completely, but I had passed the case off to other officers five years before, and they never caught him. Mike and I had been close to a solid case, but anyone else who looked at Savala came up empty. Passing off the case meant that he could slip away again, and continue to haunt Dani. Continue to linger over our lives and our relationship, the metaphorical gun aimed at both of us, every single day.
The other option was to take the case, full-bore. To bury myself in the work and do anything I could to bring Savala down. I’d have to give it everything, leave no stone unturned, no hour wasted. If I gave it all I had, maybe I’d have a shot at him. But if I pissed him off again, could he find us? Could he track down where I live, could he come after Dani again?
I had to choose. Risk it all and hope to get the bastard, or back off and try to save whatever scraps of a marriage we had.
10
Savala must have really loved that girlfriend. While she was in the hospital, Savala set out for revenge. He started at Mike’s house. He was the only Michael Hudkins in the phone book, and the newspapers had made it clear that the officer in charge on the day of the shooting had been Michael Hudkins.
Savala beat Mary Beth with his gloved hands, working her ribs and belly with hard, bone-breaking punches. He didn’t stop until she was unconscious and bleeding internally. Then he shot her in the head, three times, and carried out his ritual. He left the front door open when he left.
A neighbour found her and called 911. Word of what happened spread to Mike immediately, and to me a little later. I had been in court testifying in a different case, and by the time I checked my messages Mike had known about Mary Beth for a couple hours. Of course, I went straight over from the courthouse. Because he was my partner, and that’s what partners do, right?
I didn’t even think about Savala’s pattern. How he made certain the victim was alone before he attacked. I was just trying to be there for Mike. He was my partner. I didn’t even think that Savala would go for Dani next. Mike did, though. He screamed it the moment he saw me. Screamed at the top of his lungs that I had to get home to that woman. And then I realized.
I realized too late.
11
I don’t know if Savala slipped up or if he was just overconfident. He usually hid somewhere and ambushed his target. But after Mary Beth, he had gone to the apartment Dani and I shared, our little newlywed starter, and just sat on the couch.
I heard the story from Dani, in therapy, once she started working toward opening up.
She came home from work and hung up her coat, took off her shoes. Then she came around the wall that divided the entrance from the living room, and saw a man pointing a gun at her. It was a little gun, with a silencer on the end like in the movies. He told her that if she ran or screamed, he’d shoot.
At that moment, Dani froze. She would hate herself for it later, thinking that she could have jumped behind that dividing wall, gotten out into the hallway and into another apartment or an elevator. She would blame herself somewhat for what happened. And she’d blame me. But mostly she would live in terror that Savala was still out there.
When he came at her, ready to beat her with a fist and the gun, she had a moment where she realized that she should fight back. She kicked him in the balls, caught him pretty good. He dove at her, pushing her against the wall. He pressed the muzzle of his little gun into her chest hard enough to leave a bruise, and pulled the trigger.
The bullet jammed.
Dani screamed then, realizing how close she had come to having her heart shot out. She scratched at him and he fell away, blocking her path to the door. So she ran to the end of the hallway, to the kitchen, and she grabbed a knife.
He dropped the gun and ran at her, full sprint, in a blind rage. He was a big guy, and all that energy he displayed around his mafia buddies finally came to the surface. He grabbed the knife, he grabbed her hair, he fought to pin her against the counter. In the fight, he ripped her dress off one shoulder. And somewhere in the fight, he gained total control of the little knife and stabbed it into her forearm, twisting the blade in the flesh. He severed the artery and she started bleeding dark, thick blood. She managed, somehow, to knock the knife to the floor.
The neighbours called the police and sirens were sounding out now. I was following them, my heart racing in panic. Mr. Lee from across the hall, a retired fireman, was pounding on the door.
Savala liked a quiet kill. This was too much noise, too much attention. He chickened out and ran away, breaking Mr. Lee’s jaw on his way out the door. The tough old guy still made it inside the apartment to get to Dani and kept her from bleeding out until paramedics arrived.
Savala had left his gun behind. And two people had seen his face. I guess that was enough heat for him, so the killing stopped, and Savala disappeared. For years, every informant we had in the Families was asked about Savala. He had killed thirty people, ending with Mary Beth. Nobody seemed to know where he had gone.
12
The next morning I drove Dani to work. We both felt that it was safer for her to avoid being alone. She also started carrying the canister of mace in her purse again. After I made sure she was inside the office, I headed to the precinct.
“So what was the connection with the dry cleaner?” I asked Charlie once I saw him. “If this is a revenge thing, targeting Lout like that, why start with some random dry cleaner?”
“Warming up? Getting back into the swing of things?” offered Charlie.
His partner, Gord Brenner, who was young but a real climber, piped up. “Actually, Sarge, I had a theory on that.”
“OK,” I said, sitting on the edge of Charlie’s desk.
“The last time Savala was seen was after what happened to his girlfriend, Shelly Tolin. After Shelly got shot, she was in a coma for over a month, eventually woke with serious brain injuries, and was sent to a home. From what I understand, she needed constant care.”
I hadn’t really bothered to keep up with the girlfriend after what Savala did to Dani, although I did send units to watch the hospital in the months after Savala’s disappearance.
“I knew all that.”
“But then she died,” Gord continued.
“The girlfriend’s dead?”
“Two weeks ago. I think it set Savala off.”
“So how’s a dead girlfriend make him kill a dry cleaner?”
“Dry cleaner’s wife is a nurse at that same home. I haven’t spoken to her, but I bet dollars to donuts she was on duty when Shelly checked out.”
“And Savala’s pattern is to go after the loved ones. To make the nurse suffer like he made Mike Hudkins suffer,” said Charlie, nodding.
I agreed with the theory too. “Call the wife, and delicately ask if she was working when Shelly died. If she was, tell her to go stay with family for a little while.”
The kid nodded and jotted something in his notebook.
“Anything else?”
They shook their heads, and both sipped their coffee.
“I want you guys going through the old case files. I want you two to be experts on this thing by the end of the day. I’ll be going through it with you.”
“You’re on the case? Officially?” Charlie asked.
I had gone over the decision a million times. I had felt one way when I was blaming myself for what had happened. I felt another way when my wife was yelling at me. I reversed it when she looked so fragile and afraid. I made up my mind when I was sleeping alone. I was going to risk everything, risk provoking the monster who almost took everything from me. I was going to catch the bastard this time.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m on the case.”
13
We devoted a small room to the investigation. There were six boxes of files and evidence, and we brought it all in there. The evidence boxes we kept closed, but the old files quickly covered the table. We needed a hint of a clue. A location where we might find him, friends he might go to, anything to track him. We couldn’t find anything that would help. It was old
information, and it hadn’t caught him back when he was on his first rampage. It seemed useless.
Finally, we opened the evidence boxes. There were photos of each crime scene, bits and pieces of physical evidence sealed in plastic bags, and my old kitchen knife, still covered with Dani’s blood. I didn’t pick it up. I just stared into the black handle and the glint of unbloodied steel. For a moment, I lost track of everything, so I didn’t hear Charlie the first time. He had to repeat himself:
“The gun’s gone.”
“What?”
“The gun is gone. The gun collected at your apartment.”
“That’s not possible. This box has been evidence since it was first collected. How could anyone get the gun?”
Charlie looked at the sheet of paper on the end of the box.
“Actually, this box of evidence was signed out once, four years ago. By Mike Hudkins.”
14
Now it was my turn to get pissed. I called Mike, found out where he lived, and told him to stay there until I got there. And the moment I saw him in the alley behind the building, I came at him just as hard as he had come at me the day before.
“You stole the goddamn gun?” I demanded.
“What—“
“The gun that he left at my house. The gun that almost shot my wife. You took it.”
He sneered at me. “You mean the gun that killed Mary Beth? Yeah I took it.”
We were so close I could smell the beer on his breath. “You were a cop and you stole vital evidence.”
“I needed it.”
“Why?”
He