The Third Victim Read online

  The Third Victim

  Collin Wilcox

  Contents

  Monday Night

  Tuesday Morning

  Tuesday Afternoon

  Tuesday Evening

  Tuesday Night

  Wednesday Morning

  Wednesday Afternoon

  Wednesday Evening

  Wednesday Night

  Thursday Morning

  Monday Night

  HE STEPPED OUT OF the shadows, raised his wrist, and checked the time. Twenty minutes after eleven. Her window had been dark for more than a half-hour. She was a sound sleeper. She went to bed early, got up early. Sometimes she cried out while she slept. Each morning, driving a shabby Chevrolet, she left the ground-floor flat with her small blond son. Each evening she returned, always carrying brown paper grocery sacks. When she walked she swung her hips and moved her shoulders, offering silent invitation. Everyone could see her harlot’s walk. Everyone knew.

  He stepped back, to stand close beside the trunk of a sycamore tree. Motionless, he was invisible in the night. Even if they walked along the sidewalk, they’d never see him. Deep in the dark shadows, he was part of the night.

  But few walked this late.

  Tomorrow night, none would walk.

  By tomorrow, in the whole city, only the brave would walk after dark. The brave, and himself. And the men with guns. Tomorrow night, the men with guns would prowl the darkness.

  Would they bring dogs?

  Once, he’d read, they’d used their dogs.

  He turned to study the building: a shabby stucco structure, three stories high, one flat to each floor. The grounds were ill-kept, the buildings needed paint. It was a low-income neighborhood: a tree-shaded California ghetto built in the midst of the city’s affluence, offering shelter to students and the urban poor. In this area, each house directly adjoined the one next door, with no space between. Ragged lawns grew front and back. The grass was littered with children’s abandoned toys and sun-scorched advertising circulars.

  Last night, he’d tried the back. The fences and attached buildings had formed a dangerous maze. Discovered, he would have been trapped. Tonight, he must try the front. Every day—every night—something new was required. He knew. He listened. He obeyed.

  Last night, the fences had endangered him. Tonight, in front, the danger would be people. But soon he would have the key. With the key, he could enter the basement.

  The key was the key to the key. Like a rose was a rose.

  Still standing in deep shadow, he glanced once more up and down the quiet street. Most of the windows were darkened; most people slept. Turning back to the house, he drew from his pocket a pair of surgical gloves. As he began walking through the shadows, he slipped on the gloves. The shadows took him to the small front porch. In his right hand he held a thin metal probe. In his left hand he held a switch-blade knife. The knife was new.

  Close by, a car door slammed. Voices burbled in the darkness, suddenly laughing, all together. He turned, watched, waited. They were students at play. Their sounds were always the same.

  He transferred the knife to his teeth, gripped the doorknob with his left hand. With his right hand he inserted the spring steel probe in the doorjamb. He could feel the lock. One quick thrust and the lock sprung open. The door swung free—until it rattled against a night chain. In the darkness, he smiled. For the chain he could doubtless thank himself. Throughout the city, people were buying night chains. And guns. And dogs.

  He dropped the probe into his pocket and took the knife in his right hand. He snapped open the blade, then slid the knife inside. Sliding across the floor, the knife made just enough noise in the silence.

  Another car door slammed. Voices were close—dangerously close.

  He rose quickly from his crouch to stand flattened against the stucco, listening. These new voices were quieter, older. He looked over his shoulder. If they came to this building, he would move silently into the shadows.

  But they were going next door. Their voices died away.

  He gripped the doorknob and softly drew the door closed.

  For tonight, the time had come to go. He’d leave the knife for her. For them. Because he’d promised them a warning—all of them. This third time, he’d promised them a warning—her, and all the rest. Ipso.

  Tuesday Morning

  AS JOANNA POURED A second cup of coffee, she heard the thud of the morning paper striking the door. She glanced at the kitchen clock as she rose from the table. The time was ten minutes after eight; the paper was late. Only fifteen minutes remained before she must leave. She walked down the hallway in her stockinged feet, opened the front door, and paused for a moment with the Bulletin in her hand, looking up into a cloudless sky. The day would be clear and warm: a chamber-of-commerce day, bright and golden. By noon, the beaches and oceanside concessions would be crowded with tourists.

  As she swung the door shut, her stockinged foot scuffed a small, solid object, sending it skidding. Frowning, she glanced down. A dozen times a day she’d told Josh to keep his toys in his…

  A switch-blade knife lay on the worn oak floor.

  Was it a joke—someone’s idea of fun? Yanking the door open, she looked vainly for the early-morning prankster. She closed the door and locked it. Then she stooped, gingerly handling the lethal-looking knife. The blade wouldn’t go back into the handle. She pressed a button. Still the blade wouldn’t budge. Finally she folded the knife into the newspaper, to conceal it from her son.

  Returning to the kitchen, she passed Josh’s door. The small blond head was immobilized before the TV screen. A lean, slavering cartoon cat chased a fat cartoon mouse across the screen. From a distance less than three feet, the blond head followed every movement of the homicidal cat and the saucy, succulent mouse.

  “Josh. Honey. Back up.”

  By conditioned response, without missing a cat-and-mouse movement, he hunched his stool back less than a foot.

  “More. You’ll ruin your eyes, Josh.”

  This time, shoulders heaving as he sighed deeply, he got halfway to his feet, gripped the stool, and moved back three steps. Now the blue-jeaned bottom plopped down decisively on the small red stool. Another foot would be gained only by arbitration. She shook her head, smiling faintly.

  In the kitchen, she carefully slipped the knife from the newspaper. Looking around, frowning, she decided to put the knife on a high cupboard shelf. Then she opened the paper.

  FOURTH TAROT LETTER, the lead headline blared. And beneath it: KILLER WARNS HIS THIRD VICTIM.

  Again checking the time, she propped the paper against the sugar bowl. Only seven minutes remained. Ten at the most. By eight thirty they must be in the car, on their way to Josh’s day-care center.

  Sipping her coffee, conscious of a small shudder of soap-opera dread, she read the madman’s letter:

  This will be the third. I know who she is, but she does not know me. I am still not sorry. There is no law above me. Nothing. She must be warned. But I must go on. So I am warning her. She must wait for me.

  TAROT

  She read the killer’s letter a second time, then slowly shook her head, frowning thoughtfully. What kind of a monster would methodically stalk a woman, planning her murder? Was it a sexual thing? Sadism, gone wild? Or was it something else?

  What kind of a weapon did Tarot use?

  A switch-blade knife?

  At the thought, she sharply shook her head, flinching. She had no time for hysteria. No strength, either. Someone had dropped a knife through her mail slot. That was all.

  All?

  She drew a long, slow breath. Arms braced wide against the table, she closed her eyes, fighting for the next moment’s peace. Because the next moment, she knew, gave promi
se of the moment following. Some survived. Some didn’t.

  Opening her eyes, she scanned the murderer’s letter. It was a paste-up, using cut-out type from newspapers and magazines. With an artist’s eye, she assessed the paste-up technique. Whoever Tarot was, he was meticulous. The lines were neatly aligned, the characters carefully spaced. The signature was in big, bold caps. She remembered the same signature from his previous letters. Had he used the same type?

  Tarot, he’d signed himself.

  Signifying what?

  In the past two months, she knew, Tarot had murdered two women, one in May, one in June. It was now July.

  She must wait for me.

  As if they had an appointment together, Tarot and his victim. As if they were destined to meet. Did they have an appointment, the murderer and his victim? Was their meeting preordained? Somewhere she’d read that the victim inexorably seeks out his own murderer.

  She scanned the news story, reviewing the now-familiar details as she drank her coffee: Marie Strauss, thirtyish, a well-off suburban Santa Barbara housewife, had been murdered while she slept. The victim’s eight-year-old daughter had been sleeping in the next bedroom. The victim’s husband had been out of town on business, above suspicion. There had been no clues. A week later, the Bulletin had received the first Tarot letter, boasting of the murder, daring the police to find him. A wave of panic had swept the town, then slowly subsided. But two weeks later, a second letter had arrived, this time warning Tarot’s second victim—as this letter, today, warned the third. Within a few days after the publication of the second letter, a woman named Grace Hawley was found murdered. She’d been a waitress who’d worked at a truckers’ café She’d been murdered while she slept. A week had passed, and the third Tarot letter had arrived, boasting of the murder, saying there would be more.

  She must be warned, he’d written.

  How?

  With a switch-blade knife, thrust through a mail slot?

  Again she scanned the story, this time searching for the means of murder. The first victim had been strangled.

  The second had been slashed to death.

  Again she fought for calm—slowly, stubbornly, doggedly. She must sort it out. Apply logic. Think. Did Tarot mean that he would warn his victim? Or did he mean that this morning’s letter was her warning? The difference, to the victim, could be fatal.

  Who had delivered the switch-blade knife?

  A prankster?

  Or Tarot?

  The odds, she knew—the mathematical odds—overwhelmingly favored the prankster. Yet, within days, someone else might die. Tarot might claim his third victim. Would she be a woman living with her child, like the first victim? Would she be a woman without a man, like the second victim?

  On either count, she could qualify.

  There is no law above me. Nothing.

  Was “megalomania” the word? “Paranoia”? “Schizophrenia”? All three? Could Tarot’s madness be seen in his face? Would his depravity show? Or would his face be blank, his expression guileless, his eyes innocent?

  What would it be like, to unknowingly paint Tarot’s portrait—without realizing his true identity? A good artist captures the soul, not merely the face. Would Tarot’s corrupted soul materialize on canvas, like Dorian Gray’s? Could one artist capture the corruption’s secret essence, while another saw only the face’s mask?

  She rose, gathered up the dishes, stacked them in the sink. She ran the water, then moved to the back door, to check the lock. With her fingers still on the deadbolt, she hesitated. Kevin had installed that lock, before he left. He’d wanted them safe, he’d said—she and Josh. Then, two months ago, he’d gone.

  Had Kevin left before the first Tarot murder, or afterwards? Did she have Tarot to thank for the sturdy deadbolt lock?

  She couldn’t remember.

  She turned to the clock. It was twenty-five after eight; her time was gone. Almost gratefully, she surrendered her thoughts to the day’s hectic demands: she must put on her lipstick, get into her shoes, extricate Josh from the TV, lock up the flat, and coax the car to life. She must drive Josh out to the north end of town, to the day-care center. Then, backtracking, she must drive downtown. She’d park in the city-run all-day parking lot—if there was room. Otherwise, she’d pay three dollars. With luck, by nine she’d be at her drawing board. At three o’clock today, a four-column sketch of a chafing dish was due at the engraver’s. The ad would run Friday. It was already Tuesday.

  She must hurry. She must begin the whole frantic process, put this Tuesday in motion. In her daily race with time, she was already falling behind.

  Yet she remained with her back to the sink, leaning leadenly against the counter. She was still staring at the clock, immobilized.

  At that moment, Kevin was sleeping with someone he hadn’t even known six months ago. Perhaps they were making love, he and Cathy.

  Kevin had told her, earnestly, how he felt about Cathy. As he’d talked, he’d frowned intently. His eyes had searched hers. Kevin’s eyes could shine with the innocent clarity of childhood. He’d even touched her hand, explaining. He loved them both, he’d said, in different ways. He needed them both.

  She’d tried, at first, to understand. She’d listened to the words. He was stifled, he’d said. He’d even admitted once, holding her close, that he was frightened. He still loved her. He loved Josh. He needed them. But he must be free. For a while, he must be free. Not to go to Cathy, especially. It wasn’t just Cathy. It was everything. His responsibilities were choking him. His job—such as it was—curdled his soul. He was slowly strangling—as Gauguin had strangled, before he’d finally broken away. Kevin had to have his freedom—for a month, a year, maybe forever. Otherwise, his creativity would be slowly, surely stifled. The problem, he’d said—the real problem—was society’s hypocrisy, oppressing him.

  But Kevin had another problem. Kevin was thirty—a filmmaker, so called. But he’d never actually made a film. He’d once written a play, but he’d never made a film. For a while, in New York, he’d taught filmmaking. Kevin was talented and sensitive and intelligent and charming—and terribly, terribly serious about himself. But he’d never made a film.

  And now he was sleeping with someone else—a stranger named Cathy.

  Aware that her legs ached with a dull, dragging fatigue, Joanna walked slowly down the hallway. Josh was again sitting within three feet of the TV, hunched forward on his little red stool. Josh never watched TV unless he was sitting on his stool. Kevin had made the stool for Josh’s last birthday, his sixth. Joanna had just started working steadily at Gorlick’s, and she’d gotten only one paycheck, most of which had gone for past-due rent. So she’d knitted a pom-pommed stocking cap for Josh’s birthday. And Kevin had made the stool. The grandparents had supplied an extensive jumble of outsize plastic toys—slick, eye-catching, vaguely obscene.

  As she reached across to switch off the TV, she touched the boy’s shoulder. “Come on, honey. If we don’t hurry, we’ll be late.”

  Lying on his back, eyes still closed, Kevin moved his left foot slowly toward the center of the bed. Midway across, the foot encountered flesh. He felt her stir, heard her sigh. The waterbed undulated as her body moved subtly, then lay still. Cathy wasn’t ready for wakefulness.

  He slowly opened his eyes, stared at the ceiling for a moment, then shifted his gaze to the French doors opening onto the small patio. For a graduate English student, Cathy lived in style. Her father, she said, was guilt-wracked. He’d bilked the public to make a fortune in advertising. He’d asked Cathy’s mother for a divorce fifteen years ago. So her father sent Cathy five hundred a month. Plus tuition. Plus a new Volkswagen. Plus a stereo system. Cathy’s mother fared considerably better.

  Moving cautiously, Kevin turned onto his right side, to face the French doors. A fig tree overhung the patio’s rough redwood fence, dappling the bricked floor with large, splashy shadow-shapes. On film the patterns would work together, a study in contrasting forms and textur
es. He’d use a large-aperture color shot angling up into the fig-tree foliage, just out of near focus. He’d catch the glancing sun glare, using the sparse white clouds as background for the dark, heavy green of the fig leaves. Then, panning down, he’d pick up the texture of the redwood fence as he moved across low-growing ivy to play with the light-and-shadow-leaf designs falling on the brick. It was a good, tight composition. It would work. As background, it would work.

  But what about action?

  He had the setting. But he didn’t have a story line.

  A successful filmmaker, though, began with either a story or an action line. The story was the engine. Backgrounds were incidental. It was an axiom of the trade.

  Where had all the stories gone?

  As he watched, the sun seemed to lose its brilliance; the brick pattern lost its interest. The redwood textures faded; the ivy seemed bedraggled. The moment’s vision had passed, joining countless other illusions, long forgotten.

  He drew a long, soft sigh. He exhaled quietly, unwilling to wake the girl at his side.

  Why?

  Why was he unwilling to wake her? Because he knew she’d want to make love? Because he was afraid she wouldn’t?

  Which?

  Yesterday morning, they hadn’t gotten out of bed until almost eleven, love-sated. They’d eaten omelettes and finished a bottle of white wine left from the night before. Then they’d gotten into her car and driven to the beach. He’d brought his notebook, and worked on a few scenes. Cathy, too, had taken a notebook. She’d written three pages. “Stream-of-consciousness exercises,” she’d called them. Someday, she said, she’d write novels. Sagan-style novels.

  Finally they’d fallen asleep on the warm sand.

  His eyes were closing. He blinked, refocusing on the bricks and leaves and redwood. By an act of will; could he make the composition sparkle again? He squinted, simplifying the textures, making himself a camera’s viewfinder.

  I Am a Camera.

  It had been the basis of his first conversation with Joanna. New Year’s Eve, seven and a half years ago. He’d been drinking vodka and tonic, blearily blundering through a discussion on Kant. His antagonist had been a big, broad blonde with the build of a lady wrestler and a near-genius I.Q. By contrast, Joanna had seemed almost elfin—almost a pixie. She’d been standing alone in the center of the huge room—actually a loft converted into a studio-cum-apartment. She’d arrived in New York only the week before. In the whole city she knew only one couple, the hosts. Listening to the big blonde remorselessly pressing home her philosophical points, knowing he was beaten, he’d concentrated instead on the vision of the strange girl. Feature by feature, line by line, he’d assessed her: a good, supple torso, long legs with well-shaped calves but skinny thighs, a small, narrow face with thoughtful blue eyes and a firm, determined mouth. Her dark hair had been long then, loose about her shoulders. She’d been wearing a plaid wool skirt and a heavy cardigan sweater. Something about the tentative way she’d held her glass suggested a small town in Kansas. Something about her clear blue eyes suggested a certain playful innocence. He’d eased away from the blonde, executed one full circle, and come up on Joanna’s blind side, in good party-time position.