Prophet (64 page)

Ted Canan was ready—ready and altogether patient, like a skilled and ruthless hunter. He would only have one chance, one opportunity, and he was willing to wait for the right one. When it came, he would be quick, the results would be final, and he would be out of there, ready to fly back west and collect his payment.

He’d gotten to know the landscaping around the campus, especially the pockets of blackness and covering that lay along the several routes to Clark Hall, one of the girls’ dormitories—
the
dormitory he was most interested in. He’d kept track of Shannon DuPliese all through the day, even during the hours she’d visited with that black lady, whoever she was. He hadn’t been on campus long enough to find a reliable pattern in the girl’s routine, but tonight showed some promise because he knew where she was now, where she would be, and when. After having
dinner with those black folks at the North Campus Diner, she’d gone to the Research Library. The Library closed at 11:00, and that hour was fast approaching. Unless she took a long, circuitous route around the perimeter of the campus, she would have to choose between two possible routes back to Clark Hall, both of which presented very short but very good windows of opportunity.

The most favorable route included a narrow stretch of concrete walkway that ran behind the stadium bleachers, flanked by a sheer concrete wall on one side and a thick, wooded area on the other. At a key spot there was a small trail leading from the walkway into the woods with one row of bushes forming a perfect blind where he could wait. He’d plotted out several quick escape routes from that area—one down a service alley behind the BioMed Library and out to the avenue bordering the campus’s west side, the other south through a botanical garden that was perfectly designed to hide a fleeing killer like him and bordered on the main street leading to the Medical Center. Either way, if things went well he would be long gone before this girl was even missed.

The other route she might follow would be a little riskier because the vegetation wasn’t quite as thick and an escape route was further away, across open space. If she chose that route, he might not make his move tonight.

In any event he’d picked out a vantage point from which he could see which route she chose and then outrace her to the place of ambush. And that was where he now crouched, silent, dressed in black, patient.

SHANNON DUPLIESE TRIED
to study but couldn’t keep her mind on it. She looked up at the clock on the wall. 10:55
P.M.
The Research Library would be closing soon, and she was getting very nervous. She put her book away. She might as well quit for the night.

11:05 P.M.
As Ted Canan watched from his vantage point, two young men walked along the main thoroughfare from the Research Library, talking quietly, their heads and shoulders illumined by the amber floodlights. Then two women. Then a man and woman holding hands
and laughing. He remained still. She would come soon.

Two faculty members came by, one of them earnestly trying to make a point and the other not going along with it until they rounded a corner and their voices faded.

Then one lone man, walking briskly in the cold.

Then, some distance behind him, alone, came Shannon DuPliese. He recognized her long, brown coat and the thick stocking cap she wore on the crown of her head, now pulled down around her face against the cold. She was carrying her large canvas carrier over her shoulder in typical fashion, and she seemed to be in a hurry.

Okay, baby, which will it be?
He watched as she approached the Graphic Arts building, for at that point she would turn right and follow the path that went behind the stadium bleachers or would turn left and walk up the steeper route through the trees and along the parking lot.

She reached the Graphic Arts building. She stopped. What was she doing? She set her bag on the pavement and looked through it. Had she forgotten something?
Too late now, baby, the library’s closed.

She looked back in his direction. He didn’t flinch. He knew she couldn’t see him up in these bushes.

Then she seemed to make up her mind. She picked up her bag . . . and turned right.

C’mon, c’mon, do it, make me happy. Yeah! She was going to take the better route for sure.

She was heading that way, not turning back.

He bolted from his hiding place, bounded up the hill, over a short bridge, and down the winding path toward the stadium. Then, at a predetermined entry point, he bounded like a black gazelle into the woods and wove his way through the trees and bushes to the ambush point, making it there well ahead of her.

He crouched behind the bush blind, his heart racing, his adrenaline pumping. He was already seeing it happen in his mind’s eye; he could already feel his hand around her throat.

Looking up the walkway, he could just see the boundary of the last floodlight’s amber circle. Between that circle and himself was just the right kind of darkness, and so far there were no other human beings passing by.

He heard her footsteps before he saw her. His body tensed, and he fell especially silent.

The footsteps continued, clicking evenly and quickly along the concrete, growing louder and more definite as they approached.

Then he saw her pass through the last reach of the amber light and into the darkness, into his snare.

She was walking down the center of the walkway, her head down, the cap pulled down against the cold, her arms close to her chest, her bag over her shoulder. She was walking blind. He’d be on her before she knew a thing.

She came closer. He prepared for his leap.

She came alongside his hiding place.

He leaped from behind the blind, silent as a spirit, a blurred shadow, a sinewy demon of death. His arms closed about her shoulders, his hand clamped over her mouth, and she made no sound. She struggled, bending, twisting, but he had her in a steel grip and now he was going to finish it quickly. He began pulling her toward the woods.

Uuuhhh! He felt like his groin would come out his throat. The blow kinked his spine, and the pain numbed his brain except for one thought:
hang onto her, hang on.
He managed to keep his grip on her as he tried to recover from the pain that coursed up his body.

Wump! An elbow rammed his ribs so hard he felt he would never breathe again.

Somehow one of her arms got free, and her palm slammed into his face. He stumbled backward. How did her foot get behind him? He tripped over it and slammed flat on the pavement.

Footsteps! Running footsteps! They were closing on him! The game was over. The hunter had become the hunted.

He got to his feet, his legs wobbly, his back bent, his guts threatening to pour out of his quivering body.

“Freeze!” came the shout from further up the walkway. “Police!”

He pushed with his legs, one at a time—it didn’t feel like running—and made for the woods. Out of the corner of his eye he could see a cop dressed up like Shannon DuPliese aiming a .38 at him.

He got to the edge of the woods, took two painful steps into the bushes, and ran into a huge, muscular wall with powerful arms and raging eyes.

“Where you goin’, man?” the wall asked before shoving him back onto the concrete, where he went tumbling again.

He got back on his feet in an instant, ready to run, but the big black man already had him by the collar and belt and slammed him up against the concrete wall. He bounced off and fell backward into the arms of two? three? a dozen? police officers who swarmed, tackled, pinned, and cuffed him.

It was over. Boy, was it over!

“You have the right to remain silent . . .” said one officer.

Ted Canan looked up from the concrete to see a cop remove a wig and stocking cap, another cop holstering his gun, two campus police standing ready with night sticks, and the lone, uniformed orator reading him his rights.

As for that wall that met him in the woods . . . it was a huge black man, standing over him with muscular arms crossed over his chest, smiling knowingly, just glaring at him like a lion eyeing his kill.

“We got you, punk, and now you better sing!”

THE PHONE RANG
in Shannon’s dorm room. She got up from her desk where she’d been waiting and picked up the phone.

“Shannon?” came the voice of a police officer.

“Yes.”

“We got him.”

THE DISPATCHER’S VOICE:
“Hello? Are you there?”

A man’s voice, desperate, urgent: “Who is this? I need the phone—”

“Sir, this is District Twelve Fire Emergency. We have dispatched Medic One and an aid unit to the governor’s residence. Who are you, sir?”

“I’m Governor Slater! It’s my daughter!”

“Is she conscious, sir?”

“No, no, I don’t believe so.”

“Is she breathing normally?”

The governor calls off the phone, “Is she breathing? Ashley! Is she breathing?” A woman screams something in the background. The governor
comes back on the phone.

“She’s breathing, but we don’t think she’s conscious.”

“Does it sound like she’s breathing normally?”

“No . . . No, she’s gasping . . . It’s very labored breathing.”

“Would you like to do CPR? I can help you.”

“Yes! I just need to—”

The woman shouts something. There are thumping sounds, doors opening, footsteps, voices. “Oh, they’re here! Thank God!”

“The aid crew is there, sir?”

“Yes!”

“Very good, sir, they’ll take it from here, all right?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Good-bye.”

Click.

The tape went silent. John hit the Stop button.

Monday night, a little after 8
P.M.

Detective Bob Henderson sat there on the edge of John’s easy chair and just stared blank-faced at the cassette player for a significant length of time. Finally, in as cool and efficient a tone of voice as he could muster, he asked John, “Is that one tape your only copy?”

“I’ve made some others, and they’re in safekeeping,” John answered.

Henderson went back to staring at the cassette player again, thinking, rubbing his chin, his mouth. “Okay . . . so it’s just like Shannon DuPliese says—Hillary Slater died from an abortion.”