The Last Victim (13 page)

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Authors: Kevin O'Brien

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One of those times was during the week Andy Shields and the Gaines twins went missing. Bridget kept remembering something Olivia Rankin had said: “What if someone is out there killing twins? Aren’t you worried?”
She slept with a bat at her bedside. Every night, she double-checked the doors to make sure they were locked. McLaren was a little town where no one bothered locking their doors. But the murders of those three boys changed that.
Andy Shields and Robbie Gaines had their throats slit. One of the newspapers used an off-the-cuff description a policeman on the scene had given: “They were cut from ear to ear,” he’d said. “Like each one had been given a second smile.” Richie Gaines had been strangled, and there were rumors he’d been sexually assaulted as well. They never did find the boys’ shoes. And they never found the killer—or killers.
Bridget attended Andy Shields’s memorial service. The closed-casket wake was held at Shorewood Funeral Home.
Within a few months, she would be there again—for her mother’s funeral. Most of the town showed up to pay their respects. Bridget talked to dozens of people who thought her mother was the epitome of grace and elegance. The church—along with the viewing room at Shorewood Funeral Home—was filled with floral arrangements. Over three thousand dollars was donated in Mrs. Corrigan’s name for the American Cancer Society.
They’d stuck with the cancer story. Bridget’s father even managed to get it put on the death certificate. He was protecting Brad—and his future.
Bridget had kept her promise to her father, and never said anything to her brother about what really killed their mother.
Now, she studied the highball glass from which her pregnant sister-in-law had been drinking. Bridget decided it wasn’t her business to say anything to Brad about it.
She finished up the dinner dishes Janice had left—with one exception. She took off the apron, then brushed a few stray threads from the front of her black-and-wine mandarin dress.
Bridget left the highball glass—with its lipstick marks and bourbon smell—on the counter, just where she’d found it.
If Brad decided to turn a blind eye, she wasn’t going to make it easy for him.
“Brad?”
“Yeah, hello, Fuller,” said the voice on the other end of the line.
Fuller rubbed his eyes and squinted at the clock on his nightstand. “Jesus,” he said, sitting up in bed. “It’s one o’clock in the morning.” He cleared the phlegm out of his throat, then checked the caller ID on the phone base:
No listing
.
“Sorry if I woke you—”
“You don’t sound like Brad. Where are you calling from?”
“I’m calling from a pay phone. And if I don’t sound like myself, it’s because I’ve been making speeches all night and I’m tired. The reason I’m calling is I want you to stop bothering my sister.”
“You wouldn’t return any of my calls,” Fuller explained. “I had no other way of getting in touch with you. Did Bridget tell you—”
“Not over the phone,” he cut in. “Come meet me.”
“Now? What, are you high?”
“No, I’m tired, and I want you off my back. It’s now or never. I don’t want to be seen talking with you, and no one here knows me. I’m at an all-night café near my house. Do you know where Donna’s Diner is?”
The old Volkswagen minibus seemed to come out of nowhere.
With this elusive creep following him around for the past week or so, Fuller was constantly on his guard. When he’d left his house and got behind the wheel of his BMW at ten minutes after one o’clock in the morning, he’d brought along his cell phone and his gun. He’d thrown on a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans for his meeting with Brad Corrigan. All the while, he wasn’t quite sure whether he’d really been talking on the phone with Brad—or some imposter. Fuller had watched news clips of Brad Corrigan speaking, and he knew his voice. This guy on the phone had sounded different. Still, who else but Brad would know that he’d been talking with Bridget?
Fuller hadn’t seen anyone lurking around his house as he’d backed out of the driveway. On his way to the interstate, he’d repeatedly checked his rearview mirror. He knew where Donna’s Diner was—about twenty minutes from his house. He’d rolled down his window and cranked up an oldies station to keep from nodding off.
He’d been listening to Blondie’s “Rapture” while pulling off the interstate and onto Garrett Road. One moment, there were no other cars on the lonely, dark highway; then, suddenly this old Volkswagen minibus was behind him. Had it been waiting for him—with its lights off—along the roadside?
Fuller squinted in the rearview mirror. The minibus was about five car lengths behind him. From what he could tell, it looked like just one person in the vehicle—no passengers.
Fuller straightened up behind the wheel and pressed harder on the accelerator. The speedometer needle on his BMW shot to seventy. He checked the mirror again. The Volkswagen minibus was still with him, getting closer. He could even see the driver—a balding man who looked a bit like an ape. There was something dangling from his rearview mirror that kept catching the light. It was a reflective insignia of a sea serpent or a snake.
Fuller didn’t see any other cars on the highway. “Shit,” he murmured. “Where’s a fuckin’ cop when you want one?”
His foot pressed even harder on the accelerator—until he was doing eighty-five miles an hour. The wind blasted through his open window. The old Volkswagen stayed on his tail. Then that simian shit-heel put on his high beams. The inside of Fuller’s BMW was suddenly illuminated in a blue-white light.
“Son of a bitch,” he growled. His heart was racing. Blindly, he reached for his gun on the passenger seat. Maybe if he held it up and waved it, the bastard behind him would back off. Fuller patted the seat cushion. He didn’t feel anything. Finally, he glanced over at the passenger side for a moment. Something caught his eye, and it wasn’t his .45. With the minibus’s headlights illuminating his car, he noticed for the first time a half-full bottle of whiskey on the floor. “What the hell?” he whispered. Someone had planted it there. But why?
Fuller swallowed hard, grabbed his gun, and held it up. “See this, asshole?” he growled. “Want some?” He kept brandishing the gun. In the rearview mirror, he watched the ape in the minibus lag back a bit. Fuller smiled.
Up ahead, he saw a sign with a cartoon coffee mug.
BRAKE FOR COFFEE
! it said.
DELICIOUS FOOD! DONNA’S DINER
, 24-
HOUR CAFE
—
EXIT
1/2
MILE.
He was almost there. Fuller let out a little laugh. The old Volkswagen minibus seemed to be lingering back now. If that was part of a setup, he would soon find out. He planned on taking his .45 into the diner. For now, he put the gun on the passenger seat. It was dark inside his car once more.
Fuller eased off the accelerator a bit, then checked his rearview mirror. He didn’t see the minibus. “What the hell?” he muttered. The damn thing had disappeared just as quickly as it had snuck up on him.
Fuller realized he was veering off the road—toward a mass of trees that surrounded the
DONNA’S DINER
sign. He quickly straightened out the wheel and got back in his lane. He squinted at the mirror again, and finally spotted the old Volkswagen minibus, still following him—with its lights off.
“Jesus, what—” he started to say. But he didn’t finish.
All at once, straight ahead, he saw a car in his lane, barreling toward him. Its lights were off too. But he barely had a moment to realize it was there, before the vehicle’s high beams went on.
Fuller was blinded. He couldn’t even see what type of car was coming at him. Through the open window, he heard an engine roaring. He caught sight of the Volkswagen minibus in his side mirror. It propelled forward, blocking the left lane.
Fuller leaned on the horn. But the oncoming car was relentless. He had no way out. Fuller slammed on the brakes and jerked the wheel to the right. Tires shrieked. He veered off the road—and felt the car tipping over. “Jesus, no!” he yelled.
The car was spinning. Flying. Through the windshield, he saw the trees—only they were upside down. He was soaring straight toward them.
Fuller Sterns didn’t see another thing after that. Only blackness.
He had to admit something to himself about his new painting.
It just wouldn’t match what had actually happened only a few hours ago. There was no way he could recapture the excitement of the crash, the adrenaline rush he got from playing that game of chicken with the BMW and putting his own life on the line.
Stinking of sweat, he went to work on some sketches. He had to work from memory. He hadn’t counted on the BMW flipping over like that. All those car-crash photos he’d downloaded were a waste. The wrecked BMWs had been upright in those shots. The joke was on him.
Nor did he need those photos of Fuller Sterns he’d taken on the sly. The son of a bitch was buried beneath the car. All he could see of him was his arm—sticking out the crumpled window. The way it poked out of the dark opening, the bloody limb didn’t seem connected to anything. He wondered whether or not the arm had been severed.
He wanted to capture that same sense of uncertainty when he painted the lifeless arm. He liked the juxtaposition of the smiling cartoon coffee mug on the billboard and the wrecked car below it. He was calling this one
Brake for Coffee.
He still had a lot of work to do. Yet his mind was already on his next job, his next masterpiece. This one coming up would bring him immense satisfaction. It would be carefully staged—with a lot less room for surprises and error. He’d have more control over everything.
And besides, he always enjoyed it so much better when he got to paint a woman.
“I thought maybe we could do this without getting our lawyers involved,” Bridget said.
Gerry nodded over his coffee cup. They’d met at a Starbucks in Portland’s trendy Northwest District. All the tables were taken, so they sat at the counter-bar. On the wall in front of them were newspapers, hanging by clothespins on a line—for the customers to read.
Bridget had chosen the Starbucks this Tuesday morning so their meeting wouldn’t turn into a shouting match. She’d been a few minutes late, and found her estranged husband with his nose in one of the newspapers.
She hadn’t seen Gerry since their last meeting three weeks before—and that had been with the lawyers. This time around, she noticed he looked pretty handsome, damn him. He’d lost some weight, and must have gotten some sun recently. His curly gray-brown hair had a touch of blond in it. He wore a tan suit, some designer label, and a tie that matched his blue eyes. Bridget wore a pale green suit that he’d always liked. She hated the part of her that still needed to look attractive for him. But she wasn’t trying to lure him back, she just wanted him to kick himself for letting her go.
She’d gotten a double espresso, brought it back to the counter-bar, and climbed up on the stool beside his.
“I need to ask you for a favor, Gerry,” she said. “I’d like you to spend more time with David and Eric. I’m talking beyond the every-other-weekend schedule, which—well, you haven’t been too terrific at keeping.”
He put down his coffee cup and eyed her warily. “You told me this was going to be a
friendly
talk. I already explained why I couldn’t take them last time. I had a client in Palm Springs—”
“I understand, really,” she cut in. “I just think the boys, especially David, they need a father figure. They miss you, Gerry.”
He let out a cynical laugh. “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, Bridget. They don’t miss me. They have a father figure with their uncle Brad. He walks on water as far as they’re concerned. Always has. How can I compete with that?”
Bridget didn’t say anything. She just sipped her coffee. She knew what Gerry was talking about. She’d grown up in her twin brother’s shadow, and had long, long ago stopped trying to compete with Brad.
“Brad will be busy for the next few weeks,” she said. “It’s crunch time with the campaign. They’ll be demanding more of my time too. It would be nice if you could look after David and Eric some nights—and weekends. I don’t want to leave them alone. And I don’t want to leave them with Janice.”
He smirked a bit. “You and Janice still maintaining a policy of mutually polite contempt?”
Bridget shifted on the stool. She didn’t want to confide in him about Janice snapping at her the other night—or about the possible drinking on the sly. Bridget gave her estranged husband a pinched smile. “I plead the Fifth, counselor,” she said.
He laughed. “Some things never change.”
“So—about the boys . . .”
“Well, I can’t make ironclad guarantees here, Bridget,” he said. “I’ll try to be available. But c’mon, in a pinch, can’t David and Eric look after themselves? After all, David’s fourteen—”
“He’s thirteen,” Bridget cut in. “And I don’t want to leave them alone in the house. I have this—
stalker
situation, and I’d just as soon—”
“Wait,” he said. “ ‘A stalker situation’? What are you talking about?”
She frowned down at her coffee cup. “Oh, it’s probably some nut who saw me on TV, or maybe a reporter. Brad thinks he might be a spy for Foley—hoping to catch me in a
compromising position
or something. Whatever. This guy has been showing up in different places I’ve been, and the other night, someone was lurking outside the house at three in the morning. It might have been the same man, but I’m not sure.”
Gerry hunched toward her. “My God,” he murmured, putting his hand on her arm. “Did you call the police?”
Gently pulling her arm away, Bridget nodded. “Yes, and they came by. It’s okay, really. It’s nothing you should worry about.”
She hated that concerned look on his handsome, tanned face. It made her think for a moment that he cared. Worse than that, it made her miss him. Bridget sipped her coffee. She couldn’t look at him. “So—you’ll help with the boys?”
He nodded. “Of course. Just give me some advance notice when you might need me. I want to spend more time with them. Really.” He patted her hand. “You know, I still care, Bridget. I do.”
Again, she pulled away from his touch. “How’s Leslie?” she asked coolly.
“Leslie’s fine,” he answered. He drank his coffee, then set the mug down on the counter. “Well, I’ll take that last question as a cue to get out while the going’s good. You can count on me to help with the boys. Take care, Bridget.” He climbed off the stool and started toward the exit.
“Gerry?” she heard herself say. When he glanced back at her, Bridget worked up a smile. “Thank you,” she said. “I mean it.”
He nodded, then walked out the door.
Bridget slumped a bit in the stool. She’d almost let herself become vulnerable with him just now. And she couldn’t afford that.
She suddenly felt so alone—and very self-conscious. With a sigh, Bridget turned toward the wall and tried to look interested in the newspaper page hanging on clothespins. It was yesterday’s newspaper. The local news section was in front of her. She read the headline to an article near the bottom of the page:
VANCOUVER MAN DIES IN BIZARRE CAR ACCIDENT
Unexplained “Rollover” Occurred on Portland Highway
A name in the first sentence of the article caught her eye. “My God,” Bridget murmured.
A Vancouver businessman, Fuller Sterns, 38, died when his BMW rolled over on Garrett Road, Highway 17, in Portland early Sunday morning. There were no witnesses to the accident, which one Portland policeman described as “a mystery.”
“It appears as if the car rolled over at a high speed,” said Officer Lawrence Blades, one of the first to arrive upon the scene, after a passing motorist reported the wreck at 1:53 AM on Sunday. “It’s possible he might have fallen asleep at the wheel or swerved to avoid a deer. But we won’t know for sure without further investigation. There are a lot of unanswered questions here. . . .”
Bridget pulled the newspaper section from its clothespins and tore off nearly half of the front page. Hunched over the counter-bar, she continued reading the article. She kept shaking her head over and over again. She couldn’t believe Fuller was dead.
And she refused to believe it was an accident.
“I didn’t know anything about it,” her brother said on the other end of the line.
The cellular phone to her ear, she stood by an alley next to the Starbucks. People were passing by her on the sidewalk—within earshot. So Bridget stepped deeper into the alley, then stopped by a stack of plastic crates. A chilly autumn wind kicked up. Fallen leaves and bits of trash rolled along the cracked cement.
“According to this article, he was killed on Garrett Road,” Bridget said. “That’s right by your house. Was he on his way to meet you? Did you have some kind of appointment with him?”
“God, no,” Brad replied. “At that hour? Besides, I had no interest in meeting with him. You know that.”
“Well, it doesn’t make any sense—Fuller’s car flipping over in the middle of the night, alone on that old highway. Even the newspaper called it ‘bizarre.’ This was no accident, Brad.”
“Brigg, I can’t really talk about this right now. I—”
“But aren’t you concerned?” she asked.
“Brigg, I can’t talk right now—period. I have people here.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll talk with you later.”
As she clicked off the cellular, Bridget noticed something down the alley. A dark figure darted from behind a recycling bin into a doorway. It happened so quickly, Bridget wondered if her eyes were playing tricks on her. She didn’t hear a door shut. Maybe it was just a large piece of debris that flew by.
Bridget held on to the cell phone and moved toward the recycling bin. Behind the bin, she saw a shadowy alcove with a door and a window—both closed. The heavy-looking metal door had rust streaks. The window beside it was cracked and dirty—with crisscross wiring inside the glass. The dark room inside must have been a storage area. Someone had leaned a few old, tall wooden planks against the other side of that window. Beyond them, nothing was visible, just a murky blackness.
There was no sign of anyone in the alcove. Bridget told herself that the darting figure she’d seen must have been her imagination.
But then she glanced down at a puddle by the alcove stoop. She noticed wet footprints all around the stoop—and on the pavement by the recycling bin.
It wasn’t her imagination. Someone was just there.
A chill swept through her. Bridget glanced over her shoulder for passersby at the end of the alley. No one. But after a few moments, finally, a woman walked by with her dog.
Bridget took a deep breath, then turned toward the alcove again. She stared at those footprints on the pavement—so much like the footprints around her house last week.
She took another step toward the door. She told herself that if she screamed, somebody would hear. She switched on her cell phone again, then dialed 9 and 1. She could dial the last digit in a matter of seconds.
Biting her lip, Bridget reached for the door handle. Her hand was trembling. The hinges squeaked a bit as she started to open the heavy door. She didn’t have to open it more than a few inches to see the wet footprints on the dusty cement floor of that dark little room.
Bridget froze.
She realized that if she didn’t get out of there right now, she could be as dead as her old high school friends, Olivia Rankin and Fuller Sterns.
Bridget backed away from the door and watched it close by itself. Her heart racing, she retreated toward the sidewalk at the end of the alley. All the while, she felt as if someone might grab her from behind, cover her mouth, than drag her back into that creepy storage room.
She didn’t feel safe until she was standing on the sidewalk—near the Starbucks entrance. Catching her breath, she stared back at the alley. No one had been chasing her. Except for some leaves and debris blowing in the wind, there wasn’t any sign of movement.
Several people passed her on the sidewalk. Bridget kept studying the alleyway.
“Hey, ‘Corrigan for Oregon’!” someone said.
Bridget turned toward a couple passing by on the sidewalk. The man was tall, blond, and Nordic-looking. He had his arm around a pretty Latino woman.
“Voy a votar por tu hermano,”
the woman called.
Bridget managed to smile. “I’m voting for your brother,” the woman had said. “
Gracias!
” Bridget replied. “
Seria un buen senador. ¡Corre la voz!
”
They both waved at her and kept walking, arms around each other.
Bridget watched them stop two storefronts down from Starbucks. The man put a coin in a newspaper dispenser, then pulled out a
Portland Examiner
.
Bridget opened her purse and took out the article she’d torn from yesterday’s newspaper. She read the last paragraph again:
Sterns was married to April Binneman from 1995 to 2001, and to Candice Percy from 2001 to 2003. Both marriages ended in divorce. He is also survived by a sister, Dorothy Sterns Howland, of Beaverton, OR. A memorial service has been scheduled for Tuesday, September 28, at 11 AM at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Beaverton.
Bridget checked her wristwatch. It was 9:50. She could make it to Beaverton in plenty of time.
As she headed back toward her car, Bridget wondered—for the second time within ten days—if she would see any former classmates at the funeral of her old high school acquaintance. Would someone be there who could explain why this person was dead?
Once again, Bridget remembered something Fuller Sterns had said to her when she last saw him alive: “You and I both have this guy shadowing us . . . Maybe he’s stalking each one of us who were at Gorman’s Creek.”

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