After the Evil – A Jake Roberts Novel (Book 1)

by Cary Allen Stone

  Maybe Lori and I will disappear.

  Harmon, still full of his personal convictions and rectitude, can’t stop himself from voicing opinions all the way to the house.

  “That’s one villainous, arrogant and cold-blooded, sadistic scumbag. Why didn’t he run?”

  As I contemplate Harmon’s question about Gates’ lack of interest in eluding us any longer, another silver Lexus pulls up alongside. I’m surprised to see Lori. Her window slides down and she calls to me.

  “Jake, hey, where are you going?”

  I point ahead at the black and white.

  “We just captured the serial killer.”

  Lori is visibly stunned by the news. Her reaction is a contradiction. Maybe the thought of being so near a serial killer scares her.

  “Call me,” she says.

  * * *

  I never had sympathy for the devil, assuming there is one. As the story goes, a fallen angel had a seat at the right hand of God. He knew the rules, and yet he still gave it all up. Either he has a huge set of cojones, or he is stupid. Interrogation room B is located on the third floor, behind the secure doors of CID. Inside the small room, roughly eight feet by ten feet, there are three wooden chairs, and a metal table. The paint is olive drab. There are no windows, except for the one wall with the one-way glass. I walk inside, drop a file on the table, and look at the pathetic Michael Gates. He smiles back politely looking completely blameless. He is seated as far from the door as possible, because I want him to feel isolated and alone, disconnected from the world. I want him to feel vulnerable and exposed, like Ed felt on his deathbed. I want him to know that I control him. The runner is in ankle-shackles, how appropriate.

  Gates will do everything in his power to try to control me, whether by the inflection of his voice, his movements, or by how much he is willing to reveal. We will play a game of introjections. I will feign an adoption of his sick values to gain his confidence, and he will either buy it, or deny it. In any case, I plan to go through all the motions. After I get him rolling, I will become a sympathetic listener. They all love to talk about themselves and their sad childhoods. Before we even begin, he makes a startling statement with a straight face.

  “I want to confess,” he says.”

  “Don’t you want to hear the charges first?”

  I haven’t even smacked him yet.

  “No sir.”

  “You’re waiving your right to have an attorney present?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Hang on, let me get the equipment and we can get started.”

  There is no outward sign of hostility from me. As I get up to leave, Gates asks for some water. I can’t wait to hear what I’m going to get out of him for a glass of water. Cracking the door open, I direct the officer outside to get the video technician and his equipment, and a glass of water. It doesn’t take long before the equipment is set up and the technician signals ready. Again, he is read his rights for the tape and I take a seat. I listen while Gates, for some unknown reason, starts confessing.

  God help him if he’s jerking me around.

  “...While dad was off on some aircraft carrier chasing international terrorists, mom was perfectly at home beating me. When dad came home, he took out his drunken rages on me. I hated them both. I hated my brothers and sisters who never felt the pain of the abuse.”

  A note is made on my legal pad to check with the Department of the Navy.

  “I killed both my parents, used a shotgun and blew their heads right off, I made my siblings watch, and then I killed them one by one.”

  Grabbing my pen, I make another note to contact the National Crime Database to see if that case file exists. Frankly, I’m surprised by his candor. He doesn’t hold back, and gives all of the gory detail, telling each story as if he’s being interviewed by one of those whack job talk show hosts. The way he is just sitting there without a care in the world makes the process even more unnerving. While he talks, I can’t help but think he looks like a good kid. Walking past him on the street, you would never have had a clue how close to the edge he was, or how much rage was inside of him.

  Was he from a dysfunctional family? Yes. Was he more than a predatory street punk? Yes. Is he evil? I have no doubt about it.

  Because he appears to want to tell the entire Michael Gates’ story, I do nothing to push him into running silent and deep. Instead, I encourage him with a few understanding nods. After two hours, he is still going strong with no sign of letting up. The last mental count I made, he had already confessed to fourteen murders. I’ll press him for details of each murder later, but right now, I have to know one thing.

  “So Michael, my question is why?”

  “Why did I kill? I told you.”

  Before he goes off again about his screwed-up family life, I cut him off.

  “Actually the lawyers and psychiatrists will deal with those issues. I want to know why you decided to reveal this information at this time. We had no idea who you were, didn’t have a clue that you were involved. Why do you want to confess, why now?”

  My eyes narrow and my jaw tenses.

  “I want to release the demons inside, Jake.”

  Until now, Gates’ eyes haven’t left mine, but now he looks past me, and sits up straight in his chair. His facial expressions and body language reveal nothing. For all I know, he has been lying since he started talking. Time will tell if he is as brutal and evil as he claims to be. All I need for him to do now is to say on tape that he murdered Ed. Gates looks back hard at me and points his index finger to the side of his head.

  “There are all kinds of things that aren’t right in here.”

  The man is articulate, well read, and probably knows all the ins and outs of modern psychiatry, and criminal law. I assume he is setting up his insanity defense. The next few answers will determine what Michael Gates is up to, whether or not he will continue to cooperate, and whether or not he is looking for a deal. Gates searches the Spartan interrogation room. My guess is he is looking for a hole to crawl out of.

  “I interrogated Ed before I killed him. I’m familiar with all of your interrogation techniques. I liked Ed.”

  He watches closely for my reaction.

  “I have been previously incarcerated.”

  “You said something about that earlier.”

  I make fictitious notes on my legal pad and glance inside a folder for effect.

  “But that was for some small time crime. How and when did you graduate to the big time?”

  “There are things you learn in prison you couldn’t possibly learn in a university.”

  “But from a misdemeanor to murder?”

  “You’re trying too hard, Jake. You don’t know me. You will never know me. I’ve had to make choices you are incapable of understanding.”

  There is a noticeable change in his mood. I sense restlessness, uneasiness. He starts fidgeting.

  “I knew my day would come. This is my day, Jake.”

  Since the beginning of our talk, I have been using the relaxed “nothing you say is too big” for me persona. Gates is making me more irritable now, than when I first walked in. I oscillate between wanting to figure him out, and wanting to beat him to death. One thing I know for sure is, I have been in this chair too long. It’s no more made for my comfort than his, so I stand. Gates makes a shallow inquiry about my comfort level.

  “Are you getting cranky, Jake? I didn’t rape him you know. I killed Ed, but I never touched him sexually. I want you to know that.”

  Got him.

  I try to count to ten, but that never works for me, a deep breath helps. I have to let that sick, perverted psychopath ramble on no matter how abhorrent the story is.

  “Did you enjoy killing, Michael?”

  “I would have to ask you the same question, Jake. You killed that young girl, did you like it?”

  His facial expression displays honest and sincere interest in my answer, yet I know he is testing me. Depending on how I react will now
determine how much more I will get from him. I have seen it before. He’s just like all the other wise guys trying to spar with their keeper. They think it empowers them. Gates studies himself in the glass.

  “I had no choice Michael, I’m sworn to protect society. I didn’t seek to kill her. Unlike you, I don’t seek out victims.” I give him time to digest.

  “I don’t like guns.”

  He turns impish, and slips into a childlike rhyme.

  “A gun is no fun. No, I’d rather watch a face contort from my blade.”

  He looks upward for no reason, certainly not because he is seeking divine guidance.

  “I’m completely amoral and malevolent, Jake. You can look up both words later. I don’t just like to kill. I love to perpetrate evil, especially death. I embrace death. I don’t fear it. I experience the eroticism of death through each of my victims. But I don’t understand why they didn’t love me.”

  “Why who didn’t love you?”

  He becomes animated and impatient. His hands clench.

  “What are we talking about here, Jake? My victims, of course, I mean why didn’t I matter to them. Take Thad, for instance, we were fine until she came along.”

  * * *

  Because of Ed’s death, Harmon was temporarily the Chief Inspector. The new position was a blow to Harmon’s entire outlook. No longer was he able to shirk certain disagreeable rules. Now, he had to enforce them with impartiality. From behind the one-way glass, Harmon grumbled to himself.

  “There are real consequences for your actions, Gates,” Harmon said.

  Detective Melissa Collins joined him. She had been out doing follow-up at the crime scene.

  “What do you have for me?”

  Collins told Harmon that the coroner was about to start Ed’s autopsy if he wanted to be present. Harmon told her to call the man and tell him he would not be.

  “The news is out in the hall screaming for answers, sir. And the rest of us are collecting a fund for Lucille and the kids.”

  Harmon just nodded. She watched him reach into his pocket. All the while, he never stopped staring at Gates through the glass. Outside of the observation room, the air was thick with anger, frustration and sadness. The usual banter and excess volume between all ranks was noticeably absent. Instead, they spoke in muted whispers. As Collins left the observation room, Harmon heard her apologize.

  “Sorry ma’am.”

  Collins almost walked into Mika.

  As Mika turned the corner into the room, it was obvious she had been crying since leaving Quantico. Her eyes were swollen, and her lips were drawn in tight. She grasped Harmon. Her voice trembled as she talked through the tears.

  “I just can’t believe it.”

  Harmon threw his two big arms around her as if protecting her from an imaginary assailant. He searched above her head for God. A single tear trailed down his cheek.

  “He got in early before any of us, took the call. All of the files were on his desk. He was trying to find something we all missed. He wanted so much to find it, for you.”

  Harmon released Mika, nudged away another tear, and pointed an outstretched finger at Gates.

  “That’s him, that’s the man. We have him now. He won’t do any more harm. And he will pay Mika, he will pay.”

  Mika focused on Gates. Her mind whirled through all of the dismal, grisly murder scenes as she tried to put his face to each. She tried to pull together all of the interlocking pieces of the puzzle in her mind. The last piece she placed was Ed’s.

  She also watched Jake inside the barren interrogation room. He was only inches away from the suspect. She instinctively knew what he was thinking. Harmon withdrew from her.

  “I’ll be back. I have to brief the vultures. Can you believe it? Ed’s passing left me in charge.”

  The big man looked to her for sympathy.

  “You’re a wonderful successor to a great man. He’ll be watching.” Mika said.

  Harmon forced a smile. He turned and quietly left the cramped observation room without saying another word. Mika stepped as close to the glass as was humanly possible. She placed a hand against it. She resumed her professional demeanor because there was work to do. She had to concentrate on the words of the man inside the next room. There could not be any doubt.

  * * *

  “Who is she?”

  I ask patiently, although I’m tired of his mind games. He’s arrogant.

  You’re busted Gates. Give it up.

  “Lori Powers.”

  His answer staggers me. He could not have blindsided me better if he had used a Louisville slugger. I can’t believe he said her name.

  How did he know Lori?

  “She was a patient of my late, great lover Dr. Thaddeus Abrams just like you. Small world isn’t it?”

  Gates presses a finger to his lips.

  “Thad told me all of the intimate details of your two pathetic lives. It almost brought tears to my eyes. Ms. Powers’ troubled past, you all brokenhearted over murdering that girl. I’m sorry, did I say murdering?”

  He is pushing all of my buttons, but I can’t react. His claim of Abrams sleeping with Lori is outrageous. I need to stay in the game to make he pays for every syllable. I need to hear all of it.

  Focus Jake.

  “So anyway, like I told Ed, Thaddeus got a hard on over her and––”

  “You lost him to a woman? You killed Abrams over jealousy? Couldn’t do it for him anymore?”

  “THAD LOVED ME.”

  Gates finally loses it. Another place and time, and it would have been me tied to the bed, but I control the room while Gates feels the pain.

  “I never said they were lovers. Thad saw her professionally. He did, for a while he told me, feel sexually attracted to her, but he got over it.”

  That brings sigh of relief to my psyche. I focus on cool, impartial and all business.

  “So why did you kill him?”

  “Because Thad thought he was better than me, just like all of the others. They were controlling, dominating, misguided fools that deserved to die. The world is far better off now because of what I have done.”

  Gates cools to a hardened, cold-blooded predator.

  “I’d do them all again. Let me out of here, and I’ll clean up the rest.”

  My heart is breaking, my soul is crying, and my head pounds like never before. I see Ed lying on the blood-soaked mattress. I see the girl’s frozen death face. I see Lori’s face with a look of bewilderment. I desperately need to walk away. Michael Gates is a biting, edgy character in a sick, perverted play. Standing, I march toward the door. He expresses surprise that I’m leaving, because he wants to continue blustering about his evil career and philosophies. I know he’s fucking with me, just to get me to reach over and strangle him to death.

  “Michael, you’re done cleaning up. Keep in mind that those evil people you murdered are going to be sitting right next to you in hell for all of eternity.”

  Slamming the door behind me, I know I would have lost control if I had stayed another second. The officer guarding the door asks if I’m okay. I can’t answer. Gates finally got to me. I need to decompress. If I’m ever going to collapse under pressure from the job, this is the time. I have a pain that requires medication, so I reach into my pocket for what I have left of my painkillers. As I start down the hall toward observation, I’m surprised to see Mika come out. She sees the prescription bottle in my hand.

  “No Jake, that’s not going to help. We all need to pull together, as difficult as it is. I need you on this.”

  My only other alternative is punching my fist through the wall. I don’t want to disappoint her, or break her heart, not now, and not ever again. I look down at the pills in my hand. She is just what I need to get back to normal, and she’s right. With a dour look on his face, Harmon approaches the two of us in the hallway. His eyes are wet and red. His words are quiet, but deliberate.

  “That was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. I had
to announce to the world the death of someone I love.”

  Mika and I exchange looks. We know what has to be done. We have to finish it. Just then, there is a commotion down the hall.

  * * *

  Down the hall comes a bright orange and yellow flash from the barrel of a gun. A clap of thunder reverberates inside CID. The spent shell ejected from the officer’s stolen weapon bounces and spins to a stop on the floor. Everyone scatters for cover. Most fall to the floor, while others find refuge behind walls, or under desks. Each of us tries desperately to control our panic. Weapons are drawn and the smell of cordite is strong.

  “SHOTS FIRED! OFFICER DOWN!”

  After the struggle with Gates, I see the officer fall back into the hallway. Crimson bubbles rise up out of a hole in his chest. A river of blood flows to the floor. His body quivers several times before he expels his final breath. I’m unarmed. My weapon is inside a lock box just outside of the door to the interrogation room. It’s department policy to secure it there during the interrogation of suspects. Caught between the dead officer to my right, Mika to my left, the ceiling, floor and walls. I have nowhere to go. Gates steps out into the hallway and draws down on me. I fall hard to the floor. Curled up, I wait to feel the burning sensation of the entry wounds. A double-tap rings out. The sound of two thuds follows as if a hammer pounds on meat. Sometimes shock prevents the pain, I don’t feel a thing. I see Gates go down. He lets out a high-pitched wail during the fall. Blood spouts out of the two holes in his chest. A trickle of blood drips from the corner of his mouth.

  When she first saw Gates with the weapon, Mika shoved Harmon back into the observation room. She targeted Gates in an instant and fired twice. Harmon recovered quickly with his service revolver drawn and took a position in front of her. There was no way he was going to let her take a bullet.

  Had I not hit the floor when I did, I’d have been joining Gates on the other side. That wouldn’t have been so bad because it would have given me more time in eternity to torment and punish the worthless scumbag. Mika’s expertise and precision with her service weapon, however, prevents my one-way ticket. I get up off the floor and race to Gates and the officer. Harmon checks the officer’s pulse. He’s gone. Gates is still breathing slightly. The stolen weapon is taken away. Mika comes up and stands over Gates with her hands locked around her Glock pointing it in his face.