Lilith: a novel (14 page)

For a while Jessica and Travis debated: Should they return to Dayton or Columbus, or perhaps try their luck in another part of Ohio?

Then they decided that no, if the police were on to them, then little evasive advantage could be achieved simply by going to another city in the area. After all, they had already killed in multiple locations.

But they did not believe that the police were on to them. So they decided to stay in Cincinnati.

They did not have many personal possessions. Even so, the possessions that they did have made their rented one-bedroom place all the more cramped and inhospitable. The Sunday after Jessica’s second date with Mark, they drove to nearby Iron Mills, where they deposited some of their things with Jessica’s mother. Jessica’s mother did not seem enthusiastic about the prospect of her home being used as a makeshift storage facility, but she acquiesced—partly because she rarely saw her daughter anymore, and partly because she was the only one living in the old house. The house, after all, had been purchased when Jessica’s father was still living with the family, and Jessica had been but a little girl. A little more than twenty-five years had passed, and Jessica’s mother was the only one left.

Jessica’s mother was only in her mid-fifties, but she looked like a very worn and disappointed woman of seventy or seventy-five. She was still working, of course. Her high-paying factory job was now performed by a low-wage worker somewhere in China. She was working for a bit more than minimum wage in a local retail establishment.

As Travis carried the boxes and bundles in from the Jeep, Jessica’s mother eyed the younger man with suspicion. Jessica could not help being reminded of that day when Floyd had stopped by to remove his things. When her mother gave Travis an unfriendly look, Jessica thought,
Momma, you should talk. You chose wrongly twice—once with my father, and then again with Floyd.
To the best of Jessica’s knowledge, there were no men in her mother’s life now.

Thoughts of Floyd naturally prompted Jessica to think about Mr. Frogge. She had heard from one of her old Iron Mills friends—one of the three or four members of the old crowd whom she still talked to on occasion—that Mr. Frogge was still teaching at the high school.

Well, of course he would be. Mr. Frogge wouldn't even be all that old yet. And it wasn't at all uncommon for a teacher to finish out his career at a single institution. Teachers weren’t known to be job-hoppers.

During the drive back to Cincinnati, Travis made a pointed remark about their funds inevitably dwindling again—even though they still had most of the money they’d gotten from Robert Billings, and the two men in Dayton and Columbus.

“If you want to get to that beach, baby, we need to get some more cash. We need to start socking it away,” Travis said. “That’s why we’re living so low-key and penny-pinching right now, so we can live like kings later on. That’s what I want for you, baby. That’s what I want for both of us.”

Travis was right: It was time to get back to work. It was time to get back on the dating sites.

The next day Jessica logged back on to their most frequently used site, using her “Lisa” profile. This was the one that she had used to meet Mark Quinn. Her login ID and password were still valid, and there was no email from the site’s administrators informing her that there had been allegations of suspicious activity. So Mark had not turned her in or reported her to anyone. And if he had, then no one had believed him.

Then she thought: If Mark had complained to anyone, his story probably would have been written off as the vindictive shenanigans of a spurned suitor. It wouldn't be the first time that a rejected lover told damning stories about the object of his or her affections, after all. The site’s administrators probably heard wild tales of flagrant misconduct from members all the time.

Nevertheless, Jessica decided that it would be wise to err on the side of caution. She asked Travis to delete her “Lisa” profile, and then go to the local library and create a new one.

This time she would be “Lilith” again. Lilith had been lucky for her, whereas Lisa had been not quite as lucky.

Two mornings later, as the month of March was finally turning warm, Dave walked into the office he shared with Maribel and Alan and said, “I think we’ve got her this time.”

“Lilith finally contacted you?” Alan asked.

After his eventful but unproductive date with Lisa Cullen, Dave had mostly been spinning his wheels on the various dating sites. He either received no responses to his own messages, or he was messaged by women who were obviously not Lilith.

There was a woman in Costa Rica who had been emailing him with particular frequency. Her name was Luisa, and she claimed that she and Dave were soul mates.

“Not Luisa again?” Maribel asked. “Remember, I can help you with the Spanish if you need it.” Maribel’s mother was originally from Mexico, and Maribel spoke fluent Spanish.

“No,” Dave said. “This is Lilith.”

After booting up his computer, Dave summoned the two of them into his cubicle and showed them the profile of the woman who had been communicating with him online. Like the profiles that had been in the communication records of the three murdered men, this one bore generic-looking pictures of a thin, dark-haired woman in her early thirties. Moreover, she went by the name of Lilith.

“I’ve already traced the pics,” Dave said. “They belong to a Czech model named Olga Jankovic.”

Alan stood over Dave’s shoulder, examining what might be the latest incarnation of the serial killer known as “Lilith”

“Set something up,” he told Dave.

Later that afternoon, Alan asked Dave for an update.

“I sent her my number,” Dave reported, referring to the number of the disposable, untraceable phone that he was using in his alias as Don. “She’ll call.”

“Why didn't you ask her for her number?”

“Women are more comfortable calling you. This may be our killer, but to catch her I need to play this as realistically as possible. Women are much more likely to reveal their phone numbers if the man sends them his phone number first.”

“Don't all these disposable phones and call blocking features nowadays make that irrelevant? I mean, I could see that back in the day, when a woman’s only option was to give up her land line number—her
only
number. But now?”

“Dave is right,” Maribel interjected. “Women don't like to give out their numbers until a man has given his first.”

“Damn, I’m glad I’m married,” Alan said.

“So we’ve heard,” Maribel said, not unkindly.

“But I’m a little worried about this woman actually calling Dave. What if she’s talking to a bunch of other men? Men who won’t know what they’re in for?”

Dave nodded grimly, having no good answer. Alan had made it only halfway back to his desk when the disposable cell phone started ringing from Dave’s breast pocket.

It was Lilith.

Dave set up a dinner date for that Saturday evening at 7:00 p.m. For form’s sake, he offered to pick Lilith up. To no one’s surprise, she immediately countered that she would meet him at the restaurant.

“That doesn't necessarily mean anything,” Maribel said. “Most women don’t want the man to pick them up at their homes if it's a first date with a stranger.”

“That’s probably true,” Alan allowed. “But it’s another factor in favor of her being Lilith. Dave, what impression did you get, during your telephone conversation?”

“The impression I got,” Dave reported, “was that she acted like she was shy, but that’s the thing, see: She was acting.”

“I’m going, too,” Travis insisted.

“What are you talking about?” Jessica countered, dumbfounded. “You should know that’s impossible. The guy will totally freak out. There’s no way.”

“It’s not what you’re thinking,” Travis said with exaggerated patience, as if addressing a small child. “I’ll be there; but I won’t be there, if you know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t know what you mean.”

“What I mean is that I’ll be at the restaurant, or nearby, but the guy will never know I’m there.”

“Why is that necessary?” Jessica asked. Travis had never expressed any desire to be present on one of her “dates” in the past—except for the final ones, in which he entered the targets’ homes, killed them, and took their money.

“It comes down to this, baby: You had a close call recently, with that Mark Quinn guy.”

“I handled it.”

“Yeah, you did, but that’s not the point—it could have gotten out of control.”

Jessica merely nodded, realizing that it was foolish to argue with Travis when he was in one of these moods. If he was determined to be present during her meeting with Don, then he would be there. She only hoped that he would not blow her cover. She could easily imagine him making a scene in a crowded restaurant if he didn't like the body language of the target, or if the man tried to put the moves on her prematurely.

“Whatever you say, Travis. Just remember that if Don sees you, it’s game over.”

“Oh, don’t worry, baby. Don won’t see me—any more than Robert Billings, or the men in Columbus and Dayton saw me. But I’m going to be there for you, in case you need me.”

I won’t need you, Travis
, she wanted to say.
Not for this.

She said nothing, though. Travis was in one of his moods.

But Travis had, in fact, been right about one thing: She had misjudged the situation with Mark Quinn, and it could have gotten out of hand. This time around, with this new guy, Don, there would be no careless mistakes.

It was Saturday, 6:49 p.m., and Dave was inside the Terrace View Restaurant. Alan and Maribel were both seated in Alan’s Explorer. The Explorer was not the most inconspicuous vehicle; but it was low-key enough in the gathering twilight and light rain.

Alan had selected a space near the back of the Terrace View’s crumbling, weed-infested parking lot. Behind the Terrace View was a barren field that would never be mistaken for a blessing of nature, as it was strewn with discarded tires, bottles, and other refuse.

“Nice place,” Maribel said. “Does anyone go here who isn’t a criminal?”

“Lots of people go to the Terrace View,” Alan said. “This fine establishment has been a fixture of Cincinnati since the Jimmy Carter administration, at least.”

“I think its better days ended with the Carter administration, too.”

The full name of the establishment was the Terrace View Restaurant and Hotel. Originally it had been a Holiday Inn; but a decade or so ago a private owner had purchased it, and the Terrace View had since changed hands several times.

At present it was owned by a man named Viktor Pudovkin. Viktor Pudovkin was in his early fifties, and he had left Russia shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union. Since coming to America he had prospered. Pudovkin owned not only the Terrace View, but two nearby convenience marts as well.

Alan knew this information offhand, because the Terrace View was well known to both the Cincinnati and Hamilton County law enforcement agencies as a place where illegal drug transactions sometimes took place. There had also been reports of low-end prostitution, which was closely tied to the drug commerce. It was an all too typical scenario: Female addicts, both young and old, performed cheap services in the Terrace View’s sixty-dollar-a-night rooms, which enabled them to keep a few dollars ahead of the payments extracted by their narcotics suppliers, who often doubled as pimps. 

Located along the I-71 corridor in a section of northern Cincinnati that was zoned for industrial use, the Terrace View was typical of the kind of hotels that were commonly turned to this purpose. The rooms were cheap, accessible from the outside, and the hotel was located in an anonymous part of town. There were no suburbs around here.

Whether Viktor Pudovkin profited in any way from the illegal activity had not yet been ascertained. From what Alan knew, the Russian emigrant and entrepreneur had ostensibly been cooperating with police. But that might be a cover.

Both Alan and Maribel immediately noticed the woman who was walking across the parking lot. There were several things about her that stood out.

First of all, she was dark-haired, slender, and (though the light was failing) looked to be in her early thirties. She didn't look exactly like any of the photos on the dating site profile attached to “Lilith”, of course; but those had been photos of a Czech model named Olga Jankovic.

Secondly, the woman had seemed to come from nowhere. So far as Alan or Maribel could see, she hadn’t stepped out of any of the cars in the Terrace View’s parking lot.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Maribel asked.

“I sure am,” Alan said. “Got to be Lilith.”

“That’s our girl, I think,” Maribel agreed.

As both of them expected, the woman made a steady path not for one of the hotel rooms, but for the Terrace View’s restaurant.

Dave sat at a lone table in the middle of the Terrace View restaurant’s main dining room. He was well aware that the restaurant, as well as the hotel, had seen better days. The green carpeting on the floor was worn, and the wood paneling on the surrounding walls was thirty years out of style. But the table was covered with a spotless white tablecloth, and the waitress who had brought Dave a glass of ice water and a menu had been friendly.

Dave pretended to look at the menu, his gaze occasionally wandering to the items immediately to his left atop the table: crackers, salt-and-pepper shakers, and a little rack of sugar and Sweet-N-Low packets.

He knew that this meeting would probably not be like his “date” with Lisa Cullen, which had ended up being oddly like a real date. By all indications, there was an extremely high probability that the woman who was due to show up any minute now was in fact Lilith.

To dispel his nervousness, Dave briefly allowed his mind to drift: Lisa Cullen had turned out to be a nice woman, hadn’t she? Moreover, she had seemed attracted to Dave. (Or at least she had been attracted to “Don”.)

Maybe he should call her when this was over. He would have to come clean about the background of their first meeting, though, and he would have to reveal that he wasn't really “Don”.

But that probably wouldn't be too much of a problem, would it? If Lisa could be attracted to Don the corporate computer guy, surely she could be attracted to Dave the state investigator.

He was completing this thought when he saw a slender, dark-haired woman enter the dining room. She made eye contact with Dave, and he was instantly sure of two things: First, this woman was indeed Lilith, the woman he had met on the dating site. Second, this woman was indeed
Lilith
, the woman who had been involved in the murders of at least three Ohio men.

Mere circumstantial evidence was sufficient to make Dave sure about the first item. His hunches mainly informed him in regard to the second.

Suddenly afraid that he would blow his first opportunity working undercover as an agent of the ODCI, Dave stood and gave Lilith his best smile. She was on the other side of the dining room, but she was clearly heading in his direction.

Then Lilith became distracted by something. After a brief moment’s hesitation, she whirled and walked hurriedly out of the dining room.

Deputies Young and Shelton of the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department were driving toward the Terrace View Restaurant and Hotel. Both deputies were quite familiar with the history of the Terrace View.

The dispatcher had told them that the owner of the business establishment, Viktor Pudovkin, had called the department only minutes ago. Pudovkin had observed a suspicious-looking man loitering in the parking lot. The individual was described as a white male in his late twenties or early thirties. He was also described as tall, and reportedly had long hair for a man.

The suspect (according to Pudovkin’s call) was hanging nervously around the parking lot, carrying a gym bag. He was pacing back and forth, leaning against the exterior wall of the hotel. This behavior suggested that he wasn't a paying guest of the hotel.

The Russian owner of the Terrace View expressed concern that the man might have drugs or illicitly earned cash in the gym bag, or possibly weapons of some kind.

“Viktor Pudovkin,” Deputy Shelton said. He switched on the overhead bar lights of the squad car, but not the siren. This wasn't an emergency; it might not even be a legitimate call.

“What do you think?” Young said. “Do you think Viktor is playing games with us, or do you think he really wants to clean that place up?”

This was a question that others in the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department had asked themselves of late. Pudovkin was aware that the city and the county would not hesitate to shut down a hotel that had become a chronic source of drug dealing and prostitution. The previous year, the local authorities had closed down a hotel in Norwood, an independent enclave within Cincinnati. The hotel had become so overrun with drug dealers and prostitutes that it was all but bereft of legitimate guests. Also, as chance would have it, that hotel had been owned by another Russian émigré.

Pudovkin had made two calls to the sheriff’s department in the past month, each time claiming that he had observed suspicious activity. Both times, the sheriff’s deputies had come up empty-handed. But Pudovkin had made his point.

“If there’s bad guys in my hotel, then it’s your job to arrest them,” Pudovkin had told the deputies dispatched to the Terrace View last time. “I’m not the police. That’s why I pay my taxes.”

“I don’t know,” Deputy Shelton said, as he turned into the parking lot of the Terrace View. “One thing is for sure: Viktor is trying to cover his ass. He doesn't want to go down like that other Ruskie hotel owner in Norwood.”

Travis knew that he might look suspicious, hanging out in the parking lot of the Terrace View. But he wouldn't have believed that he looked suspicious enough to provoke a call to the police.

After Travis had insisted on accompanying Jessica to her meeting tonight, and Jessica had relented, the two of them had debated about exactly how Travis should provide “protection”.

Travis had initially had the idea of sitting at another table in the restaurant, but Jessica had rejected that plan outright.

“Nothing stands out in a nice restaurant like a person eating alone, especially a single man. And are you going to tell me that you would be able to keep yourself from looking at us?”

“The guy wouldn't see me, Jess. I’m a lot smoother than you think.”

“Trust me, Travis: He’d see you.”

So instead they had agreed that Travis would loiter in the parking lot, cell phone at the ready. The Jeep would be parked offsite but nearby. That was really the only option that worked if they were to arrive together. If they parked at the hotel, they risked being seen together. And that really would ruin everything.

Travis had therefore parked the Jeep in the parking lot of a Big Lots. The store was within walking distance of the Terrace View—directly across a field.

“I’ll go over first,” he told Jessica. “You wait a few minutes, then you come, too. There’s a trail through the field. See it?” He handed her the key fob and stepped out of the Jeep. “I’ll be nearby, but you won’t see me.”

“Where will you be Travis?” she’d asked. “And what’s in that gym bag?”

“I’ll be nearby,” Travis repeated. “And don’t worry about the gym bag. It’s just a—prop.”

The gym bag had actually been a last-minute innovation on Travis’s part. Right before they’d left for Jessica’s “date”, he had pulled the gym bag from beneath their bed and filled it with a few miscellaneous items of clothing.

Travis had figured that the gym bag would make him look less suspicious. It was an item that a guest of the hotel might have. Lots of people used gym bags as luggage when they traveled.

But now, as he saw the spinning red and blue lights of a police car heading in his general direction, he decided that he must have been wrong. The gym bag, rather than enhancing his authenticity as a harmless hotel guest, had actually made him look more suspicious. A gym bag could contain travel items and clothing, sure; but it could also contain any number of illicit items.

As the cop car drew closer, Travis knew that he had only a few more seconds to make a decision. If the police hailed him, if they ordered him to stop, then he would have no choice but to comply. He could not run. If he ran, they would catch him. And given his criminal record, that alone would be sufficient to land him back in jail, even if the police never discovered his link with the killings of Robert Billings, Harold Markey, and Scott Green.

On the other hand, it was entirely possible that the presence of this police car had absolutely nothing to do with
his
presence. This was a hotel, after all; there were lots of people here. Hell, there were probably a lot of people here who were up to no good.

Be that as it may, though, Travis thought it unlikely that any of the Terrace View’s patrons were up to no good of the same magnitude that he and Jessica had orchestrated of late. He knew that he had no way of knowing if someone had spotted him as suspicious and called the police. But once he knew for sure, it might be too late—depending on the answer to that question.

Travis made his decision. He was standing beside one of the hotel’s first-floor breezeways. If he could make it through there, he would be able to make his escape—unless the police noticed him and gave chase. But he didn't think they could have seen him yet. There were multiple rows of cars between him and those flashing lights. Luckily, moreover, many of these vehicles were high-profiled SUVs. He had never been so thankful for the existence of those damned ‘tot yachts’, as Jessica sometimes called them in jest.  

Without making his movements too sudden or evasive, he stepped back into the breezeway. Once he was inside the breezeway, he ran. He would have to clear the premises of the hotel before the cop car rounded the building.

Then he thought of Jessica: She was inside the dining area with “Don” wasn't she? He wondered if Jessica would see the cop car and run, too.

Jessica saw the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department vehicle over Don’s shoulder, through the large picture window on the far side of the restaurant’s main dining room.

It might be nothing, really. Police cars were summoned to hotels all the time. Jessica knew as much from watching reality television. Sometimes they came to handle complaints about drunken guests who were partying too loudly, or reports of domestic violence. And they would probably be called to handle druggies and hookers, too.

The odds of the cop car having any connection to her meeting with Don were infinitesimally small. But—then she remembered Mark Quinn, who had known that her entire story was a complete concoction. Maybe Mark Quinn had called the police, after all.