The Coldest Fear (33 page)

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Authors: Rick Reed

Tags: #Mystery, #Thriller

BOOK: The Coldest Fear
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CHAPTER
EIGHTY-NINE
Claudine Setera was in the Channel Six news van and on her way to a location they could only find with a GPS, somewhere in Kentucky near the Illinois border. Before her boss, Elliott, had given her this assignment, she had been ready to go to Mary's Hospital to interview detective Larry Jansen, who had called and told her he had caught the serial killer.
During that telephone call she had also heard Jansen tell his nurse, “I like my coffee the way I like my women—weak and needy.” She had not gotten excited because she knew that the only thing Jansen had ever caught in his degenerate life was probably the clap. But she couldn't pass up the interview and take a chance that maybe he had actually gotten lucky.
Then Elliott Turner had sent her on this story with no details. In a way she was glad not to have to go to the hospital because her gut told her that Jansen's story was going to be bullshit, but she hated driving back toward Shawneetown without a clue what the hell she was supposed to be covering because it would take them most of an hour to get there. All Elliott had told her was that there was an accident, a vehicle fire, and that Lieutenant Johnson had been injured severely.
She smirked at the memory of JJ, the backwoods cop, coming on to her the last time she was there. Sure, he was kind of cute, but he was just another cop with only one thing on his mind.
At least this time that creep, Arnold Byrum, from the local newspaper couldn't scoop her. As far as she was concerned the best story going on today was Jansen shooting Byrum. She was pissed at the station manager that she wasn't covering that situation. She'd heard through the grapevine that Arnold's mother had been found murdered and her face had been cut off and taken just like the other murder victims.
As the news van crossed the bridge from Shawneetown into Kentucky, Claudine could make out smoke hanging in the air in the distance.
“Hell of a fire,” her cameraman/driver noted.
“No shit, Sherlock,” she said, ignoring his frown. “What was your first clue?”
A few minutes later Claudine leaned forward against her seat belt and said, “Look at that!”
The news van edged up to the yellow and black crime scene tape that one of the responding troopers had strung along the side of the road. On the other side of the tape were fire and rescue and a pumper truck, plus a half dozen police vehicles, mostly Kentucky State Police, and there were two vehicles that had to be unmarked police cars. One of them looked familiar. Then she saw Jack Murphy inside the ring of uniformed officers. Murphy looked up, saw her, and smiled.
Murphy spoke to a tall Kentucky state trooper and seemed to be arguing with him. Then the trooper nodded and Murphy waved her over.
“Let her and the cameraman through,” Murphy yelled at the trooper guarding the entry. The trooper shot a glance at the tall trooper, who shrugged and motioned to let them in.
“Let the games begin,” Liddell said to Jack in a whisper.
Chief Marlin Pope, Captain Franklin, and Agent Frank Tunney sat in the chief's office and watched the live feed from the scene.
“Detective Murphy,” Claudine Setera said in her practiced sensual voice, “Can you tell us what happened, and why the Evansville Police Department would be interested in a car fire in this remote part of western Kentucky?”
Jack had given her the question that she had just asked, and told her to repeat it exactly. To his surprise she was playing ball. He looked into the camera, his face unreadable, and said, “The car you see burning behind me”—and he pointed toward the smoking wreck that had once been the prized possession of JJ Johnson—“belonged to a lieutenant with the Shawneetown Police Department in Illinois. His name was JJ Johnson.”
Jack hoped that talking about JJ in the past tense would be believable to the public, although he knew the killer would see right through this ploy. “As you can see, Claudine, there is no ambulance here.”
He swept his hand around the area and Claudine was surprised that she hadn't noticed the absence of the ambulance before.
“But why are
you
here?” Claudine interrupted. “And where is Lieutenant Johnson?”
This wasn't in the script, but Jack took advantage of the questions to cut to the chase. “Lieutenant Johnson is no longer with us, Miss Setera,” Jack said this solemnly, and it was the truth. JJ had been whisked away five minutes earlier by a Life Flight helicopter and was on his way to Wishard Memorial Hospital in Indianapolis, the site of one of the best burn centers in the world.
Jack's face hardened and he moved closer to the camera. “I'm here because the coward that poured gasoline over my friend JJ is watching this program. I want him to know that I'm coming for him. I want him to know that I know who he is.”
“Detective Murphy,” Claudine said breathlessly, “who is the killer?”
“I have work to do,” Jack said and pushed the camera out of his face. “Let's go, Bigfoot.” Jack and Liddell shook hands with the tall Kentucky trooper and headed toward the cars.
Claudine Setera, cameraman in tow, followed the two detectives toward their unmarked car, shouting questions. “Detective Murphy, is this the work of the serial killer? Did The Cleaver strike again? Detective Murphy, the public has a right to know who the killer among them is. Detective Murphy ?”
Jack and Liddell got into their car and slowly drove out of the scene and back onto the blacktop heading west toward Shawneetown, where they had agreed to call Detective Zimmer before completing the second act of this little play.
Marlin Pope turned the television off and sat on the ledge of the windowsill overlooking the front of the Civic Center.
Frank Tunney folded his hands on his lap and said, “Your man is a good actor.”
Franklin shook his head. “Problem is, he's not acting. He means every word.”
CHAPTER
NINETY
Jack insisted on driving. His hands gripped the steering wheel like the jaws of an alligator as the car hurtled along Kentucky Highway 56 going west into the sunset. Daylight savings time was both a blessing and a curse, giving an extra hour of sunlight in the morning but taking it away too early in the evening. The sun was almost down and Jack was a terrible driver at night.
Liddell was about to suggest that he and Jack swap positions when Jack swerved off the road and slid fifty feet in the soft shoulder.
The car had barely stopped before Jack was out and walking to the other side of the car. He slammed a closed fist on the side of the roof and let out a string of expletives.
Liddell slid out of the passenger seat and leaned against the side of the car until Jack's temper subsided. “Feel better, pod'na?” Liddell asked with a grin.
“No!” Jack spat the word out.
“You shouldn't let it get to you, pod'na,” Liddell said. He recognized the signs here. Jack was working himself up into a rage, whereby he would strike out on his own to even the score with Blake.
For some reason that Liddell would never understand, Jack had this need to right all the wrongs of the world. Of course, it was impossible to do that. When Jack found that he'd chopped off one evil head of the Hydra only to find that two more had grown in its place, he would go off to his cabin and mope and drink massive quantities of Guinness and play his bagpipes until he was too exhausted to do anything but sleep. Then he would come back to work and it would start all over again.
“What happened to JJ wasn't your fault, pod'na,” Liddell said, but Jack waved his comment away and got in the passenger side of the car and closed the door.
Liddell slid behind the wheel and drove. Neither man spoke until they had arrived back in Old Shawneetown. Down the street from Chief Johnson's café, Liddell pulled to the side of the road.
“You think JJ really gave the diary to his cousin Gertie?” Liddell said.
“We won't find out sitting out here,” Jack said.
Liddell gave him a long look and pulled out on the street again, saying, “Boy, I hate it when you get like this. If you were a woman I'd say it was your time of month, pod'na.”
Without looking at his partner, Jack said, “His feet were burned off. The burns on his face will make him a freak. Did we do the right thing by not letting him die?”
“Don't do this to yourself, pod'na,” Liddell said. “You're a good man, Jack. You saved JJ's life.”
“Yeah,” Jack said.
Liddell pulled to the curb in front of the Ye Olde Shawneetown Diner and noticed that there were no cars in the lot or nearby on the street. He wondered where Chief Johnson was.
“You think the chief is going to see JJ in the hospital in Indianapolis?” Liddell asked.
Jack shrugged. “I doubt he could leave the area right now with what is going on. But maybe we should talk to Zimmer and see if some of the state troopers can take over the duties here for a while?” Seeing Liddell grinning at him, Jack said, “What?”
“Nothing. It's just that you don't ever recognize your own good qualities. You need a wife, buddy. Someone to remind you now and then that you're a human being and not Michael the Archangel.”
Jack thought about that. He'd had a wife and blew it. And even when he was happily married, the only times he'd felt human were when someone had died and he hadn't been able to prevent it. So he did what he was best at. He would even the score a little. Make the bad guys pay.
They entered the double French-style doors of the restaurant and found the dining area deserted as usual. From the back of the room they could hear some noise that sounded like someone was torturing a cat, and the sound was getting closer. Then Gertie, or someone who had killed Gertie and taken over her body, emerged from the kitchen, singing at the top of her lungs. The sound was disturbingly ugly, but Gertie, on the other hand, was not.
Gertie was dressed in a soft blue skirt with a white peasant blouse, sensible high heels, and the dirty brown hair the men had seen on their last meeting was now worn down around her shoulders and face. She was wearing a touch of makeup and the result was astounding. Jack found himself wondering how a redneck jackbooter like Chief Johnson could have such a beautiful daughter.
She looked up at the detectives with a shocked look that turned to embarrassment.
“Busted,” she said, her face a light shade of red.
“I thought it was quite a good rendition. That was the song from that movie
Practical Magic
, right?” Liddell said. “With Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman?”
“You've seen that movie?” Gertie said to Liddell.
Jack gave her a smile he didn't really feel and asked her to come and sit with them for a few minutes.
“Let me bring some coffee first,” she said, and headed back into the kitchen, then turned and said to Jack, “You take cream, right?”
“Please sit down a minute, Gertie,” Jack said.
“It's really Gertrude,” she said, “but I answer to almost anything.” She smiled as if this was a joke, but the smile faltered when she saw the serious look on Jack's face. “What is it? What's wrong? Has there been another death?”
Jack could see where she was going with this and hurriedly explained, “We're here because JJ said he gave you something to safeguard for him.”
Gertie looked shocked and then nervous. “Is he all right?” she asked.
Jack and Liddell traded a look. Jack was surprised that her father hadn't already filled her in. Jack had called Chief Johnson from the scene of the fire and told him everything that had happened. Why hadn't he been here with his daughter? Why hadn't he told her whether her cousin was alive or dead? It was obvious to Jack that she cared about JJ. And JJ wouldn't have trusted the diary to her if he didn't trust her.
“Where is the diary?” Jack asked. He thought he knew the answer.
CHAPTER
NINETY-ONE
Jack and Liddell saw the smoke from the fire before they spotted Chief Johnson tearing the pages from a book and feeding them into the burn barrel. The chief was so intent on his task that he didn't seem to hear the detectives' car tires crunching in the gravel drive where they pulled in behind his cruiser.
“Is that the diary?” Jack asked Chief Johnson as he got out of the passenger seat.
The sky had turned dark and the single bulb on the side of the police trailer had not been turned on. The only light was given off by the fire burning in the barrel. Chief Johnson tossed another handful of pages on top of the flames and sparks shot into the sky.
“I don't know what you're talking about, Detective Murphy,” Johnson said without turning.
“That may be the only evidence we would have to convict the man that tried to kill your nephew,” Jack said.
“I still don't know what you mean. This is city property and you're no longer needed here,” Johnson said. This time there was steel in his voice. Jack moved closer and could see streaks on the big man's face where he had been crying.
“You'll have to live with this,” Jack said to Chief Johnson's back, and he and Liddell walked back to their car and left. There were things to do in Evansville. And Jack was sure that Evansville was where Cody Morse would be.
 
 
Cody turned on the tiny television in his room, hoping to catch some of the news. Claudine Setera was doing a live spot. It was not her face that caught his attention, but the location. Behind her the smoking remnants of the policeman's Firebird were still being sprayed by firefighters. Cody could see Claudine trying to blink the smoke from her eyes. He turned the volume up.
“Once again, live from a location just south of Shawneetown, Illinois, we are at the scene of yet another disaster involving one of Shawneetown's residents. The car you can see behind me belonged to Lieutenant JJ Johnson, a ranking member of the Shawneetown Police Department. Police at the scene are unable to say why he was in a police car this far from his jurisdiction or what happened to cause this tragedy. We are several miles across the Illinois border into Kentucky. What Lieutenant Johnson was doing here is a mystery to law enforcement.”
The station cut back to Lynn Applewhite, who, to Cody's disgust, was working the evening anchor spot. Lynn was a terrible choice for an anchor position, and if she wasn't sleeping with the station manager, she would have never made it in front of a camera.
Lynn had a believable look of concern on her face when she asked, “Claudine, are the police saying what Lieutenant Johnson's condition is?”
“Lynn, Lieutenant Johnson had already been taken from the scene when we arrived. As you saw in the earlier live feed, Detective Jack Murphy could give us no solid information,” Claudine said.
The camera cut back to Lynn in the Channel Six newsroom. She looked into the camera and said, “Claudine, we're going to show that footage to our viewers again.”
The television filled with the image of Detective Jack Murphy, his face dark, rage in his eyes. Claudine asked a question and Murphy approached the camera like a gorilla charging a tourist.
“Lieutenant Johnson is no longer with us, Miss Setera,” Jack said solemnly. His face hardened and he moved even closer to the camera. “I'm here because the coward that poured the gasoline over my friend JJ is watching this program. I want him to know that I'm coming for him. I want him to know that I know who he is.”
“Detective Murphy,” Claudine asked, “who is the killer?”
“I have work to do,” Jack said and pushed the camera out of his face. “Let's go, Bigfoot.”
The cameraman followed Claudine Setera as she pursued the retreating detectives, shouting questions. “Detective Murphy, is this the work of the serial killer? Is this the work of The Cleaver? Detective Murphy, the public has a right to know who the killer among them is. Detective Murphy?”
Cody turned the television off. His hand was trembling, but not from fear. He lifted the bone axe from the bed and felt its comforting weight.
“
You're
coming for
me
?” he said to the blank television screen. “Well, Detective Murphy, your friend and his Thunder-bird will never rise from those ashes.”
He wrapped the axe in a soft towel and put it in the gym bag he always kept in the car with him. “
I'm
coming for
you
, Jack.”

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