Twisted: The Collected Stories (13 page)

Gripping the pistol, Kari peeked through the front-door curtain. David Dale walked slowly toward her yard, clutching a huge bouquet of flowers. He knew enough not to set foot on her property and so, still standing in the street, he bowed from the waist, the way people do when meeting royalty, and set the bouquet on the grass of the parking strip, resting an envelope next to it. He arranged the flowers carefully, as if they were sitting on a grave, then stood up and admired them. He returned to the truck and drove into the windy night.

Barefoot, Kari walked out into the cold drizzle, seized the flowers and tossed them into the trash. Returning to the front porch, she paused under the lantern and tore open the envelope, hoping that maybe Detective Loesser had spoken with Dale and frightened him into leaving. Maybe this was a good-bye message.

But, of course, this wasn’t the case.

To my most Beautiful Lover—

This was a wonderful idea you had, I mean, moving to the east Coast. There were too many people in California vieing (or whatever . . . ha, you know I’m a bad speller!!!) for your love and attention and it means a lot to me that you
wanted them out of your life. And quitting your modeling job so I don’t have to share you with the world any more . . . You did that ALL for me!!!!

I know we’ll be happy here.

I love you always and forever.

—David

P.S. Guess what? I FINALLY found that old New York Scene magazine where you modeled those lether skirts. Yes, the one I’ve been looking for for years! Can you believe it!!!! I was so happy! I cut you out and taped you up (so to speak, ha!!!). I have a “Kari” room in my new condo, just like the one in my old place in Glendale (which you never came to visit—boo hoo!!!) but I decided to put these pictures in my bedroom. I got this nice light, it’s very low like candle light and I leave it on all night long. Now I even look forward to having bad dreams so I can wake up and see you.

Walking inside, she slammed the door and clicked the three deadbolts. Sinking to her knees, she sobbed in fury until she was exhausted and her chest ached. Finally she calmed, caught her breath and wiped her face with her sleeve.

Kari stared at the pistol for a long moment then put it back in the drawer. She walked into the den and, sitting in a straight-back chair, stared into her windswept backyard. Understanding at last that the only way this nightmare would end was with David Dale’s death or her own.

She turned to her desk and began rummaging through a large stack of papers.

The bar on West Forty-second Street was dim and stank of Lysol.

Even though Kari was dressed down—in sweats, sunglasses and a baseball cap—three of the four patrons and the bartender stared at her in astonishment, one bleary-eyed man offering her a flirty smile that revealed more gum than teeth. The fourth customer snored sloppily at the end of the bar. Everyone, except the snoozer, smoked.

She ordered a model’s cocktail—Diet Coke with lemon—and sat at a table in the rear of the shabby place.

Ten minutes later a tall man with ebony skin, a massive chest and huge hands entered the bar. He squinted through the cigarette smoke and made his way to Kari’s table.

He nodded at her and sat, looking around with distaste at the decrepit bar. He appeared exactly like she’d remembered him from their first meeting. That had been a year ago in the Dominican Republic when she’d been on a photo assignment for
Elle
and he’d been taking a day off from a project he’d been working on in nearby Haiti. When, after a few drinks, he’d told her his line of work and wondered if she might need anyone with his particular skills, she’d laughed at the absurd thought. Still, David Dale came to mind and she’d taken his phone number.

“Why didn’t you want to meet at my place?” he now asked her.

“Because of him,” she said, lowering her voice, as if uttering the pronoun alone could magically summon David Dale like a demon. “He follows me everywhere. I don’t think he knows I came to New York. But I can’t take any chances that he’d find out about you.”

“Yo,” the bartender’s raspy voice called, “you want something? I mean, we don’t got table service.”

The man turned to the bartender, who fell silent under his sharp gaze and returned to inventorying the bottles of cheap, well liquor.

The man across from Kari cleared his throat. With a grave voice he said, “You told me what you wanted but there’s something I have to say. First—”

Kari held up a hand to stop him. She whispered, “You’re going to tell me it’s risky, you’re going to tell me that it could ruin my life forever, you’re going to tell me to go home and let the police deal with him.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much it.” He looked into her flinty eyes and when she said nothing more he asked her, “You’re sure you want to handle it this way?”

Kari pulled a thick white envelope out of her purse and slid it toward him. “There’s the hundred thousand dollars. That’s my answer.”

The man hesitated then picked up the envelope and put it in his pocket.

Nearly a month after his meeting with Kari Swanson, Detective Brad Loesser sat in his office and gazed absently at the rain streaming down his windows.
He heard a breathless voice from his doorway.

“We got a problem, Detective,” Sid Harper said.

“Which is?” Loesser spun around. Problems on a night like this . . . that’s just great. Whatever it was, he bet he’d have to go outside to deal with it.

Harper said, “We got a hit on the wiretap.”

After Kari Swanson had met with him Loesser had had several talks with David Dale, urging—virtually threatening—him to stop harassing the woman. The man had been infuriating. He’d appeared to listen reasonably to the detective but apparently hadn’t paid any attention to the lecture and, with psychotic persistence, explained how he and Kari loved each other and that it was merely a matter of time until they’d be getting married. On their last meeting Dale had looked Loesser up and down coldly and then began cross-examining
him,
apparently convinced that the cop himself had a crush on her.

That incident had so unnerved the detective that he’d convinced a commonwealth magistrate to allow a wiretap on Dale’s phone.

“What happened?” Loesser now asked his assistant.

“
She
called him. Kari Swanson called Dale. About a half hour ago. She was nice as could be. Asked to see him.”

“What?”

“She’s gotta be setting him up,” Harper offered.

Loesser shook his head in disgust. He’d been concerned about this very thing happening. From the moment in his office when he’d seen her eyeing
the department’s shotguns he’d known that she was determined to end Dale’s stalking one way or another. Loesser had kept a close eye on the situation, calling Kari at home frequently over the past weeks. He’d been troubled by her demeanor. She’d seemed detached, almost cheerful, even when Dale had been parked in his usual spot, right in front of her house. Loesser could only conclude that she’d finally decided to stop him and was waiting for an opportune time.

Which was, it seemed, tonight.

“Where’s she going to meet him? At her house?”

“No. At the old pier off Charles Street.”

Oh, hell, Loesser thought. The pier was a perfect site for a murder—there were no houses nearby and it was virtually invisible from the main roads in town. And there were stairs nearby, leading down to a small floating dock, where Kari, or someone she’d hired, could easily take the body out to sea to dispose of it.

But she didn’t know about the wiretap—or that they now had a clue as to what her plans were. If she killed Dale she’d get caught. She’d get life in prison for a lying-in-wait murder.

Loesser grabbed his coat and sprinted toward the door.

The squad car skidded to a stop at the chain-link fence on Charles Street. Loesser leapt out. He gazed toward the pier, a hundred yards away.

Through the fog and rain the detective could vaguely make out David Dale in a raincoat, clutching
a bouquet of roses, walking slowly toward Kari Swanson. The tall woman stood with her back to Dale, hands on the rotting railing, gazing out over the turbulent gray Atlantic.

The detective shouted for Dale to stop. The sound of the wind and waves, though, was deafening—neither the stalker nor his prey could hear.

“Boost me up,” Loesser cried to his assistant.

“You want—?”

The detective himself formed Harper’s fingers into a cradle, planted his right foot firmly in the man’s hands and then vaulted over the top of the chain link. He landed off balance and tumbled painfully onto the rocky ground.

By the time the officer climbed to his feet and oriented himself, Dale was only twenty feet from Kari.

“Call for backup and an ambulance,” he shouted to Harper and then took off down the muddy slope to the pier, unholstering his weapon as he ran. “Don’t move! Police!”

But he saw he was too late.

Kari suddenly turned and stepped toward Dale. Loesser couldn’t hear a gunshot over the roaring waves or see clearly through the misty rain but there was no doubt that David Dale had been shot. His hands flew to his chest and, dropping the flowers, he stumbled backward and sprawled on the pier.

“No!” Loesser muttered hopelessly, realizing that he himself was going to be the eyewitness who put Kari Swanson in jail. Why hadn’t she listened to him? But Loesser was a seasoned professional
and he kept his emotions in check as he followed procedure to the letter. He lifted his gun toward the model and shouted, “On the ground, Kari! Now!”

She was startled by the cop’s sudden appearance but she immediately did as she was told and lay face forward on the wet wood of the pier.

“Hands behind your back,” Loesser ordered, running to her. He quickly cuffed her and then turned to David Dale, who was struggling to his knees amid the crushed roses, writhing and howling in agony. At least he wasn’t dead yet. Loesser rolled Dale onto his back and ripped open his shirt, looking for the entry wound. “Stay calm. Don’t move!”

But he couldn’t find a bullethole.

“Where’re you hit?” the detective shouted. “Talk to me. Talk to me!”

But the big man continued to sob and shake hysterically and didn’t respond.

Sid Harper ran up, panting. He dropped to his knees beside Dale. “Ambulance’ll be here in five minutes. Where’s he hit?”

The detective said, “I don’t know. I can’t find the wound.”

The young cop too examined the stalker. “There’s no blood.”

Still, Dale kept moaning as if he were in unbearable pain. “Oh, God, no . . . No . . .”

Finally Loesser heard Kari Swanson call out, “He’s fine. I didn’t hurt him.”

“Get her up,” the detective said to Harper as he continued to examine Dale. “I don’t understand it. He—”

“Jesus Christ,” Sid Harper’s stunned voice whispered.

Loesser glanced at his assistant, who was staring at Kari with his mouth open.

The detective himself turned to look at her. He blinked in astonishment.

“I really didn’t shoot him,” Kari insisted.

Except . . . 
Was
this Kari Swanson? The woman was the same height and had the same figure and hair. And the voice was the same. But in place of the extraordinary beauty that had burned itself into Loesser’s memory on their first meeting, this woman’s face was very different: she had a bumpy, unfortunate nose, thin, uneven lips, a fleshy chin, wrinkles in her forehead and around her eyes.