Killing Ways Read online

  ‘Please don’t worry about this,’ said Ren. ‘It doesn’t affect anything as far as I’m concerned.’ It really doesn’t. ‘I totally understand how you could have thought what you thought.’

  Karen’s eyes almost narrowed. ‘Can I ask you one thing?’ No. Please don’t. I know where you’re going.

  ‘Sure,’ said Ren.

  ‘Is there someone else?’ said Karen. ‘Do you know? Is Gary seeing someone else?’

  Oh, fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He’s not seeing her. The affair is over. ‘No,’ said Ren. ‘No. He is not seeing someone.’ IS not. Not WAS not. Is not. And that is the truth.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Karen. ‘Thank God.’ She stood up, and started to walk toward the door. She paused, and turned back. ‘What were you celebrating?’

  ‘Pardon?’ said Ren.

  ‘Why the champagne?’ said Karen. ‘What were you and Gary—’

  Fuuuck. Fuuuck.

  ‘—celebrating?’ said Karen.

  Ren stared at her feet. They were bare, polished in a beautiful shade of aqua.

  Help me. Help. Me.

  Oh. My. God. Feet! That’s it! God bless you!

  Ren jumped up. ‘It’s the case! Sorry, Karen. I just realized something. There’s another victim. Oh, Jesus Christ. Please, excuse me. I need to call Everett.’

  Ren ran into the kitchen, picked up her cell phone, dialed Gary’s number.

  ‘Everett!’ she said.

  ‘It’s Gary—’

  Duuuuuh! ‘I’m calling because – do you remember Gia Larosa, the young runaway?’ She lowered her voice. ‘Karen is here. What were we celebrating that night – the champagne. Jesus Christ.’

  ‘Ren, you drink champagne all the time – you don’t need a reason. It’s your drink.’

  ‘Oh my God, I never thought of that,’ said Ren. ‘That’s how fucking stressed out this is making me!’

  ‘How’s Karen?’

  ‘Ugh. Fine. Back to Gia Larosa – do you remember her?’

  ‘Her body was found on her eighteenth birthday – that stuck with me.’

  ‘Yes, raped, murdered, found on Lookout Mountain at the beginning of June, torn apart by critters. I remembered the autopsy report saying that she had splinters in her foot … remaining foot.’

  She could have run away from him.

  Not far – or fast – enough.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Gary, ‘but it stands to reason that if any woman was trying to run away from a killer outdoors, and she was barefoot, her feet would be damaged. Her shoes were bound to have been kicked off or removed, especially if they were heels.’

  Wind out of sails. ‘I’ll look into it tomorrow.’

  Ren ended the call.

  ‘I’m sorry about that,’ she said, walking back in to Karen.

  Karen was standing in the living room with her jacket on. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ve stayed here long enough. You’re busy, this is an important case. Do you really have another victim?’

  ‘I think so, yes. From back in June.’

  ‘And what did Everett think?’ said Karen.

  I see the hurt in your eyes. This is vile. ‘He isn’t sure.’

  ‘Well, you keep doing what you’re doing,’ said Karen. ‘You’re an excellent agent. And I’m so sorry for dragging you into all this. I’m so ashamed.’

  ‘Oh my God, don’t say that,’ said Ren. ‘Shame is a total waste of time.’ She hugged her.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Karen. ‘Thanks so much.’

  Too obvious to bring up the celebration answer now.

  Ren closed the door behind Karen.

  Oh, Karen. You do not deserve this.

  As Ren got ready for bed, she remembered the autopsy photos and the chipped aquamarine nail polish of Gia Larosa. She remembered thinking that, on the table, Gia Larosa looked no bigger than an eight-year-old. Her belongings were a denim skirt with a jagged hem, a cropped white Ramones vest, a red cotton bandeau top, a plastic charm bracelet.

  Tiny, blonde, rough around the edges.

  Stephanie Wingerter, Gia Larosa – lost souls, easy targets. Was Hope Coulson a move to a different league for the killer? A greater challenge? And Donna Darisse was a return to a comfort zone?

  The comfort of lost souls and easy targets …

  Jesus Christ.

  16

  Ren pulled Gia Larosa’s file as soon as she got into work the next morning. It was JeffCo’s case, but had started out with Safe Streets, because there was a last-known sighting in Denver. Gia Larosa had run away from her home in Montana, and hitch-hiked to Denver with various truckers, all of whom were cleared of any involvement in her death. Her body was found a month after she arrived in Denver – two days after she went missing.

  Ren went through the photos of the crime scene. Temperatures at the end of May and early June were high, but Gia Larosa had been left partially covered by undergrowth, so the problem was not so much the heat, but the critters that had gotten to her. She was too decomposed to tell whether or not she’d been raped. But Ren honed in on one of the little yellow plastic markers at the scene, and an ax handle beside it.

  Rape with a foreign object.

  The lab report said that the ax handle had no prints on it. It was clean clean – bleach clean. There was evidence of sharp-force trauma to the lower spine that was likely caused by the ax, the blade of which was never found.

  Gia Larosa’s cause of death was undetermined.

  Ren sent an email out to all the agencies working on the case that Gia Larosa should be considered a victim of the same killer.

  Sorry, Gary. Can’t fight another fight with you.

  I have an appointment to get to …

  Dr Leonard Lone was Ren’s psychiatrist, an intelligent, kind-faced man, gray-haired, bearded, soft-spoken. Behind the air of normality was an abnormally large family fortune, and an enduring, under-the-radar commitment to share it with those less fortunate. Ren secretly called him Batman.

  ‘How are you doing, Ren?’ Lone opened the door wide in a deliberate flourish.

  Greetings, Batman! ‘I’m great, thank you,’ said Ren, taking a seat. ‘You look like you’re in a good mood.’

  He sat at his desk opposite. ‘Don’t I always?’

  She laughed. ‘Well, yes. But I’m liking the door-opening.’

  ‘I’m cultivating grand entrances today,’ said Lone.

  ‘Well, how about this for a grand entrance: there’s a serial killer in Denver. It’s not been formally announced yet. I’m case agent.’

  ‘Good for you,’ said Lone. ‘That was Gary’s decision?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How do you feel about that?’

  ‘Confident, thank you.’

  He nodded, then waited for an elaboration that didn’t come.

  ‘So, with this new responsibility …’ said Lone.

  ‘Comes great power!’ said Ren.

  Lone smiled. ‘Comes the more mundane issues of longer hours, irregular hours, increased workload …’

  There’s no such thing as a long hour. An hour is an hour.

  She glanced at the clock.

  Then again …

  ‘How has your sleep been?’ said Lone.

  Why are we even doing this? I’m smart enough to know the right answers. And smart enough to know never to say out loud anything that egomaniacal. Flag. ‘I’m sleeping well, eating well, working well.’ Suppressing checking the time well.

  Dr Lone nodded. ‘Are you happy with your meds?’

  Happy I am no longer taking them, yes. Ren nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘The dosage is right for you?’ said Lone.

  ‘Yes, absolutely.’

  ‘When do you take them?’ said Lone.

  Pause. ‘At night.’ She thought of her shoebox of shame – the meds box – lying under her bed, untouched.

  ‘Are you having any adverse reaction?’ said Lone.

  ‘No, nothing – they’re great. I’m feeling very … on an even keel.’

/>   ‘Good,’ said Lone. ‘Is there anything in particular you think we need to address today?’

  ‘Hmm, not really.’ Jesus, make something up. ‘Oh, there is something, actually. What am I meant to do with this information? A married colleague, who I greatly respect, had an affair. I was his unwitting alibi. I have gone along with this, lied to his wife, whom I know well. And I feel like shit.’

  ‘I don’t need to know names, but is this colleague a superior?’ said Lone.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ren.

  ‘Then that alters the dynamic,’ said Lone.

  ‘Not really,’ said Ren.

  ‘Well, do you still respect him?’

  Hmm. ‘Yes,’ said Ren, ‘totally.’

  ‘Do you still value his judgment?’ said Lone.

  Ooh. ‘Yes.’ But, seriously, what the fuck was he thinking?

  ‘Do you still feel he has your back?’ said Lone.

  ‘I guess I feel a little thrown to the wolves.’

  ‘Is it affecting how you’re interacting with him?’ said Lone.

  ‘Yes, actually,’ said Ren. ‘And him me … and to cap it all off, if I’m perfectly honest, part of me wishes that, if he was going to cheat, that I could have been someone he might have slept with.’

  Lone nodded.

  ‘I know that sounds screwed up,’ said Ren.

  ‘No,’ said Lone. ‘It does sound unwise, though. Has he always been faithful to his wife?’

  ‘Well, I thought so.’

  ‘And is that what stopped you ever pursuing anything with him?’ said Lone.

  ‘Well …’ He’s my boss. ‘Maybe if he were single, I would have gone there in the past.’

  ‘Do you feel now that “all bets are off”?’ said Lone.

  ‘I shouldn’t,’ said Ren. ‘But part of me does.’

  ‘And what about Ben?’ said Lone.

  Ren let out a breath. ‘I don’t know. I’m feeling kind of … bored.’

  ‘Be wary of bored,’ said Lone. ‘Boredom likes to make mischief.’

  ‘Boredom is my kryptonite.’

  He nodded. ‘Yes. You’ve just described an unhealthy environment for you, Ren. Boredom, work drama, increased workload, sleep deprivation, sexual attraction, and the perceived availability of the focus of that attraction.’

  Jesus Christ, is anyone not fucking boring around here?

  And are you studying me a little too closely, Batman?

  Ren went home that night and put together a hot meal of cannellini beans, spinach, lemon juice, the remaining shard of parmesan, and black pepper. She ate in front of the television, with a glass of red wine, and a magazine open on the sofa beside her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a big red blast of BREAKING NEWS.

  Oh. Shit.

  She grabbed the remote control and turned it up.

  ‘Unconfirmed reports have come in that authorities are on the hunt for a violent serial killer in Denver …’

  ‘Shiiiit!’ said Ren. ‘And unconfirmed my ass!’

  The frowning reporter stared straight ahead, unflinching, earnest: ‘The FBI has joined forces with Denver PD, the Douglas County and Jefferson County Sheriff’s Offices in piecing together events surrounding the murder of Gia Larosa whose body was found at Lookout Mountain in June; Stephanie Wingerter, who was found in July at Devil’s Head in Douglas County; kindergarten teacher, Hope Coulson, discovered last month at the Fyron Industries landfill site in Denver; and the latest victim – mother-of-one, Donna Darisse, who was last seen on Colfax Avenue, before her body was discovered off Highway 72 in Jefferson County. It is believed that some or all of the victims were brutally raped before they were murdered. Authorities have no leads.’

  ‘Noooooo!’ shouted Ren, grabbing a cushion to throw at the television, knocking her wine glass from the coffee table onto the floor. ‘Nooooo!’

  17

  Carrie Longman sat on a high stool at Manny’s Bar on 38th and Walnut. It was Open Mic night and a tiny girl with a big guitar was filling the gloomy stage. She looked to be in her mid-twenties, a delicate thing with a cute black cowboy hat on, and her dirty blonde hair falling across one eye. There was no doubt she had once been beautiful, but was now damaged, possibly by drugs, or mental illness, Carrie guessed. This was the type of girl who rang alarm bells for Carrie Longman, the type she rescued every week. Now, she felt permanently on high alert: there was a serial killer out there. One month had gone by since the prostitute, Donna Darisse, had been found. She thought of her face, she thought of the others who had gone before her. And that girl on stage, looked, to Carrie Longman, exactly like the type this psycho was going for.

  ‘You’re not at work now, Carrie,’ she said to herself. ‘Your only task tonight is to get very, very drunk.’

  A spotlight came on, and the singer, her rough face now clearer, leaned into the microphone.

  ‘I’m Dainty,’ she said in a smoky Texan drawl, through barely parted bow-shaped lips. With her skinny limbs, and her body curled in on itself, dainty she was.

  She shifted the guitar on her lap. ‘This song is about my father …’ she said.

  A few people in the scant crowd said ‘aw’.

  ‘… and how he abandoned me and my sister,’ said Dainty.

  The ‘aws’ turned to ‘ooohs’.

  ‘Even though,’ said Dainty, ‘he was right at home with us, right before our eyes. It’s about how my mama broke his heart, and he broke ours, me and my sister.’ She cleared her throat, shifted on the stool, adjusted the guitar, looked around the room, nodded to what looked like no one in particular. ‘So this is called “Croon On, Motherfucker, Croon On”.’ Dainty smiled a closed-mouth smile, incongruous in her little heart-shaped face, with its slightly jutting, pointed chin.

  Every fiber in Carrie Longman’s being wanted to storm that stage and rescue this Dainty stranger. Instead, Carrie Longman spoke to herself sternly, inside her head, as she often did: ‘Carrie, you’re drunk, your boyfriend’s just dumped you, the shelter is running out of money fast … you cannot rescue yourself and you sure as hell cannot rescue this one.’

  Dainty’s mouth curled up at one side before she opened it to sing. The place went as quiet as the grave. Her voice was like that of a chain-smoking woman twice her age with the sorrows of a thousand trailer parks weighing down her soul. It was ragged and beautiful, and the crowd was enthralled.

  Carrie Longman took out a pen, grabbed a napkin, and started writing.

  At the end of the gig, Carrie Longman headed straight for the ladies’ room. She swayed back and forth, bumping against the walls in the hallway. Crazed flies were charging the electric fly-killer, buzzing and dying.

  In the ladies’ room, the floor was littered with balled-up paper towels, the bins were overflowing, there was no soap. There was another electric fly-killer.

  ‘You cannot rescue the flies, Carrie,’ she said to herself. She smiled into the mirror. ‘Drrrunkard! But not drunk enough to use these heinous facilities. Hell, no!’

  She left almost as soon as she walked in. People pushed her away as she knocked against them on her way past. She thought of her ex, pushing her away. Six years together, four hours apart. ‘Croon On You Too, Motherfucker!’ said Carrie, this time, out loud. She started to cry.

  She stumbled out into the parking lot. She stopped dead – she hadn’t driven here. She had left her car somewhere off 16th Street. She had walked away from the bar where her boyfriend had left her. Now here she was: drunk, carless, crying again, and three miles from home.

  ‘You are a big loser, Carrie. America’s Top Loser. Biggest Model. Whatever …’

  She swayed back and forth, rummaging for her keys in her bag.

  He was sitting in the dark in the borrowed truck, watching her.

  You came into this bar crying, you walked out of it crying – who am I to turn off those tears? And you can’t find your keys, you dumb bitch, ’cos I got them right here from when you dropped them on the floor by the bar when you pulled tha
t sweater out of your purse. Isn’t a place like this a little empty, a little off the beaten track for a girl who wears pretty sweaters with pearl buttons? But you are wasted. You don’t know how wasted you are. I bet I could knock you down with two fingers, even though you’re a big fat bitch, loose and lonely by the looks of you. You’re not my type, now, are you? That’s the problem with the news reporters, fixing their lipstick one minute, talking about someone like me the next. You can send the skinny blondes scuttling under a rock, all you like, you painted bitches, but I’m going to stomp on a big fat brunette instead.

  Carrie Longman, bound at the wrists and ankles, rolled back and forth in the back of the truck. She had watched survivor episodes of crimes shows: meet the women who got away from their would-be killers! Live to Tell!

  ‘You will be one of those women, Carrie,’ she said to herself. ‘You will be eloquent, calm, convincing, clever. You will be able to describe everything. The police will find this psycho. You will save lives. You will be a heroine to women.’

  The truck came to a stop.

  He dragged her out the back by her ankles, let her fall, her head making a dull cracking sound on the dry earth. He kept dragging her until they were under a tree.

  He crouched down in front of her, bound her wrists with skinny, fraying rope.

  ‘My name is—’

  ‘No!’ screamed Carrie, shaking her head wildly. ‘No! Don’t tell me your name. Don’t. I don’t want to know!’

  ‘My name is … Your Killer,’ he said. ‘My name is Your Worst Fuckin’ Nightmare. My name is Your Mama’s Worst Nightmare, Your Daddy’s, Everyone’s Worst Fuckin’ Nightmare.’ He smiled. ‘How. Do. You. Do?’

  She screamed, and he let her, and she knew then that they were miles from help.

  ‘Please,’ she sobbed. ‘Please …’