Sullivan’s Evidence

by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg

  “He’s just a guy, honey,” Carolyn said. “He’s nice, though, and I like him.”

  Rebecca slouched in her seat. “Oh boy, here we go again. He doesn’t have a daughter, I hope. If he does, I don’t want to meet her.”

  Slightly over a year ago, Carolyn had become involved with a physics professor who’d moved in down the street. Rebecca and the professor’s daughter, Lucy, had become best friends, only to be separated when Carolyn and Paul stopped seeing each other and he moved back to Pasadena. “He does have a daughter, but she lives back east with her mother. I barely know the man, honey. Nothing will probably come of it.”

  They cleaned up the dishes, and Rebecca asked her mother to come to her bedroom. “The reason you don’t like your hair is you don’t know how to fix it,” she informed Carolyn, sticking her fingers in a jar and removing a small portion of the contents, which she rubbed into the palms of her hands.

  “What is that stuff?”

  “Styling putty.” Rebecca pushed her mother down into a chair in front of the mirror. She used her fingers to rub the cream into various strands of Carolyn’s hair, carefully shaping it so they flipped out, while the rest of her hair remained straight. “Look in the mirror,” she said. “This is the way it’s supposed to look.”

  Carolyn was amazed at the transformation. She touched the ends of the protruding strands of hair. “Was that glue? It’s as stiff as a board.”

  “It softens up when you brush it,” Rebecca told her, leaning over her mother’s shoulder and smiling. “Don’t you love it? You can keep it. I hardly ever use it. I think Hillary swiped it from her brother. See how pretty you are, Mom?”

  Carolyn reached up and clasped Rebecca’s hand, meeting her gaze in the mirror. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

  “Three. None of them can drive, so don’t worry.”

  “But aren’t they jealous of each other?”

  “Who cares?” the girl said, flopping down on her bed. “I’m not going to go out with one guy. Think of how dumb that sounds. You tell people you’re ‘going out’ with a guy. Okay, they say, where are you going? What’re you gonna say now? The guy can’t drive. So we meet now and then at the mall. Every once in a while, I let one of them kiss me. They can’t get carried away because we’re in a public place.”

  Carolyn realized how wrong she’d been about her daughter. “Sounds like you’ve got everything under control.”

  “You bet!” Rebecca exclaimed, raising her knees to her chest and then extending them over her head. “No way am I gonna end up with a baby or an abortion. Babies stretch your stomach muscles, and birth control pills make you break out. What do I need a dickhead guy for, anyway? My friends who’ve had sex say guys don’t even know what to do. Masturbation is better. At least you know you’re going to enjoy it.”

  “Good for you,” her mother said, thinking things had most definitely changed since she was fifteen. She would have never spoken so openly to her mother.

  After Rebecca went to bed, Carolyn sat in the kitchen working on some of her cases. She still needed to talk to John about his use of marijuana. He must have gone somewhere after work with one of his friends. When she tried his cell phone, he didn’t answer, and she hung up without leaving a message. He was eighteen now and paid his own expenses, so it was hard to keep him from coming and going as he pleased. She reminded herself that he would be in Massachusetts soon and then she would have no idea what he was doing. She had to start the process of letting go. Rebecca had probably warned him about the marijuana conversation, and John was intentionally avoiding her. Not knowing when he would show up, Carolyn gave up on waiting and headed off to her room.

  The first thing he had to take care of was the knife.

  Dean rushed to the garage, opened the trunk, and pressed the handle of the knife into Arnie’s right palm and fingers. Then he did the same with the man’s left hand. He hadn’t noticed if Arnie was right or left-handed, but it didn’t matter. A madman would have probably clasped the knife with both hands the way he had. What Arnie wouldn’t have been able to do was stab someone with his less dominant hand. The police could easily determine which hand he used. Nothing could be left to chance.

  Taking the stairs two at a time, Dean threw the knife on the carpet near the doorway, wanting it to look as if the killer dropped it when fleeing. He stepped toward Kathleen and into a puddle of blood. The dimmed lights reflected off the comforter on the bed, causing the predominant color in the room to appear red.

  With his index finger and thumb, he reached down to remove Arnie’s jacket. When he saw Kathleen’s face, he jumped back. The whites of her eyes were staring up at the ceiling.

  She blinked!

  Letting the jacket fall to the floor, Dean rushed downstairs, leaving a trail of Arnie’s boots imprinting their pattern in blood. Kathleen was dead, or would be within minutes. No one could survive such a violent attack. The movement of her eyelids was a reflex. Dead bodies did all kinds of strange things.

  He grabbed a log from the holder next to the fireplace, went out the French doors leading to the backyard, but then momentarily forgot what he was doing. The swimming pool lights were on, and the serene beauty of the water made the events that had occurred inside the house seem even more macabre.

  The police should find Arnie’s prints on the point of entry, Dean remembered, and transferring them wasn’t impossible, just time-consuming. A quicker way was to wrap his jacket around the log, which he did, and smash the glass pane near the locking mechanism. Wanting to make certain some kind of evidence was left that would link the crime back to Arnie, he purposely snagged the man’s jacket on the jagged edges of glass before reaching inside with his gloved hands and unlocking the door.

  When he returned to the living room, he felt lightheaded, so he put his head between his legs. He had to make sure he didn’t pass out. He felt dark and tortured, as if he’d become evil incarnate. The other times he’d killed, he’d been exhilarated, drunk on power. This time was different. His actions had been more calculated, and he’d spent too much time preparing.

  Now he had to take care of Arnie. Shit, he thought. Till now he hadn’t considered that physical evidence would be left in the trunk. He ripped the plastic cap off his head, going outside to wash it with the garden hose. After he was certain all the evidence had been removed, he walked to the edge of the yard. The plastic was similar to Saran Wrap and he easily shredded it with his teeth. Then he dug a hole and buried it.

  He had to think fast. He couldn’t make both the Mercedes and the man he was pinning the crime on disappear into thin air. Maybe if he washed out the trunk with water, he could eliminate or contaminate all the evidence. The issue was time. He had to finish the job before something unexpected happened. As his panic increased, the solution suddenly appeared.

  Opening the trunk, he found Arnie still out cold. Dean moved his legs so that he could put his boots back on his feet. “Wake up, Arnie,” he said. “The police are coming to arrest you. Don’t worry, I’m gonna help you.”

  “I ain’t done nothin’ wrong,” the dazed man said. “I’m bleeding. My nose, man. Who hit me? Jesus, how long I been out?”

  “You’ll survive,” Dean told him, “but only if you get out of here. You’ve done something terrible. You killed my wife.”

  Arnie’s runny eyes flashed in fear. “I didn’t, I swear.”

  “Get out of the trunk,” Dean commanded, reaching in to give him a hand. “You need to get away from here fast. If you don’t do exactly what I tell you, you’ll spend the rest of your life in prison without alcohol. Can you drive?”

  “Maybe,” Arnie said, standing, then staggering over to the driver’s side of the car.

  “Get in,” Dean told him. As he attempted to obey, Arnie lost his balance and barely caught the edge of the seat. “Grab ahold of the steering wheel and brace yourself.”

  Arnie did as he was instructed but then muttered, “I can’t do this,” and tried to climb back out of the
car.

  Dean blocked him with his body. “Relax, buddy, all you have to do is listen to me. Place the shifter to the D. Then put your foot on the gas.” He knew if the momentum was great enough, the car would plow through the garage wall into the backyard. Ten paces, and Kathleen’s Mercedes would be in the pool with Arnie trapped inside it. No way could this inebriated fool manage to free himself and swim to the surface. “Here we go. Press on the gas.”

  Back in the driver’s seat, Arnie looked over at him as he tapped the accelerator. “Like this?”

  “No, harder,” Dean instructed. “I want to hear that engine running. Okay, now slide that handle away from you.” He stood impatiently as the man fumbled to find the gearshift. “Press the button on the top and move the handle to D.”

  In a sudden torque of the engine, the back tires screeched as the car was propelled forward. Dean was engulfed in an explosion of sound. He fell to the pavement, sheltering himself from flying drywall and wood. When he looked up, there was a large hole that went all the way through to the backyard.

  The Mercedes splashed into the blue water.

  Dean sped to the edge of the pool, watching as both the car and the man inside sank to the bottom. He dusted his hands, satisfied that he’d removed or destroyed all the evidence.

  The horror of what he’d done to Kathleen was drifting deep into his subconscious. Arnie was the murderer, not him. By the time the police arrived, he would believe it. If they gave him a lie detector test, he would pass. With sufficient willpower, this feat was possible, but only with a mind as powerful as his. As he basked in the knowledge of his own brilliance, he considered what a shame it was that no one else could know. He had committed the perfect crime, and now he had to forget it.

  As he returned to the house, Dean was overcome with emotion. Playing the grieving husband would be easy—the blood, the horror, hearing Kathleen’s bloodcurdling screams. He picked up the portable phone, his hands shaking as he speed-dialed the number of his closest neighbor in the house over an acre away. With the dense trees, and the surf crashing into the large rocks below them, there was no chance the Kaufmans could have overhead the commotion. “Dr. Kaufman,” he said, his voice cracking. “This is Dean…. Thank God you’re home. Someone broke into our home and…s-stabbed…Kathleen. Come, please! Have Esther call the police and an ambulance. I-I don’t know what to do.”

  “I’m on my way,” the doctor said. “Is it safe? Did the attacker leave?”

  “Hurry, there’s blood everywhere.”

  Ending the call, Dean sat on the stairs and placed his head in his hands. It would have been cleaner if he could have merely fled, but he couldn’t afford to create suspicion by being absent. He forced himself to return to that terrible day in late September.

  At five, he’d been an impulsive, inquisitive child, always getting into trouble. When he didn’t get what he wanted, he threw temper tantrums, and his mother scolded him and made him sit in the corner. That afternoon she’d taken his six-month-old baby sister for a walk in her stroller. He’d asked to go, but she’d told him to stay behind and play with his toys. Their large house in Tarrytown was situated on top of a steep cliff overlooking the Hudson River.

  The backyard was fenced, but his father had decided against erecting a fence in the front as he didn’t want anything to obstruct the dramatic view. To keep the children from getting out, the doors all had interior padlocks. This day, however, while the maid was upstairs, Dean had turned the handle on the front door and been surprised when it opened. His mother must have forgotten to lock it.

  Every fall his mother made a wreath for their door, using twigs and multicolored leaves she picked up off the ground and placed in a big wicker basket. She was engaged in that pleasant task, wandering farther from the baby’s stroller, parked under a sycamore tree, than she had planned, when Dean found his sister there. Iris was such a cute baby, with her round face and rosy cheeks. He loved the way her soft hair tickled his chin when his mother let him hold her in his father’s big chair. But most of all, he liked to make Iris laugh.

  He shook the stroller, and Iris started giggling. After a while, he got bored and jumped on the back, dangling from the push bar like he did on the jungle gym in the backyard. The stroller suddenly toppled backward, pinning him beneath it. His stomach and head hurt, and Iris was shrieking. She was dangling upside down, her body held in place by the strap. He called out for his mother, but she didn’t come, his cries muffled by the sound of the wind rushing through the trees.

  That’s when he got mad.

  He strained with all his might, managing to push the stroller off. It landed in an upright position, the wheels locked in place. He knew how to unlock them, as his mother sometimes let him push Iris around inside the house. He couldn’t stand it when she cried, especially the high-pitched sound she was making now. He suffered from repeated ear infections, and certain sounds made his ears hurt.

  He only remembered bits and pieces of what followed—the stroller disappearing over the side of the cliff, the sound of it slamming into rocks on the way down, Iris’s shrill voice becoming fainter, then a muted splash as it landed in the river.

  A few days later, they buried baby Iris, and a month later, his mother moved out of the house without even saying good-bye to him. She blamed herself for not locking the door and leaving Iris alone. But his father never blamed his mother, nor did he take responsibility himself for not erecting a fence in the front of the house. He blamed his son, and every day his loathing for that son grew stronger.

  Warm tears rolled down Dean’s face. The real blow came after his father’s death. Although his estate was valued at over three million, he left Dean only a paltry twenty thousand, his final payback for killing baby Iris and destroying his mother.

  Prior to his father’s death, Dean had done everything possible to win his love and respect. He’d graduated from medical school, then gone on to specialize in psychiatry, wanting to understand how a man could exhibit such irrational hatred as he felt his father did toward him. The relationship was never restored.

  He wiped his tears with the edge of his shirt. The silence was broken by his neighbor slamming through the front door, carrying a black medical bag.

  “Where is she?”

  “Upstairs.” Dean heard the sirens in the distance. “I-I think she’s dead. I came home and found her this way. The killer must have tried to escape in Kathleen’s Mercedes. He crashed through the garage wall. The car is in the pool. I’m not sure if he drowned or got away. Should I go out and check?”

  “No,” Kaufman barked. “The police will be here any minute. Don’t take any chances. I’d rather him get away than you get hurt. Take me to Kathleen.”

  The two men moved quickly into the bedroom, approaching the motionless figure lying in a bed of blood. “My God, the bastard butchered her,” the doctor said, examining the jagged wound in Kathleen’s abdomen. He put his fingers on her neck, seeing the gashes on her face.

  “She’s got a pulse!” The doctor grabbed one of the pillows and positioned it underneath Kathleen’s knees. “This will help relax the abdominal muscles. I need a wet towel so we can cover her organs.” He pried open her mouth to check for vomit.

  Forcing himself not to think beyond the moment, Dean went to get the towel, carried it to the sink to wet it, and walked back to hand it to the doctor. “Please, don’t let her die. She’s all I’ve got.”

  “She might make it,” Kaufman said, laying the towel over the wound. “Depending on how much internal bleeding the injuries caused. I wouldn’t get your hopes up, though. This is a massive wound.”

  “I’m sorry,” Dean said, looking anguished, “I can’t stay here and watch her die.” He left the room just as two paramedics were ascending the stairs with a stretcher. “She’s in the bedroom…straight ahead.” He suddenly clutched his chest, his face twisted in pain.

  “You all right, sir?” a tall redheaded paramedic asked.

  “The pressure…it
feels like a heavy rock on my chest.” Dean fell to the floor, writhing in agony. “I can’t…breathe.” He grabbed his left arm. “My arm…please help me!”

  “Shit, Jason,” the redhead said, “this guy’s having a heart attack. Get another unit out here fast. We’re gonna need the ’copter. I’ll try to stabilize him while you take care of the woman. The dispatcher said there’s a doctor on the scene. Let’s hope he was right.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Wednesday, September 20—2:45 P.M.

  Carolyn finished the report she’d been working on and stored it in her computer to proofread later. Studying her notes again from her original interview with Carl Holden, she remembered that the address she’d scribbled down, 4005 Park Avenue, had been his mother’s. She picked up the phone and called Hank. “Have you talked to Mary?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Ferguson said as soon as we get the X-rays from St. Louis we should have a positive ID. Good work, Carolyn.”

  “I may have a lead as to where Holden is hiding.”

  “That’s one of the reasons I wanted you involved,” he said. “What have you got?”

  “He may be staying at his mother’s house,” she said, her excitement flowing through the phone. “Did your men check it out already?

  “Nope. I didn’t know he had a mother. For God’s sake, woman, don’t go there by yourself. If this guy’s our murderer, I don’t want you to be his next victim.”

  Carolyn had never been one to put something off that needed to be done. In fact, she filed all her reports early, fearful she could get sick or something might develop with John or Rebecca that required her attention. Being so efficient worked against her in one way, as she ended up handling twice as many cases as most of her coworkers. The situation with Holden wasn’t just a report, though. They were trying to track down a rapist and murderer before he struck again. “When can you meet me there?”