Spare the Lambs (18 page)

We waited for over an hour, while Sammy shivered on the floor.  Finally, I heard footsteps in the hallway.  I grabbed the girl by the neck and pulled her up, placing her between my body and the open door.  A tall blond man, well built and well dressed, stepped through the doorframe.  I pointed my pistol at him and tightened my grip on the girl’s neck.  His blue eyes were cold and pinched in anger.  “Is this when you call the cops in?” He asked in a sarcastic voice.

“No cops.  Just you, me, and the girl.”  I shook the girl enough for her to moan.

Gerald gave me a joyless smile and brought a revolver out from the small of his back.  He pointed it in my general direction, but couldn’t get a bead on me with his girl’s body in the way.  “Alright, I’m here.  So tell me why you want to fuck with us and who else knows how to find me?”

I almost shot the little shit when I saw the gun, but I quickly realized he wouldn’t shoot the girl to get to me; so I placed the gun to Sammy’s temple to control the monster.  Her shoulders started to shake as she sobbed and his eyes flashed with rage.  “I’m James Pearson and I’m here to make you pay for your crimes.”

Gerald’s eyebrows shot up, “Pearson, the detective?  Isn’t this outside your authority, or have they changed the scope of protect and serve?”

I shrugged and asked, “why did you do it, the lambs and the pack?”

He smiled and shrugged, “why not?  It makes me feel like a god.”

I doubted I would get a better answer than that.  He might not even know the real reason he killed little kids and got others to do it as well.  Thinking of the little kids made me wonder about something I should’ve looked into a long time ago.  “What did you do with the kid Judith was meant to kill?”

He smiled a predator’s smile that both Eric and Judith had described so well, “I returned him to his bed, safe and sound.”

I squeezed Samantha’s neck viciously, making her whimper, and yelled, “Don’t lie to me. No threats could silence a ten-year-old.  A good family, unlike your’s, would’ve noticed that their child was missing.”

Gerald’s lips curled up into a snarl and he spat, “don’t think you know me, detective.  My father was awesome and my mother loved me before he died.”  He took a deep breath and seemed to be forcing back memories. 

I wondered what had happened to his father that could make his mother stop loving him.  Had Gerald killed him or did she think he was responsible in some less direct way?  It’s something I would’ve looked into if things hadn’t turned out the way they did.

After standing in silence for a few minutes, his breathing slowed and he shrugged.  “Fuck it, I killed the kid after the others left with her body.  He’s buried a few feet away from the spot where that weakling died.”

I closed my eyes at the shame of letting another child die.  Of course, he would kill Judith and the kid.  Returning the kid would be riskier than taking them.  Runaways were so common that they didn’t get much attention from law enforcement and that police squad didn’t get the cream of the crop.  However, if the kid showed up with tales of being kidnapped on Good Friday, every effort would have been made to find his kidnappers.

I opened my eyes and looked into his cold blue ones.  He was smiling again, and I considered it on account of the pain he had caused me.  I squeezed the trigger.  Smoke, sparks, and a 9mm bullet traveled the two inches to Samantha’s skull.  Her head snapped to the left as the bullet exited the other side.  I let go of her and she crumpled to the ground as I brought my gun to point at the last living monster.

I expected Gerald to be shocked or horrified by the sudden death of his lover, which would’ve given me enough time to bring the gun around and put a bullet between his eyes.  However, he didn’t even blink.  The girl’s body hadn’t even settled on the ground before he pulled his trigger.  A bullet hit me high on the shoulder, sending such a sharp pain through me that stopped my breathing.  I turned the gun on him, but he fired again before I could end his horrible life.  I felt a searing pain in the left side of my chest.

The pain was so distracting that by time I fired I couldn’t aim.  I wanted to put my shot between his eyes, instead it shattered his wolf’s grin.  The bullet must’ve taken out his spinal column, because he dropped as limply as Samantha.

I shoved my pistol into my pocket and took a deep satisfied breath.  Half way through the breath, I started coughing.  I coughed so hard that it bowed my body and sent a thick mist of blood into the air.  That’s when I knew his second bullet had hit me in the lung and I needed to get out of there.  If I could get out of building and a block or two away, I could come up with a story about gangbangers to explain the injuries.  I just needed to get to my car.  I stumbled and then crawled towards the exit.  I think I only made it to the staircase.

***

I woke up a hospital room, with my right hand cuffed to the hard plastic runners, bed guards, or whatever they’re called.  The other bed was empty and a uniformed officer sat in an uncomfortable chair in the corner.  I watched him reading an old magazine for a few minutes before he glanced at me.  He did a double take, stood, and silently walked out of the room.  I could see him through the little window in door.  He took out a cell phone and called someone.  I blacked out.

When I woke up, the officer was not visible and Special Agent Johnston sat by my bed in the uncomfortable chair.  He was so smug as he looked at me that all I wanted to do was punch him in the throat.  He began by thanking me for saving him a lot of time.  He told me that he knew I had killed Lee Maynard, but couldn’t prove it.  I could see where the conversation was going, so I refused to speak.  But that didn’t stop his gloating.

“You know I’ve had an eye on you for some time.  You could’ve been a good detective, maybe even FBI.  But, you had to mess it up.  Now it’s prison or death for you.”  He managed to say it with regret.  I’d never seen him act so well.

For the next hour, I listened silently as he laid out his whole case against me.  This was probably a mistake on his part; it gives me a chance to prepare with my defense before the trial date is even set.  As neither I nor my victims are going anywhere, they have all the time in the world to turn my trial into the biggest thing to happen to Charlesville in decades.  Surely that will help him move up the FBI ladder.

He told me that I had been seen running from Lee’s body.  The description sketchy, was only good enough to trust the height and build.  Either Johnston was a far better investigator than I’d thought or he has no life, because he’d sifted through who-knows-how-many reports to find one about an attempted mugging.  A gangbanger’s victim was a bit of a gun nut, so she’d been able to tell the make and model of his gun.  Her description of her savior was unusable, but Johnston had tracked down the gangbanger.

The young man had claimed to be attacked, for no reason, by a man saying he was a cop.  Agent Johnston made a point of telling me that the man was in a wheelchair, as if I should feel guilty.  While he denied ever having a gun or attempting to rob the woman, his description confirmed Johnston’s suspicious that it had been me, although it was still too vague to ensure an arrest.

Agent Johnston had read my journal entries on my work computer.  He paused to give me a very pointed “you’re crazy” look.  He was trying to get the Chief to pull me off the case until he could come up with a convincing statement for a judge.  His lips turned up in a snarl at the fact that he couldn’t make the Chief pull me.  He was working on the statement when the call came in about two dead teens and a wounded police officer.

They found James’s body after he forced Lily to tell them where Judith had died.  He showed me a picture of the body, I guessed to shock me into confessing.  Animals had eaten bits of what was left of his face after my bullet had ripped through it.  Agent Johnston looked sickened when I didn’t react.

For the last week, he’d searched my car and my apartment.  I interrupted his tale to ask about my kitten.  Again, he stared at me as if I was crazy.  The good doctor must’ve done what I’d asked.  I smiled to myself and wondered what the doctor had named her.  I should’ve had her grab my laptop, too.  He’d read all of my entries, he told me.  I think he was trying to insult me when he said that it took the tech boys two minutes to crack my password.  I might’ve been insulted if he himself had cracked it, but those tech guys are insanely good with computers.

He kept talking for a few minutes, but I stared out the window and stopped paying attention to him.  I heard him say, “You could’ve been something great.  What a waste,” and he stomped out of the room.  The uniformed officer came back into the room and spent most of his time making a point to not look at me while still watching me.  I was handcuffed to bed rails for two weeks before I was strong enough to be moved to the county jail.

Now, I live in an 8x8 square-foot cell and no one is allowed to visit.  Since I’ve now been caught, I don’t think I want to get away with my crimes.  Justice has been delivered to the pack of wolves, and Lily Summers received a sentence of twenty-five to life.  Soon it will be my turn to face the people’s justice.

Part Six

The Charlesville Times, page 4.

June 21, 2001

Easter Murder Trial Ends

Lily Summers, only surviving member of the Easter Murderers, was sentenced to twenty-five years to life in prison today.  The whole city was bracing itself for a long-drawn-out trial.  However, when asked for her plea to four charges of murder in the first degree, Summers pled guilty.  Summers will be forty-two-years old by the time she is eligible for parole.  Upon sentencing, she was escorted out through the back of the courthouse and taken to the Charlesville State Prison.  When asked why he didn’t choose the death penalty, the Honorable Matthew Ericson explained that the defendant may come to truly understand and repent for her crimes with more maturity.

Incident Report, Charlesville State Prison

July 2, 2001

              Between 8 p.m. and 3 a.m., prisoner number 105CD78 Lily Summers was stabbed to death in her cell.  Her cellmate, 115FB62 Mary Potter, was in the infirmary during the incident.  At 7 p.m. Potter was taken to the infirmary complaining of stomach pains.  All prisoners on Cell Block F claim to have seen and heard nothing.  The guards on duty, Drew Harper and David Putsche, didn’t complete their normal hourly rounds due to a malfunction in the program that controls and monitors the cell doors.  According to the guards, they were attempting to work on the system themselves before calling the captain of the guard.

              IT will look into the problem with the program and whether it was due to tampering.  Summers’s body was discovered by Officer Putsche at 3 a.m., at which point, he called the captain of the guard and the warden.  Investigation showed that the door hadn’t been opened, however with the system down, it means very little.  The prisoner had been found in her cell, stabbed with a shiv, four inches long and half an inch wide.  The handle made of masking tape.  No evidence pointing to a perpetrator(s) has yet been found.

The Charlesville Times, cover pages.

July 1, 2001

Easter Hunter Trial Begins

Today begins the multi-murder trial of James Pearson, former detective with the Charlesville Police Department.  Pearson is charged with the murders of James Levee, 16; Lee Maynard, 15; Samantha Garere, 18; and Gerald Johnson, 19.  The court was called to order by the Honorable Nicholas Guzman at 9 a.m.  District Attorney Michael Freeman is prosecuting on behalf of the state, James Pearson is defending himself, and twelve members of the City of Charlesville serving as jurors in the case of State vs. James Pearson.

After a plea of not guilty, Pearson remained silent for the rest of the proceeding.  He made no opening statement, nor did he object to any of the prosecutor’s statements.  Michael Freeman’s opening statement told the story of how Pearson stalked and killed four teens that had never been found guilty in a court of law.  He said that the murders themselves were horrible, but even worse was that Pearson had sworn to protect and serve the people through the law.  If Pearson was released, he continued, it would tell the people of the city that it condones running around and killing people for the smallest infractions.

The prosecutor’s opening statement was noticeably stirring and powerful to the jury.  One woman began crying a few minutes into the forty-minute speech.  Three of the male jurors looked as if they would disregard Freeman’s words and dispense justice on Pearson right there.  The defendant declined the opportunity to to speak and make his opening defense.

Prosecutor Freeman paraded a list of witnesses; including Special Agent Steve Johnston, Federal Bureau of Investigation: Two lab technicians from the city crime lab: A payroll clerk, Charlesville Police Department: a witness to Pearson obtaining the murder weapon: and a witness to Pearson running from the murder of Lee Maynard.  James Pearson waved away offers to cross-examine the witnesses.  Pearson will take the stand tomorrow for questioning.

The Charlesville Times, cover page.

July 2, 2001

Pearson’s Defence

James Pearson, “the Easter Hunter,” revealed his shocking defense after being called to the stand today.  When questioned on the murder of Levee, Maynard, Garere, and Johnson, Pearson admitted that he had.  Also, he volunteered a failed attempt to capture Lily Summers before she had turned herself in.  Summers died late June 30th or early July 1st in her cell at Charlesville State Prison.  When asked if he had any connection to her death, Pearson replied that he had been in custody since May 5th and that was all he would say on that matter.

“If you were going to confess to all the charges, why did you plead not guilty?”  Freeman asked.

Pearson answered, “If I plead guilty, that would imply what I did was wrong.  They had earned their punishment, not twenty-five years of soaking up cable-TV and the taxpayers’ dollars or get out early for,” adding emphasis with air quotes, “good behavior when the prison becomes overpopulated.” 

Two jury members nodded in agreement, while four looked visibly angered by Pearson’s attempt to justify cold-blooded murder.

After Pearson was allowed off the stand, Freeman asked for a verdict.  Pearson shrugged and nodded in agreement.  Freeman gave a two-hour closing statement, during which jurymen and women both cried and gritted their teeth in rage.  Pearson declined the offer to make a closing statement.  The jury left the courtroom to begin deliberation at 4 p.m.

The Charlesville Times, cover page.

July 4, 2001

This Century’s Charles Manson

Here are Some interesting facts about Gerald Johnson’s life that may shine a light no his later crimes.  Gerald died on May 4, 2001 and is believed to be the leader of the Easter Murderers, a group that terrorized the city for years.  This group killed six 10-year olds and one 12-year old.  In light of new facts, these ages seem very important.

On April 17, 1992, police were called to Jake’s Butcher Shop on 7th Ave. For what turned out to be the robbery and murder of shop owner, Jake Johnson, Gerald’s father.  After Johnson refused to hand over any money, one of the two robbers grabbed a meat cleaver and slaughtered Jake Johnson.  When the police arrived on the scene, the men were gone.  The two men have never been caught.  Gerald Johnson, 10-years old, had hidden in the store’s restroom.  When questioned, the boy claimed he saw nothing and after hearing the robbers demand money, he’d stayed hidden in the bathroom, but evidence shows that he had been in the room when his father was killed.

Dr. William Tilingas, PhD in forensic psychology, explained that this event was what is called in psychological terms, the traumatic event that causes a normal person to become a serial killer.  He explained that most sociopaths torture animals in their teens and fantasize about killing humans but wait until their mid to late twenties before committing their first murder.  While the wait in this case was abnormally short, he speculated that the murder of a 10-year old in 1995 was a ritual to reenact the death of his own innocence.  Dr. Tilingas also believed that Gerald’s actions of bringing others into his crimes, which is also abnormal, at 12-years old was symbolic of his rebirth as a monster.

So according to Dr. Tilingas, Gerald Johnson played a part in ritualistically killing his innocence and creating a new monster for six years.  Could the brutal murders have been prevented if young Gerald had received the mental help he needed, or the capture of his father’s murderers?

The Charlesville Times, cover page.

July 5, 2001

Another Easter Murder Victim Found

The body of Paul Phillips was found as police searched the area surrounding James Levee’s murder site today.  The search had been ordered by FBI Agent Johnston after finding a journal entry written by James Pearson, currently in police custody, that records the murder of Samantha Garere and Gerald Johnson.  During the confrontation described in the entry, Gerald admitted to killing the child intended to be Judith Smith’s initiation kill, and burying the body.

The Phillips family had their worst fears confirmed when the police told them of their find.  Paul, son of Fred and Kensey, went missing on March 20.  At the time police believed Paul had run away due to the discovery of Judith’s body on March 21.

The Charlesville Times, cover page.

July 10, 2001

Guilty

After eight days of deliberation, the jury came back with a verdict of guilty to all charges in the James Pearson Easter Hunter trial.  The lengthy deliberation was due to holdouts wanting to free Pearson and possibly give him an award for his “duty” to the city, as one Juror told reporters.  When the foreman read their decision, Pearson gave them a sad smile and a nod.  The foreman, Pam Hall, said, “that smile will haunt me for the rest of my life.”

The Honorable Judge Guzman sentenced James Pearson to death by gas chamber.  The former Charlesville Police Department detective said nothing and walked confidently out of the courtroom when escorted by the bailiff.  His sentence is scheduled for April 1, 2002.  However, it could be postponed for years if Pearson chooses to repeal the decision.