Scream Catcher Read online

  P.J. Blanchfield sets a hand on Mack’s shoulder before rising.

  “Your honor,” she speaks softly. “Hector Lennox is suspected of two further counts of murder. Your releasing him on bail poses at least the possibility of placing the eyewitness and his family in reasonable jeopardy or in harm’s way.”

  “Allow me to correct you, Ms. Blanchfield,” Mann shoots back. “Hector Lennox was charged with one count of murder four years ago. Those charges were dropped due to insufficient evidence as cited by your office. Lennox has since disappeared from my town and has been reported as deceased.” Pulling the glasses back off. “From what I am made to understand according to the prosecutor’s complaint, the man we have before us is not Hector Lennox but Christian Jordan. Not only does his ID support that fact, but so does an initial fingerprint and facial analysis.”

  He pauses a moment, as though allowing his words to sink in. Squinting, he looks Lennox up and down and up again.

  “Jesus, P.J., this man doesn’t even look like Lennox.”

  Again, Mack practically pressing his lips up against Jude’s right ear.

  “Backwards county judge assumes surgical alterations are science fiction.”

  “There something you wish to add, Capt. Mack?” Mann abruptly barks.

  Startled, Mack looks up.

  “How about ordering the defendant to submit to a DNA test, Judge?”

  Mann’s face goes red. Jude can tell then that the Judge does not appreciate being told how to run his court.

  Mann says, “How about bringing me some solid proof on Friday that this man murdered that Glens Falls convenience store owner and I’ll be happy to give the go ahead for a DNA evaluation.” A sour expression painting his face, Mann sits back, stuffs both hands inside his black robe, exhales deeply. “In the meantime, tell you what I’m willing to do, P.J. In the interest of everyone’s safety. I’m going to order that the Defendant be fitted with an electronic surveillance ankle bracelet in order to ensure that his whereabouts be both monitored and restricted to his home at all times over the next seventy-two hours. You come back to me with evidence that states this man is not only the gravel pit killer but in fact the miraculous reincarnation of Hector Lennox, I’ll grant your remand to county lockup and I’ll go a step further; I’ll personally order a Grand Jury convened down in Albany as soon as humanly possible. Is that a fair compromise?”

  Jude can’t help but eye the man he now knows for certain is Hector Lennox in disguise. The former cop was pretty sure of Lennox’s real ID prior to the arraignment, but now he’s convinced of it. It’s common knowledge that people can manage to fake their deaths given they have the cash to make it happen. Now so has Lennox. Jude knows this primarily because of the way Lennox defiantly crosses arms over chest, grows a smile best described as shit-eating.

  Or perhaps it’s Jude and Mack who’ve been made to eat shit.

  Jude has seen smiles like that during his time on the cop job and it can only mean one thing: by being granted what amounts to a conditional bail, their Black Dragon boy is playing a game by pulling the steel wool over the Judge’s eyes. To make it worse, the pony-tailed Harley man himself—Wild Bill Stark—is issuing Lennox a quiet but somehow screaming thumbs up.

  When Mann stands and the gavel comes down it resonates throughout the courthouse like an exploding firework.

  “This court is adjourned until Friday, fifteen August,” he barks before stepping down from the riser, escaping into his chambers like a rat into its hole.

  * * *

  Now instead of feeling numb, Jude feels like he’s about to be sick. He can’t remove himself from the courthouse fast enough to ingest a dose of fresh air. The demon inside of him has been awakened.

  Does Judge Mann truly consider him an unreliable witness? Or is his ineffectiveness during the Burns murder/suicide still haunting him? Is he considered a coward in Mann’s eyes? A former cop who folded under the slightest pressure?

  Burns turns, shoulders the shotgun, points it directly at his wife and daughter, where they sit huddled in the cabin corner. He cocks a round into the chamber at the precise moment the S.W.A.T. team bursts in through the windows and back door. Standing within reach of Burns is Jude Parish. But the newly assigned Violent Crimes detective isn’t doing a thing to stop the would-be killer. The new detective is frozen on the spot. Paralyzed …

  Whatever the answers to these questions, Jude feels like he’s done enough damage already,that the smart thing to do now is to simply dismiss himself from the proceedings. Cut bait and run while he still has a chance.

  He starts down the newly laid marble steps, his father right on his tail.

  “Maybe I should change my mind,” he says. “Maybe I should drop out.”

  Grabbing his son by the arm, the old Captain stops him dead.

  “You’re right. I should tell you to get out now,” Mack says. “But I can’t do it. You have to nail Lennox in three days at the Prelim, get his bail revoked.”

  Jude stands on the third of six descending steps. He’s staring at Mack’s hand, where it’s grabbed hold of his own right, sweat-shirted arm.

  “You heard the Judge,” he presses. “I’m unreliable. There’s not going to be an indictment based upon my testimony.”

  “We’ll make you reliable.”

  “That still leaves you with a doubting Judge and the most timid prosecutor I’ve ever seen at work.”

  Pulling his arms away from his father’s hold, Jude descends the last of the steps until he stands on the concrete landing. Anger swells inside the ex-cop. But then he can’t be sure if he is more angry with Mack for pushing him into this mess or angry with himself for having been so willingly pushed. Whatever the source, Jude tries to avoid letting the anger get the best of him, clouding his judgment.

  Mack takes a breath. He stares down at the tops of his shoes as though preparing himself to take a different approach.

  Raising his head back up, he says, “You remember back in the fifth grade, you begged me all summer long to sign you up for Pop Warner football even though you weighed ninety-five pounds soaking wet? You remember how you wouldn’t leave it alone even though I was dead against it? Until finally, against my better judgment, I brought you down to the field and they suited you up.”

  In his head Jude tries to picture that kid. Just a scrappy little guy, too big helmet floating on his head, shoulder pads draped down over chest and back, baggy football pants held up with an old piece of clothesline tied in a knot. He was the smallest kid on a field surrounded by giants.

  Yeah, he remembers it all right. Like it was yesterday.

  “Well I know you recall that first hit you took because you can probably still feel it. After an entire summer of begging me to play, you crawled off the field after practice and begged me to let you quit. You were afraid of being hit again.”

  Jude breathes in and out. Even at forty-five years old, he still feels the embarrassment of that moment swimming in his veins. He feels the fear like it has never left him.

  He says, “But you wouldn’t let me quit, would you, Mack?”

  “Damn right I wouldn’t let you quit. I knew that if you gave up that easily you would forever give up on anything just because you were afraid.” The old Captain exhales. “Consider this de-ja-vu all over again. Just an hour ago you were ready and willing to take on Lennox with your bear hands. Now you’re ready to give in to your fear just because some half-witted county Judge has questioned your reliability as a witness.”

  Jude stares into Mack’s slate gray eyes. The same eyes he looked into as a boy coming off the football field, pants falling down around his knees, eyes tearing, head ringing like a bell.

  Raising his right hand high, Mack points directly to the courthouse.

  “Inside that building is your chance to destroy the demon inside your soul. You back out now it’s just another way of giving up.”

  Turning, Jude eyes Tongue Mountain poised large and not too distant over the vill
age rooftops. He can’t explain why exactly, but he contemplates the silver-brown rattlesnakes that at this very moment are making their silent, slithering trek from the lake up its forest-covered terra firma where they lay their eggs. At the same time he’s picturing his son and his wife. In the back of his head comes the sound of adrenalin speeding through veins and capillaries … an orchestra of overwound nerves pulsing their way up to major crescendo.

  “I can’t make you do it,” Mack adds. “I can only ask you to do what’s right.”

  Jude’s stomach twists itself inside out. The demon wreaking havoc on his insides. He opens his mouth, as if to say something. But no words will come. All he can manage is to nod his head. In the affirmative.

  Mack runs his hand over razor-stubbled face, experiences a sigh-of-relief moment.

  Peering over his shoulder, Jude now looks upon the white beach and the calm lake that continually laps at it. That’s when, without warning, he feels his bowels turn to water. Shooting back up the courthouse stairs, he makes a beeline for the first floor men’s room.

  15

  Warren County Courthouse

  Tuesday, 2:05 P.M.

  Two uniformed police officers—one man, one woman—guard the main entrance to the courthouse, its vestibule security checkpoint and airport style, walk-through metal detector. Outside the front marble façade of the brand new building, a group of Girl Scouts sit circled on the flat green lawn around a woman dressed in a long green skirt with a red kerchief wrapped about her head. When the woman lays herself out long and flat on her side, some of her long brunette hair slips out from underneath the cloth and blows wildly in the wind.

  All the young girls are dressed in short green jumpers. They hold sketchpads in their free hands, pieces of black charcoal in their drawing hands. They stare intently at the prone woman, patiently adding a line here or a curve there to the sketchpads.

  An old man walking with the aid of a cane steps up behind one of the girls, stares down at her drawing. When finally the auburn-haired girl notices him out the corner of her eye, she automatically pulls the sketchpad up flat against her green-jumpered chest. She smiles red-faced while the old man shakes his head and hobbles on.

  Per Judge Mann’s decree, Christian Jordan (a.k.a. Hector Lennox; a.k.a. the Black Dragon) is free to descend the courthouse steps. He is accompanied by a uniformed cop who will lead him directly to his apartment where he will subject to house arrest.

  Mack is standing alone when he spots the beast dead on.

  The summer wind blows cool off the lake. But the wind seems to cease the moment Lennox and the old Captain lock eyes. Mack is perched on the concrete landing, his slate gray eyes doing the man dance with the killer’s ice blue eyes from a distance of maybe twenty-five feet. The eyes never disconnect while the blond Lennox makes the short climb down each marble step, one at a time, the glares that came from the two L.G.P.D. officers never veering far from the backside of the accused and his police escort.

  Wrapped around Lennox’s left ankle, its weight pressing down against the high-top basketball sneaker, is the thick Electronic Surveillance Bracelet. His narrow goateed face is a billboard of smiles. The happy face becomes all the happier the closer he comes to the old Captain.

  Now standing on the landing that extends beyond the Girl Scouts out to the Village sidewalk, Lennox faces the shorter but thicker Mack from a distance of maybe five feet. He lets loose with a high-pitched laugh. For Mack, the laugh acts like a lit match suddenly dropped into a bucket of high grade gasoline. Only this firestorm erupts inside his chest and head.

  “You go near my son, Lennox,” he says, “and I’ll kill you.”

  The kill gamer glances over his shoulder, at the two cops standing four-square atop the courthouse steps, at the third cop poised only a few feet away from him. He then throws a wide-eyed glance towards the circle of Girl Scouts.

  “It’s Jordan, Captain,” he corrects. “Little Hector is dead.” Stepping closer to the Captain he whispers, “If you close your eyes and listen carefully, you can hear the sound of Hector’s screams. He screams for you Captain, and your boy, Jude.”

  Heading out across the lawn, Lennox runs a hand through the long auburn hair of a seated Girl Scout before the escorting cop grabs hold of his arm, pulls him towards the crowded village.

  16

  Office of the Warren County Prosecutor

  Tuesday, 2:32 P.M.

  Inside the eighth floor office Jude sits beside his father in a polished wood chair.

  P.J. Blanchfield stands behind her desk in her blue blazer, white button down and matching skirt. She’s the epitome of clean and confident despite the disappointing outcome of the arraignment.

  Jude can’t help but notice that she’s a tall, athletic, handsome woman with straight strawberry blond hair cut neatly just above broad shoulders. What Rosie might enviously refer to as “drop dead gorgeous.” Thick lips, sallow cheeks, hazel eyes complete the presentation of a go-getter, a winner. A take-no-prisoners kind of brass-knuckled woman.

  At the same time, here’s the same woman who faced Lennox in court once before and lost. Here’s the same woman who, in Jude’s mind anyway, should have been screaming at Judge Mann to wake up and smell the coffee—the blond dreadlocked man who stood before his bench was not only the gravel pit killer, but the prodigal return of the devil himself.

  To the right of Blanchfield’s desk stands a large antique glass case. Displayed inside are four basketballs, each with a different year scribbled on them in bright silver Sharpie. The basketballs are trophies that hearken back from Blanchfield’s glory days at Providence College where she played women’s hoops on a full athletic scholarship. So she is quick to explain during the nervous small talk period immediately following Jude’s and Mack’s entrance into the top floor office. Neatly framed above the basketball cabinet is the front page of the local newspaper bearing the headline “Blanchfield Steals County Prosecutor!”

  The headline is accompanied by a photo of a slightly younger but no less attractive woman standing at a podium that’s been set on the steps of the new courthouse. In the picture Jude can see that she’s addressing a crowd of Lake George supporters. Surrounding her on the podium are several town dignitaries, Mack and Judge Mann included.

  Sitting herself down, the prosecutor plants forearms atop the desk.

  “Your cooperation is sorely appreciated, Mr. Parish,” she starts off by saying. “Especially now that conditional bail has been granted and satisfied. Naturally, Christian Jordan has twenty-four hours to produce a passport.”

  “Lennox,” Mack jumps in. “His name is Hector Lennox.” Then he coughs and says something that takes his son by surprise: “Under the circumstances, P.J., I’m seriously considering asking Jude to reevaluate his involvement in this case.”

  Blanchfield turns quickly, eyes on Jude. If she were in possession of an Adam’s apple, it might bob up and down in her throat.

  “Have you had a change of heart, Mr. Parish?”

  Jude shoots his father a look like, Aren’t you the one who insisted I stay the course? But then it dawns on him that the old Captain is putting on a bluff at the good prosecutor’s expense.

  “Here’s the way I see it,” Mack answers in his son’s stead. “If we want Jude to go through with his testimony, then I must see to it that he and his family are thoroughly protected. You on the other hand, must do everything in your power to make sure this quote—Christian Jordan—unquote, is exposed for the man he really is. Anything less and Jude calls off the wedding.”

  “So long as your son remains committed to the cause, I am confident that we can give it a fair shot,” Blanchfield says.

  Mack coughs again.

  “Our killer wasn’t supposed to make bail either.”

  The prosecutor’s face appears to lose all its color. It seems to petrify beneath its thin patina of powder and rouge.

  She says, “With all due respect, Captain, don’t be fooled into believing this c
ase—if it indeed remains a case—will prove open and shut.” Crossing arms over chest. “Jude is a highly unreliable eyewitness. Apparently Judge Mann is a reader and a fan of Jude’s work. Or perhaps he vividly recalls the actual Elizabeth Bay incident that formed the basis of Jude’s book. That said, whether Jude was knocked unconscious before or after he got a good look at Lennox is apparently open to conjecture for the good Judge.”

  Jude knows his father like he knows himself. He can tell by the old Captain’s stabbing eyes and pouty mouth that he does not trust Blanchfield. After all, not only did Lennox manage to best her in court before, the killer just scored again in that morning’s arraignment.

  Perking up, the prosecutor says, “What we do have on our side however, is circumstance and probable cause.”

  “And there is the matter of a long-standing gag order,” Mack adds.

  “Right you are, Captain. That alone should keep the media hounds at bay, keep them from creating a media frenzy and panic. However, that does not mean that life will be any easier for us.” Eyes shifting to Jude. “If Judge Mann does not consider you a completely reliable eyewitness, then neither will a jury.”

  “My son is a decorated former officer of the law,” Mack chimes in.

  “And there you have my single reason for entertaining Jude’s testimony.” Her undivided attention again directed onto Jude. “I want your full cooperation in taking me and my team back to the crime scene. I intend to walk through every step of the murder as it happened. If we can match up this morning’s M.O. with the M.O.s of the previous two murders, we just might have something to go on.

  “In the meantime I’m ordering a full psych evaluation on you. I will not tolerate Lennox challenging your sanity when the county names you as its number one witness come Friday morning.” Blanchfield forces a smile. “You are sane, are you not, Jude?”