“Maybe it’s time to come clean with the club.” She offered.
“No way!” He answered a little sharply. He saw a bit of hurt in her expression and softened his tone. “Look, I don’t trust Baker. When he told that rapist I was coming and set me up for an ambush that was all I needed to know. I don’t want to spend the rest of our lives looking over my shoulder. If I knew he had my number we’d have to go underground, permanently. So I’d rather we take our chances and try to outlast this guy. Even if we can’t, we’re no worse off.”
This was Lovelle’s area of expertise and Maria made no objection. Later, he would wonder if things might have turned out differently had he listened to her. It would be another great “what if” in a long life that was filled with them.
***
Over the next year and a half Hardy showed up four more times without ever seeing Maria. Each time, Lovelle spotted him right off and the couple kept their distance while their visitor was in town. A couple of weeks after each visit Lovelle would go on a mission. Maria would keep watch over Hardy’s favorite stakeout locales just in case, but, nothing ever come of that.
After Hardy’s sixth visit and Lovelle’s fourth mission, Hardy seemed to back away. At first the couple was relieved. Then the realization struck Lovelle that Baker would expect him to be living on his own now, not making up for a semester of high school lost to his excursion to Cuba. The observer might well have shown up at the apartment Lovelle was supposed to be occupying. What would he do in that case? Lovelle wasn’t exactly sure of the timing of Baker’s visit back then, but, he was pretty confident it wasn’t too closely after graduation. If the observer had discovered that his subject wasn’t where he had anticipated, he would have to come around to try and re-acquire Lovelle at his parents’ home. And finding that he hadn’t immediately moved out shouldn’t seem that unusual. But discovering that he had not completed school on time could be a bit of a red flag. He just couldn’t be sure. The whole situation was making him paranoid which was neither a familiar nor a comfortable position for Lovelle.
Lovelle and Maria rented an apartment in the building where Baker had visited him. That would ensure that there was a place for him if the observer came calling. Unfortunately, he had lived there on two occasions and wasn’t at all certain of the number of either apartment. He had to hope that Baker had neither that detail, nor the date and time nailed down too precisely. With no ability to carry documentation over from skip to skip, he had to hope that even if his adversary were that thorough, he would have to accept a minor discrepancy as a potential clerical error.
Shortly before graduation, Hardy returned. Lovelle had no idea whether the man had gone to look for him at the apartment or not. All he knew was that the observer was back at the school one day. He wondered what the man knew, and what he thought about finding his subject still in school. Lovelle didn’t believe he had given Baker the impression of a particularly motivated individual during their one meeting. And plenty of high school kids fail to graduate on time. As long as his shadow couldn’t determine why Lovelle had failed, he shouldn’t find it overly suspicious. And as the days stretched on and there was no effort to confront Lovelle, he began to relax again. The man might be more suspicious now, but, if he knew something definitive he would not continue lurking about.
Graduation came and went. Lovelle took up residence in his new apartment. Hardy disappeared for a while and Lovelle completed another mission. Hardy returned and started watching the apartment. The timeframe in which Baker might have visited went by and Lovelle got no indication that the observer had noticed this fact in any way. Confident now that it was safe to move, they only had to wait for the man to takeoff again. When he did, they promptly left for Vegas.
A few weeks later they invited some family to come out as they exchanged vows at a little chapel on the Strip. Lovelle’s parents, or more precisely Lovelle’s mother was a little disappointed that they wouldn’t be putting on a big affair with all the extended family coming to celebrate. It was just one more little assault on the dreams they had for the once promising future of their son. But it was little different than the last life when they weren’t trying to keep a low profile. Then, the couple had married in a small Detroit area chapel with a little reception in a restaurant banquet room. They had both experienced their share of big production weddings, and were happy to keep the affair intimate.
Situated now in their new home, Lovelle wondered how persistent and resourceful his shadow might be. Could he track them down out there? Probably. But, could he do so without Lovelle finding out about it? Would he even bother after more than two years of no return on his time invested? The couple could only hope.
Chapter 13
Elton Hardy was both persistent and plenty resourceful. Plus, despite Lovelle’s hopes to the contrary, Hardy’s time had definitely netted him some useful information. What Lovelle failed to consider was how much Hardy could learn about him while he was watching someone else. By process of elimination Lovelle was a part of an ever narrowing list of suspects.
Each time Lovelle removed a killer from his own list of targets, Baker knew about it. For years he had worked to compile a list of the vigilante’s victims. Although it had been impossible to go back to the historical records to identify them, since they were always preemptive strikes, Baker and the 7/17 club began tracking the vigilante’s kills as soon as Baker realized what was going on. They were identifying potential targets the same way Lovelle did. Every captured murderer, molester, or rapist that hit the news became a subject of interest. While Lovelle sorted through those reports to decide who he should investigate, the club simply filed them away in their collective memory bank. In subsequent lives, when one of the killers failed to materialize, they knew they had identified one of the vigilante’s ‘victims’. Couple those together with their own recollection of infamous serial killers, who were Lovelle’s earliest targets, and Baker had a fairly complete copy of Lovelle’s hit list. And since he had forced Lovelle to turn sniper, Baker’s job had become simple. Although they had botched the attempt to trap him, and lost their best chance to catch him in the act, they had forced Lovelle to tip his hand a bit. Baker and Lovelle were playing a game of chess, and Baker was using Hardy to maneuver his opponent into check mate.
While Lovelle was patting himself on the back for being able to time his missions between Hardy’s visits, Hardy was able to eliminate whatever suspect he was watching at the time of the killing. Based on the time of his birth, Lovelle had already been the chief suspect. Now he was the chief suspect on a pretty short list.
Initially, Hardy had only used the times of killings to cross people off his list. He hadn’t been looking for a pattern in the timing. Baker had told him that the vigilante struck randomly, presumably to throw his pursuers off. He was nothing if not methodical and thorough, so Hardy had assumed he would know if there was some pattern to be detected. And, as far as the order of the removals went, Baker was right. Lovelle always had a handful of potential targets when the time came to act, and he usually let things like weather conditions and flight schedules dictate who was next.
But now there was a pattern in the timing that Baker had never had an opportunity to witness. Hardy didn’t see it until the fourth mission because he hadn’t considered that he himself might be an impetus for change. Once he saw how the vigilante’s actions correlated with his own, however, he saw the logic of it. If Curtis Lovelle was the experienced assassin Hardy now believed him to be, then it stood to reason that he would have spotted a tail. Hardy realized that he had been too relaxed in his surveillance. Too predictable. At first he was angry with himself. No one had ever seen him coming before. He knew that one of his subjects was an accomplished assassin, and he should have treated them all with more deference. But, his anger was short lived because it had turned out to his favor anyhow. Lovelle had become predictable too. All of the vigilante’s kills had occurred shortly after Hardy had switched off surveillance from Love
lle to some other suspect.
Finally having pieced this together, Hardy went back to Detroit, planning to let himself be spotted as before. After a short time he would appear to break off as in the past. He would disguise himself and use new tactics, causing Lovelle to believe he’d left again. If he was right, Lovelle would quickly be on the move and Hardy would know for sure. Instead, Hardy discovered that Lovelle was gone. At first he guessed the vigilante was on another mission. That might throw off his theory about the timing, but, it would give him the info he needed nonetheless. He figured that if he sat tight Lovelle would return and a short time later Baker would call to inform him that another target had gone down.
Three weeks into his visit Hardy started to feel impatient. It was an unusual feeling for someone of his age, experience, and temperament, and he chided himself for it. Two weeks more and that impatience got the better of him. He called Baker and asked him to make sure they hadn’t missed something.
“Like what?” Baker asked, wondering what could have shaken the always stoic Englishman. Baker had never detected anything resembling disquiet in the man before. And Hardy had never once questioned the thoroughness of Baker and his sources.
“Well, I was wondering if someone might have gotten the better of our dear vigilante.”
“Why? What would make you think that?” Baker questioned, suspicion creeping into his voice. “The vigilante has all the advantages. They are very good at what they do. As far as we can tell they’ve never had a problem with an assassination. Well, except for the one time, and we set them up for that. Heck, they’re more careful than ever now. And we haven’t tipped off any of their victims this time. I don’t see that there’s any reason to be concerned for his or her welfare.” He paused, “Or am I wrong?”
This was where it got tricky for Hardy and he began to wish he hadn’t made the call. He had not mentioned his suspicions about Lovelle, and he didn’t intend to. Baker did not track Hardy’s movements and would not have seen the correlation between the timing of the assassinations and the visits to Detroit. Hardy maintained a Portland number where he could field messages from Baker. That was supposed to make it simple for Baker, but, Hardy actually set it up that way just for this purpose. Hardy had his own agenda and it did not mesh with Bakers.
“No, I’m sure you’re right Cedric. I suppose I’m just getting impatient. It has been some time since the last killing, and, disturbing as it may be, I cannot narrow my search if the killer does not kill.” Since it served him for the moment Hardy let his frustration spill over into his voice. “This whole process has already taken entirely too much time.”
“All right,” Baker conceded, “If it will set your mind at ease, I’ll run checks on all of his victims. Do ya wanna give me a number where I can reach you if I do find something out?”
Baker had never asked for any number other than the local one before. Hardy assumed, correctly, that his friend was fishing for information. If Baker could determine where Hardy was he might be able to figure out who had shaken the usually unshakable man. And, why his trusted friend was apparently holding out on him.
“No. I’m seldom there. Better to leave messages in the usual way. That way I can check them from anywhere.”
Hardy had miscalculated. He needed Baker to trust him and he had jeopardized that with his impatience. But, the damage was done and he saw no way to undo it. He needed to know who the vigilante was, but, it was equally important that the 7/17 club remain in the dark. If Baker knew his identity they might do something to drive him further underground. They had already underestimated him once and let the killer know they were a threat. Even he had failed to give the man his due and now he had to hope he hadn’t sent him into hiding.
He decided he wasn’t going to wait for Baker to check the victims. His friend was right, the vigilante was not about to let a target turn the tables on him. If it was Lovelle, then he had either relocated, or something unrelated had happened to him. And Hardy was going to find out from the people who would know, Lovelle’s parents.
A day later he knocked on their door. Lovelle’s father answered, as Hardy knew he would. Hardy had been watching for his mother to leave. He did not want to deal with a woman, since they tend to be much more wary of strangers. “Yes?” the man said in a slightly inpatient tone.
“Hi. Is Curtis home?” Hardy asked in a good imitation of a Midwest American accent.
“Uh, no. Curtis moved out.” Lovelle’s father said hesitantly. “Can I help you with something?” His father obviously assumed this was something other than a social call, since friends would all know he had left home.
Hardy acted surprised “No… I’m sorry. I just hadn’t heard. We don’t really hang around with the same people, so I guess I wouldn’t have.” He hesitated, “We worked together at Taco Hut. But I quit a few months ago. He gave me his address and told me to come by some time. I guess I’ve been too busy.” He explained. “Could I get his phone number?”
The father seemed satisfied with the explanation. His expression softened. “Sure, though I don’t know how much good it’ll do you. He moved out of state. Surprised us all. Just picked up and left. He and Maria got married a couple of weeks later.”
“Really! He never said a word about anything like that to me.” Hardy feigned surprise. “I suppose that’s not the best topic for the break room. I’d still like to call him though. Say congratulations and apologize for not getting in touch sooner.”
***
It was a little more trouble than it would be with the internet, but, it didn’t take long to figure out that the phone number Hardy had secured from Lovelle’s father was a Las Vegas exchange. And he was now surer than ever that Lovelle was his man. For one thing, he had known all along that the vigilante had to be spending great sums of money in his work, yet was accumulating that money without garnering the attention that normally goes along with such wealth. There simply wasn’t a better place to do that than Vegas. Plus, in all of his visits Hardy had never seen Lovelle with a girl. And now he was married? And from the casual way his father had mentioned her name, like even an old coworker should know her, she was no secret, and not some whirlwind romance and elopement.
That meant Lovelle was hiding her whenever he knew he was being observed. The question was, why? Surely the vigilante didn’t believe that the 7/17 club was a threat to his loved ones. If he did, Hardy was quite sure the man would have long ago taken the fight to them, instead of playing cat and mouse. The vigilante didn’t appear to be a cold blood killer, but, he wasn’t shy about it either.
For the moment he couldn’t imagine a reason for Lovelle to hide his girl. But, he figured that would be revealed in time. The reason didn’t matter as much as the fact that it just about cemented his identity as the vigilante. The circumstantial evidence had amassed into a mountain. Now he just had to find his killer.
***
Hardy arrived in Las Vegas a day later and set up shop in an extended stay hotel. Consulting the phone book led to nothing. It had been a long shot considering their recent arrival. However, a call to directory assistance confirmed what he had anticipated, that their number was also unlisted. That meant that no future phone directory would yield him an address either. A check with the local assessor’s office also yielded no results. No one by the name of Lovelle had purchased any property since the last time he had personally seen the man in Detroit. Again, that was no surprise. Who would finance a home for a newly arrived 18 year old? And paying cash for a home would be a little too conspicuous for someone who knew he was being watched.
Fortunately, the area code and prefix of Lovelle’s number did allow him to narrow down to a specific area of the city, saving him from having to cover the entire metro area. That would have been impossible. As it was, the prefix placed them in the northwest part of the valley, at the outer area of the built out section of the city. That really helped cut down on the number of places they were likely to frequent. He was going to be watching ga
s stations, restaurants, grocery stores, and casinos. Maybe for a long time. He had little hope now that Baker would be of much help until he could find his quarry.
He settled on starting with one gas station at morning and afternoon rush, one casino sports book in the evening, and lunch and dinner at a different local eatery each day. For as long as it took, every week he would choose a new gas station and casino. It was a decent strategy and given enough time he would lay eyes on just about everybody living in the vicinity.
***
Still, Lovelle wasn’t like everybody else. Many of his own targets had required a bit of a manhunt. And although he had never taken on quite so daunting a search as now faced Hardy, he knew what it took to locate someone with relatively scant information. He had no intention of making it any easier on his shadow if the man persisted. Neither he nor Maria “frequented” any place. Although they were by no means recluses, they did not spend very much time in public together, at least not while in Vegas. Certainly, not as much time as they would have liked. When they did dine out together they never went to the same place twice. You could go for a longtime like that in Vegas before you ran out of restaurants. They did the same thing for gas, and to the extent they could, for groceries.
For good measure, Maria cut her long black hair into a short bob and bleached it blonde. At best the observer only knew her from a memory of a picture. He’d have to get a very good look to identify her. And she looked so different at a glance that there would be no reason to take a harder look.
Chapter 14
By all rights, Hardy should have come up empty for so long that even he would give up and take another tack. He was good, but, the advantage had again scoring to Lovelle. It was hard enough to find someone when they didn’t know you were looking for them. When your subjects were purposely making it difficult, it could seem near to impossible. The deck was definitely stacked in Lovelle’s favor. Still, there’s an old saying that goes, “Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.”
Time Skip (Book 2): The Time Skippers Page 11
