The Coldest Fear (20 page)

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Authors: Rick Reed

Tags: #Mystery, #Thriller

BOOK: The Coldest Fear
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CHAPTER
FIFTY
The black Ford Fusion rolled slowly down U.S. Highway 41. The driver, a bullet-headed man with a bouncer's physique, was looking for the entrance to the Drury Inn. Cubby Crispino had heard an interesting story about the motel that made him decide to stay there for the next night or so, until his work was done. According to local legend, a few years ago, a military cargo plane had been doing a routine takeoff/landing from nearby Fort Campbell. The plane went down unexpectedly and crashed into the Drury Inn. Lots of deaths. Lots of cops and firemen hurt, too. And then the Drury Inn was rebuilt in exactly the same spot and life went on as usual.
The story was special to him. He liked places that were steeped in blood.
He turned into the back parking lot of the Drury and pulled his environmentally friendly vehicle into a slot. He checked himself out in the mirror. He had to put his game face on. While he was in Evansville, he was Jimmy Campbell, union representative for over-the-road truckers.
The identification he was carrying was legit—all except the photo—and would pass the scrutiny of any law enforcement agent.
It should,
he thought.
It belonged to the asshole I killed yesterday and he's still sucking down sand in the desert outside of Vegas.
Cubby Crispino left the car and headed inside. Lenny Bange had given him all the information he needed to get this thing started, but he needed some cash. That was supposed to be delivered via hooker later at the Drury. He was looking forward to the meeting.
 
 
Officer Kooky Kuhlenschmidt drank more than he could remember. The bartender at the FOP Club had cut him off and none of his buddies had stuck around to make sure he got home. He was also a little ticked off that he'd paid for all the alcohol drunk that evening, but it was part of the bonding experience among police officers. The new guy always got stuck with the bill.
He left the bar and made it to his red Ford pickup intending to go home. The love of his life, Ellen, was spending the evening with her girlfriends.
As he left the club's parking lot, he remembered Timmons and the guys teasing him about getting Jack Murphy to play bagpipes for his wedding. They didn't think he had the balls to ask Murphy.
I'll show them,
he thought, and turned south toward the river. He knew where Jack lived, and he also knew that Jack kept late hours. He'd just go to his house and ask him. How hard could it be?
 
 
Lynn Road was a straight stretch that ran east from Highway 41 South along the Ohio River. The area was underwater much of the rainy season, but the road had never been washed out. There were several cabins along it, all built on poles that kept them high and dry. Murphy lived in one of these.
The killer drove exactly two and a half miles according to his GPS, but didn't spot the gravel access road until he had almost driven past it. Murphy's cabin was hundreds of yards from his nearest neighbor. It was also the only cabin that could be reached on that access road.
He turned right onto the gravel and slowed. The crunch of stones under his tires was louder than he had counted on. But then, Murphy had a reputation for putting away large amounts of single-malt scotch and Guinness. He felt confident that at this hour of the night, he would not be detected.
He drove south toward the river until he spotted the single muted light that came from somewhere down below. He pulled to the side, into the cornfield, and turned his ignition and lights off. The axe lay on the passenger seat. The dull iron color didn't reflect the bright full moon, but the shape of the blade was distinct.
He decided to watch for a few minutes, and then he would approach on foot. If Murphy was asleep, he planned on leaving him in that permanent condition.
Lights out, Jack,
he thought.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Kooky saw the taillights of the SUV turn down the gravel drive that led to Jack Murphy's cabin. He smiled at the thought of Jack Murphy driving an SUV instead of a pickup truck like most policemen. That's why he'd chosen his red Ford pickup.
Jack would make a good soccer mom,
Kooky thought and laughed at his own joke.
Up ahead the taillights went out and he saw a brief flash of brake lights.
He thought about turning around and going home, but then the thought of having a police wedding had seemed like a really good idea, and Ellen would surely go along with it.
He continued down the gravel for a hundred yards or so until he noticed a black SUV pulled to the side of the gravel, off into the cornfield. The driver's door was cracked open, but there were no interior lights on. Kooky turned his headlights back on and flipped them to bright. Someone was broke down and it was his job as a duly sworn law officer to render assistance.
“Hey. You need a hand?” Kooky yelled at the man who emerged from the SUV.
“Among other things,” the man said and hefted the bone axe high over his head as he ran toward the red pickup.
CHAPTER
FIFTY-TWO
Jack Murphy heard the screams while sitting in his hot tub. He grabbed his gun and sprinted down the driveway behind his cabin in a pair of flip-flops and nothing else.
The night air was cooling on his wet skin, the heavy white rock digging into the soles of his feet as he ran toward the screams in the blackness ahead of him. He couldn't tell the exact distance, but they were coming from down the gravel drive toward Lynn Road. The sound of the screams had changed from loud and strong to the unmistakable whine of someone close to death. It was a sound Jack was very familiar with.
The screams stopped. Jack slowed and listened, trying to get a bearing on their location. He heard a door slam less than a hundred yards from him, and then an engine struggling. He picked up his pace. As he rounded a bend in the drive, he spotted taillights in the distance, moving away, and the headlights of what looked like a new pickup truck pointing into the cornfield. Lying in the bright beams of the truck lay the body of a man, his head smashed, bits of brain and a pool of blood spread around it.
The black SUV turned south toward Kentucky, and then jigged across a field and onto a side road that paralleled Lynn Road, but on the opposite side of the Ohio River.
The killer slowed to a crawl and watched the opposite bank. He couldn't sit there long, but he wanted to see the curling snake of emergency lights as the police cars and medical crews headed toward Jack's place. From his position he would be able to see them coming down Highway 41 in plenty of time to allow him to run the back county roads in Kentucky and come back out on the main stretch that runs through the middle of Henderson.
Murphy is one lucky man,
he thought as he watched the first of the flashing emergency lights speeding south on Highway 41.
Well, he didn't get the axe tonight, but someone else did.
He chuckled at his own humor. Besides, he had another place to go tonight. He'd planned on two killings tonight. He would still meet that goal. Murphy just wouldn't be one of them.
He didn't know who the young man who had come across him on the gravel road was, but he seemed to be someone in authority. The way he handled himself, the way he tried to take cover behind his truck door, the weak attempt at defending himself.
Probably a cop,
he thought.
As he watched, a procession of vehicles with rotating beacons headed in the direction from which he had just come. Time to go visit the next one.
 
 
Jon Samuels was conflicted.
Should I wear the Calvin Klein jeans and the ribbed T-shirt or the white capri-style pants with the white linen shirt with a thin blue vertical stripe?
Not that it really mattered since this wasn't a date. It was just that the man's voice on the telephone had sounded so . . . suggestive.
He had almost not answered the telephone when he saw that the number had been blocked by the caller, but it was something he might do himself if he was dialing a telephone number and wasn't sure of the reception he would get. It sure as hell wouldn't be the police.
The man had sounded hesitant at first, but then his tone became warmer and more enthusiastic as he spoke of his relationship with Cordelia. It had surprised Jon that one of Cordelia's old boyfriends would call to give condolences. He warmed to the stranger's thoughtfulness.
By the end of the conversation, he had asked the man to come by and have coffee.
Or did he ask me?
he thought. It didn't matter now because the man would be arriving any minute and he still had to decide on an outfit. He didn't want to look uninterested, but he didn't want to look like a skank either. It had been a long time since he'd felt excited by the prospect of friendship and companionship.
He looked at the clothes lying on the bed. He'd split the difference and wear one of each piece. The Calvin Kleins and the linen shirt. The white shirt would hide his paleness.
Cinderella lay on her side on the bed giving him a look of indifference.
CHAPTER
FIFTY-THREE
It was early Friday morning. The day before Halloween. The administrative areas of the police department looked like a ghost town. A few uniformed officers roamed the halls carrying out routines that were much like assembly line work in a factory. Pick up this form, carry it to that office; get this signature, time-stamp that sheet, write a note or two; and then carry the form back to another office where it would go into a basket and slide off into the black hole of the computer system called PAMIS, which stood for Police Automated Management Information Systems. Jack knew that most of the cops called the computer system PENIS for obvious reasons.
Jack left Sergeant Walker at the coroner's office, where the autopsy of John “Kooky” Kuhlenschmidt was being delayed until his parents and would-be fiancée could be notified. He came in the back door of police headquarters and walked down a flight of stairs to the basement. The quiet was tangible.
Only four o'clock in the morning, but word had gotten out quickly of Kooky's murder. Officers who had not been requested to come in early were out in their own cars looking for the killer. Jack felt the same shock and anger as the others, but the person they were looking for would not be standing on a street corner with a sign saying
WILL KILL FOR FUN
.
He couldn't get the sight of Kooky's mangled face out of his mind. And what was Kooky doing on the drive that led only to Jack's cabin? Was he coming to see Jack? Did he know something about the killer that got him killed?
He had to trace Kooky's last movements that led him to his death. Although they hadn't officially determined this, Officer Kooky Kuhlenschmidt, just hours after completing his probationary period, had become the fifth victim of the killer. Jack was as certain of this as he was of his own name.
Entering the war room, Jack noticed his partner was looking very rumpled and sleepy from being roused from bed after only two hours' sleep in the last twenty-four. He'd made the death notification to Kuhlenschmidt's parents. Legally, one of them would have had the duty to formally identify the body, but there wasn't enough left of the young officer's face to identify. He didn't have any scars or other marks, but Jack had found a pay stub in his shirt pocket along with a small gray velvet box containing an engagement ring.
“The engagement ring you found was going to be given to Ellen DeSoto tomorrow night,” Liddell said.
“That's horrible,” Garcia said.
“The parents said they would notify the fiancée, but I went with them or I would have been back here sooner.”
“Did they have any idea why he was on the drive to my cabin?” Jack asked.
“Not a clue,” Liddell answered. “But I talked to Timmons and he said they'd been drinking at the FOP Club, celebrating Kooky's getting off probation, and he up and told them about the engagement. According to Timmons, some of the guys tried to talk Kooky into having a police wedding and he was supposed to ask you to play bagpipes for him.”
“At two o'clock in the morning?” Jack said.
“Timmons said they left the club about that time and he didn't think Kooky was that drunk, but he figured Kooky was coming to see you.”
“Awww, Christ!” Jack said.
“Hey, boss, it's not your fault,” Garcia said and put a hand on Jack's shoulder.
Jack knew there was nothing he could have done to stop what happened, but he also knew that Kooky had been killed because he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The killer had been there for him, not Kooky.
“I know what you're thinking, pod'na,” Liddell said, “But just let it go. It wasn't your fault. Don't make this personal.”
“What are you saying?” Jack said through clenched teeth. “I'm not making it personal. That's already been done.”
 
 
Detective Larry Jansen sat in a corner of Duffy's Tavern where the lights were dim and the women were even dimmer. The bar had closed an hour ago, but the regulars were allowed to stay and finish their drinks. He had nowhere else to go so he continued to watch the woman wipe the foamy suds from her lips after she took a gallon-sized drag from a fishbowl of beer.
She wasn't exactly pretty, but her tits were the size of watermelons and he was in the mood for some very casual sex. He figured he would wait until she finished the beer she was drinking and he would offer to buy the next round. She was already getting that rubbery inebriated laughter and talking way too loud.
But even watching the drunken woman's melons jiggle was losing his interest. For some reason he kept thinking about the murders that Murphy was investigating. There was something that he had seen, or been told by someone that he could feel was important. He was tempted to go back to headquarters and have some coffee—clear his head and see if he could resolve whatever it was that was in the back of his mind. But just then the woman spilled half a fishbowl down her thin blouse and Larry's mind was made up for him.

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