Death By Degrees (6 page)

Once we were done in Finland, we would fly from Helsinki to Tokyo then take another flight west to the south island of Kyushu. From there… it would’ve been nice for Cho to have explained this to me. We were heading to Japan because there were two sites, and by the looks of the GPS coordinates and marks on the printed maps, they were extremely close to one another.

I leafed through the other pages. They were crudely translated missing persons reports, probably pages that had been fed through some internet translation program. The gist was there, but they were a bit difficult to read. From the reports a man and a woman with no known connections to each other went missing on the same day. Japan wasn’t the only country to have more than one killing, but it was the only one I knew of with two killings that had occurred at, for all intents and purposes, the same time.

Something had changed in Japan, something had made Crawford behave differently. Our job was to figure out what that was.

I stopped off at the receptionist and let her know who would be traveling where.

“
Merci
, I will call to the airports now.” The plane tickets were open, something I wasn’t used to, but that probably had to do with the fact that they had been booked by INTERPOL. It wouldn’t take long before the young girl with the thick French accent had all of our names attached to the tickets.

Our next stop was the armory. While we went to get our sidearms, Eddie went to check out where he would be spending much of his time. When we arrived in the armory, it was obvious that we had been expected.

“Detectives Munroe, Jameson and Chen,” a man said from behind a locked cage. “I’ve been expecting the three of you.” He was an older man, probably in his mid-sixties, slightly overweight with a youthful look to his face in spite of his age. Between that and the thick glasses, he reminded me of a clean-shaven Santa. A French, clean-shaven Santa, that is; although with less of an accent than the receptionist.

“I hope we live up to your expectations,” I said, a smile on my face.

“If you don’t, these will.” He slid three cases toward the small hole in the cage. “Never fired a P226 before, not until today.” He pointed back at a silhouette target he had pinned up on the wall. For a man with such thick lenses, he sure as hell could shoot.

“Nicely done,” I said. “So these aren’t standard issue here?”

“Not at all. I had to fight with Cho to get her to allow this. She wanted you to use what all of the other agents use. I said that was ridiculous, you should use whatever you are comfortable with.”

“You have a point. I’ve used one of these for over a decade. There’s no way I’d be able to erase all that muscle memory. Thanks for fighting for us…”

“Quentin Chevalier,” he said, introducing himself without remotely trying to hide his accent. The words rolled off his tongue and I was reminded of how much better French sounded from a fluent adult than from one of my kids whose French consisted mostly of colours, numbers and basic conversational elements. I couldn’t really fault them, they were still miles ahead of me.

“Quentin?” Chen said. “So, since you give us the guns and that, can we call you ‘Q’?”

Quentin smiled. “You wouldn’t be the first to make that joke, and I believe you will not be the last.”

Chen had a childish grin on his face.

There were some things we were never going to outgrow.

We left headquarters an hour later with plenty of time before we needed to be at the airport. Everything we needed was back at the hotel, but we all felt the scenic route was in order. With the
Parc de la T
ê
te d’Or
running behind headquarters and the hotel, it seemed the logical way to go. The park was as beautiful as it had looked from the hotel, and it was much larger than I had expected, what with having its own lake, zoo and velodrome.

Everyone seemed to be somewhat in awe of the place, so I took the lead. We walked north around the lake then south along the other side, past the velodrome to a restaurant on the water’s edge. The velodrome tempted me as we walked past it. There was one in London, had been for a number of years, that the public could use after a couple of lessons. I had never gotten around to it. There was just something about riding a bicycle around a steeply-banked oval that made me want to try.

A young man led us through the restaurant to the outdoor patio overlooking the water. The weather was beautiful with hardly any wind to speak of, barely a cloud in the sky and a comfortable temperature. Eating outside in a suit usually wasn’t my idea of a good time, but on a milder day with just a slight breeze I could forget what I had been wearing.

The four of us sat watching people in paddleboats and rowboats drift along the calm lake while others lounged beneath trees or sat on the shoreline. It felt like I was looking at an old painting, gazing back in time to simpler days. It took me some time, then I remembered the painting:
A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
by Georges Seurat. Art was not my strong point and the only reason I knew that painting was that I owned it in the form of a three-thousand-piece puzzle. I had wanted a larger puzzle than that, maybe even the thirty-two-thousand-piece monstrosity, but I’d been forced to compromise. Kat was adamant that we didn’t need a puzzle taking up the largest room in our house for what could be months.

“So, Eddie,” I said, between bites of sandwich. “You said ‘not professionally’ when Cho talked about gun training. Care to elaborate?”

“My dad is a hunter and a bit of a gun nut. He used to take me out hunting with him quite a bit, and then to the gun range in the off season. Haven’t been out as much lately, too busy with work and, before that, school.”

“What kind of hunting?”

“Mostly deer, although we did go bear hunting a couple of times.”

Kara looked up. “Bear?”

“Yeah, black bear. Wasn’t really my cup of tea. Don’t know why it seemed so different than deer.”

“What’s bear taste like?” Chen always had the most interesting questions.

“That’s part of the problem. The best meat comes from the young bears. They have a different diet, mostly berries instead of fish. It can be a little greasy, but kind of sweet as well. Depends on how you cook it. I could serve you my mom’s bear chili and you’d never know the difference.”

“So you know how to shoot then?” Eddie nodded. “If the shit hits the fan and it comes down to it, feel free to use my gun,” I said.

“Be easier if you’d just let me have one.”

“Yeah, it would be. But you heard the lady.” I couldn’t say I was too thrilled with how much Eddie wanted one, but him wanting a gun was probably no different than Chen calling Quentin ‘Q’.

“What is… is that person watching us?” I looked to the south, following Kara’s gaze, toward a man hidden in the bushes a short distance from the restaurant. “I swear I just saw binoculars. And what the hell is he doing in there anyway?”

I couldn’t make the person out very well, couldn’t know for sure, but part of me knew. It was Crawford. It had to be.

I rose without saying a word and took off at a sprint toward the trees where, until I stood up, the man had been. Chen and Kara were right behind me, Eddie a little further off. It had taken him longer to realize what was going on. No fault there, just not a cop.

The brush was thick and difficult to get through. Every branch I ducked under or around seemed to result in two more appearing right at face level. I barely slowed down though, just ran through them like a juggernaut destroying everything in my path. Determination and pure adrenaline had taken over and I ran on instinct, the sound of branches cracking ahead of me the only thing that guided my path. I had lost sight of him – was it Crawford? – within moments of starting to run, and I had yet to spot him again. The sounds were enough to track him, and at times I could have sworn I had seen a figure.

The three of us, becoming four again a couple of minutes later, broke through the woods and scaled a fence into the zoo. I counted my lucky stars that the fence took us only into the zoo itself, and not into any of the enclosures. My single-minded focus blinded me to my surroundings, and jumping into the African Plains exhibit would not have gone over well.

To our left, west toward the lake, I saw a man running. He had something in his left hand and was wearing a black shirt. I had seen the shirt when we were being watched, and Kara thought she had seen binoculars. It was the best guess we had at that point.

I pointed him out to the others and took off after him. One person running in a populated area generally made it easy to identify the guilty party. Had he stopped and tried to blend in, we may never have noticed him. Instead, we had given chase once more and were gaining on him. It was a slow gain, but he seemed to be faltering.

A pathway curved to the south a short distance ahead and he turned, cutting across the grass and through a lightly-treed area to get to it. I cut the corner wider and kept running hard. The lactic acid building up in my muscles burned and I could barely catch my breath; I pushed past the pain and kept going, refusing to give up.

The man was doing everything he could to get away and I could sense desperation in his actions. He would strong-arm people as he ran by, pushing them aside with no regard for anything. An elderly woman tumbled to the ground a hundred meters ahead of me and cried out in pain. Guilt poured in as I ran past her, barely acknowledging her. I looked past him and saw why he was becoming more desperate: the park ended soon and with that he would be into the city where he’d stand a better chance of blending in and getting away.

I had to stop him.

Every muscle screamed as I forced the last bit of power out. I was almost there, just a little further and I’d be on him. The park ran out before I got there and the next thing I knew, he was climbing into a waiting taxi.

I drew my gun and pointed it at him. It was a long-shot, too long to take safely with so many pedestrians around.

“Stop, police,” I yelled, straining my lungs in a different way. Nothing. He kept climbing in. If I could get the taxi driver’s attention, maybe he’d know not to drive away.

“Arrêtez, police!”

All that did was surprise me that I had remembered a French word. The man got into the cab and it drove away, the driver apparently oblivious to what was going on.

Even if I had known for sure that it was him, I couldn’t have taken the shot. It was too far and there was nothing behind the cab to stop an errant round. The cost of missing was too high.

“Thirty-four,” Kara said. The three of us were all trying to catch our breaths. Eddie on the other hand was casually walking our way from quite a distance back.

“What?”

“The cab number, Lincoln. I’ll call it in, get the police here on it. Maybe we can still get him.”

“That guy could run,” I said. I holstered my pistol and sat down on the curb. Chen sat down beside me.

“He was starting to fade. If only we’d had a little further, we would’ve caught him. Bastard had a good head start in the woods to begin with. Wasn’t for that, we’d have had him.”

“Why didn’t you go past me, Chen? You probably could have caught him.”

“Link, I’ve never seen you run like that. You must’ve been pissed or something.”

I was. If it was Crawford then he was watching us, toying with us. He’d already called me twice and now he was spying on us? Every step we took, it seemed like he already knew it was coming.

Chapter Eight

I
t didn’t take long for the cruisers to surround the area thanks to Eddie being smart enough to call the chase in. The officers that arrived were members of the
Police Nationale
, the civil law enforcement agency responsible for cities and large towns. Outside of that, jurisdiction fell to the
Gendarmerie Nationale
– a military police force. They came in from every side street, coming to a stop in the intersection in front of me. A ranking officer – I needed to learn how their rank structure worked – exited his vehicle and approached.

I braced myself for an onslaught of French.

“Detective Munroe?”

“Yes,” I said, preparing for the inevitable.

“Tell me what happened?” The accent was unmistakable, but there was English. I had been getting lucky, but I knew I’d need to try to make use of what little French I knew at some point. I made a mental note to check the stores at the airport for something that might teach me some French – even though I knew it would be ridiculously over-priced.

“We were having lunch in the park, saw someone watching us from the trees. We chased him through the park but he got into a cab and took off. Cab number… what was it again, Kara?”

“Thirty-four,” she said over the sirens.

“Can you describe the man?”

“Older, around fifty. Short dark hair, some gray in it. He was wearing a black t-shirt and may have had binoculars with him. That’s all I can tell you. The suspect in our case is Duncan Crawford, born September 21st, 1965… I’m willing to bet it was him.”

“Your colleague said something along those lines.” He looked around and then leaned toward me, speaking softly. “I have heard some things about an international serial killer… is that him?”

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s the guy.”

“I’ll get everyone we can on this. We’ll find him,” he said. I watched him turn and walk back to his cruiser. He climbed inside and picked up the radio; the information shot across the city to every police officer on that channel. If Crawford was here, he’d have a hard time escaping. Or at least, if it had been someone else they would have. A part of me knew even then that Crawford was not ready to be caught.

My plan to enjoy the park and then catch a brief nap at the hotel before flying to Helsinki had been dashed. Instead, we found ourselves back at headquarters filing reports on the incident. Just like at home, drawing your gun in a crowded place led to a lot of paperwork. I didn’t want to think about the bureaucratic nightmare taking the shot would have led to.

We went through exactly what had happened, tried to piece together a description of the suspect. Even though I was almost certain it had been Crawford, I couldn’t help but think that the man we saw had looked somewhat different. I tried to keep telling myself that it couldn’t be him. We knew everything we could about Crawford and so did every border patrol, customs or international agency out there. His passport had been flagged, his name put on every watch list there was.

Somehow, he had slipped past all of that. Somehow, he was in France watching us.

It didn’t make sense, but as much as I kept trying to convince myself I knew that he was here. Or he had an accomplice who looked a lot like him. Despite the number of victims around the world and the fact that having accomplices would have made it a lot easier, something about the case just screamed ‘lone wolf’. I couldn’t ignore my gut. Crawford was following us, he somehow was avoiding detection and he had done this all on his own.

“Have we bitten off more than we can chew with this one?” I said, breaking the silence. The only noise in the room had been the clicking of keyboards as we put our reports in.

Kara looked up from the computer, her fingers still typing away. “What do you mean?”

“I just wonder if we should have stayed on our own case. Crawford wanted us on this, or me at least. Should we have given in to that?”

“I know you don’t want to let him think he’s in charge, but he kind of is. He’s got the world waiting to see what happens, everyone is looking for him. There all worried about where he’s going to strike next. We’ll catch him, Lincoln. Just not today.”

“You sure about that? You’re right about one thing, Kara. Everyone is looking for him and yet he slipped right into France without anyone questioning it or noticing a thing.”

“What makes you think he had to slip in?” Eddie was joining the conversation now while Chen kept typing, his head tilted toward us. Chen was waiting, holding back until he had something to add.

“What do you mean, Eddie? He has help?”

“Not necessarily. I mean, maybe he did. He might have had to sneak in, but then again maybe he was already here.”

I thought about it for a second. It made sense. He wouldn’t have had to get past customs or security.

“Good theory,” I said. “But that means he knew we’d be coming.”

“Maybe he did, or he was just in the EU already for some reason. Traveling through Europe isn’t that hard. It’s not like every inch of the border is under guard, and it’s easier to get across the borders than it is back home.”

“INTERPOL hasn’t released that we’re working for them yet. He’s been keeping tabs on us… I just don’t know how. There’s no way he just guessed.”

“I’ll look into it,” Eddie said. “Might be able to figure out how he’s doing it. You haven’t actually met him so he couldn’t have put a tracker or anything on you, and I doubt he’s been walking or driving behind you the whole way. What if he was on the flight with us? Do you think he could have been?”

He was rambling again. “I doubt it, Eddie. Can you look into it while we travel? Because I can get an agent to take your place if you need to be here.”

“I’m good. You’re not getting rid of me that easy.” Eddie smiled; if he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been sure whether or not I was to take that seriously.

“Alright. Bring whatever you need. Let’s wrap these reports and get ready to head to the airport.”

“Ten-four, Link. There goes having a nice dinner. Airplane food it is, I guess.”

“Might be able to find something worthwhile at the airport, Chen.”

“I’m not spending that much.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it too much. The international community can pick up the tab. What’s a thirty euro dinner split across seven billion?”

“Says the guy who hates taxes and making people pick up the tab for him.”

“Sometimes you have to live a little,” I said, a smirk forming on my face.

“We’ll see, Link.”

I was just about to tell him I was in charge of this operation and he’d eat when I told him to, but we were interrupted.

“Private number, again,” I said. My phone was ringing and the call display gave me nothing. “Anything you can do, Eddie?”

“Not really, no. If he was calling a land line, maybe I could run a trace. But through a cell it takes longer to get records and everything. Anyway, we already got his number from the other calls and he’s deactivated those phones. This will be a new number.”

“Answer it, Link. Speaker phone.”

I did as Chen suggested and everyone went silent.

“Crawford, how’s Lyon treating you?”

“Careful, Lincoln. You don’t want to make me angry.”

“Why not? You’ve already killed sixty-four people, what’s one more? When do you plan on hanging your hat anyway? Seventy?”

“There are two more people who need to die.”

“Two, eh? Almost done. Then what? You just fade away?”

“Not exactly. I intend to go out with a bang.”

“How so?”

“A conversation for another day, Lincoln. Just know that I will not be forgotten anytime soon. That doesn’t even matter, though. This isn’t about me.”

“It’s about your God, isn’t it? The crosses, the robes. Not the standard serial killer burial kit.”

“Our God, Lincoln. And you can’t even begin to fathom this.”

“Your God, Crawford. No God of mine would tell me to murder dozens of people, carve crosses into their skulls and bury them in creepy robes.”

Crawford laughed, heartily. It was a little unnerving. “You really don’t understand any of this. And you never will. You’re too close-minded. Perhaps I’d be better off discussing this with Kat.”

My blood began to boil instantly and I almost lost it, almost began yelling and screaming at him. “I’ll be sure to bring her by your cell once we’ve got you behind bars and on Death Row. The two of you can debate religion then.”

“France doesn’t have the death penalty.”

“Shouldn’t have killed someone in Texas then.”

“They won’t extradite if Texas wants the death penalty.”

I took a deep breath. “They won’t have to. You’ve been hopping around the world for years, killing people all over the place. No one is going to question a thing when I tell them we found and arrested you in the United States, even if it means smuggling you over there first. I’m not one to fuck with, Crawford.”

“You think I fear death, Lincoln? I welcome it.”

“Then walk right up to me and I’ll give you what you want so badly.”

A sound much like an “a-ha” came through the phone. “This is why I chose you, Lincoln. You come across very professionally, but I know you have the darkness in you. I know how much you like to kill. Name one other police officer in Canada who has killed three people. What do you attribute it to? Bad luck?”

Kara and Chen didn’t look pleased at all. They were getting livid and I could see the redness in their faces. Chen kept opening and closing his fists.

“You’re right, Crawford,” I said, trying to make sure there was more than a hint of sarcasm in my voice. “I like it. Maybe a little too much. In fact, I can’t wait to kill again. Time to work a little harder. I’ll be up to four by the end of the week.”

“Good luck with that, Lincoln. Despite your attitude tonight, I’ll allow one question. But perhaps I’ll let one of your colleagues ask. Ms. Jameson?”

Kara looked shocked. She waved her hands in front of her face, she didn’t want him knowing she was there.

“I know you’re there, Ms. Jameson. Any question you like.”

She took a moment, looked at Chen and I. Neither of us knew what to ask. We needed to make a list of questions and keep it close by. In an interrogation, I never ran out of things to say or ask.

“Are you acting alone?”

“I am.”

With that he was gone again. The four of us sat there in silence trying to grasp what had happened. I now knew why I had been chosen. It had nothing to do with being in the news so much like Kat had said, it was because, like him, I was a killer.

That wasn’t the worst part. He had threatened Kat, and I had no intentions of letting that slide. I didn’t bother putting my phone away; there was another call I had to make.

“Cho? It’s Munroe. Crawford called again.”

“He d-”

I cut her off. “He threatened Kat. She and the kids fly in tomorrow night. If you want me leaving the country, you’ll have a battalion waiting at the airport for them and you’ll keep them under constant guard.”

She was a smart woman, she knew better than to try to talk to me about it.

“Consider it done. Detective Chen’s family will be put under full guard as well.”

“Thank you,” I said. I hung up the phone and put it back in my pocket. “Julie and the kids will be safe as well.”

Chen only nodded, but I’d known him long enough to know what he was thinking. It was the same thing going through my head. We were in over our heads once again. I knew Crawford was bluffing, trying to unsettle us, but I still didn’t want to chance it.

Cho came into the office about a half an hour later and for a moment I was worried that she couldn’t provide the protection I had requested.

Turned out it was worse.

“The news agencies have put it together. They know you’re here, they know who you are and they know it was Crawford that was chased through the park. I don’t see that we can avoid a press conference, especially since they’ve gathered outside waiting to catch a glimpse of you coming or going.”

“How do they know I’m here?”

“Do you think Crawford could have tipped them off?”

“Fuck,” I said. “Yeah, he’d do that.”

“They’ve tried to speak to me by phone, asking me all sorts of questions about you as well. I’m not sure if it’s you or the case they’re more interested in. Whenever you’re ready, Lincoln, bring everyone to the front of the building.”

A few minutes later we all walked out to face the cameras and questions. Flash bulbs began going off rapid fire and for a moment I felt like a celebrity.

“Detective Munroe, is it true that the suspect escaped?”

“We observed someone in the park who matched the suspect’s description. That person fled and we were unable to catch them prior to them getting into a cab and leaving the area. At this time, we cannot confirm if that person was in fact Duncan Crawford.”

As soon as I finished, more questions were shouted out.

“Did you know he would be in France?”