The Deepest Cut (29 page)

She should have died.

Her blood on the shirt, instead of thrilling him, had come to make him so, so sad. He still didn’t understand how she had again slipped from his grasp. That day in the El Alisal house had gone perfectly. He had known what she was thinking before she did. She had played right into his hands. He had been so excited, it took all his powers of self-control to contain himself. Later, he’d found out
that she’d survived.

This week, he had given her the bloody shirt. While the shirt had lost its allure for him, she was changing, too. She was fucking that detective, and he sure didn’t like that. He’d taken a big risk delivering the shirt, but it had been worth it. Hiding in the darkness of the yard across the street, he’d heard her daughter screaming. Grinning, fists clenched in triumph, he’d witnessed the flurry of activity that had followed.

He was in psychic pain. She should be.

He didn’t see himself as a bad man. He didn’t go after weak or vulnerable women. The women he hunted had been trained to kill and, when tested, had proven their mettle. By taking them on, he had put himself in grave danger. They could have killed him. But none had,
had they? They had submitted to his will. He had mastered them. Almost …

Because of Nan Vining, he had stayed in the area much longer than he ever thought he would. Other lethal ladies had attracted his attention. He had newspaper clippings in a filing cabinet. He thought he could love one or two of them. Yet he couldn’t build any enthusiasm for a new pursuit. He told himself to move on, to acknowledge that the battle with Vining had ended in a draw, but he couldn’t. He loved her too much to let her go.

He’d noticed a definite change in her since that day in the house on El Alisal Road. It had taken her a long time to get back on her feet. She was back at work, “picking up the pieces,” as they say, of her life. It all looked normal from the outside, but he knew that she was different. He knew her so well. All it took was finding that bloody shirt to knock her down off that pedestal and send her spinning off again. See? He knew her better than anybody. She probably thought that detective she was fucking, Kissick, knew her, but he didn’t. Not like
he
did.

He felt his rage rising, that familiar feeling that started deep inside his core. It radiated out, making his extremities tingle and burn as if his veins had been shot full of cayenne.

He forced himself to turn away from the shrouded, dark pedestal at the end of the table. Thinking of Vining would only dull his pleasure. No need to sacrifice more pleasure to her. She’d already stolen enough. This time was dedicated to his other three ladies. He dug his finger into the gauze that covered his fresh cutting. The sharp pain brought him around. Some tricks never lost their magic.

He moved to a couch across from his shrine. Sitting, he untied and removed his shoes. Standing, he took off his belt, then removed his pants, folding them over an arm of the couch. He took off his briefs and laid them atop the pants.

He plumped a throw pillow and reclined. The flickering orange and yellow flames of the electric fireplace cast his pallid skin in a warm glow. It helped to make him feel warm and cozy and safe and in control and … aroused.

With one foot on the floor, he began to stroke himself. As usual,
he’d arrived home with a nice erection from thinking about his favorite after-work pastime.

Ignoring the darkness at the end of the table, he looked at his three dead ladies and conjured sweet memories of each one. Memories from when he had stalked them, learning everything about their daily routines, while they’d had no idea he was there. Memories from the magic moment when
the day
had arrived and they’d looked into his eyes, the last human eyes they would ever see. Memories from that flash of insight when they’d understood that he was going to kill them. Memories of when they’d died.

As his strokes grew faster and more urgent, his mind was drawn to Vining. He couldn’t help it. Their last dance had been the most powerful and poignant yet. He’d squeezed her tightly, yet so gently, holding her pelvis pressed against his as he helped her to stay on her feet. All he’d needed was a few seconds more and he would have had his ultimate release. In his mind, he made it happen. It was happening. Happening now. The life fading from her eyes. Her breaths growing shallower as … as…. as …

Suddenly, he was soft as dough.

Her death was make-believe. He was living a pathetic dream. He was pathetic. She was taking everything from him, even this small pleasure.

He bolted from the couch and stomped across the room. Yanking the scarf from her photo, he confronted her, screaming, “Do you ever see my face when you’re fucking him? Do you? Well, do you?”

Swinging his arm, he knocked over her shrine.

Her photo sailed onto the carpeted floor. The pedestal toppled then rolled off the table onto it, breaking it. The firelight glinted off the spiderwebbed glass.

He dropped to his knees. Clawing with his fingers, he pulled an arrow-shaped fragment of glass free. Cutting himself would calm him and release his mind from this terrible place. Clutching the broken glass in his palm, he felt it press into, then slice his flesh. He opened his hand to see the blood. His thoughts cooperated and stopped swirling. He could see clearly now.

“No more blood spilled for you, my lady.” Dropping the broken
glass, he picked up the black cloth and wrapped it around his palm. “Not
my
blood.”

He flipped over the photo and banged it against the table leg, knocking much of the glass free. He turned it faceup and squared it on the floor, straddling it on the carpet, his fleshy knees bracing it. He again picked up the shard of glass that fate had formed.

“You owe me blood, Officer Vining.”

He dug the glass into her image and made a long cut across her face.

“You
owe
me.”

He sliced the photo diagonally in the other direction.

“You owe me. You owe me. You owe me …”

He cut and cut and cut.

TWENTY-NINE

K
ISSICK DROVE ALONG COLINA VISTA BOULEVARD HEADING FOR THE
police station and his meeting with Chief Betsy Gilroy. The antique lampposts on the city’s main thoroughfare were decorated with banners honoring the city’s annual Trail Days celebration that took place each fall. Each Christmas the giant fir trees circling the civic center were decorated with thousands of lights. Springtime brought the Iris Festival. Nestled at the foot of the Angeles National Forest, the quaint hamlet had never lost its small-town feel. No freeways crossed it. It had no traffic signals. It was home to no industries. One had to make a special trip to go there.

There was little traffic. Drivers were polite. Crime rates were low. The last murder had been six years ago when two people sitting in a parked car had been shot. It turned out that neither the killer nor victims had any connection to the city. The largely affluent residents enjoyed exceptional quality of life yet were not the type to brag about their zip code, not that anyone would recognize it anyway, which suited them just fine. A few celebrities lived there, but they were not the attention-seeking type, and happily melded into the fabric of the community. Colina Vista was rarely in the news. Like many of the San Gabriel Valley’s picturesque cities, outsiders had seen it often without knowing it, as it was a favorite Hollywood filming location.

Eight years ago, Colina Vista made the news when Betsy Gilroy was sworn in as the chief of police. She wasn’t the first female city police chief in Los Angeles County— that honor belonged to the police chief of Sierra Madre, the neighbor of Colina Vista. But with Gilroy’s promotion, she joined an exclusive but growing sorority of a dozen or so female police chiefs among the state’s 335 city police departments.

Kissick arrived at the civic center and parked on the street. The police station was a single-story Mission-style building that shared its architectural design and a parking lot with City Hall. The police department consisted of eleven sworn officers, five non-sworn employees, and the chief.

Kissick waited in the small bright lobby for Betsy Gilroy to see him. Two civilian employees and a uniformed officer sat at steel desks behind a long, open counter that was not shielded by Plexiglas. The absence of this simple security measure made the station look friendly, homey, and decidedly old-fashioned. There was a wooden swinging door to the left of the counter. At the rear of the front office was a door with a window at the top.

The lobby was simply furnished with long wooden benches. Public announcements were posted on a cork bulletin board. Another wall displayed photographs of all the police department employees, both sworn and civilian. They were arranged in a pyramid, in order of department hierarchy. At the top was Betsy Gilroy.

Kissick knew her in passing as she had spent many years with the Pasadena P.D., starting fresh from the Academy and rising to lieutenant before she left for the opportunity to be deputy chief of the Colina Vista PD. The city’s then-chief was planning to retire. While there was no guarantee that Gilroy would be a shoo-in for the top job, she soon proved herself to the police department, mayor, city council, and citizens. She still had many friends in the Pasadena P.D., and enjoyed a close relationship with Chief Haglund.

Her official photo on the station wall showed a woman with a pleasant face that might be considered pretty in the right light and circumstances. Pretty was not an advantage here. She looked accessible in the photo, while hinting at toughness behind the bright eyes. She was in her early fifties.

Shortly, the woman herself came through the door into the front office and through the swinging gate into the lobby. She wore navy-blue slacks with a tailored blue-and-white striped shirt tucked into them, small, gold stud earrings, and a plain gold wedding band.

“Detective Kissick. So nice to see you again.”

“Nice to see you, Chief.” Kissick would have been surprised if she did remember him, but she seemed sincere.

“Nice of you to visit us here in Colina Vista. How is your boss, Sergeant Early?”

Her emerald-colored eyes stood out against her tanned skin. Her face was deeply lined, showing the brunt of years in the sun. Kissick could imagine her on a golf course. She was still lean and athletic-looking, although she had filled out a little since her PPD days. She wore her hair in a short yet feminine style with feathery layers. It was many shades of gold. If the color wasn’t natural, it had been so artfully done, it was impossible to tell. She stood five feet, four inches, but was one of those people who possessed a natural gravitas: She seemed big and cut a commanding presence. One would have to be either naïve or foolish to mess with her.

“Sergeant Early is doing great and she told me to tell you hello.”

“Please send her my best. Kendra and I go
way
back.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Let’s talk in my office.”

She walked ahead of Kissick, holding open the swinging gate for him. She used a key to unlock the door at the rear of the front office. The neighborly Colina Vista PD. was not completely immune to security issues. They entered a long plain corridor.

“Have you ever been to our police station before, Detective?”

“I have, but never past the lobby.”

Gilroy pointed to a door with a reinforced glass window. A set of gun lockers was bolted to the wall outside it. “Our holding cells. I’m happy to say that they aren’t used often.”

She started walking down the corridor. “When I first came here from the Pasadena P.D., I thought, my gosh, this place is dead. I’ll die of boredom.”

Kissick smiled.

“But I’ve learned that it takes a lot of hard work to maintain the high quality of life and small-town atmosphere that we enjoy in Colina Vista.”

“Keeping the wolves at bay.”

“That’s true in more ways than one, Detective. We often have more problems with wildlife than humans here.”

He laughed and nodded.

There was a snap in her walk and in her speech, as if she possessed boundless vitality. Her persistent smile suggested perennial good humor, but Kissick knew that no one became police chief, even of a small city, without being able to bust heads as well as being politically savvy. He expected that the job was many times harder to be effective at for a woman.

She continued singing the praises of her city. “Colina Vista is consistently named one of the most desirable places to live in L.A. County. It’s a testament to the residents’ commitment to their community that the city has remained independent, even without a commercial tax base. We’ve thrived yet still manage to do things our own way. We feel we’re pretty special. We’re like Mayberry and we’re just a short drive from L.A.”

They passed offices with large reinforced glass windows in which a few uniformed officers, all men, sat at desks, writing reports on computers or filling out forms in longhand. The officers were trading wisecracks and laughing until they caught sight of Gilroy, when they whipped back to their work.

Kissick said, “When I first started with the Pasadena P.D. thirteen years ago, the department was smaller. Everyone knew everyone else. Now we’re so much bigger and it’s tough to have the same familiarity. I have to say I miss that.” He was quick to add, “But Pasadena has one of the top mid-size police departments in the country. It’s a great place to be.”

“I loved my time there.”

They passed large framed photographs tracing the history of Colina Vista, from its beginnings as a pioneer town and later, mountain resort, up through today. The corridor turned. In contrast with the
utilitarian doors elsewhere, they reached an impressive edifice of rich dark wood. A brass plaque said
EXECUTIVE OFFICES.
Gilroy led the way inside. The plain linoleum floor changed to short-pile burgundy carpet. The walls here were not the practical beige of the rest of the station but were a warm caramel, the color of crème brûlée.

A secretary was sitting at a desk outside an office where a plaque beside the door said
BETSY GILROY, CHIEF.
She looked up as they went inside. “Chief, Kate Sanderson returned your call.”