Into the Dark

by Rick Mofina

  But Claire’s right.

  I have to remember why I left. I see that evil look on his face each time he hurts me. I saw it when he attacked me in the lot. Then he went after Claire. He’ll never break out of his cycle.

  Protection orders, attacks in public and police checks-it was no way to live. Was this a foundation for her future? The man she’d loved was gone and she had to move on.

  She checked the time.

  It was late. She had to be up early for work. She drew a hot bath to ease her tension and help her sleep and as she soaked in the tub, she seized on a warm, fleeting thought of Officer Campbell.

  The spark of attraction was surprising.

  Amber climbed out of the tub, drained it, toweled off and brushed her teeth. As she blow-dried her hair she smiled at the fact that she, Amber Pratt, had flirted.

  Maybe I am coming out of my shell. Gaining some self-confidence? Maybe there’s hope for me yet.

  In her bedroom, Amber pulled on her nightshirt and started running a comb through her hair when she froze.

  A soft thud-thump somewhere in the house.

  What the heck is that? She went room to room, throwing on every light, checking every window, every door, every closet. Nothing was out of place, yet her instincts told her something was not right.

  Unease pinged in her stomach. What if Eric did break into Claire’s office and got this address? Remember what Officer Tate said. Sacramento police confirmed that Eric was in Sacramento at work.

  But that was early this morning, which left him time to fly, even drive, to L.A.

  This was just stupid. Amber couldn’t stand it. She grabbed her cell phone and called Sharon. After three rings, the line was answered.

  “Hello?” Sharon’s husband answered.

  “Kyle, it’s Amber, could I speak to Sharon.”

  “Amber- Geez, yeah, hang on.” It sounded as if he had a hand over the mouthpiece, but a muffled “It’s Amber-how should I know what she-” leaked out before Sharon got on the line.

  “Amber, honey, it’s Sharon. What’s going on?”

  “I need you to help me.”

  “Of course, what do you need?”

  “Is Eric in Sacramento right now?”

  “What? Yes, he’s working with Pete on some new places in Citrus Heights, I think. Kyle, Eric’s working in Citrus? Yes, Citrus Heights. Why?”

  “Is he still in Sacramento tonight?”

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  “You know what’s going on. You know everything that’s going on in everybody’s life.”

  There was a long pause.

  “I thought you were on my side, Sharon.”

  “Amber, he really thought the letter would work to bring you back. I’m in the middle. I pray for both of you.”

  “Where is he right now?”

  “I don’t know exactly, but we heard that there was some sort of burglary in L.A. and the Sacramento police paid him a visit on the job site this morning, which really ticked him off.”

  “So where is he now?”

  “I don’t know. I guess he was so pissed that he told Pete that he wanted to take a long drive to take care of something.”

  Amber’s hand flew to her mouth and her eyes went around the house.

  “I’m calling the police.”

  “Wait!” Sharon’s hand covered the phone, then she came back on. “Kyle said he stayed on the job and Pete and Marty took him to a bar after work to cool him off.”

  “Call Pete now. Get him on the phone. I need to know Eric’s in Sacramento, or I’m calling the police. I know Kyle has Pete’s cell number.”

  “All right, stay on the line I’ll get Kyle to call them now. Then we’ll put the phones on Speaker and turn them up.”

  After a few harried moments Amber heard Eric’s brother, Pete, always the calm, smart, mature one of the two.

  “Pete, it’s Amber. Are you with Eric?”

  “Yes, we’re watching the game at the Nugget, he’s right beside me.”

  “Put him on.”

  “Amber?” Eric said. “What is it? Sharon said you got my letter.”

  Satisfied she’d heard Eric, she said, “Everything’s fine. Give the phone back to Pete.”

  “What? What about my letter, did you think-”

  “Eric, put Pete back on, please.”

  “What is this? Why are you being such a-” Eric stopped himself.

  “Such a what, Eric? What were you going to call me?”

  A tense moment passed.

  “Here’s Pete,” he said. “I don’t know what she wants,” Eric told his brother before Pete came back on. “What’s going on, Amber?”

  “Pete, I want you to pass your phone to the first female server you see. Just for one second.”

  “What?”

  “Please.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Just do it, please.”

  More muffled sounds.

  “Hi,” a young cheery voice greeted, “this is Dixie.”

  “Dixie, what city are you in?”

  “What? Is this some kind of contest? Are there cameras?”

  “Please just answer.”

  “Sacramento.”

  “Thanks, you can give the phone back.”

  “Amber?” Pete came back on.

  “Thank you, Pete, goodbye.”

  Sharon was on the line again.

  “Amber, this is really unfair for you to put the Sacramento police onto Eric when he’s trying to straighten his life out. He had nothing to do-”

  “Thank you, Sharon, goodbye.”

  Amber hung up, trembling from the anger and fear pumping through her body. She sighed and put her head in her hands until it subsided.

  I must be losing my mind.

  Taking long, deep calming breaths she walked through the house again, checking doors, windows, closets, shutting off lights, trying to relax. She went to the kitchen and made cocoa. As she waited for the milk to warm she pondered Officer Campbell’s card and smiled.

  Everything’s okay, I’m just on edge, she thought, heading to bed where she read the opening of Madame Bovary before her stress yielded to exhaustion and she gently drifted off.

  Amber fell into a deep sleep that swirled with dreams of a pretty little home overlooking the ocean where her children played under a brilliant sun in the yard. She was smiling, calling them, lowering herself so they could run into her open arms, but they stopped short and looked up at something behind Amber.

  A large shadow fell over them.

  Amber’s eyes flicked open. The sun gave way to darkness and the naked man standing beside her bed, staring down at her, his face a white, hideous mask of malevolence.

  Amber’s scream was silenced when he crushed a wide strip of duct tape over her mouth. A sudden blow to her head rattled her teeth in a pyrotechnic explosion of stars before everything went black.

  33

  Commerce, California

  The forty-eight hours the AllNews Press Agency had given to the task force to examine the letter was up.

  Mark Harding’s phone had been vibrating all morning.

  First Magda wanted an update, and then Sebastian Strother phoned Harding, demanding he deliver a story without police confirmation.

  “We no longer need them. We’ve honored the agreement. They didn’t. I don’t trust them. They could be arranging a news conference,” Strother said from headquarters in New York. “Our story will say that someone claiming to be the killer has written to us and the task force is analyzing materials the writer included.”

  “No, wait, we should give them a little more time,” Harding responded. “I should have it all taken care of soon.”

  “Forty-five more minutes,” Strother said.

  The ANPA was losing patience and fearful of losing its exclusive, but Harding kept pleading for more time because confirmation that the real killer had surfaced and written to the ANPA would give them a world exclusive.

  After fo
rty-five minutes passed, Harding called again.

  “A few more things to check. Sorry, I have to push back meeting you until ten-thirty,” Tanner had told him on the phone.

  It was now 10:37 a.m. and Harding was waiting alone in an empty meeting room at the Homicide bureau of the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department. His stomach had tightened. If the letter, license, photos and the whole thing were not a hoax, then he’d have a story that could be counted with those of Jack the Ripper, Son of Sam, BTK and the Zodiac, infamous killers who’d written to the press to confess their crimes while committing them.

  His phone vibrated with a text from Magda.

  “Strother wants me to assign another reporter to write the story.”

  “Tell him I’m talking with the lead investigator now,” Harding responded as Tanner entered the room with a file folder.

  Casting a glum eye to Harding, Tanner sat as though a weight had forced him into the chair. There were no apologies and no exchange of niceties as the weary detective opened his folder. Tanner’s body language and the room’s funereal air screamed confirmation to Harding.

  “It’s him,” Tanner started. “We’ve confirmed that the person responsible for the murders of the five women is the same person who wrote the letter you received.”

  “Have you told any other news outlets?”

  “No.”

  “Are you planning on holding a news conference or issuing a news release?”

  “No, not until after you run your story. We’ll keep our end of the agreement.”

  “All right, I need to get a few comments from you before we put out a story.”

  “Hang on. I need something from you before you run with anything.”

  “We’ve already done everything you’ve asked. The letter and pictures are ours. We’re going with a story as soon as possible.”

  “You have copies,” Tanner said. “The driver’s license belongs to Leeza’s family and-” Tanner tapped the file “-we’ll get court orders to keep the material as evidence. But that’s not what I need to talk to you about.”

  “Can’t this wait?” Harding stared at his vibrating phone. He had another message from Strother. “I’m facing a deadline.”

  “Look, Mark, I know I can’t control what you write, but a little cooperation would go a long way to help us both.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “Would you publish the task force toll-free tip line we’ve set up?”

  “I’ll suggest it. Is that all?”

  “No. I’m also asking you not to publish photos of the letter, or the full contents because we’ll get cranks copying his style. We’ll get flooded with false leads, false confessions and nut job copycats that will drain our resources, divert us from pursuing valid leads.”

  Tanner slid a page to Harding.

  “Here’s a version showing which areas of the letter we think you could quote from.”

  Harding studied the censored version. “No guarantees.”

  “It’s our request, but ultimately it’s your call.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “I’m also asking you not to publish the crime scene photos for the same reason, but also out of consideration for the families of the victims.”

  “We’ll likely crop them to remove the graphic elements.”

  “And finally, like last time, we’ve alerted the families of the victims that a story may be coming. They’re expecting to hear from you,” Tanner said.

  “Good, is there anything else, because I have a request?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I want complete access to you and the task force from here on in.”

  “We’ll continue to make ourselves available, conditional on work demands.”

  Harding then interviewed Tanner for the story, taking down his comments before concluding.

  “Okay, we’re good,” Harding said. “I really have to go.”

  “Give me a heads-up when the story goes live.”

  Hurrying out of the office to his car, Harding called Magda from the parking lot.

  “We have on-the-record confirmation that it’s the real killer,” Harding said. “Let Strother know that I’ll deliver a story within an hour.”

  “Is the task force planning a news conference?”

  “Not until after our story runs. People will be reacting to it.”

  “Good, I’ll let Sebastian know. New York will send out an advisory on a world exclusive to all subscribers.”

  Harding drove farther along Rickenbacker Road to the edge of a large warehouse and a small treed area with picnic tables that he’d spotted earlier. He parked near one, seized his laptop. Using one of the tables as a desk, he fired up his computer, went to the story he’d already started drafting, flipped through his notes and began plugging in Tanner’s quotes.

  Then he called Louis Meadows, Leeza’s father.

  As the line rang, it pulled Harding back to when he and Jodi-Lee Ruiz visited his Santa Clarita home. Images of them in her bedroom, of Louis flipping through the family album to photos of Leeza, streaked across his mind. Images of Louis caressing the music box on Leeza’s dresser-the last thing she touched-tore at Harding.

  “Hello?”

  “Mr. Meadows?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mark Harding, AllNews Press Agency.”

  “Yes.”

  “I apologize in advance, sir, for this very rude intrusion because I’m facing a deadline, but my call concerns an update on the investigation.”

  Harding paused for Meadows to absorb what was coming.

  “Tanner told me you might be calling. I’m guessing that this is about the letter you got, from the killer?”

  “Yes.”

  Harding elaborated on the nature of the story, then asked Meadows to comment. Meadows thought for a moment before speaking.

  “I understand he sent you gruesome pictures.”

  “That’s true.”

  “I hope you’ll continue to treat my daughter’s memory with dignity.”

  “We will, sir.”

  The older man cleared his throat.

  “I’m encouraged by the latest break in the case. I pray that it leads to justice.”

  That was it. No elaboration.

  Surprised by the abruptness, Harding thanked him, ended the call and inserted the quotes. He gave his story a quick proofread, then filed it to the ANPA, well within the time that he’d promised.

  When he was done, he sat at the table, rereading it. Then he read through the first story he’d written on the case, comparing it with how subdued Meadows’s reaction was just now.

  In the earlier story Meadows had said, “I just hope your story helps find the animal who killed my daughter and the other women… I hope to hell I stay on this earth long enough to see the son of a bitch go into the ground.”

  Where was his outrage this time?

  As Harding thought about it, realization slowly dawned on him.

  Of course, Tanner had likely coached Meadows, warning him who he’d really be talking to when Harding called: the most important reader of all.

  The killer.

  34

  San Marino, California

  Ninety-minutes after his meeting with Tanner had ended Mark Harding broke the story for the AllNews Press Agency when it posted a condensed version on its website under the double-decker headline:

  Killer Linked to 5 Murdered Women Surfaces

  Vows More Deaths in Letter to Reporter- L.A. Police Confirm

  Harding’s story went up at 3:50 p.m. Eastern standard time. Links were tweeted and blogged. Network news outlets included the ANPA’s exclusive in their evening news broadcasts. Other news organizations ran the full story on their sites. Most newspapers, especially those in Southern California, cleared space for print editions.

  The next morning, the Pasadena Star-News ran Harding’s feature. The Star-News was a large daily that also covered South Pasadena, Monrovia, Arcadia, Alhambra
and San Marino, where Robert Bowen got his copy from his doorstep.

  When he saw the headline he froze.

  Standing on his front landing, in sweatpants and a T-shirt, reading Harding’s report in the morning sun, Bowen looked like any other neighbor in any other town catching up on the news.

  He devoured the front page in seconds, then followed the story to an inside page. Again, as with Mark Harding’s first article about the killings, there was a map and headshots of each of the women. Staring at their faces, memories swirled and Bowen relished a few intense moments. Then he went inside, excitement prickling his skin as he made coffee, sat at the kitchen table and read the story again, delighted by the passages that quoted the letter.

  “I am reaching out from the darkness to warn the world that I have kept my word…I am back…I will soon unleash fear unlike anything the world has ever known…I decide who lives and who dies…”

  He went to his office, turned on his computer, got online and searched for the story. News sites everywhere ran the same story. All of them quoted his letter. He went back to the kitchen and made breakfast-scrambled eggs and hash browns. As he ate, he reread the story, dimly conscious of his surroundings, basking in what he’d achieved.

  People around the world now knew and feared the Dark Wind Killer.

  I’ve been exalted. I’m in control and I will claim my place in history, alongside Jack the Ripper and the Zodiac. They never caught them and they’ll never catch me. You can’t stop the wind. I’m on the path to glory.

  As Bowen ate, he remembered the sweetest moments of each mission, savoring how Esther had pleaded, actually prayed, “Hail Mary full of grace…” How Monique had begged, “Please, don’t let me die, oh, please!” to the point that she was incoherent in the final moments. And Leeza’s soft cries had been operatic as if arising from a requiem. Each one of the five was a piece of craftsmanship, inspiring him now to do his best work ever.

  Bowen glanced at the microscopic bits of dirt under his clean fingernails, a reminder that he had projects in progress and needed to move his work along before his next trip. He sat in the morning quiet a long time, thinking before the light in the kitchen diffused.