David Baldacci: Hour Game

"There's nothing wrong with using your specialized knowledge to help solve a crime," commented Michelle.

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" Sylvia paused and said, "I can tell you that the arm was braced up by the stick and that it was done deliberately. Beyond that, I'm out of ideas." She turned to King. "It was good to see you again, even if it was under these circumstances." She put out her hand to Michelle, who shook it.

As the woman walked off, Michelle said, "I thought you said you used to date."

"We did. It's been over a year now."

"I'm not sure she got the message."

"I really appreciate the insight. Maybe you can read my palm next. You ready to go? Or do you want to finish your run?"

"Thanks, but I've had enough stimulation for one day."

As they passed close by the body, King stopped and stared at the hand that was still pointing to the sky, his face suddenly tense.

"What is it?" Michelle asked, watching him closely.

"The watch," he said.

She glanced at it, now seeing that it was set to one o'clock and didn't appear to be running. "What about it?"

"Michelle, it's a Zodiac watch."

"Zodiac?"

"Something tells me we're going to see this person's work again," said King.

THE ISOLATED AREA ON A BLUFF overlooking one of the main channels of thirty-mile-long Cardinal Lake had long been a favorite place for the teenagers in Wrightsburg to gather and perform a variety of acts their parents wouldn't approve of. The night being overcast and drizzly with a wind rattling the trees, there was only one car parked up on the bluff, but the occupants were putting on an energetic show nonetheless.

The girl was already naked, her dress and undergarments folded neatly in the backseat next to her shoes. The young man was frantically trying to pull his shirt over his head while the girl was undoing his pants; it was tough going in the cramped quarters. The shirt finally came off about the time his pants and underwear were ripped down by the hard-breathing young lady, for whom patience, at least under these circumstances, was clearly not a virtue.

He slid toward the middle of the front seat after putting on a condom, and she climbed astride him, facing him. The windows of the car were fogging up now. Over her shoulder he stared out the windshield, his own breath growing faster as he closed his eyes. It was his first time, though his partner appeared far more experienced. He'd been dreaming of this moment for at least two years, his hormones building to levels of utter agony. He smiled as she moaned and rocked on top of him.

Then he opened his eyes and stopped smiling.

The figure in the black hood stared back at him through the windshield. Through the thickening condensation on the glass he saw the shotgun muzzle come up. He started to throw the girl off him, instinctively thinking he would start the car and get out of here. He never made it. The glass exploded inward. The impact of the buckshot against her back slammed the girl into him, yet her body shielded him. Still the collision with her head broke his nose, almost knocking him out. Awash in her blood but as yet not critically wounded, he clutched the dead body against his chest, as though it were a cherished security blanket capable of warding off the bogeyman. He wanted to scream yet couldn't. He finally let the girl go as he slid toward the driver's side. His movements were clumsy, his mind clouded.. Had he been shot? He didn't know it but he was suffering from shock, his rapidly rising and falling blood pressure dragging his body through levels of stress it wasn't designed for.

He started to turn the key in the ignition when the driver's side door opened and there was the black hood again. As he stared helplessly, the shotgun muzzle glided at him like the deadliest snake in the world. The boy started to beg and then to cry, the blood pouring from his destroyed nose. He inched back away from the gunman, until he bumped against the girl's body. "Please!" he wailed. "No, God, no!"

The nine pellets of the shotgun blast hit him in the head with the collective force of a gigantic hammer, and he fell next to the dead girl. The front of her was unmarked; however, the other side was obliterated. Looking at the girl lying there on her back, one couldn't tell what had killed the young woman. The cause of death of her boyfriend was far more obvious, considering he no longer had a face.

The killer leaned his shotgun against the car's passenger side, opened the door and reached in. He placed a watch on the young man's wrist, bracing the arm up against the dash, finally wedging it between the dash and the door. Next he fiddled with the watch that the dead girl was already wearing. Then he pulled off the cheap amethyst ring the girl had on and put it in his pocket. He lifted a St. Christopher's medal from around the young man's neck. That also went into the hooded man's pocket.

Over the boy's body he said, "I'm sorry. You're not personally guilty, but you were part of the original sin. You didn't die in vain. You righted a long-overdue wrong. Take comfort in that."

He didn't bother praying over the girl. He took an object from his pocket and laid it on the floor of the car, shut the door and lumbered off. As the rain came in through the shattered windshield, the two dead and naked young people seemed to be clinging to each other.

On the floorboard was the object the killer had placed there.

It was a dog collar.

CHIEF WILLIAMS STOPPED BY THEoffices of King Maxwell located in a two-story brick townhouse in the heart of the small yet posh Wrightsburg downtown. The offices had housed King's law practice before he'd taken down his legal shingle. The chief sat with his hat in his lap, eyes puffy and features strained as he filled in King and Michelle on the grisly double homicide.

"I left the police force in Norfolk so I wouldn't have to deal with this sort of crap," Williams began. "My ex-wife got me to move here for the peace and quiet. Damn, was that woman wrong! No wonder we got divorced."

King handed him a cup of coffee and then sat down across from him, while Michelle remained perched on the edge of a leather couch. "Wait'll the papers get hold of this one. And poor Sylvia. She'd just finished the autopsy on that girl, and then she had to do two more."

"Who were they?" asked King.

"Students at Wrightsburg High School: Steve Canney and Janice Pembroke. She was shot in the back; he took it full in the face. Buckshot. When I opened that car door, it cost me my breakfast. Hell, I'll be seeing them in my sleep for months."

"No witnesses?"

"Not that we know of. It was a rainy night. Theirs were the only tire tracks up there."

Michelle perked up. "Right, it was raining. So if you didn't see any tire tracks, the killer must have walked up to the car. You didn't find any traces of that?"

"Most everything was washed away. There was an inch of bloody water on the floor of the car. Steve Canney was one of the most popular kids in school, football star and everything."

"And the girl?" asked Michelle.

Williams hesitated. "Janice Pembroke had a reputation with the boys."

"As being… accessible?" asked King.

"Yes."

"Was anything taken? Could it have been a robbery?"

"Not likely, although two things were missing: a cheap ring Pembroke usually wore and Canney's St. Christopher's medal. We don't know if the killer took them or not."

"You said Sylvia finished the autopsies. I'm assuming you attended them."

Williams looked embarrassed. "I had a little problem halfway through Jane Doe's post, and I got tied up while she was doing the other autopsies. I'm waiting on Sylvia's reports," he added hastily. "We don't have an official homicide detective on the force, so I figured coming here and picking your brain wouldn't be a bad thing."