A Dream of Death (12 page)

Tearing apart Saunders’s home had taken us the entirety of
the day well into the evening. The house was still under guard, but it appeared
we had everything we could gather: the disgusting frozen trophies, the
journals, internet printouts on how to commit the perfect crime, and a
bloodstained t-shirt with a small tear in the left sleeve, a tear caused by one
of the rounds fired by Kara.

More than enough.

Our sights were now set on bringing Saunders in—dead or
alive. I had experienced firsthand that he would not go down without a fight,
and I expected that whoever found him would face the same result. Saunders
alone would be the one to decide how he faced justice—in a court before a jury
of his peers or in a body bag. With a number of stitches in my side and a
bruise across Kara’s neck, our anger got the better of both of us.

We wanted him dead.

We left the house just before ten that night. Kara and I
checked out with the officer guarding the front of the scene and were just
about to get into the car when a man screaming broke the silence. The sound
seemed to come from the house beside Saunders’s and Kara and I took off at a
run.

The door was locked, but the screaming continued. I pushed
Kara aside and was about to kick the door down when she yelled at me to stop.

My stitches.

I had forgotten. The officer guarding Saunders’s house came
running, and with a single kick the door swung open. He returned to his post
and Kara and I entered the house, guns drawn.

I heard sobs coming from upstairs and made my way up slowly
but deliberately. I knew what I would find but I refused to think it. I reached
the landing at the top of the stairs and smelled a faint but familiar odour. A
few more steps and I could see into the master bedroom, to a man crying over
the body of a woman propped up in her bed.

Shit.

I holstered my gun and heard Kara’s click into place as
well.

“Police,” I said, and the man turned around. His eyes met
mine and he dropped to the floor, head in hands. I walked up to the woman and
gently touched her cold skin. She was long dead. There was nothing to be done.
I turned back to the man to speak to him, but what I saw next brought me to my
knees beside him.

Another message, this one written on the wall beside the
door I had just come through.

“You should have killed me when you had the chance. Now
I’m not the only one with blood on my hands.”

A tube of lipstick sat on the dresser below the message, the
end ground down to a nub. The handwriting was exactly the same. It was him.
Nausea ran through me.

This woman’s death was my fault. I should have shot him.

Why didn’t I?

Kat’s voice played through my head,
“You’ll
be just like him.”
And at that moment, I hated her.

I fought for composure, stood up and looked
at the body. So much was different. Her neck was intact—bruising in the shape
of hands stood out against her pale skin. She was still dressed—a pair of yoga
pants and a loose-fitting t-shirt. And with her neck intact there was no knife
on the bedside table.

He knew we were on to him, he had no reason
to try to cover his crime, to get rid of the evidence.

I had to leave. I couldn’t look at the
facts clinically, couldn’t be in there, couldn’t… The guilt was rising and it
filled me with despair. This poor broken man was a widower now because of me.

“I’m going to go out, notify London,” I
managed to say. “This is their jurisdiction, their case.” Great, he’d kept it
simple for us by keeping his crimes in OPP territory. Now with this one in
London we’d be looking at a multi-jurisdictional task force.

Kara nodded and continued to console the
husband, who couldn’t stop crying.

I made my way back down the stairs, seeing
things I hadn’t noticed on my way up. There were family photos everywhere—a
man, a woman, a son and a daughter. The pictures at the top of the stairs were
the new ones, photos of the couple on a cruise ship, at both their children’s
graduations, at their daughter’s wedding. As I walked down the stairs I stepped
backwards in time—a teenaged boy with pimples standing beside his father, a
large fish hanging from his hand; a young girl with braces relaxing at the
beach. Each step brought more guilt, more pain.And then I saw it.

It was a picture of Link and Kasia standing
on either side of Mickey Mouse, Cinderella’s Castle a majestic backdrop. Link
was flanked by Kat and I stood beside Kasia, my hand on her shoulder. I started
to cry and, as the tears ran down my face, the photo began to drip away. The
picture of my family disappeared and the dead woman, her husband and kids
stared back at me, Mickey in the middle and the castle behind them.

I ran out the door and vomited on a rose
bush. The officer at Saunders’s house came to my side and asked me if I was all
right.

I wiped my mouth with my sleeve and dried
my eyes with my hand. “He killed his neighbour, too.”

“Fuck. I’ll call it in, Detective.”

“Thanks.”

I sat down on the step and barely moved
until the cavalry arrived. The only movement I made was to put my hand on my
pistol as my guilt drove me toward the breaking point.

With a single shot I could redeem myself.

* * *

I was still lost in thought in the
passenger seat of our car when Kara opened the door. I looked at my watch—it
had been nearly two hours since I left the house.

“Link?”

I turned and looked at Kara with red-rimmed
eyes.

“Are you okay?”

I couldn’t speak, I just nodded.

“I was a little worried about you when you
never came back in but I figured you were out dealing with London Police.”

“She’s dead because of me.”

Kara opened her mouth to talk but I didn’t
give her a chance.

“Don’t argue it, you know it’s true. I had
a clean shot and I didn’t take it. She should still be alive right now.” I
didn’t want to know, but a part of me had to. “What’s her name?”

“Sarah Heiser.”

I nodded for her to go on.

“Fifty-two years old. Husband is Steve,
forty-nine. And their kids, Rachel, twenty-five, and Daniel, twenty-three. The
kids are both living out of town now. Steve left two nights ago for a fishing
trip and just got back in tonight to find her dead.”

I started to cry again. Maybe I should have
left her nameless and never known about her but I needed to, I needed to know
what I had done.

What I had allowed to happen.

I saw her clearly in my mind, an attractive
older woman, slender and tall, with long brown hair. Her face grew younger and
I saw Kat staring back at me. It was too much.

“I need to go home,” I said.

“Okay. I’ll be a few minutes getting things
in order. Just wait here.”

She left me, and I was alone again.

It was nearly two by the time I made it home. The kids were
sound asleep, but I had to see them. Kasia was lying across her bed with the
covers completely off of her and I managed to smile at the sight. I picked her
up, placed her back into bed properly and covered her without her waking up. A
kiss on her forehead and it was time to see Link. He was lying on his side on
the far side of the bed and facing the wall. I tried to maneuver to see his
face but I couldn’t find a position that wouldn’t wake him up. I wanted to roll
him over but he didn’t sleep as soundly as Kasia. I had no choice but to give
up.

Kat and I hadn’t spoken of our fight; we tried to make it
like it hadn’t existed when I called her earlier from Saunders’s house. The
tension in her voice told me that a lot was being left unsaid.

But now I needed someone to talk to. I walked into our room
and to her side of the bed and gently shook her awake.

“Link? What time is it?”

“Almost two. I need to talk to you.”

“Everything’s fine. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“Not about that.”

She pulled the covers off of her—she always kept them up to
her chin—and I saw hand-shaped bruises around her neck. I turned away and
couldn’t look at her.

“What’s wrong?”

“He killed again, Kat. Another woman is dead.”

“It’s okay, you’ll get him soon.”

I started to cry. “It’s not okay. It’s not even close to
okay. She’s dead because of me.”

“Oh, Lincoln, don’t say that.”

“I should have killed him, Kat. I should have fucking killed
him. Why did you have to tell me not to? All I could hear was your voice when I
had my gun on him.”

I could tell she was processing it. Did she still think she
was right? Did she have any regrets? Where was her God now?

“You’re not responsible for what he does. It’s not your
fault.”

“I’m responsible for what I do, and I didn’t stop him when I
could have. She had two kids, older now, but as far apart as Kasia and Link.
There was a picture in the house, the family at Disney standing with Mickey.
When I saw it, it was our picture, it was us standing there.”

Kat was crying now, our tears falling onto the sheets and
mixing in one stain.

“And then I saw her, clear as day in my mind, and next thing
I knew it was you I was seeing. And now…”

I still couldn’t look at her. I tried again, turning my head
slightly until I could see her neck in my peripheral vision. The bruises were
still there. “And now when I look at you, there are bruises on your neck, hand
prints just like on hers.”

She wrapped her arms around me and held me tight against her
chest, my head resting on her shoulder.

“Kat, if there’s a next time, I’m not going to hesitate.”

She squeezed me tighter and I knew she still disagreed.

* * *

I woke up a few hours later and left the house—Kara and I
had decided to meet early to get started on the case. We were researching
anywhere Saunders might have gone to lay low: family, friends, and coworkers,
anywhere a person might be able to hide. I had to focus on getting him, it was
the only thing keeping me from collapsing.

Our first step though was to go back to his house to search
for address books, e-mail contacts, anything else that could point us in the
right direction. After meeting at the office we took a car from the garage and
made our exit, Kara driving for one of the first times. It wasn’t a chauvinistic
thing by any means, I just made a horrible passenger. So many years of driving
had made me unable to sit still in a passenger seat, and I would often get
nauseous. But since I’d been stabbed, Kara refused to allow me to drive—my
range of movement was limited by the desire not to tear my stitches out.

We found nothing at the house to help us. There were some
family contacts out of town that prompted messages to police services in those
areas. They would send officers to check the residences for us, getting back to
us as soon as possible. But the entries for family were faded and no fresh
entries had been written in. Saunders appeared to be a recluse with no close
family or friends to speak of. His self-professed destiny had consumed him.

The fact that there had been nothing on the system for
Saunders since his wife’s suicide in two-thousand baffled me. How could someone
like him stay under the radar? I called Millhaven Penitentiary and told them
who I was, what I was investigating and the urgency of the matter. Five minutes
later I was on the phone with Michael, Saunders’s son.

“You the cop after my dad?”

“You know?”

“Yeah, we still get the news in here. Have you got him yet?”

“Not yet. I’m hoping you can help. We need to know where he
might have gone.”

Michael laughed. “All too fucking happy to help. The guy’s a
piece of shit. I always knew it. Three weeks after my mom died, he decided he
was going to see his brother in the States, never came back. I was seventeen
and on my own.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t bother. I’ve had enough of cops and sympathy. You
guys just use it get what you want and then you throw us back in a fucking
cell.”

“Still.”

“Aw, hell, it was my own damned fault. I got a chunk of my
mom’s insurance money. Had to find a place to live after the bank took the
house. I somehow managed to finish high school. Tried to go to college but I
couldn’t cope, started drinking heavily. I found a shitty job and held that for
the last eight years until I got drunk at a work party and wound up doing some
stupid shit that put me in here.”

“Look, Michael, I really am sorry for you all right? You
seriously got the short end of the stick.”

“Yeah,” he paused. “Well… thanks… I guess. Look, he lived at
his brother’s until about a year ago, when he came back to London. I didn’t
have much contact with him, a phone call here and there, a Christmas or
birthday present when he’d remember or when he wasn’t locked up in a psych
ward.”

“Psych ward?”

“Yeah, he fucking lost it. About three months after he left
me. He was in and out for a while. I heard he did some time down there too, an
assault and a DUI or something.”

“Where does your uncle live?”

“Missouri, umm, I think he’s in Pleasant Hill still.”

“Thanks, Michael.”

“Hey, Detective?”

“Yeah.”

“He came up a few months ago to visit me, was rambling about
how he was going to make everything better. Said he was going to make it so my
mom didn’t die in vain. It didn’t make sense so I cut the visit short.”

“Okay,” I said.

“I didn’t know what he was talking about until I saw the
news. So catch the fucker, I don’t even care if you kill him.”

Even his son agreed with me. I thanked Michael again and
hung up the phone.

Kara and I left Saunders’s just after noon. Our stomachs
were drowning out the car radio, prompting me to suggest we get a bite to eat.
We drove down Commissioners Road to Wharncliffe Road and turned north, stopping
just after the next set of lights. I had frequented this place during my patrol
days, taking any opportunity I could to venture into London for the best
shawarmas in the area. I had introduced Kara to them after she was transferred
to homicide and thereby started her love affair with the garlic laden food.
Perhaps a part of me was trying to prevent another amorous moment, a moment my
guilt-ridden heart could not handle right now. Garlic breath would do the
trick.

We ate in near silence, not because we had little to discuss
but that we had too much. A crowded place was suited neither to discussing a
high profile investigation or a marital indiscretion. The flavourful food was a
boon to us both, settling our stomachs and providing us the energy we would
need for what would be another long day at the office. Lettuce, tomatoes,
pickles, onions, pickled cabbage and turnip, tahini sauce, hummus and garlic
sauce wrapped in a pita loaded with chicken. It was messy food but well worth
the risk of dropping sauce on a clean suit. Alone in the cruiser I would wear a
napkin as a bib, but I refrained today to prevent myself from being embarrassed
in front of…

What was she now? She was more than my partner, my coworker
but still somewhat less than a lover, a mistress, a girlfriend. It may have
been semantics but there appeared to be no word for the limbo we found
ourselves in.

We finished our meals and spent ample time enjoying each
other’s company in silence and imagined solitude, the other diners invisible,
before we left the restaurant.

Kara saw it first as we walked to the car: an older model
black Chevy Blazer with a single occupant who looked a lot like our suspect.
She yelled and pointed and we moved. Within seconds we were in the car, Kara
driving yet again and me trying to hide the blood that was seeping through my
shirt—I had torn my stitches running to the car.

Damn.

Kara took off after the vehicle, nearly causing multiple
accidents as she crossed traffic and headed south. My radio was in my hand and
I was relaying the directions and details to dispatch, who were notifying
London Police.

Kara caught up to the vehicle after it turned right onto
Commissioners Road heading west through the city. I could just make out the
plate, squinting hard to see it.

“Bravo-Juliet-Sierra-Tango-three-four-eight,” I stated into
the radio. Not the right plate. Dispatch provided me with the registered
owner’s details including a nearby address. The plates were registered to the
same make, model, colour and year as Saunders’s vehicle. He could have easily
stolen the plates, switching his own for someone else’s.

“Get someone to the registered owner’s address—with lights
and sirens—and see if he’s got Saunders’s plates on his car.” Not that we were
going to give up the chase. I knew it was Saunders driving and Kara did too.

And he knew we were behind him. At the last second he veered
left across oncoming traffic and ducked into a side street.

Kara followed him as best she could, but we didn’t have
lights or sirens, so traffic was slow to get out of our way. In fact, we were
in violation of every policy the service had regarding pursuits—with one key
exception. Exigent circumstances. Saunders had to be caught, and that need
outweighed the risk to the public caused by a pursuit in an unmarked car.

The chase took us down various side streets, with Kara
slowly gaining on Saunders. We may not have had lights and sirens but Saunders
had an SUV—high center of gravity, lousy handling and weak brakes. As we pulled
closer he kept taking more and more risks until he spun out on a tight corner
and slammed hard into a parked car.

He was out and running before the collision was over and I
was out before Kara came to a stop. I threw her the radio and told her to call
it in.

Saunders was running like a desperate man, but I had
desperation on my side, too. The chase took us through front yards, over fences
into backyards, through gardens and over more fences. I ran on pure adrenaline,
keeping pace with him at every turn but not gaining ground.

As the pursuit went on I could see Saunders starting to lose
steam, slowing down, and I began to gain on him despite the warm, sticky
wetness that pressed my shirt against my side.

Saunders hopped over a low chain-link fence then ran down
the side of a house.

I followed close behind him losing sight of him for just a
moment as he rounded the front of the building.

The corner was right in front of me when I was caught off
guard by a garbage can that came flying out from behind the wall, knocking me
over and bringing me down hard. My ankle twisted as I fell and the telltale
crack of bone breaking filled my ears.

The pain hadn’t started yet. I saw Saunders running across
the street, ready to run between the next row of houses and out of my sight.

I rolled onto my back, drew my firearm from my holster and
held it in both hands, my feet facing toward Saunders, my head up and my gun
pointing between my bent knees. As soon as I had my sights lined up I yelled,
“Saunders, stop or I’ll shoot.”

Clichéd, yet true. He did as directed and turned to face me,
hands above his head. I saw his eyes between my sights as he stared me down.

“You won’t,” he said. “I’m unarmed.”

“Doesn’t matter, you’re a murderer. You need to be stopped.”

“Then go ahead.” His gaze flickered and I knew he was ready
to chance it, to call my bluff.

“Don’t—”

But it was too late. Saunders spun and began to run again.

I squeezed off a shot. Then another. Then I kept firing
until he finally fell.

I stayed on the ground—the pain was starting to radiate up
from my ankle, growing worse by the moment—and held my gun in my right hand,
ready to fire again if I needed to. With my left hand I removed my cell phone
and called it in, connecting with London Police dispatch. I gave them my
location, as best as I could guess after the chase.

“Shots fired, the suspect is down. I need ambulances here
now. I’m fine, but my ankle is broken.”

I had heard sirens as I chased Saunders and now that they
knew where we were they were closing in. Kara was first to arrive. She got out
of the car and ran toward me.

I waved her off. “Cover off on him until someone else gets
here. I’m not much use here.”

Kara did as I asked, getting within fifteen feet of Saunders
and drawing her gun on him, ready to shoot again if he presented a threat. He
hadn’t moved since he went down. He was either dead, unconscious or a very good
actor.

Kara put her gun away within seconds of drawing it. I knew
what that meant.

Saunders was dead. Visibly and obviously.

My gun went back into my holster and I strained to get up,
putting as little weight as possible on my ankle. Even the slightest pressure
brought unimaginable pain. I leaned against a tree in the front yard and
waited, my left leg in the air, my foot hanging at an unnatural angle.