Inheritance: A Novel Part 45

He said, "Hey, Mike, what was that guy's name again? The boyfriend who beat her up?"

"Jimmy Schultz."

"Look over there," Paul said, and pointed at a man slipping between some scraggly shrubs across the street. "Is that him?"

Mike broke into a smile.

"Hey Jimmy!" Mike shouted.

The man never even looked back. He balled his fists, hopped once on one foot, then broke off into a dead sprint between the buildings.

Paul and Mike went after him. Paul left Mike behind almost immediately. There was a sagging wire fence at the end of the alley, still shaking from where Jimmy had just climbed it, and Paul hit it at a run. He was already throwing himself over the top as Mike entered the alley behind him.

Paul landed in a graveyard of old appliances. Everywhere he looked he saw rusted refrigerators and stoves and was.h.i.+ng machines and pile after pile of worthless junk. He scanned the darkness, aware of the sound of his own breathing, and listened.

He heard movement off to his right. Mike was climbing over the top of the fence behind him. Paul caught Mike's eye and pointed towards the noise.

Over there, his gesture said.

Mike nodded, then let himself drop to the ground in silence. The two of them pulled their guns and advanced on Jimmy.

Mike came up on him first. Paul saw Mike throw his back up against a refrigerator door and then shout, "Get down on the ground, Jimmy! Down!" Then, his voice suddenly s.h.i.+fting from commanding to scared s.h.i.+tless, Mike shouted, "Oh s.h.i.+t! Gun! Drop it, Jimmy. Drop it!"

There was a noise of somebody scrambling through the junk. Metal shelves and pipes and debris fell from their piles and clattered on the floor as Jimmy scrambled out from his hiding place and under the metal fence.

Paul ran forward.

Mike shouted, "Paul, no," but it was too late. Paul was already belly-crawling under the fence.

When Paul came up on the other side he was facing a vast expanse of undeveloped scrub land. Mesquite and oaks and cedar grew in wild effusion. Gra.s.ses and shrubs were neck high in the s.p.a.ces between the trees. Paul caught sight of their man slipping between a pair of gnarled oaks and he took off running for him.

He could hear Mike behind him telling him to stay back, but he didn't listen. Paul reached out with his mind and locked in on Jimmy. He could feel the man's fear. He could feel Jimmy's blood pounding inside his ears, the heart thudding madly in his chest. The man was terrified, and Paul was feeding off that terror. It was making him stronger, and as he tore through the trees and the tall gra.s.s he sensed something powerful gathering itself together inside him.

By the time they cleared the thickest part of the trees Paul was almost on the man. He turned and saw Paul behind him and let out a terrified shriek. The gun was still in his hand, but he didn't try to use it. He seemed too scared to realize it was even there.

"Stay away," he screamed, and then turned sharply and ran for a black line in the ground about thirty yards off to their right.

Paul stayed with him, gaining on him. He was completely focused now, every nerve in his body alive with energy. The man reached the black line just ahead of Paul and suddenly fell away out of sight. Paul followed without hesitation. It was an embankment, and the man was tumbling down it, towards a black weed-choked pool of water at the bottom.

He tumbled all the way into the water, then scrambled to his feet. He turned on Paul and almost got the gun up in time.

"Drop it!" Paul said.

Jimmy obeyed immediately, tossing the gun into the weeds at Paul's feet. His eyes were wide with a fear. His whole body was shaking.

"Please don't kill me." He sank to his knees. "Jesus, please. Please don't."

"Get down," Paul said.

Jimmy obeyed that order, too. He flung himself face down into the water, his fingers laced together over the back of his head.

Paul waded into the pool and stood over Jimmy, who was just keeping his face above the water, but refused to look at Paul. He was shaking worse than ever now, and it sounded like he was crying. Paul heard him muttering over and over again, "Please don't hurt me. Please. Please don't hurt me."

Paul handcuffed him, then pulled him to his feet. He dragged Jimmy out of the water, and as he started up the embankment, still dragging Jimmy, who had gone as limp as a dead man, he heard Mike screaming over the radio for the helicopter.

Paul grabbed his radio with his free hand and said, "44-70, tell my partner I got our guy. I'm bringing him back now."

The relief in the dispatcher's voice was palpable. She said, "44-70, 10-4. Are you okay?"

"Yes, ma'am. I'm fine."

"Copy, 44-70 Alpha? He's okay."

"10-4, ma'am," Mike said. "Paul, where are you?"

"I'm coming back to your location, Mike. Just stand by. I'll be there in a sec."

Mike met up with them right where the trees started to get thick. He gave Paul a look that was part condemnation, part palliation. "d.a.m.n, Paul, you had me f.u.c.king worried, man."

Paul walked right by him.

"Hey, what the h.e.l.l?" Mike said.

Jimmy started whimpering. He turned to Mike and said, "Please don't let him hurt me. Please, get him away from me."

"Be quiet," Paul said, and Jimmy instantly went still. "Come on. Move it."

They reached the fence and had to go single-file along it to skirt the buildings where the pursuit had started. Mike let Paul go first. Then he pushed Jimmy behind Paul.

"I got him," Mike said. "Go ahead."

He grabbed one of Jimmy's biceps and Paul let go of the other one. But as soon as Paul let go, Jimmy started to fight. He bucked away from Paul and tried to scramble past Mike with everything he had. Mike wasn't expecting the move and got pushed into a mesquite branch. He fell backwards and landed on his side, but was able to grab a hold of Jimmy's pant leg and hold him.

Jimmy fell face down in the gra.s.s and kicked at Mike's hand.

"Let me go," Jimmy shouted. "Jesus, please, let me go!"

Mike was still fighting with Jimmy when Paul calmly stepped over top of the handcuffed man and whispered in his ear. He instantly went still, like he had been running off electricity and Paul had just pulled the plug. When Paul hauled him to his feet again, the man's face had gone completely white, and there wasn't an ounce of fight left in him.

"Guess you ought to take him," Mike said.

Paul didn't say a word. He just calmly pushed Jimmy through the narrow path and out into the street.

They were almost at the car when the dispatcher came over the radio again.

"44-70, Officer Henninger."

"d.a.m.n," Paul muttered. He stopped Jimmy next to the back door of the car and keyed up his radio. "44-70, go ahead."

"44-70, switch over to three-lima."

Mike was coming up behind him. Paul gestured at him, asking him to take it so he could get Jimmy in the car.

Mike nodded. "44-70 Alpha. 44-70 Bravo has got his hands full at the moment. Can I switch for him?"

"10-4, Mike. Go to three-lima for Lieutenant Moss."

Paul opened the car door and pointed at the patrol car's backseat. "Get in," he said.

Jimmy did as he was told.

When he was inside, he looked up at Paul and said, "Please don't hurt me. I'll do anything, please."

Paul slammed the door on him in disgust. But as he did so he caught his reflection in the backdoor's window, and he saw, for just a second, what Jimmy had been seeing all along. He saw the wild, blood-crazy face of a demon etched into his own face like a palimpsest, and it was terrible.

Mike tapped him on the shoulder, and he jumped.

"What is it?"

"Paul," Mike said, his voice barely more than a whisper. He held up his radio for Paul to see. "Dude, you need to take this. It's about your wife."

An evidence technician was walking back towards the street as Paul ran up the gravel drive. She had a camera in her hand and a mystified look on her face. A Central Patrol officer was standing watch at the edge of the lawn, but he didn't try to stop Paul.

He wouldn't have been able to anyway.

Paul sprinted past a uniformed sergeant and two detectives in plain clothes, then hit the stairs and went up them three at a time. Inside, the apartment looked like a bomb had gone off. Most of the back wall had been punched in, rubble all over the floor. Broken gla.s.s crunched under Paul's boots as he stepped into the living room. He stopped right behind the couch and turned around in a slow circle, his mind simply unable to wrap around the destruction he was looking at.

"Rachel?" he said.

A hot breeze whistled through the holes in the wall. Red and blue emergency lights pierced through the shattered gla.s.s doors that faced the street. He stumbled through the wreckage like he was half dead. He felt dead inside. Behind him, he heard an unfamiliar voice call his name.

"Officer Henninger, I need to speak with you."

Paul didn't bother to turn around.

The man called his name again. Then he heard Mike say, "Bill, leave him be for a second.

"I need to get a statement from him."

"In a minute," Mike said.

Paul walked toward the bathroom. The door had been punched open. Part of it still hung from the top hinge. He saw the phone on the floor, and next to it, his Barber fifty cent piece.

He picked it up, closed his eyes, and squeezed the coin in his fist.

Somebody put a hand on his shoulder. He thought it was Mike, but when he turned around, he saw a lieutenant he didn't recognize.

"I'm Lieutenant Barry Moss," he said. "Has anyone talked to you yet, son?"

Paul shook his head as he rose to his feet.

"The detectives are going to want a statement from you."

Paul nodded.

"Do you have somewhere else you can go? I mean, after you give your statement?"

There was only one place in Paul's mind.

"Yes, sir," he said.

Moss said, "Good. When you're done with your statement, I want you to go there. Mike here will drive you. And don't worry about coming in tomorrow. I'll clear it with your Lieutenant. You just make sure you call him in a few days and let him know what's up."

Paul nodded again.

When Moss left, Paul stood in front of the bathroom mirror and looked at himself for a long moment. He could see more and more of his father in his own features with each pa.s.sing moment.

I'm coming for you, Daddy. We're gonna finish this.

Chapter 23.

Two s.e.x Crimes detectives put Paul into an interview room at Police Headquarters and let him sit there for almost an hour. When they finally entered the room they explained that they had downloaded the GPS figures from his patrol car's MDT and compared it to the time stamp on Rachel's 9-1-1 call. They knew he was making an arrest on the eastside at the same time that Rachel was being abducted. "So we know you didn't do it," they told him. They just had a few other questions, they said. About mutual friends he and Rachel had. About Paul's enemies, if any.

Paul knew the routine.

He knew from his cadet training that more than eighty percent of violent crimes against women are committed by a man they know well, usually their husband or a boyfriend. "We'd be negligent," the detective who gave them their training on investigations explained, "if we didn't automatically start by looking at the husband or the boyfriend."

Paul knew the two detectives were working under the a.s.sumption that he was in some way involved with Rachel's disappearance. It wasn't enough that he was with Mike all night, or that six other witnesses could put him halfway across the city at the time of Rachel's abduction. A policeman who wanted to get rid of his wife would know from experience that attention would automatically fall on him simply because he was the husband. Any cop worth his salt would cover his tracks by being elsewhere during the actual attack. So the bit about them having just a few questions was a load of bull. They'd work on him as long as it took, and that was going to take too long.

He was seething inside, and he was maintaining his thin veneer of calm by will power alone. He had to get out of here, and he had to do it right away. They were going to consider him a suspect, he knew that. That much was unavoidable. But it was within his power to stop the interview short, and that's what he did.

One of the detectives asked him if he and Rachel had been having problems lately. He was a cop, right? A rocky marriage comes with the job, right?

He answered every question truthfully. He knew he had to. They would crosscheck everything. They'd talk to the next door neighbor who had seen him getting tossed out of his own house. So it would only hurt him later if he lied now. But as soon as they started to backtrack on questions, ask the same thing but from a different angle, Paul knew it was time to shut them down.

He focused.

Paul reached out with his mind and found their minds. He said, "That's everything I know about it. Will you call me please when you find something out?"