Black Lightning

CHAPTER 35

The man called in sick for the second day in a row. He’d intended to go to work this morning, for even though they didn’t appreciate him at Boeing, he still took his job seriously.

Just as he took everything seriously.

But when he got home last night, he’d been far too excited to go to sleep right away. Instead of going to bed, he’d stayed up, reliving the event in his memory over and over again.

Relishing the memory of being in Joyce Cottrell’s house.

Of waiting for her.

Of watching her undress.

Of killing her, and possessing her.

And finally, he’d relished the memory of the feeling he’d had as he carried her through the night. Bearing her out of her house and up to the park, the man had felt a freedom and exhilaration he’d never experienced before. He’d known no one was going to see him as he carried her body through the darkness to the park, known it as surely as he knew he was going to kill Joyce Cottrell from the first moment he saw her. It was in those last moments when he’d held her in his arms in the darkness that the man finally felt complete. For the first time — much more than with Shawnelle Davis — he’d experienced the sheer sense of power and ecstasy that came with extinguishing another life. Joyce Cottrell had truly belonged to him, taken like a trophy, dying at his hands like the prey of a hunter.

He hadn’t even tried to hide her body.

Indeed, that was why he’d taken it to the park, to make certain it was discovered early in the morning, when the joggers came out to run the path around the reservoir.

He’d left the park from the south side, walking down Twelfth Avenue to Aloha, then cutting over to Fourteenth. He’d stayed away from the bright lights of Fifteenth Avenue. After he’d deposited the body in the shrubs, he lost the feeling of power, of invincibility, and from then on ducked from one deeply shadowed area to another, feeling as if the light of the streetlamps were trying to expose him. The thick red stains on his clothes had gleamed brightly, and when it started to rain while he was still two blocks from home, he slowed his pace, letting the water wash the blood from his face and hands. Coming at last to the corner of Sixteenth and Thomas, he had to resist the temptation to step into the emergency room and see who had replaced Joyce Cottrell at the reception desk. But resist it he had, knowing that if the person even looked up, the sight of his soaked hair and bloodstained clothing would not be forgotten within a minute or two. In the morning, when the body was discovered, the first place the police would come would be here, to question whoever had relieved Joyce Cottrell, and the person would remember him.

So he passed the emergency room by, slipping instead into the musty, deserted lobby of the building in which he lived, making his way silently to his studio on the second floor.

In the morning, someone would find the body, and Anne Jeffers would report it in the Herald. This time it was her next-door neighbor he’d killed. This time, the bitch would put it on the front page.

The front page, where he belonged.

He’d stayed up all night, reveling in the remembered ecstasy of the killing. By dawn he knew he would be too tired to go to work. Too tired, and too excited. He waited until precisely six, the time he normally got up, and then called the plant, telling them he was feeling better than yesterday but that he wasn’t well enough yet to come to work. They told him to take as much time as he needed. And why wouldn’t they? After all, he wasn’t like some of the others at work who called in sick every time they wanted to take an extra day off. This was only the second time he’d ever called in sick at all.

The call finished, he left his apartment and went over to the 7-Eleven on Fifteenth to get a cup of coffee and the first edition of the Herald. After all, it was possible that someone — perhaps one of the perverts who hung out in certain parts of the park at night — had found the body even before the joggers were out. He scanned the front page, assuaging his disappointment by telling himself that even if the body had been found right away, they might not have had time to get a story in the earliest edition. Still, he paged quickly through the whole paper, scanning each page.

Nothing.

But by the time he got back to his apartment, he wondered if he might have missed something, so he went through the paper again, this time studying each page carefully. When he turned to the last page, he felt a kind of relief. If he wasn’t going to be on the front page, it was better not to be in the paper at all.

He turned on the television, thinking there might be a story on the morning news, then shut it off, afraid one of his neighbors might hear it and wonder why he was watching the news so early.

He began pacing nervously around the apartment. How soon would the next edition of the paper be out?

What if no one had found the body? If someone had found it and called the police, wouldn’t there have been sirens when the cops went up to the park?

He hadn’t heard any sirens.

When his cheap digital watch — his mother’s lousy Christmas present last year — finally told him it was eight, he turned on the radio, tuning it to KIRO.

Endless talk about a press conference the President was going to be holding later that day.

The man went back to pacing the stained avocado carpeting that covered his floor, and wondered if anybody had found the body yet.

Maybe he should call the police himself.

He reached for the phone, then changed his mind. If he was going to do that, he’d better use a pay phone.

And not one near his house.

Maybe one over on Broadway. Or maybe he should even go downtown.

That was it. A phone down on First Avenue, where no one ever looked at anyone else. He was just about to leave, was just reaching out to switch off the radio, when he finally heard it:

This report just in. A body has been found in the brush near the reservoir in Volunteer Park. In a bizarre coincidence, the nude and mutilated corpse was discovered by Seattle Herald reporter Anne Jeffers, well-known nationally for her coverage of the series of killings reputed to have been committed by Seattleite Richard Kraven. Police are withholding identification of the woman pending notification of relatives. More details at the top of the hour. In other stories …

The man was no longer listening. It was even better than he’d hoped for — Anne Jeffers herself had found the body! Now there was no question it would make the front page. Soon — very soon — he’d be famous. But of course for a while he wouldn’t be able to enjoy seeing his name in the paper. After all, they didn’t yet know who had killed Joyce Cottrell. And for a while — he wasn’t sure yet exactly how long — he’d make sure they didn’t find out who did.

Not until he’d killed at least two more people.

Maybe even three.

The newscaster’s words still echoing in his head, the man thought feverishly. How soon should he strike again?

A month?

A week?

Once again he felt the rush he experienced as he’d ravaged Joyce Cottrell’s body, and now he shivered in anticipation. Perhaps he wouldn’t wait even a week. Perhaps, now that he understood the pure joy and power of the act of killing, he’d strike again within a few days.

If he could find the right victim.

The man was still savoring the feeling, still reveling in the exaltation of what he’d done, when the phone rang. His hand trembling, he picked it up.

“Is that you?” he heard his mother’s voice demand. “Why aren’t you at work?”

The man felt his exhilaration begin to fade. “I called in sick, Mama.”

“Well, I know that,” his mother told him.

Why couldn’t she use his name? Why couldn’t she ever use his name, unless she was criticizing him to someone else?

“They told me that at Boeing,” she went on. “Did you hear the radio this morning? That reporter found a body in Volunteer Park.”

As the man listened numbly, his mother talked on and on. She was talking about his body, the woman he’d killed, but she wasn’t talking about him!

Well, maybe one of these days he’d just stop her from talking about anything at all.