by Steve Gannon
At first he had only intended to scare her. His initial shot didn’t come close, thumping harmlessly into the trunk of a nearby tree. Enticed by her terror, however, he continued to bracket her with shots, staying hidden but moving to cut her off from the safety of the highway. Then it happened. One of the bullets accidentally ricocheted through the fleshy part of her upper arm. A red stain spreading to her shoulder, Paula ran for her life. Brambles tore at her skirt, exposing her legs. He followed, heart racing with excitement. He knew what he was going to do. He couldn’t stop.
Nor did he want to.
Minutes later Paula stumbled and fell. As she lay gasping, he shot her in the other arm. Screaming, she scrabbled through the underbrush. Each time she stopped, he shot her again, taking her left knee, then her right.
Her legs useless, she sprawled facedown in the dirt. Slowly, he stepped into the clearing and turned her over with his foot. She had wet herself. She looked up, eyes brimming with confusion and terror. She reminded him of a dog he’d once taken. He put his foot on her throat and pressed gently. Gagging, she clawed at his boot, promising she wouldn’t tell.
He placed the rifle muzzle to her forehead, watching as the shock of realization seeped into her eyes. Tears mingled with the blood and dirt on her face, cutting twin tracks down her cheeks.
Why? she sobbed.
He said nothing. Instead, he waited, savoring her fear.
He smiled when he pulled the trigger.
Afterward he did other things to her, things he would carry with him for the rest of his days. Finally he covered her with branches and hurried back to the barn for a shovel. As a rainstorm that had been threatening since morning began in earnest, he dragged her deeper into the woods. Far from prying eyes, he buried her, concealing her grave with sticks and leaves. After digging a separate pit some distance away, he buried the rifle as well. He regretted relinquishing the gun and blamed his sister for the loss. After all, if she hadn’t been walking in the woods, it never would have happened.
He cleaned himself in the river before returning home.
The storm raged through the night. The next morning, when Paula still hadn’t returned home, authorities organized a search party to comb the woods near where she had been seen getting off the bus. Using tracking dogs and neighborhood volunteers, they looked without success, continuing until darkness forced them to quit. Fearing the worst, they began anew the following day, widening their search to the nearby mountains.
The afternoon of the second day, as he came in from doing his chores, he found his mother in his room. She was going through his things. Beneath the bottom drawer of his dresser she had discovered his cache of hunting mementos. Fortunately, he’d hidden a watch he had taken from Paula elsewhere. Nevertheless, unsettled by her discovery, Adelia began questioning him regarding his sister’s disappearance. Though he steadfastly maintained that he knew nothing of Paula’s whereabouts, Adelia kept hammering at him, refusing to let it drop. Finally she stomped into the kitchen and lifted the phone.
Horrified, he watched as she called the police. The search party, including the sheriff and both deputies, was combing the mountains and temporarily out of radio range, but the dispatch operator promised to keep trying. By then he knew what he had to do.
Predictably, as they waited for the police to call back, Adelia and Nicholas broke out a bottle. After their second drink he slipped outside. Behind the kitchen, at a point where the utility services joined the house, he cut the telephone wires and concealed the severed ends. Next he disabled the family truck by removing the distributor rotor. Finally he went back inside and played the innocent son, insisting on mixing his parents fresh drinks. On their fourth round he secretly added something from Adelia’s medicine cabinet. Something to help them sleep.
Later, upon discovering the phone lines were down, Adelia informed him that if phone service wasn’t restored by morning, they would be making a trip to town to confer with the police. And they would get to the bottom of things.
Hours later he slipped into his adoptive parents’ bedroom. By then the drug-and-alcohol mix had taken full effect. Both Adelia and Nicholas lay in a stupor, as still as death. With trembling fingers, he pulled back the covers from Adelia’s body. Her nipples looked black in the moonlight, her fleshy thighs alabaster white. Feeling himself growing hard, he despised himself for his weakness. Himself, and his adoptive father as well.
Afterward, after replacing the covers, he checked the windows. Closed and locked. Next he picked up his mother’s cigarette lighter from her nightstand and crept from the room. Moving quietly, he descended the cellar stairs. Against a wall by the gas furnace he dumped a pile of cleaning rags, soaked them with lubricating oil, and used his mother’s Zippo to light the pile.
He stood beside the barn as fire engulfed the ancient farmhouse, watching as flames twisted like demons in the night. Staring into the blaze, he thought he saw figures stumbling through the inferno, but he couldn’t be sure. Later, his face set in a convincing mix of terror and shock, he ran to a neighboring farm.
The following day he was sent to live with his adoptive grandparents in Rochester. Unusually heavy rains uncovered Paula’s decomposed body the following spring. No suspects were ever brought to light.
Three years later, much to the relief of his grandparents, he turned eighteen and joined the US Navy. On his aptitude exams he demonstrated an unusual ability in mathematics, mentally manipulating large integers and odd fractions almost instantaneously. Subsequently he was sent to the Navy’s electronic technician school in Great Lakes, Illinois. After graduating, he completed a four-year enlistment in the fleet, with numerous stays in foreign ports that provided ample opportunities for him to explore his secret diversion. He considered this an experimental period, a learning phase during which he honed his skills. Through careful planning and meticulous attention to detail, he made few mistakes.
Upon leaving the service, he gained employment in San Francisco, a city rife with possibility. Working as a clerk for a large brokerage firm on the floor of the Pacific Stock Exchange, he realized he had found his medium as his facility with numbers proved advantageous. Within a year he moved up to the position of floor broker, placing trades for institutional customers. Later he established a private account and began accumulating a nest egg. In time, he leased a seat on the Pacific Exchange and started trading for himself.
He spent the next seven years on the floor as an options trader-watching, learning, awaiting his chance. Each day he entered the Mills Building carrying his lunch in a paper sack, a badge displaying his name and trading number pinned to his clearing-firm jacket, his pockets crammed with pens, trading tickets, and option sheets for the day. Monday through Friday he prowled the pits shouting himself hoarse, immersed in a milieu that was exhilarating, brutish, and eminently profitable. But weekends were his own.
Having learned from his sojourn in the Navy, he avoided taking his pleasures within the city. Instead, he cruised the freeways north of town, searching malls, truck stops, and various teen hangouts. His hunting vehicle was a late model panel-van with a bed atop a sizable storage lockbox in the rear. The box contained a variety of chumming drugs-pot, coke, Valium, Quaaludes-along with fake police credentials, rope, handcuffs, shovels, tarps, and plastic trash bags. The box also held an assortment of knives and other toys with which to experiment, not to mention being handy for transporting victims to safe disposal sites.
As time went on he traveled farther afield, extending his range to Portland and Seattle. Although he enjoyed driving, the transit time shortened the hours remaining for his weekend pleasures, and he finally hit upon the idea of leaving his van in a self-service storage garage near the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. A short flight from San Francisco, a day or two of hunting, and back to work on Monday. Simple.
He preyed on hitchhikers, runaways, and prostitutes, choosing his victims from the nearly invisible underbelly of society. He always concealed the bodies-wrapped in
plastic bags and deposited in Dumpsters, weighted with rocks and submerged in lakes or rivers, or covered with brush and left in illegal trash sites throughout the countryside. Some corpses were found eventually, but usually not until the elements had reduced them to little more than skeletons, forcing investigators to expend considerable effort simply trying to identify the remains. During this period he amassed a staggering number of kills: One hundred and forty-seven in the Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver areas alone; fifty-three in San Diego when he later moved and changed his hunting grounds. And it had been easy. Occasionally he used fake police ID, but usually all it took to get his victims into the van was a smile and the promise of a ride to the next town.
In addition to tape recordings and photos, he routinely took something from each of his unwilling partners. Something unique, something to remind him. He also kept a scrapbook of newspaper and magazine clippings, but it was a disappointingly incomplete record. Though concealment of his activities had always seemed prudent, it increasingly bothered him to live in obscurity. Of course, his survival depended upon it. Nevertheless, he occasionally wished those around him could know the full scope of his accomplishments.
A nationally televised “Manhunt Telethon” hosted by an actor-Patrick something-had initially whetted his appetite. Following that broadcast he’d struggled to suppress his longing for publicity, realizing the danger. Yet despite his efforts, the need for notoriety had slowly become overwhelming. And at last, in a blinding flash of realization, he understood his destiny.
It was time to share.
Carns glanced at his watch, surprised to see he had been in the house far longer than planned. Reluctantly, he shoved the pilfered leotard into his pocket. After one last look around the bedroom, he hurried down the stairs, appeasing himself with the thought that before long he would be back.
19
By Friday, although border checkpoints from Tijuana to Nogales had been placed on alert, Mexican authorities still hadn’t located Alonzo Domingos. Also disappointing, lab comparisons of the two crime scenes finally came back, proving nearly useless. The candles and rope from both sites appeared identical, but none of the unknown fingerprints matched. Surveillance of the scenes had been fruitless, the video of the Larsons’ funeral revealed no suspicious strangers, and despite initial optimism, the forensic odontologist had been unable to fabricate meaningful casts of the killer’s teeth. Interviews with the realtors and clients on Graysha’s list were unproductive as well. On a positive note, a followup microscopic examination demonstrated a correlating angle of shear on both pairs of severed eyelids, indicating that the cuts had been made by a similar, or possibly the same, instrument.
Not much, but something.
During this period I made little headway myself, spending most of my time resifting through records and grudgingly accepting my share of burgeoning but useless hotline leads. By week’s end the routine had worn thin. To make matters worse, I had drawn Saturday duty-along with half of the task force members. The rest were slated to work Sunday.
I had just finished typing another followup supplemental to keep Snead happy when Barrello stopped by, perching his considerable bulk on the corner of my desk. “Making any progress?” he asked.
“A little,” I answered. “I’ve improved my skills at filling out worthless forms and running down bullshit leads.”
“At least you’re still here,” he chuckled. “It might interest you to know that some of the guys started a pool on how long you’d last. More than a few are surprised you’ve made it this far. I had you down for checking out yesterday.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“I’m not disappointed. The way things are shaping up, a little entertainment around here is welcome.”
“I’m not quitting, if that’s what you think.”
“That’s not the way I see it happening, either. Lemme ask you something, Kane. How do you figure to keep butting heads with Snead and get away with it?”
“I can handle Snead.”
“Sure you can.”
“So what are you doing your day off?” I asked, changing the subject.
Barrello shrugged. “My brother-in-law skippers a scuba dive boat out of San Pedro. Nancy and I are going out for the day.”
“You a scuba diver?”
“Yeah. That’s how I met Nan. She’s had to give it up since her health problems, but she still tags along when I go.”
“Her brother owns the boat?”
“He and another guy. They’re building a second one, too. They want me to skipper it after I finish my twenty with the department. I’m considering it.”
“Sounds good, Lou. Hope it works out.”
Barrello nodded. “How ’bout you? What’ve you got planned for your one day off?”
“I’ll probably spend it at home, work around the house, maybe do a little body-surfing-take advantage of some waves that have been hitting the beach for the past couple of days.”
“I heard you own a place on the beach in Malibu. What’d you do, win the lottery?”
I smiled. “Not everybody in Malibu is a tycoon, pal. To say my house isn’t up to Better Homes and Gardens standards is putting it mildly. It wasn’t much more than a cottage when my mother-in-law grew up there, and I don’t think anybody ever expected it to last as long as it has.”
The phone on my desk rang. I lifted the receiver, spoke a few words, listened for a minute, and hung up.
“Anything?” Barrello asked.
“Antonio Morales. I had him doing some checking for me.”
“Antonio Morales, as in drug lord Anthony Morales? Hangs out with a bunch of guys whose last names all end in vowels?”
“That’s the one. Narcotics ran into a brick wall, so I went to the source and asked him to run down that cocaine we found in the Larsons’ safe.”
“You asked him? And he did it?”
“It took a little persuading. Turns out two months ago the Larsons bought an eight-ball from some local named Billy Randall. Morales said he leaned on Randall and everybody else involved regarding the murders. No connection. Just another example of recreational drug use by upstanding members of society. The coke angle’s a bust.”
“Not surprising.” A pause, then, “You have some unusual friends.”
“Morales isn’t a friend.”
“So how’d you get him to cooperate?”
I didn’t answer.
“C’mon, Kane. I can keep my mouth shut. Spill it.”
After a slight hesitation, I shrugged. “I once did Julius Sorvino a favor.”
Barrello whistled softly. “You did a favor for the West Coast Mafia boss? What?”
“Years back I worked on an organized-crime task force. We spent three months at the Beverly Hills Hotel watching Sorvino and his pack of cronies. When the bust went down, I convinced our guys to leave Sorvino’s wife and kid out of it. Guess Sorvino figured he owed me.”
“You saved Sorvino’s family the embarrassment of being hauled downtown?” Barrello said pensively. “You’re a strange guy, Kane.”
Deciding to look into something I had been chewing over in my mind for the past several days, I made an unscheduled stop on the way home that evening, exiting the freeway in West Los Angeles. From there I drove three blocks north and pulled to a stop in front of a one-story building. A large window in front displayed a selection of stereos, televisions, and ham radio equipment. Above the door, a neon sign read “Hank’s Radio and TV.”
I entered and made my way to the rear. As I stepped into a well lit service area in the back, a balding man with wire-rimmed spectacles looked up from a cluttered workbench. “Dan!” the man said with a smile, his face creasing like a worn glove. “It’s been a while. Good to see you.”
“You, too, Hank. How’s your boy?”
When I first moved up to homicide, I had worked a drive-by shooting in which several youths had been fatally injured. Hank Dexter’s teenaged son, who had been among a crowd sprayed
with indiscriminate gunfire, had wound up riding a wheelchair. During the course of the investigation, the owner of the electronic shop and I had become friends, and we had kept in touch.
“Mitchell is fine,” Hank answered proudly, reaching across the counter to shake my hand. “He’s getting married next month.”
“Great. Give him my best.”
“I will. You’ll come to the wedding?”
“Thanks for the invite, Hank, but right now I’ve no idea what my schedule will be.”
“I saw you on the news. The candlelight killings. Terrible.” The older man looked at me curiously. “I take it this isn’t a social call.”
“No. I have a couple things I want to run by you.”
“Concerning the murders you’re working on?”
“I can’t tell you that. And I want you to keep this under your hat.”
“Of course. Shoot.”
I collected my thoughts, trying to crystallize something I had been mulling over since earlier that week. “We’re talking hypothetical here, okay?” I began, broaching an idea that had occurred to me following a comment of Snead’s. “Say you want to break into a house. It has an automatic opener on the garage door. You’ve stolen a look at the remote, so you go down to the local hardware store, buy a similar control, and set the combination on those little switches inside-what do you call them?”
“DIP switches. No one has used them in years, Dan,” Hank said with a patient smile. “It’s all solid-state now.”
“Whatever. You see where I’m going here? Is there some way you can program a similar remote control to get in?”
