The Kill

CHAPTER 22

Zack and Olivia spent their first hour at San Quentin reviewing Bruce Carmichael’s prison file.

In 1960 he killed his common-law wife, Miriam Driscoll, a cocktail waitress in New Jersey. He disappeared with his two minor children, Christopher Adam Driscoll, eleven, a child from Miriam’s previous marriage, and Angel Lee Carmichael, six, his own daughter.

He avoided capture for nearly three years until Chris Driscoll called the police from a low-rent apartment in Los Angeles, saying his stepfather killed his sister and claiming to have killed his stepfather. LAPD responded and found Carmichael and Driscoll both covered in blood. Carmichael had been knocked unconscious, but he wasn’t dead. The nine-year-old girl had been stabbed to death. An autopsy revealed that she’d been repeatedly sexually assaulted. After a forensic investigation, evidence proved her own father had molested her.

The fourteen-year-old Driscoll told police that he heard his sister scream and called the operator before going into the bedroom, where he saw Carmichael stabbing her. He tried to stop him, but Carmichael turned the knife on him. They wrestled and the knife was lost under the bed. Driscoll then hit Carmichael over the head with a lamp and he was knocked unconscious. A blood test at the hospital confirmed that Carmichael had been drinking, his blood alcohol level at point-two-five.

Driscoll told police he and his sister had been planning on running away because of the physical abuse, but Carmichael found out about their plans and killed Angel.

Carmichael had a completely different story. He claimed he walked into the apartment and saw Driscoll sitting on the edge of Angel’s bed. He was holding a knife and Angel was dead. Carmichael fought with his stepson over the knife, but he’d been drinking and slipped, and Driscoll knocked him out with a lamp.

Time of death could have supported either story, but the prosecutor believed Driscoll. Not only had Angel been sexually assaulted by her father, but Carmichael had stabbed Miriam Driscoll to death with the same knife.

The teenage boy was distraught that he’d been unable to protect his sister. He was under suicide watch in the county hospital during most of Carmichael’s trial. The jury was unmoved by Carmichael’s claim that his stepson had killed Angel. He was sentenced to life, then extradited to New Jersey to stand trial for Miriam Driscoll’s murder, but he pled guilty to avoid the death penalty.

If he hadn’t died of cancer, next year he would have been shipped to New Jersey to serve out his second life sentence.

“What a bastard!” Zack said, flipping through the pages quickly. “I heard a phrase once, can’t remember where, that monsters are created. Chris Driscoll is a product of his upbringing. Doesn’t make him any less guilty, but dammit, I hate that the cycle continues.”

“When his father killed his sister, he could have snapped,” Olivia said. “Just like my mother did when Missy died. He probably blamed himself, thought he was weak because he couldn’t protect her. To survive, he absorbed the force of his stepfather’s personality. He ended up being just like him. But far worse. He’s more methodical, more disciplined. He’s had years to perfect his crimes. He learned early in life how to move from state to state, create identities, hide in plain sight-all because his stepfather did it to avoid being arrested.”

“His background might explain why the first murder in each state seems spontaneous and distinct from the others,” Zack said. “Maybe he doesn’t plan it, or at least not as meticulously as the others, but sees a victim who reminds him of his sister and takes her. Consider Jillian Reynolds. She was abducted, then dumped only a couple of miles away.”

“And in a secluded location,” Olivia said. “Perhaps so her body wouldn’t be found as quickly?”

“Could be.” He gathered up the files and motioned to the guard who’d been left with them in the room. “Officer, I need to speak to the warden about getting a copy of these files sent to Seattle.”

“I’ll take you to his office.”

Zack leaned over to Olivia. “Let’s get the important stuff copied and faxed to the department and see if it helps your people put together a profile of where we can find this guy before he strikes again.”

Chris Driscoll drove his small SUV into Seattle International Airport’s long-term parking, extracting a ticket from the machine and placing it precisely in his wallet. He drove slowly up and down the aisles, looking for Karl and Flo Burgess’s large white pickup truck.

Ten rows in he found it.

He stopped his car down the aisle, left it running, and took the extra set of keys he’d stolen from the Burgess’s kitchen drawer. He pulled the truck out, left it running, and pulled his own car into the slot. He’d return the truck precisely where he’d found it.

Upon leaving, he handed the attendant the ticket he’d just received. “Forgot my medication,” he said sheepishly in case the attendant thought it was odd that he had entered the facility only twenty minutes before.

“It happens,” the guy said without really looking at him, “but I have to charge you a dollar.”

“I understand.” He gave him a dollar and left.

Thirty minutes later he was parked down the street from the angel’s house. He was running a little late; she rode her bike home from gymnastics every afternoon, rounding the corner between 4:45 and 4:55. It was already after 4:30. He didn’t want to miss her. He couldn’t miss her.

He closed his eyes for a moment, just a moment, to strengthen his resolve. Angel came to him. A memory, a nightmare.

She’d planned to betray him.

“I’m going to talk to Mrs. Thompson tomorrow.”

They were sitting on the balcony again, two weeks after her birthday, and Chris had been thinking about where they could run, how he would pay for food and clothes and rent. How he would take care of Angel.

He was also planning how best to kill Bruce. Because the only sure way they could escape Bruce was to make sure he was dead.

“What?” Certainly he had misunderstood Angel. He’d been lost in thought. “Talk to her about what?”

“What Daddy does to me. She’s very nice. She’ll help. I know she will. And you can come with me.”

“No. No. I told you I’d find a way.”

She shook her head, her big green eyes far older than her years, too sad for a child. “I can’t wait. I can’t wait anymore. I hurt all the time. I don’t want to feel this way anymore. I don’t want to be scared anymore.”

“No.”

Chris opened his eyes, startled. Ten minutes had passed. It was nearly 4:45. He had to get into place.

He already wore gloves. Gathering his supplies, he silently slipped out of the truck. There was a mailbox partially covered by ivy and bushes. He’d already checked her route and knew this was the best place to take her. If he stood on the far side of the mailbox, no one would see him without walking straight toward him. He would wait for his angel. Wait and she would come right into his arms.

He pretended to mail a letter, just in case anyone happened by, then slid into his hiding place.

And waited.

He heard the flap-flap-flap of decorated spokes before he saw her.

He counted to three, then stepped out of hiding, right into her path.