Shame (6 page)

“Breaking into the church would have been easy, Parker told me. He had considered laying Heidi beneath one of three large reredos, antique paintings that look much like orthodox icons,
but instead he placed her upon a cement altar in the amphitheater behind the church. It’s a beautiful spot, with a canopy of oak trees and a stream running behind it.

“I’ve often wondered if Gray was asking God for the ultimate in miracles, bringing Heidi back to life. He found holy places for all of his New Mexico victims, shrines of nature and man. It was as if he were giving his victims a chance to recover. All they had to do was get up, or better yet, tap into the holiness around them and overcome their circumstances.”

But the women disappointed him, Elizabeth thought, as women always had. They deserted him, or so Gray thought, and then compounded that treachery by not coming back to life.

She lifted up a copy of her book, covering her youthful picture with her hand. “I hope there might be something in this book that can help you in your current cases. For those who prefer to skip the reading and go right to the source, I’d be glad to answer any questions.”

The bodies in the room shifted. Elizabeth looked around the table. The silence seemed condemning. I didn’t reach them, she thought. I should have dug deeper and said more. Then, to her relief, a hand was raised. She acknowledged the questioner with a nod.

“I was wondering, ma’am, if you had any theories on why Mrs. Sanders’s body wasn’t moved like the Franklin woman’s.”

The speaker, in his late twenties, was younger than everyone else in the room. Elizabeth decided she could forgive him for calling her “ma’am.”

“I haven’t had a chance to read the case files, Detective. That said, I’ll hazard a guess. There was a nine-one-one call, I understand. It’s possible the murderer was disturbed by the caller. It’s also possible there wasn’t an appropriate petroglyph site in San Diego. From what I know, the murderer appears to be picking and choosing how he emulates the original Shame homicides. It’s possible he didn’t feel compelled to move Mrs. Sanders’s
body and also possible he didn’t want to assume the risk of such a move.”

Another sheriff’s detective, the one lying on the sofa, spoke. Both his words and bearing were contentious. “Jennings and Sanders don’t match up physically with Gleason and Franklin.”

“No, they don’t.” Elizabeth’s response was firm. “And I’m sure there are other differences in the two sets of murders. But those might be clues in themselves.”

The woman detective spoke, not to Elizabeth, but to the group. “If this guy’s out to get college students, he’s not going to have any shortage of targets. The county has over a dozen major colleges. Last figure I heard, there were more than fifty thousand women enrolled in college courses in the San Diego area.”

The number hung in the air, daunting them.

“We could run some decoys at popular college hangouts,” said Lieutenant Borman, thinking aloud.

Nothing was said, but faces were openly skeptical. Borman read the expressions around him. “Lottery odds, I know,” he said, “but we can’t be passive in this. We also can’t be unrealistic. Let’s stake out the local shrines.”

It was the next logical grisly step, but Borman looked none too pleased at having to concede another murder.

“We got any local shrines?” one detective asked.

“My wife would tell you Nordstrom’s,” said another.

Much-needed laughter swept through the room.

S
ERGEANT DEAN EICK
was the case agent for the Lita Jennings homicide. Because the same murderer appeared to have killed Teresa Sanders, Eick had also been made the lead investigator for that homicide. As the case agent, he had responsibility for assembling what all the investigators referred to as “The Book.” Most case agents no longer compiled The Book and instead stored case information in a computer file. Eick was old school. He still believed in keeping a paper version of the investigation.

The sergeant was short and stocky and had the figure of a fire hydrant. When Eick was instructed by Lieutenant Borman to allow Elizabeth access to The Book, his suddenly red face made him look that much more like a fire hydrant. Allowing outsiders access to The Book just wasn’t done. Sometimes consultants were brought in on cases, but they were only given access to that part of the investigation they might shed some light on.

“I’d also like the crime scene photos,” said Elizabeth.

Just short of breathing fire, Eick said, “You would, would you?”

Elizabeth nodded.

Eick’s foot pawed the ground—a bull wanting to charge. His complexion turned even redder, if that was possible.

“Follow me,” he finally said.

The two of them walked over to a nearby office. A woman looked up from her computer keyboard. “Louise Coleman,” Eick said as way of introduction, “Elizabeth Line.”

The women nodded at one another.

“Ms. Line is going to be confined to your office, Louise. She will have access to The Book. She may take notes, but there is to be no photocopying and no photographing of material. The Book is to stay in your office the entire time, and when Ms. Line is finished with it, I want it secured in Evidence. While in possession of The Book, Ms. Line is not allowed to leave the confines of this office unaccompanied. Is that understood?”

Louise didn’t look intimidated. She gave the sergeant a wink and said, “You can count on me, Dean.”

Eick pointed to a vacant chair and desk, then reluctantly relinquished The Book. With a disgusted shake of his head, he left the office.

Louise craned her neck, making sure the sergeant was out of hearing range, before saying, “Confined to my office. That’s a first. Old Dino spent too many years in the marines. Word is that he even starches his boxers.”

Short, stout, and gap-toothed, Louise was on the long side of middle age but still quite certain she was irresistible to all the sheriff’s deputies. In that she might have been right.

“Can I get you a cup of coffee?” asked Louise.

“No, thank you.”

“So you’re the one who writes about all this murder stuff?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Elizabeth had to laugh. It was a question she had asked herself many times but not one she could remember anyone asking her.

“You want the short answer,” Elizabeth asked, “or the long answer?”

“I’m a civil servant,” Louise said. “Let’s go with the long.”

“I write because it helps me to understand. I write because it fills my own needs, as well as the needs of my readers.”

Elizabeth paused for a moment, “I write the books to bring a certain justice to the dead, to show that their lives were more than the brutal act that ended them.”

A bad cause requires many words, Elizabeth thought. Noble sentiments or not, her explanation had been windy. Louise apparently thought the same thing. She gave Elizabeth a sideways glance.

“What’s the short answer?”

“I’m nosy,” said Elizabeth.

“Thought so,” Louise said.

Elizabeth repositioned The Book on her desk. It was at least three inches thick. Heavy reading, literally.

“If you need anything, just ask,” said Louise.

“Thank you.”

Louise went back to her typing, while Elizabeth immersed herself in The Book. Lita Jennings had been a junior at the University of California at San Diego, the daughter of well-to-do parents, her father a surgeon, her mother an interior designer. The twenty-year-old had been strangled outside her Del Mar apartment, but her body had been driven to the Anza-Borrego Desert, some two hours away. Elizabeth traced the distance on a map. San Diego County was larger than some states. Del Mar was in the north county on the beach, while Borrego was inland. What the two areas had in common was no witnesses and that forensics had come up empty at both locations.

In the beginning, Gray Parker had taken the same pains to remain invisible, Elizabeth remembered. She had been the first big break in the case. The eyewitness. When he was finally
captured, a year after their encounter, Elizabeth was still the only person who could definitively place Parker at a murder scene.

Water under the bridge, Elizabeth tried to tell herself. She needed to direct all her attention to the current cases instead of getting mired in the past. All indications were that Lita Jennings had been taken from behind, surprised on the doorstep of her apartment after coming home from a study group. She had been subdued with a sleeper hold.

Elizabeth knew the same hold had been used on Teresa Sanders, though she hadn’t been surprised in the same way. Apparently she had opened her front door to the murderer. The house had an elaborate alarm system, one she had deactivated at 8:37 a.m. According to her husband, Teresa would have looked through the peephole before opening the door. Investigators wondered if she had been expecting someone or if the murderer was someone she knew. It was also possible the murderer had been wearing a costume or disguise.

Elizabeth knew that manual strangulation was usually a personal crime. It wasn’t the way in which a stranger usually killed, but the copycat aspects of the crimes didn’t rule out these women being unknown to the killer.

No, Elizabeth decided. These women weren’t random victims.

She was certain of that even without the evidence to back up her theory. You work with pitch, she thought, and it rubs off. She had studied the criminal mind until it had become second nature for her. Or maybe even first nature. Gray had warned her about that, yet had been all too willing to show her the way.

He had surprised Elizabeth by agreeing to be interviewed, especially as he’d allowed the media very little access to him. Elizabeth had written him to say she was writing a book, and would like to do a series of interviews with him, and he had replied, “Come with your questions. I do not give lectures or a little charity. When I give, I give myself.”

She hadn’t known it at the time, but he’d been quoting from Whitman’s “Song of Myself.”

He was on Death Row at Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, Florida. Going there the first time frightened her; that was something that never changed. What Elizabeth remembered most about her first meeting with him was how she felt like a little girl wearing grown-up clothes.

The guard closed the door of what everyone called “the lawyers’ room” behind her. She hadn’t thought she would be alone with him ever again. The officer had tried to reassure her that he’d be just outside, had pointed out where he would be watching. The interview room had glass on three sides to allow ample observation by both the security staff and personnel of the assistant superintendent of operations. The booth was soundproof so as to provide for lawyer-client confidentiality. She wondered if the prison officials, sitting at their nearby desks, would be able to hear her screams.

Elizabeth felt claustrophobic. The room was small—too small. She could barely breathe and was afraid to meet Shame’s eyes. That was how the world knew him: Shame. He sat there calmly observing her. He was wearing the orange T-shirt that marked him as a Death Row inmate. Around his wrists were handcuffs. They seemed more of an inconvenience than something that could truly deter him from putting his hands around her neck.

“I have no desire to hurt you,” he told her.

His words didn’t reassure her. He didn’t say, “I am not going to hurt you.” She sat down anyway.

She felt around in her bag. All fingers. The prison administration had refused to let her bring in a tape recorder, citing security concerns. What she had was a pad and a pen, a felt pen. Her ballpoint pen had also been deemed a security risk.

If they were so worried about security, why hadn’t they stationed a guard in the room? No, two guards.

Elizabeth looked at her watch. She was supposed to have an hour’s session with him. She wasn’t yet sure whether that was too much time or not enough.

“‘The clock indicates the moment—but what does eternity indicate?’” he asked.

“Excuse me?”

“Whitman,” he said. “You started me reading him. I’m afraid I quote him to excess. I am not sure if that means I’ve run out of things to say myself or whether he just says them better.”

She sneaked a quick glance his way. He was pale, the result of being hidden away from the light of day. Death Row inmates, she knew, were allowed in the exercise yard only twice a week for two hours at a time. She looked down at her sheet of questions. When she’d been preparing them, she had kept wondering, What do you ask the devil?

“Is that why you spared me? Because I quoted Whitman?”

He didn’t answer. Instead he looked at her and made her look at him. “Why are you here, Miss Line?”

“To interview you,” she said.

“Then it seems only fair that I have the opportunity to interview the interviewer.”

Elizabeth nodded.

“Do you really have any idea what you’re doing?” he asked.

“I was a literature major. I wrote—”

“I’m not inquiring about your writing skills. I assume you can join a noun and a verb together and make a passable sentence. But I wonder if you know exactly what you’re pursuing. You say you want to talk to me. What if the things I have to tell you change you forever? Are you prepared for that?”