SERIAL UNCUT (14 page)

A ripe plum, ready to pluck.

Donaldson tucked the cell phone into
his pocket and got out of the car. He
didn't even have
to initiate contact. He walked in to use the bathroom and strolled
out with his car keys in hand, letting them jingle a bit. The kid
solicited him almost immediately.

"
Excuse me, sir. Are you heading up
north?"

Donaldson stopped, pretending to notice the
man for the first time. He was young, maybe mid-twenties. Short,
reddish hair, a few freckles on his face, mostly hidden by glasses.
His clothing looked worn but of good quality. Donaldson was twice
his age, and damn near twice his weight.

Donaldson rubbed his chin, which he knew
softened his harsh features.

"
In fact I am, son."

The boy's eyes lit up, but he kept a lid on
his excitement. Any hitcher worth his salt knew to test the waters
before sealing the deal.

"
I am, too. If you'd like some
company, I can chip in for gas." He hooded his eyes and quickly
added, "No funny stuff. I'm just looking for a ride. I was hoping
to get to Ogden by midnight. Got family up there. My name's Brett,
by the way."

Well played, Donaldson thought. Friendly, a
little desperate, making clear this wasn't a sexual hookup and that
he had people waiting for him.

As if any of that would keep him safe.

"
How do I know you're not some
psycho?" Donaldson asked. He knew that was pushing it, but he liked
the irony.

"
There's a gas station across the
street. I can top off the tank, pay with a credit card. All gas
stations have cameras these days. Credit card is a paper trail. If
anything happens to you, that would link me to your car, and I'd
get caught."

Smart kid. But not that smart.

The really smart ones don't hitchhike.

"
Won't need gas for a few hundred
miles." Donaldson took off his Cubs baseball hat, running a hand
over his gray, thinning hair. Another way to disarm the victim. No
one feared grandfatherly types. "Until then, if you promise not to
sing any show tunes, you got yourself a ride."

Brett smiled, hefted his pack onto his
shoulders, and followed his ride into the parking lot. Donaldson
unlocked the doors and the kid loaded his pack into the backseat of
Donaldson's 2006 black Honda Accord, pausing when he saw the clear
plastic covers on the front seats.

"
My dog, Neil, usually rides up front
with me," Donaldson said, shrugging. "I don't like him messing up
the upholstery."

Brett flashed skepticism until he noticed
the picture taped to the dash: Donaldson and a furry dachshund.

"
Sheds like crazy," Donaldson said.
"If you buy a dog, stick with short-haired breeds."

That was apparently reassurance enough,
because Brett climbed in.

Donaldson heaved himself into the driver's
seat, the car bouncing on its shocks.

"
Buckle up for safety." Donaldson
resisted the urge to lick his lips, then released the brake,
started the car, and pulled onto the highway.

The first ten miles were awkward. Always
were. Strangers tended to stay strangers. How often did a person
initiate conversation on a plane or while waiting in line? People
kept to themselves. It made them feel safe.

Donaldson broke the tension by asking the
standard questions. Where'd you go to school? What do you do for a
living? Where you headed? When'd you start hitchhiking? Invariably,
the conversation turned to him.

"
So what's your name?" Brett
asked.

"
Donaldson." No point in lying. Brett
wouldn't be alive long enough to tell anyone.

"
What do you do,
Donaldson?"

"
I'm a courier."

Donaldson sipped from the Big Gulp container
in the cup holder, taking a hit of caffeinated sugar water. He
offered the cup to Brett, who shook his head. Probably worried
about germs. Donaldson smiled. That should have been the least of
his worries.

"
So you mean you deliver
packages?"

"
I deliver anything. Sometimes
overnight delivery isn't fast enough, and people are willing to pay
a premium to get it same day."

"
What sort of things?"

"
Things people need right away. Legal
documents. Car parts for repairs. A diabetic forgets his insulin,
guy loses his glasses and can't drive home without them, kid needs
his cello for a recital. Or a kidney needs to get to a transplant
location on time. That's the run I'm on right now."

Donaldson jerked a thumb over his shoulder,
pointing to the backseat floorboard. Brett glanced back, saw a
cooler sitting there, a biohazard sticker on the lid.

"
No kidding, there's a kidney in
there?"

"
There will be, once I get it."
Donaldson winked at the kid. "By the way, what's your blood
type?"

The kid chuckled nervously. Donaldson joined
in.

A long stretch of road approaching. No cars
in either direction.

"
Sounds like an interesting job,"
Brett said.

"
It is. Perfect for a loner like me.
That's why it's nice to have company every so often. Gets lonely on
the road."

"
What about Neil?"

"
Neil?"

Brett pointed at the photograph on the
dashboard. "Your dog. You said he rode with you sometimes."

"
Oh, yeah. Neil. Of course. But it
isn't the same as having a human companion. Know what I
mean?"

Brett nodded, then glanced at the fuel
gauge.

"
You're down to a quarter tank," he
said.

"
Really? I thought I just filled up.
Next place we see, I'll take you up on that offer to
pay."

It was a bright, sunny late afternoon, clean
country air blowing in through the inch of window Donaldson had
open. A perfect day for a drive. The road ahead was clear, no one
behind them.

"
So seriously," Donaldson asked,
"What's your blood type?"

Brett's chuckle sounded forced this time,
and Donaldson didn't join in. Brett put his hand in his pocket.
Going for a weapon, or holding one for reassurance, Donaldson
figured. Not many hitchers traveled without some form of
reassurance.

But Donaldson had something better than a
knife, or a gun. His weapon weighed thirty-six hundred pounds and
was barreling down the road at eighty miles per hour.

Checking once more for traffic, Donaldson
gripped the wheel, braced himself, and stood on the brake.

The car screeched toward a skidding halt,
Brett's seatbelt popping open exactly the way Donaldson had rigged
it to, and the kid launched headfirst into the dashboard. The
spongy plastic, beneath the veneer, had been reinforced with
unforgiving steel.

The car shuddered to a stop, the stench of
scorched rubber in the air. Brett was in bad shape. With no
seatbelt and one hand in his pocket, he'd banged his nose up pretty
good. Donaldson grasped his hair, rammed his face into the
dashboard two more times, then opened the glove compartment. He
grabbed a plastic zip tie, checked again for oncoming traffic, and
quickly secured the kid's hands behind his back. In Brett's coat
pocket, he found a tiny Swiss Army knife. Donaldson barked out a
laugh.

If memory served, and it usually did, there
was an off ramp less than a mile ahead, and then a remote stretch
of farmland. Donaldson pulled back onto the highway and headed for
it, whistling as he drove.

The farm stood just where he remembered it.
Donaldson pulled offroad into a cornfield and drove through the
dead stalks until he could no longer see the street. He killed the
engine, set the parking brake--the Accord had transmission
issues--and tugged out the keys to ensure it wouldn't roll away.
Then he picked a few choice tools from his toolbox and stuck them
in his pocket.

His passenger whimpered as Donaldson muscled
him out of the car and dragged him into the stalks.

He whimpered even more when Donaldson jerked
his pants down around his ankles, got him loosened up with an ear
of corn, and then forced himself inside.

"
Gonna stab me with your little
knife?" he whispered in Brett's ear between grunts. "Think that was
going to save you?"

When he'd finished, Donaldson sat on the
kid's chest and tried out all the attachments on the Swiss Army
knife. The tiny scissors worked well on eyelids. The nail file just
reached the eardrums. The little two-inch blade was surprisingly
sharp and adept at whittling the nose down to the cartilage.

Donaldson also used some tools of his own.
Pliers, for cracking teeth and pulling off lips. When used in
tandem with some garden shears, he was able to get Brett's tongue
out in one piece. And of course, there was the muddler.

Normally wielded by bartenders to mash fruit
in the bottom of drink glasses, Donaldson had his own special use
for the instrument. People usually reacted strongly to being fed
parts of their own face, and even under the threat of more pain,
they'd spit those parts out. Donaldson used the plastic muddler
like ram, forcing those juicy bits down their throats.

After all, it was sinful to waste all of
those delectable little morsels like that.

When the fighting and screams began to find
down, the Swiss Army knife's corkscrew attachment did a fine job on
Brett's Adam's apple, popping it out in one piece and leaving a
gaping hole that poured blood bright as a young cabernet.

Apple
was a
misnomer. It tasted more like a peach pit. Sweet and
stringy.

He shoved another ear of corn into Brett's
neck hole, then stood up to watch.

Donaldson had killed a lot of people in a
lot of different ways, but suffocation especially tickled his funny
bone. When people bled to death they just got sleepy. It was tough
to see their expression when they were on fire, with all the
thrashing and flames. Damaging internal organs, depending on the
organ, was either too fast, too slow, or too loud.

But a human being deprived of oxygen would
panic for several minutes, providing quite a show. This kid lasted
almost five, his eyes bulging out, wrenching his neck side to side
in futile attempts to remove the cob, and turning all the colors of
the rainbow before finally giving up the ghost. It got Donaldson so
excited he almost raped him again. But the rest of the condoms were
in the car, and befitting a man his age, once he got them and
returned to the scene of death, his ardor probably would have
waned.

He didn't bother trying to take Brett's
kidney, or any of his other parts. What the heck could he do with
his organs anyway? Sell them on eBay?

Cleanup was the part Donaldson hated most,
but he always followed a strict procedure. First, he bagged
everything associated with the crime. The rubber, the zip tie, the
Swiss Army knife, and the two corn cobs, which might have his
prints on them. Then he took a spray bottle of bleach solution and
a roll of paper towels and cleaned the muddler, shears, and pliers,
and swabbed out the interior of his car. He used baby wipes on
himself, paying special attention to his fingernails. He put his
tools back into his toolbox. Everything else went into the white
plastic garbage bag, along with a full can of gasoline and more
bleach spray.

He took the money from Brett's wallet--forty
lousy bucks--and found nothing of interest in his backpack. These
went into the bag as well, and then he soaked that and the body
with lighter fluid.

The fire started easily. Donaldson knew from
experience that he had about five minutes before the gas can
exploded. He drove out of the cornfield at a fast clip, part of him
disappointed he couldn't stay to watch the fireworks.

The final result would be a mess for anyone
trying to ID the victim, gather evidence, or figure out what
exactly had happened. If the body wasn't discovered right away, and
the elements and hungry animals added to the chaos, it would be a
crime scene investigator's worst nightmare.

Donaldson knew how effective this particular
disposal method was, because he'd used it twenty-six times and
hadn't ever been so much as questioned by police.

He wondered if the FBI had a nickname
for him, something sexy like
The Roadside
Burner
. But he wasn't convinced those jokers had even
connected his many crimes. Donaldson's courier route took him all
across the country, over a million square miles of hunting ground.
He waited at least a year before returning to any particular spot,
and he was finding new places to play all the time.

Donaldson knew he would never be caught. He
was smart, patient, and never compulsive. He could keep on doing
this until he died or his pecker wore out, and they had pills these
days to fix that.

He reached I-15 at rush hour, traffic
clogging routes both in and out of Salt Lake, and he was feeling
happy and immortal until some jerk in a Winnebago decided to drive
ten miles under the speed limit. Irritated motorists tagged along
like ducklings, many of them using their horns, and everyone taking
their good sweet time getting by in the passing lane.

Seriously, they shouldn't allow some people
on the road.

Donaldson was considering passing the whole
lot of them on the shoulder, and as he surveyed the route and got
ready to gun it, he saw a cute chick in pink shoes standing at the
cloverleaf. Short, lugging a guitar case, jutting out a hip and
shaking her thumb at everyone who passed.

Two in one day? he thought. Do I have the
energy?