Criminally Insane: The Series (Bad Karma, Red Angel, Night Cage Omnibus) (The Criminally Insane Series)

by Douglas Clegg

  His mother put her hand on the woman’s sweat-soaked forehead, and then reached down to tear the duct tape from her mouth.

  That’s when Doc thought he saw a shadow pass across the room, and he whispered something about how souls moved at death. He didn't mention the dark spiders he saw crawling off the woman's hand – the tiny little spiders of fear that stayed behind.

  He didn't have to mention them.

  He hoped he could leave the room without coming too close to them.

  2

  Later, in the dark of their own home:

  “I saw her pass,” he said.

  “Did she say anything, Doc?”

  “She told me that it was all right. She thanked me. You, too.”

  “Ah. I thought she might. She understands.”

  “She had her baby with her, too. She was going toward a light.”

  “They do that. Were there others with her? Beings of light?”

  “She smiled at me,” he said, and his mother’s hand stroked his hair softly.

  “Were there others?” she asked.

  “I think so. I’m not sure. I saw shadows.”

  “They’re shadows if they can’t pass to the other side. They stay here. Did you see the fears?"

  He nodded. "But I didn't go near them."

  "I'll always keep them away from you. I promise.”

  “There were some light shadows and some that were darker than dark,” he said. “And then, once she left, the light faded. I think she wanted to go.”

  “You’re a good doctor,” his mother said. "All those books on surgery really taught you a lot. It's amazing what you can do, Doc."

  She drew him out of his cage.

  “Don’t ever leave me,” he whispered to her, and then his mother pressed her lips against his slightly parted mouth.

  Chapter Three

  1

  The San Pascal murder lottery, as the homicide division's staffers liked to call it, usually hovered at under 20 per year, but the one that happened that afternoon put them just over, and if you counted the baby, it was 23, even though they hadn't found the baby yet.

  In the soft-focus neighborhoods of the foothills, with the beautiful homes, expansive lawns, and long pale blue swimming pools, murder of this type could usually be kept at bay by extensive alarm systems and the patrolling cars of off-duty policemen who were hired to notice unwelcome and uninvited visitors.

  At least, that was the myth.

  While there had been three suicide attempts in the area within the past six years, seven arrests regarding domestic violence, and one very suspicious crib death, murder had not walked these particular streets for at least thirty years.

  Homeowners often owned at least one firearm, and the Neighborhood Watch program was in full-effect, run by a man named Mr. Moulton, who walked his Corgi three-times daily along four of the streets. Mr. Moulton made stained glass, which was popular with the neighbors, out of the home studio, which had once been a guesthouse at the back of his property.

  Alanna Rogers, whose passion was gardening ever since her early retirement from Jet-Propulsion Laboratories, also was often in her front yard, tending to the maze of color and blossom. She had noticed when a small blue truck had come through, loaded with yard-workers, none of whom were legal. She took down license plates of cars, at times, from her picture window, particularly when they didn't belong to any of the neighbors.

  Others in the neighborhood felt they were well-aware of the comings and goings of nearly everyone, from the young man who regularly bicycled through the neighborhood wearing very little other than Speedos and sneakers, to the three Goth-looking teen girls who seemed to sweep through on autumn afternoons, smoking and snickering, and picking flowers at will from perfectly nice gardens of homes that were not theirs.

  But no one had seen the murderers that late September day.

  The Flock house had its two cars in its driveway.

  Mr. Flock – rarely called Dan by the neighbors because he and his wife had never really mingled since they’d moved in two years earlier, buying the enormous house at earthquake-sale prices – worked for one of the studios in Los Angeles, although no one in the neighborhood was sure if it was Disney or Universal. He worked in the finance department, and had done well for himself in a short period of time.

  Diane Flock was better known, because she walked the golden retriever in the early evening. Sometimes, when she was up by the golf course, several blocks away, she ran into others out on their jogs or walks, and talked about the water problems or the earthquake damage from too many years’ back that still affected the houses, or about how someone had lost their beloved cat to a coyote.

  She worked at a law firm downtown, but had been going part-time since she’d become pregnant, and was looking to leave the firm and “become just like my mother – someone who gets to be home all day. I’ll go insane, I know it,” she had told Paula Sherman, when picking up dog poop in a baggie near the entrance to the canyon-park area, just beyond the neighborhood.

  The doors to the house had all been locked from the inside, although Diane Flock sometimes left the sun porch door open when she was home. The pool had been emptied because of some damage found. She had, apparently, that day, stepped down into it and looked along the crack that ran from the bottom middle all the way up to diving board.

  Because she’d left Molly, their golden retriever, in the dog run that was out by the three olive trees at the back fence of the property, the dog had been spared her masters’ fate.

  “We heard her barking,” Mr. Moulton told the police later. “But she barked all the time. That was the one complaint everyone had about the Flocks. That dog.”

  “They had exquisite taste,” Alanna Rogers said. “They bought their furniture at the big shows at the Pacific Design Center. They had antique dealers come to them. It must have been inherited, some of that wealth. They were such a beautiful couple. So blessed.”

  Within the house, tiny pencil writing on the wall, above the gold paisley sofa:

  Diseased.

  A hypodermic needle on the Stickley table, near the front door.

  On the Mission bench, in the enclosed, shaded room called the Sun Porch, a scalpel with the brown of dried blood and the smallest of hairs upon it.

  A stained glass window set into the kitchen door, a smudge of blood against amber.

  In the kitchen, the phone, dropped on the Mexican tile floor. Beside it, a broken vase. Three purple iris that had been picked from the garden the morning before.

  In the upstairs hall, a bit of a cotton shirt, torn, with microscopic skin fragments in it where someone had used their fingers to tear the shirt from one of the victims.

  In the second-floor bathroom, the shaving kit on the back of the toilet, open. The small window slanted to allow air. The medicine cabinet’s mirrored sliding doors pushed to one side. In it, Crest toothpaste, Shower-to-Shower deodorant powder, a small vial of liquid foundation, a plastic bottle of Neutrogena facial moisturizer.

  Razorblades on the light blue fuzzy rug beside the sink.

  A deodorant bar on the floor.

  A surgical mask, just to the left of the toilet, almost behind the small wicker trash basket.

  In the trash basket, latex gloves.

  Down the hall, along the expensive Persian runners, bought on a trip to Morocco in 1998, a sliver of fingernail caught in the fabric.

  In the master bedroom, the victims.

  In pencil, tiny writing, just above the headboard on the wall:

  Tumor, malignant, removed.

  2

  The house was in a small web of neighborhoods off Hill, a long street that went up into the gently rounded slope of hills in San Bernardino, California. Beyond the foothills, there was a fire up on the mountains, just beneath Big Bear and Arrowhead. The Santa Ana winds shifted hourly, but so far, the fire had not spread down into the foothill communities, which seemed unaffected by the smoke thousands of feet above their streets and
swimming pools.

  A brief street turned off Hill, and then another came down, called Minuet.

  Detective Jane Laymon glanced along the ivied-lawns and richly textured gardens of the area.

  Jane was in her mid-twenties, but had jumped in rank since the previous winter, qualified for her firearms, and had begun working on more murder cases, much to the chagrin of her mother, who told Jane she needed to "stay away from all that killing."

  But Jane had begun to love the puzzles that built up around her work, and particularly had become fascinated with the work of the forensics experts in San Pascal.

  Jane found the house number, and pulled into the driveway of one of the craftsman houses. Rosemary hedges in front. Twin palm trees, thick and looming, on either side of the driveway. Jade plants, the height of a small child, untended, growing wild. A low apple tree in the front yard, as well as what looked like two pomegranates; their fruit, long past, lay in clumps along the spotty overgrown grass.

  The forensics team had arrived there three hours before. Two SUVs were in the driveway. The police tape was up. Two cruisers parked just down the block.

  She parked her car at the edge of the long driveway, and walked slowly up to the house.

  3

  “Laymon. Glad you came out for this.” Marty Davis, looking worn and tattered from lack of sleep, his hair a bit wild, and his eyes circled with dark smudges.

  One of the other detectives, named March, glanced over at her. He was short and stout, and wore a starched white shirt stained at the armpits. Didn’t say anything, but she felt some kind of criticism in the way he looked at her. Maybe it was her eye patch. The legend of her missing eye had gone far afield, because the investigation of the Red Angel killer had become a big one in California. She went over to March, and he seemed a bit startled by this.

  “Look, I lost my eye chasing a killer. Want to know what he did to get it? You want a good look at it?” She reached up to lift the patch, but March turned away.

  “Laymon,” Davis said. “We didn’t bring you out here for your eye.”

  “What kind of consult are we talking about?” she asked, turning her attention back to him.

  “It’s a team effort. Come on,” he said. He led her along the route that had been understood to be the blocking of the murders. “She’s out here. Maybe there.” He pointed to the empty pool. The sunlight out back seemed blinding. Jane shielded her eye. She squinted, trying to imagine a woman in that pool. “They had some damage. Already there when they bought the house, apparently. A crack at the bottom of the pool. They had tried repairing it since they moved in, but nothing had worked. They bought the place in an earthquake sale. It should’ve gone for over a half a million, but it went for three hundred. The neighbors all felt it was scandalous to get this place that cheap.”

  “There’s a guest house,” Jane said, looking at the small blue house beyond the pool.

  “Yep. A one bedroom. No occupants. Looks like they used it for storage.”

  “It’s been checked?”

  Davis nodded. “The pooch was in the dog run,” he pointed to the chain-link rectangular area back among some trees.

  “What time of day was it?”

  “Not sure. Maybe mid-afternoon. I guess three. He gets home from work early on Fridays.”

  “So he came in while it was going on.”

  “Maybe,” Davis said. “Come on, let’s go.”

  4

  Three cops were in the kitchen, just standing around.

  “The techs already come through?”

  One of the cops nodded, grinning. “Hey Jane.”

  “Hey Pete. You might want to clear this place a little,” Laymon said.

  “It’s because it’s unincorporated land up here,” Davis said. “It’s county, not city.”

  Jane knew: red tape. Too many departments to call.

  Davis walked her around the broken glass on the floor. The flowers, drying out. Iris, a pink rose, a daffodil. “She was at the pool, making looking around it, who knows. She comes back in the house. She cuts some flowers on the way. Those, right by the back steps to the Sun Porch. She gets this vase from there,” he pointed to the sink, “And just as she puts the flowers in, someone grabs her. Or scares her. Or she hears a noise.”

  “Maybe,” Jane said. “Was she messy?”

  Davis glanced at her, a question forming.

  “Some people drop things. And they think, 'I’ll let someone else clean that up'. What if she just dropped it, and left it?” Jane asked. “It might have nothing to do with her murderer. Did she have a maid? A cleaning service? A gardener?”

  “This is why I want you here,” Davis said, beaming a little. He escorted her along the narrow hallway with its dark, elegant table. A grandfather clock near the front door. A portrait of a teenage girl on the other side of the door. “Nearest we know, that’s one of the victims. When she was young.”

  The girl in the portrait had long, dark hair, cut in a way that reminded Jane of the 1970s. She smiled, and had a peaches-and-cream complexion. The artist had been a good one. It looked expensive, and nearly museum quality.

  “How old was she?”

  “Late thirties.”

  “I thought she was younger.”

  “They were a young couple – meaning ‘new’. Married four years. First pregnancy.”

  “She was pretty,” Jane said, feeling a bitter sadness when she looked at the painting. It reminded her yet again that the victims of murder had once been someone’s beloved children. That while the murderer often perceived the victim as an object, a toy, a means to an end, the victim had a history, a life, a richness of experience, and dreams of the future as well as memories of the past. That was probably the worst thing about any murder. Thinking about the victim's life. Seeing all life within that dead body. All chances ended. All hopes gone.

  “And here,” Davis said, as they came upon the low Stickley table, “is where we found the needle. And over there – " he pointed to what looked like a blackened portion of the rug. "They tried to set a fire, I'm guessing. Didn't stay long enough to complete it. Maybe it was to try and cover up the crime. Either way, it just died down – nothing caught. Maybe it was an accident. Who knows? I guess 'til we find 'em, we won't know."

  5

  Jane followed Davis, room by room, looking at everything, taking mental snapshots as they went. The worst thing to see was the nursery. Diane Flock had already begun stenciling scenes from Winnie the Pooh and Peter Rabbit along the pale blue walls. A crib, barely out of the box, was in the corner. On the walls, pictures of grandma and grandpa, and friends, and mommy and daddy. A stroller, still in the box, up against the walk-in closet’s door. Two or three baby shower gifts on the windowsill, still wrapped up. It made her want to weep, when she saw this. Knowing what she would find next.

  In the master bedroom, she found it.

  “I told you to be prepared,” Davis said.

  “I am,” Laymon lied.

  6

  After examining the scene of the murders carefully, she left the room and went out sat outside in the sun by the pool.

  Davis followed her out, and sat by the empty pool, his feet dangling over the edge. "I guess when you're middle-aged like me, you see enough of these that it doesn't hit you the same way."

  "It's not that," Jane said. "I just felt a bad vibe up there. I felt as if the killers were still in the house. I know they're not. But it felt like it."

  "You're about what, twenty-five?"

  "Twenty-six."

  "You've been through a hell of a lot for twenty-six."

  "I took the job to handle all this. Don't worry, I'm not cracking."

  "Tryon thinks the world of you."

  "That's good to know."

  "I wish somebody had said this to me when I was about your age and getting into this line of work. Don't worry about it when it gets to you. It gets to all of us. You never quite get numb," he said.

  "Thanks," she said. Then
, her mood changing. "We got Dahl coming in on this?"

  "He'll lead, and you and I and maybe Joe March'll be on this."

  "The one fascinated by my eye patch."

  "You're a legend. You have to accept it. Nobody here has that. They respect you. Believe me. They do."

  "I hope we catch the people who did this," she said.

  "We will," Davis said. "They're sloppy. And we got a great team working on it."

  7

  Less than twenty minutes later, the call came in that they’d caught one of the killers down at a pharmacy in town, trying to get the victim’s prescriptions refilled.

  That evening, Jane Laymon called Trey Campbell.

  “A consult?” he asked.

  “They’re going to put him in Darden until the trial. We can get Hannifin and Brainard on it, but I want you on it, too. We’re not getting much from this guy. He's really a Darden case. Just out there. Talks about spiders coming to get him. His mother’s Mary Chilmark. She’s part of it. We just haven’t gotten her.”

  “Oh,” Trey said. “I haven’t thought about her in years. I came in after she’d already left. She was sort of a legend here. I knew patients who talked about her. She was a beauty who walked in, used the system, and walked right out again.”

  “I guess she never quite got the cure,” Laymon said.

  “I really like to think that when someone gets released from Darden, it’s for a good reason.”

  “Well, if the rumors of the kid’s father were true, then maybe that’s the good reason.”

  Trey didn’t respond to this. “Was it a rough take down?”