Shaken (43 page)

“I have no idea what this is,” Janice said, handing the pad over.

It was a standard Mead school notebook, black cardstock cover, spiral bound, seventy pages. I flipped it open and saw it was filled with handwritten names and dates, starting in the 1970s.

I don’t think my heart actually stopped, but that’s what it felt like. Because I recognized some of those names. I began turning pages, and I watched as the dates progressed, over a hundred of them, eventually stopping two days ago. The date of the John Doe murder, the man who died on the Catherine Wheel.

This was Mr. K’s murder book. A complete list of everyone he had killed.

I had just let history’s biggest serial killer leave the country.

“Are you all right?” Janice asked me. “You just got a little pale.”

I thanked her, excused myself, and managed to get out of there without having a complete and total nervous breakdown. Herb pulled up as I was walking to my Nova.

“Jack?” He hurried out of his car, his face awash with concern.

“Dalton was Mr. K,” I said, handing Herb the notebook.

“You sure?”

I nodded. “The boy in the picture. It was him. He took us for a ride, Herb. And we let him.”

Over twenty years on the force, and I’d never screwed up this big. I wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out again. When I thought about my life, about all I’d given up just to be a cop, I couldn’t help but feel what a colossal waste it was. A failed marriage. No children. For what? What good were all the sacrifices I’d made, when the worst criminal in the history of the United States of America could play me like a cheap fiddle?

“Want to go get drunk?” Herb said.

“I want to go to Cape Verde, find the bastard, and blow his head off.”

“But you won’t.”

I searched his face. “I won’t?”

“You can break into an occasional home and hire scumbag private detectives to bend the law, but you’re still a cop, Jack. It’s in your blood, whether you like it or not. And because you’re a cop, you’re going to follow the rules. That’s what you do. That’s who you are. You know that. Which is why you know the good guys lose sometimes.”

I stared up at the sun, which was so bright it hurt. Herb was right, or course. I didn’t like it. Hell, I didn’t like myself. Maybe, if I were a stronger person, I could fly to Dalton’s little island paradise and snuff the murderous asshole.

But then again, if I were a stronger person, I probably should have quit the force years ago and started a family.

“Actually, getting drunk sounds pretty good right about now,” I said. “You got the first round?”

“Absolutely. And just remember, Jack. Guys like Dalton, they don’t just retire. I’d bet you a dozen donuts we haven’t heard the last of him.”

I stared at my partner and hoped he was right. Because if I ever got another shot at John Dalton, aka Mr. K, I wouldn’t screw it up again.

PART 3

Chapter 1

2010, August 10

T
he rope secured my wrists behind my back and snaked a figure eight pattern through my arms, up to my elbows. Houdini with a hacksaw wouldn’t have been able to get free. I could flex and wiggle my fingers to keep my circulation going, but didn’t have a range of movement much beyond that.

My legs were similarly secured, the braided nylon line crisscrossing from my ankles to my knees, pinching my skin so tight I wished I’d worn pantyhose. And I hate pantyhose.

I was lying on my side, the concrete floor cool against my cheek and ear, the only light a sliver that came through a crack at the bottom of the far wall. All I had on was an oversized T-shirt and my panties. A hard rubber ball had been crammed into my mouth. I was unable to dislodge it—a strap around my head held it in place. I probed the curved surface and winced when my tongue met with little indentations.
Teeth marks.
This ball gag had been used many times before.

My sense of time was sketchy, but I estimated I’d been awake for about fifteen minutes. The first few had been spent struggling against the ropes, trying to scream for help through the gag. The bindings were escape-proof, and my ankle rope secured me to a large concrete block, which I felt with my bare feet. It was impossible for me to roll away. The ball gag didn’t allow for more than a low moan, and after a minute or two I began to choke on my own saliva, my jaw wedged open too wide for me to swallow. I had to adjust my head so the spit ran out the corner of my mouth.

Based on the hollow echoes from my sounds, I sensed I was in a small, empty garage. Some machine—perhaps an air conditioner or dehumidifier—hummed tunelessly in the background. I smelled bleach, a bad sign, and under the bleach, traces of copper, human waste, and rotten meat. A worse sign.

Fighting panic and losing, I made myself focus on how I got here, how this happened. My memory was fuzzy. A hit on the head? A drug? I wasn’t sure. I had no recollection of anything leading up to this.

But between the smells and my past, I knew whoever abducted me was planning on killing me. I used to be a cop. Now I was in the private sector.

And this was definitely not the way I wanted to end my new career.

I flipped over onto my left side, my shoulders burning, my fingers beginning to go numb from the restricted blood flow. I closed my eyes and tried to relax my muscles. A cramp right now would be torture.

This new view didn’t offer any revelations. I still couldn’t see anything, still couldn’t hear anything other than the hum of some machine. I stretched out my bound legs, seeking anything other than empty space, and my bare toes touched something.

Something flat, and metal. Cool, smooth, it made an empty sound, like tapping on a Dumpster. I kicked harder, feeling it vibrate, realizing it was a wall.

This wasn’t a garage. It was a storage locker. Probably one of those self-storage spaces that people rented out.

And all at once I knew who had me. And I knew what he wanted to do with me.

My death wasn’t going to be the worst of it. Death, when it came, would be a mercy.

I flexed my knees and kicked them against the corrugated aluminum wall as hard as I could, hoping someone would hear me.

Knowing no one would. Knowing what would come next.

I flexed my fingers, my bound hands becoming dangerously numb. The ball gag felt enormous in my mouth. My heart was beating so fast I felt close to fainting.

I closed my eyes, forcing myself to concentrate. I’d been following the Mr. K case for more than twenty-five years. It was both my hobby and my white whale.

We’d crossed paths before. I’d logged in a lot of hours trying to catch him. A staggering one hundred and eighteen homicides had been attributed to the enigmatic killer.

Killer. Mr. Killer.
That’s the label the FBI attributed to him when they found a “
MR. K”
written in marker on a ball gag found at one of his scenes.

His victims seemingly had nothing in common. They were spread out across the nation, both men and women, ranging in age from seventeen to sixty-eight, encompassing many different races, religions, backgrounds, and histories.

The murder methods also varied wildly. Victims had been shot, stabbed, burned, broken, sliced, beaten, smashed, drowned, dismembered, and worse. The only thing that tied these unsolveds together were Mr. K’s signatures: ball gags, salt in the wounds, and assorted, specific kinds of torture.

I wanted this guy. Wanted him bad. Unfortunately, hard evidence had always eluded me.

Ironic that I might have hard evidence very soon, but it would come at a very high cost.

I pushed away thoughts of death, concentrating on the here and now. I’d been awake long enough for my eyes to adjust, but it was still pitch black. Storage facilities usually had some kind of light, both in the units themselves and outside in the hallway. Since barely a sliver of light penetrated through any cracks, I assumed Mr. K either taped or filled in every corner of this space.

Total blackness was disorienting, making it impossible to focus on anything. But I was able to scoot toward the concrete block my legs were tethered to. I sat up, pushed myself backward against it, and explored the surface with my tingling fingers.

Too big and heavy to move. But it was square-shaped. While the edges weren’t exactly sharp, the concrete was unfinished, rough. Was it enough to cut through the nylon cord securing my wrists?

Only one way to find out. I flexed my arms, sawing my binding against the stone’s corner. I couldn’t see my progress, and might not have even been making any, but I had excellent motivation to try.

I’d seen Mr. K’s work up close and personal. And I knew what happened to the people he left in storage lockers.

Chapter 2

T
he man known as Mr. K holds up the iPhone and stares at the soft, green image on the touch screen. Jack Daniels rubs her wrists against the concrete anchor, her eyes wide and glowing in the night vision camera.

Her expression is one he recognizes well.

Fear. She’s afraid.

And she has good reason to be.

Their little dance has been going on for a long time. For the better part of both their careers. The ex-cop had gotten closer than anyone else ever had.

He taps the screen, bringing up the control dial. Twirling his finger, he adjusts the camera angle and zooms in to Jack’s hands.

She’s bleeding. The rope and the concrete are causing abrasions on her wrists. It will sting like crazy because he dusted the rope in salt before tying her up.

That’s only the first taste, Jack. There will be more pain to come. Much more.

Mr. K sets the iPhone up on a stand, so the image faces him. Then he picks the filet knife off the table.

It’s a tool he’s used on countless occasions, bought at a live bait store on Chicago’s South Side almost three decades ago. He’s sharpened it so many times, the blade is less than a centimeter wide. It looks more like an ice pick than a knife.

Mr. K tests the blade’s sharpness, touching it lightly to the back of his thumbnail. He’s able to draw a line across the lunula—the bottom of the nail—with barely any pressure. The knife is honed to a razor’s edge, so he puts it in its sheath and sets it aside.

Next he checks the propane torch. After a quick shake, he determines the handheld tank to be half full. That’s not enough fuel for what he has planned, so he unscrews the pencil-flame top from the canister and attaches it to a fresh tank.

The final tool on his workbench is a two-pound ball-peen hammer with a plastic composite shank extending from the stainless steel head down through the handle. This requires no fine tuning, so he lets it be.

Over the years, he’s used just about every device imaginable to inflict pain. He had a phase where he preferred power tools. A phase where he only used his gloved hands. For a two-year stretch, every murder he committed was done with a car jack; with wire ties it could be used to easily detach joints from sockets.

But after a lifetime of trial and error, he decided the simplest ways were ultimately the best. Cutting. Burning. Breaking. Everything beyond that was just showing off.

He glances at his iPhone again. Jack’s eyes are squeezed shut, her jaw muscles clenching down on the ball gag.

Think that hurts, Lieutenant? Just wait until tonight.

Because tonight, Mr. K
will
show off.

Chapter 3

I
began to cry. My eyes stung like I’d been hit with mace. But the real sting was in my wrists.

The bastard had dipped the rope around my arms in salt. As I sawed away at the edge of the concrete, determined to break the rope, it eventually began to rub my skin raw. The pain was quite extraordinary for such a superficial wound. I put it up alongside root canals and getting shot and breaking my leg.

Mr. K liked salt. It was a trademark of his, along with the ball gag.

I really have to get out of here.

I continued to work on the rope, tears streaming down my face, biting down on the rubber ball to help with the pain, trying not to think about Mr. K’s other trademarks.

The ones I’d seen firsthand.

I had to take a break from rubbing the rope against the edge of the concrete. The salt Mr. K had applied had gotten into the raw skin on my wrists, and the pain was otherworldly. I could have worked through the pain, but it was so bad it caused me to cry, and the crying was accompanied by a runny nose.

With the ball gag in my mouth, the only way I could breathe was through my nostrils. A stuffy nose could kill me.

So I rested, keeping still, trying to calm down enough so I could regain control over my emotions. I’d never felt so along before. The only company I had was the unknown machine humming in the background, and my thoughts and memories.

It would have been okay if there were some good memories mixed with the bad.

Unfortunately, my head was filled with bad stuff that refused to fade away.

Most of the bad stuff revolved around my career. I’d chased, and caught, my share of human monsters. But catching them, or even killing them, didn’t bring their victims back. It also didn’t make me sleep any better at night.

Before my recent retirement, I’d almost called it quits several times. I never did, but I had come pretty close. In my never-ending quest to prove myself to my coworkers, I’d endured a lot of sexist and chauvinist attitudes. A lot of male cops didn’t think women had what it took to work Homicide. It was too ugly for their delicate sensibilities.

In my opinion, it was too ugly for anyone’s sensibilities, female or not, delicate or not. But the fact was, women did have a definite disadvantage when working violent crime cases. It didn’t have to do with physical brawn or stronger stomachs. It had to do with empathy.

Women in general had the ability to feel the emotions of others. Pain in particular.

I’d seen a lot of pain in my years on the force. It was tough to handle.