The Dying Hour (18 page)

T
he last time Roxanne Palmer was seen alive she was working her corner on Spokane’s east side, according to one of Carl McCormick’s stories in the
Spokesman-Review.

Beyond that, few other details were known.

No one saw her get into a car. She never called anybody. She was there, then gone, until Hanna Larssen found her.

His idea was a wild one, but worth a try, Jason Wade figured, taking a hit of take-out coffee as he rolled along East Sprague Avenue. He glanced at his passenger seat at the magazine and the page he’d inserted that was peeking from it.

East Sprague was a stretch of fast-food joints, strip malls, neon signs, and run-down warehouses. Longlegged women wearing pumps, micro-miniskirts, and excessive makeup stood at most of the street corners in the area along the avenue known as the Track.

Jason rolled along the strip, coming to the corner where Roxanne had last worked. He turned off Sprague, parked half a block away, grabbed his magazine, and headed for the corner.

The two women standing on it turned to him as he approached.

“Hi, sugar. Looking for something sweet tonight?” The first was in her early twenties, short black hair, big eyes, and hoop earrings.

“Can we talk?”

“For the right price, we can do anything you like.”

The air was heavy with perfume and the smell of strawberry bubblegum being snapped by the second woman, who had long red hair and looked much younger.

“I’m trying to find out some information about somebody.”

The brunette’s face tightened.

“You a cop?”

“No, I’m a reporter.”

“A reporter?” She glanced around. “If you’ve got a damn cameraman back there, I swear I’ll kick your ass.”

“No, nothing like that. I’m from Seattle.”

“Seattle? Show me some ID.”

The redhead stepped away and began pressing numbers on her cell phone. Jason’s mind raced. He pulled out his laminated photo-ID from the
Seattle Mirror,
knowing this stunt might come back to haunt him as the hooker seized it, studied it, then gave it back.

“I ain’t giving you no damn interview, Slick,” she snapped, eyeing her girlfriend, who’d finished her call and nodded. “You know we lost a girl down here. She got murdered down by Kennewick.”

“That’s why I’m here. I’m researching a story on her case, Roxanne’s case. It might have a link to a missing Seattle woman.”

“Go talk to the police.”

“I’m talking to everybody.”

“You’re holding us up, driving our dates away. What do you want?”

Jason unfurled his magazine.

“I’m going to show you pictures of a man and ask you if you’ve ever seen him before. Maybe he’s come down here to talk to the women. Maybe he talked to Roxanne?”

The two women looked at each other.

“That’s it?”

Jason nodded.

“All right. Show us.”

The women pulled closer together as Jason opened the magazine to the color photograph he’d inserted. The one of Gideon Cull.

Gum snapped. Then jewelry jingled as both women shook their heads.

“Never saw him.”

When Jason lifted his attention from the picture, he noticed two other women had approached.

“What’s up?” a tall one said in a deep voice.

Jason was thinking transvestite when the brunette spoke up.

“Slick here’s a reporter from Seattle. Thinks Roxanne’s murder’s got something to do with a Seattle woman gone missing. Wants to know if you know the guy in the picture. Show them.”

Jason did, to negative results. Word spread along the Track with lightning speed as he walked from one corner to the next along the avenue showing Cull’s picture to the women, who soon knew what he was doing before he got to them.

The squeal of brakes and the menacing throb of a car stereo jolted Jason. A polished navy Cadillac pulled alongside him. Inside, a large man with a gold chain, gold watch, and gold-capped teeth gleaming from his scarred face waved him to the passenger door. The music was turned down.

“Yo, Ace, what the fuck you doing stirring shit up?”

“Just showing a picture asking if anyone knows a guy.” He stepped closer to the car. “Can I show you?”

“No. You either date a girl, or get the fuck outta here.”

Jason saw the grip of a handgun sticking from the pimp’s waistband.

“I’m not going to tell you twice, asshole.”

“All right. I’m gone. I’m just going to walk back to my car.”

The man’s eyes bored into Jason’s face. The music was cranked, the engine growled, and the Cadillac squealed away. Jason watched for a moment. As he turned to leave, he heard a sound from a back alley.

“You the reporter?” a female voice whispered from the dark.

Jason walked toward it.

“Swear to me you’re not a cop, because I don’t talk to cops. I’m jammed up with charges, court, my boyfriend, custody for my kid.”

Jason pulled out his photo-ID. A frail woman stepped from the shadows. She looked emaciated. Her arms were laced with needle tracks. She studied his ID until she was satisfied.

“OK, show me the picture.”

Jason glanced around to be sure he was clear, then opened the magazine, tilting it to catch the ambient light. The woman dragged long and hard on a cigarette as she studied Cull’s face. Then began shaking her head.

“No. I never saw him around here.”

“Did you know Roxanne?”

She blinked and nodded.

“I worked with her that night. Her last night.”

Jason indicated they take their conversation into the shadows.

“So what happened?”

He saw the red glow of her cigarette, then heard her exhale.

“I don’t know. She sometimes went off by herself, so at first we thought nothing unusual.”

“Did she say anything was wrong, or talk about anything strange in the time before?”

“Nothing.”

“Is there anything that you can remember about that time?”

Her cigarette glowed, then was dropped.

“I’ve gone over it in my mind. She told me about this religious guy who started coming around. I never saw him. No one else remembered him. There’s a lot of traffic and a lot of creeps, a lot of religious guys.”

“Well, what was it about this guy?”

“She thought he was funny.”

“Funny?”

“He wanted to save her. Every other freak wants to save us.”

“That’s it?”

She didn’t answer. She was looking to the street at a car half a block away that was crawling toward them.

“That’s it, I have to go,” she said, unwrapping a stick of gum from her purse and starting for the car.

“Wait, can you remember anything about the religious guy?”

“I never saw him.”

“What did he drive? Don’t you guys write down plate numbers?”

She stopped.

“I remember, Rox said he drove an RV. On the back, it had a picture of a duck, or Canada goose. One of the wings was peeled off.”

Jason wrote it down, raised his head to thank her, when he heard a car door slam.

She’d disappeared into the night.

V
ov.

The letters swam into focus on the overhead screen in the boardroom of the Benton County Justice Center in Kennewick.

Then Lieutenant Lloyd Buchanan went around the table making the introductions.

Detective Brad Kintry and Coroner Morris Pitman nodded from their swivel chairs to the others. James Barlow, an FBI profiler from Seattle; Detectives Peter Chase, from the Spokane PD; Hank Stralla from Sawridge; Mike Wicker, Washington State Patrol; and Price Canton, from Klamath County, Oregon, where unidentified female human remains were found along a wooded riverbank nearly a decade ago.

“We’ve all read the background,” Buchanan said. “Price, why don’t you start us off with your Jane Doe?”

“What you see on the screen is our key fact evidence from our case. We have nothing on the significance or meaning of the lettering
VOV,
” Price said. “A survey crew working in Klamath County near Lost River found the torso and severed head of a white female in a shallow grave some eight years ago. Attempts at identification didn’t pan out,” Canton said. “After Tony Danko, the original Klamath detective on the case, retired, it was passed to me. I spent a lot of long nights trying to find a fresh way to go at it. Four years ago, I submitted our holdback to ViCAP. Nothing happened until the other day, Quantico called on our key fact match with Benton County. So here we are.”

Attention in the room heightened as all eyes returned to the overhead screen, which offered a blowup of Brad Kintry’s computer monitor and crime scene autopsy photos of the Benton and Klamath victims. No words were needed. Everyone had locked on the chilling confirmation as Kintry enlarged the chest area over the heart in each picture.

Each victim had been branded with the letters.

VOV.

Kintry clicked to more photos showing that small x’s had also been burned into the skin in each case.

Morris Pitman, the coroner, removed his glasses and rubbed his hand over his tired face. “What’s your read on this?” he asked the FBI profiler.

“After studying the material of both cases, I’d say you have a serial offender with a clear signature. And I don’t think these two women are his only victims.”

Barlow paged through his notes.

“Your suspect is very organized, he plans these things, might keep his victim alive and tormented for a period to prolong his sense of control or power, his enjoyment. He’s fantasy-driven.”

“What types of fantasies?”

“I’m coming to that. The autopsy reports in both cases indicate sexual assault with a so-called Venetian Pear, which could be a substitute for his lack, or failing, or interest, to carry out a sex act himself. His fantasy might arise from vengeance, torture, or humiliation he suffered. He was likely abused horribly as a child. Something involving traumatic torture or physical abuse, something like that, given the brutality and rage in evidence here. And he may have been abused by a female power figure in his life, which would fester and evolve into hatred and degradation of women.”

Barlow consulted his notes before continuing.

“I’d say the suspect is a white male, but I’d really be guessing at his age range. It could be the same as his victims, all the way up to sixty, even. The thing I’d say from the body sites is that he knows this region. Moves about it invisibly, so he blends in with the general population. He’s likely of above average intelligence, possibly in a position of trust or authority that he can exercise over his victims. Or an unassuming harmless, trustworthy loner, who establishes a comfort level that disarms his targets.”

Barlow rustled some pages.

“The Benton victim, Roxanne Palmer, is a single white female aged twenty-four, a known prostitute with a drug addiction, a vulnerable lifestyle. We have no biography on your Klamath victim. She’s a Jane Doe, a white female whose age is approximately twenty-two. With the Benton case we see an escalation of his rage. We see the same dismemberment, but we see display. In Oregon, you have concealment, in Washington, display. I believe that between Benton and Klamath, there are other victims. More important, I think that in the wake of Benton, his cooling-off period is all but vanished. The guy is out of control, given the brutality and display. Taking the risk of being seen by going onto a farmer’s property suggests he’s bold, daring, brazen, another indication his cooling-off period is growing shorter. Which brings me to the Sawridge County case.”

“Karen Harding’s disappearance,” Stralla said.

“Yes. Her victimology fits his pattern and is consistent with the Benton and Oregon cases. It’s troubling how well she fits. Age, race, vulnerable circumstances. Her case also dovetails with his escalation, his brazenness. But on the other hand, her case could be completely unrelated. Unlike Benton and Klamath, you don’t have a single shred of physical evidence linking Harding’s disappearance to the other two murders, correct?”

“Well, we have the slim comparison of the tire impressions from both scenes. A possibility that a truck, or an RV, is connected to Harding and Palmer.”

“I see that.”

Privately, Stralla acknowledged that the link was hopelessly weak.

“I’ll lay it out for everyone,” Barlow said. “You’ve got to go hard on the victims and the evidence for a connection to the killer. And that’ll be tough.”

“For now it appears the methodology is the strongest link,” Pitman said.

“Right,” Barlow said. “If you can come up with a suspect pool of people who would be acquainted with this type of torment, it would help.”

“I’m working on trying to determine the precise origin of the branding,” Pitman said. “I think it derives from a certain historical case study. I believe if I could confirm that, it might prove to be a guide, might point us to the kind of individual who would have knowledge of it.”

“Certainly,” Barlow said. “You’ve got to be philosophical here. You’ve got a big break in that you’ve got a link, so that doubles your chances of increasing case information to study. But it won’t be easy. You have no bitemarks, no saliva, no DNA. No usable latents or trace. What are the odds of identifying the Oregon Jane Doe?”

“Slim,” Canton said. “Her arms and legs were not found. Her severed head was badly decomposed, the lower jaw was detached and missing. We had only a partial upper jaw. We believe the parts were scattered by animals. We were lucky that the torso was not too badly decomposed and we got the details we got.”

“Soil analysis? Anything there?” Barlow asked.

Canton shook his head, searching through his notes on the case.

“Oh, we found one thing, which could be related to our Lost River girl.”

The others waited as Canton fished a page from his file and passed it around the table. It was a photograph.

“This was taken approximately twenty yards from where the torso was found. Near a hiking trail, so we’re not one hundred percent certain it is linked to Jane Doe.”

The others took turns glancing at the arm and broken partial frame from a pair of eyeglasses. They were bright red.

H
eat.

The smell of smoke.

The crackle and rush of burning wood.

All registered with Karen Harding as she regained consciousness and slowly awakened to her nightmare. Fear coursed through her body, blurring her vision, numbing her. Exhaustion had weakened her. Hunger had weakened her. Lack of water and sleep had weakened her. Her ability to form a single thought caused her brain to spasm.

Her will had abandoned her.

Blinking, she tried to concentrate, tried to find the strength to comprehend her circumstances. Chains. She could feel chains. Their metal links were crushing her lower legs, her stomach, her organs, her chest and neck, fusing her to something hard, rough, tall.

A tree.

She was chained to a tree.

Her hands were bound. Her mouth was clear but she dared not speak.

The night was ablaze. An inferno roared before her, deadwood snapping, hissing, and moaning, spewing sparks to heaven. A breeze sent blankets of smoke toward her, making her eyes sting and tear. She pulled them shut. She had no concept of time.

A memory rippled through her.

She and Julie had escaped only to flee full circle back to the reverend. He’d brought them back to the RV and the campsite. Julie was chained to a tree. Julie? Where was she?

Karen opened her eyes, blinking through her tears. Working to adjust to the firelight and darkness, she scanned the perimeter but saw only black and the outline of the RV. Then she focused and stared through the flames to a vision from hell.

Julie was chained to a tree.

Naked.

Her head had been shorn, all but a few bloodied tufts surviving as a testimony to the rage behind the act.

Julie was half conscious. Not gagged. Moaning.

Karen began working her mouth to call out and comfort her, when she heard a click as the RV’s metal door swung open.

Oh God.

Through the hazy smoke-filled night she first saw his black boots, then black pants, a swaying full-length black robe. His head was concealed by a large black hood.

An executioner’s hood.

Long metal objects clinked under his arm as he took slow majestic steps toward the fire. They clanked when he dropped them to the ground. He squatted, took his time carefully placing and aligning the long rods in the flames. More wood was tossed on the fire, creating a draught. Karen gazed at the red-orange intensity whirling with sheets of heat at the belly of the blaze. Her skin began to moisten. Her lips became drier.

The black hood turned and he came to Karen, came within inches. He towered over her. Powerful and strong. His hood was the flag of horrors to come.

Behind the slits she met his eyes.

For the first time since her abduction he was staring at her, into her, through her. Her chains began chinking a little and at first Karen could not understand why the tree was vibrating until she realized it was her. In the full force of his gaze, she was trembling uncontrollably. His eyes were clear, bright, and burning with hatred as if she and Julie were guilty of the most egregious affront to him.

A toll would be exacted. A price had to be paid.

He was insane.

Frantically, Karen searched her heart, asked God for strength, then began to plead for their lives.

“Please. I beg you. Please. Let us go.”

A large black-gloved hand clamped over her mouth, silencing her. He squeezed hard until she understood her pleading was in vain. Then he began his work. He reached for the first branding iron and began slowly rotating it in the flames.

Karen was sobbing, sending prayers to Julie, sending love to her parents, Marlene, and Luke, as she struggled to make peace with her life and God. She prayed. The reverend stood gripping the iron rod. The letters at its tip glowed red and white in the night. Karen’s stomach twisted then she began:

“Hail, Mary, full of grace…”

The reverend stepped toward Julie with the glowing branding iron.

Karen shut her eyes, flinching when Julie screamed.

Once it started it went on forever.

Karen slipped into a surreal state of shock, which took her mind in and out of consciousness as she pleaded to God. To anybody to save them. At times she saw and heard every violation he was inflicting on Julie. At others Karen nearly passed out, engulfed by the horror, by Julie’s screams, the sounds of the tools, his branding irons, his saw, his cauterizing plate.
The way it sizzled when he touched it to Julie’s flesh.
The screams. The smell.
Oh God.
Karen told herself it was not real, that he’d given her some hallucinogenic druginduced nightmare.
This can’t be real!

Because a human being was just not capable of doing this.

Karen thrashed against her chains until she passed out. For how long she didn’t know. A minute. An hour. She had no idea, but when she came to it was still night. She smelled something pleasant, something that registered immediately with her empty stomach.

Chicken?

Roasting on the fire.

The reverend, dressed in jeans, flannel shirt, and a fishing hat, was leaning forward from a folding lawn chair, holding a long forked rod with a piece of meat affixed to the end. He was turning it slowly over the flames, looking every bit the part of a benign RV camper cooking dinner.

Karen embraced a small wave of relief.

It had been a nightmare. A bad dream.

The chair creaked and the reverend stepped toward Karen, holding the meat to her mouth. She hadn’t eaten in days. She could smell the chicken, saw the tender meat bubbling in its own juices.

As she opened her mouth to take a bite, she glimpsed through the flames the tree opposite hers. Julie was gone. Was she in the RV sleeping? See, it never happened. Karen’s eyes adjusted to the base of the tree. Several chains were collared around the trunk. A huge, dark spot glistened in the firelight. A huge
damp
spot, as if a large amount of reddish black liquid had been spilled there. At the edge of the fire she saw the tools.

The saw.

Julie?

Karen began screaming.

Oh God. It’s not true. Dear Jesus. It can’t be true.
She didn’t see the things she saw.
It’s not true, it didn’t happen.

But it did happen.

Karen cried out. Her screams echoed above the treetops and rushed into the night.

No one heard them.