The One That Got Away (30 page)

He looked at the address on Kristi’s screen. It was a residential address in Noe Valley, not the kind of place for torturing people without being heard.

“Besides this address, is there anywhere else he would hang out or go? We’re looking for somewhere quiet or private.”

“I believe he owns some other property—a farm or something. He’s mentioned it before. Up past Redding, I think. I don’t know where, though.”

Public records would
, he thought. He really needed to work the databases on this guy. Beck wouldn’t be at his home, and he’d know the SFPD and just about every other law enforcement agency would be on to him by now. He’d go farther afield if he was looking to disappear.

“Thank you for your help. I’d like to talk to your staff about Mr. Beck. When do they come in?”

“Some in the next half hour.”

“I appreciate your cooperation. Again, please have no more contact with Mr. Beck.”

Kristi was eerily quiet.

“Is there something else?”

“Laurie Hernandez. The news mentioned a connection.”

“Yes. Did you know her?”

“She came here. We had to throw her out a couple of times for being cruel to the animals. She was here the day before she died. Marshall escorted her from the building. He couldn’t have killed her, could he?”

“Edward,” Greening called out. “We have possible motive on Laurie Hernandez.”

Within an hour, the SFPD had taken over the animal rescue center. Greening and a handful of officers interviewed staff. Ogawa supervised crime techs, who were crawling through Marshall’s office and computer. Now that they had a name, social security number, and a bank account his salary was deposited into, the Investigations Unit had a paper trail to follow. Who Marshall Beck was and had ever been was a database away. Thanks to the DMV, a BOLO was out on his Honda Pilot. Beck would be caught. It was just a matter of time. And that was the problem for Greening. The investigation was moving fast, but not fast enough for Zoë.

Greening checked his notes and thanked one of the animal techs for her time. He was conducting his interviews in the adoption office. He’d gotten from her what he’d gotten from all of Beck’s coworkers—he was quiet, socially awkward, and kept to himself.

As the animal tech saw herself out, Ogawa walked in. “SWAT just went in. No one there.”

Greening had guessed as much.

“They’re combing the place now. It sounds clean. Nothing connecting him to Zoë or Laurie Hernandez.”

Greening hated Marshall Beck. The son of a bitch was reckless, but he was careful too. He hid himself so well. “What now?”

“The battleship approach. We comb every square inch of this city until we find him. That’s how it’s done.”

The problem was it was slow.

Greening’s cell rang. It was Rogerson from Investigations, so he put it on speaker. “Check your email. I’ve just sent you Marshall Beck’s background.”

Greening opened his laptop. He’d had it brought over after he and Ogawa had occupied the rescue center. “Have you found the location on a second property?”

“Yes, I think we have it. It’s near Burnt Ranch. It’s a ranch or stable or something, but it used to be a foster home. He bought the place at auction five years ago, essentially covering the back taxes. He put it in a trust, which is why we didn’t find it at first.”

After Rogerson read them off the property’s address, Greening hung up and opened his email. Ogawa came around the desk to peer over Greening’s shoulder. The attachments made for interesting reading. Beck had never been arrested. In fact, he’d never even gotten a speeding ticket. His DMV address history put him in Bishop, Stockton, Redding, and Sacramento.

“When this is over, it’ll be interesting to see if there are any accounts of missing women in those areas who meet Beck’s profile,” Ogawa said.

Yes, but that can wait
, Greening thought.

He clicked a link that came with the intro:
You’re going to want to look at this.
The link went to an
LA Times
piece from the late ’80s. It told of the Palomino Ranch, a foster home in Trinity County. More than a dozen kids had been removed from the care of Jessica Wagner, who’d been arrested on charges of child abuse. Wagner had regimented a policy of corporal punishment on the children, flogging them with a switch until they were bloody. The practice had been going on for over a decade before the authorities got involved. Forty-seven of an estimated eighty children had come forward to testify. The only reason the horror had been exposed was that one of the children had escaped after a brutal beating.

“What are the chances that Beck was one of these kids?” Greening said.

Ogawa shook his head. “Christ, no wonder he’s fucked-up.”

This is how monsters are made
, Greening thought.

Another link took him to a follow-up piece in which Jessica Wagner killed herself upon being released on bail.

“The bitch got off easy,” Ogawa said.

One question was on Greening’s mind—had Beck taken Zoë there? It was possible. He was finished in San Francisco. He had two choices—kill Zoë quick and run, or cart her somewhere where he could hole up and take his time with her. Greening hoped it was the latter. Trinity County was a six-hour drive from Napa. Given that distance, Zoë was more than likely alive.

“Do you think he’s taken her there?”

“It’s a long shot. That’s a long way to travel when you’re on the run. My money is that he’s got her somewhere closer, but I’ll call the Trinity Sheriff’s and have them run out there to get some eyes on the place.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Zoë awoke suspended by her wrists, naked. The chloroform hit she’d taken had left her a little woozy, but its effect was fading fast. She slowly took in her surroundings. She was in the stable, hanging from a hook driven into a wooden support column. She hung a clear two feet above the ground, but a stool supported her. He’d secured her wrists with bondage-style cuffs that had a sheepskin lining. That suggested that he intended on hanging her here for a long while.

Her clothes lay on the dirt floor in shreds. The thought of Beck cutting her clothes off her forced a shiver from her. She doubted the act was sexual. She never got the feeling from him that any of this was about sex. Still, him seeing her naked was another violation.

He appeared in front of her, causing her to flinch. He had the one thing she’d feared seeing—that damn Bowie knife in a scabbard on his hip. The whip was coiled, and he held it in both hands low against his hips. Her heart quickened. The whip meant she was near the end. She’d never reached this point before. He’d abducted her and stripped her naked before, but she’d never gotten as far as the flogging. Holli, Laurie Hernandez, and the other women had been lashed, but she’d managed to escape this fate, until now.

He saw her staring at the whip. He held it up and examined it. “I made this myself. It took me over a year to make it work. I followed the techniques used by the ancient mariners for keeping their crews in line. It’s an effective tool in the right hands . . . in my hands.”

“Why are you doing this?” she asked.

“That’s the wrong question. You should be asking, what did I do to deserve this?”

Nothing
, she thought and let out a sob. She hated herself for it. When she’d surrendered to him, she’d promised herself she wouldn’t show him any weakness so she could deny him his satisfaction. Now, demeaned and scared, she felt her resolve crumple.

“Your failure to recognize your failings is the reason you’re here.”

“My failings?” she barked at him. “What exactly am I guilty of—being loud in a restaurant? What were the other women’s failings? Being noisy in a library? Jaywalking? Christ, how can you be so damn petty?”

She expected a tirade in return, but her scorn bounced off him.

He sighed. “I thought you, above all others, would have changed. You had the advantage of time, which was something your friend and the others were denied. They had to work it out as they received their punishment. You had a chance to reflect on the situation. I thought you’d come to understand.”

Understand, no. Change, yes. She’d changed the entire course of her life after escaping him. Jarocki had spent a year trying to understand that course and why she was on it. All she knew was that the Tally Man had altered her for good—she was broken.

“Over these past weeks,” he went on, “I’ve been watching you live your life. You are not the woman I first encountered. You’ve grown, and you know your place in the world. The way you put the recovery of my cell phone before your personal safety amazed me. I almost absolved you of your past transgressions and gave you your freedom right there.”

Dangling liberty in front of her was cruel. The thought that she might have been free of him was worse than knowing he’d been tracking her. “Why didn’t you?”

“I saw that you hadn’t really changed. I spoke to Rick Sobona. Do you remember him? You nearly broke his nose after you led him on. Despite what happened to you and the chance you were given, you still choose to act like a slut. Now you see.”

She didn’t and never would. His manifesto made sense to him and him alone. She shook her head.

“You and all the others were guilty of the same thing—a lack of respect for your fellow citizens.”

“Is that it? My crime is disrespect? Do I really deserve to die for displaying bad manners?”

“Yes.”

His answer was so matter-of-fact that it stunned her. “Why aren’t you going after killers, rapists, and drug dealers? Those people do real damage to society.”

“Because there are laws for them,” he said. “Unfortunately, bad behavior isn’t a crime, and disrespect isn’t punished. People do it without consequence while the rest of us have to accept it.”

She shook her head. It was so juvenile. His logic was beyond comprehension. He abducted women, marked them with a number, then flogged them as some sort of punishment for their bad behavior. How was his solution in any way justified?

“Do you know how Chinese water torture works? It doesn’t involve nearly drowning a person. It’s a single drop of water striking the person between the eyes, again and again, until it drives them insane. That’s what you and all the others are—drops of water splashing off society’s forehead. By yourselves, you are meaningless, your effect minimal, but combined and repeated a thousand times a day, you are a detriment. You upset people, then they act badly toward others, propagating the cycle of disrespect. Now do you see? Now do you understand?”

She did see. She understood that he was crazy and there was no reasoning with him. “Who did this to you?”

“No one did this to me. A good woman once taught me the difference between right and wrong. A good woman who paid the price for her beliefs. No more talking.”

He tugged the stool from under her feet. She dropped just a few inches but the effect was immediate. Suddenly, all her weight was on her wrists and shoulders. The cuffs might have been lined, but they couldn’t insulate her from the intense pressure on her wrists, which burned. Her shoulder sockets took the full brunt too. Gravity seemed to grab a hold of her legs and pull. Her arms felt as if they were being separated from their joints. He didn’t need to flog her; this was suffering enough. How had Holli and the others endured this for more than a moment?

“Time for your punishment, Zoë.”

No
, she thought. She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to go through what Holli had. She’d seen her friend’s face in that workshop. It was like the expression of the living dead. She didn’t want to end up like that. She bucked and half twirled in her shackles. The steel ring holding the cuffs together was looped over the hook. “No, please. You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to kill me. I’ve learned my lesson.”

She struck out at him with her legs. He dropped the whip and bear-hugged her legs with both arms until she stopped thrashing.

“Zoë, this is beneath you. It’s time to suffer the consequences of your actions.”

“I don’t want to die.” She’d never said anything so sincere.

He looked up at her. “You may not, but you have to take your punishment.”

His answer sounded just as sincere. She couldn’t tell if he was lying to her to give her false hope. She wanted to believe there was an out, but who was she kidding? This was her final day on earth if she let him continue.

He released her legs and dropped to one knee to pick up the whip. His head was within striking distance. She lashed out hard with her foot. She missed his head, but connected squarely with his shoulder, her bare toes ringing out in pain from the blow. Suspended, it was hard for her to put any real force behind the kick, but he hadn’t been expecting it, so the strike was enough to knock him off his feet.

He looked up at her with disgust and shook his head. “There’s no saving you, is there?”

She’d had her one shot and she’d blown it. She didn’t bother with pleading. They were past that.

He stood with the whip in his hand. The dirt floor was damp, and his shirt was soaked where he’d landed on it. He examined the soiled garment and crossed the stable to where a duffel hung off a hook between a couple of stalls. He removed a clean polo.

Cleanliness is next to godliness
, she thought.

He turned his back to her and removed his shirt. His back was all lean muscle, covered in a crisscross of scars. He’d said a woman had taught him about right and wrong and paid the price. Seeing his bare skin, all of her questions were answered. Who he was and who he’d become was all there in the damaged flesh. He pulled on the polo.

He returned to the bag and pulled out something small. He walked up to her and held it up for her to see.

“You’ll need this.”

It was a rubber bit. Teeth marks from previous users marred the surface.

Tears ran down her face as she took it into her mouth.

He walked behind her. She heard the whip unfurl and hit the dirt, then he swished it a couple of times. The sound of it cutting through the air and ending its arc with its trademark crack caused her to flinch.