A Dark Mind

by T. R. Ragan

  She could hear some shuffling before she heard Jared’s voice. “Lizzy, are you there?”

  “Jared,” she said, her gut twisting. “Where are you?”

  “Absolutely no idea. Kassie Scott is here, though, and she needs medical attention. I want you to keep that in mind as you work with Jimmy.”

  “I’ll tell Jimmy. He’s searching a house in Lincoln.”

  “Not that far,” Jared said.

  “Sacramento?” she asked. They both knew the drill. There was no time for heartfelt sentiments. Get out as much information as quickly as possible.

  “Yes.”

  “Can the phone be traced?”

  “Disposable.”

  “Is there anything you can tell me about him? Anything to help us figure out who he is?”

  “Basement. Two cages. Reminds me of a kennel. He likes to play dress-up.”

  “Hand over the phone or the woman gets cut. Now!”

  Lizzy heard a woman cry out.

  “I think we’re done here,” the killer told Lizzy. “You had your chance to say goodbye.”

  “Let Kassie go,” Lizzy pleaded. “If she needs medical attention, the last thing you need is another murder on your list of offenses.”

  “My, my, you do sound a lot like your boyfriend.”

  “Why are you doing this? What’s the endgame?”

  He chuckled at that. “Endgame?”

  “Yeah, what do you get out of this? What’s in it for you?”

  “Are you fucking kidding me? This is it! Talking to you and having long thoughtful chats with a child psychologist.” She could hear him breathing heavily before he added, “I have an FBI agent sitting in a cage…and you’re asking me what’s in it for me? This is a fucking thrill! I feel like I’m riding one of those state-of-the-art roller coaster rides with all those amazing g-forces and vertical loops. But you know what, sweetheart, you’re right, there is an endgame, and the ultimate orgasmic thrill involves you, Lizzy. I want to see your face when you find your boyfriend’s head on a pole on Highway 80. But first, before I kill him, I want Mr. Shayne to watch me closely as I deal with Kassie. I want your boyfriend to see firsthand how a dark mind really works.”

  After the killer disconnected their call, Lizzy’s cell rang again. It was Jessica. “What’s going on?” Lizzy asked, unwilling to allow herself time to fall apart.

  “We have a connection: John Robinson, Dennis Nilsen, and Belle Gunness. All three are names belonging to serial killers. I believe they’re all the same person, including Robert Beck.”

  Lizzy let the news sink in. Robert Beck was a bad seed. He went from foster home to foster home until he was finally adopted by Karen and Todd Beck. Where were Karen and Todd Beck now? she wondered. Was their son, Robert, the one responsible for stuffing the corpses with dead beetles? Did they love him so much that they had been willing to take the fall for their son’s actions?

  “Lizzy, are you there?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Hayley and I are with John Robinson’s neighbor Claire Schultz. She told us everything. Eli Simpson was right. Not only was John Robinson with Eli’s sister, Rochelle, the night she disappeared, but, according to Claire, the man put his fist through the car window, choked her until she passed out, and then carried her into his home. She said that nobody else was involved. The story he told the police was one big lie.”

  “Why didn’t Claire go to the police?”

  “Because John Robinson has been torturing her and threatening her. She has the scars to prove it. It’s awful, Lizzy.”

  “I need you to call the police. I’ll call Jimmy and tell him what’s going on.”

  “Hayley already called,” Jessica answered. “They’re on their way.”

  CHAPTER 30

  Even when she was dead, she was still bitching at me. I couldn’t get her to shut up!

  —Edmund Kemper

  Saturday, June 9, 2012

  Jared watched the Lovebird Killer ready a table—a modern-day stretcher/gurney that an EMT might use to get a patient to the ambulance. It was equipped with a device that would raise and lower the table. There were also wheels, making it easy for him to move the table from one end of the room to the other. Next, he set up a surgical tray and proceeded to methodically prepare his tools. For a moment he appeared deep in thought as he examined an assortment of scalpels.

  Holding a scalpel in the air, he said, “I prefer the rounded number ten blade for making the first cut into the skin.” He used a cloth to wipe his favorite scalpel, then held up a retractor used to hold open parts of the body and examined it closely.

  Jared glanced at Kassie.

  Once again, the killer was hoping for a reaction and yet he wasn’t getting one from either of them.

  “A dull blade leaves a jagged scar. Not pretty.”

  Jared watched him closely.

  “I bet you’re dying to know what I’m going to do with all of this.”

  “Nope,” Jared said. “Not interested.”

  The man smirked. “It’s not for you, if that makes you feel any better.”

  “It doesn’t.”

  The man smiled as if he already knew what Jared would say. He gently placed a jar on the surgical tray next to the scalpel, the same sort of jar sitting next to the television set—the one with the semipreserved heart inside.

  “Was your father a doctor?” Jared asked.

  “I have no idea who or what my father was.”

  “Oh, come on. You must have heard something,” Jared prodded. “Where was your father from?”

  He picked up the scalpel that he’d already cleaned and wiped it with the cloth again, more vigorously than before.

  “Was he a doctor, a mayor, or maybe the town drunk?”

  His hands shook slightly as he held the sharp tip toward Jared like he might come forward and enter the cage to finish him off. More than anything, Jared hoped that he would try. He wanted nothing more than to get his hands on the man and take him down.

  In the blink of an eye, though, the killer’s facial expression changed from outrage to utter calmness. “I get what you’re trying to do. Very good. You almost had me for a minute there.”

  “I’m not trying to do anything,” Jared said. “I’m only interested to learn what makes someone like you tick.”

  “You may be an agent, but you’re a profiler at heart, aren’t you, Jared Shayne? You like to open up the minds of people like me and dig around, hoping to find something new to throw into your bag of tricks so maybe the next time you’re searching for a killer, you might save a life. You’re wasting your time. I won’t be able to help you, since you’ll be as dead as Kassie when I’m done, but I understand your need to prod and analyze.”

  He left his tools and focused his attention on setting up a digital camcorder, making sure he inserted a new memory card. His actions seemed robotic. Clearly, he’d done this many times before.

  After he finished setting up the camera, he said, “Being a killer is like being in love.”

  “How so?” Jared asked.

  “You can’t make another person love you, nor can you force yourself to fall in love with someone. Either it is or it isn’t. It’s the same way with killing. People like me,” he said, picking up the scalpel again and brushing the blade across his forearm, “don’t suddenly decide to kill one day.” Blood dripped slowly down his arm. He smiled. “Either we’re born killers or we’re not.”

  He put the scalpel down and fiddled with another tool, making sure it was in working order. Then he looked at Jared. “You’re shaking your head. Why is that?”

  “Nothing is that simple.”

  “I respectfully disagree.”

  “Many killers are made,” Jared said, “sculpted by society, the by-product of their parents, relatives, friends, and the life they’ve been dealt.”

  “Not in my case.”

  “How so?”

  “I grew up with a loving mother. She doted on me. I was her everyth
ing. I was her sunshine and she was mine. She spent time with me, taught me everything she knew, and made sure to tuck me into bed every single night.”

  Kassie snorted.

  Jared ignored her, hoping the man would do the same.

  “What is it, Kassie? You have something you want to add to the conversation?”

  “You’re clearly delusional.”

  “Ahh, I see. You think you know me, don’t you? Think you’ve seen it all before? Is that what you’re thinking, little Miss Child Psychologist?”

  “That’s right, asshole. You are nothing new. Same old, same old,” she said with an exaggerated yawn. “If I had a dollar for every screwed-up kid that sat in my office, looked me right in the eye, and told me his childhood was the best ever, I would have retired years ago.”

  “Are you saying I’m a liar?” He set down the scalpel, his face a maze of angry lines as he walked forward and wrapped his long pale fingers around the steel bars of Kassie’s cage. “Are you saying that my mother was a selfish whore who didn’t know I existed—a woman who cared more about feeding food scraps to the pigs than caring for her only son? A woman who was afraid of me because I reminded her of her attacker—her rapist, my father?”

  “I don’t think that’s what she means at all,” Jared cut in.

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Kassie said, her voice uncaring and flat, bordering on lifeless.

  Clearly she’d been overpowered by defeat, Jared thought, and had already prepared herself for whatever the lunatic had planned for her, including a quick death to end it all.

  “How many people have you killed?” Jared asked, hoping to get his attention away from Kassie.

  “Not nearly enough,” he said, rattling Kassie’s cage, but getting no response from the woman inside.

  “Are you responsible for the deaths of Charles and Maureen Baker?”

  “Of course,” he said with a smile, the deep lines in his face softening. “Charles didn’t want anything to do with me, but like so many foolish men, there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for Maureen.” He sighed. “Love can be so bittersweet.”

  “What about the Daltons?” Jared asked.

  He went to his desk and Jared watched him select a CD from a box. As Roy Orbison’s “Only the Lonely” played, he returned to his table and hovered over his tools again. He mouthed the words to the song, singing along with Roy Orbison as he lifted a knife and once again pointed the sharp tip at Jared. “The Daltons,” he said, loud enough to be heard over the music. “Those two were tricky. They both had me fooled, but in the end they weren’t worth all the trouble I went to. Michael was only in love with himself, but he never would have killed his wife—didn’t have the balls for that. Your girlfriend was the only one who seemed to see the big picture. Why is that? All of your big FBI meetings…all of those supposedly brilliant minds in one room, but nobody can put two and two together except for one very scared lost soul.” He smiled, his eyes wide and demented. “She’s a keeper, that one. After you’re out of the way, she’ll be all mine. My sweet Lizzy was curious to know what my endgame was. That’s it,” he said, his wide grin revealing two rows of neglected teeth.

  “What about the love of your life?” Jared asked, referring to the woman in the chair, who hadn’t moved since his arrival. Jared had no idea if there was a human being or a blow-up doll beneath all the clothes and accessories.

  “She’ll get over it. She understands that, in the end, I always come back to her.”

  “How long has your lover over there been dead?” Kassie asked.

  He snickered. “She’s more alive than you’ll ever be.”

  “Just another delusion,” Kassie said with a sigh. “You loved her to death, didn’t you? The only way you could keep her at your side was to kill her, dress her up, and play house.” She let out a derisive laugh. “Even after she was dead, you had to tie her to the chair to keep her with you. So sad.”

  That was the proverbial last straw. The man went ballistic. He fished inside his front pocket and pulled out the key to Kassie’s cage. There was no hesitation as he unlocked her cage door and dragged Kassie to the table he’d been carefully setting up.

  Jared knew Kassie wouldn’t be able to fight the man, and she didn’t. She had nothing left. The infection from her wounds had caused her body to become feverish and wracked with chills.

  “Let her be,” Jared said. “Don’t do this.”

  But the man had already strapped her to the table and then raised the gurney to a workable height. He picked up the same scalpel he’d used to cut his arm and didn’t waste any time getting started.

  Sacramento

  Saturday, June 9, 2012

  Lizzy pulled up to the curb on Bunker Street. There were police cars and unmarked sedans lining both sides of the street. The media vans had just arrived. She kept hoping her phone would ring again and she would hear Jared’s voice. She wanted another chance to tell him she loved him. She wiped her eyes, angry at the world. She had to stay strong. No time for tears. They would find Jared. They had to.

  She had talked to Jimmy a few minutes ago. His warrant had arrived and he and his men were finally inside the Lincoln house. Still no sign of Jared or Kassie Scott, but they did find the well-preserved and embalmed bodies belonging to Todd and Karen Beck. Inside another barnlike building on the edge of their property, they found an old limousine with two dead bodies that consisted mostly of bone and hair, bodies they believed belonged to Maureen and Charles Baker.

  Lizzy opened her car door, but before she could exit, Jessica hurried over—her eyes puffy and bloodshot.

  Lizzy’s heart sank as she prepared herself for the worst. “What did they find?”

  “Jared’s not inside the home.”

  Lizzy’s phone rang. She opened her cell and held it to her ear, disappointed when she heard Maria Trumble’s voice instead of Jared’s.

  “There were a few things I remembered about Robert.”

  “What?”

  “Every Wednesday, I have the kids in my class write about something or someone important in their lives. It’s a task I’ve had my kids do since I began teaching thirty years ago. Robert always wrote about his biological mother, who disappeared when he was young. Her name was Lily. I think that’s why he was always fascinated with flowers. Every so often, Robert would come to school dressed up as a female. I’m not certain, but I think many of the clothes he used to wear belonged to an older woman. In fact, I always figured the clothes must have belonged to his dead mother.”

  Lizzy thanked her and then hung up the phone.

  Flowers.

  A man dressed as a woman.

  She looked at Jessica and said, “Lily’s Flower Shop. That’s it!”

  “What are you talking about?” Jessica asked. “Who was that?”

  “I don’t have time to explain. I’ll call Jimmy on my way. I need you to tell Lieutenant Greer that I’m headed for Lily’s Flower Shop downtown. Tell him to send backup. Now.”

  Lizzy shut her door and took off, leaving screech marks on the pavement.

  “Where is she going?” Hayley asked as she ran across the street.

  “She wants me to tell Lieutenant Greer that she’s going to Lily’s Flower Shop and to send backup.”

  “Come on,” Hayley said. “We’ve got to follow her. She can’t do this alone.”

  “Can’t do what alone? What about the lieutenant?”

  Hayley was already jumping into the passenger seat of Jessica’s red Volvo. “I’ll call Greer on our way. Come on, Jessica. Hurry up. We don’t want to lose her.”

  Sacramento

  Saturday, June 9, 2012

  Lizzy parked at the curb in front of Lily’s Flower Shop, turned off the engine, and jumped out. She ran to the front entrance, but the door was locked. Peering through the glass, she could see the front counter where she’d talked to Jane, the owner, when she was here last. Jane had been dressed up as a woman, but she was a man. She was Robert Beck,
Lizzy was sure of it. Eli had said that John Robinson worked at a shop downtown, but Lizzy hadn’t thought to ask for more details because she’d had no reason to believe John Robinson was the Lovebird Killer. She’d also been overwhelmed with too much going on at once. But at the moment, she had clarity. John Robinson was a man of many names. He had tortured Claire Schultz into silence. No doubt, he had killed Eli’s sister and how many others?

  She ran to the rear of the store, but the storage area where trucks made deliveries was closed off by a high metal gate topped off with circular barbed wire. A lot of security for a flower shop. She rushed back to the entry door, gun in hand, ready to fire at the lock, when she heard Hayley yell, “Stop.”

  While Hayley pulled out a tool and worked the lock, Lizzy looked toward the street. “Where’s Jessica?”

  “She’s in the car, talking to Greer.”

  “Why isn’t the alarm on your ankle monitor beeping?”

  “It’s a long story,” Hayley said right before they heard a click and the door came open.

  Without waiting for an explanation, Lizzy ran inside the building. “Stay near the front of the store,” she ordered. “I’m going to take a look around.”

  Lizzy held her gun in front of her as she took slow, methodical steps. The front room was empty. The back room was covered with boxes: some empty, many filled with vases and dried flowers used in the arrangements. The sweet smell of tuberoses contrasted greatly with the deadly games the owner of the shop played on a daily basis. There were two small desks. She glanced under both, and then opened drawers and cupboards lining the walls. She came up empty.

  After a moment, she stopped and listened.

  Hayley walked into the room and pointed to the five-by-six wool carpet in the middle of the room. Lizzy pulled at a corner of the carpet, but it wouldn’t budge. The carpet was stuck to the floor, but she heard something click beneath the rug. “Help me out here,” she told Hayley. Together they pulled as hard as they could and ended up opening a trapdoor—the entrance to the bowels of Hell, no doubt.