by N. M. Brown
‘His what?’
Abigail’s face did not even register her daughter had spoken. She carried on speaking, undaunted by the interruption.
‘-and that I would consider any repeat of his visit to represent a criminal act.’
‘My friend is missing, possibly abducted, and that kind man is helping.’
‘Missing? Don’t be so melodramatic.’
‘She is missing, and he’s helping.’
‘Oh, I’m sure he’s helping by filling you full of junk food and alcohol?’
‘It was me who bought the beer.’
‘Oh, jeez, he must have thought he won the state lottery, meeting you.’
‘You know, not everyone is a selfish as you!’
‘No, of course not. I’m flying back out this afternoon. I appreciate you may be vulnerable, and suitors haven’t exactly been thick on the ground, but in my absence, try to avoid inviting any other strangers into my house.’
Abigail turned victoriously out of the doorway, and strode back to the kitchen, leaving her daughter sobbing quietly on the bed. If nothing else, Abigail felt comforted by the fact her daughter would be very unlikely to see the elderly man again.
27
At 2:15 p.m., a couple of lawnmowers were droning sleepily on the opposite side of the street as Leighton sat beneath the yellow parasol at his patio table, with a tall glass of iced tea. He was scribbling methodically on his notepad when a white Punto pulled up in front of the single-storey condo.
‘Hi,’ Vicki called from the open window, as she leaned across, and smiled sheepishly. She had tortoiseshell sunglasses on her head, and was wearing that faded University of San Diego t-shirt again.
Leighton stepped off the patio, and crossed the shared lawn, dividing the properties from the road. He paused halfway.
‘Hey, is your mother waiting in the back-seat with a telephoto lens and a gun?’
‘I’m sorry you had to suffer an encounter with her.’ Vicki narrowed her eyes, and assumed the icy stare. ‘Bitch is as bitch does.’
‘Aren’t you taking a chance, talking like that?’ Leighton smiled. ‘She might have followed you?’
‘No, she’s already headed back to New York.’
‘What? I thought she came down to be with you.’
‘No,’ Vicki scoffed. ‘She came to collect Dad’s life insurance documents and other paperwork. She’s a very efficient woman, you know - even while dealing with the death of her husband.’
‘I could see that. So, you want some iced tea, or would that constitute harassment?’
‘Well, that would depend on what you’ve spiked it with.’
‘Ah.’ Leighton smiled. ‘Just slices of lemon, I’m afraid.’
‘In that case, I’ll risk it,’ Vicki said, and climbed out of the car.
Leighton went inside to fix her a drink. Vicki sat at the table, and breathed in the sweet smell of the overflowing hanging baskets running along the front of his home. She liked the simplicity of Leighton’s world. He seemed to have found a small, comfortable space for himself - self-contained and safe.
‘Here you go,’ he said, as he placed the glass before her. ‘So, did you have any luck with your computer stuff?’ Leighton asked, as he sat down.
‘Not in terms of a name, but I did find out the Route King website essentially has no address - it’s a stealth parasite page.’
‘Oh, that’s good.’ Leighton nodded sagely. ‘But, how about you tell me that in English.’
‘It basically sat on the genuine site, then opens a pop-up window in response to a certain stimulus’
‘Stimulus?’
‘Yeah, you know, like rolling the cursor over parts of the page, or typing in certain details.’
Leighton thought about this for a moment. A dark thought was forming in his mind.
‘Would something like that be able to screen responses to actually target an individual?’
‘In theory, yes.’ Vicki said, and took a sip from her glass, ‘You think Laurie might have been targeted on purpose?’
‘I don’t know, maybe.’
‘It would be really difficult for a site to target someone on purpose. How would you even know they intended to travel by bus?’
‘Would it be possible to watch all the people entering their information, and then, you choose when to open the window and offer a better deal?’
A shadow fell over Vicki’s face. ‘Yeah, yeah, it would.’
‘Because, by screening the bookings, a killer wouldn’t just have to wait for a random victim to pass by in a dark alleyway; instead, he would know exactly where they would be, and when.’
Leighton sipped his drink, while Vicki looked intently around at the butterflies dancing from flower to flower in the Californian sunlight.
‘That wouldn’t happen, though. I mean, snaring strangers to murder? It couldn’t … probably, not really?’ Vicki said, trying to restore her sense of order.
‘Yet, you believe Laurie has been murdered?’
‘Well, yes, but not … you know. It was probably random.’
‘When I was a kid, my father was a maintenance man in the Kaiser Steel Mill over in Fontana - have you heard of it?
Vicki shook her head.
‘It was one of the biggest in the world, and to a seven-year-old, it was a crazy and exciting old place. Anyway, what I liked best was the nights when my old man would get called out to fix some temperamental motor. He would take me with him - despite my mother’s protests - and sometimes, I’d get to the see the bright spray of sparks, as steel was cut, or molten steel being poured like lava.’
‘Must’ve been a dangerous place.’
‘A few men died there, crushed between rollers or splattered by a bubble of molten metal. But, that’s not why I bring it up.’
‘Okay, then, why do you?’
‘Because one night, my old man got a call from work, saying there was some kind of crap coming down the cooler wash. This was like a slow waterfall of cold water which cooled the freshly pressed rolls of metal. The operator had called because whatever was in the water was making streaks on the metal. Anyway, the wash was fed by a big tank of the water high up in the roof of the mill. I climbed up two sets of ladders with my old man, and we stood on the gantry. He pressed this grimy switch, and a big old motor slowly rolled back the cover from a square vat of water. I remember it looked like a long, black swimming pool. Anyway, he was kneeling down, holding a jam jar in his hand to take a sample with me holding the torch, when I noticed something bulky and alive moving in the water. I told my pop, and he just pulled a face, and told me to hold the light steady.’
‘What was it?’ Vicki’s eyes widened.
‘Well, he dipped his hand back in the water, then he screamed, and fell back on the gantry. His hand was pouring out blood, like a faucet.’ Leighton blew out a breath, remembering the scene. ‘We got down to the medical room, and found his index fingertip had been torn off. The medical officer drove him to the hospital, where he sat through half an hour of surgery, still ended up looking like he’d put it through a mincer.’
‘And where were you?’
‘Sitting in the reception on a wooden bench, watching the hands ticking by on a big Westfield clock.’
‘You must’ve been terrified, were you?’
‘Yeah, well, not as much I was the following morning.’ My father insisted on returning to the mill, and we went back up that ladder in the daylight. His hand was bandaged, and he had iodine streaks along his forearm. Up on top, the cover was still rolled back, almost to the edge, and I could see into most of the tank, except this one dark strip down at the end.
‘For one crazy moment, I believed he was going to pick up the jar and go dipping again. Only this time, he walked past the bloody jam jar and down to the far end of the tank. I hurried after him, and watched as he gripped a huge drainage tap fixed to the end of the tank, and, despite the pain, he turned it. The water sprayed down on to the steel rolls below, not so m
uch like a stream as water cannon.
‘My father sat back on the gantry, and ruffled my hair. He pulled out a cigarette and smoked as we sat and waited. I couldn’t take my eyes of the dark section of the tank. Eventually, the water was low enough that the creature began to panic and thrashed around, before it came out of hiding.’
‘What was it?’
‘A huge, white Pike - fat and blind. And as long as I was tall.’
‘Jeez.’ Vicki’s eyes widened in horror. ‘Did he kill it?’
Leighton chuckled, ‘No, my father wasn’t the killing type. He probably saw enough of that in Korea. He let me get a good look at it, and he explained how it must have been brought up through the water intake from the Mississippi, and grew for years in the darkness - feeding on anything else that came in through the pipe. He turned off the drain tap and the filler valve, topped it back up, then, he hit the switch, and let the cover clatter back into place.’
‘He just left it?’
‘Yep, said it was part of nature, it might still be there - they tore down most of the mill, but some of the buildings are intact. But, Vicki, the reason I mention this is because that creature grew there in the darkness, because no one was looking for it. If anyone had suggested to the hundreds of steel-men in the Kaiser Plant a giant white fish swam above their heads year after year, they would have called them crazy. So, I guess what I’m saying is, if you truly hope to find monsters, you first have to be ready to accept that monsters exist. Then, you won’t be paralysed with terror when you actually do find them.’
Vicki stared into Leighton’s dark brown eyes for a long moment. It was the first time she realised how far she had travelled from the initial shock of thinking Laurie had been murdered to this strange world of darker possibilities.
‘Okay,’ she finally said. ‘What do you really believe is going on?’
‘I believe we could have more than one killer.’
‘What, like a couple?’
‘Yeah, maybe … it’s happened in California before,’ Leighton said unconvincingly, and looked away.
‘But, clearly, you don’t think so. What are you not telling me?’
‘It could be more than just one or two,’ Leighton said, and drained his glass.
‘Okay, enough with the vagueness. How many are we talking about?’ Vicki demanded.
‘Well,’ Leighton sighed. ‘How many seats are there on a coach?’
‘I’m not sure - twenty-eight plus the driver?’
‘Then, we’re possibly looking at twenty-seven killers on a mobile crime scene.’
Vicki’s face paled, and she felt much as she had done on the day her parents had shared their secret divorce.
‘How is that even possible? I mean, could there even be that many in the entire country?’
Leighton nodded slowly. ‘It varies year to year, but the FBI estimate at any given time there are roughly fifty serial killers active in North America.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Back in 2009, a bunch of us from homicide were given a presentation by two agents at Oceanside Precinct. They revealed something called the Highway Serial Killer initiative.’
‘What was that?’
‘Something dreamt up by the Bureau. It involves a small office in Washington, where a bunch of analysts gather info on victims and suspects, hoping to locate some of those fifty. They hold details on hundreds of murder victims.’
‘And you didn’t connect this to Laurie’s disappearance?’ Vicki’s voice raised to a crescendo.
‘No, most of the victims are either prostitutes or addicts. People with what the feds call a “high risk lifestyle.” I don’t think your friend falls into that category. She had a steady job, her own home, and no history of substance abuse.’
‘And yet, she became a victim. So, what’s different now?’
‘I believe the killers aren’t just interested in “high risk lifestyle” victims any more. Many serial killers are thought to be possibly truck drivers, because so many victims are found near major routes.’
‘My God, why don’t the public know about this?’
‘At the time, it was never publicised outside of official circles. But, now, the information is out there for anyone who’s interested, the thing is, no-one really wants to know. Believing in monsters makes it kind of hard to sleep at night. I should know. You start to listen to every noise, wondering if that creak outside the bedroom door was the cat, or some guy with a long blade and roll of tape.’
‘We have to stop them,’ Vicki said, with a sense of dawning horror. ‘Or at least try.’
28
It had taken less than three hours for Leighton’s small dining room to be transformed into a crude investigation headquarters. A creased old California road map, weighed down in each corner by a bottle of Gold Peak Iced Tea, had replaced the table cloth. Leighton had used silver dollars to mark Barstow and Oceanside.
‘Okay,’ he said, ‘our next step is?’
‘We should look at a missing persons’ website.’
‘I don’t have a computer,’ Leighton said in an apologetic voice. ‘Sorry.’
‘It’s okay. I have my iPad on the back seat of my car.’
Vicki vanished out of the door, letting a breath of warm night air sweep through the apartment.
Vicki returned a moment later with a glowing tablet gripped securely in her hand. She then perched on the edge of the sofa, and began tapping her fingers purposely on the small screen.
‘Type in NAMus,’ Leighton suggested. ‘There are others, but that one should provide the most detail.’
Vicki looked up at him accusatively. ‘I thought you were technophobic?’
‘Yeah, but I’m not an idiot. We had to use basic websites to do our job.’ He wandered into the kitchen.
‘Okay.’ Vicki glanced back at the screen. ‘I have the site opened here. How should we search them?’
‘Geographically, then by date, descending from the day Laurie vanished,’ Leighton said, as he returned with a glass jar of silver coins taken from a cupboard in the kitchen.
‘I thought we could use coins to mark each case.’
‘Sure,’ Vicki said, with a small shrug.
As Leighton unscrewed the lid of the jar, Vicki tapped on the device again, then her eyes widened. ‘God, I never realised there were so many.’
‘Welcome to America,’ Leighton said in wry tone.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Get to the map.’
‘What have you got?’
‘Female, aged twenty-four?’
‘Last known location?’
‘Needles.’
Leighton placed a silver coin on the map, ‘Okay, next?’
‘Male, thirty-one, ’
‘Location?’
‘Laughlin.’
As Leighton placed the third coin on the map, the doorbell rang, and he instinctively turned his head in alarm. No-one ever came calling on him after business hours. He glanced at his jacket draped over one of the dining chairs. His holster was concealed beneath it like a sleeping pet.
‘It’s okay. I’ll get it.’ Vicki grinned.
‘What?’ Leighton made to stand up, but she hurried by him, patting him reassuringly on the way.
There was a murmur from the hallway, then Vicki returned carrying two flat cardboard pizza boxes.
‘What’s this?’
‘I reckoned it was my turn to buy you dinner,’
‘Nice thinking. When did you phone?’
‘I didn’t. I ordered them on my pad, old timer. Now, we have one Margherita and one Veg Deluxe, You happy to share?’
‘Definitely. I suppose advancing technology has some benefits. Like sending Frankenstein to the drive-thru?’ Leighton laughed at his own silliness, and fetched some plates from the galley kitchen. Then, because the table was taken, they sat on the floor of the dining room, and shared the warm food.
‘So,’ Leighton said, as he pulled a triangle of pizza out of the box,
‘we have three missing persons, within a thirty mile radius, over, what, a four week period.’
Vicki nodded. ‘Is that unusual, I mean, from a cop perspective?’
‘Well, from a cop perspective,’ Leighton narrowed his eyes to convey mock meanness, ‘I think it’s pretty unusual. Unless that thirty-mile radius happens to cover somewhere with a high population density, like New York.’
‘If it’s significant, what’s our next move? Should we go report it now?’
Leighton thought of his ex-boss and how receptive he would be with him showing up at the precinct with the woman he was accused of harassing.
‘No, I doubt they’d care. Firstly we need to find out if any of these other missing persons took a trip on a silver bus.’
‘But the site’s is dead. How do we find out?’
‘Ah, that will require good old fashioned police methods.’
Vicki frowned. ‘You mean, we need to eat doughnuts and ignore abductions?’
‘I mean, we could go to the last place they were seen, and speak to friends and family.’
‘We?’
‘Yeah - people respond better to questioning from a male-female team.’
‘Ah, so I’m a prop?’ Vicki said, as she separated a couple of slices fused together by melted mozzarella.
‘An entertaining prop, but I’ll cover your lunch, only this time, we take the train.’
‘Like I did on the last trip?’ Vicki couldn’t help reminding him, but smiled when she saw Leighton’s expression shift to guilt.
‘Hey,’ he said, moving to get up, ‘you want a beer to wash down that pizza?’
‘Sure, that it be great,’ Vicki said, but then realised he had only eaten one slice of pizza to her five. ‘It’s okay, Leighton – I’ll get it. You stay there, and catch up.’
Vicki wandered through to the neat kitchen, and was intimidated by the range of copper pans and utensils neatly suspended around the place. She opened the refrigerator, and pulled out two bottles of Coors.
‘Where’s your bottle opener?’ she called.
‘In the drawer, next to the icebox,’ Leighton replied, sounding like he was chewing.