Paul Cleave - Blood Men

It’s all happening so fast. The night is becoming absolute chaos. Jack Hunter has escaped-helped by Edward-and Schroder has to push that fact to the back of his mind right at this moment and deal with it soon. At this rate he’s doubting he’ll make it home on Christmas Day for even five minutes. His wife will hate him, his daughter might too. Thankfully his son is only a few months old so at least somebody won’t be pissed at him.

The Armed Offenders Unit is running at about 50 percent, the other half having already left for the holidays or drunk already and not returning Schroder’s calls, giving him a team short on manpower but a team nonetheless, still extremely capable. Schroder has already died once tonight and doesn’t want that to be the start of a pattern. He has a better use for the team than he did half an hour ago, with them driving around looking for Hunter.

When his cell phone rings again, it’s Anthony Watts, a detective who is currently with Edward Hunter’s in-laws.

“They don’t recognize any of the photos from the files,” Watts says. “I mean, the only one they recognize is the victim lying dead on their living-room floor.”

“Okay. Get back down to the probation offices. If Bracken scrambled to put all this together since finding Kingsly’s body, then maybe this other person has a file he accessed today. It could give you a fresh set of mug shots.”

Kelvin Johnson is on the top of the list of six names he printed out, predominantly because three of the other people are dead-including Ryan Hann, who died by pencil. Bracken wasn’t on the list, giving Johnson a one-in-three chance of being the first. Incarcerated nine years ago for the robbery of a jewelry store in which a sales assistant permanently lost the use of one arm after he shot her, Johnson was released four years ago and upon his release had contact with his parole officer once a week for two years, then once a month for the following year. As of a year ago the justice system was satisfied that Kelvin Johnson was a model Christchurch citizen, having undergone the exact amount necessary of jail time and a probation period afterward.

Johnson lives in a government-subsidized house in an area of town that seems to attract violence the same way rotten food attracts flies. At the moment they’re all parked four blocks away, a miniature command post set up.

“Two things,” Schroder says, and the team of men listen intently. “First, we don’t know for a fact Johnson was part of the robbery. Second thing is, even if he was, we don’t know that he has anything to do with Sam Hunter being kidnapped, or if she is here. That means we need to be careful; we need to make sure there are no slipups, and that we get him in one piece. Any questions?”

There are always questions. They spend another ten minutes going over it. When they’re ready, two vans pull in to the street where Johnson lives, one from each side. A drive-by three minutes earlier had confirmed there were no lights on inside the house, and no signs of life. A team of two people are parked on the street behind the house in case Johnson climbs the back fence in an attempt to get away.

The Armed Offenders Unit members move quickly. They’re all dressed in black and they hit the house hard and fast, busting in the door, and then there’s thirty seconds of shouting and no gunfire. Schroder and Landry wait out on the street, and a minute later Johnson is led out in a pair of pajama bottoms and handcuffs.

“There’s nobody else,” Officer Liam Marshall, the man leading the unit, says. “No sign of any girl. The house is secure.”

“Get him in the van,” Landry says. “I’ll try to convince him to talk while you check out the house.”

“Maybe he doesn’t know where she is.”

“Maybe,” Landry says, “but we’ll know soon.”

It takes Schroder three minutes to find the money. It’s hidden above the manhole in the ceiling. Things are always hidden up there; he figures there isn’t a burglar yet who hasn’t considered hiding something in the roof.

He calls Landry and updates him. “He’s definitely one of them, but there’s nothing else in the house to suggest he had the girl here. If he’d taken her, he’d be with her now.”

“Not if he’s already killed her,” Landry says.

“I know. I know,” Schroder answers, and hangs up.

“One down and two to go,” Marshall says, “and we’re set for the next location.”

“Let’s go,” Schroder says, and he gets in his car. He’s about two minutes away from the second name on the list when the call comes in of a gunshot. The address doesn’t match either of the other two addresses he still has to visit, and he wonders if the gunshot is random, or whether it means Hunter has found his daughter, or brought himself one step closer.

Tyler’s screams stop around the same time we reach the car. The gunshot tore through him and the seat of the chair and made it collapse into a splintery heap. His genitals and lower intestines are splashed out all over the floor. The arteries in his thighs are all torn up and coating the room in squirts of blood.

Could be this is the kind of neighborhood where nobody would even call the police, but we’re not hanging about to take a poll. We reach the car and pick a direction and stick with it.

“Holy shit, Dad, you just killed an innocent man.”

“No I didn’t.”

“What? You just-”

“You said innocent, Jack. Tyler was far from innocent. You could see that right off, right? It’s why you gave me the gun.”

“I gave you the gun to speed things along, that’s all,” I say. “Sam is out there somewhere, and you’re turning all of this into you. You won’t help me until I get you out of hospital. Then we go and see somebody who has nothing to do with what we’re trying to do. All you’re doing is proving we are absolutely nothing alike.”

“He had it coming,” Dad says. “And the darkness-it needed to be fed.”

“To be fed? He said he hadn’t seen you in four years. How’d you know where to go? No way you would have been keeping tabs on where he lived, not unless you were planning on making a visit. How’d you know you’d be getting the chance?”

“I didn’t know,” he says. “But before you showed up at the hospital, I was able to find out.”

“How?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Why though? Why’d you want to find out?”

“You just sermonized about me making all of this about myself,” he says, “now you’re the one doing it. I thought you only cared about finding Sam.”

“And it’s obvious that’s not your priority at all,” I answer. “Because it all doesn’t fit properly.”

“You want my help or not?”

“That depends on whether you’re going to actually start helping me, and I’m thinking you have no idea who to speak to next.”

“Okay, okay,” he says. “Bracken was the parole officer, right?”

“Right. But he took the money from Kingsly and didn’t tell the others. Everybody thinks I have it.”

“You do have it.”

“Yeah, I have it now, but I didn’t have it earlier, and now I don’t know how to get hold of any of them.”

“Maybe they know how to get hold of you? You took his phone, right?”

“Yeah-but nobody’s called.”

“He give you anything, anything at all?” Dad asks.

“Bracken? No. Nothing.”

“You search his house?”

“Yeah. And his office. There was a cell number in his phone but it doesn’t connect.”

“You went to his office?”

“I didn’t find much. Just some files that didn’t lead anywhere.”

“Where are they?”

I nod toward the backseat. Dad reaches over for the bag and grunts when he tries to lift it.