The Night Stalker (41 page)

An hour later he got to the end of the list of all the Laura Mitchell interviews he’d found in the system – nothing.

‘Fuck!’ he cursed under his breath. His eyes were getting tired and watery. He needed a break, a cup of coffee and an Advil.

Suddenly a crazy thought came into his head and he paused for a moment, considering the alternatives.

‘Oh, what the hell,’ he whispered as he decided that it was worth a shot.

Garcia wouldn’t find a better collection of art magazines and articles on Laura Mitchell than the ones they’d uncovered inside the dark room in James Smith’s apartment. Smith seemed to have collected everything that was ever published on her. He was still under custody, and his apartment was still seized by police as part of an ongoing investigation.

Garcia stood by the door to the dimly lit collage room, staring at the magazines and newspapers piled just about everywhere.

‘Damn!’ he whispered to himself. ‘This is gonna take me forever.’

In fact, it took him two hours and three piles of magazines and journals. Laura Mitchell’s last interview had been with
Contemporary Painters
magazine, eleven months ago. It was a small article – less than fifteen hundred words.

He almost choked when he read the lines.

‘Sonofabitch.’

Every hair on his body stood on end. He knew that this kind of coincidence just didn’t exist.

As he rushed out of the building, his cell phone rang in his pocket. He checked the display window before answering it.

‘Robert, I was just about to call you. You’re not gonna believe what I just found out—’

‘Carlos, listen,’ Hunter interrupted urgently, ‘I think I know who we’re after.’

‘What? Really? Who?’

‘I have no doubt he doesn’t go by his real name any more, but his original name was Andrew Harper. I need you to get in touch with Operations and the research team immediately. We need everything and anything we can get on him.’

Garcia stopped walking and frowned at nothing. His memory searching for the name. ‘Wait a second,’ he remembered, ‘isn’t that the name of the kid Stephen told us about on the phone? The one who was murdered by his father?’

‘Yep, that’s him, and I don’t know how he got away, but I don’t think he was murdered that day.’

‘Come again?’

‘I think that somehow he survived. And I think he was in the house when it happened, Carlos.’

‘What?’

‘I’ll tell you everything when I get back to LA. I’m at the airport now. I’ll land at LAX in about two hours. But I think the kid was hiding in the house.’

‘No way.’

‘He watched his father violate his mother’s body, stitch her shut, write a blood message on the wall and then kill her before blowing his own head off . . .’

Garcia stayed silent.

‘I think the kid saw everything. And now he’s repeating history.’

Clouds were gathering when Andrew Harper turned his van into State Highway 170, going north. From the back seat of the brown station wagon in front of him, a kid of about nine smiled and waved at him, an ice-cream cone in his hand. It wasn’t as if Andrew ever needed reminders for his mind to take him back to that day, they were everywhere he looked, but at the sight of the kid and his ice cream, Andrew twitched like a cow shaking off flies as vivid images flooded his memory. In an instant, he was transported back to his father’s truck that Sunday morning. His father had driven just a couple of blocks before stopping at that gas station.

‘I have a surprise for you,’ Ray Harper said, turning to face little Andrew who was sitting in the passenger’s seat. His lips smiled but his eyes betrayed him. ‘But first, let me go get you some ice cream.’

Andrew’s eyes widened. ‘Ice cream? Mom doesn’t like me to have ice cream. She said that since my cold, ice cream isn’t good for me, Dad.’

‘I know she doesn’t, but you like ice cream, don’t you?’

Andrew nodded eagerly.

‘One single scoop can’t hurt. This is a special day, and if you like ice cream, you can have ice cream. What flavor?’

Andrew thought about it for a beat. ‘Chocolate brownie,’ he said, his happiness almost oozing through his pores.

A few minutes later Ray came back to the car with two cones. Andrew bit into his as if the whole thing would vanish in thin air if he didn’t eat it immediately. Less than a minute later he had finished his cone and started licking his fingers.

Ray had just finished his ice cone when a single, powerful sneeze exploded out of Andrew, and with it came blood. Andrew didn’t manage to cover his nose in time and blood splattered everywhere: dashboard, windshield, door, but mainly all over his shirt. The nosebleed that followed was short but intense, enough to drip onto his trousers and shoes. Ray instantly reached for Andrew, tipped his head back slightly and used the edge of Andrew’s shirt to clear the smudges around his nose and mouth. The bleeding stopped within two minutes.

‘OK,’ Ray said with an apologetic frown. ‘Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea after all.’

Andrew smiled before looking down at his bloody shirt and cringing.

‘It’s OK, kiddo,’ Ray said, putting a hand on the kid’s head. ‘I said I had a surprise for you, remember?’ He reached behind his seat, and from under his coat he retrieved a gift-wrapped box. ‘This is for you.’

Andrew’s eyes lit up. ‘But it’s not my birthday and it’s not Christmas yet, Dad.’

‘This is a pre-Christmas present. You deserve it, son.’ Sadness masked Ray’s face for an instant. ‘Go ahead, open it. I know you’ll like it.’

Andrew ripped the paper from around the box as fast as he could. He loved presents, though he never got many of them. His whole face morphed into one huge smile. The top item was a brand new T-shirt. On its front was a large Wolverine print, Andrew’s favorite character from the X-Men Marvel comics.

‘WOW!’ was all he could say.

‘Go ahead, check the next one,’ Ray urged him.

Andrew could tell what it would be even before opening the box – a new pair of trainers, also covered in Wolverine and X-Men prints. Andrew looked at his father, half-shocked.

‘But, Dad, these are really expensive.’ He knew his family had been struggling with money lately.

Ray’s eyes became glassy. ‘You deserve a lot more, son.’ He paused for an instant. ‘I’m sorry I could never give you all that you deserve.’ He kissed Andrew’s forehead again. ‘Why don’t you try everything on? That way you can get rid of that dirty shirt.’

Andrew hesitated.

Ray knew how shy his son was. ‘I’ll go and get us a couple of sodas and you can get changed, OK?’

Andrew waited until his father had reentered the gas station’s shop and quickly stripped off his bloody shirt and threw it in the back seat. The scar on his chest from last night stuck out from the other ones across his torso because it was so red and itchy. He rubbed it gently with the tips of his fingers. He’d learned never to use his fingernails in case the wounds started bleeding again. By the time Ray returned to the truck with a paper bag and two bottles of Mountain Dew, Andrew’s favorite soda, he was dressed in his new shirt and trainers.

‘They look great on you, kiddo,’ Ray said, handing him a bottle.

Andrew smiled. ‘I’ll have to take the shoes off, Dad. They’ll get dirty when we get to the lake.’

Something in Ray’s eyes changed. His whole being was filled with grief and sorrow. ‘I have to tell you something, son. We’re not gonna go fishing today.’

The sadness was mirrored on Andrew’s face. ‘But Dad, Mom said that if I caught a big fish today, you wouldn’t fight any more. She promised.’

Tears returned to Ray’s eyes but he held them there. ‘Oh, honey, we won’t fight any more. Never again.’ He placed a hand on the boy’s nape. ‘Not after today.’

Andrew’s eyes glistened with happiness. ‘Really? You promise, Dad?’

‘I promise, kiddo, but I need you to do something for me.’

‘OK.’

‘I have something very important to do today, that’s why we can’t go fishing.’

‘But it’s Sunday, Dad. You don’t work on Sundays.’

‘What I have to do today isn’t work. But it’s something very, very important.’ He paused for an instant. ‘You told me once that you have a secret place, isn’t that right?’

Andrew looked concerned.

‘Do you still have it?’

The boy nodded shyly. ‘Yes, but I can’t tell you where it is, Dad. It’s secret.’

‘That’s OK. I don’t want you to tell me where it is.’ He reached under his seat for something. ‘What I need you to do is go to your secret place and stay there all day long. You can play with these.’ Ray showed him three six-inch figurines – Wolverine, Professor X and Cyclops.

‘Wow.’ Andrew couldn’t believe his eyes. It got better and better.

‘What do you say? Do you like your presents?’

‘Yes, Dad. Thank you very much.’ He reached for the toys.

‘It’s all right, son, but can you do that for me? Can you go to your secret place and just stay there until tonight, playing with your new toys?’

Andrew slowly peeled his eyes from the figurines and refocused them on his father’s anxious face. ‘You won’t fight with Mom again?’

Ray gave him a coy headshake. ‘Never again,’ he whispered.

‘Promise?’

‘I promise, son.’

Another animated smile. ‘OK then.’

‘Don’t come out until tonight, you hear?’

‘I won’t, Dad. I promise.’

‘Here.’ Ray gave him the paper bag. ‘There are chocolate bars – Butterfingers; I know they’re your favorite – some Pringles, a cheese and ham sandwich and two more bottles of soda, so you don’t get hungry or thirsty.’

Andrew took the bag and looked inside.

‘Don’t eat everything at once or else you’ll be ill.’

‘I won’t.’

‘OK then. Is your secret place close by? Can you walk there?’

‘Yes, I can walk there, Dad. It’s not far.’

Ray hugged his son again, this time for a very long time. ‘I love you, Andrew. I’ll always love you, son, no matter what. Please remember that, OK?’

‘I love you too, Dad.’ While his father battled with tears, Andrew opened his door and skipped on down the road with his new shirt, trainers and toys. His father had promised never to fight with his mother again. It was the happiest day of his life.

Andrew turned on the radio, hoping that music would help push the memories away, but it was already too late. His mind was on a rollercoaster trip, and the memories and images just kept on coming.

He remembered that it had taken him only a few minutes to get back to his house after leaving his father at the gas station. He stuck the figurines in his coat pocket, jumped the fence and waited in the bushes that led to the backyard. He just wanted to make sure his mother wasn’t out there. It was too cold for her to sit out back anyway. Dashing to the wall, he started climbing up the trellis as he did every day, this time being even more careful than usual not to dirty his new trainers. He squeezed through the small round window at the top and entered his secret place.

The first thing he did, as always, was to take off his shoes and slip into a thick pair of woolen socks. The attic floorboards were steady, and he’d identified the squeaky spots long ago, but he still had to be careful when moving around up there. Andrew had already developed a way of tiptoeing and sliding his feet across the floor that allowed him to move around in almost total silence.

Andrew placed the three figurines on top of a wooden crate in the corner and stared at them with smiling eyes. His gaze flicked over to a bag of cotton balls and a box of paper clips on the floor by the crate. He felt something warm start growing inside him. Something he hadn’t felt in a long while. Suddenly he stuck his tongue out at the cotton balls and paper clips, mocking them. He wouldn’t be needing them any more. His father had promised him that he’d never fight with his mother again. And his father always kept his promises. They would go back to being a happy family like they used to be. And that meant that he wouldn’t have to initiate his own pain any more.

Andrew slotted himself in his favorite corner and grabbed a handful of comic books. He’d read them all, but he didn’t mind.

He must’ve been sitting there, flipping through his magazines for almost two hours when he heard a noise inside his parents’ room. Andrew put the comics down and looked through one of the many gaps he’d created in the floor. His mother had just walked into the room. She was wrapped in a fluffy yellow towel. Her hair was still wet and combed back. Andrew took his eye off the gap before his mother let go of her towel. He’d seen her naked before, but it had been by mistake. She’d been standing on a blind spot from any of Andrew’s floor gaps. When she finally reappeared, she had nothing on. Andrew knew it was wrong to look at his mother or father naked. He’d seen them hiding under the covers, making strange noises. He knew that’s what all the kids in school called
a fuck,
but from where he was standing, neither of them looked like they were enjoying it very much.