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Morning came too soon. We all staggered blearily from the offices, doing our best zombie impersonations. I felt hungover and awful. Fiona and Rachael hadn’t slept any better than I had. All three of us had tossed and turned all night. It was now six a.m. and I felt like I might have gotten two or three hours of sleep total, and not in consecutive patches of time.
From the looks of it, none of the others had slept any better than us. Malachi was the only one who appeared to be well-rested, but he only needed three or four hours of sleep a night anyway. The rest of the group looked as though they needed to be given a shot of adrenaline followed by a huge cup of caffeine to get started.
Even poor Mitch, who was not required to stay, had slept here. He started the coffeemaker as I staggered to my office to get a Mtn Dew out of my fridge. I wondered how hard it would be to mainline it into my bloodstream, and decided I was injured enough that using an IV to get caffeine into me was a bad idea. I hadn’t even cracked the seal on the soda when Xavier came over to me with his med kit.
“We need to change the bandage on your head.”
“You need to wait until I get some caffeine in me,” I snipped.
“Do you want your skull to necrotize and die?” Xavier asked. I sighed. That was one of the single most horrifying thoughts ever, and I did not want my skull to necrotize, it sounded painful and gross.
“Ugh,” I said to him and sat down, opening the soda.
“It’s not like looking at your skull is what I want to do first thing in the morning either. Especially before I’ve had coffee and breakfast.”
“Would it really be better to have breakfast before looking at my skull?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied immediately. I still had doubts, but I didn’t ask him again. He was already unwrapping the bandage from around my head, and talking expelled germs that I did not need landing on the small, exposed patch of my skull. It wasn’t like my office was a sterile environment to begin with, talking wouldn’t improve it. It took less than five minutes, and despite my soda being open, I didn’t move at all while Xavier examined the spot and then covered it back up with gauze pads before wrapping my head back up.
We’d discussed shaving my hair around the area, allowing us to use tape to hold the gauze in place, but doing so would mean leaving the skull exposed to the air for a period of time while my head was shaved, so we decided against it. He put a stocking cap over the bandage, and I didn’t object, because he was correct, I did not want my skull to necrotize, even if that meant wearing headgear that would make me hot inside the building. Of course, I also didn’t know if head sweat would be bad for the exposed bit of skull and almost pulled the cap off, but as a general rule, I didn’t sweat profusely from my scalp and my own sweat still had to be more sanitary than cooties being breathed out by other people.
“We’ll take the secret service agents out tonight,” Malachi said as the phone rang. Mitch answered it, a longing look on his face as he stared at the coffeemaker. He answered the phone, grabbed a pad of paper and began writing frenetically.
I tried to look over his shoulder, but he was using that scribbling shorthand again and it made no sense to me. He said a few words into the phone that also didn’t help me understand what was going on, but I had a sinking feeling in my gut and an expectation that he would hang up and tell us about a body found this morning.
Another phone started to ring, and Gabriel answered it. I hoped the phones didn’t ring like this all day. Ringing phones annoyed me and I didn’t want to be wrong and end up looking at a half dozen bodies this morning. Gabriel began to scribble on his own pad; he wrote down a name and one of the Metro PD station names. He told whoever was on the other end a transport would be there shortly, and hung up before texting Peter West. I watched him text and read it over his shoulder. KC Metro had a person of interest in custody, he’d been out after curfew and when they searched his vehicle they found zip ties, duct tape, a hacksaw, and an auto stamper—one of those stamps with the ink pad built in—with a clover on it.
My heart sped up just a hair. Was it possible the curfew had caught a serial killer? I hadn’t expected that to happen, but I was mildly hopeful. Mitch hung up.
“Can you send a transport to Bonner Springs PD? They also think they have a person of interest that they pulled over and took into custody because he was out during the curfew hours,” Mitch said. “Their guy had rope, a skull automatic stamp, a knife, some plastic bags, and a hand in a gallon jar of whiskey.”
Patterson had received an automatic stamp with a hammer on it, so we knew that’s how they were supposed to mark their victims. Two men having them when arrested for being out during the hours of the curfew felt like a victory; a small victory, but any victory at this point that didn’t end with a member of the SCTU going to the hospital in an ambulance felt good.
Moving suspected serial killers out of city and county lockups to the Fortress to await their trial had become standard operating procedure last year when KC Metro captured a suspected serial killer and put him in their jail temporarily, and he killed the guy in the holding cell next to him and then attacked the officer who came to check on said deceased inmate. The Marshals had gotten an armored and armed transport that was a cross between a SWAT vehicle and a paddy wagon and now picked up those suspects and took them to the Fortress to await arraignment. On occasion, we were able to send it out to the police officers in the field while they made the arrest, which was preferred, but most of the time a person wasn’t suspected of being a violent homicidal psychopath during their arrest; usually it was revealed later.
“Cain, I want you to go to Metro with our armored assault vehicle and pick up their guy with Malachi and Eli,” Gabriel said, standing up. “I suspect their guy is probably going to turn out to be the Maniac of Minnesota and if I’m correct...” Gabriel shrugged. I nodded and Malachi grabbed the keys. The Maniac of Minnesota had been in police custody once. He’d been captured in a small town in Minnesota, population less than 400 people. The entire police force consisted of three officers, and they hadn’t even had video surveillance on the premises because it was too expensive for their operating budget. He’d killed all three officers during his escape, using his hands and a chair leg. He hadn’t even bothered to take their guns or batons. He had, however, cut off all of the hands of the officers as well as his other victims.
Considering Metro’s guy was carrying around a hand, it wasn’t a stretch to believe their guy was the Maniac. I grabbed extra cartridges for my Taser and followed Malachi and Eli out. I rode in the back of the armored vehicle, letting them sit up front, because I didn’t want to be trapped in conversation with Malachi until we knew whether Caleb had brain damage.
They hit the lights and sirens on the armored vehicle before we left the parking lot of the FGA, which was unusual. We tried not to use lights and sirens in the neighborhood, but the armored vehicle was basically a tank. It had tires, but with a button the tires would lift and a base with treads would come out of the frame. Because of this feature, it sat so high there were steps that folded down to allow us to enter the vehicle easily. The automatic protective pillars that barred entrance into the neighborhood dropped as we passed the new sensors that detect the special badges we’d all been given last night.
We raced toward the Metro precinct where the suspect was being held. Traffic was heavy, even for a Friday morning. Most drivers ignored the lights and sirens, but it was hard to ignore a large black tank with SCTU painted on it in massive white letters. Especially when it was traveling at nearly ninety miles an hour down the interstate and weaving in and out of traffic. The interstate through this section of the metro area was eight lanes total, four going east and four going west. We were traveling in the westbound lanes and cars were crossing three lanes of traffic to pull over onto the shoulder and get out of our way.
A Missouri Highway Patrol pursuit vehicle saw us and joined, lights on, siren blaring. He followed close behind us and for a crazy moment I wondered if he’d lost his mind and was attempting to pull us over. After that moment, Eli shouted back that he was going to follow behind to ensure cars didn’t get too close to our rear, which I thought was weird. I looked out the window at the interstate we had just passed over and saw traffic attempting to get back to normal after letting us through and had a moment of realization that it was mass chaos as drivers attempted to get back into the lanes they had been in without hitting other cars that were also merging back onto the interstate after pulling off to the shoulder.
Exiting the interstate and getting into street traffic was worse, as our vehicle swallowed up the entire width of our lane and hung over the lines on both sides just a little, forcing other drivers to hug the sides of the road as we traveled. Thankfully, Malachi had slowed to a more respectable fifty miles an hour despite it being a thirty-five mile an hour zone. The highway patrol officer followed us the entire way and stopped outside the precinct when we stopped.
“That thing needs an escort and a few signs declaring it’s a wide vehicle,” the officer said to us as we got out.
“Possibly.” I nodded. “It’s not used except during extreme emergencies for a reason.”
“What’s the emergency? Did someone take over the precinct?” he sneered.
“Hopefully not yet, but we think they have the Minnesota Maniac in custody, and he needs to be somewhere more secure,” Malachi replied with his own sneer.
“Oh shit,” the officer said.
“Yeah,” Eli said. Everyone knew the story of the Maniac; it wasn’t every day a serial killer hunted cops as his preferred victim type. He had been listed as a high priority for the last five months and had only been active six total, during which time he’d killed seventeen law enforcement officers and earned the nickname the Maniac of Minnesota along the way.
We walked calmly in through the front door of the precinct. The two officers at the front desk commented to each other before placing frantic phone calls. We hadn’t even stepped up to the desk to talk to them before Ivan Daniels and a lieutenant in uniform came into the reception area.
“I take it you’re here for the Maniac,” Ivan said, smiling.
“Yes,” I nodded. He looked sleep deprived and tired.
“Well, the state lab called about two minutes ago to confirm that’s who we have,” Ivan said. “Of course, we suspected that as soon as we took him into custody and took precautions.
“He’s kind of a badass; we had to get creative restraining him,” the lieutenant said.
“Badass how?” Malachi asked, eyeing the lieutenant.
“He holds several accolades in different martial arts and when we tried to get the DNA swab from him, he injured the tech and the officer with him while cuffed and chained to the table.”
“You’re going to love him,” Ivan said, looking at Malachi. I thought I understood this, but didn’t say anything. Malachi considered himself quite the badass and had boxed in junior high and high school. Eli gave me a look and frowned.
“I’m not going to love this, am I?” Eli said.
“Probably not, I’d get your Taser ready just in case.” The armored vehicle had a cage, which was good. We could chain him to the floor on the small seat in the cage in the back of the vehicle and I might put Malachi in back with him and have Eli drive it to the Fortress.
As they led us to the back where they had a handful of holding cells, I went ahead and unsnapped the safety strap on my Taser. I wanted to be ready, but I was not prepared for what I saw when they led us to his cell. Both his wrists were handcuffed above his head to the bars of the cell. His ankles were also cuffed to the bars and spread apart, forcing him to stand spread eagled attached to the cage bars.
There were a couple of guys in the holding cell next to him, but they were keeping their distance. An officer sat at a desk with a cattle prod in front of him. He stood as we entered.
“How do you want to take him out?” the lieutenant asked. I considered that for a moment.
“My preference would be to sedate him, but I don’t know if that’s legal here.” Some states did allow for suspects who were considered incredibly dangerous to be sedated for transport. I didn’t do enough transports in Missouri to know if it was legal here, despite it being my home state. If they were injured, I knew they could be legally sedated, but this guy had been doing all the injuring.
“It’s not legal unless they are injured and struggling may cause them further harm. Do you want to get the rest of your team from your vehicle?” the lieutenant asked.
“This is all of us,” I said. He frowned.
“This guy took out three officers once before, why send just three of you?”
“We’ll be fine,” Malachi said. “Cain, stand guard, Holmes and I will physically deal with him.” I nodded, thinking I would still prefer to sedate him. The lieutenant had the guy at the desk open the cell for us. Ivan followed us into the cell. Ivan was a big man and I appreciated the extra muscle, though I doubted Malachi did.
The prisoner was not physically imposing unless you realized he had repeatedly branded himself. The decorative burns covered the visible parts of his arms, neck, and legs.
“Is he branded like this all over?” I asked any of the officers.
“Yes,” Ivan told us.
“He’s going to be like you,” I warned Malachi. Malachi gave a quick nod. Malachi had an inadequate number of nerves in his skin, which kept him from feeling much pain. Or sensation in general, but it was particularly useful with pain. He also had fewer pain receptors in his brain. Malachi reached up and slapped one of his handcuffs around one of the extended wrists and tightened it down. He then instructed Eli to uncuff the other hand from the bars and hold it. I drew my Taser at this point and Eli did a good job of standing to the side of the guy to take off the handcuff. At the first sign of struggle, I was going to tase him. I wondered if I should take Eli’s Taser so I could double tase him if he fought us.
He didn’t struggle, and Eli was able to hold his wrist. The officer on the outside of the cell knelt and began uncuffing the guy’s ankles as Malachi held the cuffed wrist and Eli held the other. The cuff came off one ankle and the Maniac continued to stand there, smiling broadly, which was slightly creepy. I almost tased him for smiling. Then I reminded myself that would be really bad and told myself to stop. I was just twitchy because of what happened to Lucas and Caleb this week. The officer then grabbed the uncuffed ankle and held it, instructing the lieutenant to uncuff the last ankle. The lieutenant told Ivan to do it, and Malachi shook his head. Then Malachi took over and told the lieutenant to do it, because Ivan would be more assistance than he if this went south. The lieutenant grumbled, but then did as Malachi ordered. With the final ankle uncuffed, Malachi and Eli manhandled the prisoner into cuffs, and Ivan grabbed the shackles I hadn’t noticed Eli had hung from the back of his belt. Ivan put the shackles on the prisoner. Malachi put his arm through the prisoner’s as if they were old friends and Eli did the same on the other side. I let the lieutenant lead the way while Ivan and I walked behind them. The group of us marched through the precinct; a few officers clapped and a few others cheered.
We were in the reception area when the prisoner put up resistance for the first time; using the interlocked arms he tried to knock Malachi off balance and possibly off his feet. Unfortunately for him, Malachi is very tall and a psychopath himself, and all he managed to do was piss Malachi off. Malachi used the movement to jerk the smaller man up, tearing his arm from Eli’s and flipping him onto his stomach on the floor. I fired the Taser, hitting him square in the back between his shoulder blades as Malachi put him on the ground. The Taser might have been excessive at that point, because Malachi had him pinned. I kept my finger on the trigger, however, and kept the electricity flowing into him.
“Ace, we’re good,” Malachi said, his knee on the guy’s shoulder blade. I let go of the trigger and Malachi shook his hand in the air. The Taser was powerful enough that he would have gotten a jolt too.
Eli’s arm dangled limply. “I think you dislocated Holmes’ arm when you did that,” I pointed out.
“Well at least you didn’t tase him too!” Malachi snapped at me. “Ivan, can you help me? We’re just gonna basket carry this asshole out to the vehicle now.” Eli did something that made a popping noise, and suddenly his arm seemed to work again.
“Did you just put your shoulder back in?” I asked him, raising an eyebrow.
“I have had seven rotator cuff surgeries on that shoulder. It slides in and out pretty easily,” Eli said to me.
“Ah,” I said.
“I pitched baseball all through school until I damaged my rotator cuff the first time, and since then, working as a marshal in fugitive recovery, I’ve done other damage to it multiple times.”
Ivan and Malachi now had the prisoner up in the air, one on of each side of him, and were carrying him by his cuffed hands as if he were a basket. It looked painful, but the guy didn’t seem to mind too much. He flailed his shackled legs once and Malachi informed him if he had to be put down again, he was going to have me dislocate both of his knees. I pulled my baton out to show he was serious. Malachi, Ivan, and Eli manhandled him into the cage and then secured him to the back of the cage and the floor. Ivan nodded as Malachi got into the back and took a seat.
“If you want me to go with you to carry him into The Fortress, I can,” Ivan said.
“That’s not a bad idea,” I told Malachi.
“Yeah, come on in,” Malachi said. Ivan got in and I went up front with Eli. I could hear Malachi and Ivan talking. Ivan informed Malachi he’d made the arrest, and he’d had to pin the guy down during that, too. He said getting him back to the station had been challenging. We drove with the lights and sirens on again, but Eli didn’t drive as fast as Malachi, and it took us about an hour to get to the Fortress.
Once within the walls of the prisoner entrance, the marshals went and got a chair to bring him in on. It took Malachi and Ivan as well as some of the guards to get the prisoner into the chair, and I had to tase him again once. That time, Malachi did let me keep my finger on the trigger until the guy wet himself. I briefly wondered if it would cause brain damage, but when I let go, he began fighting again. He did a fancy kick, even in shackles, and caught one of the guards in the face, instantly knocking him out. Malachi returned the favor by punching the guy in the face while Ivan wrestled him into the chair. Once they got him in it, Ivan sat on him while Malachi put all his weight on the guy’s shoulders and the remaining guards got him strapped into it. They told us they’d let him sit and calm down for several hours, and if he continued to fight when they attempted to move him to a holding cell, he’d be sedated for his own protection. I thought that was a good idea, because at this point the guards were liable to shoot him if he continued to fight them.
Ivan asked for a ride back to the neighborhood. He’d carpooled and didn’t have a car at the precinct. He’d been on shift for eighteen hours and was dead on his feet, so he called his supervisor on the way back and got permission to call it a day.
We headed back to the office and almost immediately got a call from Mitch asking if we could stop by the Johnson County sheriff’s department. A guy arrested yesterday in Raytown and being held in their cells had just come back with a DNA match from Interpol as belonging to the Munich Strangler, who was wanted in Germany for thirty-eight rapes and murders. Ivan didn’t say anything as Eli agreed to pick him up. Mitch told us he’d been arrested two nights ago for being out after the curfew and had played the dumb tourist card, but given the situation, Johnson had run his DNA anyway, no rush, though. Hence why the match had just come back; of course, it didn’t help that we had to get permission to access the INTERPOL database.
He was easy to take into custody, possibly because he was small. He was smaller even than Patterson, and I had to stop myself from asking if he were technically a little person. I’d never arrested a serial killer that was a dwarf. I wasn’t sure what the correct term for a person of his size was, but if he was four and a half feet tall, it was because the soles of his shoes were thick, and I doubted he weighed as much as my niece Cassie, despite his belly size. Malachi and Ivan towered over him. Even I felt like I towered over him. He calmly walked to the transport between Ivan and Malachi with me behind them. He spoke English very well, although he had pretended not to when originally stopped. Of course, I found most people from western Europe spoke English to some degree. We took him to the Fortress and everyone commented on how much easier he was to work with than our last one, who was still sitting in the chair in a padded cell.
We returned to the office around eleven; nearly five hours of the day was gone. We stopped at the barrier to the neighborhood and got out of the vehicle. The guards searched it and then searched us. Then they brought out the scanner, cleaned its screen, and we all took turns scanning our hands and getting visual confirmation we were who we said we were. Finally, after this twenty-seven-minute security check, yes, I timed it, we were allowed to enter the neighborhood. We dropped Ivan at his house.
We were immediately asked what we wanted to eat when we walked into the office. The three of us gave three different answers that were put on a clean whiteboard, and a vote was taken to see what won.
As Mitch placed an order for food, the radio in our office announced there was a shooting in the park where I’d predicted the Cardiologist would take a victim today. A moment after the call came over the radio, Peter West walked into the office with a smile.
“The Cardiologist struck right where you thought he would!” Peter announced. “The CIA home protection team that was stationed there took him down with a long-distance shot. Police have been dispatched to do crowd control, but Homeland is taking over the crime scene and we are not to respond. Homeland will get a DNA sample and submit it, but they took him down in the act. The victim will need trauma counseling and some stitches, but she isn’t dead. That, coupled with the arrests made by the metro area police departments, put our capture rate for today very high. Malachi’s unit is going offline this afternoon; I’m sending them home to prepare for tonight. Gabriel’s team will be providing support on the operation and will also be dismissed this afternoon for a few hours. This means Eli’s team will have to take care of all the calls that come in, but we’re going to reroute all calls to the NSA, filter them to Eli’s team if they are actually needed, and dispatch regular marshals for all other requests.”
“Isn’t that Miller’s job?” I asked, my eyebrow arched.
“Yes, and I’m working with him on it, however the SCTU is under the edict of the NSA as much as the Marshals, so I am coordinating,” Peter told us. “Besides, do you have any idea how busy Miller is today?”
“No,” I said.
“Well, he’s busy.” Peter’s phone rang and mine gave a text alert. I pulled it out of my pocket. It was from Miller: Our lab has confirmed the death of Viktor Ward, aka Mictlan, aka the Malibu Beach Strangler. A Marshals press conference will be held in half an hour.
I sat down. Mictlan the Collector was dead. There was no prize money. The competition was over.
“What about the operation to catch the Ripper tonight?” Malachi asked.
“We proceed,” Peter said. “We proceed and hope Rachael’s correct, and he attempts to work out his frustrations on a victim tonight.”
Peter stood there for a few more minutes. He frowned at all of us, who sat silent and unmoving.
“This is good news, you should celebrate,” he said.
“I’ll celebrate when we know the killers are leaving,” I responded. “Also, what about the vacuum this creates? The club has no leader again. What if the next person who takes over is more like the Ghost Maker?” There was a chorus of quiet agreements.
“While you guys have been running around the city trying to capture serial killers without getting dead, the NSA has been busy,” Peter told us. “The next person to take over the leadership of the club will not be like the Ghost Maker, none of us wants that and we’ve already thought about it. It became a topic the moment Viktor Ward blew up his house.”
“What does that mean?” Gabriel asked. Peter didn’t answer, but left the room instead, walking out of the office, into the hallway beyond and then to the staircase, where he entered it and disappeared.
“Well, that was a bit dramatic,” Gabriel said.
“Peter has always been theatrical,” Malachi said, as he sat down. We sat quietly, waiting. I half expected Peter wouldn’t return, but he did in about five minutes. He brought back a group of people, four in total.
“This is the new Madman, and he’ll be taking over the club,” Peter said, stepping back and gesturing at the group of analysts. “Of course, they are going to need help pretending to be a serial killer, but we’ve arranged for them to have a good trainer as part of his CIA work release.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Patterson Clachan will be advising them in their role as the Madman and new leader of the club.”
“I don’t know which part of this plan I hate the most, but I do hate it,” I told him. “I don’t believe that even with an advisor, four regular people who have never killed anyone in their lives, let alone enjoyed it, can pretend to be a serial killer as vicious as you created the Madman.”
“They’ve been monitoring the forum with Patterson the last couple of years already, so this isn’t that big of a stretch,” Peter told me.
“I don’t know, I kind of agree with Aislinn. I’m not sure monitoring a serial killer chatroom and pretending to be a serial killer in order to give instructions to other real serial killers is the same thing,” Malachi said. “I think you’d be better off having the real serial killer take control of the club. Patterson might be too old, but you could use Eric or someone similar.”
“I think it will work, but if there’s problems, we can arrange something else as the case needs,” Peter said.
“Sure, it’s your disaster, not mine,” I said, and stood. “Peter, don’t screw this up and make it our disaster.”
“As leader we can get the real identities of the members and round them all up,” Peter said.
“Uh huh,” Fiona said, skeptically. All our phones went off again, another text message from Miller: Olathe PD thinks they have the Bolt Gun Killer in custody; we need someone to go check on it.
Malachi, who didn’t like Indian food, the winner of the lunch vote, volunteered to go so he could get lunch for himself while out. Xavier, who also didn’t like Indian food, asked him to pick something up for him too. I also considered having him pick me up something. I can eat Indian food, but it’s not my favorite because I find the smell of curry dishes overwhelming. However, four people had ordered curry dishes, and it didn’t matter what Malachi brought back, all I’d be able to smell was curry and my food would taste like it. Instead, I got permission from West, as well as Nyleena, to go raid her fridge and eat in her apartment.
“Blake, I’ll go with you,” I suddenly said, changing my mind. “The Bolt Gun Killer uses a distinctive lotion; I’ve smelled it at all the crime scenes, even the last one with the extremely putrid body. If it’s her, I may be able to tell from the smell.”
“You just want to get away from the curry,” Fiona said. Fiona was one of those that had ordered curry.
“That’s true too.” However, a few months ago, we’d done a search based on my nose, so everyone knew I was also telling the truth. It turned out dozens of shops in the metro area sold the lotion, although it wasn’t a best seller at any of them, and thousands sold it online, which meant the lead had gone nowhere. Malachi nodded and Peter looked concerned.
“We’ll be fine, I’ve watched the bodycam footage,” Malachi reassured his cousin.
A few minutes after we got in the SUV, Mitch called to give us details. I was expecting him to say she’d been picked up for being out after curfew, but that wasn’t the case. She followed a woman home from a store this morning and didn’t realize the woman wasn’t alone in her home; she had a friend staying with her because of the competition, and the friend happened to be a self-defense expert. The two women subdued the Bolt Gun Killer until police arrived.
Mitch said the Bolt Gun Killer was still screaming about how rude the woman was to her in line at the grocery store this morning, simply because the woman, who had three items, wouldn’t let the Bolt Gun Killer go in front of her when the killer only had one item. That seemed like a ridiculous reason to follow someone home and kill them, but that was true of most killers’ rationale. At any rate, she’d been carrying a stamp with a cow on it when she was searched by the police, which spoke strongly to her being a participant in the competition.
We arrived and went inside; an officer took us to her cell. I was let in and introduced myself. She complained about the treatment of the police at this department, and I shook hands with her. Then I stepped out of the cell and sniffed my hand; it smelled like chamomile, liniment, and peaches. I nodded to Malachi, and he called for the transport.
“That is a very distinctive lotion,” I said to her as the door was locked. “Do you buy it somewhere local or online?”
“I buy it online, my best friend from high school designed it.”
“Do you have chronic dry skin?” I asked.
“Yes,” she answered. “Why, do you want some? I can give you the site.”
“No, I don’t want to buy some. I just noticed it at all the Bolt Gun Killer crime scenes I visited. That, coupled with you having a bolt gun in your possession when we took you into custody, well...” I shrugged and then added, “Oh and we have you on camera at the last victim’s house.”
“You couldn’t possibly smell it at crime scenes.” She snorted.
“I have a good nose, and you just admitted you have chronic dry skin, indicating you probably use tons of it. I’m guessing the liniment helps with your arthritis.”
“Yes...” she said slowly.
“Okay, we’ve arranged for a transport to take you to the Fortress to await arraignment.” I motioned Malachi to leave.
“What was that about?” Malachi asked.
“Most people who have an autoimmune disorder also have chronic dry skin. I’m guessing her friend added the liniment to the mix specifically because she has rheumatoid arthritis,” I said.
“Good to know, but useless.”
“Well, I agree, having arthritis of any kind is not a good reason to kill people. I just couldn’t imagine why someone in their twenties or thirties would use liniment all the time, now I know, and I feel better,” I told him.
“Great, can you handle fish for lunch? I’m thinking the Long John Silver’s near the FGN,” Malachi said as we walked out.
“Sure.”
“Caleb can’t eat at any of the fish places, so we don’t ever have it.”
“Do you really not hold me responsible for Caleb’s incident?” I asked.
“A literal giant collapsed on him and crushed him. If you hadn’t killed him, he would have continued to stomp on Caleb and Caleb would be dead, not just injured. I don’t know how you would be responsible for that.” Malachi sighed. “I tried to be angry with you all last night, and I couldn’t because there was nothing I would have done different. If I couldn’t physically tackle him fast enough to save Caleb from being stomped to death, neither could you. You had to shoot him, and that means I have to be mad at physics or the construction of the human body, because those are the reasons the giant crushed Caleb, not you. And I can’t be mad at either of those things and punish them for it, so I’m letting it go. Besides, you did chest compressions for six minutes before you let John take over. That’s a long time, especially for someone as small as you.”
“I really hope Caleb is okay when he wakes up,” I said after a moment. “We need him. You are easier to get along with when he’s around, and I don’t feel the need to tase you as often.”
“You tased me today,” Malachi said.
“Technically, it was just a bonus while tasing an actual bad guy.” I smiled at him.
“Yeah,” Malachi agreed.
“Can I start an audiobook? I have one I am just about to start called The Black Cat Murders.”
“This is going to be one of those weird books, isn’t it?” Malachi asked.
“No, it’s about a nobleman who investigates crime by accident, mostly because people keep dying around him. It’s set in 1920s England.”
“Don’t you get enough crime without reading books about it?”
“The crime in my life never goes away; at least in books the bad guy is almost always caught and punished,” I said, starting the second book in the Heathcliff Lennox series.