Blown Away (20 page)

Wednesday, 11
P.M
.
Seven hours till Emily's birthday

The slamming door was Cross reentering the auditorium. His grim expression made Emily's stomach lurch. “Brady Kepp just delivered a message,” he announced. He pulled a jewel box from the FedEx carton under his arm, handed it to Benedetti. “It arrived a short time ago, addressed to Detective Thompson. The bomb squad ran it through X-ray and sniffer dogs. No explosives. They put it in a DVD player, called me after seeing the first screen.”

Benedetti popped his head from the projection control room. “Cued up, Chief.”

Cross stabbed “play.” The lights dimmed, and the video came to life on the wall-size screen behind the podium.

Chicago
April 1975

Emily stared wordlessly at Brady Kepp, whose face was falling like one of those California mud slides on TV. She'd just finished delivering party invitations to her classmates—
Games festival for my tenth birthday! Pizza! Prizes! My house, three weeks, be there or you've got cooties
!—and hated leaving Brady out. But Mama was firm, and Daddy backed her up. All her girlfriends concurred, saying Brady had gotten really annoying this year.

But she kind of liked him, anyway. Brady was good-looking, even with those ears. He got straight A's and was a superb athlete because he lifted weights after practice while the other boys horsed around. But Brady was awfully moody, she had to admit. He'd kept entirely to himself after the softball game with Blessed Martyr. She'd tried to congratulate him the following Monday—a ploy to make sure he'd come to her party, where maybe they could move beyond the longing looks he gave when he thought she wasn't looking—but he curtly brushed her off.

Oh, well,
she said to herself, walking back to her desk.
He can't say I didn't try.

Wednesday, 11
P.M
.
Seven hours till Emily's birthday

The first image on the screen was a photograph of a note typewritten on Xerox paper.

“Screw you,” a cop snarled.

“He just did,” Cross responded.

The DVD played on.

Chicago
February 1977

Brady Kepp, having rehearsed this speech till every syllable was perfect, screwed up his courage and began walking her way. He'd finally decided to ask Emily to the Valentine's Day dance, figuring if she said yes, then Father would have to approve. Brady had no idea why he was supposed to hate the Thompsons—it was grown-up stuff that didn't interest him. He just wanted to dance with this cute, smart girl and run his fingers through the long hair that sometimes invaded his dreams.

“Emmy and Brady, sitting in a tree,
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
,” Emily's girlfriends sang as they hung from the monkey bars in the playground behind St. Mary's. “Boyfriend at six o'clock.”

“He's not my boyfriend,” Emily said. “He's ignored me for two years now, and I'm sick of him. The heck with Brady Kepp.”

He arrived at the monkey bars, screwing up his courage. He hated to pop the question in front of the other girls but heard himself say, “Emily? Can I talk to you a minute?”

“Go right ahead,” Emily said, not looking at him.

“Uh, how 'bout over there?” he tried, pointing to the cinder-block incinerator near the alley.

Emily swung through the bars and dropped to the pea gravel. “We have nothing to talk about, Brady Kepp,” she declared, hands on her jutting hips. “Ever since that softball game, you've treated me like measles. I suppose you want to ask me to the Valentine's dance, right?”

Brady's face burned as the other girls giggled at Em's brazenness. “I…well…” He found his tongue. “Yes, I do. Will you go to the dance with me, Emily?”

“I might,” she said, sweeping her long chestnut ponytail to the side. “If you get down on your knees and apologize for being mean.”

Brady stared.

“Well?” Emily demanded, tapping her patent leather shoe.

Brady's guts heaved. Apologizing went against everything he'd been taught by Father. But he found himself on the ground, arms wide, palms up, knees a half inch from the gravel—if they didn't actually touch, maybe it wouldn't count. “I apologize, Emily,” he said in a soft, pleading voice he'd never heard before. “I shouldn't have ignored you all this time.” He felt like throwing up. “Will you go to the dance with me?”

Emily smiled. “No. But it was nice of you to apologize, anyway.”

The girls exploded with laughter, attracting kids from swings, teeter-totters, and dodgeball. Brady sprang to his feet, mortified. “What do you mean, no?” he demanded.

“Exactly what I said. I'll go with anyone but you.”

“Then why did you make me beg?”

“Because you've been a jerk, that's why,” she said, holding tight to her promise not to cuss. “I did exactly what you've been doing to me for two years. How do you like it?”

Brady shook with rage. Part of him wanted to skin this girl alive, make her scream like that poodle he'd gutted last week at his riverside place. But most of him liked her even better for sticking up for herself. Emily Thompson was nobody's pansy. “Have fun with whoever then,” he said, choosing the worst thing he'd ever heard Father call Mom. “You stupid cunt.”

Emily's face went rigid. “What did you call me, Brady Kepp?”

“Cunt,” Brady sneered. “Big, fat cunt with a capital—”
Woof!
Emily's uppercut caught him off guard, tripping him. She landed on him like a TV wrestler, pinning his shoulders with those sharp knees of hers and grinding her butt into his chest to keep him from tossing her off. Which he had no intention of doing. Her plaid uniform skirt had hiked up so much, her white cotton panties were doing the rubbing, exciting him. He wrestled hard enough to make Emily think he was fighting back—even socked her a few times, taking care to aim at flesh, not bones or joints—but otherwise allowed her to smash and claw as she wished. He'd taken far worse beatings in the cellar.

“Never call me that awful word again, Brady Kepp!” Emily shouted, splitting his upper lip with a middle-knuckle shot. “Not ever! It's gross and disgusting, and I won't have it!”

“Cunt! Cunt!” Brady yelled. He tried to throw her off, but she rode him like Willie Shoemaker, bruising both his eye sockets with punches. Time to end this. She'd stuck her thumbs in her fists, and one more solid hit would break her hand. He grabbed her forearms, heaved her overboard.

“Children! Stop it!” the nuns shouted, running over to break up the fight. One dragged Emily back, and two others hauled Brady to his feet. “What's all this about?”

“Nothing,” he mumbled. Emily said likewise, earning her still more respect from Brady.

“Perhaps Father Snowe's paddle will convince you to follow the rules against hitting girls, young man,” the flinty-eyed nun from the lunchroom scolded as she hauled Brady to the principal for correction. Another, younger, nun walked Emily to an office to call her parents, whispering that was a jim-dandy uppercut, but rules were rules, and she'd be suspended the rest of the week.

Brady bit his lip as Father Snowe applied the “board of education” to his cotton boxers. He'd get it a hundred times worse if his actual father found out a girl had blackened his eyes, but that didn't matter. Those few seconds under Emily's heaving body made all the misery worthwhile.

Thursday, midnight
Six hours till Emily's birthday

“That's Nichols Library!” Luerchen barked over the
Jeopardy
theme song. “That man! With his face covered! It has to be Kepp!”

“Footage from the security videotape he stole,” Benedetti agreed.

Kepp, wearing boots, coveralls, gloves, hat and face-covering balaclava, pitched a clearly dead Arnold Soull through the hole in the library window. He followed on fingers and toes, then stood and waved at the camera.

“Showing off,” Annie muttered from Emily's right. Kepp, meantime, wedged Soull's feet under his arm and galloped toward the stairs, his victim's head bumping along behind.

Quick cut.

Emily, in running clothes, on the Riverwalk. Brown grass dusted with snow. Bare trees. Glassy river. Winter. She high-stepped the icy pavers, planting each foot squarely. “Jeopardy” became “Charlie's Angels,” prompting snickers from several jaded cops. “That's enough,” Cross warned as Emily sank into her seat.

Quick cut.
Kepp again, roping Soull to the reading chair. Unsheathing a pewter dagger. Twirling around like a matador, weapon high above his head. Tippy-toeing to Soull, plunging the dagger through his chest and out his back. Emily knew there'd be no blood because Soull was drained elsewhere, but that didn't lessen the horror. Curses rippled across the auditorium. Kepp bowed to all four corners of the library. More curses.

Quick cut.
Front of Emily's house. Windows open. Curtains fluttering. Summer. “Charlie's Angels” becoming “Mannix,” camera zooming in on picture window. Emily, staring off into space, idly playing with the gold rope around her neck.

Startled, she recalled Mama's wake. It was just before the funeral director let the crowd into the flocked-wallpaper viewing room. Goldie Abrams had slipped the eighteen-karat rope necklace off Mama's powdered neck and put it around Emily's, fumbling with the filigreed clasp. “Your daddy gave this to your mama the day you were born,” Goldie said, sniffling. “Right in the hospital room where he first met you. Give it to your daughter someday, darling. That's what they'd have wanted.” Emily wore the heavy rope whenever she wasn't at work.

“Look at my hair,” she whispered. “I didn't cut it short till the academy. He's been making this movie for at least a year.” Annie passed a note to Benedetti, who scowled.

Quick cut.
Emily unloaded groceries from her Saturn. Stacked firewood on the backyard hill as snowflakes whistled across the cast-iron sky. Charged downhill in the start of a fun run, placed her weekly bouquet on Jack's grave, play-wrestled with Shelby on the back porch, under the picture window that flooded her kitchen sink with light. Wrote parking tickets. Inspected fender benders. Argued with teenagers smoking in the Riverwalk pavilion.

Click.

Emily jumped at the sound of a gun hammer being cocked. But the screen had gone black. “Where are we?” a high-pitched female voice was pleading. “Who are you? Omigod! What do you want?” No reply. “You're from the garage where I work! You came inside and said your car kept stalling and your puppy wasn't feeling well and you had to get to the vet! Then something touched my arm, and I passed out! It's OK though mister, I won't say a word to anyone! Take whatever you want, just don't hurt me! If you want sex, I-I-I'll do that, too, honest. My husband says I'm really good in bed….”

Emily's thighs squeezed so hard, the tendons spasmed.

“Please, mister!” the voice screeched. “Say something! I've got cash! Credit cards! I'll take you to my ATM, and you'll be rich!” She was bawling openly. “Just don't kill me. I've got a wonderful, beautiful son I love so much
please
—”

The gunshot was deafening.

The video portion came back, and there was Lucy Crawford, slumped in the driver's seat of the wrecked Porsche. Blood pulsed from the holes in her head. The camera stayed tight on her face till her heart quit beating—the tub-emptying gurgle at the end so sickening, even Annie turned away—then widened to take in the entire cemetery. A train rolled across the background, engineer whistling “shave and a haircut.” Camera tilted up. The Man in the Moon stared, omniscient and silent. Camera tilted down, bouncing in rhythm to “Kojak.”

“The jerk-off's dancing!” Flea seethed, pounding the table. Emily could barely breathe. They watched the incognito Kepp hide the boot in the weedy hole, then toss the dead puppy onto Normantown Road, where Emily would find it several hours later.

Quick cut.
Kepp crawling in the pipe tunnel to blow up Neuqua High. Unlike the full color of the previous clips, this was only shades of green. “Night vision equipment,” Annie murmured to Emily. “Allowed him to record without turning on lights.”
Quick cut.
Kepp aiming his submachine gun at the back of a fireman silhouetted by arching flames.
Quick cut.
Kepp waving at the camera, then moving close, filling the lens with the fake hillbilly teeth she'd seen at the forest preserve.
Quick cut.
Jack knotting his tie in their master bedroom.
Quick cut.
Emily scrubbing the kitchen floor.
Quick cut.
Jack and Emily, glistening from the shower, walking hand in hand to the king-size bed…

“Oh man,” Annie whispered. “He bugged your house.”

Emily nodded, wishing she'd die right now. This monster had quick-cut her most secret intimacies into steaming, bitesize morsels and served them to the world.

“The hell is this?” Annie muttered as dancing hot dogs and spinning cups of pop appeared.

The next slide explained.

Fade to black except for a clock ticking down by seconds…1,799…1,798…

Emily slumped in her chair and tucked her head in her arms.

“Take the break, everyone. Return in twenty minutes in case he starts early,” Cross said.