“Yet being the operative word,” she complained.
“Stop.” He sighed and ran a hand though his hair as he glanced at the hospital door again. “I love you. I believe in you. But I’m sorry, I really have to go. With the way things are going today, and your hunch, I have a feeling I’ll be late. I’ll meet you at home after I pick up a few things from the inn. Okay?”
“I love you, too. Good luck with Winston.”
Ten minutes later, John met Roy outside of Winston’s hospital room. While they waited for Winston’s doctor, John explained his conversation with Celeste.
Finally, Winston’s doctor approached. He gave them the same line he’d given yesterday—if they upset the patient, they had to leave. John had a feeling they’d leave soon, because he had every intention of upsetting Winston.
Once the doctor walked away, he and Roy pushed open the door. Without preamble, John shoved the curtain surrounding the hospital bed aside. The scraping metal immediately drew Winston’s attention, and opened the floodgates.
“Oh brother,” Roy mumbled as he stared at Winston with both disgust and amusement. “Boy, you’re gonna dehydrate with all that crying.”
“I...I can’t help it,” Winston bawled, and reached for the box of tissues he had resting on his stomach. Wads of used tissues surrounded him, and littered the floor, along with an empty box.
Roy bent down and picked up the tissue box. “What brand are they using in this hospital? With the way you’re blowing through these things, I should consider taking out stock in the company,” he said, then tossed it in the trash.
“Please, Sheriff,” John admonished him. The man really did have a sick sense of humor. “Garrett’s been through enough.” He moved toward the hospital bed. “How are you feeling today?”
“Better.” Winston hiccupped. “I...I’m sorry for the way I acted yesterday. It really wasn’t very Christian-like.”
“It’s okay, Garrett,” John assured him as he set the mini tape recorder on the nightstand. “But there were a few things we didn’t have a chance to discuss.”
“Like what?”
John withdrew the pictures Rachel had sent and set them on the nightstand next to the recorder. The photographs had been arranged in chronological order. Winston’s first known victim’s bruised and bloodied body now sat on the top of the stack.
Winston darted his gaze to the picture, then quickly looked away and blew his nose. “What do you have there?”
“Consider it a slide show.” John held up the first picture. “Do you know this woman?”
Winston’s chin trembled.
“Her name is...was, Jessica Bonaham,” John said. “I know it might be hard to recognize her with her eyes swollen shut and all the bruises.”
Fresh tears streamed down Winston’s cheeks and into his beard.
He brought out another picture. “How about this woman? Her name was Lidia Shoat. Know her?” He flashed him the next photo in line. “Or how about this one?”
When Winston looked away with a groan, John released a deep breath. “I’ve got twenty-nine eight-by-tens in this stack.” He tapped his fingers on the rest of the photographs. “And every one of the dead women in these pictures had your DNA on them when they were found. Would you like to see a few more?”
“What do you want from me?” he wailed, and reached for another tissue. “I’ve already confessed.”
Roy knocked the box of tissues to the floor. “We want Tobias Haney.”
Winston paled as he gaped at them. “How…?”
“You told us yesterday that you wanted to kill him so he couldn’t kill anymore,” John said. “Let us bring Tobias in, let us stop him from hurting any more women. We know what happened to you and your brother when you were kids. We know what your mom did to you. And I can understand why you want to protect your brother, but—”
Winston fisted the tissue, then tossed it on the bed with the others. “You know nothing about my mother,” he said with an ugly snarl that reminded him of the old Winston.
“Did she get what she deserved?” John asked, deciding to change tactics. To reveal the ugly secret no one was supposed to know. “Susan Haney was a prostitute and drug addict. She made you live in filth, and spent more money on her clothes than food. Am I close to brushing the surface?”
Winston’s earlier snarl had been replaced with an expression of innocence, maybe that of the young boy he’d been before Susan Haney had poisoned his soul. “Not even,” he whispered.
“Right. It got worse, didn’t it? When she couldn’t afford to pay for her pretty things or her drugs, she found a new commodity.”
“Stop. Please, stop,” Winston pleaded as tears streamed from his eyes.
He might appear childlike, almost harmless now, but John knew what this man was capable of doing. Glancing at the pictures resting on the nightstand, he pushed further.
“She used you and your brother for money, didn’t she? She made you have sex with her dealer, with other men, with her, with each other so she could maintain her lifestyle. Is that why you killed her? Is that why you and Tobias killed prostitutes? To make them pay for your mother’s sins?”
Winston shot up, the line from both his IV and handcuff pulling taut. “Shut up,” he screamed over and over while covering his ears. Then he suddenly leaned back against the pillow, his lips moving as he whispered a prayer John didn’t recognize.
“Garrett,” he said, then repeated his name in a harsher voice until Winston finally looked at him. “You and your brother killed all of these women.” He nodded to the photos. “Because your mom abused you. I get it.” A total lie. He’d known people who had suffered worse, and they hadn’t gone off on a killing spree. They saw a shrink and went on medication. But he had to find a way to break through to Winston. He had to coerce him into giving him the location of his brother.
“The thing is though,” he continued, and glanced back at Roy with a shrug, “if you don’t give us your brother, you’ll be looking at the death penalty.”
Mid prayer, Winston glared at him. “Wisconsin doesn’t have the death penalty.”
Roy nodded. “True. But Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Indiana still do. If you don’t cooperate, you’ll be extradited to those other states for murder. And I can guarantee you, based on the evidence, you will receive the death penalty.”
Winston looked to him, tears clinging to his eyes, and John nodded. “It’s true. We’re willing to make you a deal, to keep you in Wisconsin if you give up your brother.”
Chin trembling, eyes watering, the crybaby killer lived up to his name. He shook his head from side to side against the pillow, mumbling nonsensical words and absently reaching for the tissue box that now lay on the floor.
“Tell us, Garrett. Give us Tobias. Stop the killing. You’d said you found redemption, prove it.”
“W...what will happen to Toby?” Winston sobbed.
“He’ll be extradited,” Roy said.
“No,” Winston uttered through clenched teeth. “I’ll go in his place. It’s my fault. I created the monster he’s become.”
John frowned. “I thought you two blamed your mother. That’s why you focused on prostitutes, as a way of, I dunno, personal justice?”
The eerie grin Winston flashed made him take a step back. Once again the old Winston was with them. “Personal justice,” he echoed, and released a bitter laugh. “I never looked at it that way, but Toby did. I just enjoyed the control. There’s nothing more powerful than deciding who will live and who will die. I showed Toby that power. I warped him.” He made the sign of the cross, and then as if a switch had flipped in his brain, he became the crybaby killer again.
As the tears flowed, he wiped them away with the sleeve of his hospital gown. “I forgive Toby for what he tried to do to me back in the jail cell. Forgiveness is a step in the direction to God’s salvation.”
“And murder takes you a step back. Twenty-nine to be exact, not including your mother or your grand
parents,” John said.
Winston’s eyes filled with shame. “They were good people. A little over-protective and set in their ways. I regret what I did to them. But I needed the money. I needed to go back to Mississippi to save Toby.”
“Save him from who? His foster parents? You were thirteen at the time of your mother’s death. Why didn’t your grandparents take your brother, too?”
“They didn’t want him. They didn’t even allow me to talk with him on the phone or send letters.”
“So how did you know he needed saving?” Roy asked.
“The old lady that lived across the street from my grandparents paid me five dollars a week to mow her lawn, take out her garbage, and bring her mail and newspapers to her. I gave him her address, and he wrote to me every few weeks. He was eleven when he moved into his first foster home. By the time he turned eighteen, he’d been through fourteen different homes. Some were okay, others...they weren’t any better than livin’ with her.”
“Your mother you mean.”
He nodded. “Toby had survived it all. When I finally moved back to Jackson, I guess I realized he didn’t need me after all. He had a good job, a girlfriend.”
John moved to the nightstand and flipped through a few photos until he came to the one he’d been looking for. The prostitute that had been found outside of Jackson and the first victim with two sets of DNA found on her beaten corpse. “Explain Tracy Lyles.”
Winston closed his eyes, and screwed his face as if in pain. “She wasn’t supposed to die. I’d brought her to my apartment for a little fun. That’s all. Just for me and Toby. She wasn’t supposed to end up like...” He waved his arm, the line from the IV dangled. “That. She was supposed to prove we were real men.”
“You said your brother had a girlfriend. Sounds to me like he didn’t need to prove anything. Maybe you needed to prove something to him?”
Winston looked at him then, his silver eyes holding a dawning realization. “I guess I did. But I...you have to understand what we went through. Being forced to have sex with a man ain’t right, it ain’t natural.”
“Neither is having sex with your brother.”
The old Winston resurfaced again as his eyes narrowed and his mouth curved into a sneer. “I hated him. Hated that every time I looked at him I was reminded of what we’d been forced to do. There were times I wanted to kill him. But he was my only family. He was all I had left, and the only person on the planet who got me. I brought that whore to my apartment to give us some new memories.”
“What did Toby think about this?”
“The priss acted all pissed off about it. So I taunted him as I fucked her. Told him maybe he liked guys instead. That maybe mommy had been right in letting men fuck him stupid.” He snapped his fingers. “Like that, he went bat shit.”
Winston’s leer sent a chill through him.
“He raped and beat that woman,” Winston continued. “And encouraged me to do the same. Like I said, I hadn’t planned on her dying, but the rush, the high...it became too much. Toby couldn’t stop hurting her, and I couldn’t stop watching or wanting to do the same. What did you say her name was again?”
“Tracy Lyles,” he answered with disgust.
“Yeah, Tracy. She saved us, you know. She wiped the slate clean. Wiped away the memories. I’m sorry she died now, but maybe God put her in our path for a purpose.”
How Winston could validate murder, using God as a crutch while claiming he sought redemption, both baffled and sickened him. “You honestly believe God wanted you and your brother to murder Tracy Lyles? Do you also believe God wanted you two to murder your mom, too?”
“I guess it doesn’t matter now, but I do want to set the record straight.”
John fought from rolling his eyes at the absurdity. “Please, by all means.”
“I killed her, not Toby. She’d forced us to have sex for over a year so she could keep up her habit and buy her slutty clothes. The day she died, she’d shot herself up with some sorta shit that messed her up bad.”
A slow grin spread across his face. “She stumbled into the hallway, screaming for me. I ran up the stairs and found her lying on the floor, flopping around like a fucking fish, blood oozing out of her nose, her eyes rolling back. And I thought to myself, she’s gonna die from whatever she stuck in her veins. But then I worried she might not. What if she recovered? So I decided to help her along, and kicked her. To this day, the sound of cracking bone makes me smile. It’s the best memory I have of mommy.”
Although disturbed by Winston’s confession, John kept himself composed. From beneath the stack of photographs, he pulled out the binder and flipped through it, stopping when he reached the autopsy report on Susan Haney. “You killed your mother to protect yourself and your brother. You claim you were the one who created the monster he’s become, correct?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Which is why you would sacrifice yourself, and take the death penalty so that your brother could live.”
“Exactly. Just like Jesus did to save our souls.”
“Amen,” Roy said.
“Do you know what your mother overdosed on?” John asked.
“Nope and I really don’t care. She’s dead and burning in hell, that’s all that matters to me.”
“This will matter. The night your mother died, she did shoot up, but it wasn’t just heroin she plunged into her veins, but ammonia.”
“So,” Winston grunted and frowned. “I’ve seen people take just about anything for a rush.”
“True, but what I think is ironic is that Hoyt attempted to kill you with a similar substance.”
Winston stared at him. “Are...are you saying Toby...No.” He shook his head. “He would have told me. Maybe not back then, ‘cause he was probably scared. But when he was older...”
“He didn’t need you to take care of him then, and he doesn’t need you now. You’ve become a liability to him. He wants you dead to keep you from spilling his secrets.”
The new Winston was back, crying and praying.
“Enough of this crap,” Roy shouted, and gripped the rail at the edge of the hospital bed. “Quit hiding behind God and Jesus and your salvation bullshit and give him to us.”
Other than the fast beeps ringing from the monitor next to Winston’s bed, the room remained eerily silent. John looked to Roy, who shrugged. When he focused on Winston, he knew they were screwed.
What began with tears streaming from his wide eyes, suddenly turned into a cacophony of wailing sobs. “He never needed me,” he cried as he wiped snot from his nose with the back of his hand. “All this time, he never needed me. I brought him the women, I confessed just like he told me to and now he wants me—”
“Dead,” Roy said. “You were an expendable tool to him. And the moment you were tossed in jail, you became a liability.”
John gripped the bedrail. “Fight him back, Garrett. Give him to us. We know he hasn’t used his real name since he turned eighteen. What name is he using now? Where is he hiding?”
The monitor connected to Winston beeped louder, faster. He clenched and unclenched his hands into fists as his eyes grew cold, dead. He slowly curled his lips into a mocking sneer. As the old Winston returned, the monitor went off with quick successions of beeps. “You want a name? An address? Check your local white pages for Go Fuck Yourself.”
“I’ve heard enough.” Roy threw his hands in the air. “How ‘bout you?”
With a nod, John turned off the tape recorder and slipped it into his pocket. The entire interrogation had been a waste of valuable time. He’d been so sure that Winston would offer up his brother. Apparently, too much of the old Winston lurked beneath the crybaby killer.
He gathered together the photos and binder. “I’m done.”
“Run, run, run,” Winston said mockingly, and leveled them with an unreadable look. “But consider yourselves warned. I know how Toby works. I know how he operates. I know he thinks I’m just as stupid as y’al
l do. But I also know that he’s got a thing for tying up loose ends. He knows about you, Kain, and that psychic...what’s her name? Something kinda weird and hippy-like. Celeste, maybe?” He smiled. “Yeah, Celeste. She could definitely be a loose end. Heard she’s a real looker, too. Better watch out for her. My brother’s got a thing for knives.”
Raw fury caused John’s vision to blur. He didn’t think, he didn’t rationalize. The need to shove his fist into Winston’s face and rip his throat for even breathing Celeste’s name had him lunging across the room.
Roy grabbed him around the waist and threw him against the wall before he even reached the bed. “Don’t.” He gave him a hard shove. “He’s not worth it. We’ll keep her safe.”
Breathing hard, as both fear and adrenaline pumped through his veins, John nodded. At the same time a nurse and Winston’s doctor entered the room.
“We’re leaving,” John said to the doctor.
“You’ll be back.” Winston grinned. With the bandage on his head, his face and eyes bruised, his beard unkempt, he looked demented, devious, and just like the old Winston. “Remember, I know something you don’t know,” he sang, then laughed. “Oh yeah. You’ll be back.”
A chill ran through him as he turned from the door to stare at the doctor and nurse who were once again trying to hold Winston against the bed. Several nurses brushed passed him as they rushed into the room to help.
“I know,” Winston continued to shout. “I know everything. Who he is. Where he lives. He’ll kill that pretty psychic and disappear. Just wait and see. Just wait and...”
The rest of Winston’s words were muffled as they stepped from the room and Roy closed the door. As they moved down the hallway, John’s head spun, with the rage still coursing through him, along with fragments of what Winston had said.
He stopped dead as Winston’s words pushed passed his outrage and anger.
“What?” Roy asked.
“Winston knew Celeste’s name, which tells me Toby knew she was involved with the investigation from the start.”
Dark Secrets: A Paranormal Romance Anthology Page 95
