Kill Me Once (28 page)

CK whistled appreciatively. ‘Sounds like a real ladies’ man you’ve got there.’

‘He’s neutered, CK. Doesn’t have much interest in females any more, I’m afraid.’

He winced. ‘Ouch. Tough break, but better him than me, I suppose.’

Ten minutes of easy conversation later they drove up to the guard shack on the east end of campus and CK flashed his badge before wheeling the car in. He manoeuvred through a few mostly deserted streets before coming to a stop outside an old red-brick dormitory building just as a light snow began to fall. Emergency medical technicians were loading rubber body bags into the backs of three different ambulances. No fewer than fifteen cruisers lit up the night sky with their blue-and-red flashers, casting weird dancing shadows on the facades of the surrounding buildings. It was time to get serious.

CK turned in his seat to face Dana. ‘This is it,’ he said. ‘They cancelled classes for next week. Called all the students up and told them their Thanksgiving vacations had just been extended. That means we’ve pretty much got the place to ourselves.’

‘Fantastic.’ At least that was something.

They got out of the car and CK led her through the police line and up a metal staircase on the outside of the building.

He opened a heavy outer steel door on the second floor that segued into a long narrow hallway. They stopped in front of Room 232. More yellow police tape was stretched across the threshold. At least a dozen crime-scene technicians were processing the room inside.

‘I’ll just wait outside for you while you go in and take a look around,’ CK said.

‘Thanks.’

Dana ducked under the police tape and into the room, taking a quick inventory as a noisy fluorescent light bathed the room in a pale yellow. What it illuminated took her breath away.

Dark splotches of maroon covered the carpet in three distinct areas. The spatters of blood on the surrounding furniture and walls made it look as if someone had taken a brush with bright red paint dripping from its bristles and wildly flung it in random directions from the centre of the room.

High-velocity spatter again, Dana noticed. Still, it didn’t take a world-class forensics expert to see that a terrific bloodbath had taken place here.

‘Sweet Jesus,’ she breathed. It was worse than she’d expected.
Much
worse, actually. She felt a swell of anger. Was there nothing he wasn’t prepared to do? And for what?

A man wearing full protective gear approached and asked, ‘Special Agent Whitestone?’

Dana nodded.

The man handed her a clear Ziploc bag with a student-identification card inside.

‘This was under the bed between the mattress and the latticework of the supporting springs,’ he said. ‘Thought you’d probably want to see it.’

Dana took the bag and looked down at it. The card inside showed the smiling face of a delicately pretty, extremely young-looking Asian girl. The name on the card was Ahn Howser, the murder victim who’d been found – throat slashed, skull crushed and parking ticket hammered into her chest – lying right next to the bed.

And that was when everything became clear in Dana’s brain. All the nagging little thoughts in the back of her mind that had been bothering her since she’d first started investigating the copycat murders finally made perfect sense to her.

She felt nauseous as she left the room and found CK on the metal staircase outside, smoking a cigarette in the cold night air. He took a long, final drag on his Camel and flipped the butt over the railing as she stepped out onto the landing. ‘Any luck?’ he asked. ‘You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.’

‘I think I just might have,’ Dana said. ‘I’ll tell you about it in the car.’

On the ride back to headquarters she filled him in on the discovery of Ahn Howser’s ID card.

‘What do you think it means?’ CK asked when she’d finished. ‘Why was her ID card under the bed?’

Dana took a deep breath. ‘How long have you lived in Chicago, CK? What do you know about Richard Speck?’

The Chicago cop frowned, deepening the already impressive network of wrinkles lacing his forehead. ‘Been here about three years,’ he said. ‘Transferred up from Tennessee. I’m the original redneck Greek. Anyway, as far as Richard Speck goes, the only thing I know about him is what they told me in the briefing. That he killed a bunch of nurses in a boarding house sometime back in the 1960s. Why do you ask?’

Dana cracked a window to let some fresh air into the car. Cold winter air through her coat sleeves shot goose bumps shivering up her arms. ‘Richard Speck was eventually convicted based on the testimony of a nurse who was in that boarding house that night – a young Filipina woman by the name of Corazon Amurao,’ she said. ‘Amurao managed to slide under a bunk bed and hide from him there while he killed the others. Apparently Speck forgot about her before he left. In all the confusion he must’ve simply lost count.’

The Chicago cop knitted his thick eyebrows. ‘What the hell does that have to do with anything?’

Speaking more rapidly now, afraid that if she slowed down even for an instant she’d lose the courage of her convictions, Dana continued. ‘If Trent Bollinger really
is
our guy, then we’ve got a hell of a lot bigger problem on our hands than I initially thought,’ she said. ‘He’s not just a simple copycat. He’s doing more than that. He’s recreating every single aspect of the crimes, right down to the positioning of the victims. I think he
ordered
the Asian girl under the bed. In fact, I’m almost sure of it. Somehow, as horrible as it must have been, Ahn Howser maintained the presence of mind to leave us a clue.’

‘Why would he order her under the bed?’ CK asked. ‘It doesn’t make any sense.’

Dana held up the Ziploc bag with the identification card inside. ‘But it
does
make sense,’ she said. ‘It makes all the sense in the world, at least to him. She was under the bed but she wasn’t forgotten this time. So if Bollinger really
is
our guy he’s not just copying the crimes, he’s practically
photocopying
the goddamn things. The only people who would know the kinds of details he knows, and make this kind of link between these specific serial killers, are students who studied under Crawford Bell.’

‘Who’s Crawford Bell?’

Dana shook her head and quickly filled CK in on her former partner’s background. She paused to cement the idea in her mind while her brain raced to come up with an alternative explanation. There weren’t any. Not a single one. But
who
?

‘There are five main subjects of Crawford’s introductory class for students at the FBI Training Academy,’ she said. ‘Richard Ramirez, Dennis Rader, Richard Speck, David Berkowitz and John Wayne Gacy. I honestly can’t believe I’m just remembering this now. It’s what’s been bugging the shit out of me all this time. Anyway, Ramirez, Rader and Speck have all been recreated now. The parking ticket hammered into Ahn Howser’s chest means David Berkowitz is probably next. I think we’re dealing with a former FBI agent here.’

CK narrowed his dark brown eyes. ‘Or a
current
one,’ he said. ‘Hell, maybe it’s Crawford Bell himself,’ he joked.

Dana’s ears rang at the sound of his words. She wanted to dismiss the idea outright. CK had been joking after all, but suddenly a nagging doubt started to work its way into her mind. Now that she thought about it, was it such a wild idea? Crawford had failed to come up with a profile. He’d been behaving oddly recently. Maybe, after a lifetime immersed in the bloodiest murders America had ever seen, his tumour had pushed him over the edge, into the dark. He was the only one who knew her parents’ case inside out, she’d told him details no one else could possibly know, details that weren’t even in the files. Details this killer seemed to know. He had taught, written articles, even a book about the notorious serial killers
this
killer seemed to be copying. Was it a coincidence? Or had the sickness in his brain – the sickness his bosses didn’t even
know
about – twisted his mind that crucial step
too
far? Even Crawford would admit he was obsessed by those killers; had he become so obsessed that he’d decided to recreate their crime scenes? To prove he was somehow better than the best? Or was it a grisly homage of some sort? Had studying them so closely for so long turned him into a monster too? Or had he always been a monster, just biding his time …?

Dana shook herself. He was her friend, her mentor, he cared about her, and he was dying. He couldn’t be the killer, could he? She’d have to pull files on every student who’d ever attended his course – it had to be one of them.

‘It can’t be Crawford,’ she said, even as the terrifying doubt remained. He’d taught her everything she knew; he couldn’t be using that against her now, surely? ‘It can’t be him. At least, not physically. He can’t be at two places at the same time, and I’ve been in constant contact with him the entire time.’

‘I was only joking,’ CK said when he registered the look on her face. ‘You think he’s directing someone? You think he’s directing Trent Bollinger?’

Dana closed her eyes. ‘I just don’t know.’ Surely she had finally gone mad. Nothing made sense any more.

CK scrunched up his boxy face. ‘Well, let’s get out of here and go see what Bollinger’s got to say about all this. Let’s go see how much
he
knows about the history of serial killers and the details of their crimes.’

Dana reached out a hand and lightly touched CK’s muscular forearm. At least CK didn’t think she’d lost her mind. Not yet, anyway. ‘Thanks, CK. I really needed that.’

In the unnatural green light of the Toyota’s dashboard panel, she thought she saw the Chicago cop’s craggy face suffuse with colour.

‘Any time. Now let’s go nail Trent Bollinger to a cross already.’

Dana smiled thinly at him. ‘Best offer I’ve had all week.’

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Trent Matthew Bollinger was seated on a metal folding chair with his back against the wall in the cramped space of Interview Room Three at downtown Chicago Police Headquarters.

He had the massive muscular build of an experienced weightlifter, and since the bloody clothes he’d been wearing earlier that night were off being tested at the lab he was sitting there now in the bright orange jumpsuit that the city of Chicago had so generously loaned him. The jumpsuit strained hard against his chest and shoulders like an overstuffed sausage skin threatening to split at the seams in a microwave turned up full blast.

Dana and CK watched from behind a two-way mirror as Bollinger took a drag on a Marlboro Menthol Light despite the handcuffs hampering the free movement of his wrists. He inhaled deeply on the cigarette and leaned his head back, releasing a long, smooth stream of greyish-blue smoke into the air. The smoke swirled around the room in roiling patterns for several moments before finally settling into a general haze three feet above his head.

Bollinger’s eyes were badly bloodshot, but Dana wasn’t at all surprised to see this. After all, jail didn’t exactly offer the four-star ambience of the Radisson.

It wasn’t even the Holiday Inn.

Tired or not, though, Bollinger’s puffy eyes did little to hide his extreme good looks. He was at least twenty years older than Liza Alloway but you wouldn’t have known it just by looking at him.

His longish brown hair had obviously been finger-combed recently but still managed to stick up in several directions in an oddly endearing manner, making him look a lot more like an oversized little boy than a deranged killer who’d brutally murdered three college girls just a few hours before, stopping just long enough to chop off all the fingers on his ex-girlfriend’s right hand before he left.

‘Doesn’t look like much of a killer to me,’ CK said after a moment. ‘More like George Clooney’s twin brother. Liza Alloway must’ve had one hell of a personality.’

‘What makes you say that?’

The Chicago cop looked embarrassed. ‘Well …’

‘Hey, not every girl can look like Cindy Crawford,’ Dana said. ‘Besides, some serial killers don’t look the part. Just look at Ted Bundy. Who would’ve thought a handsome devil like that was such a monster underneath it all?’

‘Good point. So you ready for this or what?’

Dana took a deep breath. ‘Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess. Wish me luck.’

‘Go get him, tiger.’

Dana stepped into the hall and motioned to the desk sergeant, who nodded in acknowledgement before pressing a button on the control panel hidden beneath his desk. A loud buzzing sound accompanied the electronic click of the disengaging lock as Dana stepped inside the interview room. She cleared her throat loudly when Bollinger didn’t acknowledge her presence immediately. The entire space stank of cigarettes.

When Bollinger finally looked up, he did so only briefly before lowering his haggard brown eyes once again and releasing a disgusted sigh. Trails of smoke issued from his mouth and nostrils when he spoke.

‘Who the fuck are you? Some kind of psychologist or something like that?’
‘

‘Something like that.’ Was he really a cold-blooded killer – on his own or controlled by a criminal mastermind? He didn’t look the part, but as she’d said to CK you couldn’t always judge a killer by his appearance. She’d learned that practically at Crawford’s knee. But she didn’t want to think about Crawford now.

Bollinger looked up and gave her the once-over. ‘Look, lady, like I’ve already told these guys a million goddamn times, I’m not copping to no murder rap. I didn’t kill Liza or her stupid little friends, so if you think I’m just gonna sign my life away for the first nice piece of ass they send in here, you can just think again. Ain’t gonna happen.’

Dana took a step forward and held her hands up with her palms facing him in a placating manner. ‘Whoa. Slow down there a minute. Let’s not get off on the wrong foot here.’

She removed the FBI badge from the back pocket of her blue jeans and slid it across the table to him. ‘My name is Special Agent Dana Whitestone. You can call me Dana if you want. I’m going to call you Trent, so it’s only fair I extend the same courtesy to you.’
Keep it nice and polite
.