CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Helen, first, stopped by the hospital, walked directly into the morgue to see if Tom was there. But the security guard stopped her. “You can go in and look around all you want, Captain. But Dr. Drake’s not here. He was scheduled to come on duty at eleven o’clock, but he never showed. Reception tells me it’s the first time he’s ever been late.”

Her fingers ached from nervously rubbing her locket. “He won’t be showing up at all,” Helen mouthed under her breath.

“What’s that, ma’am? I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

“Have a good night,” she told him and exited. He’s left, she realized. He knows we’re onto him, and he’s left. He’s probably crossing the state line right now, either that or Campbell and Dahmer are hiding him out.

What could she do?

Put out an APB? Eventually the DA would want to know her probable cause. She could sluff it, keep her fingers crossed, but it probably wouldn’t wash. She’d probably break right on the stand, like some old Perry Mason episode. I may not be a whole lot of good things, but I’m not a liar, and I’m not going to commit perjury. I can’t.

Chances were, even if the worst fell on her head, she’d get off with a dishonorable dismissal, a big fine, and PJB waived for community service. They wouldn’t put a state captain with going on two decades of exemplary service in jail.

At least probably not.

But since they knew she was onto them, she logically reasoned, they would also be onto her. She needed to protect herself, but she wasn’t sure how.

Wait…

An hour later she was driving home.

««—»»

The apartment seemed quiet as a crypt, and as dark. Helen lit another cigarette and walked down the hall, shedding her Burberry overcoat to leave it lie on the floor. Then she flicked on the lamp in the living room.

Damn.

Nothing. The dark looked back at her. A titter of nervousness touched her, like a skeleton fingertip etching almost imperceptibly down the nape of her neck. But this happened all the time, especially in the winter—power surges would trip the breakers. The end of her cigarette glowed red—a rat’s eye—as she glided to the kitchen cove, fumbled to light a candle, then reached to open the fuse box. Just as she would snap open the metal cover, the phone rang.

She looked at the clock. One a.m.

Then she looked at the phone.

Looked back at the clock.

On the third ring, she picked it up.

“Hello?”

An empty pause. The sound of someone swallowing, then:

“Thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven… Yet thou shalt be brought down into hell, deep into the pit.,” Jeffrey Dahmer said.

The darkness seemed to shrink. The tendons of Helen’s knuckles stood out as she gripped the phone, and now that skeleton fingertip began to tickle her.

“Mr. Dahmer, listen to me,” she said, but her throat grated out the words. It wasn’t easy. She was talking to a serial killer, perhaps the most notorious in American history. “Turn yourself in to the state police. I give you my word you won’t be harmed. We’re going to get you eventually, so let’s do this the easy way. We know all about Campbell and Tom Drake. It’s only a matter of time before we take you down. You’re ill, Mr. Dahmer, more so now than ever before. You’ve recently suffered a psychiatric disorder known as a conative-episodic break, and you’re letting Campbell manipulate you with it… Mr. Dahmer, are you listening to me?”

Dahmer paused again. Did he chuckle? “Look behind you,” he said.

Helen dropped the phone, turned—

—and saw Campbell’s face grinning over an uplit flashlight. “Nice to see you again, Captain Closs.”

She began to scream but the effort was severed when the hot hand slapped across her mouth. The flashlight arched, cracked her in the temple.

Half her consciousness drained away as she collapsed.

Movement above her in the dark. A rustle.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you. Jeff wants to do that himself.”

Campbell then, a nimble shadow given flesh, straddled her, pinned her down, and jammed a hypodermic needle right into her neck.

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