Mania - A Thriller (Jon Stanton Mysteries Book 9)

by Victor Methos

  Reluctantly, and with his eyes fixed on Stanton, he rose and left the room. Katie took his place.

  “I’m sorry,” Stanton said. “I don’t like causing tension between partners.”

  “He sold me out when he went to the captain and told him I was on a wild goose chase. He doesn’t trust my judgment. Probably because I’m ‘a woman in a man’s field.’” She paused. “I’m… sorry I didn’t help more. If you hadn’t pushed so hard, we never would’ve caught him. And that poor girl… Anyway. He’s being taken into custody by the FBI tomorrow morning. Some of the girls in the videos are missing.”

  Stanton nodded. “The feds will take this one over. It’s for the best. You don’t want just Tad, you want the entire ring he’s involved in. The FBI’s got better resources for that.”

  “Maybe, I don’t know. I thought it’d be interesting to pursue it. I’m sick of investigating drive-by shootings.”

  “This isn’t a case you want to be involved in, Katie. You could lose yourself in something like this.”

  “You don’t think I can handle it?”

  “No, you can handle it. I’m just trying to save you the pain.”

  She folded her arms. “You see me the same way Thomas does, don’t you? Someone you need to protect.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” Stanton said. “I’m just… really tired. I need to get some sleep.”

  She sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that either. It’s just hard when everyone treats you like you need protecting.”

  Stanton rose. “Where is Tad now?”

  “St. Mark’s Hospital. Until the feds take custody. Why?”

  “Just curious.” He stood there a moment, wanted to say something, but wasn’t sure what. So instead he just said, “I appreciate everything you did.”

  “Sure. Hey, if you’re ever in town again, maybe hit me up for a cup of coffee or something?”

  He grinned. “Sure. I’ll… I’ll see ya,” was all he could manage to say.

  “Yeah, see ya.”

  Stanton left the interrogation room and went out into the bull pen. The detectives and several uniformed officers stared quietly a second before they clapped. He nodded sheepishly and said, “Thank you,” as he tried to make his way through them and to the door. A few people slapped his back, and another detective was pouring drinks out of a thermos. Plastic cups were passed around, and on the monitor of one of the computers, Stanton saw the first page of the Seattle Times. It read, “Monster of Hill Park Had Accomplice. Police Make Arrest As FBI Is Called In.”

  Celebrations were rare in a homicide unit. Most murders were solved because several witnesses saw what occurred and pointed the finger. The ones that took longer than forty-eight hours almost never resulted in an arrest. The sheer volume of unsolved homicides in any major city ground away at the detectives’ morale. Stanton wouldn’t deprive them of a victory.

  He stayed and chatted, going through how he discovered Tad and what went through his mind as he entered the home without backup. Several of the detectives said they were owed favors by the DA and would make sure he was never charged with anything. Stanton thanked them and quietly left the building.

  When he was outside, staring up at the gray sky and grateful that he would soon have some sunshine, he heard footsteps behind him and turned to see Katie running out to him.

  “Hey,” she said.

  He grinned. “Hey.”

  “I know this is stupid, but… do you wanna have dinner with me tonight?”

  “I would love to.”

  She smiled, leaned forward, and pecked him on the cheek. As she returned to the building, he stood and watched her a while. Suddenly, the gray skies didn’t seem so bad.

  30

  Dinner would be at the Dahlia Lounge. Katie said she could meet him at seven, which worked well for Stanton because he had one more thing to do before he could put this behind him: he had to know how Elizabeth had died.

  In the parking lot of St. Mark’s Hospital, he debated whether to leave, starting his Jeep several times and then turning it off again. The sunlight never broke through, and he wished he was on a beach somewhere, the ocean rolling in. He thought better near the water and with sunlight on his face.

  Finally, after nearly half an hour, he got out of the Jeep and strode inside the hospital. He asked the receptionist where Tad Lockwood’s room was and showed her his badge.

  “That’s from Honolulu,” she said.

  Stanton put the badge away. “I’m consulting on his case.”

  He said nothing more. Most people talked too much and got themselves into trouble in situations that called for discretion. The woman mumbled something and pressed a button.

  “Heather, another detective to see Mr. Lockwood.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  She leaned forward and whispered, “I wish sometimes we had the death penalty up here. If anyone deserves it…”

  Stanton didn’t say anything but nodded as though he agreed with her.

  A nurse came in, heavyset with glasses hanging around her neck on a thin chain. “Come with me, Detective,” she said, as though taking Stanton back would exhaust her.

  They walked down a corridor and stopped in front of a room with a uniformed officer sitting in front. Stanton thanked the nurse and showed the officer his badge.

  “I’ve been consulting with Detective Wong. I was hoping I could talk to Tad before the feds took him tomorrow.”

  “Sorry, Detective,” the officer said. “Love to help, but I have orders from on high that no one’s supposed to see him until the FBI gets here. They want him fresh.”

  “No, they don’t. They don’t trust local law enforcement. They think we’ll screw up the interrogation and he’ll walk.” Stanton sat on a chair next to the officer. “One of the girls he killed was my sister. I just have to know… I just have to know how she died. I have to.”

  The officer stared at him, a look of pure sympathy in his eyes as though Stanton was a man walking to the gallows. “You sure you wanna know?”

  He nodded.

  “Okay,” the officer said, “go on back.”

  Stanton rose, his knees like Jell-O, his stomach in knots. So many nights had been spent wondering what the man who killed Elizabeth was like; where he was, what he was doing. Stanton knew Carter, and now he would put a second face to the crime. He wondered if those faces would ever leave him. Once he learned how she died, what she went through, how could he possibly think about anything else? Over time, maybe, he would learn to deal with it.

  He took a deep breath and stepped inside the room.

  31

  Congratulating Stanton had turned into an excuse for the detectives to have a shot of whiskey at work. Captain Setter didn’t mind as long as the detectives didn’t get drunk and didn’t have any witnesses to interview that afternoon.

  Katie sat with them, listening to their war stories, the descriptions of cases that stuck with them. Almost all of them were humorous, but those weren’t the ones that kept her up at night. The ones she remembered most were the ones that she didn’t talk about with anyone else but that were always there, on the periphery of consciousness like some predator hiding in the shadows waiting for an opportunity to pop out.

  One of her first cases had been a seventeen-year-old boy who had been murdered by two ex-cons. The cons threw a party and got the boy drunk. When he refused their sexual advances, they sodomized him for two hours. They didn’t intentionally kill him; with a blood alcohol level in the toxic zone, the boy blacked out and choked on his own vomit. Others at the party had told the detectives that the men were laughing about the rape. They thought it was one of the funniest things they’d ever done.

  When Katie finally saw the boy the next day, she was amazed how white a body could get, how blue the lips would become upon death. Within a matter of hours after death, the boy looked like an inanimate object, like a table or tree. Whatever moved the flesh had vanished.

  “
Katie,” the captain said, “in my office, please.”

  Katie rose and went to Nathan’s office. Seated across from him was a man she’d never seen: tall and thin with gray hair and a black suit.

  “This is Agent Roosevelt with the FBI. He’s going to be picking up Tad and just wanted to confer with the detectives on the case.”

  Katie offered her hand and Roosevelt took it. “Nice to meet you,” she said.

  “You, too.”

  “Well,” she said, folding her arms and choosing not to sit, “what do you need to know?”

  “We tried interviewing the girl, but she’s too far gone right now. She just started screaming and crying.”

  Katie said nothing, though he seemed to be waiting for a reaction from her. When none came, he continued.

  “We were told one of the victim’s family members discovered Mr. Lockwood’s involvement.”

  “Yes, he’s a detective with Honolulu PD. What about him?”

  “Is it true he broke into the home?”

  Katie looked from one man to the other. “What does it matter?”

  Nathan said, “It matters, because if it’s an illegal search, every shred of evidence inside the home is going to be tossed.”

  Katie’s heart dropped. “He’s not a government agent in this state. They can’t do that.”

  Roosevelt held up his hand as though interjecting. “Nothing’s certain yet. And you’d be hard pressed to find a judge to overturn this in the trial court, but on appeal, there is a possibility. If this man was acting on his own, then the search will be valid. But because he’s a cop, and he was consulting with you on the case, an argument could be made that he was under direct supervision by the Seattle PD.”

  “That’s bullshit,” she exclaimed. “I didn’t know he was going to do that, and if I did, I would’ve stopped him.”

  Nathan said, “No one’s blaming anyone, Katie. He acted irrationally, and this is on him if this guy walks.”

  “Irrationally? Have you ever had a member of your family murdered, Captain?”

  Nathan and Roosevelt both glanced at each other but didn’t say anything. Katie knew this was some unspoken truth between them. They had probably sat in this office attacking Jon Stanton’s actions, not willing to acknowledge that he was a man in immense pain who had been pushed to this and that, ultimately, they would probably have done the same thing in his shoes.

  “Katie,” Nathan finally said, “no one’s denying what he’s gone through. We just question his judgment. He should’ve come to you. We would’ve looked into the guy, found some way to get a warrant, and everything would’ve been on the up-and-up.”

  Katie, anger welling inside of her, had to bite her tongue. The only thing she said was, “I think there’s a ten-year-old girl who disagrees with you.”

  She left the office and headed out of the precinct. She needed to be alone. Sometimes things occurred on the job that dug deep inside her like a worm crawling through her veins. Several times every year, she found herself asking why exactly she remained a cop.

  “Hey, where you going?” Thomas said, jogging to catch up with her.

  “Up yours, Tom.”

  “Easy. What the hell did I do?”

  “You got the feds involved? Who does that behind their partner’s back?”

  “Whoa, whoa, will you stop a second?” He ran in front of her, blocking her path. “Are you crazy? I would never bring those pricks in.”

  “You told Nathan about Jon and me looking into this.”

  “He asked what I was doing. He’s our captain. Besides, how was I supposed to know the Lone Ranger was planning on breaking into someone’s house? I didn’t think anything of it. I would never rat you out. Ever.”

  She exhaled, her hands on her hips as she paced the corridor. “They’re going to arrest him. The charges probably won’t stick, or they’ll be bargained down to a misdemeanor, but Nathan and the feds want to send a message that they don’t condone this type of thing.”

  He shrugged. “What can we do?”

  “Just let me know what the feds have planned. I need to go talk to him. I think he’s doing something right now that might dig a deeper hole.”

  32

  Stanton shut the door behind him.

  The hospital room looked like any other, except it had no windows.

  Tad Lockwood was handcuffed to the hospital bed. The television blared some daytime talk show, and Stanton turned it off. Tad didn’t react. He grinned as Stanton pulled up a chair and sat next to the bed.

  “My arm fuckin’ hurts,” Tad said.

  “I’ve got a purple bruise in the shape of a bat up to my shoulder. We’re even.”

  Tad turned his gaze back to the television though it wasn’t on. “They find the videos?”

  “They did.”

  He nodded. “That’s too bad. You do somethin’ long enough, and you don’t think you’ll ever get caught, ya know? Like you’re just too smart for ’em.” Tad looked over. “You’re not recording this?”

  “No. This isn’t an interrogation. I just want to talk.”

  Tad adjusted his head on the pillow, averting his eyes from Stanton’s and staring up at the ceiling. “I had the sickness since I was seventeen.”

  “The sickness?”

  “Yeah. That’s what I called it. Some folks, they try and bullshit themselves. Tell themselves what we do is normal. Like there ain’t nothin’ wrong with it. I never bullshit myself. I knew I was sick; I couldn’t help it. I was born this way.”

  Stanton hesitated a moment before asking. “Did you know Reginald Carter?”

  Tad nodded.

  “You helped him with some of the girls?”

  Tad nodded again.

  Stanton, his fingers trembling, reached into his jacket and retrieved a photo. It was laminated but still creased at the edges and fading. Stanton stared at it a long time and suddenly became aware that he was neither blinking nor breathing. “This is my sister,” he said, handing Tad the photo. “Did you and he… Did you kill her, Tad?”

  Tad examined the photo. “No. It weren’t me. Reggie was there, but it weren’t him neither.”

  “Please tell me the truth. It stays between us. I just need to know. It’s affected me deeper than anything else in my life. I have to know what happened. I know you’re sick, but you’re still human.”

  Tad swallowed and handed the photo back. “It weren’t me… I wasn’t the only one.”

  Stanton felt himself more acutely in the moment than at almost any other point in his life. The way his clothing rubbed against his skin, the pressure on his legs and buttocks from sitting.

  “There’s a third person,” he whispered.

  Tad nodded.

  “Who?” Stanton said, on his feet now, towering over the man. “Who is he, Tad? Who killed my sister?”

  Tad now held his gaze, the two men staring at each other for a second in silence before Tad said, “You already know. He told me you talked to him and he was worried.”

  “The only person I’ve ta—”

  Stanton felt sick, as if he’d been spun on a rollercoaster, stepped off quickly, and tried to walk. His stomach tied up in a knot and he felt dizzy. He sat down in the chair, staring at the man before him. Tad looked weak now, almost frail. He had seemed like a monster back at the house, but he wasn’t a monster. He was just a human being, a man with drives and hopes and dreams. And that, Stanton thought, was the most frightening part of the darkness. That it could hide in a normal body, and even a normal life, yet still control everything.

  Stanton rose to his feet and rushed out of the room without a word.

  33

  The Jeep couldn’t go fast enough. Though he didn’t want to get pulled over, Stanton ignored stop signs and red lights when he could. Even then, the drive seemed to take forever.

  He couldn’t let his thoughts drift too much. All he felt was guilt and shame. How had he not seen this sooner? How had his father not seen it? The weight of it wa
s too much. It seemed the world was closing in around him, so he focused. He focused on the road and the lines to the side of the Jeep as he sped past. He focused on the other cars, on the sky, on the trees, on the signs that turned to little more than blurry flashes of color. When he finally glanced down at his speedometer, he was pushing ninety-five.

  Stanton slowed down and tried to calm himself. Once he pulled off the interstate and was back in Rosebud, he sped again, all the way through the neighborhoods until he slammed on his brakes in front of the Browns’ home. From here, he could see his own childhood home.

  Jumping out of the Jeep, he rushed to the front door, pulling out his Desert Eagle and holding it low. He pressed his ear against the door and listened for a while before leaning back and slamming his foot near the doorknob. The door was too thick; it barely moved. He ran around to the side door and smashed through it with his shoulder, the edge of the door splintering and raining slivers over the carpet. He held his weapon up, perfectly in alignment with his shoulder, his head up and in line with his spine. It was instinctive for him after fifteen years; he didn’t have to think about his stance or his breathing or when he would or wouldn’t pull the trigger. In a way, it felt as though it was out of his hands.

  He stepped into the kitchen, slipping off his shoes to make less noise. The house was quiet. Every few seconds he paused and listened, but he didn’t hear anything. He came around to the stairs leading to the second level and then wondered if anyone was even there.

  “Dale?” he shouted. “You home?” He tried to sound as innocuous as possible, as though just dropping by for a visit. “Dale, I was hoping we could get something to eat. I wanted to ask you something about my dad.” He opened the door of a closet, peered inside, and then pointed his firearm inside. The closet held several coats, some of them women’s and children’s coats. He scanned them and then split them apart to look behind them.