Blood Men

chapter sixty-three

He’s not so sure that taking Edward Hunter into custody is the right way to go, and he’s equally unsure whether leaving him alone is the way to go. Barlow warned him a few days ago and even though Schroder didn’t dismiss the man, he certainly could have paid more attention. He can’t ignore the fact that everything that has happened since that meeting, all the deaths, part of the responsibility for that sits with him. Not this time though-he’ll pick Hunter up and, no matter how bad he feels for him, he won’t let emotion get in the way. It’s Christmas Day and he’s about to pick up a man who’s lost his wife and daughter because a psychiatrist with a comb-over and an ex-wife and a nice pool told him so.

“Jesus,” he mutters. There has to be another way. Barlow agreed that if Schroder could get Hunter into custody, he would come and speak to him tonight and try to get a read on his mental condition. As for where Jack Hunter might go, Barlow had no idea.

“Justify it as not really an arrest,” Barlow had said to him on the way out the door, “but forced therapy. Give me two hours with him and I’ll give you some options. The alternative is to sympathize with him for everything that’s happened and do nothing, and if he kills himself or somebody else tonight then those ghosts are with you.”

Schroder is passing over the alternative and heading straight to Hunter’s house. Christmas Day isn’t exactly turning out the way he planned. Thankfully his wife has been good about it. She’s the kind of woman who puts things into perspective-and missing Christmas Day with her husband didn’t amount to much when compared to what Edward Hunter was missing.

There’s not as much traffic on the road as there was last night, but it’s still enough to hold him up as he drives through town. People in their teens and twenties are searching for somewhere to be, the bars and nightclubs catering to them. The streets are lit up with neon and fluorescents, and he can’t imagine anything worse than being nineteen years old again.

He reaches Edward’s house. There’s nothing peculiar about the way it looks, no cars parked up the driveway or out front, no broken windows, no open doors, but something about it gives him a bad feeling. Thirty seconds later that bad feeling is confirmed when he steps out of his car and sees the blood on the driveway. It leads toward the door. Two trails of it, one heading one way, the other coming back. He calls for backup. He hasn’t had great experiences of late entering people’s houses, but he goes ahead and enters this one.