The Scream Catcher Page 8

  Blanchfield nods.

  “It’s simply a matter of making the unreliable witness reliable,” she says.

  “I know what I saw,” Jude says.

  “That’s what you think,” Blanchfield says before heading back into her office.

  Office of the Warren County Prosecutor

  Tuesday, 2:55 P.M.

  The prosecutor closes the door behind her and, against department regs, locks it.

  Back at her desk she opens the bottom drawer, pulls out an old one quart bottle of Chevis and a clear drinking glass. With a trembling right hand, she pours herself a shot, brings the glass to her lips, pulls the whiskey down fast, stifling the throat-burning urge to choke. Allowing her system a quiet moment to calm itself, she pours another drink. Only this time she lets it sit out and breathe atop her desk.

  The intercom buzzes.

  Thumbing the key, she whispers, “What is it, Lois?”

  “There’s an old friend on line two, won’t give his name. Says you two ran into one another in court this morning. Do I get rid of him?”

  Blanchfield’s internal organs feel as if they’re about to squeeze themselves out her navel, one after the other. She knows she has no choice but to confront the caller.

  “Thank you,” she says, tapping line two with a manicured nail.

  Placing the phone to her ear, she mumbles a tentative, “This is P.J.”

  But there is only silence. Not a true silence. More like someone breathing heavily on the other end of the connection.

  “Hello, is anyone there?” she probes, voice now raised in proportion to her rising pulse.

  “Should the FBI decide to set up camp outside my door,” comes the soft, high-pitched voice, “or should you and your L.G.P.D. become aggressive during the course of your, shall we say, preliminary investigation, I will have no choice but to expose the truth about your campaign for Warren County’s first female Prosecutor. Am I clear on this?”

  Blanchfield eyes the whiskey glass. She picks it up with her free hand, places it to her teeth. Tipping it up, she swallows.

  “Crystal,” she chokes.

  “I’ll be in touch from time to time over the next seventy-two hours,” says the caller. “But one thing you can start on right now is finding a way for me to remove this uncomfortable piece of ankle jewelry.”

  When she hears a hang up, the prosecutor puts down the phone. She sits back in her chair, senses a hole burning in her throat.

  She thinks:

  Choices . . .

  . . . Do the right thing. Nail Lennox to the wall for Murder One. Ignore his threats. Stop at nothing to see that the bastard gets a special appointment for lethal injection. Only when the Black Dragon is dead and buried will I be free!

  Or . . .

  . . . Do the wrong thing: do nothing. Rather, go through the motions of a prosecution but defy the gag order. Go public with persistent doubts that will plague the investigation results the entire way. Make it look real good. But uncover nothing concrete that will lead to an indictment. Squash any and all trace evidence. Make Jude Parish look unreliable at best—a basket-case only worse; a victim of his own fears and doubts. Put off his psych evaluation until after the hearing. Lie, lie, lie, even if the State Attorney General himself calls, demands an update on the case file. Above all, do not give Lennox a reason to talk before, during or after the preliminary hearing; a reason to reveal the precise nature of our brief relationship. Do not risk your career, everything you’ve worked so hard for!

  Her decision made, Blanchfield pours herself yet another shot.

  Peering over her shoulder, she glances up at the framed newspaper headline announcing her victory as Lake George’s first female prosecutor. She views the photograph that accompanies the headline—all those politicians and financial supporters who surround the podium on which she stands addressing her newly beloved public.

  Picking up the telephone, she dials the L.G.P.D., asks for the officer in charge of monitoring the murder suspect’s surveillance bracelet via G.P.S. She can’t help but consider Captain Mack’s outward concerns over the possible fallibility of such a relatively new and untested electronic monitoring device. That in mind, she’d like to request an immediate on-site briefing with the young man down inside the basement spaces of the village precinct, just to put her own mind at ease.

  Assembly Point Peninsula

  Tuesday, 3:30 P.M.

  When Jude arrives back at the house late that afternoon, he finds Rosie inside her small top floor office. Having become a maker of custom jewelry in her new life as wife and mother, she’s sitting at her converted roll-top desk, bright lamp illuminating a desktop filled with multi-colored beads, stones, hoops, stars, rolls of string, wire fasteners, and all varieties of stainless steel hand tools.

  “Hope I’m not interrupting,” he says, shoulder perched against the jamb.

  Rosie looks up at her husband, immediately puts down her work. Jumping up from her desk, she comes to Jude, hugs him tight. He feels her warm body through the sweatpants. He smells her sweet, smooth skin.

  “I was worried,” she says. “News of the murder was on T.V.”

  “Doesn’t take long for the vultures to start circling.”

  Rosie raises her right hand, gently touches the butterfly bandage stuck to the ex-cop’s head.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “A little headache. But it was only a slight graze.”

  Pulling away, Rosie brushes back long, dark brown hair. Hair that matches brown, almond-shaped eyes.

  “What’s the press saying?” Jude inquires.

  “That there was a homicide in the back lot of Sweeney’s gym. That there was an eyewitness.”

  “They put a name to that eyewitness?”

  With a quick shake of her head, Rosie sets an open hand gently on her blossoming belly.

  “Names of both the eyewitness and the accused are being withheld pending a gag order.” Exhaling. “Jude, what is going on?”

  “What time is it?”

  Rosie, glancing at her watch.

  “Going on four.”

  “Where’s Jack?”

  “Day camp. But he won’t be home until after dark.”

  “Tell you what,” he says. “I’m going to shower. After I get dressed, I’ll take you to an early dinner at the Algonquin. It might be easier to let you know what’s going on over an Aspen burger and a cold beer.”

  The Algonquin Restaurant/West side of Lake George

  Tuesday, 4:30 P.M.

  Jude and Rosie are seated on the back, dock-side patio of the open air restaurant.

  Their table has an umbrella that blocks out the late day sun. The table is set in a way that allows for an open view of the wood docks, the many pleasure craft tied off to their beams, and the wide open lake beyond them.

  Rosie wears a cropped white top that shows off her four month pregnancy and thin, dark sunglasses over her eyes. With long dark hair combed back over her forehead, she has the look of a movie star who’s arrived in Lake George for a location shoot.

  In contrast, Jude dons his usual uniform of worn Levis, work boots and snug-fitting forest green T-shirt impressed with white letters that spell out, “Breadloaf Writer’s Conference ’09.” Maybe he doesn’t fit the bill of the movie star’s sig other, but he might pass for the bodyguard.

  While Rosie gingerly sips an early afternoon Virgin Mary, Jude swigs the first of what he hopes will be several cold Budweiser long necks. At the same time, he gives his wife a detailed accounting of the morning’s murder.

  By the time he finishes, the food arrives.

  Rosie has a turkey club, Jude the Aspen burger he promised himself earlier. The Aspen burger substitutes blue cheese dressing for the usual slice of American.

  “So let me get this straight,” says Rosie after a beat. “The killer not only goes by the name Christian Barter, but his fingerprints, his face, his I.D., even his voice support the fact that he is not Hector Lennox. Because, after all
, Lennox died in Paris a year ago.”

  “Mack is convinced that Lennox faked his death and has since undergone extensive reconstructive surgery.” He steals a swallow of his second cold beer. “It’s not all that uncommon. People who enter the federal protective custody program regularly fake their deaths, then engage in facial and voice reconstruction before changing their names.”

  Rosie exhales, sets her right hand gently atop her pregnant belly.

  “And if Christian Barter is really the alive and happy Hector Lennox—a man who is suspected of two other murders in Lake George—that would make him a serial killer . . . Technically speaking.”

  Jude nodding.

  “Provided the M.O.s for all three murders remain consistent. Blanchfield seems to be counting on it.”

  “And now this serial . . . what do you call it? . . . kill gamer? . . . has returned to the region in order to unleash his death and destruction in the form of a video inspired kill game.” It’s a question sprinkled with more than a little cynicism.

  “Which is a video game played not with a computer but with real live people and, in this case, my lovely wife, real, genuine screams.”

  “Screams,” Rosie repeats.

  Nodding, Jude says, “Our killer gamer is also a scream catcher. He likes to use his iPhone to record the screams of his victims before he kills them. He then adds the actual audio to the game.”

  “How sick,” Rosie says.

  “How inventively sick,” the ex-cop agrees.

  But even for Jude, the eyewitness, the story of Hector Lennox is beginning to sound like a lost episode of the Twilight Zone.

  “And by sheer coincidence you just happened to witness one of these kill games and nearly got yourself killed in the process.” Thoughtfully, Rosie sips her drink while the lake laps up against the dock. “So, where does the safety and well-being of your family—present and future—fit into all this?”

  Jude can’t help but feel his stomach tighten against the Aspen burger that fills it.

  “If you don’t want me to testify,” he says. “If you feel frightened by my involvement in this case, I’ll back out, no questions asked.”

  Rosie swallows more of her drink. A long swallow that verges on a chug, as if it were filled with booze.

  “Not fair,” she says coming up for air. “This isn’t up to me. It’s up to you. You have to do what you think is right and you have to do it with your family in mind—your wife, your little boy. Your. Little. Girl.” Giving her belly a pat. “We’re what’s at stake in this thing, case you haven’t considered it.”

  Jude swallows something cold and hard. He’s been considering the risks all morning long, amongst a dozen other reasons why he should back out.

  “Have you thought this thing through, Jude? What happens if Lennox comes after you? What happens if he comes after us?”

  “If you want me to drop out, Rosie, I’ll understand. I don’t want this to scare you.”

  “Come on, Jude. I appreciate your offering to quit on the prosecution for my sake, but let’s face it, sounds to me like you’ve already committed.”

  Draining beer number two, Jude peers out the corner of his eye in search of the waitress and beer number three. Maybe this time he will cut to the chase and order two bottles instead of one, drown the demon inside his chest in a tsunami of alcohol and suds.

  “I am already committed to putting Lennox away,” he nods. “But . . .”

  “But what?”

  “But believe me when I say that that commitment does not override your feelings.”

  “You might be doing the right thing morally, Jude. But this conversation is beginning to verge on patronization.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “You are entertaining my feelings for the sake of entertaining my feelings. Under the circumstances, you feel testifying is the right thing . . . No, the only thing to do.”

  An inland gull swoops down from the bright sky. It lands on the dock, sticks its long neck and head into the water, comes back out with a small fish in its beak, then takes off again, lake water splashing from the wings that slap it.

  Rosie is right. Jude has been patronizing her. He just didn’t know he was patronizing her. In any case, he’s trying to act like the good husband. Act, being the key word.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “But it’s important for me to know your mindset.”

  “The situation concerns me,” Rosie says. “No. Actually it frightens the daylights out of me. I feel vulnerable. For me, for Jack, for the baby. Mostly for you.”

  “It scares me too. But, on the other hand, there’s a voice in my head telling me that testifying is something I have to do.”

  Rosie sets her eyes down on the tabletop.

  She says, “I know how much you’ve suffered since the terrible Elizabeth Bay thing. And now you have something to prove.”

  She has this tight, pensive look on her face that does not go unnoticed by Jude. The expression goes well with the sunglasses. It also tells him that his wife has not quite finished her thought.

  “But . . .”

  “But you don’t have a thing to prove. What happened to you this morning and back at the Burns cabin—the freezing up, the fear. You see a psychologist to work on a problem that stems from your childhood, from the murder of your parents. What’s happening inside your head has nothing to do with bravery or respect or how people look at you.”

  “Mack thinks that testifying will be good for me. He thinks it’ll kill my demon.”

  “You have to do what’s right for you and your immediate family. Not for Mack or anybody else.”

  Jude presses his lips together. Again, Rosie is hitting the mark. But that doesn’t change the fact that his decision is made.

  “I am going to testify, Rosie. I’m sorry.”

  “Then why did you ask my permission in the first place?”

  Jude looks out onto the lake.

  “I didn’t know I was asking your permission.”

  “Then what is this?”

  “I suppose I was asking you for your support.”

  “Support because testifying is the right thing to do? Or support because you have no choice in the matter?”

  There it is again, the gut wrenching feeling—the sensation that the demon has grabbed hold of his stomach with its claws and is wringing it out like a wet dishrag.

  “All of the above,” he swallows.

  Rosie looks down at her near empty glass, exhales.

  Jude drinks from a new beer. A long deep swallow.

  Raising up her drink, Rosie makes like proposing a toast.

  In turn, Jude raises his beer bottle, taps the rim of her glass.

  “To a long happy life,” he proposes.

  Bringing the glass back to her lips, Rosie shoots down what’s left of her Virgin Mary in a single swallow.

  “Go to hell,” she says.

  Assembly Point Peninsula

  Wednesday, 1:34 A.M.

  Wide awake, Jude rolls around restlessly in the big feather bed, ears locked on to the rhythm of the lake splashing gently against the dock. Rains come in so swift and horizontally wind-driven that it spatters against the window screens. It’s useless wishing sleep on. Especially with all that will be expected of the ex-cop come sunrise and Blanchfield’s crime scene reenactment behind Sweeney’s gym.

  Sleep might be elusive, but it will be essential if he is expected to think clearly.

  No doubt about it: Jude needs to take action. Which means quietly slipping out of bed, heading down into the kitchen to where the medicines are stored inside the cabinet above the sink. For his injured head, he swallows two Advil with a glass of water. For his insomnia, he swallows a fifteen milligram Ambien. Making his way back up to bed, he slips back under the covers without Rosie being the least bit aware.

  He closes his eyes onto darkness. He cannot shake the image of Lennox’s blue-eyed face. Not the brightly lit mug of the police line-up, but the shadowy mask he witn
essed behind Sweeney’s Gym. He pictures long dreadlocked hair, white goatee, muscular chest and arms; pictures the beast sleeping an unconscionable sleep, free of the bars of a county jail cell. Accompanying the vision is a soundtrack of screams. Not just the scream of the man Lennox killed this morning. But the screams of all his victims, known and unknown.

  Maybe the entire three mile expanse of Lake George separates eyewitness from killer, but the only thing keeping them apart is a G.P.S.-guided surveillance monitoring ankle bracelet. And according to Judge Mann, that’s enough.

  Jude’s runaway brain does not stop there.

  He pictures Mack.

  He can only assume that the old captain will be tossing and turning in his own bed, wondering if he’s done the right thing in encouraging his son’s testimony. Jude knows how much Mack doesn’t trust the surveillance bracelet technology. He also knows that although he isn’t saying much about it, Mack doesn’t place the greatest confidence in P.J. Blanchfield as a prosecutor either.

  While the rains pour down, Jude turns over, opens his eyes, stares at his wife. Although she’s reluctantly pledged her support for his testifying against Lennox, he can’t ignore the questions that rattle inside his skull like ball-bearings inside a piggy bank:

  What if Lennox is able to beat the court system a second time?

  What if the Preliminary Hearing results in a “no bill”?

  Or what if Lennox—the Black Dragon himself—somehow manages to slip the lock on the surveillance bracelet?

  Will he retaliate against me? Against us?

  The procession of faces continues with his boy, his unborn daughter. As their father, Jude’s priority one is to see that they are well cared for, safe from monsters and beasts. That’s the silent oath he took the moment he decided to bring up children. Nothing shall come in the way of that commitment. Not pride, not duty to one’s own father or duty to the metal shield he no longer carries inside his wallet.

  Lying in bed, head pressed into the down pillow, Jude can’t help but think that by taking on the kill game trial he has broken that sacred oath.