He stood beside the barn as fire engulfed the ancient farmhouse, watching as flames twisted like demons in the night. Staring into the blaze, he thought he saw figures stumbling through the inferno, but he couldn’t be sure. Later, his face set in a convincing mix of terror and shock, he ran to a neighboring farm.
The following day he was sent to live with his adoptive grandparents in Rochester. Unusually heavy rains uncovered Paula’s decomposed body the following spring. No suspects were ever brought to light.
Three years later, much to the relief of his grandparents, he turned eighteen and joined the US Navy. On his aptitude exams he demonstrated an unusual ability in mathematics, mentally manipulating large integers and odd fractions almost instantaneously. Subsequently he was sent to the Navy’s electronic technician school in Great Lakes, Illinois. After graduating, he completed a four-year enlistment in the fleet, with numerous stays in foreign ports that provided ample opportunities for him to explore his secret diversion. He considered this an experimental period, a learning phase during which he honed his skills. Through careful planning and meticulous attention to detail, he made few mistakes.
Upon leaving the service, he gained employment in San Francisco, a city rife with possibility. Working as a clerk for a large brokerage firm on the floor of the Pacific Stock Exchange, he realized he had found his medium as his facility with numbers proved advantageous. Within a year he moved up to the position of floor broker, placing trades for institutional customers. Later he established a private account and began accumulating a nest egg. In time, he leased a seat on the Pacific Exchange and started trading for himself.
He spent the next seven years on the floor as an options trader-watching, learning, awaiting his chance. Each day he entered the Mills Building carrying his lunch in a paper sack, a badge displaying his name and trading number pinned to his clearing-firm jacket, his pockets crammed with pens, trading tickets, and option sheets for the day. Monday through Friday he prowled the pits shouting himself hoarse, immersed in a milieu that was exhilarating, brutish, and eminently profitable. But weekends were his own.
Having learned from his sojourn in the Navy, he avoided taking his pleasures within the city. Instead, he cruised the freeways north of town, searching malls, truck stops, and various teen hangouts. His hunting vehicle was a late model panel-van with a bed atop a sizable storage lockbox in the rear. The box contained a variety of chumming drugs-pot, coke, Valium, Quaaludes-along with fake police credentials, rope, handcuffs, shovels, tarps, and plastic trash bags. The box also held an assortment of knives and other toys with which to experiment, not to mention being handy for transporting victims to safe disposal sites.
As time went on he traveled farther afield, extending his range to Portland and Seattle. Although he enjoyed driving, the transit time shortened the hours remaining for his weekend pleasures, and he finally hit upon the idea of leaving his van in a self-service storage garage near the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. A short flight from San Francisco, a day or two of hunting, and back to work on Monday. Simple.
He preyed on hitchhikers, runaways, and prostitutes, choosing his victims from the nearly invisible underbelly of society. He always concealed the bodies-wrapped in plastic bags and deposited in Dumpsters, weighted with rocks and submerged in lakes or rivers, or covered with brush and left in illegal trash sites throughout the countryside. Some corpses were found eventually, but usually not until the elements had reduced them to little more than skeletons, forcing investigators to expend considerable effort simply trying to identify the remains. During this period he amassed a staggering number of kills: One hundred and forty-seven in the Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver areas alone; fifty-three in San Diego when he later moved and changed his hunting grounds. And it had been easy. Occasionally he used fake police ID, but usually all it took to get his victims into the van was a smile and the promise of a ride to the next town.
In addition to tape recordings and photos, he routinely took something from each of his unwilling partners. Something unique, something to remind him. He also kept a scrapbook of newspaper and magazine clippings, but it was a disappointingly incomplete record. Though concealment of his activities had always seemed prudent, it increasingly bothered him to live in obscurity. Of course, his survival depended upon it. Nevertheless, he occasionally wished those around him could know the full scope of his accomplishments.
A nationally televised “Manhunt Telethon” hosted by an actor-Patrick something-had initially whetted his appetite. Following that broadcast he’d struggled to suppress his longing for publicity, realizing the danger. Yet despite his efforts, the need for notoriety had slowly become overwhelming. And at last, in a blinding flash of realization, he understood his destiny.
It was time to share.
Carns glanced at his watch, surprised to see he had been in the house far longer than planned. Reluctantly, he shoved the pilfered leotard into his pocket. After one last look around the bedroom, he hurried down the stairs, appeasing himself with the thought that before long he would be back.
19
By Friday, although border checkpoints from Tijuana to Nogales had been placed on alert, Mexican authorities still hadn’t located Alonzo Domingos. Also disappointing, lab comparisons of the two crime scenes finally came back, proving nearly useless. The candles and rope from both sites appeared identical, but none of the unknown fingerprints matched. Surveillance of the scenes had been fruitless, the video of the Larsons’ funeral revealed no suspicious strangers, and despite initial optimism, the forensic odontologist had been unable to fabricate meaningful casts of the killer’s teeth. Interviews with the realtors and clients on Graysha’s list were unproductive as well. On a positive note, a followup microscopic examination demonstrated a correlating angle of shear on both pairs of severed eyelids, indicating that the cuts had been made by a similar, or possibly the same, instrument.
Not much, but something.
During this period I made little headway myself, spending most of my time resifting through records and grudgingly accepting my share of burgeoning but useless hotline leads. By week’s end the routine had worn thin. To make matters worse, I had drawn Saturday duty-along with half of the task force members. The rest were slated to work Sunday.
I had just finished typing another followup supplemental to keep Snead happy when Barrello stopped by, perching his considerable bulk on the corner of my desk. “Making any progress?” he asked.
“A little,” I answered. “I’ve improved my skills at filling out worthless forms and running down bullshit leads.”
“At least you’re still here,” he chuckled. “It might interest you to know that some of the guys started a pool on how long you’d last. More than a few are surprised you’ve made it this far. I had you down for checking out yesterday.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“I’m not disappointed. The way things are shaping up, a little entertainment around here is welcome.”
“I’m not quitting, if that’s what you think.”
“That’s not the way I see it happening, either. Lemme ask you something, Kane. How do you figure to keep butting heads with Snead and get away with it?”
“I can handle Snead.”
“Sure you can.”
“So what are you doing your day off?” I asked, changing the subject.
Barrello shrugged. “My brother-in-law skippers a scuba dive boat out of San Pedro. Nancy and I are going out for the day.”