Saffeleti said, “Mahoney’s butt is on the line. She screwed up by taking that evidence away from the grand jury. The AG is plenty pissed off at her. Even so, she’s going to have to defend Quinn again, and she knows that. Don’t expect her to let her client box himself in.”
“I wish we could have gotten the meeting one-on-one.”
“No way. You can talk to Quinn as many times as you like, but not without Mahoney hanging on your every word. She’s been dying for something high profile; now she has it and wishes she didn’t. She can either lose, or lose big. Her victory in the courtroom was an unpopular one; Danieli will make sure of that. She’s very good, James. She just picked the wrong fight.”
They entered the clean, plain interrogation room. Dewitt found it disconcerting that Quinn was attractive, even in an orange jump suit and manacles. Mass murderers were supposed to look like Harvey Collette—act like Harvey Collette. Quinn looked and acted like a well-behaved college graduate. Mahoney looked plain and overtired, a middle-aged woman without her makeup. She cast Dewitt a spiteful glance and then finger-combed her hair in an insecure move he had not expected. He sensed in her a fiery restlessness tempered by reluctance, the child condemned to sit in the corner and watch.
“Ms. Mahoney,” he said.
She nodded.
“I’ve got nothing to say to you,” Quinn told the detective before Dewitt had sat down. Saffeleti took a chair alongside Dewitt. He didn’t look at Mahoney; his attention was fixed on the man in the jump suit.
Saffeleti said, “Yes, you do.”
“No,” Quinn snapped.
“You explained it to him?” Saffeleti asked Mahoney. He asked without taking his eyes off the suspect.
“Yes. My client has no interest in negotiating out of the death sentence—”
“He’s the killer,” said Quinn, staring at Dewitt, then gesturing with an unflattering stretch of his neck.
Dewitt glared at Saffeleti. No one had told him there had been an offer of dropping pursuit of the death penalty. Lawyers played games Dewitt would never condone. This particular moment was no time to argue with Saffeleti. “The killer?” Dewitt asked Quinn. “Which killer?”
“You killed the boy.”
“Yes,” Dewitt rammed back. “The ‘boy’ who killed my wife. Right before my eyes. And the eyes of one of my daughters.”
“Right before my eyes, you mean. I was locked up at the time, Dewitt—also a mistake—and then it was on television. In color. They showed it in slow motion. They showed it for days. You know what that was like? You cornered him. What did you expect him to do?”
Dewitt started to roar, then stopped. It was madness to argue with a madman. To the business at hand. “What about the suicide killer? What about him?”
“I told you: I have nothing to say.”
“Why would this man kill two people before killing Lumbrowski? Why not just kill Lumbrowski? He’s not stupid is he, this killer?”
Quinn remained silent, eyes boring into Dewitt. Then he said, “You’ll pay, Dewitt. Sooner or later, you’ll pay. You know why I wanted this meeting?”
“No. Why? We were just talking about that.”
“Because I wanted to see you. Simple, isn’t it?”
“Was it to test the trap?” the detective asked. Christiansen had informed Dewitt over the phone that Quinn’s past suggested he always tested his traps carefully before going after his quarry. He had theorized that both Osbourne and McDuff might have been nothing more than dry runs before attempting to cage Lumbrowski. A way to test the motel room’s effectiveness against flight. “Or was it because he needed bait?”
“You’re not listening. Your type never listens.”
“What is my type?”
“Ignorant. Self-serving in the name of public service. Ironic, isn’t it? You say that I’m a killer. With no proof. You’re an admitted killer and yet you’re walking free. I’m the innocent one, and I’m in handcuffs. How is that right, Dewitt? How can that be? You killed my boy; you just admitted it.”
Mahoney interrupted, “Mr. Quinn! I beg you to—”
“Quiet!” Quinn snapped. “I know what I’m doing.”
“I don’t think so,” she protested.
Quinn stared her down. Mahoney sat back glancing at Dewitt in frightened disbelief. “Very well,” she said.
“Why would someone like this have bothered with Osbourne and McDuff?” Dewitt asked.
“Bothered? It’s no bother,” Quinn said with a faint smile. “You don’t appreciate some things that Hawkeye and I might. That’s all. Believe me, it’s no bother. It’s very satisfying to some people.”
“A guy like Hawkeye would enjoy it then, that’s what you’re saying?”
“Enjoy it very much. Yes. It’s no bother.”
“And would Osbourne and McDuff have been useful to him?”
“Let’s say for instance that Hawkeye intended for the first one to appear to be a suicide. Let’s say he also intended for the first one to be useful to him later, a means to lure Lumbrowski to a meeting. Would you consider that useful?”
“Is that how it worked… would have worked, for him?”
“You’re missing the bigger picture, Dewitt.”
“Motivation,” Saffeleti said.
Quinn tried to point, but his handcuffs were interlaced and as his bound hands stopped abruptly, frustrated anger colored his face. “Exactly,” he said. “Because the point is that there was only one of you to kill, and one to be left alive. Any plan is governed by its limiting factors, its restraints. This was no different.
“Death is the easy way out,” he continued, now facing Saffeleti. “I know suffering. Suffering is a far greater punishment than death could ever be. Death is peace. This person had no intention of giving Dewitt peace, nor any intention of going on once the job was completed. This person also knows the darkness of emptiness, the unfathomable pit of isolation that is a father without his child. It is an endless, unforgiving cold, a frigid stinging cold. It must be passed on to be fully understood. This person found warmth in the idea of inflicting justice, but should the deed be done, there would be no reason for him to live on; he, too, would seek the solace of eternal peace.”
“Justice is not something that’s inflicted,” quipped Saffeleti. “That’s an absurd notion.”
Dewitt frowned at the attorney. For the first time, Quinn had relaxed, had begun to open up, and Saffeleti’s comment clearly rattled the man.
Dewitt said, “So Osbourne was supposed to appear a suicide.”
“The trouble with you, Dewitt, is that you stick your nose where it doesn’t belong. Did you have evidence against Steven? Absurd! Steven was innocent, and yet you and Lumbrowski had evidence. Absurd, isn’t it? And then the first one… you said it was a homicide. This person we’re discussing heard you quoted on television. It’s not that he didn’t have contingencies available, certainly he did; but it would have been so much easier… So much simpler—”
“I think that’s enough, Michael,” Mahoney interrupted.
“You interrupted,” said an angry Dewitt.
“I’ve said enough,” answered Quinn, checking with Mahoney.
“Quite enough,” Mahoney said.
“I just hope you understand, Dewitt, that it isn’t over until it’s over. There are forces at work here you haven’t even begun to grasp.” He looked through the detective then, as if Dewitt was not there. “Are you familiar with the work of John Dryden? With Absalom and Achitophel?” He quoted:
“How ill my fear they by my mercy scan!
Beware the fury of a patient man.
Law they require, let Law then show her face.”
“You want law? I’ll give you law. Not from books. Not from a courthouse. These are the laws of nature I’m talking about. These are things bigger than all of us. This person we’re talking about… he’s a patient man, Dewitt. Very patient. Beware the fury. Surprisingly patient. And he’s able to adapt. Quickly. The right plan i
s the one that works. That’s the only law he obeys. Beware the fury, Dewitt. You’ve never known such fury, such determination. The darkness will find you, Dewitt. The darkness will steal everything away. The darkness is intolerable. For you, it is inescapable. You won’t sleep; you won’t eat. It steals everything. Drains your soul of all purpose. Steals absolutely everything.”
After ten more minutes of trying to get Quinn to continue, Saffeleti and Dewitt abandoned their efforts and stepped outside the interrogation room. Dewitt carried the tape in hand. “He thinks Mahoney is going to get him off,” Dewitt said. “He thinks there’s still a chance to get me. He’s wrong, I take it?”
“The arson is worth a couple years at least. Fire Marshal says there’s a good case. The rest depends on our refile. I feel good about that. As far as your involvement… that may need to be heard first in order to clear the air. We’ll have to wait and see.”
“He won’t help my case any, that’s for sure. It’s his frame. He intends to hold me in it.”
“No, but we knew that going in.” Saffeleti stuck out his hand. “We’ll get our proverbial shit together, refile, and put him on death row. Michael Quinn may think he knows what darkness is, but he’s got a lot to learn.”
“Maybe,” said James Dewitt. He walked away with an altogether different feeling turning his gut. There had been a glint in Michael Quinn’s eye. A disturbing glint. One that frightened James Dewitt.
That night he found himself awake in the darkness.
2
Quinn wondered whether Dewitt had understood his message. He thought himself so brilliant. Yes, a brilliant stroke that “confession.” The icing on the cake. Foreshadowing indeed. He had reached his decision once he saw the inside of the county jail and came to realize that at night only two guards were posted. One had to thank his lucky stars that the public was so tight with their money; people would rather have good garbage service than three guards doing nothing in their county jail at night.
He was no longer Michael Quinn; he thought of himself as Trapper John.
Trapper John peeled the only sheet from the hard mattress and bit into the edge of the fabric, carefully tearing it into long strips. On his fourth effort, he chipped his front tooth and nearly screamed out in pain, able at the last second to contain himself. When he breathed now, teeth clenched, he whistled. Whistle while you work. He remembered the Disney films from when Steven was young.
Thirty minutes later, he had the sheet completely shredded into three-inch strips, and he began knotting these pieces together, end to end, fashioning several long “ropes.” It had been a week and three days since speaking with Dewitt, just the right amount of time for the fear to subside. He had been a model prisoner, putting the guards at ease. The thing about a trap—it had to be carefully set. You could trap anything if you used the right bait.
The mistake the county made was training their young rookies in the jails. It was the blond kid tonight, and he was perfect. For a multitude of reasons, it had to be tonight.
He guessed it was around six o’clock. The shifts had changed like clockwork—another of their mistakes: predictability. The blond kid would make his check in another half hour, come for the dinner tray. Perfect.
Quinn slipped out of the orange jump suit and tied a length of sheet around his thigh. Another around his other thigh. He continued until he had created a harness that joined a third piece, which he ran up his crack and slung over his shoulder. He got back into the jump suit and snapped it shut. Making the neck noose was easy: He had made plenty of nooses in his time. He slipped the noose around his neck and braided the line from the harness with it. Illusion, the key to any trap. Now it was a matter of climbing the bunk and getting the single line secured around the porcelain light fixture in the center of the ceiling. He tied a quick release slipknot and leaned his full weight against it and it held. Perfect. He puckered his mouth then and pretended he was trying to take a shit, pushed all the blood he could into his face. He did this for several minutes, and by the time he heard the blond kid open the bars at the end of the hall, he knew his face was damn near purple. Still leaning out away from the bunk, he let the entwined sheets take his full weight. He felt the sheets tighten on his thighs, cutting his blood supply but carrying his weight well. The noose proved the perfect length: just tight enough to strain his neck and add to the effect of his crimson face. He canted his head to one side and, as a final touch, eyes open, allowed his tongue to slip from his lips. The eyes open was the good part—what a touch!—he could watch everything as it unfolded.
The kid reached his cell, looked in, saw him, and went straight for the key. The beauty of inexperience. He called out then: “Harry!” A complication but nothing Trapper John couldn’t handle. He was inside the cell, the door wide open. He came straight for the body. “Holy shit,” he said under his breath, seeing that face and tongue.
Trapper John kicked him in the groin as hard as he could. The kid gasped and went down white, unable to utter a sound. Trapper John one-handed himself up, loosened the slipknot from around the light fixture, and fell to the cell floor, delivering another kick into the boy’s face and then crushing his ribs and sternum with the full weight of a knee drop. He took the head by the hair and slammed it once strongly against the floor, then slid the body under the bunk, fetching the keys in the process. The only thing they did smart was leave the guards unarmed.
The element of surprise was his strongest weapon. He waited until he heard Harry approaching at a run and jumped into the hall to confront him. Harry stopped abruptly, startled. Trapper John thought of himself as placekicker, the man’s nuts as a football. Harry went down. Trapper John crushed his chest, as well.
Adaptation was the key to survival.
Officer Harry’s head made a crunching sound when Trapper pounded it into the floor. He dragged him into the cell. Harry’s uniform fit, and that was a good start. The thing to do now was to find this kid Billy Talbot and work through the final act. Foreshadowing indeed.
Show time!
***
They proved smarter than he had imagined. The only weapons he could find were shotguns; he had been counting on a pistol to help him in his escape—though he had no intention of actually using it. His heart beat heavily with the excitement. Finally, he would pay Dewitt back. Nothing would stop him now. His time was limited, his choices narrowed. If it ended up a show, it would have to be a pistol for Emmy Dewitt, despite his own reaction to the sight of blood. At this late point, his reaction didn’t matter—this was indeed the final act, for him there would be no more. Certainly, no more jail cells; he had had enough of that. And to run? To hide? Out of the question. He knew how the thought of paying back Dewitt had kept him alive these past few months, how he had fed on it; he had no desire to give Dewitt the luxury of anticipated revenge. Let Dewitt steep in the darkness for the rest of his life. Let him suffer as only a childless father can suffer.
He wasn’t about to walk around with a shotgun in hand, even if in uniform. No, he would have to improvise. Again. Tonight was one of Dewitt’s aquarium nights, father and daughter would be in the same place at the same time. There would be a crowd. A show. Hopefully, the conditions would be much the same as when Dewitt killed Steven. There was poetic justice in that thought for Michael Quinn. What he needed was a way to control the situation from the start, to gain the upper hand.
Billy Talbot was the key to his plans. He would know for certain where Emmy Dewitt was; he could be used to lure her if necessary. The proper bait. Aquarium nights, the kids spent smoking on the third-floor-balcony overlook. The girls smoked cigarettes; Talbot smoked pot.
They had left him a police car out back. Considerate of them. He could use it briefly, radio on, but not for too long—they might come looking for the car. Only two sets of keys to try. Second one slipped into the ignition and started the car. He was off. Talbot offered a solution to his transportation, as well. He had a hot little red car that blended in well with every ot
her car. Simple solutions for simple problems.
3
James Dewitt enjoyed being back at the aquarium, enjoyed having his life back to normal. He answered the questions of the pale tourists with enthusiasm and verve, embellishing as he had seldom embellished, reveling in his knowledge of the Kelp Forest and its inhabitants. Wax the turtle pedaled by, steering her ample housing through the shiny swirl of King Salmon, ignoring the cat shark, jawing her way as if she were talking. Dewitt pressed his face to the thick glass and jawed back at her. Uninterested, she waved her way past and maneuvered herself to disappear into the towering kelp.
He wasn’t thinking about his upcoming grand jury testimony, wasn’t worried by the backlog of work with which he had to contend. In point of fact, at Emmy’s insistence, he had left his pager behind tonight, as he had for the past several nights when he left the house. He had no desire to be dragged into some petty investigation as he so often was at all hours of day and night. If there was a professional down side to the Quinn investigation—he no longer thought of it as the suicide murders—it was his discovery of the insignificance of so much of his work for the department. After dealing with three murders, a stolen wallet or missing bike seemed trivial matters. He had this attitude problem to overcome if he was ever to get his heart back into his job. He no longer believed in the system. He had watched it fail. He would have to overcome that if he was to continue as a detective.
No one had bothered him for the last few minutes. Thin crowd tonight. He checked his watch: Emmy and Briar were just finishing up with Tae Kwon Do. They were due here any minute. That would liven things up around here.
4
Quinn left the radio car parked amid the hundreds of cars at the Monterey Mall and headed to the Soundings Music Emporium, feeling dapper in Harry’s uniform. People looked upon him with respect. No wonder uniformed cops were so cocky: This went to your head quickly. He was wearing Harry’s mirror sunglasses and hat, worried his picture had been plastered on every front page for a few days. One nice thing about news, it grows old quickly. Yesterday’s murderer is replaced by today’s airplane. It was the other nice thing about a uniform: It was the last place a person looked for the face of a convicted murderer.
Probable Cause Page 27