Revenge of Innocents (26 page)

Marcus insisted on going with her. They left a note for Rebecca on the kitchen counter. On the way out, he stopped and advised the night security guard to patrol the perimeter of the house every hour. Soon, they were speeding toward Veronica’s house in his Range Rover.

Carolyn dialed Drew’s number several times, then gave up. Turning on the dome light, she toggled through her directory and placed another call. “Father Michaels,” she said when a groggy voice answered. “I’m sorry to wake you. This is Carolyn Sullivan. I need you to ask a favor of you. A young girl has been gravely injured. She was baptized a Catholic, but her mother fell away from the church.”

“Where is her mother now?”

“She was murdered.

“Oh, my,” the priest said. “Is the poor child conscious?”

“I doubt it,” Carolyn said. “Please administer the anointing of the sick, Father. She’s at the Ventura Medical Center. Her name is Jude Campbell.”

“Of course,” the priest said. “I’ll go right away.”

“Thanks, Father,” Carolyn told him, disconnecting.

“Is that the last rites?” Marcus asked.

“They don’t call it that anymore. Last rites sounds too ominous, and a person doesn’t have to be dying. If Jude is conscious, she could receive what’s called the viaticum, where she would receive the Eucharist, as well as the sacrament of reconciliation. She was repentant at the DA’s office the other day. She admitted she lied about her father, and exhibited remorse for the things she’d done during her life. If she does die, God forbid, she’ll be leaving this world in a better state than she would have before.”

“You really believe all this stuff? It sounds like a bunch of hocus-pocus to me.”

Carolyn stared hard at him. “Yes, I do believe in the sacraments. They’re based on the teachings of Christ. I respect your beliefs. Please accept mine.”

“Don’t get mad,” Marcus told her, seeing the annoyed look on her face. “I didn’t mean anything. I ask questions so I can learn, that’s all. I just think it’s odd that you believe a girl who’s been victimized all her life would be in danger of going to hell.”

“I don’t know what I believe anymore,” Carolyn said. “Have you forgotten that Jude recanted the accusations against Drew? For all we know, she could have killed Veronica and Haley.”

“That’s asinine.”

“Please, Marcus, concentrate on the road. I’m too upset to talk right now.”

As soon as he pulled in the driveway at Drew’s house, she bailed out of the Range Rover and ran toward the door. She rang the doorbell, then pounded on it with her fists. If only she hadn’t given Drew her key. “Jude broke out a window in the kitchen to get in the night she overdosed,” she told Marcus when he stepped up beside her. “Maybe we can get in that way.”

They opened the side gate and walked through the grass to reach the back of the house. The police had nailed boards over the window.

“I’ll go get a crowbar,” he said. “I think I can get us in.”

“No,” Carolyn said, taking hold of his arm. “Take me to the hospital. Then you can come back if we still can’t get Drew on the phone.”

Mary was in the waiting room at the ER when Carolyn and Marcus rushed in. “Your priest is with her now,” she told them. “No luck on Drew, huh?”

Carolyn explained that Marcus was going back to the house. “No one got a better description than a dark-colored car? Didn’t anyone other than the nurse witness the accident?”

“I wish,” the detective told her, cupping her hand over her chin. “We also have to consider that it might not have been an accident, especially since we can’t find Drew.”

“You think he intentionally ran into her?” Marcus asked. “Why? To get back at her? But isn’t Drew’s car white? How long ago did this happen?”

“Let’s see,” Mary said, glancing at her watch. “It’s eleven, so we’re coming up on two hours now. Amy Fitzgerald was reporting for her shift that began at nine, so the accident occurred at eight forty-five. When did you drop Drew off at the house, Carolyn?”

“Around seven.” Carolyn wondered how they could stand around and speculate when Jude was fighting for her life. Something seemed to be physically pulling on her. She took several steps and then stopped. Did she really want to see Jude in that condition? She had to be drenched in blood. Although Carolyn had seen photographs of dismembered people, they’d all been strangers. Her head was swimming. She pushed past the detective. “I need to be with her. She needs—”

“Wait,” Mary called out. “Amy said they’re getting Jude ready for surgery. She’s unconscious, so I don’t see what good it will do to go in there.” When Carolyn turned around, she continued, “The traffic officer handling this thinks Jude threw her left arm out when she saw the car coming toward her. The rest of her body was positioned to the rear of the pickup, which explains the lack of injuries.”

“I’m going back to Drew’s,” Marcus said, turning and walking briskly out the exit doors.

Carolyn headed to the reception desk. They said the only way she could see Jude was if she was the next of kin. She lied and told them she was Jude’s mother.

Other than one with an elderly woman, the beds were empty. She walked toward a large glass-enclosed examination room where a group of nurses and doctors were assembled, almost knocking down Father Michaels. In his late sixties, the priest had baptized both John and Rebecca, as well as officiated at Carolyn’s wedding to their father.

The nurses and doctors were shouting orders as they worked over Jude’s mangled body. She couldn’t get close enough to see anything other than a portion of her face. Her hair was caked with blood, and her eyes tightly closed. She had a tube down her throat and IVs in both arms.

Father Michaels had already finished the anointing. He whispered to Carolyn to keep him apprised of Jude’s condition, and said he would say a special Mass for her.

After he left, Carolyn tried her best not to cry, but the tears came anyway. First, poor Veronica and now her daughter. It was almost as if an evil entity was trying to wipe out an entire family.

A young petite nurse with short blond hair and a turned-up nose rushed past her. She started to enter the room where Jude was when she saw Carolyn and stopped. “You must be Jude’s mother,” she said. “I’m Amy Fitzgerald. I was the person who reported the accident. I know how terrible this must be for you, but Dr. Martin does amazing soft tissue work. I know because he’s my father.” Another nurse gestured to her from inside the room. “We’re taking her upstairs now.”

Carolyn looked around, expecting to see the kind of container they used to transport organs. “Where’s…her…arm?”

“It’s already in the operating room. I’m sure the doctor will speak to you if you hurry. Go upstairs to the seventh-floor surgical unit. I’ll call now and tell him you’re on the way.”

Carolyn followed the arrows to the elevator, punched the
UP
button, and stepped inside. This was Hank’s fault. He was the one who’d insisted they release Jude, when they were clearly aware of the dangers involved. No wonder he hadn’t shown up at the hospital, she decided, stepping out when the doors opened.

She jogged down the hall until she saw the double doors for the surgical unit. There was a sign on the tiled floor that said she couldn’t pass beyond a red line. She saw the waiting room a few feet away, but her feet felt glued to the floor. Jude was already suicidal. How could she cope if she lost her arm?

An attractive man who appeared to be in his mid-fifties, dressed in green surgical garb, burst through the doors. “Are you Mrs. Campbell?”

When Carolyn nodded, he spoke abruptly, his eyes flitting here and there. She understood. He had an urgent job to do, and he wanted to get under way as soon as possible. When you had the skills to save lives, being polite wasn’t important. She wanted to tell him she wasn’t Jude’s mother, but now wasn’t the time.

“Dr. Samuels will be assisting as well as Dr. Goldstein, an excellent vascular surgeon. Your daughter’s age, coupled with the fact that she didn’t incur any other major injuries, gives us a better chance of success.” Dr. Martin pulled his mask over his face, spun around, and rushed back through the double doors.

Carolyn went to the waiting room, then changed her mind and headed to the hospital’s chapel to pray.

Tuesday, October 19
—
1:45
A
.
M
.

O
nce Marcus pried the boards off the window at Drew’s house, he shone his spotlight on the frame to see if there were any remaining glass fragments. The window opened into the breakfast nook area of the kitchen, so it was large enough for him to crawl through. Satisfied he wouldn’t get cut, he entered the residence. “Drew, it’s Marcus,” he shouted. “We’ve been trying to reach you.”

Hearing no response, he flipped on the light switch and made his way into the living room. Just like Carolyn had thought, Drew was passed out on the sofa and the coffee table was littered with empty beer cans. Marcus tried the overhead light in the living room, but nothing happened.

He shook Drew by the shoulder. He didn’t respond. He was lying on his side facing the back of the sofa. “Come on, man,” Marcus said. “Wake the hell up. Jude’s been in an accident. You need to go to the hospital.”

The idiot had drunk himself into a stupor. Marcus didn’t have much tolerance for boozers. He might have done the same thing, though, if he’d just been released from jail. Strangely, he didn’t smell alcohol. Generally when a guy was this tanked, you could smell him twenty feet away. Rolling Drew onto his back, he aimed the flashlight at his face.

“Holy shit!” he exclaimed, jumping back several feet.

Drew had what appeared to be a gunshot wound in the center of his forehead. Marcus placed his finger on his neck to check for a pulse. When he felt nothing, he knew he was dead. The way his skin felt, he must have been dead for hours.

Marcus moved away from the body and stood perfectly still, afraid to touch anything now that it was a crime scene. He started to call Carolyn, but then realized that would be foolish. Using his cell phone, he called 911 instead. “You should notify Hank Sawyer and Mary Stevens,” he told the male dispatcher. “Detective Stevens was in the ER at the medical center, but I don’t know her cell phone number.”

“We’ll take care of it, sir,” the man said. “Just sit tight until the officers get there. Do you think the assailant might still be in the house?”

“I don’t know,” Marcus whispered, his voice shaking. He was a computer programmer. He had a license to carry a gun, but he didn’t have it on him. The only time he’d seen a dead body was on TV or in the movies. “I haven’t looked around. Should I? The only thing I have to use as a weapon is a crowbar.”

“Listen to me,” the dispatcher said. “Where are you in the house?”

“The living room.”

“How did you come in?”

“Through a window in the kitchen.”

“So the window was open when you arrived?”

“No,” Marcus said. “I pried the boards off. The dead man’s daughter’s been seriously injured. When we couldn’t get him on the phone, we thought he was asleep. You’re not going to charge me with a crime, I hope. I told Detective Stevens what I was going to do, and she said it was all right.”

“Remain calm,” the dispatcher advised. “Quietly leave the house the same way you entered. The assailant is probably gone, but it might make you feel better to wait outside. Don’t hang up. I’ll stay on the phone with you until the officers arrive.”

“Okay,” Marcus said, tracing his steps back to the kitchen and climbing out the open window. “I’m out. I’m going to lock myself in my car. It’s a green Range Rover. At night it looks black. I’m parked in the driveway.”

He heard sirens in the distance, and then they stopped. When he told the dispatcher, he informed him that the officers responding had turned the sirens off just in case the suspect was still in the area.

A short time later, two black-and-whites skidded to a stop in front of the house, and two officers climbed out of each car with their guns drawn. Marcus got out of the Range Rover and raced over to them. “I’m Marcus Wright, the man who called. Man, am I glad to see you guys!”

“Is that your car?” a large officer with sergeant stripes asked, gesturing toward the Range Rover. Marcus told him it was and he instructed him to drive to the corner and wait. “Someone will talk to you as soon we secure the area. Detective Sawyer says he knows you. He’s en route.”

Four hours had passed. It was a few minutes past six. The sun was up, and the house Veronica and Drew Campbell had lived in was once again swarming with police personnel. After Marcus had given his statement to Hank, he’d left to pick up Jude and bring her to the hospital so Carolyn wouldn’t worry about her.

“They reattached Jude’s arm,” Mary told Hank. “They won’t know if it’s going to work for several days. The biggest problem is infection. Carolyn said they put her in a drug-induced coma to give her body a chance to heal.”

“Poor kid,” he said. “Now both of her parents are dead. Who’s going to take care of her?”

“There’s three other children in San Francisco,” Mary reminded him. “I guess the sister will have to bone up on her parenting skills. Carolyn told me Veronica had made provisions in her will for her to raise her children if something happened to both her and Drew. Were you aware of this?”

“That was years ago,” Hank said. “Back when Carolyn was married to Frank. Veronica probably changed her will. I think their friendship was strained because of Carolyn’s promotion.”

“People don’t update their wills, Hank, especially people who don’t have a lot of money.”

“Yeah, but you can’t force another person to raise your children. Carolyn would ruin her life if she took on that kind of responsibility. Those kids should be with a relative. Drew was insured for the same amount as Veronica. That’s four mil. Don’t kid yourself. Emily’s a personal injury attorney. Those people are sharks when it comes to money. She’ll jump on it, buy herself a big house, and hire a dozen nannies.”

One of the crime scene investigators walked past. “I almost didn’t recognize you, Mary. You’re not wearing your red murder shirt today.”

“No shit,” she said, turning back to her conversation with Hank. “What in the name of God are we dealing with?”

Hank stopped a patrol officer, hitting him up for a cigarette and a book of matches, then stepping outside so he could fire up. “Don’t say a word,” he told Mary, blowing out the match and taking a long drag. “I know what we
do
have. Mountains of work ahead of us. This cigarette is probably the closest I’ll get to enjoying myself until this monster of a case is put to bed.”

“You quit smoking ten years ago,” Mary said, shaking her head. “Are you going to dive back into the bottle again, too? Then you can destroy both your liver and your lungs. Why did you lose all that weight and start working out if you were going to revert to your old habits?”

Hank started coughing. He reluctantly dropped the cigarette on the sidewalk and stubbed it out with his heel. “You caused that to happen by harping on me. I guess you don’t want to make sergeant.” He saw a local news van parked across the street, along with several reporters standing behind the police tape.

Mary’s eyes brightened. “I’d love to make sergeant.”

“Check back in about five years. Maybe by then you’ll learn to keep your mouth shut. Let’s go see what Charley and the forensic guys have for us. It’s turning into a zoo out here. Standing around bemoaning our plight isn’t going to accomplish anything.”

“You’re the one wasting time smoking and complaining.”

Hank turned around and snapped at her. “I can’t think with you running your mouth all the time.”

“How can either of us think when we haven’t had more than a few hours of sleep since Veronica was murdered? We’ve got to get the captain to assign us more people, Hank. There’s too much to do and not enough people to do it.”

“As if I don’t know that,” he said. “Give me some space. You’re beginning to get on my nerves.”

Darryl Bates, one of the forensic techs, met the detectives in the living room. “I went over the Explorer, Lieutenant. I couldn’t find anything that would indicate it had been involved in an injury accident. No blood, tissue, or damage to the vehicle of any kind. No sign it’s been washed recently. The interior stinks of spoiled milk, so I doubt if Campbell has driven it since he got out of jail.”

“Good work,” Hank told him. “Tow it to the lab and rip it apart. If there’s a drop of blood anywhere in that car, I want to know about it.”

When Bates walked off, Mary said, “What are the odds that Drew ran over Jude, then a few hours later, someone came in and shot him?”

Hank glared at her, but didn’t bother to reprimand her again. She would have ignored him, anyway. She was the most relentless person he’d ever worked with, one of the reasons she was such a good detective. She’d ride a case to the ground. Dr. Martha Ferguson, the forensic pathologist he’d been seeing for the past year, had a similar personality. “You know who you remind me of?” he asked her. “Martha.”

“I consider that a compliment,” Mary said. “I still can’t believe you two got together. When you first met her, you couldn’t stand her. You called her an obsessive bitch, remember?”

Hank gave her a sly smile. “That’s before I saw her without clothes. The only time she isn’t telling me what to do is when we’re in bed. That’s why we have sex so much.”

Mary laughed, punching him in the arm. “No wonder you’re so full of yourself lately. I didn’t think you had it in you, Hank.”

The detective cut his eyes to her. “I may not be young like you, but I’m not dead.”

Charley Young was peeling off his gloves. “I estimate the victim’s been dead since nine or ten last night. He must have been asleep when the killer gained entrance into the residence. Whoever it was rolled him over, shot him at close range, then turned him back to his original position. The cushions on the sofa muffled the gunshot, which is why none of the neighbors heard anything. My bet is this is the person who killed the wife. The bullet wound is in the same exact position.”

“Why didn’t he shoot him in the back of the head if he was asleep?” Mary asked. “Why wake him up and turn him over? He put himself at risk of getting into a struggle. Drew was a big man.”

“He wanted to look him in the eye,” Hank told her. “The Snodgrass girl was buried alive. The killer gets turned on by this stuff. It makes him feel powerful to kill someone. He wants to drag it out as long as possible. Did forensics find anything in or around the body?”

“No,” Charley said. “All they found was a smattering of talcum powder on the victim’s shirt. The killer must have worn gloves. If we do find anything, it will probably be something that will only show up under a microscope. This guy is a professional. How did he get into the house, by the way? Carolyn’s fiancé said he’s the one who removed the boards from the window, so he didn’t come in that way.”

“There’s no signs of forced entry anywhere,” Mary told him. “He either had a key, or he had one of those devices that can be programmed to open any garage door. You said he was a professional. Do you mean an assassin?”

“Not necessarily,” the pathologist said. “Just someone who’s proficient in the use of firearms and controlled enough to make certain he doesn’t leave any evidence. You didn’t find much at the scene of his wife’s murder, did you?”

Mary gestured for Hank to step aside. “We were all over this place yesterday. Most of the evidence that’s going to turn up will link back to cops. Kevin Thomas will be furious when he finds out we executed that search warrant when we knew the case against Drew was dead. We’ll be lucky if we manage to keep our jobs.”

“You’re not telling me anything I don’t know,” Hank said, pulling out a toothpick. “Why do you think I’m in such a piss-poor mood? The only way to cover ourselves is to screen anything related to our people before we book it into evidence. Keep in mind that we need a suspect in custody, which we don’t have at the moment, nor does it appear that we’re going to have one in the very near future. We also have to be able to prove that this person is guilty. Right now, we don’t have any of those things, so why waste our time sweating a wimp like Kevin Thomas?” He paused, massaging his forehead. “No man is ever going to marry you. You’re too much of a headache.”

Mary placed her hands on her hips. “Thanks,” she said. “Maybe I have no desire to get married because most men are idiots. The search we conducted yesterday was a disaster, Hank. We were in such a race against the clock, there’s no telling how many people traipsed in and out of this place. It’ll take us until Christmas to process all the evidence that doesn’t belong to Drew or the killer.”

“Write everything up and hand-carry it to Lou Redfield at the DA’s office. With these new crimes, we should be able to get a warrant to search Don Snodgrass’s residence. I also want him brought in for questioning. He’s the only suspect we have right now. We’ve got three homicides. This so-called accident with Jude could be an attempted murder. No matter how far you stretch it, everything seems to lead back to that girl.”

“What about Reggie Stockton?” Mary asked. “Carolyn believes he’s our man. She put together a plausible premise as to how it all fits together. The only problem was both Haley and Jude being sexually active at a young age, which supported your belief that we were dealing with a pedophilia ring. Now that Drew has been killed and Jude seriously injured, there’s a chance that both of you may be right.”

“How’s that?” Hank asked, stepping aside to allow the men from the coroner’s office to carry the body out. “Damn, they’ve got the news chopper hovering over the house. What were you saying? You’ll have to speak louder.”