Emily Atwater was a lapsed smoker, meaning she had cut back from a pack-a-day habit to a pack-a-week dalliance, and primarily indulged herself during off-work hours. I remembered the ash can outside the second-floor exit at her apartment building.
At regular intervals she went out to the benches to smoke a cigarette, hoping that she would be in place when Vogel showed up to indulge his own habit. I had not smoked since I had moved to California but I had a prop pack of cigarettes in my shirt pocket as well, with the intention of going to the benches and using them when Vogel finally appeared.
The morning passed slowly with no sighting of Vogel. Meanwhile, the benches were a popular spot for other employees, visitors, and patients alike — one patient even walked her mobile IV pole and drip bag out to the spot for a smoke. I kept a steady text chain going with Rachel and included Emily when she was at one of the benches. That was where she was at 10:45 when I sent out a group missive suggesting we were wasting our time. I said Vogel had probably been spooked by the conversation I’d had with him the day before and blown town.
After sending it, I got distracted by a man who had entered the ER with blood on his face and demanded to be attended to immediately. He threw a clipboard he had been handed onto the floor and yelled that he had no insurance but needed help. A security guard was moving toward him when I heard my text chime go off and pulled my phone. The text was from Rachel.
He just walked out of administration, cigarettes in hand.
The text had gone to both Emily and me. I checked on Emily through the window and saw her sitting on one of the benches looking at her phone. She had gotten the alert. I headed out through the automatic doors and toward the smoking benches.
As I approached I saw a man standing by the benches. Emily was on one bench smoking and another woman was on the other. Vogel, if it was Vogel, was apparently intimidated about sharing one of the benches with the women. This was problematic. I didn’t want him standing when we identified ourselves as journalists. It would be easier for him to walk away from us. I saw him light a cigarette with a flip lighter. I started to remove the prop pack of smokes from my shirt pocket. I saw Emily pretending to read a text but I knew she was opening her phone’s recording app.
Just as I got there the interloping smoker stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray and left the butt behind. She got up and walked back toward the ER. I saw Vogel take her place on the empty bench. Our plan was going to work out.
As far as I could tell, Vogel never looked at Emily or acknowledged her in any way. When I got to the spot I put a cigarette in my mouth and then patted the pocket of my shirt as if looking for matches or a lighter. I found none and looked at Vogel.
“Can I borrow a light?” I asked.
He looked up and I gestured with my unlit cigarette. Without saying a word he reached into his pocket and handed me his lighter. I studied his face as he reached the lighter out to me. I saw a look of recognition.
“Thanks,” I said quickly. “You’re Vogel, right?”
Vogel looked around and then back at me.
“Yeah,” he said. “Are you in Admin?”
Identity confirmed. We had the right guy. I threw a quick glance at Emily and saw that her phone had been put down on her bench and angled toward Vogel. We were recording.
“No, wait a minute,” Vogel said. “You’re... you’re the reporter.”
Now I was surprised. How did he know?
“What?” I said. “What reporter?”
“I saw you in court,” he said. “It’s you. We talked yesterday. How the hell did you—? Are you trying to get me killed?”
He threw his cigarette down and jumped up from the bench. He started to head back toward the Administration Building. I raised my hands as if to stop him.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute. I just want to talk.”
Vogel hesitated.
“About what?”
“You said you know who the Shrike is. We need to stop him. You—”
He pushed by me.
“You need to talk to us,” Emily called.
Vogel’s eyes darted toward her as he realized she was with me and he was being tag-teamed.
“Help us catch him,” I said. “And then you’ll be safe too.”
“We’re your best chance,” Emily said. “Talk to us. We can help you.”
We had rehearsed what we would say on the ride over from the office. But the script, as it was, did not go much further than what we had just said. Vogel kept walking, yelling back at us as he went.
“I told you, none of this was supposed to happen. I’m not responsible for what that crazy person is doing. Just back the fuck off.”
He started to cross George Burns Road.
“You just wanted the women to be fucked over, not killed, right?” Emily called. “Very noble of you.”
She was standing now. Vogel pirouetted and strode back to us. He bent slightly to get right into Emily’s face. I moved in closer in case he made a further move toward her.
“What we did was no different from any dating service out there,” he said. “We matched people with what they were looking for. Supply and demand. That’s it.”
“Except the women didn’t know they were part of that equation,” Emily pressed. “Did they?”
“That didn’t matter,” Vogel said. “They’re all whores anyway and—”
He stopped as his eyes found the cell phone Emily held up in front of her body.
“You’re recording this?” he shrieked.
He turned to me.
“I told you, I want no part of this story,” he yelled. “You can’t use my name.”
“But you are the story,” I said. “You and Hammond and what you’re responsible for.”
“No!” Vogel cried. “This bullshit is going to get me killed.”
He turned again toward the street and headed to the crosswalk.
“Wait, you want your lighter?” I called after him.
I held it up in my hand. He turned back to me but didn’t slow down as he stepped into the street.
“Keep—”
Before he could say the next word, a car swooshed by and caught him in the crosswalk. It was a black Tesla with windows tinted so dark it could have been driverless and I would not have been able to tell.
The force of the collision at the knees threw Vogel forward into the intersection and then I saw his body swallowed by the silent car as it ran over him. The Tesla bounced as it went over Vogel. His body was then dragged underneath it into the middle of the intersection before the car could finally break free of it.
I heard Emily scream behind me but there was no sound from Vogel. He was as silent as the car that took him under.
Once free of the body, the Tesla hit top takeoff speed and screamed across the intersection and down George Burns Road to Third Street. I saw the car turn left on a yellow light and disappear.
Several people ran to the crumpled and bloodied body in the intersection. It was, after all, a medical center. Two men in sea-foam-green scrubs were the first to get to Vogel and I saw that one was physically repelled by what he saw. There were drag marks in blood on the street.
I checked on Emily, who was standing next to the bench she had occupied, her hand to her throat as she gazed in horror at the activity in the intersection. I then turned and joined the scrum that was gathering around Roger Vogel’s unmoving body. I looked over the shoulder of one of the men in scrubs and saw that half of Vogel’s face was missing. It had literally disintegrated while he had been dragged facedown under the car. Vogel’s head was also misshapen and I was sure that his skull had been crushed.