Watch Them Die (16 page)

The TV woke me up around one
A
.
M
. I got scared & grabbed this baseball bat I’ve been keeping near my bed lately. (OK, I know you’re thinking I’m a major loon, but having it there makes me feel safer.) Anyway, I recognized what was on TV before I even reached the living room. It’s one of your favorites,
On the Waterfront.
As soon as I realized no one was in the apartment, I figured out that the movie was cued at a scene near the beginning when the mobsters throw Eva Marie Saint’s brother off the roof & he’s killed. The character’s name was Joey.

My Joe lives in a eleven-story apartment building, and I’m certain the same thing will happen to him. He thinks I’m imagining things or vying for more of his attention. He’s almost as bad as the police. He just won’t take me seriously.

I went to Paul Gulletti, because I figure someone with a film background is behind all this. I confronted him, Ben. He tried to pretend he didn’t know what I was talking about. But I could tell he was covering something up, or lying. Unfortunately, I can’t prove anything.

Ben, I feel so helpless & scared…

“She called me a few days later,” Ben said, sliding a copy of yet another newspaper article in front of Hannah. It was dated August 8. She glanced at the headline:

SEATTLE MAN PLUMMETS TO HIS DEATH FROM HIGH-RISE

Police Probe Rooftop Fall:
Freak Accident or Suicide?

Hannah skimmed over the article, which suggested that the victim, Joe Blankenship, had been indulging in some illegal substances at the time of his demise.

“Did she try talking to the police again?” Hannah asked.

“Yeah,” Ben said, frowning. “It was pointless.”

Hannah imagined how the police must have reacted when Rae Palmer once again approached them saying this drug-induced freak accident had been forecast to her in a video.

“This is the last e-mail,” Ben said, handing her another printout. It was dated
8/29/02:

You haven’t returned my message from a couple of days ago. I hope I haven’t become a total pain, Ben. It’s just that I have no one else to turn to.

I found another video, this one in my desk drawer at work. I don’t know how he got in there. This time the movie is
Looking for Mr. Goodbar,
and it was cued to start up near the very end, the scene where Tom Berenger is having sex with Diane Keaton & suddenly he pulls out a knife and stabs her to death.

I know a woman named Diane who’s in payroll. But I don’t know her that well. Yet I feel I should warn her. It’s crazy. I don’t know why this is happening. I wonder who could be doing this & I keep coming back to my ex, Paul. But I can’t prove anything.

Meanwhile, I know sometime soon some woman I know will be stabbed to death in bed.

I wish I could just run away someplace. I know it’s a lot to ask, but could I come out there & stay with you for a while? Or maybe, better still, you could come out here? I could even put you & Jennifer up at the hotel, give you two a suite at a ridiculously low rate. In fact, I’d pay for you guys. I feel so alone, Ben.

Anyway, please, think about it & get back to me.

Hannah set down the e-mail sheet. Her eyes met Ben’s. “Did you find out the identity of this
Goodbar
victim?” she asked.

He slowly shook his head. “I tried calling Rae afterward, but there was no answer. I kept trying—on and off—for over a week. Then I came out here.” He straightened the pile of papers and tucked them back inside the folder.

“Can I see Rae’s picture again, please?” Hannah asked.

Ben found the photo, then handed it to her.

She studied Rae’s eyes. Weren’t they the same blue eyes with the dead stare in the
Goodbar
homage? It had been over two weeks since Hannah had seen the grisly video. She didn’t think she’d ever forget that woman’s face. Obviously, she had—for a while. But looking at Rae Palmer’s picture helped her remember.

She handed the photo back to Ben. “Do you mind if we get out of here?” she asked quietly.

“Not at all,” he said, leaving a tip on the table. “Are you okay?”

“I just need some air,” she said, getting to her feet.

Hannah headed for the door, with Ben right behind her.

She’d been right earlier. She had indeed seen Rae Palmer before.

She’d seen her die.

Twelve

He videotaped them sitting at the window table of the coffeeshop. Due to a reflection on the glass, he caught only a few, fleeting, usable close-ups of her with his zoom lens. Still, he knew he had some beautiful shots of Hannah in that twenty-five minutes of footage.

He put his video camera away as he followed them out of the coffeeshop. He watched them through the trees. Walking side by side, the two of them looked like a couple of lovers. Even from across the street, he could see Hannah was smitten with Ben. The son of a bitch.

Of course, he knew it would happen. Hell, he’d
made
it happen, orchestrating their every move. He was pulling the strings.

Still, he’d expected more from his leading lady. He’d thought she would hold out a bit longer before succumbing to Ben’s charms. He was disappointed in her. Hannah still fascinated and aroused him, but she’d lost his respect.

He’d been through this before with the others. Once a leading lady fell out of favor with him, he became all the more anxious to realize her death scene.

Hannah’s demise had already been planned—down to the last detail. Now it was time to put the plan in motion.

He stopped, and watched Ben and Hannah move on together.

He smiled, even laughed a little to himself.

Poor Hannah: so beautiful, so stupid.

And doomed.

“You never heard from Rae again after that last e-mail?” Hannah asked.

“No,” Ben replied, walking alongside her. “Like I said, I wasn’t able to get ahold of her. I wish I’d come to Seattle earlier, but I was having problems at work—and at home.” He sighed. “Anyway, I came out here the second week in September. But I think I may have been too late.”

Hannah didn’t say anything.

They were strolling down the sidewalk by a busy residential street across from Volunteer Park. Through the trees they could catch a peek at the park’s water tower, the art museum, conservatory, and a playground.

Ben said that when he arrived in Seattle, one of the first things he did was go to the hotel where Rae worked. They hadn’t seen or heard from her in over a week. It was more of the same at Rae’s apartment building, where Ben interviewed her neighbor and the building manager. Rae seemed to have just disappeared.

Ben knew Paul Gulletti reviewed movies for the local weekly. He tore Paul’s picture out of the paper and showed the photo to Rae’s coworkers and neighbors. Nearly all of them recognized Rae’s married boyfriend, but no one had seen him for months.

Ben went to the police and reported Rae as a missing person. “It was incredibly unspectacular,” he told Hannah. “You’d think I was applying for a fishing license or something. I tried to tell this cop at the desk what had been happening to Rae the past few months, and he didn’t seem to give a crap. So I filled out a form, and gave them a photo of Rae which I really kind of cherished. The cop said they’d contact me if they came up with anything. In other words,
Don’t call us, we’ll call you.
And guess what? Big surprise, they haven’t called.”

He ran a hand through his wavy blond hair. “To be fair, the cop pointed out that they have hundreds of new missing persons on file every week.” Ben squinted across the street at the entrance to Lakeview Cemetery. “I didn’t know there’s a cemetery here.”

Hannah nodded. “Bruce Lee is buried there. His son Brandon’s grave is right beside his.”

They reached a curve in the road, and a small, scenic overlook park with a view of Lake Washington, the University’s Husky Stadium, the floating bridge, and the Cascade Mountains. They sat down on a wooden bench built around a tree at the edge of a huge ravine. With dusk creeping over the horizon, many of the cars on the bridge had their headlights on. The little sailboats glided on darkening silver-blue water.

As Ben gazed out at the view, Hannah allowed herself to study his handsome profile and the sadness in his beautiful eyes. She still felt a bit cautious around him, and had to fight her attraction for this lonely man who was away from home.

And she had to tell him that his onetime girlfriend was dead.

He turned to her, and Hannah quickly looked away—toward the lights across the lake. “So,” she said, “what kind of job do you have that allows you to pick up and go to Seattle for a month?”

“A
former
job, I think,” he said. “I’m not sure I still have it. I’m in advertising. Do you know Gustov bottled water?”

“‘The champagne of seltzer waters’?”

He nodded. “I came up with that—and the advertisements about it being easier to open than champagne. If you hate those commercials, blame me.”

“Actually, I think those ads are very funny.”

“Thanks.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I took a leave of absence without pay. They hadn’t really approved it yet when I left. So I’m not sure the job will be waiting for me when I get back.”

“Your wife doesn’t mind that you went to Seattle for a month? And you’re chasing after an ex-girlfriend, no less. Jennifer—isn’t that her name? She must be very understanding.”

Frowning, Ben gazed out toward the bridge. “I’m not sure if she’ll be waiting for me when I get back, either.” He sighed. “It’s a long story. Maybe I’ll bend your ear about it sometime, but not now.”

Hannah nodded. Neither of them said anything for a moment. Hannah thought about his former girlfriend, Rae Palmer. Every concern Rae expressed in those e-mails was familiar to Hannah. In the last e-mail, when Rae mentioned wanting to run away, it scared Hannah that she’d had exactly the same reaction. Rae had admitted that she slept with a baseball bat at her bedside. Hannah had kept a hammer by her nightstand ever since the break-in. She remembered the
Goodbar
video, with the bloodied bed sheets and Rae’s dead gaze.

“What happened to Rae is happening to me now,” Hannah whispered.

“I know,” he said. “It took a while to figure out. I hadn’t planned on staying here in Seattle this long. But once I realized Rae might be lost to me, I couldn’t go back to New York. So I rented this cheap, dumpy studio apartment and signed up for Paul Gulletti’s film class. I registered under the name Ben Sturges in case Rae had ever told him about me. Sturgis, Michigan is where I’m from originally. I just changed the spelling a little. Anyway, I asked around in class, very casually of course, but nobody had heard of Rae Palmer. Apparently, no one in this current class has been taking Paul’s course for more than three semesters.”

“You didn’t ask me,” Hannah said.

“Well, I figured out pretty quickly you were Paul’s favorite. People said you two were an item. I kept thinking you must be Rae’s successor. When I heard you worked at a video store, I thought you might know something. But I couldn’t approach you about it; at least, not directly.”

“So you started following me around?” Hannah said, not smiling.

“Yeah,” he whispered, nodding. “I know that gives you a major case of the heebie-jeebies, and I don’t blame you. But I’m glad I did start following you, because I noticed someone else was watching you, too. That’s when I realized that this…this video stalker must have moved on from Rae to you.”

“Do you think it could be Paul?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I’ve never really gotten a good look at the man following you. I thought Ronald Craig might have. That’s why I went to his hotel the other night. I was hoping Craig had left behind some information about this man. I thought Craig might be tailing you for the same reason I was. He was a private detective out of Milwaukee. I don’t think Rae knew anyone from Milwaukee. She had no family left. So I don’t know who hired him, or why. I can’t figure that out.”

Hannah said nothing.

“Gulletti’s married. Maybe his wife is from Milwaukee. Maybe she hired Craig to investigate you.”

Hannah gave an awkward shrug. “You know, I spotted a man videotaping me last night,” she said steadily. “It was around the time film class started. You said Paul was there, so he couldn’t be the man following me.”

“Well, maybe it’s someone working for Paul. He’s involved in this somehow. I feel it in my gut. Maybe it’s his assistant.”

“Seth? Why? Wasn’t he in class last night?”

Ben rolled his eyes and nodded. “Of course, yeah. He was there. I don’t know what I’m thinking.”

“He might be a good one to talk with about Rae,” Hannah suggested.

“Well, I didn’t approach him because I thought he was pretty tight with Paul. But Seth talked with me last night, and I guess he’s not Paul Gulletti’s biggest fan. If he’s been working with Paul since last December, he’ll remember Rae. I’m sure he can tell us something.”

Hannah gently took the folder from his lap, then opened it up. She studied Rae Palmer’s photo again.

“If only I had one definite lead about her,” she heard Ben say. “Someone doesn’t just disappear.”

“Did Rae ever mention to you getting a homemade video?” Hannah asked carefully.

“What do you mean?”

“The same way she was getting those other videos, only this one would have been homemade—with someone being murdered on it.”

Squinting at her, Ben shook his head. “I’m sure Rae would have mentioned it.”

“Such a video was dropped off at the store about a month ago. I think it was meant for me. It was a homemade, copycat version of the ending to
Looking for Mr. Goodbar
. It was the scene Rae described in her e-mail. A woman was being stabbed in bed. I couldn’t see the man who was stabbing her. But I saw the woman.” Hannah reached over and took hold of his hand. “Ben, I think the woman was Rae. I—I’m so sorry.”

His eyes searched hers for a moment, as if he didn’t believe her. Then he got to his feet. Hannah stared at his back. “Are you sure?” he asked, his voice raspy.

“I’m not absolutely positive,” Hannah admitted. “But I’m pretty sure. I don’t have the video anymore. It was stolen.”

Hannah noticed his head bobbing a little along with the tremors in his slightly hunched shoulders. She realized he was crying. She wanted to reach out to him, console him. But she held back and stayed seated on the little wooden bench.

Ben finally turned to face her. His blue eyes were bloodshot and a bit puffy. He took a deep breath. “Do you know Seth’s last name?” he asked.

“Um, Stroud,” she said. “Seth Stroud.”

“Well, let’s go find him and talk to him,” Ben said.

There was a “1/2” behind the number address on Aloha Street for Stroud, Seth. Hannah and Ben had returned to the coffeeshop and borrowed the phone book to look him up. Hannah thought it might be a basement apartment, and Ben guessed he lived over someone’s garage.

It was within walking distance. They didn’t say much on their way to the Aloha Street address. Hannah could tell Ben was still numb over the news of his friend’s death. She slid her arm around his. At the end of a couple of blocks, Hannah gently pulled away.

“That was nice,” he murmured. Then he didn’t say another word until they reached Seth’s block.

Ben had been right. It was a garage apartment at the end of the driveway to a large, slightly neglected Tudor estate. Though the lawn was mowed and the leaves were raked, the place still had a seedy grandeur. Water stains marred the yellowing wall to the Tudor-style garage. The stairs to the second-floor apartment were on the side.

Hannah and Ben climbed up the rickety steps and knocked on the door. Through the window in the door, Hannah could see someone coming. She saw his tall, lean build and the wild, wavy dark hair. It took her a moment to realize he wasn’t Seth.

A stranger opened the door. He was about Seth’s age, with olive-colored eyes, a large nose, and a goatee. He wore a black T-shirt and jeans. Those eyes shifted back and forth from Ben to Hannah. “Yeah? Can I help you?”

“Does Seth Stroud live here?” Ben asked.

“Seth?” the young man said. “What did you want to see him about?”

“We’re in his film class,” Ben replied. “I’m Ben Sturges.”

“Hi.” Hannah reached out her hand to the young man. “I’m Hannah.”

“Oh, well, hi.” He smiled and shook her hand. “I’m Richard Kidd, Seth’s roommate. Um, he’s not around right now. You want to leave a message?”

Hannah nodded. “Yeah, we really need to talk with him.”

“Wow, sounds urgent. PDQ. Is it an emergency?”

“Let’s just say it’s important,” Ben chimed in.

“Then, hell, man, we’d better write it down. Hold on.”

While Richard Kidd retreated to another part of the apartment, Hannah and Ben remained on the outside landing at the top of the stairs. She caught a glimpse of their living room: brick-and-wood bookshelves, furniture from garage sales and Pier 1 Imports, a big poster for
La Dolce Vita
on the wall, and clothes and newspapers strewn about. The two of them could have used a maid.

Richard returned to the doorway with a notepad and a pen. He handed them to Hannah. “Why don’t you write down the message yourself? I might be stepping out. I’ll leave it where he’ll be sure to see it.”

Hannah scribbled on the pad:

Seth:

Could you call me tonight (Friday) at 555-1007, or stop by the video store some time before 7
P
.
M
. tomorrow? It’s important I speak with you.

Thanks, Hannah Doyle

As they left Seth’s place together, Ben stopped at the end of the driveway. “Well, that was kind of a bust,” he said.

Hannah patted Ben’s arm. “We’ll just have to wait,” she said. “I think he’ll call. Seth likes me. If he knows something, he’ll tell us.”

Ben nodded glumly. “Listen, can I walk you home?”

She smiled. “I’d like that.”