Kill Me Once (33 page)

She made her way into the kitchen with Oreo trailing at her heels and poured some dry cat food into his bowl before pouring a large glass of vodka for herself and sitting down at the kitchen table. She guzzled the clear liquid down in four quick swallows while Oreo crunched loudly on his food five feet away.

Ten minutes later the phone jangled on the wall.

She picked it up. ‘Hello?’

‘Dana, it’s Jeremy Brown. Get any sleep?’

‘Not nearly enough.’

‘Well, I’m afraid it’s going to have to do for now. I’m over at your office now. Can you meet me here in, say, an hour?’

‘Of course. What’s up?’

Brown let out a slow breath. ‘I’ve got something I need to talk to you about. It’s Crawford Bell.’

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

Nathan felt very calm as he polished the .44-calibre handgun in the weak morning light struggling through the grimy windows of his rented apartment. He knew that he had nothing to fear. Smarter and better prepared than those who would try to stop him, he was steadily evolving into the mighty eagle. Soon he would be perfect.

Perfect and worthy of redemption.

Having drawn his sister back home, tonight he would shoot two deliciously young girls who had long dark hair. Once that was done, David Berkowitz’s crimes would finally be updated to his satisfaction.

Nathan smiled to himself. As always, he was in complete control of everything. The authorities were simply his marionettes – his
dummies
– and he was the puppet-master pulling their strings.

He’d altered his profile on the Lonely Hearts Club website to attract this latest group, of course – switching his photo to that of a good-looking kid who could have passed for an Abercrombie & Fitch model – and he’d peppered his profile with enough of the idiotic jargon they all used these days to ensure that the young girls had responded in waves from there.

LOL. BRB. C U L8R. It was enough to make him want to scream.

Shooting the girls in the head would not be as satisfying as using the knife, but Nathan knew he had to follow the path set by the one who’d come before him, so he would resist the urge to slice them up into human fillets with his sharp blade.

He’d stayed up all night designing his run-down apartment to the exact specifications obtained from an Internet website. Every detail was precise; everything was in place. There was no yapping dog next door, no conveniently named neighbour, but he would use his imagination to fill in the gaps. His imagination was very good.

A parking ticket would not stop him this time.

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

Dana got into the Protégé an hour later and quickly drove over to the FBI field office located on Lakeside Avenue in downtown Cleveland.

She closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the cold surface of the elevator wall next to the bank of buttons while riding up to the tenth floor. When the doors opened she stepped out and made her way down the hall on rubbery legs.

Jeremy Brown was seated behind the cluttered desk in her office.

‘Dana,’ he said, rising to his feet. ‘Come on over here. I’ve got something you need to see.’

Dana frowned at him and took the sheet of paper he was holding out. ‘What is this?’ she asked.

‘Just read it.’

Dana settled down into a leather chair beneath the fronds of an artificial palm tree. Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of the precise handwriting. Same handwriting as the Disneyland note.

Dear Special Agent Whitestone,

I am deeply hurt by your calling me a wemon hater. I am not. But I am a monster. I am the ‘Son of Sam’. I am a little ‘brat’.

When Father Sam gets drunk he gets mean. He beats his family. Sometimes he ties me up in the back of the house. Other times he locks me in the garage. Sam loves to drink blood.

‘Go out and kill,’ commands Father Sam.

Behind our house some rest. Mostly young – raped and slaughtered – their blood drained – just bones now.

Papa Sam keeps me locked in the attic too. I can’t get out but I look out the attic window and watch the world go by.

I feel like an outsider. I am on a different wave length then everybody else – programmed too kill.

However, to stop me you must kill me. Attention all police: Shoot me first – shoot to kill or else. Keep out of my way or you will die!

Papa Sam is old now. He needs some blood to preserve his youth. He has had too many heart attacks. Too many heart attacks. ‘Ugh, me hoot, it urts sonny boy.’

I miss my pretty princess most of all. She’s resting in our ladies house but I’ll see her soon.

I am the ‘Monster’ – ‘Beelzebub’ – the ‘Chubby Behemouth’.

I love to hunt. Prowling the streets looking for fair game – tasty meat. The wemon of Cleveland are z prettyist of all. I must be the water they drink. I live for the hunt – my life. Blood for papa.

Ms Whitestone, ma’am, I don’t want to kill any more. No ma’am, no more but I must, ‘Honour Thy Father’.

I want to make love to the world. I love people. I don’t belong on earth. Return me to yahoos.

To the people of Cleveland, I love you. And I want to wish all of you a happy Thanksgiving. May God bless you in this life and in the next and for now I say goodbye and good night.

Police: Let me haunt you with these words;

I’ll be back! I’ll be back!

To be interrpreted as – Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang – Ugh!!

Yours in murder

Mr Monster

(P.S. – Have a look at the
Chicago Sun-Times
Friday morning. I think you’ll find it an interesting read.)

Dana looked up at Brown over the top of the sheet of paper and shook her head in confusion. She had to force the words around the painful lump that had formed in her throat at the sight of her own name in the letter. ‘Where did this come from? New York City?’

Brown shook his head. ‘Nope. It was at the crime scene last night, Dana. Crawford said he didn’t want you to see it. Said it would only make things harder on you.’

Dana could hardly breathe. ‘Where is he now?’

Brown shrugged. ‘No idea. It’s weird. After you’d gone he went from barking orders to suddenly saying he had some other things to take care of and then he left. We haven’t been able to get hold of him since.’ He paused and looked at her. ‘You’re not the only one who graduated from the Academy. I’ve been thinking …’

She stared up at him. ‘What?’

Brown looked uneasy. ‘Well, you’ll probably think I’m crazy. I mean, you know him better than I do – and – well, it’s probably a long shot. But you know when you said a while back that it could be someone who was close to a crime scene?’

Dana nodded, not daring to speak, not wanting to put words into his mouth.

‘Well,’ he continued, ‘it got me thinking on another angle – about how well the killer picks his copycats. So then, when I got back to my hotel room, I started thinking about what I know about Crawford Bell. I remembered taking his course at the Academy. Richard Ramirez, Dennis Rader, Richard Speck, David Berkowitz and John Wayne Gacy are the main subjects of that course, aren’t they? Dennis Rader is the only addition since we graduated.’

Dana’s heart pounded in her chest. ‘Go on.’

Brown sat back down behind her desk and cracked his knuckles. ‘Seem a little coincidental to you?’

Dana shook her head. ‘No. I’ve been thinking the same, Jeremy, but it could be a student of his …’

‘It could, but would a student – say, like you and me – remember every little tiny detail enough to replicate them exactly?’

‘You’re right, and he’s the only one who knows every little detail of my parents’ murders – apart from me, that is.’

As Jeremy voiced his own suspicions, the possibility that Crawford was their killer became horribly real. Dana respected Jeremy and knew that he thought things through carefully. If they had both reached the same conclusion, didn’t that point to the terrible truth?

‘So what do we do?’ she said after a beat.

‘Don’t know yet.’

‘Neither do I.’

She paused before asking the question that she already had a pretty good idea of the answer to. ‘What else did he leave behind this time?’

‘A red clown’s nose,’ Brown said. ‘Need a refresher course on what that probably means?’

‘No. So he’s going to copy John Wayne Gacy next? But he hasn’t done anything for David Berkowitz yet.’

Brown leaned back in Dana’s chair and rolled his head on his shoulders. ‘That’s the problem. The letter is a play on David Berkowitz’s letter to Captain Joseph Borelli of the New York City Police Department. Practically word for word from the original. The obvious substitutions here are your name and the reference to Thanksgiving instead of Easter. Do we know anybody who’s a scholar on that kind of stuff?’

Dana tried to keep the frustration out of her voice. ‘Did you find out what’s so interesting about tomorrow’s edition of the
Sun-Times?’

‘No. Crawford said the managing editor told him he’d have to wait for the big reveal right along with the rest of the country.’

Dana was incredulous. ‘He could
subpoena
him, for Christ’s sake.’

Brown nodded. ‘I know, but Crawford said the paper would already be out by the time a subpoena made it all the way through the courts. Freedom of the press and all that shit. Said our hands were tied on this one.’

Dana shook her head in disgust. In his entire career, Crawford Bell had never backed down to anyone, not even to the President of the United States. Now he was turning tail on a simple newspaperman? What was it that he didn’t want them to see? And where was he now? Off claiming his next victim?

Her stomach churned. ‘So where should we go from here?’ Should they put a trace on Crawford? It was one thing for her and Jeremy to imagine the worst, but could they convince someone like Krugman? Did they have any real, tangible evidence to link him to the actual crime scenes?

Brown shook his head. ‘Don’t know. Ahn Howser’s father said his daughter spent a lot of time online, so I’m looking for any possible links between all the victims. Other than that, I have no idea.’

Dana held Brown’s gaze and told him about Crawford’s tumour. She didn’t owe her mentor any loyalty any more. She didn’t owe him anything any more. Not after what he’d done.

Brown took the news in his stride, looking weary. He seemed much too tired to be surprised by anything at this point, not even by a bombshell like the one that Dana had just unleashed on him. ‘You’re going to have to tell Krugman, you know,’ he said.

‘Yeah, I know.’

CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

Dana left the office and called Crawford’s cellphone. Maybe he could explain everything away. It was a long shot, but she had to give him that chance.

He wasn’t answering.

‘Goddamn it, Crawford,’ she hissed under her breath. ‘Where
are
you?’

She ducked inside the Starbucks half a block away from her office and ordered a large black coffee before settling down at an empty table. It was no good. If he killed again and she hadn’t said anything – well … And if they found him and she was wrong no one would be happier than her. She dug her cellphone out of her pocket and punched in a number. She couldn’t keep her suspicions a secret any longer.

She needed help from the top on this one.

A deep voice answered after six rings. ‘Bill Krugman.’

Dana took a deep breath and sat up straighter in her seat. ‘Sir, I need to talk to you about Crawford Bell.’

The FBI Director shouted something at someone in his office before coming back on the line. ‘Do you know where he is? He’s been out of contact since last night. I’ve been trying to reach him.’

‘No,’ Dana said. ‘I have no idea where he is. That’s the problem.’

‘Why do you say that?’

Dana filled the Director in on her and Jeremy’s suspicions as quickly as she could. Everything from the copycat murders following Crawford’s introductory course to his failure to compile a profile to Crawford’s revelation that he had a brain tumour that would probably soon cost him his life.

‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ Krugman said. ‘Hang tight, Agent Whitestone. I’ll be up there in a couple of hours. If you’re right about this – and I sure as hell hope you’re not – it’s a disaster … Either way, this case has just blown wide open.’

Dana flipped her cellphone closed. At least Krugman seemed to take her suspicions seriously. And for him to come all the way up to Cleveland meant he must’ve been getting some real heat from the White House about the murders. Even though it was unheard of for a Director to become personally involved in a case that he could easily monitor from DC when an arrest didn’t appear imminent, the President himself must have weighed in on the matter and directed Krugman to Ohio.

Dana sighed. What was his motto again?

Oh yeah. Keep hope
alive
.

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

On the north wall of his apartment Nathan had scrawled a message in black magic marker:

AS LONG AS DANA WHITESTONE IS IN THE WORLD, THERE WILL NEVER BE ANY PEACE, BUT THERE WILL BE PLENTY OF MURDERS.

He liked the look of his writing. It looked strange, demented.

It looked…
perfect
.

How he so desperately longed to be perfect!

In the bedroom he’d kicked a hole into the wall. An arrow pointed inside the space. Beside it he had written another message:

HI, MY NAME IS MR WILLIAMS AND I LIVE IN THIS HOLE. I HAVE SEVERAL CHILDREN I’M TURNING INTO KILLERS. WAIT TILL THEY GROW UP.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing and reading from
The Silence of the Lambs
. Nathan admired Hannibal Lecter very much and wished he could assume the maniac psychiatrist’s identity for these next kills. But he knew he must restrict his activities to the real world so he simply sighed and turned another page.