Stacey gestured for Lizzy to take a seat on the couch while sat in a green velvet chair close by. “I’m really not sure why I’m here,” Lizzy said. “I hardly knew Jennifer or Michael before she was killed, but I’m going to be forthright with you because, strangely, I felt your pain when you spoke to me about Michael. You were right. My gut feeling is that the man is innocent, but gut feelings are never enough when it comes to murder.”
Lizzy sipped her tea, hoping Stacey would chime in, but she didn’t. Stacey was a great listener, a professional, and it was clear the woman wasn’t going to say a word until she was certain Lizzy had finished talking. Lizzy had no reason to withhold information, so she told Stacey everything. “Jennifer and Michael hired me to check out a workers’ compensation claimant. I met with them twice. The first time I met Michael and Jennifer was at their house. I liked them both straight off. They were friendly, and I was especially impressed with the way Michael and Jennifer treated each other with love and respect. Since they didn’t have children and they tended to hold hands and gaze into one another’s eyes—”
Stacey shifted in her seat, her eyes downcast.
“Is something wrong?”
“No, not at all. I was thinking of Jennifer. Please continue.”
“I was saying that their loving gestures made me think they were newlyweds, which is why I was surprised to learn they had been married for so long. The second time I met them was when I dropped a contract off at their office downtown. Jennifer was on the phone and she was more than annoyed by the caller, especially agitated when the man refused to take no for an answer…something to do with someone hiring a limo driver for their anniversary party. Before I left, Michael showed up to check on Jennifer and take her to dinner.” Lizzy let out a sharp breath. “That would have been it, except Lieutenant Greer allowed me inside
the realty office yesterday.” Lizzy opened her purse, pulled out a piece of paper, and handed it to Stacey. It was a copy of a picture she’d taken on her cell phone.
“After Jennifer hung up the phone, she crumpled up a yellow sticky note and threw it toward the garbage bin, only she missed. On a hunch, I waited until Greer was in the other room before I looked to see if the note was still there. Of course, I couldn’t take anything that might be considered evidence, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t take a picture of the note. It’s all scribbles and hard to read.”
“Best Limousines,” Stacey said, squinting to make out the letters.
Lizzy nodded. “That’s it. That’s all I’ve got. A gut feeling that Michael is innocent and a picture of a sticky note.”
“Thank you,” Stacey said. She picked up a photo album and handed it to Lizzy, asking her to take a look. As Lizzy flipped through page after page of Stacey and her family sharing many happy moments with Jennifer and Michael, it was her turn to listen.
“Although I’m new to Channel 10 News, I come from a long line of reporters. My father and I have had endless talks about trusting our gut feelings. Between my father and me, we’ve talked to dozens of criminals, cold-blooded killers included. Of course, I recognize that you were forced to live with one of the worst kinds of lunatics for months. Neither of us is being naïve, Lizzy. Michael is innocent.”
After a while, Lizzy set the photo album aside and said, “I told Lieutenant Greer I wanted to talk to Michael.”
“Why? What would you say to him?”
“I’m not sure at this point. I want to ask him a few questions, see his reaction, I guess.”
Stacey nodded as she processed Lizzy’s plan. “You’ll let me know if you get to talk to Michael?”
“Of course.”
They both stood.
Lizzy offered her hand, and Stacey clasped it between hers. In that moment, she noticed a look of desperation in Stacey’s eyes.
Why?
Something told her there was more to this story than Stacey was letting on. But for now, she decided to keep that thought to herself. Instincts were great, but there was a lot to be said for patience, too.
I talked to her, saying I was sorry for what I had done. It was the first time I had apologized to someone I had killed.
—Peter Sutcliffe
Saturday, May 12, 2012
The wooden stairs creaked as he descended, each step deliberate, his hand brushing against the cold wall in the dark until his right foot landed on the concrete surface below. Reaching outward and upward, he grasped onto the end of the chain and gave it a tug.
Click
.
And then there was light.
Everything was immaculate, just the way he liked it. The room smelled of disinfectant. Both cages at the far end of the room contained a twin mattress, a blanket, granola bars, water bottles, and even a porta potty. He was ready for the next hurrah.
He’d spent countless hours working on his special room, making sure everything was in its place. Every time he came down the steep wooden stairs, which was not nearly as often as he would have liked, he felt overwhelmed with pride at what he’d created. One smoothly plastered wall was covered with memorabilia, including handcrafted necklaces adorned with rings, tufts
of hair, gold teeth, driver’s licenses, a thumb, fingers, and five beautiful toes.
Breathing in, he felt dizzy with satisfaction as he summoned the smell of fear and relived the terror of days and nights long past.
His favorite bit of décor was the amazing heart-shaped design he’d made out of Susan and Raymond Fenster’s dried skin, which had been framed years ago. Susan made up the left side of the heart and Raymond the right. He’d taken special care in preserving the skin before letting it dry by using a mixture of formaldehyde and solvents. The tiny stitches he’d used to bind the two halves were hardly noticeable.
Susan and Raymond may have suffered the longest of all his victims, but they were the only pair of all his couples who had willingly died in the name of love. Neither had been able to bear seeing the other suffer and so they had made a pact. If the opportunity arose, Raymond would kill Susan somehow and then take his own life immediately afterward. Although they had been in separate cages at the time, the cages were close enough that they were able to reach out of one and into the other if they wanted to touch each other.
After listening to the two of them talk about starving to death in order to end their nightmare, he’d handed Susan a hunting knife, giving her the option to kill herself fast and efficiently. He’d been surprised when, more excitedly than ever, they continued their suicidal talk. He even tried to talk them out of it, but their minds were made up. Within an hour after Susan had gotten the knife, Raymond had sliced his wife’s throat clean through.
Despite his promise to let Raymond go if he followed through in killing his wife, Raymond didn’t hesitate to cut his own throat after killing his wife, but not before reaching through the bars and clasping onto the hand of his beloved.
Susan and Raymond, as far as he was concerned, were the epitome of true love.
For all eternity.
As he stared longingly at his wall of memorabilia and relived many of his best moments, his thoughts wandered. The room was windowless, and, more importantly, it was also soundproof. The small hidden door leading into his hideout was made of galvanized steel. Nothing escaped, including the eerie sounds made by thousands of beetles and their young as they burrowed through the wood inside a six foot–by–six foot box with wire mesh sidings.
He’d avoided bugs when he was small: worms, spiders, mosquitoes, you name it. It didn’t matter what kind of bug, he’d kept his distance. He could handle rats and frogs, but bugs…bugs had too many legs and weird-looking eyes. They clicked and buzzed and they were practically invisible—now you see them, now you don’t. He never knew when a bug was going to end up in his soup or drop from the ceiling while he slept. They were quiet, creeping up on him when he was unaware.
But it was the pine sawyer beetle that really made his skin crawl. They were large, cylindrical, hard-shelled insects with long wriggly antennae, and yet they could squeeze into any crevice, no matter how thin or small. Beetles were stealth.
Years ago, surrounded by darkness as he slept, he had no way of telling how many beetles were under his bed or clinging to the walls, waiting and watching. He’d discovered the pine sawyer beetle after the Becks had adopted him. He had just turned thirteen. The pine sawyer beetle, he’d realized after moving into their home, made him feel things he never thought he was capable of feeling. They frightened him.
At night, when the windows were left open, he’d hear the peculiar, unnatural hum of the fleshy, round-bodied larvae as
they burrowed their way through the soft center of the many trees surrounding the property, and he would wonder if they were planning an attack. His heart would beat faster and his hands would grow clammy. Maybe it had been the beetle’s indifference to his existence that had enthralled him back then.
His gaze left the cage and instead focused on the jar sitting next to the television. He couldn’t help but shake his head every time he looked at the preserved heart inside. Betsy Weaver had been by far the loudest, most obnoxious person he’d ever had the pleasure to slaughter. Although it didn’t always happen, he liked to keep the clients he brought to his special hideout for as long as possible before and after their death. But within hours of abducting Betsy Weaver, he’d recognized his mistake. She didn’t love anyone but herself. She had been married for nearly thirty years, but she’d been willing to throw her poor husband under the bus within minutes of arriving.
To this day, Stan Weaver had no idea how close he’d come to losing his life.
Before he could even give Stan a call and put his well-laid plans into action, he’d taken care of Betsy himself, saving Stan the bother. Betsy’s death had been a painful one. And yet he still wasn’t sure if she’d learned anything from the experience. He certainly hadn’t taken any joy in killing the woman. She was the most heartless bitch he’d ever met.
Literally
, he thought with a smile as he stared at the contents of the jar.
Exhaling, he moved toward the television sitting atop a tall, narrow dresser and turned it on. He also kept a small desk in the room, along with a computer. He took a seat at his desk, picked up the remote, and then pushed the buttons until he was watching the nightly news.
As he waited for the computer to boot up, he looked at the list of names on his notebook. At the top of his list were Kassie and Drew Scott. Kassie and Drew could very well be the next couple to take up residence in his dual cages, but, contrary to popular belief, his victims were
not
just couples. Sometimes—exactly three times in the past ten years—he had killed on the spur of the moment without any preplanning whatsoever. For instance, after he’d discovered that a couple he’d been watching for a long while had moved to Europe due to an unexpected job opportunity, his frustrations had gotten the best of him. And Felicia Potter happened to be the unlucky recipient of his aggravation.
Getting killed by a serial killer was like winning the lottery, at least when it came to odds, but that night, a cold windy night when even most dogs were let inside, Felicia had made the mistake of leaving pruning shears and a ladder in her front yard next to a decaying tree. The circumstances were too good to pass up, and it ended up being the first time he’d ever made love to a corpse.
He’d spent the entire night making passionate love to the dead Felicia. The cold dank smell of death only added to his pleasure. Blood had oozed from her mouth when he mounted her. Just holding her hand made him feel loved, and he had to drag himself away from her the next morning. For days afterward, he drove by her home on 14th Street, wishing he could check up on her and pay her another visit. It was a week before her body was discovered.
The police had been baffled.
And that was when he understood that it was to his benefit to change things up every once in a while to throw off the police and the feds. Every time a body was discovered, the media sent the people of Sacramento into a panic.
After Felicia, he began to spend his cooling-off periods reading about other serial killers. He became obsessed with books written by profilers and federal agents. He read about criminal profiling and motive, sociopathic behavior, and the gripping stories of other killers: his mentors, his idols, all innovative pioneers of evil. He studied, he examined, interpreted, and learned. If his last victim had been mutilated, his next victim would be strangled, and so on.
Smiling at his cleverness, he scratched his chin as he studied his notebook, staring specifically at number two on the list: Ken and Barbie. No kidding. Kenneth and Barbara Garbes. As he made a few notes about new information he’d garnered regarding the couple, he listened to the weather report.
More rain was expected. That was good. He liked the rain. He hoped the rain would last into the beginning of summer as it had last year. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Michael Dalton’s picture when it filled the screen.
Michael’s arrest had been the top news story for days now, but Michael Dalton was nobody. What was the big deal? Husbands killed their wives every day in America. The next picture to flash across the screen showed Lieutenant William Greer exiting the Sacramento police department. A petite blonde woman, five foot two, followed close behind.
He turned up the volume. Lizzy Gardner, a private investigator, had reason to believe Michael Dalton had not killed his wife, Jennifer.
Skimming through the channels, he noticed more of the same: every local news station talking about Lizzy Gardner’s belief that Michael Dalton was innocent. All speculation, of course, but still, it bothered him. What could that woman possibly have to say to the lieutenant? Michael Dalton was in custody for the murder of his wife. The evidence against him was overwhelming.
He turned to his computer and did a quick search on Lizzy Gardner.
Ahh, now he remembered. He’d thought she looked familiar, and now he knew why. She was the private investigator who had been kidnapped when she was a teenager, the one who got away. Lizzy Gardner had spent a few months with Spiderman, a notorious serial killer who liked to torture young girls he considered to be menaces to society, which made perfect sense. No big loss to society. But what made Lizzy Gardner special was that she had lived to tell about it.