The crash box set, p.98
The Crash Box Set, page 98
part #1 of EMP Crash Series
Chapter 19
There was a thumping at the door. Mack stirred. Anna was beside him, looking beautiful, but Mack didn't have time to reflect on her beauty or to enjoy the feeling of how their bodies had crashed together the previous night. The door thumped again, and someone was calling his name. He threw on some clothes and rushed to the door, knowing that nobody would be doing this unless something dramatic had happened. Mack flung the door open to see Freddie standing there, his face drawn and pale.
“It's Peter,” he began, and the fear in Mack rose.
If Peter had escaped, there was no telling what he could do to the settlement, or how many lives were in danger. If anyone else had died because Mack had been too lax in keeping guard on him--but he didn't have time to finish the thought as Freddie kept talking.
“He's dead, someone killed him in the night.”
Mack took a step back and breathed deeply as he tried processing this latest piece of news. Anna emerged from the bedroom, her brow knotted. Freddie repeated the news to her, and she voiced her surprise.
“Let's go,” Mack growled. He barely said anything as the two of them made their way to where Peter was being held.
This hadn't been on the agenda. The people of New Haven were supposed to be moving past petty things like revenge, and the whole point of keeping Peter alive was to show there was another way to punish him rather than killing. Freddie was babbling by his side as they walked, saying it was a shame and that Peter could have been rehabilitated. Mack blocked him out.
“Who else knows?” he asked abruptly.
Freddie sighed and glanced around at New Haven. Mack followed his gaze, and what he saw troubled him, for many people were talking among themselves, and it was clear what was on their minds.
“I think most people. Soon everyone will. I just was making the morning rounds when I heard it. I came straight to you in case you hadn't heard it already.”
Mack was at a loss as to how this could have happened. He thought they had been so careful with everything, but it hadn't been enough. They made their way to the prison, where people already were crowding around. Mack had to tell them to stand aside and to stay back because it was a crime scene, not a tourist spot. People listened, but he could hear some of their comments, asking if it really had happened. Some even were expressing thoughts that it wasn't the worst thing in the world. Mack's eyes met the guard's, who was trying to control the crowd. He turned his eyes away, ashamed of looking at Mack. Mack would have words for him in a minute, but first he wanted to see the body.
“Oh my God,” Freddie said, his hand rising to his mouth as he saw the victim in the cold light of day.
Mack had a grim look on his face as he walked toward the body. Peter's eyes lolled open. His head hung back. A deep gash was upon his neck, and the blood had dried over his skin, trailing down to the bed sheets and the floor. Dark crimson stains of a dark deed. Peter had done some vile things, but he didn't deserve this, and Mack's hand balled into a fist. He marched outside and walked up to the guard, who bowed his head.
“How the hell did this happen?!” he thundered. Everyone was silenced.
The guard cowered before Mack. Freddie was behind him, wondering if he should step in, but he didn't think anything would calm down Mack. Mack's eyes were so filled with rage that the guard could see the whites in them. Mack seemed to tower above him like a giant. Mack's voice was loud and rumbled like an earthquake, and drew even more attention. The guard was remorseful. He wrung his hands and stammered out an apology.
“I'm so sorry, Mack. It's just that with the seasons changing, the nights are a little colder and it's hard to stay awake. I tried, I really did, but when nobody is around, and it's all quiet, it's hard not to just close your eyes for a minute, and then the minute becomes an hour. Besides, I didn't really think anything such as this would happen. I mean, you can't blame me for that. The door was nice and locked and I really didn't think anyone would do something like this. Not here.”
Mack slammed his fist against the wall of the building so hard that the dust from bricks crumbled out and fell to the floor.
“That's not the point!” he yelled.
“Your job was to keep guard. You failed, and now someone is dead.”
“Mack,” Freddie said quietly, pulling his shoulder. Mack's nostrils were flared and he glared at Freddie, who didn't say anything else.
Mack turned back to the guard and told him to go. The guard didn't need telling twice, and was soon out of there. People were whispering to each other again, none of them having seen this side of Mack before. They weren't sure what to make of it. Maggie and Luis arrived on the scene, and Freddie gave them a quick update.
Mack still was seething and needed a few moments to try calming down. This was the exact thing that he didn't want to happen in New Haven. It wasn't just a threat to the safety of the people living there, but to the future of the place itself. Everything had been going so well Mack had been worried about threats from outside the settlement walls. He had forgotten about the threats from within.
He walked back into the room where Maggie and Luis were examining the crime scene, Freddie still there, standing against the far wall. Luis was standing over Maggie, who was crouched beside the bed.
“I'd guess the killer stood here and slit his throat. The blade probably woke him up, but it was too late for Peter to do anything. Nice and quiet.”
“Why didn't he scream or make any noise?” Luis asked.
“You see here?” she said, pointing to the throat, “The blood would have choked him and blocked any noise from coming out. Maybe there would have been a muffled moan, but not anything to draw attention.”
“So, the killer could have had medical expertise,” Luis suggested, his eyes lighting up as his mind worked through the various possibilities of what could have happened.
“Or they just got lucky,” Maggie said, and Luis' enthusiasm took a dive. Maggie rose on her haunches and ran her hands through her hair.
“You have to solve this crime,” Mack said in a desperate tone.
“That is my job,” Maggie replied dryly.
“I'm aware of that. But what I mean is we can't let this crime go unpunished. It was bad enough what Peter did, but we can't have anyone going around taking matters in their own hands. We can't have a killer in our midst. That's not something that can happen. You need to find them as quickly as possible.”
“And then what?” Maggie asked.
“You do your job, I'll do mine,” Mack said, storming out of the room before either Freddie or Luis could say a word.
The three of them glanced at each other and shrugged, worried about Mack, but they each understood his frustration. Freddie left them to examining the crime scene, while he tried settling down the crowd outside.
Mack already had pushed through that crowd. People tried asking him what had happened, and what was going to happen, but he didn't have any answers for them. He went back to his home, and even Anna couldn't console him. He ranted and raved, angered that somebody would try sabotaging everything they had been working toward.
“Do you have any idea who could have done it?” she asked, trying to settle him down, trying to calm him and get him to look at things rationally.
So often Mack was the calm head reminding everyone to take a step back and look at things from a dispassionate point of view. But there were times when Mack forgot his own teachings because, like anyone else, he was human and prone to the same failings as everyone else. He wanted New Haven to succeed so badly that it wasn't as though someone only had killed Peter. It was as though they deliberately were trying to go against everything he was working toward.
“I have no idea. It could be anyone. Nobody seemed to think imprisoning him was enough, but what was I to do? I couldn't kill him. That's not the kind of society I want to build, and I couldn't exile him, and I couldn't let him roam free in the settlement. What do they want from me? We're going to find out who did this and then...”
“And then what...?” Anna asked. Maggie had asked him the same question.
He didn't have an answer for either of them yet, but he knew that murder wasn't going to go unpunished. People had to know there were consequences for their actions, and this was the most heinous of actions. Yet, in many ways, he understood why they had done what they did. Peter was a vicious boy who had done many terrible things, and people had been used to taking care of business themselves in this new world. That had to change. People couldn't go around taking matters into their own hands, and that went for Mack as well. They needed rules and they needed laws if New Haven was going to become the place that he wanted it to become. There were so many visions in his head of what he wanted that place to be, and he didn't want to let go of them yet.
Anna took him into his arms and he enjoyed the feeling of her embrace, but it still wasn't enough to console him properly. She kissed him, and still that wasn't enough. He couldn't get the image out of his head of someone standing over Peter's body, taking his life. But who was it? Anyone in the settlement could have had a motive, but every time he thought of that image the face was blurred. It was going to be a test of Maggie and Luis' aptitude to solve this crime as Mack couldn't allow a killer to wander around unpunished. Nobody would be able to trust anyone again, or get any work done if they knew there was a killer among them.
Another dark thought crossed Mack's mind, one he hoped wouldn't come to pass. What if this wasn't an isolated incident? What if somebody likes the taste of killing and wants more blood? His blood turned to ice as he thought about the possibility of a serial killer and pulled away from Anna. He needed to be alone, needed to think, needed to try helping Maggie and Luis with the case himself. He was an expert at body language, he should have been able to spot the signs before this. How had they slipped past him? Was he losing his skills? Was he so distracted with establishing New Haven that he'd forgotten actually to take care of its needs in the present moment?
As he made his way to City Hall, he looked around at everyone with suspicion and paranoia. It was the antithesis of what he wanted New Haven to be. It was supposed to be a place where people could trust each other and not have to worry about anything else; where they could share everything with their fellow humans and know that they would be looked after and protected.
Mack looked in their eyes, but it was hard to discern anything. Many of them had killed in this new world. Sometimes that's what it had taken to survive, and as much as he wanted the people of New Haven to change and trust each other implicitly, he knew it would be hard to shake the trappings of the old world, where everyone was out to look after themselves. There still was a lot of work to be done in that respect, and he was frustrated because he didn't want to let human nature destroy New Haven before it even had had a chance to begin properly.
People murmured among themselves. It could have been any of them. The people who had been here from the beginning would have been angry at Bob's death. The parents of the kids would have been angry that Peter had taken them in the first place. Even those who had no stake in it may just have disagreed with the idea of keeping him prisoner rather than punishing him more severely. Even the former Lost Children had an ax to grind against Peter.
Maggie and Luis were going to have their work cut out for them, but so was Mack. He was going to have to try holding New Haven together even when this threatened to rip it apart. He still had to convince people that it was going to be a safe place and that they still could work together, but he wasn't sure how he was going to do that when one of them had gone against them all.
“Maybe this place isn't as safe as we were promised,” Gary pointedly said as Mack walked past him.
The newcomers still were more like strangers than friends. Mack threw him a scowl, but didn't indulge him in an argument. Maybe somebody wanted to make a point against Mack. There were so many reasons, and Mack's mind was awash with the possibilities. He was afraid that he, too, would become paranoid and end up not being able to trust anyone. He had to fight against that and had to hope that other people would fight against it, too. He trudged up the stairs to his office, where he gazed out at the settlement below him. Though New Haven had come a long way, there were still many challenges to face and many hurdles to overcome. Winter was coming, and with it would come a change of mood.
Mack clasped his hands behind his back as he sighed and closed his eyes, trying to compose himself and steel himself for what was to come.
Mack loved everyone in New Haven, without exception, but one of them was a murderer. It could have been anyone, even someone he trusted. But who was the killer?
Chapter 1
Maggie was sitting in a small building that used to be a store. She was sitting behind the counter, using it as a makeshift desk while Luis was sitting on the other side. The shelves had been depleted, giving the store a barren look, and Maggie wanted to clean it out as soon as possible so it would look more like a sheriff's office rather than what it was; a depressing reminder of everything they had lost. She had no idea who had owned the store or what it was like before the end of the world, but she was sure whoever owned it never had imagined it would be used for this purpose.
Behind her were more stacks of empty shelves where cigarettes would have been displayed. How she would have killed for one now. If there was one benefit to the end of the world, it was that she had managed to kick that habit. It never had been a major addiction for her, she never had been a chain smoker, but there were times when she just needed one to deal with the stress. This was one of those times.
She'd known a woman who had been on at least two packs a day at the start, and she had to deal with the withdrawal effects while they were walking through the forest. Even at the prison, which she didn't like to think about given what had happened there, the prisoners worked their way through the bounty of cigarettes quite quickly. She wondered how many other people had struggled with those things taken away from them. Perhaps in some ways it was good, she thought, for the drug trade was all but extinguished and those who were addicted finally had a chance to escape their demons. However, she knew well enough that it wasn't as easy as that. Some people just had self-destructive personalities and would find another way to teeter on the brink of death.
Behind Maggie was a security camera, turned off, obviously. A reminder that nobody was watching them now aside from themselves, and God. Maggie knew what people could do when they thought nobody was watching. Even the threat of being seen was enough to deter criminals, and many stores had had cameras installed that didn't work. Of course, that didn't help when there was actually a crime, and there were many times during her career when she felt like she did now, utterly hopeless. Her fingers were tapping on the counter as she held a pen in her hand and a blank piece of paper stared back at her. Her head rested in the other hand, with her fingers entwined with her hair, twirling a few locks around, a nervous habit she never had been able to shake.
The mood around the settlement was solemn. Word had spread quickly about Peter's death. As they had walked back from the crime scene to their office, Maggie and Luis had had heard whispers circulating about Peter’s murder and had been inundated with questions about what had happened. Public relations never had been her strong suit, so she brushed them off abruptly, leaving the diplomacy to Mack as that was his area of expertise. It did annoy her, though, and made her see how dealing with crime was going to be far different in New Haven than it ever was in the city.
Never did she have to investigate a crime that involved someone she knew, but this time it was different. The murderer was someone she knew, someone she had trusted, someone she had worked beside. Even though she didn't know who it was exactly, the sense of betrayal was palpable. It left an uneasy feeling in her gut, since there wasn't anyone who was a prime suspect. The sense of dread was only made worse as there was someone who Maggie knew had a strong motive to kill Peter, her own son Tristan.
As a mother, she never could imagine he would go that far to kill someone in cold blood. As a sheriff, however, it was easy to see how someone like Tristan may have wanted to finish the job he had started back when Peter first got captured. Tristan had been sullen recently, and hadn't quite adjusted to things in the way Maggie would have wanted. But they only just had found each other again, and she didn't know what she would do if it turned out he was guilty. She closed her eyes and had taken a deep breath, trying to push the thought away from her mind as it wasn't going to do her any good.
“You okay?” Luis asked.
“Yeah, just still trying to get over all this. I didn't think we'd have to be dealing with something so dreadful. I figured that at some point somebody probably would try stealing something from the stores, or there would be a disagreement that turned into a fight. I never thought we'd have to deal with murder.”
“Maybe we should have expected it. Living in this world we've all had to access a darker part of ourselves to survive. Maybe it's harder for some people to control that part of themselves now that we're living in a proper settlement. Still, it's not like it's hard to understand. I've been trying to think of suspects but it's a long list,” Luis said, smiling as though he just had made a joke.
Maggie had to temper her words and hide her glare. She was going to have to get used to Luis' easygoing attitude, but at the moment, she found it annoying.
“I don't want to be the type of person who tells someone else how they should feel, but I think you should be a little more upset than you are.”
“Why? I mean, it's not like I wanted him to die or anything, but you saw what he was like. Remember what he did, not only to all those kids, but to the people here as well? He killed Bob, he hit Mindy, and he put Hank in a box for goodness sake!”
