Souls of the Reaper

by Markie Madden

  “Lieutenant, right?” He asked, sticking out his hand.

  “Yes, sir, Lieutenant Anderson. My partner, Detective Scarber. Colton, Dr. Matthews was the one who took care of Angelina.”

  “Good to meet you.” Colton shook the other man’s hand, admiring the strength in his grip. The man had a pale, gaunt face, deep, dark eyes that seemed to look through to his very soul, and straight black hair. He stood a little taller than Colton, about 5’9”, and had a slender frame. Colton remembered Lacey mentioning that the doctor was a Reaper, and he could see it by simply looking at the man.

  “What can you tell me, Dr. Matthews?” Lacey demanded.

  “There’s not a lot to tell, at this point,” he replied sadly. “The patient has two black eyes, a broken nose, several cuts, abrasions, and muscle strains, but most concerning is the skull fracture. His brain is swelling despite all our efforts to keep in under control.” He shook his head. “Cases like this, it’s 50/50 either way. His body may recover before the pressure becomes too great, causing permanent brain damage. It may not. We’re doing all we can for him.”

  “Can he talk?” Colton wanted to know.

  Dr. Matthews shook his head again. “No, he’s been unconscious since they brought him in. And before you can ask, I’d rather not give him anything to wake him up. He needs to be kept as still and quiet as we can, so he doesn’t injure himself further. I’m sorry.”

  “Will you let us know immediately of any changes in his condition?” Lacey handed over her card. “We’d also like to collect his clothing and anything else you might think has any evidentiary value.”

  “Of course,” the doctor agreed. “But don’t keep your hopes up about interviewing him. The chances aren’t good.”

  Before the doctor could return to the trauma room, Colton laid a hand on his arm. “Wait a minute, can I ask you something, doc?”

  Dr. Matthews turned to face him. “Yes?”

  “You’re a Reaper.”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, I mean, don’t you know if he’s going to be okay or not? I’m sorry, I don’t mean to offend. I don’t know any Reapers myself, so I’m curious how the process works.”

  “I personally don’t have a writ for him,” the other man answered. “But that doesn’t mean that another Reaper somewhere in the city doesn’t. We are simply told the names of those we’re responsible for.”

  “Okay, I see. Thank you for clarifying this for me.”

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me.” He nodded once at each of them before slipping back into the trauma room.

  They were both silent as they returned to Lacey’s car, then Colton spoke up. “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you back there.”

  “How do you mean?” She put the vehicle on auto drive, much to his relief.

  “Well, asking him that question, if he knew whether or not the vic was going to make it.”

  “No embarrassment here,” she responded, her voice tinged with humor. “You know, I was thinking the same thing, I don’t know any Reapers, either. Except for Doctor Matthews.”

  “Well, at least we both learned something new. So, we can’t interview the victim, I guess we’re headed in to talk to the suspect?”

  “Gotta start somewhere,” she replied.

  ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

  Lacey watched through the one-way glass of the observation room as their suspect was brought in by two burly corrections officers. His clothing had been taken by the prison officers when he’d been booked in and should be over at the lab being processed. She was certain they’d find copious amounts of the victim’s blood on them. She knew it was unlikely they’d get any of the usual evidence from the victim; fingernail scrapings, wound track molds, and other things that could tie the suspect to the injured man were not collected. Saving his life took precedence over evidence. And they had a number of witnesses to attest to the fact that the man on the other side of the mirror was indeed the one who assaulted the victim.

  It seemed to her that the man kept up a steady stream of protest, though she could not hear through the glass. Even after the corrections officers had left him alone, he continued to rant and rave, not seeming to care that no one was listening.

  Colton made an exasperated noise next to her. “Is he trying for an insanity plea? I mean, for real? Does he think we’ve never seen perps act like this before?”

  “I don’t know.” She murmured while she continued to stare through the glass. “And we can’t question him until his counsel arrives.”

  “He’s already lawyered up?” Colton’s voice betrayed his disappointment.

  “No sooner than the officers got into their car at the scene.” She replied ruefully. “So he can sit in there and listen to the sound of his own voice until his attorney gets here, for all I care.”

  “Too bad we can’t turn on the intercom.” He looked as if he was going to push the button cleverly hidden on the divider cutting the window in half between them.

  “Not worth it,” she warned.

  “Yes, I know, but say we’d walked into Observation and whoever used it before us forgot to turn it off?” She simply gave him a bland stare. “Okay, okay, kidding. Mostly.”

  “It’s probably not even anything worth hearing,” she said after another moment of watching their suspect. “Not if what he said at the scene is any indication.”

  Suddenly, the phone mounted on the wall near the door rang. She stepped over to it. “Anderson.”

  The voice was familiar to her as one of the day shift dispatchers. “Your suspect’s attorney is on his way back.”

  “Excellent. Thank you.” Lacey hung up the phone before turning to her partner. “Counsel is on his way.”

  “All right. So, we have any plans on how we’re going to handle this guy?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” she replied. “I’m curious to see how the interview begins. He’s got to know that we’ve got him cold for this. How many witnesses did the uniforms indicate?”

  “I don’t know. Many. At least several.” She made a wordless sound. “What is it?” He asked after the silence stretched out for many moments.

  Lacey shook her head. They watched as an officer escorted a sharply dressed, middle-aged man into the interrogation room. The man carried a briefcase, which he laid flat on the table, well outside the reach of his client, whose hands were cuffed to the metal ring welded on the smooth, shiny surface. He seated himself next to the suspect and from the expressions on their faces, it was clear they were having a conversation. The attorney took an electronic tablet from the briefcase and began dictating into it. Then, he raised his eyes to the observation glass and gave them a ‘come here’ gesture.

  Lacey cocked her head to the side and said, “Let’s go.”

  3

  Words may show a man’s wit but actions his meaning. ~~Benjamin Franklin

  They stepped from the hallway into the interrogation room. Their suspect sat in silence, obviously having been instructed by his legal counsel before he beckoned to them. The attorney stood when the door opened, a sign of respect for the two officers. The suspect was unable to stand because of his hands being cuffed to the metal table, nor did he seemed inclined to try. Lacey gestured her partner into the room and closed the door behind them.

  “Lieutenant Anderson, Detective Colton,” she said by way of introduction to the attorney.

  “Delbert Cummings,” the man responded, offering his hand.

  “Let’s get down to business.” Lacey shook with him briefly, then sat down across from him. Colton also took the other man’s hand, then grabbed another chair from the corner of the small room and sat next to his partner, who had turned on her tablet, accessing the case file from the department’s mainframe.

  “Let’s see, you’ve been identified as Stetson Sorby.” She pretended not to notice when Colton failed to completely smother a smirk. This guy is named after a kind of hat? “You drive a gray and red Chevrolet pickup involved in an accident over on Lex this morning
?”

  The cuffed man remained stubbornly silent, a complete one-eighty from his behavior at the scene and before his attorney arrived in the interrogation room.

  “That’s right,” Counsel Cummings answered for him.

  “We have said vehicle in the impound yard. We’ll be examining it shortly. But for now, why don’t you tell us what happened this morning?”

  The suspect glanced at his attorney, who nodded encouragingly. The man shifted his weight before answering, causing the chair to creak against the concrete floor. “I was minding my own damn business, driving to work and listening to talk radio. I make the same trip every weekday. It’s become a habit, so I barely even notice anything except what’s on the news radio. But everything was getting on my nerves today, you know? Traffic was even slower than usual, and I was afraid I was going to end up being late. Then some yahoo cuts me off from the left lane, squeezing her big luxury car into a space that even a compact would have trouble fitting into. So of course, I hit the brakes hard. That’s when the asshole behind me slams into the back of the truck.”

  When he paused for breath, Lacey asked, “So what did you do next?”

  “Well, I pulled over as far as I could to get out of traffic. No sense in getting hit twice. Didn’t you see, I even pulled onto the sidewalk a bit?” He glanced over at his attorney. “Then, I fucking lost it. Everything seemed to pile on, and I saw red. Like the straw that broke the camel’s back. Next thing I know, this cop is pulling me off the guy and slapping me in cuffs.”

  Lacey exchanged glances with her partner, then looked at the attorney, who gave her a sheepish shrug of his shoulders. She consulted her tablet. “So, witnesses say you kicked the victim’s driver side door and shattered his window.”

  The suspect didn’t show any remorse and stared straight ahead. “Yeah, I did.”

  “And that you grabbed the victim, pulled him from his car through said broken window, and threw him on the ground, where you then proceeded to beat him quite thoroughly.”

  “You’re damn right I did.” Again, the man’s voice conveyed no guilt.

  “After which time you were detained by officers until our arrival?”

  “That’s right.”

  Lacey tried and failed to pick up on any tone of the suspect’s voice or the slightest shift in his body language to indicate that he felt any measure of culpability for the incident. Nodding at Colton, she looked at the lawyer and said, “Will you please excuse us for a moment?” She took her partner by the arm and left the room, returning to the observation room on the other side of the mirrored glass.

  “What’s up?” Colton’s voice revealed his curiosity.

  “Did you get any sense whatsoever that he feels guilt or remorse over causing the victim so much injury?”

  “No, just the opposite, in fact. It sounded almost like bragging to me.”

  “Almost as if he did the world a favor by taking that guy out?”

  “Exactly!” Colton slapped one fisted hand into his palm with a loud smack. “He’s got no conscience, no...what’s the word, morals?”

  “No sense of right or wrong, you mean?” She thought back to the argument she broke up at La Femme. It seemed as if those young men completely lost their inhibitions and their fundamental manners.

  “What do you think it means?” Colton broke into her thoughts.

  “I don’t know,” she replied absently. “But I think he needs to get an evaluation before we can proceed much further.”

  “Send him to the head-shrinker?” He barked a quick laugh. “This I’d like to see.”

  “Yeah, unfortunately, regulations don’t allow for the questioning officers to be present during an evaluation.”

  “Too damn bad.” His face lit up with a grin.

  Lacey stepped to the phone and dialed a number from memory. “Doctor Dilorenzo, it’s Lieutenant Anderson. Can you come to Observation Room number two? Yes, right away, please.” She hung up the phone and turned to her partner. “He’s on his way. Let’s wait until he can observe before we go back in. Looks like they’re having a conversation now anyway.” She nodded toward the glass, where Stetson and his lawyer seemed to be having a heated discussion.

  “What does it matter?” Colton asked, his voice betraying his frustration. “We’ve got the guy’s confession! Even his counsel can’t argue that away, no matter how good he is.”

  “His confession won’t be admissible if the defense can prove he’s not cognizant between right and wrong and normal societal mores.” Lacey sighed.

  “What?” He gave her such a look of confusion that she struggled to rephrase her statement in a way that was easier for him to understand.

  “Like you said, he seemed to have no conscience, no guilt. I’d like Dr. Dilorenzo to evaluate him. If his normal behavior has been modified somehow, we need to know about it.”

  At that point, the door to the observation room opened, and in stepped the department’s resident psychologist and profiler. He was tall and slim and professional-looking in his tailored suit. His jet black hair held a touch of red and his ashen skin was even more so under the powerful fluorescent lights of the observation room.

  He inclined his head toward her. “Lieutenant.”

  “Thanks for coming by, Doctor,” she told him. “Detective Scarber, Dr. Dilorenzo.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Detective.” The psychologist’s voice was soft and cultured as he stuck a pale hand out to Colton.

  “Same here,” Colton stuttered. He gave Lacey a look and she knew he was wondering what she had told the doctor during her enforced therapy sessions. She shook her head almost imperceptibly.

  “Doctor, I’d like you to observe while we finish this interview,” Lacey explained. “This suspect was involved in a minor traffic accident this morning over on Lexington Avenue. He then proceeded to beat the other driver, nearly killing him. The victim is still being stabilized.”

  “Do you think the suspect is somehow unfit?” Marcell asked.

  “We don’t know. That’s why I’ve asked for your help, because he’s acting...off. Will you observe? And possibly consent to do a thorough evaluation?”

  “Of course.”

  Lacey beckoned to Colton, and they returned to the interrogation room.

  ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

  Marcell watched as the two detectives returned to the room where they were questioning the suspect. He pushed the button to activate the intercom, and he could hear the scrapes of chairs as the officers took their seats. He stood perfectly still, hands clasped lightly behind his back, and listened as Lacey resumed her questioning.

  “Tell me, when you said you saw red, what did you feel?” Her voice was tinny through the intercom.

  “Yeah, I was pissed,” the suspect answered. “You know, I wanted to make the guy pay for what he done.”

  “Surely you realize that your actions were unwarranted?” She probed for a deeper answer.

  He shook his head. “What do you mean?”

  “You almost killed a man, for causing a little damage to your truck.”

  “Yeah. He deserved it. He should have been paying attention to where he was driving. He’d never have hit me if he was paying attention.”

  Marcell sighed, disturbed.

  Colton, obviously unable to control himself any longer, finally spoke. “Don’t you feel the slightest bit sorry?”

  “Sorry for what?” The suspect seemed confused.

  “For injuring another being?”

  “Why should I?”

  Marcell watched as Colton seemed enraged by the suspect’s total lack of remorse. He rose from the chair, pacing in front of the one-way glass, until his anger took a toll and he slammed a fist against the window. It might have startled Marcell had he been unprepared for the moment. But knowing Wolves in general, and a few specifics about this wolf from Lacey, he fully expected the release of anger.

  The attorney cleared his throat. “Officers, my client’s mental state is
not in question. You have his confession on the record. What are the charges?”

  Marcell pulled his tablet from his pocket and sent a text message to his administrative assistant to cancel any appointments currently on his schedule for the next week.

  In interrogation, Lacey consulted her own tablet. “At the moment, Stetson Sorby, you’re being charged with aggravated assault. Those charges may change depending on the status of the victim.” She touched Colton on the arm, and they stood. “You may spend as much time with your client as you’d like, Mr. Cummings. When you’re through, please use the intercom to contact the corrections officers and they’ll escort you out.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant, but I believe I’m finished for the time being.”

  She inclined her head and unlocked the door to the interrogation room. An officer standing outside nodded politely to her as well as the attorney, and led him from the room. Colton and Lacey stepped through, and the door closed behind them.

  Marcell thumbed off the intercom and waited. In a few moments, Lacey and Colton entered the observation room.

  “Thoughts?” Lacey demanded without preamble.

  He steepled his fingers as he thought about the possible implications. “Right now, I can’t tell you much without a full evaluation and testing. At the moment, I can say that the man seems to have no sense of wrongdoing, as if he has no conscience.”

  “Is he a sociopath?”

  “Again, I can’t answer that without a concise evaluation. What I can tell you is that he did exhibit narcissistic behavior during your interview.”

  “Will you evaluate him?”

  “I’ve already cleared my schedule for the next week.”

  “Good.” She looked at Colton. “Set it up with the jail, get him over to Marcell as soon as possible.”

  “Is that wise? Wouldn’t it be safer to have him interviewed while in the confines of the jail?”

  She looked over at Marcell. “What do you think, doctor? Will it affect the test results if you interview him in a cell?”