American Devil

by Oliver Stark

  Sebastian’s clear eyes bulged. He reached his arms through the bars. ‘Come to me, Denise. Come to me now and I’ll make it nice and quick. It’ll be over in a minute and you’ll be free.’ The veins in Sebastian’s neck were throbbing. ‘Or else I’ll keep you alive a long time as I hurt you.’

  She saw that he didn’t know what to do. He wanted her, but she was out of reach. He wanted her right there. He wanted fresh meat. They were several metres below the earth, hidden and alone, and a single locked door was keeping her alive. It was driving him crazy. ‘Come to me, Denise,’ he called.

  ‘Sit down and shut up!’ Denise shouted. Inside her head, she was imagining a huge tiger. She heard him pace outside her cell.

  ‘Are you trying to provoke a response, Denise?’

  ‘Go away. I’m talking to Nick. This is his session. He doesn’t want you here. Nick! Nick! I know you’re there.’

  ‘I am the keeper here,’ said Sebastian. ‘It is you who are in the cage. You are the animal.’ He whistled.

  ‘Nick!’ she cried again. She needed Nick. ‘This is my session, Nick, and my rules. No Sebastian. He’s a fake. He’s not you. Do you understand? I don’t want to talk to Sebastian. He doesn’t exist. I want to talk to Nick. To you.’

  She felt the risk. She felt the air in the room. She knew that he was staring intensely. She knew he could do anything he wanted - he could cut through the bars of the door given time or just get a gun and shoot her right away. Time was short. She needed Nick.

  Sebastian hit the bars over and over again. She heard him scream, then he slumped down against the wall and out of the darkness it was Nick’s voice that replied, ‘Sorry. I’m not capable of stopping him.’

  ‘You just did, Nick. You just did.’

  Denise reached out her hand through the bars. It was risky, but she had nothing. Her fingertips touched his arm. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘I can help you to control him. If you don’t he will kill your son. Stick with me here. Help me, Nick.’

  Nick stood and looked at her hand. ‘What can you do?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’ She thought for a moment. No, it was a stupid idea. But she had nothing else. ‘Listen, Nick. Find an elastic band. Wear it round your wrist. You twang it whenever you feel him coming. There must be a series of feelings and thoughts that trigger Sebastian. If you stop the train of thoughts, he won’t come. He’s not strong. You’re strong. He’s not real. You’re real.’

  She knew it was a ridiculous idea. Absurd in every way. A serial killer monitoring his own feelings and thoughts with an attitude band. But it might just give her more time.

  ‘Wear a band?’ said Nick.

  ‘It seems a stupid thing to do, but it can help you to make you notice your feelings. Noticing them and questioning them helps to neutralize their force. At the moment, your response to the trigger feelings leads you to kill. So when you have the feelings, you must distract the mind from its pathway and give it a new one.’ She waited a moment. ‘Snap the wristband every time you have a thought that is inappropriate.’

  There was a long silence. Nick was thinking. Finally, from behind the door, he said: ‘Yes. Okay.’

  ‘Use the band to bring these thoughts to your conscious mind. You must have an alternative course of action when you feel Sebastian coming. Write down a list of what to do. Three firm direct orders that you cannot forget. Then just follow those orders. By the time you have carried them out, the moment will be gone.’

  It sounded plausible. Nick looked at her and felt love for her. It was a simple feeling: he loved her because she showed she cared. And then it happened. The headache was so sudden and so intense, it caused Nick to black out for half a second. He fell and hit his head on the wall. When he opened his eyes, Sebastian stood up again. ‘Dr Levene, I think I’m ready to go now.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘I have a date with a blonde called Kimberly.’

  ‘It’s too early! Don’t put yourself in this position yet. Nick! Stop!’

  But he was gone.

  Chapter One Hundred and One

  Denise Levene’s Apartment

  December 3, 10.20 p.m.

  Harper was standing outside Denise Levene’s apartment. He was waiting, his head bowed to the ground. A few seconds later, the door opened. Daniel’s tired and ashen face looked out.

  ‘They told me you’d come over to get some of your clothes,’ said Harper. ‘I wanted to catch you.’

  ‘She wouldn’t be gone if it wasn’t for you, Detective, so I can do without the house call.’

  ‘I can understand what you’re feeling, I’m just here to try to help.’

  ‘How can you understand what I’m feeling? You killed her.’

  Harper stood and met Daniel’s gaze. ‘I’m sorry, but I didn’t do this. Denise walked into this all on her own. She wanted to help.’

  ‘She’s not a cop. She’s not trained. She can’t even fire a gun. How is she qualified to hunt serial killers, Detective?’

  ‘She’s a damn fine profiler.’

  ‘She was a damn fine research scientist.’

  ‘She wanted more.’

  ‘What the fuck do you know about her?’ Daniel’s voice was harsh.

  Harper took a step back. ‘I don’t want to make this worse for you. I’m sorry. That’s all I wanted to say. I’m sorry. Denise is a great lady. I’m doing everything I can. I’m sorry.’

  Daniel didn’t reply and Harper turned and walked out of the apartment building. He called Kasper from the street. ‘Did you get my message?’

  ‘Yeah, sure did. You think Sebastian was a teenager when he killed Chloe.’

  ‘Yeah, and that means I think that if he was in love with Chloe he was at her school.’

  ‘I’m on the same train track, Harps.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Meadow Trail High School. There’s no one here. I’m waiting for the caretaker to come and let me in. I want to check back through the yearbooks. If we can get an ID on this guy, maybe we can trace him back to New York.’

  ‘That’s the plan,’ said Harper. ‘Keep me up to date.’

  ‘Will do,’ said Kasper and signed off.

  Harper went across town to Maurice Macy’s schoolhouse. The forensics guys had finished their search and the lab guys would be busy. He looked into the rooms, walked through. On the floor there was an old photograph, creased and torn. Harper picked it up. Two boys. One big and tall and one small and slight, standing in front of a sign of some kind. Maurice Macy before he turned into a killer. Harper looked close at the picture of the boys. He looked at the sign, but it was obscured. Just the letter A was visible. Harper put the photograph down and turned round. He saw the empty wardrobe: hardly any clothes at all. Then something clicked in his head. There was no suitcase in the apartment. There had been no suitcase in Marconi’s van. Harper pulled out his cell and called Blue Team.

  ‘Garcia, get me the evidence list from Maurice Macy’s apartment. I need to know something.’

  Garcia came back a moment later. ‘Got it. What do you want?’

  ‘Did they take a suitcase?’

  Garcia looked down the items slowly, his finger on each line. He stopped at the end. ‘No suitcase on the list.’

  Harper left the schoolhouse apartment. Someone had seen Sebastian wheeling a suitcase away from Denise’s building. There were suitcase tracks at Lottie Bixley’s dump site and Lucy James had seen a guy with a suitcase. Harper knew that Macy had used the suitcase, but now he was thinking something else. It wasn’t just a copycat. Sebastian was using the same suitcase. There was a link between these guys. Somehow they knew each other.

  Harper got back on the phone to Garcia. ‘Mark, that report we got into Macy’s background. We got nothing on the guy, right? Get it out for me, will you?’

  ‘Sure. But we got nothing beyond the hospital records.’

  ‘Then we’re going to have to look again. I need to know if he’s got relatives. Anyone at all.
Can you go back to the beginning with him? You know, starting with where the bastard was conceived?’

  ‘It’ll take me a little time, but head back over here and I’ll try to have it ready for you.’

  ‘I’ll see you in twenty,’ said Harper.

  Chapter One Hundred and Two

  Upper East Side

  December 3, 10.34 p.m.

  Nick was upset. He wanted to escape the nightmare. He wanted to forget the fishing cabin, the fear. He wanted most of all to forget Mr Hummel. Yes, Mr Hummel. He wanted to forget him. He hated him. He wanted to break him. Sebastian was there with him now. Inside him. Co-existing, but not yet in control. Nick had to keep him back.

  Twang!

  He snapped his elastic bracelet. What had brought Sebastian out? Yeah, it was thinking of Daddy and the girls. He didn’t really mean to hurt them. He didn’t know what he was doing. It was Sebastian, not him. Sebastian clawed at Nick’s thoughts.

  Twang!

  He told himself to keep going. Keep watching. What’s the baserock of it all? Did anything have a baserock? He wanted to know. Sebastian was telling him he would be famous now. Everyone would know how clever he was, how powerful . . . but most of all wasn’t this the thing, his mojo, his heart of hearts? Wasn’t it that Nick wanted people to see how diseased he was, how bad? That’s why he let Sebastian do those things - to shock, to show the very worst of himself that he felt. Was it that? Sebastian continued to whisper. He was an evil, evil boy. A disease.

  Twang!

  Kimberly was sitting about four feet from him. She was on a bar stool, as was he. He could feel her there. He had this sense about people, too. He could tell that she was on edge. Maybe something had happened to her. She wasn’t her usual cheery self.

  Sebastian had followed the same pattern. Spot a mark. Trail her for a month. See if she was good enough for his sculpture. Kimberly had been in the running for a while. Sebastian had trailed hundreds of women to find the special seven that he finally decided upon. Now the sculpture was complete, he was tying up loose ends. Other people’s pain was what he was after now and Kimberly could show him a lot of that.

  He’d spotted Kimberly at the airport on the way back from a trip to Texas. He was tired from the flight and feeling horny. There was something about travelling that got him excited. It was suspended animation. He had time to think bad thoughts.

  It was her shoes he noticed first: green, elegant and expensive. Her face was pretty too - long and narrow with clear bones. He was expected at home but the thought of a new mark excited him, so he walked up close to her as she was waiting for a cab. As she was distracted on her cell phone, he swiped her case.

  People wrote their names and addresses on their cases. He took her case and fell in love with Kimberly mostly through her delicate clothes. They were like stolen treasure to him. The secret life of things he was never allowed access to.

  He was so aroused that he was shaking. First, the aroma of her. It was the faint smell of perfume mixed with the smell of the various fabrics. Beautiful. So very beautiful. He had picked up each item in turn and touched it lovingly. Laid it all out on his bed. Each thing was impossibly fragile and delicate, like webs of gossamer, but so silky to the touch.

  But it was the knowing that this was wrong that really rocked his boat. This was a perverted pleasure and he liked the powerful secrecy of the taboo.

  For days, the clothes had been enough. Just like with Elizabeth. He’d been satisfied with the weeks of trailing, buying the clothes she wore and the photographs. But these surrogates no longer sustained his deeper urges.

  He wanted to take her. He had an inalienable right to her.

  Kimberly sipped on a margarita. Why was she alone? Her fiancé was fucking around, that’s why. She was hurt. He liked that. The beautiful clothes and the pain. The motto of St Sebastian - Beauty constant under torture. He licked his lips. He turned to her and raised his glass. She smiled.

  Nick was losing it. Here he was in a bar he didn’t recognize and Sebastian was hunting. It was too powerful.

  Twang! Twang! Twang!

  Sebastian laughed and moved into the limelight. Nick was too weak. Sebastian felt the power of Nick’s body, flexed his muscles and smiled back at Kimberly.

  A couple of drinks later, Sebastian and Kimberly were deep in conversation. It’s so easy to seduce when you’ve been stalking someone. You know what they like, what they feel. People are simple - you reflect back what they want to know about themselves and bingo!

  ‘You know what it is, Kimberly? Good people attract bad people. That’s because bad people want to be good but they don’t know how, so they use you as a model. But then they find they can’t be as good as you and they resent it. Then they punish you.’

  She nodded. ‘Are you bad, then?’

  The alcohol had changed her approach. He’d been working her throughout the conversation, dropping little trigger words like ‘punish’, ‘rights’, ‘revenge’ and ‘self-esteem’.

  She was taking his lead so easily he was inwardly proud of himself.

  ‘I’m good at being bad, if that’s what you mean.’

  In Sebastian’s blue Mercedes, they drove in the dark. He was talking like a man on uppers. Kimberly had sobered up a little on the journey out to her home. What was she doing? Her head was slightly fuzzy and she was in the car of a man she didn’t know, letting him drive her home. He was nice. Sweet. A little overbearing, but he seemed okay. Or was he? Who knew these days?

  In the bar, to be honest, she wanted to forget all about it - all about Ray and his mistress; she wanted a bit of company. He was there. What was wrong with that? As she reclined in the leather seat of his car, she knew exactly what was wrong with that - he was after only one thing and she was about to be used like a piece of trash.

  She was disappointed in herself. There was one rule in life, and that was don’t leave with less than you came with. It was her motto in business and in her personal life. She knew if she let this guy into her house she would come out with less rather than more. Less self-respect, less moral righteousness, less power, less integrity. She now had to think about how to extricate herself from what he might have interpreted as a dead cert.

  Sebastian was thinking of getting her inside her room. He patted his side pocket. The plastic bag. He could see her face contort with surprise, shock and pain. He could take what he wanted, how he wanted. Kill. Hold. Rip.

  Twang! Twang! Twang! Nick was there in the darkness of his mind, twanging at every violent thought.

  The car stopped outside her apartment.

  ‘Hey, look, I might just turn in,’ she said. ‘I’ve had a great night, though. You’ve been really kind.’

  Bitch, thought Sebastian. Trying to turn this around. He wasn’t going to let that happen. Kill her now. In the car. Her body hot against the seat. Kill. Hold. Rip.

  Twang!

  Twang!

  Twang!

  Suddenly it was Nick holding on to the steering wheel with all his might. He was breathing erratically.

  ‘Get out, just get out!’

  ‘What’s wrong? I’m sorry if I upset you.’

  Nick felt Sebastian pulling back. ‘Just fucking leave or you’ll die!’

  Kimberly stared at Nick and saw the anger smoking in his eyes. She got out and ran up her drive. Alone, Nick slammed the car into gear and put his foot on the gas.

  He smiled. It had worked. He had made himself heard. He had regained control. He had won. Kimberly was alive. He couldn’t wait to get back to Denise to tell her. He drove off with a schoolboy smile, ready to show his teacher.

  Chapter One Hundred and Three

  Blue Team

  December 3, 11.20 p.m.

  Harper was unshaven, sitting in front of a wall of sketches. He found it reassuring to sketch Denise’s face from memory and photographs. It kept her alive. There were sixteen of them now. He’d been sitting and waiting too long. Sixteen pencil sketches of a woman who was probably dead
or a day away from dying. Finally, Mark Garcia brought his information across.

  ‘I’ve assembled everything I could get on Macy. It was a difficult history to plot. He’s got so many holes. After his arrest in 1998, he was in a variety of psychiatric units, mainly in New York.’

  ‘What about before 1998?’

  ‘His parents must’ve died or abandoned him when he was a kid. He was fostered all over. Twelve different homes is what it says on his record from the MPC and that’s not the lot.’

  ‘Where?’ said Harper.

  ‘It doesn’t say. It says he was born in West Virginia, so you got to presume he was all over the state,’ said Garcia.

  Harper felt himself getting nearer. ‘If he was born in West Virginia, he would’ve been there in 1982?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I’ve just been on the phone about a 1982 murder in West Virginia. Looks like Sebastian’s work.’

  ‘Shit. You think they knew each other back then?’

  ‘It’s possible. There’s a lot of similarities stacking up. What else have you got?’

  ‘There’s nothing. We haven’t even got addresses in West Virginia. If they’ve got records from the ’70s they’ll be on paper. We’d have to knock on doors to get them.’

  ‘Look into it, Garcia. We might need those addresses.’

  ‘All right. I’ll call around.’

  Harper went back to his desk and took a call he’d been waiting for from the guys at the FBI New York field office. Harper wanted to know how long Denise could count on. The Feds had the file on screen. Tom could hear them tapping out details, cross-referencing cases. There were two of them at the other end of the line. He could discern their low, barely verbal communications - a sigh, a grunt, an uh-huh.

  They came back on the phone. ‘Look, Detective, we’ve got bits and pieces to go on - nothing but surmise, you know.’