Deviation, Breaking the Pattern #1

by P.D. Workman

CHAPTER TWENTY

  HENRY WALKED ALONG HOLDING Cherise’s hand. He looked back over his shoulder again.

  “What’s wrong?” Cherise questioned.

  “Nothing,” Henry said curtly.

  “You see someone? What’s going on?”

  “Nothing. I just—I’m just nervous.”

  “About what? What’s going on?”

  “I’m jumpy. That’s all. It’s nothing.”

  He looked back over his shoulder again.

  “You’re making me jumpy,” Cherise complained.

  “Sorry.”

  She gave him a squeeze with the arm around his waist.

  “Just relax. You want to go to my place or something?”

  “Yeah, let’s do that.”

  They headed back toward Cherise’s house. Henry double-checked over his shoulder one more time.

  Henry awoke slowly. He was tired and anxious at the same time, disoriented. He went to the bathroom and washed his hands, studying them closely before drying them back off. He put on the coffee machine and pressed Sandy’s speed-dial number again. It rang a few times before going to voice mail.

  “Where are you?” Henry muttered crossly. He pushed the hang-up button to break the connection. He paced anxiously and decided to go for a walk.

  When he got back an hour later, Sandy was in the hall outside his apartment.

  “I was just looking for you,” she offered.

  “Where were you?” he snapped.

  “Working. What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know. I have the jitters. I have to have something…”

  “Drugs?”

  “Yeah. Do I ever.”

  She nodded to the door.

  “Let’s go in.”

  Henry nodded and unlocked the door. Sandy took a brief look around, her eyes sharp. She put on fresh coffee and walked around the apartment. Henry put down his newspaper, unable to concentrate on it. Sandy picked it up and flipped through it.

  “Look at that,” she said, disgusted. Henry looked at her. “Another girl killed. We went through a dry spell there and I thought things were getting better.” She concentrated on the text for a minute. “Doesn’t say she was a working girl. Found by her parents, it says, so you wouldn’t think so. Strangled.”

  Henry stared at her.

  “What are you talking about?” he questioned.

  “A girl. Teenager. Strangled. Get with it, Thomas. Man, I thought whoever was doing this had taken off.”

  “There were others?”

  “No one has had the guts to say serial murder yet, but the papers are starting to count up the similar cases. Police won’t say anything. Most of the girls are hookers, but not this one, I don’t think.”

  “Oh. I didn’t realize.”

  “It’s still third-page news. But we pay attention when sickos start killing hookers, even if the cops don’t care.”

  “Were the others strangled?” Henry asked, watching her face.

  “A couple. With a rope or something,” Sandy continued to look down at the article, shaking her head. “This one doesn’t say what with. Maybe they’ll publish more details tomorrow.”

  “Yeah.”

  They had their coffee in silence while Sandy finished studying the article and Henry watched her.

  Henry looked at the paper after Sandy was gone. The article included her name, but no picture. What they needed was a nice picture of her. Soft edges, relaxed, angelic. That’s what they needed to go along with the story. He made note of the reporter’s name. Maybe he would send them a picture.

  There was a knock at the door. Henry went to see who it was. He looked through the peephole. Cops. He wet his lips nervously and opened the door.

  “Can I help you?” he asked politely.

  “Are you Henry Thomson?”

  They didn’t have anything on him as Henry Thomson. Thomson had no past.

  “Yeah.”

  “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  Henry stepped back to allow them in.

  “What about?”

  They came in and looked around. Henry spotted his open newspaper at the same time as they did.

  “You saw the article about Miss Terrence?” His name tag said Aberdene. The other was Bentley.

  Henry nodded.

  “Yeah. I was thinking of going over there… but I’ve never met her parents. It might be sort of awkward, explaining who I am.”

  “What would you say?”

  “Well, we were friends at school… sort of boyfriend-girlfriend.”

  “Sort of?” he prompted.

  Henry rubbed the back of his neck and shrugged.

  “Well, how do you tell her folks that we were… you know. Together.”

  “That you were sleeping with her, you mean?” Aberdene suggested.

  Henry nodded.

  “She’s under age, you know,” the cop said, cocking one eyebrow.

  “I’m only fifteen,” Henry pointed out.

  They considered this.

  “You’re fifteen, and you’ve got your own place?” Aberdene questioned.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “You have a baby, like she does.”

  Henry was surprised. They’d done some homework. He nodded.

  “So where is the baby, Henry?”

  “I’ve been sick. Someone else is taking care of him.”

  “Who?”

  Henry gave them the name and phone number.

  “And do you have some ID?”

  Henry dug out his wallet and showed them his learner’s. Bentley dutifully recorded the license number.

  “When is the last time you saw Miss Terrence?”

  Henry hesitated. Something in their manner suggested they already knew the answer.

  “A couple of days ago. Before…” he motioned to the paper.

  “You saw her the day she was murdered?”

  Henry nodded. They just stood there looking at him, waiting.

  “I didn’t kill her,” he said. “We just went to her house. I was nervous… I thought someone was following me.”

  “Following you?” Aberdene repeated. “What made you think that?”

  “I kept seeing this car. A blue wagon with a dented fender.”

  “Did you see the driver?”

  “No.”

  “Not at all?”

  “I thought it was a man.”

  “White? Black?”

  “White.”

  “How old?”

  “I don’t know,” Henry shrugged widely. “I didn’t get a good look.”

  “A white man in a dented blue wagon. That’s all you can tell us?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You didn’t really see anything, did you? You’re just trying to snow us.”

  “No, I saw it.”

  “You and Terrence slept together that day?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You want to provide us with a DNA sample?”

  “No.”

  “A cheek swab is all we need.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Henry shrugged.

  “You’ve already admitted you slept with her,” Aberdene pointed out.

  “Do I need a lawyer?”

  Aberdene was silent for a moment.

  “It might be a good idea,” he said.

  Henry’s stomach flipped. His heart sped up.

  “Are you arresting me?” he questioned.

  “I think we’d better take you in for questioning.”

  Henry swallowed, feeling nauseous. Trying to keep himself calm.

  “No.”

  “You’re refusing to come in?”

  Henry didn’t know what to do.

  “I didn’t kill her.”

  “Just come in and talk to us.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Then call your lawyer. Now.”

  “I don’t have one.”

  Aberdene reached into his pocket and handed Henry a card. Legal
aid numbers.

  “Can I… have a few minutes?”

  “We’ll be in the hall.”

  Henry put his face into his folded arms on the table, burrowing down like he could hibernate and it would all go away. His new lawyer and the cops had stepped out into the hallway to talk, but they hadn’t shut the door all the way. Maybe they meant for him to hear.

  “He’s already admitted to sleeping with her. Why not give a DNA sample?” Aberdene said, frustrated.

  “If he’s admitted to it, why do you need one?” Bramptom questioned reasonably.

  “Simply to corroborate his story.”

  “You’re not looking to corroborate his story. You’re looking to hang him.”

  “This kid is up to his eyeballs in trouble. You don’t think we believe the line that they were being followed?”

  “Have you checked into it?” Brampton countered.

  “We will, but you know it’s a red herring.

  “You’ve got no evidence that my client has done anything.”

  “The girl was murdered in her own bed. She let the murderer in.”

  “Or a door was left unlocked. Or the murderer jimmied it. Or someone else with a key let him in.”

  “I want to know if your client used protection.”

  There was silence for a moment.

  “Why?”

  “We want to know if he was the last one with her. What if the DNA is someone else’s? It could clear him if she was with someone else after him.”

  “I need time to talk to my client in private.”

  “Go ahead. We’ve got some more investigating to do.”

  The door swung open the rest of the way, and Brampton came in.

  “Henry.” He shook his shoulder hard. “Come on, Henry. We have to talk.”

  Henry roused himself, and rubbed his eyes.

  “We need a strategy, here, buddy. You need to fill me in on a few things.”

  “What?” Henry questioned groggily, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

  “You and the victim were intimate before she was murdered.”

  “Yeah, I told them that. She was my girlfriend.”

  “This is very important. Did you use a condom?”

  “No.”

  “So it’s your DNA they’re going to find.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then you may as well submit to a DNA test. It doesn’t really harm our case. They know it was you, we know it was you. That doesn’t mean it was murder. I mean, it wasn’t rape, right? You didn’t hurt her.”

  Henry shook his head.

  “No, I’d never do that.”

  “So there was no violence, they can’t positively link the murder to you.”

  Henry shook his head.

  “I can’t give them a sample,” he insisted.

  “It’s just a cheek swab. Nothing embarrassing.”

  “I can’t. Trust me.”

  Brampton studied Henry silently. Henry dropped his eyes down to the top of the table.

  “Even if you committed the murder—and you don’t have to tell me if you did—I still don’t see a problem with them doing the DNA test.”

  “What if they use it for something else?” Henry said nervously.

  Brampton frowned.

  “For something else…” he frowned, shaking his head. “Well, what are the odds that they would run it against anything else?”

  Henry was silent. Brampton stared at him for a few minutes, then finally nodded.

  “If it’s too much of a risk. We’ll fight it the best we can. But they may force the issue in court. There’s not much we can do if the court orders you to provide a sample.”

  Henry nodded. He held onto the fact that they had nothing on him. Only suspicions.

  Henry was waiting for Brampton to come back and let him know if he was free to go back to his apartment. Aberdene walked in. He looked around, frowning.

  “Where’s your lawyer?”

  “He went to find you,” Henry told him.

  “Well, I just got back from searching your apartment.”

  Henry thought he would faint. He had the sensation of free fall. Like he’d been dropped down into a bottomless pit. His stomach dropped. The rushing wind filled his ears. His heart expanded to fill his chest until he thought it would burst with fear. He couldn’t swallow, couldn’t speak. Could hardly breathe. He had to go to the bathroom.

  Brampton walked back in.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” Aberdene said impatiently.

  “What’s going on here?” Brampton questioned, taking in Henry’s frozen, panicked expression.

  “Your client is under arrest. Explain his rights to him.”

  “You don’t have enough for an arrest,” Brampton countered.

  “We didn’t, but we had enough for a search warrant for his apartment. Maybe your client would like to tell you what we found there.”

  Everyone looked at Henry, who just sat there wide-eyed and white-faced. Aberdene started pulling out photos and dropping them on the table. Brampton waited for someone to explain further.

  “Pictures from his apartment. All of these lovely girls,” Aberdene said, “have been murdered in the last year.”

  Brampton swore lowly.

  “Don’t say anything,” he told Henry. But Henry just sat there frozen, unable to speak or even move.

  “A bunch of kiddie porn in the dark room,” Aberdeen went on, laying them out. Henry averted his eyes.

  Aberdene put some syringes on the table.

  “A heroine addiction,” he commented.

  Henry didn’t even know there were still needles at the apartment, let alone any heroin. Sandy had gone through it before he got back from rehab to make sure he couldn’t shoot up as soon as he got home.

  Aberdene put some orange prescription bottles on the table.

  “Powerful antipsychotics, I’m told.”

  Everybody just stood there, stunned, staring at Henry.

  “How about a confession, Henry?” Aberdene prompted. “You know you’re caught.”

  “Don’t say anything,” Brampton said automatically.

  Henry looked at the pictures. Adrienne, Cherie, and all the others. So pretty. His girls. There had been two Henrys for too long. The thrill-seeker, and the cover. He used to be the cover. A good kid. Responsible. Naive. Victimized. But that Henry had slowly been consumed by the other. The predator that lurked beneath, getting off on risk-taking and breaking the rules. The Henry that had once been buried deep had surfaced day by day until the other Henry was merely a paper mask he kept between the predator and the world. He had tried to hide the evil, bury it, forget the things it did. But it had been stronger. Where did it come from? Frank had tried to tell him about it, to explain it. They were both victims of this awful monster that lurked inside. No, he wasn’t a victim. The Henry who was a victim was gone, overcome by the stronger desires.

  Henry reached tentatively for the pictures, and no one stopped him. He gathered them into a pile and pulled them to him. He fingered them tenderly, stroking the lovely faces.

  “They’re so beautiful,” he murmured softly.

  “Then why kill them?” Aberdene questioned.

  This time Brampton didn’t jump in and tell him to be quiet. Even he wanted to know.

  “I loved to follow them, take candids. Watch them at work or at home. But you can’t do it for long, people notice you and get suspicious.”

  “And if you can’t have them, no one can?” Aberdene suggested.

  “Yes, there’s that… and the high…” he hesitated, “the rush…?”

  Aberdene nodded understandingly, sympathetically. He understood. Someone understood. Henry sighed, the tension draining away. There was no more need to hide who he really was. No more mask. Henry was what he was.