Roulette

by Don; Linda Pendleton

  Rebecca had been among the first officers on the scene, as well as Peter Storme and other members of the task force. As the night wore on, the vigil outside was reaching unmanageable dimensions with the steady influx of newspaper and television reporters developing a chaotic atmosphere. The parents refused to leave as long as the victims were inside, which was understandable but their continued presence seemed to be fueling the also understandable interest of the press corps.

  It was a delicate situation but it became necessary to close the area to all except legitimate news people and the immediate families. Soon, it became necessary to even exclude the press from access to the families, at their request.

  As usual, Charlie Andrews was a particular problem. He kept hounding both the police and the grieving families for details, apparently believing that he was entitled to special privileges. More than once, the police had to insist that he stay in his place behind the official police line. And more than once, he insulted the police with his cutting and threatening remarks of his First Amendment rights.

  At one point, when Rebecca stepped outside briefly, Andrews caught her eye and growled, “Come on, Rebecca, tell these guys I’ve got squatters rights on this case.”

  She showed him a restrained smile and wordlessly shushed him while helping patrol officers clear an exit for the coroner’s vehicles. It was time to transport the victims to the county morgue. She stood by until the vehicles were clear then moved to the barrier to chidingly tell Andrews, “Behave yourself, Charlie. You’ll have your moments when the thing settles down a bit.”

  He replied, “See, I told you you’ve become a better cop. None of those guys bothered to tell me that.” He gave her a solemn wink. “How soon can you get away from here?”

  “Not tonight.”

  “So when?”

  “For what?”

  “What do you mean, for what? Me boy, you girl. I want to see you, Rebecca.”

  She told him, “Don’t do that, Charlie.”

  “At a time like this, you mean.”

  “Not any time.”

  “Oh hell, that’s cold. And I thought the thaw had gone.”

  “Just don’t take it for more than it’s worth,” she said and hurried back inside.

  God, didn’t she have enough complications without that?

  Apparently not. Her husband was engaged in a light-hearted discussion with Detective Rodriguez just inside. It disturbed her that these guys could be so apparently insensitive at such a time, even while realizing that cops often adopt an almost clinical coldness as insulation against the continual exposure to the darker aspects of police life. Coldness she could accept. Open disrespect of tragedy she could not accept. And these guys were being just plain crude. She did not even overhear the exact words; the attitude was plain enough; it was a sick joke which clearly reflected an insensitivity toward the victims.

  Rebecca swept them a withering glance and said, “If you guys think that’s funny, then there is something broken inside your heads!”

  Rodriguez grinned at his Sergeant. “Oh hell, we’re in the doghouse again.”

  Sergeant Storme’s smile vanished as he quickly said to his wife, “I’m getting a little tired, Rebecca, of your constant damned holier-than-thou attitude. Lighten up. In this work you either bend or you break.”

  She replied acidly, “Oh, you’re bent all right—plenty bent.”

  The night had been a strain for him, too, sure but she was suddenly seeing him in a totally different light than ever before and she just could not stomach it. She was finished here, thank God, and she could not clear out fast enough.

  She stiffly told her husband, “Sergeant, if I am finished here, I’ll get to work on my report.”

  He stepped away from Rodriguez and spoke to her privately. “Yeah, go ahead. Are we going home together, later?”

  It was the wrong thing to ask, at the wrong time. She said coldly, “Sure you could handle that after such a stressful night? Wouldn’t my holier-than-thou attitude get in the way?”

  He hissed, “Maybe it would. Sometimes I don’t understand you,

  Rebecca. What the hell do you expect of me?”

  “A man,” she said shortly, “not a boy.”

  That one stung. The ever-ready muscles in his jaw revealed his anger. “I’m sure Lieutenant Morgan would be happy to help you organize your report. See you tomorrow.”

  Oddly enough, the remark did not even anger or disturb her. Maybe she had lost the ability to be either disturbed or angry about any of it.

  Perhaps she had, literally overnight, outgrown her husband and his simplistic approach to the pressures in their marriage.

  Maybe she didn’t even give a damn anymore.

  She was not angry, no. She was simply exhausted, sick of violent death…and yes, okay, disappointed that Peter never seemed to be the man she expected him to be—or wanted him to be. So what was she to do about that?

  She didn’t know, but she did know that she had a report to write. As she approached her car, she spotted Charlie Andrews again. He was still hassling with two determined patrolmen at the barricade, still pushing for his “right” to get his story. There was something almost touching about his passionate determination to exercise that right.

  Maybe she had been all wrong about Charlie.

  And maybe one day she would want to rethink her entire attitude toward the man. But that was scary as hell. She was married to Peter—in love with Peter. Wasn’t she?

  God, this was crazy.

  Rebecca needed the time and the energy to write her report, to get a nice soak in the tub and at least four good hours of sleep. Then, she was sure, the rest would take care of the rest. But that would all change the moment she returned to the police department. A hot teletype from Oklahoma was awaiting her. And it would alter the course of the case in several unexpected ways—as well as the very course of Rebecca Storme’s life.

  This guy Martin was worthy of a textbook study of the sociopathic mind. He had been in and out of reform schools and prisons virtually his entire life beginning at the tender age of eleven—the earlier problems ranging from torture and mutilation of small animals, arson, assault, then increasingly progressing to rape and murder. He had been adjudged a “constitutional psychopathic inferior” at the age of seventeen—a now rarely used term describing one without conscious or remorse—basically suggesting that the disorder was innate, present

  Rebecca was not sure about that—after all, she was not herself a psychiatrist—but she had done a lot of study of the subject and the court’s own reports on the felon apparently showed no reference to a tendency toward social instability during his early years. There should have been obvious enough “markers” on this kid at a very early age. So why this sudden burst of anti-social behavior surfacing at the relatively ripe age of eleven or twelve? Of course, it was not necessary that Rebecca fully understand the workings of diseased personalities; her job was to catch a criminal and turn him over to the courts, but she had always felt it important to try to understand criminal behavior, feeling that such insights could only help her to be a better cop.

  But this guy Martin was shaping up as a monster worthy only of quick prosecution and an even quicker execution. She felt that people like this were far beyond any concept of rehabilitation or even pity.

  Society as a whole would be better served to simply, without fanfare or agonizing rationalizations, remove this monster from the planet. Nothing less would properly dignify the human experience, no matter how others may hope for some way to find a more forgiving attitude. She was willing to forgive a Robert Martin, sure, but only after he had safely left the planet.

  The saddest part in Rebecca’s mind was that he had not been expunged from the human record the first time around.

  One may call it harsh, but she felt that sometimes the human apparatus is best served when its own mutant monsters are wiped away. Rebecca was not positive even, that she could bare to live through another encounter
with a Robert Martin victim—and she knew with the strongest sense of certainty that the only totally safe Robert Martin would be a dead one.

  She had never been so sure of her feelings regarding capital punishment. The families of these victims would relate to that, as would most any other truly realistic observer who had seen the horrors that Rebecca Storme had seen at the hands of this monster.

  Some may complain that she was taking on the role of judge and jury—or even of God Himself—but she would, yes, she would blow the guy away without the slightest compunction if given the opportunity. She would not even worry the right or wrong of it.

  She had seen the victims—touched them, smelled them, wept over them. How would judge or jury experience the immediacy of this man’s crimes any better than Rebecca’s own direct confrontation with the crimes themselves? How could a jury of ordinary people be expected to experience the stark truth of these crimes after clever lawyers have sanitized the offenses and rewritten the book of life on Robert Martin?

  She could blow this guy away, yes.

  And maybe she would—if ever she should get so lucky. Yeah, yeah—she could do that.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Rebecca slept fitfully, the Oklahoma history of Robert Martin looming persistently and disturbingly through her troubled dreams and repeatedly awakening her, despite all attempts to quell the thoughts and encourage a rest which she knew would be sorely needed to carry her through the upcoming events already scheduled into the day’s work.

  There was a seven o’clock meeting between the task force members and several local police agencies as a preliminary discussion in anticipation of the expected arrival of the Oklahoma authorities. It also seemed a safe bet that FBI agents would appear soon since Martin was an escaped felon from another state. Already, both Los Angeles and San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Departments were expected to send delegations for “close support” meetings, due to their proximity to San Remo and the possibility that their departments could be involved. All in all, it was shaping up as a very busy day and both of the Stormes had hoped to go into those meetings well rested and prepared.

  It had not worked out that way for either.

  Peter had ended the night curled up on a sofa in the officers’ lounge with only a couple of hours of sleep under his belt—his as fitful as Rebecca’s—and had barely managed a quick shower and shave before joining the others in the squad room. His suit needed a sponging and he felt a bit seedy but, what the hell, he was not there to show how pretty he was, though he did feel defensive when Rebecca looked him over.

  “Up all night?” she sniffed quietly as he took a chair across from her.

  He reached for the coffee as he growled, “Just about, yeah—you too?”

  “Do I look that bad?”

  “Didn’t say you look bad. You never look bad. Want some coffee?”

  She said, “Thanks, I had some. And I’m sorry about last night.”

  “Me too,” he growled. “What the hell?—we’re always sorry anymore. Let’s put a lid on it.”

  “You first.”

  “Okay, it’s there.”

  Chief Walsh came in before any more could be said in that vein. Morgan followed closely behind, accompanied by Barton and Rodriguez, Lieutenant Petit, Captain Helme and several sergeants from the patrol division. The remaining members of the Sunrise Task Force were pursuing the now routine early morning surveillance of the Woody Heights area.

  Walsh was showing the strain of the recent devastating events, as were all of them. He, of course, had been the one on the firing line all the while as the case escalated day by day without resolution. He was being bombarded from all sides—by the mayor, the town council, the city manager, the press and a growing number of citizens who became more and more alarmed with each passing day.

  The problem, as Walsh well knew, was the public perception that nothing was being done to stop the killing. People did not want to hear excuses or alibis, they wanted results by the police. He was sure that many citizens who noted a police officer writing a speeding ticket or involved in any other routine work wondered why those cops were not out there catching the killer, as though nothing else should be worthy of attention. But this was, after all, a city of some sixty thousand so the demands on police services were diverse and could not all be focused on any single problem. They were still required to handle a constant load of drunk or reckless drivers, traffic accidents, lost or injured children, family disturbances, burglaries, robberies, and other routine crimes of every nature imaginable. They could not devote every man-hour to the apprehension of a single criminal, no matter how heinous his crimes might be. Any thinking person should know that. But of course, most people are not thinking rationally when a deranged killer is on the loose. Panic takes over, and panic itself can kill. What was worrying Chief Walsh was that the panic could also take over the thought processes of usually reliable persons such as city councilmen and other civic leaders.

  Police officers, themselves, were not immune to panic or other flights of reason.

  He wanted to be very sure that his officers fully understood the pressures which could begin gnawing at them as the heat of the work intensified. He knew that it had only just begun. And he knew with a certainty that the pressures from every quarter could only intensify. He wanted his people to be ready for that and he was determined that they would be.

  God willing, they would be.

  Chief Walsh seemed more interested in the protocols and insuring that his officers conducted themselves in a no-nonsense, professional manner while also treating the visitors cordially. Maybe it was purely a coincidence that two FBI agents pulled in moments behind the two officers from Oklahoma who were driving a rental car from Ontario

  International airport, but it seemed more likely that the FBI people had planned their visit to coincide with the other. Obviously the Chief had known that in advance; the meeting with his own Sunrise Task Force and other interested local agencies had barely begun when the Oklahoma and Federal participants arrived.

  Special Agents Kennian and Dumbarton were from the Los Angeles office; Captain Thomas Myers was representing the Oklahoma Penitentiary from which Robert Martin had escaped, Sergeant Lance Powers was with the Tulsa Police Department and had figured in an earlier capture of the felon. Both of the Oklahoma men had a working familiarity with Martin.

  Captain Myers was inspecting the physical description and M.O. of the San Remo suspect when he interestedly observed, “See, this guy looks nothing like our guy. Of course, there has been plenty of time for his appearance to change dramatically—and it has. If you had come to us with no more than this physical description, we would have found no interest there.”

  Powers agreed. “Martin obviously has lost a lot of weight if your eye-witness description is accurate.” He smiled sourly. “He always had a weight problem—pudgy, not physically fit.”

  Rebecca said, “Our eye witness account is accurate. I saw him myself, very briefly but close enough to confirm the first victim’s description. He was definitely tall and well built, not at all pudgy or out of shape. He looked mean as hell to me, fast on his feet and capable of anything.”

  Powers showed her a faint smile. “You must be Detective Storme.

  Good work.” He glanced at the Chief. “We don’t have cops that pretty where I come from.”

  Although Rebecca had learned long ago to accept such comments with good humor and even occasional enjoyment despite the obvious male chauvinist overtones, she was clearly in no mood to play along with it at this time. Chief Walsh spotted the danger signals in her eyes and leapt to head off the possibility of any unpleasant response. “Neither do we,” he said quickly, “not usually, but don’t let it lead you astray. She’s as sharp as they come.”

  The Tulsa officer replied with an interested smile, “Yes, we went through her reports on the plane.” He gazed directly and penetratingly at her with a deliberate wink. “Any time they don’t treat you right here….�
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  Under different circumstances Rebecca might have enjoyed an innocently light flirtation with this handsome visitor but this was definitely not the time or the place for that sort of thing. She chose to treat it humorously. “Talk to my chief about it,” she replied lightly. “I’m due for a raise.”

  Despite her obvious failure to rise to any bait there, her husband was shooting daggers at the Oklahoma cop but he quickly recovered by jokingly adding, “Hope you got room for two of us, we travel as a team. How’s the pay in Oklahoma?”

  Powers said quickly, “We could probably strike a deal.” Obviously he had picked up Storme’s anger. He flashed a smile at the sergeant.

  “Kidding, of course. You guys are a mile ahead of us in the pay scale, I’m sure. Maybe I should be looking for a job in California. How’s the pickings?”

  Chief Walsh showed him a sober smile as he replied, “Maybe we should talk about that before you leave town. For now, though, why don’t you tell us all you think we ought to know about Robert Martin.”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” Sergeant Powers replied solemnly. He withdrew a heavy sheaf of documents from his briefcase. “I hope that none of you have any pressing engagements for the rest of the morning. This guy goes a long way back. And none of it is pretty.”

  The lawman from Oklahoma was right on both points. The litany of crimes and convictions traced a torturous path stretching from juvenile petty crimes into a long and violent career involving almost every minor and major crime in the book. But as the prison captain from Oklahoma observed, “This guy had not shown up on any new history anywhere until this recent problem in your city. It was as though he had simply vanished from the face of the earth after escaping our custody.

  So either he was being very shrewd or very clean all this time.”