Black Lightning (32 page)

CHAPTER 45

T
he plans the Butcher began making after reading the story in that morning’s
Herald
had grown, until he’d finally shaped a perfect structure for his next killing.

It would be a man—he’d definitely made up his mind on that. And he knew where he could find the perfect prey: there were plenty of them over on Broadway, shopping in the QFC, or hanging around the Broadway Market, or just sitting drinking coffee at one of the small espresso bars scattered along both sides of the street. Even better, they were always watching each other, playing their endless mating game. He even knew how they did it, because he’d watched them operate practically every time he’d gone over there. One would be walking toward another on the street, and often, after the two men passed, one would turn around to look at the other. If the second man had turned around, too, they might strike up a conversation and, after a few minutes, head off together. Sometimes one of them only glanced back and smiled, but kept walking. When that happened, the other would pause, watching. If the first one glanced back again, or stopped to look in a window, the watcher would follow him.

Twice, the Butcher had trailed behind to see what would happen, always making sure no one knew what he was doing, so he knew the pattern of pursuit and surrender well.

Once or twice he himself had been followed, but both times he’d gone into the magazine store, or Bartell’s drugstore, and browsed through the shelves until his admirer finally got the message that he just wasn’t interested and disappeared.

So that was what he would do today.

When he went out to buy the photo album, he would watch the men on the sidewalk, and when he found the right one, he would follow him. The person he chose would not be too big—certainly no taller than himself—and he’d try to select someone who didn’t look too strong, either. But it would be easy—even easier than picking up Shawnelle Davis had been. And when they got to the guy’s apartment and his quarry made a pass at him, he would act.

The Butcher’s reputation would grow
.

Just thinking about it excited him. With sudden inspiration, he thought maybe he’d do to the guy he followed home what he’d done to Joyce Cottrell the night before last. That thought excited him even more. He was starting to feel a tingling in his crotch when the phone jangled, the unexpected sound startling him so badly that he almost dropped the Coke he’d been drinking.

“Is that you?” his mother demanded when he picked up the phone on the third ring, her voice carrying an inculpatory tone that made his stomach churn. Could she already know what he’d done? But how could she? Then she spoke again, and his fears eased somewhat. “I called over to Boeing’s,” she said. “They told me you weren’t there again today. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Ma,” the man replied, the words already out of his mouth before he remembered he was supposed to be sick. “I mean, I was feeling kinda sick earlier, but I’m better now.”

“You weren’t home when I called earlier,” his mother accused. “Did you go to the doctor?”

“No, Ma,” he replied, feeling the way he had when he was ten years old and his mother had accused him of faking an illness so he wouldn’t have to go to school, in spite of the fact that his temperature had been 102. “I went to the QFC and bought some soup. Chunky Chicken.”

“Well, don’t ask me to come and fix it for you,” his mother told him. “Did you see the paper this morning?”

The man’s heart began to pound. “What about it?”

“That woman. The one that got killed up by you the other night. Did you know her?”

The Butcher’s chest tightened as if a band of metal had been wound around it. “Why would I have known her?” he asked, his voice catching despite his effort to keep it steady.

“She worked across the street from you, didn’t she? And she lived up the street from you, didn’t she?”

His head started throbbing. “I didn’t know her, Ma. And I didn’t do anything to her! I swear I didn’t! Why don’t you just leave me alone?” A sob closing his throat, he slammed the receiver down, the bravado he’d felt only a few minutes before evaporating. How could she have found out? Was she going to tell the police?

Of course she would—she didn’t love him! She’d never loved him. The only one she’d ever loved was his brother!

He paced back and forth in the apartment, trying to figure out what to do. When the phone rang a second time, he froze where he was, across the room from the loudly jangling instrument. He broke into a sweat—an icy sweat that made him feel as if a freezing slime were covering his body. His legs threatened to give out on him.

Should he answer the phone, or just let it keep ringing?

What if it was his mother again?

Worse, what if it was the police? What if she’d called them, and now they were calling him? But they wouldn’t, would they? If they wanted him, they’d just come and arrest him, wouldn’t they?

So if it wasn’t the police, it
had
to be his mother—no one else ever called him!

His legs still threatening to buckle beneath him, he went to the phone and picked it up. “Hello?”

No answer.

“Hello?”

There was a soft click as whoever had called him hung up.

His terror rose another notch. His first instinct was to get out of his apartment, to run to his car, get in, and drive away. Away from Capitol Hill, away from the police, away from his mother, away from Seattle. But where? There was nowhere for him to run to.

Besides, the police were probably already outside, surrounding the building, waiting for him to come out. He went to the window and peered out, his heart pounding so hard he could hear it thumping in his ears.

The street looked normal.

But that’s the way they would do it, wasn’t it? They wouldn’t be right out in plain sight, would they? Their cars would be parked around the corner where he couldn’t see them, and the cops themselves would be hiding.

Breathing hard, he turned away from the window. He had to think—had to figure out what to do! What could his mother have told them?

He began pacing the apartment again, the room shrinking with each step. He felt the walls closing in on him, and the air seemed stuffy.

He sat down in his chair—an old La-Z-Boy with stained velour upholstery that he’d found in a used furniture store ten years ago. He tried to calm himself.

He went back over everything he’d done, first with Shawnelle Davis, then with Joyce Cottrell. He’d been careful—as careful as he knew how. But what if he’d left fingerprints?

He’d been cautious in Joyce Cottrell’s house—he hadn’t touched anything. Or had he? Oh, God, he couldn’t remember! But he
had
to remember.

His skin felt itchy now, and he couldn’t sit still any longer. Abandoning the chair, he went back to the window and gazed out.

There was a man across the street! A man who was looking up at him! Staring right at him, as if he knew him!

As the stranger started across the street toward his building, he backed away from the window.

The band he’d felt around his chest when his mother had called seized him again, tighter than ever. He could feel cold rivulets of sweat running down his back and trickling from his armpits down his sides.

The nausea was back in his belly, and now his guts were aching as he felt the first pangs of diarrhea grip his intestines.

Hunched against the pain, he had started for the bathroom when he heard the knock at the door. He froze.

Images flashed through his mind, remembered images from things he’d seen on television.

Would they break his door down?

Would they shoot him through it?

A strangled whimper escaped his lips as he imagined a .45 slug ripping through the door, then slashing through his flesh, tearing his guts open. He staggered as the pain of the imagined bullet ripped at his mind, and he lurched toward the door. Better to open it willingly than to have them break in on him.

Pulling the door open, he found himself looking at the man he’d seen gazing up at him from across the street only moments before. A pleasant enough face, with even features.

Not the face of a cop.

His lips worked; he tried to speak and failed.

The stranger was looking at him, his eyes boring into him, and suddenly he had the feeling that he did know this man after all, that he had, indeed, seen him somewhere before.…

Moments passed in deadly silence as the Butcher stared at the stranger who had come to his door. Then he knew. It was Anne Jeffers’s husband! He had seen him the day before yesterday, when he’d been casing Joyce Cottrell’s house. But Jeffers hadn’t seen him—he was sure of it!

Then something in Jeffers’s face changed, and the man gasped, for he suddenly recognized the eyes he was looking into.

They were his brother’s eyes!

But that was crazy—Jeffers didn’t look anything like his brother! And besides, his brother was dead!

Then Glen Jeffers spoke, and the man’s terror peaked. “Hello, Little Man,” he heard his brother’s voice say, using the name he’d hated all his life. “You’ve been bad, Little Man, and I’ve come to punish you.”

His mind reeled, then cracked. It was impossible! This man couldn’t possibly be his brother—he was the wrong age, and he had the wrong face, and he wasn’t even the same size.

But it
was
his brother!

The voice was his brother’s, and the coldness of the eyes was his brother’s.

And the words were definitely his brother’s.

Rory Kraven, cowering with terror, backed away from the impossible presence of his older brother.

Richard Kraven—the Experimenter—stepped into his younger brother’s shabby apartment and silently closed the door behind him.

CHAPTER 46

E
dna Kraven let the telephone ring twenty times before she hung up. When he was in one of his moods, Rory sometimes wouldn’t answer until he realized she simply wasn’t going to give up. But this was the fifth time she’d called him, and she was starting to worry. After all, he
had
said he was sick when she’d talked to him earlier, and although he hadn’t sounded that bad (and had always been the kind of boy who malingered—not like Richard at all!) she supposed it was just possible he’d taken a turn for the worse.

Either that or he really wasn’t at home, in which case he’d have to answer not only to the nice people at Boeing’s who were decent enough to give him steady work, but to her as well. If she trekked all the way up to Capitol Hill only to find that he was out gallivanting somewhere, she would have a lot to say to him. Still, she had always been a good mother, Edna Kraven told herself, no matter what people might have said behind her back, so what choice did she really have? Rory wasn’t much, but he was all she had left.

She left her house at one o’clock, climbed off the bus in front of Group Health at a little after two, and trudged the block to Rory’s apartment building, her annoyance with her younger son growing with every step she took. Why couldn’t he have been more like Richard, who had never caused her a day of grief in his entire life?

A martyr, that’s what Richard was. Just a Christian martyr!

Edna had prayed about Richard many times, and over and over the same message came to her: Richard had been an innocent lamb, unjustly led to slaughter. Only his own mother had believed in him. Well, someday they’d find out. After all, weren’t those terrible murders happening again right now? Just a week or so ago there had been that woman over on Boylston. Not that Edna felt very sorry for her; after all, she
was
a whore. But then just the night before last there had been that poor woman who lived up the street from Rory. And both of them killed just the way those others had been, the ones they blamed poor Richard for. If only they hadn’t killed Richard, they’d know the truth now, and he’d be able to come home to his mother where he belonged. But it was too late. Sighing heavily under the burden of her sorrows, Edna Kraven pulled the front door of Rory’s building open, went in, and climbed the steep flight of stairs to the second floor.

Pausing on the landing to catch her breath, she peered with distaste around the dimly lit corridor. The paint on the walls was peeling and the strip of threadbare carpet that ran down the cramped hallway was curling back at the edges. What had she done to deserve a son who would live in a place like this? She’d told him before that it wasn’t a fit place for her to visit; today she would put her foot down. If he didn’t move, he needn’t expect her to visit him again.

She plodded down the hall to Rory’s door, lifted her hand to knock, then realized that the door wasn’t quite closed. Just like Rory to go out somewhere and not even bother to lock his door—anyone could rob him blind! Pushing the door wider, Edna stepped inside.

“Rory?”

There was no answer, but Edna suddenly felt uneasy. The place just didn’t
feel
empty. Scowling, she moved toward the open bathroom door, but before she’d gone more than a step or two, she stopped short.

The walls—the grubby beige walls she’d never been able to get Rory to paint—were streaked with red.

Bright red.

Bloodred.

“Rory?” Edna Kraven said again, but this time the name of her younger son was uttered softly, almost inaudibly, as if she already understood what had happened here. “Rory?” she repeated. “It’s Mommy, Rory, come to take care of you.”

As if guided by an unseen force, Edna edged toward the bathroom door, terrified of what she might find there, but unable to keep herself from looking. When she was finally able to see exactly what lay in the bathtub, Edna Kraven’s stomach heaved. She lurched into the bathroom, bent over, and threw up into the sink. Only when her stomach had completely emptied itself was she finally able to creep back out to the single room in which her younger son had died and call the police.