by Chris Mooney
‘Wrong.’
‘Ray can’t afford to have someone stop by the house during the day and see you,’ Darby said. She felt sure the news about Hubbard’s fingerprint had been released. ‘Someone would recognize you if they looked carefully enough.’
‘Wrong.’
‘You have Nicky Hubbard’s eyes. Her nose and lips.’
The woman kept shaking her head. ‘I’m getting real tired of you –’
‘You have her ears too,’ Darby said. ‘You’re Nicky Hubbard.’
‘Enough!’
For the past few days, Darby had been playing around with numbers. Ray Williams had abducted Nicky Hubbard thirty-one years ago; Darby didn’t know the how and why, because the woman kept refusing to answer Darby’s repeated questions on the subject. And Darby knew Williams had abducted another woman not that long ago, the previous occupant of this cell, a woman named Sherrilyn O’Neil. If Ray had been abducting a woman every year, that meant he was responsible for disappearances of thirty other women.
And that was just a conservative estimate. It was more than likely he had been taking two women a year, which brought his lifetime record up to sixty. The frightening thing was that sixty was in all probability still too low a number. How many had he abducted and killed? Darby felt sure Nicky Hubbard knew. But did the woman know where Williams had buried the remains?
The woman who called herself Sarah had collected herself. ‘If you behave, I’ll turn on the TV so we can watch The Tudors. We can have a nice, enjoyable day together.’
As the woman got down on one knee and reached inside the big plastic bucket she’d brought down with her, Darby launched into the same script she’d been using day after day, hoping that it would release the memories buried somewhere inside this meek middle-aged woman who had been brainwashed into believing Ray Williams loved her.
‘You were seven years old when your mother brought you to the Carter & Sullivan department store,’ Darby said. ‘You were looking at Cabbage Patch dolls when Ray Williams kidnapped you. He was a teenager. He –’
‘I’m not listening to you any more.’ The woman began to transfer the contents of the bucket to a small cardboard box: clean clothes, a bottle of water and a meal-replacement bar.
‘Your mother’s name is Joan,’ Darby said. ‘She misses you and loves you, Nicky. She wants you to come home.’
The woman who called herself Sarah Williams stood abruptly. She reached inside her pocket and came back with a small handheld remote with a thick rubber antenna.
‘Your mother is alive,’ Darby said, struggling to keep her gaze locked on the woman. ‘I can take you to her.’
‘Say my name – my real name. You say it right now or you’ll force me to press the button.’
Darby had been repeating the script for God only knew how many days, but this was the first time she had seen the woman who believed her name was Sarah with the remote.
‘Let me help you,’ Darby said. ‘I want to help you.’
‘Say it. Say my name or I’ll do it.’
Darby had an idea of what was coming. Her muscles tensed, and she broke out in a cold sweat.
‘Say it!’
‘Nicky Hubbard. Your name is Nicky Hubbard.’
The woman pressed the remote’s side button.
Darby had been Tasered before, but this was a thousand times worse. Hundreds of electrified razors tore through her neck and limbs and exploded through the meat of her brain. She clutched the steel collar frantically, uselessly, trying to tear it off. Her legs gave out and then she fell against the floor, writhing. Screaming.
75
When it was over, Darby lay on the floor, quivering and gasping. As her vision finally returned, she saw that Hubbard had moved the cardboard box inside her cell.
Nicky Hubbard – and that’s who she was, Nicky Hubbard, not Sarah – Nicky Hubbard pressed her face against the bars. She looked sad. Apologetic.
‘That was the number seven setting.’
‘Nicky,’ Darby croaked.
‘I don’t want to hurt you again. Please, I’m begging you, stop calling me that. You’re wrong about Hubbard. She’s dead.’
‘It’s not … your fault. Battered women, abused children and cult members – they all undergo a very traumatic bonding process. Victims become loyal, even protective of the perpetrators.’
‘I am not a victim. I told you that before.’
‘Victims go on to develop their abuser’s beliefs, values and –’
‘Stop or I’ll press the button again.’
Darby was breathing hard, but she managed to keep her voice calm and empathetic. ‘You’re scared,’ she said, forcing herself on to her side. ‘I don’t blame you. I would be scared too.’
‘I’m not scared. You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Darby remained quiet for a moment, waiting to see if Hubbard would retreat to her bed, pick up her noise-cancelling headphones and watch TV. The first few times she had confronted Hubbard, the woman was too terrified to speak. Then Hubbard tried to ignore her. When Darby refused to stop talking, to stop asking questions, Hubbard became angry. She shouted at Darby to shut up.
But Hubbard was still standing at the bars, looking down at her, like she was waiting for an explanation.
Good, Darby thought. Definite progress. ‘If I don’t know what I’m talking about, explain to me why he tried to kill you inside that bedroom.’
‘Why do you care?’
‘Why are you afraid to tell me?’
Hubbard held her head high. ‘I am not afraid,’ she said. ‘And Ray apologized for what he did. It was an accident. His mother had always wanted a girl.’
Darby remained quiet. This was new information.
‘Mother Sarah didn’t like boys. She’d always wanted a girl, and when Ray brought me to her car, she was so excited. She was very kind to me. Very, very nice. She named me after herself, you know.’
‘And Ray? Was he nice and kind to you?’
‘Of course he is.’
‘Then why did he try to kill you?’
‘I don’t want to talk about this any more. You’re upsetting me, and I’m very tired.’
‘We found your fingerprint in the bedroom.’
‘I know. Ray told me. He tells me everything.’ She smiled in sour triumph.
‘The FBI will find you,’ Darby said.
Hubbard said nothing. She didn’t have to; her fearful expression confirmed Darby’s suspicion.
‘Everyone in the world has been looking for you,’ Darby said. ‘Your mother –’
‘My mother is dead.’
‘She’s alive. If you don’t believe me, go on the internet and look.’
‘Ray doesn’t let me use it.’
Of course he doesn’t, Darby thought. ‘Tell me what happened and I promise I’ll be good,’ she said. ‘Then we can watch The Tudors together, just like you wanted. We’ll have a nice day together.’
‘You promise?’
Darby nodded.
Hubbard composed herself. When she spoke, the words came out in a rush, as though they were poisoned and she had to get them out of her throat or she’d die. ‘Ray told me he was jealous of all the attention his mother was giving me, so one night he brought me to that house so we could play hide-and-seek, okay? And then he got … got mad and shoved me and I must’ve split my head on the floor or something. And he said I was bleeding everywhere and when I wouldn’t stop crying he started to … He just got really, really mad, and he started … He had to make me be quiet.’
‘Did he strangle you? Hit you? What?’
‘It doesn’t matter. What matters is he stopped. He stopped because he loves me, and I love him.’
‘If he loves you so much, why does he bring women here and strangle them?’
‘I answered your question.’ Hubbard’s voice trembled, and her eyes threatened tears. ‘Now, you promised to be good. No more talking.’
‘You didn’t answer my qu
estion.’
‘I just did!’
‘You told me Ray’s version of what happened. I want to hear your version. I want to hear you tell me what happened.’
‘I don’t remember. I was too young to remember.’
Darby wondered if that was true. Had Hubbard managed to bury that traumatic event in order to function? To survive living with a sadist?
‘I study people like Ray for a living,’ Darby said. ‘He’s a psychopath – a very smart one.’
‘No. More. Talking.’ Her voice trembled and her eyes threatened tears. ‘You promised.’
‘The FBI are looking for you. They’re going to find you – and him.’
Hubbard brought the remote up to Darby’s face. Her hand shook in anger – or was it fear?
Darby knew she had to keep pressing her. ‘Ray is going to kill you.’
‘I’m turning the dial up to eight.’
‘He has to kill you because everyone in the world will be looking for you. You’re going to die, and he’s going to escape. He’s going to –’
‘You think you’re so special because you’re pretty and have a beautiful body. But whores like you are a dime a dozen. That’s why he always comes back to me. He loves me. Only me. I share his bed because I’m the only one who knows how to satisfy him.’
‘I know he doesn’t love you,’ Darby said. ‘If he did, I wouldn’t be here, would I?’
Darby saw that her words had hit home. She braced herself for another shock, but Hubbard, red-faced with anger and her eyes bright with tears, had turned to the ladder.
Hubbard stormed up the rungs. When Darby heard the trapdoor slam shut, she moved the steel cord to the front of her face. She curled it around a fist and climbed a foot; she didn’t need to reach the top. She swung back and forth a couple of times to get some momentum, the cord digging into her skin; and then she raised her knees to her chest and pushed her legs up until the soles of her bare feet landed on the rough concrete ceiling.
Now she had leverage. Now she was standing on the ceiling, blood rushing into her head. Now, just as she had done every time she was alone in her cell, she wrapped both hands around the cord and pulled, muscles straining, hoping that this time she would somehow manage to break it, and have a fighting chance of defending herself.
76
Like most men, Coop had a complicated relationship with emotions. His father, when the guy was actually around and pretending to be a parent, his uncles and his male older cousins all attacked life’s emotional turbulences and soul-crushing losses in the way that Clint Eastwood did in his Westerns: keep your cool, shoot straight and if you go down, go down swinging. And never, under any circumstances, let them see you sweat or give the slightest indication that you’re hurting.
Coop was worried sick about Darby, a woman he had worked with since he was twenty-five. Not only did he admire her, he loved her. Darby was honest and loyal and never afraid.
And now she was missing – missing being the operative word. Missing didn’t mean dead. Missing meant there was still hope.
Denver’s FBI office had taken over the Savran investigation. Special Agent in Charge Howard Scott and his agents had commandeered Red Hill PD’s squad room, transforming the former Ripper task force centre into a hybrid hotline/command post. Additional phone lines had been installed for the tip lines. Savran, a fugitive who had murdered two federal agents, had gone platinum. The federal government had ponied up $100,000 for information leading to his capture and arrest, an increase of fifty grand on the original reward money. The US Marshals Service was involved in the manhunt, and Savran’s name and face had been forwarded to every national news outlet, state police headquarters and law enforcement agency. Everyone in the world was looking for him right now.
So where was he?
Coop thought the answer was hidden in the thick stacks of papers scattered on his desk. He sat in a corner of the room, sifting through Savran’s background information while trying to drown out the ringing telephones and the noise of agents, marshals and troopers who, along with Red Hill PD and uniformed deputies from Brewster, kept trekking in and out of the room, talking to each other on their cell and land-line phones.
Eight days had passed since Savran had shot and almost killed Hoder, and still no one had seen him or his Ford Bronco. The last time Savran had used his credit card was during the beginning of the month, a $48.45 purchase at Amazon. He had $62,345.23, courtesy of his mother’s estate, parked in a current account at the local bank. He hadn’t touched a cent of it since his Amazon purchase.
So why would a skilful, organized killer who had murdered five – no, make that six families – why wouldn’t he clean out his account when he might have to blow Dodge at a moment’s notice?
Answer: You couldn’t apply logical thinking when it came to a psychopath. Doing so, Darby had once told him, was about as useful as sticking your hand inside a clogged toilet.
Here’s what he did know. Savran’s medical records confirmed the 47-year-old had been born with the rare metabolic condition known as trimethylaminuria. People who suffer from TMAU have an impaired FMO3 enzyme; the odorous TMA can’t be oxidized into the non-odorous TMA-oxide. The TMA builds up in the person’s system, causing a fishy or garbage-like odour that is secreted through the person’s sweat, urine and breath. For the past four and a half years, Savran had been trying to mitigate the intensity of the smell by using the oral antibiotic neomycin.
A victim of bullies and merciless teasing from classmates because of his fish odour syndrome, Eli Savran, unsurprisingly, had a long and well-documented history of anger issues. Thelma and Douglas Savran had officially divorced when Eli was six. At thirteen, he had been expelled from Red Hill High School for breaking a classmate’s nose and jaw. He went to live with his father, who was working on oil rigs in New Orleans, for the next year and got into several scrapes, one of which, an assault and battery charge, had landed him a six-month stint in a juvenile detention centre. He bounced back and forth between his childhood home in Red Hill and wherever his father was working at the time. Eli dropped out of high school and took up menial work and odd jobs, mostly at night, when he could keep interaction with people to a minimum. At twenty-four, he had nearly beaten a man into a coma, earning Eli a level-3 A & B charge. The victim, for reasons unknown, later dropped the charge, and Eli was sentenced to community service.
Reports from therapists and his former high school guidance counsellor indicated a bright student who, if it weren’t for the rage he felt because of his condition, could have gone on to a promising career in engineering or computer science. He got his high school equivalency diploma and at times flirted with the idea of getting a degree in computer programming.
But what was Savran’s motive for killing the families?
It took all the weight of the FBI to find out that the state of Colorado had approached a good number of Red Hill families, secretly and individually, to sell their properties for what pretty much amounted to pennies on the dollar. The state had them over a barrel: sell or don’t sell, the state could afford to wait. Their town was dying; there were no jobs or social services. Some families took the state’s offer. Others had the financial means to play hardball, but the state wouldn’t buckle. The families who had been murdered were holdouts.
The people with meagre jobs who were barely hanging on were the lucky ones. The vast majority were poor and scared and mostly uneducated. They were praying to God there’d be an influx of state aid, jobs and other relief measures once the incorporation went through – and the killer was paving the road for this. Why should they tell the police what they might have suspected about the Red Hill Ripper, when the state had offered these families good money for their properties? What had happened to them was their own fault.
The other factor at work was Red Hill’s small-town mentality. The people operated in the same way as the blue-collar Irish Catholics who lived in Charlestown when he was a kid: you didn’t volunteer information t
o the police. If you did, you’d wake up one day and find your car missing or, worse, you’d come home from work to discover your house had been burned down. And then there was always a chance that a group of people would take it upon themselves to corner you in a bar or on the street, or grab you and drive you somewhere where they would make their feelings known with baseball bats.
‘Agent Cooper.’
Coop looked up from his papers and saw Denver SAC Harold Scott. He got up and shook the man’s hand.
‘I need to have a word with you,’ Scott said. He had a deep baritone Barry White voice that immediately made him the centre of attention. ‘In private.’
77
Coop followed him to Robinson’s office, where it was safe to talk. The entire station had been swept for bugs. The USB device Darby had discovered inside Williams’s office was the only one that had been found.
‘Couple of things,’ Scott said as he shut the door. He had dark skin and dark brown eyes; he was bald on top, with the hair on the sides of his head as white as snow. ‘First is Hubbard’s fingerprint. The DD assured me it’s still locked down, so, thankfully, no one on the outside knows we found it.’
The DD was FBI Deputy Director Lou LaRoca – Scott’s boss. The two men had decided to keep the information about Hubbard’s fingerprint secret until Savran was in custody. If word about her print got out, Red Hill would turn into a free-fire zone.
‘Second is Savran’s Bronco,’ Scott said. ‘There’s an abandoned coal-burning power plant in a town fifty or so miles from here, place called Leadville. They found the Bronco parked inside. We’ve got the rifle with a thermal scope and tracer ammo – and a backpack stuffed with duct tape and zip ties. Forensics is over there working on it right now. They’ve found plenty of blood samples.’
‘You want me to head over?’
‘No, we’ve got it covered.’