Of Guilt and Innocence (16 page)

When he met Anne, he had not yet begun reviewing files again looking for his next victim. Maybe he was being anxious in choosing her, one of his own patients. Maybe he was being lazy. Or maybe she truly had spoken to his subconscious and she stood out for a reason. Maybe fate really was crying out for her to be his next victim. Now he felt like he was ready again.

The rest of the day, while at work, Carlos remained in his office. He had no patients scheduled to be seen, despite what he had told Anne, and so he kept the door closed and went over his game plan, again and again. It was precise, it would work, he was sure of it. He would only make one change from his dry run two evenings ago. He would take the bus to the same location, yet he would turn onto the street before J Street so he could come up J Street from the opposite side. He did not want to pass the drug house twice. The more he thought about his interaction with them during his dry run, the more he feared they would be able to put together what he had done. Even though they couldn't identify who he truly was, perhaps someone would have remembered his car from when he drove Anne home.  Perhaps the police would discover it belonged to him and begin to show his picture around the neighborhood. It was just too much of a risk. If he was spotted by them and approached he still felt good about being able to get past them without issue, he just preferred to avoid the interaction if he could help it. He knew this change was a gamble having not checked out the other street completely, but he had a good feeling the evening would play out exactly as he planned.  

Carlos returned home from work around five-thirty as he usually did.

Julia had been home all day lounging around the house. She had slept until noon and she was just now showered and dressed nicely.

“Hello, my love,” he said as he spotted her on his way down the hall.

Julia looked at him for a second then looked back down at the magazine she was reading.

“Hey,” she said back unenthusiastically.  

“I am sorry, my dear, I have to be the on-call surgeon tonight so I am going into the office around eight.” Carlos had used this excuse before. Julia never questioned it and so he continued to use it, assuming she didn't know he was never on-call with the hospital because he technically was not employed by them. The truth was, Julia didn't care one way or another and never really considered it.

Julia's mind began to race upon hearing the news that she had the entire evening to do as she pleased. It was a Monday, and she was hesitant to go out on the town because she feared it would be a waste of her time. She certainly did not want to sit at home alone, however, so she considered her other options. She stood up and walked into the kitchen, where Carlos stood drinking a bottle of water. Their eyes met. She did not really want to speak with him, she just needed to know his location in the house as she had lost track after he walked in and told her of his upcoming absence. Now she was on the spot, in an awkward situation and she knew he would soon be on his way up the stairs and into the bedroom to change his clothes. “I am really in the mood for pizza tonight, what about you?” She said almost seductively, a far cry from her cold and uninterested greeting to him.

“Sure, I could go for some pizza, where did you want it from?”

“Sal's. Would you mind getting it now if I called it in? Please?” She looked into his eyes and smiled for the first time.

“Of course, my dear,” he said and walked back out the door. Julia quickly picked up her cell phone off the kitchen counter and called in an order at Sal's Pizzeria for a cheese and pepperoni pizza, then ran upstairs. She reached the bedroom and opened a drawer on her nightstand. She moved some magazines and books out of the way and pulled out a small key. She shut the drawer and entered her large, walk-in closet. In the back of her closet she had several jewelry boxes, some with small locks. She unlocked one of the jewelry boxes and pulled out a different, smaller cell phone and powered it on. She had three voice mail messages that she checked. Two were from a man she had met while out Friday evening and had given her number to. The other was from a wealthy, older man whom she regularly met up with when he came to town. He would take her out for dinner and drinks and the two would stay in a lavish hotel. He told her he would be in town the following weekend and for her to call him when she got the message.  

Julia had developed a system over the years for keeping her extramarital affairs a secret. She had her main cell phone number, which she used regularly and Carlos knew about. She also had a disposable, pay-as-you-go cell phone she had purchased using cash at a local convenience store.  Every month she would purchase phone cards to use from different convenience stores, and always with cash.

She didn't really know why she went to such great lengths to keep her affairs a secret from Carlos. She had no love for him, they had no children, and she had signed no prenuptial agreement prior to their marriage, so in the event of a divorce she would get half of everything anyway. She often questioned it aloud to herself when she would have to painstakingly hide any traces of her secret life. He had never given her any reason to think he was a violent man, but she feared something else.  

She had grown so accustomed to doing what she wanted when she wanted and not having to work for it. She knew that the money she would get in any divorce settlement would not be enough for her to sustain her current lifestyle, and if she were to marry or date any of the wealthy men she had had affairs with or would meet after a divorce she would never be able to get away with what she got away with now. She had the perfect situation with Carlos, and she did not want to give it up.

She realized, as she pondered her evenings plans, that she had not seen her current boyfriend in almost a week, so she dialed him. She left a message on his voicemail for him to call her and stop over that evening. She instructed him to leave her a voicemail message and that she would be able to check it around eight p.m. She shut off the phone and locked it back up, then went back downstairs.  

She had been seeing her boyfriend for a while now, but she wasn't enamored with him, and she used the term boyfriend very loosely. She had been with wealthier guys and more handsome guys, but for some reason she stayed with him. He knew her situation, most of it anyway. He knew she was married and he didn't have a problem sneaking around. He did not know, however, that she was also seeing other men when she wasn't with him or her husband.

Carlos returned home with pizza and the two ate and made small talk as they watched television. After eating his dinner, Carlos began preparing for his big night. He got changed into a pair of dark dress slacks and a light blue long sleeve dress shirt. He put on his designer watch and black Italian leather loafers, kissed Julia goodbye, and walked out the door. The rest of his disguise was in the car already. His dark blue New York Yankees baseball cap sat on top of a black leather jacket in his backseat and his fake mustache was in the glove box, though he did not plan to use it tonight. Latex surgical gloves also were in the glove box, and those he would use. Lastly, his most important tool, a wadded up pair of women's pantyhose sat under his seat.  

He drove to the grocery store and boarded the bus. Night was falling and the anticipation was building. He finally reached his destination and stepped into the night. He took a deep breath. This was it.  

He instituted the change to his original plan and turned down K Street. He soon discovered that K Street was not much better than J Street in terms of residents, but he managed to get down it without a problem. After two quick left turns he was on J Street heading toward Anne's house. Not a soul was outside as he crept in the shadows, no one except for the drug house's occupants. He couldn't see them as he walked, but he could hear them. They were loud and boisterous. He could hear two different female voices and two male voices, one of which he recognized: the voice of the drug dealer with dreadlocks who had confronted him. He tried to stay concealed in the darkness and was soon standing in front of Anne's house. He saw the car in the driveway, and through the window in the top of the garage he could see a light was on, just as it had been when he did his stakeout. He put on his gloves and rang the doorbell. He could hear some commotion inside and a faint voice asking who was there. Footsteps got louder and he could hear someone press up against the door and look through the peephole. “Dr. Hernandez?”  He heard in a quizzical tone.

“Yes, Anne, it is me. I was supposed to give you medication this morning to take pre-op and forgot. I just remembered and it is very important you begin taking this medication right away. May I come in and give you the prescription?” Even Carlos was surprised by how convincing he sounded. He heard a door chain unlatch and a deadbolt turn. The door opened up and there was Anne in a nightgown.

“I'm not decent for company, so you can't stay long,” she scolded, though she was touched by his kindness in coming all that way just to give her a prescription. Carlos stepped in and Anne shut the door behind him.

The front entrance opened up into the living room where an old couch and recliner sat in front of a small television. The room was dimly lit, the glow of a light from the kitchen and a small lamp sitting on an end table near the couch the only sources of luminosity.

“Good Lord, why are you wearing a jacket?” she asked, but didn't really wait for an answer. “Let me get my glasses,” she said as she turned her back and slowly moved to retrieve her eyeglasses from the end table. She leaned over to pick them up but something stopped her from reaching them. Her mind couldn't process what the problem was quickly enough. She struggled to breathe. Her hands reached up instinctively to her throat where she felt something wrapped around her neck. She was suddenly pulled upward and back. She gasped for air and frantically clutched at her throat. Her eyes grew heavy. She lowered her hands and let them dangle.

It was over. Death had come quickly for Anne, whereas her life since the passing of her husband so many years ago seemed to drag on with no relief in sight. Now her suffering was over.

Carlos slowly lowered Anne's body to the ground. She lay face down on the living room floor as he carefully removed the pantyhose from her neck.

This particular killing was a messy one with Anne being only clad in a worn out night gown and underwear. He had to take care not to step in the bodily fluids that soaked the carpet floor. He noticed the staircase to his left. When he reached the top he saw three doors, all closed. He knew Anne's son could enter the home at any time and this left him extremely vulnerable. He hurriedly opened one of the doors and found a bedroom. He opened the next and saw a modest bathroom. He entered, opened the medicine cabinet, and grabbed one of the little orange pill bottles with Anne's name on it, then hurried back down the stairs.

He peered out the window near the door and saw no one, so he felt it safe to exit the house. The door was left unlocked, as were all his exit points for every murder he had committed. He usually preferred to use a backdoor exit, but he knew Anne's son could possibly see him if he did, so he had no choice but to use the front. He quickly removed his gloves and placed them back in his jacket pocket. He froze as he stood in the darkness in front of Anne's house. It seemed as if the occupants on the porch of the drug house had not seen or heard him leave.

He again felt a small rush of anxiety and fear in going back down a small residential side street that he had not scoped out. He felt vulnerable that he did not have a sense of what the street's occupants were like and was concerned he would be seen and remembered as being out of place. He was, after all, wearing a leather jacket in seventy-five degree heat. He also could be spotted and run down by any of the street thugs from the drug house as he walked away. Luckily, it seemed he was able to avoid detection—at least he felt confident he was—and he made it back to the bus stop.

As he waited for the bus he could finally relax and reflect. He smiled as he relived every second. It was smoother than he had even hoped it would be; and a lot quicker. He remembered his conversation with Anne in his office earlier that day, her voice saying she didn't know how much time she had left. He thought back to himself as he stood there and listened to her and that he knew as she was saying it that her time was more limited than she realized. And that now she had no time left. Her time had expired at his hands. Carlos felt powerful, like a god. He had not had these feelings since before his father had passed away and he now remembered how much he needed them. He would not wait very long to feel this way again once it wore off.  

 

Julia sat on the couch with her disposable cell phone in her hands. She had no voicemail message from her boyfriend. She had tried to call him again but she was once again transferred straight to his voicemail. She became frustrated. Not because she missed him or wanted to see him badly, but because she despised being bored and always wanted to be entertained. She called Vikki but Vikki was working and couldn't talk. Finally, she called back and arranged to meet the man she had met Saturday night who had left her two messages.

 

Carlos always kept a clean set of clothes in his office that he could change into after he arrived there on evenings like this one. He would change into the clean set of clothes, which were generally dress pants and a long sleeve button down shirt, and dispose of the clothes he had worn to commit the murder. This time he also had a pair of shoes waiting for him at the office as he had planned to also dispose of the shoes and watch he had not only worn while taking Anne's life, but that had been identified by the drug dealer who had confronted him during his stakeout.  

After getting changed, Carlos settled into his office for the remainder of the night. He did not like to go home after he had completed his plan; he was afraid he would somehow bring traces of his crime with him. He felt even if he did so at work he would be able to explain it better as it was a medical office and, in this instance, Anne had been a patient there. Another reason he had decided not to go home was because he did not want Julia to discover he was wearing a different set of clothes than what he had left in.