Into the Dark Page 8

  “And that stuff about me worrying there was a man in the closet must’ve been like you said, me being paranoid about Eric.”

  “Amber, you need to keep in mind what happened here.”

  Claire flipped through the file folder on her lap containing updates she’d received from the court and the police.

  “Officer Freeman said Eric learned you were my patient and got our office address through a courthouse screwup. His lawyer gave him copies of records that somehow included information your lawyer filed with the court. Then Eric violated the court order by stalking you here because he wanted to convince you to go back to him.”

  “Yes, but my lawyer assured me that Eric does not know my Alhambra address and will respect the restraining order.”

  “Do you believe that, after what’s happened? Amber, Eric got out of jail yesterday morning.”

  Amber said nothing.

  “You’re aware that he’s no longer in custody?”

  “Yes, I know. His brother posted his bail, twenty thousand dollars.”

  “How does all of this sit with you?”

  Amber twisted the tissue then said, “The shelter is a long way across L.A.”

  “It was the nearest one with available space,” Claire said. “And you’re safe there.”

  “Yes, but I’ve missed work because of this. I’ve only been working there a few months. I tell them I’m sick. I don’t want everyone knowing my situation, because I need my job.”

  “What about Eric? What are your thoughts, given what he did?”

  “This is so hard.”

  “I know.”

  “We were in love. He was my life, when he was kind he-” Amber let a few moments pass. “I know that after his brother bailed him out, he took Eric back to Sacramento with him right away to start his new job.”

  “How do you know he’s now in Sacramento?”

  “I called Eric’s cousin Sharon, who lives there. If I have one friend in his family, it’s Sharon. Anyway, she told me Eric is now in Sacramento.”

  Claire slid her silver cross back and forth on her necklace chain while weighing matters.

  “Taking everything into consideration, a case could be made for you to return to your home,” Claire said. “I always advocate that you should not let your abusive partner control your life. The main thing I’m trying to help you with is to break free of his grip, to take back your life.”

  “But it’s more complicated now.”

  For the first time Claire noticed Amber was also holding a folded sheet of paper in her hand.

  “Oh, God, this is so hard,” Amber said. “After what happened, Eric wrote me this letter. His cousin scanned it and sent it to me.”

  “This could be a violation of the no contact order,” Claire said.

  “Sharon said Eric will file it with the court through his lawyer. You can keep this copy.”

  Amber passed it to Claire. It was a one-page letter, handwritten in clear, tiny, cursive script. Eric was apologetic, ashamed, remorseful and loving. He said he was getting help and begged Amber to come back to him, so they could start a new life together.

  Claire had seen this type of entreaty before-acts of contrition, urgent pleas for forgiveness and undeserved grace. It’s what Eric had tried in the parking lot, only this time he wasn’t using his fists.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Amber said. “I still love him and part of me wants to give him a second chance. Part of me still believes that with help he’ll get better and we could start over in Sacramento and have a real life together.”

  Claire tucked the letter into the file folder.

  Amber looked at her, tears filling her eyes.

  “Tell me what to do.”

  “I can’t tell you what to do, but I can tell you what to consider.”

  “Okay.”

  “I understand that the temptation to go back is strong. You hope that this time you can really make it work.”

  “Yes.”

  “Amber, you have to remember why you left and how difficult it was to leave. Remember we talked about the cycle, the pattern with Eric, as it is with most abusive partners.” She nodded to the file with the letter. “There is the loving, makeup honeymoon period. Afterward all will seem normal, until pressures will ultimately trigger an inciting incident of some sort. It will set him off. There will be a time of mounting tension before he loses it again and explodes. This has been Eric’s pattern.”

  “But I noticed that since we’ve been apart, he has changed.”

  Claire sat forward and stared into Amber’s eyes.

  “No.”

  Amber said nothing.

  “Look what happened two days ago in the parking lot. Amber, it is the perfect example of what he does when he’s under pressure. Your divorce is proceeding. He knows he is losing you. How does he make his case? By using violence, by violating a court order, stalking you, and then threatening you and me.”

  Amber buried her face in her hands.

  “He’s trying to lure you back, but a change of zip code is no guarantee that you would not be stepping back into the same abusive pattern. While some abusers who get effective help do improve, studies show many don’t and in fact fall back into their old patterns.”

  Claire passed Amber a tissue box.

  “You are strong. Think of how far you’ve come. You’re building self-esteem, becoming confident and a new self-image is emerging. You’ve regained faith in yourself and now you need to hold on to it. Experiencing old and new fears is normal. You’re tempted to go back to him because you’re telling yourself you are going back to the man you fell in love with, not the monster that lives inside him. You have seen how that relationship can hurt you. Amber, it might even kill you, as it has in so many other cases.”

  “I know,” she whispered.

  “You are on the most difficult journey of your life. It’s not easy, but you’re a survivor. There’s a whole new life waiting for you. So, again, think of how far you have come and all the reasons you left. I believe you already know in your heart what you need to do.”

  “Thank you, Claire.”

  Amber took a moment with the tissues to regain her composure, and then they talked about dates for her next session.

  “I need some fresh air, so I’ll walk out to the lot with you,” Claire said.

  Amber welcomed Claire’s company and when she got into her car, she dropped the window and smiled.

  “Thank you for helping me.” She reached out and took Claire’s hand, squeezing it hard. “I know I can get through this.”

  Claire gave a small wave as Amber pulled onto Huntington and disappeared into traffic. Maybe Claire was still jittery from the recent attack in this very spot. Or maybe she was not convinced that Eric was in Sacramento. But as she looked up and down the street, she was unable to subdue the nagging sensation someone was watching her.

  19

  Los Angeles, California

  That night Mark Harding stared down at the lights of L.A. from Mulholland Drive.

  He’d come here to reflect after filing his serial killer feature to the ANPA’s world headquarters in New York.

  It was a strong story and would get good pickup, he thought, while driving along the twisting, turning ridgeline that straddled the Hollywood Hills and Santa Monica Mountains. Mulholland wound by celebrity mansions hidden behind security gates, hedges and jagged canyon nooks. On the north side you could see the San Fernando Valley. To the south you got breathtaking views of the metropolis, its twinkling city grid stretching to the horizon.

  Was the killer still out there?

  Five women had been murdered, but his feature didn’t explain how their deaths were linked, other than Tanner’s vague reference to a cryptic message. It frustrated Harding that Tanner had refused to give him details on the killer’s signature. He parked at a lookout point, got out and leaned against his car to ponder the view. The sweeping vista suited him. He preferred it to sitting alone in his apartment
on the east side.

  Harding’s building was advertised as clean and quiet. And it was, provided you didn’t count the beer cans bobbing in the pool, the overflowing trash bins in the parking lot, the yipping poodles or the hammer and thud of car speakers and LAPD choppers.

  Tonight, after working late at the bureau to finish his story, he didn’t go to his empty apartment. He went to a burger place to eat and think before taking a drive.

  He’d worked hard on this story. Magdalena, the bureau chief, had cut him loose to go full tilt on it and over the past few days, Harding had talked to five grieving families. Meeting times and schedules had him pinballing all over greater L.A. In each case he’d called ahead to allow them to brace for what was coming. He was relieved when he’d learned that Tanner had already alerted them to expect a reporter’s call.

  In all of Harding’s years as a reporter, talking to the parents of a murdered child, or the loved ones of someone who’d died tragically, was a part of the job he never stopped hating. Meeting the bereaved relatives and friends of murder victims face-to-face, even years after the fact, ripped open wounds that never would heal.

  You saw it behind their eyes-something was broken.

  Still, they’d all opened their doors to him and to Jodi-Lee Ruiz, a recent grad from UCLA, who was the bureau’s interning photographer. Harding had asked Magda to assign her to work with him.

  “She’s close to the age of some of the victims,” Harding had said. “She’d be a psychological bridge to the families.”

  Magda had agreed.

  Jodi-Lee followed Harding’s subtle cues. The first interview was in Santa Clarita-the case of twenty-one-year-old Leeza Meadows. Her father, Louis, took to Jodi-Lee. He showed them his daughter’s bedroom where he talked about receiving the strange phone call from someone using Leeza’s cell phone shortly after she was murdered.

  “The police could never prove it was the killer but in my gut, I know it was him.” Louis recalled the last time he’d seen Leeza. Then he answered Harding’s question about the music box on the dresser.

  “It was one of the last things she touched,” Louis said.

  Harding nodded to Jodi-Lee, who raised her camera and took Louis Meadows’s photo as he brushed his fingers tenderly on the music box.

  Later, Louis flipped through an album of photos of Leeza, proud of how pretty she was. The pictures contrasted with the crime scene images burned into Harding’s mind of Leeza, leaving him to wonder privately if her father had ever seen those pictures.

  “I just hope your story helps find the animal who killed my daughter and the other women,” Louis said. “It won’t bring Leeza or any of them back, but it might give me answers. And I hope to hell I stay on this earth long enough to see the son of a bitch go into the ground.”

  Harding and Jodi-Lee then went to Torrance to talk to Carmen Lopez, a retired janitor who lived with Sonny, her Shih Tzu, in a mobile home in Horizon View Hamlet. Her twenty-nine-year-old daughter Esther’s body had been unearthed in Topanga in 2004. At the time of her murder, Esther had been working for an escort agency.

  “It was drugs that ruined her life,” Carmen said with Sonny on her lap. “My daughter wanted to be a teacher and was taking college courses when her husband was killed overseas. He was a soldier. After his death, Esther fell apart, turned to drugs and lost her way.” Carmen stroked her dog. “Now, to learn that she was murdered by someone who has killed so many others- I pray police find him and bring him to justice before he hurts any more girls.”

  Next, they drove to Santa Ana in Orange County, where they met with Lana Gibson, a county administrator, whose younger sister, Monique Louise Wilson, was found murdered in Lakewood. Students on a junior-high science field trip had discovered her body in a park.

  “Mon was engaged to be married. Her accounting firm wanted her to help run their new office in Sydney, Australia. She was thirty with her whole life ahead of her. I miss her so much,” Gibson said, fingering a bracelet that had belonged to her sister. Jodi-Lee took a few frames. “And now we learn that the monster responsible for taking her life has killed so many other women and that he could still be out there?”

  Harding and Jodi-Lee traveled to Santa Monica and the home of Will Parson, a security official at one of the big studios. The headless corpse of his fiancee, Fay Lynne Millwood, had been found stuffed into a barrel in San Dimas. She had been an actress and part-time bartender.

  “Fay worked so hard and was starting to get bigger parts in pictures,” Parson said. “When she was killed, she was up for a small role in a Brad Pitt, George Clooney project.” Parson stared at nothing and shook his head. “People don’t understand what this does to you. We were planning our wedding when she was taken from me. I wish I had had five minutes alone with this guy. No, five seconds.”

  After talking to Parson in Santa Monica, they went to Thousand Oaks to see Ross Corbett about Bonnie Catherine Bradford.

  “We’ve been through a lot of counseling together,” Corbett said, “and it’s helped.” He’d agreed to let Jimmy and Jessie talk to Harding and be photographed. “We’re doing this,” Corbett said, “because police think a compassionate story might yield another new break arising from the killer’s message in the case.”

  This stopped Harding.

  None of the other families had said anything about “another new break” relating to the killer’s message. All that the others knew from police was that five cold case murders were now linked. Harding wanted to know exactly what the message said.

  “Ross, what did you mean by ‘another new break arising from the killer’s message’?” Harding asked. “What does that message say?”

  Corbett backpedaled and changed the subject, but later Harding pushed him on it.

  “Look,” Corbett said, “the detectives asked us not to say anything, so forget anything I said.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, but that’s all I’m saying, I don’t want to jeopardize anything.”

  Harding absorbed the revelation and now, as he stared down at Los Angeles, he exhaled slowly. Obviously there was more at stake for the families, but having had the emotional fallout of five murders filter through him had taken a toll and he was exhausted.

  His cell phone rang. The number was blocked. He answered.

  “Mark, this is Joe Tanner. Did your story run yet?”

  “It’s going out tonight.”

  “I got a call from Ross Corbett. He said you were pressing him hard to learn more about the killer’s message.”

  “That’s my job, Joe.”

  “I know. Zurn and I have discussed things with our lieutenant and captain.”

  “What did you talk over? You called me on this story?”

  “We’re prepared to give you a little more on the message to use in the story. We think it might help. Is there time to get it in?”

  “New York’s doing a final edit now.” Harding did a quick mental calculation of New York’s deadlines and time zone differences. “We’d have to hurry.”

  “Got a pen and paper?”

  Harding pulled a notepad and pen from his pocket.

  “Yup.”

  “Your story must emphasize that we think the killer is dead.”

  “It does.”

  “He calls himself the Dark Wind Killer, or goes by DWK.”

  “The Dark Wind Killer-what’s the significance?”

  “We’re not releasing that, but there’s more.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “He said, ‘I’m just getting started.’”

  20

  San Marino, California

  Robert Bowen stopped eating his breakfast midbite.

  On the front page of the Los Angeles Times, below the fold across six columns read the headline Serial Killer’s Message Discovered 10 Years after First Slaying, over the subhead Suspect Vowed Return, But After 5 L.A.-Area Murders, Detectives Now Believe The Dark Wind Killer is Dead.

  The byline was Mark Harding,
AllNews Press Agency.

  Bowen shoved his plate of scrambled eggs aside, spread the paper on the kitchen table and pored over every detail. The article spilled from the front page to page two.

  His scalp prickled as the faces of the five dead women stared back at him from the photos and profiles of the feature. It was keyed to the ten-year anniversary of the first victim, Leeza Meadows, and newly discovered evidence by investigators.

  A locater map pinpointed the crime scenes. Relatives of the victims blathered about their anguish, justice and vengeance.

  Bowen’s jaw clenched as he read.

  “The suspect is very intelligent,” said Joe Tanner, an L.A. County Sheriff’s cold case detective heading the multi-agency taskforce that was formed to clear the homicides. “We’ve received his message. As to why he stopped in 2007, we can only speculate that he relocated, or went to prison, or stopped out of fear that he’d slip up. Our most likely scenario is that he’s dead.”

  Tanner would not reveal contents of the “cryptic communication” left by the suspect, who’d identified himself as the Dark Wind Killer. Tanner appealed to anyone with information on the case to contact the L.A. County Sheriff’s Cold Case Unit.

  Investigators would not explain why so much time had passed before the discovery of the new evidence linking the murders of an accountant, a screenwriter, a waitress, an actress and an escort. The women didn’t know each other or share any connections. The article summarized the grisly details of how the women were killed.

  Bowen’s body tingled as he reread every word, every sentence and every paragraph.

  He looked closely at the women.

  As he remembered each one, waves of sensual gratification rolled through him along with alarm. The urges he’d battled all of his life had begun, by degrees, to possess him again, stirring him to serve the monstrosity that lived within him.

  The other being.

  The urges rose in the blackest reaches of his existence and swirled through him with a force he’d come to call the Dark Wind.

  Sitting at his kitchen table, Bowen felt as if a spike had suddenly been driven into his brain. He fell into a vague dream state, barely conscious of himself as he grappled with the other being. He fought to suppress it as he stared into the eyes of the dead women, confronting his horror, the revulsion and disgust over what he had done.