Resolve (22 page)

I wasn’t fully responsible for Lindsay’s death. I couldn’t bear that cross. I wasn’t fully responsible for Steven’s death. He came at me. I
wouldn’t
bear that cross. But I
was
responsible for
this.

I could have gone to the police. I
should
have gone to the police. I could have told V that I was taking the files to the police—to hell with Lindsay’s reputation. Lindsay’s minister father and saint of a mother would have just had to deal with it. That’s what I should have done.

I didn’t do any of that. And now a death was squarely on my shoulders. That was unacceptable. Killing V was unacceptable. She was a bystander by circumstance; and somebody had attacked that petite little girl, who barely created a dent in a beanbag chair, and had beaten her to death.

No. Unacceptable.

Chase the ideal? I wanted to chase the ideal? This was not the ideal.

I opened my eyes again. At that moment, watching the raindrops cry down the window, that’s when I decided that detectives Shand and Hartz were
not
going to hear from me. I was
not
going to call the police. I was
not
going to trust the system. I was
not
going to rely on statutes and procedures. I was
not
going to let one goddamn lawyer get near any of this. I was
not
going to chase the ideal. I was going to chase something else. Someone else.

I was going to find the man who killed that tiny girl with the purple hair, who missed her best friend more than anything. I was going to deliver an imperative reckoning. I was going to watch that man die. I was going to become a murderer and it didn’t bother me in the least.

Now that drastic measures were going to be taken, I had to stop functioning on assumptions. Taking a man’s life should never be based on any level of uncertainty. My first move had to be to confirm that the flash drive was taken when V was killed and that meant going into her apartment. Walking into a recent crime scene is a risky proposition, but I had to know if that data was still there. Even if the police found the small presidential figure and recognized it for what it was, which was unlikely, they probably wouldn’t have taken it. They had no reason. Students always have flash drives lying around and rarely do they contain anything more than schoolwork.

Sometimes people think that crime scenes stay guarded twenty-four hours a day. They don’t. Generally, urban police departments don’t have the manpower to post a guy at the door for very long. Besides, once the photos have been taken, the forensic teams have processed the scene, and the body has been removed, the room ceases to be of real evidentiary value. There isn’t any reason to guard it anymore. The cops put a piece of crime scene tape across the door and hope for the best. That’s it.

Since a murder had been committed in a building full of college kids and parents would be frantic, I could easily see the Pittsburgh PD or one of the nearby universities maintaining a heavy presence in the neighborhood. If the city cops decided to handle it, they would make sure to drive by the building as often as possible and maintain high visibility. That’s what I was hoping for. If some university cops caught the assignment, then a couple of other problems presented themselves.

First, the university cops had a smaller area to patrol, and I was afraid they might post an officer in a stationary car outside of the building. That officer would stay there until another call came over the radio. I thought the campus cops might even offer to pay overtime to one of their off-duty officers, who would therefore have no patrol responsibilities, and keep him posted there all night long. The other problem with the university cops would be vigilance. City cops are used to dealing with bloodshed and high-profile homicides while the campus cops aren’t. A city cop might be more complacent about watching a useless crime scene, where a university officer might think that the assignment is his fifteen minutes of fame. I wanted complacence.

Timing was important too. I needed to wait until the crime scene had been cleared and sealed up. That would take several hours, probably into the night. I would have to wait a while. A rookie mistake would be for me to head down there at four o’clock in the morning and try to get into the building. It would be just as bad if I made the attempt at eight o’clock. If I tried to sneak in when the streets were completely empty and everyone was asleep, I would stick out like a sore thumb. If I went too early, like at eight in the evening, the area would be busy and attentive eyes would be roaming the streets. But if I made the attempt around midnight, I might be able to blend in with the last of the day’s foot traffic and still avoid watchful crowds of people.

My appearance was another factor to consider. Even at my age, I could possibly pass for a graduate student, but a trained officer might raise an eyebrow and decide to ask questions. Creating some sort of disguise wasn’t an option either. If I went and bought some coveralls to transform into a maintenance man or janitor, or if I dirtied myself up like a homeless man, I would only be asking for trouble. A student had just been killed, and some of the first people the police focus on would be people who work in the building or members of the local transient population.

I thought about my limited options and decided to go in a totally different direction—hiding in plain sight. It would be risky, but I felt certain I could pull it off. As I continued to hash out the plan, my confidence grew with every passing moment. The best part was, I had everything I needed right there in my own home.

When I left the department in Baltimore, some friends of mine had given me a Baltimore PD badge encased in Lucite. It was supposed to be great for displaying the badge on a desk or shelf and evoking fond memories of locking up bad guys. I found the badge in a box in the garage marked
MEMORABILIA
and dug out the badge. It didn’t take me long to figure out why Lucite was used instead of glass. Even with the use of a hammer, it took me several minutes of chipping away at the shatterproof plastic compound before I could free the badge.

I headed upstairs to the master bedroom, walked into the connecting bathroom, reached into a cabinet beneath the sink, and started untangling a cord. Sigmund stood at the bathroom door with judgmental curiosity. The buzzing sound made his head tilt and the growing pile of debris on the floor was a major point of fascination with him. I hadn’t used the set of clippers in a long time, but the vibrating teeth seemed to remember the shape of my head. In minutes, I was able to look up and see a man that part of me had missed. Most of me did not.

Next, I stood in my bedroom closet and picked out a pair of slacks and a jacket that seemed appropriate to the mission. The Goldilocks rule. Not too nice, not too rough. Just right. Shoes were important. I found a black pair that had scuff marks and worn soles and threw them next to the bed where I had laid out the rest of the outfit. Then I grabbed a belt that had some broken stitching showing, as if it had previously carried more than just the occasional cell phone.

I undressed and redressed in my new outfit. The last thing missing was the one thing I absolutely didn’t want to carry. I went to my nightstand and grabbed the item from the back of the drawer. It was in its holster and I knew it was loaded and ready to go, but I checked it anyway. Taking it out of the holster, I extracted the magazine and racked the slide back, ejecting a round from the chamber. The .357 round traveled end over end and made a dull thud on the carpet. I thought of Steven’s semi-conscious body rotating toward its fate.

I picked up the cold, shiny bullet from the floor and looked at the bronze-colored end. The hollow-point would expand rapidly upon entering a body and commence to do the maximum amount of damage possible. If the shot landed
center mass,
pieces of hot shrapnel would scatter throughout a person’s chest cavity and cause considerable internal bleeding. If one shot was placed right, death was possible. If more shots followed, death was probable.

I stared at this tiny instrument of destruction and marveled at the amount of energy we put into developing more effective ways of killing people. I remembered back to a class I took at the University of Maryland. A student was arguing with a professor about how modern times were no worse than the mafia-infested decades of the 1920s and 1930s. The student proudly sat up and stated that the similar homicide rates proved his point. The professor of the course did well to not show any satisfaction in disappointing the undergrad when he pointed out that if you got shot in the arm in 1930, you were much more likely to die than in modern times. Medical advances had tried to keep up with the development of killing devices. Tried.

I put the magazine back into the Sig Sauer P229 handgun and racked a round into the chamber. I de-cocked the weapon, took the magazine back out, and pushed the previously ejected round into the top of the magazine. Then I reinserted the magazine with a telling click. Thirteen rounds. A jury of twelve in the magazine, one alternate in the chamber. The weapon didn’t have a safety. You just point and shoot. The first trigger pull would take about twelve pounds of pressure. Every pull after that would take only four. When all the bullets were expended, the slide would lock back and the open mouth of the gun would smoke and beg to be reloaded. Hungry for more brass.

Carrying the weapon would be necessary. Using the weapon would be tantamount to suicide. With forensic technology, a bullet from my gun could be matched in no time. Gun powder residue, gun oil, fingerprints, epithelial DNA—they all could send me to prison with minimal effort. Cops and former cops don’t do well in prison. So I couldn’t use the gun, but I needed it for show. I thought about carrying it unloaded, but the voice of my old training officer kept ringing in my head.
Better to be tried by twelve than carried by six.
I put the gun in the holster and clipped it on my right hip. I took my recently freed badge and clipped it on the left side, slightly toward the front. The small metal clip on the back of the badge wasn’t really meant to hold it on a belt, but it would have to do.

The badge could be a problem. It was different from a Pittsburgh detective’s badge. My badge was silver, with some traces of color in the middle. And while Pittsburgh detectives’ badges were silver, they could be distinguished by a small bronze plate reading
DETECTIVE
across the front. My old badge would have to do. I would just have to hope that in the dark, behind a flapping sport coat, nobody would notice.

I walked over to a long mirror hanging on the bedroom wall and looked myself over. Dr. Keller wasn’t there. Cyprus wasn’t there. A detective was there. The outfit was right. The equipment was close enough. The hair was perfect. My demeanor would be the determining factor. I had to believe. I had to
know
who I was. I knew if I looked like I belonged—if I sold it right—then I could pull this off. I glanced at the clock and realized it was time for the hardest part. The ticking announced each second as if the previous was a forgotten nuisance. I waited for night to fall.

Mile 17

A
rock band is set up in front of Mellon Park on 5th Avenue as we march into Homewood. A man in an old concert shirt is singing Bryan Adams’ song “Run to You.” When he arches his back to bellow out the chorus, I can see his belly flash some December skin under the black shirt. His three band members gyrate behind him and the bassist looks like he has to be the lead singer’s brother. The drummer is a woman who must have idolized Joan Jett in the 80s. I can’t see the guy on the guitar clearly because he’s behind a large amplifier.

It doesn’t take much to figure out what other songs they have been playing for the last hour or two. “Born to Run” by Springsteen. “Runaway” by Bon Jovi. “Runnin’ Down a Dream” by Tom Petty. It’s the same at any race that has bands comprised of middle-aged men and women. Occasionally, some jokers will sing “Heat Wave” by Martha and the Vandellas or “God’s Gonna Cut You Down”—recently revived by a Johnny Cash rendition. Those songs aren’t very inspiring.

The bend from 5th Avenue onto Penn Avenue introduces us to houses that were probably considered mansions several decades ago. Most of the dwellings are in good condition, but overgrown shrubs and dislodged bricks on walkways serve as a precursor to trouble. It’s called the Broken Windows theory. Once neighborhoods become disorganized and worn down, the criminal element starts to move into the area and a chain reaction occurs. Dilapidation begets dilapidation. Transgressions beget transgressions. In most cities this is a foregone conclusion and Pittsburgh is really no different. It’s a city of recovery, but usually things have to be worn down to the skeleton first.

I’ve sped up because it’s that time.

This is the fourth place it could happen.

My adrenaline level is up again, but not like before. The fact that it didn’t happen at the previous three points tells me that everything is on schedule. The plan was far from infallible. Variables are always present when it comes to killing.

Knives are rudimentary and require you to be close enough to feel your enemy’s breath. Handguns are noisy and can be traced. Explosives cause collateral damage and have to be timed perfectly. Even a sniper with a rifle has to account for wind direction, visibility, elevation, and distance, and must remain concealed. Always variables.

All you can do is control them as best you can and play the percentages. If my plan fails, then I can still deny and escape. My opponent will know it was me, but it won’t matter. My biggest problem will be getting another opportunity to kill him because he’ll know it’s coming. His personal window will have been broken and he’ll see the enemy closing in on his neighborhood. His clock will be ticking and he may decide it’s time to move on to a safer neighborhood. I can’t let that happen.