by Regina Fagan
“What was she doing?” Lawrence asked.
Recovering herself, she responded. “You know, picking up with so many different guys. It’s so dangerous. I would never go out with anybody in here; I’m only working this job because I need extra money for school, and the tips can be good here sometimes. You put up with some grabbers and all, but I would never go out with any of them. But Susie did, and she always said she could take care of herself. And she did. She was very pretty.” Ellie pulled a tissue from a pocket and dabbed at her wet eyes. “One of the reasons she liked working here, you see, is that guys with money do come here, and Susie only wanted to meet guys with money.”
“She wanted guys with money. Did you know Susan was a prostitute, Ellie?” Kinsella asked her. The girl shot him a horrified look, her mouth dropping open. The shawl slipped from one of her shoulders and she grabbed at it defensively, pulling it tightly around herself again. “I’m not trying to upset you, but I need to know if you were aware of that part of her life.”
Ellie shook her head. “No, nothing like that. Yes, she took money from guys, but all she really wanted was to find somebody who would take care of her, maybe even marry her.” She stopped, considering what to say next. “She did tell me she was arrested once in Los Angeles, but she didn’t say what for. She just told me she made a bad mistake and it involved a guy she liked. She also said he lied about her. You know she came from a poor family. From what she told me, things were never so good. She was just looking for a real relationship, something good that would last. And then she could tell her mother she was settled down. She loved her mom but her mom didn’t approve of anything she did. In Susie’s mind, if a guy paid her, that was good and nice, it meant he liked her. That was why she got so excited about the guy last night. He gave her a one-hundred-dollar tip and really seemed to like her.”
“One hundred dollars?”
“Yes, that’s right, she showed it to me. And when I gave him his final check, while Susie was changing to leave with him, he gave me a fifty.”
“Tell us more about him, Ellie,” Kinsella said. “Tell us anything you remember about this man with the money. You spoke with him?”
Ellie nodded quickly. “Sure did, I was waiting on him when Susie spotted him. Then we switched sections, so she could do her thing with him, you know. He was really classy. I didn’t talk a lot with him, just the drink orders you see.”
Kinsella could feel his pulse beginning to race. He continued to go slowly with the girl, however. She had calmed considerably, and he didn’t want to risk upsetting her and starting tears again.
“What else do you remember about this man, Ellie? Did you by any chance hear a name? How did he pay his bill? And had you ever seen him here before?” Kinsella was finding it difficult to keep the urgency from his voice.
Ellie shook her head. “No, I can tell you I never saw him before, neither did Susie. He was much older than most guys who come here, but not old really. Maybe over forty. Susie must have known his name, but I didn’t. I really didn’t have much conversation, just drink orders, you know, and the music is so loud here. He was very polite, drank gin and tonics, and paid for everything in cash.”
Of course he did, Kinsella thought. This guy is very clever, not about to leave a paper trail anywhere he goes.
Ellie spoke again. “This was strange, but maybe not.”
“What was?” Lawrence asked her.
“Well, he was alone, and a lot of women approached him. But he wouldn’t bother with anybody. Then, all of a sudden, a real sexy looking blonde came in by herself and sat at the bar. He noticed her and he went after her. But she wasn’t interested, and she walked away from him. She did pick up somebody else later because Susie and I saw her dancing and falling all over some other guy. But this man we’re talking about here, he just kept watching her and he looked angry sometimes. And then Susie made her move, because she figured, well he likes blondes. I guess he did. I do know some of the other women who tried him were not blonde, and he had no interest in them.”
She stopped, looking suddenly tired, as if it would be an effort to say anything else. Her shawl had slipped off her shoulders again. Her face reddened and she quickly pulled the shawl up and wrapped it tightly once more around her breasts.
“Why do you stay working here, Ellie?” Kinsella asked her gently. “Surely there are better places, and you don’t seem like the kind of girl for this place.”
She looked him straight in the eye. “I told you, Lieutenant, the tips are great here. I don’t like it, but it’s true that guys come in here with money. They tip very well. I serve them their drinks, I ignore a lot of what might be said, I take my pay and tips and I go home. I need the money. That’s all. I have never picked up anybody here, or anywhere else.”
Kinsella nodded. “Okay. Just a few more questions. You switched sections with Susan, right? Did anything else unusual happen? Anything at all?”
She thought a few seconds. “Nothing. I went back to my regular section and served the man until Susie told me she was leaving with him. He just kept watching her while she was working. Then she went to change, I brought his final tab, he paid and gave me the fifty and he left. And I never saw either one of them again.” She dabbed once more at her eyes, tears now falling freely down her smooth cheeks.
Lawrence handed something to Kinsella. It was the composite of the man identified by the cocktail waitress at the Top of the Mark. “Ellie, just this, please, and then we’ll let you go. You’ve been a great help to us, and I know how upset you are.”
She turned her face back up to him and smiled and nodded her head. “Sure, anything, I’m glad to help. It’s the least I can do for Susie now.”
He handed her the picture. “Could this be the man who was here last night, the one Susan went out with?”
Ellie studied the picture closely before looking up at both men in surprise. “Yes, I’d say it sure does look like him. Yes, absolutely. Where did you get this? It’s perfect really. So you do know who he is?”
“No, we don’t know who he is. Not yet. We know very little so far. But I want to thank you for helping us. We really appreciate your talking to us.”
“Lieutenant, there is one thing. I didn’t actually see Susie leave with him. He went out by himself, and Susie went to change. They didn’t walk out together or anything.”
Kinsella and Lawrence nodded. Here again, nobody actually saw this guy leave with the victim. He was clever enough to cover his tracks all the way around.
Phil had one more question. “Ellie, would you by any chance still have the fifty-dollar bill he gave you?”
But Ellie shook her head sadly. “Fingerprints, right? No, I’m so sorry. I went and spent it this morning, on groceries. Oh, you know I’m sorry, because that might have helped, I guess. Poor Susan.”
She waited until both men had left Maury Cole’s small cramped office. Then, still sitting clutching her shawl, she allowed the shock of her friend’s death to release itself in a flood of heartbroken tears.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
MONDAY – OCTOBER 17th
Monday morning’s news carried Susan Sayles’ gruesome killing, the third in what the police were now admitting was the work of a serial killer. Pictures of the three murdered women were prominently featured everywhere. They were all blonde and they all looked very much alike. All three had been strangled.
Leads were very slim, but a news conference was planned for Monday afternoon, when any new developments would be released.
Over breakfast, Christine scanned a newspaper, finding an article by the city’s most popular columnist. He was right up front today, leading with a garish account of the three murders.
He began with short bios of the murder victims, three totally different women from completely different walks of life, sharing only the fact that they all looked alike. Much was made of the fact that one woman was a prominent medical doctor from Portland attending a conference in
San Francisco.
Next came sharp criticism of the police. No progress had been made finding the killer. The column finished with a suggestion that all young blonde women in San Francisco should arm themselves against a maniac loose in the city, since nobody could rely on the police to catch him very soon.
Wow, Christine thought, that’s pretty volatile writing. Go get a gun and arm myself because I’m a blonde. She finished the article and looked at the photo of Lieutenant John P. Kinsella, who was in charge of the investigation. She remembered having seen him once before on an evening TV newscast one night after the first killing.
She drained the last of her coffee, folded the paper, and reached for her phone. There were people she needed to call today, friends she’d lost touch with recently because she’d wasted too much time with Ted. It was time to start getting herself back into circulation again.
***
Across town, Deputy Chief Martin Connor finished reading his newspaper. Tossing it aside with disgust, he looked at John Kinsella, who was sitting opposite him. “Damn it, John! What is he trying to do now, whip the whole city into a panic? Urging women to arm themselves? We don’t have enough gun violence now as it is, so all we need are vigilantes pulling weapons out at anybody they think is suspicious.” He got up, and began pacing the office. “Talk to me, John, tell me exactly what you have on this guy so far.”
“Still very little, I’m afraid. He’s being super careful. Never leaves any kind of trail behind him, probably also using gloves because there are no prints of any kind at any scene or on anything that belonged to any of the women. CODIS is no use to us - not yet anyway, because there is no DNA available from this guy. And VICAP hasn’t given us any hits either. There are no similar types of cases here or anywhere else where the killer uses a blue silk scarf to strangle his victims.”
Kinsella took a deep breath and continued. “Nobody that we’ve been able to find saw Kelley Grant after she left the deli on Geary Street. Nobody working there that night could remember seeing the guy in the composite either.”
“Not even the cashier, the one who thought she saw Kelley talking with some man at the door?”
“Nothing. She said she never did see the man clearly. She was only mildly aware of Kelley talking to someone as she left. It might only have been somebody holding the door for her. The place was packed.”
Martin Connor made a face and continued pacing. Kinsella went on. “Then with Ann Heald, nobody saw either her or her drinking companion leave the Mark Hopkins Hotel. We checked every cab company in the city to see if anybody picked Ann up that morning at the Mark Hopkins. Again, nothing. So we have to assume she went somewhere with the guy she met.”
“Most likely her killer,” Connor said.
“More than likely, but not positive. We have no solid proof of that. Then we come to Susan Sayles. A waitress at Jaycene’s recognized our composite as the man Susan hit on. But again, nobody actually saw them both leave together. Our guy there went out first. It seems that everybody connected with this case just goes up into thin air. Until we find their bodies.”
He continued. “The waitress, Ellie, at Jaycene’s, told us the guy in question approached another blonde woman Saturday night, before Susan went after him, but he got a brush-off from her.”
“Lucky for her.”
“Ellie also told us he gave Susan a one-hundred-dollar bill, but we never found it. So I guess he took it back. As I say, he’s clever about leaving no prints anywhere. And we still have to consider that Susan was a prostitute. Her death could be either a coincidence or a copy-cat killer.”
“No coincidence, John. And no copy-cat either because nobody knows about the blue scarves,” Martin reminded him.
“True, that’s true. It’s got to be the guy in the bar, but as I say, we are still lacking solid proof. Everything lines up but without that, a case could fall apart, even if we find out who this guy is.”
“What do we know about the scarves?” Connor asked.
“Expensive, French silk, sold only at Neiman Marcus, but not recently. Not in a few years, in fact, from this particular manufacturer. Impossible to track now who bought them and when. So we have to think our guy has a stockpile of them.”
Connor looked surprised. “You mean nobody else sells them?”
“No, not any longer. Not this exact line, since this manufacturer is no longer in business. And Neiman Marcus was the only store here in San Francisco that did carry the brand. I know, it’s just one more weird situation with this case.”
Connor shook his head. “Unbelievable. A psycho stockpiling French silk scarves to murder women with. Have we ever had any other killings like this? What about other jurisdictions, anywhere? Same MO?”
“No, not that we’ve been able to find, and believe me, I’ve run every detail of these killings through VICAP.”
“What about the composite? When do you plan to release that?”
“I’ve called a press conference at three o’clock,” Kinsella said, stopping then for a few minutes before finishing what he had to say. “You know, Kelley’s friends told us that she wanted to meet a new man, a rich guy. Susan Sayles was looking for somebody with money maybe to marry her, poor creature, somebody to take care of her. I think this guy we’re looking for comes across as a class act. I think that’s the lure. Ellie said as much, a very classy guy. And he flashes money around.”
“With his French silk scarves . . . but tell me, how does Dr. Heald fit into that trap? She was a classy woman all by herself and she certainly didn’t need any money. Did she fall for the act, too?”
“Probably,” Kinsella said. “She saw him as an equal, most likely. She was alone, remember, and from what we’ve learned, she was getting over a very painful breakup back in Portland. Her friends and family say she was heartbroken. Then along comes a charming man in one of the most respectable places in San Francisco. No harm for her to strike up a conversation and trust this man. Even the waitress up there said he was charming, that he fit in perfectly. He plies Ann with drinks, gets her very drunk. And I guess you can take it from there. Dr. Heald let her guard down.”
“But where the hell does he take them? Where are they being killed?”
Kinsella looked at him. “My guess? In a car. He gets them into his car and takes them someplace and strangles them, maybe knocks them out or drugs them first, and then he dumps them in an isolated area.” He looked at his watch and stood up. “Martin, I have to get going. You will be joining us this afternoon, I hope?”
“Absolutely. Wouldn’t miss it for anything. I’ll see you later.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
In his office on Union Street early Monday, Luther Ross-Wilkerson read his morning paper, looking intently at the pictures of the three murdered women. Quickly, he folded the paper up and dropped it into the waste basket next to his desk.
He felt sick. What had he done?
He thought of the woman doctor, Ann, at the Top of the Mark. Oh yes, he remembered how lovely she was. But what happened next? He also remembered that he had gone to Jaycene’s, of all places, on Saturday night. Why in the world would he have gone there? There was a woman he liked who would not give him the time of day. She had rudely brushed him off when he’d tried to talk to her.
But there was another woman, the waitress. Susan, a bold piece of work. Something about her had disgusted him. Why had he bothered with her?
He realized he must have been seen by many people talking to both of these women, although those places were busy and really how many people would have been paying much attention to him? He had gone to both night spots purely on a whim. It had been years since he’d taken Alyson to the Mark, and he’d wished he could have taken Christine last week. But that didn’t work out well, and now look what had happened.
Susan Sayles came into his mind again, quite suddenly. A flash of memory showed him Susan pulling a tank top down in his car, exposing herself to him. She was so bea
utiful, but how could he be tricked by a woman like that? He hated cheap women like her. Selling herself, she was. He was the only one who would initiate any love making, not a woman like Susan, a whore. Then suddenly he remembered hitting her, several times.
And then he remembered what had happened after that.
He sat at his desk, feeling sick panic rise up inside him. He started to shiver. The voices had told him to kill these women. So he had done so, all three of them.
He felt horribly sick suddenly. There was a brief knock at his door just then before it opened quietly and his secretary, Shirley Lao, came in with a stack of mail and folders. She walked toward Luther, high heels beating a faint staccato across the parquet floor beyond the Oriental rug under Luther’s desk. Shirley smiled brightly at him. “Good morning, Mr. Wilkerson.”
As she was about to place the mail and folders on Luther’s desk, she stopped, her smile vanishing and her dark eyes reflecting concern and fear. “Mr. Wilkerson, are you all right? You’re white as a ghost and you’re trembling. What’s wrong?”
Luther tried unsuccessfully to smile, instead making only a horrible grimace. He was perspiring heavily. He found his voice and croaked at Shirley. “It’s all right, I’m all right. I just don’t really know what came over me.” He attempted to stand, to prove that he was fine, but his knees buckled under him and he staggered back into his seat.
Shirley dropped what she was holding and hurried to his side. “No, don’t try to stand up. Do you have any pain anywhere? Shall I call for help?” Shirley, small and slender, tastefully and fashionably dressed, laid one elegantly manicured hand gently on Luther’s shoulder. Even though she was frightened, her voice remained low and soft. Luther had never heard Shirley raise her voice. She was always a model of tact and decorum, in any circumstance.