Mortal Crimes 1

by Various Authors

  She nodded.

  He looked around in contemplation.

  She shivered. “Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Just before you knocked, I was working myself into a nifty case of the heebie-jeebies.”

  “This guy could scare anybody.” He stepped out, “Lock up, ma’am.”

  She closed and locked the door, then turned and started back to the bathroom.

  Creak.

  “Whadda’ya, crazy or something?” she whispered aloud to herself. Turning, she grabbed her purse, unlocked the door, and yanked it open.

  “Hold it a sec,” she called out to the detective as he was getting into his car. She stepped out, pulled the door closed behind her. “You know, I don’t think I want to stay here alone tonight. I have this friend, Val, who lives close by. How about giving me a lift?”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  At midmorning Robbi and Jake reclined in lounge chairs on the deck of the Tahoe house. Roberta stared at the hardy bromeliads clinging to a bowl-shaped piece of driftwood that sat on the deck’s railing. Beyond the plant she could see the clear blue lake. She thought of Ronnie. Could she ever look at driftwood or a body of water without thinking of her brother?

  “Penny for your thoughts,” Jake asked softly, caressing her arm.

  “I collected driftwood when I was a kid. I was thinking about how, in midsummer, when the water was low, my brother and I would go to the river to gather up special pieces for my collection.”

  They sat quietly for several moments.

  “A nickel for your thoughts,” Jake prompted.

  She placed her hand over his and squeezed. “Don’t you get tired of listening to other people’s problems?”

  “You’re not other people. Tell me about your brother.”

  “He drowned.”

  “How old?”

  “Eight. We were twins.” She felt the pressure of Jake’s hand. Again the ache in her chest. Such an old wound. How was it possible it could still be so raw?

  She glanced at Jake, looked away, cleared her throat, then began to talk. Tentatively at first, then to her utter amazement, the words spilled out.

  She and Ronnie were so close, practically inseparable. Her brother was sweet, funny, caring, and because she was such a tomboy, able to compete with him in everything, he allowed her to tag along wherever he went.

  Roberta began to tell Jake about the day her brother died.

  On a bright spring day in April, scarcely a week before their ninth birthday, Ronnie left the house before Roberta arose without a word to her or anyone in the family.

  At breakfast, as Roberta sullenly toyed with her Cheerios, an image of fast-moving water flashed across her mind. She squeezed her eyes shut, opened them. The image vanished.

  At midday, when Ron failed to appear, Roberta began to worry, along with her parents. Fleeting images of a raging river, swollen from the spring melt-off of snow on the mountain, plagued her all day.

  At dusk her father called the police. Two uniformed policemen came to the house. They asked endless questions, took the photograph of Ron from the mantel, and left. Dinner that night was solemn, tense.

  Roberta was sent to bed early, and after what seemed an eternity, she fell into a fitful sleep. She dreamed about Ronnie. In the dream he was walking along the edge of the riverbank, his arms laden with driftwood. He spotted a twisted piece of wood wedged in the crevice of a boulder several feet from the bank. He took hold of a tree branch, bright with new green leaves, and leaned out over a stretch of rapid water. The limb broke, dropping him into the freezing water.

  Within seconds he was swept downstream, tossed and tumbled over slick boulders. After several minutes he managed to grab hold of a bush on the opposite shore. The relentless raging water continued to pull at him. He called out, his cries feeble, ineffectual over the roar of the white water. He hung on for some time, then, too exhausted to keep his head above water, he let go. The river took him.

  In those few moments Roberta had shared his anguish, hopelessness, and, ultimately, his peace.

  She woke up screaming. Her mother held her as she sobbed out her dream.

  “He’s … he’s dead,” she wailed.

  Her mother shushed her.

  The doorbell rang and her mother hurried to answer it. For several endless moments her father stood silent at the foot of her bed, a strangeness in his eyes. Then he turned and left the room.

  Roberta followed. In the hall, squatting on her heels, her arms hugging her legs, she peered around the doorjamb at the front door. The policemen stood stiffly, hats in hand. Her mother sobbed. A word now and then drifted to her. River. Body. Bridge.

  Roberta crept back to bed, her own tears swallowed by the large, lonely room. Ronnie was dead. She’d seen him die. Her brother had sneaked off to the river to gather driftwood for her collection and had died for it.

  The night of the funeral Roberta lay sobbing in her room. Her mother sat on the bed and held her. “Mama, it was my fault. I knew where he was. He didn’t tell me, but I knew. I saw it in my head. The river. I kept seeing the river.”

  “Hush, Roberta. Don’t you ever let your father hear you say that. He’ll have you put away with those other poor children at the institution. Not a word to anyone,” her mother said harshly. “That’s crazy talk. You don’t want people to think you’re crazy, do you?”

  ________

  Robbi felt Jake’s comforting embrace and leaned into him.

  “He started drinking after that.”

  “Your father?”

  “Yes. He blames me for Ron’s death.”

  “Why you?”

  “Because Ron wouldn’t have gone off to the river alone if not for me. Because he thought I knew where Ron was but chose to keep quiet. Because I should have been the one to die and not his only son.” She buried her face in her hands. “I just don’t know. All I know is that he’s a mean, rotten sonofabitch.”

  “To you alone?”

  She shook her head. “To my mother, my sister, everyone. But it’s because of me.”

  “Honey, you’ve carried this tremendous burden, this guilt, for over twenty years. I think it’s time you finally let it go. It’s probably too late for him. But it’s not too late for you.”

  They were interrupted by the loud popping of pine cones crunching under tires, announcing a visitor.

  They exchanged wary glances as Detective Avondale, his face a stoic mask, strode across the sandy yard to the wooden steps. He stopped, stared up at them.

  “What’s happened?” Jake asked.

  “I was hoping Miss Paxton could tell me,” Avondale said evenly.

  Robbi looked from Avondale to Jake, then back to Avondale. “Tell you what?”

  “He got another one early yesterday morning.”

  Robbi sat up straight, her pulse accelerating.

  Jake motioned for Avondale to join them. He started to rise. “Can I get you something?”

  “No, no thanks, I’m okay.” The detective lowered himself into a chair gingerly, like an old man. “We set a trap for him at your place, Miss Paxton. Five armed cops, a K-9, and the … the decoy. This maniac—he came crashing through like Godzilla mowing down a Japanese village. Struck down everyone in his path, grabbed the decoy, and … off he went into the night.”

  Robbi took Jake’s hand.

  “He got away?” Jake asked.

  “Yeah. One … dead, two injured, not counting the dog.”

  “The decoy?”

  He sighed loudly. “Dead.”

  “Oh, God,” Robbi whispered.

  “He killed the decoy—Roberta’s look-alike,” Jake said; “so he had to think he killed Roberta, right?”

  Avondale nodded solemnly. “Miss Paxton, you sure you saw nothing? It happened around four in the morning, yesterday.”

  She paused, looking to Jake for help. He shrugged helplessly. “I do remember a dream, but not about him. It had something to do with a storm, a tornado, and … and a dead boy.”<
br />
  Avondale stared at her. Then he sighed and stood. “More bad news. Carl Masser’s pickup was found at the Truckee-Tahoe airport. Airport security figured it’d been parked in the lot for at least six days. CSI is going over it now with a fine-tooth comb.”

  Jake and Robbi exchanged looks again. A heaviness hung over her, muggy, oppressive, like the air just before a thunderstorm.

  ________

  In a parking lot at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Avondale parked where he could see the traffic on Lake Shore Drive. If Paxton and Reynolds’s tried to take off to hide elsewhere, there was a good chance he’d know it.

  They were both suspicious and wary.

  He realized the whole fucking thing had been handled badly. Now, after losing two of their own, the department had finally formed a task force. Not one centimeter of the Paxton house or the vacant house, where the grisly remains of Officer Howe had been discovered, would be overlooked for clues by the forensic team. Each piece of broken glass was being analyzed for fingerprints, each fiber, hair, or particle large enough to be collected was on its way to the crime lab. Yet the only sure thing they had was Roberta Paxton with her mainline to the killer. How long before she’d realize the killer was still after her?

  He had lied about the decoy. He’d kept the sex of the dead officer a secret from them. No contact with the killer, she’d said. Just this crazy dream about a boy.

  Christ.

  The department, deciding it was too risky to use a woman officer as a decoy, had picked effeminate, five-foot-eight Frank Howe. Only a selected few knew that the bludgeoned nude body found in the vacant house, covered with women’s clothing, had been savagely mutilated. Castrated.

  In a roundabout way, Roberta Paxton had dreamed about the incident. A tornado—the killer?And the death of a boy—Frank? Odd that she would perceive it in such an unorthodox way.

  Odd? Shit, it was downright creepy.

  ________

  Roberta stood on the deck, facing the lake. Jake hoisted himself up on the railing, then pulled Robbi in between his legs. She wrapped her arms around his waist.

  “I’m scared,” she said.

  “If you want to move on, just say the word.” Jake gently lifted a long strand of her hair that had caught on her eyelashes and brushed it back.

  “I’m so tired.”

  “We’ll stay the night, then.”

  “Jake, do you think Carl found Maggie’s killer? Or that the killer found Carl?”

  “I don’t know, hon.”

  Roberta covered Jake’s hand. She felt a raised ridge on his palm. She turned his hand over and gingerly ran her finger over the scar. “What happened here?”

  “Someone I once loved cut me.”

  “Tell me,” she said quietly.

  Jake absently rubbed the scar as he told Roberta about meeting Susan Calla and the chaotic relationship that followed. Then: “After nearly two years of being subjected to her psychosis, I begged her to get counseling. She refused. Out of desperation I threatened to have her committed. It was nothing more than an idle threat, but I hoped it would push her in the right direction. In a blind rage she attacked me with a boning knife.”

  “What happened to her?”

  Jake swallowed, rubbed hard at his palm. “She killed herself… used the same knife. She bled…” His words trailed off.

  She kissed him, light, tender.

  They held each other, said nothing for the longest time.

  Then, gazing into her eyes, Jake said softly, “I love you.”

  “Jake…”

  “So much it hurts.”

  “That’s good.” She embraced him tightly. “I hate to love alone.”

  ________

  Avondale crossed the street to a pay phone. Time to check in with his partner.

  Clark came on the line. “We got fingerprints, all kinds of fingerprints. We got blood, two different sources, so one specimen probably belongs to the perp.”

  “Yeah, makes sense. The bullet wound from the Lerner killing. As far as we know, he never had it medically treated,” Avondale said. An involuntary shiver seized him. “Jesus, this guy’s something. He’s no longer being cautious. He must want this Paxton woman pretty bad.”

  “Where are you?” Clark asked.

  “Incline. I just talked to Paxton and the doctor.”

  “She have anything to add?”

  “Yeah, only she didn’t know it. She had no contact with this guy in the usual psychic way. But she dreamed about a tornado and a dead boy.”

  After a long pause, Clark said, “Scary shit. We’re checking with hospitals in at least six states.”

  “Hospitals?”

  “Mental hospitals. With those seizures, our guy could be certified.”

  The news did nothing to lighten Avondale’s dark spirit. A mental case. The worst kind to deal with.

  “I’m going to hang around here a little longer in case she tries to run. I’ll check back with you in a couple of hours.”

  Three hours later Avondale again crossed the street and made a call to his partner. An excited Clark got on the line. “Eureka, we made him!”

  “No shit?” Avondale said, his own voice high and excited. “Give it to me.”

  “Joseph Eckker,” Clark said. “We’re still waiting for the DNA results, but the fingerprints paid off. No aliases. Thirty-five. Felon. Four years ago he scaled the fence at the Lompoc Federal Penitentiary.”

  “Escaped?” Avondale said incredulously, patting his empty breast pocket. Right now he’d kill for a cigarette. “That’s fucking maximum security.”

  “He had another con cut themselves out, then took a walk on a foggy night. The other one got caught right away. Eckker had a habit of going on the lam. Five other times from various prisons and correctional institutions. I’m looking at a picture of him right now. Came over the fax. Big dude. And not real pretty.”

  “Any relatives?”

  “Father unknown. Mother murdered by a boyfriend or a John when he was just a kid. After her death he was raised by grandparents on a farm in northern California.”

  “What would bring Eckker to these parts?”

  “I’ve been asking myself that.”

  “You have a file on him?”

  “A thick one.”

  Avondale looked around him. The sun had set, yet complete darkness was a ways off. He wanted to know everything there was to know about Joseph Eckker.

  “Brief me.”

  ________

  Eckker sat parked on the other side of the lane on Lake Shore Drive, in the opposite direction of the Hyatt Regency Hotel, where the cop had positioned himself. He smiled. At a point in the middle sat his prey, waiting for him.

  It had been so easy. He had broken the window and entered the house of the woman with the noisy car. From her bedroom he’d heard the cop at the door say he wanted to talk to Roberta Paxton in person. He had only to follow the cop.

  She was just down that short, narrow lane. Soon he’d pay her a visit.

  ________

  Avondale clutched the receiver. Clark’s information had the hair on the back of his neck rising.

  Avondale caught a flash of a white car as it turned the corner at the intersection and disappeared behind a Trailways bus. He whipped around, clanking the receiver against the metal hood of the phone booth. Were they running? Jesus, he couldn’t lose them.

  The car reappeared in front of the bus and Avondale was relieved to see it wasn’t Dr. Reynolds’ classic T-bird.

  “I’m going back to talk to Paxton. Check with you later.”

  The bright flashing lights of the hotel casino across the street seemed at odds with the peaceful pine-dotted splendor of the mountain on which it stood. It was fully dark now.

  Avondale went into a convenience store and bought two packs of Pall Malls.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Jake walked up from the dock in the dark. A hundred yards from the house he looked up to see Roberta at the bay window, wat
ching him approach.

  He gripped the flare gun he’d retrieved from his boat. He’d had to resort to a flare gun, but it was better than no gun at all. For the first time in his life he wished he had an honest-to-God gun, something big and powerful like the cannon Dirty Harry carried. Or a sawed-off shotgun, or one of those outlawed assault rifles. Right now nothing could be too big or too commanding.

  As he neared the deck, Jake thought he heard the purring sound of an idling car. He slowed, slipping his finger into the trigger guard of the flare gun.

  The sound died suddenly. Jake paused, listened, hearing only the water lapping at the boat and dock pilings. He veered off the road and slipped into the woods. With a pounding heart he moved furtively from tree to tree. Midway down the road, parked fully on the shoulder, was a light green car, whipcord antenna catching the light from a house across the way.

  The beating of Jake’s heart steadied. He felt his muscles relax and he smiled. Avondale. He should have known. He was either staking out the place or making sure they didn’t hit the road without a forwarding address. The detective’s presence was okay by Jake. At least Avondale had a gun with real bullets and knew how to use it.

  Jake turned and, as quietly as he could, made his way back to the house.

  ________

  The utter silence unnerved Avondale. He had cut his engine, and except for the diffused lights of a house in the woods off to his right, it was dark and quiet.

  Only a moment before he thought he’d seen someone wandering around in the dark. The sound of a branch snapping to his left had goose bumps popping out along his arms. Another crack, then steps, slow and deliberate. Avondale mashed his cigarette out in the ashtray and pulled his .45 from the halter holster. He opened the door and slipped out, closing the door without latching it.

  Someone or something was out there in the trees. Man or beast? As he neared the doctor’s house, twigs snapped sharply under his feet. A frog croaked a moment later. Shadows stood like black giants, crisscrossing one another. Spiked fingers plucked his shirtsleeves and ruffled his hair.

  He stopped, listened, then moved on. The outline of the house and dock materialized through the tall ponderosa pines. He hadn’t run into anyone, nor had he heard movement other than his own since he left his car. Probably deer or, with his rotten luck, it’d be a rabid skunk, both ends ready to rip.