Gregg Olsen - Fear Collector

But I am not that monster. I’m a guy who made some mistakes and now I am paying the price for it. I’m not saying that my mistakes weren’t big ones, but the measure of my supposed crimes is far less than those who want to kill me would have.

I am sorry about Susie. I have seen her photograph many, many times over the years. She’s always put up with the string of girls from Oregon to Washington. I admit that she looks like whatever the world seems to think I’m responsible for, but I never would have killed her.

He scratched out the last few words and wrote with pen: never would have killed anyone.

The correction was very telling. Anna knew it when she read it the first time. It was a slipup. Ted had edited himself. A sociopath of the highest order, yet devious enough to know the denial of killing a particular girl was not a strong enough protestation on its own. A normal person-one who didn’t suckle on the bloodlust of a murder spree-would dismiss the entirety of the question.

Ted was good at reading people. He was always good at second-guessing what someone would think or do. That was how he’d been able to pick the victims who would help him with his sailboat, change a tire, carry some books as if he were on his way to some political science class.

Ted Bundy, the up-and-comer. Ted, the young Republican. Ted, the manipulator. But more than anything, Ted the predator.

Grace’s eyes met Anna’s, and she went on to the next letter.

Dear Mrs. Sherman:

Tell me more about you. I want to know what kind of home Susie was raised in? Did she have a lot of friends? Was she as pretty as her picture? Did she seem to have a bright future? Do you think you will ever stop hurting because she is gone?

Sometimes when I was a kid I thought that the world was a big ugly place. I had no real idea how ugly it was, how petty people could be. I tried my best to fit in wherever I could. Sometimes I thought that people were just jealous of me. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not an egomaniac. I’m good looking. That’s one thing I got from my dad, I guess. People used to say that I looked like Johnnie Bundy. What a joke that was. He wasn’t even my dad. I was nothing like him. He was a goody-goody, all right. My mom… my mom. Hard to even talk about her. I know she did the best that she could for me, given the times. Yet, she was the one who spread her legs and nine months later out popped me! Sometimes I wonder if she was easy and didn’t know who my dad was or if it was just that she was naive about sex. I don’t like slamming my mom. She stood by me through all of my troubles and that’s better than the rest of the Bundy clan.

I bet your family never stopped praying for Susie. Did you decide if you can send me her picture? I’d like to see what she looked like in a decent photograph. The ones I saw in the paper were always her high school senior photograph. Those always look cheesy. I know mine did. Mrs. Sherman, it would mean a lot to me if I could see her photo. Will you please, please send me one? You mentioned that you vacationed with Susie the summer before she died… Was it on the beach on the Oregon Coast? Maybe you have a photograph from that trip you could send me? Did she wear a bikini?

Grace felt her stomach turn somersaults. It was beyond belief that Ted Bundy would seek a swimsuit photograph of a girl he’d probably killed. She could only imagine that he’d wanted to relive whatever he’d done to Susie Sherman. It was disgusting, vile, reprehensible.

“You didn’t send him a photo, did you?” she asked

Anna shook her head and motioned for Grace to pour her some water from a plastic pitcher on a tray next to her bed. It was the first time that Grace noticed the oxygen tank-at the ready, but not in use.

“Of course not. I thought of sending a picture of some minor TV actress or even another family member and saying it was Susie. Someone who looked like her. I wondered what he would do if he knew that I didn’t trust him.”

“But you didn’t trust him, did you?”

Anna sipped her water and set down the glass. “Of course not. But I didn’t want to lose him. I didn’t want him to go away. You know how you cops on TV sometimes try to keep someone talking on the phone so you can get more info?”

Grace nodded. “Yes, to trace them?”

Anna took another sip of her water. “Right. Well, I know with a letter you can’t trace anything, but I thought that the more I could get him to write, the more he’d tell me. Maybe among his garden of lies, I’d be able to weed out a little bit of truth. Maybe I’d be able to get him to admit that he’d killed my Susie.”

Grace understood completely. In so many ways, Anna was like her own mother. She wondered just how many others were out there wondering about their daughters and if Ted had been their killer.

A nurse came in with a small loaf of banana bread.

“We’ll each have a piece,” Anna said. “They make it from my recipe. Susie loved the cinnamon butter.”

Grace smiled. It was a sad smile, but it was all she could manage. While the nurse set down the banana bread, she read another letter.

Dear Mrs. Sherman,

You are well, I hope. They want to kill me, as you probably have heard. All I want is peace. Did you know that I’ve been corresponding with other friends of yours? I know that you are a game-player. That’s all right. While I prefer people be direct, I’m sure that there are others who are less inclined to be honest. I’m not saying that you’re a liar, Anna Sherman, I just know that you can’t be trusted. peace, Ted

Grace put down the short letter, a note really, and fastened her eyes on Mrs. Sherman’s.

“Was he talking about my mother?” she asked, a little unsure. “She was playing him, too.”

Anna finished a bite of banana bread and brushed a crumb from her chin.

“Honestly, I don’t know. The way I always looked at it, Ted probably got more mail than Santa Claus back then. Everyone-reporters, victims’ families, groupies, what have you-wrote to him.”

“If he wasn’t referring to my mother, what other ‘friends of yours’ was he getting at? If you know?”

Anna shook her head. “Not sure. It could have been Peggy Howell.”

Grace put the letter back into the envelope, the look of recognition washing over her face. “Peggy?”

“Yes,” Anna said. “ Her. I know your family has a history with the girl. I guess I did, too. She befriended me over Susie’s death, and, of course, you know your sister’s connection to Peggy.”

Emma Rose hadn’t given up all hope. Not completely. As dire as things had been, there was still plenty for which she could be grateful. Yes, she’d been tied up and her skin was colored by bruises that had passed from blue and black to a ghastly yellow hue. But he, the creeper, hadn’t tied her up for a while. As she lay on the smelly mattress in the dank subterranean space, the so-called apartment, Emma had taken to keeping her eyes tightly shut. Truth be told, what was there to really see? The only time she bothered to open her eyes was when he came down the stairs. When the door opened and the stabbing light cascaded against the walls, Emma would run her eyes over every surface. Was there a door? A boarded-up window? Was there a way out of there?

She’d never seen any.

As she lay there, something else crossed the young woman’s mind. At first, she wasn’t sure if it had been a dream, a hallucination. Emma felt something. Air. Air ran over her cheek. It was cold, not the hot breath of the creeper who’d held her. Cool. She licked her palm and pressed her hand outward; turning it slightly like it was a metal detector or radar device.

There.

Emma felt the unambiguous movement of air. Air! It brushed against her in a slight, but steady stream. Air! Emma felt her pulse quicken and she instinctively turned to listen for her captor. Was he coming? Was she dreaming? No. All quiet. Next, she slid her feet to meet the floor and she stepped slowly and quietly closer to the moving air. She moistened her palm a second time, no longer reviled by the filth of her own skin. She ran her hands, cut and sore, over the cement and cinderblock wall. She held her breath.