“Let me see that other picture again.” His gaze travelled the short distance between the two photos, but it was the one of the badminton player that nagged at him. Jordan examined the teeth, the nose, the slant of the forehead, stared at the picture until his vision blurred.
He rearranged the papers on Kearns’s desk, located three unimportant scraps and lay them on top of the graduation photo, one above the boy’s forehead, the other two over his ears. The hair was completely covered.
“Oh, Jesus. No. It can’t be.”
Kearns vaulted to the other side of his desk. He looked at the photographs, then at Jordan. “Can’t be what?”
“The hair’s dark in these pictures. That’s what threw me off, but dammit, I know that face. It’s Brad Petersen.”
“Who the hell is Brad Petersen?”
“He’s a guy I play squash with a couple of times a month. It’s the face in the badminton picture that I recognize. Brad doesn’t play to lose. I’m almost sure it’s him.”
Kearns looked at the picture again. “Almost? You nearly give me a coronary for almost?”
“Hey, take it easy. People change. I don’t look like the goofy kid in this basketball photo either.”
Suddenly, Jordan knew there wasn’t time to think. He sprang from the chair and grabbed Kearns by the sleeve. “Come on!”
“What the hell — Bailey!”
Jordan was already sprinting for the door. He hollered over his shoulder. “Do you want to meet the guy in the picture or not?”
He was halfway down the aisle between rows of desks when Kearns caught him by the hood of his sweatshirt. “Hold up a minute!”
“Sit,” Kearns ordered, rolling a chair toward the pilot. Bailey remained standing. Kearns perched on a nearby desk. “Tell me what just happened here.”
“Anne Spalding. She met Brad. And now she’s dead. And Beth —” His breath came in quick gasps. “We can’t stand around talking. We’ve got to get her out of there!”
Kearns shook his head in confusion. “Fill in some missing pieces, Bailey. How did Anne meet Brad?”
“A party.” Jordan paced the floor between the arcade of desks. He told Kearns about the parties hosted by the members of the fitness club. “Anne and I stopped seeing each other shortly after she met Brad at the party I hosted. And when I took Beth out to Brad’s place, he pretended to be all over her friend Ginny. But I watched him. It was Beth he was staring at.” A sickening realization dawned. “I led them both straight to him. Anne and now Beth. Brad’s hair is blond now. But his eyelashes and eyebrows are dark. It’s one of the things Anne noticed right away.”
“Dyes his hair?”
“I don’t know. Probably. But while we’re standing around —”
“Hold on a minute,” Kearns replied, stepping closer. “You’re not going anywhere except home. I’ll go check out this Petersen character. Give me his address.”
Jordan scrawled the information on the scrap of paper that Kearns shoved at him. “But it’s hard to find. I’m coming with you.”
“The hell you are.” Kearns’s strong hands gripped his shoulders. “I don’t climb into the cockpit with you, do I? Go home. Wait by the phone. I’ll call you as soon as I know something.”
Jordan was about to argue, but Kearns was inches from his face, his fingers digging into flesh. “Go home,” he repeated.
62
The Spiderman’s inner sanctum was a well-equipped, well-ventilated laboratory, its L-shaped countertop loaded with an assortment of beakers, trays, tongs and funnels. A portable projection screen leaned against a corner. Beside it, Beth’s clothes hung from a chrome coat rack, her shoes and purse arranged symmetrically on the floor. There was a sink, and a paper towel dispenser was affixed to the wall above it. Everything in its place.
Brad had several shelves mounted on metal brackets over the countertop, three of which contained identical ring-binder photo albums arranged vertically, each with a dated label along its spine. Victims’ catalogues. The one closest to Beth was dated: November 2000.
Brad conducted the tour of his darkroom like the proud owner of a greenhouse full of rare orchids. He pointed to his photo enlarger, developing tanks, a print trimmer, but Beth’s gaze remained fixed on two items lying on the counter near a timer: a pair of scissors and an X-Acto knife. Brad noticed them too and used his free hand to whisk them into a drawer, all without a pause in his seminar.
She had been too slow, and it had cost her. It would be impossible for her to open the drawer without his knowing. The other knife, the one with the white blade, was in Brad’s left rear pants pocket. To get to it, she would have to swing around, position herself back to back with him and pull the knife from his pocket before he grabbed it. It couldn’t be done. He would use it on her first. She had to think of something else.
Blood from her nose trickled down her chin. Tear-shaped droplets landed on her bare chest. With the fingers of her right hand, she pinched her nostrils to stanch the flow.
“I thought you were interested in my hobby,” Brad said sulkily, “but you haven’t said much since we came in here. After all the trouble I’ve gone to.”
“You’re right,” she said, thinking quickly. “I wanted to know how you did some of your special effects, you know, like on the photographs in the other room.”
He led her to a section of countertop at the extreme end of the L and slid open a drawer. The inside was compartmentalized like a woman’s jewellery box, each labelled cubicle containing a protective case. He showed her what he called a multi-image filter, its glass surface cut to resemble large facets on a gemstone. Then there was a split-field close-up lens, starburst filters, defraction filters, over a dozen colour filters, and a fog filter.
But while it was clear Brad enjoyed talking about himself, Beth was running out of time. She pinched her nostrils constantly, but her nose was no longer merely dripping. Blood flowed steady and warm down her upper lip, and she lapped at it with her tongue as though the act of swallowing it would delay her exsanguination.
On a shelf above the drawer of filters lay several lens attachments. Some were small but there were a few huge cylinders — zoom lenses, Beth guessed. Because of their weight, the photographer would need a tripod to hold the camera steady. She kept her eye on the largest one. While Brad droned on about sandwiching slides to produce a composite picture, Beth stole glances at him through her peripheral vision. She studied his profile, calculated the swing arc from her right hand to his nose and hoped her aim would be true.
“Why do you need so many lens attachments?” she asked him. “There are at least fifteen on this shelf.”
“Photographers like to experiment. There’s always some gadget on the market that might give a fresh approach to an overused subject.”
Like dead women. Beth reached toward the smallest lens. “Tell me about this one.”
While Brad explained the uses of the lens she had selected, Beth turned it over in her hand, then held it up to her eye and peered through. She did not replace the lens on the shelf; instead, she put it in front of her on the counter and asked about another lens midway along the shelf. For a moment, it appeared Brad would take the small lens and put it in its rightful spot, but to Beth’s relief, he began to lecture about the benefits of the second lens Beth had chosen.
“I think I’m beginning to understand a little more about photography, though I can’t possibly imagine anyone lugging this thing around. It must weigh a ton.” She grabbed hold of the biggest lens, tilted it toward her eye and took a look. She feigned disgust at its heft and put it down, nudging it slightly further away from the other two, but still within reach.
Brad was still too much in the present, too wary of her and her questions. She had to find a way to induce that fugue state, the one she’d seen in the videos right before he had cut his victims. When he became truly lost in his fantasy, caught up in the exhilaration of whatever it was that drove him to kill, his reaction time would be slowed. It mi
ght be only a micro-second, but it was all she had.
She turned to face him. “Tell me about the first person you killed.”
63
Kearns thought he had put on a reasonable performance for Bailey, his apparent calmness serving to get the pilot the hell home. In truth, Kearns didn’t feel the slightest bit calm. He was strung tight, and for the first time since the disappearance of the first victim, Carole Van Horne, his cop’s nose had picked up the scent of a killer.
Van Horne had been found on Route 1, the road Petersen would take to get from his place in Muir Beach to the city.
I made him change his name, Nora Prescott had said.
Kearns applied more pressure to the gas pedal and watched the speedometer needle respond. If Petersen was Prescott, and if he had Beth, Kearns had little time. As much as he wanted to bring the bastard in himself, he knew he needed backup. Muir Beach was out of sfpd jurisdiction. Kearns reached for his cell phone. The Marin County sheriff let Kearns know that patrol officers were on the way.
The Crown Victoria screeched to a standstill in the double driveway. Kearns bolted from the car and ran through the mist to ring the doorbell.
Fuentes greeted him wearing a T-shirt, boxer shorts, and a scowl. This time, Rosalie didn’t bother to conceal her anger. “Four thirty in the morning! Goddamn it, Manuel! Maybe he should move in here, and I should move out!” Kearns heard a door slam upstairs, then a child’s voice. “Mommy, what’s wrong?”
“There,” Fuentes said. “Satisfied? Wasn’t enough for your marriage to fall apart, now you come here to screw up mine?”
Kearns flapped his hands. “We’ve got no time for this. Grab some pants. We’re going spider hunting.”
“What?”
“Trust me, Manny.”
Fuentes massaged a worried brow, then cast a fleeting glance upstairs. “Give me two minutes.”
Kearns waited in the hallway, heard more harsh words from overhead, remembering too well the clash of job with home. Mary, like Rosa Fuentes, had despised the late-night phone calls, the absolute urgency of an immediate response, her second-fiddle status. In the beginning, she had tolerated the weeks and months of tension when he worked on a case, and the boredom after it was solved. But Mary elected not to follow her husband into his dark corner. Her reason for leaving had been summed up in one sentence: she wanted to laugh again.
Minutes later, Fuentes descended the stairs, now clad in khakis and a wool sweater. He refused to get into Kearns’s car. “How much sleep have you had in the past week? Five, six hours max? I’ll drive. We’ll take my car. I’ve got a full tank of gas.”
The two men headed out the door, Fuentes careful not to let the wind slam it shut. Kearns took one look at the four-year-old Taurus, complete with a pair of beaded seat covers, and groaned. “That thing’s an embarrassment.” A peeling “Mom’s taxi” decal adorned the rear window, put there by one of the Fuentes brood during an unsupervised moment. Kearns groaned again but climbed in anyway.
Route I north was slick with fresh falling rain, and Mom’s taxi didn’t appreciate it. Every curve in the road was accompanied by a plaintive squeal.
“Dammit, Manny,” Kearns hissed. “Can’t this crate go any faster?”
“This is a fine car.” Fuentes patted the dashboard and applied the brake. Another squeal. “It’s the tires that are shit. Besides, I’m not about to get us both killed. What if this turns out to be some wild goose ch —”
“Might not be so wild.” Kearns filled Fuentes in on his conversation with Jordan Bailey.
“So that’s what this is about? Your girlfriend’s missing?”
“Yeah, Beth’s missing,” he replied, his annoyance plain. “But is that the only thing you’ve heard? Bailey saw the photo of Prescott. He’s almost sure it’s this Petersen guy.”
“Wait a minute,” Fuentes said, removing his gaze from the road to shoot Kearns a look. “We’re out in the wee hours. It’s pissing down rain. All because of an ‘almost sure?’”
“I know, I know.” The tires met the gravel shoulder. “Keep your eyes on the road, would ya?”
Fuentes worked the wheel, and the car regained traction.
“Petersen and Bailey belong to a health club. Young clientele. Real emphasis on the social. The members take turns throwing parties. Theme nights. Getting-to-know-you things. Invite an Out-of-Towner. Bring Your Cousin. All guests have to come in threes. So even if there’s a couple, it’s the third person that does the mixing, but it doesn’t have that swinging singles sleaziness about it. It seems like a safe way to meet people.”
“And you think he does his trolling there? How many people at one of these shindigs?”
“Hundred — Bailey’s ballpark figure. Just think about it. A smorgasbord of unattached women parading around, and Petersen gets to play the sheik. The guy doesn’t have to hit one bus station, bar, or university campus. He can hunt right in someone’s living room. He window shops, selects his victim, throws a little charm her way, maybe gets her phone number. Or he learns enough about her through small talk that he can familiarize himself with her routine. Then he accidentally shows up somewhere he knows that she’ll be. ‘Hey, I remember you. Party out at so-and-so’s.’ Could go something like that.”
Fuentes increased the speed on his wipers. “Yeah,” he nodded, “it could. But we don’t know that it does.”
“What better way for the killer to relieve his post-murder depression than to go to a party, gear up for his next ritual?”
“Shee-it!” Kearns hollered. “Watch it!”
A fat raccoon waddled across the lane. Instinctively, Fuentes’s foot hit the brake. He clutched the wheel as the car went into a skid. “Mother of God,” he intoned and released his foot from the brake. Again the car found traction, and both men exhaled simultaneously. From the passenger mirror, Kearns saw the raccoon continue across the road and vanish into a ditch.
Fuentes squinted through the rain-streaked windshield, then said, “Maybe you better get on the blower and call the Marin County SO for backup. This is no time for heroics.”
Kearns nodded. “Already done. With any luck, they should get there ahead of this bucket and have the bastard cuffed by the time we arrive. But just in case, could you speed it up a little, Manny?”
Fuentes manoeuvred a sharp curve in the road. His face nearly touched the steering wheel as his whole body leaned into the curve. When the pavement straightened, he relaxed his shoulders a little and said, “Worst-case scenario. Petersen is the Spiderman. He’s got your friend. We know the killer keeps the women alive for nearly a week. Beth Wells hasn’t been missing for that long. She’s still okay.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Kearns told him. “Beth has an artificial heart valve. She already takes blood thinners. If that bastard has given her anything beyond her required dosage, she could already be a dead woman. So for God’s sake, Manny, now will you show me what this fucking car can do?”
64
You’ve been outsmarting the police for years, haven’t you?” The Spiderman smiled. Beth looked for evil in the expression, some trace of a sneer, but found none. Brad’s smile radiated warmth. “I’ve been killing since I was thirteen,” he told her. “Animals don’t count, do they?”
Beth hadn’t expected this. She felt sick, wanted to vomit but choked it back. She couldn’t afford to lose more fluid. She needed whatever strength she had left.
She swallowed, controlled her intake of air and tried to guess what reaction he would want. “Thirteen? You must have been extremely smart even then.”
“Don’t be so transparent. The others tried to flatter me too, you know.”
She tried to ignore the skittering of fear up her spine. “I’m not trying to flatter you. I’m just amazed that you could keep something like murder a secret. Most young people boast about their misdeeds. Certainly most aren’t bright enough to cover all their tracks. How did you do it?”
“The police focused on the older boys
, ones who’d already had trouble with the law. They weren’t going to centre their investigation around a thirteen-year-old altar server whose mother made generous contributions to the school.”
“Thirteen,” Beth repeated. “You must have been filled with anger.”
He related a tale of a mother who cared more about buying cosmetics than providing her son with a hot meal, how she had let him lie at the bottom of the cellar steps while she entertained a male companion. “I had fallen,” he said, an edge of bitterness in his voice, “and I could hear her tell the guy I was just doing it for attention. She actually told the bastard I was her nephew. By the time she sent me away to school, I was determined to make something of myself. I wasn’t going to be invisible to her anymore.”
He spoke about two elderly priests and the abuse he had suffered at their hands. As his thoughts drifted, he turned his body toward the counter, leaning on it for support. Beth cast nervous glances at the zoom lens, then at Brad’s profile, mentally adjusted the angle of the swing arc to compensate for his new posture. She needed to see his eyes. Just one glimpse at his face would tell her how deeply entrenched he was in his story. Standing shoulder to shoulder, she couldn’t tell. “The old bastard was dying in the hospital,” Brad was saying. “The shock of the fire was too much for him. Still, I wished he hadn’t gone quite so peacefully. I was determined that Anthony would kick off with more of a bang.” There was a curious high-pitched giggle. “I drugged the Communion wine. And the decanter of sherry in his room. Anthony always had a nip or two before saying Mass. By the time the police got there, I had wiped my fingerprints from the decanter and was joining in with the commotion. Everyone was nuts, running around screaming about how Anthony had hurled himself off the bell tower. No one even noticed me. It was all so easy.”
Beth detected the singsong lilt in his voice, the same one she’d heard when she had awakened in Brad’s basement two days ago. She thought then that he was crooning to mock her. Now she realized he was comforting himself, the way children rock themselves or suck their thumbs.
Every Wickedness Page 27
