Jon Stanton 08 - Run Away Read online

  “Thanks.”

  Stanton glanced over at Russell. He was nervously pacing back and forth. He wasn’t a psychopath, Stanton guessed. Most psychopaths displayed neither stress nor surprise.

  One famous study by a psychologist in the Midwest was a subject of controversy because the results were so against the paradigms then held in academic psychology. The examiner would shock the subject after counting down from ten. The subjects were hooked up to stress machines to monitor perspiration, heart rate, blood pressure, et cetera. Normal, non-psychopaths’ stress levels skyrocketed when the examiner got close to one. The psychopaths had no such reactions. Their stress levels stayed level even during the shock.

  Russell appeared agitated and on the brink of an anxiety attack. Something unanticipated had occurred, and he’d reacted with extreme anger. When he’d calmed, he probably regretted the decision but chose not to call the police.

  “Let’s go,” Stanton said. He turned on the digital recorder he always kept with him while he was on duty and slipped it into his breast pocket.

  The two of them walked over to Russell, and Stanton stood in front of him. He didn’t say anything for a moment, just held the man’s eyes, which were wide and full of fear.

  “You know what I’m going to say, don’t you, Russell?”

  He opened his mouth to say something then stopped, opting instead to just nod. Finally, he answered, “You found my DNA on the statue.”

  Stanton nodded. “Why would you think you could get away with this? You’re not a killer, Russell.”

  “I know,” he said, his voice shaky and his eyes glistening. “I know I’m not. I didn’t want to hurt him. I really didn’t. I loved him. I would never hurt him. But he… he slept with someone else. I paid for this whole vacation. I pay all his bills, let him stay at my house, buy his food… pay his car insurance. And so I get to go on one vacation a year, and he fucks someone else. Don’t even tell me you wouldn’t wig out, too.”

  “You had a right to be upset. I’m not denying that. I haven’t seen the statue, and they didn’t describe it to me. What was it?”

  He put his hands over his face, rubbing furiously. “Just some native thing. Like a totem pole or something.”

  “Like a Tiki totem?”

  “Yeah, I guess. I don’t know.”

  “The SIS unit didn’t tell me where they found it. Was it in the trash at the hotel?”

  “No… no, I hid it in the plant by the ice machine. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.”

  Stanton glanced back to Laka, who nodded and ran into the hotel, grabbing one of the forensic techs on her way. Stanton turned back to Russell just as he began to cry. Stanton placed his hand on his shoulder. Though a murderer, he was still a human being. And Stanton had always had a difficult time seeing people, any people, in pain.

  “Take a minute, Russell. And then you and I have to go on a ride.”

  His hand on Russell’s shoulder, Stanton stood next to the man while he wept.

  7

  By the time Stanton had taken an official statement from Russell Neal, it was nearly midnight. Russell had gone through the murder in detail. He’d found out his boyfriend was cheating, confronted him, grabbed the Tiki totem, and struck him over the head with it. The uniforms found the totem where Russell had said it was going to be—in a vase holding a bamboo plant near the elevators on his floor.

  At some point, Russell would find out Stanton had lied about finding the totem, but it didn’t matter. The United States Supreme Court had long held that deception was an acceptable interrogation tactic. But a slight twinge of remorse still worked its way through Stanton, like a worm crawling over a slick surface. He knew, logically, he shouldn’t feel any remorse because the greater evil would be punished, but he couldn’t help it.

  Laka had been in the interrogation room with him the entire time. She’d never postured, yawned, or complained. She just sat quietly and observed. When they were through, she followed him to the bullpen and sat in a chair next to his desk.

  “That was much more interesting than I thought it was going to be,” she said. “Do most murders close that quickly?”

  “If within forty-eight hours, you don’t have a good idea of who your collar’s going to be, the case is unlikely to be solved. Most of the time, you know who you’re going to arrest in those first two days, and you’re right ninety percent of the time.”

  She smirked. “But not you?”

  “What’d you mean?”

  “I saw the articles about you. That you’re psychic and all that. You don’t close all your cases in forty-eight hours.”

  “If they’re going to be closed, most of mine close within the first forty-eight. It’s like that for every cop in every city. There’s either witnesses that tell you who did it, they feel guilty and turn themselves in, or they leave so much evidence behind that it’s like a sign pointing directly to them. The ones that don’t have those things are the ones likely to get away with it. At least for a while.”

  “The ones you specialize in? That’s what Kai told me. That you specialize in the cases everyone else gives up on.”

  “I don’t know about ‘specialize,’ but they certainly give them to me.”

  She grinned and brushed aside a strand of hair from her face. For the first time in a long time, Stanton’s heart fluttered. He turned away from her.

  “Get some sleep. We’ll do the report writing in the morning.”

  “Thanks.”

  He pretended to be doing something on the computer as she rose. But she didn’t leave. Laka stood there until Stanton looked at her.

  “Thanks. A lot of cops, when they get a more inexperienced partner, aren’t exactly nice to them right off the bat.”

  She smiled and turned to walk away. Stanton watched her for a moment then faced his computer again. He told himself she was too young and that she didn’t deserve to be with someone who had a relationship track record like his. He was incapable of forming that deep connection with everyone except one woman… who had turned out to be psychotic.

  Stanton rose and walked outside. The air was warm as he stood on the sidewalk, looking at the palace across the street. In the dark, it looked much larger than it was. He could imagine enemy tribes attacking and being awed by its size and fortifications.

  Stanton walked casually to his Jeep and drove to a grocery store. He picked up a few bags of sandwiches, sodas, and chips. Honolulu’s red-light district wasn’t far from the precinct, and he drove there slowly, listening to a Joy Division album he’d purchased recently, a collection of rare B-sides.

  The district was really nothing more than alleyways and main intersections where the girls hung out and showed off what they had with revealing clothing. The mix of prostitutes never ceased to amaze him. Young girls all the way up to the elderly strutted the sidewalks. And the police presence was practically nonexistent.

  Stanton parked and got out. Groups of women approached him. Since arriving in Hawaii, he had been coming there to drop off food. Some of the women worked forty or fifty hours straight without a single thing to eat or drink. Stanton dropped off food on the odd Friday or Saturday night, and he never had anything left over.

  Some of the girls thanked him, and others didn’t make eye contact. Many had experienced lifetimes of betrayal at the hands of the people they trusted most, and they eyed Stanton suspiciously. A few of the girls had even told him they wouldn’t eat his food for fear of it being poisoned. He often heard them whispering among themselves that he had to be nuts to do what he did.

  When the food was gone, Stanton climbed back into the Jeep. One girl, who was perhaps sixteen or seventeen, leaned into the Jeep and asked, “So did you want a freebie?”

  “No, I wouldn’t do that.” He turned on the engine. “I haven’t seen you out here before.”

  “Nah, I’m new. Just got here from San Francisco. So you with the shelter or somethin’?”

  “No, I’m not with them. How old are you?”

  “Eighteen.”

  “Eighteen or sixteen?”

  She hesitated. “I can be whatever the perverts out here want me to be.”

  Stanton glanced down at his phone. It was ringing, a number from the precinct. He let the call go to voicemail.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Mindy.”

  “Mindy, you see those women right there? Right on the corner? That one in the skirt is fifty-six years old. Her name’s Rachel. She’s been doing this for forty years. She got started at fifteen and has been on the street ever since.”

  “I got a dad,” she said, stepping away from the Jeep.

  “No, I’m not lecturing you. If you want to be like her, that’s your choice. You have free will to become who you want to become. But what you put out into the world is exactly what you get back. If you don’t want to be like her, I know someone that can help.”

  She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Who?”

  Stanton took out one of his cards. It had his cell number and email address on it. He handed it to her. “Call me in the morning, and I’ll get you set up with her. She’s a social worker that helps girls just like you get off the street. She can set you up with an apartment and a job or finishing school if you don’t have a diploma.”

  The girl took the card. “You’re a cop?”

  “Yes.” Stanton saw one of the older women get into a sedan, which drove off. “How much do you make a night out here?”

  “Good night? Two hundred. Tonight’ll be slow, though, ’cause of the football game. Johns will be with their families and stuff.”

  Stanton took out his wallet. He only had eighty in cash. “This is all the cash I have. It’s for tonight. I’m buying your night. Go stay in a motel and call me as
soon as you wake up. Okay?”

  She stared at the card then tucked it into her bra. “Okay.”

  Stanton watched the girl march down the sidewalk and disappear from view. He’d delivered that card and pitch before, at least fifty times. As far as he could remember, only three girls had ever taken him up on it.

  He put his Jeep in drive and pulled away from the curb.

  Stanton took a long drive up the shore. Insomnia had plagued him recently. Actually, it plagued him constantly. He couldn’t recall a single night, even when he was a teenager, when he’d slept soundly and woken up refreshed. Nightmares and memories better left forgotten always haunted him. Fragments of sensations about other people often hit him in the middle of the night, and he could never get back to sleep.

  An old San Diego homicide case stuck out to him. A woman had been hacked to pieces in her apartment. The window was broken out, and everyone had assumed it was a home invasion turned murder. But something didn’t sit right with the way the victim was displayed.

  Her entire body had been mutilated and torn apart… except her head. That had been covered with a sheet. That night, Stanton was deep in sleep when he saw the murder. Later, he told himself he’d merely seen his own interpretation, but while the dream was occurring, he could’ve sworn he was witnessing the actual thing.

  The man who’d cut her up couldn’t look at her face. Every time he saw it, guilt unleashed itself inside him, and he would have to stop. So he covered her head with a sheet and dealt only with the body. After he was done, he broke out the window to make it seem like a home invasion.

  One of the officers at the scene couldn’t look at the head once the sheet was gone. A dead body, even to those with lots of experience with them, was an odd thing. Stanton had seen coroners poke and prod corpses like a curious boy with a stick when they thought no one was looking. But the officer wouldn’t even turn in the direction of the head.

  When Stanton arrived on the officer’s doorstep for nothing more than to chat about the murder, the officer somehow just knew that Stanton knew. They’d held each other’s gaze for a long time before the officer broke into a run and escaped through a bathroom window. A squad car picked him up down the block from his home. Inside a drawer in his bedroom was a ring from the victim.

  Those sensations—“leaps,” as one of his former bosses, Michael Harlow, had called them—came to him in quiet moments, such as when he was left alone at a crime scene, asleep, or taking a warm bath in the candlelight. He had always told people that he just looked at the evidence and that everyone was capable of coming to the conclusions he came to. But after the case with the police officer, he wasn’t sure.

  Stanton headed home. His house, a spacious two-story of glass and white carpet he’d bought with his much-wealthier fiancée at the time, was dark and empty. He threw his keys in a bowl on the dining room table then flopped on the couch. Though every muscle, sinew, and bone screamed to him that he was fatigued and needed sleep, he knew sleep wouldn’t come. Too much mental energy was built up in his mind. Surfing, jogging, and working cases released that energy. And he hadn’t done enough of those that day.

  He flipped on the television. The blue light flickered in the dark, but he wasn’t paying attention. His mind was a million miles away.

  8

  Morning came quickly. Sharon hadn’t come home, nothing that she hadn’t done a thousand times before. Usually, it meant a decent night’s sleep for him… but something was different. He had been guzzling Pepto-Bismol the past few days. When his stomach wasn’t gurgling, it was sour or gassy. All in all, he felt as though he had the stomach flu without all the symptoms.

  As he rose from bed and let the sunshine into his bedroom by pulling up the blinds, he thought he should visit the doctor. Maybe he had caught a little bug. In general, he’d felt lousy all week.

  Richard took his phone off the nightstand and checked for text messages. Sharon had a yoga class the night before, but he hadn’t received any information from Tate. It apparently hadn’t happened then. No big deal, he thought. They were probably just really thorough.

  After a quick breakfast, he showered and shaved. Then he went into Eliza’s bedroom. She was still asleep, though it was eight o’clock.

  “Sweetie, time to get up.”

  “Okay, daddy, one minute.”

  “No, not one minute, now.”

  She groaned and threw back the cover. “This sucks.”

  “School or waking up?”

  “Both.”

  “Well, get used to it, ’cause going to work every morning is even worse.”

  Richard waited until Eliza had dressed and then made her egg whites with a Diet Coke, her preferred breakfast. As his daughter ate in front of him at the table, he just watched her. When she was younger, he’d watched her sleep or play outside. He didn’t get to do that much anymore.

  “Big plans today?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “School and then Cheer. You?”

  “Just work.”

  “Sounds fun.” She paused. “Where’s Mom?”

  He cleared his throat and wiped pretend crumbs from the table. “She’s on a business trip.”

  “Business trip again, huh? She goes on a lot of business trips for someone that doesn’t have a job.”

  “It’s just the way of things.”

  “Dad, cut it out.”

  “Cut what out?” he said, grinning.

  “I’m not a little kid anymore. I know she has boyfriends.”

  His grin disappeared. “You do, do you?”

  “Why haven’t you divorced her?”

  “Now you just hold on a minute. That’s your mother. You don’t say things like that about your mother.”

  “What? That I want you two to divorce? Why not? I think you deserve someone better than her. She’s a shitty mom and a shittier wife.”

  “Now hold on just a dang minute, Eliza. You do not talk about your mother that way. Do you know what I would do to spend even a day with my mother again? When she passed, a part of me went with her. You don’t see it now, but that’s how it’ll be with your mother, too. You only get one.”

  “Thankfully. I couldn’t handle two of her,” she mumbled under her breath.

  A car horn, no doubt belonging to another carpool parent, blared in the street. Eliza jumped up and said, “I’ll see you, Daddy.” She kissed his cheek.

  “See you, honey.”

  When she was gone, Richard sat at the table alone and looked out the window over the sink. He’d sat there alone many, many times and thought about that very topic. Everything Eliza had said was true. Sharon was a terrible mother and wife. She wasn’t just terrible. Many parents were neglectful, but Sharon was something else. She was… malicious, as though she wanted to hurt Richard and Eliza with her actions.

  Richard sighed and rose to clear away the dishes before heading out to his car. The Cadillac was new and still had that clean leather smell. He soaked it in on the drive to his office as he listened to the oldies station. “Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys was playing, one of his favorites. He’d actually seen the Beach Boys live once in the seventies. It had been one of his first, and he remembered everything about the concert. The smell of the crowd, all packed tightly together in that arena. The lights bouncing off the walls and ceilings. The music reverberating through the floors and into his feet. He’d been so poor at the time that he’d had to skip several meals that month to pay for the concert ticket. Very poor and very happy.

  The office was buzzing with activity. Paralegals were filing things, receptionists were busy on the phones, and several attorneys were in the conference room for a partners meeting. As Richard walked past the glass conference room, he stopped. He should have been one of the firm’s eight partners. He’d been there longer than anyone but the founding partners, and he billed a hell of a lot more than even they did. Tax and estates was a thriving field as the baby boomers retired.

  The meeting appeared to be coming to a close, and the partners rose and began filing out. The senior partner, Candice Strain, stayed behind to look through documents. Richard nodded hello to some of the partners, and they acknowledged him but didn’t say anything back as they scurried to their offices.