Stephen Cannell - Final Victim

Lockwood also knew that he was running out of time. Detective Raynor was two phone calls away from finding out that Malavida was an escaped fugitive with a fresh arrest warrant, and that Lockwood was suspended and working off his badge on a homicide he'd been directly ordered to stay away from. Once Customs was alerted, he'd be swept up like broken glass and that would be it. He didn't want a bunch of local smokies wandering through his crime scene, tracking mud and dropping cigarette butts, but he didn't seem to have much choice. His best bet was to try to co-opt the dial-tone standing in front of him… try to control the investigative fallout as best he could.

"Okay, Detective, I think we should go out there together. I think we should also take a crime team with us."

"Yeah? Why is that?"

"That house was rigged to explode by a man we think might be a serial killer… a man who's committed at least three murders we know of and probably more. His name is Leonard Land. I ran him ten minutes ago and came up with nothing, but he lives in the wetlands off the Little Manatee River. There's a garbage barge out there that needs to be gone through by Forensics. There's a freezer in the barge that is locked. I'd like to get a warrant to open it."

"You got a lotta stuff you want. Why don't we just go out there and look 'fore we rile up the whole department?"

"This could be a national murder case and you could be standing on page one with it."

"Would that be page one of the Food Section?" He smirked.

It took them almost an hour to get back out to the house. Karen was in the back of Detective Raynor's car while Lockwood sat up front giving directions.

Raynor got a radio call from Tampa communications. They all listened in stony silence as the dispatcher informed them that Malavida had been medevacked by helicopter to a hospital in Miami where they had a state-of-the-art trauma surgery unit.

They pulled back into the clearing a little past midnight. The headlights illuminated the spot where the blue house had once been. Now all that was left was the foundation and the railingless front porch. Smoke still curled up from hot spots in the rubble-filled basement.

Lockwood got out of the sedan and looked toward the house. Malavida's jacket was gone.

"He's been back here," he said softly. Then he took off, running in the direction of the barge. Karen jumped out and ran after him. They pushed through the brambles at the foot of the property with Raynor a good distance behind.

"Where the hell you goin?" he shouted. "Come back here!" But they moved on. The weeds and thorns tore at them, but Lockwood was moving more carefully than last time, and used his hands to keep the sticker bushes away from both of them.

They finally got to the dock where the huge barge had been tied, but the barge was nowhere in sight. The chains and ropes hung loosely from the pilings, dangling into the water. The ramp that had once led to the high double doors amidships was floating upside down in the brackish water.

Karen was breathing heavily beside him. "He came back and got it," she finally said. "I didn't think it was floating… I thought it was parked on the bottom."

Lockwood nodded but said nothing. He had his hand in his pocket, rubbing the plastic-covered truck registration. His thumb went back and forth over the plastic cover like a scanner looking for clues, as if there was still something more it could tell him.

He thought of Claire, now in her grave. He had missed her funeral in his rush to seek vengeance for her death. He thought of Malavida, fighting for his life in one hospital, Heather in another three thousand miles away. So much human wreckage caused to fulfill one man's twisted fantasy. Never had Lockwood dreamed an investigation could enter his life and cause such darkness. He had told Heather he would catch this monster. But, even with that thought still in his head, the promise felt empty. He could never restore things to the way they were. He remembered a time long ago when he had been just nine or ten years old, and Father McKnight at Materwood Home for Boys had caught him stealing food from the kitchen. "Xou can't unring a bell, John," the old priest had lectured him. "Once something's done, it's part of your history, and it becomes a burden you must always carry with you." Lockwood stood on the wharf and looked at the spot where the barge had once been. He wondered if he was strong enough to carry this burden.

The Rat suspected that he had started the journey. There was no other explanation. He sat on the floor of the garbage barge, rocking slightly back and forth. His mind flitted across the pitted landscape of his problem.

It seemed big and unfixable. He wondered, if he sacrificed himself, would he change the timetable or just make everything happen sooner? He wondered if there was still time to build the Beast and get the answers he had been looking for. He wondered why he was always so frightened and alone… why, in his whole life, nobody had ever tried to comfort him. And then he got angry. They would pay. He would be taken on this Journey of Redemption clawing and biting. He would not walk obediently into the Hall of Sleeping Spiders.

He had seen them leave in his pickup truck, from a hiding place downriver. He had sneaked back and found the Mexican's windbreaker. In the pocket was a receipt from the Radio Shack. The credit card belonged to Karen Dawson, the woman at U. S. Customs who had invaded his chat room. Was it possible that she was still alive? The signature on the receipt read Malavida Chacone. He thought he knew that name from somewhere. He ran back, untied the barge, tied his air-boat to it, and climbed aboard. The barge started to drift slowly downriver, riding on the current. He stood on the deck and steered with the big hand rudder. Twice the barge almost got stuck in the shallows, but miraculously he managed to keep it from going aground. He finally arrived at the hiding spot he had found before. It was a place deep in the wetlands of the Little Manatee River, almost four miles from his house. The barge was now tied under a dense growth of mangroves and weeds. It would not be visible even from the air.

He wondered if he dared go back to Shirley's house. He had burned it down twelve years before, then had run away and lived in the park. The property had been sold to a retired plumber who had rebuilt it. Five years later the plumber had died of a stroke. Because of its remote location, nobody had bought it. The Rat knew it was currently boarded up and empty; he had gone there once and looked at it from the road. It didn't look like Shirley's house anymore. This new place the plumber had built was stucco, with no porch and a low, sloping roof. Still, it was where his home had once been. He had lived there till he was fifteen. More important, it was a shrine of sorts, because it was the place where he'd first met The Wind Minstrel.

He had been just fourteen when that happened, and very sick with a high fever. His ears had become infected because of the burns. Shirley would not let a doctor come. She said Leonard was weak, and that if God decided to take him for his weakness, then she would bear that consequence. The Rat had already learned to control Leonard. He hid inside him like an evil shadow and listened to Shirley's shrill condemnations.

That night his fever grew. He slipped into a delirious sleep and had a frightening, life-changing nightmare. In the dream, he was both The Rat and Leonard, walking in a hall of huge sleeping spiders. Leonard was so scared he could barely breathe. He whimpered constantly, but The Rat was cunning, moving silently between the spiders' hairy legs. Their eyes were closed, their huge mandibles dripping moisture at his feet. The Rat knew that if he woke them, they would tear him apart, chew him slowly, and eat him alive. Somehow he also knew that the Hall of Sleeping Spiders was at the beginning of the Journey of Redemption.