Newsome had married a flight attendant named Amber Nicole Wright.
Knight drove by 44 for a third time, and then parked the Quinn STS at the man-made pond in the center of the complex. He changed out of his blazer and tie and into a shadowy dark outfit
.
He was strong and ready.
On previous visits to the Creek, he had learned the layout of the development and that each of the homes whose addresses ended in fours had pools. The homes all sat on 35x72 foot lots with six to eight foot tall cedar hedges for privacy as well as fences. He forced his body between two cedars, grimacing as branches scratched his face and hands. He shifted until he found a spot that gave him the best view of the Newsome pool, hot tub, and pool house.
If Amber Newsome’s habits were as set as Knight thought them to be, she would be along in the next fifteen minutes. He checked his watch. It was 8:51. He checked again at 9:14, and by twenty-five past the hour he was growing impatient. It was getting dark. Finally, at 9:30, Newsome emerged from the rear door of her home.
Newsome wore a dark, one-piece swimsuit. Her blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail. Her body was trim, tight and curvy. Light glinted off a diamond stud in her navel. Most men found her attractive, lusted for her; however he would never see her in that way.
The only emotion that registered in his mind when Knight saw Amber Newsome was hatred and the urge to burst out from the bushes and act was overwhelming.
“No,” he whispered. “Stick to the plan.” Knight released fistfuls of soil that he didn’t remember clenching. He took in long, deep, recuperating breaths.
Newsome dove into the water and stayed under for far longer than he had ever cared to. Knight knew she would swim fifteen to twenty lengths of the pool before climbing the diving platform and making three to six graceful dives from the ten-foot height. Next, she would spend up to half an hour in the hot tub.
He counted seventeen lengths, five dives, and twenty-two minutes in the whirlpool before he heard someone approaching on the trail. He slowly pulled his legs up close to his chest. He heard something sniffing around close to his buttocks. He didn’t have time to deal with some prick and his damn dog. He detested the so-called man’s-best-friend, and this was his second little fleabag of the day.
“What you got there, Dusty?” asked the dog walker. Knight thought it was a white male in his seventies. “You got a squirrel?”
Dusty drove himself deep enough into the bush to lick Knight’s face. He reached up and felt around for the canine’s collar and when he found it twisted it quickly. Dusty yelped, turned, and bolted from the bush.
“Shit, you old mutt. I told you to leave them squirrels alone.”
Knight listened to the old-timer chattering to his dog as he walked further away down the service trail. When he returned to watch Amber Newsome, she was gone. He glanced at his watch and noticed that it was thirty-six minutes since Newsome had entered the hot tub. He knew she was in the pool house, most likely showering.
The old fart and his mutt had screwed up his surveillance and deserved punishment. Knight crawled from the hedge on his hands and knees and quickly rose to his feet. He removed the stun gun from his jacket pocket and stepped rapidly to catch up to the old man. The geezer wore shorts, making his bare legs a perfect target for the electronic weapon.