The Therapist Chapter 6

Roberts showed up at the office around two o’clock. “Hey, Dave.” “Jed, how are you,” Dave inquired? “Ever notice how a few hours’ sleep and a shower can make the world seem a whole lot safer place?”

“Yea, I’ve noticed that,” Johnson replied. “Okay Jed, let’s take a look at what we do have. First of all our victims were sex offenders. They had all served time. Had all been through treatment? Had all been released early due to good behavior and targeted children.” Johnson said.

Roberts acknowledged this with a nod and said, “They were all on the registry. They were killed on July seventh, August fourth, and September first. These dates are all Thursday’s and they were all killed between nine and midnight. That’s one killing a month for the past three months. Each killing took place in the first week of the month.”

Dave said, “I discussed Grabben with Waters. He didn’t have concrete proof but believes Grabben had violated the conditions of his release.” “Fremont told me she thought Stover was doing well.” “However I asked about him at Taco Bell where he was working. He gave a teenage co-worker a ride home. On the way, he exposed himself to her and threatened to hurt her if she told,” Dave finished.

“You think our killer knew these guys were continuing to offend,” Roberts asked? “Yeah, I do. I don’t know how but he has to. Otherwise, he could just pick a name on the registry and kill them. These guys had completed treatment but were still offending. The question is how does he know? By the way, did you get anything on Higgins?”

Jed’s laugh was harsh, “Higgins had been pulled back in twice for questioning before being killed in August. He’d been seen hanging around a playground. His story was he was just taking a shortcut.”

“Jesus Christ! These guys just don’t give a shit.” Dave said. “Which brings us to the Therapist, who is this guy? He clearly has a very good understanding of sex offenders and how they operate. He understands their grooming patterns, when they’re in their cycles, what their high-risk situations are, the look, the subtle touch. He has these guys down. Where did he learn this?”

Dave put the questions out rapidly. “Why does he kill on Thursdays during the first week of the month? Does this mean anything? Is it just a coincidence? Does his job give him freedom of movement during this time?” Johnson continued with the rapid-fire questioning.“Jesus Dave, slow down,” Jed laughed. “I can’t register one question and you’re firing another. We’ll get this guy. Though I’ve already heard people say if cops can’t do their jobs leave this guy alone and let him do it. This could make finding witnesses tough.”

Dave responded. “It won’t take long for it to spread and maybe even the predators that have never been caught will start looking over their shoulders.”

“I was thinking about that,” Roberts said. “This could make it harder for our Therapist too. It’s likely his intended victims will be checking their cars before they get in. They might even start carrying weapons.”

“I bet our guy has already taken that into consideration,” Dave said. “We have to expect his pattern might change as a result. If it stays the same, our next victim will be killed on October sixth.”

Roberts looked at him and Dave continued. “We need to check jobs where you learn about the patterns and behaviors of sex offenders. Then we need to find out who works there or has recently left but is still in the area. Probation officers, social workers, prison guards, anyplace that deals with sex offenders.”

“Okay, I’ll get started with that today,” Jed, said.

***

Friday passed quickly for Ryan Johnson. Students and teachers were talking about the recent killing. From the paper, they knew the victims were all convicted sex offenders listed on the registry. He’d seen a couple of students looking them up on the computers in the library.

He heard other students arguing about the killings. Maybe the killer knew these guys? Maybe they abused his kids? Rumors were flying and would continue to fly. That was human nature. When students asked him, he just said he suspected the police would find out who was doing it.

Ryan wasn’t out looking for these guys. He didn’t look them up on the registry. They were brought to his attention and then he checked out their backgrounds. He’d learned their patterns and behaviors over a lot of years teaching at the Center.

He’d responded to an ad to teach English and Social Studies to students with challenging behaviors in a residential setting and was surprised when he was offered the job. Sometimes he wondered if knew where it was going to lead if he still would have taken it.

It was a moot point. It was just like so many other decisions he had made in his life. He’d done the best he could with what he had. He made his decisions and lived with them. Nobody was to blame for those decisions but him. He accepted that. He’d worked roofing for years but decided it was time to find something that offered benefits. He had a teaching degree and decided to try using it.

Turned out the Center was a treatment facility for juvenile sex offenders. At the Center, he’d been introduced to his students. They were young, angry, and yet personable too.

On one level he was able to connect with them. Ryan’s teenage years had not been without problems. There was legal trouble, a brief stint on probation, and poor grades. Ryan knew what it was like to be angry. He didn’t plan to stay at the Center very long but a year led to three, and then to six.

In the beginning, he was a believer. He felt bad for these kids and sympathized with what they’d been through. He went to seminars and listened to the so-called experts talk about what these troubled teenagers needed. He remembered one guy who’d written a book on them. He said, “Give these kids everything they want, all the new experiences you can because they’ve never had anything.” Ryan bought all of it, almost.

The Center also stressed accountability. The students needed to understand that no matter what had happened to them in the past they accept accountability for their own actions.

Ryan believed it. He tried to stick to it but he found over time he was butting heads more and more with Steve Mason, the programs director. Mason’s therapeutic staff had a high rate of turnover. He told Mason it was because his staff were poorly trained and were constantly being taken advantage of. This had a destructive impact on the student’s treatment.

He knew Mason hated being told this. What was it Mason always said in staff meetings, “Everyone has to buy into this and be on board or it won’t work?” He laughed at the absurdness of this. Agree with the party line or be shut out. Mason’s type of reasoning ensured that only a few students even had a chance. It was simple; if the doctor is sick he can’t treat the patient.

Sometimes he’d finish work and need to go home and take a shower. He just felt dirty. Some days were worse than others. You became desensitized after a while and didn’t even think of the things you saw or heard. He’d learned how to let it roll off his shoulders. Even with that though there were still days when he needed a shower.

Then came the day when he just couldn’t justify doing it anymore. He remembered driving down this very highway a few months later and it felt like all at once the tension went out of his shoulders and he laughed. It was a real deep down laugh and it felt so good to be clean. He knew he’d made the right decision. He told Pete Lansing as much. Pete told him what he missed was running together. Ryan had just laughed. Pete had been his mentor at the Center. He was the veteran teacher helping the new guy.

He missed that part of it too. Ryan had become a distance runner while in the Navy. He didn’t know it at the time but he did now. In high school, he was a very slow runner. He laughed to himself. Except when being chased by the police, and then he seemed to have wings.

He realized now that it was his running style that had made him slow. He ran side to side. This straightened itself out when he started running regularly. If you told guys on the ship that Ryan Johnson was once considered slow they would have thought you were daft. When he went to work at the Center he would run on his break. After a while, Pete asked if he could run with him. It had created a bond between them and since then they had run hundreds of miles together through the streets of Manchester. Winter, spring, summer, fall, it didn’t matter, they ran.

Yet even during their runs, they couldn’t completely escape where they worked. Running through the city they would occasionally encounter students they had taught at the Center who were now living in Manchester. After completing treatment the Center would often transition their clients into foster homes in the area where they would attend the local high schools. Due to confidentiality they only informed those with a need to know who the new kid coming to their school was.

He’d attended some transition meetings that got pretty heated as a result of this. It was hard to try and convince people of something you didn’t really feel was right yourself but it was part of his job. There was the day he and Pete encountered a former student sitting in front of Satin and Lace and an adult store for sexy lingerie and other toys.

They were running by a young man and a child sitting with their backs to the front wall of the store. They didn’t give it much thought until Ryan heard the guy say hello to him. Ryan recognized the voice and turned back. The child was a little girl of about five and the guy with her was Jim McDaniel. McDaniel was at the Center for raping two boys. He’d threatened them with a knife. Ryan remembered McDaniel telling him he had gotten over his abuse so his victims ought to get over theirs. Treatment hadn’t worked too well for him. McDaniel was big for his age, standing six feet and weighing 230 but he knew how to work the system. He was usually pleasant, always compliant, and completed treatment easily.

After he left the Center, Ryan had encountered him with an underage girl at the mall and turned him into Probation and Parole. He was sent to prison for three months. After getting out of prison he was convicted of statutory rape and sent back to prison. The last Ryan had heard he was still there. What surprised him the most was the audacity exhibited by McDaniel? Sitting with a child in front of an adult store he says hello knowing it was Ryan who turned him in the first time.

As soon as Ryan had finished his run he called Probation and Parole only to find out McDaniel had been released from parole thirty days prior. There was nothing they could do. They said their hands were tied. The Therapist 49

Ryan then called child protective services. They eventually found the child’s mother living with McDaniel. When given the choice of having her child taken or move out she had chosen McDaniel over her own child. He couldn’t even begin to understand this type of thinking. Some people were just unconscionable. In a chance meeting a few weeks later with a former therapist of the Center, he learned McDaniel said he was upset that the state had taken away his child.

In Ryan’s world bastards like McDaniel were known as lazy offenders. They looked for vulnerable women who had children. In this way, they had victims readily available. They didn’t have to seek victims outside the house. It minimized their risk of getting caught. This was a world unknown to most people.

Ryan had introduced Pete to road races and he was hooked. Pete was a runner now. He told Ryan he couldn’t imagine not running. If you loved running, that’s how it was. It was a love-hate affair. He missed the running with Pete but he couldn’t imagine still working there and didn’t know how Pete survived watching the foxes care for the hen house.

He still saw it in the paper all the time. The offenders being treated as if their offenses were just a stage they were going through. He knew those who took notice were disgusted with the lenient sentences and struggled with the idea that you can’t lock them up forever. Rare it seemed that people thought about the trauma inflicted on the victims. They were just blank faces often forgotten in the grand scheme of things.

The therapists who tried to tell the public that treatment had a seventy-five percent success rate certainly had forgotten them. The reality was it would be impossible to ever know what the success rate was or wasn’t. But Ryan damn well knew it wasn’t seventy-five percent.

Treatment only made them better offenders. It gave them a better idea of what their victim was thinking or what the victim might do or say. They knew what to say to the judge or probation officer.

It didn’t work with him. He wasn’t interested in their lies. He’d observed them already. He didn’t need to speak to them. They’d see the article referring to them on the dashboard. There was a moment of shock. Then being narcissistic they would begin to read it. He’d sit there and watch them. Then they’d realize somebody must be in the car with them.

Their eyes would go to the review mirror and see him in the back. He would see their fear. He was glad for it. That’s how their victims felt. He wanted them to know that. Just as they seemed about to speak he stopped their lies forever. He had the window down. It was another beautiful autumn day. It must be close to seventy-five degrees out. His cell phone rang. He saw it was Tim and answered it. “Hey pal, what’s up,” he said?

“Nothing.” “Did you have a good day at school?” “Yea, where are you?” “I’m on the highway. I’m on my way home.” “Want to throw the baseball when you get here,” Tim asked him? “Sure. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.” “Okay, see you then, love ya.” “Love you too. See you in a few.”

As he got off the phone a car passed him. He saw the guy looking at him. For a second he thought he recognized him. It couldn’t be! But the license plate jumped out at him. It said Mount Two and they were New York plates. It was him. Son of a bitch!

The guy was older now but the same. The car was a Dodge Acura four-door. The same type of car he always drove. This guy had been at it for years. Ryan just assumed he was dead and now here he was. He decided to follow him and see if he was still pulling the same shit he’d been pulling for years.

If he kept to his old pattern of years ago he would get off the next exit and drive by Carlyle College. He would look for a young kid walking or hitchhiking and then offer him a ride. He would make small talk for a few minutes. Then in a very crude manner, he would proposition him.

Someone had told him his name once but he couldn’t remember it. It was common knowledge he did this. Ryan decided he would get this guy’s name. He’d follow him to his house and Google the address in the white pages, easy enough.

A minute later the guy took the exit to Carlyle. After all these years still the same routine. Sick bastard! He was oblivious to Ryan following him. Coming off the exit he took a right heading west. On the left was an office building. When he was in high school the ground it was located on was a drive-in theater.

He continued to follow the car in front of him. They crossed a set of railroad tracks and came up into the town of Carlyle. It was a small town. Its business district was smaller than Milton. There were several old colonial-style homes on the left as you entered the town and old burial ground on the other side of the street. Rows of monoliths, weathered by the time marked the resting place of the town’s earliest occupants.

The center of town had a deli that also served as the gas station. There was a village store and right across from that was the Blue Dog Diner. The college crowd kept all of these businesses busy. Two roads entered Main Street from the left. South Street was the first one and Greenbrook was next. Both of these roads lead to the college.

This afternoon there were a lot of kids walking down the streets, going to and from class. It was a Friday and for a lot of college kids, it meant two days to party. He saw the brake lights come on in the car ahead of him. Mount Two wouldn’t bother the girls. If he followed the same old pattern he would be looking for a young male. Knowing perps as he did Ryan expected it would.

Ryan watched as a young man came out of South Street. He crossed to the other side of the road in front of Mount Two and began walking west. Mount Two would have to roll down his passenger’s window to speak to him. He saw him slow up, saw his brake lights come on, and watched while the man turned his head right. He saw the young college student look over, say something. The car ahead of him didn’t speed up. The guy was still talking. Then the kid’s head snapped towards the car. Ryan saw him raise his hand and give the guy the finger.

The car ahead of him sped up. Ryan could see his head going up and down. He was laughing. Asshole, he thought. As Ryan drove on he looked over. The young man was oblivious to him. He was hollering down the road at the car continuing to gesture with his middle finger. Other people were looking at him. In the rearview mirror, he could see him hollering across the street to another group of students telling them what had just happened.

Sadly Ryan thought he’d probably tell them that it was some local asshole from the surrounding community. The kid probably hadn’t even noticed the plate. If he had he would know the guy was from out of state.

Ryan had been hitchhiking through here years ago. He was twenty-two. He’d done a lot of hitchhiking back then. A car pulled over and he got in. The usual conversation started. Where are you going? Where are you coming from, the weather, and another small talk?

The guy was odd-looking though. He looked a little like Porky the Pig, short, heavy, with a fat face, narrow beady eyes, and small fat nose, and thin lips. When he laughed it was from his throat. His mouth never opened. Then Mount Two, the guy ahead of him now, had made him a crude proposition. Ryan was more surprised than shocked. He just told the guy to pull over. “What! The guy said I was just asking.” Just pull over Ryan had told him.

Ryan had gotten out. But later he heard of the same thing happening to other people. He’d forgotten all about this guy till now. He continued to follow him. They were only about two miles from Milton. Tim would be looking for him. A few minutes later he followed Mount Two into town. He stopped at a four-way intersection with a flashing red light.

There was a Stewarts on the right. Ryan wondered if he would continue straight through the light heading over Allen Street. That would take him near Milton High School. Instead, he turned left and continued down Main Street. In town, he took a right at the grade school, drove past the park crossed the intersection, and headed down Maple Drive.

It appeared Mount Two was headed for the New York border about two miles down the road. Ryan could see Tim standing on the lawn. Mount Two was looking towards him. Tim was waving. He saw Mount Two slow down. Ryan realized this guy thought Tim was waving to him and was going to stop.

Tim was looking at the guy wondering what he was doing. Ryan honked the horn and stuck his arm out the window, waving to Tim. Tim waved back. The guy realized his mistake and sped up. Goddamn asshole! Ryan wanted to speed up, drive his car right into the rear end of that perverted son of a bitch.

He was going to find out who that guy was and then he would do something about it. Ryan pulled in the driveway, “Hey Tim. It’s a beautiful day for a little baseball.” “Hey, Dad, did you see that guy? He thought I was waving to him.”

“Yea I saw that.” “He looked weird.” “Yea, well like I tell you, there are a lot of weird people in the world. Let’s throw the baseball. How’s the arm feeling?” “Good.” “That’s good, come on, let’s throw,” Ryan said. Tim tossed Ryan his glove.