The Jinx (21 page)

She'd gone to Grant Crocker's apartment. He was, not surprisingly, surprised to see her, nor was he terribly welcoming. He tried to slam the door in her face, but she was too quick for him, and managed to slide through the opening before he could shut her out. In his living room, she launched into an impassioned and prepared speech. “Then I saw it.”

“Saw what?” I asked.

“He has a—I don't even know how to describe it, really—but it's like a
shrine
set up.”

“A shrine?”

“To Sara.” Apparently he'd dedicated a corner of his living room to a bizarre sort of installation art. There was a massive framed picture of Sara on a small table, surrounded by other pictures and various mementos. So, I'd been right after all. Grant Crocker was the Creepy Stalker.

“He'd been trying to block my view of it, but I got around him, and then he grabbed me, and we were sort of struggling. He's really strong, you know. He's sort of a work-out fanatic. But I am, too, and I've even taken self-defense courses, so I put up a good fight. He was holding on to me, but I managed to pull away, and I went crashing into his desk. There was a pile of newspaper clippings on it, and the impact made them go flying all over the room. And here's what really freaked me out.”

I would have been pretty freaked out already, given the shrine, and Gabrielle had already been freaked out when she'd arrived, so it was hard to imagine what could elevate her level of panic still further. But when I heard what she had to say next, I was amazed she didn't have a coronary on the spot.

“The clippings were all about the prostitute killings. And it looked like he'd been putting them in a scrapbook. And there was a pile of stuff, too. An earring, a ring, a lipstick—none of it nice stuff. And a couple of the things were Sara's. There was a page that must have been torn from one of her notebooks—she has really distinctive handwriting—and a glove that Sara thought she'd lost.”

“Souvenirs,” I said, remembering Hilary's lecture on serial killers. “They frequently take souvenirs from the victims.” So much for Barbara Barnett, I realized, almost disappointed. Grant Crocker was more than Creepy. He was Violent, too. And if Sara's belongings were in the pile of souvenirs Grant had taken from women he'd killed, it looked like he'd intended to kill her, as well.

“Anyhow, I saw this all in like a split second, and then he was on me again. And I punched him, hard, in the face.”

Ah. That explained the black eye. “You did a great job,” I said. “He has quite a shiner.”

“Yeah, well, he was sort of reeling from that, but at this point he was still between me and the door and I didn't know how I was going to get out. I was looking around for a weapon, and then I realized that I had this in my bag.” She opened up her shoulder pouch and pulled out an economy-size can of Aqua Net hairspray.

“I didn't realize they still made that,” I said, amazed.

“Oh, yeah. It's hard to find. I buy it by the case on the Internet. Where I'm from, you learn how to do big hair early. So I gave him a good spritz, right in the eyes. It's better than Mace.”

Hence the reddened eyes complementing Grant's shiner. I was beginning to think that Gabrielle might do better at an investment bank than anyone had been giving her credit for.

“I ran out,” she continued. “And he was yelling after me. That I'd better not say anything to anyone, or I'd regret it. He said he'd hunt me down and kill me.”

“That must have been pretty scary,” Jonathan said. He'd been listening carefully, an empathetic expression on his face, and I could see why the students came to him with their problems. “What did you do next?”

“I didn't know what to do. I really thought he was going to come after me. And I was too scared to go to the police. I mean, what if they didn't believe me? Or, even if they did, what if Grant found me before the police found him? So I checked myself into a motel in Porter Square. I've been holed up there ever since, and when I finally calmed down enough, I called you. And here I am.”

“You did the right thing,” Jonathan assured her. “And we're going to tell the police what happened. It sounds like you've managed to find both the prostitute killer and the guy who's been attacking Sara.”

“I guess so,” said Gabrielle. “But are you sure he can't come after me?” She looked around the room again, her anxiety almost tangible.

“Yes. Even if they can't immediately tie Grant to the murders and the assaults, they can get him for assaulting you.” He smiled. “Although, it sounds like you won that fight.”

 

Jonathan went back to the lobby to call Detective O'Connell, and Gabrielle asked me to accompany her to the ladies' room. Although she was calmer now that she'd told her story, she was wary of going anywhere unaccompanied until Grant Crocker was safely apprehended.

As I waited outside the door for Gabrielle to emerge, I called Hilary, thinking that I'd be doing a good deed by giving her the scoop on Grant Crocker.

“Where are you?” I asked. “I have some news that you'll want to hear.”

“At Widener Library. There were a few things I wanted to check into after I interviewed O'Connell. Which was great, by the way. I definitely owe you.”

“You'll have to mention me in the acknowledgments. Although, after you hear this, you might just decide to dedicate the book to me.”

“What?” she asked excitedly.

“I know who the killer is. And it's not Jonathan Beasley.”

“That's wonderful news. So you can still go out with him. But who's the killer?”

“No, this will be more fun in person.”

She didn't want to wait, but I told her I'd meet her at the library and give her the full download. “Then we can go up to Jane's together.”

“Okay. But hurry. Suspense makes me cranky.”

 

Gabrielle emerged from the ladies' room, and we met Jonathan in the lobby.

“Did you reach O'Connell?” I asked.

“Yes. He's back at the station and he suggested Gabrielle come by. Is that all right, Gabrielle?”

Gabrielle hesitated but then she nodded. “Will you come with me?” she asked him.

“Of course. In fact, I'll drive you there.”

Jonathan's car was parked around the corner, and he dropped me off at the gate to Harvard Yard nearest the library. I wished Gabrielle well in her discussion with O'Connell and gave Jane's address to Jonathan.

“I'll come by as soon as we're done,” he told me.

“Good. See you later. And Gabrielle, don't worry. You're doing the right thing.” She didn't look convinced, but she gave me a stoic wave. I made a mental note to see what I could do about finding her a job. She still seemed like too much of a stress case to handle Winslow, Brown, but the Aqua Net incident demonstrated a level of gumption that I had to admire.

I shut the car door behind me and passed through the familiar gates.

I didn't realize I was being followed.

W
idener Library was a looming white stone edifice smack in the middle of Harvard Yard. Shallow steps led up to its pillared entrance. I'd once read that the steps were built to accommodate the hobble skirts that had been fashionable ninety years ago, when the library was endowed, but that had never made sense to me. Harvard hadn't done much embracing of women at that point in time, much less worked to accommodate their fashion needs.

Hilary had told me she'd be in the library stacks, one of her favorite haunts in college. She prided herself on having racked up a number of encounters there that hovered on the border line between NC-17 and XXX ratings, but she'd assured me that her only objective today was to dig up a couple of esoteric books about the history of violent crime and spend some quiet time reviewing her notes.

A Harvard ID was required to obtain entrance to the stacks, but I flashed my Winslow, Brown security pass to the student at security. He was sufficiently absorbed in his reading that he didn't seem to notice the difference. Hilary had said to meet her on the C level, and I rode the rickety elevator down two flights. My navigational abilities hadn't improved since earlier that afternoon, but I remembered the basic layout of Widener sufficiently well, having spent more time than I cared to recall in the stacks as an undergrad on those occasions when I couldn't afford any sort of distractions. The floors were dimly lit, but there were study carrels lining many of the walls, and you could tuck yourself away in a corner and work undisturbed for hours, assuming you had the foresight to smuggle in a supply of Diet Coke and M&Ms for sustenance. Of course, what had been for me the perfect place to power through exam prep or thesis research had been for Hilary the perfect place for illicit sexual encounters.

Today, however, I found her alone in one of those study carrels, surrounded by heavy, dusty texts and an assortment of papers. My heels echoed on the hard cement floors, alerting her to my arrival.

“So, tell me,” she demanded. “I can't believe you held out on me like this.” She seemed to have run out of gratitude in the last fifteen minutes. Forced patience never had a good effect on Hilary.

“Grant Crocker.”

“No way. I thought he was the Creepy Stalker.”

“He is. But it turns out he's violent, and a serial killer to boot.” I related what Gabrielle had told Jonathan and me. “It sounds like a fit, doesn't it? I mean, with the newspaper clippings and souvenirs and everything.”

“Absolutely. Amazing. And you used to work with him. Unbelievable. I'll have to put you in the book, too. You can talk about his creepiness when he was at Winslow, Bro—oh my God!”

“What?”

“I just realized something.” She began shuffling through the papers on the desk. “I'd printed out some stuff off the Internet about another uncaught serial killer. There was an article in one of the Boston papers about how the killings here were similar to a series of killings in New York City a couple of years ago. They took place over the course of about eighteen months, and then they just stopped. But they probably happened when Grant Crocker was at your firm, right? Before business school. Here, check this out.” She found the pages she was looking for and handed them to me. I quickly skimmed the articles.

“The dates sound like they match,” I said, my excitement nearly matching Hilary's own.

“Even better, the articles from the New York papers talk about how the police thought the killer was using a scarf to strangle his victims,” she continued. “And here's the clincher.” She paused, as if to heighten the drama of her revelation.

“I'm waiting.”

“Work with me, Rach. This is called building tension so the climax is all the more stunning. It's a writer thing.”

“Whatever. What's the clincher?”

“From the fibers they found, the police thought the scarf was red and gold.”

“And how is that a clincher?”

“Those are the colors of the Marine Corps. And Crocker was a marine, right?”

I had to admit, that was a pretty good clincher. “Now that I think about it, I vaguely remember Grant having a red-and-gold-striped scarf that he seemed to wear everywhere in the winter months. That is pretty good.”

“Good? It's brilliant.”

“You should tell O'Connell.”

“I'm going to. I mean, he must know about the New York killings, and I guess Gabrielle will tell him what she told you, but being able to point out that Crocker was in both places and was a marine has got to be helpful. I'll go call him right now. The reception down here is lousy, so I'm going to have to go out into the main lobby. I'll be back in a few minutes, and then we can go up to Jane's together.” She took her phone and strode off, the stiletto heels of her boots echoing in the empty hallway.

 

I took the chair Hilary had vacated and began reading more carefully through the pages she'd printed out. There had been five murders in New York during the killer's eighteen-month spree, and they did all sound exactly like the murders here in Boston. I was immersed in one of the articles when a drop of water splattered on the page. I wiped it away with my sleeve and looked up, wondering if there was a leaky pipe somewhere in the building.

But there was no leaky pipe. Instead there was Grant Crocker, looming behind me and reading over my shoulder. A few melting snowflakes adorned his crew cut.

“Hello, Rachel. What are you reading?”

I screamed. This scream was even more bloodcurdling than my earlier scream in the Coop, because the acoustics of the stacks amplified the sound. It echoed against the concrete floors and metal shelving. But no one came to see what the problem was. For once I wished the stacks were a bit more heavily trafficked. They were lonesome enough during normal hours; early on a Saturday evening they were deserted.

“What—what are you doing here?” I stuttered, twisting in my seat to face him.

He chuckled. “Well, I'd been following our friend, Ms. LeFavre, and I was hoping to get her alone. But she drove off with Professor Beasley. So I thought I'd see what lies she might have been spreading about me.”

“I don't think they're lies,” I countered, playing for time.

He smiled, the sort of smile the psycho always gives in bad horror movies just before he attacks his next victim. And then he lunged for me.

Without thinking, I grabbed one of Hilary's books and swung it like a bat. It crashed into Grant's nose with a satisfying crunch. “Oof,” I heard him say.

He was bent over double, holding his nose with both hands, and I used this opportunity to shove him aside and make a run for it. But while I knew where the elevator was, I wasn't eager to wait for its arrival since I doubted that I'd incapacitated Grant for more than a few moments. I needed to find the stairwell, and quickly, but with yet another sense of déjà vu I realized I couldn't remember where it was. I didn't see a soul as I tore along the hallway, looking in vain for a sign that would point me to the stairs.

I heard heavy pounding footsteps behind me, and I tried to pick up the pace, but while I'd had lots of practice running in heels, primarily while sprinting for planes, the floor was slippery and I was sliding more than I was running. I careered around a corner, only to see yet more endless rows of books and no sign for the stairs. If I got out of this alive, I vowed never again to go into a bookstore, library or other venue where books were housed without a bodyguard, attack dog and sensible shoes.

“You're not going to get away, Rachel!” I heard Grant yell, and his voice was discomfitingly close, albeit its newly nasal twang indicated that I might have done some serious damage to his nose.

I wasn't going to be able to outrun him, I realized as I skated around another corner, catching hold of a bookshelf to prevent myself from wiping out. I was going to have to outsmart him.

I stopped running, dragged a foot against the floor so it made a squealing noise, and shrieked, as if I'd fallen. Only a couple of seconds passed before Grant appeared around the corner of the row into which I'd turned, running at full tilt.

He'd probably expected to find me in a heap on the floor, nursing a twisted ankle or a broken heel. He probably hadn't expected me to be pressed against the shelves with my foot strategically stretched into the aisle. His speed put him at a disadvantage. He tripped over my foot and was promptly airborne, sailing down the aisle headfirst. He hit the floor a good ten feet from where I was before sliding several more yards.

I grabbed several books from the nearest shelves and began pelting them at him with all of the force I could muster. But like the horror-movie monster that just won't die, he was pulling himself upright, apparently immune to the onslaught. Blood was gushing out of his nose, and combined with the black eye, he was a pretty unpleasant sight. I pulled another book from the shelf and threw it with all my strength, aiming for his head. It got him in the neck instead, but it seemed to wind him. He grabbed at his throat and opened his mouth, but all that came out was a croak. Still he kept moving toward me.

There was only one thing left to do. Something I'd always dreamed of doing. And my shoes may have lacked the appropriate traction for high-speed chases down slippery hallways, but their pointy toes had to be good for something.

I ran at Grant, closing the gap between us with a few steps. I swung my leg back, and then forward, putting all my weight into the kick. My foot connected with his groin as if it had been shot from a cannon. I won't describe what, exactly, it felt like on my end, but based on Grant's reaction, on his end it wasn't good.

His eyes rolled up into the back of his head, revealing their white undersides. Soundlessly, he crumpled to the floor.