Scream Catcher by Vincent Zandri Page B

testifying is something I have to do.”
    Rosie sets her eyes down on the tabletop.
    She says, “I know how much you’ve suffered since the terrible Elizabeth Bay thing. And now you have something to prove.”
    She has this tight, pensive look on her face that does not go unnoticed by Jude. The expression goes well with the sunglasses. It also tells him that his wife has not quite finished her thought.
    “But …”
    “But you don’t have a thing to prove. What happened to you this morning and back at the Burns cabin—the freezing up, the fear. You see a psychologist to work on a problem that stems from your childhood; from the murder of your parents. What’s happening inside your head has nothing to do with bravery or respect or how people look at you.”
    “Mack thinks that testifying will be good for me. He thinks it’ll kill my demon.”
    “You have to do what’s right for you and your immediate family. Not for Mack or anybody else.”
    Jude presses his lips together. Again, Rosie is hitting the mark. But that doesn’t change the fact that his decision is made.
    “I am going to testify, Rosie. I’m sorry.”
    “Then why did you ask my permission in the first place?”
    Jude looks out onto the lake.
    “I didn’t know I was asking your permission.”
    “Then what is this?”
    “I suppose I was asking you for your support.”
    “Support because testifying is the right thing to do? Or support because you have no choice in the matter?”
    There it is again, the tight stomach feeling—the sensation that the demon has grabbed hold of his stomach with its claws and is wringing it out like a wet dishrag.
    “All of the above,” he swallows.
    Rosie looks down at her near empty glass, exhales.
    Jude drinks from a new beer. A long deep swallow.
    Raising up her drink, Rosie makes like proposing a toast.
    In turn, Jude raises his beer bottle, taps the rim of her glass.
    “To a long happy life,” he proposes.
    Bringing the glass back to her lips, Rosie shoots down what’s left of her Virgin Mary in a single swallow.
    “Go to hell,” she says.

19
     
    Assembly Point Peninsula
    Wednesday, 1:34 A.M.
     
    Wide awake, Jude rolls around restlessly in the big feather bed, ears locked onto the rhythm of the lake splashing gently against the dock. Rains come in so swift and horizontally wind-driven that they spatter against the window screens. It’s useless wishing sleep on. Especially with all that will be expected of the ex-cop come sunrise and Blanchfield’s crime scene reenactment behind Sweeney’s Gym.
    Sleep might be elusive, but it will be essential if he is expected to think clearly.
    No doubt about it: Jude needs to take action. Which means quietly slipping out of bed, heading down into the kitchen to where the medicines are stored inside the cabinet above the sink. For his injured head he swallows two Advil with a glass of water. For his insomnia he swallows a fifteen milligram Ambien. Making his way back up to bed, he slips back under the covers without Rosie being the least bit aware.
    He closes his eyes onto darkness. He cannot shake the image of Lennox’s blue-eyed face. Not the brightly lit mug of the police lineup, but the shadowy mask he witnessed behind Sweeney’s Gym. He pictures long dreadlocked hair, white goatee, muscular chest and arms; pictures the beast sleeping a conscienceless sleep, free of the bars of a county jail cell. Accompanying the vision is a soundtrack of screams. Not just the scream of the man Lennox killed this morning. But the screams of all his victims, known and unknown.
    Maybe the entire three mile expanse of Lake George separates eyewitness from killer, but the only thing keeping them apart is a GPS-guided surveillance monitoring ankle bracelet. And according to Judge Mann, that’s enough.
    Jude’s runaway brain does not stop there.
    He pictures Mack.
    He can only assume that the old Captain will be tossing and turning in his own bed, wondering if he’s done the right