Darby McCormick: Fear The Dark Part 20

'Now. And make sure it runs at the beginning of the interview.'

Levine nodded encouragingly. 'Agent Hoder told me,' he said. 'Let me know when you're ready.'

'I'm ready.'

The cameraman spoke from behind the lights. 'In five, four, three, two, one.'

Darby looked directly into the camera, knowing this was going to be her final stab at the case, a Hail Mary pa.s.s to catch the Ripper. She spoke slowly and deliberately, in order to hold the killer's attention and, hopefully, add some much needed time for the computer trace. She made false statements and the sort of claims no reasonable investigator would ever say in public, and she deliberately baited him.

'My name is Dr Darby McCormick. I want the people of Red Hill to know I will turn over every rock and exhaust every single lead and work every piece of evidence until I find the individual responsible for these murders. I am a forensic specialist, and I have dedicated my life to studying and apprehending this type of deviant criminal. A s.e.xual pervert like the Red Hill Ripper will not be an exception. He is a lonely and impotent man who, like every other s.a.d.i.s.t, is a moral coward. He is hiding in plain sight somewhere in your neighbourhood. You have seen him at church and at social gatherings, in stores and in restaurants. When I find him, justice will be served, either in handcuffs or in a body bag.'

I'm about to call Sarah when I notice my burner only has a couple of minutes left on it. I pull over to the side of the road, my hazards flas.h.i.+ng, and after I remove the battery from the phone and wipe everything down with a handkerchief, I step out of my car and toss the pieces deep into the woods.

The roads have been pretty quiet on account of the storm, which, at the moment, seems to have paused to catch its breath. The wind is no longer howling but the snow is still coming down hard and fast, my winds.h.i.+eld wipers working double-time to clear it away. Five or so inches cover the lot belonging to the Happy Valley Auto Garage. Its windows and the lights for the gas pumps are dark. I'm alone and, having had my cars serviced here many, many times in the past, I know I don't have to worry about a security camera recording me.

The payphone is to my far left, next to the coin-fed air hose and vacuum. I leave the car running and the headlights on so I can see. I thread a couple of quarters into the slot and dial Sarah's number.

'Thank G.o.d,' Sarah says when she answers. Her sigh reminds me of pressure being released from a hot-water tank on the verge of exploding. 'Oh, thank G.o.d, I've been worried sick about you.'

'I'm fine. I '

'It's been hours. Are you okay?'

'I just said I'm fine. Everything's fine.'

'When I didn't hear from you I thought '

'WILL YOU SHUT UP AND LISTEN.'

'I'm sorry,' she says, and her voice sounds so small, so hurt and lonely, it triggers a memory of the first time I held her hand in mine. The moment her skin touched mine I knew I had found my home.

My anger dissolves in my throat, but my heart is still beating furiously.

'I'm sorry,' I say. 'I'm tired and it's been a long day.'

'Please tell me you're coming home.'

'Not yet. Not for a while. That's why I'm calling. I've got some things to take care of and didn't want you waiting up for me.'

'I heard about the FBI. On the news.'

'TV?'

'No, the radio. I have the portable with me.'

'What are they saying? On the news?'

She doesn't answer, and for some reason it makes me want to run back to my car. The briefcase with money and pa.s.sports and everything else is sitting on the pa.s.senger's seat.

Leave now, an inner voice urges me. Save yourself.

'If everything goes right tonight,' I say, 'we'll be fine.'

'Did you make a mistake? Is that what you're trying to tell me?'

For some reason I'm thinking about my mother, how she collected quotes from famous historical figures and philosophers. She could recite them from memory, thought it made her sound like an intelligent and educated woman of substance and sophistication instead of the person she was, that corn-pone little girl who'd grown up on a farm and wore her older sister's hand-me-downs and ran away from home at fifteen and never finished high school.

'Tell me,' Sarah says, her voice so soft and gentle and understanding it makes my heart ache. 'You know you can tell me anything.'

'I know.'

'Did you make a mistake? Is that what you want to tell me?'

And then I'm thinking of St Augustine, of how much my mother liked to quote him, especially that line about truth being like a lion you could let loose because a lion could defend itself. But St Augustine left out the part about how the truth, like a lion, is capable of mauling and maiming, leaving its victim for dead. The truth is a hunter. The truth doesn't care.

And yet I still want to unburden myself. But, once I set my lion free, I'll no longer have control. I can't call it back, make it return to its cage.

'Baby?'

'I'm still here,' I say.

'I'll love you no matter what. You know that, right?'

And then I tell her. Everything.

41.

Darby finished the interview in less than an hour. The cameraman had stopped recording after each question to give her time to confer with Hoder. They did multiple takes and the cameraman shot from multiple angles, pausing each time to fiddle with the lighting. Coop watched from a corner.

The video footage would be compressed into ten minutes. The statement she'd made at the start of the interview; the reporter's questions about her background and experience hunting serial killers like Traveler, who had successfully evaded law enforcement; and her summary of the Red Hill Ripper case those items would run at the start of the interview and hopefully catch the killer's interest.

In order for the trace to work, the Ripper needed to watch the video for at least two minutes. During that time, the program embedded in the video would determine the operating system Windows, Mac, Android or iOS install the appropriate software and then broadcast its location back to the RCFL guys in Denver. They a.s.sured Hoder the program wouldn't be detected by antivirus or malware-prevention software.

To entice the Ripper to keep watching, Hoder had provided 'exclusive' and 'never before revealed crime scene photos' close-up pictures of the plastic cuffs and ligature marks. Hoder believed the Ripper wouldn't be able to resist wanting to see his handiwork on display. The photos would be spliced into the video somewhere after the two-minute mark more than enough time for the tracking program to install itself. Anyone watching the video from Red Hill, Brewster and the surrounding towns would be moved to the top of the search list. All information would then be forwarded to Hoder, who would a.n.a.lyse it, along with Otto and Hayes, inside the m.o.f.o.

While the cameraman edited the video footage under Hoder's watchful eye, Darby left the squad room to speak to the police chief. Neither Robinson nor Williams had entered the room at any point during the interview.

Robinson's office was dark, the door locked. She moved around the corner and saw the light on in Williams's office, but he wasn't there. She searched the station for him, and when she didn't find him she used his office phone to call his cell. It went straight to voicemail. Then she remembered he'd left his cell in his trunk.

Darby left the office, a nagging feeling worming its way through her stomach. If the Red Hill Ripper were skilful enough with computers to use malware that automatically installed itself on their cell phones, would he also have installed safeguards while using the internet?

A patrolman she recognized from this morning's debrief stepped into the lobby with a tall and slender woman dressed in tight-fitting designer jeans, over-the-knee black leather high-heel boots and a dark fur coat that ended at her waist. It had an oversized shawl collar and an open front; she wore a cream-coloured and Henley-inspired blouse with a split-neck and a deep V that proudly displayed an ample amount of surgically enhanced cleavage.

'Ray in his office?' the patrolman asked Darby. He had broad shoulders and the thick and callused hands of a bricklayer. His nametag read L. GRIFFIN.

'No, he's not there,' Darby said, and s.h.i.+fted her attention back to the woman. She was Saks Fifth Avenue pretty, and had the air and appearance of a successful young cosmopolitan woman or trophy wife who whiled away her days at luxury spas and shopping at Nordstrom. 'I don't know where he is.'

'Maybe you can help me, then. This lovely young lady is Ms Rita Tuttle. Rita, meet Dr McCormick. Rita lives in Brewster, works in the what did you call it again, Rita? The gentlemen's services industry?' Patrolman Griffin's eyes crinkled in humour.

Rita Tuttle pulled back her coat sleeve and glanced at her watch, a rose-gold EBEL with a sapphire-crystal face encrusted with diamonds. 'I've got to catch a flight at nine in Denver,' she said. 'How about we get to it?'

'She's going to Barbados,' Griffin said. 'With a friend.' He smiled coyly. 'I'll take you to our luxury interview suite. This way, ladies.'

The small interrogation room had white-painted walls and overhead fluorescent lights. A pair of folding chairs were placed on either side of an office-furniture store-bought desk made of particleboard.

Rita declined Griffin's offer of coffee. She took a seat and crossed her legs.

'I'll let you two get acquainted,' Griffin said. 'Be a good girl, Rita, and tell the good doctor here everything you told me.' Griffin winked at her and shut the door.

Rita stared after him. She didn't take off her jacket or her thin black leather gloves. Her dirty blonde hair had been cut into a stylish bob, and she wore a trace amount of makeup. Given the smoothness of her skin, and the lack of crow's feet around the eyes and mouth, Darby had the woman's age pegged somewhere north of twenty-five but no older than thirty.

Darby took the opposite chair. Rita wet the pad of her thumb and rubbed it across a smudge on her leather boots.

'Nice boots,' Darby said.

'They're Jimmy Choos.' Then Rita Tuttle sighed like a child who had been confined to the princ.i.p.al's office. 'Go ahead, ask your questions.'

'How about we start with what you're doing here?'

'That walking d.i.l.d.o who brought me here thinks I might know something about this guy you're looking for. You know what edge play is?'

Darby nodded. 's.e.xual play involving the serious risk of harm or death.'

Rita smiled brightly, as if she had encountered a kindred spirit. She had capped teeth, the veneers so startlingly white they reminded Darby of a porcelain toilet.

'What sort of flavour are we talking about?' Darby asked.

'Erotic asphyxiation. What we call breath play. The gentleman in question would tie me up to a chair and '

'Sorry to interrupt, but tied you up to a chair using what?'

'Plastic ties. He'd put them on my wrists and ankles. After I was trussed up, he'd take out the rope. This guy was really into knots.'

42.

'What kind of knots?' Darby asked, reaching for her notebook.

Rita stared at her from across the table. 'I look like a sailor to you? They were, you know, knots. Complicated ones. Intricate. He tried all different kinds on me.'

'Name?'

'Timmy. At least that's what he called himself. Never gave me a last name. Most of 'em don't.'

'The rope this guy used,' Darby began.

'Not rope. Ropes. He used the same two pieces every time we got together.'

'We talking about the kind of rope you find on a clothesline?'

'No. This was thicker. Blue, I think.'

Darby opened her folder and rooted through the pages, stopping when she found the sheet depicting a surgeon's knot. She showed it to Rita.

'That one was his favourite,' Rita said.

'Why?'

'Because that was the one he used to make me pa.s.s out.' Rita stifled a yawn. 'The nooses he made with some of the other knots they required him to stand behind me and, you know, apply constant pressure until I pa.s.sed out. This one, though,' she said, tapping a fingernail against the sheet of paper. 'With this one, when he pulled the rope the knot stayed right where it was. It didn't, you know, come undone or anything. The knot did all the work, maintained constant pressure around my neck. He could control the tension, which is what gets these kinds of guys off. He'd give the rope a good, hard yank, then move round the chair to watch me choke and pa.s.s out.'

Rita spoke dispa.s.sionately, as though being tied down and nearly strangled to death not once but over and over again was a normal, everyday occurrence, like brus.h.i.+ng one's teeth.

'I kind of liked pa.s.sing out,' Rita said. 'Gave me a break from the stench.'

Darby felt her scalp p.r.i.c.kle. 'What stench?'

'Guy was a BO factory. He had some sort of skin condition that made him smell like he'd spent his nights rolling around in a bed of rotting fish. I don't know what it was, and I never asked. I got round it by dabbing some of that Vicks VapoRub under my nostrils. My clothes? Had to put them in the wash the second I got home. Had to scrub my hair too. This guy had an Olympic-grade stink.'

'When was the last time you saw him?'

'Over a year ago? Maybe longer. We got together four, maybe five times.'

'Why did you break off it off?'

'I didn't. He just stopped calling. Which is too bad, because this guy paid really well. He told me he lived here in Red Hill, but I never went to his house or anything. We always met at the Beacon. That's a hotel in Brewster.'

'How did he contact you? Phone? Email?'

'Phone,' Rita said. 'I don't do email or Facebook or any of that stuff. My line of work demands discretion. I can't have you police types sticking your noses where they don't belong, hara.s.sing my customers.' The woman grinned broadly. 'He always called me from different numbers payphones, a burner. All my clients usually do. Don't like their wives or girlfriends finding out about their particular needs.'

'You remember anything flas.h.i.+ng up on your caller-ID?'

'Nothing came up on my caller-ID except a number.'