Lilith: a novel (7 page)

It took only a few hours to set up Dave’s online profile and to duplicate it across multiple Internet dating sites.

Maribel used her cell phone to take several casual snapshots of Dave, in each case taking pains to avoid any background that could be associated with the ODCI.

Dave’s online alter ego would need the rudiments of a backstory and a biography. It was decided that Dave would pose as “Don”. He accurately reported his age, build, and other basic physical data.

“Don” worked as the “computer guy” for a small business consultancy. And here was the tricky part: If Dave claimed to work for a well-known local employer, it would be easy for anyone—including the killer—to catch him in the lie.

“Don” would therefore be as evasive as possible if asked about his job, with claims that the consultancy was small, consisted of only a handful of personnel, and worked exclusively with a small number of automotive industry client firms. “Don”, as the IT guy, could plausibly claim to know little about the heart of the business if queried. On the other hand, Dave could rhapsodize forever about computers, so he was covered if anyone threw him any questions about networking or software.

Don would be a recent transplant from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. This would obviate the need to create a complex local history including local school attendance, etc. Ft. Lauderdale was a deliberate addition to Don’s contrived life history: Dave had spent many of his childhood summers in Ft. Lauderdale, and could field basic questions about the South Florida city if asked.

Finally, Don needed a last name: Morris. This was generic, but not patently fake generic, like the proverbial Smith, as in John Smith or Jane Smith. In all of the online people directories, there were multiple Don Morrises in the Cincinnati area—too many to be casually tracked down and verified by Lilith.

It was not a full-proof alias, of course. Without a corroborating driver’s license and other official documentation, Don Morris could not even obtain a local library card. And the alias could never stand up to any level of professional vetting.

But it would probably not come to that. Lilith, in her own alias as an honest woman engaged in online dating, would be bound by the protocols of that world. If Lilith questioned her targets like a potential employer or a representative of officialdom would, she would scare away her victims.

It was a safe bet that Lilith would be aware of this risk, and would not take such a chance. She would not overplay the role of interrogator, so as not to alarm the men she planned to eventually kill.

“Okay,” Dave said. “Check it out.”

Alan and Maribel were gathered around Dave’s computer, within the cramped space of his cubicle. Seated, Dave launched a view of the completed profile in Internet Explorer.

“Hi, my name is Don,”
Dave read.
“I’m 37 years old, and I enjoy dining out, movies, and attending professional sports events. My work involves computers. I’d like to meet a lady between the ages of 27 and 38, who enjoys good conversation, going out, and taking walks.”

“It’s a little lame,” Maribel said tentatively. “I mean—
Don
sounds a little lame. Not
you
, Dave.”

“All dating profiles are lame,” Dave said.

“I don’t read that many of them,” Maribel replied.

Flustered, Dave was about to respond when Alan broke in.

“A little bit lame is okay. Lilith preys on the lame. This is good work, Dave. Now you need to spend some time online, on these sites, posing as Don. If Lilith is out there, I believe that ‘Don’ will draw her in.”

Later that evening, in a restaurant not far from the home where Robert Billings had been shot, thirty-two-year-old Jessica Knox met Mark Quinn for the first time.

Like Robert Billings, Mark Quinn was in his mid-thirties. Also like Robert Billings, Jessica had been able to easily peg Quinn as an early middle-aged man whose romantic life ordinarily ranged from lackluster to nonexistent. Quinn was tall and prematurely balding. He was also awkward and fidgety; and he would have made a horrible first impression if Jessica Knox had been on a real date—which she was of course not.

Unlike Robert Billings, however, Mark Quinn appraised Jessica—whom he knew only as “Lisa”—with a scrutiny that she found unnerving.

Robert Billings, like the two men before him, had been so thrilled to receive attention from a woman of Jessica’s caliber that it took little effort to deceive him. Those men had all deceived themselves, to one degree or another.

But Mark Quinn showed every sign of being different in this regard. It was partly what he said, of course, but it was also a “vibe”.

“You don’t look like your pictures,” Quinn said, somewhat abruptly. He took a sip from his water glass. “Not exactly. Actually not at all, now that I look at you. I mean, you have dark hair, and the photo on your online profile is of a dark-haired woman about the same age and build, but that is about where the resemblance ends.”

Mark had been drawn in, originally, by one of the fake profiles that contained the photos of a Ukrainian model—something Travis had pulled off the Internet. Gathering the online photos, setting up the profiles on the dating sites—that initial part of it was Travis’s job.

There was, certainly, no way that Jessica could risk having her real photos attached to one of those profiles. That would simply be too risky. Although she and Travis covered their tracks, sooner or later one of the “donors”, as Travis called the men, would be traced to one of the dating site profiles.

The police weren’t stupid. Jessica and Travis therefore moved around. They drew in the men using different profiles and different dating sites. Travis said (and she was reasonably confident, too) that from a police perspective, there was no obvious, logical connection between the dating site activity and the murders.

A long time would likely pass before the police made any sort of connection at all. Otherwise, it would be all over the news: “The dating site murders” or something like that. And once the media circus started, they would simply conclude that their routine had become too dangerous, and back off.

But if the police had her actual photos, those photos would be the smoking gun. Her picture would be all over the news, and she would be arrested within twenty-four hours. Hence the photos of Eastern European models.

“They aren’t my pictures,” Jessica admitted. She had found from past experience that it was usually best to come clean about this inconsistency. “I can’t use my real photos.”

Mark raised his eyebrows, obviously dubious.

Then Jessica launched into a rehearsed story about a stalker ex-boyfriend, an abusive man who loved and hated her so possessively that he actively searched for her in online dating venues. He had told her that there would be hell to pay if he caught her keeping company with another man.

“Oh, great,” Mark said. “’If I can’t have you, then no one else will.’ Is that what he says?”

“More or less,” Jessica replied. “He doesn't want me to have any sort of a life without him.”

The ex-boyfriend was a total fabrication, of course. If there had been such an ex-boyfriend, she had no doubt that Travis would have made short work of him.

“Ah, so that’s like, sort of another thing that you weren’t exactly above-board about,” Mark said. The words came out with a smile, but Mark’s sarcasm was unmistakable. This wasn't proceeding as it was supposed to. When she told most of the targets about the psychotic ex-boyfriend, they practically tripped over themselves to show their chivalrous side.

“Are you disappointed, though? I’m not the woman in the photos, that’s true; but would you have still communicated with me if you’d seen my real photos?”

“You’re prettier than the woman in the photos,” Mark said. And for a second, Jessica believed that the situation had been salvaged. “But I’m not happy about the nutso ex-boyfriend.”

“Well, I’m trying to get away from him.”

“That’s true, but you got together with him in the first place.”

Jessica was going to suggest that they simply call it an evening. This was a disaster. Mark Quinn was warier than any of the men she had met on the dating sites so far—even the handful who, for one reason or another, she and Travis had ultimately decided to reject as targets. Strictly speaking, she was wasting her time.

But then the waiter appeared at the table. He was a young guy; he had the look of a college student. If she called it an evening now, she would have to make a scene. And that might be bad. While Mark Quinn would probably forget his evening with “Lisa”, there was a small chance that someday the police would question him about tonight. She did not want to give him any cause for extraordinary suspicion.

“Have you made your selections?” the waiter asked.

Mark tilted his head toward Jessica. “After the lady.”

“I’ll have the grilled salmon,” she said. “With the au gratin potatoes and roasted asparagus.”

The young waiter made some notes on his pad and turned to Mark.

“Sir?”

“I was going to have the veal,” Mark said. “But salmon sounds good, now that you mention it. I’ll have what she’s having.”

“Very good,” the young man said. “I’ll be back with a couple of drink refills in a moment.”

Jessica looked across the table and gave Mark her best smile.

She took Mark’s decision to order what she was ordering as a sign that he wasn't going to press her any further on her multiple inconsistencies.

The dinner ended without any more excessive interrogations. He asked her about her work, and she told him a half-dozen generic stories about the travails of life as a temporary office worker. Since she purported to have worked at a variety of different local employers, Mark didn't expect her to know much about any one of them.

Nevertheless, she had a feeling that Mark Quinn was going to be a no-go. He walked her to the main entrance of the restaurant, where they had met for the first time less than two hours before.

“Well,” said Mark, “We’ll be in touch, okay?”

Jessica nodded. That was even more vague than,
I’ll call you sometime.

She had spooked him; that much was obvious. And he clearly knew that she was hiding all sorts of things. But Mark Quinn would have had no idea exactly what she was hiding. So this man didn't represent a danger to her and Travis—at least not at this point.

For a split second it looked like he would lean in for a goodnight kiss, and she started to back away from him. She always avoided physical contact with the men as much as possible. This was one of Travis’s rules. At the later stages, a little bit of kissing and cuddling was usually unavoidable, though.

Then Mark shifted his weight in the other direction. It had either been a false alarm, or he had thought better of it. They were in the foyer of a restaurant, a public place, after all.

“Well, Lisa, bye.”

“Bye.”

And with that he walked out. She waited half a minute, watched him walked down the sidewalk and turn the corner. She had purposefully parked a block away from the restaurant, in what would be considered an inconvenient location, so that he would not see her vehicle.

She walked the two blocks to where her Jeep was parked—the Jeep that was registered in her name, though Travis seemed to think that he was the primary owner. Damn that Travis.

Thirty minutes later she arrived at the little efficiency apartment that she and Travis were sharing. They had made a deal to rent it by the week, paying cash, signing false names on the papers. As such, it wasn’t much. But the place was only temporary. A few more big scores, she told herself, and the two of them would be living high on the hog. They would rise late in the morning and lie on the beach until the Caribbean sun grew hot. Then they would make love, take a siesta, and awake in the early evening.

Or they would both end up on death row. It could go either way, really.

When she entered, Travis was sitting comfortably on a cheap vinyl recliner in the center of the apartment’s living room. He was barefoot, clad in jeans and a pullover shirt. He was typing something into the keyboard of the untraceable laptop that they had recently acquired. The apartment offered few amenities, but it did offer free Wi-Fi.

“Hey, baby, he said. “How did the ‘date’ go?”

“Not so good. Hey, you aren’t accessing one of the dating sites, are you? We could be traced to the network here, you know.”

There she was, getting paranoid again. While he was in prison, Travis had been housed with a con who had taught him how to be invisible and untraceable on the Internet. That was why they used only secondhand devices that had no paper trail, and they did all their work from anonymous public networks.

Travis closed the laptop, set it on the floor’s threadbare brown carpet and stood up.

“Now baby, you’re forgetting who learned about all this cyberbullshit to begin with. Was that you who spent two years in the pen?”

“No,” she admitted.

“Who was it?”

“It was you, baby.”

He moved toward her, and for perhaps the millionth time she was struck by the beauty of him. Travis was six feet, four inches tall, broad shouldered, and seemingly without an ounce of body fat. He wore his blonde hair shoulder-length. On his right side, between his ear and his shoulder, he had a vertical tattoo: a depiction of a length of barb wire.

Travis reminded her Brad Pitt twenty years ago, of the long-haired role Pitt had played in
Legends of the Fall
.

Travis pulled her against him, kissed her hard, and ran his hands over her. She thought that he might lead her into the adjacent bedroom, but he abruptly stepped back from her and asked.

“What do you mean, the date went ‘not so good?’”

“He was suspicious. He knew that something wasn't quite right. He noticed right off that I wasn't the woman in the pictures. He made a big deal of it.”

“Jessie, do you think this character we’ve created—Lilly, or Lilith, or—”

“Lisa, this time,” she corrected.

“Or
Lisa
. Do you think that this Lisa is the first woman—or man, for that matter—to use fake photos on a dating site profile? I’m sure hundreds of women do that.”

“That isn’t the point, Travis. Hundreds of women aren’t hiding what we’re hiding.”

“Don’t talk yourself into a scare, baby. I’ve told you about that.”

She nodded. “I know.”

“So if this guy is going to be some kind of a wiseass, no big deal. Oh, this one didn't try to get fresh, did he?”

“He didn't even shake hands with me, Travis.”

“Good, because I might just kill him anyway, money or not if he got fresh.”

Jessica shivered involuntarily. The walls of this cheap rented apartment were thin, and who knew who their neighbors might be? Maybe someone on the fringes of the law, who might get busted sometime down the road, and might be eager to turn jailhouse snitch. Travis, for all his positive qualities, was a loose cannon.

“Shhhhh,” she said, bringing a finger to his lips. She pointed at the walls that surrounded them.

“Okay,” he said, his voice a little lower this time. “If this guy doesn't look like a winner, we’ll just go online and pick somebody else. Simple as that.”

Jessica shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“
What?
You don’t
know
? Don't know
what
?

“Sometimes I think that we’ve pushed our luck enough already—that we ought to just quit while we’re ahead.”

“Oh really? Are you saying that you want to quit? Right now we got about forty grand. That’s enough to hold us for a while, but no way is that enough to quit on. And do you still want to retire in the islands? Heck, you were talking about us retiring in the islands just the other day.”

“Yeah,” she admitted. “I was.”

Travis knew her Achilles heel. Once in her life—back when she had a decent job at the bank—she had gone on a cruise to the Bahamas. It was one of those discount affairs, built on the tour company overpromising and under-delivering.

Her room had been cramped, and the food was plain old institutional fare—not the gourmet cuisine she had been promised. But nothing could detract from the glory and beauty of those sun-baked, sand-covered islands.

Travis bent his legs at the knees, so that their eyes were level. He took hold of her shoulders.

“I know what you’re thinking about, Jessie. And I’m telling you—that can be real. That can be our life. But we gotta work for it. We gotta take chances for it.”

She sighed. “Yeah, living on the beach. It sure does sound nice. A far cry from Ohio, huh?”

“Yeah, and that will take money, lots of it. A lot more than forty grand.”

“But we can’t spend any of that money if we end up in jail. They’ll put us in the lethal injection chamber, Travis.”

“There you go again—talking yourself into a scare. And over nothing. You want to try getting another job in a frickin’ bank?”

“No bank would hire me now, Travis. Not after what happened. I’ve told you that before.”

“Well, then.”

“Well, then,” she reluctantly agreed.