“Let me speak to the detectives.”
Sarah handed the phone to Detective Lassiter.
“Hello, Mr. Lincoln.”
“What the hell is going on?”
“I have no clue. All I know is that I have a tape showing a multiple rape and murder and I am going across the street to arrest your neighbor and I need you to come down to the station to give a report.”
“Did you say multiple rape?”
“Mr. Lincoln, just meet us down at the station. There’s really nothing I can tell you right now. You’re going to have to see it for yourself. None of this makes sense to me.”
Detective Torres was on the radio calling for backup while Detective Lassiter was talking to the assistant DA trying to get a warrant for Dale’s arrest.
“I’m going to arrest him on probable cause but it would be nice to have a warrant to back me up. We’ve got him on tape committing two rapes along with two counts of attempted murder.”
Sarah was barely listening to the detective’s heated exchange with the assistant district attorney. She was too busy trying to imagine what must be going through Josh’s mind. She tried to imagine how he would react to seeing what Dale had done to him. All she could think about was Josh beating the hell out of those two guys in the parking garage and then him storming out of the bedroom with the nine-millimeter in his hands.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Sarah watched Dale through the twoway mirror. He looked so small as he sat at the metal table across from Detective Torres. The detective didn’t say a word to him, he just sat there staring at him. Dale had asked for his lawyer immediately after being arrested so they couldn’t talk to him until his lawyer arrived. What they could do is make him as uncomfortable as possible.
Detective Torres scowled at him and shook his head. Then he hissed and looked Dale over from head to toe, sneering in disapproval. He stood up and walked around the table glaring down at Dale, then stood behind him and lit a cigarette.
Dale’s discomfort was written all over his face. He was twitching and fidgeting, clearly anxious to speak to the detective and explain himself or flee from the man’s presence. He kept looking over his shoulder to try to catch sight of Torres as if he was afraid the man was preparing to attack him. When his lawyer stormed into the room, he let out a huge sigh of relief.
“Look at that piece of shit,” Detective Lassiter said as she stood beside Sarah, watching through the two-way mirror as Dale began to smirk and grin. “Don’t worry, we’re going to break him.”
Sarah nodded, still staring at Dale as he began to look more and more arrogant and confident now that his lawyer was present. Sarah wasn’t so sure that Dale was the type to break easy. There was something about him that appeared so deeply twisted and disturbed that it made it feel as if her skin were trying to crawl off her.
Dale’s attorney was a portly Italian man in his midfifties with hair plugs, a dye job, and an expensive Italian suit that looked like Armani. The man looked like a mafioso, gold pinkie ring and all. His eyes were hard and aloof. He walked past Detective Torres and plopped down in the chair the detective had previously occupied and slammed his briefcase down on the table. He looked expensive. Sarah wondered how in the hell Dale could afford him.
“I’d better get in there. Are you going to be okay by yourself for a minute? You can wait at my desk.”
“I-I want to see. Do you mind if I stay here? Until Josh gets here?”
The detective looked at her, then looked back into the room where Dale was leaning back in the metal chair, smiling confidently.
“Okay, but be quiet and don’t leave this room. The assistant DA will be here soon.”
She left Sarah and walked into the room to join Detective Torres. She walked over to Dale’s lawyer and stuck out her hand.
“I’m Detective Lassiter.”
“Raul Severino. So, what are we here for?”
“Your client here is being charged with rape and attempted murder. We’ve got him on tape assaulting the couple who lives across the street from him. He broke into their home, knocked them both unconscious with a hammer, raped the wife and sodomized her husband, then slit his throat and stabbed her in the chest.”
Sarah watched the attorney’s face for a reaction. He raised his eyebrow slightly and grimaced but that was it.
“You say you have all of this on tape?”
“All of it.”
“So, let’s see the tape.”
Detective Lassiter turned to her partner, who left the room, then came back minutes later pushing a TV and VCR on a cart. He plugged them both into the wall directly across from the mirror and turned them on. Then he popped in the tape. Just as the tape began to play, Josh walked into the room with Sarah followed by a young Asian woman in a tan suit who Sarah guessed was the assistant DA. Josh looked miserable. He had obviously been thinking about what Sarah had told him was on that tape during his entire drive to the station.
“What’s going on, Sarah?”
“They’re about to play the tape.”
“I’m Assistant District Attorney Patricia Yu.”
“Hello, Ms. Yu.” Sarah shook the woman’s hand and then turned back to watch the TV in the other room.
Once again, Sarah watched as Dale struck her over the head with a hammer and then attacked her husband, clubbing him repeatedly with the hammer and cracking Josh’s skull. She turned to look at Josh as the tape played. It was obvious that he was having a hard time watching it.
“How? How can I not remember this?”
Sarah took his hand.
“Just watch. It gets worse. Much worse.”
Josh met Sarah’s eyes and it was obvious he didn’t want to look away from her, didn’t want to see the rest of the tape.
The tape played, revealing Dale as he bound their wrists and ankles and then as he raped her and then Josh, and finally ending with him slitting Josh’s throat and stabbing the knife into Sarah’s chest.
“No.”
Josh turned to Sarah with a look of shock and confusion. His face was pleading with Sarah for answers and she felt helpless and guilty because she had none to offer and somehow felt that she should have. Josh turned back to finish watching the tape.
“That sick fucking…” Josh’s teeth were clenched tight and his jaw muscles bulged as if he were trying to bite through something particularly tough. His hands were balled into fists and his shoulders were hunched. Veins and cords bulged in his forearms and biceps.
Detective Torres turned off the tape. Josh had turned red and his body was literally vibrating with hatred flowing through his blood like an electrical current. Sarah could almost feel her husband’s rage boiling in the room, raising the heat and humidity, a storm cloud crackling with fury. His lip had curled up into a snarl. His eyebrows were furrowed and his nostrils flared. She was concerned that he was going to have a nervous breakdown right there on the spot.
Josh continued staring at the TV long after the screen had gone black and Sarah continued staring at Josh. She put her arm around him and Josh pulled away, still staring at the screen. Gradually, his eyes drifted over to Dale and the rage that sparked in them was murderous. Sarah could see Josh breathing hard as he struggled to hold in his emotions like a drowning man trying to hold in his last gulps of oxygen before being sucked underwater. His eyes welled with tears even as he continued to bare his teeth in an angry grimace. Sarah was fairly certain that had Dale been in the same room with them there would not have been enough cops in the station to keep Josh off him. Even now, Sarah was worried that Josh was going to burst through the mirror and go after him.
“Josh? Are you okay? Josh?”
When Josh turned to look at her she barely recognized him. She had never seen that combination of emotions on his face before, anger, shame, revulsion, and fear all deforming his facial features into something hideous and frightening. Sarah knew that he was reliving the abuse he’d suffered as a child. It must have been terrible to see the
same thing happening to him all over again, and this was so much worse. This was forcible rape. Despite his size and strength he had been victimized yet again. Sarah could not imagine what her husband was feeling. He looked at her as if she had just asked him to solve some impossibly complex mathematical equation.
“Are you okay?” Sarah repeated.
“No. I’m pretty fucking far from okay.”
Sarah pulled him tight, pulling his head down into the crook of her neck, inviting him to cry but knowing that he wouldn’t. His body was as tense and rigid as an iron bar. Sarah turned back to the interrogation room. She wanted to hear what Dale had to say after watching the tape. She wanted to hear his confession.
“The district attorney’s office is willing to make a deal in exchange for your confession.”
“I don’t see anyone from the DA’s office here. And why would they be willing to make a deal if they have this tape?” Mr. Severino asked.
“Ms. Yu from the DA’s office is on the other side of that mirror. If your client is willing to sign a confession, then I’ll bring her in here and we can make a deal. Otherwise, she stays right where she is.”
“But why the hell would she want to make a deal?”
Sarah watched as Dale leaned over and whispered something in his attorney’s ear. The triumphant grin never left his face. After Dale had finished whispering in his ear, his attorney nodded slightly, looking somewhat confused. Then he turned to the two detectives and smiled.
“My client wants you to play the rest of the tape. He also wants to see the hospital records from the couple he is accused of attacking, from the night of the alleged assault.”
The two detectives looked at each other. Sarah felt herself deflate. The bastard had them. She saw the confusion in the lawyer’s face turn to one of smug arrogance as he noted the hesitation in the two detectives. He was still not sure how or why but it was apparent that he now knew that the detectives were hiding something.
“I’m going to subpoena the tape anyway so you might as well show me now.”
Detective Lassiter muttered, “Shit!” and then sneered at Dale who was now sitting back in the metal chair with both hands laced behind his head, grinning obscenely.
Detective Torres turned the VCR back on, starting it from right before Dale’s murder. On the screen, Sarah watched the now-familiar scene of Dale slitting Josh’s throat, stabbing Sarah in the chest, rushing about, cleaning up the room, changing the sheets, moving the bodies, then kneeling over the bodies and bringing them both back to life.
Dale’s attorney was even more surprised and animated than Sarah herself had been when she’d first seen the tape.
“Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me! This is a fake? You faked this whole thing? I am going to have both of your badges. So, I think it’s safe to assume that there’s no emergency room report?”
“You know there isn’t,” Torres responded.
“Then, we’re done here. You go near my client again and you’re both going to wind up in front of an IAD review board.”
Mr. Severino stood up and gestured for Dale to follow him. Dale reached across the room and held out his wrists. Detective Lassiter looked at her partner and then over her shoulder at the mirror. Somehow the woman’s eyes found Sarah’s through the mirrored glass. Sarah could read the apology in her eyes along with the frustration. The detective turned back around and removed the cuffs from Dale’s wrists. Before Dale could pull away, she grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him close, whispering something into his ear. Dale’s eyes hardened, narrowed, his eyebrows furrowed. When he spoke it was through clenched teeth.
“Go ahead, just fucking try it.”
He turned and walked out the door with his lawyer, grinning all the way. Sarah watched the door close. Finally, she remembered Josh. He was still holding her but his body felt slack and loose.
“What the fuck was that? What the hell just happened? Was any of that real?”
“It was all real?”
“But he killed us. He killed both of us. Look!” Josh pulled his shirt collar down, revealing his smooth white throat.“There’s no fucking wound! There’s not even a scar! So what was that?”
“He killed us but he brought us back. He resurrected us both somehow.”
“Resurrected us? You mean Christ on the cross? That kind of resurrection? You’re kidding me, right?”
“That’s why I couldn’t remember anything. He’s been doing this the whole time, ever since that first night. He rapes me, kills me, and then brings me back.”
“Sarah? That’s crazy. That’s just crazy.”
“Then explain it, Josh! Explain what’s on that tape! Explain the bloody sheets. Explain his fingerprints in our house. Explain his semen inside of me!”
Josh began to calm down. He was staring at Sarah, still breathing hard, still looking confused. But he was convinced that she wasn’t lying, she hadn’t somehow manipulated the tape. She wasn’t crazy.
The assistant DA had been silent the entire time. When Detectives Lassiter and Torres walked in she broke her silence.
“What in the hell were you two trying to pull with that stunt?”
“That wasn’t a stunt, at least not on our part. This is the tape we took from the spy camera in their house. We didn’t alter it in any way.”
“Yes, but you knew what was on the tape. You knew it was a forgery.”
“We knew what was on it but we still don’t believe it’s a forgery.”
“So, you think maybe these two got stabbed to death and then just got up and walked away? Because if that’s what you’re saying, then I’m going to be speaking to your captain and recommending you both for a psych evaluation and an immediate suspension. So, which is it?”
“Well, how do you explain what you saw on that tape?”
“How about a fake knife, food coloring, and corn syrup? What are you both morons? You can see special effects like that in any freshman film-school class and you’re willing to risk your badges for it?”
“Excuse me, but fuck you! We didn’t fake that tape.” Sarah spoke up.
The ADA stepped up to her. The woman’s anger was plain and undisguised. She wagged her finger inches from the tip of Sarah’s nose.
“I would say fuck you too but you’ve already fucked yourselves and this case with that bullshit tape. Now, it doesn’t matter if you were raped or not because we can’t touch him. You’ve managed to call into question every piece of evidence these two detectives have uncovered. The fingerprints, the DNA, the blood spatter, it’s all useless now.”
“But it’s real!” Sarah shouted.
“Yeah? And so are Jesus and Santa Claus. Stay away from Dale McCarthy and feel lucky that I don’t arrest you for filing a false police report.” She stormed out of the room, leaving Sarah and Josh alone with the two detectives. Sarah winced when the door slammed behind her.
“We fucked up. We fucked up bad,” Torres said.
“Okay, so I don’t know what else we can do here.”
“Are we on our own then?” Sarah asked.
“We’re not going to let that guy keep attacking you. Our job is to protect and serve.”
“But he’s free. He’s out there, right across the street from me. How are you going to protect us?”
“Maybe you should move. Start fresh somewhere new,” Detective Lassiter added.
“Move? We can’t afford to move. With the economy all fucked up we can’t afford to sell our house. We’ve lost over a hundred thousand dollars in equity in our home. And we can’t live out of a hotel until the damn market recovers. We can’t afford to pay for a hotel and a mortgage. We’re trapped. We’re stuck there with that fucking psycho.”
“We’ll keep working on this. We still have his prints and the ones they found in your home. The CSU has been at your house and they’ve gone through Dale McCarthy’s house as well. If he’s been doing the things that we saw on the tape, then he’s bound to have left evidence.”
&n
bsp; “But you heard what that prosecutor said. Dale’s lawyer will get anything we find thrown out of court because of that tape.”
Sarah shook her head. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so damn infuriating. They had Dale on video committing rape, sodomizing her husband, and murdering both of them. It should have been enough to put him away for life, but instead it was the very thing that was keeping him out of prison.
“We’ll find something. We’re not giving up. In the meantime, don’t do anything stupid.”
This was addressed directly at Josh. No one could fail to notice the dark expression on his face. Sarah’s husband was unusually quite. He listened to their exchange but his eyes were far away. Sarah knew where he was. She knew how his mind worked. He was trying to think of all the ways he might kill Dale and get away with it. Josh wasn’t the type to just shoot the guy down in cold blood and spend the rest of his life in jail, not unless there was no other way. He would want to find a way to do it that would keep him out of jail. After everything that had happened today, he would be the number-one suspect if Dale were to disappear unexpectedly or if his body were to turn up riddled with bullet holes.
“I’m in no hurry to go to the penitentiary.”
Josh’s voice was low and without the slightest inflection. It sounded almost robotic. He turned and walked toward the door. His eyes were still glassy, staring off into space as if he were just peripherally aware of the existence of other people in the room.
“Make sure he doesn’t go after him,” Detective Lassiter said. “He’s not thinking clearly right now. Who would be after seeing that? But that won’t keep him out of prison if he goes after McCarthy.”
“I’ll make sure he doesn’t do anything.”
Sarah wondered if she would really be strong enough to keep him from killing Dale if he wanted to. It was not her physical strength she was concerned about. It was her will. She wondered if she’d want to stop him. Her only hesitation was the thought of Josh somehow failing to kill Dale and going to jail while Dale remained free.
It was after midnight by the time they left the police station. The drive home was tense and silent. Despite the lateness of the hour, the freeway was still full with drivers heading to and from the casinos and nightclubs. Sarah watched as Josh stared at the road. She wondered how much of the road he was seeing and how much of the videotape. Josh grimaced and punched the dashboard, tears began to race the crevices and lines in his face from his eyes to his chin.
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