The Night Stalker

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

I pushed the desk away, freeing myself and my dog. Running to the open door, I looked across the back of the supermarket. The rear door was wide open, and I could hear Vorbe’s footsteps as he ran away.

“Help me,” the meat manager gasped.

I slipped my gun into my pocket and crouched down beside him. His eyes were glued to the ceiling, his life slipping away. He clasped my hand.

“Why?” he asked.

It was a question I’d asked myself a hundred times as a cop. Why did people kill? What purpose did it serve, except to destroy lives and wreck families? I didn’t know the answer, and probably never would.

I called 911 on my cell. An automated operator put me on hold. While I waited for an operator to pick up, the meat manager closed his eyes. As he drew his last breath, I said a prayer, and watched him die.

I rose to my feet with my cell phone pressed to my ear. Buster was standing by the closet, pawing at the door. I pulled the door open and looked inside. The closet was empty. Something about it didn’t feel right. The interior looked cramped.

I pressed my hand against the back wall, and it came down. Behind the closet was a hidden area about five feet tall, and a few feet deep. Hanging from the wall was a pair of handcuffs attached to a metal chain. Beneath the handcuffs, an air tank.

I had found Vorbe’s holding area.

“Broward County Sheriff’s Department,” a police operator said.

“I need to report a murder.”

“Where are you calling from?” the operator asked.

I gave the operator the details while searching Vorbe’s desk. In one of the drawers I found a brown paper bag. It contained a bottle of clear liquid, a white cloth, and a pair of night vision goggles. I twisted the top off the bottle, and sniffed its contents.

Chloroform.

I had found Vorbe’s kill kit.

“There’s a cruiser on the way,” the operator said.

I took the paper bag off the desk, and went outside to meet it.

By the back doors I found a male employee of the store lying on the floor. He’d been stabbed in the shoulder, and was holding his hand against the bloody wound. He seemed more bewildered than hurt.

“What happened?” I asked.

“The boss attacked me in the parking lot,” the employee explained. “He tried to go through my pockets, so I kicked him in the nuts.”

“What does his car look like?”

“His car is in the shop. He’s been walking to work.”

“Does he live nearby?”

“He lives in the development behind the store.”

I went to the open back door and stuck my head out. It faced the Dumpsters, the sight of so much death and misery. I couldn’t see Vorbe, but I could hear him stumbling through the woods, his feet dragging across the ground.

I removed the handcuffs from the paper bag, and slipped them into my pocket. Then I fitted on the night goggles, and chased after him.

The night goggles turned the world a sickly green, and made me feel like I was a character in a low-budget horror movie. Buster had picked up Vorbe’s scent, and was racing down a path littered with cans and broken bottles. I struggled to keep up with him.

Vorbe appeared a hundred yards ahead of me. He was running while clutching his groin. I saw him hop over an embankment and disappear. My legs picked up speed.

I came over the embankment running almost as fast as my dog. The woods had ended, and a housing development begun, with six-foot picket fences lining the backyards of cookie-cutter tract houses. Vorbe was gone.

I stood at the top of the embankment, and let my eyes scan the fences for an opening. There were none.

“Find the man,” I said to my dog.

Buster ran along the fence, bumping it with his shoulder. A gate popped open, and my dog went in. I drew my Colt and followed him.

The property had a plastic swimming pool and lawn furniture. Reaching the back of the house, I stopped at a pair of glass sliders. Inside I spotted the figure of a man lurking in the darkened living room. It was Vorbe, holding a single-barrel shotgun in one hand, a box of bullets in the other. If he got the shotgun loaded, I was history. I aimed my Colt at the slider and fired.

The sound of my gun ripped through the still night air. I watched the slider turn into a spiderweb, then disintegrate. I kicked out the remaining shards and went inside. Vorbe stood in the living room, trying to load the shotgun. The bullets I’d fired had penetrated the wall behind him. He acted oblivious to them, and to me.

“Put down the shotgun,” I said.

Vorbe kept trying to load. The box slipped out of his fingers, and the bullets scattered across the floor. He dove to his knees.

“Did you hear me?” I asked.

His breathing was loud and frantic.

“Put the gun down,” I ordered him.

He didn’t respond. There was a name for this behavior: kill or be killed. I had never experienced it before, and it was scaring the hell out of me.

“Now!” I said.

I didn’t want to shoot him, so I kicked him instead. Vorbe fell on his side, still clutching the shotgun. Then he let out a scream. Buster had grabbed his leg, and was giving it a good gnaw.

“Do it now, or my dog will eat you.”

I had once read that the death people were most afraid of was being eaten alive. The shotgun slipped from his fingers. I grabbed its barrel and tossed it onto a couch.

“Your dog is hurting me,” Vorbe said.

“Not enough,” I said.

I made Buster back off, then told Vorbe to stand. He rose on rubbery legs, and I made him touch the ceiling. He hesitated, then obeyed my command.

“Where’s your knife?” I asked.

“I dropped it in the woods,” Vorbe said.

I made him go into the kitchen. It was small, with a breakfast table and a pile of dirty dishes in the sink. I removed the handcuffs from my pocket, and tossed them to him. I pointed at the refrigerator.

“Handcuff yourself to the door,” I said.

Again Vorbe hesitated. Buster was beside me, and I nudged him with my foot. My dog snarled, and Vorbe jumped.

“Keep him away from me!” Vorbe said.

“Only if you start doing what I tell you,” I said.

Vorbe handcuffed himself to the refrigerator door. I made him put his other hand on the door, and frisked him. From his pocket I removed the curved knife and tossed it to the table. It was still covered with the meat manager’s blood.

“Guess you didn’t lose your knife,” I said.

I grabbed Vorbe’s handcuffed wrist, and squeezed the cuff. Then I checked the cuff locked to the door. He wasn’t going anywhere.

But I was.