Purgatory (Jon Stanton Mysteries Book 11) Read online

  The girl picked up a phone and said a few words before she hung up and said, “Down the hall on the right and straight ahead. Her name’s Cori.”

  “Thanks.”

  Stanton found a middle-aged woman in workout clothes sitting at a desk. She was perfectly fit, overly so, and he guessed she had maybe one percent body fat, her cheeks sunken and her hands showing every tendon and vein.

  “Can I help you, Officer?” she said, turning to him but not getting up.

  Stanton sat down across from her. “I need to talk to a trainer named Mike.”

  “We have two Mikes. Do you know which one?”

  “Brown hair, yin-yang tattoo on his shoulder.”

  “Oh, that Mike. He doesn’t work here anymore.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. He just stopped showing up.”

  Stanton glanced around the office. There were several photos of the woman running triathlons or hiking to the tops of mountains. “When did he start working here?”

  “Not long ago. Maybe a month.”

  A month, Stanton thought. This wasn’t some random kidnapping and murder. This was planned methodically.

  “He trained one of your patrons, Thomas Wells.”

  “Yeah, he did. Tom really likes him, said he’d only work with him.”

  “Did Mike leave an address and phone number?”

  “Sure, lemme grab that for you.”

  Stanton had no doubt the number and address were fake, but he still needed to see for himself. The number was probably to a throw-away phone that had already been disposed of.

  The woman handed him the information. He dialed the number immediately and only got a busy signal.

  “Do you have a picture of Mike?”

  “Yeah, we put photos of all our trainers up on the wall upstairs near the weights. I don’t think I’ve taken his down yet. Do you mind if I ask what this is about?”

  He rose. “Just following up on something.”

  He took the stairs up to the weight room and the wall of photos of all the personal trainers. By the time Stanton got to the end, the anxiety felt like it was choking him. He had to stop before looking at the last few photos. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, looked.

  The second to last photograph, smiling in a black collared shirt with the country club’s logo, was Dane.

  49

  Stanton went down to the church the next morning as Dane had asked and sat in his jeep a long while. He couldn’t go in there just yet. His stomach was in knots, and he felt weak, even more than usual. He wished he had the strength to go for a run.

  He popped a piece of gum into his mouth and went inside.

  No one was there. He sat down in a chair by the door and felt like he was going to pass out. He tried to remember when he had eaten last but couldn’t.

  Dane came out of the back just then, and Stanton wondered if he had a camera pointed toward the front of the church.

  “We’re heading out today, compadre,” Dane said.

  “Where we going?”

  “You’ll like it, I promise.”

  They got into Dane’s jeep, Stanton in the passenger seat, and Mackie joined them. He sat in the back and reeked of marijuana. He didn’t acknowledge Stanton and instead just leaned back in the seat as Dane took off.

  “Is this going to take long?” Stanton said.

  Dane smiled at him and then turned back toward the road. “This’ll be worth it, I promise.”

  They went up to the interstate and looped around to downtown Honolulu. The jeep came to a stop at First Hawaiian Center, the tallest building in Hawaii. Mackie grabbed something out of the back: three parachutes.

  “What are we doing?”

  “Don’t question everything,” Dane said, grabbing two of the packs. “Experiences need to be felt, not talked about. Trust me, if you liked surfing, you’re going to love this.”

  “I don’t want this, Dane.”

  He came up and looked him in the eyes. “You’re dead inside, I can see it. You know it, too. That’s why you came to our church; that’s why the universe put us together. Don’t fight that, man. Embrace it.” He lightly touched his chest. “You’re either a lion or a lamb. Which one are you?”

  Mackie and Dane went inside the building. Stanton looked around awhile. It was obvious what they were planning, and Stanton looked up to the top of First Hawaiian. If he didn’t do this, he might lose his chance to go deeper with this group. If he did do it, he could die. There was no guarantee the chute was packed correctly or that he wouldn’t hit a tree or another building on the way down. He didn’t even know if the building was tall enough to allow a parachute to open fully.

  He clicked his tongue against his teeth and ran inside after them.

  The roof of the building wasn’t guarded or even locked. The building wasn’t huge, just under five hundred feet high, but it was enough to make Stanton queasy when he looked over the edge and pictured himself flying down.

  Dane strapped the chute onto Stanton’s back and said, “Automatic pull. You’ll jump, and the chute will self-deploy. Should get a nice twenty seconds, maybe even twenty-five, on the way down.” He slapped the chute. “You ready for this?”

  Stanton watched as Mackie hollered and sprinted off the edge of the building. The parachute opened, a vibrant blue and yellow. Dane, a crazed, ecstatic look in his eyes, said, “You wanna live forever, man? ’Cause I don’t.”

  He ran and leapt off the building.

  Stanton turned around and walked a few paces. He looked up at the sky, a bright, cloudless blue. He thought of Julie, his boys, and his dog. The thought occurred to him that his dog would miss him the most, and he chuckled at the absurdity of it.

  Taking a deep breath, he turned around and dashed for the edge of the building. He leapt off, his eyes on the traffic below him.

  The chute didn’t deploy.

  Panic set in. He had skydived before, but this was different. The ground was so close, he could make out the details of the cars.

  Suddenly, he felt a tremendous force rip him up into the air. It snapped his neck back and then forward.

  The chute slowed him down enough that he was able to calm himself. Two handles fell into place beside him, and he grabbed them and guided the chute. He saw Dane on the street corner at the intersection. Stanton tilted the chute toward them.

  The view was amazing as he drifted down. Somehow, he’d gotten used to seeing so much color in the landscape. Most people called Hawaii paradise on their first sight, and he’d grown accustomed to paradise and wondered how it had happened.

  Mackie and Dane were in the street, stopping traffic. Horns were blaring, people were speeding toward them and then taking a hard right or left around them, and Stanton had no doubt someone had called the police.

  He hit the ground hard and rolled, the pain reverberating up his ankles and into his knees and back. Dane grabbed him within seconds and lifted him.

  “Let’s go, compadre, unless you wanna spend the night in a cell.”

  They ran around the corner to the waiting jeep, Mackie and Dane hollering like boys that had just done something naughty and gotten away with it. Even Stanton felt light and exhilarated. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so free, and happy.

  50

  They grabbed hot dogs after the jump and watched their phones for any news. Stanton just had a soda and couldn’t take his eyes off his screen. Then the story hit, along with footage of someone in one of the cars capturing Dane and Stanton’s jump.

  “It’s here.”

  The three men watched with glee. Stanton hoped his face wasn’t visible in the video, or else he would owe his captain and maybe even Internal Affairs an explanation. The video was shot from far enough away that it didn’t get his face, and he landed on the other side of the intersection.

  “So,” Dane said, taking a bite of his hot dog, “how you feel?”

  “It was… something else.”


  He chuckled. “Damn fun, ain’t it? You gotta get fun outta life, man. We’re here”—he snapped his fingers—“for that long. A flash. A brief, beautiful flash. And you gotta get all the enjoyment outta it you can. Being chained to a desk or even to a spouse ain’t life. That’s death.”

  “Amen,” Mackie said.

  Stanton watched him. The “Amen” had been spontaneous and genuine. He wasn’t dealing with psychopaths: he was dealing with true believers, and they were more dangerous.

  “I got something else planned tomorrow. You’re gonna love it,” Dane said.

  “I gotta work sometime, Dane. I got mortgage payments and bills.”

  “You like paying that shit?”

  Stanton smiled. “No, of course not.”

  “Then don’t do it.”

  “I can’t just not do it.”

  “Sure you can. Don’t pay it. What’s the worst they can do? Turn off your lights, kick you outta your house? So what? Mackie here, sometimes he starves himself for two or three days and sleeps outside on a sidewalk somewhere. It teaches him that it ain’t so bad. It’s most people’s worst-case scenario to be homeless with nothing, so if you mimic that, show yourself that it’s not that bad and you’d survive, that’s when you’re free, man.”

  The rush of adrenaline was leaving, and Stanton felt dizzy. His mental concentration was dropping as well, and he didn’t want to make any mistakes right now, so he rose and tossed his soda in the trash. “I gotta get back to work before my boss notices.”

  “Tomorrow, man.”

  Stanton stopped for a second. “Why me, Dane? You’ve got a whole church ready to go with you anywhere you want. Why do you care about me doing this with you?”

  “I told you; church is for the sick, not the well. And you’re the sickest person I know right now.”

  When Stanton got back to the station, he sat in his jeep, watched the video of their jump over and over, and read some of the articles about it. The video did capture Dane’s jeep pulling away, but it was from an awkward angle and not close enough to see the license plate. Only then, at that moment, did Stanton realize he and Dane both drove almost identical vehicles.

  He went inside, and compared to what he had just done, everything seemed dull. The ringing phones, the people that sat at their desks for hours on end, the paperwork, the suits and ties, the hierarchy… all of it took on a different meaning. And the only thing Stanton could think of were Dane’s words… It’s death.

  Stanton felt sick. He stood near the bullpen and saw Laka at her cubicle, speaking on the phone. Vomit rose in his throat. Even the smell of the place sickened him.

  He turned around and left.

  51

  Stanton sat at the beach. The sand was warm, and he liked listening to children playing in the water. Their parents were sunbathing and not paying attention, and he wondered how parents could do that: completely zone out and trust the world to make sure nothing happened to their kids. He had never had that ability.

  The waves were weak, otherwise he thought he might have gone surfing again. A few people were bodyboarding, but he had never enjoyed that. It seemed too artificial; there was no connection made with the ocean.

  Julie walked up and sat next to him.

  “I thought I would find you here.”

  “How’d you know I wasn’t at work?”

  “I called; Laka said she hadn’t seen you all day.” She looked out over the water. “It’s so beautiful here. I don’t know how people live without the ocean. I had a cousin that lived in Montana and never saw the ocean her entire life. She died from breast cancer, and I thought it was so sad that she never got to see it.”

  Stanton didn’t respond. “I’m not… I’m not well, Julie.”

  “I know, baby.” She put her hand on his back and gently massaged it. “I think we need to do what your therapist says and leave immediately. Right now. Let’s pack and go. I’ve satisfied my investors enough that they’ll leave me alone for a few months. Let’s just go right now.”

  “It wouldn’t help.”

  “Of course it would.”

  Stanton shook his head. “I would just be thinking about this case. I wouldn’t relax or enjoy it. I know myself well enough to know that’s how it would play out.”

  “What’s so damn important about this case?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He certainly wasn’t about to tell her how close he was to the people who committed the murders. He’d looked deep into Dane and saw something terrifying: his own reflection. And he couldn’t make arrests because Dane would sooner die than confess or betray a friend, as Stanton would. Mackie would drink the poisoned Kool-Aid before turning on Dane, so Stanton was left with nothing.

  The fact was, they might not ever have enough for the Prosecutor’s Office to file charges. Dane could slip away forever. Stanton needed more.

  “I want to get married now,” she said.

  “Now?”

  She nodded. “Today. Or tomorrow. I want you to take me to Las Vegas and marry me.”

  “You’ve been planning this wedding for—”

  “I don’t care about the wedding. I just want to be your wife, and I want to leave this island for a while. Maybe a long while. I just want me and you, walking the streets of Rome, kissing in Paris while it rains, taking a boat ride in Spain… you’ve never travelled the world like I have. I want to show it to you. You can’t even imagine how much travelling changes you, how much you learn about yourself.”

  Stanton looked down to the sand, watching the sparkles in the harsh sunlight. As beautiful as any diamond he had ever seen. “Nothing would make me happier… But I can’t. Not yet. I just can’t. I’m sorry.”

  She sighed. “I know. I know what I got into with you. You don’t need to apologize. You have to see this through… I guess no matter what it costs you.”

  “The people who did this… they’re not going to stop. Maybe for the rest of their lives. They’re committing crimes because they think they’re serving justice.”

  “Why do they think that?”

  “They go after people they find morally corrupt. Thieves and fraudsters, people that harm others to make a buck.”

  “You’re killing yourself with this case to save a bunch of thieves?”

  “Everybody deserves to be saved. I don’t treat any victims different from another… everybody deserves to be saved.”

  She leaned her head on his shoulder. He could smell her shampoo and her body wash. Her scent, even a short while ago, drew him to her. Now he felt nothing. Not even the stirrings of love or lust. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, he was growing numb to the world.

  Julie’s cell phone rang. Stanton saw the ID. Gary.

  “Him again?” he said. “I thought you got him off your back.”

  She sighed. “You never really get your investors off your back, I guess. They think they own you.”

  “So? Give him his money back and be done with him.”

  “I’m seriously considering it. I better take this.” She kissed him, rose, and walked back to the house.

  Stanton watched her a moment and then lay back in the sand, letting the sun warm his face. The thought of jumping off a building raced through his mind, and a rush of pure, unfiltered joy came to him again. He knew he would see Dane again, and he was worried it wouldn’t be for the right reasons.

  52

  It wasn’t long until Stanton was back at the church. He tried to catch up on paperwork on his other cases, to go to roll call in the mornings, to attend meetings, but none of it stuck with him. The feeling of forced conversation made him physically sick. Several times he had to go to the bathroom and vomit after listening to officers’ mundane conversations in the cafeteria or elevators. Something was changing inside of him, and the world wasn’t looking the same. It frightened him.

  His father had had a moment like that: the disappearance of his daughter, Stanton’s sister Elizabeth. Stanton remembered his father turning inward af
ter the disappearance. He lost weight to the point that Stanton could see his ribs when he took his shirt off, and all the things he had enjoyed doing he wouldn’t do anymore. Once, Stanton heard his mother on the phone talking to her sister, saying that she and his father hadn’t had sex since the disappearance, and that George had no desire to ever have it again.

  Stanton didn’t want to do that, to turn his perception inward and be closed off to the world. He could see it, though, so clearly. It was him sitting in a run-down hostel or studio apartment, completely filthy and starving, perhaps sitting in urine-stained pants, staring off into space, disgusted by everything and everyone around him, a prison of his own making.

  The thought terrified him so much that he rose and jogged a little bit down the beach, hoping the movement would clear his head.

  The jog turned into a sprint after a few seconds, and he nearly collapsed. He stopped and tried to walk a few paces but instead just buckled and lay on his back, sucking air, staring at the blue sky above him.

  When he’d caught his breath, he sat up. A woman nearby smiled at him.

  “Hey, you’re Jon, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m Candace. I live two doors down.”

  “Oh, right. Hi.”

  “Where’s your cute dog?”

  Stanton had to take a second to breathe before answering. “He’s at the house. He’s getting fat from my spoiling him and doesn’t like running on the beach as much as he used to.”

  “Yeah,” she said, folding her arms and smiling at him. “I used to see you out here all the time, too. Me and my husband would watch you surf. You were amazing. I haven’t seen you in a long time. Did you get hurt or something?”

  Stanton was silent for a moment. “Yeah, you could say that.”

  “Well, you should take it up again. It’s good for the soul to be out on the ocean.” She looked over her shoulder and waved to a man standing farther down the beach. “Better run. Nice seeing you.”