Hello Kitty Must Die (24 page)

“
POLICE ARE NOTHING BUT
trouble, unless you need them,” Sean said when I returned from my Katie’s funeral. “Avoid until needed.”

“I’ll drink to that.”

“At least your trip wasn’t boring, Fi.”

“Nope, between the fight and the police, it proved quite exciting.”

“Good.”

“What have you been up to, Sean?”

“Nothing much.”

Actually he had been very busy.

Sean had become deeply addicted to his nightly work. By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, whenever I called in the evenings for dinner or drinks, I only got his voicemail. Then a few hours later, he would invite me sailing despite the freezing weather. Every time.

He was in the groove now and he didn’t want anything to disrupt the rhythm of his deadly dance. So I became a liability. He stopped taking me with me on his nightly drives. “Having to take you home ruins the mood, Fi.”

Soon the whispers began. As more and more hookers disappeared off the streets, people started talking. It was as if the City suddenly realized that some of its inhabitants had evaporated into thin air. It felt lighter, roomier, cleaner. And the change wasn’t due to any efforts by the mayor.

The credit lay elsewhere.

Rumors began spreading about a serial killer on the loose in the Bay Area. Like the Zodiac Killer.

The City waited for cryptic notes to be sent to the San Francisco Chronicle or The Examiner. The media waited for mysterious packages to be mailed to NBC, ABC, CBS. Even to FOX. The police prepared for taunting phone calls and puzzle boxes.

But nothing came.

Everyone continued to wait. And the prostitutes continued to disappear off the streets.

The police got tired of prostitutes and pimps streaming into the stations reporting missing colleagues, pretending that the missing woman was their friend, or a friend of a friend. After all, no pimp was going to walk up to the desk sergeant and say, “Hey, man, my ho didn’t show up on her corner,” or, “Hey, I’m missing a ho.” But still, in the end, their visits generated too many reports that needed to be filed. Too much paperwork. So they doubled the number of patrol cars in the Tenderloin, bringing the number up to two.

“Maybe the weather got too cold for them and they went to L.A.”

“Those mini skirts sure aren’t too warm.”

“Chapped lips are a bitch. Upstairs and downstairs.”

So I imagined the one-liners being exchanged in the police cruisers.

As word spread, Sean stayed home more often. The risk of exposure forced him to take a break. So instead he invited me over for dinner and drinks at his place, but his attention drifted elsewhere.

No feather boa. No light-hearted banter. No fun.

“Go beat the baby if I’m boring you, Fi.”

Even the big punching bag baby hung still and unmolested while storms brewed inside of Sean.

He paced back and forth in front of the television, drink in hand. I sat on the couch, watching him. Like a caged animal slowly going crazy from boredom, he started biting his lower lip and rubbing his chin. He tried to wear a smooth patch on the hardwood floor. Until he couldn’t stand it any longer.

“Fi, go home. I need to get to work.”

So I went home.

Never get between a man and his work. People culture.

P
ETER’S CASE NEVER MADE
it to trial. Out on bail, he hung himself in the bathroom one night, after his parents had gone to bed. They found his body the next morning.

“We’re not going to his funeral,” declared my father. “Aunt Lydia is not going. So we don’t have to.”

“I’m not surprised, Dad. He killed Katie.”

The police took Peter’s suicide as a confession of guilt. Peter’s parents took it as a proclamation of his innocence—an act of desperation to escape the endless accusations. Unfortunately, if that had been his true motivation, the plan backfired. Most people took his death the same way the police did.

Peter should have left a note. But he didn’t.

“He just couldn’t face the jail time, Fi,” Sean told me.

“I don’t blame him. Not a fun place to go.”

“Nope. No more Armani or bellinis.”

“No.”

“And all the butt sex you never wanted. Think of all the action Petey missed out on.”

The murder-suicide reinforced my father’s decision to stop pressuring me about marriage. Thanks, Peter.

I HOPED PETER’S SUICIDE
would persuade Sean to give up his night job. It didn’t. I wondered what he would do if he ever got caught.

“If you were Peter, would you have killed yourself?” I asked. “Never.”

Sean took a swig of his beer, tucked his arm behind his head, and continued staring at the television. We were watching
South Park
episodes on DVD and snacking on nachos and beer. It was still early in the evening.

“You would have gone to trial, Sean?”

“And gotten off.”

“It didn’t work for Bundy or Unterweger, you know.”

“Losers.”

No, they weren’t. They were among the elite of psychopathic serial killers. And their charm still failed them at trial.

Sean’s arrogance made me uneasy. I wanted to discourage him from ramping up his nightly activities, but I knew it would be useless. He was on a roll. He knew it. I knew it. Even though we both knew it couldn’t last forever.

“Okay, ten o’clock, Fi. Home you go.”

“And you?”

“I’m a big boy, Fi. None of your business.”

At least Sean told me nicely. Every time I asked my grandmother a question that I shouldn’t have, she said, “And how many pubic hairs do you have down there?” It was her way of saying “none of your business.” God bless her.

Every evening, Sean and I met up for drinks or dinner and shot the breeze. Every night, he sent me home. I told myself it was because he was looking out for me. That if anything should go wrong, I would not end up in prison for the rest of my life as his accomplice before or after the fact.

But I knew better.

Sean considered himself several leagues above me now. I became the annoying little sister tagging along on her big brother’s important adult business. He didn’t need me to help him pick out his girls anymore. He wanted to do it himself.

So I spent my nights at home.

Or more often at the office, late into the night, plodding through my financing agreements and merger contracts with only a pixilated portrait of the Blood Countess for company.

Eventually, I stopped hearing from Sean altogether. No calls, no emails, no text messages. No bar hopping, no drinks and nachos, no sailing trips. No Sean.

All the modern technology in the world could not bridge the growing gap between Sean and me. He had moved on and left me behind. Like the friends you outgrow when you go onto something bigger and better.

It’s all part of life, unless of course, you’re the friend left behind. Then it just plain sucks.

I found myself wishing for Sean to slip up.

And then he did.

ALL IT TAKES IS ONE
survivor. The one who gets away. And runs off to the police with your description and a story about what you tried to do to them. Like what happened with Dahmer.

Dahmer lucked out with his first escapee. The oh-so-helpful cops who lived to serve and protect actually delivered the poor guy back to Dahmer, who could have gone on happily killing and eating boys and men if his last would-be victim hadn’t escaped. The guy went straight to the cops about his misadventure, and next thing Dahmer knew, a fellow inmate at the Columbia Correctional Institution, a man named Scarver, was bashing his skull in with a weight bar. Scarver said he was doing “the work of God.”

Aren’t we all.

My mother called me one night while I was at the office. “Fiona, come home early.”

“I can’t. I have lots of work, Mom.”

“Have you seen the news?”

“You know I hate the news.”

“There’s a serial killer loose in the city. Lots of young women have been disappearing.”

“Really?”

“Come home early. Can’t you do your work at home?”

“I guess.”

“Then come home. And read the news. They put up a picture of him in the news.”

“A picture?”

I logged onto the Internet faster than ever before. Although I had been wishing for Sean to be exposed, I felt nauseous, hoping that the picture wasn’t of him.

But it was. Sort of.

SFGate.com
showed a sketch of the man who allegedly tried to kidnap and kill a young woman. The sketch looked like a bad cross between Edward Norton and Orlando Bloom, bearing only a slight resemblance to Sean.

Maybe that’s what Sean looked like if you had enough roofies and alcohol in you. I wouldn’t know. The only part of the sketch that had him dead on was a cold, slightly crooked sneer. I had seen that look too many times over the years, dating all the way back to the day he set Stephanie’s head on fire.

The article read:

Attempted Kidnapping of Young San Francisco Woman:
A young woman narrowly escaped a kidnapping attempt last night in the San Francisco Tenderloin District while walking home after drinking at a local bar with friends. A man tried to pull the young woman into his car while she stood at the corner waiting for the light. Police are distributing this sketch of the suspect who is believed to be a Caucasian male between the ages of twenty-five and forty...

Like I said, it’s always a white guy between the ages of twenty-five and forty. Unless it’s some random drive-by shooting in Oakland.

The article continued with a discussion of how young women need to be more careful and aware of their surroundings while walking around at night, how police are investigating the incident, how to contact the police if anyone should recognize the man in the sketch.

I laughed when I read the part about how the young woman was standing at the corner waiting for the light. Newspaper half-truths. No one would give a crap if they had said the woman was a hooker looking for her next John. People would just say she was asking for something like that to happen.

The next day, I called Sean at his office.

“Dr. Killroy is in surgery.”

“When will he be out?”

“I don’t know. Would you like to leave a message?”

“Please tell him Fiona called.”

“Regarding what?”

“I need a new hymen.”

I figured that might pique Sean’s interest enough to call me back. He must have had a lot of hymen surgeries lined up. He didn’t call me until a day and half later.

“Don’t tell me your dad is making you get married again.”

“No, Sean. I just needed to talk to you. Have you read the news lately?”

“No, too busy. Why?”

“You’re on the front page. Sort of. Actually, the news isn’t really about you. It’s about the girl who got away.”

Sean was silent for a very long time. At last, he spoke.

“Aw shit, Fi.”

“Shit indeed, man.”

“Listen, uh, I gotta go. Can you come over later this evening?”

“Sure.”

Having his failure plastered over the front page of the Chronicle must have deflated Sean’s ego somewhat. All of a sudden, I became worthy company once again. The part of me half in fear of Sean warned me against going over to his apartment.