The Serial Killer's Wife

by Robert Swartwood

  “That was the first one they found with her ring finger missing. Apparently when Eddie was cleaning the place up, he noticed some flesh under her fingernail. He knew the DNA would match mine. So he cut it off for two reasons. One to keep it as insurance, like you said. And two so it would help start marking the bodies so the authorities would begin to see a pattern.”

  Elizabeth and Eddie were married two months later. Jim was Eddie’s best man. There was nothing between them that suggested any kind of hatred. They both had become perfect actors, playing their roles without fail.

  “The next time it happened, Eddie said he was through. He said he wasn’t going to help me anymore. I told him that was fine, then if he wanted to turn me in I would make sure you were killed.”

  “And how were you going to kill me if you were in jail?” Elizabeth asked.

  Frank raised his hand. “That would be me.”

  “You see,” Jim said, “I had already hooked up with Frank here. Frank was a state trooper.”

  “I was also in the service,” Frank said. “That’s where I learned about explosives. I learned just how effective the right amount of C-4 could be. So that collar right there around your son’s neck, the one that killed Reginald Moore, even the one right now around the neck of that FBI agent’s kid—those are all thanks to me.”

  Elizabeth said, “Your mother must be so proud.”

  “Anyway,” Jim said. “He’d caught me for speeding one night when I was taking a girl to a motel. We were both wasted and he should have arrested me for drunk driving, but he didn’t. Tell us again, Frank, why didn’t you?”

  Frank smiled. “I could tell some serious shit was about to go down.”

  “So he let me off with a warning. I should have realized then something was messed up about that. He hadn’t even made me go through any of the motions, despite the fact I was no doubt way over the legal limit.”

  Frank said, “I followed them back to the motel and watched them go inside. That woman, she was one fine piece of ass. I’d actually tried hitting on her once at the bar. Got nowhere. And seeing Jim with her, both of them drunk, ready to fuck ... it had pissed me off. So I waited for them for a while and then went to the door. I tried the door and, would you believe it, the drunk asshole had forgotten to lock it. I walked right in and found him almost done choking the girl to death. And you know what, Elizabeth? It was the hottest fucking thing I ever saw.”

  Jim thought everything was over then. He’d finished and stepped away and there the cop stood, watching him. He’d even raised his hands, which made Frank laugh out loud. Frank asked if Jim had any K-Y Jelly. He asked if he had another condom. Then he went to work.

  “So we came up with this arrangement,” Jim said. “I’d find the talent and fuck them first, choke them to death, while Frank watched. Then he’d do his thing. Once every couple months we’d drive separately up and down the coast, checking out a few bars and clubs. It was always easy spotting the lonely housewives. And when I did, well, that urge, that hunger inside of me, it just went crazy.”

  Elizabeth had her hands now cupped over Matthew’s ears. It seemed almost fruitless to do so but she couldn’t help herself. Remembering all the times she had been alone with the man who had called himself Todd, all the times she had kissed him and felt his hands on her body (not to mention slapped her son a high five or ruffled his hair), made her stomach churn.

  “In the end,” Jim said, “your husband went along with it because of you. A part of him wanted to turn me in and end this whole thing, but another part, a bigger part, wanted to keep you safe. And besides, he was great at the job. He’d clean those bodies up real well, wrap them in plastic, take them out in the middle of nowhere. Months would pass before they were found. And when they were found, the feds couldn’t find any trace evidence on them at all.”

  Except, of course, the ring fingers would be missing. That would alert the authorities that it was the same killer. The news of the missing ring fingers was never released to the media (“So we had no clue about it at the time, not even Frank, ’cause the FBI was keeping it real hush-hush”). When the bodies were turned over to the families, affidavits were required so each family would not speak to the press. Not until the killer was caught, which the FBI promised would happen soon.

  “Truth was, we could have kept going with it forever. But then you became pregnant.”

  Eddie had finally put his foot down. He said there was no more. If it happened again, Eddie told Jim, he would contact the FBI personally. Jim reminded him about Elizabeth’s life, about now the unborn baby’s life. And that’s when Eddie dropped the bomb about the missing ring fingers. How he’d been cutting them off each victim. How the very first had Jim’s skin underneath the fingernail.

  “The knowledge of that evidence has been a black cloud over my head these past five years, but now, thanks to you, that black cloud will go away.”

  “So why did you go into the Peace Corps?” Elizabeth asked. “Eddie was going to turn you in?”

  “Actually, no. I was the one who put in the anonymous tip to the FBI. But I knew the shit was going to hit the fan very soon, so yes, that’s why I signed up. I considered just leaving the country but worried that may cause too many questions. There needed to be a paper trail. I needed to be blameless. And if suspicion of me did come up, then I was already in another country and could make my escape easily enough.”

  “When did you call the FBI?”

  “Remember when you dropped me off at the airport? I made the call right before my plane took off. Put on a hat and sunglasses so the security cameras couldn’t see me, even put on a latex glove so they couldn’t lift my prints. Eddie wasn’t the only one who was smart.”

  It made sense then, at least to Elizabeth. The FBI got tips all the time, most of them worthless, but they at least had to follow them up. It wouldn’t take a genius to track Eddie’s movements across the country. They were, obviously, Jim’s and Frank’s movements first and foremost, with Eddie trailing behind to clean up the mess, but it was Eddie who had landed on their radar and who they one Saturday morning in the summer came to arrest.

  For the safety of his wife and son, he couldn’t turn in Jim. Not with the threat of another player involved, someone who was either a fed or a cop or someone high in authority. It made sense now to Elizabeth why Eddie refused to speak freely in front of David Bradford. Not because the man was an FBI agent, but because he feared the possibility he was really Jim’s nameless co-conspirator.

  “But then you disappeared,” Jim said. “Just vanished into thin air. Frank and I kept our ear to the ground. Frank monitored a lot of message boards, especially Clarence’s. When that anonymous tip was posted about you being in Kansas, Frank went out there and didn’t leave until he found you.”

  “It wasn’t that hard,” Frank said. “Jim told me you used to be a teacher. He said you’d loved it. So we figured you’d eventually go back to that.”

  “That’s right. And once we did find you and started keeping an eye on you, we came up with our plan.”

  Elizabeth said, “Which was?”

  “Clarence Applegate,” Jim said, and smiled. “We knew from the start he would be our scapegoat. I mean, the guy was a loose canon to begin with, and as obsessed with you as he was, it would make sense he’d snap and start killing a bunch of people.”

  “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  Jim nodded.

  “He was the one in the passenger seat last night, what I mistook for you.”

  Jim nodded again.

  “Why did he kill Mark Webster?

  “He didn’t. Fact is, he was aiming for you but the gun was loaded with blanks. I was the one who killed Webster. I pulled him close to me and pulled out my gun and shot him twice in the chest and then slipped the gun back into my coat and laid him out on the ground.”

  “Clarence didn’t realize there were blanks in the gun?”

  “He never got the chance to check. We were able to manipula
te him pretty well. We knew once your picture started circulating around the news, he’d recognize you immediately and start posting shit on Twitter and his blog and we couldn’t have that. We needed you to stay under the radar as long as possible. So we contacted him pretty much the same way we contacted you, with the robotic voice, telling him we had information on you. He didn’t believe us at first, but it wasn’t difficult to convince him. We even promised him he would be the one who killed you. That was enough for Clarence.”

  “So when he showed up at the motel, you weren’t expecting that, were you?”

  “That was a close one. He could have ruined everything. I mean, he fucking shot Frank. I seriously thought that was it then, we were screwed. But luckily you both managed to get away.”

  Elizabeth said, “Back at Rockefeller Center, he had a different gun.”

  “That’s right. I told him he needed a clean gun if he was going to kill you. Otherwise if he used his own gun it could be traced back to him.”

  “He was planning to kill me in public and cared about a traceable gun?”

  Jim shrugged. “What can I tell you? The guy was crazy. So I left a gun for him, made sure to jam the magazine so he couldn’t check. Fortunately for us, he managed to make his escape out of New York a lot easier than you. I followed him back to where he’d parked his truck. Nobody was around, so I killed him and put him under the tarp and drove out of there. Went down to Lanton, stole a car, made like it was my own. He’s actually stuffed in that truck right now in some Walmart parking lot.”

  “What happens when they identify his body? There goes your cover.”

  “Don’t worry. There’s not much of his body left to identify.”

  “So then you killed Foreman, too,” Elizabeth said, taking Matthew gently and turning him so his face was pressed into her chest.

  Jim nodded.

  “What about Van and Harlan?”

  “That was me,” Frank said, raising a hand. “While you were asleep (I’d roofied your drink), I slipped away to talk to them. Killing them was surprisingly easy.”

  “Van tried warning me about you.”

  “Obviously he didn’t try hard enough.”

  “I still don’t get one thing,” Elizabeth said. “Why kill Reginald Moore?”

  Jim crinkled his nose. “Are you kidding me? The guy was a fucking child molester. He deserved to die.”

  “Right. And you guys don’t?”

  “It’s different.”

  “Sure it is.”

  “Besides,” Frank said, “we needed to show you we weren’t fucking around. Or rather, we needed to show you Cain wasn’t fucking around.”

  “What about David Bradford’s son?”

  “What about him?”

  “Is he alive?”

  “For the time being, yes. We knew Bradford wouldn’t go through with it otherwise. If he knew his son was dead, he’d bring his people in on it immediately. So I had to give him that slight hope that maybe he would see his son again. It took him longer to get out here than we had hoped. We had wanted him to be here by the time you first arrived in Lanton. Only he had been delayed, and you had gotten it into your crazy head that you needed Mark Webster, and that’s why we needed to kill him.”

  “Because Bradford was the key,” Elizabeth said.

  “That’s right. He’s the disgraced FBI agent who always held a grudge against you. And after we’re done here, Frank and I are going to track him and his lady friend down and kill them. Make it look like Clarence did it. And Clarence, well, he’ll just disappear into the sunset like the crazy cowboy he is.”

  Elizabeth smiled. She couldn’t help herself any longer.

  Jim asked, “Why are you smiling? You think this is funny?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because while you’ve been blathering on and on, two FBI agents have been standing behind you.”

  “Bullshit,” Frank said, starting to turn, and that was when both Special Agents David Bradford and Julia Hogan cocked their pistols and David Bradford spoke for the first time.

  “I’d tell you to drop your weapons, but I don’t want to shoot an unarmed man. Now where the fuck is my son?”

  CHAPTER 62

  BACK AT THE cemetery, the hole they’d dug almost refilled, Elizabeth had excused herself, saying she felt ill. Inside the Prius, she had extracted the BlackBerry and wished to whatever god was listening that it allowed text messages. Then she dialed David Bradford’s cell number and typed out a text message of where to meet her, the name and general location, and hit SEND.

  So she knew they were coming—or at least hoped they were coming—and when she noticed movement behind Jim and Frank, the slightest sight of a gun barrel, she purposely turned Matthew around and buried his head into her chest. She would no longer be able to clamp both of his ears, but it was a sacrifice she had to make, because she didn’t want his expression alerting the two men of the federal agents’ arrival. Then she smiled and the agents cocked their weapons and David Bradford asked where the fuck his son was.

  • • •

  BOTH JIM AND Frank did not move. They did not blink. They stared back at her, calculating in their heads whatever possible chances they now had.

  Finally Jim said, “How much did you hear, Agent Bradford?”

  “More than enough.”

  “And what do you intend to do with that information?”

  “I haven’t decided yet. Arresting you two is one option. Then again, killing you two right now would save a lot of tax dollars.”

  Jim kept his gaze steady on Elizabeth. “This storage unit isn’t very big. My sister and nephew could become collateral damage if you and your partner did decide to shoot.”

  “What makes you think we give a shit about tax dollars? Just put the weapons down.”

  “I’m sorry, Agent Bradford, but you know we can’t do that.”

  It was like they had rehearsed it beforehand, Jim and Frank, the two men almost graceful in their execution: turning toward each other at the same time, stepping away, raising their weapons back at David Bradford and Julia Hogan. The storage unit exploded in a cacophony of gunfire. Cordite filled the air. Elizabeth pulled Matthew even closer to her and turned away, pressing him against the cinderblock wall, her body a shield against the ensuing madness.

  It lasted only five seconds. There was shouting, cursing, but she couldn’t tell who was speaking because her ears were ringing and Matthew was screaming. She risked a glance over her shoulder and saw the agents were gone, Jim and Frank hurrying toward them. Both were wounded, Jim on his left arm, Frank in the stomach and thigh.

  “You take her,” Jim said, and Frank grabbed her hair and yanked her to her feet. Matthew cried out again. Jim grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away from her, then settled a grip on his neck and walked him forward. Elizabeth screamed her son’s name, trying to writhe out of Frank’s steel grip on her arm, pulling her toward the open unit door.

  “I’m parked in the back,” Jim said. Both men pushed her and Matthew outside at the same time, holding them there for a few seconds, enough time for Elizabeth to see David Bradford down one end of the narrow space, Julia Hogan down the other end, both with their weapons aimed.

  “Agent Bradford,” Elizabeth shouted, but before she could say anything else, Frank growled, “Shut up,” and hit the top of her head with the butt of his pistol.

  She bit her tongue, tasted blood, and then she was being pushed forward, Frank slouched behind her, walking her close along the wall, keeping her body between himself and Julia Hogan. She couldn’t see Matthew, could only hear him crying, but she knew Jim was using her son as a shield, too.

  Elizabeth struggled again, trying to free herself, which earned her another slam on the head with the pistol. The world went blurry for a moment. The strength went out of her legs. She staggered and Frank had to hold her up, shove her against the wall, while Julia Hogan waited at the end of the units.

&nb
sp; “You know what I regret?” Frank whispered into her ear as he shoved her forward. “Not getting the chance to fuck you.”

  She clenched her teeth, trying to fight him, but he was strong, much stronger than she had ever taken him for. She said, “You wouldn’t have liked it anyway. I’m still breathing.”

  “Not much longer you’re not,” Frank said, pushing her even closer to Julia Hogan, the space between them now less than twenty feet, and, like she had done with Clarence Applegate, Elizabeth leaned her head forward and quickly snapped it back into Frank’s face. She could feel the cartilage in his nose give, could feel the warm blood in her hair, and she twisted out of his grip, reached for his head, and shoved it hard against the side of the wall.

  Frank went down, but not before he fired his pistol, three consecutive rounds. At least one of them hit Julia, sending her to the ground. Elizabeth was frozen for a moment, not sure what to do next. There was Frank right beside her, Julia Hogan not too far away, and her son and brother at the other end with David Bradford.

  Before she could make a decision, though, a hand grabbed her leg and yanked it out from under her. She hit the ground hard, knocking her head against the pavement. She was barely aware of Frank sitting up, the gun still in his hand, but then more gunfire sounded out and two spurts of blood appeared on his chest. He stared for a moment, just stared, and then fell back.

  Elizabeth scrambled to her feet and hurried over to Julia. “Is it just you two? Did you call backup?”

  Julia Hogan lay flat on the ground. Her face was pale. It was clear the woman hadn’t been hit with just one bullet. Blood was seeping from her left arm and her left leg. She nodded, once, and whispered, “Should be here soon.”