First to Find

by Mark Gessner

  THE KILLER WALKED BACK to the park after venturing out to check the newspapers. No news of the Stalnaker murder yet. His stomach tingled with a perverse thrill, anticipating the news coverage. He planned to wait in the park for a few days until the news broke, then he'd relish the coverage, bask in the glory and the limelight before moving on to the next victim on his list. Besides, Austin in the spring, what better time to camp in a beautiful park and enjoy the great outdoors? He never got to spend this much time outside when he was working.

  He got halfway down the path to the abandoned car before he spotted a chunky blonde woman sitting high on the cliff. What the hell? He stepped off the path behind some cedar trees. He saw her place binoculars to her eyes, and then raise her other hand next to her face. At the same time he heard a female radio voice crackling from a stand of trees up ahead. She was talking to someone on a walkie-talkie. A spaniel was sniffing around her, constantly moving, appearing and disappearing off into the weeds. He crept in closer and saw a man hiding in the trees down by the creekside. The man was looking at the car, then looking back at the path both ways, then mumbling into his radio. They were staking him out. What the hell? The murder hadn't made the news. Were these plainclothes cops? Maybe they'd tracked him somehow and withheld the news of the murder from the media. But how could they have tracked him? He hadn't left a trace.

  Wait, something was wrong with this picture. Cops didn't use trained attack-spaniels. Cop dogs were always German shepherds. Who the fuck were these people? And why were they looking for him? He needed to find out.

  The killer hid in the trees, motionless. After dark, he crept back up toward the parking lot. He found a game path leading up to the cliff the long way around. He stole up onto the cliff behind Judi. Before he could get to her, he was greeted by the bark of her spaniel. He bent down to quiet the dog. As he stroked the dog's neck, something clinked. He slipped the collar off Nipper's neck and worked the rabies tag off its metal ring. He put the collar back on the dog and slinked back down the path. He didn't want to confront these people in case they were cops, but he needed to find out who the hell they were and why they were tracking him.

  Judi called off the stakeout at fifteen to midnight. The killer hadn't shown up, and they didn't know why. She had to get up at six the next morning and couldn't spend all night hunkered down in the weeds looking for someone who might never show. And she hadn't gotten to spend the evening close to Kurt.

  The killer slept on the floor in the men's room.

  Chapter 47

  March 9

  "SPICEWOODVETERINARYSERVICES, howmayidirectyourcall?" The receptionist bolted her line out so rapidly that the killer at first wasn't sure if he dialed the correct number. In the background he heard echoes of a beagle puppy's shrill and constant barking. Yeah, this was the right number. The receptionist cracked her gum, waiting for a response. She was getting paid by the hour. She had all day.

  "Yeah, uh, I found a lost dog in the park and it uh, had a rabies tag with this number on it. I need to like, uh, find its owner," said the killer.

  "Oh that's wonderful! What's the tag number?" said the receptionist, slower now.

  "Ninety-two oh-three," he said, looking over his shoulder to see if a passing SUV was going to pull into the parking lot. He was calling from the pay phone outside the restroom building in his park. Yeah, he'd come to think of it as his park.

  "Hold on a sec," said the receptionist. In the background the beagle had stilled and in its place he could hear the receptionist clicking on her computer keyboard. She was at the same time processing a credit card transaction for another customer. He could hear the phone dialing out on another line for the automatic card verification. The receptionist was hired for her multi-tasking skills, but this morning she had it easy.

  "Sir, I have the owner's number," she said, "have you got something to write with?"

  Chapter 48

  THE KILLER BATHED AND trimmed his beard in the men's room at his park. His hair was pulled back into a ponytail. He'd washed and dried his clothes in the laundromat in the Jester strip mall, and then stopped in at Java Judi’s. He knew most of the local coffee shops had some level of free wireless computer access. He needed to look up the dog owner’s address.

  He looked and smelled the part of the business casual yuppie latte drinker, intent on career advancement and top-line profitability. He blended right in.

  The killer ordered a sugar-free extra-tall latte, forked over four bucks plus a buck tip. Five bucks for a cup of coffee. That was the real crime here.

  He grabbed a table that had one of the free laptops on it. The laptops were the latest design out of Cupertino, translucent plastic cases, neon effects, big color screen, a midrange multi-core processor chip suited for casual web surfing and multimedia, all connected to the internet through a high speed radio link. Each was tethered to the table with a cheap locking cable. The cable ended in a short locking tab that loosely fit into a plastic slot on the side of the machine. These were not a serious security feature; they were to keep honest people honest. He sipped his latte and called up a popular internet search engine. He typed the spaniel owner's phone number into the search engine, area code first. The search engine immediately returned:

  Judi McBride

  12876 Spicedale Springs Blvd

  Apt #8403,

  Austin, TX 78759

  jMcBride@javaJudis.com

  www.javaJudis.com

  Bingo. It even showed her picture from her website. That was her. Fucking Java Judi herself. The chubby blonde from the cliff. He looked around, didn't see her. He wrote her name and address down on the back of a napkin.

  The morning crowd filtered in, and Java Judi's jumped. A line of nervous caffeine addicts formed a jagged line to the door, George Benson's jazzy Pittsburgh guitar ringing over the speakers in a futile attempt to soothe them. The staff behind the counter blurred as they took orders, made change, poured scalding hot cups of coffee, steamed milk, pulled espresso shots four and six at a time. Equipment beeped, lights flashed, coffee makers buzzed and gurgled. The place smelled of deep roasted organic Arabica beans. Employees oblivious to the wonderful smells jumped and shuffled to service the beeps, buzzes and flashes. They were a model of efficiency, speed, and stress.

  The killer drank the rest of his latte while searching news sources for any reports of his murder spree. Had anyone put it together yet? He needed to know. The urge to tell someone about his spree was becoming unbearable. His genius needed to be broadcast to the world. He must fight that urge. Someday it might come out but he needed to cross a few more names off his list first. He couldn't find any video coverage online of his murders, but a few had made the local papers. That was good. So far the police hadn't connected them. That was also good. They might never put it together. He could expand his list.

  He pulled up his work history from his personal file storage on the internet and printed off a copy. This had most, but not all of the names of his victims and future victims on it.

  Java Judi's corporate policy supplied a networked laser printer for their customers. It wasn't exactly a full-blown business center; they intentionally supplied a slow printer, but you could print off a handful of pages while you drank your coffee. At five bucks a cup, the extra paper and toner expense to keep customers in the shop longer was one of their best investments.

  The yellow light on the printer flashed on-on, skip, on. On-on, skip, on. Then it went blank and emitted a high-pitched squeal, and it wouldn't shut up.

  Damn. Rachel pivoted from the steaming espresso machine, and then wiped her hands on a towel laying on the counter. She instinctively popped the latches on the front, dropped the roller mechanism, and carefully teased out the jammed printout. It was some customer’s resume or work history. She set the printout next to the espresso machine, then slapped the mechanism back up into place and pressed the continue/feed button. You could tell she’d done this a hundred times before. Laser printers didn’t like humidit
y, and they rebelled by jamming. When it detected the jam had been cleared, the printer automatically reprinted a new copy of the jammed page.

  In the meantime, three more orders had come in and Rachel struggled to remember and build them. Small Mocha latte, half sweet, Carmel vanilla latte extra tall, and a sugar-free red-eye.

  David, the new guy working the register this morning, hadn't learned the proper sequencing of the orders yet. Java Judi's prided themselves on getting every customer's order in their hand within ninety seconds of the order leaving their lips. One way they accomplished this was to standardize on the sequencing of the orders that were called out by the order taker. The standard sequencing for each order was size first, followed by drink type, then followed by flavors, then sugar free status. David hadn't quite gotten the hang of it yet, and would call the order out exactly as the customer said it, which was almost never in the right sequence. The long-time regular customers picked up on the sequencing after a few visits and said it in the right order to speed things even further, but most who just walked in off the street were likely to ramble. Rambling wasn't good for efficiency. David was rambling.

  Meanwhile the espresso machine buzzed. The temperature had gotten too high while Rachel serviced the laser printer. The shots would have to be dumped out and remade. Java Judi's would rather dump ten bad shots than serve one bad shot to a customer, and at five bucks a cup, they could afford to dump a lot of espresso.

  As Rachel struggled to mentally re-sequence the trio of orders and begin making each drink, she forgot about the jammed sheet she'd pulled from the printer. She left it sitting on the counter next to the espresso machine, where it was soon swished to the back and buried under damp towels, half-full paper cups of steamed milk, drops and spray of espresso from the espresso maker, and other random debris from the morning rush.

  The killer picked up his printout from the out-tray on the printer by the espresso machine, and tossed his empty latte cup in the trash. He'd be adding more names to his list. Most of the names he needed were right there on the page.

  Back at his table, he bit the tip of a cheap ballpoint pen until the tip and ink tube assembly slid out, and he pocketed it. He jammed the open end of the pen housing into the circular keyhole of the security cable and gave it a wiggle and twist. The lock unlocked, the locking tab popped free and released the laptop.

  The line by now snaked out the door. Every chair was filled with a latte-sipping customer, and more were standing around, cradling their warm cups and hoping that another chair would free up soon. Cool morning air breezed in through the door, and the killer breezed out, carrying the laptop bundled in a newspaper under his arm. The staff, still a blur, didn't even notice the theft. Rachel, eyes fixed on the espresso machine's temperature dial, called out an automatic "Thank you," as the killer left.

  Chapter 49

  THE KILLER HIKED BACK down to the abandoned car.

  What had those two meddlers found? Had he left anything incriminating behind? When he looked in through the passenger window, he saw a metal box camouflaged with fake plastic leaves glued to it. What the hell was that? He hadn’t seen that there before. He turned it over and saw the block printing on the underside:

  OFFICIAL GEOCACHE

  GAME PIECE

  DO NOT DISTURB

  What the fuck? What was a Geocache? Game piece? What kind of Game was this? He opened the box, then dumped it out on the seat. Out spilled a random collection of cheap toys and useless trinkets. Key chains, coins, plastic animals, a fairly decent compass, die-cast cars, a couple dollar bills, a pack of Sweet-Tarts, some other useless shit.

  He ripped open the Sweet-Tarts, crunched and ate them, winced at the cloying taste, then pocketed the dollar bills. He found a notebook, sealed in a plastic baggie. He flipped through it; he read a few of the pages. People had been coming here to find this box over the last several years, using their GPS receivers, then writing about it in this little notebook. Fucking geeks. He found a printout inside the front cover of the notebook:

  You found the cache!

  This is a game piece in a Global Positioning System (GPS) treasure hunting game called Geocaching. Players use GPS units to stash and find little containers like this one all over the globe.

  Go ahead, exchange trinkets and sign the logbook if you like. Be sure to hide the container back just the way you found it. Come visit the website to learn more or to post an online note about your discovery:

  www.cache-finders.com

  He ripped that sheet out of the notebook and stuffed it in his back pocket. He tossed the ammo container in the creek, along with handfuls of the trinkets. The can bobbed, then sank. The trinkets floated downstream. He pocketed the compass.

  The killer reviewed what he knew about the two stalkers. They weren't cops, that was certain. They drove away in an ordinary sport utility vehicle. One of them he discovered later was Java Judi, a coffee shop owner, not a cop or a private investigator, and that fat bitch had an old Brittany spaniel, not a young police dog. If they weren't cops, how did they know about him? Since these two were amateurs and not police, they must not have enough info to convince the police of anything, whatever they knew or think they knew. Still, they were staking him out. They must know something. They must have been playing this geo-finding game, maybe that's what brought them to this car. But how did they know he was there?

  He'd have to take some time off from his plan to find out what they knew.

  Chapter 50

  JAMIE UNFASTENED HER BIKINI top and lay face down on her SpongeBob beach towel on the deck of the Sea Ray. The warmth of the spring sun tingled over her back and shoulders. The gentle rocking of the boat on the waves, the lapping of the waves against the hull of the boat, the cool breeze in her hair, and the forbidden taste of Mexican beer soon made her languid. She shifted, resettled, wiggled her toes, then rolled her arms slightly to turn the white undersides up for a more even tan.

  Frank was below deck in the cabin, fetching another couple of Corona Lites and fantasizing about Jamie, mentally going over his plan, his lines, his moves. Jamie was thin, blonde, young, popular, and by all locker room accounts, wild in the sack. She'd been coming on to him all week ever since the weather turned, trying to get him alone out on his dad's boat. He was certain he'd be joining the Lake Club this evening. Lake Club was a term his buddies at Balcones High School coined to refer to those lucky bastards who'd gotten some pussy out on a boat on Lake Austin. Frank, only seventeen, wasn't a member of any club that required you to get naked with a girl, whether on land or sea. What a score if he could have Jamie as his first. He'd have bragging rights for years. He'd be a king.

  His dad's brand new Sea Ray 215 Weekender was perfect for his induction into the club. It had enough power to get them out to the remote parts of the lake, and it had an ice box and private berth down in the cabin. His dad had purchased the twenty-one-foot craft to help entertain clients in his commercial real estate practice. It was a forty-one-thousand-dollar babe magnet. A floating bachelor pad.

  What Frank didn't know is that Jamie had no intention of having sex with him, not now, not ever. She just wanted a free ride on a luxurious power boat, some free beer, and a chance to work on her tan lines. The word around the locker room was bullshit; she was actually a crummy lay. She was more interested in using guys to get whatever she wanted. The ones who'd been used had simply been too proud to admit it, so her reputation grew.

  The Lower Colorado River Authority, commonly known by its acronym LCRA, was responsible for everything in, on, and under the lakes and rivers of Austin, Texas. They'd drained Lake Austin a month earlier to kill off a choking infestation of hydrilla. Yesterday they'd opened the gates on the Mansfield Dam and flooded Lake Austin with fresh cold water from the bottom of Lake Travis. The Lake Club could resume operations immediately.

  Jamie jerked her head up. Something metal had struck the stainless steel deck railing, bounced off the deck, and splashed into the lake. She propped up on
her elbows and looked over the edge. She could see sunlight glinting off a set of keys pulling a thick leather fob under the water. The brown leather fob twisted the keys as they sank, and the sunlight glinted off the keys and the shiny BMW logo on the fob, becoming greener and finally disappearing. What the hell? She rolled off SpongeBob onto the smooth warm fiberglass deck, cupped a hand above her eyes, and looked up. "Oh my God!--Frank!"

  "Hah?" Frank popped his head up out of the companionway. His eyes immediately locked onto Jamie's perky young breasts, cream white, with pink nipples pointing up toward the afternoon sun. He'd never seen anything like these outside of the glossy pages of his older brother's magazines. He could not look away. "Mwhah," he exhaled, barely audible. His jaw slackened, drool forming at one corner of his mouth. Maybe he didn't need to work on his moves after all. She was just going to give it to him. Here. Now. Damn, this boat was awesome.