As Peggy undressed, she felt like a two-bit prostitute. She expected Simon to gawk at her with drool slobbering from his mouth like a rabid dog. But he paid no attention to her. His indifference puzzled her, and in a perverse sense humiliated her. Instead of enjoying the show like any self-respecting degenerate, he seemed content pounding nails into the lumber, making a T with the square beams. Peggy could not understand why the hammering did not awaken April. She hadn’t even twitched.
Down to bra and panties, Peggy could not get herself to remove the last two pieces of clothing. It felt as though all her muscles suddenly atrophied.
I can’t do this.
Simon glanced at her and set down the hammer. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“I can see that.”
“Please don’t make me—”
“You’ve got thirty seconds, Peggy.”
Now he was facing her, his eyes penetrating. This is not what she wanted. Better for him to go about his business than watch. She reached behind her back and unsnapped her bra, all the while conscious of his stare. She could almost feel his eyes focused on her breasts. How horrifying. How totally degrading!
Enjoy the show, you son of a bitch!
After dropping her scarlet panties on the floor, the last piece of clothing to fall, gooseflesh covered her skin. Peggy stood shivering, vulnerable. Her nakedness not only exposed her body but her substance as a woman. Project completed, Simon stood up, almost losing his balance. Peggy watched him grimace when he put pressure on his right foot. She no longer had the advantage of wearing shoes, so digging her bare heel into his sneaker might prove fruitless. She had to inflict enough pain to be certain April and she could get away.
“Lie on the bed,” he ordered.
If Peggy could tolerate his naked body on top of her just long enough, maybe she could distract him. She lay on her back, covering her breasts with her right forearm, while her left hand strategically concealed her pubic hair. The mere thought of him touching her sickened Peggy. Showing no interest in her nakedness, he stood over her and stared at the wall, hypnotized.
“Sinner, are you ready to give yourself to God, to cleanse your unclean soul and purify your impure heart?”
Now Peggy was mortified. She held her breath, terrified of what he would do next.
“You must give yourself to God without reservation and without remorse. If you do not offer yourself willingly, your sins cannot be absolved.”
Peggy lay perfectly still, trying to make sense of his prayerlike riddle. Then she looked at the hammer hanging from the leather apron and thought about the beams he’d nailed together. He hadn’t made a T, he’d made a cross.
A crucifix.
She remembered the headlines in the paper, the article about the last victim.
“…wounds in her wrists and feet…”
Until this moment, Peggy hadn’t believed that the other three victims had been crucified. She’d dismissed the evidence as media hype. Now, unfolding before her was the bitter truth.
Gripped with panic Peggy McDonald had never known, driven by raw animal instinct and an elemental will to survive, she leaped off the bed and tackled her captor with the force of a professional football player. Unprepared for the attack, Simon fell backward and his body slammed against the floor. Peggy went wild. Before he could even begin to comprehend what had happened, or devise a way to defend himself, she doubled up her fists and launched a barrage of punches to his midsection and groin. Somehow during the maniacal frenzy, a morsel of reason focused in her furious thoughts. Peggy remembered his limp. She turned her body and grasped his foot with both hands, twisting it and pounding his instep. What she didn’t realize during this moment of delirium was that the foot she assaulted wasn’t the injured one.
The first blow walloped her just below the solar plexus, his fist driving deeply, pounding the air from her lungs. She gasped desperately but could not draw a breath. Now his hands were around her neck, his thumbs pressing against her windpipe, his body straddled over her. She could see a wild look of rage in his eyes. Gagging and choking, she grasped his thick wrists but could not break free. Had he wanted to, she knew, his powerful hands could have snapped her neck like a twig. But there was a purpose to his technique. Of course, she thought, he doesn’t want to strangle me. He wants to crucify me! At the moment before Peggy lost consciousness, Simon loosened his grip. It seemed that he had a sense of when she’d pass out. Peggy, frantic beyond rationale, grabbed Simon’s groin and squeezed his testicles. Remarkably, he didn’t even flinch. Instead, he grinned like a madman and yanked the hammer from the leather apron as if he were drawing a pistol. He cocked his arm and his eyes narrowed. This is it, she thought. This is how she would die. Time seemed to stop. He didn’t strike her with the hammer, or utter a word. All she could hear was his heavy breathing. Then, just when she believed he might show mercy and not harm her, she felt the hammer ring in her ears when he whacked the side of her head. Her eyes went blurry and the only light in the corner of the room dimmed to blackness.
At first, Peggy thought she was awaking from a horrific dream, a moment she’d experienced dozens of times, when the terrifying world of make-believe surrendered to reality. But consciousness did not rescue Peggy today. She could not smell fresh brewed hazelnut coffee, only the musty odor of this prisonlike basement. Andrew’s soft cheeks would not be pressing against her inner thighs as he made love to her, as he did so often in the morning. April and she wouldn’t bake chocolate chip cookies or watch the Cartoon Network. When she awakened today the violent throbbing in the back of her head reminded her that this nightmare was far from over.
He stood over her; a hulking image gawking at her face with haunting penetration. Her body lay uncomfortably on a wooden cross, positioned on the concrete floor. Rope, tightly wound around her forearms and ankles, secured her arms and legs to the rough-sawn wood. He gripped a hammer with his right hand. In his left hand he held four silver-colored spikes, each six-inches long.
Peggy turned her aching head and could see April sleeping on the bed, still curled in a ball. She had no perception of time. She might have been unconscious for hours. What had he done to her during this period of time? What kind of twisted experiments had he performed? With a half-conscious brain and muted senses, Peggy inventoried her body. She sensed no discomfort in her lower abdomen, and it didn’t feel like he had penetrated her, but how could she know for certain? The thought of this animal inside her assaulted her stomach with violent pain. She could taste vomit in the back of her throat.
He knelt on his left knee and positioned one of the sharp spikes firmly against her wrist, the hammer poised above his head.
“Sinner, do you offer your life to God as a sacrifice to cleanse your soul and purify your heart?”
Sweet Jesus, help me.
His lips tightened and his eyes narrowed. He pushed the spike firmly against her wrist, pricking the flesh. “Is it your will to die for your sins and redeem yourself?”
Peggy tried to speak, but her throat was knotted.
“Sinner, I ask you: Are you prepared for everlasting life?”
In a mind of snarled thoughts, Peggy could only untangle one word. “April,” she whispered.
“She will be spared if you willingly die for your sins.” He tightened his grip around the handle of the hammer. “Are you ready to be cleansed?”
Peggy McDonald, thirty-five-year-old Irish Catholic, realized that her journey through life was about to abruptly end in a most diabolical way. Fate had intercepted her voyage and she would never see another sunset. Four-year-old April probably wouldn’t remember her in adulthood. Andrew would mourn, go through a period of bitterness and solitude, but he’d marry again. Another woman would be lying beside him. Her entire life—summarized on the eleven o’clock news in less than five gory minutes—would be forgotten. Her total existence would forever be eclipsed by her role as the fourth victim of a crazed serial killer.
�
��Are you willing to die for your sins?” The hand holding the hammer trembled. Beads of sweat dripped down his face.
“What about my baby.” It was not a question, but a breathless plea.
“She won’t be harmed.”
“No, you don’t understand.”
“I’m losing my patience, sinner. I told you that your daughter—”
“For God’s sake, I’m pregnant!”
As if Simon’s hand had a will of its own, the hammer slipped from his trembling fingers and bounced on the concrete floor. He had never prepared himself for such a possibility. Cleansing this sinner would also kill an innocent child, and Simon was acutely sensitive to the plight of unborn children. At an early age, he discovered the hypocrisy of our lawmakers, vile men who drafted laws supporting the butchers professing to be doctors. How conveniently Congress classified unborn children as embryos or fetuses. And for what purpose? Only to ensure the votes of pro-choicers. This sickened Simon. Often he fantasized about storming an abortion center and single-handedly executing each and every killer. Silently he applauded the holy crusaders, the brave soldiers so committed to their principles that they challenged the twisted system. He could never feel remorse for the murdered abortionists, for the death clinics burned to the ground or bombed to oblivion. It was the wrath of God.
But now Simon faced a most difficult dilemma. To release the sinner and preserve the unborn child’s life would be just, yet not a feasible solution. How could he senselessly kill one of God’s children? There was, of course, the possibility that she lied, pretending to be pregnant to preserve her life and undermine Simon’s godly work. She had not deceived him though. Simon felt sure of this. When she lay naked on the bed, he’d noticed an unusual swelling in her lower abdomen, a bloating uncharacteristic of an otherwise physically fit woman.
He sat on the cold floor, pulled his knees to his chest, and fixed his eyes on Peggy’s face. Surely, if he let her go she would promise not to betray him, assure him in a most convincing manner that she would never say a word to anyone. But in the end, when her anger swelled beyond the joy of having been set free, and her actions were driven by hatred and a profound sense of revenge, Peggy would tell the police everything.
If he ever needed his mother’s advice, today was the day.
He closed his eyes and talked to her with words unspoken.
What shall I do, Mother?
God has given you a bonus, my sweet son.
I don’t understand.
The earth is a wretched planet, overrun with violence, deception, fornication, and betrayal. It is a temporary stop, a momentary detour from our ultimate journey. You would be honoring this unborn child with a most holy gift if you gave its soul to the Lord.
Simon considered her words. He wanted to comply but stood motionless.
Do it, my sweet boy. Do it now!
He hesitated for only a moment. Then his body shivered and he could feel himself getting excited. Only his mother affected him so profoundly. As in the past, all he wanted in life was to please her.
“Sinner.” Simon smiled at Peggy. “Today is truly a glorious day.”
Death for Peggy McDonald did not come mercifully. It had taken much longer than the others for her to draw her last breath. Simon, sitting on the floor beneath her, reading passages from the Bible, watched her wiggle and squirm for almost three hours. Her shoulders were torn from their sockets, and the wrist and foot wounds oozed blood. Her once rosy cheeks were ash-gray. Frequently, when the cold spikes piercing her wrists and feet rubbed raw against a nerve, she’d yelp from the pain. At several points her guttural screams were almost deafening. But knowing that pain was an integral part of redemption, her futile cries for help did not trouble Simon. In fact, he found solace in them. When she finally reached the defining moment, no longer able to lift her body enough to breathe, Simon stood and watched her transition with uncontrollable excitement. To think that he had delivered, not one, but two doomed souls to eternal splendor overwhelmed him with joy. With her lungs devoid of air, her cheeks purple-blue, it took four agonizing minutes for her heart to arrest. All the while, as life slipped from Peggy, the last vision in her cloudy eyes was April’s little body curled on the chair.
Simon could see April beginning to stir. Before she awakened, he found a vein behind her left knee and injected the mild sedative, enough to ensure that she’d sleep through the night. He lifted the child off the bed and set her on the chair. Held upright, perpendicular to the floor, the base of the cross was securely fastened to heavy metal brackets anchored to the concrete. Carefully, he loosened the clamps and guided the crucifix to the floor. With a three-foot crowbar, he braced the round end against a wooden block for leverage, and slowly pulled out each of the four railroad spikes, much like removing nails from a two-by-four with a claw hammer. Blood still trickled from the wounds, but the flow did not surge as it did when her heart pumped. To absorb the blood, Simon wrapped cotton towels around her wrists and feet. Then he lifted Peggy off the wooden cross, carried her limp body to the bed, and laid her on her back.
It was a moment he longed for.
The reunion.
He closed his eyes and cleared his brain of all thoughts, focusing on one image.
“Mother, are you with me?”
I’ve been calling for you, my sweet son.
“Shall I come to your bedroom?”
Yes, Simon, Mother is waiting.
He opened his eyes and Peggy McDonald no longer existed. Instead, Simon’s mother lay on the bed, her lovely eyes looked up at him and she smiled. Ah, how he remembered those soft breasts and long shapely legs. Just like he’d done so many times before when beckoned in the middle of the night, Simon removed his clothes and crawled into bed beside his beautiful mother. He lay holding her, stroking her silky hair, caressing her warm body. Then, gently, lovingly, he made love to the only woman he had ever intimately known.
EIGHT
Thursday was an unseasonably warm day when Sami left her home at nine a.m. The temperature was already sixty-five. Aside from the ever-growing population, outrageous real estate prices, overcrowded freeways, and the most discourteous drivers in the galaxy, San Diego sure was a nice place to live. With the exception of a few stubborn clouds hovering over the shoreline—referred to by meteorologists as a marine layer—the sky looked clear and bright blue. She drove with her window rolled down; the invigorating air tousled her freshly trimmed hair.
Sami was not yet sure whether she felt disappointment or elation that the license plates on the black Supercab in the hospital parking lot did not belong to Simon. When she learned that the truck was registered to Alicia Chavez, fifty-five-year-old widow, a woman who’d never even gotten a parking ticket, Sami dismissed her original suspicions as foolhardy. Yes, Simon did fit the basic description of the serial killer, however, so did a few thousand other men. Perhaps, she thought, the lack of progress in this case was beginning to affect her ability to remain rational.
Normally, Sami worked Monday through Friday, eight to five, or at least those were the hours she turned in to payroll every week. To the outside world, working a day shift seemed a bonus, perhaps even unbelievable for a job in which the investigative process required that a detective be available whenever needed. Criminals didn’t look at their watches before plunging a knife into a victim’s chest. Therefore, Sami—and just about every other dedicated detective—invested plenty of off-duty time working. If the San Diego Police Department compensated Samantha Rizzo for the actual time she spent performing police-related duties, everything from midnight surveillance to early morning coffee with informants to weekend research to interrogating suspects, she could retire before her fortieth birthday. In spite of the craziness, she endured. Working a day shift was not a perk Sami earned. It just made sense. During the daytime hours, greater information resources were available and detective support departments such as the crime scene search unit, latent fingerprint unit, photography unit, police crime laboratory, a
nd the document examination unit were more accessible.
Sami’s concern about Captain Davison removing her from the case and turning it exclusively over to the Special Investigation Squad escalated with each moment she failed to produce a viable lead in the serial murders investigation. Although the captain hadn’t alluded to this possibility, Al and she had struggled through another unproductive week, and often, at least within the dynamics of police procedures, certain repercussions were understood without the benefit of spoken words. She did not expect a warning. One morning—perhaps even today—Al and she would be summoned to Davison’s office and the bloodletting would be over swiftly. No debate. No begging for more time.
Unlike prior investigations, this case baffled Detective Sami Rizzo. Her acute investigative skills and inherent ability to unearth a clue from seemingly innocuous information had always been a topic of great amusement among fellow detectives. With playful respect she had been nicknamed Blood Hound. Not an image she aspired to, but Sami, a little appreciative yet a bit insulted, reluctantly accepted the pet name in the spirit in which it was intended.
Every once in a while, particularly after she’d uncovered a new weighty piece of evidence in a difficult case, a giant-size Milkbone dog biscuit would mysteriously appear on her desk, wrapped, of course, with a big red ribbon. She’d not received any doggie treats on this investigation and couldn’t believe that she actually missed them. This case completely bewildered her. The killer was indeed stealthy. A cruel, crafty, calculating murderer.
She parked the Taurus in the underground garage, grabbed her briefcase, and headed for the elevator. Just as she pushed the up button, her cell phone beeped.
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