by James Hayman
“Of course you killed them,” said Maggie. “And, like I told you, we’ve got the hard evidence to prove it.”
“What kind of hard evidence?”
“Deoxyribonucleic acid.” said Maggie.
Ziegler said nothing. Just looked confused and shook his head from side to side.
“Don’t know what that is? Well, maybe you know it better by its initials. DNA? D for David, N for Nancy, A for Asshole. Remember how we swabbed your cheek when you were arrested tonight and sent the swab out to the lab?”
“Won’t prove a thing, bitch. I gave her a bath before I packed her. I didn’t leave a speck of anything in that bag.”
“Sorry to have to tell you this, Mr. Ziegler. There’s an old saying among forensic scientists: Wherever you go, whatever you touch, no matter how well you try to clean it, you always leave something of yourself behind. There were a few, more than a few actually, hairs and skin cells inside Wolski’s body bag. Hair and skin cells that didn’t belong to her. And we haven’t even gotten the rape kit back yet.”
“You’re lying.”
“Sadly for you, I’m not. You may have washed and cleaned Wolski’s body carefully before you put her in the bag, but when you did, well, that’s what tripped you up. And since, unlike with Jacobs and Wingfield, you never got a chance to dump her out and take the bag home, your hairs and skin cells are still in there. Plus maybe a few from Jacobs and Wingfield as well.”
Ziegler sat silently, narrowing his eyes to slits, staring across the table as if through sheer force of will he could make Maggie take back what she’d told him.
“And, you know,” she said with a gotcha tone, “I’m willing to bet when we get the results back from the lab, we’re going to be able to prove that all those skin cells and the hairs our people found inside the bag that weren’t Wolski’s came from you. That, my friend, is what any judge and any jury would call hard evidence. So I’m afraid you’re screwed. In fact, you’re so screwed that when you do ask for a lawyer I’m going to bet he or possibly she, though I can’t imagine any woman would ever be willing to defend a creep like you, anyway, your lawyer will probably advise you to cop a plea. Admit what you’ve done and try to convince the court that when you acted you were temporarily insane . . . driven by irresistible impulses. And hope for a lesser sentence or maybe commitment to a psychiatric facility. But I don’t think any jury will buy it. Especially if there are any women on the jury, which there surely will be.”
“What about my press conference?”
“I wouldn’t bother if I were you. You’ve brutalized and killed what? Four women? Maybe five? Nah,that just doesn’t add up to fame. Just a tiny footnote on the list of the world’s ugliest assholes. On the other hand, if you tell us where you’ve got Zoe McCabe stashed away, well maybe . . .”
“Four women? Maybe five? What the fuck are you talking about? There were only three . . .”
“That you killed?”
“I’m not saying I killed them . . .”
“No. But the DNA will.”
“There were only three.”
“What three?”
“Jacobs, Wingfield and Wolski.”
“Did you kill them?”
Ziegler looked down. He looked beaten. Maggie pressed her advantage. “Look, you miserable bastard, we’ve got your DNA to prove what you did. Showing some contrition might be the only chance you have for any leniency.”
“There were only three,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper.
Maggie narrowed her eyes. “Does that mean Zoe McCabe is still alive?”
“Zoe who?”
“Zoe McCabe. The young actress you abducted the night before last. You killed her neighbor, a woman named Anna Nakamura, while you were in the process of hauling Zoe away.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“But you just admitted you did kill the other three.”
“Yes. I was able to get close to them because two were clients of the Caswell Agency. The dancer I met at a party at MOMA.”
Jesus, thought Maggie, how in hell did the NYPD miss that common factor?
“But I don’t know anything about anybody named Zoe McCabe.”
“Is it just that you haven’t killed her yet? Perhaps she’s still alive.”
Ziegler shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I know nothing about anybody named Zoe anything.”
It suddenly occurred to Maggie that Ziegler might be telling the truth. That Zoe’s disappearance, despite the similarities, might be unconnected to the three that came before. Which pushed that investigation right back to where it was before.
“Where did you keep them? The other three. Before you killed them?”
Ziegler looked Maggie in the eyes and smiled his thin smile. “In a secret place.”
“Where?”
“I’m not going to tell you unless you let me talk to the press like you promised. I want my own grand press conference. Everybody will be there. I’ll admit everything. How I caught them. Where I kept them. How and why I killed them. But first I want my moment in the sun.”
“Your moment in the sun?”
“Yes. I want people to know me. To hate me. To fear their daughters will someday meet somebody like me.”
“You tell us about how you killed Annie Nakamura and kidnapped Zoe McCabe or there won’t be any press conference.”
“I never heard of anybody named Annie Nakamura or Zoe McCabe. I only go after big names. The stars. The brightest lights. Not some nobody.”
Maggie’s gut feel was that Richard Ziegler was telling the truth. And that meant Zoe might still be in jeopardy. Being held captive maybe by some copycat killer mimicking the so-called Star-Struck Strangler. She had one more tack to try. A long shot, but she had to try it.
“You think maybe your friend Tyler might have been copycatting you? You are buddies with Tyler, right?”
“Tyler? Tyler who?”
“You know the Tyler I’m talking about.”
“I only know one Tyler and I haven’t seen that crazy asshole for years. Not since he got his ass kicked out of Hadley and Bradshaw for beating up one of the other associates. Wanted me to vouch for him. That stupid prick.”
“Really? Tyler just told us that you confided to him that you were kidnapping those women and killing them. In fact, Tyler’s the A-list guy I told you about that we have in the other room.”
“Tyler fucking Bradshaw? What I told him when we were having drinks one night after work was just this fantasy that I’d had for years. At least at the time it was a fantasy. As for being A-list? That crazy loony tunes isn’t even Z-list. He’s off the fucking charts. Like I told you, I haven’t seen him in years.”
“Thank you for your help,” Mr. Ziegler,” said Maggie. “FYI, there is a press conference scheduled for noon. Sadly, I don’t think you’re going to attend.”
Chapter 41
Zoe and Bradshaw walked back from the barn to the house, Zoe nestling the wooden sculpture of the woman in the crook of one arm. He opened the door and once they were inside he locked it once again. No slipping out of this prison without somehow making use of Tyler Bradshaw’s left thumb.
“Let’s go into the kitchen,” he said. “I’ll make us both cheese omelets and some toast.”
“What about Tucker?” asked Zoe.
“He usually takes care of himself. Probably ate hours ago. He’s very particular about what he eats . . . frankly mostly weird things . . . and about what time he goes to sleep. I suspect he’s upstairs now, snoring away.”
Zoe sat on one of the four kitchen stools placed on either side of the center island. Bradshaw retrieved the second bottle of the Château Haut-Brion and poured them each a generous glass.
“Here’s to you,” he said.
“To us,” she added as they clinked glasses, and each took a sip. She offered him her warmest smile, wondering when Bradshaw would figure out, as he surely would at some point, that her proclaimed growing lo
ve for him was nothing more than a bit of theater.
Bradshaw put his glass down on the butcher board surface of the island. He opened the fridge and took out a cardboard carton of eggs, some Gruyère cheese and a large bowl containing green salad. Zoe watched as he worked. The drawers where the silverware was kept seemed not to be locked. No thumbprint required. If the same was true of the drawers that held the large kitchen knives, another trove of possible weapons, more lethal than a corkscrew, might be available and nearby if she could catch him in a relaxed moment.
A couple of minutes later Bradshaw placed a perfectly cooked cheese omelet and some green salad in front of her. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was, and she attacked hers with enthusiasm.
When they had finished eating he refilled their glasses and led her back to the living room.
“Well,” he said, settling in his chair.
“Well what?”
“I keep thinking about what you told me when we were both outside. That in spite of the fact that I rolled you up in a rug and kidnapped you, in spite of the fact that I hit and kicked you when we arrived, in spite of the fact that I walked in on you when you were taking a shower, prepared to rape you if I had to, in spite of all that you still think that you could come to love me?”
“What I told you was the truth. If only you could let the real you take over. The you who loves wood and who made the beautiful sculpture that you gave me, I do think it’s possible.”
“Really? Well, I think this may be time to test that particular proposition.” Bradshaw rose from his chair and told Zoe to hold her hands out in front of her.
“More cuffs?” she asked.
“Yes. I’m into bondage. I don’t think I told you that.”
Wondering how this would play out, she put her glass of wine down and on the table. He produced another pair of flex cuffs from his back pocket and fastened them around her wrists. He seemed to have an unlimited supply of the damned things.
When they were tight, he struck.
He used one leg to pull her legs out from under her, dropping her down hard onto the floor. She landed on her ass, her head narrowly missing the edge of the marble hearth that had ended his mother’s life.
“Holy shit.” Zoe writhed in pain. “What are you doing? Are you a fucking lunatic?”
“Now,” he said with what she could only describe as a nasty smile, “do you really call someone you’re learning to love a fucking lunatic?”
He dragged her by the ankles to one side of the sofa. As she lay there he knelt down and started unbuttoning her jeans. She tried pushing him off with her cuffed hands but found that her arms didn’t have the strength to move him an inch. Figuring her legs might, she lifted one up and managed to swing it around his neck. Pulling the leg back, she threw him off her.
As she tried getting up he rolled to a sitting position and then threw himself on top of her chest and wrapped his large hands around her neck. She shook her head back and forth, trying to free herself.
“Don’t like the way that feels, do you?” he said.
Zoe shook her head even more frantically back and forth.
“No? Well, then I think you should stop looking for ways to kill me. No more caressing of fireplace pokers. No more trying to figure out where we keep the kitchen knives. No more examining my wood carving tools, wondering which is the most lethal. You say that, given time, you could come to love me. Well, while you’re playing for time, let me show you exactly how much I love you.”
He unbuttoned her jeans and roughly pulled them and her underpants down to her ankles, then pulled them off altogether. Tossed them aside. Then he pulled his own off.
“Wouldn’t you rather do this in bed?” she asked, trying hard to hide her desperation. “Because we can if you want to.”
“Fuck you, bitch. You think you’re so fucking smart? That you can trick me into believing you could ever love someone like me?”
“I could. I could really. If only you would let me.”
“Zoe, nobody has ever loved Tyler Bradshaw. Not his father. Not his mother. Not his little brother. Not even Tyler Bradshaw himself. I don’t think you’re going to be the first.”
He lifted her and bent her over one of the arms of the sofa.
“Please, Tyler. Please don’t do this.”
Ignoring her pleas, he pushed himself into her.
Zoe closed her eyes, gritting her teeth, determined not to fight him, determined not to confirm Tyler’s belief that she must, like all the others, find him a hateful, unlovable lunatic. She rested her head on the arm of the chair, hoping, praying that the ordeal would be over soon.
Finally she heard him cry out, felt his body stiffen, then arch, then slowly relax. Finally he pulled out.
She fell to the floor and squeezed herself into a fetal position.
He rose and walked, naked from the waist down, to the chair he’d been sitting in before. He sat again, his eyes closed, his legs splayed. After a minute there were choking sounds coming from the back of his throat. Zoe had to listen hard before she was sure what the sounds were. Bradshaw, his hands over his face, was weeping.
She pushed herself up and, in spite of the cuffs, she managed to pull her underpants and jeans on again. In doing so she slid both hands over the side pocket of her jeans to make sure that the corkscrew she’d taken was still there. A few feet from where she was standing she saw his Nantucket red pants lying in a heap on the floor. She thought about the knife she’d seen him fold and put in the pocket of those pants the last time he’d freed her from the cuffs. Just lying there. Only a couple of feet from her. A knife far deadlier than any corkscrew. Could she reach it without him stopping her? Could she open it with her hands bound together like this? She studied him. His eyes still closed. His cheeks wet with tears. She stepped silently to where the pants lay and stood looking down at them. She squatted down and ran her hands across the fabric and . . . yes! . . . she could still feel the closed knife lying in the right pocket. She pressed her cuffed hands together and slid them into the pocket. At the bottom, below keys and some change, she felt the handle of the knife. She managed to grasp one end of the knife and slide it out without spilling the other stuff out of the pocket. She examined the handle looking for some kind of mechanism that might open it. Something that looked like a release mechanism was near the front. A flat button. Round. Flush with the handle. She held the knife in one hand and pushed. The blade snapped open. She grasped the handle with both hands and started to rise.
“What are you doing?”
Before she could get to her feet, he reached across and grabbed her cuffed wrists. He pulled her to her feet. Twisted her wrist until the knife slipped from her grasp and fell to the floor.
“You disappoint me, Zoe,” he said quietly, his eyes studying her. He picked up the knife and closed the blade. “You swore, not half an hour ago, that someday you might possibly love me. Yet now I find you getting ready to kill me with my own knife.”
Trying desperately to keep the panic she was feeling out of her voice, she looked him in the eye and said, “What I told you before you raped me was the truth. There was some possibility I could have come to love you.”
“And now?”
“All I want to do is kill you.”
“With my own knife?”
“After I cut these damned cuffs off my hands I probably would have killed you if I could. Or possibly just cut your balls off.”
“I did what I did to test of the truth of what you’d told me. That you could someday possibly love me the way I love you.”
“Bullshit. What you did to me had nothing to do with testing any truth. And it had nothing to do with love. You raped me to prove that you could. To prove you had complete power over me. Probably the same reason your father raped you and your helpless little brother. Not to test your love but to prove his power.”
As she spoke, Zoe could feel Bradshaw’s rage growing. He stared at her with a burning intensity. “You dare compare me
to my father?”
“Can’t you see? You’re just the same.”
“I hated my father,” said Bradshaw spitting out the words through gritted teeth.
“Of course you did. That’s why you killed him. And now you hate yourself. I’m not going to hate you. Nor am I going ever to love you. You’re too pathetic to love. My heart just bleeds for how sick and injured you are.”
Bradshaw’s rage burst through and he slapped Zoe across the face with a blow that knocked her off her feet and sent her sprawling to the floor. He dropped to his knees and grabbed her face in one hand and pulled it to him. He began speaking. His voice a low hiss. The words spoken slowly, one at a time. “Don’t. You. Ever. Say. Anything. Like. That . . .”
Barely aware of what she was doing, as Bradshaw was speaking Zoe slipped her right hand into the pocket of her jeans. Found the corkscrew. Silently pulled it out. As she worked to open the sharp spiral of steel with one hand, she hoped Bradshaw was so focused on the words coming from his mouth that he wouldn’t notice what her hand was doing. If he did, she was dead.
“What you put me through, Tyler,” she finally said, “didn’t make me hate you. Mostly, it made me feel sorry for you. Sorry that anyone could hate themselves as much as you obviously hate yourself.”
Bradshaw’s eyes remained focused on Zoe’s face. As she moved closer, she could sense his mounting anger. Still, she continued her monologue. “Sorry that anyone could be so emotionally damaged that they simply can’t accept the possibility that they could ever be worth loving. Except by a mentally challenged little brother.”
“Don’t you dare condescend to me, you smug little bitch.” He slapped her hard across the face. She staggered backward but didn’t fall. “No one condescends to me.”
A suddenly enraged Bradshaw got up and closed the distance between them. He reached for her throat, and as he did, Zoe struck, driving the sharp point of the corkscrew hard into Bradshaw’s right ear. She pushed the steel spiral as far in as she could and started twisting it as she pushed, as if his inner ear was nothing but a difficult cork on a thousand-dollar bottle of wine.
