Walk in Darkness - A Thriller (Jon Stanton Mysteries) (21 page)

45

Stanton sat on the balcony of his apartment and watched the ocean, his badge and gun on the side table next to him. He was amazed how simple it had been to get them back. One phone call to Chin Ho and the signing of a few papers and he was back on the force, though technically suspended with pay for two more days.

Harlow had been right: in the middle of a lawsuit it didn’t look good to lose him. Ho had given him his job back too quickly, relief and desperation in his voice. Stanton had no doubt that after the lawsuit was settled, there was going to be hell to pay
, but for now, he was a cop again.

Stanton picked up his phone and tried Kyle. He had left several messages saying he needed Stanton’s help but then never answered when he called.

He was an odd man, Stanton thought. He was too forward, too forceful in wanting to be friends. Stanton read a loneliness in him that instantly made him sympathize. It was difficult to find people to connect with in this world, and Stanton couldn’t turn someone away that felt they didn’t have anywhere else to turn.

There was a knock at the door and Stanton waited until he heard it again before answering. There were young kids in these condos and sometimes they would knock and then run off. He opened the door and saw Kyle standing there. He looked pale, like he hadn’t slept in a while, and his clothes were wrinkled.

“Hey, Jon.”

“I got your messages. What’s going on?”

“Can I come in?”

“Yeah.”

They sat down on the couch.

“What’s going on?”

“I got into some trouble and I needed your help. But I took care of it.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“It was at some stupid fucking party I never should’a gone too. But I took care of it, Jon. I took care of it.”

“Took care of it how?”

Kyle folded his arms. Stanton noticed he had a swaying motion to him and wasn’t looking him in the eyes.

“You got anything to eat? I haven’t eaten yet today.”

“Sure. Cold pizza okay?”

“That would be great.”

Stanton put the pizza on a plate and brought it out with a glass of orange juice. Kyle attacked it with zeal and Stanton waited quietly until he was ready to talk.

“So what’s going on, Kyle? You don’t seem like yourself.”

“Don’t I? I feel good. Better than I have in a long time.”

“What was the trouble you were in?”

“I got into a fight at a party and hurt the guy pretty bad. But everything turned out okay. The only person that knew me there isn’t going to say anything.”

“Why’d you get into a fight?”

“Wasn’t my choice,” he said with his mouth full. “Hey, so what happened to that thing you were telling me about? That court thing?”

“The deposition?”

“Yeah, did it happen yet?”

“No, tomorrow morning. I spent all day today at my lawyer’s office preparing for it.”

“Oh yeah? What’re you gonna say?”

“The truth. I haven’t done anything wrong, so I don’t have anything to be afraid of.”

“But like, you were saying you think someone else was the Sandman. You can’t, like, investigate that anymore, right? It’s over. So aren’t they gonna ask you about that?”

“They can ask whatever they want. Like I said, I’ve got nothing to hide.” Stanton leaned forward on his elbows. “I have an odd request, Kyle. And before you say no I’d like you to hear me out.”

“Sure, anything for you.”

“I want you to come to church with me on Sunday.”

Kyle sat there frozen a moment, before he burst out laughing. “You’re kidding.”

“No, I think you would really enjoy it. The Mormon Church has so much to offer. It can give you peace and comfort when you can’t find it anywhere else. Just come with me once and if you don’t like it I won’t ask you again.”

Kyle shrugged. “Sure, why not.” He gulped his orange juice and then wiped his lips on his arm before standing up. “I gotta go. My mom’s expecting me.”

“I didn’t know both your parents lived here.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t talk about ‘em much. I’ll see ya later.”

Stanton walked him out and watched him go down the hall to the elevator. He couldn’t help but get the distinct impression that he was lost
, a soul wandering around looking for anywhere to settle. Like a piece of dust adrift on violent winds. He hoped church would be that place for him to settle and ground himself.

46

Gary Coop sat across from Stanton and smiled. Stanton was dressed in a white shirt with red tie, shiny black loafers to match. Coop thought he looked like a private investigator from one of those old 1930s black and white films he and his dad used to watch together.

Taylor Rowe sat next to Stanton and scribbled some preparatory notes on a legal pad. Coop had always bee
n attracted to Rowe. Something screamed Naughty Librarian about the way she dressed and carried herself. He had asked her out once and she declined.

“Are you ready, Detective? Ah, it is Detective again, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, we on the record?
. . . All right. Please state your name and address for the record.”

“Jonathan Stanton, 42 Ocean Beach Park, San Diego, California.”

“And what do you do, sir?”

“I’m a detective with the San Diego Police Department in the Sex Crimes Division.”

“How long have you been with the SDPD?”

“Twelve years.”

“Are you familiar with what has been termed the ‘Sandman Cases?’”

“Yes.”

“What are they?”

“Last year between April and August we had a series of kidnappings within a short distance from each other. There were three of them: Yvette Reynolds, Sarah
Henroid, and Beth Szleky.”

“And why were they grouped together, Detective?”

“We believed they were committed by the same person.”

“Why?”

“There were lots of similarities in the cases. All the girls were similar ages, between nine and twelve; they all had similar hair and comparable body types. They were taken from their homes between midnight and three A.M. The perpetrator used a glasscutter in all three cases to gain entry into the home. Always the bedroom windows of the girls.”

“Did you find any of the girls?”

“No.”

“Did you find remains for any of the girls?”

“No.”

“Any items of clothing, jewelry, a note, a phone call, anything like that?”

“No, nothing.”

“So you had nothing from the case, no evidence, but you identified a suspect, isn’t that true?”

“I wouldn’t say we had no evidence. As I said, the crimes were nearly identical. You can also extrapolate from the methods used in the abductions. The perpetrator knew which bedroom was the victim’s. That meant he watched the houses beforehand. It had to have been someone that wouldn’t stand out in a predominantly white, upper-middle class neighborhood. We could assume he’s white from that. Most pedophiles of this type tend to stick within their own races as well, and all the girls were white.”

“So you guessed he was white, what else did you guess about him?”

“He had to have a car and be reasonably physically fit. One of the girl’s rooms was on the second floor and he climbed up and then back down with her.”

“Couldn’t there have been two of them doing the work?”

“Yeah, and we never ruled that out. But there was only one set of shoeprints found in the Reynolds’ garden underneath their daughter’s window. If there was a second person, he would just have been the driver.”

“So he’s white and works out
. Anything else?”

“He likely lived nearby as well. He fit into the donut model of the crimes.”

“What’s the donut model?”

“Most offenders of this type commit crimes away from their homes to try and throw off the police. If they commit the crimes in enough locations, you see a pattern. All of the locations end up being nearly identical distances from a few locations.
Sometimes only one. That location is their home or their neighborhood or their city if they operate statewide. You get all the locations of the crimes up on a map and you connect them, it can resemble a circle. Their home or city is in the middle, like the center of a donut.”

“Interesting theory. Is there any research to back that up?”

“I couldn’t quote it off the top of my head but I’m sure—”

“So the answer’s ‘no’ as far as you know?”

“I suppose that’s accurate to say.”

“Now, did you have anything else that you were assuming about the perpetrator of these crimes?”

“No, other than he may have had some burglaries or voyeurism charges on his record.”

“And why do you say that?”

“Most sex offenders, especially ones that move to kidnappings within homes, begin as burglars. One night, they find someone home and sexually assault them and then—”

“Is there any evidence in this case that any of the victims were sexually assaulted?”

“No.”

“So it’s another guess?”

“I suppose you could call it that.”

“Now based on these guesses, you identified somebody as a suspect
; is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“And who was that person?”

“Darrell Putnam.”

“And it’s true that you didn’t have any direct evidence linking Mr. Putnam to any of these crimes?”

“Direct evidence? If you mean a note from him saying ‘I did it
,’ no, we didn’t have that.”

Taylor Rowe smirked.

“What did you have?”

“He was a registered sex offender living within a few miles of each of the victims.”

“So did you confront him about these allegations you made?”

“I wouldn’t say ‘confront,’ that’s not the right word. We followed him for a few days and then I came to his house to talk to him.”

“Who followed him?”

“We had a unit from Sex Crimes trail him.”

“And what did they find?”

“As far as?”

“As far as anything linking this man to any of the crimes. Did they find anything? Did they hear him utter a single word about these kidnappings?”

“No, they did not.”

“And so your surveillance turned up nothing and you went over to his house, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me what happened when you went to his house.”

“It was an older house; he lived with his elderly mother. I parked my car in front of the house and instantly one of the neighbors was out asking me what I was doing there. I explained that I was a police officer and that he should go back inside. That I was just following up on a few things.

“When I got to the door his mother came out. We talked for a few minutes about Darrell. I asked her if he was home and the first thing she said was, ‘
What did he do now? He didn’t hurt no kids, did he?’”

“Let me stop you there, Detective. I’m going to object to that and ask that it be stricken from the record as hearsay.”

“Hearsay my ass,” Rowe responded. “You opened the door and asked it. We’ll run a motion in limine with the judge about it later. And this is just a deposition. Move on, Gary.”

“Just to note for the record, I don’t appreciate the use of your language
, Ms. Rowe.”

“You didn’t mind it when you asked me out on a date a couple months ago
and I turned you down.”

Cooper shifted in his seat.
His jaw clenched once and then released. “So you meet his mom . . . then what happens?”

“She says he’s up in his room
, so I went into the house.”

“Is that procedure?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re about to confront a man suspected of three child kidnappings. Is that procedure to go alone into his house?”

“Technically, no. I should’ve called for backup.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t. As I said, I was just there to talk. At this point he wasn’t even really a suspect, more a person of interest. I just wanted to see what he had to say about the whole thing.”

“So you made a mistake?”

“I guess you could call it that. I should’ve called for backup.”

“And what did he say when you confronted him?”

“I don’t know. When I got up to his room the window was open and I saw him running across the backyard.”

“What did you do?”

“I sprinted down out of the house and called dispatch on my phone. We ran through his yard and I hopped a fence after him. He got to the curb and there was a car there. He jumped in and took off and I had to run back to my car to keep up with him. I caught up somewhere down the block and had to chase him down the freeway to downtown. He got cut off by a group of motorcyclists down by One American Plaza.”

“What happened then?”

“I jumped out of my car because he was running by the time I got there. He headed into the building and I went after him. I caught up to him on the roof—”

“How’d you know he was going to the roof?”

“The security guard station had cameras on all the elevators. I went over there and had them track him. Then I followed.”

“So you’re riding the elevator up to the roof. Was your firearm out at this point?”

“No.”

“Where was it?”

“Holstered to my side.”

“When did it come out?”

“When I got to the roof Darrell was standing around, I don’t think he expected me to find him so fast. He ran to the edge of the building and looked down like he was going to jump and then he reached behind him. That’s when I pulled out my sidearm. I thought he might be reaching for a weapon.”

“Did you see a weapon?”

“No.”

“In fact he didn’t have a weapon on him, is that correct?”

“Unless it got lost on the way down, no.”

“So you pull out your firearm on a weaponless ‘person of interest’ and then what?”

“I told him that he needed to turn himself in. He told me he knew what this was about and that he was innocent. I said if that was the case then he would be cleared and free to go. Then he jumped.”

“How did he jump?”

“He looked over the edge and then fell backward.”

“Did you startle him?”

“No.”

“Did you intimidate him?”

“No.”

“Would you say it’s reasonable to assume that if someone has a gun pointed at your head and you’re standing on a ledge that you might be intimidated?”

“I suppose. But that wasn’t my intent.”

“Was your intent to have him fly off that roof?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Okay, well, let me stop there for a second.” Coop turned to the stenographer. “I need to run out to the restroom for about half a minute.”

“Coop,” Rowe said, “I know this trick.” She turned to Stanton. “He wants us to talk while he’s gone and then attorney-client privilege doesn’t apply because there are other people in the room. He can get us to reveal what was said between us.”

“No,” Coop said, “I just
gotta piss. You wanna come with me?”

“For the record, I don’t appreciate your language.”

Coop heard Stanton’s phone buzz. Stanton looked down and his face changed. He looked to Rowe and said, “I need to leave.”

“What?” Rowe said. “You can’t leave we’re in the middle—”

Stanton rose and began to walk out. “Reschedule. I’m really sorry, I have to go.”

Coop watched him walk out and then turned back to Rowe. The stenographer had turned off the record and was packing up.

“Thought you had to piss?” Rowe said.

Coop shrugged and took another sip of water. “I want him back as soon
as possible. I’m not done with him yet.”

Stanton raced down the freeway but came to a standstill near an accident. He got over past the white line and held up his badge to the officers handling the scene and they let him pass. He shot down the nearest exit and over to the Northern precinct.

When he ran inside he went to the ready-room and saw Childs, Danielle
, and Slim Jim standing over some documents and photos. Slim Jim glanced at him and then away.

“Heard you back from the dead,” Childs said.

“For now. I got the text. What’d we got?”

Childs lifted a few photos and laid them on the table. They were of Yve
tte, Sarah, and Beth. Another photo of a storefront and he pushed that near Stanton.

“Danielle followed up on your lead and then brought me in. Looks like you were right, Detective Stanton. There’s an association with all three
vics: Taylor Drugs.