Life Penalty (30 page)

The boy’s grin grew wider. “Not a very nice guy, am I?” he asked.

Gail caught the look of contempt in his eyes, saw those eyes watching her young daughter as the child ambled down the street, observed him crouched behind the bushes, waiting for his chance to attack. Suddenly, Gail lunged at the boy, her nails catching at the skin just beneath those eyes, tearing across his flesh. She watched as the blood ran down his cheeks, mimicking her tears.

“You crazy bitch!” he screamed, knocking her hands away and pinning them behind her back locking his own arms around her waist as he picked her up and threw her across the bed. He caught hold of her kicking feet with his legs, straitjacketing her hands with his arms.

Gail marveled at his strength. He was not that much bigger than she was, only a few inches taller, perhaps twenty pounds heavier, and yet he could easily overwhelm her, render her helpless. How little effort it must have required with her child.

“What the hell makes you think it was
me?
” he was yelling. “Why would you sic the goddamn cops on
me?
You think I need that kind of hassle? You don’t think I got enough trouble? I’ve
been
in jail, lady. You think I need that kind of shit again?”

“You killed my little girl!”

“I didn’t kill anybody! And you can send all the police you can find after me, or follow me until we’re both too
old to walk anymore, and you are never going to pin that rap on me!”

“You said you did it,” Gail sobbed. “You said you did it. You admitted it.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” He was getting angrier. His hands on her wrists were pressing down harder into the mattress.

“Just now, in this room, you as much as admitted it …”

Gail watched his eyes. “I was just being a smart ass,” he spat contemptuously. “Trying to put you through it a bit because of what you put me through. I didn’t admit anything …”

Suddenly he jumped off her and got down on the floor, fumbling wildly under the bed, his hands running along underneath it, tearing at the bed sheets.

“You aren’t going to pin this crap on me!” He jumped back up on his feet, his hands now racing along the sides of the walls, reaching the end table, knocking it over on its side and feeling underneath it.

“What are you doing?” Gail cried.

He was suddenly more agitated than ever, moving back and forth from one foot to the other, unable to stand still. “For this,” he screamed, throwing something that looked like a thimble at her face. It hit the side of her cheek, then bounced to the floor.

“What is it?” Gail felt her own hysteria building.

“Don’t give me the Miss Innocent routine, copper! I know a goddamn bug when I see one.”

“Bug? What are you talking about?”

“You are not going to pin any goddamn child murder on me, bitch! Do you understand me?”

Gail jumped off the bed and raced toward the door.

Instantly, she felt his hands on her shoulders. “No!” she screamed, hoping someone would hear her, frantically feeling for the doorknob and twisting it, pulling it open.

The squat man with the dark, unwashed curls suddenly stood before her, and Gail’s first thought when she saw him was that her life was over. She had been right; he had been following her. The two men were somehow connected.

‘“Police!” she screamed instinctively as the man with the dark curls caught hold of her arm. Nick Rogers pushed both of them roughly against the side of the door and ran from the room. She heard his footsteps as he tumbled down the stairs. The dark-haired man led her back inside. “Police,” she whispered, looking up into his eyes as he sat her down on her rumpled bed and she suddenly knew, even before he spoke the words, that that was precisely who he was.

“How long have you been following me?” she asked Lieutenant Cole less than an hour later. They were both sitting on the bed in her room at 44 Amelia.

“Since you started this business,” he told her. “Oh, not right away. It took me a while to twig to what you were doing. I got suspicious when I kept calling your house and you were never there. You were so evasive when I finally spoke to you that I decided to follow you, see where it was that you disappeared to.”

“Why didn’t you stop me?”

“It’s a free country,” he said. “I can’t stop you from driving into Newark. But I thought that I better keep an eye out for you, so I had Peter following you.”

“You put the bug in my room?”

“In all your rooms,” he told her. “What about Nick Rogers?”

“We checked him out right after you phoned.”

“You knew it was me?”

“I had a pretty good idea.”

“And?”

“He claims he knows nothing about your daughter’s death. Says he was in California all last April and May. We haven’t been able to verify his story yet, but we have no evidence, no evidence at all, to link him to your daughter’s killing. We got a search warrant and searched his room. There was nothing. His boot size is a good size smaller than the footprint impression we took from the mud at the scene.”

“But he has a record. He told me he’s been in jail.”

“For robbing a local grocery store when he was fifteen years old, and it was a reformatory, not a jail. He’s one of life’s losers, Gail. But I don’t think he killed your daughter.” Gail’s shoulders sagged as Lieutenant Cole’s arms reached around her. She buried her face in the side of his jacket, felt the bulk of his gun under his arm. “Go home, Gail. Leave the police work to us. Don’t give us any extra.”

“Please don’t tell Jack,” she whispered.

“He already knows.” Gail pulled back, her eyes searching the lieutenant’s. “I called him as soon as I got word about what was going on here. I felt I had an obligation to tell him. He’s waiting for you at home. I’ll drive you there now.”

“I have my car,” Gail said, though her voice felt like it was coming from someone else. It was weak, disembodied.

“Let me have your keys,” Lieutenant Cole said. “One of my men will bring your car home.”

Gail did as she was told, handing over her car keys, standing when she was directed to do so, following Lieutenant Cole to the door.

She took a final look around the desolate room.

Lieutenant Cole was at her elbow, reading her thoughts. “Say goodbye, Gail,” he told her.

J
ack was waiting for her when she stepped inside the front door. He said nothing as Lieutenant Cole’s car pulled away from the curb and Gail closed the door behind her. He watched as she walked slowly into the living room, not bothering to remove her coat, and sank down on the sofa, staring blankly ahead of her.

Gail heard Jack follow her into the room, was aware of him standing a few feet from her, knew he was staring down at her, waiting for her to speak, to explain. She owed him that much, she thought, but was unable to find the right words.

It was over, she thought. Her search had ended. She had failed her daughter a second time. She had broken yet another promise.

“Gail …” Jack began, his voice breaking.

“A policeman is bringing my car back,” she told him lifelessly.

“I don’t care about the goddamn car!” he snapped impatiently. “I’m sorry,” he said immediately. “I promised myself I wouldn’t lose my temper.”

“You have every right to lose your temper,” she said, relieved to find that there were promises that he was also unable to keep.

“What will getting angry accomplish?” he asked wearily,
lowering himself into the seat beside her. “Are you going to tell me what’s been going on?”

“I thought Lieutenant Cole already filled you in on everything.”

“He told me that my wife was in a rooming house in Newark, that she had come very close to adding a few more broken ribs to her repertoire, that he was bringing her home and that he thought it would be a good idea if I were there when she arrived.”

“Where’s Jennifer?” Gail asked suddenly.

“I sent her to Mark and Julie’s.”

“That’s good.”

“Tell me what the hell’s going on, Gail,” Jack pressed.

Gail looked directly at her husband, saw the pain etched deeply into his face and turned away again. “I’ve wanted to tell you,” she began.

“Why haven’t you?”

“Because … because I was afraid you’d try to stop me.”

“Stop you from doing what? Tell me, Gail. I’m trying very hard to understand.”

The whole story began spilling from Gail’s mouth.

She watched as Jack’s expression changed from curiosity to alarm to outright horror as she poured detail on top of detail. “I knew I was going to have to do it, Jack,” she began. “I knew it right from that first day in the hospital, when they kept asking all those questions about Mark and Eddie. I knew that Mark and Eddie couldn’t have killed Cindy, and I knew right then that the police were never going to find Cindy’s killer; but I decided that I had to give them a chance and I did, sixty days, Jack, I gave them sixty days to find her murderer. But of course, they didn’t, and then she sort of became old news to them. Not that I blame them. She’s just another case to them. She’s not their child. And they had so many other murders to solve. Meanwhile, the man who murdered Cindy was getting
farther and farther away from them, and somebody had to try to find him. So, I started reading about sex killers and combing the newspapers for details of crimes in the area. I kept track of where most crimes were occurring around Livingston, and then I started to go there. Mostly to East Orange and to Newark. I drove out on the highway after those murders, because the suspect sort of fit the description of the man who killed Cindy. I thought maybe I could flush him out. But the police stopped me, they made me turn back.”

Gail ignored the sudden flash of fear in her husband’s eyes. She continued, hoping that Jack would not try to interrupt. “After that MacInnes woman was found murdered, I knew I had to start doing more, I had to get right into the thick of things. I started renting rooms, following men who looked suspicious. I found a good suspect right away, a boy with a crew cut and a stack of dirty magazines hidden under his bed.” She caught the question in Jack’s eyes. “I know about the magazines because I searched his room. I used a credit card to break in. But he must have figured out that somebody had been in his room, because by the time I got back to the rooming house the next day, he was gone. And I never saw him again, so maybe it was him. Maybe he was the one …” She drifted off.

“Gail …”

“Anyway, I kept looking. My car wouldn’t start one day,” she said, remembering, “and so I hitchhiked. I thought maybe Cindy’s killer might be the one to stop and pick me up, but he didn’t. Just some kid, a nice kid really, who was kind of worried about me, and then this awful man who wanted me to … Anyway, nothing happened.”

“Gail …”

“I went for a walk in the park on Halloween. I thought maybe there was a chance he might be hiding there. Well,
you know what happened. Maybe it was him; we’ll never know. I never saw his face.” She sensed Jack’s growing impatience, knew he was about to interrupt her again, and continued, one word tumbling on top of the next. “I kept moving around. I became aware that there was a man following me. I didn’t think he was Cindy’s killer. He didn’t match the description, but then I thought the description could be wrong. I mean, why was he following me? And then I saw him, this boy who fit the description perfectly. He was even wearing a yellow windbreaker. I took out a room in the same house he was living in. I even called the police and reported him, but nothing happened. And then suddenly he was at my door, and I asked him if he had killed Cindy and he said something like he couldn’t remember, there’d been so many, and next thing I knew, I jumped at him, and we were fighting, and suddenly, he threw something at me and said it was a bug and that I was from the police and that I wasn’t going to pin Cindy’s murder on him. I tried to get out, and when I opened the door, there was the man who’d been following me, and he was with the police—they’d been bugging my rooms, listening. They said they didn’t think this man was the killer, his shoe size didn’t match the impression they took—”

“Gail, stop—”

“We don’t know too much about Cindy’s killer, but we do know a few things. We know that he’s young, that he’s got dirty blond hair, that he’s slim, of average height, and that he wears a size ten and a half boot—”

“Gail … for God’s sake,” Jack exploded when he could keep silent no longer, “what the hell are you telling me?” He was up and pacing the room.

“That I’ve been trying to find Cindy’s killer!” she exclaimed. Couldn’t he see that?

“Gail, listen to me. I want you to see a psychiatrist.”

“Why?” Gail scoffed. “Can he tell me who killed Cindy?”

“I’m not
asking
you to see a psychiatrist, Gail, I’m insisting.”

“I don’t need a psychiatrist. This is exactly why I didn’t tell you what I was doing. I don’t need a psychiatrist. I am not crazy!”

“You don’t think that going for drives at night alone along a highway where there’s some lunatic loose, following strange men, breaking into their rooms—what else?—oh yes, hitchhiking, and taking walks in parks after midnight and getting yourself mugged—”

“I didn’t plan to get mugged!”

“No, you’re right,” Jack yelled. “I don’t think you planned to get mugged! I think you planned to get killed!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Listen to yourself, Gail. Did you hear the things you just said? What am I
talking
about? I’m talking about a woman who repeatedly puts her life in jeopardy, who moves from one seedy room to another, from one dangerous situation to the next, waiting to be found out,
begging
to be found out. I’m talking about the fact that you are not looking for a killer. Goddamn it, Gail! You’re looking to
get yourself killed!”

Gail sank against the back of the sofa, the wind gone from her sails. There was no point in further discussion. There was nothing else to say.

He was right.

“H
ow do you feel about being here?”

“How do you think I feel?”

The man behind the wide desk smiled and scribbled something on the notepad in front of him. “You’re stealing my technique,” he told her and waited for her to smile. Gail stared at him in resolute seriousness.