The killer had another idea for the property. After settling on eighteen hundred dollars a month, he handed the owner a check for the deposit and the first month’s rent.
With the woman slung across his shoulders and his gym bag hanging from one hand, the killer trudges up the stairs. By the time he reaches the top, his legs are burning. He drops both the woman and the bag to the hardwood floor and leans against the wooden railing to catch his breath.
A central hallway runs the length of the second floor. Along the hall are five rooms: two bedrooms and a bathroom on the left, and two slightly larger bedrooms on the right. An open space surrounds the top of the stairs. Near the stairs is the kitchenette.
Leaving his bag behind, the killer grabs the woman’s ankles and drags her down the hallway. He pulls her into the first bedroom on the right.
The walls are completely covered with old mattresses, nailed into place to provide crude but effective soundproofing. Across the room, a set of French doors look out over Mazant Street. The glass panes have been coated with thick black paint.
On the right side of the room sits a single wooden chair. Directly opposite the chair, along the left-hand wall, stands a tripod with a video camera mounted to it. There is nothing else in the room.
The woman moans as the killer lifts her into the chair. She is waking up sooner than he expected. Next time he must remember to use more ether. He rushes from the room to the top of the stairwell and retrieves his gym bag. Back in the room, he sets the bag on the floor and pulls out a coil of black parachute cord and a KA-BAR combat knife.
His captive begins to move. The killer hurries. He cuts the tape from around her ankles, then uses lengths of parachute cord to tie her legs to the front of the chair.
Next, he slices through the tape binding her wrists. Although her hands are free, she can barely move them because he has wound a long strip of tape around her chest and upper arms, cinching her elbows to her sides. The killer ties her wrists to the chair arms. He then uses a long piece of cord to lash her upper body to the back of the chair.
She leans forward and he hears her retch inside the pillowcase. Nausea and vomiting are common side effects of ether. She will drown in her own vomit if he doesn’t remove the gag from her mouth. He rips the tape from around her neck and pulls the pillowcase off her head. Her eyes are open but unfocused. Using his fingernails, he peels a corner of the tape away from her mouth, then yanks off the rest. He steps back as she throws up again.
When she finishes retching, her head slumps forward onto her chest.
The killer stares at her.
A few minutes later, she shakes her head, trying to clear the effects of the ether. But she is only partially conscious, not yet aware of the horror that awaits her. The killer’s eyes dart around the room, at the mattresses nailed to the walls, at the window panes painted black. He has created his own type of artist’s studio, a private killing room.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Saturday, August 4, 12:15 AM
The woman is awake now. The killer stands across the room, peering at her through the viewfinder of his new video camera. The memory card can record up to six hours of video that can be uploaded directly to his laptop computer. And from there to the Internet.
“Who are you?” she says, her speech slurred from the effects of the ether. She is still bound to the chair a dozen feet away.
The killer makes an adjustment to the camera and brings her features into sharper focus. She has dark eyes and long black hair.
“Why am I here?” she mumbles.
The only light in the blacked-out room comes from a bare twenty-five-watt bulb screwed into the ceiling fixture.
The killer flicks on the video camera’s built-in floodlight.
The woman squints against its harshness. “What do you want?” she says.
“I want you to shut up,” he says.
“Where am I?” she shouts in a hoarse voice.
The ether is wearing off. She is getting stronger. Still, the killer ignores her. He adjusts the zoom until the bottom of the screen lines up with a chalk line he drew on the floor in front of the chair.
“I’m a police officer,” she says. “If you don’t let me go-”
“You’re not a police officer,” he says as he tinkers with the white-balance adjustment.
“Yes, I am. You can call police headquarters and confirm it. The number is-”
“You’re a civilian employee at the crime lab. You’re separated from your husband, and you are now living with your police paramour. In addition to the sin of fornication, you are also guilty of abandoning your two children.”
“Listen to me.” A pleading quality has crept into her voice. “Nothing’s been done that can’t be undone. If you let me go, we can forget this ever happened. I swear I won’t report it.”
The killer doesn’t answer.
She starts to cry. “Let me go, please. I won’t tell anybody. I swear, I swear, I swear. Just please let me go.”
“I can’t,” he says. Then he presses the record button.
She notices the red LED light on the front of the camera. “What are you doing?”
His gym bag is on the floor behind her, in the narrow space between the chair and the wall. That way she will see him approach her empty-handed and perhaps think he is only going to molest her.
Rolled up and stuffed into the killer’s back pocket is a black ski mask. The Zodiac designed and made his own hood, a cowl really, with his special symbol-a circle with a cross through it-stitched into a front flap that hung down nearly to his waist, but the killer lacks sewing skills. A black ski mask, like those worn by terrorists in Iraq, was the best he could do.
He pulls the mask from his pocket and slips it over his head, adjusting it on his face so he can see through the eyeholes.
The sight of him donning the black mask unnerves the woman. “What are you doing?” she whimpers.
He walks toward her and into the camera’s view. Nothing about his clothes can reveal his identity. He bought his khaki pants and long-sleeve flannel shirt at a thrift store and paid cash.
The woman bucks in the chair, trying to overturn it. He can hear her breath coming in short, ragged gasps. “What… what are you going to do?”
He steps behind the chair and presses both hands down on her shoulders to steady her. He faces the camera. She struggles against his grip. “Be quiet,” he tells her. “I have something to say.”
She sits still.
He clears his throat, then addresses the camera.
“I am the Lamb of God. I am here to do his bidding. My faith will not be shaken, nor can my will be lessened. New Orleans is a city on the brink of the abyss. It cannot be saved except through fire and blood. Recently, you have seen both. Tonight you will see more. I will not stop until this city is purged of its sin. This harlot’s-”
The woman tries to twist her upper body away from his grip. With his left hand he squeezes her neck until she stops. He hopes the microphone picks up her frenzied breathing.
He continues.
“This harlot’s blood is on your hands, and more will follow, much more, until you give up your wicked ways and surrender to the Lord thy God.”
He bends toward his gym bag. The woman struggles to turn around, but he grabs her hair with his left hand and holds her still. When he stands back up, he clutches a two-foot-long Khyber knife in his right hand.
Looking straight into the electronic eye of his video camera, the killer says, “What I do, I do in his name. Elohim, Yahweh, Elah be praised.”
He jerks the woman’s head over the back of the chair and slashes her throat with the eighteen-inch blade.
Through the holes in his mask, he sees her eyes roll up toward his in horror as the life rushes out of them. He dumps the chair over sideways and presses his knee down on her body. He hacks at her neck with a sawing motion and feels the blade carve through muscle, tendon, and soft tissue. Then it grinds to a stop at the spine. He shifts his weight onto his shoulders and forces the knife edge down.