Dead of Knight (8 page)

Tyro couldn’t sleep, nor could he get comfortable. The memories of the night before flashed through his mind and stimulated him more than half a dozen cans of Red Bull. He smiled and reached for the clock radio on the night table, then grimaced when the effort stretched his abdominal muscles, sending a jolt of pain around his ribs. The clock showed 9:35 AM. He frowned. His face tingled and then began to throb.

“Shit!” 

The bruising left from incident at The Thirsty Gull robbed him of the customary bliss he felt after bringing forth judgment on a guilty individual. He rubbed his ribs and moved his head back and forth until his neck cracked.

The smile returned.

He flipped the sheet aside and swung his legs from the bed. Resting on the edge of the mattress for a moment, he glanced at the bottom drawer of his bureau where he kept his dark costume. He wanted to put it on, to feel strong and confident, if only for a few minutes. But there were chores to do at home and special work, as he called it, waiting for later. 

At his computer table, he lifted the keyboard to retrieve a 4x6 index card. On the card were sets of initials. He crossed out the third set of letters with a red pen, as he had previously done with the first two. He underlined and circled the abbreviation, S.M., then replaced the card and left the table for the basement stairs. Despite the unpleasantness of the Moore incident, he was excited. He was no longer the apprentice. With three successful missions to his credit, he was now the master. Nothing could stop his crusade.

He felt safe, secure, and happy in the basement of his mother’s home, free from the grumpy customers of his paper routes, his mom’s nit-picking, and most of all, the burdens of being a modern vigilante.

He moved to a set of shelves in the south corner where he kept the rodents. He pulled a once-clear plastic crate from the third ledge, removed the lid, set the box on the floor, and reached inside, lifting out a full-grown rat by the tail in each hand. He grinned at the struggling rodents.

“Zeus, Apollo. Lunch!”  

From the far corner of the main room came the sound a dog might make when it jumped into a water-filled ditch. He marched toward a cage from which the thrashing noises emanated. It was six feet tall, eight feet across, and fifteen feet long. Apollo and Zeus waited inside their fiberglass pool. They were his favorite animals; a pair of yard-long caimans.

They had been imported from Central America as hatchlings, and Tyro had bought them at a local pet store. The reptiles had quadrupled in size in two years he’d owned them. He knew that caimans couldn’t boast the mass of American alligators or Aussie crocs, but with proper feeding and care they could reach six to eight feet in length.

He tossed the rats into the enclosure. Apollo leapt from just below the surface, caught his meal in his jaws, shook the rodent from side to side and swallowed it down. The second rat swam for it, doing a feeble dog paddle.

“Fuck, Zeus! It’s right there...by your tail!” Tyro pointed.

Shaking his head, he returned to the rodent shelf to fill a metal crate about the size of a shoebox with more rats. After delivering the rest of the caimans’ lunch, he stood in front of a stack of four-foot aquariums. These glass tanks held his snake collection. He removed the wire mesh lid from the first cage and reached inside for the ceramic water bowl that was soiled with feces. The snake, a six and a half foot boa constrictor, hissed a warning.

“Ah, stow it, Lita!” he said as he moved a measure of her length off the edge of the bowl.

Without warning, the snake struck, her mouth open almost 180 degrees as she latched onto his arm at the left wrist. He staggered back under the snake’s weight of nearly sixty pounds.

“Fucking bitch!” He scratched at the snake’s head with his right hand, and tried to pull her away, but the more he tugged at the serpent, the deeper her curved teeth dug into his arm.

“Fuck—Fuck—Fuck!” He was bleeding from the wound.

He looked right into the snake’s unblinking lidless eyes. Lita had several coils of her body wrapped around his arm.

“You bitch, Lita. You’re just like Walker and the others!” He paused. “I’ve had enough of you all!”

He dragged the snake over to his mom’s meat freezer, lifted the lid and swung his arm, still tangled in two yards of retile, into the frozen mess of steaks and chicken. Desperate to escape the chill, the cold-blooded serpent loosened its grip and he was able to free its jaws. He took several long breaths, returned Lita to her cage, wrapped a length of cloth around his wound and returned to his bedroom.

He was at his computer for only two minutes before the instant message appeared.

Hey T.K. you fag!

I did it,  
he typed and hit send.

Did what? Lick yo mommies’ twat?
Macho man replied.

No. I completed my third mission.

Cranked it 3 times already Today??

I’m the master now.

Master of bullshit—huh T.K?

Everyone will know my work.

Is that Burger King or Mickie D’s?

He signed off and pushed away from his desk. He had no time for this childishness. A soldier of justice has much work to do. Sean Moore would pay for his indiscretion. The others were guilty and there was no escaping his brand of punishment. No one, not even the mighty Mounties could stop him. He was no longer the learner. No longer Tyro. He was Damian Knight—and there would be no mercy for those on the wrong side of the law.

Jack Staal took the quickest route to the Lake City mall, which included a short run north on Highway One. He thought about the book club connection between Walker and Haywood. If the killer worked at the store, he could use his position to meet his victims and learn their DOB and other information vital to stalking, ambush, and murder.

“You think Gooch and Hayes will get anywhere with the list from Alexander?” Fraser asked.

“It’s a bigger long shot than us looking for our guy at the mall.”

“Yeah, and the counselors at those shelters are tough. Last year me and Gina had the Sanford rape case. We had to fight for every bit of info we got from Glendale House. And the one who ran that place—Dawson—was a former vic. I could tell straight away she hated me. I’m not talkin’ about no race shit; she hated me cause I’m male!”

“Yeah, that’s why I thought it would be better for Gooch and Gina to try that angle,” Staal said. “But if our guy had access to the files at one of those places, it could be a link.”

“Dawson will spout some line about client confidentiality and all that bullshit. Shit, I had to get a warrant last year. I was tryin’ to catch a damn rapist and she gave me the run around!”

“Jesus, Kenny. Try to understand what those women experienced. First, the assault, then the media gets involved, and those defense lawyers rip their stories to shit. It’s a fucking nightmare. Could you trust men again if that shit happened to you?”

“Yeah, Jack. I hear what you’re saying.” A few minutes went by before Fraser spoke again.

“Jack. I’m gonna call the Gooch and let her know where we’re at.” He flipped out his cell.

“Gooch, its Fraser. Me and Jack are heading over to Richardsons Books in Lake City.” Fraser explained how Staal had found the card and the connection with Haywood.

“Gooch actually sounded impressed by your lead.”

Staal parked the car in a
police only
spot near the main entrance of Lake City mall. He wasn’t familiar with the shopping center, other than the fact that the property had previously been a horse-race track. Once inside the lobby, Staal found a lighted map of the mall. He located the bookstore and motioned Fraser to follow him down an escalator.

“Let’s split up and each show the photos to a couple of employees,” Staal said.

They passed through the security gates and into the bookstore. Staal moved through the mystery section and into romance, where he found an employee stocking the shelves. She was about eighteen, bottle-blonde, with a severe case of acne. Staal pointed at the Harlequins and said, “People actually read this crap?”

She smiled, “Yeah, they’re some of our best sellers. Mostly old ladies. Can I help you, sir?”

“Well, Ashley,” he read her nametag, flipped out his detective shield, and held the photo out for her. “Any chance you recognize this guy? He’s about five-seven, 160 pounds, wears a lot of black.”

“Jesus, it looks just like Matt,” Ashley said.

“Matt?”

“Yeah, Mathew Douglas. He works in shipping and receiving. In the back.”

Staal went through the same details with a forty-something librarian-looking woman in the children’s section. She, too, said the composite looked like Douglas. He found Fraser near the front checkout. 

“Talked to two cashiers. Both said Matt Douglas.” Fraser slapped the photo.

“Same here,” Staal said. “This Douglas working today?”

“Yeah. Think we should get somebody to page a manager?”

“Uh-huh, and I’ll call in and run this guy.”

Fraser went to the checkout and asked the girl to page the highest-ranking supervisor while Staal called West Precinct on his cell to have Matt Douglas’s name run to see if he had any outstanding warrants or an arrest record.

A guy about forty-five with a dark gray suit, a comb-over, a trained smile, and fifty extra pounds made his way to the detectives. “I’m Trent Steward, the store manager. Can I help you, Detectives?”

“Yeah,” Fraser said. “Can we talk in private?”

Steward motioned Fraser and Staal to follow him across the floor to a rear office. The room was 10 feet by 18 feet, with a brushed aluminum desk, leather chair, and a rear wall featuring six video monitors showing different vantage points in the store. Stall set his composite photos on the desk. “Do you recognize this person, Mr. Steward?”

Steward dabbed perspiration from his forehead and looked at the likeness. “Yes, it looks like—it looks like one of my stock kids, can’t recall his name.”

“Mathew Douglas?” Staal asked.

Steward nodded. “Has he been involved in a crime?”

“His name came up in an investigation. We’d like to speak with him.”

Staal’s cell buzzed in his breast pocket. He spoke to the caller, a desk Constable, Bart Greco, who informed Jack that Douglas had two arrests for auto theft, and got off with time served and probation on both. Greco also gave Staal a name of Douglas’s partner in crime, Jason Pratt Junior. 

As Staal spoke on the phone, Steward turned to the bank of monitors and pointed a remote to the wall. He pressed the appropriate buttons to change the images until one screen showed the stockroom. Sitting in a folding chair with his feet up on a stack of boxed books, smoking and drinking a diet-Cola, was Mathew Douglas.

“Appears to be on a break. Would you like me to call him over the P.A.?”

“No, we’ll just head back there and say hello.”

On the way to the stockroom, Staal said, “Douglas took a hit for auto theft in ’07and again in ’08.”

The stockroom was a warehouse of fifteen-foot tall shelves of crated and boxed hardcover and paperback books. They found Douglas still sitting at the palette of books in the middle row. He didn’t look up from his skin magazine, just flicked his butt aside, and reached for another.

“You Mathew Douglas?” Staal asked. He noticed the cigarette brand was Marlboros.

“So?” The kid didn’t raise his head.

“Detectives Staal and Fraser. We need to ask you a few questions.”

“Shoot.”

“Where were you around 10:30 last night?” Staal asked as he stepped closer.

“Home sweet home.”

“Can anybody verify that?” Fraser asked.

“Mmm, hmm.”

Staal kicked Douglas’ legs off the book crate, grabbed two fistfuls of his shirt, and jerked him to his feet. “We know that’s bullshit, Douglas. We got a witness that says he saw you boosting a Porsche at 10:30 last night.”

“Aw, man, no—no way! That’s a damn lie,” Douglas said. His voice squeaked. Staal let go of his shirt.

“Our sketch artist made this likeness from the witness’s description.”

Fraser held the photo in front of Douglas.

“Let me see that,” Douglas took the photo. “Nah, that’s not me, no way. My mom was home around ten, she can tell you, I was home!”

“If it’s not you, then come with us, stand in a lineup, and if you didn’t do anything, you’ve got no worries,” Staal said.

“Am I under arrest?”

“No, but if you come with us down to the precinct and do the line up thing you’ll be back before your shift ends,” Fraser said.

“Ah, shit, I think I’m gonna be sick!” Douglas belched, doubled over and spat. Then he leapt to his left, ducked under the first shelf and through the narrow space to the next aisle. He was off in a flash.