by Jo Robertson
“All right,” Cruz capitulated reluctantly. “See you soon.” He clicked off and watched Cole through the rear-view mirror. The man slumped against the back seat, a look of abject desolation on his face, as if his world was fast coming to an end.
Maybe it was.
The newspapers screamed about the recent murder. It had happened not here in Rosedale, but in a park in Sacramento County. Why was someone interfering with his work? Some lunatic killing on a whim. Were they imitating him? Mocking him for what he’d done by accident?
He was having a hard time keeping it together – at work, the demands, the pressures.
Who was it? Who’d have the balls? Who’d take the risk?
He gnawed on the skin around his right thumb until it bled. Gnawed on the problem until it drove him crazy, tearing his brain apart. He didn’t want to repeat that first ... accident. He wanted to bury the whole experience so deep in his mind he’d never have to deal with the – with that – with it, again.
He couldn’t allow himself to even think the word. Murder, it whispered, like a wicked siren, enticing him to madness.
Murder was what had happened in Sacramento. Only a monster would attack someone weaker than himself. That unfortunate woman.
He knew he drank too much – not often – but when he drank heavily, sometimes he passed out, waking up in the most bizarre places with no memory of what he’d done. Was it possible? Could he have ... No! He wasn’t a monster. He was a regular guy with a job, friends.
His mind stumbled on the idea of family and stuttered to a halt. His family – his father was – No! Better not go there.
Chapter 32
Although Folsom Prison inmate number 143973 – Roger Franklin Milano – was a level four inmate, he was allowed a level two exercise yard, and therefore, had a kind of freedom. Although freedom within a prison setting was a paradox.
Every year, if an inmate didn’t get written up for a violation, he could earn credit for good behavior. This lowered the number of points he entered prison with, depending on the level of crime he’d been convicted of. The lower the points, the less dangerous the inmate was considered.
Roger had twelve years of good behavior even though his “crime” was a violent one: he’d been found guilty of murdering his wife without premeditation. Murder two. Ironically, although convicted of a violent act, he enjoyed the privilege of being incarcerated with criminals who were much less violent than society viewed him.
Access to a lower-level yard made it possible for Roger to gather all kinds of information. Inside the walls of a prison, information was currency. He’d learned to use his currency wisely. Listen and learn. Learn and pass on – or withhold – as the situation called for.
As a member of the Lords of Death, Roger had access to careless chatter dropped among all of the white inmates who hung out together in the prison yard and ate at the same tables in the cafeteria. Gangs were divided along racial lines scrupulously adhered to. The 187 Crew, a white supremacy gang, ruled at Folsom, unlike at Pelican Bay where Anson Stark’s LODs had set up a tight network that dominated not only the incarcerated whites, but all gangs.
But white was white, and as long as Roger didn’t get up in some other guy’s business, the 187’s and the Lords managed a kind of truce.
In fact, Roger played chess with a 187 member, the only inmate good enough to beat him. Check that. The only player better than him in chess was a black dude.
But playing with a black was out, of course, since black and white didn’t play chess together. Black, white, brown or yellow didn’t do anything together, even watch television on the same unit. Riots had begun and blood had been shed over this hard and fast rule.
As much as racism played out in silent, subtle threads in the real world, within the system where Roger lived, the rules of segregation were raw and immutable. Race lines were clearly drawn in California prisons.
Sam Houston, with the unlikely name of the famous Texan, was a member of the 187 Crew and a close second to the black chess player who was good enough to beat Roger. Although Roger usually won, Sam sometimes sneaked a new play in on him, crowing with delight when this happened.
Sam was an inveterate talker. Other inmates said he had diarrhea of the mouth disease, but often he was a good source of information. Whenever something went down in the yard, he knew ahead of time. Not only was he a reasonably good chess player, he was a good source of prison gossip.
Doing life without parole on an enhanced murder one charge, he looked about seventy with a shocking mane of white scraggly hair and an untrimmed beard which he continually stroked like a woman’s soft flesh.
“Fuckin’ maniacs!” Sam complained after making a good opening gambit in their current chess game. “No offense, my man, but they’re whacked half the time.”
“Oh? Who?” Roger feigned concentration on the chess board and his next move.
Sam rattled on the most when you pretended disinterest in what he had to say. Almost nobody put much store in his ramblings and spurious claims – like he really was a descendant of Sam Houston, the governor of Texas. He was always trying to prove he knew something no one else did, but sometimes there was a nugget of truth in his verbal wanderings.
“Yeah, fucking vampires,” Sam continued. “Not here a’ course but I heard up at Pelican Bay they’re getting new recruits to – ” He stopped suddenly, bobbed his head around like a yoyo.
Roger responded irritably. “Why are you always blathering on about weird shit like vampires and – ”
Sam looked offended, put his hand on a chess piece and leaned closer. “Not real vampires, scumbag. I said the Lords are acting like vamps, losing turf blood.”
“Turf blood? What the fuck does that mean?” Roger growled.
“You know how the Sureños and Norteños say ‘blood in, blood out’?”
Roger nodded slowly. “Sure, most gangs do.”
“Well, Lords are upping the price.” He stroked his beard, looked uncomfortable. “It’s blood in. And – and something more.”
“Hell, Sam Houston, you make about as much sense as a politician.”
“You’ll see.” Sam bobbed his head and cackled, but Roger heard the underlying fear in his words. “You’ll see. Surprised you haven’t heard. Blood in – and something more.”
Back in his bunk, Roger considered Sam’s words, trying to decipher them. Blood in, and something more, he’d said. Most of the time the old man spouted a bunch of idiocy, but something rang true this time.
What were the Lords at Pelican Bay up to that Roger and the Lords of Death here in Folsom knew nothing about? Did it have anything to do with the prison doctor?
Did it have something to do with the old score surrounding her mother?
Chapter 33
The third victim was discovered the next day in Rosedale near Lindy Creek, a shallow, but long body of water that stretched between homes in a newer, upscale part of the city. In the spring the creeks and streams rose to flood depths when the winter snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains melted, but now, in the dead of winter, they were shallow enough for children to play on its banks.
Two fourth-grade boys on their way to Jefferson Elementary School found the body of a young female. The victim had been murdered in much the same way as Dickey Hinchey, the body bruised and battered, stabbed and beaten.
Slater called and gave Cruz a heads up on the location and agreed to meet him at the scene. “We’ll run into Detective Flood there. He’s got the case,” Slater murmured. “Two killings in the same town, with a third one nearby – that sounds like a pattern, don’t you think?”
Cruz thought a moment, a sharp jolt of terror cutting through him, muscle to bone. “Jesus, a serial killer? Two homeless, one woman, one man, different dumping grounds, only one a parolee. Was the female homeless, too, or a parolee?”
“Dunno yet, but if so, he’s target specific. Why would the perp go after homeless people?
“Damn, Slater, that sounds
crazy.” Cruz breathed deeply and exhaled slowly. “You’re suggesting that some crazy nut job has a hard-on for street people and is picking them off one by one?”
“Well,” Slater grumbled, “when you say it like that – ”
“Right, it’s insane.”
Cruz tapped his fingers restlessly on his desk. “Look, I let me do some research on this and get back to you. Changing the victim’s sex, choosing a young, strong girl instead of an older, weak man – that deviates from the pathology of a serial killer.”
He shifted in his swivel chair. “And there’s usually a sexual component.”
“You sound like a damned shrink,” Slater grumbled, “but, yeah, looks like no one messed with their junk.”
“And the motive?”
“Oh, there’s one. We just don’t know it.” Slater returned. “Let me handle the crime scene by myself. That’ll make Flood less prickly. You check out the psych stuff. Aren’t you a little nuts anyway?”
Cruz smothered a guilty laugh. He was loco for sure – following a couple of murder cases when he had parolees to check up on, and only one of the deaths directly tied to him. “Nah, I’d like a look at the body. Maybe I’ll recognize her, and I don’t mind pissing Flood off at all.”
Slater chuckled grimly before they disconnected.
Patch Wilson had returned from vacation and was present at the crime scene at Lindy Creek. Unfortunately, as Slater had predicted, so was Detective Flood.
Cruz and Slater stood out of the way and listened as Flood pontificated about the dead body, trying to act like he knew something special. While it was true he led the investigation, the medical examiner’s role was sacrosanct. No one touched the crime scene until the pathologist had the first look, and Patch was particularly territorial about his work.
Dr. Wilson gave Flood a discouraging frown. “Please step back, Detective Flood, until I finish my on-site examination.”
“Same as the other one, right?” Flood prompted. “Street people get into all kinds of altercations with each other. Chances are some bum had a grudge against this one. Just like with Dickey Hinchey.”
Cruz exchanged a glance with Slater and suppressed a grin, knowing Patch would be formulating a sharp reply.
“Well, now, Detective, we won’t know until we finish our examination, will we?” When Patch, the most clever medical examiner either man had ever known, went into his professorial mode, using the royal “we,” he was ready to lambast his target.
Get ready, Flood.
“Step back, now, please, “ Wilson repeated, “and let me do my work.” He paused. “Unless you have a medical degree?”
The statement had all the force of a presidential order. Flood stumbled several steps backward, regained his balance, and stuffed his fists into the pockets of his natty suit.
Dr. Wilson studied the corpse an abnormally long time while Cruz stood alongside the sheriff. “Do you recognize her?” Slater whispered to Cruz.
Cruz shook his head. “She looks too clean for a street person.”
“Looks like something caught Patch’s attention. He’s usually thorough, but quick.”
At length Wilson rose, snapped off his latex gloves, and announced to the small group of law enforcement people surrounding him. “Good, I was hoping for something complex to wrap my brain around. It appears I have it.”
He nodded Slater’s way. “I’ll begin the autopsy tomorrow morning.” He paused and stroked his smoothly-shaved jaw reflectively. “I’ll also want to re-autopsy our dead Mr. Hinchey. I’m finished now,” he added to the ambulance driver. “You can deliver the body to the hospital.”
He turned and walked away.
“Wait,” Flood called after the M.E. “What’d you find? How’d she die, same as last one, right?” He was shouting now because Wilson had arrived at his car. “The Hinchey autopsy is already done. What the fuck is going on?”
Wilson’s voice was low but clear, caught by the southward blowing wind, and wafting back to them. As if he hadn’t heard a word Flood had said, Wilson opened his car door, saying, “Sheriff Slater will have my report by noon tomorrow.
The remark was a slap in the face to Andrew Flood, and he glared at Slater and Cruz with muddy, lethal eyes.
Chapter 34
The killer glanced idly around the room where everyone scurried about, filled out forms, answered phones. Chattered like magpies. Like they performed some important job that no one else could do. When he was the one who conducted important business.
Sometimes he hated this job. Despised the people he worked with. He’d worked so hard to get promoted. No one appreciated what he had to deal with – the worthless scum who were everywhere in his life. No seniority, little authority. He’d once thought he was part of the inner circle. One of the guys who got the breaks, got to do something important besides complete more paperwork, answer more phones.
He fiddled with his pen, turning it over and over, end to end – his only outward sign of agitation. Restlessness skittered down his spine all the time now. Ever since the – the incident with the homeless man in Ryder Park.
An ember burned inside him, rage smoldering, ready to erupt into flame. The man roused himself from self-pity. What he’d done – that was a mercy, a favor to the community and the homeless man himself. The hobo was better off dead than living a wretched existence on the street.
And even though it was an act of kindness in the overall picture, it was still an accident, for God’s sake!
He glanced down at the newspaper on his desk.
A monster was now running around Sacramento. Copying him. He’d never do something so outrageous, so vicious, as the newspaper reported. He thought of the poor, ravaged woman and her pathetic, brutalized body, and shuddered.
Not him! He was a person who protected people not –
He glanced down at his clenched fists. For a brief moment his mask slipped.
Fran Winston across the room gave him a strange look. She was a nosy little bitch. She’d notice the smallest change in a person and blab it to everyone.
He shut his feelings down. Shut them down fast and hard.
Glancing at the wall clock, he realized it was nearly quitting time. Good thing, too, because he could feel himself falling apart, tearing into tiny shreds of anxiety.
In his apartment he kicked off his shoes and threw his jacket on the couch. Reached for a beer in the refrigerator. He hesitated, thought a minute, and pulled his stash from the kitchen armoire he’d inherited from his mother. His cache was hidden in the soup tureen, also inherited from his mother, and which he had no use for.
Well, except for the drugs – oxy, norco, percocet – whatever he scored on the street.
Settling down in his recliner, he chased a handful of xanax with the beer. He’d rather light up a joint, take a good long toke of high quality pot, but that shit stayed in your system forever.
I am not a murderer, he whispered aloud as he relaxed. The words echoed around the small apartment. Good. He repeated the words in his head. What happened with the homeless man at Ryder Park was – it was an accident. Anyone sitting on a jury would see that he was a normal, respectable citizen with a good job and a solid life. He wasn’t a killer.
Calmer now, he analyzed the situation. He wasn’t a killer, but someone was fucking with him, messing with his mind. The newspaper article of the murdered Sacramento woman was proof of that. And that was a serious mistake.
As the drug cocktail gradually relaxed him, he allowed himself to remember the dreams that awakened him in the middle of the night. Foggy dreams filled with violent pictures and illicit pleasure that left him soaked with sweat. He always woke up with a major boner.
The images always ended with his hands wrapped around someone’s throat, squeezing the neck, harder and harder, choking the life out of the person lying helpless beneath him while his prick swelled like a balloon ready to pop.
With the benzo slowing down his busy brain, he admitted consciously how
good it had felt to kill the homeless man in Ryder Park. More than good – great! It was a rush better than any high he’d ever gotten. Not that he was much of a drug user now. Never knew when he’d get caught up in a dirty pee test.
Most of the guys he knew drank and avoided pot. Hell, they drank like fish. Suddenly this idea seemed silly and he suppressed a giggle. Must be the norco and oxycontin he’d mixed with the xanax. The half-life on that stuff was short, so he didn’t worry about getting caught taking it. And he had a ‘script for the Ambien, so no problemo there.
He breathed deeply and returned to his fantasy, thinking what a rush it felt to carve the life out of another person. Thought how he’d like to do it again, but without the knife this time. The blood – and the gore – that was too risky. Choking, squeezing, tightening his fingers around the neck. Yeah, that was good. Much cleaner.
But someone else was playing his game and that disturbed him. Fucking bastard!
He stewed on the matter during the night, disturbing images racing through his dreams like thoroughbred horses. Each culmination of the chase, the attack, the vicious ending – made his heart gallop and his groin burn.
He’d have to do it again. He confessed this during these dark-night fantasies, even while his day-time brain kept him acting normally – at work, doing the job, facing co-workers. Maintaining normalcy was becoming a herculean effort.
Chapter 35
By nature and profession Patch Wilson, the Bigler County medical examiner, was a meticulous man. His recent trip to the Mediterranean was the most spontaneous act he’d ever taken. His wife had died last spring, and although he had a son and a daughter, the loss of his life-long companion had left him bereft.
The vacation had been a bad idea. He missed his work more than he’d imagined. He missed his coworkers and staff, and the precision of pathology. Patch enjoyed the structure and accuracy, the DNA and medical evidence. He liked the infallible order of the profession.
