Necessary Evil

by Janelle Taylor

  “I’ll find out where that leak came from. But I’d also like to give you a warning. Your article just might panic some people into believing there’s a serial killer on the loose. We haven’t determined the same person killed those men or whether their deaths are even related. Could be coincidental or a copycat. Yet, you tied the two together and called our killer some kind of avenger of evil.”

  “Maybe the citizens of this fair city need someone to protect them, Lieutenant, since it seems the courts let them go after they were caught. Besides, no one is in jeopardy, except for these unconvicted rapists. We’ve received calls all morning and the majority of them were on this guy’s side for getting such scum off the streets. Especially since the people we hire or elect to do it don’t seem to be able to finish the job. Now, we’ve got someone out there who is. Sounds like the perfect judge, jury, and executioner to me and my readers. Seems as if me and the Avenger have lots of fans.”

  “Starr, you haven’t done your homework. There was no evidence to link David Crouch to being the rapist and he had an alibi for that night. And as for Ted Silverman, he claims it was consensual sex between two adults and a jury of our peers believed him. So who made you and your Avenger the new judge and jury to decide these men were actually guilty and deserved what happened to them? Last time I checked the laws in our country, a person is innocent until proven guilty, and these men weren’t proven guilty to the satisfaction of our court system,” Dan challenged him, hoping to provoke a slip.

  “Then obviously it’s you who hasn’t done your homework. Have you read the transcripts from the trials? I bet not. I suggest you take the time to do that before you come crawling into my home again declaring the innocence of two known rapists.”

  Dan observed James’ odd agitation and heard how his voice filled with self-righteous indignation as if he were personally involved with those past crimes. “Seems like you’re mighty upset for someone who’s simply reporting the news. Is there anything else you’d like to tell us?”

  “You’re damn right I’m upset! I’m on my way to the big time with this story and and you know it. I want to be there the entire trip as this person is caught and put on trial, but you’re trying to block or detour me. This case will write my ticket out of this hellhole of a town. Now, either we can work together or separately, but I promise you I’ll be there every time you turn around. You might even have to catch up with me sometimes. All day long I’ve been praised for reporting this story. Crime victims, their families and friends, and even some of your fellow officers I’ve seen are on the Avenger’s side. You’ve got yourself a real hero in the making, Mallory, and I intend to make sure he gets the rewards he deserves. I hope it’s a long time before you catch him, if ever. I’d like to see the Avenger wipe out all of the bad guys you or the courts let go.”

  “I have to ask again, Starr, is there anything you’d like to share with us?” Dan questioned, but James only glared at him. “No? I’ll warn you to be careful if you print any more alleged quotes from me again. And I’ll warn you to make sure your facts are straight before you go to press. Don’t incite mass hysteria with unproven claims or infringe on another crime scene, or I’ll haul your butt to jail. Maybe then you’ll get first hand knowledge on how our victims felt.”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand how torture and rape victims must feel. Do you, Lieutenant? I can’t imagine my life becoming such a nightmare at twenty years old that I feel the need to end it. Were you the one who had to tell Karen’s mom the bad news after your interrogation pushed her daughter over the edge? Or did you assign that nasty task to one of your buddies or Father Murphy?”

  Dan winced. Something wasn’t right here. Did Starr have more of an inside track on this than any of them realized? Had someone in Starr’s past—his mother, sister, girlfriend—been raped? Dan had worked a case in New York where a reporter had set up a crime to exploit it in print to help him make his big break. Was Starr doing the same thing here? He made a mental note to talk to his partner about checking into Starr’s background.

  “How did you know about Karen’s death?” Dan asked.

  “I went to interview her and caught the action in progress. So I researched her and her case. I also know Lisa Starnes left town so I can’t interview her. I’ll just have to use what I’ve learned from research and my...You can read about everything in my next article. I wonder if there’s a new victim and scoop on the horizon.”

  Dan actually glared at Starr and said, “I think we understand each other’s position on this matter. You should leave the female victims and their families and friends out of your coverage; that’s low and mean even for a man like you. We can show ourselves out. Enjoy the rest of your day.”

  James replied, “Make sure the door locks as you leave. There are some crazy people out there. And if you change your mind, you know where to reach me.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” Dan muttered before he walked to his car, Mory trailing him. “I’d like to know where he’s getting his information. If it’s illegal, I’m going to savor every minute when I arrest James Starr and put him behind bars. I’ll personally take his photo and give it to the papers to run under their headlines. And I’ll alert every TV station about his arrest. I’ll sic the entire media system on him and let him learn how it feels to be under a public microscope.”

  “You think he’s involved with this, Dan?”

  “I don’t know if he knows who the killer is, but he definitely knows too much. I’ve got a couple of things I’d like to check on. Want me to drop you off at your car?”

  “Yeah. I promised Janie I’d make it home for dinner. Let’s hope we don’t get any calls tonight or my wife might be walking out the door. She can’t understand why we have to get this guy. I’m afraid she’s on the Avenger’s side, too.”

  Dan frowned and said, “I’m not sure I wouldn’t vote for him. But if he hasn’t finished, we’ve got to stop him.”

  Chapter Four

  Monday morning, June 18th

  “Frank Phillips?”

  “I’m not interested. I’m going to be late for work, so get out of my way,” Frank ordered as he stared angrily at the man who was blocking the door to his car.

  “My name is Lieutenant Dan Mallory, Mr. Phillips, and I’d like to ask you a few questions. I’m sure if you call your boss, he’ll understand. If not, I can call him for you.”

  “What’s this about, Lieutenant? I paid the parking ticket last week, in full, and I haven’t gotten any since. Now, if you’ll excuse me?”

  “Good for you, but I don’t care about any parking tickets. I’m a lieutenant in the homicide department. Unless you want to give your neighbors something new to talk about this week, I suggest we go into your apartment and have our discussion in private.”

  Frank stared at the two officers for a moment, then turned and fled towards the back of the apartment building.

  “I’ll go to the left,” Mory shouted, sprinting around that side of the building. There was a walkway separating two buildings and Mory saw Frank’s striped shirt flee past. Mory picked up speed as he ran to the next breezeway and turned into it quickly. He grabbed Frank by the sleeve and dragged him around so he could see the man’s face. “It’s not wise to run from the police, Phillips. We just wanted to ask you a few questions. Now, we’ll have to wonder why you didn’t want to talk to us. What are you hiding?”

  Dan had pulled his gun and was standing to the side of the two men while Mory placed handcuffs on Frank’s wrists. “Police procedure,” he explained. “That was a really stupid thing to do. Now, you’ll have to talk to us downtown, and your boss is going to be really pissed off.”

  Frank’s alarmed gaze darted back and forth between the two officers standing beside him. He felt as if his neighbor’s eyes were boring into his back as he was walked to the unmarked police car and placed in its back seat. He had never been more humiliated in his life. Except when Karen had pressed charges against that man for
raping her and everyone had kept asking him how he was doing. “Hey, my woman made it with some other man and everybody knows about it. How the hell do you think I feel?” he’d screamed at Tommy, his best friend. Now, he was handcuffed and on his way to the police station. What the hell could they want with him? Why had he run? They didn’t have anything on him. He’d just been scared when they had confronted him that way; they’d looked so mean. Maybe he’d be able to convince them of that when they gave him a chance to talk. He hoped they wouldn’t have to fingerprint him. That would be even worse. He didn’t think he could stand the humiliation of another public scandal.

  Frank Phillips was seated in a hard straight-backed chair next to Dan’s desk. He stared at the two men who had, as yet, refused to take off the handcuffs. They had read him his rights and asked him if he wanted to contact his lawyer. “I haven’t done anything wrong. Take these cuffs off of me; they’re hurting my wrists. What the hell do you think I’m going to do? Run in a building full of cops? That would be stupid.”

  “You’ve already done a pretty stupid thing today, so we can’t take any chances. Now, would you like to tell me why you ran when Sergeant Morrison and I told you we needed to ask you some questions?”

  “You scared the hell out of me when you said you were from the homicide department and acted so weird. I got home really late last night and I didn’t get much sleep. I was already late for work and I wasn’t thinking clearly. I don’t know why I ran, except I was scared,” Frank finished with what he knew sounded like a lame excuse.

  “Scared of what? If you haven’t done anything wrong, why would you be afraid of us? All we wanted to do was talk to you,” Mory said.

  “I don’t know. It was like some movie I was watching, except I was the bad guy and I didn’t know what I’d done wrong.”

  “Are you sure this has nothing to do with Karen Carter?” Dan decided to test him to see just how much he knew of recent events.

  “With Karen? What does she have to do with any of this?” Frank recalled the strange message Tommy had left on his answering machine the night before. He’d been too tired to call him back, but now Frank wished he had taken the time. Tommy had hinted there was something going on with Karen, but hadn’t told him any more than that. Apparently, Tommy had thought Melissa would be upset just hearing Karen’s name, so Tommy simply told him to call after he read the paper. But his had been missing last night. What the hell was going on?

  Dan watched the emotions flicker over Frank’s face. Did this young man know anything that had happened this weekend? Dan decided to enlighten him a little bit and watch his reaction. “Ms. Carter was engaged to you at one time, wasn’t she?” At Frank’s nod, he continued, “Why did you call off the engagement?”

  Frank’s face flushed. “I don’t think it’s any of the police’s business why we decided not to get married. As far as I know, that isn’t any crime. It’s none of your business, anyway. Why are you asking me about that? It was almost two years ago.”

  “The man she accused of raping her was found dead in his apartment,” Dan informed him, though he didn’t relate the crime had occurred almost two months ago. He kept alert to see if Frank dropped any revealing clues about either murder. “He was raped and tortured with hot wax before his death. Except for the fact that he was killed afterward, his injuries match Karen’s to a tee. I think if my woman’s virginity was stolen from us two weeks before we were to be married, and it finally broke up our engagement, I’d be pretty pissed off. But I’m more interested in how you feel about it,” Dan cued him. He had learned from years of interrogating people the best way to evoke information was to state the facts and let the person defend himself.

  “Dead? He was killed? What does that have to do with me?” Realization shot through Frank as he struggled with his personal demons. “You think I had something to do with his murder? You think I raped that sick bastard? You’ve lost your mind! I’m engaged to a wonderful girl named Melissa; we’re planning to get married in July. Why would I endanger that to go after someone my ex-girlfriend had sex with? I haven’t spoken to Karen in nearly eight months. If you don’t believe me, ask her.”

  “We heard you had a little altercation with Mr. Silverman after Ms. Carter told you what happened. Seems the two of you got into a fight that ended up with you getting a broken nose. That would certainly make anyone I know pretty angry. From your point of view, he made it with your fiancée and then he busted your face. Where were you Friday night?”

  “I was at home by myself. I had a pretty rough week and I wasn’t in the mood to go out. Plus, my future wife and I decided to go camping at the lake, so I had to get the tent out and pack the sleeping bags. Yes, I was pissed off after Karen went and slept with that scumbag right before we were supposed to get married, but a fistfight is hardly a crime. Neither one of us pressed charges against the other. I felt much better after I slugged him a couple of times and we let it go there. I haven’t had any more conflict with him since then. Hey, I’m glad I found out what a cheating slut she was before we got married. I’m much better off without her; Melissa isn’t that kind of girl.”

  Dan tried to quell his anger. “Can anyone corroborate your story about being home all night? Did your neighbors see you? Did you speak with anyone on the phone?”

  “I saw my next door neighbor Friday night when I got home from work. I told her I was planning to go camping Saturday night at the lake and asked her to keep an eye on my apartment. I spoke to Melissa around nine and then I crashed. Melissa came over the next morning around eight and we left soon after that.”

  Dan attempted a ploy to trick and entrap Frank if he was their perpetrator. “David Crouch wasn’t murdered until late Friday night, so it would have been easy to go over to his apartment after you got off the phone with your fiancée, or you could have called her from Crouch’s place.”

  “Who is Crouch? I thought his name was Ted Silverman.”

  “Silverman was murdered on April twentieth. We had another killing with the same MO last Friday night. The victim’s name was David Crouch; he was accused of torturing and raping another female two years ago, but he wasn’t found guilty in court and was released. Crouch’s condition also matched his alleged victim’s.”

  “Are you accusing me of two murders?”

  “We’re just asking if you know anything about either crime.”

  “Hell, no! And you forget one thing, Detective: there needs to be a motive for someone to commit murder and I don’t have one. My life with that cheating bitch has been over for a long time. She didn’t care about me or she wouldn’t have done what she did. So why should I care enough to murder the asshole she fucked? I couldn’t care less about her.”

  “Then you haven’t spoken to her?” Mory asked, fury boiling within him.

  “No! How many times do I have to tell you that? She fucked up our plans right before the wedding. I doubt she was a virgin when it happened anyway. She just came up with that rape story to cover up what she probably had been doing all along because she knew she would be found out on our wedding night. If she hadn’t created so many lies around her, I wouldn’t have had to face the humiliation I went through. If there’s anyone I would’ve liked to kill at that time, it was Karen, but I’ve moved on with my life and put all of that behind me. If this is why you cops came to talk to me, you’ve wasted your time and mine. If you bother me again, I’ll sue you for harassment.”

  Dan said, “We didn’t arrest you, Phillips. We simply wanted to ask you a few questions. The reason why you came downtown in cuffs is because you ran from the police and that gives us any probable cause we need. So you can threaten all you want and call any attorney you want, but I assure you, you don’t have a case.” Dan warned him, infuriated by the man’s insolence and total disregard for the frail and kind woman he had met the other night. She certainly would have been better off without this jerk, but she never really gave herself the chance. After speaking with Ms. Carter and now Phillips, he
could imagine the betrayal and shame the young woman must have felt.

  Dan got up and walked to the office door in an effort to calm himself. He had a fierce urge to pound some sense into this cold-hearted bastard! The jury had found Silverman not guilty, but Dan was positive Karen had not been a willing participant to rough sex. If anyone should have believed and supported her, it was the man seated near his desk.

  “What were you doing on April twentieth?” Mory continued the questions, knowing Dan was trying to get his emotions under control.

  “April twentieth? Oh, yeah, that’s the day that scumbag was done in. That was nearly two months ago, so I can’t be sure. I hope I wasn’t home alone again that night, but for certain I wasn’t out raping and killing anybody for Karen. I couldn’t care less what happens to her; she’s gotten everything she deserved for ripping my heart and life apart. I haven’t wanted to talk to her since she came up with that wild story. But as soon as I get out of here, I’m going to call her and tell her precisely that.”

  “That won’t be possible, Phillips,” Dan stated as he locked gazes with Frank. “Ms. Carter committed suicide Saturday night. Anything else you’d like to add?”

  “Karen is...dead? She...killed herself? Oh my God...” Frank felt his anger dissolve into pain. “I was mad because she ruined our life, but I didn’t want her to die. Oh God. Has anyone called Mrs. Carter yet? I bet she’s torn to pieces. I’d phone her, but I doubt she’d want to hear from me.”

  “I agree,” Mory couldn’t resist saying.

  “Listen, I didn’t kill that guy. I was angry with Karen for fucking up, but I didn’t kill him. I mean, if she was innocent and told the truth, why did that judge and jury believe him and let him go? She had to be lying, right? I went on with my life without her and I haven’t looked back. I’m sorry she’s dead, but I didn’t have anything to do with avenging her, or that other woman. Should I call a lawyer?”