For Everything a Reason (10 page)

Timothy was at the next
opening, the rifle against his shoulder.

Presley held his breath.

Timothy entered.

There was a deafening clatter
as bullets ripped their way over every inch of the room. Steeling himself,
Presley dashed to the next doorway, the one that Timothy filled, and brought
the small Derringer up behind the heavy’s ear.

“Move, and I’ll blow your goddamn
brains out,” he warned.

Timothy froze.

“Drop the weapon,” Presley
ordered.

Timothy remained still for just
a second. Then something changed in his stance. He became more rigid. His
breathing stopped and, with sickening dread, Presley knew he was about to do no
such thing. The muzzle of the assault rifle began to turn in a wide arc. Time
seemed to slow, everything happening at only half the speed it should. The
weapon continued to come, and at the same time, Timothy started to spin away
from the Derringer.

Presley heard his own warped
voice cry, “No!” an instant before all hell broke loose.

The rifle started to tear the
wall up at Presley’s side, huge chunks of plaster and wood and masonry filling
the air with a thick, clogging cloud. Timothy’s lips parted and a fearless roar
escaped from deep within his throat.

In a blind panic, Presley
squeezed off a shot, his last, and then rushed towards the sealed doorway. He
almost lost his footing, sliding surprisingly too fast as he stepped on an
empty glass bottle. Somehow, he kept upright, and in the next second his
fingers scratched frantically at the deadbolt. The hairs at the nape of his
neck bristled with fear, and his heart threatened to give, but his fingers
continued to grapple with the bolt. With a sharp scrape, the bolt eventually
gave and, in the next instant, Presley was outside. He fell to his knees, his
feet finally tripping over themselves, and he went down hard.

The steel doorway stood ajar –
corridor empty.

Timothy hadn’t followed, nor
fired a single shot towards the exit. Presley remained frozen where he’d
fallen, but he felt safer with the main sidewalk only ten yards away from him.

Another quick look towards the
corridor confirmed it was empty. Presley climbed to his feet, slowly, the
Derringer tight in his hand. Had anyone even heard the shootout over the
general noise of the city? There were no tenants, or commercial businesses –
Moses’ not included – around the immediate vicinity, and the noise of rushing
traffic would have drowned out any sounds of gunfire easily. And when you got
right down to it, would anyone have cared, anyway?

Presley took a single step back
towards the doorway, believing now that somehow Timothy had been stopped in his
tracks. His heart still pounded in his chest, but less painfully so, and a cold
sweat had broken out long his spine, making his shirt cling to his back. His
attention returned to the sidewalk. The clever thing would be to get as far
away as he could. Unfortunately, the present situation he found himself in dictated
otherwise.

His original plan had been to
come here, to buy protection, in the event that he was cornered again. Now, the
weapon in his hand was empty, pathetic, and of no real use. The sounds of
sirens reached his ears, but they were distant and harmless. No cops were on
their way to arrest him, because nobody cared about this part of the
neighbourhood.

He stepped back inside the
doorway, keeping his eyes peeled to the open room he’d escaped from. Had
Timothy simply given up? Presley reached inside to take an empty soda bottle.
Simultaneously, he threw it into the corridor and readied himself for flight.
The bottle landed with a crunch of broken glass.

Nothing.

Presley took another step
inside. He made his way along the corridor, his back pressed against the wall,
keeping one eye on the room, the other, on his escape route. The last few yards
were the hardest. He imagined gunfire would erupt at any moment.

It didn’t.

Taking one final deep breath,
Presley stepped into the doorway.

The room was empty.

Timothy was nowhere to be
found.

Chapter
Eighteen

Detective Tyler stared at her open notebook. A short list
of details had been scribbled down in untidy handwriting, some of which had
already been struck-out, Joseph Ruebins amongst them.

“So what have we got?” Carter
asked.

Both detectives sat at Carter’s
desk, awaiting the autopsy report on Henry Jones to come through, along with
the
provisional findings from the Crime Scene Unit.

“We’ve got surveillance recordings
from the hospital – about thirty-six man-hours worth of CCTV,” Tyler began.
“We’ve also got a long list of names of employees taken from St Mary’s. And
patients – Joseph Ruebins included.”

Carter asked, “Who’s analysing
the surveillance recordings?”

“I’ve got Audio Visual looking
through them. Told them to pay attention to the cameras positioned within the
corridors first. Too much traffic around the entrances. It would have been
mayhem, what with the R.T.A. and all.”

Carter nodded. “We could still
be onto something with Ruebins though.”

Tyler frowned. “So far, I’d say
Ruebins’ involvement - or lack of it - is the only sure thing we do have.”

“Yeah, I agree,” Carter said.
“But the chance of another patient being capable of the murder is still a
discrete possibility.”

“You’re right,” Tyler agreed.
“The murder took place out of visiting hours. So that should greatly reduce the
chance of a visitor’s involvement.”

Carter nodded. “What about
security personnel?”

“A relatively short list to
work through. I’ll check it out personally.”

“Okay. So for now, our only
known witness is Joseph Ruebins. And he’s playing see no evil, speak no evil.”

“Yeah,” Tyler agreed. “Still,
he’s the one link we have to the actual killer.”

“Or killers?”

Tyler frowned. “Killers?”

“We can’t rule out that this
was done by more than one individual.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Seems too convenient that the
original bed sheet found its way to laundry so fast, and Jones wasn’t found
earlier, considering he was wired to a monitor.”

Earlier, Carter had finally
found the whereabouts of the missing blanket. A young orderly had removed it
after finding Henry Jones’ body. Deeply inexperienced and thinking that the
blood found had been a simple result of him passing away, she had allowed the
bed to be changed, not wishing for relatives to arrive to find their loved one
in such a way. The soiled sheet had then been washed in the hospital laundry.

“But what about the orderly?” Tyler
asked. “She seemed genuinely upset?”

“Yeah, embarrassed even,”
Carter said. “Doesn’t mean she isn’t connected somehow.”

“So you think the whole
hospital is trying to conceal a murder?”

 “Not necessarily,” Carter
replied, with a shake of his head. “Maybe they’re more worried about being sued
for malpractice. Neither Ruebins nor Jones received adequate care last night,
and perhaps the hospital is simply trying to keep the damage to a minimum.”

“So what are you getting at?”

“Maybe the orderly was told to
remove the sheet, clean up the patient and then make it look as if he’d simply
passed away in the night.”

“Okay, that makes sense,” Tyler
agreed.

“And then they find our
killer’s calling card – and call us, forgetting their little cover-up in the
panic.”

“Agreed,” Tyler said. “Finding
such a thing would have thrown anyone.”

Carter shuddered slightly at
the memory of the patient’s tongue. “Got ourselves one sick son-of-a-bitch,
that’s for sure.”

“What do you think? We got a
serial killer at work here?”

Carter paused for a second. “In
all the time I’ve worked here, I’ve only ever known of one genuine serial
killer. They’re not as common as films or books would make you believe.”

“Go on,” Tyler pushed.

“Okay, we need to understand
what we mean by a serial killer. A person who kills multiple people, or, a
person who kills for pleasure – for some sort of sick purposes? A purpose
usually only known to them.”

“What’s the difference?”

“You could pull any gang member
out of any prison, or the streets, and chances are they’ve probably killed more
than one person. But that wouldn’t make them a serial killer. Wouldn’t qualify
them as a Ted Bundy. No, nothing unusual in street killings or gang wars or
even intentional hits. We’re not looking for someone here who kills for profit
or power. More like for passion.”

“So you think Henry Jones could
be the first for our killer? His baptism of blood.”

“I’m not sure,” Carter
responded.

“Then why the dramatics?” she
asked. “Why go to all that trouble, if you didn’t have something to say. A
statement to us?”

Carter drummed his fingertips
along the tabletop. His face flipped between emotions: thoughtful, confusion,
and then too understanding.

“I don’t think the killer was
leaving a message for us.”

“Then to whom?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted,
his face returning to confusion.

“But the killer must know we’re
not likely to go to the press with this. Not yet.”

“No,” he agreed. “But we’re not
the only people to have seen the work of our killer, are we? At least a half
dozen people at the hospital saw what happened to Jones; any one of them could
be on the phone right now, negotiating exclusive rights to the story.”

“So you think the message could
have been left for a relative?” Tyler asked. “Maybe as a warning of things to
come.”

Carter nodded absentmindedly.
“Maybe…” he muttered.

“So let’s get digging on Jones,
see what comes up,” Tyler said.

“Good idea.”

“Okay, what else have we got?”
she asked.

Carter stopped drumming against
the table. “We’re waiting for forensics to come back with a list of
fingerprints – see if anything stands out. They’re also running tests on the
morphine drip and pump, to see if there could have been a malfunction, or if
they were tampered with. Seems a bit pointless, I know, considering the way the
victim was found, but we need to collate as much information as possible.”

“Right. I’ll start to compile
witness reports, see if anything stands out. Late visitors, staff working in
the wrong area and such.”

“Okay, I’m gonna see what the
coroner’s come up with. Find out if a special type of instrument was used to
cut the tongue. Something that might only be found in a hospital.”

They stood, and Tyler flipped
her notebook shut. She slipped it inside her jacket. “Meet back here in an
hour?” she asked.

Carter took a quick look at his
watch. “Make it two.”

“Two?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I need to
look at past cases – both open and closed, see if there’s been a similar kind
of crime in the city over the last few years.”

Tyler looked back at him.
“Thought we’d agreed it wasn’t a serial killer?”

“We have. Still, records might
just throw some light onto this.”

“Like what?”

“Like, motive, for one.”

Chapter
Nineteen

Fear threatened to drag Presley out of the building,
self-preservation ordering him to get as far away as possible while he still
had the chance. Chance dictated otherwise, because fate had presented him with
the opportunity for a serious score. Yet it was desperation that eventually
spoke loudest. His original plan to buy a weapon to protect himself from the
cops that hunted him by day, and from the Russians who hunted him both day and
night, now seemed part of another life.

The debt he owed had made
Presley too much of a known commodity, and his creditor wasn’t about to let
such a large tariff simply walk away. No, there were people on the streets
looking for him. The most worrying one of all was Detective Thomas Carter, a
man who was going to stop at nothing until he was dead and zipped up cold in a
body bag.

Presley couldn’t afford to walk
away. And the arsenal of weapons and stash of cash upstairs demanded he risk
it. That’s how he found himself at the foot of the stairs. He looked up,
standing on his tiptoes, in an attempt to get a better view of the landing
above.

He’d quickly checked the rooms
on this level, finding nothing of the heavy or his assault rifle. Perhaps
Timothy had returned to the weapons table in haste, ready to reload and
continue his pursuit. Still, minutes had gone by now, with no sound or sight of
him.

This is lunacy, Perkins
thought, as he took the first step upwards. The board under his foot creaked
slightly, a sound he hadn’t been aware of during his first two trips through
the building. Now, though, his senses were at their highest.  

He took a breath and started to
climb.

What could he do with the money
and weapons, even if he took them? The protection a firearm could offer was
simple. If backed into a corner, like the night before, he would at least have
options. The option to kill? Maybe? Although he didn’t consider himself a
violent man, Presley knew now, without doubt, that he could never allow himself
to go to jail. A life of privilege had taught him that. No, he understood that
freedom was his only option. And what lay above could be his ticket towards
winning it.

The landing came into view.
Chunks of masonry littered the floor all along the passageway. The banister at
the top of the stairs had been blasted into a toothpick. As he ascended,
Presley looked along his pathway in the hope of spotting blood. Maybe his
single shot had somehow caught Timothy, wounding him sufficiently enough to
make him retreat? Not a single drop stained the stairs, nor was he able to find
any on the ground floor. Timothy may have also reached the same conclusion as
had Presley, and was already making his way outside with a bagful of loot.
Moses would have been savvy enough to have given himself more than just the one
exit to escape from, if the need ever arose. Timothy could be long gone by now,
already planning his future and how to invest his newfound wealth.

This worrying thought spurred
Presley on.

He reached the top unscathed
and then paused for a moment, his beating chest forcing his lungs to work
overtime. He waited until he’d caught his breath. Finally, he took a few steps
away from the staircase and inched his way towards Moses’ room. His footsteps
thudded noisily, masonry crunching under the weight of his shoes, and his
breath came out in a tight, constricted wheeze. He reached the doorway to find
one of the black gang members sprawled across the threshold, blood pooled out
around him.

The stench of blood, innards
and cordite was almost overpowering. Presley held his breath as he stepped
inside. What he found there was the stuff of nightmares.

The second gang member lay
where he’d fallen, his skull open to reveal a mess of orange-grey tissue. Pink,
watery fluid had leaked out from the wound, staining the floor around him.
However, the most terrible thing to hit Presley was the desperate wheeze that
emanated from the kid’s lips.

He shuddered, understanding
that what lay at his feet was his doing. His attention turned to the table.
Moses Prey had been thrown back into his chair, and he sat there, faceless,
grinning a ghastly smile from what was left of his lower jaw. Only the bottom
half of his face remained intact, along with his bald scalp, and just a few
hairs framed this ghastly sight with a greasy dark frame.

The cash that one of the kids
had held was now scattered across the room, some soaking up puddles of blood,
others gathered in small heaps like the winnings of a jackpot. All three
victims lay where they’d fallen, the money sat untouched, and the cache of weapons
still formed neat rows and columns.

Presley stepped over the
wounded victim, careful not to tread in brain matter or blood, aware that any
trace of his footprints would implicate him to the horrific events of the
evening. He checked behind him, but nothing threatening appeared. Quickly, with
his hand drawn into his sleeve, he moved around the table and opened one of the
table’s drawers. Inside were a dozen or so small boxes, each with a calibre
stamped on them.

What had Moses said about the
Derringer? Something about it being the smallest Magnum in the world. He forced
his brain to remember the recent conversation, but the scene before him pushed
any reasoning out of his mind. Instead, he began to open boxes, carefully
though, using just the rough tips of his fingernails, in the hope that any
prints would go unnoticed. Then, once he’d opened a few, he clicked the
Derringer’s loader open, retrieved the two spent casings, and began to withdraw
single bullets, before trying them for size. They were all too small. He tilted
the Derringer back, catching the incorrect bullets in the palm of his hand,
before slipping the casings inside his jacket, leaving no possibility of
fingerprints. Eventually he opened a box of .357s. The first round fitted
perfectly, so Presley retrieved the entire box and then quickly loaded the
second chamber. He clicked the loader shut before pocketing the box of rounds.

Now back in business, he turned
his attention to the carpet of green bills scattered around the room. Most were
twenty-dollar bills, some ten, and just the occasional five. All were stained
by splatters of red. Presley figured that Moses must have a stash of cash
readily available to him. He looked away from the scattering of blood money,
and focused his attentions to the table before him. There were another three
drawers to examine. The first was empty. An arrangement of wicked looking
knives filled the second, ranging from small butterfly-knives to foot-long
hunting knives. The last drawer presented Presley with what he’d come for:
tightly wrapped rolls of green bills – and lots of them.

“Bingo,” chimed Presley.

His dirty fingers reached out
greedily, snatching up as many bundles as he could. He raised the handful of
cash to his nose and then breathed in deeply. A long exhale of pleasure escaped
from his lips. One roll looked to be made up of hundred-dollar bills and, by
its thickness, Presley guessed it to be worth at least five thousand. Another
roll promised at least another few grand. In all, Presley guessed he was richer
by somewhere in the twenty-five grand range.

The kid on the floor groaned
again.

Presley’s arm rose slightly,
and the Derringer wavered towards the kid’s open skull. A mercy killing,
Presley told himself. That’s what it would be if he pulled the trigger. The
firing mechanism felt in need of a hundred pounds of pressure to work it. The
gun began to waver. Perkins took a deep breath and readied himself.

“Okay,” he said. “This is for
your own good.”

His thumb clicked the hammer
back to halfway.

The scrape of a boot pulled his
attention upwards. In the doorway, blocking the only exit, was Timothy. The
assault rifle was clasped in his hands, and his eyes looked directly at
Presley. Timothy’s face looked ghostlike, white and gaunt. His eyes appeared red-rimmed
and hollow. Then, with deadly intent, the weapon began to rise. Timothy opened
his mouth and a single word came from between grey lips.

“Moses…”