Walk in Darkness - A Thriller (Jon Stanton Mysteries)

WALK IN DARKNESS

A Mystery-
Thriller

VICTOR METHOS

Hell is empty and all the devils are here.

-William Shakespeare

1

Detective Jonathan Stanton pulled out his sidearm and fell into the Weaver stance, the muzzle a few feet from Darrell Putnam’s forehead. The wind thirty-four floors up on the roof of One American Plaza screamed in his ears and muffled the rest of the world.

“Don’t do it, Darrell,” he shouted. “There’s no need for this.”

Darrell yelled something. The sentence was long but Stanton couldn’t hear any of it. The one thing he was able to make out toward the end was
I didn’t do it
.

“If you didn’t do it you’ll walk. But I need you to come back with me. I
gotta talk to you and check out what you tell me. You know the routine, Darrell. We’ve been through this before. If you tell me the truth I can help you out.”

Darrell nodded, looking down to the rubber flooring. The roof was clean and free of clutter and he ran his foot in a circle. He looked up and smiled, and then
he turned and leapt off the edge.

Stanton ran to grab him but it was too late. He leaned over the side and watched as the body plummeted toward the ground. He wanted to look away. After a decade in homicide there were so many images, so many screams and pleas and bloody, torn bodies that whispered to him at night in the calm moments before sleep
. He didn’t want this one as well.

But in the end he watched Darrell slam into a van turning in the intersection, collapsing the roof, the tires exploding under the pressure. He turned away. For just a moment, he looked up to the sun and let it warm his face. He closed his eyes and pretended he was on the beach, listening to the surf
hitting the shore and washing over his feet in cool waves.

He felt the cell phone in his pocket vibrate. He turned it off and headed for the stairs.

By the time he got to the first floor the Channel 8 news
van was already there, an attractive blond having make-up applied while the camera and sound were set up. Crowds had gathered and officers were in the street directing traffic.

Stanton walked to the van. Several paramedics were helping a man sitting in the back of an ambulance
; the driver. He looked shaken, and there were multiple cuts over his face and arms from the glass shattering in every one of his windows, but he was alive.

Stanton peeked into the van just as someone from the county medical examiner’s office came to a stop across the street. Several more uniforms pulled up followed by an unmarked Dodge Charger driven by Detective Daniel Childs.

Childs stepped out of the car, his arms bulging underneath the tight polyester shirt he preferred to wear over the traditional button-down and suit coat. His badge was shining as it dangled from a chain around his neck and he had his .45 Smith & Wesson tucked into a sleek black holster. Childs had been the first African-American detective accepted into the San Diego County Sex Crimes Strike Force.

“What the fuck happened?” he said, coming next to Stanton.

“He jumped.”

“From One American? No shit? I didn’t think he had the balls.” He stepped closer, his face contorting in disgust as he saw that Darrell’s head had burst and brain matter
was covering the interior of the van in bloody splotches. “Well fuck him. Mess with little kids and this is where you fucking belong.” He slapped Jon’s shoulder. “Good work.”

Stanton didn’t move. He stared at the remains unblinkingly, observing the massive flow of black blood rolling from the van and pooling on the pavement.

“Jon, snap the fuck out of it, man. This is a good thing.”

“The last thing he said is that he didn’t do it.”

“So what? Every piece of shit we deal with says they didn’t do it.”

“He knew he was going to die and he still said he didn’t do it.”

“Jon, so what? You’re over-thinking this, man. That’s what you get when you spend too many years in college. Come on, let’s let the rookies clean this up. Give your statement and your firearm over and come grab a drink with me at Coochies.”

Stanton bit the inside of his cheek and then ran his tongue over the indentation, feeling the soft membranes. He pulled out his firearm and handed it to Childs to hold as he
took out the second revolver he carried in his waistband.

“What’s that for?”

“Life’s unpredictable. Always carry a backup, Danny.” He walked over to some of the uniforms and gave a summary of what had happened, along with his weapons, and turned back to Childs who was still looking into the van. “All right. You drive.”

2

Coochies
stunk like cigarette smoke and vomit but its proximity to the water on Ocean Beach gave it an appeal that most bars in San Diego couldn’t match. When the doors and windows were open the salty breeze would come in and wash over the patrons, leaving the taste of sea salt on their tongues. A lot of cops came to the bar because it hadn’t developed a reputation as a cop bar. Once that reputation set in, they could expect all the cop-groupies to come out of the woodwork, trying to fit in and tell war stories and hear the latest gossip about the precincts.

But for now, there was a Chris Isaac song playing over the speakers and the bar was filled with surfers calling it a day with a final drink, everyone still in their bathing suits.

Stanton and Daniels walked in and sat in a booth in the corner. A young waitress saw them and waved, grabbing a Heineken and a bottle of Diet Coke before coming over.

“Hey guys.
”

“Hey,” Stanton said, “how are
ya, Eve?”

“Doing good. Busy
busy. How are my boys?”

“Not bad. Not great, but not bad.”

Daniels blew through his teeth dismissively. “He’s too down. We had a great resolution to something we’d been working on for months. In fact, I think, Johnny boy, you should have a real man’s drink. Mormon church won’t kill you if you have one shot of tequila.”

“Oh quit giving him shit, Danny. Drink your beer and play nice.”

“You know I always do. So Evie when you comin’ out with me?”

“Told you
, baby, I don’t date cops. Too much drama.”

“
Pss, you just scared. When you had a nuff of them surfer boys and want a man you come see me.”

She placed her hand on his shoulder. “I’m not sure you’d know what to do with me if you got me, baby.”

As she walked away, Childs watched and then turned back around, shook his head, and took a long gulp of his beer. “She doesn’t know how crazy she makes me.”

“Have you asked her out?”

“Asked her out? What is this, 1953? Should we go and get a soda and catch a drive-in?”

“Sounds good to me.”

He chuckled. “You from a different time, man. This ain’t your decade.”

Stanton smiled as he spun the glass of dark soda. He let the ice clink in the glass and then took out one of the cubes and sucked on it.

“That shit today is sticking with you, huh?”

“I don’t know what it is. You’re right; everyone says they didn’t do it. But when he said it I was looking him in the eyes and . . . if you read the research on death penalty cases,
right before death offenders usually apologize and express remorse for their actions or they blame the victim, trying to hurt the survivors with their last words. I just never saw anyone maintain their innocence when they knew they were about to die.”

“Fuck me. We got all the evidence we needed, man. Judge signed off on the warrant, we got his own mama talking about what a sick fuck he
was, he was on the sex offender registry with two priors; what else you want? An email saying ‘hey I love kiddies come get me?’ That ain’t gonna happen.”

“I know,” Stanton said, shaking his head as if pushing the thoughts out of his mind, “I know. It’s stupid. We got our guy.” 

“That’s damn right we got our guy.” He held up his beer and tapped it against Stanton’s glass. “To getting our motherfucking guy and throwing his ass off the tallest building in the city.”

3

The soccer-field was dry and he could see the heat waves coming off the pavement that surrounded it. The girls were in their uniforms, yellow and black, like bumblebees. It made him grin and he leaned back in his seat and put his feet up on the dashboard. The Volkswagen Beetle was too small. He was muscular and had added thirty pounds this last year; he would need a bigger car as soon as he could afford it, but it seemed like all his money went to training and food these days.

He rolled up his window and turned on the air conditioning but the air coming out of the vents was nearly as warm as the air outside so he turned it off and rolled the window back down.
Better that way. The grass on the field had been cut recently and the smell reminded him of the fields he was taken to as a child to watch football games with his uncle. What was his uncle’s name? He couldn’t remember and it bothered him for a moment before he saw her.

He watched her from the moment she
stepped out of her mother’s jeep and followed her as she walked to the field. Her gym bag was slung over her shoulder and she threw it down near the others and ran to her coach and the rest of her team.

Most of the parents didn’t stay an
d hers was no exception. The jeep turned and pulled out of the junior high school parking lot.

He scanned the field and the rows of bags and saw hers.
Black with red handles and a sticker of some Disney singer stuck to the side. His fingers itched and he rubbed them together; his tongue running over his teeth, feeling the dryness of his mouth.

He opened the door and stepped outside.

This was insanity. He was wearing shorts and a tank-top and had his natural color hair. The tattoos of characters from
Alice in Wonderland
he had sleeved on his arms were easily identifiable. This was insanity.

But he still couldn’t stop himself.

He walked forward, glancing around in all directions. Twenty feet between him and the bag and he stopped as the coach yelled something out and the players hustled into groups and started doing wind sprints. He began walking again. He was on the grass now and made his way over to her bag.

This could ruin everything but the excitement of it tingled his belly and quickened his breath.
Something he rarely felt. Adrenaline coursed through him and for a brief moment he felt invincible, like nothing could harm him.

He looked at the bag; the zipper was open a quarter of the way. Inside were the clothes she planned to change in
to after showering. She showered in the junior high with the rest of the team after each practice because they were also in madrigals and had singing practice for forty-five minutes after the soccer practice.

He knelt down and reached for her jeans.
Exhilaration caused him to inadvertently hold his breath as sweat began to roll down his back and forehead.

“Can I help you?”

He looked up, his heart in his stomach, as the woman stood over him with her arms folded. She was eyeing his tattoos and he could see that she had already taken out her cell phone.

“Oh, hi. Um, no I don’t think so. I’m
Lexi’s uncle. She’s missing madrigals today and her mom just asked me to hang out until she’s done.” He stood and held out his hand. “Jack Underwood.”

She stared at his hand and then cautiously put hers out and shook it. As soon as was practicable she pulled away and wiped her palm on her jeans.

“Helluva team,” he said, “I think Coach Dykes is gonna take ‘em all the way. Which one’s yours?”

The look on the woman’s face softened and she looked out over the field to a brunette girl near the goalpost. “
Macey’s my oldest.”

“Oh, she’s great. That goal she scored last week against
Bennion was one of the best ones I’d seen all season.”

“Oh
, you saw that game? Yeah, that was good. She told us later she didn’t think she was gonna make it but they were down by one so she said a Hail-Mary and went for it.”

The man smiled as she continued to talk. But his attention wasn’t on her. He would glance over
to the field and see Lexi running from one goal post to the next. Then he would look down at her bag. Such a shame.

“You know what,” he said, “I got something you might like. I promised
Lexi I wouldn’t do this cause it embarrasses her but it’s some photos of her when she was two. She’d dress up in a soccer uniform and kick a ball around her mom’s house.”

“I would love to see those.”

“All right, I’ll grab ‘em. Be right back.”

The car was as hot as ever as he climbed in. The woma
n was turned around, clapping for her daughter who had finished the sprints before anyone else. The man started his car and backed away slowly before turning and driving out of the parking lot.

This was a risk unlike any he had ever taken and he
’d crapped out. The woman would recognize him and his car. There was no way she would forget. He should’ve said he was the uncle of someone other than Lexi but he was caught off guard; and he was never caught off guard. This was a disaster, but it could’ve been much worse.

He would have to let
Lexi go. It amused him to think that she would never know how close she came to sharing time with him. But the woman would surely remember him.

Then again, she might not.