WALK IN DARKNESS
A Mystery-Thriller
VICTOR METHOS
Hell is empty and all the devils are here.
-William Shakespeare
1
Detective Jonathan Stanton pulled out his sidearm and fell into the Weaver stance, the muzzle a few feet from Darrell Putnam’s forehead. The wind thirty-four floors up on the roof of One American Plaza screamed in his ears and muffled the rest of the world.
“Don’t do it, Darrell,” he shouted. “There’s no need for this.”
Darrell yelled something. The sentence was long but Stanton couldn’t hear any of it. The one thing he was able to make out toward the end was I didn’t do it.
“If you didn’t do it you’ll walk. But I need you to come back with me. I gotta talk to you and check out what you tell me. You know the routine, Darrell. We’ve been through this before. If you tell me the truth I can help you out.”
Darrell nodded, looking down to the rubber flooring. The roof was clean and free of clutter and he ran his foot in a circle. He looked up and smiled, and then he turned and leapt off the edge.
Stanton ran to grab him but it was too late. He leaned over the side and watched as the body plummeted toward the ground. He wanted to look away. After a decade in homicide there were so many images, so many screams and pleas and bloody, torn bodies that whispered to him at night in the calm moments before sleep. He didn’t want this one as well.
But in the end he watched Darrell slam into a van turning in the intersection, collapsing the roof, the tires exploding under the pressure. He turned away. For just a moment, he looked up to the sun and let it warm his face. He closed his eyes and pretended he was on the beach, listening to the surf hitting the shore and washing over his feet in cool waves.
He felt the cell phone in his pocket vibrate. He turned it off and headed for the stairs.
By the time he got to the first floor the Channel 8 news van was already there, an attractive blond having make-up applied while the camera and sound were set up. Crowds had gathered and officers were in the street directing traffic.
Stanton walked to the van. Several paramedics were helping a man sitting in the back of an ambulance; the driver. He looked shaken, and there were multiple cuts over his face and arms from the glass shattering in every one of his windows, but he was alive.
Stanton peeked into the van just as someone from the county medical examiner’s office came to a stop across the street. Several more uniforms pulled up followed by an unmarked Dodge Charger driven by Detective Daniel Childs.
Childs stepped out of the car, his arms bulging underneath the tight polyester shirt he preferred to wear over the traditional button-down and suit coat. His badge was shining as it dangled from a chain around his neck and he had his .45 Smith & Wesson tucked into a sleek black holster. Childs had been the first African-American detective accepted into the San Diego County Sex Crimes Strike Force.
“What the fuck happened?” he said, coming next to Stanton.
“He jumped.”
“From One American? No shit? I didn’t think he had the balls.” He stepped closer, his face contorting in disgust as he saw that Darrell’s head had burst and brain matter was covering the interior of the van in bloody splotches. “Well fuck him. Mess with little kids and this is where you fucking belong.” He slapped Jon’s shoulder. “Good work.”
Stanton didn’t move. He stared at the remains unblinkingly, observing the massive flow of black blood rolling from the van and pooling on the pavement.
“Jon, snap the fuck out of it, man. This is a good thing.”
“The last thing he said is that he didn’t do it.”
“So what? Every piece of shit we deal with says they didn’t do it.”
“He knew he was going to die and he still said he didn’t do it.”
“Jon, so what? You’re over-thinking this, man. That’s what you get when you spend too many years in college. Come on, let’s let the rookies clean this up. Give your statement and your firearm over and come grab a drink with me at Coochies.”
Stanton bit the inside of his cheek and then ran his tongue over the indentation, feeling the soft membranes. He pulled out his firearm and handed it to Childs to hold as he took out the second revolver he carried in his waistband.
“What’s that for?”
“Life’s unpredictable. Always carry a backup, Danny.” He walked over to some of the uniforms and gave a summary of what had happened, along with his weapons, and turned back to Childs who was still looking into the van. “All right. You drive.”
2
Coochies stunk like cigarette smoke and vomit but its proximity to the water on Ocean Beach gave it an appeal that most bars in San Diego couldn’t match. When the doors and windows were open the salty breeze would come in and wash over the patrons, leaving the taste of sea salt on their tongues. A lot of cops came to the bar because it hadn’t developed a reputation as a cop bar. Once that reputation set in, they could expect all the cop-groupies to come out of the woodwork, trying to fit in and tell war stories and hear the latest gossip about the precincts.
But for now, there was a Chris Isaac song playing over the speakers and the bar was filled with surfers calling it a day with a final drink, everyone still in their bathing suits.
Stanton and Daniels walked in and sat in a booth in the corner. A young waitress saw them and waved, grabbing a Heineken and a bottle of Diet Coke before coming over.
“Hey guys.”
“Hey,” Stanton said, “how are ya, Eve?”
“Doing good. Busy busy. How are my boys?”
“Not bad. Not great, but not bad.”
Daniels blew through his teeth dismissively. “He’s too down. We had a great resolution to something we’d been working on for months. In fact, I think, Johnny boy, you should have a real man’s drink. Mormon church won’t kill you if you have one shot of tequila.”
“Oh quit giving him shit, Danny. Drink your beer and play nice.”
“You know I always do. So Evie when you comin’ out with me?”
“Told you, baby, I don’t date cops. Too much drama.”
“Pss, you just scared. When you had a nuff of them surfer boys and want a man you come see me.”
She placed her hand on his shoulder. “I’m not sure you’d know what to do with me if you got me, baby.”
As she walked away, Childs watched and then turned back around, shook his head, and took a long gulp of his beer. “She doesn’t know how crazy she makes me.”
“Have you asked her out?”
“Asked her out? What is this, 1953? Should we go and get a soda and catch a drive-in?”
“Sounds good to me.”
He chuckled. “You from a different time, man. This ain’t your decade.”
Stanton smiled as he spun the glass of dark soda. He let the ice clink in the glass and then took out one of the cubes and sucked on it.
“That shit today is sticking with you, huh?”
“I don’t know what it is. You’re right; everyone says they didn’t do it. But when he said it I was looking him in the eyes and . . . if you read the research on death penalty cases, right before death offenders usually apologize and express remorse for their actions or they blame the victim, trying to hurt the survivors with their last words. I just never saw anyone maintain their innocence when they knew they were about to die.”
“Fuck me. We got all the evidence we needed, man. Judge signed off on the warrant, we got his own mama talking about what a sick fuck he was, he was on the sex offender registry with two priors; what else you want? An email
saying ‘hey I love kiddies come get me?’ That ain’t gonna happen.”
“I know,” Stanton said, shaking his head as if pushing the thoughts out of his mind, “I know. It’s stupid. We got our guy.”
“That’s damn right we got our guy.” He held up his beer and tapped it against Stanton’s glass. “To getting our motherfucking guy and throwing his ass off the tallest building in the city.”
3
The soccer-field was dry and he could see the heat waves coming off the pavement that surrounded it. The girls were in their uniforms, yellow and black, like bumblebees. It made him grin and he leaned back in his seat and put his feet up on the dashboard. The Volkswagen Beetle was too small. He was muscular and had added thirty pounds this last year; he would need a bigger car as soon as he could afford it, but it seemed like all his money went to training and food these days.
He rolled up his window and turned on the air conditioning but the air coming out of the vents was nearly as warm as the air outside so he turned it off and rolled the window back down. Better that way. The grass on the field had been cut recently and the smell reminded him of the fields he was taken to as a child to watch football games with his uncle. What was his uncle’s name? He couldn’t remember and it bothered him for a moment before he saw her.
He watched her from the moment she stepped out of her mother’s jeep and followed her as she walked to the field. Her gym bag was slung over her shoulder and she threw it down near the others and ran to her coach and the rest of her team.
Most of the parents didn’t stay and hers was no exception. The jeep turned and pulled out of the junior high school parking lot.
He scanned the field and the rows of bags and saw hers. Black with red handles and a sticker of some Disney singer stuck to the side. His fingers itched and he rubbed them together; his tongue running over his teeth, feeling the dryness of his mouth.
He opened the door and stepped outside.
This was insanity. He was wearing shorts and a tank-top and had his natural color hair. The tattoos of characters from Alice in Wonderland he had sleeved on his arms were easily identifiable. This was insanity.
But he still couldn’t stop himself.
He walked forward, glancing around in all directions. Twenty feet between him and the bag and he stopped as the coach yelled something out and the players hustled into groups and started doing wind sprints. He began walking again. He was on the grass now and made his way over to her bag.
This could ruin everything but the excitement of it tingled his belly and quickened his breath. Something he rarely felt. Adrenaline coursed through him and for a brief moment he felt invincible, like nothing could harm him.
He looked at the bag; the zipper was open a quarter of the way. Inside were the clothes she planned to change in to after showering. She showered in the junior high with the rest of the team after each practice because they were also in madrigals and had singing practice for forty-five minutes after the soccer practice.
He knelt down and reached for her jeans. Exhilaration caused him to inadvertently hold his breath as sweat began to roll down his back and forehead.
“Can I help you?”
He looked up, his heart in his stomach, as the woman stood over him with her arms folded. She was eyeing his tattoos and he could see that she had already taken out her cell phone.
“Oh, hi. Um, no I don’t think so. I’m Lexi’s uncle. She’s missing madrigals today and her mom just asked me to hang out until she’s done.” He stood and held out his hand. “Jack Underwood.”
She stared at his hand and then cautiously put hers out and shook it. As soon as was practicable she pulled away and wiped her palm on her jeans.
“Helluva team,” he said, “I think Coach Dykes is gonna take ‘em all the way. Which one’s yours?”
The look on the woman’s face softened and she looked out over the field to a brunette girl near the goalpost. “Macey’s my oldest.”
“Oh, she’s great. That goal she scored last week against Bennion was one of the best ones I’d seen all season.”
“Oh, you saw that game? Yeah, that was good. She told us later she didn’t think she was gonna make it but they were down by one so she said a Hail-Mary and went for it.”
The man smiled as she continued to talk. But his attention wasn’t on her. He would glance over to the field and see Lexi running from one goal post to the next. Then he would look down at her bag. Such a shame.
“You know what,” he said, “I got something you might like. I promised Lexi I wouldn’t do this cause it embarrasses her but it’s some photos of her when she was two. She’d dress up in a soccer uniform and kick a ball around her mom’s house.”
“I would love to see those.”
“All right, I’ll grab ‘em. Be right back.”
The car was as hot as ever as he climbed in. The woman was turned around, clapping for her daughter who had finished the sprints before anyone else. The man started his car and backed away slowly before turning and driving out of the parking lot.
This was a risk unlike any he had ever taken and he’d crapped out. The woman would recognize him and his car. There was no way she would forget. He should’ve said he was the uncle of someone other than Lexi but he was caught off guard; and he was never caught off guard. This was a disaster, but it could’ve been much worse.
He would have to let Lexi go. It amused him to think that she would never know how close she came to sharing time with him. But the woman would surely remember him.
Then again, she might not.
4
Stanton drove Childs’ car to his house and then called a cab. Childs didn’t just drink to have a good time or to lubricate conversation or relieve stress, he drank to get obliterated. Sometimes he would be so drunk he would strike out at Stanton, unable to recognize him, and blurt out drunken slurs before passing out at the bar or on the dance floor or at someone’s house during a poker game. Stanton wished desperately to speak with him about it but Childs knew he held a Ph.D. in psychology and refused to talk about personal matters around him.
The cab arrived and Stanton climbed in. The cabbie was soft spoken and the interior smelled like sweet yogurt and hummus.
“Where you from?” Stanton asked after some brief conversation about the wonderful smell.
“Palestine.”
“I’ve always wanted to go to the Middle East, but, things keep coming up. I have two sons and I just have a hard time leaving them for long.”
“There is nothing better though than going home to family.”
“That’s true. But they live with their mother.”
“Divorced?”
“Yeah.”
“It is strange here, everybody divorce. People married twenty, thirty years and they divorce. In Palestine when you promise to be married you married, no divorce.”
“We expect to be happy here. Most people in other countries don’t expect that.”
They talked about the cabbie’s life in Palestine and he spoke of the death of two of his brothers. They’d been attending a wedding and as was the custom they began firing pistols and rifles into the air after the ceremony in celebration. Israeli soldiers were patrolling nearby. No one knows who fired first, but a fight ensued, leaving twenty-one Palestinians dead along with three Israeli soldiers.
Stanton sat quietly and listened because he felt the man needed to talk. He wanted someone to discuss this with and for whatever reason he felt that Stanton was a good choice.
When he came to a stop in front of Stanton’s apartment high-rise, Stanton attempted to pay him but the man refused.
“Next time,” he would say.
Stanton eventually gave up and kept the money. He would remember that cabbie and if ever he rode in his cab again, he would remember to pay him double.
The apartment was sparsely decorated, little more than some furniture, clothes, toiletries, a television, and some art deco on the walls. The paintings and framed photos were
colorful and placed anywhere they would fit. There were also paintings of the Mormon Salt Lake Temple and one black and white painting that looked like a photo of Jesus Christ. Stanton glanced at it as he threw his keys on the table and walked out on the balcony.
The apartment was eleven floors up and he looked to the busy intersection below and past that to the Pacific. The ocean appeared dark blue, like melted sapphire, and was choppy. The apartment was really a condo that belonged to an old man that had used it as a winter home. He lived in New Hampshire and wanted to rent to someone single. And when he found out Stanton was a cop, he dropped his price by fifteen percent and faxed over the lease right away.
Stanton watched the water a long time and then glanced to the pavement eleven floors down. The sidewalks were swarming with people but they seemed not to notice each other.
He went to the second bedroom that he had turned into an office and pulled out the thick file he had on Darrell Putnam.
Though everything was paperless now and files were uploaded onto a shared database, Stanton made hardcopies of everything. There was just something to holding paper in your hands that a computer screen could never match. Something personal. When reading reports of monsters that had invaded people’s lives, he felt at times like an intruder, and somehow the soft paper in between his fingers assured him that he had permission.
Darrell Putnam had never had a chance at life. The psychological evaluation done by the parole board was three pages. Three to explain a life.
He had been molested by a priest at his local parish at the age of ten. The abuse had continued for over three years until he developed such bad anxiety and depression that he was sent to the school counselor where he opened up about what had occurred. The counselor had notified the police. When they arrived at the church offices to interview the priest, he pulled a gun out of a drawer and placed it in between his lips before pulling the trigger.
Walk in Darkness - A Thriller (Jon Stanton Mysteries) Page 1
