Sticks and Stones Read online

  Today, they were in Jonathon’s Sentra, but Carry had no idea where they were headed. Jonathon refused to say. After she got in, he started driving.

  “Why all the secrecy?” Carry asked. “Where are we going?”

  They drove past a lot of pines with little houses squatting among them. Many of the homes had pretty gardens, many still in bloom. An Eastern redwood went by, full of beautiful clusters of pink flowers. This area of town was well-kept and looked nice despite the rain pattering the car’s windows. Over the weekend, clouds had rolled in, and by early evening Saturday, rain pounded Alvin like Sandy Koufax firing a fastball into the catcher’s mitt. Now it was Monday, and the rain hadn’t taken a break since. Carry cracked her window, letting in the smell of fresh, moist air.

  Jonathon took another turn. “We’re going to my house,” Jonathon said. “Well, it’s not exactly my house, it’s my grandpa’s. But it’s where I live.” He smiled.

  Excitement pooled in Carry’s stomach. “So it’s today? I get to meet your grandpa today?” She’d heard a lot about the man since meeting Jonathon. He owned the restaurant Jonathon worked at, Raven Lee’s Pizza on Main Street. “So, your grandpa,” she asked. “I assume his name is Raven Lee?”

  “Raven Lee Emerson,” Jonathon corrected. “He’s part Choctaw.”

  This grabbed Carry’s attention. Native culture and art had always fascinated her. “How much?” she asked.

  “How much what?”

  “How much Choctaw is he?”

  “I believe one half.”

  “So that makes you . . .” Carry tried to do the math.

  “I don’t know,” Jonathon said. “I can never work it out properly. I think one eighth.”

  “That’s pretty cool,” Carry said. Jonathon reached over and intertwined his fingers with hers.

  “There’s a lot more to his name and heritage that’s cool about my grandpa,” he said.

  Now Carry was riveted. “Like what?”

  Jonathon kept taking his eyes off the road to look at her while he talked. “Like he’s a total romantic,” he said. “He believes in eternal and everlasting love. My family comes from a history of romantics. We all should’ve been born in the early 1800s, we would’ve definitely fit in better. Nobody’s romantic anymore. I think that’s a shame, don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” Carry said and smiled. “I think I’m a romantic. Only problem, didn’t most of the romantics die at very young ages?”

  Jonathon took another right. They were in the western part of town. Carry couldn’t remember the last time she had been this way.

  “I’m definitely a romantic,” Jonathon said. “And I had no idea about the lifespan thing. But I’ll tell you something. I’d take thirty or forty good years over eighty crappy ones any day.” He braked for a squirrel leaping from across the road. He smiled at Carry again. “There’s even more to my grandpa than just the romance.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’ll let him tell you. He loves stories. Just remember, you’re the one anxious to see him, so don’t complain if you’re stuck listening to him go on and on.”

  Carry wiggled excitedly in her seat. “I so won’t.”

  “Good. Anyway, see that white house with the green trim? That’s mine. We’re here.”

  Jonathon pulled into the driveway of a beautiful little home, and Carry waited for Jonathon to open her door before she got out of the car. In front of the house, two magnolia trees stood in a garden that almost covered the yard. A stone path wound around huckleberry, hydrangeas, and other bushes that broke for small areas of rock gardens and colorful bursts of flowers all surrounding a koi pond with a small, wooden bench.

  “This is so beautiful,” Carry said. She had the feeling she was going to like Raven Lee Emerson.

  A lot.

  CHAPTER 13

  Leah and Dan decided to check the Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta first, their logic being that anyone knowing anything about the Stickman could, quite practically, be doing pretty big crimes himself. If someone had information about a serial killer’s MO, this was a likely place to find them.

  Much to Dan’s chagrin, Leah drove, insisting that it was her case, so traveling duties automatically fell to her. During the long drive, which was mainly through woodlands, she felt Dan’s impatience growing. It radiated from him like skunk on a coon dog. The forest finally started to break, and Leah glanced at the clock on her dash. The penitentiary should be coming up soon.

  Before they had set out from the station, Norman Crabtree, the medical examiner, had called reporting his results from Abilene Williams’s autopsy.

  “I figure she was dead probably five or six hours before you found her,” Crabtree told Leah.

  Leah almost said she hadn’t found anything, but managed to hold it back while Crabtree continued.

  “She died from a gunshot wound to the back of the head. My best guess here is a nine millimeter at close range. The wound’s circular, blackened, and seared. Usually that indicates the barrel was probably pressed right against the skull.”

  So, once again, the Stickman had a new weapon. From what little she’d read in the files, Leah knew the original Stickman killed his victims with an unregistered Smith & Wesson Victory .38 Special revolver, the gun police found when they raided Harry Stork’s house. Ballistics confirmed a match using the two rounds recovered from victims’ skulls. A month later, when Harry Stork made his last stand, he had wielded an unloaded Beretta 92 with the serial numbers sanded off.

  Hearing about this new firearm made Leah wonder if the gun Tommy Stork denied owning happened to be chambered 9 mm.

  But that was a question for another day, and the answer would likely involve having to collect more evidence against Tommy that supported Leah’s “hunch.” She didn’t think a judge would issue a warrant based solely on her gut feeling, despite how right that usually turned out to be.

  The penitentiary came up on Leah’s left.

  “Wow,” Dan said. “Been a while since I’ve been here. Don’t remember it being quite so big.” The main prison building encompassed hundreds of acres.

  “I think I read somewhere there’s upward of twelve hundred inmates locked away inside,” Leah said.

  “Makes you wonder, hey?”

  “I suppose. Not sure about what, though.”

  “About why so many people have so much trouble living life the way we’ve come to think they ought to.”

  She slowed down as they drove along a wrought-iron fence that ran around the whole compound, and found somewhere to park. Exiting the car, the two of them headed for the main gates, where a tower stood topped with a US flag. The flag snapped loud in the wind and the rain.

  They had to state their business and show their badges to get through the gates. Then they followed down a long walkway to the penitentiary’s central entrance. The building had an almost baroque feel to it, with the main entrance built forward from the rows of cells spread out on either side. Arched windows loomed down at Leah as they walked beneath a tympanum supported by two white columns. Upon going inside, Leah and Dan once again had to flash their badges.

  Two desk officers were working the front. One was already dealing with a dark-haired boy. He had on a blue shirt that hung loosely down around his oversized denims, and was in bad need of a shave. The other officer was free. A young woman with short brown hair and big hazel eyes, she smiled at Leah as she and Dan approached. “I’d like to talk to the on-duty lieutenant,” Leah said, again holding up her badge.

  The officer picked up the receiver of a black telephone and dialed two numbers. “Who should I say is askin’?” she said to Leah while propping the receiver between her chin and shoulder.

  “Detective Leah Teal and Detective Dan Truitt.”

  “And where you from?”

  Leah pointed to herself, then Dan, and said, “Alvin and Birmingham.”

  “Alvin?” the officer asked. “Didn’t you just have another Stickman killin’?” Until now, Lea
h had grown used to folk never having any clue as to where Alvin was. Nobody other than residents usually ever heard of it. Funny how one dead body can put you right back on the map.

  “That’s right,” Leah said. “That’s actually why we’re here.”

  The officer spoke into the phone. “Detectives Teal and Truitt wish to speak with you. From Alvin. Something ’bout that Stickman murder.”

  Hanging the phone up, she gave Leah another smile. “He’ll be right down.”

  “Right down” turned out to be twenty minutes later, when a Lieutenant Sanders appeared and came over to where Leah and Dan had been sitting, waiting in two very uncomfortable plastic chairs. They stood and both shook Sanders’s hand.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked, first looking to Dan and then to Leah. “Somethin’ about the . . . Stickman?”

  Leah explained Ethan’s theory, how they might be able to get some useful information out of an inmate if they might be allowed to interview one.

  “We’ve got over a thousand choices for you,” Sanders said. “I don’t know how you’re goin’ to pick one out.”

  “Isn’t there usually someone who sticks out a bit from the rest?” Dan asked. “You know, a ‘talker’? A sort of social butterfly who’s into everybody else’s business?”

  Sanders rubbed his chin. A tall, lanky man, he must have stood six-four. His eyes were hard and gray. “Yeah,” he said. “Come to think of it, I think I know a guy inside just like that. Goes by ‘Scoop’.”

  “The nickname sounds promising,” Leah said.

  Sanders cocked his head, giving it a quick shake. “He’s got attitude, though. Don’t reckon he’s goin’ to want to tell you much. And ...” He inhaled a breath through his teeth.

  “And what?” Dan asked.

  “And he can be a mean son of a bitch, sometimes. Gotta warn you.”

  “Can we at least try?” Leah asked.

  The lieutenant leveled his gaze at her. Slowly a smile crept across his face. “Certainly,” he said. He picked up a receiver on the wall above the row of chairs and made a quick call. After hanging up, he asked Leah and Dan to follow him to an interrogation room.

  After a bit of a walk that provided a tour of some of the facility, they came to Interrogation Room 1A. Sanders stopped at the one-way window looking inside, where a man was already seated. He was in one of two metal chairs that stood on either side of a metal table. The rest of the room was white, with walls of concrete. To Leah, the starkness made the room appear lonely and cold.

  The man inside had dark brown hair tangled in a messy, wild clutch. His eyes were dark and his wrists and ankles were shackled. Two scars on the left side of his face crisscrossed into a deeply cut X. He wore the standard inmate orange suit. Tattoos done in jailhouse blue adorned the backs of his hands and arms leading right up under his sleeves. More tattoos were on his neck.

  He turned his face toward the glass, almost as if he could feel them watching. His gaze chilled Leah and, even though she knew all he saw was mirror, she had to glance away. Something in his eyes scared her. It was like looking at some kind of wild animal. A jackal, maybe.

  “He looks mean,” Leah said with a swallow. Inside her head she talked herself down. She needed to gain some confidence before going in.

  “Yep,” Sanders said. “Told you.”

  “Shackles, eh?” Dan asked.

  “The man’s like a tiger, Detective,” Sanders replied. He rubbed his hands together. “So, you both goin’ in? I’ll need to get another chair ...”

  “No,” Leah said, trying to keep her voice calm and steady. “Just me.”

  “You sure?” Dan asked.

  Leah hesitated, twisting her bottom lip between her teeth. “Honestly?” She let out a big breath. “No. I’m not sure. But I won’t ever be able to look at myself again if I don’t at least try.”

  Dan gave her a thin smile. “Alrighty, then.”

  Leah took another big breath. “Okay, here we go.”

  Dan wished her luck as she walked away and turned the corner toward the door. She entered the room, closing the door behind her before sitting down across from Scoop. Then she realized she had no idea what the man’s real name was. Did the lieutenant just expect her to call him “Scoop,” she wondered.

  “Hi,” Leah said. Scoop’s eyes were nearly black as he glared upward at her. One wandered lazily and disconcertingly to the right. He said nothing.

  Leah placed her palms on the cold metal table. “So,” she said, hearing a bit of a quiver in her voice. “I hear you’re the man to talk to for inside information.” She instantly regretted the statement. Made her sound like a schoolgirl.

  Scoop spat something on the floor and then once again resumed his dead-eyed, Manson-cold stare.

  “I, um, don’t know what your name is,” Leah stumbled. “I was just told you were known as ‘Scoop’.”

  His stare continued in silence.

  “Anyway,” she said, “I’m wonderin’ if you might know anythin’ about a killer called ‘the Stickman’?”

  Again Scoop spat, and again he came back with that stare.

  Leah let out a breath and glanced toward the mirrored glass of the one-way window. She didn’t know what to do. She turned back to Scoop. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Do you . . . What can I tell you to make you talk to me?”

  This time he didn’t spit. He continued staring for at least a dozen seconds until finally saying, “Get me a cigarette.” His voice was jagged and edgy.

  “Um.” Leah shrugged and gave another lost look to the mirror.

  Dan stood beside Sanders watching everything go down, feeling worse and worse for Leah. Finally, he turned to the lieutenant and said, “Pull her out.”

  Sanders had his hands behind his back and Dan noticed he was chewing gum. A smirk adorned his face. “Why?” he asked, sarcastically. “This is some of the funniest shit I’ve seen in a long time.”

  “I said, pull her out!”

  The smirk went away as he threw Dan a last look before going inside the room and whispering something to Leah. She stood and actually thanked Scoop before leaving the room with the lieutenant. Dan continued watching the evil smile come to Scoop’s lips as he sat among those four white walls alone once more.

  Leah walked to his side, looking relieved. “Was it as horrible from out here as it felt in there?”

  “Like watching an appendectomy in slow motion,” Dan said. He turned to Sanders. “Mind if I give it a try?”

  The lieutenant’s smirk came back as he made a be my guest gesture.

  “Please do,” Leah said. “I want to see how it’s s’posed to be done.”

  Dan smiled calmly. “I’ll do my best.” Dan blew on his hands then rubbed them together before disappearing around the corner and entering the room. Leah still felt shaky as she stood with Sanders looking on.

  “Scoop, Scoop, Scoop,” Dan said, fumbling with something by the door. “I’m turning off this crummy camera and recorder. Guys like you and me, we don’t need things recorded, do we? We like to do things off the record.”

  Leah realized now that was what he was doing by the door. Sanders, after checking something out down the wall a ways, came back and clarified. “He was just pretendin’. Recorder’s still runnin’.”

  But inside, Scoop looked slightly on alert.

  “You know what else we don’t need?” Dan asked. “This chair.” Picking up the empty metal chair Leah had sat in, he fired it across the room, where it made a helluva clang as it struck the concrete wall. Scoop scooted back in his own chair, his shackles rattling. A trickle of sweat ran out of his mess of hair, continuing down the side of his face and into the crisscrossing scar.

  “In fact,” Dan said, “even this table is really just in our way.” Dan threw the table. It crashed against the wall with a bang before rattling atop the upturned chair.

  “What’s he doing?” asked Sanders. He looked agitated.

  Leah kept her smile to herself. “Hell i
f I know,” she said, “but he’s already gettin’ a better reaction than I did.”

  More sweat dotted Scoop’s forehead.

  “Have you ever interrogated anyone before?” Sanders asked Leah.

  “Not really.”

  “And you picked a federal prison as the place to start. Good idea.”

  Their attention went back to the room, where Dan was still hard at work.

  “And there’s one more thing I don’t need, ‘Scoop.’ Guess what that is?”

  In a blur, Dan grabbed Scoop by his throat with his right hand and pushed, sliding him and his chair straight back until they slammed into the wall. Leah thought Scoop’s head might knock against the concrete, but Dan kept it forward with his grip as he pulled Scoop up to his own height.

  Scoop was sweating something fierce. “I’ll tell you what I don’t need,” Dan continued. “I don’t need some goddamn convict who thinks he’s better than I am. Now, you wanna answer my questions, or should I start clubbing you over the head with that chair I tossed back there?”

  Scoop was trembling, his hair drenched with sweat. It streamed down his face.

  “I gotta put a stop to this,” Sanders said, his hand coming up to the window.

  “Please don’t?” Leah asked, resting her hand on his. “Just give him five more minutes. He knows what he’s doing.”

  “Sure as hell doesn’t look like it! This sort of thing could put us in major shit.”

  “Just a couple more minutes?” Leah asked again and followed with a comforting smile. She was happy Sanders didn’t move from the window.

  “Wh-what do you wanna know, man?” Scoop asked, his voice shaky.

  “I wanna know what you know ’bout the Stickman,” Dan replied, the words sounding like they came through his teeth.

  “S-same thing everyone knows, man. The Stickman’s dead. He was Harry fuckin’ Stork and you guys put a bullet b-between his eyes at least a dozen years ago . . . man, everybody knows this. Everybody.”