Aim to Kill (26 page)

“No. Never. Though there were a lot of little problems between Greg and me, we divorced because he wanted children and I didn’t. I refused to bring a child into the world. A child who could be raped or killed or hurt. I’ve seen too much pain, too much anguish. My mother killed herself because she lost a child. Brenda Davidson was in deep depression. I don’t blame either of them, really. How can a mother survive when she’s lost part of herself? And how can a mother protect her child every minute of every day?”

“Our line of work can make us jaded,” Zack said. “And your childhood didn’t help. But there’s good out there, Olivia. There are things to enjoy, to celebrate. I was raised in Seattle and couldn’t think of a more beautiful place to live. The entire Pacific Northwest is incredible. To see the mountains on the first clear day after a snowstorm. To take a sailboat through Puget Sound. Go up to one of a hundred lakes and fish for hours.” He paused, ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know. The world is dangerous, but there’s so much to live for.”

“Yes, I suppose there is.”

They sat in silence watching the young children play.

Zack’s phone rang several minutes later and he glanced at the number. “Chief Pierson,” he told Olivia, then answered the call. A minute later he hung up.

“Bruce Carmichael is the man we’re looking for. He died of prostate cancer three years ago. But the warden agreed to let us see his records and talk to some of the guards who knew him. He’s expecting us at one. We’d better jump on it.”

CHAPTER

22

Zack and Olivia spent their first hour at San Quentin reviewing Bruce Carmichael’s prison file.

In 1960 he killed his common-law wife, Miriam Driscoll, a cocktail waitress in
New Jersey
. He disappeared with his two minor children, Christopher Adam Driscoll, eleven, a child from Miriam’s previous marriage, and Angel Lee Carmichael, six, his own daughter.

He avoided capture for nearly three years until Chris Driscoll called the police from a low-rent apartment in Los Angeles, saying his stepfather killed his sister and claiming to have killed his stepfather. LAPD responded and found Carmichael and Driscoll both covered in blood. Carmichael had been knocked unconscious, but he wasn’t dead. The nine-year-old girl had been stabbed to death. An autopsy revealed that she’d been repeatedly sexually assaulted. After a forensic investigation, evidence proved her own father had molested her.

The fourteen-year-old Driscoll told police that he heard his sister scream and called the operator before going into the bedroom, where he saw Carmichael stabbing her. He tried to stop him, but Carmichael turned the knife on him. They wrestled and the knife was lost under the bed. Driscoll then hit Carmichael over the head with a lamp and he was knocked unconscious. A blood test at the hospital confirmed that Carmichael had been drinking, his blood alcohol level at point-two-five.

Driscoll told police he and his sister had been planning on running away because of the physical abuse, but Carmichael found out about their plans and killed Angel.

Carmichael had a completely different story. He claimed he walked into the apartment and saw Driscoll sitting on the edge of Angel’s bed. He was holding a knife and Angel was dead. Carmichael fought with his stepson over the knife, but he’d been drinking and slipped, and Driscoll knocked him out with a lamp.

Time of death could have supported either story, but the prosecutor believed Driscoll. Not only had Angel been sexually assaulted by her father, but Carmichael had stabbed Miriam Driscoll to death with the same knife.

The teenage boy was distraught that he’d been unable to protect his sister. He was under suicide watch in the county hospital during most of Carmichael’s trial. The jury was unmoved by Carmichael’s claim that his stepson had killed Angel. He was sentenced to life, then extradited to
New Jersey
to stand trial for Miriam Driscoll’s murder, but he pled guilty to avoid the death penalty.

If he hadn’t died of cancer, next year he would have been shipped to
New Jersey
to serve out his second life sentence.

“What a bastard!” Zack said, flipping through the pages quickly. “I heard a phrase once, can’t remember where, that monsters are created. Chris Driscoll is a product of his upbringing. Doesn’t make him any less guilty, but
dammit
, I hate that the cycle continues.”

“When his father killed his sister, he could have snapped,” Olivia said. “Just like my mother did when Missy died. He probably blamed himself, thought he was weak because he couldn’t protect her. To survive, he absorbed the force of his stepfather’s personality. He ended up being just like him. But far worse. He’s more methodical, more disciplined. He’s had years to perfect his crimes. He learned early in life how to move from state to state, create identities, hide in plain sight—all because his stepfather did it to avoid being arrested.”

“His background might explain why the first murder in each state seems spontaneous and distinct from the others,” Zack said. “Maybe he doesn’t plan it, or at least not as meticulously as the others, but sees a victim who reminds him of his sister and takes her. Consider Jillian Reynolds. She was abducted, then dumped only a couple of miles away.”

“And in a secluded location,” Olivia said. “Perhaps so her body wouldn’t be found as quickly?”

“Could be.” He gathered up the files and motioned to the guard who’d been left with them in the room. “Officer, I need to speak to the warden about getting a copy of these files sent to Seattle.”

“I’ll take you to his office.”

Zack leaned over to Olivia. “Let’s get the important stuff copied and faxed to the department and see if it helps your people put together a profile of where we can find this guy before he strikes again.”

*   *   *

Chris Driscoll drove his small SUV into
Seattle
International
Airport
’s long-term parking, extracting a ticket from the machine and placing it precisely in his wallet. He drove slowly up and down the aisles, looking for Karl and
Flo
Burgess’s large white pickup truck.

Ten rows in he found it.

He stopped his car down the aisle, left it running, and took the extra set of keys he’d stolen from the Burgess’s kitchen drawer. He pulled the truck out, left it running, and pulled his own car into the slot. He’d return the truck precisely where he’d found it.

Upon leaving, he handed the attendant the ticket he’d just received. “Forgot my medication,” he said sheepishly in case the attendant thought it was odd that he had entered the facility only twenty minutes before.

“It happens,” the guy said without really looking at him, “but I have to charge you a dollar.”

“I understand.” He gave him a dollar and left.

Thirty minutes later he was parked down the street from the angel’s house. He was running a little late; she rode her bike home from gymnastics every afternoon, rounding the corner between 4:45 and 4:55. It was already after 4:30. He didn’t want to miss her. He couldn’t miss her.

He closed his eyes for a moment, just a moment, to strengthen his resolve. Angel came to him. A memory, a nightmare.

She’d planned to betray him.

“I’m going to talk to Mrs. Thompson tomorrow.”

They were sitting on the balcony again, two weeks after her birthday, and Chris had been thinking about where they could run, how he would pay for food and clothes and rent. How he would take care of Angel.

He was also planning how best to kill Bruce. Because the only sure way they could escape Bruce was to make sure he was dead.

“What?” Certainly he had misunderstood Angel. He’d been lost in thought. “Talk to her about what?”

“What Daddy does to me. She’s very nice. She’ll help. I know she will. And you can come with me.”

“No. No. I told you I’d find a way.”

She shook her head, her big green eyes far older than her years, too sad for a child. “I can’t wait. I can’t wait anymore. I hurt all the time. I don’t want to feel this way anymore. I don’t want to be scared anymore.”

“No.”

Chris opened his eyes, startled. Ten minutes had passed. It was nearly 4:45. He had to get into place.

He already wore gloves. Gathering his supplies, he silently slipped out of the truck. There was a mailbox partially covered by ivy and bushes. He’d already checked her route and knew this was the best place to take her. If he stood on the far side of the mailbox, no one would see him without walking straight toward him. He would wait for his angel. Wait and she would come right into his arms.

He pretended to mail a letter, just in case anyone happened by, then slid into his hiding place.

And waited.

He heard the
flap-flap-flap
of decorated spokes before he saw her.

He counted to three, then stepped out of hiding, right into her path.

CHAPTER

23

As soon as Zack pulled out of the airport parking lot, his cell phone rang.

“Travis.”

“It’s Pierson. He has another one. Nina
Markow
, ten.”

“When?”

“Forty-five minutes ago, in the county. As soon as the first officers arrived and realized that the victim fit our profile, they contacted me.”

“Where? I’m already in the car.”

“Come back to the station. We have two witnesses and I have them working with different sketch artists. And we have a partial license plate on the truck that we’re running and should have a list within the hour.”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” He hung up.

“Another?”

“Forty-five minutes ago.”

Olivia closed her eyes. “I’d hoped we had more time.”

“Me, too. But now we have a name and there are two witnesses. A partial on the truck. Everyone’s working on this.”

“But can we find him before he kills her? Before he disappears?”

“I’m not going to let her die, Olivia. We’ll find her.”

We have to.

When Olivia and Zack walked into the police station, she felt like the world had stopped spinning on its axis, that time stood still, just for a moment.

FBI Special Agent Quinn Peterson sat at Zack’s desk talking to an elderly man while a sketch artist worked next to them.

Quinn looked up and caught her eye. He didn’t seem surprised to see her, but he didn’t seem happy, either. He said something to the man, then stood and walked over to them. As always, he was dressed impeccably.

“You must be Detective Travis,” Quinn said and extended his hand. “I’m Special Agent Quincy Peterson, Seattle FBI.”

They shook hands. “Zack Travis. My chief fill you in on the case?”

Quinn nodded. “I talked to him last night and again when I arrived this morning. He’s on the phone taking care of the politicians. So far the media hasn’t caught wind, so we don’t have that zoo yet. I have a bureau sketch artist working with Henry Jorge, Nina’s neighbor, who saw the abduction and got the partial off the truck. Your own sketch artist is waiting in a conference room for Nina’s friend to arrive with her parents. They should be here any minute.”

“What happened?”

“Nina
Markow
was riding her bike home from gymnastics. She practices every day after school. She turned onto her street and, according to Mr. Jorge, a man stepped out of the bushes right into the path of her bike. She swerved and fell. The man helped her up, then dragged her over to a white truck half a block away. He put his hand over her mouth and she couldn’t scream. Mr. Jorge ran after them, but he’s eighty-three. He couldn’t catch up before the truck drove off, though his eyesight was good enough to get a partial number off the rear plate and we’re running it now.”

“Pierson tell you we identified the killer? Christopher Driscoll.”

Quinn nodded. “Our people are pulling every string to get his military records, but it’s not easy. I did get his original military ID photo and the artist can take that with the descriptions from Mr. Jorge and Abby Vail, Nina’s friend who also witnessed the abduction, and come up with a good composite of what he looks like. We’ve brought in a couple of agents to help your team cover the car dealerships, rental agencies, airports, anyplace this guy could get a truck without suspicion.”

“Where’re the victim’s parents?”

“Her mother is single, a widow. She works out in the county, and a—” Quinn glanced at his notepad “—Detective Jan O’Neal went out to inform her and bring her down here. But with commuter traffic I don’t expect them for another thirty or so minutes.”

Quinn glanced at Olivia, then said, “Detective, do you mind if I have a word with Agent St. Martin? It won’t take long.”

“Use the conference room. I need to check in with my chief and I’ll get you when the witness comes in. Call me Zack.”

Quinn nodded. “Thanks. I’m Quinn.”

He put his hand in the small of Olivia’s back as he steered her toward the conference room, shutting the door behind them.