It Can't Be Her Read online

  By that time he’d start to be bored with her.

  By that time they’d have given up their search for him. They’d have decided he’d left the county.

  And he would.

  Leave the county, that is.

  But not until he left a calling card that would haunt them all forever.

  He wouldn’t burn Sara’s body.

  No, he needed for her to be recognizable when they found her.

  It would be more fun that way.

  When he finally killed her, he’d put her clothing back on her. It was still neatly folded in another part of the house.

  It was a great plan in Jeff’s twisted and tormented mind.

  He’d sit on her midsection, making it difficult for her to breathe.

  He’d fondle her breasts while professing concern.

  “Why, Sara darling, what’s the matter? I don’t understand why you’re thrashing about so.”

  With duct tape wrapped tightly around her head, of course she wouldn’t be able to speak to tell him to get the hell off her.

  And he wouldn’t have anyway, even if she could.

  When he tired of his game he’d simply reach over and pinch her nostrils closed.

  Oh, she’d try to shake off his hand in desperation, but it wouldn’t last for long.

  With her hands duct-taped securely to the bed posts her movements were severely limited.

  And the lack of oxygen would cause her to see stars first, then inky blackness.

  In her last minute or so she’d try desperately to suck air through the tiny hole in the duct tape over her mouth. The one Jeff put there to accommodate her drinking straw.

  But it would be too little, too late.

  Jeff would take great pleasure in watching her mouth start to foam, the foam blown out through the straw’s hole.

  At that point she’d be in her death throes.

  At that point her eyes would become bloodshot, the vessels breaking at the strain of her trying desperately to breathe.

  Then her eyes would roll back into her head.

  She’d relax.

  She’d die.

  In the ultimate insult to Sara, he would pose her body, fully clothed, in the middle of Winston Road where it would be easily found.

  Her head would be severed from her body and resting upon her chest.

  The kicker would be a note, handwritten by Jeff, taped to her uniform.

  It would say:

  HER LAST WORDS WERE:

  “WHY DID THEY GIVE UP THE SEARCH?

  WHY DIDN’T THEY RESCUE ME?”

  GOTCHA, SUCKERS!

  -29-

  Jeff told Sara nothing of his plans for her.

  A serial killer is by nature a secretive person.

  He’s typically male, Caucasian, and deeply troubled by things which happened in his adolescence to shape him into the man he has become.

  Such men have many secrets, pertaining to their childhoods as well as their current activities.

  Sometimes they share their secrets with their victims.

  Often they keep them to themselves.

  Jeff could easily have told Sara he was going to decapitate her and taunt her fellow officers after she died.

  It would have given him a delightful sense of pleasure, seeing the terror on her face.

  He would have enjoyed seeing the fire in her eyes when told her friends and family would be punished with guilt for the rest of their own lives.

  And that until the day they died they’d punish themselves for calling off the search too soon. For assuming the charred body was Sara’s, and not looking any farther for her.

  And for being outsmarted by a killer who disappeared without a trace.

  But no.

  This was one secret he’d keep to himself.

  He could make her cry in a thousand different ways.

  And that fire in her eyes?

  He could put it there anytime he wanted, just by telling her he was going after her children next.

  She never told him she was a mother.

  She didn’t want him to use that fact against her.

  But he knew.

  He’d examined her body closely the day after she arrived.

  It was then he’d noticed the telltale stretch marks on her hips.

  They were faint.

  Christopher was only a little over six pounds when he was born, and Sara was fortunate in that she never got very big.

  But he’d noticed and asked her first how many children she had.

  She cried the most tears when he asked her if she wanted to choose which one she could take to hell with her.

  The thing about serial killers only policemen and shrinks know, though… they’re never as smart as they think they are.

  And they always, without exception, make crucial mistakes.

  Most start out extremely cautiously.

  Most get sloppy as they go. Sloppier each time they do the deed.

  That's what slips most of them up. They leave behind DNA in some form. Or they leave behind some other kind of clue.

  Or they go back to their crime scenes one time too many.

  Occasionally a serial killer will vanish without a trace and will frustrate the hell out of law enforcement officers.

  Oh, they should be glad because the killing has stopped.

  But cops work thankless and dangerous jobs.

  They’re paid a fraction of what they’re worth and have to put up with a lot of crap from citizens who like to play loose with the laws and then complain when they’re called to account.

  In short, policemen get very little pleasure from their jobs.

  One pleasure they do get is the pride they feel in solving a big case and taking a very bad man off the streets so he can’t hurt anybody again.

  And when a serial killer suddenly disappears without a trace it really pisses them off.

  In nearly all cases, the killer either went to prison for an unrelated offense or has died.

  Either way, one might argue the problem was solved.

  But it doesn’t make the cops feel any better.

  The other thing about serial killers, besides that they keep lots of secrets and eventually make mistakes?

  They’re typically not real smart.

  Oh, some are highly educated.

  And some are book smart. That’s not what we’re talking about.

  But they’re generally not smart enough to make good criminals, because too many things get past them and overlooked.

  Like, for example, they’re so focused on what their victims are feeling that they never consider what they might be thinking.

  They never put themselves in their victim’s minds. They never try to imagine what things might be occupying their victims’ thoughts.

  It sometimes, therefore, never dawns on them the victims might have their own secrets to keep.

  Sara had been working the duct tape on her left hand a little at a time.

  That was the hand that was on the bedpost against the wall. The one farthest away from Jeff when he sat on the edge of the bed or straddled her.

  When he went upstairs for food, or wherever he sometimes went, she feverishly worked the tape up and down on the edge of the square bedpost.

  And when he blew out the lamp to sleep it was pitch black in the basement.

  She had to be more careful then.

  For she knew in the blackness he couldn’t see her trying to cut her way through the four layers of tape.

  But he could hear it.

  Her solution was to work it slowly. Quietly.

  And only when his loud snoring covered up the scraping.

  Sara had an escape plan.

  She still needed an opportunity.

  And she needed the luck of time.

  For if her time ran out before the opportunity presented itself all would be lost.

  -30-

  The funeral for Sara would be the following day.

  There was simply no reason
to drag out the process.

  There would be no autopsy.

  No visitation.

  Certainly no viewing.

  No need to wait for faraway relatives to come in. For flower arrangements to be made and delivered. For coordination with a funeral home.

  None of that.

  She’d be buried under the oak tree just south of the wheat field.

  It was where they’d buried Scott’s wife Joyce when she was shot in the head by attacking marauders.

  It was where Jordan and Sara carried young Chris on warm spring days and had their picnics.

  It was where Jordan and Scott hung a tire swing for the kids to while away their hours on.

  And where Jordan and Sara sometimes snuck off to at night for romance.

  There would be a graveside service, and then the casket Tom and Charlie dragged home from a boarded-up funeral home in downtown Kerrville would be slowly lowered into the ground.

  The old fashioned way, with two long pieces of rope stretched beneath the casket.

  Brother Tommy Spear would come in to say a prayer and a few kind words.

  A couple of eulogies would be read.

  A million tears would flow.

  No invitations were sent out, for there was really no means of doing so.

  But none were really necessary, for the entire cities of Kerrville and Junction knew they were invited.

  Only a few would attend, for traveling in the new world was difficult.

  Sara’s family and friends knew that and wouldn’t hold it against anyone.

  They understood that grieving was a deeply personal thing, and absence at a funeral service didn’t mean someone didn’t care.

  As they lowered her into the ground, Sara’s mom Stacy wailed.

  She’d been strong until that point, feeling she had to be for Jordan and the children.

  At least she’d tried to be.

  But she was fooling no one. The other women were telling her to let it out, to let the tears flow.

  She finally had no choice.

  Jordan wrapped his arms around her. Linda wrapped her arms around both of them.

  Stacy lost her only daughter. It was the worst moment of her life.

  If she only knew.

  In Stacy’s family, and in Scott’s family as well, funerals were always followed by family get-togethers.

  There was always plenty of food.

  Plenty of stories shared and memories told of the departed.

  And oddly enough under the circumstances, plenty of laughter as well.

  That tradition died when the world did.

  Death was far too common an event now. People stopped celebrating the lives of the departed the way they once did.

  They simply cried, then grieved, then moved on.

  The compound was ridiculously easy to find on this particular day.

  That was thanks to Hannah and Linda, who fashioned hand-painted signs of fluorescent pink poster board.

  Pink was appropriate, for it was Sara's favorite color.

  They’d put their love into twenty such signs, each one saying:

  SARA HARTER’S FUNERAL

  In addition to the words each sign contained an arrow pointing toward the compound.

  The girls had intended to make it easy for county residents who weren’t sure where the compound was located to find it.

  That was their intent.

  The signs made it ridiculously easy, though, for someone who wasn’t there for the funeral to find the compound as well.

  As they bowed their heads for Reverend Spear’s farewell prayer no one noticed the stranger watching from a distance.

  Had they noticed, a murmur would likely have gone through the crowd, for the county was large in size but small in comparative population.

  Not everybody knew everybody else.

  But somebody knew everyone.

  The solitary figure caused no disruptions, made no noise.

  Merely watched from a distance.

  It wasn’t until the casket was in the ground and Jordan tossed a handful of dirt onto it that the crowd started to break up.

  It was the reverend’s idea.

  “Why don’t we give the husband a bit of alone time,” he said. We’ll wait for him over by the house.”

  That’s when most of the crowd turned and started to walk away. And when they saw the mysterious visitor.

  Jordan wasn’t the only one who stayed behind, though.

  He turned and reached out to his adopted children.

  Millicent took his left hand; Charles his right.

  Christopher sat in his stroller alongside Millicent, having not a clue what was going on.

  The four said nary a word, until Christopher broke the silence after a minute or so.

  He said, “Hungry.”

  Jordan turned and started walking toward the house.

  Charles, without having to be told, pushed the stroller over the rocky ground.

  Christopher giggled. The bumpy ride was just what he needed to entertain him after standing beside a bunch of stoic adults for the previous half hour.

  Millicent walked along, her hand still in Jordan’s grasp, until she saw the figure in the distance.

  Then she broke free and ran like the wind.

  -31-

  As they approached the stranger, Stacy whispered to Linda, “Any idea?”

  Stacy didn’t know who the mysterious woman was. But then, she hadn’t been at the compound for long so it was very likely she hadn’t met all of her daughter’s friends and acquaintances.

  Linda didn’t know either. But then again, it was a big county and Linda was a homebody. She very seldom left the compound.

  Tom asked both women as he walked behind them, “Who’s that? Any idea?”

  Tom had lived in Kerr County all his life.

  And he hadn’t a clue.

  Then a whirlwind of an eight year old girl went blazing past the three of them.

  As she grew near to the woman, who was leaning against the wall which surrounded the compound, Millicent yelled out, “Aunt Tillie! I knew you’d come! I told them you’d come. But nobody wanted to believe me.”

  She almost ran headlong into Tillie’s arms.

  Probably would have knocked the petite woman down.

  But she stopped short.

  Because she was Millicent. And, being Millicent, she had to fulfill her reputation as a bit of a snarky badass.

  She put her hands on her hips and demanded, “What took you so long?”

  Tillie could have been offended. After all, she’d just finished a very long and very arduous journey.

  Or she could have been disappointed.

  She’d gone to one knee, held out her arms and was expecting a bear hug bigger than the State of Texas.

  Instead, she broke down in laughter.

  For this was typical Millicent.

  This was the Millicent she remembered and dreamed of almost every night.

  It would be easy to say the child hadn’t changed a bit in the almost three years since the two last saw one another.

  But it wouldn’t be true.

  She’d changed in so many ways.

  She was way more mature than she was three years before. Way wiser.

  Way tougher.

  But in some ways she hadn’t changed at all.

  She still had the same attitude.

  She was still Millicent.

  It occurred to both of them, woman and child alike, that their laughing and carrying on was rather inappropriate for the setting.

  Actually it was the first time Millicent had smiled in days, ever since Sara had gone missing.

  It was the first time Tillie had smiled since the day before, when the jubilation of her arrival in Junction was shattered by the sight of a pink sign announcing Sara Harter’s funeral.

  She’d never met Sara. Didn’t know anything about her, really, except that she’d fallen in love with her niece and asked to adopt her.
/>   That in itself made her a good woman in Tillie’s book.

  She’d seen that first sign fifteen miles from the compound, and had followed each successive sign along the way. It took more than a day because she was careful to travel only in the daytime, lest she pass one of the markers by in the darkness.

  As for reaching her destination just as the funeral was commencing, that was a mere matter of chance. She’d have preferred to have missed it.

  She knew she was an outsider who didn’t belong at the funeral.

  The signs didn’t list a day or a time for the funeral. She had no way of knowing whether it was last week or a week in the future.

  Every step of those fifteen miles Tillie fretted.

  They’d told her at the orphanage in San Antonio that Sara was a young woman.

  Certainly not a woman subject to fall victim to a natural death.

  These days a natural death was a rare thing, since suicides and homicides outnumbered a natural death fifty to one.

  All Tillie could think of, every step of the last fifteen miles, was that Sara likely met an untimely end. Perhaps by her own hand, or maybe at the hand of a marauder.

  Tillie was a worry-wart by nature so some of her stress came naturally.

  But she was also a realist, and knew if Millicent’s adopted mother took her own life there was a good chance she took Millicent’s first.

  After all, in most murder/suicide cases parents believed it was better to die than to live in such a cold cruel world.

  And few parents who’d given up would leave their children behind to fend for themselves.

  The other possibility… that Sara was felled by a bad man, was fraught with its own peril. For if Sara was a good mother and had Millicent at her side, wouldn’t Millicent also be in the line of fire?

  Of course, none of the signs made mention of a funeral service for Millicent. None of them said, “Sara Harter and child.”

  So there was that.

  But still, it was by far the most agonizing fifteen miles of a journey halfway across the country.

  Perhaps it was fitting it came at the very end.

  When the two finally embraced, finally had to wipe away tears of joy, the approaching adults finally figured it out.

  For Millicent had indeed talked of her Aunt Tillie many times.