by Mike Omer
“Naw.”
“How about this man?” She showed her a picture of Rabbi Friedman.
“A religious Jew, huh? I know someone who specializes in those, maybe you should ask her. I never seen him.”
“Did you ever ride in this car?” Hannah showed her a picture of the car.
“I rode in hundreds of cars. I’ve had sex and given blowjobs in hundreds of cars. Yeah, I might’ve been in this car, who knows?”
“We’ve found your hair in the front seat of the car.”
“Sure, whatever.”
“This car was used to run over a girl and kill her.”
Clover did not seem to be shocked by the news. “That sucks,” she said. “I ain’t never run over a girl in any car.”
Hannah sighed. It was a long way to come just to find a dead end, but that was the way of detective work. She began thinking about the flight back. She hoped she’d manage to sleep a bit on the way. She was tired as hell. They’d been working around the clock for days, and it was wearing them thin. She looked around at the trailer once more, then stood up and inspected the picture stuck on the mini-fridge more closely.
“That your family?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Mount Rushmore, huh?”
“Yeah,” Clover shrugged. “I guess everyone goes there at some point.”
“I’ve never been,” Hannah said.
“Your time will come.”
“You had really long hair,” Hannah said. “It goes all the way down to your waist in the picture.”
“It was even longer after I showered,” Clover said. “It took me hours to brush it.”
“Your hair is really short now, though.”
“Yeah. I don’t like when customers pull it when they fuck me from behind. I’m not a damn horse.”
The little details always penetrated deepest. Hannah bit her lip, trying to dispel the upsetting images in her mind. “So you cut it.”
“Yeah.”
“Did you by any chance sell it?”
“Yeah, sure, how did you know?”
Bingo. “Do you have the name of the place you sold it to?” Hannah asked.
“I have their phone number,” Clover said, pulling out her phone. She located the contact, then showed it to Hannah, who carefully copied it to her own phone.
“Thanks,” Hannah said, standing up. “I think that’s all I need.”
“Cool. Glad I could help,” Clover said, opening the door of the trailer for Hannah.
“Uh… Listen, Clover…”
“Yeah?”
“I think you keep that picture for a reason, you know? Maybe to remind you of better times? You know, there are people who can help.”
Clover nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah. That picture? My dad took it on a family trip, when I was seventeen. I was addicted to crack, and two weeks before that vacation I had just given my first blowjob for a twenty. A few days later I was raped. There was a party, and I was unconscious, but I was bleeding when I woke up. I told my mom and she asked me not to say anything to my dad before vacation, because he was under a lot of stress. You know why I keep that picture?”
“Why?” Hannah asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Because I like Mount Rushmore. Goodbye, Detective.”
The trailer door closed behind Hannah with a click. She should have felt victorious; she had a lead. But at that moment, she only felt sad and useless.
He decided to go shopping.
He had already selected his next target. Such a beautiful young girl. He’d watched her the day before, returning home from work. A lowly job, for such a special girl. It was unfathomable. Was he the only one who could see how special she was? How much anticipation she could inspire?
It was time to choose the murder weapon. He knew what he was looking for; he had decided upon it shortly after killing Tamay. That had been such a noisy death. And the way he had lost control and run into that lamppost? It was the closest he had ever come to screwing everything up.
No. This time it would be a quiet death.
But even knowing what he was looking for, there were so many options to choose from! He stood in front of the various samples, touching each one, trying to figure out what would be best for his next endeavor.
He liked shopping.
“Can I help you?” a feminine voice asked. He turned around. Ugh. He would never touch this one. Those pimples, those glasses. Terrible.
“Yes,” he said. “I would like some help.”
Can you please help me choose a murder weapon? He wanted to say. I need something that can kill. He nearly laughed out loud at the thought.
“I really have no idea what to choose.” He smiled at the homely woman, thinking of his next victim with anticipation.
The trail of hair was now really easy to follow. It was practically a highway of hair.
Hannah had called the phone number of the woman Clover had sold her hair to. That woman had given Hannah the wig manufacturer’s name, and managed to find the receipt for the date of the shipment that contained Clover’s hair.
Since the wig manufacturer was in Nebraska, Hannah decided to first make sure the hair didn’t come from a wig that belonged to the rabbi’s wife. If she was anything like many Orthodox Jewish women, Mrs. Friedman had several wigs in her possession. Hannah called Jacob, and asked him to check if it was possible the hair belonged to Mrs. Friedman. A couple of hours later, a very testy Jacob Cooper called her back to say that it did not match any of Mrs. Friedman’s wigs, and did she want to hear what he just went through to ascertain this? Hannah told him that she did not.
The wig manufacturer was a bit trickier. They didn’t want to share. She had to get the local district attorney over there to issue a search warrant, and then had to enlist the local police to assist with her search. It was a hassle. Any other time, it would have taken weeks, maybe months. This time, one phone call to Captain Bailey, and she was knocking on the wig manufacturer’s front door with a search warrant and four patrol officers in uniform to back her up.
She saw a lot of hair and hair-related paperwork in there.
It took her almost all day to understand the way they filed their paperwork, to track the shipment with Clover’s hair, to figure out which wigs it was probably used for. She would never have managed it if it weren’t for one of the clerks that worked there. She was a bright girl, and helped Hannah connect all the dots. Hannah suspected the girl had a crush on her.
There were over fifty wigs that might have used Clover’s hair, and no real way to narrow that number down. The wigs were then sold to several wig distributors, because apparently that was a real job.
Two days. It took her two days to trace those wigs. Two days of calling costume shops, cancer treatment centers, wig salesmen. Thirty-seven of the wigs were traced to various men and women around the country. Five wigs were still on the shelves of various stores. Eight wigs had been sold to unknown individuals whom Hannah could not locate.
Of the thirty-seven names she had, she managed to make sure that thirty-one had tight alibis for at least one of the murders, if not more. That left six names. One of them was an eighty-year-old woman; one was a woman who was going through severe cancer treatments and could barely lift her own purse, let alone strangle and bury Kendele Byers. Three of the remaining four names belonged to middle-aged women; the last was a fifty-year-old man. She filed them under “unlikely suspects.”
All she was left with were the eight missing wigs. One had been sold in Boston. It seemed wise to start there.
It took the owner of the costume shop an incredibly long time to find the receipt for the damn wig. It had been bought along with thirteen other wigs, four fake beards, and three fake mustaches. The entire sum of the purchase was $3,452.
It had been paid in cash.
The owner remembered the purchase. It wasn’t every day a customer forked over three thousand dollars in cash. However, he couldn’t tell Hannah a single thing a
bout the customer, besides the fact that he had a ridiculously thick wad of cash. Apparently, the cash had erased from his memory any trace of the customer’s appearance. He gave Hannah a catalog in which he marked all the wigs, beards, and mustaches that the customer had bought. One of the other wigs matched the hair in the sketch that had been made with Rabbi Friedman’s help.
Using the catalog and the previous description from Rabbi Friedman, the police sketch artist created several dozen images of how the killer might look with the different props. They now had a mugshot book of how the serial killer could look.
Bernard had finally finished investigating the crimes in Boston, and was back in Glenmore Park. He and Hannah started interviewing relatives of the murder victims, showing them the mugshot book.
Tamay’s boss identified one of the pictures. He said a man similar to the one in the pictures had been in the pub twice, just a week before Tamay had been killed. The man had seen Tamay’s band perform, and stayed until the bar closed. They’d had to ask him to leave. Yes, he was sure this was the guy. He was a bit different than the picture, but the hair was unmistakable.
Kendele’s friend Debbie pointed out one of the other sketches, saying she was sure that guy had been in the restaurant several times.
It was good enough. They had sightings of the suspected killer, and a plethora of sketches that might match him.
Chapter Fifteen
Candace Wood had been a police dispatcher for over six years. She loved her job, and was pretty good at it, too. She liked the action and the satisfaction of helping people. She adored most of the people who worked with her, the other dispatchers and the cops.
Two weeks ago, the public had learned there was a serial killer in Glenmore Park, whom the press had dubbed The Deadly Messenger. Now Candace was seriously considering a change of work. She had never thought human beings could be so hysterical.
Maybe she could become a kindergarten teacher, like her cousin. Sure, Candace had always felt she would rather shove chili peppers up her own nose on a daily basis than become a kindergarten teacher, but could it really be that bad? Thirty screaming five-year-olds—running everywhere, pulling each other’s hair, and crying—sounded just fine right about now.
The public had learned that the killer was sending messages with images of the murder weapon to his victims. And now, the public had a new hobby: driving Candace insane.
The phones never stopped ringing. People got messages all the times. And e-mails as well. Because sure, up until now, the killer had communicated by messages, but who said he couldn’t communicate by e-mail?
This day was already one of the worst. She’d had to calm down a man who said he received an image of a very sharp-looking knife. That did sound worrisome, until it turned out he had received the message from his wife, who was thinking of buying the knife for his father’s birthday. “Is it likely that your wife is the serial killer?” Candace had asked him.
“You never know,” he’d replied.
Then over the next couple of hours she’d talked with dozens of people who’d received images from spammers, associates, and friends. With each call she had to go through the same interview process. It always turned out to be nothing. Her head began to pound.
But the best call had been yet to come. Because the best call came from a completely hysterical woman who said the killer had sent her a picture of his penis.
Candace was sure she had heard wrong. She asked the woman to say that again.
She had heard right.
The woman explained that it was definitely from the killer, because she didn’t recognize the number.
Did the woman perhaps give her phone number to someone she didn’t know lately, Candace wanted to know. Perhaps someone she was dating?
Yes, she had. The night before. After she had sex with him.
How, Candace questioned patiently, did the woman think the killer was planning on killing her with his penis?
Well, that was the police’s job to find out, wasn’t it?
Candace had discussed this afterwards with the other dispatcher, Kelsey. Kelsey speculated that maybe the dong in question was long enough to wrap around someone’s neck. Candace suggested that maybe it was irregularly heavy, or incredibly sharp. A really sharp dong could do severe damage.
They nicknamed him the “serial dong killer.” They drew sketches on the whiteboard. Then Chief Dougherty came in.
They erased the sketches.
It was just a few minutes past midnight when the phone rang again. It was the end of her shift. The dispatcher who would replace her was just sitting down, and Candace nearly let her answer the call. But, on a whim, she decided to take it. Who knew, maybe the serial dong killer had struck again.
“Nine one one, how may I help you?”
“H… Hello?” the frightened voice of a young woman said. “I… I just received a message on my phone. And they said on the news that the killer is sending messages and… and…”
“Yes ma’am,” Candace said, trying to remain patient. “What is your name?”
“Ivy. Ivy O’Brien.”
“Okay, Ms. O’Brien, what does the message say?”
“It doesn’t say anything. There’s just an image of a rope on a table.”
“I see. And is the message from someone in your contact list?”
“No. I don’t know this number.”
“What’s the number?” Candace asked. The woman dictated the number. Candace looked it up. It was unlisted.
“Ms. O’Brien, when did you get the message?”
“Uh… Fifteen minutes ago, but I didn’t notice it at first. I was watching TV.”
Candace realized she was tensing up. This was not like the other calls. Still, she kept her voice calm and professional. “Okay, Ms. O’Brien, I’ll send a patrol vehicle to your home just to be safe. Are the doors to your house locked?”
“Yes.” The woman whimpered. “Do you think it’s him?”
“I doubt it, but it’s always best to make sure,” Candace said. “Is there a room with a lock in your house?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” Candace checked the phone number the woman was calling from. It was a mobile phone. “Go to the bedroom and lock the door. I want you to take the phone with you and keep talking to me, okay, Ivy? My name is Candace.”
“Okay, Candace.”
“What’s your address Ivy?”
“It’s 27 Sharon Drive”
Candace muted the call and switched to the radio. “Attention, all units, I have a possible ten-five hundred at 27 Sharon Drive.” Ten-five hundred was the agreed-upon code for a message from the serial killer. They didn’t want to alert the killer in case he listened to police frequencies.
Tanessa Lonnie’s voice replied. “Four fifty one, responding.”
“Four fifty one, what’s your ETA?”
“Dispatch, ten minutes.”
Candace bit her lip. If this was the real deal, they were cutting it close. “Four fifty one, we are seventeen minutes after initial contact.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Tanessa answered. “Dispatch, I copy. We’ll get there as fast as possible.” She sounded worried.
Candace hoped they could make it much faster than ten minutes.
She switched back to the phone call. “Ivy, are you in the room?”
“Yes.”
“Good. The patrol car is on its way. Don’t leave the room until I tell you to, okay?”
“Yes.” The girl was crying, her voice terrified.
“Ivy, everything will be okay. You have nothing to worry about.”
“Okay.”
She did not sound reassured.
He was already in the house. He’d wanted to be sure he could get inside before he sent the message. Sure enough, the girl had left the window in the kitchen unlocked, as always. He’d slid inside, making no sound at all, leaped down from the kitchen counter to the floor, and hid. Only after he was in position had he sent
the message.
He glanced at the time; twenty minutes had gone by. He quivered with anticipation. Did his victim feel it too? He twisted the nylon rope in his hand. The woman in the store had assured him it could hold very heavy weights, and was easy to knot. He examined the noose for the hundredth time. It seemed tight. He smiled. Anticip…
…ation.
The fun was about to start.
Ivy O’Brien sat on the bed, shivering. Should she check the door again? No. She’d checked it twice. Would it even stop him? It was just a wooden door. She looked around for a weapon. Any weapon. There was nothing. Why had she thrown away that vase her mother had bought her? At the time, its flower pattern had turned her off, but it was long and narrow, and would have made a good weapon. She could have used it to keep him at bay.
What was that? Had she heard a creak? It was an old house; sometimes the floor creaked. She was used to ignoring those sounds. But now the small sounds became ominous. Was he slowly walking closer to the bedroom door? She curled into a ball, shuddering, and held the phone to her ear.
“Candace?”
“Yes, Ivy?” Candace’s reassuring, firm voice answered her. Candace would not have been so helpless. Candace probably had a gun in her bedroom. Ivy did not believe in possessing guns. She had always been adamant in her belief that gun laws should be much stricter. How stupid her beliefs felt now.
“Are the police here yet?”
“Any minute now. Don’t worry.”
“I’m scared.”
“Everything will be all right, Ivy. No need to be scared. He won’t be able to get into your locked bedroom.”
“Okay, I…” The words died in her throat.
The bathroom door.
It was closed. Had she closed it at some point? She almost never closed it.
The realization sunk in. He was here. He was in the bathroom. There was no lock on her side of the door.
“Ivy?”
Candace’s voice sounded far away. Ivy’s heart fluttered, her mind clouded. He was here with her.
“He’s here!” she said, choking. “I need to go!”
