by James Swain
“I’m glad I could help.”
Hardare walked him to the door.
“I’ll call you tomorrow once he makes contact again,” Kitchen said. “Good luck, Vince.”
As Kitchen walked out the door, a black LAPD detective came in from the hallway. His name was Detective Franklin Tate, and he wore the look of someone carrying bad news.
“Any luck?” Wondero said.
“Afraid not.” Tate tugged at his necktie like it was strangling him. “I contacted the high school in San Diego where the Red Warriors play football. The principal agreed to release the names of all males who attended between over the past twenty-five years. Then I contacted San Diego Homicide, and they picked up the names and ran them through their computers and tagged anyone with a criminal record.”
“How many popped up?” Wondero asked.
“Nearly two thousand,” Tate replied. “Most of them petty drug busts, DUIs, that sort of crap. I weeded out all the brothers and minorities plus everyone who’s currently doing time. That brought it down to two hundred. I took that list over to the Department of Motor Vehicles to see how many were currently living in Orange County, and came up with twenty names.”
Tate removed the short list from his pocket. “I sent four teams out, and by noon we located everybody.” He read from his notes. “Six are dead, eight moved out of state, four are in the Army — “
Wondero said, “He grabbed Hardare’s wife this morning.”
“— one in a halfway house… What?” Tate eyes bugged out of his head. To Hardare he said, “Oh Christ, I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize,” Hardare said.
Tate put the list back in his pocket. “Anyway, it was a dead end. We ran all the suspects down, and none of them were a match. So much for the Red Warriors.”
“Thanks for the quick turnaround,” Wondero said.
“Anytime, Harry.”
As Tate started to walk out the door, Wondero stopped him.
“Did you ask the principal if he recalled any male students with psychiatric problems?” Wondero asked.
Halting, Tate said, “Come to mention it, I did. I asked him if any student had really stuck out. He said society produces a lot of bad seeds, some worse than others. I asked him to explain, and he said he had a meeting to go to.”
“Are you sure that was the expression he used? Bad seeds?”
“Yup. It struck me as funny, too.”
“Think he was hiding something?”
The black detective rubbed his chin. “Maybe.”
“How many years has he been principal of that school?”
“I think he said over thirty.”
“That’s a long time. Yet he couldn’t cough up a single name of a bad student. That strike you as odd?”
“Yeah, it did.”
“You better give me his name and number,” Wondero said.
Tate took a piece of paper from his wallet. “Here you go.”
“Do you think the principal is hiding something?” Hardare asked when the black detective was gone.
“That would be a fair assumption.” Wondero took out his cell phone and punched in the number Tate had given him. “The trick is going to get him to open up.”
The call went through, and Wondero began speaking with the principal down in San Diego. Hearing a noise, Hardare turned to see Crystal standing in the doorway to her bedroom, her face awash with tears. He went and put his arms around her.
“I thought you were sleeping,” he said.
“Have they found Jan?” she asked.
“Not yet. You need to lie down, and rest.”
“I can’t. Every time I close my eyes, I see his face. He’s not normal, Dad. There’s something wrong with him.”
“I know, Crys. He’s sick in the head.”
“No, I mean there’s something physically wrong with him.”
His daughter was telling him something important. Clasping her shoulders, he looked her in the eye. “What did you see?”
“His hat and sunglasses flew off when Jan was fighting with him. He doesn’t have any hair on his head. No eyebrows or eyelashes or any facial hair. That’s not normal, is it?”
“Maybe he shaved his hair away.”
“He doesn’t have any hair on his chest, either.”
“How do you know that?”
“Right before he shot the cab driver, he pulled up the front of his shirt to draw his gun, and I saw his chest. It was hairless. Guys always have hair on their chests, don’t they?”
“Usually.”
“Death doesn’t. He’s got something wrong with him. You need to tell the police.”
He gave his daughter another hug. “Okay, honey, I will. Promise me you’ll lie down, and get some rest.”
She said okay, and returned to her room. Hardare shut the bedroom door, and crossed the suite to where Wondero stood. The detective had finished his call, and had his car keys out.
“The principal agreed to meet with me this afternoon,” Wondero said. “Tate was right. He knows something.”
“Good,” Hardare said. “I’m going with you.”
“I’m sorry, Vince, but I can’t do that. It would compromise the investigation.”
“I don’t care about that,” Hardare said. “You dragged me and my family into this mess. I have a right to go.”
The remark made Wondero wince. To his partner he said, “You mind staying here, and watching the girl?”
“Not at all,” Rittenbaugh replied.
Wondero nodded and headed for the door.
“Time’s a wasting. Let’s go.”
Chapter 20
The Early Years
Woodrow Wilson high school was located due west of the Miramar Naval Air Station in a densely populated area called Miramar. Home of the Red Warriors, boasted a billboard just past the exit on Interstate 15. State Football Champions 2006, 2008, 2010 201?????? No, not in 2011, Wondero thought, coming off the exit ramp. In 2011, the Trojans were going to be state champs.
A security guard flagged them down inside the school parking lot. “We’re here to see Dr. Bridgewater,” Wondero explained, flashing his badge.
“Dr. Bridgewater is on the second floor, room 206,” the guard said, pointing to a spot marked Visitors Only near the entrance of an imposing red brick building. “Have a nice day.”
School was in session, and there were kids everywhere they looked. As they headed inside, Hardare wondered how many students had gone to school here during the past twenty-five years. Forty thousand, maybe fifty? What where their chances of finding one bad seed? Not good, he realized, but they still had to look.
They found the stairway. On the second floor landing, three teenagers sat on the floor, giggling to themselves. Wondero flashed his badge and one of the boys directed them to Bridgewater’s office, managing twice to call Wondero sir.
“You like doing that, don’t you?” Hardare said.
“It opens a lot of doors,” Wondero admitted.
Room 206 was at the end of a long hallway, and did not look like a walk any student would enjoy taking. They entered the office to find a disagreeable secretary guarding her boss’s door.
“Dr. Bridgewater is on a conference call, and cannot be disturbed,” the secretary explained.
Wondero hung his badge inches from her nose. She used the tip of her plastic fingernail to tap the inscription. “You’re out of your jurisdiction,” she said matter-of-factly.
“We have an appointment. It’s urgent we see him right now.”
She pressed the intercom on her desk. “Dr. Bridgewater, there are two men from the LAPD here to see you.”
Over the intercom a man’s voice said, “Give me two minutes.”
“Have a seat,” the secretary said.
The couch in the waiting area sagged beneath their combined weight. Hardare picked up an old yearbook from a coffee table and leafed through it. He came to a page with a photograph of Dr. Louis Bridgewater taken before Bridg
ewater was principal, and had been head of the school’s guidance counselors.
“Excuse me,” Hardare said to the secretary. “What field of medicine is Dr. Bridgewater a doctor of?”
“Psychiatry,” she said.
A few minutes later, Bridgewater came out of his office with an angry-looking teenage boy. Showing the boy to the door, he turned to greet his guests.
“Sorry for the delay,” Bridgewater said.
They entered his office. It was filled with expensive furniture and lots of diplomas. Bridgewater motioned to a pair of chairs while sitting down at his desk. He nervously interlaced his fingers together before speaking.
“You realize that, by law, I should refer you to the school attorney.”
“I understand that,” Wondero said. “Unfortunately, we don’t have much time. Mr. Hardare’s wife was kidnapped this morning, and we believe the culprit once attended your school.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Bridgewater said. “All right, I’ll try to help. Can you give me a description of your suspect?”
“White male, between twenty-five and forty-five years old, with classic sociopathic tendencies,” Wondero replied.
“Violent?”
“Very. His victims are all women.”
“And you think he went to school here sometime during the past twenty years.”
“Correct.”
Bridgewater opened up a file cabinet behind his desk. “The California school system currently uses MOSIAC to weed out problem children in our classrooms. Before MOSIAC, we employed Macdonald’s triad. Are you familiar with this?”
“Afraid not,” Wondero said.
“Macdonald believed homicidal maniacs share three similar childhood characteristics. Bed-wetting, starting fires, and torturing small animals. I know it sounds primitive, but those were the traits we looked for years ago.” Bridgewater tossed a file on his desk and closed the cabinet. “This file contains evaluations of students that fit the MacDonald triad, or what we used to call bad seeds. I was the school psychiatrist back then, and they were my patients. I’d be happy to look through the evaluations, and see if anyone matching your profile pops up.”
“Please,” Wondero said.
“Make yourself comfortable. This may take a while.”
Bridgewater put on his glasses and started to read. Hardare leaned forward, watching like a hawk. Magicians had been reading body language well before law enforcement had discovered its usefulness, and he looked for any tell-tale signs in the principal’s facial or physical expressions.
Thirty minutes later, one of those signs appeared.
Bridgewater lifted his head. Then, his eyelids half-lowered, as if falling asleep. The file had jogged something in his memory, and Hardare came out of his chair.
“What did you find?”
“I’m sorry. But this is very painful,” Bridgewater said.
Wondero rose as well. “Go on.”
“There was a student named Eugene Osbourne who tried to murder another student. I hate to use this term, but Eugene was crazy. I knew Eugene’s mother. She was a speech therapist here, a gentle, lovely woman. So lovely, that I asked her to marry me.”
“How many years ago was this?” Wondero asked.
“Twenty.”
“I know this is difficult, but you have to tell us about this kid,” the detective said.
“Of course. Please sit down. I’ll tell you everything,” Bridgewater said.
Eugene Osbourne had been a gangly, lop-eared tenth grader whose alcoholic father had died when he was a boy. It was a hard way to grow up, but nothing Bridgewater hadn’t seen before.
Eugene had visited his office twice a week in an effort to work out his problems. The sessions went well, with Eugene willing to explore the things which troubled him. He agonized over being rejected by a girl at the sock hop, and how he was always picked last when teams were formed.
Bridgewater had ached for him. There was no greater hurt than a boy’s bruised sense of worth. He could not make Eugene’s pain or the circumstances which had caused it go away, and instead, had tried to help Eugene cope.
“I miss my father,” Eugene had confided one day.
“What do you miss the most about him?” Bridgewater had asked.
“Do you really want to know?”
“Yes, Eugene, I do.”
“Watching him beat up my mother.”
“That’s not funny, Eugene.”
“It is to me,” the boy had said.
In his junior year, Eugene was caught setting fires, and sent to an outside psychiatrist for evaluation. The psychiatrist tested Eugene, and discovered that he had been born with an extra Y, or male sex chromosome. Based upon this, the psychiatrist determined that Eugene had a genetic affliction toward violence, and that little could be done to cure him.
Bridgewater had read the evaluation and thrown a fit. In his opinion, genetic destiny was as dangerous as racial stereotyping, and he had fought to have Eugene returned to Woodrow Wilson so that he could treat him by more accepted methods.
In his senior year, Eugene had attempted to murder another senior, a football player named Tony Capaletti. At the time, Capaletti did not have the slightest idea who Eugene was, having never shared a single class with him.
But Capaletti was dating a cheerleader named Rosalyn Summers, who Eugene had a crush on. Rosalyn thought Eugene had once asked her out, although she hadn’t been entirely sure.
The incident had taken place at a time when Bridgewater was certain he saw all the signs pointing toward Eugene’s recovery. Eugene was coming to school, working afternoons bagging groceries, and much to everyone’s surprise, had landed a minor role in the school’s production of Once Upon a Mattress.
By then Bridgewater and Eugene’s mother, Elaine, were dating. Bridgewater knew he was falling in love, and had planned to ask Elaine to marry him when the school year ended.
It was not to be.
Two weeks before finals, Eugene was found lying in the hall, barely breathing. While placing a poisonous snake into Tony Capaletti’s locker, the snake had slipped free, and bit him.
The doctors at San Diego General had kept Eugene’s heart going by pumping him with insulin. A remedy was prescribed by a local poison specialist that required another dose of poison. Only after Elaine’s consent was granted with Eugene given the shot.
The cure did not kill Eugene, but it came close. As his body temperature rose to 105 degrees, his hair had dropped out, and he had turned into a bald, screaming monster.
Bridgewater had been by Elaine’s side when the transformation occurred. Clutching his beloved to his side, he had known that their lives would never be the same.
Bridgewater was teary-eyed by the time he’d finished telling his story. Taking a Kleenex off his desk, he loudly blew his nose.
Wondero had pulled out his BlackBerry while Bridgewater was speaking, and hunted for Eugene Osbourne in the LAPD’s crime data base. The scowl on his face said he hadn’t found him.
“Where is Eugene now?” Wondero asked.
“I have no idea,” the principal said quietly.
“You must have heard something?”
Bridgewater shook his head.
“How about his mother? Is she still alive?”
“I suppose. She lives on the outskirts of town. Elaine and I haven’t spoken in many years.”
“We need you to take us to her.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. Elaine and I stopped speaking long ago. I’m not welcome in her home.”
Hardare slammed his fist on the desk. “You have to. Eugene Osbourne is a serial killer who’s murdered dozens people. My wife will be his next victim if you don’t help us find him.”
“Eugene’s a serial killer?”
“That’s right. Will you help us, or not?”
Bridgewater pushed himself out of his chair. His face had turned white, and he looked shaken to the core.
“I’ll try,” he said.
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Chapter 21
The Tape
Rancho Penasquitos was located at the foot of the imposing Black Mountain range. Comfortable family homes and small farms ran up and down secluded hills and canyons, with people on horseback as plentiful as those riding in cars.
