Tunnel of Night (25 page)

I stood there for what seemed a long time—the sweat cooling my body as it dried
.

And then I left
.

When she walked through the door of her trailer in Florida, my half sister was shocked to see me. She, too, had been informed of my death.

With her, I created the stage props of an atrocity. I
wanted Dexter Willoughby to know, and Lucas Frank to believe, that I had slipped into a dimension inhabited only by wilding psychotics who drift unpredictably between madness and moments of lucidity

Sarah was compliant. Needing only gentle assistance, she accommodated me.

And she never made a sound.

AS I SAT IN THE DINER, I SIPPED MORE OF THE
muddy brew and glanced again at my watch. In less than a minute, the building would erupt into ashes and dust. I dropped two dollars on the table and left by the side door.

As I arrived at my car and slipped the key into the lock, I heard the rumbling in the distance. Dust and smoke spewed into the air, blotting out the sky I drove off.

I had a quick stop to make, simply to satisfy my curiosity. I was anonymous again—just like being invisible—and I could go anywhere.

I am not like anyone else. I am not a nightmare. I am real, and there is no way to stop me.

The media would have you believe that all people like me are monsters—crazed and maniacal. I have read the sparse professional literature dealing with psychopathy. I wanted to know what the self-appointed experts were saying about me. It was ludicrous. Even the bible of psychiatry, the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual,
has no description of me. This tome has only one available label, the antisocial personality disorder—the primitive, impulse-ridden character depicted in films like
Kalifornia
.

Life and art become blurred, but art remains more
informative than the labels and categories of the mental health industry. Watch Keaton in
Pacific Heights,
De Niro in the remake of
Cape Fear
.

You also won’t find it in any of the journals, but there is an intimacy that exists between killer and victim. It is not in the walks, the talks, the lingering over coffee, the parody of courtship. It cannot be dismissed merely as a projection from the mind of the murderer. There is an intimacy, however fleeting, unlike any other, when we are inseparable in our terror and anticipation.

Sarah Sinclair knew that.

I PARKED, THEN WALKED INTO THE WILLARD’S
lobby.

When Lane Frank strode around the corner toward the exit, I could see that she was as tall or taller than most of the men standing with their briefcases and newspapers. I saw her in profile as she passed me—auburn hair, skin the color of light coffee. I could have extended my arm, stroked her hair with my hand, or plunged a knife into her rib cage. Instead, I studied her for a moment, holding the image that I wanted to remember.

It was a strange feeling. I thought that I would have remembered her from a year ago, but she had faded in my memory. If it were simply a matter of killing her, I’d had plenty of opportunities.

I had imagined conversing with her—telling her the truth about how a man like me comes to be, and how I came to know her father’s methods and every little wrinkle in his life. There was a time long past when I had wanted her to have the privilege of sitting with me over a glass of wine. We could have watched together as candlelight bent through our crystal glasses of carmine
liquid—as the light shattered and cast streaks, like comet trails of blood across our white linen tablecloth.

I even imagined approaching honesty with her, before I killed her father, before I killed her.

As much as I might enjoy contemplating and acting on the surreal—a killer of dozens sitting in quiet conversation with a woman whose father is the one man who knows how the killer thinks, and who also wants him dead, serendipity always provides and should never be ignored. My design has changed everything.

I will tell someone about my youth, that my stepfather and his liberal use of the coal bin were not causal. He didn’t make me what I am. I made myself. Mine was my own becoming. I have a flawless mask of sanity. I will tell my story. But not to Lane Frank.

Then, all our worlds will collide, and time will collapse. This, too, was meant to be.

I like to tease myself with the notion that I might want to stop killing. Perhaps it is a matter of aging, mellowing. I also like to think that I am achieving a new level of wisdom, that I have defeated my own demons.

But the wolf is like the coyote—a trickster.

I know that I am just deceiving myself.

There really isn’t any way for anyone to stop me.

I SAT WITH JACKSON IN HIS CAR, EXAMINING MY
torn clothing, my scrapes and bruises. Emergency personnel worked to contain the blaze and help the injured.

“Somebody was leaving when I got here,” I said. “I think it was Wolf. I didn’t get a good look at him,”

“Walker never saw him.”

“What did he say to her?”

“They’re debriefing her now. I talked with her for a few minutes. He put the screws to her about the personality study she did of him, and he dumped on the whole support unit. Told her she was attending a dress rehearsal. The real show is yet to come. It’s what you were saying.”

“When there’s time, I’d like to talk with Walker,” I said. “If the building didn’t fall on it, you’ll find Nicholas Wesley’s van parked out back. He worked for an outfit called Valley Carpet.”

“Homicide victim.”

“Right.”

Jackson looked more rumpled and sleep-deprived than he had the last time I saw him. His face was
clouded with worry. “I’ve requested that the Bureau officially reopen the Wolf case,” he said. “Walker was convinced.”

I had mixed feelings about Jackson’s announcement. I welcomed his help, and the resources that his agency could bring to the investigation. Jackson, however, was not representative of the rest of his group, and the Bureau moved more slowly than any state highway department.

Also, the agent had never told me the details of the scene at Willoughby’s. He was every bit as cautious as I was, and I could never completely trust anyone that much like me. A man would have to be a fool.

Besides, I already knew what this was going to come down to—and it did not involve a third party.

“Lucas, what the hell is he doing? After a while, we see patterns to what these guys do. Not him.”

“We re supposed to sift through the shit he leaves for us,” I said. “He wants us to get hopelessly mired, while he takes care of business.”

“Vengeance,” Jackson said. “That’s his business, and that’s common enough with a serial killer. Only, he’s doing things I’ve never seen one of these guys do before.”

“No one knows how many times he’s killed,” I said. “He enjoys it, the way you or I might enjoy chocolate mousse. We shouldn’t eat it. Cholesterol, calories, fat. We know it’s wrong, but we shovel it in. Wolf knows the difference between right and wrong. He couldn’t care less. He just demonstrated his skill with explosives. He’s also a demon with a knife, a gun, a length of twine, or his bare hands. He told Walker this was a dress rehearsal. Think about that, Jackson. What did he rehearse?”

Before Jackson could answer, Rexford Landry poked his crimson face through the open car door. “You
could’ve gotten everybody killed here, Doc. Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“Take it easy, Landry,” Jackson said.

“We could’ve been here a hell of a lot faster if he’d called this in.”

“And done what?” Jackson asked.

Landry was silent.

“The District had the case. They hadn’t moved on it yet.”

Landry pushed himself away from the side of the car and strode down the sidewalk.

“Keep that man away from me,” I said. “If I can get my car out of here, I’m going back to the hotel.”

“Lucas, we’d like you and Lane to join us in Quantico for a status meeting on our Mr. Wolf.”

“So, he’s really not just mine anymore.”

Jackson shook his head.

In other circumstances, I would object to having my life dictated to me, but a brainstorming session couldn’t do any harm, and might help.

“When is the meeting?”

“Friday morning, if I can get it signed off.”

Well, there you have it. I nodded. “Okay, we’ll talk before then.”

AS I DROVE SOUTH ON PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE
, I wondered again why Wolf hadn’t killed Susan Walker. I could think of only one reason: he knew that he would have another opportunity. When? And who was next on his list?

Since his resurrection in Vermont, Wolf’s bag of tricks had become more varied. Because of his treatment of his sister, I had concluded that he was caught
up in the wild behavioral swings so typical of the personality disordered. I assumed that he was cycling down and out of control when he was in Florida, up and tightly controlled when he was in Michigan.

What if I was wrong? What if Wolf’s design included leading me by the nose in the wrong direction? Perhaps he wanted me to think that he was fluttering all over the mania scale when he was totally focused, in absolute control.

I DID NOT RETURN DIRECTLY TO THE WILLARD
.

After a few wrong turns, I found the alley where Wolf had killed Nicholas Wesley.

A blue light was on over the door of the bar. A few of the patrons looked at me when I walked in; most were content with their drinking and conversation.

I sat at the bar. A woman in a wheelchair rolled over, and I slid the Wolf composites across the polished mahogany. I figured that Wolf might have been in the bar since the murder. He enjoyed savoring the events he set in motion.

“Don’t look much like Harrison Ford,” the woman said, starting to roll away.

“The night that Nicholas Wesley was murdered,” I began.

“You come in here to drink?”

“I want to know if he’s been back since the killing.”

She banged on the wall. “Delta. White man to see you.”

The woman who parted the curtains beside the bar was heavyset, dressed in a metallic blue evening gown. “What’s the ruckus?” she asked.

She had a muted conversation with the bartender, then walked over.

“Has anyone seen him around since the murder?” I asked, indicating the composites.

“What you drink?”

“I prefer ale, but…”

“Wheels,” she said. “Dredge a couple of them Bass pales from the bottom of the cooler.”

The woman turned back to me. “That suit you?”

“Couldn’t be better,” I said.

“Things could be a lot better, but they ain’t. C’mon. We can sit over there.”

She led me to a table against a far wall, where I slid my hand over the damp rocks of the building’s foundation. Another underground wall of stones, just like the cellar in Vermont.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Lucas Frank.”

“You ain’t a cop.”

“No. I’m a psychiatrist. I track killers. Usually I do it for the police.”

“Not this time?”

I shook my head.

“Personal?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“He’s a different animal. You won’t take him alive.”

“That doesn’t matter to me.”

“Didn’t think it did,” she said, drinking from her bottle of ale. “He’s been in since. Ran his hand over them rocks just like you done. He didn’t look like none of the pictures this time. We didn’t say nothin’. We didn’t do nothin’. He already killed once. We just waited ’til the man left.”

“Did he talk to anyone?”

“Wheels. Said he wanted a Bud. She got him a Bud. He drank it, and he left.”

“You said he didn’t look like this,” I reminded her.

She gazed down at the composite. “No mustache,” she said. “Hair’s not that dark, and there’s no gray in it. Brown eyes. Big plastic glasses. I knew it was him. I got a damn good look at him driving Nick’s van out of the alley.”

“When was he in?”

“You just missed him.”

I HAD MET SPECIAL AGENT HERB COOPER ONCE
, in an elevator in San Francisco.

The meeting was not fortuitous.

He was there for a session with the Unabomber Task Force. I was there, I said, to address a gathering of academic types on computer-enhanced anatomical reconstruction from bone fragments. The truth was that I had been doing some anatomical pillaging on the north coast, not far from Ukiah.