A Killer’s Wife

by Methos, Victor

  She’d had no idea those were the times she would look back on and realize were the best times, and she wondered how they had slipped away so easily, like sand through an hourglass.

  Wesley sat next to her. “Is she okay?” Yardley asked.

  “She’ll be fine. It’s just normal teenage angst, Jessica. I see it all the time at the office. Except in this case, Tara is lucky enough to have a parent who cares as much as you do.” He took a sip of her drink and said, “Is this pure gin?”

  “Wanted something stronger than wine.”

  “Well, you got it.” He took one more sip and gave it back. “You okay?”

  “When did I lose her, Wesley? It feels like just a second ago she was throwing her arms around me and telling me she loves me, and now she can’t stand the sight of me.”

  “All daughters have a complicated relationship with their mothers.” He was quiet a moment. “What were you like as a teenager? You never talk about your past.”

  Yardley felt the heat in her face and stomach from the alcohol. She was just drunk enough to not change the subject, something she was expert at doing whenever Wesley asked about her past.

  “I didn’t have the time to rebel or hate my mother. I was working two jobs by the time I was fourteen and going to school. I’d work from two in the afternoon to six at one job and then seven to eleven at another. I’d study for a few hours after and then do the same thing over again the next day.”

  “Why so much?”

  She sipped her drink. “We would’ve been on the street if I didn’t work. My mother spent her unemployment checks on liquor, and then when those checks stopped, she started on the welfare checks. She would sell the food stamps to people for half their value to buy vodka and beer because you can’t spend food stamps on alcohol. There was no money left for rent or food, so that was up to me. I wouldn’t have enough for the gas bill or clothes or anything like that, but I was proud I was able to keep a roof over our heads and some food in the fridge.”

  He watched her in silence. “Where was your father?”

  “He left us when I was thirteen. Probably dead somewhere by now.”

  He turned his head to look at the stars. “Do you remember the first time I asked about your parents? All you said was you didn’t want to talk about them. I’m glad you told me all this, Jessica. We’re in this together now.”

  Yardley enjoyed the warmth of the alcohol in her stomach, and she was suddenly grateful for having Wesley here. He treated Tara with respect and protected her as much as he could without being overly critical, something she wondered how to do. How to strike that balance between making sure your child didn’t hurt themselves and turning them into a neurotic mess by micromanaging their life. It seemed to come naturally to Wesley. He would have made a good father to young children.

  “She turns eighteen in a little over two years. What am I going to do when she leaves? She’s going to run to the worst men. It’s her father. She’s been looking for her father since she was young. I was hoping to spare her that, but I can’t.” When she went to take a drink, she was surprised to find her glass empty. “I visited him today.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  She shook her head. “Cason didn’t want my help; he wanted Eddie’s. But Eddie turned him down and said he would only help if I was involved in the case. That’s why Cason came to me.”

  “What does he want you involved for?”

  “Who knows? His amusement, probably. Maybe he thinks it’s funny.” She exhaled. “I wish he would just hurry up and die.”

  Wesley tapped his thigh with his fingers, a subconscious habit he had when he was deeply considering something. “Did he ask to see Tara?”

  “Yes. How’d you guess?”

  “Because if I was going to hurt you, really hurt you, that’s the way I would do it. Through your daughter. You’re not considering—”

  “Never. He will never see her. I won’t even take her to the funeral or tell her he’s died. Maybe she’ll see it online, or somebody else will and let her know, but she’s not going to hear it from me.”

  “Well, I mean, I guess it’s good that it’s resolved, right? You don’t have to screen these murders or help in the investigation anymore.”

  She didn’t reply.

  “Jessica, you can’t seriously be considering—”

  “What am I supposed to do, Wesley? He has to be caught,” she said more angrily than she would’ve liked. The alcohol caused her natural composure to weaken, and she remembered why she didn’t like to drink.

  “Sure, he has to be caught, and he will be. But not with you involved. Don’t put yourself through this. You barely survived it the first time.”

  She set her glass down and stood up. Her hands felt the grainy wood of the railing as a warm breeze blew through her hair. Darkness for miles and then the soft glow behind the mountain coming from the Las Vegas Strip. It cast shadows across the sands and canyons, and somehow, with the light, they appeared even darker.

  “When I find out the copycat has killed again, it’ll ruin my job for me. I’ll still be able to prosecute for a while, but I’ll know that when it really counted, I didn’t do what I could. I’ll realize it was just a job, and eventually, I’ll quit. Probably leave the law altogether.”

  “So? That’s not a bad thing. There’re a million other things you can do. I’ve always told you to go back to your photography anyway.”

  Photography. How? she thought. How could she go back to taking photographs of trees and open fields, knowing that families were being slaughtered and she did nothing to help them? When she took a family portrait, would she only see them facedown on a bed in a room from nightmares? Photography had been her passion since she was a teenager, yet from the moment she’d found out about Eddie Cal’s crimes, she’d known she couldn’t go back.

  She stared out at the glow behind the mountain and the monstrous shadows surrounding the city, as though they were coming to devour it.

  He has to be caught.

  18

  Yardley got a booth at the café while she waited for Ortiz and Baldwin. A young couple sat near her, arguing about budgets and who spent what. She remembered when she and Cal were that young. Cal the artist, barely able to feed himself. But he’d seemed happy the first time Yardley met him at a gallery.

  One of his pieces, a series of a man standing by a fence, his face gradually disappearing over the course of six squares until there was nothing left but the fence and the farmhouse behind it, had sparked her curiosity.

  Cal came up and stood behind her as she stared at the painting and said, “Do you like it?”

  “I do. There’s something haunting about it. The artist needs some more training, though. He’s too obvious. It’s the cardinal sin of art to be obvious.”

  He smiled and said, “I’ll be sure to let him know.”

  It was only later that night, when her friend introduced her to the artist whose work was on display, that she saw it was Cal.

  “Sorry,” she said, her cheeks flushing hot.

  “No, you were right,” he said with a handsome smile. When Cal smiled, his eyes seemed to sparkle.

  Yardley was just out of college then and barely making ends meet as a photographer. She dreamed of making enough money to have the fancy car and the large house she’d never had in childhood, but Cal didn’t seem to care a bit about money. He told her he would occasionally sleep outside his apartment on the sidewalk, just to show himself that if he lost everything, it wouldn’t be as terrible as he imagined. “Nothing’s ever as good, or as bad, as you think it’s going to be,” he said to her.

  They’d slept that way together once—in sleeping bags, right on the sidewalk, listening to the traffic at the intersection up the street, smelling the exhaust from semis. Yardley knew then that everything they’d been taught was important in life was a lie. She’d never worried about money again after that night.

  Baldwin walked into the café just then, and Yardley lean
ed back in the seat. Ortiz came in a second later and said, “What up, Jess?”

  “How are you?”

  “Hangin’ in there with this fool. You know, I invited him out with some of the boys from the St. George PD, just to go bowling and have some beers, and he said he was gonna stay home and watch a documentary on autopsies instead. He’s sick.”

  Yardley looked at Baldwin, and they held each other’s gaze. “I don’t disagree.” She inhaled deeply and let it out. “I’ve decided I’m going to help you. But there’s some ground rules.”

  “Anything,” Baldwin said.

  “Whatever happens with Eddie has to be approved by me. Anything at all, Cason. Even if it’s just him getting an extra dessert. I have to know what’s going on with him at all times.”

  “You got it, not a problem.”

  “We can’t have two running dialogues with him. He’ll turn us against each other. So only one of us can speak with him and present him with anything. Be his handler, I guess you could say. I’d prefer it to be you, but I think we both know it’ll have to be me.”

  “I agree.”

  She glanced at the young couple as they rose to leave. “When you first met with him, what did he tell you he wants from me?”

  “Just said he wants you involved. If he were a normal person, I would say he misses you, but who the hell knows what he really wants.”

  “All right. Next steps. I was thinking of taking him the case files and then interviewing him after.”

  Baldwin grimaced. “He did make one request that I guess we should fulfill before all that.”

  “What?”

  “He wants to see where they were killed.”

  19

  Yardley stood outside Judge Madison Aggbi’s chambers. She knocked and waited until she heard the judge’s voice say, “Come in.”

  Yardley entered the chambers and shut the door behind her. Aggbi was close to retirement, a woman of Moroccan descent who had once been a Rhodes Scholar. They had developed a mutual respect for each other over the years. She had told Yardley she appreciated that she never filed a frivolous motion or made unwarranted arguments in her court. If the case wasn’t strong enough, Aggbi knew it would be dismissed as soon as it hit Yardley’s desk. Both of them had an understanding that time was ultimately the only thing of value in the world, and they had a passionate affinity for not wasting any of it.

  “Counselor, how are you?” she said without looking up from her computer.

  Yardley sat down across from her. “I’m well, Judge. You look tan.”

  “Barbados. You ever been?”

  “No, never been out of the country, actually.”

  Aggbi turned, removing her fingers from the keyboard. “You need to have some fun, too. Work can’t be your entire life.”

  Yardley shrugged, a shy grin on her face. “Maybe later. When my daughter is grown.”

  “Ah yes, I know that siren call. You always think there’s going to be a later. How old is she now?”

  “Fifteen.”

  Aggbi shook her head. “I remember once when you had to bring her to court with you because you couldn’t find a sitter. I think she was nine or ten. I swear I’ve never seen a courtroom more lit up with joy than when you have a happy child in it. Children have that power, don’t they?”

  “Yes, they certainly do.”

  Aggbi leaned the seat back, relaxing into it softly. “So what can I do for you today? You said this was a matter of some urgency.”

  “It is. I need an order signed.” Yardley took the single page out of her satchel and laid it on the judge’s desk.

  Aggbi read it quickly. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I am.”

  She placed the document down and put her hand underneath her chin. “You want me to authorize the release of a mass murderer so he can look at a crime scene?”

  “Not release. He’ll be shackled, with two FBI agents and a guard from the prison with us at all times. He will have a GPS monitor on his ankle and—”

  “Why on earth would you think I would do this?”

  “We tried to offer him photos, but he won’t have it. He has information we need, and this is one of his conditions. He wants to see the homes in person.”

  “Jessica, I am not authorizing this. Can you imagine if he got loose and hurt somebody? I’m the judge that signed off on it, and you’re the prosecutor that asked for it.”

  She nodded. “I know. But I also know you understand that I wouldn’t ask unless I didn’t have a choice.”

  Aggbi glanced through the document again and said, “Have you seen him since his arrest?”

  “I saw him yesterday, for the first time since . . . well, since then.”

  “I’m sorry you had to go through that at such a young age, and while pregnant on top of it. I can’t even imagine what that was like.”

  “It was like having your heart ripped out of your chest by the person you love most in the world,” she said, embarrassed that the words had come out of her without her meaning them to. “But I need him now.”

  “For what?”

  “I’m screening a quadruple homicide. We think he has relevant information that could help the investigation.”

  Aggbi thought a moment. “You’re right. I do trust you. And I know you wouldn’t abuse that relationship by having me sign something you couldn’t handle. That’s why I’m not going to question you in depth about this. All I will ask you is, Are you certain?”

  Yardley hesitated. “Yes, I’m certain,” she lied.

  She didn’t lie, ever. It felt like acid on her tongue.

  “No, I’m not certain . . . but I think it’s necessary.”

  Aggbi nodded. She took a pen and signed the document and slid it back to Yardley. “Be careful, Jessica.”

  Yardley stood outside the prison, pacing in front of Ortiz’s car. The crime scene cleanup crews were scheduled at the Olsens’ home tomorrow morning, so the visit had to be done tonight.

  The sun had set an hour ago, and the bright lights of the prison guard towers illuminated everything around them in a harsh fluorescence. Yardley thought it resembled the light someone would see if they were being cooked inside a microwave.

  “This is a terrible idea,” Yardley said.

  Ortiz, leaning against his car and scrolling through social media, said, “We done it before with inmates. He ain’t gettin’ outa his shackles. And I’ma bust a cap in his ass if he tries. Serial killers make my trigger finger itch.” He looked up at her. “Sorry, shouldn’t have said that to a prosecutor.”

  She kept pacing, her arms crossed as she stared at the ground. A few minutes later the gate slid open and Baldwin came out. Behind him, between him and a massive prison guard in a beige uniform, was Cal in his white prison jumpsuit. Chains ran from the steel cuffs around his wrists and ankles, underneath his groin, over each shoulder, and down to the cuffs again. It looked like some contraption Houdini would attempt to get loose from.

  A prison van waited near Ortiz’s car. Baldwin said, “I’ll ride with them.”

  Cal smiled and winked at her. It sent a jolt of numbness through her, like drinking scorching-hot coffee too fast on a cold day. The van couldn’t pull away fast enough for her.

  When they were gone, Ortiz said, “I’ll give him one thing: Dark Casanova fits that prick. He’s a good-lookin’ dude. The kind that could probably walk in someplace and everybody looks at him, right?”

  It’s the beauty of a spider’s web, she thought, staring at the taillights until they disappeared in the darkness.

  20

  Baldwin hit the wall of the van with the back of his fist, letting the guard know they were ready to leave. A steel-grated window separated the prisoner area from the driver and passenger seats, with two openings about the size of golf balls so the guards could spray Mace if they needed to. Baldwin sat facing Cal.

  Baldwin had always thought that Henry Lucado had been the most evil person he had ever met. A murderer of teen
agers without an ounce of remorse. And yet here sat a man that had murdered more people than Lucado and not only didn’t feel remorse but seemed to be joyful about it. An image of this thing making love to Yardley flashed in his thoughts, and it sickened him.

  Baldwin withdrew a small amber bottle from his pocket and took out a white pill. Hydrocodone. He swallowed it without water. Cal just watched him quietly for a long time, until they were on the freeway.

  “It must kill you to have to turn to me for help,” Cal said, leaning his head back against the side of the van as though they were just taking a leisurely drive.

  “Not my favorite thing I’ve ever done.”

  Cal grinned and tipped his chin toward the beefy guard. “He broke an inmate’s back once. The inmate struck him on the side of the head with a tray of food. He lifted him like a doll and brought him down on his knee. He never walked again.”

  Baldwin didn’t reply.

  “Oh,” Cal said with a chuckle. “That’s why you chose him, isn’t it? Well, don’t worry. I have no plans of escape. But we haven’t really worked out a deal yet.”

  “You haven’t given me anything yet.”

  He shrugged. “And maybe I won’t be able to, but I think I will.”

  Baldwin felt his teeth bite down, and he had to force himself to relax. “You know who it is, don’t you?”

  “How could I? I’m sure you checked my mail and visitors over the years.”

  “We did. How many marriage proposals did you get? I counted over forty.”

  “Yeah . . . odd phenomenon, isn’t it? They sought me out knowing exactly what I was.”

  “They’re disturbed women that need help.”

  “No, they’re not. They want to die, at least subconsciously. They think they’re doing it because it’s thrilling: the ultimate bad boy. But what their mind really wants is to die. We never actually know why we do the things we do.”

  “I think you know exactly why you did the things you did.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because you’re a lunatic.”

  He chuckled. “That isn’t why.”