Stress Fracture: Book One in the Dub Walker Series Page 6

  Jill was dead. That I knew. I never said so out loud, but in my soul of souls I knew that to be the case. I also knew the guy who did it, to Jill, to the other girls, had moved on. Another state. More victims. That’s the way it works.

  Now, twelve years later, a day doesn’t go by that she isn’t in my mind. Even working a case like this one, Jill is always there. The really painful part was that my entire family was lost to me. Not just physically gone, but completely gone. No real memories. I had smeared images of my dad, teaching me to hit a baseball or throw a football. Showing me how to load Sheetrock on a flatbed truck without cracking it. Right here. Right where I now stood.

  Mom? Vague memories of her cooking Thanksgiving dinner or teaching me some of our family recipes. Of her tending her roses, always the pride of our street. Of her singing in church, a place I never went now.

  What images I could extract from the past were gauzy and didn’t seem real. Maybe I remembered them as I thought they should be and not as they were. The ones I knew to be true were of them sitting on the sofa not speaking, not moving, barely breathing. No laughter, no life. No color. All the images I could call up were black and white.

  And Jill? I only saw her face in my dreams. Never while awake. Never when I wanted to.

  CHAPTER 14

  MONDAY 1:53 P.M.

  DR. CHARLIE BECK PUSHED OPEN THE DOOR TO TRAUMA ROOM 2, expecting to see … what? An angry, aggressive brute? A frothing maniac? A monster shackled in chains? To his surprise, the young man sitting on the stretcher was none of these. Though tall and muscular, he was not a maniacal hulk. He had intelligent blue eyes, and aside from his disheveled hair and torn, bloodstained shirt, he seemed calm and rational.

  “I’m Dr. Beck.”

  “I’m Brian Kurtz.” He offered a benevolent smile.

  “Sorry you had to wait so long, but we’ve had our hands full today.”

  “No problem.”

  “Let’s see what we have here.” Charlie slipped on a pair of surgical gloves and removed the gauze from Brian’s arm. “Not bad. I’ve seen worse.”

  “I bet you have, Doc.”

  Charlie probed the wound with a sterile cotton swab. “Let me know if this hurts.”

  “It’s okay. Go ahead.”

  “Looks like a clean cut. Should be easy to repair. One of the nurses will clean up your wound and soak it in a bug-killing solution. Then I’ll be back to sew it up.”

  The bright surgical light burned his eyes, but Brian sat quietly while the young nurse cleaned his arm with some red, medicinal-smelling liquid. She said it was called Betadine or something like that. Her name tag indicated she was Deborah Studen, RN. Her manipulations were painful, but only a minor distraction. Pain meant little, a temporary thing, easily controlled, easily forgotten. His anger was a different story. At least he had managed to shove it into that corner of his brain where he kept it captive.

  That’s how he pictured it, anyway. A dark cave, deep in one corner of his brain. Out of sight but always rumbling and growling like some caged dragon. The beast would occasionally flick out a tongue or snake out its long tail. Just enough to give him a pleasant surge of energy. It was definitely a love-hate thing. More love than hate.

  But sometimes the beast would lurch from his cave, breathing a white-hot fire that was ferociously intense. Uncontrollable and unyielding, it completely consumed him, pumping the fear that it would never end through his veins. Yet afterward, the calmness that followed was nothing he had ever experienced. Like now. The rage he had vented on that piece of street trash had been explosive, but now he felt calm, even lethargic. The beast had returned to its cave. Not sleeping, but recharging. He could feel its bubbling, sonorous breathing. No problem. He could control it. Long enough to get out of here, anyway.

  They would never know how much he wanted to kill that piece of shit. After he left, they would say: “He must have been very afraid to hurt that man so severely. He’s too nice to have done that without good reason.”

  But he did. And he enjoyed it.

  “Is this hurting much?” the nurse asked.

  “Not at all.”

  Charlie injected Lidocaine into the area around the wound. “This’ll sting for a second or two.”

  “Go ahead,” Brian said.

  Charlie couldn’t reconcile the two images in his head. This polite, pleasant young man and the monster that beat John Doe half to death. It didn’t fit. In his years of practice, he had seen all kinds—the stoic, the maniacal, the angry, the depressed, and the downright crazy. Illness and injury always brought out the best, and the worst, in people. Most were quietly heroic, others aggressive and nasty.

  Brian Kurtz was an enigma. So calm and polite, when just an hour earlier he obviously had been a raving madman. There must be an explanation. Odd and wildly shifting behaviors always happened for a reason. But what? Brian was obviously not schizophrenic. Too rational. Not delusional in any way. He showed no sign of being on any drugs. Not the sleepy confusion of narcotic users, nor the wide-eyed paranoia of a coke abuser, nor the hyped-up mania of a meth tweaker.

  “How’d this happen?” Charlie began placing stitches in the wound.

  “Some dude tried to rob me. Came at me with a knife.”

  “So, you defended yourself?” Charlie tied another suture.

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “Sure.” Charlie pulled the next blue nylon suture snug. “You did a number on him.”

  “Nothing he didn’t deserve. I should’ve killed him.”

  “You came close.”

  Brian smirked. “Not close enough. I should have ripped his head off, cracked his skull open, and stomped his sick fucking brain into the ground.”

  Charlie felt the muscles in Brian’s forearm contract as his hands curled into tight fists. Back off. Don’t confront him. Diffuse the situation. Charlie changed the subject. “I see you work for a phone soliciting company.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Bet you meet some interesting people that way.”

  “Mostly arrogant jerks with no time and less brains.”

  “I see.” Another suture.

  “Do you?”

  Charlie felt increasingly uneasy. Again he searched for some safe ground. “Let me ask a few questions about your medical history while I finish up here.”

  “Is that necessary?”

  “Afraid it is.”

  “I don’t see how,” Brian said. His eyes narrowed, his jaw flexed.

  “Everybody’s different. What’s good for one person might be dangerous for another.” He smiled at Brian, but got only a cold stare in return. “Are you allergic to anything?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have any medical problems, such as heart or lung disease?”

  “No.”

  “Any history of injuries, surgeries, or previous hospitalizations?”

  “Got shot once.”

  Charlie looked up. “How’d that happen?”

  “US Army. Iraq. A couple of years ago. AK-47 to the leg by one of those towel heads.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Skull fracture. Playing football in high school. Left me with almost constant headaches.”

  “You see a doctor for that?”

  “Dr. Hublein. Robert Hublein. You know him?”

  “I know of him. Never met him. He heads the Neuropsychiatric Research Institute down the road here, doesn’t he?”

  “That’s him. Supposed to be the best.”

  “He’s very good, so I’ve heard. Does he have you on any meds?” “Yeah. Don’t know what it is, though.”

  Charlie removed his gloves. “We’re done here. I want you to keep the wound clean and dry and come back in two days so I can check on how it’s healing.”

  “Is that necessary?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “Whatever you say, Doc.”

  The politeness had returned.

  CHAPTER 15

  MONDAY 2:51 P.M.

&
nbsp; ONCE I GOT BACK DOWNTOWN, I FOUND AN EMPTY OFFICE ACROSS from the task force room and called the BAU in Quantico, Virginia. The office of Mort Canfield, an old friend, and an FBI profiler. After getting past his assistant, I heard him come on the line. “Agent Canfield.”

  “Mort. Dub.”

  “Hey, Dub. It’s been a long time.”

  “I see you’re still hard at work.”

  “Not much longer. I’m getting out in three months.”

  “I never thought you’d retire.”

  “Me, either. How’s tricks in the Heart of Dixie?”

  “Been better. I need your help on a series of murders down here.”

  “What’s the story?”

  “You remember Mike Savage?”

  “Sure. How is he?”

  “He’s one of the corpses.”

  “Jesus. What can I do?”

  “Let me run what we have by you and see if I’m on the right track.”

  We talked for thirty minutes. Mort mostly agreed with my assessment and, as usual, had a few insights of his own. I thanked him and told him I’d keep him in the loop. I then scratched out a cursory list of what I liked to term psychological elements. These were simply aspects of a crime that spoke to the perpetrator’s psyche. Basically, the reasons he did certain things or acted in a specific way. Some people would call this criminal profiling, and indeed it was. But the term profiling could also be a trap.

  If a profile is generated for a particular suspect and if the investigation focuses too intensely on this particular view of the unsub, the real guy might be overlooked. If the profile says the bad guy is early twenties, unemployed, and a loner, other potential suspects who might be married, employed, and over thirty might not get the hard look they deserve. Blinders were the kiss of death in a murder investigation.

  That’s why I preferred to call them psychological elements. Semantics maybe, but useful semantics. Besides, I introduced the term in my second book so I’m more or less married to it. Here’s what I scratched on a piece of paper:

  CHAPTER 16

  MONDAY 3:08 P.M.

  BRIAN PACED THE HOSPITAL WAITING ROOM FOR NEARLY HALF AN hour before the cab he had called arrived. The smell of cigarettes and sweat greeted him when he jumped in the backseat.

  “What took so long? I’ve been waiting forever.”

  “Sorry. Got stuck out at the airport.” The driver’s voice was weak and coarse. He appeared ill, maybe fifty, with ratty hair and sallow skin. Nicotine-stained fingers punched the meter to life. A wet, rattling cough racked his body.

  “Where to, buddy?”

  “Gulf Coast Telemarketing.”

  “Where’s that?” Again his body convulsed in an attempt to expel phlegm from his lungs.

  Brian gave him directions.

  “What happened? Looks like you got your arm all bandaged up there.”

  No shit, you ignorant bastard. “It’s nothing.”

  “It ain’t broken, is it? My wife broke her arm once …”

  He driveled on and on, but Brian paid little attention. He worked his hand into a fist and then relaxed it several times. The bandage tugged at his skin as the muscles of his forearm flexed, but the pain was minimal. He settled back in the seat and closed his eyes, tuning out the driver’s droning.

  The cab finally rolled to a stop in front of Gulf Coast. Brian paid the fare and jumped out. He intended to get in his Jeep and head home. No reason to hang around this place. Unfortunately, the door swung open and Glenda Riordan in all her cockatoo glory stepped out.

  Great.

  She turned and yelled back through the door, “Wanda, everybody, Brian’s back.”

  Several of his coworkers came out and walked down the walkway toward where he stood in the parking lot. Exactly where he had beaten the mugger. Brian could see dried bloodstains on the asphalt. His blood. And the mugger’s. They gathered in a semicircle. Not close, each keeping a comfortable distance.

  “Are you okay?” Wanda asked as she joined the group.

  Like you give a shit, bitch. “Just a scratch.” He held up his bandaged arm.

  They stared blankly at him, their anxiety palpable. He knew they wanted to be somewhere else, but their curiosity held them. Frightened little curious rabbits.

  “My God,” Glenda said. “Weren’t you scared?”

  No, you cow, I wasn’t scared. Not like you are now. “Of course I was scared,” Brian said. “He had a huge knife.”

  “Who was he? Did you know him?” one of his pathetic coworkers managed to squeak out.

  “Just some street person. The police said he had robbed some other people.”

  “Is he all right?” Wanda asked. Her brow furrowed with concern. “He looked like he was hurt pretty badly.”

  Not badly enough. “The doctor said he thought he’d be okay.”

  Wanda shook her head. “I can’t believe this happened. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  There it was. Wanda’s sweet, syrupy false concern. “I’m fine. I just need to get my car.”

  He turned and headed that way. Wanda followed. He reached the vehicle and pulled open the door.

  “I’m sorry,” Wanda said. “This hasn’t been a good day for you.”

  He looked down at her. “I’m okay.”

  “I spoke with Dr. Hublein. He said you would be seeing him later this week.”

  “I see him every week.”

  “You get well and I’ll have a job for you when he says you’re better.”

  “I’m better now.” He climbed in the car, closed the door, started the engine, and pulled away, leaving her standing there.

  Brian raced out of the lot and navigated his way to Memorial Parkway. He sped up the entry ramp, wedging his Jeep between a minivan and some Japanese tin can. The tin can swerved and flashed its lights. Brian flipped the driver off.

  The day’s events tumbled around in his head. That Kushner asshole; the mugger; the arrogant Dr. Beck; the smelly, babbling cab driver; and Wanda Fisher, Glenda Riordan, and the rest of the clowns he worked with—all conspired to ramp up his anger. He had struggled to keep it in check, but now his knuckles whitened on the steering wheel as he fought the urge to plow his Jeep into another minivan. Those damn things seemed to be everywhere. Take control, he told himself. Now is not the time.

  Brian Kurtz knew anger. Had known it all his life. His father’s intoxicated rages; his mother’s schizo tirades; not to mention his own short fuse that had led to more fights than he could remember. Since childhood, he had wrestled with his internal turmoil, mostly winning, occasionally failing. Failures that would have ended his high school years early had he not been a star football player. Failures that had attracted the police and the courts on more than one occasion.

  But now his anger was different. It had mutated into something else. More powerful, more demanding, more difficult to control. Definitely more explosive. Over the past two months, when stressed or angered, his rage would rise abruptly, and it took all his strength to control the impulse to lash out. Sometimes he won this internal war, and at other times some unlucky soul, like that dirty piece of street trash, or some nearby inanimate object, would lose. Then there were the other times. The times when it drove him to do things he couldn’t understand. Petersen. Allison. Savage. Why?

  This new rage both scared and enticed him. Its intensity and the ferocity of his own actions terrified him, yet … Savage had been … what? There wasn’t a word for it. Overwhelming? All-consuming? Not strong enough. Not even close. Intoxicating? Yes, but more than that. Oddly, when he later relived the events, he found what he had done repulsive. But, at the time, when it erupted inside, it produced such feelings of power and fulfillment that he reveled in its heat.

  That was the real problem. The thing that ate away at him. His addiction to this white-hot rage was growing. An addiction was exactly what it was. As surely as if he shot his veins full of heroin or inhaled the exhaust of a crack pipe. It seemed that planning his next “outi
ng” consumed his every waking hour. The anticipation only made the final release more powerful. It seemed that each hit of the anger and rage he took sank him deeper into its embrace, an embrace as warm and as welcoming as that of a comforting mother.

  CHAPTER 17

  MONDAY 3:25 P.M.

  I LEANED AGAINST THE WALL NEAR THE WINDOW IN LUTHERS office. T-Tommy and Scotty sank into the sofa along the opposite wall, Luther behind his desk. I hadn’t noticed before, but Luther appeared to have aged a decade in the past year or so, the mantle of sheriff taking its toll. His short-cropped hair had receded considerably and was now peppered with gray. His election two years earlier had not been without controversy. Not so much that he was black, but that he had been with the department only five years. Made him somewhat of an outsider. An endorsement from the retiring Mike Savage helped, but it was his tough stance on crime that sealed the deal. The Madison County electorate could overlook his inexperience and the color of his skin if he would lock up the bad guys.

  “So, T-Tommy was right,” Luther said. He squared the stack of papers on his desk. “The ballistics connects two of the three scenes.” He looked at me. “What about Petersen? Can we include him in the mix?”

  “That’d be my bet. The savageness of the beatings. Used a handy object, not something he brought with him. Attacks were at the victims’ homes at night. Bodies left at the kill sites with no attempt to hide or dispose of them. The cotton fibers. There’re some differences, but I think we can assume a connection.”

  “Unlike the others, he didn’t shoot Petersen,” Luther said. “That bother you?”

  I shook my head. “Petersen was the first victim. An old man. Judging from the photos, not a very big guy. Probably didn’t look like much of a threat. Of course, he did put up a hell of a fight. Probably frightened the killer. Decided that in the future a gun might be wise.”

  “Learned from his mistake,” T-Tommy said.

  “These guys often change their MO. Adapt. Get better at what they do.”