The Eleventh Victim (30 page)

S
OMEONE WAS OUT THERE; SOMEONE WHO WANTED TO HURT HER
.

She had to be wrong. It couldn’t be Cruise. He was in prison. On death row.

Her mother’s voice echoed back…something she’d said when they were talking on the phone one night.

“They’re saying he’s still trying to appeal, but the Georgia courts would never let that happen.”

They wouldn’t…would they?

Surely she would know, though, if Cruise had won his appeal by some miracle and been released. Surely she would have been warned….

By whom, though?

She picked up the telephone and dialed her parents.

“You’ve reached Mac and Elizabeth Dean. We’re not home right now, but leave us a message and we’ll get back with you.”

No, Hailey realized with a sinking heart, they wouldn’t. They were on Cumberland.

And Fincher was on the other side of the world in Iraq.

Heart pounding Hailey fired up her computer and went to the Georgia Corrections Web site.

Clint Burrell Cruise.

She had long railed against a system that didn’t warn victims of violent crime when perps were paroled. She’d even testified before the Georgia Senate to demand a change in the law as part of the Victims’ Bill of Rights. Since a large percentage of the Georgia Legislature was made up of defense attorneys, it failed. Victims of rape, robbery, assault, even murder victims’ families were never warned…much less former prosecutors who had left the job and moved hundreds of miles away. And any press about it would have been local.
How often did headlines in the morning papers deal with parole releases from another state? Never. Nothing within the law required that she be notified. And victims and their families had no rights under the Constitution. She’d learned that when Will was murdered.

Within seconds, her worst fears had been confirmed.

He was out.

W
HEN VIRGINIA’S HEAD FINALLY CLEARED, SHE WAS LYING ON
her back on her own bed. She opened her eyes slowly, prepared to see the two no-necks towering over her. Instead, she looked directly into the eyes of Larry.

It was clear he’d been crying.

“My God, V.G., what happened to you? Who did this?”

She was alive. Lying in her own bed. With Sidney, wagging his furry little stub of a tail. And Larry was here.

She was alive.

Her throat aching from an earlier blow near her trachea that sliced under her chin, she struggled to speak.

“V.G., say something. Anything. Just let me know you’re okay.”

“Get the vodka. And Diet Coke. On ice. Hurry.”

Larry stood up and turned. Just as he turned through the bedroom door into the hall, she added, “And the cigarettes.”

She was alive all right.

Hours later, Virginia sat propped on one of the kitchen bar stools, the hushed group of eco-guerrillas gathered around.

No chips and dip, no cheese and crackers today. No whirring blender churning mushy frozen drinks. No stereo playing Nina Simone on low in the background. No theorizing or pontificating.

Virginia finished telling the story exactly as she remembered it, in detail, right down to the Diet Coke and vodka—which she sipped as she spoke. This was no time for her usual Amaretto. This was an emergency.

The guerrillas couldn’t drag their eyes away from her face and she knew it wasn’t a pretty sight. She’d accidentally glimpsed herself in the bathroom mirror.

Her eye was black and some of the blood from her mouth was still dried where it had trickled near her right ear, even after she rinsed her face at the sink. Along the bottom of her jaw, the skin was just beginning to bruise. Her gums were bloody and her arm was in a makeshift sling made of a cut-out section of fitted bedsheet, the elastic pucker still showing on one side. Her nails were torn down to the quick on one hand. Her wrists were both ringed with red welts that were beginning to turn deep blue in little dots across the red.

But she didn’t dare go to the hospital, as Larry wanted her to do.

“That would mean cops,” she told him. “And we don’t want
that.
”

Larry didn’t want to leave her there for even a second, but she sent him to the liquor store for more booze. She didn’t want to scare the group with talk of hospitals and police. Plus, it was going to be a long night.

The rest sat unmoving when he left through the sliding glass door and Virginia was met with stone silence now as the guerrillas either stared down at their Birkenstocks or gave her the “blink,” staring fixedly away while blinking rapidly. The silence spoke volumes.

They were scared shitless…and they should be.

“So do you really think this was because of what we did?” Dottie asked, unable to drag her eyes off the bloody quicks of Virginia’s fingernails.

The tiny group was having a hard time accepting the truth…Virginia’s beating was because of Palmetto Dunes. Hell, it was just digging up wooden markers and plucking off orange plastic ties…just ripping out a little string…string that had been tied meticulously from marker to marker across hundreds of square feet of dunes, dunes flattened by giant industrial machine rollers. In fact, up until now, they hadn’t truly been convinced anyone had really noticed the late-night vandalism they’d taken such joy in.

Virginia took stock of her ragtag warriors, all too meek to retort to nasty customers or refuse unreasonable shift demands. Teachers intimidated by pushy parents and school principals. Clerks who gave money returns to “customers” they knew had shoplifted. No receipt? No problem!

They let soccer moms swipe parking spots they’d trolled for thirty minutes at Wal-Mart. They stood speechless when mall rats cut in front of them at Cinnabon. They endured protracted conversations with telemarketers at dinnertime. Sometimes, it was just easier to consolidate their debts or sign up for a new phone plan than argue into the phone or, God forbid, hang up.

They were the tormented souls who were never chosen for the basketball team or cheerleading squad, football being totally out of the question. The last ones standing awkwardly between two schoolyard teams, the ones who walked away pretending they’d really rather stand on the sidelines. The ones who always got zonked first playing dodgeball.

And now they were facing the prospect of physical pain in exchange for continued vandalism of somebody else’s beachfront property.

This was not what they’d signed up for…but they all shrunk under Virginia’s gaze or, in the alternative, looked the other way.

While Virginia hadn’t expected them to lead the battle like Eisenhower, she hadn’t expected this either—total silence and fear when faced with adversity. Virginia had given it her best, egging them on with a rousing pep talk. During the silence, she glanced over at the sofas gathered around the fireplace, the light pouring into the den. Even the wieners lie there lifeless, draped wheezing on the sofas and floor, like they, too, were too drained to fight the good fight any longer.

Virginia cleared her throat, making the only sound other than nervous breathing coming from Kenny, who sounded extremely stopped-up. Head cold.

She lit a cigarette and took a long, deep drag, exhaling through narrowed eyes to avoid her own smoke. “Okay, guys, you think about it and we’ll talk tomorrow?”

“Fine…good…that’s a plan…okay…see you tomorrow…” They all murmured at once, blending soft voices nervously together into one low, quiet buzz while adroitly grabbing their things and shuffling past the wieners to the door.

Virginia sat still on the bar stool until she heard the last of the cars crank up, twist in the gravel driveway, and motor off.

The house was quiet and turning dark. She hadn’t turned on any lights yet. The dogs lay there forlornly, not even rousing to bark their heads off for dinner.

For the first time ever, she hated their quiet.

Walking out the back door onto the deck, Virginia stopped in her tracks, looking into the sky over the water. Dark, wet evening air was blowing off the Georgia coast. It was breathtaking.

Her ribs ached and her fingers felt like they were broken. She could still wiggle them and they were currently curled around a drink, so they must be intact.

The sea oats swayed on the dunes, and instinctively, she flipped off the patio’s outdoor lights so as not to disturb any sea turtles mating or burying eggs out in the sandy curves. The gestation, birth, and nurturing of the Coastal Sea Turtle was time-consuming
and laborious, but what sea turtle wouldn’t be lured by a night like tonight?

Staring out at the dunes, she pondered her next move against Palmetto.

A fire? No, too destructive to the Island. A bomb? She didn’t know how to make one, although if that freak McVeigh could make one out of horse manure, she could do the same. There was plenty of dog poop around her house…the wieners had awful manners.

Okay, she was not making a bomb out of wiener doo-doo. She snorted into her glass at the mere thought of it.

But another day of construction had passed. The attack on Virginia had postponed the amphibious sneak attack. The high-rise was inching toward the moment when they could no longer sabotage it as easily as they had so far. As soon as the cement foundation was poured, they would be at a loss.

There had to be a way…. She had done it before. She, Virginia Gunn, had single-handedly stopped a gigantic new four-lane bridge from crossing the water from mainland to Island. It took all her skills and cunning.

You did it, though,
she reminded herself as she sipped her drink.

But what about Palmetto Dunes? The County Commission had clearly been bought off. She could always file a lawsuit on behalf of the citizens, and as guardian protecting the sea turtles.

But she knew that in the end she would lose in court and likely be outed as the midnight marauder at Palmetto Dunes. Then, one way or the other, the others would be dragged in and likely lose their jobs and what little money they made at the mall, the IHOP, the Radio Shack, and the local public schools. Jobs and money…maybe more.

Virginia poured another drink and downed it. Why bother with the glass? It just slowed things down. She swigged straight from the bottle, hoping for inspiration. Sidney led the other wieners out onto the deck and they hopped up into her lap and nestled in.

She needed a fresh idea. She’d wait until this time tomorrow night—no, a little later, when it was pitch black. A late-night drive out to the south beaches. She’d go back to the construction site alone to check it out. Maybe there was another angle she’d missed, something, somehow, some way they could put the skids on the high-rise again.

Something short of a wiener-bomb.

The water lapped up; she could hear but not see it. The spray blew across her face, not bracing, but in a gentle way instead. The Seven Sisters, the Cassiopeia constellation, smiled down at her. Over the dark curve of the ocean, on the other side of the stars, she saw a glow against the dark of the sky. Then she saw it in full. There was a new moon rising.

T
HERE WAS NO TIME TO FEEL AND NO TIME TO WASTE. FUELED BY
grim reality, Hailey went methodically to each window in the apartment and pulled down the shades. In the kitchen, she put the kettle back on the flame.

Wherever he was, he was either watching her now or watching the exit nearly thirty floors below. She double-checked all the locks on windows and doors.

Did it matter? Somehow, he’d managed to get in here once. He could do it again.

A shrill whistle pierced the silence.

Hailey instinctively placed her right hand on the grip of the gun…

It was just the kettle.

She left the window and crossed the stone floor to turn off the gas flame. Pulling open the kitchen drawer for a spoon, once again, the old chill went from jaw to spine and stomach down to calves and toes.

It was there…entangled in the knives and forks and spoons.

Something that shouldn’t, couldn’t have been there. It hadn’t been there before. It wasn’t there when she’d pulled out the last spoon before she left for work so many hours before.

Kitchen twine. An oblong wind of it was peeking out from under the rows of silverware, some of it curled up into the utensils, all neatly in their kitchen drawer dividers like she’d arranged them.

Hailey whirled and in a frenzy began yanking open drawers and tearing through cabinets, their contents falling harshly to the floor. She ransacked her closet, looked under the bed, tore the mattress off the frame, thrust her hands down pillowcases, unzipped the pillows themselves, and felt the foam rubber for lumps. The laundry closet, the washer and dryer, the umbrella stand…

It was here…somewhere. It had to be…but where?

Somewhere in her apartment was a ticking time bomb. How many were there?

Back to the kitchen, she knelt on the floor to reach a low drawer dedicated to cloth napkins, pot holders, and place mats. Reaching far to the back, she began feeling her way through them as if she were blind, feeling for something…and found it at last.

It was wrapped inside a set of old kitchen towels she’d brought up from Atlanta.

It was still crusted in blood.

Hailey unfolded a single, four-pronged poultry-lifter. The last time she had seen one like it was in an Atlanta courtroom, when she’d held it in her left hand, arm outstretched, walking the length of the jury rail.

Instinct made Hailey raise the lifter up under the vented hood over the stove to inspect it. It was the same…. She knew before looking.

A Norpro, identical to the one used in Atlanta. A solid, stainless-steel Norpro…an evil-looking poultry-lifter with steely sharp prongs.

Glancing again at the shades pulled down snug over the windows, she walked back to the silverware drawer and pulled out the twine.

Again, she knew, before she’d even turned it upside down to read the label, that it would be the exact same type as used in the Atlanta murders.

Sisson Imports, made in France. Three hundred inches of it, glossy and white.

When did he plant it?

In her other hand, the four-pronged lifter felt like it weighed a hundred pounds.

Whose blood was crusted on the tines? Melissa’s? Hayden’s? Someone else’s? Another one of her patients whose body was yet to be discovered?

The pressure in her head was unbearable; she could literally feel the blood draining from her lips.

How long would it be until the police came to search her apartment?

They would find her here with the weapon and the twine.

No explanation would suffice. She had to destroy it. What else could she do? Go to Kolker and tell him,
“Gee, I just found the murder weapon in my kitchen drawer and I can’t imagine how it got there…”

What to do?…what to do?

What would they
expect
her to do?

Wrap it in a plastic bag and throw it out in the garbage? Then throw it down the trash chute, where it would be discovered in the main receptacle? Identifiable in the same bag with all the junk mail with her name and address on it mixed with kitchen debris and
other trash? Traceable right down to batch, lot, and specific D’Agostino’s grocery store where she’d bought the trash bag? They’d probably even dig up some grainy surveillance video of her actually
at
D’Ag’s buying trash bags.

Or should she hurl it into the dark waters of the East River while out on a run?

Too predictable.

How many times had she sent divers down to retrieve a weapon? Piece of cake. She had even gone on dives herself to then explain the process to jurors in openings and closings.

It rarely took more than three hours underwater to find the knife or gun in the waterway closest to a suspect’s home or office. Or at least part of a gun. Occasionally, the perp might be wily enough to remove the barrel from his automatic, rendering it useless for cross ballistics identification purposes.

But this was no gun. It was a seamless, shiny, solid piece of steel, no way to dismantle it.

It was a four-pronged lethal weapon disguised as a kitchen implement, and it had sliced through the lungs of two of her patients…that she knew of.

The East River was out.

The blood was the thing. Simple bleach wouldn’t work. Ajax…no. Clorox…no. Laundry detergent…no. She needed something with enzymes….

Reaching far back to the rear of the cabinet, she found it: Black Swan Muriatic Acid. The stone worker had left it behind it when he laid slate in the kitchen and the cement bathroom base beneath the tiles. Muriatic, or hydrochloric, acid would be most likely to destroy DNA. For now, she lined the kitchen sink and surrounding counters with layers of plastic wrap, turned on the hot water in the kitchen faucet, and slowly washed her patients’ blood off the steel tines of the lifter.

Then she poured the cleaner from its plastic container across the sink and into it, completely immersing the lifter in pure muriatic acid. It might not be perfect, but it was the best shot she had. She
did it gently, so as to cause no spatter on the sides of the sink. One swipe with Luminol would catch each drop, but this was the best she could do, tonight anyway.

After rinsing the sink and drying the lifter with paper towels, she carried the ball of twine to the bathroom sink. With her, she took the matchbook she kept in the kitchen drawer beside the gas stove and turned on the overhead shower vent. It took three matches to set the twine on fire.

She added in the paper towels, the hand towels that had wrapped the weapon and the plastic wrap from the kitchen. She watched as it was totally consumed, until there was nothing left but ashes.

On the fourth flush of the toilet, it was all gone.

Back in the kitchen, she again rinsed the entire sink with the muriatic cleanser, took out the drain stopper, unscrewed the bottom of it, and allowed the pieces to fall apart. Heading to the trash chute, she threw the pieces down, hearing them fall against the metal sides of the shaft until the sounds disappeared.

Now, the weapon. She walked through the apartment…searching. Then, in the den, her eyes focused on a mosaic lighting fixture, amber mosaics beautifully pieced together in a bowl-form, facing upward against the ceiling. Dragging over a bar stool, she stood up on it and gently placed the weapon inside the fixture. There.

She climbed down and surveyed the room.

The murder weapon, State’s Exhibit Number One against her, was completely concealed.

For now.

She sank into a chair, sitting there in the dark of her apartment.

Clint Burrell Cruise.

Here in the city.

Was he here to kill her? Or just frame her and send her to the electric chair, just like she had sent him?

She methodically searched her apartment again and found nothing more planted. But one thing was missing…her favorite hairbrush was gone from the drawer beneath her bathroom mirror. She
always kept it there. That explained a lot. The “forensics” Kolker had been so thrilled about…she didn’t need to see the lab report to know that the hairs found on Melissa and Hayden were hers…straight from her own hairbrush.

She looked at the clock. It was 2 a.m.

In four hours, the morning rush would be in full swing at the Century Diner a few blocks away.

She’d be ready.