Evil Guardian

by Scott Bonn

  The nature of his work took a tremendous toll on him. In particular, the terrible things that James saw on the job were very difficult for him to put out of his mind. They were even more difficult for him to discuss with his young wife. Witnessing horrors of abuse and murder at work left him feeling numb, empty and detached from reality. As a result, James would often shut down emotionally at home due to the traumatic events he witnessed on the job.

  James’s psychological response to work-related trauma—that is, shutting down emotionally—is very common among police officers, fire fighters, paramedics and soldiers at war. It is a natural defense mechanism of the human mind. Shutting down emotionally is the way the human psyche protects itself from things that seem too horrible for the mind to comprehend.

  Although it is quite normal from a psychological perspective, it can be very difficult for the immediate family of a traumatized person who is shut down emotionally to understand or accept because it will seem to them as if their loved one is emotionally absent or checked out. In its extreme, shutting down emotionally can be manifested as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the person who is afflicted. In such cases, the traumatized individual will require professional therapy in order to resolve their confused thoughts, mixed emotions and depression.

  It is safe to say that James Pritchard developed PTSD during the early years of his policing career. He was deeply troubled at the time and, at some level, he knew that something was wrong with him. Pritchard also knew that psychological counseling was available to all NYPD officers who developed emotional or behavioral problems because of their work, but that was not for him.

  His fierce self-reliance and stubbornness caused him to ignore or suppress his emotional pain and refuse any help. Instead, he would sometimes have a couple of drinks—scotch on the rocks—at home after his shift to relax.

  Chapter Thirteen

  James and Claire Pritchard both worked outside the home during the early years of their marriage, but their daily routines were very different. While James was working long, grueling and dangerous shifts at the NYPD, Claire was working part-time in a small, quiet bookstore in Hempstead, New York.

  Because their daytime experiences were so different, it was difficult sometimes for them to find a common ground for communicating when they were at home together in the evening. Claire wanted to talk about the stressful things that James experienced at work, but he would not share them with her.

  Claire missed her husband terribly while he was at work. She also wanted to start a family with him. James wanted a child as well, but most evenings he got home from work far too tired physically and emotionally to make love to Claire.

  Despite the obstacles and challenges, however, James and Claire celebrated the birth of their first child shortly after their third wedding anniversary. The baby was a beautiful brown-eyed girl. They named her Lisa, after Claire’s favorite aunt on her mother’s side.

  James loved Lisa with all of his heart, and the birth of his daughter added a new and wonderful dimension to his life. The little girl brought him a feeling of joy and wonder that he did not know a person could even experience. However, James’s limitless love for Lisa came with an unexpected price. Loving her so much frightened him terribly.

  For the very first time since starting his job with the NYPD, James began to consider the dangers of his work and worry about his mortality. He began to think about how his death would affect his family. He wondered what would happen if he died on the job and was not able to return home to Lisa and his wife.

  “What would happen if I was not there to protect my little girl? How would Claire and she survive?” he asked himself.

  Such questions terrified and tormented him.

  James started going to work with feelings of apprehension and uncertainty soon after the birth of Lisa. He hated such feelings, and for a very good reason. Feelings of uncertainty are very dangerous for a police officer because they can cause him to freeze up or make a bad decision at a critical moment that can lead to disaster. For example, if James became tentative or timid while facing an armed and dangerous criminal, it could result in his death.

  James knew that he should avoid feelings of uncertainty and apprehension on the job but his love and concern for his family clouded his thinking. Stubborn and very determined, he did his best to hide his fears from Claire. He persevered through his apprehensions and uncertainty. More precisely, he buried his fears in his massive workload. He was a workaholic.

  James was fortunate not to experience any major injuries or other personal disasters on the job during Lisa’s childhood. In fact, despite the constant dangers of his work, his early years with the NYPD were relatively trouble free, although he continued to work long, exhausting hours, and he still worried obsessively about how his possible death would affect his family.

  James and Claire had no additional children following the birth of Lisa.

  The NYPD promoted James to Captain of Homicide for the Borough of Manhattan, a tremendous honor, when Lisa was eleven. Lisa was very proud of her father’s accomplishments, and she told him so, but secretly, she wanted him to be at home with her more often.

  Unfortunately, for Lisa, her father’s new role as captain did not lighten his workload. Instead, it actually increased the number of hours he had to spend away from home. Lisa missed her father terribly while he was away. He often worked sixty or more hours each week.

  James regretted the large blocks of time that he had to spend apart from his family, but he had become an important senior officer at the NYPD. His superiors gave him broad authority and discretion. His position held tremendous responsibility over the many detectives and officers under his command.

  James struggled to balance his personal and professional lives, but it was not an easy task because of the daunting challenges of his career. There was simply not enough time in the day to do everything he wanted or needed to do. No matter how hard he tried, he could not meet every demand placed upon him or please everyone—at work or at home.

  Despite Pritchard’s internal struggles, his family life nevertheless progressed without serious incident until just after Lisa’s thirteenth birthday. Then, on an otherwise ordinary summer night, disaster struck quickly like a bolt of lightning. In a split second, fate shattered the personal life of James Pritchard.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Disaster struck James Pritchard’s family three years ago on July 15th. While his wife and daughter were traveling together by car in a thunderstorm on a hot summer night, a drunk driver hit their car and killed them.

  The fatal accident occurred as Claire was driving Lisa home from a friend’s house at approximately 10:05pm. The mother and daughter were less than a mile away from home when a drunk driver ran through a red light at a major intersection and struck their car broadside. The man who hit them was going nearly forty-five miles per hour—ten miles over the speed limit, and dangerously fast in a blinding rainstorm—when he plowed into Claire’s side of the car.

  The collision nearly tore their car in half. Claire was crushed by the impact of the accident and died instantly from her extensive injuries. Lisa was still alive following the collision and taken by ambulance to the hospital where she died a few hours later from severe head trauma. The fifty-five-year-old drunk driver who hit them, Fred Romano, somehow survived the accident, although his car was demolished upon impact, as well.

  Romano was arrested, charged and convicted of vehicular manslaughter for the wrongful deaths of Claire and Lisa Pritchard. James attended the sentencing hearing of the man who took his wife and daughter from him. Prior to the sentencing, James was given an opportunity to make what is known as a victim impact statement directly to Romano. In his statement, James told the convicted murderer that he could not find it in his heart to forgive him for what he had done.

  He said, “Perhaps God can forgive you, but I cannot. You are a worthless drunk. You have taken everything from me—everyone I love is gone because of y
ou. I really hope you suffer for what you have done.”

  With that, James wiped tears away from his eyes and asked the judge to give Romano the maximum sentence.

  The judge assigned a fixed sentence of twelve years in prison to Romano for the manslaughters of Claire and Lisa. That did not satisfy James Pritchard. He did not believe that the length of the prison sentence properly reflected the severity of Romano’s crimes. He did not think the sentence was adequate punishment for the irreparable harm the drunk driver had done.

  “This bastard took two beautiful lives, and destroyed my life, but he gets only twelve years behind bars,” James bitterly said to himself following the sentencing.

  Filled with grief and anger ever since the night of the terrible accident, James is not the same man that he was prior to the deaths of his wife and daughter. He is still a gifted homicide detective, but he is also a deeply troubled and toxic human being.

  Prior to the accident, James was intense and stoic but emotionally stable at work. Ever since the fatal accident three years ago, James has become curt, short-tempered and surly with his colleagues. He has developed uncharacteristic, volatile mood swings that baffle his peers. He struggles with feelings of rage throughout the day, and suffers from intense headaches and insomnia when he is home and alone at night.

  James has neither forgotten nor forgiven the drunk driver who took his family from him. On the contrary, his resentment toward Romano consumes him to this day. Romano is not the only target of his resentment and rage, however. He also hates himself. James is filled with terrible guilt and remorse for having taken his family for granted, and for having placed his career and work ahead of them. He deeply regrets not spending more time with Claire and Lisa while they were alive.

  James feels condemned to spend the rest of his life in torment for his selfishness. His guilt and shame are like a disease that is slowly killing him. The emotional pain and anguish are unrelenting. When he is alone at night, he often wonders why he is still alive.

  James will not admit his personal problems to himself or anyone else. Consistent with his willful personality, he refuses to seek professional help for his demons. Instead, he has been easing his pain and quieting the terrible voices inside his head by drinking alcohol heavily ever since the night that his wife and daughter were taken from him.

  His abuse of alcohol is ironic and sad in light of the fact that a drunk driver took the lives of Claire and Lisa. It is also ironic and tragic given that James had always sworn he would never drink to excess like his father. He said that living through his father’s alcoholism and watching its devastating effects on his family made him hate alcohol.

  Now, James drinks every night to numb or suppress his painful thoughts and emotions, just like his father did. He lives and drinks alone in his empty three-bedroom house in Freeport, Long Island. He rarely associates with longtime friends or colleagues anymore. Instead, he hides from reality and escapes from his terrible feelings and nightmares with the aid of liquor. In complete contradiction to his past values and beliefs, he has become a bitter, isolated alcoholic.

  James is what clinicians often refer to as a high-functioning alcoholic, which means that he is able to perform his work effectively despite his heavy daily consumption of alcohol.

  His daily routine starts with him nursing a hangover from the night before by taking several Advil tablets and washing them down with an extra-large cup of coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts. He muscles his way through the workday at the NYPD and tries to ignore his jittery nerves and the queasy feeling in his stomach. By four or five o’clock in the afternoon, he starts to feel better, and by seven o’clock in the evening, he is ready to drink again. As soon as he is back home on Long island, he sits on his sofa alone and disappears into a bottle of scotch whisky.

  His life has become an endless cycle of obsessive work and obsessive drinking. Because he still performs his duties with effectiveness and keeps almost entirely to himself, no one at the NYPD is aware of his personal problems or the emotional pain that he struggles through every day. Not even his closest colleagues are aware of his misery and increasing dependency on alcohol. James keeps his anguish buried deeply inside himself. He prides himself in not drinking on the job.

  Although James is still very competent in his work, he has been performing his responsibilities on autopilot for some time. He operates on instinct and past experience. Since the loss of his family, he has been going through the motions on the job without any real connection to his work. More precisely, he has checked out both mentally and emotionally. The only things that get him out of bed in the morning are his fierce determination, obsession and stubbornness.

  Although his work no longer gives him the satisfaction it once did, by keeping busy, James temporarily escapes from the tremendous mental anguish that constantly plagues him. He perseveres or, more accurately, survives each day by immersing himself in his work until it is time to go home alone and drink himself into a stupor once again.

  By the time that the bodies of two murdered teenage girls are pulled out of the East River on October 10th—that is, three years and three months after the deaths of his wife and daughter—James Pritchard has become a man in desperate need of an opportunity to create some positive changes in his life.

  The discovery of the two dead bodies provides such an opportunity when Police Commissioner Bratton selects him to oversee the massive manhunt for an unknown serial killer. Suddenly, James is heading up a task force of more than two hundred specially trained officers and detectives in the largest and most highly visible criminal investigation in the entire country.

  His new assignment has an immediate and profound impact on him. The veteran detective has worked on hundreds of homicide investigations throughout his career, and he normally maintains a professional detachment from the details and individuals involved in a case. This time he cannot do that. He finds that the murders committed by the guardian are more disturbing and despicable than any others he has investigated in his entire career. He is outraged that a cold-blooded psychopath could kill innocent young girls for his own gratification.

  “How could any man brutally rape and kill these girls? What sort of monster would do these things?” he asks himself.

  The guardian case has quickly gotten under James’s skin. Unexpectedly, it has given him a renewed purpose and passion for his work that has been missing for several years. Rage toward the unknown serial killer is fueling his passion and determination to stop him. It has become an obsession with him. He is utterly determined to avenge the young murder victims and to provide justice and closure to their families.

  James has personal reasons for despising the serial killer. The guardian’s two teenage victims remind him of his own daughter, Lisa, who was also killed by a stranger in the night. James is outraged that the guardian is destroying the lives of parents by taking their children. His crimes are like flashbacks of the drunk driver that destroyed his own family.

  The destinies of James Pritchard and the guardian were linked together when the homicide captain was selected to lead the serial killer task force. As a result, James and the guardian are now on course for a head-on collision. Nothing, and no one, can prevent that from happening.

  Chapter Fifteen

  It is 9:00am on Saturday, October 16th, in lower Manhattan. The sky is bright and clear, and the air is cool and crisp. There is not a cloud in the sky. It is a perfectly beautiful fall morning.

  Charles Lundquist is at home watching the TV news on “CBS Saturday Morning.” Because he does not go to work at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility on Saturdays, Lundquist is able to relax in his studio apartment on Mercer Street in the East Village, have a leisurely breakfast, and catch up on current events.

  Lundquist’s apartment, which he rents, is located in a very trendy and desirable neighborhood in lower Manhattan. It is large by Manhattan standards—approximately six-hundred-and-fifty square feet—with an eat-in kitchen and decent size bathroom. Lundq
uist has furnished it modestly with a black leather sofa, Murphy bed, glass-top coffee table, two grey armchairs, and an entertainment center with flat screen television.

  At the bottom of the entertainment center are two rows of books, all of which fall into one of two genres: theology or science fiction. In terms of science fiction, Lundquist is a huge fan of Star Trek. His favorite character is the ultra-logical and emotionless Mr. Spock. His fascination with the Mr. Spock character is a source of amusement among his professional colleagues.

  Lundquist sips strong Colombian coffee with cream and eats a raspberry scone as he sits on the sofa and casually gazes at the TV screen. Alex Wagner, the CBS news host, is starting to introduce the lead story of the day. It involves a massive manhunt that is taking place in New York City for a serial killer targeting teenage girls.

  The story captivates Lundquist, and he moves closer to the TV screen to take it all in. Alex Wagner explains that the size and scope of the manhunt are unprecedented in New York and, for that matter, anywhere in the United States. As Lundquist watches the story unfold and listens carefully to every word, his heart begins to pound inside his chest.

  The entertainment news media, in their never-ending use of hyperbole and quest for sensationalism, are referring to the unknown perpetrator responsible for the girls’ murders as the “evil guardian.” Although Lundquist hates the use of the word evil as an adjective to describe his alter ego, the attention that the guardian’s work is receiving intrigues him. Lundquist smiles as he watches and listens to the CBS news reporter discuss the exploits of the so-called evil guardian.