“You don’t. But you’re a logical man. It’s not in my interest to do that. I just want to hear on the news tomorrow that you confessed.”
“What if I do everything you ask me and they don’t believe me?”
“That’s why you need to do one more thing to convince them. I can’t trust you not to eventually tell them. That’s why you’re going to use that gun of yours to put a bullet in your head after you make your confession.”
“I . . . I’m supposed to kill myself?”
“Yes, Theo. Videotape a confession. It had better be the performance of your life. Then shoot yourself. It’ll be quick. You won’t feel a thing. Jillian will be safe. And if you don’t, someone you care about will be dead by tomorrow night. Maybe her. Maybe Gus. Maybe someone I haven’t mentioned.”
I don’t know how long after he hangs up that I sit here, staring at a swaying tree branch, hypnotized.
My ringing phone wakes me out of my stupor.
“Hello?”
“Hey Dr. Cray, it’s Sergeant Graham.” Her voice is friendlier than the professional tone she struck with me this morning. “We didn’t get to finish up. I have a couple more questions for you. Are you still at the pancake place?”
“I . . . had to run an errand.”
“Okay. Well, if you could pop by the substation, we can wrap up. Can you be here in an hour?”
“Sure,” I lie.
“Great. See you then.”
I’m not the only liar. She was too friendly, too cordial. I’m sure she went by the pancake place and realized I wasn’t there.
They want to talk to me about Mrs. Lane.
Right now they’re wondering why I would kill her, torch the woods, then go to them with a story about the Cougar Creek Monster. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s insane. But it all leads back to me.
Damn.
If I want to keep Jillian and Gus safe, I better think of something.
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
ADMISSION
Joshua Lee Clark, that’s his name. At least that’s what it used to be. When I turn to his page in the binder, the eyes give it away. Dark green, sitting under a mop of reddish hair. The eyes are intelligent but unsure. It’s not a photo of a scared eleven-year-old. It’s a wary animal caught in the flashbulb’s glare.
He was placed in foster care after his mother was found stabbed to death in the kitchen. Joshua told the police it had been a domestic dispute between her and his estranged father. Nobody else saw his father come or go, but there had been a history of violence and the police found Joshua’s story credible.
I’m not sure I do, knowing what I know now. The calculating voice on the other end of the phone was capable of anything. He admitted to killing Julie Lane, his foster mother, in an attempt to silence her and frame me.
Killing for him is effortless, whether it’s for pleasure or expedience. And now he’s threatened to kill people I care about if I don’t do what he says.
I have to lie and invent explanations that will be paper thin. I have to do everything I can to convince the people I was trying to get to believe there was a killer out there to now think it was all some scheme I concocted.
It’s absurd and won’t stand up to scrutiny. But Clark is right: if I punctuate the lie with my own death, they’ll make it fit.
If I admit to killing Juniper, they’ll believe me. I can convince them I arranged Chelsea’s death if I say it happened on a trip I made up here the year before.
Same for the other bodies. If the time frame doesn’t match up, if I was out of the country when they were killed, I’ll concoct some story about putting their bodies in a freezer to hold them longer or something like that so I would have an alibi.
I’ll say the Cougar Creek bodies were ones I found elsewhere and planted years ago at the hot spring.
How hard will they try to debunk the testimony of a dead man? If I give them everything they need, they’ll be happy.
Whatever it takes to keep Jillian safe.
They’ll want a motive, too. I can’t just explain how I managed all of the killings—they’ll want to know why a sick mind would conceive of such a deranged plot.
I’ll tell them I’ve always been off. Obsessed with violent thoughts toward women, the desire to pull off the perfect murder. I’ll tell them I killed Juniper because it wasn’t enough to watch strangers die; I wanted to murder someone who knew me.
Why would I kill myself?
If I’m a sociopath, it can’t be due to guilt. Is it because I want to gloat openly? Or is it that I fear they’re closing in on me?
When they arrested Ted Bundy, he told the police officer who caught him it would have been better to have just shot him. He felt no remorse but wasn’t immune to anxiety.
I’ll need to make a detailed timeline to explain when I did my crimes. I should also be prepared with some explanations of how I fooled the methods for dating bodies, like the refrigerator. I could name some preservatives as well as some enzymatic accelerants.
To make it more convincing, I should see to it that when they search my car they find the necessary tools and chemicals. There’s probably one or more chemical supply companies nearby that can provide me with what I need.
Yes, I think I can do this. Hell, I’ll post my video confession online for everyone to see. That would be too much for the news to resist.
That should convince him of my sincerity.
There’s a clarity that arrives when life forces you into a binary situation.
If I had more time, there might be other choices. Regardless of the name change, I’m sure I could have found him. But I was too late and too clumsy. Any attempt to bid for more time would be transparent to him. He has the upper hand.
I devote my mental energy to the chemicals and materials I’ll need to convince the police I was able to muck around with the bodies, screwing up their estimated time of death.
There’s an enzymatic solution used as an industrial cleanser that would cause advanced necrosis before breaking down. A few gallons of that would be convincing. A mild acid wash in a bathtub would cause skin discoloration and aging.
I could say I used a CO2 tank to cause the internal organs to rupture from decomposition.
If I wanted to really screw with forensics, I could say I drew blood from one body and placed it in another to mess with their DNA analysis.
Hell, I could even convincingly turn a corpse into a dead clone of a living person if I transferred enough blood, used a clotting agent to have it solidify in the veins they’d tap, then destroyed the dental records by using hydrofluoric acid to wear down the teeth—as if they were attacked by aggressive bacteria.
Okay, I know what I’ll say. I know what I need to do.
I’ll write up a summary of my methods, make a video confession, and then let the police know where to find my body.
It’s the only way to keep Jillian safe.
CHAPTER SEVENTY
SURROGATE
In my solitude I have pondered much on the incomprehensible subjects of space, eternity, life and death.
—Alfred Russel Wallace
Faking my own death is easier said than done—especially with such short notice. While there was no way in hell I could convince someone conducting a thorough forensic examination that somebody else’s body was my own, I could buy myself some time. I have three or four days at most until Mead and her staff take a look at the corpse and realize that the whole thing is a sham.
I have to find Joshua Lee Clark before then. Once he realizes what I’ve done, he’s going to go ballistic and Jillian and Gus won’t be safe.
If I thought Clark would leave them alone, I might have put the bullet in my head. But I don’t trust him. Once I’m dead, he’ll probably eventually kill Jillian just for kicks. It’s what he does. While he presented himself as a coldly rational person on the phone, he’s a murderer who enjoys killing. It’s in his DNA.