The Last Victim (44 page)

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Authors: Kevin O'Brien

BOOK: The Last Victim
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She threw on her coat, grabbed her purse, and stepped outside. After double-locking the front door, she waved at Phil. The detective stepped out of his car and met Bridget in the driveway.
“I’m just going to pick up the boys at a friend’s house, Phil,” she explained. “They’re only a few blocks away. I shouldn’t be more than ten minutes.”
“Well, let me drive you,” he offered.
“Thanks, but I’m expecting a friend. His name’s Zach Matthias. I want someone to be here in case he shows up while I’m gone. I’ll be right back.”
She unlocked the door to her minivan, and he held it open for her. “Thanks,” she said. “By the way, Phil, my friend, who’s pretty reliable, he heard about some nutcase who’s obsessed over me. He might try something later tonight. I don’t know any details, but—”
“A little extra vigilance wouldn’t hurt?” he finished for her. “I hear you. I’ll keep my eyes peeled, Ms. C.”
She nodded. “Thanks, Phil. See you in a bit.”
He closed the minivan’s door for her. Bridget started up the engine, then backed out of the driveway. As she started down the street, she passed a black Honda Accord, parked along the curb. Bridget thought she saw someone sitting alone in the darkened car. She stepped on the brake and checked her rearview mirror. Now the Accord looked empty.
Bridget figured it must have been the streetlight reflecting on the windshield, or perhaps it was merely her imagination. She drove on.
The address for Clay Hendricks was a converted warehouse in Portland’s Pearl District. Zach had parked the VW minibus and walked two blocks to the building. He’d made good time driving back from Rocky Top—an hour and a half. For a while, he’d thought a Jeep was on his tail, because it had lingered a distance behind him on Highway 22; then he’d spotted it a couple of times on the interstate. But after taking the Portland exit, he didn’t see the Jeep again.
There was a lot of foot traffic in the trendy Pearl District. Zach knew he looked pretty damn strange, trotting down the sidewalk in his stocking feet and a jacket that was way too small for him. A few people stared. But Zach was unfazed—just as long as they didn’t notice the gun concealed in his ill-fitting jacket.
He needed to see this
artist’s
studio and confirm what Norbert Siegel had told him about his colleague. Maybe Clay had some of his
death paintings
on display. Or maybe he had some files with records of past and present employers, something to remove any lingering doubts about Brad Corrigan’s complicity in these recent murders. Once he found the evidence he needed, Zach would call the cops.
He realized he also might find Clay Hendricks at home. That was why he’d brought the gun with him.
Norbert Siegel had a hell of a lot of keys—at least two dozen. Zach hoped one of them would get him into Clay’s lobby, and another into his apartment. It was a long shot that Siegel kept keys to his work partner’s place; still, it was worth a try.
But it wasn’t worth seventeen tries. None of the keys were working. He’d been trying to get the lobby door open for way too long, and people on the sidewalk were starting to notice.
He stepped away from the door and studied the keys on the ring. He’d seen enough movies to recognize skeleton keys, and Norbert Siegel had several. Siegel must have used one of them to enter Cheryl Blume’s house while she was in the tub.
Zach was still studying the keys when a young couple came out of the lobby. The girl was laughing, and they didn’t seem to notice him. Zach grabbed the door before it closed again; then he ducked inside.
C. HENDRICKS–6-B
was on the metal mailbox. Some ugly abstract art hung on the lobby walls. Zach wondered if Clay had created it.
He took the elevator up and saw that six was the top floor. The lift let out a loud
clink-clink
noise making its ascent. Zach didn’t want Clay to know he was coming. He quickly pressed 5. Getting off on the fifth floor, he listened to the elevator
clink-clink
its way up to six. He found the stairwell, and then waited it out a couple of minutes. He didn’t hear any sounds from above.
Zach crept up the dark, musty-smelling stairwell to the sixth floor. There were only two units. Hendricks must have had a genuine
artist’s loft
. Zach put an ear against the big, clunky metal door. It didn’t sound like anyone was home. He tried Siegel’s keys again—this time, one of the filed-down skeleton keys.
With the third key he tried, he heard a click.
Zach cautiously pushed open the door and saw the lights were on in the apartment. Maybe Clay Hendricks was home. Zach hesitated for a moment, then stepped inside. He got a waft of oily paint and turpentine fumes. The spacious loft had a high ceiling, a bare hardwood floor, and exposed brick walls. He skulked past the kitchen and living area—with its sleek, cold, modern furnishings. Everything was black and stainless steel. In contrast, the “studio” area was an explosion of color and clutter.
Track lighting illuminated the big, multihued paintings that covered the walls. But Clay Hendricks had also left a few candles lit—including a couple of tall fat tapers on ornate stands. It didn’t look like he was home; still, he must have been planning to come back soon. Only a crazy person would leave lit candles unattended in an apartment crammed with oil paints and thinners. Then again, this
artist
was pretty insane—and an obvious risk-taker.
Zach took a closer look at Clay’s artwork. They were vivid, disturbing images of dead people. Among them, a young woman, dressed in a bra and panties, hanging by the neck from a ceiling beam. Obviously, this was the San Diego girl Norbert Siegel had told him about.
Zach thought he recognized the man falling from a rooftop in a
Vertigo
-inspired painting, but he didn’t linger over it.
Hendricks’s gruesome rendering of a car wreck was undoubtedly Fuller Sterns’s death scene. Zach had passed that
BRAKE FOR COFFEE
sign on the highway a few times.
As he turned to look at the image of a dead blonde—slumped on a park bench with blood soaking the front of her green dress—Zach remembered what Siegel had said about Olivia Rankin’s murder: “We handled the girl on the beach together. Clay wanted to paint her, so he’s the one who shot her.”
Backing away from the picture, Zach bumped into a large worktable completely covered with cans of paint, turpentine, and rags. Nearby, there were three easels. One held a huge canvas with a bird’s-eye-view painting of an empty bedroom. The painting looked like a work in progress.
Zach checked out the other two easels in Hendricks’s work area. They held large corkboards, crammed with photos and sketches of Bridget—and her sons. Several snapshots were of furniture and knickknacks that filled the bedroom Clay had painted on the big canvas.
Staring at the sketches, Zach shuddered. One rendering had a boy asleep, curled up in a little ball. He looked like an angel. There was a dark circle around his head and neck, resembling a halo. Another sketch was a close-up of a woman’s hand tied to a bedpost. Clay had done a similar rendering of a woman’s foot tied to a bedpost. In still another drawing, a woman—unmistakably Bridget—was sprawled over the bed—the same bed in the big painting. She wore only a bra and panties. Her hands and feet were tied to the bedposts. She had a dark circle around her head and neck as well. It was a pencil sketch, but Clay had colored the
halo
red. Zach realized those circles around their heads weren’t halos; they were pools of blood.
“Oh, Jesus,” he murmured. This was how Clay Hendricks planned to murder Bridget and her sons. He was going to cut their throats and lay them out in the bedroom. Then he would finish his latest
masterpiece.
Suddenly, Zach heard a muffled
clink-clink
from the elevator. He swiveled around and knocked over an open can of paint thinner. It spilled across the floor.
He stepped over the puddle and took the gun out of Siegel’s jacket. Moving toward the door, he listened to the elevator as it worked its way up one floor after another.
Clink-clink, clink-clink.
Then it stopped—but not on the sixth floor. He could tell someone was getting off on five.
Zach saw the telephone on a table over by the window. He didn’t have to look for any more evidence of Clay Hendricks’s crimes. He didn’t have to second-guess what Hendricks intended to do to Bridget—and her sons. Zach set the gun on the table, picked up the receiver, and started to dial.
“Put it down, fuck-face.”
Zach turned around. His heart stopped for a moment.
Norbert Siegel stood in the doorway with a hunting rifle pointed at him. The army camouflage jacket he’d stolen off the hunter’s corpse was too big for him, and he had the sleeves rolled up. His face beaten and swollen, Siegel smiled at him. “Just toss the phone on the floor, and don’t even think about going for that gun, asshole.”
Zach dropped the receiver, and it landed on the floor by his feet.
“Get away from the window,” Siegel whispered.
Watching him, Zach moved toward the studio area. “How did you get in?” he asked.
Siegel shut the door with his foot, then stepped into the room. “I’ve come over here enough to know the building’s side door is a piece of shit, and Clay keeps a spare key behind the fire extinguisher in the hallway. And when I want to surprise him, I never take the elevator all the way up.”
Looking at him, Zach saw he’d done some serious damage to Siegel’s face. The gash on his nose and mouth had stopped bleeding, but his eyes were puffy and discolored. Still, he was grinning.
“I’m a little upset with you, asshole,” he said. “We dug a nice hole back there in those woods, and I never got to fill it.”
Phillip Tuttle thought he saw something.
He was leaning against his white Taurus, smoking a cigarette. Out of the corner of his eye, he’d caught some movement near the bushes at the side of the house.
Phil tossed his cigarette on the ground, then reached into his coat pocket for his gun. He didn’t take his eyes off the house—and the hedges along that south side. Bridget hadn’t returned yet from picking up her kids. She’d asked him to be extra vigilant tonight. Maybe her words of caution had made him a little jumpy.
After staring at the gray cedar shaker for a couple of minutes, he gave her front yard the once-over. Nothing unusual. Phil sighed and scratched his head.
Suddenly, a dark figure darted in and out of the hedges again. “What the hell?” he muttered. It didn’t look human. It was something on all fours.
Phil quickly opened the car door and pulled out his flashlight. He thought about calling Scott for a backup, but decided to hold off until he got another look at this thing. Switching on the light, he moved toward the bushes on the south side of the house. In his other hand, Phil had his gun ready.
He crept around to the backyard. He didn’t see anything—or anyone. No sign of a break-in either. The north side of the house was all clear too. Phil kept expecting to see a raccoon or a dog prowling around. Whatever it was, he must have scared it away. He returned to the front yard, then glanced up and down the street. Nothing.
Sighing, he switched off the flashlight and put his gun away. Then he climbed into his car and tossed the flashlight on the passenger seat. A shadow swept across the windshield. He wasn’t sure what it was—maybe just his own reflection in the glass.
He quickly shut the car door, so the light would go out and he could see more clearly. The street in front of him was empty.
His eyes shifted to the rearview mirror. “Oh God,” he whispered.
A man was in the backseat, staring at him.
It happened so fast. Phil didn’t even see the hunter’s knife. He only felt something tickle the soft spot just above the back of his neck.
Then Phillip Tuttle felt nothing at all.
“Honey, please, don’t make me tell you again,” Bridget said, glancing in the rearview mirror. “Quit bouncing up and down back there. It’s driving me crazy.”
Eric giggled, then settled back and gently kicked at the back of the passenger seat.
Bridget shot a look at David, sitting across from her. “Talk about
wired.
He’ll be bouncing off the walls tonight. How much candy and cake did he have anyway?”
“Two pieces of cake, a root beer float, Milky Way bar, and about twenty red vines,” David replied. “And that was just dessert.”
Sighing, Bridget once again turned her attention to the road ahead. “Swell.”
“Are you okay, Mom?” David whispered. “Something’s the matter, I can tell.”
“I’m fine,” she muttered. “I’m just tired, that’s all.”
Bridget made the turn down their street. She figured she’d talk to the boys in the morning. Right now, she had no idea what was going to happen. The authorities were probably already investigating her father’s connections to these
hit men
. Brad and she might be facing some minor charges for leaving the scene of an accident twenty years ago. His career in politics was over, of course. She felt sorry for him. At the same time, she couldn’t get over the way he’d so quickly accepted their father’s role in the murders, then without any hesitation started discussing how to cover it up. And he’d expected her to go along with it.

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