The Poisonous Ten (30 page)

Parks moved his eyes hard to the left then focused back on Jackie. He could feel a tingling sensation in the tips of his fingers once again, but wasn’t able to move them about enough to draw Jackie’s attention. 

“Don’t worry,” Jackie said. “I’ll call 911 right away.”

Parks grunted and looked sharply to the left once again.

“What? I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me,” Jac
kie said. “What’s—”

Jackie stopped talking and followed Parks’s line of sight as he looked to the left once again. A few feet away from him, near the edge of the shadows, lay one of the syringes
that Lewis Hayward had dropped when he tripped over Parks’s body.       

*
                            *                            *

Ricky couldn’t outrun Hayward with his hands cuffed b
ehind his back. He stood in the corner, surrounded by shadows, trying to maneuver his hands under his legs and around back in front of him. Despite his strong build, he was at a disadvantage. The only hope he had was to catch the man off guard.

Hayward made his way into the kitchen area, tossing chairs aside, looking for the boy, when he heard a noise from behind him. He turned and saw Jackie standing there holding one of his syringes aimed right at him.

“You stay the hell away from my son,” Jackie ordered.

“Or what?” Hayward smiled. “You couldn’t even start to get close enough to me to do anything with that.”

He heard the noise first, and Hayward turned just as Ricky collided with him from out of nowhere, sending the two of them through the glass door that led out to the backyard. The glass shattered and fell to the ground as the two men slammed into the concrete deck that was enclosed within the white-picket fence that separated the house from the canals around it. Ricky tried to roll away, covering his back and shoulders with more of the glass as Hayward pushed himself up to his knees and grabbed the young man by his ripped shirt and spun him around. He grabbed Ricky by his throat and began to strangle him, squeezing every ounce of life out of him, when he heard someone behind him. He was turning toward the sound when he felt the syringe plunge into his neck.

“Make one fucking move and I’ll do it,” Jackie threa
tened.

“All right,” Hayward said, holding up both hands. “You win. All right? You win.”

Jackie breathed deeply from behind the man as she fought back tears.

“Ricky, baby? Can you get up?” Jackie asked.

Ricky tried to maneuver out from under Hayward, grunting as he shuffled along the concrete on his back. Jackie loosened her grip on Hayward’s neck, and he used that moment to take advantage of the situation. He grabbed her hand and flung her to the side. He pulled the syringe out of his neck and looked at it. The vial was still filled with the light-blue liquid. He reached down for Ricky, grabbing the boy once more as he raised the syringe up over his head, preparing to stab the boy with it, when the gunshot rang out through the night sky, shattering the silence of the neighborhood.

Ricky gasped in horror at the stream of blood that sprayed out across his face from Hayward’s shoulder as the man’s arm dropped to his side and the syringe fell to the cement below. Hayward blinked at Ricky in confusion as he looked up at Parks, leaning against the doorframe, his gun still aimed at him, the tip smoking.

Hayward stared, lost in disbelief at how far he had come, how near he’d been to realizing his plans finally coming true, only to be stopped this close to the finish line. His eyes scanned around him as his brain tried to think of what to do.

“Hayward,
don’t
,” Parks barked hoarsely, the muscles in his throat still getting their strength back. Parks could feel the weight of the gun beginning to weigh down his arm but he kept his focus intact and Hayward in his line of sight. The night air was suddenly sliced open with the sound of police sirens growing louder. “Don’t even think about it. I will put a bullet through you and end you. So help me God. You’re done.”

Hayward fell to his knees and Ricky kicked his way out from under the man. Jackie came to his aid and tried to help Ricky to his feet and out of the grasp of the Palisades Po
isoner once and for all.

E P I L O G UE

P
arks stared intently, focused on the task at hand even if he wasn’t sure what the task was. He knew he was trying to get signed off on his mental state but, all things considered, wasn’t quite sure how to go about doing that. Parks gazed out the office window. The sun shimmered above the horizon, the start of another day. There was a slight chill in the air, signaling the official end of summer and the approaching fall-like weather that many in Southern California had been eagerly waiting for. Children were in school, and before he knew it, signs of Halloween, then Christmas, would be up all over town, bringing with them the end of another year.

“So I guess the rumors of your impending death were
somewhat exaggerated?” Dr. Black asked, not taking his eyes off the detective. He had been observing Parks for the better part of an hour, taking in his movements, gestures, reactions to questions. It was his job, after all, to evaluate. To determine whether or not the man was fit to carry a gun and roam the streets of Los Angeles to provide protection to those who required it. The meetings with Dr. Black had been made mandatory by the department, something Parks felt he would have to go through for the rest of his career. 

“Naw.
Just a temporary paralyzing agent. Something called Suxamethonium chloride or something like that. I guess Hayward meant to do me in himself once he finished with Isley and her son. Or maybe he planned to pin it all on me. Who knows. Guess unless he decides to start talking, none of us will ever know.” 

“And
what of Lewis Hayward?”

“He’ll live.
If that’s what you’re asking. Think he’s already working on a plea deal with the DA to try and avoid the death penalty.”

“Will he get it?”

“It’s a possibility.” Parks thought about this. “They’re trying their hardest to keep as much of this under the radar as possible. Don’t want to cause a panic. Not that I think it would.”

“No?”

“Not really. People don’t want to be in harm’s way. But to find out the danger has already passed and they’re safe—but that there’s an interesting story behind it? True crime sells. Death sells. People would be fascinated by the Palisades Poisoner for years to come. If word ever gets out.”

Dr. Black nodded and kept quiet.

“Does that bother you?”

“My job is only to catch the boogeyman. It’s someone else’s job to figure out what to do with him once I do. If I worry too much about everything else, then it will all get to me. We each have a job to do, a piece of the puzzle to fill.” Dr. Black made a face that didn’t reveal how he felt about
this comment while he made a note in his pad. “But since we’re here—as a citizen of this city, yeah, it would piss me off to know he could get away with everything. Not that I think he will. But then again, what is justice for what he did?”

“What, indeed.”

Dr. Black made a few more notes in Parks’s file then flipped the page.

“
Hayward’s good with a computer. I’ll give him that. He’s actually managed to erase most of his past. This makes me wonder about the few things we have found. His ‘history’ with the NYPD and Philly PD? Why didn’t he erase that stuff as well? Or was that all planted just to get him his position with the LAPD. It’s hard to tell what’s true and what’s bullshit. We’re trying to find people he’s worked with and even that’s proving to be difficult. It’s like he’s a phantom. No one’s claiming to have ever heard of the guy. Is that true? Or do they just not want to be associated with a serial poisoner? And if it is true, then where did he come from? What’s his story? Who is Lewis Hayward?” 

“They’ll search. Get their best on it and try to find out.”

“True. FBI’s working on it. Tippin’s even helping out with that. Even though Hayward managed to make himself a ghost, he wasn’t able to do as good a job with his ex-wife. She had filed reports against him. There’s over a dozen hospital visits for her that we’ve been able to dig up so far. Fractured bones. Broken noses. Concussions. He was an intense one. You see the reports?”

“Not my position. I’m here for you guys. Not them.”

“No, I guess not. Apparently he never knew about the daughter. When the wife found out she was pregnant she up and left. I don’t mean like she went home and figured things out. She went straight from the doctor’s visit and disappeared. Did a good job of it too. Managed to stay hidden for fifteen years before he found them. Apparently she’s good with computers too. Or was. Maybe that’s where he learned? Or maybe they’re former CIA spies.” Parks smiled. He had said this mostly to see if Black was still paying attention. The doctor simply raised an eyebrow in question. “Oh, who knows how much of what they’re saying is true and what’s made up. Chances are we’ll get more out of the press and tabloids than we ever will in court. If there is a trial, that is. If he’s smart he’ll have one.”

Parks didn’t feel like talking about Hayward anymore. Too much of his time had been devoted to the man already. He turned back to the window and stared at the city around them. The doc had a good view, all things considering. 

“It’s incredible the lengths the human mind will go in order to achieve something it sets its sights on. We are a strange animal, that’s for sure.”

Parks remained quiet for a few minutes, and both men e
njoyed the silence. As much as they were usually there to talk, both men had learned to enjoy and appreciate the silence if it ever built up around them.

“Eh.” Parks shrugged. “We’re still piecing together how exactly he got to each victim
. But we’re getting there. Most of Milo’s theories about the ten being chosen, and why, hold water. But I don’t think our ‘why’ holds up.”

“Oh?”

“Hayward still hasn’t acknowledged his part in his daughter’s death. That
he
killed her by feeding her the pills to keep her quiet. That’s a hard truth to face. Killing one’s own child. He couldn’t face what he had done. That was our connection. His and mine. Or so he said. He felt I was the same way about what happened with Kozlov.”

“Were you?”

“What happened with Kozlov wasn’t my fault. I know that. I can’t control everyone and their actions. I am only responsible for myself. I have to take responsibility for my actions. But nothing more. I need to stop punishing myself. I know that too.”

“And the victims?”

“He couldn’t process his guilt. For his daughter’s death. So I think he projected his shame—his
guilt
—onto those around him. Especially those involved with his daughter’s collapse. Allison Tisdale was having an affair. She felt remorse and admitted her actions to her husband and he forgave her. We know this because he was aware of what she had done yet they were still together. Working on it. But Hayward didn’t feel she had been punished enough. Bollinger stole money from his clients and lied about it. He felt no guilt. The Cosway brothers who killed their parents. The same. Kyle Oni hid his sexuality from the world. I think Hayward felt Oni was ashamed of who he was—though I doubt it. According to his people he had plans to come out after the season. I can go on for all of them like this. These people whom he killed he did it to punish them for not admitting the truth to themselves, much like him. He couldn’t admit the truth. 

“We found a throwaway cell with an untraceable number that he used. We found a few phone calls between him and Doug Tisdale, but we still don’t understand how he was able to make the man run away from us when we went to arrest him. Blackmail? Maybe. Tanaka’s going over his body again. Thinks maybe he was injected with something toxic and told what to do if he wanted the antidote. Who knows? It’s as good a theory as anything else.
”

Parks shrugged.

“This whole series of murders was personal to him. I’m sure there’ll be many psychologists and doctors going over the case for years to come. They’ll have numerous theories as to why and how. They’re already lining up to be the first to write their papers and claim their theories of insanity and emotional disturbance and . . . whatever. I’m sure Hayward’s lawyer is having a field day with all of this. The publicity alone is worth the price of admission. It’s just crazy.”

“And how’s the rest of the team?”

“Moore’s mending fine. About to come back to work. There’s something . . . there’s something between her and Fairmont. But I guess you already know about that. From having to see both of them.” Dr. Black neither confirmed nor denied this as he crossed his leg and let Parks continue. “I think it’s getting serious. But I’m not dealing with that right now. Until there’s something to worry about. The new kid, Tippin. Did a good job with this case. Young. Fresh. Still learning but made a hell of an impression with this case. He has a promising future.”

“How are things between you and Jackie Isley?”

“Jackie?” Parks went quiet while he thought about her. “She’s managing. Little battered up, but she’ll live. Her son too.”

“I asked how things were between the two of you.”

“Haven’t spoken to her since that night. Probably won’t again either.”

“That bad?” 

“I accused her son of being the Palisades Poisoner. Even though he wasn’t. And even though she worked on the case and has most likely seen the evidence and knows how and why I made that assumption . . . I still made it. One of those things you can’t take back. Kind of hard to forget. It’s fine. They have each other. They’ve learned that’s all they need in life.”

Dr. Black remained quiet and scribbled something in his notebook. “And you’re okay with that?”

“I’ll live. Been through worse. You know that.”

“Yes. But I have the feeling Isley meant more to you than just a one-night stand. I know you have enough of those.”

“Does it matter? It is what it is. Life goes on. For some of us. I still have my puzzles. My routines. I keep to them. It works for me. It’s what I like. Maybe it’s the life I was meant to live.”

“But is it enough?”

“What’s ‘enough’?”

Dr. Black didn’t answer. Not because he couldn’t, but b
ecause it wasn’t a question for him to answer. That was a personal question that could only be answered by each individual.

“I’ll tell you what’s enough,” Parks said. “Living. A day at a time. Some days are harder than others. Some days we spend laughing and others we don’t smile once. In the end I’d like to think it all balances out. I hope so. I think that’s what keeps me going. That hope.”

“Everyone has to hold onto something different.”

“So what do you say, Doc? Am I fit to get back to work?”

“I see no reason to keep you from doing what helps you get along in life,” Dr. Black said, finishing off a few more notes in his pad. “So until I see otherwise, you’re fit to continue.”

“That’s good, Doc.” Parks smiled when his cell phone began vibrating and lighting up. He turned on the screen and read the message. “Cuz it looks like I’m needed.”

“No rest for the wicked?” Dr. Black asked when Parks stood up and headed for the door.

“Not in this town, Doc,” Parks said as he left the room, heading for whatever crime scene he had just been called to. “Not in this town.”