Alex Cross 02 - Kiss the Girls (40 page)

I believed that Casanova had met Rudolph sometime back around 1981. They had shared their forbidden secret: They liked to
kidnap, to rape, and, sometimes to torture, women. Somehow, they came up with the idea of keeping a harem of very special
women, women who were bright and fascinating enough to hold their interest. They never had anyone to share their secrets with
before. Then suddenly they had each other. I tried to imagine never having anyone to confide in—never once in your life—and
then finding someone to talk to when you are twenty-one or twenty-two years old.

The two of them had played their wicked games, gathered their harem of beauties in the Research Triangle area and throughout
the Southeast. My theory on twinning had been close to the truth. They enjoyed kidnapping and holding beautiful women captive.
They also
competed.
So much so, that Will Rudolph finally had to go off on his own for a while. To Los Angeles. He had become the Gentleman Caller
out there. He’d tried to make it on his own. Casanova, the more territorial of the two, continued to work in the South, but
they communicated. They shared stories. They
needed
to share. Sharing their exploits was part of the thrill for both of them. Rudolph eventually told stories to a reporter at
the
Los Angeles Times.
He tasted fame and notoriety, and he liked it. Not so Casanova. He was much more of a loner. He was the genius; the creative
one, I believed.

I thought I knew who he might be. I thought that I’d seen Casanova without his mask.

I kept drifting in and out of strange, private thoughts at the dizzying crime scene. I was burnt toast, but that didn’t matter
anymore; it hadn’t mattered for a while.

Casanova, the territorial killer, I was thinking. He was probably still in the area around Durham and Chapel Hill. He had
met Will Rudolph around the time of the golden couple murders. So far, he’d thought everything through with almost perfect
clarity. He had finally made a mistake during the shootout two days before. A small mistake, but that was all it took sometimes…
I
thought
I knew who Casanova might be. But I couldn’t share it with the FBI. I was their “loose cannon,” right? The “outsider” on
this case. So be it.

Kyle Craig and I watched the same distant spot in the high waving grass and honeysuckle, out where the digging was taking
place.
Mass graves,
I thought as I watched the horrific scene.
What a concept for the nineties.

A tall balding man stood up from his deep hole in the soft earth. He waved long arms high over his head, which was shiny with
sweat. “Bob Shaw here!” He called out his name in a loud, clear voice.

The digger’s name was the verbal signal that another woman’s body had been found. An entire corps of North Carolina medical
examiners was at the dreamlike, unbearably grisly scene. One of the MEs ran over to the digger in a strange, lopsided waddle
that would have made Kyle and me laugh under different circumstances. He gave Shaw a hand out of the grave.

The TV cameras at the scene moved in on Shaw, who was U.S. Army from Fort Bragg. An attractive woman reporter nearby received
a dab of makeup before she spoke into the lens of a camera.

“They’ve just found victim number twenty-three,” the reporter said with appropriate solemnity. “All the victims so far appear
to have been young women. The grisly murders—”

I turned away from the TV coverage and I had to sigh out loud.

I thought of children like my own Damon and Jannie, watching this spectacle in their homes. This was a world they were inheriting.
Human monsters roaming the earth, a majority of them in America and Europe. Why was that? Something in the water? In the high-fat
fast food? On Saturday morning TV?

“Go the hell home, Alex,” Kyle said to me. “It’s over now. You won’t catch him, I promise you.”

N
EVER SAY never. That’s one of my few mottos as a cop. My body was bathed in a cold sweat. My pulse was jumpy and irregular.
This was it, wasn’t it? I needed to believe that it was.

I waited in the hot, still darkness outside a small wood-shingled house in the Edgemont section of Durham. It was a typical
middle-class Southern neighborhood. Nice middle-class houses, American and Japanese cars in about equal numbers, mower-striped
lawns, familiar cooking smells. It was where Casanova had chosen to live for the past seven years.

I had spent the early part of that night at the offices of the
Herald Sun.
I had reread everything written in the newspaper about the unsolved murders of Roe Tierney and Tom Hutchinson. A name mentioned
in the
Herald Sun
helped put it together for me, confirmed my suspicions and fears, anyway. Hundreds of hours of investigating. Reading and
rereading Durham police briefs. Then, pay dirt on a single line of newsprint.

The name was in a story lost in the Durham newspaper’s middle pages. It appeared just once. I found it, anyway.

I had stared for a long time at the familiar name in the news article. I thought about something I’d noticed during the shootout
in Chapel Hill. I thought about the whole subject of “perfect crimes.” It all fit together for me now. Game, match, set, bingo.

Casanova had blinked just once. I had seen it with my own eyes, though. The name in the news article was verification. It
materially linked Will Rudolph and Casanova for the first time. It also explained to me how they had met, and
why
they had talked.

Casanova was sane and completely responsible for his actions. He had planned every step in cold blood. That was the most horrifying
and unusual thing about the long trail of crimes. He knew what he was doing. He was a slime who had
chosen
to abduct beautiful young students in their prime. He’d
chosen
to rape and murder again and again. He was obsessed with perfect young women, with
loving
them as he called it.

I conducted imaginary interview with Casanova as I waited outside his house in the car. I could see his face as clearly as
the numbers on the dashboard.

You don’t feel anything one way or the other, do you?

Oh, I do. I feel elation. I feel the most tremendous high when I take another lady. I feel varying levels of excitement, anticipation,
animal lust. I feel an incredible sense of freedom that most people will never feel.

But not guilt?

I could
see
him smirk as I sat in my car. I’d seen that smirk before, in fact. I knew who he was.

Nothing that would make me want to stop.

Was there any nurturing, any love given and received when you were a boy?

They tried. I wasn’t really a boy, though. I don’t remember acting or thinking like a boy.

I had begun to think like the monsters again. I was the dragon-slayer. I hated the responsibility. I also hated the part of
me that was becoming a monster. There was nothing I could do to stop it at this point.

I was outside Casanova’s house in Durham. Hammers of fear tapped lightly in my heart. I waited there for four nights.

No partner. No backup.

No problem whatsoever. I could be as patient as he was.

I was hunting now.

I
SUCKED in a harsh, deep breath and felt a little lightheaded. There he was!

Casanova was leaving the house.
I watched his face, watched his body language. He was confident, very sure of himself.

Detective Davey Sikes sauntered out to his car at a little past eleven on the fourth night. He was a powerful, man, athletic.
He wore jeans, a dark windbreaker, high-topped black sneakers. Sikes climbed into a ten-or twelve-year-old Toyota Cressida
he kept in the garage.

The sedan had to be his cruising car; his troller; his anonymous pickup vehicle. “Perfect crimes.” Davey Sikes definitely
had the know-how. He was a detective on the case, and
had been for over a dozen years.
He’d known the FBI would investigate every local policeman when they entered the case. He had been ready with his “perfect”
alibis. Sikes had even altered the date of a kidnapping to “prove” he was out of town when it happened.

I wondered if Sikes would dare to go after another woman now. Had he been out carefully stalking and hunting already? What
was he feeling now? What was he thinking right at this moment, I wondered, as I watched the dark Toyota back out of the driveway
in suburban Durham. Was he missing Rudolph? Would he continue their game, or maybe stop now? Could he stop the game?

I wanted him so badly. Sampson had said at the beginning that this case was too personal for me. He was right on. No case
had ever been more personal for me, not even close to this.

I tried to think the way he might. I tried to get into his rhythm. I suspected that he had already picked out a victim, even
if he didn’t dare take her yet. Would she be another smart, beautiful college student? Maybe he would change his pattern now.
I doubted it. He loved his life, his creation, too much.

I followed the human monster down dark, deserted streets in southwest Durham. Blood pumped loudly through my head. I couldn’t
hear much of anything else. I drove with my headlights off for as long as Davey Sikes stayed on the side streets. Maybe he
was just headed to the Circle K for cigarettes and beer.

I thought that I had finally figured out what had happened back in 1981, that I had probably solved the golden couple murder
which had shocked the university community here and in Chapel Hill. Will Rudolph had planned and committed the violent sex
murders while he was a student. He had “loved” Roe Tierney, but she was interested in football stars. Detective Davey Sikes
had met and questioned Rudolph during the subsequent police investigation.

At some point, he had begun to share his own dark, forbidden secret with the brilliant medical student. They had known about
each other. Felt it,
sensed it.
Both of them desperately wanted to share their secret need with someone. Suddenly, they had each other.
Twinning.

Now I had killed his only friend. Did Davey Sikes want to kill me for that? Did he know I was coming for him? What was he
thinking right at this moment? I didn’t just want to catch him, I needed to capture his thoughts.

Casanova turned onto Interstate 40 and headed south. He was traveling toward Garner and McCullers, according to bright white-on-green
road signs. There was relatively heavy traffic on the interstate, and I was able to follow him in a safe cluster with four
or five other cars. So far, so good. Detective against detective.

He got off at Exit 35, which was boldly marked for McCullers. He’d gone a little over thirty miles. It was approaching eleven-thirty
at night. The witching hour.

I was going to take him out tonight, no matter what. I had never done that before, not in all my time as a homicide detective
in Washington.

This time it
was
personal.

A
MILE from the exit ramp off 41, a Ford pickup truck swerved out of a hidden driveway. It was unexpected, but good luck for
me. The dull red truck fell in between Sikes and me, offering me some cover. Not much, but enough for a few more miles.

The Cressida finally pulled off the main road a couple of miles outside McCullers. Sikes parked in the crowded lot of a bar
called the Sports Page Pub. One more car that wasn’t likely to be noticed.

That was what had begun to give him away. It was why even Kyle Craig had been on my list of suspects. Casanova seemed to have
known every move the police would make
before they made it.
He had probably abducted some of the women by coming up to them as a police officer.
Detective Davey Sikes! He had gone into a professional shooting crouch that afternoon on the street in Chapel Hill.
I knew he was another cop.

When I searched through the newspaper articles on the golden couple murder, I had spotted his name. Sikes had been a young
cop on the original investigation team. He had interviewed a student named Will Rudolph back then, but he never mentioned
it to any of us, never let on that he had met Will Rudolph in 1981.

I passed by the Sports Page Pub, and pulled off the road as soon as I turned the next bend. I got out of the car and hurried
back toward the bar. I was in time to see Davey Sikes cross the highway on foot.

Casanova walked along the side of an intersecting side road with his hands thrust into his trouser pockets. He looked as if
he belonged in the small-town neighborhood.
Stun gun in one of those deep pockets, sport? Feeling the familiar, burning itch now? The thrill is back?

I followed Sikes into a pine-wooded lot, and he began to move quicker. He was fast for a big man. He could lose me now. Somebody’s
life would be at risk in the peaceful neighborhood. Another Scootchie Cross. Another Kate McTiernan. I remembered Kate’s words:
Drive a stake through his heart, Alex.

I slid the Glock nine millimeter out of my shoulder holster. Light. Efficient. Semiautomatic. Twelve deadly shots. My teeth
were gritted so tight they hurt. I clicked off the safety. I was ready to take Davey Sikes out.

I eyed the ominous shapes of overhanging pine branches as I moved along. An A-frame house was up ahead, set against the backdrop
of a full, pale yellow moon. I moved quickly across the soft floor of pine needles. I made no sound. I had his tempo and rhythm
down now.

I saw Casanova rapidly approaching the A-frame house, gaining speed. He knew his way.
He’d been here before, hadn’t he? He had been here to scope things out, to study the next victim, to get it just right.

I sprinted up closer to the house. Then I couldn’t see him. I’d lost him for a second. He might have slipped inside.

A single shimmering light had been left on in the house. My heart was going to explode if I didn’t blow him up first. My finger
was on the semiautomatic’s trigger.