Every Wickedness

by Cathy Vasas-Brown

  5

  There was a smell in the room he liked, a mixture of perspiration, urine, and blood, that when blended, equalled fear. He wondered if anyone else detected the scent, then thought not. He had always been acutely sensitive.

  It was a singularly stupid crowd for the most part, plain people asking plainly stupid questions.

  “When will the killer strike again?”

  “Is the FBI involved in the investigation?”

  “Do you have any leads?”

  “How can we protect ourselves?”

  He resisted laughing. Didn’t they know there was nothing they could do? He would strike when he needed to, when he was ready, and he’d fool them all over again.

  “Watch the ones you know,” Kearns replied.

  It was amusing, listening to the profile of the killer. Organized. That word cropped up frequently during Kearns’s presentation. He liked the sound of that, because that’s exactly what he was. An organized, calculating machine — well oiled, smooth running, long lasting. A real Duracell man. And, contrary to what was being said, he’d never pissed the bed in his life.

  Kearns and his henchmen would be prepared, of course. They got enough of it right to predict he would be sitting here tonight, basking in his glory. He didn’t bother hiding from the cameras, knowing that the jeans, T-shirt, Giants cap, and four day-old stubble altered his looks without resembling a disguise. He’d even pressed a little dirt under his fingernails. Over the next few days, when the police viewed the videotapes and analyzed the male faces in the crowd, they’d come up with nothing. No vicap match, no adult arrest record. He’d even chosen his seat carefully — there was a single woman on his right to whom he spoke from time to time, a couple holding hands on his left. On the tape, they would look like a foursome, just two married couples who’d probably slip out for a few beers after.

  He leaned toward the single woman. “My dad would say it’s time to bring back the lash. Guy like this should suffer.”

  That was good. A little folksy, but good.

  The woman nodded in agreement.

  “Tell ya,” he said, “this makes me wanna rush right home and hug my wife.”

  The woman leaned toward him. He could smell her perfume. “This makes me want to catch a plane for anywhere,” she said.

  “No kiddin’.”

  Amazing. In spite of everything they’d been told tonight, women still talked to strangers, still persisted in being friendly and polite. This one had no idea who she was dealing with.

  He looked up at the podium. Kearns was dishing out more advice. “Band together. Phone someone. Let someone know you’ve arrived safely at your destination. The same streetproofing tips you’ve taught your kids will help your loved ones sleep more easily.”

  Then the presentation was over. Kearns looked bagged. The audience seemed to organize itself into protective clusters — those going to underground parking lots assembled in one corner, those taking the Powell cable car behind the hotel congregated at another exit, and on it went, until everyone seemed to have a partner or ten to escort them from the hotel.

  Be smart. What a joke.

  It made no difference. Too bad that clown Kearns couldn’t understand that. It was already too late.

  6

  For some time, many native San Franciscans had begun to think of their city as seedy, equating its decline to the arrival of the hordes of transients seeking warmer climates and generous social assistance programs. In spite of the growing number of homeless, San Francisco was, to Beth, a transplant from Eureka Springs, Arkansas, still the most beautiful city in the world. The sight of the Golden Gate Bridge cloaked in mist still thrilled her, as it had the day she’d arrived, eight years ago.

  Tonight, driving home from the Fairmont, Beth was struck by the sensation that indeed, something had changed. On Lombard, the city’s motel row, the sidewalks were empty. Friday evening, and not a tourist in sight. Reflexively, she checked that her car doors were locked, then realized she’d already done so. Twice. When Beth steered onto Chestnut Street, with its generally thriving village atmosphere, she spotted a bit more life. Still, the cafés, boutiques, and two Art Deco cinemas didn’t burst with the usual tgif crowd. The deli, where Beth stopped to have a salad, was nearly empty.

  It wasn’t until she reached her own street in the Marina district that Beth relaxed her grip on the wheel. Her shoulders sunk back into place. The Marina was a safe neighbourhood, not like the areas south of Market that the cabbies warned the tourists away from. “Respectable,” her parents had said when they’d come out for their first visit.

  Beth’s automatic exterior lights were on, as was a table lamp in her living room window. The alarm system, installed scarcely a month ago, provided a measure of security, though there were still the last few steps to climb at the top of the tunnel entrance that rendered Beth’s front door invisible from the street. Anyone could be lurking there, waiting for her. A sub-zero shiver skimmed her spine.

  She dismissed the fear with a furious shake of her head, ashamed at the hysterical thoughts she’d been having lately. Sondra Devereaux had done her job well.

  Seeing her pale yellow Mediterranean house with its clay-tiled roof usually cheered her, but now the view of the blackened second-storey windows filled her with dread. Just a few short months ago she’d joked with Ginny about how ideal it was having a flight attendant for a roommate. Anne was hardly ever home.

  Anne Spalding had come to San Francisco to begin a new life. She had fled from an abusive ex-husband and hoped, once the dust settled, to explore the city like a tourist. Months after her arrival, Anne was found in one of the most touristy areas, Golden Gate Park, her body having been hoisted over a railing near the Academy of Sciences, then dropped onto a path about twelve feet below. The bitter irony made Beth want to scream. Anne, who wanted to fade into the woodwork, made the front page of the Chronicle. FLIGHT ATTENDANT SPIDERMAN’S FOURTH VICTIM. Beth felt a lump lodge in her throat.

  Anne had occupied Beth’s furnished guestroom and was thrilled with it. She had brought few possessions. Her clothes, which had barely filled the closet, had been donated to charity. Beth kept the half-dozen paperback novels Anne had owned. Within days, the few tangible traces of Anne Spalding had disappeared. Beth swallowed hard, shut off the ignition, and stepped out of the car.

  The wind had picked up. She had always loved the wind, preferring it and the West Coast climate to the blistering heat that rose relentlessly from Manhattan’s miles of pavement. But tonight the wind whistled mournfully, adding an eerie melody to the preternatural quiet. It was as if some alien craft had descended and plucked the street’s inhabitants, their radios, and televisions, from their roosts, all vanishing without a trace.

  “Idiot,” she said aloud, her voice sounding oddly disembodied as it was swallowed by the wind.

  Everyone was inside. Everyone except Tim O’Malley. As Beth approached her front steps, Tim emerged from the house next door. Thirty-four years old, Tim was always on the go, but he still managed to find time to prune the shrubs on his lush rooftop garden. Tim moved toward his freshly waxed white van, his company name, “Wearing of the Green,” proudly displayed on the side. The landscape architect’s well-respected name was attached to several of the city’s loveliest gardens, and many overseas as well.

  “Big night tonight, Tim?” Beth called out across the grassy median separating her home from his.

  He grinned when he saw her. “Thought I’d grab some dinner, maybe hit a few clubs later. Usual Friday night stuff. How ’bout you?”

  “Something tamer. I’m exhausted.”

  “I watered your evergreens,” he said, pointing to the pair of conical boxwoods in large terra cotta pots that flanked the entrance to her home. “Hope you don’t mind. They dry out pretty fast in those containers. Oh yeah, your heartthrob’s been by on his skateboard.”

  “Bobby? What did he want?”

  Bobby Chandler was Beth’s paperboy, a fourteen-ye
ar-old with a huge crush on Beth, which Tim apparently found amusing. “Probably wanted to wash your car again. Maybe walk your cat.”

  “Poor Bobby,” Beth said. “I’m old enough to be his … older sister. I hope you didn’t tease him.” Beth sized up Tim’s muscular build, bright smile, and sandy blond hair. Was it her imagination or was Tim sizing her up, too?

  “Nah, but I can’t figure out why you’re so nice to him,” Tim said. “You might be giving him ideas.”

  Beth shook her head. “Bobby’s just lonely.” Loneliness was something Tim O’Malley, with his GQ good looks, would probably never understand. Even back in Eureka Springs, a fourteen-year-old who still had a paper route was a geek. Beth felt sorry for Bobby, though she had to admit he’d been hanging around more often than she wanted lately.

  “Speaking of lonely,” Tim said, “look over there.”

  In-line skating his way along the sidewalk was Bobby Chandler.

  7

  “Hey guys!” Bobby Chandler called out as he approached. At the foot of Beth’s driveway, he attempted a quick stop but failed, narrowly avoiding a collision with a no parking sign.

  “Bobby, when are you going to get shin guards?” Beth asked when Bobby regained equilibrium. Judging from the condition of his knees, this wasn’t Bobby’s first mishap.

  “And a helmet,” Tim O’Malley added.

  Bobby ignored Tim, keeping his gaze riveted on Beth. “That equipment’s for wimps. Besides, I’ll have my stops down pat in a few days. Just takes practise.” He flashed Beth a toothy grin. “Soon, I’ll be as good on these as I am on my skateboard.” Many of Bobby’s weekends were spent practising skateboard stunts on the flat pavement at the Embarcadero Centre with dozens of other young teenagers who had nothing better to do.

  “Hey, Beth,” Bobby said, “where you been tonight?”

  “Way to go, Ace,” Tim muttered. “Subtle as a brick through a window.”

  “I was just asking,” Bobby continued, his voice taking on a petulant whine, “because Beth’s not usually late on Fridays. I was worried.”

  “That’s sweet, Bobby,” Beth said and meant it, though she hoped he interpreted the word “sweet” the way she’d intended it. “I was downtown, at that police information night.”

  “The Spiderman thing,” Tim said. “I was there too, for awhile. Funny we didn’t spot each other. Whole city’s gone crazy. Some of my customers are buying German Shepherds. The client I called on this morning has an arsenal in every purse. Mace, beepers, nail files, you name it. Guess you must have the same stuff, Beth, after what happened to Anne.”

  Beth nodded. “I feel like I’m living in Fort Knox. An armed guard can’t be too far off.”

  That was all the encouragement Bobby Chandler needed. “Don’t you worry, Beth,” he told her. “Soon I’ll be able to chase anybody on these things.” He looked at his skates again. “If that guy shows his face around here, he’ll have to deal with me.” Bobby teetered, then regained his balance.

  “Say, Sport,” Tim O’Malley said, “why don’t you wheel yourself home and change modes of transportation? The Spiderman could show up at any time. Wouldn’t want to see you hurt yourself.”

  Bobby’s face went crimson. “Tim,” Beth cut in quickly, “didn’t you say something about a late dinner?” She knew Tim was trying to be helpful, but she couldn’t conspire so obviously against Bobby. There was no crime in being lonely.

  “Yeah, you’re right. Can I talk you into joining me?”

  Beth caught Bobby’s frown. She shook her head. “I can barely make it up these stairs. You enjoy yourself.”

  “Always do.” Tim unlocked the door to his van, climbed in, checked his appearance in the rear-view mirror, then he rolled down the window. “Remember, Beth, there’s such a thing as too friendly.”

  “I get the message. Have fun.”

  “What was that about?” Bobby asked once Tim had driven away.

  “Oh, Tim just wants me to be cautious,” Beth lied. “We were talking about the Spiderman before you came.”

  Bobby skated up Beth’s driveway and stood beside her. “Boy, you sure get a lotta mail.”

  Beth’s brass mailbox was crammed, the lid wedged open with the overflow.

  “Bills mostly.” Beth glanced through the pile, again wishing Bobby wouldn’t feel quite so comfortable on her property. “Here’s a coupon for Dino’s pizza. Half price. Maybe you could take a girlfriend.”

  Bobby took the coupon. “You like pizza, Beth?”

  She shook her head. “Bad for my waistline. It’s been a long day, Bobby—”

  “Hey Beth,” Bobby cut in, “you think Tim O’Malley’s good lookin’?”

  The question caught her off guard, but Bobby’s wide-eyed gaze made it clear he expected an answer.

  “I haven’t thought too much about it, but yes, I suppose. Tim is an attractive man. Now I really should —”

  “If he’s so good lookin’, seems he should be spending more time with a girlfriend, that’s all.”

  “How Tim spends his time is none of our business. I’m going in now, Bobby,” she said firmly. “Talk to you soon, okay?”

  “I’ll just wait here until you’re safe inside,” Bobby said behind her.

  Beth mounted the steps to her front door, punched in the number code, and hurried indoors. Oddly, she was glad of Bobby’s presence on the driveway, though how he would have climbed the steps on roller-feet to thwart a potential intruder she didn’t know.

  Since Anne’s death, Beth’s arrival-home ritual had changed. Before, she would drop everything in the entry hall, scoop up her ginger tabby, Samson, and murmur endearments while she opened a can of kitty stew in the kitchen. Now, she kept everything in hand — purse, mail, car keys — and reactivated the alarm, peeked around the kitchen corner, opened the pantry door, checked all closets upstairs and down before returning to the kitchen where a disgruntled cat posed expectantly by his food dish. Jim Kearns had reassured her that such behaviour was normal, but he didn’t tell her how long she would need this obsessive routine. Beth hoped her panic attacks would subside soon before she turned into a complete nutcase.

  It was only when Beth set her stack of mail on the desk in the living room and glanced out the window that she noticed Bobby Chandler was still standing on her driveway. His unexpected appearance startled her for a moment, then she realized why Bobby hadn’t left. She gave a thumbs-up signal, mouthed the words “I’m okay,” waited for another toothy grin, then waved as Bobby skated off down the street toward home.

  My fourteen-year-old guardian angel, Beth thought, as she drew the louvered shutters across the bottom half of her windows. Lucky me.

  8

  The sight of Clement Street brought a smile to Jim Kearns’s face, the first genuine smile he’d exercised in weeks. He could almost feel the burden of lives-too-abruptly-ended leave him. For what seemed like ages, he had been operating in two gears — Automatic Pilot and Pissed Off. Robotically, he had already followed up on hundreds of leads, screened calls, and chased down criminals skulking in bushes, only to turn up a string of false alarms and one very frightened skunk.

  The victims’ relatives, co-workers, and friends had also been interrogated, to no avail. Lydia Price’s ex-boyfriends all had alibis up the wazoo; her co-workers adored her. And so it went with Carole Van Horne. No backstage jealousies, no string of broken-hearted lovers, just a nice lady who loved to sing and dance. Monica Turner’s client list revealed nothing to Kearns other than, in his opinion, there were far too many men in the city who enjoyed pedicures. The scuzzball agent who screwed Natalie Gorman the night she disappeared was guilty of many things, among them possession of enough cocaine to render a football team senseless. Still, though he managed to deposit his semen in Natalie and feed her a few empty promises, he could not be connected to her murder. Anne Spalding’s ex-husband, while stooping low enough to beat the shit out of the flight attendant, wouldn’t, it seemed, sink to the level of killer. So
the dead were of no help to Kearns. That pissed him off.

  The known perverts — peepers, flashers, gropers — had been rounded up and brought in for questioning. A few, harbouring grandiose delusions, claimed to be the Spiderman, cashing in on the killer’s cult status for their fifteen minutes of fame. Kearns and Manuel Fuentes fetched and carried like bellboys at the Mark Hopkins. The low-lifes got gum, water, diet soda, whatever they wanted. Short of serving caviar and Dom Perignon, the police catered to the scum, because the scum had rights. When the killer was caught, he’d be screaming about his rights, too. Another piss-off.

  Plainclothes cops patrolled the killer’s dump-sites, expecting him to appear like magic to reminisce about his handiwork. Gawking locals and tourists alike appeared instead, armed with cameras, wanting their pictures taken on the spot where one of the victims had been left. Serve them right if Kearns made them watch one of the autopsies. They’d puke their guts out, have nightmares for weeks. Maybe then the public wouldn’t be so fascinated.

  Rumours were rampant about the condition of the victims’ bodies. The less-scrupulous journalists reported savage mutilations, assuming that the police force’s reluctance to divulge details meant something ghastly had occurred.

  And it had, but there was nothing Jack the Ripperish about it. Each victim was found fully clothed. There was no evidence of sexual penetration, no saliva, no fingerprints. But each woman’s right wrist bore the killer’s signature, a two-inch long testimony to the horror that had taken place.

  Truth be known, his boss was pissing him off too. Until this week, Kearns thought flaring nostrils occurred only in novels, but this morning he’d seen the real thing up close and ugly, and Elliott Lloyd, the Captain of Inspectors, was cranking up the heat. Through the left side of a perpetually crooked mouth, he said, “Five women dead, Kearns.”

  As if he didn’t know.

  “Two squads working this thing. Fourteen of our best, hand-picked by you.”