Dead Before Dark

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  The knife, the blood, the red lipstick. She heard it, too: a man laughing hysterically as a woman gasped her dying breath.

  Lucinda doesn’t know who, or where, the woman is.

  She couldn’t get a good look at her face or any identifying characteristics—other than her mouth, contorted, bleeding…grotesquely smeared with red lipstick.

  All she knows is that it’s too late.

  Again.

  Riding across campus, head bent low over the handlebars of the bicycle, he sees telltale flashing lights in the distance, right where he left Julian Dodd with his throat neatly slit and a book of Ibsen plays clutched in his hands.

  He left the kid’s backpack there, but took his wallet along with his cell phone, making it look—at least, for now—like a random mugging.

  By the time they find Kelly Patterson and make the Night Watchman connection, he’ll be hundreds of miles away from Seattle.

  “There are sixty-five thousand people on this campus,” Al Butirski tells Vic and Lucinda, sitting across the desk from him. “Since I came here in the late eighties, there have been three murders. None of them were random. This looks like it might have been.”

  Vic wants to remind him that looks can be deceiving, but that would put the burly head of the university police department on the defensive.

  “Did this boy have any enemies? Was he dating anyone that you know of?”

  “I hear he was dating everyone.” Al flashes them a wry smile. “And I don’t know about enemies. But his wallet and phone were taken, so again, this looks like a random mugging.”

  Vic isn’t so sure about that at all. “Was there anything unusual about the way the body was found?”

  “Not really. He had just come from the library this afternoon and he was holding a book in his hands.”

  “What book was it?” Lucinda asks.

  “A collection of plays by, let’s see…” He consults a notepad. “Henrik Ibsen.”

  “Ibsen. He wrote A Doll’s House.”

  “Very good, Agent Shattuck.” Butirski smiles briefly. “Were you a lit major? Theater?”

  “No, but I know a little about it.”

  A Doll’s House.

  Guys and Dolls.

  Coincidence?

  Glancing at Lucinda, Vic sees that it hasn’t escaped her, either.

  A uniformed officer sticks his head into the small office. “Hey, Al?”

  “What’s up?”

  “Sorry to interrupt, but we’ve got a girl out here who says her roommate went to meet that Dodd kid a little while ago.”

  Vic feels Lucinda stiffen beside him.

  “Bring her in,” Butirski commands the officer, then looks, belatedly, at Vic. “Is that okay?”

  “Sooner the better,” Vic tells him.

  Moments later, a shaken-looking girl is escorted into the office. She has a blond ponytail, a round face, and frightened-looking brown eyes.

  “This is Renee Danziger,” the officer informs them.

  “Have a seat, Renee. Who’s your roommate?”

  “Her name is Kelly Patterson.” She sinks into a chair.

  “And you don’t know where she is right now?”

  The girl shakes her head. “She went to meet Julian a little while ago.”

  “Was she dating him?”

  “She thought so. They were in the show together.”

  Lucinda’s head snaps up. “Guys and Dolls?”

  Renee nods. “Kelly had the lead. She was really into Julian, but everyone knows he’s a player. That’s why I was surprised he wanted to see her tonight. So was she. Then after she left, one of my friends called and told me he’d been killed. I am so freaked out.” She starts crying.

  “Renee—” Al Butirski plucks a tissue from the box and hands it to her. “That doesn’t mean something happened to her. Maybe when he didn’t show up she went somewhere else, or—”

  “No, you don’t understand. She got a text message from him, saying he wanted to meet her.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know—maybe an hour ago?”

  Butirski looks at Vic and Lucinda.

  “The kid’s been dead longer than that. We found his body before seven o’clock.”

  “Renee,” Vic says urgently, “do you know where your friend was supposed to meet him?”

  “On the trail by the stream behind Graves Field.”

  Speeding along on a bicycle through the dark streets of Seattle, he can almost hear his mother telling him to be careful.

  Story of his life—until that late November day in 1969.

  The coldest crime of all, the prosecuting attorney called matricide during his closing arguments. The jury stared at him, and he knew they were going to convict.

  He was right.

  He’s always right.

  They deliberated for less than an hour.

  Found him guilty of manslaughter: the taking of a human life without premeditation.

  Ha.

  If they only knew.

  But they didn’t.

  They had no idea who he really was, nothing at all to link him to the murders of all those women.

  That, and being safe from the draft, were what kept him going for all those years, gloating as he kept tabs from behind bars on both Vietnam and the news that law enforcement officials from Maine to the Great Lakes, including the FBI, were continuing their search for the Night Watchman.

  What power there was for him—from his safe haven behind thirty foot high, gun-tower topped concrete walls—to observe the bumbling, ongoing search for a serial killer!

  What power in the fact that he alone knew their search would remain fruitless!

  What power in knowing the guards had no clue to his true identity!

  In prison, it was all about control. The guards had it. The prisoners relinquished it.

  Or so it usually went.

  Not for him.

  He was in control, always. Even if nobody realized it but him.

  In prison, when they weren’t ignoring him altogether, they were treating him like a nobody.

  How he gloated over that.

  Idiots had no clue that he was Somebody.

  Somebody to be feared. Somebody to be reckoned with.

  But they would know, one day.

  The whole world would know.

  For the time being, he would serve his sentence, with time off for good behavior. He would take advantage of every class—academic and vocational and, in particular, computer technology—offered at Attica. Someday, he would get back to his business, and no one would ever be the wiser.

  No one, that is, except Stockman.

  Standing a few yards from Kelly Patterson’s corpse in the floodlit thicket just off the trail, Lucinda desolately watches the investigators take measurements, snap photos, bag potential evidence found nearby on the path: a soda can pop top, a coin, a plastic hair clip.

  Kelly’s throat is slashed.

  Her mouth is smeared with red lipstick.

  And on her wrist is a Freestyle watch, the hands fixed at 8:26 P.M.

  Less than an hour ago.

  It could have ended so differently.

  If only Lucinda had figured out sooner what that song meant.

  If only they’d gotten to Kelly before he did.

  They could have intercepted the message sent from Julian Dodd’s stolen cell phone. They could have been here waiting for him when he showed up to kill her at sunset.

  Could have…

  If only…

  Randy!

  She forgot to call him.

  Immediately, she reaches into her pocket for her cell phone and realizes it isn’t there. Did she leave it behind in her room? She ran out of there when Vic showed up.

  She hurries over to where he stands talking intently to a couple of guys from the local field office.

  “Vic, can I borrow your phone, please? It’ll only take two seconds.”

  He tosses it to her without missing a convers
ational beat, and she steps away to make the call. It’s after midnight there now, but something tells her Randy didn’t calmly drift off to sleep when he didn’t hear from her.

  “Hello?” She can hear the dread in his voice when he answers, on the first ring.

  “It’s me.”

  “Oh, God…Thank God…When I saw that this call wasn’t coming from your phone I thought…”

  “No. I’m okay. I’m so sorry I couldn’t call you to let you know, but—”

  “You’re okay,” he echoes raggedly.

  She quickly brings him up to date, telling him the tragic story of Kelly and Julian.

  “Where are you now?”

  “I’m at the crime scene, and I’m on Vic Shattuck’s phone—”

  She breaks off, seeing Vic and the agents hurrying toward a couple of investigators who are positioning more spotlights to illuminate the path. They must have found something there.

  “I have to go, Randy,” she says hurriedly. “I just wanted you to know I was okay. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Good—”

  “Wait, there’s something I want you to know, too. Don’t say anything, okay? Just listen to me. I love you, Lucinda. I’ve been waiting to say that for so damned long. I love you. Now go.”

  Stunned, she stands holding the phone against her ear.

  “Lucinda!” Vic calls. “Come over here and look at this!”

  In a perfect world they would burst into the room at the Motel 6—registered to a John Knight and paid for in cash—to discover the unsub there, asleep in his bed.

  But the world is far from perfect.

  There’s no doubt that the key card they discovered on the path near Kelly’s body belongs to her killer; there were drops of blood on it.

  But when the agents storm the room, it’s empty.

  Summoned to take a look, Vic and Lucinda cross the threshold to see that the bed hasn’t been slept in. There’s no luggage.

  “Maybe he’ll be back,” one of the agents speculates, as another calls in the forensics team to start dusting for fingerprints.

  “He won’t be back.”

  “How do you know?” Vic asks Lucinda, who merely shrugs.

  Yeah. Stupid question.

  How does she know anything?

  He’s still amazed by the way she made the Guys and Dolls connection.

  Amazed that they’d come so close to saving the lives of those two kids; so close to catching the unsub that if Vic allows himself to dwell on any of it, he’ll be physically sick.

  “Look at this!” On his hands and knees, one of the agents holds up a yellow slip of paper clamped in a pair of tweezers. “This guy’s getting sloppy.”

  Sloppy.

  Vic tilts his head thoughtfully

  The agent examines the slip of paper. “This is a mail order receipt, dated back in January. From Star Jewelers in New York, for five watches, plus engraving.”

  Sloppy, indeed.

  “No.” Vic shakes his head. “No way.”

  “What’s wrong, Vic?” Lucinda asks.

  “The unsub is highly organized. Meticulous. Why would he suddenly have gotten sloppy enough to not only leave the hotel room key at the scene, but a receipt in the room?”

  Lucinda stares at him. “He wouldn’t. He wanted us to find both. Is that what you’re thinking?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m thinking. At every scene, he left us a clue to where he’s going next. That receipt,” he tells her resolutely, “is going to give us the answer.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The nurses in the hospital corridor greet Cam by name and fuss over Grace as she pushes the stroller toward her father’s room.

  “How is he today?” she asks.

  “Pretty good.” Pearl, a no-nonsense old school nurse, gives a satisfied nod.

  Glad to hear it, Cam rolls Grace into her father’s room. He spots them immediately—which is a good sign. Sometimes it takes him a while to tune out the television or whatever else he’s absorbed in.

  “Well, well, well. Look who’s here.”

  Sitting up in his hospital bed, Ike Neary looks better, if anything, than his old self. His gray hair is clean and combed into a neat ponytail, his frame has filled out thanks to a steady, healthy diet, and his eyes aren’t bloodshot courtesy of booze and pot.

  Yet looks can be deceiving, Cam knows. In one of life’s bitter ironies, her father is fading away even as his body bounces back from years of hard living.

  “Who’s here, mon?” Nigel, the Jamaican male nurse asks, nodding a hello to Cam as he finishes writing something on a clipboard chart.

  “What’s the matter, you don’t have eyes? My daughter!”

  Which daughter, though, Pop? Cam wants to ask—because you never can tell where his mind is at.

  He pats the bed. “Sit down over here with your old man, Cam, and let me get a look at that beautiful grandbaby.”

  Relieved, she looks at Nigel.

  “It’s okay,” he says, “I’m finished. Enjoy your visit. Good to see you, Cam. See you tomorrow, Ike.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “It’s three. My shift is over.”

  “All right. Give me some skin, brother.” Cam’s father holds up his hand.

  With a grin, Nigel slaps it, then gives Grace a little pat as Cam rolls the carriage over to the bed.

  “She’s getting big.”

  “Yes, she is. See you later.”

  As he leaves, her father says, “He’s one cool cat, that Nigel. What a surprise to find him working here.”

  “What do you mean, Pop?”

  “He used to play sax with Bruce, down in Asbury. Called himself Clarence back then.”

  Cam’s heart sinks. She doesn’t let her father see her face as she lifts Grace, dressed all in pink, out of the stroller.

  “Look at you. How’s my beautiful girl?” Ike holds out his arms. “Come to Granddad.”

  Cam gently places the baby on her father’s lap, then sits beside him.

  “You look good today, Pop.”

  “I feel good.” He tickles the baby and is delighted when Grace rewards him with a big smile.

  “You know who she looks like when she smiles?”

  Cam nods. “Tess.”

  “Yes, Tess. Who else would I be talking about?” He gestures at the baby. “She looks like Mike.”

  Momentarily confused by his phrasing, Cam grasps it when her father goes on to tell Grace, “Yes, you do, Tessie. You look just like your daddy.”

  Cam sighs inwardly.

  When she came here today, she was considering telling her father what she had learned last night. She wondered whether it might bring him some peace to know that Ava didn’t abandon the two of them the way Brenda had.

  Momentary peace, anyway. He doesn’t retain much these days.

  And he spends enough time, as it is, living in the past.

  It’s probably best not to dredge up old pain.

  Not when the truth is as ugly as the lie they’ve lived with for all these years.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Philadelphia International Airport. The local time is 10:42 P.M. Please remain seated until we reach the gate, but if you have a phone close at hand, you’re welcome to use it now.”

  Lucinda is already dialing.

  Vic picks up immediately.

  “I just landed.” She clears her throat in a futile effort to make her tired voice a little less hoarse. Several cups of hot tea on the flight didn’t help, though she was able to catch a few hours’ sleep—her first in almost forty-eight hours.

  “Did you find out anything?” she asks Vic.

  “Yes. The jewelry store is in midtown Manhattan. Hordes of people coming and going. No one remembers him. But the watches were all Freestyle, and they do have a record of what was engraved on them.”

  “And…?”

  “And they match the four we’ve got so far.”

  “What about the fifth? If we know where he’s plannin
g to go next, we’ll have a head start figuring out who the victim might be.”

  “We believe we already know.” Vic’s voice is oddly subdued.

  With a jolt, the plane arrives at the gate, and the captain sounds the bell.

  “What do you mean? You believe you already know the place, or who the victim might be?”

  “Both.”

  Dread creeps over her.

  “Lucinda, the fifth watch reads June 18, 39.5, 75.1.”

  “Where is that?”

  “Philadelphia.”

  Lucinda’s flight landed fifteen minutes ago, according to the Arrivals board.

  Randy waits beside the passenger exit with a bouquet of roses—white, not red. He figures she saw enough red last night in Seattle to last her a lifetime.

  She sounded so beaten down when they spoke this morning—rather, he spoke. She tried, but her voice was shot.

  He didn’t bother to ask whether she’d slept last night. He knew she hadn’t.

  In a whisper, she told him how they’d gone from the crime scene to the hotel where the unsub had been staying, only to discover he’d vanished. But the desk clerk remembered him as an older man, tall and lean, with gray hair, glasses, a beard. Now, at least, they have a description to go by.

  Her voice barely audible, Lucinda told him she’d be flying home to Philly tonight. “I’ll call you when I land—it’ll be around 10:30,” she rasped.

  He decided to surprise her at the airport.

  Now, as Randy keeps an eye on the stream of passengers exiting the gate area, he thinks about what he said to her last night, fresh from Frank’s deathbed and the advice to not just exist, but to live.

  I love you.

  The words just fell out of his mouth impulsively, but he meant them.

  He didn’t give her a chance to respond then—even if she’d wanted to. He told himself it was because she was in the middle of a crime scene investigation, but that’s not the only reason.

  He was afraid of what she’d say in return.

  “Please don’t love me,” or “Well, I don’t love you,” or God only knows what.

  He didn’t want to hear it over the phone.

  Let her say it to him in person.

  And if that’s not what she was going to say—well, he’d prefer to hear the alternative in person, too.