Before he took the phone from her, Maya heard Mark say the lieutenant was dangerous.
However, had she not heard him tell her that, she would have already known. Although he
appeared calm and relaxed, his eyes were glazed, and his benign smile was eerily fixed, giving him a demonic façade.
Maya had worked with people with a variety of mental illnesses and she recognized he
was mentally unstable; a split had fractured his personality completely in half.
She also knew how intelligent he was, and although her first inclination was to calm him,
he wasn’t one of her residents. He didn’t come here for a counseling session, he had come to kill her.
Smiling at him in a negligent manner she said, “I’m not quite sure I would call him my
boyfriend, I feel a little too old to use that term, but he serves his purpose.” She gave him a conspirator’s wink.
Clearly surprised at her answer, she noticed his posture relaxed naturally, and although
his voice remained soft and high, the glazed look started to fade from his eyes.
“You know I’m really sorry about Allison.” He spoke as though they had already been
discussing her sister. His words instantly confirmed everything, and it was all she could do to maintain a neutral expression and not jump up and strangle him.
Putting on a cloak of nonchalance she asked with casual curiosity, “and why is that
lieutenant?”
“Please call me Jaime,” he smilingly invited before continuing.
“Thank you. I will,” Maya smiled back as though they were two old friends.
“Those idiots were right when they said she was drunk. She was in the back of his car
passed out when he picked me up. I had him drive to an area I chose and he parked the car. He started on me right away, it wasn’t easy to convince him that it would be better outside.” He mentioned the victim found with Allison, with remembered disgust. “But in the end for a piece of ass they all follow.” Jaime philosophically shrugged his shoulders.
“What happened? How did Ally get involved? Did she wake up and witness what you
did?” Maya didn’t try and disguise the sadness in her voice.
He reached across the small space that separated them and gently ran his hand down her
face, only to drop it when she recoiled from his touch.
His face hardened as he continued. “Had she kept her drunk ass in the car she would have
lived to whore another day. How ’bout that?”
Maya didn’t want to anger him. She knew Mark was on his way and she needed to keep
him talking as long as possible, so she changed the subject. “What’s your connection with
James? What role does he play in all of this?”
For a moment he only stared at her, his face twisting in a parody of a smile before he
answered. “So you know about Mr. Smith? Umm. Well he definitely served his purpose. In more ways than one, he served his purpose.” Jaime mimicked her earlier wink.
“However, once again, most men, including fags, will do anything for a piece of ass.
James came in handy several times for me. I met him at a bar where he was moaning about how he couldn’t finish graduate school and he didn’t have a job, yada yada yada, and I saw an
opportunity to ‘help.’ You see we’re not so different, we both like to help those in need.” A maddening look of conciliation graced his lean face.
Maya didn’t know if he really believed that or not, so she was quiet when he paused, not
wanting to give him the wrong feedback.
When she said nothing, he continued. “I helped him get a job, and I helped him get back into school. But I told him nothing came free,” he said, stringing the last word out in a sing songy voice. “One day soon I would need his help. We were ‘friends’ for a while as I began to formulate my plans, and then I called in my favor. He had no idea what I was doing when he
would help me park my car and drop me off in some different location.”
“He didn’t think that it was odd? The way you were dressed?” She ventured a guess.
“Oh that? Nooo.” He giggled lightly. “I often played ‘dress-up’ for him. I imagine he got
a real kick out of seeing the ‘Lieutenant’ all dolled-up. I would even let him take pictures of us, it gave him a sense of power, leverage over me. Or so his sorry ass thought,” Jaime told her, and laughed out loud at the idea.
“You had no plans to keep him around did you?”
Jaime’s laughter came to an abrupt end. “Well aren’t you the smart one.” A look of
hatred entered his eyes before quickly leaving, replaced with one of his irritating small smiles.
“No, I didn’t. Why not let the fool think whatever he wanted. I knew I held the power, not him, and I was calling the shots,” he answered emphatically, anger tightening his features.
“He didn’t have a clue when I had him deliver the flowers to you. Although, I think he was a bit jealous, thinking my interest in you was not so platonic.” Jaime giggled again.
“James was the one who brought the flowers in to me after all. How did he bring in the
last package? One of the ladies said she accepted them from the postman.” Maya tried to refocus his attention.
“Oh that.” With a negligible wave of his hand he continued, “that wasn’t at all hard to
accomplish. He didn’t make that delivery, your friendly mail carrier did. Do you know how easy it is to give a government employee a few dollars to perform a small service? Not such a difficult
