Killing Spree (12 page)

“That’s great, Vicki,” Gillian said, working up a smile. “Listen, what I was going to say is that I have to clean up this mess I made in the kitchen. So I should scoot—”

“Well, I won’t keep you. I was wondering if some packages arrived for me. I went on this shopping spree while I was away.”

Gillian nodded. “Yes, a couple of big packages. I put them inside your door with the mail. And I watered the plants two days ago.”

“Thanks, Gill, you’re a lifesaver.” Vicki reached for her tote-suitcase. “I’m going to see if Jason has a friend for you. We’ll put you back in circulation. The only time you ever go out is to teach your class or sign your books at stores.” She pulled her suitcase toward the far side of the porch and started to unlock her door.

“Vicki?” Gillian called. “You just reminded me, I have my class tonight. What time is—um, Jason coming over?”

“Not until after ten. Why?”

“Well, if you’re not going out before then, could you do me a favor? I don’t want to leave Ethan by himself. I’d feel better if I knew you were home upstairs.”

“No sweat. I’ll be around if Ethan needs me.”

“Thanks, Vicki.” Gillian watched her neighbor step inside her unit. After Vicki’s door shut, Gillian glanced out at the street, and then toward the side yard. She didn’t see anyone.

Retreating back inside, Gillian went to clean up the spilt coffee.

“I’ll take…um, Bozeman.”

“Um, okay, we’ll go with Eberhart.”

Dressed in his gym sweats, Ethan stood shivering near the bleachers with three classmates: fat, bespectacled Alex Sloane; tiny anemic-looking Dylan Gubner; and gay-as-a-goose Mark Phair.

Pick me, pick me, pick me,
was the mantra going through his head. He didn’t want to be chosen last. Mark Phair could be picked last; he never seemed to mind. In fact, he acted proud of it.

Craig Merchant was one of the captains picking soccer teams for the PE session. Craig wasn’t the best-looking guy in the freshman class, but his passing resemblance to Ewan McGregor definitely put him in the upper ranks. He and Ethan had been best friends since fourth grade. Craig had always been more athletic and more popular than Ethan, but that had never mattered until recently.

Ethan was still kicking himself for gawking at his best friend in his underwear during the last sleepover at Craig’s house. If only he could take that moment back. But it was too late, he’d been caught looking.

Craig was spending most of his time with other friends now. When they weren’t playing or watching football, they were getting drunk. It was the new thing now that they were in high school. Craig had even smoked marijuana a few times. Ethan was afraid that if he got stoned, he’d say or do something he’d really regret. His buddy was far more adventurous than him. Ethan’s idea of a great time was going out for a movie and pizza, or just staying at home and watching TV. He had his violin and a different TV lineup to keep him company nearly every night of the week.

Maybe Craig’s new buddies had said something to him about his
queer
friend. Or maybe Craig was just figuring it out for himself. Whatever, things were suddenly different.

Craig wouldn’t look at him. It was his turn to pick, and his eyes kept darting back and forth from fat Alex to anemic Dylan. “Um, I guess we’ll take Gubner.”

Ethan tried like crazy to keep the same blank, waiting-for-a-bus expression on his face. He didn’t want anyone to know that he was dying because his best friend had just betrayed him. When choosing teams, Craig had never before let him stand there among the final three bottom-of-the barrel rejects. Ethan felt as if he were drowning in quicksand, and his best friend wouldn’t even budge an inch to help him.

“Tanner,” the other captain grunted. The son of a bitch even rolled his eyes a little.

But Ethan nodded and ran toward his team. He shot a look at Craig, who continued to ignore him.

During the soccer game, Ethan just ran alongside the pack like an ineffectual sheepdog. He tried to make eye contact with Craig a few times, but to no avail. After a while, he knew damn well no one would kick the ball to him, so he let his attention wander. That was when he noticed the old black Mustang, parked on the other side of the chain-link fence around the playfield. He didn’t know how long it had been there. But he’d seen the car before.

This morning, at his bus stop, the black, vintage Mustang had driven around the block no less than three times, slowing down in front of him on each round. Ethan had noticed two people in the front seat. He hadn’t gotten a look at their faces.

His mother had warned him about these guys who were looking for his dad. Were they following him around now?

“Hey Tanner!” someone yelled.

He turned and saw the ball bouncing toward him.
Jesus, please, don’t let me screw up,
he thought. Every nerve in his body stiffened for a second. But somehow, he was able to react. He stopped the ball with his foot, and nudged it forward for a few strides until he saw a teammate who was open. Then Ethan kicked the ball in his direction. And it reached the guy—thank Christ.

By the end of the game, his team lost to Craig’s team, but at least no one could blame him.

The losing team had to run a lap around the field. Ethan and his teammates had to merge with the sophomore gym class, who were already on the track. Just when he thought he might get through the gym class without any further humiliation, Ethan spotted Tate Barringer among the sweating, panting sophomores.

He’d managed to avoid his tormentor for the last couple of days. Seeing Tate strut down the school corridor, Ethan would head the other way or duck into a stairwell. Until a few weeks ago, he hadn’t even known Tate’s name. In fact, he used to think the sophomore with the blue eyes and messy black hair was kind of handsome—despite his ruddy complexion. Now Ethan was constantly on the lookout for the ugly, pock-faced creep.

For a moment on the track, Ethan and his nemesis were almost neck and neck with each other. Tate didn’t seem to notice him. So Ethan poured on the speed, putting as much distance as he could between Tate and himself.

Ethan was winded as he finished his lap. Along with a handful of teammates, he staggered toward the pathway between the sets of bleachers that led to the school’s athletic wing. He glanced over his shoulder, and didn’t see Tate among the sophomores on the track. Ethan smiled inside. He must have lost him.

The boys’ locker room was huge, with two separate shower areas. Ethan hadn’t even known until today that he and Tate Barringer had the same gym period. Ethan figured if he quickly ducked in and out of the shower, he could leave without running into Tate at all.

He hurried across the street to the school. There was a little annex between the outside double doors and the entrance to the boys’ locker room. Ethan was just about to enter the locker room when he heard it: “
Hey, Tanner! You can’t go in there! No fags allowed!
”

Ethan hesitated. He recognized Tate Barringer’s voice. Should he just keep walking or should he turn around? Several guys brushed past him into the locker room.

“Somebody stop him! He shouldn’t be in there. He’s gay!”

Ethan turned, and saw Tate barreling toward him. He tried to laugh. “Would you give me a break?”

Tate shook his head. “I’m not letting you in there. That place is full of naked guys. It’s not for faggots. Somebody drops the soap in the shower, and you’ll be all over them.”

One of Tate’s dumb-ass friends was behind him, chuckling. And behind the two of them was Craig. He stared at Ethan. It was the first time he’d made eye contact with him in the last ninety minutes.

“Craig?” Ethan whispered.

His friend looked away, then swept past him into the locker room.

“Get the fuck out of here, Tanner,” Tate was growling. “I’m serious.” He turned to his friend. “Better guard the door. Make sure this fag doesn’t get in. I don’t want him eyeballing me.” Tate headed through the doors with his friend.

But Tate’s pal didn’t go very far. His arms crossed, he stood on the other side of the threshold. Every time the door swung open, Ethan caught the guy glaring at him. Ethan couldn’t believe it, the guy was actually standing guard.

The little annex began to fill up with guys pouring through to the locker room. Someone shoved Ethan to one side. His stomach was all cramped up, and he was shaking. He started to tear up, but didn’t want Tate’s dumb-ass pal to see him. He retreated back outside.

Ethan walked back toward the bleachers. The field was empty now. He’d wait until the next gym class started. By that time, Tate and his buddy would be gone. Ethan would be late for his American Literature class, but tough. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

As he stood under the bleachers, fighting back the tears, Ethan just wanted to die.

Then he saw it again. The black vintage Mustang came cruising up the block. It slowed nearly to a stop as it approached him. The sun glared across the windshield, and Ethan couldn’t see who was inside.

The Mustang crawled past him, then continued down the block until it turned and disappeared around a corner.

“Honey, I think I’m gonna have to eat crow. You might have been onto something with your theories about that ‘Zorro’ stabbing in New York. Maybe it’s not just a coincidence.”

Sitting in the passenger seat of Ruth’s Toyota Camry, Gillian squinted at her friend. Headlights swept across Ruth’s face. She was watching the road ahead, and nervously drumming her fingers on the steering wheel.

Ruth always gave her a ride to and from class at the Seattle City College. They often stopped for coffee someplace afterward. Though only five minutes away from Interstate 5 in North Seattle, the community college was at the edge of a forest, and seemed in the middle of nowhere. The large parking lot, with its humming halogen spotlights, was stark and creepy. Gillian was glad for Ruth’s company on these trips.

“What made you change your mind?” Gillian murmured apprehensively.

“Late this afternoon, I got this e-mail from a friend on the Internet. Her name’s Hester. She’s also a fan of yours, Gill. She read the interview you gave with that online
Mystery
Maniacs Magazine
a while back, the one in which you mention
moi
. She wanted to get in touch with the
real
Maggie Dare, she said. Anyway, we’ve e-mailed back and forth. Hester lives in Great Falls, Montana. She sent me a news story about a bizarre discovery in Billings early this morning. A waitress found the body of a young drifter in an abandoned lot. According to this news article, the police couldn’t identify the corpse, because he was missing his teeth. In fact, his whole lower jaw had been torn off. His fingers were missing too.”

“My God,” Gillian murmured. “But I—I don’t understand what this has to do with Jennifer Gilderhoff.”

“This dead man’s heart had been surgically removed.” Ruth took her eyes off the road to glance at Gillian for a moment. “Isn’t this just like
Highway Hypnosis
?’ my friend asked in the e-mail.”

Gillian numbly stared back at Ruth and shook her head.

“Gill, I think you have a copycat.”

Biting her lip, Gillian turned toward her window. “Do you—” She took a deep breath. “Do you suppose this unidentified drifter is someone I might have known?”

“If you’re thinking of Barry and that e-mail you got—”

“That’s exactly what I’m thinking.”

“It’s not him, Gill. The article my friend sent said the dead man was in his late twenties. It’s not Barry.”

Gillian let out a little sigh.

“But you’re right, hon. This
Highway Hypnosis
victim in Montana might be someone you know. Jennifer Gilderhoff was from that class you taught a couple of years ago. I’m wondering if this poor son of a bitch who’s missing a heart was in that same class.”

Gillian could barely concentrate on her class for the first hour. While students read their stories, she couldn’t follow along. She kept thinking about this new murder in Montana. Had the victim been sitting in this classroom two years ago—alongside Jennifer Gilderhoff?

During the ten-minute break, Gillian headed down to the administration office. She called Ethan on her cell phone. The reception was poor in the gloomy, cinder-block stairwell. But she got through to him.

“So—are you okay?” she asked. “Is Vicki still home?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, Mom,” he replied through the static. “Vicki’s upstairs. I can hear her stomping around. Everything’s cool.”

“Are you feeling better? You seemed so moody this afternoon.”

“I’m fine,” he answered, a little edge to his voice. “I gotta go. I have a DiGiorno in the oven.”

“You’re having pizza
again
? I bought you all sorts of perfectly good microwave dinners—”

“Mom, I wanted pizza! God! I gotta go take it out of the oven before it burns.”

“All right. Well, call me or call Vicki if you get worried or anything.”

“I will. Bye.” There was a click on the other end of the line.

Sighing, Gillian switched off the cell phone. She stepped out to the first-floor hallway, where some students were milling about. The administration office was on the other side of a counter with a sliding glass window. Gillian peeked into the drab, little room, crammed with file cabinets, four metal desks, and four bulky old computers. In one corner was a huge, hanging, half-dead philodendron plant with its vines drooping down to the floor. In the other corner there was a water cooler—and Rick, the only person on night duty, filling a paper cup for himself. He glanced toward the window-counter and gave Gillian his trademark cocky grin. “Well, if it isn’t the famous mystery author….”

“Hi, Rick,” she said, working up a smile. “I need to ask you for a favor.”

She loathed asking Rick for anything, because she was always turning him down whenever he asked her out—which was often. Rick was in his early thirties, and some might say handsome with his blue eyes, receding wavy black hair, and a permanent five o’clock shadow. He was also extremely hairy. A bicycle fanatic, he often wore his biking attire—T-shirt, spandex shorts, bike shoes—to work. With all the hair on his arms and legs, he looked like a gorilla. A lot of women probably found him sexy. Gillian wasn’t among them.

“A favor?” he asked. Sipping his water, he strolled up to the window. He was wearing jeans, with a tight, red, V-neck T-shirt that said,
BIKERS DO IT BETTER
, and showed off a tuft of chest hair. “Do you need my connections to get you on
Oprah
?”

She worked up a lame chuckle. “Actually—”

“Did I tell you that someone left one of your books in the laundry room of my apartment building with all these other reject paperbacks and magazines?”

She nodded quickly. “Yes, you told me that a couple of weeks ago, Rick. Anyway, I was hoping you could go into the archives for me, and print up my class list from September two years ago.”

Rick’s mouth twisted to one side. “Hmmm, if I do this, what will the famous and beautiful mystery author do for me?”

“I could personally autograph that book you found in the basement of your apartment building.”

He leaned against the other side of the counter and casually scratched the tuft of hair above his T-shirt collar. “Actually, I was thinking maybe you and I—”

“Rick, I’m not going out with you,” Gillian cut in. “Now could you just do this for me, please? My class reconvenes in two minutes. I don’t have a lot of time.”

Rick frowned, and then he shuffled back to his desk and plopped down in the chair. He glanced up at her. “Course title?”

“It’s my class for the Experimental College. The course title is Fiction Writing: Preparing to Publish.”

He started typing. “And you want the class list from September two years ago?”

“That’s right,” Gillian said. “I appreciate this, Rick.”

“Two years ago,” he repeated, eyes on his computer screen. “Huh, that’s when those women were killed. Were any of them in your class?”

“No,” Gillian answered soberly. “I didn’t know any of the women who were murdered.”

“Want to hear something weird? Every time one of them got it, the cops questioned me. For a while there, I figured they were going to pin the killings on me. Did you ever meet Boyd Farrow?”

Gillian shook her head. “No, I didn’t know him.” She didn’t want to talk about this right now.

“Seemed like a nice enough guy, not at all the serial-killer type. It never made sense to me that he taught here for six years and nothing. Then suddenly, boom, he’s abducting women, dressing them up like Catholic schoolgirls, and shooting them. Something in him must have snapped.” He glanced up from the computer screen. “Hey, how come you’ve never written a mystery based on that?
The Schoolgirl Murders
, it would make a good one.”

“I just haven’t, that’s all.”

“Shame,” Rick said. As he pulled away from his desk, he hit one last key, which started up the printer. He got to his feet, retrieved the listing, and handed it to her.

Gillian glanced at the printout, and saw Jennifer Gilderhoff ’s name on the list of a dozen students. She knew she had the right class. “Thanks, Rick,” she said. “Sorry I got snippy earlier.”

He grinned. “That’s okay. I’ll see you make it up to me.”

Gillian tucked the list into her purse, and hurried for the stairwell. She ran back up to the second floor, where she found Ruth waiting for her outside the classroom. Ruth had her coat on.

“Oh, hon, I hate to leave you high and dry for a ride,” she said anxiously. “But I just called home for messages, and my grandson, Darnell, fell and hit his head against the coffee table. My daughter’s freaking out. There’s blood everywhere. She had to pile all three kids into the car and drive to the hospital. I got through to her on her cell. She wants me up in Everett—
pronto
. I need to take off. Can you get a ride home from someone else?”

“Oh my God, of course,” Gillian murmured. “Don’t worry about me—”

“Well, I don’t want to leave you alone tonight, not when this copycat-nut is on the loose. Promise you’ll take a cab home if you can’t get a ride from someone in class.”

“I promise,” Gillian said. “Now, get going. Call and let me know once you find out how Darnell’s doing. Be careful.”

“
You
be careful, hon. I mean it,” Ruth said grimly. Then she turned and hurried toward the stairwell.

“Sarah Lee was surprised when her roommate, Connie, stepped into the shower with her. ‘I’m in a hurry,’ said Connie. ‘And you’ll hog all the hot water. Scrub my back, Sarah Lee! Use that peach-scented soap. My boyfriend likes the smell!’ Sarah scrubbed her roommate’s strong, supple back. Connie’s skin was silky to the touch….”

Burt was one of Gillian’s older students, a grandfatherly type with gray hair, glasses, and a penchant for flannel shirts. He was writing a novel about a sixtysomething college professor’s affair with a beautiful young student. It was short on characterization, and long on the sex scenes—especially between his heroine Sarah Lee and other beautiful, nubile women. The rest of the class tolerated Burt’s fantasies, because it was the only time his writing came alive. Besides, he didn’t take criticism well. He refused to change the title of his novel in progress, despite everyone telling him that
In Pursuit of Sarah Lee
sounded like it was about a dessert fiend.

Though things were getting hot and steamy in the shower with Sarah Lee and her roommate, Gillian wasn’t paying attention. The words Burt read aloud seemed to blend together, just so much background noise.

Gillian was at her desk, gazing at the class without really focusing on any one of the fourteen students seated in front of her. It was an eclectic group varying in age, race, sexual orientation, and writing ability. Sometimes it was a chore dealing with the diverse, often conflicting personalities in the class. There was a lot of pride, ego, and temperament in one small classroom. All these people expected her to help them get published, and she barely eked out a living at it herself.

Gillian had the same second-floor classroom from two years ago. The windows looked out on an asphalt roof and across to another wing of the school. There had always been something wrong with the heat. In the winter months, everyone stayed bundled up in their sweaters or jackets throughout the class.

She remembered Jennifer Gilderhoff had usually occupied the chair-desk right next to where Burt sat now. People always seemed to take the same seat session after session. Ruth had become a fixture in the first row. It was strange to see her chair now vacant. She’d hardly missed a class. In fact, the last time that front-row seat had gone unoccupied had been two years ago, right after Gillian had been forced to give up her car. The bruises from the beating she’d endured were still painfully vivid on her face. Ruth had offered to drive her to class, but she’d gotten sick at the last minute.

Now that Gillian thought back on that November evening two years ago, she saw how much it was like tonight—the same cold weather, and the same strange feeling in the pit of her stomach that something bad was about to happen. Ruth had insisted Gillian take a cab to and from the college on that night too. Even back then, Ruth had been wary of the bus—and not without a good reason.

A twenty-two-year-old night student named Kelly Zinnemann had been missing for three days, and the last place she’d been seen was the bus stop by the school. Her purse—with money and credit cards still in it—had been found in a clump of bushes nearby.

Bulletins were posted around the small campus with the word
MISSING
under the pretty blonde’s photo, and a description underneath. Warnings to female students and faculty members were posted alongside the bulletin. Different incidents prior to Kelly’s disappearance were cited, everything from a purse-snatching to a flasher to an attempted rape. The dark forest bordering the parking lot seemed like a haven for criminals and sex offenders. At that time, the halogen spotlights and campus security phones hadn’t yet been installed.