Split Second

by Catherine Coulter

  “It doesn’t matter! It shouldn’t have happened! It is not right that it should come out. Her mother and I are ruined, do you understand? Ruined!”

  “May I remind you, sir, this isn’t some sort of vendetta waged against you by the FBI or the San Francisco Police Department. Five innocent women are known dead at the hands of your stepdaughter. It is very likely Kirsten murdered another six women.”

  “But it isn’t—yes, of course I’m distressed by the murders. Wait, what did you say? She killed before? Another six women? That’s insane. I never heard such a thing. There was no news about it, nothing at all.”

  Lucy spoke for the first time, aware that Lansford’s aide was standing six feet away, arms crossed over his chest, and he hadn’t looked away from her. Why? “The reason you haven’t heard of the other dead women is that Kirsten must have hidden the bodies of her early victims. It seems she was practicing, Mr. Lansford, honing her skills.

  “Sooner or later the media will pick up on these other women we fear she murdered. You can count on it, since something this heinous can’t be kept under wraps for long.”

  George Bentley Lansford looked like someone had punched a big hole in his elegant suit coat. They all saw that the murders were no longer an abstraction to him, that he’d finally realized to his bones that Kirsten had brought violent death to a dozen human beings, to people just like himself. He ran his tongue over his lips. “Practicing?”

  Coop said, “Serial killers often refine their approach, discovering what sorts of killing methods give them the greatest satisfaction. Yes, we believe she murdered at least six more women, actually some of them young girls, and buried them deep so no one would ever find them.”

  Lansford looked sick, his anger defeated, and older than he had when they’d stepped through the door ten minutes before. “All right, I understand. I had no clue, none at all. I saw her very few times over the years. I thought she was sullen, indifferent to me, nothing more. You’ve got to believe me. If her mother had noticed anything, she would have said something to me. But, of course, her mother hadn’t seen Kirsten for a very long time before her last birthday party; neither of us had. A dozen women? She’s murdered a dozen women?”

  Coop said, “When we catch her, we’re hoping she will tell us where she buried them all.”

  Savich said, “Let me add that these six are the only ones we know about so far, all of them from the Bay Area. There could be more, out of the area, even out-of-state, but I personally tend to doubt it, because we’ve discovered that each of the women who disappeared knew Kirsten. They weren’t strangers to her.

  “Mr. Lansford, as Agent McKnight said, not all of them were grown women. Annie Sparks was only sixteen years old when she went missing. She attended Mount Elysium High School in San Francisco, shared a biology class with Kirsten. Would you like to hear about the other five women who were almost certainly victims of your stepdaughter?”

  “No! Listen, you can’t be sure about these other missing women—girls—not really.” There was no more heat in Mr. Lansford’s words. He scrubbed his face with his hands. “I simply can’t imagine that she would do such a thing, over and over—and enjoy it.”

  Coop had wanted to dislike this man, but the shock and despair he saw in his eyes was painfully real. Even the lawyers were trying hard not to show their horror. Mr. Lansford’s aide, Mr. Buff Tan, hadn’t moved an inch since assuming his nearby guard position. “You are in no way to blame, Mr. Lansford,” Coop said. “We know you married her mother twelve years ago, which would have made Kirsten twenty-one years old, an adult. What would be helpful is if you would give us your impressions of Kirsten, any personal information you think could help us find her.”

  Lansford began to pace the suite’s living room, his lawyers hovering close, wanting to object, but to what? Then, with perfect timing, one of the lawyers said, “There is nothing Mr. Lansford can tell you that would be of any assistance in finding her. After all, as you said, she was already an adult when he married her mother. As he has already said, he rarely saw her. She was nearly a stranger to him.”

  Lucy said, “Tell us about her birthday, Mr. Lansford—you gave her a black Porsche, right?”

  Lansford stopped pacing and slowly turned to face her. “How do you know about that?”

  Coop said, “Your sister-in-law, Sentra Bolger, told us.”

  He looked ready to spit. “Sentra? That idiot woman, you can’t believe a word she says, she’s nuts, and it’s worse because she’s good at it, she’s very convincing.”

  Lucy said, “Yes, she is convincing. Surely your wife told you when we interviewed Sentra, we believed her to be Kirsten’s mother and your wife, Elizabeth Mary Lansford?”

  “Yes, yes, but she said Sentra refused to tell her anything about her conversation with you, only that Sentra had said she’d kissed you off.” He nodded at Lucy and Coop. “You two were with her on Friday night?”

  Lucy said, “Yes, we were, and believe me, Sentra was very up front, very believable at playing both your wife and Kirsten’s mother. About Kirsten’s birthday—Sentra told us Kirsten was charming to you, unusual for her, according to Sentra. She told us Kirsten was very pleased with your gift of the Porsche. Sentra was there, wasn’t she, sir?”

  “Yes, she was, not that I wanted her there, but Elizabeth believed it would be a good idea because she is, after all, Kirsten’s aunt, and Elizabeth wanted Kirsten’s family around her. Bruce”—Lansford nodded toward Mr. Buff Tan—“was there as well. Listen, Sentra loves to play roles. She could be Lady Macbeth one minute and then segue easily into Lady Gaga.”

  Coop asked, “Why did you buy her such an expensive present, Mr. Lansford?”

  Again he ran his tongue over his lips.

  One of the lawyers said, “A father’s gift doesn’t have to justify a price tag, Agent.” Almost in the next breath, the lawyer cleared his throat. “Ah, what I meant to say is that even a stepfather, related only by marriage, a man who had nothing at all to do with any of her upbringing, can give a splendid gift, Agent McKnight, as a loving gesture to his wife.”

  Lansford said, not looking away from Coop, “Shut up, Cox. Listen, Agents, you want the truth? Here it is—I could barely tolerate Kirsten. She was cold and weird and generally unpleasant, and, as far as I could tell from all the years I knew her, she didn’t have a single friend, didn’t go on a single date with a man, and despised her mother. But then again, I rarely saw her; her mother, either. So was she always like this? A loner? Always creepy? I don’t know, but it sounds right.”

  Lucy said, “Then why the Porsche, Mr. Lansford?”

  He waved them over to one of the beautiful sofas. “Sit, all of you, sit.”

  Cox opened his mouth again, but Lansford waved him to silence. “I gave her the Porsche because her mother—although she didn’t say anything about it to me—wanted desperately to see her daughter. I knew the only way to make Kirsten come over, the only way to make sure she’d be pleasant, was to do something big, like the Porsche. That’s why I gave it to her.

  “Now, Elizabeth told me who Kirsten’s father was when I asked her to marry me, when Kirsten was nineteen. Elizabeth didn’t ever want me to question that she’d kept the truth from me on purpose if, somehow, I found out about Kirsten’s parentage. I tell you, I couldn’t believe it at first. I mean, Ted Bundy, that horrific monster—no, I couldn’t believe it, didn’t want to believe the woman I loved had actually slept with that psychopath. I didn’t want to know any of the particulars, and that was fortunate, since she didn’t want to talk about what had happened between the two of them.

  “As I said, Kirsten was nineteen at the time. I’ll tell you, even before I knew who Kirsten’s father was, I didn’t want to be around her. Like I told you, she was always sullen around me, obviously didn’t want me near her mother, although she was just as sullen, just as unpleasant, to her mother. She obeyed her mother only when she felt like it. Then she’d turn on a dime—she’d become the ni
cest girl you can imagine, all smiles and hugs and charm, like at her birthday party. And yes, this was always connected to something her mother or I did for her. You can be sure I gave marrying Elizabeth a lot of thought after she told me about Kirsten.

  “But you see, I loved Elizabeth, loved her to my bones, and she loved me. However, she put me off for another two years until Kirsten was twenty-one, out of the house, and on her own, and I wouldn’t have to be around her. Then we finally married.

  “I will be honest. I knew that if Kirsten’s parentage ever came out, my businesses would suffer and we would be hounded by the media, but I didn’t see how it ever would come out. Elizabeth told me Bundy never knew about the child, so who would tell?”

  Lucy said, “Sentra told us you didn’t know about Kirsten’s parentage.”

  He snorted, a curiously charming sound. “I repeat, Sentra’s nuts. She’s a liar. She likes to cause problems, to give her sister grief. What if Elizabeth hadn’t come in before you left? You’d still believe you’d spoken to Elizabeth, wouldn’t you?”

  “Very likely,” Coop said.

  Lucy asked, “Do you know who told Kirsten her father’s identity?”

  Lansford sighed. “It had to be Sentra. But why?” He snorted, waved a hand. “Am I an idiot, or what? It’s Sentra we’re talking about here, and that crazy witch would do anything, and for no good reason. I think it’s only because they’re twins that Elizabeth can’t seem to distance herself from Sentra, once and for all.

  “I know Elizabeth certainly never told Kirsten who her father was, though she told me Kirsten asked her often enough when she was a little girl. Elizabeth simply told her that her father was dead, and that came true, soon enough, in that Florida electric chair.

  “Elizabeth said when Kirsten was twenty-five she became even more secretive from one day to the next, even more unpleasant to her—in fact, she simply cut her out of her life. Elizabeth wanted desperately to believe it was simply another phase, but she said she knew in her heart Kirsten had found out about Bundy.

  “And then Elizabeth found the book on Ted Bundy, right on top of Kirsten’s dresser, where she’d left it so her mother would know. As I said, we didn’t see her again, until her birthday party, which was fine with me, but I know Elizabeth worried.

  “Do you know, in that book on Bundy, Kirsten had drawn circles around her father’s photos, yellow circles? And little hearts. I’m wondering now if she recognized herself.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Little hearts. Savich could only imagine what Mrs. Lansford had thought when she’d seen that.

  Mr. Lansford said, “When Elizabeth told me about Bundy being Kirsten’s father, she admitted she hadn’t had a clue what or who Kirsten was from the time Kirsten reached puberty. She didn’t know what she would do or say or think about any particular subject from one minute to the next. She also admitted to me that Kirsten’s strangeness had always frightened her, given who her father was. Elizabeth read every book she could find on whether psychopathic behavior could be inherited, but she simply couldn’t be certain about Kirsten. She said she was afraid to even think about it; it was simply too upsetting.

  “Because Kirsten hadn’t been arrested by the age of twenty-one, Elizabeth told me she began to breathe more easily, finally admitted that was why she’d waited another two years to marry me. She hadn’t wanted me near someone who could possibly harm me. I remember before she was twenty-five, Kirsten occasionally slept over, but let me tell you, I’d forget her for months at a time.

  “That black Porsche.” He dashed his fingers through his beautifully styled hair. It fell right back into place. “Do you know, I always liked black until Kirsten. But black was the only color I ever saw her wear. Fricking black. And so I bought her the black Porsche. I wanted to tie a black bow around the Porsche, but her mother said it wouldn’t go over well, Kirsten would think I was making fun of her, and I confess, when she said that, I felt a chill run over me. So the bow was huge and red, and Kirsten smiled and patted me, told me thank you, and she kissed me maybe a dozen times. She even asked questions about my upcoming campaign. She was all interest, all sweetness—that day—and I’ll confess, I wanted to believe she was simply a bit on the exotic side, that her weird behavior was mainly affectation. I never dreamed she was indeed a copy of her father. I mean, who could dream of such a thing? We never saw her again after that day.”

  Savich said, “You said she was unpredictable, Mr. Lansford. Could you give us an example?”

  He walked over to the window and looked out onto the quiet courtyard. He said over his shoulder, “I remember once, she was maybe twenty-four, she waltzed into my office in Silicon Valley, completely unexpected, and told me she was taking me to lunch.”

  Coop said, “Did you go?”

  Another moment of silence, then Lansford said, “I’ve never said this before, haven’t, as a matter of fact, even let myself think it. But now that I remember that day, I realize I went to lunch with her for the simple reason that I was afraid of her. I tried to tell myself that I had no reason to be, but still—I’ll never forget the first time I met her, this eighteen-year-old who was attending Berkeley, an art major, and she looked like she wanted to shoot me, sullen as a little kid—but much more than that. I saw something in her eyes when she looked at me, lurking there, if you will, something that alarmed me. I know that sounds melodramatic, as if I’m embellishing my reactions, since I now know who she is, but I’m not sure. That something I saw hiding in her eyes, it was this Kirsten—Ted Bundy’s daughter. You know she also attended law school for a little while, like her father?”

  “Yes,” Savich said. “We know.”

  Lansford raised bleak eyes to Savich. “My poor wife is devastated. Can you imagine finding out your child has murdered five people?”

  Lansford shook his head, trying to get his brain around the horror. “I remember Elizabeth told me once she must be the luckiest woman alive. I thought she was talking about meeting me, about our coming together, and my ego bounded to the stratosphere.” He gave a sharp laugh, met Savich’s eyes. “But what she meant was that she had survived Bundy, that he hadn’t tortured her and murdered her—he only left her pregnant.

  “She left yesterday to stay with her cousins in Seattle. Yes, I know, Ted Bundy lived there. Did she meet him in Seattle? I don’t know, I didn’t ask her, but I know it was her first home.”

  “What about Sentra?”

  “I happened to go by the gallery Friday night and saw the two of them together. Elizabeth was furious, of course, and Sentra, well, she was laughing, talking about what an interesting evening it had been.”

  Coop said, “Mr. Lansford, do you think it’s possible Sentra is Kirsten’s mother and not Elizabeth?”

  “What? No, I have never thought that. What possible reason could they have had for a ruse like that?”

  “Maybe your wife took the baby because, as you say, Sentra was nuts, not at all good mother material.”

  “No, Elizabeth would have told me.”

  “Has Sentra always been an interior decorator?”

  Lansford laughed. “Oh, you can’t know how rich that is. Sentra is the longtime mistress of Clifford Childs, an old-time San Francisco aristocrat with old-time money—actually, he has a vast reservoir of money. She’s never earned a dime, never done a worthwhile thing in her life, even though she claims she’s an interior decorator. She met Childs when she was all of twenty-two years old, and he was thirty, a recent widower with two sons. They’ve been together ever since, thirty-two years.”

  They all knew this, since a Google search had turned up dozens of society party photos. Lucy asked, “Why didn’t they marry?”

  “I don’t know why, but the way Sentra tells it, she keeps turning him down. Why? Sentra says he’s too possessive. He’s always given her an outrageous allowance, treated her like a queen. They’re quite the society couple. I believe he’s even left her half his estate in his will. His two sons love her as much a
s Daddy, their wives as well—amazing, since I can’t imagine her being able to hide what a loon she is for very long. Maybe it doesn’t matter to any of them that she’s crazy, or maybe this role is simply easy for her, and pleases her, and with them there is no pretense. Yes, one big happy family. It’s all very odd. Do you know Childs came to my big fund-raiser in San Francisco and contributed huge bucks for my campaign?”

  Lucy said, “Thirty-two years. That’s almost exactly Kirsten’s age. Excuse me for repeating this, but maybe you’ve given us the reason for Sentra giving up Kirsten as a baby—namely, Clifford Childs. What do you think? Sentra was twenty-two years old, had a baby, no means of support, and here comes her knight—namely, Clifford Childs.”

  Lansford said, “Sure, that could make sense, but like I already said, I know Elizabeth, and I know she would have told me if she weren’t Kirsten’s mother; there’d have been no reason for her not to. Actually, I think she would have been greatly relieved to be able to tell me that. No, there is no doubt in my mind that Elizabeth is Kirsten’s mother.”

  “Did Sentra know Bundy personally?”

  “Elizabeth never said one way or the other. But listen, I admire my wife for what she did. She was twenty-two years old, and she supported herself by selling her art, attended classes at Berkeley, and raised a child on her own.”

  Savich nodded. “Do you know how Clifford Childs has reacted to all this?”

  Lansford gave a bark of laughter. “He called me an hour ago. True to form, Clifford and the family have closed ranks around Sentra. He sees her as a victim who needs his protection.

  “Listen, Agents, do you think Elizabeth could be in any danger from Kirsten? The thought scares me stupid.”

  Savich said, “No, I don’t think so, Mr. Lansford. If I were worried about one of you, I’d say it would be you. Take care in your daily routine, all right? Be aware of the people who come near you—until we catch Kirsten.”