Mortal Crimes: 7 Novels of Suspense (137 page)

“He got another one early yesterday morning.”

Robbi sat up straight, her pulse accelerating.

Jake motioned for Avondale to join them. He started to rise. “Can I get you something?”

“No, no thanks, I’m okay.” The detective lowered himself into a chair gingerly, like an old man. “We set a trap for him at your place, Miss Paxton. Five armed cops, a K-9, and the … the decoy. This maniac—he came crashing through like Godzilla mowing down a Japanese village. Struck down everyone in his path, grabbed the decoy, and … off he went into the night.”

Robbi took Jake’s hand.

“He got away?” Jake asked.

“Yeah. One … dead, two injured, not counting the dog.”

“The decoy?”

He sighed loudly. “Dead.”

“Oh, God,” Robbi whispered.

“He killed the decoy—Roberta’s look-alike,” Jake said; “so he had to think he killed Roberta, right?”

Avondale nodded solemnly. “Miss Paxton, you sure you saw nothing? It happened around four in the morning, yesterday.”

She paused, looking to Jake for help. He shrugged helplessly. “I do remember a dream, but not about him. It had something to do with a storm, a tornado, and … and a dead boy.”

Avondale stared at her. Then he sighed and stood. “More bad news. Carl Masser’s pickup was found at the Truckee-Tahoe airport. Airport security figured it’d been parked in the lot for at least six days. CSI is going over it now with a fine-tooth comb.”

Jake and Robbi exchanged looks again. A heaviness hung over her, muggy, oppressive, like the air just before a thunderstorm.

________

In a parking lot at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Avondale parked where he could see the traffic on Lake Shore Drive. If Paxton and Reynolds’s tried to take off to hide elsewhere, there was a good chance he’d know it.

They were both suspicious and wary.

He realized the whole fucking thing had been handled badly. Now, after losing two of their own, the department had finally formed a task force. Not one centimeter of the Paxton house or the vacant house, where the grisly remains of Officer Howe had been discovered, would be overlooked for clues by the forensic team. Each piece of broken glass was being analyzed for fingerprints, each fiber, hair, or particle large enough to be collected was on its way to the crime lab. Yet the only sure thing they had was Roberta Paxton with her mainline to the killer. How long before she’d realize the killer was still after her?

He had lied about the decoy. He’d kept the sex of the dead officer a secret from them.
No contact with the killer,
she’d said.
Just this crazy dream about a boy.

Christ
.

The department, deciding it was too risky to use a woman officer as a decoy, had picked effeminate, five- foot-eight Frank Howe. Only a selected few knew that the bludgeoned nude body found in the vacant house, covered with women’s clothing, had been savagely mutilated. Castrated.

In a roundabout way, Roberta Paxton had dreamed about the incident. A tornado—
the killer?
And the death of a boy—
Frank?
Odd that she would perceive it in such an unorthodox way.

Odd? Shit, it was downright creepy.

________

Roberta stood on the deck, facing the lake. Jake hoisted himself up on the railing, then pulled Robbi in between his legs. She wrapped her arms around his waist.

“I’m scared,” she said.

“If you want to move on, just say the word.” Jake gently lifted a long strand of her hair that had caught on her eyelashes and brushed it back.

“I’m so tired.”

“We’ll stay the night, then.”

“Jake, do you think Carl found Maggie’s killer? Or that the killer found Carl?”

“I don’t know, hon.”

Roberta covered Jake’s hand. She felt a raised ridge on his palm. She turned his hand over and gingerly ran her finger over the scar. “What happened here?”

“Someone I once loved cut me.”

“Tell me,” she said quietly.

Jake absently rubbed the scar as he told Roberta about meeting Susan Calla and the chaotic relationship that followed. Then: “After nearly two years of being subjected to her psychosis, I begged her to get counseling. She refused. Out of desperation I threatened to have her committed. It was nothing more than an idle threat, but I hoped it would push her in the right direction. In a blind rage she attacked me with a boning knife.”

“What happened to her?”

Jake swallowed, rubbed hard at his palm. “She killed herself… used the same knife. She bled…” His words trailed off.

She kissed him, light, tender.

They held each other, said nothing for the longest time.

Then, gazing into her eyes, Jake said softly, “I love you.”

“Jake…”

“So much it hurts.”

“That’s good.” She embraced him tightly. “I hate to love alone.”

________

Avondale crossed the street to a pay phone. Time to check in with his partner.

Clark came on the line. “We got fingerprints, all kinds of fingerprints. We got blood, two different sources, so one specimen probably belongs to the perp.”

“Yeah, makes sense. The bullet wound from the Lerner killing. As far as we know, he never had it medically treated,” Avondale said. An involuntary shiver seized him. “Jesus, this guy’s something. He’s no longer being cautious. He must want this Paxton woman pretty bad.”

“Where are you?” Clark asked.

“Incline. I just talked to Paxton and the doctor.”

“She have anything to add?”

“Yeah, only she didn’t know it. She had no contact with this guy in the usual psychic way. But she dreamed about a tornado and a dead
boy.”

After a long pause, Clark said, “Scary shit. We’re checking with hospitals in at least six states.”

“Hospitals?”

“Mental hospitals. With those seizures, our guy could be certified.”

The news did nothing to lighten Avondale’s dark spirit. A mental case. The worst kind to deal with.

“I’m going to hang around here a little longer in case she tries to run. I’ll check back with you in a couple of hours.”

Three hours later Avondale again crossed the street and made a call to his partner. An excited Clark got on the line. “Eureka, we made him!”

“No shit?” Avondale said, his own voice high and excited. “Give it to me.”

“Joseph Eckker,” Clark said. “We’re still waiting for the DNA results, but the fingerprints paid off. No aliases. Thirty-five. Felon. Four years ago he scaled the fence at the Lompoc Federal Penitentiary.”

“Escaped?” Avondale said incredulously, patting his empty breast pocket. Right now he’d kill for a cigarette. “That’s fucking maximum security.”

“He had another con cut themselves out, then took a walk on a foggy night. The other one got caught right away. Eckker had a habit of going on the lam. Five other times from various prisons and correctional institutions. I’m looking at a picture of him right now. Came over the fax. Big dude. And not real pretty.”

“Any relatives?”

“Father unknown. Mother murdered by a boyfriend or a John when he was just a kid. After her death he was raised by grandparents on a farm in northern California.”

“What would bring Eckker to these parts?”

“I’ve been asking myself that.”

“You have a file on him?”

“A thick one.”

Avondale looked around him. The sun had set, yet complete darkness was a ways off. He wanted to know everything there was to know about Joseph Eckker.

“Brief me.”

________

Eckker sat parked on the other side of the lane on Lake Shore Drive, in the opposite direction of the Hyatt Regency Hotel, where the cop had positioned himself. He smiled. At a point in the middle sat his prey, waiting for him.

It had been so easy. He had broken the window and entered the house of the woman with the noisy car. From her bedroom he’d heard the cop at the door say he wanted to talk to Roberta Paxton in person. He had only to follow the cop.

She was just down that short, narrow lane. Soon he’d pay her a visit.

________

Avondale clutched the receiver. Clark’s information had the hair on the back of his neck rising.

Avondale caught a flash of a white car as it turned the corner at the intersection and disappeared behind a Trailways bus. He whipped around, clanking the receiver against the metal hood of the phone booth.
Were they running? Jesus, he couldn’t lose them.

The car reappeared in front of the bus and Avondale was relieved to see it wasn’t Dr. Reynolds’ classic T-bird.

“I’m going back to talk to Paxton. Check with you later.”

The bright flashing lights of the hotel casino across the street seemed at odds with the peaceful pine-dotted splendor of the mountain on which it stood. It was fully dark now.

Avondale went into a convenience store and bought two packs of Pall Malls.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Jake walked up from the dock in the dark. A hundred yards from the house he looked up to see Roberta at the bay window, watching him approach.

He gripped the flare gun he’d retrieved from his boat. He’d had to resort to a flare gun, but it was better than no gun at all. For the first time in his life he wished he had an honest-to-God gun, something big and powerful like the cannon Dirty Harry carried. Or a sawed-off shotgun, or one of those outlawed assault rifles. Right now nothing could be too big or too commanding.

As he neared the deck, Jake thought he heard the purring sound of an idling car. He slowed, slipping his finger into the trigger guard of the flare gun.

The sound died suddenly. Jake paused, listened, hearing only the water lapping at the boat and dock pilings. He veered off the road and slipped into the woods. With a pounding heart he moved furtively from tree to tree. Midway down the road, parked fully on the shoulder, was a light green car, whipcord antenna catching the light from a house across the way.

The beating of Jake’s heart steadied. He felt his muscles relax and he smiled.
Avondale.
He should have known. He was either staking out the place or making sure they didn’t hit the road without a forwarding address. The detective’s presence was okay by Jake. At least Avondale had a gun with real bullets and knew how to use it.

Jake turned and, as quietly as he could, made his way back to the house.

________

The utter silence unnerved Avondale. He had cut his engine, and except for the diffused lights of a house in the woods off to his right, it was dark and quiet.

Only a moment before he thought he’d seen someone wandering around in the dark. The sound of a branch snapping to his left had goose bumps popping out along his arms. Another crack, then steps, slow and deliberate. Avondale mashed his cigarette out in the ashtray and pulled his .45 from the halter holster. He opened the door and slipped out, closing the door without latching it.

Someone or something was out there in the trees. Man or beast? As he neared the doctor’s house, twigs snapped sharply under his feet. A frog croaked a moment later. Shadows stood like black giants, crisscrossing one another. Spiked fingers plucked his shirt-sleeves and ruffled his hair.

He stopped, listened, then moved on. The outline of the house and dock materialized through the tall ponderosa pines. He hadn’t run into anyone, nor had he heard movement other than his own since he left his car. Probably deer or, with his rotten luck, it’d be a rabid skunk, both ends ready to rip.

Within a hundred feet of the house, still in the shadow of the trees, he looked up to see a light in the living room go on. Roberta Paxton stood at the window looking out. A man came up behind her, his arms reaching around to envelop her. She closed her eyes and leaned into him trustfully.

Avondale watched, feeling guilty about his unintended voyeurism, yet powerless to move. The doctor, his arms crossed at her breasts, nuzzled her neck and kissed her jaw and throat. She turned her head until their lips met.