The White Angel Murder

12

Stanton woke and felt his shirt clinging to him with sweat. He sat up in bed and pushed himself against the headboard, feeling the firmness of the wood against his back. There was a glass of water on the nightstand next to him and he took a long drink, the water warm and beginning to taste like dust. The clock said 11:13 pm.

He rose and put on sweatpants and a zip-up Nike jacket. His sneakers were under the bed and he pulled them out and slowly slipped them on his feet. There was something in the purposefulness of it that he wanted to feel right now and he wasn’t sure why.

There would be no more sleeping tonight. At least not for another four or five hours. He took a diet cola out of the fridge and headed to his car.

The city was lit neon blue in the darkness and the streets were still crowded from restaurants and bars and clubs that catered to nighthawks and the young. Palm trees were on both sides of the road he traveled on, appearing like giant dandelions against the backdrop of the moonlit sky.

He remembered this city from when he was young. They traveled a lot as a youth, his father working his residency for two years in Montana and two years in Buffalo before moving to Seattle. He remembered that he liked Seattle for the first month he was there. After that, the gray skies and constant dampness discouraged him and he grew depressed. His fifth grade teacher recommended medication but his father, a psychiatrist, refused. “Only as a last resort,” he would tell his mother when she pleaded with him to put their only child on anti-depressants.

The depression eventually grew so pronounced he could no longer get out of bed. They used medication but it only numbed him further.

His parents coddled him, threatened him, bribed him and finally physically attempted to move him out of bed in the mornings. Occasionally he was in bed for seventy hours or more at a time. He had lost so much weight his mother was concerned he would starve to death and she would bring cake and chips and steaks to his room and feed him while she spoke about mundane things that had happened during the day.

His father would try and hold therapy sessions but could never get his son to open up enough to help him. Eventually, he left him alone.

The only comfort Jonathan had was his friend Stacey. She was Mormon and saw the pain in him when she came to visit him once to bring his homework. She invited him out to family home evening and for whatever reason, he went. The family was sweet and welcoming and did not judge or care where he had come from or what he had done. It was the only glimmer of happiness he had in those times.

It was a long road to acceptance for his parents that their son had mental health issues and Jonathan remembered that night clearly. He was woken by something and saw his mother sitting on the edge of the bed, softly crying into her hands. His father sat next to her, his arm around her shoulders.

The next day, his father began applying to jobs in California. He found one in the ER at the University of San Diego Hospital.

His father was the staff psychiatrist for the emergency room from nine at night until seven in the morning. He was to evaluate and decide the proper course of treatment for anyone coming through the ER that was determined to need a psych eval. Primarily, it was the homeless. They would be let out on the streets and told to come back at certain times for their medications and none of them were able to keep track of when to return. The next week or month they would be back in the ER because they walked into traffic or jumped off a building or were beaten up or stabbed or shot. Dr. Stanton had once told his son that you knew the world was truly going to hell when the mental institutions were closed and the jails were full.

Stanton was enrolled in surfing lessons by his mother the week they moved to San Diego. The sand and sunshine and crisp blue water revived him and his mother told people he was like a different child. But the scar of that severe depression never left him and he carried sadness in his eyes for the rest of his life.

Stanton arrived at his office shortly before midnight. The security guard was dozing and didn’t bother to feign attention when he saw him. Stanton took the elevator and then regretted not taking the stairs. The movement would’ve helped him right now and he needed to try and exhaust himself so he could get some sleep later in the morning.

Nathan Sell was in his office and Stanton nodded to him as he made his way down the hall to his office. Jessica was still there as well, watching DVD’s of recorded interviews.

“Hey,” she said as she paused the DVD, “what are you doing here so late?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Stanton said. He stepped into her office and sat down across from her. The chair was thickly cushioned and warm and he realized how much he would’ve liked to have been able to sleep. “I didn’t know there were any witnesses.”

“Just over twenty people were in the area. No one saw or heard anything. Couple of ‘em look like they know more than they’re telling us. I’m going to hit them up tomorrow.” She took out two Ibuprofen from her drawer and washed them down with a Crystal Light. “How’s it going for you?”

“I need to talk to the original detectives that worked the case. Few things aren’t adding up.”

“Like what?”

“They talked to a co-worker that they never put in their reports for one.”

“Hm, well, everybody’s got their own style.”

“I guess.” Stanton hesitated about telling her the victim may have been seeing a cop. Police were ravenously protective of their own and he didn’t want to seem like he was smearing a cop’s reputation if he didn’t have to.

“Can I ask you something, Jonathan? Something personal?”

“Sure.”

She played with her pencil, tapping it lightly against a stapler on her desk. “I knew Noah. We’d worked a case together. A kidnapping where the perp came down here from Watts. In that time that he was your partner, did you ever-”

“No.”

“Me neither. I know they say psychopaths can be charming, but I always thought if one was in my life I would know. I would just know.”

“How long did you know him?”

“It wasn’t for very long. We both worked too much to see each other more than once or twice.” She bit her lip and said, “He asked me out.”

“What did you say?”

“I said no. But not because I wasn’t attracted to him. I was literally just too busy at the time. If I had fewer cases, I would’ve taken him up on it. When I found out what he did to those girls … I can’t tell you how sick I felt. I thought about quitting the force.”

“You have nothing to feel sick over. There was a part of him that was human. That was the part that was likeable and friendly. But there was the other part too. It was a fight for him, but it had nothing to do with you.” He stood up. “I better get going.”

As he left he heard the DVD turn back on, a male voice adamantly denying having seen anything. He turned to look at her but she was already focused on the screen.