Jericho's Razor Read online

  The sky lit up with swirling lights from the crime scene van and a score of police cars. Jagger’s face was illuminated in the flashing light.

  “Do it faster,” I told her.

  The feds kicked us all out of the park, saying that they were taking control of the crime scene. Torrez had to be restrained from attacking them, an act that raised my opinion of him. But the frustration was taking its toll. I could see both Torrez and Jagger begin to lose control as the bodies continued to fall and the leads continue to dwindle.

  Three days. That was how long the city had before another one of its citizens was struck down. In my head, I could hear a ticking clock, winding down until the next time I was called to look at a body.

  I pulled into the garage and walked to the spot where Sean Booker had been killed. The area was freshly scrubbed, washed, and painted. The only hint that anything had happened was the lingering antibacterial odor of whatever chemical they used to mask the smell.

  Why had Eli done it the way he did? Why kidnap Booker, take him here, recreate one of Christian’s more gruesome acts, and videotape it? I thought about the message Eli left for me.

  After all these years, payback has finally come looking for you.

  If Eli wanted revenge, he could have just come upstairs, knocked on the door, and shot me when I answered. Instead, he killed a random drug dealer, sent me a video, went into hiding and released a manifesto. None of it made any sense.

  “What the hell are you trying to prove, Eli?”

  Of course, my brother may have decided to take up the family business by exterminating the people he saw as a blight on a God-fearing society. Booker and Watts certainly fit the profile. Our parents would have approved of their deaths. But Jason Rourke was a Boy Scout. He even regularly attended church. His death didn’t fit the pattern, which made me wonder what piece of the puzzle I was missing.

  I thought about what it must take for a person to engage in the kind of savagery we had seen. Shooting somebody was one thing, but strapping a human being to a chair and cutting off his head, or hanging them from a tree and gutting them, letting their insides fall at your feet, was a whole other level of psychotic.

  The person committing these acts, if it was Eli, was out for more than revenge. They were doing it because they enjoyed it.

  From the Peoria Examiner:

  Funeral services are scheduled for Friday for Peoria police officer Jason Allen Rourke, 25, of Peoria, Illinois. Rourke was a three-year veteran of the Peoria police department with previous awards for marksmanship and bravery.

  Officer Rourke leaves behind his parents, Ken and Kathy, and his widow, Alexis, who is seven months pregnant with a baby boy.

  Officer Rourke is believed to be the third victim of the killer calling himself the River City Slasher.’ Although details of the murder are being closely guarded by the FBI, Peoria Police Department Senior Detective Edward Torrez said that he believes the Slasher to be Elijah Sandborn, brother of local author Jericho Sands, and is guilty of taking Rourke’s life. “It’s him,” Torrez said. “It is definitely him. And when we find him, we’re going to string him up by his [expletive].”

  Day two of the countdown. After reading Rourke’s obituary online, I sat in my office staring at a blank screen, smelling the three-hour-old coffee burning in the kitchen, contemplating a career change. Writing was my escape, a way to bury my past. But Torrez had been right when he first met me inside the interrogation room: I banked on my past. My infamy was my meal ticket. I changed my name, but only just enough to satisfy the desire not to carry the same exact one as Peter. Staring at a blinking cursor, wondering if I would ever again be able to crawl into a computer screen and hide, I considered the possibility that this had somehow been inevitable. I rose to fame while Eli did stints in jail. I reaped all the benefits of being notorious while he lived life like a stray dog under an overpass. No wonder he was pissed.

  My phone rang. I grabbed it, hoping it was my brother, determined to get him to meet so I could knock some sense into him, even if it required a sledgehammer. But the caller ID showed the phone number for the Blue Note.

  “You got a package delivered to you down here,” Tanner said. His voice was tight and clipped. Anxious. “You should come down.”

  “Okay. I’ll be right over.”

  I parked the bike nearby and walked the rest of the way, hurrying into the wind. Temperatures had dropped thirty degrees, and the air was thick with the bite of winter. I could smell the river, low for this time of year, muddy and churning up dead fish starved for oxygen.

  Tanner was behind the bar. He motioned me back to the office. A plain brown shipping package the size of a shoebox sat on the desk.

  “Return address is a dead end. I checked it out. It’s to a Walmart in Decatur.”

  I looked at the box like it would blow up. Tanner read my mind.

  “It’s not an explosive. The guy who delivered it was talking on his cell phone when he walked in. Between that, and all the other signals we got running through here, any kind of explosive device would have detonated. Besides, it’s way too light.”

  “Could be a body part.”

  “I considered that. But none of the victims had any that were unaccounted for.”

  “None that we know about yet, anyway. Could be a body with no hand lying around waiting for us to find.”

  “Always the optimist,” Tanner said. “Besides, if it was a body part, it would be’ hard to imagine us not smelling it.”

  I took out my knife and carefully cut the packaging tape. Tanner was right behind me, purely out of habit, giving me backup. Once opened, we looked inside. It was minutes before either of us spoke. Tanner finally broke the silence.

  “You better call those detectives down here.”

  I made the call and waited ten minutes to see Torrez’s car. They came in wearing the same clothes as the night before, carrying cups of coffee Gus walked them back to the office, and I showed them the box.

  “I expect this from him,” Torrez said, looking at Gus but pointing at me. “But you should know better than to open it. What the fuck were you thinking?”

  “I’m not interested in your lectures, Detective. I’ve been retired for five years and still have twice as much time on the job as you, so don’t treat me like an idiot.”

  The box was still sitting open on the desk. Torrez and Jagger both took pictures. Ironic, since pictures were what was in the box. Over a dozen of them, all cataloging the three recent murders in various stages. Sean Booker looking toward the camera, mouth open in a silent scream that I could almost hear. Eric Watts with a surprised look on his face, head turned over his shoulder. Officer Jason Rourke. The River City Slasher was doing more than just killing people and holding the city in a grip of terror. He was keeping a scrapbook.

  There were pictures of me as well. Walking down Main Street. Sitting behind the desk at Barnes & Noble during the book signing. I thought about Eli’s words.‘ I was closer than you think.’

  On the back of the last picture was a message.

  ‘I’m coming, Jericho!’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Plainclothes officers trailed me like a shadow. I took Doomsday for a walk, they followed. I went for a drink at the Blue Note, they followed. When I went nowhere they sat outside my building, paranoid and obvious. Nobody mistook their attentiveness for concern for my well-being. I was bait, a lure for a predator they could not catch on their own. They waited because they knew that Eli would eventually surface, and I was the only announced target. He would make an attempt sooner or later. The problem was that if he kept to the schedule, somebody else still had to die. It was a disturbing admission that the police had nothing better to go on. My brother was operating like a phantom. He was the one person everybody in the county was looking for, and nobody could find him.

  Preston Masters held a press conference. Standing on the courthouse steps, he announced that the FBI would be assisting in the manhunt for the killer kno
wn as the River City Slasher. Preston introduced two agents from the Chicago field office, citing their impressive track records, painting them as skilled investigators who ate serial killers for breakfast. The move was meant to inspire confidence. But all it did was emphasize futility.

  By the third day, everybody waited to see who would be the next to die.

  I watched SportsCenter over a cup of coffee at the Blue Note. Behind the bar was a brand-new TV that showed highlights from the Bears game.

  Gus came over and filled my coffee.

  “I like the new TV,” I said.

  “Thanks. Try not to smash it.”

  “No promises. How much do I owe you for it?”

  Gus waved a hand. “I have insurance.”

  “True. But that’s not the point.”

  “It’s on the damages tab. Just relax. You look like you brewed your coffee with Red Bull.”

  He was right. I sipped my coffee, thinking about going outside for a cigarette, feeling jittery. It was seven PM on the third day. Somewhere, Eli was killing his next victim. Or he already had, and he was preparing to call and tell me where to find the body. I wondered who it would be and what method Eli would use.

  “Is this what being a cop was like?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Waiting. Knowing that something bad is going to happen, but having no idea what or where. Waiting to respond to it when it does.”

  “I would like to think that I was more proactive than that when I was on the force. But I know what you mean. The waiting always sucked.”

  My phone, sitting on top of the bar, rang. Gus and I both looked at it. Calls to my phone had become synonymous with death. Especially so every three days. I was almost missing telemarketers.

  “Hello?”

  “Jericho Sands?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s Pastor Albert Grimes! I’m here with the killer!”

  I turned and saw a man across the room I recognized as one of the cops keeping an eye on me. He spoke on a cell phone with his head down and titled to the side, trying very hard to hide the fact that he was not watching. He may as well have just walked up and introduced himself.

  “Did you hear me?” Grimes shouted. “I said I am here with the killer!” His words were frantic. They came out in long streams powered by terror. “You have to come here alone or he’ll kill me! He says if he sees any cops or helicopters or people in the woods or anything at all besides your truck he will kill me! He has a knife, a great big knife, and he says he will slice me open with it and gut me like a fish if you don’t come right now!”

  “Slow down,” I told him, realizing the futility of my advice. Grimes was hostage to a killer who had a weapon to his throat. The only reason he was still breathing was because his role had not yet played out.

  “Where are you?” I asked.

  “An area close to my church. It’s a big park we use for gatherings and picnics. There is a big cross. Twenty foot tall and surrounded by floodlights. It looks like a beacon, you can’t miss it. You’ll come, won’t you? I have a family a wife and a teenage daughter and a baby boy named Daniel and they all need me!”

  The cop’s antenna was up. He walked toward me while speaking into his phone, probably telling the person on the other end that something was happening. I had about ten seconds before he was in earshot.

  “Okay. Tell my brother I’m coming. Alone.”

  I disconnected the call but kept the phone to my ear. I turned my back to the cop and started shouting.

  “I’m glad you’re sorry, Katrina! I’m glad you’re sorry that you ripped my fucking heart out … No, I don’t care if you are drunk and feeling nostalgic, I am not coming over.” I hung up and turned around, bumping into the cop who was now just behind me.

  “Sorry about that man.” I motioned toward the phone. “Ex-girlfriends.”

  “Yeah. I hear you.”

  The cop ordered a beer from Gus and went back to his table. When my shadow was settled in and focused away from me, I slid my keys across the bar.

  “I need a favor.”

  “I can’t wait to hear it.”

  Grimes said that Eli would be looking for the headlights to my truck. Hopefully he would not be too stringent on that detail, since my truck was speeding down Interstate 74 in the opposite direction. Gus hated the idea, but he eventually agreed to it, provided I call Jagger and Torrez the moment I reached the field. I called Jagger first. Her voice would be more pleasing to listen to while she yelled at me.

  “You’re where?”

  I told her again. The park had a cobblestone walkway that disappeared over a rise. I stayed in the truck and followed it, driving on the wet grass with the high beams on, thankful that Gus had four-wheel drive.

  “But I just got a text message saying that your truck ...” Jagger paused while she put it together. “You son of a bitch. Do not leave that vehicle. Do not engage your brother. Do not fucking move until we get there. Is that clear?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “You’re getting out of the vehicle right now, aren’t you?”

  “Not just yet.”

  “I am arresting you the second I get there, Sands!”

  I hung up and drove across the field to a wide-open area. There were soccer goals and picnic tables. Fire pits for grilling burgers and lighting bonfires. I could picture Grimes and his congregation huddled together at sunset, roasting marshmallows and singing hymns.

  In the center of the field was the cross. Mounted on the cross was Pastor Albert Grimes. In the high beams I saw his wide-eyed look as I approached, could see his mouth moving, screaming words that I was still too far away to hear. I drove right up to him and jumped out.

  “Stop! Stop! Stop!”

  I didn’t realize what he saying until it was too late. Just as I began to turn, I was hit hard from behind. My last thought, as I landed on the wet grass at the feet of a martyred pastor, was that I had to stop falling for traps from my own books.

  The field was a haze of shadow and fog. Albert Grimes was nailed to the cross. Beside him, on a black throne framed with thorns, sat my father, Peter Sandborn, a demon risen from whatever corner of Hell I sent him to. I sat up.

  “Hello, Jericho.”

  “Hiya, Pop.”

  I reached back and felt a gash on the back of my head. It was sticky and warm. Blood matted my hair. But there was no pain.

  “That’s a hell of a wound you have there.”

  “I guess it is. And I guess since it doesn’t hurt, and I am talking to a ghost, that I’m dead.”

  Peter grinned.

  “Concepts are dangerous things for you, Jericho. They always were. You cling tight to your misconceptions like a philistine to a bag of silver.”

  “Uh-huh. As usual, I have no idea what you’re fucking talking about. But I’m sure that it’s nuts.”

  “You never listened. You could never see. Mirrors terrify you, because you fear what lies within. That’s why you’re so proficient at constructing false realities. You have been doing it forever.”

  “Is this my Hell, having to listen to your bullshit for eternity?”

  “We create our own Hell, Jericho.”

  “How truly profound. Somewhere down here Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison are having a jam session, and I am stuck with you.”

  “Sarcasm. Vanity. Sins for which so many men have fallen.”

  “Vanity? That would hardly fit, seeing as how you just acknowledged that I can’t look in a mirror.”

  “There are several forms of vanity, Jericho. You excel at many of them.”

  “Awesome. I’m being lectured about morality by a homicidal lunatic with a messiah complex.”

  Peter leaned forward.

  “Why is Eli here? What does he want?”

  “Revenge.”

  “Revenge? Really? Eli was a better hunter by the time he was fourteen than many men ever grow to be. Certainly better that you. Why all the misdirection? What is he rea
lly trying to tell you?”

  It was a question I had been asking myself since I learned he was in town. I still had no answer.

  My head was beginning to hurt. A lot. Not dead, I thought. Not yet, anyway.

  “If Eli wants you dead, why are you still alive?”

  “I don’t know. Ask me again in three days.”

  I woke from the dream. A helicopter hovered over the park, shining a spotlight on the cross. Torrez and Jagger crouched beside me, pushing aside an EMT. They waited a respectable five seconds after I regained consciousness to yell at me.

  “What the hell happened?”

  The medic tried to hold them back, but quickly reconsidered after Torrez threatened to rip his arms off and beat him with them. I told them about the phone call. About coming to the park and finding Grimes alive. About being hit on the head. I left out the conversation with Peter. No reason to make them think I was crazier than they already did.

  “In your books, this is where the cop would make some lameass joke about once again finding you by a corpse,” Torrez said. “Am I right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I can’t think of a joke. But the next time this happens, the corpse will be you.”

  “You’re a ray of sunshine as always, Torrez.”

  “You want sunshine? Well here it is, hotshot. Your last three days on earth starts right now.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  My head took seven stitches. The doctor told me to take extra-strength Tylenol and avoid being hit in the head. Ten minutes later, Jagger slapped me in the head and said if I pulled another stunt like that she would kill me herself.

  The first day of my three-day countdown fizzled down like a fuse. I felt crushed under the weight of the constant presence of the police, who watched me like a ticking time bomb. Unable to sit around and wait, I jumped on my bike and hit the interstate, pushing the Triumph past 110 miles per hour. The unmarked police car did it’s best to keep me in sight, but wasn’t as willing to weave through traffic as I was. After an hour, a helicopter appeared on the horizon and followed me from a half mile up.