Blood Marks, page 14
Howland thought about it. "But even if you're right, we're still not any closer to the killer, are we?"
"Not a bit," Romain said. "If you were to round up every man in Houston who'd been abused as a child, you'd probably have quite a crowd."
"And then I’d have to ask them about their mothers," Rowland said.
"And of course they wouldn't tell you," Romain said. "Great. Just great. Well, at least it's something to tell the Chief, even if it's nothing to go on."
"There are always those license numbers," Romain reminded him.
"Right. And I got those from a dream."
Romain almost smiled. "Hey, it's better than nothing."
"Yeah, right," Rowland said. "Sure it is."
The Chief received the news stoically. There hadn't been another murder of a young woman recently, so he was willing to be patient.
Up to a point.
"You know what this place is like," he told Howland. "If you and Romain know these facts you've given me, sooner or later someone else is going to know. And not long after that, the newspapers are going to find out. It's inevitable."
The Chief didn't have to spell out for Howland what he was really saying. He was really saying that if Howland didn't get on the ball and do something before there was another murder and before the reporters found out what was going on, the newspapers would come down on the department like a lead boot. They would come down on the Chief especially heavily because he'd concealed information from them.
The Chief wouldn't like that.
There was a mayoral election coming up, and one of the biggest issues was police salaries. Naturally, the Chief was lobbying for higher pay, and it wasn't going to look good at all if there was a series of unsolved murders on the books, particularly a series of unsolved murders that the Chief had been withholding information about.
The Chief put a hand to his forehead as if he had a headache. Maybe he did. "And all you've really got is part of a license number."
"I don't exactly have that, either," Howland said. He hadn't mentioned the dream yet. "You might say that information is pretty iffy."
"You don't have a damn thing."
"That's about right," Howland admitted. "But I'm going to start going through the license numbers today. If I can come up with anything, I'll let you know."
"You do that," the Chief said by way of dismissal.
Howland returned to his own office to begin going over the license numbers. He didn't know exactly what he was looking for, but he supposed that any car registered to a known sex offender would be immediately under suspicion. Might as well throw in all convicted felons, too. He was going to need the help of the computer guys again.
He began to go down the list, eliminating all the cars owned by women. He thought he could safely do that, but nothing was certain. The killer might be married, and the car might be registered in his wife's name.
But you had to start somewhere.
Howland decided to skim the list first to see if any of the names were familiar to him from past cases. It would be quite a coincidence if one of them was, but stranger things had happened.
The printout was pages and pages long. It would take days to track down every male owner, probably weeks.
He hoped he would get a break. It would have been nice if the killer had been the proud owner of a vanity plate reading something like MAD DOG, but things like that just never happened.
He got a cup of coffee and tried to get comfortable in his desk chair. It was going to be a long day.
Chapter 26
Tina Warley was getting worried about Craig.
Not only was he spending a lot of time away from home, he was becoming more and more obsessive about the secrecy of his work. Even when they were both in the office, as they were today, he kept referring to "his" clients and "her" clients.
She was getting tired of it. "I thought this business was a partnership, ' ' she told him.
They were sitting at their separate desks, each one equipped with its own personal computer. The office was in a small strip shopping center, and their window looked out on the parking lot, which was sparsely populated at eight o'clock in the morning, the hour that Craig insisted on being at work. It didn't matter how late he stayed up at night; he was always out of bed by six-thirty the next day.
"It is a partnership," Craig said. He was dressed the way he thought an accountant should be dressed, in a conservative gray suit with a dark tie. "It's just that you work better with certain clients, and I work better with some of the others. We need to keep things separate that way."
"What about the times you're out of the office?" Tina said.
Craig had told her that he liked to go out and meet with his clients at their own places of business when he could. "Lets me get to know them better," he said.
"There are lots of times when 'your' clients call and ask questions, and I can't answer them," Tina said. "I need access to your records."
"We've gone over this before," Craig said. "You keep your records, and I'll keep mine."
He clearly wasn't going to discuss it further, and Tina decided it wasn't worth the effort to pursue it. She and Craig had been growing further and further apart lately, though he didn't seem to recognize the symptoms. Like a lot of men, he thought that everything was fine, just as long as he could still arouse her in bed. He didn't seem to realize that sexual arousal had nothing to do with love, and that relationships were built on something more.
She knew that she was contributing to the distance between them by her constant nitpicking. She had noticed herself questioning him each afternoon as they tried to relax at the pool, but his know-it-all attitude was so obnoxious that she just couldn't help herself.
She had never questioned him about his comings and goings before, but now she found herself wondering whether there might be someone else in his life, some other woman.
Craig, for his part, didn't seem worried about a thing. The business was going well, and that was all he cared about. They had a solid base of clients, and the base was gradually growing. Their financial situation was sound, and getting better. He was already looking around for investments that would take away a little of their tax burden.
He didn't even know that Tina was worried about anything. He had become so absorbed in his work and his own projects that she was just someone who was there, more like someone who worked in the office with him than a wife.
Tina recognized these signs and wondered what was going on. She knew that Craig had not had a good childhood, though he seldom talked about it, and she had heard that people who came from backgrounds where money was tight often became obsessed with making and keeping money in their adult lives. Maybe that was what was wrong with Craig. Maybe that was why he was so possessive of 'his' clients. He wanted to have something of his own to hold onto in case the rest of the business went down the tubes.
She hoped that was it. She didn't like to think of what else it might be, but that had been all she could think about for the last few days.
She couldn't come up with any answers, however, and she wasn't ready for a confrontation. She would wait a bit longer, see how things developed. If they didn't get better, then it would be time for a showdown.
She wasn't looking forward to it. Craig had quite a temper when he was angry, and she thought that might be why she was putting things off. She had seen him really angry only twice, and one of those times he had gotten into a fight with a man at a nightclub.
He had beaten the man up, breaking his nose and opening cuts on his face, and only the fact that everyone there agreed that the other man had started things had kept Craig out of jail.
So she would just let things slide a little longer. Their life together wasn't unbearable yet.
She would talk to Craig before it became unbearable. She would have to.
It was always possible things would get better, she told herself, but it didn't do any good. She was hard to fool.
Casey spent the day working on her bookshelves. She had bought some unfinished mahogany boards and some bricks and started in her bedroom.
The shelves wouldn't be very high. She didn't want to take a chance on their becoming overbalanced and toppling to the floor. But if she built enough of them, they would hold most of her books. It was a cheap way to get the books out of the cartons and onto shelves, and she was glad she had visited Rob's apartment and gotten the idea.
Margaret helped take the books out of the boxes when the first shelves were ready.
"What books are these, Mom?" she said. "School books?"
Most of them were. Volumes of Romantic poetry, all of which reminded her of the Asshole; a lot of critical commentaries on various authors and genres; and assorted novels and collections of stories. Casey hadn't packed them in any special order. Most of her paperbacks of popular fiction, however, were in other boxes.
"Don't you have any good books?" Margaret asked as they shelved them. "Like books about alligators?"
"Nope," Casey said. "I don't have books like that. But you have some books in here somewhere, you know."
She and the Asshole had bought Margaret books for years, and they had read them to her faithfully, but she had never showed any particular interest in them before. She had always preferred to watch TV or to play with her toys.
"Let's find them," Margaret said, opening a couple of boxes and looking inside. "I remember the one about the tan tomcat."
It was nice to know that Margaret actually recalled one of the books which had been read to her. Maybe she had absorbed more during the reading sessions than Casey thought she had.
"Why this sudden interest in books?" Casey said. "Not that I'm complaining, you understand."
"I like books," Margaret said. "I want to have a lot of books like you and Rob."
"Aha," Casey said. Rob certainly did have a way with women, or at least young girls. He still hadn't tried anything with Casey. After they had talked about his childhood the night before, he had spent a lot of time going over the book about alligators with Margaret.
But when Margaret got sleepy, he didn't try to persuade them to stay any longer. He walked them the short distance back to their apartment and said a polite good night. That was all.
Casey wondered if there was something wrong with her. She wasn't man-hunting, not by any means, but she would at least like to think that she was still attractive.
It was probably the fact that Margaret was always with her. Rob was too much of a gentleman to try anything with her as long as Margaret was around.
That had to be it. He was a gentleman, and he could also sense that she wasn't quite ready for another man in her life. As nice as he was, she didn't think it was a good idea to start thinking of him in a romantic way. There were probably lots of other single men at the apartment house, and she remembered that she had promised herself to start meeting some other people.
It was time to begin doing that, and she would. That afternoon, she promised herself. That’s when she would start.
She and Margaret had emptied four boxes of books, and they stepped back to admire the shelves. Casey thought they looked pretty good. She liked to see her books lined up and available in case she wanted one of them.
"I wish I had shelves in my room," Margaret said "And I wish we could find my books."
"We'll make you some shelves, too, then," Casey said. "You can put your dolls on them, along with the books. And don't worry; we'll find them sooner or later."
"That's good," Margaret said. "I like books more than dolls, though."
Casey smiled. Things were certainly changing, and it looked as if they were changing for the better.
Chapter 27
Reading over what I've written so far, I see that I've been a bit more reticent than I had intended. Some people will be wondering about the sexual aspects of the deaths of Verver and Martin.
It's not that I'm trying to avoid or deny anything here. I want to tell the absolute truth. It was pretty much the same every time that it happened, actually. The entire time I was with the women, any of the women, there was a feeling of tremendous arousal, building higher and higher as the sound built louder and louder in my head.
When the women died, the sound died with them, but the sense of arousal continued. It was so intense that it was almost painful, as if my erection were swollen so much that it was going to burst. I could hardly walk, it was so big.
I knew that all I had to do was touch it, just touch it, and I would be relieved, but I hated to do that.
It was almost as if the pain was pleasurable, too, if you can understand that.
It hurt, all right, but it felt good to hurt.
So I let it hurt as long as I could stand it, letting the feeling grow for as long as I could. Then I touched it, and it was like the first time all over again, streaming out in hot, ropy streams, endlessly.
I hope no one reading this thinks that I'm not normal sexually because of my reactions to the killings. That would be a big mistake. I'm perfectly normal, a heterosexual, and I've always been able to satisfy any women I choose. I could give you references.
But the feeling I get when the blood marks are destroyed is something else entirely. It's not like real sex, although I suppose it's related to that, and I know it at the time.
It's a feeling that comes from something else, from the power, from the control that I have.
I don't believe that a man is ever really in control with a woman in so-called normal sex. Women like to let men think they're calling the shots, but you never know whether they're really feeling what they seem to be or whether they're faking it.
It's probably easy to fake. That's the way women are, natural fakers. But they can't fake it when they see death in your eyes, when they know that you have the power to destroy them, to obliterate the blood marks, and that you intend to use that power.
When they beg you then, there's no faking. You can hear the emotion in their voices, and it's absolutely real.
And when you see the blood marks disappear, you know that they can't control you anymore, that they'll never have control again.
It's no wonder that you can just keep on coming.
I know that there will be people who think I'm some kind of freak who hates women, who doesn't trust them.
That's just not true. I love women. I really do. Women have never done anything to harm me.
There will be some who say it goes back to my home life when I was a child, but that's wrong, too. My mother was wonderful. She really was. She cared about me. She wanted me to be good and do the right things.
But I've said before that all this has nothing to do with my mother, so I suppose I'm getting off the subject again.
I just wanted to stress that point about my mother, though. She's not to blame. She did her best. I'm sure she did her best. None of the women has been in the least like her. Not in the least, and that's important, I think. It's just another reason why I'm sure that what I've done has nothing to do with her. It's me, that's all.
I don't know why I do it. That's what everyone will want to know, but I can't answer it.
Of course there are the blood marks, and I have to destroy them; I've explained that.
But why am I the one who sees them, out of all the men in this city? Why am I the one chosen to eliminate them?
I just don't know.
Sometimes that bothers me. I'd like to know, to have a reason. I don't mind doing the job, nothing like that. It has to be done, but one day I'd like to know why. It may be that someone reading this will be able to answer that for me. I hope so.
I had never noticed the marks before I saw them on the Forsch woman, but the instant I glimpsed them, I knew what I had to do.
And I did it. I don't mind admitting that. I want everyone to know that, when the time comes. It was as if I'd been waiting, just waiting, for something to happen, and when I saw the marks, it did.
It's not that I hadn't been successful in life up until that point, I don't mean that, and I wouldn't want you to get the wrong idea. I'm not like a lot of the serial killers I've studied who have been real losers in every facet of their lives.
Henry Lee Lucas, for one. What a loser he was. He was clever, I'll give him that, but he would never have made a go of it in life. No education, certainly no looks. Can you imagine him in a business suit?
But I'm not like him. I look fine in a suit, I make good money, most people would regard me as a success.
So I wasn't looking for a way to express my frustrations at being shut out by society or something like that. Not at all.
I was just chosen, for whatever reason, by whatever power, to eliminate the women with the blood marks. Sort of like some biblical prophet.
And I'm the only one.
That's why this record will be valuable. Those who read it will wonder about the blood marks, but they may never be able to see them.
To see them, you have to be chosen, and few people have that privilege.
Even I almost missed them on Janet Peters. She was number four.
I came so close to missing them that it scares me. I don't know what might happen if I miss one of them.
She was working at a little gift shop that I just happened to stop in one day. I can't even remember what I was looking for or what I bought, but she waited on me and sold it to me.
She had long hair, and that's what threw me off. Her hair was dark brown and it swung loose and hid a lot of her face. She was very attractive, with high cheekbones and a wide, sensuous mouth, the kind of woman that interests me under normal circumstances.
I was looking at her hair and never noticed her chin, not until she had taken my money and was giving me change. Then she smiled and brushed back her hair and sort of tilted her head back, looking at me and telling me to have a nice day.
That's when I saw the marks. They were just under the front part of her chin. If you were looking at her other features, as I was, and if her head was down, you would never have seen them.
But I saw them. They can't hide from me, no matter how they try.
