I cherish each and every review, thank you. It is an honour to be sharing this story. I couldn't n'ot 'write it now if I wanted to, each chapter is coming fast and furious on the heels of the next. I apologize in advance for any typos, I'm not a very good proofreader, lol, and I post as soon as I finish a chapter, rather than rechecking later with fresh eyes. Thanks for reading. Cathy.
Chapter 53
"You're not the last because you're the best," Sturney said sullenly. "Well, your dedication and ingenuity has far surpassed that of the others, but that wasn't why you got your reprieval. Have you truly not figured out why the others died first?"
Brass looked at the killer thoughtfully. He honestly hadn't given any consideration as to why he was the last. He didn't think there was a whole lot of rhyme or reason in any of the madman's actions.
Sturney gave a long suffering sigh. "I told you why Detective Takei was first. I simply went backwards through the alphabet. Martens. Keeth." Dean smiled wryly. "I bet you were always one of the first for everything when you were growing up and in school. They always do everything alphabetically, or at least they did in the good old days. Attendance, of course. Seating arrangements. Picking teams. And little Jim Brass...or was it Jimmy then, I wonder?...would always have been one of the first called on. Well, you got lucky. This time your surname bumped you to the back of the list."
Oh the fickle finger of Fate, Brass realized. If his last name had been Roberts, he'd have been cold in his grave by now. Las Vegas had it right. Life really was just a crap shoot.
"Have we left anything out?" Sturney queried casually. "Or is it time to say our good byes?"
"The whiskey bottle," Brass put in suddenly. Not in a vain attempt to prolong his life, but because he really wanted to know. "I went back to the fire scene afterwards. The day of Elliott's memorial service. I recovered the whiskey bottle and had one of the techs test it back at the lab. There was nothing in it but whiskey." The detective looked at the killer speculatively. "Did you switch it?"
Sturney looked pleased. "Why yes, I did! I drained an identical bottle into my kitchen sink before I went back. Don't touch the stuff, myself. I left it there and took the other one with me. You know, I didn't really think it was necessary. Didn't think anyone would do more than a cursory investigation before finding accidental death. But still...I didn't see the point in taking any chances. Obviously, I was one step ahead as usual." He smiled at the other man pityingly. "Good for you though, that was very thorough for someone of your limited resourcefulness."
"One final thing," Jim said now. "Why go to all the trouble of making the murders look like accidents?"
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"One thing that you might want to know, Sir," the young agent finished. "There's an envelope here, addressed to Catherine Willows, care of the LVPD CSI unit."
Fontaine gripped the cell phone harder. "Open it," he instructed tersely.
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Catherine pulled onto Prospect and slowed the SUV to a crawl as she watched for house numbers. A lighted address on the exterior of one of the homes indicated that it was eleven Prospect Street. Seventy-four would be at the other end of the neat, residential drive, and on the other side.
"I don't see Jim's car," Cecilia spoke uncertainly.
Catherine had been watching for it as well. Most of the street's residents had their cars parked in their driveways, or their garages, but there were a few vehicles on the roadway next to the curb. Multi-car households, Catherine suspected. It was kind of late for visitors. None of the parked cars was the familiar sedan that Jim drove, however.
It was possible that Brass had parked the next street over, to avoid detection. Or...perhaps she was wrong about everything. Maybe the detective hadn't come here at all. Maybe Dean Sturney had nothing to do with their case. Her resolve faltered and the criminalist began to doubt both her conclusions and her course of action.
No! She had been right initially, she had to trust her first instincts. Sturney was the killer. And if he was, there was no chance in hell Brass had simply decided to turn in for the night and finish this up in the morning after a restful sleep. The Grand Canyon wouldn't be wide enough to keep Jim away if he was at the end of the trail.
Another possibility came to Catherine, chilling her. What if she was too late? What if Jim had already been here...only instead of his apprehending Sturney...the killer had somehow turned the tables? What if at this moment Brass's body was stuffed in the trunk of his sedan, being driven to some cliff or embankment outside of the city, where it would be transfered to the driver's seat before the vehicle was put into drive and pushed over the edge. Looking every bit like a driving accident caused by a temporary loss of control.
Damn, Catherine thought with a surreal moment of calm self-realization, I seriously need a vacation. It was becoming all too easy to let her imagination get the better of her. To adapt to the mental playground of a psychopath.
There it was. Number seventy-four. Catherine let the SUV roll past, trying to see beyond the palmettos and hibiscus bushes, into the lighted main living area of the house. She hadn't seen any movement inside. And she didn't hear the sound of gunfire. That, at least, was probably a plus. Now what? She couldn't exactly march up to the door, introduce herself, and inquire if by any chance Sturney had seen Captain Jim Brass tonight.
She would have to try to get a closer look at the interior of the home. A shiver ran through Catherine's slim frame. This was the kind of thing that P.D. usually did. The kind of thing that Brass would do. Securing a scene. The criminalist knew what to do, but she wasn't comfortable in the role. Usually by the time she got to a scene, the party was over, any danger had been negated, and it was her job to work backwards, and recreate whatever had occured.
Catherine thought of Lindsey, away at camp, having a grand adventure. She was her daughter's only surviving parent now. Now that she was here, Catherine thought, maybe she should reconsider. Perhaps she should call in and then wait for Fontaine or P.D.
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"Because I didn't want them to be heroes," Sturney answered flatly. "I didn't want them dying in the line of duty, victims of tragedy. I didn't want police honour guards and dignified ceremony." His pale eyes glinted. "I wanted their deaths to be senseless and stupid. A waste that others would talk about in hushed, embarassed tones, and think about with frustrated regret. Or even laying secret blame.
"The only ones to know the truth would be them...and me. And I wanted them to die knowing that there would be no investigation. No justice. No vindication. You didn't bring that to those women...and none of you deserved that for yourselves."
Sturney was sounding like some kind of warped victim's advocate, Brass realized, stunned.
"I wanted them to know how I felt. Knowing all of those things about my own impending death. The senselessness of it. The fact that there would be no justice. No vindication. Their failings, and that of others like them, had doomed me. Now it was their turn to know how that felt." Sturney clenched his teeth, glaring at the detective.
This guy actually considers himself some kind of victim in all of this, Jim thought with amazement.
"And they did. At the end, they all knew exactly what it was like." Sturney grinned, his thin lips pulling so far back over his teeth that it was more a caricature of a smile.
Then his mouth sagged again, and he gave Brass a wounded look. "You've denied me that, with your meddling. The final act won't be as satisfying as the three that preceded it. There won't be the appearance of an accident this time. Your death will be splashed all over the papers. You'll probably make CNN." The killer frowned his displeasure at the idea. "Some may even view your hot-headed stupidity as heroic." The killer grimaced.
"Everyone will know now that you killed Joe Takei, Denny Martens and Elliott Keeth as well," Brass told him. "That their deaths weren't accidents. All of your hard work and careful planning down the drain." Jim knew he would only be provoking the other man, but he had to say it. For the other three. To reclaim some of the dignity that Sturney had sought to steal from them.
Sturney's face reddened. "Shut up!" he yelled, waving the gun in the detective's direction. "Now stand up! I want you to look me in the eye when I kill you!"
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Brass might need her now, Catherine accepted. As dangerous as her plan might be, she was committed to that course of action. Life was rife with dangers. She wouldn't put herself in a foolhardy situation and take unnecessary risks, because she had a responsibility to Lindsey. But that wasn't the situation here. Catherine's colleague...her friend...needed her. Whether this was technically her job or not, morally Catherine knew she was doing the right thing.
"Stay here!" the criminalist whispered insistently at Cecilia, before getting out of the Denali.
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Fontaine could not have been any more stunned by the contents of the envelope Jim Brass had left for Catherine Willows. Once more his opinion of the detective was a mixture of respect and angry frustration. Working all on his own, without any resources, the Captain had solved the mystery of the identity of a maniac whose almost ten year killing spree had ended the lives of several, affected the futures of so many, and involved various law enforcement agencies across the nation.
And by now, Brass would be at the killer's residence, determined to bring Sturney in. On his own and without any back-up. Somehow, without even having received the letter yet, Catherine Willows must have found out what the detective was up to. And the criminalist's allegiance, when push had come to shove, had been with Brass.
Fontaine could understand that. It took time to forge the kind of relationship that people working together in this profession could build. Willows and Brass had a long professional history. And he sensed a personal bond as well, platonic, but deeply planted. If Fontaine had had more time, perhaps he could have begun to create an atmosphere where either or both of them might have learned to trust and respect him as well. But he hadn't, and all he could do now was whatever clean up was necessary from the sidelines.
The agent believed that both Brass and Willows had made a colossal mistake in their handling of the situation. He prayed that their decisions and choices wouldn't allow a killer to slip away again. And he hoped fervently that no harm would come to either the criminalist or the detective.
"Get over to that address right now!" Fontaine instructed the agent. "I'm on my way. Proceed with extreme caution. Your priority is to take Sturney into custody, and you have the ultimate authority here. Expect two locals on scene, Brass and a female. Blonde. I repeat, the priority is Sturney, we cannot lose him."
"Ten four, Sir."
Fontaine found O'Reilly in the next room with Ecklie. "I need an APB put out on a white, Volkswagon Beetle," he thrust a piece of paper at the detective on which he had written the license plate number, "and all available units at seventy-four Prospect Street. I don't want any lights or sirens, understand?" The two men looked at him in surprise. "The serial killer we've been looking for is Dean Allan Sturney. That's his current address. And your Captain Brass has gone to bring him in."
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Catherine crept up to the front of the house, her gun drawn, its muzzle pointed low. She couldn't remember ever having felt so alone and vulnerable in her life. And the mantle of responsibility she had accepted on behalf of Jim Brass weighed heavily on her slender shoulders.
There was no vehicle parked in Sturney's driveway. The lights on inside could mean that someone was there, or just that they had been left on for security. She moved slowly, her body tight with tension. Approaching the garage first, Catherine peered into the shadowed space, noting that a small, light-coloured car was parked within.
She moved next to the small porch, stepping up the few concrete stairs to the landing. The porch was enclosed with wrought iron railing. A few feet to the left was the livingroom window. Catherine thought that if she pressed against the rail, and leaned over, she might be able to get a view of the home's interior.
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The detective didn't cringe when Sturney waved the gun, and the killer felt his resentment grow. What was wrong with Jim Brass? Did the other man not value his own life at all? In most human beings the instinct for self-preservation...for survival...was so deeply ingrained it could override every other human emotion, desire or ethical position. The inclination to live at all costs, meant that most people would do anything to prolong their own existence. And most people feared their own death above all.
Sturney had seen it in the eyes of the women he had raped and murdered. The knowledge of their impending deaths. Their fear. And he had fed off of that emotion. For that brief moment in time, he had felt a connection to another human being. An understanding. For those few seconds, while the body went through a host of physiological responses...increased heart rate, respiration and perspiration... Sturney would observe his victim with excitement.
Neurologically, there was a mental hijacking, as the midbrain would make a neural shortcut, bypassing the forebrain and mobilizing the body for an immediate fight or flight response to the stimuli that caused the fear. There was the distressing accompanying feeling that one was losing control of one's mind, as rational thought was bypassed in favour of an autonomic nervous system response.
And as his victims displayed these changes...as their fear evidenced in their eyes...Sturney was finally able to feel close to humanity. He no longer felt so alone.
Dean knew all about fear. His earliest memories were of the terror of abandonment. His teenage, drug-addicted mother would lock her toddler son in the closet, with several bottles of milk or water and some Arrowroot cookies, and then go off for the night to party. Sometimes, the gala celebration would last two or three days, before she would remember to drag herself home.
Dean would sit in the dark, hungry and alone, in the filth of his body's eliminations. Curled tightly into himself, sucking on his thumb, waiting and listening for her return. Wondering what he had done wrong. While silent tears coursed down his cheeks.
When he had gotten a bit older, three or four, when she judged it safe to leave him the run of the dilapidated apartment, thinking she could trust him not to turn on the stove and cause a fire, or drown himself in the tub or toilet, Dean would sit in front of the fuzzy, black and white television during her abscences. She would leave him a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter. Sometimes she would even kiss his forehead and remind him to be good, promising to be back soon. He would just sit there, unresponsive to her touch.
The episodes were most frequent around the holidays. It was then when his young mother's friends would be partying and celebrating, and she would decide that having an unplanned pregnancy and the subsequent unwanted responsibility of a child, shouldn't prevent her from having some kind of life of her own. Dean had no idea where his father was. Or even who he was. If Kelly Sturney knew, she never said anything to her little boy. There was no family, no other caretaker. The child was on his own.
Dean would lie down in front of the television, turning the volume up to drown out the sounds of mice and rats scurrying through the walls, or the angry sounds of the neighbours involved in yet another domestic dispute. He would watch programmes about families seated around the Thanksgiving table, carving mouth-watering, golden turkeys. He would see commercials that featured laughing children opening presents on Christmas morning, with their doting parents looking on. All of it as foreign to him as the idea of love.
He learned that in the springtime, when the boxes of chocolate bunnies and hens began appearing at the grocery stores, and the retailers put up their pastel-coloured decorations, that other people celebrated Easter. That a giant bunny would hide coloured eggs and candy for other children to find.
And Dean would smear peanut butter on stale bread, and he would hate those days marked on the calendar that would always find him alone and scared.
As the years passed, and Dean entered elementary school, Kelly Sturney, formerly estranged from her family, began to turn her life around. Dean was taken into the foster care system, while his mother battled her addiction. She learned new life skills and parenting skills. She reunited with her family. Eventually, the little boy was returned to her.
She could never really understand the aloofness that the child displayed, and she would sometimes think guiltily that it was her fault that little Dean was so...odd. She tried to make it up to him for the past mistakes she had made. Kelly Sturney got a job, and she met a decent man who, even though he never became close to the growing boy, was good to them both.
As the years past, Dean realized that there was something missing in his life, that other people took for granted. He couldn't form any emotional attachments. There was always an anger seething just below the surface, even when he displayed an outward calm. He was brighter than average, but that was never reflected in his grades or the quality of work he produced.
As he became a teen, and his peers became interested in the opposite sex, and began pairing off, Dean would just hang back and watch with detachment. When he tried to talk to girls, they always seemed to either immediately dismiss him, or they were nervous around him. He only knew what he wanted from them, and not how to give anything in return, and even on those rare occasions when he managed to secure a first date, there was never ever a follow-up.
He began spending more and more time in his room. No longer taking meals with his mother and her live-in boyfriend. He began viewing increasingly graphic and violent pornography, and he became a voracious reader of the biographies of some of history's most infamous personalities. Adolph Hitler. Charles Manson. David Berkowitz, known to the denizens of New York City as the Son of Sam.
His mother discovered his collection. Dean found her sitting on the bed in his room after school one day. She wanted to talk. For the first time...there was fear in her eyes when she looked at him. Kelly Sturney had trouble holding her son's gaze. And Dean finally discovered his power. Seeing the apprehension in her eyes, the uncertainty, the worry, made him feel ten feet tall. Finally, after all of these years...they had something in common.
It became an aphrodisiac for Dean then, to behave in sublte but calculating ways that would frighten his mother. To bring that look of discomfort and anxiety to her features. Soon it wasn't enough though. Her unease would pass too quickly, and he would be left feeling bereft and disconnected again.
He spent almost a month planning her death. He'd lay awake in bed, bathed in the soft glow of his nightlight...Dean always hated the total dark...and think about how to get the most optimum enjoyment out of her demise. He finally decided on fire. She was afraid of fire, he knew. Being confronted with the scarlet and crimson flames of her nightmares, would allow for her to experience maximum fear.
He had to make it look like an accident, and not like arson. Firstly, Dean had no desire to spend the next twenty years languishing in prison. Locked up. No one was ever going to lock him up again. Secondly, the bitch didn't deserve the sympathy that an apparent murder would create in people.
In the end, he had made it looked like unattended candles had been the cause of the conflagration that destroyed the home and killed Kelly Sturney. He waited until the boyfriend, a plumber, was out on a late night service call. The blaze started in her bedroom, and Kelly Sturney, trapped between her bed and the door behind the searing, crackling fingers of flame, had screamed for her son to help her.
Dean had stood in the hallway beyond, watching her try to rush for the safety of the door, wanting to push past the wall of fire, but unable to get through, turned away by the intensity of the heat, and falling back time and again. He had smiled at the twisted, agonized set of her still youthful countenance. At the horror that was reflected in her light blue eyes. She had understood then that not only was her son not going to help her...but that he was the one who had doomed her to this fiery hell.
Her fear had been a living, palpable thing. Dean had felt it emanating from her in waves. He'd thrown back his head and closed his eyes, and stood there with his arms extended wide while he let its essence bathe him. And her screams had resonated in his ears.
And as he drank in her pain and suffering, and watched her fear, for those few moments the memory of his own fear and pain was alleviated. Temporarily forgotten. And for a split second, his mother finally gave him what he needed. They were as one. And for that instant, Dean Sturney came as close to feeling love for a human being as he was capable of doing.
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Catherine could see Brass standing near a blue upholstered arm chair positioned near the window. Across from him was Sturney, she recognized him from the driver's license photo. She hadn't noted his height at the time, and was surprised by how small the man looked. This was the monster who had murdered three cops and several women? He looked as though one good breeze would upend him and carry him out of Clark County.
Sturney had a gun! He was pointing it at Jim, gesticulating angrily. Catherine didn't see a weapon in Brass' hands and knew the detective would not have arrived unarmed. Evidently, Sturney, as unprepossessing as he appeared, had found a way to disarm Jim. What had gone wrong? And what should she do now?
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Brass stared at the killer. To his surprise, he felt calm. At peace. No matter what happened now, Catherine would soon get the letter. Even though Brass had failed, it was only a matter of time before Sturney would be apprehended. The killing spree would soon be at an end.
The detective knew that it was all over for him. Sturney wouldn't get away, but he would claim his final victim. Yet Jim wasn't afraid.
He held in his mind the faces of those who had meant the most to him over the years. His parents. His brother. Even Nancy, back in the beginning when they had been young and mistaking lust for love. Ellie, who he always carried with him in his heart.
The cops he had worked with back in New Jersey, before the undercover assignment that had cost him their trust and respect. Annie, who had never given up on him.
Sammy McCann, whose daughter Tania had lost her battle with CF. A cop who had taken a wrong turn somewhere. Sammy, whose trust Brass had had to eventually betray in the line of duty, but who had taught Jim that people were more than the sum of their mistakes.
He could see before him the faces of Joe Takei, Denny Martens and Elliott Keeth. Of the other officers and detectives he had come to respect during his time with the LVPD. Brass thought of Catherine and Grissom and the other CSIs who he had worked in conjunction with. He hoped that Catherine and Gil, especially, would know that they had always been more to him than just co-workers.
Brass thought of Tony and Maria Scrivo and their ebullient and gracious friendship, and of the barbecue that would never happen now.
And finally, the detective conjured up an image of Cecilia. If Jim did have an eternal soul, than she had saved it. And if there was something beyond this life, and a way for those gone on to watch over those left behind, then Jim promised himself he would find a way to protect her in death, the way he would have liked to had he lived.
And then Jim remembered the feel of her curled in his arms, wanting that to be his last conscious thought, and he smiled.
Sturney was livid. Detective Brass was smiling?Perhaps the man was in denial. Perhaps he still expected the cavalry to ride in and save him. Maybe he thought Dean wouldn't go through with it. The killer's arms trembled with his need to kill the other man. But he couldn't. Not yet. Not until the detective gave him what he craved. What he needed.
To see Jim Brass' fear. To take it in, and create that bridge between them. For one last time before Sturney's own death, to reach across the chasm of his own pain, loneliness and anger to bond with another human being in shared understanding.
Sturney had to get the detective's attention. To get past whatever fantasy the other man had created for himself that allowed him to look down the barrel of a Magnum and smile. Dean glared at Brass, and angling the gun slightly, the killer pulled the trigger and fired into the floor.
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Catherine watched Sturney point the gun away from Jim, and then started when she heard a bullet explode from its barrel.
Before she could react, someone was moving past her in a blur, grabbing for the doorknob and pushing into the house. "Cecilia!" Catherine cried after her in desperation. Then she followed after the other woman without stopping to consider the wisdom of the action.