“Nobody said you are. It’s perfectly natural, what you feel. Society likes to pretend it isn’t, but they’ll come around. Look at the gays. Thirty years ago, they were outcasts. Now you’re the outcast if you don’t think two dudes should be able to get married. We can do the same thing, reclaim our image. Get the lobbying in place, the money. We already have the organizing power. First thing is the name. We gotta call ourselves ‘pedosexuals,’ not ‘pedophiles.’ That name’s been ruined. Once pedosexuals sticks, we can start with the lobbying. Shit, I may not live to see it, but it’ll happen. You just watch.” He pulled out a package of cigarettes but didn’t do anything with them. “Do you have any special tastes?”
“Like what?”
He shrugged. “Are you going to be rough, or do you like it soft and gentle?”
Stanton had to physically swallow to keep his anger and revulsion in check. The way Jack spoke about the rape of a child was so casual, he could’ve been talking about the latest baseball scores or traffic on his way in to work. It held no disgust for Jack.
“I sometimes… get violent.”
He nodded and lit a cigarette, pulling an ashtray across the table to him. “I can’t promise race. White girls are the hardest to get and cost the most. Blacks are easier to get and cost less. There’s always Asians, too, and we can talk about cost based on how used up they are. Mexicans are harder to get up here.”
“How much are we talking about?”
“One night? Two thousand. A weekend is five. If you want someone you can keep for longer, that’s got to be negotiated.”
“How do you get the girls?”
“You don’t need to know that.”
Stanton nodded, glancing to the red tip of the cigarette. “No, I guess I don’t. When does this happen?”
“When do you need her by?”
“Soon as possible, I guess.”
“Give me your information, and I’ll get back to you.”
With that, Jack rose and went back to cleaning up the rest of the bar. Stanton sat there a moment, unsure exactly what had just happened, and then went to the bar and wrote his cell number and name on a napkin. He handed it to the other bartender and said, “Would you give that to Jack, please?”
“Sure,” the man said.
Stanton glanced at Jack, who was busy pulling the vacuum out of a utility closet, but Jack didn’t notice him anymore.
Outside, the air seemed cool as Stanton strolled back to his Jeep. He kept his head low, staring at his feet—a habit he’d picked up as a kid that he sometimes reverted to. Just as he neared the Jeep and looked up, a figure rushed at him from the shadows.
It was too close for Stanton to react. The figure slammed into him, knocking the wind out of him as he toppled over. Stanton wrapped his arms around the dark shadow and felt ribs, a man who writhed and fought on top of him. Another man ran out from behind a car. Stanton reached for his gun, but the man on top of him grabbed his arm. Stanton placed his knees against the man’s ribs, squeezed, and then bit into his neck with everything he had. The man squealed just as the other one reached them.
Stanton pulled his gun free and pressed the weapon against the man’s ribs. The man on top immediately jumped off and ran, shouting, “He’s got a fucking gun!”
The other one stopped, unsure what to do, and Stanton jumped to his feet. He rushed the man, who turned to run but not quickly enough. Stanton tackled him like a linebacker, landing on top. He lifted his gun and rather than firing, he slammed the butt into the man’s jaw, and then his nose. He kept bashing his face, cracking cheekbones and teeth.
“Stop!”
Stanton stopped, breathing heavily, and turned. Jack stood at the top of the stairs, his eyes wide. The man underneath Stanton pushed him away and got up. He stumbled over to the car he’d been hiding behind and held onto the trunk to support himself. A slick trail of blood dripped down over the car from the man’s nose and mouth. His hand slipped, and he collapsed onto the pavement, taking deep, gurgled breaths.
“He needs a hospital,” Jack said.
Rage built inside Stanton, pure anger and disgust, like a ball of fire in his gut that was burning its way out. He held his Desert Eagle low and ran up to Jack, pressed the muzzle against his temple, his eyes gazing into Jack’s.
“I will kill you,” Stanton spat. “Do you believe me?”
Jack, frozen with terror, managed only a small nod.
“Reginald Carter. Do you know who he is?”
Jack nodded again.
Stanton gripped his collar, holding him in place. “He had a partner, someone helping him. I want to know who he is.”
Jack swallowed. “I… I had them attack you because I thought you were lying. We were… going to see who you really were. Sometimes fathers of the kids come here, and they bring—”
“Shut up!” Stanton said, pushing the gun harder into his head. “Shut up now, or I swear I will kill you.”
Jack swallowed again, his eyes closed now as though expecting the shot that would end his life. “I don’t know anything. I just arrange the girls and screen the guys that come here. That’s it.”
“Where do you get the girls from?”
“Some guy.”
Stanton swept Jack’s legs out from under him. As soon as he hit the pavement, Stanton pushed his knee into the man’s chest, and when he opened his mouth to exhale in pain, Stanton shoved the muzzle inside his mouth, pushing past the teeth. He couldn’t control himself. There was no reason or sense left in him. The only thing he saw was Elizabeth’s face in the canoe, gazing up at the sky, one leg dangling lazily over the other.
“Not good enough,” Stanton said. “I want a name. Now.” He cocked the gun.
“Tad. Lockwood.” His words were muffled with the gun in his mouth.
“Tad Lockwood. You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. I’m sure. I give him the money, and the kids show up at the guy’s house. That’s it. Someone goes and picks the girls up later. I don’t know anything else.”
Stanton, his heart pounding as though battery acid were pumping through it, eased the gun out of Jack’s mouth but didn’t holster it. He stared down at the man, who looked weak and pathetic. His eyes, once full of certainty and calm in the bar, were now filled with an utter terror at meeting a force greater than himself. After all was said and done, he was just a coward.
“You let them meet here?”
He nodded.
“Not anymore. If I find out there’s one more meeting here, I’ll be back for you. But I won’t kill you. I’ll let them stick you in the pen. You know what they do to pedosexuals in the pen?”
Jack nodded.
Stanton stood still. His mind was clearing now, his heart rate lowering to something resembling normal. He looked back at his two attackers. They were clearly unarmed, and he figured they probably would’ve held him down and checked his identification, verified he was who he said he was, maybe tried to frighten him a little. They weren’t prepared for a fight where they could be killed. They were meant to scare him away.
As much as he wanted to, Stanton couldn’t call the police. He’d committed more crimes here than anyone. If he called, he would be the one taken away in handcuffs. He would have to let Jack slide and hope that the threat that he would be back would be enough to deter him. That, and an anonymous tip to the Special Victims detectives at the Seattle PD.
Stanton got back into his Jeep, started it, and drove out of the parking lot. His eyes never turned toward Jack.
26
The next morning, Stanton woke up with a severe headache. He searched the bathroom in his hotel room and didn’t find the ibuprofen he’d bought, so he dressed and went downstairs. The gift shop had various aids, and he bought some aspirin and a drink with caffeine before sitting down in a comfortable chair in the lobby.
The previous night was bits and pieces of a blur. All he remembered was barely controllable anger welling inside him. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that h
e would’ve killed Jack if the man hadn’t given him what he wanted, and that frightened Stanton to no end. His father had once told him that the power of being a police officer would eventually corrupt him, corrupt anyone, but Stanton hadn’t believed it at the time. Now he wondered if any amount of power eventually chipped away at that part of the psyche that held back the natural urges people felt, the urges that destroyed everything and everyone around them.
He called Honolulu PD for a Spillman check on Tad Lockwood of Washington. He got a hit on a Thaddeus J. Lockwood and asked that the report be emailed to him at the new Gmail account that he hadn’t yet deleted. When Katie called and asked if he was ready to track down some names on the list they had, he told her he wasn’t feeling well and needed to stay in the hotel today.
“Do you need anything?” she politely asked.
“No, just some sleep I think.”
“Okay. Well, I’ll give you a call if we turn up anything interesting.”
Stanton felt bad for lying, but he had no choice. She wasn’t prepared to go to the places he was going.
The report came halfway through his breakfast of cereal and fruit at a pancake house near the hotel. He didn’t read it at first. The pancakes had gooey syrup with a hint of strawberry and maple and were the best things he’d eaten in a few days. He finished them entirely before polishing off the orange juice and paying.
After trying his son Mathew, he left a message saying, “Hey, Matty, it’s your dad. I just… I just felt like talking to you and hearing your voice. Call me back if you get a minute.” Stanton then leaned back in the booth and stared out the window.
The violent storm he was certain he’d heard last night had dissipated, leaving only a whirling mess of gray and dull white in the sky, a soup of thunderclouds. Every fifteen minutes or so, it would start to drizzle, the patter of raindrops ending their fall against cars, streets, and people echoing through his head. Stanton took it all in, the gray like a cloud over his soul. He felt physically and psychologically weaker, maybe even spiritually weaker, as if his blood had turned to slush, and his body had to work that much harder just to keep him alive. He rested his head against the cool glass, his eyes fixed on the pavement outside, the dark droplets spattering and disappearing.
After a good fifteen or twenty minutes, he opened the report from HPD and got Tad Lockwood’s address.
Tad had a history of sex offenses and violence spanning decades, the most egregious of which was a forcible sodomy charge when he was sixteen. With his records sealed and no requirement to register as a sex offender since the incident happened when he was a minor, the system lost track of him for a good ten years before he turned up on an aggravated assault case. From then on, his history was a list of violence—primarily domestic violence, but never enough to rise to the level of landing him in prison.
Stanton rose and headed to his Jeep. The rain battered him, seemingly increasing in velocity based on his being outside. The drizzle turned into a downpour. Luckily the Jeep had a top, and he turned on the heater and sat quietly for a few moments, feeling the heat from the vents on the palms of his hands.
Tad lived in a section of Seattle known as Crown Hill. Stanton had been there a few times but didn’t remember it well. He had to put the address into the GPS on his phone so he could find it.
Passing homes and businesses in this small community reminded him of Santa Monica: an insular section of a larger city completely cut off from the rest. It had its own atmosphere, its own sense of what made it unique and why. Stanton could see that in the people he passed. They shared some secret they didn’t want to reveal to the rest of the world.
The Lockwood house looked like any other on this block: beige and brown, a small lawn with a driveway, and a flower patch near the porch. Stanton parked at the curb and hurried up to the door, the rain pounding down against the city to a deafening roar. He hit the door with the side of his fist and then rang the doorbell several times.
Stanton looked up at the house, staring into each window to see if someone was looking back, but no one was. He thought about leaving, but something told him to stay. Something he needed was here. He could feel it in his bones; sometimes instincts were all he had to go on.
He ran off the porch and around to the side door. He tried the knob, but the door was locked. Peering in through the window on the upper half of the door, he saw a hallway leading into a kitchen. A shoe rack was pressed against the wall with an assortment of old sneakers and sandals filling the slots. The parking area was just a metal sheet jutting out from the house, covering enough space for two vehicles. Stanton slipped under it, the sound of the rain even louder as it drummed onto the metal.
The backyard was large but completely unkempt. The grass was green but long enough to cover Stanton’s shoes when he stepped into it. A few trees, a few bushes, and nothing else. The back door was locked as well. A basement window was next to the door, in a window well. Stanton hopped down there and tried the window. It slid open.
For a moment, he just listened to the rain and didn’t go inside. He counted five breaths before he climbed inside, the rainwater washing down over his eyes and into his mouth, leaving a salty, slightly artificial taste. Hawaii’s rain didn’t taste like that. The islands hadn’t developed enough industry to scar the skies.
The basement didn’t have any furniture beyond a few slim mattresses laid out in front of a television. The light was on, but the house was completely silent. Stanton crossed the basement and peeked down a hallway, seeing a bathroom off to the right. He went in, took off his shirt, and dried himself with a towel before putting the shirt back on. Strands of hair hung down over his eyes, and he caught a glimpse of what he must’ve looked like at twenty, a beach-bum surfer who couldn’t afford a haircut. He remembered himself then as enormously poor, and enormously happy. Possibly more than he ever had been in his life.
Going back into the room with the television, he scanned the space for any papers. Maybe some bills indicating who lived here. Spillman went off DMV and IRS addresses and sometimes wasn’t up to date. The worst thing that could happen was that he could frighten some poor family half to death, crawling through their basement window, or maybe even get shot at.
The main room was bare. So were the two rooms that made up the rest of the basement. He found the stairs leading up to the rest of the house and waited at the bottom step. What was he doing here? Was he really here just on the off chance that Tad knew Reginald Carter? Maybe even supplied girls to him? It seemed tenuous at best. But what else did he have?
Slowly, he began climbing the steps.
27
Katie sat in her office staring at the names Kyle had gotten her and Stanton on the list in front of her: sex offenders who might possibly have known Reginald Carter. Of the two dozen calls she’d placed, ten of the names on the list belonged to men who had passed away, another nine were men who were serving out life sentences, and when she got in touch with the remainder, they told her they didn’t know who Reginald Carter was. She would go out and interview them, get a sense of whether they were telling the truth or not, but this seemed like a daunting task, something she would have to devote herself to full time, or do it in her personal time. Neither of which she thought she could do.
Thomas walked in and sat on the couch. He crossed one leg over the other.
“What?” she said.
“What?”
“You have that smug grin on your face you get when you think you’ve done something clever.”
“Well, maybe I have.”
Katie leaned back in her chair. “What’d you do?”
“Oh, nothing big. Just solved the Richards homicide.”
“How?”
“Got a confession from the neighbor across the street. Fucker was tough. Took me six hours. He kept asking to go to the bathroom, and I would tell him just a few more questions and then get into it with him again. He finally had to piss so bad he gave it up. They got into a fight over a girl the
y were both seeing. Richards clocked him and the neighbor pulled out his piece and put a cap in him.”
Katie grinned. “I love when you think you’re being hip.”
“I am hip. And you’re welcome for taking one of the red ones down off the board.” He rose to head out and then stopped. He looked over the files on her desk. “You’re not still chasing down that Carter thing, are you?”
“Yeah,” she said with a sigh. “For all the good it’ll do. There’re too many people, and they all just tell me they didn’t know him. Hard to prove someone knew someone else without having the time to dig through the person’s life.”
“Katie,” he said, putting his hands in his pockets, “this case is closed. You gotta let it go.”
“I will. I’m just following up a little for one of the victims.”
“One of the victims, or Jon Stanton?”
“He is one of the victims.”
“His sister wasn’t at the house. Just a ring. For all we know, Carter found it at the school and took it home.”
“I don’t believe that and neither do you.”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. It was almost thirty years ago. If there was any evidence, it’s gone now.”
She let out a deep breath and closed the files in front of her. “I don’t know. I feel like there’s something here. Just doesn’t feel closed, in my gut. When we caught it, I thought it’d be simple, but there’s some angle we’re missing.”
“My advice? Let it go. Let Jon Stanton get back on a plane to his little island and let the big boys get back to work.”
“You really don’t like him, do you?”
“I don’t dislike him.”
“Other than being perfectly polite, what did he do to you?”
Thomas waved his hand in the air, turning toward the photos on her wall. “Just his swagger.”
“His swagger?”
“The way he spoke to me. I don’t know. Like he was hot shit.”
“I don’t get that at all. It seemed like he was humble and just here because he’s in a lot of pain.”
Mania - A Thriller (Jon Stanton Mysteries Book 9) Page 10