by David Ellis
“Well, our plan worked, at least to a point,” I say. “He must have followed me to the Greek restaurant. But if he knows we’re on to him, then we’re toast.”
“But if he didn’t spot us,” says Joel, “that means he’s about to make a move. And we’ll be ready for him.”
65.
Shauna
Wednesday, July 17
I lean back in my chair and put my head against the wall, daring to close my eyes, knowing that I have hours of work ahead of me. The plaintiffs, the city, rested their case today and we start our defense tomorrow. The heart-pounding intensity that accompanies the birth of a trial has subsided. Now it’s a war of attrition. Each side is soldiering on, trying to keep their wits about them, afraid that any particular moment on any particular day could be the moment that seizes the jury’s attention, and wanting to make sure that when that happens, it’s favorable to their side. Bradley and I are like each other’s coaches, always propping each other up, giving pep talks, positive energy.
I’m alone. I sent Bradley home an hour ago. And Jason is obviously nowhere to be found. We haven’t so much as laid eyes on each other since . . . since . . . that moment.
I call Joel Lightner, whom I gave an assignment over a week ago now, after that friendly encounter I had with Alexa in Jason’s office, when she denied he was an addict, when she actually tried to claim that he still has pain in his knee, and when she accused me of feigning concern for Jason when, in fact, I was just trying to steal him back from her.
“Joel, what the hell, guy?” I say into his voice mail. “Remember me? You were going to do that thing for me.”
I punch out the phone and do what I’ve done for the past week: Push Jason out of my mind and focus on the family business that is depending on me.
A moment later, my phone buzzes with a text message from Joel:
Sorry sorry busy with Jason tracking bad guy stretched thin tomorrow I promise
I sigh. Jason really got himself in a jam with that weird redheaded guy who might be a serial killer. What, exactly, Joel is doing to help Jason, I don’t know.
And knowing those two cowboys, it’s probably better I don’t ask.
66.
Jason
Wednesday, July 17
“You’re sure about this,” Alexa says to me over the phone.
“I’m sure. I’ll be with Joel, and as soon as I get home, I’ll turn on some pay-per-view movie or something or I’ll make a call from my landline. I’ll be covered.”
This is the first time since we realized “James” was framing me that Alexa and I have spent a night apart. She’s been my alibi, kept me invulnerable from a frame-up. It’s had the added effect, of course, of keeping young women in this city safe from a serial killer.
Tonight, Joel and I have decided, is the night to take a chance on “James Drinker,” to give him an opportunity to attack Linda with us watching closely. So tonight, I’m going to stay home alone.
Or at least pretend to.
“Well, have fun, sailor,” she says to me. I haven’t told her what I’m doing. There’s no point in worrying her.
I head downstairs and make a big point of plopping down in a chair and watching a ball game on television. I never played baseball as a kid. Me and my friends, punks, idiots all of us, made fun of people who played baseball.
The game ends at nine-thirty. I stay in my chair until ten, then get up, stretch, and walk upstairs. I turn on the bathroom light and brush my teeth; then I turn off the light, turn off the light beside my bed, and crawl under the covers.
A half hour later, I slip out and crawl, in the darkness, to the staircase. I take dark stairs to the bottom level and sneak out the back door of my house. There is a small area there for barbecuing and not much more, then a high gate. I unlatch the gate and sneak into the alley, where a car is waiting for me. It’s Joel Lightner.
I duck into the backseat and stay down. Joel navigates the interior alley system, making a couple of turns until we come out two blocks away from my house.
Unless this guy is magical, he didn’t see me leave my house.
“Time to party,” Joel says, gunning the engine as we drive toward Linda’s house.
67.
Jason
Wednesday, July 17
Linda Sparks lives in a single-family bungalow on the northwest side that she inherited from her parents. It’s the third house from the corner, on a quarter-acre lot that backs into an alley. She has a six-foot plywood fence around the back and sides of her property, making access from the rear difficult but not impossible. The front of her house, a small lawn and walk-up, has no restrictions on access. Her driveway leads into a two-car garage.
Across the street is pretty much the same story, bungalows backing into alleys, most with fences up in the back of varying degrees of difficulty. This is where Joel saw “James” last night, on the side of the house across the street from Linda’s place. He must have entered through the alley, jumped the fence, and walked along the side of the house. He would have to jump another fence to get to the front, but last night he wasn’t interested in doing that, apparently. He just wanted to scope out the house.
Next door to the south, the house closest to Linda’s garage door, the neighbors have extensive shrubbery circling around their front porch. A good place to hide for an ambush. The papers, and Joel’s source at Area Three, have said that they believe the North Side Slasher likes to ambush women as they enter their houses. One of the women was jumped getting out of her car, presumably because the entryway to her home was too exposed, but the idea is the same. He likes to get them when their guards are down, where they feel safe, having arrived home. Too bad more people don’t realize that this is when they’re most vulnerable.
“If it were me, I’d sit in those bushes to the south, by her garage,” I say into my headphone. “When she pulls into the garage, I rush inside before the door comes down.”
“Why don’t you just announce your position, shoot a flare up or something,” Lightner whispers through my earbud, his tactful way of telling me to put a lid on it.
There are five of us covering Linda, which basically constitutes the entirety of Joel Lightner’s operation. One guy is in the car with her, sitting low in the backseat; one is in her garage right now; one is in her house right now; Joel is watching the alley behind her house; and then there’s me, across the street from Linda’s house, lying flat behind a row of bushes that aren’t very high but will do the trick as long as I stay horizontal.
“I’m five minutes away.” Linda’s voice in my earbud. “Any sign?”
“No sign,” says one of the guys, probably the one inside the house, where it’s safest to speak.
“You want me to keep coming?”
“Keep coming,” Joel whispers, his voice steely. We’re all feeling that way, the butterflies, our senses heightened now. We all figured that “James” would arrive early for the ambush, not being certain down to the minute of Linda’s arrival. Linda’s actually a little later than usual, by design, wanting to give “James” all the time he needs.
The air is thick and moist. The street is quiet, calm, only a handful of cars passing, a residential street filled with blue-collar workers, midweek. Up the street, a gaggle of children, probably middle-school age, are shooting a basketball against a backboard over the garage door, but already parents are calling their children inside. The street lighting is minimal, casting only a very pale yellow interrupting the darkness that hovers like a fog over the house. Linda’s house, in particular, lacks any lighting. The light over her garage and the front-porch light are both off, again by design, making the target more inviting.
My skin is starting its familiar itch, my stomach swimming. I’m overdue on my happy pills, but I need to keep my wits about me. I can feel it, I’d say if I were in a movie. But that sums it up. If it’s going to happen, it’s going to be tonight. And if it’s going to be tonight, it’s going to be now.
“
Two blocks away,” Linda says into my ear. “Anybody see anything?”
Nobody answers. I wiggle my toes, clench and release my calves, my thighs.
“Do you pull into the left side or the right side of the garage?” asks one of the guys, presumably the one in the garage.
“Left side,” she says.
“Well, pull into the right tonight. I’m in the left corner.”
“Roger that. Don’t accidentally shoot me, Halston. I’m removing my headset.”
Linda’s Grand Cherokee pulls up to her house, turns, and bounces onto the driveway as the garage door opens. Our guy Halston, in the left corner, is exposed, but only because I know to look for him. If someone’s about to charge into the garage, Halston will see him before he sees Halston.
Linda gets out of the car as if nothing is unusual, doesn’t rush but doesn’t dawdle, either, fishing for something in her purse. My eyes dart left-right, left-right, looking for any movement, any signs of something wrong. Linda walks the long way around the car, toward the driveway, exposing herself as much as she possibly can, walking slowly but not breaking stride, not being obvious about it.
Left-right, left-right, something, anything.
And then she curls around the car and walks up to the interior door and disappears inside.
The garage door grinds back down. Only then, I assume, will the guy hiding in the back of her SUV get out, and the guy in the corner of the garage move.
“And here I was hoping this would be my last night sleeping on Linda’s couch,” one of them says—the guy inside the house.
“Stay in role,” Lightner whispers harshly. He’s right. This may not be over. If he’s watching, he can’t see a bunch of silhouettes in the house along with Linda.
Everything goes quiet again.
My mind races. Have we missed something? Didn’t we think of everything? Has he outsmarted me again? I find myself ascribing superhero traits to our killer: He’s on the roof, rappelling down into her bedroom. He’s hiding in the dirt and will pop out of the soil like Rambo. He managed to evade Linda’s alarm and is hiding inside, beneath her bed.
Five minutes. Ten minutes.
We were wrong, I think to myself. He’s not here.
Then a red beater Toyota turns down the street, the car slowing, and pulls to a stop across from Linda’s house. Kills the headlights. Kills the engine.
A boxy sign atop the car. Can’t make out the name, but it’s a pizza place.
The car’s rear hatch pops open. The driver emerges, wearing a baseball cap. I can’t make him out from my position. Decent-sized man, dark hair I think, best I can do.
“Heads up, heads up,” I whisper, later than I should have. “Car stopped by me.”
“This our guy?” someone asks, breathless.
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “Did anyone order a pizza?”
The man pulls something out of the hatch. A pizza, it’s gotta be, carried in one of those thick warming covers.
“After we shoot this fucker, can we keep the pizza?”
The man crosses the street, quick-stepping it toward Linda’s driveway. His back to me, I rise and try for a better view. He looks big enough, I guess. I can’t tell. It’s dark, and I don’t have his face.
“Joel, I’m coming around the south side.” Sounds like Halston’s voice.
“I’ve got the north, then,” Joel says. “Nobody answers the door.”
The man waltzes up the driveway and turns for Linda’s walk. He steps up on the porch and rings the doorbell. Halston, his gun drawn, shuffles along the south side of the house, approaching the front. The gate on the north side opens, Lightner with his gun facing upward.
“Count of three,” Joel says. “One . . . two . . . THREE!”
At once, the front-porch light goes on and both Joel and Halston are within a few yards of the front door, guns poised on the man as they shout at him and into my ear, their words—“Show me your hands!” “Get the fuck down!”—echoing through my head in stereo.
The man, instantly shaken, drops the pizza and has a moment of What the fuck? before he drops to his knees, palms outward, head swiveling between the two armed men.
No, I instantly recognize.
My head shoots left-right, left-right, and then I stand, and then it happens, in my peripheral vision, movement to my right, we have startled each other simultaneously, just a quick flash of movement several houses down to my right, buried in the shadows.
A man turning and running?
I bolt from my position around the house and race to the fence leading to the backyard. I jump and climb it with some effort and don’t stop running until I hit the fence to the alley. I climb it and land hard in the alley, looking north.
The alley is motionless, quiet save for my heavy breaths.
Then a figure crosses my line of vision, from a house through the alley in a flash and then out of sight.
I run with everything I have. It was always what I did best, even more than my hands, that speed, fastest white guy I ever saw, my teammates at State said, and I forget my knee and I motor like I never have before.
“The alley . . . across the street,” I shout into my headphone, far too late for anyone to assist me, the sounds of the ruckus in front of Linda’s house still playing in my earpiece, as these guys finally begin to realize that they’ve been baited every bit as much as we tried to bait “James.”
I reach the fork in the alley system where he crossed, eastbound, and start running again. I didn’t bring my gun. Why didn’t I bring my gun? I splash through a puddle, turning my ankle in a pothole, and then I hear a car’s ignition, somewhere forward and to my right. I run to the next alley, running north-south, and see the car speeding away down the alley, headlights showing the way. I run toward it, losing ground badly, hoping for a partial license plate or a make and model, a smaller car, something like an Accord or Camry—
It passes under an alley light, and I—I can’t make out a plate, the color is something light, white or silver, yes, it’s an Accord—
And then it bounces into a left turn, tires squealing, and it’s gone.
“Where are you, Jason?” Lightner calls out.
“He’s . . . gone,” I say, my hands on my knees, panting. “He’s gone.”
68.
Jason
Wednesday, July 17
We sit around Linda’s kitchen table for a while, frustrated and spent, having just witnessed over a week’s worth of preparation and stress, danger, and risk end without anything to show for it. The pizza’s not half bad, the two bites I took before my stomach said stop, pepperoni and garlic. Doesn’t go so well with the bottle of Scotch that is passed around freely, but no one’s complaining.
“Not even a partial?” Linda asks me. “Not even a single letter or number?”
I shake my head. “Didn’t see the license plate at all.”
“He’s smart,” says the guy named Halston, a big Irish redhead. “He played us well.”
“Screw him being smart,” Joel says. “We were dumb. He tricked us with a prank we used to pull when we were kids.”
Maybe so, but Joel’s being too hard on himself. Everyone was so hyped up, and it was believable, a good ruse for a killer. Everyone answers the door for the pizza man, even if only to say, Sorry, wrong house.
“We should have played it out,” Joel says. “Answered the door, seen what he did. We had Linda covered six ways to Sunday. We should have given him a chance to make his move.”
Linda takes the Scotch and pours a few fingers into a glass. “We won’t get another chance like this,” she says.
Silence. Each of us believes what Linda just said. This was our chance, right here.
“On the bright side,” says Halston, “the pizza guy has a great story now.”
That gets a hard laugh, a release of nerves and tension. It feels good to laugh. I can’t remember the last time I laughed.
“The guy shows up to deliver a pie and suddenly h
e’s got guns in his face and he’s on his knees, begging for his life.” Lightner can hardly contain himself. “He must have been like, ‘What the fuck is happening?’” He buckles over in laughter.
“The poor guy wet his pants,” Linda gets out, wiping her eyes. “All he gets out of this is soiled underwear and a fifty-dollar tip. Is that how much you tipped him?” she asks Joel.
“I didn’t tip him,” he says. “I told you to tip him.”
“I thought you said you tipped him.”
“No, I said, ‘Tip him.’”
“So nobody tipped him?” I laugh. “We just sent him on his way? Did we at least pay for the pizza?”
Another round of laughter. Everyone at the table needs it. We let it linger, savor it, because the alternative is a lot more grim. Eventually it dies down, and we’re back to moody and bitter.
“A silver or white Accord,” Lightner says, shaking his head. “We’ll just run that through the DMV and we can narrow our list of suspects down to about two million people.”
“It’s something,” I say.
“It’s nothing. This guy’s a ghost. He’s nobody.”
I’m nobody.
I stir at the memory, just like that, like the snap of a finger, bursting from the fog of a conversation some six weeks ago. Something “James” said to me when he came to my office. A moment of self-pity, something like, I don’t matter to people, and then: I’m nobody to them. An odd thing to say, I recall thinking.
“I guess we go back to looking at old case files,” Joel says. “Anybody you prosecuted.”
I’m nobody to them.
And then, yes, I remember, clarity for once, finally, dark clouds parting ever so slightly and allowing in the sun: what he said to me when he left. He approached me, shook my hand good-bye, and said something odd again.
