No Ordinary Man

by Suzanne Brockman

  “I’m okay, I’m okay,” he said, but his face had gone a shade paler, and he had to wipe his forehead to keep the sweat from running in his eyes.

  The bullet had torn a ragged line in his jeans, and bits of the denim had been embedded in the angry-looking wound. This was going to take more time to clean than she had. She glanced at her watch. Ten-fifteen. Damn.

  “I’m supposed to meet one of the FBI agents at ten-thirty,” she told him worriedly. “You know, there’s about twenty agents in your apartment and outside the house. As glad as I am to see you, it seems kind of crazy for you to be here.”

  Rob managed a tight smile. “I’m probably safer here than anywhere else in the city. They’ve already searched your house, and I knew they wouldn’t check your car coming in. I mean, who in their right mind would come back here, right?”

  Who in their right mind, indeed.

  “Look, I can take care of this,” Rob continued. “The less you actually help me, the better anyway. Go on, you’ve got groceries that need to go in the fridge. We can’t do anything that looks suspicious. And buying a gallon of ice cream and then letting it melt in the trunk of your car is definitely suspicious.”

  Jess stood up uncertainly. “Rob, I still think you should turn yourself in.” Her voice grew stronger with her conviction. “I mean, they were shooting at you. You could’ve been killed—”

  “No.” He said it quietly, but absolutely.

  Discouraged, Jess turned away.

  “You have to promise me something.” His voice stopped her.

  She looked back at him. His face was lined with pain and his eyes burned almost too brightly in his face.

  “Promise me that if somehow they find me here, you’ll tell them that you hid me only because I threatened you,” Rob said. “Tell them I threatened to hurt Bug. That way they can’t send you to jail for helping me.”

  Jess didn’t move, didn’t speak.

  “Please, Jess,” he implored softly. “I’ve never asked you for anything….”

  He’d never asked her for anything? Lord, he’d asked every- thing of her. He’d asked her to live without him….

  “All right,” she said softly. “Don’t make too much noise while I’m gone. Take a shower, but do it now, while I’m still here, otherwise some smart FBI agent is going to wonder why the water’s going on and off in an empty apartment.”

  Rob nodded.

  “Keep your ankle elevated,” Jess continued. “I’ll get you an ice pack before I go. You can rest in my bed—I’ll turn down the sheets. Try to sleep, you look like you could use it.” She looked at her watch again. “You’ve only got eleven minutes to use the water, so hurry, Rob.”

  She crossed to him, leaning down and kissing him on the lips. “And at least think about turning yourself in.”

  She left, closing the door tightly behind her.

  JESS WATCHED the city streets roll past from the quiet comfort of Parker Elliot’s car. The windows were tinted slightly, giving the bright day a softness.

  She glanced across the car at the FBI agent who had picked her up at home just minutes ago. He drove with both hands on the steering wheel, like a race car driver, exuding an air of utmost confidence and efficiency. He was impeccably dressed, his hair carefully in place, his eyes hidden behind a dark pair of aviator sunglasses.

  Jess tried to picture him at home, with a wife and family, but simply couldn’t. “Are you married, Mr. Elliot?”

  He glanced over at her, giving her a long, cool, appraising look. She fought the urge to give her shorts a swift tug downward. “No,” he said.

  She could picture his fellow FBI agents wheeling him, like a robot, into a closet at the end of each day, and taking him back out in the morning.

  “Any children?”

  Elliot looked at her again. “I just said I’m not married.”

  “Well, I’m not married, either, and I have a daughter.”

  “No children,” he answered curtly.

  “Do you live in Virginia?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you live in the city or the country?”

  “Suburbs. Why the questions?”

  “I feel at a distinct disadvantage. I haven’t had the opportunity to read your file, as I’m sure you’ve read mine. What’s your favorite color?”

  “I don’t have one.”

  “It figures. Where did you grow up?”

  “Connecticut. Why, ‘it figures?’”

  “A guy with your taste in clothes doesn’t care about colors.”

  “I guess right now there’s only one thing I care about,” Elliot said, signaling to pull into the parking lot of one of Sarasota’s few tall office buildings.

  “Catching Rob,” Jess stated. She leaned forward to look up at the building. “Where are we?”

  “My unit has temporary office space in this building.”

  He parked in a spot marked Reserved by the front door, and unlocked the car doors.

  As Jess opened her door, she was hit by a wave of humidity that the car’s air-conditioning had concealed. The damp, hot air surrounded her, pressed down on her. Lord, she thought, please don’t let him ask me directly if I know where Rob is.

  Elliot led her into the lobby, and into a waiting elevator. He pushed the button for the twelfth floor.

  The elevator door opened, and Jess felt the gentle pressure of the tips of Elliot’s fingers on her back as he gestured for her to go ahead of him.

  “Selma’s office is down here, to the right,” he told her, leading Jess to a heavy oak door. “We’re supposed to go right in.”

  He opened the door, and Jess went ahead of him into a tastefully decorated, homey office. A large wooden desk sat on one side of the room, on the other was a plush sofa, several easy chairs and a rocking chair. The walls were covered with a pleasant flowered wallpaper, and the curtains matched.

  The room was empty.

  “We’re a few minutes early,” Elliot said. “And Dr. Haverstein usually runs behind. A great deal behind. Hopefully, we won’t have to wait too long.”

  “I’m here, Parker. Don’t be making nasty comments about my timekeeping habits. I am fully armed with knowledge of your own imperfections—enough to launch a full-scale counterattack.” Selma Haverstein’s voice was teasing as she swept into the room, a warm smile on her pleasant face. She was wearing a long, dark blue dress covered with small, gold-colored, stylized suns and moons. It was a dress Jess might’ve expected to see on one of the artists in Siesta Village, not on an FBI psychologist. “How are you today, dear?” This last was directed toward Jess.

  “I’m still pretty upset about all this,” Jess admitted.

  “Aha,” Selma remarked. “Honesty. Did you hear that, Parker? With Jess as a fine example, I’ll admit that, yes, at times I tend to be rather…inexact when it comes to keeping appointments. The same way that, at times, you can be rather…”

  “Rude,” Elliot supplied, crossing his arms. “Like right now, when I’m obviously in a hurry, and you’re obviously not.”

  “Brusque is a much nicer word, dear,” Selma said, patting his arm.

  “If we’re done wasting time,” Elliot drawled, “I’d like to take Ms. Baxter upstairs to the office and begin this interview.”

  “Actually,” Jess said, “I was hoping to have a word with Dr. Haverstein.” They both turned and looked at her. “Alone,” she added.

  Parker Elliot headed for the door. “Bring her upstairs, please Selma, when you’re finished.”

  Dr. Haverstein nodded, and waited until he went out the door and closed it tightly behind him. Then she smiled at Jess. “Would you like to sit down?”

  Jess shook her head, no. “I just wanted to tell you that I still don’t believe Rob is the serial killer.”

  “You think it’s Ian Davis.” Selma perched on the arm of one of her big easy chairs. “Your ex-husband. I know. Parker told me that you found something disturbing in Ian’s condo yesterday. Parker also said you called
him late last night and told him that Ian had borrowed Rob’s car.” Selma sighed. “Jess, don’t you think it’s a little too convenient for Ian—the awful ex-husband—to turn out to be the villain in the piece?”

  “You don’t believe me,” Jess said flatly. “I guess that means Elliot hasn’t gone out to Ian’s to verify my story.”

  “He’s been a little busy with other matters,” Selma responded.

  “Trying to pin the serial killer’s murders on Rob.”

  “Trying to prove that Rob is the killer,” Selma gently corrected her.

  “Well, he’s not.”

  Selma leaned forward slightly, her kind eyes suddenly quite sharp. “Dear, has Rob Carpenter tried to contact you?”

  Jess answered without hesitation. “No.” It wasn’t a lie. He hadn’t tried, he’d succeeded.

  “Yet you’re absolutely certain that Rob is innocent.”

  “Yes.” At least 99.9 percent certain.

  If Selma could see that tenth of a percent of doubt in Jess’s eyes, she didn’t comment on it.

  “Why don’t we go upstairs and talk to Parker,” Selma urged. “He’s got some new information he wanted you to know about.”

  Jess shifted impatiently. She didn’t want to hear about any new information incriminating Rob.

  “I’ll make a deal with you,” Selma offered. “You go up there and listen to Parker. After you listen to him, if you still want us to check into Ian Davis, I’ll personally see to it that we get a warrant to search his house and that we call him in for questioning.”

  Jess held out her hand. “Deal.”

  HE WAS DROWNING, choking, and he knew when he opened his eyes, he’d be covered in blood.

  Her blood.

  So he wouldn’t open his eyes.

  But her scream echoed through him, trapped in his head, ringing against the inside of his skull. Over and over and over, and he knew it wasn’t going to stop until he opened his eyes.

  Blood.

  Everywhere.

  Pouring out of her.

  How could she still be alive when so much of her blood was on the ground?

  Her eyes looked up at him with fear, with pain, with disbelief.

  He turned away, closing his eyes, unable to watch her die.

  She screamed again, his name this time. “Rob!”

  It cut through him like the blade of a knife.

  But that wasn’t his name… How did she know… He opened his eyes in shock.

  It was Jess lying there, Jess covered with blood, Jess looking at him with her beautiful dark eyes as her life leaked away.

  He shouted, pulling himself up out of the dream, surfacing in the dim light of her bedroom.

  “Jess!” he cried, turning to look for her.

  But he was alone in the bed.

  And the blood on the sheets was his own.

  UP ON THE FOURTEENTH floor, the temporary office of the Behavioral Science Unit of the FBI was silent. The empty office was big, with six or seven desks, each with two computer terminals, twice as many telephones, and several large conference tables covered with files and papers. Maps covered one whole wall, the largest being a street map of the city. There were red pins at the murder sites.

  Also adorning the walls were scores of eight-by-ten black-and-white photos of the victims, taken from various angles. Jess swallowed, and kept her eyes carefully averted.

  Ian had loved to watch slasher movies, and the violence had always sickened Jess. In some ways, these photos were less graphic than the scenes in those movies. But the women in the photos weren’t lying in pools of special effects blood. The women in the photos weren’t going to stand up and take a shower, washing the gore off them when the director yelled “Cut!”

  Those women were dead. Totally, irreversibly dead. And Selma Haverstein and Parker Elliot thought Rob had killed them because of his twisted feelings for her….

  “Where is everybody?” she asked, and it came out a whisper.

  “They’re all over at Rob’s apartment,” Selma replied cheerfully. “Or out on the street. Or down at the lab. That’s on the thirteenth floor. For luck, you know.”

  Movement from the other side of the room caught Jess’s eye, and she turned to see Parker Elliot standing in the open doorway of a private office. He had a telephone tucked under his chin, but he waved, motioning for them both to come in.

  As Jess sat down in a hard plastic chair across from his desk, Elliot hung up the phone. “How did Carpenter pay his rent?” he asked, not bothering with a greeting.

  “Cash,” Jess answered. She glanced at Selma.

  “No checks, no credit cards, no paper records? It figures.”

  “Why?” Jess watched as the FBI agent lowered himself into his chair. He swiveled his computer monitor to a better angle, and adjusted his modem.

  “They’re verifying it now….” Elliot said, distracted, keying something into the computer. He looked up at Jess and then at Selma Haverstein. “I can’t believe the team didn’t run an identity check on Carpenter before this. I’d just assumed it had been done. Apparently, so did everyone else….”

  The computer beeped, and Elliot looked back at the screen, a frown furrowing his brow as he read intently for several moments. Then he shook his head, and laughed humorlessly.

  “Still don’t think Robert Carpenter’s our man?” he asked Jess.

  She shook her head. “No, I don’t.”

  “Maybe this’ll help convince you, Ms. Baxter,” he said, turning the computer monitor to face both Jess and the psychologist. They leaned forward to get a closer look. “I just ran a full identity sweep on Robert Carpenter, middle name unknown, using the social security number he’d given his employer, and look what I found.

  “The man doesn’t exist. There is no such person. His social security number is fictional.” He shook his head. “Damn, why didn’t someone do this three weeks ago?”

  Jess stared at the computer screen, but the words upon it merely repeated what Elliot was saying.

  “So Robert Carpenter is an alias,” Selma stated. Jess could barely make out the words over the roaring in her ears. “How do we find out who he really is?”

  “There’s where we have a problem,” Elliot said. “It’s the same problem we’ve had all along. Whoever he is, he’s never been arrested and he’s never been in the military. We don’t have his fingerprints on file. In fact, out of the six different sets of prints we came up with in Carpenter’s apartment, not a single one was on file.” He paused, then dropped the bomb. “But we did make a match to the prints we’ve found in all of the victims’ apartments.”

  “Jess, are you all right?” Selma asked, her voice coming as if from a distance.

  Jess was still staring at the computer.

  Fingerprints.

  Matched.

  Rob’s fingerprints matched the prints from the victims’ apartments….

  She saw him, on top of her as they made love, his eyes hot with passion, with love…. She heard her voice crying out his name as the world exploded around her. Rob…

  No, not Rob. His name wasn’t really Rob.

  Rob Carpenter was a made-up name, an alias.

  For whom?

  In her sudden whirl of thoughts, she remembered Rob telling her, My father was a beast, and it’s his blood that’s in my veins….

  Jess, I’ve done some terrible things, things that can’t be forgiven….

  I have to leave because I love you, Jess. I won’t let you be hurt…or killed….

  “Oh, Lord,” Jess breathed, her voice shaking. “It can’t be true….”

  “Parker, get the girl some water,” she heard Selma say sharply. Then more gently, Selma said, “Jess, I know what a shock this must be….”

  Jess stood up. “I have to go.”

  Selma pressed a pamphlet into Jess’s hands. “Read this, dear. Maybe it will help you to understand—there was no way you could have known that Rob was so…troubled.” She sighed. “And if Rob sho
uld approach you, or call, or contact you in any way,” she continued, “it’s imperative that you notify the authorities. If you don’t want to call Parker, dear, call me. However, if my theory is correct, I’d bet big money that Rob is long gone.”

  Selma’s words seemed to swirl around Jess. Rob. Long gone.

  “If he does return, and he is the killer,” Selma added, “then he probably only came back for one reason—to kill you.”

  Killer. One reason. Kill you.

  Woodenly, Jess turned toward the door.

  “Wait for Parker, dear, he’ll drive you home.”

  But Jess didn’t want to wait. She walked out of the office, past the walls plastered with the horrible, gruesome photographs. She walked out into the hall, over to the elevator and pushed the down button.

  Outside the building, she continued to walk, aimlessly heading south and west. She walked all the miles down to the quay, and finally she stopped walking. She sat for a while, just looking out over the water.

  No matter how she tried to figure it out, she couldn’t ignore the fact that Rob was using an assumed name. Even taken by itself, apart from the damning fingerprints, having an alias suggested some degree of criminality.

  As she sat there, she realized she was still holding the pamphlet Dr. Haverstein had given her, outlining the profile of the serial killer.

  Slowly, Jess opened it.

  Number one was ritualistic behavior. Well, according to Selma, the ritual was part of the killing. Each of the women killed had applied thick makeup to their faces, and had a length of rope tied to their ankles. What it meant, no one but the killer knew, but it was definitely some kind of ritual.

  Number two was pretense of sanity. Well, yeah, sure, Rob seemed sane enough. But so did everyone else she knew. So how do you tell the serial killers from the rest of the people? You don’t. At least, often enough, not before it’s too late.

  Number three was compulsive personality. Excessive cleanliness was mentioned. Jess thought of the difference between Rob’s kitchen and her own. No fair, she thought. Rob didn’t have a six-year-old daughter. But still, he was neat almost to the point of obnoxiousness….

  Number four was inability to tell the truth. According to the pamphlet, serial killers not only attempted to provide people around them with the information that those people wanted to hear, but they also were unable to perceive the difference between reality and fantasy. Truth was whatever they wanted it to be, whenever they wanted it to be.