Arsonist (24 page)

“I could shoot you right now and no one would question me.”

“But you won’t. I did some reading up on you. Quite the
Boy Scout. Sorry about your wife. Is she really marrying someone from the Chargers? Never liked football. Too much aggression. I think you’re the same way, aren’t you, Jon?”

“Stop calling me that.”

“It’s your name, isn’t it?”

Stanton struck him with the weapon lightly on the head and pressed the muzzle against his temple, his head pushed against the glass of the passenger side window.

“Did I do something to upset you, Detective?” he said with a chuckle. “It couldn’t have been those little kiddies I fried, could it?”

Stanton took out his phone.

“I have to urge you, Detective, not to do that. I will clam up and ask for a lawyer and she will starve to death. She’s somewhere no one ever goes. All I’m asking for is that you take a drive with me out there. After that, I will turn myself in.”

“No you won’t.”

“I give you my word.”

He pulled the gun away from his head. “You don’t want to turn yourself in. You want to die.”

The man grew quiet. “And you presume to know too much. Now are we going to go see Emma or go to the station and let her die?”

Stanton bit his cheek. He transferred the gun to his left hand and pulled out the keys with his right before starting the car.

“I knew you were as smart as you looked, Detective.”

They pulled out of the church parking lot onto San Bernadisto Drive and got onto the freeway.

“Stay in this lane,” the man said. “It’ll be about twenty minutes.” He leaned back in his seat as if on a leisurely drive. “I read that you almost died and were in the hospital for nearly a month. Your partner, what was his name? Sherman? Or whatever it was. I read they found out it was a fake name and don’t know who he is or where he is. He got away pretty free and clear, didn’t he?”

Stanton didn’t respond.

“Anyway, I was in a hospital for a long time too. It’s an odd place, isn’t it? Not quite prison and not quite freedom. You seem to turn in on yourself. Your mind begins to eat itself like your body does when you don’t give it nourishment. I had to read a lot to keep that from happening, but who knows? Maybe it happened and I’m just not aware of it? That’s always puzzled me, Detective. I know you have a doctorate in psychology. Tell me, how does one know when one has gone crazy? If you’re crazy, you can’t tell you’re crazy, right?”

Stanton said nothing as a car cut him off and he slowed down.

“Are you really not going to not talk to me this whole trip? It would make it quite boring, you know.”

“How many?” Stanton said.

“In total? I don’t know.”

“No, you know. You keep track.”

“I used to keep track. But after the first few, you begin to forget things. You would be amazed how mundane killing can get, Jon. How banal. It’s like anything else. If you do it enough, it gets boring.”

“But you can’t stop.”

“No, I can’t stop. I wouldn’t want to. It’s still fun. One day it won’t be but right now it is. Do you remember the Zodiac Killer? How they never found him and they think that he was locked up on other charges or died? I don’t think so. People don’t consider that murder just started boring him and he moved on to something else. That’ll probably happen to me as well. But you know how that is, you’ve killed a lot too.”

“Not like you.”

“Why? Because you did it for the ‘good’ of the public? What if someone you had killed, let’s say one of the murderers, would’ve killed someone who was going to kill others down the road. Like by being a drunk driver? Is that then an evil or good act he’s performed? If you measure it by substantive parameters, it was a good act that saved lives. There are too many variables in life, too many unknowns to say what’s good and what’s evil. Those terms have become outdated.”

“When you equivocate good and evil, only good loses out.”

He chuckled. “That seems to be the curse of this time, doesn’t it? I’ve been gone many years and coming back even I was shocked with what I saw on television, what was considered acceptable behavior. I can see, physically see, that society has become more Godless and corrupted. My father had predicted it, but I never believed him. He was a preacher; you and he, I think, might’ve gotten along. Except of course that he raped all the women that surrounded him.” He laughed. “I think some of the animals too. Every man has his appetites I suppose. You’re going to want to merge with this interstate.”

Stanton swung left and they followed
Interstate 15 for what was easily another half hour. They were in a low-income area and Stanton could see several government housing projects blotting the landscape. Covered in graffiti, one had an abandoned car in front that had been taken apart piece by piece.

Getting
off the freeway, they drove another few minutes. They came to a line of abandoned homes and the man pointed to one and said, “Stop in front.”

Stanton took out his cell phone. “She’s not here,” the man said. “You may want to wait before calling it in.”

“You said you were taking me to her.”

“I am. Be patient, Detective.”

He got out of the car and Stanton followed.

CHAPTER 48

Daniel Childs lifted over three hundred and fifteen pounds on the bench press before sitting up and taking a swig of fruit punch creatine. The gym was packed and two women in spandex were working out in front of him. He smiled to the one on the right, wearing a flower-print tube-top, and she smiled back.

He then moved to the
preacher curls and did drop-sets until exhaustion. He felt his phone vibrating in his pocket: it was his secretary.

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“Internal Affairs is here, Danny. They want to speak with you.”

“Well tell ‘em I’m at the gym. They can come back later.”

“They said it’s urgent. They wanted your cell number but I told them I would just call you.”

“All right, gimmie thirty.”

Danny saw the young woman glance over to him again. He wanted to go over and speak to her but was short on time. IAD would show up at his house if he didn’t meet with them at the office. He’d always had an impression of them as piranhas. Cannibal piranhas. They were necessary to prevent corruption, but the people that were corrupt usually came out of or went into IAD.

He showered and changed into jeans and a zip-up Polo shirt, letting his badge dangle on the chain around his neck. He got into his Nissan truck and drove down the road before hopping on the interstate. Northern was buzzing with activity by the time he got there. He parked out back and walked in. Two men in suits sat inside his office.

Childs threw his gymbag behind his desk and sat down.

“What do you want, Matt?” he said.

One of the men took out a piece of gum and unwrapped it. “Gum?”

“No thanks. Now what the fuck do you want?”

“We’ve gotten some complaints on one of your detectives.”

“I’m sure you have. Which detective?”

“Jon Stanton.”

“Stanton? What was the complaint?”

“Sexual harassment of a bar manager and assault against one of the bouncers.”

Childs chuckled. “Have you seen Jon Stanton? I promise you he couldn’t assault no bouncer.”

“Well that’s not what his partner said.”

“Stephen Gunn told you Stanton assaulted a bouncer?”

“Among other things. We’re doing this as a courtesy, Danny. We don’t need to alert the supervising officer. He can contact his union rep if he wants and come in with them but we want some time with him.”

“Jon Stanton’s the best cop I got. I’d prefer if you sunk your teeth into someone else.”

“Like who?”

“How about the fucking chief of police? I heard he’s got a thing for working girls.”

Matt grew uncomfortable and glanced to his partner. “When Stanton comes back let us know. We’ll be around.”

He left one of his cards and Childs picked it up and tossed it in the trash.

CHAPTER 49

Stanton stood in front of the old house with the pointed roof and considered calling the SWAT team right now, after he’d put a bullet in each of the man’s ankles to make sure he was adequately slowed down. But he thought of Emma, tied up in some basement in the dark. Slowly starving to death over the coming weeks. The thought caused him pain, physical pain that wrenched his guts. He glanced around and said, “Let’s go.”

They walked up the path to the home and the man used a key to get in. The house was empty except for a few beer cans and used hypodermic needles. An old, stained sleeping bag was in one corner and it had developed crisscrossing spiderwebs. The house smelled like dirt and urine and Stanton had the urge to snort to get the scent out of his nostrils.

“The basement,” the man said.

Stanton followed him to a door. The man opened it and revealed a long set of stairs going down into the dark. He flipped a light and a single lightbulb turned on downstairs, illuminating their way just enough that they might not fall.

The basement was cool and humid;
it was empty as well except for several cardboard boxes and two monitors in the center of the room. They were hooked up to a laptop and Stanton had difficulty seeing the images from where he was standing. He lifted his gun to the man’s back. “Keep moving,” he said.

Coming
to the center of the basement, Stanton could see the images clearly now. On one monitor was a family. A male, female, and four children. They were tied at the waist with what looked like some sort of rope and the children were crying.

On the other screen, was Emma. She was tied and gagged.

“Where is she?”

“Guess.”

“Tell me where she is, now.”

“You have a choice. Emma and the family are both surrounded with gallons of napalm. There’s a lit fuse working its way around the space at their locations. It’s got
…” He checked his watch. “It’s got twenty-five minutes before it reaches the napalm. Each of their addresses are twenty minutes away. One is north and the other is south. You can only save one of them, Jon.”

Stanton grabbed the man and spun him around, bashing his elbow into his face. The man flew off his feet and Stanton was on him. He struck
him once more in the face with his fist and pinned the man down with one hand as he put his firearm on the man’s cheek.

“Tell me where she is.”

“Fine,” he said, laughing as blood poured from his nose, “but then I won’t tell you where the family is. Mr. and Mrs. Westfall and their four beautiful children. Too bad, one of the kids was getting straight A’s and might’ve gotten a scholarship to college.”

Stanton grabbed the man’s collar and lifted him up toward himself. “You’re going to tell me everything.”

“No, I’m not. Here’s the real fun part, Jon. If you save the family, you’ll never forgive yourself. What if Emma was the one you were supposed to spend your life with and you let her fry? But if you save Emma, you can never be with her. Your relationship would be tainted. Every time she looked at you it would remind her of me. Eventually, the sight of you would fill her with dread.”

Stanton knew it was true and it sickened him. He sat up and gripped his Desert Eagle with both hands, steadying them.

“Yes,” the man whispered, “do it. Do it.”

Stanton’s hands began to shake.

“Do it, do it do it do it,” the man hissed.

Images flashed through his mind. Images of the men he had killed in the line of duty. Evil men that couldn’t be stopped any other way. It was war, and in war killing was inevitable. It always had been. But this wasn’t war. The man was lying helpless on the ground, blood pooling around his head from a broken nose.

“No, I won’t kill you,” Stanton said.

The man spit a glob of bloody phlegm and wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “You still have to choose. Tick tock tick tock.”

Stanton looked to the screens. He saw the faces contorted in pain and anguish. It tore his heart out to see tears streaming down the cheeks of the children and the parents that were helpless to comfort him. Emma was hunched over, defeated. Her hair stuck to her face from tears or blood or both. She looked to the camera and then away. Her eyes were already dead; her hope had been taken from her.

“No,” Stanton whispered.

“What?”

“No. I won’t choose. I won’t play games with you.”

“They’ll all die and it’s your fault.”

“No, it’s not. If they die, then they have to die. It’s God’s will, not mine. But you’ll die too. In a gas chamber with me looking in your eyes through the glass.”

“Make a fucking choice,” he spit out.

“No. Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

The man roared in frustration, and leapt to his feet at Stanton like an animal. He tackled him over the equipment and they hit the ground hard. The man struck him twice and Stanton grabbed him by the collar and flipped him over. The man brought up a knee into his groin and then spun to his stomach, pushing himself up with his arms. Stanton brought up the firearm but the man had already spun around and brought his forearm down against it, sweeping it away and to the floor.

Stanton tried to strike him with an elbow and the man ducked and t
ook him down to his back again. Stanton wrapped his legs around the man’s hips and tried to prevent him from having a good position above him. He lifted his hips and they spun on the ground. Stanton jumped up but lost his balance and stumbled backward as the man crawled on all fours and grabbed his legs, lifting them and causing Stanton to fall back against the wall.

The man was on top of him now and pummeling his face with his fists. He was grunting like a pig as he struck and the grunts grew louder and turned to screams.

Stanton’s face was a pulp of bloody, slick flesh. He felt teeth loose in his mouth and coughed as blood poured down his throat and over his chin. He was dazed and felt a pounding in his head that nearly blinded him. Heat was in his head just off to the side, heat where heat shouldn’t be. He rolled to his side.

The man stood up, out of breath, and heard a metal clink as he tried to bring his left hand up. He looked down to see the handcuffs that were locked on his wrist and on a small exposed pipe against the wall.

“No,” he screamed, “no no no no no.” He began pulling and ravenously jerking his hand, attempting to get it loose. The flesh on his wrist began to bleed. Realizing it was futile, he jumped at Stanton.

Stanton rolled again but felt the man grab his shoulder. He turned his head back and bit into the man’s fingers. There was a scream as he let go and Stanton rolled again over the floor, out of reach.

Stanton watched as the man was screaming and hollering and pounding the metal pipe with his feet and free hand. He reached down and tried to bite his wrist, not realizing the pain that would result. Stanton looked over to the laptop that was on the floor in the center of the room.

He crawled over, spitting blood in an attempt to keep it out of his mouth. He got to the laptop. It was a blank background image of a green hillside. It was the desktop. The images of Emma and the family were still on the two monitors. Stanton took out his cell phone and flipped through his contacts before dialing a number.

It rang four times before a male voice answered, “Hello?” He was out of breath and Stanton could hear a female voice in the background.

“This is Jon. I need you to do something for me,” Stanton said, speaking slowly and cautiously, the S’s slurring from the blood that was still pooling in his mouth.

“Jon Stanton? Jon, it’s fucking Sunday. I don’t work Sundays, man. You got the TV on or something? What’s that screaming?”

“I don’t have much time, Billy. Please.”

He sighed. “Fine, what is it? And stop fucking eating I can barely understand you.”

“
There’re two monitors set up somewhere. They’re attached to a laptop. I need to find…I need to find out where the monitors are set up.”

“Hm, well, what program’s running on the laptop?”

“It’s just showing a desktop.”

“Any minimized windows?”

Stanton glanced to the bottom of the screen and saw an icon of a flying carpet with a genie on it. “Yes. I opened it. The program is Magic Carpet.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s easy. On the bottom of the home screen in MC there should be a settings tab. You see it?”

“Yeah.”

“Click on it. Now there should be a locations icon on there. Click that.”

“Got it. It’s a bunch of numbers.”

“It’s in longitude and latitude. Just type the numbers into Google Maps and it’ll give you an address.”

“I don’t know if this has Internet. I need you to do it.”

“Can this wait? I got someone here. And what the fuck is that screaming, Jon?”

“Do it now,” Jon said, as he spit a large glob of blood on the floor, “or I will come down there and put a bullet through your Mac.”

“All right, all right, chill out. What’re the numbers?”

Stanton read the numbers. Billy hummed and mumbled something to himself as they came up. He read the addresses off. One was about twenty minutes north. Another was…on this street.

“Thanks,” Stanton said.

“No prob but you—”

Stanton hung up and called dispatch. He sent a unit to the address
up north and then rose to his feet. He called Slim Jim and told him what was happening. SWAT was called out.

The man was now on the floor, sweat pouring from him as he laughed. “They won’t put me in prison. They can’t kill me either. I have two Axis One disorders. I’m not competent to stand trial. They’ll put me in a state hospital and I’ll get out. And I’m coming to pay you a visit, Jon. Sleep with the lights on.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

Stanton ran up the steps and slipped once, hitting his elbow hard against the stair. He got up again and continued up the stairs and went outside. The house he was in had the number 2275 and the address he needed was 2304. He walked up the street until he found it. A group of boys was across the street and they eyed him as he ran up the lawn and to the door.

It was locked and Stanton began kicking it near the doorknob. It wouldn’t open. He fired two rounds into the knob and kicked it again and it broke open. In the living room, hunched over, sat Emma Lyon.

Stanton ran to her and threw his arms around her. She began to weep as he moved to untie her.
Gallons of liquid were set up around her; five containers in all with what looked like nylon rope sticking out of their openings. Stanton removed the nylon rope from all of them and followed the rope to another room where a fuse was slowly burning down. He stamped out the fuse and went back to the living room. Emma wasn’t there.

He went outside and saw her on the lawn vomiting, but nothing was coming up. He went beside her as sirens droned in the distance, growing nearer with every second.