Stalking Susan

by Julie Kramer

  “Can’t we take your Beemer?” I asked. “I don’t want blood in my car.” A joke might catch him off guard. Nope.

  He wobbled as he stood, pressed the gun against my back, and pushed me toward the stairs. “I purposely took the bus so no one would notice my car parked by your house.”

  When we got downstairs, he made me fold up the SUSANS board with his name on it. “Put it in the backseat.”

  I picked up my purse off the kitchen counter while he stuffed some dish towels in his shirt to absorb the blood. He grabbed his coat and we exited through the back door. The sky still held a half hour of daylight, but the street and surrounding yards were empty. Where were the paparazzi when I needed them?

  If ever I wished Mrs. Fredericks would peek out her window, now was the time. Most likely she was tuned to Desperate Housewives, oblivious to her own desperate neighbor.

  CHAPTER 40

  My car keys were caught in the clutter of my purse. As I groped for them, my fingers brushed against my mini tape recorder. Surreptitiously, I pressed record, to make an audio record of our drive, or at least the first thirty minutes of it. As we got inside the Mustang, I slipped the recorder on the floor under my seat. If the police found my car, they’d find a concrete clue that pointed to a specific suspect. I made a special point to call Dr. Redding by name, so the cops would know the identity of my abductor.

  “Where are you taking me, Dr. Redding?” I asked.

  “Fasten your seat belt,” he instructed me. I don’t think he was concerned for my safety; he was concerned I might leap from the moving vehicle and leave him to die in a fiery car crash. “Keep your hands on the steering wheel.”

  My right hand had powder burns and my thumb knuckle had suffered a small gash from the gun’s kick. I was in considerably better physical shape than my captor, riding shotgun, bleeding like an ulcer. But he had the confidence that comes from being armed and dangerous.

  “Here, put this on.” He handed me a VOTE SUSAN campaign button. I didn’t need to ask where he got it.

  “Please, Brent, not that. I didn’t even vote for her when she was alive.”

  “Put it on now, or I’ll put it on you later.”

  Obediently I pinned the button to my sweater. “You know journalists aren’t supposed to support political candidates.”

  “I offered to make a contribution to her campaign,” he said. “When I explained who I was, she understood why I wanted to meet in private and avoid publicity.”

  No use thinking ill of the dead.

  “Now give me your wedding ring.” He said the words calmly, like he was asking me to pass the salt or the sports section.

  “No. You can’t have it.”

  “But I insist.” He emphasized the seriousness of his request by waving my husband’s gun. “I might need it next year.”

  The emotional response would be to spit in his face. The rational response would be to hand over the ring. Boyer’s gun. Boyer’s ring. Boyer would want me to buy time.

  I wished my knuckles were swollen, but the ring slid off easily. Redding placed my gold band on his left pinkie and held up his hand, fingers spread wide. When he pressed his fingers together, my wedding ring and his touched each other, making a soft, metallic clink.

  “Now start the car.”

  I backed out of the driveway and pulled up to the stop sign on West Fiftieth. “Which way? How about the hospital? They could stop the bleeding.”

  “Head to the freeway,” he said, “35W South.”

  That gave me just over a mile of residential streets. Once we got on the freeway, I’d have fewer options. I needed a strategy fast, because having hope is not the same as having a plan. I recalled Garnett saying something about how most serial killers are caught either during a routine traffic stop or when a victim escapes.

  Redding’s blood dripped on the dark carpet of my car. Between those splotches and the congealing pool in my bedroom, the forensics team would have plenty of evidence. Little chance his DNA would be on file, but fingerprints might eventually point them in his direction, if I couldn’t.

  “And you lured Garnett there?” An idea took form in the back of my mind. A long shot, but right now what wasn’t?

  “Yes. That was a nice touch. It turned out better than I had dreamed. I thought I’d have to call some anonymous tip line and report seeing his vehicle in the park late that night. You were a big help.”

  I ignored his verbal jab as we approached Nicollet Avenue. “How’d you get his glove?”

  “He dropped it that night when we met outside your house. I thought it might come in handy.”

  I stopped for the light. A traffic sign warned no right turn on red, and that bought me valuable seconds of plotting time. The windshield was starting to steam up. I made a big point of wiping the windows to improve my visibility. Redding scowled and hit the defrost button.

  “So what do you want to show me?” I asked.

  “You’ll see soon enough.”

  I hit the gas a bit to drive uphill, then inched the speedometer higher as we cruised downhill, over Minnehaha Creek. I accelerated until I was fifteen over the limit and hoped that would be enough as we passed a bank of trees at the end of the bridge. I was counting on one of Minneapolis’s finest still being on speed trap duty.

  “Did I ever tell you I’m afraid to fly?” I changed the subject to distract him from our change in speed.

  “A good therapist could probably help you with that.”

  The squad clocked me. I saw police lights in my rearview mirror but didn’t slow down until he gave me a shot of his siren.

  “How fast were you going?” Redding’s voice cracked.

  “I don’t know. Not so fast. I’m nervous is all.”

  The patrol car stuck tight to my bumper as I turned onto Diamond Lake Road. We were almost at the freeway entrance. If I didn’t stop now, we’d be in a slow speed chase like O.J. Simpson.

  “Pull over. But play it very cool, or I’ll kill you both. How’d you like another cop widow out there?”

  That perspective changed things.

  The officer had either run my plates, memorized them, or was a loyal Channel 3 viewer, because he greeted me by name. His smile stretched so wide, I imagined the euphoria he would experience when he waved my ticket at Chief Capacasa to claim his reward. He gave my passenger only a perfunctory look. Redding’s coat was draped over his lap, hiding his wound and his weapon.

  “Going a little fast, Ms. Spartz?”

  “Was I, officer? I’m so sorry.”

  I fumbled with my wallet and purposely dropped my driver’s license onto the floor. I unhooked my seat belt to reach for it, scraped it back and forth against the bloody carpet, handed it to the officer, and watched him head back to his squad.

  “Why’s he so smiley?” Even Redding noticed the young officer’s enthusiasm.

  “Probably just excited to be ticketing a TV celebrity. Something to brag about at the precinct.”

  But the bounce in his step slowed as he reached his squad door. I figured he must have identified the sticky substance on my license.

  “Don’t make him suspicious,” Redding said. “If he asks you to step outside the vehicle, I will shoot him. And then you will have two dead lawmen on your conscience.”

  This was his first reference to my guilt over my husband’s death since I had confided in him that night in the park. I decided not to remind him that I’m not responsible for the actions of a madman. And for the first time since Boyer’s murder, I believed those words.

  “Stay calm,” I said. “I’m just going to take my ticket and apologize. Don’t freak if he asks for an autograph.”

  “I’ll bet he has kids. Maybe a little boy with a toy badge who wants to be a cop when he grows up, just like daddy.”

  Shit.

  I kept my eyes on the side mirror, watched the cop rest his hand on his holster and glance backward. It was now or never. I slammed my purse against Redding’s stomach and the gun wh
ile jerking the car door open with my other hand. The next three seconds felt like thirty. Everything seemed to transpire in slow motion. By the time I heard the shot I was rolling on asphalt. Screaming in pain. Or was it fear?

  The officer, on one knee, yelled, “Drop it! Drop it! Drop it!”

  More gunfire. Breaking glass. Hysteria. I swear the cop fired at the car. But later Chief Capacasa told me Redding blew his brains out against my dashboard. I really wish we had taken his BMW.

  CHAPTER 41

  I heard a soft bark and opened my eyes. Shep stuck his big head into my hospital room. Bandages covered his jaw and left ear. But the big mutt was smiling anyway. Toby was right behind him.

  “Wake up, sleepyhead,” I called over to my roommate and fellow patient. “We have company.”

  Garnett had been drifting off from the meds last night when I was admitted for overnight observation. We both wore hospital gowns, but he had an IV bag full of antibiotics and painkillers attached to his wrist. Numerous black stitches tattooed his shoulder, neck, and ear. I filled him in on the latest SUSANS developments but wasn’t sure how much he remembered. When he started to snore, I’d helped myself to a cup of red Jell-O sitting on his tray table since I couldn’t remember my last meal and since he hadn’t mentioned anything about being hungry.

  He couldn’t speak yet, but he gave a brief wave to our canine visitor.

  “I’m so sorry,” Toby told me. “I shouldn’t have said those things I did. Shep’s going to be fine. He’s got the heart of Rin Tin Tin. It wasn’t your fault. I’m the one who got you started with Dr. Petit. If I hadn’t called your tip line, none of this would have happened.”

  “That’s nonsense, Toby. It’s Petit’s fault. Put the blame where it belongs.”

  Garnett motioned for a dry-erase board on the counter. “Petit?” he wrote.

  “Dead,” I answered.

  He kept writing. “Redding?”

  “Dead, too. You weren’t dreaming. Or high on your morphine drip.”

  He shook his head and leaned back on his pillows. Shep climbed onto the foot of my bed and I wrapped my arms around his furry back, being careful not to squeeze too hard.

  “How did you get him in?” I asked Toby. “Hennepin County Medical doesn’t allow dogs.”

  Toby tapped a finger against his sunglasses. “My trusty Seeing Eye dog and I have busted through tighter security than this place. Nobody wants to risk discriminating against the disabled.”

  Unfortunately a nurse chose just that moment to check Garnett’s vitals so she overheard enough to evict the trespassers. But she also brought more Jell-O, and this time Garnett finished his.

  Then he reached for his board and started writing. When he held it up it read ELEMENTARY, MY DEAR WATSON.

  I smiled and answered, “Basil Rathbone, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 1939.”

  EPILOGUE

  ((ANCHOR, TEASE))

  PSYCHIATRIST SERIAL

  KILLER STALKS SUSANS

  FOR MORE THAN

  A DECADE…

  TONIGHT AT TEN.

  I had no regrets that I never saw what Dr. Brent Redding had wanted to show me. Chances are, it would have been my last memory.

  His final words are nightmare aplenty. The police tagged the audiocassette from my tape recorder as evidence. When Chief Capacasa returned my wedding ring, he let me listen…Redding’s voice was barely recognizable after my escape from the car. I expected harsh words directed at me; instead he spent the last thirty seconds of his life blaming the mess he had created on Susan—his murdered wife—whom he castigated for his degeneration into evil. His ranting also gave some insight into their marriage vows.

  “I warned you, Susan, what would happen if you ever cheated. That I’d kill you. So I did.” Not exactly, but in his mind, close enough. He sounded haughty, his narcissism overpowering his logic.

  He called her a bunch of names like “whore” and “bitch” and vowed to see her in hell. Then he released a wail of “Suuussann!” and pulled the trigger.

  The tape continued to roll, silent, then sirens, faint at first, growing louder. I hit stop when I heard the cops approach the vehicle and open the door. I didn’t care to hear their description of the physical scene.

  Redding’s pledge of where he would meet his wife in the afterlife seemed overconfident. While the Bible condemns both adulterers and murderers, there was no doubt in my mind who was more worthy of Satan’s company.

  When police searched Redding’s Duluth town house, they found neatly organized folders of newspaper articles documenting the Susan murders, plus the cases of four other missing women named Susan whose bodies have never been recovered. The most recent: a punk chick with a dragon tattoo on her hip. The most heartbreaking: an eleven-year-old Nebraska girl who had disappeared after soccer practice. She was last seen walking home on November 19, 2003, wearing a red team uniform with the name SUSAN printed across the back.

  The composite sketch of a stranger seen near the field earlier in the day strongly resembled Dr. Redding.

  Our computer search hadn’t popped these cases because, since no bodies were found, no death certificates were ever issued.

  Authorities also found lilies, black-eyed Susans, and other flowers growing in a small greenhouse porch attached to Redding’s home.

  The calendar in Redding’s kitchen had a thick red circle drawn around November 19.

  Experts on Court TV declared the killings classic revenge/fantasy homicides. They speculated that Redding had transferred the anger against his wife to the other Susans and derived sexual satisfaction from killing them.

  Funny how I had once thought Redding and I shared a bond of spousal grief. Grief almost drove me to suicide. Grief drove him to murder. Possibly his problem wasn’t grief, but a lack of grief. He never mourned his wife’s death; he only mourned her infidelity.

  THOUGH HE CERTAINLY had earned the right, Nick Garnett never once said, “I told you so.”

  He fully recovered from his dog attack injuries but would sport some wild scars for the rest of his life. Authorities dropped the homicide charges against him and awarded him a civilian medal of valor. He boycotted the ceremony, so they mailed it to him. He uses it as a coaster on his desk.

  Garnett predicted the SUSANS case would be featured in homicide textbooks as an example of the symbolic value of victims to serial killers. Researchers have long speculated that Ted Bundy murdered college-age women with long brown hair parted in the middle as revenge against the upper-class fiancée who had rejected him. Bundy always discounted this theory and insisted he killed simply because he enjoyed it.

  My whole experience with the Susans soured me on Hollywood thrillers. I refused to go to the movies with Garnett unless we watched musicals. We hit a stalemate because the only musical he wanted to see was Chicago, and I couldn’t bear to sit through “We Both Reached for the Gun.”

  SHEP JOINED THE St. Paul Police Canine Unit where he became Minnesota’s top drug-sniffing dog.

  DUSTY FOSTER’S MOTHER stopped visiting him in prison because she couldn’t bear to look at his face anymore, though she continued to send him birthday cards. That didn’t bother Dusty much; he married a woman named Susan he met online who didn’t seem to mind having an incarcerated husband.

  PRURIENT CURIOSITY ABOUT the psychiatrist serial killer caused a ratings rebound, so Channel 3 won the November sweeps by nearly three points, becoming the top news station in the Minneapolis–St. Paul market for the first time in more than twenty years. In recognition for her leadership in turning the newsroom around, the big bosses gave Noreen Banks a nice fat bonus.

  MIKE FLAGG DUBBED the SUSANS story onto his résumé tape, bragged about the numbers in a cover letter, exercised an out in his Channel 3 contract, and landed a national correspondent job with FOX News. He died while doing a live shot during a hurricane when the street sign he was clutching to demonstrate the gale force winds blew loose. The clip went viral on YouTube. Bill O’Reilly deli
vered his eulogy.

  EVEN THOUGH MY sins didn’t violate the traditional Ten Commandments, I confessed to Father Mountain anyway. After all, a deal is a deal.

  “Bless me Father, for I have sinned. I almost freed a guilty man. I almost ruined an innocent one. And I almost helped a serial killer escape.”

  Just like my inept literary detective role model Philip Trent, I’d gotten it all wrong. If I were writing my memoir, I’d have to call my adventure Riley’s Last Case.

  Sorry, Sherlock.

  I understand now that not all crimes can be understood. Life would be easier if murderers resembled monsters, as in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Then we’d know who to fear and who to suspect when bodies started piling up in the morgue. Instead most killers are normal people living secret lives. Clearly I had obsessed on the wrong crime classics. The answer to the Susan murders sat within reach on my bookshelf: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Robert Louis Stevenson’s examination of the dual nature of man—good and evil fighting for control—summed up Dr. Redding as neatly as any of the FBI profilers at Quantico could.

  Noreen pretended my quitting was all a big misunderstanding, so with heavy misgivings I signed a new two-year contract with Channel 3. With no misgivings I sold my house in south Minneapolis because my most vivid memories there were mostly bad. True love can’t trump dual brushes with death.

  I packed up my dead husband’s belongings. Some I kept, some I gave away. While cleaning out Boyer’s sock drawer, I found an envelope addressed to me, in his handwriting. Inside I found two letters, each dated the eve of our anniversary, different years. I set them side by side, reading the first one first.