The Bedroom Killer (24 page)

CHAPTER 54

The black two-door 1968 Chevelle started on the first try. Isaac knew it would. He cared for it just as he'd cared for all his cars. They were kept in a four- car garage he'd built on his property behind the auto shop. The shop and property were handed down from his father when he'd passed away ten years prior, and Isaac took the small shop and turned it into a highly successful business. Everything he did, he did one hundred percent. This was why he was so skilled at killing. Choosing his girls was a science. Choosing the night to hit was planned with detail. Yes, he was on a roll and the only blemish on his record was that lady with the bat. He'd read the papers and watched the news reports. The cops had arrested that doctor guy. He was the one inside the car.

Sucker.

But they’d figured out that he wasn't the one. Isaac knew that the doctor had seen him, but it was so dark, and raining, he couldn't have seen enough to make any sort of identification. Maybe the hair? He could cut it, but that might bring more attention. He'd worn it long since he was in his twenties. No, he was fine.

He turned out of his driveway and onto Hawthorne Boulevard, heading north
. It was just past one, but the night was young. He drove a mile then turned left onto Palace Avenue, taking him into the Brookview Homes neighborhood. He made another quick left, then a right, and once again eased down Sonoma Street to 2517. Colleen Hanson. As he'd done three times before, Isaac placed his palm against his lips and blew Colleen a kiss before driving down the street and turning the corner. He turned right onto Carson Street and headed east. Three miles later, he turned left onto Louise Avenue and drove down the street until he pulled up to Lori Pashton's house, blew her ghost a kiss, then drove on, and turned right. Sixteen minutes later, Isaac was blowing a kiss to the memory of Jamie Kirk. The last house Isaac visited was Rachel's.

If he'd come just three hours earlier he might have seen John walk out the front door, turn back and give Karen Sharp a hug good-bye. He might have seen John stop at his car and glance over where he was parked that night just four weeks ago. But that was three hours ago, and Karen was sleeping now, dreaming of Rachel.

Isaac blew the ghost of Rachel a kiss and
drove down the street, turning at the same corner he did that rainy night. But it wasn't raining tonight. Tonight was a beautiful moonless night.

It was
2:15 a.m. when Isaac pulled up to 3885 Monterey and cut the engine. He sat there listening to the silence, until he couldn't take it any longer. He grabbed his fanny pack and opened the car door. He approached the side gate, reached over the top, and unlocked the latch. He pushed it very slowly, listening for creaky springs or hinges. There was one small clicking sound, but it didn't last, and soon he was at the side door.

Locked.

He walked around the back to the sliding glass door. Also locked. Isaac walked to the other side of the house and found the side window to the living room. It was locked, but Isaac could see the latch at the top. He pulled out a long thin steel blade, something he'd created just for this type of window and this type of lock. He slipped the blade between the window panels and clicked the lock out of position. He slipped the blade into his pack, and then lifted the window in a slow manner, gently pushing when it got stuck, until it was high enough for him to climb through. Isaac had practiced this maneuver on his own window at home many times. Once he had his torso through the window, he stretched his hands to the floor and he let all his weight go to his arms and shoulders, lowering himself down in slow motion, controlling his breathing as he went. Once inside, he slowly stood and closed the window. He waited silently for three minutes, taking in the sounds of the house. After three minutes, he walked to the front door and unlocked the deadbolt. Rules are rules…and he knew this particular rule saved his ass last time. Then he turned back, and entered the hallway. Two doors on the left. One on the right. He crept forward knowing that number five was about to happen…and he could barely keep from shouting.

CHAPTER 55

John received the call from Marcus at 6:45 a.m.
The Bedroom Killer had struck again.
The mother found her, called 9-1-1. Now, five hours later with his stomach growling from lack of food, he stood watching the bustling crime scene from across the street, standing among an ever-increasing crowd of onlookers, craning their necks and shouting questions like,
Is it the bedroom guy
?…and,
Did they catch him?

The news vans were already there, and probably had been since shortly after the 9
-1-1 operator dispatched a paramedic and police cruiser to the residence. John spotted Megan's car parked in front of the house when he first arrived. She was inside, asking questions and looking for clues…at least he hoped she was doing those things. He wanted to be with her, to work by her side, to support her. The thought of another dead girl inside the small wood-framed house across the street was enough to turn his stomach.

What was she doing now
?

Looking at the dead girl
?

Talking with the technicians
?

At this point
, John didn't exactly know where her mind was and he wished he could call her and say, "Are you okay? Cuz I'm right outside if you need to come talk to me."

He hoped she was well enough to turn away any thoughts of him, thoughts of getting away, thoughts of
sex. As he gazed across the street, he spotted a county morgue van pulling up to the crime scene tape. Before it came to a complete stop, an officer dropped the tape, allowing the van to pull through. It pulled into the driveway, which had just been vacated by a police cruiser specifically to allow the van to park as close as possible to the house. Then Detective Anderson stepped out of the house and spoke to a group of men and women standing on the sidewalk in front of the house.

As he spoke
, Andy happened to look across the street and his eyes met John's and froze. Their eyes stayed locked on each other for a couple of seconds before the detective brought his attention back to the group. After a few moments of hand waving and pointing in different directions, he turned and walked back into the house.

***

After seeing Dr. Randall across the street, Andy had to wonder why he was there. It didn't make any sense, but he knew from training that at times you might actually find the perpetrator of a crime standing out in the crowd admiring his own work, although this was more applicable to the arsonists. What's the point in starting a fire if you can't hang around and watch it burn?

To his left was the hallway leading to the bedrooms
. He knew that Megan was down there. It was the first place she would go, stepping past other evidence, as if she had to see the final product before she could work her way backward to check off the evidence list.

Off to his right was the kitchen and dining room area
, where Gerald and Kennedy were interviewing the mother, Melissa Conrad. Her sixteen-year-old daughter was named Hillary. Of course she was crying—bravely attempting to answer all their questions through her sobs. Andy moved through the room, down the hall, and stopped at the bedroom door. Eric the CSI technician was inside, along with Megan. The gurney and the two young men from the morgue were waiting patiently in the hall just past the bedroom door. Andy nodded to them, the same two who have come to each of the previous murders, and stepped inside the room to find Megan staring at a photo collage on the far wall, just above the dead girl's head. He stood there for what felt like a full minute—and Megan never moved. Andy looked behind him and noticed Eric staring at him. Andy nodded and Eric approached.

"She got a phone call
," Eric said. “She's been like that since she hung up—five minutes at least. I just kept working."

Andy said, "Give us a minute.
"

"I'm done anyway
," Eric said, and then walked out of the room. Andy turned back to Megan, reached out his hand, and whispered her name.

"Megan
," Andy said.

She didn't move, so he said her name a little louder.

"Megan."

St
artled out of her trance, she quickly turned to face Andy. Her cheeks were red, streaked with tears, and her eyes were filled with more tears just waiting to drip over her lower eyelids. Andy saw that and couldn't think of what to say. She was his superior. She knew more than he knew, had more years on the job, had taught him a lot of what he knew, and as he stood in front of her one foot away from the dead young girl, she was completely lost. But he wasn't entirely surprised to see her this way, knowing that things had been rough for her lately. He'd seen it building. He didn't know all the reasons why—but he felt that he knew some of them. It was more than the job. He knew that for sure.

"Oh
, Megan," he said.

Megan
quickly reached up and swiped her cuff across her eyes, wiping off the tears as best she could.

"You should go home
," Andy said. "We can take care—"

"No," she said
. "I'll be okay. It's just…"

But before she could say another word
her entire body shuddered and she tipped forward. Andy quickly reached out and pulled her into his arms. She buried her face into his chest and sobbed. Andy swung his head back to look at the bedroom door, praying he wouldn't see Gerald walk through, but all he could see was one of the morgue guys peeking around the corner and whipping his head back when he locked eyes with Andy. He had to get her out so they could get in and do their job. But as soon as that thought hit him, Gerald arrived.

"What the hell is this
?" said Gerald, puffing out his chest.

Megan instantly pulled away and straightened up.

"She needs to go home," Andy said.

"No
. I'm fine," Megan said, choking back her tears.

Gerald
looked from Megan to Andy and back to Megan and said, "What's your problem?"

"She's overworked," Andy
said.

"Aren't we all
?" Gerald said, then added, "And since when do you speak for Detective Ash?"

Gerald
took a step into the room toward Megan and she instantly stepped backward, knocking her lower back into the corner bedpost, which acting as a fulcrum, suddenly tipped her backward onto the dead girl's head and upper body. She immediately slipped off the bed and landed on her butt on the floor. Megan screamed.                                                                                                                                                 

"Jesus Christ
!" Gerald shouted, reaching out to grab her.

Megan saw his hand coming toward her and screamed, "No! Get away!"

Andy reached for her
, too, but she slapped his hands away as she gathered her feet underneath her to stand.

"Get away!
" she yelled again as she stood.

"Get away from me
!" she shouted, gulping air and trying to breathe, talk, and cry at the same time. She bolted passed Gerald, heading for the door, but he caught her arm as she passed.

"Where are you going?"
Gerald said.

Megan
frantically shook her arm, trying to escape Gerald's meaty hands, but he had a tight grip on her small wrist. She lashed out at Gerald with her fist.

"Let me go!
" Megan screamed.

Gerald
held on.

"Not until you
…"

"
Let me go!" Megan screamed again.

Andy took a step forward thinking he might grab
Gerald's hand when Kennedy and another detective rushed to the door.

"What's wrong
?" Kennedy shouted.

"Let me go
!" Megan screamed again.

"Gerald, let go
!" Andy yelled.

Megan reached her right leg up and landed a solid kick on
Gerald's upper thigh, causing Gerald to pull backward and loosen his grip. Megan twisted her arm and broke free, swinging and shoving her way past Kennedy and everyone else who had gathered in the cramped hallway, tossing them backward one at a time as the second-in-command screamed and shoved her way out of the house, with Gerald following close behind.

CHAPTER 56

John's stomach went queasy when he thought about the fifth young girl killed by the man who landed on his car hood. They hadn't caught him yet, and now he'd killed again. He'd made a mental calculation and realized it had been twenty-two days since that night. Yes, he was decreasing the number of days between murders. They were losing time and had to find this guy or they'd be doing this very same thing within the next two weeks. John had seen his share of dead bodies—blood and gore didn't bother him—when it was part of his work. Still, he was surprised at his reaction to just thinking about the dead girl inside. The news photographers continued to snap pictures and the on-scene reporters continued speaking into the cameras as they narrated to the TV audience what was going on inside the house behind them. Although he didn't have a TV to watch, at this moment John knew that this was playing out live on all the local stations.

"Hey, you're that guy."

John didn't know who said it, but it came from off to one side and, as he turned to the left to see who was speaking, he found two twenty-something boys staring at him, one of them pointing at him, his eyes wide.

"You're the guy from last time
. The doctor who tried to kill himself."

John looked from the two boys to the others in the group and noticed their heads turning his way
.
Time to go
and he began moving in the other direction.

J
ust as he passed a couple, who were still staring across the street, he heard the lady shout, "Look!" and point her finger toward a house across the street. John's eyes followed her finger and spotted Megan rushing down the sidewalk with Detective Bell gripping her POLICE - HOMICIDE jacket, like a young schoolboy teasing a girl on the school grounds. He witnessed Megan stop and jerk her jacket out of his hands as every other cop and detective and CSI tech—
everyone
—completely stopped what they were doing to watch something they had probably never witnessed in their entire career. The lead detective and his second-in-command were having a shouting match in front of at least one hundred witnesses and five "on-the-scene" field reporters. As Megan finally pulled her jacket free from Bell, John swore he heard the words
Fuck you!
come out of Megan's mouth. Based on the reaction of the crowd and especially the look on Gerald’s face, John was pretty sure he was right.

The shit was hitting the fan.

Megan stormed through the remaining crowd on the front yard and entered the street, her head swiveling left to right, scanning the crowd, like a lost dog on the freeway, scared out of her mind at the passing cars. John moved out of the crowd and into the street.

"Megan
!" he shouted.

Megan stopped and turned, spotting John fifty feet to her right, like a shining light in the middle of all the darkness
. John saw her dead eyes staring across at him and knew she was gone.

U
h-oh
.
Is that what this is about?

H
e remembered that Detective Anderson spotted him and wondered if he had walked back inside and ratted him out to Bell within earshot of Megan. It would explain why Bell grabbed her jacket in an attempt to keep Megan
on the job.
He suddenly felt guilty and wondered why he hadn't stayed back in the crowd more. He didn't need to be right up front and center. But it was too late.

"John," cried Megan, turning and running toward him.

The entire crowd of bystanders—and there were lots of bystanders—all watched this happen. John shot his head to the right to look over at the closest news camera and he could see it was tracking Megan's every move. In a few seconds, he would be right back in the middle of the TV news.

What are you going to do, Randal
l?
He didn't want to be the center of attention again, but unless he turned and ran, it was pretty much a done deal.

Megan approached him as if there wasn't another soul around, and John thought of the romance movies that
Paulette loved to watch, where the music grows in intensity and builds to a crescendo as the lovers come together as one. But John was no sailor dressed in white, and Megan didn't work in the hometown textile mill…and the only cameras shooting the scene were delivering it in a direct feed to the local news shows—the news crawl dragging right to left across the bottom of the screen with the words:
Bedroom Killer Claims Fifth Victim.

John actually took a step back as Megan got close
, but that didn't stop her, and when she reached him she threw her arms around him and began once again to sob uncontrollably. John held Megan, stroking her head and telling her she'd be okay, doing and saying whatever he could to get her to calm down. He looked up to see at least one hundred faces staring at them. He had to get her out of there…and then he heard his name again. But it wasn't Megan.

"Randall!"

It was Bell. John looked up to see Bell marching across the street, like a Midwest basketball couch about to scold his star player for losing the game.

"You sonofabitch
!" Bell continued shouting. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Detectives Anderson and Kennedy grabbed Bell by the arms, and other cops moved in, without a doubt wondering what the hell was going on out here in the street between the lead detective and his entire first team
.

Struggling in their arms, Bell
shouted, "I warned you, you sonofabitch! What did I say, huh? You get the fuck out of here!"

Bell cut the air with his wildly
flailing arms, pointed at John and Megan, all the time trying to shake free.

"You get the fuck out of here
!" he repeated. "I don't want to ever see your face again. You hear me, Randall?"

John took Megan and moved her down the street away from Bell and
away from the crowd, but the news photographers followed them, snapping pictures, as the field reporters surrounded them, shoving their microphones into John's face.

"Why was he yelling at you, Dr. Randall?"

They knew who he was. Some of them, probably most of them, had been there the night he was arrested, and here they were, doing it all over again. He did his best to keep Megan's face down and kept pushing forward trying to get to his car, which was parked at the end of the street, still a hundred feet away.

"Detective Ash, what happened to you
?"

"Why was Detective Bell yelling at you?"

"What happened inside the house?"

"Detective Ash
…"

"Dr. Randall
…"

Just as it seemed he would never get away
, the crowd suddenly split in two and John found Detectives Anderson and Kennedy now pushing the crowd back, barking out orders to step back and get out of the way. A second later, uniformed cops joined them and together they cleared the way for John to get Detective Ash to his car. He opened the passenger door, pulled off his jacket, and pushed Megan inside and tossed his jacket over her head, and then he ran to the driver's side, jumped in, and started the car. He dropped the gearshift into drive and pulled away from the curb slowly, careful not to hit the persistent crowd around his car. As soon as John passed the crowd and reached the roadblock set up at the end of the street, he turned right onto an open residential road and hit the gas. He accelerated to thirty miles per hour and got out of the neighborhood as fast as he could.

Megan kept her head down even after they were on the main boulevard
, but she had removed his jacket and laid it in her lap. She didn't make a sound; didn't move an inch. John kept driving, not sure where he should be going. He reached into his storage console between the seats, pulled out a package of tissue, and dropped it into her lap. He watched as her hand moved and pulled one from the package and then disappeared behind her hair, which, due to the tilt of her head, hung like a curtain, obscuring her face.

He heard her blow
her nose and sniffle, then her hand dropped back into her lap and he heard a faint, "She's dead."

John watched her for a moment longer wondering what he could do and kept driving.

"I figured that," he said.

Megan
looked up, her hair mussed up and cheeks wet with tears.

"No
…Anna," sobbed Megan. "My mother-in-law. She's dead."