Murder and Mayhem (54 page)

Nicola looked up, confused by the color of hair. It
was dyed the same blond-color as Danny’s. Except for the color of his eyes and
the dark stubble on his face she realized how like Danny he looked, dressed in
black jeans and T-shirt. 

Steven saw the bewildered look on her face, and
sneered. “Anyone who saw me enter your house tonight will think it was lover-
boy returning,” he said with a cruel edge to his words.

Nicola wrenched her arms free and struggled out of his
grasp. Steven grabbed hold of her blouse and pulled her towards him. Nicola
twisted and turned but couldn’t break loose. Her nails raked his hand, drawing
blood.

Steven grabbed her arm in a vice-like grip and twisted
it up behind her with such force Nicola thought it would break. She bit his
other arm sinking her teeth in hard. Steven howled in pain and wrenched free as
the bitter metallic taste of blood filled her mouth.

“Bitch!” His fist connected hard with her face sending
Nicola spinning in a daze. Steven rubbed his arm and wiped the blood down the
leg of his jeans.

“You fucking bitch, you bit my arm!” Steven’s face was
distorted with rage as his fist connected to her face.

Nicola fell to her knees and tried to crawl away, but,
by now, Steven had lost all control. He grabbed her by the hair, pulled her to
her feet and punched her over and over again. When he let go, she fell to the
ground, barely conscious. Nicola curled herself up into a ball and tried to
ward off the blows.

“Please Steven, don’t do this,” she sobbed. She could
feel the blood pouring from her nose and mouth. She wiped the back of her hand
across her face and wiped it down the front of her jeans where it left red
streaks, a stark contrast to the white fabric. A glaring testament to the
violence so brutally visited upon her.

Nicola looked up at Steven standing over her and saw
the look of hatred in his eyes and she understood the awful truth that finally
hit home. “You were the one who killed all those women weren’t you?”

Steven shrugged. “Yeah, that was me.”

“But why, Steven, I don’t understand?”

He crouched down in the mud in front of her, his eyes
filled with hatred and rage.

“Every time I thought about you making love to him it
drove me insane. You’re all the same. You lead a man on then bleed him
dry–emotionally and financially–until he can’t take it anymore.”

“I watched you with him and saw you loving him the way
you used to love me and it tore me apart. I wanted you to love me like that
again,” Steven sobbed. He took her hands in his, his anguished cries imploring
her to see reason. “Please Nicci, can’t we just go back to the way we were. We
used to be happy didn’t we? Now that he’s gone we could be happy again.” Steven
put his hands out to her, pleading. “I love you Nicci, I’ve never stopped
loving you.” Then he pulled something out of his pocket and held it out to her.

“Do you remember this?” he asked.

Nicola squinted at the object glinting in a pale shaft
of light, momentarily confused. “Is that my locket? Where did you get it?”

Steven caressed the tiny gold locket hanging from the
fine gold chain. “Do you remember when I gave it to you for your twentieth
birthday?”

Nicola nodded. “I remember. Where did you get it? I
thought I’d lost it?”

“I took it when I left. I’ve carried it around with me
all these years hoping some day I would put it around your neck again.” He
reached out and touched her face tenderly where he had done the most damage.

“I’m so sorry, Nicci I didn’t mean to hurt you, but
you forced me to do it.”

Nicola scrambled backwards, her feet trying to find
purchase in the mud. She knew this was not the same man she had married; the
man who had given her the gold locket with so much tenderness and love.

“No, Steven. It can never be like that again. Nothing
will ever be the same. It’s over between us.” Nicola was breathing hard, not
just from exhaustion but from pain and fear. As her nose started to swell, her
breath became more labored as blood dripped down the back of her throat and
made her gag.

Nicola was the only woman he had ever loved.
Everything he did he did for her–why couldn’t she see that. “Then if I can’t
have you, no one else can.” His words were filled with spite and jealousy.

Steven grabbed Nicola and pulled her to him, his anger
rising, his eyes filled with hatred were as piercing as the arctic winds. It
was then that Nicola saw the knife in his hand and tried to break free from his
grip. 

“Oh God, Steven I beg you, don’t do this.” But Steven
was past the point of no return, his anger and hate overpowered all reason.

Nicola hugged her stomach trying to protect Danny’s
baby. “Don’t Steven. Please, I’m pregnant. Please don’t hurt the baby.” Her
anguished cries were carried off on the wind.

Steven stopped and looked down at the figure huddled
on the ground at his feet.

“Pregnant!” he screamed. “You’re carrying his baby? 
How could you Nicola? This child should have been ours.” He kicked her hard in
the stomach–and then kicked her again. The gold chain slipped from his fingers
and fell to the ground.

Steven looked at the barely conscious figure covered
in blood and mud, and said, “No more betrayal, Nicola. No more.” He leaned down
and stabbed her in the throat and as her life blood drained out, she struggled
to rise. The end seemed inevitable now.

As he drew the knife swiftly across her throat the
moral light in his eyes went out and he took on the look of a haunted lost soul
who had given up all hope of redemption.

Steven stood for a moment looking down at the woman he
once loved and felt nothing. As he turned to walk away he spied a thread of
gold glinting in the mud. He lifted his foot and bought it down hard on the
locket that had carried his hopes for so many years, and ground it into the mud
till the links of the chain snapped and the small locket where he’d replaced
his photograph with a photo of Nicola, shattered.

Steven walked away without a backwards glance. 

As darkness closed in around her, Nicola’s last
thoughts were of Danny, and their baby, and the promise she was unable to keep.

A deer in the undergrowth startled and looked up, its
eyes bright ready to run at the first sign of danger. But as the rain eased,
the woods became quiet and the deer sensed the moment of danger had passed. It
nibbled at the succulent new shoots that grew beside the swift moving water
that wound its way through Old Mill Park.

*****

Article in the San Francisco Chronicle dated December,
5
^th
2007

MILL
VALLEY KILLER CAUGHT

A man has been arrested in connection with the brutal
murder of a thirty-seven year old San Franciscan woman, Nicola Madison whose
mutilated body was found by early morning walkers in a grove of redwoods in Old
Mill Park, not far from her home in the Marin County suburb of Mill Valley,
last October.

The suspect, Daniel Richards, aged forty-four, last
seen in the company of Ms. Madison on the night of her murder, was arrested at
his beachside home in Sydney, Australia after an intense investigation revealed
that he had spent several weeks traveling the eastern states with Ms. Madison
and left the country around the time of her murder.

The FBI have been issued with an extradition warrant
to have Mr. Richards brought back to San Francisco where he will be questioned
in connection with the murder of Ms. Madison. 

The FBI are also investigating the disappearance and
possible murder of several women reported missing in towns the suspect and Ms.
Madison are believed to have visited during their recent trip across the
eastern states.

Authorities are also looking at possible links to the
badly decomposed, mutilated body of an as yet unidentified woman whose body was
found after recent heavy rain by a bushwalker on a little used path in the
redwood forest above Cascade Falls, not far from where the body of Ms. Madison
was found.

Sources suggest that the body may have been ravaged by
animals in the area and could have been there for several months before being
discovered. As no one has come forward to identify the body, Marin County
Police think she may have been a hitch-hiker or possibly a prostitute. 

Police are waiting for the results of DNA evidence
linking the body to that of Amelia Hill whose blood-spattered car was found
abandoned last September in the Manzanita parking lot, off Highway 101, near
the Mill Valley turn-off.

So far no link has been found between Ms. Hill and the
suspect, however, the description does fit that of witnesses who saw them
together the night she disappeared.

* * *

Steven dropped the newspaper on the table and sat back
in the chair, his mind trying to absorb what he had just read. He picked up the
paper and read the article again, as if to confirm his eyes were not lying.  He
sat motionless, his mind in a whirl of confusion while he waited for the words
to sink in. Steven picked up the newspaper and read the article once more,
making sure he hadn’t missed anything on the first two readings. When he read
the last word he sat back, stunned, and as reality dawned on him he knew he had
gotten away with it. He propelled himself into the air and raised his fist in a
sign of victory as he let out a joyous whoop, hit the remote on his large
screen plasma television and an image morphed onto the screen. He grabbed a
beer from the refrigerator and sat down to enjoy the game on the screen.

*****

“You didn’t tell me Nicola was pregnant.”

“It was a last minute thing.”

“You could have at least discussed it with me first.”

I shrugged. “Not even Danny
knew.”

She pulled meditatively at her lip.

“I suppose that’s it then. She really is dead isn’t she?
You
have
finally killed her?” she asked, still not completely convinced.

I nodded. “Well, not me personally–but yes, this time
Nicola has gone for good.”

“Now, Bubbie, that’s not exactly true. After all you
did create the monster that slew her.”

“I suppose… if you want to put it that way.”

“I do. Shame, though, I really liked her.”

“So did I.”

“Then why did you kill her? Why couldn’t you have had
a happy ending like all good stories where they ride off into the sunset
together?”

“Too predictable. That’s what everyone expects. I was
hoping for a little more of the, how shall I put it, shock element? The… Oh My
God, I wasn’t expecting that– kind of reaction. It’s so much better than all
those romantic, warm, fuzzy-wuzzy, feel good endings Mills and Boon like to put
out. Life’s not like that. In real life you don’t always get the ending you
want.”

Rosie shrugged, “I suppose there’s no chance of
resurrecting them then? You know–a sequel.”

“Nope, none whatsoever. Not with those characters.”

“Danny possibly?”

“Would we really want to go down that path again?”

Rosie grinned. “I would.”

“Yeah, but you’re just a hopeless romantic. Besides,
we’ve still got to get this book on the shelves.”

“You never did tell me the name of the story?”

“I thought I’d call it Murder in Mill Valley.”

“What about Murder Across America?”

“No. I think I’ll just stick with Murder in Mill
Valley–it has more of an ominous sound to it.”

“Doubt the local Mill Vallians would think of it that
way.”

“Can’t be helped.”

“Folks ‘round here might think it’s about the murders
committed on Mount Tam in the late seventies.”

“Let them think what they like, it’s all copacetic
anyway, my little turtle dove. If it sells books I’m all for it.”

Rosie thought for a moment and then said, “Did Steven
get caught?”

“Not in the true sense of the word.”

“What do you mean?”

“I hope you’re ready for it.”

*****

Eighteen months later the remains of a body was found
in Death Valley approximately fifty miles from the Nevada State Border. Because
the bones, bleached by the sun, had been scattered over a large area it was
determined, by the authorities, the most likely cause would be animals, coyotes
in particular. Most of the skeletal remains have not been recovered, and only a
small section of the skull making forensic reconstruction impossible. Both
hands were missing.