Sleepwalker (23 page)

Pushed opened the door.

The foul smell hit him first, long before he staggered in disbelief at the shocking sight before him: Samantha, fully naked, sitting on the floor amidst her own waste, leaning crookedly with her back against the tub. Her legs were spread-eagled before her, inch-thick ropes securing her ankles, one leading away to the toilet where it circled the tank a half-dozen times, the other advancing to an unseen point in the stall behind the shower curtain. There were ropes knotted madly about her wrists too, leading up and over the shower curtain bar, pulling her arms so tautly above her head that her shoulder bones jutted from her armpits in a dislocation nightmare. A
squarish
object had been lodged in her mouth, a block of cheddar cheese it appeared, fitfully secured with a nylon stocking tied around her jaw and neck. A large maxi-pad covered her eyes, held in place with at least a half-dozen swaths of duct tape wrapped around her bald head. A blonde wig lay in the mess of urine and feces on the floor.

Her head bobbed slightly, a slight groan emanating from vocal chords clearly damaged, evident by thick purple bruises on her throat.

“My God, Samantha...” Richard stepped forward, his legs turning to jelly. He nearly fell, slipping on the wet floor.

Richard wished that he still had the knife in his hand, at first thinking he could use it to cut her binds, then realizing he would need it to protect himself from the hideous beast that committed this intemperate act.

Too late for regrets.

He caught sight of the gloved hand a split second before the shower curtain flew open. The man in black appeared in full gear, masked from head to toe. He roared, startling Richard, then laughed out loud, brandishing a knife from the set on the living room floor, its bloodied blade reflecting the pallid light from the lamp above the sink. In his other hand he held the rope that led to Samantha’s left ankle. It slackened a bit, allowing Samantha the freedom to close her legs slightly. He leapt out of the tub, separating Richard from his ex-wife.

“What’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?”

Richard shivered at the sound of his own voice speaking to him. Evil, yet familiar, as if deeply buried memories had seeped out from his subconscious, reminding him that, yes, this was the man he used to be.

Nonsense
.

He gazed at the knife, the blade, the blood. Then, at Samantha. Her twitching body showed no lacerations.

So where did the blood come from?

“What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?”

Richard opened his mouth to speak, but could only manage a weak and terrified, “F-fuck y-you.”

“Don’t worry, my friend,” the man in black said. He backed up a step, knife forward and ready to slash Richard should he try anything aggressive. He then released the rope and dug into his pants pocket. Richard flinched, unsure if his enemy were pulling a gun.

He got something worse.

“It doesn’t need yours, because it’s got Samantha’s.” The man in black opened his hand and revealed a mouse-sized slab of purple meat that could only have been Samantha’s tongue. He gripped it between two fingers and wiggled it in the air in front of Richard, laughing as droplets of blood sprinkled the shower curtain. “Come and get it,
Sparke
.”

To Richard that statement sounded ominously like a death sentence. He fought back tears of anger. Samantha wouldn’t survive this tragedy, and for the first time in his life was thankful Debra wasn’t alive to witness or become a part of this awful encounter. He only wondered if
he
would make it out alive, and felt that he had no choice but to act fast if he wanted to see another day.

He peered toward the Formica counter quickly, saw some cleaning products there.

Taking a big chance, he jerked to his right and hit the light switch. With dusk now in command, the room fell into near-darkness. Almost simultaneously, he reached to his left and grabbed a can of ammonia cleaner from the counter. He sprayed it straight ahead, hoping to get it into the eyes of the intruder.

The man in black yelled out, confirming a direct hit.

Confusion set in. Richard felt,
saw
the flash of the blade as the man in black swiped the knife blindly through the air, missing his chest by a hair. He staggered back, out of the bathroom, praying his knowledge of the house would give him the edge he needed to win this battle. Sudden dizziness pushed him against the wall in the hallway, and he
bounded
back towards the bathroom just as the man in black charged forward, blindly waving the knife. Richard grabbed the wrist of the intruder, wrestled the knife back and forth. They both tumbled back into the bathroom, falling, falling. They crashed down on top of Samantha, the pain of their combined weight unmistakable as she screamed through her gag.

Richard’s nerves fired. He squeezed the man’s wrist, feeling with his fingertips the plastic handle of the knife. Instantly, his brain recalled a flurry of lost memories (not unlike the desperate situation earlier, when he needed to drive to save his life, and then he instantly
remembered
how to drive), and in this life-or-death predicament he suddenly remembered how to fight, not in some quick-in-a-panic-like defensive way, like tossing a butcher block, or spraying ammonia. No, he had some
expert
knowledge now--his brain was telling him how to defeat his adversary, take him down and walk away with minimal injuries, life intact.

Time seemed to stagger, like a film in slow-motion. And yet, his actions seemed to speed to double their normal rate, which he knew was his ingrained past memory taking control, enabling him to become a vicious aggressor in this moment of fight-or-flight.
 
At once he felt like a wild animal, and even though Samantha was buckling in a last-ditch attempt for survival, even though the man in black’s hand broke free of Richard’s grasp, Richard still managed to bring his knee up into his adversary’s crotch, once, twice, three times, showing no mercy, sending him into agony. The man in black’s screams echoed about the house, perhaps alerting the neighbors that something bad was going down at Samantha
Sparke’s
place. Richard silenced him, chopping the man once, twice, three times in the throat, then slugged him on the left temple, hitting him hard, again and again.

Sighting a window of escape, Richard scrambled back. In a whirlwind of confusion, he climbed to his feet and staggered out of the bathroom, leaving the man in black writhing on the floor, Samantha in her near-death state beside him. Her fate was now solely in the hands of the enemy, for Richard knew there was nothing he could do for her now, lest he surrender his own life to the one who’d set out to kill him.

He stumbled down the hallway, at once questioning his decision to leave Samantha behind. Could he have taken the man in black down, once and for all? Could he have grabbed the knife while he was down, taken it to his throat, given Samantha a chance for survival?

Maybe it wasn’t too late?

He stopped at the entrance to the living room, turned back towards the bathroom, nervously deliberating his next move.

The man in black appeared, staggering, in obvious discomfort, a string of blood seeping from his exposed lips. Even on his black clothing Richard could see fresh wet blood soaking his shirt. The man smiled, then held up the knife. On it was Samantha’s severed hand, speared through the palm.

Jesus Christ!

Richard darted into the kitchen, his eye catching for the briefest moment the keychain holder he installed himself on the wall beside the sliding door. He grabbed Samantha’s car keys...

...I know how to drive now...

...and ran outside. Dizzied, in a rush, he sped around the side of the house to the driveway out front where Samantha’s light blue Corolla was parked. The door was open, and he sat behind the wheel and started the car, rapidly backing out in a fishtail, nearly hitting a middle-aged woman who’d emerged from the house across the street--presumably to investigate all the racket. Richard looked back at Samantha’s house only once, seeing nothing through the living room window: no sign of the man in black. No sign of any movement whatsoever.

The only thing he saw in the rearview mirror as he raced away was the woman from the house across the street, standing in the middle of the street in her bathrobe, staring back at him.

After filling up on coffee and muffins, the partners took their box labeled ‘evidence’ to the precinct, set themselves up comfortably behind Leonard’s desk, and began itemizing all the contents. They wrote everything down on a list:

1) One micro-cassette tape recorder with tape inside, retrieved from coffee table beside the deceased.

2) Two additional tapes retrieved from the deceased’s desk.

3) A stack of notes, messages, retrieved from desk.

4) Two files, labeled ‘
Sparke
, Richard’, retrieved from filing cabinet.

5) One key, used to open filing cabinet.

6) One composition notebook, with pen, retrieved from couch.

7) Additional files labeled ‘related research’, retrieved from desk drawer.

In addition to these items, George Washburn had kept to his promise, delivering a stack of fifty-three crime scene photographs, in addition to the murder weapon (which he placed in a plastic bag after lifting the prints from it), the three blood-stained textbooks, and a complete report of his findings. Yes, George was a bit of a wet noodle, but always got the job done in a timely and efficient manner.

The first thing Leonard attended to were the photos, which he and Kevin scanned with dismay, at times struck with utter disbelief. How could a person do something like this? Leonard’s thoughts kept drifting from the realization that Richard
Sparke
, the mild-mannered and rather cooperative gentleman they interviewed this morning, most assuredly had an upper hand in this very serious offense. Leonard knew he had no choice but to set aside his gut feelings and submit himself to the facts at hand: that either Richard
Sparke
himself had murdered Delaney in cold blood, or the still-secretive third party, under the accordance of
Sparke
, perpetrated the crime. Either way,
Sparke
would be arrested.

Leonard and Kevin paid close notice to a series of photographs showing a single set of bloody footprints leading away from the victim. They circled near the bookshelf, then steered out of the office. There were photos taken in the hallway, with the footprints disappearing through the fire exit, and then down the stairs where they faded upon reaching the asphalt parking lot.

After placing the photos aside, Leonard checked out George’s initial report of the scene, reading it out loud to Kevin:

The scene, although rather clean--the result of a calculated crime--was riddled with fingerprints, as if they’d been purposely left behind by the perpetrator. The initial sweep found the murder weapon, (exhibit A), which was layered in blood. Comparable prints were located at seven pinpoints on the handle of the weapon, one
unobliterated
specimen on the blade. All have been dusted and classified--see attached printouts, each of which have been prepared for scanning. Comparable prints were also located on three text books (see exhibits B, C, D) retrieved from the CS floor. As well, they have been dusted, classified, and printed. Initial scans show these specimens to be exact to those found on the murder weapon. Four human hairs (exhibit E) of a dissimilar color variation to that of the victim were recovered at the CS and have been labeled and sent to the City Crime Lab for DNA testing.

Leonard paused, head cocked in thought.

“What’s up, Len?”

“I have an idea--a damn good one, too.” He punched up the hospital and asked to be connected to George Washburn’s office. George answered in his predictably malaise tone: “Pathology.”

“George, it’s
Moldofsky
.”

“I delivered everything a half hour ago. Ask Fran for the--”

“Thanks--I got it all,” Leonard interrupted. “Listen, I need you to call the Lab. Ask them for the results of a DNA test taken, uh...” He gazed at the calendar on his computer monitor, clicked back two years and pinpointed the date Samantha
Sparke
was attacked. “September 23, 2000. There should be two separate tests, George. The first from blood and skin samples found under the nails of an assault victim named Samantha
Sparke
. The second is from a blood sample provided on the same date by her accused attacker, Richard
Sparke
. Have the DNA of these compared to that of the hair samples you found at the scene. Can you do that?”

“Len, the hair could be from anyone. I took four different samples. It might not make any sense to look into that right now.”

“Well...can you at least do the blood?”

“Sure I can...isn’t ‘
Sparke
’ the name of the accused from today’s murder?”

“Yeah,” Leonard answered, brushing him off. “How long do you think it will take?”

“I can have the results from the old tests to you in the morning. If you want a comparison to the blood found at the scene, it’ll take a couple of days with a PCR test. That’s the quickest there is.”

“Please, call me as soon as you have the results.”