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Authors: Kevin O'Brien

BOOK: The Last Victim
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Birds were chirping and only the first light of dawn appeared on the horizon when Preston parked the car near a deserted Madison Park beach. With apartment buildings on both sides of the shoreline strip, and a quaint row of shops a stone’s throw away, the beach wasn’t exactly ideal for skinny-dipping and making love—even at this predawn hour. Some bushes camouflaged them at this end of the shore. Farther down, there was a beach house, a couple of lifeguard towers, and park benches staggered along the water’s edge, spaced out every few feet. Preston imagined people would be coming here soon for their morning run, or for a cup of coffee on one of the benches, or maybe—like Kurt Cobain—some morning meditation.
Preston felt cold—and terribly self-conscious—as he began to undress. He was still in his white briefs when he tested the water with his foot. Freezing.
He looked over at Amber, squirming out of her panties. For a moment, she stood before him naked, her long blond hair fluttering in the wind. Her lithe body was so white against the dark water. She swiveled around, and let out a shriek as she scurried into the surf. Preston stared at the dragon tattoo above her perfect ass.
He shucked down his briefs, then ran in after her. The water was like ice, but he didn’t care.
Amber wrapped her wet, cold, slippery arms around him. She was laughing and shivering. He felt her bare breasts pressing against his chest. Her nipples were so hard. He kissed her deeply.
With a squeal, Amber pulled away and splashed him. Then she swam out toward deeper water. Preston swam after her. But she splashed him again. He got water in his eyes and stopped for a moment. Standing on his tiptoes, he kept his head above water as he rubbed his eyes. He could hear her giggling and catching her breath.
When Preston focused on her again, Amber was dunking under the surface and swimming the length of the beach. He realized that if they were going to have sex, she planned to make him work for it. Once again, he started after her. She was a fast swimmer, with a good lead on him. “Come and get me!” she called, then dove below the surface again.
Preston was in over his head and had to tread water. Suddenly, he felt something brush against his leg. It felt slick. He wasn’t sure if it was a fish or a piece of seaweed or what, but it gave him the creeps.
Preston shuddered. He quickly swam toward the shore—until he was standing in shallow water, up to his chest. Then he glanced around to see where Amber had gone. He no longer heard her laughing and splashing. He didn’t see anything breaking the water’s slightly rippling surface.
He felt a sickly pang in his gut. Preston told himself that Amber was screwing around with him. He glanced over to where they’d undressed. In the distance, he could see the piles of clothes near the shoreline. He turned and looked out at the deep water again. Nothing.
Preston tread closer to the shore. The cold air swept over his wet, naked body, and his teeth started chattering. He gazed over at the opposite side of the beach from where they’d shed their clothes. In the darkness—and the distance—he hadn’t noticed anyone there earlier. But now Preston saw someone sitting on one of the park benches.
“Amber?” he yelled. The water was just below his waist.
Suddenly, something squirmed behind him in the water. Before he had a chance to turn around, he felt it grab his ass. Preston let out a howl, then swiveled around.
Amber sprang up from under the water. She was laughing.
Preston felt as if his heart was about to explode in his chest. But he managed to laugh too. He grabbed her and pulled her toward him.
With a finger, Amber traced a line from his chest down his lean torso. She drew a little circle around his belly button, gently tugging at the hair there. Amber grinned at him, but then her eyes shifted away—to something past his shoulder. “Who’s that?” she asked, frowning. “Is she staring at us?”
Preston glanced back at the person on the park bench. He moved a bit closer. He could see now, it was a woman. She hadn’t budged an inch—not even when some birds came and perched on the bench with her. She seemed to be sleeping. Her legs were spread apart in an awkward, sort of boneless way. Her green wraparound dress was bunched up to her thighs, and a huge dark stain ran down the front of it.
“Who the hell is that?” Amber repeated. Covering her breasts, she crept closer to the shore—toward the sleeping woman. “Oh my God,” she whispered.
Shivering, Preston covered himself up as well. He stared at the woman slumped on the bench. Had she been in the water? Her face was shiny, and her short, platinum-blond hair was matted down on one side.
Amber let out a shriek that must have woken up half the residents of the apartment building nearby. The birds flew away. One grazed the woman’s head, but she didn’t move at all.
Several lights went on in the building—including an outside spotlight. It illuminated the ripples on the surface of the lake.
Now Preston could see the gun in the woman’s hand. Now Preston realized the woman’s face and hair weren’t dowsed with water.
It was blood.
Sunlight sliced through the blinds in his studio loft. He’d been up all night, and had lost track of the time. That often happened when he was painting.
He favored classical music while working on his art. Wagner was on the stereo, cranked up to
Twilight of the Gods, Funeral March
. The orchestration was rousing. He felt goose bumps covering his near-naked body.
He wore only a pair of snug black boxer-briefs as he put the finishing touches on his latest masterpiece. His lean, chiseled body was flecked with several different-colored paint smudges. It was almost as if he’d become one with the canvas.
A tracklight from above illuminated the painting. On either side of the easel stood a pair of tall, cathedral-type candle-holders he’d bought in Paris. The candles were almost burned down to stubs. It was his own fault they burned so fast. Every once in a while, he’d take one of those tapers out of its ornate holder, then tip it over his chest. The hot wax splattering on his skin gave him a delicious little jolt of pain that kept him going.
He was exhausted, having been up the last thirty-plus hours. He wasn’t sure how long ago they’d left Olivia Rankin on that park bench by Lake Washington. But he could still smell her flowery perfume on his skin—along with the oil paint and his sweat. The combination of scents was arousing; it smelled of sex.
His drive from Seattle to Portland had taken three hours. He’d arrived home at dawn, then immediately shed his clothes and gone to work on his masterpiece. He wasn’t going to bed until he finished.
The painting was of Olivia, sitting on that park bench by the shoreline—just as they’d left her.
In his one and only art show—given in a Portland café nine years ago—a critic commented that his work was “derivative of Hopper with its vivid colors, heavy shadows, and melancholia.” He didn’t sell anything at that exhibition, and he didn’t have another art show. But he didn’t change his style either.
Olivia Rankin’s “death scene” was indeed full of intense colors, shadows, and pain. And it was almost finished.
To his right, he had a cork bulletin board propped on an easel. It was full of location photos he’d taken last week: the beach at Madison Park, the beach house and park bench. Working from these “location shots,” he’d completed the background and the setting—right down to the
DO NOT FEED THE WATER FOWL
sign in the far right of the painting—a couple of days ago. All that remained was filling in Olivia. He’d done preliminary sketches from pictures he’d taken of her while she was out shopping—and again when she ate lunch in the park. She’d been an oblivious subject. Those photographs and his preliminary sketches were also tacked to the bulletin board—along with three snapshots he’d stolen from her photo album a few nights ago.
He stepped back and admired his work. He’d captured Olivia’s blank, numb expression as she sat there with a bullet in her brain. He was proud of himself for that little gleam of moonlight reflecting off the gun in her hand. He used the same method—adding just a few slivers of white—to make the blood look wet.
He’d decided to call the piece
Olivia in the Moonlight
.
Absently, he ran his hand across his chest—over the sweat and the dried flecks of candle wax and paint. His fingers inched down his stomach, then beneath the elastic waistband of his under shorts.
The telephone rang.
Letting out a groan, he put down his paintbrush and started across the room. His erection was nearly poking out of his underpants.
He passed a wall displaying several of his other masterpieces. There was a painting of a woman floating facedown in a pool; a vertigo-inducing picture of a man falling off a building rooftop, a businessman sitting at his desk with his throat slit; a naked woman lying in a tub with her wrist slashed open; and several other “postmortem portraits.” Some of the subjects in these paintings appeared to have died accidentally or committed suicide; but all of them had been murdered. He’d killed them all for money—and for the sake of his art.
He grabbed the phone on the fourth ring. “Yes?”
“Did you get any sleep yet?” his associate asked. “Or have you been painting all morning?”
“I’m just finishing this one,” he answered coolly. “What do you want?”
“We have another job—for the same client.”
“How soon does it have to be done?” he asked. “I need time to prepare, and I won’t be rushed.”
His associate let out an awkward chuckle. “Relax, you’ll have time. The client likes the way you work.”
He said nothing. Of course the client liked his work. He was an artist, and they were commissioning him to create another masterpiece. To him, each one was special. Each murder, each painting.
“Call me later and we’ll set up a meeting,” he said finally. “I can’t talk right now. I’m painting.”
“God, you’re a quirky, kinky son of a bitch.” His associate let out another uncomfortable laugh. “You and your
artistic temperament
.”
The artist just smiled and gently hung up the phone.
A
CORRIGAN FOR OREGON
sticker was plastered across the back bumper of a minivan on the shoulder of Interstate 5 near Longview, Washington. The vehicle’s left rear tire was flat.
Alongside the van, a pretty woman with auburn hair knelt on a
CORRIGAN FOR OREGON
cardboard banner while she changed the tire. She didn’t want to dirty her sleeveless Versace “little black dress.” So far, she was successful in her efforts. Except for her hands, there wasn’t a smudge on her.
Bridget Corrigan didn’t have the time to wait for Triple-A to show up. She was thirty-eight years old, and had changed a few flats in her time. She’d gotten past the worst part—unscrewing the damn near impossible-to-budge lug nuts. With the minivan jacked up on one side, she removed the deflated tire.
It was almost one o’clock on a sultry Indian summer afternoon. Cars and trucks on the interstate whooshed by at seventy miles an hour.
“Ms. Corrigan is running about a half hour late today,” Bridget’s assistant, Shelley, was saying into her cellular phone. She stood on the gravel area off the road’s shoulder, a few feet behind her boss. Shelley was a petite woman in her sixties with wiry gray hair and a cute, pixyish face that defied her age. She had to shout over the traffic noise. “Yes, I’m sorry. I know it’s inconvenient, but Ms. Corrigan was held up at the Children’s Hospital this morning.”
Bridget set the spare tire in place and started screwing on the lug nuts. “What were you giving them with the Children’s Hospital excuse?” she asked, once Shelley clicked off the line. “That was two mornings ago. Why not just tell them the truth—that I have a flat?”
“Because they never would have believed me,” Shelley said, consulting her notebook. “Car trouble is the oldest and worst excuse in the book. Besides, who’s going to begrudge you changing around your schedule to accommodate some sick kids?”
Working the lug nut wrench, Bridget threw Shelley a shrewd grin. “You’re the one who should be in politics, you big liar.”
“You’d lie too if you had to deal with that broom-riding witch of a chairwoman I just had on the horn. But she shut the hell up as soon as I mentioned the Children’s Hospital.” Shelley dialed another number on the cell phone, and her voice took on a sudden, perky, professional air. “Hello, this is Shelley Bochner, assistant to Bridget Corrigan. Is Ms. Vogel in? Yes, thank you, I’ll hold.”
The flat tire was taking an estimated twenty-five-minute bite out of their itinerary. While Bridget manipulated the jack and lowered the minivan, Shelley made three more calls reshuffling their afternoon appointments. Bridget picked up the
CORRIGAN FOR OREGON
banner on which she’d been kneeling. There were indents on the thick cardboard, and some dirt smudges on the picture of Bridget’s twin brother, Brad.
Bradley Corrigan was running for the state Senate against the ultrarich, ultra-self-serving Jim Foley. So far, it was a very tight race.
In the last eight weeks, Bridget had become vital to her brother’s campaign. She’d been all over the state, canvassing for Corrigan.
Bridget was baffled—and somewhat amused—by her sudden status as a Very Important Person in Oregon. Until recently, she’d quietly gone about her business: married fifteen years to an attorney, Gerry Hilliard; mother to two terrific boys, David, thirteen, and Eric, eight; and a teacher (part-time) of Spanish at a girls’ private high school. She led a fairly ordinary, predictable life. The spotlight had always belonged to her twin brother, the rising star in state politics. That was Brad’s domain, not hers.
Yet now, Bridget Corrigan was profiled and quoted in newspapers. At least a couple of times a week lately, the local TV news showed her on the campaign trail for her brother. Reporters wanted her opinions on everything from global warming to the crisis in the Mideast to the latest trends in fall fashions. Suddenly, she mattered.
This afternoon, Bridget was scheduled to talk at an elementary school, a high school, and then at a “Garden Tea” for a women’s club. All of these commitments were in Astoria, Oregon. At Bridget’s request, Shelley had set up the appearances a couple of days ago—and reshuffled some others. Bridget had given no explanation for suddenly changing her itinerary, but she needed an excuse to be near Longview, Washington, today. She was attending a function there that had nothing to do with her brother’s campaign.
“I’m putting you to work here,” Bridget called to her assistant—over the traffic noise. She was standing by the deflated tire on the roadside. “Manual labor this time. Help me put this lousy flat in the back.”
“Another call just beeped in,” Shelley replied. “Saved by the bell.” Then she spoke into the phone: “Corrigan-for-Oregon campaign, this is Bridget Corrigan’s line, Shelley Bochner speaking . . . Oh, hello! I’m peachy, thanks . . . Yes, she’s right here. Just a minute.” She handed the phone to Bridget. “It’s the future senator of Oregon.”
Bridget put a hand over her other ear to block out the highway noise as she spoke into the phone. “Hey, Brad. What’s up?”
“Oh, I’m stuck in traffic on the way back from speaking to some environmentalists in Eugene.”
“How did it go?” she asked.
“They loved me.”
“Huh,” Bridget said. “Then I gather you didn’t tell them your wife drives a gas-guzzling SUV and owns a mink coat.”
“No, that didn’t come up in the course of my visit, and screw you,” Brad replied. “What’s up with you, Brigg?”
“Meets, greets, talks, and photo ops. I have a grade school, a high school, and a women’s club—all in Astoria. But we’re running late. Shelley and I just had a flat on the interstate, believe it or not.”
“A flat? Did anyone stop to help?”
“Not a soul. I tried to get Shelley to take her top off—thinking someone might pull over—but she refused.” Bridget winked at her assistant, who just shook her head and laughed. Shelley was trying to lift up the discarded, deflated tire without getting her hands dirty, and she wasn’t having much luck. Bridget took the phone away from her ear for a moment. “That thing weighs a ton, Shell,” she called. “Wait just a sec, and we’ll lift it together.”
“So—where are you right now?” Brad asked.
“We’re just outside Astoria,” Bridget lied. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Shelly frowning at her. Bridget turned away. “Anyway, I think I just broke my record for changing a flat. I shouldn’t be gabbing here on the roadside. We need to motor. So—is the barbecue still on for Dad’s birthday tonight?”
“Yeah. Janice wants me to make sure you’re bringing your salad with the homemade croutons and sweet-and-sour dressing.”
“The salad’s a go,” Bridget answered. “And so am I. See you at six-thirty.”
“Knock’m dead in Astoria, Brigg. Love ya.”
“Love you too, Brad,” she said. Then Bridget clicked off the line. She handed the cell phone to Shelley, who gave her a dubious look.
“So—we’re just outside
Astoria
now?” she asked, sticking a thumb over her shoulder at a sign along the highway:
LONGVIEW EXIT—
1
MILE
. “I think you’re about sixty miles off.”
Bridget shrugged evasively. “Let’s get this tire in the back.”
Together, they lifted up the deflated, dirty tire and carried it toward the back of the minivan. “So what’s the story with this secret trip to Longview?” Shelley asked. “You know, you never explained to me why I had to change all your appointments for today. What’s the mystery?”
“It’s no mystery,” Bridget replied, a slight edge in her voice.
Shelley let out a grunt as they hoisted the tire into the minivan. “Well, you’re sure acting mysterious about it. Why did you tell your brother that we were in Astoria?”
Bridget wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, then shut the van’s rear door. “Let’s just file this under Kindly Butt Out. Okay?”
Shelley’s eyes narrowed at her for a moment; then she nodded. “Yes, ma’am,” she muttered, her voice almost drowned out by traffic noise. “You’re the boss.” She headed toward the passenger side of the minivan.
“I didn’t mean to snap at you, Shell. I—” Bridget bit her lip. A truck whooshed by. Shelley couldn’t hear her.
Bridget started for the driver’s side. Why didn’t she tell Shelley the purpose of this side trip to Longview? Hell, Shelley was headed there with her. She’d know in a few minutes what this was all about.
But she wouldn’t know the whole story. She wouldn’t know the real secret.
Before climbing into the car, Bridget glanced down at her dirty hands. She thought about Lady Macbeth:
Out Damn Spot.
Bridget opened the vehicle door. Shelley sat on the passenger side, wiping her hands with some Wet Ones they kept in the glove compartment for emergencies.
“I’m sorry, Shell,” Bridget said. “I’m a little tense today. I didn’t mean to—”
“Oh, shut up,” Shelley said, waving away her apology. “I love working with you, Bridget. Sometimes I’m just too damn nosey for my own good.” She offered Bridget the container of Wet Ones. “Here. Clean yourself up.”
Bridget paused before climbing behind the wheel. She plucked a damp tissue from the dispenser and began to work away at the grime on her hands.
As much as Bridget rubbed and rubbed, she had a feeling her hands would never be completely clean.
He had Bridget Corrigan in the telescopic sight of his bolt-action .35 Remington rifle. It was practically an antique. In fact, Charles Whitman, the University of Texas Tower sniper, used the same make of rifle back in 1966 to kill fifteen people and wound thirty more.
It was still perfect for a sharpshooting sniper. He’d killed before with it.
Through the telescopic sight, he watched Bridget Corrigan standing by the driver’s side of the minivan. She was wiping off her hands. She had no idea that the right side of her pretty face was caught in the crosshairs of his sight. With just the slightest adjustment—tilting the barrel down a mere half inch—he could shoot her in the chest. But then he wouldn’t be able to see the blood on that sleeveless black dress of hers. She should have been wearing white.
He’d found the perfect sniper’s nest: in back of a deserted, old Burgerville restaurant on a side road across the interstate from where Bridget Corrigan and her friend were parked. He hid behind some bushes along a chain-link fence. There in the shrubbery, he’d come upon a small opening that looked right down at her. The spot seemed made to order. Incredible luck. From this point, he could shoot both Bridget and her pal, then be on the road before the first car stopped to help them.
For a while, he’d thought his luck was working against him. Early this morning, before first light, he’d planted three nails under the rear tire of that minivan in Bridget Corrigan’s driveway.
He’d parked across the street and a couple of houses down the block from her gray cedar shaker with the white shutters. Through the telephoto lens of his camera, he’d watched Bridget Corrigan put her two brats on the school bus. She was dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans. She gave them each a hug, and mussed the little one’s mop of brown hair. Then she held up the bus for a few moments while she dashed back into the house and ran out again. She waved a baseball glove, which she tossed—with dead-on accuracy—to her older one, who was standing in the doorway of the school bus.
He imagined how devastating it would be for those two young boys if their mother was killed. He smiled at the thought. It made him feel so powerful. Perhaps he would spare them the sorrow of losing their mother. Perhaps the humane thing to do was kill them too. Kill the cat and drown the kittens.
An hour later, she emerged from the house in that sleeveless black number, looking damn sexy. And she didn’t even seem to be trying.
He followed her in the minivan to the Corrigan-for-Oregon campaign headquarters. All the while, he expected the tire to give out. It was one of his little quirks. He liked to see them vulnerable and helpless. Stranded. He’d pulled this trick before with some of his other subjects.
But the tire didn’t show any sign of deflating during the two and a half hours she was inside the campaign headquarters. Nor did it collapse after Bridget and her skinny little pal came out of the storefront office and climbed into the minivan. He followed them on the interstate for over an hour until—finally—the tire gave out. He watched the minivan rocking up and down on the mangled tire; then she pulled off the road. At last, he could see her helpless and stranded.
Not so. After he’d sped to the next exit and located this spot, he’d seen how she changed that flat tire—with the same quick, no-nonsense efficiency in which she’d retrieved her son’s baseball glove. No damsel in distress was she. He had to admire Bridget Corrigan a little bit. She might not be so easy to kill. But then, he liked a challenge.
From his sniper’s nest, he watched her finish cleaning her hands. Then she ducked inside the minivan. Pulling away from the scope of his .35 Remington, he observed with his naked eye as Bridget Corrigan’s minivan merged back onto the interstate. He lowered his rifle.
Just as well
, he thought. Yes, he could have shot and killed her any time within the last twenty minutes. There had been several opportunities. But this was just a little flirtation, a dry run, something to whet his appetite.

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