by Sam Ripley
‘No, no. It’s fine, honestly.’ She took a deep breath. ‘After dad died I suppose I felt I had to take stock of my life. I wanted a child, desperately, and at the same time felt like I couldn’t carry on as a forensic artist. Putting face to death was just too much for me. I know it sounds silly, but sometimes when I sat there in my lab, late at night, moulding the face of a killer out of a piece of clay, I felt like I was giving birth to evil.’
She took a sip of her mint tea, suddenly self-conscious of the sound of her swallow.
‘Was it like that with Gleason?’
Kate nodded. ‘I’ll never forget the moment he came to me. I suppose it helped because you gave me such a detailed description, ten times more accurate than I would have got from a sighted person. The fact you felt the contours of his face meant that my job was so much easier.’
Kate watched as tears slid down Cassie’s pale cheeks.
‘You had only just woken up after surgery and you were still a bit groggy. The medics were set against it, they said you were too weak, but you were insistent, remember? And over the course of those two hours you managed to give me a perfect description. You were so determined, so brave. I brought a couple of lumps of clay and a bowl of water with me and you helped me sculpt his face. I had to lift your fingers you were so weak, but your mind was strong, so strong.
‘I went away and worked through the night. It was five or six in the morning when I suddenly got the sensation that I was looking into the face of a monster. I felt physically sick. In fact, I think I was, in the basin of the lab. It was as if I had created something unspeakable. I had to shower, get that feeling that I had been polluted off my skin. But no matter how hard I scrubbed that sense was still there, underneath me, inside me. Soon after, the nightmares started. I saw Gleason’s face staring out of the darkness at me. Felt the stickiness on my skin. Dreamt that he was pushing a tongue made of clay into my mouth. Night after night I woke up screaming. God knows it must have been hard for Josh. And it carried on like that until Gleason was sentenced and imprisoned.’
She suddenly became aware of herself. ‘Sorry, listen to me babbling on about myself. God, Cassie. I know it’s nothing compared to what you went through. I must sound so pathetic.’
‘There’s no need to apologise. It must have been hard for you. I never realised.’
‘And why should you have done? You were going through so much yourself. That was the last thing I wanted to burden you with.’
‘And what does Josh – sorry, Detective Harper – think? About what is happening now, I mean.’
‘He thinks it could be some psycho Gleason met in prison. Perhaps someone he helped. And in exchange his friend would act out some sort of sick plan at a later date.’
‘Jesus.’
‘But don’t worry. If that’s the case it’s only a matter of time before he’s caught. Harper and his staff will be working through a list of the inmates at the prison who were inside at the same time as Gleason and who have subsequently been released. There can’t be that many of them and all of them should be easily tracked down.’
The two women didn’t speak for a few moments. Cassie cleared her throat and shifted slightly in her seat, moving towards Kate.
‘You know you said you were pregnant. When did you find out?’
‘That’s the frightening thing. Whoever took and killed that baby knew about it before I did.’
‘What?’
‘I only did a test after I had found the child in the sea.’
‘And nobody else knew you were trying for a child?’
‘Well, only the people at the fertility clinic, and, of course, the father – Detective Harper. Josh. But by the way we’re no longer together.’
‘I see.’
Just then Kate’s cell rang. She looked at the caller I.D.
‘Sorry, Cassie. I better take this.’
She stood up and walked away from the table. Her mother looked up from her garden and smiled.
‘Hi, Kate. It’s Josh.’
‘Hello, Detective Harper.’
‘Look, we haven’t the luxury of playing that silly fucking game, Kate.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘Jordan Weislander – in the district attorney’s office -‘
‘I know who he is, Josh. I was there remember.’
‘Last night Weislander was at home cooking dinner for his wife and two friends when he opened his icebox and found a human tongue sandwiched between his choice cuts of veal.’
‘So it is to do with Gleason.’
‘Yep, sure looks like it. More or less at the same time a homeless guy was admitted to California Hospital Medical on Hope Street. He woke up after taking god knows what – booze, drugs or both – to find himself without a tongue. Apparently it had been cut out when he was unconscious.’
Kate was too shocked to speak.
‘Look, I know we’re going through our own problems now –‘
‘You could say that.’
‘But, Kate. Don’t take any risks. I know you – I’ve seen the way you work in the past. This is serious, dangerous. Whoever we’re dealing with here is clearly a psychopath with no regard for anyone.’
‘Do you have any leads yet?’
‘We should have some names soon. I’ve got the whole team working on it. I’ll let you know what happens.’
‘Okay.’
‘Also, I’ve just heard that the Times is leading on the story tomorrow – you and the kid, Cassie and the fingertips, Weislander and the tongue. God only knows how it got out – but if the journalist Cynthia Ross –‘
‘Not her again.’
‘Yeah. Anyway, if she calls you, do me a favour and say no comment, will you?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Sorry, I’ve got to go.’
‘Bye.’
Kate returned to the table. She told Cassie what Josh had said. The news left the two women even more fearful than before.
13
‘Fuck,’ said Josh as he picked up the newspaper. The Sunday edition of Times featured the story as an exclusive on the front page, along with the headline, ‘GROTESQUE GIFTS LINKED TO GLEASON, DEAD SERIAL KILLER’. The story was bylined Cynthia Ross and was illustrated with photographs of Kate, Cassie, Weislander and a large image of Gleason himself staring out of the page.
Two nights ago, February 9, Jordan Weislander, prosecutor in the office of the state’s district attorney, opened the icebox in his Pasadena home to discover a human tongue. Investigations by the Times have revealed that he is the third person to receive a grotesque present of human body parts since the beginning of the new year.
Over the past two weeks, three people closely connected with the notorious Bobby Gleason serial killer case have received similarly chilling gifts. On January 25, Kate Cramer, the forensic artist who created an accurate likeness of Gleason – an image that led to his arrest - was taking photographs at her beach house in Malibu when she spotted a baby in the water. Despite trying to revive the 15-month old – identified as Sara-Jane Gable, daughter of a Los Feliz couple – the baby was pronounced dead at the scene.
On February 2, Cassie Veringer received a package of human fingertips at her apartment in Venice Beach. Ms Verginer would have been the last murder victim of Gleason – the notorious serial killer whose reign of killings lasted from 1992 until 1997 – had she not escaped from his vehicle and fled to safety. Before her daring escape Cassie, blind as a result of juvenile glaucoma, managed to feel the face of her attacker and it was with her help that Kate Cramer successfully created such a detailed portrait of the serial killer. Gleason’s other victims were Teresa Collins, 17, Frances Silla, 19, Elizabeth Ventura, 18, Tracey Newton, 18, and Jane Gardener, 20.
Despite repeated requests neither the LAPD nor any of the three persons directly involved – Jordan Weislander, Kate Cramer or Cassie Veringer – would comment on this story.
As this newspaper reported only a few weeks ago, it is ten year
s since Gleason was arrested. Police sources would not comment on whether the publication of this recent article has any bearing on the new developments.
Bobby Gleason was arrested in January 1997 and he was sentenced to death a year later. However, in July 2000, Gleason, 49 – who was on Death Row in San Quentin State Prison - was discovered dead in his cell He had committed suicide.
He threw the paper across his desk. That’s all he needed, some kind of fucking media circus. And true enough, two minutes later Karen Cain – the media spokeswoman for his division – was on the phone relating the dozens of requests from journalists asking for more information. He told her he would draft a brief statement.
‘But what about a press conference?’ she said. ‘You know that’s what these guys want. They want to see you up there, and they want to talk to Weislander, Kate Cramer and Cassie Veringer.’
‘No way,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m not going to allow Kate Cramer and Cassie Veringer to be eaten alive by a pack of vultures.’ He took a deep breath as he assessed the situation. ‘Look, it’s against my better nature, but if needs be, I’ll take the press conference.’
‘But Cramer and Veringer are off limits? You sure? There’s nothing like a spot of female vulnerability to get people’s attention.’
God, she made him sick. At times he thought she was just as bad as some of the corpse-feasting crime reporters out there.
‘Afraid so.’
‘Okay, I’ll get back to you. And no new leads I can give these hungry babies?’
‘Not yet,’ he said, finding it difficult to retain his composure. ‘But I’ll see what I can come up with. Also, can you find out how Cynthia Ross got the story?’
‘She’s one tough lady, she might not tell me much, but I’ll try.’
‘Great. Speak later.’
As he cut the line he wondered whether sometimes he was doing his job for the sake of the entertainment industry – for the viewers of the news networks, the readers of supermarket tabloids, the internet geeks obsessed by conspiracy theories – and not the safety of the general public. He didn’t have the time to think about that at the moment. He had serious work to do.
He clicked on the secure link and scanned down the list of names on his computer screen. There were five men who had served time with Gleason in San Quentin and who had since been released: Lee Tomlin, Harry Lomax, Michael David Federline, Charles Garrison and Robert Dean Hornbeck.
Tomlin, a 45-year-old black man, was a petty drug dealer and small time pimp; Lomax, 31, had been sentenced for internet fraud and identity theft; Federline, 37, had committed a series of indecent assaults on young women; Garrison, 52, subjected his wife to regular beatings until, on the last occasion, he had nearly killed her; and Hornbeck, 48, a former high school teacher and summer camp leader, was a paedophile who couldn’t keep his hands off young boys.
‘Right guys – hey, listen,’ said Josh, standing up and shouting across the investigation room. ‘We’ve been sent the names from the prison and I’m copying it and sending it to each of you right now.’
His black eyes narrowed as he bent down to send the email. He had been working for two weeks now without more than an hour of sleep a night and the effects were beginning to show. Dark circles shadowed his eyes, razor burn had spread across his neck like a nettle sting and his skin looked pale and gaunt. But he couldn’t allow himself any slack now. Although he had tried his best to be objective the investigation had become something of a personal battle, one he had to win; after all, the alternative was just too painful to contemplate.
‘Okay, as you can see we’ve got five names, men who may have been associates of Gleason in San Q,’ he said, addressing his team. ‘By the way, before I go any further, I presume all of you are up to speed on the Gleason case?’
The question was, of course, rhetorical – he prided his team on the quick acquisition and accumulation of information – and it was met with grunts of affirmation and the nodding of heads.
‘Great. So I want a full background check on each of these individuals as well as a current address. As you know, this case is urgent, so as soon as we have addresses I want them brought in for questioning. We can’t let this one slip away from us. As everyone knows, three people all connected with Gleason have been sent threatening packages, and in the case of Dr Kate Cramer, who was the lead forensic artist in the case – well, she discovered a dead baby girl floating in the sea outside her house.’
Although this was not news to the team it was still met with expressions of outrage and disbelief.
‘The perpetrator is obviously willing to kill,’ he continued. ‘And so it’s most likely he’s killed before.’ He looked across the room to Dr Jennifer Curtis, the specialist psychological profiler on his team. ‘Would you agree, Jennifer?’
A tall, slim and beautiful black woman stood up and addressed the room.
‘That’s right, sir,’ she said, clearing her throat. ‘From all indications I would say, without a doubt, that we are dealing with a psychopath, someone who has, most probably since he was a child, felt no concern or empathy for anyone or anything. He views people – babies, even – as nothing more than inanimate objects that he can manipulate at will. I thought it would be a good idea to go back to the police records of each of these individuals concerned and scour them for any signs of psychopathic or sociopathic behaviour. Obviously, since they have all ended up in prison it’s likely that most, if not all of them, will have experienced behavioural problems of some sort – problems at school or work, feelings of isolation and alienation, addiction to drugs or alcohol. But I want to look for signs of disassociation as well. The person who is doing these things no doubt feels superior to the rest of mankind. He thinks, to a certain extent, that he is some sort of god, and the rest of us are his little playthings.’
‘Get all the original police interviews and court transcripts on each of these five men and see what you can find.’
He turned to another member of his team, a stocky black man, who he knew happened to be gay, and who, in the course of a number of investigations, had proved himself to be an expert interviewer and interrogator.
‘Lansing – I want you to go to San Quentin and interview the governor and staff and other inmates and see if you can discover any more about Gleason and his connection with these men. Did Gleason have any confidantes? Who were his friends, if that sick fuck had the capacity to make any? Did he have any enemies? Did he do any deals in prison? Take drugs of any sort? Who came to visit him? Did he receive any letters? Okay?’
‘Right, sir,’ said Lansing. ‘I’ll fly up there tonight.’
‘Great. What’s the latest on the daughter, Roberta Gleason? Helen, did you manage to get hold of her to check to see that she is okay?’
He looked over to a pale, drawn woman who was wearing a pink fleecy hat. He knew that Helen Holt had been diagnosed with breast cancer and that the hat hid a patchy scalp, the result of chemotherapy. He had pleaded with her to take more time off work, but she was insistent she was well enough to carry on. The treatment had left her weak, but it had seemed to be effective. What she needed, she had told him, was something to keep her mind off her illness; this case, he was sure, would certainly do that.
‘I paid a visit to her home in Hollywood, but she wasn’t there,’ she said. ‘I left a couple of messages on her home phone and her cell, but they went unanswered. Finally, I went to her workplace, at Cedars-Sinai, where I found her. She told me that she had been out of town for a few days, staying with a friend in Vegas.’ She flicked through the pages of her notebook until she found the summary of the interview. ‘Although she was in the middle of her shift, she talked to me in her break. She seemed genuinely shocked when I asked her about her father. She told me that she had tried to forget about him and that he had deserved to die in prison. She couldn’t forgive him for what he had done. After leaving home at 18 to go to college she never saw him again. There’s obviously still a lot of anger t
here and I -’
