Part One - Evil Times 3 - Chapter One

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible

Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishing, Inc.

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Foreword

This is the first in a series of books with a vast number of characters.

Janis Baker, a Lieutenant with the Montie Police Department, is a divorced mother who shares custody with her son.

On most any given day, the city of Montie is a quiet city. There will always be the occasional public drunk or speeder, and yes, people and places get robbed. Suicides, domestic disputes, and barroom fights happen.

It has been five years since an attempted bank robbery; two years since anyone went missing, and every now and then, an unexplained murder will take place,

Montie goes way back in the history books, but the events that are about to take place will rewrite Montie’s history for a long time to come.

In small steps, Lieutenant Janis Baker, and her partner, Ed Manning, work on unraveling a series of brutal murders. Murders that lead Baker and Manning, to one dead end after another.

One of those dead ends being that Baker becomes a target.

The killer is smart enough to leave no clues as to his identity and has his own code of justice.

The action is fast paced.

Welcome to Montie, where every day is more than just an adventure.

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Prelude

A young boy, age 10, in the state of Maine, was sentenced to a mental hospital for extensive evaluation for setting a fire that killed his parents in 1995.

A young girl, age 10, lost her parents to a tragedy, also in 1995.

Neither one knew at the time their lives would intertwine.

She went on in later years to get married and have a son and attend the police academy.

Twenty years after he was admitted to the institution, he escaped. What would become of him would change both their lives forever.

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Death hath so many doors to let out life.

The Custom of the Country. Act II. Sc. 2.

Beaumont and Fletcher

Godly people find life, evil people find death.

Proverbs 11:19

I open every door and put every evil person

I can find where they belong‒‒in hell.

Freddy

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Friday - May 14th - 9:07 p.m.

The crime scene unit had just finished and were leaving the Marcus Arms Apartments where a dead body had been discovered.

The victim: Arnold Kilpatrick, retired two-star Army general, formerly attached with the 317thAirborne Division, was found face up on his living room floor. A widower for seven years, has left two sons and one daughter behind, who would be notified prior to the autopsy if possible.

The general was a mess.

His throat was slit with a smooth-edged blade, and a large X-shaped pattern that went from left shoulder to right hip, and right shoulder to left hip, had literally opened up his chest. The two slash grooves were three inches deep. Probably done after the throat. There appeared to be little struggle, giving Lieutenant Janis Baker the impression the general probably knew the perp.

Carl Macklin, Senior Forensic Pathologist, explained to her that he would have all the prints found, numbered, and identified within a few hours. The scene provided no hair samples anywhere in the apartment that appeared different from the general’s gray hair that was now a bloody mess across his chest. His head had been shaved bald. There didn’t appear to be any skin residue or blood marks under the victim’s fingernails to indicate a struggle, but scrapings were taken just the same.

There was a note attached to the victim’s body.

LIVE ON RAEH.

Lieutenant Baker had a strong suspicion they wouldn’t find the perp’s prints anywhere.

Ten Minutes Earlier

Mrs. Mattingly heard a knock on the door.

“Yes? Who is it?”

“The night janitor, miss. I need to check the plumbing in all of the bathrooms on this floor.”

Mrs. Mattingly opened her door one inch to see who it was. She wasn’t aware her building even had a janitor, especially one at night.

She was still scared and shaking over what she had seen across from her at the Marcus Arms Apartments. That poor man being killed! She knew it was her civic duty to call the police right away. What frightened her most; she thought she recognized the killer. That made it all the worse for she thought him to be a good and justly man.

What she didn’t realize is that the killer saw her, too.

The slight opening of the door was all it took.

The night janitor kicked the door back, causing Mrs. Mattingly to stumble backward and fell to the floor. She was seventy-eight.

“Oh, my heavens! It is you! I don’t believe it!”

“Believe what you want, you old bitch! I’m the last thing you’ll ever see.”

He bent down overtop her and swiftly sliced her throat, and hurriedly made the sweeping arcs of the X across her chest, and then spent a few moments with her eyes.

He popped them from her sockets with the tip of his blade, and then placed them in his pocket, underneath a plastic raincoat covered in blood. He then scribbled a note with his left hand, writing the words backward.

LIVE ON EES.