Still, the incident in Tampa had frightened him, and it had put his mind to work. He must do what was necessary, if he were ever to get Mother back, to control her. He probably needed to cut his losses for a while, and he’d done just that. To keep the Tampa area cops on hold, he’d cut loose the dead girl who had been dangling off the aft side. With a body bobbing about in the water during their search, the cops would focus more on it and less on him.
They could send out all the radar equipment in the world against him in that fog, and with his ship’s built-in radar scrambler, he could just bounce signals right back at them. The authorities had only proven once again how inept and inadequate they truly were.
He’d heard news reports of how an FBI forensics expert had been put on his trail, how she was supposedly the best in the land; he’d seen the tabloids in supermarkets which claimed that in their frustration, authorities had turned to such nonsense as psychics and handwriting analysis to track him. If that was the best they could do…
The wind continued at his back even as he neared the northwest tip of Cuba off in the distance. Southward, a hundred miles south of Cuba to be exact, he would come into sight of the Caymans. He’d come through the roughest of the storm, which had moved northward as he had maneuvered along the backlash at its southeastern edge to turn into his now southwest course. And with the storm winds around him having abated, Warren switched on the two-diesel engines which powered the boat onward. He turned on the autopilot and finally had a moment’s time to relax. The odor of diesel wafted across the water, but due to a state-of-the-art air filtration system in the cabin below, the odor did not linger as in most sailing vessels.
He went below, relieved himself in the head, located a beer in the fridge, and although he wanted to lie down, rest, there was too much yet to do. He wished now that he’d kept the body he had forfeited during those first moments of decision after killing those two nosy FMP officers. It would have given him pleasure to pass the time with her body now. Still, he knew it had been wise to cut all his losses.
The speargun killings had been a rush. He hadn’t expected it, but it was true-a real rush. Maybe killing people in any way whatsoever was exciting, stimulating, fulfilling for someone like him, he now thought. The sight of the FMP officer’s blood on deck the entire day recalled to his mind the geyser spray of it at the moment the spear had opened a hole in the big man’s chest. Most of the blood had been washed off by rain, but the original blood loss had been tremendous; it had come spurting out across the Tau Cross. He had never cared for the sight of blood, especially his own; it had always made him nauseous, even a little finger cut, but the speargun killing had changed his mind in an instant. There was something extraordinary about punching a hole in a balloon and seeing the air explode, and so too with the human heart.
He was no fool; after a brief moment of lying on his back, and a bite to eat, he knew, he must scrub down the boat, erase every inch of blood and other evidence that might link him to murder. He seriously doubted that anyone could put him and his destination together, since no one had all the pieces. Still, there was that someone who could place him on the route he had chosen, there was at least one man who knew about his liking for the Cayman Islands-that old fool in Key West. But it seemed highly improbable that authorities would learn of his connection with the taxidermist.
He now planned to take all the materials he had collected to preserve the bodies of his victims for Mother’s reappearance and throw them into the sea. It would be difficult to do so, not only because of the physical labor-cleansing the ship of his secret identity, forever altering Tau’s haven and thereby the Night Crawler’s workplace-but because of the momentousness of the decision as well, asking Tau to wait, asking Mother to wait. But there was no hope for it otherwise. Common sense dictated that he find a new ship and a new killing ground.
He quickly got together a bucket filled with cleaning fluids and ammonia, carried this out on deck and scrubbed away any evidence that the FMP officers had ever stepped foot on his boat. Finishing this, he returned to autopilot check at the controls below. Seeing that his ship was on course, he then returned to the scrubbing, but this time he worked the interior cabin. He scrubbed the floor and the walls where stains from previous kills had remained as memory prompters for his fantasies. It was painful to see all his fondest memories disappear before him, vanish without a trace, but his sense of self-preservation was strong, so he scrubbed until his hands became raw, until every stain was invisible to the naked eye.
He planned, once he reached the Caymans, to purchase some marine paint and paint over all these areas as well. As it was, all he had was a partially used, small can of black stenciling paint, and he planned to use it to paint over the name of the boat and rename her, which he’d begun doing last night only moments before hearing the siren and seeing the approaching strobe light of the Florida Marine Patrol boat.
After a brief respite from the intense work, he got a little sun and sea topside, lying out on deck. He seldom partook of the sun, but he wanted to appear darker-skinned, to accentuate the beard he’d begun to grow. Returning to the controls below, Warren next checked his course against the maps he used. He had another job to do which couldn’t wait for tomorrow. He set the ship on her own once more, the two diesels pushing the craft over the glassy surface of the Caribbean easily and smoothly now. Then he went about collecting up all the items aboard that could implicate him as the Night Crawler. He tossed trinkets taken from his victims into a single box. He added to the box as he moved about the cabin, collecting all the skinning knives and loose rope and embalming fluids he’d collected over the months and months since he’d left England. Going now up the stairwell deckside, he went directly to starboard, where he dumped boxful after boxful of incriminating evidence, the sea gobbling it all up.
When he reached the Caymans, Warren planned to sell the boat or trade it in, get a new one, something less of an attention-getter. Then he might more easily fade into the background and out of the light. The light was his enemy, and he normally slept during the day, ill at ease with the brutal sun here, his eyes sometimes so swollen as to be shut, so irritated were they by the wind and sea air. But he needed the tan as part of his new disguise, so he worked shirtless in shorts on deck, looking over what needed doing next.
Over the side went the recent additions to his chemical collection, what the taxidermist shop and the funeral home in Naples he’d broken into had profited him, including a huge bottle of what was labeled’ ‘Perma Glow,’’ fluid which was pumped into the dead to preserve the body for the wake, organs intact. He had been mixing chemicals, trying to find the exact right solution, like an alchemist in search of gold. His chemical gold would have to wait until better days. There would come a time; there would be other opportunities.