“I’m sorry. I was…distracted.”
“So, you said you had some new evidence? A video?”
“Yes. It-it’s upstairs. Maybe you can make some sense of it. Because I don’t know what the fuck is going on.”
The two detectives followed her upstairs and into her bedroom.
“Sit down.”
Detective Lassiter took a seat on the bed across from the TV while Torres remained standing. Sarah turned on the television and then started the VCR.
“We installed a security camera this afternoon when we got home. It’s in the smoke detector.”
Sarah watched the detectives’ expressions as the
tape played. She watched them wince and scowl and frown in discomfort as the rape and murder played out on-screen. Their jaws dropped and Detective Lassiter turned to look at her with a dozen questions on her face as, on the TV screen, Sarah’s and Josh’s corpses began to reanimate.
“What the hell?”
“What the fuck is this?” Detective Torres asked. “Is this some kind of CGI shit? This was all bullshit?”
“No! It’s real. I don’t understand it either.”
“Mrs. Lincoln, this isn’t going to work. If you faked some kind of murder scene to set up the neighbor we can’t go along with it,” Detective Torres said.
“I didn’t fake anything!” Sarah shouted.
“I just saw your husband get up and go to work after having his throat slit! And here
you
are standing and talking to us after I watched the nerd next door stab you to death. How do you expect us to take this to a jury?” Torres was livid.
Sarah shook her head.
“How the fuck should I know? You’re the cops. I have this piece of shit on tape raping and killing me and my husband and I expect you to do something about it!”
“But you’re not dead!” Detective Torres shouted.
“But I was raped! Here’s the fucking evidence. Now do your damn job!”
“Mrs. Lincoln—”
“Sarah. I told you, call me Sarah.”
“Okay, Sarah. We can’t do anything with this tape. A defense attorney would tear us apart. And what do you think would happen if a jury saw you pop up out of the bed after being stabbed in the chest? They’d think it was all special effects or CGI.”
“Then don’t show them the whole film. Just show them the rape and the murder until we figure out how he did whatever the hell he did to us.”
Detective Torres shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
Detective Lassiter began to speak and then paused. She looked up at the ceiling and then around the room, then back at Sarah.
“We could. We could try to use it to get a confession. We could use it to get a warrant for his arrest and a search warrant for his home.”
“Trina, we would be willfully tampering with evidence,” Torres said.
“Not really. I’m not saying we erase the rest. We just don’t show them the rest. We stop the tape right after the murders.”
There was a long silence while everyone in the room considered the possibilities. Detective Lassiter spoke up first.
“You swear that this tape isn’t a forgery? You didn’t fabricate this or alter it in any way? You swear this is real?”
“I wouldn’t even know how to fake something like this. I don’t know who would outside of Hollywood.”
Detective Lassiter held up her hand to silence her and Sarah stopped talking and tapped her foot impatiently. She felt like she were back in grade school being chastised by one of the Catholic school nuns.
“Fuck all of that. That’s not what I asked you. I want to hear you swear it to me. Swear that the whole thing went down just like you said it did.”
“I swear.”
Detective Lassiter took a deep breath and then ran
her hand over her forehead. She looked at the floor and then up at the ceiling and then let out all the air in her lungs in one long, exhausted exhalation. Sarah was afraid the woman was going to call bullshit on the whole thing and just walk right out the door. Sarah had gotten visual proof of what she had been saying the whole time and still the story was no more believable. It still made no sense at all.
“Okay. Then we do it. I’ll go talk to the judge. Torres, you get some black-and-whites across the street and arrest that piece of shit.”
Detective Lassiter stood up from the bed and both Sarah and Torres gasped. Where the detective had been sitting, blood had soaked through the sheets leaving a perfect impression of both butt cheeks. The detective’s entire backside was wet with blood.
“What the fuck?”
“I guess we have what we need to get the CSU over here now.”
“Shit. These are my favorite pants.”
Detective Torres smiled. “And now they’re evidence.”
“Shit,” Detective Lassiter repeated.
Sarah was still staring at the bloodstain. Somehow, it was more real and terrifying than the video. Because that puddle of red made the images on the tape undeniable.
“Why don’t you try calling your husband again. Have him meet us down at the station. We’re going to need statements from both of you. I would suggest that you both try to remember as much as you can.”
Sarah’s hands trembled as she picked up the cell phone. She was still staring at that big red ass-print in
the sheets. Her fingers were just about to punch in Josh’s number when the phone began to vibrate, startling her and causing her to drop the phone. It continued to vibrate as Sarah stood above it just staring at it. Finally, she reached down and picked it up on its final ring.
“Josh?”
“What’s going on? Are you all right?”
“The detectives are here. I’m fine. He was in the house again. While we were both sleeping. He broke in and he raped me again. It’s all on tape.”
There was a pause.
“Have the detectives seen the tape?”
She knew that he was looking for some sort of corroboration. He wanted them to verify her story for him.
“Yes. They’ve seen it. Josh?”
“Yes?”
“He did things to you too.”
She hadn’t intended on saying anything. She didn’t want him thinking about it as he drove home. She didn’t want him to be distracted and drive too fast and get into an accident. She didn’t want him playing scenes over in his head, each one more terrible than the previous one, trying to imagine what “things” Dale had done to him. But she didn’t want him discovering what had happened for the first time surrounded by cops, watching him getting raped by that fucking emaciated geek.
Josh’s voice sounded weak and unnaturally soft and timid.
“What things? How could he have done anything to me without waking me up? How could he have done anything to either of us? Did he drug us like we thought.”
“No. We were both awake.”
“Awake? How is that possible.”
“You need to see the tape. He killed us. Both of us. And then he…I don’t know what he did. He brought us back somehow.”
“Brought us back?”
“Just meet us at the station. I’m headed there with the detectives right now. They’re going to need a statement from both of us.”
“Let me speak to the detectives.”
Sarah handed the phone to Detective Lassiter.
“Hello, Mr. Lincoln.”
“What the hell is going on?”
“I have no clue. All I know is that I have a tape showing a multiple rape and murder and I am going across the street to arrest your neighbor and I need you to come down to the station to give a report.”
“Did you say multiple rape?”
“Mr. Lincoln, just meet us down at the station. There’s really nothing I can tell you right now. You’re going to have to see it for yourself. None of this makes sense to me.”
Detective Torres was on the radio calling for backup while Detective Lassiter was talking to the assistant DA trying to get a warrant for Dale’s arrest.
“I’m going to arrest him on probable cause but it would be nice to have a warrant to back me up. We’ve got him on tape committing two rapes along with two counts of attempted murder.”
Sarah was barely listening to the detective’s heated exchange with the assistant district attorney. She was too busy trying to imagine what must be going through Josh’s mind. She tried to imagine how he would react to seeing what Dale had done to him. All
she could think about was Josh beating the hell out of those two guys in the parking garage and then him storming out of the bedroom with the nine-millimeter in his hands.
Sarah watched Dale through the twoway mirror. He looked so small as he sat at the metal table across from Detective Torres. The detective didn’t say a word to him, he just sat there staring at him. Dale had asked for his lawyer immediately after being arrested so they couldn’t talk to him until his lawyer arrived. What they could do is make him as uncomfortable as possible.
Detective Torres scowled at him and shook his head. Then he hissed and looked Dale over from head to toe, sneering in disapproval. He stood up and walked around the table glaring down at Dale, then stood behind him and lit a cigarette.
Dale’s discomfort was written all over his face. He was twitching and fidgeting, clearly anxious to speak to the detective and explain himself or flee from the man’s presence. He kept looking over his shoulder to try to catch sight of Torres as if he was afraid the man was preparing to attack him. When his lawyer stormed into the room, he let out a huge sigh of relief.
“Look at that piece of shit,” Detective Lassiter said as she stood beside Sarah, watching through the two-way mirror as Dale began to smirk and grin. “Don’t worry, we’re going to break him.”
Sarah nodded, still staring at Dale as he began to
look more and more arrogant and confident now that his lawyer was present. Sarah wasn’t so sure that Dale was the type to break easy. There was something about him that appeared so deeply twisted and disturbed that it made it feel as if her skin were trying to crawl off her.
Dale’s attorney was a portly Italian man in his midfifties with hair plugs, a dye job, and an expensive Italian suit that looked like Armani. The man looked like a mafioso, gold pinkie ring and all. His eyes were hard and aloof. He walked past Detective Torres and plopped down in the chair the detective had previously occupied and slammed his briefcase down on the table. He looked expensive. Sarah wondered how in the hell Dale could afford him.
“I’d better get in there. Are you going to be okay by yourself for a minute? You can wait at my desk.”
“I-I want to see. Do you mind if I stay here? Until Josh gets here?”
The detective looked at her, then looked back into the room where Dale was leaning back in the metal chair, smiling confidently.
“Okay, but be quiet and don’t leave this room. The assistant DA will be here soon.”
She left Sarah and walked into the room to join Detective Torres. She walked over to Dale’s lawyer and stuck out her hand.
“I’m Detective Lassiter.”
“Raul Severino. So, what are we here for?”
“Your client here is being charged with rape and attempted murder. We’ve got him on tape assaulting the couple who lives across the street from him. He broke into their home, knocked them both unconscious with
a hammer, raped the wife and sodomized her husband, then slit his throat and stabbed her in the chest.”
Sarah watched the attorney’s face for a reaction. He raised his eyebrow slightly and grimaced but that was it.
“You say you have all of this on tape?”
“All of it.”
“So, let’s see the tape.”
Detective Lassiter turned to her partner, who left the room, then came back minutes later pushing a TV and VCR on a cart. He plugged them both into the wall directly across from the mirror and turned them on. Then he popped in the tape. Just as the tape began to play, Josh walked into the room with Sarah followed by a young Asian woman in a tan suit who Sarah guessed was the assistant DA. Josh looked miserable. He had obviously been thinking about what Sarah had told him was on that tape during his entire drive to the station.
“What’s going on, Sarah?”
“They’re about to play the tape.”
“I’m Assistant District Attorney Patricia Yu.”
“Hello, Ms. Yu.” Sarah shook the woman’s hand and then turned back to watch the TV in the other room.
Once again, Sarah watched as Dale struck her over the head with a hammer and then attacked her husband, clubbing him repeatedly with the hammer and cracking Josh’s skull. She turned to look at Josh as the tape played. It was obvious that he was having a hard time watching it.
“How? How can I not remember this?”
Sarah took his hand.
“Just watch. It gets worse. Much worse.”
Josh met Sarah’s eyes and it was obvious he didn’t want to look away from her, didn’t want to see the rest of the tape.
The tape played, revealing Dale as he bound their wrists and ankles and then as he raped her and then Josh, and finally ending with him slitting Josh’s throat and stabbing the knife into Sarah’s chest.
“No.”
Josh turned to Sarah with a look of shock and confusion. His face was pleading with Sarah for answers and she felt helpless and guilty because she had none to offer and somehow felt that she should have. Josh turned back to finish watching the tape.
“That sick fucking…” Josh’s teeth were clenched tight and his jaw muscles bulged as if he were trying to bite through something particularly tough. His hands were balled into fists and his shoulders were hunched. Veins and cords bulged in his forearms and biceps.
Detective Torres turned off the tape. Josh had turned red and his body was literally vibrating with hatred flowing through his blood like an electrical current. Sarah could almost feel her husband’s rage boiling in the room, raising the heat and humidity, a storm cloud crackling with fury. His lip had curled up into a snarl. His eyebrows were furrowed and his nostrils flared. She was concerned that he was going to have a nervous breakdown right there on the spot.
Josh continued staring at the TV long after the screen had gone black and Sarah continued staring at Josh. She put her arm around him and Josh pulled away, still staring at the screen. Gradually, his eyes drifted over to Dale and the rage that sparked in them was murderous. Sarah could see Josh breathing hard as
he struggled to hold in his emotions like a drowning man trying to hold in his last gulps of oxygen before being sucked underwater. His eyes welled with tears even as he continued to bare his teeth in an angry grimace. Sarah was fairly certain that had Dale been in the same room with them there would not have been enough cops in the station to keep Josh off him. Even now, Sarah was worried that Josh was going to burst through the mirror and go after him.