“The hardest part is getting your cuffs off while you’re holding someone as a shield. I had him in a lock around the neck so one snap would do it. The cop who comes in the cell doesn’t carry a gun...” He started to laugh as though it was a funny story. “The prisoner might get his gun. Like they don’t know about a prisoner’s hands, arms. We walked right out. I took him right up to a Suburban with the keys in it. Jesus, don’t people know better than to leave their keys in their cars? I drove it right into an open garage three blocks from the station. I had to hotwire the second car I took. I only had to kill one asshole cop. Short night.” And then he laughed.
“Did you stab him?”
“Don’t be asking me questions. I broke his neck. I left him in the parking lot. Everybody knows I’m out and thinks I have a Suburban. They’ll figure this out pretty soon. They ought to be coming here. It would be easier if we could leave before they get here.”
“Are you planning to hurt me?” I saw car lights streak the wall and ceiling, but he seemed unaware of them. Or didn’t care. I heard engines that stopped. They were out there. I just had to be careful for a little bit longer.
“It doesn’t hurt that much,” he said. “It isn’t supposed to hurt; it can be over in about one second.”
“Why do you want to hurt me? What good will it do you?”
With an almost sane look in his eyes, he said, “It makes me feel better, that’s all.”
“They’re looking for you. You have time to get away. Take my car. Run.”
He laughed at me. “Tell me the truth first. Wasn’t it the best sex you ever had in your life?”
I could feel the taste of vomit at the back of my throat. I nodded, my eyes filling with tears. And he drew back his hand and slapped me so hard I fell to the floor.
“Lying bitch,” he said, his voice like a growl. “You going to make me knock you out or cut you up? Or you going to do what I say?”
I was rubbing my jaw, too stunned to cry, and nodded up at him.
“Well, what, bitch?”
“What do you want?” I managed.
“I want a ride,” he said. “I’ll go out to the hills. Once I get in the hills, I can go for days with just my blade and my brain. You’ll drive me. They’re probably out there, you know. They’ll stay back just long enough to see what I’m going to do. They can’t see in here. You’ll be on the other end of this knife and we’ll walk out and drive away. Simple, huh?”
“Why didn’t you just go? You had a car.”
He grinned at me and reached out a hand to help me to my feet. “Without you, Jackie?” he asked. “We’re good for each other.”
I let him help me up. I was almost sure he would strike me again, and when he pulled back his hand to do so, I cowered away and squealed. That caused him to laugh loudly, almost happily. “Get me a jug of water,” he ordered. “Use a Thermos or something.”
I moved toward the cupboard in a daze. I pulled out the four-quart picnic Thermos and turned on the tap, filling it up. “Why Tom Lawler?” I asked him, not looking at him. That knife was pointed at me and he stood two feet away. “Why not pretend to be someone else?”
I turned off the tap and looked at him. “Lawler was good,” he said. “He was the only one I ever met who understood me. No one ever nailed me; I could fool anyone. Lawler was the smartest man I ever met. It was all his psychology — he’s a head-shrinker.”
“You killed his family!” I whispered this hotly, unable to believe it.
“Outsmart the smartest, my old man used to say. Beat the best. After this is over, maybe I’ll go see him. Pay him a visit like I did before. Drop in and let him know I’m still out here.”
“You set us up. From the start. Me and Roberta.”
“I decided when I was in prison; I started reading there. I read all his stuff and everyone else’s. He was the perfect one — the one person I would be least likely to impersonate. Perfect. I fooled everyone. Even you — and you checked me out. I let you prove to everyone who might ask that I was Tom Lawler. Let’s go.”
“God,” I said in a breath. “That’s why. You meant for Roberta and me to investigate you, prove you were authentic. You look like him. You knew his background, his —”
“You got a little too serious, though. You were supposed to feel bad about causing me trouble after you knew who I was. What my problems were. I don’t know what got into you, Jackie. You should have been trying to help me. C’mon. Let’s move it.”
I handed the Thermos to him and he shook his head. “Uh-uh. I need my hands,” he said, tossing the knife back and forth. “I have to hold you and the knife, and I have to walk. That’s enough. Get your purse.”
I looked at him in shock for a second. He motioned for me to hurry. He wasn’t going to hold on to me while I walked the four feet to the sofa to pick up my bag. I shook, but moved as quickly as I could. I heard people outside my house; I heard a sound at the back door. Before he could change his mind, I picked up my purse. “Keys,” I muttered, as if to myself. He stood in the kitchen doorway, just a few steps from me, ready to go.
“You take your purse because you know you’re going,” he said somewhat absently. “That’s how that works. She knows she’s going because she took her purse, so she wanted to. Right? You just wouldn’t let me be nice to you, would you? I tried to give you some good times first, you know, before I had to do this. But you were such a bitch. I got so I hated you more than I ever hated. I usually don’t even bother with hate. Slows you down, makes you act stupid.”
I picked up my purse and turned to face him. I put the purse strap over my shoulder, lifted the flap, and reached inside. He just watched me; he thought I was digging for car keys. “Hurry up,” he said. Please, God, I said to myself. I felt the safety on the gun and flipped it before I pulled it out.
“You’ll play it my way now,” he said. I pointed and fired.
I saw the look of surprise on his face for less than a second. I heard a distant siren as I fired; I heard his breath whoosh out.
One, two, three, four. Two bullets went right into his chest, one into his abdomen, throwing him backward. I saved one shot in case I had missed and needed another chance. He flew into the kitchen, hit the refrigerator, clutching his chest, and the knife bounced out of his hand. One bullet grazed his temple and left a streak of dripping blood. His eyes were open, his chest still, and his hands pressed to his chest wound. I stood, frozen, staring at him, pointing the gun.
I heard the screeching of tires. There were shouts and running feet outside. I heard my back door as it was forced open. I was vaguely aware of people coming in — two men. The front door was crashed against, then smashed into the wall as it flew open. If I could have found the strength to stay in the room ten seconds longer, if I had been alone for five more seconds, I would have walked over to his body, pressed the muzzle of the gun to his forehead, and fired one more time. It was too late; two men kneeled beside him, looking at him. I couldn’t look at those unblinking eyes. I couldn’t stand the smell of his blood and sweat.
I backed out of the living room, backed through the laundry room and pantry. I turned and went out the back door and down the steps to the driveway. In my pink sleeveless nightgown and bare feet, I walked past my parked car, past running men. There were at least six cars in front of my house. Bodge and his deputies were at my front door while men who looked like hunters or lumberjacks, carrying automatic weapons, ran up my drive.
I held the hot gun pointed down, and walked slowly toward the street. No one stopped me or confronted me or tried to help me. The neighbors were out in their yards, the static and chatter of the police radios was hyper and angry. A couple of red lights flashed and I noticed that orange tape was pulled across the street on each end.
Brad Krump unsnapped the thumb break on his holster as he walked toward me.
“You made a mistake,” I told him. “He can get out of anything. Anything.”
“He’s a dangerous man, Jackie,” h
e said. “He might be the most dangerous man I’ve encountered. I’m sorry.”
“He could have killed me. He had a knife. He had time.”
“Thank God you knew what to do; thank God you did what we failed to do.” He pulled a Ziploc bag out of his pocket and held it open. I dropped the gun into it. I wanted to slap his face: Why hadn’t he rushed in, him and all his cops? How could they have let him trick them? “Are you all right?” he asked.
“I will never be all right again,” I said. I kept expecting to collapse; I don’t know what mysterious force kept me on my feet. That was when I heard the words that will have me sick and terrified for the rest of my life.
“He’s still alive!”
Then I fainted.
19
Jason Devalian somehow resisted my bullets. Had they penetrated his heart and he had survived, I would have believed he was a devil. The Devil. Although it was difficult to accept, he was a human being and he had survived. Mike assured me the authorities had learned their lesson regarding this man; he spent even his time in intensive care, in a Denver hospital, handcuffed to the bedrails. I couldn’t quite believe it.
The morning after I shot him I left Coleman. I met Mike’s plane in Colorado Springs and gave him my house keys and car keys. I told him about the night before and knew, before he told me, that he would stay in Colorado and talk to the authorities. I wasn’t willing to stay another day. I went to Chelsea.
Chelsea nurtured me while Mike spent a week in Colorado obtaining as many details as possible about the crimes, the arrest, the status of the state’s case. He wanted to be assured of my safety; Chelsea wanted to help me recover. These two have loved me and cared for me with unimaginable devotion.
When Mike returned to L.A. after spending a week in Colorado, the three of us went through the boxes of Sheffie’s memorabilia. We bought a cedar chest to hold the things; ribbons, school photos, drawings, papers, report cards. A favorite stuffed toy he called Chippie. His baby blanket; his LA. Lakers jacket. When I relocate, I will keep the chest near me and never part with it again.
Mike’s detective logic didn’t do as much for my recovery as Chelsea’s tender care and homemade soups. “Jack, you fingered one of the most dangerous criminals in America! Fifty cops and a bunch of hotshot feds didn’t figure him out, and you did!”
“He victimized me,” I said. “He terrorized me.”
“And he didn’t get you. You got him. Feel strong!”
The feeling of strength and superiority may never come to me. I can’t help feeling lucky. If you think you fingered someone like Devalian through genius, perhaps you can feel powerful. I was still asking myself if I had been more clever than he, or just fortunate.
Devalian suffered a collapsed lung, had to undergo a bowel resection that left him with a colostomy, and lost his spleen. He spent nine hours in surgery and two weeks in intensive care. He was moved to a locked wing in the psychiatric ward of a county hospital; an armed officer stayed outside his room at all times, with another officer monitoring his every movement and sound on a closed-circuit television. Inside his room there was no weapon for him to steal. Another two police officers, the typical staffing for a lockout ward, were on the floor of three wings. Private-duty male nurses attended him. He was cuffed and shackled. I wondered if that would do it.
Three weeks after I had shot him, I went back. With Mike as escort.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he had asked me a dozen times.
“I’m sure. I have to.” I was going back to Coleman anyway, to retrieve my belongings. Since I couldn’t sleep and had trouble holding food down, Brad Krump had agreed to show me where they kept him. He hoped it would give me peace of mind, help me give this up.
The police had started talking to him. He was sick and weak and had refused legal counsel. He hadn’t answered many questions, but he was talking more each day. Brad Krump and others were questioning him while he lay handcuffed to his bed, a tape recorder running during the interrogation. I was going to be allowed to see him, though he wouldn’t see me. I could get some detailed information from Brad Krump about the interrogation. They didn’t foresee using me as a prosecution witness because they now had obtained hard evidence. Devalian wouldn’t know I’d been there. Then I was going to have my household goods moved out of Coleman, say goodbye to my friends, and never look back.
“There are about three ways something like this could go, Jack,” Mike was telling me as we drove from the airport to the hospital. “Sometimes a guy like this accepts his fate and talks. He generally refuses counsel. Sometimes he denies to the end, gets a good lawyer. Sometimes he goes for the insanity plea. Devalian is doing a little talking; he might be giving up.”
“He won’t give up,” I said. “He’s sick right now. That’s all. He’s going to change his mind about all of this talking when he feels better. He’ll say he was coerced. It could hurt the state’s case.”
“I know you don’t have any confidence in Krump and his boys, but Bodge wouldn’t let you down. This time I think they’ve got him. I don’t think anyone will ever take him for granted again.”
I hoped so. Mike told me that so far they believed Jason Devalian had killed twenty-eight women. A search of his house had not turned up any direct evidence, but there was an invoice for an annual payment on a storage unit in Denver; that search produced a locked metal trunk filled with purses. He kept their purses. In Kathy Porter’s purse was the index card containing Tom Wahl’s name and phone number. At the top of the card was typed “Handyman.” That was why he told me to take my purse. It was more than an obsession, it was his trademark.
Elaine Broussard’s purse was in the trunk. As was Jason Devalian’s mother’s purse.
There was other stuff in the trunk, too. Stolen IDs, a CHP shirt, a clerical collar and jacket. His disguises and accessories.
Mike and I met Brad Krump in the hospital coffee shop. I shook his hand and asked him how it was going, what he knew about this guy so far.
“It goes slow. Our research indicates he’s a native of Nebraska, who ran away from his father’s wheat farm when he was thirteen. His father was found dead at the bottom of a well when Jason was nineteen years old and his whereabouts unknown. He was next seen in his hometown nearly seven years later to collect his inheritance, the proceeds from the sale of the farm and equipment, and his father’s savings, after debts were cleared and taxes paid. He let it all sit in a CD in a bank until he was nearly thirty and out of prison. Then he played with the money, transferring it around into various accounts under different names. He has about a hundred thousand dollars at his disposal.”
“Did he have plastic surgery?”
“The examining physician says he did, but we don’t know when or where. He’s confessed to killing a police officer in his escape from the Henderson County facility, and he admits to having known some of the female victims. He tells us he doesn’t need a lawyer and that he won’t talk... but he always says something. He reacts; he can’t help it. His reaction to questions about his neighbor’s death leads us to suspect he shot Mr. Wharton. We know he stayed in the area after he was supposed to have been gone; he camped and blended in with hunters while he continued to play his little game of going into houses. Since he’s a liar, our investigation focuses on separating his lies from the truth.” He paused. “He told us about his finger.”
I felt my back become rigid. I waited.
“It was an accident. It made him furious. He doesn’t want scars or distinguishing marks that make it easy for people to remember him. He was so angry, he said, that he sneaked out of the hospital, drove to Coleman, ‘borrowed’ Billy’s clippers, and broke into the mortuary. He meant to pay you back with that finger. Then he smiled and said it was perfect, that you looked like the idiot you were and you apologized.”
I shuddered as though chilled. “My God,” I muttered.
“He had to steal a car to do that. He took a hospital staff member’s car and returned
it. He said he doesn’t think anyone was ever aware of it.”
“Are you beginning to see how slick this guy is?” I asked. “What are you going to do to keep him away from the rest of the human race?”
“He has the highest-level restraint and detention we’re capable of. That means —”
“It means nothing!” I snapped.
“It means,” he continued calmly, “that he could be killed for eating his oatmeal wrong. He’s in a very vulnerable position right now. He’s regarded as highly capable of escape even under the most extraordinary circumstances and no movement from him is taken lightly. If it appears anything is amiss, weapons may be fired. I hope nothing like that happens before I find all the connections to what he’s done. I want to know the extent of his crimes before he gets himself killed. I have missing women out there, Jackie, whom he may have killed. Those families deserve my best effort. I want to know.”
He took a breath, slowed down. Brad Krump had no reason to feel personally endangered by Devalian, but he was trying to convince me of his dedication to Devalian’s incarceration.
“I have to go back upstairs. You want a tour?”
“We’re waiting for Bodge,” I said. “I’ll see you later.”
“Maybe you’ll calm down after you see the precautions we’ve taken. Just don’t hang around, all right?”
“Why would I want to hang around?” I asked.
“Brad, we’re grateful for this,” Mike said hastily, “No kidding, thanks for giving Jack here a chance to quiet her nerves. We’ll take a quick look and we’re out of here. Thanks.”
Krump looked at me, ignoring my ex-husband’s rare politeness. “Look around, then go for a walk. Have something to eat. Get past this.”
I just looked down into my coffee cup as Brad began to walk away. He turned back to me. “Jackie, I know you think we all failed you. I’m not going to make any excuses; I feel I’ve failed any time someone gets hurt. I failed to be fast enough, smart enough, cynical enough. The bad news is that this element, the psychopathic killer of above-average intelligence, is hard to catch. That’s why there’s a task force, people who dedicate their lives to studying these crimes and apprehending these criminals. I’ll do my best. That’s all I’ve got.” Then he walked away.