After the Evil – A Jake Roberts Novel (Book 1) (20 page)

Since the beginning of our talk, I have been using
the relaxed “nothing you say is too big” for me persona. Gates is
making me more irritable now, than when I first walked in. I
oscillate between wanting to figure him out, and wanting to beat
him to death. One thing I know for sure is, I have been in this
chair too long. It’s no more made for my comfort than his, so I
stand. Gates makes a shallow inquiry about my comfort level.

“Are you getting cranky, Jake? I didn’t rape him you
know. I killed Ed, but I never touched him sexually. I want you to
know that.”

Got him.

I try to count to ten, but that never works for me,
a deep breath helps. I have to let that sick, perverted psychopath
ramble on no matter how abhorrent the story is.

“Did you enjoy killing, Michael?”

“I would have to ask you the same question, Jake.
You killed that young girl, did you like it?”

His facial expression displays honest and sincere
interest in my answer, yet I know he is testing me. Depending on
how I react will now determine how much more I will get from him. I
have seen it before. He’s just like all the other wise guys trying
to spar with their keeper. They think it empowers them. Gates
studies himself in the glass.

“I had no choice Michael, I’m sworn to protect
society. I didn’t seek to kill her. Unlike you, I don’t seek out
victims.” I give him time to digest.

“I don’t like guns.”

He turns impish, and slips into a childlike
rhyme.

“A gun is no fun. No, I’d rather watch a face
contort from my blade.”

He looks upward for no reason, certainly not because
he is seeking divine guidance.

“I’m completely amoral and malevolent, Jake. You can
look up both words later. I don’t just like to kill. I love to
perpetrate evil, especially death. I embrace death. I don’t fear
it. I experience the eroticism of death through each of my victims.
But I don’t understand why they didn’t love me.”

“Why who didn’t love you?”

He becomes animated and impatient. His hands
clench.

“What are we talking about here, Jake? My victims,
of course, I mean why didn’t I matter to them. Take Thad, for
instance, we were fine until she came along.”

* * *

Because of Ed’s death, Harmon was temporarily the
Chief Inspector. The new position was a blow to Harmon’s entire
outlook. No longer was he able to shirk certain disagreeable rules.
Now, he had to enforce them with impartiality. From behind the
one-way glass, Harmon grumbled to himself.

“There are real consequences for your actions,
Gates,” Harmon said.

Detective Melissa Collins joined him. She had been
out doing follow-up at the crime scene.

“What do you have for me?”

Collins told Harmon that the coroner was about to
start Ed’s autopsy if he wanted to be present. Harmon told her to
call the man and tell him he would not be.

“The news is out in the hall screaming for answers,
sir. And the rest of us are collecting a fund for Lucille and the
kids.”

Harmon just nodded. She watched him reach into his
pocket. All the while, he never stopped staring at Gates through
the glass. Outside of the observation room, the air was thick with
anger, frustration and sadness. The usual banter and excess volume
between all ranks was noticeably absent. Instead, they spoke in
muted whispers. As Collins left the observation room, Harmon heard
her apologize.

“Sorry ma’am.”

Collins almost walked into Mika.

As Mika turned the corner into the room, it was
obvious she had been crying since leaving Quantico. Her eyes were
swollen, and her lips were drawn in tight. She grasped Harmon. Her
voice trembled as she talked through the tears.

“I just can’t believe it.”

Harmon threw his two big arms around her as if
protecting her from an imaginary assailant. He searched above her
head for God. A single tear trailed down his cheek.

“He got in early before any of us, took the call.
All of the files were on his desk. He was trying to find something
we all missed. He wanted so much to find it, for you.”

Harmon released Mika, nudged away another tear, and
pointed an outstretched finger at Gates.

“That’s him, that’s the man. We have him now. He
won’t do any more harm. And he will pay Mika, he will pay.”

Mika focused on Gates. Her mind whirled through all
of the dismal, grisly murder scenes as she tried to put his face to
each. She tried to pull together all of the interlocking pieces of
the puzzle in her mind. The last piece she placed was Ed’s.

She also watched Jake inside the barren
interrogation room. He was only inches away from the suspect. She
instinctively knew what he was thinking. Harmon withdrew from
her.

“I’ll be back. I have to brief the vultures. Can you
believe it? Ed’s passing left me in charge.”

The big man looked to her for sympathy.

“You’re a wonderful successor to a great man. He’ll
be watching.” Mika said.

Harmon forced a smile. He turned and quietly left
the cramped observation room without saying another word. Mika
stepped as close to the glass as was humanly possible. She placed a
hand against it. She resumed her professional demeanor because
there was work to do. She had to concentrate on the words of the
man inside the next room. There could not be any doubt.

* * *

“Who is she?”

I ask patiently, although I’m tired of his mind
games. He’s arrogant.

You’re busted Gates. Give it up.

“Lori Powers.”

His answer staggers me. He could not have blindsided
me better if he had used a Louisville slugger. I can’t believe he
said her name.

How did he know Lori?

“She was a patient of my late, great lover Dr.
Thaddeus Abrams just like you. Small world isn’t it?”

Gates presses a finger to his lips.

“Thad told me all of the intimate details of your
two pathetic lives. It almost brought tears to my eyes. Ms. Powers’
troubled past, you all brokenhearted over murdering that girl. I’m
sorry, did I say murdering?”

He is pushing all of my buttons, but I can’t react.
His claim of Abrams sleeping with Lori is outrageous. I need to
stay in the game to make he pays for every syllable. I need to hear
all of it.

Focus Jake.

“So anyway, like I told Ed, Thaddeus got a hard on
over her and––”

“You lost him to a woman? You killed Abrams over
jealousy? Couldn’t do it for him anymore?”

“THAD LOVED ME.”

Gates finally loses it. Another place and time, and
it would have been me tied to the bed, but I control the room while
Gates feels the pain.

“I never said they were lovers. Thad saw her
professionally. He did, for a while he told me, feel sexually
attracted to her, but he got over it.”

That brings sigh of relief to my psyche. I focus on
cool, impartial and all business.

“So why did you kill him?”

“Because Thad thought he was better than me, just
like all of the others. They were controlling, dominating,
misguided fools that deserved to die. The world is far better off
now because of what I have done.”

Gates cools to a hardened, cold-blooded
predator.

“I’d do them all again. Let me out of here, and I’ll
clean up the rest.”

My heart is breaking, my soul is crying, and my head
pounds like never before. I see Ed lying on the blood-soaked
mattress. I see the girl’s frozen death face. I see Lori’s face
with a look of bewilderment. I desperately need to walk away.
Michael Gates is a biting, edgy character in a sick, perverted
play. Standing, I march toward the door. He expresses surprise that
I’m leaving, because he wants to continue blustering about his evil
career and philosophies. I know he’s fucking with me, just to get
me to reach over and strangle him to death.

“Michael, you’re done cleaning up. Keep in mind that
those evil people you murdered are going to be sitting right next
to you in hell for all of eternity.”

Slamming the door behind me, I know I would have
lost control if I had stayed another second. The officer guarding
the door asks if I’m okay. I can’t answer. Gates finally got to me.
I need to decompress. If I’m ever going to collapse under pressure
from the job, this is the time. I have a pain that requires
medication, so I reach into my pocket for what I have left of my
painkillers. As I start down the hall toward observation, I’m
surprised to see Mika come out. She sees the prescription bottle in
my hand.

“No Jake, that’s not going to help. We all need to
pull together, as difficult as it is. I need you on this.”

My only other alternative is punching my fist
through the wall. I don’t want to disappoint her, or break her
heart, not now, and not ever again. I look down at the pills in my
hand. She is just what I need to get back to normal, and she’s
right. With a dour look on his face, Harmon approaches the two of
us in the hallway. His eyes are wet and red. His words are quiet,
but deliberate.

“That was one of the hardest things I have ever had
to do. I had to announce to the world the death of someone I
love.”

Mika and I exchange looks. We know what has to be
done. We have to finish it. Just then, there is a commotion down
the hall.

* * *

Down the hall comes a bright orange and yellow flash
from the barrel of a gun. A clap of thunder reverberates inside
CID. The spent shell ejected from the officer’s stolen weapon
bounces and spins to a stop on the floor. Everyone scatters for
cover. Most fall to the floor, while others find refuge behind
walls, or under desks. Each of us tries desperately to control our
panic. Weapons are drawn and the smell of cordite is strong.

“SHOTS FIRED! OFFICER DOWN!”

After the struggle with Gates, I see the officer
fall back into the hallway. Crimson bubbles rise up out of a hole
in his chest. A river of blood flows to the floor. His body quivers
several times before he expels his final breath. I’m unarmed. My
weapon is inside a lock box just outside of the door to the
interrogation room. It’s department policy to secure it there
during the interrogation of suspects. Caught between the dead
officer to my right, Mika to my left, the ceiling, floor and walls.
I have nowhere to go. Gates steps out into the hallway and draws
down on me. I fall hard to the floor. Curled up, I wait to feel the
burning sensation of the entry wounds. A double-tap rings out. The
sound of two thuds follows as if a hammer pounds on meat. Sometimes
shock prevents the pain, I don’t feel a thing. I see Gates go down.
He lets out a high-pitched wail during the fall. Blood spouts out
of the two holes in his chest. A trickle of blood drips from the
corner of his mouth.

When she first saw Gates with the weapon, Mika
shoved Harmon back into the observation room. She targeted Gates in
an instant and fired twice. Harmon recovered quickly with his
service revolver drawn and took a position in front of her. There
was no way he was going to let her take a bullet.

Had I not hit the floor when I did, I’d have been
joining Gates on the other side. That wouldn’t have been so bad
because it would have given me more time in eternity to torment and
punish the worthless scumbag. Mika’s expertise and precision with
her service weapon, however, prevents my one-way ticket. I get up
off the floor and race to Gates and the officer. Harmon checks the
officer’s pulse. He’s gone. Gates is still breathing slightly. The
stolen weapon is taken away. Mika comes up and stands over Gates
with her hands locked around her Glock pointing it in his face.

He slowly opens his glassy eyes and coughs up more
blood. He blinks several times until he can see her. Two words pass
through his lips, but there is no sound to accompany them. There is
no mistake about what they are.

“Thank you.”

A millisecond later Gates is dead. The only regret
any of us has, except for Mika, is that he didn’t suffer. A
detective checks for a throat pulse near the hemorrhaging wound and
nods. The division shifts into overdrive.

Mika asks if I’m okay. Grasping her forearm with one
hand, I force a smile and brace myself, while my other hand
searches my body for any sign of physical trauma. I hope everyone
is too distracted to see my hands shaking.

“Fine, I think.”

My hand stops searching, but Harmon starts pawing me
for injuries.

“You okay, Jake?”

My hands are still shaking, but not as bad. Harmon
notices. I check to see if Mika is okay.

“Are you okay?”

What it feels like to take a life cannot be defined,
or described. Everyone reacts differently. There’s no way to
prepare you how and what you should feel, or say. The reaction is
very personal.

Mika stares at Gates. She knows what he was and what
he has perpetrated on society. Like all of us, she wanted him to
pay for his sins, but none of us wants to be the hand of God, to
affect the final judgment.

As I take her service weapon, her hand is trembling,
but she is amazingly strong- willed and takes command instantly.
Individual officers respond and go about the job of securing the
scene. The paramedics and techs arrive. Harmon commands the rest of
the troops to stand down.

“It’s all over, people.”

I swear I hear Ed in Harmon’s voice.

It’s 6 p.m. and dusk is approaching from the east.
This morning our friend was murdered. By late morning, we had
captured his killer. Through the hours since we learned the details
of his miserable life. By early evening, the perp was dead. It’s a
time of conflicting emotions. Mika and I walk outside and look for
a place to hide. A dimly lit booth will serve the purpose. A bar is
always a great place to hide in. Everyone in there is hiding from
something, so they understand.

The place is small and nondescript, but nearby.
Mika’s head turns constantly as if she is expecting someone to
notice her as the person who killed the psychopath. The media
vultures are still circling the precinct. They don’t have a clue
who shot Gates. When they find out, the circus will begin.