Chill Factor (50 page)

Collier was sitting in the open doorway, his feet on the skid,
has
scope now trained on Burton. Begley was right behind him, leaning out
the open door, testing the limits of his shoulder restraint.

He could see Burton clearly and read by his expression that
the
police chief had been unaware of the chopper until that moment. Begley
also read something else in the man's expression that made him ask
Collier if he had a clean shot.

"Got him."

Begley shouted, "Burton, hold your fire! Tierney is not Blue!
He's
not our man."

But Burton didn't heed him. Instead he aimed the rifle at
Tierney's
retreating back and peered through his scope again. "Son of a bitch! Is
he deaf?" Begley yelled.

An innocent man was about to be blown to hell and back, and he
would
bear the responsibility for that for the rest of his life. In less time
than it took him to process these thoughts, he said, "One in the calf."

Collier responded, firing instantly. Dutch Burton's left leg
crumpled beneath him. Begley could see the rage in his eyes as he swung
the rifle up over his head and fired.

Collier fell backward into the chopper. The bullet hadn't
pierced
his vest, but it had packed a painful punch.

Burton fired again. The bullet missed Begley by a hair.

He heard the pilot swear elaborately as he swung the chopper
around.
Begley felt the pull of his seat belt against his middle and the
countertug of gravity through the open door.

"I lost my shot," he heard one of the others shout into the
headset.

The third tactical man had lost his balance when the chopper
ascended sharply. He was clambering to regain a semistable firing
position. Collier still lay stunned, half in, half out the door.

Begley was looking down into the bore of Burton's rifle. He
shouted,
"Don't shoot me, you motherfucker!"

Burton's face was a mask of agony and madness. "Fuck you!"

Begley saw the words form on Burton's lips a millisecond
before the
bullet pierced his forehead and the back of his skull disintegrated,
spraying the snow behind him with a red mist. He fell backward,
spread-eagle, a snow angel with a red halo.

Begley whipped his head around to thank the expert marksman.

Charlie Wise slowly lowered the sniper rifle from his shoulder
and
handed it back to Collier. Calmly he replaced his eyeglasses.

Begley swallowed hard in order to push his heart back down
into his
chest, where it belonged. "Nice shot, Hoot."

"Thank you, sir."

William Ritt removed his hand from Lilly's mouth, switched off
the
transmitter, and set it aside. "I told you it was brilliant."

"Why?" Lilly asked on a filament of breath.

"Why did I claim that Tierney had left you here dead? Isn't
the
answer obvious?"

"No, why did you kill them?"

"Oh. That." William wrapped the ends of the ribbon around his
hands
and tested its strength with firm tugs. "I could blame my dysfunctional
parents, or low self-esteem, but those are such hackneyed excuses.
Besides, I'm not insane. I kill them because I want to."

She kept her features composed, but her mind was reeling. Was
Tierney dead? Dutch had shot him, that she knew. But he'd said that
Tierney was "down." He hadn't said that he was dead. If he were alive,
he would come back for her. She knew it.

Until then, what could she do to help herself and keep William
Ritt
from killing her? She couldn't get away from him. For hours she had
tried and failed to free her hands from the cuffs.

To show fear would be to give him exactly what he wanted.
In-stinctually she knew that he enjoyed killing. It gave him an
identity, a standing in the community that he wouldn't otherwise have.
He was Blue, the most feared, the most wanted. The persnickety,
busybody pharmacist's alter ego was a lady killer. What a head trip
that must be for him.

He claimed to have low self-esteem, but she thought just the
opposite. He had an inflated ego, believing himself intellectually
superior. For two years he had outsmarted everybody, but thus far he'd
been unable to brag about it. She would give him a chance to boast. Her
only chance of surviving was to keep him talking until help—
please,
God, let it be Tierney
—arrived.

"How did you choose your victims? That's one thing that's
baffled
investigators. The missing women seemed to have nothing in common."

"Me," he said, giving her a chilling smile. "They had me in
common.
They were all looking at me when they died. Soon you'll have that in
common with them, too."

Don't give him the satisfaction of showing your fear
.
"Besides you, what did they have in common?"

"That's been the beauty of it. Criminal profilers look for
patterns.
With me, there isn't one. I killed all of them for different reasons."

"Such as?"

"Rejection."

"Torrie Lambert?"

"Long before her."

"There was another?"

"A young woman at college."

"A girlfriend?"

"No. I wanted her to be, but she laughed at me when I asked
her for
a date. She'd assumed I was a homosexual. Her teasing was cruel.
I…
snapped. I guess that's an accurate word for what happened. She was
laughing. I was trying to stop her.

"When I realized she was dead, I wasn't sorry, but naturally I
feared being caught. I made it look like a mugging. Her wallet and
jewelry are in a keepsake box under my bed at home. To this day, that
homicide is in the cold case file."

"No one ever suspected you?"

"No one. I was so insignificant, you see. Still am in most
minds."

"Marilee never suspected?"

He made a scornful sound. "My sister has been too busy
guarding her
own dirty secret to pay much attention to me. I wish I had killed her
when we were children. I thought about it once or twice, but never got
around to it."

He tested the strength of the ribbon again. "I wonder where
Tierney
happened upon this."

He was still kneeling in front of her, and even though he
hadn't yet
laid a hand on her, she was quaking with fear. How much longer could
she keep him talking? Where was the helicopter? Where was Tierney? She
refused to believe he was dead.

"You were telling me how you chose your victims. I understand
why
you killed the girl who laughed at you. But you didn't know Torrie
Lambert, did you?"

"Not until that day. She'd ventured away from the group and
was
quite a distance off the trail. I spotted her walking along the western
road, near our old homestead, where I happened to be working that day.
I engaged her in conversation, listened to her tale of woe, dispensed
advice, and then when I tried to comfort her—"

"Comfort her?"

"Touch her. She wouldn't let me."

"Did you rape her?"

His eyes flashed angrily. "I can get it up. Have no doubt
about
that. If we had more time, I could prove it to you, Ms. Martin."

His reaction made Lilly believe the opposite of his claim, but
she
wasn't foolish enough to contradict him.

"To her everlasting regret, Torrie Lambert called me a weird
little
creep."

He was breathing heavily, with agitation. Or possibly
excitement,
which was even more terrifying. Quietly, she said, "Her hair ribbon
became your trademark."

"For lack of a better word, yes."

"You took it into Tennessee to throw off the trackers.
Correct?"

He frowned with chagrin. "I didn't realize I'd crossed the
state
line. It all looks the same. But, yes, I transported it out of the
immediate area to throw off the trackers."

"Tell me about the other four. Were they also random?"

"No, they were definitely planned."

"How did you choose them?"

"You have it reversed. They chose me."

"I don't understand."

"Carolyn Maddox's young son is diabetic. She couldn't afford
his
insulin, and she couldn't get health insurance. She came to me
practically begging for help."

"You gave her the medications her son needed."

"Along with comfort and encouragement. But nothing I said or
did was
ever enough to make her like me. Not that way," he said, his
implication plain. "She had time to stop by the store to pick up her
kid's medicine for free but never enough time to see me alone.

"She made time for one of the guests at the motel where she
cleaned,
though. Oh, yes, she had time for him. I saw them together in his car,
right there in the parking lot, pawing each other. It was disgusting.
She didn't make it home that night."

Her car with the ribbon in it had been found at the side of
the
road, halfway between her apartment and the motel. Lilly remembered
that the motel guest had been questioned, then dropped as a suspect.

"The nurse?"

He sneered. "Laureen. Another story entirely. She was fat. I
didn't
like her, but I took pity. Call me a softie. I gave her free samples of
every diet product to come along. She misinterpreted my kindness and
made a pass. Her overtures were blatant and borderline vulgar. I
couldn't imagine touching those revolting globs of flesh and was
insulted by her assumption that I would want to. Well, you can figure
out the rest."

Before she asked, he told her about Betsy Calhoun, who
according to
him was popping antidepressants at the rate of eight to ten a day. When
her prescription ran out and her doctor refused to refill it, she asked
William for more.

Where was the helicopter? Why hadn't it come back?

"I agreed to meet Mrs. Calhoun at the bank parking lot. It was
really a mercy killing. I put her out of her misery. Unlike all the
others, she put up no resistance. Doped up as she was, she was the
easiest to kill. But Millicent was the most enjoyable." His narrow lips
formed a cruel, reptilian smile.

"Tell me about her." Was the helicopter transporting Tierney's
body
off the mountain? They would think they had Blue. Rescuing her could
wait.

"Millicent was a vain little slut," he said. "She relied on me
to
supply her with contraceptives so she could fornicate to her heart's
content—and then she was careless with them. Who did she come
whining
to when she got pregnant? Me.

"For years I'd been giving her diet pills and amphetamines to
keep
her from gaining weight, but she took my generosity for granted. She
flirted and teased. Once, just before closing, we were the only two
people in the store. She came behind the counter and sidled up to me,
rubbed herself against me, and asked if I had any
flavored condoms. She said she was tired of the same old rubbery taste.
'Think about it, William,' " he said, imitating a girlish, taunting
voice. "Then she laughed and skipped away, like she'd been awfully
clever and cute. The last time I saw her, she wasn't laughing."

He stared into near space for a moment, lost in his reverie.
"Right
up to the end, it was all about
her
. She kept
crying, saying,
'Why are you doing this to me? I thought you liked me.'

"As I was driving her up to the old house, I tried to explain
that
she was a horrible person, that she used people, hurt their feelings
for no reason, played games with their emotions. I told her that she
was destructive and therefore deserved to be destroyed.
But"—he
sighed—"I don't think she ever understood."

He was reflective for a moment, then said, "I was about to
bury her
when I received a call from an electrician that I'd been trying to get
up to the house for months. He told me he was on his way. I had to
stash her somewhere before he arrived. I knew you had sold this cabin,
had overheard Dutch say you'd already cleaned out the shed. It was the
closest and most convenient space I could think of on such short notice.

"I met with the electrician and walked him through the
projects I
needed him to do. By the time we finished, it was getting dark and I
had to return to town. I decided Millicent could spend a day or two in
your shed. I didn't get back up here before the storm moved in."

Suddenly, they heard several more bursts of gunfire. No closer
than
before.

"Now I wonder what that signifies?" William asked rhetorically.

Lilly wondered, too. She groped her mind for another question
that
would keep William talking. Before she could form one, he asked one of
his own. "Is it true that you and Tierney met months ago?"

"Last June."

"Dutch was right to be jealous, wasn't he? I can see it in
your face
every time I mention Tierney's name. You go all glassy-eyed and
wistful." He glanced toward the rumpled blankets on the mattress in
front of the fireplace. When his gaze came back to her, he frowned with
contempt. "Beautiful people. You always find each other, don't you?
Never looking twice at the rest of us."

"I've never been unkind to you."

"But if you'd been stranded in this cabin with me, that
bedding
wouldn't stink of copulation."

"William—"

"Shut up! I'm talking."

She shut up and let him talk.

"It's ironic, and sort of romantically poetic, the way it's
going to
end, with both of you dead and everybody thinking that he killed you,
when actually he was your lover. See the twist? Isn't that rich? But
one thing puzzles me. Why did he leave you here handcuffed?"

To keep me from trying to fight him, or trying to
run from him
when I saw Millicent's body
, she thought. Tierney hadn't
wanted
her to do something that would precipitate a fatal asthma attack. He'd
made a desperate and time-effective move to guarantee she didn't. She
understood that now. She understood a lot. She was in love with Tierney
and had been since the day they met. Furthermore, she realized that he
loved her.