The Flower Girl

by Ronald Watkins

  THE FLOWER GIRL

  by

  Ronald J. Watkins

  © Ronald J. Watkins 2015

  www.RonaldJWatkins.com

  WatkinsLiterary.com

  Cover by David E. Payne

  Other books by the author

  Fiction

  Cimmerian: A Novel of the Holocaust

  The Far Side of the Moon

  A Suspicion of Guilt

  Shadows and Lies

  The Dutchman

  A Deadly Glitter

  Alter Ego

  True Crime

  Evil Intentions

  Against Her Will

  The Naked Streets

  Romance

  Nocturne

  SciFi/Fantasy

  Hunter: Warrior of Doridia

  Caravans of Doridia

  Non-Fiction

  Unknown Seas

  Birthright

  High Crimes and Misdemeanors

  The Summit Murder Series with Charles G. Irion

  Murder on Everest

  Murder on Elbrus

  Murder on Mt. McKinley

  Murder on Puncak Jaya

  Murder on Aconcagua

  Murder on Vinson Masiff

  Murder on Kilamanjaro

  Abandoned on Everest [prequel]

  ~

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  ~

  PROLOGUE

  He drove aimlessly, or so it would have seemed to the casual observer, but in fact he drove with purpose, compelled by an as yet unthought motive; purposeful, intent and insatiable. He was in nearly every particular a plain, post-adolescent encased in residual baby fat and waging a battle with chronic acne. He witnessed the world through thick lenses of darkly tinted glass, mounted on an unfashionable frame.

  With an intensity born-of compulsion, he continued his slow, methodical search while his conscious mind sought to grant articulation to the base needs which seethed within his subconscious. Soon, he would think the unthinkable.

  The car idled at an intersection while he stared across the street. Shortly after the light changed he reluctantly edged through the intersection, intent on the sidewalk where a young laughing girl sold flowers.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Jared Pratt at twenty was troubled and unhappy but then he had always been troubled and unhappy. He was indifferent to most of what transpired about him and the small, unavoidable experiences he did perceive were so distorted that they rarely approximated reality. But through trial and error and by ignoring reactions to his odd behavior, he was able to get along. All this bothered him but only because he believed himself less adept than others at concealing his true nature. He saw his as a failing of ability, not a deficiency of nature.

  When he was nine years of age Jared had staked an alley cat out in the dirt behind his parent's garage. With a knife from his mother's kitchen he had methodically vivisectioned the hapless creature, fascinated by the still beating and hot internal organs and at the unexpected brightness of the exposed, living tissue.

  Most of all he had been awed by the sensation of power that coursed through him and he determined to find other animals, other living things and repeat the 'experiments' upon them. This realization had provided him his first sense of well-being in memory and did much to relieve the anxiety from which he normally suffered. So intent had he been that he had disregarded the screams of the pitiful animal pinned to the hot ground but his mother had heard and come to investigate.

  She had shouted unheard words and hit him with unfelt blows. Nothing touched him but the pain inside at the “experiments” premature end. He experienced an utter loss with the discovery that still one more pleasurable experience was not permitted. Tears burned his eyes at the profound emptiness that overwhelmed him and his mother, misunderstanding, clutched him to her skirt, telling him that he was all right and not crazy like the other people said.

  She had taken him inside, given him sweet cookies and milk and then buried the animal, promising to tell no one but Jared must swear never, never to do such a wicked thing again. Jared had promised for it did him no good not to.

  He had learned two valuable lessons that day which would carry him throughout his life. One, his mother would conceal anything he did and two, it was permitted to do anything he wished, to any living being, just so he did it quietly and did not get caught.

  That long hot summer all of the stray cats and one family dog disappeared mysteriously from the neighborhood. Jared's parents were happy that their quiet, young son was eager to face each day

  and had stopped moping about. Perhaps, they reassured each other, he's like other children after all.

  That day eleven years later Jared drove the crowded summer streets of Phoenix, his mind wandering incoherently, thinking nothing more than isolated words or visualizing discordant colors. Always there was the nagging certainty that nothing was right and that nothing for Jared ever would be.

  ~

  Chad Worthington watched the girl's breasts and knew he shouldn't. He ought never to show any sexual curiosity towards any woman he met through his work. It only led to trouble.

  An experienced probation officer, his first supervisor, had once told him that P.O.'s got into difficulty in only two areas: money and sex. Give a normal man the chance and he will choose sex any day of the week or so Worthington thought because that would have been his choice. He had been personally acquainted with seven P.O.'s in ten years who had been caught in some gross violation of rules or law that had resulted in firing or criminal charges. One had taken money, six had screwed somebody they should not have.

  Worthington raised his eyes from the erect nipples and looked directly into the young girl's eyes. He concentrated on maintaining eye contact even though he did not hear what she had to say. It didn't matter, however, because he had heard what she had to say from hundreds of women over the years. Young mothers, early brides, long standing girlfriends, sisters, they all said the same things.

  Nearby someone's radio was broadcasting the news. Nixon was going to be impeached. What else was new?

  She was tiny and gestured frequently as she spoke, the motion often out of synch with what she said. Her voice droned on, rephrasing the same ideas and repeating them until Worthington realized that she would only stop when he interrupted her.

  "Connie," he interrupted, "you keep saying the same things but I am not going to give an answer you'll like no matter how many times you repeat yourself."

  The girl had stopped mid-word and now sat before him, looking as though she had just been slapped. "But Mr. Worthington, you gotta..."

  "No Connie, stop. I've listened to you, now you hear me. Jason has been on probation for only five months and yet he has been charged with three burglaries committed
during that same period of time."

  "But that's cause he was still strung out," she whined, looking much less attractive now.

  "He was still strung out because he was avoiding me," Worthington persisted, "and refused to admit he had a heroin problem, Connie. Now he’s in jail and it's too late to do anything about the problem I wanted him to deal with from the beginning, five months ago."

  "But he needs help, Mr. Worthington and sending him to jail ain't gonna help him." She wiped her nose with a frequently used tissue ball.

  "No, it's not but it will keep him from burglarizing any other houses and that's what the judge will be thinking of when he sentences him. Anyway, why didn't you come to me months ago? If you remember, I asked you to if he ever started shooting up again and you said that you would." That was a low blow and he knew it. Family members almost never came forward with word of trouble. She sat in guilty silence, eyes fixed on the floor.

  "If you'll remember, Connie, the first time I spoke to you I said that if you really loved this man you would not hesitate to call me if he was using again because only then could I make him get help. I promised he wouldn't know you had talked to me and I meant it.

  "Two weeks ago when I saw at your place and was looking for Jay, I told you that I thought he was using. I said if he didn't get in to see me, I would issue a warrant for him. Instead of telling me the truth, you lied. You swore he was clean, just working hard and too busy to come in because he was working two jobs. You lied Connie, and now Jay's in jail."

  "I know," she said meekly. "I should have told you but I didn't think I could trust you."

  "Instead," Worthington said pointedly, "you trusted Jay."

  She remained silent a moment before speaking. "What's gonna happen to him?"

  "You know as well as I do, Connie. He's going to prison."

  "But prison ain't gonna help him..."

  "You keep saying that, Connie. The judge knows it won't help him. That's not why he's going to send him there. The time for helping has past, at least for now."

  The phone interrupted. The receptionist informed Worthington that his three o'clock appointment had arrived.

  "Connie," Worthington resumed, "accept the fact that Jay is going to do time. It will be a lot easier on both of you. He didn't get the help when he should have and now it's just too late. I'll do this much for you." The girl looked at him hopefully. "I'll do my best to get the judge to go as light as I can. I don't want your man to do any more time than he has to."

  She didn't say it. She didn't say what Worthington knew she was thinking. Thanks, thanks for nothing.

  It may seem like nothing now, Worthington thought, but once he draws the sentence every day kept off it will be very big indeed. Worthington looked at the woman struggling to hold her feelings inside as best she could. Love a junky, he thought, and you better be ready for a lifetime of grief.

  She left, defeated. But Worthington knew she would call again and again until at last she believed him.

  He summoned his next appointment and flipped open his field book to Jared Pratt, checking as always before the client arrived. Jared was one of Worthington’s least likable cases. He had been on probation for just over one year and assigned to Worthington's caseload for eight months. Worthington knew him as well as he knew any of the eighty-three men for whom he was responsible.

  Examining the back of the field card he noted that it had been exactly four weeks since he had last talked to Jared. Worthington recalled why the intense young man was on probation. He had been arrested as a juvenile for peeping tom. As usual nothing of any consequence had been done particularly as the boy's parents were affluent and made all the right promises. The juvenile P.O.'s simply talked to the boy and turned their attention to the ghetto children who jammed the caseloads.

  At seventeen, Jared had violently assaulted the secretary of a minister on the carpet beside her desk at eight-thirty in the morning. While she had not been raped, he had clutched her exposed breasts, biting one severely. Her identification of him had been uncertain and the boy's family had hired a first class attorney. The end result was seven months’ probation lasting only until the boy turned eighteen and the Juvenile Court lost jurisdiction.

  Six months after his eighteenth birthday Jared had been arrested as an adult for assaulting a female hitchhiker. She had been sixteen and fortunately a police car witnessed the attempted abduction and had stopped it before Jared managed to force the frightened girl into his car. He had ultimately pled guilty to a reduced charge of Aggravated Assault and been placed on three years’ probation with the condition that he seek psychological counseling. The prosecutor's case had been harmed by the girl's extensive history of run away and promiscuity. Jared's parents had once again retained the same excellent attorney.

  Now Jared went to see both a psychiatrist and a probation officer once each month. He said all the right things and except for being chronically unemployed, did all the expected things. But Worthington was not fooled for one minute. All his instincts and experience told him that Jared was trouble. Inside he was the same sexual deviant he had been since he was fourteen years old. He had not changed at all; he was if anything worse.

  His experiences in court had taught him two lessons, Worthington thought, as Jared entered his office, a thin smile on his lips. Mom and pop always get him off, and he must be very careful not to get caught again.

  Worthington rose, smiled and welcomed the man for his monthly appointment. You son of a bitch, he thought, as they began their ritual.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The bus station was located in Phoenix and was usually surrounded by various winos and panhandlers. The building itself was modern though poorly maintained and grimier than it had any right to be. The paging system was almost unintelligible and passengers waiting to board cast furtive looks about wishing for more officers in the familiar sky and navy blue of the city police.

  Tracy arrived in the afternoon, attired in clothing much too warm for the one hundred and twelve degree weather which greeted her. She had journeyed for three days and nights and was disoriented in both time and place as she stepped down from the bus. She had wanted to go somewhere very different from her native St. Louis and had picked Phoenix at random.

  The slender, slightly gawky girl squinted into the blazing day light. Never had the sun appeared so intense to her. Its heat soaked her fair skin and within a very short time would burn her severely unless she exercised extreme caution, caution for which her life in St. Louis had never prepared her.

  The girl picked up her bag and moved out of the station, away from the derelicts and towards the city's center, located about five blocks away. She kept on the move, steadfastly avoiding eye contact with anyone. She might be new to street life but she was learning fast.

  Tracy was seventeen and a runaway.

  The last weeks with her mother had been unbearable. She had managed to keep going only by promising herself she would escape as soon as she could. Ever since she had been left alone, her mother had become more and more self-absorbed. First it had been personal development courses followed by art classes. Now Tracy's mother had a lover only three years older than her only daughter and the final thread of security for the girl had snapped. Tracy had no home and no parent who reminded her in any way of the mother who had nurtured her as a child.

  It had all begun, or to be more precise, ended when Tracy was fourteen. That was the year her father had suffered the ultimately fatal coronary on the floor of his recently occupied dental office. He had been a robust, heavyset man, driven to drink, to grandiose and complicated business dealings. He had been a man constantly in motion, so full of life that those who knew him were stunned at its abrupt and unexpected ending.

  In one summer of despair in the months just before the disaster, Tracy had suffered the loss of her heretofore special place in the family as the baby. No longer had she been pampered and compelled to remain in her actions two years younger than she was. She had burst
forth as a woman within a matter of months, forever losing her childhood in the eyes of both her parents. No longer could she be their little girl, their baby. Her body had betrayed her and driven her from her place within the family structure.

  In one summer of anguish, Tracy had gone from the special baby to nobody, ignored and unapproached. At the end of the summer of solitude her father had died on the tiled floor of his heavily mortgaged, shiny new building, lost forever to his daughter.

  She had thought that it didn't matter. Of all in the family, she alone had withstood the funeral with the least show of emotion. But that had been because her need was the greatest and she was utterly unable to reconcile herself to her father's loss. As a consequence, part of her, the important part, simply decided not to accept the loss.

  At seventeen, walking on the hot, stifling Phoenix sidewalk she had never once in the last three years experienced emotionally the grief within her at her father loss. Part of her remained fourteen. But her body was that of a twenty year old and that had been the part of her that had permitted her to avoid the grief. Tracy had always given enough of her body to keep men and boys in her life. Remarkably she was still a virgin, technically, although most thought her very experienced. The boys and men who knew her well enough considered her a tease. She was friendly and loose but only to a point. She had thus far always drawn a line that no one had crossed.