Authors: James Grippando
T
he SWAT leader’s voice was in Andie’s ear, and he wasn’t happy.
“Henning,” he said via microphone, “tell Miami-Dade to stop patrolling the parking lot before they get my men killed!”
Andie was standing outside the communications van in a dimly lit parking lot behind a vacant warehouse. The black FBI SWAT van was parked beside the van. The chosen location was strategic: two buildings downriver from the apartment complex. The way the Miami River bent to the north, Andie actually had an unobstructed view from the parking lot behind the warehouse to the waterfront apartment units. It was the FBI’s makeshift command post—close, but not too close, to Merselus’ apartment. Andie was in constant communication with the SWAT leader in the field, in position and ready to begin negotiations if a hostage situation developed.
“Are the officers on foot or in vehicles?” asked Andie.
“I’ve seen two squad cars. Don’t know if there’s a foot patrol. But I’ve got four team members in stealth on a yellow-light site sweep. If MDPD officers in uniform start knocking on doors, it’ll be a disaster.”
A yellow-light sweep meant no busting down doors, no gunfire—just a pass through the area to collect information and assess the situation.
“I’ll shut it down right now,” said Andie.
M
erselus switched on the TV. The television media’s obsession with breaking news could be his friend in a situation like this. Nothing quite like the local
Action News
chopper to reveal police positions and give the bad guy a bird’s-eye view of law enforcement strategy. As yet, none of the stations had jumped on the story. He kept the television on but muted the sound, just to stay alert to any noises in the parking lot.
“I can’t breathe,” said Sydney.
She was sitting on the floor with her back to the wall, her wrists still fastened behind her. The problem was the double pillowcase Merselus had put over her head. He wasn’t trying to suffocate her—not yet, anyway. He just couldn’t take it anymore, the way she cried and carried on every time she caught an eyeful of the dead old man on the floor. He’d known women to find a way to peek out from behind blindfolds before. A couple of pillowcases, one on top of the other, were infallible. And he’d found it amazing how long a young woman in good health could go that way without actually suffocating.
“Just be still,” he said.
Merselus looked for a place to sit, but there was none. He’d turned the room into a makeshift fortress. Anyone trying to force his way into the apartment would have to pass through a mountain of furniture. The entire room had been cleaned out, except for the television. There was a crack of light at the edge of the wall and along the top of the window. The drapes were so old and worn that, in spots, the lining had lost its blackout quality. Merselus considered that a positive, since the room would brighten with the swirl of police lights in the parking lot—if and when they came.
“Quiet,” he said. He could have sworn he’d heard something. He had to move the mini-refrigerator to get to the door and put his ear to the hollow metal. He heard nothing, but he waited. Then he heard it again.
Pounding.
What the hell?
No, it was knocking. Distant knocking. They were knocking on apartment doors. From the sound of it, they were still several doors away. But no doubt about it: The police were actually going door to door.
Idiots!
Merselus switched off the television, and the room went black. Then he positioned himself at the doorjamb, held his pistol at the ready, and waited.
J
ack listened, trying not to interrupt, as Geoffrey Bennett talked. They were alone in Jack’s living room, Bennett seated on the couch and Jack in an armchair. Bennett would occasionally look Jack in the eye, but for the most part, his gaze was cast downward at the coffee table.
“There’s another side to Ellen,” he said of his wife. “A dark side.”
The pause seemed to invite inquiry from Jack. “How dark?” he asked.
“Dark enough to get mixed up with a monster like this guy Merselus.”
Jack caught his breath. “When you say mixed up . . .”
“I mean,” he started to say, then stopped, as if it were unspeakable.
“They were lovers?” asked Jack.
“Love had nothing to do with it.”
Jack moved to the edge of his seat, leaning forward. “Look, if you know something, you need to just come right out and say it. The FBI is working right now, trying to find Merselus and stop him from hurting your daughter.”
Bennett breathed in and out, then continued. “Ellen and this guy linked up on the Internet. I’m not exactly sure when, but it was definitely before Sydney got arrested.”
“Before or after Emma’s death?”
“Before,” Bennett said, swallowing hard. “Definitely before.”
“You say ‘definitely’ before. Why do you say that?”
He looked Jack in the eye and said, “Because he killed her.”
It was hard to comprehend, as many times as Jack had heard the world say his client was guilty. But something in Bennett’s voice almost made Jack believe it. “How?” Jack asked.
“Threw her in the swimming pool. Emma could swim as well as any two-year-old. You teach the little ones to go right to the side of the pool, grab onto the ledge, and do the hand-over-hand choo-choo train to the shallow end, where they can climb out. But every time she grabbed the ledge,” he said, his voice quaking, “Merselus would pry her fingers loose. She kept swimming back, and he’d pry her loose again. After a while, she got too tired to swim back.”
It was making Jack ill just to hear it, the thought of a two-year-old girl fighting to hang on, no match for an adult who knew she couldn’t fight forever. He thought of Emma’s little legs churning, too, and her feet scraping the bottom of the pool—exactly the way Jack’s forensic expert had described it.
“Why would he do that to Emma?”
“Because he’s one very sick bastard.”
“Yeah, he is,” said Jack. “But that doesn’t answer my question. There are lots of ways for sick bastards to get their thrills. Why Emma?”
“I don’t know.”
Jack could tell that he was holding back. “I think you do,” he said, his gaze tightening.
Bennett looked away, then back. “About a month before Emma died, Ellen hired a babysitter so the two of us could go out. When we came home, the babysitter was all upset. She said that Emma asked her to touch her privates. So, like I say, I don’t know for a fact. But I think Merselus killed Emma because she was getting old enough to, you know . . .”
“To talk about who was abusing her?” said Jack.
Bennett nodded.
The sick feeling inside Jack was getting worse. But there was anger, too. “Why in the hell did you wait all this time to say something?”
“Ellen said they could pin it on me. You heard those rumors of me being an abuser, some people even saying I was the father of Sydney’s child. Where do you think that shit got started? Ellen and her sick son-of-a-bitch boyfriend could have sunk me.”
“So you let them pin it on your daughter instead?”
“I knew that would never stick.”
“I’m not sure how you could have known that. I was her lawyer, and until I heard Judge Matthews’ clerk say ‘not guilty,’ I thought we were looking at the death penalty.”
“Trust me. I knew Sydney was not going to be convicted.”
“Are you saying it was you who bought off juror number five?”
“No, no. They did. Ellen and Merselus. They let me in on it so I wouldn’t feel the need to save Sydney from the death penalty. The fix was in, so to speak. So I just . . . went along. Kept my mouth shut. I shouldn’t have, I know. What Sydney went through is beyond horrible.”
He slumped back into the couch, as if drained, bringing a hand to his face. Then his shoulders heaved, two quick jerks, but he quickly brought the sobbing under control. Jack was certain that if Geoffrey Bennett had been of a constitution any less rich in testosterone, he would have seen a grown man cry.
That, or Sydney wasn’t the only member of the Bennett family who longed to be an actor.
“We need to get this information to Agent Henning right now,” Jack said. “I can try to reach her by phone, but I know I won’t get through. She’ll have to call us back. Meantime, you and I are going to take a ride right now to the FBI field office.”
Bennett nodded slowly, signaling acquiescence as much as agreement, and rose from the couch. Jack led him to the door, showed him out, and locked the door behind them. They stepped down from the landing and onto the sidewalk. Jack was a half step ahead of Bennett when the bushes rustled and a woman’s voice pierced the darkness.
“Stop right there.”
The men stopped, and Jack saw the gun.
“Ellen, no!” shouted Bennett.
“Don’t make a move,” said Mrs. Bennett, “neither one of you.”
M
erselus stood at the door, listening.
He’d turned off the noisy air conditioner to hear better, and the dark room was becoming an oven. He was too focused to care or even notice. He knew that there were twelve units on each floor in this wing of the complex, all facing the parking lot. An old motor lodge was anything but soundproof and, judging from the direction the sound had traveled, he determined that the police officers had started with apartment 112 at the other end of the wing and were working their way down in order. He’d counted three distinct rounds of knocking so far. By his estimation, they were still at least six units away from apartment 102.
“I need to breathe,” said Sydney.
She was still sitting on the floor near the closet, toward the back of the room, hands bound behind her back and double pillowcases over her head. She sounded so weak and frightened. It was the kind of pleading that would have been a sexual turn-on for Merselus in another setting. Under this kind of pressure, it made him angry beyond control. Merselus hurried across the room, yanked the pillowcases off her head, and dropped to one knee. He grabbed her by the throat so hard that the back of her head slammed against the wall.
“Do you want to end up like Celeste?” he said in a voice that hissed.
Beads of sweat rolled down her face, and wet wisps of hair were matted to her red cheeks and forehead. Her breathing was quick, shallow, and shaky.
“Do you?”
he repeated. His tone was even harsher, and his grip tightened, silencing her breathing. Sydney’s eyes bulged with that telltale struggle for air. She shook her head in reply, and Merselus released her throat. She rolled her head back and gasped for more air as Merselus rose from his knee.
“Why,” she started to say, and paused. Then she somehow managed to get out the rest. “Why did you hurt Celeste?”
He dropped to his knee again and grabbed her by the jaw, forcing her to look him in the eye. “Because I thought she was you.”
She stared back at him, frightened and confused. He released her jaw, curious to hear her response.
“You wanted to kill me right there?” she said. “Right outside the jail?”
“Yeah, because you snubbed me.”
“What?”
“You were supposed to throw yourself in my arms when you saw me, remember?”
“I did. By the airplane on the runway.”
“But you
didn’t
when I found you in the parking lot.”
“That wasn’t me.”
“I was watching Faith Corso on my mobile, and she said you had been released into the crowd. Things were getting dangerous. I went to you. I told you my name. I said let’s go, I’ll take you to the plane.”
“But—”
He grabbed her arm, silencing her. “You looked at me exactly the way you’re looking at me now—like I’m a creep, and like you never heard of anyone by the name Merselus. The second I took your arm,” he said, squeezing tightly to make his point, “you tried to run.”
“But—that wasn’t
me
.”
“Celeste sure looked like you. And after all I went through to get your cute little ass out of jail, I was
not
going to be snubbed by some bitch who turns and runs.”
Merselus heard another round of knocking. It sounded like the police were right next door. He quickly tore off a strip of duct tape and covered Sydney’s mouth. Then he went back to his position at the door and listened.
“Sorry to bother you, ma’am,” he heard one of the cops say to the neighbor in apartment 103. Then he heard the door close, followed by a pair of approaching footfalls on the sidewalk. Then they stopped.
“Check that out,” the same cop said.
“Looks like blood,” the other cop replied.
The old man’s blood.
Merselus hadn’t noticed any on the other side of the threshold, but splatter was always a risk.
Three booming knocks rattled the door. “Miami-Dade Police Department. Open up.”
A
ndie was on the phone with MDPD Sergeant Jake Malloy. In her other ear she had her SWAT team leader, who was awaiting her confirmation that local police had ceased the door-to-door sweep. Andie was making no headway with Malloy. His response was to share an update that, in his mind, confirmed that MDPD’s plan was working.
“Two of my patrol officers just reported blood outside the door to apartment 102.”
“We know that already,” said Andie. “Our SWAT unit spotted it in the first sweep. But the plan isn’t to walk up and knock on the door. Pull your officers back!”
The crack of four quick gunshots ripped through the night. Andie heard it three ways—her radio communication with SWAT, her cell connection with MDPD, and the echo that reverberated down the black Miami River to the parking lot behind the vacant warehouse where Andie was standing. The next thing she heard came over her cell, a man shouting to MDPD Sergeant Malloy.
“Officer down!”
J
ack kept an eye on the pistol in Ellen Bennett’s hands. She seemed to read his mind.
“Yes, I know how to use it,” she said.
After three years of Shot Mom and threats against the whole Bennett family, Jack didn’t question it. “This isn’t smart,” he said. “Just put the gun—”
“Shut up!” she said.
A breeze rustled through the ten-foot ficus hedge around Jack’s yard, as if to remind him of the downside to landscaped privacy. Ellen Bennett was standing just off the stone path to the driveway, between Jack and his car, about five steps away from Jack and her husband. She held the gun with both hands, arms extended. She was aiming at her husband, but it would have taken only a split second to target Jack. If not point-blank range, it was darn close to it.
“I know why Geoffrey came to see you,” she said, speaking to Jack.
Bennett said, “You don’t know anything, Ellen.”
“Quiet!” she said, pointing her gun for emphasis, her voice quaking. “I’m talking to Mr. Swyteck.”
There was just enough moonlight for Jack to see the range of emotion on her face—anger, frustration, fear. Jack tried his most soothing tone. “Would love to talk to you. Let’s do it without the gun.”
She pushed on. “I bet Geoffrey didn’t tell you that he’s the one who met Merselus online.”
“Stop, Ellen,” said Bennett.
“I bet he didn’t tell you about all the other strangers he’s brought into our marriage. If you can call it a marriage. Twenty-five years of strange men who do unspeakable things to the wives of other men while their husbands watch and enjoy.”
“That’s enough,” said Bennett. He took a half step toward her, but she stopped him with a menacing thrust of the gun in his direction. She continued in an angry but unsteady voice.
“I bet Geoffrey didn’t tell you what he did when his wife started to look middle-aged. When the videos he made of me were no longer the lure on the Internet that they once were. Did he tell you about that, Mr. Swyteck?”
“Please,” said Jack. “Let’s put the gun away, all right?”
“Ellen, I’m warning you,” said Bennett.
“Hah!” she said, but it wasn’t a laugh. She was on the verge of tears. “
You’re
warning
me
? Who’s in control now, Geoffrey? I should have done this so long ago, before you could use your own daughter as bait for perverts like Merselus.”
Bennett shot a sideways glance at Jack. “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
“I’m speaking the
truth
!” she said, her voice cracking. Her eyes darted back and forth from her husband to Jack, as if she were pleading with Jack to believe her. “Geoffrey didn’t tell you why I did nothing, did he?”
“What?” said Jack.
“Damn it, Ellen! I told him Merselus did it!”
Did nothing.
Her words were like a light switch for Jack, a confirmation of that gut feeling he’d carried with him since the start of Sydney’s trial, continuing through his visits to the Bennett house after her release.
“Merselus didn’t kill your granddaughter, did he?” said Jack.
She shook her head, glowering at her husband.
“It wasn’t Sydney,” said Jack.
“No, of course not.”
“Thirty seconds ago I would have said it was Geoffrey. But now I know it wasn’t him, either. Right, Ellen?”
She didn’t answer.
Jack pressed on, his theory still gelling in his head. “I know what you meant, Ellen. But I want to hear it from you. What did you mean when you said you ‘did nothing’?”
Her voice shook, and it seemed to take every bit of her strength just to steady the gun. “I’ll bet Geoffrey didn’t tell you how it killed me that my own daughter was living the same life I’d lived. How much it killed me to know that Geoffrey was already working on Emma, making her so sexually aware that she even talked to the babysitter about it. Geoffrey didn’t tell you that, did he? That’s why I did nothing. She was next. I
knew
she was next.”
Did nothing.
Jack needed to square that with what his forensic expert had told him about the cause of Emma’s death. There had to be more to what Ellen was saying, and suddenly it all made sense. “Tell me,” said Jack. “Tell me what happened when Emma fell in the pool.”
She didn’t answer right away, but the expression on her face told Jack that he had nailed it.
“Maybe I would have made a better decision,” she said through tears. “Maybe I would have been thinking more clearly if I hadn’t been drinking the way I do to get through every day of my life. But at that very moment, when I heard that splash in the swimming pool, I truly believed that this innocent little angel was better off dead!”
“You did nothing,” said Jack.
“I . . . I did nothing,” she said, her voice shaking.
“That’s not true,” said Bennett. “Damn it, Ellen! It was Merselus!”
His continued defense of his wife made no sense to Jack, until Bennett’s words from the other day came back to him. In his own twisted way, Bennett was beating back adversity to “protect what was left of his family.”
This time, Ellen Bennett was having none of it.
“That’s just another lie, Geoffrey! Lies, lies, and more lies! Twenty-five years of living your lies!”
“Ellen, stop—”
The crack of a gunshot dropped Bennett where he stood. As Jack dived to the ground for cover, another shot rang out, then another, and another. Each shot hit its mark—three to Bennett’s chest, one to his belly, and the last two directly to the head. She kept squeezing the trigger even after the chamber was emptied. Crying and on the verge of hysterics, she threw the gun at Geoffrey. It hit him in the face, but he didn’t flinch. There was no reaction of any sort. She dropped to her knees, fell forward, and buried her face in her hands, sobbing.
Jack rose slowly, but he didn’t move toward her. Ellen Bennett remained on the ground, wailing. Jack let her be, her husband’s lifeless body just a few feet away from her in the grass. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed 911.