One Kill Away

by Alex MacLean

  Daphne waited a moment, then rose from her seat, hugging her books tightly. Her pulse raced as she walked toward the doorway. Mrs. Zegray followed her out, carrying an empty coffee mug in one hand. She locked the classroom door behind them and headed off for the teacher’s lounge.

  Daphne’s locker was down a side hall. Careful not to bump into anyone or stumble and draw unwanted attention, she weaved through the mass of bodies. The trip past the locker section felt like walking the gauntlet; kids lined both walls. At any moment, she expected a name or insult to come flying at her. When she passed a group of girls, they began laughing, and in her paranoia, Daphne imagined them laughing at her.

  She cut down the side hall. As she approached her locker, her pace slowed. She noticed something on the floor in front of it—a small, white box, roughly four inches long by an inch and a half high. It wasn’t until she came right up to it that she realized it to be a soapbox, put there by some idiot.

  Daphne licked her lips, the roof of her mouth. She swept the box out of the way with her foot.

  Someone off to her left said, “I can smell her from here.”

  An eruption of laughter followed. Daphne turned her head to see three boys staring at her from five lockers down. The speaker had been Joey Sprague, a jock from the school’s basketball team. Tall, good-looking, big ego.

  Holding her gaze, he hardened his stare. Daphne swallowed and turned away. Her hand shook as she reached for the lock.

  Joey said, “Did you see that?”

  Another boy replied, “Yeah, man. God, she’s ugly.”

  Their laughter trailed them down the hall.

  Eyes moist with humiliation, Daphne shook her head. The teasing was getting worse. No longer contained to a few nasty girls, it seemed to be jumping from person to person like a virus.

  She fumbled with the spin dial and overshot the second number of the combination. She paused, angry with herself. Tried again and succeeded.

  She took out the books she’d need for the afternoon classes. Then she hurried off to the library to wait out the lunch break.

  13

  Halifax, June 9

  12:07 p.m.

  “That him?”

  “Think so,” Audra said.

  The mystery man came into view, a hooded figure emerging from between the parked cars.

  Seeing him for the first time, Audra felt a frisson of excitement, even though she wished for better picture quality. The tinted bubble cover made it feel like she was looking through sunglasses and the rain didn’t help either. Big droplets ran down in front of the lens, distorting the image.

  Audra sat in a back office with the manager of Atlantic News, watching the surveillance video on the woman’s computer monitor. The time displayed on the DVR viewer read 2:17 a.m.

  The dome camera outside had a 120° field of vision. It kept an eye on the parking lot behind the building as well as a good part of Morris Street.

  The mystery man walked out to the sidewalk with his hands tucked into his jacket pockets. The rain gained strength around him, bubbling the puddles and flowing off his body like ropes. Perfect for rinsing the blood Audra knew he’d have on him, if he were the killer.

  She braced herself, anticipating him swinging around and giving her a money shot. But he never lifted his head, never looked in the direction of the camera. He turned his back to her, bent into the rain, and headed up Morris.

  Audra stared at the duffel bag slung over him. Rectangular in shape, it extended from the hip to just above the shoulder. Sufficient to conceal a shotgun in.

  Janelle Gurnard had been accurate in her description. The man was dressed in black rainwear that had no distinctive markings. Even the duffel bag was entirely black with no company logo Audra could see.

  A car approached, its twin beams illuminating the rain into bright shards. The man lowered his head even more and seemed to reach for the rim of his hood. Audra wondered if he was trying to hide his face.

  The car’s brake lights glowed red on the slick street as it coasted by and then stopped at the intersection of Morris and Queen. Audra watched it continue straight and vanish from the frame.

  By the time the man passed the apartment building where Janelle lived, Audra could barely see him. The darkness of night and the rain worked in his favor. Now just a featureless shape slowly drifting from sight, he crossed the street to Birmingham, and disappeared.

  Audra continued to watch the video. A minute or so later, she saw lights funnel through the rain, coming from somewhere down Birmingham where the man had gone. They touched Morris Street, swept to the left, and washed over a brick building on the corner before disappearing.

  Audra sat back in the chair. The lights had come from a vehicle. That much she knew. Was it the man leaving the area?

  “Want to see it again?”

  Audra crossed her legs and looked at the store manager, a middle-aged woman with nut-brown eyes and a bob cut. Her name was Tammy Donerson.

  “Can you rewind it back more?” Audra asked.

  Tammy clicked the mouse. “Just tell me when to stop.”

  Audra watched the monitor. Everything reversed at a comical rate of speed—the rain, the headlights, the man. When the clock showed 1:35 a.m., she saw him again, walking backward out of the rear parking lot.

  Tammy said, “Whoa,” and moved the cursor to the pause button.

  Audra held up a hand. “No, keep it going. There…start it there.”

  Tammy hit play and Audra leaned in close with narrowing eyes. Through the thin veil of rain, she could just make out the man walk up to the distant corner of Morris and Birmingham, a shadow lit by the dim glow of a streetlight. He hesitated next to a Metro Transit bus sign. Audra wondered if he was checking out the area first.

  He sauntered across the street, head down, hands buried in his jacket pockets. As he came toward her, Audra focused on his walk, looking for a limp or signs of injury. None.

  He reached up and pulled the hood down over his face, held his hand there to keep his anonymity. He seemed aware of the camera’s presence. Even with the distance and poor lighting, Audra could tell he had a glove on that exposed hand. It blended with the rest of his clothing.

  This had to be the killer. Had to be.

  When he reached the parking lot, Audra had Tammy pause the video.

  “Can you zoom in?” she asked.

  Tammy drew the focus closer until the camera appeared to be a couple feet away from his face.

  “That’s as far as it will go,” she said.

  Audra clenched her jaw, frustrated. Eyes and hair provided the best info for identification, but she couldn’t distinguish any facial features at all. Not even the shape of his nose. She could see only a patch of fair skin on his right cheek and the right corner of his mouth. His hand covered the entire left side of his face.

  Audra wondered how well the lab could enhance the video.

  “Can you tilt it down his body, please?” she asked.

  As Tammy did that, Audra inspected the front of the man’s clothing, right down to his dark boots.

  “Can you extract the video data?”

  Tammy said, “Yes. I can burn a copy to disc.”

  Audra smiled. Perfect. She really didn’t want to take the DVR.

  “I’d like to have it from one-thirty to two-thirty. Can you do that?”

  “I can.”

  “Can you make two copies?”

  “It’ll take me half an hour or so.”

  “Hey, that’s fine. I’ll wait.”

  Tammy got to work. Audra went outside to the trunk of her car and retrieved an evidence bag from her homicide kit. She wrote down the case information on the front of the bag and then headed back inside.

  When the discs were ready, Audra had Tammy verify they played back properly and the right date and times had been retrieved. Then she sealed one disc in the evidence bag for the lab, and kept the other one for herself. She thanked Tammy and left the store.

  She wa
lked down the sidewalk on Morris Street and stopped at the rear parking lot, looking up the embankment leading to Todd Dory’s apartment building. So the killer had used that route as his entry and exit points. That much was clear. But who was this man and how had he come into Dory’s life?

  Audra took out her cell phone to call the Ident Unit and tell them they now had new ground to investigate.

  14

  Halifax, June 9

  3:20 p.m.

  After school, Daphne left through the side exit on Robie Street. Most of the other kids used the front and she wanted to avoid as many of them as possible. She couldn’t wait to get home and put the day behind her. She never wanted to show her face here again. The stares. The whispers. The snickers. Not to mention the note stuffed into her locker and the bar of soap left on the floor.

  It burned in her, that hurt, that humiliation.

  What next?

  Daphne walked through the fractured shade cast by the maple trees edging the sidewalk. A steady stream of traffic passed along Robie. Off to her left, some boys played baseball at the school’s diamond. The pitcher began his windup and threw a fastball straight down the middle of the plate. With a graceful swing, the batter cracked a ground ball right into the first baseman’s mitt.

  Beyond the outfield sprawled the green sweep of Gorsebrook Field. Clusters of students walked there, their voices gone weak and hollow in the open expanse.

  Up ahead, two figures lingered behind the thick trunk of a tree. Then one of them stepped out to the sidewalk and became Margi Tanner, a willowy girl with straight, dark hair and bangs. She was one of those ninth-graders who had started all this trouble, and the one who had turned physically aggressive last week. Tripping Daphne. Shoving her into the lockers.

  Daphne flinched and stopped. Fear spread through her stomach, reaching out to every muscle fiber in her body and squeezing every ounce of strength from them.

  The second figure appeared—another one from that group—and Daphne thought her legs were going to crumble beneath her.

  Margi stepped into her face. “Where you been, dork?”

  Her friend said, “I heard she was making out with Gavan Menke.”

  The two girls started laughing and making kissing noises. Daphne swallowed. Poor Gavan Menke, a boy from ninth grade who came from poverty. Kids laughed at him because he seemed to wear the same clothes everyday, came to school with holes in his sneakers. Some boys spread around rumors his mother worked as a hooker down on Hollis Street every night and his father was a drunk. Of course, none of it was true.

  Daphne held her tongue. She lowered her head and tried to slink past, but Margi stepped in front of her and shoved her back.

  “Little bitch,” she snarled.

  Her hand shot out of nowhere and she smacked Daphne across the face with a palm, hard enough to knock her to the sidewalk and send a spatter of dots across her field of vision.

  Automatically, Daphne lifted a hand to her cheek. It felt numb, then sensation came back in painful throbs. Tears sprang to her eyes and she tried to blink them away.

  “She’s crying,” the other girl said.

  “Little baby,” Margi shrieked. “You’re pathetic. Loser.”

  She bent in close and contorted her face into an exaggerated parody of someone blubbering. Then she lifted her fist as if to strike. Heart racing, Daphne cringed and tossed up her hands to protect her face. Nothing came.

  When she looked around her hands, she saw Margi and the other girl walking away, laughing. Daphne felt embarrassed, sick to her stomach. She picked herself off the sidewalk and wiped her eyes.

  Other kids were looking over at her from the field. Some were pointing. Daphne wanted to find a dark hole somewhere so she could crawl inside it and hide from the reach of the outside world. Maybe even die in there.

  She couldn’t understand the contempt and disgust those girls had for her. Their hatred made her feel tiny and useless, unwanted garbage tossed to the curb.

  Daphne half walked, half ran all the way home. She stormed through the back door and tossed her book bag on the kitchen floor. Overcome with emotion, tears welled in her eyes again. She sank to her knees as sudden, uncontrollable sobs racked her body.

  15

  Dartmouth, June 9

  4:05 p.m.

  Seth had a name: Blake Kaufman. But he had no idea what the man he wanted to kill even looked like. Worst of all, he was gambling on the word of a scumbag and criminal, a poster boy for everything rancid in the world. Todd Dory could’ve pulled any old name and address out of his head and have Seth go on a wild-goose chase.

  The address brought him to a brick low-rise on Primrose Street in Dartmouth. Just up from the main artery of Victoria Road, the low-income neighborhood of small homes and apartment buildings had a reputation of being a hardscrabble place riddled with crime and violence. A shooting here, a stabbing there, and soon an area develops an ugly stain hard to rub out.

  Seth’s first impression of the area was of modesty. The street was clean and tree-lined with buildings spaced nicely apart. Not all crammed together like in Halifax. There were no dilapidated structures. No broken windows. No graffiti. No abandoned lots. No punks mulling around. Maybe when night fell it became a Frankenstein, all terror and danger, but in the daylight it looked like any other quiet neighborhood.

  Seth rolled down the street in his rental car—a blue, Hyundai Accent. It was the most average vehicle Avis had to choose from. He hadn’t wanted anything too upscale. Riding around in a BMW or Cadillac might attract too many eyes; leave too many imprints on the memory.

  Through his sunglasses, he looked over the building as he drove slowly past. It was a drab, three-story square with a black awning over the entry and a stoop built from treated lumber. His gaze rose up the bank of windows in the front and he had a mental image of the apartments inside resembling hotel suites. Of tenants who left their doors open all day, smelling up the complex with cigarettes or cooking. Of kids running up and down the hallways, their feet like thunder. Of TVs too loud.

  The building didn’t seem to have any security features. No intercom box. No cameras. Just walk right in. Seth wished each apartment had its own outside entrance, like Dory’s. Going inside jeopardized being seen by tenants.

  Eight vertical mailboxes, in two rows of four, were mounted next to a solid front door painted the color of sandstone. The building had a twin next door. A paved lane ran between the two of them and emptied into a rear parking lot. At its edge lay a patch of green lawn that ended about fifteen yards away at a tangle of trees and shrubs.

  Seth drove up the street a short distance before he made a U-turn and came back down the other side. He passed the building and pulled over to the curb near the end of the block. To his right, a one-story house was set back from the road and fronted by a long, well-manicured lawn and white picket fence. The large maple tree out by the sidewalk had a civic address sign fastened to it.

  Across the road was a tiny house with a large backyard. Beside it, on the corner of Primrose and Robert Burns Court, squatted a rectangular three-decker, twice the size as the one this Kaufman supposedly lived.

  As Seth moved his eyes over the structure, he shook his head. Windows. So many damn windows.

  He adjusted the mirror on the driver’s door so he had a clear view of the apartment building over his left shoulder. Then he curled his fingers over the wheel and sat there for a time, watching the place. No one went in or came out. Only a few cars drove past. With the window cracked, he could hear the traffic all the way down on Victoria Road, the jerky growl of motors, the deep thump of someone’s car stereo.

  Seth checked his watch. 4:20.

  He picked his weathered Red Sox cap off the passenger seat and put it on, tugged the bill down his forehead. Then he reached up and tilted the rearview mirror toward him. For a moment, he stared at the thick scar on the left side of his face. It swept from his temple, disappeared under the dark lens of the sunglasses, and reemerged on his
cheek where it ended at the edge of his nose.

  Absently, he touched a finger to its smooth ridge. He could still feel the lick of fire as the blade sliced through his flesh. All at once, he had a flash of himself lying in the hallway outside his bedroom door, blood seeping from holes and gashes throughout his body. Todd Dory’s face hovered over him, eclipsing the ceiling light above him.

  Seth stared up at Dory’s weird milky-white eyes. In the periphery of his vision, he caught the glimpse of another face about a foot off the floor and his hand was touching it. When he hooked his eyes toward it, he felt a scream bubble through the phlegm in his throat. The face was something straight out of a horror movie. Sunken. Desiccated. Flaps of discolored skin hung off the bone and muscle. It had no eyes, just dark empty holes, and the black lips were contorted into a grim rictus, baring a set of misshapen teeth.

  “C’mon,” someone yelled. “Let’s go.”

  Clenching his jaw, Seth shook the image from his mind. Through the windshield, he saw an elderly man approaching up the edge of the street on a red mobility scooter. He wore an olive flight jacket and his white hair was cut tight to his skull. Bulging bags of groceries were piled into the front basket. He didn’t notice Seth. His eyes seemed focused on the road ahead as he drove by.

  Seth waited until he was gone before he opened the door and stepped out. He cut across the street and continued up the sidewalk toward the apartment building. He kept his head down, hoping to preserve his anonymity. If Blake Kaufman was the man’s real name and he really lived at this address, then he’d recognize Seth long before Seth would even know who he was. And that put him at a lethal disadvantage.

  Without looking up at any of the windows, Seth climbed the front steps and quickly read over the nameplates on the mailboxes. Tremors rippled through his body when he reached the final box. Kaufman. Apt. #8.

  Seth inhaled a deep breath. Kaufman was here, possibly in the building right now. This close and Seth had no weapon. Not even a knife to plunge into the man’s heart the moment he opened his door.