The Christmas Killer (21 page)

Jake assumed there’d be signs of a struggle within a few feet of the door. Ford was a mature man. He’d been round the block and would not be physically intimidated. He would put up a fight for his life.

The apartment was blessedly free of Christmas paraphernalia – not unusual in the home of a middle-aged bachelor – but it was still awash in colour. Whites and lurid lashes of reds and yellows. Even the paintings on the walls followed the palette. They were brash moderns, cheap reproductions of Kandinsky splurges. One of the paintings was on the floor. It had a hole in its centre, as if someone had stepped through it. A bedside table was knocked over, a pile of mail and takeaway menus on the floor. A chair was lying in the kitchen area of the large open-plan room. The linoleum under the chair was sticky with congealed blood.

You got in somehow. You sneaked up on him, and you hit him. But he was a big man, a lot stronger than the women you killed. You’ve had it easy up to now. But you fought as well. And you subdued him. You improvised a weapon.

Jake looked around. What would make a good
weapon? The picture? No, far too light. Then he saw it – a marble statuette of Rodin’s
The Thinker
.

You grabbed the statue – that’s when the table fell over. He was coming at you after your first blow failed to knock him down. He turned and came at you. You pushed him back – that’s what knocked the painting off the wall. Then you hit him, and he fell right there.

You must have been out of breath. You must have been terrified, but there was no commotion in the building. No one heard. You were able to do your work.

Now Jake knew what to look for. He went over to the stereo – the volume knob was set quite high. Not so high that another resident would phone the police and complain, but high enough to drown out any sounds of a struggle inside the apartment. The stereo was off. He used his fingernail to press the
On
button, then
Eject
. Bruce Springsteen. That would do it.

‘We need to get forensics to dust the stereo.’

‘Check,’ said Mills from the door.

When he woke up, you had him secured to the kitchen chair.

Jake went over to the chair and bent. There was plenty of blood and two teeth. There was fabric on the chair, probably from the restraints the killer had used. They were building a case, but they still needed a suspect.

Ford had to know you, otherwise you would not have got past the door.

Trouble was, Chuck Ford knew a lot of people.

Within an hour of the initial report, the white van of the forensics team had arrived. Dr Ronnie Zatkin came herself.

‘I need everyone out so my team can do their job,’ she said. Like a no-nonsense schoolteacher she steered the uniformed cops from the apartment. Then the forensic photographer began his work, snapping picture after picture.

‘After he’s done, we’ll begin dusting for prints,’ she told Jake. ‘Then we can send in the team to collect blood and other samples. But it will be well into evening before you guys can have the room.’

‘Can you tell me anything now, Doctor?’ he asked.

‘We’ve had a quick look at the body. Too early to confirm it, but the cause of death is likely the same mysterious instrument,’ she said. ‘Now, can you leave the room and let us do our job?’

‘No problem,’ he said, walking past her to one of the doors off the main living room. It was a small study, lined with books. There were plenty of notebooks and scraps of paper, and an open laptop on a desk.

‘You can’t go in there,’ shouted Ronnie. ‘We won’t get to that room until tomorrow. You can go in then.’

‘I need to go through Ford’s computer now. He knew things about the case before we released them. We need to know what he knew, and we need to see if what he was working on made him a target of the killer.’

Ronnie sighed. ‘At least pull these on,’ she said, handing him a pair of latex gloves. ‘And give my team ten minutes with the keyboard before you begin.’

‘Deal.’

‘And don’t let anyone know I let you in.’

Ford’s chair was a bit high for Jake, but he wouldn’t be here too long. Disregarding Ronnie’s request, he was about to hit the power key but noticed it was already on.
Thank God
. So he just moved the mouse a bit, and the screen lit up.
Chuck was working when you arrived. Did you knock, and did he just let you in?

Jake quickly scanned the article Ford was working on. Mills read over his shoulder. There was nothing new in it – speculation about possible links between the three women, and an unnamed psychologist musing about whether the Christmas Killer might have killed before Marcia Lamb. The same thought had passed through Jake’s head.

He closed the article, and went to the file directory. Ford was a hoarder. Every word he had written for the last few years was still on the hard drive. There were thousands of articles. And the names on the files didn’t
give much clue as to what was in them. This could take months and, even then, might not show up anything.

Jake glanced at the door to see if Ronnie was looking in. When he was sure that she wasn’t he quickly typed ‘Christmas Killer’ into the
Search
box. About fifteen articles came up. He scanned them and concluded that Ford had no Deep Throat within the Littleton PD. His information just came from dogged working of the usual sources. And listening in to the police radio.

‘Try the victims,’ suggested Mills.

Jake typed ‘Marcia Lamb’ in the box. She didn’t appear until a week previously, when the killer began his killing spree. Next he tried ‘Candy Jones’, who appeared in an article two years back after being hauled before the courts on a hooking rap. She got a week of county time and a fine of $200.

But ‘Belinda Harper’ turned up in dozens of articles. Jake quickly ran through them. The first few seemed to relate to a charity dinner, a fund-raiser or a library or school committee so he dismissed the rest.

‘She was squeaky clean,’ he said.

Next he typed in the chief suspects. ‘Guy Makowski’ produced a handful of hits, mostly related to union activities at the steel mill. There was also a court case where he’d claimed compensation after an accident. Nothing else, and nothing to ring any alarm bells.

Then Jake typed in ‘Sonny Malone’.

‘This should be interesting,’ said Mills as the list of articles lit up the screen. There were plenty of references
to Malone, all relating to court proceedings, but none in the past few years; Malone had been off the streets in jail.

‘A big nothing,’ said Jake. ‘Might as well leave it to the techs.’

‘Try “Mitch Harper” before you quit,’ suggested Mills.

‘Why not?’

He typed in the name then hit the
Return
key. Mills sucked in his breath; they had struck the mother lode. The search box read,
Your search has shown 728 files
. That was far too many to wade through right now, with a forensics unit waiting to go through the whole apartment.

Jake was about to switch off the computer when one of the 728 files listed caught his eye. What stood out was that it was a folder rather than a document. Dated four years ago, it was simply labelled ‘Harper File’.

A whole folder on Mitch Harper. Was Ford following his campaign trail?

Jake opened the folder. It contained eight documents. One was named ‘Deposition of Witness A, Call Girl’. Another was ‘Deposition of Doctor Shawcross’. Others were tagged ‘Statement’ or ‘Account Of’. Obviously Ford had been collecting statements for a major article, and he had stored the information together. The final article was the one Jake decided to read first. Its title: ‘Harper Scandal’.

SEX SCANDAL OF GOVERNOR-IN-WAITING

by Charles Ford

Littleton councilman and Democratic high-flyer Mitch Harper is tonight battening down the hatches as his career flounders amidst allegations of a year-long relationship with a local prostitute.

The married politician, who had harbored ambitions for the state governorship, has been left reeling by the accusation that he slept with the high-class escort, as well as engaging in violent and deviant sexual practices.

The escort went public after being hospitalized by the popular young attorney. He allegedly assaulted her during a heated sex session at a hotel in the capital. Police were called during the incident.

This reporter has spoken to the woman in question, Leanne Schultz, who alleges that she began her affair with Councilman Harper last October, when he hired her and another escort and took them to an Indianapolis hotel. Councilman Harper was in the capital for a Democratic Party
fund-raiser. His wife, Belinda Harper, was not with him on that occasion.

‘He seemed nice,’ said Ms Schultz. ‘We began to see each other regularly, at first when he was on business in Indianapolis. But soon he was sending a car to pick me up for nights and weekends away. I traveled to Washington with him just after Christmas.’

It is believed that Belinda Harper was completely unaware of her husband’s meetings with Ms Schultz. She has given no comment, but a close friend told this reporter that Mrs Harper is ‘shocked and heartbroken.’

According to Ms Schultz, it was not long before Councilman Harper began to display a darker side to his character. As the affair progressed, the councilman’s demands became more extreme. He experimented in bondage and sado-masochistic practices. Ms Schultz began to fear for her safety.

‘He liked to give it rough. The sex became more and more brutal; I felt as if I was being raped. I tried to break it off, but he threatened that he would tip off the police about me if I ever stopped seeing him.’

Things came to a head on a night two weeks ago, when Councilman Harper was in Plainfield for a conference, where he was to deliver the keynote address. Ms Schultz went to his room after the event.

‘It began as normal, but I soon knew this was going to be one of the brutal sessions,’ she said. ‘He had a belt, and he wanted to whip me. I said no. I tried to leave the hotel room,
but he stopped me. I began to scream, and he became physically aggressive.’

Ms Schultz suffered a broken nose and bruised ribs in the assault. Other guests at the hotel heard the disturbance and phoned the police, who took Ms Schultz to Plainfield Private Hospital. She was released after treatment, but decided not to press charges. However, she is understood to be considering bringing a civil action against Councilman Harper, who refused a request for comment.

Councilman Harper was first elected to the city council in Littleton six years ago, and was returned with an increased majority two years ago. He has been spoken of as a candidate for higher office, but this latest scandal appears to have curtailed that ambition.

A senior source within the Democratic Party said, ‘Mitch is a great guy, but if you can’t keep it in your trousers, maybe politics isn’t the game for you. It will take him a long time to come back from this.’