A young nurse is savagely killed during a pre-dawn run on Galveston’s seawall. The murderer slices her running shorts from her body as his trophy and tosses the body over the wall to the rocks below. As dawn breaks, a bedraggled street person, wearing four layers of old, tattered clothes, emerges from the end of the jetty, waving his arms and talking to people only he hears. He trips over the body, checks for a pulse and, instead, finds a diamond bracelet which he puts in his pocket. He hurries across the street, heading for breakfast at the Salvation Army two blocks away, leaving his footprints in blood as he goes.
Wayne Little, former Galveston prosecutor and now Houston trial lawyer, learns that his older brother has been charged with capital murder for the killing. At first he refuses to be dragged back into his brother’s life. Once a brilliant lawyer, Dan’s paranoid schizophrenia had captured his mind, estranging everyone including Wayne. Finally giving in to pleas from his mother, Wayne enlists the help of his best friend, Duke Romack, former NBA star turned criminal lawyer. When Wayne and Duke review the evidence, they conclude that Dan’s chances are slim. They either find the killer or win a plea of insanity since the prosecution’s case is air tight. The former may be a mission impossible since the killer is the most brilliant, devious and cruel fictional murderer since Hannibal Lecter. The chances of winning an insanity plea are equally grim.
It will take the combined skills of the two lawyers along with those of Duke’s girlfriend, Claudia, a brilliant appellate lawyer, and Rita Contreras, Wayne’s next door neighbor and computer hacker extraordinaire, to attempt to unravel the mystery of the serial killer before the clock clicks down to a guilty verdict for Dan.
PROLOGUE
The alarm jolted the young blond woman out of a dream
where she was surfing toward a pristine beach on Maui, which had
mystically transformed itself into jagged rocks. She moaned, turned off
the radio, tried to rub the sleep out of her eyes and forced herself out of
bed. It was five a. m. Debbie Robinson had two hours before she
reported to work as a surgical nurse in the operating room at John Sealy
Hospital in Galveston. Nude, she shuffled to the bathroom and then to
the kitchen where she made a cup of instant coffee before slipping into
a jogging bra, sweatshirt, shorts and New Balance running shoes. A
five mile run along the seawall was her usual routine to prepare for her day
She stopped at the front door to take her key from the entry
table and glanced in the mirror. Even with no make-up, the mirror
reflected a wholesomely attractive face with a sharply defined chin, full
lips, light blue eyes and a nose that had been touched up only slightly
by a friendly plastic surgeon at the hospital. After she pulled her hair
back into a pony tail, she left her apartment, glanced toward the
hospital two blocks over and started a slow trot down 8th Street toward
the Gulf of Mexico and Seawall Boulevard. Reaching the seawall, she
paused momentarily and gazed out across the Gulf. At this hour of the
morning, the stars were still visible in the eastern sky.
Resuming her run, in a matter of a few blocks Debbie had
settled into an eight minute pace, fast enough to get her back to her
apartment in about forty-five minutes. As she approached the old
Galvez Hotel at 21st Street, she heard footsteps coming up behind her.
Early morning joggers were common along the seawall; so she moved
over to allow the other runner to pass.
Suddenly, Debbie felt a strong arm circling her waist and a
hand covering her mouth. She had trained in the martial arts for years
and refused to surrender to her panic. Instead, she twisted and brought
her knee up into the groin of her attacker who groaned but still
succeeded in forcing her to the ground. Before he could pin her arms,
she reached into her shorts and found her apartment key. Using it as her
only weapon, she raked the key as hard as she could down her
attacker’s left cheek.
The killer let a low moan escape his lips. “Damn it, you bitch,
you shouldn’t have done that.”
The killer held her with his left hand while he retrieved a knife
from its holster on his waist. He flipped open the blade and pulled it
from right to left against the soft flesh of her throat. Blood spurted from
both carotid arteries and spilled from her neck. She was breathing more
and more slowly when she slipped to the concrete. Her fluttering eyes
became fixed as life drained from her body. The killer smiled with
satisfaction as he bent over and used his knife to slice the running
shorts from her lifeless body. Being careful not to get her blood on
himself, he picked up her body and tossed it over the seawall to the
rocks below. When he started his slow jog back to the hotel, he felt a
few drops of blood, trickling from his cheek. He used her shorts to stem
the flow. I’ll probably have to explain a Band-Aid on my cheek to my
audience this morning as a shaving cut, he thought. As he continued
his jog, he smiled. She was number three. Forty-seven to go.
***
A boulder covered jetty extended out about a hundred yards in
front of the Galvez. As the sun rose, it illuminated the silhouette of a
man sitting cross-legged at the end of the jetty, watching silently as the
orange hued ball broke through the fog overhanging the Gulf. Satisfied
that he brought forth another day as the voices commanded, he rose and
picked his way through the rocks back to the seawall.
He certainly was not a jogger. His gray hair was a tangled,
matted mess that hung below his shoulders, and he scratched at a long,
scraggly beard as if searching for fleas or mites. He wore four layers of
clothes, all that he possessed, and a tattered brown raincoat found in a
dumpster. When people passed him, they recoiled from the stench of
urine, feces and filth that surrounded him. As he made his way back to
the seawall, he was waving his hands and shaking his head as if to
reject someone’s direction. All the while he was muttering to an unseen
being, something about wanting to be left alone.
He didn’t notice the jogger’s body until he tripped and almost
fell on her. Even then he continued to talk. He bent over and peered
into her face, expecting to find one of his fellow street people passed
out below the wall. When he saw her neck and the pool of blood that
had oozed from the gaping wound, he jumped back, horror framing his
face. Looking around and seeing no one else, he stepped forward again,
not realizing that his left foot was now in the blood. A second time he
bent over the lifeless form and touched her left wrist, searching for a
pulse. There was none. Instead, he found a diamond bracelet, paused as
he glanced up at the seawall once more and took the bracelet from her
wrist. Holding it close to his face, he studied the bracelet and found an
inscription, To Debbie with love, Dad.
Now he became frightened that someone would find him with
the woman. Glancing in all directions to make sure he was not seen, he
stuck the bracelet in the pocket of his second layer of pants where it
would be safe and started for the seawall. Abruptly, he stopped,
listened briefly, nodded and returned to the body where he removed
one of his coats and covered the woman’s head and shoulders. Then he
climbed the steps to the top of the seawall where he saw an older
couple out for a morning stroll. He turned his head to hide his face as
he hurried toward 21st and the Salvation Army where he would join a
line of other homeless ones awaiting breakfast. The couple heard him
continuing his monologue.
“I know, I know, I shouldn’t have taken her bracelet,” he said,
gesturing as if trying to push someone away. “Look, she’s dead. She
didn’t have a pulse. It’s mine now. How many times do I have to tell
you to leave me alone?”
When the light changed to green, he picked up his pace and
crossed Seawall Boulevard, shaking his head. “I’m getting out of here
as quick as I can. You don’t have to tell me how to do everything.”
CHAPTER 1
Wayne Little loved every aspect of a trial except this
one…waiting for the jury to return a verdict. Until the jury retired to
deliberate, he could exert significant control and often take charge as he
maneuvered through voir dire, examination of witnesses, arguing points
of law to the judge and final summation. Once the summation was
concluded, all he could do was wait, often for agonizing hours, even days.
Of course he would win like he nearly always did.
Nonetheless, nagging doubts always crept into his mind as he paced the
halls of the Harris County courthouse. Often, he walked up and down
the stairway just to burn off nervous energy before he would return to
the courtroom, reassure his client and wander off again.
The questions were nearly always the same. Did he make the
right points on closing? Was he too easy on the expert witnesses?
Should he have struck that one juror who glared at him throughout the
trial and stared at the ceiling when he made his closing argument? And
inevitably the longer the jury deliberated, the more questions surfaced.
It had been three hours when Claudia Jackson, a new partner
in the firm and his second chair in the trial, found him at a table in the
basement cafeteria, cold black coffee in his hand.
“Wayne, I’ve been looking all over this damn courthouse for
you,” Claudia said, not trying to hide the exasperation in her voice.
Wayne looked up expectantly. “We get a verdict?”
“No, but I got a call from Grace. She said your cell must be off.
Wayne searched through his pockets for his phone, looked at it
and agreed. “Yeah, I turned it off this morning when we began closing
arguments and forgot about it.”
“Grace says the District Attorney in Galveston called. Said it
was a courtesy call since you worked for him before you joined Tod. I
didn’t know you had been a prosecutor.”
“Guess I never told you. I did three years there before Tod
talked me into leaving my hometown and moving to Houston. That was
about ten years ago.”
“He told Grace to tell you that your brother is in the
hoosegow.”
A cloud crossed Wayne’s face as he stared down at the floor.
“I don’t have a brother, Claudia. I haven’t had one since I’ve been in
Houston.”
Puzzled, Claudia continued, “Wayne, the D. A. said this guy’s
name was Dan Little. He’s apparently in pretty bad shape but mumbled
something about you being his brother. And he had a faded, dirty
business card with your name on it in one of his pockets.
“One more thing. The D. A. said to tell you he is charged with
capital murder.”
After the jury returned a verdict for his client, Wayne told
Claudia he would see her in the office the next day. He walked to the
parking lot where he dropped his briefcase in a blue Nissan Armada
and crossed the street to Tex’s Bar, a place he knew would be
practically deserted in the middle of the afternoon. Wayne was enough
of a regular that Tex, the owner and bartender, knew him by name and
knew his brand of Scotch.
“Gimmie a double, Tex.”
“Starting a little early with the hard stuff today, aren’t you,
Wayne? You just lose a case?”
“No. Actually, I just won one, but this isn’t a celebration. I’ve
got some personal issues to sort through.”
Tex had been a bartender long enough to know when a
customer wanted to be left alone; so, he poured a double Scotch on the
rocks, set it in front of Wayne and walked to the other end of the bar
where he continued to wash drink glasses.
Tex occasionally glanced toward Wayne, wondering what
problems were troubling him. Wayne seemed to have the world by the
tail. He carried a lean and muscular two hundred and ten pounds on a
six foot, four inch frame. His hair was black as the ace of spades and
his gray eyes sparkled when he told a joke or described his last win.
Yet, his easy-going smile hid an intense personality, a young type-A if
there ever was one.
In an hour or so, other lawyers began drifting into the bar.
Seeing Wayne, some tried to strike up a conversation. Wayne was
polite but his manner soon discouraged them; so they wandered off to
other parts of the bar to tell war stories and bitch about judicial rulings.
After enough drinks that Tex was concerned about his driving,
Wayne paid his tab, assuring Tex that he was fine.
Leaving the bar, he considered taking the Metro train which
stopped in Midtown only two blocks from his townhouse. Then he
remembered his Nissan would be too tempting if he left it overnight.
Once he crossed the street he was confronted by a homeless man.
“You got any spare change, mister? I haven’t eaten today and
sure could use a hamburger.”
Wayne usually brushed such requests aside. This time,
wishing it was Dan just asking for a buck, he reached in his back
pocket and pulled a five dollar bill out of his wallet. Then, he continued
to his car, climbed in and left the parking lot on the Fannin Street side.
Carefully observing speed limits and red lights, he drove south on
Fannin to his home. Wayne tried to push Claudia’s news out of his
mind, only the more he tried the quicker the thoughts returned. In less
than ten minutes he punched in the code at the complex gate, entered
the driveway and turned down into his garage.
This is the story of Dan, a paranoid schizophrenic accused of murdering a woman and his attorney brother, Wayne, who is determined to prove his innocence or if necessary to prove his insanity. This is a great story that I really didn't want to put down but due to things interfering such as earning a paycheck I had to stop and go with the book. It's an exciting story that tells us how difficult it is for an attorney to prove his client is insane at the time of the crime.
The characters are fantastic, especially loved the Judge. He is practical and realistic. Dan is also an interesting guy...did I mention he used to be a successful attorney? Mental illness is such a terrible thing, most people are afraid of anyone diagnosed with schizophrenia or other mental diseases. I hope books like this will inspire people to get involved in finding a cure. Well done Larry Thompson!
I received a copy of this book free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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