The Poisonous Ten (29 page)

“They got married here in LA. After Mrs. Hammond relocated here.”

“Yeah? So? Who are these people?”

“She met Chris Hammond here in LA. After she moved here. But she already had Julie. Before she moved her. You know what that means?”

“No. What? What are you talking about?”

“It means Chris Hammond isn’t her birth father. He can’t be.”

“And that’s wrong? What’s that mean?”

“It means Julie Hammond was survived by a blood relative after all.”

“Who?”

“Her father. Her biological father.”

“And who’s that?”

“I have no idea,” Tippin said as he turned in his seat and began pounding away at his keyboard. “Try and reach Parks again. I think he’s about to make a big mistake.”

36

“Wha . . . what are you doing here?” Parks asked with confusion at the familiar face that had no business being there that time of night.

“Funny,” Detective Luis Hayward said, smiling. “I was going to say the same thing to you. I thought you were still at the station.”

“I was,” Parks said as his cell phone began to ring. “I had to speak to Jackie about something.”

“Yeah,” Hayward said, shaking his head. “That’s too bad. I’m sorry about that.”

“About what?” Parks asked as he looked down at his cell.

Hayward used the distraction to grab Parks and insert a needle into the side of his neck. Parks tried to fight back and managed to knock the needle out of his neck, but not before half of its contents were pumped into his body. Parks imm
ediately felt the left side of his body heat up even as it stopped moving and he fell into Hayward’s arms.

“Sorry you had to be here,” Hayward whispered into Parks’s ear while he lowered the man to the floor. “Now don’t fight it. There’s nothing you can do.” Hayward set Parks on the ground then stood up and closed the front door. “It really is too bad you were here. I picked you, you know? You don’t know how many times I wanted to tell you, you
were right. When we were standing around the station, bouncing ideas off one another. You were right about some things. But others . . . you just seemed to miss the point. That was very disappointing. I was counting on you to piece it all together. To understand. I need you to understand. No one else ever could. But you, you’re different. You get things. You’ve suffered. Unfairly so. Just like me. That was why I picked you. We’re so alike and you don’t even know it.”

“Why . . . innocent people . . .” Parks could feel himself slowing down, almost like he was drunk and no longer in control of his body.

“Who? Those people whom I helped?” Hayward was shaking his head in disbelief. “Those people were not innocent. They failed to see the harm they had done to those around them. Sure, some of them began to feel the shame of their actions. So they were ready and I was there to release them. But most of them were guiltless. They needed guidance. Punishment for their actions. You know best about that. For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction? Or something like that. That’s what I was there for.”

“Dave?” Jackie called out from the kitchen.

Hayward peered down the hall then hid around the corner and reached into his pocket to retrieve another syringe.

“Dave? Who was at the door?” Jackie walked into the front room to find Parks lying on the floor. “Dave? What are you doing down there?”

Jackie flipped on a light and rushed to his side.

“Dave?” She could tell he was paralyzed as he tried to make noise while his eyes fluttered about inside his skull as if he was trying to talk to her through them.

“Sorry,” Parks gasped when a gloved hand gripped Jackie from behind. Hayward placed his hand over her mouth and stuck a needle to her neck but didn’t yet inject the contents.

“Scream and I’ll kill you,” Hayward whispered in her ear.

Jackie let loose a muffled yelp and tried her best to control herself. Fresh tears flowed down her face.

“Call for your son,” Hayward ordered her. “Real calm like.”

Hayward removed his hand from over Jackie’s mouth but kept it hovering nearby. The needle he had stuck into the side of her neck drew the faintest drops of blood, and she sucked in a breath as his threat of emptying whatever was inside loomed.

“Ricky?” Jackie wavered as she tried to fight back the tears. “Ricky?”

“Mom?” called out Ricky from the other room.

“Ricky . . .
run!
” Jackie yelled at the last second when she jerked her head to the side, the needle becoming detached from her skin.

“Bitch.” Hayward grabbed Jackie by the throat and tossed her to the side. She flew away from him and tumbled over Parks’s body, a nearby coffee table breaking her fall as she hit the floor. 

“Mom?” Ricky yelled, running into the room. He immediately stopped at the sight of his mother, bloody and cut up on the floor.

“Move and I’ll fucking kill her,” Hayward said to Ricky as he whipped out his police-issue gun and aimed it at Jac
kie’s prone figure. “So help me God, I will.”

“Who the hell’re you?” Ricky said.

“Someone who wasn’t good enough to be in the picture. Now go be a good boy and put these on,” Hayward said, taking his handcuffs from a back pocket. “From behind.”

Ricky looked to his mother and glanced at Parks lying immobile on the ground and put the handcuffs on. He stood there, both frightened and angry at what was going on as he glared at Hayward, trying his best to control his breathing, assessing the situation. Hayward walked up to him and checked to make sure the handcuffs were on tight and s
ecure.

“Good.” Hayward smiled. “Now sit.” He shoved Ricky aside, causing him to trip over his feet and fall onto the couch next to where his mother lay on the floor. Hayward took in his three captives and relaxed, a large smile spread across his face.

“Well, looks like I’m going to be able to wrap this all up nicely after all.”

Jackie sat herself up as she tried to stop some of the bleeding from the cuts she’d obtained in her run-in with the coffee table.

“What’s going on? Who are you?” Ricky said from his place on the couch. “What do you want with us?”

“Now, now, now,” Hayward said, pointing the gun in Ricky’s direction. “Let’s not take that tone of voice with me. Okay, son? I’m still your elder. You were always so well-mannered from what I had observed. No reason to become uncivilized now. Be the boy you promised to be for my daughter, even though you lied to her.”

“What the . . .” Ricky looked from Hayward to his mother, who tried to pull herself toward him, then he glanced over to Parks, who continued to lie on the ground, not moving at all.

Parks took in every sight, every smell, every sound he could, the whole time knowing there wasn’t a thing he could do about anything going on around him. If Jackie or her son weren’t able to take control of this situation somehow, then all three of them would for sure end up dead. But there wasn’t anything he could do. He still couldn’t move. Couldn’t feel any part of his body as he lay there on the cold tile flooring of the front entry not far from where Hayward stood threatening Jackie and her son. His head was a swir
ling mess as heat rose from within his body, fighting to get out, spreading from his neck down toward his toes.

“She was my wife. Forever and ever. We were supposed to be a family. We had a plan. But she deviated from it. Then just up and disappeared one day. Out of nowhere. I had thought she’d been kidnapped. But there was no note. No rans
om. Nothing. She was just
gone
,” Hayward said, shaking his head and addressing no one in particular. “Come to find out she ran away. Why? Why would she do that? Why would she leave me? Our dreams? She changed her name and everything. Did a good job of it too. But she forgot one thing—I’m a cop. Come from a cop family. Got it in our blood. She should have realized that one day I would find her again. And that’s when I found out we had a daughter.”

Ricky looked from Hayward to his mother, confusion splashed across his face once again. He knew the pieces of everything should have been fitting together for him, but they weren’t all connecting just yet. Something was missing.

“We had a daughter. Together. Why my wife chose to hide her from me I’ll never know. But Julie knew. Of course. Not originally. Though I feel that deep down somewhere inside of her she always knew. That she had a father out there. Looking for her. And when she got older, when she started dating you, she suspected. That that prick wasn’t her father. That she belonged to another. Think that’s what contributed to her . . . unbalance. Not me. I’m not to blame. It’s that bitch of a wife of mine. She’s at fault. But that’s okay. Eventually, I confronted her, and she realized everything she thought was true. That’s why she cut everyone off when she left for college. And she would have been all mine. Except for you. She didn’t cut you off for some reason.”

Parks could hear the words echoing throughout his skull but they weren’t making sense. If Julie Hammond had cut off her family—her mother—for lying to her then why was
she getting tattoos with her just months before her mother died. And why had Julie been around up when her parents had both died. Was he confused? Or was Hayward in his own world?

“You were the one thread that held her to her old life and eventually sucked her back in when she needed help. When those rumors about her began around the college. She should have come to me for help. But instead she held onto you. Little good that did her. You didn’t do shit for her. None of you did. My baby still died, and it was all your fucking fault. God had already taken care of Julie’s mother by giving her the cancer. But you . . . you promised her the most. You promised her a future. Protection. To love her for better or worse. And you lied. You backed out of your promise to my daughter. When no one else was around to protect her, that was your job.”

“No, that was your job,” Ricky yelled back. “You were her father. Where the hell were you?”

“Don’t you fucking tell me my job!” Hayward spat through gnashing teeth. “I know my job. I did it best I could. I was there for her. Until the end. You’re the one who left her. You abandoned her. She had no one left fighting for her and nothing left to fight for.”

“Your daughter’s suicide was not my fault,” Ricky said. Ricky glanced past Hayward and saw Parks blinking at him, slurring and coughing. He wasn’t sure what Parks was trying to tell him but knew he had to do something or he and his mother would be killed. “Where the hell were you?”

“I tried to take care of her,” Hayward shouted back as he stepped closer to Ricky. “I was her father. I tried to get her back, but you wouldn’t let her. She wouldn’t leave you. I tried to talk her into leaving you, but she wouldn’t. That wasn’t my fault. She was scared. And confused. She tried to fight me. Her own father. I only wanted to subdue her. Long enough to get her out of there and away from that world. It wasn’t my fault. But she wouldn’t calm down. I thought the pills would calm her. Help her. But no matter how many I gave her she wouldn’t settle down. Then . . . then she just . . . stopped.”

Ricky glanced down at his mother, who kept her face low while she tried to reposition herself next to her son. Through the hair hanging down around her face she made eye contact with Ricky and let him know she was preparing to do something.

“It wasn’t . . . your . . . fault,” Parks slurred, in between huffs of breath and mouthfuls of saliva. He was having diff
iculty spitting out the words, he could feel his throat closing in on him, but he got them there. “It wasn’t . . . you . . .”

“Yes, that’s it.” Hayward practically jumped for joy, beaming at Parks. “I knew you would get it. Out of ever
yone. It wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t to blame. I did nothing wrong. I only tried to help. You understand. Just like with Kozlov. You were only trying to help. I couldn’t control the outcome. It wasn’t your fault. Just like with my daughter.” 

“You . . .” Ricky tried holding back the tears while he processed what Hayward had told him. “Guess you’re just a failure as a father. No wonder she wanted to leave you. Run away with me forever. Always said you were a fuckup. Guess she was right. You just fucked up one thing after another, and look what it got her! It got her killed! And you! You did it!”

“Don’t you fucking talk to me about my daughter!” Hayward shouted, focusing all of his rage and anger on Ricky, when suddenly Jackie reached up and slammed a shard of glass from the broken coffee table straight into Hayward’s thigh right above his knee.   

“Run, Ricky!” Jackie shouted.

Hayward swung out and smacked Jackie in the face, knocking her back, her head hitting the floor, dazing her. At the same time, Ricky fell back onto his hands and pulled his legs up and kicked out at Hayward, sending the man back, where he tripped into Parks’s body and flew over him into the front door.

“Mom,” Ricky shouted. “Mom!”

“Get out of here,” Jackie ordered, regaining her focus.

“Not without you.”

“Get out of here!”

Ricky flipped backward
over the sofa as Hayward aimed his gun and fired in his direction. Ricky ran out of the room and down the side hallway for the kitchen.

“Get the fuck back here, you little shit!” yelled Hayward,
getting to his feet.

Hayward disappeared after Ricky, cursing and yelling as he made his way down the hallway. With Hayward gone, Jackie crawled her way over to Parks and checked his vitals.

“What did he give you?” Jackie whispered.

Parks only muttered slurred words as Jackie found a faint pulse. Her face was placid, and Parks could tell she had put on her “professional” demeanor that was required when dea
ling with an infected patient. The right side of his body had a little movement but not enough to be controlled. 

“Your heart isn’t slowing down,” Jackie said. “We need to get you to a hospital. Not sure what he gave you. But it might be wearing off. If it was some kind of muscle relaxant it might not last that long depending what kind it is. You need to calm down. Your heart is pumping the poison through your body.”