Pure Hate (16 page)

Immediately after he was dropped off at the
police station, Baltimore decided to double back for one more shot at Mr.
Cozen. He knew he’d blown it earlier and, if he didn’t get to him tonight, there’d
no doubt be a restraining order against him by the morning. Before he drove
back to Reed’s house, he made one more call to the Cozen’s marriage counselor,
a psychiatrist named Doctor Elliot Berkowitz.

Baltimore spent nearly half an hour
negotiating his way through the doctor’s tedious message system before he
finally managed to speak to his equally tedious receptionist. His lips were
nearly exhausted from kissing the secretary’s ass by the time he spoke to Dr.
Berkowitz.

The doctor’s responses were predictably guarded.
Over and over, the doctor reiterated his stance; even in capital crimes
doctor/patient privilege still applied. But Baltimore was persistent. In a last
ditch effort, Baltimore described the condition of Jennie Cozen’s body.

“Her attacker stabbed the knife in so deep that
it went straight through her. Her ribcage was bisected. She was cut from her
collarbone down to her pelvic bone, stabbed half a dozen times with a bowie
knife nearly as big as her. He nearly split her in half. And she was alive
through all of it. Can you imagine what that must have felt like? How terrified
that little girl must have been? How much agony she must have been in?”

The doctor’s voice choked with
emotion.

“Stop. That’s enough.”

“Then help me, doc. I need your
help.”

“Talk to the babysitter.”

He hung up before Baltimore could ask another
question or thank him. Baltimore already had the girl’s name and address in his
notebook. He decided not to bother with a phone call and drove to the girl’s
house instead. The house was just around the corner from where the Cozens
lived, on an identical cul-de-sac, in a nearly identical home.

Every new home development was filled
with cul-de-sacs. It made them all mazes that were impossible to navigate
without a GPS. Even with his Garmin, Baltimore got lost twice before he found
the babysitter’s modest single-story home, tucked at the end of yet another
dead-end street.

The girl’s father opened the door,
looking tired and weak in the way middle-class people who overworked themselves
in pursuit of wealth tended to look—world weary from the hours of overtime,
the endless days of plotting and scheming, the mad, back-stabbing, cut-throat,
free-for-all scramble up the corporate ladder, all for the sake of the next
promotion, the elusive six-figure salary and the newer, bigger, custom-built
house. Suburbanites worked harder to escape the middle-class than poor folks
worked to escape the ghetto. The babysitter’s father had the $50,000 BMW, the
$22,000 Ford mini-van, $160,000 cracker box house and a wife with a dependency
on cosmetic surgery and Xanax.

Keeping up with the Jones’ had become
their religion. The guy probably made a $70,000 a year income and carried
$100,000 in debt. Detective Baltimore stared nakedly at the man’s painful-looking
hair plugs and his wife’s tight, shiny skin. Her face was a mask of fine smooth
scar tissue like the skin grafts on burn victims, almost plastic. Her breasts
were ridiculously round like scoops of ice cream and spaced too far apart. He
could probably fit his entire foot between her breasts and not touch either of
them. They looked about as natural as wax fruit.

Detective Baltimore stifled his urge to slap both
of them and shake them until they woke up. Instead, he introduced himself,
flashed them his badge, and asked to see Crissy.

“Homicide? But . . . what?”

“She’s not in any trouble. I just want to ask her
some questions about Mr. Cozen.”

“Oh, that sick bastard.”

“John!” Mrs. Green looked suddenly embarrassed.

“That sonuvabitch molested our little girl!” John
Green was turning red. Anger flashed in his eyes and then all of a sudden it
snuffed out and he just looked tired.

“Is this true?”

“Well, yes and no.” Mrs. Evelyn Green spoke up.
Her voice was low and husky, and she dragged out her words as she spoke like a
phone sex operator. She was in her forties, but looked less like a housewife
and more like a madam for a high-class whorehouse. She was what’s known as a
MILF or a cougar. She was a little
too
coy and sexual, and the way she
stared directly into Baltimore’s eyes when she spoke and then looked away
smiling was unnerving. She seemed to be flirting almost unconsciously, like a
woman who hasn’t been fucked in awhile and needs it more than even she is
willing to admit.

“What do you mean, yes and no?”

“I mean that Crissy is a little . . .” she paused
and looked away, smiling demurely. When she turned back to Baltimore, she
stared deep into his icy blue eyes as if challenging him. “She’s a little fast.
She wasn’t a virgin before Mr. Cozen and she kind of made it clear to us that
she seduced him.”

I wonder where she got that from?
Baltimore wondered, trying hard not to stare at Mrs. Green’s unnaturally large
breasts, squeezed into a T-shirt obviously purchased for the way they
accentuated the plastic surgeon’s handy-work. Her large dark nipples poked
shamelessly through the fabric. She smiled when she noticed him staring at them,
then seemed to wave them at him, shaking them so they jiggled ever so slightly.
It could’ve been accidental but he doubted it.

“That’s why we didn’t press charges. It’s bad
enough with the reputation she already has. But seducing a man twice her age?
What school could we send her to once that got out?”

Mr. Green flopped down in his chair and dropped
his head down into his hands.

“Little slut,” he moaned. Baltimore
talked with the girl’s mother and father for nearly twenty minutes before
spending another torturous half-hour with an emotional sixteen-year old girl
who cursed Mr. Cozen out of one side of her mouth while declaring her love for
him out of the other. Detective Baltimore was shaken and angry when he left the
Green’s house; the little girl had tried to flirt with him, too. Crissy
interrupted him midway through his questioning to ask him if he was as good in
bed as he looked. He had to restrain himself from slapping the shit out of her.
He called the parents into the room to make sure she didn’t try anything with
him that could get him thrown into jail. Once Mr. and Mrs. Green were in the
room, she’d gone into graphic descriptions of her “love affair” with Mr. Cozen,
delighting in the shock and discomfort on her parents’ faces. When Baltimore
left the girl’s home, he felt like puking. Crissy definitely had problems, but
Reed had still taken advantage of her.

Baltimore pulled himself together,
shaking off his anger and revulsion, reminding himself that this was probably
his last shot at Reed. He had tried the full frontal assault and that was
unsuccessful, so now he figured maybe he could sweet talk the man. After all,
his lips were already in practice from Doctor Berkowitz’s receptionist. Why let
his newly acquired ass-kissing skills go to waste?

“Go away, Detective. I have nothing to say to
you. Now get off my property!”

Detective Baltimore stood on the porch, ringing
the doorbell, but Reed refused to open the door. Baltimore resisted the urge to
kick it in.

“Look, Mr. Cozen. I just wanted to
apologize for upsetting you earlier. I was completely out of line and I am
sorry if I caused you any inconvenience.”

“Okay, so you’ve apologized. Now go!”

“I know you’re upset, but Malcolm is out there
killing people and we’ve got no clue to his whereabouts. Something you know
just might lead us to him. You’ve got to help us, Mr. Cozen.”

Baltimore was getting better and better at
begging for help.

“Detective, I’m on the phone with my lawyer. If
you don’t get off my porch right now, I swear I’ll have your badge!”

“Please, Mr. Cozen. What if Malcolm takes another
family tonight and something you know could’ve stopped him? Could you live with
that? Because I swear, restraining order or not, if that happens, I will never
leave you alone. I don’t care if you’re involved or not, guilty or not. Once I
tell a jury about those allegations of child molestation and I get the little
girl up the street to talk about your little love affair, you’ll be lucky to
get life without parole.”

“Please Detective, just go away.”

“Just answer a few more questions and tomorrow
I’m out of your life for good . . . well, at least until the trial.”

“Ha! You think you’re gonna get Malcolm to stand
trial? If you don’t kill him the second you see him, he’ll definitely kill
you.”

Baltimore smirked.

“Listen, I think that you having sex with your
babysitter is just plain sick, but since the parents don’t want to press
charges, and it doesn’t have any bearing on my investigation, I really don’t
care. But if it turns out that you know something that you’re not telling me,
I’ll use this little incident to bury you.”

Reed finally opened the door. Baltimore’ smile
widened.

“Okay Detective, you win. What do you want me to
tell you?”

Baltimore stepped through the door and withdrew a
pen and pad.

“Well, first off I want you to convince me that
you had nothing to do with your family’s murder.”

“Jesus Christ, Detective! If I was working with
Malcolm would I be so eager for you to catch him?”

Baltimore nodded and raised an eyebrow.

“Well, actually you seem more eager for me to
kill him than to catch him . . .”

“I just want you to stop him before he kills me
and the only way you’re gonna stop him is to shoot on sight. If you think I’m
lying and just trying to get Malcolm killed so he can’t implicate me, then go
ahead and try and take him alive. I’ll make sure to come to your funeral.”

“Is this supposed to be convincing me?”

“Look Detective, sure I fucked up by
sleeping with Crissy. I fucked up my marriage, my reputation. But my wife and I
were putting it all back together. She was sticking by me. I talked it over
with the girl’s family. They weren’t gonna press charges. Everything was gonna
be all right. So why would I want my family dead? And why would Malcolm help me
if I did? Even if you don’t believe that I loved my family, you know enough
about Malcolm to know that he hates me. Why would he do me any favors?”

Baltimore was visibly annoyed at Reed’s logic.
But he couldn’t deny it either. He was starting to believe the man.

“Okay, then the next thing is . . .”

Detective Baltimore leaned forward, looking
deeply into Reed’s eyes. He was still looking for the guilt he’d seen there
before, but now all he saw was fear and profound sadness. The man was scared
half to death.

“Where do you think I can find Malcolm?”

“I told you, I have no idea where he is. I hadn’t
seen him in fifteen years before he showed up on my doorstep. “

“But he’s been watching you. He’s been right
there with you for the last fifteen years.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mr. Cozen, when did you and your wife get
married? Or rather, when did you first get serious? When did you two move in
together?”

“I don’t remember the exact date. It was back in
2000. In February, I think. We got married in June.”

“The Chaperone killings began in July of 2000.
And when was Jennie born?”

“Um . . . January seventeenth, 2001.”

“The same year the Family Man killings began.
Your life is the pattern. When you were single, he stalked single guys. You get
married, he switches to couples, and even more telling, the attacks become more
sadistic. Most of the violence is now aimed at the woman as if Malcolm was
punishing them for being with their husbands and boyfriends. That’s why we
started calling the killer the Chaperone, because it seemed like he was
punishing the couples for some moral indiscretion. But now, it’s obvious that
the increased violence was due to jealousy. Malcolm wanted you all to himself.
That’s why we never made the connection between the Pine Street Slasher and the
Chaperone. The women didn’t fit the pattern. A guy stalks gay men and then
suddenly switches to couples and starts raping and mutilating the women? It
didn’t fit. But, if he was rehearsing you and your wife’s murder, it fits.”

“You know, it slipped my mind before now, but
that’s how he put it to me. He said that the other killings were practice
runs.”

Baltimore scribbled a note in his
pad.

“See, that makes sense. You start a family and he
starts killing families. That explains the children. We could never understand
why he killed the kids, but that explains it. He was patterning his killing
spree after you.”

Reed went silent for a second and his eyes glazed
with a far off look that Baltimore recognized as horror and resignation.

“So, then he definitely won’t stop until I’m
dead. My death completes the pattern.”

Baltimore said nothing.

“Did you check his Mom’s house?”

“We’ve got round the clock surveillance on Mrs.
Davis. And Malcolm definitely isn’t there.”

“If Rick is still around, he might go to his
house.”

“Who’s Rick?”

“He’s mini-Malcolm, another little psychopath who
used to hang around with Malcolm because he got off on violence. I would have
expected him to be Malcolm’s accomplice in this. They grew up in the same
neighborhood, just a few blocks from one another. Rick wasn’t that bright,
though, and he had severe anger management problems. He might be in prison already
or dead.

He was extremely vicious and would fly into a
rage without provocation but he was just a little guy, a few inches shorter
than I was. About 5’5”, 5’6”, only one-hundred-twenty, one-hundred-thiry
pounds. He had wet dreams about being as big as Malcolm. The rest of us had
nightmares about him getting that big. A stupid, out of control Malcolm who
could flip out on anyone for any reason was about the worst thing I could’ve
imagined.”