The May Day Murders (36 page)

All of this time, the nagging thought
continued lingering somewhere in his mind as he’d downed several
cups of mega strong coffee.

And then it suddenly came to
him.

Amy’s letter—

Something about the letter Amy had
written. There was something wrong about it.

Something in the letter Amy had just
sent him was either out of kilter or just plain didn’t make sense.
The problem was, he had absolutely no idea what it was. He just
knew it was there.

Sam had mulled it over in his head for
while, trying to recall what all his daughter had written, but
eventually realized that the only way he was going to know for sure
was to got back to Smithtown and read it again.

So he had announced to Shelley that he
had to leave, apologized, gave her a quick peck on the cheek, then
hopped into the Cherokee and made a beeline for the highway.
Shelley was hurt—he could tell by the look in her eyes—but she had
been understanding and hadn’t prodded him as to why he had to leave
so abruptly.

Sam reached the east side of Smithtown
then swore at every red light he had to stop at as he proceeded
though the center of town. When he at last reached the outskirts
and the open road again he gunned the engine and did sixty-five all
the way to his driveway.

Once inside, he found the letter lying
on his desk, whisked it up and began reading. When he reached the
end, he stared blankly at it for a moment then read it again, this
time more carefully. He finished reading and threw the letter aside
in utter frustration before plopping down in his easy
chair.

A false alarm?
he wondered as he
ran his hands though his long, unkempt hair. He had found nothing
in the letter that seemed particularly unusual. Had he driven all
the way back here like a maniac all for naught?

No, he persisted. Something was wrong
here—he just hadn’t caught it yet.

Sam grabbed up the letter again and
reread it. Then, when he reached the part where Amy mentioned the
photo she had enclosed, Sam bolted out of the chair as if shot from
a cannon.

The picture!

Sam ran over to the mantel where the
picture was still propped up against the wall, snatched it up and
examined it closely. It was a Polaroid instant print, which wasn’t
particularly unusual. What was unusual however, was that this print
was the same type that his old Polaroid SX-70 camera used. And that
type of film was rare as hell since Polaroid had quit manufacturing
the only camera that used it nearly fifteen years ago. And he still
had that camera in his camera bag along with his Nikon—he was
certain of that. He certainly wasn’t going to give that beloved old
classic to Ann after the divorce.

So who had taken this picture, if not
Ann?

Jerry Rankin. That’s who had to have
taken this picture. He must have taken it while he’d been over at
Ann’s last weekend. That was the same weekend Amy had gotten the
new dress. Amy probably hadn’t mentioned that her mother’s
boyfriend had taken the picture because she figured that her dad
would have gotten pissed or jealous about that—God love
her.

So what? Sam thought. So what if Ann’s
lover boy had taken this picture? It annoyed him a little of
course, but it didn’t—

Then it hit him.

Like a ton of shit.

Stanley Jenkins had used the
exact same type of Polaroid film!

And didn’t it seem more than a little
coincidental that Jerry Rankin had the same type of Polaroid camera
that Stanley Jenkins had used when he’d raped and murdered Marsha
Bradley?

Sam felt his pulse quicken. He stared
at the photo again. He looked down at the bottom edge of the image
and noticed the small mottled area where the picture hadn’t fully
developed—where the pinch rollers in the transport mechanism of the
camera had failed to evenly compress the developer pod as the print
passed through it …

Just like the print he’d seen down at
the Police Department!

His heart now racing, Sam brought the
print closer as he examined the thin scratch marks running
vertically along the image window, approximately a half inch from
the left hand border. The scratch marks had no doubt been caused by
a burr in the metal of the pinch roller of the camera and was in
the same general area of the print as the one left by Stanley
Jenkins at Marsha Bradley’s house!

Mere coincidence?

“
Jesus Christ!” he swore out
loud. That would be just one coincidence too much.

He had to be sure, though, that this
Polaroid print came from the same camera that had taken the
Polaroid found at the Bradley house before he jumped to any
conclusions.

Sam needed to compare both prints, one
beside the other. The scratch marks were in essence like
fingerprints: no two sets could be exactly alike unless they were
produced by the same set of pinch rollers having the same burr of
metal in the exact same area, which would produce identical scratch
marks with regard to the size of the scratch, the relative position
of the scratch on the print, and the intermittent pattern of the
scratch—where it began and ended as it cut into the Mylar window of
the print …

He had to get to the police station and
take a closer look at Exhibit A!

Sam ran around the desk and picked up
the phone. He started dialing the number then stopped himself
cold.

What in the hell am I doing here? he
thought. Am I trying to tell myself that Jerry Rankin might
actually be Stanley Jenkins? That’s absurd! Ann certainly knows
what Stanley Jenkins looks like or would look like today. Jerry
Rankin obviously doesn’t resemble Stanley in the least—otherwise
Ann sure as fuck wouldn’t be going out on dates with him! She’s not
that dizzy.

A disguise? he thought. Was it possible
that Stanley had somehow transformed himself into a totally
different looking person? So goddamn different that no one could
even suspect that he was one in the same person?

How could he? It would be
impossible!

Wouldn’t it?

What about Michael Jackson? Sam
thought. He’d had so many plastic surgeries that he no longer
resembled his former self.

Plastic surgery.

What if somebody wanted to drastically
alter his appearance through plastic surgery? A person who had
access to a large sum of money and an agenda that warranted such a
drastic change? A person who could go even further and work out in
a gym, pump himself up, color his hair, etc. etc.

Certainly not impossible…

One thing at a
time.

Sam began dialing the number for the
station again when he noticed the blinking light on his answering
machine. He nervously pressed the button for playback as he
continued dialing.

“
Yo, buddy,” Roger
Hagstrom’s voice blared out. “I’m back in town. The trail in L.A.
was cold as ice so I came back here. I miss those California babes
already! Found out some damn interesting shit about our man,
though. Call me at the station if you get home before
six—otherwise, call me at home.”

The desk sergeant came over the
phone.

“
Detective Hagstrom,” Sam
said.

Sam tapped his fingers nervously as he
waited for his friend to get on the line.

“
Hagstrom.”

“
Have you got the Polaroid
they found at the Bradley house handy?”

“
Yeah, it’s around here
somewhere. What’s up?”

“
Find that print and I’ll be
there in fifteen minutes.”

“
Wait, Bucko! You mind
telling me what you’re up to?”

“
I’ll tell you when I get
there. All I can say is if I’m right about this, and I hope to hell
that I’m not, we’ve got to get our asses into gear!”

“
What the fuck are you
talking about?” Roger said.

“
Just find that Polaroid,
Rog. I’ll see you in a few.”

He hung up and dialed Ann’s
number.

“
This is a recording. The
number you have dialed …”

Fuck!

Sam reached into his back pocket, took
out his wallet and located his ex-wife’s new unpublished phone
number. He dialed the number and let it ring a dozen times before
slamming down the receiver.

She’s in the country with Rankin! he
suddenly recalled.

Or should he say, with Stanley
Jenkins?

Amy was most likely at a friend’s
house, he could only pray.

Feeling like he was moving in slow
motion, Sam grabbed the Polaroid and sprinted toward the front door
before stopping himself halfway—

Fingerprints!

Although the Polaroid no doubt was
already peppered with his own prints and Amy’s as well, there was
still the slim chance that Rankin’s prints would still be
distinguishable. Sam grasped the print by the edges, went into the
kitchen and found a ziplock bag. He carefully dropped the print
into the bag, sealed it and made his way out of the
house.

As he tore out of his driveway, Sam
could feel his heart pounding in his chest. As much as he prayed
that he was wrong about all of this, he had the unsettling feeling
that he wasn’t and there was good reason for it. If Jerry Rankin
were indeed Stanley Jenkins, it would explain a lot of things—the
most obvious being why the son of a bitch hadn’t been identified by
a single solitary soul in all of this time. Because Stanley Jenkins
no longer looked at all like Stanley Jenkins! He had somehow
managed to transform himself into and entirely different
person—that person being Jerry Rankin.

The same bastard who had just happened
to magically show up in Ann’s life at around the same time that
Marsha Bradley had been murdered. His disguise was apparently so
flawless that Ann didn’t have the slightest suspicion that Rankin
could be Jenkins!

But the $50,000 question was why? Why
was Rankin/Jenkins dating his ex-wife? What could be the reason for
it? If he wanted to murder her, why would he go through all of this
rigmarole instead of simply doing as he had with Marsha Bradley and
Sara Hunt?

Sam had no idea. It made no sense
whatsoever. In fact, it made even less sense the more he thought
about it.

He pulled out onto the highway and
floored the accelerator. Within a mile he was doing over
seventy-five and didn’t give a shit. One solitary thought played
over and over in his mind as he sped toward Smithtown:

Ann is alone in the country
with a murderer and the bastard is going to kill her…

CHAPTER 22

Ann couldn’t help but smile to herself
as she caught Jerry glancing down at her legs yet again. A week ago
this would have made her feel uncomfortable or perhaps even
paranoid. But she realized now how absolutely puritanical it had
been of her to get upset over something so trivial and she knew
that Karen, as usual, had been right all along. Men are going to
stare at you from time to time and it’s certainly nothing to get
all up in arms over. Besides the fact that Jerry Rankin was a
gentleman and someone she could trust, she’d also discovered that
she actually enjoyed teasing him just a little bit. It was nice
having a man admire her every once in awhile—it made her feel
younger and more appreciated.

The white knit mini dress she was
wearing could easily have fit into the fashion scene twenty years
ago, in fact, she could recall having one much like it back when
she was in high school. Jerry had gone bonkers when he had come by
to pick her up and first saw her in it and she realized now that
although jeans and a sweater may have been more appropriate for a
drive though the country on a chilly fall day, she liked the way
the dress made her feel almost like she was a schoolgirl
again.

“
Are you warm enough?” Jerry
asked. “I can crank up the heat a bit if you’d like.”

Ann looked over at him. “No, I’m fine.
The scenery sure is gorgeous, isn’t it?”

Jerry glanced out the driver’s side
window and replied, “It certainly is. It starts getting much
hillier the closer we get to Hocking County. It will be even more
breathtaking there.”

“
How much longer until
then?”

“
About twenty minutes or
so.”

Ann stared out the window and sighed to
herself. She hadn’t felt this content in a long while and she knew
she had Jerry Rankin to thank for it. After the incident the night
before with Larry Underwood, she’d since wondered how she would
ever have handled it if Jerry hadn’t been there. If it weren’t for
him, in fact, the Underwood boy would never have been caught in the
first place and God only knew what else could have
happened.

But her greatest relief was just
knowing that she and Amy were safe now—no more worrying about
strange noises out in the yard or obscene phone calls in the middle
of the night. She had already convinced herself that Larry
Underwood had also been the obscene phone caller even though he had
denied it. After all, it was just a little too coincidental that
the calls started at around the same time that she had thought
she’d heard him prowling around in the backyard. She also felt that
the calls had seemed to be directed at Amy and not herself, because
whenever she had answered the phone, the caller had hung up on her
once he realized it wasn’t Amy on the other end. With the exception
of the night Jerry had been over when he had called, that is. And
that, Ann believed, had been a fluke—most likely because Larry had
mistaken her voice for her daughter’s.