The Scavenger's Daughter: A Tyler West Mystery

by Mike McIntyre

  I looked back at the whales and whispered, “Why didn’t you alert the public?”

  “We didn’t have any leads, first off,” he said. “Second, we go announcing there’s a guy out there slicin’ and dicin’, it’s, so long tourists. SeaWorld empties, the zoo empties, the beaches empty, the hotels empty. Then our wallets empty.”

  Shamu breached into the air, splashing down at the edge of the pool, showering the boisterous spectators in the first several rows.

  “The FBI know?” I said.

  “Brass doesn’t want to bring them in,” he said. “The usual turf battle, plus the chief is worried the department will look bad.”

  “You said you know who the killer is.”

  “Another reason to leave the Feds out of it,” he said. “We got a suspect we like a lot.”

  “So why not pick him up?”

  “We didn’t have enough to make a case stick, so we’ve been sitting on him, waiting for him to make a move.”

  “He made another move today,” I said. “How long you gonna wait?”

  “The wait just got longer. The guy vanished yesterday. That’s why you and me are having this conversation.”

  “You’re telling me SDPD had this guy and let him get away?”

  “Welcome to my world, pal. I’ll trade places with you anytime you like.”

  A trainer in a wet suit hopped on Shamu’s back and rode her around the pool. The whale submerged, and when she breached, she shot the trainer thirty feet in the air. The crowd cheered.

  “The chief wants to keep a lid on this. I’m a team player, but this ain’t right. The sooner we get his name out there, the sooner we catch this psycho.”

  “So, who is he?”

  “Some egghead—name of Robert Graywalls.”

  I jerked around. “That’s imposs—”

  “Eyes on the show!” the cop hissed.

  I returned my gaze to the pool.

  “That can’t be,” I said. “How…How sure are you?”

  Shamu breached high in the air.

  “Sure as that whale splashing down.”

  Shamu landed and showered the spectators.

  When I turned around again, my source was gone.

  CHAPTER 49

  The detective had to be wrong. I’d spoken with Graywalls two hours ago.

  As I drove home, I thought about my SDPD source. His tips had been right when I was investigating corruption. Why was I so sure he was wrong now?

  I dialed Graywalls’ number. I was nervous after the third ring. I was sweating after the thirteenth.

  I had an exclusive to file, but I detoured to the El Cortez.

  I screeched to a halt outside the condo tower and parked in a red zone.

  I rushed to the entrance to the underground garage. I peered through the gate at Graywalls’ parking space. His car was gone.

  My knees buckled.

  I frantically scanned the garage.

  There it was! Graywalls’ black Infiniti. Parked in a different space.

  I exhaled deeply and let out a little laugh.

  But I had to see Graywalls with my own eyes.

  I turned from the garage and bounded the steps to the lobby door.

  I reached for the intercom.

  A man exited the building. I caught the door before it closed, and I entered.

  I got off the elevator on the fifteenth floor and hustled down the hall.

  I knocked on Graywalls’ door. There was no answer. I knocked harder.

  “Robert, open up,” I said. “It’s Tyler West.”

  He refused to come to the door.

  “Come on, Robert,” I said, now banging on the door. “I know you’re in there. I saw your car in the garage.”

  I heard the door across the hall open. An elderly woman holding a cat stepped out. Mrs. Spencer, I presumed.

  “He’s not there,” she said.

  “Do you know when he’ll be back?”

  “Oh, he’s not coming back, dear,” she said, stroking the cat. “He moved out yesterday. He left me his kitty—and his car, too. Such a nice man. I’m going to miss him.”

  CHAPTER 50

  I reached for the wall to steady myself. My throat tightened and I thought I might get sick.

  “Dear, are you alright?” Mrs. Spencer said.

  “But I just spoke to—” I started. Then it hit me. I had called Graywalls on his cell phone. He could have been anywhere.

  The pieces quickly fell into place. No wonder Graywalls had all the answers for me. The torture scholar was the torture slayer.

  He lied to me about returning the Iron Maiden’s springs to the storeroom. The killing machine was still armed the night of the gala. Graywalls attended the party in disguise. When he found himself alone with the mayor in the annex, he gave the inebriated Stanton a shove and triggered the device.

  Graywalls must have also worn a disguise when he returned to the museum and snatched the Pear he used to kill Adore.

  I now also knew that in addition to the broken relic he showed me at his apartment, his collection of torture instruments had to include a functioning Scavenger’s Daughter—the one he clamped onto Nina Tate.

  I still didn’t know when or where Graywalls had killed Dr. Lindblatt. But he must have had a good laugh after he described La Tortura del Agua to me for my story.

  Graywalls had played me good. He had revealed his twisted crimes to me in the third person, and I had dutifully written them up. He was a monstrous killer who enjoyed the chase.

  And now he was gone.

  I still had a story to finish, but there was no time to get home. I’d have to file from the Wire.

  My knees shook as I made the short drive to the Wire’s cramped quarters in Little Italy.

  I told Rudy I’d have something explosive for him within a half-hour.

  “Give me the thumbnail,” he said.

  I told him that the San Diego torture slayer was Robert Graywalls. That SDPD had him under surveillance, but lost him. That Adore was his fourth victim. And that city officials were covering it all up.

  What I didn’t tell him was that Graywalls was the anonymous expert quoted in my original story.

  If that ever came out, I was finished as a journalist.

  CHAPTER 51

  I had dinner with Jordan and Heather at their house. Thai barbecue chicken pizza from Pizza Nova, washed down with pink lemonade made by Heather.

  Before Jordan put her to bed, Heather threw her arms around my neck and gave me a hug.

  “Goodnight, Ty,” she said.

  “Goodnight, sweetheart.”

  The little girl felt small in my arms, yet she was a big reminder of all the life I had missed by walking out on her mother. I glimpsed a picture of Heather’s late father, Nick, and realized the void she must feel in her life, too.

  My phone rang. It was Rudy, still at work. He was writing an update to my story.

  Uh-oh, I thought, he knows.

  I stepped outside to take the call, but it wasn’t the news I expected.

  Graywalls had claimed his fifth victim.

  Tiffany Samples had been found dead—discovered at one of her own stores.

  A large cardboard box was left on the loading dock at HomeMart’s outlet in Mission Valley. The label said the box contained a fifty-gallon hot water heater.

  But when a worker opened the box, he was horrified to find the quartered body of Samples. The former centerfold’s hands had been hacked off.

  A stamp on the inside of the box read: DAMAGED GOODS.

  I felt sick. Graywalls may have killed the HomeMart heiress as I protected his anonymity. For all I knew, he had her locked away somewhere inside his condo while I was there stupidly jotting down his every word.

  Jordan joined me outside. We sat on the front porch swing.

  “Why so down?” Jordan said.

  I gazed into space.

  “Ty, come on,” she said, grabbing my arm. “Your scoop led newscasts across America ton
ight. I’ll call Lisa, and let’s go celebrate.”

  I couldn’t keep any secrets from Jordan. Not if I wanted a life with her.

  I told her how Graywalls had duped me.

  She couldn’t hide her surprise. I looked away, ashamed.

  Jordan finally spoke. “Ty, you’re not infallible. He fooled everyone, including the police. What’s important is that your story exposed the awful truth. Now that it’s out in the open, there’s a better chance he’ll be caught.”

  She snuggled in close.

  I stopped agonizing aloud about my blunder. I didn’t need to remind Jordan of my obsessive side. I was pretty sure I could change. I was certain I needed to.

  We said little, content to listen to the muted sounds of the day sliding away. The silence between us was not awkward. It was calm, easy, right.

  It grew late. Each time I thought of saying goodnight, I couldn’t. Finally, around eleven o’clock, I got up to leave, but I never made it. Without any words spoken, Jordan and I found our way into her bedroom.

  Our night was tender and perfect.

  I had thought that Jordan and I had picked up where we had left off in Washington. But I now understood it was more than that. It was like our love had been growing for the twelve years we had been apart.

  I never knew the heart was capable of so much love.

  CHAPTER 52

  After the first quarter of the San Diego Chargers-Denver Broncos football game at Qualcomm Stadium, Friar Tom headed from his end zone seat for one of the luxury boxes overlooking the fifty-yard line.

  He strolled freely through the fans lined up at the concession stands dotting the stadium concourse. No one would recognize him. He wore one of his many disguises.

  The luxury boxes were mostly empty. With a serial killer stalking the city’s elite, many of the Chargers’ wealthiest fans had skipped the final game of the regular season. Both the mayor and Adore, who was to have sung the National Anthem, had been slaughtered in public. It was a good time for the high and mighty to stay at home.

  Friar Tom kicked back in the comfy, extra-wide seat. He helped himself to a party platter set out for those he had scared away from the game.

  He had been a Chargers fan his whole life, and a season ticket holder since his undergrad days at UCSD. He had stuck with the team through some lean years. The yellow and blue “Bolts” were perennial also-rans. But this was to be their year. They were expected to go all the way and win the Super Bowl.

  That was before All-Pro running back Reggie Wilkinson sat out the start of the season during a contract dispute. He didn’t sign until the night before the team’s third game. By then, the Chargers were 0 and 2.

  It had been an up and down year. Now Friar Tom’s beloved “Bolts” needed a win over the Broncos just to secure the final wild card spot in the playoffs.

  Wilkinson wasn’t even in the game. He had pulled a hamstring the week before against the Oakland Raiders. Even if the Chargers made the playoffs, their star wasn’t expected to recover in time to play.

  Friar Tom attributed the injury to poor conditioning. If Wilkinson had made it to training camp instead of holding out for more money, he would’ve been fit enough to withstand the rigors of a full NFL season.

  Instead, Wilkinson had reaped his $17 million contract and reamed the fans.

  By halftime, the Chargers were losing, 35-3, and the torture slayer was livid. Another year down the toilet.

  He left the luxury box and rode the elevator down to the field level.

  The concourse was thick with fans lined up to use the rest rooms.

  Temporary barriers blocked access to the tunnel leading from the locker rooms to the field.

  As halftime drew to an end, the players and officials headed through the tunnel back onto the field. The barriers were rolled away.

  Friar Tom ducked behind a concrete pillar and quickly removed his outer layer of clothing.

  He made a left at the tunnel and walked deep into the bowels of the stadium.

  A beefy security guard wearing a yellow windbreaker blocked the way. He stepped aside as Friar Tom breezed by, dressed in the zebra-striped uniform of an NFL official.

  “Forgot my whistle,” Friar Tom told him. “Must’ve left it in the john.”

  Friar Tom passed the officials’ bathroom and continued to the Chargers’ locker room. He cracked the door and peered inside. When all looked clear, he stepped in and closed the door.

  He heard the faint hum of a running whirlpool. He crossed the deserted dressing area, following the sound of gurgling water coming from the physical therapy room.

  He spotted Reggie Wilkinson sitting in the stainless steel tub, soaking his injured leg. His back was to him.

  Friar Tom stepped slowly across the white tiles toward the football player.

  “Leon, that you?” Wilkinson said, calling the name of the Chargers’ trainer. “Bring a brother a beer.”

  CHAPTER 53

  Friar Tom pulled a bottle of Miller Lite from the locker room fridge and twisted off the top.

  “My man, Leon,” Wilkinson called from the whirlpool, hearing the bottle’s carbonated hiss. “Season’s over, may as well start the party.”

  The killer reached over Wilkinson’s right shoulder with the beer. The running back grabbed the beer and glimpsed the zebra-striped shirt from the corner of his eye. “What the fu—”

  As Wilkinson turned his head, Friar Tom clocked him across the jaw with a football helmet.

  The bottle fell from Wilkinson’s hand, shattering on the floor. The killer grabbed him under the arms before he submerged.

  Friar Tom struggled to pull the football player from the tub. What a load! He weighed 238 pounds, nearly all of it muscle.

  He laid him on his back on the tiles, naked. He didn’t have much time before the All-Pro came to.

  He dashed into the training room and pulled weight plates from the rack. He carried the plates back into the physical therapy room. He made many trips, stacking the weights on the floor.

  He rolled Wilkinson on his side long enough to place the cleats of an upturned football shoe beneath his spine.

  Friar Tom started with five 100-pound weights. He laid them end-to-end over the running back’s nude body, ankle to collarbone.

  The unconscious football player drew short, strained breaths.

  The killer set four 75-pound weights across the gaps formed by the first row of weights. He stacked three 50-pound weights on those, adding a third row to the pyramid.

  Wilkinson groaned and gasped as he awoke and felt the cleats digging into his spine. Friar Tom grabbed a jockstrap from the laundry basket and stuffed it in the football player’s mouth.

  “Your road to the Hall of Fame passes through my Hall of Pain, Reggie,” he said. “This is what you call a pressure situation. But I guess that’s why they pay you the big bucks.”

  He added two 25-pound weights to the pyramid.

  Wilkinson felt the cleats press harder against his vertebrae.

  “You should have made it to training camp this year,” Friar Tom said. “I don’t think you’re fit enough for this. That $17 million contract was obscene. Definitely unsportsmanlike conduct.”

  He grabbed the yellow penalty flag from the waistband of his referee’s pants and tossed it in the air. “That’s a fifteen-pound penalty,” he said.

  He stacked a 15-pound disk on the pile.

  Wilkinson arched his back against the mass crushing his chest and jostled the stack of weights.

  “Illegal motion,” the killer said, tossing the flag. “That’s a five-pound penalty.”

  As he added the weight, he glimpsed the game on a TV. The fourth quarter was ending. “Not much time left,” he said. “I’m going to have to go into my two-minute drill.”

  Wilkinson summoned all his remaining energy. He wriggled just enough to topple one of the weights.

  Friar Tom threw the flag. “Delay of game,” he said. “That’s another five pounds.”
<
br />   The killer added the last disk. Wilkinson now lay beneath 1,025 pounds. His face swelled. The pressure threatened to force blood through his pores.

  “I seem to be all out of weights,” Friar Tom said, looking around.

  He gently rested the penalty flag on top of the pile.

  There was a little ball inside the flag to help it fly when thrown. It weighed only three ounces, but it felt like three tons to Wilkinson.

  He let his burning, twitching muscles relax at last.

  There was a loud snap as the football cleats broke his spine.

  He blinked. He no longer felt any pain. He didn’t feel anything.

  As Wilkinson lay dying, Friar Tom knelt and whispered into the football player’s ear. “You were one of the greats, Reggie. Too bad you won’t be there when they retire your number.”

  CHAPTER 54

  San Diego went into panic mode after Reggie Wilkinson was found crushed to death under a pile of weights in the Chargers’ locker room.

  Robert Graywalls’ picture was everywhere. Yet he had managed to infiltrate a crowd of thousands and kill a local hero. The police were at a loss to explain how.

  I covered Chief Reese’s daily briefings. But with each passing day that Graywalls remained at large, it was clear the police were powerless to protect San Diegans from the elusive torture slayer.

  Convinced it was open season on them, the city’s rich and famous went into hiding. Society events were canceled. Extra bodyguards were hired. Home security systems were beefed up.

  Fear spread to the general public.

  Outdoor enthusiasts exercised indoors, aware of how Adore had been killed. The jogging trails through popular Torrey Pines State Reserve were deserted. The few runners who did venture outside jogged with cans of Mace.

  Gun sales soared.

  The national media descended on San Diego. Rather than beaches and palm trees, the city was now famous for having the country’s best-tanned serial killer.

  Tourists stayed away in droves. Attendance plummeted at the zoo, SeaWorld and the Wild Animal Park. Expecting rejection, the city withdrew its bid to host a future Super Bowl. A month’s worth of conventions were canceled.