Ciccolella’s phone rang and he walked away to answer it. When he came back his face was very grim.
“Emily?” I asked.
He shook his head and put his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Roy.”
I started sobbing and rolled over onto my side. A few minutes later, the forensics guy came over with some contraption that had plastic tubing sticking out of it.
“I want to suck out the contents of your stomach,” he said to me.
“What for?” Chick asked.
“The woman’s blood may be in his stomach.”
“What! You think I sucked my wife’s blood? Bullshit!”
Chick held me down while the forensics guy started ramming the tube down my throat. It had some kind of numbing agent on it to reduce my gag reflex.
He kept saying, “Try to relax and keep swallowing.”
I did the best I could to swallow but I was anything but relaxed. A moment later I could see blood filling up a plastic bag attached to the machine.
After they got the tube out of my throat, a cop came over with a 9mm automatic that had a silencer attached to it. He was holding it with a shoelace that he had passed through the trigger guard. The guy showed it to Chick.
“I found it lying on top of the dog’s body.”
Chick looked at him, “That the one that went missing from the evidence locker last week?”
The guy shrugged.
Chick sighed, “Dust the pistol for prints and bag the suspect’s hands.”
Then he turned back to me. He looked apologetic for a brief moment, then his face turned stony. “I’m sorry, Roy. I’ve no choice but to arrest you under Sierra Penal Code Section 187, murder.”
Then he turned to a nearby police officer. “Read him his rights and book him.” Then in a louder voice to the whole room, “All right, people! Let’s clear the area. This is a crime scene. All non-essential personnel outside.”
Chapter Thirty
Visiting Center at the Vandenberg County Jail
“Just looking at the evidence, you’re fucked. In fact, even with the illegal search of your stomach, you’re still pretty much fucked.”
I didn’t respond. I just sat there with my elbows resting on the table and my forehead nested in my palms.
“C’mon, Roy, talk to me.”
“I got nuthin’ to say.”
Chick got up and paced around the room for a bit. Then he leaned over the table and pulled my hands away from my head.
“Cop to cop… did you do it?”
“I can’t produce any evidence says I didn’t.”
He sat down again. “Maybe you could tell me what you think happened? We’ll start from there and try to make a case around that.”
“Whose side are you on? I thought you guys were supposed to be working for the DA.”
“You haven’t been charged yet. God knows the DA wants to! But I asked him to hold off for a while.”
“And he bought that?”
“Yeah. For 72 hours anyway. You gotta man up and fight this!”
“I’m sorry, Chick. I got no fight left. This isn’t the first time this has happened to me.”
“What was the first time?”
“Back when I was in CID. I was getting close to a serial murderer. He liked to garrote his victims. Always women, always blond. Anyway, I was getting close, so he sends me a letter telling me to back off, which of course I didn’t. So I come home one day and find my wife and child garroted in the bedroom. All her hair was cut off. They pulled me off the case. Said I was no longer objective. Anyway, one day they find this stiff they believed was the killer only I knew it wasn’t.”
“How’d ja know?”
“Hunch maybe. Wait, no. Way more than a hunch. I knew it. I don’t know how I knew it, I just did.”
“So then what happened?”
“They closed the case. Eventually they put me back on homicide. But as long as I was in the Army, I kept getting these letters every year on the anniversary of her death. Inside would be some snide little note and a lock of her hair.”
“So that’s why you wanted to stay away from homicide.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry, Roy. I didn’t know. You think it might be the same guy?”
“Nah, I doubt it. I think the new guy got the idea of taking out Emily and Devil by hacking my emails. I’d asked Emily to dye her hair some other color. The fucker knew I was scared. I think he might have bugged the table we used at Albert’s—that’s the bar up there. Monica and Sam used to sit and compare notes with me after hours. I told them about my first wife.”
“Only by framing you, this guy is doing the first guy one better.”
“Looks that way.”
“I still need you to help me out.”
“Yeah, why’s that?”
“Because if you don’t you’re gonna end up in the gas chamber.”
I got up and paced to the rear of my dinky cell finally coming to a stop with my forehead cradled in the crook of my arm against the wall. Chick came up behind me and put his hand on my shoulder. I recoiled at his touch and shook it off. He grabbed me by both arms and forced me back to the bed and forced me down on the mattress. I wiped the tears from my cheeks. I was angry at him that he was there to see my anguish, or maybe I was just angry at myself that for the first time I had to face my bitter guilt. I’d failed the woman I loved, and worse, she died thinking it was me that did her in. I hid my face in my palms and choked out sob after sob.
“Pull yourself together. I need you, man. You’re no good to me dead.”
“Chick, the way I feel right now, that would be a blessing.”
“Okay, how about because there’s still a serial killer out there, and if we don’t catch him, he’s going to kill again. Putting you in here just takes the heat off him. By the way, that’s the argument I used to get you your 72 hours.”
I snorted. “I’d like to have been a fly on the DA’s wall when you laid that one on him!”
“Think about it. It fits. You have no motive to come down and murder your wife and your German Shepherd. And you were damned effective putting heat on the bastard that did this. What better way to get you off his back than by framing you as a copycat? I mean, you’re in jail, right? Not out chasing him.”
I had to admit, it made sense.
“Okay. What do you want me to do? I assume you’re not going to let me out to pick up his trail again.”
“Can’t. The DA would have us both in here in adjoining cells. But how do you think he might have done what he did? This is a new MO, right?”
“Yeah, for starters he didn’t kill Emily before he went to work on her. Up on the stations, he always killed his victims so they wouldn’t put up a fight and attract attention. Emily was still alive when I walked in.”
“So what happened after you walked in?”
“He turned my lights out.”
“How?”
“Sap, a soft one—lead shot instead of a lead slug. Whacked me above the right ear.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Cause I’m sitting here alive telling you about it. Lead slugs are almost always lethal when administered to the skull.”
“Why didn’t you tell us about getting knocked out?”
“You didn’t ask.”
“Okay, my bad. What did you see before you got sapped.”
“Not much. Emily was hanging from the ceiling, nude, back to me, lot of blood pooling under her. Devil was lying in the corner. Didn’t get much of a look at him. That’s it.”
“Were the lights on?”
“Yeah. Blinds drawn too. Saw that from the street walking in.”
“That strike you as odd, given the late hour?”
“No. I’d texted Emily from Edwards. I expected her to be sleeping on the couch waiting for me.”
“What time did you text her from Edwards?”
“About midnight.”
“And you arrived home 0200?”
“Yeah, pretty close.”
“So the killer had two hours to work on her.”
“Yeah.”
“How do you think he got in?”
“Probably jimmied the back door, then drilled Devil when he came running up to investigate. That was maybe a couple of hours before she got home.”
“You think he overpowered her when she walked in?”
“I figure he was waiting behind the front door. She would have spotted Devil lying in the corner all bloody. That’s when he would have jumped her.”
“How’d he subdue her? There were no reports of screams from the neighbors.”
“I figure he came up behind her and slapped duct tape across her mouth. Then he strong-armed her to the floor and sat on her while he injected her with flunitrazepam, a ‘roofy.’ I’m guessing it was a low dose—couple of milligrams—so she’d be real woozy and easy to manage. I’m also guessing he wanted her to see herself being ‘vampired’ by me.”
“How’d he pull that off?”
“He’s not just an electronic identity thief. No, our boy is a regular shapeshifter. He uses 3D printing to manufacture any face he wants. This time he picked my face. He wanted her to think I was killing her.”
Ciccolella reached into his jacket and pulled out a flask, removed the stainless cap, and took a long pull.
“You gonna share that?” I asked. He shoved it over to me and I sniffed it. Yuck, bourbon. Beggars can’t be choosy.
“Anyway, he probably sat on her for fifteen or twenty minutes waiting for the drug to take effect. When she was out, he stripped her and suspended her to the ceiling by her feet. Then he bit her in the neck with his fake vampire fangs to get the blood flowing, but he didn’t kill her. He only collected maybe half a liter of blood and then put some tape on the wound. That way I’d walk in and immediately go into shock. That’s when he jumped me. Only he didn’t want to risk me overpowering him—he knows I carry a blade and a sap. So, he wanted me all the way out from the get-go.”
“Okay, then what?”
“Then he hits me with a dose of flunitrazepam, a little bigger dose, maybe three or four milligrams, since I’m bigger than Emily. That way he could count on me staying out for a while.”
“You’re pretty sure of this flunitrazepam?”
“I figure he intercepted message traffic between me and Monica up on Einstein. I had her checking into date rape drugs when we were still puzzling over cause of death. I suggested flunitrazepam. Guy’s a poet. He’s trying to ‘hoist me on my own petard,’ so to speak.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m seeing that.”
“So then he glues another set of his fangs into my mouth, injects their canals with blood, Emily’s blood, swishes Emily’s blood around in my mouth, and finally intubates me and fills my stomach with the blood he’d saved from before.”
Chick took another slug of whiskey. I followed suit.
“So then he props me next to Emily and pulls off the tape on her neck so she’ll bleed all over my shirt and pants. Then he wipes down the house and packs up his stuff, but before he leaves he pulls the tape off Emily’s mouth and gives us each a shot of Flumazenil. That’s the antidote for flunitrazepam. I figure three milligrams for her and about five for me. You’re supposed to drip it in, but at this point, he didn’t much care if we died.”
“Okay, so you both wake up after he leaves. Then what?”
“While we’re waking up, she bleeds out another liter maybe. I figure it was only because she was upside-down that she came to at all. Anyway, she sees me and screams, ‘Roy, no!’ I couldn’t talk very well what with being groggy and those damned fangs in my mouth. Let me have some more of that stuff.”
Chick passed me his flask and I continued.
“I wanted to tell her it wasn’t me. She starts wiggling in a panic making the last of her blood come out. I couldn’t figure out what to do. She desperately needed what blood she had left for her brain, but if I cut her down it would drain back into her body. So, I called 911. Then I called the cops. You know the rest.”
“What’s he gonna do next?”
“I don’t know.”
“Guess.”
“He’s going back to CisLuna.”
Visiting Center at the Vandenberg County Jail
“You have three options, Mr. Stone. First, you can plead not guilty by reason of insanity. The judge has ordered psychiatric evaluation—routine in cases such as this one.
“Second, you can plead not guilty in which case we go to trial. The prosecutor has a pretty solid case—I’d say unbeatable. He’s got you at the crime scene at the time of your wife’s death. He’s got a silenced 9mm automatic pistol that just happens to be from the evidence locker from a case you worked a year ago. He’s got your prints on the weapon and powder residue from the weapon on your hands. He’s got your wife’s blood—”
“Spare me. I was there. I don’t need to go through it again.”
“Very well, but I can’t beat this case if it goes to trial, Mr. Stone. You will most likely get the death penalty, although it wouldn’t be carried out for decades while the appellate process runs its course.
“Third, take the prosecutor’s plea deal. You plead guilty in return for life without parole.”
“There’s a fourth option.”
“What’s that, Mr. Stone?”
“I plead guilty, no plea deals, no appeals. In return I get expedited death sentence.”
“The appeals are mandatory, Mr. Stone. And as far as I know there is no such thing as an ‘expedited death penalty.’”
“There is now.”
“Well, I’d have to discuss your offer with the District Attorney. Uh… how expedited are you talking about?”
“Well, I’d have to check my calendar, but I think I can fit you in on Friday.”
Courtroom
“How do you plea, Mr. Stone?”
“On the conditions that you waive the insanity evaluation, that the sentence is death, and that it is carried out within the week, I plead guilty, your Honor.”
“You are not permitted to negotiate with the court, Mr. Stone.”
“Then I guess I’m not negotiating.”
The bailiff approached the judge and whispered in his ear.
The judge looked angry, glared at me, then said, “I’ve been called to chambers. Lawyers with me.”
The bailiff said, “All rise!”
Thirty minutes later the judge returned to the courtroom.
“Very well, Mr. Stone. After consulting my law books, it seems that recent Sierra law does allow for expedited executions under special circumstances. Your request is granted. Execution by gas chamber will be Friday morning at 6 a.m. at San Quentin Prison. May God have mercy on your soul.”
The Gas Chamber Area at San Quentin
My execution at San Quentin was nothing if not sensational. Executions in Sierra’s San Quentin prison used to be carried out by lethal injection. Then when the great state of Oklahoma screwed up the procedure, that method was abandoned and they went back to using the gas chamber.
Sodium thiopental is used during lethal injection executions to numb the pain of the potassium chloride that stops the heart. It seems that when the drug supplier that provided Oklahoma with sodium thiopental decided to cut them off, Oklahoma prison officials decided to experiment with a mixture of midazolam, vecuronium bromide, and potassium chloride. Their first test subject was an unfortunate fellow named Clayton Lockett. He took 43 minutes to die all to the accompaniment of much groaning, writhing, and convulsing. Pretty gruesome. Lockett was no Boy Scout, mind you. He was in the process of burying one of his victims alive, a young woman named Stephanie Neiman, when at the last minute he fired two shotgun blasts into her. Still, you’d think that the nation that invented television could come up with a way to instantly and painlessly snuff out someone’s life.
Anyway, it was largely because of those fine prison officials in Oklahoma back in April 2014 that I found myself
looking into the hatchway of San Quentin’s gas chamber on this Friday morning in April 2075. There was now a single chair where there used to be two. It’s made of metal mesh—no padding—and has straps for your arms, chest, and legs. The interior color of the chamber—and it is indeed a chamber—is kind of what can only be described as government bureaucrat green. Beyond the chair is a panel of six windows. Beyond the windows are partitions, I gather to separate the friends of the bride from the friends of the groom, and also the prison officials. The only thing missing was a concession stand for soft drinks and popcorn.
Once they get you strapped in, the chair pivots around so you can face your audience. At this point one of the guards places a clear plastic mask over your mouth and nose and straps it in place. The strapping part was pretty vigorous—apparently some dumb schmuck tried to shrug it off in mid execution by rubbing his face against his shoulder. Then the guard hooked up a pair of leads to a heart monitor strap that was secured around my chest.
When all was done the guard smiled, patted my shoulder, and asked, “Are you comfortable?”
I gave him an exasperated look. My freaking heart was running like a snare drum riff and my breathing was doing a pretty good job keeping pace.
Then the guard leaned down and whispered, “Don’t worry. You won’t feel a thing. It will be just like going to sleep!”
Huh! Says he. Then he stepped outside and I heard the hatch being dogged shut behind me.
Alone inside the chamber, I heard the warden’s voice over the loud speaker. “Can you hear me?”
I nodded. “I’m throwing the gas switch now. Please start a slow count backwards from ten.”
I looked at him funny, blinking in the barrage of flash bulbs going off.
“Out loud, please. We need to know how you’re doing.”
I guess I imagined my death scene would be more Shakespearean. In reality, it was more Kafkaesque.
I started counting. I think I maybe got to seven.
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