Suicide Serial (11 page)

Henry calmly turned back to the priest, smiled widely and said, “Father, the decision to stay here and explode or run away and let a bunch of school children explode is up to you. I think I know you’ll make the right choice. So since you have…oh…about eight minutes left, I have a job for you that I’m sure you won’t mind undertaking.”

Henry reached into his pocket and produced the cell phone. He began dialing a number, and looked back up at the scared priest. Henry raised the back of his hand against his face and conspiratorially, told the priest, “I want you to tell the police exactly what’s going on.”

Chapter 13

Jake scrunched up his face with an expression of concern and looked over to his partner.

“Stace, he’s already at the next target. Get the chief and the L.T. over here so they can hear this.”

Stacey turned around and took off running through the front doors, still clutching her radio in one hand. As she disappeared into the front yard, Jake could hear her yelling to the chief and lieutenant who were standing together out on the street.

Jake fumbled with his phone, finding the right button to turn it to speakerphone. As he pressed the button, the gadget seemed to come to life.

Henry’s voice came across and he could barely be heard saying, “Take the damn phone. Take it.” There was a loud clunk that sounded like the phone had banged into something. Jake heard a loud noise like a door slamming and once again heard the even more distant voice of Henry say, “Goodbye, Father.”

Chief Lunkster and the SWAT Lieutenant rushed into the house with Stacey in tow. They circled around Jake, and began hushing other officers that were still walking around nearby. Chief Lunkster just looked over a Jake and wiped a bit of sweat from his brow.

“H-hello…” said a scared voice on the other end of the line.

“Hello, who is this? This is Detective Harris with the Winchester Police Department.”

“Oh…t-thank God. This man j-just came in here a-a-and…he fired off a gun. I don’t know if anyone is hurt.”

“It’s ok sir. Where are you?” Jake said.

“…I’m at Saint P-paul’s…the church. The man told me he put a bomb under my seat here in the confession booth. H-he’s crazy, sir. He said if I try to stand up then a…another bomb will blow up at Lee Arthur Miller Elementary. I think he said it was in the, uhm, the gym. I heard it beep under my seat. I…I think he’s telling the truth.”

Chief Lunkster’s eyes opened wide once he heard that Henry had placed a bomb at the elementary school. He spun his hand around wildly to attract the attention of one of the patrol officers standing on the back porch.

Quietly, Chief Lunkster said to the young patrol officer, “Get on the horn and get all those SWAT guys back here, now. A bomb has been placed somewhere in Lee Arthur Miller Elementary. Tell them to get their shit, get in that van, and link up with the bomb squad out there as fast as humanly possible. We gotta evacuate that school and find the bomb if there even is one. Do it fast and use a secure channel. Move it.”

The young patrol officer looked like he’d been smacked across the face, but nodded his head. He grabbed his radio and started running around and shouting orders into it.

“H-hello? Are you still there? Please, you have to help me…I can’t move off of this seat and I don’t want to die,” the voice of the shaken man returned to the phone.

“It’s ok,” Jake reassured. “You’re gonna be alright. What’s your name?”

“Father D-douglas. He said that the…bomb was on a timer here. I think I have about six or seven minutes left before it goes off. Please…hurry.”

“We’re on our way now.”

Jake handed the phone to the chief and took off running. He still felt wobbly and beaten from his near-death experience, but the adrenaline spiking through his veins made him forget about his injuries. Stacey was right behind him as he burst from the house and out into the bright sun.

Lunkster yelled behind them, “I’ll send rescue and have a couple of patrol units go with you to the church! Don’t let this asshole get away!”

Jake popped the trunk of the cruiser started rifling through it. Inside was a toolbox that held basic bomb disposal tools and a pump-action twelve gauge shotgun. He took out both and tossed them into the back seat. Jake then flung the driver’s side door open on the old silver cruiser and wrenched the transmission shifter into drive. Two marked WPD patrol cars accelerated and passed them with a loud swoosh, headed to the church.

“Damn. That was fast,” Jake said as he watched the vehicles move down the road, already several hundred feet past them.

Stacey had barely even gotten inside and closed the door when he jerked the wheel all the way to the left and peeled out in spectacular fashion. The church wasn’t more than a mile away, all the way around a giant “U” that formed Birch Landing Road. The engine roared loudly and Jake flipped on the siren as they tore down the residential street at breakneck speed.

“He must have run right through the woods to the church. Son of a bitch,” Jake yelled, angry and holding the steering wheel in a death grip with both hands.

Stacey placed one hand on the dashboard to steady herself and pulled out her pistol with the other. In the rearview, she could see members of the SWAT team exiting the house and piling up into the van before they disappeared around the curve. The units in front of them skidded through the curve, leaving long black marks on the road.

Within moments, Saint Paul’s Catholic Church appeared on the horizon. As they came closer, Jake steered the car up and over the curb and into the grassy front lawn, bouncing them up and down and tearing muddy ruts across it with the car’s spinning wheels. The patrol cars had already come to a halt at the front entrance and the officers were stepping out. Jake once again jerked the steering wheel hard and slammed on brakes, sending the car into a fishtail and past the parked patrol cars until it stopped completely with a loud bang, crashing hard enough into the giant brick stairway at the front of the church to buckle the rear door of the vehicle.

An old man wearing a light brown coat and carrying a bible ran towards them from the parking lot, waving his arms frantically, shouting, “He’s got Father Douglas in there! He’s got a gun!”

The two patrol officers ran in first, guns at the ready.

Stacey had her door open first and was the next closest to the church. She took the steps two at a time, with her gun drawn and pointed down. Just as she placed her hand on the handle a loud explosion rocked the entire church, blowing out the stained-glass windows and blasting open the front doors, flinging her backwards through the air.

Jake ducked for cover behind the brick staircase, closing his eyes tightly and protecting his head with his arms. The old man opened his mouth in surprise and hit the dirt, also covering himself with his hands. Stacey skittered across the hood of the car and landed behind it on the grass, lying on her side. Little pieces of debris showered them both. Dust and smoke poured out of the church in heavy, thick brown and grey clouds.

Jake crawled over to his partner on his hands and knees, his eyes and lungs burning from the thick smoke.

“Oh, no! Stacey! Stacey! Are you ok? Say something…” he said, checking her over for wounds and shaking her lightly.

Stacey moaned and started to come around. She shifted around and squinted her eyes at him, wiping a dirty hand through her hair and placing it on the side of her forehead. She pushed herself up carefully to a seating position, extended out her legs painfully, and leaned back on both hands, like a tired child. Her face was cut and bleeding from a few minor injuries. Her pants were shredded and soaked with blood on one leg, where a huge chunk of the door that was forced outward in the explosion spiraled across and fractured her tibia. She was covered nearly head to toe in black soot and dust and breathing in rapid, short gasps of air.

Stacey reached across her chest with one hand and pressed on her ribs. She dipped her head, frowned and uttered a painful cry. Two of her ribs had been broken.

“Ow. Oh yeah. That’s broken,” she said through clenched teeth.

“I’m just glad you are alive,” Jake said, “Just imagine how bad it could have been if you didn’t have on your vest.”

“Never leave home without it,” she said, attempting to struggle to her feet.

Jake bent down and helped her up. Stacey scooped up her dropped firearm and placed it securely back in the holster. She grimaced as she tried to plant her left leg, and was unable to do it.

“Mmmm…damn that hurts…I think my leg’s broken too, Jake,” she said, feebly hopping on one foot over to the side of the debris covered cruiser. She rested against it, trying not to let the foot on her injured leg touch the ground. She lifted her head and looked around, surveying the destruction.

“Jake! Where are the two officers that ran in before me?!” Stacey said excitedly.

Realizing that the patrol officers had been inside when the bomb went off, Jake tore off up the stairs and entered the main foyer of the chapel. The doors had been blown right off their hinges, and various shattered bits of wood and metal shrapnel covered the floor. He could not see more than a few feet in front of him as smoke continued to pour out, reducing visibility.

He found the two officers lying face down next to each other just inside the chapel. They appeared to be severely burned and bleeding. They weren’t moving and he couldn’t be sure they were even breathing. He grabbed their ankles with both hands and lunged his bodyweight forward, straining with every ounce of his strength to drag them out of the chapel and onto the front stairs.

Finally outside again, Jake nearly collapsed from the effort, but made it down the stairs and moved over to the old man, who was still lying on the ground with his hands over his head. He tapped the man hard on the back with his hands and assisted him up. The man looked to be every bit of ninety years old. His thick eyeglasses had been cracked and the frames were bent. He had on red suspenders that held his pants up across his belly. Some of the flying wreckage had wound up in his hair and across the back of his jacket, but he seemed more shaken than injured.

“Sir! Are you alright? Stand up!”

“Merciful God!” the old man cried out to Jake. “What has happened to our church?”

“We think it was a bomb, sir! Are you able to walk?”

“Yep, think so, son. My names Herbert, by the way.”

Herbert got to his feet and started moving. Jake placed his hand on the man’s back and escorted him over to the cruiser. Opening the back door, he helped him sit down. An ambulance rolled up just then, with the sirens still blaring as they braked and parked several yards away from the now burning church. Two uniformed paramedics jumped out of the ambulance with orange bags and quickly ran over to Jake’s cruiser.

“C’mon, we gotta get you guys out of here. The whole chapel is on fire,” one of the paramedics said, “Are any of you injured?”

Stacey raised her hand slightly and winced in pain, grabbing the left side of her ribs.

“I am, but its ok. Some broken ribs I think, and my leg is probably broken, but I can deal with it.”

Jake motioned to the two downed officers that he had dragged away from the church after the explosion and said, “I’m not sure about these guys. They got burned pretty badly. Get them out of here first, guys.”

“I can’t believe it,” Stacey said to Jake with a frown, “Engel got away again. Maybe he stole a car and high-tailed it. He could be anywhere by now.”

“Hey! Hey!” Herbert shouted over the din of the now fully-involved inferno, “The guy you’re looking for never came out of the church. He either – “ Herbert suddenly put his fist up to his face and coughed loudly as the smoke started to blow down on their position and overtake them. The wind had shifted directions and heavy drops of rain began to fall. The paramedics took the patrol officers out of harm’s way and began sliding them over to backboards for transport to the hospital. Everyone moved hastily towards the parking lot to get away from the smoke and fire.

Once they cleared the area, Herbert caught his breath, sat down in his truck, and continued, “That guy, I…well, I wasn’t paying much attention when he walked in, but I saw him get in the confession booth. Started making a bunch of noise in there, banging around or something. He fired a gun and I ran. Hid behind my car over there in the parking lot. I never saw him come out, and then you guys showed up.” He pointed his finger from the detectives to the church as he spoke. “He’s either in there burning or he went into the fellowship hall. “

Jake glanced over at the rear of the burning church. Indeed, there was a long hallway that seemed to attach to the chapel and run into a plain, rectangular building off to the side of the property. It was not yet engulfed in flames, but the fire was spreading rapidly.

Without a second thought, Jake dashed across the huge parking lot and toward the fellowship hall. It had to be at least a quarter-mile long stretch of asphalt. The rain was falling faster now and the heavy drops smacked against his face, refreshing yet distracting at the same time. Jake’s shoes clapped loudly against the pavement with each stride. He could hear Stacey yelling out something behind him, but her words were lost in the noise of the ambulance sirens and roaring fire that was emanating from the partially collapsed roof of the church chapel.