Chapter Two

 

Justice Complex

 

Gary Bates sat in the police officers’ terminal at Justice Complex. He skimmed the room as officer Max Donovan leaned against the file cabinet, referring to the notes of a case gone cold.

Glancing across the room, Bates watched Dale Daniels, Walter Newton, and Jennifer Woods with coffees and donuts at their desks. Their stations littered with registers. Bates glared at the three, speculating if they each had something to hide. The detective didn’t trust many people always suspicious of everybody he came into contact with. He even suspected his officers and staff.

With a sigh, Bates shifted his hulking frame from the rotating chair, headed to his office. Detective Gary Bates, sprawled in large caps on the door. Upon entering his office, the detective went to the ringing phone, snatched up the receiver, pressed it to his ear.

“Hello.”

“This is the secretary, just a courtesy call. Detective, I thought you’d like to know if there are any changes to the roster. And officer Edwards will be late coming in tonight. A temporary officer stationed at in the surveillance room until he arrives.”

“Yeah, someone said something about Edwards looking like hell when he left here last night. I had him stakeout a drug bust maybe not such a great idea.”

“Yes, so I believe.”

“I’m surprised he’s coming in at all.”

“Well, between us, I think he needs the money pretty bad always saying he has bills to pay.”

“Well, don’t we all, but okay, thanks for letting me know. I won’t be here tonight, but I’ll pass it on.”

Hanging up the phone, Bates sat at his desk, picked up the white coffee mug the department gave him for his birthday last month. The Greatest Detective Ever, reflected across the cup in large crimson letters.

He chuckled to himself, tilted the mug toward his lips; the sour taste of cold coffee met his tongue he spit it out. Grabbing a napkin off his desk, Bates wiped the front of his shirt as Jennifer came barging into his office.

“What the hell?”

“Sorry, Detective, but I need to talk to you before you get busy.”

“Okay.” Bates waved his hand toward the chair in front of the desk. “What is it? Spill it.”

“I think you ought to keep a close eye on Edwards.”

Bates leaned forward on the desk, lifted his eyebrows. He stole a glimpse of Jennifer’s pale face so cute with freckled cheeks and strawberry-colored hair dragged back into a pigtail. Bates knew Jennifer wasn’t too fond of Stanley Edwards, she kept advising him to monitor the guy, but Bates believed Edwards harmless. Besides, the cop wasn’t his problem, anyhow. Edward transferred from another police department five months earlier. They never had issues with him, so far. What was Jennifer’s problem?

“Why do you keep insisting we monitor Edwards? Is there something you’re not telling me?”

She leaned backward in the chair and let out an exasperated sigh. “There’s something not right with the guy, I’m telling you. Please, keep a close eye on him, will you?”

Those big brown eyes pleaded with Bates to believe her, but he just couldn’t become misled by something unimportant without solid proof. The prison held over five thousand inmates Bates encountered enough troubles rather than watching a harmless twenty-seven-year-old guy working to make a living.

“I’ll inform the other officers to monitor, Jen, but I assure you Edwards as harmless as a deceased fly. I’ll tell you what else I believe. I heard Wally Hanes told him about the women he murdered over the eight years before we caught his ass. I guess Edwards pretty shaken up by the stories.”

“The fucker is doing life in prison, so now he’ll confess. Sounds pretty creepy,” Jennifer said, rolling her eyes. She stood up, headed for office door.

Bates stopped grinning, cleared his throat. “By the way, some temp guy will pass through, Edwards is coming in late. Guess it’s because of the stakeout I put him on last night. Just tell the others, will you?  

She nodded spun back toward the exit, shut the door behind her.

That woman needed to get over herself. We’ve got everything under control here.

Bates moved away from the desk, drew the blinds to the office window, and hid for the next three hours until lunch.

 

****

 

Stanley ran thirty minutes late rushing to the bus stop. Bates didn’t seem to care, but he bet that bitch Jennifer Woods had something to suggest.  The woman cop didn’t care for Stanley Edwards very much always in his face. She remained the sole woman officer in the law enforcement department, so what she said didn’t matter. But she seemed to take an unhealthy interest in the transferred cop. Stanley vowed to stay away from Jennifer as much as possible. In the meantime, she needed to watch herself.

He got to the prison at midnight.  Sliding the employee’s card through the metal slit in the steel doors, Edwards waited for them to open. In for the night shift until seven in the morning, he would do his time in the surveillance room, then enlist his station catching up on the registers from last night’s stakeout.

The station entrance lit dimly. Shiny white floors illuminated by the dingy light, casting an uncanny glow in parts of the corridor. Edwards’s boots clicked on the polished tiles making hollow echoes. A moderate breeze escaped from the wall corner crack. Red painted bricks threatened to catch Edwards, bury him within the trapped, suffocating cement of the great building.

He took a deep breath, headed to the surveillance room. After turning right on the initial floor down three corridors, Edwards passed Bates’ office. As he rounded the police stations, everyone sat around except officer, Daniels and Bates. He passed by the primary officers’ station. Max, Walter, and Jennifer seated at their desks, drinking hot coffee. Walter swallowed three donuts while his large belly protruded between the chair and the desk’s edge.  The cop appeared a walking, three hundred and thirty pound donut himself.

Max, who stood six foot five inches tall, skinny, had a half-eaten turkey Subway sandwich on his desk. He resembled a lizard.

And there sat sweet ole Jennifer, at five foot four, one hundred and ninety-one pounds with her chubby thighs, broad hips, huge breasts, and a fat ass. She had a Lean Cuisine dinner on her desk, glaring at Edwards.

He smirked wanting to give her the finger, but kept on walking toward the surveillance room. Down the hall, Edwards passed prison cells mostly convicts, the repeat offenders, murderers, drug violators, all asleep, except for Wally Hanes.

Damn, the fellow never sleeps!

He had too much time on his hands telling stories about twenty women he murdered in eight years. Hanes served life in prison without parole.

Hanes told Edwards his stories, memories of how he murdered each woman. The maniac remembered gruesome acts he performed upon each one of them. The stories should have sickened the cop. They just got on his nerves.