Don't Scream (9780307823526)
Read Don't Scream (9780307823526) Online
Authors: Joan Lowery Nixon
Books by Joan Lowery Nixon
FICTION
A Candidate for Murder
The Dark and Deadly Pool
Don't Scream
The Ghosts of Now
Ghost Town: Seven Ghostly Stories
The Haunting
In the Face of Danger
The Island of Dangerous Dreams
The Kidnapping of Christina Lattimore
Laugh Till You Cry
Murdered, My Sweet
The Name of the Game Was Murder
Nightmare
Nobody's There
The Other Side of Dark
Playing for Keeps
Search for the Shadowman
Secret, Silent Screams
Shadowmaker
The Specter
Spirit Seeker
The Stalker
The Trap
The Weekend Was
Murder
!
Whispers from the Dead
Who Are You?
NONFICTION
The Making of a Writer
“What part of New York are you from?” Scott suddenly asked Mark.
Mark blinked. “What do you mean?”
“It's a simple question, isn't it?” Scott asked. “You've got the accent. I recognize it. So, what part of New York are you from?”
“The Bronx. How about you?”
“Jersey,” Scott said.
“Where in Jersey?”
Scott hesitated just a moment. “Galesburg,” he said.
“I never heard of it.”
“It's there,” Scott said, and concentrated on his apple.
As Scott began to demolish the apple, I studied him.
He's lying
, I thought in surprise.
I can see it in his eyes. Why is he lying?
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 1996 by Joan Lowery Nixon
Cover illustration copyright © 1996 by Tim Barrall
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children's Books, a division of Random House LLC, New York, a Penguin Random House Company. Originally published in hardcover by Delacorte Press, New York, in 1996.
Laurel-Leaf Books with the colophon is a registered trademark of Random House LLC.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
eISBN: 978-0-307-82352-6
First Delacorte Press Ebook Edition 2013
Random House Children's Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
v3.1
For Carol Gorman,
a dear friend
FYI ONLY
To
: Director Albert P. Harley, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Federal Witness Protection Program
From
: Agents Harold Brill and Carl Gless
Notation
: Contents of folder to be added to Wayne Arthur Randall file. Last week's newspaper story included.
MOB HEAD CONVICTED
New York
: Stavros Grasso, top boss of one of New York City's largest crime organizations, was convicted today on three counts of felony. The damaging eyewitness testimony was given by a member of Grasso's crime ring in a courtroom that had been closed to all unauthorized persons in order to protect the identity of the seventeen-year-old witness.
Two of Grasso's top employees have been arrested as a result of the testimony. The organization's widespread activities in the sale of illegal drugs, forged identifications, prostitution, and â¦
MEMO:
Al, enclosed is the transcript of the tape I made in Judge William Cooper's chambers. Judge Cooper was angry and less than cooperative. To his credit, Wayne didn't completely lose his cool. Harold and I see no need to apprise Cooper of the existence of this tape.
Carl
TO OBTAIN
JUDICIAL SIGNATURE
COOPER
: Wayne Randall â¦Â I look at you in your neatly pressed suit and realize that to anyone who doesn't know your record, you could easily be mistaken for a model student representing your school.
WAYNE
: I
was
a model student, in my own way. School was too easy, if anything.
BRILL
: Your Honor, it's just a matter of signing the papers. If you'd â¦
COOPER
: Wayne, the psychiatrists who examined you four years ago agreed that you are a sociopath. Do you know what
sociopath
means?
WAYNE
: Do I know the big words? I ought to by this time, Your Honor.
BRILL
: Careful, Wayne.
COOPER
: It's the
meaning
of the word I'm concerned with. A sociopath is a person who is antisocial.
WAYNE
: [
Laughs
] How about if I change my deodorant?
COOPER
: A sociopath can seem open and even charming, which makes him a successful con man. But he's unable to live peaceably with others. He's after self-gratification at the expense of everyone else, because he has no conscience. He doesn't know the meaning of truth. He can be a constant threat â¦Â a danger to those around him.
BRILL
: Not all sociopaths are considered dangerous, Your Honor. There are many whoâ
COOPER
: Don't waste your breath, Mr. Brill. I'm well aware that
all
sociopaths make life difficult for those around them, and those sociopaths with violent histories in childhood willâin most casesârepeat that violence as adults and should be locked up.
BRILL
: Your Honor, it's late. If I may sayâ
COOPER
: No, you may
not
say. You have already said your pieceâyou and the other federal agents who operate your protected witness program. You've made it clear that this is out of my hands. I have no choice but to sign Wayne Randall's release, although it's most decidedly against my wishes and better judgment.
BRILL
: Surely Your Honor understands that if Wayne were to retain his own identity, Grasso's crime “family” would retaliate. The least we can
do is give Wayne what we've given other protected federal witnessesâa new identity and a new life.
COOPER
: What about the lives of others? Wayne Randall has killed before. Without a conscience to stop him, there's every chance in the world he'll murder again.
WAYNE
: It wasn't murder, Your Honor. The charge was dropped to manslaughter. I was only thirteen. I was too young to know what I was doing.
COOPER
: You knew what you were doing. According to the court records, you robbed the boy, then stabbed him.
WAYNE
: That's just part of what happened. I mean, there were so many lies told about me, about how I had planned to stab him. But I hadn't. It was self-defense on my part. And the jury agreed.
COOPER
: Self-defense? Do you expect me to believe that? I've dealt with enough sociopaths to know they can be quite disarming and skilled at telling convincing lies.⦠Mr. Brill, from the time Wayne was nine until his last arrest at the age of fifteen, he compiled a long record of arrests for burglary, shoplifting, animal abuse, andâwhat worries me the mostâbrutality against other children.
BRILL
:
Sealed
records, Your Honor. Records for juvenile offenders areâ
COOPER
: But we have no record of any arrests during the last two years. Why is that?
BRILL
: Weâuhâhave no actual knowledge that Wayne participated in any criminal activities during this time. He was with andâuhâwas â¦Â he was protected by Grasso's organization.
COOPER
: This report mentions an older brother. What about the brother? What type of work does he do for Grasso?
BRILL
: Boyd worked as a bodyguard. He was shot and killed six months ago during a drug bust.
COOPER
: Let's get this straight, Mr. Brill. In exchange for Wayne's testimony, you're sending him to live in another state. You're giving him a new identity and inflicting him on innocent people who will have no idea that there's a dangerous sociopath in their midst.
BRILL
: You're only assuming that he's dangerous. We have the full cooperation of his aunt, who'll be with him. Wayne knows that if he violates the conditions of the Federal Witness Protection Program, he'll be back to square one. We have every hope that his future behavior willâ
COOPER
: How do his parents fit into all this?
BRILL
: They've never been able to deal with either of their sons. They're completely agreeable to the arrangement, Your Honor.
GLESS
: If you'll just sign the papers, Your Honor, we'll be on our way.
End of transcript
MEMO:
To Al
: Here's the wrap-up. Judge Cooper signed the papers and shoved them at us. Carl and I thanked him and left with Wayne.
It probably means nothing, but just for the record the hallway was empty, except for a male (age and statistics indeterminate) seated on a bench far down the hall.
Neither Carl nor I first paid much attention to him, but we realized, as we left the building, that he had risen to his feet and was walking in our direction. We do not believe he was following us because we didn't see him enter the parking lot. All reasonable security precautions were taken.
Wayne is now established in his new identity and location. Total information is included in enclosed sealed envelope.
Harold
one
As I plopped down in a shady spot on my front porch steps, cuddling Pepper, my gray-and-white-striped cat, I watched a trio of moving men struggle with the furniture they were delivering to the house next door. They were sweating in the September heat and breathing heavily the pungent odor of salt from Galveston Bay.
I noticed that the furniture was new, but not expensive and not especially good-looking. I was curious. Would these new neighbors be crabby, like old Mr. Chamberlin, who lived at the end of the block? Or maybe young, and have kids?
I sighed. I couldn't help thinking about the kids in the noncontagious children's ward at our county hospital. Little towheaded Ricky had held up his arms to me, begging to be picked up. He'd burrowed his face against my own, making little mewing noises like a kitten. If only â¦Â But when one end of a pine chest of drawers came down with a crash and the man who had dropped
it let out a yell, my attention turned back to the movers.