Barry Friedman - Dead End (20 page)

Marino exploded. “You mean get out of town?
That’s impossible. I’ve got elective surgical cases scheduled through the end
of July. There are office appointments—you know how long a patient has to wait
for an appointment in my office? Two months! I can’t just wave goodbye to these
patients.”

Kim Marino said, “What about Ed Lathrop? Can’t he
take care of your patients? That’s what you’ve got a partner for, isn’t it?”

Marino brushed the question off with the back of
his hand. “Ed’s as booked up as I am. Look, leaving town is out of the
question. Let’s not even discuss it. Sheriff, if we assume for the moment that
Rankins is the killer, is my family in any danger?”

Vandergrift said, “Honestly, I can’t answer. All
I can tell you is that so far the murderer has only gone after men, the ones I
told you about, with one exception. That was a woman who was with Abelson. From
the evidence we have, we think she was killed because she was in the way.”

“What makes you think that?”

Vandergrift was not about to tell him about the
victims’ signature wounds, nor the fact that Frances Salter, Abelson’s
paramour, was shot through the head rather than through the spine. She simply
said, “I can’t go into any more detail at the moment.”

Marino persisted. “You mean there are some things
you haven’t told us?”

She nodded. “We’ve spent a lot of time on this
investigation. We’ve gathered a lot of information. Some of it can’t be
revealed because if—when we catch the person responsible, we want an airtight
case. We don’t want anyone slipping through on a legal technicality.”

The turn in the conversation seemed to have an
effect on Marino. He chewed his lower lip for a few seconds. He turned to his
wife. “Kim, why don’t you take the kids to Evansville and spend a week with Bud
and Helen?”

Kim Marino shook her head vigorously. “I’m not
going to run off to my sister’s and leave you here. If you come along, fine.
Either we all go or none of us.”

“Kim, it’s just not possible for me to leave now.
But that’s no reason for you and the kids to be sitting ducks for some nut.”

Vandergrift could see that the Marinos were not
going to leave town. “Well, if you won’t leave, I want you to know that we plan
to give you protection and keep you and your family under close surveillance.”

Kim said, “For how long?”

Vandergrift shrugged, “As long as it takes.”

She was not unhappy with their decision. It was
their choice, but Marino was going to be bait for their trap.

Maharos’ eyes were glued to the 12-inch screen of
the TV set on the corner of his breakfast table, while he spooned cereal from
his plate. A school bus was pictured, lying on its side. Bodies were strewn on
the ground, some covered by shirts or other articles of clothing. The camera
shifted to a smashed car, wheels in the air like the legs of a dead horse.

“Eight deaths have been confirmed. Another
twelve, critically injured, have been taken to three hospitals in the
Akron-Canton-Youngstown area. The accident occurred shortly after ten last
night at the intersection of State Route 224 and County Highway 14, between
Rootstown and New Baltimore.”

The announcer told how the bus, filled with
parishioners of the First Baptist Church of Barberton were returning from a
holiday outing, when it was involved in a collision with a car containing six
teen-aged boys and girls, all from the Youngstown area, at the intersection.
The cause of the accident had not been established. The toll of dead was
expected to rise.

Maharos shook his head slowly. This was close to
home. He wondered how many of the dead and injured he knew. He wiped his mouth
and carried the dishes to the sink.

“Meanwhile, the world is anxiously watching the
events as they unfold in the Mediterranean, where British.Air.Flight 304 has
been taken over by an unknown number of terrorists.”

He glanced to the screen while he rinsed the
dishes.

“After briefly touching down at airports in
Messina and Cyprus, where requests for refueling were denied, the 747 with 328
passengers and crew aboard, has just landed in Libya”

What a world, he thought. He shrugged into his
holster and suit jacket. At the mirror in the front hall he adjusted his tie
and hat. What a world. Not ten miles away, they were stuffing bodies into bags.
Halfway around the world, no one knew what was about to happen. One thing was
fairly certain: some people were going to be hurt or killed. In that
perspective, his problem was little more than a twinkle of a star in the
galaxy. In ten years, only those directly connected to any of today’s events
would remember. In twenty years, no one would remember.

The first thing Maharos saw as he walked into the
squad room Monday morning, was this guy sitting at his desk. Cleaning his nails
with a straightened paper clip. Medium height, stocky, balding brown hair,
wearing a blue suit, looked about thirty-five. A plastic ID clipped to his coat
pocket.

“You Maharos?” He raised his eyes without moving
his head.

“Yeah.”

Kept picking at his nails with the paper clip.
“Ike Show.” He pronounced it like it rhymed with “ow”, as in shower. “McCormack
said you need help.”

Show. Maharos recalled the name but hadn’t met
him before. He had recently transferred from the Cincinnati P.D. and had been
assigned to Vice. He vaguely remembered Fiala telling him that there had been
complaints from the others in his unit about the new guy. Maharos had listened
with half an ear. Intradepartmental politics didn’t interest him.

Maharos gave him a cold fish look. “Mind if I use
my chair?”

Show got up slowly, tossed the paper clip at the
wastebasket and missed. Maharos kept looking at the paper clip lying on the
floor until Show slowly walked over, picked it up and flipped it into the
basket.

Maharos said, “McCormack fill you in?”

Show shrugged. “Some nut wanted for a bunch of
homicides.”

Maharos took the investigation file from his desk
drawer. It had gotten three inches thick. He slid it to the corner of his desk.
Show riffled through the pages like it was a deck of cards. “You expect me to
read all this shit?”

Maharos began to breathe heavily. One more word
and he was ready to jam his fist down the guy’s throat. He took his time and
looked out of the window. The sun was bright, the sky a deep blue—a glorious
July day. Finally, he said quietly, “I think you’d better read it.” He got up
and walked to the Mr. Coffee machine in the corner of the squad room. He needed
to get away from this prick more than he needed the coffee. He watched as Show
rapidly scanned the file, hardly pausing to read.

Carrying his coffee in a Styrofoam cup, Maharos
went down the corridor to Records. The girl at the computer was someone he
hadn’t seen before. She smiled pleasantly and told him Karen Hennessy was on
vacation. Best news he’d had so far that day. He asked her if her database
could bring up the medical labs in eastern Ohio. She punched a few keys, nodded
looking at the screen. “I can get that for you. Want it by category?”

“What categories have you got?”

“Blood analysis labs, pathology labs,
spectrographic analysis—whatever that is—.“

“Get me a list of the pathology labs.”

“Okay, but first let me bring up a zip code map,
and you tell me what area you want to limit the search to.”

Maharos decided to search the northeast Ohio
sector, since almost all of the homicides had occurred in that zone. He felt
that’s where they would probably find Rankins. Five minutes later, he walked
back to his desk with a printout sheet containing a list of thirty-five
pathology laboratories, most of which were in hospitals.

Show had finished looking at the file. He sat,
hands in trouser pockets, the chair tilted, teetering on its back legs. Maharos
had an urge to sweep the chair out from under him, but resisted. From the file,
he took a copy of Rankins’ mug shot. He handed it to Show along with the list
of pathology labs. “This is the guy we’re looking for. This is where I want you
to look.”

Show said, “Why don’t I just call the places on
the list.”

“Because he may be using an alias. I want you to
show the picture.”

“Want me to handle all these places?”

“Did McCormack send anyone else?”

“I’m the only one got stuck with this shit.”

Maharos said, “I’m trying to get someone else
assigned. Maybe from Patrol. You can share the list with the other person when
we get him. Meanwhile, start on the places around here. I’ll fax Rankins’ mug
shot and description to police agencies in all the cities on the list. Ask them
to send their people around to the labs in their area. We haven’t got much
time.”

Show’s eyebrows shot up. “Got a deadline?”

“If you’d read the sheet, you’d know that this
guy operates on a schedule.”

“What’d I miss?”

“Each of the homicides has occurred on the
seventh of the month. Today is July sixth.”

“No shit!”

“No shit.”

Lieutenant Ed Bragg walked in as Show was
leaving. He gestured for Maharos to follow him into his office. “Who was that?”

“One of McCormack’s men. A real wiseass.”

“Did he send just one?”

“Said that’s all he could spare. Jim Spencer said
he’d assign me someone from his unit.”

“Patrol?”

Maharos nodded. He outlined to Bragg his plan for
the investigation. Bragg nodded his approval. “I’m giving you Emerson and
Fiala. Could you use a couple of uniforms?”

Maharos said, “I can use as many bodies as I can
get. They can help with the check of the labs, see if we can locate this
Rankins.”

The phone on Bragg’s desk rang. He answered it
and looked at Maharos while he listened for a full minute. Finally, he said,
“He’ll be right there.”

After he hung up he said, “That was the chief. He
wants to talk to you.”

Sometime in the long distant past, Chief of
Police Bennett Atwell had taken a course in administration. The one thing he
learned was: delegate authority to people you can trust, and stay the hell out
of their way. His division captains and lieutenants were given laissez faire in
the day-to-day work of the department. Atwell’s job was to keep the peace with
the mayor’s office and city council, keep the press happy and see that the
budget wasn’t cut. He managed all three.

Lucinda Brown, Atwell’s secretary smiled at
Maharos when he walked into the only office in headquarters that was carpeted.
“Go right in.”

Atwell was seated at a desk that was so
uncluttered, it looked as though it had just been uncrated. In spite of his
apparent detachment from the rest of the force, he knew everything that went
on. Copies of daily reports went on his desk every morning and he read each
one. By ten A.M. Lucinda Brown had filed away each report—the written copy,
that is. The gist was filed in Atwell’s head. He ran one of the most efficient
departments in the state without ever raising his voice above normal level.

He riveted his dark eyes on Maharos. “I hear
you’re getting close.”

Maharos nodded, “I think so, Chief.”

“You haven’t much time. You expect him to act on
the seventh, right?”

“That’s his pattern.”

“Any idea on who’s next?”

Maharos reviewed what he and Vandergrift had
discussed, that Dr. Marino in Canton was the likely target.

“Canton is out of our jurisdiction. I know you’re
working with Stark County Sheriff’s Office. You want to stick with this case,
am I right?”

“I’ve got a lot of time on this one, Chief.”

“Okay. Just make sure they get warrants and
whatever papers are needed. Double-check their surveillance methods. Assume
nothing. Do I make myself clear? I know I’m not talking to some rookie, but I
want you to know for the record where I stand.”

Maharos’ smile was thin. Atwell did not hand out
compliments easily. “I appreciate your confidence.”

Atwell said. “I wouldn’t have anyone but you
handling this investigation, Al.”

The Chief glanced at his watch, Maharos got up
from his chair. Atwell gestured for him to remain seated. “Stick around. I’ve
called a press conference for ten. That’s twenty minutes from now.”

Maharos studied the chief’s face, his smooth
skin, the color of rich mahogany, his kinky gray-black hair. “Nobody told me.”

“I’m telling you. I want you to brief them on the
status of your investigation.”

“How far do you think I should go?”

“I’ll leave it to your judgment. It might be a
good way to get the word out on the man you’re looking for. Save some shoe
leather if the publicity turns him up.”

Maharos said, “They’re gonna want to know if
Rankins is a suspect.”

Atwell shrugged. “You can say he’s being sought
for questioning in connection with the series of homicides in this area.
Period.”

Maharos thought that explanation would not satisfy
the people like Shelly Ehrlich. The chief read his skepticism. “Of course
they’ll press you. Just repeat that he’s wanted for questioning.”

The phone buzzed. Atwell held the receiver to his
ear. “Tell them to wait another five minutes…How many are there?”

He replaced the receiver, looked at Maharos.
“There are only three, two print and one TV.”

Maharos was not surprised that there were no
more. “Did you see the news today?”

Atwell nodded. “The crash near Akron?”

“Yeah. That and the plane hijacking.”

“Guess there are more important things than a
serial murderer running loose.”

Maharos said, “Not to me right now.”