Beyond the Mask Read online

Katie’s expression softened. “You actually sound pretty normal.”

  Frank smiled. “It’s pretty easy to say most things. For the TH sound I just use my teeth and my bottom lip, but that damn G is always going to be out of my reach.”

  “You’re a good friend,” Katie said. “That’s why what you’re doing hurts so much.”

  “Give me a chance to explain it to you. Go out to dinner with me tonight.”

  Katie sighed. She tossed her head and ran a hand through her hair, an incredibly feminine gesture. “Okay. You can buy me dinner, but you come pick me up. I don’t want to go near him.”

  “You got it,” Frank said.

  “I’m at the Biltmore. Do you know where that is?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll be in the lobby at seven.”

  “See you then,” Frank said. “Thank you for giving me a chance, Katie.”

  She didn’t respond to this, just turned and walked away.

  Frank walked back into the station. Gloria was still looking down at her computer and her complexion hadn’t returned to normal.

  “You think I should forgive you now or wait until later?” Frank asked.

  Gloria finally looked up; her eyes were rimmed red to match her cheeks.

  “I’m so sorry, Sheriff. I had no idea that she was someone he had…affected like that.”

  “It’s okay,” Frank said.

  “We were just talking. I was passing the time, my big damn mouth, and I mentioned the guy that you’ve been hanging around with. If there’s anything I can do.”

  “No,” Frank said. “Just buzz me in.”

  Gloria complied.

  The bullpen area was alive and moving, but Frank was about to put a stop to that. He needed to say something to them. If there was any time that a sheriff’s office would be ripe for some kind of revolution it would be right now and he wanted to explain himself.

  “Everybody!” Frank shouted. He waved his hands in the air. People began to slow down and finally come to a stop. Others, deputies who had been in other rooms, began to filter in.

  “I need everyone in here. I have some things I want to say.”

  The crowd began to buzz as people passed word around. More people began to enter the room. Frank heard a door open behind him and he looked over to see Roman and his team emerging from their underground lair.

  After a few minutes, Frank was satisfied that everyone in the building had gathered in the bullpen area. Gloria, her eyes still red, had swiveled her chair so that she was facing the action.

  “There have been a few developments over the past twenty-four hours or so,” Frank said. “Things we need to talk about.”

  He saw several nods, both a good sign and a bad sign. They were listening, but they agreed that they deserved some answers.

  “First, Lieutenant Adams was arrested under suspicion of murder last night.”

  There was grumbling at this; he didn’t see any friendly faces out there.

  “He will be released today with all charges dropped. We had a witness place him at the scene of one of the murders and we found the murder weapon in his possession.”

  Frank turned to Roman.

  “That’s true,” Roman said. “The knife that was found in the Lieutenant’s duffel bag was the one used in the murders.”

  Frank saw several shocked expressions. Apparently this was some bit of news that hadn’t filtered through the grapevine.

  “We now have reason to believe that the knife was planted on Adams while he was alone at his home.”

  “What about the witness?” Someone asked.

  “The witness’s name is Harvey Ellison and he is now the prime suspect in the case. We have his picture and you’ll all be receiving it shortly.”

  Frank glanced over at Gloria, she nodded back at him.

  “I will also be in contact with the media to make sure they have the picture on file.”

  Frank paused. He lowered his head and gathered himself.

  “It is also my painful duty to inform you that Undersheriff Pappas has been murdered.”

  The murmur exploded into a din. Frank raised his arms again and they began to quiet down.

  “Rick was murdered by Ellison. This son of a bitch has killed one of our own. I don’t need to tell you how important that makes this case.”

  Frank paused, this time for effect, and looked out over his officers. They were angry and they were nodding.

  “We have a rough idea of where Ellison is going to strike next. If he follows his pattern it will be tomorrow morning and I’m going to be assigning patrols of the areas where he is likely to hit. You will have them by six a.m. And that’s when I’ll need you all here tomorrow.”

  There were no groans at this, like there might have been in another situation. All Frank saw was resolve.

  “I need everyone to be available. I will try and make exceptions for some of the overnight deputies, but this is a lot of area to cover. I could call in some help from the local police.”

  “No,” one of the deputies said. “We want to do this ourselves.”

  There was a roar of approval at this.

  “Good,” Frank said when the noise had quieted again. “We’ll be out on the street tomorrow. I don’t need to tell you how dangerous this man is. If you see him, do not hesitate to use any force necessary. We don’t need to take him alive; we just need to stop him.”

  Frank saw quite a few smiles at this. He reflected their expression.

  “We’re going to get this asshole. We’re going to do it tomorrow. Now you boys get back to what you were doing.”

  The crowd broke up almost instantly. There were a few pockets of conversation for a minute or so, but they broke up after too long.

  Frank walked back to his office. He had work of his own to do.

  II.

  The first call he had to make was to the County jail. It was a call he wasn’t looking forward to.

  After a couple of transfers he was put through to Hatchet’s office.

  “Sheriff. Did you call to arrange for another meeting? I believe I have an opening in two or three days.”

  The mock cheer in his voice was infuriating, but Frank swallowed hard and stuffed down his anger.

  “No, not a meeting. The charges against Adams are being dropped. He needs to be released.”

  “Is that so?” Hatchet said.

  Frank didn’t like the timbre coming from the other end of the phone.

  “Well I suppose we can start the process for release. It might take a little while. Probably have to move Adams to general population for a little while, since he is no longer deemed a threat.”

  “You mean with the other prisoners, some of whom he was responsible for putting in there?”

  “Well that’s hardly my problem, is it?”

  “What do you want?” Frank asked. “What do I need to do?”

  “I don’t understand,” Hatchet said. But his voice was almost a purr. He was enjoying himself and he probably had his agenda neatly lined up in his head.

  “I want Adams out of there as soon as possible. I’d also like to avoid him being put into general population. What is it going to take to make that happen?”

  “Well that’s an interesting question,” Hatchet said. “I mean, first you want me to book the guy, then you wake me up to talk to the guy, then you insult me and now you want me to release him.”

  “I’m sorry about the other night,” Frank said. His voice was choked as he said this, he was biting back as much of the hate as he could, but it wasn’t easy.

  “Well an apology is a start,” Hatchet said. “Of course, paperwork doesn’t just get pushed through on its own.”

  “Then what is it going to take?”

  “You’re up for re-election next year.”

  It didn’t exactly seem like a question, just something that they both knew. Everyone who paid attention to such things knew it. Frank answered him anyway.

  “Yes.”

 
; “I don’t want you to run for re-election.”

  “Why?”

  But Frank already knew. It was obvious and he should have seen it coming. He could almost see the little prick’s smirk on the other end of the line.

  “Because I want to run for Sheriff, Frank. And I want you to endorse me.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m not, actually. I’ve wanted to run for awhile, but you’ve been in my way this whole time. I couldn’t run against you. Not the pride of Yucca, the dogged police officer who put himself in harm’s way to save a family. That wouldn’t look good, and I wouldn’t win anyway. But if I got an endorsement from that same hero, a man who was just worn down by the job and wanted to retire, well then the campaign makes itself.”

  “And if I do this, you’ll release Adams right away?”

  “His paperwork would make an appearance at the top of my list. He could be out of here very shortly.”

  Frank bit his lip so hard that he drew blood. His hand was squeezing the phone, trying to wring its neck. It wasn’t a fitting substitute.

  “No general population?”

  “That would probably be a waste of time if he were being released today. No need to move him down there, just to move him out. If he were going to be here a couple of days that might change.”

  Adams could be killed down there. It was a real possibility. He had been responsible for a lot of the arrests at the jail and they all knew who he was.

  Another thought, this one more chilling, entered his head. Hatchet could put in an order. Just a word spoken to one or two of the inmates. ‘No one will know it was you’, something like that. A promise of preferential treatment. All for something that they likely wanted to do anyway. He didn’t know the exact depth of Hatchet, he couldn’t say with certainty that it wouldn’t happen.

  “What if I promise you that I’ll do as you ask and then I break my promise?”

  “You won’t,” Hatchet replied. “You couldn’t live with yourself if you did. If you promise me you won’t run again, I know I can count on that.”

  Apparently, Hatchet knew a lot more about Frank’s depth than he did about Hatchet’s. Frank slammed his fist on the desk. A couple of the deputies, who had been walking by his office, stopped and looked up. Then they turned back to what they were doing.

  “Okay,” Frank said. “I won’t run for re-election.”

  “And you’ll endorse me?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that’s a promise from you to me?”

  “It is.”

  “Good news. Adams’s paperwork is right in front of me. I’ll have him processed and out of here in an hour.”

  “Great,” Frank said with no real conviction behind it.

  He hung up the phone and looked at it for awhile. The thought of not being in charge any more had its perks. This stress got to be too much at times. Still, to be bullied into it was worse than low.

  Thinking about it wasn’t going to change anything though. He had done what he needed to do; he had secured Adams’s release. Now it was time to focus on other things. He was in charge for the next year after all.

  Frank spread the route maps out on his desk. The areas were fairly large. Covering several blocks of streets on each day.

  “They expect you to cover a lot of ground,” Frank whispered to himself.

  Looking at the maps, it was clear that he would need at least two cars on each route. There were five routes, one for each day of the week, which added up to ten cars. He could probably spare another four and then added his along with it.

  Fifteen cars, fifteen patrols. The deputies were going to have to be on their own, it was regrettable in a situation like this, but necessary in order to make sure they covered enough ground.

  He was in the middle of writing assignments for the patrols when there was a knock on his door.

  Frank looked up and saw Michaels through the window.

  “Come in,” Frank called.

  Michaels stepped through and closed the door behind him.

  “Looks like you’re going to be the new Undersheriff,” Frank said.

  Michaels winced at this. “You know, sir, I did want to make lieutenant, but it was always a kind of joke.”

  “I know,” Frank said. “It’s not like I wanted it to happen this way either, but you really are the best man for the job.”

  At least for a year, Frank thought. Then who knows what the hell Hatchet will do. Frank thought about his department being pulled apart. Men fired, others (Hatchet’s hand-picked stooges) hired and it made Frank want to put a fist through his desk.

  “Thank you sir.”

  “What have you got for me?”

  Michaels sat down and dropped some papers on the desk.

  “All we really need to put this guy away for a long time,” Michaels said. “He couldn’t get rid of his presence at his own house. Plus, I think that Rick surprised him.” Michaels couldn’t meet Frank’s eyes as he said this last.

  “Probably,” Frank replied.

  “So we’ve got his prints, we’ve got his DNA.”

  “Ran it through the system?”

  “Roman just finished. Ellison was arrested twice. Once at nineteen for beating a guy into a coma.”

  “Just a few years after he got out of the mental institution.” Frank said. It was soft, contemplative.

  Michaels jerked a bit. “How did you know that?”

  “Talked to his former boss.”

  “Yeah,” Michaels said. “He had been institutionalized by his parents. He was in…” Michaels looked down at the papers. “Goodland State Hospital. His parents were concerned with some of his behavior. Seems that they found the bones of a stray dog in their son’s bedroom.”

  “Jesus,” Frank said.

  Michaels nodded. “The doctors there diagnosed him with sadistic personality disorder.”

  “What the hell is that?”

  “According to what I’ve read, it’s not used any more, but they termed him a spineless sadist.”

  Frank shook his head. “Spineless?”

  “He gave them some story about how the dog tried to attack him and after he killed it, he had no idea what to do with it. Their medical opinion was that he wouldn’t do it to a person.”

  “So he just stored it in his closet? And they let him go?”

  “Remember this would be back in the early ‘80s. Mental institutions were closing left and right back then. They were looked at as places for the indigent to go to get a meal.”

  Frank thought back and remembered the campaigns; there had been several of them in many states, ads that said things like: Our tax payer dollars should not go to those looking for a handout.

  As if living in a mental institution was a fucking vacation.

  “I remember,” Frank said.

  “Hospitals were pressured to find something concrete or let people go. Budget cuts, all that. He was deemed fit for society and remanded into his parent’s custody until eighteen.”

  “What did he get for the assault?”

  “A year in the stir,” Michaels said. “He claimed self-defense in the trial. The guy he beat up was someone he used to run around with. They were at a party getting drunk and I guess this guy said the wrong thing. Ellison used a candle stick from a table near by and beat the shit out of him.”

  Frank whistled. “And he only got a year for that?”

  “Cracked his skull in two places and broke his arm and several of his ribs. Thing was, a few of the people at the party said that the guy took a swing at Ellison first. Jury thought it was excessive, but maybe justified so they only gave him a year.”

  “Texas,” Frank said.

  “Probably a part of it,” Michaels agreed. “Then last year he got popped right here in the Sunshine State.”

  “What for?”

  “Trafficking in drugs.”

  “Drugs?” It didn’t seem to make sense.

  “Yep, prescription drugs. Some high level sh
it too.”

  “What did he get for that?”

  “Probation. He’s on probation as we speak.”

  “Probation? For drugs?”

  Michaels shrugged. “It wasn’t pot or coke and it wasn’t anything he could use to make meth. Something like that they would have come down on him hard. It was mostly vicodin, xanax, stuff like that. He claimed that he needed them, but he had over thirty bottles on him.”

  “What the hell; is the ghost of Johnny Cochran his lawyer?”

  “I don’t know,” Michaels said. “I didn’t look it up, but I’m guessing it’s not him.”

  “Did you find anything else?”

  “Yep,” Michaels said. “I know enough to save the best for last.”

  Frank leaned forward in his chair. “And what’s the best?”

  Michaels set a plain notebook on Frank’s desk. It had a blue cover that was worn and dog-eared. The corner was folded up a bit, breaking the blue hue and showing white underneath.

  Written across the front of it, in red ink, were the words: PRIVATE KEEP OUT.

  Frank laid a hand on it, gently. As if he expected touching it would give him an electric shock.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s his journal,” Michaels said. “I haven’t been through all of it, and of course it’s evidence, so it has to be handled as such, but it goes all the way back to the early ‘90’s and it ends about three months ago.”

  “Who’s seen it?”

  “Me and Roman and now you,” Michaels said. “I found it at the scene and Roman went through it for prints.” Michaels tapped the notebook. “If there are any answers from his house, they’re there. I have a feeling that if he’d thought he had enough time to grab it, he would have, but it was in the bedroom, in a little cubby hole behind the bed.”

  “Thank you,” Frank said. He kept running his hand across the notebook. Answers, maybe there were answers.

  Michaels stood up. “I would like a patrol tomorrow.”

  “Someone has to be here,” Frank said, but he was smiling.

  “Gloria’s here, plus whatever deputies you leave behind. I want to be out there.”

  “You will be,” Frank said. “I’ve got you in the east. I’m in the west. I figure that way, you and I can run things more effectively.”

  “If anything happens one of us will be relatively close,” Michaels said.