A few seconds later, Agnes emerged from the bathroom in her robe and slippers. She stopped at the table by the window and tended to a bouquet of flowers, her back to her husband.
Thank you for the flowers, Harry, she said, her body blocking his view of the bouquet.
Huh, said the governor, looking over. He hadn't sent any flowers. Today wasn't a birthday, anniversary, or any other occasion he could think of that called for flowers. But it wasn't inconceivable that in all the campaign commotion he'd forgotten a special day and one of his staff had covered for him. So he just played along. Oh, he replied, you're welcome, dear. I hope you like them.
It's nice to get things for no reason, she said with a sparkle in her eye. It was so spontaneous of you. Her mouth curled suggestively. Then she stepped away from the table, revealing the bouquet, and the governor went white.
Keep the bed warm, she said as she disappeared into her walk-in closet, but the governor wasn't listening. His eyes were fixed on the bouquet of big white, pink, and yellow chrysanthemums perched on the table. He rose from the bed and stepped toward the bouquet. The card was still in the holder. Harry's hand trembled as he opened the envelope. It suddenly seemed so obvious: the disguised voice, the threats, the photographs of a gruesome murder, and now the flowers. His mind raced, making a logical link between the Chrysanthemum Killer, whose weird pathology had been mentioned in the article he'd just been reading, and the blackmailer.
He read the message. Instantly, he knew it was intended for him, not his wife. You and me forever, it read, till death do us part.
Eddy Goss, the governor muttered softly to himself, his voice cracking with fear. I'm being blackmailed by a psychopath.
Chapter
13
The following morning, Monday, Jack picked up his Mustang from the garage and went to A&G Alarm Company, where he arranged to have a security system immediately installed in his house. By noon he had new locks on the doors and was thinking about escape plans. He still couldn't bring himself to believe that Goss would try to kill him, but it would be foolish not to take precautions. He imagined the worst-case scenarios - an attack in the middle of the night or an ambush in the parking lot - and planned in advance how he would respond. And he called the telephone company. In two days he'd have a new, unlisted phone number.
But there was one basic precaution he decided not to take. He didn't call the police because he still felt the cops would do little to protect Eddy Goss's lawyer. Besides, he had another idea. That afternoon he bought ammunition for his gun.
It wasn't actually his gun. He'd inherited a .38-caliber pistol from Donna Boyd, an old flame at Yale. Most people didn't know it, but crime was a problem in certain areas of New Haven where many students lived off campus. After Jack's neighbor had been robbed, Donna had refused to sleep over anymore unless Jack kept her gun in the nightstand. Even for an independent-minded Yale coed, she was a bit unconventional. He agreed but took the precaution of signing up for a few shooting lessons at the local range. He didn't want to make a mistake they'd both regret.
As it turned out, the gun stayed in his drawer until after graduation, when he was packing for Miami. By that point, he and Donna had broken up and she'd been bitter enough to leave town without stopping by to pick up her things. A mutual friend said she'd gone to Europe. So Jack had just packed the gun away with her racquet-ball racket and Elvis Costello CD and forgotten about it until now.
Suddenly, he had a use for the gun that had lain in his footlocker for the last six years, last registered in Connecticut, in the name of Donna Boyd.
Jack had never considered violence an answer to anything. But this was something altogether different. This was truly self-defense. Or was it? Deep down, he wondered if he actually hoped Goss would break into his house. As he sat back in the sofa in his living room with the ammunition he'd just purchased, he thought hard about his real motivation for not calling the cops. But the possibility that he was subconsciously looking for a showdown with Goss was ridiculous. Goss was the killer. Not him.
The phone rang. Jack muted the nine o'clock Movie of the Week on TV and snatched it up.
Have you checked your mail, Jack? came the familiar voice.
He hesitated. He knew that stalkers thrived on contact and that any expert would have told him just to hang up. But he was nearly certain he knew who it was, and if he could just get him to speak in his normal voice, he'd have confirmation. This is not clever, Goss, Jack goaded. Knock off the funny voice. I know it's you.
A condescending snicker came over the phone, then a pause - followed by a decided change in tone. You don't know shit, Swyteck. So just shut up, and check your mail. Now.
Jack blinked hard, frightened by how easily he'd set off the man's temper. Why?
Just check it, the caller ordered. And take the phone with you. I'll tell you what to look for.
Jack wondered whether it was wise to play along, but he was determined to get to the bottom of this. All right, he answered, then headed down the hall with his portable phone pressed to his ear. He looked through the window before stepping outside but saw nothing. He opened the front door and stepped onto the porch. Okay, he said into the phone. I'm at the box.
Look inside, the caller ordered.
Cautiously, Jack reached for the lid on the mailbox beside the door. He extended one finger, pried under the lid, and quickly popped it open, jerking his hand back as if he'd just touched molten lava.
Do you see it, Swyteck?
Jack stood on his toes and peered inside from a distance, fearful that he was about to see bloody gym shorts or torn panties or some other evidence of Goss's latest handiwork. There's an envelope, he said, seeing nothing else inside.
Open it, said the caller.
Jack carefully took the envelope from the box. It was plain white. No return address. No addressee. It had been hand-delivered, which meant the stalker had been on his porch - an unsettling thought. He unfolded the flap and tentatively removed the contents. What is this?
What's it look like?
He studied the page. A map. A route had been high-lighted by yellow felt-tip pen.
Follow it - if you want to know who the killer on the loose is. You do want to know, don't you, Swyteck?
I already know it's you, Goss. This is a map to your apartment.
It's a map to the killer on the loose. Be there. Meet him at four-thirty A. M. tonight. And no cops. Or you'll be very sorry.
Jack bristled at the sound of the dial tone, then switched off the portable phone. At first it didn't even occur to him to actually go to Goss's apartment. But if Goss were going to kill him, would he do it in his own apartment? Would he invite Jack over and give him directions to the scene of the crime? No, he must be up to something else, and Jack's curiosity was piqued.
But it was more than just curiosity. He was thinking of the night two years ago when he'd refused to give his father enough privileged information to stop Raul Fernandez's execution. His rigidity had resulted in Raul's death, and he was determined not to make the same mistake again. In dealing with a confessed killer who was continuing his evil ways, he had to be more flexible with privileged information.
It was time to issue an ultimatum. Months ago, when he and Goss had been considering an insanity defense, Jack had pumped him for information about his past crimes - some of which included murder. His client had told him plenty. Now it was time to confront Goss and let him know that if he wanted to stay out of the electric chair - if he didn't want a prosecutor to get an anonymous tip about his most perverted secrets - then he'd better change his ways.
He stepped to the window and looked outside. It was getting dark and starting to drizzle. A storm was brewing if he was going to meet Goss, there was no reason to wait until four-thirty in the morning. In fact, it seemed safer not to wait. He started toward the door, then stopped. He went up to the attic, opened his footlocker, and found the .38. Downstairs, he spent several minutes cleaning the gun, then loaded it with bullets.
Just in case.
Chapter
14
Rain started to fall as Jack pulled his Mustang out of the driveway. The downpour was a continuation of a violent Florida thunderstorm that had flooded city streets that afternoon. The nasty weather didn't bring him down, though. He was determined to get to Goss's as quickly as possible, before he could change his mind. He raced his old eight-cylinder down the expressway at a speed only a fleeing fugitive would have considered safe, exited into a section of town that no one considered safe, and screeched to a halt outside Goss's apartment.
The old two-story building stretched nearly a third of the city block. It was bordered on one side by a gas station and on the other by a burned-out shell of an apartment building that some pyromaniac landlord had probably figured could generate more income in fire insurance proceeds than in rent. Rusty iron security bars covered most of the ground-floor windows, plywood sealed off others, and noisy air conditioners stuck out of a few. Weeds popping up through cracks in the sidewalk were the closest thing to landscaping.
The rain beat loudly on the convertible's canvas top and seeped in where the twenty-year-old rubber window seals had rotted away. Jack jumped out and dashed through water that ran in wide rivulets down the street. He was at the apartment entrance in only fifteen seconds, but that was long enough for the rain to soak his clothes and paste them to his body. Dripping wet, he stepped inside the dimly lit foyer and checked the rows of metal mailboxes recessed into the wall. He had the right place. GOSS, APT 217, read one of them.
He ran up a flight of stairs to a long hallway lined with apartments on either side. It was even darker here than in the foyer, the tenants having stolen most of the bulbs to light their apartments. Spray-painted graffiti covered the walls and doors, forming one continuous mural. Most of the ceiling tiles had been punched out by kids proving how high they could jump. Rainwater leaked in from above and streaked down the water-stained walls, forming little puddles on the musty indoor-outdoor carpet. All was quiet, except for heavy raindrops pounding on the flimsy flat roof.
He started down the hall, checking the numbers on the doors that still had them. His pace quickened as he approached 217, the fifth door on the left. He was convinced that the only way to stop Goss was to threaten him - and to do so in a way that only his own lawyer could. If Goss was to report him to the Florida bar for threatening to reveal a client's secrets, it could end his career. But it didn't matter at this point. The stark contrast between his one tragic failure in the Fernandez case and his string of successes in sending men like Goss back onto the streets to prey on an unwary public had weighed on him too long. He'd reached the lowest point of his life.
Jack knocked on the hollow wood door to Goss's apartment, then waited. No one answered, but he refused to believe that Goss wasn't there. He knocked harder, almost banging. Still no answer. Goss, he said loudly. I know it's you. Answer the door!
Hey! an angry man shouted from an open apartment doorway down the hall. It's ten o'clock, man. I got a two-year-old here. Cut the racket.
Jack took a deep breath. He'd been so focused in his pursuit of Goss that he'd acted as if no one else lived in the building. That was a stupid approach, he realized. So he stepped back from the door and slowly headed down the hall, as if to leave. As soon as Goss's neighbor retreated into his apartment, Jack quietly but quickly returned to apartment 217 and turned the knob. It was unlocked. He hesitated and listened for footsteps on the inside. Nothing. He pushed the door open slowly, about a foot, and peered inside. All was dark and quiet. He pushed it open further, about halfway, and stood in the open doorway.
Goss, he said in a firm voice. Then he waited.
There was no reply, only the sound of heavy tropical rain tapping on the roof and against the window on the other side of the room. Jack swallowed hard. As he saw it, he had two choices. He could turn and walk away, his tail between his legs. If he did, it would only be a matter of time before he got another threat, before the violence escalated further. His other choice - the only real choice - was to do something right then.
He discreetly checked the hallway, but saw no one. Then he stared nervously into the dark apartment. He could hear his heart pounding and feel his palms begin to sweat. He took a deep breath and reached deep inside himself for the strength he needed. Slowly and very cautiously, he entered the dark, deathly quiet apartment of Eddy Goss.
Goss, Jack said again, standing just inside the open door. It's Swyteck. You and I need to talk, so come on out.
When after a few seconds there was no response, Jack reached out and flipped the light switch by the door. But no lights came on.
A huge bolt of lightning cracked just outside, sending his heart to his throat. The storm was worsening, the heavy rain pelting against the room's only window. Another large bolt struck even closer, bathing the small room in a burst of eerie white light. Jack got a mental snapshot, hastening his eyes' adjustment to the layout of the apartment. The kitchen, dining, and living areas were one continuous room. A ghostly white bed sheet covered the window. Furniture was sparse - he noticed only a beaten-up old couch, a floor lamp, a kitchen table, and one folding chair. The walls were bare, but there were a few plants. Not your ordinary houseplants. These were big and colorful crucifixes, Stars of David, and other tributes to the dead, all made of chrysanthemums and other fresh flowers, apparently stolen by Goss from graves at the local cemetery. Jack felt anger rising in him as he read one pink ribbon inscribed OUR BELOVED DAUGHTER. He looked away in disgust, then noticed a door across the room that led to the bedroom. It was open.