Final Victim (1995) (16 page)

He put his head back and touched his nipples. They were stinging slightly against the fabric of his shirt. He watched as a tall, beautiful blond woman with very short hair drove her blue Volvo into the garage, got out with some groceries, and walked toward the house. She entered and closed the door. He put his head back on the headrest and, in minutes, went to sleep.

The Rat woke up at ten and moved across the street, clutching his case. His eardrums pumped the rhythm of his heartbeat. He knew where he was and what he'd come to do. He moved in darkness around the small house, looking in the windows. The Rat had never killed. He had coveted but never possessed. He was frightened of his mission. He knew The Wind Minstrel was three or four days from coming, but he couldn't wait. He had to close the door of redemption. He walked to the back of the house. A child's easel was set up there. He looked at it an
d w
ondered where the child was. Then he saw, through the window, that a blond woman was preparing food in the kitchen. He moved to the back porch and stood, listening. The eavesdropper had been calling from this address. Could the tall, beautiful woman in the kitchen be Karen Dawson, who had been lurking in his chat room?

As always, The Rat had taken his sneaky precautions. After he had found the eavesdropper, he had made his plan. He had tracked the LAPD number long distance from Tampa and begun cracking into the police computer, while frantically packing The Wind Minstrel's tools for Leonard to take. He had finally broken through the LAPD's computer security and had saved the entire dialup and login sequence to the Police Mobile Digital Terminal system for Studio City. He stored it in a fully automated script on his PC which he could recall at any time.

He now put his fat, hairless hand on the back doorknob of the house in Studio City and tried it. It was open. The Rat took out his gloves and put them on. He set the suitcase down on the dewy, wet grass and popped it open. He removed the shiny scalpels that The Wind Minstrel used to possess. They seemed awkward and heavy in his hand. He closed the suitcase and carried it with him as he moved to the back door. Could this tall, beautiful woman work for U
. S
. Customs? he wondered. Could she possibly be clever enough to penetrate the mysteries of his secret room? Had Shirley sent this bitch to open the door to his twothousand-three-hundred-day Journey of Redemption?

He opened the back door and silently entered the sun-room. He set down the suitcase and moved toward the kitchen. Finally, he pushed open the swinging door. He carried only the long scalpel with the number 10006 blade. He put the surgical instrument between his teeth. He was not coveting. He was not possessing. The Rat was fighting to protect his immortal soul. Before he killed her, he had to ask her questions. He needed to know the answers.

She had her back to him when he entered the kitchen, but she heard footsteps.

"Heather, how was the movie? I didn't hear Mrs. Klein's car pull up." She was turning, smiling when he attacked her. He grabbed her and clapped his big, meaty hand over her mouth, cutting off her scream. Then he hit her hard with his fist. She sagged in his arms but did not go down. She fought him savagely as he tried to control her, slashing wildly in fear with his knife.

The Rat dragged her into the bedroom, tipping over a bedside table, breaking a lamp. He threw her on the bed and hit her again, knocking her unconscious. He pulled down all the blinds and stood in front of her, whimpering. He didn't know how to wake her. He needed to know the answers. Then he placed his hand over her mouth and held her nose. She choked, coughed, and opened her eyes.

"Why were you in my secret room?" he asked.

"What . . . ? Who . . . ?" Claire was struggling to get her mind to focus. She was looking up at a huge man she had never seen before. She fought to control her spiraling emotions. Panic would only make things worse.

He leaned down close to her; his breath was sour. "I see only what he lets me see. The final vision is hidden. I
. D
on't understand the cleansing, but I will not suffer," he told her. "I will not suffer or be tortured for six years. So, you answer me," he said in a deadly whisper.

Claire had seen him too late to defend herself in the kitchen, but now, lying on the bed, she started to take stock of her situation. He was huge but slow, and obviously deranged. She was strong and quick, with good upper-body strength. She hoped she could mollify him until she got her senses back in order. He had hit her hard and she was still fighting to clear her mind.

"I have the mark of the Beast on me," The Rat told her. "Th
e m
ark of the Beast is for unclean sinners. It cannot be refuted or changed. But I will not be tortured for crimes I was told to commit," he said, as if that would explain the scalpel and his presence in her bedroom.

"I understand."

"Were you the one who eavesdropped?"

She didn't know what to tell him. She didn't know what he was talking about.

"You will answer."

"I don't . . . I--"

And he swung the scalpel, slicing her right arm open. She screamed in terror and pain as he hit her again with a short, chopping blow. It knocked her back into the headboard. And then he heard a high scream behind him. He turned and, standing in the bedroom doorway, there was a beautiful blond girl, about ten. He lumbered up to grab her, but the woman on the bed kneed him in the groin, grabbed him, and, with a strength he would never have thought she possessed, pulled him back on top of her. Her blood-soaked right arm found her left wrist behind his huge back. She clung to him.

"Leggo . . . leggo me," he gasped in panic. The Rat had no experience. He had never killed. The girl had seen him. The Wind Minstrel would never have made such a mistake.

"Heather, run! Call the police!" the woman screamed. The Rat pulled half-free, enough so he could grab the scalpel on the bedspread where it had fallen. The little girl ran. He knew he had to move fast to catch the child, but the woman was struggling to keep him from following. She held him with the strength of a demon. He lifted the scalpel high over his head.

Claire saw his hand come down, but barely felt the scalpel as it plunged into her chest. She was holding on, gouging with her nails. She knew if she could only hold him for a few more seconds, Heather woul
d h
ave time to get away. She heard her daughter screaming for help in the front yard. Claire desperately held on. She felt the pain when the scalpel was pulled from her chest, and then she saw it coming down again. This time, her heart exploded when it plunged into her. She felt a terrible agony shooting in all directions . . . through her chest, her arms and legs, out to the tips of her fingers. She felt a convulsion rack her. Then, as if somebody had pulled a curtain on her life, she saw black and let go of the man attacking her. Her last hope was that she had saved her daughter's life.

The Rat was soaked with her blood. He started to whimper in fear. He grabbed his computer and sat at the table in the den. He was shaking uncontrollably, dripping her blood on the keys. He didn't know how much time had passed, but then he heard a distant siren and it snapped him alert. . . . Be cunning, be shrewd. You are the planner and the schemer, his mind lectured him. He hooked up the modem to the phone and turned on the power.

Then he hit a key and started the automated script which accessed the dialup and login sequence he had cracked earlier. Within a minute he was into the LAPD computer dispatch system. Suddenly, the LAPD Mobile Digital Terminal dispatch popped up on his screen:

Los Angeles Police Department Mobile Digital Terminal

Dispatch System

He chose the option:

Review Active Calls

And scrolled it to the last computer call:

INCIDENT#6108002340 UNIT 15A56 HANDLE CODE 3 ADW SUSPECT THERE NOW 3245X 1265 MOORPARK STREET

He scrolled down and saw a unit confirmation:

15A56 WILL BUT THAT CALL WILL HANDLE CODE 3

He could hear the siren in the distance getting nearer. He typed a ne
w a
ddress into the computer, reversing only the first two digits, hopin
g t
his would look to the police later on like a simple transposition mistake.

He sent the new message:

INCIDENT#6108002340 UNIT 15A563245X

RESPONDENT REPORTS *INCORRECT* *ADDRESS*

He hit the "Send" option and waited, his heart pounding. The siren was getting closer: on this very block, approaching the house. Then it stopped and seemed to turn around. He could hear the police car siren speed away, the piercing sound diminishing. He grabbed his laptop and his suitcase, packed everything up, and ran through the mess he had made, out of the house through the front door. He was frightened and galloped as he ran. He got into the rental car and pulled out and down the street, going fast.

* * *

From the house next door, Heather watched him go. She was crying. "Why did the police go away?" she asked the next-door neighbors. The man and woman shook their heads, bewildered.

It was twenty minutes before the police returned. By then, Heather had already found her dead mother's body and was sitting on the floor in a corner of the bedroom, her mother's blood all over. The police tried to question her, but Heather Lockwood was deep in shock.

Chapter
15

Malavida saw his opening when he first scanned the building graphics on the Hoyt Tower computer, but he wasn't quite sure how to use it. He knew Lockwood was sharp and had a tender ear for bullshit. Malavida figured this was going to be his only chance to escape, but he had a few problems to solve: First, he had to get the handcuff key out of Lockwood's pocket and into a place where he could get at it; second, he had to lure Lockwood, Karen, and the two Atlanta patrol officers into the file room he'd spotted on the sixth floor. Fortunately, Detective Stiner had been forced to leave on another call. The question was how best to do it. He had been turning over the problem in his mind for almost an hour while he'd worked with Lockwood and Karen, uncovering potential clues the killer had left in the Atlanta building's computer. He knew he could send the security system a time-delayed command, but once he set events in motion, the timetable would be critical and there would be no turning back. Half an hour ago, he'
d s
tarted to write a pirate program that would accomplish his plan. It was now almost complete, but time was short. He could see that Lockwood was getting ready to pull out. In the last hour, the Customs agent had become restless. That could work to Malavida's advantage. He knew that once they were on a plane headed to Washington, his chances of escape would diminish drastically. All of these things were playing in his mind when God stepped in and changed the flight schedule.

The electrical storm which had been hovering at the edge of the horizon all night finally rolled back in and pelted the eight o'clock traffic with BB-sized hailstones. A thick cold front moved in behind the storm and buried Atlanta in a blanket of fog. Lockwood called the airport, but it was closed. The agent was staring morosely out the window at the gray soup, unable to even see the drugstore across the street. His body language indicated that he was in a different place. Jumpiness had been replaced with an uninterested calm. Malavida knew now was the best time to try his escape. He hit Enter on his computer, then surreptitiously uploaded his pirate program into the building's host computer.

"Gotta go to the bathroom, Jefe," he said softly.

Lockwood continued staring out the window at the thick fogbank. "One of the patrolmen will take you," he said, not turning from the window.

"You gotta uncuff me."

That got Lockwood's attention. The Fed turned from the window and looked at Malavida.

"Not very damn likely," he said, his voice flat as an Iowa landscape.

Malavida leaned forward. "Gotta shit, man. How'm I supposed t
o d
o that with these on, huh? Dumb and Dumber over there can cove
r m
e while I take care a'business," he said, indicating the two Atlanta cops.

Lockwood was not paying very close attention to Malavida's request. His mind was replaying the dark fugue of self-destruction he had orchestrated for himself.

"Come on, man. . . . What's with you?"

"One of you guys go with him," Lockwood finally said to the two Atlanta cops as he pulled the handcuff key out of his pocket and moved over and unlocked the bracelets.

Malavida got up and stretched elaborately. He had deliberately left his computer on. The screen showed a computer graphic of the sixth floor, which included the windowless steel-doored file room he had found. He assumed it was part of the building's management complex. His pirate program had now pre-set his commands into the Hoyt Tower security computer. He had given it a fifteen-second delay from the time the computer in the file room was accessed. He hoped that would be enough time. Now all he had to do was lure all of them up there and activate the plan. That was going to be the tricky part.

The taller of the two Atlanta patrolmen got to his feet and accompanied Malavida as he went into the lobby in search of the men's room. It was ten to nine on Monday morning and the building was now filling with employees of Cavanaugh and Cunningham. They got off the elevator like reluctant children, talking in low, tense voices as they moved to their desks and set down briefcases and purses. Candice's murder had been on all the weekend TV newscasts. The employees looked around, their eyes darting over Lockwood, Karen, and the one remaining Atlanta cop. Then, with hooded glances, they looked for the spot on the floor where Candice Wilcox had made her last stand.