Watch Them Die

Ben couldn’t find any evidence in the scrapbook indicating an investigation or trial. But the next few pages held letters of rejection from agents, film companies, and studios. Richard Kidd captioned these with phrases like “Believe in yourself” and “You Have a Vision; They are Blind.”

Richard’s address on the letters changed from San Francisco to Seattle. But his luck remained the same. Numerous rejections to applications for film contests, grants, and college teaching-assistant programs seemed to attest to Richard Kidd’s undesirability.

But there was a letter to a Seth Stroud on Aloha Street, dated January 27, 2001, complimenting him on the experimental videos he’d sent, Sticks and Bones and Dead Center. The gentleman writing back to Seth Stroud was interested in meeting him. He planned on making his own independent film, and wanted Seth’s participation. The note was signed by Paul Gulletti.

Under the letter, Richard had the caption “A New Beginning.”

Ben sighed. Ironically, that was the last page of Richard Kidd’s scrapbook. It was also the last of Richard Kidd, film-maker. He’d borrowed his friend’s name in order to work in the movies. Too bad he’d hung his hopes on Paul Gulletti, whose big talk about making an independent film would probably never amount to anything.

But Richard certainly got his revenge on Paul; torturing his mentor by stealing his women, then letting him know when and how he was going to kill them.

Ben figured there had to be another scrapbook somewhere, one with Angela Bramford, Rae, and all the others. Hannah too, of course. Perhaps the second volume was in Seth Stroud’s garage apartment, now tagged as police evidence against suicide victim Seth Stroud.

Ben glanced at the ticking clock on the nightstand: almost a quarter to twelve. He wondered where Hannah and Guy were right now.

Downstairs, on the VCR in Seth’s living room, the digital counter switched from eleven to ten minutes.

Through the rain-beaded windshield and across the parking lot, Richard Kidd watched her open the curtains. He reached for his video camera.

But Hannah wouldn’t quite come into focus. The light wasn’t strong enough in the hotel room, and he kept getting a reflection of the parking lot in her window. There wasn’t much to photograph anyway. She was unpacking a few things while the kid sat up in bed, watching TV.

He wasn’t sure how far Hannah intended to run. But this hotel was as far as she would ever get.

Like his prey, Richard had also packed this morning. In addition to clothes, he’d brought along some essentials: spare cameras and film, skeleton keys from Seth’s job, and a gun, among other things.

He knew the police might be looking for him soon. His friend, Seth, was a loose end with dozens of loose ends connected to him. He’d had to go. But even after planting all that evidence in Seth’s apartment and removing everything of his own, Richard figured in his haste something might have gotten past him.

He was prepared for the possibility of never returning to Seattle. He had also prepared for the possibility of the police invading his home. They would find a lot of evidence there, certainly enough to put him away for life.

He’d fixed it so none of that evidence would ever leave his house. It wouldn’t happen right away. He had a timer set for twenty-eight minutes after motion detectors picked up activity. By that time, his house would be full of cops.

Dead men and women, all of them.

Too bad he wouldn’t be there to film it.

But he had a far more important scene to realize today, here at this crummy hotel. He’d been preparing for this for some time now. The wait would soon be over.

Richard Kidd gazed at Hannah in the window, and he smiled.

The timer on the VCR in Richard Kidd’s living room was counting down from nine minutes.

Upstairs, Ben discovered Richard’s large walk-in closet, which had been converted into an office with a built- in desk, state-of-the-art video equipment, a TV-VCR, and a library of homemade tapes. There must have been a hundred of them, all labeled. Ben noticed about a dozen tagged Video Store, with various dates. He also saw one called On the Yacht, from earlier in the week. He wondered if it showed Richard and Seth planting the bomb on Kenneth Woodley’s boat. Which one of them was the explosives expert?

Ben popped the tape into the VCR and switched on the TV. He recognized Kenneth Woodley. He was with a cheap-looking blonde below the deck of that doomed yacht. They were doing lines of cocaine together. He started undressing her. Then, suddenly, he hit her—again and again. Her screams came over the soundtrack. Ben winced at each brutal blow. He saw what Hannah had endured while married to the son of a bitch.

He couldn’t fathom how Richard Kidd just sat back and videotaped Kenneth beating the hell out of that poor woman. Then again, this was a killer, a voyeur who had kept the cameras rolling while his star strangled to death in Sue Aside.

What was going on in the galley of that yacht bordered on rape. Ben couldn’t watch anymore. He stopped the VCR and ejected the video.

Among the cassette boxes on the shelf, one labeled Goodbar, Raw Footage caught his eye. Ben glanced at his watch. Almost ten to twelve. He didn’t want to linger there much longer. But he needed to make certain he had enough evidence for the police. Then they could come in and turn the place upside down.

Ben inserted the Goodbar, Raw Footage tape into the VCR. He found himself staring at a shot of the bed in the very next room. But the Peeping Tom poster was gone. His old girlfriend, Rae, and Richard Kidd wandered into the picture, then sat down on the bed. It broke Ben’s heart to see her again, looking so pretty and vulnerable.

What she and Richard Kidd were saying to one another was garbled. Ben experimented with the volume, but with no luck. Apparently, the mike wasn’t within range. Another thing was apparent: Rae didn’t know she was being videotaped. She laughed at a joke Richard made, then kissed him.

They fell back on the bed, and their faces were no longer in the picture. The two entwined bodies could have belonged to any horny couple. Ben impatiently hit the fast-forward button. After a moment, Richard shifted her around in the bed. He obviously knew where the camera was, and wanted Rae’s face in the frame. He climbed on top of her and started to unbutton her blouse. Then he reached for something beside the bed.

Ben slowed the tape to normal speed, and watched as Richard recreated the Goodbar scene with a strobe light. Rae looked uncomfortable. She was saying something, but the words were indecipherable. Amid the staccato, flickering image of those two people on that bed in the next room, Ben noticed Richard pull a knife from under the mattress.

All at once, he started stabbing Rae in the chest.

Ben felt sick as he watched his old girlfriend struggle with this maniac. Then she stopped struggling.

Richard climbed off the bed, leaving her to lie there, lifeless. Her dead eyes gazed at the ceiling. Bloodstains bloomed on the white bedsheets tangled around her.

Ben could see some of the blood splattered on the headboard and wall. He realized those weren’t wine stains he’d noticed earlier. He’d been looking at Rae’s blood.

Ben swallowed hard, then wiped the tears from his eyes. He was about to eject the tape, but accidentally hit the fast-forward button again.

In rapid, sputtering motion, Richard switched off his strobe light. Then his friend Seth Stroud wandered into the bedroom. The two of them started to strip the bed, leaving Rae’s semi-nude corpse in the middle.

Ben slowed the tape to normal speed again. He could see a shiny plastic lining beneath those bloody bedsheets. Seth said something that he alone thought was funny. He was laughing as they peeled the plastic sheet off the mattress. They bundled Rae and the blood-soaked linens inside the tarp-like sheet.

Seth started moving toward the camera. “Lighten up,” he muttered as he came into range of the microphone. “I’m the one who should be in a shitty mood. I spent the better part of my night digging a fucking hole for her in that ravine near the cemetery. You owe me big-time. I’m gonna—”