Should Be Dead (The Valkyrie Smith Mystery Series Book 1)

by Jeramy Gates

  A wry smile came to her lips as Jackie heard the phone ringing at the other end of the line. “We’ll see about you, Valkyrie Smith,” she whispered to the empty room.

  Chapter 20

  Loki didn’t have any particular destination in mind when he abandoned Odin at the ranch house: he just wanted out. He couldn’t take it anymore. Loki was done with his so-called partner. He was done with the older man looking over his shoulder, telling him what to do and how to act. That wasn’t how it was supposed to be. That wasn’t the agreement.

  When the two of them had first met online, Loki had been suspicious that Odin was a cop pretending to be a serial killer. Odin had shared similar suspicions, and it took a few weeks of exchanging emails and information before they began to trust one another. During that time, Loki had learned a great deal about Odin. In fact, he had come to admire the older man and to see him as a sort of mentor. Odin liked that.

  Odin had offered to teach Loki, to make him a better killer. At the time, Loki had delusions of gathering his victims together into a big warehouse, or perhaps an isolated cabin up in the mountains somewhere, and making them into slaves. Odin had completely different ideas. Unfortunately, Loki didn’t understand the difference until they met face to face. It wasn’t long before Loki began second-guessing his decision, but by then, it was too late…

  As he started the Mercedes and drove down the lane, a movie was rolling through the back of Loki’s mind. It was a fantasy about streetlights, dark alleys, and anonymous women with high heels and red lips. Loki was the predator, the hunter, the stalker in the darkness who took them for his own, and used them however he wished. It was nothing personal. Loki didn’t have any vendetta or message; nothing so high-minded, like Odin and his godly lessons about wisdom and immortality. Loki simply enjoyed hurting things. Especially women, because of the way they had treated him in life.

  Loki had sexual fantasies about women, but it wasn’t the actual act of sex that aroused him. It was about domination, about fear and pain. Loki had realized this after he killed his first victim. He had raped and tortured her, just as she’d deserved, but those were cheap thrills compared to what came later. When the woman at last realized that no one was going to save her, that she was going to die alone horribly, this was the moment when Loki discovered his purpose in life. When he saw the life go out of her eyes, even while her heart still beat inside her chest, he knew. It wasn’t about raping or killing. It was about destroying.

  This had been a pinnacle for Loki. It was a moment he had yet to match, especially because Odin had been there ever since. It just wasn’t the same with him. Odin wanted things just so. He wanted to create a scene, a piece of art that would astound and horrify. To Loki, this kind of thinking was ridiculous.

  Loki turned left at the end of the lane and headed down Highway 1, south towards Bodega Bay. It was the closest thing to a real town anywhere nearby, if one could even call it that. It was more like a tiny tourist trap with a harbor full of fishing boats and a few scattered art galleries and restaurants. And one gas station. Hardly a blip on the map, really. Still, it had potential.

  Loki had never been there, but he’d heard stories about the town while growing up in nearby Lake County. He’d heard about the wine and art festivals, the clam chowder cook-offs and the angler’s fairs. It had always sounded like a fun place. A place full of interesting things and beautiful women. As a child, it had sounded wonderful.

  Naturally, Loki’s father had wanted nothing to do with it. Shelby was more interested in raising chickens and beating his son than going somewhere and having fun. He was cruel and abusive. That was something Loki’s mother had figured out years earlier. She’d left home when little Michael Barnes was just four. She had simply walked out one day while his father was at work, and they never heard from her again.

  When Shelby came home and found his four-year-old son building a block house with peanut butter and mayo on the living room carpet, he was furious. Normally, Loki’s mother would have taken the brunt of the beating, but in her absence, Shelby took it out on his son.

  Shelby blamed the child for the mother’s actions, and had never forgiven Michael. Naturally, little Michael took this to heart. The impressionable young boy believed he had driven his mother away. He believed that he deserved the cruel treatment his father had given him.

  Over the years, Michael figured out the truth, but by then the damage was already done. And he wasn’t Michael anymore anyway. He was Loki now. He was fine with that. It was fun having a secret identity, like a super-villain from the movies. If Loki had a bat-cave, he knew exactly what he’d do with it…

  Loki followed the bright lights and the smell of food to the High Tides restaurant at the south end of town. It was a nice restaurant with a large parking lot and a boardwalk along the water, leading up to a nearby hotel. It was the perfect place to stalk another victim.

  Loki parked in the back corner, in the shadows under a cluster of sequoias. From there, he walked along the southern end of the lot to the edge of the boardwalk. It was quiet and dark there, far enough from the noise and bright lights of the restaurant that he could observe his prey for hours without attracting any attention. Loki leaned up against the railing, looking out over the bay towards the marina on Bodega Head. He saw a few scattered lights among the boats there, but the place was mostly dark. To the west, towards the mouth of the bay, he saw a string of red and green harbor lights attached to piers thrusting up out of the water. In the distance, a small Coast Guard boat on patrol headed out into open waters. It vanished into the fog.

  The smell of food wafted over him, but Loki ignored it. Food had never appealed to him. Loki ate occasionally, when he could feel his body weakening, but he regarded the process as a crude necessity from which he derived no pleasure whatsoever. He hungered for something else. It had taken him a long time to figure out what that thing was. Now that he knew, he felt like he would die without it.

  As the fog crept across the bay and began to close in around him, Loki risked moving closer to the restaurant. Customers came and went. One middle-aged couple walked right by him on their way to the hotel, and didn’t even notice Loki staring at them. They were too starry-eyed with love, their senses dulled by full bellies and heads full of wine. They were ready-made victims; prey waiting for the right predator.

  Loki wasn’t interested. He crept closer to the windows, still leaning against the handrail as he watched the customers inside the restaurant. A bald waiter brought balloons to a couple with two young children in high chairs. The customers at the table next to him tried in vain to get his attention. The waiter completely ignored them as he headed back to the kitchen.

  An elderly couple sat a few yards away, up against the windows facing the bay. They focused intently on their food, neither one looking up to say anything or even acknowledge the other’s presence. Loki watched them for a while, wondering why they were so unhappy. The couple seemed well off. The man wore a gold Rolex and the woman wore several diamond rings, and a rather large diamond-studded medallion on her necklace.

  Loki knew the jewels were real because their clothes were expensive, too. The old couple had money, but not much of anything else. He wondered why they were even there together; why they were still pretending to have something that they had obviously lost years ago. Perhaps they just feared being alone even more than they hated being with each other.

  Another table: a group of young men with red faces and big appetites, possibly surfers or fishing buddies who had been out on the bay all day. A row of people at the bar, drinking their sorrows away, or celebrating their happiness into a hangover. Something caught his eye. A waitress in her early twenties with platinum blonde hair and a curvaceous build that even her apron couldn’t conceal.

  Now that, he thought, looks tasty!

  She brought another round of drinks to the young men, and Loki watched them stare at her as she set the drinks on the table. She bent forward, offering the boys a generous
glimpse of her cleavage that none of them could resist. She was working them for a good tip, Loki decided. Smart girl, using what she had to her advantage.

  The fact that all of those other men wanted her made Loki want her even more. As she left the table and headed back to the kitchen, Loki circled around the building, hoping to catch another glimpse of her. At the back of the restaurant, the kitchen was closed off from view, but he could see the wait staff area. She stopped there to adjust her customers’ bills. Loki moved in closer as he watched her. She tallied up the drinks and used the calculator on the cash register to total the bill. She placed it in her apron pocket and then turned, smiling, as the other waiter came up to her. They spoke for a minute. He said something funny to her, and she threw her head back and laughed.

  So innocent… so pure, Loki thought. Her skin was clear and pale, like moonlight shining down through the clouds. Her young body so firm, her breasts round and perky, the way they only are in a girl of that age…

  Loki was so focused on the girl that before he knew it, he was pressed right up to the window. As the waiter disappeared into the kitchen, the girl turned to face him. Her eyes widened as she saw the face leering at her out of the darkness, and she screamed.

  The waiter returned, touching her shoulders, asking her what was the matter. She pointed, but Loki was gone; vanished like a wraith into the darkness and the fog. He moved to the edge of the parking lot and the sheltering concealment of shadows and scrub brush there, to wait for the end of her shift, and so much more.

  Chapter 21

  Valkyrie spent an enjoyable evening with Diekmann at his lady-friend’s place in Alexander Valley, ten miles north of Vine Hill. The sixty-eight year old sheriff was dating a seventy-year-old woman named Annette Shepherd. Apparently, she was the grandmother of a private investigator who lived in the area.

  “Have you told Joe?” were the first words out of her mouth when Diekmann began describing the case they were working. The sheriff said that he hadn’t, and gently explained that finding serial killers was a job best left to professionals like Valkyrie. Val could only smile and nod, and try to swallow back her guilt along with a gulp of chardonnay.

  After some small talk, Annette went to work in the kitchen. She baked a large salmon for dinner. Val tried to help her out, but the elder woman wouldn’t hear of it. “I may be getting old,” she said, “but I won’t give up my kitchen until you pry it from my cold, dead hands. You just sit down and finish your glass of wine. Tell us all about the work you do.”

  Val complied, at least as far as the wine went. She wasn’t eager to start making up stories about working as an FBI agent, so she skirted that subject as much as she could. Eventually, they moved on to more pleasant things: stories about Annette’s life in the valley and her many years of running the vineyard on her own after her husband’s death.

  Val couldn’t help but see a little of herself in the older woman. Annette was strong and independent. She didn’t mind working in the vineyard or fixing things around the property when it had to be done, but she was happiest cooking a meal for the people she loved. That was very much how Val had been, once upon a time, before Odin took that all away from her.

  It was a pleasant dinner and Val enjoyed getting to know Diekmann a little better, but that guilt kept gnawing at her the entire time. She couldn’t get over the fact that while he was inviting her into his life, she was lying to him in return. That sense of guilt kept her on edge for most of the evening. After dinner, Val left early, using the excuse that she had a long drive back to the hotel.

  It was ten when Val finally returned to her hotel room. When she entered the room, the place was dark. That was odd, considering the fact that room service had kept a fire going every night until now. The observation didn’t give her pause though, until Val turned on the light and found Riley sitting in a chair in the corner with a gun on his lap.

  He didn’t say anything at first. Just stared at her, waiting for a reaction. Val raised her eyebrows and then proceeded to take off her jacket and hang it on the coat rack. She retrieved her cane from the place she’d left it leaning by the door, and took a few steps into the middle of the room.

  “I guess you’re not here for a second round,” she said, nodding towards the bed.

  “No. I’m here because we need to talk,” he said. Riley lifted the gun and pointed it at her. “Get rid of that,” he said, pointing at her shoulder holster. Val shook her head disappointedly. She tossed the gun on the bed and then leaned over to turn up the gas in the fireplace. As the fire roared to life, she turned to face him, leaning on her cane.

  “How did you get in here? The door wasn’t tampered with.”

  “I came in through the balcony. Took about five seconds to open that lock with a screwdriver.”

  “Breaking and entering, Riley? That doesn’t sound like the golden boy I know.”

  “Would you have agreed to meet with me otherwise?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why should I believe that, when everything else you told me has been a lie?”

  “I see… so you risked all that, just so you could threaten me with a toy gun? I was trying butch you up a little, but now you come in here waving that thing around. I must say, I’m disappointed.”

  “This isn’t a toy,” Riley said. He shook it as if to demonstrate the weapon’s weight. “This is a real gun.”

  “Uh-huh. And Ken’s a real doll. You have one of those, too?”

  “I’ll have you know that I inherited this from my grandmother, and she was a crack shot.”

  “I bet she was. You do realize that twenty-two revolvers aren’t good for killing anything larger than a raccoon, right? They’re one size larger than a pellet gun. That’s why people use them for target shooting. They’re for kids… and grandmas. I don’t know what to say, Riley. You’re just one disappointment after another.”

  Riley glanced at the gun and back at Val with a look on his face like she’d just kicked him between the legs. Val rolled her eyes and giggled.

  “Put the gun away before you hurt yourself,” she said. “If you want to know something, just ask me.”

  Riley considered for a few seconds and then struggled to get the gun back into his coat pocket. Val watched him with an amused smile. When he had settled, she pulled a chair close to him, between Riley and the fire. She settled onto it, sitting upright, trying to ignore the throbbing pain of the muscles cramping in her back. Riley was sullen, staring at her like a schoolboy in the principal’s office.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “Let’s have it.”

  He stared at her with a dark, unreadable expression. “Who are you?”

  “You already know that. My name is Valkyrie Smith.”

  “Oh, I know that. I also know that you’re not a cop.”

  Val stared at him, her face a perfect mask. “Go on.”

  Riley lifted a sheet of paper off the nightstand and held it up. It was a newspaper clipping. The clipping. Val recognized the headline and felt a wrenching pain in her chest as she saw the word “family” in bold black lettering. The memory of that day came flooding back to her, as clear and painful as yesterday. She saw the bodies of her husband and son draped in cloth, the paramedics lifting the gurneys into an ambulance.

  “You’re not a cop,” Riley repeated. “What are you, some kind of vigilante? Or are you working with the killer?”

  Val snorted. “You don’t actually believe that, do you?”

  “I don’t know what to believe. I know I can’t believe anything you say because so far, everything you’ve told me has been a lie.”

  “That’s not true. I may have deceived you about what I am, but not who I am.”

  “How can I believe that?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose you can’t.”

  Riley settled back in the chair, staring at the article. “Tell me what you’re trying to do. What’s it all about?”

  “I’m a teacher,” she said. “You probably know that al
ready. I taught grade school in Idaho Falls. My husband was an engineer. We had this crazy idea that we wanted to start a small organic farm.” Her eyes watered up, but Val continued with her gaze fixed on Riley.

  “We were going to raise goats and sell organic vegetables at the farmer’s market. Can you believe that? Can you believe how naïve we were? It was my idea, of course. Tom just went along with it because… well, he loved me. He would have done anything to make me happy. And we knew that the farm would be a nice place to raise children.

  “We started small, making improvements to the property, getting drainage and irrigation rights. The old well had gone dry, but we dug a new one, and we managed to acquire enough water rights to start planting crops.”

  “What does all this have to do with this killer, this Loki character?”

  “I’m getting to that. When Tom and I bought the place, there was an old car in the barn. My car, the Packard my husband restored before he died. Tom spent two years working on that car. He entered it in some local car shows and won a few of them.

  “One day, a man came to the farm asking to see it. He claimed to be a collector. Tom told the man he wasn’t interested in selling, but he let him see it anyway. The man looked it over, thanked Tom, and left. We thought that was the end of it.

  “Later that night, the collector came back. He snuck into the house, which was easy since we didn’t even bother locking our doors. He killed my seventeen-year-old son in his bed. We were still asleep when he attacked Tom with a baseball bat. The bat broke his nose and fractured his skull. Tom tried to fight the man off, but it was over before it even started. I tried to fight too, but I was terrified. You can’t imagine how something like that would take you by surprise. I didn’t know how to defend myself.”

  “How did you escape?”

  “The killer tied us up. He tortured us. He raped me in front of my husband. I don’t think the man even enjoyed it. Not the sex, anyway. What got him off was the terror; the fact that we were powerless, and we both knew we were going to die. He was like a cat playing with mice. He just kept torturing us, dragging it out as long as he could.