Stacey Page 7

  "That's it?"

  "Yes." Judge Evans looked at Toni. "Do you believe me, Detective, when I say that I didn't kill that woman?"

  Toni stood up and placed her hand on the judge's shoulder. "I believe you, Judge."

  Chapter 21

  TONI WENT BACK TO JENNA Diaz's apartment. Yellow crime scene tape crossed the door; Toni pulled it down and entered the apartment. She stepped inside Jenna Diaz's bedroom. There was white powder that the crime scene technicians had left behind after dusting for prints. Toni walked over to the nearest corner and dropped to her haunches. "Where were you hiding, Billy?" Toni already ruled out the closet, the large safe took up all the space in the back. And the twenty-two boxes of shoes were not touched. Then it hit her: "Little Billy hid under the bed, didn't you, Billy boy?" she said as she stood up and walked over to the four-post, queen size bed. Toni grabbed one of the posts and tried to move it. The bed moved a little. Toni took off her jacket, spit into her hands, and tried again. She managed to move the large bed a bit further. And when she did, something caught her eye: a couple of small droplets were on the cream-colored carpet. She got down on her hands and knees and sniffed the droplets. Toni knew instantly that the tiny droplets were blood. But she had to be sure. Toni unzipped her fanny pack and removed a pair of small scissors. "I got your ass now, Billy boy," she said as she started to cut.

  Toni dropped the sample off at ME Raymond Johnson's office, then she headed back to the Double 0 and went straight to work. She Googled the Department of Corrections and typed in Billy Madison's name. He’d been arrested for sexual misconduct. He pleaded no contest and got six months community service. His victim: a fifty-five-year-old woman.

  Detective Toni also learned that Billy Madison was originally from Louisiana, and that his maternal aunt raised him after his mother died. She moved her mouse around and clicked on psychological profile, it read: see Doctor Steven Lightsey. She Googled the doctor's name and found out that he had moved his practice from Shreveport, Louisiana to New York three years ago and that he has an office on Central Park South.

  Toni called the doctor and explained to him her interest in Billy Madison. Dr. Lightsey told the detective that Billy Madison should have been committed years ago. Toni asked for a visit; Doctor Lightsey granted her one for 5:00 that afternoon. She looked at her watch, it was 3:50.

  Toni called Iris and told her to come downtown. Iris wanted to know what was going on. Toni told her that everything will be revealed.

  In the lobby at 150 Central Park South, the doorman and a maintenance engineer were talking about the top story of the day: the arrest of Judge Thomas Evans and the murder of Manhattan's District Attorney Jenna Diaz. The doorman noticed Toni; he approached. Toni flashed her identification.

  He turned and walked away.

  Iris walked into the building at 4:46 pm. Toni approached Iris and ushered her toward the elevators. "So, this doctor...?"

  "Lightsey..." Toni said as she pushed the button for the elevator. "... told me that he tried to have Billy Madison committed when they lived in Shreveport, Louisiana..." The elevator arrived, and two men ambled out; Iris and Toni stepped in. "Billy lived in Louisiana? When?"

  "The good doctor will explain all that to us, and more, I hope."

  Iris looked at her partner. "Toni, you're convinced that Billy is our guy, huh?" The elevator arrived on the fifth floor, and the detectives stepped out.

  "Hopefully, after our chat with Doctor Lightsey you'll be convinced too." Iris and Toni stopped in front of a door. The name on the door read Dr. Steven L. Lightsey: Forensic Psychologist. A secretary escorted the detectives to Dr. Lightsey’s office. She introduced Iris and Toni to the doctor; the doctor shook Toni, then Iris’ hands. "O.k., Detective Toni," he said to Iris.

  "No, I'm Detective Williams, that's Toni."

  Doctor Lightsey apologized. "Please, detectives, have a seat.”

  Dr. Lightsey was tall black man. He'd reminded Iris of her favorite actor: Samuel J. Jackson. His southern accent was as thick as peanut butter, and his teeth were pearly white. Dr. Lightsey smooth out his Gucci suit before he sat down at his desk.

  "Again, I’m sorry for the mix up..."

  “That's o.k., Doc," Iris said. "My partner here says that you got some information on a suspect of ours, Billy Madison?"

  "What has Billy done now?"

  Iris and Toni glanced at one another. "What do you mean, Doctor?" Toni asked.

  "Billy Madison was a patient of mine back in Shreveport, and I can tell you two right now that that boy was a dangerous, sadistic sociopath if I ever saw one." Dr. Lightsey sat back in his chair and stared at the detectives before he continued. "Billy Madison was sent to me after a bizarre incident at school. Billy used to bring dead animals to his classroom."

  “Dead animals?" Iris echoed.

  "Yes, cats, rats, but mostly dogs, puppies you know. All of them were skinned, and they all had foreign object inserted in their anuses. Once, he was caught..." Dr. Lightsey cleared his throat. "... he was caught by one of the maintenance workers at the school, he was with a little girl in the female restroom. He was..." Dr. Lightsey hesitated.

  "Please, Doc, we're all grownups here," Iris said. "Say what you gotta say."

  Dr. Lightsey frowned at Iris and said, "Billy Madison was caught with a door knob in his hand, and the little girl was bent over a sink. She had bruises all over her back."

  "Is that so," Toni said as she turned her head toward Iris and winked.

  “One particular afternoon, one of Billy's neighbors, a woman who'd lived across the street from where Billy's Aunt Deloris lived, came out of her house to pick up her children's toys. She reported hearing noises coming from her garage. When she got to the door, she heard a child's voice saying, and I quote, 'You like it, don't cha ya... tell me you like it, bitch.’ When she opened the door, she was shocked to see little Billy Madison trying to insert his penis into a dead puppy."

  "My God!" Toni muttered.

  "Where was his mother?" Iris asked.

  "Billy's mother was killed in an explosion. She blew herself up in a makeshift meth lab. Billy was found a half an hour later wandering the streets of Shreveport with his mother's head tucked in his arms." Iris and Toni stared at Doctor Lightsey.

  "Apparently, the explosion had severed his mother's head from her body with such force that it smashed into Billy's head causing a crack in his forehead." Doctor Lightsey pointed to a spot in the middle of his forehead. "The force of his mother's head smashing into his damaged Billy's prefrontal lobe. A functional MRI revealed a small lesion on his Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex, which was the etiology of Billy Madison's disorders."

  “Disorders. Plural?" Toni asked.

  "Yes, Billy once told me that he heard voices that told him to do things. He said that the animals he'd killed wanted him to have sex with them." Dr. Lightsey moved his chair closer to his desk and placed his elbows on top of it, then interlocked in beefy fingers. "Billy suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder, and he's also a narcissist. He was a danger to the community at the tender age of nine. Billy Madison exhibited the most extremes patterns of violent behavior. His inability to love, his lack of impulse control, and his aberrant reasoning were the worst I'd ever seen in a child. I ran all the major tests on him several times. Billy Madison was a classic cluster B sociopath—"

  "Cluster B?" Iris said, interrupting the doctor's flow. "English, Doc, please."

  “I'm sorry, excuse me, Detective." Dr. Lightsey cleared his throat. "Billy Madison exhibited poor impulse control and an inability to love. He has a pervasive and persistent disregard for the feelings of others. He'd also showed signs of positive and blunted effects of schizophrenia—”

  "Hold on, Doc, you lost me again," Iris said.

  "I beg your pardon. Positive symptoms does not imply that the symptom is favorable to the patient, rather it suggests that the presence of an aberrant response portrays the disorder such as h
earing voices that aren’t there and responding to those voices. The blunted effect in a patient refers to a patient who fails to show any signs of feelings and/ or emotions. The patient is neither happy nor sad; they're totally indifferent to their surroundings. And on top of all of that, Billy showed signs of Narcissistic Personality Disorder."

  "Wow, this guy is all fucked up," Toni said.

  Iris shot her partner a looked. She never heard Toni use such language. "It's this damn case," Toni said, apologizing for the obscenity.

  Dr. Lightsey continued, "I once caught Billy in my bathroom masturbating as he kissed and licked the mirror."

  "All these disorders in one child," Iris said.

  "The injury to Billy's Ventromedial frontal lobe was extensive. The horrific trauma that he'd experienced brought about his disorders, no doubt about it."

  "How long was Billy a patient of yours, Dr. Lightsey?" Toni asked.

  "Well..." Dr. Lightsey sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, "... up until his Aunt Doris packed up and left Shreveport and moved up here. He was nine when I first met him, about seventeen when he and his aunt moved away. Like I said, I wanted to have him committed, but his aunt fought me like hell."

  "Why?” Iris asked.

  "She believed that all Billy needed was a little love. That woman had a few problems of her own. She told me once that all boys acted out and that Billy was no different than any other boy his age. Some folks back home thought that Doris was giving little Billy all the lovin' his little body could stand, if you get my drift."

  "Really," Toni said.

  "Do you think that she knew what he was up to?" Iris asked.

  "She didn't believe anything that I or any other clinician had to say about Billy, but I do believe that she knew that he had something to do with the McHill killings—”

  Iris and Toni both looked at one another, then they stared at Doctor Lightsey. "Did you say McHill?”

  “Why, yes, Terry and Linda McHill."

  Iris’s throat contracted, and she began to sweat. "Did they have any kids?" she asked.

  "Yes, Stacey and Jannifer McHill, the twins."

  "Holy shit," Iris blurted out.

  Dr. Lightsey looked perplexed. “What?"

  "What happened, Doc, was Billy a suspect?" Iris asked.

  "Well the sheriff had brought everyone in that belonged to the circus; they all were suspects. About fifty-five workers in all I believe." Doctor Lightsey went on to tell the detectives how Terry and Linda McHill had hired a traveling circus to entertain their daughters and all their church friends on their thirteenth birthday, and its tragic end.

  "So, Billy was never charged?" Iris asked.

  "No. But soon after, Doris packed up and moved up here." Dr. Lightsey sat back in his chair. "Billy Madison harbors aberrant fantasies, dangerous fantasies, that demand to be acted out. He has no control over them. He associates pain with pleasure. I always believed that as Billy got older, that pain and pleasure would turn into torture and death. Billy Madison was a dangerous psychotic who should've been put away when he was nine years old."

  Iris looked over at Toni, then she turned to Dr. Lightsey and asked the question she knew that Toni wanted her to ask. "Doctor Lightsey, do you believe that Billy Madison—"

  "Killed that District Attorney and that other woman in Harlem?" Dr. Lightsey said, finishing Iris’ question. "From what I know of the boy, yes, he's definitely capable of committing these crimes."

  Chapter 22

  BACK AT THE DOUBLE 0, Iris and Toni sat inside their cubicle. Iris was on the phone, and Toni poured herself a cup of tea. Her fax machine came to life. Toni skipped over to the machine, pulled out the fax, and shouted "Yes!"

  Iris looked over in Toni's direction. "What is it?" Toni handed the fax over to her partner. "We got him, Iris." The fax was from the Forensic Pathologist, Raymond Johnson. It told Iris that the blood sample Toni had found under Jenna Diaz's bed was in fact Billy Madison’s.

  “O.k., this is all we need to get a warrant,” Iris said.

  Just then Detective Lori Tail burst into the squad room. "Hey everyone, listen up." A beautiful African-American woman followed Lori. “Hey, hey, listen up!” she shouted again. “This is my best friend, Detective Anaya Hayes." Lori led the detective toward the middle of the room. "She's just been assigned here, so you dickheads show her the respect that she deserves...Y'all got that?"

  As soon as Lori finished her introduction, Casper walked over to where the two women were standing. "Boy, I hope he doesn't smile at her," Iris said to Toni. Detective Hayes’ gasp was noticeable to everyone in the room. Casper's smile displayed uncommonly spaced teeth. "Lord, he's smiling," Iris said. She and Toni covered their mouths as they giggled. Casper’s ghostly appearance unnerved Detective Anaya Hayes.

  "Oops, there she blows," Toni whispered as Casper extended his hand toward Detective Hayes. She stared at it as if it were on fire.

  Casper retracted his hand and took a step back. "It's not contagious," he said to the detective. Lori whispered to Hayes that Casper was her boyfriend; she looked at her friend, perplexed. "Go on girl, shake his hand," Lori said. Casper extended his hand again. Hayes stared into Casper's face, then she nervously reached out and took his abnormally white hand. After one pump Hayes pulled her hand back.

  "She's terrified," Toni said. Iris and Toni said hi to the new detective as they made their way toward Lt. Stone's office. Once inside, Toni explained to the lieutenant what she'd uncovered about their delivery boy, Billy Madison. "I'll get the warrant. You two, along with Casper and Tail, hightail it over to Billy's apartment. I'll have Gomez drop off the warrant."

  It was an unusually warm day for late March; night won the battle for dominance in the sky. Iris gave Casper the address to Billy's apartment. He and Lori jumped into his Range Rover and sped out of the parking lot. Iris looked up at the moon. It was full and blood red. There was something ominous about it that made Iris think of a passage from the Bible: Be sober-minded: be watchful. Your adversary-the devil-prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

  "Iris, give me the keys."

  "Huh?'

  "The keys. I'm driving..." Toni stared at her partner. "Are you o.k.?"

  Iris tossed her partner the keys. "Yeah, I'm fine," she said as she stared at the moon. The two women buckled up. Toni hit the gas on Iris’ Durango and peeled out of the parking lot.

  DR. SUSAN PATTERSON sat in the psychiatric ward at Tanawan Correctional Facility, in Queens, N.Y., waiting for her patient, Stacey McHill. The facility sat on five acres that was once a dairy facility. Prisoners were housed in cells six stories below street level. Sub-levels five and six were designated for the male population, separated by sub-level four which was the treatment center for the men. The females lived on sub-levels two and three, and sub-level one was where the female population went for their psychiatric treatment.

  Tanawan was a state-of-the-art facility which boasted an elaborate electronic surveillance system complete with motion sensors. After lights out, the system was activated. And if a single hair follicle fell onto the highly sensitive floors outside the cells, the whole compound would be bathed in a crimson hue. Then every door and window in each of the cells would be charged with fifty thousand volts of electricity. Tanawan Correctional Facility was escape proof.

  A female correction officer escorted Stacey McHill to the treatment ward followed by an unsavory looking male officer whose name tag read: Morgan, R. Stacey had a faraway look in her eyes. The male officer handled Stacey roughly which disturbed the doctor. "What the hell are you doing?" she shouted at the officer. “She's not supposed to be handled by the male staff." The male correction officer placed Stacey into a metal chair. He was about to walk away when Dr. Patterson asked the female officer to remove Stacey's restraints.

  "That not proper procedure," the male officer said.

  "Take those damn things off her now!"

  Chapter 23

  THE MA
LE CORRECTION officer stared at Dr. Patterson, then he looked at Stacey before moving toward her. “No, you idiot, let her do it," Dr. Patterson was pointing at the female officer. The female officer removed Stacey's restraints.

  "I'll see you later, bitch," the male correction officer whispered to Stacey.

  "What did you say to my patient?"

  The correction officer glared at the doctor. "Nothing."

  “Get the hell out of here, now! And you can be damn sure that I'm going to have you removed from this ward." Correction Officer Morgan walked out of Dr. Patterson's office in a huff. Since Dr. Patterson had been in New York, she'd spent twelve hours a day with Stacey McHill. Dr. Patterson was shocked, three days ago, when Stacey McHill's core personality had surfaced. Stacey McHill's core personality hadn't seen the light of day in over three and a half years. Dr. Patterson learned from Stacey that the boy personality was gone and that she talks to her sister all the time. "My sister says that we're gonna get Detective Iris Williams, Annette Toni, and everyone else that was connected to their precinct for killing us."

  When the twins were her patients back at the psychiatric center in Shreveport, Dr. Patterson had uncovered that Stacey and Jannifer McHill suffered from a unique form of D.I.D. (Dissociative Identity Disorder) after the attack on their parents. In all her years as a psychologist, she had never seen such a case. The twins shared the same alter personalities; a teenage girl with an exceptionally high I.Q. and a male psychopath.

  Dr. Patterson stated her concerns when the twins were taken from the psychiatric center. She knew she was on the ground floor of a new discovery in the field of abnormal psychology, a new form of D.I.D. Now, at last, Dr. Patterson could continue her work. She removed her iPhone from her purse and placed it on the table so that she could record the session. " How do you feel, Stacey, are you o.k.?"

  Stacey nodded her head.

  "Good, let's get to work." Dr. Patterson sat directly across from Stacey. “I want you to concentrate on the sound of my voice....”