Sugar & Spice (22 page)

E
XCERPT FROM

BY
K
EITH
L
EE
J
OHNSON

9400 Mount Vernon Circle
Alexandria, Virginia
June 2001

THE ASSASSIN nested in a tree across the street from the house, waiting for Supreme Court nominee Jennifer Taylor to arrive. It was all so perfect. No one would be able to figure out the real reason Jennifer and Webster Taylor had been murdered. Influenced by the media hype, people would assume that they were murdered because of their opposition to abortion, which had nothing to do with it. Something far more shocking was going on, and they would be the first of a long list of people to be killed. But none of that mattered now. The Taylors would be dead very soon.

If necessary, the Assassin would have stayed in the tree until dawn, remaining perfectly still, hidden by the foliage. From the comfortable perch, the Assassin was able to scrutinize every car that entered the cul-de-sac.

At 11:00, Judge Taylor's black Mercedes Benz cruised quietly up the street and turned into the driveway. The Assassin jumped from the tree when the automatic garage door began to open and ran across the street. Judge Taylor hit the door button and entered the house without waiting for the automatic door to close completely. The Assassin walked into the garage, breaking the motion detector beam. The garage door stopped descending and automatically reversed.

Webster Taylor sat in front of the television set in the living room
cheering on the Los Angeles Lakers. “Who's winning, Web?” the Assassin heard the Supreme Court nominee ask her husband.

The Assassin tiptoed down the carpeted hall. A few more steps and the Assassin would be within reach of the controversial judge.

“My Lakers! Kobe Bryant is having a field day. How'd the meeting go?”

“Terrible. We can talk about it after the game.”

The Assassin entered the living room, kicked Judge Taylor in the back of her knee with a powerful thrust kick, and then grabbed a hunk of her thick hair and jerked sharply to the right, snapping her neck like a twig. Jennifer Taylor grunted a little just before taking her last breath.

Hearing the sound, Webster turned around to see what had happened to his beloved. He saw a figure dressed in black holding a semiautomatic with a silencer attached to the muzzle. “Oh, no,” he said with resignation, just before a single bullet pierced his forehead. The Assassin picked up the expelled shell casing, walked swiftly back down the hallway and out through the garage, and disappeared into the night.

***

The Rapist began his career following an incident on the Beltway. Apparently, he wasn't driving fast enough for the rude couple in the Lexus behind him. The man kept flashing his bright lights and blowing the horn. After the Rapist switched lanes to allow them to pass, the woman flipped him the bird as they sped by him.

The Rapist was so enraged that he followed them to the theater. He asked the box office clerk what time the concert would be over and then returned to his car to wait. As the hours passed, his anger smoldered, growing more intense with each passing second. When the performance ended, people came out of the theater by the hundreds. The Rapist spotted the rude couple getting into their Lexus and again followed them as they drove away. He would teach them a lesson they would never forget.

They stopped at a restaurant near the theater for a late dinner. He sat in a booth next to theirs, sipping coffee and pretending to read the paper. The two of them went on and on about the concert and how great the
conductor was. When they finished their meal, they talked quietly about going home to make love. He followed them from the restaurant, pulling into their driveway right behind them—flashing his bright lights into their eyes. Walking up to the driver's side window, he brandished a gun. The fear in their eyes exhilarated him when he realized they had completely forgotten the incident on the freeway and had no idea who he was. They offered him money and jewelry, which insulted him. He wasn't a thief, he told them.

At gunpoint, he forced the couple into the house and into the bedroom. He forced the wife to tape her husband's hands and feet. Now, having gained control over them, the Rapist reminded them of the freeway incident. The shock on their faces excited him sexually. They began to apologize profusely. But it was too late.

“You two need a lesson in highway etiquette,” he told them. “Strip, you high-class bitch.”

The husband, realizing his wife was about to be raped, yelled, “I'll kill you if you touch her!”

The Rapist laughed as the husband continued screaming, “You touch her, and I'll hunt you down if it takes the rest of my life!”

When the wife was completely nude, the Rapist taped her limbs to the bedposts. He pulled out a switchblade and cut the tape away from the husband's hands and feet. Then he closed the knife and put it into his pocket. He tossed the gun to the other side of the room, “Okay, tough guy. Protect your wife.”

The husband, an upper-class professional who had gone to elite schools all of his life, was no match for the Rapist. After giving him a fierce pummeling, the Rapist tossed the husband on the bed and stripped his pants off. The husband pleaded, but it did no good. The wife turned her eyes away, but she couldn't shut out the sound of his screams.

After he had finished with the husband, the Rapist cut the tape away from the wife's hands and feet. The attacker watched as she tried to console him. Standing over the weeping couple, the Rapist felt a sense of power he had never felt before—it pleased him.

He left the couple to lick their wounds in their mutual humility. Later,
when he thought about it, he realized that a strange thing had happened to him. The fight with the husband had been an aphrodisiac. Raping the husband had been the most fulfilling sex he had ever had.

***

During the next two years, the Rapist sexually assaulted sixty-seven men, none of whom ever reported the assaults to the police. D.C. metro had no idea that a vicious rapist was at large until Father Merle Reynolds—his latest victim—told his story. The traumatized priest was taken to Washington Memorial Hospital where he told two D.C. detectives about the violent assault. The Rapist had come to St. Mary's Cathedral under the pretense of seeking absolution. Before violating the priest, the Rapist, in vivid detail, had confessed all of his crimes, describing each victim by name and occupation. The priest refused to divulge the names of the victims, citing the sanctity of the confessional, but told the detectives that the Rapist had given him permission to inform them of his existence and warn them that he intended to continue ravaging men at every opportunity.

Addressing all the student-teachers, I said, “How many of you felt the presence of the two FBI agents behind me?”

Startled, they looked over my shoulders and saw the two men dressed in dark suits and ties. Then they looked at each other, wondering if anyone knew other than I. “When true freedom has been attained, you will know without knowing.” I let what I had just taught them sink in for a moment or two before I dismissed my students. “Okay, I'll see you all next week.”

I faced Flynn and Ford and asked, “What's happened?”