Sullivan's Justice (9 page)

When the prisoner didn’t react, Brad hurled the plastic chair against the wall. Deciding not to waste any more time, he walked over to press the buzzer for the jailer.

It happened in an instant.

Moreno sprang to his feet. Raising his arm high, he whipped his leg irons with tremendous force and struck the probation officer in the back.

Brad collapsed, his body blocking the door. He had trouble catching his breath. “Help me,” he gasped, fearing he might be hit again. “Get me out of here! God, get me out of here!”

He felt something pushing him in the side. The guards were trying to force the door open. Moreno leaped across the room and straddled him.

“No one talks about my mother,
comprende
?” he said, his body trembling with rage. Reaching down, he squeezed Brad’s crotch. “If I had a blade, I’d cut your fucking balls off and eat them. But you ain’t got balls. All you got is a mouth.”

Bobby grabbed Moreno’s arm while Norm Baxter shocked him with a stun gun. Moreno’s body jerked, then became limp. The two officers pulled Moreno out of the room. The sergeant instructed them to take the inmate back to solitary.

Brad had used his hands to pull himself into the corner. Once the prisoner was removed, Bobby dropped to his knees beside him. “Ambulance is on its way,” he said, panting. “Where did he get you?”

“My back,” Brad answered, wiggling his toes inside his shoes. He hurt like a bitch, but at least he wasn’t paralyzed. “How did he get out of the restraints?”

“The freak must be a contortionist,” the sergeant said, glancing up at Baxter. He picked up the handcuffs and leg irons, holding them where Brad and the deputy could see. “The restraints didn’t break and they weren’t loose. Look how small the openings for his arms and legs were. He must have compressed his hands and slid them right off.” One of the deputies began speaking fast, seemingly fascinated. “I’ve seen things like this on TV. Some of these people can even collapse their bones.”

Brad was not amused. “Why didn’t you tell me he was a contortionist?”

“We didn’t know,” Bobby said. “We’ve never had a prisoner who could do this before. Shit, how can we ever restrain this guy? He can slip out of anything. Inmates don’t stay in their cells all the time. We transfer them to court, the infirmary, the visiting area.” He stopped and handed the restraints to Baxter. “I guess Carolyn had a point. I was getting fed up with her stunts, but it looks like this one paid off. She swore there was more we needed to know about this guy, and that if she pushed him hard enough, he would show us. She left him in here all day. Even had us turn the heat up. If it weren’t for your gal, Preston, this maniac could have escaped and been back on the street killing people. He was probably planning to make his move on the bus to prison. You know the first person he’d look up, don’t you?”

“Who?” Brad said, wondering how much longer he’d have to lie there on the floor in pain.

“Carolyn Sullivan.”

 

 

 

 

 

T
he section of Ventura where Neil lived was subject to mud slides. If the storm didn’t pass by tomorrow, he might have to evacuate. The previous year, a house on his street and its owners had slid off the cliff.

He should have broken it off with Melody months ago. He’d intended to tell her over the phone, then decided that it was a chickenshit way to handle it. Now he wished he had.

Turning into his driveway and hitting the remote for the garage, Neil parked next to his black paneled van. Carolyn had teased him about the van, telling him it was the vehicle of choice for serial killers. As soon as she’d heard about the Ferrari, she had sworn he would end up with a suspended license.

He opened the glove box and removed the new white envelope he’d purchased on the way to Melody’s house. Instead of separating it into lines, he dipped in with his little finger and placed a small quantity of the crystallized powder into his nostrils. He couldn’t go on like this—he had to quit before Carolyn found out. If he hadn’t been on meth, he wouldn’t have gone crazy and hurt Laurel. The drug made him feel good, but it also had the capacity to turn him into a madman.

Getting out of the car, Neil dumped the remaining contents of the envelope onto the wet grass next to the garage. He walked next door and deposited the envelope in his neighbor’s trash can. The house was formerly occupied by a couple, but the husband had croaked last year. The widow played country music at deafening levels all day long, making it impossible for him to sleep after a night of painting. When he needed to dispose of anything related to drugs, it went in Samantha Garner’s trash. He never took a chance that his housekeeper, Addy, might stumble across something she wasn’t supposed to see. Part of the mystique of using drugs was making certain you didn’t get caught.

Neil opened the door leading into the house, his heart pumping like a steam engine. He started to punch in the alarm code when he realized it wasn’t activated. He held down the stay button until he heard the series of beeps that confirmed the alarm was set.

His expensive leather shoes squished on the marble entryway. Taking them off, he left them on the mat by the door. They would probably have to be thrown out.

Stopping in the guest bathroom, he relieved himself, stripped off his wet clothes, then rinsed off in the sink. He occasionally slept in the extra room because it was closer to the garage. If he used too much speed, he became paranoid and thought he was having a heart attack. Driving around helped him calm down.

The laundry room was across the hall. He found a plastic bag and placed his clothes inside. The stupid woman could have at least let him undress before she pulled him into the shower. Her wealth had turned her into a first-class bitch.

Melody’s family owned APC Pharmaceuticals. He’d read in the
Wall Street Journal
that her net worth was estimated at fifty million. They’d never discussed it, yet he suspected the money was one of the reasons she shied away from permanent relationships. She wasn’t only a bitch, she was selfish and greedy, terrified she might have to share her precious money.

Neil passed through the dark house to the master bedroom. After putting on a clean pair of jockey shorts, he went to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water. Seeing a smudge on the refrigerator door, he retrieved a basket of cleaning supplies from under the sink and went to work. When he finally stopped, he was on his hands and knees, wiping down the tile floor.

Before he left the kitchen, he stood in the doorway and stared, making certain he hadn’t missed anything. Satisfied the room was clean, he turned off the light, being careful not to touch the switch plate.

Neil walked through the rest of the house, flicking on the lights and checking the rooms. Outside of the bedrooms, kitchen, and bathrooms, the house resembled an art gallery. Large oil paintings were mounted on the walls, Neil’s style was that of the old masters. The formal rooms were sparsely furnished. He had cocktail parties on a regular basis, inviting potential buyers as well as established patrons. He seldom used the rooms for anything else. His studio was located in a thousand-square-foot guest house behind the swimming pool.

Satisfied that everything was in place, he went to the master bedroom and collapsed on the bed. He was lucky he’d used most of the meth earlier in the evening. The drug could keep him awake for days. To circumvent his insomnia, he used Depakote, a drug used to control the manic stages of bipolar disorder. The only way he could get the pills was to go to a shrink. Psychiatrists were sadistic freaks. They sat there with smug expressions on their faces, baiting you until you said something they could use to have you committed.

He didn’t feel right. He began to panic, wondering if the guy at the pawnshop had sold him heroin instead of meth. The stuff was so pure today, junkies sometimes snorted it instead of shooting up. When he’d stopped off at Al’s Pawnshop, Al wasn’t there, so he’d dealt with a black guy named Leroy. If not heroin, Leroy could have sold him Ajax or rat poison. His nostrils felt as if they were on fire. He reached up and touched them to make certain they weren’t bleeding. He kept a bottle of saline rinse in the guest bathroom, and he usually cleaned out his nose before he went to bed. He wondered if people who fell into drugs were simply bored. The rituals alone were exhausting. At the same time, they were somehow comforting.

Socializing had always been difficult for him. Being an artist allowed him to withdraw into his own world. Over time, however, he had become lonely. In the past, all of his girlfriends had been like Melody—beautiful, independent women he could see whenever he felt like it. The thought of a permanent relationship had always frightened him. He had too much to hide, and not just his involvement with narcotics.

Laurel had been different. Maybe it was because they’d known each other as kids. Back then, everything had been so simple. He had deluded himself. It never would have worked. When she had realized who he really was, she would have left him.

His head relaxed into the pillow. He never went to bed this early, but he felt as if he had lived an entire life in one day. Was Addy coming in tomorrow? He couldn’t recall what day of the week it was. She generally came on Fridays, but she occasionally switched days. He turned on his side and gazed out the sliding glass door. His mind was so muddled that he’d forgotten that it was almost Christmas. Addy was on vacation. He couldn’t provide her with health insurance, so he gave her two weeks off every year with pay.

A bolt of lightning illuminated the yard. He jumped out of bed when he saw a white object floating in the pool. At first, he thought one of the lawn chairs had blown over. When he saw that all four chairs were still in place, he darted outside into the rain. The shrill of the alarm sounded in the background.

As he came closer to the pool, Neil realized the floating object was a person. Without thinking, he dived in and swam toward the body, grabbing it around the shoulders. He stopped swimming and they sank underneath the water. Gulping air as he surfaced, he swam to the edge and hoisted the person onto the wet concrete. He recognized her face.

Laurel!

With the alarm still blaring, the rain stinging his eyes, Neil desperately attempted to revive her. After twenty minutes, he gave up, certain Laurel had been dead for some time. Kneeling beside her lifeless body, he sobbed in grief and confusion. Distorted images filled his mind. He remembered her crying, the anguished look on her face. She had raced outside to get away from him. She’d never seen him mad before and she was frightened.

Neil was cradling Laurel’s head in his lap and tenderly stroking the thick, wet strands of hair from her once-lovely face when he saw a man in a uniform running toward him. From a distance, the body appeared to be nude. Laurel’s bra had been pushed up to her armpits. Her white silk panties barely covered her pubic hair.

The officer pointed a gun at him. “Move away or I’ll shoot.”

Neil ignored him, his eyes scanning the yard for the rest of Laurel’s clothing or anything he could use to cover her. He heard the officer speaking, asking his dispatcher to alert the police and paramedics. When he glanced back at the man, he saw 21ST CENTURY SECURITY emblazoned on his white shirt. He gently lowered Laurel’s head, then stood and raised his arms. The security officer pushed him aside and began administering CPR.

Neil staggered into the house to call Carolyn. His hands were shaking so badly, he had to enter the alarm code twice to disable the system.

Laurel was gone and it was all his fault.

“Do you know what time it is?” Carolyn said groggily, staring out into the dark room. “You know the rules, Neil. You don’t call me after ten unless it’s a life-or-death situation. I’ve already taken my pill. I had an awful day. Now I’ll never get back to sleep.”

Carolyn was a chronic insomniac. Inability to sleep ran in their family. Even her fifteen-year-old son had trouble quieting his constantly churning mind. Several years ago, she’d given up and gone on medication. She took her Xanax at ten o’clock and became furious if her brother woke her up, which he consistently did.

Afraid his sister was about to hang up on him, Neil blurted, “Laurel’s dead. I think she drowned in my pool.”

Her younger brother had a dry sense of humor. When he wanted attention, he would say outlandish things. “If this is a joke, Neil,” Carolyn told him, “it’s in very poor taste.”

He began sobbing. “Please, I’m serious. The police will be here any minute.”

God, no, Carolyn thought, bolting upright in the bed. “Did you call the paramedics?”

“The security guy did. . . . Why would she go swimming in the rain?” he said, his voice cracking. “Jesus, this can’t be happening.”

Carolyn pushed the button for the speaker phone so she could continue talking while she dressed. “Were you at home when it happened?”