For Everything a Reason (11 page)

Chapter
Twenty

With night falling and visiting time almost over, Joseph
held onto Marianna’s hand with an intensity born of fear. Darkness filled the
window completely, and it pushed against the glass with overwhelming
conviction. Worried about the safety of his wife and son, Joseph had convinced
her to spend the night across town at Eugene Profit’s place. She’d agreed
without comment, although not overly keen to do so, in an attempt to ease
Joseph’s anxiety.

“What about you?” Marianna
asked now. “Are you going to be okay?”

Joseph flashed her a crooked
half-smile. “I’ll be fine.”

Marianna’s brow furrowed
slightly. “I’m worried, Joseph. What if this killer decides to come back?”

“Then he’ll have to get through
hospital security and the armed officer outside.”

“The kid’s barely out of his
teens,” she responded, referring the fresh-faced officer guarding his room.

“Honey,” Joseph began, “I’ll be
fine. I’ll watch a bit of TV and get some sleep. And before I know it, you’ll
be back here. Nothing’s going to happen, I promise.”

“Okay,” she sighed.

Already asleep, Jake was curled
up on the chair at the side of his father’s bed. The old coach had gone to
bring his car around to the front of the hospital. Marianna bent to kiss Joseph
on his lips and then moved over to Jake.

“Hey sleepyhead, time to go,”
she said.

Jake murmured something
meaningless and opened his eyes. He lay confused for a moment, his surroundings
strange, before remembering where he was.

“What about Pop?” he asked.

“Pop’s staying here for another
night. To make sure he’s all better,” she replied.

“Aww. I want to stay, too,”
Jake moaned.

“Hey,” Joseph said. “Do as your
mother says.”

Reluctantly, Jake climbed off
the chair, kissed his father goodnight and took his mother’s hand.

“So, we’ll see you first thing
in the morning,” Marianna said.

“I’ll be right here,” Joseph
promised.

Marianna nodded, and then
escorted Jake outside.

***

The guard looked up from the magazine at his lap, the one
Eugene Profit had given him with Joseph on the cover – and smiled.

“Mrs Ruebins,” he said,
climbing to his feet. He closed the magazine and placed it carefully –
respectfully – on the seat behind him.

Marianna relaxed a little.
Profit’s use of the old magazine seemed to have worked, and now the guard had a
deeper understanding of the man he was here to protect.

“I’ll make sure Joseph stays
safe and sound,” he said with utter conviction.

Marianna gave him a warm smile.
She quickly read the officer’s nametag. “Thank you, Officer Gore, we appreciate
that.”

Officer Gore reached up to
activate a walkie-talkie at his shoulder. After a short bout of static, he
requested for a guard to make his way up to room 2b. He clicked his radio off,
ending the brief conversation. “It’s probably better we escort you to the
lobby, just as a precaution,” he said. 

Marianna’s heartbeat quickened
slightly; the officer’s request once again proving that their world had become
terribly dangerous.

After only a minute or so the
elevator opened and a guard appeared before them. He walked over casually, and
then with careless ease, ruffled Jake’s hair. “You up for a ride in the
elevator, kiddo?” he asked, flashing a smile made from finely chiselled white
teeth.

“Yeah,” Jake said.

“Okay, let’s go,” the guard
said, leading the way.

Marianna took Jake’s hand and
then followed close behind. The elevator doors trundled open. All three stepped
in together. Jake stood facing the mirrored wall, pulling a series of funny
faces.

 “All aboard,” said the guard
like the captain of a ship. His index finger pointed out towards the bank of
buttons. Like an elevator itself, his finger went from the lowest button,
marked
B
, to the highest which was
numbered
8
. He seemed confused for a
second, as if unsure which level to press. His finger hovered at the
8
button for a noticeably long time. Then, as it
appeared he was about to hit the highest button, a flash of starched material
hurried through the doorway.

“Wait for me,” called the young
doctor. He squeezed through the elevator doors just as they were about to
close. He looked from one face to the next then turned his attention to the row
of buttons. Seeing that none had been illuminated, he asked, “We going down?”

“Yeah,” Marianna replied,
stepping forwards to hit the ground floor button.

Something above their heads
whined quietly for a second and then the elevator began to descend. The journey
was brief; the elevator slid to a stop and the doors opened with a metallic
ping.

Marianna grabbed Jake’s arm and
pulled him quickly out of the booth. The guard hesitated for a moment and then
followed them as they made their way towards the main lobby. At this time of
night, the main entrance bustled with droves of leaving visitors, and the
nightshift workers were arriving in groups of two or three, some tired looking,
even though their twelve-hour shift hadn’t yet started.

Marianna and Jake stepped out
into a chilly February evening. The honk of a car horn drew their attention
across to the fire lane.

“Over there,” Marianna said,
pointing towards Eugene’s battered Chevy. She turned to find the guard looming
behind them. He appeared to be looking over at the Chevy with interest.

“That your ride?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Marianna answered.

“Okay, guess you guys can take
it from here,” he said, eyes focused on the Chevy.

“Thanks,” Marianna said, before
leading Jake to the car. They crossed the short distance together and climbed inside
the old vehicle. Marianna leaned into the backseat to make sure Jake was
secure. As she did, she caught sight of the guard standing just inside the main
foyer. And even though at least twenty yards of darkness separated them, she
could have sworn she could still make out the flash of a smile filled with
white teeth.

   Then, in the next instant,
the car pulled away and the hospital front became just a blur, dark and
distant, but one that was etched deeply into Marianna’s mind.

Chapter
Twenty-One

Presley froze. The angry look on Timothy’s face
intensified. His weapon continued to climb, and all Presley could do was watch
in horror. The weapon levelled out and then came to rest, aimed at his midriff.

“Hey, boss – we got us a real
mess here,” Timothy said, his head lowering to the floor, jerkily, like an
automaton’s.

Presley was rooted to the
floor. What the fuck was happening?

Timothy’s head came back up to
eye level, but it took what seemed like a great amount of will to do so. “Yeah,
a real mess.” The heavy took a step through the doorwell, barely able to pick
his feet up high enough to step over the dead kid, who lay halfway inside. He
entered the room rigidly, both arms fixed tightly around the assault rifle. His
legs looked incapable of bending at the knees correctly. He stopped in the
centre of the bloodbath, covered in a layer of powdered chalk and plaster and
looking like a Stormtrooper from one of the Star Wars movies.

Presley just stared back,
unable to understand what was going on. Then, as Timothy turned to take a look
at the body behind him, he caught a glimpse of an open wound at the side of the
other man’s head. A neat hole, just above the temple, appeared. Blood was
already crusting around its edges. Presley stared open-mouthed at the ghastly
wound.

Unbelievably, the last bullet
fired from the Derringer had found its mark. It took only a moment for Presley
to understand that the bullet had lobotomised Timothy. A wave of nausea crashed
over him. At every turn he seemed to face death and destruction.

“Mosssesss…”

Perkins stepped to his right,
Timothy’s looming presence stood, oblivious. Another few steps brought Presley
back into the hallway. He paused for just a second, to make sure that Timothy
wasn’t following, then turned his back and quickly made his way towards the
ground floor.

Taking the stairs two at a
time, he got out of there as fast as he could.

Chapter
Twenty-Two

Carter rubbed his tired eyes. The room went out of focus.
He squinted heavily a couple of times and when the world again stabilised, he
turned his attention back to the computer screen. He’d been trawling the VICAP
database for an hour now, in the hope of finding something that would aid in
his investigation, but so far nothing. No similar killings and nothing on this
side of the coast or out West. Nor had he been able to find anything that
vaguely resembled this recent grisly killing. 

His trip to the city morgue had
proved just as fruitless. The instrument that had been used to sever Henry
Jones’ tongue could have been done by anything from a sharpened knife to a
razor-sharp scalpel. No trace had been found within the wound either. No oils,
no fibres, no chemicals, nothing. As for the tongue itself, that, too was still
a mystery. Understanding that some killers liked to take trophies, Carter
hadn’t been surprised to find the lump of flesh in question missing. The
pathologist had even checked the guy’s stomach and anus for it.

Blood samples were now being
processed by toxicology, and the rest of Jones’ autopsy would be completed
later that evening. With clear signs of haemorrhaging to the eyes and specific
bruising around the jaw area, the pathologist had stated quite confidently that
the old man had likely been suffocated. He’d also concluded that the severing of
the victim’s tongue had happened posthumously; based upon the sheer lack of
blood that had leaked from the wound site.

Carter looked down at the pad
before him. The top line had the old man’s name written on it, underlined three
times with a large question mark after it. So far, nothing about the old man’s
past had jumped out and screamed for attention. No immediate relatives had
visited him in hospital. Therefore, as of yet, nothing other than the basics
had been added to Carter’s short list. He had the old man’s social security
number, taken from hospital records, but nothing amazing or enlightening had
come up yet.

Henry Jones had been born June 17
^th
1920, putting him at eighty-six years at the time of death. He’d
never been in trouble with the law, had made his tax payments on time, served
his country briefly at the end of the Second World War, as a logistics officer,
never seeing any real combat, and had married almost as soon as he returned
home from overseas. His wife, Margaret, had died eight years ago. They’d
registered two sons at City Hall, Jonathon and Edward, both of whom were also
deceased: Jonathon died an infant due to meningitis, and Edward, more recently,
in a car accident; perhaps explaining why no relatives had visited the old man
during his time in hospital.

Henry Jones’ health insurance
had covered his treatment at St Mary’s; therefore, no other third party could
be found at this moment in time. Carter had already submitted paperwork to the
courts to subpoena Jones’ life insurance policies. Only then would they know
who was likely to benefit financially by the old man’s passing.               

Worry gnawed at the pit of
Carter’s stomach. Maybe they were looking at the beginnings of a serial killer?
There didn’t appear to be any motive for Jones’ murder, nothing obvious anyway.
And the taking of the tongue was a clear indication of the workings of a sick
individual. It wouldn’t be the first time in history that a killer had trawled
the bleached corridors of a medical institute in search of prey.

Carter checked the time. The
small clock in the bottom right-hand corner of the monitor screen showed 7:33PM Tyler should be heading back anytime now.    

As if the young detective had
sprung from his very thoughts, Tyler appeared on the other side of the
department. She crossed the office, occasionally drawing attention from some of
her male counterparts, before seating herself at Carter’s side. She dropped a
thin folder onto his desk.

“Anything?” she asked, looking
at the list of information scrolled across the screen.  

“Nothing interesting. You?”

She huffed a sigh, giving
Carter his answer.

Carter nodded absentmindedly.
“Yeah – got ourselves a real mystery here.”

Tyler pulled her notebook from
her breast pocket. She flipped it open. “Lots of names, hospital staff, coming
and going, some agency staff – which I’m having checked out as we speak, but
nothing that stands out as untrustworthy.”

“Nobody acting suspiciously?”
he asked.

“Too early to say. Place was
under loads of stress, what with the R.T.A. Greenwood referred to, lots of
unfamiliar faces in unfamiliar places.”

“Ideal situation for a killer
to slip in unnoticed and do his ghastly deed.”

“His?”

“Sorry,” Carter said. “To do
his or her ghastly deed.”

Tyler smiled, but the gesture
lacked humour. “That’s okay. I know we’re most likely dealing with a male
unknown subject.”

Carter nodded; history dictated
that most serial killers were of male gender, and only occasionally did the
female sex act out such heinous crimes.

“Okay what about Audio Visual, they
come up with anything?” Carter asked.

Tyler reached out to open the
folder out on his desk. “Got some stills to start with. They ain’t great, but
it’s the best they could do at short notice.” She spread seven grainy black and
whites out across the table.

“What are we looking for?”
Carter asked.

“These are the security
personnel.”

Carter took the first photo,
raised it to eyelevel, held it there momentarily, and then placed it back with
the rest. “Okay what am I looking at?”

All the photographs held a single
figure in each, captured in a downwards angle, and of sufficient distance for
the subjects’ faces to remain mostly unclear and almost unidentifiable. The one
thing apparent, though, was the fact that all seven wore a distinctive dark
blue uniform. NYPD. New York’s finest.

“Okay,” Tyler started, “it’s a
simple case of elimination.”

Carter stood back, arms folded
across his chest and watched as the younger detective took lead.

“First photo,” she said,
placing her finger against the still to the left. “Guy looks to be about 200
pounds, slightly taller than average. Maybe six-three. White.”

Carter tilted his head to get a
better view. “Agreed,” he stated.

Tyler flipped over the photo to
reveal a hand-scrawled list of details. “Lieutenant Greg Grillo.”

“Go on,” Carter prompted.

She began to read each item
off. “Greg Grillo, twenty-eight, approx 200 pounds, Caucasian. Studied at NY City
Academy. Works the night tour, and has done since his induction two years
ago.”

Reaching out, Carter re-took
the photo. He studied the picture for a long moment. “Okay, assuming I don’t
know Officer Grillo, how can I be sure this is actually the guy?”

“Had his Chief study these
photos long and hard, until he’d made a confident ID on them all. All six of
his night officers. Took him awhile, but you’d be surprised how much
information can be gleamed by size, posture and stance alone.”

Carter nodded a slight
concurrence. He’d had a few cases broke by a witness’s ability to identify a
suspect with little more that a blurred image to work with. Although the photo
would rarely hold up in court, it was sometimes the one thing that would blow
open a case, leading them to the perpetrator and a whole catalogue of
admissible evidence.

He offered the photo back to Tyler.
Then counted the photos on the desk. Six remained.

“You said ‘all six of his
officers’?” he questioned. “There are seven in total.”

Tyler placed the image at the
end of the spread of photos. She reached over and took the one at the opposite
end of the row. “This guy doesn’t seem to fit any of the Chief’s officers.” She
turned the photo around to give Carter a look. There wasn’t much on offer. The
guy’s cap was pulled down tight. Shadows filled in where the cap finished. The
face was unidentifiable. Still, the uniform was relatively clear in comparison.

Nothing unusual sprang out at
Carter.

“Could have been a municipal
cop, off the streets, maybe having arrived in attendance to the R.T.A.” he
said.

Tyler shook her head. “Don’t
think so.”

“Why?”

“Look at his hip.”

“What?”

“His hip,” Tyler pressed.

Carter took the photo. He
brought it up close and squinted. Something about the weapon’s shape got the
detective’s interest.

“What model is hospital
security issued with?” he asked.

“Glock 17 or Glock 19,” Tyler
responded. Her hand moved to her side. She undid the clip to her holster and
slid out her service revolver. A Glock 19. She placed it on the table.

Carter looked harder at the
photo. The weapon against the guy’s hip was no Glock. The clip looked too long
– possibly long enough to hold 20 rounds, 8 more than a Glock – and the muzzle
pushed out beyond its holster by at least an inch.

Tyler watched as Carter’s face
took on understanding. She retook her weapon and slid it back into her holster.
Clipping it shut, she turned for her partner to inspect. The Glock was a secure
fit. Just a hint of its grip was visible. The muzzle concealed within its
holster.

Carter’s attention returned to
the photo. This weapon had either been modified or was some sort of foreign
make that neither of them recognised. The one thing that was clear was that no New
York City cop would be walking around with an illegal firearm strapped to his
hip.

“We need to find this guy,”
Carter said. “And real quick.”

“I’ve got the Audio Visual Unit
working on it now. They should be able to pull some details off the photo in a
few hours.”

“How long exactly?” Carter
asked, eager to find out who this individual was.

“I’ll chase it up,” Tyler
responded.

The older detective reached out
to open a drawer. He snatched up his car keys, deciding that he had time to pay
St Mary’s another visit. Knowing that time alone in his apartment would tick by
with agonising slowness. Understanding that time was the one thing he had a
plentiful amount left to suffer, he hoped that his time as a grieving parent
would mercifully come to an end – and soon. No matter how brutal that ending
may be.

Time.

A luxury for some.

A death sentence for others.