Final Victim

Chapter 33

At five P. M. on Saturday, Karen went to the store to get food and medical supplies for Malavida. After she loaded her purchases into the van, she stood outside the run-down, graffiti-damaged market in a litter-strewn parking lot and made a second call to Trisha Rains on her cell-phone. She had been told when she called earlier that the TV reporter was in the field doing a remote and wouldn't be back till five. Karen had timed her trip to the market to coincide with Trisha's planned return to the news room.

"Trisha Rains," the TV reporter said as she finally came on the line.

"This is Karen Dawson. I saw you out at Leonard Land's house."

"The mystery woman the cops wouldn't let me talk to. Nice to finally hear from you." Her voice was aggressively friendly and Karen winced slightly. "Do you have any idea where Carlos Chacone is hiding?" Trisha asked without any warm-up or chitchat.

"Before we get into that, I need to know a few things. I'm taking a lotta chances right now. I'm legally and physically at risk. I need to know if you and I can have the right kind of relationship."

"I'm not going to commit a crime to do my job, Doctor."

"You know I'm a doctor?"

"I have your whole resume right here. 'Awesome Dawson,' the `Michigan Miracle.' Since the cops wouldn't let me interview you, I ran a background check. A Ph. D. in psychology before you were twenty. I'm glad you weren't busting the curve in any of my college courses."

Karen let that one go and pushed on. "I don't want you to break any laws, Trisha, but I need to know that you and I are going to have a First Amendment relationship… that you're going to protect me as a confidential source and not divulge anything until I give you permission."

"That goes without saying."

"Yeah, but let's hear you say it anyway."

"As long as you don't bullshit me, girlfriend, I'll protect you as a source."

"I think I might know how to lure Leonard Land out into the open, but I need your help."

Trisha Rains was skeptical at first, but when she heard Karen's plan, she warmed up.

They agreed that they would talk again before six that evening.

After she hung up, Karen returned to The Swallow Inn with food, soft drinks, fresh bandages, and a thermometer. Fifteen minutes later, she had Shirley Land's newspaper picture in her purse and her car keys in her hand and was ready to leave.

Malavida had given up trying to argue with her. She refused to listen to his logic. She brought some Gerber baby food and bottled water to the bed, where he was glaring at her, and put them on the bedside table.

"Till your intestines heal, this is what the nurse told me you were gonna get in the hospital. I hope you like creamed corn."

"I hate creamed corn and I want you to slow down and listen to me."

"I should be back by midnight. If not, I'll call and check in with you," she said. Then she picked up the thermometer, shook it down, and paused, waiting for him to open his mouth.

"Karen, you can't mind-fuck this guy. You heard Lockwood, there's a big difference between doing a paper profile and a field encounter, or whatever he called it."

"Who says I'm mind-fucking him?"

"I sorta got the hang of how you think. You're about six-tenths kamikaze."

"Look, Mal, I'm not going to do anything stupid or dangerous. I know how twisted Leonard Land is. Give me some credit, I'm smart enough not to wave a red cape at a psychopath,."

They locked gazes. She was still holding the thermometer. "Open, please. I have to find out if you have a fever before I leave."

"What if I don't cooperate?" he said.

"There's more than one place I can stick this, buddy," she said, waving it ominously, a smile on her lips, and he finally opened his mouth. His temperature was normal.

Her mind kept turning back to John Lockwood. Uneasiness about his condition hung in her thoughts like a dark mist. At least she knew he was alive. That gave reason to hope, but she had to keep moving. She was the last knight on the battlefield, the only person left who had a clear picture of what they were facing.

Ever since she had been a child, Karen Dawson would risk everything to win. Her playmates and siblings had learned early not to challenge her unless they were willing to deal with the consequences. She was now working all alone, and she had accepted that. She also knew that to make her plan work, she would need the cooperation of the police. She figured that by now, they probably suspected she was an accomplice in Malavida's disappearance. She had to find a way to overcome that.

Her plan hinged on her now-extensive criminal profile of Leonard Land, as well as her research into his mother's past. She thought she knew enough about his bizarre upbringing to manipulate him. The biggest influence in Leonard's life was Shirley Land. Shirley was responsible for what he had become. Karen had looked long and hard at the woman's picture in the old newspaper obit. Shirley was unremarkable, with a short, uncomplicated hairstyle and a narrow face. It was hard to think that this woman, long dead, was a torturer who had killed one foster son and turned the other into a monster. Karen studied Shirley's plain face… The picture was black and white, but from the photo, she looked strawberry-blond. Karen thought she could pull off the physical part, but she knew the important thing would be what she said.

"Be good," she said to Mal, who glared at her from his bed as she set down the thermometer.

"Karen…"

"Yeah?"

"When I first laid eyes on you in the attorneys' room at Lompoc, I had you down as bait. I thought you were a patsy I could play for a sucker. I didn't care what happened to you or Lockwood. As a matter of fact, I was out to wreck Lockwood."

She was listening. Her remarkable brown eyes showed her brilliance.

"But that's changed," he went on. "I don't know how it happened so fast. Maybe it's like a wartime romance… I don't know, but I've become attached to you. I don't want to see you get hurt." She looked down at him and said nothing.

"It's. Lockwood, isn't it?" Malavida said, hurt flooding his eyes.

"Lockwood doesn't know I'm alive, he's so tortured by Claire's death. That's all he's dealing with," she said, and reached down to take his hand. "Let's put all this behind us, then see what happens."

"You can't go after The Rat. He'll kill you. In a week, I'll be up… I know it. We can keep going then. You need somebody watchin' your back."

"It's Saturday, Mal. We're in his killing zone. We wait a week, somebody else is going to get hacked up. We have to keep the pressure on. If I'm not back, or don't call by midnight, you're on your own," she said and kissed him lightly on the lips, then left the room.

Malavida could hear the van starting; he listened as it pulled away, the tires crunching on the shell drive outside. Then he leaned over and got the phone. His computer was still on the coffee table and his external 14.4 modem was on the dresser. He knew he was going to have to find a way to get his jukebox hooked back together. He was like The Rat: His best weapon was his computer. He struggled in pain to move his broken body to the edge of the bed. He tried to sit. His stomach muscles had been cut and resewn during the surgery, so he had to use his arms to get upright. He reached for the headboard and pulled himself to a sitting position. A searing bolt of pain shot through his intestines. "Shit," he groaned, hoping he hadn't ripped the whole stitched-up mess loose. Then he struggled to his feet.

"I wanna know where the hell Carlos Chacone is!" Fred T. Fred growled, the minute he heard her voice on the line.

"How would I know?" Karen lied. She was in a phone booth that faced a Cuban market. Heat lightning flashed on the horizon.

"Hey, listen, lady, that Mexican had more plumbing hangin' off him than I got in my entire bathroom. He didn't get up outta bed and walk away, draggin' all them tubes and plasma bottles. You helped him."

"I sure hope you can prove that, Captain," she said. There was a long, ugly silence on the line, as the rumbling sound of thunder finally reached her.

"I don't need to prove it to arrest you. And if I arrest you, I can also hold you for forty-eight hours, just to be pissy."

"I'm more worried about where Leonard Land is, which is one hell of a lot bigger problem. We know he's a weekend killer; it's Saturday, and unless we divert him, I think there's a good chance a woman could die tonight."

"You don't know that for a fact."

"All the profile points indicate it. We can argue about bullshit or we can get in business with each other," she said hotly. "I'm coming to you for help. Chacone is pretty small stuff compared to this serial killer. Whatta ya say we try for big game?… The old eight-point hat rack.

"You're pretty sure of yourself, aren't you?" he growled. "I've only been in law enforcement for forty years, so I don't need a lecture on criminal priorities from some Princeton Ph. D."

"Then why are you talking to me about Chacone? You know I'm right… I need help, so help me. I have a way to get this guy out in the open, but you gotta pitch in."

"Let's hear it," he finally said, feeling sure he would come to regret it.

After he heard her plan, Captain Fredrickson's voice was full of amazement. "Of course you're kidding," he said.

"I've done a very specific background check on Leonard Land. This started with his mother and her religious fanaticism. She passed her sickness on to Leonard. I think she killed her first foster son in Mississippi, in the early eighties. His name was Robbie Land, he's never been seen again."

"That case is twelve or fifteen years old. What you're talkin' about now is much different."

"Everything is tied together… You can't look at one piece without looking at them all. Captain, I want you to agree to meet with me. Hear me out. I think, once you see my whole profile, you'll agree that it's the only string we have. But If I'm right and we pull this off, he's going to react. I'm doing this with or without you. I just figured that you'd want to be in on it."

The Wind Minstrel sat in his underwear and stared at the walls of the barge in a rage. The Rat had betrayed him.

"The god of fuck and mutilation must be appeased," he screamed at the rusting walls. The Wind Minstrel's skin was on fire; the rash was all across his chest and under his arms. He shrieked with pain in The Rat's rusting, stinking garbage barge. He looked up at the picture of Shirley Land on the wall. He glowered at The Rat's neat lines across the picture, at his scribbled dates. "You have desecrated the timetable, you have shit on the resurrection of the Beast." His voice ricocheted in the cavernous metal room. "I am here but you give me nothing to possess," he screamed at The Rat's memory. He moved, in pain, to the large blowup picture of Shirley. He hated the bitch more than he hated his own existence. Her religious rantings were worthless hypocrisies-blatant, primal non sequiturs. He stood before the picture of his foster mother holding the cat he had strangled long ago. The cat was the first living thing he had destroyed, choking it till its tongue curled. His fire-ravaged skin glowed and looked almost purple from the low light thrown from the portable TV that flickered in the far corner of the barge. He slammed his head savagely into the crotch of the picture, which was taped to the metal bulkhead.

"Rat, you have betrayed me. We will be annihilated in the fire that follows my Second Coming."

Then he looked up at the picture. He saw a smear of his red blood on Shirley's crotch. "The bitch bleeds!" he screamed, as his own blood now dripped down his face and splashed between his toes.

Then he turned and saw something that shot a chill across his burning, ravaged skin. There, on the TV, was his long-dead mother. She was talking to some nigger bitch. He was staggered by the vision. He moved on quivering legs and knelt, as if in prayer, before the television set.