The Uninvited (16 page)

Chapter
28

Nick climbed into his pickup truck and sat in the driver's seat holding the keys in his hand. He had a moral dilemma, one that was seriously splitting him in half. He had taken an oath, one that made him uphold the laws. At the same time, he could not decide how he could not give his friend the news that the killer was still alive. That the man that had taken his daughter from him had received awards for his valor and recognition for his bravery all across America.

He turned the key over, driving slowly at first until he was racing down the highway towards his home. He stopped quickly in the driveway, scaring Tricia half to death in the window. Nick went inside not saying anything. He went to his closet, ignoring Tricia doing her best not to be nosey while standing in the doorway. She said, “Well, hello to you too Chief Lambert. It’s been awhile since you’ve came home for a nooner.”

Nick turned around, seeing his wife in an apron fully dressed and shaking her stuff for him, mocking him. He said, “I wish that was why I was here. I did some research on a case and it’s going to end up making me need to travel for a few days. Do you think that you’ll be okay for a couple days by yourself?”

“Since when have you ever had to go somewhere for your job?”

“Honey, I just finished wrapping up a national case. I looked up some additional information for someone, needless to say something got overlooked. I just need to go and have some depositions and I will be back before you miss me.”

Tricia laughed, “I don’t know dear, it might take longer than you think. I mean as much as I appreciate picking up dirty underwear off of the floor and having a heart attack at two in the morning when I need to go pee at almost falling into the toilet I think it could take a day or two.”

“You’ll miss me, baby. You don’t have to say it just so poetically as you do.”

Nick pulled out his bag, sliding a few pairs of work uniforms in and a few pairs of jeans. “Do you need any help packing, Nicky?”

“Nope, you make me a thermos of coffee and I’ll be heading out. They said they’d get me a room to stay up in Iowa. Some town just outside of Des Moines named Ankeny I’m going to stay at. I need the caffeine and maybe a sandwich to make it up there without falling asleep.”

“I’ll make you two. I don’t want you crashing that truck out in the middle of nowhere. If your cell phone or CB radio doesn’t work then you’ll have a hell of a time walking to the nearest small town.”

Nick, who was just barely able to have a conversation that made sense, said, “Sure honey, thanks for doing that. I appreciate it.” She disappeared and when she was gone he pulled out a pistol that he’d gotten from a swap meet quite a few years back and slid it and the ammunition for it into his travel bag. He grabbed his shaving kit and toiletries from the bathroom. He gave his wife a hug, one that was long and hard, before he left. She pushed him out just a foot from her, looking him in the eyes, and asked, “Nick, is there anything that you want to tell me before you leave? I’m used to you being weird, but you are being extra weird today.”

“Yeah, the last few weeks haven’t been easy on me. I’ll get back to normal, just give me some time. It isn’t easy, okay? This last week messed with my head.”

“Well, you get back to normal. You have too many friends and family and employees that look to you. We can’t have you losing your mind after all this, okay?”

Nick gave her a kiss on the forehead and one last squeeze before heading out to the truck. She watched him and could see it in his eyes that there was more going on than he could tell her. She hoped for her sake that he would at the very least be safe and come back to her in one piece and a healthy state of mind.

Nick drove like a robot. He had so many things running wildly through his mind that he didn’t realize that he’d driven to Chuck’s house and not to the apartment of Traci and Isaac. When he made it to the apartment he sat out in his truck for ten minutes before going up there. He had never been a vigilante, had worked hard for what he had gotten in life. Nick knew that sometimes people would get away with crimes. He thought about Colorado, Iowa where he was now, and Missouri and to his knowledge they did not have the death penalty. The visuals of Traci being decimated by that bomb and shotgun blast didn't seem like a cushy matte with a few needles taped to his arm would seem justified. He had never been a man that believed in torturing another, but at the same time he’d been a God fearing man going to church his entire life. There was one thing that he knew that God believed in and that was do unto others as you wish to have done to you. He thought about Hardin and thought that yes he did deserve it. He was a disease and he needed to be eradicated. He knew Chuck was hard, but didn't know if justice like this was something he would pursue. Nick was pretty confident if that meant that they knew who did it that he surely would though.

Nick put his truck in park, then slid out and walked slowly up the steps. When he made it to the doorway it was already open and he saw Rosa in there wiping at her eyes as two men from Goodwill stacked boxes on a dolly and took what seemed like a never-ending row of items no longer needed downstairs. When she saw Nick she walked over and said, “Oh hey Nick, you didn’t need to come all the way over here. We got a good handle on things. Don’t tell me that Chuck actually forgot to bring something with him. Not that his head might of been a little foggy when we left.”

Nick said, “Hey, Rosa, no…...he didn’t forget anything. I just wanted to have a quick chat with him. You think he has a minute for me?”

“Yeah, anyone else I might say no, but I think he’ll be happy to see you.”

Nick walked by, squeezing her arm and thinking how he needed to go tell his absolute one true friend in the entire world how the man that killed his daughter had been hired by himself. How he had been paying the man who had been on a murdering rampage to find the killer. He thought how this was almost a fucking stand up joke while be it for the mentally twisted, but he could be looked at as the fucking stupidest police chief in the United States. The one thing that ran through his mind was that Hardin hadn't been in Iowa long enough for him to begin killing. He thought that if they took him out, or if just he if Chuck was not up for it, that everyone could just continue thinking that it was the person blown up in the woods.

Nick tapped on the door outside, watching Chuck swearing under his breath about some China made piece of damn shit on the floor. He looked up saying, “I said, that I’d tell you when it was ready and that no. I did not need no damn,” he saw that it was Nick there trying to smile but looked like he had come to deliver the worst news that he possibly could. Chuck dropped the tool. “What, what is it?”

Nick shook his head no, he didn’t want to say it at first but broke down and said, “Not here, come on. I got a feeling you’ll be thinking that this is important or at the very least you’ll want a hand in this. You need to come up with something saying that I need you to help me do a quick drive for some information that needs to be heard from a witness’s mouth, but that I’m half sick and you are going to drive me there. All expenses paid.”

“Why the hell would you need me to drive you somewhere? Christ, are you getting that old?”

Nick pulled up his shirt, showing a revolver that definitely was not his service piece. “Because you and I have some unfinished business that we need to put to bed, brother.”

“Did you find something?”

“Again if you don’t want to break, her heart all over again, I suggest highly, that we head outside and have a chat, but save yourself the trip back up those stairs. I’ll lay down the lie for you. You just take it home okay?”

Chuck nodded and within five minutes Chuck was walking down the stairs with a purpose. He climbed into Nick’s pickup and said, “Okay spill it. Spill all of it.”

“I took your tip like you said about the LoJack because it was a helluva great question. I checked and they said it had been off for months. I went a few steps further though and Hardin never made any calls to the number where you would check it; no one from the office did that day. I saw the only call he had made that day was to us to call in backup. Apparently he had plans to make a blood bath out of it, or he would have just done them on Saturday when he had the opportunity to.”

Chuck laid his head back shaking it. “This is fucking crazy. So what, you want to drive up there and kill him? Is that something that you can live with?”

Nick said, “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve killed someone, Chuck.”

“War doesn’t count. We were told repeatedly that we were going to fight the enemy. By the time we made it over there, we half thought that Vietnam belonged to us and they should thank us for invading their country. I don’t want you jeopardizing your job and your life that you’ve built. I know you worked your ass off to get where you are. We both have, and the one thing we need to ask also is, can we live with our decisions if something goes wrong and we get caught?”

Nick looked over at him. “I don’t think that I can go on living knowing that I was basically living with a killer for all those months. All the pity we felt for that sick son of a bitch having to be a lone wolf out there hunting the killer. All the hours he was putting in and the families he had to talk to. Jesus Christ, he probably gave himself a fucking hard on getting to see their faces. He probably ate it up on the way there, during, and after. I don’t need to think about anything. I simply wanted to make sure you had the option. I’m not going to deprive you of justice and if you want a hand in it, then you can do it. If you simply want to stay here with Rosa and know that things are being handled then you won’t be judged by-”

“No, I’m going. Skip my house. I can buy clothes up there if I need to.”

Nick didn't want to be a stifler, but he said, “You might want to get a change of clothes, honestly.”

“Why, is that?”

“Because you are going to look a little suspicious going into a store soaked in blood covered clothes. I also want to hit up your garage and grab a few shovels. Just make sure you get the ones that you don’t care if we don’t bring back
with us.”

“There isn’t anything that I care about as much as that girl. I’m fine using whatever I have to use to put closure to this. It’s just a shame that we won’t ever be able to tell Rosa the truth.”

Nick looked at him. “I don’t know what good it is going to do knowing this. I think if anything I’ll be worse off for it. The only thing that will make me feel the least bit better is the simple fact that the son of a bitch won’t be able to get a taste going again for the kill. I think he’s smart enough to know when it’s time to get out of an area. If I had to make a guess, I’d say the man from Colorado was framed by Hardin and for whatever reason they never were able to prove him innocent.”

“What do you expect, Lambert? I mean think about it, for god sakes, he knows the system inside and out. He probably planted everything to perfection and left the son of a bitch there holding the bag. He got recognition and fame for it and that son of a bitch will look at four walls for the rest of his life.”

“I will drop an anonymous message to the FBI that they need to look into this son of a bitch. I looked up his old addresses over the last twenty years, with the exception of one stint for five years there have been killings near or in all of them. There was only one that I wasn’t able to see a killing at, but he was enlisted in the Air Force back then as a bomb technician. You want to guess if the local city saw a blood fest during that time?”

“I probably don’t want to know, do I?”

“No, there’s a pretty damn good chance that you don’t want to know. This fucker loves his business and unfortunately for him, there are plenty of pickings around.”

Chuck said, “Well, I’d think that it would be much easier for someone when they do not have any care if it is man or woman, young or old. That really opens your options up, I’d think.”

“If we don’t fuck up then hopefully your Traci is going to be the last one that had to suffer at his hands.”

Chuck was quiet after that and Nick knew from the look on his face that he wasn’t sad, he was pissed and he was thinking in detail what it was that he was going to do when he finally caught up to the son of a bitch. Nick said, “I got this gun and it’s clean. We get him in the back of the truck and we’ll have no issues from there. I’m sure there are plenty of places out in the middle of nowhere that a body is never going to be found.”

Chuck nodded slowly, tapping his fingers on his legs as he thought about it. He said, “As long as it hurts. It has to hurt. That piece of shit doesn’t deserve any better. He doesn’t deserve anything but the worst. He even showed up at the damn wake to express his concerns for how we were feeling.”

“They don’t call them insane for any other reason, brother. We will right the wrong or at least do as much as we can. If at any point you change your mind, or can’t do it, you let me know and we can do this the proper way. This is your call.”

Chuck looked at Nick. “We aren’t changing anything. This is how it is and I’m not going to change a damn thing. All I can say is that I want the only reason we need that gun is to get him in the truck. Once we get that done the only thing I want to use on him is the knives and shovels. I plan on him experiencing a slow and painful death. I’m going to make him scream until my ears bleed and his throat runs dry and then…..I’m going to cut his tongue from his mouth.”