by Lisa Black
So she spoke: ‘You got a job at the Medical Examiner’s specifically to track down this ring.’
‘Yes.’
‘You said the cops at the scene saw it … If you don’t mind my asking, why don’t you think they took it?’
He glanced out the passenger window at an all-night diner, checking out the clientele. ‘Because he’s blood.’
‘Oh. Yes. Well, that’s one thing we have in common.’
‘What is?’
‘I also have a cousin who’s a cop.’ At his quizzical look she added, ‘Diana told me.’
‘Great,’ he sighed. ‘So you got some blood at the PD who’s going to be taking me out through a scope.’
She debated whether to let him believe that, but it seemed to worry him and she needed him as calm as possible. ‘No. He’s out of town at the moment.’
‘Turn here.’
‘So your cousin happened to be the first responder—’
‘They dispatched another unit, but he recognized the address. So he responded.’
‘—and he noticed her jewelry.’
‘He’d seen it before. A family barbecue, the girls were oohing over it. Diana said she got it at Claire’s for cheap. I could see my cuz didn’t believe her. When I thought about it, I didn’t believe her either. But I wasn’t thinkin’ about a lot of things in those days.’
She considered this. ‘So you think this cheap ring that maybe wasn’t cheap is going to – do what? Help your case somehow?’
‘I got convicted because of that ring, because the judge said it was “so callous” how I – this is his words, now – took it from my dead wife’s hand and pawned it for drugs. But that isn’t true. Someone at the ME’s helped themselves to that ring, figuring Diana wouldn’t need it no more and I wouldn’t be in a position to argue about it. If I can prove that, then it changes the whole tone of the case against me.’
‘James – I’m not trying to irritate you, but … you were convicted because you confessed.’
‘I didn’t confess! I never confessed – because I didn’t do it. I did not kill Diana.’
Treading carefully, but also quite confused, Theresa persisted: ‘But you pled guilty.’
He stared out the window for a while, at the tenements, a convenience store, a battered stop sign. ‘Yeah.’
‘Even though you say you aren’t.’
Trying to keep him from becoming agitated was not going so well. He snapped out: ‘What chance did I have? I was the no-good, drug-addict husband who stole his wife’s jewelry to buy crack. I was smokin’ so much back then that I couldn’t even say what happened that afternoon, not and make any kind of sense. My lawyer said if I went to trial I could get the death penalty, so there it was – I could plead or I could die. I see now that I made the wrong choice, but like I said – then, my brain was fuzzy.’
So fuzzy that he might have killed his wife and then spent the next ten years convincing himself that he didn’t. And now he felt willing to murder more people just so he could keep believing that.
‘Turn here,’ he said.
‘It’s a little tough to steer in these things.’
‘Quit complaining,’ he said with a slight smile. ‘I got you padded ones, didn’t I?’
‘Sure. I like the pink, too.’
‘They came in with a victim. The family said to toss ’em, but I thought they might come in handy.’
‘If you don’t mind my asking—’
‘I’m sure I will,’ he said, settling back against the passenger door so he could keep her fully in sight. ‘I heard all about you, Ms MacLean. Diana said you never let anything pass. But go ahead. We got time.’
‘How did you get into Don’s apartment?’
‘Key.’ At her surprised look, he added: ‘From the superintendent’s office.’
‘Did you—? Is he all right, the super?’
‘I dunno. You think he lives in that dump? No, he’s got this crappy little office way down in the basement where no one will hear if you take a crowbar to the door. And there’s keys to everybody’s place, all nicely labeled. Terrific security. Why were you flopping at Don’s, anyway? I’d say he was a little young for you, but then you was sleeping on the couch, so—’
‘We were sticking together. Safety in numbers, and all that.’
‘Oh. Sure.’
It occurred to her that it had worked. Don was still alive, not choking on his own blood – the idea made her bowels quiver – which might not have been the case if she had gone to her own home tonight. She felt a small tickle of satisfaction at that. Granted, she had wound up at the mercy of a multiple killer, but so far he did not seem inclined to harm her. She did not figure into his list of suspects. At least, not until he got the rest of Diana’s file. And the longer they spent together, the more reluctant he might become.
Then she remembered that he had worked with Darryl Johnson for six weeks before killing him. Apparently, familiarity did not breed safety. So keep talking. ‘How did you get your fingerprints through the background check?’
‘I went and had myself printed at the Police Department, just like they said to. Then I took blank cards and rolled someone else’s on them. A kid from my old block, touched in the head. He’s in adult assistance programs and all that. I figured if the cops caught up to him, even they would be able to figure out that he hadn’t been out committing no crimes and that they couldn’t blame him if I talked him into using his fingerprints. So he’d be okay. ’Cause the Feds don’t care if your prints don’t match you, they only care that they don’t match a criminal history. They didn’t, so they came back clear.’
‘And the drug test?’
He seemed to bristle, slightly. ‘I haven’t used in ten years. Nothing. No-thing. My blood is as pure as a baby’s.’
There is no rehab quite like prison, Theresa thought. His system had been cleansed and his body buffed. James’ only occupation for ten years had been to work out his muscles, and she could attest to that. Overcoming him with any sort of force ranked as a ridiculous fantasy. He had five inches and a hundred pounds and four thousand hours of free-weight work on her. ‘I never met you when – when you were married. But I saw a picture of you in the paper. You look different. I can’t really say different how … It’s not just the weight—’
‘Three years and two months in, a guy started a little dispute with me about the lunch tables.’
Theresa didn’t ask for details, figuring it didn’t take much to start ‘a dispute’ in prison.
‘He had his posse, I had mine. So he waited until one of my best had the flu and another one got a special detail, and then brought it on in the hall. Those meal trays are plastic but they’re just as hard as metal, and sharp when they break. He was tryin’ to slice up my face with the edge of one of them when the guards pulled him off.’
She actually moved to squeeze his hand, before the jerk of the cuffs reminded her where they were.
‘So I’m bleedin’ in the infirmary, and this white kid comes in and tells me he’s a doctor – or a resident, whatever they call them student doctors – and he’s specializing in plastic surgery and wants to get some practice by putting me back together. I told him to knock himself out. He took his time about it, kept coming back to check on stitches. Even brought in a portable laser once for the scars – experimenting on me, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care about much of anything right then. And he did a hell of a job. Made me beautiful.’
He smiled, teeth gleaming in the dim interior. Theresa could not decide how she should respond to this, so she kept her eyes on the road.
‘I didn’t recognize myself for six months. Then finally, I did, once all the swelling went down and the scars faded. But I looked different.’ He paused. ‘That was when I got the idea.’
‘To become Justin.’
‘And go right to where you all worked. I already knew a lot about the place, from listening to Diana. I studied up on medicolegal investigator work, worked on my spell
ing and typing – all you really need to be a deskman is basic computer skills, upper body strength, and a strong stomach.’
Theresa nodded, and they drove in silence for a while.
Then she said, ‘You never quite explained Dr Reese. We got distracted talking about the bags on the hands.’
‘What about him?’
‘Why did you attack him?’
‘He was next on my list.’ For a man with four murders under his belt, he managed to avoid saying much about them.
‘Why did you look in the filing cabinets?’
‘For a pawn receipt, in case they pawned the ring. Or a receipt for buying it in the first place.’
‘You thought they’d keep evidence of either a theft or a purchase made for a mistress?’
‘You spend that much money on something,’ he intoned somberly, ‘you don’t throw the receipt away. It was worth a try.’
‘Did you eat a Pop-Tart when you were done?’
He gave her an odd look, but perhaps he was more puzzled by the need for the question than the question itself, because he said, ‘I was hungry.’
Theresa didn’t want to ask any more.
‘I was pretty sure Darryl was the deskman for Diana’s case – I can’t be positive, but I’m pretty sure, even though he wouldn’t admit it.’
‘His initials are on the autopsy report,’ Theresa said.
‘Oh. I didn’t catch that. But that’s what I thought – Darryl Johnson and George Bain would have the best opportunity to steal the ring. But after that would be the pathologist. He’s all alone in the autopsy room, and no one questions anything a doctor does.’
Reese hadn’t been alone, but Theresa wasn’t about to shove Stone and Causer into James’ sights.
‘And there were some other things I wanted to ask Reese about. When it got … out of control with Darryl, and I couldn’t clean it up in time because you were coming back, I figured I’d better move on to Reese immediately. The cops would be looking for me. They are looking for me, right?’
‘They’re looking for Justin Warner.’
‘Yeah. That’s why I can’t go to my apartment or use my car.’
‘Why did you hang around in the deskmen’s office for so long? The blood had mostly dried when I passed you coming in.’
‘Figured out it was me on the gurney, huh? Would have scared the shit out of you if I suddenly sat up!’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it would have. But why were you still there?’
‘It took him a while to die. Like an hour, it seemed. The clock in that office ticks loud enough to hear when it’s quiet, did you know that? Every time I thought he was dead he’d make another sound or seem like he was breathing.’ James’ voice trembled, and he suddenly seemed quite a bit less than cold blooded. ‘I didn’t know what to do. Whether I should call a doctor, or just hold my hand over his nose. If he lived, he would have been able to say I did it. But with him dead everyone would figure I did it anyway – or Justin did. Maybe I could disappear … Then I’d think, no way. Then I’d hope he’d wake up so he could tell me the truth. I’d tell him that I’d call an ambulance for him if he’d tell me the truth. But he didn’t wake up, didn’t die, and the clock kept ticking. So finally I took a shower and changed clothes and was just going to leave when I heard you unlock the back door.’
She fought to remove that image from her mind and hastily moved on. ‘So Dr Reese—’
‘Pretended he barely remembered Diana and didn’t remember her autopsy. He certainly didn’t remember her jewelry. He got all puffed up, that way he did. Like he couldn’t believe I had the nerve to speak to him.’
‘He was probably scared.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ James said simply. ‘I’m sure he was that.’
‘Maybe he really didn’t remember. And maybe he didn’t take Diana’s ring. Now, you think the guilty party is still out there – so you do realize that that means you’ve killed three innocent men?’
She spoke as gently as she could, but made her words clear. If she could make James face the extent of what he’d done, perhaps he would let himself feel enough remorse to give up—
‘That’s not on me.’ He fairly hissed the words, his body a coiled force on the other side of the front seat. ‘That’s on them. I asked simple questions. All they had to do was answer them.’
‘They did answer them. You just didn’t like the answers.’
‘No. All I wanted to know was if they took Diana’s ring. Yes or no. Instead they gave me all sorts of crap, pretending they didn’t remember, asking who I was, how did I know about that – just kept asking questions. Not answering them.’
Theresa tried to rub one hand across her face, but the cuffs stopped her again. The car wavered on the road. ‘And you’ll probably kill me, once you get the file.’
‘I don’t care about the file,’ James said. ‘That’s just an excuse for you and me to spend some quality time together.’
Her stomach, which had been flopping around in her torso for the past forty-five minutes, plunged to her knees. ‘What?’
‘You heard me.’ He leaned forward slightly, his voice an ominous rumble in her ear. ‘Now I get to ask you some questions. And I had better like your answers.’
She stammered, and hated herself for it. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘You and Diana were close. All that girl talk.’
She wanted to say that they weren’t that close, and that men often assumed that women shared many more details than they actually did. But that would feel disloyal, distancing herself from her friend just to save her own skin, so she nodded.
‘So I need you to tell me who it was.’
‘Who—?’
‘Got her pregnant.’
TWENTY-ONE
They stood at a small bluff overlooking the coastline, about eighteen miles east of downtown near the mouth of the Chagrin River. A lifelong west-sider, Theresa had never been there before. The sun began to fill the sky with a dull rosy glow far to her right, and the waves crashed with angry force into the large rocks below. A seagull landed on the edge not far from her and watched carefully to see if she might be willing to share some food. The breeze off the lake stayed robust enough to make her shiver as it cut through Don’s old T-shirt. But the momentary discomfort seemed well worth it in order to breathe fresh air. And to get out of that damn car.
‘This is where I proposed to her.’
Beside her, knife ever at the ready, James gazed out over the water. ‘I packed a picnic lunch with two real glass flutes and a bottle of champagne. She worked at a bank then, doing secretarial work in the Loan Department – boss was a real bitch – and they were closed Mondays. So she had the day off. We sat right here.’
A wooden bench faced the water, and he sunk slowly on to it. He held the knife loosely in both hands as if it were a hat or his car keys. He stared at the waves, but she would bet he didn’t really see them. The seagull edged closer.
Now that she had better light and time she got a closer look at him. He appeared to be the same Justin Warner she’d said hello to for three months – high cheekbones, thick eyelashes, just enough acne scars remaining to keep him from prettiness. But now the eyes she had thought were curious and thoughtful seemed still, cold. Dead.
The clothes he’d changed into, clean Dickies work pants and a navy hoodie, carried only one visible spot of blood – on the thick burgundy T-shirt, hovering over the sixth and seventh rib.
‘Are you feeling all right?’ she asked. ‘I did stab you.’
He gave her a wry and not reassuring smile. ‘Pinpricks. My blood clots really fast, always has. You can’t hurt me.’ And indeed the stain seemed dry, though he couldn’t resist a quick rub with the appropriate hand, and a small wince.
No one’s indestructible, she thought, but didn’t argue. He had gone on, anyway.
‘I told her she’d make me the luckiest man who ever existed if she would be my wife. That part was true. Then I told her that I would be
a millionaire before my thirtieth birthday – I forget why I thought that, I guess I had some plan to open a sporting goods store with a guy I met in juvie – and I’d make her life perfect. We’d have four kids and send them to private school. We’d go in on a boat with my cousin and sail up to the islands on the weekends. I’d give her everything she could ever want. That part wasn’t true,’ he said. ‘I guess.’
Guess not, Theresa thought. Unless being strangled in her own kitchen had been on her bucket list.
Still, it had been a much more romantic and thoughtful proposal than she herself had gotten. At least James had been, at that moment, sincere. The question remained: had he been equally sincere when he decided that killing her would be preferable to losing her?
‘She started to cry when I showed her the ring. It wasn’t a diamond – I wanted to be different, of course – but a sapphire with two diamonds on either side. Her birthstone.’
Mine, too, Theresa thought.
‘It was stolen. A friend of mine liked to specialize in jewelry stores, and I told him to keep his eye out for something special. Gave it to me for ten percent. No one ever caught up to him, though.’
He looked up at her. ‘That’s the ring I was pawning when someone killed my Diana. A sapphire with diamonds. But she had stopped wearing it, left it on her dresser. The ring she had on her hand that day, that the neighbors saw, that my cousin saw, it was also a sapphire with diamonds. But not the same ring.’