Of Guilt and Innocence (5 page)

Carlos stood there in an almost trancelike state, the knife still protruding from the woman's back. Finally her gasps for air stopped and she lay still. It was as if, at that time, Carlos was finally awoken and he began to panic. He questioned what he had just done and tried to remember it all. He didn't understand the emotions he had felt or the reason he had so violently taken this woman's life, a woman whose name he did not even remember. But that wasn't important now. Now all he was concerned about was covering up this grisly act, and he began to think of how he could do just that.

He realized he had touched nothing in the bedroom as his forearm, which was covered by his white long sleeved shirt, had blocked the door from shutting. He made the decision that he had to take the knife with him when he left, and so he hovered over the woman's lifeless body and pulled it out, careful not to touch anything other than the handle. He then went back to the kitchen. He knew he could not deny being in the apartment; somehow, somewhere there would be a trace of him he would leave behind.

He decided to make it look as if he had finished his cup of tea and left, so he took both cups off the small table and put them in the sink, dumping out any of the excess tea. He then used a dish towel that hung from a small hook over the sink and began wiping the knife block he had taken his weapon of choice from in an attempt to remove any of his fingerprints he may have left there. Then, using the kitchen towel to cover his hands as best he could, he went through the woman's purse that sat on the table. He removed her wallet and placed it in his back pocket. He used the towel to wrap the knife, then he was faced with the biggest decision yet, how to get from the apartment to his car without being seen.

Luckily for him he only had a few small drops of blood on his shirt. Having only stabbed his victim once, and not very forcefully, reduced the amount of blood spatter he had to deal with. However, he would be carrying a rather large kitchen knife wrapped in a dish towel, and even just the sight of him walking to his car could be damning enough. But he didn't have a lot of options, and so he just went for it. He quietly shut the front door behind him and walked as quickly as he could down the hall, back down the stairs, and to his vehicle. It seemed as if he had managed to avoid detection, and he drove off breathing a sigh of relief.

Carlos knew the body would be found soon, and he knew eventually the police would track him down, at least to speak with him. He could not deny giving the woman a ride home; the image of them getting into his vehicle in the hospital parking garage and driving away would have been captured on one of the security cameras for certain. He also knew he had to dispose of the knife, still wrapped in the dish towel, and wallet, both of which he had placed in his gym bag. He needed to come up with a plan quickly, and the outline of one began to emerge.  

While at work the following day, he spoke with one of the security guards and voiced a concern that he had been followed by someone in the parking garage. He inquired if he would be able to view the security camera footage if for no other reason than to ease his mind. The security guard told Carlos the security videos could be rewound up to twenty-four hours before they were copied to a hard drive and stored, so he was in luck and would be able to review the video right then and there. The guard rewound the video to the point that Carlos and the elderly woman were in picture and then started.  

“Wait, right there. Who is that?” Carlos pointed at the monitor, trying to hide the elation that his long shot had come through. A man appeared on the video, walking to his car a few steps behind Carlos.

“Let me see if I can zoom in a little.” The security guard maneuvered his mouse and clicked on a few buttons and the picture of the mystery man became clearer. Carlos had to try even harder not to smile as the man's identity became obvious to him. He thanked the befuddled security guard and went on his way.

 

The man from the video was a hospital orderly named Mika Jackson. Mika was a twenty six-year-old recovering drug addict who had always stood out to Carlos. Despite what he had been told about Mika trying to turn his life around, Carlos always believed him to be a gang member due to his tattoos, and thought he was going to steal drugs or prescription pads.

  

Carlos was now armed with a plan, and he went about setting it into motion. He picked up his gym bag from his locker and told as many people as he possibly could that he was going to pick something up for lunch and that he might go to the gym. Before leaving, he stopped at the rest room, which he found to be empty. He began rolling out feet upon feet of paper towel from the dispenser on the wall, then took it with him into a toilet stall, shutting the stall door behind him. He rolled up his sleeve and stuffed the paper towel into the toilet until the toilet became clogged. He flushed the toilet repeatedly until it began to overflow, then he quickly exited the restroom and made his way to the maintenance office, which he found to be unlocked with the door open. Carlos entered the office, where he knew the orderlies would congregate from time to time, and found only one sitting at a desk, reading the newspaper. Carlos told the orderly of the flooding toilet and used his smooth talking powers of persuasion to get him to leave the tiny office immediately and tend to the problem.  

When he had the office all to himself, Carlos put on a pair of surgical gloves he had in his pocket and retrieved the knife from his bag. He placed it in one of the desk drawers at the bottom of a stack of papers and quickly shut the drawer. Carlos remained in the office and used the telephone on the desk to make a phone call to the management office at the Royal Saxson apartment complex, the complex where his victim lived. He advised he was interested in renting an apartment there but had questions about the security of the complex. He specifically inquired if there were cameras in the parking area or the exterior hallways, and when he was told there were no cameras on the grounds anywhere, he smiled and said he would be in touch and hung up.

Carlos then calmly walked out of the office and went on his way, disposing of the wallet at a gas station near the hospital.

Sure enough, the body of Rebecca Sullivan, Carlos's victim, was discovered by police two days after her demise. He knew it wouldn't be long until the police were able to piece together her last day, and that would bring them straight to him. He began rehearsing his story, preparing to defuse the suspicion he was sure was going to be cast his way. The more he prepared to be interviewed, the more he actually became excited by it rather than nervous. Another challenge; something that got his competitive juices flowing again. It took another two days before a detective came calling at the hospital, looking for Carlos.  

The detective had gotten Carlos's name from the oncologist who had requested he speak with Rebecca the day she died. He knew Carlos had gotten in the elevator with her, which was what he told the detective, but that was all he knew, and he certainly did not cast suspicion in Carlos's direction. When the detective spoke with Carlos he had yet to view the security video of Rebecca leaving in Carlos's car, but Carlos didn't try to hide it; he knew that detail would eventually come to light, and so he admitted he had driven her home that day. The detective looked surprised by that admission and began to press Carlos for details, which set Carlos on spinning the deceitful web he had so carefully created.

He told the detective that when the two were walking to his car he felt like he was being followed, but the only person he noticed at the time was a hospital orderly named Mika Jackson, whom he knew and did not suspect. Still, he told the detective, he could not shake the strange feeling. Carlos then told of how he had parked his car and accepted Rebecca's invitation in for a cup of tea. He stated he was inside the apartment for roughly fifteen minutes, describing a surgical procedure Rebecca was to have done and drinking his tea, before he left with her very much alive.

Carlos's gaze drifted from the detective's eyes to a fixed place along the wall of the break room in which the interview was being conducted. He attempted to muster his best look of concern as he told the detective that when he returned to the complex's parking lot and began walking to his car, he noticed Mika sitting in a black Chevy Impala in a parking space with the car still running. Carlos said when he recognized Mika he waved, and Mika rolled down his front driver's side window as Carlos passed. Carlos asked Mika what he was doing at the complex, to which Mika told Carlos he lived there. Carlos told the detective he continued to his car, got in, and drove away without another word being spoken to Mika.

Carlos said he thought nothing of it at the time, assuming Mika did, in fact, live there, but he told the detective that two things had just struck him as odd for the first time. First, why Mika would sit in a parked car, with the engine running, and not go into his apartment? If Mika left the hospital at the same time as Carlos and Rebecca he would have gotten there shortly after they did, so he must have been sitting in his car for a fair amount of time. And second, the look Mika had on his face when he told Carlos he lived at the apartment complex was one of concentration, of determination. It was a focused stare straight ahead, never looking at Carlos as he spoke or passed by.

The detective seemed a bit skeptical of Carlos's story but left him just the same to continue his investigation.  Sure enough, as the days and weeks unfolded, Carlos's plan played out just as he had intended it to. Mika was questioned and denied ever being at the apartment or speaking with Carlos at all that day. However, the security video of Mika appearing to be following Rebecca and Carlos out of the building and the word of a respected doctor was enough for detectives to get a search warrant for Mika's apartment, car, and the maintenance office at the hospital.  Despite being almost a week after Carlos had planted it, the knife was found in the desk drawer by detectives, and Mika was arrested and charged with first degree murder.

The assumption was that Mika had begun to abuse drugs once again and had stalked Rebecca from the hospital to her apartment, planning to rob her for drug money. After the crime, Mika had panicked and hid the knife at work until he could dispose of it. Mika did have an alibi for the time when Rebecca was murdered. He had gone straight from work to his sister's apartment to try to fix her garbage disposal. However, his sister proved to be of little help to him as she herself was a drug addict with a long criminal history. Her statement was disregarded as one family member, who was unreliable, covering for another.  

The trial took a year to conclude, with Carlos involved heavily as the prosecution's star witness. The prosecution did manage to find one other witness, an elderly woman who lived in the same building as Rebecca, stated she saw Mika get out of a black car and walk toward Rebecca's apartment. Her motives for fabricating her story were unknown to Carlos, but he was obviously glad to have her onboard. The apartment complex's manager also testified he received a call the day after the murder from a man inquiring about security cameras on the property. The prosecution then provided phone records to indicate the call had originated from Ft. Lauderdale Hospital, specifically the phone line in the maintenance office. They produced witnesses who testified that Mika was at the hospital during the time the call was placed, and the defense was unable to find anyone who could account for his whereabouts at that moment. The jury took little time convicting Mika of murder, but spared him the death penalty.

Carlos was seen as a hero by the hospital staff. Even people who Mika considered to be friends at the hospital just assumed he had gotten back into drugs and had done it. No one suspected otherwise, least of all that Carlos could have actually been involved somehow, and so the whole thing just went away with Mika's conviction. Everyone eventually forgot about it, except Carlos. Every day since he had committed the murder he would think about it, retracing his steps in his mind. He remembered Rebecca's last moments, her last breaths. He didn't feel remorse or guilt; however, he derived a sense of power from these thoughts. The fact that he had gotten away with it added to his sense of invincibility, his ever growing ego, and the idea that he had superior intelligence. Reliving the murder and cover up in his mind gradually became insufficient, and he knew he wanted desperately to do it again. This time he would be better prepared. This time he would choose someone who could not be traced back to him so easily. And more importantly for him, this time he would take something, a souvenir that would help him to relive his crime over and over again. He would take seven other lives throughout the years. Now he had his ninth victim in sight, and he had no plans on making it his last.

 

 

CHAPTER 4
 

 

 

With daylight hours dwindling, a group search for Ashley had commenced, led by Sergeant Stokes. Mike Stokes had been a police officer for twenty years and, at age forty-five, he believed he was about five years from retirement, though he hadn't set an official date. Throughout the years Mike had taken part in several high profile cases and had worn many hats with the department. Cases were always different when they involved children, and this one was already affecting him in ways the others hadn't. Mike had three children of his own: two boys and a girl. Though all his children were older than Ashley, his daughter was his youngest; she was his baby.

He tried to keep himself from making this case personal and putting himself in Tom Wooten's position, but at times he couldn't help it. He thought about how it would change him, as a person and police officer, if this turned out to be a kidnapping. To know that a kind of evil like that existed so close to home was hard for him to swallow. But he was getting ahead of himself. He still couldn't completely kick the feeling she had just wandered off or had gone with a friend or relative and this was just a misunderstanding. As time passed, however, that feeling diminished little by little.