Sleep Tight

Chapter 16

The police station where Todd took Holly Lindstrom was located on the main drag in the small town of Hiawatha Springs. As soon as the officers on duty heard what had happened to her, they put in a frantic call to the country sheriff, the BCA, and the FBI. Now, in the predawn hours, Holly sat in a cramped room with two high, tiny windows and a row of buzzing fluorescent lights overhead while waiting to be interviewed by an FBI agent being sent down from the Cities.

She just wanted to go home. Go home and take a shower to wash the stink from her body, then crawl into bed and never get up. Sleep. She wanted to sleep forever.

But when she got home, would she be able to sleep? And if she did, what if he came back? What if he was lurking outside her house, outside her bedroom window, waiting for the lights to go out?

The FBI agent introduced herself as Mary something. Holly was having a hard time concentrating, and she'd never been good with names. Mary something had short dark hair and was wearing black pants, a black jacket, and white blouse. The clothes were too grown-up and businessy for Holly's taste, but there was something cool about the woman. Holly suddenly felt safer just having her in the room.

"Do you mind if I record this?" the agent asked, sitting across from her at a narrow table and pulling a small tape recorder from a brown leather briefcase.

Holly shook her head. "Somebody already explained how interviews have to be recorded." She shrugged. "And I don't care anyway."

"I know you've already answered a lot of questions." The woman flipped open a notebook and retrieved a pen. "But I specialize in abduction cases. I might ask you things the police aren't trained to ask." She looked at her and smiled in a sad, understanding way that made Holly feel better. "How about if we start with your name, age, and address?" She clicked on the recorder, entering a date, time, and location.

"Holly Lindstrom. Age seventeen." That was followed by her south Minneapolis address.

"What were you doing just before you were kidnapped?"

"I heard about the Lucia Killer-that's what everybody's calling him now. That's all people are talking about. We even had an assembly at school. They passed out flyers. Told us to be careful. Always walk with other kids. Adults, if possible. All that stuff, but it didn't seem real. I mean, we've had assemblies about other things. Drinking and driving. Drugs. AIDS. I never felt like any of them had anything to do with me. I mean, I heard that one of the girls who was killed was a runaway, and another was kind of a whore."

Her mother had warned her. Her father had warned her. "When you get off work, have the manager walk you to your car," they'd instructed. She'd promised, but only to lessen her parents' worry. She'd never had any intention of asking her boss to go with her. How uncool.

"I was at work," she explained to the FBI agent. "I work at a convenience store. Come and Get It. Stupid name, I know. My friends always tease me about it. They're always asking if I work at a pet store. Sorry." She looked down at her hands. Her knuckles were white. "I have a bad habit of getting off the subject. What did you say your name was?"

"Cantrell. Agent Mary Cantrell."

"Oh. Yeah. Sorry."

"That's okay. Take your time. We aren't in any hurry."

Holly took a deep breath and continued. "When I get off work it's usually dark. For some reason, I felt kind of creeped out and I actually thought about asking my boss to walk me to my car, but he was busy. A customer had… like… run into one of the gas pumps, and it was all crazy. It was late and I wanted to get home. I have a test tomorrow-well, today- and needed to study. My car was just a block away, around the corner. It was no big deal. Or I didn't think so, anyway."

She tugged a chunk of straight blond hair across her cheek and pulled it into her mouth. She gnawed on ends that were already wet, then let go. She was addicted to hair chewing. Also to eyebrow plucking. Not with tweezers-with her fingers.

"When I unlocked the car," she continued, "somebody grabbed me from behind. I thought it was one of my friends playing a trick on me. I yelled, mad. And then… the guy-he stuck a gun in my side and told me he'd kill me if I didn't shut up. After that I didn't say anything else. He, like… got in the backseat and told me to, like… drive away."

"Did you see him? See his face?"

"No. I was afraid to turn around. One time…when I was waiting for a light to change… I looked in the mirror, but it was dark in the backseat."

"Then what happened?"

"He made me drive to this deserted place where his car was parked."

"Did you know where you were? Did you recognize the area?"

She shook her head. "I was too scared. All I was thinking about was dying. I knew this was the guy, the Lucia guy, and I knew he was going to kill me. The only thing I remember is that we pulled up behind these huge cement things. You know, those things you see by railroad tracks."

"Grain elevators?"

"Maybe. I'm not sure. I'm a townie. I don't know anything about that stuff."

"Did you go over any railroad tracks to get there?"

"I don't remember. I think. Oh, I don't know. Sorry."

"That's okay. Then what happened?"

"He taped my mouth and hands and made me get in the trunk of his car."

"Did you see the vehicle?"

"It was dark, really dark. But the trunk was big. It wasn't any little compact thing, that's for sure."

"When he was taping your mouth, did you see him at all? Even a little bit?"

"I could kinda make out a dark shape, and maybe a lighter area that would have been his face, but that's all."

"Did you get a sense of how tall he was?"

She thought a moment. "For some reason, I thought he was taller than me. Maybe close to six feet."

"How about his voice? A lot of times we can get a sense of how large a person is by the voice. Was his voice deep? Or high-pitched?"

"I don't know. I was too scared to notice. Maybe average. I don't know."

"What about an accent? Or possibly poor grammar? Did he sound like someone who was well educated?"

She gave it some thought. "I didn't notice anything weird about the way he talked, but like I said, I was scared. And he didn't say much. A few commands like, Drive. Turn right. Pull up there. Get out of the car. I was so scared that a couple of times I didn't hear him, and he got mad and yelled it again." Holly suddenly felt like crying. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I can't remember anything when it just happened a few hours ago. I feel so stupid. I'm not helping at all, am I?"

"You're helping immensely. You've already told me that he's most likely white, fairly tall, no strong accent, and drives a large car-a car that may have left tracks near a grain elevator. Don't feel bad about not being able to answer my questions. Don't apologize for being human and responding like ninety-eight percent of the population. It's a documented fact that when a person's heart rate reaches a high level, it becomes almost impossible to hear and even more impossible to comprehend what we're hearing. I'm going to continue to ask questions, but please don't worry if you can't supply an answer. Just be proud of yourself for having the guts and initiative to get away from him. That's something no one else has been able to do, because unfortunately it's also human nature to become passive when presented with such a situation. We tend to freeze and wait when facing the unknown. You didn't allow yourself to freeze-which is why you're alive. You are an amazingly strong individual," the agent told her sincerely. "And just the fact that you got away is going to help us catch this guy."

Her words of encouragement assuaged some of Holly's tenseness and made her fear recede. She had gotten away. That was pretty damn impressive.

Agent Cantrell glanced through the notes the police had taken, then up at Holly. "I know it may be impossible to answer this, but did you get any sense of how far you may have ridden in the trunk before he stopped to check on you?"

The mental block Holly had subconsciously erected when she'd been speaking with the police evaporated. All at once she was able to put herself back there, in the trunk.

"It smelled so bad," she whispered. "Like something rotten. Like something dead." She picked at the green scrubs she was wearing. "I'd let you smell my shirt, but the crime scene people took it. They picked things out of my hair too. And cut my fingernails-in case there was any evidence under my nails."

"They're very efficient."

"It was the Lucia Killer, wasn't it?"

"We don't know. The only way to substantiate that theory would be to link him to the other crimes."

Holly knew they couldn't assume the guy was the Lucia Killer without facts. She'd already been told that. It seemed stupid, when everybody was thinking it was him. "They asked if they needed to get a rape kit, and I told them no. I don't think they believed me at first until I yelled and cried. Anyway, I started thinking that maybe there was a dead person in there with me. In the trunk. The more I thought about it, the sicker I felt. Pretty soon I started gagging and even threw up. It shot out my nose or I would have choked to death. A little later the car stopped and the trunk flew open. The guy made some weird sound, like maybe he was upset or scared or something; then he pulled the tape off my mouth and put a hand over my face. Right away I wanted to scream, but then I realized he was checking to see if I was breathing." She paused, thinking about how she'd tricked him. "I love to swim. I swim all the time. I can hold my breath, like, forever-so I held it. He slammed the trunk and took off. We drove for a long time. Or it seemed like a long time. Then he stopped and opened the trunk again. This time he cut the tape from my wrists and pulled me out."

"Then what happened?"

"He drags me through the woods, all the while I'm playing dead. It's dark. Pitch black, otherwise he would have known, but the darkness helped, I think. But I know he's going to kill me. He cuts off my jeans. Slash, slash, rip, rip, and they were off." She hesitated a moment, wondering if she wanted to mention what happened next. She hadn't told the police.

"He took pictures of me."

"Pictures?"

"Yeah. The flash went off in my face. Two, maybe three times."

"Did the camera make a sound? Or was it silent?"

"I heard something. Kinda like my 35-millimeter camera, but faster. One shot after the other."

"Then what?"

"He starts fiddling with his own clothes. I can hear the sound of a belt buckle and a zipper, and I know he's going to rape me. He thinks he's going to have sex with a corpse. What do you call those people? Who have sex with corpses?"

"Necrophiliacs."

"Yeah. I saw a movie once about a girl who worked at a morgue and had sex with the dead bodies. Anyway, that's what he was thinking was going to happen. And I knew I couldn't play dead any longer, so I jumped up and ran. I just ran…"'

Holly could still hear him behind her, panting, ripping through the underbrush. She remembered making so much noise. Too much noise! But she couldn't slow down. No way could she slow down! The sound of her own heart was drumming in her head. She heard the air being sucked into her lungs. Even though branches tore at the flesh of her bare legs, she felt no pain. All she thought about was moving, getting away. She was fast. She was young. She was scared shitless. She could beat him. She could outrun him. She just had to keep going. Keep moving.

She didn't know how far she ran, or for how long. All she knew was that she couldn't stop. There was no way she could stop. Even when she no longer heard sounds of pursuit, she kept going. He could still be back there, moving silently. Because he could move silently. He'd already proved that when he'd surprised her getting into her car. So maybe he was still behind her. Moving silently over the forest floor, silently over skeletal leaves and tiny ferns and dark earth.

Suddenly she saw lights in the distance. The night was foggy, but she was able to pick up the sound of a single car rolling down the highway.

Was it him? Had he gone back for his car, and now here he was, ready to cut her off? She voted against revealing herself, but her body moved of its own accord. Before she could stop it, she stood at the side of the highway with a pair of headlights cutting through the fog, blinding her.

This could be the end, she thought distantly. The end of my life.

She thought about her parents, about all they'd done for her. She wished she hadn't been so nasty to them the last couple of years. What was the point? What had she been trying to prove? It seemed so stupid now.

The car stopped but remained idling. Someone stepped out and began to move toward her. She could make out the shape of a man, his legs scissoring black silhouettes against the light. How would she know if it was him? His face would tell her nothing. Seeing him would do no good. This could be him and she wouldn't even know it. Pretending to be stopping to help. Hadn't she seen that trick in a movie?

Turn around.

Turn around and run back into the woods.

But his voice was young and compelling. He said he was driving a truck.

Let me see it. Step aside so I can see it!

It was a truck. A crappy, rusty, wonderful truck! And he was practically a kid! Nice, horrified, just as frightened as she was.

"Todd," Holly told Agent Cantrell. "He said his name was Todd."

"Yes, I met him in the hallway. I'm going to be talking with him shortly."

"He yelled at me to run, like he was suddenly scared to death." Now that she thought about it, it was funny. Really funny. She laughed, a hand to her stomach. "Here / was the one who'd been kidnapped, almost raped, almost killed-yet he was scared. I think he said, 'Let's get the hell out of here!' in this high-pitched voice. Yeah, that's what it was. Let's get the hell out of here! Oh, my God," she gasped. "That is so funny! Isn't that funny?" she asked, waiting for a reply.

Agent Cantrell stared at her a moment as if weighing her words. "I'm guessing you had to be there."