MacNally slammed his right foot against Gormack’s shin to knock him back and gain some space, then whirled to face him.
Gormack’s fist was coming forward to throw a punch, but MacNally blocked it with his left forearm. Before the big man could respond, MacNally swung wildly with the bolt, catching Gormack’s right eye socket.
The bolt penetrated the soft tissue, but got stuck on the bony orbit. He yelped-MacNally yanked it out-then stabbed again at Gormack’s face, catching part of his other eye.
Gormack squealed like a wounded animal and stumbled backwards, falling onto the slippery tile.
Yelling-guttural fury-spilled forth, echoing as surrounding inmates scattered to the periphery.
Off in the distance, angry shouts to break it up.
Chest heaving, face spattered with blood, and water spraying his eyes, MacNally turned to confront Wharton. But Wharton wrapped both arms around him, preventing him from raising his arms.
MacNally, possessed by rage of an intensity that he had never experienced, freed his right arm and swung upwards with vicious ferocity. The bolt penetrated Wharton’s groin. His eyes bulged and his body froze, then fell backward to the wet floor.
MacNally drove onto his knees-and stabbed wildly in the direction of the man’s chest. He missed and struck the tile-and then flesh-and Wharton screamed. He wrapped his thick hands around MacNally’s throat and squeezed.
But MacNally did not yield. He dropped the bolt and grabbed Wharton’s hair, then lifted his head and smashed it down into the tile.
Again.
And again.
His breathing was rapid. Despite the water and humidity, his shallow breaths came in dry, raspy gasps.
MacNally swung around
eyes bulging-
saw the muscled torso of Gormack lying in
a diluting pool of blood,
water raining down on him.
Three loud whistle blasts blew, once, twice, three times-but no guards came running. It was only then that MacNally realized the wild beast-like screaming he had been hearing was coming from his own throat.
He stood up and kicked at the bolt, sending it skittering across the floor. Men were staring at him, standing against the walls, keeping clear.
More whistles. Footsteps, yelling.
MacNally turned into the shower and washed the blood from his hands and face, arms and torso.
Through the cascading sheet of water, he caught a glimpse of approaching officers.
Orders were called out, loud and aggressive:
“Back the fuck up!”
“Shut the goddamn water!”
“Stay back!”
MacNally continued his shower…heart racing…intensely focused…
And numb.
A second later, he was pulled away and brought down hard to the tile by two or three officers.
“Jesus Christ!” Another guard came up along the periphery, taking in the bloody carnage. “MacNally, you do all this?”
The cons looked at the officer, as if he was speaking a foreign language. No one moved. No one spoke.
The guard walked over to a nearby phone, dragged an index finger around the metal dial, then turned to face the bodies of Gormack and Wharton. “Two down in the showers. Send medics.” He listened a second, then said, “Pretty bad.”
MacNally was handcuffed, hustled up, and then led out of the room, the surrounding inmates gawking at the intensity and violence of the attack, which had-in actual time-lasted mere seconds.
Seeing his fellow inmates’ faces as he was pushed out of the room, MacNally felt a broad grin spread across his face. In that moment, though he did not know what his fate would be, he felt certain of one thing: no one at the Big L was going to mess with him again.
39
As the door clicked shut behind them, Dixon looked at her partner. “What the hell’s gotten into you?”
A serial killer with a secret from my past, that’s what.
“Nothing. It was just unnerving to see that key. In our room.”
“Give me a break. Karen Vail doesn’t get unnerved by that shit. She gets angry. And then she gets even.”
That’d be about right. Except for this other little detail I haven’t told you about.
“Yeah, well…” Vail turned away, put her hands on the wood banister and looked down to the floor of the lobby, at the suspended sheets of lights, at the metal globe sculpture, at the conical glass elevator cars that were rising and falling on their tracks. An architecturally stunning view. But she wasn’t seeing it.
Vail turned and saw Dixon staring at her. No, studying her. Hands on her hips. “What?”
Dixon shook her head, then took up a position beside Vail. “So what do you think the key is all about?”
“He’s sending me a message. That he can violate my space and there’s nothing I can do about it. No place is safe.”
“Why not just kill you? If he can find out where you’re staying, if he can get into your room, why not lie in wait and then do to you what he’s done to all his other victims?”
“Because it’s not about me. And if he kills me, he’s losing his playmate. He doesn’t want to do that. He’s having too much fun fucking with us. With me. Allman did us a good goddamn favor by printing my name in that story. He made it all about me.”
“Any way we can use this to our advantage?”
Vail snorted. “If I can clear my head and think straight, yeah, maybe I can come up with something.”
“In the Crush Killer case, you established a line of communication with him. It was important.”
“But this offender isn’t like the Crush Killer. He is in some ways, but he’s also very different. What worked for him won’t work for this guy. We need to think this through. Let’s start with figuring out what the connection is to my former partner. And where did Stephen Scheer get the information-who’s the leak?
Ten minutes later, Vail saw Rex Jackson come up the escalator into the lobby. “He’s here.”
The sight of the criminalist trudging along, toting his kit, was one she had seen too often of late. For all involved, the Bay Killer was wearing out his welcome.
BURDEN AND FRIEDBERG WERE NEXT to arrive, and they spent fifteen minutes speaking with the concierge, hotel management, security, and the bartender and waitresses in the lobby restaurants. Vail figured it would yield nothing of value, but realized it was standard procedure and good police work to proceed according to accepted case management.
Dixon worked the phone. And Vail, after waiting for Jackson’s cue, returned to the room. “May I?” she asked, picking up his latent print kit.