Sleeping Beauty

by Phillip Margolin

  “We must assume that Joshua Maxfield temporarily spared Ashley because he was exhausted and famished after raping and murdering Tanya Jones. That would explain why he took a break from his ghastly tasks to go to the Spencer kitchen, where he drank a glass of milk and ate a piece of chocolate cake. Eating the snack would land Maxfield on death row, and writing about it would cause another tragedy.”

  Part One.Midnight Snack

  Six Years Earlier

  Chapter One

  Ashley Spencer’s childhood ended the night her father died; the moment before she fell asleep was the last time she experienced unadulterated joy. Ashley and her best friend, Tanya Jones, were still pumped up from their 2-1 victory over F.C. Oswego, a perennial state soccer power. Both girls had scored, and the victory would give them a shot at the top seed at the State Cup. They had gotten into bed after watching a video, then talked in the dark until a little after one o’clock. When Tanya went to sleep, Ashley closed her eyes and pictured her goal, a header that had boomed past Oswego ’s All-State goalie. She was smiling as she drifted off.

  Ashley had no idea how long she’d been asleep when a sudden movement on Tanya’s side of the bed woke her. Tanya was sitting up, staring at the open doorway. Ashley, groggy and not completely certain she was awake, thought she saw someone walking toward Tanya. She was about to say something when Tanya grunted, twitched, and toppled to the floor. The man turned as Ashley leaped out of bed, extending his arm like a duelist. Ashley’s muscles spasmed as a bolt of electricity surged through them. She fell sideways onto the bed, confused and unable to control her body. A fist smashed into her jaw, and she tottered on the brink of unconsciousness.

  Tanya’s head rose over the far side of the bed. The intruder was on her instantly. Ashley saw his fists and legs moving. Tanya fell back on the floor and out of Ashley’s sight. A roll of gray duct tape appeared in the man’s hands. He tore off several strips and knelt next to Tanya. Moments later, he walked around the bed. A black ski mask covered his face. He wore gloves and dark clothing.

  A vise-like grip closed on Ashley’s throat and her pajama top was ripped open. She made a feeble attempt at self-defense but she couldn’t control her muscles. A leather-covered hand squeezed Ashley’s breast until she screamed. The man hit her hard before sealing her mouth with a strip of tape. The intruder rolled Ashley onto her stomach and taped her wrists and ankles together. His face was close to her and she could smell his breath and body odor.

  Once she was bound, the man slipped his hand inside her pajamas and caressed her buttocks. Ashley bucked and received a blow for resisting. She tried to squeeze her legs together but stopped when he grabbed her ear and twisted. A finger slipped inside her, probing, rubbing. Then the finger disappeared and he lowered himself onto her. Ashley’s body trembled violently for a moment more. Then the sexual assault stopped and the oppressive weight disappeared. Ashley turned her head and saw Tanya being dragged into the guestroom that was next to her bedroom.

  Ashley strained to hear what was going on. Bedsprings squeaked. Tape sealed Tanya’s mouth but Ashley could still hear her friend’s muffled scream. Ashley was gripped by a fear different from any she had ever known. It was as if a stifling gray fog had settled over her, cutting off her air and paralyzing her limbs.

  There were more moans and screams from Tanya, but the man who had invaded her home worked in silence. Ashley’s heart was pumping furiously and she couldn’t get enough air through her nose. She tried not to think about what was happening to her best friend and concentrated on breaking her bonds. It was impossible. She wondered whether her father was dead and the thought galvanized her. If Norman was dead then she couldn’t count on anyone to rescue her. She would have to save herself.

  In the next room, the man uttered a primal roar of release and Ashley shuddered. He’d finished raping Tanya; next he’d be coming for her. For a moment, the only sounds from next door were Tanya’s muffled whimpers. Then Ashley heard an animal snarl and the sound of a blade slamming into flesh. Tanya made a strangled cry that was followed by silence. The stabbing continued. Ashley was certain that Tanya was dead.

  The door to the guest room slammed shut and the intruder emerged, ghostlike, out of the darkness. Only his eyes and lips showed through his ski mask. Ashley’s breath caught in her chest. The man savored her terror. Then he whispered “See you later,” and walked downstairs.

  Ashley collapsed from relief, but the feeling was short-lived. “See you later” meant that he was coming back to kill her. She struggled to sit up and scanned her room for something she could use to cut her bonds. Downstairs, the refrigerator door opened. The thought that he was going to eat something horrified Ashley. How could he eat after what he’d done? What kind of thing was he? The refrigerator door closed. Ashley grew desperate. She was going to be raped and killed if she couldn’t get away.

  A sound from the doorway brought her around. Something covered with blood was dragging itself across the floor. With a great effort, the thing raised its face and Ashley almost blacked out.

  Norman Spencer crawled toward his daughter. There was stubble on his bloodstained cheeks and his hair was in disarray. In his right fist was his Swiss Army knife, the long blade out. Ashley fought the nausea and horror that threatened to disable her and rolled onto the floor. She turned her back to her father and presented her bound wrists. Norman had almost no strength left and he did not speak as he sawed at the tape with feeble strokes. Ashley wept as he worked the knife. She knew that she could not save her father and that he was using all that was left of his life to save hers.

  The tape parted. Ashley grabbed the knife and freed her ankles. Then she ripped away the tape that covered her mouth and started to speak. Norman shook his head and jabbed weakly toward the hall to warn her that the intruder might hear. There should have been fear in his eyes since his death was certain, but he looked triumphant as he touched her lightly on her cheek. Ashley shook with silent sobs as she knelt beside her father. She held him. Norman whispered, “I love you.” Just the effort of speaking cost him dearly. He coughed blood and a shiver went through him.

  “Daddy,” Ashley moaned. She felt so helpless.

  A plate rattled against the kitchen table. “Go,” Norman said, the words barely audible. Ashley knew she had to flee or die. She cried as she kissed her father’s cheek. His body trembled, he closed his eyes, and stopped breathing.

  Another sound from the kitchen brought Ashley to her feet. If she died, her father would have given his life for nothing. She wrenched open her bedroom window. Wood screeched against wood. To Ashley, it sounded like she’d set off an alarm.

  Feet pounded up the stairs. It was a two-story drop to the ground, but Ashley had no choice. She crawled into the chill night air and hung from the ledge. The drop terrified her. A broken ankle would leave her helpless. She felt the strain in her arms. Then she heard a bellow of rage from her room and she let go.

  The impact with the ground stunned her. Ashley lay on her back in the wet grass. A masked face stared down at her from her bedroom window. Ashley’s eyes locked with the killer’s for a moment. Then she was up and running, her breath slamming in her chest, legs pumping, running faster than she ever had before-running for her life.

  Ashley sat in Barbara McCluskey’s kitchen. Despite a borrowed sweat suit and the heat in the house, she hunched forward as if chilled to the bone. Her eyes, bloodshot from crying, stared blankly at the tabletop. She was so numb that she didn’t feel the bruises and cuts that a medic had treated a short time before. Every once in a while she would raise a mug of hot tea to her lips. Sipping the tea took every ounce of strength she could muster.

  Ashley’s flight had taken a random route through the neighborhood and ended in the bushes in the McCluskeys’ backyard. The cold and rain had eventually driven her to pound on her neighbor’s back door. While she was hiding, Ashley tried to imagine ways in which she could have averted the horrors that had befallen her father and her best f
riend. In every scenario the outcome was the same: if she stayed behind she ended up dead. Yet that didn’t stop her from feeling guilty for running away.

  A policewoman sat beside Ashley. There were other officers in the McCluskey home. Logic told Ashley that the man who had murdered her father and her best friend was long gone. She also knew that she would fear his return every minute of every day as long as he was at large.

  The police had set up barricades on either side of the Spencer home to keep away the neighbors and the reporters who stood behind them, staring at the officers moving through Ashley’s yard and in and out of her house. Every once in a while, the short, intermittent bark of a siren would signal the arrival of another police vehicle that was working its way through the crowd. Ashley paid no attention to anything that was going on outside. She had too much going on inside her head.

  The policewoman stood up. Ashley caught the motion out of the corner of her eye and jerked back violently. She was holding the mug, and tea splashed on the tablecloth. A man was standing next to her. She had been so self-absorbed that she hadn’t noticed him enter the kitchen.

  “It’s okay, Miss Spencer. I’m a detective,” he said, holding out his identification. The detective’s voice was calm, and he had a pleasant face. He was dressed in a brown tweed jacket, gray slacks, and a striped tie. Ashley had only seen detectives on TV, and he did not fit the stereotype. He wasn’t handsome or rugged-looking. He just seemed ordinary, like her teachers or her friends’ parents.

  “May I sit?”

  Ashley nodded, and the detective took the chair the policewoman had vacated.

  “My name is Larry Birch. I’m with Homicide and I’m going to head the investigation into…into what happened at your house.”

  Ashley was touched by the detective’s consideration.

  “We’ve called your mother and she’s on her way home. She’ll probably be here by dawn.”

  A wave of sadness overwhelmed Ashley as she pictured the life her mother was about to lead. Her parents were still in love. Sometimes they were like teenagers, displaying a closeness around her friends that often embarrassed Ashley. What would Terri do now?

  Birch saw Ashley’s chest heave as she fought to control her tears. Gently he placed his hand on her shoulder, then went to the sink and returned with a glass of water. She was grateful for the kindness.

  “I’d like to talk about what happened tonight,” Birch said after a moment. “I know that’s going to be rough for you. If you don’t want to discuss it, I’ll understand. But the more I know, the faster we’ll be able to arrest the person who did this. The longer I have to wait for information, the better the chance that this man will get away.”

  Ashley felt sick. So far, no one had asked her to discuss her ordeal in detail. She did not want to remember her father covered in blood or Tanya’s screams. She wanted to forget the sound of the intruder’s shuddering orgasm and the way he’d eyed her from the doorway of her room. But she owed it to Tanya and her father to help the police. And she wanted to be safe and would only feel safe when Detective Birch caught the monster that had destroyed her family.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Everything you remember. For instance, who was in your house tonight before everything happened?”

  “Dad was home and Tanya was with me. Tanya Jones. Is she…?” Ashley asked, irrationally hoping that her friend had somehow survived.

  Birch shook his head. Ashley started to cry again.

  “She was my best friend,” Ashley said with such despair that the detective had to fight to keep his composure. “We were teammates.”

  “What sport?” Birch asked to distract her.

  “Soccer. We both played varsity for Eisenhower and we started for our club team. The team is doing really well. We have a chance to get to the Regionals in Hawaii. Tanya’s never been to Hawaii. She was really excited.”

  “She was good?”

  Ashley nodded. “She scored the winning goal today. Her mom said she could sleep over. That’s why…why she’s dead.”

  Ashley’s shoulders shook, but she choked back her tears.

  “We fell asleep,” she continued after a moment. “I know it was around one. Then I woke up. He was in the room.”

  “What did he look like?” Birch asked.

  “I don’t know. It was dark. He never turned on the lights. And he was wearing dark clothes, a ski mask, and gloves.”

  “Could you tell his race? Was he Caucasian, African-American, Asian?”

  “I don’t know, really.”

  “Okay, what about height? How tall was he?”

  Ashley thought about that. Most of the times she’d seen him she had been on her back and he’d seemed like a giant, but she knew the angle had distorted her perspective. Then she remembered that she’d been standing when the killer shot her with his stun gun. She closed her eyes and pictured the scene.

  “I don’t think he was very tall, like a basketball player. I’m five-foot-seven. I’m pretty sure he was taller than me.”

  “All right. That’s good. That’s something.”

  Birch made a note on a small spiral notebook he had opened.

  “Can you tell me the color of his eyes?” he asked next.

  Ashley strained to remember but it was no good. “I saw them but it was dark and…” She shook her head. “I can’t remember the color.”

  “That’s okay. You’re doing fine. Tell me what happened after the man entered the room.”

  Ashley told Birch how the killer had used a stun gun to subdue her and Tanya and how he had beaten and bound them before taking Tanya into the guest room. Then she described the sounds that told her that Tanya was being raped, then murdered.

  “Did he do anything to you after that?” Birch asked quietly.

  “No. I was certain he would but he didn’t. Not then. He would have. I know he would have. But he…he…”

  Ashley shuddered.

  “What, Ashley? What did he do?”

  “He went down to the kitchen. I couldn’t believe it. He’d just raped her and killed her. I could hear it. And he went to get something to eat. How could he do that?”

  “How do you know he ate something?” Birch asked, working hard to hide his excitement.

  “I heard the refrigerator door open. Later I heard a dish clatter on the table.”

  “Okay, Ashley. This could really be important. You know what DNA is, right?”

  Ashley nodded. She watched detective shows and read crime novels. And they’d covered genetics in biology class.

  “We can get a person’s DNA from bodily fluids like saliva. If he ate some food in your kitchen he may have left something on a fork or a glass. Now let me ask you, was anyone at your house last night other than you, your friend, and your father?”

  “No.”

  “And you ate dinner at home?”

  “No. There was a pizza party to celebrate our win. My dad came to the game, ate with us, then took Tanya and me home.”

  “Did you, Tanya, or your father eat anything at home?”

  “I don’t think Dad did. He’s on a diet. Mom would have been pissed that he ate three slices of…”

  Ashley stopped. It was too much. Mom was always getting upset when Dad sneaked a cookie or a bowl of ice cream. Now her father was dead and there would never be any more playful bickering about his diet.

  “I know this is going to be tough for you, Ashley,” Birch said after an appropriate silence, “but I’d like you to come back to your house…”

  Ashley looked up, alarmed.

  “You won’t have to go anyplace upstairs. Just the kitchen. I have to know if you can identify something this man ate, or a glass he drank from, a utensil he used. If you can, we may be able to get him. Do you feel up to it?”

  Ashley nodded. It was a chance to do something. The policewoman was Ashley’s size. Detective Birch asked her to give Ashley her heavy coat and to pull a car into the McCluskeys’ driveway. He wa
nted to protect Ashley from the elements and the press.

  When the car was as near as it could get, Birch led Ashley out a side door. A few reporters noticed the exit but Ashley was in the car before they could bother her. The policewoman turned on the bubble lights and used the horn and siren during the short drive to the Spencer home.

  It was still raining, and Birch opened an umbrella over Ashley.

  “I won’t see the bodies, will I?”

  “We’re just going in the kitchen,” he assured her.

  Birch had been in the house earlier and he knew the way to the kitchen, which was adjacent to the stairs that led to the second floor. A photographer was snapping shots of the area. Birch shooed him out of the room.

  “Take your time, Ashley,” the detective said. “Look around all you want.”

  Ashley stood in the center of the room and turned slowly before focusing on the kitchen table. There were two folded paper napkins and a small spot of milk. She walked over to the sink. Then she opened the dishwasher.

  “This is wrong,” Ashley said.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “When we got home Dad emptied the dishwasher. Mom was gone and he wanted the place to be clean when she got back, so he ran a wash before he came to the game. Then he put the dishes and glasses in the pantry.”

  “Okay.”

  “Tanya and I had some chocolate cake and milk when we watched this movie we rented. Mom made the cake. Our dirty dishes and stuff are in the dishwasher. We put them in after Dad went to bed. But there’s nothing in the sink and no other dishes or glasses or forks in the washer, and I know he ate something.”

  “Maybe he didn’t use a plate or fork,” Birch said. “Maybe he ate with his hands.”

  “No,” Ashley said adamantly. “I heard a plate hit the table. It’s why I…I left my dad. I knew he was done downstairs and was going to come for me. So, where is the plate?”