by Paul Seiple
“I should have told you,” Reid said, turning on a light at the bottom of the stairs. “I thought I was doing the right thing. I wanted you to enjoy life in a way that I will never be able to.”
“How long have you known my father is alive?”
Reid stopped just before opening a door to a room left of the stairs. The brief silence gave me a moment to take in the surroundings. The basement looked untouched since the sixties. The complete opposite of upstairs, which was modern. The dark wood-paneled walls held pictures of John Wayne, western scenes, and a poster for the television show Gunsmoke. I never knew Reid was that big into Westerns. A yellow shag rug covered a cream-colored tile floor. Two orange couches with red throw pillows and a television were the only things in the room. It was obvious that either Barbara hadn’t gotten around to decorating the basement or she lost it in a card game.
“I never thought Norman was dead,” Reid said, turning towards me. “But to answer your question, he made contact at your wedding.”
A chill hit my spine like a bolt of lightning, sending gooseflesh down my arms. “He was at the wedding?”
“Sit down a minute.” Reid pointed to one of the orange couches.
I sat on the arm of the couch.
“I’m not sure there is any easy way to tell you this."
I thought about the feeling you get when you’re about to pull a Band-Aid off of a sensitive area. That moment of hesitation. You know it’s going to hurt like hell. The best solution is to do it fast. Do it right then. “Just spit it out."
Reid took a seat on the adjacent couch. “Wallace has been watching you your whole life.” He waited to see if I would say anything. But shock robbed me of my voice. He continued to tell me that Father Abraham, the man that I confided in for a good majority of my life, the only person I felt comfortable enough to discuss the dreams with was my biological father — Norman Wallace. Betrayal slapped me like a stiff wind. Being a newlywed and deeply in love, I never realized how strange it was that I never heard from Father Abraham after the wedding. Not a word. When Rebecca and I got back from Hawaii, he was gone. I never asked why. It was just a chapter of my life that I closed. Embarrassment stung the welt betrayal left on me. How could I have been so dumb not to even ask what happened to Father Abraham?
“He bumped into me after you left that day. He left a note on a wedding program. It was a threat aimed at Barbara.”
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me, Reid?”
“I took out George and erased his existence to make sure your life didn’t become a media circus. You’re a good guy, Michael. The world needs good guys to save it. I didn’t tell you about Wallace because I didn’t want you to end up a cynical drunk with no regard for his own life — like me.”
“Why tell me now?”
“Come on. I want to show you something.” Reid opened the door to the room on the left. He turned on the light. The wood-paneling was barely visible through the photos, maps, and handwritten notes that littered the walls. Four file cabinets, all about four-feet high, lined the wall in front of me. A desk, cluttered with crime scene photos and an unopened bottle of Jim Beam was to my right. A small shelf with an antique radio sat above the desk.
“What is this, Reid?”
He didn’t answer. Reid moved a few of the photos on the desk to reveal a black and white composition book. He handed it me. “Read it.”
The first page was dated March 17, 1972. The entry was simple. Just four words — ‘They caught him smoking.’ The book was Father Abraham’s journal. The one he wrote in whenever we had a session. I remember the day my parents caught me smoking behind the old barn. My mother sent me to the good Father because she felt I was running with the wrong crowd. She had no idea that she was feeding me to the dark. I kept reading. Every dream I confided in Father Abraham was noted. Every scene. Every description of the women that I killed in the dreams. The burgers I ate for lunch felt like they were striking matches in my gut. Heat raced up my chest, leaving fire in its wake. Skipping to the last entry, I fought back the urge to vomit. The words jumped from the page. ‘He has to die now’ wrapped around my throat, suffocating me, trying to finish the job my brother couldn’t. I slammed the book shut.
Reid handed me the program from my wedding with the note from Norman.
I took your mother. You took my son. But we are not even. That’s a mighty fine looking woman you have there. I hope she has as much fight as your mother. Looking forward to catching up. - Norman.
“He wants to kill Barbara because you killed George?” I asked.
“Wallace didn’t give a damn about George’s wellbeing. He’s pissed because he thinks I took you away from him.”
“Me? I’m not following.”
“There is an urge, unlike any urge the average man has, that lives in serial killers. The ability to kill is essential to their existence. Without it, they die a slow, painful death from hunger. Wallace tried so hard to lead a double-life. The monster was a secret that he wanted to take to his grave. In his mind, when you caught him in the act, you stole his ability to kill. You exposed him for what he truly is, George didn’t. George was just an instrument used in hopes of silencing the one person that ever saw the monster in action. I strongly believe that if George had succeeded, he would have been Wallace’s coming out of retirement kill.”
“Why you? Why not just come after me?”
“I know the secret. Wallace is probably the smartest man I’ve ever encountered in this line of work. At this point, it’s no longer just you. He’s been watching. He’s always at least two steps ahead of the game. He knows that my mother’s body should have been found when the anonymous tip alerted the FBI about the bodies at the cabin. Wallace knows we kept her out of the news, just like we did with George. He is fully aware we are keeping his secrets. But he has no idea how long we will. We are dangerous to him.”
“So, why now?”
Reid handed me a photo of a woman on an autopsy table. She was dressed to look like someone from the 1950s.
“A friend of mine, Mack Root, runs the Body Farm in Knoxville. Two days ago, someone dumped her at the Farm with a note for me. She’s dressed like my mother was the day she disappeared. Her hair is styled in a similar way. My mother’s ID card was placed on her body. The bastard kept it all these years as a souvenir. At the same time, I was in Chicago doing a talk show when this kid asked me a question about the Morning Star case. That case hasn’t been brought up since Wallace was officially declared dead in ‘66. I followed the kid after the show. He left this in the trash.”
Reid handed me a piece of paper. Written in red ink were the words ‘The Morning Star Has Risen’. “You need to tell me everything you know about my father.”
Reid picked up two more notebooks, identical in style to Father Abraham’s journal. He proceeded to tell me about finding the books in Father Abraham’s office. One of the books detailed plans to set the fireflies free. Norman convinced my brother that the women he murdered were angels, or as he called them fireflies, and George was doing right by sending them to heaven before Armageddon. Norman also compared me finding him disposing of a body to Lucifer being banished from Heaven. “In his twisted mind, he thinks he is getting back at God?” I asked.
“Not God. You. The killing fields Wallace created were his heaven. You took them from him.”
“Jesus,” I said, picking up the third book. This one was older, more weathered. It was a journal recording him teaching my brother to become a killer. “Why would he leave these for someone to find?”
“For some reason Wallace is ready to show his cards. Maybe he’s getting too old. Maybe he’s dying. I’m not sure. But I do think he is preparing for the final confrontation.”
I walked over to a wall covered with crime scene photos and a wanted poster for the Zodiac. “Why is this here?”
“The photos are of Zodiac kill scenes.”
“You don’t think Norman is the Zodiac, do you?” I asked, looking at another wall that had
a photo of the Son of Sam killer David Berkowitz and photos of his crime scenes.
“Wallace wasn’t Zodiac. But I’m not convinced he didn’t know the Zodiac.”
“And Berkowitz?”
“It’s possible. According to the journals, Wallace was in New York in ‘76. And last year I can put him in Los Angeles.” Reid handed me a picture of Richard Ramirez holding the palm of his hand, which had a pentagram on it, up in a courtroom.
“The Night Stalker? Really?”
“This is what I know.”
Reid told me about discovering that Norman, who at the time went by the name Arthur Lawrence, was in Northern California just before the Zodiac killings started. Probably just a coincidence, but when you can place him in New York just before Berkowitz started his murder spree and in Los Angeles while Richard Ramirez was terrorizing the city, suspicions grow.
“You think Norman is mentoring killers?”
“Look at this.”
Reid pulled a photo from the wall of a woman’s body. The head, as well as toes were missing. He showed me a photo of another woman, posed in a different position but missing the head and toes.
“Let me guess, they nicknamed this one the Head to Toe Killer,” I said.
“Pretty close, the Head and Toes Killer. It never made the national scene. Just a few prostitutes murdered in Baltimore earlier this year. We caught the guy early on. In interrogation he kept mentioning the Devil told him to do it. That’s nothing new. A good majority of killers blame the Devil, but this guy said something that stood out. In his confession, he mentioned chasing the fireflies and setting them free. I waited until after the interview and asked him what he meant by fireflies. The prostitutes were fireflies. Sound familiar? He was freeing them from a world of whoring.”
“So, Norman is convincing people to become killers?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t say convincing. These people already have the urge. He’s just helping them accept it. He’s creating an army for what he thinks is Armageddon. When one falls there’s always another waiting in the wings.”
Reid handed me a mug shot of a man who looked to be in his early thirties. William Ray Wyatt. Reid nabbed him in New Jersey in ‘83 after he killed a sixth man he picked up at a nightclub.
“Norman was in Jersey in ‘83?” I asked.
Reid smiled. “Arthur Lawrence was. I traced bank statements. Norman never touched his bank account after he disappeared. There was nearly half a million dollars in it. He put it there on purpose to convince people he was dead. Norman is worth twenty times that. I had to do some digging, but I found where he bribed the owner of the bank to erase the transfer of Norman’s money into an account for Arthur Lawrence. I’m sure he has many accounts. I tried to look the banker up after I found these notebooks, but he died in a car accident, two years after Norman disappeared.”
The magnitude of this revelation started to hit me. My father could very well be assembling an army of serial killers.
“And there’s this.” Reid handed me a fax. “After the incident with the kid in Chicago, I had a friend at the Bureau monitor all murders that occurred in Chicago. I had a hunch, that this kid was Norman’s latest recruit.”
“Peter Miller deceased. Gunshot wound to the throat,” I said, reading the fax.
“That’s the kid that asked me the question and left the note. He got picked up for soliciting. Before he could be processed he disappeared. Two hours later, his body was found behind an abandoned convenience store.”
“You think Norman had him killed?” I asked.
“I think Wallace deemed him unworthy and had him disposed of.”
“So, that would mean that Norman’s latest protégé is still out there.”
“Yes.”
“Was Arthur Lawrence in Chicago recently?”
“Arthur Lawrence hasn’t been heard from since the arrest of the Head and Toes killer. Last activity on the account was a large withdrawal, nearly two million. That was three weeks before we caught the guy in Baltimore. There’s still about a quarter of a million in the account.”
“So, what do we do now?”
“The only thing that we can do is wait.”
“For what?”
“For the bodies to start piling up.”
Fourteen
Saint Louis, Missouri
Sanford walked back from the convenience store, chugging a gallon of chocolate milk and eating a pack of peanuts.
“I don’t see why you keep him around,” Hella said, hanging her bare feet out the passenger door of the Cadillac. “He’s about as useful as a box of tampons at an old folks’ home.”
“Sanford is loyal, my dear. Loyalty will take a bullet for you in many ways.”
“Speaking of loyalty. What was all of that trust shit you spewed at me? And then you lied to me about the priest. You had ulterior motives.”
“Not telling you my so-called ulterior motives and lying to you are two different things.”
Sanford opened the door, spilling chocolate milk on his pants. “Damn it.”
“Good job, clumsy pants,” Hella said.
Sanford ignored her. He slid in behind the wheel. “The eagle is in the nest."
“What the hell happened to you in there?” Hella asked. “You get abducted by G.I. Joe? The eagle is in the nest?”
Norman placed his hand on Sanford’s shoulder. A non-verbal way to tell the big man to keep his mouth shut. Norman turned to Hella. “Time for full-disclosure, dear.”
Norman revealed the big picture. It wasn’t just to silence the priests. More than anything that was a diversionary tactic. The ultimate prize was his granddaughter — Michelle Callahan. Norman wanted to spend some quality time with her before it was too late.
“Let me make sure I have this right. We are killing priests to get some FBI agent off your trail long enough so you can kidnap your granddaughter?”
“So to speak. There’s a little more to it than that. But you’ve got the Cliff Notes version down pretty well.”
“One problem. I hate kids,” Hella said.
“That’s not surprising,” Sanford said, shoveling a handful of peanuts in his mouth. “Witches always hate kids.” Sanford tried to laugh but started to choke a bit.
“Choke and die, Frankenstein.”
Sanford took a giant swig of chocolate milk. “I think you mean, Frankenstein’s monster. Frankenstein was the doct…”
“Oh, fuck off. I don’t care,” Hella said. She turned back to Norman. “Yeah, so, I hate kids.”
“You don’t have to like them. You just have to keep doing what you’re doing.”
“What I’m saying is kids weren’t part of this deal. It’s going to cost extra to babysit.”
“I’ve already told you, dear. Money is no object. Just follow the plan and you’ll be rewarded graciously.”
“Yeah, be a nice, little yes man,” Sanford said. “I bet you got male plumbing under that skirt, huh? Is that an Adam's apple that I see?”
“Why won’t you just die,” Hella said.
Norman eased back into the plush backseat. He grabbed a black and white notebook from the seat and jotted a few notes. Sanford finished off the peanuts and tossed the wrapper out of the window.
“Littering. Really?” Hella asked.
Sanford laughed, sending peanut-laced spittle into the air. “You staked a priest through his head like a damn vampire and you’re bitching at me about littering?”
“Enough,” Norman said. “I have to say I wasn’t expecting this plan to run this smoothly. Are you sure that my granddaughter is at Hoffman’s house right now?”
“According to Judas,” Sanford said.
“Judas? More Bible code?” Hella asked.
Norman shut the notebook and placed it on the seat beside him. “Judas is my informant in the Bureau. Sun Tzu once noted that secret operations are crucial in war. And make no doubt about it, dear. This is war. The key to winning the war is to subdue the enemy without one sign of agg
ression. I know my enemy’s every move. At times before they even make it.”
“Sun Tzu was a bad motherfu…”
Norman cut Sanford off. “Sun Tzu fully understood that brawn was just one part of a military campaign.” He glared at Sanford. “Why use the muscle if you do not have to?”
“So, you’re saying Hulk is just a diversion?” Hella asked, pointing at Sanford.
“Not a diversion, dear. I fully intend to use his strength, but only after I’ve secured victory. Machiavelli said that when injuring a man, do so to the extent that vengeance not be feared. That’s when Sanford comes in.”
“Can I talk now or should I just flex?” Sanford asked. He raised his eyebrows and continued. “As I was saying, Judas said Callahan and the little girl showed up at Hoffman’s house a few hours ago.”
“Virginia’s a long drive. We better get moving,” Norman said. “Along the way, let’s stop in Ohio.”
“What’s in Ohio?” Hella asked.
“Not what, dear. Who.”
Fifteen
Arlington Virginia
Years ago insomnia took its sleepless nights and ran out on me. Tonight, it returned with the mindset of a scorned lover. I was drunk on information. The queasiness in my stomach that fought with the pounding behind my eyes for my attention was so much that I couldn’t lie on my back for fear of choking on my own vomit if insomnia got bored with the game. My father was much worse than I ever imagined. How many people had died as a result of Norman? Before I could estimate, the burning in my throat caused me to sit straight up in bed.
Michelle, clutching Linus, was sound asleep on a sofa bed across the room. Her innocence was the one thing that held despair at bay. Innocence so pure was the only thing that gave me hope that the evil in this world could be stopped. It had to be stopped. For Michelle. For the countless others like her.
I got up to get a drink of water in hopes of dousing the fire that raged through my body. Stepping quietly around Michelle I eased into the hallway, noticing a faint light coming from the basement. The closer I got to the steps I could hear static from a television. Looking down the stairs, shadows of gray and black bounced off the paneled walls. I took the steps one at a time with the cautiousness of a soldier maneuvering around landmines. I stopped on the bottom step before reaching the shag rug. Reid was sitting across the room staring at an unopened bottle of Jim Beam placed in the middle of a coffee table.
