An Evil Mind--A Suspense Novel (6 page)

As Curtis drove into the garage, Mark decided to continue the surveillance for another hour, just in case.

If Jeff captured Curtis tonight, he wouldn’t intervene. He might even join him.

Mark took out his cellphone, opened the notes app, and wrote down Jeff’s license plate number.

The lights went on in Curtis’s house.

Maybe Curtis was going to kill someone tonight but changed his mind because he noticed he was being tailed?

Usually people drove around the block or turned a few corners to make sure they were being followed, and Curtis had done neither of those things.

Perhaps he didn’t need confirmation.

Mark checked his messages and saw a new text from Joan asking if the stakeout was over yet. He texted back saying he’d be home around 12:30 a.m.

In the following hour and a quarter Curtis didn’t go outside and no one came to visit him. The lights were still on in his house when Mark went home at midnight.

The next morning, Mark ran Jeff’s license plate and found that it was actually registered to Jeff Phillips.

1

“Thanks for meeting me, Frank.” Mark took out his notebook.

“No problem,” Frank Backus replied. “How have you been doing? It’s been almost a year since…”

“It’s been hard. Thanks for asking.”

The assistant district attorney was of medium build and had a lean, tanned face. His small office was cluttered with boxes and files.

Mark had known Backus since long before Edward Phillips’s trial; they had first met eleven years ago, when Backus was working on a case investigated by Mark.

“You said you wanted to talk about the Phillips case,” Backus said.

“Yes. I have a couple of questions about it.”

“Okay, go ahead.”

Mark opened his notebook to the page with the questions he was going to ask Backus, and said, “Besides Edward Phillips, were there any other suspects?”

“As far as I know, Phillips was the only suspect.”

“Any persons of interest?”

“No, there were no persons of interest.”

“Did Phillips take a lie detector test?”

“Yes.”

“Did he pass it?”

“What does it matter?”

“I’m just curious.”

“Yes, he passed it.”

The fact that Phillips had passed the polygraph exam didn’t mean that he was innocent. There were a number of ways to beat the test.

Then why had he asked this question?

The truth was, Phillips passing the test added credibility to his story.

“Can I see the test report?” Mark said.

“What do you need it for?”

“I want to know what questions were asked.”

Backus looked at him for a long time and said, “All right. I’ll send it to you.”

“Did you offer Phillips a plea deal?” 

“Yes. We offered him a life sentence with the possibility of parole.”

Under the circumstances, it had been a good deal for Phillips. He could have been out in thirty years.

“Why do you think he didn’t take the deal?”

“I suppose he overestimated his chances.”

“Was there any evidence you were unable to present at the trial?”

“No. We presented all the evidence we wanted to present.”

“Did he say anything incriminating on the phone while he was in the county jail?”

“No.”

“Did he say anything incriminating to his visitors?”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Did you keep the recordings of his conversations?”

“No.”

“Did he tell you he knew who had really killed Helen?”

Backus shook his head. “No.”

Mark closed his notebook and said, “Just between you and me, is it possible that Edward Phillips is innocent?”

“Do you doubt that Phillips is the killer?”

“No. Well, I just want to be sure that you got the right guy.”

“We got the right guy, Mark.”

“But you can’t be completely sure, can you?”

“Why?”

“It wasn’t an open-and-shut case.”

“So you’re not sure Phillips is guilty?”

“Is it possible that he’s innocent?”

Backus thought for a moment and then said, “Anything’s possible, you know. It’s possible that the sun will explode tomorrow.” He leaned forward. “I understand your doubts, Mark. The system isn’t perfect, mistakes happen, but I assure you Phillips is guilty. Helen’s blood was on his clothes. How do you think it got there? Phillips gave us no explanation.”  

He bumped into Helen when she had a nosebleed.

It wasn’t really an implausible idea, was it?

“What makes you think Phillips might be innocent?” Backus went on. “Did his parents talk to you?”

“No. It just came to me one day.”

“You said it wasn’t an open-and-shut case. Would you have felt better if Phillips had been acquitted?”

Mark shook his head.

2

Had Edward Phillips rejected the plea deal because he was innocent?

Maybe he had been persuaded to reject the deal by Leonard Barlow.

Mark called Barlow’s office and left a message with his secretary asking him to call back.

As he looked at the calendar on his desk, it occurred to him that Saturday might have been the wrong day to follow Sam Curtis. Laura Sumner had been murdered on a Wednesday, so the logical thing to do was to tail Curtis on a Wednesday.

He didn’t feel like following Curtis this Wednesday. He might do it on Wednesday of next week.

He kept thinking about the results of Edward Phillips’s lie detector test. It was a big deal that Phillips had passed the test, no two ways about it.

Leonard Barlow called Mark at half past one. Mark asked him why Phillips had refused to take the plea deal, and he replied, “Because he’s innocent.”

“Did you advise him to take it?”

“I told him that he should seriously consider it.”

“Did you tell Phillips the prosecution had a weak case?”

“No. Can you meet me at my house tonight? There’s something I want to tell you about the Phillips case.”

“Sure. What’s your address?”

Barlow gave Mark his address. “What time should I expect you?”

“Around eight. By the way, you should have mentioned that Phillips had passed a lie detector test.”

“I thought you knew.”

3

Mark pulled to the curb and checked the dashboard clock before killing the engine. It was 7:38 p.m.

He was hungry, and now he wished he had stopped by a fast-food restaurant.

What was Barlow going to tell him? For some reason, Mark thought it would be something unfavorable to Edward Phillips.

A blond woman in her early thirties opened Barlow’s front door.

“Hi,” Mark said. “I’m here to see Leonard.”

“He’s not home yet,” the woman said.

Mark held up his police badge. “I’m Detective Mark Hinton with the Dallas PD. Leonard asked me to meet him at his house.”

The woman stepped back and said, “Please come in. He should be home any minute now.”

Mark thanked her and went inside. In the living room, he asked the woman what her name was.

“Alice,” she replied. “I’m Leonard’s wife. Would you like something to drink?”

“Yes.”

“We have soda, water, and iced tea.”

“Iced tea.”

When Alice came back with a bottle of iced tea, Mark asked, “How long have you been married?”

“Six years.”

“Do you have children?”

“No, not yet.” Nodding at the TV, where Shark Tank investors were grilling a young female entrepreneur, she asked, “Do you watch this show?”

“Sometimes. My wife likes it.”

Mark was silent for a few minutes, and then said, “What time does Leonard usually come home?”

“Around six.” She glanced at the wall clock. “He’s probably with a client. I can call him, if you want.”

“Let’s wait ten minutes.”

Barlow didn’t answer the phone when Alice called him ten minutes later. Alice sent Barlow a message informing him that Mark was at his house, and then said, “It must be something urgent. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right.”

Mark left Barlow’s place at twenty minutes past eight. He wasn’t mad at the lawyer for wasting his time as he believed that circumstances beyond Barlow’s control had prevented him from telling Mark he would be late. Alice promised to ask her husband to call him as soon as he came home.

Mark didn’t hear from Leonard Barlow that night.

1

“See you tomorrow, Leonard,” Sharon said from the doorway.

Leonard looked at his secretary and replied, “See you tomorrow.” Then he continued reading the police incident report lying on the desk in front of him.

He called it a day at five-twenty. As he rode the elevator down, Leonard thought about Mark Hinton. He was going to meet Hinton in less than three hours. Was he doing the right thing by telling Edward Phillips’s secret to him?

But was it a secret? Edward had never asked him to keep quiet about this.

The doors slid open, Leonard stepped out of the elevator and went outside through the back entrance.

The parking lot was silent except for the clatter of Leonard’s shoes. A gust of cool wind blew the fallen leaves across his path and ruffled his hair. He parked in the corner farthest from the building to get additional exercise. He had lost six pounds in the last four months, and he suspected that he had burned at least one of them by walking to and from his car.

When Leonard was twenty feet from his Lexus, he took out his car keys and unlocked the doors.

How would Hinton react to Edward’s story?

He’d probably laugh. And he’d call Edward crazy.

Leonard opened the driver’s door, put his briefcase on the passenger seat, and got behind the wheel. There was a knock on his window, and a male voice said, “Excuse me, Leonard, can I talk to you?”

The voice belonged to a young long-haired man in sunglasses and a baseball cap. Leonard rolled his window down and asked, “Do I know you?”

The man put his right hand in his jacket pocket. “I need to show you something.”

“What—”

Before Leonard could finish, the man stabbed him in the heart with the knife he had taken from his pocket. Leonard let out a groan and started to reach for the knife, his blue eyes bulging. The man pulled out the blade and severed Leonard’s carotid artery. The lawyer exhaled his last breath, and then his hands fell into his lap and his head dropped. The man wiped the knife on Leonard’s suit jacket, put it in his pocket, and walked away.

Leonard’s body sat in the car for two hours before it was discovered.

2

At ten o’clock on Tuesday morning, Mark called Leonard Barlow’s office, but no one answered the phone. He tried the lawyer’s cellphone and got voice mail.

When Mark was about to leave work, he dialed Barlow’s home number. Alice picked up the phone.

“This is Mark Hinton,” Mark said. “We met last night. Can I talk to Leonard?”

“Leo…”

Mark heard Alice crying.

“Leo’s dead,” Alice wailed. “He was murdered last night.”

Shocked, Mark was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I’m very sorry.”

On Wednesday morning Mark read the initial police report in the Leonard Barlow murder case to find out what had happened to the lawyer. He learned that Barlow had been murdered in his car in the parking lot of the building where his office was. The killer had stabbed him in the chest and cut his neck open.

The killer hadn’t taken the lawyer’s wallet or briefcase, so it wasn’t a robbery.

Was Barlow’s murder spontaneous or planned?

Barlow might have been killed by a madman or by a hot-tempered stranger he had offended in the parking lot, but Mark was inclined to believe that this murder was premeditated.

The killer hadn’t bothered to make it look like a robbery. Perhaps he had wanted to flee the crime scene as soon as possible.

Had Leonard Barlow been killed because of what he knew about the Phillips case? It was not a baseless speculation: the lawyer had been murdered when he was about to share some information about the case. There was no such thing as coincidence, as the cops liked to say.

Maybe Barlow had found proof that Sam Curtis had killed Helen, and Curtis had wasted him to prevent him from talking to the police? Barlow had said that Phillips had never mentioned Sam Curtis to him, but that must have been a lie.

This theory was bolstered by the fact that Barlow had been killed with a knife, like Helen.

3

When Mark came home, Joan handed him a letter from Edward Phillips. It read: “Dear Mark, I hope this finds you well. I’m writing to ask if you have followed Sam yet. If you have, please tell me when and for how long.

Did you see anything strange?

Are you going to follow him again? You need to follow him every day. There’s no other way to catch him in the act.

Are you going to visit me again?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

Ed Phillips.”

“What does it say?” Joan asked.

Mark gave her the letter. She read it, and said, “Who’s Sam?”

“Phillips claims this Sam guy killed Helen.”

“I see.”

Mark wrote a letter back to Phillips, which read: “Hello, Edward. I followed Sam on October 14, from six p.m. to midnight. I saw nothing strange. I might follow him again. I’ll visit you this Saturday.”

Mark thought of asking Phillips about Helen’s blood on his clothes and his fingerprint on Helen’s belt buckle, then decided to talk about it in person, wanting to watch Phillips’s face and body language and try to determine if he was telling the truth.

Lying in bed that night, Mark thought about Phillips’s request to follow Sam Curtis every day. He would have gladly granted Phillips’s wish, but only if he was sure that Curtis was Helen’s killer.

Was there a less time-consuming way to get to the truth?

In Mark’s opinion, the most effective alternative was to capture and question Curtis, using torture if necessary. Seizing Curtis wouldn’t be a problem; Mark could do it alone if he had to. 

Where was he going to interrogate Curtis?

If Curtis lived by himself, he could do it in Curtis’s house. If Curtis had a roommate, Mark could use his parents’ house at Lake Ray Hubbard.

There was one problem, however: Curtis might give a false confession just to make the torture stop.

Mark quickly found a solution. If Curtis confessed, he would ask him how he had killed Helen and where he had left the body.