The Watcher (28 page)

Mark would push and push until there was only one way out of it all – an explosion. Smith imagined Vesuvius erupting and molten lava flowing down, down onto his uncle and his stupid, nosy questions.

His uncle pierced him with his beady-eyed eagle stare. “Where’s the kitchen? I’ll get myself that drink.”

Smith gestured to the left. This wasn’t going to work. How was he going to get rid of his snoopy uncle before he found something? How was he going to avoid the prying questions?

Marconi’s sharp eyes took in the spacious room, bare of furnishings, gloomy and dusty. “Haven’t cleaned up around here yet?”

“I’ll get that drink for you,” Smith answered, scurrying ahead of his uncle and opening the heavy, old fashioned refrigerator that sat in the corner of the kitchen. He pulled out a soda and thrust it at his uncle.

“No beer, just soda pop.”

“That’ll do.” Marconi poked around the kitchen, his sharp eyes lighting on every nook and cranny. Smith grew dizzy and forced himself not to look at the large hooked rug covering the floor beneath the table set. In the corner. Under the frig.

He told himself Mark couldn’t possibly find anything. Smith did all his work in the basement, and his grandfather had designed the secret entrance so well no one would ever find it.

Marconi leaned against the kitchen sink, drinking his soda, studying his nephew with cunning, suspicious eyes. “How come you wanted me to look up that license plate?”

“No special reason.” Smith tried to put on a sheepish face. “I thought the woman was pretty, that’s all.”

Uncle Mark leveled him a look like his grandfather used to when he knew his grandson was lying. “That so? Did you know she works in my house?”

At first Smith thought his uncle was referring to domestic help, but then he figured out what he meant. She was a cop? Judas Priest, what had he gotten himself into? All he could do was shake his head dumbly.

“You didn’t know she was a cop?”

Smith screamed inside his head. You stupid asshole! Would I have asked you if I’d known she was a cop? Do you think I’m an idiot? A cop, oh Jesus, a cop. What had he done?

“Why don’t you give me a little tour?” Mark asked, changing the subject. “This is one helluva large place. What’s upstairs?”

“Just the bedrooms, closets, storage rooms, the attic.”

“That where you sleep?”

“Yeah.” His hands were trembling, and he quickly hid them behind his back.

“Why don’t you sleep down here? Ain’t there a master bedroom or somethin’ downstairs?”

“I like it upstairs. It’s warmer there.”

“Hmm. They sure don’t make houses like this anymore, good solid structure, great insulation.”

Smith took the can from his uncle’s hand. “Look, I’m feeling queasy again. I need to lay down.”

“Oh, sure. I’ve gotta be going anyway.”

Marconi walked toward the front door, but paused with his hand on the knob. “You call work first thing in the morning, you hear?”

“Okay, sure, I will.”

Marconi opened the door and stepped through, then stopped. “One more thing. I was lookin’ through some old department files the other day.”

“Oh yeah?” Smith answered, not knowing where his uncle was going with this line of conversation, but not liking it at all.

“I come acrost a case. Girl drowned out by Beale’s Lake. ‘Member the one? Right before you took off.”

“That was a long time ago, Mark. How the hell would I remember something like that?”

Uncle Mark’s beady eyes squinted up at his nephew. “Well, you orta. Wuddn’t you friends with that girl?” Mark turned to go. “Well, it’s sumin’ to think about, ain’t it?” He reached the bottom of the porch steps this time before he turned back again.

“I just remembered something else. Didn’t this old house usta to have a basement? Your granddad mentioned he’d built it for dressing game. Good idea for a hunter, very handy. How do you get to it? Does it have an outside access door? A hatch or sumin’ like that?”

Smith’s heart sank. There was no getting around it now. He’d have to show his uncle the basement room. If he didn’t, it’d look suspicious, and once that happened, there was no turning back. Could he pretend ignorance of the basement?

Uncle Mark wasn’t too smart, but he was clever with an animal instinct. He remembered the basement. He knew about the woman and the license plate. He suspected something about the drowned girl. Why else would he have mentioned it? Soon he’d recall everything he needed to know to fit the puzzle together, and he’d learn about the special room in the basement. Once he got to thinking, he’d remember the rest of it.

Smith couldn’t afford to let him leave now.

“Come on back in, Mark, and I’ll give you a tour of that basement room. Grandfather was really proud of it.”

#

Three hours later Smith rested in the spacious main room of the old house. Excited and exhilarated by his uncle’s visit, he contemplated his next moves. How to handle this latest problem caused by Mark’s annoying interference?

Smith’s uncle was an overweight, dried-out cop whose climb to the top position in the Sheriff’s Office showed how ineffective the whole system was. His uncle’s insufferable nosiness was the only good-cop attribute he had, and it’d led them both to this predicament. The man had always underestimated his nephew and he’d been ridiculously easy to overcome.

So much for the capabilities of the police. Compared to them, Smith was brilliant. Cops walked a thin line between the law and the lawless, and would be criminals themselves if they weren’t so stupid.

Mark, the jackass! Now Smith would have to fix this. Never mind, he thought, a surge of confidence running through him. A little bump in the road, nothing to stop him. He felt confident enough to repair the damage.

During his life the watcher had spent many weekends either preparing for a hunt or cleaning up after one, and this was no different. By the following afternoon, he’d rerouted the email address from Arizona to explain Uncle Mark’s absence. A simple matter and virtually impossible to trace back to the original sender, it bought him time. If they did trace it, well, there were a lot of computers, and Smith was just a lowly mail clerk who had no access to computers at all. The search would dead end at Paxton-Bell.

Smith knew his uncle played his cards close to the chest. He probably wouldn’t have even mentioned having a nephew, let alone revealed the New Haven address. At Paxton-Bell Smith had given a false address to the human resources woman, an overbearing, dog-faced dyke. He’d supplied his real name, a dangerous risk, but how else could he have claimed the house?

Disposal of Mark’s white SUV Ford Explorer had been harder. Smith found the mobile bubble light and shotgun inside Mark’s vehicle. The two-way radio that connected to the dispatcher was turned off. After writing the email, Smith got rid of the car by driving it down from the foothills. In case an APB was out on the car, he switched plates with a similar vehicle and left after dark.

Going south seemed a good idea this time and he headed past Modesto and abandoned the car in Tur-lock, hitchhiked back, and took Amtrak to Sacramento. From there he caught a bus to Placer Hills and then hitched his way back to the New Haven turnoff where he walked the rest of the way home.

Now that he’d dealt with his uncle’s vehicle, Smith could decide the man’s fate. Mark wouldn’t be missed immediately. A widower living alone, he had no one to report his disappearance. Hogtied in the basement like one of the animals he hunted, Uncle Mark was effectively contained.

Smith wasn’t averse to getting rid of a family member because, well, Mark wasn’t really
family
. He was the enemy. He represented law enforcement and would certainly put the law above any pseudo-allegiance to his nephew.

But the death of a police officer, especially in a dinky town like Placer Hills, was a serious matter, one that’d draw way too much media attention. Smith got a thrill out of knowing the girls’ bodies were discovered and his artistry marveled at, but Uncle Mark’s body must never be found.

That discovery would jeopardize Smith’s nice little setup. If he killed his uncle here, there’d be trace evidence – very difficult to eliminate completely – left behind. Anyone who watched television knew that.

Since they were related, Mark’s fingerprints in the house could be accounted for, but the blood would raise suspicion. If the police had probable cause for a search warrant to investigate the house, they’d have access to everything, including evidence tidily stored in the basement slaughtering room. That was something Smith couldn’t allow.

In his first wave of panic, he’d wanted to flee, abandon the area and move on as he’d done in the past. But this time, there’d be too much evidence left in the house. Eventually someone would find it.

He briefly contemplated dumping Mark’s body in the outbuildings and torching them. Heat destroyed DNA evidence, but fire also brought a lot of attention. During the summer, the buildings would burn to the ground and spread through the dry woods like a tornado, but in winter there was a good chance the Forestry Department could contain it.

Right now, he didn’t think anyone knew about him or his tenuous connection to Mark Marconi. For all his intrusive nature, his uncle was very private about his own business. Attracting attention by starting a fire of suspicious origins would draw too much attention to Smith.

So he decided to stay here and deal with Mark and the evidence he’d left. When the cleanup from that was finished, Smith would take care of what he’d started years ago. Getting the girl-woman and punishing her once and for all.

He’d lost sleep. Made damning mistakes.

All because of her.

He didn’t like dealing with grown women, with their slyness, but he knew some part of the purple-eyed woman
was
the girl who’d escaped him. He had to redeem himself.

Fueled by pornographic images of the man and woman he’d seen cavorting in the parked truck, he attended to the details of Uncle Mark and his car. He’d take care of this business and they’d be next. The night rushed on, and by the time he’d made his way back to the New Haven house, it was nearly dawn.

He thought of the task waiting for him in the basement bunker. He’d never killed a man before. Would it feel different from his experience with the girls? He didn’t think he’d get the same rush. This was just a matter of doing business. He thought it was hilarious that Mark had become the cost of Smith’s business. His uncle should appreciate the irony of that.

Chuckling softly, he tiptoed down the basement stairs. Comfortable in the near-darkness, he kept the lights low. He pressed his ear against the heavy metal door of the slaughtering room. Silence. Mark hadn’t eaten or drunk in twenty-four hours, so his strength should be waning fast. Smith listened again. Through the door the muffled sound of shuffling reached him. He nodded in satisfaction.

Xavier Mark Marconi, Sheriff of Bigler County, lay in an undignified position in the next room, trussed up like a hog, hands and feet tied behind his back, rag stretched tight around his mouth. The thought of a police officer at Smith’s mercy excited him, in much the same way he felt a thrill of victory when he captured the girls he hunted.

Quite a feat this time, he thought. What souvenir should he keep to remind himself of Uncle Mark?

Smith smiled in anticipation. He’d need all of his strength for tomorrow. Weak as he would be, Mark was a formidable opponent. This was going to be interesting, but he wouldn’t underestimate his uncle.

Smith’s own proud addition to the main room in the bunker was the video system mounted on the wall. He popped a tape into the machine. Grabbing a beer from the refrigerator in the corner, along with a bag of nuts from the food storage shelf, he lounged on the battered sofa he’d dragged down from upstairs.

Watching the movies relaxed and stimulated him at the same time. This particular video was grainy. When he’d taken it, videography was in its infancy, and he’d used an old, clunky video camera. He turned off the sound. Later he’d replay the tape with the sound in full volume

The woman’s face was streaked with dirt and tears. Her yellow hair was stringy and wet and hung in a tangled mess over her rounded shoulders and fleshy breasts. Mucous dripped from her nose and ran in rivulets around her mouth. She sat naked on a dirt floor, ankles and wrists bound.

Smith remembered that hideout as one of his favorite places, a deserted coal mine outside Guthrie, Utah. It was his first stop heading south and later east, putting many miles between him and Preston, Idaho.

The girl’s name was Misty Wilkes.

It was January 12, 1994.

Less than a year after the purple-eyed girl had magically escaped the death scenario he’d so carefully staged in the Idaho cabin.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Kate was the only one in the courthouse on Wednesday, late afternoon. She doggedly refused to leave the office until she received the FBI fax the Behavioral Science Unit had promised today. She glanced at her watch again. Damn. Something must’ve prevented the agent from sending it.

Instead of the beeping sound of an incoming fax, the insistent ringing of the phone cut into her concentration. She peered into the empty squad room.