Presumed Guilty: (A Jefferson Winter novella) (9 page)

Yoko couldn’t take her eyes off the cooking pan. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, Winter beside her. He was close enough so she knew he was there, but not so close that he invaded her personal space. It showed a degree of empathy she wouldn’t have expected from someone so young. A degree of empathy she certainly wouldn’t have expected from a psychopath.

The last five minutes had left her feeling unclean and somehow violated. It was as though Winter had taken her inside Valentino’s head and given her the full tour. She’d given lectures where she’d talked at length about getting inside the minds of serial killers, and she’d thought that’s what she did.

She was wrong.

Winter had taken her deeper than she’d ever been, deeper than she ever wanted to go again. She needed a cigarette, badly. But that would mean standing up and putting her shoes back on and going outside, and that wasn’t about to happen any time soon.

‘The way the bodies were posed was never for our benefit,’ she said.

‘Do you understand now?’

‘I think so.’ She paused then added, ‘How do you do it, Jefferson?’

‘I don’t know.’ A shrug, a shake of the head. ‘Honestly, I don’t have a clue.’

She glanced over and saw that he was telling the truth. At least, he believed what he was saying, which amounted to the same thing.

‘I’m sorry. It can’t be easy.’

He shrugged again, then said, ‘You’re looking for a puppeteer. A real-life one, I mean. He’ll be medium height and build, shy, socially awkward. He feels powerless in the real world, but in his fantasy world he’s God. He pulls the strings and his puppets dance to his tune.’

‘White male, late thirties or early forties?’

A nod and a dry brittle laugh. ‘Yeah, you got that much right. Up until recently he was living at home with either his mother or father. In late March, early April that parent died, leaving him alone. That was the trigger. Fantasy merged into reality, and before you know it you’ve got four dead bodies on your hands.’

‘We need to look outside Prince George’s County,’ said Yoko. ‘That’s why the murders were clustered to the north of the county. He hopped over the county line, performed his kills then headed home. The border creates the illusion of safety. If the kills take place in Prince George’s County, that’s where you’re going to look, right?’

Another nod. ‘Limit your search to a twenty-mile radius of Hyattsville, since that’s where the first murder happened. I’d be surprised if you don’t get any hits, but in the unlikely event you don’t, widen the search parameters by five miles at a time until you do. He is out there. It’s only a matter of time before you find him.’

Yoko somehow found the energy to stand up and put her shoes back on and walk outside. Just being in the fresh air made it easier to breathe again. She could actually feel that raw place on her soul scabbing over.

The same cop was on the door, and he looked as bored as earlier. The crime-scene investigators were milling around their vans. The lead investigator saw her and called over to ask if she was done. Yoko called back that she was, then lit a cigarette.

‘You really should quit those things.’ Winter stopped alongside her. ‘They’ll kill you, you know.’

‘It’s on my to-do list.’ She took another drag. ‘I’ll drive you back to College Park.’

Winter snorted. ‘You’re not getting rid of me that easily. The way this works is that you’re taking me back to Upper Marlboro, and you’re going to drop me off at a diner. I’m going to order a burger and fries and a large Coke, and by the time I’ve finished you guys will have worked out who the unsub is and we can go and arrest him. Now that I’ve narrowed it down, even Detective Dumbass shouldn’t have too much trouble figuring out who he is.’

‘You’ve got it all worked out.’

‘And that surprises you?’

The doors of the Crown Victoria unlocked with a
thunk-click
, and they climbed inside and fastened their seat belts. Yoko opened her window a crack to let the smoke escape and turned the key.

Winter nodded to the cigarette. ‘Would you mind putting that out?’

‘Yes, Jefferson, I would mind.’

She took another drag, then pulled away from the kerb.

It took a little under an hour to track down Valentino and get another arrest warrant issued. Winter was halfway through his second Coke when Yoko arrived to pick him up.

The list of puppeteers working within a twenty-mile radius of Hyattsville was short. The list of puppeteers in that area who’d lost a parent four months ago was shorter still. There was just one name.

Calvin Fitzgerald held both a Maryland driver’s licence and a US passport. By cross-referencing the details held by the two issuing departments, a picture emerged of a forty-three-year-old white male who was five foot eight and bald.

Calvin lived in Jessup, in neighbouring Anne Arundel County. The town was nineteen miles from Hyattsville, a short hop north along the 295. His mother died when he was thirteen and he’d been brought up by his father. He had never married, and had never moved out of his childhood home.

No girlfriends. No boyfriends.

His father died on 31 March, the night of the full moon. He’d been battling cancer for the best part of three years. Calvin had nursed him through to the end. Next full moon, he killed for the first time.

Yoko lit a cigarette and Winter made a face. They were parked on Hargrove Avenue, an affluent neighbourhood made up of large detached properties. Tree-lined and tidy and no cars parked at the kerb, because everyone had a driveway and a double garage.

Up until his retirement in 1994, Calvin’s father had been a dentist with his own practice. Financially, they were comfortable. No mortgage, no debts, a steady income from Fitzgerald Senior’s stock investments. Calvin had inherited everything.

The Fitzgerald house was three-quarters of the way along the street. It stood out because it was the only one that didn’t have an immaculately cut front lawn. The paintwork was in need of a touch-up, too. Yoko guessed these were the sort of details that got pushed to one side when you were busy dying.

‘We’re here to watch,’ she said. ‘Understand?’

‘I understood the first time you said it. And the second time. And the five hundred and sixty-seventh time.’

‘Now you’re exaggerating.’

‘Sit, watch, don’t move. I get it. Genius-level IQ, remember? This isn’t exactly rocket science.’

The radio was tuned to the Prince George’s Sheriff’s Office frequency. A crackle of static, then Charlie Dumas’s excited voice filled the air. ‘We’re good to go. I repeat, we’re good to go.’

Four police cruisers came thundering down Hargrove Avenue and screeched to a halt in front of the Fitzgerald house. A fifth car turned across the street behind them, blocking the road, and a sixth did the same thing at the other end of the street.

Four of the cars had Prince George’s Sheriff’s Office markings. The other two were decorated with the livery of the Anne Arundel Sheriff’s Office.

Charlie Dumas led the charge. Geographical constraints be damned, this was his arrest and no amount of politics was going to stop him having his moment of glory.

Yoko was happy to take a back seat and let him take the credit. The recognition she’d craved earlier didn’t seem important any more, not after what had happened at Alice Harrigan’s apartment. It was going to take a while to process that one.

Dumas reached the front door first and stood aside while a cop broke it down with a battering ram. Yoko counted sixteen cops in all. Guns drawn, they disappeared into the house.

Two minutes later they were out again. The only difference was that there were now seventeen people rather than sixteen. Calvin Fitzgerald was at the front of the procession, walking in front of Dumas. His hands were cuffed behind his back, and the way his head was bowed reminded Yoko of the way his victims had been posed.

She was about to turn around and congratulate Winter when she heard the rattle of the passenger door handle. She reached out to grab his arm, but was too late. The door slammed open, banging all the way back on its hinges, and he was gone. She swore, fumbled the door open, flicked her cigarette away and broke into a run.

He was already ten yards ahead, sprinting for the Fitzgerald house, the distance between them widening all the time. Yoko cursed the fact that her legs were so short, cursed the fact that she smoked. It didn’t matter how hard she ran, the kid was getting further away with every stride. It was like trying to chase down a racehorse.

The cops coming out of the house became aware that something unscripted was happening. Dumas was first to react. He came to a stop and grabbed Calvin’s arm, just in case his prize was tempted to make a run for it.

One by one the cops turned and looked at Winter.

One by one their guns came up.

Yoko didn’t blame them. Winter was running like he had hellhounds snapping at his heels. He looked like a crazy person.

‘Don’t shoot!’ she yelled.

The guns stayed where they were, trained on Winter.

‘Do not shoot!’ She was yelling so loud she could feel her throat ripping.

He was only thirty yards from Dumas and Calvin. The fact that there were fifteen guns pointed at him by a bunch of over-adrenalized cops didn’t seem to be slowing him up any. If anything, he was running harder than ever. He was so focussed on Calvin it was like he hadn’t even noticed the guns.

‘Do not shoot!’ she yelled again. ‘He is not armed and he is not dangerous! I repeat: he is not armed!’

But he is an idiot, she would have added if she’d had the air to get the words out.

A couple of the cops lowered their weapons, but most still had their guns aimed, fingers on the wrong side of the trigger guard. And now they were shouting as well, yelling out a whole load of confusing orders. Shouting for the kid to stop and get down on the ground.

Winter just kept running.

Any second now, the shooting was going to start. Yoko looked over at Dumas with pleas in her eyes. The detective stared back, then glanced at the lunatic kid running towards him.

She knew he’d recognised Winter, and he knew that she knew, so why on all that was holy hadn’t he given the order to stand down? Sure, he hated the kid, but he was a cop. He couldn’t just let them shoot him.

Two more seconds passed, five seconds. Long drawn-out seconds. Yoko stared at Dumas, willing him to the right thing, and the kid just kept running.

‘Lower your weapons,’ Dumas shouted, and the guns went down slowly and uncertainly, one after the other.

Winter came to a stop in front of Calvin Fitzgerald. A couple of seconds later Yoko came to a halt beside him.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ she said between gasps.

He ignored the question. He was staring at Calvin, studying him from head to toe, drinking up every single detail.

‘You could have got yourself killed.’

‘And wouldn’t that have been a tragedy,’ Dumas muttered under his breath.

If Winter heard, he didn’t react. All that mattered to him was Calvin Fitzgerald. He was staring deep into Calvin’s eyes. He studied him for a second longer, then shook his head once and started back to the car.

Yoko offered Dumas an insincere apology, thanked him for not shooting the kid, then hurried after Winter.

‘What the hell was that all about?’ she asked when she caught up with him.

He didn’t answer. He just kept walking, head down, feet heavy, lost in thought. They reached the car and got in and pulled the doors shut tight, locking the outside world away behind steel and glass.

Further up the street, Calvin was being bundled into one of the police cruisers. Thirty seconds later, five of the cop cars drove past, light bars flashing, the displacement of air as they passed rocking them. Only one cruiser was left at the scene, the occupants no doubt tasked with securing the Fitzgerald house.

‘We’re not moving from here until you tell me why you just tried to get yourself killed.’

Winter’s face went tight and he chewed his lip for a second. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

‘Try me. You might be surprised, Jefferson.’

‘You wouldn’t understand,’ he said again.

Yoko tried one more time, but he didn’t respond. He was giving her the silent treatment again, just staring out the windshield, seeing but not seeing.

At that moment, he was the only living soul in a vast and infinite universe. He was lost and alone, and there was no way for Yoko to reach him. He looked like the kid he was, one who’d had to carry more than his share of troubles for far too long.

She almost felt sorry for him.

Yoko had finished one cigarette and was contemplating another when Winter finally spoke. Almost fifteen minutes had passed. Fifteen minutes during which he’d just stared through the windshield, completely zoned out. He hadn’t even complained when she’d lit her cigarette.

‘I think I’d like to go back to College Park. Would you mind driving me there?’

‘Actually, I’ve got a better idea. There’s something I want you to see.’

‘What?’

‘You’ll see.’

He raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘What are you up to?’

This time it was Yoko’s turn to give him the silent treatment.

‘Fine. Don’t tell me.’

She started the car and five minutes later they drove into an industrial park on the outskirts of Jessup.

The units were small and identical and arranged in blocks of eight. The blocks bordered three sides of a large square parking lot, creating a U-shape. The fourth side was open, allowing access to the outside world, and a partial view of Jessup. Each unit had a door, a window and steel shutters.

There was no grass, no landscaped grounds, just a load of grey concrete. The only colour came from the signs advertising the various businesses. Most of the units were taken, but a couple had large ‘For Rent’ signs on the front.

This was the sort of place that attracted entrepreneurs with a little start-up cash and big dreams of becoming the next billionaire. It also attracted people who were more interested in getting out of the rat race and doing something they loved rather than turning a profit.

Calvin Fitzgerald fitted comfortably into the second category. Jim Henson aside, nobody was ever going to become rich from playing with puppets.

‘Professor Poppet’s Puppets’ was housed in a unit at the bottom end of the U. The front was painted with a fairy-tale montage. Among the faces staring out at her, Yoko recognised Snow White, Rapunzel, and Hansel and Gretel.

There were plenty of princesses and damsels in distress, and they all had one thing in common: long blonde hair and bright blue eyes.

She pulled up beside the CSI van and killed the engine. An investigator dressed in a white coverall came out of the unit and Yoko walked over to him. She showed her badge, told him why they were there and asked if he had a couple of spare coveralls.

The investigator went over to the van and returned with two suits. He handed one to Yoko, the other to Winter. They got dressed, Yoko tugging and pulling at the coverall to get comfortable. She hated these damn things, but unfortunately they were a necessary evil. She put on a pair of latex gloves and Winter followed suit.

‘Look but don’t touch,’ he said. ‘Jump when you say jump, breathe when you say breathe.’

‘You got it.’

‘I’m guessing Detective Dumbass doesn’t know you’ve brought me here.’

‘Right now, Detective Dumas has his hands full with Calvin Fitzgerald. I doubt he could care less.’

Winter made an
after-you
gesture and Yoko led the way inside.

The interior of the industrial unit was fifteen yards long by fifteen yards wide, and as bright as an operating theatre. The crime-scene investigators had brought lamps and these flooded the space with brilliant white light.

There were hundreds of puppets hanging from the roof. Princesses and princes, fairy-tale characters, animals of all shapes and sizes. The puppets were in a constant state of movement, stirred by the breeze blowing through the door, and the people moving around them. Limbs and torsos clattered and clacked. Faint shadows danced in the dazzle.

All the puppets were hand made and hand painted. This was more than a labour of love, this was something that had crossed over into obsession. Given what they now knew about Calvin Fitzgerald, that obsession had taken a darker, more dangerous turn when his father died.

Yoko looked more closely and saw that a large number of the female puppets had the same face. They also had blue eyes and blonde hair. Charlie Dumas would no doubt get to the bottom of who this was. She had seen Calvin Fitzgerald for only a few seconds, but he looked like a talker. He would want to explain himself, because he’d want the world to understand. It wouldn’t take much to get to the truth.

Calvin’s workbench took up most of the back wall, and the way it was laid out reminded her of a production line. Six new puppets were being worked on, all at different stages in the process. The puppet at the left end of the bench was more wood than puppet, the details waiting to be chiselled out. The puppet at the opposite end was more or less finished.

Winter walked along the bench, studying each part of the process. He reached the end of the bench and stopped. For a few seconds he just stood there gazing around, thinking. Then he shut his eyes.

Yoko was only vaguely aware of the crime-scene investigators milling around inside the unit. All her attention was focussed on Winter.

This was the real reason she’d brought him here. Yes, she was using him, and yes, she’d probably broken a rule or two by bringing him here, and yes, there was probably even some ethical issue to be considered. But did she care about any of that? Did she hell.

His eyes snapped open and he smiled to himself. He nodded towards the almost-finished puppet at the end of the production line.

‘See anyone you recognise?’ he asked.

‘Sure, it’s another clone of the blue-eyed, blonde-haired cheerleader who broke Calvin’s heart back at high school.’

‘Is it?’

She took a closer look. ‘Shit,’ she whispered. ‘It’s Alice Harrigan.’

Winter reached for the puppet and Yoko almost told him to stop. She glanced over at the CSI investigators. None of them were looking in their direction. Winter tapped the body of the puppet and it made a hollow sound. He turned it over. There was a door in the back. Brass hinges and a brass clasp. He opened it to reveal a hollowed-out space.

Before Yoko could say anything, Winter dropped Alice’s puppet onto the bench. It landed with a clatter. And then he was moving, heading deeper into the workshop, banging puppets out of the way, eyes searching in all directions. She could hear the swish of his coverall, hear the clack of wooden limbs and torsos crashing together.

The crime-scene investigators heard the commotion and their heads snapped up together. They looked at her as if to say,
What the hell?
Then they started moving towards Winter. Yoko was moving, too, pushing her way through the puppets, their limbs caressing and kicking and creeping her out.

One of the CSI guys caught up with Winter, and the kid pushed him away. He changed direction, ran on for a couple of yards then came to a sudden stop. By the time Yoko caught up with him he was surrounded by white-suited investigators. Before anyone could ask what he was doing, Winter ripped down the nearest puppet.

Yoko looked over his shoulder and saw the face of Calvin Fitzgerald’s first victim staring back. The puppet was wearing a miniature pink prom dress that was identical to the dress the victim had been wearing when she was found. The detail was incredible.

Winter tore the dress off and turned it over. Like Alice’s puppet, this one also had a hidden compartment. Winter unhooked the clasp and carefully opened it. The smell of preservative fluid was unmistakable.

Inside the compartment was a jar.

And inside the jar was a human heart.