around in the spot where she would have hidden if she had been Tanya, just on the uphill side of the Tollivers’ high hedges. Then she coasted down the road, turning the wheel slightly now and then to shine her headlights on the best hiding spots along the narrow street.
She kept encouraging her mind to feel its discomfort, trying to let it intensify so she could identify what it was. If she had seen something too subtle to interpret, it was gone: no troubling image formed in her memory. As she reached the bottom of the hill and turned left toward the bridge, she realized what it was: timing.
She had listened to the stories of her father and other old cops and had read files from hundreds of cases of serial killers. Serial killers were almost all male, and most of them seemed to be acting out some fantasy that was a mixture of violence and sex. Many appeared to search for a particular kind of victim. Others seemed to be trying to reproduce exactly some scene they had concocted in their imaginations. It was not clear to Catherine what Tanya was doing when she killed someone. It seemed to Catherine that it had something to do with power. Maybe in some part of her past, Tanya had been powerless, and had been harmed or abused in some way. It seemed to Catherine that with the killings she had created a method of making herself safe.
Tanya seemed to be driven by fear. Every time she killed someone she had more to fear, so she had to kill again to feel safe. Whenever Tanya felt she might be losing control, she proved she wasn’t by killing somebody. What was bothering Catherine tonight was that she had become accustomed to Tanya’s rhythm, and it seemed to Catherine to be time.
She pulled her rental car into the parking lot behind the apartment building, and her father’s advice came back to her. She turned the little car in a full circuit of the perimeter, letting the headlights shine on the low brush that came to the edge of the pavement. She selected a space in the middle and got out of her car, her left hand holding her purse and keys, and her right hand free to reach for her sidearm.
Catherine took a last look around her before she unlocked the back entrance of the building, stepped inside, and closed it behind her, listening for the click of the lock. She walked up the hall to the staircase at the front of the building instead of riding up in the elevator. When she was inside her apartment on the third floor she locked the door and flipped the latch across it. Then she headed for the shower.
55
Judith lifted the package off her bed and worked at getting the heavy plastic wrapping off. She went to the kitchen and got a steak knife, then came back and made a slice along the top. The package said, “Hospital Scrubs, size S, OSHA Compliant.” She held the pants up in front of the full-length mirror and looked at them critically. Were the legs going to be just a bit long? She had bought the scrubs this afternoon at a uniform store that specialized in medical clothes, and she had not wanted to spend much time shopping or ask any questions.
She had just picked up the package, paid cash for it, and gone. She took off her jeans and T-shirt and put on the scrubs, then stared in the mirror. They felt like starched pajamas, but she liked the way they looked on her. She turned halfway around to look over her shoulder, then kept turning until she was facing forward again. She was very pleased. The only essential part was that the fit be good: no nurse would have scrubs that weren’t her size. Judith made a very attractive nurse.
She had chosen the maroon color because she didn’t want to be too visible in the dark. Some of the men and women she had seen walking up Russell Street from the hospital wore bright white coats or pants, and when a car came around the corner they seemed to glow in the headlights. The ones who wore dark blue or maroon were almost invisible.
Judith put on the pair of walking shoes she had chosen and checked the pant length again. The pants came right to the top of the shoes and rested there with only a half inch or so of overlap. That was just right. She lifted the loose pullover top and looked at her bare stomach. That was the only place for a gun. The loose top would cover it.
She stared into the mirror. She made a serious face, as though she were a nurse hurrying down a hallway to a patient’s room. Then she tried an empty face, and decided that was the right one. She wasn’t going to be clapping a defibrillator on somebody’s chest. She was just going to be a young woman coming off a long evening shift.
Judith used an elastic band that matched her scrubs to tie her hair in a ponytail, then put on the clear glasses she had bought in the hobby shop. They were for protecting people’s eyes when they worked on crafts, but they looked just like regular glasses. She looked smart in them.
She took off her top and picked up the roll of adhesive tape she had bought. She wrapped it around her waist twice, then twice more to hold Mary Tilson’s gun so it rode comfortably above the waistband without tugging on her pants. Then she put on her loose top and checked the effect. The gun was invisible.
She put on the hooded waterproof jacket she had bought when she had arrived in Portland, and decided the effect was right. It could rain in Portland at any time, and she had seen that the people she wanted to look like all wore jackets at night.
Judith examined the fabric purse with the long strap that she had carried in Denver, and tried it with her work outfit. She could fit the adhesive tape and the steak knife in it easily.
Judith looked around her small apartment to assess her preparations. She had already packed her suitcase. If she needed to run, she could. The place looked neat, nearly empty, and clean. She carefully folded her jeans and T-shirt, put them in a paper sack, and brought it with her suitcase.
She had a feeling of elation as she stepped out of her apartment and went down the back stairs to the outside. The night was clear and calm, a little like the late nights she had loved when she had been a little girl. There was a silent, private emptiness. There was nothing for a block or two that was moving, and the lights from the big busy streets to the south were blocked by apartment buildings.
She put the suitcase and the clothes in her trunk and started the car. She looked at the clock on the dashboard. It was eleven-fifteen, time to be moving. She let the car drift quietly down the alley behind the building, then accelerated gradually as she moved up the street.
Judith drove across the Broadway Bridge to North Interstate Avenue, then turned onto Northeast Russell. She could see the big shape of Legacy Emanuel Hospital as soon as she made the turn. She pulled over on the street near the east end of it and parked.
Judith looked at the car clock again. It was eleven forty-five. When she had followed Catherine up this street to her apartment building she had noticed that the activity picked up around midnight, which she assumed must be when the hospital shifts changed. She wanted to be ten minutes ahead of the change, so people would be leaving Catherine’s building when she arrived. She got out of the car, put her keys into the pants pocket of her scrubs, and looped her purse strap over her shoulder.
She walked up to Catherine’s apartment building just as a young man in green scrubs appeared in the lobby. She looked down into her purse as he hurried out of the building past her, but then she lunged ahead, caught the door before it could swing shut, and stepped inside. Her heart was pounding. She had made it past the first barrier.
But now Judith was in the lighted lobby, where people outside could see her, and anyone who came downstairs to leave would have to walk right past her. She stepped quickly to the row of mailboxes and read the Dymo labels stuck above them. There was one that said HOBBES. It was apartment 3F.
Judith opened the door to the stairwell and began to climb to the third floor. At least while she climbed, while she was in the deserted stairwell, nobody was looking at her. But when she reached the third-floor landing, she became tense again. She opened the door to the third-floor hallway a crack and listened. There were no voices, no footsteps, no sounds that indicated that anyone was awake. Judith moved cautiously into the hallway. She had never been in this building before, and so she had to think as she walked. She stepped along the hallway scanning, searching for any opportunity that would permit her to do what she wanted, and listening for someone who might stop her. As she came to 3D, she paused and listened for the sounds of people awake, then stopped at 3E and did the same, but there was nothing. She went on more slowly and quietly until she came to 3F.
When she had followed Catherine home last night, she had seen a whole row of windows light up. Catherine’s apartment had to be big—at least three rooms along the side of the building, probably with the bedroom in the back, away from the noise of the street. But Judith couldn’t know for sure. Catherine might be standing right on the other side of that door. Judith’s hand went to her belly, and she felt the hard, reassuring shape of the gun under her shirt. She leaned close and pressed her ear to the door. Catherine’s apartment was just as quiet as the others.
