by Brian Hodge
Thrusting the mike into official faces, she’s rebuffed time and again, until at last she shanghais a young uniformed cop trying gamely at crowd control.
“Can you tell us what’s happened?” she asks again.
He whirls, irritable, ready to tell her to get lost. But the recognition is instantaneous — it’s her — and his will dissolves in a giddy rush of celebrity proximity. Putty in her hands. He will later be reprimanded for his poor judgment and big mouth.
“He got away! Darryl Hiller got away!” he says, breathless.
Sandra doesn’t let the hammer blow of distress register one flicker across her face. “How did this happen, do you know?”
“He … he told his guard he had to go to the crapper, and … and I don’t know what happened! Slipped his cuffs and beat hell out of his guard and cuffed that poor asshole” — a quick finger-jab toward the plump red-haired man — “and stole his clothes. And then he just … disappeared!”
“By disappeared, you mean —”
“He’s gone, but there was no place for him to go.” The young cop is white-faced. “Miz Riley … that bathroom doesn’t even have a window.”
Seven months earlier, November:
She came home, near midnight, and the day had been typically long and exhausting. She sorted mail in the sixteen-story elevator ride up to her floor, some addressed to Sandra Riley, the rest to Shanna Riley. The latter was technically correct. Some long-ago news consultant down in Dallas had suggested a change in her pro name. Shanna sounded too close to Sheena, as in Queen of the Jungle, which some female viewership might find threatening. Management backed him, but at least she got to pick her replacement moniker.
Her feet ached, and she wore L.A. Gear tennies instead of heels toward the day’s end, when spit and polish were less crucial. She closed her apartment door, triple-locked it. Shed her overcoat and collapsed onto the sofa, a single lamp on for company. Home was a jumbled contrast to her immaculate video image, everywhere stacks of current magazines and nonfiction books, a hamster-in-wheel race to keep abreast of all matters financial and political, scientific and cultural.
A few tears, then, and cramps. ActioNews 8 was a battleground of mammoth egos and managerial shufflings. In “The Waste Land” T.S. Eliot had deemed April the cruelest month, but she knew better. It was November. November saw the year’s most crucial Arbitron sweep, and ActioNews 8 was currently ranked fourth in a nine-station market. Unacceptable. As reporter and weekend co-anchor, she didn’t have the most to lose, but it seemed that the less you had the more viciously you had to fight just to hold onto it.
The whole city was, of course, abuzz over the murders. Some whackout who assaulted women in their homes, bound them with vinyl tape so they couldn’t flee, taped over their mouths so they couldn’t scream … then taped over their noses so they couldn’t breathe. He raped them as they convulsed into suffocation, then left them for someone else to come home to.
After victim number three, when a police captain was quoted as saying, “We’ll catch this worm,” media pundits were quick to christen the killer the Tapeworm, for a populace preferring its more murderous aberrations to be packaged with readily-identifiable labels. Sandra hated the name, had no choice but to use it. Over drinks, the more battle-hardened reporters even hoped that the Tapeworm would send the police taunting notes. Given the vinyl and the rape, the notes could then, in a morbid nod to C.S. Lewis, be called “The Screwtape Letters.”
A little requisite tube-time before bed. Sandra reached for the remote control for the TV and VCR, always stationed on the coffee table, and only then realized something was wrong.
It wasn’t there.
When the TV winked on as if by telepathy, she whirled in sudden panic. Saw him strolling out of hallway shadows, remote in one hand and cutlery in the other. There was never any doubt as to who he was. The roll of tape braceleted over one wrist was mere confirmation.
Sandra scrambled for the door but he was quicker, lithe as a gymnast, and blocked her way. Back to the sofa, he motioned with the knife, and she obeyed against her will. Ridiculous — compliance hadn’t saved his sixteen priors. The sense of invasion brought a wave of nausea.
“I’m not here for that,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.”
She poised on the sofa like high-tension wire while he took the nearest chair. She looked for weapons, escapes. Nothing in this room, at least, looked as formidable as the blade. In the bedroom, however…
He pointed at the TV and its outboard gear. “You record the competition’s newscasts to watch later, don’t you.” He appeared pleased with this deduction.
She nodded, studying him, fighting for self-control. He was remarkable only for his look of being so totally ordinary. The Tapeworm’s identity and appearance had been matters of great speculation, since he hadn’t left anyone behind to provide a description. He was young, mid-twenties, with limp blond hair and the pale pallor of someone who holed up with too much late-night TV. His eyes were devoid of feverish madness, touched instead by an intelligent gaze of intense curiosity.
Stronger than he looks, though, she had to reason. He could not have broken in through her front door. Which meant this bland lunatic had scaled sixteen floors of balconies to meet her.
“That’s smart, taping the others’ news. I’m sorry, I had to take your tape out, but I rewound it for you. It’ll be okay. You have to know your competition.” He nodded, toyed with the knife.
“What do you want, then?” Her voice, so tight, so wired, was not at all what she heard when reviewing her own newscasts.
“I brought my own tape. I edited it myself. It’s called Sex, Death, and Videotape. Let’s watch.” He hit the remote again and the VCR kicked in. She felt his eyes never leave her, couldn’t trust her, no, couldn’t trust her yet.
She watched a moment of snow, then
herself Sandra Riley rapidfire edited images of her at scene after scene of the crime change of seasons noted by change of wardrobe her professional sympathetic concern always the same “This is Sandra Riley” crying families frustrated cops whirling red lights and yellowtape crime scene cordons “We’ll catch this worm” victim profiles black and white and color photos of young women who breathed no more “This is Sandra Riley” academic post-Freudian graybeard spouting psychological murderer’s profile then footage of older murders older crime scenes shootings knifings bludgeonings strangulations never connected never related because of wildly varying M.O.’s frightening cavalcade jumpcut montage “This is Sandra Riley” herself at weekend anchor desk “For ActioNews 8, this is Sandra Riley” same closing image on flashcut repeat Sandra Riley/Sandra Riley/Sandra Riley/Sandra Riley/Sandra Riley/Sandra Riley —
Snow, and white noise.
“What is this?” she managed to choke out.
“Don’t you get it?” He looked at her in earnest. “It’s my résumé.”
Sandra Riley, numb and blank. A media first.
“Don’t you see?” he asked. “I want to work with you.”
She staggered inside, trying to convince herself, This is not personal, this is nothing personal. Survival depended on divorcing personal from professional. Professionally she was unflappable. Last fall she’d done a live Special Olympics report while wearing a jersey. Of numerous airtime mandates there was but one unforgivable sin: Thou shalt not lose control on the air. She’d done ninety seconds of live feed with calm, warm, caring composure for these handicapped children. After handing it back to the studio she had astonished her crew by shrieking and twisting until she dislodged two squirming grasshoppers from inside her jersey.
“Work together,” she repeated, now steady. “How so?”
“There’s so much information I could feed you. So everyone could know me. They’ve barely scratched the surface. It’s like admiring the painting without knowing the artist.” He rose, grew more animated, gesturing with the knife. “I mean, look what I’ve done for your career already. Look what you’ve done for me.”
She met him eye to eye. “I’m not the only one, by any means. Everyone’s covered you.”
He dismissed the rest with an irritated flip of the blade. “Hacks, they’re all doing hackwork, assembly line journalism.” He lowered to one knee, imploring her as if proposing marriage. “You’re the best. I watch my coverage every night — every night — and you’re the only one who can take me back there. I watch you standing there where I’ve been and I can smell it, I can taste it, I can feel myself right back there … ‘cause you step right out and take me by the hand and pull me back through the screen with you.”
A moment’s flash: What have I created?
“You understand, I can see it in your eyes on the screen. You know what it takes to get noticed, you’ve got the formula down. I was too smart for my own good at first, I never killed quite the same way twice … and nobody thought to connect them. But then I wised up.” He tapped his temple. “I developed a trademark. And now the whole city knows me. Just like they know you.”
“So, this work arrangement.” Keep him talking, keep him on his own twisted agenda. “What’s in it for me?”
He wet his lips like a child at Christmas. “I can call you, tell you where I’ve just been. You’ll get the jump on everyone else. You understand, you know what it takes.”
She kept him talking about particulars: timetables she kept, ethics of cooperation, randomly touching on anything she could think of to make him believe he was being taken seriously. At last, when fantasies of lasting stardom had gotten the better of him, she sunk the vital hook:
“Why don’t we do a background piece. Right now.” Shaking inside her shell, Sandra pointed to her camcorder in a jumble of electronics beside the TV. “Tell me more about yourself.”
“Okay. Yeah. Good idea.” He grew rigid, as if scenting an ulterior motive. “But keep me in shadow. I can’t have anyone else knowing what I look like. You’ll have to backlight me. That’s how they do it on TV.”
She crossed the room and knelt beside her camcorder, went through the motions of loading a cartridge and checking the battery pack. She breathed a quick prayer, then stood and hurled the camera at the Tapeworm’s head. Plastic cracked, and he roared in surprise and rage.
She was running then, full-tilt toward the bedroom, thanking the gods of aching feet for her L.A. Gear shoes, then falling to the bedroom floor by the nightstand, opening the drawer and pulling out the .32-caliber Colt, aiming back down the hallway as he bled and raged a slashing path after her.
Aiming for his head…
Not believing herself when the professional shell refused to submit to the personal core. Kill him now and here’s where the story ends. Let him live, and the arrest, trial, sentencing, the publicity … these would go on and on. Play it right, parlay it into a weeknight anchor slot, then a ticket out of bush league local into a network correspondent’s position. She saw it all.
And aimed for his leg.
Sandra Riley and her crew and their peers hover around the Municipal Court for hours, like buzzards, until every last scrap is devoured and there’s nothing more to glean. Of Darryl Hiller there is no trace. The only reasonable theory — that somehow he got into the building ductwork from within the bathroom — is invalidated. Darryl Hiller has pulled a Houdini of stupefying proportions.
The day’s best footage is of a man who gives his name as Reggie Blaine — the stocky redheaded fellow who was assaulted in the bathroom after Hiller somehow freed himself and smashed his guard’s face into the porcelain sink. Blaine tells an upsetting tale of being forced to trade clothes with the madman, then submit to the indignity of his handcuffs inside a stall so he couldn’t see where Hiller went next.
That night, Sandra and her crew go for badly-craved drinks at a favored watering hole called Turnstiles. The mellow wood and brass are comforting, but tonight there is no quick wit and cynic’s banter. Tonight there’s only morose reflection.
“Why don’t you let us take you home tonight?” Kevin suggests. His dark face, usually amiable, is pinched with worry.
Sandra shakes her head. “Thanks. But that’s okay.”
“Supposing he shows up again at your place. Sand, you’ve got to be number one on his list.”
She steadies her hands around a margarita. “The police called me at the station this evening. I’ll be safe. They’ll have people all over my building.”
Kevin shrugs. “Still might need someone to talk to. Come on. You got a comfortable couch, I can last it a night there.”
She touches the back of his hand across the table. He’s probably the best friend she has in the world, and all she can professionally aspire to is to give him cause to watch her dust while she heads to New York. Sometimes she has to wonder who the true worm in all of this really is.
“He won’t be back,” she says with certainty. “He won’t.”
“How you know? Sick twistoid like that, you can never tell.”
“He won’t.” The margarita is cold, salty, anesthetizing. “I already gave him what he wanted all along. He got what he wanted.”
“What’s that, Sand?”
She bows her head with the shame of a fool duped by an elaborate con game of heart and soul and wallet. And she sighs.
“A public forum.”
Four weeks earlier, May:
Darryl Hiller was as anxious to break the silence of his jail cell as the city was to learn what made him tick. One catch: He would talk only with Sandra Riley. His mentor. ActioNews 8 gained clearance from the police and the prosecutor’s office, whose primary stipulation was that the interview be conducted after the verdict, so as to fuel no claims of publicity interfering with his right to an impartial trial. Post-trauma stress behind her, Sandra set about the task of producing a week-long series of special reports on the mind of the Tapeworm.
The interview was conducted in a sterile room in the county jail, unfurnished except for a scarred table. Kevin set up two cameras and lights; sound levels were monitored. Darryl Hiller was the last to arrive, manacles on his wrists and ankles, with a pair of Rushmore-faced deputies standing guard a few feet away in case he got frisky.
roll tape. three, two, one
“I forgive you,” was the first thing he said to her. “I don’t hold it against you that you turned me in. I was disappointed at first, sure. But you played it well. Now I understand it had to be this way.”
“Did you want to get caught six months ago?” she asked.
He shook his head, eyes full of visions no one else in the room could perceive. “No.” A smile. “But it had to be that way. I’d gone as far as I could staying anonymous. I had to go to the next level. Beyond. And now?” He beamed. “Everybody knows Darryl Hiller.”
Sandra thought he still looked so unremarkable in that chair, across that table. Still pale. His hair was trimmed shorter and he looked boyish, his face still plain. Only a small scar marked his forehead to commemorate contact with her camcorder. His hands fidgeted on the table, more out of idleness, she thought, than nerves. She decided it was better to let him ramble and free-associate rather than try to direct him in an orderly flow of Q&A. They had plenty of tape to roll.
He told stories of childhood. What went wrong? Everything. Nothing. He said he’d been a sometimes bedwetter in gradeschool and that his mother used to tape his prepubescent penis to his lower belly every night as punishment, and whip him in the morning if he had freed it. Then he laughed and said he’d made it all up. The truth could’ve been anything.
“Sixteen women raped and suffocated,” Sandra cut in at one point. Properly outraged, under control. Professional. “Why did you do it? Your core reason.”
He tilted his head back, let his gaze rove over the ceiling. He had a habit of avoiding eye contact when answering.
“The worst crime a man can inflict on himself is anonymity. It eats people alive inside if they go too long with their grubby little lives, not counting for anything, good or bad. They just exist. No one should have
to live an anonymous life. Me? I had the courage to become known. That’s all. How else could I do it? I don’t have a cure for cancer or zits. I can’t balance the federal budget. I’m not Tom Cruise in some new movie. So I had to use my imagination. And the tools at my disposal.” Now, finally, eye contact. “And you. You inspired me. Because you’ve got it down to an art. You know what it’s like to be public property.”
“Did you believe you had some sort of moral superiority?”
He looked irritated, as if she’d missed the point entirely. “It doesn’t have anything to do with morality. Or superiority. It’s a question of economics. Supply and demand.”
“Economics,” she repeated.
“Right,” he said. Most natural thing in the world. “When does newspaper circulation rise? When does everyone tune in TV news? Not when the doctor with the cure is on. Not when a budget analyst is on. Not when Tom Cruise is on. No. It’s when there’s a killer on the loose. You know … we’re not so different, you and me. There’s a symbiosis. You need me as much as I need you.”
She was about to formulate a rebuttal, but he broke in: “Do you believe in cancer?”
She flubbed her first try, flustered. Have to edit that out later. “Of course. Everyone knows someone affected in some way by cancer.”
He nodded. “And do you believe in rats?”
She didn’t like this track of inquiry. “Of course I do.”
“So you’ll acknowledge the cause-and-effect relationship between them.”
“Rats cause cancer?” Her voice was incredulous.
“No, that’s backwards. Cancer causes rats.”
“You’ve lost me with this, Darryl.”
He hunched forward, toward Sandra and camera one. “Cancer’s out there. It’s out there. Feeding on people. All these food additives and chemicals and crap in the environment? Cancer has a field day with that stuff. For cancer, it’s like rocket fuel. Now. You got all these labs everywhere, right, scientists looking for new drugs to fight cancer? Places breed all these lab rats just for experiments. That’s all the rats are good for. They wouldn’t even exist if it wasn’t for cancer.” A deep breath, reloading. “That’s the way it is between you and me. All this crap wrong with cities today, and small towns, the world at large? You people are like cancer, feeding on it with your cameras, poking your mikes into it, stirring it. Pretty soon, you just have to expect rats like me popping up to give you more to work with.”