CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

 

 

Ilse screamed. The police officers whirled around, aiming, but not firing out of fear of hitting the wrong man.

The lanky FBI agent was cursing, spluttering beneath what looked like a gorilla.

Mr. Lobo was built like an armored tank. He had muscles on his neck that most men didn't have on their arms. His hands were the size of oven mitts, and veins bulged across every portion of his bare chest.

“Get off my lawn!” he was screaming, spittle flying as he tried to choke Agent Sawyer.

Though the man outweighed Sawyer by a good hundred pounds, the wiry agent was still moving quickly. He lashed out with the flat of his hand, slamming his fingers into the enormous fellow's neck. Blood was beginning to pour down Mr. Lobo's face from where he'd cut himself on glass.

The blows to his neck seemed to work on a lag. It took the musclebound monster a moment to realize he'd even been struck. Then, a second later, he let out a little choking sound.

Sawyer, himself, was wiggling and kicking, pinned beneath the weight of the enormous fellow.

“Get off him!” officers were shouting. “Hands up or we'll shoot!”

Mr. Lobo ignored both requests, spinning around on the scattered glass beneath his window and yanking Sawyer to his feet by the scruff of his shirt.

“Get down! Get down!” The officers by the door were yelling, trying to control the situation with volume alone. Ilse could hear the sound of doors, could glimpse faces from the other townhouses emerging in windows.

“Back inside!” she yelled in the direction of a child who was peering past her mother's robe. “Please—back inside!”

She didn't have time to see if the child, or her mother, listened, though, as the gorilla was emitting a loud roar.

Sawyer let out a strangled gasp, and Ilse whirled around to watch as the FBI agent drove two uppercuts into the giant's kidneys, even as Mr. Lobo shook him like a ragdoll. Try as Sawyer might, though, his blows seemed to have no effect. Now, he dangled like a limp scarecrow from the gorilla's grip, used as a human shield as Mr. Lobo began backing away, one hand still caught in Sawyer's collar, the other around the smaller man's neck.

Sawyer's eyes bugged, his face red in the powerful grip of his assailant. But also, in his eyes, Ilse glimpsed something else... Sheer fury. She could see the anger rising up like a tide, could see Sawyer's own self of preservation slowly retreating in the face of another, far stronger emotion.

Sawyer let out a choking, gasping noise and then drove his dangling foot directly between Mr. Lobo's legs. Once. Twice.

The tall man let out a squeak like a balloon, going rigid all at once.

Not done yet, Sawyer stopped jamming the flat of his hand against the monster's neck, but instead bunched up his thumb and poked Mr. Lobo in the eye. He eye-gouged again, kicked between the legs once more, and one cheap shot at a time, seemed to loose Mr. Lobo's grip.

The enormous suspect let out a groaning sound like a toppling tree as he finally let Sawyer go.

The lanky agent gasped as he stumbled to the ground between the police and Mr. Lobo. Instead of rolling out of the way, though, and giving the cops a clean line of fire, Sawyer straightened up, adjusted his baseball cap. He reached down, pulling out his own gun. He twirled it once, still red-faced, still breathing heavily, gripped his weapon in a pistol grip.

Mr. Lobo, still wincing, looking sick now from the repeated blows to his groin, wasn't done yet. He tried to reach, desperately, for Sawyer a third time. Like a drowning victim surging towards a life raft.

But Sawyer moved quicker, now anticipating the lunge.

“You have the right to remain silent,” he said, wheezing. And then, instead of shooting, or allowing anyone behind him to fire, he struck Mr. Lobo across the forehead with the butt of his gun, sending the large man tumbling onto his back, letting out a final groan towards the ceiling.

Sawyer rotated his weapon again, aiming towards Mr. Lobo's head. “Stay down,” he gasped, his face slowly returning to its normal color beneath the glow of the overhead porch light. “I mean it. Don't move.”

Ilse straightened again, wincing in Sawyer's direction. She stared at the lanky FBI operative, the way his wiry form strained like iron. She couldn't help but feel impressed at the way Sawyer had handled himself against the larger man.

Mr. Lobo clearly fit the bill. He was powerful enough to overwhelm all three of their victims. He'd just attacked an FBI agent and fired at the police. He was connected to all three victims from elementary school onward, and clearly had no aversion to violence.

Two other officers hurried over and, with Sawyer's help, the three of them, managed to wrangle Mr. Lobo. They were forced to use two sets of cuffs, interlocking the links in order to reach the man's enormous arms behind his equally massive and muscular back.

Mr. Lobo was gasping, shaking his head, and letting out a long groan. “You hit me,” he kept saying. “You hit me!”

“You're coming with us,” Sawyer snapped, spitting blood off to the side. As Mr. Lobo shifted, the sound of scraping glass was replaced by quiet tinkling as the shards fell from his form to the floor.

“I didn't do shit!” he shouted now, still only half cognizant from the head blow. “You got no right!”

The police began to escort the giant away, but as they pushed him down the steps, Sawyer called out, frowning, “Where were you last night, Mr. Lobo?”

The big fellow spat off to the side, shooting an angry look towards Sawyer.

“No answer?” Sawyer said, wiping a hand across his jaw, and pulling it away to glance at the blood on his fingers. “Hmm?”

Mr. Lobo cursed beneath his breath, ducking his large head, his neck muscles rippling. Instead of answering, though, he simply muttered, “Lawyer!”

Sawyer sneered. “That's what I thought.”

“Lawyer!” the big guy yelled as the two officers pushed him past Ilse towards one of the waiting cruisers.

For her part, Ilse shrunk back from the shadow of a man who was four times her size. She winced in Sawyer's direction and then, once Mr. Lobo was out of sight, shoved in the back of the police vehicle, she hastened hurriedly up the steps to Sawyer's side.

“Are you all right?” she said, anxiously, looking him up and down.

He winced again, turning one of his arms to show a long cut over his elbow. He rubbed at his chin and tilted his neck back. “Any marks?” he said.

Deep, red furrows and peeled skin indicated where Mr. Lobo's fingers had throttled Sawyer. She winced. “It... it looks okay?” she said.

He frowned. “That sounded like a question, doc.” Sawyer groaned again, closing his eyes and massaging at the back of his head. “You need to work on your bedside manner,” he muttered.

Ilse glanced in the direction of the police cruiser with the enormous bodybuilder cramped in the back seat.

“Well,” Sawyer said, taking a wobbly step over the glass shards towards the stairs, “at least we got the bastard.”

Ilse's attention turned to the bullet holes in the door, then again towards the waiting car. “Yeah,” she said, hesitantly. “It looks like it.” As she spoke, she heard a commotion, a couple of officers emerged from inside the house. One of them carried a hacksaw, lifting it high for Sawyer to see.

The FBI agent's eyebrows shot up. “Well, I'll be,” he muttered. “Idiot kept the weapon on him.” Sawyer frowned now, reaching out a hand to steady himself against the top of the stairs.    

Ilse stared at the hacksaw, feeling a sudden flush of relief. Had they really done it? Had they finally caught the murderer? She murmured, for her sake as well as Sawyer's, “He was connected to all three victims. He failed two of their classes. That'd piss anyone off.”

“Yup. He's a big bastard. Nearly took my head off with his fingers.”

“Right,” Ilse said, nodding quickly.   

“He's our guy, doc.”  

Ilse nodded again, still hesitant. In nearly the same murmur, she said, softly, “Why's he home, then? Why isn't he out, hunting his next victim?” She pointed through the smashed window, towards the flickering lights pulsing inside. Now that they were close enough to the window, she could hear what sounded like faint voices and explosions in the background. “He was watching TV,” she said.

Sawyer looked at her, long and hard. He opened his mouth, closed it again. Opened once more, then, with another long groan, he just turned to the stairs, marching back down. He shouted over his shoulder. “You can ask him when the lawyer gets to the station tomorrow morning. Call a taxi—go back to the hotel and get some shuteye!”

Ilse winced, standing on the porch for a moment, watching Sawyer head back towards their sedan, half-limping, half-groaning, the quiet rattle of his caffeine pills audible even from where she stood.

Call a taxi, indeed... He was probably right. She needed some rest, too, though clearly not as badly as Sawyer.

Still...

She couldn't shake the nagging thought.

Why had he been watching TV inside? Why wasn't he out on another hunt? Where was the childhood trauma? Nothing on his record indicated that—not that this meant anything. Perhaps Sawyer was right. Perhaps even this would come out during interrogations.

She pulled her phone from her pocket, cycling to the saved number for the taxi service.

Her fingers hovered for a moment, but then, swallowing once and feeling a sudden pulse of nerves, she flipped back to her most recent calls.

Another number she had stored—a number Rudiger had sent both of them.

Not a taxi service...

Not much at all—certainly nothing to worry about.

She hesitated, wincing, feeling the scrape of glass shards beneath her shoes as she stepped back down the porch, past a police officer standing on the sidewalk. She nodded farewell with a quick bob of her head, brushing her hair back in front of her maimed ear.

She picked up her pace now, moving to the curb. Sawyer was still talking with a police sergeant by the back of the vehicle where Mr. Lobo was crammed. Occasionally, the gorilla-sized suspect shot looks of loathing in Sawyer's direction. Ilse stared in the direction of the parked police vehicles, watched as Sawyer began to limp around the hood of the car. A paramedic had arrived on the scene now, but as he tried to approach Sawyer, he received a stiff arm and a growl and retreated back to the ambulance parked up the street. Sawyer slowly eased into the cruiser, passenger-side. He waited for another officer to sit driver side. Then, the vehicle began to move away.

Ilse watched it go.

Just a taxi. A hotel. A nice bed... Sleep...

It sounded so alluring.

But she completed the call to the other number, waited, listening.

“Hello?” came a bleary voice after the third ring. “Who is this?”

“Mrs. Cartwright?” Ilse murmured, standing on the sidewalk, wincing. “I—I don't mean to bother you. This is Dr. Beck, from before.”

“Oh yes, yes, hello,” said the secretary, her tone switching from mildly annoyed to eager. “Can I help? Anything? What do you need?”

“I really appreciate it, Mrs. Cartwright,” Ilse said, letting out a long exhalation. “I—I just want you to know your last bit of advice helped us a lot.”

“Really?” A pause. “Did you catch the monster?”

Ilse glanced to the back of a police cruiser, wincing. “I probably can't talk about it yet,” Ilse said. “I just...” Just what? What was this niggling little doubt? Not all bogeyman would escape. Not all monsters managed to trick their way out of it. Her own monster was imprisoned in Germany. Amos Crowder was behind bars too. So why was she so worried?

Then again, what could it hurt? Just a niggling doubt—a little consideration. Crossing T’s, dotting I's. Instead of body parts, though, her letters used questions and answers.

“I—it's not much, I just wanted to know if you told us everything about Mr. Peltari. We were in such a rush once you mentioned the night class, I don't think we were thorough enough.”

“Anything else? No, no, not that I can think of. So you did catch the killer? Who was it?”

“Mrs. Cartwright, please. Anything—anything at all? Another class, perhaps? You said he liked botany.”

“I—well... I mean it wasn't a legal class. It wasn't anything.”

Ilse's spine prickled. “What?”

Mrs. Cartwright gave a little snort. “Really, it's nothing... Just, well, it slipped my mind before. It wasn't important at all. I don't even have the names of the students for—”

“Students, what are you talking about, Mrs. Cartwright?”

“Once a month, maybe less,” she said, quickly, almost defensively now. “I didn't forget so much as it didn't seem relevant. It wasn't anything to do with his job.”

Ilse just waited, the prickle along her back intensifying.

“But, well, you mentioned his hobby. He would sometimes go to one of those community gardens. He liked to share his passion for plants with some of the classes there. He'd worked for the community center in the past, in a professional capacity, so they always liked having him.”

“He taught a class at the community center?”

“Barely a class, more like an activity. But... but yes. For people, well, people who don't particularly flourish in usual school methods.”

“How do you mean?”

“Oh, I don't know the details. This was outside his usual schedule. But people with dyslexia, or aphasia... you know. Learning disabilities.”

Ilse stared unblinking over the police cruisers now, her pulse racing. Learning disabilities... In the words of Rudiger: bingo. She glanced towards the police sedan jam-packed with muscle and meat. But then returned her attention to the phone. “Do you happen to have a roster for these students, too, Mrs. Cartwright?”

Again, though, she sounded defensive. “I tracked everything for him. At least, everything scheduled. But like I said, he went to the gardens on his own time, for pleasure. He never gave me anything. I would've kept it, if he had. But he didn't—he didn't,” her voice began to crack.

“It's alright, Mrs. Cartwright,” Ilse said, hurriedly. “Do you have any idea where he might have kept a roster? Maybe just a sign-in sheet for anyone at these botany lessons?”

“I don't know. If he did have something like that, though, it might be in his office with his personal files. Top drawer, second cabinet behind the heating lamps. I'm sorry, Dr. Beck. I thought I'd told you everything. I wasn't trying to—well... Did you catch him, though?”

“Thank you, Mrs. Cartwright. I'll be in touch. Thanks very much!” Ilse said, closing her phone quickly to reset it, then hastily lifting it a second time.

She waited on tenterhooks, not quite glancing towards where Sawyer's car had vanished up the street. Should she call him? No sense approaching him with this. Not now. They probably had their guy. Yes—most likely, he was already in custody. Justin Lobo checked all the boxes... almost.

Sawyer was the one who'd said the people who did the best on cases weren't afraid to miss their shots. This was the same thing... just a shot, nothing more.

The phone connected. She cleared her throat, listening for a moment, then replied, “Yes—please. I need a taxi. Right now.”