Be Mine (34 page)

What the hell was this? Tiggle sounded like he was reading from a
prepared statement.

“What was his offense, Tiggle? What did he do to get fired?”

“I can’t reveal that.”

“What? You’re joking.”

“Inspector, Chicago police policy and Illinois state law keep such
records sealed.”

“Tiggle, I’ve got two dead detectives. I’ve got your boy on a
suspect list and I’ve got you jerking my chain.”

“You could seek a warrant, Inspector.”

“A warrant?”

Sydowski swallowed the remains of his Tums.

“Tiggle, I think you’d be wise to help me now. Because when the dust
settles, I swear to God Almighty, you’re going to be asked by people higher up
the food chain to explain why you didn’t.”

Tiggle said nothing.

“I’ll repeat: two dead homicide detectives. I helped carry their
caskets. I’m staring at their empty desks now. I’m the primary. And unless you
want me to write in my file ‘Tiggle of the Chicago PD obstructed
investigation,’ I suggest you reconsider helping me.”

Sydowski heard Tiggle’s breathing quicken and thought the guy was
likely a career desk jockey.

“Let me see what I can do, Inspector. And I’ll get back to you.”

Sydowski couldn’t believe this. He loosened his tie.

Christ, he wasn’t going to wait for Tiggle. He was going above him.
And while he was at it, Sydowski would see to it that Tiggle got pissed on,
too.

The officious prick.

Bleeder had been following
Della
Thompson’s blue Toyota Corolla ever since she and Molly left Glen Park earlier
that day.

He needed to get Molly alone. Just one golden moment, but Thompson
was in the way. Be patient, he told himself.

He followed them over the Bay Bridge east from San Francisco. The
afternoon traffic on the Bay Area expressways was heavy, making it easy for him
to keep up with them with little chance of being seen.

The risk of losing them kept him alert. Maintaining a distance of
three or four vehicles, he analyzed the situation. Molly was with Thompson.
They hadn’t made any stops. And from what he could determine they hadn’t made
any cell phone calls along the way.

Why this sudden departure from the city?

Bleeder checked his mirrors, adjusted his grip on the wheel, and
forced himself to relax.

Thompson stayed on 580 beyond Hayward, then exited later and went
north into the San Joaquin Valley. Bleeder enjoyed the pleasant breezes, which
grew fragrant as they rolled by the expanses of vineyards, the miles of walnut,
almond, and cherry orchards. They were nearing Lodi.

Lodi
.

Bleeder smashed his steering wheel with both hands.

Entering the city, Thompson stopped at a strip mall. Bleeder drove
to a point out of sight from where he watched their car while weighing the
wisdom of entering the mall to see what Thompson and Molly were up to. Too
risky. They could spot him. In less than ten minutes, they’d emerged.

Molly was carrying flowers.

Thompson drove to Lodi’s outskirts to the country cemetery where
Hooper was buried. Bleeder’s neck muscles tensed and he cursed under his
breath. He remained out of sight, taking a dirt lane, bordered by tall grass.
It threaded the perimeter of the burial ground, disappearing into the fringes
of a vast cherry orchard where living trees stood among the dead and twisted ones.

The Toyota’s doors thudded. Thompson leaned against the car. Molly
went to Hooper’s grave and lowered herself to her knees. She placed flowers
upon the still fresh mound.

No, Bleeder thought.

Alone among the headstones, Molly was a portrait of sorrow. She
dabbed her eyes with a tissue as birds sang.

No. No. No.

Bleeder looked off to the sun setting in the west, the Sierra
Nevadas in the east. Anger broiled in his heart. This was wrong.

Dead wrong.

Bleeder could not allow her to mourn Hooper. She had to acknowledge
what he’d done for her. This was wrong. Wrong. Wrong! He seethed, watching
Molly out there, weeping. He wanted to take action now. Go to her, yank off his
mask. Reveal everything. He was so close.

Why was she here?

She didn’t appear to be getting any closer to understanding why he
had to remove Hooper and Beamon. That what he did, he did for her. He
restrained himself from going to her and remained in the shadows.

The time for telling would come soon enough. Following them back
toward San Francisco, he resolved to adhere to his plan. So much was at stake.
He’d worked too hard to throw it all away. As the sun sank, Thompson drove them
to Colma where Molly placed flowers on Beamon’s grave.

Bleeder maintained control. He risked nothing, following them into San Francisco and Glen Park.

Time was running out.

Molly was slipping from him. Her visits to Hooper’s and Beamon’s
graves were an affront to all he’d achieved for her. The pain bored deep. Yet
he never stood down from his secret vigil. Never gave up hoping beyond hope
that she would break through the lies, the deceptions, the unspoken truths, to
see him as he was.

To see his heart behind his mask.

He ran his hands through his hair.

Molly had become distracted, like Amy. But she was smarter than Amy.
And he was wiser now. Much wiser. Yes, he’d made errors with Amy and Kyle. But
the lessons he’d learned so long ago would serve him now, he thought as his
mind returned to the aftermath of Hangman’s Lane.

You would have thought the world had ended by the way the local
newspaper reported the “horrific tragedy.” From the outset with the big photos
of the sheriff’s deputies watching the crane hoisting Kyle’s Camaro from its
watery tomb. The “massive investigation and search for answers” while the
community pulled together to confront such an “unexpected, terrible blow.”

Nearly everyone in town went to the memorial service at the high
school, including Bleeder, who watched it all from his folding chair in the
back of the gym, the very gym where Amy had kissed his cheek that first night.
Because Kyle, the farm boy, could throw a football, they shoveled their praise.
As if he truly were a wholesome warrior hero, instead of an asshole.

Few paid much attention to the investigation. Kyle’s father, and
Kyle’s farm-boy friends, admitted sadly, but with a hint of pride, how he loved
to “test himself in his car,” which meant he drove like a maniac with a beer
between his legs. Amy’s father regretted how he wished he’d been firmer in
cautioning Kyle to “ease up on that valley turn by the bridge.”

It seemed to Bleeder that no one suspected a damned thing.

No deputy or state investigator had asked him about his encounters
with Kyle. No one asked him about his visits to the bridge at Hangman’s Lane.
Or inspected the scrapes on the large rocks in the ditch nearby.

Kyle’s friends ignored him. During the weeks after the tragedy, no
one at school talked much about it. Then finally, the paper published a story
on the front page that said the tragedy had been classified as an accident
attributed to excessive speed. Case closed.

Bleeder had committed the perfect murder.

Several weeks later as Bleeder began thinking hard about his
mistakes with Amy, Bleeder’s father announced that he was being transferred
immediately. They moved across the country, settled for ten months, then moved
three more times over the next few years.

Then one night while checking out-of-town newspapers in the library,
Bleeder came upon an anniversary piece, a historical look back at the haunting
case of Lud Striker, the insane hermit who murdered a farm family. Striker, the
article said, was the last person executed on Hangman’s Lane.

No, not the last, Bleeder thought.

Through it all, he never forgot Amy. She was the genesis of his
terrifying power, a reminder of what he could do when circumstances compelled
him to step forward and take charge.

Now, outside Della Thompson’s house, he reached for his files on the
passenger seat for a photograph of him with Molly Wilson. Look at her. Her
smile, her eyes. So dangerously, wildly attractive. How he ached to have her
skin next to his. His jaw and gut clenched, trapping his rage. He’d given her
chance after chance to understand.

In his mind, she belonged to him. He would clear the final
obstacles. Then he would remove his mask.

Time was up.

The day after Gloria Carter died
, Lois
Hirt vowed to get clean despite her painful craving for heroin.

Fight it, she told herself. Let the clonazepam do its work. You can
do this. You’ve got to do this. For Gloria. For Sunny. For yourself.

Stunned by Gloria’s death, Lois had gone to a clinic and taken steps
toward getting healthy. It might have been the shock making her move so fast.
People told her to slow down and grieve for her friend.

But Lois couldn’t be still.

She made an appointment with Gloria’s case worker. She wanted to
adopt Sunny. She was convinced she could make it back to normal, while in her
heart she feared she was destined to join Gloria in the ground.

Now, sitting alone in Hector’s Restaurant, Lois searched for hope in
the job section of the
San Francisco Star
. She saw a few glimmers and
circled them.

Out of sympathy, Hector said he would allow her to work a four-hour
shift as a waitress for a few bucks, tips, and a hot meal. It gave her the
courage to call one of her old college professors, a kind woman who knew Lois’s
story. She’d promised to personally look into the possibility of Lois resuming
her dentistry studies through night courses.

Lois intended to ask Hector to advance her enough money for her to
move from her fleabag rooming house to a clean apartment nearby where there
were no dealers or gangs. It had several shops and office buildings where she
could try to land another job.

“Lois,” Hector repeated louder until she lifted her head from her
newspaper. “I said, there’s a call for you.”

She accepted the phone at the counter.

“Lois, it’s Mavis, Gloria’s case worker. You’d left me this number.”

“Hi, Mavis.”

“I’ve got some of Gloria’s personal effects. Right now I have her
purse. And I’ve got to change our appointment. Move it up. Can you come down to
my office right away?”

Lois took the bus.

When she arrived, Mavis was on the phone. She waved Lois into her
office. Mavis ended the call, slid a form across her desk for Lois to sign,
tapping the X by the signature line, passing her a pen.

“It’s for the purse,” Mavis said as Lois signed. “I’ll have more
from her room later. Gloria didn’t have much.”

“I told you on the phone I want to adopt Sunny.”

“Just finished talking to the social worker.”

“Is there any chance for me?”

“It’s complicated. Sunny’s biological father is involved.”