Killing Season

by Faye Kellerman

  “You cheated on your second boyfriend with your ex?”

  “Yes.” The man was able to follow a rather circuitous train of thought. “Exactly.”

  “Cheating with your ex doesn’t count.”

  “Now, that’s a very enlightened attitude, Salvador. Unfortunately, boyfriend two didn’t see it that way.”

  “So really you have only one boyfriend . . . number one.”

  “Sort of. We’re not going together anymore.”

  “So, you really don’t have any boyfriend. Why won’t you go out with me?”

  “Because boyfriend one really wants me back and I’m just too damn lazy to cultivate yet another personality.”

  “Are they big guys?” Salvador flexed his muscles. “Could I take them down?”

  “Number two is thin and wiry.” She thought of Ben picking up Weekly and tossing him in the trash cans. “When he gets riled, he’s pretty strong. Number one is a big, big guy. He plays football. He’s kind of a take-no-prisoners guy.”

  “He was in prison?”

  She patted Salvador’s cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow night. Thanks for your help.”

  “We could make beautiful music together, Gretchen.”

  She winced at the sound of her sister’s name. “I don’t know about music, Salvador. For the here and now, let’s just settle on making some decent tips.”

  Chapter 12

  The next day, Ro not only got the job, she got the tutorial. How to check people in, how to check them out, how to assign them a room, how to move them if they’re unhappy in their rooms, the smoking and nonsmoking rooms, adjoining rooms, discounts for repeat customers, corporate discounts, and on and on.

  “Do you get a lot of repeat customers?”

  “Most of them are repeats,” Tomas said. “We give good discounts.”

  “Yeah, right.” Her heart started racing. “Like if one of the repeats wants a certain room, do you have a way to access the back files to see what room they had?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “How do you do that?”

  Tomas looked at his watch. “We’ve been at this for a while. We’ll do it another time. If you ever get to work the desk.”

  “I can dream,” Ro said. “How far do the files go back?”

  “Since they were computerized—probably twenty-five, thirty years ago.”

  “Okay. That means you have a lot of names in the computer.” Tomas looked at her and laughed. She laughed too. “Dumb question.” She saw a suit who’d patronized the bar yesterday looking for her. “I’d better run.”

  “Congrats on getting the job.”

  “With your help, Tomas.”

  “I did put in a good word for you.”

  “I appreciate it.” She winked at him.

  He winked back, but he didn’t have the gesture quite down. It came off like a tic. It was going to be a long haul, but she was in for the long haul.

  Working hard and late, Ro now understood sleep. The job got her home around eleven thirty. With homework and unwinding time, she went to bed around one and woke up at seven to go to school. She became chronically sleep-deprived and that meant she dozed whenever she had a spare moment. More than once, someone shook her shoulder in calculus class. When her teachers asked, she told them she was fine, although everyone knew she was lying.

  Her biggest nap was during lunch. She rarely ate because snoozing was much more satisfying. As a result, she lost a few pounds, which allowed her to indulge in cookies and potato chips from the Jackson stash. Her complexion went to seed but that’s why makeup was invented. She took catnaps seriously, so she tried not to be annoyed when JD woke her up one lunch period.

  “Hey, babe.”

  She picked her head up and rubbed her eyes. “What time is it?”

  “We’ve got ten minutes more of lunch until the bell rings. It took me a while to find you. Mind if I eat my lunch?”

  “No, go ahead.” She reached into her knapsack and pulled out a tuna fish on soggy rye, then put it back in the paper bag without eating it. “How are you?”

  “I’d be a lot better if you wouldn’t avoid me.”

  JD’s bites were bigger than her head. He had two sandwiches, which he was wolfing down in record time. “I’m not avoiding you, JD. I’m just tired.”

  “Yeah, about that. Why are you so tired?”

  “I got a job. I work late.”

  He stared at me. “You got a job?”

  “Yep.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not?”

  “How about because you don’t need one.” He regarded her face. “What kind of a job?”

  “Something low level and minimum wage that is commensurate with my skill level.”

  “You’re punishing yourself, right?” She didn’t answer. “You know that you and Vicks wouldn’t have lasted more than a few months anyway. It was doomed from the start.”

  She was too tired to argue Vicks’s merits. They were getting harder for her to remember. “Whatever.”

  JD said, “Quit the job and come back to your former life.”

  “Well, it’s this way, JD.” She yawned. “As popular as I was last semester, that’s as unpopular as I am this semester.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Go back on the cheerleading squad. I miss you.”

  “Not going to happen. Shannon hates me. She thought that once we broke up, she’d be your girl again. It was bad enough to lose you to me. But now that we’re not even dating and you’re still not coming around, she’s really furious. And of course, that’s all my fault. And where Shannon goes, so do Chelsea and Lisa. So now they hate me. And Weekly hates me because secretly he’d like to bang me. But he’s too scared to stand up to you, so he devotes his life to making my life miserable. And Mark Salinez . . . he doesn’t take no for an answer.”

  “I’ll beat him up.”

  “JD, you can’t just beat people up because they’re pushy. Leave Mark alone. He’s harmless.”

  “Whatever you want, baby. I’m here to protect and serve.”

  “Since I’m not Miss Popular anymore, I thought at least I could sit with my brother at lunch. But Haley hates me right now. So, by extension, Griff is totally pissed off and hates me. Worse still, Haley is being a bitch to him. And Vicks, of course, won’t even answer my phone calls. You are the only one who’s still nice to me. You and Lilly. I swear that girl is from a different planet.”

  “Ro, let me take you out to dinner. We could both use a little R and R.”

  “I’m working, JD.”

  “What are you doing? Like a counter girl at DQ?”

  “O ye of little faith!”

  “I’m just saying that for anything decent you have to be over eighteen.”

  “And so says my driver’s license.”

  “You got a fake ID?”

  “What’s the dif?” She smiled “You’re not going to rat me out, so I’m safe for the moment.”

  “Just quit!”

  “Ah, you care.” She kissed his lips gently. “I do appreciate this little tête-à-tête. If I wasn’t so tired, I’d be happy to go out to dinner with you. But between sleep and food, food doesn’t stand a chance.”

  JD sat back in his chair. “This is killing me! I mean, all this time we could be together before graduation. I know you don’t worship me, but c’mon. We had a lot of fun together.”

  “We did have fun.” She rubbed her eyes. “Give me a little more time. Maybe by then I’ll be free of my obligations and we can resume where we left off.”

  “What obligations?”

  “You wouldn’t understand.” She stood up. “It’s something I need to do.”

  It was the first weekend in nearly three weeks that Ben had decided to come home. It was good to be missed. His mother was happy to see him and although he saw his father in Albuquerque at least once a week, his dad seemed in a particularly jovial mood. Even Haley seemed to welcome his presence. She and Lilly chatted away about the vagaries and vicissi
tudes of Remez High: who was popular, who was not, who was going with whom, what movies they saw, what TV shows they were watching. Ben noticed that Griffen Majors wasn’t mentioned at all. He didn’t comment on it, but he filed it away. By eleven in the evening, he was zonked. He slept the sleep of the dead and woke up a little before seven in the morning. The house was quiet and he was alone.

  Early morning was his favorite time of day. Everything was new and fresh and filled with promise that rarely was realized. But hope counted for something and so did coffee. He started a pot, turned off the alarm, and went out to the front yard to grab the Journal and the New Mexican. He peeled off the Santa Fe section from the Journal and read the Albuquerque news first. It was almost as if New Mexico’s most populated city was becoming his new home base.

  It was a small paper and reading it cover to cover took all of ten minutes.

  He moved on to the local news in the Santa Fe section and grimaced as he read the headlines. Then he looked at the New Mexican, where he reread the same story. Both papers showed a picture. Some idiot had graffitied the Palace of the Governors. The place had been constructed in the seventeenth century and was the oldest government building in the country still in use. It was not only a historical landmark, but an American Treasure. And some asshole decided it would be fun to spray-paint black bull’s-eyes all over the dun adobe walls. There was going to be a community pancake breakfast starting at eight for anyone who was willing to volunteer their time to cover up the desecration.

  Ben checked his watch. It was seven thirty. He got up from the breakfast bar just as his father came out. His dad greeted him. “God bless you. You made coffee.”

  “Help yourself.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Getting dressed. Might as well do something productive.” Ben showed his father the article.

  The old man made a face. “That’s terrible. I can maybe come for a couple of hours. But then I have stuff to do.”

  “Don’t bother. I’m sure it’ll be a big turnout. Especially with free pancakes.”

  “Stupid kids.” He poured himself a cup of coffee. “Probably teenaged boys with inadequate penile size.”

  Ben laughed. “Since when have you become Freudian?”

  “The Austrian does have a time and place.” His dad smiled. “Good to see you doing something productive.”

  “You mean, good to see you not moping around.” Ben kissed the top of his father’s head. “Thanks, Dad, for not throwing in the towel . . . on me, I mean.”

  “Why in the world would I do that?” He went back to his paper. “Ruin my favorite source of recreation.”

  “Which is?”

  “Embarrassing you and your sister. I just love to watch you young’uns squirm.”

  Paint cans were spread out on Palace, the street closed off between Washington and Grant. The back wall of the portico of the Palace of the Governors—where the Indians set up to display their wares—was pocked with black spray-painted bull’s-eyes, as was the second story of the building. The asshole had had a busy night.

  Stations were set up in the blocked-off street while volunteers served piles of pancakes and syrup, orange juice, and lots and lots of coffee. The Palace abutted the grassy plains of the plaza, which hummed with people ready, willing, and able to make amends for some tagger’s indiscretions. A crowd of around fifty ate while awaiting assignments. Ladders were being set up against the building. There was a sign-up sheet, a disclaimer sheet, and loads of aprons along with water buckets and paintbrushes. The tagging was all over the building, but within an hour a lot of the damage was masked by adobe-colored hues.

  Ben was concentrating on his area when he heard a familiar voice say hello.

  “How’s it going?” Shanks asked. “Haven’t seen you for a while.” When the boy shrugged, he said, “Problems?”

  “No problems,” Ben said. “There would be problems if she was still around, but she’s no longer in the picture.”

  “The pretty blonde?”

  “Yep,” Ben said. “The pretty blonde.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I,” Ben said. “You recognize the tag, Sam?”

  “No, I don’t. It’s not associated with any of the local gangs.”

  “I can believe that. Most of the locals, including the gangs, have more respect for their heritage. Asshole kid.”

  “Kid or kids?”

  “I think it was done by a single hand. Look at the paint. Each one is identical in shape and size . . . like a signature, like he’s trying real hard to preserve his identity because he’s lost it somewhere. Precise little booger.”

  “Studying psychology in school?”

  “Armchair psychology.”

  “Sounds pretty good to me. Are you sure you don’t want to join the academy?”

  Ben smiled and kept painting.

  Shanks said, “We got a final on Katie Doogan’s DNA.” Ben immediately stopped painting and looked at him with anticipation. “It took a long time because there wasn’t very much biological evidence that we could test. Fraction of a fraction, but we did get a profile back, Ben. You were right. It’s a match for your sister.”

  Ben froze, couldn’t talk.

  Shanks went on. “I found out late last night. I’ve been spending the last few hours trying to figure out a way to tell you and your parents. Then I saw you here.” He looked down. “Sorry to spring this on you, son. I guess I should have been more diplomatic.”

  “It’s fine, Sam. It’s . . . there’s no easy way.” He turned to Shanks. “What about Jamey Moore?”

  “Now that we have three matches—Ellen, Julia Rehnquist, and Katie Doogan—Tennessee will go through with the request for DNA comparison. Ortiz and I are on it. This is the break we’ve all been waiting for. We can coordinate—several departments looking at the same thing.”

  “How are we going to find him?”

  “You mean how are the police going to find him?” When Ben didn’t respond, Shanks said, “The police are doing everything they can—every legal maneuver and then some. Serial killers are big news. We’ve got manpower now. We’re going to find the son of a bitch, Ben. I promise you.”

  Shanks put a hand on the kid’s shoulder.

  “Ben, I’ll call you when I have something to report. I promise.”

  “Thanks, Sam. Thanks for . . .” Ben didn’t finish.

  Shanks said, “You’re one of a kind, Ben. Don’t ever change. You just got to find work that makes the best of your . . . unique personality.”

  “I think that’s a compliment.”

  “It is.” Shanks looked at the building, covered with tags and splotches of paint. “I’ve got to get back to the station house. Feel free to drop in anytime. And I’m sure you’ll take me up on that one.”

  “Most likely I will.”

  After Sam left, Ben kept painting. Almost all the desecration had been covered up, but there were a few tags left at the top of the building. Ben stared at a tag, squinting into the sun, his forehead suddenly furrowing.

  It was like a figure-ground puzzle. Once he had seen it, it was amazing that he had missed it in the first place.

  The tags weren’t bull’s-eyes. The tags were initials.

  It was as clear as a bell: an M on top of a G.

  Chapter 13

  When Ro opened the door, Ben didn’t bother to hide his anger. He was seething, but it wasn’t directed at her.

  He stepped over the threshold. “I need to see Griffen.”

  “He’s in his room—”

  “Thanks.” Ben moved past her and knocked on Griffen’s door. When the boy opened up, Ben walked inside and closed the door in Ro’s face. He locked the door. The kid was fair-complexioned. Anything embarrassing set him off. This time the blush spread across his cheeks like a runaway paint spill.

  “What’s up?” Griffen said.

  Without answering, Ben started searching through the kid’s closet. Griffen tried to muster up anger. Bu
t it came across as something else. He was wide-eyed . . . scared. “What are you doing?”

  “Looking for spray-paint cans.” Ben started moving coats to the side to get to some hidden shelving. “If I’m wrong, a thousand apologies. Okay if I hunt around?”

  “No, it’s not okay. Get out.”

  The kid wasn’t even smart enough to throw away the cans he didn’t use. Ben held up one of them and turned on him. “I just spent one of my few free mornings painting a national landmark that some asshole had the temerity to tag. And that pissed me off.”

  Griffen batted the can away from Ben. “Get the fuck out of here!”

  “Aren’t you a hotshot? Doing stuff in the dead of night where no one can see you. You want to be a criminal, at least have the balls to do it in daylight.”

  “You’re talking to me about balls? You’re a fucking wimp who can’t even keep a girlfriend. Get the fuck out of my life!”

  “Fine, Griff. This wimp will be happy to get the fuck out of your life when you man up and tell the police what you did. Because if you don’t, this wimp is going to haul your ass down to the police.”

  Griffen charged at him. Ben easily deflected the snorting little bull and took him down in a headlock. He said, “Now that was stupid!”

  “Let go of me!” Griffen screamed while writhing in his grip. “Let go of me!”

  Ro was knocking hard on the door. “What’s going on!”

  “Nothing,” Ben said. “We’re fine.”

  Ro started banging. “Let me in! Ben, open the door!” When neither of them moved to help her out, she said, “If you don’t open the door right now, I’m going to call the police.”

  Ben shouted out, “So call the police! That’s what we both want, right, Griff?”

  Griff shouted out. “Go away, Ro!”

  “Griffen!” She banged again. “Open up!”

  “Go away and leave me the fuck alone, Ro. I hate you!”

  The knocking stopped. Ben still had him in a hold. The kid was clawing his arm. He was drawing blood. “Want to know how to get out of it?”