“He said he’s got a few hours of footage from the Starbucks you always go to. And he got a little more with you guys walking around a neighborhood one day, but that you were just knocking on doors. There wasn’t much to film, so he kept his distance.”
“Yeah, we saw him follow us that day in his black sedan.”
Paddy frowned, his eyebrows furrowing. “He doesn’t have a black car.”
I looked at Cara and something passed between us. My heart rate accelerated.
“A black sedan followed us from my apartment complex. There’s no doubt in my mind. I got on the freeway and then took probably three or four right and left turns after we got on the main roads. The sedan remained behind us through all of them. There’s no way it was coincidence.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying we were being followed by someone in a black sedan. This wasn’t a guy randomly taking the same streets as us. I just figured it was your guy.”
“I’ll call him right now.”
I noticed how Paddy never mentioned his name. Smart.
Paddy picked up a cell phone and dialed a number. He held it to his ear, still wearing a worried expression. All we could hear was his end of the conversation.
“Hey…Do you remember when Quint talked to the people in that neighborhood? …I need you to look for a black sedan in the background…”
I interrupted, “It must have parked on a side street. Because I didn’t see it again once we got to Iron Hill Street.”
Paddy continued on his end, “The black sedan was probably parked on a nearby side street, but never got closer. If you were recording, maybe you picked up a license plate… Okay, that’s good news. Get back to me as soon as you can.”
Paddy hung up the phone and turned to us.
“He says he has a dashcam always recording. He’s going to go back through the footage and check for a black sedan. Hopefully we can see whoever was sitting in it, or, at the very least, get a license plate number.”
“Thanks a lot, Paddy. This could be the break we’re looking for.”
“This feels different,” Cara said. “Like maybe it’s not just another dead end.”
“He’s got to go through the footage. I’m not sure how long this is going to take.”
“Cara and I will head back to the East Bay. But please call me as soon as you know.”
“I will. I hope we’ve got something.”
“Me too.”
Cara and I thanked Paddy, left Boyle’s, and headed back to the East Bay.
For the first time, it felt like momentum was on our side.
But that was tempered by the knowledge that fourteen innocent people had been killed in a fire. What a horrible way to die. I tried everything I could to not think about it. But that proved impossible. I was imagining smoke-filled rooms and older people desperately, hopelessly trying to escape via the front doors.
You’d hope they’d have the wherewithal to break the windows of their rooms, but who knows how someone will react when smoke starts filling the area? Especially being awakened in the middle of the night.
Cara hadn’t been herself that morning and I felt sure it was because the same things kept running through her head. I decided not to broach the subject, which just would have made it worse.
When we arrived back at Avalon Walnut Creek, the news trucks were still there. They had taken up positions past the parking garage, so I was able to speed inside without being seen.
A small victory in the grand scheme of things, but I’d take it.
34.
Upon returning to my apartment, we threw the news on. We kept the volume low and we weren’t actively watching, but our eyes darted to the screen now and then.
It felt like the proverbial train wreck that you couldn’t look away from.
Reports of the deceased kept coming in and a few more pictures were shown. It always hit home when you saw the faces of those people who died.
One stood out.
Her name was Ginny Fitzgerald, and she had the biggest smile I’d ever seen. Her hair was gray, and she was quite old, but her picture just gave off the vibe of someone who loved life. A twinkle shone in her eye even though she was in the twilight of her life.
And now she was gone.
I thought again about what I would do to the Butcher if I was locked in a room with him.
That was another thing I tried to push out of my mind. It surely said something about myself as well.
I needed something to occupy my mind.
“You hungry?” I asked Cara.
“Not really.”
“Me neither. I’m going to cook anyway.”
“That doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“I need to do something,” I said. “I can’t keep watching the news and seeing the faces of the people who died. It’s tearing my soul apart.”
“I understand completely,” she said.
Cara looked down at her phone. “It’s one p.m. Why don’t you start cooking something low and slow? It will help pass the time, and we can eat it for dinner later tonight.”
“That’s a good idea, Chef Cara. Any suggestions?”
“We’ve got that Beef Stew. Why don’t you sauté some garlic and onions, sear the meat, and then throw in a few cups each of red wine and beef broth? Add a few carrots and potatoes if you’ve got them and let it cook for the next several hours.”
“Now I’m hungry. That sounds delicious.”
“Thanks. It will be perfect around 6:00 or so. Tender as can be.”
I walked to the kitchen and took out a cutting board. I started chopping some garlic and onions. It was nice to do a mundane activity that kept my mind occupied.
The day dragged on once the hard part of the cooking was over, each minute more interminable than the last.
At 2:30, I called Paddy.
“Have you heard anything from your guy?” I asked.
“He thinks he found the license plate. He spotted only one black sedan on the recording of the area you drove through. It was occupied by a male, but he could be anywhere from twenty to sixty. My man showed me the picture and all you see is the back of the guy’s head, and it’s heavily pixelated. Luckily, he was able to focus on and identify the license plate.”
“So, do you know who the car belongs to?”
“Not yet. I only got this information twenty minutes ago. I just texted our lone connection at the DMV, but haven’t heard back. But I imagine I will soon.”
“Thank you, Paddy. If it really was the Butcher following me, this could be the evidence we need.”
“Let’s hope it was. I’ll be in touch when I hear back from our friend at the DMV.”
“They’re open on Saturday?” Paddy had been exceptionally loyal to me, but I knew he wasn’t a saint. I didn’t dare ask why he had a connection at the DMV.
“I think so. But they are to me regardless.”
I understood what he meant.
“Thanks for everything, Paddy.”
“You got it, Quint.”
And he hung up the phone.
Cara had been sitting on the edge of our bed, once again studying the collage we’d created. I’d taken the call in the kitchen, but when I looked through the door at her I could tell that she’d heard our conversation.
“Good news?” she asked.
“Not yet, but soon, I think. They found the black sedan and are waiting for someone to run the plate.”
“That’s great!”
“Yup.”
She stood up. “You seem reserved about this. This could be earth-shattering information. And that’s not hyperbole.”
“I know. It’s just hard to celebrate with what happened at the old folks’ home,” I said.
“I understand. I know I’ve been a bit off today too.”
She emerged from the bedroom and we hugged.
“You’ve done amazing work, Quint. Don’t let this asshole’s actions lessen all you’ve accomplished.”
/>
“You are just as big a part of this as I am, Cara,” I said. “Don’t forget that.”
“Thanks.”
Fifteen minutes later, Paddy Roark called back.
“Quint, I talked to the woman at the DMV.”
The last six weeks had come to this point. All the investigating that Cara and I had done. Meeting Bradley Marks. Victoria. The Dorias. The countless hours spent making the collage. The even more countless hours I’d spent reading everything on the collage. Trying to figure out the Butcher’s poker riddle. So much effort and time.
And it had all had come to this moment. At least, I hoped so. Please don’t tell me it was some random asshole following me. Peter Vitella’s photographer. A member of the paparazzi. A true-crime nut.
Doubt came over me in a panic. Maybe this wouldn’t be the slam dunk I’d hoped for.
“Quint, are you there?”
My mind was such a muddled mess, I hadn’t answered Paddy.
“I’m here.”
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
“The car is registered to a man named Tyler Anthony Danovich.”
I wrote the name down as he said it.
And looked at it for a good ten seconds.
Followed by writing out my name:
Q-U-I-N-T A-D-L-E-R
Could it be???
I thought about the poker riddle. And ran through some other things in my head. Including who I saw on the day the Butcher left a note on my apartment door.
My suspicions were confirmed.
I knew who the Bay Area Butcher was!
35.
THE KILLER
All good things must end. So goes the expression.
So the fact that I’d avoided detection for almost forty-five days, while being one of the most sought-after men in the world, was an accomplishment in and of itself. I chose to look on the bright side. I’d always known my anonymity wouldn’t last forever.
Truth be told, I looked forward to the attention. I wanted the world to know they were dealing with a mad genius the likes of which it had rarely seen. If ever.
And that by no means meant I was done killing. Far from it.
My final set of murders would be an all-timer. Like calling your shot in the bottom of the ninth. And then walking off.
Only I’d be sneaking off, never to be found.
I’ll get to that, but let’s start at the beginning.
I think you deserve that.
I was born Tyler Anthony Danovich in San Bernardino, CA, but my parents moved to Northern California when I was three years old. My father was a salesman in the mold of Willy Loman, and was equally unstable and unhappy with his place in the world. He was also a jerk and verbally abusive to my mother.
Not that I cared or stood up for her. I didn’t like that bitch either.
I was an only child, like Quint himself. Although that’s probably where our similarities ended. From all I’ve read, he loved his deceased father and is still close with his mother.
Not me. As you can see, I despised both of my parents.
They tried to love me. In their own, hard-ass, militant way. But I never reciprocated. I was born without the trait of being able to love a fellow human. That was foreign to me. From birth, I was the ultimate narcissist, someone who literally cared about no one else in the world.
Never have, never will.
I knew I was different from an early age and my lack of any compassion or empathy came out in action. It just wasn’t in my DNA.
I remember one time when Lucas, a neighborhood kid I’d occasionally hang with, fell off a bike jump and landed on a shard of glass that had been hidden in the nearby dirt. He screamed bloody murder with the shard protruding from his leg.
Did I go get his parents or call 9-1-1? No.
I said, “I’ll see you tomorrow” and biked home. And if we’re being honest, I got a good chuckle out of seeing that glass poking out of poor old Lucas’s leg. I wish it had cut deeper.
His parents put an end to that “friendship” soon thereafter.
That became a theme. Adults would realize that something was a bit off with me and separate me from their children. It took a bit longer for my own parents to realize what I was. They saw my behavior as nothing more than childhood immaturity.
My mother contracted breast cancer when I was a freshman in high school and died somewhere during my junior year. I think it happened in the fall, but I honestly don’t remember. I attended the funeral and said all the right things, but there wasn’t some hole in my heart that would never heal. To me, it was just another death in a world of countless deaths.
Actually, that’s not true. It was better than most deaths, since I detested her so.
After the death of the woman he’d abused, my father became a shell of himself. He went full Willy Loman, always lamenting where he was in life. I often wondered if it was due to his wife’s death or because he had started to realize his son was the antichrist.
He began looking at me differently, realizing my childhood “peculiarities” were likely something more sinister. When he lost his battle with depression and ate his gun fourteen months after my mother died, it left me alone in this world.
But really, I’d always been.
My father gave a final “fuck you” to me, leaving me nothing in his will, donating his money, and his house, to charity. While I was pissed, I realized why. He saw me as evil. Hey, he wasn’t wrong.
As with my mother’s death, I said all the right things to people I knew. I was very good at acting normal when I needed to. But all the time, beneath the veneer, I was a growing monster.
When I talked to people and feigned sadness, I was really imagining gnawing their faces off, Hannibal Lecter style.
I was eighteen when my father died, and I enrolled at a local technical school, where I learned how to code. While I didn’t get good grades in high school, it wasn’t because I was dumb. I was actually acutely intelligent; I just didn’t care about school. But coding came easy to me and I advanced quickly, getting a solid paying job upon finishing the program.
My mind, already a sinister place, only got worse once I “lost” my parents. I started imagining wreaking havoc on the world I loathed.
But I didn’t want to be some half-wit criminal who killed one person and got locked in a cage for the rest of his life.
So I bided my time. And read. And planned.
When I decided to kill, I would do it right.
I wasn’t going to be a one-hit wonder.
A few years passed. I continued to be gainfully employed at my nondescript internet company. I worked as a front end developer, in charge of making your landing pages beautiful and bug free.
I had a few “friends” at work and girls were initially attracted to me. But once they got to know me, they’d inevitably choose to distance themselves.
Maybe it’s true about women using a sixth sense that men don’t have. Because most guys thought I was pretty normal.
Well, that’s not exactly true. But they didn’t catch on as quickly as the gals did.
A workplace shooting had crossed my mind a time or two, but those things were often forgotten after a few days on the news.
I wanted to be infamous. Forever. Not just for one news cycle.
My compulsion to kill was only superseded by my goal of not getting caught. So I continued to study my craft.
And I started to think about how it was all going to transpire. Early on I knew I needed to get my message out to the police and the media in some way. Add a little panache.
If a killer commits the occasional murder, the news will report on it, but it will never become a national phenomenon. Not in these times when murders happen every day. But if that killer writes letters, ridicules the police, and even tells them the day he’s going to kill?
Now that’s good fucking theater!
In my extensive reading on serial killers, I’d found that m
any tortured or killed animals when they were children. I didn’t understand the point. Kill a defenseless dog or cat? Pull the wings off of some butterfly?
That was no game. It left zero chance of losing.
But there is such a chance in killing humans. It’s more like a battle of wits. Only instead of failing a debate, the loser dies in my rendition. It’s more like a duel in the Burr/Hamilton vein.
In that regard, I’m probably most like the Zodiac Killer, from whom I quote: “It is more fun than killing wild game in the forest because man is the most dangerous animal of all.”
If I had a motif, that would probably be it.
I could go out and shoot Bambi, but no one would really care. But if I kill someone’s dear old Uncle Harry, you’re damn right that will elicit a reaction.
Which is all I want.
I’d never felt much in this world. Other people’s suffering is the one thing that conjures up something like emotion in me.
Approximately two years ago, at the ripe old age of twenty-five, I moved into Avalon Walnut Creek.
There I noticed many pretty girls milling around, and I decided to try and shake things up. Start fresh. Or at least, change my name. I was still a sadistic son of a bitch. That would never change.
So, at Avalon, and anywhere away from work, I started going by Tad, my initials. Tyler Anthony Danovich.
Tyler certainly hadn’t gotten me much in life. Maybe Tad would be different. At least, that’s what I told myself.
Sure, women got scared off because I was a creep, not because of my name. But I’m a narcissist and, like any true narcissist, that makes me an optimist where I’m concerned. I thought maybe the name change would do the trick.
Newsflash: It didn’t.
I ran into Quint a few times around the building, but thought nothing of him either way. A neighbor told me he was a writer for a small, local paper, and at some point I read a few of his articles. I wasn’t impressed.
I’d say hi to him frequently, since we both lived on the fourth floor. As I said, I can act normal and say the right things when necessary. So I was cordial and I’m sure he thought I was a pleasant human being.
The Bay Area Butcher: (Quint Adler Book 2) Page 18