Revenge of Innocents (11 page)

“I made Jude breakfast early this morning,” Josephine said, speaking with an Italian accent. “She took her medicine and went back to bed. Saint Jude is the patron of lost causes. His real name was Judas. We didn’t want our prayers going to the bad guy, so we call him Jude instead.”

“I know,” Carolyn said, thinking Jude might be a lost cause herself. She liked having another Catholic in the house. Marcus had been raised Presbyterian. She couldn’t be married in the church because of her former marriage to Frank Polizzito, the father of her children. Marcus had hired some kind of rent-a-priest who’d agreed to perform the ceremony in the backyard. The priest at the church she attended had told her she couldn’t sleep with Marcus even after they were married, because the marriage wasn’t sanctioned by the church. In some areas, the church went too far. Not many men would marry a woman who refused to sleep with them.

Carolyn thought Jude appeared to be settling in pretty fast for someone who’d put up so much resistance. She poured herself a cup of coffee, then picked up the bottle of painkillers. When she realized it was empty, she raced into the guest room and shook Jude by the shoulder.

“Stop, that hurts,” the girl said, rolling over and peering up at Carolyn. “I thought I was supposed to stay in bed and rest.”

Carolyn held up the empty bottle. “Did you take all these pills?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I hurt like a bitch.”

“Get up, I have to take you to the hospital,” Carolyn told her, whipping back the covers.

“Chill out, will you?” Jude shouted. “I’m conscious. I’m not going to die. There were only fifteen pills. I took some during the night and a few more this morning. Do you have any idea how hard it is to kill yourself with painkillers? It would take ten bottles of Darvocette, maybe more. Before you died, you’d barf them up. I didn’t take any of the muscle relaxants. I know they can stop your heart if you take too many. Now, can we stop talking about dying? It reminds me of my mother. Not all my pain is physical.”

Carolyn took several deep breaths, then slowly let them out. The girl had a valid point. “Are you certain you’re all right?”

Jude winced as she shifted her position. “I’m alive, aren’t I? That’s good enough for me if it’s good enough for you.”

“Let’s come to an understanding,” Carolyn said, placing her hands on her hips. “I’ll treat you like an adult if you’ll act responsibly. I have to make a few phone calls. I’ll have Josephine bring in a pot of coffee. Drink it all. I don’t want you to sleep until the pills wear off. It’s either that, or a trip to the hospital.”

“Whatever,” Jude said, rolling over and covering her head with a pillow.

Carolyn called Brad from the phone in the bedroom, bringing him up to date on the situation with Jude. “Does Drew know she’s with you?”

“I hope not,” she said. “She made me promise not to tell him. I’m not certain if she’s afraid of him, or just mad because he made her move out and gave her room to the so-called nanny.”

“Jude may have witnessed the murder. Don’t come to the office today. Try to put together more information for the PD on Veronica’s cases. I’ve already assigned everything that came in yesterday. I split Veronica’s work between Linda Cartwright and Stuart Greenly. Our transfers—”

“My God, Greenly!” Carolyn said, cutting him off. “I confronted him just before I left the office last night. He vehemently denied having an affair with Veronica. Now that I think about it, innocent people don’t generally react the way he did.”

“Elaborate.”

“He threatened to turn in his resignation. He bad-mouthed Veronica, calling her a fat cow. He even said she was crazy, that she told him to fudge on his reports and just make stuff up.”

“Not a very nice way to speak about a coworker who was just murdered,” Brad said, “particularly since Greenly wants to be perceived as a cultured guy, with his preppy clothes and phony Boston accent. Someone told me he grew up in Malibu.”

“The accent!” Carolyn said, excited. “Remember, I thought the guy who attacked me had some kind of accent. Greenly was hopping mad, Brad. Maybe he’s our killer.”

“Hey, run it by the task force. Veronica might have thought it was more than a roll in the hay, and tried to force him to leave his wife. It would certainly be embarrassing if he was having an affair with her and the truth got out. How would it look for him to be cheating on his beautiful young wife with a woman Veronica’s age?”

“He’s got a problem with his ego, anyway,” Carolyn said, thinking they were onto something. “I heard he flunked the bar exam six times. Is that true?”

“I think so,” Brad said. “I told you I’m not sure it was Greenly in the car with Veronica. If you want my opinion, the biggest lead you’re going to find is in your guest room. When Wheeler was considering my replacement, I told him if the devil got himself arrested, Carolyn Sullivan could get him to confess. Don’t tell me you can’t get inside the head of one little girl. Get back on the horse and bring this baby home.”

“You’re underestimating Jude,” Carolyn countered. “I know because I did the same thing. She hasn’t been a teenager for years, Brad. She’s already had two abortions. She’s a woman in every sense of the word.”

“So?” he said. “What difference does that make?”

“Most of my success stories involved men. Females are far more devious. Besides, I’m emotionally involved.”

“That gives you even more of a reason. Can’t you do for Veronica what you’ve done for strangers?”

She carried the portable phone to the doorway and stared down the hall. There was something about Jude that frightened her. It took an enormous amount of willpower to protect someone who’d beaten you. “Let me go, Brad, so I can figure out how to break through to her.”

Carolyn opened the French doors in the master bedroom and stepped outside to the enclosed atrium. There was a bubbling fountain in one corner, and the walls were covered with climbing roses in exquisite colors. Sitting down in a green padded lounge chair, she tried to enjoy her coffee while she formulated her strategy. Before she could get Jude to talk, she had to understand her.

Was she afraid the batterer would kill her if she reported him? That meant she’d lost confidence in the police and authority figures. Had she committed a crime and was fearful of being found out? Maybe one or both of her pregnancies had been the result of a rape? If so, had her parents blamed her and hushed it up to save face in the community?

When Carolyn had talked a offender in custody for a minor offense into confessing to murdering his wife in another state, she’d appealed to his ego. Discounting the obvious consequences, the average murderer wasn’t callous enough to boast about killing someone. The offender she’d got to confess had been a sociopath, a person with no remorse and no respect for human life. She doubted if Jude had anything worth bragging about, even if she had committed a number of crimes, and she felt fairly certain that she wasn’t a sociopath. If she was, everyone around her was in jeopardy.

The most likely scenario was the one she’d mentioned to Mary, that Jude was suffering from battered woman syndrome. Victims endured abuse because they knew it led to a period called the “loving reunion,” where the batterer swore undying love, showered them with gifts, and promised never to hurt them again. The victim was empowered because she held the key to the batterer’s freedom. Some victims craved the “loving reunion” so much, they purposely incited the batterer. It was a perplexing and vicious cycle, many times ending in death, and not always the death of the victim.

Carolyn thought of another possibility where physical abuse went unreported—prostitution. From what Drew had told her, Jude had disappeared for days at a time. She’d also known her parents were about to evict her. Could she have been selling sex for money?

Carolyn went inside and dressed in a pair of jeans and a lightweight blue sweater.

No matter what the temperature was outside, it always seemed cold inside Marcus’s house. Houses this big and well insulated were always chilly.

Padding barefoot on the hardwood floors, she opened the door to the guest room and found Jude propped up in bed, drinking coffee and watching television. Josephine had brought her an insulated coffeepot on a tray.

“Guess I’m gonna make it.” Jude smirked. “Can’t follow the doctor’s orders and stay in bed, not when I have to pee every five minutes from all this god-awful coffee.”

Carolyn stretched out beside her. A commercial for Lucky Charms was on. “What are you watching?”

“Toons. There’s no such thing as grown-up TV at our place. Since I’m homeless now, I guess I can kiss TV good-bye.”

“Why didn’t you tell your parents you were going to school?”

Her eyes drifted over to Carolyn, but she didn’t answer.

“The school said you were doing well in your classes, that by midterm, you should be able to get your diploma. It doesn’t make sense that you didn’t tell your mother and father. I’m sure they would have given you their full support if they’d known what you were trying to accomplish.”

“You don’t know shit,” Jude snapped, getting up and walking toward the bathroom.

She was wearing the same black T-shirt, but her jeans were draped over the chair, and all she had on were a pair of white cotton panties that appeared to be several sizes too large. The bruises looked even worse than they had the night before. After ten minutes had passed, Carolyn went to the door to the bathroom and found it locked.

She carried the tray back to the kitchen, stared at the clock until another ten minutes had passed, then returned and pounded on the bathroom door. “What are you doing in there?” she asked. “I can’t let you hurt yourself, Jude. If you don’t come out, I’m going have to get someone to break down the door.”

The girl flung the door open, glaring at her. “I was taking a crap,” she said. “Are you always this hysterical? Jesus, I should have let them put me in the nuthouse.”

Carolyn knew it was time to change her tactics. Trying to befriend her wasn’t going to work. “I’m going to call your father,” she said. “I’m responsible if something happens to you.”

Jude’s defiant attitude disappeared. She locked her fingers around Carolyn’s arm. “You promised me,” she cried. “I’ll leave, okay? I’m not going back there with my dad. I’d rather sleep in the gutter.””

Pain shot up Carolyn’s injured arm. Like Josephine, Jude was stronger than she looked. At least she had an excuse for the bruises now.

Jude released her, and wiggled into her jeans, then searched under the bed for her shoes. “I should have known you’d go back on your word,” she told her, sitting in the chair as she put on her dirty socks and laced her worn-out tennis shoes. “Everything you said to me last night was bullshit.”

Carolyn blocked the doorway. “You’re injured. For all I know, you’re suicidal. I can’t allow you to leave. When your father gets here, we’ll decide what to do. Tell him you’ve been going to school, and I’m sure he’ll let you move back home.”

Jude’s eyes flashed in fury. “You think my asshole father’s going to take care of me?” she shouted. “Who do you think did this to me? He’s been forcing me to have sex with him since I was eight.”

Carolyn’s mouth fell open. She remained silent as Jude paced around the room. She’d pushed her to get a reaction, but this was an explosion.

“You want to know who killed my mother?” Jude blurted out, picking up a paperweight and hurling it against the wall. “My father killed her.” Tears streamed down her face. “I was thirteen when the bastard got me pregnant the first time. You know why? Because he couldn’t get it up when he wore a condom. He told my mother I was a prostitute. I was too scared to tell her the truth. Then he knocked me up again when I was fifteen. I went back to school because I wanted to surprise my mother. I thought she might love me instead of thinking I was a slut and a baby killer. The only reason I didn’t graduate last year was because my dad was always making me ditch school. He couldn’t have sex with me when my mom and the kids were around.”

Jude flopped face first on the bed, her shoulders shaking as she sobbed. Carolyn went over to comfort her. She placed her hand on her back, but she slapped it away, craning her neck around. “You know why he wanted me out of the house, don’t you?”

Carolyn tried to maintain a calm demeanor. Inside, she felt like ripping Drew Campbell apart with her bare hands. “Because he was afraid someone would see your injuries?”

“No,” she said, sitting up and crushing the pillow to her stomach. “Things like that never bothered him. He tells everyone I hang out with gangsters who use me as a punching bag. One time he told Mom I was a masochist and liked people to hurt me. He had an excuse for everything.” She began rocking. “He wanted me out so he could replace me with someone else.”

“You mean Crystal?”

“He wouldn’t be interested in someone her age, unless he’d already had her, and could fantasize about when he fucked her as a kid.” She stopped rocking and stared out over the room. “Crystal’s got three younger sisters. Maybe he thought he could get to one of them. I think he hired her because she’s borderline retarded, and he knew she wouldn’t cause problems. You know so much, I thought you would have figured it out. Who did he move into his bedroom?”

“Stacy,” Carolyn said, her eyes enormous. “Good Lord, Jude, we have to get her out of that house immediately. Why didn’t you tell me this last night?”