What Doesn’t Kill Her (26 page)

He was just past the trees and had only the barest sense of movement to his right as somebody grabbed him by the backpack and yanked him to a stop, an arm looping around his waist to drag him into the darkness of the trees. A hand gripping his head by his hair jerked back sharply, his chin rising, as if to provide a better access to the white flesh of his throat. Arms flailing, he caught a gleam of metal and then a burning sensation started just behind his left ear, moving swiftly across his throat and stopping just below his right ear.

His flailing slowed to a slow swimming motion as he saw the scarlet spray and felt hot wetness spilling down the front of him. He sagged to his knees. Tried to scream, but the only sound he produced was a raspy inhuman cough.
Fucking throat’s been cut!
he told himself, as if some part of him should do something about it.

He knew he was going into shock, but he still remained aware, his hands clawing toward his neck, trying to keep the blood in; but it ribboned through his fingers. Already he could feel his extremities going cold.

His damp red fingers dropped. There was no fighting it now. Although he hadn’t seen his attacker, someone had been waiting in the shadows, and not just a mugger.
It was their man.
They had found him! Or
he
had found
them
… These thoughts gave him an odd satisfaction as his strength and consciousness ebbed. Even as the killer hovered over him, Levi couldn’t make out more than a distorted silhouette. The figure bent toward him and Levi, just for a second, thought he recognized something about the attacker, but the thought cut off as something sharp dug into his abdomen, and his insides began spilling out.

No pain now, just his parents calling to him from the end of a bright tunnel. Was his mind providing that fabled tunnel of light? Was he soothing himself in his last moments, or were his parents really waiting for him, in another, better place? Levi hadn’t seen them in so very long. They were smiling, arms extended to hug him, looking just as they had the last time he saw them, before a fire and a fiend had taken them from him.

As they wrapped loving arms around him, a switch in his brain turned off.

My greatest thrill is watching as a sinner breathes his or her last, allowing me to bear witness as the Lord claims another soul. I never feel closer to God than when I have taken a life for Him and He is gathering one of his flock for final judgment.

Even the threat of a passing car or an approaching pedestrian is not enough to deter me as I stand transfixed at the exact moment the Lord is welcoming Levi’s soul home. The boy won’t be there long, I fear, as the likes of a sodomite like Levi would find his soul sent to Purgatory at best and more likely Eternal Fire. But even the worst sinner deserves a moment of grace, and a fair shot at the Lord’s mercy.

I have kept close watch on Jordan because she is God’s Reward to Me. But I have kept close watch on the sodomite Levi, as well, because he was blessed by God with a brain and of Jordan’s friends is the one most likely to block the Lord’s path. Without him, the others will dry up and blow away like fallen leaves, as his mind and skills are the tree to which they cling.

I gather Levi’s cell phone and his backpack with its laptop, even his wallet. If the police believe it’s a mugging gone awry, that may be all the distraction they need to go traipsing down the wrong path. They have shown themselves to be unworthy, stunted opponents in the past, and I have no cause to think they will do any better now. Certainly not the callow youth Pryor.

Even if they perceive the transparency of the mugging ruse, they will still never suspect that the real reason I have taken the laptop is to keep the information on it away from prying eyes.

Speaking of eyes, there’s just one task left to perform
.

“If thy right eye offends thee.…”

Doing his own Net research, Mark started digging into the lives of Stuart Carlyle, Patti Roland, and Bradley Slavens, stopping just short of violating anyone’s civil rights.

As Levi had said, Slavens was off the grid. The guy had no online presence, neither Facebook nor Twitter, nor any other social website. A Google search had brought up next to nothing, not even a photo, which was frustrating—a simple photo shown to Jordan could either rule Slavens out or give them their man.

But there was nothing about this ghost—nothing in obits, neither local nor online, though in Slavens’s employment history, a short post-Havoc stay at a rival gymnastics training center did turn up, then nothing. Aggravating though this was, Mark took solace in Slavens being the least promising suspect, not fitting the time frame as well as Roland and Carlyle.

He would concentrate on them.

Roland appeared to be a first-rate gymnastics instructor. The three-year-old sexual abuse charges had been a one-time thing, most likely brought on by a mother with a conservative background being offended by Roland’s openly gay lifestyle. The out-of-court resolution may have been a cash settlement or a lawyer advising against further pursuit of a weak case.

Despite the matter being a civil one, the case began with a criminal complaint that, though it didn’t get anywhere, resulted in a mug shot. Patti Roland had short black hair and a narrow, angular face; with makeup she might have been borderline pretty. Without it, she looked hard and her eyes stared at the camera lens in cold rage. Was she merely angry about the false charges, or was Mark looking into the eyes of a killer? Half of a killing duo maybe?

She had frequently traveled with Havoc and had been in every city that Mark had associated with a nearby murder. Was she as clean as her record (minus that questionable sexual abuse charge) appeared? Was she capable of violence, as her angry mug shot seemed to indicate?

But her gayness spoke against that. Few lesbian couples indulged in the kind of sick sexual conquest games that male-female serial killing teams pursued. And, anyway, there was no other woman on their very short suspect list.

Likewise, Carlyle had been in all the same cities at the same times. His record was even cleaner than Roland’s. He had no mug shot. But surveilling Havoc, the detective had seen the tall, lithe Carlyle several times, coming out of the center into the parking lot—his name had been stitched to the breast of his windbreaker. Pushing forty, with short blond hair, he could be the monster Jordan had described.

Yesterday he had driven to the gymnastics school and used his cell phone to grab a parking-lot picture of Carlyle. Mark got a decent three-quarter front shot as the guy was getting in his car. Then he’d called Jordan and asked if he could stop by her place, briefly, to discuss a possible suspect.

They sat at the black-topped table near the kitchenette, as before, having some of the Coke Zero left over from his previous visit.

Mark brought the photo up on his phone and handed it to her. “Is this your intruder?”

She studied it awhile.

“I’m… I’m not sure,” she said finally. “The blond hair and blue eyes are right, but a lot of guys have those. You have those. Ten years is a long time.”

She’d had to barely glance at a cell-phone photo to dismiss Havoc.

“He has… isn’t that a scar by his eye? His right eye? The intruder didn’t have that scar. But he could have gotten it since. Ten years is… I said that, didn’t I?”

“Take your time, Jordan. Could it be him, ten years on?”

“I think maybe his eyes are spaced wider. And his hair is parted. The intruder’s wasn’t.”

“He could have changed his hair,” Mark said.

“Is there any way to tell how old a scar is?”

“Somebody with more medical expertise than me might be able to approximate when he got it.”

“He’s around the right age. And you can put him at the scenes of the out-of-town murders?”

“He was traveling with Havoc to nearby cities. Is it him?”

“Maybe.”

That was good enough to keep Mark going. He searched the Net for a younger shot of Carlyle that might enable Jordan to make a more definitive ID; but he got nothing.

And no mug shot. The only blip on the police radar that Carlyle ever made was when he’d reported his gun stolen six years ago. The missing piece was a nine mil, like the ones used in some of the murders. A coincidence? Lot of guns like that out there, particularly Glocks, many like this one with a polygonal barrel. Hard to trace.

Had Carlyle reported the gun stolen so he could more safely use it to commit murder?

At that point, the whole twisted scenario started over.

Friday morning, a day off that he intended to start by sleeping in, Mark was awakened by his cell phone on the nightstand.

He fumbled with the thing, then heard himself saying, “Yeah. Pryor.”

Captain Kelley’s voice. “Pryor, you don’t sound awake. It’s ten-thirty, man.”

“I’m awake now, sir. What is it?”

“I got the results of the bullet-matching tests from the different cases you’ve been looking at.”

Mark sat up. “And?”

“Not great news,” Kelley said. “They’re all nine millimeter, but because of the polygonal barrel, there’s no matching the bullets. Those interchangeable barrels make it practically impossible.”

“What about shell casings?”

“The shooter appears to’ve picked up his brass.”

“Damn.”

“Don’t give up so easy, Pryor—he missed one casing. The family in the Bronx? Rolled under a low sofa and he missed it.”

Kelley was sounding like he was accepting as fact Mark’s theory that one killer was behind these family homicides.

“So we have a casing,” Mark said. “Finally something solid.”

“Solid, but with nothing to compare it to. Running it through NIBIN will take for-fucking-ever.”

NIBIN—the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms—matched bullet and shell casing marks from cases nationwide.

Mark said, “I may have a comparison for you.”

“Yeah?”

“Long shot, but still a possibility. One of the women in that little spin-off team from the victim support group—Kay Isenberg? I spoke to her about the supposed murder-suicide of her sister and brother-in-law, Katherine and Walter Gregory.”

“Supposed?”

“Captain, it was
ruled
a murder-suicide.…”

“That’s my memory.”

“But there are some… discrepancies.”

“Enough discrepancies to open the file of a closed case?” The old irritation was back in Kelley’s tone.

Mark pressed on: “There’s a right-handed bullet wound from a left-handed supposed suicide, and the wife and husband were sleeping on each other’s side of the bed.”

“And you think that’s enough to—”

“I didn’t bring it to you, Captain,” Mark said, “but I’m raising it now because there was a Glock at the scene. Might be worth comparison.”

“This so-called serial killer of yours has the most fluid goddamn MO I ever heard of. It’s almost like you were just stringing a bunch of unrelated homicides together to see how big a jackass you can make out of me. What the hell am I going to do with you, son?”

“Keep helping me?”

After a long sigh of exasperation, Kelley said, “You come up with anything else about any of these murders that might lead us somewhere?”

“We
are
making some strides, sir.”

“ ‘We’? Don’t tell me you’ve got Pence talked into helping you on your off-hours. He wouldn’t help his grandmother across the street.”

Mark smiled. “No, I haven’t bothered Pence beyond using him as a sounding board. I’ve got one of the support group members doing some computer research on the case—kid named Levi Mills.”

Suddenly the back-and-forth stopped and silence took the line—Mark thought perhaps they’d been cut off.

Then Kelley’s voice returned, his voice soft: “What was that name, again?”

“Whose name?”

“The, uh, the computer kid.”

“Levi Mills. Why?”

“You have an address on him?”

“Sure.” Mark gave it to him, worry prickling his neck.

“Same Levi Mills,” Kelley said, still soft. “Friendly with this kid?”

“Somewhat. Nice young man.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but your nice young man was murdered last night.”

“… Shit.”

“Call came in a couple of hours ago. An early morning dog walker found the body.”

Mark practically swallowed the phone. “I want to go to that crime scene. And don’t say I’m not homicide, Captain, because—”

“I
want
you over there. Damnit! This is the son in that Mills double homicide over in Ashtabula?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You stay away from the media. Once they know that the only surviving member of a massacred family was murdered himself, this is going to blow up. You may get a lot of company looking into this thing. Multi-city task force, the works. But for now?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Get your ass over to that crime scene, and pitch in as needed. Grant and Lynch are over there. I’ll let them know you’re on the way.”

Kelley gave him the location. Mark threw on one of his cheap, dark work suits and made tracks.

Driving over, thoughts fought for attention in his mind. Had they somehow attracted the serial killer’s notice? Had Levi stumbled onto something and exposed himself? Were Jordan and the others in danger, too? Or was this all just a coincidence? A mugging gone wrong or something?