The Assailant (19 page)

Alone now, and he would still be alone if Amy were down the hall asleep in her bedroom. But he felt better when she was in the house with him. He felt more secure, more complete. He did not believe he was the sort to mope over the past. But tonight he thought about the past. He thought about what his life would be like if Eileen hadn't left him. They would still be a family, and he wouldn't have to feel shitty for dropping Amy off at a friend's and taking advantage of a decent, generous woman whom he didn't know well enough to be taking advantage of. It would be
different if Eileen hadn't left. Maybe not better and almost certainly not happier or calmer, but they would be a family under one roof.

A family. He wondered, not for the first time, if he could round out the circle. He wondered if Carol McGuire could fill that role. Not just as a wife but as a stepmother. He feared that he knew the answer. Carol had always been nice to Amy. Had never said an unkind word to her or about her. (Though she'd said plenty about Eileen.) But, though there was nothing negative on Carol's part regarding Amy, there had been nothing positive either. Not much concern either way. She had once said to him, “You need to take better care of
yourself
.” And Hastings had not liked that, had not liked that at all. It was not so much the words she had used as the context in which she'd used them. In that conversation, he had taken Carol to mean that he should pay more attention to himself than he did to his kid.

But he had chickened out of that conversation. He had an
idea
of what she had meant, but he wasn't entirely sure. She could have meant that he should eat better or exercise more or get more sleep. It may not have been a suggestion that he give less of his time and less of himself to his daughter. He could have asked Carol to explain her comment then, to elaborate. But he hadn't. He had let it drop. Perhaps to avoid conflict. Perhaps because he didn't want to know the truth.

He wondered about it from time to time. And when he did, he wondered if he and Carol McGuire would go further in their relationship.
Whether they were building to something or if they had reached their zenith. He wondered if what they had now was enough for him. He'd never asked her if it was enough for her.

Eileen, Amy, Carol, Terry McGregor. Hastings was a cop, an ex-jock, a die-hard Nebraska college football fan, a hunter and an outdoorsman and a country music fan. A man's man, by God. Yet his personal life was wrapped up with women and girls. He had no son. His only close male friends were the police officers he worked with. His relationship with his father had been terrible. His mother had been a sweet and gentle soul, and he had spent much of his childhood protecting her from his father's petty cruelty. He wondered if there was some sort of connection there.

And he wondered about Springheel Jim.

What had
his
childhood been like? Had it been normal? Had it been unhealthy? Had abuse or neglect played a part in making him a monster? Had there been some concrete incident or series of incidents that caused him to hate women? To look upon them with nothing but contempt and callousness and a complete absence of empathy? To see them not as women or as human beings but as objects to fulfill his dark, pitiless fantasies. Was there a cause? Or did he just exist?

Hastings did not like to think about this man. He did not want to contemplate this beast at the same time that he contemplated people he cared about. Women he cared about. This beast who looked upon women as not quite human.

If you were not a psychopath, it was difficult to get at. It was
difficult to understand. It was difficult to get into the killer's head, because he thinks in ways normal people are not capable of thinking.

The most hardened policeman will weep at the sight of a child's corpse at the scene of a traffic accident. Will wince if he sees the accident happening. Shoulders hunch as the vehicles collide because the normal person hopes that no one will be hurt.
Please, God, don't let someone die. Please let it be all right
.

But the psychopath doesn't think that way. He is not affected. He lacks the capability to feel the affect. To him, death and cruelty and destruction are mere images. It's not in him to feel.

No, Hastings thought. That's not entirely true. They feel, all right. They feel the thrill and joy of being wicked. For them, it is liberating. And they feed on fear. The fear can be almost intoxicating.

That's why you wrote that letter, isn't it? Hastings thought. You wanted attention and you wanted to brag and you wanted to show the police and the press how smart you were. But you wanted to create fear too. Like a cat batting at a mouse. You want to feed on that, don't you?

He was vain, this killer. He had placed his letter in a book about Jack the Ripper.
Look at me! A modern-day Jack the Ripper, see? Ha-ha!
He liked being clever. Apart from creating sensation, Springheel Jim wanted to let the public know that serial killers were by no means a recent creation. They had been around for centuries. Indeed, the FBI had taught Hastings that the medieval
myths of vampires, demons, and werewolves stemmed not just from German folklore but from actual gruesome murders. Even back then, people could not comprehend that human beings could commit such atrocities. It had to be attributed to the supernatural because it could not be comprehended that a man could do such things. The existence of Stoker's Dracula was easier to contemplate than history's Vlad the Impaler.

It was these thoughts that put the minor issues with Ronnie Wulf in perspective. Wulf was getting worn-out. Maybe it had something to do with age too. Maybe Wulf had liked the thrill of pursuing the enemy, the chase, when he was younger, but now he was getting leaned on from people above him. Or maybe he was just tired. It could happen to the best of officers. Maybe it would happen to Hastings one day as well, and he too would seek refuge in an administrative position.

But not yet, Hastings thought. Not yet, Jim.

His letter was in The
Herald
the next morning.

The police had not encouraged that. Indeed, Lieutenant Hastings had told the managing editor that publishing the letter would reward the killer. But Mitchell Coury had said, “
If
it's the killer. But you don't really know, do you?” Hastings would have liked to find a way to stop the publication, but he was too busy working the case and updating Wulf to do anything about it.

So it was a front-page story, and the full letter appeared on page 5.

•

Raymond Sheffield bought a copy in the lobby of the hospital and read it in a stall in the bathroom. It brought a smile to his face. A smile, then a laugh, and he wondered for a moment if there was anyone else in the restroom to hear him. He was still for a minute or so and concluded that he was alone. With some effort, he stuffed the newspaper into the trash bin on his way out.

His thrill renewed when he went into the locker room and saw Ogilvy reading the story. Yes, yes, he was reading it; he had it open to the page. Raymond remembered his discipline. Don't crow about it, he told himself. Don't brag. Not to these fools. He could look at Ogilvy and smile and say,
Reading the lowbrow
rags, eh, Ogilvy?
Or something else clever. Watch the slob lift his stupid fat face and say,
Huh?
No. He would resist that. Not that there was a risk of giving himself away. Not to Ogilvy anyway: Ogilvy was too stupid to figure it out. No, he would resist it because it would be too obvious, too pedestrian. Better to wait.

And he was glad he waited, glad he resisted, because sure enough Tassett came in and Ogilvy looked at him and said, “Have you read about this?”

And Tassett walked over and looked at the paper and took in a few lines and said, “Huh. Fucked-up, man.”

And then Raymond had to say over his shoulder, “What's that?”

“There's a serial killer on the loose,” Ogilvy said. “He's killed three women.”

“Oh, that's terrible.”

“Three?” Tassett said. “No, it says two.”

“He's claimed he killed another one,” Ogilvy said. “The police confirm that she's missing. They haven't found her yet.”

Raymond kept his face turned away from them. He hung his sport coat in his locker and removed his white smock and put it on. They will, he thought. They'll find her today if they try. He hadn't buried her. He hadn't even tried to hide her. He wanted her to be found.

Tassett seemed unconcerned and blasé about it all. But Ogilvy was looking up and down from the newspaper. Perhaps to himself, he said, “How do you explain something like that?”

Tassett said, “What?” He didn't know that they were still on the subject.

“How do you explain something like this guy?” Ogilvy said again. He was directing the question to Tassett, but he seemed disturbed enough that he would have taken an answer from Raymond, whom he had never really liked.

Tassett turned and said, “You mean, clinically?”

“Yeah, clinically.” He would take anything. Raymond knew that Ogilvy had a wife and daughter. He had a dog too, and he probably wondered if she would bark if someone tried to break into their home. Raymond also knew that Olgilvy's wife was a graduate student at Washington University and that she walked alone to her car when she went home at night.

Tassett shrugged. “I don't know,” he said. “Maybe you don't.”

They finished dressing and then walked out. Neither one of them said a word to Raymond.

Raymond hesitated for a moment. Ogilvy had left the newspaper on the bench. Raymond wanted to walk over and read it again. But he didn't.

•

In the hall, Helen gave him a bright good morning. She asked him how his weekend had been, if he enjoyed the party. Raymond gave her the right answers. The weekend was nice, the party was pleasant, but he was tired after working that long shift and so forth and so on. They spoke briefly about the weather and work and where they would go for Thanksgiving vacation.

Helen said that her family was in Virginia but that she wouldn't have time to go that distance.

Raymond said, “Are you scheduled for Thanksgiving day?”

“Sort of. I come on at midnight.”

“Ooh.”

“Yeah, I know. It sucks. How about you?”

“Me? I don't think I'm scheduled until that Friday.”

“No,” Helen said, “I meant how about your plans for Thanksgiving?”

“Thanksgiving?”

“Yes. Are you going back to Boston?”

“No. There isn't time for that.”

“That's where your family is, though. Right?”

“My parents are dead.”

“Oh. I'm sorry. And . . . no siblings?” Helen Krans was starting to regret that she'd gone down this conversational path.

“No.” He waited to see if she would ask if he had children. He was ready for it.

But she took whatever signal he was sending and accepted it. She looked up at the room where they had booked a diabetic coma a couple of days earlier. “Busy day today,” she said. And that was that.

•

Later that day, Raymond was sitting alone at a table in the cafeteria when Tassett approached him. Tassett did not ask but merely sat down opposite him.

“Hi, Raymond.”

“Hello.”

“Listen, I'd like to ask you a favor. Helen said you're on shift the Friday after Thanksgiving and she's on Thursday. Thanksgiving. Could you switch shifts with her?”

“Switch shifts,” Raymond said, “so that I work Thanksgiving, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Well, I've got that Wednesday off and Thanksgiving, and we'd like to spend a couple of days in Chicago.”

After a moment, Raymond said, “Chicago.”

“Yeah. A two-day trip.” Tassett smiled. “We could use the break, man.”

“Why are you asking?”

“Well, I figured you didn't have anything—”

“No. Why are
you
asking?”

“She didn't want to ask you.”

“So she sent you to?”

“No,” Tassett said. “This was my idea.”

Raymond studied the young man sitting across from him. He wondered what it would be like to shoot him in the face.

He said, “No.”

“No?”

“No,” Raymond said again. He returned his attention to his food.

Escobar called Hastings to tell him that they had found Marla Hilsheimer's body in the woods north of St. Charles.

Hastings said, “Has her husband been notified?”

“Yeah. I spoke with him on the phone. George, I asked him if she had been wearing a bracelet. He said she had a lot of jewelry, and he couldn't be sure what she was wearing the day she went missing. But one of my guys checked with the staff at her office, and they said she had been wearing some sort of turquoise Indian thing.”

Hastings asked for directions and then told Escobar he'd meet him there.

Klosterman was with him as they drove out to the site. When they arrived, Mr. Hilsheimer was there, an older man in a high-dollar camel coat, his strong face twisted in grief. Hastings took him in view and reminded himself that somewhere was a man who had taken pleasure in inflicting this pain.

There was a single dirt road that brought them to the edge of the woods, vehicles from the County Police Department and St. Charles PD and a few unmarked cars. The officers had to walk through wet ground to reach the body of the woman.

Hastings and Klosterman conferred with the county medical
examiner. They were informed that she had died of a blow to the back of her skull and that the time of her death was likely between six and eight
P.M
. the night before.

Escobar left Mr. Hilsheimer and came over to talk with them. The detectives made sure that the next of kin were not within hearing distance before they began a discussion that could be construed as clinical.