Final Victim

Chapter 34

Earlier, Captain Fred T. Fredrickson had pulled in four off-duty police officers to work the detail. They had been cooling their heels at the Ramada Inn parking lot, in two surveillance vans. All four of them were in black flak-vests, holding Ithaca shotguns, and watching Karen's room through their smoked-glass windshields.

Inside her motel room, Karen was in the bathroom with Trisha Rains and a redheaded make-up girl from WTAM-TV named Marlene. Marlene was looking at the picture of Shirley Land, which was taped to the mirror. They had already cut Karen's hair and dyed it with Lady Clairol's sunset blond. It had ended up coming out a mousey dishwater color that Karen hated.

"I don't know," Marlene said, looking at the picture. "It could be strawberry-blond, it could be mid-brown. Hard to tell from this blackand-white picture." She continued to work behind Karen with a hair dryer.

"It's okay. We'll just do the best we can," Karen said. "I couldn't find a color shot of her, so we've gotta guess."

Marlene began to re-style Karen's hair, looking at the picture. She turned it under as she blow-dried it, shaping it closer to her head. "Pretty frumpy do," she said off-handedly.

Marlene finished and Karen stood in front of the mirror in her slip, looking at her new short, light-brown hair. "I've gotta use makeup to do the rest," Marlene said. "I can add a little mole like she has on her cheek easy enough… and maybe, with shading, I can narrow your face slightly… arch the eyebrows."

They worked on her makeup, until they got it as close as time would allow. Then Karen put on a print dress with long sleeves and a lace collar that resembled the one in the obit photo. She had bought it that afternoon at a second-hand store. She finally walked out of the bedroom, where Captain Fred T. Fred was waiting. He got up as she entered and looked at her carefully.

"What a transformation. You look…" He stopped.

"Like the Church Lady?" She smiled. Then she sat with Trisha on the stained green sofa.

"I think this whole thing hinges on Revelation 13:13 to 15. If I'm wrong, I've screwed up a great haircut for nothing."

"Revelation 13:13 to 15? How do you know?"

"Under the brand on the dead women, it says, 'R. 13-15.' At first I thought it was some computer designation, or maybe it stood for `revised' or Rat or something, but then on a hunch I looked up Revelation in the Gideon. Those sections are about building a beast."

"You think he's building a beast?" Trisha asked.

"It's probably more of a religious incarnation. I'm banking that he hasn't finished it yet."

Twenty minutes later they moved down into the parking lot and set up so that the TV camera could photograph the Ramada Inn sign and the building behind them. She was sure The Rat had been there before and would recognize the setting. He had to have followed Lockwood there, to phone in the anonymous tip that almost got them killed.

They stood in the parking lot in the warm Miami night, while the cameramen adjusted the lights and cleaned up the signal on the remote feed with the news director in Tampa.

At ten minutes past ten, the anchor, Hal Savage, threw the newscast to Miami. "Trisha Rains is standing by in Miami with an interesting update on 'The Rat,' South Florida's mutilation murderer."

"Thanks, Hal," Trisha said, looking into the camera. "We're here in the parking lot of the Ramada Inn in Miami, with noted criminal psychologist Dr. Karen Dawson. She's here to discuss a psychological criminal profile she's written on Leonard Land, the fugitive serial killer also known as 'The Rat.' " Trisha turned, and the shot widened to include Karen, who was sitting on a director's chair next to Trisha. "So, tell us about this guy. Why is he doing this? What makes somebody go out and repeatedly kill and mutilate?"

The shot was framed so that the lighted Ramada Inn sign was just over Karen's shoulder.

The Wind Minstrel was inches from the TV screen. He could tell, now that he was closer, that this was not Shirley. His heart rate slowed. For a moment, when he first saw her, he had panicked. If Shirley had been resurrected, then that would mean she had been chosen by God to come back and torture him. It would mean she had been given the power of the angels.

Then the woman spoke: "Leonard Land is a seven-foot-tall, twenty-seven-year-old, fat, bald man who is pitiful and cowardly," she began.

The words devastated him. Shirley had always screamed words like that at him.

"I will not be pitied," he screamed back at the bitch on TV.

"My profile shows him to be sexually inadequate. He believes he is the Anti-Christ or something approaching it… maybe even a disciple of the Devil."

As she spoke, The Wind Minstrel fought to hold down a rising tide of emotions.

"So, Dr. Dawson, you say he's fixated on his mother, who tortured him. What would she have done or said to him to produce this kind of horrible psychosis all these years later?" Trisha asked, providing Karen with her transition.

"I can only approximate these thoughts, but she might have said…" Karen turned to the camera and looked directly into the lens. She switched to the first person, using all she had learned about Leonard and his foster mother. She talked to him directly, as she hoped Shirley might have: "Leonard, you are ugly! Pitiful, filthy, foul! You are the Anti-Christ! Fire is all that will cleanse you. You will burn in agony in God's Apocalypse."

In the barge, the words hit The Wind Minstrel like a fist. He screamed in anguish, "Bitch! You've come back!" The Wind Minstrel was standing now. His long, fat legs rubbed together at the thighs as he began pacing. He no longer felt the pain on his nipples and skin. His mind was consumed with anger and distress. If this wasn't Shirley, then it was Shirley's ghost, or it was Shirley in the body of a whore cunt who looked and sounded just like her.

"God will strike you down!" Karen continued angrily.

The Wind Minstrel shrieked again in anger as he threw himself into the rusting walls, slamming his head against the steel bulkhead to get the painful sound of her voice out of his ears.

"I am the god of fuck and mutilation. You cannot punish me. You cannot burn me with Trinity candles. You are my victim!" he yelled. And then he paced in the small room, trying not to look at the Shirley person on the TV. He paced in a frenzy, trying to get his mind to focus on his plight.

"God rules the sunshine. But The Wind Minstrel rules the night," he whispered.

When the newscast was complete, Trisha packed up her equipment. They stood in the parking lot for a long moment.

"Thanks," Karen finally said.

"You're baiting this sicko. I wouldn't be you for nothing."

Then, after Trisha got into her car and followed the remote truck out of the lot, Karen went up to the Ramada Inn. Two of the off-duty police were now positioned in adjoining rooms. The connecting doors to her room were unlocked, so they could get in fast. The other two policemen were outside in the stairwell. She turned out the light and, still dressed, stretched out on her bed and waited. At midnight, she called Malavida. He had seen the TV newscast.

"I thought you said you weren't going to do anything stupid," he said.

"Look, Mal, I'm covered. I have cops all around."

"This guy isn't going to hit you where you think, Karen." "You're wrong. He's gonna come at me like he came at Claire.. sloppy, no planning, no organization."

"You think that your profile lets you get inside his head. That's ego, Karen; ego can get you killed. You can't predict him."

"Did you take your temperature?"

"Don't change the subject," Mal answered.

By 4:30 in the morning, she had begun to lose some hope. It was now Sunday. She wondered what Sunday meant to The Rat. According to followers of the New Testament, Sunday was the day of rest. Seventh Day Adventists observed the Sabbath on Saturday… but Leslie Bowers had been killed on a Saturday… Sunday was the day The Rat talked to his friend in Oslo. What did that mean? Although Leonard Land killed Claire on a Sunday, Karen wondered if the "personality" that had dismembered Candice Wilcox would also kill on a Sunday. She was positive The Rat was nocturnal. Once the sun was up, he would be dormant. She wondered if she had misjudged him.

And then the phone rang.