“Danny,” Nicola interjected. “His name is, Danny, although I don’t see what business is of yours!”
“Whatever,” he said, dismissively. “Anyway I watched him load the luggage into the car while you dropped an envelope into your neighbor’s mailbox. When you drove off, I retrieved the envelope and opened it. Imagine my surprise when I found the note describing where you hid your spare house key.”
Nicola was shocked.
“So, I let myself into the house and found the love letters and emails you’d printed up giving details of your trip and reservation at the Comfort Inn in Philadelphia.
“I was surprised you were going to Philly and wondered what you were up to so I went back to the Holiday Inn, grabbed my things, and was on the next flight to Philadelphia.” He laughed.
Nicola was shocked. “You followed me to Philadelphia? Why?”
“Not just to Philly. I followed you all over the countryside. A couple of times I thought you knew I was there so I changed the rental cars so you wouldn’t spot them every couple of days when you stopped for the night.”
Nicola was shocked. “So that was you I saw! All those cars I thought were following us -was you!” Her legs suddenly felt like jelly. She leaned against the bedside table to steady herself.
“When I was in the Perkins Restaurant outside Port Jervis and lover-boy walked past I thought he was going to see me sitting in the booth behind a group of bikers but then I realized he didn’t know who I was, so I pretended to be reading the newspaper and he walked right past without giving me a second glance.”
“Where did you get the money from, Steven? The last time I saw you you were broke. And you owed a lot of money to a lot of people. I remember your mother refused to help unless you got a job and started acting responsibly.”
“Yeah, well, she died and left me a shit-load of money. After all, who else did she have to leave it too?” Bitterness bled from his words.
Nicola was saddened to hear this. She liked Steven’s mother.
“What do you want from me, Steven? Just tell me what you want and get out,” she said trying to keep her anger under control and not provoke him.
“I just want us to try again, Nicci. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. I still love you. I’ve never stopped loving you. Now that your boyfriend has gone back to wherever it was he came from there’s nothing to stop us from trying again and now that I’ve got my mother’s money, things will be different. We could go on a second honeymoon. Or we could buy a yacht and sail around the world. We could live anywhere you want; Paris, London, New York.”
Even though his words enraged her, she tried to stay calm.
“It’s over, Steven. There’s nothing between us anymore. Now, would you please just go?”
Steven shook his head and started towards her. As he got closer she could help noticing the welts etched into the shadowy stubble on his beard. When she saw the faint red outline of healing marks on the backs of his hands Nicola remembered all the newspaper headlines and television reports that seemed to follow them as they traveled across the eastern states. She felt the blood drain from her face.
“My God, Steven, what have you done?”
“It was your fault. You made me do it, you and that boyfriend of yours. What did you expect me to do, sit back and let him take you from me without a fight?” His temper, raging out of control brought back frightening memories of his violent past.
Nicola knew she had to get away. As she made a run for the door, Steven tried to grab hold of her, but she was too quick. Nicola shoved him with all the strength she could muster. Steven lost his balance and stumbled against the small table by the door. By the time he’d gained his balance, she was gone.
Nicola raced through the redwoods in the back garden to Sam’s house and pounded on the door. Even though the house was in darkness she kept pounding, calling out as loud as she could in the hope that someone would hear her.
“Sam, Sam, help me. Oh God. Someone help me.” Nicola screamed. She heard footsteps behind her and saw Steven coming through the garden his face distorted with rage.
Nicola ran through the trees to the Dipsea steps and took them two at a time. She could hear Steven pushing through the dense undergrowth behind her and quickened the pace. But the heavy rain caused her bare, bleeding feet to lose purchase on the slippery steps as water cascaded over them in a miniature waterfall. She stumbled and slid down several steps then righted herself and grabbed hold of the rail. Nicola glanced behind and saw Steven stumbling in the dark on the unfamiliar terrain, his sneakers getting a firmer hold than her bare feet.
When she reached the bottom of the stairs she raced across Cascade Drive and over the wooden bridge, seeking refuge in the darkness of Old Mill Park. Her heart pounded, her lungs felt like they were going to explode. She tried to scream–but nothing came out. Nicola ran through the park, tripped on a tree stump, and fell face down in the mud.
Steven came up behind and tried to grab hold of her but she slipped out of his grasp and ran into a grove of Redwoods where she was knocked to the ground by a startled deer.
Breathless, Nicola tried to scream as Steven grabbed hold of her. She tried to fight him off but he was too strong. In the struggle, Steven lost his cap. As a lone car drove along the road at the top of the hill, their fleeting images were caught in the flicker of headlights, but it was too far away for her screams to be heard over the noise of the storm.
Nicola looked up, confused by the color of hair. It was dyed the same blond-color as Danny’s. Except for the color of his eyes and the dark stubble on his face she realized how like Danny he looked, dressed in black jeans and T-shirt.
Steven saw the bewildered look on her face, and sneered. “Anyone who saw me enter your house tonight will think it was lover- boy returning,” he said with a cruel edge to his words.
Nicola wrenched her arms free and struggled out of his grasp. Steven grabbed hold of her blouse and pulled her towards him. Nicola twisted and turned but couldn’t break loose. Her nails raked his hand, drawing blood.
Steven grabbed her arm in a vice-like grip and twisted it up behind her with such force Nicola thought it would break. She bit his other arm sinking her teeth in hard. Steven howled in pain and wrenched free as the bitter metallic taste of blood filled her mouth.
“Bitch!” His fist connected hard with her face sending Nicola spinning in a daze. Steven rubbed his arm and wiped the blood down the leg of his jeans.
“You fucking bitch, you bit my arm!” Steven’s face was distorted with rage as his fist connected to her face.
Nicola fell to her knees and tried to crawl away, but, by now, Steven had lost all control. He grabbed her by the hair, pulled her to her feet and punched her over and over again. When he let go, she fell to the ground, barely conscious. Nicola curled herself up into a ball and tried to ward off the blows.
“Please Steven, don’t do this,” she sobbed. She could feel the blood pouring from her nose and mouth. She wiped the back of her hand across her face and wiped it down the front of her jeans where it left red streaks, a stark contrast to the white fabric. A glaring testament to the violence so brutally visited upon her.
Nicola looked up at Steven standing over her and saw the look of hatred in his eyes and she understood the awful truth that finally hit home. “You were the one who killed all those women weren’t you?”
Steven shrugged. “Yeah, that was me.”
“But why, Steven, I don’t understand?”
He crouched down in the mud in front of her, his eyes filled with hatred and rage.
“Every time I thought about you making love to him it drove me insane. You’re all the same. You lead a man on then bleed him dry–emotionally and financially–until he can’t take it anymore.”
“I watched you with him and saw you loving him the way you used to love me and it tore me apart. I wanted you to love me like that again,” Steven sobbed. He took her hands in his, his anguished cries imploring her to see rea
son. “Please Nicci, can’t we just go back to the way we were. We used to be happy didn’t we? Now that he’s gone we could be happy again.” Steven put his hands out to her, pleading. “I love you Nicci, I’ve never stopped loving you.” Then he pulled something out of his pocket and held it out to her.
“Do you remember this?” he asked.
Nicola squinted at the object glinting in a pale shaft of light, momentarily confused. “Is that my locket? Where did you get it?”
Steven caressed the tiny gold locket hanging from the fine gold chain. “Do you remember when I gave it to you for your twentieth birthday?”
Nicola nodded. “I remember. Where did you get it? I thought I’d lost it?”
“I took it when I left. I’ve carried it around with me all these years hoping some day I would put it around your neck again.” He reached out and touched her face tenderly where he had done the most damage.
“I’m so sorry, Nicci I didn’t mean to hurt you, but you forced me to do it.”
Nicola scrambled backwards, her feet trying to find purchase in the mud. She knew this was not the same man she had married; the man who had given her the gold locket with so much tenderness and love.
“No, Steven. It can never be like that again. Nothing will ever be the same. It’s over between us.” Nicola was breathing hard, not just from exhaustion but from pain and fear. As her nose started to swell, her breath became more labored as blood dripped down the back of her throat and made her gag.
Nicola was the only woman he had ever loved. Everything he did he did for her–why couldn’t she see that. “Then if I can’t have you, no one else can.” His words were filled with spite and jealousy.
Steven grabbed Nicola and pulled her to him, his anger rising, his eyes filled with hatred were as piercing as the arctic winds. It was then that Nicola saw the knife in his hand and tried to break free from his grip.
“Oh God, Steven I beg you, don’t do this.” But Steven was past the point of no return, his anger and hate overpowered all reason.
Nicola hugged her stomach trying to protect Danny’s baby. “Don’t Steven. Please, I’m pregnant. Please don’t hurt the baby.” Her anguished cries were carried off on the wind.
Steven stopped and looked down at the figure huddled on the ground at his feet.
“Pregnant!” he screamed. “You’re carrying his baby? How could you Nicola? This child should have been ours.” He kicked her hard in the stomach–and then kicked her again. The gold chain slipped from his fingers and fell to the ground.
Steven looked at the barely conscious figure covered in blood and mud, and said, “No more betrayal, Nicola. No more.” He leaned down and stabbed her in the throat and as her life blood drained out, she struggled to rise. The end seemed inevitable now.
As he drew the knife swiftly across her throat the moral light in his eyes went out and he took on the look of a haunted lost soul who had given up all hope of redemption.
Steven stood for a moment looking down at the woman he once loved and felt nothing. As he turned to walk away he spied a thread of gold glinting in the mud. He lifted his foot and bought it down hard on the locket that had carried his hopes for so many years, and ground it into the mud till the links of the chain snapped and the small locket where he’d replaced his photograph with a photo of Nicola, shattered.
Steven walked away without a backwards glance.
As darkness closed in around her, Nicola’s last thoughts were of Danny, and their baby, and the promise she was unable to keep.
A deer in the undergrowth startled and looked up, its eyes bright ready to run at the first sign of danger. But as the rain eased, the woods became quiet and the deer sensed the moment of danger had passed. It nibbled at the succulent new shoots that grew beside the swift moving water that wound its way through Old Mill Park.
*****
Article in the San Francisco Chronicle dated December, 5th 2007
MILL VALLEY KILLER CAUGHT
A man has been arrested in connection with the brutal murder of a thirty-seven year old San Franciscan woman, Nicola Madison whose mutilated body was found by early morning walkers in a grove of redwoods in Old Mill Park, not far from her home in the Marin County suburb of Mill Valley, last October.
The suspect, Daniel Richards, aged forty-four, last seen in the company of Ms. Madison on the night of her murder, was arrested at his beachside home in Sydney, Australia after an intense investigation revealed that he had spent several weeks traveling the eastern states with Ms. Madison and left the country around the time of her murder.
The FBI have been issued with an extradition warrant to have Mr. Richards brought back to San Francisco where he will be questioned in connection with the murder of Ms. Madison.
The FBI are also investigating the disappearance and possible murder of several women reported missing in towns the suspect and Ms. Madison are believed to have visited during their recent trip across the eastern states.
Authorities are also looking at possible links to the badly decomposed, mutilated body of an as yet unidentified woman whose body was found after recent heavy rain by a bushwalker on a little used path in the redwood forest above Cascade Falls, not far from where the body of Ms. Madison was found.
Sources suggest that the body may have been ravaged by animals in the area and could have been there for several months before being discovered. As no one has come forward to identify the body, Marin County Police think she may have been a hitch-hiker or possibly a prostitute.
Police are waiting for the results of DNA evidence linking the body to that of Amelia Hill whose blood-spattered car was found abandoned last September in the Manzanita parking lot, off Highway 101, near the Mill Valley turn-off.
So far no link has been found between Ms. Hill and the suspect, however, the description does fit that of witnesses who saw them together the night she disappeared.
* * *
Steven dropped the newspaper on the table and sat back in the chair, his mind trying to absorb what he had just read. He picked up the paper and read the article again, as if to confirm his eyes were not lying. He sat motionless, his mind in a whirl of confusion while he waited for the words to sink in. Steven picked up the newspaper and read the article once more, making sure he hadn’t missed anything on the first two readings. When he read the last word he sat back, stunned, and as reality dawned on him he knew he had gotten away with it. He propelled himself into the air and raised his fist in a sign of victory as he let out a joyous whoop, hit the remote on his large screen plasma television and an image morphed onto the screen. He grabbed a beer from the refrigerator and sat down to enjoy the game on the screen.
*****
“You didn’t tell me Nicola was pregnant.”
“It was a last minute thing.”
“You could have at least discussed it with me first.”
I shrugged. “Not even Danny knew.”
She pulled meditatively at her lip.
“I suppose that’s it then. She really is dead isn’t she? You have finally killed her?” she asked, still not completely convinced.
I nodded. “Well, not me personally–but yes, this time Nicola has gone for good.”
“Now, Bubbie, that’s not exactly true. After all you did create the monster that slew her.”
“I suppose… if you want to put it that way.”
“I do. Shame, though, I really liked her.”
“So did I.”
“Then why did you kill her? Why couldn’t you have had a happy ending like all good stories where they ride off into the sunset together?”
“Too predictable. That’s what everyone expects. I was hoping for a little more of the, how shall I put it, shock element? The… Oh My God, I wasn’t expecting that– kind of reaction. It’s so much better than all those romantic, warm, fuzzy-wuzzy, feel good endings Mills and Boon like to put out. Life’s not like that. In real life you don’t always get the ending you want.”
Rosie shrug
ged, “I suppose there’s no chance of resurrecting them then? You know–a sequel.”
“Nope, none whatsoever. Not with those characters.”
“Danny possibly?”
“Would we really want to go down that path again?”
Rosie grinned. “I would.”
“Yeah, but you’re just a hopeless romantic. Besides, we’ve still got to get this book on the shelves.”
“You never did tell me the name of the story?”
“I thought I’d call it Murder in Mill Valley.”
“What about Murder Across America?”
“No. I think I’ll just stick with Murder in Mill Valley–it has more of an ominous sound to it.”
“Doubt the local Mill Vallians would think of it that way.”
“Can’t be helped.”
“Folks ‘round here might think it’s about the murders committed on Mount Tam in the late seventies.”
“Let them think what they like, it’s all copacetic anyway, my little turtle dove. If it sells books I’m all for it.”
Rosie thought for a moment and then said, “Did Steven get caught?”
“Not in the true sense of the word.”
“What do you mean?”
“I hope you’re ready for it.”
*****
Eighteen months later the remains of a body was found in Death Valley approximately fifty miles from the Nevada State Border. Because the bones, bleached by the sun, had been scattered over a large area it was determined, by the authorities, the most likely cause would be animals, coyotes in particular. Most of the skeletal remains have not been recovered, and only a small section of the skull making forensic reconstruction impossible. Both hands were missing.
An autopsy determined that the victim was male, approximately thirty-five to forty years old, whose throat had been cut with such rage the head was almost detached from the body. The original burial site has never been found.
To date, no arrest has been made in connection with the murder. And the body has not been identified.
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