Don’t miss
THE CRUELEST CUT
by Rick Reed
“Rick Reed, retired homicide detective and author of Blood
Trail, the true-crime story of serial killer Joe Brown, brings
his impressive writing skills to the world of fiction with The
Cruelest Cut. This is as authentic and scary as crime
thrillers get, written as only a cop who’s lived this drama in
real life can write. . . . A very good and fast read.”
—Nelson DeMille
“A tornado of drama—you won’t stop spinning till you’ve been spit out the other end. Rick Reed knows the dark side as only a real-life cop can, and his writing crackles with authenticity.”
—Shane Gericke
“Put this one on your must-read list. The Cruelest Cut is a can’t-put-down adventure. All the components of a crackerjack thriller are here, and author Reed knows how to use them. Readers will definitely want to see more of Reed’s character Jack Murphy.”
—John Lutz
“A jaw-dropping thriller that dares you to turn the page.”
—Gregg Olsen
“A winner of a debut novel . . . Reed is a master of describing graphic violence. Some of the crime scenes here will chill you to the bone.”
—Bookreporter.com
ALSO BY RICK REED
The Cruelest Cut
Blood Trail
THE COLDEST FEAR
RICK REED
PINNACLE BOOKS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
Don’t miss THE CRUELEST CUT by Rick Reed
ALSO BY RICK REED
Title Page
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
CHAPTER SIXTY
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
CHAPTER SEVENTY
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
CHAPTER EIGHTY
CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE
CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO
CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE
CHAPTER NINETY
CHAPTER NINETY-ONE
CHAPTER NINETY-TWO
CHAPTER NINETY-THREE
CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR
CHAPTER NINETY-FIVE
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Copyright Page
for Jennifer
CHAPTER ONE
Snow hung heavy in the branches of Scotch pine and cedar trees, and where it hadn’t turned to slush, the land was covered in a foot of snow. The storm had surprised everyone, and as the tall, dark-haired young man stepped off the bus in the town’s center he could hear generators humming in every direction.
The town hadn’t changed much, and even with snow, all the old landmarks were still there. Bertha’s Diner was still on the corner, across the street from Rambo’s, a redneck tavern where violent brawls broke out over imagined remarks or innocent looks. Next to Rambo’s was the old five-and-dime where he used to look through the plate-glass windows at the toys and candy and wonder what it would be like to have a whole dollar to spend.
The five-and-dime was now a Dollar General, but the displays in the window could have been from fifteen years ago, as if time had somehow shifted backwards. But it hadn’t. He had traveled a great distance to get here. And he was here with a purpose.
The judge had sentenced him to the asylum until such time he was declared fit to stand trial, but that day had never come. He had spent fifteen years inside. Fifteen years of watching, listening, learning what to say and how to say it. Learning how to convince the doctors that he was cured.
Before he had gone to the asylum he had hidden something in this town. Hidden it in the only place that, as an eight-year-old, he knew it would be safe. For fifteen years he had dreamed of this day, when he would finally reclaim what was rightfully his.
He half expected that when he returned to Shawneetown, Illinois, everyone would cast curious looks at him. Would wonder what he was doing home. What he was doing “out.” But the town that had seemed so bustling to him as an eight-year-old only looked tired and depleted to him at age twenty-three.
There were just a handful of people on the streets. Like the snow, they looked washed of color, drained of life. He crossed the street, stepping into the ruts left behind by cars, and walked into the narrow gangway between Rambo’s and the Dollar General store. The odor in the narrow alleyway reminded him of the burnt-grease smell on his father’s clothing when he would come home from a night of drinking and gambling in the back room at the tavern. He remembered his mother being unable to buy food or clothing for them because of his father’s affection for blackjack and poker.
The alleyway emptied out into a field behind the buildings and led into the woods. The State Highway Department used the field behind Rambo’s to store crushed cinders and bricks for when the roads iced over. The huge pile of grit was gone, but even after fifteen years the cinders crunched under the smooth soles of his brand-new dress shoes. The asylum had given him shoes, sl
acks, a button-down shirt, and a recycled sport coat whose sleeves were several inches too short. They were his only possessions.
At the edge of the field was a small cut-through that the kids had used to get into the woods. A few hundred yards through the woods to the south were railroad tracks. And less than a mile on the other side of the tracks was the tiny house where he had once lived with his mother, father, and sister.
The house was gone now. The bus had driven past the lot on the way into town. A row of cheap duplexes had been built over his old stomping grounds. He had stared at the wide expanses of snow behind the duplexes and remembered the night he had run out the back of his house, through the fields and into the woods, covered in blood and weaving between the big wild blackberry bushes, which tore at his bare arms and chest. It had been snowing that night, too.
He made his way down the path behind Rambo’s, and emerged from the woods into a small clearing where an old cabin stood. Its wood was blackened with age, and the handmade shutters were lying on the ground, smashed into pieces by vandals, everything covered in pristine white snow, but it was still there. When he was a kid, the cabin was rumored to be haunted. The truth was that it was a historical landmark. A Civil War general had lived there.
He didn’t care about the historical significance of the cabin. He only wanted the item he had hidden there that night when he had run from the back door of his home covered in blood, some his own, some his father’s. He had run in a daze, but with enough sense to know he had to hide it. The bone axe was what had finally set him free and he couldn’t let anyone get it. It belonged to him and he to it.
He stopped just inside the sagging doorway of the cabin and closed his eyes to re-create that night. Three steps ahead he heard the floorboard creak. He knelt and found the loose floorboard and pulled at it with his fingers until it came free. Reaching into the small opening, roughly four inches by six inches, his hand closed on what he wanted. The bone axe was much bigger than the opening, but when his hand came back out it was closed around the short wooden handle of the weapon. The blade was handmade, forged from heavy iron, covered in years of rust. It was crafted to slaughter cattle, the blade sharpened and heavy enough to cut through bones.
He hefted the weight in his hand. It had seemed much larger and heavier when he was eight years old.
CHAPTER TWO
Five years later, Evansville, Indiana
Jack Murphy stood six foot, with a solid build, and a shock of dark hair he had taken to wearing spiked in the front. His gray eyes could turn dark when he was angry or threatened, or soft as a cloud when he was happy. They were soft gray now as he stood on the front porch of the river cabin he called home and gazed across the Ohio to the Kentucky side.
It was late fall; the trees that lined both shores had already lost most of their color. The early sun cast dizzying lights across the swift-moving water. Less than two hundred yards from his door a small spit of sand protruded from the river that was a favorite party site for the younger boaters. He’d spent many a lazy summer day watching bronzed bikini-clad bodies applying suntan lotion.
Unconsciously he rubbed at the thick white scar that ran from below his right ear, down his jaw and across his chest, ending above the left nipple. The scalding hot shower had started an itch that wouldn’t end.
“You want freshened up?” Susan asked from the doorway.
Jack turned and found her holding the coffee decanter and wearing nothing but one of his white dress shirts that she had left unbuttoned. Her long blond hair framed her face, and not for the first time, the sight of her made breathing a conscious effort. The steam that rose from the open decanter could not match the steam he felt rising from within.
As the chief parole officer for the southern region of Indiana, Susan had seen and done things that would make strong men run in panic. Jack had never been able to understand why a woman so smart and beautiful had picked such a dangerous career.
“You must have been reading my mind,” he said, and held out his mug for a refill.
“If I was reading your mind we’d be back in the bedroom and you would be late for work, Mr. Detective,” she said with a giggle.
“Well, you have the day off for a change and I have at least . . .” he looked at his watch and said, “ten more minutes before I have to leave.”
“Behave!” she said, and put her arms around his neck, her face mere inches from his.
Just as their lips touched the police radio that lay on the porch railing beside him crackled to life.
“All available units. One William Four is in foot pursuit of an armed suspect at Southeast Fourth and Main Street.”
“Hold that thought,” he said and headed for his car.
Seven o’ clock in the morning, downtown traffic in Evansville was at its usual frantic pace when Jack Murphy drove his unmarked police car, a silver Crown Vic, up on the curb alongside the tall buildings, stopped at the mouth of the alleyway, rolled the windows down, and then turned off the ignition to listen. The other drivers apparently didn’t seem to think this was odd behavior and continued in their dronelike traffic patterns on their way to and from their jobs.
The sound of footfalls was getting closer, the slap-slap-slapping of shoe leather on asphalt. He listened to the quick succession of steps and began counting to himself, one, two, three ...
Jack simultaneously cranked the ignition and stomped the accelerator. The car lurched across the mouth of the alley, blocking it entirely as he slammed on the brakes. The runner, unable to stop in time, struck the side of the car and splayed across the hood, smashing his face on the windshield. From inside the car the man looked like a squashed bug.
Jack Murphy jumped from the Crown Vic, dragged the groaning man onto the ground, and handcuffed him. The Evansville Police Department motto is In Connection With the Community. This was as fine a connection as Jack had ever made.
Two uniformed officers—one a rookie who Jack didn’t recognize and the other an older cop named Wilson—came running up the alley. Wilson, half a block behind the youngster, was winded and gasping for air. He looked down at the man lying at Jack’s feet.
“That’s him. He just robbed the pharmacy with a knife,” he said.
“He’s fast,” the younger cop said. He was at least as tall as Jack at around six foot, but was much more lean and baby faced. The younger cop added, “I would’ve caught him.”
Jack and the older cop exchanged a look. They both knew that one day this youngster would be puking his guts up after a foot pursuit and would learn to take his time.
“Well, he’s all yours,” Jack said. “Just trade my cuffs off and you can have him.”
The younger cop’s name tag read OFFICER BLOOMBERG. Jack watched as Bloomberg expertly patted the suspect down, put his own handcuffs on him, and took Jack’s off.
“Thanks, Detective Murphy,” Bloomberg said, handing the cuffs over.
“I need to go to the hospital,” the man said from the ground.
Detective Liddell Blanchard presented an imposing figure in any setting. At a little over six-foot-five and weighing in at “full-grown Yeti,” he was the biggest man on the Evansville Police Department. When Jack arrived in the small parking lot behind police headquarters, he spotted Liddell leaning impatiently against the metal railing at the back entrance to the detective’s office.
Jack squinted into the sun and glanced at the big man. He and Liddell had been partners for almost six years. Liddell’s nickname on the police department was “Cajun” because of his Louisiana upbringing, and his addiction to Cajun cooking. Jack called him Bigfoot for obvious reasons.
“You’re late, pod’na,” Liddell said. “Sergeant Mattingly’s gonna have your butt.”
Jack strode up to the door
. “He’s already got mine and yours, too.” Sergeant Mattingly was a short man with a very wide build. He resembled an old Volkswagen van with a bad hairpiece, and had a temperament to match.
Liddell nodded. “You’re still late though.”
“I ran into someone on the way here,” Jack said.
“Yeah, I heard. And I heard the guy’s threatening to sue you and the department. I think Internal Affairs was mentioned as well.”
“Internal Affairs keeps a seat warm for me,” Jack said. “In fact, I think they might give me my own parking spot.”
Jack started toward the door, and Liddell stopped him, saying, “We just got a run.”
“Can I go to the men’s room?”
“Sure. But if you go in there you’ll get yelled at,” Liddell reminded him.
Jack muttered something, and they headed for the car.
CHAPTER THREE
The call reporting the murder had come from the Marriott on the highway near the airport. The caller had requested that police keep the response to a bare minimum, stating “this sort of thing just doesn’t happen at the Marriott.”
The police dispatcher didn’t like the caller’s tone of voice, so she sent four uniform cars, detectives, crime scene, fire and rescue squads, and the coroner. By the time Jack and Liddell arrived, the front entrance of the hotel was blocked with police and emergency vehicles including the coroner’s black Suburban. Surprisingly, there were no television crews.
Jack and Liddell nodded at the uniformed officer standing guard at the front entrance and walked past the check-in counter, where a harried-looking woman was talking to an older officer.
They rode the elevator to the third floor. The room they wanted was near the end of the hallway, where five black Pelican hard-side cases lay open in the hallway near the door of the room. Arranged neatly inside the cases were cameras, fingerprinting equipment, and other tools.
“Look at all the goodies,” Liddell said, eyeing all the cameras and technical equipment. “Marcie wants me to buy a new camera.”