Part 20 (1/2)
”I would advise you to shut your b.l.o.o.d.y mouth,” Barrett snarled, ”right now! It is my greatest hope that before this night is through, I'll find enough incompetence and downright criminal behaviour to stick you in a cell and throw away the key. I've got more dead bodies than the two county morgues could hold and every path leads to your G.o.dd.a.m.n front door.”
”But, Sir, if you'll just give me a moment to explain,” Danny tried, but Jane could see that Barrett's ears were already firmly closed.
”YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH!” Barrett roared as spittle flew from his lips and Jane could see that he was a man not used to losing control. ”YOU, YOU AND YOU!” Barrett barked at three constables standing nearby. ”Arrest this man,” Barrett commanded as he pointed an accusatory finger at Danny.
”DI Meyers?” the first young uniformed man asked, his eyes darting around nervously.
”Look, you f.u.c.king suit!” Danny growled as his temper hit the red zone. ”My team have been out here risking our lives because you wouldn't know a case from a hole in the ground. People like you make me sick; you sit behind your desks, filling out forms without a G.o.dd.a.m.n clue about what it takes to do this job!”
”Is that right, Inspector?” Barrett replied, grinning, and Jane wanted to tell Danny to stop because he was walking into a trap and she could smell it.
”Yes, it b.l.o.o.d.y well is. Now I have a suspect: that FBI agent that you dumped in our laps.”
”The dead American?” Barrett asked, with raised eyebrows.
”You're d.a.m.n well right. Now, I want to know where he came from and what the h.e.l.l he was really doing here,” Danny snarled in a low menacing tone. ”And I don't care what rocks I have to turn over to do so.”
”Well, Inspector, you really think that an FBI agent is our elusive serial killer? That's the extent of your expert a.n.a.lysis?”
”Maybe,” Danny replied, a little less sure of himself.
Jane watched the exchange from the outside, knowing that if she spoke then her presence would be noticed and she would be removed without learning everything that the commander knew.
”Well, let me fill you in on a few details, Inspector. Earlier this evening a reporter by the name of Randall Zerneck managed to do what your whole department failed to do and caught the Crucifier. The serial killer that has been eluding your precious department is now dead at the hands of a b.l.o.o.d.y reporter.”
”Who was it?” Danny managed to ask as his mouth ran dry.
”Some local kid called Martin Kline,” Barrett responded triumphantly.
Jane was as stunned as Danny appeared to be.
”That's not possible,” Danny said almost to himself.
”Unfortunately for you it is,” Barrett said, grinning widely. ”There's a forensic team over at the suspect's place right now as we speak and I'm a.s.sured that they're pulling enough evidence out of his bas.e.m.e.nt to prove it beyond any shadow of a doubt.”
Danny could only stare at the man's grinning face and he felt his temper slip another notch, and there weren't many notches left to go.
”Your father would be ashamed of you, Detective Meyers,” Barrett continued as he sought to land maximum damage. ”Running around with the b.i.t.c.h who got him killed, failing where he failed ... ashamed.”
Danny's fist was clenched and moving before he realised it, not that he would have stopped it anyway. It struck home with a satisfying squelch into Barrett's mouth as blood was drawn. The commander crumpled to the ground with a look of shock mingled with pain. Jane looked on as the senior officer landed on his backside, his impeccable uniform creased and splattered with dirt.
”I must say that your little outburst now allows me to add gross insubordination and striking a superior officer to an undoubted growing list of charges that I hope to file come the morning,” Barrett spluttered as he struggled to regain his feet and his dignity. ”Officers, take him away,” he barely managed through an iron-clenched jaw.
Jane watched as the three young constables led Danny away to a waiting police car and helped him inside. The news of his team had shaken Danny to the core but Jane was starting to process the information. It was surely too much of a coincidence for it to be a different Martin Kline to the one that she'd worked with at the pet store. She'd always gotten a slightly odd vibe about Marty, one that had been steadily increasing in recent days. She knew that the police would soon discover that she had known Marty but she wasn't about to do their jobs for them by offering the information freely. Despite the very foundations of her gift being rocked, she still couldn't believe that she hadn't picked up on Marty's extracurricular activities. The whole thing made a lot more sense when you accepted that there was a puppet master at work here. ”And what about me, Commander?” she asked. ”I suppose that I'm under arrest as well?”
”Why no, Ms Parkes,” Barrett smiled, which filled her with dread. ”I believe that you aren't in need of police help, but help of a more medical nature.”
”Excuse me?”
”I think that you're not well, Ms Parkes, and that you're a danger to yourself and those around you. I believe that it is in your best interests if you are taken somewhere where you can get all the help you need.”
”You can't be serious?” Jane spluttered. ”You're having me committed?”
”Sectioned is the correct term, Ma'am,” Barrett grinned, as he motioned for the paramedics to strap her down on the gurney. ”Sectioned.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN.
Danny tried to take in the avalanche of information that was being fired at him at dizzying speed. Superintendent Chalmers was dead, along with the headmaster of St Joseph's and 13 young girls. Selleck and Landing had also been discovered dead at the scene and Kim Croft had been found near the police station, another victim of the Crucifier. The three dead members of his team, of his family, broke his heart. He had gotten them all killed because he'd followed Jane Parkes and her gift. Now she was being hidden away in an inst.i.tution and he was going to be kicked out of the force and there would be no one left to ask any questions.
The drive back to the station was both too long and too short at the same time. The three PCs in the car with him were understandably awkward at his arrest but they were at least furnis.h.i.+ng him with the missing details of the case - his case.
His first instinct was to drown in self pity and sorrow at the deaths around him, but he locked that s.h.i.+t away hard; he had a job to do with or without a badge. Until the autopsies were in on the dead at the school, he wasn't counting any chickens. ”It was really some reporter that caught the guy?” he asked the young officer riding in the back with him.
”That's the word. Some local guy found the lair and managed to kill the psycho in the ensuing struggle. Crazy, huh?”
”Yeah, all kinds of it,” Danny mused. He was desperate to get back to his office and try and piece together the timeline of all this. There were bodies stacking up at different locations and times and he needed to know what was connected. His gut told him that the fire at the school was no accident; it just didn't feel right. Maybe there was more than one killer; organised serial killer pairs were rare, but it wasn't impossible. Maybe Bradshaw had been pulling the strings of Martin Kline. Danny was about to be thrown into a police cell for punching out Barrett, but even now he found it hard not to smile at the memory. He needed access to the system and his privileges had been revoked.
”Hey, I gotta take a p.i.s.s,” he said to the driver as they pa.s.sed a sign for a rest stop up ahead.
”Can't do it, Sir,” the driver replied nervously.
”Oh come on, for Christ's sake; you want me to make a mess back here?” Danny replied light-heartedly. ”I'm not even under arrest. Well, not yet anyway. I expect that Barrett wants to do the honours himself.”
”He sure went down easily,” the third PC in the pa.s.senger seat chimed in to stifled laughter from the other two.
”I still can't believe that you popped the commander,” the officer sitting next to Danny said. ”Man, you are going to be a legend.”
”Then how about letting me use a bathroom?” Danny asked. ”I'm hardly going to make a break for it, am I?”
”Ah, screw it,” the driver sighed heavily after a long pause as he turned off. ”You deserve a f.u.c.king medal as far as I'm concerned.”
Danny was grateful that in Barrett's haste he hadn't arrested or cuffed him. At the minute, he was facing disciplinary procedures rather than criminal ones, but if he ran then that would change. Barrett would issue a warrant for his arrest in a heartbeat and then every one of his colleagues would be looking for him. The alternative was that he would be stuck on the sidelines and no one would be looking for the real answers; it was no choice.
The service station was fairly quiet as they entered. Only one of the PCs accompanied him and he was relieved that they didn't see him as a flight risk.
”You mind?” Danny asked as the young officer made as if to enter the toilets with him.
”I really should come in with you, Sir,” the man said uncomfortably.