You did this, p.20
YOU DID THIS, page 20
But the killer hadn’t struck since Monday. The police had arrested a suspect but delayed pressing charges. Bella’s job would be much easier if the investigative officers were more cooperative. Caught in a news drought, yesterday’s article had discussed the household names of serial killer notoriety. Compared to the Ted Bundys and Sons of Sam of the world, the Middle School Strangler displayed a poor work ethic. To be fair, he was just getting started. But if he didn’t pick up the pace soon, Bella would have to resort to some R&R. In her business, that meant covering stories of rape and robbery.
Bella chided herself for her callous attitude toward heinous crimes. Her job had eroded her sensitivity to human suffering. She hadn’t started out so jaded. Eight years ago, she’d been a young journalist eager to change the world. As the Herald’s rookie crime reporter, she’d visited Newburgh PD daily to meet with the Public Information Officer and review police reports. She’d quickly lost her naivety about the state of humanity. The magnitude of the evil humans piled on each other boggled the mind. She’d also learned that the chances of an investigative journalist cracking a murder case using the scraps the cops threw the media approached zero.
On the bright side, she’d met some useful contacts at Newburgh PD, and she liked to think she played her part in fighting crime. For example, her article about police incompetence had stirred the boys in blue to place some Middle School girls under police protection. Could that have slowed the killer down? Ironically, the little good her writing did for the world made her job harder.
In her feature story for the Sunday edition, she delved deeper into the human-interest angle of the murders. She had set out with low expectations—what experiences or achievements of note could a girl of fourteen have racked up? But after interviewing their families, her attitude had changed. The girls and their families were nothing alike. Grace Miles had belonged to a middle-class, Church-going family. Karla had grown up with a single mother and had kept mostly to herself. Two unrelated families, united by the senseless deaths of their beloved daughters. Bella had gotten to know Gracie and Karla very well, and cracks had appeared in her cynical outer crust.
“How’s our feature coming along?” a man said.
Steve leaned his arm on the wall of her cubicle and stole a glance at her screen. His other hand cradled a coffee mug. She’d never seen the editor-in-chief without his caffeine hit, which he refilled constantly. He liked to joke that he drank only one cup of coffee a day, and that cup lasted from morning to evening.
“Almost done?” A question mark had crept into her voice, betraying her misgivings about the story.
“But?”
“I don’t know. It lacks…urgency. I left space for a few paragraphs.”
“Well, you’ve got twenty-four hours to fill them.”
“I was planning on taking Saturday off.”
Steven chuckled as he moved on. “I’ve heard that before?”
He knew Bella too well. A perfectionist, Bella had squandered many a weekend polishing her prose and chasing that one last story lead. No wonder she was still single at thirty.
She reached for her cell phone and texted Deborah Jones, her contact at the Newburgh PD Dispatch. “Any updates on our mutual friend?”
“Mutual friend” was their code phrase for the Middle School Strangler. They used the secret vocabulary to ensure Deborah didn’t lose her job if her supervisor ever discovered their conversations. Bella appeared in Deborah’s contact list as “Mom 2.” Bella compensated the phone jockey for her inside information with a Hershey’s hamper and a 24-pack of Diet Dr. Pepper every other month.
Her phone buzzed when Deborah’s text arrived. “Hotcakes.”
Bella sat up at her desk. “Hotcakes” meant new information, hot from the oven. She typed away. “Another bird gone?” Had they found another victim?
The response arrived in seconds. “No. But a bird has flown.”
Bella scrunched her nose and tried to decipher the message. She and Deborah had to coordinate their code words one day. Did she mean the girl wasn’t dead, only missing? If so, a body could turn up at any moment. Bella typed away. “Name?”
The next response contained two letters. “DW.”
Bella pulled up the Excel sheet she’d compiled of the names of the eighth-grade students at Newburgh Middle School. DW matched two names: Dean Ward and Dana Wood. Bella searched online for Dana Wood and knew what she’d find: a fourteen-year-old girl with blonde hair and blue eyes. Maybe Bella hadn’t slowed the killer down, after all. Maybe her news coverage had egged him on. After her long meetings with the bereaved families, she hated to think she might have contributed to a young girl’s death.
A small notification box at the bottom of the screen announced a new email. She clicked the square. The sender was not on her contacts list. The string of random characters that comprised the Gmail username meant the sender was either a spammer or an anonymous informant. Her email address was easily available on the Herald’s website, and many of her contacts used burner email accounts to protect their privacy. But the subject line grabbed her attention. It contained two words: Dana Wood.
The hairs on the back of her neck bristled. Very few people knew Dana was missing. In all her years covering major crimes, never had a murderer contacted Bella.
The body contained a one-line message and a single attachment. Her pulse sped up. She double-clicked the video file and braced for the worst.
The clip lasted for only three seconds, but its meaning was clear. Her feature story would have to wait. Bella had found her sense of urgency.
Chapter 38
“Move!” Claire yelled at the car in front of her. A halo of white hair above the headrest was the only sign of the driver. If the old lady moved any slower, she’d be a rock. Claire tried to overtake, then swerved back into her lane to avoid a head-on collision.
Rob held on to his seat with both hands. “I can drive if you like. I did a defensive driving course at Quantico.”
Claire ignored the hint. “No time. Grab the light from behind your seat.”
Rob twisted around, reached behind the passenger seat, and retrieved the emergency strobe light. “I always wanted one of these.” He untangled the spiral power cord. “How does it work?”
“Just throw it on top. The magnet and suction pad keep it from falling off.”
Rob rolled down his window, placed the half-sphere on the roof, and plugged the power cable into the cigar lighter socket.
Claire pressed a button on the controller, and the device let loose a banshee yelp while the strobe light tinted the windshield in alternating blue and red. Rob covered his ears, then closed the window over the cord.
“I think I’ve gone deaf.”
He rubbed his ears. Under other circumstances, Claire would have laughed. But she was intent on reaching her destination. The old lady pulled over to the side of the road.
“Thank. You!” Claire yelled while she overtook the slowcoach.
“What did you say? Speak louder. I can’t hear you.”
“Not funny, Rob. Amy’s at home and unprotected. This is the killer’s last opportunity to complete the target list.”
Claire stepped on the accelerator to overtake another car.
“Watch out!” Rob said.
Claire swerved into her lane, narrowly avoiding a high-speed and untimely death. Her heart pumped adrenaline. Good. She was ready to act. Amy Collins would not die today—Claire forbade it.
“I drew up that list,” Claire said. She needed to explain her urgency. “I put those girls’ names on that board, and now they’re dead.”
“Claire, it’s not your fault. You didn’t get them killed. You were doing your job.”
He was right. Her reaction wasn’t rational. But the killer had murdered Claire’s sister, and since she’d returned to Newburgh, he’d claimed three more girls. Claire would do anything to save Amy Collins from joining them. Only one thing was certain—the killer wasn’t slowing down. He seemed more determined than ever.
“Snatching Dana outside her home was risky,” Claire said. “The killer must have known a police officer was at her home. Why is he pushing his luck?”
“It’s not uncommon. After killing a few people, serial killers become overconfident. They think they’re superior to law enforcement and will never get caught. That carelessness often leads to their arrest.”
The car tires squealed as Claire took a sharp corner. “Let’s hope that works for us today.”
She pulled up outside the Collins address, a two-level colonial, and Rob jerked forward in his seat when she slammed the brake pedal. Claire turned off the ignition, and the siren cut out. She jumped out of the car and leaped up the stairs of the front porch.
Her staccato knocking on the wooden door summoned a pale-faced, middle-aged woman with short red hair.
Claire flashed her badge. “Mrs. Collins, where is Amy?”
“Upstairs.”
Claire walked inside and ran up the staircase, not waiting for Rob to catch up. Stickers of colorful butterflies covered the first door around a nameplate with the word Amy. As Claire raised her hand to knock, an explosion erupted inside the room. Claire knew that sound well. It was the report of a gunshot. She drew her Glock and burst inside.
A girl lay on the bed, slumped against the wall, a white fluffy bear on her lap. A drop of blood trickled from a black hole in her forehead. Her eyes stared at Claire, unseeing. A crown of red spatter colored the wall behind her.
Movement drew Claire’s gun barrel to the open window. A black-clad figure straddled the windowsill and stepped onto the roof. The woman held a gun. A tuft of blonde hair sprouted from under her ski mask. A jolt of recognition immobilized Claire. No, it can’t be her! The moment of shock passed. The killer was outside, padding across the roof tiles, escaping.
Claire aimed her gun and pumped the trigger. The glass pane shattered, the wooden frame chipped and splintered. Claire raced to the window, shoving her head and shoulders outside to improve her range, but the killer had disappeared.
Claire raced toward the door and almost slammed into Rob. His eyes moved from the dead girl on the bed to the smoking gun in Claire’s hand.
“On the roof!” she said. “She’s getting away!”
They sprinted downstairs, taking the steps three at a time, guns drawn. Amy’s mother held her hands to her ears and stared at them open-mouthed.
“Stay down here!” Claire yelled. No time to explain. Get the killer. Stop her now.
They poured out of the house. “Go left!” she called to Rob.
She turned right, checked the street for the fleeing gunwoman, and circled the house, her gun trained on the roof. Dry leaves crunched underfoot. Claire halted, straining her ears for the sound of her prey’s movements. That predator focus honed her senses. The murderer was not going to escape.
Hearing the whisper of crunching leaves, Claire charged ahead, reaching a backyard and a low wire fence. Clotheslines stretched between poles. Bedsheets, shirts, and blue jeans billowed in the breeze. Claire walked through the clothes, her gun aimed in both hands, scanning, searching. A dark figure stepped around the building, gun in hand. Claire swiveled, her finger on the trigger, then she froze. Rob lowered his gun, and so did Claire.
Rob shook his head. He’d seen nothing. The killer had evaporated into thin air. But Claire had recognized her, and now Claire’s guts clenched with shock.
No. That’s impossible.
Chapter 39
Police officers and forensic technicians bustled in and out of the living room. They brushed past Rob but paid him no attention. He was invisible, like a ghost.
An otherworldly fog clouded his senses. Claire was speaking to somebody nearby, but he could not process her words. The Doomsday crack of gunfire still rang in his ears. The scent of burned powder and spilled blood lingered in his nostrils. A half hour after the shooting, his heart still thumped. Horrible images haunted his mind’s eye: A young girl slumped on a bed with a hole in her head and a circle of red on the wall behind her; Claire Wolfe staring at him, wide-eyed, her lips parted with shock, the wild tendrils of her dark hair grasping at her face, while a wisp of smoke rose from the barrel of her gun.
Rob had studied countless murders. He’d visited many crime scenes. But he had never stood this close to a victim when the bullets hit their mark. Until today.
“A black jumpsuit,” the Internal Affairs officer, Alan Driver, said. He repeated Claire’s words and scribbled them on his notepad.
“And a black ski mask,” Claire added.
Mrs. Collins sat on the couch and wailed. Her husband was still on his way home from work. Police officers had sealed the neighborhood and were searching every car and pedestrian in a half-mile radius.
Yellow police tape blocked the entrance of the home. Captain Emmerso stood by the front door and shared a hushed conversation with a pensive Chief Harry Wallace. The department had set up a command post outside, a black RV jammed with computers and communications equipment. From the command post, officers coordinated the roadblocks and the new homicide investigation. Because, this time, an officer had discharged her weapon at the scene, Internal Affairs had joined the team.
The chief nodded as he listened to Captain Emmerso, but his eyes drifted to Claire, and they filled with suspicion. Rob could guess what he was thinking. Was Detective Wolfe a cold-blooded murderer?
“Are you sure it was a woman?” Officer Driver asked Claire.
“She had breasts. And long blonde hair.” A note of anxious frustration sharpened her tone. She’d gone over this before.
“I thought she wore a ski mask?”
Claire pointed to her neck. “Some of her hair stuck out underneath.”
“Did you recognize her?”
Claire hesitated. “As I said, she had a mask.”
Rob watched Claire’s expression closely. What was she holding back?
Officer Driver looked at him. “Agent Cline, did you see the shooter?”
Which one? “No. She’d already escaped onto the roof. We went downstairs and gave chase, but she was gone.”
Feet on the staircase announced a female forensic tech in a surgical suit and sanitary covers over her hair, hands, and feet.
“Which one of you discharged the weapon?” she asked.
“I did,” Claire said.
“How many rounds?”
Claire placed her hand on her Glock 22 in its holster. “Five.”
“I’m going to need the gun as evidence.”
Alan Driver said, “I’ll collect the gun from Detective Wolfe at the station.” He turned back to Claire. “We’ll get you a replacement weapon right away. You’ll take off the next few days as administrative leave.”
“Administrative leave?” Claire’s voice rose an octave with frustration. “We’re in the middle of an investigation.”
Driver grinned. “So am I. Try to take it easy. Do you want an attorney present for your full interview?”
“No.”
“OK. The department will arrange for you to meet with a psychiatrist, too. You can look forward to some desk work until we complete our investigation.” He spoke to the forensic tech. “Lee, swab them both. And we’ll need photos, too. Make sure their clothes are fully visible.”
“Yes, sir,” the forensic tech said.
Driver gave Claire a grim smile. “We’re done for now. Do you need to call anyone—family or friends?”
“No, I’m good.”
“OK. I’ll get an officer to drive you to the station.”
“Don’t bother. My car is outside.”
Officer Driver gave her an apologetic frown. “I’m afraid we’ll need that, too. Evidence.”
“Oh. Right.”
He gave her an expectant glance. “Can I have the keys? We’d prefer not to break the locks.”
“Right. Sorry.” Claire handed over her car keys. “I’m a bit shaken up.”
“That’s understandable.”
Rob wanted to put his arms around her and hold her tight, but he held back. This was no time to reveal that their relationship had become intimate.
Officer Driver bagged the car keys in a plastic evidence bag and wrote Claire a receipt. “I’ll see you at the station.”
The Internal Affairs officer left the crime scene. Lee, the forensic tech, photographed them and swabbed their hands for gunpowder residue.
Tom and Jed entered the house, ducking under the police tape, and headed toward the chief and captain. Claire and Rob drew near to the bosses, too.
“What do we have?” Commander Emmerso asked them.
Tom shrugged. “At least two sets of footprints. It’s hard to tell who’s who. Forensics should take a closer look.”
Jed’s phone rang. All the officers watched him intently as he answered. Had they netted the killer?
Jed listened to the caller. “I see. OK, keep me posted.” He hung up. “Nothing. The killer might be holed up within the perimeter.”
Emmerso nodded. “We’ll go house to house if we have to. Did you put out that BOLO?”
“Yes, sir.”
Tom said, “I wouldn’t get our hopes up, Captain Emmerso. We have few identifying details on the killer, and she’s probably disposed of the weapon by now.”
Claire spoke up. “We should notify the airport.”
The officers turned to Claire and Rob.
Tom flashed his teeth in a humorless grin. “And stop every blonde-haired woman from leaving the state? I don’t think so.”
A man in a suit appeared in the doorway, his face white. His eyes took in the assembled officers, then found Mrs. Collins on the couch. He stepped underneath the crime scene tape, rushed to the sobbing woman. Amy’s father had arrived home.
Chief Wallace sighed. “The press is waiting for our statement. We’ll leave you to do your jobs.”
The bosses left. Jed gave the others a brave grin, then walked over to the victim’s parents. While he spoke, shock and disbelief reflected in their eyes. The couple was in their fifties. Amy had been their only child. What consolation could they hope for? Rob put his thoughts of tragedy on hold. He had a killer to catch.
