Kill Me Once Read online

  When Brown and Guthrie had left the room, Dana sat down on a plastic chair and tried to collect her thoughts. It felt good to be swinging into action like this. Could she allow herself to hope that they might finally be making progress? That they might at last be getting closer to the Cleveland Slasher?

  Unbidden, the thought of another killer flashed into her mind: the killer she really wanted. The killer who was the main reason why she’d joined the FBI in the first place.

  The monster who’d murdered both her parents in cold blood when she’d been only four years old.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Nathan sat in the Porsche on Timber Drive in the nicest area of Ventura, California, listening to Ashley Ball’s rendition of Lecuona’s ‘Malaguena ’. He was about an hour north of Los Angeles. He lit up a cigarette and inhaled deeply. The fancy car didn’t draw much attention here, so that was good. It just took its place quietly among all the Jags and Beemers and Corvettes scooting about. Hell, it wasn’t even the nicest car on the block. That distinction went to the yellow Lamborghini parked in the driveway of the biggest house on the street, a faux-colonial rising up higher than its neighbours and creating the distinct impression that it was looking down its nose at them.

  He lifted the binoculars to his eyes and focused on the window of the master bedroom on the second floor. The curtains were open and the stunning blonde standing there was completely naked, in full view of the entire street. Still, Nathan was the only one looking.

  He’d found Brenda McCarty through the Lonely Hearts Club website, the Internet dating site that would become his hunting ground from here on. His wireless Internet card gave him the flexibility he needed, allowing him to log on whenever he damn well pleased, so it was a natural fit.

  Even though Brenda McCarty would be a red herring if they ever connected her to him, Nathan wasn’t especially concerned with what the authorities might think right now. Fuck them. He was in charge here, the storyteller writing the goddamn script, and it was time for a little bit of fun. Hell, he’d earned that much.

  Sensing a peeping Tom in the neighbourhood, the woman turned in his direction. Her double-D breasts didn’t move like natural breasts. As a matter of fact, they didn’t move at all. They’d been fashioned out of the finest silicone that money could buy.

  Still, she was one sexy bitch for fifty-eight, no doubt about that. When she spotted Nathan, her green eyes widened briefly in surprise. Then she smiled and crooked her finger in his direction.

  Nathan smiled back and turned off the Porsche’s ignition before stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray. Brenda McCarty’s husband was a successful stockbroker who cared absolutely nothing about his wife’s indiscretions, so he wasn’t especially worried about an angry husband coming home and catching them in the act. She just liked to play at being kinky, or so she wrote in her e-mails – thus the role-play of him spying on her from the street and supposedly getting caught.

  Nathan sighed. Whatever turned her on. Everybody had their own little kinks. Hell, he knew that better than most.

  He got out of the Porsche and crossed Timber Drive, pausing to let a school bus to cross the street. A young Hispanic girl smiled a toothless grin at him from one of the back windows, and Nathan smiled back.

  The front door would be unlocked. He knew this because the entire scenario had been discussed in excruciating detail via e-mail, right down to the scripted lines he would utter. Or, rather, the scripted lines that Brenda McCarty thought he would utter.

  His ears rang as he navigated the stone walkway lined with blood-red roses. Three houses down on his left a dog barked.

  A moment later he was inside the marble-tiled foyer, where a crystal chandelier sparkled over his head. So far, so good.

  An elaborate double staircase led up to the second floor. Nathan took the set of stairs to the right and made his way down the hall. He paused outside the French doors at the end of the hall and took a deep breath before he pushed them open.

  Brenda McCarty was lying on her back on a huge four-poster bed. Her head was thrown back and her tan thighs were parted. A low buzzing sound filled the room. Nathan looked between her legs and saw that she was pleasuring herself with a blue vibrator.

  Kinky, kinky, kinky. He liked her already.

  She looked up at him and feigned shock. ‘Who the fuck are you?’ she stammered, yanking the comforter up to cover her naked body. ‘Get the fuck out of my house!’

  Nathan smiled at her. ‘Sorry, bitch. Can’t do that. I’m here to rape you.’

  Brenda McCarty paused. Then she smiled back and lowered the covers, revealing her naked body once again. ‘Well, what the hell are you waiting for, then? It’s just little old me in this big old bed and I obviously can’t do a goddamn thing to stop you.’

  Nathan’s smile brightened. ‘Oh, I know that, Brenda. Not you – and not anybody else, either.’

  He produced a switchblade from the back pocket of his pants and flipped it open. ‘Now, what do you say we have some real fun?’

  The woman’s bright green eyes widened again, partly from apprehension and partly from the thrill of just how good it felt to be so bad. ‘Go easy with that thing,’ she said warily. ‘Don’t forget we’re just playing a game here.’

  Nathan took a step forward. ‘Oh, believe me, Brenda, I’m going to go real easy with this thing. Hell, I’m not even going to torture you like Dennis Rader did to his victims. I’m simply going to kill you, that’s all. Easy breezy – no fuss, no muss. This here is just practice for me.’

  Brenda McCarty’s fear was suddenly very real now. ‘What the fuck are you talking about? We didn’t agree to any of these lines. Say what you’re supposed to say or get the fuck out of my house. I don’t need this shit.’

  Nathan sprang forward and clamped a hand over her mouth to muffle her screams. ‘Neither do I, Brenda.’

  When he slid the sharp knife deep into her carotid artery, the fleshy tube opened up like a burst water main and sprayed a fine mist of bright red blood all over the room.

  Nathan wasn’t at all surprised to see that Brenda McCarty bled like a stuck pig. After all, that was exactly what she was.

  Or, at least, what she had been.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  LA FBI Field Office – Conference Room No. 4 – 11:30 a.m.

  Dana called Gary Templeton in Cleveland and brought him up to speed on the latest developments out in LA. Everything from the note stitched into the killer’s pants to the possible connection to the Night Stalker’s first murder. Templeton was her eyes and ears out in Cleveland; it was absolutely essential that he knew everything she did. And God forbid the killer returned to his first hunting ground while she was out in LA.

  ‘Keep working the angles in Cleveland,’ Dana told him. ‘I don’t want to miss anything else. Don’t leave a single rock unturned, OK? How’s it coming along with the court orders for those four autopsies?’

  Templeton let out a breath. ‘I persuaded a judge to push all four through at once,’ he said. ‘As we speak, Alice Maxwell, Trina Bonderman, Kaitlin Jackson and Michelle Thompson are under the knives of four different MEs. Shouldn’t be long now before we know what we’re looking for.’

  Dana’s stomach flipped with the idea that they might finally be making some real progress on this case, not just belatedly reacting to the Cleveland Slasher’s moves when it was already too late to do any good. The implications of what the autopsies might uncover could be huge. She just hoped she wasn’t pinning her hopes on what could turn out to be another dead end. The killer had outsmarted them enough already.

  ‘Thanks, Gary,’ she said. ‘Let me know as soon as you hear anything, OK?’

  ‘Will do, Dana.’

  Dana thanked him again and switched off. A moment later, Brown entered the room. ‘I’ve got an appointment set up with the witness at the Mary Ellen Orton scene,’ he said. ‘Where do you want to start?’

  Dana took a deep breath and brought Brown up to speed on the Cl
eveland case. She’d given him a brief overview earlier but now she spelled out all the facts in excruciating detail. ‘Let’s start at the beginning,’ she told Brown. ‘I did some interesting research last night on the Night Stalker and how that case might relate to Mary Ellen Orton’s murder.’

  She held up the sheaf of papers that she’d printed off from the database the previous night. ‘Let’s compare the Night Stalker’s original murder with the Mary Ellen Orton case and see what else we come up with. I could use your input. And who knows? We might get lucky and catch lightning in a bottle.’

  Brown cracked his knuckles. ‘Sounds like a plan to me. Shoot.’

  ‘Good. Let’s get to work.’

  On a large white dry-erase board, Dana quickly sketched out a profile of Richard Ramirez’s known activities on the night he’d killed Jennie Vincow. Beneath each, she noted the similarities and disparities involved:

  Night Stalker victim’s name: Jennie Vincow

  Current victim’s name: Mary Ellen Orton

  Age of Night Stalker victim: 79

  Age of current victim: 79

  City of Night Stalker attack: Los Angeles

  City of current suspect’s attack: Same

  Date of Night Stalker attack: 28 June 1984

  Date of current suspect’s attack: 12 Nov. 2010

  Night Stalker’s method of entry: Ground-floor window

  Current suspect’s method of entry: Same

  Night Stalker’s known crimes: Murder, rape (necrophilia) Current suspect’s known crimes: Murder; rape and sodomy via knife

  Incidental coincidences?

  Night Stalker was chased down and caught by an angry mob after a composite sketch of him was released to the media. Current suspect outran crowd; witness working with sketch artist to develop composite now. Both were dressed all in black and wearing AC/DC baseball caps. Richard Ramirez eventually left his hat behind at a subsequent crime scene.

  Dana took a step back and she and Brown both looked at the board. It was good to be working with him like this. She’d forgotten how much she’d enjoyed that side of things when she’d been working with Crawford.

  ‘Looks spot on,’ Brown said after a moment, studying her notes. ‘The age thing isn’t exactly subtle to me, and everything else looks pretty goddamn close, too. This guy really did his homework.’

  Dana shook her head in frustration. ‘Yeah, but how is he managing not to leave a single trace of himself behind at the crime scenes? I’m thinking maybe he might know the same things we do when it comes to processing the scenes.’

  Brown looked surprised, then thoughtful. ‘Are you saying this could be the work of someone out in the field? Really?’

  Dana shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’ve been thinking – he leaves no trace, he … It’s a horrible idea, but I just think we should at least consider the possibility. I’ve got Gary Templeton running background checks on everyone involved with investigating the murder scenes out in Cleveland. You never know. Could you do the same thing here in Los Angeles?’

  Brown was silent for a moment and then said, ‘Sure. You’re right. It’s worth checking. We have to look at every angle with this killer. It does feel as if he might have inside knowledge.’ He paused. ‘And what about the other stuff? Any word from Quantico on the plastic-bag connection yet?’

  Dana shook her head. She’d placed a research request with the Child Abduction and Serial Murder Resources Center in Quantico yesterday asking them to cross-reference serial killers who’d used plastic bags in the commission of their crimes, but she still hadn’t heard back from them. Might be up to a week before she did, they’d said.

  ‘I’m afraid we’re going to have to wait a little bit longer on that one,’ she told Brown. ‘For now, let’s go over and talk to the witness we’ve got. The young Latina. Maybe the initial interviewer missed something in all the excitement.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ Brown said. ‘Let’s go.’

  Just then, Dana’s cellphone rang in her pocket. She held a finger up to Brown and motioned for him to wait while she fumbled it out.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Dana, it’s Gary Templeton. The autopsies are done.’

  A flutter of hope tickled Dana’s chest. “Did they find anything?’

  Brown looked at her expectantly.

  Templeton’s voice was amped-up. ‘They sure did. There was a single plastic letter inside each girl’s uterus. Just like the letters they found inside Jacinda Holloway.’

  Dana’s ears rang. Her hands shook as she flipped open her notebook to jot the letters down. ‘What were the letters?’ she asked.

  Templeton took a deep breath. ‘Starting with Alice Maxwell and ending with Michelle Thompson, in chronological order the letters were D, A, N and A.

  ‘They spelled out your name, Dana.’

  PART II

  CHANNELLING DENNIS RADER

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The audio recording of Dennis Rader’s 2005 confession filled the car as Nathan streaked down the Pacific Coast Highway at ninety miles an hour. Judge Gregory Waller was interviewing the infamous BTK in open court.

  ‘In regards to Count 1, please tell me in your own words what you did on the fifteenth day of January 1974, in Sedgwick County, Kansas, that makes you believe you are guilty of murder in the first degree.’

  ‘Well, on 15 January 1974, I maliciously—’

  ‘All right, Mr Rader, I need to find out more information. On that particular day, on the fifteenth day of January 1974, can you tell me where you went to kill Joseph Otero?’

  ‘Um … I think it was 1834 Edgemoor.’

  ‘All right, can you tell me approximately what time of day you went there?’

  ‘Somewhere between seven and seven-thirty.’

  ‘At this particular location, did you know these people?’

  ‘No, that was part of what … I guess what you call my fantasy. These people were selected.’

  ‘So you were engaged in some kind of fantasy during this period of time?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Now, when you use the term fantasy, is this something you were doing for your personal pleasure?’

  ‘Sexual fantasy, sir.’

  ‘I see. So you went to this residence – and what occurred then?’

  ‘I had did some thinking on what I was going to do to either Mrs Otero or Josephine and basically broke into the house, or didn’t break into the house … but when they came out of the house I came in and confronted the family and then we went from there.’

  ‘Had you planned this beforehand?’

  ‘To some degree, yes. After I got in the house I lost control. It was, you know, in the back of my mind. I had some ideas of what I was going to do. I basically panicked that first day, so …’

  ‘Beforehand, did you know who was there in the house?’

  ‘I thought Mrs Otero and the two kids, the two younger kids, were in the house. I didn’t realise Mr Otero was going to be there.’

  ‘How did you get into the house?’

  ‘I came through the back door. I cut the phone lines. I waited at the back door. I had reservations about even going or just walking away, but pretty soon the door opened and I was in.’

  ‘So the door opened for you, or …’

  ‘I think one of the kids, I think Junior, the younger Joseph, opened the door, ’cause he let the dog out, ’cause the dog was in the house at that time.’

  ‘Now when you went into the house, what happened then?’

  ‘Well, I confronted the family … pulled a pistol, confronted Mr Otero and asked him to, you know, that I was there, that basically I wanted … to get the car … hungry, food. I wanted … asked them to lie down in the living room … and at that time I realised that was not a good idea. So I finally, the dog was a real problem, so I asked Mr Otero if he could get the dog out. He had one of the kids put it out. I took them back to the bedroom.’

  ‘You took who back to the bedroom?’


  ‘The family … the four members. At that time I tied them up.’

  ‘While still holding them at gunpoint?’

  ‘In between tying, I guess.’

  ‘After you tied them up what happened?’

  ‘Well, they started complaining about being tied up and I reloosened the bonds, tried to make Mr Otero as comfortable as I could. Apparently he had a cracked rib from a car accident so I had him put a pillow down for his head. I think he had a parka or a coat underneath him. He talked to me about giving me a car. I guess he didn’t have very much money. Then I realised that, you know, I didn’t have a mask on or anything, that they could ID me, so I made a decision to go ahead and put ’em down, I guess, or strangle them.’

  ‘All right, what did you do to Joseph Otero?’

  ‘Joseph Otero?’

  ‘J. Joseph Otero Sr, Mr Otero, the father.’

  ‘I put a plastic bag over his head and then some cords and tightened it.’

  ‘This was in the bedroom?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Did he in fact suffocate and die as a result of this?’

  ‘Not right away. No, sir, he didn’t.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘After that I did Mrs Otero. I had never strangled anyone before so I really didn’t know how much pressure you have to put on a person or how long it would take …’

  ‘Was she also tied up there in the bedroom?’

  ‘Yes, both their hands and feet were tied up. She was on the bed.’

  ‘Where were the children?’

  ‘Josephine was on the bed and Junior was on the floor at this time.’

  ‘We are talking first of all about Joseph Otero. So you put the bag over his head and tied it and he did not die right away. Can you tell me what happened in regards to Joseph Otero?’

  ‘He moved over real quick-like and I think tore a hole in the bag. I could tell that he was having some problems there, but at that time the whole family just went panicked on me so I worked pretty quick.’