The Night Killer

by Beverly Connor

  “And you didn’t expect that Sheriff Conrad would do a good job. I think his reputation as an investigator is well-known. I see your reasoning,” said Spence.

  “How could you tell from photographs?” asked Christine.

  Diane opened her mouth and shut it again. How was she going to word this?

  “Christine, honey,” said Spence. “You are putting Dr. Fallon in a difficult situation. She doesn’t want to talk about our parents using the terms forensic specialists use with the dead. She’ll write a report and I’ll look at it, so you don’t have to. It will be easier that way.”

  Diane nodded. “Sometimes it’s an awfully cold-sounding way to talk about a loved one,” said Diane.

  “I know Mom and Dad would still want to help people, and their research will. Dr. Fallon’s not going to take any more samples than necessary. It’ll be all right,” said Spence.

  Christine nodded and the two of them signed the papers that Diane handed them.

  “You know, you’ll need Joe and Ella Watson to have a second autopsy too,” said Spence.

  “Do you think their children would be willing?” said Diane.

  “Oh, yeah,” said Spence. “We called them to give our condolences, and they are as anxious as we are to find out what happened. They don’t like Sheriff Conrad, but didn’t think there were any choices. They trust Dr. Linden, but I think I can persuade them.”

  “Okay,” said Diane. “That would be very helpful.”

  “We’re going to help all we can,” said Spence. “I’m not convinced that Roy Jr.’s accident isn’t a part of this. If it is, then does that mean it’s not a serial killer? I mean, running somebody off the road isn’t the same as . . . well, you know . . . as what happened to Mom and Dad.”

  “No, it’s not,” agreed Diane. “But I don’t know where it fits.”

  Spence nodded and stood up. “I’ll see to it right now, about Mom and Dad,” he said, looking at the card Diane had given him containing contact information for Lynn Webber, “before the sheriff tries to send them to a funeral home. It’d be like him to pick out a funeral home, send them there, and pretend he was just helping us.”

  Diane left them with mixed feelings. She believed she’d helped Spence by giving him something to do. But Christine didn’t look as if she were comforted at all by Diane’s visit.

  It was good to leave the hospital. Diane hated going there. It sometimes seemed as if it were a regular stop for her. Not just visiting either, but to get care for herself.

  There was a cloud cover and it was getting dark earlier than normal. She put on her brights when she could on the drive home. She still couldn’t shake the nagging feeling she was being followed.

  “This is just silly,” she muttered to herself. “You are really getting to annoy me,” she told herself.

  Still she watched the lights behind her. Everything seemed normal. By the time she turned onto the scenic stretch of highway nearing Frank’s house, people had turned off to go elsewhere and all the headlights behind her had disappeared. She realized that she had let her speed creep up. She relaxed, slowed down, and reached to turn on the radio. With a terrifying crash and a violent jerk sideways, something rammed her from behind.

  Chapter 29

  Diane’s head popped back against the headrest; then she was thrown forward against her shoulder strap, knocking the breath out of her, then jerked back against her seat again.

  What . . . the hell? She struggled to recover her breath as a second jolt bounced her vehicle. She gripped the wheel hard, her muscles tensed, and struggled to keep her SUV on the road.

  She looked in her rearview mirror. All she could see were bright lights. It was something big. A truck.

  Where the hell did that come from?

  And instantly she realized that someone had been following her with their lights off.

  The unknown assailant hit her again, ramming her against the seat. He locked onto her bumper, jerked his vehicle left, then right, trying to push her off the road or make her run into the ditch. Diane steered in the direction she was pushed for a second, then sped up and freed herself. She wasn’t far from home. She pressed the accelerator until she was going faster than she felt safe. If he hit her again, she was worried she would flip. She forced herself to release the pressure on the accelerator.

  The driver came up again, hitting her, pushing her. Abruptly her attacker backed off, then sped past her, scraping the side of her vehicle, and flew down the road, out of sight.

  “Oh, God,” she whispered under her breath, sick with relief. Acid rose and stung her throat. She was tempted to pull off onto the shoulder and compose herself. She was also tempted to chase him down. She increased her speed again, hoping Frank was at home. She didn’t want to arrive to an empty house. She needed company. His company.

  Diane was getting close to her turnoff when she saw headlights up ahead . . . on her side of the road. They were coming fast. She moved toward the other lane. The headlights did the same. She moved back to her own lane. The headlights followed her movements.

  They were coming faster. She had only microseconds to think, to work out a plan. There was little time to act. If she swerved at the last minute, the driver might swerve in the same direction—they would still hit head-on. She slowed to decrease the force of the impact. He stayed in her lane, coming fast. The headlights grew larger and brighter. She held the steering wheel so tight her hands were growing numb. Relax, she told herself. She tried, but the lump in her chest and the fear in her stomach were too great. He stayed in her lane. He was going to hit her. She hoped her air bag worked. She hoped he wasn’t suicidal. She hoped he didn’t have an air bag.

  Diane was almost stopped. She mentally braced herself for the crash and tried to relax. The headlights seemed close enough to touch. The driver swerved at the last moment and flashed past her.

  Diane stepped on the accelerator and sped for home, hoping she would make it before he caught up with her again.

  There it was—Frank’s driveway just ahead. She made the turn a little too fast and drove the eighth of a mile to the house. His car was in the garage. Another car was parked in the driveway behind his. She pulled in beside Frank’s car and closed the garage door with the remote.

  She usually parked outside the garage and entered by the front door, but she needed to secure her vehicle. She wanted to collect paint transfer. But right now, she wanted more than anything to get inside the house.

  From the garage she walked into the mudroom, pulling the door closed behind her a little too hard, and locked it. From there she walked through to the kitchen, then into the living room, where Frank was entertaining Ben Florian. They rose when she entered.

  “Diane?” Frank’s voice was like cool water, or music, or chocolate—comfort. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  She must look a fright. That was what she was—affright—sick with it.

  “You’re pale,” he said. “Are you ill?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t come out as a squeak, hoping they couldn’t see how she trembled.

  “Hello, Ben. It’s good to see you.” She held out a hand and shook his. She saw the concern in both their eyes. She smiled weakly and told them she’d be right back as soon as she changed.

  She hurried to the bedroom and into the bathroom and threw up. When she finished heaving, she rinsed her mouth out, brushed her teeth, and changed into comfortable jeans and a tee. She ran a brush through her hair and stared into the mirror at herself. She looked pale and frightened. Where had her bravery gone? She had hung precariously on rock faces literally by her fingernails with less fear than she had been having lately.

  She went back out to explain herself to Frank and Ben. Frank met her with a glass of wine.

  “Did something happen?” he asked.

  Diane held the glass of wine and took a sip and wished it were whiskey.

  Both Ben and Frank were in suits—probably the suits they went to work i
n. Frank looked good in suits. He looked good in everything. He smiled at her as she sipped the wine, and waited for her answer. Frank was rational, kind, and handsome, and she loved the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled. Looking at him, she wondered if her friend Laura was right. This sudden explosion of fear was because she was coming out of the numb state she’d been in since Ariel had died.

  She sat in a stuffed chair by the fireplace now covered with a wrought-iron grate ornamented with a sculpted metal branch of cherry blossoms.

  Since Ben was here, they must have news for her, but now they both waited for her news. Diane calmly related the last few miles of her trip home.

  “Here? Just down the road?” said Ben. He looked out the window as if he could see the stretch of road where it occurred.

  Ben’s gray suit was slightly wrinkled and slightly small. He looked like an old-fashioned door-to-door salesman. He was a few years older than Frank. Frank always said Ben could blend in well. He had an ordinary face and his graying hair was thinning and receding.

  “Yes, just a couple miles down the road,” she said.

  “We need to call the police,” Frank said.

  Diane took a deep breath. “I suppose.” The last thing she felt like doing was talking to the police all night. “I’ll call Chief Garnett and give him a rundown over the phone.”

  Douglas Garnett was her boss on things concerning the crime lab. After a rocky start, she had developed a good working relationship with him. She punched in his number and, after apologizing for calling him so late, she explained what had happened.

  “I really don’t want to spend the rest of the evening talking with policemen. I’d like to report it to you this evening and go in and make a statement tomorrow morning.”

  “Do you have any idea who it was?” he asked.

  “I have ideas, but no proof of anything. There are a lot of things going on.”

  “I’ve been reading about that murdered couple you found. Does this have anything to do with that?” he asked.

  “Either that or the skeleton in the tree,” she said.

  “Skeleton in the tree?” he said.

  “It’s a very long story. I’ll tell it to you tomorrow,” she said.

  “It sounds like it would have to be a long story. Can you give me any kind of description of the vehicle?”

  “It was a truck. Something big enough to shine its lights in the rear window of my Explorer. It was a dark color, but I couldn’t tell what color. It will have red paint from my Explorer streaked down its right side, and probably on its front bumper. That’s about the best I can do.”

  “Okay, that’s pretty good. Could you see if the driver was a man or a woman?”

  “No, I couldn’t tell. Whoever it was, was pretty skilled at doing what they did.”

  “This is enough to start with. I’ll put out a BOLO. You get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” he said.

  Diane sat back down with her glass of wine and gave the two of them what she hoped might pass for a winning smile.

  “Tell me about your day,” she said to them. “I’ve been anxious to hear about it.”

  Chapter 30

  Frank brought in more coffee and Ben laid a top-bound spiral notebook on the walnut coffee table. The tan grid pages of the notebook contained small, neat handwriting Diane couldn’t read upside down. Like Frank, Ben had his own shorthand. Frank placed an empty cup and saucer in front of Diane and put a tray with a fresh pot of coffee, sugar, and cream on the table.

  Diane sipped her wine and curled up in the chair.

  As if that were his cue, Ben began a description of their inquiries that day into the past activities and associations of Tammy Taylor. He and Frank had spent most of the day showing Tammy’s picture to people at shelters and clinics in the Atlanta area. In relating their investigation, Ben was using the same monotone voice that Diane guessed he used in court—straightforward and unemotional.

  “Tammy Taylor was a nurse’s aide for five years before she hooked up with Slick Massey,” Ben said. “She volunteered at a number of places in and around Atlanta. We didn’t go too far out from the city. Not enough time.”

  “There was plenty of information to be had where we did go,” said Frank. “I’m not sure we have ever been this lucky, have we, Ben?”

  “No, I don’t believe so,” he said.

  “We felt that Atlanta would be an ideal hunting ground for her,” said Frank. “Close enough for easy access, but far enough away from home that she could still remain anonymous. No one would know her personally. So it was a good bet.”

  Ben nodded. “If you do your thinking ahead of time, you don’t waste time,” he said in a way that Diane figured he’d said it many times before.

  “We also acquired a mug shot of Theodore Albert Massey, his legal name.” Ben smiled for the first time. “Frank and I were relieved to discover that his mother didn’t name him Slick.”

  Diane smiled too, and took a sip of wine. “What was he in the system for?” she asked.

  “Petty theft, mostly. A few bar fights,” said Ben. “No felonies.”

  Though Ben had put his notebook in front of him, he never referred to it, or even glanced down at it.

  “We didn’t find anyone at the shelters who recognized Slick,” he said.

  “I don’t think he could be as convincing as Tammy at luring ill, elderly women to come live with him,” added Frank. “But the staff at several shelters did recognize Tammy. Not immediately. They had to study the photo before it dawned on them. She changed her appearance a lot . . . and her name—Terry Tate, Theresa Thomas, Tracy Tanner, to name a few. I guess she always wanted to match the monogram on her luggage.”

  “We thought we struck gold just by confirming that Atlanta was her hunting ground,” said Ben. “Then we interviewed Norma Fuller, the latest woman Tammy had lured to her house. Now, that was real gold.”

  “Did Norma have a lot to say?” asked Diane.

  “A lot would be an understatement,” said Ben. “I don’t think Frank or I could’ve made her shut up. The shelter took her to the hospital when she was returned to them, and that’s where we interviewed her. After you and Deputy Conrad paid Tammy and Slick a visit, they decided that things were too hot, and they took their current ‘charity case’ back where they had found her. You probably saved Mrs. Fuller’s life.”

  Ben stopped and poured more coffee in his cup and added sugar and cream. He took a sip before he continued.

  “Interesting taste,” he said.

  Diane couldn’t tell if that meant he liked Frank’s blend or not. He set his cup down and began Norma Fuller’s narrative. He turned a page in his notebook but still didn’t look at the pages.

  “Mrs. Fuller had to leave her apartment because she was six months behind on her rent. She couldn’t afford medicine, food, utilities, and rent too . . . and she had to have her medicine . . . so she let her rent slide, until she was evicted. The community clinic where she went for checkups and her prescriptions referred her to a shelter. That’s where she met Tammy. The shelter uses volunteers to teach hygiene, nutrition, budgeting, and the like. They call them ‘life skills.’

  “Because Tammy was a nurse’s aide and had a résumé to prove it, the head of the shelter welcomed her. She said Tracy—Tammy’s pseudonym—was good with their guests and spent a lot of time talking with them and making them feel comfortable.”

  Ben looked up and smiled at Diane.

  “I’ll bet she did take a lot of time sweet-talking them—and finding out if they had any retirement income,” he said.

  “And how sick they were,” said Frank. “Tammy had access to all the client records in the places she volunteered.”

  “That’s incredible, and scary,” said Diane.

  Ben grunted. “You don’t say? It was her own private shopping mall.”

  He went on to tell Diane how Tammy offered Norma Fuller a room in her home—actually Slick’s house—for nominal rent
of fifty dollars a month. She told Mrs. Fuller she could help her get back in good health again. All she needed was the right kind of care and to be in a situation where she could save her money.

  “Mrs. Fuller told us that the room was nice enough. It had freshly painted walls, a bed with a pretty bedspread, a chair, even a small TV set—that didn’t get any reception, but did have a DVD player. The room had a small attached half bath with a sink and toilet. Mrs. Fuller had asked about a shower and, get this, Tammy told her she could get just as clean taking sponge baths, and she could do it herself and be more independent. Tammy told her that the thing the shelters didn’t tell people was that if the shelter found she couldn’t live independently, they would put her in a state- run nursing home, where she would have to live on a ward with a bunch of other people, male and female, all of them strangers.”

  “I imagine that was frightening for her,” said Diane.

  “It frightened her. She bought into Tammy’s wellness program,” said Ben. “Tammy fixed her food and brought it to her room. When Mrs. Fuller complained about the small amounts, Tammy sweetly showed her a study that said people with low calorie intake live longer and are generally healthier.”

  “Tammy had an answer for everything,” said Frank. “She even gave Mrs. Fuller old Shirley Temple movies and vintage comedies to watch. I imagine she got those really cheap DVDs you can get at discount stores. Tammy told Mrs. Fuller that laughter is good medicine, and in places like shelters, people don’t get enough laughter.”

  Diane shook her head. “She had a little health plan all worked out. What did Mrs. Fuller think of it?” she asked.

  “She actually liked it. She said Tammy was nice to her,” said Frank.

  “Are we talking about the same Tammy Taylor I met at Slick’s?” said Diane. “The backwoods bitch from hell?”

  “Apparently she has many different sides to her personality,” said Frank. He grinned. “Tammy occasionally brought Mrs. Fuller a puppy to pet from Slick’s dog pens. She told her it would lower her blood pressure to play with a puppy.”