Spare the Lambs (13 page)

April 25, 2001 from personal computer

              I really should’ve seen the chief’s response coming.  I went to his office midway through the morning to show him the entry in Judith Smith’s diary.  The one in which she discovered Lee’s apartment.  I even pointed out the streets I believed the damaged part could be covering.  He didn’t question that the girl accidentally covered only this part of the entry in ink.

He told me, “This isn’t time sensitive.  So, tomorrow I want you to start searching that area.  Go door to door if you have to.  Maybe Special Agent Johnston would like to help?”

Of course, save money is the motto or at least the mayor’s motto.  Tomorrow starts a new pay period and so if I use up all my hours for the week in a few days, then I get to take the rest of the week off to prevent overtime.  The dumbass didn’t even consider that if I catch the boy I might have to hand the questioning off to someone else.  But no one else has had a big part in this case and they might not know the right questions to ask.  The only person that knows enough about the case to possibly get the necessary information, no matter how much the thought pains me, would be Agent Johnston and he would, no doubt, manage to fuck it up.

It doesn’t really matter, he made the decision for me and gave me the time I need.  I will deal with Lee, alone.

April 25, 2001 from personal computer later

              God, my hands are still shaking.  After I wrote my entry, I took a shower to calm my nerves.  It didn’t help, but it forced me to change out of my work clothes.  I put on running gear and a hoodie to hide my face.  It was a little too warm for a hoody, but I have seen people in the middle of summer wearing them, so I doubt I was drawing too much attention.  I grabbed the gang-banger’s gun as I left.  I drove to Lee’s apartment building and waited, since I couldn’t come up with what to do next.  If I went to his apartment his brother might be home or I might not be able to get Lee out of the building without causing a scene.  I couldn’t question him and deliver justice in the building, that would guarantee I get caught.

              I sat there for two hours waiting for a good idea.  I thought about pulling the fire alarm to get him out of the building, but that would get everyone out of the building and grabbing him would be hard with all the witnesses.  I could just walk up and shoot him, fear would probably keep people from looking too closely for long enough to identify me.  However, if I did that the others would get away and I needed Lee to tell me where the others are hiding.

              Then at eight, Lee came out of the building’s front door.  I was shocked at my good luck and waited for someone else to come out or something else to ruin this perfect opportunity.  I waited until he was halfway down the block before trusting my luck and followed him.  I got out of my car and trailed him for three blocks before he turned into an alley.  I hurried, fearing that he knew he was being followed, but when I got to the mouth of the alley I could see him crossing the road on the other end still walking at a normal pace.  He headed to a gas station.  I hoped he was meeting the others, but nothing led me to believe they would meet in such a public place.

              If anyone connects me with this crime, I’ll need to microwave this hard drive, but I also need to get this out and a journal can’t turn me in.  I hid in the alley and waited.  I was far enough back to be invisible to him, but close enough to see if he went in a different direction.  I wondered why he chose this store when he had passed two other stores on the way to this one.  I knew the answer when he came out and lit a cigarette.  That must have been the closest store that he knew wouldn’t card him or care that he didn’t look even close to eighteen.  He crossed the road and approached the alley.  I moved farther into the alley and hid behind a dumpster.

              I crouched down and waited for his footsteps to get closer.  When I guessed he was about a foot away, I jumped up.  He hopped back and dropped his cigarette.  He yelped something like “fuck man!”

              I stepped towards him clutching the gun in my pocket and he stepped back.  “Hello, Lee,” I said.

              He looked terrified and glanced around the alley.  “Who the hell are you and how do you know my name?”

              I took another step toward him.  This time he held his ground.  “Where are the others, Lee?  Tell me and this can all be over quietly.”

His face lost its color and his eyes darted around again.  “Wh-what others?  I don’t know what you’re talking about.  I don’t know who you are but you better leave me alone.”  He turned to leave, so I pulled the 9mm out of my hoodie and pointed it in his face.  He stopped, but he no longer looked scared.  Instead, he wore a “
you don’t have the balls”
expression as he stared at me.

“Where are your friends?”

“Go fuck yourself, man.”

I could feel the blood pounding in my temples and my vision grew red.  Even in the final hour he was trying to save those monsters from justice and doing it by insulting me.  I punched him with my left fist, which normally wouldn’t do anything, but this time it put the boy on the ground.  I grabbed him by his collar and yanked him up to his feet.  When I put the gun to his head, all expression left his face.  That lack of anything, it shook me.  “Where are they?” I yelled.

He looked up at me with lifeless eyes and said, “just get it over with.”

I spent about a half hour questioning him and then hitting him when he didn’t answer or when I could tell he was lying.  I lost my temper a few more times and might have gone too far, because when he finally wanted to talk his face looked more like raw meat than a human.

“I,” he struggled to talk while coughing up a little blood, “I only knew where James lived.  We hung out at his place a few times, whenever the group wasn’t meeting.”  He coughed hard for almost a minute.  When he was done he slumped against the dumper.  I was worried I would lose him before he told me the address.  “He lives on Madison Parkway, Building 192.”  He coughed again and spit out a mouth full of blood.  “Apartment number 20.”

“No idea where the others live or work?  Think back, they might have mentioned it in passing once.”

He shook his head a little too hard, eyes squeezed shut.  “We weren’t supposed to know where the others were at any time unless we were getting ready to do it.”

IT.
  Well that was definitely one way to refer to brainwashing a new kid and killing another.  Lee nodded and it looked like he was having a hard time staying awake.  He looked up at me with his one good eye and the other swelling shut.  “Will you let me go now?”

I stared at the boy and he stared back, either too weak to ask again or waiting for me to decide.  I thought about what to do with him.  He might tell the rest of the force or his lawyer about the beating I just gave him when we arrest him tomorrow.  He couldn’t escape now, he had to go to the hospital.  The police would be called and he would remain there until we knocked on his brother’s door and connect the boy to his crimes.  He gave me another address.  Did he really deserve to die here?  He had killed two people that we knew about, but the first might not have been his fault.  He might have been trapped like Eric. 

Your life for the life of a complete stranger.  I don’t know if I could refuse the cleaver in that situation.  He still killed a child and hadn’t turned himself and the other in, he definitely deserves prison for that. However, Judith death was different.  He created a relationship with her to drag her into the pack and having failed, killed her.

My thoughts must have conjured my delusions.  Someone was standing at the mouth of the alley.  I glanced up, afraid that someone had seen me.  Lee looked as well.  Judith Smith stood there watching us.  I don’t know if Lee saw her or was reacting to the lack of help but, he closed his eyes in resignation.  She had loved him, trusted him, and followed him to her death.  He took that love, her virginity, and finally her life.  I put the barrel to his temple and said, “Yes, you can go now.”

I was running out of the alley before the gun’s report stopped echoing off the close brick walls.  I ran a block before I convinced my legs to listen to my commands and slowed to a less suspicious walk.  I didn’t hear sirens until I was back at my car.  When I got home, my cat wouldn’t come near me until I washed the blood and gunpowder off.

April 26, 2001 from personal computer

              Special Agent Johnston decided to split the search area with me.  If I didn’t already know what the search would find, I’d been grateful.  He took the northern section of 57th and all of 58th.  I got the rest.  When he realized the boy he was looking for was last night’s shooting victim, this would all be a dead end.  I am grateful I don’t need to go near the crime site though.  I doubt anyone saw me and as long as I stayed away, it wouldn’t matter.  Years of police work had taught me that most people can’t describe another person in any useable way.

              I’m sure I could’ve been standing two feet away from a witness the whole time and they would describe me as well as a quarter of the men in this city to the police.  As long as I wasn’t there for them to say, “there, that’s him,” I should be able to continue giving justice.  I could still come across witnesses at the station, but hopefully time would blur their memory.

              My feet and back hurt from walking all day.  I think I should get some Epsom Salt from the store and soak my feet.  Agent Johnston found two boys that fit the description, but they were with friends on the night of March 16th.  I found three.  It troubled me a little.  While none looked like the boy from last night, they fit to description perfectly.  I had serious doubts to whether I had the right person by the time I got to his door.  Yes, he gave me an address with the correct name but had I said the name during my questioning?  The boy might have just said whatever he thought would get him out of that situation.  Was he an innocent kid after all?

              Luckily for my peace of mind, Lee had been so confident that no one would figure out what he had done that he didn’t bother to hide any proof.  When I knocked on the apartment door, Michael Maynard was home and grieving his loss.  Lee had had his ID on him, apparently.  So as soon as they found the body and the medical examiner had his look, they knew who he was and informed his brother.  I’ll admit now that I was so worried about Lee’s guilt that I didn’t treat the grieving brother the way I should’ve.  I bullied my way into the apartment and directly into the dead boy’s bedroom to start ripping through his stuff.  God, now that the panic is over, I feel shitty for what I did to him.  First I killed his brother and then I proved that the boy was a demon.

              As a condition to searching through his brother’s stuff, Michael demanded to stand in the doorway while I searched.  He witnessed me finding every piece that proved Lee’s guilt, from small things like a bag of weed and empty beer bottles to the big stuff.  At the bottom of a pile of Playboys, I found the cleaver.  It was dull and rusted.  There was dried blood where the handle and blade met, as if poorly cleaned.

              At that point, I asked Michael if he knew his brother’s whereabouts on the night of the 16th.  He told me he’d needed more money for the rent, so he’d volunteered for extra hours that night.  He thought he remembered Lee planning to go to a friend’s house.  He didn’t know where this friend lived or how to contact the friend, James.

              That was all I needed, I told him to wait in the living room and called the Chief.  The Chief congratulated me on finding one of them, even if it was too late.  Once he got an official warrant, he would send the crime scene guys over to pick through the house.  I thought I would be nice to Agent Johnston, so I called that ass and told him to give up the search.  He told me he would come over once he grabbed some coffee.  He even offered to get me a cup.

              Agent Johnston and the crime scene guys arrived at the same time.  He got some girly mocha drink and he brought me a plain coffee.  I thanked him and took a sip, just to be nice, and was shocked and slightly disturbed to realize that it was exactly the way I liked it.  I don’t know how he knew I liked three sugars and no creamer.  Why did the FBI agent know such a small detail about me?  What else did he know?

              The crime scene guys tagged and bagged anything of Lee’s that might have any bearing on either the Easter Murders or Lee’s murder.  Michael Maynard sat silently on the couch with a dead expression on his face.  I stared at him for a few minutes while Agent Johnston talked to the techs.  I thought about Michael and his brother’s case.  I didn’t want Lee’s murder case, even though it would be the best way to ensure I got away with this.  I didn’t want to meet all the people that loved Lee.  I didn’t want to see the boy.  I wanted to remember was the monster.

              Now that we knew Lee Maynard was involved in the Easter Murders, someone will want me to be involved in his murder case.  The Chief or the assigned detective would come to the conclusion that the two cases were linked.  It was unavoidable, but maybe if someone else who was already involved was looking into it, I won’t have to.  I walked over and interrupted Agent Johnston’s chatting and asked, “Would you mind looking into Lee Maynard’s death?  It can’t be a coincidence that he was killed the night before we find him.  I need to focus on finding the others before they got away or are killed too.  And if someone is knocking off these murderers, it seems more in your line than mine.”