To Eugene, the worst part about the county jail's medical wing wasn’t being strapped down on a gurney, unable to move, a catheter up his urethra. It was the noise.
He was used to silence when he slept, and the noise level in the jail ground him down.
The other bad thing about his time in jail waiting for his trial was the isolation. He was in protective custody. Officials figured he'd be shanked if he was in the general population, so he was alone in a cell twenty-three out of every twenty-four hours and then the one hour he was out of his cell, he was alone as well. It meant he was still alive, but it also meant he was alone with his thoughts. He had nothing, because there was no one outside to bring him any possessions. Not even his bitch of an adoptive mother would bring him anything, so he was at the mercy of the state. That meant he had only what they gave him.
It was hell.
He had one phone call each day, made from a public telephone, no doubt monitored by the guards. He had a camera on him twenty-four seven, so he didn't get a chance to even shit in private. The guard on duty could watch, if he wanted.
Eugene considered killing himself, but his shoes had no laces. There was nothing but a bare mattress on the piece of crap they called a bed. There was nothing he could use to hang himself.
All he had was his prison-issued jumpsuit.
When he was in the general population, he almost died when a prisoner decided to stab him, for some unknown reason. Maybe just to make a name for himself. Eugene didn't know the inmate culture well enough at that point to tell.
Then, when he was in a special wing for sex offenders, he tried to kill himself, tearing his t-shirt and using it as a ligature, fastening it around the sink faucet and suspending himself but all that happened was he tore the skin on his neck, nearly ripped off his earlobe, and ended up in the prison medical facility.
He'd just recovered from his wounds after Tess shot him, then he almost died due to blood loss from the stabbing, and finally, he survived his own suicide attempt.
No one seemed able to kill him -- not Tess, not the inmate and not even himself.
The only consolation was that he could talk to the man beside him in the adjoining gurney. Unlike in solitary, the men could hear and speak to each other. The only thing separating them was a curtain.
On the first day of his stay in the hospital, the man, who called himself Marty, introduced himself and asked Eugene for his story.
Eugene was tempted to say, "None of your fucking business," but he didn't. Besides the guards and the doctors and nurses who treated him, Marty was the only person Eugene had spoken to beside his lawyer -- a public defender.
Ma and Pa Hammond had disowned him, and would not be spending any of their money on his defense.
Not that there was any defense. At first, Eugene considered confessing to all his crimes as a way of getting them all on the record books. He wanted a lawyer because he wanted to negotiate terms of his plea deal. He'd turn over all the evidence and all the bodies, and in return, he'd get to dictate where he was incarcerated and under what terms.
Then, he decided not to cooperate. He didn't want to go down without a fight. He wanted the spectacle of a trial, so he stopped cooperating.
He claimed he had wrongly confessed.
He said he'd been coerced.
So far, the only lawyer he had spoken to was a public defender who was pretty busy with usual cases of drug possession, trafficking, drinking and driving and petty theft. The man sounded ground down by years in the position. He was obviously not a sharp tack if he had been a public defender for years. If he had any skills, the man would have gone into private practice. But that was all Eugene had. No one on his biological side of the family had volunteered any cash to help him and so he was on his own.
Pretty much the way he'd been his entire life.
So, when Marty finally made contact, Eugene welcomed it.
"What did you do?" Marty asked, his voice sounding intrigued. "I saw them bring you in earlier."
"They claim I killed some people. But I'm innocent," Eugene added, trying out the claim on someone new.
"Oh, yeah? Isn't everyone in here?"
"I truly am innocent. I was coerced into confessing."
"Yeah, yeah," Marty said. "Who did you confess to killing?"
"A bunch of young girls."
"Ohhh," Marty said and was silent for a moment. "You're Eugene Kincaid. The Paradise Hill Killer."
"That's what they claim," Eugene said with a smile. He was known. "But they have the wrong man."
"Sure," Marty said, with clear disbelief.
"What did you do?" Eugene asked, to be polite. He really didn't care but it was nice to have someone to speak with.
"They claim I killed some people."
Eugene settled back on his bed. Maybe he and Marty were going to get along.
"Tell me how many."
"Not up to the heights they claim you killed, but seven. I guess that makes me more of a spree killer than a serial killer," Marty said matter-of-fact. "They claim I killed my bitch of a wife, her interfering mother and stepfather, her brother, his wife, and two sheriff's deputies who tried to take me in.”
"You're Martin Franks."
"The very one," Franks said, a note of amusement in his voice.
Eugene had read about the Franks killings months ago. Fifty-eight, Franks was a mechanic who worked at a local auto repair shop in a small town outside Seattle. Married to a woman who owned her own business selling baked goods to local restaurants, he'd been charged with battery after a fight over money. Wife filed for divorce, and charged Franks with theft of over five thousand dollars he took out of their account - money he'd used to pay for underage prostitutes and child pornography.
He had been arrested and charged, but released on bail. After he was served the divorce papers, Franks left work after his shift ended, went to his home and killed his wife with a shotgun, then went to her mother's home and killed both her parents, her brother and sister in law. He then calmly called the local sheriff's office to report the murders and when the sheriff's deputies arrived to check it out, he killed them both before he laid down his weapon and surrendered.
Franks knew what it meant to kill -- to have the power of life or death over others.
Yes, the two of them were going to get along just fine.
"What happened to get you in the hospital?" Eugene asked.
"Someone stabbed me," Marty said nonchalantly. "Said he didn't like men who killed their mothers, but I told him that if he had my mother-in-law, he would have killed her, too."
"How do you keep from going insane in here?" Eugene asked, staring at the ceiling tiles above him.
"I don't know," Marty said, his tone thoughtful. "I tend to just gloat that those who wronged me are currently rotting in their graves and I'm alive, getting three squares a day, my laundry done for me and a bed to sleep on. That gets me through a lot."
"Revenge," Eugene said, nodding. "I can see that might offer some solace."
"What about you?" Marty asked. "What led you to do your murders?"
"I didn't murder anyone," Eugene said. He often wondered how much of his own story anyone -- even a killer like Marty -- could understand or relate to.
"Well, if you had been the killer, what do you think would lead someone to kill that many young girls?" Marty asked.
"Well, if I was the killer," Eugene replied, "I'd say it was complicated. A psychiatrist would say someone who killed twenty-nine girls was a psychopath, and they probably would be. A man like that would likely have a biological father who was one and I guess the man would have inherited the trait from him. He would like girls on the young side, and well, I guess a man like that would kill them to prevent them from identifying him after they had sex."
"I hear you," Marty said. "I like them on the younger side, too. Nothing quite as sweet as fresh meat."
Eugene smiled.
He was not a stupid man. He knew that wasn't his real story. He wanted to kill the girls. He didn't kill them to prevent them from identifying him for he never intended to let them go. Killing was part of the whole reason for taking the girls. Sure, he wanted the sex, but he also wanted total control over them. He enjoyed the power it gave him, the sense of control. He'd felt small and helpless all his life, when he lived with Dear Old Dad Daryl, and when he was put in foster care and then when he was adopted by Chief Joe and his wife. He was small and weak, forced into service in John Hammond's and Dear Old Dad Daryl's porn room. He was a nobody doing a nothing job. Even in his marriage, Kirsten was the boss. She ran things.
When Eugene was hunting, he felt powerful. When he captured his prey and killed it, he was a god.
It made up for all the pain he'd suffered all his life. Mostly.
There was still a lot of pain in his life. But the memories of his kills were still fresh in his mind and they crowded out the painful ones. Most of the time...
Sometimes, nothing could drown out the bad memories and so he'd just suffer like an animal. Unable to do anything about it but consider it.
That was usually when he'd start planning his next kill, looking for a new target, learning everything he could about it, and then stalking his prey.
That tended to tamp down the pain for a while at least.
Now, trapped in a prison cell, or even in the secure wing of the hospital, he wasn't even going to be able to do that.
"You changed your plea, am I right?"
"Yes," Eugene said. "I made up a bunch of lies about where all the bodies are buried, based on what my uncle, John Hammond, told me. It was him and my biological father who killed the girls, but they don't believe me and are charging me anyway."
Eugene knew they'd go ahead with the trial and charge him with the five murders they had pretty good evidence on. He didn't care. The trial would give him a change of scenery. He'd dribble out little bits of truth here and there, just to keep himself in the limelight.
"What about the charges in Idaho?"
Eugene was impressed. Marty had done his reading.
"I'll be extradited. No doubt I'll be charged with aggravated first-degree murder. I'll fight them all. I don't plan on making it easy or cheap for them to finish me off. Considering I'm innocent."
"Good man. Fuck the cops. The system's rigged. Make them work for it."
"You fighting your cases?"
"Damn straight I am," Marty replied, his voice firm. "I'll go kicking and screaming."
"How long have you been in jail?" Eugene asked.
"Since I was arrested. Three months now. Waiting for my court date. Keeps being postponed for this reason or that. Fine by me. The longer it takes, the more money the state pays to keep me in here. I'm good."
"I'm going crazy," Eugene said. "I've got nothing to do in jail."
"You tried to kill yourself, though."
"I did," Eugene admitted. "It was in a moment of weakness."
"You must feel guilty."
"Nope," Eugene said. "An innocent man can't feel guilty. I just felt wronged. Just didn't want to face the rest of my life in jail."
"I hear you," Marty said. "Like you said, you'll be extradited to Idaho once they charge you."
"That appears to be the case."
"Looks like I'll be facing life, seeing as Washington State just outlawed capital punishment. I never really liked the company of my fellow man, so what do I care? I got books, I get computer access. The food stinks, but other than that, I'm living better than ninety percent of all humans who ever existed."
Eugene nodded, figuring that was a good attitude to have.
"How do you get books and computer access?"
"You need people on the outside," Marty said. "They can get you some money, things you can trade, and if you're good, you can get money in your commissary account, and buy stuff. Extra food. Shit you need beyond what they give you."
"I have no one," Eugene said. "Parents disowned me. No wife."
"That's rough. I guess I got none either, but my cousin helps me out now and then."
"I don't even have any cousins who would help me."
"You should try to find some pen pals," Marty said with a laugh. "There are ladies who like to correspond with killers. Especially a serial killer."
"Accused serial killer," Eugene corrected.
"Accused serial killer, of course. You might be able to get them to give you money and shit."
Eugene had already thought of that. It was called the Bonnie and Clyde Syndrome. Or hybristophilia, which was the technical term. It was strange -- some women actually were attracted to serial murderers. They became pen pals, even married prisoners. Hell, Eugene wouldn't mind using some woman for the perks.
He'd have to look into it.
Of course, he had all the goods on a lot of people who partook of his uncle's little child porn and sex trade business. He didn't have access to anything concrete, but he knew the people involved. John Hammond had taken pains to keep people's real names out of the books, demanding cash payments for everything and using pseudonyms for those who patronized his business.
But Eugene knew their names and faces, even though there were no records.
He figured those men would be shitting bricks at the moment, thinking Eugene might be able to finger them. There were a lot of men in high places who paid for pretty young things to get them off. Men who might be quite happy to help him out.
At one point in his life, he might have relished the notoriety that being executed had in terms of history, but now? He wanted to live.
He'd have to consider just how he could get some help inside prison while he waited for his trials. He might even blackmail a few people and get them to help him escape.
That would put him right up there with Bundy.
Bundy escaped twice from prison and so Eugene knew it was possible. He'd have to figure out the weaknesses in the prison system he was currently trapped inside. Get someone who wanted to cover up their tracks to help him get out.
Eugene did not want to spend the rest of his life waiting to be executed in Idaho.