Tashay looked up at the tools above her head, then back at Karen. “I can’t. My wrists hurt.”
“You can. Just try …”
“Maybe if I do everything they want … maybe if we promise to be good … maybe then they’ll—”
“Tash! Listen to me,” she interrupted. “Leonard Land is a psychopathic serial killer. He’s murdered three women I know about for sure. Bob Shiff is his foster brother. They aren’t going to let you go. They’re gonna kill you. They used you to get to me. They’re going to kill us both. Our only chance, Tash, is to work together. You’ve got to help me. Can you do it? Will you try?”
After a long moment she looked up at the rake handle above her head, then back at Karen.
“You can do it. Try. Come on, honey, just once … try.”
Tashay looked up, and then she made her first tentative jump in the air. Her wrists had been rubbed raw and she squealed in pain as she jumped up, pulling the short length of chain with her. She almost made it on the first try. “I can’t do it,” she whined.
“Almost,” Karen said. “You almost had it. Just a little higher.” Tashay jumped again. This time she hit the tools. The hedge clipper, which was balanced diagonally across the rake, fell between the tools and clattered down onto the concrete floor between them. The noise seemed deafening. Karen prayed nobody heard the racket. She had to move fast; something told her they were almost out of time.
“Okay. Okay … good, Tash. Now you gotta get closer to it and kick it over to me.”
Tashay moved as close as she could, then hooked her bare foot under the long handle of the hedge clipper and flipped it over toward Karen. It landed right at the base of the post where Karen was tied. She lowered herself down the splintered wood and rotated around so that her hands were near the handle of the tool. She got a grip on it and started to carefully work her fingers down the handle, bringing the sharp edge of the shears toward her. Her fingers were numb from the ropes, but she finally got her hands on the cutting edge and positioned it so that she could start sawing the ropes that bound her. Then she heard a screen door slam outside and two men talking in low tones. She worked to cut the ropes off. She held on to the blade tightly, sawing frantically. And then she felt one give. She pulled hard and she was free. She stood and moved to Tashay, reached up, and untied her.
“Maybe if we tell Bob we didn’t run when we could’ve, he’ll let us go.” Tashay was talking animatedly, her voice was too loud.
“Shhhh,” Karen said, looking around. “Where’s that door go?” she asked, pointing to a door at the rear of the garage.
“Nowhere, just out to the backyard. There’s a big hill with trees, goes up to the park. But the door’s padlocked. The key’s over there,” she said, pointing at a tool bench.
“Get it open. I’m gonna try to lock the front from the inside.” Tashay retrieved the key and scuttled to the back door. Karen moved to the front of the garage and found some barbed wire. She grabbed it and started to wire the big garage door closed, wrapping it around several times. In her haste, the sharp barbs ripped open her palms and fingers.
Then the wire accidentally banged against the light metal door, making a loud scratching sound.
“The fuck you doin’ … ?” Bob’s voice called from outside. Then she felt the garage door start to open. The wire popped free.
“Run, Tashay!” she yelled as she tried to hold the door closed. She managed for a second, and then Bob Shiff and Leonard Land pushed it up and grabbed for her. She dodged them and stumbled backwards, falling next to the hedge clipper. She snatched them up and swung them at Leonard Land, who was now moving toward her in his awkward lumbering gate. She cut him across the side of his face with the open shears. He roared in anger and grabbed her, picking her up high over his head. Then he threw her down on the concrete floor. She was rocked by the blow, almost losing consciousness. She grabbed his leg and tried to bring him down. It was then that Bob Shiff grabbed her and pinned her arms behind her. He looked around for Tashay, but Tashay was gone. She had escaped out the back door.
“It’s her! It’s the bitch Shirley!” the man named Leonard Land said. The blood from the cut ran freely down his cheek but he didn’t seem to notice it.
And then they heard a car out front. All of them turned and looked out of the open garage into the setting sun, as a gray Lincoln Town Car pulled into the drive.
Chapter 39
TRAFFIC
Lockwood and Malavida were stunned when they pulled into the driveway at Bob Shiff’s house and saw Karen on the floor inside the open garage. They saw Leonard Land lumbering toward her and skinny Bob Shiff looking out at them. Lockwood and Malavida struggled to get out of the car, as Land grabbed Karen up off the floor where he’d thrown her, then ran out the rear of the garage.
Lockwood had lost his .45 to the Miami Police Department when he’d been arrested five days before. They were both unarmed. Lockwood knew, even before he was out of the car, that he wasn’t going to come close to making it in time. He watched in horror as the huge man moved in that same awkward run he had witnessed in back of Land’s house in Tampa. He galloped across the lawn with Karen over his shoulder to the VW van, which was parked on the grass behind the house. Leonard threw Karen into the back and clambered in behind her while Bob Shiff, who was only a few steps back, jumped behind the wheel and started the engine.
Lockwood watched as Malavida stumbled after them. He also didn’t have a chance to stop them, so Lockwood turned and hobbled on unsteady legs back to the Lincoln. He got behind the wheel and started it. Malavida had stopped his limping run and had sunk to one knee in the grass, holding his stomach in pain, while Bob Shiff popped the clutch, throwing huge pieces of dead turf out behind the van as it sped away.
Lockwood pulled the Lincoln up to where Malavida was kneeling. There was blood on his shirt where some of the stitches had pulled free, opening his incision. Lockwood reached over and threw open the passenger door. “In!” he croaked.
Malavida pulled himself up by the door handle and slung himself painfully into the passenger seat. Before he could get the door closed, Lockwood floored it and was in pursuit of the VW van, which turned right on Summer Cove Road.
They could see it moving fast, a few hundred yards ahead. Then it turned left onto Old Cutler Road and headed toward Miami.
“Whatta you gonna do?” Malavida asked through clenched teeth, one blood-covered hand still holding his ruptured incision.
“Run fucker off road.”
“Karen’s in there.. .
“Gotta stop ‘em … ram ‘em,” Lockwood said, “or she’s dead. Call the cops.”
Malavida grabbed up his cellphone as Lockwood turned left onto Old Cutler Road, accelerating. The much faster Lincoln began gaining ground on the van. Lockwood figured he could almost catch them before they got to Miami, which was only a mile away.
Something about that didn’t make sense. Lockwood knew Shiff could see him in the van’s rearview mirror. Why would they head back to Miami, where they would get caught in five o’clock traffic? he wondered.
The Wind Minstrel sat quietly in the back of the speeding van with Leonard’s computer on his lap. He knew all of The Rat’s tricks and games. He knew he could change the world with the computer. Everything and everybody lived within the web of its influence. The Wind Minstrel never went out in the daylight. He had come out today only because his very survival was at stake, and he cursed the cowardly Rat for leaving this predicament for him to solve. His skin burned as he hooked the computer to the cellphone. The Rat had already preprogrammed everything and it was only a matter of minutes until The Wind Minstrel would activate it. He yelled at Robbie Land to go faster. The VW van rattled at breakneck speed. The Wind Minstrel loved Death Metal music but he abhorred Robbie Land. He was just a pretender, a poser who called himself Satan, but he was a fool with his worship of sick monsters—men like Dahmer, who ate his victims, or John Wayne Gacy, who killed to fulfill a sick fantasy.
The Wind Minstrel was holy. His murders were Grand Biblical Adventures. He was the Anti-Christ, and walked on a higher plane of ritual dedication. He was involved in a personal struggle with the Almighty Himself to see which of them would control the universe.
The Rat had cultivated Robbie, his one-time foster brother, and had used him to catch the Shirley-like bitch. The Wind Minstrel, working on the laptop, had established a cellphone hookup. He had just started his logon:
bitran login:
He logged in as root using a stolen password. He was immediately accepted to the City of Miami’s transportation computer control system:
WELCOME TO
“BI-TRAN”
root
He typed in:
DTCS
In seconds the Distributed Traffic Control System appeared on the screen. It had been named SCOOT by the City of Miami.
In the back of the cramped van, Karen pushed herself as far away from the huge, sweating man as possible. The rear door of the van was locked and there was no escape. The pungent smell of him filled the small space. His odor was rank and reminded her of bad meat and sour dough. She could see the computer in his lap and wondered what he was doing.
And then the traffic light grid for the City of Miami came up on the screen.
“Street?” The Wind Minstrel yelled at Bob Shiff.
“They’re back there. They’re gaining on us. I can’t go any faster,” the skinny Death Rocker screamed. “We shoulda gone the other way. We’re gonna hit traffic. They’ll be on us!”
“What street?” The Wind Minstrel said, growling ominously. “Old Cutler Road,” Shiff called back.
The Wind Minstrel typed it into the computer, and up on the screen came an enlarged map section of Miami that featured Old Cutler Road.
“Cross streets?” The Wind Minstrel yelled at Bob Shiff.
They were approaching a street that Bob Shiff knew ran north.
straight into Miami. “Twenty-seventh Avenue!” he yelled out. “Turn left,” The Wind Minstrel instructed.
“I’ll hit a million cross streets,” Bob Shiff pleaded. “We’ll be trapped in traffic.”
“You are in a holy presence,” The Wind Minstrel growled. “This is my temple. It is written that the wicked risen in the Second Resurrection will go up on the breadth of the earth with Satan and follow his commandments. Now, turn fucking left, goddamn it!” he shouted; the veins on his rash-reddened neck bulged.
Bob Shiff cursed but turned left. Twenty-seventh Avenue was absolutely straight and filled with stoplights and five o’clock cross traffic. He was certain they would be blocked and quickly overtaken by the car behind them. Somewhere in the distance he heard a police siren. Then a strange thing happened… . Just as they got to the first stoplight, which was Coral Way, the red light turned green and they shot right through. Bob Shiff looked in his rearview mirror at the gray sedan following them. The light stayed green for only a second. Just before the Lincoln hit the same intersection, the light turned red, and the Lincoln slid sideways to miss a red Volvo accelerating down Coral Way. The Lincoln missed the Volvo by inches, then finally ran the red light and was again after them.
“Cross street!” The Wind Minstrel yelled.
“Eighth!” Shiff called back, and he heard the computer keys clicking… . Ahead of him, at the last second, the Eighth Street light turned green. They shot through it, and in the rearview mirror he watched as it immediately turned red again. It was then that Bob Shiff understood what The Wind Minstrel was doing. He had cracked into the traffic-light computer system and was controlling all the lights on Twenty-seventh Avenue.
In the Lincoln, Lockwood was too slow as he slammed on the brakes. The light on Eighth Street had turned red a second before they got to it. Lockwood was still fighting his bad depth perception and went squealing through the red light in a four-wheel skid, leaning on the horn as the flow of cross traffic swarmed into the intersection. He crashed into a yellow pickup truck, throwing Malavida into the dash. Fenders crunched and locked as the two vehicles skidded together toward the curb and came to a smoking, shuddering stop. Lockwood threw the car into reverse and floored it. The bumpers were hooked, and the Lincoln’s tires smoked and screamed on the hot, sun-cooked pavement. Then, finally, he pulled loose, after dragging the pickup about ten feet into the intersection. People were yelling; horns were honking. Lockwood floored it, driving up onto the sidewalk and around the mess he had caused, then off again in pursuit of the VW van.
Lockwood looked over and saw that Malavida was curled up in pain from the collision. He was doubled over in his seat, holding his stomach. “Great move, Zanzo,” he grunted through a clenched jaw.
“Something wrong with traffic lights,” Lockwood said.
“He’s into the system,” Malavida whispered in pain. “He’s controlling them.”
Suddenly all of the lights ahead of them turned red. The next intersection they hit was the four-lane downtown junction for the Tamiami Trail. The cross-traffic was intense and Lockwood and Malavida sat in frustration at the red light, watching the heavy traffic flow past in front of them, completely blocking their pursuit. Finally, Lockwood slammed his hand down hard on the wheel.
“Now what?” Malavida said as they both scanned the street up ahead. The van was nowhere in sight.
Chapter 40
GROUND ZERO
They were huddled in the basement of the main branch of the Miami-Dade Public Library. The room was too cold and the stone, turn-ofthe-century architecture didn’t offer much warmth. Malavida was in bad shape, still bleeding from the opened incision. They couldn’t get it to stop.
“Leaking like a Mexican fishing boat,” he said through gritted teeth.
Lockwood attempted to put his hand on Mal’s forehead to check his temperature but Malavida knocked it away. He looked flushed.
They had been plowing through microfilm for an hour, looking for the obit on Shirley Land. Finally, an article about her death came up on the screen. The date was July 10, 1984. There was a small picture with the article, which was the same one Karen had shown to Malavida. They both leaned in and read the story quickly… .
The article gave a brief description of the fire that had burned Shirley to death. There was very little about Shirley Land’s personal history.
The article said she was the only daughter of a Baptist minister, who also made a meager living by designing underground bomb shelters in the fifties. It noted that she was survived by a son, Leonard, who was fifteen years old. It went on to say that she had been active in church affairs and that she was being buried at the Old Manatee Cemetery in Bradenton, Florida.
“Dead end,” Malavida said. He started shivering and now Lockwood was sure he had developed a fever.
“You gotta go to the hospital, man, before you shake apart and die from infection,” Lockwood said, forming one of his first complex sentences since the halon attack.
“Shut up. I’m in this,” Malavida said, determined to hang tough. “Your funeral,” Lockwood said, then added, “We’re down to seeds and stems here.”
He knew if he were working a regular investigation for Customs and had time, he would do a full search for Tashay Roberts. He would have choppers searching the Manatee wetlands for The Wind Minstrel’s barge. And he would check all the old addresses where Leonard Land had lived, hoping to interview an acquaintance who could give them more information. But he had lost his power base. The cops would arrest both of them on sight and they were out of time. Karen might be dead already. Lockwood knew they had to get some traction and get it fast.
“Sometimes,” he said, forcing the words into the right slots in the sentence, “sometimes delusional people will go someplace they feel safe, like home… .”
“He won’t go back to that bomb site near Tampa,” Malavida said. He was now shivering so badly he was having trouble staying on the chair. “We’ll never find that Barge again. There’s a hundred square miles of swamp he could hide in… . We’re fli
cked.”
“Maybe here,” Lockwood said, pointing to the article about Shirley’s burned house in Bradenton, Florida.
“He burned that house down, and we don’t have an address. It was twelve years ago… .”
“County records! Your computer?” Lockwood said.
“Okay,” Malavida answered and then, without warning, he threw up on the stone floor.
When she woke up, she was in a new place. A twenty-foot-square windowless concrete room. She had been unconscious when they brought her here. The last thing she remembered, Leonard Land had held her down on the floor of the van while Bob Shiff pried her mouth open and forced her to swallow two pills.
She was no longer tied. She slowly regained her senses, struggled to her feet, and went to the metal door at the far side of the room… . It wouldn’t budge. She stood silently in the center of the room and listened. Her entire body was quivering. She then realized that it was absolutely quiet. The quiet was unrelenting. The room was frigid. There were no ventilation ducts except for two small tubes that came into the high ceiling five feet above her head. She put a hand out and touched the concrete, which was extremely cold. For the room to have such cold walls and be so deathly quiet, she suspected it was underground. She remembered her profile of brown rats, written six days and two lifetimes ago. Brown rats lived underground. Was this The Rat’s hiding place? She fought back a powerful urge to just sit down and cry. She knew that she had very few tools left to use against him. The only thing she had was her profile on The Rat, gathered with guesswork over the last week. She thought she understood his sickness.
She had to use her ability as a psychologist and apply her knowledge effectively. She needed to buy herself some time.
She looked at her watch. It was 10:30 Sunday night, or at least she thought it was … unless she had slept the night through and it was now Monday morning. She had no sunlight to tell her for certain. She had to assume the pills they had given her would last only four to six hours. They had forced them down her throat sometime around five, so she deduced it was probably Sunday night. In a pinch she might be able to use that. She tried desperately not to let her thoughts ramble or turn to self-pity. She tried not to think about the horrible pain in her mouth. With her tongue, she carefully touched her broken teeth, crying out and almost fainting as she struck the exposed nerves. Then she kneeled down on the floor and prayed to God.
Final Victim (1995) Page 31
