The Killing Tide, page 13
He doesn’t recognize me. The bastard. A casual job for him, a lifetime of misery for me.
Well, we’ll even that up soon enough.
He continued to pace forward, knuckles going white as he gripped the handle of the butcher knife.
Hallard stepped back, boots splashing in the puddle, then bolted forward to get out of the hole in the enclosing chain link fence.
The man who hunted him got there first, blocking his escape.
Hallard backpedaled, then fumbled in his toolbox, knocking it over with a clatter but managing to grab a claw hammer.
He raised it high over his head, his other hand outstretched as if he could ward off the knife.
“Stay back! I never did anything to you!” Gus Hallard shouted.
“How dare you say that!”
He rushed through the gap he had made in the fence the previous night, so enraged that he didn’t notice one of the cut ends of the fence scrape his shoulder. He ran for Hallard, swinging his knife. The maintenance man circled around the valve, eyes wide.
“I never did anything! I got a wife and kids!”
“So did I!” the man bellowed.
The two struck at the same time. Hallard brought down the hammer as his attacker ducked to the right so that instead of hitting him on the head, he only hit him on the left shoulder, sending a jolt of pain through the murderer that cut through even his volcanic rage. At the same moment, his knife slashed deep into Hallard’s side.
The maintenance man gasped, and clutched his side as the bottom half of his t-shirt turned crimson. He took a step back and raised his hammer for another blow.
But the man who had hunted him recovered first. He slashed again, cutting Hallard across the face, and again, a diagonal cut across his chest.
Hallard dropped his hammer, staggered, and tried to flee.
Mistake. The killer reversed his grip and stabbed him in the back just as he made it to the gap in the fence. Hallard grunted, fell at an angle, bounced off the fence, and back into the pool of water.
Howling with victory, the killer raised his knife overhead and brought it down on his victim’s back again.
Hallard, his face in the water, coughed and raised his head, gasping out something.
“What was that?” the killer demanded, bending down, the blade dripping gore into the water. “What did you say to me?”
“Why? Why? I never did anything to you.”
The killer growled and slammed the blade deep into Hallard’s back. Vision clouding with rage, he nevertheless had enough self-control not to give him a killing blow.
No, he didn’t stab him in the back again. He stabbed him in the arms, in the legs, then made a dozen slashes across his back. When Hallard began to lose consciousness and his face fell into the puddle, threatening to drown him, his killer pulled him to the gap in the fence so his face would be on dry ground.
Then he went back to cutting him.
Let him bleed out. Let him suffer. His suffering won’t last as long as mine, but at least he will suffer.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Alexa was going through judicial records at the police station, looking for potential suspects and getting nowhere, when her phone rang. Homicide Detective Rebstock.
“Don’t tell me there’s been another murder,” Alexa said. Stuart, working on a computer at the next desk, looked over.
“It fits the M.O., but not the profile,” Rebstock said. “A water department employee half an hour north of Phoenix got stabbed to death as he worked on some state water installation.”
“Is he ex-law enforcement?”
“No. It’s strange. I’m at the murder site now. I’ll send you pictures. The rage that went into this killing sure matches our perp. But this is just some state water worker. It makes no sense.”
“Is CSI there yet?”
“Yes.”
“Is Annette on duty?” She glanced at Stuart to see his reaction, but he kept a professional demeanor. Good. He was thinking with the correct head.
“Yeah, she’s here.”
“Have her send us any information as soon as she gets it. In the meantime, has the family been informed?”
“We’ll text you everything we get. An officer is with them now.”
Alexa closed her eyes for a moment. Poor officer. There was nothing worse than taking that long walk up to the front door of a relative who thought everything was OK, that they were going to see their loved one in an hour or two and that life would just keep on going the way it had been.
She forced herself to get a grip. The sooner she and Stuart caught this guy, the fewer long walks the police would have to make.
Rebstock broke her out of her thoughts. “Send me your interview notes so I don’t have to do it myself. I got enough on my plate as it is, and with this guy escalating to killing in parking lots and in broad daylight, we don’t want to be doubling up work.”
“Will do.”
“I’m adding more men to this. Send me any of your B-list suspects for them to take care of while you go after the main ones.”
“All right.”
Rebstock hung up. A moment later an address appeared in her text messages.
Stuart was already up and standing by the door.
“Let’s go,” she said. “The killer is getting bolder, and now he’s become unpredictable.”
* * *
Alexa stared at Yvette Hallard as she sat on her living room sofa, clutching a family photo. She had barely looked from it when they had entered. The photo showed her with a rugged Anglo man with the deep tan of an Arizonan born and bred. A young boy and toddler were also in the smiling photo. Both of them took after their mother.
She can’t look at her children and see him, was all Alexa could think.
The children, thankfully, were with friends. Alexa didn’t think she could face them.
Slow tears pearled in Yvette’s eyes before dropping onto the glass of the picture. The image of the happy family was steadily becoming blurred.
“Mrs. Hallard, do you know anyone who would want to harm your husband?”
Yvette shook her head. She hadn’t said five words since they had arrived. A grim-faced female officer stood at the doorway, looking like she wanted to be anywhere but here.
“Was he ever in law enforcement?”
The widow shook her head again.
“Police? Security guard?” Alexa noticed a purple heart in a frame on the mantelpiece. “Military police?”
“No,” Yvette whispered, her voice sounding like it came from a million miles away. “He was never in law enforcement.”
Alex and Stuart traded glances. He looked as stumped as she felt.
Rebstock had sent them photos of the crime scene, and of the body. Alexa felt sure it was the same killer. No two killers with that level of rage could be on the loose in Arizona at the same time.
At least she hoped not.
“Was your husband … ” she hated to ask this, but it had to be said, “ … involved in any criminal activity?”
Yvette looked surprised. “No. He never ran with that crowd, even when he was a teenager. I don’t think he ever took drugs in his life. He didn’t even drink all that much.”
Alexa looked around the living room, hoping for a clue into this man’s life that might hint at why he had been next on the killer’s list. Other than the purple heart, the room had mostly been decorated by Yvette. Lots of bright colors and children’s drawings and photos of the dead man visiting in-laws in Mexico.
Her eyes strayed back to the purple heart. A little American flag on a stick, the kind people wave at Fourth of July parades, leaned against the frame.
For some reason, that suddenly gave her an idea.
“Has he ever served on jury duty?”
Yvette thought for a moment, then looked up. “Y-yes. Yes, he did. A few years ago.”
Stuart sat up straight. Alexa leaned forward in her seat.
“What trial was this? What was the defendant’s name?”
“I-I don’t remember the name. This was a while ago. It was a long trial and took Gus away from his job for many weeks. He didn’t mind, though. He said it was his duty as a citizen. He was even the jury foreman.”
“Really?” That was interesting. The jury foreman was the one who read out the verdict. A vindictive ex-con would remember that.
Yvette looked up from the photo and stared at Alexa for a second. The desperation in her features was hard to look at.
“You think it might have been the person he put away? Oh, I can’t remember the name! There was a letter, a summons. It had the case number. But that was years ago. I don’t know where it is!”
She leapt up, ran over to a bureau, and started rummaging through it, tossing old bills and postcards onto the floor.
“Where is it!” she shrieked. “Where is it! Oh my God, what if I threw it away? What if we never find it?”
Alexa walked over and gently put her hands on Yvette’s wrists. “It’s all right. The courts keep records. We can look up Gus and find out which case he was on. We don’t need the letter.”
“B-but … ”
“We don’t need the letter. It’s all right. We’ll bring in that person from the trial today and question him.” She heard Stuart in the background, talking on his phone. “My partner is already calling the court. We’ll get the name in just a few minutes. Go sit down.”
“You sure you don’t need the letter?”
“It’s all right,” Alexa said in a soothing voice, leading her back to the sofa. “You’ve already done what you needed to do. You’ve already helped.”
Stuart was already standing at the door, putting away his phone.
“They said they’ll call me back in five minutes,” he said.
“That was the courthouse?” Yvette said, her voice cracking.
“Yes ma’am. We’ll get him.”
God, I hope so, Alexa thought. Because I can’t deal with another home visit like this one.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Alexa actually preferred to be going after a convicted killer than stay in that house of death a moment longer. She had lost a couple of good fellow officers in the line of duty, and that had been hard, but to lose your spouse, the parent of your children … that she couldn’t imagine.
The court had found the record quickly enough. Eight years ago, Gus Hallard had been jury foreman on a murder trial, a trial presided over by Judge Warburton. The jury found a construction worker named Julio Matías guilty of second-degree murder, but an appeal by his lawyer on the basis of extenuating circumstances had gotten that knocked down to manslaughter. That trial was presided over by a different judge, one who was still alive. The system let him off after only seven years, the minimum sentence for that crime in Arizona. He had been released just four months ago.
Since he was on parole, they had a current address, which they sent along with the report. Efficient service. The clerk at the courthouse had heard of the killings of two judges and a state prosecutor and realized the significance of Stuart’s information request.
As Stuart wove through traffic, Alexa called Rebstock.
“I’ll have two squad cars join you there and you can go in together,” the homicide detective said. “I’ll be there too.”
He then gave a rendezvous point a block from Julio Matías’s house on Phoenix’s rough East side barrio.
Next Alexa brought up the court records Stuart had received and had shared with her. Matías sounded like a rough customer. While he had no priors, the details of his murder trial were gruesome. A neighbor had gotten into an altercation with him and Matías had bludgeoned him with a two by four. Once he was unconscious, he had slit his throat.
Alexa shuddered, remembering that thug who had slit her partner’s throat right before her eyes.
She shook that memory off.
Focus, Robert Powers always used to say. No matter what you’ve seen, no matter what you’re going through on the inside, you need to focus on the job. It’s what will save lives, sometimes even your own.
She continued to read.
The charge had been second degree murder because there had been no premeditation. The neighbor, angry over the fact that Matías’s dog wouldn’t stop barking, had jumped into his yard with a knife, intent on killing the dog. That’s when Matías had picked up a board lying in the yard and knocked him out with it.
The defense claimed that Julio Matías was a quiet, peaceful man terrified that the neighbor would kill him too, and only acted in self-defense. The jury may or may not have bought that, but the throat slitting after the neighbor lay helpless on the ground was the deciding factor against him. So he went to jail for second degree murder, with Gus Hallard reading out the verdict.
Matías had a good lawyer, though, and there was an appeal. A few procedural errors on the part of the prosecution, plus the fact that the neighbor was in a gang and Matías felt he had to kill him in such a gruesome way to avoid imminent threat from the neighbor’s friends, got the charge dropped to manslaughter.
Alexa shook her head. If she had been the judge she would have never accepted that ruling. But then again, she hadn’t read the full court transcripts or seen all the evidence. While it looked bad on the surface, she knew she shouldn’t second guess the judge’s ruling. Far too often, outsiders to the system of law enforcement made snap judgements based on insufficient evidence. She had seen that with many of her fellow marshals.
So she set the judge’s decision about the culpability of Julio Matías aside. What she did see of the suspect’s character from what little she had time to read was that he was calculating. In the heat of the moment, with a knife-wielding neighbor leaping over the fence to go after his dog, he had picked up a two by four and bludgeoned him to unconsciousness. Fair enough.
But what came after, even if you believed Matías’s every word, showed a dark and aggressive mind.
Matías had stood over his unconscious neighbor and had a choice. He could call the police and get this gang member who had trespassed onto his property with a deadly weapon arrested, and then request protection from any blowback by the guy’s friends, or he could take care of it himself.
He had decided to take care of it himself, demonstrating to the gang and the entire barrio that he wasn’t someone to be messed with. He must have known he would go to jail, but his honor and reputation was more important to him than his freedom. And vengeance was more important than justice.
Once he had gotten out, had he decided to prove his toughness by going after the man who prosecuted him, the juror who read out his guilt, and the judge who gave him his sentence?
Entirely possible. Normal, well-balanced people don’t slit their neighbor’s throats, no matter what the neighbor had done.
So how did Judge Antonio Rodriguez fit into all this? Alexa didn’t know. Matías didn’t have any priors. Maybe the judge in Benson had sentenced a friend or relative.
She didn’t have time to check, because Stuart was already screeching to a halt at the rendezvous.
Two police cars were already parked by the side of the residential street, and Alexa recognized Rebstock’s private car, a beat up old Chevy he should have replaced years ago, coming down the street.
They got out, the police emerging from their vehicles to meet them. This was a mostly Hispanic neighborhood of private houses. Some had high fences so you couldn’t see in. Others had open yards but bars on the windows. No one was in sight. Alexa had the feeling everyone had disappeared when the first police car showed up.
Alexa was glad to see two of the officers were Hispanic. The court records indicated Julio Matías had used the services of a court translator. Alexa’s mediocre Spanish wasn’t up to the task of interviewing a probably evasive suspect, so she hoped at least one of the Hispanic officers was fluent.
Rebstock parked behind Alexa’s and Stuart’s vehicle and hauled his bulk out of the car. He stopped to light a cigarette and survey the area.
“OK. Let’s go,” he said with the casual tone of someone saying they needed to go to the supermarket. Rebstock had been on the job since Alexa had been in grade school. He had seen it all. Nothing phased him anymore.
He had obviously given orders to his officers already, because two of them went one way while one of the Hispanic cops and a female Anglo officer went with them the other way.
“Kevin and Alvaro are going through a back alley to come at the house from behind,” Rebstock explained. “Just in case Matías decides to run. We’ll go knock on the door like friendly little Amway salespeople.”
They circled the block and came to Matías’s address. It was one of those homes with a high wooden fence they couldn’t see through. The gate was locked. Without a pause, Rebstock pulled out a set of lockpicks.
“Aren’t we going to knock?” Stuart asked.
“Hell, no,” the homicide detective said, selecting a tool and inserting it into the lock.
Stuart looked at the lockpicking operation with obvious concern. “Do you have a warrant?”
“I have a pocketful of warrants. I fill them out as I go.”
Alexa smiled. Good old Rebstock.
Stuart stared at him. “Really?”
Rebstock looked at Alexa and snickered. “Feds.”
“She’s a fed too,” Stuart said.
“U.S. Marshals aren’t feds. They’re cowboys,” Rebstock said.
The lock clicked open. Just as it did, a furious barking broke out in the yard. Something slammed against the inside of the gate, making the whole fence rattle.
“So much for getting him by surprise,” Rebstock said. He pointed to the female officer. “Open the gate a crack and see what we got.”
The policewoman’s eyes went wide, but she followed orders. She opened the gate just enough to see a huge Doberman, then slammed it back shut. Actually, Alexa couldn’t tell if she slammed it or the giant dog pushed it closed.
“Time is of the essence, ladies and gentlemen,” Rebstock said. “No time to call the animal control unit.”
