Rules of Honour (38 page)

‘He’s finished, Hunter,’ Rink said: an echo of something he had told me the day we became firm friends. On that occasion I’d been poised to deliver a finishing blow to a more honourable opponent than the one lying before me now.

‘You’re going to allow him to live . . . after everything he’s done?’

‘The circle of murder has to end.’ Rink stooped down to pull the unconscious man into the clear.Then he hefted the noose he’d taken from around his mother’s throat. ‘But we do this the way we originally planned, OK?’

I looked down at the despicable piece of human crap at our feet. What Rink had in mind was too good for the bastard, but what could I say? First and foremost, Markus had always been Rink’s burden of obligation to deal with.

Chapter 43

Detective Jones had cautioned his younger partner to go easy and to await the arrival of appropriate back-up before trying to effect an arrest of their murder suspect. Finally they’d pieced together the connection between the wives and sisters of the murdered men, and this had led them to records of others ensconced at Rohwer Relocation Facility. Cross-checking had brought them to a marginal note in the file of one Charles Peterson, who had apparently been re-posted following complaints from his fellow guardsmen that he was brutalising some of the camp internees.

Following Peterson’s trail, they found other mentions of assault on females during his civilian life until a point in 1970 where the man had disappeared from the records. It was only in recent years he’d shown up again, supposedly forty years younger, and working at the same correctional facility where both Bruce Tennant and Mitchell Forbeck were incarcerated until a few short weeks before their deaths. Though they had no proof that Peterson was their man, they’d shown enough circumstantial evidence to raise an arrest and search warrant.

A back-up arrest team of uniformed officers was already en route to the scene, but Tyler had proven too enthusiastic for his own good, and instead of listening to good sense had wanted to snatch a headline or to impress their bosses with a quick arrest. Whatever his reason was, it had forced a rash decision and look where it had got them. Both of them injured and their suspect at large and causing further terror. Tyler could still expect headlines but not the kind he’d longed for, and the attention coming their way would be less than impressive – except for its volume of recrimination.

Not that it would mean a lot to Tyler in his current state. Jones had the horrible feeling that his partner would not survive the night, let alone live to regret it in the coming days.

Tyler had been loaded on to a gurney and whisked off to emergency surgery. The medics who had arrived on the scene had worked furiously to stem the bleeding, and had stabilised him, but that was all they could do outside of an operating theatre. Jones recalled the last time he’d watched another ambulance tear away with sirens flashing, and things had not ended well then. Yoshida Takumi hadn’t made it to the hospital, and he doubted that Tyler would either.

Jones looked down at the blood that drenched his clothing, and he studied his hands. They looked as if he was wearing crimson gloves. He had done all he could to assist his friend, compressing the wound in his throat to stop him bleeding out, but it was almost hopeless. At first the blood had jetted out, then slowed to a milder pulse, but not because the bleeding was under control, only that there remained little to be squeezed out of Tyler’s failing body. He checked his own wound, and was thankful for the ballistic vest he’d worn under his shirt. When the suspect shot him, the bullet had flattened against the vest, knocking him down with the force, but it had not punctured his flesh. He had a major haematoma due to grow on his chest, judging by the pain, but for now he could live with that. The suspect had shot him again as he’d crouched behind the shrubbery, this time nicking his left leg, and the burning sensation of his wound was little more than a distraction. A medic had patched him up, but he’d refused further treatment and had stayed to secure the crime scene and the incriminating evidence discovered within the house.

It was almost two hours since the shoot-out and the house and surrounding neighbourhood of Clarendon Heights had taken on the look of a carnival. Lights flashed everywhere, vehicles came and went in processions, and people had risen from their beds to watch the excitement. Uniformed officers held back the ghoulish crowd of onlookers, who stood beyond the crime-scene tape in their PJs and dressing gowns. Journalists and TV crews were also in attendance, and more than once Jones had brushed away a microphone that had been thrust under his chin.

What would he say to their demands for a quote anyway? That the SFPD’s hunt for their multiple-murder suspect was a complete screw-up? It was as far as he was concerned. It had taken two vigilantes to do more than the SFPD had achieved, and despite everything he even owed them for both his and Tyler’s lives. There was no doubt about it: the killer would have murdered Tyler outright if they hadn’t grabbed him as he was about to execute the injured detective. Jones wasn’t even sure that he would have survived the next shots fired at him as he’d taken ineffective cover behind the bushes, if it hadn’t been for Hunter’s and Rington’s judicious actions.

Jones was a cop through and through. But he was also a man who laid much faith in the goodness of others’ hearts, and he was grateful that good men had come to his aid. It was his reason for keeping the two men’s names quiet when other officers arrived at the scene. Maybe his decision would come back to haunt him at a later date, but right then and there, he’d kept their secret. He had said that Charles Peterson had shot them then made off. The officers tasked with hunting down the fugitive were at a loss as to where he’d gone, but were currently checking CCTV footage from all the major routes out of the city. In his colleagues there was an overriding sense of urgency to catch Peterson, but Jones wasn’t fearful that he would continue his killing spree. In fact, he had the sense that the elderly residents of his city were safe from the beast now. Aiding that assumption was the cellphone message he’d received minutes ago.

He had been surprised to hear the phone ringing from his pocket, and had plucked it out, trying not to smear Tyler’s blood over the screen as he fumbled it up to his ear.

‘You might be surprised to hear from me,’ Joe Hunter said. ‘But you gave me your phone number that time I met with you at the station.’

‘I’m surprised, all right,’ Jones said, as he’d glanced about, checking he wasn’t in earshot of any of his colleagues. ‘But not because you remembered my number.’

‘You’re surprised I’d call you at all.’

‘Have to admit it, Joe. I thought that you and your buddy would disappear and that would be it.’

‘There’s some unfinished business we need your assistance with.’

‘Yeah, I had that impression the second you called. Where is he, Joe? Where’s Charles Peterson?’

‘Markus Colby,’ Hunter corrected him. ‘That’s the killer’s real name, but he has been using his dead father’s name. Don’t ask me why, or what his motives for the murders were, because I won’t tell you. Only understand that he was misguided and chose to attack people for his own demented reason.’

‘It was to do with something that happened at Rohwer, wasn’t it?’

‘Like I said, I’m not telling. The thing is, if the truth ever comes out then good people will be harmed.’

‘And that’s why you’ve chosen to silence him.’

Hunter didn’t reply.

‘Where is he?’ Jones didn’t expect to ever find out. The cop part of him was disappointed, but the man who owed Hunter his life wasn’t so sorry.

‘Can we trust you to be discreet?’

‘I’ve covered your asses this long,’ Jones said.

Hunter had laughed. Then he’d given Jones a location to meet him, and express instructions to come alone.

‘Can I trust you?’ Jones countered. ‘For all I know you’re leading me to a trap. After all, if my buddy, Tyler, doesn’t make it through the night, I’m the only man who knows what really happened here.’

‘Despite our differences in approach,’ Hunter said, ‘we’re on the same side.’

Hunter had then disconnected the call and Jones had stared at the phone for a few seconds before placing it back in his pocket. That was when he’d noticed the copious amount of his partner’s blood on his clothes and hands.

He turned away from the house and the hive of activity within and walked away, brushing off a question from a uniformed sergeant. ‘I’ve got to go get cleaned up,’ Jones said. ‘I’ll be back soon.’

In his car he pulled off his jacket and slung it on the back seat. Under the dashboard light his homicide detective’s badge winked back at him from where it was fixed to his belt. He pulled it off too and placed it on the back seat and covered it with his soiled clothing, but his service firearm stayed put on his hip. Then he’d driven away from the scene, heading out towards the reservoir beyond Chabot Lake. His in-car set was tuned to the hubbub of radio chatter between the crime scene and SFPD headquarters. As he was crossing the Bay Bridge he heard a coded announcement that sent a wedge of ice into his heart. He could barely breathe for seconds afterwards, and tears misted his vision, causing the tail lights of the vehicles in front to blur. He dashed the tears from his eyes, heedless that he smeared blood across his cheeks.

The journey was completed in a daze, but he finally found he had to concentrate as he moved off the hillside road on to a steeply descending track that wound its way down to a promontory overlooking the still waters of the reservoir. As he drove on to a turning circle his headlights picked out a group of vehicles, and a man leaning against the trunk of a tan-coloured sedan. Joe Hunter was bare-chested, and myriad cuts decorated his arms and body. He’d made an effort to clean off the blood but he still looked like a savage.

Despite the mistrust he’d intimated earlier, he was happy that Hunter had not set him up and that his friend Jared Rington wasn’t poised to shoot him from the darkness. He parked alongside the nearest car, recognising it as the one in which the killer had fled Clarendon Heights, and got out. He swayed in place as the blood rushed to his head, but then he went forward. Hunter met him, studying his face.

‘You OK, detective?’

‘Just Gar, OK? Or Jones. I’m not here in my official capacity.’

‘Suits me fine,’ Hunter said.

Jones pressed a palm to his face, scrubbing at his cheeks and forehead, stimulating the blood that had drained from his features during the drive over. Hunter watched him, a frown creasing his brow. Jones looked down at his hands and saw that they were still stained with his partner’s blood.

‘Your friend didn’t make it?’

Jones shook his head. ‘I tried to save him, but it was . . .’ His features crumpled and for a second or two it was a struggle to hold his emotions in check. Hunter stared at the floor, but he finally looked up and met Jones’s gaze.

‘I’m sorry to hear that. Tyler was a good man. So are you, Jones. I’m sorry I was such an obstructive arsehole to you. It’s like I said though: good, decent folk would have suffered if I’d told you what I knew.’

‘That doesn’t matter now. Not when you’ve done the right thing in the end. I’m not interested in what happened in the past, or what sent Colby on his killing spree, I’m only pleased he’s been stopped.’ He approached Hunter. ‘Show me where the bastard is.’

Hunter moved away without another word, leading the detective along a steep gully over which loomed the crowns of maple trees. The earlier clear skies had filled with clouds bearing in from the distant mountains, driven by strong winds. Stars winked in and out of the gaps in the clouds, while the moon was a faint halo low on the horizon. Night would soon give way to dawn, but darkness prevailed for now. It suited Jones, both his mood and his intention.

They approached a large log structure, and by its decrepit state Jones could tell that it was seldom visited. He thought that it would be unlikely for anyone to discover what Hunter and Rington had done if they hadn’t purposely led him here. That was discounting the various corpses scattered around the building.

Jones looked at Hunter for an answer, but received nothing in return.

He looked up at the sagging roof, the walls that were overgrown with briar and moss, and then at the open door through which he was about to step. For a second he faltered before his mind flashed back to how Markus Colby had stood over his mortally injured partner, poised to execute him like an injured dog. He recalled the grin of pleasure on Markus’s face as he began to squeeze the trigger, and that made up his mind. He walked over the threshold in full knowledge that there would be no turning back.

Jared Rington was standing with his back to him, and he barely turned to acknowledge his presence. In the gloom Jones could just make out another figure beyond Rington, a small Japanese woman he recognised as the man’s mother. She was sitting on a chair, looking pale and weak from whatever she’d endured.

Lying on his back, his mouth wide in an eternal shout, was Sean Chaney.

‘What the hell?’ Jones whispered.

‘They were working with Markus,’ Hunter explained. ‘Chaney and his gang. They kidnapped Yukiko in order to flush Rink and me out. Don’t know if you heard any reports about an arson blaze this evening? That was Chaney’s crew; they attacked Yukiko’s house, set it on fire then snatched her on Markus’s behalf.’

‘I was too busy trying to keep Tyler alive,’ Jones admitted. ‘But, yeah, I did hear something over the airwaves.’