Gabriel's Revenge (The Adventures of Gabriel Celtic Book 2) (9 page)

Chapter 27

August 25, 1998

“Sure,” I said after only a few moments, “I’ll get to see you in action.”

“It’s not that thrilling; trust me,” Abby retorted, although you could tell she was anxious to get going.

Giving me the address, we left the restaurant and got into our respective vehicles. Travelling the distance across town in but a few minutes, we turned left onto Parkside. We could see the flashing lights of cop cars and a life squad from the end of the road. Having to park a block away, we walked the rest of the way to the address.

As we came upon the scene, I noticed a young woman sitting in the front seat of one of the Allenville cruisers, a young girl on her lap with her head buried in her mom’s shirt, sobbing. The woman also had tears running down her face as she tried to calm the girl, hugging her tightly as she ‘
shooshed
’ into the little girl’s ear.

I didn’t know the officer guarding access to the house, but Abby seemed to be old friends with him.

“Hey Bill,” she said brightly, “what’s going on here?”

“Hey Abby,” Bill responded with equal friendliness. “Mrs. Johnstone over there in my car, just got home from a family retreat today to find her husband electrocuted in the hall. Looks like he had been trying to fix an outlet, must have forgotten to turn off the breaker.”

“Bill this is Gabriel Celtic, works at the Prosecutor’s; he’s just tagging along if that’s ok.”

The officer stuck out his hand, saying “Bill Turner,” as I took his strong grip in mine, “Nice to meet you Mr. Celtic.”

“Gabe,” I say in return, “just call me Gabe.”

“Ok if we go on in?” Abby asked as she started under the crime scene tape.

Bill laughed as she straightened up on the other side. “I’ve never seen a mere tape stop you before; go on in,” he finished with a smile.

I followed Abby under the tape, giving Bill a little wave as I turned toward the house. We met the EMT’s at the door and let them pass, they’re presence probably a formality, but required with any death these days.

Headed through the living room, we followed the sound of voices to a hallway leading to the bedrooms. Two more Allenville cops were talking baseball as we approached, and they both grinned when they saw Abby approach.

“Hey boys, what do you need?” Abby said, as we approached the somewhat grizzly scene.

What I assumed to be the body of Mr. Johnstone was lying on the floor ten feet beyond the cops, appearing to have been dead for many days from the looks of it. The air conditioning of the house had seemed to have kept some of the decomposition and flies at bay, but I had seen too many bodies to be fooled by environmental factors.

“We just need some pictures for the records of Mr. Johnstone here before we let the funeral home pick him up,” the blond officer said as he turned to point at the body.

“Another case of handyman hubris,” the darker haired officer said, “people think they can do everything themselves; hire a professional I always say.”

“Why’s he been here so long without anyone finding him?” Abby asked. I could tell she had been around a few bodies herself.

“Wife was at a retreat,” dark hair continued, “said he was supposed to go too, church sponsored thing, for marriage problems, like that. He decided it was a waste of time and backed out. They had a big fight, so she decided to go without him. Been gone since Wednesday night.”

“Looks to me like that’s when it happened,” I added my two cents to the conversation.

Seeming surprised, dark hair seemed to notice me for the first time. Catching the look, Abby quickly stepped in with introductions.

“Sorry guys, this is Gabe, he works at the prosecutor’s office; Gabe, this is Howard, and over there is Mike.”

Since they had on gloves, we dispensed with shaking hands, doing a small wave instead. I was finding it hard to fathom that I had so far met three city cops without recognizing a one of them. I hadn’t been gone
that
long.

“Ok if I get started?” Abby asked.

Howard bowed in jest, indicating with outstretched arm that she could pass. She waved at me to follow, and we made our way down to the body. Mr. Johnstone was lying on his back, his eyes closed. He still had a death grip on the electrical outlet he had been working on, burn marks apparent on his fingers.

Tools are scattered around him, looking like they had been flung about as he thrashed in death. He is dressed in a once crisp double stitched white shirt and silk tie, his nicely creased grey dress slacks ending in dark socks and highly polished loafers.

The flash of Abby’s camera
popped
to my left, followed by the whine of the batteries recharging the flash as she got started recording the scene.

“Who works on an outlet in their dress clothes?”
I thought to myself, a slight warning tugging at my brain.

Pop! Whiiinnee!

I stepped back a couple of steps and took in the whole scene before me again. Something about the scene before me was tapping on my head, as if to say
“Hello? Don’t you see it yet? Are you in there?”

Pop! Whiiinnee!

I closed my eyes for a second before reopening them, looking for a fresh perspective, but also seeing spots before my eyes from the flash.

Pop! Whiiinnee!

My eyes scanned the scene once again, before the tools scattered about finally caught my attention. The tools!

My father had been an electrician, and I had done plenty of electrical repairs over the years, both with him and since. What I saw before me did not make sense at all, even considering that Mr. Johnstone may have been a rank amateur.

Pop! Whiiinnee!

The screwdriver was of course a no brainer; one would need that just to get the cover off, as well as removing the receptacle.

Pop! Whiiinnee!

The other two tools lying on the ground were the problem, a hacksaw, and a pipe wrench, ridiculous choices for anything other than cutting steel and working on pipes. Only an imbecile would choose these to work on an electrical outlet, and the man lying on the floor did not look like an imbecile.

I gently gripped Abby’s shoulder, just as she was getting ready to snap off another shot. She jerked slightly, confused as she looked up at me.

“What’s up Gabe?”

“Can you keep them from moving anything until I get back? I need to talk to his wife for a minute.”

Puzzled but for a second, she looked down at her camera, then back up at the cops down the hall.

“My batteries are almost dead fellas, I’ll be right back.”

The two looked over at her, waving before going back to their conversation.

Turning to go out through the garage and headed for the police cruiser, Abby fell in beside me.

“I’m with you Gabe,” she said looking forward. “If you got a hunch, I want in.”

We waved at Bill Turner as we passed him. Approaching the car, I said quietly, “Tell me what you think after I question the wife.”

Arriving before the slightly more composed Mrs. Johnstone, I stopped in front of the open door and knelt down beside the car.

“Mrs. Johnstone? My name’s Gabriel Celtic; I’m sorry for your loss. Do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions?”

She moved slightly to get more comfortable, holding the now apparently sleeping little girl.

“Ok,” she said, looking down at her baby. Looking back up at me sadly, she continued softly, “Please, call me Janie.”

“Ok Janie, did your husband usually do a lot of handy stuff around the house, especially electric?”

A look of consternation crossed her face then, “No, never, that’s what makes it so weird. Most of the tools he has he inherited from his dad; he barely knew how to use any of them. We just called somebody when we needed something done.”

“So if he had attempted to work on the electric, he very well might have gathered up any number of unrelated tools, not knowing how they worked?”

“Exactly,” she said, distracted by the now stirring little girl.

“Shhh… Shhh Lexy, it will be ok.” She started gently patting the girl on the back, talking gently into her ear.

Seeing my theory going down in flames, I grabbed the car door in preparation of pulling myself back up. Rising up, I thanked her and turned to head back into the house.

“Mr. Celtic?”

“Yes Janie?” I said, turning back to the bereaved woman.

“It’s very possible that he would not have the correct tools if he went to work on anything, including an outlet.”

Finished with her statement, you could tell she had more to say, a sad confused look revealing itself on her face. I waited as she seemed to work through something in her head, finally shaking her head slightly before continuing.

“You see, the problem is, Bill was extremely afraid of electric, deathly afraid. I can’t fathom why he would even attempt to try and fix something like that. We had to change out a satellite receiver a month ago; he broke out in a cold sweat just doing that!”

One more question popped in my head at that moment.

“How long have you been having problems with that outlet Janie?”

Shaking her head once more, she finished with, “We never had a problem with that outlet.”

“There was an outlet in our bedroom that we were having problems with. My husband had to plug his alarm clock in across the room, bugged the hell out of him. But not the hallway one. In fact I just cleaned the house on Tuesday; I plugged the sweeper into that outlet when I was cleaning the bedrooms. It worked fine.”

She was looking down at her daughter again, thinking. Sadness seemed to envelop her once more as the tears started rolling down her cheek, dripping lightly on the little girl.

We turned to leave her to her thoughts.

“Wow,” Abby said quietly as we walked back toward the house. “You think we should call in the coroner?”

Not liking it but admitting to myself that it was starting to look that way, I nodded in agreement. As we entered the hallway, Abby approached Howard and Mike, their faces growing slack when they found out what she had to say. Howard immediately got on his radio and put a call in for the coroner, as well as the crime scene techs.

Another name added to my list? I had a gut feeling I would be finding this to be the case soon.

What the hell was this all about? Why were people being targeted?

A nearly perfect day had wound down to a grinding halt, again. Seemed this was my lot in life.

I decided I needed to pray for guidance, from the one entity that could help me through this trying case. Stepping outside and looking up at the sky, I uttered my prayer to the one above.

“Frank! What the hell is going on?”

Chapter 28

August 25, 1998

I hung around, waiting for things to happen. Although we didn’t have enough evidence to prove foul play, I was now certain we would find something.

I moved out to the front porch, and I involuntary smiled at the sight of an old blue Impala as it pulled up to the curb in front of the house. An old man exited the car, a bushy white mustache and eyebrows prominent on his face, reading glasses pushed up on his forehead.

Doc Elliot hadn’t changed one iota in the forty some years that I had known him; he was still the crotchety old doctor that had delivered most of the people now living in this county…myself included.

Pulling a bag out of the back seat, he made his way up the sidewalk to the porch with short, quick steps, a look of surprise on his face when he saw me standing there.

“Well if it ain’t Gabriel Celtic, back from the dead! What’s with the hair ya damn hippy?”

I smiled and shook my old friend’s hand, having forgotten about my hair until that moment. I would need to do something about that I decided.

“How are you Doc?”

“I had just got to the Legion when I got this call, not too happy at all is how I am. Let’s get the preliminary over with, got people waitin on me back there!” 

I smiled again at the Doctor’s mention of the Legion, the place he would spend most of his time on any typical day. Below his brash exterior, I knew he cared though, and his unhappiness was probably more related to the additional life lost today.

“This way Doc, crime scene guys will be ready by the time you are done.”

Walking up to the body, he knelt beside it, putting his bag down on the floor beside him. Reaching over, he gently moved the hand gripping the electrical outlet, observing the burn.

“Joule burn, definitely the entry point,” he stated as he let go of the hand.

“Give me a hand here willya?” he said as he indicated where I should position myself. Kneeling down by the head, he had me grab one of Mr. Johnstone’s shoulders and roll him toward the wall while he gently pushed up at the ribcage. Taking his free hand, he pulled the shirttail out of the pants, just enough to see the skin of the back.

“Lividity in the back, black as night, this is where he died, and it was awhile ago.”

“We think it may have happened as early as Wednesday night,” I mentioned as we laid the body back flat.

“What’s your thought on this Gabe; looks like an accidental electrocution to me?”

“The wife stated that he was deathly afraid of electric; the tools here are just all wrong to do anything of this nature, and look at his clothes. Who does electric work wearing nice dress clothes? The scene looks rigged to me.”

“Think he was disabled some way?” he asked as he looked at me over his glasses, his pale blue eyes showing sadness.

Knowing he was in on the previous cases, I responded, “Think so. Another one of Frank’s cases I’m afraid.”

Doc Eliot nodded as he reached into his bag and extracted a flashlight, pulling up the front shirttail as he checked over the stomach. Finding nothing there, he started loosening the tie and unbuttoning the shirt collar.

“Damn shame about Frank,” he said as he inspected the neck. “Hell of a detective. Told me before he was killed he was getting closer to finding the perp, said he had found a thread between the victims.”

“He give you a clue what that thread was?” I asked, hopeful.

“Nope, he was tight lipped about it, to everybody as far as I could tell.”

Finding nothing on the neck, he next moved to the arm closest to him, unbuttoning the sleeve and carefully pushing up the material.

“He leave you anything to go on?” the old practitioner asked as he was carefully inspecting the skin of the arm.

“I’m assuming most of the pertinent information was in his notebook, and it’s MIA,” I answered in frustration. “I’m more or less starting from scratch.”

Nodding again, and finding nothing on that arm, he moved to the far arm. Thirty seconds later, he let out a long sigh as he sat back on his haunches.

“There’s your proof Gabriel,” he said, pointing to the crook of the arm, “Stick mark.”

He handed me the flashlight and I got a look at the puncture wound. Getting Abby’s attention, I motioned for her to come and take some pictures of the wound

“Tell you something else about your perp,” he said as I handed him back his flashlight. “The man, or woman, responsible for this has had some kind of medical training along the way.”

Turning on the flashlight again, he pointed it to the mark.

“There is very little blood loss, what would look like bruising there. This person has some experience with injections.”

I nod my head as if understanding, yet not understanding anything…yet.

Abby arrived and snapped off a few pictures of the wound, not offering to leave when she was done.

“Ok,” the Doctor raised his voice to the cops down the hall. “I’m done here, have the body transported to the morgue, I’ll look into this more in the morning.”

He started to stand, faltering just a little. I started to reach down to help, but he waved me off, getting up easily on his second try.

“Old bones,” he stated in explanation.

“Come by tomorrow about 9:00,” he started as he turned down the hall. “I should have something to show you by then.”

As he walked down the hall and headed out toward his car, Abby came closer, shaking her head in apparent wonderment.

“You were right Gabe; they said you were awesome at this stuff!”

Taken aback by her statement, I shrugged my shoulders, saying, “I just got lucky today is all.”

“From what I hear, you tend to get lucky like that a lot.”

We walked out of the house, starting toward our cars. Seeing Mrs. Johnstone I swung over to talk to her, thinking that once I had met with Doc Elliot in the morning I would have more questions for her. I noticed that little Lexy was asleep again.

I quietly asked her if I could meet her tomorrow sometime to get some additional information. Although she seemed somewhat unsure at first, she relented after a few moments of thought. Memorizing her phone number, I told her I would give her a call midmorning to set something up.

Abby told me she needed to get to her lab to develop the crime scene photos; so I said goodbye to her before she turned to go with a wave. I pondered once again the quandary that was my Vietnamese friend, who had once again proven her mettle today, this time in the face of a death.

Asking one of the cops if he had a piece of paper, he handed me a cheap flip over spiral notebook. I made some notes on my observations of the case, as well as Mrs. Johnstone’s phone number, then ripped off the sheet and thanked the officer, remembering finally that his name was Mike. I would transfer these notes when I got home, which I had decided to do immediately, the needed groceries could wait.

Walking to the Jeep, my mood darkened with each step as I thought of the murderer. He or she continued to kill people off at leisure, with no one having a clue as to how to stop it. Anger welled up in my chest as I thought of this, of Frank, being removed from this world in the prime of his life.

I stopped momentarily, and then continued on past the Jeep, having decided that I had no business driving while in my present state of mind. I didn’t know how much walking it would take to get me back to sanity, but I was determined to keep walking until I had knocked these dark thoughts back down where they belonged.

The sane part of my mind kept repeating,
“Revenge is a sin.”

The blackness that had overtaken my mood at that moment though, merely countered, “
Who gives a shit?”