Watch Me (21 page)

For a while I smoked and sipped my whisky and listened to the most beautiful piece of music ever written and did my best to shake off the day. My brain never switches off. The best I can hope for is that I can get it idling in a low gear. There was always something to think about, some puzzle to unravel.

This piece of music was a prime example. Western music uses a twelve-note octave, and somehow Mozart managed to blend those twelve notes into something so heart-rendingly beautiful that I don’t understand how it can actually exist. I’ve picked this piece of music apart, examined every note, every phrase, and I still don’t understand why or how it works. The only conclusion I can draw is that there are some things that exist beyond our ability to comprehend.

However, this doesn’t sit comfortably since it leaves me trapped in a logic loop. Every question has an answer and every puzzle can be solved. Maybe one day I’ll have a moment of enlightenment, that eureka moment where the pieces finally fall into place.

Then again, maybe you should be careful what you wish for. Once you know how the illusion is performed, the magic is lost for ever, and all you’re left with are a bunch of gaudily painted plywood props and an assistant in a cheap costume who’s wearing too much make-up.

The music drifted into silence and I switched off the laptop. I kicked off my boots and removed my jeans, chased a sleeping tablet down with some whisky then lay on the bed. For a while I stared at the shadows dancing on the ceiling, eyes heavy and my thoughts finally slowing to a more manageable level. Somewhere along the line, I drifted into an uneasy sleep.

37

I woke just after five, my brain turning at full speed. The thought that had got hold of me was that I was somehow responsible for Dan Choat’s murder. Simply put, if I hadn’t got involved in the investigation then Choat would still be alive now. Terminally single and trapped by his mom issues in his neat-freak life maybe, but still alive.

This idea was flawed from the foundation upwards. We cannot be held responsible for the actions of others. If a wife goes crazy and grabs a shotgun and shoots her abusive drunk husband dead, who do you blame? The husband for being a drunk? The shotgun manufacturer? Jack Daniel? You could try, but the truth of the matter was that she made the decision to pick up the shotgun, and she made the decision to pull the trigger. There were a dozen other ways she could have chosen to handle the situation, but that’s the one she opted for.

I understood the logic and, when the sun came up, I’d buy into it. The problem was that at five in the morning what you believe and what you know are poles apart.

For a while I lay in bed, wishing for sleep. My watch ticked around to five-thirty and I gave up trying. As much as I wanted more sleep, it wasn’t going to happen.

There was a small kettle on the dresser so I was able to make a coffee. I switched on my laptop and set the computer to play tracks at random, quietly, just in case there were any other guests. ‘Every Breath You Take’ by The Police came on, a firm favourite of newlyweds and stalkers. All alone in a darkened room in the raw hours before dawn, the song seemed to take on a sinister edge that I’d always known was there but had never fully appreciated.

The kettle boiled and I fixed a coffee, adding three sugars to disguise the taste. I settled down on the bed and checked my emails. ‘Every Breath You Take’ was replaced by ‘Riders on the Storm’, an atmospheric old Doors song that was just as sinister. The mood I was in, it seemed prescient.

The email from Chief Olina Kalani in Honolulu included dozens of attachments. I’d asked for everything, and everything’s what I’d got. Photographs, interview transcripts, autopsy reports, the works.

The media had christened this unsub the Clown Killer. I hated nicknames because their only purpose was to create mystique, and mystique was the foundation of legend. When that happened the atrocities committed by these assholes became glamorised. Before you knew it, you had magazine articles and books and TV specials, even movies. These people were monsters. Lock them in a dungeon and throw away the key. Don’t give them bright lights and infamy. That’s just wrong.

This unsub only targeted prostitutes. He attempted to rape them, then he stabbed them and painted their faces. An untidy, ragged red smile, a big red nose, thick black make-up around the eyes. The bodies were dumped in alleyways or behind dumpsters. No attempt was made to conceal them. This guy wanted his victims found.

The first thing that struck me was how needy this unsub was. Here was someone who craved the spotlight. His murders were performances. He wanted people to sit up and take notice. He wanted people to go, ‘Wow, look what the Clown Killer’s gone and done this time!’

The second thing that struck me was how low his self-esteem was.

Prostitutes are low-risk victims. The nature of their profession means they’ll go off with a complete stranger with little regard for their own safety, which makes them easy targets. That said, within this group there are sub-groups, each with a different level of risk attached. The riskiest prostitutes to target are your high-end escorts. If you’re charging thousands of dollars an hour, then you can guarantee that your pimp or madam will make sure their investment is protected.

This unsub worked the other end of the scale. His victims charged nickels and dimes to blow you in your car or an alleyway. They were junkies. They were older. They’d gone past their shelf life. Consequently, they were easy targets.

His attempt at raping his victims was another indicator of low self-esteem. Reading through the autopsy reports, it was obvious that this part of the attack was over mercifully quickly. The downside was that this angered and frustrated him, and he then took his anger out on his victims. Each one had been stabbed at least twenty times. Deep, forceful, thrusts to compensate for what he wanted to do, but hadn’t been able to.

In the background, Hendrix was singing ‘The Wind Cries Mary’. I lit a cigarette and closed my eyes and thought things through. I could see a man in a hurry, fuelled by fury and self-loathing. And I could see a small boy whose life had been a hellish nightmare of beatings and abuse, whose only escape was into the perfect world promised on TV.

Hendrix faded out and Led Zeppelin came thundering in like the Four Horsemen. Even with the volume on low those four guys still managed to sound like the end of the world. I hit reply and started typing.

This unsub was a white male aged twenty to twenty-five, a failed actor or musician. He probably spent his life telling anyone who listened that he was on the verge of greatness. That the record companies were fighting to sign him up and turn him into the next big thing or the TV networks were lining up to get him to star in their next big series or his Hollywood agent had got him a part in next summer’s big adrenaline-inducing blockbuster. The truth was a string of failed auditions and forgettable talent-show appearances.

And he was going to be easy to find because he would have been a face in the crowd at every crime scene. This unsub wouldn’t have been able to stay away. He’d want to witness the reaction to his work at first hand.

He wanted the applause. He craved the validation it brought.

Chief Kalani needed to get his people to check out news footage from the crime scenes. That’s how they were going to catch this guy. Check the crowds for a bad actor who was doing his best to make out like this wasn’t the best show ever.

38

I parted the drapes and looked out the window. It had just gone six-thirty and the sun would be up soon. The sky was beginning to lighten in anticipation of the main event, black turning to grey with a hint of purple. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the light breeze blowing in through the open window promised another hot one.

Apollo’s was still closed and Morrow Street was as deserted as it had been last night. I shut the window, then hit the shower. I ran it as hot as I could stand to get rid of yesterday’s grime before turning it to freezing to blast away the fatigue. Another couple of hours’ sleep would have been good. Another six would have been divine.

By the time I’d got dried and dressed, Apollo’s was open, the flickering neon rocket lit up blue and red and blasting off to wherever. I was the first customer of the day and I took the window seat I’d had yesterday. Lori looked exactly the same as she had the day before. Same make-up, same smile, same beehive hair-do. Same retro uniform as well, but this one was clean on and still smelled of fresh laundry.

‘Early riser,’ she said.

‘Borderline insomniac.’

She smiled. ‘You and my Frank would get on just fine. That’s him banging around in the kitchen. He’s not a morning person, let me tell you. Like a bear with a sore head. Me, I sleep like the dead. My head touches the pillow and boom, that’s me out until the alarm goes. Coffee?’

‘That would be great, thanks.’

There was a sudden loud crash from the kitchen followed by a whole lot of swearing. Lori shouted out, ‘It’s right there at your feet, honey,’ and Frank swore some more, making her smile. She shook her head and started pouring my coffee.

‘How long ago did your sister die?’ I asked.

Lori paused mid-pour, then carried on. When she’d finished, she straightened up. The smile was gone. That was all the confirmation I needed. Up until this point I’d been ninety-nine per cent certain that Hannah had been lying when she told me her mother had Parkinson’s. Now I was a hundred per cent certain.

‘Cissy passed away almost a year ago.’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t believe it’s a year already. I still miss her every single day. She was my baby sister, and she’ll always be my baby sister, and I loved her. Thing is, I’m going to get older and she’s not, and that’s just plain wrong. I was the older sister. It was my job to protect her. Have you lost anyone close to you?’

‘I’ve lost people, yes.’

‘So you know what I’m talking about?’

I nodded because I did, but not from first-hand experience. Deal with death day in, day out and you get to see more than your share of grief. The truth was that I hadn’t shed a single tear for either of my parents.

‘What happened to Cissy?’

‘Breast cancer. She’d done chemo, thought she had it licked, but cancer’s a sneaky disease. It came back twice as bad and spread like wildfire. There was nothing Cissy could do. Nothing any of us could do except watch her wasting away.’

Lori wiped her eyes, smearing her mascara.

‘How did Hannah deal with it?’

‘She was an angel. She nursed her mom all the way through to the end. And she managed to keep the guesthouse going.’

‘I take it Hannah’s father isn’t in the picture.’

Lori shook her head. ‘He ran out when Hannah was still in diapers. Worthless no-good son of a bitch.’

‘The guesthouse doesn’t seem that busy right now.’

‘Peaks and troughs. It’s always been like that. A couple of weeks ago it was packed. No way you would have got a room. This week it’s empty. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, though. It means Hannah gets a break.’

‘She’s on her own over there, isn’t she?’

Lori nodded. ‘Me and Frank try to help out as best we can but we’ve got enough on our hands with the diner, so, yeah, she’s pretty much running that place single-handedly. I’ve told her a hundred times to hire someone but she won’t hear of it. It’s almost like she’s punishing herself, like she’s blaming herself for her mother’s death.’

Lori sighed and pulled herself together in a way that made it obvious this conversation was over. She put down the coffee pot and took out her pad and pencil. ‘So what can I get you to eat?’

‘Ham and eggs would be good.’ I smiled and clapped my hands together, making Lori jump. ‘So are you ready for the morning rush?’

‘You’re kidding, right? You saw what it was like yesterday. I don’t know why we bothered opening. Not that I’m surprised. Something like this happens and folks are going to be scared. It’s only natural. I mean, I’m scared. The idea that there’s a killer out there somewhere frightens me half to death.’

‘People still need to eat, Lori. And anyway, Sam Galloway’s already yesterday’s news. A good night’s sleep generally helps to restore common sense and get everything back into perspective.’

‘And I’m guessing you’re a coffee-pot’s-always-full kind of guy.’

‘Always.’

Lori laughed and hustled back to the counter. She shouted my order through to Frank, and he shouted back that it would be his pleasure in that flat, world-weary voice. This was obviously a conversation they’d had a hundred thousand times over the years, a well-rehearsed double act. I stirred two sugars into my mug and took a sip. Then I took out my cellphone and made two calls. Taylor first because, theoretically, he had further to come, then Hannah since she only had to come from across the street. The conversation was the same both times: breakfast was being brought forward.

39

I’d just started eating when Hannah arrived. She smiled when she saw me, eyes sparkling, the stress, worry and years melting away. Today she was wearing a Death Parade T-shirt, another band I’d never heard of. I was wearing a Lennon T-shirt. She thumped down into the seat opposite.

The diner was already getting busier. There was a group of three guys in tan police department uniforms at a table opposite the till, and a single guy in a red plaid shirt had his head buried in the pages of the morning paper at a table in the far corner.

‘Hi, Hannah,’ Lori called from the counter. ‘The usual?’

‘Thanks, Aunt Lori.’

Lori shouted the order through to Frank, and Frank shouted back that it would be his pleasure in that flat comic voice. Then she came over with the coffee pot, topped up my mug and poured a fresh mug for Hannah. They exchanged some small talk and Lori headed back to the counter.

‘Tell me Taylor’s first name and I won’t take your money.’

‘And why would I do that?’

‘Because I am going to work it out, and when I do you’re going to be two hundred bucks out of pocket.’