"Purge the Evil" - a novel

by Bill Dunn

(Note: this is a work-in-progress attempt at writing a novel. Feedback, critiques, plot suggestions are more than welcomed.)
 

CHAPTER 29

Tuesday, November 23rd, 7:55 p.m.

            The steel and glass doors swung open at the side entrance of Copernicus Hall science building on the campus of Central Connecticut State University in New Britain. A handful of students exited the building, their sparsely-attended evening chemistry class having just concluded earlier than usual. A sizeable percentage of the school’s students had already left campus in the preceding days to get an early jump on the Thanksgiving break. The chemistry professor knew he’d have to repeat most of this evening’s lecture anyway when the 17 absent students were back on campus next Tuesday, so he dismissed the class an hour early. Among the students leaving the building was sophomore Eric Johnson, who walked toward a five-story parking garage next to the science building, his backpack slung over one shoulder and his iPod ear buds firmly planted in each ear.

            Even though the long Thanksgiving break was about to begin, Eric was not in a good mood. His girlfriend, Tina Bradford, a freshman at the same school, had come to him the previous week in tears. She told Eric through heaving sobs that she was pregnant. Eric’s immediate response, which he thought was quite noble, was to offer to scrape together a few hundred bucks to help Tina “get rid of” the problem. He was completely baffled by her reaction. She suddenly stopped crying, slapped him in the face, and stormed away declaring she hated his guts and never wanted to see him again. He had not spoken to her in five days.

            Although Eric was certainly concerned about Tina’s unplanned pregnancy, the thing that worried him the most was whether or not Tina would tell her father about it. Eric had always felt extremely uncomfortable in the presence of the stone-faced West Hartford police captain, even when he was simply going to take the man’s daughter to the movies. Under the present circumstances, Capt. Bradford was the last person in the world Eric wanted to see.

            Eric walked to his car, a black Volkswagen Jetta, parked on the second level of the almost empty parking garage. Eric climbed into his car and was just about to start the engine when he was startled by a sharp “tink-tink” tapping sound on the driver’s side window. He looked to his left and saw a man standing outside the car. The man was wearing a dark baseball cap, pulled low over his eyes, and a blue windbreaker jacket.

            Eric quickly rolled down the window. “Hi Mr. Bradford, I mean, Captain,” he said nervously. “What are you doing here?”

            “I had a meeting with the Campus Security people. Just some routine training,” Bradford answered. “I saw this car here, and I thought it might be yours.” The police captain forced a smile.

                        Eric returned the smile with an even more forced smile of his own. “Well, um, what a coincidence,” he said weakly.

                        “Listen, Eric,” Bradford said in an unusually pleasant tone, “Tina has been very sad lately, and she told me you two had a little fight the other day, and well, I hate to see her sad. So I was thinking, why don’t you come over to the house on Thursday, and join us for Thanksgiving dinner? I know it would make Tina very happy.”

            Eric was so relieved by this surprising offer, he practically laughed as he exhaled. “Gee, that’s real nice, sir,” he said. “I’m suppose to have dinner with my family at around one o’clock, but I should be able to come over to your house, um, about three? Is that all right?”

            “Yeah, that would be great,” Bradford said. “Make it around three, three-thirty. We’ll eat at about four. That’d be fine.” He forced another smile.

            Eric smiled back again, this time not forced. “OK, great,” he said, nodding his head. “I’ll look forward to it, sir.”

            Bradford took a step back, as if to leave. He quickly scanned the parking garage and saw no other people nearby. Then he leaned forward and put his face down near the window level. He said in a somewhat playful, scolding voice, “Oh Eric, are those beer cans on the floor in the back seat?”

            The underage, 19-year-old student defensively answered, “No! No way, sir. Those are just empty cans of Red Bull. Definitely not beer!” He twisted clockwise in the bucket seat and reached his right arm between the two front seats, struggling to grab one of the empty cans lying on the floor in the back. “See?!” Eric grunted loudly as he finally grasped a can.

            As Eric wrapped his fingers around the can, but before he could turn back to his left, Captain Bradford’s right hand came out of his jacket pocket and thrust forward through the open window. In his hand was a .25 caliber Berretta pistol, which gave a short pop as it fired a slug into the base of Eric’s skull.

Eric’s body flopped across the gear shifter. His head and shoulders settled down onto the passenger seat, while his legs remained underneath the steering wheel on the driver’s side. His right arm was still reaching into the back between the two front seats, frozen in an awkward position that normally would have caused much pain in the shoulder area. However, Eric shoulder felt no pain. His lifeless body no longer felt anything.

            Captain Bradford looked up and scanned the garage again. No one was in sight, and the sound of the small caliber weapon had been muffled since it originated inside the vehicle. As his right hand shoved the pistol back into the jacket pocket, his left hand exited the other pocket, holding a Baggie with about a half-ounce of marijuana. He tossed the bag into the car. It landed on the floor near Eric’s feet.

            Bradford then quickly walked to his old Ford Taurus, which was parked in the far corner of the garage. Bradford hardly ever drove the Taurus since he had unlimited use of the department-issued Crown Victoria. Few people even knew he still owned the 15-year-old car.

            As Bradford steered the Taurus onto Route 9 North, heading back toward West Hartford, he began rehearsing the expressions of consolation he would offer to his daughter. The phrases he thought would be especially comforting included, “Well, that’s what happens sometimes when people get involved in drugs,” and, “You’ll be better off without him anyway, honey.”

            Bradford truly loved his daughter, but he did not understand her very well. Of course, he didn’t particularly care to understand her. If he thought it was a good thing that the man who violated his little girl was now dead, surely Tina also would come to see the wisdom of that view. Bradford couldn’t image how she possibly could see the situation any other way.

The police captain even thought his three co-conspirators—the two buffoons and the wimp, as he now thought of them—would be pleased by his impromptu solo mission this evening. Not that he concerned himself about pleasing people. His main focus during the past six months was to meticulously plan and execute this bold effort to restore justice and order to the community. Making people happy was the furthest thing from his mind. Bradford’s job now, he clearly understood, was to whip his three civilian softies into fighting form—especially that blabber-mouth, worrywart disc jockey. They had so much work ahead of them. It was time, the captain thought, to kick this mission into high gear. There were still far too many scuz-balls roaming the streets of West Hartford: druggies, drunks, burglars, pimps, perverts, and any other college punk who would dare take advantage of his precious daughter.

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