Indian Killer (17 page)

O
N A COLD MORNING,
the killer walked through the park near home. The killer thought about the owl, the messenger of death for many tribes. The owl had night vision and could turn its head three hundred and sixty degrees without moving its body. The owl was silent, and wasted neither time nor emotion. The owl felt no guilt, no remorse. It lived to hunt, and hunted to live. One kill was no more important than the next, each successive murder replacing the preceding in the owl’s memory. The owl kept no souvenirs, no mementos from the scene of the crime. The killer wanted so much to behave like an owl, to kill without emotion. But the killer felt incomplete, as if more needed to be done, as if the first hunt had only been partially successful, as if one dead body were not enough. The killer also needed trophies, the bloody scalp nailed to the wall, the shrine-in-progress. One beautiful knife, one beautiful scalp, and space enough for more. The killer knew that the next victim would have to be perfect and beautiful. The killer would have to send a message that would terrify the world.

The park was small and lovely. A few acres of perfectly manicured lawn, a softball diamond, a basketball court with chains on the hoops. A dozen picnic tables, pine trees, a man-made pond. A playground, with swing set, seesaw, and slide, where the killer sat and watched the neighborhood nannies congregate with their employers’ children. With the babies in the nearby carriages and the older children climbing, swinging, and sliding through the playground, the nannies shared a morning conversation the killer could not hear. A majority of the nannies were black, a few were Latina, and one or two were young white women. The black and Latina women were older and most assuredly had their own children. Every morning, those brown women left their children behind and traveled to better neighborhoods to take care of their employers’ children. Brown women spent more time with the white children than their own parents did. Brown children were left behind.

Anger growing, the killer thought of those rich, white children holding their arms out to strangers, not mothers, and about brown children holding their arms out to air. A simple and brilliant human connected two knives at a balance point and invented the scissors. And where were all the fathers? The brown fathers were killing themselves and each other. Like royalty, the white fathers crowded into stadiums to watch brown men kill each other. Kill, killed, killing.

The killer watched one little blond boy running across the playground. Mark Jones, six years old, though the killer had no way of knowing his name or age. The killer just saw a beautiful white boy. Blue eyes, blue stocking cap, white tennis shoes, Seattle Seahawks jacket buttoned tight. A perfect child who, through no fault of his own, might grow up into a monster. The killer felt the weight of the knife. Blade, bolster, tang, handle. Right now, the killer could run across the playground, pick up the white boy, and slash his throat before anybody could intercede. Killing the dragon before it could breathe flames. Working quickly and efficiently, the killer could probably kill a number of white boys before the nannies overcame their shock and reacted. One, two, three, the killer counted the white boys on the playground, seven, eight, nine. The killer watched the beautiful boy, Mark Jones, spinning on the merry-go-round. The meat carver held the most prestigious position on the kitchen staff.

The killer studied Mark and the other children, noting the hierarchy of playmates, the playground distribution of power. The boys and girls played together until they were seven years old, then separated by gender after that. The kids under five years old were treated with a general respect by the older children, but were definitely subject to the whims of their elders. Fat kids were ridiculed and left to play in their own groups. The one black child, a girl, played quietly with two white girls. Most of the kids were clumsy and weak and posed no threat to the killer, but there were two white boys with physical coordination beyond their years, and they fought for leadership of the playground. One of the boys, fairly short for his age, but stout and confident, was a conservative. When he was in charge, the group played games they’d played a thousand times before. Frozen Tag, King of the Hill, Double Dare. The other boy, Mark, the blond in the Seahawks jacket, was tall, thin, and fearless, a revolutionary. As the killer watched, Mark invented a game. During that game, all the kids piled onto the merry-go-round, then Mark and two or three of his favorites spun them around and around, as fast as possible. As the kids became sick or scared, they screamed for it to stop, but Mark ignored them as he continued to spin them. The only way to quit the game was to jump from the merry-go-round. Kids rapidly collected skinned knees and bruised faces as they worked up the courage and leapt into the dirt. When one last child was left on the merry-go-round, that one child most afraid to jump, Mark proclaimed that last child the winner. The kids played it again and again. Watching that game, the killer knew that Mark would grow into a powerful man.

So the killer waited until Mark Jones and Sarah, his young white nanny, walked out of the park. Holding the knife close, the killer trailed Mark and the nanny through a quiet neighborhood, past a 7-Eleven, a Safeway supermarket, Talkies Video, and dozens of anonymous apartment buildings to a two-story house partially hidden behind large trees. Silently singing an invisibility song, the killer ascended into one of the larger trees and looked into the kitchen and living room. Through the large windows, the killer watched the nanny feed Mark a bowl of tomato soup, a sandwich, and most of a bag of corn chips. Then the nanny and Mark settled down on the couch to watch television.

A little after six, Mark’s mother, Erin Jones, a bank manager, pulled into the driveway. There was no sign of the father. The mother stepped into the house, received a warm greeting from the nanny and a brief nod of interest from Mark, and then walked into the kitchen to prepare her dinner. As she was cooking, the nanny gathered up her things and left the house without a word. She stood beneath the killer’s tree and lit a cigarette. The exhaled smoke drifted up and past the killer, who could smell the boy’s scent also wafting up from the nanny’s clothes. The killer understood what needed to be done.

After dinner, Mark’s mother got him ready for bed. Dressed in his favorite pajamas, the ones covered with the blind superhero Daredevil, Mark washed his face and brushed his teeth. His mother read him two stories before she turned out the light and left him alone in his bedroom. The killer saw the mother mix herself a drink and watch a movie. She was tall and skinny, with pinched features and very short, blond hair. A pretty woman, the killer thought, but obviously lonely. After the late news, the mother stripped naked and crawled into bed without washing her face or brushing her teeth. She read a magazine for a few minutes, then turned off the lamp, and quickly fell asleep.

The killer waited in that tree until midnight. The knife felt heavy and hot. With surprising grace, the killer stepped from the tree, walked up to the front door, and slipped the knife between the lock and jamb. The killer was soon standing inside a dark and quiet house, tastefully decorated in natural wood and pastel colors, with stylish prints hanging on the walls. With confidence, the killer explored the living room, bathroom, and study downstairs. Then the killer walked upstairs and into the master bedroom, where the mother slept alone. She had thrown off her covers, and the killer studied her naked body, pale white in the moonlight streaming in from the window. Small breasts, three dark moles just above the light brown pubic hair. She was almost too skinny, prominent ribcage, hipbones rising up sharply. The killer knelt down beside the bed as if to pray. Then the killer did pray.

Later, after that prayer was over, the killer walked down the hallway into the boy’s room. Mark was curled up in a fetal position. An active dreamer, he was mumbling something the killer could not understand. The killer recognized the superhero on Mark’s pajamas. Daredevil, the blind superhero, who used his other highly developed senses to fight crime. The killer’s eyes closed. The killer wondered if the boy could be found by using other senses. The boy’s smell, toothpaste, sleepy sweat, socks. By touch, warm and sticky skin. With eyes now open, the killer leaned over close to the boy and softly licked his face. Salt, something bitter, a slight sweetness. The boy stirred, opened his eyes, and stared at the killer’s face, which shimmered and changed like a pond after a rock had been tossed into it. The killer set two owl feathers on the pillow beside Mark Jones’s head and then gently lifted the boy from the bed.

J
ACK WILSON GREW UP
white and orphaned in Seattle. Dreaming of being Indian, he’d read every book he could find about the First Americans and had been delighted to learn that they raised their children communally. An Indian child moved freely between tepees, between families. A child could be loved and disciplined by any adult in the tribe. During the long, cold nights, every campfire was a welcome sight for a lonely child. Wilson loved the idea, and tried to find some tribal connection with his eleven foster families, but could only advance a little beyond uncomfortable formality with one household before he was forced to pack up his meager belongings and move to another. Lying in strange beds, Wilson read about Indians and recreated himself in the image he found inside those books. He saw himself as a solitary warrior on horseback, crossing miles of empty plains, in search of his family.

Wilson’s mother had died of cancer when he was a baby, and his father had died in a car wreck when he was ten, but something in Wilson refused to believe in their deaths. He always expected a phone call from her, to see him come bursting through the front door with unexpected news. But it was a lie. Wilson knew about liars. And what the TV and movies said about Indians were lies. That they were evil. That they raped white women and ate white children. Indians were said to worship the devil. His teachers tried to tell him all these bad things about Indians, but Wilson had always fought them.

“So,” said his high school principal when Wilson was sent in to see him yet again. “What about Indians this time?”

“I’m part Shilshomish Indian,” Wilson said. “I looked it up. There was an old medicine man named Red Fox who lived in a shack on Bainbridge Island. Back in the 1920s or something. His Indian name was Red Fox, but his American name was Joe Wilson. My dad used to say that Joe Wilson was his great-uncle.”

“Well, now, that’s very interesting. How does it have anything to do with your visit to my office?”

“Mrs. Jorgenson said all the Indians were dead. I told her it wasn’t true. I said I was Indian. She said I was a liar, and I said she was the liar. Then she sent me here.”

“Are you lying?”

“No,” Wilson said. “I promise. I looked it up. Well, my dad used to say he’d heard of a relative named Joe Wilson, who was a crazy old man. But that must be Red Fox, don’t you think?”

Twelve years later, in 1977, when he was a rookie police officer in the Fourth Precinct of the Seattle Police Department, Jack Wilson still believed that Red Fox was a relative. He walked a beat downtown and knew the names of most of the homeless Indians who crowded together beneath the Alaskan Way Viaduct and in Pioneer Square. Lester, Old Joe, and Little Joe always together, Agnes and her old man, who was simply known as Old Man, the Android Brothers, who’d come here from Spokane years earlier and were collecting spare change for bus tickets back home. Beautiful Mary, who was still beautiful, even though a keloid scar ran from the corner of her left eye to her chin. She thought Wilson was handsome and called him by some word in her tribal language. She told him that it meant First Son, but it actually meant Shadow.

One evening, Beautiful Mary pushed Wilson into a dark doorway, unzipped his pants, pushed her hand inside, and stroked his penis. Wilson’s knees went weak. He leaned against the door for support. He tried to kiss Mary but, still stroking him, she turned her face away. Then, without warning, she released Wilson and stepped back.

“What’s wrong?” Wilson asked, his face red and sweaty.

Beautiful Mary shook her head. Wilson grabbed her arm with more force than he’d planned. He could see the pain in Mary’s eyes. She twisted away from him and ran away.

Beautiful Mary was almost forty years old when she was murdered. Wedged between a Dumpster and the back wall of a parking garage beneath the Viaduct, she had been raped, then stabbed repeatedly with a broken bottle. Wilson had immediately emptied his stomach on the pavement. Then he had found a stray newspaper and covered her face. Her eyes were still open. He had called in quickly, but it took an hour for the ambulance to show up. While the attendants were loading Mary into the ambulance, one homicide detective arrived to investigate.

“You found her body, correct?” the detective asked Wilson.

“Yes, sir.”

“And?”

“And what, sir?”

“And what did you notice? Any suspicious people? Witnesses? Evidence?”

“I didn’t notice, sir. I, I knew her. Her name is Mary, sir. Beautiful Mary.”

“She isn’t so beautiful anymore,” said the detective. He took a few notes, closed his book, and walked away. Wilson had assumed they would solve the case quickly. Beautiful Mary was a very visible member of the homeless community. Somebody must have seen something. Wilson read the newspaper the next day, looking for a story about Beautiful Mary. Nothing. No story the next morning, or during the next two weeks, either. He asked a few questions around the station house. Nothing. Three weeks after Mary’s death, Wilson bumped into the police detective who was supposed to be investigating her murder.

“Excuse me, sir,” said Wilson. “Have you learned anything more about Mary?”

“Mary?” asked the detective. “Who’s Mary?”

“Don’t you remember? Mary? Beautiful Mary? The Indian woman who was killed downtown? I found her body. A few weeks ago?”