Kill Me Once Read online

  He had left his little sister alive.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  Liquorice. She’d smelled liquorice on his breath.

  The man with the sharp knife was standing over her bed again when the jarring ring of the hotel telephone jolted Dana awake less than an hour later.

  She fumbled for it in the darkness, nearly dropping the receiver in the process.

  ‘Hello?’ she mumbled groggily.

  The voice on the other end of the line was intense and unmistakable. ‘Dana, it’s Crawford. I need you to meet me in Cleveland right away. Jeremy Brown’s already here. There’s a charter waiting for you at O’Hare. You need to be on it.’

  Dana shook the sleep violently from her brain. Crawford. What was he calling her for? ‘What’s going on, Crawford?’

  She heard him blow out a slow breath. ‘The killer has made contact, Dana. He’s made contact and he’s killed again.’

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  Nathan clicked on www.ariseandshine.org and frowned.

  When he’d interviewed David Berkowitz – the notorious Son of Sam – in the early 1980s while doing research for one of his books, the man had still been an unrepentant whack-job mumbling about ‘Father Sam’, a neighbour whose barking dog Berkowitz claimed had demanded that he should kill young women all around New York City. Now he was just another fucking idiot who’d found Jesus Christ.

  The website of the notorious serial killer featured a photograph on the home page that showed a smiling face topped off by neatly trimmed fringes of salt-and-pepper hair. Soft-looking hands were clasped in front of his body in a non-threatening manner. Worst of all, he was now calling himself ‘The Son of Hope’.

  Nathan rolled his eyes and navigated the cursor over a link titled ‘David’s Apology’:

  As I have communicated many times throughout the years, I am deeply sorry for the pain, suffering and sorrow I have brought upon the victims of my crimes. I grieve for those who are wounded, and for the family members of those who lost a loved one because of my selfish actions. I regret what I’ve done and I’m haunted by it.

  Not a day goes by when I do not think about the suffering I have brought to so many. Likewise I cannot even comprehend all the grief and pain that they live with now. And these individuals have every right to be angry with me, too.

  Nevertheless, I apologise for the crimes I committed. My continual prayer is that, as much as possible, these hurting individuals can go on with their lives.

  In addition, I am not writing this apology for pity or sympathy. I simply believe that such an apology is the right thing to do. And, by the grace of God, I hope to do my very best to make amends whenever and wherever possible, both to society and to my victims. – David Berkowitz, 2007

  Nathan yawned and closed the lid of his MacBook Pro. False repentance was so goddamn boring. Besides, he preferred to remember the Son of Sam when he’d still been a real man. And, thanks to him, David Berkowitz would be just that again very soon.

  At least for a little while.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  Dana touched down at Hopkins two hours later and retrieved the Protégé from long-term parking before slamming down hard on the accelerator and racing down Interstate 90 to the east side of Cleveland. Her nerves were hanging by their final thread. Apart from everything else going on, she was about to come face to face with the man that she seriously suspected might be their killer, a sadistic, corrupt, cold-blooded murderer. A man she had cared about – hell, still did. Did he have a brain tumour or was that a lie too? But would he really use her like that, and be right there at the latest crime scene? Whatever happened she had to remain calm. She couldn’t show her hand, not yet. And part of her still didn’t want to believe it might be true, though it looked more and more likely to be so. She didn’t even want to think about her parents and that he might have killed them, then guided her in her career. Was it to lead her to this point? It couldn’t be. And he had kind eyes, didn’t he, not the eyes of a killer?

  The press descended on Dana’s car as soon as she pulled into an empty space outside the Section-8 apartment complex. She pushed her car door open hard against the knees of a cameraman and stepped out. Bright television lights and the flashes of a dozen rapidly shuttering cameras blinded her immediately. The questions rained down on her from all directions.

  ‘Special Agent Whitestone, how old were the victims this time?’

  ‘What is the FBI doing to stop the Cleveland Slasher?’

  ‘Ma’am, when is a full-fledged task force going to be assigned to this case?’

  Dana put her head down and fought her way through the crowd to the police tape. Several uniformed cops stepped forward to hold the press back.

  Inside the building, she took the elevator up to the seventh floor. Three doors down from the Jacinda Holloway murder scene, Crawford Bell and Jeremy Brown were directing dozens of crime-scene technicians as they scoured an apartment that still smelled faintly of cinnamon rolls. Dread coursed through Dana’s entire system. She wasn’t sure she could do this.

  ‘Dana,’ Crawford said. ‘They’re in the back bedroom.’

  Dana nodded a hello to Brown – at least she was pleased to see him there – then turned back to Crawford, unable to control the queasiness in her stomach at the sight of him. Still, suspicions were one thing and cold hard facts were something different altogether. Besides, if Crawford was involved in these murders, how could she possibly broach with him the subject that the re-creations were following his introductory class killer for killer? And who else could she broach the subject with? CK knew what she was thinking, but he was still back in Chicago working the Richard Speck deaths, so he couldn’t help her. She might be able to discuss her suspicions with Jeremy Brown but, despite how closely they’d worked together out in Los Angeles and Wichita, she still didn’t know him all that well. For now she’d just have to keep playing things cool. She had no choice. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder if the cancer in Crawford’s brain had turned him into a killer.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she asked.

  ‘Go have a look for yourself,’ Crawford said.

  Dana walked across the living room and down a short hallway. Sergeant Gary Templeton was posted outside an open bedroom door. He lowered his tear-filled eyes when he saw her. ‘We missed him again,’ he said. ‘He came right back to the same fucking apartment complex and we missed him again.’

  Dana stepped past him into the bedroom. The young woman she’d interviewed just days earlier was naked and lying on the bed, her legs parted and her throat slashed. She’d probably been raped. In her arms she cradled her baby, the little girl’s sweet blue face snugly cradled up against her mother’s soft breast.

  Dana threw up all over the carpet.

  ‘Whoa!’ Templeton said, taking her by the elbow and leading her roughly out of the bedroom. ‘You’ll compromise the crime scene.’

  Dana tore her elbow from his grasp and wheeled around to glare at him. ‘There’s nothing here!’ she screamed. ‘There’s never anything at any of the goddamn scenes!’

  Brown stepped quickly between them. He took Dana back out into the hallway of the apartment complex while Crawford talked to Templeton.

  A moment later her mentor and former partner joined them out in the hall.

  ‘Go home and get some sleep, Dana,’ he said. ‘You’re not doing anybody any good in this state. Pull yourself together.’

  She stared up at him in disbelief. Bile crept up her throat. ‘But, Crawford …’

  He shook his head and cut her off before she could continue. ‘Now, Dana. That’s a goddamn order. Get out of here.’

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  By the time Dana finally made it back to her apartment complex in Lakewood it was nearly four a.m. She couldn’t think straight. All she wanted to do was get inside. She’d left Crawford there – but could she really have accused him outright? Even Jeremy would have laughed in her face. She was a fool, she’d blown it, s
he’d lost control, nearly contaminated a crime scene.

  She pulled into the parking lot and her heart jumped into her throat when she saw the press that had set up camp there. A dozen of them immediately crowded around her driver’s side door as she eased the car into an empty space.

  ‘Special Agent Whitestone, are the copycat murders related to the slayings of the little girls?’ a tall man in the middle of the pack shouted. ‘When are you going to catch this guy? Our viewers want answers!’

  Dana stepped out of the car and blinked her eyes against the bright television lights. She put her head down and fought her way to the front doors, bumping her shoulders against the mass of humanity on both sides while yet more questions rained down on her.

  Thirty seconds later the aggressive audience was still shouting questions at her as she slipped her key-card through the magnetic reader on the front doors and stepped inside. Outside, the reporters turned immediately to face their respective cameras in order to toss the insatiable beast known as 24/7 journalism another hunk of bloody red meat.

  Dana closed her eyes while she rode the elevator up to the fourth floor. She stepped out of the elevator and glanced down the hall to make sure that no particularly enterprising members of the press had made it inside. So far, so good.

  Quietly, she let herself into Eric’s place and retrieved Oreo from his living-room couch. The back-and-forth with the cat would just happen all over again in the morning, but she really needed Oreo as a security blanket tonight.

  Returning to her own apartment with Oreo in tow, she stepped inside her bedroom and quickly changed into her pyjamas before slipping between the covers and pulling the comforter all the way up over her head.

  For a brief moment she was hazily aware of being afraid that she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep. The next thing she knew, the alarm clock was wailing loudly in her ear and Oreo was curled up around her neck like a furry, purring scarf.

  Dana squinted her eyes over at the small digital alarm clock on her bedside table. Almost eight a.m.

  She groaned and hit the snooze button but came awake again with a start a moment later when the events of the previous night came flooding back into her mind. She dragged herself out of bed with another groan and walked over to the bedroom window, looking down into the parking lot. She breathed a sigh of relief. No press out there yet, thank God.

  She made her way into the kitchen with Oreo trailing at her heels and poured some dry cat food into his bowl before pouring a large glass of vodka for herself and sitting down at the kitchen table. She guzzled the clear liquid down in four quick swallows while Oreo crunched loudly on his food five feet away.

  Ten minutes later the phone jangled on the wall.

  She picked it up. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Dana, it’s Jeremy Brown. Get any sleep?’

  ‘Not nearly enough.’

  ‘Well, I’m afraid it’s going to have to do for now. I’m over at your office now. Can you meet me here in, say, an hour?’

  ‘Of course. What’s up?’

  Brown let out a slow breath. ‘I’ve got something I need to talk to you about. It’s Crawford Bell.’

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  Nathan felt very calm as he polished the .44-calibre handgun in the weak morning light struggling through the grimy windows of his rented apartment. He knew that he had nothing to fear. Smarter and better prepared than those who would try to stop him, he was steadily evolving into the mighty eagle. Soon he would be perfect.

  Perfect and worthy of redemption.

  Having drawn his sister back home, tonight he would shoot two deliciously young girls who had long dark hair. Once that was done, David Berkowitz’s crimes would finally be updated to his satisfaction.

  Nathan smiled to himself. As always, he was in complete control of everything. The authorities were simply his marionettes – his dummies – and he was the puppet-master pulling their strings.

  He’d altered his profile on the Lonely Hearts Club website to attract this latest group, of course – switching his photo to that of a good-looking kid who could have passed for an Abercrombie & Fitch model – and he’d peppered his profile with enough of the idiotic jargon they all used these days to ensure that the young girls had responded in waves from there.

  LOL. BRB. C U L8R. It was enough to make him want to scream.

  Shooting the girls in the head would not be as satisfying as using the knife, but Nathan knew he had to follow the path set by the one who’d come before him, so he would resist the urge to slice them up into human fillets with his sharp blade.

  He’d stayed up all night designing his run-down apartment to the exact specifications obtained from an Internet website. Every detail was precise; everything was in place. There was no yapping dog next door, no conveniently named neighbour, but he would use his imagination to fill in the gaps. His imagination was very good.

  A parking ticket would not stop him this time.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  Dana got into the Protégé an hour later and quickly drove over to the FBI field office located on Lakeside Avenue in downtown Cleveland.

  She closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the cold surface of the elevator wall next to the bank of buttons while riding up to the tenth floor. When the doors opened she stepped out and made her way down the hall on rubbery legs.

  Jeremy Brown was seated behind the cluttered desk in her office.

  ‘Dana,’ he said, rising to his feet. ‘Come on over here. I’ve got something you need to see.’

  Dana frowned at him and took the sheet of paper he was holding out. ‘What is this?’ she asked.

  ‘Just read it.’

  Dana settled down into a leather chair beneath the fronds of an artificial palm tree. Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of the precise handwriting. Same handwriting as the Disneyland note.

  Dear Special Agent Whitestone,

  I am deeply hurt by your calling me a wemon hater. I am not. But I am a monster. I am the ‘Son of Sam’. I am a little ‘brat’.

  When Father Sam gets drunk he gets mean. He beats his family. Sometimes he ties me up in the back of the house. Other times he locks me in the garage. Sam loves to drink blood.

  ‘Go out and kill,’ commands Father Sam.

  Behind our house some rest. Mostly young – raped and slaughtered – their blood drained – just bones now.

  Papa Sam keeps me locked in the attic too. I can’t get out but I look out the attic window and watch the world go by.

  I feel like an outsider. I am on a different wave length then everybody else – programmed too kill.

  However, to stop me you must kill me. Attention all police: Shoot me first – shoot to kill or else. Keep out of my way or you will die!

  Papa Sam is old now. He needs some blood to preserve his youth. He has had too many heart attacks. Too many heart attacks. ‘Ugh, me hoot, it urts sonny boy.’

  I miss my pretty princess most of all. She’s resting in our ladies house but I’ll see her soon.

  I am the ‘Monster’ – ‘Beelzebub’ – the ‘Chubby Behemouth’.

  I love to hunt. Prowling the streets looking for fair game – tasty meat. The wemon of Cleveland are z prettyist of all. I must be the water they drink. I live for the hunt – my life. Blood for papa.

  Ms Whitestone, ma’am, I don’t want to kill any more. No ma’am, no more but I must, ‘Honour Thy Father’.

  I want to make love to the world. I love people. I don’t belong on earth. Return me to yahoos.

  To the people of Cleveland, I love you. And I want to wish all of you a happy Thanksgiving. May God bless you in this life and in the next and for now I say goodbye and good night.

  Police: Let me haunt you with these words;

  I’ll be back! I’ll be back!

  To be interrpreted as – Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang – Ugh!!

  Yours in murder

  Mr Monster

  (P.S. – Have a look at the Chicago Sun-Ti
mes Friday morning. I think you’ll find it an interesting read.)

  Dana looked up at Brown over the top of the sheet of paper and shook her head in confusion. She had to force the words around the painful lump that had formed in her throat at the sight of her own name in the letter. ‘Where did this come from? New York City?’

  Brown shook his head. ‘Nope. It was at the crime scene last night, Dana. Crawford said he didn’t want you to see it. Said it would only make things harder on you.’

  Dana could hardly breathe. ‘Where is he now?’

  Brown shrugged. ‘No idea. It’s weird. After you’d gone he went from barking orders to suddenly saying he had some other things to take care of and then he left. We haven’t been able to get hold of him since.’ He paused and looked at her. ‘You’re not the only one who graduated from the Academy. I’ve been thinking …’

  She stared up at him. ‘What?’

  Brown looked uneasy. ‘Well, you’ll probably think I’m crazy. I mean, you know him better than I do – and – well, it’s probably a long shot. But you know when you said a while back that it could be someone who was close to a crime scene?’

  Dana nodded, not daring to speak, not wanting to put words into his mouth.

  ‘Well,’ he continued, ‘it got me thinking on another angle – about how well the killer picks his copycats. So then, when I got back to my hotel room, I started thinking about what I know about Crawford Bell. I remembered taking his course at the Academy. Richard Ramirez, Dennis Rader, Richard Speck, David Berkowitz and John Wayne Gacy are the main subjects of that course, aren’t they? Dennis Rader is the only addition since we graduated.’

  Dana’s heart pounded in her chest. ‘Go on.’

  Brown sat back down behind her desk and cracked his knuckles. ‘Seem a little coincidental to you?’