Scream Catcher (11 page)

Or …

Her decision made, Blanchfield pours herself yet another shot.

Peering over her shoulder, she glances up at the framed newspaper headline announcing her victory as Lake George’s first female prosecutor. She views the photograph that accompanies the headline—all those politicians and financial supporters who surround the podium on which she stands addressing her newly beloved public.

Picking up the telephone, she dials the L.G.P.D., asks for the officer in charge of monitoring the murder suspect’s surveillance bracelet via G.P.S. She can’t help but consider Captain Mack’s outward concerns over the possible fallibility of such a relatively new and untested electronic monitoring device. That in mind, she’d like to request an immediate on-site briefing with the young man down inside the basement spaces of the village precinct, just to put her own mind at ease.

Assembly Point Peninsula

Tuesday, 3:30 P.M.

When Jude arrives back at the house that late afternoon, he finds Rosie inside her small top-floor office. Having become a maker of custom jewelry in her new life as wife and mother, she’s sitting at her converted roll-top desk, bright lamp illuminating a desktop filled with multi-colored beads, stones, hoops, stars, rolls of string, wire fasteners and all varieties of stainless steel hand tools.

“Hope I’m not interrupting,” he says, shoulder perched against the jamb.

Rosie looks up at her husband, immediately puts down her work. Jumping up from her desk, she comes to Jude, hugs him tight. He feels her warm body through the sweatpants. He smells her sweet, smooth skin.

“I was worried,” she says. “News of the murder was on TV.”

“Doesn’t take long for the vultures to start circling.”

Rosie raises her right hand, gently touches the butterfly bandage stuck to the ex-cop’s head.

“Does it hurt?”

“A little, a headache. But it was only a slight graze.”

Pulling away, Rosie brushes back long, dark brown hair. Hair that matches brown almond-shaped eyes.

“What’s the press saying?” Jude inquires.

“That there was a homicide in the back lot of Sweeney’s Gym. That there was an eyewitness.”

“They put a name to that eyewitness?”

With a quick shake of her head, Rosie sets an open hand gently on her blossoming belly.

“Names of both the eyewitness and the accused are being withheld pending a gag order.” Exhaling. “Jude, what is going on?”

“What time is it?”

Rosie, glancing at her watch.

“Going on four.”

“Where’s Jack?”

“Day camp. But he won’t be home until after dark.”

“Tell you what,” he says. “I’m going to shower. After I get dressed, I’ll take you to an early dinner at the Algonquin. It might be easier to let you know what’s going on over an Aspen burger and a cold beer.”

* * *

The Algonquin Restaurant/West side of Lake George

Tuesday, 4:30 P.M.

Jude and Rosie are seated on the back dock-side patio of the open-air restaurant.

Their table has an umbrella that blocks out the late day sun. The table is set in a way that allows for an open view of the wood docks, the many pleasure craft tied off to their beams and the wide open lake beyond them.

Rosie wears a cropped white top that shows off her four month pregnancy and thin, dark sunglasses over her eyes. With long dark hair combed back over her forehead, she has the look of a movie star who’s arrived in Lake George for a location shoot.

In contrast, Jude dons his usual uniform of worn Levis, work boots and snug-fitting forest green T-shirt impressed with white letters that spell out “Breadloaf Writer’s Conference ‘09.” Maybe he doesn’t fit the bill of the movie star’s
sig other
, but he might pass for the bodyguard.

While Rosie gingerly sips an early afternoon Virgin Mary, Jude swigs the first of what he hopes will be several cold Budweiser Longnecks. At the same time, he gives his wife a detailed accounting of the morning’s murder.

By the time he finishes, the food arrives.

Rosie has a turkey club, Jude the Aspen burger he promised himself earlier. The Aspen burger substitutes blue cheese dressing for the usual slice of American.

“So let me get this straight,” says Rosie after a beat. “The killer not only goes by the name Christian Jordan, but his fingerprints, his face, his ID, even his voice support the fact that he is not Hector Lennox. Because after all, Lennox died in Paris a year ago.”

“Mack is convinced that Lennox faked his death and has since undergone extensive reconstructive surgery.” Stealing a swallow of his second cold beer. “It’s not all that uncommon. People who enter the federal protective custody program regularly fake their deaths, then engage in facial and voice reconstruction before changing their names.”

Rosie exhales, sets her right hand gently atop her pregnant belly.

“And if Christian Jordan is really the alive and happy Hector Lennox—a man who is suspected of two other murders in Lake George—that would make him a serial killer … Technically speaking.”

Jude nodding.

“Provided the M.O.s for all three murders remain consistent. Blanchfield seems to be counting on it.”

“And now this serial … what do you call it? … kill gamer? … has returned to the region in order to unleash his death and destruction in the form of a video-inspired kill game.” It’s a question sprinkled with more than a little cynicism.

“Which is a video game played not with a computer but with real live people and in this case, my lovely wife, real genuine screams.”

“Screams,” Rosie repeats.

Nodding, Jude says, “Our kill gamer is also a scream catcher. He likes to use his iPhone to record the screams of his victims before he kills them. He then adds the actual audio to the game.”

“How sick,” Rosie says.

“How inventively sick,” the ex-cop agrees.

But even for Jude, the eyewitness, the story of Hector Lennox is beginning to sound like a lost episode of the
Twilight Zone
.

“And by sheer coincidence you just happened to witness one of these kill games and nearly got yourself killed in the process.” Thoughtfully, Rosie sips her drink while the lake laps up against the dock. “So where does the safety and well being of your family—present and future—fit into all this?”

Jude can’t help but feel his stomach tighten against the Aspen burger that fills it.

“If you don’t want me to testify,” he says. “If you feel frightened by my involvement in this case, I’ll back out, no questions asked.”

Rosie swallows more of her drink. A long swallow that verges on a chug, as if it were filled with booze.

“Not fair,” she says coming up for air. “This isn’t up to me. It’s up to you. You have to do what you think is right and you have to do it with your family in mind—your wife, your little boy. Your. Little. Girl.” Giving her belly a pat. “We’re what’s at stake in this thing, case you haven’t considered it.”

Jude swallows something cold and hard. He’s been considering the
risks
all morning long, amongst a dozen other reasons why he should back out.

“Have you thought this thing through, Jude? What happens if Lennox comes after you? What happens if he comes after us?”

“If you want me to drop out, Rosie, I’ll understand. I don’t want this to scare you.”

“Come on, Jude. I appreciate your offering to quit on the prosecution for my sake, but let’s face it, sounds to me like you’ve already committed.”

Draining beer number two, Jude peers out the corner of his eye in search of the waitress and beer number three. Maybe this time he will cut to the chase and order two bottles instead of one, drown the demon inside his chest in a tsunami of alcohol and suds.

“I am already committed to putting Lennox away,” he nods. “But …”

“But what?”

“But believe me when I say that that commitment does not override
your
feelings.”

“You might be doing the right thing morally, Jude. But this conversation is beginning to verge on patronization.”

“I don’t get it.”

“You are entertaining my feelings for the
sake
of entertaining my feelings. Under the circumstances, you feel testifying is the right thing … No, the
only
thing to do.”

An inland gull swoops down from the bright sky. It lands on the dock, sticks its long neck and head into the water, comes back out with a small fish in its beak, then takes off again, lake water splashing from the wings that slap it.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “But it’s important for me to know your mindset.”

“The situation concerns me,” Rosie says. “No. Actually it frightens the daylights out of me. I feel vulnerable. For me, for Jack, for the baby. Mostly for you.”

“It scares me too. But on the other hand, there’s a voice in my head telling me that testifying is something I have to do.”

Rosie sets her eyes down on the tabletop.

She says, “I know how much you’ve suffered since the terrible Elizabeth Bay thing. And now you have something to prove.”

She has this tight, pensive look on her face that does not go unnoticed by Jude. The expression goes well with the sunglasses. It also tells him that his wife has not quite finished her thought.

“But …”

“But you don’t have a thing to prove. What happened to you this morning and back at the Burns cabin—the freezing up, the fear. You see a psychologist to work on a problem that stems from your childhood; from the murder of your parents. What’s happening inside your head has nothing to do with bravery or respect or how people look at you.”

“Mack thinks that testifying will be good for me. He thinks it’ll kill my demon.”

“You have to do what’s right for you and your immediate family. Not for Mack or anybody else.”

Jude presses his lips together. Again, Rosie is hitting the mark. But that doesn’t change the fact that his decision is made.

“I
am
going to testify, Rosie. I’m sorry.”

“Then why did you ask my permission in the first place?”

Jude looks out onto the lake.

“I didn’t know I was asking your permission.”

“Then what is this?”

“I suppose I was asking you for your support.”

“Support because testifying is the right thing to do? Or support because you have no choice in the matter?”

There it is again, the tight stomach feeling—the sensation that the demon has grabbed hold of his stomach with its claws and is wringing it out like a wet dishrag.

“All of the above,” he swallows.

Rosie looks down at her near empty glass, exhales.

Jude drinks from a new beer. A long deep swallow.

Raising up her drink, Rosie makes like proposing a toast.

In turn, Jude raises his beer bottle, taps the rim of her glass.

“To a long happy life,” he proposes.

Bringing the glass back to her lips, Rosie shoots down what’s left of her Virgin Mary in a single swallow.

“Go to hell,” she says.

Assembly Point Peninsula

Wednesday, 1:34 A.M.

Wide awake, Jude rolls around restlessly in the big feather bed, ears locked onto the rhythm of the lake splashing gently against the dock. Rains come in so swift and horizontally wind-driven that they spatter against the window screens. It’s useless wishing sleep on. Especially with all that will be expected of the ex-cop come sunrise and Blanchfield’s crime scene reenactment behind Sweeney’s Gym.

Sleep might be elusive, but it will be essential if he is expected to think clearly.

No doubt about it: Jude needs to take action. Which means quietly slipping out of bed, heading down into the kitchen to where the medicines are stored inside the cabinet above the sink. For his injured head he swallows two Advil with a glass of water. For his insomnia he swallows a fifteen milligram Ambien. Making his way back up to bed, he slips back under the covers without Rosie being the least bit aware.

He closes his eyes onto darkness. He cannot shake the image of Lennox’s blue-eyed face. Not the brightly lit mug of the police lineup, but the shadowy mask he witnessed behind Sweeney’s Gym. He pictures long dreadlocked hair, white goatee, muscular chest and arms; pictures the beast sleeping a conscienceless sleep, free of the bars of a county jail cell. Accompanying the vision is a soundtrack of screams. Not just the scream of the man Lennox killed this morning. But the screams of all his victims, known and unknown.

Maybe the entire three mile expanse of Lake George separates eyewitness from killer, but the only thing keeping them apart is a GPS-guided surveillance monitoring ankle bracelet. And according to Judge Mann, that’s enough.

Jude’s runaway brain does not stop there.

He pictures Mack.

He can only assume that the old Captain will be tossing and turning in his own bed, wondering if he’s done the right thing in encouraging his son’s testimony. Jude knows how much Mack doesn’t trust the surveillance bracelet technology. He also knows that although he isn’t saying much about it, Mack doesn’t place the greatest confidence in P.J. Blanchfield as a prosecutor either.