The Girl from Silent Lake

by Leslie Wolfe

  “Where do you think he’ll bury his next victims, now that we’ve found his burial site?”

  “More like we desecrated it,” Kay replied, checking her messages. “He won’t stray far from Silent Lake. There’s relevance to his choice of burial site. There’s an old Native legend that says Silent Lake, or Cuwar Lake in its original name, was formed from the tears of Native women crying for their dead.” As she spoke, she realized the burial forest might’ve expanded way beyond the area they’d uncovered. “There are several paths that lead to the lake, most of them accessible to a four-by-four truck. This part of the ritual is critical; he’ll be compelled to continue—” She stopped abruptly, seeing the email she’d been waiting for. “San Francisco Police Department Airport Bureau came through,” she said excitedly, opening it. Soon they’d be able to see which tow truck had delivered those cars, maybe capture a plate or an image of its driver.

  The email loaded painstakingly slowly, due to the size of the attachments. One by one, photos captured from surveillance videos appeared on the screen. She brought the phone closer to Elliot so he could see them, and pulled back a little when their heads came near each other, almost touching.

  The images were grainy and had already been enhanced. In chronological order, the stills showed Shannon’s Subaru, Kendra’s Jeep and finally Alison’s Nissan, all being driven into the parking lot by a man who knew how to cover his face with a ballcap and a hoodie.

  All the vehicles had been driven there, not towed.

  As soon as the unsub had pulled into the respective parking lots, he’d locked the cars and left, not spending one moment tinkering with their GPS to erase all records of the trip from Mount Chester.

  Then how? How did he do it? How did he manage to disable the vehicles enough to get their drivers to stop and call for assistance, before driving them right to SFO without any issues?

  The stills had time stamps, showing all three cars had been returned mere hours after the victims had last been seen. Not only was he precise in his execution, but he was fast. It also meant something else.

  “He leaves them alone somewhere,” Kay said. “He’s got an isolated place where no one can find them or hear them scream.”

  Elliot shrugged, gesturing with his hand toward the wild scenery surrounding them.

  She read the message from the SFO airport administration, signed by the chief of the San Francisco Police Department Airport Bureau, then read it again, in disbelief.

  “Unfortunately,” the message said, “there isn’t a single camera view that captures the suspect from a better angle, although he passed through highly surveilled areas as he left the airport parking structure. We have tracked his movements on each of the three occasions, and we can confirm each time he took the fastest way out of the parking garage, then walked off the premises. He didn’t take a cab or a shuttle. No person matching his description was seen leaving the area in a vehicle, as shown by all video cameras servicing the main access points to the local highway system. He just vanished.”

  Twenty-Eight

  Cadillac

  He recalled driving around in that blue Cadillac, filling his lungs with the scent of fine leather and his stomach with the first decent meal in months, paid for with the parking change he’d gathered from the center console cup holder. He drove all night, enjoying the fog that had more than once been his enemy, because now the thick layer of ground-touching clouds was his friend, protecting him and concealing the bodies he’d left back in that Tenderloin dumpster.

  He drove in circles all night, the SUV’s vents blowing warm air on his shivering body, music loud, and nothing he’d ever felt before compared, not even remotely. He was safe in that Cadillac, as he once used to be in his mother’s arms, before she’d turned on him and threw him out like yesterday’s garbage. He felt warm, powerful, invincible. Every now and then he turned onto a side street to get out of the way of a patrol car, his heart thumping loudly against his ribcage, but no red-and-blue lights flashed behind him that night. People who drove cars like that rarely got pulled over, and never without cause, because people like that had powerful, bloodthirsty lawyers who fought hard for them, who protected them.

  At about four in the morning, he drove all the way up to Twin Peaks, and looked at the city as it lay at his feet, a blanket lit up in a million lights covered in cotton, like snow-covered Christmas trees back home, in Mount Chester. He lounged on the car’s hood, the heat coming from the engine keeping the night chill at bay, and stared at the dense fog layer, knowing his freedom couldn’t last.

  From there, he drove to Battery East park, where he pulled over by the side of the road and looked at the Golden Gate Bridge, a ghostly appearance in yellow sodium lights and red metal, shrouded in thick, heavy mist that captured the gilded glow and spread it across the water like a vision of the road to paradise. Only beyond the bay, somewhere across that bridge, the sky had already started to capture the dreaded colors of dawn.

  Soon, the sun would rise, and, under its powerful rays, the fog would burn and vanish, exposing him, revealing the bodies of the men he’d killed. Heavy-hearted but knowing exactly what he had to do, he drove the Escalade one last time to a Tenderloin shop famed for its shady deals. He waited about an hour for the man who owned the place, a man he’d heard whispers about, hushed and scared rumors about how he’d earned the tattoos that adorned his skin and how he’d become a legend while he’d served his time. For manslaughter.

  If anyone could understand, that man would. But he had no intention of sharing his problems; only of selling the Cadillac.

  He negotiated badly, not used to the games the shop owner was routinely playing on people like him, and believing his threats about calling the cops on him. He barely refrained from jumping him, and he did so only because the man’s bulging muscles told him he didn’t stand a chance, not even with a blade in his hand. Out of options, he settled for whatever the ex-con was willing to give him for the stolen Cadillac.

  When he left the shop, the sun was high, and he was clasping in his sweaty hand four thousand dollars in a thick roll of used, dirty bills, less than a tenth of the car’s worth. He ached for the feeling of a car key nestled in the palm of his hand, but that money opened the door to his future life.

  His first move was to head as far away from the Tenderloin dumpster as possible. He bought himself a Caltrain permit and rode the train past San Jose, until all he could see out the window were crop fields. Then he found a small room to rent in the back of an older couple’s house, and a few days later, he got himself a job.

  All the questions he’d encountered while trying to set himself up he remembered clearly. Did he have a driver’s license? How about a résumé? References the employers could call? One by one, he tackled all those obstacles, learning from each experience just how far his world was from the realm of men who drove Cadillacs. And with each piece of knowledge, each document, and each line on his résumé, he drew closer to who he wanted to be.

  A year later, he was admitted to college.

  He worked days and studied nights, a gargantuan effort for the boy who used to live on the street, and had never finished high school. But he’d studied on his own and got himself a GED, then convinced the admissions office he was a great candidate who would make the university proud, because he was an orphan without means but immense determination to succeed.

  The university bought his story. All of it, every word of the yarn he wove, without bothering to verify anything. The counselor even made it possible for him to be considered for a sports scholarship, and, after requesting two weeks to prepare, he aced all trials. The door to a better life was opening widely for him, and he could freely fantasize about his future, no dream out of reach.

  He soon became the university poster child. He was articulate and could make an argument stick, no matter how flimsy. He had an air of vulnerability about him that women, regardless of age, fell for indiscriminately. And there had never been the slightest rumors of
any relationships; he was too busy for that. Yet he found no pleasure in his academic success; to him, it was all a means to an end. His homeless days were behind him, but never forgotten, his wounds still bleeding inside his tormented soul.

  All that time, there were two things very difficult to endure for him. Not driving a Cadillac, and not killing anyone. Some of his colleagues could testify they’d seen a glint of something in his eyes, something they couldn’t name but that curled the fear of him deep inside their hearts. They had no idea how close they’d come to meeting his blade or having the life snuffed out of them by his bare hands wrapped around their throats. As for girls who’d tried to get a date with him, there were a few. However, none would admit the intensity of the primal arousal wave they’d felt when he laid eyes on them, sizing them up from head to toe, his eyes lingering in all the wrong places. Yet he never went past that lingering gaze, although they could’ve sworn they’d seen the signs of male interest in him; he just walked away, leaving them unsatisfied, frustrated, feeling rejected. As for him, he preferred to take his arousal home, where he could fantasize and find release his own way, unseen by anyone, not having to bother with someone else’s feelings.

  Meanwhile, the mystery surrounding him grew, together with his grade point average. He became a legend.

  He knew to keep his distance from coeds, as well as the men who crossed him, because he understood just how lucky he’d been for not getting caught after his last night in the Tenderloin. He realized luck like that couldn’t be pushed nor taken for granted. The three men he’d killed had been found the next day, but the case had remained open, now cold and forgotten by most.

  Never by him.

  Driven by an unyielding compulsion, he promised himself sweet relief the one evening he’d struggled the most to keep from killing a guy who’d tripped him on purpose during a game. But that relief wouldn’t come without an immense price tag, unless he learned how to do it right. That man’s name was on a list he’d started in his mind, of people he’d have to revisit when things would be just right.

  He chose a major in forensic science, preparing for a career in criminalistics. As such, he’d learn how to hunt without getting caught. He’d gain access to knowledge, people, and systems to hone his skills as close to perfection as possible, while harnessing moments of blissful release. The one true calling that kept him up at night was the only thing he couldn’t ignore. The only one worth striving for.

  And one day, soon, he’d drive another Cadillac.

  Twenty-Nine

  Backyard

  Kay woke up and squinted in the bright morning light, wondering how she’d forgotten to pull the bedroom window curtains closed the night before. She’d been so tired she’d paid little attention to the familiar surroundings, letting herself drop on the bed and feeling grateful for the new linens smelling of lavender and cleanliness. The rest of the room looked just as she remembered it, small and crowded with mismatched furniture and all the objects her mother had stored in there after she’d left. The old desk she’d done her homework on throughout her school years still bore the scratches she’d left by accidently writing heavily with a ballpoint pen on a single sheet of paper. Those scratches had earned her a couple of slaps across her face from her father, another memory that invaded her space like a haunting, relentless hydra with thousands of heads.

  She blinked a couple of times to get her eyes used to the light and chase the unwanted memories away, then she checked the time and sprung out of bed. Only forty minutes left until Elliot would be there to pick her up; she barely had time for a shower. They were meeting the sheriff and his team to deliver the profile, even if she’d never felt less prepared to do so in her entire career. But she hoped that what little she knew about the unsub could be released into the law enforcement community and provide enough insight as to get the killer identified. And maybe that would mean finding Alison, Hazel, and Matthew still alive.

  She’d stayed up the night before until about three, playing with the pieces of the puzzle in her mind, trying to make them fit and draw the picture of the fearless predator who had been one step ahead of them the entire time. Who was this man? How could he be local and have strong ties with the Native community, yet no one seemed to know of him? Was the profile entirely wrong?

  She wanted to go into the sheriff’s office earlier than planned, to speak with the motor pool technician. He’d inspected all three vehicles and had taken the Jeep’s engine apart piece by piece, trying to find out how those vehicles had been disabled. He didn’t have a definitive answer yet, but she had a few questions she wanted to ask him anyway.

  Distant noise grew closer as she filled up the coffee maker, a somewhat familiar buzzing. She was about to dismiss it, thinking it must’ve been the neighbor, when she looked out the window and saw Elliot riding on the lawn tractor, cutting large swaths through the overgrown greenery. She groaned, wondering in passing how he’d opened the garage door, and thinking she must’ve seemed pitiful and hopeless in the man’s eyes, enough to earn her a mercy lawn mowing at the crack of dawn. He’d been at it for a while; the front lawn was almost entirely done, only the occasional heap of yellowed, mulched clippings, clumped together, was left behind.

  Then the noise faded, as Elliot turned the corner behind the house and went to mow the backyard.

  Her blood froze, the icicles in it prickling her skin and bringing waves of cold sweat.

  She threw on a pair of jeans and a sweater, and rushed to the back patio. From the open back door, she saw Elliot weave his path by the willow trees, putting his arm out to keep the long branches from whipping his face or snatching the hat off his head. He’d done the perimeter first, mowing by the book, and now was weaving a path around each tree trunk, carefully approaching it for a close trim. Pale and shaking, she watched him go around the first willow tree trunk, then the second, riding back and forth a couple of times to mow the stretch of lawn between the trees and the edge of the woods. Hand to slack-jawed mouth, it took Kay every bit of strength she had to not shriek and run away, far, as far as she could go.

  Elliot looked toward the house and waved. She waved back, but couldn’t bring herself to smile or say anything. He turned off the blades and drove to the house, then stopped the roaring engine. Deathly silence fell heavy for a beat.

  Swallowing the knot in her throat, she managed to sketch a smile. “Do you do this often?” she asked, aware her voice sounded strangled, unnatural. “Doing charity work for women who can’t pull their own?”

  He pushed the brim of his hat up a bit with his index finger. “Only in return for coffee and bagels,” he replied cheerfully. But the effervescence in his voice didn’t match his eyes. They’d turned tense, scrutinizing, a hint of worry showing in his blue irises.

  He didn’t say another word, and she couldn’t think of anything to reply, not even to say she didn’t have any bagels, or thank him, at the very least. Her eyes remained affixed on that grassy stretch of ground between the willows, where the thick, yellowing grass had been neatly cut, now showing quickly disappearing tire tracks from the tractor.

  Was the ground frozen already? Kay found herself wondering, unable to take her eyes off that spot. For the past couple of nights, the temperatures had dropped below freezing, but to her, the ground seemed moist, saturated with water from recent rain, about to split open and show its secrets.

  Does he know? She studied him for a moment, the way he drove the tractor, whistling a tune she couldn’t catch under the engine noise and chewing on the occasional piece of straw. He can’t know; there’s no way, she decided, while her eyes veered back to the willows, to the freshly cut blades of grass that lined up that particular area.

  He wrapped up the chore and drove past her with a wave and a playful smile, while she went inside and poured two cups of coffee, keeping one of them clutched tightly between her frozen fingers. She took a big swig, not caring if it burned her throat, eager to stop shaking before he came inside.


  Better.

  The hot liquid spread its warm healing throughout her trembling body, but her mind refused to stay in the present. Lured to go back, to immerse herself in memories she hadn’t revisited in many years, she barely heard him come in.

  “I’ve been doing this for a while,” he said, taking his hat off and putting it on the kitchen table, “rescuing damsels in backyard distress, but I’ve always had the opposite effect.”

  Still trembling, she stared at him as if she’d seen him for the first time, unable to articulate a single word. All she could do was take another sip of coffee, shielding her eyes from his inquisitive glance.

  He frowned almost imperceptibly and continued, “You know, cheerfulness, bagels, or something. Had I known I’d upset you I would’ve left those weeds alone. What’s going on?”

  Thirty

  After

  “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?” a woman asked at the other end of the line, and hearing her voice, Kathy broke down in bitter sobs.

  She was kneeling by her mother, holding pressure on a gushing wound in her chest with a towel, while Jacob, pale as if he’d seen a ghost, stared silently at their father’s body, fallen inches away from Pearl on the kitchen floor, the knife still clutched in his hand, its blade dripping blood.

  “Please, come quickly,” she managed to say, “it’s my mom. Please, don’t let her die. She’s—”

  She dropped the phone and used both her hands to apply pressure to the wound, but the towel quickly soaked through. Her mother’s eyes remained closed, and color had left her cheeks, replaced by a sickening shade of gray.

  “Mom,” she shouted, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Mom! Please wake up. Mom!”

  A distant voice was heard from the phone, abandoned on the floor a couple of feet away.