Death Watch

by Elizabeth Forrest

  “Hurry up. I think I’m going back to sleep.”

  “Oh, you won’t sleep in this car. My son has the radio station button preset to boom box.” Joyce found what she was looking for and fished them out. She opened the passenger side door, leaned in to search the glove compartment for a few seconds, and made a sound of triumph. When she stood back to let McKenzie in, her hand was full of black wire and adapters. “Once we get settled, I can give Carter a call to let him know we’re there.”

  McKenzie slid onto the passenger seat. She picked up the cell phone and held it as Joyce entered the car. “Why not now?”

  “Because that baby is as dead as a turnip, that’s why. But I can use the adapter when we get to Calico House.” Joyce snapped her seat belt into place and turned her head to watch herself back the car out. True to her word, the radio had come on, full blast, but she turned the volume down. Still, the music pulsated throughout the car.

  McKenzie watched the street slide by. The rush was dissipating. The oddly artificial feeling of tranquility had begun to catch up with her again, but she did not let it overwhelm her. She had the uneasy feeling she wore it like a mask. Hidden underneath it was what had transpired during the day and in Susan Craig’s lab. She had only hazy memories and none she wished to bring back. To distract herself, she asked “Why Calico House?”

  “Why not? It’s a shelter. It’ll be open officially in about two more weeks—”

  “No. No, I mean ... the name. Why Calico?”

  “Ah. Well, it’s because of the sponsor. She’s a retired home ec teacher. She sews quilts. They’re authentic and prize-winning. Anyway, when her husband died, she took part of the estate and set up funds for a shelter. But that’s not the best part.” Joyce steered expertly around a corner. “She bought some equipment from the high school when it was being renovated, and she’s donating that: six sewing machines. She’ll teach anybody there who wants to learn. Quilt-making to baby clothes, you name it. She uses a lot of calico fabric when she works, hence the name. Anonymity, but not.”

  “She didn’t do it to see her name on the building.”

  “No. Most of us don’t. We do it to see you walk out, and hope you never have to come back.” Joyce’s mouth tightened abruptly, but her passenger didn’t see it.

  McKenzie watched the houses, buildings, other cars blur past her window. “Never be a victim again.”

  “That’s right. You’ve got it, girl. We don’t ever want to see your bruised and bleeding body again. And we particularly don’t want to see it down at the morgue.” Joyce lapsed into silence, a silence which McKenzie let stretch out.

  Susan made the call from a pay phone to avoid the trace. It rang nearly half a dozen times before Dudley answered it.

  “Where were you?”

  “In the shower.”

  She could hear the resentment in his voice. She had pushed him hard last night and this morning. She softened her tone. “I was worried.”

  “Don’t be. I’m here.”

  “I need you to do something for me. I have a situation developing. I have faith in you. This is your chance to redeem yourself for last night.”

  “Tell me what you want me to do.”

  “We’re going to have to pull out. We’ve discussed this before.”

  “There’s trouble.”

  “Yes, but nothing you can’t handle.”

  A lengthy pause followed her statement. Then, “They’re looking for me. You know that.”

  “Not tonight. Even with the Bureau’s help, they couldn’t get their act together by tonight. It will take weeks before they’ve developed their profile.”

  Sulkily, he said, “It should have burned.”

  “But it didn’t, and so now we have to take steps, to protect you, to protect me.”

  “All right. I understand. I’ll get ready for a pullout.”

  “Good. And then, you need to go to these addresses. She has to be at one of them. Take the gear.” Susan dropped to a whisper as someone passed by the phone booth. She turned her back to them to avoid being seen and told Dudley what it was she wanted.

  Joyce flicked on the lights. “We have water and electricity. No phones yet, they’re to be installed the end of this week. No gas, either, but you didn’t feel like cooking tonight, right?”

  McKenzie rubbed the bridge of her nose, somewhat dazzled by the sudden light. “Right,” she agreed sleepily.

  “First, I call home. Then, we order pizza. Then, we take care of that friend of yours. Okay?”

  McKenzie drifted farther into the house, freshly painted, carpeting still with tufts and clippings from the installation, only odds and ends of furniture in place. “Sure.”

  “The bedrooms are upstairs. Six in all. Small but they’ll do. There’re some boxes of donated clothing up there, too. Why don’t you see if you can find something?”

  McKenzie started upstairs. On the landing, a quilt had been hung, the double wedding ring pattern. It was indeed a work of art. She trailed her fingers over it as she passed it on the stairs.

  Flash. The quilt, bloodstained and crumpled, lying at the bottom below her. McKenzie froze on the step.

  “What is it?”

  What could she say? Thanks for rescuing me from the psycho ward, but I’m still seeing things? She screwed her head slowly around, lips parting, to tell Joyce, but the words that came out were, “I don’t like mushrooms on my pizza.”

  Joyce smiled. “Gotcha.”

  McKenzie gripped the railing tightly and continued on up.

  In the quiet lobby of CyberImago, flames began to flicker, to burn orange and then yellow-white as the accelerant fed them. The plastic plant in the corner melted almost immediately. The receptionist’s desk caught fire, Jennifer Lee’s textbooks burning like solid lumps of charcoal in the center of the cheap plastic and chrome. Smoke bulged the doors to the office and R & D, pinched its way through the narrow cracks. No alarms or sprinklers went off in the office.

  The fire would have burned very brightly and gutted nearly the entire structure before alarms began in the rest of the complex. The accelerant used would leave no trace, except for the nature of the fire itself— unstoppable, incredibly hot and swift and destructive.

  “Tums,” Dolan pleaded. “Rolaids. Maalox. Anything.”

  “Take your pizza like a man,” Carter returned. “Give me that grid.” He reached for the chart they’d been working on the last few hours. The first thing they’d gridded was that Mr. Blue did not always hit blue houses. That seemed to be his preference, but it wasn’t a given. What they had found was that his victims were always single women. Until last night, when he’d added two male children.

  Dolan belched, a resounding rumble that perfumed the air, and pushed the chart within reach. Nose wrinkled, Carter sat back in his chair to look it over once more. He took a highlighter and marked through two lines carefully.

  “What are you doing?”

  “These two. They just don’t fit. I don’t think they’re Mr. Blue. For one thing, the fires that were started were much bigger, more ambitious. They were meant to consume the evidence, not drive the victim into the killer’s arms.”

  Dolan belched again, then got up and leaned over. “I can see this one,” he agreed and tapped a finger on the grid. “She wasn’t even stabbed, though it appeared she’d been beaten. The suspect they pulled in on this one was all wrong.”

  Carter rubbed the corner of his eye. “Who was that one?”

  “The ex-boyfriend. They’d had some problems before.” Fax paper made crinkling noises as he shuffled through them. “He’s some kind of hero. They let him go finally, admitting their evidence was screwed.”

  Carter had put his elbows on the tabletop, chin propped in his hands, half listening to Dolan and half thinking that Joyce had yet to call. He put his head up and rolled his shoulders slightly. “Okay, that one stays out. What else?”

  “Not a whole lot.” Fax paper rustled some more and Dolan belched again. The odo
r wafted Carter’s way.

  The reporter got to his feet. “I surrender.” He sauntered to the bathroom to search the counter for antacids.

  Dolan stayed hunched over the file copies. He wished he had them on disk. He could rearrange them, collate them any way he wanted. This hand-grid method Carter used was beginning to bug—

  “Hey, Carter.”

  “What?” He tossed a crusty roll of chewables at Dolan who ducked and snagged them out of midair.

  Dolan quickly emptied half the roll into his mouth, talking around them. “This is interesting. If you include the one done last night, four out of the ten were battered women.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, Graciela had just left a shelter. According to the grid—look—” Dolan’s broken fingernail skidded down a column. “This one was waitressing, but I remember the file. She’d gotten chef’s training from the shelter she was in, and she was waiting for an opening. And this one, right out of the home. Court had her listed as a runaway. The primary suspect on both were the ex-husbands at first, until the agencies realized they fit the Blue profile.”

  Carter grabbed for the files. “What about Denise Faberge, the one done last week? Wasn’t she just out of a shelter, too?”

  Dolan scanned the sheets he held. “Yeah, yeah, here she is. Been out a couple of months. Just took out a temporary restraining order on her ex, though.”

  Carter was grabbing for everything Dolan wasn’t holding. “That makes four. And if you include that one we just eliminated, that makes five. Five out of the ten victims were battered women.”

  “Sometimes I think the world is a sewer.”

  “No. No, you’re missing the point.”

  Dolan looked up, still sucking on the multitude of antacid tablets he had stuffed in his cheek. “What point?”

  “Mr. Blue does victims. He makes them the ultimate victim. And, conveniently, he’s not the suspect. The batterer is the first and automatic suspect.” Carter began to lay the files down in order. “But how does he know?”

  “Know what?”

  “Know their past. What they are? Where to find them? How the hell does he know? Shelters are safe houses. I don’t even know the addresses of the places Joyce works with, and I’ve done stories with her.” He sat down. “I’ve missed something. What is it? Give ’em to me again.”

  Dolan watched him warily, as if some insanity had just reared its head. “Again? What about the one we eliminated?”

  “Throw her back in, too. We’ve got to go through it again.” Carter popped two chewables into the palm of his hand and took them. His teeth ground on the chalky, vaguely pepperminty objects. Dolan’s voice droned.

  “Shit!” Carter bolted upright.

  “What? What?”

  “The hero. What kind of hero?”

  Dolan’s eyes dipped. “A fireman. He’s a fireman by the name of Herbert Dudley.”

  “That’s him. That’s him.” Carter went to the computer and booted up the GIF image of Susan Craig at the women’s benefit. “Shit. That’s him. That’s him standing right behind her.”

  “And that’s a benefit for battered women,” Dolan echoed. “Are we looking at Mr. Blue?”

  Carter stared closer, at Susan Craig. He wondered if he was staring at someone who’d created Mr. Blue. A firefighter, who could go almost anywhere, anywhere he wanted, and with architectural imaging, any building would be laid open to him, like a surgeon lays open a chest cavity before doing delicate work on the heart. A man who, for one reason or another, kept killing his wife again and again and again.

  Had Craig given him those reasons? The software they’d downloaded earlier said she could have tried.

  The phone rang sharply.

  Dolan watched him as he answered it, said, “That’s great,” and, “I’ll be right there,” and jotted down an address.

  Carter pulled on loafers. “Write everything down we’ve just talked about. This is not an article. Just list the grid and the pattern. Give ’em the name. Fax it back to Sofer and Franklin. Tell them I think we’ve got a prime suspect for Mr. Blue and that it’s likely he’s taken lessons from Georg Bauer. That’ll make ’em jump.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Mac’s out. Joyce has her bedded down in a shelter that hasn’t been opened yet.”

  “Do you think she’s a target?”

  “She’s been around Susan Craig. That’s enough to worry me.”

  “What about Dudley?”

  “Let the Bureau pick him up.”

  Dolan seemed reluctant. “Then what do I do?”

  Carter stopped halfway out the door. “You go home,” he said, “And take care of your heartburn.”

  Dolan nodded in disappointment. “Right.”

  Carter shut the door.

  The cloudless California skies finally deepened into night. Jack took his boots off the dashboard of the car, dropping his feet with a thud that rocked the vehicle. He’d been staring at the house so long he was damn near cross-eyed. For amusement, he’d watched a nearby palm tree where the rats skittered in and out of the fronds. Damn things were everywhere. Palm trees and rats. He wished he’d brought his .22. Pop! Pop! One less Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

  Mac had been in there with her newfound friend long enough for the leftover pizza to get cold. Long enough to hang blankets at the windows, shutting out his view of them walking back and forth upstairs. Long enough that darkness cloaked the neighborhood. Silently, he got out of his car. He reached in the back for his dark, hooded sweatshirt. No sense in letting the whole world know who the hell he was.

  The air, when he tried to take a deep breath to steady his nerves, stank. Dirt and smog drifted in the unrain-washed atmosphere. He and Mac would be better off home in Seattle, the quicker he could arrange it. She was probably ready to listen to him now. He’d given his itchy mean streak a long scratch, and now he was ready to talk nice to McKenzie. He’d promise her another dog—hell, he had the name of a breeder with a litter of puppies all ready to go that he’d ripped out of the paper that morning in the hospital and stuck in his pocket. He’d let her go back to school full-time if she wanted. Even have a career. He could use another breadwinner in the house. No sense to the bill-paying burden being all on his shoulders. No wonder the stress drove him crazy sometimes. Things could be worked out. All he had to do was make sure her newfound friends wouldn’t change her mind or get in the way.

  A bit unsure, Jack wiped the palms of his hands on his hip pockets. He looked into the darkness and stepped out.

  It didn’t come as a flash. McKenzie paused, as she and Joyce sorted through the boxes of clothes. There were neat piles of items that were in her size range, and neat piles of all the other size ranges, on the floor around them. She stopped folding and paused. The feeling came as a tingle down her spine as though someone had stepped on her grave. At least, that’s what her mother used to call it. She scrubbed her arms briskly.

  Joyce looked up. “Cold?” It was the first decent weather of the week. The evening had cooled and there were hopeful weather reports of coastal fog and inland low clouds in the morning, shaving maybe ten degrees off the previous forecast. It was getting cooler, but it was a long way from cold.

  “No.” McKenzie hesitated. “Twitchy.” If she were a dog, if Cody were here with her, their hackles would be up.

  “Can’t blame you.” Joyce smoothed down a blouse. “Carter should be here soon. Then I’ll head on home.”

  McKenzie wanted to say, Do you have to? But she knew the advocate did. She had a family, a home life of her own. “Maybe that’s Carter now.”

  “Where? What makes you think so?”

  “Well, I ... I thought I heard a car door. Or something.”

  Joyce rolled an eye at her. “Don’t go trying to spook me.”

  Mac laughed. “I’m sorry. I was, wasn’t I? You know, this is a big place with just the two of us here.”

  “It won’t be long until it’s full.” Joyc
e beckoned. “Women and children and mentors. I don’t think it’s empty. I think it’s full of promise.”

  A thud sounded on the roof above them. McKenzie jerked nervously, staring upward.

  “Roof rats,” Joyce said. “In the palms all around us. I’ll tell the house leader to get a cat.” All the same, she stopped drawing out and inspecting clothes.

  Another thud, and with it, the house shook. The wooden framed windows, and sliding door closets jumped in their tracks ever so slightly. The overhead swag lamp swayed from its chain. They sat stock-still until the room stopped moving and groaning.

  Then Joyce blinked and let out a derisive bark. “4.0, if it was anything. Here we sit like dummies. That was an aftershock. Probably from the Northridge quake. It’s still dancing.”