by Cross, Mason
36
“Whoever this is, be warned I am extremely drunk.”
From the way the words on the end of the line hazed into one another and the bar music in the background, it sounded like the speaker might just be telling the truth. Allen cleared her throat. “Smith? This is Detective Allen.”
Allen heard some shuffling in the background and Eddie Smith’s voice returned, sounding a little more sober. “Well, this is an honor. What can I do for you, Detective?”
“I wondered if we could help each other out again.”
“I like the sound of that.” He sounded immediately interested, and Allen wondered if she was making a mistake. “I caught you on TV tonight. Looking good.”
“So people keep telling me. Can we cut the pleasantries?”
“By all means.”
“You saw the press conference, so you know about the other Samaritan killings.”
“Yep. Pretty impressive, if you’re right about all of these other cases.”
He actually did sound genuinely impressed, Allen thought. “That’s one word for it,” she said coldly. “Anyway, I’ve been thinking about the latest killings out here in LA. It’s not public knowledge, but the three victims here . . .”
“All look alike,” he finished. “You don’t have to go to cop school to see that—those three women could be sisters, almost.”
“Right,” Allen said, caught off guard. She didn’t know why she should be surprised that Smith had thought this through. “Anyway, I got to thinking that maybe it’s not just the three out here. What if he’s killed other people in LA and we haven’t connected them?”
“You’d know about it before I would, Detective. Right?”
Allen wasn’t so sure about that, but he’d misunderstood her. “I just thought you could go back over your . . . portfolio. See if anything jumps out at you over the last year or so, anything we could have missed.”
“I know what you’re looking for. Distinctive ragged throat wounds, right?”
For the hundredth time, Allen cursed whoever had leaked that detail. “Like that, yes. I’ve checked on our end, but it’s not an exact science. I thought you could take a look at your old photographs.”
“Sorry, nothing like that.”
“Just like that? How can you be sure?”
“I keep them all with me. Up here.”
Allen pictured him jabbing a finger to his head and shuddered at what it would be like to be inside Eddie Smith’s mind.
“Right,” she said. His media-derived knowledge of the wound patterns reminded her of the other reason she’d called. “Smith, do you happen to know who leaked the details? We could have done without this.”
“I’ll give you what I have for free, because it ain’t much.”
“Shoot.”
“I heard it was a cop who talked to that reporter. One of the uniforms on the scene.”
“We thought so. Don’t suppose you ‘heard’ a name?”
She heard a low chuckle. “Allen, the MSM hates me almost as much as you guys do. Those guys don’t come near me if they can help it.”
“MSM?”
“Mainstream media.”
“What can I say, Smith? You seem such a likeable guy, too.”
“Ha-ha. I told you it wasn’t much. So when is it my turn to get helped?”
“Your day will come, Smith.”
“I feel used.”
“Sure you do. Night.”
Allen hung up and thought over the conversation. It had been a hunch that hadn’t played out, that there might have been other victims in LA that didn’t fit the profile of the three bodies in the mountains. Neither Allen nor the other detectives who’d been looking into this since earlier today had turned any up; so if Smith didn’t know of any others, it was starting to look very likely that the Samaritan had started work in Los Angeles only recently. But that still didn’t explain the new consistency in the type of victim.
The information they had so far suggested that in the other states, the killer had taken between four and six victims before moving on. That meant time was running out. The time they had to catch the Samaritan, and more important, the time they had before another young woman with dark hair and brown eyes was found in a shallow grave.
37
The Samaritan drove.
He went out driving most nights, not just on the ones on which he had made up his mind to hunt. It was a comforting routine, setting out before midnight, cruising the streets with the windows down, returning before the first of the morning commuters set out. He hated the days: the long, jammed freeways clogged like old arteries with metal and exhaust fumes and disgusting, sweating people. There was still traffic at night, of course, but one could move relatively freely around the monstrous, sprawling city in the dead hours between the late evening and the early morning. The cars moved efficiently and calmly on the freeways, the drivers less frantic at night, less in a hurry to get to wherever they were going. The surface streets were quieter still, and that was where the Samaritan liked to be.
The mountains, and the maze of twisting two-lane routes that skirted them, had served him well in the past two weeks. Both because of the sparsity of night traffic and the fact that isolation made the prey more uneasy when they broke down, more ready to accept an offer of assistance. That was a happy accident, of course. He had other practical reasons for taking his victims in that area. But he was keeping well away from there tonight, although he would certainly return the next time he had . . . company.
The police knew about some of the other killings now. He had not been overly worried when he’d seen the news and had it confirmed they were looking into his back catalog. He’d expected this from the moment he found out that the body from Saturday had been discovered. In truth, he’d been expecting it for far longer than that. He was amazed that his body of work had gone unconnected for such a very long time. Perhaps that had led him to be careless with the burials of these last victims, or perhaps it was merely the comfort of being home again. He’d always been careful not to leave physical evidence, never to use the same firearm twice when he did use one, and even now he knew there would be nothing concrete to forensically connect the cases to one another, still less to connect any of them to him. But then, that was just one of the benefits of being a man who did not exist.
He drove at the speed limit, not paying any more attention than was necessary to the road, watching his surroundings. The darkened storefronts sliding by, the occasional lit-up bar with its regulation huddle of smokers outside, and above it all the dirty yellow night sky, stained that color by light pollution reflecting off the other, more obdurate kind of pollution. And then there was a gap in the buildings and he saw the Hollywood sign shining back at him. He pulled over to the side of the road and turned the engine off. The street sounds from behind him seemed small, lost in the void between him and the hills. He put an arm on the windowsill and remembered the place in the mountains.
A harsh rap on the roof broke the rhythm of his thoughts. He turned his head to see a uniformed police officer, his fist still resting on the roof of the truck where he’d knocked.
“Good evening, sir.”
The Samaritan looked for a partner, didn’t see one. He glanced in the mirror to see a police cruiser parked twenty yards behind him. Empty, but with the headlights on. The standard words came naturally to him. “Is there a problem, Officer?” Perfect. Just what a normal person would say. He widened his eyes a little, trying to look appropriately nervous.
“Step out of the vehicle, please.”
The Samaritan blinked and then unbuckled his seat belt. He opened the door and got out.
The cop asked him to stay there and circled the truck, shining a flashlight over the surface. The Samaritan watched as he reached the flat bed and played the beam of his flashlight over the inside. There was nothing there, just a neatly brushed-out space. The cop came around to the driver’s side, extinguishing the light and attaching it to his
belt again in a practiced, one-handed move.
He looked to be a lifelong beat cop—late forties, with hair shaved close to his scalp in a way that suggested he was bald under the hat.
“Are you the owner of this vehicle, sir?”
The Samaritan nodded. “Yes.”
“License and registration, please.”
He hesitated a second too long. The cop, whose eyes had been scanning the interior of the vehicle, stopped and looked at him more closely. The Samaritan looked at the cop’s throat. His carotid artery was right there. It would be possible to reach out and render him unconscious in less than a second. He could take him away, make sure that this body was never found.
But a police car would be difficult to dispose of, and the police officer’s movements would certainly be traced to this point. Another worry: what if he had already run the truck’s plate?
“Is that going to be a problem, sir?” the cop asked, his hand moving slightly closer to the holster at his side.
He shook his head, murmured an apology. He reached in the driver’s side window and retrieved the documents from the glove box. Far less risky to play along. It wasn’t as if this stop was going to lead to anything.
The cop’s eyes held on him for a moment, then dropped to look at the license. The Samaritan kept his hands stiffly by his sides.
“You still live here?” he asked as he read the address.
“Yes, I do.”
“Nice place.”
“I like it.”
There was nothing to worry about. The photograph was his, and although the name was fake, there would be no way to tell that. The license and registration were both entirely genuine, and the vehicle had been purchased and registered under the same name. The cop could confirm that with a very quick check.
In the end it wasn’t required. The cop nodded and handed the documents back.
“Thank you, sir. Just a routine stop.”
“Not a problem, Officer.”
The Samaritan got back into the truck and watched the officer return to his vehicle. He waited for a moment and then realized that the cop was waiting for him to leave first. He obliged, starting up the engine and pulling smoothly back onto the road.
He watched the police car in the mirror until he rounded a corner and lost sight of it, and then he allowed himself a smile. Perhaps it was the brush with authority, a reminder that his time was limited, but all of a sudden, he felt the first stirrings of the urge.
It would be time to hunt again very soon.
1996
“Pretty cool, huh?” Kimberley said, smiling proudly.
He didn’t say anything, but smiled quickly as he surveyed the small knot of buildings. They were empty and silent, preserved over the years by the relatively temperate climate. A cool breeze was channeled through the corridor created by the buildings. An old sign, suspended by chains from one of the awnings, creaked softly, but otherwise it was quiet.
Robbie had suddenly developed a new enthusiasm, after bitching and moaning most of the way. “How did you know about this place?”
Kimberley pouted theatrically and rolled her head at that. He admired the way her dark hair bounced around her eyes. “I could tell you, Robbie, but I’d have to kill you.”
There was a low, partly broken-down fence adjoining the last building in the main row. Kimberley sat down on it first and he leaned against it alongside her, waiting for Robbie to catch up.
“Hey, Robbie, how about a picture to remember today by?” She turned and looked up at him. She was a few inches shorter, even though she had a couple of years on him. “It’s a good day, isn’t it?” she said to him.
He reached into the backpack again. He moved some of the top layer of contents about—Kimberley’s Walkman, some loose cassettes—and found the camera. It was a disposable, the kind people used for casual photography in the years before digital took over. He tossed it to Robbie, who fumbled it and cursed as it dropped to the ground.
“Jeez, at least give me a heads-up.”
Robbie took a picture of the two of them and then joined them on the fence. They sat there for a while, resting and enjoying the quiet for a moment. Then Robbie regained his breath and started talking again. He decided to leave them there and explore further.
There was a big house set on raised ground, a little distance away. It looked more substantial, more . . . real than the thin skeletons and shells farther back. It was a wide building with wood siding and a big porch along the front, with a small dormer window set into the center of the roof. When he reached the porch, he looked back. Kimberley and Robbie were sitting on the fence, pointing at the view. He thought about calling out to them but changed his mind. He put his hand on the door handle and twisted it. It was unlocked. He didn’t know why that surprised him.
He opened the door, and the smell of dust and stale air greeted him. There was a stairway straight ahead. He remembered the little window and assumed that the stairs led up to an attic room. He climbed them and found a low-ceilinged space with a wide, unbroken expanse of floorboards. There was a small table in one corner, but the space was otherwise unfurnished. The window he’d seen from outside was glassless and looked back down the way he’d just come. He went to the window and put a hand on one of the thin wood partitions. Kimberley and Robbie were still there at the fence, Kimberley throwing her head back and laughing as he watched.
Without realizing it, he’d tightened his grip on the partition, and he was surprised when it snapped in his hand. He stepped away from the window and looked around him at the attic space.
It was what he had been looking for, almost without knowing it. A quiet space. A private space. A house without an owner in a town without a name. A place where he could do things that no one would ever know about.
38
I’d checked out of the Sherman Oaks hotel that morning. I was traveling so light that there was no benefit in staying in any one place longer than one night. Everything I had with me fit comfortably in a single bag in the trunk of the Chevy. The manager in the new place told me the room was the best in the hotel, because it was the only one with an entirely unobstructed view of the Hollywood sign.
Perhaps out of a sense of obligation, the first thing I did when I entered the room was to turn out the lights and go to the window. The sign looked white and clean at night, but I knew it would be old and dirty from up close. I also knew they’d erected fences to stop people from getting too close, either to steal a piece of history, or to carve out their own place in it by jumping off the top of one of the letters to kill themselves. I didn’t suppose I was the first person to think of it, but it seemed like a pretty good metaphor for Hollywood itself. Look but don’t touch. Don’t get too close.
I thought about Carol again, for the second time in as many days. I wondered where she’d gone; wondered if she’d headed west, too. Perhaps she was out there in the city, one of the million pinpricks of light in the darkness.
I unbuttoned my shirt and touched a finger to the long, white scar on my chest. Not the stab wound Wardell had given me, but the one that predated it by a few years. The scar hadn’t bothered me in a long time, but it had itched all day today. I ran a fingertip down the smooth line of raised tissue.
I watched the Hollywood sign and thought about how it was a beacon that brought people to this town from all over the world. A siren call that lured in the unsuspecting to be chewed up and spat out by this unforgiving town. A city of new arrivals, of people reinventing themselves and their pasts. Prime targets for the Samaritan.
I thought Allen would use the number I’d given her tomorrow. But if she didn’t, I had to be ready to draw the Samaritan out.
TUESDAY
39
Almost two days without sleep, and yet Allen somehow found it difficult to switch off when she made it back to her apartment a little after midnight.
She gave up after an hour or so and moved to the living room couch. Three Days of the Condor with Robert Redfo
rd was the late movie. She watched twenty minutes but found herself unable to concentrate, so she began to look over the case files again. She sketched out a timeline showing the locations of potential Samaritan cases arranged by date. The cases roamed all over the map. Clusters of murders over the span of a few weeks, followed by a break of a number of months, and then a new cluster in a different city. Going back a long time, maybe five years, starting in North Carolina. That got her thinking again about Blake, the guy who’d appeared out of nowhere with an offer of help and an FBI character reference. She knew Mazzucco was reluctant to let him in, but she was starting to seriously consider dialing the number on the plain business card. With the feds now involved, it was the one thing she could hold on to for now, maybe a way to stay ahead of the pack.
She understood Mazzucco’s wariness, of course, but she trusted her own instincts. She didn’t think Blake fit the Samaritan’s profile, and not just because of what Agent Banner had said. There was something about his manner that seemed . . . solid? Dependable. And he’d given them the Peterson lead, so he evidently knew his stuff.
And yet, it would be interesting to see if she could rule him out. She spent some time on the Internet and the phone attempting to build up a picture of Carter Blake, and beyond confirming that his driver’s license was legit, found it far more difficult than she’d expected. The DL did give her one thing, though: he’d mentioned flying into town on Sunday night, and flying required identification.
At some point, she had finally succumbed to exhaustion, because the next thing she knew she was waking with a start, having overslept by an hour.
When she opened the door to the conference room, she saw that there were three men and one woman around the table: Mazzucco, Lieutenant Lawrence, Lieutenant Anne Whitmore from the chief’s office, and another man in a dark suit whom she didn’t recognize: the FBI liaison. Lawrence glanced pointedly at the wall clock as she sat down. Even Mazzucco looked a little pissed at her.