The Stone (Lockstone Book 1)

by Seb L. Carter

  The thing they were hoping to find the most wasn’t there. There was no murder weapon, but that really came as no surprise to Zach. He didn’t expect a man like this Stephen Penrose to carry into his hotel room whatever blade he’d used to sever nine—maybe eighteen in total—heads off the bodies his victims and slash the throats of others. Zach was having trouble piecing together the timeline of the two crime scenes he’d been to already that week. But he hoped to find out.

  There were cheers and claps on the back when Zach and Glenda walked into the Seattle PD homicide division of the district where they’d arrested Mr. Penrose. Another win for the good guys. They were even invited out for drinks later with the local cops, which of course they declined. Their job wasn’t done. Zach intended to sit in with the detectives and lead the questioning of Mr. Penrose.

  But they took a moment once settled into an unoccupied office provided to them in the police station, and Zach and Glenda stared at one another for a short while.

  “Why don’t you look like a guy who just caught a serial killer?” Glenda asked.

  Zach sighed. He rubbed his mouth. “Technically, he’s a spree killer.” It was the odd thing that popped into Zach’s head like his brain hadn’t quite wrapped his head around what just happened.

  “Whatever,” Glenda said. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

  “It’s crazy, right?”

  “No argument from me,” Glenda said. She leaned against the glass wall of the office.

  “It was too easy.” Zach shook his head. “The way he was acting. It was like he wanted to be caught.”

  Glenda shrugged. “You know as well as I do that sometimes these guys who do this stuff are really looking for a way out, a way to battle their impulses. Maybe that’s what we got here?”

  But Zach wasn’t ready to buy that just yet. There was something too deliberate in this guy’s actions.

  “Look,” Glenda said, “we got him. He’s all but confessed, and now we just need to get the details. Then we can go home.”

  Zach wasn’t sure home was in their near future.

  “I want to know more about that dossier,” Zach said.

  “What dossier? The kid in the folder?”

  Zach nodded.

  “For all we know, it’s his college applications.”

  Zach crossed his arms.

  “The guy with all the answers is in custody now, and you know what’s cool?”

  Zach looked at her.

  “What’s cool is we get to ask him a bunch of questions, and we got him for as long as we need.”

  She was right. It was the videos that led them right to him. They got his image, clear as if it was made for a high-definition television, and it was no trouble matching the face up to a driver’s license photo for Colorado resident Stephen Penrose, with a home address from a small town up in the mountains named Marisone that barely even rated on Google Maps. After that, it was simply a matter of finding out where he used his credit cards. What would make a guy like Stephen Penrose come all the way from Colorado to kill a bunch of people? He wasn’t a professional killer. He had no record, nothing that would indicate Mr. Penrose was about to fly off on a killing spree in at least one, if not two, states. If he was a pro, he was one who was very good at covering his tracks. Which also didn’t mesh with how easily he was caught. No, there was something else coming with this guy. Zach knew it in his gut.

  A knock on the door of the office interrupted Zach’s thoughts. One of the Seattle detectives, a woman they hadn’t met yet. “They’re bringing your guy into IR 4,” she said.

  Glenda rapped Zach on the shoulder with her knuckles. “Time to make the donuts,” she said, and she followed the detective out.

  The two detectives, Hanks and Neufield, were waiting for Zach and Glenda in the observation room, basically a room with a couple of monitors for the cameras that were mounted in the corners of the interrogation room. Zach wanted to discuss strategy with the two detectives before they went in, but when he saw the screen, he felt a rumble of nerves in the pit of his stomach.

  “Why isn’t he bolted down?” Zach asked.

  Stephen Penrose stood in the center of the room, his hands clasped behind his back. They’d since let him dress, so he was in a pair of black pants and a white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up on his forearms. Barely a hair out of place, and the shirt and pants appeared tailored and crisp. The expression he wore seemed to say this was no big deal, another day at the office. He stared directly into the camera. That wasn’t the most unnerving part of it.

  “He was,” Neufield said. “I watched him get cuffed in myself.”

  “How’d he get out of it?” Zach asked. Somebody had to undo the man’s cuffs.

  “That’s what we were discussing when you came in,” Hanks said.

  Zach frowned. “He was searched thoroughly before they took him into the interrogation room?”

  “Of course. That’s standard.” Hanks’s tone hinted at frustration. “The guy had nothing on him. And you watched him get dressed just like I did.”

  Zach didn’t like it. His stomach gurgled again.

  “What’s he saying?” Glenda asked. Penrose’s lips moved.

  Zach reached down and turned on the audio to the room. It was always recording—sometimes witnesses and suspects talked to themselves when they were alone in the interrogation rooms, even including confessions.

  “…And turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer; things fall apart; the center cannot hold.” He tilted his head and smiled. “Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world…”

  Zach turned down the audio again.

  “We’ll go in with a uniform at our backs,” Zach said.

  “He weirds me out,” Neufield said.

  “Yeah, me too.” Zach knew it was just that Penrose looked directly into the camera lens, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that look was meant for him, like he was staring into Zach’s eyes.

  “What is that from? That thing he’s saying?” Hanks asked. “I’ve heard it before.”

  Zach didn’t know.

  “We just gotta get him to put his confession on camera,” Neufield said. “Once we got that, we can all go celebrate.” He clapped Zach on the back. “We’ll keep a couple armed officers right outside,” he said. Zach and Glenda weren’t going in armed. It was common procedure, both for the safety of the officers conducting the interrogation and for the suspect. Tensions ran high, and it wasn’t a good idea to have easy access to weapons in that situation.

  Zach went into the interrogation room first, followed by Glenda. He carried the case file with him. A cadre of armed uniformed officers waited just outside the door. It was like they expected him to be a crack operative of sorts, able to take out whole groups with a toothpick and a pen cap.

  But Stephen Penrose didn’t put up a fight when they entered. In fact, once again, he was unnervingly cordial as he remained standing in the center of the interrogation room, facing the door and the two detectives standing beside Zach.

  “Are you a fan of Yeats, Agent Shepard?” Stephen Penrose said as they entered.

  Zach’s jaw tightened. The use of his name was meant to catch him off guard, and Zach understood that. He didn’t want to show that it worked.

  But it had worked. He’d never shared his name with Stephen Penrose. Still, he reasoned, there were plenty who might have.

  “I’m going to need for you to take a seat, Mr. Penrose,” Zach said. Two officers moved into the room, hands on the butts of their weapons.

  Penrose smiled then gave a small bend at his waist like a bow, and he moved back over to the table to sit down again. He even placed his hands on the table once more, and he made no move to fight when a third uniformed officer returned the handcuffs on his wrists and made sure they were securely lashed to the metal table that was bolted into the center of the interrogation room. “Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand,” Penrose said.
r />   Zach waited for the officer to finish securing the suspect. “Are you a religious man, Mr. Penrose?”

  Penrose sighed with a wistful smile on his face. “I follow only one, and that one is about to set foot into this world once again. And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

  When the uniformed officers finished securing Penrose, they left the room and closed the door behind them. Zach moved to the chair across from Stephen Penrose, and he sat down, placing the closed case file on the table in front of him. Glenda took a chair in the corner of the room. The two detectives remained in the observation room. They’d get their chance, but Zach wanted a crack at him first.

  Zach began. “I’m Agent—”

  “Zachary Shepard,” Penrose said. He glanced over at Glenda. “And you are Special Agent Glenda Alvarez. The two detectives watching us right now are Detectives John Hanks and Greg Neufield.”

  Zach remained expressionless. Penrose was trying to take control of the conversation. Zach understood that. He refused to let the knowledge of their full names by this sadistic killer throw him off balance. “Now that we have the introductions out of the way, Mr. Penrose, I want to make absolutely clear that you understand why we’re here today.”

  “I killed nine people here in Seattle and eleven more in San Diego,” Penrose said.

  That did give Zach pause. “So, you admit that you had something to do with the murders in San Diego.”

  Penrose appeared relaxed and calm. His hands were splayed out before him on the table. “I had everything to do with those particular murders,” he said.

  Zach squint. “Why do you say that? ‘Those particular murders?’”

  Stephen Penrose only smiled. Zach really didn’t like this guy. Any heebie-jeebies he felt about this guy was turning into an intense anger, almost hatred. If he could reach across the table and knock the smug right off his face, Zach would have loved to do it. But he maintained his professionalism. To express his anger would be to show weakness, and that’s what Stephen Penrose wanted.

  “Do you care to tell us why you did these murders?” Zach asked.

  “They were necessary steps to be taken.”

  “Steps for what?”

  Penrose grinned. “The second coming.”

  They were back to that again.

  “There’s a storm coming,” Penrose continued, “Then the balance will be restored. And there are only a few more pieces in the way before it gets here. The Chicago boy and…” He stopped and leaned forward.

  Before Zach could encourage Penrose to go on, Glenda broke in. “Why don’t you cut the bullshit and tell us why you did what you did?”

  “I think I would like to hear your theory first,” Penrose said. He didn’t break eye contact with Zach.

  And Zach maintained eye contact with Penrose. Before he could speak, Glenda moved out of her chair and stood at the edge of the table. “I think you did it because you get excited by that sort of thing,” she said. “I think maybe it gives you a chubby to cut off the heads of people and line them up for people to find.”

  “Ah, a sexual reason,” Penrose said, his eyes still on Zach. Penrose still hadn’t broken eye contact.

  Zach wanted to tell Glenda to sit down, but he didn’t. A bead of sweat gathered at his temple. There seemed to be some sort of assessment going on between him and Penrose, and Zach didn’t think it was a good idea to be the one to break that eye contact first. It tightened his stomach. He’d miss something if he looked away.

  “It’s a working theory,” Glenda said. “It’s one backed up by research for why a serial killer does what he does.”

  “Pedantic, don’t you think?” Penrose said. “People are always hung up on sex, motivated to do horrible things based on sex. It’s boring. Base. I am anything but base, Agent Alvarez.”

  Glenda came forward some more, and she pounded the table. “Then tell us!”

  “I’ll answer your demand with a question, Agent. Is a soldier, doing his duty, a serial killer if that duty requires that some die in the process?”

  “Is that what you are? You’re a soldier?” Zach asked.

  “In the army of a queen.”

  “If you’re going for some sort of religious nut-job defense, Stephen, you’ve already given us a confession,” Glenda said.

  “Agent Alvarez,” Zach said. This time, he did tear his gaze away from Stephen Penrose, and he felt like he lost a battle. His stomach dropped, and a brief wave of nausea passed over him. Zach ignored it and swallowed. “Please.”

  Glenda stared hard at Zach, and she grumbled. Truthfully, this wasn’t like her. She wasn’t the type to lose her cool so quickly, and that troubled Zach. In their entire career spent together as partners, she was, in fact, the one who usually managed to maintain control the most while it was typically him who had to get up and walk around to let off some steam. Glenda moved back away from the table.

  Zach returned to face Penrose again, and he opened the folder on the table, the top picture being that of a photo of a group of twelve standing before the Seattle Chapter sign. They were the faces of the nine victims along with others. He laid it out in front of Stephen Penrose and turned it so that he could get a good look at it.

  But Penrose reached out quick and grabbed Zach by the wrist and held on tight. Zach tried to pull away, but he was unable to break free. Penrose was a lot stronger than he appeared. Something happened. The air in the room changed, felt charged somehow, and Zach’s ears popped.

  “Hey!” Zach jerked his hand back with two solid tugs, moving himself away from the table enough that Stephen Penrose couldn’t go any further due to the constraints of the handcuffs on his wrists. Zach held his wrist like he’d been burned. “What the hell was that?”

  Glenda was ready too. There was a commotion at the door as two armed officers came in.

  Penrose paid them no attention. He kept his eyes locked on Zach, eyes that were wide. He had an aroused expression on his face that made Zach’s stomach do flips. “I had to be sure,” Penrose said.

  “You don’t touch me during this interrogation,” Zach yelled. “You don’t touch anyone! That clear?”

  But Penrose was silent. Finally, he leaned back in his chair. “How is your son, Agent Shepard?” Penrose sat folded his hands.

  Zach tensed. He kept his features under control, all things considered, but the tension was tight in his neck. But then he relaxed. “Please, Penrose. Nice trick. You had a 50/50 shot of guessing…”

  “Toby. Sometimes you and your wife—your ex-wife—call him Bubba or Tobes. Toby Scott when he’s in trouble.”

  Zach lost the ability to breathe momentarily.

  “A soccer player with games every Saturday, has a yellow Mongoose Legion bike that you bought for him to ride during your last visit, and you were barely able to get him to put down the game controllers on his X-Box long enough to spend that quality time together that you crave oh so much.”

  Zach pounded the table. “You leave my son out of this, you sick son of a bitch.”

  But Penrose didn’t even flinch. “And your ex-wife. Aubrey. A pretty woman that you couldn’t keep hold of. It’s hard to do when you’re so married to your job. It’s no surprise, really, that they both left you.”

  “I’m going to fucking kill you,” Zach said. He regretted saying it even before it left his mouth, but he was powerless to stop it.

  Glenda put a hand on Zach’s shoulder. “Let’s go,” she said. She tried to pull Zach away, but Zach wouldn’t budge.

  “How do you know them?” Zach demanded. He leaned forward even as Glenda pulled him by an arm.

  Penrose grinned. “You just told me,” he said. “And now they all know.”

  Zach froze again. “Who? Who knows? What do they know?”

  “Your role in all of this,” Penrose said.

  Zach didn’t understand.

  “I still have one more job to do before my role in all of this is over, Zachar
y Shepard, to secure the way for her majesty’s arrival,” Penrose said, almost in a whisper.

  The click was almost lost. It was the glint of metal falling to the table that Zach noticed first. The handcuffs that kept Stephen Penrose locked down clattered to the metal tabletop. And Penrose moved fast. He held his now-free arm to the side, and a blade filled the space beyond the palm of his hand. A sword.

  Somehow Zach saw this play out almost in slow motion. A ripple worked over the whole of Zach’s body. The blade that Penrose now held arced toward Zach, aimed for his neck.

  But Zach had time. A strange amount of time. An inordinate amount of time. The realization came to him almost as if he thought of it while sitting quiet on Sunday morning: This is how he killed them, the victims in La Jolla and Seattle. A sword that came from nothing.

  Zach ducked. The blade passed over him, and as soon as it did, time reasserted itself with the sound like a recording speeding up again. Zach shoved himself back, his chair tipping over to the floor and spilling him out backwards so that he rolled over and into the wall opposite where Penrose sat.

  Penrose was on his feet. “Clever, Agent,” he said.

  What was clever? Zach had no idea what he was talking about. He went for his weapon—only to remember that they were in an interrogation, and he’d left his gun in the weapons locker.

  But the two uniformed officers already had theirs out. They fired five rounds that caused a ringing in Zach’s ears, and Penrose fell.

  Silence passed over the room. Cordite bit at Zach’s nose.

  “He had a sword,” Zach said. He was close to hysterical. “You saw that, right? He had a fucking sword.”

  The uniformed officers still stood in her firing stance while Glenda moved to where Penrose fell. “It’s not here,” she said.

  “But—But you saw it, right?” Zach was afraid to stand. His legs were rubber. “Tell me you saw it.”

  Glenda reached down to feel for a pulse at Penrose’s neck. “I saw it,” she said, low, barely loud enough for Zach to hear it over the ringing still in his ears from the gunfire.