Justification for Murder (18 page)

R
ight before Darcy and Mr. Lane reached the man’s house, Darcy’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He fished it out and looked at the caller ID. It was Virago. He didn’t answer and put it back, but then it rang again. And a third time. He finally said, “Excuse me” to Lane and answered the phone. “What?”

“Where are you?” The connection was not great, and her voice came up a little broken.

“Far.”

“Stop being an asshole. I need all hands on deck. You better be here in two minutes.”

She hung up.

When he was about to put the phone back in his pocket, he saw the emergency BOLO pop up. “Multiple shots fired. All units to 18755 Burton Boulevard. Exercise extreme caution.”

Detective Lynch excused himself without giving Mr. Lane any details and rushed back to Sorensen’s car. He reached Highway 17 while he looked for the red-and-blue lights inside the glove compartment. They weren’t there. He searched underneath the passenger seat and, feeling something there, pulled until they came out. He turned them on while pushing the old Jeep to take the curves at a much faster speed than such a high car should. He took the Bascom exit and found several police cars already parked outside the coffee shop. Every officer was taking cover behind patrol cars or anything else that could act as protection. Each had a weapon drawn, aiming at the thrashed storefront.

“Can anybody see if he’s still alive?” he heard Sergeant McNally say addressing his colleagues.

Lynch grabbed a bulletproof vest from the back of the car and put in on while he crouched behind the cars. He spotted Sorensen and ran toward him.

“What the hell’s going on?”

“Glad you could make it.” His voice was dry. “Lone gunman from what we can tell. The guy’s 1055.”

“He killed himself?” Darcy asked, wondering if he had heard right.

“Better offing yourself than getting caught, I guess,” Sorensen said, still looking straight ahead.

“Are there any survivors?” McNally asked through the megaphone.

“Do we know who he is? Why he did this?” Darcy asked.

Sorensen shook his head. Lynch spotted Virago next to McNally, assessing the situation.

“Roger, Smits, Ramirez, go in,” Virago said, pointing toward the shattered door.

They each straightened their bulletproof vests, and with their weapons drawn and pointing forward, they started moving in.

“Please help,” a woman’s voice came from within the coffee shop. “I need somebody to help me.” Her voice was strained, high pitched, almost hysterical.

Darcy felt a shiver run through his back and cold sweat form under his arms. He knew the voice. He stood behind the patrol car, removed the snap in his holster and took his gun out. He maneuvered around the cars in front of him, avoiding going straight by Virago, and started running toward the entrance as soon as he got past the captain.

“Lynch, get the hell back here!” she yelled the moment she saw him.

He ignored her and reached the entrance. The three officers were already inside, looking at the devastation the man had caused.

“We need medics now,” Ramirez yelled hard enough to be heard outside, while Smits went directly toward the man with the knife.

Darcy’s eyes darted from person to person, trying to find who he was looking for. Everybody was on the floor. Most tables and chairs were on their side, some with holes, some intact. Shattered glass covered the floor as if it were hail. A lot of it was covered in blood.

There were probably fifteen victims, some already dead, while others wouldn’t even make it across the street to the hospital. Darcy scanned the room but couldn’t see her. He heard the killer’s rifle slide across the room and saw Smits pushing the knife out of reach too. He then bent to check the killer’s pulse, but it was more out of habit than necessity.

“Clear,” Smits yelled.

Four paramedics came through the door and started working on the victims who were alive. Roger moved, and that’s when Darcy saw Saffron. He was paralyzed for a split second. She was covered in blood but still alive. He ran to her and kneeled on the floor by her side.

“Where are you hurt?” His voice was tense, his hands checking her body for wounds.

Her eyes didn’t focus on him. They seemed lost and she kept whispering, “I need help. She’s dying, I need help.” Her hands smoothed the woman’s hair.

Darcy checked the woman. She was dead. He grabbed Saffron’s hands and tried to get her to snap out of her shock.

“Saffron, listen to me. Where are you hurt?” he yelled at her.

He shook her by the shoulders, but not too hard. She looked up at him, but there was no sign of recognition.

“I’m okay. But she needs help.” She tried to get her hands free, but Darcy wouldn’t let them go. “He had come here to kill me, but I’m the only one who survived,” she said, looking into his eyes, shifting from one to the other.

“What did you just say?”

He wondered if it was the shock, but then she looked at the killer lying in a pool of his own blood and she said it again.

Darcy got up and ran toward the man, crunching glass with each step. He looked down and saw the face of Harper Johnson, the same face he’d memorized just a couple hours earlier.

D
etective Lynch checked the pockets of the man on the floor. He found a wallet and opened it. Sorensen walked into the scene and headed toward him.

“ID?” he said when he reached his side.

Lynch pulled out the driver’s license and read out loud: “Harper Johnson. Forty-three years old. 28856 Lomas Lane, Santa Cruz, CA.” He put it back into the wallet. “Not an organ donor.”

“Pity,” Sorensen said.

Darcy searched through the wallet. There was sixty-eight dollars in cash, no credit cards, and a photo of an older woman on a porch.

“She looks too old to be his wife.”

Lynch recognized the porch. It was the same one he’d seen that morning, but the paint was in much better shape when the picture was taken.

“Mother maybe?” Sorensen picked the photo from Darcy’s hand and took a closer look. “This picture is at least ten years old. Anything else?”

Darcy shook his head. Sorensen bent down to pat the man’s pockets, but there was nothing in them.

“Wait,” Darcy pulled a small piece of paper from the coin pocket of the wallet. “Sacred Heart Parish, Saratoga.”

The paper was old, fringed at the borders and faded, as if it had been frequently touched, or even rubbed.

“This is weird. He lives in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Why would he go to a church in Saratoga?”

Sorensen shrugged his shoulders. “He did quite a number here,” he said, for the first time focusing on what else was happening around him. All of the live victims had been taken out already, except one.

Darcy saw Saffron refuse the help of a paramedic. She stood up and walked toward them. “All of these people…All this because of me.”

“Do you know him?” Sorensen asked.

“No. But he’s the one who tried to kill me on Tuesday.”

“Are you sure?” Sorensen turned to face her.

Saffron nodded and looked at the man’s boots. “I recognize the Timberlands.”

“Did he say anything to you?” Lynch asked.

“Yes. When he pulled the trigger”—she took a moment to swallow—“and there were no more bullets, he asked ‘Why won’t you die?’ That is when he took the knife from his pocket.”

Both men watched her in silence. A paramedic came and stood a few feet away, too shy to interrupt them.

“Yes?” Sorensen asked.

“She needs to come with me. We have to check her out.” He told him.

She recoiled, moving slightly behind Darcy.

“I’m okay. I’m not hurt.”

Darcy put a hand on her shoulder and said, “Saffron, it’s okay.”

“No.”

Sorensen gave him a look and walked away.

“Give us a minute,” Lynch said to the paramedic, who nodded and took a few steps back.

Darcy faced Saffron. He put both hands on her shoulders and waited until she looked up at him.

“Saffron, I need you to go with the paramedic to the hospital. I need to make sure you’re okay, and I need to ensure you’re safe.”

She stared at him. After a few seconds of silence she blinked, but he knew she wasn’t buying it.

“I’m going to go to this man’s house, and I’m going to find out why he was after you. But in the meantime, I want you to stay in the hospital until I come back for you. Give me a couple hours.”

She looked down but finally nodded. “Do you think I’m safe now…” She looked at Harper but focused on his back, not his head. “Now that he’s dead?”

“I don’t know.” He squeezed her shoulder a little. “That’s why I want you to stay in the hospital until I come back to get you.”

“Okay,” she said but didn’t move.

He walked with her toward the paramedic. When they reached him, Darcy said, “I want you to take her to the hospital and get her checked in. Then I want her to stay there until I get back. Do you understand me?”

“Yes.”

“I’m holding you personally responsible for her well-being”—Lynch looked at the man’s name tag sewed onto his uniform—“Matsen.”

“Understood.”

Darcy looked back at Saffron and said, “Just a couple hours, I promise,” and nodded for Matsen to take her out of the destroyed coffee shop.

He watched them leave as Virago walked through the door.

“What the hell was that hero bullshit you just pulled?” Her brow was creased, and her fists were clenched, ready for a punch.

He ignored her question. “I told you somebody was trying to kill her.”

“You should’ve found out who instead of quitting.”

She brushed past him and headed toward Sorensen.

Darcy saw them talking, looking around, pointing at different things on the ground. The scene was completely compromised already, but it probably didn’t matter, as they already had their man. They just needed to figure out why he’d done this.

He turned around and headed for the door. He saw the news vans already parked outside the perimeter, the journalists pushing to get as much footage as they could.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Virago asked him before he was able to step outside.

“I’m going back to his house,” Darcy replied over his shoulder.

“You’ve been to his house?” Sorensen and Virago asked in unison.

“Where do you think I went with your car?” Darcy replied to Sorensen.

“You’re not taking my car again.”

“You both go,” Virago said, addressing Sorensen. “
Now,
” she added when neither moved.

A
flurry of movement outside of his office captured Tyler’s attention. He had been focusing on the latest report Sheldon Michaels sent him, just an hour ago, on the VC-backing projections based on the revised lab results. Even the best-case scenario didn’t look so good.

“Tyler, have you heard?” his secretary asked, poking her head inside his office without knocking.

“No. What’s going on?”

“Somebody just went into a coffee shop and killed a bunch of people right by Good Samaritan Hospital.” She came inside, closing the door behind her, as if she were going to confide something to him. “I know your sister works around that area.”

“Yes,” he said, already dialing her number.

After confirming that Julia was okay, he met everybody in the cafeteria, where the latest developments were being blasted on the large TV. Rose Walters, the news anchor at Channel 7 News, spoke confidently into her microphone, making eye contact with each viewer.

“The only thing we know about the man who committed this atrocious crime is that he’s killed himself. The police won’t make a statement at this time, but we know that at least five people are dead and there are at least as many injured. They are being transported across the street, to Good Samaritan Hospital.” She paused for a second, as if to ensure she had everybody’s attention. “This is the biggest massacre the South Bay has ever seen.”

She stopped talking again and looked down, putting one hand over her right ear. Tyler watched his coworkers hold their breath, waiting for her to get back to them.

“We just got the latest update,” she said, looking back into the camera with her deep black eyes. Her second of silence felt like minutes, but she made them all wait, as if she expected a drum roll. “The name of the man who’s believed to have committed this crime is Harper Johnson—”

Tyler choked on his own saliva and had to walk out of the kitchen while he coughed. Once he had managed to calm down, he walked back in, just as Rose Walters said, “We expect the chief of police to address the public soon, and we’ll provide you more information as soon as we know more. Back to you, Jeffrey.” Her face disappeared from the large HD TV screen.

Tyler loosened his tie. It was suddenly too close to his Adam’s apple and it was making him feel short of breath. The kitchen was hot—too hot—and he felt damp with sweat. He walked back into his office, straight to the only window that would open. The five inches of fresh air didn’t make as much difference as he had hoped. He powered his computer back on to check the latest news online. There was nothing newer or different than what the TV anchor had shared. His eyes got lost on the gray words and his thoughts turned to a past not so long ago.

He had fidgeted in his seat and lost his concentration several times during the support group session. He was tired of hearing the same stories and wanted to stop attending, but every week, when the meeting approached, he felt a pull to go that was harder to push away than to give in to. So he kept going. But lately his mind had been wandering, focusing on work and not on the stories these suffering people were sharing. All of them had lost a loved one to cancer. Hearing them had given him strength, even hope, and a mission, sometimes even more so than the loss of his own wife had.

But maybe he was having a hard time facing his group’s members because the results of the trials weren’t as positive as he’d expected. They weren’t nearly as good as Qiang had promised after the animal trials. And he was having issues convincing the investors to hold on for just a little longer.

Tyler thought about Hippocrates and wondered if it was true that “Desperate times call for desperate measures.” He knew he was running out of time and wondered if his insane idea would work. Wondered if he could do it. He’d thought really carefully about all of his options but knew he only had one left.

The session ended. They all held hands and prayed to a higher power to help them through the hard times and shared a thank-you for the support they were able to provide each other. Then everybody said their good-byes, and some people stayed behind to help clean up. Tyler watched Harper leave. After a few seconds, he followed him.

As he tailed Johnson, he wondered what he would do if he decided to go home rather than to some bar to have a drink, as he’d mentioned he did sometimes after the sessions.

But that night was his lucky night. Tyler smiled when he saw Harper pull into the Black Door parking lot. He followed him and parked in the first empty spot he found. He waited a few minutes. He checked his email, the stock market—down again—and then the
Times
’ headlines before he went in. The bar was a dive. He hated bars like this one. There were always peanut shells on the ground and drunks falling off of stools. The music from the jukebox always competed with the game on one or two TVs mounted somewhere on top of the bar. He opened the wooden door and his nostrils filled with the smell of stale beer. He almost sneezed.

He looked around and found the man he wanted to talk to sitting at the end of the bar. Alone, nursing a whiskey, neat, and a beer back. Tyler took the stool next to him.

“I’m glad I found you here,” he said.

Harper Johnson just nodded. Tyler wondered if he knew he had followed him there. Since they’d met almost two years ago, they’d seen each other weekly at the meeting and often at the shooting range Harper worked at, but they hadn’t exchanged more than a few pleasantries.

Tyler called the bartender and ordered another round for Harper and a Sam Adams for himself. He took a small sip of his beer and waited until the silence between them became almost unbearable.

“Harper, I’m very sorry you have cancer.”

Johnson lifted his drink as if he were toasting.

Tyler didn’t know what to do, so he just nodded. “I think I may be able to help,” he said.

Harper continued to stare at something undefined in front of him. Tyler wished he got some cues from this man, something to let him know whether he actually cared to live or not. But he got nothing.

“Harper, I think I can help you,” he said again.

“I don’t have insurance.”

Tyler took a deep breath. He was either going to plunge into the deep end and do it, go all the way, or he needed to get off the stool and walk out of that bar and never talk to Harper Johnson again.

There was silence. Some basketball highlights filled the TVs. There was no music coming from the jukebox. Tyler wished there was. He passed his hand over his hair. It was hard with gel.

“My company is working on a cure for cancer.”

Harper looked at Tyler for the first time. There was a sliver of hope in his eyes. He blinked and then looked away again.

“We’re very close, Harper, and I can ensure that you’re one of the first ones to get the cure.”

“What’s the price?”

Tyler paused again. There was no turning back after this. He took another sip to buy time. He then exhaled deeply, but in silence.

“There is no monetary cost, but I need you to do something for me.”