Mystery: The Card Counter: (Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Suspense Thriller Mystery) (14 page)

“Long day, detective?” he asked as he refreshed my whiskey. I looked at him to give him the impression that I wasn’t in the mood for sarcasm. “I know why you’re here. The kids stopped in for a few drinks but took off about an hour ago. I recognized them but didn’t make a fuss about it.”

I took another sip of my newly freshened drink. “Did you happen to see which way they went?”

“Towards the mall,” the bartender answered. 

“Of course they did,” I said as I polished off the second glass. I tossed a $20 bill on the bar and walked out. It turned out their story about window shopping wasn’t exactly the bullshit I had originally thought it was. As I walked out of the bar, I looked back at the officer. “It appears they really are heading for the mall. Let’s keep moving.”

It took us about 15 minutes to make it to the mall doors. I tested my radio to make sure it worked and then turned to the young officer behind me. “Split up and take the north side. I’ll start with the food court.” I personally didn’t like the idea of using my time looking for runaway players from our protected location, but at the moment I wanted to interview Cody since he was likely to be aware of what Wally did to deserve the threats he was getting by email.

This kind of intel could break the case, so finding Cody and getting the information from him was my highest priority. When I go to the mall, one of the places I usually like to hit is the food court. I absolutely hate shopping on an empty stomach as it makes me grumpy and very impatient. Most men were like that, so I went down a floor and walked over to the food court. Since it was just past lunch, hundreds of people were eating at the time. The place was packed and I couldn’t tell from my view if the boys I was looking for were there. I saw a security guard walking around and decided to enlist his help. I approached the guard and showed him my badge. “I could use your assistance.”

“What can I do for you?” the guard asked.

I took out my cell phone and showed him the pictures Flo had forwarded to me. “Have you seen any of these guys around here today?”

The guard took a look and nodded. “I did. They were roughhousing in the sporting goods store about a half hour ago. I followed them here to the food court after I asked them to settle down.”

I started to get nervous, as I might have just missed them again, like I did at the bar. Still I asked, “Are they still here?”

“I think so, but I’m not sure where they’re sitting,” the guard replied. “I’ll be more than happy to help you look for them.”

“Thank you very much.” I didn’t say anything else to the guard and we split up to cover more ground in the food court. The place was very packed, but I didn’t want to get too pushy. I tried my best not to bump into anyone and looked around without snooping too much. Just a quick glance at one table and I moved on to another. After a few minutes, I noticed the guard was waving at me. He had found two of them and they were having lunch. When I reached the table, I noticed there were four trays at their table and only two people. I flashed my badge and gave the two guys an ugly glare to let them know how pissed I was. “You boys are in big trouble.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” one of the young men replied.

“Where’s Cody?” I quickly asked.

The two boys realized they were in trouble and pointed in the other direction. “He and Joe went to the bathroom.”

“Stay here,” I called to the guard as I headed off in the direction of the bathroom. I jumped on my radio and called the officer who was scouring the mall with me. “I found two of them in the food court. Get down here and converge where the guard is. He’s watching them for me right now. I’m following the other two into the food court bathroom. I’ll call again if I need assistance.”

I was eager to get my hands on Cody and get him to spill what he knew. As I got closer to the bathroom, I heard someone call for help and I started to run, bumping into some people on my way to the bathrooms. When I got into the hallway, I brushed past some women coming out of the other bathroom and saw that there was an older man calling for help. “Police!” I called out. “What’s going on?”

“There’s a man down on the floor, I can’t tell if he’s breathing,” the man replied. The man had apparently just been going in to take a piss and seemed genuinely scared.

Rather than take my chances, I pulled out my gun, opened the door, and moved in. I saw what the old man was creating an alarm about. There was one of my students lying face down on the floor. When I got closer to him, I could see it was the player the boys outside had referred to as Joe. There was no blood, but the young man was unconscious. He was breathing and just out like a light, which gave me the impression that he might have been tazed. This meant my killer was here.

“What the hell is going on?” someone called out as he walked into the bathroom.

I jumped on the radio I still had in my hand. “Dispatch, this is Detective Walker.”

“
Walker, this is Dispatch. What do you need?”

 “I’m at Westgate Mall. One of my college kids is down in the food court bathroom and might be in need of medical attention. Send an ambulance and backup. Inform Agent Collins and his people that our suspect might still be here in the mall.”

Just as I called that in, something caught my eye. There was blood underneath one of the stalls that I hadn’t noticed before because it was only now slowly creeping out from the stall. I stood back and pointed the gun at the stall. Despite my aching leg, I kicked the stall door open. There was Cody, sprawled out on the toilet and stabbed multiple times in the chest. Deader than Dillinger. The one kid I needed who might be able to give me information that could help was now silenced. I took a deep breathe. “Dispatch, this is Walker again.”

“Do you have an update, Detective Walker?”

“We’re going to need more backup and the coroner to get down here. Our suspect has killed again.” Considering how many people were within earshot, I did my best to resist the urge to curse and shout out my frustration. I took a look at Cody in the stall again and realized there was another card: the seven of hearts. I took an evidence bag out of my pocket and stashed the card away as soon as I could, as it was one of the details we had still managed to keep from the media. I sealed the bag and put it in my pocket while looking around for other signs to confirm that this was our person. Cody was tazed, but not tortured. This was most likely due to the confining space of the stall rather than a lack of intent from the suspect. From what I could count, there were at least seven or eight puncture wounds on Cody’s torso, and I let out a deep sigh. I jumped back on my radio. “Flo, this is Jake.”

“I heard your call to dispatch,” Flo answered. “Who’s dead down there?”

“Just Cody,” I answered. “The other, named Joe, is tazed but alive.”

“So we have a witness,” Flo observed. “Make sure he’s given a secure trip to the hospital. We don’t want this witness going into a coma.”

“Good point,” I said as I returned to the middle of the bathroom to check on Joe. Still unconscious, but still breathing. The officer who had been searching the mall with me came storming in. His eyes popped open when he caught a glimpse of what was left of Cody in the stall. “Secure the outside! I don’t want anyone coming in.”

It took close to 20 minutes for more officers to arrive on the scene. Agent Collins and his men arrived soon after and they took over the crime scene. Collins took a look at Cody. “What the hell was he doing here?”

“Being a royal pain in the ass,” I answered.

“He ran away from the hotel, didn’t he?” Collins asked.

“Right to his own death.” I paused for a moment to process that.

“Are we sure this is the same person?” Collins asked as he looked around. “This looks a little too sloppy to be our guy.”

“I’m pretty sure,” I said as I took the card out of my pocket and passed it to Peyton. He looked at it and cussed under his breath before stashing the card in his own pocket for safe keeping. “All right, it’s the same guy. “What I want to know is how did our suspect know he was here?”

“I’m not too sure about that,” I answered.

“It’s a popular mall, right?” Collins asked.

“Not that popular. The odds of our suspect browsing and bumping into one of our kids here isn’t that likely.” I was angry enough to punch the wall. “He must have been tailing me. I led him right to the hotel where everyone is staying.”

“Probably saw these kids sneak out after you went in to speak with Flo,” Collins said as he walked around. “This isn’t your fault. If these brats had stayed put they would probably still be alive. Don’t beat yourself up about it,” Collins said as he was checking out Cody’s corpse. “This punk made his own decision. No one forced him to run off to the mall.”

“Someone forced him to hide, though,” I countered. This suspect was literally a step ahead of us and we were having a hard time keeping up. I had sent a few officers to look through the mall for anyone who might have blood on them, considering how some of it must have sprayed around when Cody was stabbed. No one called back in, which gave me the impression the suspect was long gone by the time I found Cody and called it in. I left the bathroom in disgust and strolled out into the food court to see that many people had left while some had stayed to see what was going on. At this point, some reporters started to show up and tried to get an idea of what was going on.

Seeing them there reminded me that I had a dinner date with someone a few hours from now. I checked my watch and realized that I had a little over four hours to go, which meant rushing around for another three. I looked around to see if Tina was there as well, but she wasn’t.

I could only imagine the questions she was going to give me at dinner, but at the same time, it’s always good to test the pulse of what reporters are running with. Part of me wanted to get something to eat, while another felt too ill to eat given the scene I had just left. I went to one of the food joints there and just ordered a small soda, something to quickly drink and settle my nerves. After taking a short breather, I was approached by the young officer who had escorted me from the hotel to the mall. “How is Joe doing?” I asked him.

“He’s been loaded onto an ambulance and on his way to the ER,” the young officer replied. “Whoever hit him with that Taser did it a few times. It could be a while before he wakes up.” 

I couldn’t believe our luck. This was the second time our suspect left a witness at the scene, but the person was again too out of it to give us a statement. I had officers at the hospital with Mrs. Bennett and I intended to make sure there were officers guarding this kid as well, so whenever either of them woke up, we could get a statement and possibly a sketch of this bastard, so we could have him on the front page of every newspaper the next morning.

I got Flo to tighten security around the hotel just in case the suspect did follow me to their location. We discussed the idea of transferring to a new location, but trying to move that many people around was too risky, and we could lose another in transition. It was better to bunker down and wait things out. No one was going to leave without permission now, especially after what had happened to Cody. Right now we were going to have to wait for one of our witnesses to wake up. Hopefully, that would happen before another body turned up.

As much as I wanted to stay at the station or go back to the hotel to give my oldest daughter another lecture about sneaking around to meet boys who were under police protection, I had other commitments to attend to when my shift ended.

I had made a promise to Tina that I would meet her for dinner. She’d been playing along with me since the beginning and I owed her a moment of my time. There was a good chance she was buying and would write off the meal as an expense, so I wasn’t going to feel bad about ordering a big steak, which is just what I needed because I hadn’t eaten since I’d popped a few slices of toast for breakfast.

I went home before meeting with Ms. Carlson for dinner. I slipped out of my work clothes and promptly showered, and even shaved before putting on a nice black suit to look my best. I didn’t get out that often, and while there are other women out there that I would prefer going out on a date with, I was determined to have a little fun before getting some rest and going right back to work the next day.

At the same time, however, I could find out how much intel the press had based on the kind of questions I knew Tina was going to throw at me. I knew she’d try to use dinner to milk some additional information out of me, hoping the wine might loosen my tongue. I wouldn’t expect anything less from her, knowing how seriously she took her job.

I planned to give as little away as possible while at the same time trying to see where the press stood and how much they really knew but couldn’t report because they didn’t have enough sources to verify their facts. It was a dance that I often did with the press, but this was a first even for me, to be going out to a nice dinner and shooting the shit like normal people.

I’d always thought Tina was very friendly with me, but this was unexpected. Yet, I didn’t take the chance to get out for granted as I drove down to our designated location and arrived promptly with over 15 minutes to spare. I was so prompt that my date hadn’t arrived yet, which was alright with me. It gave me a chance to sit down, relax, and scope out the place and settle on where we would be sitting.

I didn’t do this very often, but considering that I might have been followed to the hotel, the last thing I wanted was someone following me to dinner. I didn’t want the suspect to target Tina merely for breaking bread with me. I took a few sips of water and nibbled on a breadstick while waiting for Tina to arrive. Normally she wasn’t the kind to be late, but I was willing to be patient. Just in case she had run off to report something I hadn’t caught wind of, I sent a text to Flo to make sure everyone was all right.

A few moments later she replied, telling me that everything was okay and that I was to go home and get some rest. I wasn’t exactly in the mood to tell her where I was at that particular time, especially since Flo had been camped up at that hotel for days on end, only taking breaks to go home and sleep.