Devil's Playground (3 page)

“What happened?”

“It was unbelievable,” Rick said, Debbie nodding in agreement. “This truck came out of nowhere, from the bushes on to the highway. I saw it a half a mile away but thought...I don’t know what I thought...maybe that it was on a cross road or underpass or something. By the time it reached our side of the freeway, it was too late. I tried to change lanes, but it seemed to come after us.”

“What do you mean?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know. It was all so fast. It seemed like he was after us. Or somebody.”

“And trying to avoid the truck, you flipped over?”

“Yeah. He took up the entire road, so I tried to slip by on the shoulder but my wheel caught the gravel and...after that we just hung on.”

Debbie began to cry again, burying her face into her husband’s shoulder. He wrapped a protective arm around her.

“Sam.”

She turned to see Rosa peeking around the door.

“Sheriff Walker’s on the phone,” she said. “Line three.”

Sam excused herself and walked to the nurse’s station. She picked up the phone and punched line three’s blinking button. “Yeah, Charlie. What’s up?”

“We IDed the people in the other car. It was John and Connie Beeson.”

The words struck Sam square in the stomach, pushing acid into the back of her throat. Connie Beeson. Her third grade teacher. Her mother’s close friend before her mother had died. The Garrett jury foreman.

After leaving the hospital, Sam had gone home, showered, and crawled into bed, pulling the comforter under her chin. Scooter, the calico cat that had adopted her two years earlier, staked his claim to half of the pillow.

As she lay in the darkness, the sounds of Scooter’s bathing and purring in her ears, she had turned her thoughts to the trial. How would Connie’s death affect it? Surely, Judge Westbrooke wouldn’t start the penalty phase over. He would replace her with one of the alternates and the jury would elect a new foreman and the trial would go on. That made the most sense, seemed the most practical.

And if he didn’t? Another week of trial rather than one more day.

As these thoughts tumbled inside her head, images of her mother, her father, and Connie Beeson assaulted her. Images that brought joy and pain and drew sobs and tears that she released into her pillow.

Connie had been her third grade teacher. More than that, Sam considered her like an aunt, part of the family. Connie and her mom had grown up together, attended school and church together, and been each other’s bride’s maids. Connie had helped Sam weather the death of her father, and years later, had offered rock steady support through her mother’s illness and death. Connie was her last flesh and blood family. Memories and a shoebox of faded photos were all she had to remember her parents. And now, Connie.

After tossing and turning for an hour or two, much to the irritation of Scooter, who flicked his tail in protest, she finally cried herself to sleep at 2:30 am. She awoke several times during the night, but with some difficulty managed to doze again. At 7:30, she dragged herself from bed, dressed, and headed for town.

For the third day in a row, thick gray clouds hung low over the desert, promising rain, but as yet reneging on the deal. They did release a fine mist that peppered the windshield of her Jeep. Not enough that the wipers could be left on without squeaking, but enough so that she had to flip them on and off every thirty seconds. Irritating, given her current state of fatigue.

After picking up coffee at Starbucks for herself and Charlie, she parked in front of the Sheriff’s Department. When she entered Charlie’s office, he was on the phone. She placed the two cups of coffee on the corner of his desk, stripped off her jacket, and dropped into the chair across from him, letting the jacket slide to the floor beside her. Lifting the lid from the paper cup, she blew across the steaming brew, and then carefully took a sip.

“That’s what I hoped you’d say, judge,” Charlie said into the phone. “I’ll talk with you later.” He hung up, a grim smile splitting his weathered face.

“Good news?” Sam asked.

“Judge Westbrooke plans to replace Connie with one of the alternates and proceed with the closing arguments of the penalty phase.”

“Thank, God,” Sam said, raising her cup as if to toast the good news. “I stayed awake half the night afraid we’d have to start all over. The other half I cried over Connie.”

“I know.” Charlie lifted his Stetson, ran his fingers through his thick gray hair, and then reseated the hat. “As if this town hasn’t been through enough already.”

Sam turned in her chair as someone rapped on the open door. Lanny Mills, Chairman of the City Council, stood in the doorway. Thin strands of dull gray-brown hair glued themselves across his bald pate, offering neither style nor substance. Tall and gaunt, he possessed a low, round belly, which except for his gender, made pregnancy a possibility. He wore his usual gray suit and white shirt, which reminded Sam of an unmade bed, rumpled, creased, slept-in.

“Charlie. Sam.” He nodded, his head bobbing above his pencil thin neck. “I heard about Connie and John Beeson.”

“Quite a shock,” Charlie said.

Lanny sucked air between his teeth with an irritating squeak. One of his many annoying habits. “Any idea why that trucker lost control of his rig?” Lanny asked, stepping further into the room. “Was he drinking?”

“Don’t know, yet. But, seemed to me he was,” Charlie said.

Lanny’s small dark eyes darted back and forth between Sam and Charlie. “Either of you patrolling the Interstate last night?”

“You know we weren’t,” Charlie said. “There are only two of us now and I-40 is a pretty low priority until we get some help.”

“When might that be?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. We’ve put in a request a half dozen times, but the county still hasn’t ponied up the money.”

“Too bad.” Lanny rubbed his chin. “Patrolling that stretch of highway brought a lot of money to the city.”

“And the county,” Charlie said.

“Yes, of course. I meant that, too.” He cleared his throat, setting off a vibration in his over-sized Adam’s apple. “I hear the trial is going ahead.”

“Yeah,” Charlie nodded.

“Good. We need to get this behind us. Then all these reporters and those hippies down the street will leave.”

“Anything else I can do for you, Lanny?” Charlie asked.

“Nope.”

“I’ll tell Connie’s family that you inquired about her,” Charlie said. “They’ll be grateful.”

“Thanks.” He bobbed his head again and hurried out the door.

Charlie propped his feet on his desk. “I knew this would drag Lanny out of the woodwork.”

“Guess this means we’ll get a request from the Council to spend more time on I-40.”

“I’ll file it with all the others they send over.” He nudged the trashcan beside his desk with his boot.

“You’d think that after you whacked him in the last three elections he’d give up wanting to play Sheriff.” Sam stood and headed for the door. “I’m going over to the court. Hopefully we can wrap up this Garrett crap today.”

Sam walked the half block to the court building, a one-floor wooden structure that had been the town’s only department store before it went out of business. Now, it housed law offices, the local DMV, and the county court. As she approached, a covey of reporters closed around her, blocking her way. Nathan Klimek took a position at the periphery of the group. Her first impulse was to push forward, but she stopped.

“Deputy Cody,” an ABC reporter shouted. “Was one of the jurors killed last night?”

“Yes. Connie Beeson, a local school teacher, and her husband died in a freeway accident.”

A neatly dressed woman from CNN waved her hand and spoke. “Some of the witnesses said they felt the truck driver was after them, trying to hit them. Is that true?”

“We’re investigating all possibilities.”

“Such as?” the woman asked.

“Maybe alcohol or drugs or both.”

“How will this affect the trial?” shouted another reporter, who sported a beard, one of those lip and chin jobs that wrapped around his mouth like a hairy donut.

“Hopefully, not at all. I guess we’ll find out shortly.”

“Do you think Garrett will get the death penalty?” asked a reporter, wearing a Los Angeles Dodger’s cap.

“That’s up to the jury. And Judge Westbrooke.”

“What do you think?” the reporter continued.

“I think Richard Earl Garrett’s crimes speak for themselves. The butchering of three innocent children would seem to warrant the death penalty. Now, I have to get inside.”

“Deputy Cody,” Nathan said. “Do you think Garrett is possessed by Satan?”

“Mister Klimek, you know how I feel about that. Garrett has a head full of bad wiring, but he’s not Satan’s sidekick. I know that won’t sell papers for you, but that’s the truth.”

She weaved through the throng and entered the building.

*

The cramped courtroom overflowed. Eighty people filled the gallery seats and another two dozen stood along the back wall. Bailiff Hector Romero pulled the doors closed, leaving fifty or so people to mill outside in the hall. Sam sat in the front row, behind the prosecution’s table and the waist-high rail that separated the spectators from the business side of the courtroom. The chamber vibrated with anticipation and low voices.

Hector took his place to the left of the judge’s rostrum near the witness chair. When the door to the judge’s chamber began to ease open, he said, “All rise.”

The murmuring voices waned, replaced by the sounds of shuffling feet as everyone stood. Judge Raymond Westbrooke entered, clad in a black robe. A tall man with graying hair, he possessed a gentle, grandfatherly face that even his grim expression couldn’t mask. He ascended the rostrum, rapped his gavel once, calling the court to order, and took his seat, flanked by United States and California flags.

He grimly told of Connie Beeson’s accident. Gasps and moans rippled through the gallery. Obviously, everyone hadn’t heard the news. Westbrooke banged them into silence with his gavel. He seated one of the four alternate jurors and then gave the floor to Mark Levy, Garrett’s court appointed attorney.

Mark, young, bright, well-dressed in a navy blue suit, white shirt, and red floral tie, gave a clear, if not impassioned, summary of his defense. He closed by telling the jury to “do what you know in your hearts is right.” He then returned to his seat.

“Ms. McFarland,” Westbrooke said. “You may proceed with your final argument.”

Dressed in a pin-striped gray suit and white blouse, prosecutor Lisa McFarland paced back and forth before the jury, speaking in a soft voice, drawing the jurors forward in their seats, forcing them to concentrate on each word. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, in my ten years as a prosecutor, never before have I seen an individual more deserving of the death penalty than the defendant Richard Earl Garrett.”

From her front row seat, Sam scanned the jury of eight men and four women, attempting to read their expressions. Each sat erect, stone-faced, betraying nothing.

“You have seen the evidence in this case: the defendant arrested at the scene, bathed in the victim’s life-blood; his fingerprints on the murder weapon, the candle sticks, and the chalice from which he drank the blood of these children; their small bodies, hearts removed, hanging like sides of beef, left to rot like so much garbage.”

Sam’s eyes slid to her left where the families of the victims sat, pale, drawn, eyes vacant as if in a trance. She felt Lisa’s words slamming into them, driving their pain deeper into their marrow.

Her gaze met the watery eyes of Noreen Waters, young Tommy’s mother. Though neatly dressed, she appeared a mass of frazzled nerves, trembling hands, quaking lips. She offered Sam a thin smile and a nod. Always a lady, Sam thought, and returned her nod. Tears pressed against her eyes, but Sam managed to squeeze them back.

“You heard testimony from the defendant in which he as much as admitted his guilt.” Lisa stood before the jury, hands folded before her chest as if in prayer. “His defense?” She waved her hand toward Garrett. “The devil made him do it. You heard his outlandish tale of being invaded by some evil force that compelled him to ravage these children. That he and the children were mere pawns, sacrificial lambs, in the struggle between good and evil.”

Mrs. Waters clutched her Bible to her chest and sobbed. Her husband Harry wrapped an arm around her, attempting to console the inconsolable. 

“You have heard from two expert psychiatrists who emphatically stated that Richard Earl Garrett is not insane, not crazy, though with the heinous nature of these crimes I know that may be hard for you to believe. How could a sane person kill and mutilate these three beautiful, innocent children?”

Mrs. Waters broke down, releasing her pain and anguish into her lacy handkerchief and Rosary beads. The other two mothers joined her.

Lisa walked to where the families sat, flashed a sympathetic smile, and then turned her gaze to Richard Earl Garrett. Her voice rose and she pointed at the impassive killer. “This man, this animal, knew exactly what he was doing. He planned the abductions, set the sacrificial stage, and performed the sacrifices. He has shown no pity, no remorse, but rather a smug and arrogant satisfaction with his deeds.”

Sam stared at Garrett, who sat quietly, as he had throughout the trial, hands folded on the table before him. At six feet and 180 pounds, he appeared fit and rested as if two months in jail and three weeks of trial had had no effect on him. Everyone else involved in this madness, herself included, appeared worn, haggard, aging by the day. But, Richard Earl Garrett looked as if he had just returned from an extended, relaxing vacation. The only change she detected between when she arrested him and now was a slight salting of his pepper black hair at the temples and a few new wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. Not the graying and wrinkling of age or stress or fatigue, but rather of wisdom, contentment.

He turned as if he had sensed her watching him. As he looked over his shoulder at her, his brown eyes seemed soft, almost kind, but with a malevolent edge. They were the same eyes she had stared into in disbelief two months earlier as she slipped the handcuffs on him.