Alex Cross 2 - Kiss the Girls
CHAPTER 114.
IT WASN'T OVER for me. The job was only half-done. Two days later, trudged down a well-worn path through the woods separating Route 22 and the underground house. The local police officers I passed on the way were somber and quiet. They tramped out of the woods with their heads lowered, not talking with one another, their faces drained of color and affect.
They had met the human monsters on an intimate basis now. They had seen the intricate and ghastly handiwork of Dr. Will Rudolph and the other monster who called himself Casanova. Some of them had explored the house of horror.
Most of them knew me by now. I was a regular at the hell-fires with them. Some nodded or waved hello. I waved back.
I was finally somewhat accepted in North Carolina. Twenty years ago that wouldn't have been possible, not even under these extreme circumstances. I was beginning to like it in the South a little, more than I would have thought possible.
I had a new notion, a plausible theory, about Casanova. It had to do with something I'd noticed during the gun-battle scene in these woods and on the streets of Chapel Hill. You'll never find him, I recalled Rudolph's dying words. Never say never, Will.
Kyle Craig was at the house of horror that warm, hazy afternoon. So were about two hundred men and women from the Chapel Hill and Durham police forces, as well as soldiers from Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
They were getting to know the human monsters up close and personal.
“Extraordinary time to be alive, to be a cop,” Kyle said to me. His humor got a shade darker every time I saw him. He worried me. Kyle was such a loner most of the time. Such a careeraholic. Apparently such a straight arrow. He had even looked that way in the Duke yearbook pictures I'd found of him.
“I feel sorry for these local people dragged out here for this,” I said to Kyle. My eyes passed slowly over the ghoulish crime scene. “They won't be able to forget this until the day they die. They'll dream of it for years.” “How about you, Alex?” Kyle asked. His intense, grayish-blue eyes leveled mine. Sometimes, he almost seemed to care about me.
“Oh, I have so many nightmare images now, it's hard to pick out just one favorite,” I confessed with a thin smile. “I'll go home soon. I'll make my kids sleep in with me for a while. They love to, anyway. They won't understand the real reason why. I'll be able to sleep okay with the kids there to protect me. They pound on my chest if I have a nightmare.” Kyle finally smiled. “You're an unusual man, Alex. You're both incredibly open and secretive.” “Getting more unusual every day,” I said to Kyle. “You come on a new monster one of these days, don't bother to call. I'm monstered out.” I stared into his eyes, trying to make contact and not completely succeeding. Kyle was secretive too, not very open with anybody that I knew of.
“I'll try not to call,” Kyle said. “You rest up, though. There's a monster working in the city of Chicago right now. Another in Lincoln and Concord, Massachusetts. Someone very evil is taking children in Austin, Texas. Little babies, actually. Repeat killers in Orlando and Minneapolis.” “We've still got work here,” I reminded Kyle.
“Do we?” he asked, his voice dripping with irony. “What work is that, Alex? You mean spadework?” Kyle Craig and I watched the terrifying scene that was unfolding near the underground house. Seventy to eighty men were busy digging up the meadow west of the “disappearing” house. They were working with heavy pickaxes and shovels. Searching for bodies of murder victims.
Spadework.
Since 1981, beautiful and intelligent women from all over the South had been abducted by the two monsters and murdered. It was a thirteen-year reign of horror. First, I fall in love with a woman. Then, I simply take her. Will Rudolph had written that in his diaries out in California. I wondered if the sentiment was his or his twin's. I wondered how badly Casanova was missing his friend now. How he grieved. How he planned to cope with his loss. Did he already have a plan?
I believed that Casanova had met Rudolph sometime back around 1981.
They had shared their forbidden secret: They liked to kidnap, to rape, and, sometimes to torture, women. Somehow, they came up with the idea of keeping a harem of very special women, women who were bright and fascinating enough to hold their interest. They never had anyone to share their secrets with before. Then suddenly they had each other. I tried to imagine never having anyone to confide in never once in your life and then finding someone to talk to when you are twenty-one or twenty-two years old.
The two of them had played their wicked games, gathered their harem of beauties in the Research Triangle area and throughout the Southeast. My theory on twinning had been close to the truth. They enjoyed kidnapping and holding beautiful women captive. They also competed. So much so, that Will Rudolph finally had to go off on his own for a while. To Los Angeles. He had become the Gentleman Caller out there.
He'd tried to make it on his own. Casanova, the more territorial of the two, continued to work in the South, but they communicated. They shared stories. They needed to share. Sharing their exploits was part of the thrill for both of them. Rudolph eventually told stories to a reporter at the Los Angeles Times. He tasted fame and notoriety, and he liked it. Not so Casanova. He was much more of a loner. He was the genius; the creative one, I believed.
I thought I knew who he might be. I thought that I'd seen Casanova without his mask.
I kept drifting in and out of strange, private thoughts at the dizzying crime scene. I was burnt toast, but that didn't matter anymore; it hadn't mattered for a while.
Casanova, the territorial killer, I was thinking. He was probably still in the area around Durham and Chapel Hill. He had met Will Rudolph around the time of the golden couple murders. So far, he'd thought everything through with almost perfect clarity. He had finally made a mistake during the shoot-out two days before. A small mistake, but that was all it took sometimes ... I thought I knew who Casanova might be. But I couldn't share it with the FBI. I was their “loose cannon,” right? The “outsider” on this case. So be it.
Kyle Craig and I watched the same distant spot in the high waving grass and honeysuckle, out where the digging was taking place. Mass graves, I thought as I watched the horrific scene. What a concept for the nineties.
