Every Wickedness (35 page)

Fuentes squinted through the rain-streaked windshield, then said, “Maybe you better get on the blower and call the Marin County SO for backup. This is no time for heroics.”

Kearns nodded. “Already done. With any luck, they should get there ahead of this bucket and have the bastard cuffed by the time we arrive. But just in case, could you speed it up a little, Manny?”

Fuentes manoeuvred a sharp curve in the road. His face nearly touched the steering wheel as his whole body leaned into the curve. When the pavement straightened, he relaxed his shoulders a little and said, “Worst-case scenario. Petersen is the Spiderman. He’s got your friend. We know the killer keeps the women alive for nearly a week. Beth Wells hasn’t been missing for that long. She’s still okay.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Kearns told him. “Beth has an artificial heart valve. She already takes
blood thinners. If that bastard has given her anything beyond her required dosage, she could already be a dead woman. So for God’s sake, Manny,
now
will you show me what this fucking car can do?”

Y
ou’ve been outsmarting the police for years, haven’t you?” The Spiderman smiled. Beth looked for evil in the expression, some trace of a sneer, but found none. Brad’s smile radiated warmth. “I’ve been killing since I was thirteen,” he told her. “Animals don’t count, do they?”

Beth hadn’t expected this. She felt sick, wanted to vomit but choked it back. She couldn’t afford to lose more fluid. She needed whatever strength she had left.

She swallowed, controlled her intake of air and tried to guess what reaction he would want. “Thirteen? You must have been extremely smart even then.”

“Don’t be so transparent. The others tried to flatter me too, you know.”

She tried to ignore the skittering of fear up her spine. “I’m not trying to flatter you. I’m just amazed that you could keep something like murder a secret. Most young people boast about their misdeeds. Certainly most aren’t bright enough to cover all their tracks. How did you do it?”

“The police focused on the older boys, ones who’d already had trouble with the law. They weren’t going to centre their investigation around a thirteen-year-old altar server whose mother made generous contributions to the school.”

“Thirteen,” Beth repeated. “You must have been filled with anger.”

He related a tale of a mother who cared more about buying cosmetics than providing her son with a hot meal, how she had let him lie at the bottom of the cellar steps while she entertained a male companion. “I had fallen,” he said, an edge of bitterness in his voice, “and I could hear her tell the guy I was just doing it for attention. She actually told the bastard I was her nephew. By the time she sent me away to school, I was determined to make something of myself. I wasn’t going to be invisible to her anymore.”

He spoke about two elderly priests and the abuse he had suffered at their hands. As his thoughts drifted, he turned his body toward the counter, leaning on it for support. Beth cast nervous glances at the zoom lens, then at Brad’s profile, mentally adjusted the angle of the swing arc to compensate for his new posture. She needed to see his eyes. Just one glimpse at his face would tell her how deeply entrenched he was in his story. Standing shoulder to shoulder, she couldn’t tell. “The old bastard was dying in the hospital,” Brad was saying. “The shock of the fire was too much for him. Still, I wished he hadn’t gone quite so peacefully. I was determined that Anthony would kick off with more of a bang.” There was a curious high-pitched giggle. “I drugged the Communion wine. And the decanter of sherry in his room. Anthony always had a nip or two before saying Mass. By the time the police got there, I had
wiped my fingerprints from the decanter and was joining in with the commotion. Everyone was nuts, running around screaming about how Anthony had hurled himself off the bell tower. No one even noticed me. It was all so easy.”

Beth detected the singsong lilt in his voice, the same one she’d heard when she had awakened in Brad’s basement two days ago. She thought then that he was crooning to mock her. Now she realized he was comforting himself, the way children rock themselves or suck their thumbs.

“We all saw him standing up there, his vestments flapping. He looked like some clumsy stupid bird. I didn’t know he would die then. It worked out better than I ever dreamed. Do you have any idea what it sounds like when someone’s head hits the pave —”

Beth swung the heavy lens in a horizontal line through the air and smashed it against the bridge of his nose. Brad’s left hand came up, touched blood. He let out a brief whimper of pain — or was it surprise? Beth didn’t wait for another. She struck again, this time coming up low and hitting the point of his nose. There was a sickening crunch and blood spurted from his nostrils onto her chest, mingling with her own. A third swing, then a fourth. She lost count after that, only knowing she needed to knock him out and wouldn’t stop until she had.

When Brad slumped onto the cement floor, Beth was dragged down with him, the pressure from the
pull on her handcuffs causing her to cry out. Lying naked on top of him filled her with a new revulsion. She half-expected him to open his eyes and grin at her. How badly had she hurt him? Carefully, she rolled off him, wondering how much time she had before he regained consciousness. She used her free hand to probe his pockets for the key to the handcuffs. His front pockets were empty. Frantic, she reached behind him, jammed her hand between his buttocks and the cold cement floor and wrestled the knife from his back pocket. She set the knife on the floor beside her, away from Brad. He wouldn’t realize she had it, and if he came to, she knew she would kill him, plunge the blade deep into whatever part of him she could aim at. But she wouldn’t use it unless she had to. Beth continued to probe his pockets for the key to the cuffs.

The damn key could be anywhere. She clawed at his starched shirt, buttons popping as she tore it open. Resting on the Spiderman’s nearly hairless chest was a Chi Rho medallion, exactly like Jordan’s. It seemed to mock her from where it lay. Filled with rage and frustration, she yanked the chain until it broke, then she flung the necklace across the room.

The labyrinth of storage containers, drawers, and cupboards that surrounded her were all potential hiding places for her key to freedom. Or it could be up in the house. Wherever it was didn’t matter. Beth’s body told her there wasn’t time to search. Her stomach heaved, and she rolled toward Brad and vomited,
the bright red froth spattering Brad’s chest. She tasted salt and heaved again.

When her insides ceased their spasm, she squeezed the thumb of her left hand against her baby finger, hoping that, after little nourishment and some fluid loss, she could make her hand small enough to fit through the handcuff. The metal bracelet got as far as the padded muscle beneath her thumb and stayed there. A small bruise formed around the first knuckle bone. She relaxed her hand and remembered the knife.

With the tip of the knife’s blade, Beth poked carefully at the keyhole. One slip would be fatal. The handcuffs held fast. She saw nothing in the room strong enough to smash against the metal bonds. The photo cropper, X-Acto knife, and scissors were as useless to her as the ceramic knife.

There was only one thing she could do. She had to get out of this dungeon. There was no telephone here, and no one could help her if they couldn’t see her. Her only hope was outside and that meant dragging Brad with her.

He was shorter than Beth by almost four inches, but he was a solid mass of athletic muscle and Beth, in her weakened state, knew she couldn’t possibly get him to his feet. She clamped the knife between her teeth, used her free right hand to grasp at Brad’s belt and struggled to pull him. The stickiness of her own vomit felt cold against her bare skin. The pressure of Brad’s weight against the
handcuff bracelet made Beth cry painfully between teeth clamped on the knife blade. A bruise was already forming on her wrist.

She hazarded a glance at his face, inches from hers. Her cry hadn’t awakened him, but when she tried to adjust her grip and raise herself to a standing position, her knees buckled and they both toppled to the floor. The ceramic knife flew from her mouth, then Brad’s body hit the cement, breaking the impact of Beth’s fall. She heard his head smack against the concrete. There was no danger of Brad regaining consciousness any time soon.

Beth caught her breath, kneeled on the floor, straddling Brad, carefully planted her feet where her knees had been, and rose to a jackknife position, her crotch over the Spiderman’s face. The handcuffed wrist couldn’t withstand further injury. The bruise was an angry purple now, so her free arm would have to do all the work. Reaching down, Beth picked up the knife and clenched it between her teeth once more, and began to drag Brad across the floor. When she reached the door to the darkroom, she stopped to rest, but only for a split second. Vision in her right eye was cloudy, and she knew the eye had hemorrhaged. She released her grip on the Spiderman and reached up to where her clothes hung from the metal stand. She tugged her blouse from its hanger and shoved it into the space between the handcuff and her wrist. The flimsy silk would be a small buffer for her bruised skin, but she had to hurry. It
was a long way to the outside, and the trek might kill her, but she was determined not to die here in this horrible place. Gritting her teeth against the knife blade, she tugged at Brad with both hands and staggered to the next door.

The distance across the room, a room she’d traversed easily not so long ago, seemed to lengthen with each painful step. When she finally reached the door, she could barely see, and felt a tug of fear. What if the door was locked?

The knob turned easily in her hand. Of course Brad hadn’t expected her to escape, nor did he, in his deluded mind, ever think anyone would discover the truth about him and come to search his lair. The door opened, and Beth felt the rush of fresh air hit her body.

Through blurred vision, Beth could make out a glimmer of light, a pale grey rectangle overhead, and to reach it, she had six, no — seven steps to climb, with a load that grew heavier with each breath. Her whole being screamed out for rest. She could just curl up here, in the doorway to the Spiderman’s prison. She could die a peaceful death. In minutes, overcome by exhaustion, she would fall asleep, and her body would continue to hemorrhage. There would be no violent spasms, no pain. The Spiderman would be denied his grand finale. Brad would awaken to find her already dead, and paradoxically, she would triumph. There was some dignity to that. Others had not been as fortunate.

But the light overhead continued to beckon, and Beth adjusted the blouse around her injured wrist, bit down hard on the knife blade, and began to climb the stairs.

K
earns and Fuentes could have parked in Petersen’s driveway. They could have knocked on his door, introduced themselves, asked some routine questions. They could have listened to Petersen’s lies. They could have waited for the backup from Marin, which, because of an overturned truck blocking the road, had yet to arrive. Instead, Kearns made Fuentes steer the Taurus in the direction of the deserted beach, his cop’s sixth sense guiding him toward an ambush from the rear.

His intuitive nose had led him astray before, his antagonism toward Jordan Bailey way off the mark. If Kearns was wrong now and Sondra Devereaux got wind of it, she would bust a gut laughing, right before she crucified him. He patted his jacket, felt for his cell phone and his revolver, and got out of the car.

The predawn sky was the colour of mercury. By the time Fuentes stepped around the car to join Kearns, he was soaked. Both men moved across the sand toward the homes, an assortment of beachy architectural styles at the top of a steep grade.

“Which one is Petersen’s?” Fuentes shouted above the storm.

“Fourth one up the hill,” Kearns hollered back and pointed, remembering the description Bailey
had given him. “Redwood deck and all the windows. Let’s go.”

Kearns broke into a run, with Fuentes keeping pace right behind. Beneath Petersen’s deck, there was a flicker of movement. Kearns wiped his eyes with a soggy sleeve. “What the hell was that?”

Fuentes squinted, the rain pelting against his face. “Where? I didn’t see anything.”

Kearns gestured frantically. “Near the deck! Something moved up there! Come on!”

Fuentes pulled his gun, but Kearns, recognizing the pale yellow jacket, grabbed his arm. “Wait! It’s Bailey!”

The two men raced across the wet sand and scrambled up the hillside. The rain had turned the slope into freshly poured concrete. Their shoes formed dents in the sand as they dug their toes in for a firm hold. When they finally reached the top, neither was prepared for the gruesome sight awaiting them.

Beth lay sprawled face down on the ground, the last of her strength expended on raising her head in hopes of making herself more visible to someone, anyone. The sight of her nude body shackled to a fully clothed Brad Petersen filled Kearns with unbelievable loathing. He grabbed his phone from his pocket and called for a chopper as he watched Jordan Bailey wrap his windbreaker around Beth.

It seemed eons until the helicopter arrived. In the distance, Kearns heard the mournful wail of sirens,
then the muffled stampede of the backup units swarming the place, the sound of his own bargain with God drowning out the surrounding din.

Let her be all right, and I’ll do whatever you ask
.

Bailey covered Beth’s body with his own, shielding her from the driving wind and rain. Beth was aware of nothing. She was unconscious.

Kearns was cold to the bone, his earlier numbness now surpassed by a full body shudder. Despite the fleece-lined tracksuit one of the rookies had found him, and the strong hot coffee he’d forced himself to drink, Kearns was certain he would never be warm again. He spotted Jordan Bailey at the end of the hospital corridor not looking much better. Four empty Styrofoam cups sat on the table next to him.

“Had to report to the captain,” Kearns said. “I got back here as soon as I could. How’s she doing?”