Scream Catcher Read online

  “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 tight stomach 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.

  19

  Assembly Point Peninsula

  Wednesday, 1:34 A.M.

  Wide awake, Jude rolls around restlessly in the big feather bed, ears locked onto the rhythm of the lake splashing gently against the dock. Rains come in so swift and horizontally wind-driven that they spatter 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 lineup, but the shadowy mask he witnessed behind Sweeney’s Gym. He pictures long dreadlocked hair, white goatee, muscular chest and arms; pictures the beast sleeping a conscienceless 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 GPS-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.

  * * *

  When sleep finally comes, Jude does not find peace.

  In its place, he sees the faces of the dead.

  The Burns victims stand at the end of his bed, the fair-haired mother in her pajamas, exit wound in her cheek red and purple where the broken skin flaps over itself; the smaller daughter still wearing blond pigtails, the wound in her forehead dripping blood. Jude watches their faces as they open and close their mouths as if wanting desperately to say something to him. Maybe they are trying to issue a warning. In his dream he sees himself lying in bed. He’s raising himself up, holding out his hands for the mother and daughter. In turn they are holding their arms out for him. In his sleep Jude is very afraid because he cannot be sure who is trying to save who …

  Startled awake, Jude opens his eyes fully aware that the dream is over, but somehow still feeling its effects and its paralyzing fear. He finds himself caught up in the grips of the demon, trapped in a strange place somewhere between the medicated sleep state and the conscious state.

  Outside the window he hears the wail of a cat above the steady rain. It sounds horribly enough like a baby in pain, maybe even dying. His heart beats rapidly, even though his body is sedated, exhausted. He can’t help but think that Lennox is standing right outside his home. Maybe even inside his bedroom. Hector “the Black Dragon” Lennox eyeing Jude and his pregnant wife while they sleep, an iPhone in one hand and a .22 caliber pistol in the other.

  “Scream. For. Me.”

  The cat wails again.

  The clouds burst with rain.

  Jude closes his eyes.

  Despite a pounding heart he begins to drift.

  Like a man hopelessly sinking into the lake’s deepest, darkest waters, it’s not long before he is gone.

  20

  Assembly Point Peninsula

  Wednesday, 4:50 A.M.

  He’s up before the alarm.

  In the bathroom off the bedroom, he peers into the mirror, into a tired face covered in stubble. He yanks the old gauze bandage off his head and observes the butterfly bandage. It’s healing nicely. For a brief moment, Jude considers going without a new dressing, but per doctor’s orders, he applies a new piece of gauze held in place with two strips of white surgical tape.

  Back in the bedroom, he slips into his sweats, and steps into his running shoes.

  The sweats feel strange on his body. He wore them the previous day. All day. They’ve been sweated in, bled in, and rained on. Now they feel different somehow. Dry but far too stiff. But then maybe the change is coming from himself, from deep down inside.

  His life changed yesterday.

  Today will bring more of it.

  * * *

  Outside in the dark second floor hall, he faces his son’s closed bedroom door. Ears bristling to a cacophony of automatic gunfire, the ex-cop opens the door only to discover the bushy-haired ten year old sitting up in bed, a wireless video game controller gripped in bo
th hands.

  As though oblivious to his father’s unexpected entrance, the boy’s wide eyes remain fixed intently on a TV positioned on a stand directly across from the foot of the bed. On the monitor a computer-animated man wearing sunglasses and dressed in policeman’s uniform blues is shooting a bad guy with an automatic. When the bad guy’s head explodes in a cloud of blood and brain matter, its torso dropping to the floor, the telltale words “YOU WIN” fill the screen.

  “Jack, it’s four-thirty in the morning. A little early to be killing people.”

  Thumbing pause, the boy turns to his father. He’s smiling round-faced but raccoon-eyed tired.

  “He’s not really dead, dad,” the boy is quick to point out. But then just as quick he cocks his head in order to correct himself. “Well, he’s dead all right. But he’ll be alive again in the next game. Get it?”

  “Oh, you mean he’ll have a new head … Just like in real life.”

  Jack, squinting.

  “Funny, dad.”

  Taking a few steps into the bedroom, Jude steals a quick glance at the posters thumb-tacked to the log walls. Innocent posters for an innocent boy. Sponge Bob Squarepants, the planets of the solar system, assorted dinosaurs. The brilliant colors of the posters are illuminated only by the television’s radiance.

  As a father, Jude knows he has two options for handling the situation. He can either reprimand the boy for being up so early in the morning playing a video game. Or he can go another route.

  “You feeling sick?” he asks, setting the back of his hand onto the boy’s cool brow.

  Jack shakes his head.

  “Just can’t sleep is all.”

  Jude takes a seat onto the edge of the bed, holds out his hand, palm up. Without protest, Jack sets the controller into it. As he slides back under the blanket, Jude can’t help but notice the moist coating that covers much of the smooth plastic—residue from tense palms and fingers.

  “Listen,” Jude offers. “Is this all about the dark monster again? Because you and me, we know how to deal with the mythical Lake George dark monster.”

  Smiling, the boy pulls the blanket up tight beneath his chin.

  “I can’t see nothing in the dark,” he states, kid voice made purposely low, as if to imitate a big brave man.

  “And if you can’t see nothing in the dark, then the dark monster must be one big giant nothing. And it’s a law of physics that nothing can’t hurt us.”

  Jack, now wearing a sleepy ear-to-ear smile.

  “No dark monsters round here,” he adds.

  “For immediate release: all dark monsters are hereby banished from planet earth.”

  Rising, Jude flips off the TV, heads for the open bedroom door.

  “You get some sleep. When I get back from my run, I’ll make you some eggs.”

  “And bacon.”

  A loon cries out from the lake. The high-pitched wail causes the skin on the back of Jude’s neck to tingle. As he approaches the door, Jack presses himself into his pillow, tucks the blanket tight over his head, leaving only a round face exposed to the dark.

  “Dad,” he says.

  “What is it?”

  “What do you think it’s like when you really die?”

  Jude finds himself glancing at the video game controller set out onto the desk. In his mind he sees the head of that bad guy explode. At the same time, he feels his throat close up.

  “It’s like going to sleep, I imagine. Only, you don’t wake up to play again.”

  The boy is strangely silent as though trying to comprehend not waking up.

  “Oh,” he says finally.

  “Good night, Mr. Jack.”

  “Night, dad.”

  On his way out, Jude closes the door behind him.

  As he makes his way down the hall towards the home’s dark interior, he feels the need to fight off the demon inside him with slow, calm breaths.

  * * *

  Down inside the kitchen, he pours a glass of orange juice, then pulls apart an English muffin, pops it in the toaster. The muffin toasted, he butters it, sets it and the juice down onto the kitchen table. He turns on the kitchen television, changes it to a new station based in Glens Falls that carries the local twenty-four hour news. While slowly eating the English muffin he watches a news report about a car being fished from the Hudson.

  The caption beneath the video reads “Getaway vehicle located.”

  Maybe it isn’t all that easy to make out in the video since the recording was shot in the deep night with only bright mobile spotlights for illumination, but as the crane hoists the car up and out of the water, Jude can see that the model and make is a Lexus sedan. Color silver.

  The exact car it turns out that Lennox made his getaway in.

  Just the sight of the car and all those Lake George firemen, state police and emergency technicians surrounding it as it is slowly lowered to the banks makes the demon perk up. It makes his heart pump, his breathing shallow. This much he knows: now that the car has been discovered it will be scoured for evidence. They will try and determine to whom the car was registered.

  Mack must be all over the new development.

  For a moment, he considers calling his father for an update. But then Mack probably had a rough night too. A night without much sleep.

  Jude would wake up a sleeping bear before waking his adoptive father.

  As the daylight begins to emerge from over the mountains to the east, he chews the final bit of English muffin, drinks the last swallow of juice. He makes his way out the front door where he is greeted by the overcast sky and a misty rain. He steps down off the porch, stretches his legs while breathing in the cool, almost metallic smell of the north county air. Maybe it has something to do with the discovery of Lennox’s sedan, but the clean air energizes him, fills him with an odd but welcome sense of optimism.

  Turning, he spots the Jeep Cruiser parked up past the end of the gravel drive along the hard-packed gravel Assembly Point Road. Through the side window he can make out the newly assigned personal witness protection bodyguard. The supercop himself: Ray Fuentes. With the interior light on in the Jeep, Jude can see that his old friend is wearing this larger than large Cheshire cat smile on his round face.

  That smile tells him Ray’s got doughnuts.

  Making his way through the mist up to the Jeep, Jude walks around to the driver’s side, knuckle-taps the window. Even before Ray rolls it down he can see the large Styrofoam cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee that rests in the center console holder. Beside it on the empty shotgun seat is an open box of doughnuts. Not much in the way of variety. Cinnamon mostly, along with a few strawberries frosted for a little added color.

  “You gonna eat that whole box now copper?”

  Fuentes shakes his head, carefully sips the coffee, sets it back down in the holder.

  “I prefer to make the memories last,” the big man smiles.

  Reaching around for the box, he invitingly holds it up for Jude.

  “After my run.”

  “Health snob.”

  “I’ll be back in thirty.”

  “Unh uh, pal,” Fuentes barks, round head now part way out the open window. “My orders—and they come directly from Mack—are to restrict all access beyond this point. Unless that is, accompanied by either me or your father. Same goes for the wife and child.”

  It’s official. Jude feels sufficiently trapped. But then, he knows the deal—knows enough not to argue about it anyway.

  “Prisoner in my own home, huh?”

  Just like the scream catcher.

  “You got a treadmill inside the basement gym of yours?”

  “Treadmills are boring, Ray.”

  “Sure you don’t want a doughnut?”

  The rain picks up in intensity. Jude begins making his way back towards the top of the drive when he hears, “Not so fast, Shakespeare.”

  His reaction is automatic. He turns quick, makes his way back to the Jeep.

  Looking directly up i
nto Jude’s face, Fuentes says, “Your father may not open his mouth up about it. But he’s damn proud of what you’re doing—”

  “—Ray.”

  “Hold on a minute. You and I both know not many people would agree to testify against someone like Lennox. Especially when a numbnuts like Mann not only released him on conditional bail, but thinks this whole Sweeney’s Gym thing is a case of mistaken identity.”

  Jude feels the rainwater pouring down the sides of his face. He feels it soaking the new bandage on his head. Maybe he’s listening to the words that come from his old friend’s mouth, but he is feeling them inside his tight chest. It’s as if he swallowed fish hooks for breakfast.

  “What do you think, Ray? You think I’m doing the right thing?”

  “I think you have to do what’s right for your family first, what’s right for yourself second. But you were a cop, just like me. I also think you have to do what’s right for all the innocent people of the world, in a Batman and Robin sort of way.”

  “And what about Mack? Where does my old man fit into this ‘doing the right thing’ equation?”

  “The old Captain considers you his own true flesh and blood. He’s just as petrified as you must be.”

  “But right is right. Isn’t that what this is all about?”

  Ray says nothing … For a change. Because questions like these don’t have answers. Answers you want to hear anyway.

  Maybe the rain is beginning to soak through his sweats for the second time in as many days, but Jude finds himself paralyzed. This paralysis has nothing to do with fear. Rather, it has everything to do with a distant memory.

  In 1977 the blue uniformed officer pulls Jude away from his mother and father, where they lay slain in the church pew by the bullets of an assassin disguised as a New York City cop. The young officer must physically yank Jude off the bodies, carry him outside the church, while the emergency medical technicians take over the kill scene and the police cordon off the old Bronx church with yellow crime scene tape.