The Midtown Murderer (16 page)

Chapter 38

The wrestlers
listened patiently to Trent’s story. When he had finished the looks on their faces was that of astonishment at McClure’s level of treachery. Trent had given the wrestlers extra incentive, if they ever needed it, to be in front of him rather than behind him.

Bump
er’s face grew dark and serious. “How we gonna do this?”

“I’m thinking,” Thumper said, turning to the wall
in the Main Concourse where a giant LCD display listed the arrival and departure times for every bus. Dozens of people were stopping to look at it. “Concourse BB,” Thumper said, looking up at the board. “That’s where the Birmingham bus departs from.”

“But how-”

“Just a sec,” Thumper said, as a young man with short hair wearing his jeans low and sporting colorful boxer shorts walked by. “Hey, little buddy,” Thumper said to the man.

“Huh? What?”

“Wanna make a quick buck?”

The man looked Thumper up and down.
“You crazy?”

“No,” Thumper said.
“We’re trying to pull a prank on his brother,” he said, pointing at Trent.

“What do you want?”

Thumper nodded at Trent and said, “I need you to wear my friend’s leather coat and pull his red cap low over your head; then you stand in front of the lockers at concourse BB until his brother’s bus pulls in. Should be about thirty minutes.”

“
And?”

“When
his brother gets off the bus, he’ll see you and think you’re his younger brother. When he figures out he’s been set up, we’re going to surprise him and sing Happy Birthday.”

“It’s that easy?”

“It’s that easy.”

“How much?”

Trent said, “A hundred dollars.”

“Wow. I’ll do it.”

After the man had gone upstairs, Bumper said to Trent, “Rat-face will be the first cop to show; you never met him, right?”

“No. Just the other two assholes.”

“OK, then. This should work.”

“We’re gonna drop the hammer on the biggest
scumbags in Atlanta,” Bumper said.

“Got that right,” Thumper said
, grabbing his luggage. “Upstairs now. Let’s move it!”

Trent thought the
grim-faced duo looked like combat hardened veterans trekking to the firing line as he followed them up the staircase.

#

With zero minutes to go Trent was positioned along the opposite wall from the lockers sitting in a shoeshine chair. He was hiding behind the
Atlanta Constitution
sports page while a neat African American man wearing a red bowtie shined his penny loafers.

A security door next to him opened and
rat-face emerged from the staircase. He wore a knee-length blue raincoat over his black suit and carried a silver-handled walking stick. He almost brushed against Trent as he walked to the middle of the concourse and loitered while a clutch of gray suits, a family of Saudis by the look of them, and a Chinese woman passed by.

The dilemma for Thumper and Bumper had been how to appear as small and inconspicuous
as possible amongst the many travelers. When a red-coated attendant pushing two empty wheelchairs passed them, Bumper gave the man a twenty and requisitioned the wheelchairs.

Wh
ile skinny cop scanned the concourse for signs of trouble, Thumper and Bumper were seated in their wheelchairs hidden amongst a throng of travelers that were studying a bronze signpost pointing them to the various bus departures.

Rat-face
surveyed the terminal for a few minutes then pulled a cell phone from his pocket and dialed a number.

Trent buried himself a little deeper in his
newspaper and dared to raise his head to take a quick reading of the situation. It was like watching a performance on a fully lighted stage; its backdrop the decoy Trent standing patiently by the bank of lockers listening to his iPod while Thumper and Bumper were wheeling toward rat-face through a crowd of Hassidic worshipers dressed in heavy black clothing with prayer shawls around their shoulders and prayer books under their arms.

Rat-face
did not see Thumper and Bumper approaching him. He shifted his eyes left and right then raised a scattergun from under his coat toward the decoy Trent. In a perfectly choreographed routine, Thumper and Bumper flew from their wheelchairs; Thumper seized rat-face by his neck and lifted him high off the ground while Bumper grabbed the man’s walking stick and clocked him hard in the head. The scattergun clattered to the marble floor.

At the same time,
Freckles emerged from a metal service door next to the decoy Trent. He raised a pistol and shot the man through the temple. A spray of blood and brain tissue erupted from his head as he dropped to the floor, arms and legs splayed like a dog asleep on its side.

“Police! Police! Everybody down,”
Freckles screamed, waving his pistol at the commuters in the crowded concourse. “Remain calm; stay down!”

The
frightened travelers hit the deck with audible gasps as the impeccably dressed McClure came out the same side door alongside Freckles. He knelt beside the dead man and pulled the cap from his head. Realizing he had been set up, he turned for the stairwell, but it was too late.

Bumper recovered the s
cattergun and let loose both barrels in McClure’s direction. Bang. Bang. The shots thundered and the wall around the door exploded in a spray of buckshot and splintered wood. The force of the twin blasts lifted McClure off his feet and into the stairwell where he landed in a heap. He recovered quickly and kicked the door shut with his feet.

Freckles
was stranded in the concourse. He tried to make a run for it, but Bumper sprinted toward him, quickly covering the distance. With outstretched arms, he grabbed Freckle’s head with both hands and leaped into the air. His momentum carried his body past Freckles in a wide arc, snapping the man’s neck with a loud pop.

Trent was
marveling at Bumper’s athletic agility and his acrobatic moves when he heard a dull-hollow slapping sound. He turned and saw Thumper driving the cop’s head again and again against the nearside wall. When Thumper dropped the man, his lifeless body bounced on the floor then lay still as a bundle of old clothes. His face looked like it had done fifteen rounds with a metal fan.

The concourse smelled of cordite and blue smoke hung in the air
. Trent tipped the stunned shoeshine man a twenty and made a straight dash for the glass doors and the street. He looked over his shoulder and saw Thumper and Bumper boarding their bus as the pneumatic doors began closing behind them.

#

Trent hurried down a sidewalk that paralleled the bus terminal. He was stopped at a red light when he heard the heavy diesel clatter of a Greyhound bus that was rounding the terminal exit ramp. As the bus motored slowly through the intersection someone began banging loudly on a passenger window. Trent glanced up in time to see Thumper and Bumper grinning largely and waving at him. He raised both arms in a victory salute to his new friends as the bus accelerated and pulled onto the interstate.

Chapter 39

Minutes later
Trent was seated at a small table inside a Caribou coffee shop. He sat warming each hand in turn on a chai latte because the heat was barely working. He dialed Priest’s mobile phone. “It’s Palmer.”

“
You are wasting my time. Good day.”

“
I’ve got the proof. We can get to the bottom of this scandal; catch the Midtown Murderer.”

“Take your cock-and-bull stories to Clay’s office.”

“I can’t. You’re the only one I trust.”

“
Another day, Palmer. I’ve got a developing situation at the bus terminal to deal with.”

Trent
paused while two fine-looking Latin girls strode past his table and out the door; despite the cold they wore short skirts and skimpy tops. “Butler’s reporting of the meth lab fire that killed the four Midtown officers is far from accurate,” he said, watching the girls cross the street.

“
Come to my office,” Priest said.

His tone, Trent thought, had a more alert, sharpened quality now.
“No. Meet me at the Caribou Coffee on Tenth and Juniper; and come alone.”

“I c
ould have you arrested for withholding evidence.”

“
You won’t.”

“Palmer
—”

“
This is about finding Chloe.”

Trent was keeping an eye
on the door when Priest walked in.

“Tell your story, Palmer,” he said,
removing his fleece-lined cap and then seating himself in a chair across from Trent.

Trent turned his
iPad toward Priest. “Watch this slideshow.”

Priest was studying the photos, and his concentration was so great that he didn’t notice the waitress
had stopped at the table. Trent ordered coffees and croissants and then described how the survey pilot had captured the two cars on two separate days at the two sites.

Priest gave him a dubious look. “You have an overactive imagination, Palmer. My gut says there
’s a logical explanation.”

“Not so fast,” Trent said. He laid the GI
D report on the table. “Compare those pictures against Butler’s; I’m sure he doctored the report.”

Priest’s face flared with anger. “Where did you get that?”

Trent cleared his throat and said a little awkwardly, “The night I shot Triple’s brother you interviewed me in a room that the Atlanta GID had used. The report was lying under a chair; heisting it is the only illegal thing I’ve done since I moved to Atlanta.”

“You committed a felony,” he said through clenched teeth.

Trent eyed him tolerantly. “Just look at the pictures.”

“What are you trying to get out of this?”

“Chloe. That’s it. Period.”

“Uh-huh,” Priest said, eying him cautiously. He took the magnifying glass and studied the differences between the GI
D reconnaissance photos and the survey pilot’s images. A band of sweat had formed across his forehead. Occasionally he glanced around to ensure that no one was looking. Trent could sense a fear building in the big man.

“The guy
pointing at the shed could be Butler,” Trent said, leaning across the table and tapping the screen with his pencil. “If it is him, then the three goons by the car might be cops. My money says they’re the ones who killed Winston and attacked me at the Wire Tap Lounge.”

Priest was startled out of his concentration when the waitress set
down the coffees. “I signed a leave of absence request for one of McClure’s GID officers, a fellow named Steve Butterson; said a close relative had become gravely ill. And that he’d be off the roster for a while.”

Trent buttered a croissant and eyed Priest across the table.
“Is he a short guy?”

“Yes.”

“He could have been the mime I cut. How about the other two? Do any of the officers at the Midtown Police Plaza have long-range shooting experience?”

Priest’s voice softened
a little and he said, “McClure’s number-one man is a guy named Dana; he was a Gulf War sniper. But you know as well as I do that all police officers know how to shoot.”

“True. What about Roe?”

“He came over from Lawrenceville a few months ago to work for Butler. I don’t know much about him.”

“So, who’s in the back of the car?” asked Trent.

“I do not know.”

“
If Butler is up to his neck in the GID deaths,” Trent said with undeniable logic, “no alibi in the world’s going to help him. The time and date is printed at the bottom of each photo.”

Priest studied the pictures repeatedly with Trent’s magnifying glass.

“That’s not all the bad news,” Trent said. “Butler and his three stooges could be masquerading as the Midtown Murderer. Say they killed Jack, and Chloe stumbled onto them; they might have abducted her.”

Priest
sat silently, not moving. Finally he said, “You did good, Palmer; no doubt you uncovered some strange patterns.”

“At first
,” Trent said, “I thought Radcliff was the Midtown Murderer, but now . . .”

Priest shook his head.
“Not Radcliff; he’s been through some tough times, but he’s no serial killer.”

“If there
is a scandal in the department, what steps would you take?”

“
Investigating a Law Enforcement Officer is a very difficult task,” he said, sipping his coffee. “Our Internal Affairs would start the process. I need to think . . .”

Trent showed him a road atlas and said, “I located the sites and plotted them on a map. Let’s take a drive
. You can think on the way.”

Priest
drained his coffee and got to his feet. “We’ll take my Crown Vic. First I need to take a leak; grab a few bottles of water then meet me at the car.”