Eat'em Page 11

  “I do.”

  “What is it?”

  “In most cases,” Bellecroix says, “it’s life in prison.”

  “But what is it in this state, lieutenant?” Mike jingles his keys. “It’s the death penalty, ain’t it?”

  “Capital punishment,” Bellecroix says, “sometimes, yes.”

  Mike tugs on the underside of his jaw, pulling his round face taut. “Capital punishment. That’s a pretty heavy punishment for a pretty heavy accusation. You’re essentially stating that without a shadow of doubt my client not only killed, but he did so with intent. He not only killed, but he did so after deliberation, planning, and thoughtful execution.”

  “Yes.”

  “But that’s not in accordance with my client’s confession.”

  “Your client,” Bellecroix reminds us, “is a liar.”

  “There you go again,” Mike says, “It seems to me that we have to base our accusations off this presupposition that whatever Jacob says is a lie or else this case falls apart at the seams. Is that right?”

  “No,” Bellecroix says through clinched teeth. “We know Jacob is a liar…”

  “We know…” Mike interrupts. He matches the officer’s intensity, both men almost snarling at one another. “…Jacob has lied. Who hasn’t lied? And in his unique situation, who wouldn’t lie? What we don’t know is if Jacob premeditatedly and unremorsefully killed anyone. And you’ve supplied us with no such evidence that he has.”

  “Phone records,” Bellecroix says.

  “What about them?”

  “We have records of Mr. Brook searching for home addresses, places of work, days… hours before killing his victims,” Bellecroix says. “These are people with no prior correspondence with him, and yet he sought them out, tracked them down, and murdered them in cold blood.”

  “And what of the case of Louise Parsons?” Mike asks.

  Bellecroix refrains from hitting the partition before him. His knuckles whiten with pent-up anger. “That wasn’t Jacob,” he says, “It was two drugged out cultists. It was all over the news. We’ve gone over this. The man’s lies go beyond what he’s done. He lies about the things he hasn’t. He’s nothing short of imaginative and his fight with Mr. Parsons is nothing short of an imaginative flight of fancy.”

  “His description of the house was fairly spot on.”

  “As anyone’s would be who’d watched the news.”

  “And the handprints?” Mike says, “Jacob claims they were…”

  “They weren’t,” Bellecroix says.

  “Please do not interrupt me, lieutenant,” Mike says calmly. He finally stops rattling his pocket. “Do you have the handprints on record?”

  Bellecroix clicks his teeth and looks from me to Mike and back. “Mr. Brook had nothing to do – nothing to do with the Parsons case. Of the blood we found on Jacob’s clothing? It was more likely that of another victim. Mr. Parsons was found days after we brought Jacob in the first time and every indication showed he had only died within hours of first responders. That doesn’t make Brook innocent. That just means he had nothing to do with that one incident. What we can tie him to… we know he was assaulted at a convenience store. We have video of him entering and having an argument with the clerk. We know the clerk ran from Jacob after the confrontation.”

  “After he assaulted him,” Mike says.

  “Surveillance shows the night clerk, Trevor Schrekengost, running from Mr. Brook in terror,” Bellecroix says.

  “How do you know he was in terror?” Mike asks.

  The lieutenant ignores him, “It then shows Mr. Brook return to the store. He goes through the waste basket and several drawers before collecting and pocketing Trevor’s clock card. His intention wasn’t to steal. It was to kill.”

  “Or maybe it was to find out who the guy was that just shoved him across the store instead of allowing him to make a purchase?” Mike adds. “We watched the video. We watched it over and over. It’s heavily scrambled at parts. Tears across as if recorded on old film instead of the digital camera that was actually used. Why do you think that is?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s weird, though, isn’t it?” Big Mike asks more to the jury than to the stand, “The footage scrambled in front of Jacob as he grabs some medicine. Again near the front of the store as Jacob searches for the identity of his attacker. If I was a betting man, I would say it looked altered, wouldn’t you say?”

  Eat’em. The little demon sprawls out on the table in front of me. I see Eat’em in the convenience store footage, but all they see is grain. Mike refuses to use the demon as a part of the case, whether he believes me or not.

  “It wasn’t altered,” Bellecroix says. “There’s nothing in that footage that anyone would have reason to alter. The confrontation is still in plain view. We see Patrick Brook enter, call police, and upon discovering his nephew, he puts money on the counter to pay for gas and Pepto-Bismol. And again, we have both family members lying to police and not even hours later, according to phone records, we have Jacob Caleb Brook searching for the address of his next victim.”

  Chapter 24

  I checked the address one last time. Trevor lived in an apartment near Arlington Memorial Park. The complex faced the enormous plot of overgrown lawn and beautifully crafted statues, but unlike the park, it had a certain radiant glow, beckoning all to live across from the masterpiece shrouded in darkness.

  I sat on a bench in front of a tribute to the fallen soldier. A table set for one had a placard on it that read POW-MIA. A chair, leaned forward on two legs, rested at the end of a delicious looking meal; Eat’em discovered it to be a wax doppelganger rather than the small Thanksgiving feast it appeared to be.

  Closer to the center of the park stood a larger than life bronze sculpture of Jesus of Nazarene on a stone cross. The mound of his final resting place lie surrounded by smaller sculptures depicting each stage of his crucifixion.

  Normally these statues would be brightened at night with carefully angled spotlights connected to gas-powered generators. Even at two in the morning the park shone like a football field, and the lawn was cared for pristinely. Tonight it hid under a sky so bleak that not even the small sliver of moon cast enough light to create a shadow. We climbed a small gate to get in; it was marked with a sign with an apology over the government shutdown and a promise to open again when the situation cleared.

  Aside from the closed off artistry, the park contained a disc golf course and was home to an incredible duck pond surrounded in a thicket of evergreens. Without daily care of the grove and the running fountain circulating the water, the east end of the park was left feeling tepid; no longer the lively environment I ran around when Val and I first moved to Texas.

  “Are you ready to see what’s in there?” I asked to myself more so than I asked Eat’em.

  “It can’t be worse than here, yes.”

  “Always the house demon,” I said.

  “Ugh…” he agreed, sticking out his tongue. “Nature.”

  We stalked across the street and walked the apartment grounds, searching each building for the address I found for the fence-running night clerk. I didn’t know if he’d return here, nor did I know what I’d do once we found him. Still, I knew I had to. Whatever ailment inflicted Louise also inflicted Trevor and I needed to find out what it was. Whether he’d sit down and have a chat with me seemed highly unlikely. And I somewhat doubted I could force information out of him. I’d been lucky when I paid Parsons a visit – as I drew ever nearer to the clerk’s home, I hoped I could manifest that luck again.

  Beyond the external presentation of the complex, the inner upkeep didn’t have the same welcoming glow. Pavement was riddled in cracks, window screens were torn up or missing, graffiti covered several walls, and an overflowed dumpster was surrounded by discarded furniture, including a three-legged computer desk and a filthy dogtooth fabric couch with a split frame and half-ejected foldout bed.

  The sour smell of diape
rs followed us as Eat’em and I found Trevor’s building adjacent to the spilled-over garbage.

  His apartment was on the second floor with two stairwells leading up and two entrances getting in. The front entry wasn’t much different than most other apartments I’d seen in the area. At the top of the stairs, a narrow walkway broke off into two directions, a room on the left and another on the right. An open hallway split the two lower rooms, allowing anyone to cut through the building to get to the backside without going around. Another set of stairs climbed up to the rear door, which opened up to the kitchen. These stairs spiraled and provided less maneuverability than the front. Based on the dipping wood patio, the back of the building was the last part not to receive the modern upgrades that the rest of the complex enjoyed. Much like the entire development, the further back you lifted the veil, the more the beauty gave way to disrepair.

  I circled the building a couple times, considering my approach.

  The man who lived behind those doors could run a mile in just over three minutes. He could outrun the most surefooted Olympian while sprinting across a tightrope.

  Me?

  I could catch a baseball.

  We weren’t exactly evenly matched. Even still, I encroached on his territory. Not confident, but not as scared as I should be. For – for whatever reason – he feared me. As it was him that ran from me. Not screaming, but panicked. Not as one might run from a wild beast, but as one might run from a confrontation that surely had no desirable outcome.

  But what outcome that might be, I had no idea. I wasn’t even positive I wanted to find out. I just knew whatever I found in Trevor’s apartment would make the dark chill that crept up my spine seem like a blissful warmth by comparison.

  I climbed the spiral staircase after deciding the safest approach would be the one less visible from the decaying parking lot. Closing in at three in the morning, I figured there wouldn’t be anyone in or out for a couple hours, but precaution was in my best interest. I noticed a pair of headlights rolling in not minutes after I arrived at the complex. Probably a late night bartender returning from a busy night of appeasing Arlington’s drunken masses. The last thing I needed was someone calling the police to report a prowler.

  The early morning provided no light for the splintered deck, enveloped in uncertain darkness.

  My spiky companion clung to my waist, uncharacteristically quiet as I skulked one creaking footstep at a time, until I reached the glass backdoor with blinds drawn tight.

  I’ve always had extraordinary night vision. When I was a child, my mother reprimanded me every time she found me drawing in my room in what she referred to as complete darkness. I told her it helped me focus only on the page, which it did. And – full disclosure – I never liked carrots.

  A small window peered in over a small sink in a kitchenette kept perfectly clean. I looked for signs of movement. The apartment, what I could see of it, appeared organized. Rustic dining chairs and an ornate chandelier gave it the impression of a country log cabin. And from the heavy fragrance that tickled my nostrils, the occupant was particularly obsessive with bleaches and detergents and other cleaning products without the added scent of sunflowers or lilies or ivory springs.

  Frustration swelled in my throat and I attempted to swallow it back. What if Trevor moved? If that were the case, I might never find him. The tidiness. The scent. The furniture. From the looks of things, I was looking into a model home.

  I let out a long sigh, both from disappointment and relief.

  Then. As I turned to take the long walk back home. A shape on the floor of the living room caught my eye. It was bent and twisted in an unnatural position. Bent this way and that as if wrung out and tossed to the side.

  It was the body of a young man. And it was clear from his tortured posture…

  He was dead.

  Chapter 25

  The jail has a visitor center for those of us who can’t post bail and haven’t been convicted yet. It’s a combination of a nuthouse lobby and the play area at most dental offices. The biggest difference is the number of security guards hovering around the exit, with its mocking neon sign and condescending poster that states “prisoners not permitted past this point.”

  A vibrantly colored play set with twisting plastic tubes like a tiny roller coaster for large beads sits on a jigsaw puzzle play mat on one side of the room. A guard armed with a pistol and pepper spray stands to the side near an empty table with miniature chairs designed to accommodate visiting children.

  One could mistake this room for a fortified daycare.

  I’m the only one without a gun. All the protection is for me, of course. More accurately, it’s for whoever is behind a set of electronically locked doors. They are receiving a brief just to see me. As if I could spring a trap capable of disarming half a dozen police officers with nothing but my bare hands.

  Though I’m fortunate enough to be out of cuffs in this room, it’s still disconcerting to see chains locking every piece of furniture to the floor. Maybe it’s a precaution; however, from my short stint here, I wouldn’t put it past someone being unable to resist using anything in sight as a possible weapon.

  I rest my head on my hands and watch Eat’em slide beads back and forth along the twisting tracks of the child’s toy. Each time he reaches the end he triumphantly declares himself the winner and starts on a new set of beads.

  The armed guard looks like he’ll doze off at any minute. He pays neither Eat’em nor the self-propelled beads any attention.

  My mind drifts along a sea of contemplation as Eat’em plays with the winding rods and various spinning blocks. What if my demon is from an alien planet? Maybe his planet and ours take up the same physical space. They collided eons ago, but instead of one destroying the other, they passed through one another. I think Eat’em and I must be stuck between these two worlds, seeing into both, but each of us can only affect one or the other. We’re the last remnants tying the two realms together.

  “Jacob,” a familiar voice breaks me from my daydream. “How are you?”

  Professor Kempter squeezes between a couple officers and floats her way toward me. She’s got the grace of any runway model and dresses the part. Her lavender skirt hugs her full-figured hips in such a way that advertises her appearance as something more than a man might be able to handle. There’s elegance in her step, even as her weight shifts her side-to-side, and it all brings her a certain intimidating – might I say – sex appeal.

  “Hanging in,” I say. “You got a haircut.”

  “You noticed.”

  “You look great.”

  She takes the seat in front of me and scoots as far from the table as the chain will let her.

  “You always look great,” I say.

  “Well,” her cheeks struggle through a half-smile. “You look horrible.”

  “It’s the outfit,” I say. “But I thought you liked orange.”

  “It clashes with your eyes.”

  I laugh. “You’re full of shit.”

  “You’re modest.”

  “And you,” I say.

  “Have no reason to be.” She bats her eyelashes.

  Our relationship was never so flirtatious before I found myself locked up. It’s not that bars made her more attractive. Only a fool wouldn’t be captivated by Professor Kempter (She calls it The Three B’s: Beautiful, Beneficent, Buxom). It’s more that nothing quite takes your guard down so much as being surrounded by actual guards.

  Her plum cheeks pale as her mood sombers. She nibbles on her lower lip and huffs before saying, “I’m doing everything I can.”

  “I know,” I say.

  “I’m doing everything I can next to bringing in a mouse.”

  “I know.”

  “Showing them,” she covers her mouth with her hand. “Showing them what happens.”

  “You don’t need to do that.”

  “I could,” she says. “I could break one of their legs. Let them see it heal for themselves. I could sh
ow them violent behavior when the chain is broken. I could show them just how connected they are… the common conscience. Moving together like synchronized swimmers…”

  “You can’t.” We’ve had this conversation before. Pain swells in my chest each time. It’s like the air goes bad and I can’t fully exhale.

  I look to Eat’em and his beads for comfort. He smiles back at me, announcing loudly, “Won again!” I flash him a quick grin, letting him know I see him.

  “You can’t, professor,” I say.

  “Jodi.”

  “Jodi,” I repeat. I shake my head and released the words with the painful breath of air. “They took everything.”

  “I know.”

  “You have nothing to give the mice.”

  “I know.”

  “Nobody is going to let me go collect a sample for you,” I say.

  “I know,” she nibbles at her lip again. “But if you could somehow tell me. Tell me where I can find him. Maybe you wouldn’t have to.”

  The thought is preposterous and my answer comes without consideration.

  I shake my head and say, “No.”

  Chapter 26

  My first instinct upon seeing the dead body was to dial the police. I punched 911 into my phone and stared at the glowing screen. But no matter how much I wanted to press the call button, I couldn’t. I couldn’t risk being questioned.

  Even if I called anonymously, part of me feared my phone could be traced. And if it couldn’t, I would still surely be questioned about it once the apartment was linked to the deserted gas station. I needed to avoid being caught up in too many coincidences. Until I knew what was going on, until I could prove what was going on, until others knew what was going on, I couldn’t tie myself to it.