Killer: A Novel

by Stephen Carpenter

  I lower my window two inches and peer out at the cabin.

  Nothing. I would be able to see if any lights were on. But I see only a void of thick snow near my car in the ambient glow of the headlights, and beyond that there is only darkness. The lights are off in the cabin, then. And I see no headlights or tail lights along the driveway. I ease to a stop in front of my driveway, staring as hard as I can into the snowy darkness toward my home.

  Nothing.

  I look all around me and see only the dim forms of trees surrounding the road through the dense snow in the headlights. The wind is blowing so hard the heavy Chrysler is buffeted to and fro and my face is pelted with stinging snow from the two-inch opening in the window. I close the window and press my foot gently on the gas pedal and the rear tires spin but the car doesn’t move. I ease up on the gas, then try again. The Chrysler’s motor revs and the tires spin to a high whine in the packed snow but the car doesn’t move. I curse, then drop the shift lever to the lowest gear and touch the gas pedal again, pumping it gently to rock the car into traction. The car rocks slightly forward, then back, then forward and I let the momentum carry me for a second, and the car slides ahead. I ease up to fifteen miles an hour in this herky-jerky way, feeling the car drift around on the icy, snow-covered road.

  “Come on…” I urge the car along.

  I push the gas pedal down a little further, but it only sends the rear of the car careening around and for an awful moment I am about to slide into the ditch, but I let up off the gas and the car stops sliding and I try again. Easy, easy…pressing the pedal gently and pulling the car straight and inching forward. I breathe a sigh of relief but then the rear of the car comes around again and I let off the gas and sit there.

  This is madness.

  I pump the gas again and crawl forward but it’s slow going and I am wasting precious fuel to gain paltry inches.

  GODDAMNIT.

  Have to keep it together. Breathe and try again. Pushing gently on the accelerator, letting up, then pushing again, then sliding. I step on the brake to stop the slide but the brake has no effect and I slide up to the edge of the ditch on the left shoulder. I touch the accelerator with my foot as lightly as I can…touch touch touch…and the car slowly spins in a circle until I am facing the opposite direction.

  Jesus God how did I wind up here like this? What did I do?

  I pump the car around, sliding until I straighten out again and head once more toward my imagined four-wheeler I will steal in Featherton.

  But the Chrysler won’t cooperate. I keep slipping and sliding, at ten miles an hour, wasting gas and risking a dive into the deep ditches that shoulder the county road.

  I am sweating and my breath is short. I stop and breathe. I will never make it like this.

  Think.

  There is a driveway, about twenty yards ahead. I can see it in the headlights—the overgrown, vestigial driveway that led to the 18th century farmhouse that was razed long ago. Motorists now use the driveway as a turnout. I could pull off onto the useless old drive and hide the car and…

  …and what? Freeze to death?

  I roll ahead and the Chrysler decides for me—the nose of the car sliding inexorably toward the old driveway and off the county road. The driveway slopes down and the car toboggans in slow motion down the path and into the woods. I touch the brakes but they have no effect. The car drifts sideways and comes to a stop. I pump the gas but the rear tires spin in place. I pump a little harder, spinning the tires and wasting gas.

  I am stuck.

  I tuck the Ruger in my waistband and get out of the car and the vicious cold assaults me. I shiver and the inside of my nose freezes instantly. I button my denim Keep On Truckin’ jacket up to the collar and start looking for a rock or a chunk of wood that I could wedge under the back tires to get traction. The floor of the woods is carpeted with deep snow. I kick through the drifts, looking for wood or rock and find nothing. My teeth start chattering. I turn and look back—the car can’t be seen from the road here. I peer through the trees toward my cabin, fifty yards away.

  No lights on in the cabin, no headlights in the driveway. Maybe it’s empty. Maybe there’s no one there. I could get a couple of two-by-fours from the woodshed and bring them back and put them under the rear tires. There is even a shovel in the shed; I could clear a path for the car, back to the road and get back on my way into town—

  Can I risk going near the cabin? If I don’t…if I get back in the car and run the motor to keep the heater going I will run out of gas in a matter of minutes. If I stay in the car with the motor off I could fall asleep and freeze to death or be discovered…which would be worse?

  I stand there for a moment, frozen, hatless, stuck. I take a step toward the cabin, moving slowly, lifting my feet high through the deep snow. I’ll get closer and see if there are any cars in the drive. I can see it from the woods if I get close enough. Surely there won’t be police standing around outside in this arctic storm. I can watch the place for a while and see if it might be safe to approach the shed, which is right by the edge of the woods…

  I continue down the driveway to the small clearing where the 18th century farmhouse once stood. There is a footpath from the ruins of the farmhouse that leads to my cabin. I created the path on my daily walks through these woods. The path is invisible to anyone else in the deep snow, but I know exactly where it is after trekking it hundreds of times.

  I tramp across the snow-covered ruins of the farmhouse. There is no structure left, only the heavy stones that once formed the hearth, and a few bits and pieces of the old house. I go to the footpath and proceed through the deep snow, shivering uncontrollably now, keeping watch all around me as I walk. The heavy snow in the air and on the ground makes my progress silent, but it also would cover the sound of anyone near me. I wipe my nose on my sleeve and continue. I should be able to see the shed by now, only twenty yards ahead or so. I can see the end of the thick woods and I come to it and stand behind the largest tree, beside the entrance to the path, and peer around it.

  I can see the dim outline of the woodshed, but not the cabin or anything beyond it. I wait, standing stock still in the freeze, letting two full minutes pass before I venture out toward the shed, keeping myself hidden behind it.

  I reach the shed and press against it, using it as a windbreak. I wipe the snow from my eyes and brush it out of my hair, relieved to be sheltered from the onslaught of the stinging blizzard. I breathe in and out through my nose, then lean carefully around the corner of the shed to look at the cabin.

  I can see the outline of the cabin. Is that a car in the drive? Pulled up to the front? I can’t tell. I close my eyes for a minute, letting my pupils dilate, then I open them again and squint into the dark—a large vehicle, an SUV—Sheriff Claire Boyle’s. I can’t make out any markings on it but I can see the outline of the lights on its roof. I can’t see inside the vehicle, but I can tell the engine isn’t running. I would see exhaust coming from the tailpipe in the frigid air. And I hear nothing but my own teeth chattering beneath the roaring wind. I look around at the cabin. Not a light or sign of life anywhere. I think of my heavy coat hanging on a peg by the front door, in the living room. I think of the thick wool cap in the pocket of that coat, and the gloves and ski mask in my dresser drawer in my bedroom and the food in my pantry, thirty yards from me.

  I wait another minute, watching the cabin for any sign of movement, then I slip around the side of the shed and go to the shed door and pull, but it is stuck— three feet of snow have drifted up against it. I pull harder and the wooden door makes a loud CRACK. I turn and look at the cabin. Shit. If I force the door open it will make a hell of a racket, even with the soundproofing blanket of snow. And I can’t stand out here digging the snow away, exposed to the SUV and the cabin.

  I decide to make a dash for the cabin and I reach it in thirty rushing, headlong strides and press against the wall of logs, my chest heaving from my short sprint, the freeze crawling down my throat an
d into my lungs.

  I let my breathing return to normal, then sidle along the cabin to the front and get a closer look at Claire Boyle’s SUV. I still can’t see inside it but I can’t believe she would be sitting inside with the motor off. Would they have left the SUV here, empty, just to ward off the curious? Maybe they worked in shifts, and she is getting coffee with a deputy someplace and they will return any minute…

  And then I see something else—another car, parked beside the SUV. I can only see the front of it, the rest is hidden behind the SUV. A deputy? FBI?

  I move around the cabin, in the other direction, through the silent snow. I creep all the way around the cabin, keeping low and quiet. The windows are well above my head, but I remain hunched over as I pass under them and approach the front of my cabin from the other side now.

  There is not one other car, but two, parked beside Claire’s SUV. The car next to Claire’s is Laurie Vonn’s Honda. The other car is a white Toyota Camry I’ve never seen before.

  What the hell?

  I still can’t see inside Claire’s SUV, but from here I can tell there is no one in the Honda or the Toyota. I hunch over and creep along the front of the cabin, under the windows and up to the Toyota, where I squat down between the side of my front porch and the front bumper of the car. The Toyota has Vermont tags and the license plate frame reads Enterprise Rent-A-Car in raised white lettering.

  I crawl around the Toyota and rise up slowly and peer inside the driver’s side window. I brush the snow off the glass and strain to see inside. Nothing—

  Then I see an object in the back seat. I crawl back to the rear window and brush off a small space to look inside and I see the object clearly.

  A little black Kate Spade handbag.

  Nicki.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  I crawl back through the snow and duck behind the side of the cabin and huddle there, squatting in the deep drift, shuddering violently, my mind racing.

  Why would Nicki have come here? Certainly not to look for me…

  Would she have come to supervise the search of the cabin? The computer… I try to remember if I told Nicki about the fourth novel but in my frozen state of confused exhaustion I can’t remember.

  If I did tell Nicki about the fourth book maybe she came to get it—before the police—maybe she read it and contacted Laurie Vonn and that’s why they both came here—

  Deep inside it feels like wishful thinking but what else would make sense? Why else would both Nicki and Laurie Vonn be here? What would she possibly—

  A sound. Inside the cabin.

  Shrrick…shrrick…

  I hold my breath, listening. I know this sound…

  Shrrick…shrrick…shrrick…

  The short, sharp sound, barely audible from inside the cabin.

  A chill that is not from the cold spreads up my spine.

  Shrrick…shrrick…shrrick…

  Relentless, methodical… Like fingernails on a chalkboard only sharper, quicker…deadlier.

  Despite the cold I feel drops of sweat trickle down the small of my back, which freeze instantly into a tissue of ice over my goosepimpled flesh.

  Then another sound—

  Nicki’s voice.

  Muffled, pleading—

  —and then screaming.

  Then her scream is cut short and there is only silence. I listen so hard I can hear snowflakes falling onto my face.

  And then I get up and run to the front of the cabin and jump onto the porch and twist the knob on the front door—locked. I throw myself against the heavy, solid oak door, against the four heavy gauge steel hinges and the three titanium deadbolts, pushing and kicking at it, not caring if Claire Boyle sees me from her SUV—not caring if the door will be opened by Detective Marsh or Melvin “Cowboy” Beauchamp or anyone else—

  I turn and look at Claire’s SUV. She hasn’t seen me, if she’s inside. I jump off the porch and run to the SUV and see Claire inside, behind the wheel.

  I pound on her window. She’s fallen asleep with the heater off and she is freezing—

  I open the SUV door and Claire’s head falls off her shoulders and lands hard on my right foot and rolls off and her face turns over and her pale blue eyes stare up at me from the insouciant serenity of death.

  And then something explodes inside my head and there is only blackness.

  THINGS PAST

  He was ten miles south of Portland when he heard on the radio about the murder of Richard Bell. He lit a cigarette and turned up the volume and learned that the writer Rhodes had been charged.

  He listened to the news until he pulled into a truck stop just south of town. It was a big stop, and he tucked his rig carefully into the middle of the pack of parked semi’s. He crawled into the cab and watched the news on television and scoured the internet all night, without leaving the rig.

  The next morning he risked a trip into the truck stop’s store to buy supplies: food, a large bottle of water to drink, and then urinate into when empty, eliminating the need to use the truck stop’s restroom. He also bought clothes and a pair of barber shears.

  He returned to his cab and cut his hair short, then pulled on the new clothes. Then he waited and watched for three days and three nights before leaving the cab again. He learned that the charges were dropped against Rhodes, and he was released. There was no mention of his Angels—nothing at all about West Virginia, St. Stephen, or Pasadena. Nothing at all. Rhodes had been released because the bartender at the dive vouched for his whereabouts. And Rhodes had either forgotten about Temescal and the Angels or he had kept quiet about them.

  He moved on, still heading north. He wanted to get as close as possible to the border.

  Two weeks later, in Seattle, he bought two fake passports from a Mexican forger—one U.S., the other Canadian—and two new commercial truck driver’s licenses to match the passports. They were good forgeries and they weren’t cheap. His savings were almost gone. He had to pay a thousand dollars for the documents’ fresh fingerprints alone—provided unwillingly and unknowingly by a crackhead the Mexican inducted when he found him passed out in a doorway on Seattle’s skid row.

  The business with the fingerprints reminded him about wiping down the writer’s car, and it worried him. What if he had missed a print? He had no fingerprints on record, but if someone in the bar remembered him and the police matched a print to a glass in the bar…

  He consulted the medical journals online. While researching the side effects of various drugs on memory, he had come across a drug called Capacetabine, used in chemotherapy, which had the unusual side effect of causing the skin of the fingertips to peel away, eventually leaving the patient with no fingerprints at all. He found the drug, available on a Russian pharmaceutical site, and had a large supply sent to a post office box he rented in Tacoma. He began taking the drug, titrating the dose carefully, taking it with the synthetic steroid Dexamethasone to combat the nausea, and when he noticed the skin on his fingertips beginning to peel, he started looking for work. The Capacetabine also thinned his hair, but that was a bonus. No prints, no hair. He was being born anew.

  It took him six weeks to find work. There were jobs available but he avoided any routes that would take him to California. Eventually he got a route—short hauls around the Northwest—delivering tool and die equipment to lumber mills.

  After a few months, his worries began to ease. He kept constant vigilance on the news reports from Los Angeles, Missouri, West Virginia, and New Jersey. There was nothing to concern him. He settled into a routine, driving his route, sleeping in his cab. The more time passed, the more he began to feel at ease. The gray, wet Northwestern weather had a calming effect on him. The steady rains and the low, leaden clouds were like a cloak. He felt secure, as if a blanket were pulled over him, providing cover.

  The memories of his conversations with Rhodes had also eased the pressure, and the migraines stopped. He no longer needed painkillers or booze, and he was able to find release once more as
he lay in his secret room with his pictures and his Angels. He sold his van and waited before buying a new one. The time would come, but he felt no urgency, even when he encountered women who would be fine candidates for transformation. The time would come. He drove his rig, kept his head down, and waited.

  And then, in a bookstore one drizzly afternoon in Seattle, he was perusing the true-crime section and he wandered into the mystery titles and he saw it.

  Featured on a cardboard stand, was the book called Killer.

  From the author Jack Rhodes.

  His heart leapt. His first impulse was to leave the store, the city, the country…. But he couldn’t resist it. Hands trembling with fear and anticipation, he picked up a copy and began to read.

  * * *

  He lay in his secret room that night, reading and re-reading the book. After his fourth reading he closed the book and held it to his chest and closed his eyes.

  Dizzy, reeling, ineffable bliss. More than a miracle. More than he had ever dreamed, even in his grandest fantasies.

  He had found his St. Paul.

  And the more he read it, the more he was pleased. Rhodes, the drunken writer, the damaged, beaten, grief-wallowing burnout; Rhodes, drugged and half-conscious, had risen from his anesthetized torpor—risen above it, like Saul had risen above his sinful life of persecution, and told his story. And in the most clever twist, he had done so as if it were fiction. He had changed just enough of the facts to protect him—he changed names, places—meaningless details, for the most part. But he got the story right; he captured its essence, and kept his killer nameless, faceless, and without identity. He had protected him even as he exalted him to millions. A number one bestseller. Millions.

  Best of all, on the back cover, was the promise of another book, another story about him.