Fuck, Zoller had said. Using the f-word, the vulgar little man. Oh, Ted. Ted, Ted, Ted. Like to fuck the little white-trash whores, do we? Like the dirty little hayseeds? What a filthy little man. And now he was being investigated by the police. Oh such joys, such joys.
When Raymond had reached Rita Liu on the telephone, he’d had to give her a false name and promise her fifteen hundred dollars to get her to meet him at the hotel. But it hadn’t been easy getting her to that point. At first, she’d wanted to know if they had met before. Raymond had said no, they hadn’t, and then she’d wanted to know how he had gotten her home number. He had reminded her that she was in the phone book, and then she’d wanted to know, okay, how had he known her real name? She’d said that he was supposed to contact her through the agency. Raymond had said that a physician friend of his had recommended her but that he was not comfortable revealing the doctor’s name because the man had a wife and family. And by that time, he was sure that she knew he was talking about Zoller. And Raymond had persisted, pleading gently and kindly, and eventually she’d agreed to meet him at twelve thirty, but said that he’d have to be generous with his donation. She hadn’t bothered to use the word gentleman. She had seemed in a bad mood when he called and not much better even after he’d talked her into it. Irritable and tired. But the money had brought her around. It was always money with these types.
Now he took the Kingshighway exit off the interstate. The light was yellow as he approached. Raymond stepped on the accelerator and made the left turn as the light turned red. He heard no horns in protest.
•
In Rita Liu’s apartment at Lindell Towers, a handheld radio squawked.
Hastings answered it.
“George,” Klosterman said, “we lost him.”
“Where?”
“He got off I-64 at Kingshighway and drove through a red light. We were a few car lengths back from him and we got caught at the light. Murph was driving ahead of him—we were doing a front and back—but Murph drove past the exit. We didn’t expect him to get off.”
“Kingshighway—why didn’t he keep going downtown?”
“I don’t know. He’s still in the Ford.”
“Goddammit.”
“I’m sorry, George. What do you want us to do?”
“Go to the hotel. We’ll see you there.” Hastings put the handheld down.
Rita Liu looked at him. She was still in her black cocktail dress. An overcoat on top. She was ready to go the hotel with Hastings. They had been preparing to leave.
She said, “What happened?”
“They lost him.”
“At the hotel? He’s supposed to go to the hotel.”
“I know.”
“You know? You guys lost him. What about your plan?”
“Just cool it, will you?” Hastings said. “Come on, let’s go.”
He walked her out of the apartment. They took the elevator. When the door opened in the lobby, Hastings looked out before letting Rita come out. No one there but the desk clerk. They walked out the front door.
Hastings had parked the Jaguar a block down from the apartment building. It was in a diagonal space in a row of cars separated from Lindell Boulevard by a small grass sitting area. He looked into the backseat of the Jaguar to make sure no one was there, and then he opened the passenger door for the girl. Put her in the car and came back around the back and that was when he saw a black car make a sudden hairpin turn, its headlights catching him in their wide glare. The engine roaring as the car accelerated toward him.
Hastings ran forward, trying to draw the driver away from the Jaguar and the girl inside. The car changed direction with him, pointing at him as it hurtled forward. Hastings ran and jumped on top of the trunk of a Toyota and was about to jump off when the black Ford smashed into the next car and pushed it into the Toyota, and Hastings felt himself flying through the air and then heard more than felt the impact as he hit the next vehicle and slumped to the ground, unconscious.
FORTY-THREE
Rita got out of the Jaguar and ran out to the street. She couldn’t see George. She saw a black car piled into two other cars. Then Raymond Sheffield stepped out of it.
It was him. God, it was him. The man from the Adam’s Mark Hotel and the hospital parking lot. A lunatic. He looked in between the wrecked vehicles, checking on George before he turned and looked at her.
“Come here,” he said.
Rita turned and ran.
“I said come here!”
Rita ran and she heard him come after her. Heard hard footsteps rapping on the street. She tried to run faster, but she was in high-heeled shoes and it was a balancing act. She poured it on to see if it would make it easier, and it did for a little while, but it still wasn’t fast enough. This time she turned around to see the fucker coming after her. He was older and she was in shape, at least three times a week at the gym. She would’ve been faster than he, too, but not in fucking high heels. She gauged the distance and slowed and lifted a leg, and pulled off one shoe as he drew closer, and then she hopped and dropped the other shoe and he was even closer then, but not on top of her. She ran hard, picking up the pace, regaining bit by bit the distance she’d had on him before, but her feet were coming down hard on the concrete. and then she was approaching another street, where there were only a couple of cars approaching. She slowed and waved her arms, but it did no good, one car driving past her and then the other, and now he was gaining on her.
He wasn’t yelling at her anymore, not demanding that she stop, and somehow that made it worse, chasing her the way an animal would, the way a tiger or a panther would, with quiet, cold purpose. Chase her and catch her and pull her down and kill her. And she kept on running and she saw a bus up ahead and it gave her hope, the bus stopped, but then the bus disengaged its brakes and she heard that and the bus started moving ahead and then it was gone and she cried out, anguished, and she was at the enclosed bus stop, a bench with a plastic rain cover on it. No one was sitting there, no one. She looked through the clear Plexiglas and saw him coming, saw that he could see through the glass and see her and what was she doing standing there? What was she doing there waiting to die? And it was an effort for her to stand there as he continued running to the bus stand, coming to the far side of it and running an arc around it, and when he committed himself to the arc, she ran around the other way, back to the apartment building, thinking that if she could just get to the front door, smash her fists on the front door and the desk clerk would see her before the killer could fall on her, but now the distance between them was closer and she was running out of energy and her feet were hurting and she was coming back to the wrecked cars. She looked for George but couldn’t see him. Where was he? Was he alive? Had he been crushed between the cars? And who could say why she ran to him instead of the apartment building, she was tired, God so tired and she went to the place between the cars and there he was, on the ground, a stripe of blood running down his temple.
She crouched next to him, tried to lift his head and shoulders. “George, George . . .”
He would not wake up.
•
He had worried when he saw the bus. He had worried that she would be able to run in front of it, get the driver’s attention. If that happened, the bus driver might stop, and then it would all be over. Unless the driver accidentally ran her over, and that wouldn’t be too bad as long as it killed her, as long as it crushed the little whore. But then he realized that his worries were in vain because the bus pulled away before she even got close. And it was good because she had invested her energy in the bus, gambled on it, and it hadn’t paid off, the bus driving away and leaving her alone.
But then she ran again, the stupid little tramp, but he felt even stronger as he went after her this time. She was faltering now as she ran back up Lindell, and now the fool was going back to the cop, as if he would be able to do anything for her.
Did she think she could hide with him, crouched between the two cars?
<
br /> Raymond thought about what line he would use when he caught her. Give her a little something to think about in her final moments. Something like, “Time’s up.”
He got to the corridor between the cars. Saw the girl crouched next to the dead cop.
Raymond smiled, as the girl looked up at him.
“Hey,” Raymond said and stopped.
The girl had a gun pointed up at him.
Raymond said, “What are you—”
And the girl shot him.
The first bullet struck him in the stomach and he grunted. The girl pulled the trigger again and put one in his chest. Then twice more as he went to the ground.
Rita saw the figure about seven feet away from her. A crumple of a man and the crumple made a stir and Rita fired the last bullet into his head and that was that.
FORTY-FOUR
For most of the night, the area was filled with police vehicles and ambulances. Local media was there as well, their lighting already set up for the earnest correspondents. Already they were reporting that the police had apprehended Springheel Jim, even though the department spokesman was telling them not to jump to conclusions.
Detectives Howard Rhodes and Tim Murphy kept reporters away from Rita Liu. She had given Hastings’s gun to Sergeant Klosterman. She asked Klosterman if she could wait in her apartment and Klosterman told her that she could.
Hastings was on his back on a stretcher in an ambulance. Two paramedics working over him and Klosterman was sitting nearby. It was Klosterman who told Hastings what had happened when Hastings regained consciousness.
Hastings said, “He’s dead?”
“Yeah. She used your gun.”
Hastings felt like a glass bottle had exploded in his head. He had to struggle to concentrate. He said, “But—how could he have walked into that? I mean, he must have known I’d have a weapon on me.”
“I guess he didn’t think of it. Or, more likely, he didn’t think she’d be capable of it. Or maybe he thought she wouldn’t reach it in time.”
“She used all five?”
“Yeah. The last one in the head.”
“Always good to be sure,” Hastings said. “Where is she now?”
“In her apartment. I told her you were going to be okay.” Klosterman smiled. “She calls you George. ‘How’s George? Is George going to be okay? What about George?’ Did you two become friends?”
“Shut up . . . God, I remember hearing something, shots, I guess, but beyond that . . . nothing. I guess I fucked up.”
“No, you didn’t. We did. We shouldn’t have lost him at the light. I’m sorry, George.”
“Forget it.”
“Listen, the band’s all here. Wulf, Captain Combrink. The chief and deputy chief, all of the big brass.”
“So they think we got the right guy?”
“Well, don’t you?”
“I have no doubt. But I want them to know it too.”
“Well, don’t worry. Escobar called from County PD. They searched Sheffield’s house and found Marla Hilsheimer’s bracelet and Adele Sayers’s earring. They were in his desk drawer. I guess he never thought he’d be caught. I’m sure there’ll be additional confirmation.”
“Good.”
“Also, we found a leather strap in his car. It might have been part of a whip. Or a dog leash. Planning to use it on her, I guess.”
Hastings said, “He didn’t know her.”
FORTY-FIVE
They kept Hastings at the hospital overnight for observation. He awoke at ten A.M. and was out the door by ten thirty. He met his ex-wife and daughter for lunch at Hershel’s and told them that he was okay but didn’t want to talk about the case or anything they had seen on the news. The lunch was quiet and surprisingly free of drama.
When they finished, Amy came over to his side of the booth and took his arm when he stepped out. She must’ve noticed the stiffness in his walk when he got to the restaurant. He steadied himself on her shoulder and she looked up at him and said, “He was a bad man, wasn’t he?”
Hastings didn’t like it when she read about murders in the newspapers. But she had a curious nature and she was too old for him to stop her.
“Yeah, honey,” he said. “He was a very bad man.”
•
After lunch, Klosterman drove him to his car, which was still parked by the Lindell Towers. The wrecked vehicles had been removed. There was no damage to the Jaguar.
Klosterman said, “George, don’t come to the station today. Go home. Take a couple days rest.”
Hastings said, “You asking me or telling me?”
“Telling you. Anne wants you and Amy to come over Sunday for dinner. Can you make it?”
“I think so. I’ll call you.”
He watched Klosterman drive away.
He looked around the area before he got in his car, trying to picture what had happened there only thirteen or so hours before. Dark, now light. Then he stopped, deciding it was better to put it behind him.
The Jag started on the first turn of the key.
•
That night, Carol brought him dinner. Over Chinese takeout, he told her most of it, or as much as he felt he should. At times she covered her mouth, but she didn’t cry.
She said, “The papers say he was a doctor. He worked at an ER.”
“That’s right.”
“These serial killers, aren’t they usually sort of . . .”
“Losers? Yeah, typically. As typical as any serial killer can be. I don’t know. He was educated. I think he might have even been a good doctor. But he was no genius.”
“Because he fell for your trap?”
“My trap pretty much blew up in my face,” Hastings said. “No, it’s not so much that. He went for the bait, but he could have passed it by, and maybe we would have never been able to catch him. He came after Rita when he knew she would have access to a gun. My gun. If he didn’t know, he should have known. I don’t think that’s the act of an evil genius.”
“He wanted to kill her,” Carol said. “Isn’t that the mark of most lunatics? They want to kill even when it doesn’t make sense to kill?”
Hastings said, “He wasn’t a lunatic. He was a man who enjoyed doing wicked things. And he hated women.”
Carol smiled, giving in. She didn’t want to have that argument again, or at least not until he was up for it. She said, “The conversation you had with him, the one-on-one, did it—did it creep you out?”
“I guess so. I was scared of him. But I’m scared of any murderer. But no, it wasn’t like I could look in his eyes and see evil. He wasn’t that obvious. He was pretty arrogant, very full of himself. But you could say that of most doctors.”
“Or homicide detectives.”
“Or lawyers.” Hastings smiled. “What he seemed like was a jerk. I couldn’t read serial killer in him. It’d be nice to have that ability.”
“I don’t think so.”
Carol McGuire regarded Hastings. She was a perceptive, sensitive woman and she knew there were times when he wanted to be alone. She said, “I can stay over tonight, if you want me to. If you’d like to be alone, that’s okay too.”
After a moment, he said, “I think I’d like to be alone tonight. Get to bed early. Can we meet for coffee tomorrow morning?”
“Sure.”
FORTY-SIX
Rita answered the door in a pair of sweats and a white V-neck undershirt. She wore no makeup. Her hair was down and damp from a recent shower.
Hastings thought of the first time he’d met her. Her hair pulled back in a ponytail. He had thought she looked plain then, like a college student. He didn’t see her that way anymore.
Rita said, “Hey.”
“Hi.”
“Come in. Please.” He followed her into the apartment and she said, “Would you like something to drink? I don’t have any tea.”
“No. Nothing, thank you.”
She went around the corner.
Hastings looked at the daybe
d. Saw clothes folded and luggage packed. He looked around the apartment. “Are you moving?”
He heard her voice from the kitchen. “Yeah, I think so.”
He walked to the kitchen doorway and looked in. She was standing in front of the sink, washing glasses.
Rita said, “Maybe you’ve heard. I’ve become famous.”
Hastings had seen it in the morning paper at the coffee shop and read it after Carol had left. On the cover of the St. Louis Herald: CALL GIRL KILLS SPRINGHEEL JIM. Her photo in a black dress and overcoat, near the front of Lindell Towers.
Hastings said, “I saw it in the paper. And on the news. I’m sorry.”
She shrugged and kept her focus on the kitchen sink. “What are you sorry for? I’m the most popular girl at school.”
“That’s why you’re leaving?”
She turned and gave him a look. “What do you think?”
“I think you’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I see. Is that what you came here to tell me?”
“I came here to thank you. For helping us and for, well, for saving my life. And to tell you I’m sorry.”
“You already said you were sorry.” She turned off the taps. “It’s like you told me the other night—you use what you can.”
“Yeah, I said that. And the truth is, I’d probably do it again. Well, I mean, I’d probably try to do it better.”
She smiled at him. “Yeah, I would hope so.”
For a few moments neither of them said anything.
Then she relaxed and said, “Oh, what the hell. I wanted to get out of St. Louis anyway. It’s an okay town, but it’s not for me.”
“Where will you go?”
“Chicago. I’ve got friends there and I can finish school there too. Start over.” She looked around the place. “You know, I’ll miss this apartment, though.”
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