by Julie Kramer
I grabbed a marker and started a new suspect board, with a new list of clues.
SUSPECT/DR. BRENT REDDING
NIEMCZYK CONFERENCE SPEAKER
Seems like the kind of thing Redding might have mentioned during our nighttime stroll around the lake. Unless he had something to hide.
What did I know about the Susan killer? The date November 19 is significant to him. The name Susan is also significant.
And I realized Dr. Redding was someone whose life had changed forever on November 19. And to whom the name Susan meant something very special.
I added those clues to Redding’s suspect board.
NOVEMBER 19 SIGNIFICANT
SUSAN NAME SIGNIFICANT
Next I wrote CHENOWITH/MORENO ALIBI? because I realized that after the presence of Susan Redding’s DNA had confirmed Dusty’s guilt, Redding’s whereabouts for his own wife’s murder no longer took him out of the suspect mix for the other homicides.
Susan Redding’s murder might be related after all. Perhaps the case did start with her, but in a manner I had never envisioned. Perhaps her death had triggered an annual chain reaction of violence.
Then I scanned the rest of my notes, pausing at the 1993 Susan gap—no body found. I tried to remember if that was the year that Redding had claimed to have checked into a clinic…was it to avoid killing himself, or to avoid killing another Susan?
I recollected his intense interest as he had reached for the Susan necklace I wore. His fingers inches from my neck. Maybe he wondered if I was now playing a game with him. More than victory might be at stake. If that was the case, I needed backup.
I set pride aside and dialed Noreen.
“Why are you telling me this?” she said. “You don’t work here anymore. So stop trying to build a criminal case against everyone you meet. You’re seeing suspects under every rock. And you better not go around repeating this wild innuendo about Dr. Redding. He’ll sue us from here to eternity!”
“But he was in Rochester at the same conference Susan Niemczyk—” I tried repeating the headline news. “He had opportunity.”
“Big deal. Fifty psychiatrists probably spoke there. He probably can’t even remember all the conferences he speaks at, especially going back ten years. You were wrong about the mayor. You were wrong about Dusty Foster. You’re probably wrong about this Garnett guy you have a blind spot for. And you’re wrong to think we want to touch this story ever again.”
Noreen hung up.
I felt a little foolish. Opportunity means nothing without motive. Why would Dr. Redding kill women? Maybe I was seeing suspects under every rock. After all, barely a week ago I’d built up a fairly convincing scenario around Mayor Skubic. My headache was back. I walked to the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. I knew from the other night it was not well stocked. Behind the Band-Aids and shaving lotion I found an outdated bottle with a couple of prescription painkillers left over from when Boyer had sprained an ankle playing hoops with his jock buddies. I turned the cover until it clicked and it was like a light clicking on in my head.
The container fell from my hand and the pills scattered across the tile floor as I raced back to Redding’s board to add another note: DOCTOR/PRESCRIPTION DRUGS. None of the other suspects was a psychiatrist with easy access to barbiturates, the kind of prescription drugs that had killed Suicide Susan.
CHAPTER 38
The list of clues might not be enough for a jury to convict on homicide charges, but they were more than enough to make Dr. Redding a person of interest to the authorities. Except the authorities remained disinterested in anyone beyond their prime suspect, Nick Garnett.
The hospital staff wouldn’t let me see him. And an armed police officer guarded his room. They had moved Garnett from intensive care that morning, and he was heavily sedated, in no condition to hear about the latest developments or help me land irrefutable proof that Dr. Redding was a serial killer.
“Come back tomorrow,” the nurse told me.
So I spent the afternoon escaping to the movies, though it wasn’t the same without Garnett. I nearly turned back when I saw Wait Until Dark advertised on the Lagoon Theater marquee, but I told myself sometimes it helps to be reminded there are people worse off than you. Like Audrey Hepburn’s blind character. Susy Hendrix. At least I didn’t have to worry about going home and playing cat and mouse against a psychopath with matches.
But when the smooth thug told our heroine, “Damn it, you act as if you’re in kindergarten. This is a big bad world, full of mean people, where nasty things happen,” the 1967 movie line sure resonated with me.
In the dark, in the back of the theater, I mouthed Susy’s words as she replied, “Now you tell me.”
I had just pulled the Mustang into my garage when my cell phone rang. The phone number was unfamiliar, but I answered it anyway. Sam Fox, Susan Moreno’s old street boyfriend, said hello back. Working the floor at Best Buy, he was calling to tell me he had just watched me on the late afternoon news on more than a dozen giant HDTV screens. I wasn’t impressed because, one, I no longer worked at Channel 3. Two, because TV ratings are determined by televisions in households, not televisions in hotels or businesses, so no matter how many Best Buy sets are tuned to a particular show, it has no impact on a TV station’s bottom line.
“Lucky I still had your card,” he said. “I’m calling about the guy walking next to you in the shot.” The man he described sounded a lot like Redding, probably from the tape Mike Flagg had snared the other day.
“What about him?” I unlocked the back door, walked inside, and threw my purse on the counter. I’d just spent the last couple hours watching a blind woman fight to survive by concentrating on her other senses to discern the odors of cigarettes and cologne and the sounds of squeaky shoes and rustling window shades. Like Susy, I almost felt someone was watching me. I shrugged my paranoia away and repeated my question to Sam, “What about him?”
“He was some county shrink Susan went to before she died.”
“What?” I dropped to a chair at the kitchen table and gave him my total attention.
“Yeah, as part of her probation the judge ordered her to visit him every month. She brought me along once to sit in on a session. Seemed like an okay guy.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah, he seemed okay to me.”
“No, I mean are you certain it’s the same man?”
“Absolutely. Hey, I got a customer now. Gotta go. He’s stroking a sixty-inch plasma.” Sam hung up, clueless, not realizing he had just scored a big one for the knuckleheads. A jury would likely convict on his evidence.
In most murder mystery novels, the heroine doesn’t figure out who the killer is until he points a gun at her head. I silently congratulated myself for being smarter than most fictional protagonists, then smiled as I walked over to the SUSANS charts, wrote this latest clue on the Dr. Redding board and starred it.
I still regret not having had adequate time to relish the special “aha” nature of the moment because it turned so quickly into an “oh shit” moment.
First, I spied newly delivered flowers arranged in a crystal vase on the center of my living room table. Bleeding hearts.
Then Redding stepped between me and the door and held out a key. My spare key. “Bottom of the bird feeder.” He winked.
As I reached for the key, he reached for my cell phone, hit power-off, and put it in his shirt pocket. “Let’s take your mind off work. Doctor’s orders.”
If Garnett were here, he’d turn to me now and say, “I got a bad feeling about this.” And I’d reply, “Harrison Ford.” But I’d probably fumble the actual movie title since Han Solo was in almost constant peril throughout the first three Star Wars films and it was easy to confuse them. Of course, if Garnett were here, neither of us would have a bad feeling about anything, because we’d outnumber Redding two to one and Garnett would be packing a light saber, I mean a gun.
I sensed danger, but I’d been alone with Redding
before and nothing lethal had transpired. Although now, thinking back, plenty of witnesses had seen us together that night outside my house. That certainly could have cramped his style. So I put on my smile with teeth and decided to play dumb.
“You didn’t have to drive all the way down from Duluth.” I patted his arm. “I told you I’m fine.”
No role-playing for Redding. He picked up Shep’s leash from the table and flexed it. “It is regrettable. You were a worthy opponent. Too worthy I’m afraid.”
“Brent.” For the first time, I used his first name. “You don’t need to do this.”
“Unfortunately, I do. You’re too close. And you talk too much. The necklace, the earring, I can’t risk your speaking with the authorities again. Especially not now.” He gestured toward the SUSANS boards leaning against the wall. The one with his name and clues stood in front.
SUSPECT/DR. BRENT REDDING
NIEMCZYK CONFERENCE SPEAKER
NOVEMBER 19 SIGNIFICANT
SUSAN NAME SIGNIFICANT
CHENOWITH/MORENO ALIBI?
DOCTOR/PRESCRIPTION DRUGS
*DR./PATIENT CONNECTION TO SUSAN MORENO*
Redding tapped the last line, the one I’d freshly written after my phone call; the “aha” one. “This list is not something I can allow you to share with anyone outside this room.”
He pivoted, quickly looping the dog leash around my neck and yanked, but I ducked and deflected before he could tighten it. Slowly he advanced, and slowly I backed up, so neither of us made much progress toward our ultimate goal: him homicide, me escape. I broke the pattern, darting past him to where the Bible lay on the coffee table next to my portable phone.
“Have you read chapter thirteen of Daniel?” I tried distracting him.
For centuries leaders have debated whether it is better to disarm one’s enemy with a Bible or with a sword. A metaphor for persuasion versus force. Philosophy aside, if a sword had been handy, I would have reached for it. Instead I grabbed the Word of God. The Bible can and has been used as a psychological weapon. Today I used it as a physical one.
I smacked the cover hard against Redding’s ear. When he stumbled I used that second to grab the phone off the table to dial 911. The average police response time in my neighborhood is about three minutes. For a true emergency, I knew they could cut the time in half without my even uttering a word. All I needed to do was hit four buttons and squad cars would race to my address. One push to turn the phone on. Then 9…1…1.
Nope. He had taken the kitchen phone off the hook. Instead of a dial tone I got a useless beeping noise. I threw the telephone at his smirking face. He remained between me and the door, so I took the stairs, two at a time.
Even though the hardware was flimsy, I locked my bedroom door. I didn’t bother going for the window, I knew it was stuck. Painted shut by the previous owner. Redding was cracking the wood off the hinges just as I rolled under the bed, reaching for my dead husband’s Glock.
I moved my hands along the carpet in every direction. But the light was dim, and instead of metal, all I hit was dog hair, dust bunnies, and lost socks. I squandered the tiniest microsecond regretting not keeping the gun under my pillow.
Redding dropped to the floor after me. His eyes stared at mine. He looked like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. I half expected him to yell, “Here’s Johnny!”
Instead he clawed at my face, so I bit down on his hand, breaking the skin. Redding swore. His vocabulary didn’t sound so academic now. My teeth clenched hard against his knuckles until his fingernails ground into my nose. He pushed himself up and moved to the other end of the bed. There he grabbed my foot and tried dragging me out. My sock slipped off in his hand. I used that brief interlude to clutch onto the bed frame and kick. Hard.
Unfortunately, I kicked the gun out from under the bed.
CHAPTER 39
Redding had a head start so he beat me to the weapon. By the time I was even part of the race, he was pointing the barrel at my chest. We both breathed heavily. My heart pounded. His hand was bleeding, so was my nose.
“I’m not going to die on the home farm, am I?”
Redding didn’t answer, but his eyes narrowed.
Now seemed a good time to try lying. “I told the news desk during that phone call if they didn’t hear from me in an hour, they should call the cops.”
“You’re bluffing.” Psychiatrists can always tell.
Now seemed a good time to try establishing a dialogue.
“Killing other women won’t bring back your wife.”
But I had seriously misjudged his motive. That was understandable, because murder motives are sometimes learned only after the perpetrator is identified and questioned. I never anticipated his next words.
“I don’t want to bring her back. I want to be the one to kill her. For betraying me.”
Susanna…an accused adulteress… Oh my God, he was executing women for the sin of adultery—his wife’s adultery—under the biblical law of woman as property of man. Talk about objectifying women.
“You’re killing other Susans because your wife cheated on you?”
“It was an insult to my skill as a therapist. Do you think I didn’t see my peers snickering behind my back?”
I don’t think he actually expected me to answer, which was good because I couldn’t. All I could think about was him seeking out surrogate Susans to strangle for revenge against his philandering mate. That she was already dead didn’t seem to satisfy him.
“I fantasized about what her last breath sounded like. I deserved to know. She belonged to me.”
He described first seeing Susan Chenowith waitressing at the diner one year to the day after his wife’s murder.
“She brushed against me while pouring coffee. On purpose. I noticed her name on her uniform. It seemed a sign: a Susan sent to me on the anniversary my Susan was taken.”
I disliked blood or I could have shot myself with Boyer’s gun months ago and no one would have challenged the medical examiner’s ruling of self-inflicted. But as I listened to Redding’s homicidal ramble, I realized I wanted to live and was willing to fight for tomorrow. If Redding wanted to stage my death to look like suicide, he could fire only one round and his aim had to be perfect. Should I gamble my life he couldn’t pull it off?
“On a whim,” he went on, “I waited outside for her shift to end.”
I nodded in what I hoped he would take as compassion and rushed him for the gun.
I had the advantage of surprise, but he had the advantage of having a finger on the trigger. He fell backward as I struggled to turn the weapon away from me. A loud blast halted our wrestling match. Blood seeped into the carpet around our bodies. I remember praying, let it be his blood, not mine.
It was.
Redding bled from a stomach wound. Although his face clenched in pain, his fingers still clung to the semiautomatic.
“So much for making it look like suicide,” I said.
“Actually, I was leaning toward a botched burglary.”
Uneasily we chuckled, but the laugh hurt him. He didn’t seem so crazy anymore. Now seemed a good time to offer help. “Let me call an ambulance.”
He shook his head and pointed the weapon at my chest.
“Okay, you’re the doctor,” I said. “What’s your medical opinion?”
“The patient will outlive you.” I didn’t like that prognosis, but I knew better than to argue with a man holding a gun. Besides a bullet in the gut, I tried to gauge Dr. Redding’s other weaknesses. By trade, he liked to listen and talk. I also knew he liked to show off.
“Tell me about the raincoat.”
“I already did.”
“That was very clever of you. I bet you laughed about our late-night walk for days. Did you know about the blue button? That’s what broke the case open.”
“No. The button surprised me. Quite impressive on your part. That’s when I decided to get to know you better.”
Garnett was right. I was a
dolt. Redding had wanted to stay close to the investigation.
“So you put the raincoat on Susan Moreno’s body and took her necklace.”
“I took a special interest in that patient because of her name. As the anniversary date grew closer, I determined she was the next one. For her therapy, I offered to meet after hours, to coach her on how to stay straight.”
No surprise she had walked into his trap. After all, look at me.
“That phone call I had earlier,” I told him, “it wasn’t the station. Her old boyfriend recognized you from that news clip of us together.”
“Now you know why I’m camera shy.”
I didn’t know much about stomach wounds, but I hoped if I kept Redding talking, he might bleed to death before he could pull the trigger.
“Were you lying about your own suicide watch? When you checked yourself into a clinic?”
“That made me realize I didn’t really want to stop. I just didn’t want to go to jail. I decided to vary my method. To pass off a murder as a suicide is an accomplishment.” At his reference to Susan Niemczyk’s homicide, the corner of Redding’s mouth curled up, like a cross between Mona Lisa and the Big Bad Wolf. “That’s when I knew the police would never catch me.”
“But ultimately you did stop.” I tried stressing the positive. “Until Susan Victor.”
“No. I didn’t stop.” He sounded proud. “You just didn’t find the others.”
The others. No one would probably find me either. The blood stain on Redding’s shirt was spreading, and he had to be growing weaker. I knew it. He knew it. He needed to pull the trigger soon, before he passed out. I silently debated how much longer I could play Scheherazade with the most important interview of my life.
“Come, I have something to show you,” he said. “You drive.”
Leaving the house was riskier for him than for me. Usually an abductor takes his victim from a public place to a more private setting. That spells trouble for the victim because more privacy means less chance of rescue. Redding might have a secluded gravel pit in mind, but he’d have to get me there first. Past other people. With his bullet wound, he couldn’t carry my body. Damn if I’d end up like that TV anchorwoman in Iowa. Ten years later, still missing. Better closure for my parents to bury me in a marked grave. Whatever plan Redding had before, I felt certain he was now improvising.