The White Angel Murder

by Victor Methos

  Colby hung up and turned to his partner. He took his hand away from his mouth to look at the wound and saw that he had bitten into his tongue.

  “They’re on their way.”

  Chad wrapped his tie around the wound and pressed hard to stop the bleeding. “I ucking ate surweilance.”

  64

  Stanton turned his cell phone off. He pulled to a stop a block from the house and put the phone and his wallet in the glove compartment. Last he had checked, the surveillance team was following the van and the street was quiet and empty. The type of place where neighbors could live ten feet from each other for thirty years and never know each others’ names.

  It wasn’t quite yet dark but he had little time. After Brady realized that Hunter wasn’t coming, it would take him about forty minutes to get home. The variable was how long he would wait there without Hunter answering his phone. Stanton’s guess was not long. He probably had somewhere between an hour and ten and an hour and thirty minutes in the house.

  He stepped out of the car. The air was warm and there was no breeze, the trees still as glass. He looked at all the cars in the driveways and guessed this was a lower-middle class neighborhood. At the far end of the street two kids were playing on the sidewalk.

  The house appeared old and the windows were tinted so dark it was difficult to see through them. Stanton looked around one more time and then went to the front porch. The mother, he had been told, was bedridden in a room on the top floor. The surveillance team had only seen her come to the window once to empty an ashtray onto the driveway and then go back to bed. He guessed she wouldn’t be a problem.

  He looked at the lock. It was a simple pin and tumbler. None of the windows had alarm stickers and Stanton had checked all the major alarm companies and they didn’t list this address as a client.

  Stanton took out a pin and a tension wrench. He inserted the pin until he heard a click and then put the tension wrench into the bottom portion of the lock. The problem was that he didn’t know which way to turn the cylinder and he had to try both directions several times before it clicked and turned over.

  He quickly got inside and shut the door behind him.

  The house was cool and he could hear an air conditioner going. There were stairs just to his left leading to the second floor. Past those was the living room. To the other side was a hallway that led into the kitchen.

  He leaned against the door and let himself adjust to the house. He observed the decorations on the walls. Mostly, they were just plants; their long vines strung up with thumb tacks along the ceiling and walls. It reminded him of an abandoned house in a jungle that nature had overtaken again. He glanced into the living room and saw a large painting of Elvis on black velvet. The sofa and love seat were wrapped in plastic and in the corner was a basket filled with yarn and crocheting needles. The television was outdated by at least fifteen years and still had the dial channel changer and bunny ear antennas.

  Stanton walked softly on the shag carpet and went into the kitchen. He could see a table with only two chairs and place mats with silverware already laid out. The centerpiece was a bowl of plastic fruit with a thick layer of dust over it.

  The linoleum was clean but the sink was filled with dirty dishes. Bowls and plates and filthy glasses covered the countertops and the garbage can was overflowing. A large butcher’s knife lay by the sink on a cutting board.

  Past the kitchen was another small hallway. He walked into it and saw a bathroom on the left. It was filled with men’s products. Shaving cream and aftershave and hard, unscented soap. He continued down the hallway and came to a bedroom. It stunk of body odor and sweat. He went around the bed and then looked underneath. There was a dresser-drawer against the wall and he began to open the individual drawers. Socks, underwear, loose change … but in the far right drawer was a stack of pornography.

  They were magazines and Stanton flipped through them. Some dated back to the eighties. They were all bondage and rape and gangbangs. He placed them back and closed the drawer. Research showed that violent pornography didn’t make people violent, but if they had a predisposition to violence, it was like throwing gasoline on a forest fire.

  On the nightstand next to the bed was a lamp and alarm clock and tucked underneath the alarm clock were some papers. They were envelopes and he took them out and saw that each one had papers in them. He looked at the return address on the envelopes: they were from the Pelican Bay State Prison.

  65

  Stanton took a few minutes and read through the first letter twice. There were five total: three from Noah, and two from “BLR” to Noah. The first letter was sent from Noah and introduced himself and told Rattigan how he knew him. Tami Jacobs’ boyfriend had told Noah about the manager of her building and how he had a key to her apartment and let him in. The responding officers took a statement from the manager and then never followed up.

  But something never sat right with Sherman. The boyfriend had said the manager vomited in the bathroom and the manager had said the same. He said he had flushed the vomit away and washed out his mouth before leaving and calling the police. Sherman had checked under the toilet seat. Bits of vomit, no matter how hard one tried, always got underneath the toilet seat and there was none there. Sherman investigated the manager and had discovered that the managers were not allowed to have keys to the apartments in that building. He had pulled a criminal history and saw that there were several burglaries and minor sex offenses for Brady Louis Rattigan. Many rapists began as burglars that stumbled upon vulnerable women when they were burglarizing a home. They would develop a taste for it and continue down that path.

  Brady had gotten the job from an uncle who owned the apartment complex.

  You had him and you let him go. Damn you to hell, Noah.

  As he was about to turn to the second letter he heard a sound. He held his breath and waited. It happened again. It was a scraping sound; a pen being dragged across concrete. He stood up and removed his firearm from the holster, placing the letters down on the bed. He kept his gun at chest height and moved toward the door. He leaned against the wall and peered out into the hallway. There was nothing but air shooting down on his forehead from a vent on the ceiling.

  Stanton stepped into the hallway and made his way into the kitchen. He went past the table to the sliding glass door and thought that perhaps they had a dog. But no dog had been observed by surveillance.

  There was the scraping sound again, coming from near the stairs, and Stanton turned to it. It was coming from behind a door. He leaned against the wall, the gun by his face, enjoying its weight against his hands, and waited.

  The sound occurred again and he saw the doorknob twist slightly to the right and then to the left. He saw the bottom of the door. The gap between the floor and the wood was massive. This door was not part of the original home design, or it had been replaced with a wrong size door.

  Fingers came through the bottom and the knob turned again and Stanton stood and pointed his firearm, his finger on the trigger. The fingers retracted and he heard thumping down a set of what sounded like wooden stairs.

  He knelt down to the gap between the door and the floor. “This is the police. Who’s down there?”

  “Oh my God,” he heard someone shout. “Help me, please help me.”

  He heard the crying of a young girl and the sobs and pleading for help. His instinct was to kick the door down but he remained calm and put his firearm away and took out his pin and tension wrench.

  The door was open in less than a minute. It was dark but Stanton could see the first few steps leading down into a basement. Near the middle of the stairs was a girl, her blond hair covering her face, her feet bound. Stanton jumped down the stairs.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “No,” she cried. “Please, we have to go. He’s going to come back. We have to go.”

  “Okay, okay, calm down. We’re going to get out of here, okay?”

  Stanton tried to loosen the plastic wraps around
her ankles but they were too tightly bound. “Wait here.”

  “No! Don’t leave me!”

  “I’ll be right back. Hold on.”

  He ran to the kitchen and grabbed the butcher’s knife off the cutting board. He ran back to the girl who screamed when she saw him.

  “Shhh. It’s okay, I’m just going to cut these wraps, okay? Don’t move for just a second.”

  He placed the blade in between the wraps from the bottom and sawed into them. The plastic was hard and he could feel that bits were flying off over his arms. He got through and took them off.

  “Come on.”

  He helped her up the stairs and turned for the front door. He was going to get his cell phone, when he remembered that he had no reason to be here. There was no warrant. Everything found in this house would be suppressed in court, including the statements made by the girl.

  “Can you walk?” he said.

  “Yeah. Come on, let’s go.” She pushed for the door.

  “Hold on, I need you to do something for me. I need you to go to the neighbor’s house and call the police. When you do, you’re going to tell them that you found that knife in the basement and you cut yourself loose and got out. That the door wasn’t locked when you tried it and you got out on your own. I’m going to leave and you can’t mention me.”

  “No, we have to go.” She was crying and beginning to get hysterical. “We have to go. We have to go, please.”

  Stanton put his palms on her cheeks and brought her eyes to his. “Listen to me. They can’t know that I helped you. I’m going to leave and you’re going to tell them that you found that knife in the basement and you cut yourself loose. Please.”

  “Okay.”

  “What are you going to tell them?”

  “I … I found the knife and I cut myself loose.”

  “Okay. Now I need you to be strong for me just a little bit longer, Zoe. Okay, just a little bit longer.”

  She nodded and they walked to the door. Stanton opened it and watched as she walked to the neighbor’s house and knocked on the door. He was about to leave, and then ran back into the bedroom and grabbed the stack of letters, shoving them into his pocket before dashing out to his car. He waited until he saw Zoe speaking with the neighbors and one of them pull a cell phone out before driving away.

  *****

  Stanton stopped near a small neighborhood park. Sweat was pouring out of him and his heart pounded in his chest.

  He tried to relax but the tension coursed through his body and it tickled his stomach and bladder and he had the sensation that he needed to urinate. He got out and went to the public bathroom at the park. Nothing came so he went back to his car and flipped on an overhead light and read the second letter. The third and fourth letters were as uninteresting as the rest; they praised each other and talked about their conquests. It reminded Stanton of a schoolyard pissing contest.

  Then he got to the last letter. It was dated two days ago:

  Jon Stanton’s address: 2312 New Haven. If you want to be free you’re going to have to take care of it. Send a message to all of them.

  Stanton thought Sherman had given him the wrong address and then recognition pounded in his head like a hammer against steel: it was Melissa’s address.

  66

  Stanton raced on the interstate, weaving in between cars. He cut off a semi and the loud horn startled him. He fumbled for his cell phone and was annoyed that he had to wait for it to turn on. He dialed Jessica’s number.

  “Hey,” she said, “what’s up?”

  “He’s going after Melissa. Call dispatch and tell them an officer needs assistance immediately and get them to 2312 New Haven. Tell them the suspect is armed and hostile to officers.”

  “Oh my God. Okay, I’m on it.”

  He then called Melissa. There was no answer as it went straight to voicemail. He tried again with the same result.

  Stanton glanced down at his speedometer and saw he was doing nearly ninety miles an hour, disrupted only with the frequent braking he had to do before passing slower vehicles.

  By the time he got off his exit six minutes had passed. He knew he would be closer than any responding officers and probably be the first one there.

  The street was quiet and there were no vehicles parked in the driveway. Stanton ran up onto the grass and left the car on as he darted out and to the front door. It was locked and he pounded and rang the door bell and shouted for Melissa. He took a step back and raised his right leg and smashed his heel by the doorknob. He did it again, and again, and again. The door was beginning to splinter and he did it twice more with the other leg before switching back.

  With a thunderous crash the door swung open, bits of wood flying everywhere, and Stanton pulled out his firearm and entered the house.

  It was dark except for the blue light of the television coming from the living room. He flipped the switch on the wall and nothing happened. He pushed his back against the wall and slid along it, heading for the living room when saw a figure slouched on the sofa.

  “On the ground!”

  There was no movement. Stanton reached for the light switch and a lamp turned on. It was Lance. His head was leaned back against the leather, a small hole in his forehead drizzling blood down over his face. The back of his head was blown out and brain matter and blood was on the wall behind him.

  He heard screaming from farther down the hallway. They were of young children.

  Stanton sprinted down the hall. The gun was in his hand but it was lowered now and he couldn’t think; there was only the instinct to run to the voices and destroy anything in front of him.

  They were coming from the bathroom and the door was locked. Stanton rammed his shoulder into it and it flung open. His boys were on the floor, their faces covered in tears and sweat, their eyes swollen. But alive.

  They ran to him and he wrapped his arms around them.

  “Where’s your mom?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Stanton glanced around the bathroom. “Come on, let’s go.”

  He took them outside and shouted for help. A neighbor came out, an older woman in gym clothes. Stanton told her to take his boys inside her home and wait for the police and lock her doors. She was frightened and confused, but did what he asked without a word.

  Stanton ran back inside the house.

  His heart was pounding so hard he didn’t think he could hear anything else. He ran back to the bathroom and checked the two rooms farther down that hallway. They were empty. He ran over to the stairs leading to the second floor. On the first few steps were dirty boot-prints.

  Stanton climbed the stairs slowly, straining to hear any sounds. He got to the top and stood for a moment listening. There was a muffled cry in the room immediately to his left. He twisted around the other side of the door and ducked low. He took a deep breath, and reached for the doorknob.

  He twisted the doorknob and pushed the door open. Tied to the bed with plastic cuffs, Melissa was in her bra and panties. Her make-up was running down her face and she was hysterical, fighting against the straps as her wrists bled.

  Stanton pushed the door open farther, and then went deaf.

  A shotgun blast tore through the wood just above his head. Where his chest should have been had he been standing. He fell to his stomach as another blast went off, his ears ringing and causing nausea.

  He crawled along the floor away from the room as another blast tore through the wall, blowing fragments of wood and drywall over the hallway and on top of him. Another blast farther along but above him.

  Stanton climbed to his knees and got toward the end of the hall when he heard Melissa scream. He stood and ran for the bedroom. Brady was at the door and fired, the spray mostly hitting the wall behind Stanton as he fell to his stomach and fired up at the figure in front of him.

  Stanton squeezed the trigger and felt the impact against his wrist and shoulder. Another shotgun blast caught Stanton and tore chunks out of his midsection and sho
ulder. Brady was hit once in the throat and the face. His jaw shattered into pieces, revealing his tongue and pink throat, and he stumbled backward. Stanton steadied his hand, and fired.

  A single shot went into his cheek just underneath the eye. He fell to his knees as Stanton stood up and fired two rounds into his head, knocking the corpse over onto its back. A handgun was in Brady’s other hand and Stanton walked over and kicked it away. He stood over the body, and fired his last round into the heart.

  He ran over to Melissa and tugged on the straps. They weren’t tightened all the way: he had been interrupted. Stanton ripped them off and placed his arms around his wife and kissed her forehead as she wept onto his chest.

  “It’s over,” he whispered. “It’s over.”

  67

  The glass partition was dirtier than Stanton remembered. There were fingerprints smeared across it; small fingerprints about the size of a child’s hands. Stanton didn’t want to be here. He would have preferred to be on the beach with the ocean foaming around his ankles. But he felt that if he didn’t come questions would always nag at him. And he needed to look him in the eyes and tell him that he had lost.

  Sherman was sat down and picked up the phone with a grin on his face.

  “So, Johnny boy gets his man. I’m humbled that you came to see me. Heard you spent some more time in the hospital?”

  “Were you ever going to turn him in?”

  “I don’t know. I enjoyed his work. He was progressing, Jon. Tami wasn’t the first. He came to visit me once. He told them he was my attorney and they didn’t record anything. That’s what you should’ve done.”

  “How many were there?”

  “His first one was when he was fourteen. Such an early age to begin, isn’t it? I wonder how far he would’ve gotten if you hadn’t murdered him.” Sherman bit a long piece of his thumbnail off and spit it out. “I saw on the news that you retired after this case.”