The Devil's Snare: a Mystery Suspense Thriller (Derek Cole Suspense Thrillers Book 4) (18 page)

He couldn’t take it any longer. He wouldn’t. He was a defender of life, after all. That knowledge had come to him as he was standing outside the sliding glass door, and as a defender of life, he needed to take action.

He tested the sliding door and found it unlocked. He inched into the rear of the expansive kitchen, behind Patel who must have exhausted his supply of fetus arms and switched to his meatier supply of fetus legs. Just the thighs, from what Matt could tell, but still…

He raised the knife above his head, prepared himself to charge the doctor, but then another idea snapped to the forefront of his brain. He lowered the knife and crept a foot or two behind the still dancing and fetus-cooking doctor. He watched as thousands of tiny, black-winged insects erupted from the doctor’s mouth, pouring out in perfect, syncopated rhythm to the doctor’s singing.

The tiny creatures danced in the air along with the pulsating, thin beats of the music, keeping time with their swift, coordinated movements. As if on queue and directed by an intelligence outside of themselves, the insects paused in mid-flight, seeming to have taken notice of the stranger standing with malicious intent behind their host. As a single minded hoard, they rushed at Matt. He closed his mouth as tightly as his muscles would allow and squinted his eyes till they were nothing but slits carved between his forehead and cheeks.
 

He had to act now. The swarm would find a pathway inside of him, infecting him with whatever depraved sickness Patel was certainly afflicted with. With a single and powerful thrust, he slammed the doctor’s face into the boiling oil, jamming his nose right beside a slab of browning fetus bicep. Patel tried to scream but his attempt to do so only drew the boiling oil into his mouth and lungs. He started convulsing while Matt dragged the blade across his throat, cutting deeply through the doctor’s tendons, windpipe, arteries and veins.

Patel dropped to the tiled floor in a heap of death. Matt saw how the smoke filtering off the skillet had almost instantly turned from the horrible color of death and sadness into a glowing ivory color of redemption. The insects, sensing their host was dying, dropped to the floor, creating a pattern that reminded Matt of spilled black pepper all around the felled baby butcher. He couldn’t save the innocent babies but at least he avenged their deaths.

He had done well.

He wiped the blood off the blade and went in search of the butcher’s family.

Investigator Mark Mullins appreciated Derek’s call and, somewhat reluctantly, agreed not to detain Bo for questioning.

“He’s still a bit inebriated but not so much that people will notice.”

“I’m trusting you on this, Cole. I will make a call or two to verify that Bo was at that bar,” Mullins had said. “But, considering you have nothing to gain by lying to me, I promise you Bo will be allowed to visit his mother and to leave on his own accord.”

Derek and Bo arrived at Saint Mercy Hospital at four thirty. Bo immediately was escorted through the double doors leading into the ICU ward by a nurse, while Derek joined Nikkie and Mark Mullins in the otherwise empty ICU waiting room.
 

“I have to tell you two,” Mullins said, “that while I won’t be arresting Bo under suspicion of assault, I don’t think he’ll be out of prison much longer.”

“Why do you say that?” Nikkie asked.

“From what I’m hearing, Bo’s father is meeting with the district attorney at eleven Monday morning. Sounds like a plea is being ironed out.”

“So if we’re going to find anything to exonerate Bo,” Derek said, “we better do so quickly.”

“If he takes a plea and admits his guilt in the arson and manslaughter, no judge in the world will accept any contrary evidence in the case. Like I’ve told you both, I’m as sure as shit that Bo started that fire, but I also don’t like how Louis Randall is charging forward with this whole plea bargain. What I’m saying is that I’ll keep an open mind till that meeting between Louis and the DA is over and Bo is taken into custody and starts serving whatever prison time his plea sentences him to.”

“If he takes the plea—Bo that is—and we find something that proves his innocence, wouldn’t you reopen the case?”

“If and when a plea is reached,” Mullins said, “the judge in the case will call the case into court, accept Bo’s plea and sentence him right then and there. The details will all be arranged and worked out. Once the judge delivers the sentence, the case will be closed and can’t be reopened without the appellate courts finding probable cause to have the case retried.”

“And that could take a year or two, I imagine,” Nikkie said.

“The appellate court of New York State is so damn backlogged with appeals, it would be more like three to five years before they would even hear the appeal.”

“So we have until eleven Monday morning to figure this case out.” Derek said. “That doesn’t leave us much time at all.”

“If it makes you feel any better,” Mullins said, “you probably have till three or four Monday afternoon. The judge hearing the case, Harold Fletcher, is up for reelection this year and he has a lunch with supporters on his docket tomorrow. He, the DA and Louis Randall will finish up their plea bargain business around noon, Judge Fletcher will then schedule the sentencing for the afternoon, after he has time to kiss some ass at his lunch.”
 

Mullins’ phone vibrated angrily in his pocket. He pulled it out, raised a finger towards Derek and Nikkie, then walked out of the waiting room and answered his call. When he returned less than a minute later, his face was taut with obvious worry. “Listen,” he said, “something’s happened in Ravenswood and I have to get back right away.” He raised his thick index finger and pointed it at Derek’s face. “I’m not going to tell you what happened but you’ll hear about it soon enough. But listen to me and listen good.” Mullins moved closer to Derek, “There’s something going on in Ravenswood, you know it and, trust me, I know it, too. State police and the sheriff’s department are racking our brains, trying to figure this out, but, honestly, we aren’t getting far. Everyone we talk with in town either has no idea or isn’t saying shit.” He inched closer to Derek, his meaty finger no more than an inch from his face. “You got a lot going on, Cole. I get that. But, this case of yours may involve more people than just Bo. You figuring out what Bo did or didn’t do may help us figure everything else out. But I’ll say this: Watch your ass. Something bad is going on in Ravenswood, something I can’t figure out. If what I’m feeling is right, you asking questions, talking to people and sticking your nose into places won’t make certain people happy and they may just do anything to keep you quiet.” He handed Derek his business card. “Call me, anytime, day or night. I have a feeling I won’t be getting any sleep tonight so you won’t be bothering me.”

Derek took the card and stuffed it into the pages of his Moleskine notebook. “Think it’s okay to leave Bo here with his mother?”

Mullins smiled as he backed away towards the hallway. “Worst case,” he said as he walked towards the bank of elevators, “he leaves his mother’s side and walks across the street to the Recovery Bar, gets hammered and passes out in the parking lot. Yeah, it’s fine to leave him here.”

Mark Mullins put his phone to his ear as the elevator doors closed.

“He certainly left in hurry,” Nikkie said.

“He had a strange look in his eyes after he answered that call.”

“What look is that?”

“The look a cop wears when the shit is hitting the fan and spraying all over the cop’s territory.”

Nikkie shook her head and breathed deeply. “You really are a wordsmith, aren’t you, Derek?”

Derek turned to Nikkie, his face instantly void of anything suggesting humor. “When I called you, you told me to hurry. What happened?”

Nikkie’s eyes grew heavy with captured tears. “I was probably reading into it more than I should have, but Crown’s nurse came to me and asked if any of Crown’s family were in the hospital or were on their way. She’s probably an excellent nurse, but she had her own
‘look’
in her eye. Like she had seen some change in Crown or heard some imaginary death clock ticking down. You called just when she left.”

“I would have reacted the same way,” Derek said. “And besides the nurse, has anyone else has told you anything? No doctor stopped in the waiting room?”

“No one.” Nikkie paused. She softly rubbed Derek’s upper left arm. “You should go back there and see her. I know I’m probably crazy but I have a feeling she’s waiting for you.”

“Plus, if I don’t go see her, she’ll be pissed as hell when she wakes up.”

Derek waited till the secured doors to the ICU wing were opened, then strolled down the too-quiet hallway.

ˇˇˇˇˇˇˇˇˇ

Mark Mullins arrived at Eleven Cedar Street twenty-five minutes after he received a call from the sheriff’s department. While the sheriffs had their own investigators and detectives, they included the state police on virtually every case beyond petty crimes. And while Mullins had no authority over the deputies, the county sheriff, Alex Prendergast, made it clear to every member of the sheriff’s department, that the highest ranking officer, regardless of which agency they belonged to, was in charge of the scene.

Mullins had driven slowly once he neared the crime scene, scanning the entire area for anything or anyone that looked out of place. Besides a car making a u-turn and driving away from the scene, several people were standing in their front windows or on their front lawns, wondering what had happened at the Patel home.
 

“That’s their name, right, The Patels? I only met them once and I could hardly understand him with his accent. Don’t get me wrong, I have no issue with foreigners. None at all. Especially the smart and successful ones.”

“I think that’s their names. I know he’s a doctor and the wife pretty much stays to herself.”

“Any idea what happened in there?”

“Can’t say for sure, but whatever happened, it can’t be good.”

Mullins saw nothing that commanded his attention.

He climbed slowly and deliberately out of his Ford Taurus, surveying the outside of the crime scene with trained eyes. He called over to a state trooper he noticed standing at the end of the driveway. “Anyone talk to any of the neighbors yet?” he asked.

“Not that I’m aware of. I just got on-scene five minutes before you.”

“You go inside?”

“Yeah,” the trooper said, his face held stern against the horror he had witnessed inside the Patel home. “Damn ugly. Husband, wife and two kids. All slashed up, necks cut for good measure. Mother was found with one of her kids still in her arms.” The trooper’s voice cracked and sounded creased and damp.

“Give yourself two minutes to clear your head, then grab whatever troopers are here and a few deputies, and meet me right back here in five.”

“Okay,” the trooper said, his voice level.

“Is Sheriff Prendergast on-scene?”

“No. I heard he’s on a golfing vacation in Myrtle Beach.”

“Better place to be than here.”

As Mullins made his way up the driveway, several troopers and deputies backed away, giving him a wide berth. The town of Ravenswood had recently installed sodium arc street lamps that cast the Patel home and all the deputies and troopers in an anemic-looking orange haze of muted light. Mullins asked a deputy he passed to have the town shut the lights off till the crime scene was cleared. “And have the fire department send over one of their rescue trucks,” he said.

“Rescue truck?” a deputy asked. “There’s no one inside that needs to be rescued.”

“I don’t need the skills of the rescue truck drivers, I only need their night vision spotlights. I need this entire area flooded with clean light, not the shit pouring out from that street light.”

He entered the Patel home through the front door. The smell of burnt oil, mixed with the distinctive metallic odor of drying blood invaded his nostrils. From the front door, he could see through a doorway into the kitchen. A pair of legs, surrounded by a pool of blood—bright red on the outside and a deep shade of crimson in the middle—were visible from where Mullins stood.
 

“Husband is in the kitchen, wife and kids upstairs. One in the room on the left and two in the master bedroom.”

Mullins recognized the voice but was struggling to recall the name attached it.

“Deputy Jimmy Flanders. We met a few times on mutual aid calls.”

Mullins turned his powder, icy blue eyes towards Jimmy Flanders, trying to recall their previous meetings and wondering if Jimmy was one of the few Mullins considered among the select group of exceptional police officers. A few seconds passed before he remembered Deputy Jimmy Flanders as belonging to another one of his lists.

“Good to see you, Flanders,” Mullins said. “Coroner been in yet?”

“Sure has. He’s upstairs with the mother and one of the kids.” Flanders paused, looked up the staircase, then shook his head slowly. “I’ve been with the department for seven years and have seen a lot of bad shit. But nothing,
nothing
even comes close to this.”

Mullins turned his wide-framed body so he was directly in front of Flanders. “I need you to do two things for me, Flanders. First, I need someone of your caliber to organize four to six deputies to canvass the neighborhood. Ask every neighbor, many of whom are standing outside wondering what the hell happened in this house, what, if anything, they saw or heard this evening.”

Flanders said, “That should be easy. Pretty high-end neighborhood.”

“Meaning?”

“High end people like to talk, especially when the talking is about other people’s business. The folks around this area? Hell, I’ll be surprised if they won’t get to talking so much that we’re here all night.”

“If you say so,” Mullins said, his icy gaze locked onto Flanders. Mullins was keenly aware of how intimidating he could be and how many of his fellow police officers that found themselves caught in his tractor-beam stare often took to either babbling or fell terribly silent. Some, feeling an undeniable need to impress with their intelligence, capabilities or aptitude, were usually too willing to share their ideas, thoughts, or suggestions about a particular crime scene or investigation. These types annoyed Mullins. It wasn’t because he believed only his abilities were of value during an investigation or that he possessed an omnipotence, rendering all others as mere pawns. It was how these babblers were more interested in making themselves heard than they were in advancing an investigation along its most logical, effective and efficient steps. Those who fell silent were better, Mullins believed. The silent ones listened, took orders and carried them out based on fear or the desire to avoid a repeated visit with Frosty and his soul-chilling stare.