Walk in Darkness - A Thriller (Jon Stanton Mysteries) (14 page)

“Sergeant, please, calm down and remain seated.”

“I am seated, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“Sergeant, would you like a minute to calm down? Maybe take a break?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Okay,” Coop said, a slight smirk on his face as he began writing something down.

Rowe leaned over to Stanton. “He told him to remain seated because the jury is only going to read the transcript. There’s no video
introduced there to see that he never got out of his seat.”

“Now Sergeant,” Coop continued, “I’d like to turn to the Sandman case. Now you said Detective Stanton was the lead detective. How did he identify my client’s son, Darrell Putnam, as the perpetrator of those crimes?”

“The three victims lived near each other. We did a sex offender search and hit on fourteen names. Putnam’s previous crimes fit.”

“Fit how?”

“He was a child sex offender with two priors. He had raped his nine year old niece and molested a ten year old neighbor.”

“How long ago were those crimes committed?”

“The first one was fifteen years ago and the second one was eight years ago.”

“And he did prison time on each
of those and was released?”

“Yes.”

“Did he kill either of those girls in his previous offenses?”

“No.”

“Did he kidnap them in the middle of the night?”

“No.”

Coop made a few more notes and then put his pen down. “I think that’s all I have for you now, Sergeant. I may recall you to another deposition farther down the line should something develop.” Coop signaled to the stenograph to cut the recording. She stopped taking dictation and turned the audio off. “And, brother, you need to calm down. You lie with whores you gonna wake up with whores. Ain’t no reason to get upset with me.”

Childs stood up. “We got the same skin color but you
ain’t my brother. And you’re the only whore I see here.”

He stormed out without looking back and Stanton looked to Rowe. She closed out her i
Pad and stood up. “See you Friday.”

Stanton followed her out as Coop sent him a glare and then smiled.

29

Stanton went to Melissa’s house and knocked on the front door. She answered in sweats with an iPod on.

“Hey
, handsome,” she said, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing. I just wanted to see you.”

“I was just working out. Come in.”

The house looked immaculate and a cardio kickboxing DVD was playing on the television in the front room. She turned it off and went to the kitchen and brought out two bottles of water. They sat on the couch a while and didn’t say anything. Stanton would drop by like this every so often and they had grown accustomed to it.

“How was your morning?” she said.

“Not that great. I was in a deposition.”

“Over the Sandman thing?”

“Yeah.”

“I heard the mother is asking for millions of dollars. Not much of a mother if your son grows up and rapes little girls. She doesn’t deserve a dime.”

“No, she doesn’t. But you never know with a jury.”

“You actually think you might lose?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure what I think right now.” He placed his bottle down on the coffee table and leaned forward, his elbows against his knees, his hands rubbing together as if it were cold though the sun was
bright without a cloud in the sky. “I’m not sure this is worth it anymore, Mel. It seems like most days I’m just bashing my head against a wall and the harder I bash the more I get punished for it. I don’t think I want this anymore.”

“We’ve had this conversation before, Jon.”

“I know.”

“And you’ve gone back on your word each time.”

“I know that too.”

“I can’t get my hopes up again. Neither can the kids. I know what you want. You want me to tell you to move back in and to start making plans.
That you’re going to be a professor and we’re going to live this perfect life. That’s not going to happen. You’ve broken my heart too many times. I won’t let it happen again.”

“What can I do to make you believe me?”

“Quit right now. Call your boss and give your resignation. Don’t tell him why, just do it. And don’t go back. We’ll have someone else go back and get your things.”

“Mel, I—”

“I know, you can’t. That’s the problem, Jon. That’s why I don’t believe you.”

“It’s this last case. It’s
gotta end. The wrong guy’s been blamed, I know it. I can feel it. The monster’s still out there and we’re not even looking for him. If I quit, he would disappear and take who knows how many kids with him.”

“That’s what you don’t understand, Jon. It’s what you’ve never understood:
there’s always monsters. The world has always been a mess and always will be a mess; the point is to straighten out your own life.”

“You might be right, but that’s not going to comfort me when we’re watching television and an Amber alert flashes across the bottom of the screen. I’ll always think ‘is it him?
’ For the rest of my life I would think that. I don’t want that to be who I am. I’m going to either catch him or kill him, but I can’t just let him go.”

She looked at him a moment and then leaned over and kissed him softly on the lips. “You go do what you need to do. I just can’t promise that I can wait.”

She rose and took his hand and he rose with her, allowing her to lead him to the door. They got to the front entrance and stood inside the house looking out. Some young kids were playing across the street. Stanton wanted so badly to say,
Look at them. Look at what he’s taking out of the world. How can you ask me to just allow it?
Instead, he turned around, kissed her once more, and then walked to his car.

2:10 P.M. when Stanton pulled to a stop near Woodrow Wilson Elementary. He parked farther away, up the street, but close enough to see the entire perimeter except for a dozen or so feet that was blocked by one of the buildings. He decided that was too large a blindspot to have and he got out and walked to the gap in the fence that led to the front entrance of the school.

The kids began to pile out and he only casually glanced at them, pretending he was a waiting parent. He was more interested in the other people around the school. There was a group of young men on the south side
, perhaps five or six of them, no older than sixteen or seventeen. His profile of these abductions did not lend well to a group attack. Group attacks were more violent and obvious, each member attempting to impress the others with their lack of morality and compassion. These kidnappings were subtle and quiet; they were the work of a single person that was probably ashamed of what he was doing, but had an eye toward having a long career of doing it.

He took a few steps south and leaned against the fence, careful not to look too long at anyone. Then he saw a couple of young boys run into the crowd. One of the older boys hugged him and the younger one handed him a paper.
Brothers, or a very young father.

There was no one else around the perimeter of the school. This had been a bust.

Just as Stanton was about to turn away he saw movement out of the corner of his eye.

Someone had run over from across the street and was sitting on a bicycle rack the school provided on the west side. He was older than the group of boys, perhaps twenty-three or twenty-four, and was staring at the girls as they walked by.

Stanton’s heart began to race.

He pulled out his cell phone and buried his head in it as he began to walk around the school on the sidewalk toward the west side. He didn’t glance up except to ensure a clear path. He looked once to the street when he heard screeching tires and saw that a mother on her cell
had come to an abrupt stop, nearly running over some kids at a crosswalk. The man had noticed too, and looked to Stanton.

Stanton glanced away as quickly as possible, but it was too late. He stuck out too much. The man hopped off the bicycle rack and began walk
ing toward the intersection.

Stanton picked up the pace and put his cell phone away. There was no charade now. The man didn’t turn around until he got to the intersection about seventy feet ahead of Stanton. He turned around, looked at him, and then sprinted across the street.

Stanton shouted, “Stop, police!” and ran.

The man was at a full sprint past some local shops as Stanton came to a red light. Cars were coming from both sides. He dashed for it and one car laid on the horn as it slammed on its brakes and twisted to the side to avoid him, hitting a bus in the far left lane.

Stanton ran as the other cars came to a standstill. The owner of the car he’d caused to hit the bus was out and chasing him. He had no time to stop. The man in front of him had just turned a corner and Stanton couldn’t see him.

He rushed past a group of children walking home and was nearly hit by a homeless man pushing a shopping cart. He rounded the corner and saw the man hop a chain-link fence and run into a house. Stanton sprinted for him and hopped the fence. He ran up the old stairs to the porch and tried to open the front door. It was locked.

Stepping back, he lifted his leg, bashing his heel just underneath the doorknob. The door didn’t budge. He kicked it again and again and nothing happened. There was a window just to the side of the porch. He grabbed a patio chair that was against the house and crashed it through the window, shards of glass spraying over the interior of the house.

He used another chair to scrape away as much of the remnants as he could and then climbed through.

The house was empty except for trash strewn over the floors. Old fast food containers, beer bottles, condom wrappers . . . it was probably a vacant house used by local teens to get drunk. It didn’t have the hypodermic needles or vomit and fecal stains of a full blown drug house.

He ran through the living room and stopped in the hall and listened.
The house was quiet, dust swirling in the sunbeams that came through the cracks in the boarded windows. He held his breath and closed his eyes . . .

There was a soft brushing sound coming from upstairs
; hardly more than a whisper. He pulled out his sidearm and held it low as he climbed the stairs to the second floor. 

The carpet had been torn up, exposing multi-colored foam padding underneath. The walls were filled with graffiti and the unmistakable stench of marijuana hung in the air. Stanton walked down the hallway, pausing with each step to listen. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest and he consciously tried to slow it down, as if someone could hear it.

There was a crash next to him and Stanton brought his weapon up.

A piece of board ripped up from the floor had been leaned against the wall of the bathroom and had fallen over. Stanton stepped close and put his back to the wall in the hallway and reached in with just his hand, flipping on the light in the bathroom.

The tub was filled with rancid water, urine, cigarette butts, old beer, and who knows what else. It stank like sulphur and animal entrails and Stanton nearly dry-heaved. He turned away and as he did so a board came up and smashed into his face.

He flew back into the tub, water overflowing onto the floor. The board came down at him again and he held up his forearm and felt the impact like a jackhammer. The man lifted and smashed again, attempting to get a headshot.

Stanton ducked into the water and the board slammed against the edges of the tub. He came up with his sidearm and pressed it into the man’s groin.

“Don’t,” Stanton said, out of breath, wiping putrid water out of his eyes. “Unless you don’t care if you have any kids.”

“You won’t fuckin’ do it.”

“Why not? Haven’t you heard; I kill criminals for fun.”

The man looked at him a few moments, and then dropped the board to the floor.

30

The young man sat in the interrogation room. Stanton wanted to hop in right after him but instead stationed a uniform outside and took a shower in the back near the lockers. He had a change of clothes
there and he took his time; let him wait.

After he showered and changed, he dumped the clothes he had been wearing in the trash and went to the cafeteria. He bought a drink and sat alone at one of the tables. He had vomited several times before and after uniforms had come to the house to pick up the suspect. His stomach was still queasy and he sipped at a Fresca to settle it.

When the can was empty, he headed to the interrogation room.

The man’s name was Cameron Spangler and he had his head down on the table
, buried in his folded arms. He looked up as Stanton walked in.

“I didn’t do
nothin’.”

“You assaulted a police officer with a deadly weapon.”

“It was a board.”

“
Could’a fooled me. It felt like a bat.”

Stanton had brought in a file under his arm and he placed it on the table as he sat down. He opened it and brought out the photos of the young girls. He placed them before Cameron and let it sit a while. Cameron glanced at two of them, stared at Sarah’s
picture, and then buried his head again.

“I’m not saying anything.”

“You don’t have to. There are officers at your mom’s house executing a search warrant right now. I’m sure we’ll find everything we need there.”

He looked up. “What the
fuck are you doing at my mom’s house?”

“We’ll get to your house too, don’t worry. But I know people like you, Cameron. I know them really well, and I know you keep your best trinkets at your mom’s. And when they find them, you’re going to
be killed by the state of California.”

He made a dismissive sound and put his head down again. “I can handle
it.”

Stanton took in a deep breath and stood up. “Follow me.”

“No.”

“I can have the officer out there tie you like a pig and drag you or you can follow me. Your choice.”

He slowly stood up.

Stanton took him out past the drunk-tank to the holding cells farthest away from everybody else. This was where they kept the prisoners awaiting arraignments and transfer to the county facilities. In the farthest two cells were the inmates considered too dangerous to be kept with others: the ones that no longer had any fear of incarceration and would mutilate or rape other inmates.

Stanton stood in front of the cell and brought Cameron over. The inmate came to the bars and stuck his hands through in a relaxed way. He was covered in tattoos and bald, but with a chubby face and glasses that gave him a milder appearance.

“You bring me a treat, Jon?”

“This is Cameron. He might be joining you soon.” He turned to Cameron. “This is Rich. He can be your cellie for the next seventy-two hours if I wanted him to be. Rich here had to be confined by himself because last time he was here, he raped his cellie and scooped his eye out with a spoon. When was that, Rich?”

“Some
two years ago.”

“Rich, this is off the record, I give my word.”

“You the only cop I believe when he says that, ya know.”

“What would you do if I put Cameron in that cell with you?”

He smiled, several of his teeth missing and the remaining darkly stained and yellowed. “Oh we’d have a good time, me and him. I need to bust a nut, anyway. You suck cock, Fish? You’d learn with me. But if you bite I’m a knock yer fucking teeth out and then you ain’t bite no more.”

Stanton looked to Cameron and saw the terror. His hands were trembling and he began to look at the floor, unable to lift his eyes. Stanton grabbed him and
led him away as Rich began to shout about what they would do together. He pounded on the bars like an animal and began to hiss and spit.

Stanton got Cameron back into the interrogation room and sat down across from him.

“That was set up,” Cameron said. “That ain’t real.”

“Rich is real. He’s schizophrenic. That’s why he keeps getting released. When he took out the guy’s eye last time we couldn’t find it in the cell. We think he might’ve eaten it.”

Cameron swallowed hard, as if his throat were dry, and leaned forward, his elbows against the table. “What do you want to know?”