Revenge of Innocents

by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg

  “You’ve never been involved with narcotics?” Mary asked. “You’re lying, Reggie. You’re coming down right now. Bet you’d do just about anything to get out of here so you can score. You don’t have tracks, but you’re twitching and itching like a junkie. That means you smoke or snort the stuff. What are you on? Crystal meth, crack, cocaine?” She grimaced. “Wipe your damn nose. You’ve got snot dripping down the front of your shirt. There’s probably a hole in there the size of a golf ball.”

  He started to use the edge of his shirt when Carolyn handed Mary some tissues. The detective tossed them at him, then crossed her arms over her chest. “Right now, I don’t care what you did in New Orleans, understand? Haley Snodgrass was beaten and buried alive. Last night, Drew Campbell was shot and killed while he was sleeping. Around the same time, Jude was almost killed by a hit-and-run driver. Her arm was severed. He left her there to bleed to death.”

  Mary stood and began pacing. “You thought Jude was dead, didn’t you? You thought you could lie low in Santa Barbara because you’d killed the only person left to incriminate you. You made another mistake, Reggie, just like you made with Haley Snodgrass.”

  A look of shock appeared on his face. “I didn’t do these things. I swear to God. I’ve been in Santa Barbara since Monday. I took the train. The engine blew in my car last month. I didn’t want to take my mom’s, uh, Ruby’s car ’cause she’s been so good to me.” He rummaged around in his jeans and pulled out a small piece of paper, then pushed it across the table. “See, I’ve got the proof.”

  Mary picked it up, then handed it to Hank. It was a receipt for an Amtrak train ticket, departing at six on Monday evening. “You could have found this in a trash can, Reggie.” She decided it was time to lie, hoping he might crack. “We know you’re guilty. The clerk at the Motor Inn identified you as the person who rented the room where Veronica Campbell’s body was found. You thought you’d covered yourself by using a stolen credit card. Your fingerprints and DNA were all over that room.”

  Reggie shook his head. “I must be one murdering son of a bitch. You got me killing everyone. I’ve never even heard of this motel, and I certainly didn’t steal anyone’s credit card. Why would I risk serving time in the joint in Louisiana just to rent a lousy motel room? Did Jude tell you I did these things? I’m sorry she got hurt and everything, but shit, every other word that comes out of that bitch’s mouth is a lie.” He poked his head with his finger. “She’s psycho, got it? I grabbed her tits one time at a party when I was stoned. After that, Jude told everyone we were tight. Her friend, Haley, was just as crazy. They weren’t ugly or anything, they were just trash. Before they started stalking me, they hung out with gangsters and dealers. They even turned fucking tricks. A guy would have to be a fool to stick his dick in something like that. Look at me, man. I can get any bitch I want.”

  Hank tilted his head toward Mary and Carolyn. “What do you bitches think? Would you want to jump in the sack with this asshole? He stinks of piss and body odor.”

  Reggie raised both his palms in the air. “Hey, you got me cold on the New Orleans rap. I’m innocent, but no one gives a shit. No matter what you think, I’m not a drug addict. I knew you were gonna come after me, so I hooked up with some friends from UC Santa Barbara. They invited me to a party, and I smoked some weed. I’m itching because I’ve got sand crabs from sleeping on the beach. I also have a cold. Go ahead, ship me back to New Orleans. Just don’t try to hang a bunch of killings on me.” He looked each of them in the eye. “I don’t kill people. I was trying to get a step up in life, you know. I dropped out of school in the eighth grade to help take care of my grandma. She raised me from the time I was five. She was the only family I ever knew. I don’t even know if she’s still alive.” He placed his hands over his face, then looked up at them with tear-filled eyes. “I’ve called everywhere and no one knows what happened to her. She was too old to drive, so she gave the car back to the bank. If I hadn’t got busted for my brother’s crimes, I would have gotten her out of that house before the hurricane hit.”

  “You’re good, Reggie,” Mary said, returning to her chair. “You should have been an actor. We’ve already heard your sob stories. You told us your father was killed by a cop, remember? Now you say you never knew him.”

  “Wait,” he said, a muscle in his face twitching. “I did see an old guy gunned down by some cops.”

  “But he wasn’t your father, right?”

  Reggie hung his head. “I want an attorney.”

  Hank pushed himself to his feet and headed to the door, Carolyn and Mary following behind him. Once they were outside in the hallway, he said, “Book the bastard on the warrant out of New Orleans. Right now, we don’t have enough to arrest him on murder charges. Get that idiot motel clerk sobered up and bring him in for a lineup. Make certain Stockton is clean shaven and wearing decent cloths, or the guy might not recognize him.”

  Mary had spoken to both the New Orleans PD and the DA’s office before the interview. “New Orleans won’t extradite, Hank. They say all the evidence was destroyed in the hurricane.”

  “The warrant’s still active in the system, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” she said, “but I’m not certain for how long. Now that New Orleans has made it clear they’re not going to extradite him, we can’t hold him.”

  “They’re all screwed up down in New Orleans,” Hank said. “If anyone calls us on it, tell them you tried to get through to them, but you couldn’t. Collect a DNA sample from Stockton right away and shoot it to be lab. Did Jude’s black Taurus ever turn up?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Check the Amtrak train station,” Carolyn suggested. “He may have left it in their parking lot.”

  “But the ticket was for Monday evening,” Mary told her. “If Stockton was in Santa Barbara, he couldn’t have committed the crimes against Drew and Jude. And if he was involved in the situation with Jude, he would have had the cash she stole and the airline tickets.”

  “Jude isn’t as smart as Stockton,” Carolyn went on. “He knew it was too risky to try to board a plane. He didn’t have time to come up with a fake ID, and he had to know we’d alerted airport security. He may well have hopped the six o’clock train to Santa Barbara Monday, with the express purpose of establishing an alibi. Then he could have called Jude to come and get him. After he killed Drew and thought he’d killed Jude, he drove her car back to Santa Barbara, washed it down, and ditched it. Either that, or he sold it to a chop shop and they dismantled it.”

  “I don’t know, Carolyn,” Mary said, stepping back to let an officer pass. “I mean, it won’t hurt to check it out. The Amtrak lot is considered private property, so that might be why we haven’t found the car. I can’t picture Stockton doing this kind of planning. To be honest, I’m not sure he had anything to do with the murders. We’re a long way from eliminating Don Snodgrass. If Stockton is our guy, he mistakenly thought both Haley and Jude were dead when they were still alive. What kind of murderer does that? Someone that’s never committed a crime, maybe, like Snodgrass. Either that, or someone who’s emotionally distraught.”

  “Whoever killed Drew and Veronica weren’t that emotionally distraught, or they would have left more evidence,” Carolyn argued. “One of the reasons we can’t solve these cases is lack of evidence, isn’t that right?”

  “We’ve had too many crimes in too short of a time frame,” Hank interjected. “We’ve been working from preliminary forensic reports. We may have a shitload of evidence once everything is processed.”

  Mary spoke up. “Since he got out of high school, Stockton’s been working forty hours a week at Circuit City. I believe the guy was sincerely trying to better himself, and he got tangled up in something over his head.”

  “Where’s his cell phone?” Carolyn asked. “And what happened to the stuff he took from his house, his clothes and other possessions? You said he cashed his final check from Circuit City Friday afternoon. Why was he sleeping on the beach if he had
cash? Can’t you see? It doesn’t add up.”

  “He spent his money on drugs?” Hank said, pulling out a toothpick.

  “How did Reggie find a chop shop?” Mary asked. “These kinds of operations aren’t listed in the Yellow Pages.”

  “Wait until the public defender talks to him,” Carolyn said, refusing to back down. “When do you think he’s going to claim he smoked dope with his so-called friends?”

  Hank said, “Who cares? The jury’s not going to believe a bunch of potheads.”

  “You weren’t listening,” Carolyn told him. “He said they were students at UC Santa Barbara. Just because a few college students smoked a little weed won’t discredit them as witnesses. Stockton probably bought them off with the cash or the airline tickets. If he is our killer, we’re going to have a hell of a time convicting him. The motel clerk picking him out of a lineup isn’t going to cut it. You know why? Ask Mary, she’ll tell you.”

  “Because he’s black,” Mary said, shuffling her feet around. “Benny may be a lowlife, but he’s white. White people have trouble telling one black person from another.”

  “Morons used to say that years ago,” Hank said. “Stockton’s attorney can’t play the race card on something as flimsy as that.”

  “I disagree,” Carolyn told him. “Look at all the black men who have been cleared recently by DNA. Some of these men have been rotting away in prisons for decades. In almost every instance, it turned out to be a case of mistaken identity. Any lawyer who didn’t incorporate this into his defense would be incompetent.”

  Hank squared his shoulders off. “Find the damn car.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Wednesday, October 19—10:00 A.M.

  Because of the developments with Jude and Drew, Brad Preston had taken over the unit, instructing Carolyn to devote her time to the girl and the task force.

  Carolyn had called and left a message on Tyler Bell’s answering machine. He’d never followed through on her request to submit a DNA sample, however, she didn’t see him as a viable suspect in the present crimes. Later, she would try again. If Bell continued to refuse to cooperate, she would relay Veronica’s suspicions to the police agencies who had investigated the deaths of Robert Abernathy and Lester McAllen.

  When she arrived at the hospital, Dr. Samuels was walking out of Jude’s room. “She’s awake,” he told her. “You can speak to her now. She’s emotional, so I’m sure she’ll be glad to see you. The good news is she should be able to keep the arm. Most patients are depressed until they see how the reattached limb is going to look and function. I’ve asked for a psychologist named Shelly Elderwood to come by and talk to her. Later, if she’s still despondent, I’ll make a referral for a psychiatrist who can prescribe medication. She can’t take anything along those lines now, not with the drugs we’re giving her for pain.”

  “Did you tell her about her father?”

  “No,” Samuels said. “Since you were close to the family, I felt it was better if you told her. Have your notified her aunt?”

  “Yes,” Carolyn said. “She may not be able to fly down to see Jude right away. She has a law practice, and she’s in the middle of a trial. She’s also taking care of Jude’s three younger siblings. Before this happened, Emily wasn’t close to any of the children.”

  As the doctor walked off, she entered the room. Jude’s face was contorted in pain, and it was obvious she’d been crying. “Hi, honey,” Carolyn said, smiling weakly. “Your doctor said you were doing great.”

  “What are you smiling about? Where’s my dad? They let him out of jail, didn’t they?”

  “Why don’t you rest now, Jude? I’m sure you’re in a lot of pain.”

  Carolyn hadn’t anticipated Jude wanting to see Drew, not after reading her diary. She pulled up a chair and sat down, placing her palms on her knees. How much bad news could one person deliver? She’d told Drew that his wife had been murdered. Now Drew had met the same fate. At the jail, the inmates used to call her the angel of death because almost all the people she interviewed received a lengthy prison sentence.

  “It’s more than the pain,” Jude said. “I feel like I’m in a damn horror movie. I keep waiting for it to end, but it only gets worse. How would you feel if someone chopped off your arm and sewed it back on?”

  “The doctors surgically reattached your arm, not the person who struck you with a car. Maybe you misunderstood the—”

  “I didn’t misunderstand anything.”

  “About your father, I’d rather talk to you when you’re feeling better.”

  Jude cut her eyes to Carolyn. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  How did she know? “Yes, I’m sorry.”

  A strained silence ensued. “I know who killed him. It was that fucker Reggie Stockton. He killed my mother, too.”

  “It’s hard to believe anything you say now, Jude. You told everyone your father killed your mother. Have you forgotten?”

  “Reggie told me that I had to say those things or he’d kill me. Look what happened to me when I told the truth. Who do you think did this to me? It sure wasn’t my father.”

  Carolyn felt uncomfortable. Hank and Mary should be present. She hadn’t expected Jude to be alert enough to provide her with any significant information. “Please, Jude, just rest now. We can talk about everything later.”

  “I’m either going to talk or scream.”

  “Fine,” Carolyn said. “It might be better if you start at the beginning.”

  “Reggie decided he wanted to be with me instead of Haley. I thought he was a great guy until he started hitting me. Then things got even worse. He made me have sex with his friends.” She began crying again. “It’s my fault that my mother’s dead. I loved her. I went back to school so I could make her happy. Now I don’t have anyone. God, even my dad is dead.”

  “I’m sorry, Jude,” Carolyn said. “You have me, honey. And you have your brothers and Stacy. Emily will be here as soon as she can. Everyone is praying for you. I was going to get you some flowers, but they don’t allow flowers in intensive care.”

  “I don’t want fucking flowers,” Jude hissed between clenched teeth. “I want Reggie to rot in hell for what he did.” She shrieked, her body buckling upward. “Call the nurse. Tell them they have to give me something stronger. Whatever they’re giving me isn’t working.”

  Carolyn used the call button on the bed.

  “She’s on a morphine drip,” the nurse said over the speaker. “Tell her to push the button whenever she’s in pain.”

  “Why didn’t the witch tell me that before?” Jude said, using her good hand to dig inside the covers until she found the dispenser for the morphine. A few minutes later, the creases in her forehead went away and her body relaxed back onto the mattress. “What were we talking about? Oh, yeah, Reggie. He made me meet him on a side street in back of the school. He didn’t want anyone to know he was seeing me because of my reputation. He usually took me to his house while his mother was at work. Then one day, he took me to the Motor Inn. He said it was a special treat. His house didn’t have air-conditioning and it was really hot that day. I was feeling sick. Reggie told me I was fat, so I’d stopped eating. He also liked really young girls. You know, girls around the age of my sister, Stacy. He said if I didn’t do everything he told me, he’d rape my sister. I saw him talking to her one day when she was walking home from school.”

  “So you had sex with Reggie in the motel that day?”

  “Yeah,” Jude said. “Then I threatened to go to the police. Reggie was using another name, you know. He was a criminal when he lived in New Orleans. He knew my mom was a probation officer, that if she found out about his past, he’d go to prison.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell your mother?” Carolyn asked. “He’d beaten you before, so you had to know threatening him was dangerous. He could have killed you.”

  “So what?” Jude said, pushing the pump on the morphine again. “I may be only eighteen, but I’ve seen and done more than mos
t people do in a lifetime. Nothing was ever going to change for me. This”—she stared at her bandaged arm—“this is the kind of thing that happens to people like me.”

  “You’re too young to give up on life, Jude,” Carolyn told her. “It’s a miracle that the doctors saved your arm. Once you’re well, you’ll have enough money to go back to school, even graduate from college. You can stay with me, or you can get your own apartment.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes,” Carolyn told her. “Can you tell me what happened that day in the motel room?”

  “Before I said those things to Reggie,” Jude went on, “I called Mom and told her I was in trouble. I knew she wouldn’t come right away because I called her all the time. I knew Mom carried a gun, so I wasn’t worried about Reggie hurting her. All I wanted to do was protect my sister. I knew if my mother got there, she would either shoot his ass or make certain he spent the rest of his life in prison.” She paused and caught her breath. “Mom was tough, you know. She didn’t take shit off anyone, even my dad.”

  “What happened when your mother got there?”

  “I never saw her…God, everything is my fault. I was an idiot. I shouldn’t have called her. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

  “Veronica didn’t come to the motel. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Why would you ask me that?” Jude said, angry. “You found her dead in the motel, didn’t you? Shit, you think I’m making this up. I should have known you wouldn’t believe me. Go home and leave me alone.”