In My Dark Dreams

by JF Freedman

  Tonight is the first night of the full moon. The police are on high alert. The killer hasn’t struck for the past two months; if he doesn’t claim a victim this go-around, the task force will be disbanded. The LAPD is understaffed, and they can’t tie up many of their elite detectives indefinitely. I haven’t seen my newly minted pal Cordova this month, but I’m sure he’s wound up super tight. He doesn’t want another murder on his hands, but he doesn’t want the killer to vanish into thin air, either. His ambition is to catch the killer before he strikes again, which is impossible, basically. I don’t know many of the specifics of the crimes—they are a tightly held secret known only by those directly working on the murders—but I do know that the victims weren’t murdered by some grotesque means. The scuttlebutt around the courthouse is that the women were killed by strangulation, probably with gloved hands—no fingerprints were found anywhere. The killer does not have a telltale signature, like a razor slash, bite marks, or foreign objects inserted into various cavities—the kinds of fetishistic markings these sick animals often leave in their wake, like animal scat.

  They may have been raped; that’s less clear. Some of them exhibited bruising around their genitals, but there was no semen residue found in any of them, which means there was no DNA left behind. Either the killer used a condom, which seems bizarre, given the violent nature of the murders, or sex wasn’t involved, and the marks found on the victims were coincidental, from previous consensual sex. A technician looking for foul play could read more into the physical evidence than actually exists. People see what they want to see, especially when they are predisposed to come to a certain conclusion.

  It’s seven-fifteen. The westbound traffic on the I-10 was brutal, bumper to bumper every car length of the way. It took me more than an hour to get home, the price you pay for living in the City of Angels. I change into my running outfit and hit the street. Tonight’s run will be short and slow, a three-mile jog along Palisades Park to keep my muscles loose and oily. Tomorrow I rest, Sunday I race. After that, who knows? I could give up running completely and take up kayaking, swimming in the ocean, or Tai Chi. Or maybe I’ll get hooked on long-distance running and start to plan the next one. They say pain has its own rewards if you can tolerate it and get beyond it. Pretty soon, I’m going to find out if that’s true for me.

  Sunset isn’t for another hour, but the police are already out, melting into the Friday evening beehive of activity. They’re more inconspicuous this time around, in shorts, jeans, other casual clothing. Some are as gnarly looking as surfers or dealers. I can spot them, though, because I’ve seen some of them in the courthouse. A few have testified against clients of mine.

  On impulse, I break off my jog and approach one of them. He sees me coming and gives me an almost-imperceptible head shake—don’t bust my cover. I look around to make sure no one is watching us, and approach him anyway. He’s cute, in a beach-bum dissipated way, wearing a Hawaiian shirt over OP cargo shorts. I could be a thirty-something groupie trying to turn his head, a not-uncommon variety of female seen along these beaches.

  “I’ve seen you around,” I say, to break the ice. I finger his shirttail—rayon, the real deal. “I like this look. Suits you.” I smile at him flirtatiously. “I’m Jessica.”

  If he had ever heard my last name, he wouldn’t remember it; there are thousands of us in the system. But he can’t help but flirt back at an attractive lady who is almost five-eleven, wears her black hair in a long braid down her back, and is wearing running shorts and a tight singlet. “I like yours too,” he lobs back at me, his eyes going to my legs. Not the most scintillating of come-ons, but he is a cop.

  I check around us again. We are two pebbles in the ocean here, nothing more. “How’s my pal Lieutenant Cordova?” I ask him.

  He stares at me with suspicion, and some nervousness. “How do you know Cordova?”

  “From work,” I placate him. “That’s all. I know he’s in charge of the task force.”

  He relaxes. “He’s wound up tight as a nun’s you know what. We all are. Waiting for lightning to strike, when you don’t know where, when, or if—that’s the worst.”

  I nod in understanding. He’s a cop. Cops live for action.

  His cell phone rings. He flips it open. “This is Cavanaugh.” He listens. “Nothing yet. Later.”

  As he’s about to hang up, he interjects, “You near Lieutenant Cordova? Hey, put him on.”

  He waits a moment, then says, “Talking to a friend of yours, Lieutenant.” He thrusts the phone at me. “Here.”

  I take his cell reluctantly. “Hello?” He asks who this is. “Jessica Thompson,” I tell him. “You know, the runner,” I say, trying to make light of what is an embarrassing moment to me. These men are out here on a very serious mission, and I’m playing games with one of them. “Ocean at Wilshire,” I answer, when he asks where we are. Feeling stupid, I add, “Your officer is really on the ball. No one would ever spot him.” I listen again. “Only because I know him from the courthouse. If he was any funkier, you’d arrest him.” I pause for a moment as I listen again. “Sure,” I tell him reluctantly.

  I hand the phone back to Cavanaugh. “He’s swinging by to say hello.”

  The detective scowls. He’s opened a can of worms that should have been kept shut.

  We stand in awkward juxtaposition, with nothing more to say to each other. The evening throng flows slowly around us like a clogged river. Cordova drives up in his plain wrap, gets out, and walks over to us. He’s dressed casually, as he was the first night I saw him in this part of town. Jeans, an alligator-logo golf shirt, K-mart running shoes. He waves to Cavanaugh in greeting. “I dig the threads,” he says, teasing his subordinate. He’s not a prima donna, I like that about him. “What’s the shirt,” he asks, “Nat Nast?”

  Cavanaugh grins as he shakes his head. “Tommy Bahama, on sale at Costco.”

  “You must be pulling a shitload of overtime to afford those shirts,” Cordova quips. “Even at Costco. You had dinner?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Grab some now, while it’s still light out. Gonna be a long night, I’m afraid.”

  “Okay, Chief.” Cavanaugh is happy to be let off the leash. “See you,” he says to me, keeping his guard up with his boss right there.

  “See you,” I respond.

  He walks away, disappearing into the crowd. Cordova gives me the eye. “You’re like a bad penny, always turning up,” he says dryly. I can’t tell if he’s pulling my chain or not.

  “I live here,” I say in my defense. “What’s your excuse?”

  He shakes his head. “Wrong joke, wrong time.”

  I feel chastised. “Sorry.”

  “You’re not going to be out later tonight, I hope. You of all people should know better.”

  “No,” I tell him. I can’t help feeling as if he’s the principal and I’m the first-year English teacher. He wears the weight of authority like a second skin. “Or the next two nights, either. I won’t be here.”

  He cocks a questioning eyebrow.

  “I’m going to San Diego. My run.”

  He’s slow on the uptake, but then he gets it. “Your marathon is this weekend?”

  “Yes. Sunday.”

  He whistles in appreciation. “You’re really gonna do it.”

  “I’m going to try.” Of course I’m going to do it; I’ll crawl across the finish line on two broken legs if I have to.

  “Good on you.” He pats his gut. It’s big, but firm, like the rest of him. I’m sure he’s fit, but a man his size would have hell to pay running twenty-six miles. He’s more the shot-putter type.

  “Do you think …” I catch myself. I don’t want to interfere in this.

  “Don’t know.” His eyes are restless, scanning the crowd. “He’s missed the last two …” He doesn’t finish his thought. He doesn’t have to.

  There is nothing further to say. I need to finish my run before I stiffen up. That’s all I need, to pull a muscle the d
ay before the race of my life. “Good luck,” I tell him.

  “Thanks. Same to you.” He smiles. “You’ll do good.”

  He’s saying that to be kind, because he has no idea how hard I’ve trained, or my fierce resoluteness; but it’s a nice gesture. I know his mind is elsewhere, but he looks me in the eye when he says it, and he seems to really mean it.

  “So will you,” I respond, trying to sound as positive about his mission as he does about mine. “So will you.”

  TWENTY

  MY RACE GOES SWIMMINGLY, right from the beginning. The start was insane—the Tokyo subway system at rush hour cubed—but I expected that, so I was mentally prepared to go with the flow. Even though they use a staggered start, depending on your self-predicted time to finish (I had confidently written three hours and fifty-three minutes on my entry form, but I was hoping to go a few minutes under that), it takes a couple of miles with all those bodies tightly packed together before the sea of humanity begins to break up and we are all able to run at our individual paces.

  I’m not very buttoned-up (except when it comes to work), but the tactics I laid out for this race were as precise and controlled as a mathematical formula. My two longest training runs had been twenty miles, and my times for both of them were within a minute of each other, even though I had run them over separate routes: two hours and fifty minutes, a rock-steady eight-and-a-half-minute mile. I was tired at the end of both of those runs, but I wasn’t exhausted; I could have kept going. And my legs felt okay. They were sore, and I didn’t run for a couple of days afterward, but there wasn’t any bad cramping, no muscles turning either to jelly or concrete. I stretched, iced, took hot tubs, iced some more, gobbled Advil, and on the third day after each long run I was doing my usual ten miles again.

  So here was my plan: I would run the first twenty-one miles at my usual pace, which would take three hours, plus four or five minutes extra because of the bunching up at the beginning. I knew the last five miles would take their toll. Everyone I talked to—runners who had done it, trainers, coaches—all told me the same thing: a marathon is two races, the first one twenty or twenty-one miles, and the second one, five or six miles that can feel like another twenty. You run the last fifth of the race on guts and determination. And unless you are an elite runner, you run it slower. So if you have set a time you want to make, you have to be under your average when you hit mile twenty-one.

  Which is exactly how my race unfolds. At the end of the first hour, I have run six and a half miles. At hour two, I’m up to thirteen and a half. I have more than half the race under my belt and I’m cruising, clicking off those 8:30 miles as if I have a metronome in my head. The first half of the race was advertised as being harder than the second, because there are more hills and inclines, so although I know I will be in for pain later on, I feel great.

  On the stroke of hour three, I am halfway between the twenty- and twenty-one-mile markers. By now, I’m passing other runners who had started way ahead of me. Most of them are really hurting—I can see the pain in their faces as I glance at them in passing. Poor bastards, I think, trying not to feel too smug and self-satisfied. Probably didn’t train hard enough. Not like me—I’ve trained harder than Oscar de la Hoya trains for a championship fight.

  Half a mile later, when I hit the twenty-one-mile sign, my watch reads three hours, five minutes, and a handful of seconds. I’m home free. I can run the last five miles and change to a ten-and-a-half-minute pace and still break four hours. I hope I don’t slow down that much, but even if my pace drops a full minute, I’ll achieve my goal with time to spare. I begin imagining myself spreading my arms wide as the finish line draws close, and smiling for the camera as my toe hits the magic line.

  My muscles have been tightening gradually, and I am beginning to feel fatigued, but I know that feeling—it isn’t that different from how I feel at the end of a thirteen-mile training run, or even the twenty-milers. There’s no panic in my mind, just the realization that here it comes, the race within the race: suck it up and keep pushing. Maintain your form. Five miles is nothing. I can run five miles backward, I can hop five miles on one leg, I can …

  Hit the wall. At twenty-two and a quarter miles, the gods of hubris wrap my legs in steel bands so tightly it feels as if I’m losing the circulation in them. I’ve had clients complain that the police handcuffed them so tightly any feeling was gone from their hands. That’s what this feels like.

  I don’t totally stop running, thankfully. If I do, I might not be able to start up again. All around me, casualties are falling by the wayside like dead leaves off autumnal trees. I don’t want to be one of them. I will not allow that. I am going to complete this race, even if I have to crawl to the finish line.

  Luckily, this catastrophe happens at a relief station, so I have an excuse to slow down (I know no one is watching me, but I am mortifyingly self-conscious anyway). Moving at a snail’s pace (the slowest snail in the world), I grab a cup of water and drink it in one swallow. Then another, another. I pour water on my head, down my back, on my legs, which by now are beginning to feel as if they are two blocks of cement.

  I begin to run again, but now my gait is unfamiliar to me; it’s as if I have been transformed by some devilish alchemy into a tree stump. An eighty-year-old dowager could run circles around me, a toddler has a longer stride than mine has become. My body is begging me to stop, but my mind, that stubborn muscle, won’t let me. It rants at me, mocking my feebleness—weakling, wuss, loser.

  Mind over matter. I have never understood the profundity of what I had always thought was a sophomoric aphorism, until this moment in time. My goal now is simple: one foot after the other, then another.

  Mile twenty-three approaches. I pass the marker like the tortoise who will never catch the hare. Now I am the runner who is being passed by the others, I am the one whose face registers her agony, the one to feel sorry for and be happy that you trained hard enough, because she didn’t. Push, I rail at myself, you’ve come so far. Only three miles to go. You can do this. Thousands of others are doing it—so can you. Don’t quit, you’ll never forgive yourself.

  Three miles. I can hop three miles, I can run three miles carrying a piano on my back. Which is what this feels like.

  At mile twenty-four, I look at my watch and almost throw up. I have slowed to a crawl. I am now running at a twelve-minute-mile pace, which won’t get me close to my goal of breaking four hours. At this rate I’ll be lucky to finish by sundown, I think, as I further indulge my self-pity.

  And then, miraculously, I catch my second wind. I thought that only applied to breathing, but I discover it can pertain to muscles rebounding as well. I am still in a world of pain, but now it’s bearable—just.

  By mile twenty-five, I am feeling better. The sensation is relative, of course, I still feel awful, but the end is in sight. I steal a glance at my watch. I’ve picked up my pace—my time is three hours, forty-nine minutes. I am running through my pain, and coming out the other side.

  Push. Push like you’ve never pushed before. You took a bullet and lived. You can run a mile and a fifth in eleven minutes. Forget the pain, it’s going to be there whether you run fast or slow. So run fast.

  I run as fast as I can. I cannot run one second faster. I’ve done my absolute best. But on this day, my best isn’t good enough. It takes me twelve and a half excruciating minutes to run the last mile and a fifth. I still throw my arms out and force a smile for the camera as I cross the line, but inside I am grief-stricken.

  A cheery volunteer rushes up to me and throws a thermal blanket over my shoulders. “Congratulations,” she says with a big, wide smile. “Great run.”

  “Thanks,” I gasp. And then I collapse into a pile of bodies, alongside hundreds of other sufferers.

  My official time is four hours, one minute, fourteen seconds. If I had run each mile three seconds faster, I would have broken four hours. Three measly seconds. But it might as well have been three minutes. I wasn’t going to mak
e it. Not this day.

  But: I finished. And I fought through the pain, a triumph in itself. When I undertake a marathon again, which I have already decided I will do, one of my training runs will be a full four hours, so my body can undergo the experience before the actual race. That is a cardinal rule in training and I paid the price by neglecting it. It’s similar to trying a case: preparation is critical. The next time, I’ll be better prepared.

  I was going to go home this afternoon, but there is no way I can be immobile in a car for the drive to L.A. in the Sunday evening freeway traffic. I would freeze up like a statue, so I extend my stay until tomorrow. I have sick time coming; in the morning I’ll call in and take the day off. I don’t have a court appearance or client meetings scheduled, so I won’t be missed.

  The bathtub at my hotel has Jacuzzi jets, so I’m up to my neck in a hot-tub bubble bath. The crisp, dry white wine I’m sipping is helping to leech the pain as well. Later, I’ll treat myself to a massage. My room-service dinner will be a New York filet, charred medium rare, a baked potato smothered with butter, crisp-fried onion rings, creamed spinach, and a good bottle of Syrah. Topped off with a hot-fudge sundae, followed by another hot soak.

  I’m not in training anymore.

  TWENTY-ONE

  “WE’VE FOUND ANOTHER VICTIM.”

  This must be how it feels to be hit by lightning. “Where?”

  The experienced detective, trained to be calm, is rattled; Cordova can hear the tremor in his voice. “Off one of the service roads that leads into Brentwood Country Club, where Montana meets Yale. In the bushes.”

  “Who called it in?”

  “Couple of kids looking for a secluded place to do something they didn’t want their parents to know about.”

  “No mistake? Not a random killing, or a copycat?”

  “No, sir. It’s our man.” An uncomfortable cough. “He left the same signature.”