Book Three: Part 7 - Varied Evil - Chapter 10

Off Melrose Avenue – 11:45 a.m.

Andre Devon walked out of Burger King, and in one hand was a bag of four Whopper’s and fries, the other bag had two large sodas.

Getting in behind the wheel, he handed the drinks to J.W.

“Well, partner. So far, the day has been pretty much like the weekend. Nice and quiet.”

J.W. smiled.

“To be honest, I’m glad. As much as I like being back to work, I don’t know if I could handle anything major.”

“You want to call it a day? No one will fault you if you do.”

“Nah. I’ll be okay. Just a little nervous, I guess. Hell, I don’t know. I remember the first time I was hurt. Took a slug a couple inches above my heart. It was touch and go then. And now, I get a blade in me almost in the exact spot the bullet entered. You think maybe my heart is a magnate for metal?”

Andre’s eyes raised in surprise.

“Yeah, I know. Why am I still a cop. Maybe it’s because I’m gay and still have something to prove. Maybe it’s because I didn’t get killed. Maybe I’m like a cat with nine lives and have seven left. I love this work too much to let an injury sideline me very long. Maybe, because I’m just a hard head, and don’t know when to quit.”

“And just maybe, Poncho, it’s all of the above. Not everyone is cut out to be a cop. We are respected by so few, hated by so many, and needed most when least expected.”

“Boy, if that isn’t the truth. Our only friends are our families, and other shields like us. We hope to get in our twenty, retire, and live the good life. Not end up on the ‘Wall of Names’.”

Andre was looking at him the entire time when something caught his attention from the corner of his eye. He turned his head and looked through the door of Burger King.

“Jeeze-Louise. Will you look at that!”

J.W. took a look and sighed.

“Okay, Cisco, you want to take the other exit. I can cover this one. I’ll call it in.”

Andre nodded, stepped from the car and ran around the back of the building toward the other exit.

Inside, two men were robbing Burger King.

Twenty seconds later, J.W. was out of the car, gun raised shoulder-high as he stood by the door. He knew Cisco was in position. He could see most of the customers had huddled as a group near the back wall of the store, either sitting or standing around tables and chairs.

The cashier was a young girl around twenty and shaking, on the verge of tears. The other employees stood frozen at their work stations. J.W. couldn’t see any other civilians.

The girl handed them all the money out of three different registers, and the two robbers were about to go out the exit where Andre waited. Not only did they have the money, they also took a bag of burgers.

J.W. stepped through his entrance door, crouched low, signaling to everyone else to get down, and raised his gun. He knew he could have dropped both men if he wanted.

“Freeze! Drop your weapons and down on your knees. Now!”

Both men stopped for two seconds, turned and were about to fire when they heard another voice behind them.

“Don’t get stupid. Hit the floor, now!”

They looked back and forth between J.W. and Andre, with their guns trained on the two of them. In the time it takes to blink an eye, they knew they could get one cop, but either or both of them could get killed in the process. They dropped their guns, the bags in their hands, and hit the floor just as two other squad cars pulled up.

As J.W. and Andre were putting cuffs on their perps, and their rights read, it was Lowery that said, “Well, lookie here. Cisco and Poncho got it together. Looks like we aren’t needed here, Charlie.”

Western Maine – 7:15 p.m.

Seaside Motel

Police had an area sectioned off while detectives, and a forensic unit were trying to make sense of this killing.

A middle-age woman, with short brown hair, was found with her body ripped to pieces. It took police nearly two hours to find all the body parts. It was a messy and brutal savage attack.

The throat appeared to have been bitten into then ripped open. The arms and legs slashed away from the torso, and the chest was viciously slashed open and apparently the heart was half eaten. Her eyes were found about twenty feet from her remains. The rest of her internal organs were spread out over the property behind the motel room.

A blooded note, where the words were badly scrawled out read: “Baker, this will be you.”

The Baker-Manning Home – 10:17 p.m.

111 Homestead Lane

Just as Baker and Ed were headed to bed, her cell phone rang. She looked at him.

“Better answer it, Jan.”

She sighed and reached for her phone on the coffee table, opened it and gave her standard greeting.

“Baker.”

“Baker, this is Satchell.”

“What’s up, Satch?”

“I just received a call five minutes ago from the State Police in Andover, Maine, from a Colonel Mavis.”

“Maine? What’s up in Maine he’d call you for?”

“Seems a few hours ago, they discovered a body, and from the explanation, it wasn’t a pretty sight. Mavis said it was the most brutal murder he’s ever laid eyes on. But, from the physical description they could gather from photographs and her driver’s license; seems she resembled you a little bit.”

Baker’s eyes shifted to Ed in concern, then went back into professional mode.

“What’s this have to do with me, Satch?”

“A couple things about the murder are similar to Claire Waynestead for one. For another, they found a note with your name on it. It said, ‘Baker, this will be you’.

“Colonel Mavis did a quick check on a few things and realized the Baker the killer was inferring to, is you.”

“They know about me in Maine?”

“Seems your skills precede you. He remembered a few news articles that made it in one of their local papers about you, and the elusive Freddy.”

“Okay, so what do we do?”

“Tonight, nothing. Tomorrow, after the squad meeting, be in my office so you can look over everything with me that Mavis has faxed and will continue to fax me. He said once the autopsy was finished, he would send the findings.”

“All right, Satch. Tomorrow morning, then. But at eleven, I have to be at the hospital with the boy while his mother has surgery.”

“No problem. See you in the morning.”

Baker snapped her phone closed and told Ed what she found out.

“While you’re gone in the morning, I’ll do some leg work and see what I might come up with. Hopefully, Andover, Maine has a newspaper and a website.”

“Okay, and while you’re at it, check Claire Waynestead for me and see if she has any living siblings.”

“Will do. Can do. Enough of this for now. Let’s go to bed and get some sleep.”

Baker laid awake another two hours, staring at a dark ceiling, wondering who; wondering why.

Tuesday – April 10th

Captain Page’s Office – 8:47 a.m.

“Baker, I can’t tell you who left the message, or why, but, I did some checking with authorities in California about the actual findings on Ray, and his wife, Elaine.

“What was apparently first believed to be a random, yet brutal attack by a bear, never happened. Hair fibers found on their remains was a synthetic material, dyed to resemble the fur of a bear. The slashing marks were made by claws of which there is no argument, but it is certain that no bear killed Ray and Elaine. With the slash marks on the Jane Doe in Maine, they match with those found on Ray and Elaine, so we have to go on the belief the killer is one and the same person. The same type of synthetic fiber was also found on Jane Doe.”

“Who the hell is trying to target me, Satchell? I mean other than Freddy, there isn’t anyone out there I know of that has an issue with me.”

“Well, not counting all the perps you’ve busted over the years doing time now, I’m in complete agreement with you. Whoever he, or she is, and for the sake of brevity; we’ll say he is moving pretty fast. If he’s still moving, he could be here by tomorrow or ….”

“Or he’s already here, somewhere, planning how to get me.”

Baker inhaled sharply and started to grab her cell phone.

“Baker, I’m approving extra protection and precautions for you, Ed, and Stevie. A car will follow him to and from school. That’s all I can authorize until after I talk with Mayor Marsh. Another car will be parked out front of your home. Other than that, my hands are tied, but I am seeing the Mayor at one this afternoon.”

“I appreciate that, but I’m thinking of taking Stevie out of school and sending him to Mark’s parents. Stevie likes them, and it has been a while since he visited; plus, they have a nice ranch in the middle of nowhere so to speak. Be kind of hard to sneak up on anyone there.”

“Choice is yours.”

“The choice will be Stevie’s. I hope he doesn’t talk me into letting him stay.”

“Last I checked, you are still the parent.”

“You don’t know Stevie like I do, Satch.”

“Headstrong, eh?”

“Just like his mother.”

For the moment, she would wait until he was home before she talked with him, instead of pulling him out of school.

Johnson County Memorial Hospital – 11:56 a.m.

Baker had been sitting in the waiting room with nine-year old Leon Hargrove.

The boy’s mother went into surgery at nine. At 9:20, she picked Leon up from home and drove straight to the hospital. Now, it was all about the waiting.

It became hope.

It became prayers.

“Lieutenant Baker?”

Baker stood up from a chair next to a window. Leon was opposite her, his hand holding hers, tightly.

“Lieutenant Baker, I’m Dr. Ralph Jamison. We have done everything we could. The next twenty-four hours will tell the rest of the story.”

Leon looked at Baker.

“What story he talkin’ about?”

Baker was about to answer when Dr. Jamison bent to one knee.

“You must be Leon. Your mother spoke wonderful things about you. She loves you very much.”

“Yah, I know. I love momma, too. But tell me what kinda story you talkin’ about.”

Dr. Jamison looked up at Baker and she nodded for him to continue.

“Leon, we were able to take out all the bad stuff out of her and ….”

“You mean all the cancer, right?”

“Yes,” smiled Jamison. “We are ninety-nine percent sure it is completely removed. But we are putting your mother in ICU; intensive care, for the next few days to monitor her progress.”

“Okay, so what else?”

“If her vital signs show she is getting stronger, then we can say she is out of the woods and on the road to a full recovery.”

“What happens to my momma if she ain’t out of them woods?”

“Then we will have another situation we will have to explore. She might need a new lung. For now, she is attached to a respirator to help her with her breathing. Like I said, the next couple of days will tell us much more.”

“Doctor,” asked Baker, “did you have to remove the entire lung?”

“Yes, but that’s where part of the problem lies. Because of her age, we aren’t certain if her other lung will be strong enough to carry the burden. Living with one lung doesn’t usually affect everyday tasks or life expectancy, though a person with one lung wouldn’t be able to exercise as strenuously as a healthy person with two lungs. Plus, we will have to watch her closely for any infections that may set in.”

“You sayin’ my momma could still die after all this!”

Dr. Jamison nodded his head slowly, with a look of utter sadness in his eyes. He stood tall, looked down at Leon and softly said, “We will do all we can for her.”

Baker stepped forward less than a breath’s distance from Jamison.

“Listen to me very carefully, Dr. Jamison. I’m footing the bill for all of this, so you had better find a way this boy will have a mother to come back to. Do whatever it takes to get this woman healthy; somehow, some way.”

Leon looked up at Dr. Jamison and tugged on his lab coat.

“I want to see my momma.”

Twenty minutes later, Leon was in Room 20-C. Baker waited out in the hall.

He is far too young to be left alone, she thought, but God, you have given that boy a lot of strength.

She wiped away a single tear trickling from her right eye.

Dear God, please make this come out right.