Life Sentences Read online

  Without coaxing, Lorrie blurted out the details. “I was lucky,” she acknowledged as her eyes darted around the room. “I broke the engagement, because Chad had changed. I lived across the street from him most my life, but …” Lorrie paused for a moment and gazed at the wall behind Pilar. “He wasn’t the same person after he graduated from high school.”

  When Lorrie resumed her narrative, her voice filled with odd displeasure. “My therapist has tried to convince me that breaking my engagement to Chad had nothing to do with his murderous rampage two months later.”

  She lowered her head and again engaged Pilar. “I knew he could be violent and the coincidence was too obvious.” Lorrie reached across the table and clutched Pilar’s wrist. Her grip tightened when she admitted, “Chad broke my arm. That ended it for us.” She raised her right arm as though showing Pilar a cast. “We were both at Eastern Michigan University then.” Her voice was wispy, almost other-worldlike. “We had been sweethearts since middle school.”

  Pilar was mesmerized by Lorrie’s appearance because she resembled every dead woman pictured in the newspapers, except she had short hair. Her enormous, cinnamon-colored, puppy-like eyes, now calm, framed in lush raven black lashes, projected provocative purity.

  As though she had read Pilar’s mind, Lorrie told her she’d cut her hair after she saw photos of Chad’s victims in the newspapers. “I didn’t want to look like them,” Lorrie added. Then she pulled an album filled with the victims’ pictures from her backpack.

  Stunned at such a macabre keepsake, Pilar couldn’t comprehend why anyone would want a constant reminder of poor, helpless women, especially if she knew the murderer. Lorrie handed the album to Pilar. “You look similar to them, too,” she said as she reached out to flip Pilar’s hair. Pilar recoiled.

  When Lorrie first mentioned photos, Pilar suddenly recalled a yellow rain slicker. It reminded her of Gerri Hearn’s picture and description in the newspaper. Gerri, a twenty-three-year-old, five foot-six woman with dark auburn, shoulder-length hair, was a law student at the University of Michigan hitching a ride home to the other side of the state for the Christmas holidays. Gerri Hearn never made it. A young mother and her son found Gerri’s naked body in the park across from their house. Gerri Hearn had been raped, strangled, and stabbed 25 times. A yellow slicker covered her body. Pilar stared at Gerri’s picture in Lorrie’s album.

  Pilar, too lost in her own morbid reverie, only realized Lorrie was still talking when she saw her mouth open and close. When Pilar tuned back in, Lorrie was saying that shortly before she applied to be a probation officer, she married her therapist.

  Pilar shook her head. How could such a partnership allow Lorrie recovery? More curious, why was Lorrie freely telling her story to Pilar, a stranger?

  As Lorrie chattered away like a wind up, talking doll whose mechanics had gone awry, speedier and speedier, Pilar saw Lorrie’s mangled body on top of a chaotic pile of corpses left behind by her former beau. The entire mound was covered by a giant yellow slicker.

  “What?” Pilar asked when Lorrie whispered in Pilar’s ear.

  “We never had sex. He wanted to marry a virgin.”

  The words Virgin Mary, marry a virgin whirled aroundin Pilar’s head. All the newspaper articles said Chad Wilbanks had raped his victims.

  “I’ve got to get back to my class,” Pilar told Lorrie, though they had another twenty minutes. She left the table, went to the bathroom, and threw-up. Lorrie followed Pilar and posted herself outside the door.

  After Pilar determined a reasonable time had passed for Lorrie to become bored and give up her station, Pilar walked back into the hallway. Lorrie startled her when she grabbed her arm and said, “Please don’t tell anyone about my past.” Lorrie didn’t let go. She glanced around the area and added, “I’m sure they won’t let me be a probation officer if they know about Chad.”

  “No problem,” Pilar answered and unclenched Lorrie’s hand, finger by finger, exposing red prints. “But why do you want that job anyway?”

  Lorrie’s eyes became seething slits, angry at Pilar’s doubting tone. She didn’t answer for a moment. “You don’t understand. I have to help others like Chad. Even he could have been turned around if … ” Lorrie stopped in mid-sentence, and left Pilar pressing her purse against her chest as though fearful it would be snatched.

  DURING TRAINING LORRIE AND Pilar became casual friends, or at least casual for Pilar. Lorrie seemed to need a more intimate link. One day, Lorrie revealed that desire when out of the blue she rambled, “Perhaps if I stayed with Chad, he wouldn’t have sought revenge. He wouldn’t have taken our split-up out on those young women.”

  Pilar reminded her that Chad was suspected of two murders in California a year before the Michigan murders started. “If you stayed with him, you’d probably be dead,” Pilar consoled. “Not in training to be a probation officer.”

  Lorrie was silent. Apparently, she needed to feel guilty.

  With each ensuing encounter with Lorrie, Pilar was learning more about Chad Wilbanks and his family than she had ever wanted to know. Yet she could never stop listening. It was like the time she found herself in front of the mirror with toothpaste running down her chin. She had a deep seated, strange, and unexplainable desire to know all she could about Chad.

  Lorrie had lived in Center Line across the street from the Wilbanks family since she was in the fifth grade. Though she and Chad had become quick friends, they hadn’t started to date until high school. They had planned to marry when both graduated from college.

  Pilar laid her text aside whenever Lorrie appeared in her dorm room. There was no escape once Lorrie set her mind to talking. In their short relationship, Pilar felt she was becoming Lorrie’s therapist though she hadn’t sought that connection. Was she a better listener and more objective than Lorrie’s husband?

  Lorrie usually showed up in Pilar’s room just before lights out to talk. One night early in their training, sherecounted the saga about Chad as though she thought Pilar asked to hear the tale. Lorrie pointed out that Chad’s mother never married his father because he was married to someone else. He kept Maryann like a mistress.

  Lorrie wore a long-sleeve, white cotton nightgown. She sat cross-legged at the end of Pilar’s cot sipping Diet Coke.

  “Why do you drink diet pop?” Pilar asked. “You’re too thin as it is.” Pilar suspected Lorrie was anorexic. Wouldn’t that be one more way to punish herself for the murders Chad committed? As a doctor, Pilar was becoming concerned about Lorrie’s emotional state.

  “When Chad was little, he didn’t know his parents weren’t married, of course. He thought his father had to be gone for long periods of time on business.” Her eyes glazed over. Her tone was slight and flat, and she never attempted to engage Pilar. Rather, she no longer seemed to know Pilar was present.

  “One night, Chad overheard an argument between his parents. That’s when he learned the truth about his birth—that he was a bastard.” Lorrie picked at something on her nightgown. She flicked it and went on. “And that his father was married to someone he had no intention of leaving. It would ruin his reputation, you see.” Lorrie got up and stood at the window and watched the full moon rise beyond the trees, sending shafts of light through the leaves.

  Pilar’s text slid from her hands and thumped on the floor. Amazed by how closely Chad’s life paralleled hers, Pilar experienced again that disquieting moment of sympathy. There were many men in the world like Chad’s father, Pilar’s for one. She was so tired, but allowed Lorrie to go on. The story was surprisingly compelling.

  As Lorrie folded and unfolded the curtain, she continued her trance-like soliloquy. She explained that one night Chad barged into his mother’s bedroom. He grabbed his father by the throat. His father pushed him off and fled from the house. It was the last time Chad ever saw that man. Chad was a senior in high school.

  When Pilar shifted in the bed, the sheets rustled and distracted Lorrie. She walked to Pilar and sat at her s
ide. “He didn’t mean to call you a whore. But what did you expect when you slept around like you did after that?”

  Shaken, Pilar finally spoke. “I’m Pilar, Lorrie, not Maryann.” Pilar leaned over, picked up the fallen text, and clutched it to her chest. It was time to send Lorrie away. She knew they both should be studying.

  Lorrie snapped her head up and smiled. “Of course you are. What makes you think you’re Maryann?”

  Goose-bumps shot up Pilar’s arms and into the base of her neck as she tried to ease away from the whole scene without seeming uncharitable. “Is Chad the only child?”

  “No.” Lorrie sounded exhausted. Yet she told an even more bizarre tale than the one Pilar had already heard. Lorrie told Pilar about Chad’s younger sister, Amy. Chad beat her, almost killed her, because he said that Amy wasa tramp like his mother. Apparently it was a well-known fact in the neighborhood that Maryann entertained many men after his father left. Everyone suspected that was how she made a living. At least she didn’t have any other visible income, except the child support Chad’s father gave her.

  Pilar lowered her head and smoothed the sheet. She didn’t want to engage Lorrie’s gaze. Instead, she envisioned a long line of men outside the Wilbanks’ front door. Each looked like her own father. Each held a pair of tickets to a ball game.

  For some reason, Pilar simply had to know more. Was this relentless need to hear Lorrie out really a form of therapy for herself? “Didn’t Chad have anyone else to turn to?” Pilar asked as she fluffed a pillow and rested her head against it.

  “Christy, his mother’s sister. Chad adored her. She married Joey, a state cop. After his father disappeared, Chad and Joey were really close.” Lorrie finished her Coke and tossed the empty can into the trash. She faced Pilar, her face streaked with mascara tears. “It was hard on Joey when he found evidence in his own home that connected Chad to Susan Mitchell’s murder.”

  Pilar bolted upright. “What do you mean?”

  “Chad was house-sitting for his aunt and uncle when he killed Susan Mitchell in their basement.”

  Pilar wanted to cover her ears, and yet she still couldn’t stop listening. Lorrie told Pilar that after Joeyfaced the unthinkable truth, he arrested Chad. Joey had to tell Chad’s mother, who at first wouldn’t believe her loving son could be that evil. Maryann had shared all the details with Lorrie. That she begged Chad to tell the truth. Lorrie felt Maryann at first believed he was covering for someone else — but she got what she asked for. Chad confessed. When their hour-long conversation ended, they both came out of the interrogation room. Joey told Lorrie that from the way their eyes were so red and puffy, they both had to have been crying.

  Pilar visualized deformed faces, swollen until they were shiny, like grotesquely pleading wax museum figures. She imagined Maryann groping her way from the small chamber after she heard Chad’s confession. Maryann must never have suspected her son’s wickedness. No mother like her would believe the light of her life had committed such horrendous crimes. He was no monster. How could he have turned out this way?

  When she finished, Lorrie swiped away drips from her nose as though incensed they had formed. “In the end,” Lorrie’s voice trailed off, “we all deserted Chad.”

  Did Lorrie still love him?

  Though the July evening held the day’s heat, Pilar shivered uncontrollably. She saw Susan having dinner with Chad, sharing a bottle of wine. Then here was Susan alone in a basement with Chad, struggling while Chad repeatedly stabbed her. Susan, falling limp to the concrete floor. Chad, covering Susan’s body with a yellow slicker. She saw Maryann twisting her hands in despair at a courtroom exit.

  How much blame, Pilar wondered, could be placed upon Maryann for Chad’s behavior? How much are any of us independent of our parents’ influence? She remembered the newspaper photograph, that handsome face, the searing gaze, those intelligent eyes. That was the question, wasn’t it — how did that man become a murderer?

  Pilar pulled the blanket up to her chin.

  “But,” she jumped when Lorrie shouted, “how can we blame Chad for feeling betrayed and hurt by his own family?” She raised her fist into the air and slammed it against the bed as though Pilar caused the betrayal to happen.

  Pilar pulled the blanket away from Lorrie’s fist. “I know how Chad feels,” Pilar confided. “My father abandoned me, too. I hate him, but I’m not going to kill every man that reminds me of him.” She tried to laugh. “Even if I’m tempted.”

  Suddenly Lorrie changed her tone. “Just be sure you’re not taken in by Chad’s charms like the rest of us.” Her voice was cold, secretive. “And don’t forget, you said I was lucky.”

  ON THE LAST TRAINING DAY, Pilar clutched Lorrie hard to her chest. If she let go, Pilar was afraid Lorrie would spin out of control, then crash to earth in flames like a meteor. Yet, despite Pilar’s urgent desire to help Lorrie, she also feltan intense pressure to get as far away from her as possible. One thing Pilar knew for sure, though, was that somehow she herself embraced Lorrie’s history — and Chad’s.

  chapter five

  THE MEETING

  “NICE ASS, LADY,” an inmate called out.

  Pilar winced at the catcall as she bent forward to grab her briefcase from the Mercedes’ front seat. When she straightened and self-consciously brushed her slim linen skirt in place, Pilar noticed Warden Max Whitefeather watching her from the lobby window. Whitefeather licked his lower lip and stepped back into the shadows. It was stupid to have worn a hip-hugging skirt.

  When she wrapped a matching jacket over her shoulders, another inmate yelled out, “Show us your tits.” Several other men chuckled as they lock-stepped to a prisoner transportation bus idling near the sallyport.

  Though the air was unusually cool for early August, Pilar’s hands were moist when she gripped her briefcase. She knew that if she acknowledged the men, even with a slight tilt of her head, she’d only encourage more insults. She kept her head held high and chin forward. Yet her eyes shifted slowly toward the voices. With a trembling hand Pilar reached for the door handle just below the words Hawk Haven Prison, etched in the glass. She hesitated. Then, Pilar turned and faced the taunting men.

  Pilar focused on an officer standing at the front of the bus. He leveled a shotgun at a line of men chained together wearing orange jump suits with Michigan Department of Corrections printed across their backs in large black letters. Ankles clad in iron, the prisoners shuffled by the officer and awkwardly climbed the stairs. Pilar knew from training videos that once they boarded the bus, another officer would guide each prisoner to a seat, unhook him from the tether, and handcuff him in place to a steel eye bolt welded to the chair.

  As Pilar laughed at her concern over what that group said to her, she noticed the armed guard never flinched when prisoners insulted him. Even the unarmed officers appeared menacing in their black slacks and gray shirts, colors Pilar associated with the likes of Darth Vader. When one unintimidated prisoner spit on the guard’s uniform shoulder, the officer lodged a shotgun butt in the offender’s groin. The injured prisoner tumbled to the ground. The others linked to him crumbled as well. They cursed as they pulled the first man from the top bus stair.

  A flash of light drew Pilar’s attention away from the cascading inmates to the gun tower perched on the rooftop just above the sallyport. The ever-vigilant tower officer lifted his M15 automatic rifle and aimed it at the confusedpile of orange bodies. Then, he pointed the rifle into the air just above the human mass and fired a warning shot. The report sliced the air.

  Pilar flinched and sought refuge inside the lobby. She leaned against the door, hyperventilating, and damned her faintheartedness. The smirking front desk officer raised the forefinger of his right hand to the side of his head like a salute and asked, “Dr. Brookstone, I presume?”

  Pilar regained her composure and faced the officer. She stretched to her full 5’8″ height, back-board straight and snapped, “Yes.” She tossed her hair away from her face and chastise
d herself for the second time that morning. She should have secured her hair in a clip at the nape of her neck so she’d look professional.

  The officer started at the unexpectedly loud response and stated, “You’re expected. The warden is waiting in the auditorium with the other ‘fish’.” His eyes roamed over Pilar’s body.

  Pilar recognized the insulting term “fish,” a derogatory expression for someone new. She arched her right eyebrow and checked the officer’s name tag. “You were correct the first time. Call me Doctor Brookstone,” she instructed in a harsh, sarcastic tone, “Officer Leonard.”

  The unflustered officer smiled and motioned her through a steel security gate into a small enclosure. “After you, DOCTOR Brookstone.”

  Why was it, she wondered, the jerks were always goodlooking? She jumped when the gate struggled to close behind her, and noted the mocking grin on Leonard’s face.

  “Put your briefcase down,” he ordered.

  Pilar looked in the direction of his nod. She placed her newly purchased calfskin case on a stainless steel table bolted to the wall. A sour liquid stung her throat. She swallowed hard and forced it back down while Officer Leonard rifled through the briefcase like a cop looking for drugs.

  “Routine search,” he said. “You’ll get used to it.” His face brightened. He commanded Pilar to spread her legs apart and lift her arms out to her side level with her shoulders. He lowered his eyes to the slit in Pilar’s skirt that exposed the section of her left thigh two inches above the knee.

  Pilar glanced at him, wrinkling her face into a disdainful question. Ignoring her, Officer Leonard circled behind Pilar. A heavy scent of Stetson cologne filled the cage. As he completed the shakedown his fingers combed through Pilar’s hair down to the collar of her silk shirt. He pressed the seams and massaged his way across her outstretched arms and then back to her breasts.