Criminal Zoo Read online

  this is a genuine defenestration book

  A Defenestration Book | Rare Bird Books

  453 South Spring Street, Suite 302

  Los Angeles, CA 90013

  rarebirdbooks.com

  Copyright © 2016 by Sean McDaniel

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever, including but not limited to print, audio, and electronic. For more information, address:

  A Defenestration Book | Rare Bird Books Subsidiary Rights Department,

  453 South Spring Street, Suite 302, Los Angeles, CA 90013.

  Set in Dante

  ePub ISBN: 978-0-9974407-1-3

  Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

  Names: McDaniel, Sean P., author.

  Title: Criminal zoo : a novel / Sean McDaniel.

  Description: A Genuine Defenestration Book | First Hardcover Edition | New York, NY; Los Angeles, CA: Rare Bird Books, 2016.

  Identifiers: ISBN 978-0-9974407-0-6

  Subjects: LCSH Serial murders—Fiction. | Psychopaths—Fiction. | Jails—Fiction. | Prisoners—Fiction. | Suspense fiction. | BISAC FICTION/General.

  Classification: PS3613.C38682 C75 2016 | DDC 813.6—dc23

  For Tiki. You once bought me an office chair for Christmas and told me to write you a story. Oh my, have I a story for you.

  “Man is at the bottom an animal, midway a citizen, and at the top divine. But the climate of this world is such that few ripen at the top.”

  —Henry Beecher, Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit

  “There is no beast more cruel than man.”

  —Leonid Andreyev, Savva

  Contents

  Prologue

  Something to Think About

  A Frightening New Chapter

  New Friends

  In My Wildest Dreams

  Honeymooning In Midland

  Inside the Oven

  Shut Up and Listen

  Moms Don’t Lie

  Landing on a Pitchfork

  A Treat For Brutus

  A Little Bit About the Devil

  Serving Up a Lesson

  My White Nightmare

  Kitty Bowling

  A Pretty Cool Idea

  Slowly Being Erased

  Almost Normal

  Uncle Henry

  Playing with a Little Risk

  Tree House Adventures

  The Button

  Exhibit CZ1013

  Father Calhoun’s Demise

  The Blue-Hair’s Tears

  Frisbee Football

  Iniquity

  Swinging for the Fence

  To Be Desired

  A Nervous Reward

  The Punisher

  A Glass of Tea with the Sheriff

  One Of Them Epileptics

  A Person Of Interest

  Twisted Metal and Shards of Glass

  Lucky Ticket

  The Arm of God

  A Confused Look

  My Little Angel

  The Way Everything Works

  Cast It Out

  The Beginning of the Nightmare

  A Mockery

  Death in the Confinement Center

  Terrifying at Every Turn

  The Same Stupid Questions

  A Special Visitor

  In an Unexpected Direction

  We Are Human Beings

  Failure to Thrive

  Sick Bastards

  A Whole New Level of Horror

  No Reason to Continue

  Stark Raving Mad

  My Blurry World

  Time to Think

  Stunning Revelation

  Like The Phoenix

  A Big Deal

  Life’s Little Joke

  The Truth

  Decision Time

  A Confession

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  The discovery of a skeleton just outside of town baffled the authorities. That’s what the Clemensville Chronicle said, anyway. A man and his dog, braving the dusty winds from the nearby plains, stumbled onto the body—or what was left of it. It caused quite a stir.

  Clemensville, Texas, festering along Highway 349, was West Texas exposed. No makeup. Dry, desolate, no natural structures taller than a pump jack for a hundred miles. The pump jacks were everywhere, no matter which direction you turned. I used to pretend they were mighty Tyrannosaurus rexes lowering their giant black heads, chomping on some poor little dinosaur and then rising to swallow their meals. Up, down, up, down, all day, all night.

  Strangers were a rarity in Clemensville. Mostly just motorists passing through on their way to either Rankin or Midland, depending on which direction they went. Railroads crisscrossed the state, just nowhere near us; no bums or drifters to speak of and everybody knew most everybody. That’s why the discovery was so unsettling.

  Clemensville was quiet. Boring, even. With the exception of the boy murdered in his own backyard—every town had its blemish—almost a decade ago, nothing exciting happened here. Okay, there was Old Man Jennings going missing last year. They ended up finding his ninety-year-old carcass less than a mile from his house. Heart attack.

  This was different, though. The paper said foul play was suspected. That made pretty good sense; not likely someone walked out there buck naked to die. There wasn’t a stitch of clothing found near the remains. The police called in a Midland-area dentist to take dental imprints and the results were circulated to surrounding communities. Nothing came of it.

  Everyone talked about the skeleton. In a Bible Belt town with a population of just under 1,500, other than God and football what else was there? Television crews came from Midland, Odessa, as far away as Lubbock. People stood around and watched the newscasters do their on-the-scene reports like they were watching a circus act.

  My wife, Carla, was nervous as hell. Before the discovery we weren’t all that worried about the boogeyman. Afterward, Carla made me go through the house latching windows and locking doors. Then she did her own walkthrough to make sure I did it right. I’m not sure if she thought I was an idiot or if she was just paranoid. After everything was locked, checked, and rechecked, Carla brought up the same stupid subject—buying a mutt. She said she always wanted one when she was a kid, but her dad said no. I had a problem—I didn’t care for dogs. Not since being bitten as a kid. Even bigger problem, Carla wasn’t concerned about my problem. With strong proof of a murder not far away, she decided I could learn to like them. I interpreted the discussion as meaning she didn’t feel protected. I guess I wasn’t much of a man in her eyes. That was fine; she wasn’t my dream girl either.

  My argument against a mangy, flea-bitten mutt dirtying up the house obviously wasn’t very convincing because we added the security she wanted. He was an animal shelter rescue. And to really make her point she went big. Must’ve had St. Bernard in him. He was a hundred pounds if he was an ounce. Carla named him Brutus, believing it made him sound like a dog to be reckoned with. Like his size wasn’t already getting it done. But he obviously had his own name because that dumb shit never once answered to ours. Carla thought he was cute; I thought he was a big ol’ pain in the ass. A walking rug of smelly black and white fur.

  So Brutus took over the role of “protector” and Carla lightened up. She had her dog and no longer feared getting raped, stabbed, beaten, and killed in the middle of the night. I figured she didn’t have too much to worry about, dog or no dog. We’d been married for a few years by then and I’d never seen her get hit on. Not
once.

  I tolerated the beast as best I could, but I have to admit, when the Brutus chapter came to a close, I wasn’t all that sad to see him go. I suppose I should’ve been more comforting to Carla, but really—the way she acted, like she just lost baby Jesus, irritated me.

  After the buzz about the discovery quieted down and all the reporters left, everything got back to normal. Until more bodies showed up.

  Something to Think About

  Some time ago, a bigwig from Colorado, guy named Jon McIntyre, came up with a pretty far-fetched plan. Or so everyone thought. But put a passionate, good-looking guy on a mission to ease the frustrations of a nation in front of a camera, and bingo! Anything’s possible. Especially when the son of a bitch is the governor. Yeah that’s right, the governor of the great state of Colorado. And boy did he have a plan.

  Because a bunch of pansies thought the death penalty was too cruel, a whole new kind of punishment was about to be unleashed.

  I don’t remember how long ago the newspaper ran the story about the guy’s wife disappearing, but it sure gave him a crusade. Put his suit of armor on and ran with it.

  His wife, and mother of their kids, vanished on a weekend road trip. Paper said there was definitely a crime scene. But no leads. Apparently first ladies at the state level don’t have much of a security detail.

  The governor believed his wife was the victim of a horrible crime. He got all righteous about it. Stood on his soapbox and decided anyone who committed a violent crime should be punished equally violently. Real “eye for an eye” shit.

  Although the idea was extreme, it got real popular real fast. I guess the good people were finally ready to give the bad people something to be scared of.

  A nation of individual complaining didn’t do shit. And then a really pissed-off guy, who happened to have some executive power behind him, declared, “We are not going to take it anymore!” He rallied the people and his cause took off. First Colorado, and then everywhere else. His looks certainly didn’t hurt any. Not that I look at men, but even I noticed. He seemed tall—but when you’re barely five feet seven, everyone seems tall. And I’d bet he wasn’t originally from Colorado, either. He had more of a California look about him: blond hair, green eyes, a decent tan. He must have spent a lot of time in the gym—not just on the treadmill, but in the weight room, because he filled out his shirts in all the right places.

  I wasn’t jealous. I probably could’ve looked like that too, if I had time to work out. But I was busy doing other things, like trying to figure out how to keep the bills paid and gas in my car. Even if I did work out, I don’t think anyone would’ve paid attention. My small frame, brown hair, and average-Joe looks didn’t turn many heads.

  But Governor McIntyre was different. The Chronicle followed him closely, printing multiple articles about his cause. He also appeared on the news and hit some talk shows. His movement was a subject of conversation across the nation, whether in the grocery store, barbershop, or on Capitol Hill.

  Got to admit, he fascinated me. I recorded a daytime TV program with him as the guest. I thought maybe if I studied him, maybe I could someday draw such attention. I’d always thought it’d be cool to be famous.

  “A while back,” the governor said on the program, staring the clean-shaven, silver-haired host straight in the eyes, “an illegal alien from Mexico murdered a lady cop in Dallas. She was also a wife and mother, killed by a man who should’ve never had the freedom to commit the murder.”

  “What happened?” Silver Hair asked. He was too fancy. Obviously rich. I didn’t like him.

  “The immigrant had been convicted of molesting a little girl,” the governor began. “So what’d we do? We deported him, as if Mexico would take care of it. Mexico? Yeah, right. The guy simply walked back across the border. Can you believe that?”

  “That is rather odd.”

  “Not odd at all. Happens every day. Someone reported that a young girl had been assaulted where the man was staying. An officer responded, only to be gunned down. Now we have a dead mom because our judicial system doesn’t know how to take out the trash.”

  “Yes, there are breakdowns here and there, Governor, but wouldn’t you agree our legal system is doing everything it can to protect our citizens?”

  “Protect our citizens? Are you kidding me? You watching what’s happening in the world today?” the governor asked. “People are killing people at will. Not just a few. A lot. New York. Benghazi. Madrid. London. Nairobi. Paris. Bad people are raining terror down upon good people everywhere. And our leaders want to talk to them. You know—have a conversation with them.”

  “Sir, I’m talking about American citizens in our great country. Do you not believe the legal system is doing everything it can to protect them, in their own homes and neighborhoods?”

  “You’re a fool if you believe what is happening around the world isn’t coming to your front door. And when it does, when someone blows up someone you love at a football game, how are you going to punish those people? Talk to them? Tell them we’re actually good people and they shouldn’t be so mean to us?”

  “Again, Governor, I’m talking about reasonable punishment for those committing crimes in our hometowns. Now. Right this minute. What would you do differently? Other than what our criminal system is already trying to do?”

  “Fine. Let’s talk about the convicted pedophiles walking our streets and preying on innocent children every day. Let’s talk about the violent offenders who live in our midst. Here’s a good one for you: an Illinois judge recently revoked a restraining order filed by an abused woman against her husband. The guy complained about it infringing on his rights. Afterward, he used his rights to set his wife on fire.”

  “Yes, but,” Silver Hair began, “the husband was intent on harming his wife. Even if the restraining order was left in place, a piece of legal paper wasn’t going to stop him.”

  “Exactly. We need to come up with something tougher than a piece of paper.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “A place where the punishment fits the crime,” the governor said. “I’m sick of hearing how a mom can drown her children and not face severe consequences because she’s found not guilty by reason of insanity. Of course she’s insane! She killed her kids!”

  The host eyed his guest. “Are you saying not guilty by reason of insanity is not a valid defense?”

  “You’re not really asking me that, right?” The governor shook his head. “We’re supposed to jeopardize lives while trying to figure out what to do with a woman who doesn’t know the difference between buttering her toast and butchering her baby?”

  “Should we not differentiate between those who kill with intent and those who kill because they don’t know any better?”

  “Why? Whether you are mentally ill or not, if you’re wired to kill, you kill.”

  “I don’t necessarily agree,” the host responded, “but let’s say it’s true. How would you handle it?”

  “I see the problem from a different angle. If a person is diagnosed with cancer, the malignancy is removed, eliminated from the body for the sake of survival, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Our society represents a body—the body of civilization. Violent individuals are cancer cells. We need to cut them from the body of civilization for the very survival of civilization. When we try to rehabilitate these people and then set them free, we are causing irreparable damage. When cancer relapses, it often results in death. Society relapses every time a predator is released.”

  “So you do not believe a person can be rehabilitated?”

  “Whether you want to believe it or not, there is no cure for pedophilia. You are defective. Period. You go to prison a pedophile, you come out a pedophile.”

  The governor’s declaration sounded about right. And apparently I wasn’t the only who felt that way.

 
Governor McIntyre proposed creating a place where violent offenders would truly pay for their crimes. He mentioned a newspaper article about an experimental exhibit at the London Zoo, one featuring humans. The Zoo’s intent was to showcase man as just another member of the primate family. People across Europe visited the exhibit. Some found it fascinating, others found it stupid. But it made everyone think, especially the governor.

  “I say we follow the lead of the London Zoo,” he suggested. “We should create a place where we display violent criminals as what they are: animals.”

  “You’re saying we should build a human zoo?”

  “We spend millions upon millions of dollars every year on our prisons. I’m tired of rubber-stamping the costs of keeping malignant humans alive. The zoo for criminals—”

  “The Criminal Zoo?”

  “Sure, I like that. It’s catchy. Anyway, it could be funded through admission, not our tax dollars. And for an additional fee, it could be visitor interactive.”

  “You mean like a petting zoo?” Silver-Haired Fancy Man asked, eyebrows raised.

  “Yeah, like a petting zoo. A person could interact with a chosen criminal. The criminal’s biography would be posted at his exhibit—his age, place of birth, job history, hobbies and interests, and most importantly, his criminal record, in full, gory detail.”

  “What kind of visitor interaction do you propose?”

  “Let’s say the criminal beat someone to death with a baseball bat. For a fee, you could take a bat to the guy.”

  “Ah, Dante’s Inferno brought to life. Are we talking about a free-for-all beating?”

  “No. There’d be restrictions, limits to how bad you could hurt someone. You could hit the guy in the arm or the leg. If you break a bone, the exhibit would be closed while medical attention is given, allowing the human animal time to heal.”

  “The human animal?”

  “That’s what he is. Say we have a child abuser. A visitor could burn him with a cigarette. Cigarette burns are easy to recover from. Just ask any number of kids. Or maybe we could allow a rape victim to take a police-issue nightstick and sodomize her attacker.”