Deadly verdict, p.5
Deadly Verdict, page 5
The assignment was a little different in that sense. He understood that he was being aimed, cocked like a pistol, waiting for someone high up to pull the trigger. For a while, since he had already been here for four days, he had the feeling the assignment might be aborted. He didn’t care one way or the other. The pay was the same. Then today, he was contacted and told to take action. It wasn’t his business to ask why. The truth was he didn’t care. None of that mattered to him. He worked in his own world. He did what he did and left after it was finished and that was it.
He could barely recall the others, especially not the men. When he did try, the only way he remembered any of the women was by their hair: the dirty blonde, the strawberry redhead, and the brunette with streaks of gray. That was why the snippet was so important when it came to a woman. It wasn’t a trophy so much as it was capturing a memory, and he was a man who fed on his own memories, fed on them like someone who detested the present. Once the snippet brought it back to him, he could recall places, faces, even screams.
How about that woman who showed no fear, who came at him like a marine and nearly poked out his eye? He was a bit careless there, and he knew if anything happened to him, if he screwed up only once, he would be gone. There was no retirement plan except the one that had a pool of acid waiting for him somewhere.
So be it, he thought and laughed.
Man, he was in a great mood today. He was just full of energy and it wasn’t only because of the supplements and the hormones, either. He was happy. He had a beautiful apartment in Hollywood, Florida, a speedboat, and plenty of discretionary funds to spend on vacations, clothes and beautiful women whenever he needed an escort. Who would have thought that a Special Forces dropout would be such a freaking success?
Actually, he didn’t drop out. He was kicked out, but at the moment he was discharged it was mutually acceptable, so he was able to think of it as his own decision. Everything in life is rationalization anyway, he concluded. Even this—even what I do now—I can rationalize as doing something good for my country. Not that he was so driven by moral obligations. Often, when you do what’s best for others, you do what’s best for yourself. In the end we’re all a bunch of self-centered bastards, he concluded.
He watched her turn into her driveway and wait for the garage door to open. She drove in and the door started down. An ignorant, far-too-anxious stalker might have charged at that open door and gotten in just before it shut, but he would have been stupid because this was a secured home. That was all well explained to him beforehand. There was a security beam over that garage door, for instance, and once it was broken, alarms sounded, a video surveillance clicked on, and the door fell like lead. Would probably squash the imagined moron who wasn’t aware of it if he hesitated two seconds, he thought.
He turned off his engine and checked the street. It was a very quiet neighborhood. At this time of day, with children in school and the mail already delivered, there was hardly anyone outside. At the moment all he saw was an elderly woman washing an outside window as if it were a work of art. The time she was taking amazed him. If she was this particular about one window, the inside of that house must be close to surgical-room clean.
Memories of his mother tried to escape that area of his mind where he had them under lock and key. She worked their house just like that and found dirt everywhere. She would remove fingerprints, if she could, he mused. She was never satisfied with how he cleaned up his room or washed himself. The moment her sad face flashed before him, he squeezed his eyes shut so hard, he felt pain in his temples.
‘Get moving, spider,’ he told himself. ‘You’ve got a web to weave.’
He put his leather pouch under his arm, stepped out of his vehicle and assumed military posture. He was back in the Special Forces. Turning on his heels, he started for her house. Drum roll, please, he thought and opened the outside gate. He walked up the sidewalk.
Company, halt, he told himself at the door.
Private, he said to his right forefinger, attention. He lifted his hand and pressed his finger against the door buzzer. The security camera whirred and the lens closed in on his face. He nodded and smiled.
‘Yes?’ he heard her say. What a sweet-sounding, trusting, loving voice. You’d be so nice to come home to, he sang to himself.
‘Mrs Kaplan. I’m Tom Skidmore from the Division of Jurors.’ He opened his pouch and produced an envelope. ‘I have a correspondence for you from your husband.’
‘Correspondence?’
‘Yes, ma’am. I’ll need you to sign for it.’
‘I never did anything like this before,’ she said.
Smart, he thought. ‘No, ma’am, you’re on record as this being the first instance.’
‘But why couldn’t he just call me?’
‘Ma’am, that’s classified, but you might have the answer within this document.’
‘I was told he was on an assignment immediately,’ she muttered. It was to herself, but he could hear it. ‘Is anything wrong?’
‘Ma’am, I’m just here to make a personal, collaborated and confirmed special delivery.’ He reached into his pouch and produced his identification. The camera adjusted, closed in and captured his picture, the stamp, and the director’s signature. He knew it filled her security television screen.
‘OK,’ she said and the door was buzzed. Its lock snapped open and he was in.
Something was in the oven, something sweet, probably a pie. There was an immediate sense of warmth and comfort to this house. It didn’t look worn, but it looked lived in, enjoyed, homey and full of what creates a family. Love reeked.
He glanced into the living room and imagined Christmas morning: the kids in their pajamas, their eyes full of expectation and excitement, their parents standing off to the side enjoying every wonderful screech of joy. How many times had he witnessed such a scene through a window, but never in his own home? His mother thought Christmas trees brought in too much filth.
I don’t want to ever grow up, these children, all children, surely thought. I want to be frozen in time, a child forever, full of Santa Claus promises and candy canes instead of icicles. Winter was never too cold for a child or a summer day too hot. Play, dreams, fantasies kept them happy in their cocoons.
Laura Kaplan came to the head of the stairs and descended like a wonderful feminine promise. In that short time, she had changed into more comfortable clothing: a light pink jogging outfit and pretty pink running shoes. Maybe she had intended to go for a run before the kids returned from school, he concluded.
‘I’m sorry I put you through the third degree,’ she said, ‘but this is a complete and unexpected surprise.’
‘Oh, I know,’ he said, with such great sympathy she had to raise her eyebrows and smile. ‘Life is full of the unexpected,’ he added.
She was nearly to the bottom step when something in his face triggered a small cry of panic, a quickened heartbeat, a seizure of breath. She brought her right hand to the base of her throat and stopped.
‘Something IS wrong, isn’t it?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know what is or what isn’t, ma’am. I am merely the messenger and you know what they say about killing the messenger. It’s not right. It’s not fair. I didn’t write the message. The message was given to me to bring to you. That’s all.’
‘Yes, of course. I’m sorry,’ she said, regaining her composure. She flashed a weak smile and continued toward him.
When she was closer, he could see that she wasn’t wearing a wig. Oh, how that pleased him. And she had such deep, light green eyes. He could swim in those eyes. He could float in that smile. He could rest his cheek against those lips. He could wear her as he would wear a warm jacket and never be cold or afraid again.
She raised an eyebrow at his hesitation, his far-off look.
Quickly, he handed her the packet and then turned a clipboard toward her.
‘I should sign my name here?’ she asked, when he offered no instruction.
‘You should sign your name,’ he said.
She put the packet on the small table in the entryway and turned just enough for him to surreptitiously bring the syringe disguised as a ballpoint pen out of his left pocket. She leaned over to sign the clipboard and he pressed the tip of the syringe to the back of her neck.
‘Oh!’ she said. ‘What are you doing?’ She had no time to scream for help. She just said, ‘Oh,’ once more, turned slightly, blinked at him and collapsed in his arms.
He held her for a long moment as if he were holding her above a great precipice and then he brought his nose to her hair and took in a deep breath of her, closing his eyes. Satisfied, he scooped his right arm under her legs and lifted her easily in his arms.
‘Shall we dance?’ he asked her unconscious face.
He took her up the stairs, pausing to look in at what was obviously a little girl’s room and then a boy’s room. How many wonderful, safe nights had they spent in these rooms, nights they will never have again? It made him sad and, for a moment, he actually thought of aborting, but the reality quickly set in. Screw up once and it’s the acid pool for you.
The master bedroom was just down the hallway. He pushed the door open wider with his foot and stood there with her in his arms, looking at the room.
‘Not bad,’ he muttered. ‘Nice furniture and I like that flat-panel television set on the ceiling. I’ve never seen that before,’ he continued, as if she could actually hear him.
He went to the bed and set her down gently. He put on his clear plastic gloves, went around to the other side and crawled on to the bed. He lifted her into a sitting position and with a quick, smooth motion, took the top of her jogging outfit off her. She was wearing one of those sport bras.
‘Yeah, you were going for a jog. No wonder you’re in such good shape. You take care of yourself. So many of the women I meet these days let themselves go. We’re all getting too lazy.’
He unfastened her bra and threw it across the room. When he lowered her against him, he cupped her breasts, strumming her nipples gently, almost losing himself in the pleasurable sight. Quickly, snapping out of it, he leaned forward, pulled up her legs and brought down her pants and panties, pulling off those running shoes in the same motion. He crushed it all together in his hands and flung it to the right.
Despite an overwhelming urge to do so, he did not kiss her anywhere. He put his contraceptive on and penetrated her as roughly and quickly as he could. After all, it was a rape and murder.
While he was moving, he worried that he was developing necrophilia. Because of all these assignments involving females, it was becoming more and more difficult to make love with a conscious woman. It occurred to him that he might never have been comfortable making love to a woman who had control of herself and by proxy, him.
He screamed at the moment of orgasm and then withdrew and stood up quickly, panting like a wild dog. He scrubbed his face with his dry palms and then he took the contraceptive and dropped it into the toilet. He took out his pocket vacuum cleaner and sucked around her pubic hairs. He did the same on the bed. No DNA evidence would be left, he concluded.
When he was dressed and composed, he sat for a few moments holding her hand. Then he reached into his pocket and produced his small scissors. He snipped a few fingers full of her hair and put it into his pocket with the scissors. Finally, he reached over, took one of her fluffy pillows, and put it over her face. She was close to reaching the surface of consciousness. Her body shivered and then went into a spasm. He held the pillow down, pressing harder and harder until her body stopped moving. He lifted the pillow and gazed at her face.
Her eyes had snapped open. She had seen her own death.
‘Sorry,’ he said and tossed the pillow back to where it had been placed.
He left the room, went down the stairs and picked up the clipboard and the packet. Before leaving, he found the security camera’s recorder and took the disc. Then he looked around the house one last time. He twitched his nose.
‘Hope that doesn’t burn in the oven,’ he muttered, opened the door and stepped out into the afternoon sunshine. He stood there for a moment and took off his gloves. The street was as quiet as it had been. The old lady had finally decided the window was clean and had gone inside.
I bet she wakes up in the middle of the night and panics that she didn’t wash down the counter in the kitchen, he thought and strolled down to his car.
He got in and started the engine, gazing back at the house one more time. It occurred to him that the real estate agent would have to disclose that a woman had been raped and murdered in that house. Probably drop its value 20 or 30 per cent, he thought. That isn’t fair. It’s not the house’s fault, and look what that will do to the neighbors’ house values.
He drove off, playing a mental game with himself. In a minute’s time he was trying to list all the things that were unfair.
His record for that was forty-three.
Much later, when he got back to Florida and into his apartment, he went into his den and pinned the new strands of hair to the cork board. He stepped back and looked at it with pride.
There were more than fourteen and he’d be damned if any two were the exact same shade.
Variety.
He laughed.
Variety, he thought, is the spice of death.
Five
‘How do you ask questions and investigate so as not to arouse any suspicions, especially suspicions about something having happened to one of the PJs?’ Holland asked Wyatt as they drove up the 405 Freeway toward the 10 East and the exit for the Los Angeles courthouse.
It was one of those Southern California days when the sky is streaked with thin clouds that look like ribbons of gauze, the blue shining through. The traffic was typically heavy, lumbering along like an overweight caterpillar. Cyclists risked life and limb weaving in and out at high speeds and laden-down pickup trucks were surely in violation of safety and weight regulations. Rules everywhere are bent and broken, Holland thought. She turned to Wyatt again. He either hadn’t heard her or didn’t want to answer.
‘I mean, people have to wonder why we’re asking questions,’ she continued.
‘It’s a challenge,’ Wyatt admitted.
He had asked her to do the driving. As soon as they landed, she saw him take one pill, and then another shortly after. Since he did it in a clandestine manner, she decided not to ask about it.
‘A challenge? Right, a challenge. How old are you, if you don’t mind my asking?’ she said.
‘I just turned thirty.’
‘And you’ve been brought to Washington specifically for this assignment?’
‘I don’t know, as I told you, if it was specifically for this assignment. I believe I told you this was my first assignment at the Washington office.’
She nodded. He had said that. He accused me of sounding like a lawyer, but he parses words like an attorney sometimes, she thought and wondered what sort of an education he had had.
‘Where did you go to school before the FBI Academy?’ she asked.
‘Right after high school, I attended the Naval Academy, but two years in, I was transferred to Roc Shores.’
‘Roc Shores? You were in that program? That’s an accelerated research program or something, isn’t it?’
‘Something,’ he said.
‘But I don’t understand. Why would you be directed to law enforcement? If you qualified for Roc Shores, shouldn’t you be in research, microbiology, nanotechnology or something like rocket science?’
‘I go where they send me,’ he said.
‘They? Who’s they?’
‘My country,’ he said, smiling.
She pulled her head back and looked at him. ‘What?’
‘I’m just kidding. I evaluated well for this sort of work. I was given the opportunity and so I took it.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Let’s concentrate on the assignment,’ he added. ‘It’s a lot less complicated than me.’
‘I’m beginning to think you’re right,’ she said.
He laughed, but offered no more information.
They turned on the 10 Freeway and found their exit soon afterward. When they reached the courthouse, Wyatt took out a palm computer and tapped the small screen with the metal pencil. Then he looked at Holland.
‘We’re to start with the security guard at the door. His name is Parson Beale.’
‘When did you get that information?’ she asked. ‘It wasn’t on the document you showed me during the flight.’
‘Just now.’
‘Just now? What do you mean, just now?’
He held up the palm computer. ‘It has a built-in GPS so they know we’ve arrived. That information was just transmitted to us and received on my palm computer.’
‘Talk about your need-to-know limitations,’ she said shaking her head. ‘What are they going to do next, tell us what to ask when we confront him?’
Wyatt stared. There was a yes in his eyes.
‘You’re kidding,’ she said.
He opened the small device and tapped its screen again. Then he turned it toward her so she could read.
‘Suggested interrogation? Why bother actually sending us?’ She perused the questions on his screen. ‘They could have done it all over the internet,’ she said dryly.
They stepped out of the rented automobile and started toward the courthouse steps. Holland’s unhappy mumbling raised Wyatt’s right eyebrow. He glanced at her, smiled and continued on.
When they reached the lobby, Wyatt approached one of the security guards and asked if he was Beale. They were directed to another who was seated behind the desk, reading a newspaper. He looked up when they approached.
Wyatt showed his ID and she did the same. Immediately, Beale came to attention.
‘How can I help you?’
