The Serial Killer's Wife

by Robert Swartwood

  “Thank you, ma’am, for not killing me.”

  The barrel against the back of her neck disappeared, and next thing she knew Harlan was taking her arm and leading her deeper into the bar. His grip tight, walking quickly, he said, “Are you crazy?”

  She decided it best not to answer that and kept pace with him past the tables and chairs, then through the door that led into the kitchen. Through another door, then up a flight of stairs, they came to the second floor and there was another man wearing all black standing in front of a closed door.

  “You know,” Harlan said, releasing his grip on her arm, “you could have saved yourself some time and hassle and just asked for me first. I am Mr. Riley’s right hand man.”

  She turned to face him for the first time, this small man wearing a dark suit, a pair of horn-rimmed glasses on his scarred face.

  “Honestly? It never even crossed my mind.”

  “Mr. Riley is in a meeting right now. Do you mind waiting?”

  “That depends.”

  “Depends on what?”

  “The psychopath that’s kidnapped my son.”

  Harlan’s scarred face twitched slightly, which for Harlan was the same expression he would give to being shot in the chest. He glanced at the door, took a breath, then stepped forward, nodded at the man who stepped away. He knocked twice, entered, closed the door behind him.

  Thirty seconds passed—she counted them down in her head, imagining them as bright red digits—and then the door opened again and two men appeared, both white. They gave her a once over before the man standing guard outside the office motioned them to follow him down the steps.

  The door remained open. Through it was the office, and at the desk sat Donovan Riley.

  When Elizabeth stepped into the room, she shut the door behind her. Then she just stood there, staring back at the man who had helped her escape her past life with the promise that she would never return to it.

  “So,” Van said, his elbows on the desktop, his hands folded in front of him, “just what kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into this time?”

  PART II:

  THE WIDOWER MAKER

  CHAPTER 21

  WITHIN MINUTES OF abandoning her old life—Foreman and Sheila now miles behind her—Elizabeth knew she had made a terrible mistake. Just what was she thinking? Running away from her troubles, from her husband’s sudden bad name, yes that was all true, but how was she going to do it? There had been a plan, but a weak plan, and it had mostly come off way too spontaneous, Elizabeth deciding that it was now or never and her friends had gone along with it, given her the help she needed, and now here she was, her baby asleep in the backseat, the rising sun shining down on his head, and what were her friends going to say when she had no choice but to return?

  But she couldn’t do that—she just couldn’t—and so she kept driving west, across the state, glancing in her rearview mirror every minute certain that a state trooper would appear, the cruiser’s lights flashing. By now someone would know she was gone—the police, the FBI, the media—and word would spread quickly, and an APB would be put out for her like she was a fugitive, a criminal, which she guessed she now was because she was on the run.

  Then again, what if nobody noticed or even cared?

  The first week was the hardest. She had no direction in mind, no destination. She stayed at the cheapest motels she could find, the ones with the not-so-clean sheets, and she would hold her baby and cry and tell herself that he was not like his father, that the evil inside her husband had not been brought into their child and so she did not have to kill him.

  After that first week she realized her money was running out faster than she thought it would. She needed to find a job, something that would pay under the table and not ask any questions. She needed to stop staying at these cheap motels whose management never cleaned the bathrooms and allowed mildew to form on everything.

  Just outside of Pittsburgh she found a rooming house run by an old Jewish woman. The rent was, unbelievably, eighty dollars a week. The woman, Mrs. Mesika, wasn’t going to take her in at first—it was clear she smelled trouble—but Elizabeth convinced her that she was on the run from her abusive husband and just needed time to get back on her feet. He was a cop, she explained, which was why she couldn’t call the police on him, because he had cop friends everywhere.

  In the end Mrs. Mesika took pity on her. She even agreed to watch the baby while Elizabeth looked for a job. She found one in two days, working at a truck stop diner along the Interstate, the owner willing to pay her under the table by hardly paying her anything at all. Most of her money came from tips, and she smiled more than she had ever smiled in her life, trying to be friendly with the patrons no matter how rude or perverted or slimy some of them might be.

  Two months passed and Elizabeth knew she had to move on. Despite working nearly every day she was making no money. The tips were okay, just keeping her afloat, but still she hadn’t even left the same state she had decided to escape, and she was certain—very certain—that at some point the police would recognize her. Every time the state troopers came in for breakfast, her heart always beat a little faster, and though she had cut her hair short and dyed it, wore glasses with nonprescription lenses, she always feared that one of them would give her a second glance.

  When she was ready to leave, Mrs. Mesika embraced her and whispered into her ear, “Take good care, Elizabeth. I understand why you are doing what you are doing. I think I would do the same thing in your position.”

  She had never told Mrs. Mesika her real name, having given an alias, and when Elizabeth looked at her, the old woman gave her a knowing sad smile and said, “God be with you.”

  Next she and Thomas had ended up just outside of Canton, Ohio. A few more cheap motels before she found another boarding house, this one run by a woman with three kids who agreed to watch Thomas for thirty bucks a day. That plus rent was just under the amount she ended up making at another diner she found, another place where the owner agreed to pay her under the table, the wage again barely a respectable wage.

  How, she wondered, had women lived two hundred years ago? How had people traveled across this country in wagons and lived in tents and hunted for their food?

  It was here in this diner that she first met Donovan Riley. He was accompanied by Harlan, and they were just passing through like everyone else. She hadn’t even been waiting on his table, but before the two men left Donovan had made it a point to walk past her and smile and nod and ask how she was doing.

  She had only smiled back, said fine thank you, and that had been that until the very next day when Donovan and Harlan came in again. This time they sat at a table in her section. She had waited on them, expecting the man to try to make more small talk, but he hadn’t. And for the next week they came in, always dressed in suits, always sitting in her section, until on the very last day he left a one hundred dollar tip and a note that said if she wanted a better job, a better life, to give him a call. He had left his number but she had thrown it out immediately, thoughts of prostitution and pornography being the first two things that entered her mind.

  The two men did not show up again. A week went by, then another week. She started to think she would never see them again until, after leaving work one day, she returned to the boarding house to find the pair waiting for her.

  “My name’s Donovan Riley,” he said, holding out his hand.

  She didn’t shake it, just stared back at him and asked him what he wanted.

  “I wanted to let you know my offer still stands. I can tell you’re a woman in trouble. I can also tell you’re practically working for free. I’m willing to change all that.”

  “I’m not interested.”

  “I didn’t even tell you about the job yet.”

  “I’m not a whore, either.”

  “I never said you were.”

  She started to walk past him. “If you don’t leave me alone, I’m going to call the police.”

&
nbsp; “A bartender,” he said.

  She paused but didn’t turn back.

  “I have a place in Indianapolis, a bar there that could use a good bartender. Don’t ask me why but I think you would be perfect for it. No funny business, either. You just serve drinks, keep the place clean, that’s it. I’ll pay you well for your time and also set you and your boy up with a place to stay.”

  As far as she knew she had never told this man she had a son, there was absolutely no way he should have known it, but instead she said, “What’s the catch?”

  “The catch is you’ve got to make your decision. Right now.”

  Everything in her gut told her to just say no, walk away, call the police. Instead she turned around, slowly, and crossed her arms over her chest. “How much an hour?”

  The bar was located in downtown Indianapolis. It was three-stories, the top floor an open apartment. This was where Donovan allowed her and Thomas to stay.

  “While you’re working, I’ll have one of my guys watch after your son. Don’t worry—they look tough, but they’re gentle.”

  The situation was beyond bizarre but at the moment she didn’t have that many options.

  She was trained how to bartend, and it was difficult at first. She had to shamefully admit that she had never thought it would be hard, pouring drinks and beer, but when you were waiting on a dozen people at the same time, trying to keep all the recipes separate in your mind, you begin to realize it takes a special personality to tend bar, one she wasn’t sure she had. Still, after a couple weeks she got the hang of it, though sometimes she still screwed up orders and let a renegade glass or two slip through her fingers and shatter on the floor.

  She figured out quickly that Donovan Riley was homosexual, just as she figured out that he was mixed up in some shady business. Not drugs exactly, but weapons or something else just as dangerous. Every time she wanted to leave she remembered how well he was taking care of her and her son, the money he was paying her (nothing great, but nothing terrible either), and how he never asked for anything in return except for her to tend the bar.

  After a couple months, when she had become adjusted, he began to spend more time with her. He said as a single mother she should learn how to protect herself. He had a karate instructor come to the bar, work with her in the apartment while Thomas watched from his crib. She learned how to defend herself from a mugger, what to do if someone were to come at her with a knife. Sometimes Van took her to the shooting range, saying that every woman should know how to shoot a gun, and while she was scared at first (just the thought of touching a weapon made her nauseous) she began to look forward to going to the firing range and emptying a magazine into a paper target.

  At times she was reminded about her husband. After all, there would occasionally be an article in the paper about his trial, about his conviction. Articles about the victims and their families. Even articles about her and her sudden disappearance.

  It was during these times that she would think again about the evil inside her son. How one day he would grow up to be just like his father. How she should not only do the world a favor, but herself, even her son, and end his life. And how every time these thoughts passed through her head, she would cut herself. Just a little slice along her stomach or chest, not where anyone would ever see it. She would do this as a punishment to herself for even allowing the thoughts to enter her mind, because she knew they were just as evil as the possible evil inside her son. After a time, though, she would cut herself for no other reason than she liked the moment before the blade touched the skin, the anticipation of the numbness.

  One time she cut herself so deeply she wasn’t even aware of it and blacked out. When she awoke, she was tied to a bed and Donovan stood over her.

  “You’re troubled, Elizabeth, you know that?”

  Her throat was parched, but she managed to croak, “That’s not my name.”

  Van shook his head. “So very troubled.”

  It was Harlan who had found her unconscious, Thomas crying from his crib. They had called a doctor they knew to be discreet who came over and helped revive her. In the process they found the rest of her scars, over one hundred of them, like patchwork covering her stomach and chest.

  After two days of being tied to the bed, Elizabeth said, “You can let me go now.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  Van nodded at Harlan to untie her.

  She rubbed her wrists and ankles, glaring back at Van. “How did you know my real name?”

  “Well,” Van said, “there’s sort of a funny story involved in all that.”

  As it turned out, Van, among everything else, had a fascination with serial killers. Though he said he knew it sounded vulgar, it was really quite innocent. Just as men followed sports and women collected shoes, Van liked to study the psyche of killers.

  “Just like snowflakes, no two serial killers are alike. They’re disturbed, obviously, but in many ways they’re also brilliant.”

  He showed her his collection. It was in a room just off his office, an overlarge closet she had always known without being told was off limits. Books and DVDs of serial killers filled shelves. Trading cards with the pictures of serial killers on the front and their stats—where they were born, where they went to school, how many people they murdered, what murder weapon they used—were protected in thick plastic sleeves and stored in shoe boxes. There were even items supposedly owned by serial killers, such as a letter from Ted Bundy written to Van when Van was young and his fascination began to grow. Van wouldn’t let her read the letter but said it wasn’t anything too bad, just the man talking about his time in prison. He sounded, Van said, rather normal.

  Elizabeth said, “You knew who I was the moment you saw me, didn’t you?”

  Van admitted that he had. The reason he wanted her to come work for him was because he wanted to help her and her son, but also—selfishly—he wanted to learn more about Edward Piccioni. There hadn’t been many serial killers recently who had gotten so much attention. Van wanted to know what the man was like. What kind of cereal he liked to eat, what type of television programs he liked to watch, the type of shoes he wore. Everything.

  Elizabeth said, “I think it’s time Thomas and I left.”

  Van said he didn’t blame her. He was sorry if she felt lied to but he knew if he had come right out with the truth to begin with he would have scared her off.

  “I can help you,” he said. “Start a new life, I mean. As you’ve probably figured out, I’m not what you would call an honest citizen. I do have certain connections that could benefit you.”

  She asked him what he was talking about.

  “How much savings would you say you had in your bank account before you left?”

  Elizabeth shrugged. “Maybe thirty thousand.”

  “And that money is probably still sitting there. It’s not going anywhere. Your husband certainly can’t do much about it. Well, until legal fees are paid for, but I’ve always said screw the lawyers.”

  Van explained that he knew a couple computer-savvy individuals who could hack into her account, clean out the money, transfer it to a number of offshore banks. The money would be bounced from account to account to account where it would eventually disappear. The authorities would never be able to trace it.

  “And where would it go?” she asked.

  “Half to you, half to me and my people for our troubles.”

  She let only a few seconds pass before she nodded and said, “Do it.”

  A week later he produced a duffel bag full of old twenties and fifties as well as new identification for both her and Thomas.

  “From now on your name will be Sarah Walter. And your son here will be Matthew Walter.”

  She stared down at the birth certificates, the social security cards. “What happened to them?”

  “Don’t worry about it. Let’s just say that where they are now they won’t be needing them.”

  She swallowed, tried ho
lding back tears. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me. But, Elizabeth—I mean, Sarah?”

  She looked up at him.

  “It’s been nice knowing you. I wish I hadn’t lied to you but I’m sure you can understand by now why I did what I did. And ...” He sighed. “And, well, after everything you’ve told me about your husband—truthfully, he doesn’t sound like a killer to me.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  “No.” He placed a hand on her arm. “It’s supposed to remind you that he’s human, just like you.”

  She embraced him and Harlan, thanked them for everything. They both took Thomas—now Matthew—and kissed his forehead.

  “Where should I go now?” she asked.

  “That’s up to you. But, Sarah?” How strange Van was able to say that name like it was really hers.

  “Yes?”

  “Do me a favor and promise me that you won’t ever come back here. Not that I wouldn’t love to see you, but if you ever came back here I’ll know something terrible has happened, and I don’t want that to ever happen. Okay?”

  She promised.

  CHAPTER 22

  “NO IDEA?”

  “None.”

  “You haven’t noticed anything suspicious in the past week? The past month?”

  Elizabeth leaned forward in her seat. “If there was anything suspicious I would have noticed it immediately. You know that.”

  “So this whole thing”—Van waved his hand in the air—“came out of nowhere this afternoon.”

  “Just like I told you, yes.”

  Van still sat behind his desk, slouched now, his elbows on the armrests and his hands folded in front of his face. He was still a handsome man, tall and broad shouldered. While Harlan stood off to the side, while Todd sat on the leather couch by the door, while Elizabeth sat right here in the middle of the room, Van stared back at her with his dark, intelligent eyes.

  “So why did you come here?”