Hi everyone!
Thanks again for all your support! I've been jumping from store to store today to prevent tracking, so I've written on and off today and replied to as many as possible.
I was just posting this when I almost ran right into David. Forgive me for hiding before I got my phone back out and finished posting. EDIT: Guess I was on time after all.
Sorry about the incident earlier with Part 5 disappearing. It was my own fault, and the /r/NoSleep mods were very helpful in restoring it.
I've said to a few of you that I estimate there being 1 to 2 more parts until I have caught up to the present day. I believe that after Part 7 we will be fully at the present day. That may change, so don't get mad if it does. I just wanted to let you know what to expect.
I'll jump right in, as usual.
I laid in an empty cell, trying to catch a small nap since I'd been up all night. My mind was racing though, and made it hard to sleep. I kept rehearsing what I was going to say when Hernandez finally came to get me.
They'd emptied my pockets into evidence bags, took my fingerprints, and one cop was heading out to search my car. I wasn't dumb. I knew that the evidence would point the police to three conclusions.
One, that I'd been in David's home recently. After all, the data on those flash drives had been updated just the day before. Even the ones that didn't have the kidnapping transcription on them.
Two, the flash drive containing messages between David and his partner might lead them to believe I had kidnapped Katie.
And three, that I'd stolen David's hard drive, as well as confidential medical information.
I kept trying to play out the conversation with Hernandez. I hoped it would pan out the same way it was running in my head.
I was woken up by a slight knock on the bars. My eyes peeked open to see a man in a suit standing there accompanied by an officer.
"Hello, sorry to disturb you," he said sheepishly. "I'm Terry Jayson, your public defender. May we talk?"
"Yes, of course," I said, sitting up. The officer entered and cuffed me. We were both led to the interrogation room where I'd met Hernandez for the first time.
"I trust you will shut off the cameras," he said to the officer. The cop nodded, removed my handcuffs, and closed the door.
"You can call me Terry," he said, reaching out to shake my hand. We sat down opposite each other with the table between us. "I've heard a little about your case in a brief overview from the Chief," he said, pulling folders from a briefcase.
"It's... well it's long," I admitted.
"So I hear," he said. "I'm going to have to apologize in advance. It's likely that you'll have to repeat your story many times during these proceedings. To prevent this as much as possible, you and I are going to sit down and write your version of events down. That way, you can fall back on your statements and ensure that what you say is consistent and accurate. Does that sound good to you?" He said.
It made sense, so I nodded.
"First, I have a contract here for you to sign that says you agree to let me represent you in criminal proceedings." He pushed a paper and pen across the table to me. I skimmed it and signed at the bottom. He pulled it back.
"Would you like me to call you Zander or Mr. Jones?" He asked with an easy smile.
"Zander is fine," I replied.
"Okay, Zander. Let's start writing."
Terry sat patiently with me while I wrote every detail I could think of. I began with my dare conversation with David and followed all the way up to this point. It started out as a page with scrambled memories and words to jog my memory. Then it slowly formed into a statement that Terry helped me edit into a cohesive, fact-based statement.
"When you are asked about your memories or an event, refer them to this document," he said. We worked for an hour before he spoke again.
"I have to go to another appointment, but I've asked that you be allowed to continue working in your cell. I've scheduled a meeting with the prosecutor and Detective Hernandez tomorrow at noon. Do you think you can have it complete by then?"
"Yes, I think so," I said.
And I did. I spent the rest of my day writing that statement. I slept sporadically, but I was desperate to complete it before noon the next day. So much had happened, and I had so much to say.
I was quite proud of the results.
In fact, I was more proud of that statement than this one. That statement had a lot more fresh memories. This one feels a little scatter-brained. My statement was concise and to the point. But maybe it's for the best that this is the one that I posted.
The next day, at noon, I was back in the interrogation room. Terry sat to my left. Hernandez stood against the wall facing me with his arms crossed. I couldn't read his expression.
On the other side of the table sat an older man who had introduced himself as Chief Gunderson. Hernandez's boss. Beside him stood a tall, lanky man with slicked back hair. He held his hands behind his back, watching me intently.
The tape recorder between us was running.
"I've been brought up to date on the cases you're involved in," Chief Gunderson said in a gruff voice. "I'm interested to hear everything from your perspective considering the... recent developments."
"You arrested me just to hear my side of the story?" I snipped.
"No, I arrested you because you are suspected of burning down Anne King's house and thereby killing her," Chief Gunderson said. "Hernandez tells me that you might have felt justified in doing so considering all the accusations that you've levied against Mr. King. So, I'd like to hear what has happened from the beginning and hear your side of events."
"Who's he?" I asked, pointing to the lanky man.
"I'm the prosecutor, Adam Leuderman," he answered.
"Oh, so you'll be the one trying to put me in prison," I quipped. Terry put a warning hand on my leg.
"I'll be trying to establish the truth about what happened," he corrected, glaring down at me.
"My client has prepared a statement that he intends to wholly rely on," Terry said, pushing copies of the seventeen handwritten pages across the table. The Chief and prosecutor took one. Hernandez stepped forward and grabbed one too. He instantly started reading from his spot in the corner. I tried to catch his eye, but he didn't look at me.
"I trust we can begin the process of discovery today?" Terry asked. "I'll need copies of everything, as well as a copy of the official indictment."
I tuned Terry out and focused on Hernandez. There was something about his demeanor that caught my attention. I couldn't tell what it was. I focused on him for the entire meeting, trying to figure out what my instinct was telling me.
They talked over legal details with Terry and corroborated the process of discovery between the two parties.
A couple days later, Terry was sitting with me in the interrogation room again, talking through what he'd learned from discovery. Discovery is when the two sides of a case share evidence so there are no surprises when they go to trial. Anything not brought up in discovery is not admissible in court.
Before trial, though, would come my arraignment. That's when the formal charges would be laid against me and I would have to plead either guilty or not guilty. Terry was talking through discovery with me so I would be prepared for what they'd say during the hearing and decide whether I'd plead guilty or not guilty.
Here's what I learned.
After I'd been arrested, the police had searched my car and found the hard drive, flash drives, and psychiatric evaluation. And something else that was curious. A half empty gas canister. That fucker had planted a gas can in my car at some point without me knowing. I'd been in my car all night, so either David knew he was going to burn his house down before I went to Walmart, or he planted it in the few minutes I was in the police station. I told Terry about the gas can being planted, and he wrote down some notes.
The police had searched through the contents of all the flash drives and discovered the conversation between David and his partner. Except, as predicted, they accused me of writing the messages and therefore linked me to a kidnapping. The text file never specified Katie's name, but they claimed Katie's kidnapping was the most likely scenario since I knew about it and was therefore involved.
Despite this evidence, however, the prosecution didn't feel like they could convince a jury without more evidence. So, Katie's kidnapping wasn't planned to be laid against me as a formal charge, but they were searching for evidence.
They had also tried to open the contents of David's hard drive, but found that it was encrypted, just like I had. They'd sent it off to a lab to be analyzed for whatever data could be salvaged.
The medical report was classified as inadmissible because it pertained to an individual who did not consent to the dissemination of its contents. As a citizen of the United States, you get some control over who can look at your medical records. Denying its use in a courtroom is a right in certain situations, including this one. David had decided to exercise that right and deny access.
As a result, the prosecutor could only charge me with possession of someone else's medical records without permission. That was a serious crime, apparently.
Terry had also been informed that the identity theft case was being combined into the charges against me. The credit card companies had done their own investigations and were filing criminal charges against me for fraud. Why would they do that? Because "a technical investigation into the origin of the registration for the fraudulent cards found that the reporter himself, Zander Jones, had indeed filled out and completed the registration forms from his own computing device." In other words, they traced the IP address of who had filled out the registration forms for the cards online and found that my computer had been the one to sign up.
Which meant they were accusing me of signing up, spending all the money, and then reporting fraud. Also a major crime.
The emptying of my bank account was also pinned on me. Again, they claimed I was trying to commit fraud by filing a false claim with the bank.
The police had finally got the security tapes from the convenience store where the ATM was located. There were three angles. One camera was above the door, one was above the register, and one was in the far corner of the store opposite the ATM.
The tapes showed a man in a dark hoodie walk into the store. The video was grainy as you would expect, but despite that, a large symbol on the back of the hoodie could be recognized. The man in the hoodie walked to the ATM and pulled something from their pocket. The prosecution claimed it was a cell phone since the timestamp on the camera matched the timestamp of the log into my bank account.
The hooded figure looked down at it for a few minutes before typing into the ATM, blocking the screen with their body. The money spat out, he grabbed it, and walked toward the door. The camera on the opposite corner from the ATM was the only one able to catch a glimpse of their face. It was grainy, but the prosecution compared it to pictures from my Facebook profile to claim that it had just enough resemblance to have been me. Comparing to David's pictures, it could have been him too.
I'd argued that point with the prosecutor pretty fiercely.
When I was done with my outburst, the prosecutor told me that the investigators had also found a hoodie with the same logo in my apartment.
Then they played their trump card. The bank had been logged into from the ip address assigned to my own cell phone during that time period.
Regarding the fire, which was the main accusation against me, they had decent evidence. The gas can was one, and the voicemail was another. But there was even stronger evidence. When I first arrived at Walmart, I parked near the front doors, in view of the cameras hanging off the building. They clearly saw me drive away when I was heading to David's house.
When I came back, though, I had parked in the back of the lot, intending to be away from other cars while I slept. The cameras could barely make out my car parking in the back lot. It was too dark to tell if it was even a vehicle, the prosecutor claimed. So, realistically, I only had my own testimony to support the fact that I got back to Walmart at around 6 pm.
I should add that it took about 15 minutes to get to David's house from the Walmart. Just so you can understand the time frame.
Fire crews had received a call at 6:04 pm that David's home was on fire. They had raced over immediately and found the house burning brightly. David had been found trying to lift his mother up from the ground in her bedroom. They'd brought them both out, and it was discovered that Mrs. K was already dead from suffocation. David had been rushed to the hospital with a few minor burns and some smoke inhalation. He had yet to explain his version of events to police.
The firefighters had filed a report stating that the fire had been started from the middle of the living room where a puddle of gasoline had ignited. The flames had spread throughout the house. Traces of gasoline were found in various rooms, making them believe that the suspect (me) went from room to room and splashed gasoline around. Just like in the movies.
They also concluded that the fire had been started some time before it was called in because of how much damage had already occurred by the time they arrived.
I now know that David had set an alert on his phone that was linked to the app he had installed on my phone. When my gps read that I was at his house, an alert would be sent to his phone as a text message. I can only guess that he'd jumped in his car, left work, and sped all the way home. That's why I think the time was so close.
I'm telling you all of this detail so you can see just how hopeless I felt while I sat in jail. I was there for two whole weeks where it was the same accusations and evidence over and over. I really started to just give up.
During the first few days, I asked Terry about how we could prove that it was David specifically who had committed these crimes. He frowned and told me I should be more concerned about being proven innocent period, not on pinning it to another man.
By the end of two weeks, I was ready to just plead guilty rather than fight.
The arraignment went poorly. No charges were thrown out that had been placed against me. I would list all the crimes I was being charged with, but I don't remember their exact phrases and I know I'll get it wrong. You get the general idea though that I was fucked.
Bail had been set at $5,000, which essentially guaranteed I'd be stuck in jail for a while. I had already contacted my parents out of desperation and they would try to raise money from family members and friends, but couldn't pay immediately.
After three weeks, I was very depressed and not eating much. Terry tried to cheer me up by showing me parts of arguments he was preparing, but nothing could cheer me. I thought about Katie a lot. And Clark and Ivan. And I missed my parents.
I also missed Clark's first hearing in the graffiti case, so I had no idea how that was going, which made me feel guilty that I couldn't support him.
During the time I was in jail, Hernandez only came to visit me once. It was during the third week. I jumped off my bed and ran to the bars.
"Hernandez," I said. "Please tell me you've come to give me good news."
"No," he said. "You're being transferred to the county jail. Your trial will be happening there."
"Why?"
He shrugged. "Just how it works," he said.
"Did they find anything on Isaac?" I asked. I'd been clinging to the hope that Isaac's body would turn up evidence against David. I just wanted to nail him for that one crime. Just one. I wanted it so bad that my hands would shake when I thought about it.
"I'm not allowed to talk about that," he said, avoiding my eyes. "Anyway, I came to tell you that you'll be moved in three days."
"Hernandez," I said as he turned to leave. "I thought you believed me."
"I do," he said. "Until you burned David's house down. Now I'm not so sure who the psychopath really is."
"I didn't do it!" I shouted, but he walked away.
Three days later, as Hernandez had said, they came to move me. After dinner, I was cuffed and led out the doors to a police cruiser that would drive me up to the county jail two hours away.
The two officers who drove were polite to me, but instantly cranked up the radio when we got on the road. I could barely hear myself think, and was starting to get frustrated. I had always hated car trips without my own music. Now I was stuck in a two hour ride with my hands cuffed behind my back and a radio blasting music I didn’t like.
We were about an hour in, and I was ready to scream. I stared out the window, trying to find something interesting to watch and focus my mind on. We were on a two-lane highway with no other cars in sight. It was getting late, so looking back, I figure people were home for the night and that’s why it was so dead.
My view of a nice lake was suddenly obstructed by a big, grey truck. I tried to find something else to look at, but then noticed it was getting dangerously close to our lane. I looked up at it and saw that it was an armored truck. And it had the same logo as the company David worked for.
The panic was instantaneous. Something gripped my lungs and kept me from vocalizing.
The truck slowly neared the side of the police cruiser before pressing against it. The cops shouted. The cop who was driving slammed on his brakes, and the other cop dropped the radio he was reaching for. The cruiser didn’t slow down fast enough, however, and the truck nudged it off the road.
I braced for impact as we rolled down the grassy slope and slammed into a tree.
My seatbelt had held me in place, but my head ached when it rammed against the driver's’ head rest. The two cops were unconscious, lying at awkward angles. Neither of them had had their seatbelts.
I started yanking at the handcuffs, trying to reach my seatbelt to undo it. I reached the red button and pressed it. When I turned back around to wriggle out of the loose seatbelt, I saw David Fucking King walking down the slope towards the car.
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh fuck,” I cursed, turning to reach for the door handle with my cuffed hands. No such luck. The doors were locked from the outside to prevent prisoners from opening the doors on their own.
David got closer and closer until he was right outside the car. He shot a smirk at me, and opened my door. I tried to back away, but he grabbed my arm and tossed me out of the car. I fell to the dirt with a gasp.
I sat up a little and saw that he’d turned his attention back to the police car. I saw one of the cops beginning to stir.
David opened the driver’s door and pulled something small from his pocket. With a quick motion, he stabbed the cop in the neck. Blood spurted out, and the cop started screaming and gurgling, grabbing for his neck. I think I screamed too, but I can’t remember.
He closed the door and walked around to the other side. I could see the other cop was moving, but I couldn’t tell what he was doing. Apparently he was reaching for his radio, because David yanked it out of his hands and set it on the car’s roof. Then he stabbed that cop too.
Both of them were unconscious in seconds.
“Don’t get up,” he threatened, walking towards me. I didn’t bother trying. He walked over to where I sat and went behind me. I tried to face him, but he kicked me lightly. He knelt down and I felt him scratching the metal on my handcuffs. I was confused, but sat absolutely still.
“Nice to see you again, Zander,” he said, walking to stand in front of me. I watched him with true fear. His entire demeanor was different from the night we’d graffitied his house. He was changing.
When I didn’t answer, he laughed. He was twisting the small object in his gloved hands. I noticed, through the blood, that it was a crudely crafted shiv about the length and width of a finger.
“I told you, I’m not going to kill you, Zander. In fact, for once, I’m here to help you out. Sort of.”
“What does that mean?” I asked shakily.
“Remember the night you graffitied my house?”
I nodded.
“I told you I’d consider giving you advice in how to succeed in our game. Well, the time has come. I’m giving you more than advice. See, you’re no fun in jail. I’ve seen the evidence they have on you. You’re going away for a long time. I don’t want that. So, I’m granting you a second chance to keep playing.”
He walked behind me again, and I felt sticky blood on my fingers and hand as he pressed the small shiv against my hand.
“Now, here’s how this works,” he said, standing back in front of me. “I’m going to leave this knife with your fingerprints on it in the car. They’ll think you stabbed the cops and made a run for it. I’m going to remove your handcuffs and let you make a run for it. You’ll have a 30 minute head start before I call in on the radio.”
“Oh God, he has a knife! He’s stabbed the driver and he’s--” David cut off, mimicking the call he’d make. Goosebumps ran up my spine.
“I’ll be sitting here and waiting. If you attempt to come back, I’ll just take you away in my car and we’ll play a different game. Do you understand?”
I nodded, too terrified to speak.
“Get up,” he commanded. I struggled to my feet, rolling in the dirt to get to my knees and stand.
“Come here,” he said, moving toward the police car. I followed. He opened the police car door and put his hand against the officer’s neck. I flinched when he flicked blood at me. It splattered across my jail suit and face. I almost threw up.
“There we go,” he purred. He motioned for me to turn around, and I did. He pulled the handcuff keys off the dead cop and unlocked the cuffs. I rubbed my wrists. They were sore and marked from the car crash.
I considered trying to get the shiv from him and attack, but the idea of going with him in his car to play "other games” terrified me.
David had set a backpack next to the car, and now set it in my hands.
“Hernandez says hello,” he said with a malicious grin. “I paid him a lot of money to get him to let me track this car. He demanded that I give you half. Of course, I’m not that generous, so here’s $2,000, a change of clothes, new shoes, and a map. Nearest town is ten miles west. Better hurry. Remember, in 30 minutes I’m calling it in.”
My jaw shook as I put the backpack on and started heading towards the setting sun. The forest looked dark and menacing.
I looked back when I was partway through the trees and there he was. He leaned against the car, drinking from the coffee container one of the cops had brought with.
Shuddering, in shock, and absolutely terrified, I walked on into the woods.
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