Girl With a Past (33 page)

“Detective Schmidt, there’s something else I
need to talk to you about,” I waited until he returned my gaze. “I
think there were two Zodiac killers back in the 60’s and 70’s, and
one of them is still alive.”

66

Detective Schmidt rubbed his forehead and
his eyes without responding. He groaned and leaned back in the
metal chair. “What? Doesn’t make sense, he hasn’t killed anybody in
forty years.”

“The other men––look, if he were any of the
other suspects, they all lived for a long time after the murders
without any more killings––that we know of, anyway.”

“We thought the Zodiac moved or broadened
his field of operation.” Detective Schmidt explained to me with
hard won patience. “Serial killers tend to start out close to where
they live and then go farther and farther away as time goes
on.”

I nodded. “Exactly. That’s what I think this
second Zodiac did, except rather than elsewhere in California, he
murdered elsewhere in the world.”

“That’s what you and Kyle were up to?”
Schmidt raised an eyebrow at me.

“We were looking for MO’s and or signatures
like the Zodiac where a knife was used in other parts of the world,
like in Southeast Asia. With VICAP. Well actually, with
I-24/7.”

The detective looked at me, looked away,
then chuckled. “Okay, tell me what you’re thinking.”

“The Jane Doe found in Novato," I said, "who
we now know was Jennifer––"

“We think. That hasn’t been confirmed by
evidence yet,” Detective Schmidt interrupted to remind me that I
was getting ahead of the results of the DNA testing. “I guess I
should light a fire under the lab’s ass. They can rush those
results when needed.” He smiled at me, picked up the receiver of a
phone on the table and ripped the poor person on the other end of
the line a new one. He wasn’t smiling.

“Okay, continue,” he said to me as he hung
up the phone.

“So that crime scene, the one in Novato, was
out of the norm for many reasons. It didn’t follow the same pattern
that profiler’s would expect. One, he was way out of his territory.
Two, he shot at two different scenes within 24 hours when usually
there were weeks, sometimes months in between shootings. We know
that was because Tom O’Connor sent the Zodiac––”

“Allegedly sent the Zodiac.” The detective
was doing his best to keep me real.

“Okay allegedly, Tom has a conversation with
this guy at the Monkey Inn, the Monk, in the sixties.” I saw the
look on the detective’s face and knew he was about to correct me
again. “Please, just let me tell you what I think. I’ve been very
good in all my statements, the official shit, to leave out
conjectures, opinions, anything I couldn’t testify to in court, but
I’ve got these ideas and I really want to tell somebody, somebody
who could do something about what I think I know. Okay?”

Detective Schmidt nodded. He folded his arms
and leaned back in his chair to listen.

“Tom is drinking in the Monk, sitting at the
bar, worried about what to do with this dead girl who has overdosed
at Jamie’s family’s place. Tom feels it’s his responsibility
because he’s the one who picked up the girl hitchhiking and brought
her to the farm. He did this in violation of the agreement that he
had with the three other men who lived there. All of the men were
planning to attend law school, and they knew they needed to protect
their reputations. Drugs and a low level of criminality were
rampant in the Bay Area in the late sixties, right? And crims
justified their petty thievery and drug use by calling it a protest
against the establishment.”

“But these guys at the farm want to be part
of the establishment. They don’t want any part of crims. So they
made this agreement: never bring or invite strangers to the farm.
Only people already a part of their circle of trusted friends. Tom
violated the agreement and now there’s this body. They don’t want
to call the authorities to report a death from an overdose of what
maybe heroin. That would never do.”

I took a swallow of water and continued,
“After Tom brought the girl to the farm, she not only manages to
OD, but not before she also has sex with all four of the guys,
apparently being quite aggressive about seducing them. So the dead
body potentially has semen from all of them. Of course in 1969,
prior to DNA matching, the semen would only have told authorities
blood types, but maybe the four of them have unusual blood types.
They’re smart enough to know that dumping the body could be a real
bad idea. Trace evidence at the scene might tie them to the girl.
So what to do?”

“Tom meets this older guy at a bar. They’re
drinking next to each other and the guy starts talking about the
Zodiac murders. Tom’s a smart, perceptive young man. He realizes at
some point in the conversation that maybe––make that probably––this
guy is the Zodiac killer. He gets what seems like a real good idea
after a half-dozen beers to get the guy to move the body. Then any
trace evidence will point to the Zodiac.”

The detective kept nodding, looking less
tired.

Encouraged, I continue the story I’d built
around all I knew. “Tom tells the guy where to find the body. Maybe
helps him draw a map, being careful not to touch the paper. Tom
leaves, goes up to Northside Berkeley, to a house where a group of
his friends live, and where his housemates are hanging out. He
tells them what he’s done. But he’s overheard talking to his
housemates.”

Was the detective going to let me get away
without saying overheard by whom? He was still sitting back with
his arms folded. Listening.

“Later that night, one of the girls who
lives in the house is shot and killed. Now Tom is freaked. Did he
lead the Zodiac killer to his friends? Is he responsible for Lexi’s
death? He has to talk to someone so he discusses his concerns with
someone else who lives or hangs out at the house. The next day,
someone, probably the person he talked to, or Tom, but I don’t
think so, goes to the ranch and helps the Zodiac move the body.
That explains the two sets of shoe prints.”

Schmidt nodded, pursed his lips.

“She was the only victim who showed signs of
both MO’s, both the gun and the knife, right?”

He lifted his eyebrows, shrugged his
shoulders. “Yeah, I believe so. That’s how I remember it.”

“Yeah, I just found out about the
Z
carved in her chest. Then there was the
gunshot to the head, neither of which killed her. You see, I think
she was the overlap; the way the second killer picked up or was
infected with the signature, the cutting of the hair. The signature
of the original Zodiac.” I slapped the table to emphasize my
point.

“Hmm, could be. It’s one explanation, that’s
for sure.”

“One of my so-called uncles must have helped
the Zodiac to dispose of the body.”

“We’ve been checking into that day in prep
for building a case against Tom O’Connor," Detective Schmidt said.
"They all have alibis for the day she was moved.”

I nodded my agreement. “I figure that was
why they stayed in Berkeley. All four guys made a point of being
seen elsewhere until after she was gone from the ranch––for the
most part, until after she was found. Hell, they were even being
interviewed by the police the day she was dumped.”

I thought for a minute. “God, they must’ve
been scared to death that the police would decide to go to the
farm.” I took a deep breath. “Then there was the shit about Mrs.
Mac and Tom being sick. Mrs. Mac says she was never sick. It was
just an excuse to keep Carol and Nancy away from the farm until
they’d cleaned up any trace of the body. Airing out the room,
burning the bedding. That kind of stuff.”

“The boys––men––could’ve paid someone else
or somehow got another person to do it––someone other than the
Zodiac. Can’t help but wonder what will be O’Connor’s defense,”
Detective Schmidt mused.

“One of my uncles made a point of saying he
was nowhere near the farm the Wednesday after Lexi died, or any
time around then. But Carol and Nancy and Mrs. Mac happened to
mention Elliott was around. He told the girls that Mrs. Mac was
sick. You could question the three of them. The stories they told
me had some conflicts. It’s understandably hard to remember exactly
after forty years, although Mrs. Mac’s got one hell of a
memory.”

“I’ll talk to them all," Detective Schmidt
said. "It’ll be good to tie up all the loose ends in connection
with all these incidents.”

“Kyle says you have to get a warrant to
track American citizen’s movements abroad?”

“If you go through the State department, or
NSA, yes, you’re supposed to have a warrant. I’ll help him with
that tomorrow. Meanwhile, there are other ways he can try, I’ll
have a word with him.”

I leaned across the table. “There’s just one
more thing––now that you know, or at least suspect that the Jane
Doe was named Jennifer, can you use databases to find a match with
missing girls named Jennifer and matching her description?”

“Yes, we can––and will.”

“It would be good to give her family some
closure.”

“If any of them are still around, yes it
would be.” The detective stood, “So that’s it?”

I nodded and stood also.

“Let’s get you and your brother back to
school, huh?”

67

The drive to Berkeley was uneventful this
time. Detective Schmidt drove Steven and I in his personal car. He
was on his way home for the first time in several days.

He pulled the car into the driveway in front
of the big, old brown shingle house I shared with seven other
students.

“Looks quiet here. Dark in there,” he
commented.

For once my housemates must have remembered
to turn off all the lights. Just the porch light was on.

“The other people who live here won’t be
home from the library until ten, maybe eleven tonight,” I
explained.

“Maybe I ought to walk you in?” The
detective said without much enthusiasm. He had to be exhausted.

I knew he was really tired, besides I wasn’t
afraid of my own house. “I’ll be fine, it’s cool.”

Steven got out of the car, opened my door,
walked onto the porch with me and waited for me to unlock the door.
Once I had the door open, he kissed me on the cheek, gave me a big
hug, and waved good-bye as he went back to the car. I leaned out
the door to wave to Detective Schmidt. “Thanks,” I called out.

What a relief to be home! I could hardly
wait to get into my own bed, in my own room, sleep in my own
nightgown and rest enough to visit my professors in the morning to
see what I could salvage of my classes.

“Nah, nah, nah,da nan, nah, I’m not scared
of you anymore, la di da,” I said to the full sized taxidermy bear
that resided in our entry hall at the bottom of the stairs.

Okay, I am weird, I talk to dead bears, but
see, this bear was in the entry hall when I moved into the house. I
moved in second semester of my junior year. The house was already
full of three girls and four guys. I’d sublet from a friend who was
studying abroad. I loved the room I’d rented from her, but that
damn bear, which had apparently lived in that hall forever, used to
scare me every time I entered the house.

The golden bear was an easy ten feet tall,
towering in watch over the front door. He was dressed in a navy
blue Cal watch cap, navy and yellow striped scarf, and a
letterman’s sweater with a block ‘C’ on the chest. The tattered
sweater must have belonged to a very big football or basketball
player from many years ago. I suspected the bear had been a school
mascot once upon a time and was stolen in some prank. Most students
and alums laughed to see the school mascot, the golden bear, Oski
in our stairwell.

Not me. I’d always been afraid of bears,
even dead ones, and this one freaked me every time I came in the
house. But now I was too elated, too buzzed to be scared.

I used to rush up the stairs without turning
on the light in the entry so that I needn’t look at the bear. This
time, I reached out from the stair landing and touched, yes
touched, the bear’s head. My laugh echoed in the quiet, empty
house.

I glanced through the archway into the unlit
living room. My laughter caught in my throat, my stomach jumped to
join it. The outline of a dark figure, a man sat in the armchair.
Was this one of my housemates, sitting quietly in the dark?

“Hello?” I called out.

No answer

“Hey, what’s up?” I said.

I crept down to the bottom of the stairs and
flipped on the light in the hall.

“Who’s there?”

This was a little creepy. I hesitated in the
doorway before I decided my imagination was running away with me
after all the violence and excitement of the last few days.

I got brave, went into the living room, and
turned on a lamp. I turned around to face the dark male figure and
nearly jumped out of my skin.

68

“Uncle Dave? What are you doing here? You
scared me to death.”

My uncle Dave, the meticulous dresser who
always wore the "correct" gear appropriate to the activity at hand;
like topsiders for sailing, après ski boots after skiing, high top
Converse for basketball, cleats for baseball––even REI hiking boots
for climbing around the countryside when disposing of bodies.

Dave didn’t answer. He grinned at me, the
scariest goddamn grin. In his hand was the biggest, longest,
scariest goddamn knife you ever saw. He didn’t move.

I backed away, but I was afraid to turn my
back to him. I tripped over the ottoman, and plopped onto the
floor.