Edward Lee - Dahmer's Not Dead

Olsher’s voiced turned rigid. “I gave you a break this morning when I convinced the PC to keep you on the case, Helen. He wants you off. He thinks you’ve turned into a loose gun.”

Helen squinted her incredulity. “You’re kid—”

“I’m not kidding at all, Helen. You’ve shitnamed yourself bad. That exhumation only stirred the press up more, and now this. I told the PC you’re still the best investigator we got, so he agreed to keep you on. But any more bonehead moves like this, and I can’t cover for you anymore.”

Olsher hung up even before Helen could complain further. What’s the point! she thought, walking for the elevator, a headache kicking at the inside of her skull. If it had been such a bonehead move, why had Olsher suggested she attempt authorization? Are all the men in the world thick-headed morons, or is it me?

So now she was on the PC’s hit-list. Great. Olsher was right about one thing, though: she could kiss her promotion goodbye.

I could care less, she told herself.

This news about the paper wasn’t good; however, the news once she got upstairs was worse.

Helen obstinately flashed her badge to the charge at the reception desk for the psych wing.

“I need to talk to Tredell Rosser,” she said, more distracted by her headache than anything else.

“Sorry, ma’am,” the guard informed her.

“Sorry?”

“This morning during med call, Rosser was found dead in his cell.”

— | — | —

CHAPTER TWENTY

“Hey, man.”

He turns.

The sly smile fades a bit. The beautiful deep-blue eyes open slightly in curiosity. “We met, man?

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Funny. You look sort’a familiar.”

The man smiles. That is, the man who was once the boy from Bath, Ohio.

««—»»

The Dock. He wants something off a ways from the Circle. Too much heat there lately… Thanks to me, he thinks. Another harmless bar, like Friends. The hard-hitters all went to the trade joints. But he doesn’t want that.

“Another?” he asks.

Music flutters. Some old Carly Simon tune. The barlight only embellishes the guy’s beautiful face. Cuts it down to bare, visible parts.

Maybe I’ll do that later, he thinks.

“Look, man, I appreciate the drinks and burger and all, but you know the score. I ain’t on the street ’cos I like fresh air.”

“Sure, I know. I just…like you.”

“Great. But what’s the score? We going or what?”

He nods. “Yes, yes, I’m interested,” he says a bit peevishly. But that’s not like him, is it? Not now. Not after his awakening. “I have…someone at my place.”

“A lover, huh?”

“Yes,” he says. But that’s not a lie, is it? “Can we go to your place? I…I don’t want to use a motel. I’ll even pay extra.”

“Don’t sweat it. I cop what every guy on the street cops—fifty bucks for head, a hundred for an hour. Two for all night.”

From his wallet, then, he slips out four fifty-dollar bills, then slowly slides them across the bar.

“Straight up,” the guy says. He’s handsome: chiseled, poised but kind of tough, tight clothes, and all the right moves. “Yeah, man. This is solid. Let’s go.” Another smile, sexy and sly. “I’ll do you right. Count on it.”

««—»»

Helen needed to kill time. Well, she didn’t need to—she wanted to. It was essential she talk to Tom—about Rosser’s death—but talking to Tom wasn’t something she felt too comfortable doing right now. Have some guts, Helen, she told herself. But she drove around rather aimlessly. Waiting. Stalling.

No guts were forthcoming.

She even switched on her radio as an excuse, but the hourly news highlights only offered one pulpy report about Dahmer after the next. “—entire city locked in a reign of terror.” “—when will he strike next, and where?” “—in a fruitless search for associates who helped Dahmer escape incarceration.”

“I saw him,” some whack reported on a call-in show. “I saw Dahmer! It was up near Dudley Circle. He had a beard and dyed his hair, but I just know it was him!”

“Call in your Dahmer-sightings now!” the talk-show host implored.

Idiots. Helen switched the radio off, but at the same instant, she heard over her scanner:

“Federal Signal 12. This is a Federal response request. All available city, county, and state units in proximity to Perry Point Apartments, east grid, Madison, please respond. We could use your help to secure the scene.”

At least here was an excuse to put off seeing Tom. Helen didn’t know what a Federal Signal 12 was, but Perry Point Apartments? That was Madison, the northeast fringe. And it was just around the corner.

She parked by a wave of throbbing visibars, which turned the winter twilight into a stroboscopic blue-red world. First thing she saw was a Green van with the stenciled side panel T.A. TIRES. That much I do know, she thought. T.A. Tires was a phony acronym—for T.A.T.—the F.B.I.’s Tacticle Assault Team.

We must have a hostage situation here, she realized.

She flashed her badge and ID three times, trying to get through the phalanx of armed cops from multiple departments. Then a voice called out: “Captain Closs!”

Helen jerked around to see Special Agent Eules, the Bureau’s M.F.O. SAC Chief, trotting toward an opposing apartment building. “Come on!”

Helen trotted right alongside, impressed that she hadn’t yet lost her breath. Without realizing it, she had her Beretta .25 drawn. Eules huffed right beside her.

“Barricade situation?” she asked.

“Yep. It’s some guy our BR Squad had tagged for a month—bank jobs. He knocked over a First Federal this afternoon, and we been on his ass since. He ditched his getaway on Forest Avenue, jumped the fence and came here. Grabbed the first female he saw and dragged her up to her apartment. I got a cherry-picker in the unit facing him.”

Cherry-picker, she thought. More federal parlance, but Helen knew what a “cherry-picker” was. A sniper.

“What’s he packing?” she asked, trying to sound on Eules’s level.

“Right now, just a knife. He was toting a Glock when he took down the bank, but he emptied the clip at our guys when we surrounded him here.”

Aw, no, Helen fretted. She was no gun expert, but she knew full well that a Glock was an rather notorious, part-composite semi-auto pistol. With a big clip. Like fifteen or sixteen rounds. She dreaded the next question, as any cop would. “Did you…did you lose any men?”

“Naw, naw,” Eules casually replied. “All our people wear Kevlar jackets, Threat-Level III, with titanium rifle plates. He hit a few of my guys but they got right back up and dusted themselves off.”

Thank God.

Their footfalls pattered the steps. Three floors up, Helen followed Eules as he barged into a unit. “Behind you, guys,” he announced. “It’s Eules. Don’t pop no caps.”

Two men in suits greeted him with curt nods. Some relay equipment had been plugged into the apartment’s phone.

“You got that running yet?” Eules asked, pointing to one of the components.

“It’s up and running, sir,” one suit said.

The other suit: “We already called him. He says he’ll talk to you.”

“Good.” Eules smiled imperceptibly. “Put us on intercom—not now, but on my mark.”

“Yes, sir.”

In the apartment’s darkness, Eules led Helen on to the front family room plate-glass window. The glass had been intricately removed via a diamond cutter and suction frame, so not to risk shattering. Frigid winter air gusted in, and before the window’s opening stood a man in dark-blue utilities—FBI in pale gold letters stamped across his back—and a reversed blue ball cap.