Bogeyman by Steve Jackson Read Free Book Online Page A

workings of Giles’ disturbed mind. But it was also hard to understand why Smiley Johnson, who had to have known it was her great-grandson who had done such vile things to her, protected him. Making matters worse, her silence had resulted in at least one more victim, the young black woman.
    Then again, the second victim wasn’t a lot of help either. After Giles’ confession, Sweet went to talk to her and ask if she was sure about her description of her assailant. She was adamant; her attacker was an older black man.
    It didn’t make sense. Sweet then asked her if she actually saw her attacker’s face. No, she hadn’t. He asked if she’d looked at his hands and that’s how she knew he was a black man. No, she didn’t. Did he say something that gave away his race? No, he never spoke the entire time he was stabbing her over and over again.
    Shaking his head in confusion, Sweet asked her on what evidence she’d based her conclusion that her attacker was an older black man. She told him it was because of the neighborhood she lived in, which was 80 percent black. In other words, she was playing the odds. “So what makes you think he was older?” he asked.
    “Because I saw his shoes,” the woman replied defiantly. “He was wearing black, high-top canvas basketball shoes. No kid would wear shoes like that.”
    Sweet was dumbfounded. He knew what kind of shoes she was talking about: “Chuck Taylor” Converse All-Stars; he’d worn them in high school himself. But more importantly, the familiar tread design had been found in the blood on the floor at both crime scenes, and they were the type of shoes Michael Giles was wearing when Sweet arrested him. Yet, when Sweet told the woman that they’d arrested a young white male wearing those shoes for a murder two blocks away, she still maintained that her original description was correct.
    Michael Giles was charged for the murder of his great-grandmother, but because of the second victim’s obstinacy, he was not also charged with attempted murder. Sweet was disappointed he couldn’t make the second case, if only for insurance purposes. If Giles had been an adult, he might have faced the death penalty, but because of his age, he could only get prison time. Adding a second attempted murder charge would have meant more time in prison.
    Sweet worried about what would happen if Giles was ever released. He was convinced that the teenager was a serial killer in the making. He’d only been successful once, but he tried a second time. It was obvious he enjoyed killing and felt no remorse; if he got the chance, Sweet was convinced, Giles would kill again.
    As the day of the trial approached, Sweet wondered how a jury would react to the shocking details of Giles’ confession and his obsession with necrophilia. However, no jury ever heard the case. Instead of going to trial, Giles agreed at the last minute to plead guilty in exchange for a thirty-year sentence.
    Not nearly enough time, Sweet thought, and Giles would still be young enough when he got out to commit more murders. But the judge had only seen a frightened, small-statured, sixteen-year-old boy in front of him at sentencing, not the malevolent killer Sweet knew was lurking beneath the surface. The judge sent Giles to a juvenile facility until age 18, at which point he would be moved to an adult prison to wait for his first parole board in 2014.
    Sweet walked away from the case having learned valuable lessons and with greater understanding of his role as a guardian who stood between evil and good, and the burden that placed on him. He knew that he couldn’t really talk about some aspects of the job with anyone but another cop, not even his wife or his civilian friends. Most people couldn’t imagine someone like Michael Giles, or that the real world—a cop’s world—could be worse than even the bloodiest horror movie. Outsiders couldn’t understand what it was like to put aside what he’d seen and heard, or was