Stranded

by Alex Kava

  Seeing the damage she’d done made him angry and sick to his stomach. What if the bitch had given him some disease? He poured half the bottle over the open wound despite the sting. He didn’t mind the pain. Pain made you feel alive. Then he searched through his stash of pharmaceuticals until he found the antibiotic he wanted. He popped one into his mouth and washed it down with a can of Coke from the large ice chest he kept well stocked.

  The whole incident was beginning to remind him that small mistakes had tripped up many killers and landed them in prison. Ted Bundy, Edmund Kemper, Henry Lee Lucas, Jeffery Dahmer—all of them had done something stupid that ended up getting them caught. Wouldn’t happen to him.

  Along with talking and listening to cops, he prided himself on being an expert on serial killers, their patterns, fetishes, weaknesses, and even those mistakes that got them caught. But he was more careful and smarter. Besides, he could control when and where he chose to kill. He wasn’t driven by voices or impulses. Tonight was a rare exception. Tonight he killed out of necessity rather than challenge and hobby. There hadn’t been much pleasure in it. He just wanted Lily dead.

  He had no idea if the woman had seen anything. He’d had no idea she had been staying in the farmhouse. How many times had he dumped a body and she was there? He couldn’t take the chance that she might have seen him. Although she didn’t seem to recognize or know him beyond meeting him earlier today. He wondered if she really had been one of Helen’s foster kids, though he knew there had been dozens over decades. So it was possible. And if she had been one of Helen’s then he was right—Helen would have been disappointed in her.

  He bandaged his arm. It would be easier to make up what had happened if people didn’t see the claw marks. In fact, it would gain him sympathy. As he exited the back of his truck and moved to the driver’s seat, he found himself scanning the cars parked on the other side of the rest area. Only two vehicles.

  He climbed behind the steering wheel and watched. A small SUV had two middle-aged women. One went up the incline to the restrooms. The other stayed to clean out their car. He pulled out his pair of binoculars from the console and watched her throw their garbage into the trash receptacle. Most of it was empty junk food containers and cups with sip lids—which probably meant coffee. Tired and exhausted. He saw the license plate was Texas. Lots of miles on the road. Long way from home.

  Easy targets.

  The second vehicle was a four-door sedan. A man and a little boy. The boy looked ten or eleven, an age the man had evidently determined was old enough that the boy could go up the short walk to the building by himself to use the restroom. Meanwhile the man went to the trunk and started pulling what looked like sweatshirts out of a huge duffel bag. The entire time he would not be able to see the door to the restroom. In those few minutes the boy was an easy target. So was his father.

  Both vehicles presented excellent opportunities. In either case he’d be able to do doubles if he chose. What would a father be willing to do? Would he insist he go first? Would he bribe or fight or plead?

  Unfortunately Lily had fought more than he’d expected and he was too exhausted to enjoy the challenge. Maybe another time. He had a long trip ahead. He was quite certain other opportunities would be available.

  CHAPTER 22

  Lily clung to the straps of her leather handbag.

  Cold, so freaking cold.

  She was used to the opposite. Usually her body was burning up from the inside.

  The straps had gotten snagged on a tree branch that hung over the river. She knew she was bleeding. The pain inside her head made it difficult to think, to move, to react. Her normally feverish body was submerged in freezing water. She no longer felt bugs crawling all over her. Instead she was quite certain they had now burrowed down deep into her skin. She could feel the prickling sensation and the tingle of them gnawing their way into her veins.

  Her bravery had started to wear thin. At first the asshole had made her angry. And she fought him. When he hit her she became more angry. She lashed out at him, pleased to gouge some of his skin. But now, in the dark, surrounded by night sounds that she didn’t recognize and feeling dizzy with pain, she was no longer angry. She was scared.

  She waited. She had to wait, she told herself, until he was gone. She had to convince him that he was leaving her exactly the way the bastard wanted to leave her—dead.

  WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20

  CHAPTER 23

  VIRGINIA

  Gwen had a bone to pick with Maggie. When her friend told her that Assistant Director Raymond Kunze was arranging for Gwen to interview convicted arsonist Otis P. Dodd, she hadn’t mentioned that Kunze would be escorting her there. It was bad enough that her nerves were already frayed. An hour and a half trapped with Kunze threatened to unravel her completely. To make matters worse, he was being polite, which made it harder for Gwen to take out her frustration on him.

  Frustration was putting it mildly. Her last interview with a convicted felon had left her with a freshly sharpened pencil almost impaled in her throat. Maggie had tried to assure her that Otis P.—as he liked to be called—was not violent. Out of the thirty-seven fires he had started, no one had ever been hurt or killed.

  Gwen had wanted to ask Maggie last night how she could say such a thing about a serial arsonist? The simple act of torching building after building was quite violent. She wanted to remind her friend that many serial killers started as arsonists. But to do so would alert Maggie that perhaps Gwen wasn’t up for this assignment. And Gwen would much rather tamp down her ridiculous fear and struggle through this interview than admit to Maggie that she might not be capable of doing it.

  Gwen was fifteen years older and she knew that Maggie considered her a mentor even as the two of them became friends. In fact, Gwen had a strong maternal instinct when it came to Maggie, wanting to shield and protect her, concerned to the point of nagging. Maggie’s dysfunctional childhood and failed marriage had closed off her heart in ways that even Gwen hadn’t been able to pierce. But she knew she was the only person Maggie trusted unconditionally. That should have been a triumph for Gwen, but in some ways it felt like a burden. Gwen didn’t want to give up the façade of being the older, wiser, reliable, unshakable mentor. She didn’t want to let Maggie down.

  So here Gwen was, getting patted down by a prison guard with bad breath and clumsy hands. Or at least he pretended they were clumsy while he groped exactly where he wanted. The warden stood less than three feet away watching and enjoying so openly that Kunze stepped in between. She had purposely worn slacks with her suit instead of her trademark skirts. And pantyhose, knowing the control top and added layer around her thighs would make it more difficult to slip fingers where they didn’t belong.

  Gwen also knew that if she complained she could lose the interview. She knew enough about prison politics. Warden Demarcus didn’t care that they were FBI. If they wanted entrance into his house, they had to play by his rules.

  “You’ll need to remove your high heels,” Demarcus told her when his man was finished.

  “Why is that?” she asked, trying to sound curious instead of stunned.

  “Too provocative. What are those, three inches?”

  “And what would you have me wear instead?”

  The guard pulled out paper shoe covers that were about twice the size of Gwen’s feet.

  “She’s not taking off her shoes,” Kunze said before Gwen could respond.

  She watched the two men stare each other down.

  Outside the prison walls Warden Demarcus might be mistaken for a high-paid lawyer. His shirt and trousers looked tailored, his tie an expensive silk. Gwen recognized Italian leather shoes when she saw them, though she thought the tassels were a bit much. He had a handsome face and a thick head of dark-brown hair with a peppering of gray at the temples that made him look distinguished. But it wasn’t the clothes that made the man intimidating. There was something about the way he carried himself. His back was ramrod straight. He held h
is square chin slightly up as though he were looking down at everyone he met. Gwen decided it was the man’s eyes that made him so intimidating. They were narrow set with a hawkish nose that made him look like a predator.

  Demarcus stood several inches shorter than the assistant director. Gwen had heard that Raymond Kunze had played linebacker in college and had even been drafted into the NFL. But he chose the FBI instead. He still looked like he could level half of an offensive line and he certainly could pick up Demarcus quite easily and throw him across the room. But he didn’t need to do that. His stare telegraphed that fact quite well.

  Gwen got to keep her shoes.

  Now, as she waited alone in the interview room, she actually felt better knowing Kunze sat somewhere behind the one-way tinted window that took up most of the wall to Gwen’s left. She made herself as comfortable as was possible in the metal folding chair. She had bypassed the opportunity to take notes. Her last experience proved how easily pen and pencil became weapons. It even made her question how the wire in a spiral notebook could be used.

  Gwen heard the door open and she sat up straight. Otis P. Dodd came into the room and instantly filled it, a giant of a man with a lopsided grin. As the guard attached Otis’s shackles to the iron rings in the floor beside his chair, Gwen couldn’t help thinking how silly it was for her to worry about pens and pencils. Otis P. Dodd’s hands looked big enough to snap her neck in seconds.

  CHAPTER 24

  “What do you like about starting fires?” Gwen asked him.

  After their short introductions, she delivered her first question exactly like she had practiced it in her head during the long drive from the District to the prison. It was a gamble. She didn’t want to put him on defense but she wanted to learn about him. She wanted to find out a little something about Otis before she asked about his friend, the killer who left his victims in orange socks.

  Otis seemed pleased with the question, but it was actually difficult to tell. He hadn’t stopped grinning since he sat down.

  “Some people like to call me a pyromaniac.” He licked his lips and Gwen already recognized it to be a nervous tic. “I’m really a powermaniac.” Then he smiled more broadly, crinkling the crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes.

  Despite his size and Gwen’s initial reaction, she realized she didn’t find him as frightening as she had expected. He had almost a childlike demeanor about him. His Southern drawl came out soft and gentle, slow and thoughtful. Even as he claimed to be a “powermaniac,” there was nothing threatening in his tone or manner.

  “You like the power it gives you?”

  “Absolutely. Nothing quite like it.”

  Before Gwen could ask another question, Otis offered, “I’d like to see a whole city burn down. That’d be somethin’, wouldn’t it?”

  Still grinning, his tongue darted out the corner of his mouth.

  Gwen would quickly learn that the grin was a permanent fixture, no matter what Otis was talking about. Perhaps another nervous tic, just like licking his lips. There was nothing salacious about either. In fact, he reminded Gwen of a teenager, a bit awkward and uncomfortable in his own body.

  Then he added, “But I know you didn’t come all this way out here to ask about me.” He tilted his head and squinted, looking her directly in the eyes, as if gauging what she was after. “You wanna know about Jack.”

  “You know his name?”

  “Don’t know if that’s his real name, but that’s what he was going by.”

  “He told you about a woman he murdered. Is that right?”

  “Actually he told me about quite a few.”

  Gwen tried to hide her surprise. She held his gaze. Criminals were good liars. Was Otis playing with her?

  “He told you he murdered more than one person?”

  “That’s right.”

  The lopsided grin didn’t budge.

  “How many people did he claim to have murdered?”

  Otis looked up at the ceiling as though he might find the answer there. He thought about it for a few seconds then said, “Probably about thirteen or fourteen. Course it’s been more than a year since me and him talked.”

  Gwen swallowed, hard. Maggie and Tully believed this killer had murdered others, but more than a dozen? This wasn’t what she had expected.

  “Did you find another one of ’em?” Otis asked. He sat forward, his brow furrowed, not just curious now but offering her his confidentiality.

  “Yes. We think so. She had on orange socks.”

  This time Otis’s smile flickered and he raised one of his eyebrows, as if all of a sudden he had tasted something bad but he didn’t really want to complain. Finally he shook his head.

  “I don’t think it’s one of Jack’s.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You see, Jack said he did all kinds of things. Different ways, what have you. So there wouldn’t be no pattern.” His tongue poked out and wet his lips.

  Gwen waited.

  “Last time that pretty little thing with the orange socks … you see, she had those on. Or that’s what Jack said. She was wearing those. He didn’t plan that.”

  “What if he put orange socks on this one?”

  Otis looked to the ceiling again and when his eyes came back down he was shaking his head. “Why’d you think he’d do that? That don’t make no sense at all. See, Jack likes to change things up. That’s why he sometimes does doubles.”

  “Doubles?”

  “I guess he travels a bit. Said he gets bored. Likes a challenge or what have you.”

  Gwen’s mind raced over what she knew about Gloria Dobson and Zach Lester. She couldn’t remember anyone saying that they believed the killer took on both intentionally. Lester’s body had been so viciously decimated it had been presumed that he had gotten in the way of the killer’s real target: Gloria Dobson. Was it possible he had planned it that way? That he wanted to take on two victims at the same time?

  “So where’d you find this one?”

  Gwen hesitated. In a day or so the location would be all over the news, so there wasn’t a reason to keep it secret. But she knew criminals could draw facts out of their interviewers, lead them to drop enough details that they could cleverly manipulate and spin them back. She hadn’t gotten anything out of Otis that would help Maggie and Tully. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to give Otis anything more than he had given her.

  Instead of telling him where they had found the last victim, she simply said, “We believe we’ve found his dumping ground.”

  She watched his reaction, trying to see beyond the silly grin.

  “Which one?” he asked.

  Gwen’s stomach flipped. Again, was it boyish charm or was he just a very good liar?

  “Are you saying he has more than one?”

  She showed him her doubt, even a little impatience. And she saw that he noticed.

  He laughed but it was a nervous laugh. Then he sat back, putting some distance between them, like perhaps she no longer deserved his confidentiality. He tilted his head again to look at her, studying her.

  “That first reporter I told about the girl in the orange socks, he didn’t believe me. Warden Demon—that’s what we call him and I know he’s probably watching and listening behind that glass and I don’t even care if he makes me pay for telling you that—he didn’t believe me either. You decide you believe me, you come back and maybe we’ll talk some more.”

  The entire time he said this, his tone remained gentle and polite. He didn’t sound angry, though his words certainly were. The grin hadn’t left either. Then Otis pushed away from the table as far as his shackles allowed and he stood up, finished with her. Immediately a guard came through the door.

  “The dumping ground is someplace in the Midwest,” Gwen told him, calling his bluff, giving him just enough rope to hang himself. She didn’t want to come back here and put herself through Demarcus’s full-body searches. If Otis was lying, she wanted to trip him up now and be done with it.


  Otis nodded and squinted again like he needed to give it some thought.

  “That’d be the one off I-29. Sioux City, Iowa.”

  She stared at him. Was it simply a lucky guess?

  “You should check the barn,” he told her. “I think that’s where he buried the biker guy with all the tattoos.”

  Then he offered his hands to the guard to release his shackles from the iron rings in the floor. And Otis P. Dodd shuffled away without looking back at her.

  CHAPTER 25

  “He was pretty convincing,” Gwen told Maggie.

  She called Maggie as soon as she got back to her office. She had been anxious to get back, asking for a rain check on lunch when AD Kunze offered. Now as she stood looking out the window and at the Potomac in the distance, now that she was back in familiar territory, she felt comfortable and—she hated to admit it—she felt safe. She also knew she could give Maggie a more objective assessment of Otis P. Dodd and what he had told her. And what he had not told her.

  “But there’s something very odd about him,” Gwen added.

  “Agent Alonzo said he’s mentally slow.”

  “No, I don’t think he is. He’s like a giant hulk, only with a receding hairline and thick sideburns and a crazy lopsided grin that doesn’t go away. He speaks in this slow and easy Southern drawl that can easily disarm you. He actually comes off as polite and … God, I hate to admit this, but he’s almost charming.”

  “But not mentally challenged?”

  “Socially he’s stunted and that’s probably what causes people to think he might be slow. Also, he’s not well educated. He talks very simply. Double negatives, poor grammar in general. He may not be the sharpest, but he’s definitely not dumb. In fact, I think he’s quite manipulative.”

  “He wants people to believe he’s not smart?”