by Julie Cave
"So she's been beaten up?" Cage asked.
"Yes, for a prolonged period." Dr. Schlabach pointed to some large, purplish marks on the girl's torso and thighs. "You can see old bruise patterns, probably inflicted a week or two ago."
"I suppose it's not surprising," Cage commented. "She was a homeless kid, and probably had a mean boyfriend."
Dr. Schlabach nodded. "There was evidence of long-term and chronic heroin abuse. Apart from the track marks apparent on her arms, legs, and stomach, I found literally a network of collapsed veins all over her body. Her teeth were rotting away. She was clearly malnourished. There were obvious signs of early brain damage. These are all results of using heroin. Blood tests may reveal further health problems, such as hepatitis or even HIV. It's extremely sad to see all of these things in such a young girl."
Dinah couldn't help but share Dr. Schlabach's sadness. In her short life, Lakeisha Tennant had known violence, rejection, and drug addiction. Had she ever experienced the love of a mother or the thrill of riding on a rollercoaster? Had she ever been taken to the beach on a warm summer day? Had she experienced the sheer girlish glee of waking up on Christmas morning, knowing that a multitude of gifts awaited?
"Did you find any forensic evidence that might help us?" Cage asked.
Dr. Schlabach shook his head. "It was a clean kill, unfortunately. I didn't find any foreign hair, fibers, or DNA on her body whatsoever. I only found the usual detritus of the street. Perhaps your lab technicians found something from the crime scene itself that will help."
Cage nodded and they made preparations to leave the morgue. Dinah took one last look at the rail-thin, scarred body of Lakeisha Tennant and vowed to find the person responsible for ending the young girl's life.
****
Ella Barnett dreaded the trip to the supermarket, but today she feared it even more than usual. Previously she had left her father at home, reasonably sure that he would at least be there when she got back. Now, given his skills at escaping and the potential for injury, she had no choice but to take him with her.
It had taken several hours to ensure that her father had been fed, showered, and dressed. Ella had never had children, but she guessed it was like trying to feed, shower, and dress a large, strong, hostile toddler. By the time they were ready to leave the house, she was exhausted.
"Where are we going?" John asked, in the car on the way to the grocery store.
"We're going to pick up some groceries," Ella said.
"I don't know why I have to come," John grumbled. "Charlotte always managed to do the grocery shopping on her own."
Ella glanced at her father curiously. Was he having a clear, lucid moment? "I know Mom did," she said. "I just wanted to spend some time with my dad."
John looked at her and seemed to see through the shadows in recognition. "You're my daughter," he said as if he'd just had a light bulb moment, and Ella's heart broke.
"Yes, Daddy, it's me!" She grasped his hand and squeezed. She felt lighter than she had in weeks.
They drove in companionable silence, and Ella thought that the trip to the store wouldn't be as bad as she thought.
They began to do their shopping, and although holding down a conversation was too much for John, Ella was just as happy to be operating in relative normalcy. She was squeezing grapefruit when she suddenly realized that her father was no longer by her side.
Her stomach dropped and she spun wildly, searching for him. Thankfully, he was only a few strides away but he was staring curiously at two young boys of about seven and eight respectively, who were with their mother. Warning bells started sounding in her head.
The mother of the boys had now noticed John's interest and she began to look concerned. Ella knew she had to intervene immediately.
"Peter, is that you?" John suddenly asked, loudly. He was staring at the older of the two boys.
The boy flinched, and looked at his mother for guidance. His mother frowned.
Ella took her father's arm. "Daddy, let's go, please."
"Peter, I know it's you!"
"Mom?" the boy said.
"Peter! Please let me explain!"
"Daddy, please! We have to go."
John shook his daughter away and advanced even farther on the hapless boy.
"Peter, please, I didn't mean to hurt you," shouted John. "Stop crying, Peter!"
"What on earth is going on?" demanded the boy's mother, stepping in front of her son protectively.
Ella tried to take her father's arm again. "I'm very sorry," she said desperately. "He's not well. He thinks he knows your son."
"He better not know my son," the mother said ominously. "He's scaring him. You need to leave right now."
"Peter, please. Stop running away from me!"
"Get him away from us, now!" The mother's voice was raised and shrill.
Ella noted that a crowd had gathered around, to her horror. She fought back tears and tried to drag her father away from the frightened boys.
"He has Alzheimer's," Ella tried to explain, frantically to the crowd. "He's stuck in the past. He's not himself."
Finally a security guard appeared. "What's going on?"
"You need to get this man out of here," cried the mother, clutching her two children protectively to her side. "He's scaring us."
"It's not his fault," said Ella, trying to make herself heard. "He's a very sick old man. Please be careful."
Thankfully, the guard was strong enough to take the resisting man out of the store. Ella desperately wished she could walk in the other direction and never have to deal with this situation again.
"I'm sorry," she said again to the mother of the boys. "He has Alzheimer's. He is very sick."
The mother looked shaken. "I'm sorry to hear that. But he needs to be kept away from the public, if he's going to be threatening and aggressive."
Thoroughly chastened, Ella hurried past the crowd, all of whom were muttering to themselves and staring at her. Outside, John was demanding to know what he'd done wrong.
"Don't you know who I am?" he asked the guard. "I am the president of the First National Bank. You have no right to treat me this way!"
The guard saw Ella and was visibly relieved. "Listen, lady, we can't have that sort of disturbance in this store."
"I'm sorry," said Ella. "He has Alzheimer's. He is very sick and doesn't know what he's doing."
"Even so," said the guard. "If he's going to act like that, you can't bring him here. Understand?"
"Okay, okay," said Ella. "I get it."
She grabbed her father, more harshly than normal, and returned to the car. Once driving, Ella unleashed her humiliation, frustration, and fury. "How could you do that to me?" she yelled. "Why can't you just behave normally? What is wrong with you?" She slammed her hands on the steering wheel while hot tears streamed down her face.
John seemed not to have heard. He himself had tears in his eyes. "Why wouldn't Peter listen to me? I didn't mean to hurt him."
"Just shut up about Peter! I'm sick of hearing about it. You don't know any boys named Peter, okay?"
John again lapsed into silence and as Ella's anger faded, guilt rushed in to replace it. She was yelling at an old man with a terrible disease. His behavior was not his fault. Had he been aware of his surroundings, he would never behave in this manner.
At home, without groceries, Ella settled her father onto the couch with a cup of hot tea, and then took herself upstairs to have a hot shower. As the water pounded on her shoulders, Ella wondered how much more of this she could take.
****
The killer waited in the lobby, dressed once again in his suit, silk tie, and Italian leather shoes. Today he wore steel-framed glasses and looked like a dashing, intelligent reporter, which was precisely the look he was trying to pull off.
He was waiting in the anteroom of a halfway house for the mentally ill. The room was old and faded, lit with harsh fluorescent lights, and was scrupulously clean. The receptionist/nurse had disapp
eared to find the head of the facility. The killer had researched the facility thoroughly and had picked this one due to its strict three-strike policy.
Finally, he was greeted by a portly, kind-faced man in his sixties who introduced himself as Reverend Stephen Notting.
"I'm the director here," he explained in a faint English accent. "What is it you want to write your story about?"
The killer adjusted his glasses. "I'm doing a public interest story on the good Samaritans in our community who are helping the less fortunate. I will be doing a number of articles about different organizations. You'll probably be the first in the series."
Notting nodded. "Well, of course I'm very proud of the work we do here and happy to talk your ear off about it."
"How did it start?"
"I had a parish in the heart of the city," explained Notting. He guided the killer into the back of the building, where the bedrooms, common kitchen, living rooms, and recreational rooms were located. "I came across a huge number of people struggling with mental illness, many of whom were homeless."
"Shouldn't they go to a hospital?" the killer asked, feigning interest.
"Many of them had been in and out of the hospital. The problem is that the treatment and medication for these conditions is expensive. Many of them can't hold a job very well due to their conditions, particularly if they are unmedicated. Without jobs, they can't afford housing and they end up on the streets."
"That's where you come in?"
"Right." Notting showed him the recreational room, which was filled with books, couches, a TV, a table tennis table, and pool table. There were people of varying ages, ethnicities, and both sexes occupying space there. "We offer a place to stay and a treatment program. We're not a jail or a hospital, so people can come and go as they please. Once the treatment has stabilized their condition, we help with jobs and finding their own place to stay. At this point, we have an outpatient service that checks in on them frequently to make sure they're doing well."
"Isn't one of the major problems of mental illness getting the patient to take his or her medications properly?"
Notting opened the door to the commercial kitchen, which served meals en masse. "You're right. We have a three-strike policy, because demand for our services is so high. We work with people who want to get better but haven't been able to afford the treatments in the past. Of course, there are many reasons why medication is stopped or isn't quite right, so all of these factors are taken into account before we ask someone to leave. Medication in particular can be tricky to calibrate in exact doses because each patient is unique."
"What kind of illnesses do you treat?"
The director now led the killer into one of the individual rooms, a bedroom with two single beds and some other sparse furnishings. The beds were made with military precision, the floor uncluttered and clean, and without so much as a single speck of dust visible.
"We treat schizophrenia, bipolar, personality disorders, anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, and depression," the reverend replied. "Often patients have a combination of disorders. The treatment we provide includes medication, psychiatry, and therapy — again, often in combination."
The killer felt very happy with his choice of facility. This would be just perfect.
"Would I be permitted to speak with some of the residents?" he asked.
"Yes, if they agree. I would ask that you keep their identities private," agreed Notting. "There is still stigma associated with mental illness in our society, and I don't want to cause problems for our patients."
That wouldn't be a problem, reflected the killer. One unlucky patient would probably have his or her identity revealed, but would be dead at the time so probably wouldn't care one way or the other.
"I have a particular interest," he told Notting. "I am very interested in meeting one of your patients who might have used up one or two of their strikes. I'd like to discover what makes a person rebel, so to speak, against an organization that is trying to help them."
"I see. Well, I'm sure that won't be a problem. I can find a few of them and one of them is bound to be happy to talk to you." Notting led him back into the recreational room and instructed him to sit on an unused couch. Then he moved around the room, quietly greeting and speaking to his patients.
Eventually a man in his late thirties or early forties approached the killer. He was built slightly, with thinning blonde hair, piercing blue eyes, and a frown that looked like it never went away.
"You the reporter?" he asked.
"Yes. What's your name?"
"Ben Steffan." The man sat and intertwined his fingers together nervously.
"And what brings you here?"
"Paranoid schizophrenia," said Ben.
The killer smiled. Perfect.
Chapter 3
Detective Samson Cage picked up Dinah that evening from outside her apartment in an unmarked police car. He wanted a first-hand view of the alleyway in which Lakeisha Tennant's body had been found. He figured that any witnesses were likely to be in the region at nighttime, rather than during the day.
Cage drove precisely on the speed limit and was courteous and generous toward other drivers. He was the polar opposite of her own driving style, Dinah thought. She weaved in and out of lanes, looking for the fastest route, leaned on her horn frequently, and often yelled angrily when cut off or when some other slight was committed against her. She had vowed to take a more laidback approach in the future but it was an ingrained part of her personality that was going to be hard to change. Cage's patient driving actually irritated her, so she sat on her hands and tried to relax.
Cage also felt no particular need to fill the silence in the car, so Dinah asked, "Do you work with a partner?"
Cage shrugged. "Most of the time, I don't. Occasionally I get lumped with someone. I prefer to work alone."
"Really?" Dinah was intrigued. She had always enjoyed working with a partner, someone to bounce ideas around with and offer opinions from a different point of view. She knew it was also the preferred method of most law enforcement agencies for their investigators to work in pairs or groups. "How do you get away with that?"
Cage shrugged again. "I've earned my stripes," he said matter-of-factly. "I have one of the highest case clearance rates. They leave me alone."
He didn't seem to want to talk about it. Dinah wondered if there was something he was hiding.
She had no more time to wonder, as they arrived at their destination, a neighborhood in decay. The night was young, but the wares were already on the market, two or three girls on each corner. The streets were full of cars cruising slowly, searching for their own particular brand of addiction. Farther back, in the darkened alleyways, the dealers waited, nonchalantly confident of a busy night.
Cage parked and drew his enormous frame from the car. Dinah noted that they were on a block just like any other, the corner where Lakeisha Tennant had likely looked for her next fix several hundred feet away, and in the opposite direction, the alley in which her body had been found.
Cage first showed her the alley. It was occupied by both dealer and addict alike, all of whom fled the second they saw the big detective.
"I see you're famous in these parts," commented Dinah.
Cage grinned briefly, his teeth flashing white in the gloom. "Here is where we found her," he said, gesturing at the side of a cinderblock tenement. "Propped up against the wall, a cord tied around her arm and a needle nearby. Set up to look like an addict to any passersby."
Dinah nodded. "What about those that knew her — the friends she hung out with? Would they have expected her to come back?"
"It depends," Cage replied. "Most of the girls around here are addicts. If they somehow get hold of some cash or smack they could likely take advantage of it and sleep it off. I don't know if they keep very close tabs on each other."
Dinah studied the dim alley in silence for a few moments. Yellow police tape marked the spot where the girl had been found,
but she could see obtaining forensic evidence would be almost impossible. The alley was littered with the waste of broken human lives.
"What about her boyfriend?" Dinah asked. "Wouldn't he have cared a little about where she was?"
"He probably did know where she was," said Cage, rubbing stubble on his chin thoughtfully. "But there isn't much you can do with an addict sleeping off heroin. So he probably decided to wait her out and then make her pay for it later."
"Shall we talk to her friends?" Cage suggested, after he'd given Dinah time to look over the scene.
"Of course. Just one question. Are there always people frequenting these alleys? Would the killer have been working quickly to avoid detection or would he have had time?" Dinah asked. From her position, where the body had been found, she was in relative darkness. She would be undetectable from the street, particularly in this mind-your-own-business neighborhood, but was visible from within the alley itself.
"We've speculated that the murder took place at about two a.m.," replied Cage. He glanced at his watch. "It's nine now, and there are plenty of people around, but the activity drops off the later it gets. Even the dealers have usually done their business by about midnight. So while there were probably still people out and about on the street, this alleyway could well have been deserted."
Dinah filed this information away. The killer clearly knew how the life on the street in these parts worked.
Dinah and Cage emerged onto the street and approached the girls standing on the corner. There were three, and not one of them could have been older than about 20. They swaggered with false bravado, but Dinah could see the hopelessness etched in their weary eyes. They watched them approach with interest, but as soon as Cage flashed his badge, they turned to leave.
"Wait a minute, girls," he said. "I'm not here to bust you. I want to know what you know about Lakeisha Tennant."
The tallest girl looked at him mistrustfully. "I ain't standin' around talkin' all night."
"Did you know Lakeisha Tennant?" asked Cage.
"Yeah, hung out with her some." The girls seemed tough and indifferent talking about Tennant's death, but Dinah could almost smell the fear and anxiety they sought to hide. Their eyes darted endlessly, as if they were watching out for danger, not knowing that danger stalked them without respite.