Scream Catcher Read online

  In return, the old Captain shoots him a furrowed brow gaze like, Told you so.

  Fuentes may be a good kidder, not to mention years past retirement age. But Jude suspects that Mack keeps the big man on as much for his knowledge of the cop job as he does his ability to act like a father to younger officers.

  “You have my photos, Serpico?” Mack poses while deep-sixing his latest cig.

  Reaching into his wrinkled brown blazer, Fuentes pulls out a yellow and black photograph envelope, tosses it onto the interview table.

  Taking hold of the package, Mack opens it, pulls out the pictures, spreads them across the tabletop in no discernable order.

  “Look these over, kid. Try to concentrate on the face you saw right before that bullet bounced off your skull. Tell me positively absolutely if he’s your man.”

  Jude peers down onto the table, glances at twenty different versions of the same image: a tall, powerfully built, pale-faced male with bleach-blond chin beard and mustache, a head full of matching blond dreads.

  The photos appear to have been shot with a digital camera through a telephoto lens directly across the road from a neon lit arcade that, as a former Townie-slash-cop, he recognizes as Wild Bill’s All Day/All Night Arcade located on Main in the north Village.

  Question: what kind of assassin decides to hide out in plain view inside a video arcade only an hour after putting two bullets into the head of an innocent human being; an hour after trying to put a third bullet into me?

  Answer: a man who isn’t afraid of anybody or anything. A man who will claim to have a rock solid alibi. Probably both.

  Duty calls, buries its legal claws through the skin that covers Jude’s stomach.

  With Lt. Lino standing on his left-hand side, Mack on his right and Fuentes’s considerable bread basket bearing dead ahead, Jude shuffles the pictures around on the table until he locates the one that best matches his memory of the killer—a full frontal.

  But instead of black trousers and a matching long-sleeved shirt, the photo reveals that the killer is wearing Carhardt carpenter’s pants and a sleeveless T-shirt. A T that bears a black stenciled rendering of Christ, the words, JESUS IS MY SUPERHERO! superimposed over His haloed head.

  “Remember,” Mack presses, “you gotta be sure it’s the same guy or this thing will be shot.”

  Jude dry swallows.

  Reaching up with his right hand, he presses fingertips against the butterfly bandage. A dull, tender pain shoots through his head, all the way down to his teeth. Picking up the photo by its border, he holds it high above the table.

  “Gentlemen and Fuentes,” he announces, locking eyes with his father, “you have your winner.”

  9

  Bolton Landing

  Northern Tip of Lake George

  Tuesday, 9:10 A.M.

  The ringing phone wakes her from out of a restless hung-over sleep.

  Warren County Prosecutor P.J. Blanchfield reaches out from under the blankets, fumbles for the bedside phone.

  “Yes … What is it?” Her brain is a big brass bell, her mouth a dry chamber filled with cotton.

  “Chief, we’ve got a homicide,” comes the voice on the connection’s opposite end. “Captain Mack’s people hand delivered an initial Police Complaint that details the whole thing.”

  Lifting her heavy head up from off the pillow, the prosecutor brushes back disheveled shoulder-length hair, exposes pale naked breasts.

  “What time is it, Lois?”

  “Going on nine-fifteen.”

  “Shit. Why didn’t you call me earlier?”

  The prosecutor throws off the blanket. Her heart is pumping like the paddlewheel on the Minnehaha. Murders don’t occur all that often in Lake George. Almost never. Mostly just bar fights, snatched purses, fender benders, or the occasional vandalism to boat, Jet Ski or lakefront dock. There’ve been two homicides since her election to the county seat. While the first case never made it past the Grand Jury, the second case didn’t get tried at all.

  But since then, peace.

  Until now.

  “And Chief,” Lois goes on. “One more thing.”

  “What is it, Lois? I have to jump in the shower.”

  “A suspect has already been taken into custody. He’s about to enter a lineup.”

  “So that’s a good thing.”

  “So get this: Captain Mack has reason to believe the murderer’s true identity is that of Hector Lennox.”

  Blanchfield’s heart is no longer beating so much as it’s expanding, causing her sternum to split down the center.

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” she says setting the phone back down onto the cradle.

  Slipping out of the king-sized bed, she presses feet flat against the cool wood floor. She looks over one shoulder, then the other. Nothing but light blue plaster walls, two antique wood dressers, a full-length, stainless steel-framed IKEA dressing mirror, a flat-screened plasma television mounted to the wall directly across from her bed, its remote control set on the now empty side of the mattress where her fiancé used to sleep. Outside the windows of the lakefront condo, the bright morning sunshine beams down through thick locusts, junipers, birches and pines onto calm water.

  A beautiful mid-summer day, yet Blanchfield wants to get back in bed, sleep her consciousness away.

  Hector Lennox you are not dead … How long have you been back in Lake George? … Long enough to kill in your own special way.

  “Patricia Janice,” shouts the gruff voice from two floors down. “P.J., you awake?”

  She stands.

  “Coming, Da.”

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later the prosecutor is dressed sharply in a blue, knee-length skirt, matching blue blazer over a simple white button-down. She’s dutifully fed her father, changed his bedding and dignity pants, made certain the TV remote is set within reach of both his bed and the wheelchair set beside it.

  “Eva will be here in an hour to clean house and get your lunch,” she informs the seventy-something native Irishman and former Lake George Village tavern proprietor.

  The white-haired old man looks up at his daughter with round, red, glassy eyes, gaunt face covered with gray bristle, a clear plastic tube fed by a portable oxygen canister snaked up his left nostril.

  “I love Eva very much,” he mumbles in his native brogue. “And your ma. The memory of her face resides in my heart. You have her face, you know.”

  “Too bad you loved whiskey more,” P.J. comments while popping an earring into her right ear lobe. “You might still have ma, a home, a business, your health … Need I continue, Da?”

  Her father laughs as though engaging in a playful exchange with his daughter.

  But then she’s right.

  His love of the bottle has destroyed everything dear to him, leaving his only child to fend for herself in this big cruel world. And what a job she’s done raising herself from out of his drunken Irish ashes. Maybe he isn’t allowed to drink anymore, but mostly he’s just happy to lay his eyes on his beautiful, self-made daughter.

  “I get a kiss before you go off to fight the bad guys?”

  P.J. turns to the old man, leans into him, plants a peck on his stubble-covered cheek.

  “Still love you,” she says. “And keep those hands to yourself when Eva gets here.”

  10

  Lake George Village Precinct

  Tuesday, 9:35 A.M.

  The surveillance photos back in hand, Fuentes exits the room in a hurry that belies his size. Immediately behind him follows Lt. Lino, the new L.G.P.D. detective anxious to meet up with the County Prosecutor to prep her for what everyone hopes will be a quick arraignment and indictment.

  Alone with his son for the first time, Mack reaches out, opens the laptop screen, fingers the power trigger. While waiting for the machine to boot up, he releases the top button on his white button-down, pulls on the ball knot of his tie, making it hang Lou Grant-low.

  Seated beside his father, Jude can�
�t help but glance over his shoulder, stare into the old Captain’s round face.

  The hard, craggy face.

  Leather skin, bristly white stubble, bulldog nose that’s been broken one too many times and that now veers in the direction of his left cheek. It’s the sort of face he can’t help but look into rather than simply look at.

  Mack shifts himself, faces the radiant screen of the laptop.

  He types in several commands. After a few seconds the website for ViCAP appears, or Violent Criminals Apprehension Program.

  Sitting back, Mack purses his lips. “I’m not sure if there’s a right or wrong way to explain this,” he says. “So I’m just gonna say it. This morning’s homicide marks the third murder of its kind in Lake George in the last four years. Where a victim falls prey to some kind of stalking or thrill kill game.”

  Jude sits at the table, taking occasional sips of water from a disposable paper coffee cup, the now drying sweatpants and shirt causing his muscles to stiffen, skin to tingle and itch with an annoying relentlessness.

  A new page pops up.

  This one with a couple of mug shots posted on the right side of the screen beside a list of vital stats.

  Last Name: Lennox

  First Name: Hector

  Alias: the Black Dragon; the Dragon

  D.O.B.: 10/17/1975

  D.O.D.: 7/8/2002 (Not Confirmed)

  Sex: Male

  Race: White

  Height: 6:03

  Weight: 225-250

  Eyes: Blue

  Hair: Blond or Str

  Event #: 24011906 ————————— Image Captured

  Jude notices right away that no Image Captured date is listed. It means he has no idea when the mug was snapped. But one thing is obvious: his boy Hector is a chameleon—a master of physical reinvention so to speak. In the color pic, the violent criminal’s hair is dark, cut close to the scalp. A jagged purple scar runs down his left cheek as if an animal has recently clawed him.

  And is he dead or alive?

  In any case, the computer photo reveals that Lennox’s face definitely seems rounder than Jude recalls, clean shaven.

  No chin beard.

  No sideburns.

  No mustache.

  No crazy long hair.

  The eyes are narrow. The only thing about them that resembles what he witnessed emerging from the gravel pit is their color: ice blue.

  Even the style of clothing depicted in the ViCAP mug can be construed as far different from what Lennox wore out in back of Sweeney’s. In the photo he’s wearing a navy blue cotton suit with a yellow silk tie accented in light blue polka dots. For an added mod splash, gold hoop earrings dangle from each of his ear lobes.

  The man Jude spotted giving chase outside Sweeney’s Gym sported long blond dreads and tight black clothing. As for earrings he can’t recall noticing any. But then high stress situations distort memory. Even for former officers of the law.

  Mack perks up, says, “Suspect’s got a brand new alias: Christian Jordan. And he’s got the proper documentation to back it up—driver’s license, social security card, credit cards. But I know of him by his real name: Hector Elijah Lennox. Thirty-six years of age, Gulf War vet, Marine computer hacker, clinical-psych dropout out of UCLA. Born and raised—if you want to call it that—in West Hollywood. The only son and child of an alcoholic Baptist minister who ran a storefront Bible-Belt church on Sunset Boulevard.

  “Lennox refers to himself as the ‘Black Dragon’ because of a tattoo he got planted on the interior of his right forearm during the second Gulf War. L.G.P.D. first picked him up on probable cause after a taxi-cab driver looking for place to shoot up witnessed an execution inside an abandoned tanning factory on the lake’s south end. But after three days of interviews between us and the prosecutor, the witness got cold feet and a serious case of the shakes. In the end, he backed out. And I mean backed out of town for good. That left the gate wide open for our Black Dragon boy to stand up tall before Judge Mann, plead false arrest and entrapment. Bastard went Al Sharpton on us, threatened to sue. In the end the prosecution backed off due to a quote—’lack of evidence’—end quote. In turn Judge Mann buried the gavel, insisted that all charges be dropped. Even before a Grand Jury got a chance to convene down in Albany and vote a no bill.”

  Sitting back, Jude peers down at the tabletop.

  “Mistakes were made in due process,” he surmises. It’s more a question than a statement.

  “Truth is, county prosecutor couldn’t offer up sufficient facts and circumstances to warrant an indictment. In her defense, forensics and CSI produced minimal prints, minimal blood residue. There were no hair follicles, no clothing or fabric fibers, no trace evidence to speak of.” Shaking his head. “Correction: some evidence was there—emphasis on some. It’s just that investigators couldn’t get any of said evidence to link Lennox directly to the crime scene other than probable cause. And, as you well know, probable cause cannot reverse presumption of innocence.”

  A spark of light flashes inside Jude’s head.

  “But you had a body.”

  Mack smirks, runs an open hand across his scalp.

  “Yeah, we had a clean stiff. But what we needed was scientific proof—forensics and trace evidence that could be attached directly to the monster himself.”

  “And a reliable eyewitness who was willing to walk the walk,” Jude adds, knowing full well where this was going.

  “An eyewitness like you,” Mack says, slate gray eyes burning holes into his son’s sternum.

  * * *

  Lifting the pitcher up off the table, Jude pours more water into his cup.

  At the same time, he’s asking himself these questions: is Hector Lennox a serial killer? Is he a serial killer with a talent and resources for reinventing his physical appearance and legal ID. to suit his needs? To blend into any environment he chooses?

  Mack lights another cigarette, exhales the smoke through his nostrils.

  “This is the part of the backstory where the weird takes a turn for the surreal,” he goes on. “Lennox is a militarily trained computer hacker. A talent he’s incorporated into the design and development of first-person video kill games.”

  “Kill games,” Jude repeats, his son’s numerous video game systems flashing through his mind. “Video kill games meaning violent video games.”

  “Video games that kids play precisely because of that violence. The plots are all the same: shoot and destroy; stalk and destroy; fight and destroy; Kung Fu and destroy. In clinical terms, impersonal perspective stealth action games that thrive on intense graphic violence. Their popularity is growing so large and fast that kids now spend more money on them than they do the movies. A fact that hasn’t gone unnoticed in Tinsel Town.”

  “Jesus Mack, for an old timer, you’ve been studying up.”

  “You have no idea.”

  Immediately Jude pictures his son Jack sitting up on his bed, big brown eyes glued to the TV, a plastic game controller in his hands. When was the last time they had gone to see a movie together?

  “With kill games,” Mack goes on, “the aggressor characters and their victims are modeled on real life human beings. At least in the physical sense. But what the thrill-kill game can not possibly convey is the sensitive nature of the human condition. Therefore, gone is the sense of fear, anger, adulation, panic, love, guilt … all those emotions one might naturally take for granted especially when associated with a man or woman in grave danger—a person fearing for his or her own life.”

  “Computers trying to mimic human beings,” Jude adds.

  “And failing miserably,” Mack insists. “First-person kill games lack the human element. They lack emotion and most of all a conscience. Let’s face it, they’re interactive cartoons. No one knows this better than Lennox. In his world, the killing of an innocent man or woman is not an act against civil and social mores. It represents a payoff, plain and simple. The more kills a player accomplishes, the more satisfied t
he player feels about him or herself, the more he or she desires.”

  “Okay so Lennox designs violent video games and at the same time he likes to kill people. But where do the two come together, Mack? How exactly does a make-believe video game make the leap to becoming a real life murder?”

  Pulling the spent cigarette from between his lips, Mack drops it into the coffee cup, stares into it, waits for the dousing hiss.

  “Through his Black Dragon alter ego, Lennox has sought out a way to capture the elusive human element.”

  “How exactly?”

  “We believe he abducts a victim, engages him in an elaborately designed first-person kill game. In that manner he’s able to observe how a human subject reacts to the chase.”

  “Kind of like an experiment.”

  “More like an experiment in terror and dying.”

  Now it’s Jude’s turn to bite down on his bottom lip; to contemplate the information his father has calmly conveyed.

  Crossing arms over chest he says, “Yeah, but why bother?”

  “Why bother killing?”

  “No, what I mean is, why bother with all the fuss, all the planning? Why risk it? Why not kill someone and be done with it?”

  Mack cocks his head to one side.

  “How’s the song go?” he asks. “‘The taste of blood is sweet?’ For Lennox, the taste of the kill game blood is even sweeter. He gets off on it. He gets off on the process. And now, from what you’re telling me about this morning, he enjoys capping off the thrill kill by recording the screams of his victims only seconds before their execution.”

  “The screams,” Jude says. “If Lennox likes to go for a big dose of reality in his video kill games, you think it’s possible he uses the real-life screams in his audio?”

  The old Captain nods.

  “Wouldn’t you?” he poses.

  * * *

  The interview room door flies open, giving Jude’s heart a start.

  Again the robot-like Lieutenant Lino—the L.G.P.D.’s newest top cop—steps inside.