The Samaritan

by Cross, Mason

  He pulled Allen out through the driver’s side and laid her down on the road. Then he retrieved his kit from a compartment in the flatbed of the truck and bound her hands tightly with a zip tie, opting to leave her ankles free. He had no objection to carrying her across the remaining distance, but if she happened to come to, it would be quicker if she was able to walk. And then he bent, gathered his arms around her at the waist, and straightened up, heaving her limp body over his shoulder. He had a couple of miles to go, so he started walking at a good pace. He had another guest, after all, and he didn’t want to keep her waiting.

  82

  Detective Mazzucco’s still-open eyes stared up at me from the dirt floor of the barn. It looked like his killer had cut his throat from behind. The ragged gash across his neck was sickeningly familiar. I was still holding the pistol I’d taken from McCall. I tucked it into the back of my belt and knelt down beside the dead cop.

  I felt a strong urge to find a sheet or something to drape over Mazzucco’s body, or at least close his eyes, but I knew I couldn’t. Forensic considerations aside, I didn’t want the Samaritan to know somebody had been there. He was nothing if not prepared, so I didn’t want to give him any extra warning if I could avoid it. I patted the body down and found nothing of import. His gun and cell phone had clearly been taken by his killer, disposed of as far from here as possible. I looked up and scanned the immediate area around the body. The interior of the barn was almost pitch-black in the twilight, but the body had been close enough to the door that I could examine the area well enough. The only thing I found, funnily enough, belonged to me. In his coat pocket, I found my sketch of Crozier from a couple days before. Why had he kept it?

  I stood up and glanced back out the doorway. I listened for sounds: a distant engine, perhaps. Nothing. I looked back down.

  I examined the position of the body and thought about it. Rigor had yet to set in, which meant Mazzucco had been dead less than a couple of hours. The light would have been better when he’d come in here, so it would have been harder to surprise him. And yet I knew he’d been ambushed, from the lack of defensive wounds on his hands. If he’d been facing toward the door when he died, did that mean he’d been on his way back out of the barn when he was jumped? What had attracted his attention?

  I cast a last glance at Mazzucco’s body and decided it was time to check out the house I’d seen at the far end of the set.

  I exited the barn and moved to a point where there was a gap between two of the facades that made up one side of the main street. From here, I had a clear view of the access road, which came over the crest of the hill. I watched and listened for a minute. Nothing. I began to worry that the encounter with McCall had delayed me enough to miss the Samaritan entirely.

  I stepped away from the gap and looked up at the house. It was dark enough by now that I’d have expected a light to be burning if there was anyone in there—a lamp or even a candle. Perhaps there would be nothing there, or worse, perhaps he’d already killed Kimberley Frank and departed for who-knew-where. There was only one way to find out.

  I approached the house warily, watching the windows for any hint of movement. I circled around the rear to see if I could enter the house around there, but then I discovered there was no back door, or even back windows. Although the house was a real structure, it evidently needed to be seen only from the front.

  I completed the circle and stood before the three steps up onto the porch. No sign of life or light at either of the two windows flanking the door. I stepped up onto the porch and put a hand on the doorknob. It was locked. I was about to get my picks out when I heard a muffled banging from inside the house. It sounded like somebody kicking or stamping on something. Somebody who couldn’t speak but wanted to attract attention. Somebody who could be badly hurt, perhaps.

  I took a step back, lifted my right foot, and slammed it into the door alongside the knob. I felt a crack as the jamb split, and then another kick sent the door bursting inward. It was as dark as a crypt. I made out a large hallway, big enough to accommodate the film cameras, with two doors leading off into each side of the house and a wide staircase leading to the upper level. It was hot inside, as though the house had spent all day absorbing the warmth of the sun and was reluctant to let it go. Hot, and with a familiar stench. The smell of old blood.

  There was a brief silence and then the banging started up again, with greater urgency. It was coming from the upper floor. I raced up the stairs, which creaked and moaned as though unused to traffic. I came out into an open-plan attic. The last of the twilight came in through the single window, revealing a large, low-ceilinged room, with the roof support beams exposed. Hanging from one of them was a set of manacles.

  I heard rapid breathing from the far side of the room, in the darkest corner. I walked forward, and my eyes began to adjust to the shadows. A young, dark-haired woman was there, gagged and blindfolded. She wore black slacks and a white shirt. She was bound at the wrists with a plastic zip tie, her hands in her lap. She had drawn her knees up against her chest, and her head was angled toward me, as though straining to hear. Even with her face obscured, I recognized her as Kimberley Frank.

  As she heard my approaching footsteps, her breathing quickened. Through the gag, I heard three muffled words, unmistakable as “Oh my God.”

  “It’s okay,” I called out as I approached her, my eyes scanning the space, looking for unexpected surprises. The floorboards were bare but looked as though they had been painted or varnished. The room was empty and unfurnished but for a hardbacked wood chair and a small table. “My name is Carter Blake, Kimberley. I’m here to help.”

  The gag was tight. I worked the knot for a second until it loosened and then let it fall down around her throat like a neckerchief. Then I slipped the blindfold the other way, taking it off. Her brown eyes blinked up at me. They seemed oddly calm, as though she was studying me with a detached curiosity.

  “How do you know my name?”

  I didn’t answer, too busy looking at what was on the table. It confirmed that this place was not just used for keeping prisoners. There were knives and blades and saws of all shapes and sizes. There was another doctor’s case identical to the one I’d seen in the warehouse. Handcuffs and wire. Tools. It was then I noticed that the finish on the floor was uneven in patches and realized that the boards were not stained with paint or varnish, but with blood. Almost the entire floor had been washed with it at different times. The variation in the shades and concentrations, as well as the volume that must have been expended, told me that this was the room in which the Samaritan’s first three victims had died.

  There was one other thing on the table, and though it seemed innocuous, it chilled me more than any of the tools of murder. It was a thick, binder-sized photo album. I had a good idea what would be inside of it. I put a hand to the leather cover and stopped when I heard the urgency in Kimberley’s voice from across the room.

  “You have to hurry up. He’ll be coming.”

  She was right. We had no time to waste. I selected a short blade from the table and went back to the corner where Kimberley was sitting.

  “You don’t understand. He’ll kill you. He’s my half brother. I thought . . .”

  “That he was dead?”

  She looked surprised, but held her wrists still while I used the knife to saw through the zip tie. I examined her wrists. There was minor abrasion, but they didn’t look too bad, considering.

  “Can you walk?”

  She rubbed her calf muscles and nodded uncertainly.

  “Then let’s get the hell out of here.”

  I bent down and put one of her arms around my shoulders and stood up, supporting her as we moved toward the stairs. She was shaking violently, the vibrations conducting their way out of her and through my own muscles like an electric current.

  “How did you know—?”

  “Just concentrate on walking,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm and soothing. “We can talk abo
ut it later, okay?”

  She swallowed and focused on one foot after another. She kept talking, probably couldn’t help it. “He killed my dad, years ago. His mother and his sister, too. The cops knew it was him, but . . .”

  “It’s okay, Kimberley. We’re getting out of here. It’s over.”

  “No. You don’t understand. He’s insane.”

  I saved my breath and started to ease Kimberley down the stairs. We’d made it about halfway down when she was seized by a cramp in her leg. She cried out and stumbled to the side, putting all of her weight on a section of the step that had succumbed to dry rot. The wood crumbled beneath her and she slipped out from under my arm, tumbling down the last few stairs. Thankfully, she didn’t have far to fall. She landed on all fours in front of the open door.

  Quickly, I descended the rest of the stairs and crouched down to check that she was all right, turning my back to the front door for a second. Her face looked up at me, and I saw her eyes widen even as I became aware of a shadow falling over the two of us.

  I spun around and felt something smash across the side of my head. I dropped on my back and caught a glance of a tall figure silhouetted against the evening sky before the black clouds rushed in from the sides of my vision.

  83

  As I began to swim out of the haze of unconsciousness, I became dimly aware that the voice I’d been hearing wasn’t part of the scrambled collage of sounds and images scrolling through my subconscious. The voice sounded regretful but philosophical. I was having trouble following what was being said, as though my brain were rebooting, having to work out how to parse English again. And then something clicked into place and I heard three words, spoken quietly from very close.

  “Quite a mess.”

  I kept my eyes shut and tried to backtrack through my memories to work out what was happening, because I didn’t think it was anything good. The last thing I could remember was helping Kimberley Frank up off the ground, and then . . . it came back to me. The Samaritan filling the doorway and a simultaneous blow to the side of the head.

  It was like typing in the correct password. All of a sudden, my senses started to operate again. I felt nausea and a throbbing pain on the left side of my skull. The dull sounds of birds and far-off traffic noise made me think I was somewhere outside, but the dank, mildew smell spoke of an interior. Sensory input from elsewhere: my hands were behind me, the inside of my wrists tight against a wooden post or pillar. I felt my skin contact that of someone else, as though the two of us were tied back to back. The barn. We were in the barn.

  I heard someone crouch down beside me and whisper in my ear, “Come on, Blake. A conscious person’s breathing is quite different from someone who’s still out. You know that as well as I do.”

  I opened my eyes and saw the Samaritan staring right back at me. He’d changed. He had lost a lot of weight, had more lines around the eyes. He was clean shaven, and his hair was trimmed neatly in a buzz cut. His eyes flicked to the side of my head and he touched a finger to the place where my head hurt. I flinched as a lightning bolt of pain stabbed into me, and then his finger came away bloody.

  “It was always your problem, Blake. Always too interested in other people’s business.”

  “I guess neither of us has changed much, Crozier.”

  He blinked. “Don’t call me that.”

  “You prefer the Samaritan now? Is that it?”

  “I prefer nothing. I’m nothing and nobody. You should understand that.”

  I remembered the hands nestled against mine. I assumed they belonged to Kimberley. They felt warm, which was a good sign. I moved my bound hands upward against them to see if I could get a reaction from the owner and winced as sharp plastic scraped my wrists: I guessed he’d used a zip tie. Better news than wire, but only if I could manage to get some space to work with it. That wasn’t going to happen, not with the position he’d tied us in.

  “Kimberley?” I called. “Are you okay?”

  The Samaritan’s lips drew back from his teeth in amusement. “That’s not Kimberley,” he said.

  It took me a second before I realized who was there. “Allen?”

  Silence from behind me. The Samaritan smiled in acknowledgment.

  “She’s still unconscious. Genuinely unconscious, that is. We’ll need to wake her up soon, though.”

  “Where’s Kimberley?”

  My question was met with a strange laugh from the Samaritan. He gave no other response. I decided to keep him talking, since conversation was currently the only tool I had at my disposal. “Why are you doing this?”

  The Samaritan’s features creased in a look of disappointment. “Blake.” The word was an admonishment.

  “Yeah, I know—you live to kill. Very impressive. But why her? What did your sister ever do to you?”

  Now a look of confusion crossed his face, as though the answer was plainly obvious. “She made me the man I am today.”

  I heard movement behind me. Not Allen, who was still unconscious, but someone else. Footsteps. A second before the slight, graceful figure passed into my field of vision, I felt a cold shiver as I realized just how wrong we’d all been.

  “You,” I said simply.

  Kimberley Frank’s face stayed impassive, but her eyes smiled. “My hero,” she said.

  1996

  Dean Crozier made no attempt to chase after the fleeing boy as he stalled in his rush to the staircase. Robbie’s voice was panicked as he pushed against Kimberley, trying to get past her, not understanding yet why she was still blocking his way.

  “What’s going on?” he repeated. “What’s going on? You’re brother’s a fuckin’ psycho. That’s what’s going on.”

  “Oh,” Kimberley said, her brown eyes looking from Robbie to her newfound brother, the brother she’d discovered she had only a couple of weeks before. “Is that all?”

  Robbie looked back at him, then at Kimberley, and then made a bolt for the stairs again. Kimberley was too fast for him. She brought the makeshift hiking stick down hard on the back of his neck.

  Robbie cried out and staggered forward. Crozier moved quickly, getting on top of him with his knee between the boy’s shoulder blades. He put the knife down, yanked Robbie’s hands behind his body, and started wrapping the clothesline tightly around his wrists. Robbie struggled, but though the two boys were only months apart in age, he was no match for Crozier’s strength.

  When he’d finished, he let him drop to the floor again. Kimberley’s eyes were bright, excited. It would be her first time, too, after all. Talking about it, planning it, had been exhilarating, but now it was actually happening.

  Kimberley stepped around Robbie and picked up the Buck knife from the floor. She put her left hand on Crozier’s cheeks and kissed him softly on the lips.

  “Are you ready, brother?”

  84

  I heard the noise of steel singing as it was pulled from a leather sheath, and the blade was in the Samaritan’s hand. The Kris. The wicked, curving blade gleamed in the moonlight through the door like an oversized piece of jewelry.

  Kimberley held her hand out, and the Samaritan gave her the knife, a soft smile on his lips. She crouched down in front of me and stared into my eyes. She touched the point of it to my throat and pressed gently. I felt a sharp prick as it punctured the top layer of my skin. I didn’t give her the satisfaction of wincing, just kept my eyes on hers.

  “Listen to me, Kimberley. You don’t need to do what he says. We can . . .”

  She smiled and shook her head, and I realized I’d gotten this back to front. I replayed the last couple of minutes. The submissiveness in the Samaritan’s body language as he’d handed the knife over. The beatific look in his eyes as he watched his sister holding the blade to my throat. She made me the man I am today.

  “It’s you,” I said. “You’re the Samaritan.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far, Blake,” she said. “It’s both of us. You could call it a family business.”

  M
y eyes flicked over to Crozier. His gaze was fixed on the knife against my throat. I wondered if he was eager to see blood spilled, or worried that he wouldn’t get me to himself.

  I looked back at Kimberley. “The other killings across the country . . .”

  “Can’t take the credit for those. Those were all down to this brother of mine. Quite an endeavor, wasn’t it? And quite a compliment.”

  I looked from Kimberley to her half brother. I’d noticed that Crozier hadn’t uttered a word since Kimberley had begun speaking. An interesting family dynamic.

  She continued. “I had gone a long time without . . . indulging, Blake. More than ten years. And then I received a letter from him. It told me what he’d been doing. How he thought often about when we were kids. He told me to look out for his work, that he’d leave little messages for me that only I could see. He told me one day he’d come back for me. And he kept his promise.”

  I turned away from her, being careful not to move too fast with the point of the knife against my Adam’s apple. I addressed Crozier directly. “I guess she wears the pants in this relationship. It’s encouraging to see, actually. It’s about time the homicidal maniac community embraced gender equality.”

  She looked irritated, but more by the fact that I’d addressed Crozier rather than what I’d said, and opened her mouth to say something. I kept talking to Crozier.

  “So why are you picking victims that look like her here in LA? Maybe some repressed sibling resentment?”

  Crozier smiled and shook his head. “It won’t work, Blake. You can’t make me angry.” He approached and crouched down beside his sister before me. He put a hand on her shoulder and moved his head forward, closing his eyes and smelling her hair. “Those others, they didn’t belong here.”

  Kimberley smiled modestly at him as he said this, as though receiving a romantic compliment from a lover. She looked back at me, her eyes suddenly all business again. “Cut the cop down,” she said, speaking to her brother but still looking at me. “We can take her up to the house first.”