by Shawn Inmon
Chapter Thirty-Three
Scott walked back to the same motel he had stayed in the night before.
Might as well, my car’s already here.
By the time he made it back, his ankle was once again swollen from too much walking, the Valiant still wouldn’t start, and he hadn’t eaten anything in twenty-four hours.
He checked into another room and gathered up his belongings from inside the car. He stuffed them back in his backpack, and dropped it off inside his new room.
Beyond a poorly-stocked vending machine, there was no food at the motel, so he grabbed his jo, limped over to the IHOP and finally had the pancakes he had been hungering for since he had woken up that morning.
As he poured syrup over his blueberry pancakes and crunched on strips of bacon, he contemplated this adventure.
On the bad side, I had to kill someone. On the good, I don’t know of any other way to have stopped him. He was caught and jailed twice, and he got out both times. I had to do it.
He chewed on a bite of pancakes, then washed it down with a drink of orange juice.
Just about everything that could have gone wrong today, did. But, I still got the job done. And, as far as I know, I got away without a hitch. I guess the woman who was with him could give police a description of me when they find his body, but I don’t know if they’ll ever put two and two together. They had a pretty good police sketch of Ted, and even people who knew him didn’t recognize him from it. All in all, I guess it was a success. So, why do I feel so melancholy? Why do I feel like I lose a little of my own humanity every time I do this?
Scott finished his breakfast for dinner and made his way back to his room. He turned the television to KING 5 and watched the news, but there was nothing about a dead body being found at Lake Sammamish.
The next morning, he arranged for someone else who was checking out to give him a jump, and the Valiant started right up. His first stop was at a garage, where they installed a new battery for him.
The west coast of the United States was a hotbed of bad deeds in the sixties, seventies, and eighties, so Scott knew he would spend a lot of time here over the next few decades. He’d taken care of Ted Bundy, but there was still a Green River Killer, the Hillside Stranglers, and Michael Hollister, the West Coast Strangler in his future.
Before he could get to any of them, though, Scott had his sights set on a less famous but no less-heinous killer—Charles Rodman Campbell. The murders that put him on Scott’s radar wouldn’t happen until 1982, but the crime that started it all was just a few months away.
In December of 1974, Charles Campbell raped a woman by holding a knife to the throat of her infant daughter. It took two years, but eventually he was apprehended and the victim identified him in a police lineup. Both the victim and her neighbor testified against Campbell at his trial, and he was sentenced to forty years.
He ended up being released after serving only five years, due to his sentences running concurrently and because of his good behavior while in prison. Very soon, he returned to the scene of his original crime and killed his original victim, the neighbor, and the daughter when she came home from school.
Charles Campbell was vengeful, but he was not smart, nor a good criminal. He left many obvious clues behind at the scene and he was arrested for the triple murder within a week. He was put to death via hanging in 1994.
To Scott’s way of thinking, the death penalty should have been carried out much earlier. What person, if given the opportunity to stop such a monster, wouldn’t do so?
He wanted to find Campbell and stop him before he came near those victims the first time, if possible.
Those crimes were committed in Clearview, a small town north of Seattle in Snohomish County. That meant there was no reason for Scott to go too far, too fast, so he decided to stay a few more nights in the same hotel in Issaquah and use that as his base of operations.
He consulted his map and saw that he could get back on I-90, jump down to I-405, and not have to drive through downtown Seattle.
The weather was still beautiful, so he decided to take the Valiant and drive north through Bellevue, Kirkland, and up to Snohomish county. In his notes, he had written “Charles Rodman Campbell, Edmonds.” He had also memorized the victim’s address in case he wasn’t able to find Campbell before the day he showed up at her door.
Scott rolled his windows down, turned the music up on 950 KJR, and rolled up I-405. With the sun beating down and the wind ruffling his hair, he felt better than he had in some time.
A mile later, he hit a traffic backup in Bellevue that lasted all the way up to where 405 merged with I-5.
Eventually, Scott did make it to Edmonds. He looked up “Campbell” in the phone book, but there were dozens of them listed. He tore the page out and decided to try and drive around to some of the addresses listed and see what he could see.
I don’t want to ask a lot of people questions about him, because they might remember that when he goes missing, but I know what he looks like, so if I spot him coming out of a house, I’ll recognize him. It’s not much of a plan, but I’ve got plenty of time.
Campbell would be easy to spot. He was a big man, 6’5” and built like an offensive lineman.
He was a big, strong man. I’m going to have to be careful how I approach him. What I could really use is a Taser. This is the problem with living a lot of lives, though. I’m not even sure those have been invented yet.
Edmonds was a spread out city, so it wasn’t easy to find many of the addresses on the phone book page. He did locate a few, and of course they looked like normal houses. He parked across the street from several of them, but after an hour or so of watching each one, he felt like he was wasting his time.
He abandoned his surveillance in Edmonds and headed inland toward the tiny town of Clearview. He had to stop at a gas station and ask for directions, but he did eventually find the house where the original crime would take place.
I hope I can find him and take him out earlier. But, if not, I’ll be right here waiting for him.
Chapter Thirty-Four
It was ten days before anyone discovered Ted Bundy’s body.
After the stretch of sunny, beautiful weather, temperatures had cooled and a rainy front set in, which held the number of visitors to Lake Sammamish State Park down.
Eventually, the sun returned and so did the visitors.
One Tuesday afternoon, a young woman from Federal Way drove to the park to walk her dogs around the lake. While she was getting her Chocolate Lab on its leash, her German Shephard slipped by her and made a beeline into the woods, where the partially decomposed body was discovered.
Scott had made a point of watching the 11:00 news every night, waiting for just that to happen. He was still staying in the motel in Issaquah when the newscaster announced that a body had been found at Lake Sammamish, but no further details were available.
I’m sure by now, someone has missed him and reported him missing. Eventually, they’ll put two and two together and he’ll be identified. His family will mourn him, but they were destined to do that eventually anyway. At least this way, they’ll never know how he besmirched the Bundy name. And, there will be women in Utah, Colorado, and Florida, who will live their lives through, never knowing they would have been one of his victims. And that’s just fine.
FOR A BIG MAN, CHARLES Campbell proved elusive to Scott.
Shortly after Bundy’s body was found, Scott moved from Issaquah up to the University District, which was north of Seattle and closer to Edmonds. He could have gone all the way up to Snohomish County to stay, but he didn’t want to show his face there for four or five months before Campbell was killed.
Instead, he used the same strategy he had in Waterville. He got to know the University District and found bulletin boards advertising for tenants for the upcoming semester at the University of Washington.
Classes didn’t start until late September, so in early August, Scott had his choice of places t
o land. He found a room to rent in a house on Roosevelt Avenue, just north of the U-District. It was a small room, and he would eventually share a kitchen and bathroom with four other people. But, it was only seventy-five dollars a month, it came furnished with a bed and there was no lease.
Scott still spent time driving up to Edmonds a few times a week, but the longer he looked, the less hopeful he became. Eventually, it became easier to hang around home. He knew he had his date with destiny in a few months.
Overall, Scott didn’t love large cities. Having lived his life first in Middle Falls, Oregon, and then Evansville, Indiana, he was used to the slower pace of non-metropolitan areas. The U-District felt different to him, though.
First, the UW campus was absolutely lovely, with open squares, majestic old buildings, and libraries that surpassed anything he had ever seen. Then, there was the community around the university. It was diverse, vibrant, and ever changing.
Over the weeks and months that Scott lived in the U-District, the summer sun became a forgotten memory and fog and misty rain became standard-issue weather. Still, he hated being cooped up inside all day with nothing to do, so Scott would walk the mile or so down Roosevelt onto the Ave. He found a tiny Russian restaurant that made incredible borscht for $1.50 a bowl and he took advantage of that several days a week. There were also half a dozen used record stores and even though he traveled too light to have a turntable, he still loved to browse through the albums and read the liner notes. He kept a small blue notebook in his pocket and jotted down album titles for a day when he was more settled.
Best of all, though, were the used bookstores. When he lived in Vermont, he had lived over such a store, but that had been the only one in town and, truth be told, it was on the smallish side. Here, he had seven bookstores within walking distance. The biggest was the University Bookstore itself, which took up most of a city block. From Scott’s perspective, the other bookstores were better. One had a loft that you had to climb a ladder to get to. Once you were up there, though, you could settle in for a long afternoon’s browse with no one to bother you.
Another specialized in lesser-known memoirs and biographies. Scott ended up hauling a lot of books out of that one.
One afternoon as he walked toward home, he saw a hulking figure ahead of him that set off alarm bells in the back of his mind. The man was with two other men, but he towered over both of them by at least half a head.
Have I been chasing him for months and he shows up right here in my back yard?
His knife and telescoping baton were tucked away back in his room—he never carried them with him unless he was expecting trouble. He had forgotten that sometimes trouble can come looking for you. He did have his jo, but he didn’t want to think about getting into a brawl with a man who outweighed him by eighty pounds with only that.
The three men ducked into a coffee shop and stood in line at the counter. Scott hadn’t seen the man’s face clearly, but what he had seen matched the photos he had memorized of Campbell. Scott got in line behind the men and listened to their conversation.
He only caught snippets. “...we’re gonna roll over them...” and “...of course, bro,” and the like. Nothing that helped Scott at all.
The three men got their food and moved off to a corner table. The big man Scott was focused on sat with his back to him.
Scott ordered a cup of coffee to go. He walked to the door, then turned and loudly said, “Hey Charles!”
Everyone in the place, including the three men, ignored him.
Scott cupped a hand around his mouth. “Hey! Campbell!” As soon as he said it, he realized it was louder than he had intended.
This time everyone, including the men, turned and looked at him. As they did, Scott gave an embarrassed wave and said, “Oh, sorry, thought it was someone else.”
When the man had turned around, Scott had noticed that he had a Husky football jersey on underneath his jacket. He looked as puzzled as everyone else in the café, but it wasn’t Charles Campbell. Likely just another Husky lineman out with his friends.
I’m starting to jump at ghosts, I think.
Chapter Thirty-Five
After spending almost five months in the Pacific Northwest, the day Scott had been both dreading and anxiously waiting for finally arrived.
He knew that Campbell had attacked the woman and her baby while she was in her front yard, pushing his way into her house and assaulting her. Scott intended to be there to stop that, no matter what it took.
He had been planning and preparing for exactly how he would take Campbell out for weeks. It had taken another chunk out of his reserves, but he had bought another old beater off an ad in one of the small classified newspapers. He had given the woman he bought it from a fake name and she hadn’t asked him for any ID. She was happy to get the old pickup off her front lawn. Scott was glad that it ran.
He had driven the pickup north to Clearview the day before. He had parked it in a deserted area down an old logging road and left a note in the window: Not abandoned. Broke down. I will be back to get it.
He had walked back to the highway and hitchhiked south until he was able to get a Metro bus to take him back to the U-District.
This morning, he had woken up and driven the Valiant over the same route. He parked it right next to where the pickup was, swapped out the note from the truck to the Valiant, and drove to the house he had been staking out in Clearview.
Just like the Jenkins murders, there was no record of exactly when the rape had taken place. Scott was sure it was in the afternoon, but he arrived at the house at 9:30 a.m.. He parked up the block and faced down the hill, the way he knew Charles Campbell would walk up sometime later that day. He had filled his Thermos with hot coffee before he left his room. He poured some into the plastic red cup that had come with the Thermos and leaned back to wait.
There was a Dodge parked in the driveway of the house, but he didn’t see much activity. After he had sat watching for an hour, a woman emerged with a toddler in her arms, climbed into the Dodge and drove off away from him.
Scott relaxed, knowing that while she was gone, nothing was going to happen. He pulled the paperback he was reading out of his back pocket and read to pass the time.
The woman was gone until almost 1:00 that afternoon. As soon as Scott saw the Dodge approach, he put the book on the seat and sat at full attention. The woman pulled into the short driveway, bundled her baby into her arms and went inside.
Scott stared down the road for an approaching figure, knowing Campbell would approach on foot, but saw nothing.
It was a typical Western Washington December day. Forty-two degrees with off and on rain. Every twenty minutes or so, Scott turned the engine over and let it idle for a few minutes to warm up the cab and blow the moisture off the inside of the windshield.
At 3:00, the front door opened and the woman stepped outside again. She looked up into the gray, misting clouds with a squint, then pulled the hood up over the head of her little girl. She stepped off the porch and walked toward the driveway, then out to the mailbox.
Scott’s fingers tingled and his heart beat fast.
He stared down the road and saw the shadowy figure of a man walking toward them at a good clip.
Scott turned the key and the engine turned and turned, then finally fired. Scott gave it gas and the engine sputtered, then caught and ran.
The woman stood at her mailbox, sorting through her mail, unaware of the danger approaching.
Scott pushed on the brake, revved the engine until the cab shook, then jammed the gearshift into Drive. The pickup jumped out of the parking spot, slipping a bit on the wet pavement, but quickly finding its footing.
Scott buried the accelerator and the truck surged forward. It roared by the woman and her baby, who jumped back with a startled “Hey!”
Scott drove as though he was going to hold his lane.
The huge man walking toward him moved slightly to the left to give him plenty of room to pass.
<
br /> Scott glanced at the speedometer. He was already at fifty and accelerating.
At the last second, the man shouted and jumped to his right. If this had been a case of an inattentive driver, his good reactions would have saved his life.
Instead, Scott twisted the steering wheel left while still accelerating. He hit the man dead on doing better than sixty miles per hour.
Campbell flew up in the air ahead of the truck, but Scott was still accelerating. The man bounced off the hood of the truck, then smashed into the windshield, shattering it, and flipped again, landing momentarily in the bed of the truck, then tumbling out to lie in a heap on the pavement.
Scott slammed on the brakes, coming to a fishtailing stop. He reached up and pushed the smashed window out onto the hood. A hundred yards behind him, the crumpled form on the pavement might have been a man or a bear. It was impossible to tell.
Scott didn’t bother to turn around. He jammed the transmission into reverse and gunned the truck again. He was watching the man on the ground for any sign of movement. As he closed, the man sat up, saw the pickup approaching again and screamed. He held his hand up to ward off the impact, but the truck ran right up over the top of him.
The truck died.
Behind him, Scott heard the woman with the baby screaming. All around him, people were coming out of their houses, staring.
Shit. Forgot.
He grabbed the blue ski mask he had brought with him and pulled it over his face, maneuvering it until he could see again.
He turned the key, but the truck wouldn’t start.
An old man approached the truck with a puzzled look on his face. He looked at the masked figure behind the wheel and said, “Did you back up over that man? After you ran over him in the first place?”
