“Like crazy woman-beating Richard Sparke.”
“Exactly.”
“You know, Kevin, that might be worth checking into.”
Kevin lowered the window of the sedan all the way. A breeze flew in, cool, fresh, and satisfying to the lungs. “When was the last time you saw her?”
Leonard pulled out of the hospital parking lot, thoughts still focused on the woman with the bleach-blonde hair. Samantha Sparke, once an honest, plain-faced woman who trembled and cried and feared all the bad fortune inundating her life, now looking much like a lady with confidence, parading her new look replete with assurance and poise.
“Haven’t seen or heard from her since she dropped the charges against him.”
“Did she really drop the charges against her husband?”
“You sound surprised.”
“Well, it’s just that you never told me that part of the story.”
Leonard made a left onto Crandon Avenue, entering the Cedar Crest portion of Fairview. Here, Fairview’s prideful trees were abundant, the town having planted them some thirty years ago when the development was first built. On this block, a procession of tall sycamores ran the length of both sidewalks, their branches stretching over, tips embracing, forming a dense canopy of leaves that shaded the street below. Squirrels frolicked up and down thick trunks, unseen birds singing amidst the static sway of green leaves. Small children played on front lawns under the watchful supervision of their mothers. A young woman wearing spandex shorts and a tank top jogged up the sidewalk, smiling and waving to Kevin as they passed by. Hughes, red-faced, returned the gesture with a lively wink.
“Looking for a little spice in your life, eh Kevin?”
“Never enough spice for the sauce, partner.” Kevin tossed Leonard an exaggerated wink.
Leonard smiled and groaned. Self-assured single bastard.
Through the outside rearview mirror, Kevin caught a last second peek at the jogger, then continued the conversation. “Let’s get back to the story. What happened with Sparke and his wife?”
“Okay...remember I told you that I’d interviewed them both after the battering incident? Well, when I first met with them, putting aside Samantha’s injuries, they appeared to be just another normal couple who’d experienced some tragic difficulties. Their infant daughter had passed away a week or two before, a casualty of sudden infant death syndrome. As you can imagine, that caused them both a great deal of grief, and as a result placed a tremendous amount of stress on their marriage. They’d only known each other a short time when they’d gotten married, and had done so only because Samantha was pregnant. So the loss of their child was a loss of their only true bond.”
“But what about her injuries?”
“That, obviously, painted a different picture altogether. It was remarkable looking at this woman, so thin and frail, who might have been attractive, but it was hard to tell, really, with all the bruises about her. Her face had swelled quite a bit, mostly at the cheeks. She had purple circles beneath both eyes. And to think she’d spent nearly six days in the hospital before I got a chance to speak with her. At first she refused to come forth to tell her side of the story. Then she agreed, but remarkably dismissed all wrongdoing on the part of her husband.”
“Why?”
“She wouldn’t explain herself. Just shook her head and said, ‘because it’s what I want to do’. To this day her reasons for doing this still elude me. Think about it, it makes no sense. Here’s a woman who, in a severely beaten state, manages to point the finger at her husband. Then later, upon questioning, drops all charges. I was dumbfounded. I tried to get her to change her mind, made three subsequent visits to her home, but it was no use. Eventually she stopped returning my calls altogether, and that was the end of the story. She never discussed her injuries, or how she believed to have gotten them, and Richard Sparke went on his merry way.”
“Did they continue to live with one another?”
“No. Sparke moved into the condo, and Samantha, as far as I know, still lives at the house they shared.”
Kevin’s eyes searched the street ahead for an answer. “It really doesn’t make much sense, does it?”
They reached the end of Crandon. Leonard made a left on Fuller Place. “No, at least it didn’t at that time. But then I did a bit of homework, and started noticing some inconsistencies in their story. Small circumstantial tidbits that appeared to point the finger away from Richard.”
“Really? Like what?”
“Well, for one, Sparke himself made the 911 calls, which, as you know, is unusual, given the circumstances. When we arrived at their home, he was visibly upset, kept pacing and crying and swearing that he didn’t know how it happened. That there must have been an intruder. The paramedics had arrived just prior to us getting there. Samantha Sparke had already been moved into the ambulance parked in front of the house, but two of the EMT workers told me that she’d pointed at her husband and yelled ‘he did it’ three times before passing out. When I questioned Sparke, he denied all offenses. Insisted he was asleep at the time of the attack. Of course, I found that to be odd, as apparently they were both sleeping in the same bed, and that Samantha was attacked in the bed.”
“So basically his contention was that he slept throughout the entire attack.”
“Pretty much. But then I noticed something else. As we scoured the room, I looked Sparke up and down for a good three or four minutes, and for the most part, the man was clean. No scratches on his hands, no blood beneath his nails, his face and arms untouched.”
“That’s right...you mentioned that earlier.”
“Also...he was wearing gray pajamas and had a bit of blood at his waist, but it was a smooth stain, not spattered, leading me to realize that it had seeped on him after Pamela was injured, not during. While he was lying still.”
“Asleep.”
“Exactly. The blood stain on the mattress was consistent in size and placement to the stain on his pajamas, just as if he’d been sleeping next to her. If he’d attacked her, he’d have haphazard spots of blood all over him. His hands would have been cut, his face too. And another thing, and this is the clincher I think, but before Samantha was admitted into Fairview hospital, detective Morris removed small shreds of flesh under her fingernails on both hands, meaning that she’d most definitely taken a few swipes at her attacker. Yet when I investigated Sparke, he had no visible wounds whatsoever.”
“So there was another attacker?”
“Sure seemed that way. But then again, there were no signs of forced entry into the house. So whoever attacked Samantha Sparke that night had either let themselves in--”
“Or was let in by someone.”
“Bingo. That’s what I was shooting for. But Sparke, he never changed his story. Simply insisted that he was sleeping when his wife acquired her injuries. Once Samantha dropped the charges against him, we had no choice but to let him go.”
“What about the skin samples Morris took?”
“I’m fairly certain tests were done. Sparke had volunteered his blood. That and the skin samples were sent to the City Crime Lab. But by that point it didn’t matter because Samantha refused to indict her husband.”
“So you never saw the results of the tests?”
Leonard turned right on Culver Place. “No.”
“Weren’t you the least bit curious?”
“Sure, but to be honest Kevin, I didn’t want to know. You see, it wasn’t going to make a difference. Regardless of the outcome, Sparke was off the hook.”
Kevin shifted in his seat, faced Leonard. He seemed genuinely spirited with the story. “Len, it seems obvious to me. Someone else definitely attacked her.”
“You may be right, Kev. But if we’d pursued the case at that point--against the will of the victim, no less--it would’ve made us look unprofessional, and like failures since we had nothing more to go on. All of our efforts would’ve gone to exonerating Sparke, and it didn’t matter at that point anyway.”
/>
Kevin blew out a deep breath, looking befuddled. “You’re right, Sparke does have quite a checkered past.”
Leonard pulled up in front of a three-story brick-faced building and parallel parked between an SUV and a Buick. Four similar structures made up the Presidential Studio Apartment Complex, each edifice aptly named after former leaders of the United States. They waited in front of the Washington building, watching the entrance, a plain white door whose upper half consisted of rectangular cut-outs for windows. Azalea bushes ran along the face of the building, pink and white flowers wilting away from a recent full bloom. Above, rows of windows looked out over the street into the parking lot of a Rite-Way drugstore.
“Yes, he does. And frankly, as honest as he appeared--still does appear--he can’t be trusted...not until we get to the bottom of what’s going on.”
“And how do we do that?”
“We start with Pamela Bergin.” Leonard looked at his watch. “We still have about forty minutes before Sparke’s session is up. Let’s see if his girlfriend’s at home. I’m real curious to see what she has to say about her visit with Sparke this morning.”
Hypnotized
Richard knew exactly what was happening: he lay fully clothed on a couch in the office of the man he had come to know quite well, the good psychologist Dr Marcus Delaney. He was in a condition deeper than sleep, deeper than coma, perhaps. At the mentioning of the number ‘one’, he could feel his heartbeat slowing, the very blood in his veins in no hurry to course back to its source of pulse. His breathing was shallow, intermittent, reduced to six long breaths per minute. He sensed that if he were to continue luxuriating in such a suspended phase, his heartbeat might stop completely, and then his being might float indefinitely in a state similar to being in suspended animation. And all the while, he somehow knew, his mental strength would renew itself, its cells gathering the energy to recall and remember his past, to enable him to press on in life with no worries other than to enjoy its modest offerings. Just as he always wanted.
He felt as if some magic were taking over, allowing him to heal at quite a relaxed rate, as if hours and hours were passing and all he could do was remain in stasis and accept its approach with relaxation and compliance. He felt as if he could see his mind opening up, making room for the curative power that Delaney bequeathed from his cognizant hand of existence. Beneath the shadows of his mind’s wounds there grew a light, a healing white light that rose from the chemicals of his brain, the cool serotonin seeping forth and suppressing the evil adrenaline from staggering his thoughts, enabling him to think positively. There was no pain; yet, no pleasure. There was only a feeling of pressure in his head, a numbness surrounding his brain and scalp as if his nerve endings had been subjected to the prod and poke of a dentist’s Novocain-filled needle. He could sense his body somehow responding methodically to the unheard suggestions Delaney promptly imparted upon his listening subconscious. He could also feel his physical condition improving, his muscles growing stronger, his tendons tightening, his heart’s heavy-handed beating expanding in his chest. He thoroughly felt as if he might come out of hypnosis fully recovered, mentally healed and perhaps physically improved.
The white light expanded, now raining down over his brain into his field of vision. He sought the comfort of his conscience, but was unable to fully communicate, its voice calling to Richard from a distant point beyond the scope of intercepting light.
I am here, Richard. Are you aware of what’s happening?
Richard wanted to answer, to say, No, I don’t completely understand exactly what’s happening to me, but it feels wonderful, and I want it to last, but he could not find the voice to channel at his conscience, his thoughts firing chaotically about his mind like frantic birds in a cage.
There was a silence, then another distant shout of his conscience calling to him. This time he could not make out its message. He didn’t care. The light grew and grew, and he accepted its pleasurable radiance with open arms, regardless if it seemed to be piloting his thoughts.
Here he realized how he’d been utterly misguided by his conscience all during his regularly conscious state, that his thoughts had run totally amok while awake, his responding actions following a truly foolish course of action. That even though his heart and blood and muscles had run their normal routine, his mental awareness had been seldom, if ever, attentive. That he’d been dismally functioning in a robot-like state, much of his perception stewed in phases of complete psychological disorder.
He thought he heard a voice, not the chide of his conscience, but one of an unfamiliar tone. The white light flickered. Was this the voice of Delaney perhaps, digging into his deep level of consciousness? Then the voice faded, and the white light grew larger still, taking up nearly all of his hypnotic vista. What remained, the preceding blackness, turned to images. He saw snippets of himself in situations he could not recall, parts of many past-life experiences that until now had remained buried in the irrevocable blackness of his subconscious. He saw himself as a young man attending college, surrounded by his peers, accepting an award of scientific excellence. He saw himself driving a car, cruising the highways, something he retained no ability of. The next image showed him as a family man, Samantha, Debra, his mother, all of them alive and happy and sitting around a kitchen table, serving dinner as he returned from a hard day’s work. Next, as the third grade schoolteacher he vaguely recalled himself as, now seated before a classroom filled with children, presenting a lesson plan to weary faces and raised hands. Were these indeed memories from his past? The years of his life he could never remember, even when Delaney had tried to extract them from Richard’s restrained mind? Perhaps these visions were a sign of hypnotic success? Was Delaney finally getting through?
Soon these images faded, and then he saw himself as a poor teenager, hiding in the back of a dark alley, sprawled alongside a dumpster amidst a sea of refuse. He was trembling, eyes wild, teeth clenched. He was desperate, strung out, the sharp point of a needle penetrating a vein bulging from the tight grasp of a thick rubber band at his pocked and bruised bicep.
Richard’s heart began to pound. The memory scared him. He turned his head in attempt to flee from it, and the alarming image faded.
He heard the voice again, foreign, fleeting, unintelligible.
Next he saw himself in another unbelievable situation, and at once experienced a fear like never before, an inconceivable terror more intense than the dread he felt when the man in black entered his dream for the first time and tried to extinguish his life. Here, Richard Sparke had seemingly traded places with the dream-man in black. No...he had become the mysterious dream-intruder that was a perfect double of himself, committing the ultimate sin. He, Richard Sparke, was now killing another human being.
It was a person he did not know, the fear-filled face of a stranger drowned in tears, pleading with him for mercy as he hovered over the victim, lost in shadows, knife in hand, raised high...then coming down...then up again...then down, repeatedly slashing the undulating throat of the target. Blood spraying everywhere, spouting from the exposed jugular, staining his hands, his shirt, warm droplets on his face. He slashed again, tearing flesh, waves of immense and indescribable pleasure speeding through his veins as he plunged the blade again and again into the stranger’s neck until the body slowed, trembled, fell limp to the floor, the handle of the knife sticking straight up from the throbbing wounds in the neck like a monument, blood spilling out onto the floor, a growing shadow of life meeting the dark soles of his feet. Richard, suddenly crying, hid his eyes, shrunk away from the horrendous memory, tried desperately to convince himself that it wasn’t a memory at all but just a wicked fantasy, another crazy dream that held no verity. Just a crazy, mixed-up dream. It had to be. Richard was wholly incapable of committing such a heinous act. Wasn’t he?
And then like magic the dead body and the blood were gone, swallowed by the growing white light which now encompassed most of the world around him.
Ri
chard... The voice again. Definitely not that of his conscience. It was closer, vaguely familiar now...
He swam away from it and in his free-floating hypnotic state closed his eyes in effort to concentrate. For a moment he escaped the fearful surreality encompassing him, and drummed up a sense of relative lucidity. Within the moment of calm he told himself that the illusions of his own self in other capacities resulted from overactive brainwave activity, misfiring synapses, electrical impulses going haywire within the suggestion-implanted portions of his mind, thank you, Dr Delaney. He also told himself that these images frightened him because, above all else, he knew that deep inside he was a smart man whose potential had been held back by an overactive mind constantly alerting the fear center in his brain, hence overstimulating his central nervous system. So then, he told himself, his mind would heal, that all dreadful illusions would be gone, and even though he had the right to be afraid of all the illusions, both past and present, they would soon dissipate and then disappear altogether, allowing him to continue life as if nothing out of the ordinary had ever happened. He called for his conscience, instead heard the strange voice again, but it was once again too far away for him to hear anything. He wondered for a moment if his sudden intellectual understanding of the situation was a direct result of the doctor’s infiltration of suggestion into his subconscious. It has to be. I’m not this smart...
Yes, Richard. You’re not that smart. His conscience, barely a whisper. A pained whisper. Then it said, It still doesn’t change anything.
Where have you been?
Trying to get away...
Away? From what?
From...you...
And then there was a scream inside his head, his conscience feeling all the collective pains of Richard’s life, including those he did not remember. The cries of a man under the knife of a murderer, feeling his life slip away along with the screams that would not come as powerfully as they did just moments earlier, fading as the life quickly drained out.
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