The Samaritan

by Cross, Mason

  His throat made a horrible gurgling sound, and his eyes rolled white, and then, only then, did his hands relax. I pushed his body to the ground. As I wiped the blood off my hands, I remembered that there was no time to rest. It might already be too late to save Allen.

  The night air was cool on my skin as I tumbled through the door of the barn. I could see lamplight burning in the attic room of the house. The screaming had stopped, but I could hear low voices emanating from the glassless window. A one-sided conversation. Kimberley was taking a break, perhaps selecting a new tool.

  Ignoring the sharp lances of pain that dug into my ankle with every other step, I ran for the door and found it open. I was on the second stair when I heard the first gunshot from above.

  87

  I froze on the stairs at the sound of the first shot. I gripped the handrail at the sound of the second. Two shots so close together that they almost had to be into a single target.

  Allen. I was too late. Kimberley had killed her.

  My mind raced to process the new information. It didn’t make sense. They liked to torture their victims, make them suffer. Crozier and his sister had wanted me to listen and be powerless to do anything before it was my turn. Even if Kimberley had decided to put her out of her misery, she wouldn’t have used a gun. I got the feeling the final killing stroke was Kimberley’s job, and I didn’t believe she’d pass that up for any reason.

  The next sound told me she hadn’t. I heard a gasp and the sound of faltering footsteps. Kimberley appeared at the top of the stairs, a long, thin knife coated with blood in her hands. I tensed to defend myself, but then I saw there was no need. A trickle of blood ran down from a hole in the center of her forehead, as though someone had turned on a faucet. Her eyes rolled in her head and she crumpled to the floor, her head tilted back over the stairs. Her eyes stared down at me from there, dead. It was then that I noticed there was blood coming from underneath her too, from her abdomen.

  I inched up the stairs toward her, keeping my head down but angling myself so I could see into the room. The first thing I saw was Allen. Her shirt had been stripped off. She was hanging from the manacles I’d seen earlier on. Her upper body was bloodied by a number of cuts. It was impossible to tell how many there were because the bleeding was so profuse. She wasn’t looking at me. She was staring at something or someone out of my line of sight. I took another couple of steps up so that I could see most of the second floor.

  The person who’d executed Kimberley was standing a couple of steps back from the stairs, facing Allen, not looking in my direction. He held the gun that had killed Kimberley in his right hand. He looked very calm, in good shape. Mid-twenties, solid build, around five eleven. He had an almost preppy air about him: short dark hair, thin-frame glasses, jeans, and a black tennis shirt. He looked like a junior doctor on a weekend break in the country.

  Allen hadn’t noticed me either. Her eyes were fixed on her apparent savior. I guessed he’d been drawn to the house by her screams.

  “Thank you,” Allen said, sounding out of breath. “How did you—?”

  The man in the glasses said nothing. Then he raised his gun again and pointed it at Allen’s head.

  88

  “Stop,” I said, stepping up the last stairs and fully into the attic room.

  The man’s head swiveled back to me. His gun stayed on Allen. His brown eyes blinked behind the lenses, dispassionately assessing the change to the dynamic of the situation.

  “Carter Blake, isn’t it?” he said.

  “Do I know you?”

  “No. You were before my time.”

  I looked down at Kimberley’s body and the position of the bullet holes. One dead center at the breastbone, one between the eyes to finish the job. Professional.

  “Winterlong,” I said.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “How’s Drakakis?”

  He blinked again. “Not here anymore. Where’s Crozier?”

  “Dead. In the barn.” I gestured toward Allen. “We’re just leaving.”

  He kept his gun on her, shook his head briefly. “This is a deep clean. No witnesses.”

  I glanced at Allen. She glanced at me and then back to the man with the gun. “Who the hell is this guy, Blake?”

  I didn’t answer and took a step toward the man in glasses. He didn’t react, so I took another and another until we were five feet apart.

  “Don’t come any closer.”

  “If you pull that trigger, you die next,” I said, flexing my bloodied hands.

  His eyes dropped to my hands and back up my blood-soaked upper body, all the way to my face. “I don’t see a gun.”

  “I won’t need one.”

  “I’m the one with the gun.”

  “You’ve heard about me,” I said. “You know you can’t kill me.”

  “Maybe things have changed.”

  “Maybe.”

  We stood there for a minute, watching each other. I decided to help him make the decision. “The cops are coming. You don’t have time for this. She doesn’t know anything, anyway.”

  He took his time, kept the gun on Allen and his eyes on me. And then he raised the gun and clicked the safety back on. He walked back toward the stairs, eyes on me the whole time. I half expected some kind of parting shot, like “This isn’t over” or “Be seeing you,” but none was forthcoming. The brown eyes behind the glasses adhered to me until he reached the stairs, and then he was gone.

  I walked across the room, glancing back at Kimberley’s body. The blood coming from the exit wound underneath her was pooling and seeping into the floorboards, adding a fresh coat to the other patches of dried gore. I took my jacket off and hung it on Allen’s shoulders. She kept her eyes shut tight, flinching when my hands touched her.

  “It’s over now,” I said quietly.

  89

  Once I’d cut Allen down, I examined her wounds. She needed medical attention—there was no doubt about that—but she’d live. The cuts were superficial, calculated to inflict pain and blood loss rather than mortal injury. The Samaritan and his sister had liked to take their time. I found my gun and Allen’s on the table beside the rest of the knives and tools, along with a cell phone that I guessed was Crozier’s.

  I took a second to open the photo album and immediately regretted it. Hundreds of pictures of the Samaritan’s victims. Males, females, all ages, multiple races. Alive, dead, wishing they were dead. I was no stranger to death, but this went beyond even my experience. Steeling myself, I leafed to the back and found the most recent pictures. Boden, Burnett, and Morrow. Kimberley was in some of these ones, taking part in the torture with a zealous glint in her eyes. I remembered the urgency in her voice the first time I’d gone near the book and realized why she’d stopped me.

  “What is it?” Allen called.

  I swallowed and closed the cover of the album, knowing that some of those images were burned into me for good. I walked back over to Allen and helped her toward the stairs. We stepped across Kimberley’s body and descended to the ground level, emerging into the fresh night air.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  Allen was shivering, but she nodded. “Where’s Mazzucco?”

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry.”

  She didn’t blink, just asked, “Where?”

  I pointed in the direction of the barn. Part of me thought I should tell her to stay put, that she was in no condition for this, but the look on her face gave me second thoughts.

  I followed her across to the barn, a few paces behind, and let her go in by herself. A couple of minutes later, she appeared at the doorway again. My jacket was no longer around her shoulders, and I knew she’d draped it over Mazzucco’s face.

  She didn’t look at me at first, just took a deep breath and looked back at the make-believe house with its single lit window.

  “You mind explaining to me what the hell just happened, Blake?”

  “We got it wrong. Kimberley wasn’t the
target. He was killing those women as a tribute to her. She was helping him. I think she probably helped him kill his family, too.”

  “So she was the reason he came back to LA, just not in the way we thought.”

  “There’s always something you don’t know,” I said.

  “What about the guy with the gun? Was he from . . . before?”

  I nodded. “They don’t like people drawing attention to them. If Crozier had been caught alive . . .”

  “Unwanted attention. I get it. What about his prints?”

  “That ship’s sailed, remember? They already ran the ones from the house. This is damage limitation.”

  She nodded. “Thank you, by the way.”

  I didn’t say anything. All things considered, I didn’t think Allen should be thanking me for anything.

  She leaned back against the barn and closed her eyes. She held her hand out. “Give me the phone.” I handed it to her. She turned away from me and made the call. When she was done, she turned back to me. “They’ll be here soon. You should go.”

  I looked her up and down. She looked reasonably okay. She was one tough customer. But still . . .

  Seeing my hesitation, she raised her voice and yelled, “Go! If you’re here when they get here, I can’t protect you.”

  Reluctantly, I nodded and left her standing by the barn, waiting for the cavalry.

  I walked quickly in the opposite direction from the road. Going back to where I’d left the Camaro was out of the question, even if the cops weren’t en route. I pictured the map of the area, remembering that there was a road roughly five miles west, across country. I oriented myself with the stars—you could actually see them up here—and started walking. An hour and change later, I came upon the road I’d been looking for.

  I stepped off the dirt and onto the asphalt and started walking east. If I remembered the map rightly, I would hit the northwestern edge of Los Angeles in another ten miles. Once I got there, I could find a bus station and put as many miles between myself and LA as possible. But for now, it was a clear, crisp night: a good night for walking. I would reach my destination in three hours or so. Unless, that was, some Good Samaritan stopped to offer me a ride along the way.

  TWO WEEKS LATER

  Another day, another cemetery.

  I watched the burial from a distance, from a bench close to the perimeter fence. A small group had come to see Kelly Boden committed to the earth beneath a perfect blue California sky. Her father, some extended family members, Sarah Dutton, and two young men in black suits who I guessed were the boyfriends of Sarah and Kelly. And Allen. It hadn’t been that long since the night at the Samaritan’s house, and I thought she’d probably flouted doctor’s orders to be here. It didn’t surprise me in the least.

  As I was thinking this, she happened to turn her head in my direction. She spotted me, held her eyes on me for a moment, and then turned back to the service. It was a little eerie, the timing of it, as though she’d picked up a telepathic signal from me or something.

  I looked on as the minister said a few words, his Bible open in front of him. I was too far away to hear exactly what he was saying, but I’d attended enough funerals that I could probably recite the words myself.

  Finally, the two boyfriends and the father and one of the other male relatives took up an end of rope each, and slowly lowered the coffin into the grave. A real grave this time. I didn’t know how much these things mattered to you once you were dead, but it had to be better than an unmarked hole in the Santa Monica Mountains.

  The small crowd began to disperse, breaking off in different directions to the various gates. Allen lingered behind, talking to Richard Boden. They spoke for a few minutes, and at the end, he reached around Allen and gave her a brief hug. They shook hands and Boden walked away to join the rest of the mourners.

  Allen turned to look at me again, seemed to think something over, and then started to walk up the hill to where I was sitting.

  “I didn’t think I’d see you again,” she said. “Didn’t think you were the sticking-around type.”

  She sat down beside me and we looked down the hill at the fresh grave.

  “I’m not,” I said. “But I wanted to check in on you, see how you were. The hospital wasn’t an option, but I figured you’d show up here.”

  “You really are good at finding people who don’t want to be found.”

  “I guess I deserved that.”

  She turned to me, head angled in mild apology. “Sorry, Blake. None of this was your fault. And I’m fine . . . thanks to you.”

  I could see the end of a partially healed scar on the side of her neck, protruding above her shirt collar. She touched a hand to it, and her eyes flashed with an irritation that reassured me ten times more than her words. “Don’t look at me like that, Blake. I’m not a freaking basket case.”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  She sighed, loosened her posture a little. “Okay, the dreams aren’t great.”

  “That’ll happen.”

  “It’ll get better in time though, I think,” she said. “It helps to know it’s really over. That they’re both dead.”

  “I’m sorry about Mazzucco.”

  “Me too. He and his wife have a baby, you know. A little girl.”

  I didn’t say anything. There didn’t seem to be anything to say. The ripples of devastation caused by Crozier’s madness seemed to keep on spreading. I knew they’d be felt for a long time yet.

  “Boden wants to thank you.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “Nothing too specific; don’t worry. But more than I told anybody else. You’re still technically wanted for questioning.”

  I nodded. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  I knew the LAPD and the FBI would still want to speak to me if they could, but there was no longer any kind of active manhunt. The evidence at the house was more than enough to prove that the murders had all been committed by Crozier: acting alone at first and latterly with his half sister.

  Allen sighed. “Give them a week and they’ll get over it. The LAPD just cleared six murders. Nine, including the ninety-seven case. The feds will be closing cold cases across the country for the next couple of years. Nobody’s shedding any tears for Crozier and his sister. The case is a slam dunk; no need to overcomplicate the narrative.”

  I smiled. Allen was probably right about the cops and even the feds. I was a loose end, but not one that would trouble them for long, not with the Samaritan finally out of action. But there were other people who would be wondering about me. People who weren’t so easily satisfied.

  The press coverage surrounding the whole case was predictably intense. The official story was that there had been some sort of records glitch in Afghanistan, which explained how Dean Crozier had apparently risen from the dead. I wondered if that was guesswork by the authorities, or the official story that had come down from on high. It didn’t matter either way, just a plausible explanation for something that would never be publicly explained.

  No one would ever know exactly where Crozier had gone when he came back to America. The only traces he left in those early months and years were the bodies that had sometimes waited years to be discovered. What was clear was that he’d returned to Los Angeles eighteen months ago. He’d set up the identity of Eddie Smith to give himself a cover, to let him get to know the city and its law enforcers again. All the while, he’d made brief trips to other parts of the nation, staying a week or two, killing with impunity, and then returning to LA, unsuspected.

  I corrected Allen on one point. “The LAPD didn’t clear those murders, Allen. You did. You kept focused; you found the murder house. It was excellent police work. Next time any of them gives you any shit, you remind them of that.”

  “That I fixed the Samaritan, huh?” She smiled.

  She held out a hand, and I took it in my own and shook it.

  “Good working with you, Detective.”

  “Likewise. Maybe we’ll do
this again sometime.”

  “For your sake, I hope not.”

  She smiled again and stood up. I watched as she walked back down the hill and toward the main cemetery gate without a backward glance.

  I waited there a while longer, feeling the sun on my face and thinking about dreams. About scars and about the past: the things you carried with you, no matter how far you tried to run.

  In time, the shadows lengthened and one of the cemetery workers appeared by Kelly Boden’s grave and started to shovel the displaced earth from the pile back on top of the coffin. He moved with practiced ease. The job would be complete soon, and the new grave would begin to blend in with all of the others. But I would be long gone by that time.

  Acknowledgements

  Laura Morrison gets top billing this time for giving me the space, encouragement and occasional threats necessary to write. I’d like to thank Jemima Forrester for being a fantastic editor and because everything she suggests is an improvement. Luigi Bonomi for being an agent par excellence, and always being ready with encouragement and helpful suggestions. Alison Bonomi for finding somebody who did want to be found. Thomas Stofer for some incredibly fast and insightful feedback on the first draft, and for telling me something about one of my characters that they’d been keeping secret from me. Ava, Scarlett and Max (aka Oliver) for forcing me to be extremely efficient with my writing time. Graeme Williams, Angela McMahon, Jo Gledhill, David Young, Andrew Taylor, Alex Young and everyone at Orion for being generally amazing – you’ve probably given me an unrealistically rosy view of the publishing world. Caron Macpherson, Craig Robertson, Alexandra Sokoloff, Douglas Skelton, Michael Malone, and the rest of the Glasgow criminal underworld. Mary Hays and James Stansfield for reading all my stuff before the bad bits get fixed. Heidi, for introducing me to LA. All of the bloggers, reviewers, readers, booksellers and librarians who liked The Killing Season and told people about it – I hope you like this one as much.