Mania - A Thriller (Jon Stanton Mysteries Book 9)

by Victor Methos

  “Yeah, well, a woman would think that.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He turned toward her. “Nothing. Sorry. Listen, he’s fine. But don’t let him drag you into this thing. The case is off the board. Let sleeping dogs lie.”

  With that, Thomas left. Katie sat silently a few moments and watched him walk down the hall. Thomas always had an air of not having a thing to do in the world. Never stressed, not in the way she was or other detectives in the unit were. He came from money and had family money waiting for him if he ever left police work. Maybe she’d be that calm and stress free, too, if she had piles of cash to fall back on. But that wasn’t how it was. For her, there was nothing else. It was either this or finding some job in customer service, the field she’d been working in before entering the academy.

  She stood up and went out to the bull pen. The murder board, a large transparent board on one wall that held all the homicides currently open in the unit, was emptier today. Carter and Richards had both been taken off, this morning. Another pair of detectives, Gibson Duce and Dan Ing, had cleared two other homicides, though not through their own work. Both had been ruled drug overdoses by the ME.

  The board was the focus of the unit. As the board shrank, their superiors and administrators grew happier. Gratitude was dispersed, time off was given liberally, and certain perks were distributed. As the board grew full, those things disappeared. The captains and lieutenants grew crankier and less able to help when resources were asked for. The board determined the atmosphere of the unit, something Katie disliked intensely. It put enormous pressure on the detectives to clear homicides that perhaps weren’t ready to be cleared, ones where every lead hadn’t yet been exhausted. But she felt she was just one cog in a massive wheel and didn’t have the power to change the entire culture of the unit, so she kept her head down and did the best she could.

  Her captain, Nathan Setter, stuck his head out of his office and said, “Katie, come in here, would you please?”

  She went over. His office was far larger than hers, with windows that looked down over the city streets. He had no photos, no decorations other than a coffee mug: “World’s Greatest Dad.” Nate shut the door behind her and then sat down.

  “I was just talking to Thomas about that Richards case and he mentioned you were still working on the Carter matter.”

  It wasn’t lost on her that he had used the word “case” to describe Richards and “matter” to describe Reginald Carter, as though it didn’t even warrant being called a homicide case any longer.

  “I’m just looking into a few things.”

  “Like what?”

  Katie debated whether to tell him about the photo, but in the end she decided they would find out anyway. “There’s a stack of photos we found. They have additional girls in the pictures that weren’t at the home. I think Thomas already told you that. But what he didn’t tell you, because I haven’t shared this with him yet, is that some of the photos had a second set of hands in them. Someone was helping him.”

  Nate didn’t move, as though what she’d just said didn’t hold any interest for him. “A set of hands? You sure they’re not Carter’s hands?”

  “Well, someone had to take the photo. We’re talking old Polaroids.”

  He shrugged. “They had timers on the cameras as far back as I remember. Any distinctive marks on the hands?”

  “No. Not that you can see from the picture.”

  “Then I think we assume it’s Carter’s hands and move on.”

  “Why would we assume that? Shouldn’t we assume it’s someone else and look into it?”

  Setter folded his hands on the desk and leaned forward. “Katie, this case has brought a lot of pain to a lot of people. When we closed it, we alleviated some of that pain. Do you really want to open those wounds back up just because you have a set of hands in a photo? Haven’t those poor people been through enough?”

  “Nate, don’t bullshit me. There’s no closure for families of homicides. It doesn’t happen. What is this really about?”

  He looked away. “I’m just saying the case is over and done with.”

  “The case, or the media attention? There’d be a lot of pressure to make sure this case wasn’t opened again. I bet the chief caught some flack over a serial killer working for thirty years in his city without us even having a hint about it.”

  “You think what you want, but bottom line, this case is done.”

  “What does it hurt if I follow up for a couple of weeks? I won’t let it interfere with anything else.”

  He shook his head. “No, it’s done. It’s off the board, and the assistant chief himself came down here to congratulate everybody.”

  “I can’t believe it. He was right.”

  “Who was?”

  She swallowed and looked out the window. A handful of cars were stuck at a red light at the intersection. “Fine. It’s over.”

  He nodded and grinned. “It’s for the best.”

  She headed out to her office. Though she was loath to spend what little time off she had working a case, the captain had just given her no choice. Reginald Carter and his partner suddenly became a priority.

  28

  Stanton’s hand went to his firearm, then he pulled it away. If this wasn’t the right place, or even if it was and Tad wasn’t the man Jack had described, he didn’t want a gun involved. He had no intention of terrifying someone who didn’t deserve it.

  At the top of the stairs, he peered around a corner. He was in the kitchen now. The linoleum was old, dull white and orange and coated in stains. A dining table was built into a nook and a paper plate with some leftover chicken sat next to an empty bottle of beer. Stanton stepped around the corner and leaned against the sink, listening to the noises of the home. He didn’t hear anything but the rain against the window behind him.

  He crossed the kitchen and slowly stepped into the hallway between the kitchen and the living room. The furniture, like the linoleum, was at least fifty years out of date. Black-and-white photos sat on the mantel, and Stanton looked at each one. Several had an older woman with a young boy. The place seemed to be owned by someone from that generation, and he guessed Tad Lockwood lived with his grandmother.

  The television in the living room was ancient and still had the bunny-ears antennae Stanton remembered from his youth. He ran his fingers lightly over the smooth metal, a grin on his face as he remembered hundreds of hours in front of a television like this one, watching cartoons and Alf and Who’s the Boss? His sister’s favorite had been The Facts of Life, one he could never get into.

  Stanton glanced out the front room’s window and saw his Jeep at the curb. It seemed out of place in this neighborhood. He suddenly became aware that all the cars were older-model Cadillacs, Lincolns, and Oldsmobiles. Much like the house, the cars were from a different generation, too.

  Lying out on the coffee table were some magazines, mostly ones you might find at a police station about guns, hunting, or forensics, and a few pieces of mail. He lifted the envelopes and flipped through them. All of them were addressed to Thaddeus J. Lockwood. He threw them back on the coffee table and headed to the hallway leading to the bedrooms.

  The first bedroom on the left was pink. The carpet, bedspreads, and curtains were pink. Women’s shoes lined the wall on one side, coated with a thick layer of dust. A dresser on the far end of the room had a few more old photos sitting on top of a white doily. Stanton quickly glanced over them. This batch had more people than in the living room, but the boy and the old woman were still prominent.

  The next room down the hallway was the bathroom, and Stanton took only a cursory glance around before looking in the medicine cabinet. A few prescriptions for anti-anxiety medication made out to Tad, and bottles of sleeping pills, but nothing out of the ordinary.

  The last room was a much larger bedroom than the other one. A bed took up most of the room. The window looking out on the backyard was covered in thick, heavy curtain
s, blocking out the light entirely. Inside the closet, Stanton saw an array of men’s clothing. He ran his hand over them, getting a feel for each one. The clothes were not meant to impress. They consisted of T-shirts, tank tops, and hoodies without logos—clothing meant only for functionality and comfort.

  The room had no photos, no television or radio, no phone or even lamps. A small bathroom off to the side was empty. As Stanton stepped out of the bathroom, he noticed the knob on the door. It wasn’t a standard knob with a small lock like the other bedroom. The lock looked industrial, heavy steel, and locked from outside the room. As Stanton bent down and looked at it, he heard something.

  It was a small sound, almost like a scratch against a wall or ceiling. He froze, even holding his breath, and his eyes closed as he focused every ounce of mental energy on listening. He waited a long time, five or six minutes, taking only small, shallow breaths so his breathing wouldn’t interfere with the sound, but there was nothing else.

  Stanton rose and scanned the room again. Someone had put a lock on the outside of this door, hoping to keep someone else in it. His first thought was that maybe Tad’s grandmother used to lock him in this room as a child. It was a pattern he’d seen many times before. The sadistic grandparents became the de facto caretakers when something happened to the parents and tortured the helpless child. Sometimes they created monsters.

  Stanton had had a friend named David. David was mercilessly picked on at school, beaten to a pulp nearly every day. Stanton felt sorry for him and walked him home one day so he wouldn’t be alone. When they got to his house, his grandmother was furious that he had gotten blood on his shirt, and she made him drop his trousers right there in front of Stanton, and beat him with a coat hanger. David didn’t cry. Later, he told Stanton that his grandmother wanted him to cry, so he never did. He held it in as much as he could.

  One day David, ten years old at the time, waited until his grandmother was in the bathtub. David went into the kitchen, retrieved the largest knife he could comfortably carry, and slowly entered the bathroom while his grandmother bathed.

  Stanton was too young to understand the details, and most of it was kept from him, but Elizabeth had told him that she overheard their parents discussing it. David’s grandmother had been found with a stab wound to the chest. She survived, and David was taken to juvenile detention.

  Stanton wondered if Tad Lockwood was like David, trapped in a house with a monster who was supposed to love him.

  He was turning away when he happened to glance down and see the box under the bed.

  The box was made of solid wood. Now that he focused his attention on it, he could see that the bed had been raised to allow for more room underneath. Stanton bent down and pulled the box out. It was heavy, too heavy to pull with one hand. He had to squat down and use both hands and his legs and back to pull it out… and then he heard it.

  A yelp. Maybe a natural noise the wood made by being pulled out with something so heavy inside, but he didn’t think so.

  He put his ear against it and listened; inside, he heard the sound he most dreaded to hear at that moment: breathing. Someone was inside the box. On the corners were small grates, probably to let in air, and he put his mouth close to it.

  “This is the police. Is someone in there?”

  No response at first, and then just a soft whine—a child’s whine.

  Stanton rose and ran into the kitchen. He looked for anything that could break open the lock on the box, though he hadn’t actually seen one. But how else could it stay closed without the child opening it?

  He found a set of tools in a cupboard next to the sink and grabbed a hammer and a flathead screwdriver before running back to the bedroom. Searching all the edges of the box, he didn’t see a lock. He lifted the box slightly and looked underneath; no lock there either. Slowly, he lifted the lid and it came off.

  Inside, a young girl had her eyes closed, tears running down her cheeks. Her clothes were in tatters and blood and urine had stained her legs. It wasn’t locked. She was so frightened that she willingly stayed in the box.

  “It’s okay,” he said, “it’s okay. I’m a police officer. My name is Jon.”

  She wouldn’t open her eyes. He lightly touched her hand and she recoiled and screamed. He was about to call in an ambulance when he heard boots against the floor behind him, turning just in time to see Tad Lockwood swinging a baseball bat at his head.

  Stanton only had time to raise his arm. The bat slammed into his forearm and elbow, sending a rush of burning pain through his arm. The impact knocked him onto his back.

  Tad lifted the bat with a scream and slammed it down into Stanton’s torso. Stanton felt the impact like a truck and groaned as his body curled up instinctively. Tad raised the bat again and swung down, this time aiming for his skull.

  Stanton twisted to his right and the bat hit the floor and his shoulder. He rolled back over, grabbing the bat so Tad couldn’t lift it, and kicked into his groin as hard as he could. Tad recoiled and Stanton kicked again, forcing his leg up with everything he had. It was enough to send the man back a few steps.

  The bat was still in Stanton’s hand. He stood up to swing just as Tad tackled him and they both went down, slamming into a dresser, carving out a hole in the drywall. Stanton came up with a knee into Tad’s groin again. Tad yelped and both his hands went down.

  Stanton reached down and grabbed the man’s genitals. He could feel them through the soft basketball shorts the man had on. He twisted and squeezed as hard as he could, not stopping when Tad screamed and struck him. Tad hit him again and again, but Stanton wouldn’t let go. He twisted so far he felt the testicles rupture in his hand. Tad couldn’t handle any more. He fought to get away.

  Stanton let him go, and the man made a run for the door. Stanton pulled out his firearm and fired a single round. It went straight through Tad’s arm. The impact threw him into the wall and he bounced off and hit the floor, lying on top of the girl, who was now screaming hysterically.

  Tad bled on the box, screaming and shouting. Stanton took out his cell phone with one hand, the other holding the gun pointed at Tad’s head. He felt the smoothness of the trigger, the weight of the gun, and saw the young girl’s terrified face. He wanted nothing more than to pull that trigger, but the 911 operator was already on the line.

  “I need an ambulance. I’ve shot someone.”

  29

  The room was cold. Stanton had never realized how cold an interrogation room could be. Most rooms in larger precincts had their own separate temperature controls so they could literally turn up the heat—the detectives would let the suspects cook in high temperatures before interviewing them, building a desire to want to leave at any cost.

  But the room’s heat hadn’t been turned on. In fact, not much of anything had happened in the past two hours. Stanton had been left here staring at the walls. He didn’t mind. He needed time to process what had happened. Though his arm ached, the paramedics had confirmed it wasn’t broken. Only his nerves appeared to be affected by his encounter with Tad Lockwood.

  Stanton closed his eyes, emptying his mind. The mind—the “mad monkey,” as Hindu monks called it—would run wild if allowed. To truly focus, it had to be empty. Devoid of memories, emotions, and thoughts. As he sat in the cold interrogation room, it all fell away. The walls and ceiling, the sidewalks and buildings, the city and country, the planet… He was adrift in a sea of stars high above everything else. Relaxed. He could see it so clearly that he felt it.

  And then the door opened, and the universe of calm shattered. Stanton opened his eyes but didn’t turn around as Thomas Garcia walked in and sat across from him. He sat quietly at first and then leaned back in the seat with a grin.

  “You shot an unarmed man,” Thomas said.

  “I already gave my statement.”

  “Oh, I know. I read it several times. Makes you out to be a hero, don’t it?”

  “No, it’s the truth.”

  “The truth,”
he scoffed. “Truth is a funny thing. Changes depending on who you ask. ’Cause Tad, he’s got a different version of the truth. According to him, you broke into his house and assaulted him and his daughter.”

  “That’s not his daughter.”

  “Adopted daughter, yes it is.”

  Stanton held his gaze. “Have you seen her?”

  “No.”

  “There’s blood caked to her legs. It’s from the multiple times he raped and sodomized her. He kept her in box, like a toy he could bring out whenever he wanted. So either you’re a complete incompetent and don’t realize what you have on your hands, or you’re going to lie to me to try to get me to confess to something that isn’t true.”

  Thomas grinned. “We found video of three other girls, too. They’re relatively recent.”

  “Men like him adopt girls and rent them in their communities for short periods.”

  Thomas leaned forward. “You should’ve put the bullet in his head, not his arm,” he whispered.

  Stanton held his gaze. “I tried,” he said softly.

  Thomas leaned back in his seat, back on the hind legs of the chair like a boy bored at school. “Still, you did shoot an unarmed man.”

  “No DA would ever prosecute me for that. The media would destroy him. He’d be seen as sticking up for the rights of child rapists.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, you’re right, but for now, I get to keep you here.”

  The two men sat staring at each other a long while before the door opened behind them. Katie stood for a moment and then approached Thomas, standing over him like a mother scolding a child.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Katie, I love you, but you don’t get to—”

  “We found some more photos at the home. Of Tad with Carter. He’s the second man.”

  Thomas stared at her silently.

  “Leave him alone,” she said. “He just solved a case you didn’t think existed. You can go take credit for it now in front of the cameras.”