by Ed Gaffney
CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
FORTY-FIVE SECONDS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
MONSTER
CHAPTER THREE
FORTY SECONDS
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
IRIS A. DUBINSKI
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
THIRTY-SEVEN SECONDS
MONSTER
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
THIRTY-FOUR SECONDS
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
LAURENCE L. SETA
TWENTY-EIGHT SECONDS
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
TWENTY-TWO SECONDS
MONSTER
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
EIGHTEEN SECONDS
ANDRE L. ENGLEWOOD
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
ELEVEN SECONDS
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
EIGHT SECONDS
NEIL HEINRICH
MONSTER
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
THE FINAL FIVE SECONDS
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
MONSTER
PHILOMENA Y. GIORDANO
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
STEPHANIE HARTZ
MONSTER
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
MONSTER
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
MONSTER
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
MONSTER
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
EPILOGUE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
IF YOU ENJOYED ED GAFFNEY’S DIARY OF A SERIAL KILLER
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
ALSO BY ED GAFFNEY
COPYRIGHT
This book is dedicated to my partner forever, Suz.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks again to Kate Miciak and the entire Bantam Dell team for their tireless efforts.
Thanks to my agent, Steve Axelrod, for the kwan.
Thanks to Eric Ruben and Kathy Lague for the research help, and to Suz Brockmann, for all that terrifying reading she did about serial killers.
Thanks to the fearless early readers: Suz Brockmann, Fred and Lee Brockmann, Deede Bergeron, Scott Lutz, Patricia McMahon, and Karen Schlosberg.
As always, thanks to Eric Ruben, whose passion and humor are the inspiration for Terry.
Thanks to the Tribe for their friendship and support.
Deepest thanks to fellow author Lori Foster, whose work for the Animal Adoption Foundation inspired Suz to introduce me to my lifelong friends and companions, Sugar and Spice.
And finally, special thanks to my parents, Bernard and Mary Gaffney, who gave me a near-perfect childhood.
Forty-Five Seconds
THE MOMENT THE MADMAN FIRED HIS FIRST shot, attorney Zack Wilson knew that he had less than forty-five seconds to live.
Which meant that he was going to have to make them a damn good forty-five seconds.
It wasn’t that Zack was clairvoyant. It was just that as a criminal trial lawyer, he did a lot of reading about violent life-or-death situations—like, for example, the one he and about a hundred other innocent people were in right now—trapped in a closed and dimly lit courtroom, with a homicidal gunman.
Who just then fired a second shot into the screaming crowd.
Zack knew that the great majority of those caught in such terrible circumstances actually survived, because they did what anyone would expect. They dove to the floor, covered their heads, and waited for the shooting to stop.
But he also knew that there were others who decided, for whatever reason, they needed to confront the shooter. Those were the ones who got killed.
And according to the statistics, they usually got killed in the first forty-five seconds of the attack.
As the echo of the gunshots and the terrified cries of the people in the gallery reverberated around Zack, the world slid into slow motion.
The first bullet had been wild, hitting the main overhead light fixture, showering broken glass down onto dozens below, and shorting out the room’s entire electrical system. Now only oddly aimed beams from the emergency flood lamps mounted high on the walls shone through the windowless space. It didn’t matter to Zack. He was very familiar with his surroundings. He’d been here dozens, if not hundreds, of times before.
It was a rectangular courtroom, divided in two by a waist-high wooden rail. At the back of the room was a large area where the spectators sat in wooden benches divided in equal thirds by two aisles running from back to front. At the forward end of the room, the judge, the clerk, the stenographer, the jury, the lawyers, and the witnesses all did their work.
Right now, however, the front of the courtroom was empty except for Zack at the far right side of the room, and the shooter, who was all the way on the other side.
But the gallery was close to full, and even though Zack could only catch glimpses of the spectators because of the crazy lighting, what he saw was awful.
A woman with huge eyes was clenching a newspaper in the first row, directly in front of the shooter. She appeared to be paralyzed with terror.
There was an Asian man directly behind her, trying to scramble over the back of his wooden bench.
But the man wearing the short-sleeved shirt two rows behind him was sitting quite still, with a puzzled expression on his face, and a spreading bloodstain on his shirt.
The woman next to him was shouting something into his ear which he didn’t seem to understand, as others in their row of seats climbed over them both to get to the aisle.
In the dim light and the chaos, though, Zack couldn’t see where his seven-year-old son, Justin, sat. That meant Zack would never be able to reach Justin in time to protect him from any other shots the gunman might fire into the crowd.
And Zack couldn’t live with that.
So as the roar of the gun’s second discharge pierced the screaming and echoed through the panicked room, Zack didn’t dive for the floor and cover his head. Instead, he started moving toward the shooter.
Because that was the only way he was going to be able to keep Justin safe.
And Zack could live with that.
At least for another forty-five—now probably more like forty—seconds.
ONE
Five Weeks Earlier
August 15
“ARE YOU TELLING ME SOME SERIAL KILLER took a twenty-year vacation and then all of a sudden started murdering people again last night?”
Police Detective Vera Demopolous put a pair of latex gloves on, and carefully removed the letter from the plastic evidence bag.
She had just walked through the front door of her first murder scene as lead detective—the single-family home at 53 Lakeview Street in the Indian Oaks section of Springfield. She was talking to Sergeant Jimmy Wong, who had almost twenty-five years on the job. Wong had been a rookie on the force back in the early ’80s. Right around the time Vera was attending Benjamin Franklin Elementary School in Fairbanks, Alaska.
Jimmy laughed. “I doubt it. Willy Grasso put away the Springfield Shooter back in ’84. Alan Lombardo. Real sick gu
y. I’m just saying, from what I remember, this scene is a little like those—including a note from the killer. At least from what I heard. I was doing mainly traffic control back then. Not too many murder investigations.”
Vera turned her attention to the letter. It was on a plain white piece of paper, and looked like it had been run off a computer printer.
To the Detective assigned to this case:
First, please give my regards to Detective Grasso. I hope he is enjoying his well-earned retirement.
As I’m sure you must have surmised, this letter was written before I got here, so I will not, herein, be able to provide you with many details of my activities. But I’m sure the condition in which I leave Mr. Chatham will provide you with more than enough work to keep you busy for some time. Of course I will tape him up, and I will shoot him, but beyond that—well, I will just have to see how things progress.
What I can tell is that I’ll be in touch with you soon about the next murder you’ll be working on. (Oh yes, I’m one of those kinds of killers!!!)
But I don’t want to distract you from Mr. Chatham. You’re going to want to pay special attention to him, because he’s our first. Go ahead, Detective, look for clues, ask around, see if you can find me before I kill somebody else.
But you won’t.
When she finished reading it, she replaced the letter in the evidence bag. Jimmy gestured over his shoulder and said, “Body’s over here in the living room.”
Vera followed the sergeant as Wong turned left off the entry hall. Forensics and Crime Scene were already well into their work. “Can you fill me in on what you’ve got so far?”
Vera was lucky that somebody as experienced as Jimmy Wong was at the scene. Murder scenes were always complicated, and for now, Vera was working without any backup.
She had joined the force two years ago, but three of the detectives who had been working when she started were gone. Willy Grasso, the senior member, had retired and moved to Florida. His former partner, Ole Pedersen, was on medical leave recovering from surgery, and John Morrison had died in the line of duty.
Suddenly Vera was one of the most experienced detectives in the shorthanded precinct. When Lieutenant Carasquillo had assigned last night’s murder investigation to her, he’d assured her that she’d be getting help soon. And he’d mentioned that he’d left word for Willy Grasso to call her because of the similarities to the Springfield Shooter case twenty years ago.
“Okay. Victim’s name is Corey Samuel Chatham. Earlier this morning, around eight-thirty, a software engineer named Muhammed—No, wait”—Wong checked his notes—“Maleek Muhammed, pulled into the driveway to pick up Chatham to go to work. They carpool, and it was Muhammed’s turn to drive. Chatham is always on time, ready to go, but today he doesn’t come right out, so Muhammed honks the horn. Still no Corey. Muhammed gets out of the car, knocks on the door, rings the bell, no answer. Now he’s getting worried, so he starts walking around the house, peeking in windows, and sure enough, he sees somebody sitting in a chair in the living room. He calls 911, the uniforms break in, and it’s Chatham, DOA, duct-taped to a recliner. Looks like small-caliber handgun, maybe a .22. Shot twice, in the groin and the eye. There’s some red marks on his neck and chest, maybe a burn. And one of his fingers is missing. Looks like it was cut off. The ME hasn’t gotten here yet, but the body was cold when the uniforms found it.”
Vera felt herself make the mental shift she needed so she could do her job. Her grandmother called it putting on Vera’s grim suit. She had first named it that when she watched normally happy-go-lucky and bubbly ten-year-old Vera sit absolutely still with a frozen expression on her face and say nothing while getting stitches in her leg after falling in the playground on some broken glass.
The modest-sized living room where the corpse was found was furnished with the plush, leather recliner on which Chatham had died, which faced a wooden entertainment console that housed a flat-screen television and a stereo. The shelves of the large console contained an extensive collection of science fiction DVDs, books of art, and hardcover collections of comic strips. There were also framed photos, several featuring Chatham and an orange-striped cat, and a portrait of a young girl in a Catholic school uniform.
There was also one of Chatham, looking both embarrassed and thrilled, at a theme park, dressed in a Star Trek uniform.
At right angles with the recliner was a dark red leather sofa, marred only by a very small scratch on one arm. Yesterday’s newspaper lay at one end, folded neatly.
In front of the sofa stood a wood-and-glass coffee table, on which sat a remote control for the TV, and two more art books.
The place was almost ludicrously neat.
Chatham, himself, was a very different story.
The victim was a light-skinned African-American, probably in his fifties, with curly black hair that had started to gray. He was average height, and maybe a little overweight. He wore khaki pants and a blue oxford shirt. His feet were bare.
In short, nothing out of the ordinary.
Until you looked at his grotesque wounds.
It would be up to the medical examiner to make the final call, of course, but from the marks around the eye socket, it sure looked like that shot was taken point-blank.
The one to the groin wasn’t as clear, because the pants were so badly bloodstained.
And the missing right index finger looked like it had been severed before he had been moved to the recliner, because the upholstery on the arm of the chair under the missing finger had not been ripped or torn at all.
If the finger had been cut off while Corey sat here, you’d have expected the leather on which it had rested to have been damaged. Unless, of course, the finger had been snipped off with a tool of some kind.
Jeez. People could really suck, sometimes.
Blood had pooled on the seat of the recliner, and on the floor under the chair. It was pretty clear that the victim had been taped here, and then shot. There were no bloodstains anywhere else in the house.
After Crime Scene had taken photos of the victim as they had found him, Vera gently tried to tip the head forward a bit, to see if there was an exit wound, but rigor mortis had already set in, and the head remained rigidly fixed against the seat back. She turned back to Jimmy, and asked, “Where’s the coworker—Muhammed—now?”
“We let him go to work after he gave us a statement. I told him you’d want to speak to him later today. I wrote down his contact information.” Jimmy handed Vera a small sheet of paper with the witness’s phone number and address.
“When was the last time anybody saw Chatham alive?”
“We’re still canvassing, but we know that it was Chatham’s turn to drive to work yesterday, and he dropped Muhammed home in Linwood last night at six-thirty. That’s all we have so far.”
Linwood was about fifteen minutes away. So the earliest Chatham could have gotten home was six forty-five. From the condition of the body, that sounded about right. Under typical room temperature conditions, rigor mortis would be at its peak between twelve and twenty-four hours after death. After that, the body would start to become limp again. It was close to ten A.M. now, and Chatham’s body was positively rigid. Time of death was probably between six forty-five and ten o’clock last night.
“Uh huh. Muhammed’s story check out?”
“Yeah.” Jimmy read from his notes again. “Worked the day before. Wife saw him get out of Chatham’s car around six-thirty. Spent the night with her and their five kids eating dinner and watching some Disney video.”
Jimmy went over to speak to one of the Crime Scene guys just as Vera’s cell phone rang. The display indicated that the call was from Florida.
“Hello?”
“Vera, it’s Willy. Was there a note?”
So retirement to Florida hadn’t done much for Willy’s social skills. Her grandmother would say the guy pretty much always had his grim suit on.
“Hi, Willy. Jimmy Wong just showed it to me a minut
e ago.”
“What does it say?”
Vera read him the note.
“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Willy said. “Check me on this, but I think it was after the third shooting, Lombardo started leaving little notes. Always addressed them to me. They were a little simpler than this one, though. More like, ‘What do you think of this?’ or ‘How about them apples?’ We couldn’t do anything with them until we caught the guy. Lombardo ran them off his computer printer, too.”
“He use a .22 in the other shootings?”
“Yep. Every one of the victims was tied up with duct tape and shot repeatedly with a .22 caliber handgun. Most of them lost an index finger just like your DOA. Sounds a lot like Lombardo.”
Vera didn’t believe in coincidences. It seemed obvious that last night’s murder was connected to the ones twenty years ago. “So what do you think? Copycat?”
Willy sighed. “I guess so. Everything you found fits the pattern of the old murders—the weapon, the tape, the note, the finger, even the location. It’s not too hard to believe, I guess. I mean all of this stuff was big news in the area when it was happening. Anyone who lived in New England at the time knew about the Springfield Shooter.”
Even though a copycat seemed like the most plausible explanation, it still seemed far-fetched. Why wait two decades before deciding to replicate old crimes? “Any chance Lombardo was wrong for the shootings in the first place?”
“No way,” Willy replied, gruffly. “It was a good bust. By the book all the way. Found tons of evidence in his home. Must have been thirty witnesses at the trial. He had no chance. The jury was out for all of twenty minutes. Nine indictments, nine convictions. Judge gave him nine life sentences.”
But what had happened to Alan Lombardo sure didn’t explain why twenty years later someone would start copying his homicidal pattern. She looked again at the killer’s note. “And you didn’t find any hidden messages in the words of the notes, nothing like that?”
“Nope. We couldn’t figure anything out, and since he didn’t confess, we never got an explanation from him. We ended up figuring the notes weren’t anything more than a twisted creep getting his jollies.”
