It was a conundrum...Max was realizing...an insoluble problem. If he told her anything she knew...like what her mother had said...about all the mother-daughter talks...it would prove nothing.
If she already knew it...her subconscious would know it too. It would prove nothing. If he told her something she didn't know....well, she was in a box somewhere...no way to tell if it was true or ....just a dream. That also would prove nothing
There was no logical way he could ever convince her...and Liz was...logical. She always had been.
The panic started to grow in Max by the second as he looked in to her eyes. He'd been worried enough that even with her help...even with whatever information she had...it might not be enough. But the thought that she simply wouldn't believe...not about him being an alien...hell, not about him even being ...real....it just hadn't occured to him. He was growing more frightened by the minute.
As enjoyable as the experience had been, somewhere in her mind she still resented the intrusion of this dream. She had wasted three years of her life....she at least wanted to die well. And she was no longer sure she could....no longer sure that her subconscious would let her give up the dream..and the price she'd pay for that would be even greater horror.
She had spoiled the last three years of a life that was all too short....spoiled it by wanting him so badly...but doing nothing to make it happen...afraid she thought...afraid that if she'd asked and he'd said no, she wouldn't even have her dreams any longer.
She looked at him, laying by her side...her dream of Max Evans. Even now, it seemed so real...his face looking at her....he was frightened...she could tell. The same look...older of course, but the same look he'd had as he'd stepped off the bus with Isabel that first day....the look that had disappeared when his eyes had met hers.....when a third grade Liz Parker had known...as quickly as that...that he was the one.
The tears started trickling down her eyes, remembering those years...they'd been such wonderful years, in the naive innocence of schoolchildren. Max at least had given her those....and the dreams...it was hard to resent the dreams, even though they'd been a substitute for a reality she might have had....so many regrets. But as the dream looked at her with those eyes...with Max Evans' big brown eyes.....she thought of Max, knowing that if he'd ever looked at her with those eyes like that...well, she would have denied him nothing. But this wasn't Max...she knew that...but still, it was the memory of Max...and she couldn't really be cruel to even that.
"Tell you what," Liz said. "I know you aren't real....but if you want that information...I'll give it to you...for a price."
"A price? I'll give you anything...Liz. The moment we get you back."
"You're not getting me back...you're only a dream. I am going to die in that box. I know that....still....we could...barter."
"Barter for what, Liz. It's a dream....you can have anything....anything at all. What can I dream for you."
The smile on her face as she turned to him was disconcerting to Max Evans...no one in her situation should ever have a smile like that. She reached out to caress his face...then dragged her fingernails slowly...lightly down his chest...down his abdomen...then lower still....her fingers like silk as she caressed him."
"I'm sure we can think of something....I'll even call you Max....just as if it were real..."
Incubus, Succubus, & Demon AU/Mature M/L 2/8/07 complete
Moderators: Anniepoo98, Rowedog, ISLANDGIRL5, Itzstacie, truelovepooh, FSU/MSW-94, Hunter, Island Breeze, Forum Moderators
10:55 PM The living room, The Evans Residence, Roswell New Mexico
Isabel had just recolored her nails...for the fourteenth time...she'd changed the color of her lipstick a dozen times as well. Phiilip wondered how long she'd had that nervous habit...how long she'd hid it from them. Not long enough, he decided. It was starting to get on his nerves.
"We're all anxious, Izzy. You've got to calm down. Maybe Max can get in...maybe he can find out something that'll help."
"Max can't even get to sleep...how's he ever going to find out anything? Maybe I should try again...if I can even get to sleep."
"Wait until your mother comes back from checking him. If he hasn't gotten to sleep by now, maybe you should try."
Diane re-entered the room, her face flushed.
"Mom..has Max made contact with Liz?"
"Uhhh...Yes....I'm pretty sure he has...I could hear him....uh...talking to her."
"Maybe I ought to try to join them...see if we could do a three way connection."
Diane's eyes flew open in alarm. "No dear...I don't think that would be uh....advisable..."
"Why not?" asked Philip. "She may be able to think of things to ask her that Max can't."
As Isabel looked into her mothers eyes, her face started to flush. Mothers and daughters really did have a special relationship..sometimes they could almost read one anothers minds. If there was one thing Isabel was perfectly certain of as she looked into her mothers eyes it was that Isabel Evans did NOT want to be in a threesome with Max and Liz right now.
"All of a sudden I'm not sleepy anymore anyway, Daddy."
Isabel had just recolored her nails...for the fourteenth time...she'd changed the color of her lipstick a dozen times as well. Phiilip wondered how long she'd had that nervous habit...how long she'd hid it from them. Not long enough, he decided. It was starting to get on his nerves.
"We're all anxious, Izzy. You've got to calm down. Maybe Max can get in...maybe he can find out something that'll help."
"Max can't even get to sleep...how's he ever going to find out anything? Maybe I should try again...if I can even get to sleep."
"Wait until your mother comes back from checking him. If he hasn't gotten to sleep by now, maybe you should try."
Diane re-entered the room, her face flushed.
"Mom..has Max made contact with Liz?"
"Uhhh...Yes....I'm pretty sure he has...I could hear him....uh...talking to her."
"Maybe I ought to try to join them...see if we could do a three way connection."
Diane's eyes flew open in alarm. "No dear...I don't think that would be uh....advisable..."
"Why not?" asked Philip. "She may be able to think of things to ask her that Max can't."
As Isabel looked into her mothers eyes, her face started to flush. Mothers and daughters really did have a special relationship..sometimes they could almost read one anothers minds. If there was one thing Isabel was perfectly certain of as she looked into her mothers eyes it was that Isabel Evans did NOT want to be in a threesome with Max and Liz right now.
"All of a sudden I'm not sleepy anymore anyway, Daddy."
‘Sated,’ she thought. It was one of the SAT words she’d been studying in her Pre-SAT prep book, not that she’d ever need to worry about taking her SATs now. ‘Sated,’ she recited to herself, ‘means
1.to satisfy (any appetite or desire) fully.
2.to fill to excess
Well, he’d certainly done both of those. She wasn’t sure why she was feeling so good, since she was certainly soon to die. Probably the endorphins, she figured. She’d read about them in a Cosmopolitan magazine. They were released during orgasm and buried in that box....somewhere…she certainly had a body just full of endorphins.
That same Cosmopolitan article had a letter to the advice columnist by someone complaining about her inability to have orgasms with her partner. Right now Liz was finding it really hard to identify with that girl. Of course, this wasn’t real….more like masturbation most likely. It was like a link had formed between her and the dream of him….which made sense probably….since he was really just her subconscious.
But even so, in the dream he’d played the part of her alien lover quite well. She could feel his wonder at her acceptance…his pleasure at her pleasure. He could anticipate every move he might make that would bring her the most pleasure, and her every move he wanted…every caress, to bring the most pleasure to him.
The Cosmo advice columnist said that having your first orgasm required you to have trust in the guy…and to have multiple orgasms…the two of you had to learn how to pleasure one another. Obviously it was easier when it was all in your mind. When he’d exploded inside her it had ignited her…like a string of firecrackers….a stream of orgasms that had wracked her body to exhaustion….the pleasure was incredible. But even more than that…the tears…the tears of release and joy and acceptance from him that had dripped down onto her face…onto her lips….the salty taste of them….and the look in his eyes…..all in her mind of course, but still artistry in its own way. She could feel what it would have meant to him had it been real….
She was spooned up against him now…..he was sated too. They were laying on their right sides, his right hand pulling her close…cupping her left breast. She pushed back into him…feeling his body against her…’oh, if this could only be real….’ He pushed his face gently into her hair and inhaled….he seemed to love the smell of her. He smelled nice too…in the dream…not like the smells in the prison of the box.
She was surprised really, that she could think of the box…but still be happy….basking in the afterglow of their passion…probably those endorphins. He moved his hand downward…over her abdomen…her pubic hair…she scissored her legs to open herself to his touch…..feeling his possessiveness as he touched her mirroring her own.
The possessiveness…and the passion…she found...were both growing….. She smiled as she felt his fingers caress her …felt them glide slowly into her and gently stroke her….felt him again start to grow hard against her buttocks…. She turned toward him slowly…looking in to his brown eyes…..brown eyes so full of wonder….it was all a dream of course, but it was a lovely one….
'Perhaps we’re not as sated as I thought,' she thought to herself.
“What…?” said Max.
She smiled as she pulled him toward her...not really surprised he could read her mind....after all....it was only a dream… 'Never mind, my alien lover….., it wasn’t important….'
A half hour later she again rested quietly in his arms. She knew they weren’t real…he wasn’t real….still, it wasn’t like her dream Max hadn’t more than kept his part of the bargain.
“I don’t know much,” she said. “He was a big man….I’ve never seen him before. He came from the alley…used ether…I woke up in the back of a pickup…under the tonneau cover. The way he talked…it seemed like I was just picked at random…he didn’t even know who I was.” Liz was surprised she could talk about it like this…but the terror wasn’t there…not really. She felt so safe and warm in his arms…his dream arms…the endorphins, probably…..they’d made a lot of those endorphins….
1.to satisfy (any appetite or desire) fully.
2.to fill to excess
Well, he’d certainly done both of those. She wasn’t sure why she was feeling so good, since she was certainly soon to die. Probably the endorphins, she figured. She’d read about them in a Cosmopolitan magazine. They were released during orgasm and buried in that box....somewhere…she certainly had a body just full of endorphins.
That same Cosmopolitan article had a letter to the advice columnist by someone complaining about her inability to have orgasms with her partner. Right now Liz was finding it really hard to identify with that girl. Of course, this wasn’t real….more like masturbation most likely. It was like a link had formed between her and the dream of him….which made sense probably….since he was really just her subconscious.
But even so, in the dream he’d played the part of her alien lover quite well. She could feel his wonder at her acceptance…his pleasure at her pleasure. He could anticipate every move he might make that would bring her the most pleasure, and her every move he wanted…every caress, to bring the most pleasure to him.
The Cosmo advice columnist said that having your first orgasm required you to have trust in the guy…and to have multiple orgasms…the two of you had to learn how to pleasure one another. Obviously it was easier when it was all in your mind. When he’d exploded inside her it had ignited her…like a string of firecrackers….a stream of orgasms that had wracked her body to exhaustion….the pleasure was incredible. But even more than that…the tears…the tears of release and joy and acceptance from him that had dripped down onto her face…onto her lips….the salty taste of them….and the look in his eyes…..all in her mind of course, but still artistry in its own way. She could feel what it would have meant to him had it been real….
She was spooned up against him now…..he was sated too. They were laying on their right sides, his right hand pulling her close…cupping her left breast. She pushed back into him…feeling his body against her…’oh, if this could only be real….’ He pushed his face gently into her hair and inhaled….he seemed to love the smell of her. He smelled nice too…in the dream…not like the smells in the prison of the box.
She was surprised really, that she could think of the box…but still be happy….basking in the afterglow of their passion…probably those endorphins. He moved his hand downward…over her abdomen…her pubic hair…she scissored her legs to open herself to his touch…..feeling his possessiveness as he touched her mirroring her own.
The possessiveness…and the passion…she found...were both growing….. She smiled as she felt his fingers caress her …felt them glide slowly into her and gently stroke her….felt him again start to grow hard against her buttocks…. She turned toward him slowly…looking in to his brown eyes…..brown eyes so full of wonder….it was all a dream of course, but it was a lovely one….
'Perhaps we’re not as sated as I thought,' she thought to herself.
“What…?” said Max.
She smiled as she pulled him toward her...not really surprised he could read her mind....after all....it was only a dream… 'Never mind, my alien lover….., it wasn’t important….'
A half hour later she again rested quietly in his arms. She knew they weren’t real…he wasn’t real….still, it wasn’t like her dream Max hadn’t more than kept his part of the bargain.
“I don’t know much,” she said. “He was a big man….I’ve never seen him before. He came from the alley…used ether…I woke up in the back of a pickup…under the tonneau cover. The way he talked…it seemed like I was just picked at random…he didn’t even know who I was.” Liz was surprised she could talk about it like this…but the terror wasn’t there…not really. She felt so safe and warm in his arms…his dream arms…the endorphins, probably…..they’d made a lot of those endorphins….
11:10 PM The Evans Residence, Roswell New Mexico
“Isabel…?”
“Yes, Mom…”
“I’d like you to explain to me about Max and Liz..”
“What about, Mom?”
“How long have they been dating?”
“Uh,…they haven’t ever dated.”
“Never?”
“Uh….I sort of kept breaking them up, any time I thought they were getting…uh….too close to each other.”
“Just how long had Max liked this girl, Isabel?”
“I’m not sure he ever really did like her, Mom…..it sort of went racing past that…right to love.”
“Love? Don’t you think sixteen is a little young for Max to really be in love?”
“Well, it didn’t happen when he was sixteen exactly, Mom.”
“Isabel…When DID it happen…EXACTLY.”
Isabel got kind of a deer-in-the-headlights look, and looked longingly at her father to protect his princess,….but he’d already seen the look in Diane’s eyes, and was buying none of it.
“Well Mom, EXACTLY was somewhere between the next to the bottom step and the bottom step getting off of … of the school bus……the first day in third grade.”
“THIRD GRADE?! This has been going on since third grade?”
“This? You mean..? No, Mom….this…this has only been going on tonight…and maybe one other night…judging from Max blushing....For the last seven years I’ve kind of been keeping them apart….but when this started…well, Max has been pretty upset, and I guess I’m feeling pretty guilty. If I hadn’t made him come home with me that night…Max would have probably been there with her…walked her to the bank and back. The guy wouldn’t have gotten her then…”
“Or he might have gotten Max, too…you never know. It’s not like Max has ever gotten in fights or anything….I’m not sure how well he could defend himself.”
Isabel’s eyes went to her father.
“Ooops!” said Philip Evans. “Diane, there’s something else you need to know about Max and Isabel…besides the dreamwalking that is…”
“There’s more?” asked Diane.
11:10 PM 8 miles outside of Roswell on Silvermine Road
“He said he’d done this three times before me, Max. The first one was someone named Jenny Langley who he really didn’t like….he was upset that she got a scholarship I think…that she was so smart. He said that he gave her a candle and lighter by mistake….that she …burned herself up.”
Max was laying comfortably beside her as she talked…but something in her tone as she mentioned the girl burning herself brought goosebumps to Max. “Liz…what are you planning?”
‘I should have known it would come up,’ Liz thought. ‘It’s my subconscious, after all.’
“I think you know that…know what I’m going to do. I’m being driven crazy by the closeness already….when the carbon dioxide starts to build…God..I’m so scared in there…..I have a book of matches…”
”Liz, you can’t..”
“I have to..you wouldn’t understand what it’s like…to be so tight..”
“Liz…I was in a pod until I was six….smaller than that…but you have to give us time…everyone time to find this guy…to find you.”
“It isn’t going to work. Even if you were really Max, what I’ve given you just isn’t enough…there are too many men and too many trucks and too much ground….”
“Jenny Langley is the key, Liz. They didn’t think she was one of his victims, but she was the first,…the index case….the one that set him off. If we can find out about her we can find out about him….and when we have him Liz….he’ll tell me….I swear he will.”
Liz saw the yellow glow deep in the brown eyes when he said that, and just for a second thought that Max really might be an alien….before remembering….this wasn’t Max…and it was only a dream.
But it had been a pleasant dream and it would soon be over she knew. She didn’t want to spoil it by arguing with her dream alien lover. He’d given her too much…even though it was only a dream. When you are going to die at sixteen, you are grateful for every good moment you’ve had, and these had been wonderful moments.
“OK, Max,” she lied to him. “I’ll wait for you……” She kissed him then, softly…one last time……and awoke to the box.
11:40 PM The Evans Residence, Roswell New Mexico
There was paper all over the desk with key words highlighted....arrows drawn to emphasize points. Diane was reading through the reports...shuddering as she saw what the other girls had gone through...what right now Liz Parker was going through....Liz Parker...the girl her son...loved. She looked at him...seeing his worry....seeing him only just fighting back tears. He'd been her little boy for ten years but never really opened up...never really ever let anyone in..except maybe Izzy. But he was open tonight...open and vulnerable. Her son was truly human...she knew that....Liz had made him human....not just now, but ever since the third grade. She read the reports, anger and fear filling her heart. They had to find her.....find her for Max. It would destroy Max if he lost her...she realized that...even Isabel now realized that. If Max lost her...lost her like this...he'd never forgive that....never forgive the man...maybe never forgive the human race. Her kind gentle little Max, who nursed birds back to health...fixed their broken wings. She'd seen it when he'd talked about the man...told about him taunting Liz Parker. She'd seen the look in his eyes....the alien look....the yellow glow deep within those amber eyes. She kept reading..searching for any clue. The life of Liz Parker was at stake...and the soul of her son as well.
Isabel reread the last pages for the third time. There was nothing there...nothing that could help. Her heart was breaking as she looked at her brother. 'I'm so sorry,Max,' she thought. 'I'd give my life to bring her back...'
Philip was good at research on cases...it was what he did. But he'd tried every possible combination and permutation of possible search terms about the case of Jenny Langley, once an eighteen year old honor student, now merely a series of citations in Lexis-Nexis, a few old archived newspaper articles on the web, and a gravestone in Iowa that started, "In loving memory..." There was nothing else...the research had been exhaustive...and there was nothing there....there just wasn't enough detail.
"I'm sorry, son," he said. "That's really all there is. For more we'd have to go there...if they would release it. And of course, the police always hold back key details. But there's just so much available on the net, and I think we have it all."
"It isn't here, Dad..."
"I know that, son. I'm sorry. But in the morning I can make a call...I have a classmate from Law School in Iowa...maybe he can.."
"No Dad. We don't have time for that. Liz is going to die. I know how to get it...maybe."
"Max? What are you doing...come back son.."
He ran to the door to open it and follow him, but the handle was immobile. "I can't open it," he said. "It's jammed.."
Isabel went over to the door. "Not jammed, Daddy," she said as she put her hand on the doorknob, a yellow glow coming from her hand as she turned it, "..just fused." As the door opened the three looked out into the darkness. There was no sign of Max. They hugged one another, crying softly.....
There was paper all over the desk with key words highlighted....arrows drawn to emphasize points. Diane was reading through the reports...shuddering as she saw what the other girls had gone through...what right now Liz Parker was going through....Liz Parker...the girl her son...loved. She looked at him...seeing his worry....seeing him only just fighting back tears. He'd been her little boy for ten years but never really opened up...never really ever let anyone in..except maybe Izzy. But he was open tonight...open and vulnerable. Her son was truly human...she knew that....Liz had made him human....not just now, but ever since the third grade. She read the reports, anger and fear filling her heart. They had to find her.....find her for Max. It would destroy Max if he lost her...she realized that...even Isabel now realized that. If Max lost her...lost her like this...he'd never forgive that....never forgive the man...maybe never forgive the human race. Her kind gentle little Max, who nursed birds back to health...fixed their broken wings. She'd seen it when he'd talked about the man...told about him taunting Liz Parker. She'd seen the look in his eyes....the alien look....the yellow glow deep within those amber eyes. She kept reading..searching for any clue. The life of Liz Parker was at stake...and the soul of her son as well.
Isabel reread the last pages for the third time. There was nothing there...nothing that could help. Her heart was breaking as she looked at her brother. 'I'm so sorry,Max,' she thought. 'I'd give my life to bring her back...'
Philip was good at research on cases...it was what he did. But he'd tried every possible combination and permutation of possible search terms about the case of Jenny Langley, once an eighteen year old honor student, now merely a series of citations in Lexis-Nexis, a few old archived newspaper articles on the web, and a gravestone in Iowa that started, "In loving memory..." There was nothing else...the research had been exhaustive...and there was nothing there....there just wasn't enough detail.
"I'm sorry, son," he said. "That's really all there is. For more we'd have to go there...if they would release it. And of course, the police always hold back key details. But there's just so much available on the net, and I think we have it all."
"It isn't here, Dad..."
"I know that, son. I'm sorry. But in the morning I can make a call...I have a classmate from Law School in Iowa...maybe he can.."
"No Dad. We don't have time for that. Liz is going to die. I know how to get it...maybe."
"Max? What are you doing...come back son.."
He ran to the door to open it and follow him, but the handle was immobile. "I can't open it," he said. "It's jammed.."
Isabel went over to the door. "Not jammed, Daddy," she said as she put her hand on the doorknob, a yellow glow coming from her hand as she turned it, "..just fused." As the door opened the three looked out into the darkness. There was no sign of Max. They hugged one another, crying softly.....
11:45 PM 8 miles outside of Roswell on Silvermine Road
She had been in the box over three days with no food…no water….and very little rest. She could feel the pain in every inch of her body where it rested on the hard cold plywood. Her once silky long brown hair was long since tangled and matted together with three day old vomit. Her body ached from the back of her skull down through her neck and shoulder blades and down into her hips, themselves bathed in the remains of the urine she had passed…back when her body was still hydrated enough to make urine. Her legs were in intermittent spasm, the box not really allowing her to stretch them as her calves would spasm repeatedly. And the air…it was foul…foul from three days of being breathed over and over…the periodic blasts of oxygen only diluting the smell momentarily. It was only logical..that Liz would want to die….the only issue was how.
She fumbled in the dark for her pocket..carefully cradling the matches she found there…the matches that would, she was sure, be the cause of her death. Not the REAL cause, of course, the real cause was that she was buried seven feet under the ground with no realistic hope of ever being discovered. It was the REAL cause that made this choice necessary.
The first oxygen bottle was exhausted, and a fair fraction of the second as well. She had been periodically releasing oxygen to keep the carbon dioxide level at a level that caused only moderate discomfort. High levels of carbon dioxide were lethal, but even at low levels the muscle spasms were uncomfortable. But with every breath, she was adding more carbon dioxide to the box. Levels as low as 1% were uncomfortable, but at 10% or above…death was inevitable. The problem wasn’t really that she was running out of oxygen, by now over 90% of the air in the box was oxygen. The problem was the carbon dioxide. Most of the oxygen she’d used really wasn’t going to her breathing….you could support life with less than 10% oxygen, if the other gases weren’t toxic. But carbon dioxide was, and it would build rapidly once her last tank of oxygen was exhausted. But the question was….why should she let that happen. And Liz was asking herself that question.
‘If I were going to be found,' Liz thought, ‘..I’d have been found by now. I’m going to die…no matter what I do. At least this way…I’d get it over with quickly,’ she thought as she nervously fingered the matches. And that was true certainly…it wouldn’t be painless…but it would be quick…in a 90% oxygen atmosphere, even flesh itself would burn…at least until all the oxygen were used up..and by then Liz Parker would be long past knowing or caring…
The other alternative that came to mind, was to continue doing what she was doing…using the remaining oxygen to dilute out the rising carbon dioxide…it might last another day…perhaps. ‘But to what end?”'she asked herself. She hurt all over…she was frightened….there was no hope. It wasn’t like she was doing anything but prolonging the inevitable…..clutching desperately to a life that she could only lose when the oxygen ran out. That would force her hand…when the oxygen ran out. Then she would have to use the matches…use them while she still could…before the disorientation and panic got so bad that she would be unable to light the matches…condemning her last few hours to even greater misery.
But that didn’t appeal to Liz Parker…she’d had enough. She had always been claustrophobic…now, with carbon dioxide levels already near 1%, her terror was near complete. ‘How much easier,’ she thought, as she fingered the matchbook, ‘..just to strike one little match.’
Liz had believed that Max in her dream was her subconscious, and she had been wrong. But Liz did have a subconscious…or a conscience…or a side of her that looked at life from an emotional rather than a rational aspect. Whatever you chose to call it,…it was warring now with Liz’s rational side.
‘Max is working to save you, Liz,’ it said.
“That was only a dream…only my subconscious…my wishful thinking….it’s better this way,” she said aloud, her voice hoarse and lips parched.
‘Give him a chance…there’s no way he could find you this quickly…’
“He can’t find me at all…he was never really there…it was only a dream,” she screamed, surprised that she still had moisture enough for a few tears.
‘You promised him you would wait…’
“I promised no one…it wasn’t real…it was a dream…..Max…an alien? That’s insane….insane as me expecting he’d care for me.”
‘You told him he should have given you a choice...a chance…what choice are you giving him now?’
“He had his choice…he had his chance…for three years…”
‘He had his reason, Liz. Would you have accepted him?..knowing what he was??? What were YOUR reasons for not going to him…asking him….telling him YOU cared?’
Liz didn’t know…maybe she would never know. Had been being the perfect Miss Parker so important that she couldn’t just sit down and talk with him…just once…in three years? But …an alien….he wasn’t alien..he was Max…the Max she’d loved since the fourth grade. But in the end, it really didn’t matter, because she could feel the walls closing in around her…feel the pain….feel the terror….
“Even if I thought Max was here….would save me…I can’t do it. I can’t endure another day in this box…death is better,” she screamed at the walls.
She folded the cover back from the matchbook and ripped two matches from the book, and turned it to find the striking surface on the back. Just one flick of her wrist….and all the fear would be gone….erased in a blaze of heat. She could visualize the heat…visualize the pain…but even so, she didn’t fear it. Instead she welcomed it…like her salvation.
The wrist had almost started to move when the voice was back in her mind…and what it said wrenched at her soul.
‘What about Max, Liz? You say you love him…what about Max? You criticized him for not trusting you….not telling you about being an alien. You laid there beside him, still flush from the passion he shared with you…still sweating from your lovemaking….and you told him he should have trusted you. Where is your trust in him?’
“It’s not the same,” she screamed, “..he wasn’t real…it was all a dream.”
‘But what if it wasn’t,’ the voice asked her. ‘What if after all those years he reached out…and trusted you…and you betrayed him?’
“You expect me to endure another day of this…for a dream? For something that doesn’t have a chance in a million of being real?”
‘But what if it is, Liz. Would you do that to him?...to Max?’
Liz had been so logical..for so long when it came to Max. She’d once asked Grandma Claudia about what to do and was told, ‘trust in your heart,’ She hadn’t done it, of course, it hadn’t been..logical.
She knew it was stupid….worse…she knew if she made the decision…her death would likely be even worse. Because the real answer, if she wanted to endure the longest, was to let the carbon dioxide build up..let it build to 5 or 6%...to endure the agony of that to stretch her life….or her death….an additional half day.
Logically, of course, it would make no sense. To choose to live most of the rest of her life in pain and agony…prolonging it as long as possible…in the impossible hope that her would-be boyfriend was not just an alien….but one who could find her with almost no information.
It wasn’t logical…not logical at all, and Liz Parker could never make that choice even to save her own life. But she could make it….not for her…but for Max…. For Max she would listen to her heart, and endure the agony….so when she was found…he’d know she’d tried her best to keep her word to him.
The matches were tossed down between her legs where the small puddle of urine would wet them so she couldn’t light them when the hysteria came. The valve of the oxygen tank was barely cracked, and she put her nose against the gentle hiss as she tossed the valve handle down toward her feet…as far away as if it were on the moon, since she couldn’t retrieve it there.
She waited in the cold and the dark of the stinking box for the terrors to come…the convulsions…not really knowing if Max was really her alien lover….but unwilling to disappoint him if he was. No, she could never endure this for Liz Parker, only for Max….
She had been in the box over three days with no food…no water….and very little rest. She could feel the pain in every inch of her body where it rested on the hard cold plywood. Her once silky long brown hair was long since tangled and matted together with three day old vomit. Her body ached from the back of her skull down through her neck and shoulder blades and down into her hips, themselves bathed in the remains of the urine she had passed…back when her body was still hydrated enough to make urine. Her legs were in intermittent spasm, the box not really allowing her to stretch them as her calves would spasm repeatedly. And the air…it was foul…foul from three days of being breathed over and over…the periodic blasts of oxygen only diluting the smell momentarily. It was only logical..that Liz would want to die….the only issue was how.
She fumbled in the dark for her pocket..carefully cradling the matches she found there…the matches that would, she was sure, be the cause of her death. Not the REAL cause, of course, the real cause was that she was buried seven feet under the ground with no realistic hope of ever being discovered. It was the REAL cause that made this choice necessary.
The first oxygen bottle was exhausted, and a fair fraction of the second as well. She had been periodically releasing oxygen to keep the carbon dioxide level at a level that caused only moderate discomfort. High levels of carbon dioxide were lethal, but even at low levels the muscle spasms were uncomfortable. But with every breath, she was adding more carbon dioxide to the box. Levels as low as 1% were uncomfortable, but at 10% or above…death was inevitable. The problem wasn’t really that she was running out of oxygen, by now over 90% of the air in the box was oxygen. The problem was the carbon dioxide. Most of the oxygen she’d used really wasn’t going to her breathing….you could support life with less than 10% oxygen, if the other gases weren’t toxic. But carbon dioxide was, and it would build rapidly once her last tank of oxygen was exhausted. But the question was….why should she let that happen. And Liz was asking herself that question.
‘If I were going to be found,' Liz thought, ‘..I’d have been found by now. I’m going to die…no matter what I do. At least this way…I’d get it over with quickly,’ she thought as she nervously fingered the matches. And that was true certainly…it wouldn’t be painless…but it would be quick…in a 90% oxygen atmosphere, even flesh itself would burn…at least until all the oxygen were used up..and by then Liz Parker would be long past knowing or caring…
The other alternative that came to mind, was to continue doing what she was doing…using the remaining oxygen to dilute out the rising carbon dioxide…it might last another day…perhaps. ‘But to what end?”'she asked herself. She hurt all over…she was frightened….there was no hope. It wasn’t like she was doing anything but prolonging the inevitable…..clutching desperately to a life that she could only lose when the oxygen ran out. That would force her hand…when the oxygen ran out. Then she would have to use the matches…use them while she still could…before the disorientation and panic got so bad that she would be unable to light the matches…condemning her last few hours to even greater misery.
But that didn’t appeal to Liz Parker…she’d had enough. She had always been claustrophobic…now, with carbon dioxide levels already near 1%, her terror was near complete. ‘How much easier,’ she thought, as she fingered the matchbook, ‘..just to strike one little match.’
Liz had believed that Max in her dream was her subconscious, and she had been wrong. But Liz did have a subconscious…or a conscience…or a side of her that looked at life from an emotional rather than a rational aspect. Whatever you chose to call it,…it was warring now with Liz’s rational side.
‘Max is working to save you, Liz,’ it said.
“That was only a dream…only my subconscious…my wishful thinking….it’s better this way,” she said aloud, her voice hoarse and lips parched.
‘Give him a chance…there’s no way he could find you this quickly…’
“He can’t find me at all…he was never really there…it was only a dream,” she screamed, surprised that she still had moisture enough for a few tears.
‘You promised him you would wait…’
“I promised no one…it wasn’t real…it was a dream…..Max…an alien? That’s insane….insane as me expecting he’d care for me.”
‘You told him he should have given you a choice...a chance…what choice are you giving him now?’
“He had his choice…he had his chance…for three years…”
‘He had his reason, Liz. Would you have accepted him?..knowing what he was??? What were YOUR reasons for not going to him…asking him….telling him YOU cared?’
Liz didn’t know…maybe she would never know. Had been being the perfect Miss Parker so important that she couldn’t just sit down and talk with him…just once…in three years? But …an alien….he wasn’t alien..he was Max…the Max she’d loved since the fourth grade. But in the end, it really didn’t matter, because she could feel the walls closing in around her…feel the pain….feel the terror….
“Even if I thought Max was here….would save me…I can’t do it. I can’t endure another day in this box…death is better,” she screamed at the walls.
She folded the cover back from the matchbook and ripped two matches from the book, and turned it to find the striking surface on the back. Just one flick of her wrist….and all the fear would be gone….erased in a blaze of heat. She could visualize the heat…visualize the pain…but even so, she didn’t fear it. Instead she welcomed it…like her salvation.
The wrist had almost started to move when the voice was back in her mind…and what it said wrenched at her soul.
‘What about Max, Liz? You say you love him…what about Max? You criticized him for not trusting you….not telling you about being an alien. You laid there beside him, still flush from the passion he shared with you…still sweating from your lovemaking….and you told him he should have trusted you. Where is your trust in him?’
“It’s not the same,” she screamed, “..he wasn’t real…it was all a dream.”
‘But what if it wasn’t,’ the voice asked her. ‘What if after all those years he reached out…and trusted you…and you betrayed him?’
“You expect me to endure another day of this…for a dream? For something that doesn’t have a chance in a million of being real?”
‘But what if it is, Liz. Would you do that to him?...to Max?’
Liz had been so logical..for so long when it came to Max. She’d once asked Grandma Claudia about what to do and was told, ‘trust in your heart,’ She hadn’t done it, of course, it hadn’t been..logical.
She knew it was stupid….worse…she knew if she made the decision…her death would likely be even worse. Because the real answer, if she wanted to endure the longest, was to let the carbon dioxide build up..let it build to 5 or 6%...to endure the agony of that to stretch her life….or her death….an additional half day.
Logically, of course, it would make no sense. To choose to live most of the rest of her life in pain and agony…prolonging it as long as possible…in the impossible hope that her would-be boyfriend was not just an alien….but one who could find her with almost no information.
It wasn’t logical…not logical at all, and Liz Parker could never make that choice even to save her own life. But she could make it….not for her…but for Max…. For Max she would listen to her heart, and endure the agony….so when she was found…he’d know she’d tried her best to keep her word to him.
The matches were tossed down between her legs where the small puddle of urine would wet them so she couldn’t light them when the hysteria came. The valve of the oxygen tank was barely cracked, and she put her nose against the gentle hiss as she tossed the valve handle down toward her feet…as far away as if it were on the moon, since she couldn’t retrieve it there.
She waited in the cold and the dark of the stinking box for the terrors to come…the convulsions…not really knowing if Max was really her alien lover….but unwilling to disappoint him if he was. No, she could never endure this for Liz Parker, only for Max….
2:00 AM The Embassy Suites, Roswell New Mexico
Sandra Fowler was third generation law enforcement. She was one of the new breed, that enforced the law through modern techniques and training. Although she had a .40 caliber service automatic, she’d never drawn it in the line of duty. She’d take it out a week or two before her quarterly qualification test, fire a few rounds to be sure she’d qualify, then put it away for another three months. Her main instrument for her work was her mind, and the understanding of the psychology of criminals that profilers come to know so well.
Her service automatic was also new age, a modern weapon with a 15 round magazine and the ability to knock a man down with a single round…even against light body armor. This was a far cry from the old 38 caliber revolvers that had been the stalwarts of her father’s time. Of course, iher service automatic was in the portable gun safe in her closet.
The little five shot revolver under her pillow went farther back than even a .38 revolver. It fired a .32 S&W cartridge, an obsolete round with only a fifth the energy of her service .40 S&W. The little revolver was a notoriously unreliable manstopper, and no police department today would even issue it. But it had been her grandfather’s backup gun and he had given it to her when she’d graduated from the police academy, shortly before his death.
Sandra had fired the little gun only once….a decade ago..the ammo was rather hard to come by. The five rounds in it had come with the gun, the brass turning green in places over the decades, and the chrome of the gun itself starting to peel in spots. Sandra used it as a backup gun to a service automatic she never figured to use anyway.
Only here did the little gun truly have a purpose. Profilers spend a lot of time on the road, often to unpleasant places. In fact, the Embassy Suites in Roswell was a modern hotel, with good security, in an area of low crime. When Sandra had put the little gun under her pillow, it had been a matter of habit….a habit formed during her years of staying in hotels throughout the state …. because not all hotels were as safe as this one.
She had always been a light sleeper. The creak from the chair had awakened Sandra. The hotel was almost new, and the single fault she’d found with it was the desk chair…a chair that creaked with even her modest weight. But chairs didn’t creak by themselves, and Sandra’s hand moved slowly under her pillow as her ears heard the noise come a second time, her fear only slightly comforted by the little handgun she found there.
There was little light, just what came over the top of the curtains from the streetlights outside. She turned her eyes slowly…her head more slowly still…and at last she could see the chair. He was sitting quietly…unmoving, but he was staring at her. Sandra moved slowly, as if turning in her sleep, bringing the gun under the covers where they were tented up…aiming it at him through the bedclothes.
Sandra hoped he would just go away…take whatever he wanted and go. She didn’t want a confrontation…didn’t want to test the puny stopping power of the little revolver or the ancient ammunition. She would fight if she had to…to protect herself…to protect her service automatic…but if he kept his distance…if he just took her purse and left…then a phone call would bring the guys who dealt with this on a daily basis.
The voice was soft…but it still startled her…..
“I need to talk to you..”
“Max Evans..?”
She aimed the small revolver squarely at his center of mass…or as nearly as she could tell, without being able to use the sight. He reached slowly to the small desk lamp, and turned it on. Her fear grew when she saw his face.. he looked stressed…like he hadn’t slept…like he’d had far too much coffee, or too many drugs. In the shadows cast by the small desk lamp…the contrast of light and dark…he almost didn’t look human.
Sandra knew she’d locked the door…the windows…she always did. It was her routine. She looked at the telephone beside him…her cell phone even farther away….the fire alarm. She remembered when he’d attacked the sheriff…he’d moved with cat-like quickness. If he intended to do her harm…and why else would he be here…why else would he have broken into her room at two in the morning…he had every advantage…every advantage but the one little revolver he didn’t know about.
The boy had fooled her…she realized that as she saw him sitting there studying her. She’d been ready to believe him…ready to believe he had nothing to do with Liz Parker’s disappearance. All her experience as a profiler had told her that…but then..did innocent men break in to rooms at 2 AM? He was frightened…or excited. He was breathing heavily….hands shaking. Was this how it had been, just before he had attacked the girl?
“I need to talk to you,” he said again.
‘Talk? At 2 AM he wanted to talk? He broke into my room…to talk? I don’t think so,’ she thought as she pointed the little revolver at him through the bedding…feeling her hand shake unsteadily from the fear. She didn’t see or smell the ether…but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there…or would he even bother with a copycat crime this time…did he even need that?
She could feel the sweat start to form in her palms…and tightened her grip on the small revolver. It was double-action…the pull on the trigger would draw the hammer backwards and like many older pistols, the pull got just slightly greater before the sear released….she was slowly squeezing already..trying to find that spot.
“I need your help, doctor. Liz needs your help..”
The thought went through her mind as she felt the trigger come toward the end of the sear…what her father had said to her when her grandfather had given her the gun. ‘It’s an antique. It really doesn’t have much punch. Don’t ever depend on it to stop anyone.’ And that was true she knew….and Max Edwards was a strong young man…she’d seen that. Even wounded by the little .32 caliber he could likely finish off a middle aged lady who was, after all, mainly a psychologist. Her brain was probably a better weapon….she’d been studying psychology for decades, both normal and abnormal, and however abnormal this boys psychology was…he was still only human.
“You shouldn’t be here, Max. You should come to the office in the morning….I can help you then.”
“I can’t wait…I can’t sleep…knowing that she is dying there in that damned box….knowing what she’s going through. She’s been in there three days….she was always afraid of tight places….even when we played hide and seek in the third grade. She has matches…did you know that? Like that first girl in Iowa…..She’s thinking about using them…burning herself up..”
The boy was shaking…whether it was anger…fright….anticipation…she couldn’t tell. But she had to calm him down, because as he got worked up…he came closer to her…one hand already closed in a fist…the other seeming to appeal to her. And the rest of his body language told her much the same….he feared her…but he needed her….was that how it was with him and the girl?
“OK, Max. Just go back to the chair and sit down. We can talk…you say you want my help…that Liz needs my help? How can I help you, Max. How can I help Liz?”
But the boy didn’t go back..he stood there…took a step closer…and the brown eyes looked down at her….they seemed to beg her…appeal to her…
“I need the records from the first case…from Iowa….the secret is in there…..he hated her…hated that girl….that’s how it all got started…”
Was the boy irrational? He’d already been told that case was investigated. Lieutenant Humboldt himself had gone back there……the box had been different, the whole MO had been different….that girl had intentionally been burned to death before being buried….it was all in Humboldt's report.
Or was the boy just looking for an alibi? Maybe the Sheriff had rattled him…maybe he needed to blame it on whoever had done the Iowa crime…eight years ago. If people believed that Liz’s abduction was committed by someone who had done the same eighteen years ago…when Max was only eight…he’d be off the hook. But that really didn’t make that much sense….it didn’t have to be that one…if it had been five years ago…or even three…Max would have been too young to drive…too young to commit those crimes. He would still have an alibi…but yet he spoke of the girl as if he knew…knew for sure she had the matches.
Suddenly it all crystallized for Sandra Fowler. Perhaps Max was totally irrational…..and very likely the person who had kidnapped the Parker girl, or he was almost certainly guilty of the kidnapping…and now trying to cover it up. Maybe he had given her some matches when he put her in a box….hoping she would set herself on fire to make it seem like the Iowa case…or more likely he actually did believe the three cases were somehow interlinked since he didn’t have Humboldt’s report.
It must have seemed so easy to him…make this appear to be a fourth case…make sure the young girl was burned to death so there was no chance of her identifying him…but the Sheriff’s tactics, illegal though they were, had shaken him. Maybe that was good news for justice, Sandra decided, but it put her at risk.
Sandra Fowler was scared, but she was a trained psychologist. The fact the boy was here now…here trying to talk to her…was evidence enough that if she pretended to listen to him…no….pretended to agree with him….he might back off and leave. And if he did that, a quick telephone call and the Sheriff’s department could get him.
She had years of training at this…she was almost sure she could do it. And that was a much better option than depending on the meager stopping power of the .32 and its questionable ammunition. Still keeping the gun pointed at him under the covers, Sandra Fowler began to lie like her life depended on it….because she figured it probably did.
“You know, Max,…I trusted you…trusted you from the very beginning. I thought what the Sheriff was doing was wrong….I told him that. But you need to tell me exactly what you need…exactly what I can do to help you with this.”
“She was an honor student….somehow he hated her for that. He was mad at her…that’s why he did it…the first abduction….that was the important one. Liz…Liz was just random….he didn’t even know her. He was a big man…he taunted her….said he was doing this to her…just because he could. I need for you to get the records from the first case…have them sent to you….the other officer…he must have missed something…something will be in the records…there has to be…something that will save Liz.”
It was strange…a trick of light most likely, but when Max had talked about the abductor …it had almost seemed like his brown eyes had glowed with some sort of inner yellow fire…or maybe, Sandra decided, it was just her imagination.
The boy seemed incredibly agitated…struggling to control his emotions…even to talk. The fury when he’d talked about the abductor had almost seemed inhuman, and it had frightened Sandra even more.
“I’ll do that, Max,’” she lied. "I’ll go in as soon as you leave….make the call…get them to fax that case file right here to the Sheriff’s Office. We can go over it together if you’d like…maybe the Sheriff and Lieutenant Humboldt if you’d like….just to make sure we don’t miss anything.”
She watched him nod his head.
“Yes…yes, that would be good….How quick can you do that? Do you need a ride to the Sheriff’s Office?” he asked, taking two steps forward.
Sandra started to pull the trigger as he came closer…feeling the sear start to resist…praying that he’d go back…or that the little revolver would be enough.
“No, Max…I can’t go in like this…I have to get dressed….the Sheriff’s office has rules and I can’t go in dressed in a night gown. But I have a rental car. You go…let me get dressed. We can meet at the Sheriff’s office at 9 AM. It will take them that long to pull the files and fax them here…we won’t have anything before that. You go ahead and go…I’ll get up and get dressed. Max…it’ll be OK…you can trust me.”
He looked disappointed but nodded his head…taking a step back toward the door. Sandra started to breath again…all she had to do was wait until the boy was outside…put the security lock back into place…grab a telephone and call 911 while she was getting her service automatic out of the gun safe, and she’d be safe from Max Evans…Max Evans the stalker…abductor and likely killer of Liz Parker.
As he retreated another step toward the door, she breathed easier at last….but the breath stopped as the boy turned and stared at her.
As he walked up to the foot of the bed she could barely keep the little revolver from shaking with fear. She squeezed again on the trigger…feeling the sear tighten once more…hoping that the gun was aimed at his heart, knowing that anywhere else, the small slug probably would not stop him…..
“Thank you for trusting me,” he said. His brown eyes looked down at her..filled with tears. “I’ve never been good at trusting people…someone I care for told me that only a few hours ago….I never really trusted you….and I’m sorry for that. I’ll see you at nine. Thank you, Doctor Fowler.”
He held his fist out and opened it, the contents falling unnoticed on the blanket between her legs as her eyes never moved from his, her grip never easing on the little gun. She didn’t look down…not even after he had gone, until she’d locked the door, gotten her service automatic from the closet, and grabbed her cell phone…her eyes still on the door.
‘Thank you grandpa,’ she thought as she put the revolver down on the blanket…..only then did she see them…laying on the blanket…shining up at her.
They looked new…or at least polished brightly. Her hands were shaking as she broke open the little revolver…saw the empty chambers…and looked back toward the door. One by one she put the shiny cartridges back in the little revolver…
Her hands still shaking, she got out her address book and looked up the telephone number.
“Iowa State Police? This is Dr. Sandra Fowler, I’m a profiler with the New Mexico State Police. I really need for you to fax a case file to me at the Roswell New Mexico Sheriff’s Office. Let me give you their fax number…”
6:30 AM The Embassy Suites, Roswell New Mexico
Ringgg Ringgg
"Lieutenant Humboldt."
"Bob...this is Sandra. I'm not going to ride in to the office with you tody, I'll take my own rental car."
"What's the matter, sleeping in?"
"NO, ...although I ought to...I was up half the night. I'm going in early, actually. I had a visitor last night.....Max Evans."
"The kid? Damn Sandra, you need to be careful interviewing him...his dad was big time pissed, I'm surprised the Sheriff got off as easy as he did."
"I didn't exactly interview him, Bob. He came to see me...at 2AM."
"And you let him in?"
"He let himself in, actually..I have no idea how. I woke up and he was sitting at the desk looking at me. It freaked me out...he looked......I don't know, frightened...angry....I thought at first he was going to kill me."
"Did he threaten you? Did he hurt you at all?"
"No...I felt threatened...but he didn't want to hurt me...he could have, could have quite easily I guess. He just wanted a favor."
"A favor?"
"Yeah, he's absolutely convinced that the abduction of the girl was done by the same guy that did the Iowa burning murder. He claims the guy hated her because she was an honor student or something. The kid was pretty shook up...just shaking with emotion. I decided to play along with him...just humor him, until we could have him picked up...maybe get a psych eval on him...but the damnedest thing happened....anyway, I'm going to meet him at the office at 9AM. I'm going in early...the Iowa Police are going to fax me the case file...I said I'd look it over and talk to him about it at 9."
"You know, I've got part of that right here with me. I brought the file along...well, nothing they might have found in the last two years, but pretty much all the rest. Why don't I drop by and pick you up in ten minutes...then we can both review it together. Maybe we can find something that'll help the kid find his girl."
"That'd be great. See you in ten minutes..."
6:30 AM The Evans Residence, Roswell New Mexico
She'd found him there, pouring over the records time and time again. She'd never seen him so upset...never seen him hurting so bad. He was shaking with fear...with anger....
"Max, You've got to calm down..."
"Izzy?"
"Max, you've got to calm down...you aren't any good to yourself...any good to her, acting like this."
"She's depending on me, Izzy. And I don't know where to go from here...I have no idea. I went to that profiler...she's going to get the records...but not until 9 o'clock. She's got matches, Izzy...and she's so afraid,,"
She lifted his head and looked in to his eyes. "You've got to calm down, Max," she said. The flashes hit then...a little girl in the schoolyard looking at him.....Liz in a lab jacket and safety goggles, working with a Bunsen burner, Liz in a black lace bustier, reaching out to him with lust in her eyes...
'Damn!,' Isabel thought, '...he loves her so much...why did I have to keep them apart?'
"I'll help you, Max. I'll go with you to that meeting. I'll do anything...anything I can to help you get her back."
Isabel clung to him, feeling the sobs, feeling the shaking. She prayed that this would somehow work out....but whatever happened...the guy who did this to her brother wasn't going to walk away...of that Isabel was sure.
"It'll be OK, Max," she said, although even to herself it seemed her voice had no conviction. "Somehow it'll all be OK."
Ringgg Ringgg
"Lieutenant Humboldt."
"Bob...this is Sandra. I'm not going to ride in to the office with you tody, I'll take my own rental car."
"What's the matter, sleeping in?"
"NO, ...although I ought to...I was up half the night. I'm going in early, actually. I had a visitor last night.....Max Evans."
"The kid? Damn Sandra, you need to be careful interviewing him...his dad was big time pissed, I'm surprised the Sheriff got off as easy as he did."
"I didn't exactly interview him, Bob. He came to see me...at 2AM."
"And you let him in?"
"He let himself in, actually..I have no idea how. I woke up and he was sitting at the desk looking at me. It freaked me out...he looked......I don't know, frightened...angry....I thought at first he was going to kill me."
"Did he threaten you? Did he hurt you at all?"
"No...I felt threatened...but he didn't want to hurt me...he could have, could have quite easily I guess. He just wanted a favor."
"A favor?"
"Yeah, he's absolutely convinced that the abduction of the girl was done by the same guy that did the Iowa burning murder. He claims the guy hated her because she was an honor student or something. The kid was pretty shook up...just shaking with emotion. I decided to play along with him...just humor him, until we could have him picked up...maybe get a psych eval on him...but the damnedest thing happened....anyway, I'm going to meet him at the office at 9AM. I'm going in early...the Iowa Police are going to fax me the case file...I said I'd look it over and talk to him about it at 9."
"You know, I've got part of that right here with me. I brought the file along...well, nothing they might have found in the last two years, but pretty much all the rest. Why don't I drop by and pick you up in ten minutes...then we can both review it together. Maybe we can find something that'll help the kid find his girl."
"That'd be great. See you in ten minutes..."
6:30 AM The Evans Residence, Roswell New Mexico
She'd found him there, pouring over the records time and time again. She'd never seen him so upset...never seen him hurting so bad. He was shaking with fear...with anger....
"Max, You've got to calm down..."
"Izzy?"
"Max, you've got to calm down...you aren't any good to yourself...any good to her, acting like this."
"She's depending on me, Izzy. And I don't know where to go from here...I have no idea. I went to that profiler...she's going to get the records...but not until 9 o'clock. She's got matches, Izzy...and she's so afraid,,"
She lifted his head and looked in to his eyes. "You've got to calm down, Max," she said. The flashes hit then...a little girl in the schoolyard looking at him.....Liz in a lab jacket and safety goggles, working with a Bunsen burner, Liz in a black lace bustier, reaching out to him with lust in her eyes...
'Damn!,' Isabel thought, '...he loves her so much...why did I have to keep them apart?'
"I'll help you, Max. I'll go with you to that meeting. I'll do anything...anything I can to help you get her back."
Isabel clung to him, feeling the sobs, feeling the shaking. She prayed that this would somehow work out....but whatever happened...the guy who did this to her brother wasn't going to walk away...of that Isabel was sure.
"It'll be OK, Max," she said, although even to herself it seemed her voice had no conviction. "Somehow it'll all be OK."
6:45 AM 8 miles outside of Roswell on Silvermine Road
In the box, the air had about 90% Oxygen….but five percent carbon dioxide.
A lot of people believe that you can only hold your breath for a few minutes because you run out of oxygen. That is rarely the case. Oh, there are a few hardy Pearl Divers and other free divers who have trained themselves to ignore the carbon dioxide buildup…but they are the exception. For most of us, the air we breath has roughly 20% oxygen when it goes in and roughly 19% when we exhale. Only about 1% of the exhaled air is normally carbon dioxide….but that’s normally…when you are breathing in air that has very little carbon dioxide in it. But when you breath air over and over, the carbon dioxide builds up, and that was what had happened in the wooden box. You get air hunger when the air in your lungs is over 2% carbon dioxide…that takes about 90 seconds of holding your breath. But when the air you are breathing is ALREADY 5% carbon dioxide, the air in your lungs is over six percent…your body is struggling…breathing just as fast as it possibly can, but since the air it’s taking in already has high carbon dioxide, it isn’t getting anywhere…in fact, the extra effort burns more energy…energy the body gets by burning sugar and fat and protein…to make more carbon dioxide.
Carbon dioxide does something else to the body as well. Most of the carbon dioxide is not carried as dissolved gas, if it was your blood would bubble like soda pop. Instead the carbon dioxide combines with the water of the body to form carbonic acid. Normally the body acid-base balance, the pH, is about 7.42. But with high carbonic acid the pH goes down…down below 7. That doesn’t sound like much until you’ve seen the effects…the enzymes that no longer work…the cerebral edema…..the grand mal seizures…like Liz was having now.
Other than the pain and the bruises she was getting from her limbs flailing against the plywood…and the odd biting of her tongue, the seizures weren’t all that bad. They’d only come every half hour or so…and each would be accompanied by five minutes or so of unconsciousness and confusion, the so-called post-ictal state.
The reason that wasn’t so bad was that it gave Liz a brief respite from the air hunger that tormented her with every breath…the feeling of impending suffocation…like drowning….and of course..the claustrophobia as the walls seemed to close in.
Perhaps at this point, if she would have really considered it, Liz might well have regretted her decision to ruin the matches….to toss away the valve lever that might have bought her ten or twenty blessed minutes of freedom from the carbon dioxide….but she didn’t consider it. She hadn’t considered it at all.
It had been hours since she really had the physical or emotional capacity for rational thought…all she could do now was suffer…and she was doing a lot of that.
6:45 AM The Embassy Suites, Roswell New Mexico
“I tell you, Bob, it was the damndest thing. I am probably the lightest sleeper I know….I hear the chair creak and wake up…and there he is. I was frightened out of my mind, grab my backup gun from under the pillow, just waiting for him to finish me off…and then he tells me this story about some big guy having it in for the girl in Iowa, something about her being smart..an honor student. He asks me….begs me to get the records from Iowa….I tell him I will, hell, I’d have told him I’d have gotten the crown jewels to get him to leave…and then he starts to go but turns…turns and comes back to me…I figured it was over…he was going to attack…but then he drops something on my legs and apologizes to me…apologizes to me for not trusting me more.”
“That is bizarre. So when are the records going to be faxed?”
“Oh, I told him to meet me at the office at nine o’clock, but Bob…you haven’t heard the bizarre part yet….when he goes, I lock the door, get my service automatic…then look down at what he dropped on the bedspread….it was the rounds from my backup gun, Bob. Somehow he got in to a locked room, found the revolver, took the bullets out, then left it there. All this time I’m pointing an unloaded gun at him…not trusting him…..and he apologizes to me for not trusting him. Bob, he could have had me any time he wanted to…before I even woke up.”
“Well, that really doesn’t prove anything about the Parker girl though….He might have just been trying to get you to trust him…just so you’d be less likely to suspect him.”
“Well, that could be I guess, but I don’t think so. Bob, this kid is hurting bad over that girl. He acted like he’d die for her…kill for her, if it would save her. He may be faking it I suppose, but I don’t think so. Maybe those Iowa records will show us something…do you have your copies?”
“Yeah, in the briefcase. We’ll look them over at the office…get your coat.”
When she turned to get her coat Sandra felt it happen. The first thought that came into her mind was Lateral Vascular Neck
Restraint…a take down and choke hold learned in the academy. As she felt her carotids compressed she knew she had only seconds of consciousness…knew she wasn’t going to be able to break the hold…not against someone twice her weight….she had time only for one quick thought…. ‘Max Evans isn’t the one….Bob is…..’...then unconsciousness overtoook her.
In the box, the air had about 90% Oxygen….but five percent carbon dioxide.
A lot of people believe that you can only hold your breath for a few minutes because you run out of oxygen. That is rarely the case. Oh, there are a few hardy Pearl Divers and other free divers who have trained themselves to ignore the carbon dioxide buildup…but they are the exception. For most of us, the air we breath has roughly 20% oxygen when it goes in and roughly 19% when we exhale. Only about 1% of the exhaled air is normally carbon dioxide….but that’s normally…when you are breathing in air that has very little carbon dioxide in it. But when you breath air over and over, the carbon dioxide builds up, and that was what had happened in the wooden box. You get air hunger when the air in your lungs is over 2% carbon dioxide…that takes about 90 seconds of holding your breath. But when the air you are breathing is ALREADY 5% carbon dioxide, the air in your lungs is over six percent…your body is struggling…breathing just as fast as it possibly can, but since the air it’s taking in already has high carbon dioxide, it isn’t getting anywhere…in fact, the extra effort burns more energy…energy the body gets by burning sugar and fat and protein…to make more carbon dioxide.
Carbon dioxide does something else to the body as well. Most of the carbon dioxide is not carried as dissolved gas, if it was your blood would bubble like soda pop. Instead the carbon dioxide combines with the water of the body to form carbonic acid. Normally the body acid-base balance, the pH, is about 7.42. But with high carbonic acid the pH goes down…down below 7. That doesn’t sound like much until you’ve seen the effects…the enzymes that no longer work…the cerebral edema…..the grand mal seizures…like Liz was having now.
Other than the pain and the bruises she was getting from her limbs flailing against the plywood…and the odd biting of her tongue, the seizures weren’t all that bad. They’d only come every half hour or so…and each would be accompanied by five minutes or so of unconsciousness and confusion, the so-called post-ictal state.
The reason that wasn’t so bad was that it gave Liz a brief respite from the air hunger that tormented her with every breath…the feeling of impending suffocation…like drowning….and of course..the claustrophobia as the walls seemed to close in.
Perhaps at this point, if she would have really considered it, Liz might well have regretted her decision to ruin the matches….to toss away the valve lever that might have bought her ten or twenty blessed minutes of freedom from the carbon dioxide….but she didn’t consider it. She hadn’t considered it at all.
It had been hours since she really had the physical or emotional capacity for rational thought…all she could do now was suffer…and she was doing a lot of that.
6:45 AM The Embassy Suites, Roswell New Mexico
“I tell you, Bob, it was the damndest thing. I am probably the lightest sleeper I know….I hear the chair creak and wake up…and there he is. I was frightened out of my mind, grab my backup gun from under the pillow, just waiting for him to finish me off…and then he tells me this story about some big guy having it in for the girl in Iowa, something about her being smart..an honor student. He asks me….begs me to get the records from Iowa….I tell him I will, hell, I’d have told him I’d have gotten the crown jewels to get him to leave…and then he starts to go but turns…turns and comes back to me…I figured it was over…he was going to attack…but then he drops something on my legs and apologizes to me…apologizes to me for not trusting me more.”
“That is bizarre. So when are the records going to be faxed?”
“Oh, I told him to meet me at the office at nine o’clock, but Bob…you haven’t heard the bizarre part yet….when he goes, I lock the door, get my service automatic…then look down at what he dropped on the bedspread….it was the rounds from my backup gun, Bob. Somehow he got in to a locked room, found the revolver, took the bullets out, then left it there. All this time I’m pointing an unloaded gun at him…not trusting him…..and he apologizes to me for not trusting him. Bob, he could have had me any time he wanted to…before I even woke up.”
“Well, that really doesn’t prove anything about the Parker girl though….He might have just been trying to get you to trust him…just so you’d be less likely to suspect him.”
“Well, that could be I guess, but I don’t think so. Bob, this kid is hurting bad over that girl. He acted like he’d die for her…kill for her, if it would save her. He may be faking it I suppose, but I don’t think so. Maybe those Iowa records will show us something…do you have your copies?”
“Yeah, in the briefcase. We’ll look them over at the office…get your coat.”
When she turned to get her coat Sandra felt it happen. The first thought that came into her mind was Lateral Vascular Neck
Restraint…a take down and choke hold learned in the academy. As she felt her carotids compressed she knew she had only seconds of consciousness…knew she wasn’t going to be able to break the hold…not against someone twice her weight….she had time only for one quick thought…. ‘Max Evans isn’t the one….Bob is…..’...then unconsciousness overtoook her.
She woke up….at first unsure of where she was….then unsure why she was still alive. The chair squeaked as her body tried to move in it. She looked down to see her arms duct taped to the arms of the chair….could feel her legs duct taped as well…and her abdomen. The duct tape around her mouth went behind her head..and no doubt had her hair enmeshed in the adhesive. That would be incredibly painful ….to pull her hair away from the tape….but by the time that was done…Sandra Fowler didn’t expect to be feeling any pain.
She saw him emerge from the closet…a smile on his face. How could she not have known? He’d bragged about his football career so often that even the office football fans were tired of hearing about it….and he’d asked to go check the Iowa case saying that he’d grown up in that area…had friends and family there. It was almost like he’d wanted to be caught…or more likely, he had wanted the excitement of taunting them in his own sick mind….of feeling superior to them that way.
That was what this was about…that was always what serial killings were about, when the killer sent letters….when the killer killed in slow and tortuous ways that drove everyone else insane. Look at this case…the Sheriff probably wasn’t a bad cop despite leaning on that kid so much…unless you are a sociopath, the helplessness of knowing that’s happening to someone…it tears at your insides. That’s why she’d let it go as far as she had. Humboldt….the bastard…probably enjoyed the whole thing, playing the professional and advising the Sheriff not to do it…even as he set up the situation that drove normal people slightly insane.
The Evans boy….she still didn’t understand him…but it was clear…it was driving him insane as well…..the pain in his eyes had been heartwrenching..but the look when he’d spoken of the man…the BIG man…and how did he know that?... Max Evans was sooner or later going to make the connection…he was as obsessed in his own way as Humboldt was. When the girl died…he’d never leave it alone…never move on…sooner or later…but would Humboldt allow that? She’d talked about Max too much….he’d go after the boy..she was almost sure of it.
She struggled to loosen her bonds…only making the chair squeak again…it wasn’t going to happen…she was held to the chair as if by a cocoon.
“I believe you are back with us,” Humboldt said. He waited, smiling, as if for an answer. “What? Our brilliant PhD profiler…is speechless? But how can that be? How could this have happened? I thought all you educated people were so goddamn BRILLIANT, how is it that you’re stuck in that chair…and I’m standing here?”
‘That’s part of it,’ Sandra thought. She knew he’d done as well on the physical testing as anyone who had ever attended the academy…but barely passed the academics. That had kept him from making Captain this year too….the knowledge portion of the test…he’d aced the practical. ‘deep-seated feelings of intellectual inadequacy….has to do these things…these horrible things..to convince himself he’s smarter than the rest of us….too stupid to realize it just means he’s crueler..’ and maybe not even that, she thought. Other people could be cruel too, if pushed. The Evans boy…the look that had frightened her…when his eyes seemed to glow with inner fury…’if looks could kill….’ Normal people could be cruel too….but not without better cause.
Max had been shaking with fear…fear for the girl…but the cold fury ..the alien look in his eyes when he’d talked about whoever did this to her…talked about…Humboldt….it was silly…he was only a kid…but he wouldn’t back down…not even against Humboldt. ‘He’s going to have to do something about Max,' she thought,’ '…even Bob will know that.’
“I suppose you are wondering why….since that’s supposed to be your job, and you FAILED it miserably, Doctor… All of you SMART people aren’t really all that bright..no matter what you think. I outsmarted you…and I’ll keep outsmarting you, once I take care of those faxes…and that kid.”
Humboldt opened the briefcase on the bed and smiled as he looked inside. “I keep souvenirs of my performances….always have. Some, like this ring, I wear openly. These…well, I have to keep these locked away.” He took out what looked like a lapel pin of some kind, and dangled it before her.
“I suppose you had one of these in High School…an honor society pin. This belonged to Jenny Langley…did you know she was my tutor? Of course, not. No one does…because I volunteered to go research the case.
I was the best high school football player ever to come out of Iowa…..our team was crap except for me, but we won the state championships….I WAS the team. I had signed to go to the University of Oklahoma….but they couldn’t give me a football scholarship because my SAT wasn’t high enough unless I completed a bunch of high school prerequisites. The coach got me signed up for the classes…talked to the teachers…told them how important it was to help the team my senior year…even hired that bitch to tutor me.
It came down to one lousy English grade and the coach got the teacher to give me a take-home final. All that bitch needed to do was to take the test for me…no one would have ever known, and I’d have been on to Oklahoma. But she wouldn’t do that…so I was ineligible…I had to waste a year at a community college where they didn’t even have a football team. But I made the bitch pay….buried her…buried her in the ground with nothing but a lighter and a candle for company.”
Sandra kept her eyes on him…unable to do anything besides sit and listen…wondering where this conversation was going…what it meant for her. Nothing good, she was sure.
“I guess she wasn’t any brighter than I was…she didn’t know the candle would burn her up either,” he laughed. “But she was the reason….and you know what? Watching all those people out looking for poor little Jenny….poor little Jenny with HER scholarship to go to Oklahoma….I showed them all who was smarter…the one that was still alive…that’s the one that was smarter. If she would have just done that test…I’d have played a couple years at Oklahoma…then turned pro…everybody would be cheering me…”
He pulled out a bracelet…looked at it and smiled. “Maggy Peterson…another bitch. She was a candy-striper in the hospital where I had the surgery on my knee. Before my knee…I was looking at millions from the NFL in a year….girls were all over me. I copped one lousy feel…and the bitch acted like I’d raped her or something….I should have, probably. But she had plenty of time to think about me…five days…before the air ran out.
They almost found her in time….what a rush. That’s when I knew I wasn’t just smarter than everyone else…I was lucky too. And it was in all the papers…everyone talking about me…more even then when I won the Fiesta bowl. So I figured, If the NFL doesn’t want me anymore…too chickenshit to take a risk on me because of my knee, I can still thrill the crowds…still get my applause…even if they don’t know it’s me.”
He dropped the bracelet back in the briefcase and smiled, lifting out a watch.
“Mary McGregor. You know, I never met her before the night I snatched her. It really didn’t matter who I snatched…she was just handy. I’d gotten passed over for promotion to Lieutenant then…anther damn test…..well, the people who passed the test weren’t as smart as I was…I knew where she was buried…even after I sent them directions…they were a week finding her. Hell, she’d have died if I sent them the second note right away. And they said I was too dumb to be a Lieutenant…I guess I showed them…..stupid assholes not only didn’t save her…but put me on the team to find out who killed her…talk about dumb….and by putting me on the team…they practically had to promote me the next time to Lieutenant.”
He reached in to the briefcase and brought out a torn piece of embroidered uniform…the name ‘Liz,’ clearly visible to Sandra.
“I was going to send this back to them with the second letter…just keep this deposit slip for a souvenir….but now it looks like I’ll have to use both of them..to frame that smart-ass kid. You know the coach at Oklahoma…he called all the plays…even he said that I wasn’t smart enough to call my own plays, and I won the Fiesta Bowl for that cocksucker….but he was wrong…that kid is going down.”
He put everything back in the briefcase and closed it, Looking at her with a smile. “And you…you aren’t any smarter than anyone else…all your degrees….they didn’t make any difference.” He opened her purse and found her keychain.
“ A fuckin’ Phi Beta Kappa key…I’ve always wanted one of these..now I have one….guess that show’s whose smarter. When we get done…the girl is going to be dead, and that boy will take the fall for her murder….and yours. And I make Captain. Not really fair, though…I won’t have any souvenir from that waitress. Well, there are other fish in the see, as they say.”
Sandra’s eyes had opened in terror when he’d said that Max was going to be blamed for her murder, and she looked around frantically for anything…anything at all that might help her.
“What’s the matter, doc? Scared of being in a box? You know, I would have…but I don’t have time to build one right now. Besides…this is a simpler way to frame the kid.”
She saw him put on the evidence gloves as he went to the backup holster on her inner thigh….watched in terror as he pulled the little .32 from it’s holster….picked up a pillow and wadded it up against her abdomen. Her ears barely heard the ‘crack’ of the little gun buried in the pillow, but she felt the bullet punch through her abdomen to bury itself in the muscles of her posterior abdomen….the shot causing a feeling like a hot poker plunged into her guts, and her face contorted in pain.
He smiled at her. “That was just to get your attention….besides, we wouldn’t want to make it too easy on you…hell, they might not try the kid as an adult if it were too easy. Then I’d have to worry about him coming after me sometime later...when he got out of juvey. But I’m too smart for that…By the time I get done….the kid might not even get to trial….that Sheriff may just do the job for me…..kid might die trying to escape, you know?”
She saw him roll the pillow up again…knew what was coming…the chair creaked weakly…whatever strength she might have had apparently left her with the bullet buried in her abdomen. She tried to struggle as he brought the pillow to her chest…placed it squarely over her sternum….when the ‘crack’ went off a second time her eyes bulged briefly…then stared blankly forward as her chin slunk against her chest.
Humboldt carefully placed the little revolver in his briefcase and went in to the bathroom, washing his hands and checking for any evidence of blood splatter than might connect him with the body. The pillow had done its job, both as a silencer and in protecting him from blood or tissue splatter. There was nothing on his clothes that would connect him with Fowler’s death, and between the gloves and hand washing, even a paraffin test wouldn’t show powder residue.
He checked at the door peephole carefully, then cautiously opened the door. There was no one in sight. He looked back at the inert form of Doctor Sandra Fowler, her chin on her chest…blood slowly expanding from the hole in the center of her chest and her abdomen, staining her dress. H took his suitcase…looked around one last time for anything that might tie him to the scene….finally, he checked again and slipped outside, pausing only to put the ‘do not disturb’ sign on the door. ‘Well doctor,’ he thought as he went down the stairwell to his rental car, ‘..I guess you weren’t so damned smart after all….’
She waited twenty seconds after the door had closed before she even blinked..her first breath was agony…her sternum shattered and the pain growing in her belly. ‘Dad was right…it wasn’t much of a manstopper…woman stopper either.' She knew that wasn’t quite fair…the ammunition was thirty years old..the primers grown weak…and the foam rubber pillow had absorbed considerable energy from the round.
The little .32 did have pretty terrible ballistics, no more power than a .22 long rifle, but with twice the cross sectional area, the pillow had taken enough energy that it couldn’t penetrate bone…especially the sternum, surrounded on all sides by cartilage from the ribs…it had given enough to absorb the impact with only an inch of penetration…plenty to shatter the sternum..but the heart underneath had been spared.
Not so the abdomen…the slug had gone through in the midline…probably penetrated the intestine in several areas before embedding itself in the muscles of the back of her abdomen. That one wasn’t bleeding as much as the sternum, but she knew that was deceiving. She was likely bleeding internally…and would likely have peritonitis in a few hours.
Sandra Fowler knew she wasn’t going to die immediately, but she had no delusions that she could last very long. She noticed the missing ‘do not disturb’ sign. No one would enter the room with that out there. Unless Humboldt turned it the wrong way…to ‘maid please clean up this room,’ she was in a lot of trouble. Max Evans would be the first one to miss her…at nine o’ clock. She MIGHT last that long. But she realized that he didn’t have a keycard….the hotel had the latest locks…pick proof….he needed a keycard to get in…. ‘but he got in the first time,’ she thought, ‘..How did he do that??’ She was still wondering that as she fainted from the pain and the start of shock……
She saw him emerge from the closet…a smile on his face. How could she not have known? He’d bragged about his football career so often that even the office football fans were tired of hearing about it….and he’d asked to go check the Iowa case saying that he’d grown up in that area…had friends and family there. It was almost like he’d wanted to be caught…or more likely, he had wanted the excitement of taunting them in his own sick mind….of feeling superior to them that way.
That was what this was about…that was always what serial killings were about, when the killer sent letters….when the killer killed in slow and tortuous ways that drove everyone else insane. Look at this case…the Sheriff probably wasn’t a bad cop despite leaning on that kid so much…unless you are a sociopath, the helplessness of knowing that’s happening to someone…it tears at your insides. That’s why she’d let it go as far as she had. Humboldt….the bastard…probably enjoyed the whole thing, playing the professional and advising the Sheriff not to do it…even as he set up the situation that drove normal people slightly insane.
The Evans boy….she still didn’t understand him…but it was clear…it was driving him insane as well…..the pain in his eyes had been heartwrenching..but the look when he’d spoken of the man…the BIG man…and how did he know that?... Max Evans was sooner or later going to make the connection…he was as obsessed in his own way as Humboldt was. When the girl died…he’d never leave it alone…never move on…sooner or later…but would Humboldt allow that? She’d talked about Max too much….he’d go after the boy..she was almost sure of it.
She struggled to loosen her bonds…only making the chair squeak again…it wasn’t going to happen…she was held to the chair as if by a cocoon.
“I believe you are back with us,” Humboldt said. He waited, smiling, as if for an answer. “What? Our brilliant PhD profiler…is speechless? But how can that be? How could this have happened? I thought all you educated people were so goddamn BRILLIANT, how is it that you’re stuck in that chair…and I’m standing here?”
‘That’s part of it,’ Sandra thought. She knew he’d done as well on the physical testing as anyone who had ever attended the academy…but barely passed the academics. That had kept him from making Captain this year too….the knowledge portion of the test…he’d aced the practical. ‘deep-seated feelings of intellectual inadequacy….has to do these things…these horrible things..to convince himself he’s smarter than the rest of us….too stupid to realize it just means he’s crueler..’ and maybe not even that, she thought. Other people could be cruel too, if pushed. The Evans boy…the look that had frightened her…when his eyes seemed to glow with inner fury…’if looks could kill….’ Normal people could be cruel too….but not without better cause.
Max had been shaking with fear…fear for the girl…but the cold fury ..the alien look in his eyes when he’d talked about whoever did this to her…talked about…Humboldt….it was silly…he was only a kid…but he wouldn’t back down…not even against Humboldt. ‘He’s going to have to do something about Max,' she thought,’ '…even Bob will know that.’
“I suppose you are wondering why….since that’s supposed to be your job, and you FAILED it miserably, Doctor… All of you SMART people aren’t really all that bright..no matter what you think. I outsmarted you…and I’ll keep outsmarting you, once I take care of those faxes…and that kid.”
Humboldt opened the briefcase on the bed and smiled as he looked inside. “I keep souvenirs of my performances….always have. Some, like this ring, I wear openly. These…well, I have to keep these locked away.” He took out what looked like a lapel pin of some kind, and dangled it before her.
“I suppose you had one of these in High School…an honor society pin. This belonged to Jenny Langley…did you know she was my tutor? Of course, not. No one does…because I volunteered to go research the case.
I was the best high school football player ever to come out of Iowa…..our team was crap except for me, but we won the state championships….I WAS the team. I had signed to go to the University of Oklahoma….but they couldn’t give me a football scholarship because my SAT wasn’t high enough unless I completed a bunch of high school prerequisites. The coach got me signed up for the classes…talked to the teachers…told them how important it was to help the team my senior year…even hired that bitch to tutor me.
It came down to one lousy English grade and the coach got the teacher to give me a take-home final. All that bitch needed to do was to take the test for me…no one would have ever known, and I’d have been on to Oklahoma. But she wouldn’t do that…so I was ineligible…I had to waste a year at a community college where they didn’t even have a football team. But I made the bitch pay….buried her…buried her in the ground with nothing but a lighter and a candle for company.”
Sandra kept her eyes on him…unable to do anything besides sit and listen…wondering where this conversation was going…what it meant for her. Nothing good, she was sure.
“I guess she wasn’t any brighter than I was…she didn’t know the candle would burn her up either,” he laughed. “But she was the reason….and you know what? Watching all those people out looking for poor little Jenny….poor little Jenny with HER scholarship to go to Oklahoma….I showed them all who was smarter…the one that was still alive…that’s the one that was smarter. If she would have just done that test…I’d have played a couple years at Oklahoma…then turned pro…everybody would be cheering me…”
He pulled out a bracelet…looked at it and smiled. “Maggy Peterson…another bitch. She was a candy-striper in the hospital where I had the surgery on my knee. Before my knee…I was looking at millions from the NFL in a year….girls were all over me. I copped one lousy feel…and the bitch acted like I’d raped her or something….I should have, probably. But she had plenty of time to think about me…five days…before the air ran out.
They almost found her in time….what a rush. That’s when I knew I wasn’t just smarter than everyone else…I was lucky too. And it was in all the papers…everyone talking about me…more even then when I won the Fiesta bowl. So I figured, If the NFL doesn’t want me anymore…too chickenshit to take a risk on me because of my knee, I can still thrill the crowds…still get my applause…even if they don’t know it’s me.”
He dropped the bracelet back in the briefcase and smiled, lifting out a watch.
“Mary McGregor. You know, I never met her before the night I snatched her. It really didn’t matter who I snatched…she was just handy. I’d gotten passed over for promotion to Lieutenant then…anther damn test…..well, the people who passed the test weren’t as smart as I was…I knew where she was buried…even after I sent them directions…they were a week finding her. Hell, she’d have died if I sent them the second note right away. And they said I was too dumb to be a Lieutenant…I guess I showed them…..stupid assholes not only didn’t save her…but put me on the team to find out who killed her…talk about dumb….and by putting me on the team…they practically had to promote me the next time to Lieutenant.”
He reached in to the briefcase and brought out a torn piece of embroidered uniform…the name ‘Liz,’ clearly visible to Sandra.
“I was going to send this back to them with the second letter…just keep this deposit slip for a souvenir….but now it looks like I’ll have to use both of them..to frame that smart-ass kid. You know the coach at Oklahoma…he called all the plays…even he said that I wasn’t smart enough to call my own plays, and I won the Fiesta Bowl for that cocksucker….but he was wrong…that kid is going down.”
He put everything back in the briefcase and closed it, Looking at her with a smile. “And you…you aren’t any smarter than anyone else…all your degrees….they didn’t make any difference.” He opened her purse and found her keychain.
“ A fuckin’ Phi Beta Kappa key…I’ve always wanted one of these..now I have one….guess that show’s whose smarter. When we get done…the girl is going to be dead, and that boy will take the fall for her murder….and yours. And I make Captain. Not really fair, though…I won’t have any souvenir from that waitress. Well, there are other fish in the see, as they say.”
Sandra’s eyes had opened in terror when he’d said that Max was going to be blamed for her murder, and she looked around frantically for anything…anything at all that might help her.
“What’s the matter, doc? Scared of being in a box? You know, I would have…but I don’t have time to build one right now. Besides…this is a simpler way to frame the kid.”
She saw him put on the evidence gloves as he went to the backup holster on her inner thigh….watched in terror as he pulled the little .32 from it’s holster….picked up a pillow and wadded it up against her abdomen. Her ears barely heard the ‘crack’ of the little gun buried in the pillow, but she felt the bullet punch through her abdomen to bury itself in the muscles of her posterior abdomen….the shot causing a feeling like a hot poker plunged into her guts, and her face contorted in pain.
He smiled at her. “That was just to get your attention….besides, we wouldn’t want to make it too easy on you…hell, they might not try the kid as an adult if it were too easy. Then I’d have to worry about him coming after me sometime later...when he got out of juvey. But I’m too smart for that…By the time I get done….the kid might not even get to trial….that Sheriff may just do the job for me…..kid might die trying to escape, you know?”
She saw him roll the pillow up again…knew what was coming…the chair creaked weakly…whatever strength she might have had apparently left her with the bullet buried in her abdomen. She tried to struggle as he brought the pillow to her chest…placed it squarely over her sternum….when the ‘crack’ went off a second time her eyes bulged briefly…then stared blankly forward as her chin slunk against her chest.
Humboldt carefully placed the little revolver in his briefcase and went in to the bathroom, washing his hands and checking for any evidence of blood splatter than might connect him with the body. The pillow had done its job, both as a silencer and in protecting him from blood or tissue splatter. There was nothing on his clothes that would connect him with Fowler’s death, and between the gloves and hand washing, even a paraffin test wouldn’t show powder residue.
He checked at the door peephole carefully, then cautiously opened the door. There was no one in sight. He looked back at the inert form of Doctor Sandra Fowler, her chin on her chest…blood slowly expanding from the hole in the center of her chest and her abdomen, staining her dress. H took his suitcase…looked around one last time for anything that might tie him to the scene….finally, he checked again and slipped outside, pausing only to put the ‘do not disturb’ sign on the door. ‘Well doctor,’ he thought as he went down the stairwell to his rental car, ‘..I guess you weren’t so damned smart after all….’
She waited twenty seconds after the door had closed before she even blinked..her first breath was agony…her sternum shattered and the pain growing in her belly. ‘Dad was right…it wasn’t much of a manstopper…woman stopper either.' She knew that wasn’t quite fair…the ammunition was thirty years old..the primers grown weak…and the foam rubber pillow had absorbed considerable energy from the round.
The little .32 did have pretty terrible ballistics, no more power than a .22 long rifle, but with twice the cross sectional area, the pillow had taken enough energy that it couldn’t penetrate bone…especially the sternum, surrounded on all sides by cartilage from the ribs…it had given enough to absorb the impact with only an inch of penetration…plenty to shatter the sternum..but the heart underneath had been spared.
Not so the abdomen…the slug had gone through in the midline…probably penetrated the intestine in several areas before embedding itself in the muscles of the back of her abdomen. That one wasn’t bleeding as much as the sternum, but she knew that was deceiving. She was likely bleeding internally…and would likely have peritonitis in a few hours.
Sandra Fowler knew she wasn’t going to die immediately, but she had no delusions that she could last very long. She noticed the missing ‘do not disturb’ sign. No one would enter the room with that out there. Unless Humboldt turned it the wrong way…to ‘maid please clean up this room,’ she was in a lot of trouble. Max Evans would be the first one to miss her…at nine o’ clock. She MIGHT last that long. But she realized that he didn’t have a keycard….the hotel had the latest locks…pick proof….he needed a keycard to get in…. ‘but he got in the first time,’ she thought, ‘..How did he do that??’ She was still wondering that as she fainted from the pain and the start of shock……
Last edited by greywolf on Mon Mar 12, 2007 9:33 am, edited 1 time in total.