Creatures of Appetite (10 page)

J
ohnson unhappily guided
the police van down the county roads once again with everyone loaded in the back. Kane made Johnson a little bit nervous, because of how Kane looked, and Thorne made Johnson a whole lot nervous, because of how Thorne looked at him. As a result, Johnson drove a little cautiously, which in turn caused Thorne a great deal of impatience. Thorne slapped the back of the driver’s seat.

“Let’s go, Johnson, I thought all you country boys could drive like hell!”

“I was born and raised in Lincoln,” Johnson protested.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means, I mean, it’s not … it’s a city, I’m not from the country.”

“You live in Nebraska, Johnson, wake up and smell the cowshit. Let’s go, move it!” Thorne slapped the back of the seat again.

“Do you have a file on this guy?” Kane asked Gilday.

“Yeah, but not with us, it’s back at HQ. We liked this guy Robertson a lot, but he’s from Seattle and he’s only been in this state for three months.”

“Which is the window for the FunnyPants killings,” Kane pointed out.

“Right, but we didn’t know then that there were two killers, the Iceman had been going for months by then and Forsythe was pushing for the whole thing,” Gilday said. “But the big stopping block is Robertson’s alibi.

“He’s an in-patient at Brainard Memorial Hospital, being treated for depression. Mental wing of the hospital, it’s locked up so no one can get in or out without signing. He checks in every night at seven, out every morning at seven. All of the Brainard area abductions were after seven at night, just like this last one, and the staff confirmed he’s been there every night since he moved here.”

Scroggins hung up his cell phone.

“Okay, Grandma Robertson dropped him off at quarter to seven like she always does. Hospital said he signed in and was there for lights out. They just looked in on him and confirmed that he’s there now.

“Bullshit, we have to see for ourselves,” Thorne snorted.

“What?” Scroggins said. “But they said …”

“I don’t care what THEY said, he fits the profile, he’s the one. Brainard Hospital, Johnson, we don’t have much time so stop lagging,” Thorne thumped the back of the seat again.

“What the hell, Gerry,” Gilday said. “Won’t hurt to look.”

“Fuck it, yeah,” Scroggins said. “If Thorne’s wrong at least then we can give him shit about it.”

“Listen boys, it works like this,” Thorne said. “I am ALWAYS right. Learn it, know it and live it.”

“He’s modest, too,” added Kane.

Johnson nervously cleared his throat. “Shouldn’t we call Captain Forsythe?”

“What for?” Thorne said.

“I mean, he should probably know what’s going on, right?”

“What’s going on, Johnson? Nothing’s going on, right?” Thorne replied.

“Not a thing,” Gilday added.

“Nothing, we’re not even gonna talk to the guy, Bill,” Scroggins said.

“We just want to see that he’s there,” said Thorne.

“I don’t know, he’s gonna be mad, you know how he is.”

“Come on, Bill,” Scroggins leaned forward. “Why put the captain’s cock in a lock over nothing? We’re just going to check on the guy.”

“I don’t know, he could …” Johnson pulled the van into the parking lot of the hospital.

“Bill, shut up,” Gilday said. “Just do as you’re told.”

“Time to get hands-on. Park in the back,” Thorne said. “Everybody follow me and let me do the talking.”

M
oments later
, all five of them, Thorne, Kane, Gilday, Scroggins and Johnson, followed a visibly flustered doctor down the hall of the hospital.

“Like I told the officer on the phone,” the doctor said, “this is a very secure building, there’s no way in or out of this wing without any of the staff seeing you. We have regular bed-checks and …”

“I want to see for myself. I’m a federal officer so stop fucking with me, understand?” Thorne cut him off. “If I have to get a warrant, I’m going to put a boot to your ass and kick you into the middle of next week.”

They stopped at the entrance to the Psych Ward, where a nurse sat in a window and eyed them curiously. The entrance door to the ward was large, heavy and locked electronically, Kane noted. The only way in was to be buzzed through by the nurse on duty.

“Doctor,” Kane said, “just let us verify it with our own eyes and then we’ll go, I promise. There’s a lot at stake here, another young girl has been killed. We just want to see.”

The doctor took a deep breath. “All right. But you must be quiet, these are all damaged people that need peace and quiet. Buzz them in, Beatrice.”

The nurse pressed the buzzer to open the door and everyone entered the ward. The door shut and locked behind them. Kane lagged behind and noted that it was not physically possible for anyone to reach through the window of the Nurse’s Station and hit the buzzer; it was too far out of reach. Kevin Durant wouldn’t even be able to do it. She quickly caught up to the group.

“Mr. Robertson is in room twelve, it’s around the corner down at the end.”

“Do you have fire exits on this wing?” Thorne asked.

“Shh. Of course we do, but they’re locked, they only open in the event the fire alarm goes off, or if someone buzzes from central. If the fire doors do open, an alarm goes off.”

“Scroggins, Gilday, check them out. Kane, stay with me and keep Johnson out of trouble.”

Scroggins tossed a radio to Kane and he and Gilday disappeared down the stair door.

Thorne, Kane and Johnson followed the doctor around a couple of turns in the hallway and finally stopped at room twelve. The doctor gestured to the window in the hospital room door. There was a figure sleeping in the bed.

“See?” the doctor whispered. “I told you he was here.”

“His door locked?” Thorne asked.

“Of course not, why?”

Thorne opened the door to the hospital room. The doctor grabbed his arm.

“What are you doing? You can’t disturb him!”

“Doc,” Thorne said, “he’s not breathing.”

The doctor glanced at the sleeping figure, entered the room and carefully approached the bed.

“Ryan?” he whispered. “Ryan, wake up.”

The doctor pulled back the sheets. Underneath the sheets were pillows and balled up clothes.

“So much for the bed-check,” Kane said.

“Doc, you ought to be ashamed of yourself,” Thorne said. “That trick is so old it should be on Viagra, that’s how old that trick is.”

The doctor, not amused, pushed past them at the doorway.

“Beatrice, call security!” The doctor rushed down the hallway.

“Now we have to find him,” Kane said.

“No, we don’t,” Thorne corrected her.

“We don’t? Why, you know where he is?”

“I don’t know where he is, but I know where he’s going to be soon. He’s going to coming right back here to this room.”

“Thorne, Kane,” the radio on Kane’s belt suddenly spoke. “You better come down here,” It was Gilday.

Thorne took off at a good clip down the hall, Kane close behind. Johnson just stood there in awe of the empty bed in the hospital room.

“Johnson, let’s go, young man, time’s wasting!” Thorne barked from down the hall. Johnson jumped and scurried after them.

Some moments later, Thorne and Kane joined Gilday and Scroggins outside the back of the hospital, where they were standing next to a very open fire door. Johnson, huffing and puffing, soon followed.

“Ah, look at this, the locked fire door is somehow unlocked,” said Thorne.

“Not just unlocked, but you can open and close it, no alarm, nothing,” Scroggins demonstrated.

Kane examined the door. “How’d he do it?” she asked and found a gum wrapper lodged near the hinge. “What’s this?”

“Foil from a gum wrapper, kept the magnetic charge constant,” Gilday said. “But how’d he know how to do that?”

“Probably saw it in a movie,” Thorne said.

“
Beverly Hills Cop II
. Good flick,” said Scroggins.

“Damn good flick,” Johnson agreed.

“So where he is now? What time is it?” Kane asked.

“Quarter to six,” Gilday answered.

“Shit, we’ve been out at this all fucking night,” Johnson grumbled.

“Sun will be up in about forty minutes,” Scroggins said. “He has to show up soon. He’s probably got a routine down, slip in right before shift change, something like that. He’s gotta come back, unless he knows we’re on to him.”

“You know what I’d really like to know” Thorne asked.

“What?” said Kane.

“What I’d like to know is, how’s he getting around? Doesn’t drive, how did he get from here to Garrison?”

“There’s somebody walking out of the woods,” Johnson said, his voice a little shaky.

They all froze.

A dark figure stepped out of the woods surrounding the back parking lot about fifty yards away. The figure, that of a young man in snow gear, slid down the snow piled up high on the edge of the parking lot and made his way across the lot. Thorne slowly backed everyone away from the exit door and into the shadows.

“Keep still, let him get closer,” Thorne whispered.

The man made it about halfway across the parking lot and suddenly stopped.

“Shit. He spotted us. He’s gonna go OJ,” Thorne whispered.

The man turned around and ran for the woods.

“He’s going OJ!” Thorne started running but slipped on the ice and nearly fell.

Scroggins and Gilday pulled their weapons and ran like mad after the young man, Kane not far behind. Johnson stood dumb for a minute before starting after them. Thorne grabbed Johnson’s arm before he got too far.

“Van, start the van!” Thorne yelled.

Johnson dug into his pocket for the keys, fumbled and dropped them. Thorne picked them up and jumped into the van, Johnson behind him. Robertson disappeared into the woods. Scroggins, Gilday and Kane floundered up the snow ditch piled on the edge of the parking lot. An engine roared.

Robertson revved his snowmobile and used the snow ditch to jump right over them, almost taking their heads off. He spun the snowmobile around in a circle and headed for the parking lot exit. Scroggins and Gilday fired their weapons at him and missed. Thorne started the van and gunned it before Johnson could shut the passenger door.

Thorne slid the van over to Gilday, Scroggins and Kane, the door open. They all piled in and Thorne gunned the engine again. The snowmobile zipped out of the parking lot exit. Thorne bounced the van off of a few parked cars on his way out of the lot in pursuit.

“Just anybody can drive one of those things, no license or nothing?” Thorne yelled as he cranked the van into a turn, just missing a ditch.

“Anybody, even kids!” Johnson yelled. “Watch the … watch the road, you can’t go this fast!”

The van slipped and slid down a narrow county road after the fast-moving snowmobile, which skied through the snowy ditches next to the road with ease. Thorne cranked the wheel and barely made another turn, keeping parallel with Robertson.

“Where’s he going, where’s he going?” Thorne struggled to control the sliding van. Kane braced herself on the ceiling of the van.

“He’s going for the river, he knows we can’t follow him there!” yelled Scroggins.

“This little cocksucker is not getting away from me!” Thorne gritted his teeth.

“Watch out for the …” Kane began.

The snowmobile vaulted the ditch and jumped across the road right in front of the van. Thorne swerved and just barely missed the snowmobile. The van slid into a one hundred-eighty-degree turn before flipping onto its side and sliding into the ditch. It kept sliding on its side until stopped with an ugly crunch by a tree.

The driver’s side door opened and Thorne climbed out, weapon drawn. He jumped off of the van and ran for the road, but Robertson and his snowmobile were both long gone.

“FUCK!” Thorne screamed.

Scroggins climbed out of the driver’s side door. He stooped to help Kane out. The back doors of the van opened, tumbling Gilday and Johnson out into the snow.

“Fuck shit piss cocksucker! Goddamn it!” Thorne continued his tirade.

“Everybody okay?” Scroggins asked. “Jeff, Bill? Bill, you’re bleeding.”

Johnson touched his forehead, finding blood. He got paler, if at all possible, and quickly sat down on a convenient bank of snow. Gilday took a look at the cut.

“It’s okay, couple stitches probably,” Gilday said.

The radio on Scroggins’s belt crackled and he put it to his ear.

“Well,” Kane brushed herself off, “at least we know for sure who he is, right?”

“Fucking pock-marked asshole!” Thorne kicked the van.

“Shit!” Scroggins got everyone’s attention. “Hey, guys, he just snatched another kid, not five minutes ago. At a school bus stop, drove right up, knocked down the mom, grabbed the kid and drove off. They lost them in the woods along the river. Positive ID.”

“He knows we’re onto him so he’s gonna have one last hurrah,” Gilday said. “But where’s he going?”

Something just over Gilday’s shoulder grabbed Thorne’s attention. Gilday turned to see what was. Off in the distance were Brainard’s grain silos.

Gilday turned back to Thorne.