“Heather, how was the movie? I didn’t hear Mrs. Klein’s car pull up.” She was turning, smiling when he attacked her. He grabbed her and clapped his big, meaty hand over her mouth, cutting off her scream. Then he hit her hard with his fist. She sagged in his arms but did not go down. She fought him savagely as he tried to control her, slashing wildly in fear with his knife.
The Rat dragged her into the bedroom, tipping over a bedside table, breaking a lamp. He threw her on the bed and hit her again, knocking her unconscious. He pulled down all the blinds and stood in front of her, whimpering. He didn’t know how to wake her. He needed to know the answers. Then he placed his hand over her mouth and held her nose. She choked, coughed, and opened her eyes.
“Why were you in my secret room?” he asked.
“What … ? Who … ?” Claire was struggling to get her mind to focus. She was looking up at a huge man she had never seen before. She fought to control her spiraling emotions. Panic would only make things worse.
He leaned down close to her; his breath was sour. “I see only what he lets me see. The final vision is hidden. I. Don’t understand the cleansing, but I will not suffer,” he told her. “I will not suffer or be tortured for six years. So, you answer me,” he said in a deadly whisper.
Claire had seen him too late to defend herself in the kitchen, but now, lying on the bed, she started to take stock of her situation. He was huge but slow, and obviously deranged. She was strong and quick, with good upper-body strength. She hoped she could mollify him until she got her senses back in order. He had hit her hard and she was still fighting to clear her mind.
“I have the mark of the Beast on me,” The Rat told her. “The mark of the Beast is for unclean sinners. It cannot be refuted or changed. But I will not be tortured for crimes I was told to commit,” he said, as if that would explain the scalpel and his presence in her bedroom.
“I understand.”
“Were you the one who eavesdropped?”
She didn’t know what to tell him. She didn’t know what he was talking about.
“You will answer.”
“I don’t … I—”
And he swung the scalpel, slicing her right arm open. She screamed in terror and pain as he hit her again with a short, chopping blow. It knocked her back into the headboard. And then he heard a high scream behind him. He turned and, standing in the bedroom doorway, there was a beautiful blond girl, about ten. He lumbered up to grab her, but the woman on the bed kneed him in the groin, grabbed him, and, with a strength he would never have thought she possessed, pulled him back on top of her. Her blood-soaked right arm found her left wrist behind his huge back. She clung to him.
“Leggo … leggo me,” he gasped in panic. The Rat had no experience. He had never killed. The girl had seen him. The Wind Minstrel would never have made such a mistake.
“Heather, run! Call the police!” the woman screamed. The Rat pulled half-free, enough so he could grab the scalpel on the bedspread where it had fallen. The little girl ran. He knew he had to move fast to catch the child, but the woman was struggling to keep him from following. She held him with the strength of a demon. He lifted the scalpel high over his head.
Claire saw his hand come down, but barely felt the scalpel as it plunged into her chest. She was holding on, gouging with her nails. She knew if she could only hold him for a few more seconds, Heather would have time to get away. She heard her daughter screaming for help in the front yard. Claire desperately held on. She felt the pain when the scalpel was pulled from her chest, and then she saw it coming down again. This time, her heart exploded when it plunged into her. She felt a terrible agony shooting in all directions … through her chest, her arms and legs, out to the tips of her fingers. She felt a convulsion rack her. Then, as if somebody had pulled a curtain on her life, she saw black and let go of the man attacking her. Her last hope was that she had saved her daughter’s life.
The Rat was soaked with her blood. He started to whimper in fear. He grabbed his computer and sat at the table in the den. He was shaking uncontrollably, dripping her blood on the keys. He didn’t know how much time had passed, but then he heard a distant siren and it snapped him alert… . Be cunning, be shrewd. You are the planner and the schemer, his mind lectured him. He hooked up the modem to the phone and turned on the power.
Then he hit a key and started the automated script which accessed the dialup and login sequence he had cracked earlier. Within a minute he was into the LAPD computer dispatch system. Suddenly, the LAPD Mobile Digital Terminal dispatch popped up on his screen:
Los Angeles Police Department Mobile Digital Terminal
Dispatch System
He chose the option:
Review Active Calls
And scrolled it to the last computer call:
INCIDENT#6108002340 UNIT 15A56 HANDLE CODE 3 ADW SUSPECT THERE NOW 3245X 1265 MOORPARK STREET
MORE ADDITIONAL
He scrolled down and saw a unit confirmation:
15A56 WILL BUT THAT CALL WILL HANDLE CODE 3
He could hear the siren in the distance getting nearer. He typed a new address into the computer, reversing only the first two digits, hoping this would look to the police later on like a simple transposition mistake.
He sent the new message:
INCIDENT#6108002340 UNIT 15A563245X
RESPONDENT REPORTS *INCORRECT ADDRESS*
GO TO
2165 MOORPARK STREET
He hit the “Send” option and waited, his heart pounding. The siren was getting closer: on this very block, approaching the house. Then it stopped and seemed to turn around. He could hear the police car siren speed away, the piercing sound diminishing. He grabbed his laptop and his suitcase, packed everything up, and ran through the mess he had made, out of the house through the front door. He was frightened and galloped as he ran. He got into the rental car and pulled out and down the street, going fast.
*
From the house next door, Heather watched him go. She was crying. “Why did the police go away?” she asked the next-door neighbors. The man and woman shook their heads, bewildered.
It was twenty minutes before the police returned. By then, Heather had already found her dead mother’s body and was sitting on the floor in a corner of the bedroom, her mother’s blood all over. The police tried to question her, but Heather Lockwood was deep in shock.
Chapter 15
FREEDOM AND REGRET
Malavida saw his opening when he first scanned the building graphics on the Hoyt Tower computer, but he wasn’t quite sure how to use it. He knew Lockwood was sharp and had a tender ear for bullshit. Malavida figured this was going to be his only chance to escape, but he had a few problems to solve: First, he had to get the handcuff key out of Lockwood’s pocket and into a place where he could get at it; second, he had to lure Lockwood, Karen, and the two Atlanta patrol officers into the file room he’d spotted on the sixth floor. Fortunately, Detective Stiner had been forced to leave on another call. The question was how best to do it. He had been turning over the problem in his mind for almost an hour while he’d worked with Lockwood and Karen, uncovering potential clues the killer had left in the Atlanta building’s computer. He knew he could send the security system a time-delayed command, but once he set events in motion, the timetable would be critical and there would be no turning back. Half an hour ago, he’d started to write a pirate program that would accomplish his plan. It was now almost complete, but time was short. He could see that Lockwood was getting ready to pull out. In the last hour, the Customs agent had become restless. That could work to Malavida’s advantage. He knew that once they were on a plane headed to Washington, his chances of escape would diminish drastically. All of these things were playing in his mind when God stepped in and changed the flight schedule.
The electrical storm which had been hovering at the edge of the horizon all night finally rolled back in and pelted the eight o’clock traffic with BB-sized hailstones. A thick cold front moved in
behind the storm and buried Atlanta in a blanket of fog. Lockwood called the airport, but it was closed. The agent was staring morosely out the window at the gray soup, unable to even see the drugstore across the street. His body language indicated that he was in a different place. Jumpiness had been replaced with an uninterested calm. Malavida knew now was the best time to try his escape. He hit Enter on his computer, then surreptitiously uploaded his pirate program into the building’s host computer.
“Gotta go to the bathroom, Jefe,” he said softly.
Lockwood continued staring out the window at the thick fogbank. “One of the patrolmen will take you,” he said, not turning from the window.
“You gotta uncuff me.”
That got Lockwood’s attention. The Fed turned from the window and looked at Malavida.
“Not very damn likely,” he said, his voice flat as an Iowa landscape.
Malavida leaned forward. “Gotta shit, man. How’m I supposed to do that with these on, huh? Dumb and Dumber over there can cover me while I take care a’business,” he said, indicating the two Atlanta cops.
Lockwood was not paying very close attention to Malavida’s request. His mind was replaying the dark fugue of self-destruction he had orchestrated for himself.
“Come on, man… . What’s with you?”
“One of you guys go with him,” Lockwood finally said to the two Atlanta cops as he pulled the handcuff key out of his pocket and moved over and unlocked the bracelets.
Malavida got up and stretched elaborately. He had deliberately left his computer on. The screen showed a computer graphic of the sixth floor, which included the windowless steel-doored file room he had found. He assumed it was part of the building’s management complex. His pirate program had now pre-set his commands into the Hoyt Tower security computer. He had given it a fifteen-second delay from the time the computer in the file room was accessed. He hoped that would be enough time. Now all he had to do was lure all of them up there and activate the plan. That was going to be the tricky part.
The taller of the two Atlanta patrolmen got to his feet and accompanied Malavida as he went into the lobby in search of the men’s room. It was ten to nine on Monday morning and the building was now filling with employees of Cavanaugh and Cunningham. They got off the elevator like reluctant children, talking in low, tense voices as they moved to their desks and set down briefcases and purses. Candice’s murder had been on all the weekend TV newscasts. The employees looked around, their eyes darting over Lockwood, Karen, and the one remaining Atlanta cop. Then, with hooded glances, they looked for the spot on the floor where Candice Wilcox had made her last stand.
The men’s room on the fourth floor was a white tile rectangle, over-lit with bright fluorescents. The police officer watched, demanding Malavida leave the stall door open as he dropped his pants and sat on the toilet.
“Can I take your order, please?” Malavida smiled at the cop, who stared back at him as if he’d not spoken.
After he’d finished and washed his hands, they headed back to Cavanaugh and Cunningham. The short patrolman told Lockwood they had to get moving, and Lockwood nodded. He turned to put the cuffs back on. Malavida tried to avoid him, suddenly leaning forward with feigned interest, staring at his computer screen. “Son of a bitch,” he said, convincingly.
“Put your hands out,” Lockwood barked, grabbing his wrist and cuffing him.
“Look’t this… . How could I’ve missed this?” Malavida went on undeterred. He was eyeballing the computer graphic on the screen.
“What is it?” Karen asked as she moved across the room through the gawking employees of Cavanaugh and Cunningham, who were still looking on in dismay and sorrow.
“What is it?” Lockwood asked, staring at the graphic on the screen, the handcuff key, forgotten for the moment, in his hand.
“This guy went into the file room. See this here… .” Malavida pointed at the security entry/exit logs for the file room that were displayed on the screen. “This room on six was opened around ten-thirty that same night. That would have been just around the time of the murder.”
They leaned in and looked at the columns of time logs on the screen. Malavida had accessed the daytime logs on the file room for the previous Thursday. He had found a 10:30 A. M. entry and was pointing at it, hoping desperately that they would not look at the top of the screen, where the wrong date and daytime listings appeared.
Thursday, April 11, A. M. Personnel Traffic Log
It was the only listing he could find for a 10:30 entry into the file room. “Maybe this guy wasn’t wearing gloves when he went in there,” Malavida volunteered.
“Why would he go into this file room?” Lockwood pondered.
“Why? Is that the question, Zanzo?” Malavida shook his head in disbelief. “We ain’t exactly dealing with a normal wiring diagram. This guy’s got his clock wound backwards. He kills these women and then joints ‘em, remember?”
He was trying to keep Lockwood distracted, hoping he wouldn’t discover the deception. The Customs agent was staring at the screen.
“Let’s go take a look,” Karen finally said. “If he’s right, there might be some trace evidence in there.”
Lockwood hunched forward, looking at the computer, his brow furrowed. “It’s a file room,” he said slowly. “What could be in there that he’d want?”
“Names of other victims, employee records?” Karen suggested. “You sure he was in there?” Lockwood looked at Malavida.
“Not positive. Maybe it was the security guard went in. But somebody was in there just before the murder.”
“Let’s look,” Karen repeated. “We can’t get out of this town anyway. Airport’s closed.”
The file room on the sixth floor was salvaged space that had been gleaned from the interior wall configuration. It was a long, narrow room that got wider as it went toward the back wall. There was a gray metal desk at the front of the room with a computer on it to access files. The walls of the room housed file cabinets for computer disks and metal racks that were being used for stationery storage. Malavida knew from the two hours that he’d already spent working on the host computer that the file room terminal was hooked into the building’s network. He reached out his manacled hands and turned on the computer. His plan was now only seconds from going into action. His pirate program had left a command with the host computer, which had already accepted him as its root. It had reprogrammed everything he asked. His program also told the host to activate the security locks on the sixth-floor file room fifteen seconds after the computer was logged on. He had also instructed the host computer to lock out the file room terminal from access to the building’s computer net for the next hour. That would keep Karen Dawson, with her limited hacking skill, from getting the door unlocked. He had also instructed the host to turn off the phone, keeping his pnsoners incommunicado.
He had the computer booted up and, while Karen and Lockwood were walking the room looking for evidence, and while the two Atlanta cops standing behind him were looking at their watches, Malavida logged in to the host, triggering his pirate program. His escape plan was now fifteen seconds from activation. He had no wristwatch to keep track of the seconds, so slowly he began to count them, being careful not to let his adrenaline speed him up. If he went early, it could end in disaster. One thousand one, one thousand two, he counted in his head.
“We gotta get outta here. We’re gonna miss EOW,” the tall cop said, referring to his shift’s end-of-watch. “Is this gonna take much longer?”
“I’ll be damned. Look’t this, I found something,” Malavida said to the two patrolmen, who, after a second, moved forward sluhly and looked at the screen without interest.
“What?” they said simultaneously, both staring blankly at a monitor crowded full of time logs.
One thousand seven, one thousand eight, one thousand nine .. .
The cops were on both sides of him now, looking at the gibberish on the screen. Lockwood and Karen were walking back
toward him, only fifteen feet away. One thousand ten, one thousand eleven, and Malavida suddenly lunged to his right, hitting the tall cop with his shoulder, shoving him into a file cabinet. Then he lunged left, knocking the other startled policeman off balance. He turned and bolted for the door. One thousand twelve. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Lockwood going for his gun, but Malavida already knew he was a free man. One thousand thirteen. Once out of the file room, he grabbed the metal door. One thousand fourteen. He slammed it shut. “One thousand fifteen!” he shouted and he heard the electronic security locks buzz shut. Then Lockwood was pounding on the door. “Get fucked, asshole,” Malavida shouted through the thick metal; then he moved quickly to the elevator. He went back down to four, into Cavanaugh and Cunningham, and over to Candice’s computer. While the startled employees looked on in disbelief, with cuffed hands he picked up Karen Dawson’s purse, pulled out her wallet, and removed several hundred dollars in cash plus one credit card. Then he looked at the roomful of openmouthed employees.
“I’m sorry about your friend,” he announced. “Somebody will catch the animal who killed her.”
They murmured back at him in stunned agreement; then he leaned down and typed a message on the screen, sent it into the building’s computer net, shut off the computer, picked up his cracking kit, and left.
In the file room, Lockwood had given up on the door and turned back to the computer. Karen slammed down the phone in disgust. “Phone’s off,” she growled.
“That son of a bitch lured us up here and set those locks to go off.
Damn,” Lockwood said. But for some reason, he felt no anger. He knew that his career at U. S. Customs was over. He had missed his IA review and now, more importantly, he had lost a prner whom he’d released illegally. It was a simmering pork stew, and he had the apple in his mouth. From now on, it would turn into a familiar feast where his bones would be picked clean, like carrion. Internal Affairs Inspectors would all march solemnly to his final trial board. Waiting at the end of this sit-down dinner would be certain dismissal and disgrace. Old friends would stare expressionless, while the music of defeat played.
Final Victim (1995) Page 12