by David Grace
“Stab” was the operative word, as the weapon was almost always a knife, ligature or a club, never a gun. The murders often exhibited overkill, which meant he was full of rage, but it was a rage that he kept hidden until his victim was helpless and unable to fight back. Then he would strike. He was angry, insecure, jealous, and felt that he was being disrespected, a common pattern but one The Limping Man had taken to the extreme.
Virgil called the IT department and had one of the techs program the system to send him an alert on any stranger-murders where the weapon was not a firearm and the corpse exhibited signs of excessive violence, multiple strikes or stab wounds, or a combination of strangulation and/or stab wounds and/or blunt force trauma. When Virgil hung up he noticed that the windows were dark and that the squad room was almost empty. He glanced at the clock and decided to call it a day.
Chapter Fifty-Four
At some point in the last half hour Virgil’s pepperoni and mushroom pizza had congealed in his stomach into a ball of grease and half-digested cheese. Now that the caffeine and sugar had burned away it was becoming clear that his attempt to wash the remains of his dinner out of his system with a double helping of Original Coke had failed as well.
Ignoring the dull ache in his gut he looked at the list of fifty-eight women’s names and they seemed to stare back at him. Virgil reclined in his chair and closed his eyes.
After almost three hours work he’d managed to eliminate nine names from the original sixty-seven. That was three names an hour – another, what, twenty hours to process the rest of the list, assuming that the work proceeded on a linear scale, which it wouldn’t, and assuming that he could get all the way through the list at all, which he knew he couldn’t. When his eyes slid closed, blurred faces and illegible names swam across his mind’s eye like images in an out-of-focus dream.
“Let me go, I’m gone,” Jane/Nicole’s voice called from the black void. A moment later her face swelled up in front of him then grew transparent and faded away. Virgil smacked his lips and forced his eyes open. Yawning, he swiveled around to see Jane/Nicole sitting primly on his well-used couch.
“You’re back,” Virgil said. Tonight the drape of her hair and the edges of her jeans were softened and indistinct. Virgil blinked a few times trying to bring them into sharp focus but failed.
“I’m always here,” she said. “I’m just a phantom from inside your brain. . . . You need to get back to work,” she said a moment later when he didn’t respond.
“I was working.”
“Looking for me? That’s not work. That’s a fantasy, an obsession. That’s guilt or obstinance or competitiveness, but it’s not work.”
“You’re my daughter,” Virgil said, abandoning all pretense of dealing with an illusion created by come chemical residue infecting his brain. “I have to find you.”
“You’ll never find me, and looking for me will ruin your life. You have to let me go. Your life has to mean something. You have to go back to work.”
“What work? Finding bail jumpers in Fargo, North Dakota?”
“Finding The Limping Man before he kills again,” Jane/Nicole said with an intensity unbefitting an eleven-year-old girl.
Virgil almost laughed. “I have a better chance of finding you than The Limping Man. Who am I kidding? Pretending to look for him is just a dodge to keep my badge and a paycheck so I can go on looking for you.”
“I don’t need saving. The Limping Man’s next victims do.”
“They aren’t my children.”
“They’re somebody’s children,” Jane/Nicole said with sudden heat. “Finding me will not make the world a better place. Saving them will.”
Virgil started to open his mouth then froze when Jane/Nicole’s body flickered like a broken film.
“Nicole, don’t go!” he pleaded.
“Do the work. Find The Limping Man.”
“I can’t!”
“Then ask other people to help you find him,” Nicole said, her body fading until he could see the stains on the cushion behind her chest.
“Ask who? What people?”
“Everyone,” Nicole said, her body now as ghostly as the morning mist. “Ask everyone to look for The Limping Man.”
“Wait!” Virgil cried, but her face just slipped into that smile he remembered from so long ago, then disappeared.
“Nicole!” Virgil shouted and jerked awake. In front of him the monitor still displayed the same fifty-eight names, taunting and mysterious. Virgil spun around but no trace of Nicole’s ghost remained. Virgil stared at the empty couch for a moment then buried his face in his hands.
* * *
“I want maximum coverage,” Virgil told the Deputy Chief for Public Relations the next morning. “Michigan, Indiana and Ohio.”
Lorraine O’Neal glanced at the single page Virgil had handed her and frowned.
“This isn’t much of a description. Caucasian, between thirty and fifty? Five-feet-six to five-feet-eleven; one-hundred-fifty pounds to one-hundred-eighty pounds; black or brown hair; no facial hair or tattoos; walks with a limp? Do you have a sketch or a make and model on his car?”
“I’ve got what I’ve got,” Virgil said, pointing at the page.
O’Neal seemed unconvinced. “I don’t know if I can get the media to run this, and even if they do, I mean, what’s the point? All we’ll get is a million nut calls which we don’t have the manpower to check out.”
“Leave the manpower issues to me. You just get them to run the story.”
O’Neal frowned but even her frown was pretty. Male or female, a big part of a DCPR’s job was to look right – attractive but not superficial, strong but not threatening, articulate but not glib, more Sandra Bullock, less Megan Fox.
“Play up the mystery angle – a secret serial killer who’s been operating under the radar, but now that we know what to look for, the public can do the right thing and help us bring this dangerous criminal to justice. The message we want to send is: ‘Pay attention to your surroundings. If you see a small, middle-aged, white stranger with a limp, help the police help you and call this number.’”
O’Neal still looked skeptical, but she gave Virgil a little nod. “All right. I’ll tell them that since you led the team that got the Mad Dog Gang they should have a little faith that you know what you’re doing.”
“Thanks. They won’t be sorry,” Virgil said, all the time wondering what his chances of actually getting The Limping Man really were. Ten percent? he asked himself, but didn’t really believe it.
Chapter Fifty-Five
The cashier was about twenty-five, blonde with brown roots, and pretty in a Dolly Parton sort of way. Her name tag read: “Stephanie.” Richard Alvin Yellen was two people back in line but already he could tell that she didn’t like him. He saw it in the “Who’s this loser?” look that twisted her face when she glanced his way. She pretended to be just looking out the front windows as if checking the parking lot for stray dogs, but he could tell that she was watching him and that she didn’t like what she saw.
What’s wrong with me? Yellen thought, and glanced at his shoes and checked his fly. Sure, his jeans had a couple of chocolate stains and his plaid shirt had seen better days, but was that any reason to look at him as if he was some kind of scum?
When he reached the head of the line he dropped the six-pack, five Hershey bars, a bag of Doritos, a package of sandwich rolls and a can of Spam on the counter. He looked straight at her, but she flinched and wouldn’t meet his gaze. A disapproving grimace twisted her lips as she examined his items. He noticed that she didn’t pick them up like a normal person. Instead she grabbed them with the tips of two fingers as if they had been contaminated by his touch.
“Those are on sale,” he said, pointing to the chocolate bars. “Sixty cents each.”
“You have to buy ten to get the sale price.” She said it as if talking to a moron.
“OK, I’ll pick up five more on my way out.”
“I have to run
them through the scanner. You can step out of line and get them if you want.” She glanced at the two people waiting behind him.
“You want me to wait in line all over again?”
“That’s up to you, sir. I’m just saying that I can’t give you the discount price unless you buy ten bars.” Her face twisted into one of those Why do I have to deal with these losers? expressions.
“To hell with that! OK, fine. I won’t buy any of them then. Take them off my bill.” Yellen grabbed up the bars and shoved them across the counter. She looked at him like he was dirt, then ran the Doritos past the scanner. Yellen looked at the numbers scrolling down the screen. Jesus, she’s screwing me again.
“Those are a dollar ninety-nine!”
“Do you have a BargainPoints Card?”
“What the hell is that?”
“They’re only a dollar ninety-nine for customers who have a BargainPoints Card,” she said in a smarmy voice, then slid the can of Spam past the scanner. “That will be $12.42,” she said giving him a shit-eating smile.
Yellen stared at her until her lips quivered and she looked away. To punish her he slowly counted out the money, bill-by-bill.
His leg was killing him by the time he reached the door. He paused once he had limped outside and glanced back at her through the glass. She was talking to the guy who’d been behind him in line. He saw her nod in his direction and laugh.
“Fucking bitch!” he muttered. It was a quarter after ten. According to the sign on the door the place closed at eleven. Not counting his van there were four other cars in the lot. One of them had to be hers. It would be easy enough to figure out which one when the current customers drove away. He looked around for a good place to wait.
At five after eleven he watched her flip the “Open” sign to “Closed” and twist the lock on the front door. He’d parked across the street and as far down the block as he could while still being able to see the cash register through the glass front door. A narrow walkway ran along the right side of the building to a small recycling area in back. He decided that’s where he would do it.
A pair of headlights cruised by and for a moment the street was deserted. He slipped out of the van and half jogged, half limped into the shadows shrouding the passenger side of her old, green Sentra. After half a minute he popped his head above the fender and saw her punching the cash register’s keys. Closing out the sales for the day, he thought and worked out the rest of his plan.
He would grab her while she was getting into her car then, his knife at her throat, drag her down the alley and back behind the store. First he’d make her give him the alarm code, then he’d bang her up a bit to keep her quiet, then he’d fuck her just to show her that she was the piece of shit, not him. Finally, he’d slit her throat, then let himself into the store and scoop up the cash.
He’d need to grab the surveillance tape or DVD or whatever. But what if they stored it someplace on the Internet? Shit! He couldn’t afford to be seen. Could he send her back inside to get the money and bring it out to him? No, she was the kind of stupid, fucking cow who’d hit the silent alarm or something. Damn! He’d have to content himself with whatever she had in her purse. Yellen thought about that for a moment and laughed. I bet you’ve got a BargainPoints Card, he thought.
The lights flickered and went out, throwing the lot into gloom. Yellen peeked around the passenger-side fender. Her back was to him as she pulled the door closed and twisted the key in the lock. Shoulders sagging, she turned and headed for her car. He watched her approach, moving fast, her head swivelling left and right, then, suddenly she jerked to a stop and stared right at the little half moon of his face peeking out from behind the Sentra’s passenger-side headlight.
“Help!” she screamed then turned and ran away from him across the lot. “Help! Help!”
Yellen staggered to his feet and struggled after her but within a couple of seconds she had already reached the sidewalk. By the time he got to the street she was thirty yards away and a pair of headlights was approaching from the far end of the block. Fuck! He’d never be able to catch her, shut her up, and drag her back out of sight in time.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” he cursed and changed direction toward his van. Glancing over his shoulder as he closed the driver’s door he saw the headlights slow and then stop halfway down the block. He started the engine and, leaving his own lights off, drove to the next intersection and made a right turn without touching his brakes. Once around the corner he accelerated and headed straight for the Interstate.
It was a bust, but, he consoled himself, he was safe. He was sure that she hadn’t gotten a good enough look in the parking lot to recognize him, and she sure hadn’t noticed his van where he’d parked it out on the street. Ten minutes later he spotted a Motel 6 and decided to treat himself to a room to make up for the shitty night he’d had.
* * *
“He was hiding behind my car!” the girl gasped, her voice almost a shriek.
“Did he say anything to you, Ms. Ainsworth?”
“Say anything? He had a knife! He was hiding behind my car, and when I spotted him he chased me! What the hell was he going to say?” Stephanie looked wildly around as if her attacker might still be lurking nearby, then she took three or four quick breaths. “Don’t you understand? He had a knife! He was going to kill me or rape me or whatever.”
“I know, but you’re safe now. I just need to get as much information as possible so that we have the best possible chance of finding him. You said you didn’t get a good look at his face. Is there anything you can tell me about him? Anything at all?”
Stephanie stared at the patrolman, Mike Norwood, as if he’d been speaking in some obscure dialect, then she took another breath and closed her eyes.
“Ahhhh, he was white. Not really big. Smaller than you. Dark clothes. Maybe jeans. He didn’t make any noise when he ran so he was probably wearing some kind of athletic shoes. I didn’t see any color on them. If they were red or something I would have noticed that because I looked over my shoulder to see if he was gaining on me, and when I did that I looked at his feet.”
“That’s good. That’s very good. Think about his face. Did he have a mustache or a beard? Did he have any tattoos?” When Norwood looked up from his pad the girl’s attention was someplace far away. “Ms. Ainsworth?”
“There was something odd about the way he ran,” she said a moment later, as if coming out of a trance. “He was running slow. I remember thinking, ‘He’s not catching up to me. Thank God, I’m getting away from him.’”
“Had he stopped running? Did he give up when you spotted him?”
“No, he chased me at first, but he wasn’t running like a normal person. It was like his leg didn’t work right, his left leg. He was limping. He was trying to run, but he was limping.”
“Limping?” the uniform repeated.
“He was in the store!” Stephanie half shouted. “Tonight, this prick customer was in the store, giving me a hard time, and I remember when he left I noticed that he was limping! Oh my God, I bet it’s the same guy!”
“Can you describe him, the man who was in your store?”
“Sure, but wouldn’t it be better if you looked at the video?”
Five minutes later Norwood was squinting at the grainy image and trying to construct a description of the suspect: Caucasian, early thirties, about five feet eight inches tall, a hundred sixty-five pounds, brown hair, eye color unknown, no facial hair, no tattoos, walks with a limp.
Walks with a limp? Norwood thought. Why did that ring a bell? He told the girl to wait and ducked into his unit to check today’s BOLOs. It was the fifth one down, from some detective in Detroit – Caucasian, between thirty and fifty, five-feet-six to five-feet-eleven, one-hundred-fifty pounds to one-hundred-eighty pounds, black or brown hair, no facial hair or tattoos, walks with a limp.
Shit, that’s pretty vague, he thought. It could be anybody, but walks with a limp? That’s a hell of a coincidence. Norwood thoug
ht about it for another couple of seconds then dialed the number on the screen.
“Lieutenant Quinn? This is patrolman Michael Norwood of the Ann Arbor PD. This may be nothing, but a little while ago we had a man attacking, well trying to attack, a woman with a knife, and he fits the description on your BOLO. . . . No, sir, he got away, but we have him on video, at least we think it’s him. . . . Oh, absolutely, he had a limp all right. . . . No, we don’t have anything on his vehicle – wait. Hang on a minute.”
Norwood jogged back into the store and found Stephanie Ainsworth huddled next to the cash register.
“Ms. Ainsworth, do you have a video camera that covers your parking lot?”
“Yes, we do.”
“Could you run it back to the time this customer was in the store so we can see what kind of a vehicle he was driving?” Stephanie stared at Norwood for a second then began pressing keys on the control panel behind the counter.
“Hang on, Lieutenant,” Norwood said into the phone. A few seconds later, black and white images flickered across the screen.
“There, there he is,” Stephanie said, pointing at the monitor.
Norwood watched a gray, slumped figure limp across the asphalt to a dark-colored van and awkwardly climb in. A moment later the headlights glared and the van backed out in a three-point turn and exited the lot.
“Hold it!” Norwood ordered and peered into the screen. “Can you zoom that up?” Stephanie hit a couple more buttons and the image jittered and swelled then froze again. “Lieutenant, it’s a dark-colored van. I can’t tell the make but I’ve got a plate. It looks like G as in Gordon, F as in Frank . . . .”
Virgil’s pen flashed across the page.