Final Victim

Chapter 17

"It's a small world after all…" leaked musically out of recessed speakers. The song was stepped on by occasional doctor pages coming through the same sound system. A few children on crutches or in wheelchairs moved down the brightly colored hall to the skylighted playroom at the end of the floor. The area managed to be both cheerful and sad at the same time.

Lockwood moved out of the elevator with a young, earnest woman named Beth something-or-other. She was a volunteer who said she was getting her master's in child psychology.

"She's in emotional traumatic shock and she's blocking the whole event. Dr. Levitt says the best thing is to just let her come out of it naturally. Right now, when she gets agitated, we medicate her slightly."

Lockwood heard almost none of it as he plowed on blindly, looking for his daughter's room.

"It's in here," Beth said, taking his arm and turning him as he moved aimlessly up the hallway.

He entered a small room with two beds and a window that overlooked a concrete courtyard. The room had wallpaper with lots of little multi-colored balloons on it. An artist had painted animals everywhere. A large hot-air balloon dominated the far wall. Purple hippos with wide eyes looked over the side of the honey-gold basket. Heather was lying in the far bed, staring up at the animals on the ceiling.

"Daddy," she said, turning her head to him as he entered the room. "Daddy, it's all over and I didn't feel a thing… well, not really, but almost. I don't have a sore throat or anything…,, He moved to her and gathered her up in his arms and hugged her. He clung to her desperately. Heather struggled slightly to be free. She pulled back and looked at him with stern wisdom.

"I thought it was going to hurt because of what Lenore said when she had it done, but I woke up and it was almost like nothing happened. I tried to call Mommy but I guess she's at work…"

He sat on the bed, held her hand, and looked down at her. She seemed excited and happy, but there was a tightness around her eyes that betrayed everything; a shrillness in her voice that he had never heard before.

"So anyway," she continued, "they wake you up and make you take icky, syrupy medicine that's supposed to taste like cherry but doesn't… but they also wake you up all the time and feed you ice cream… and there was this girl, Sara, that was my roommate, who fell off her bike and hurt her head. But she went home yesterday…"

Then it dawned on him what she was talking about. She was back almost a year when she'd had her tonsils out. It had been at this very hospital. She was pretending desperately that it was a year ago, that the operation was over, and that explained why she was there. He looked into her pale-blue eyes, Claire's eyes, and felt tears come into his own.

"You wouldn't believe this neat doctor I got. His name is Dr. Dumbbell… That's what he told me and Mommy his name was… "

Lockwood knew she was talking about Dr. Dumbolten, who had performed the tonsillectomy last year.

"Isn't that a stupid name, Dr. Dumbbell? I think it's very stupid, but he's a good doctor anyway, because I don't even have a sore throat. I called Mommy and I tried to tell her, but I can't find her anywhere. She's not at home or at the office. I talked to Mrs. Watkins, that's her new secretary, and she kept crying and wouldn't say where Mommy is. And I'm ready to go home… Where is Mommy…?"

Lockwood looked at his daughter, then at Beth, who shook her head in a gesture that said, Don't tell her. He didn't. They talked about her year-old operation and they talked about her cat, Fluffy, which had been run over by a car last summer but which was now still very much alive in Heather's mind. Then she said something that almost doubled him over with anguish.

"Daddy, do you ever talk to God?" she said, looking at him earnestly and holding his hand.

"Sometimes I do, yes…

"Well, see… I talk to him all the time. I think God knows best** and God would never let anything happen to hurt me because He loves me… just like he loves you and Mommy."

"I know He does…"

"When I talk to Him, you know what I ask for?"

"What?"

"I ask for you and Mommy to get back together… for you to fall in love again. I ask God in my prayers. I've been doing it every night for a year. I don't want to bug Him, but it's very important, and guess what?"

"What?" Lockwood said.

"God answered my prayers."

"Good…" Lockwood's mouth was dry. His heart was skipping beats. He could feel it pounding in his throat.

"See… 'cause last Saturday, after you came, I asked Mommy if she still loved you like before… if we could ever be a family again. And you know what she said?"

"No, honey, what did she say?"

"She said she always loved you… that she never stopped and that she always would. Then she said that it was up to you. She said, 'When Daddy wants it, it will happen.' That's what she said. So now I'm asking God to make you love her back."

Lockwood had lost so much. His timing had been simply terrible. He had realized the enormity of his mistake just as Claire was snatched from him. He held Heather's hand and smiled at her through his tears. "I'll make you a deal, Pumpkin," he said, using the childhood nickname he had for her. "When we go home to Mommy's house, I'll come home and I'll live with you. I'll take care of you."

"But Mommy does that, and you have all your important work in Washington. How can you, Daddy?"

"I'll get some other kind of work. I'll get a job that will give us lots of time together."

"Can we go riding?" she said, smiling.

"Anytime you want."

"Can we paint pictures?"

"You bet. And you wanna know something else? I won't ever break this promise to you. It's a promise on a promise."

She smiled at him and squeezed his hand. "See, when you ask God for stuff, He listens," she told him sagely.

"I know…"

He reached down and hugged her again, and this time she didn't squirm. But after a moment he felt her stiffen slightly, so he pulled away and looked at her. Her eyes were clouded with concern.

"Daddy, I wonder where Mommy is… She's never late. You don't think something could have happened to her…?"

Lockwood didn't trust his voice to answer.

Malavida couldn't bring Claire Lockwood back, but he made a deal with himself. He decided he would find out where the crazy son of a bitch who killed her was hiding. He had the number of the cell pod in Tampa, where the call to Hoyt Tower had come from. He had his computer and he had Karen Dawson's credit card.

He would try to set up a triangulation. He had bought some surplus clothes with Karen's money at a second-hand store and hitchhiked to Macon, where he'd stolen a car from a supermarket parking lot. He had loaded his meager belongings into the trunk and driven from Macon due south into Florida. It was ten P. M., Tuesday night, when he pulled into a Best Western motel off Interstate Highway 75 and parked his stolen car in the back where the plates wouldn't be seen by a passing patrol car.

He set up his computer in the single room he'd rented on the second floor of the large Colonial structure. He could hear trucks on the Interstate growling like Rottweilers. He plugged his computer into the wall and went to work, trying to get a list of calls from the cellphone site that had relayed The Rat's call to Atlanta. He was focusing on time charges for April 12-13, the night of Candice Wilcox's murder, hoping The Rat hadn't bothered to hide his billing address for the call.

The Rat was worried. The barge where he had been doing the reconstruction and storage was buried deep in the Tampa swamp, but he felt exposed like never before. He hoped he had closed the door of redemption by killing the woman in Studio City, but he couldn't be sure. Only time could answer it. So The Rat waited and worried. He knew he had to reconstruct the answers that Shirley had taken to her grave. Her grave was actually empty. Her remains had perished in the fire, but her empty grave beckoned him. He had been there often. He would go after dark and roll in the dirt, trying to relive the wonderful, terrifying memory of her death. But finally he got no pleasure from going. Her grave held no wisdom… It was a place without meaning that was filled with the darkness of oblivion.

Shirley had told him he had the mark of the Beast on him and was destined to go to the grave-like pit of darkness. To avoid this, he had burned the house where he lived, killing Shirley. He'd hoped the Deity would be fooled and think he had perished with her. From that point, The Rat had become a vile creature, scurrying in the darkness, hiding from God. But he was always afraid God would spot him and punish him for his deeds.

It was this fear that made him finally decide to move the barge. He made a deal with himself. Despite the huge effort involved, he would find a better place-at least until the Second Resurrection, which The Wind Minstrel said was coming soon. It was not the resurrection of the Holy Spirit, as lied about in the New Testament. It was, instead, the resurrection of the unrighteous. When that glorious day arrived, The Rat could destroy the forces of Christ and his armies. He could stand in the sunshine. He could finally breathe the clean air. He could finally spit into the face of God.

Karen had watched Lockwood's plane take off, heading back to California. She felt lost and abandoned. The tragic, strained look in Lockwood's eyes had shown her the depth of his grief.

She had cabbed back to the Customs Building and ended up at the little office in B-16. She sat in front of the computer, looking vacantly at the starburst on the cobalt-blue screen… A stack of new VICAP folders was sitting on her desk and she thumbed through them listlessly… Her mind went back to her father, Robert Dawson, Ph. D., DNSC, BSEE. More letters than the Chinese alphabet. She smiled, remembering Lockwood's remark. She always remembered her father with both love and regret. He had wanted so much for her… His dying wish had defined her, but it had altered her life.

Her father had always been preoccupied. His high-horsepower thoughts had consumed him, and it was this trait that finally claimed him. He had stepped out between two cars at the university and been hit by a van driven by a student. He hovered between life and death for weeks. Karen and her mother stayed awake nights and prayed that God would bring him back… While they prayed, the vacuum pumps hissed, the catheters dripped, and the monitors beeped. It was an ugly concert of fluids and electrodes that played to a frightened audience of two.

Then, one afternoon, he regained consciousness and asked for her. Karen was in school. Her mother came and got her and brought her to his bedside. He looked up and told Karen that the best of him was in her, that he had given her his greatest gift… his unrelenting mind. And it was true. She was a brilliant student and had been advanced beyond her grade three times. She was only twelve years old and in the eleventh grade. He had insisted she take her practice college boards and she scored a perfect 1,600. As he lay in his hospital bed, he made her promise that she would go to college immediately. That she wouldn't waste any more of her valuable learning time in high school. She said yes because she didn't want to say anything that would upset him. He looked so weak and frail… She knew once he was better, she could talk him out of the promise.

Two days later, Robert Dawson died of pneumonia. He slipped into a coma, leaving them as quietly as a drifting cloud. He had been the main force of her life. She felt his dying wish could not be broken. She entered the University of Michigan four days after her thirteenth birthday. She lived with her widowed aunt in Flint, just up the road. Every afternoon she sat alone in the main quad outside the student center and ate her lunch while she watched the other students talking and laughing. She graduated three years later and did her postgraduate work at Princeton. She had been given great gifts. She knew it must be true, because her father had told her so. She had the gifts of health and looks and her wonderful analytical mind… but despite it all, she was always lonely. It was shortly after graduation that she began to battle boredom.

By Tuesday afternoon the room in the basement was getting unbearably stuffy. She had caught up with all the updates that Operations had sent. She looked at the computer and the completed stack of VICAP folders, then she reached into her briefcase and again pulled out the Rat's profile. "The Rat," she had noted "is a nocturnal rodent." She turned on the computer and accessed VICAP. She inputted all the information on Candice Wilcox's death: the surgical data on the removal of her arms, the fact that her face was covered by her sweater, the peri-mortem masturbation, the sexual substitution with the desk scissors, and the overpowering blitz attack, including the wound made by a narrow blade or scalpel. She entered it and waited… After less than a minute she got a hit. Up on the screen flashed a case code: