Final Victim

Chapter 31

Karen had visited Malavida for an hour on Thursday night. He was conscious but very weak. The Federal agent sat outside the door with one ear cocked, but they were talking so softly that he finally gave up and went back to the book he was reading.

Karen filled Malavida in on the close call he'd had with his blood type, and the one she and Lockwood had had at the Ramada Inn.

"Where's Lockwood now?" he said, his voice raspy from the anesthetic tube he'd had down his throat for ten hours yesterday.

"He got arrested," she said softly. "They took him back to Washington Tuesday. He's having a hearing tomorrow at nine, for a bunch'a stuff they say he did… It's all bullshit. In the meantime, I'm going to get you out of here."

Malavida lay there looking at the ceiling for a minute. She watched him and, when he didn't comment, she went on. "Look, I think if you stay here with all the shit they're pumping into you, you're taking a big chance. The Rat will out-think this bunch'a white coats. You'll be getting battery acid in your coffee or some damn thing."

"You're gonna move me? I feel like hell. I can't even sit up."

"I got chummy with the surgical nurse. She said the surgery was a success. They have you scheduled for X-rays tomorrow at ten to check their work. The big danger for you now is peritonitis, 'cause your intestine got ruptured. They've been pumping you full of vancomycin. But they're slacking off now. If you start running a fever, I'll bring you back. Another thing… that Fed out there isn't gonna let you get your hands on a computer, and I need you to help me get The Rat."

"Am I the Lone Ranger or Tonto?" he said softly.

"You're Snoopy, remember?" She smiled at him and took his hand. "They say they're gonna keep you in here for another three days. According to the nurse, all they're gonna do is watch you, take your temperature. I can do that… and remember, Mal, in three days, you're on your way back to Lompoc." She knew he would do anything to avoid that.

"I'm a Federal prner," he said softly. "You bust me outta here and you're gonna be guilty of conspiracy, and aiding and abetting. Both felonies. You could get five years yourself."

"I don't want to go to jail… but in case you haven't noticed, I can handle risks. And I've developed an affection for you, so shut up." He smiled at her, and she reddened slightly and rushed on: "I also think The Rat is about to go hot again. It's been two weeks since Candice Wilcox died. I don't want another woman killed and mutilated. We said we were gonna get him for what he did to Claire. I haven't changed my mind; I hope you haven't."

Malavida finally nodded. "Okay, you're on."

"I've been working at the library all afternoon. I found some pretty interesting stuff in the newspaper morgue."

"Like what?"

"The woman you saw in the barge, the blowup taped on the wall with the markings and dates on it…?"

"Yeah?"

Karen dug into her purse and pulled out a Xerox of an old Tampa Tribune newspaper article she had found at the Miami Public Library that afternoon. "Was this her?" she asked and held up the picture.

Malavida was looking at a shot of the same woman he'd seen on the wall of the barge. "It's her… Who is she?" Malavida finally said.

"Meet Shirley Land, Leonard's foster mother. That's the obit photo. She died in a fire twelve years ago. Shirley had quite a history. She was a seventies hippie who turned away from sex and drugs, and found religion. According to this, she was a Seventh Day Adventist, but the church in Water Valley, Mississippi, where she lived, threw her out for bizarre behavior. Apparently she was religiously obsessed. She had a foster child in 1980 named Robbie Land. I checked with Social Services in Water Valley, and their records said they'd been out there a bunch of times 'cause Robbie's grade-school teachers said he looked beaten up. One time, when he was twelve, his hair got set on fire. Shirley said he'd done it himself, playing with matches. Social Services was getting set to take him back when Robbie ran away, never to be seen again. Shirley took off and left the state. My guess is Robbie is dead, buried in a shallow grave somewhere. Shirley moved to Florida and applied for and got another foster child. That was Leonard Land. Nobody checked with Mississippi, 'cause she never told 'em she was from there. She bought a house out in the boonies not too far from the Everglades. There were no Social Services complaints on Leonard's condition. Then, twelve years ago, her house caught fire and she died. Leonard disappeared, end of report," she said. "Not too hard to read between the lines, is it?"

"That's pretty good." He smiled weakly.

"It all fits the profile of a killer dominated by a violent female adult. The blitz attacks are because he's afraid of women, he needs to kill them before they have a chance to dominate him. His 'relationships' are all post-mortem. He probably feels he can only interact with women once they're dead."

"Did you call Lockwood with this?"

"I'm gonna get in touch after his hearing tomorrow," she told him. "You didn't call him because he'll put the kibosh on this nutty idea of breaking me out of here, right?"

She started to smile and he smiled back.

"How you gonna do it?"

She sat next to his bed and filled him in.

At 8:30 that night, Karen pulled off her first computer crime. She was sitting on the bed at the Ramada Inn, talking with Malavida in the hospital on her cellphone. With the hard line from the Ramada phone, she had hooked up Malavida's computer and modem. Malavida talked her through a computer crack into Jackson Memorial Hospital. It was harder than they had anticipated because the hospital administrator had already started to upgrade his security. Malavida finally found a hole in the system, going in through the Payless drugstore in the hospital lobby. The drugstore had a link that interfaced with the hospital billing records. He used that to move into the Jackson Memorial computer network and, before long, he talked Karen right into the Patient Records Log. She found Ray Gonzales's ID number and deleted it, then put Malavida's ID number in its place. She found Malavida's account, deleted his number, and supplanted it with Ray's, completing the switch. She then found Ray Gonzales's medical record… It was extensive. She scanned it, feeling guilty as she snooped. Ray's prognosis wasn't good. He was going to need a kidney transplant soon. Then she skipped to the bottom of Ray's records and started typing. She scheduled him for an X-ray at ten the next morning.

Karen was dressed and checked out of the Ramada Inn by 6:30 A. M. She had rented a Ryder van and was now driving around looking for a motel room that would work. The early morning traffic was surprisingly light. Beautiful white clouds drifted like whipped cream across the blue Miami sky.

She finally found a place that looked good. It was called The Swallow Inn and was on the Miami River, of Fourth Street, two blocks from Highway 9. She drove around it once, looking it over. It was an old wood-frame bungalow-style motel. The bungalows were private, set away from one another. She needed privacy. She decided the best unit for her needs was Bungalow 7. It was well away from the others and close to the service road, which would give her a back way in and out. She parked the step van on the shell drive and walked across the crunchy surface to the office.

A room cost nineteen dollars a day. She asked for Number 7 and got it. She registered under an assumed name, Karen Styles, and paid cash. She took her key, stepped back outside, and looked around.

She knew from the map that the Miami River went inland for about three miles, then became so narrow and marshy it was more of a swamp than a river. The wide mouth of the river was in Biscayne Bay. The river was like no place else in Miami. It could have been in a third-world country. She glanced at two Haitian freighters that were tied to wharves across the river. They were big, ugly, rusting hulks piled high with junk that would eventually be bound for Haiti. A favorite item seemed to be plastic Clorox bottles. They were strung by the hundreds on ropes and draped along every convenient rail. She couldn't imagine what they would be used for. To carry water maybe? The freighters were also stacked high with old mattresses, broken furniture, and stolen bicycles.

She could smell the thick, pungent odor of moss and drying seaweed. Still, this was not a place where neighbors talked to the cops, or where she thought anybody was going to look for Malavida.

She went to Bungalow 7. It had once been bright blue, but now the paint was faded and eaten by the sun. She opened the door and went inside. The two small rooms were clean but musty. She opened a window to air it out, then checked the TV to make sure it worked. She picked up the telephone and found that it was a direct line out. Then she locked up and left. She had one more stop to make at the hospital. She had volunteered to be a candy-striper and needed to pick up her uniform.

Malavida was transferred to a gurney and rolled down to X-ray at quarter to ten. Ray Gonzales was lifted onto a gurney for the same destination at about the same time. They were both wheeled down to the X-ray room and arrived five minutes apart. Both were parked in the anteroom adjoining the X-ray machine. Ray had been thoroughly briefed by Karen and was conscious, but pretended to be asleep. Malavida was sleeping off and on, due to the heavy medication he'd been given. The agent assigned to accompany Malavida was different from the night before, and sat on a chair out in the hall as Malavida was wheeled into the X-ray room. At quarter past ten, a technician put the lead vest over his chest to protect his heart and lungs, then moved the nozzle of the X-ray machine down and began taking pictures of Malavida's abdomen.

After the X-rays, the technician parked both beds in the anteroom.

As both patients appeared to sleep, he read their wristbands, then checked the computer for their IDs and destinations. The computer identified Malavida as Ray Gonzales. So the technician pushed Malavida's gurney out the east door, into the main lobby. He told the waiting attendant to take the patient back up to the Renal Care ward. The Federal agent who was supposed to guard Malavida was still sitting in the main corridor outside the X-ray department, reading the sports page. Five minutes later, they sent Ray Gonzales out to him.

"Here's your boy," the X-ray technician said. The agent slowly got to his feet. He walked around to confirm that the man on the bed was Malavida. It was only then that he realized they had returned the wrong man to him.

Karen Dawson, in her fresh, new candy-striper's uniform, took Malavida's gurney from the attendant as he wheeled it off the elevator on the third floor, near the Renal Care ward.

"Got it. Thanks," she said as she pulled it out of the elevator. After the attendant left, she pushed the elevator button and got the next car down.

Once downstairs, she pushed the gurney right out the front of the hospital. To her surprise, nobody said a word. She wheeled Malavida around the side of the hospital and finally arrived at the rented van. She opened the back doors, then pushed the gurney up hard against the back bumper. The gurney bed overhung the legs by almost three feet and extended into the vehicle. She then collapsed the front legs so that the gurney's skids were resting on the bed of the van. This accomplished, she jumped in and pulled with all her strength… The gurney slid into the van on the metal rails under it. She looked around to see if anybody had witnessed the operation.

Her heart was pounding. She was having a ball. She knelt down and put her hand on Malavida's forehead.

"I'm awake," he grimaced. "That was the worst ride I ever took, even worse than the shore break at Huntington."

"Sorry." She smiled. "We're a little shorthanded this morning." He looked up at her and saw her grinning. "What the hell's so funny, Karen?"

"Nothing. Sorry, I get off on strange stuff"

In twenty minutes, she had Malavida back at The Swallow Inn and propped up in bed. The room seemed suddenly small, as both of them communicated silently… each remembering another motel room where they had clung to each other in ecstasy and then awkwardness. Karen moved quickly across the room and turned on the TV. She finally found an all-news station. She set the volume and went back out to unload some hospital supplies she'd filched. Ten minutes later there was an update on a story in Washington, D. C. Neither of them was paying much attention until they heard Lockwood's name.

Karen quickly turned up the volume.

6 4… at D. C. General Hospital. Agent Lockwood is in a coma," the gray-haired news anchor said.

"What…?" Karen almost shouted at the screen.

"As we reported earlier, the Director of All Operations of U. S. Customs, Laurence Heath, died in the mishap when halon gas accidentally escaped in the locked file room in the basement of the Department of Justice. Heath was the second-highest-ranking officer in the service. Along with him, and also dead on arrival, were Agent Victor Kulack and two attorneys: Carter Van Lendt, with the Justice Department, and Alex Hixon, who was representing Agent Lockwood at his Internal Affairs hearing. Government engineers are still studying the mishap to determine why the elevators in the building locked and the halon system malfunctioned. That report is due shortly. In the meantime the lone survivor, Agent John Lockwood, barely hangs on to rife at D. C. General."

They called the hospital, but there was a stop on Lockwood's phone; Karen's call was transferred to a man who sounded like a cop. She quickly realized that he was not going to give out any additional information. She hung up and cursed under her breath. Karen looked at Malavida, who was now propped up in the bed.

"Did that news guy say 'mishap'?" Malavida finally asked, his voice still whispery.

"That's what he said." She was consumed with fear for Lockwood. "Bullshit. The Rat set that system off," he said.

Karen's emotions were rolling. She had come to rely on John Lockwood. He had been their leader. She was devastated by the news. She could not believe the depth of her feelings. She had always seen herself as a rational and deductive person, despite her love of death-defying risks. Yet here she was, between two men, both of whom she had strong feelings for. Was it just another game of chicken? Had she fallen into bed with Malavida to preclude a relationship with Lockwood, because she wasn't able to commit to anybody fully? As these thoughts tumbled in her mind, she looked at Malavida. They held each other's gaze. They both knew they were thinking the same thing…

The Rat had cut them down, one at a time. Only Karen remained standing.

"I'm going to get this motherfucker," she finally said.

Malavida had never heard a woman sound so dangerous.