Chapter 3

Feeling refreshed from a good night’s sleep, Samuel woke when his alarm clock rang at six in the morning. He got out of bed and began his normal morning routine. While the coffee was brewing, he performed his morning exercise regime that included fifty sit-ups, push-ups, deep knee bends, toe touches, and other exercises. It was a typical prison cell exercise program that didn’t require equipment of any kind.

Once he had finished his exercises, he drank a cup of coffee. Seated at the table, he read over what he had written in the notebook the previous night. He appended a line of text to the entry.

After finishing his coffee, he took a shower and then put on a clean work uniform. He returned to the kitchen and fixed a bowl of cereal for breakfast. It didn’t take long to eat. He fixed a quick lunch of a sandwich, bag of chips, and an apple. He filled two large water bottles with water from the tap. It was 7:30 by the time he finished straightening up the bed. The small apartment was spotless just as it was every morning when he left for work.

After grabbing his lunch and the two bottles of water Samuel headed to work. He arrived at the parking lot twenty minutes after leaving the house. He walked into the maintenance area and clocked in early but within the five minute grace window that was either side of 8:00. By the official time the work day was to start, he was riding on the lawn vacuum clearing the leaves that had fallen or blown onto the front lawn since the previous day. The lawn vacuum was a lot like a lawn mower except that it sucked up the leaves and deposited them in a bag sitting on a trailer that was pulled behind the tractor.

Julia Powers pulled into the parking lot narrowly missing a car because she was distracted by seeing Samuel at work. She had listened to the news the previous night and heard a short news story about the events of the previous evening. The news, based on early inaccurate information, had reported that a suspect had been taken to the police station and a victim had been taken to a hospital. She had assumed that the suspect was Samuel. Like many, she believed that when the police called someone a suspect that they actually meant perpetrator. She couldn’t believe that they would release him so quickly.

She noticed Jeff walking a few paces ahead of her while entering the building. She started walking a little quicker to catch up to him without looking too obvious.

Rather than starting with her questions, she said, “Hello, Jeff.”

“Hello, Julia.”

Gesturing to the front of the building, she asked, “What is Samuel Reynolds doing here?”

“He’s working,” Jeff answered well aware that was not the question she was asking.

Julia snorted and said, “I can see. What I mean is ... why isn’t he in jail?”

“He’s a hero. He saved Maria Menendez last night from her pistol packing ex-husband,” Jeff answered. He still had a hard time believing what he had personally witnessed.

She was shocked by the suggestion that Samuel was a hero. Feeling guilty about the call to 911 that she had made, she said, “I thought Samuel was the one with the gun.”

“You and a hundred other people,” Jeff said. “I already had two e-mails demanding that we fire him. Of course they weren’t quite nice in how they worded it. He was referred to as the psycho and the zombie killer. I imagine that my voice mail is filled with messages to that effect.”

The pair walked in the direction of their offices while thinking about the consequences of the events of the previous evening. When they reached the privacy of their office area, Julia asked, “What are you going to do about Samuel?”

“I’ll compose an e-mail pointing out that Samuel heroically faced an armed man to protect another of our employees. I’ll stress that the attacker did not work here and that we are taking steps to assure better security in the parking areas. We’ll issue the e-mail through one of the high level directors,” Jeff answered. He hoped that would kill all talk about firing Samuel.

“That might help,” Julia said.

Jeff said, “I hope that squelches calls to get rid of him. Based on what I’ve seen, I can only assume that comments to him will not be very nice. If it gets too bad he could sue us for creating a hostile workplace. After all, he didn’t do anything wrong.”

“When I heard that woman shouting about someone having a gun, I was positive that Samuel had gone postal on us,” Julia said. She had not slept well the previous evening thinking about how close she had come to getting killed.

Having seen Samuel in action, Jeff hoped that the man never lost it. He feared that no one would survive. He hoped that events did not push Samuel in that direction. He looked over at Julia and knew that admitting his thoughts aloud would be a very bad idea.

The situation was becoming nearly unmanageable in the maintenance area. These were people who actually worked with Samuel and all of them had experienced staring into his blank eyes. John Delgado was surrounded by a very upset and angry maintenance crew. Unfortunately, John didn’t know more about the events of the previous night than what anyone who worked for him knew.

One of the men said, “I heard that he went postal last night.”

“My wife doesn’t want me working around him anymore.”

“He’s a psycho.”

“Have you ever looked in his eyes?”

“Dead man walking.”

“I heard that he was out in the parking lot shooting at people.”

Trying to get control over the situation, John whistled to get everyone to shut up. Looking around, he said, “I don’t know exactly what happened last night. I do know that if Samuel had done anything wrong that the police wouldn’t have released him to return to work.”

“I don’t believe that. He’s probably out on bail or something.”

John said, “Get to work. I’ll find out what happened and let you know.”

“Fucking management whitewash.”

“Damned liberal lawyers.”

John glared at the men and told them to get back to work. Once everyone had left, he headed to his office trying to figure out where he could learn the details about what had happened the previous night. He stared at his telephone wondering who to call. The only positive note was that Samuel had gone through his normal work routine without doing anything to escalate the tensions.

After a night without much sleep, Maria Menendez managed to rouse enough energy to call her boss. Her hands trembled while trying to dial the number and it took her three attempts to finally manage it. She nearly broke down in tears when she told him that she wouldn’t be in the office and wasn’t quite sure when she would make it.

A half an hour later she called the suicide hotline. She wasn’t dealing with the situation well. An hour later, she checked into a hospital. The police still hadn’t found her to get her version of the events.

John’s problem with finding out details about the events of the previous evening was solved when Jeff stopped by his office. After a quick conversation with Jeff, John went out to call Samuel into his office to meet with Jeff. Samuel entered the office and took a seat without looking at Jeff. He sat there staring at the floor.

Jeff said, “Good morning, Samuel.”

Samuel shrugged his shoulders. Knowing that further small talk would be met with the same response, Jeff slid a sheet of paper across the desk to Samuel.

He said, “We are planning on releasing this e-mail to everyone who works at this site. It basically explains the events of the previous evening. We would like your permission to release it since it mentions you by name.”

“No.”

Surprised by Samuel’s response, Jeff said, “You might want to read it.”

Samuel picked up the sheet of paper and read it carefully. He handed the sheet of paper back to Jeff and said, “No.”

“Why not? It is a flattering article,” Jeff asked.

Samuel shrugged his shoulders and stood up. Without saying a word he left the office. Jeff shouted, “Come back here Samuel. We need to talk about this.”

When Samuel didn’t return, Jeff knew that his plan for handling the situation had failed. He swore, “Fuck. What do I do now?”

Later that afternoon, Chief Calhoun, Detective Daniels, and Detective Stafford were in the conference room watching the tapes of the parking lot events and the interview. When the tape of the interview was over, Chief Calhoun said, “I didn’t realize that Samuel Reynolds was out on parole.”

“You know him?” Detective Stafford asked. They had mentioned Samuel’s name, but not the fact that he was a convicted murderer.

Nodding his head, Chief Calhoun answered, “I was the first officer to arrive at the scene of the murder that he committed. Let me tell you, it was pretty shocking.”

Detective Daniels said, “Tell us about it.”

“He killed his wife and two kids. He shot his wife in the face. She was a real pretty woman and it was like he wanted to erase her beauty off the face of the earth. He shot his kids in the center of their chests from close range. The boy was three and the daughter was two. They were really nice kids,” Chief Calhoun said. He had watched some tapes of the family on a picnic.

“Why did he do it?” Detective Stafford asked.

“We think his wife was having an affair and he found out about it. We found a pornographic magazine under his bed open to a story about a cheating wife,” Chief Calhoun answered.

Detective Stafford asked, “What did he say happened?”

“He said that he was innocent. He claimed his wife and kids were okay when he left the house that morning and that he spent the entire day at his property in the country working on their new home,” Chief Calhoun answered. He was silent for a moment and then added, “No one could confirm his story, but all of the evidence pointed at him. The time of death was approximately the same as when he left the house in the morning and the murder weapon was a pistol that he had bought a year earlier. The wife didn’t have any defensive wounds which suggested that she knew and trusted her killer. Hell, even his own parents said that his wife was worried about him discovering something unpleasant.”