Chapter 22

Special Agent Janice Green was born in and spent the first thirteen years of her life in New Orleans, Louisiana. New Orleans is in a semi-tropical rain forest and boasts or complains of about eighty inches of rain annually. The air in Louisiana is thick with moisture, and the soil is black with earthy fragrances. Although born there, Janice was never a Louisianan. In New Orleans a person is an outsider unless he or she can demonstrate a family tree of at least three generations that lived in or around the city, and five is better. To these five-generation Southerners, Janice was and always would be oil-field trash. Her father was an executive with Exxon Oil.

Although considered an outsider and cruelly referred to as oil-field trash, Janice came to love the Louisiana landscape with its lush vegetation and heady odors. So driving into Tucson was and always would be a culture shock for her. After a number or trips, she'd started to appreciate the beauty of the high desert around Phoenix, but ... frankly Tucson was just plain desert. For her the city offered no joy for her eyes. The air was dry and dusty and gray. But she wasn't in Tucson as a tourist. She was in the city to capture a serial killer.

They had a no-knock warrant, and they didn't knock. A hefty FBI agent assigned to the Tucson field office rolled his shoulders and the battering ram in his hands leveled the front door.

"Clear," another agent said seconds later after entering the house. And then more and more "clears" rang out. As expected, Lawrence W. Anderson, age thirty-five, six-feet tall, one hundred sixty pounds, brown hair, brown eyes, long face and bushy eyebrows, was not home.

It was a small home, two bedrooms, one bath, kitchen and kitchen eating and a living room. The small bedroom had been dedicated as a shrine to the victims, the walls covered with news clippings that described Anderson's crimes. Tapes for a VCR were arranged by date, and Anderson had obviously sat in the overstuffed chair in the room and watched these tapes over and over again as television news reporters told their listening audience about the serial rapist and killer. Larry Anderson was his own biggest fan.

The house, except for accumulated dust during Anderson's absence, was neat as a pin. Curiously, his Honda Accord was parked in the carport at the side of the house.

"Lookee here!" Vernon Green exclaimed while holding a piece of paper. "The unsub recently purchased a pickup truck and travel trailer."

I was a man on a mission. I was in love, and I was loved, and the woman had agreed to be my wife. Warts and all. So I'd thrown caution to the wind and drove away from Refuge in the Hummer without a driver or warrior by my side.

I'd called around. A private jeweler named Efraim Cohen kept popping up, so I called and made an appointment with him. When I walked into Efraim Cohen's small shop in Tempe, I was greeted by a man so old and frail I wondered if he was one of those fictional living dead who kept digging out of their graves on nights with full moons. But then I noticed the light in his pale eyes, and his lips curled in a parody of a smile.

"Ah," he said, "a boychik in love."

"I am," I said, no doubt grinning like a fool.

He proceeded to educate me about diamonds, which irritated me at first until I realized he couldn't be stopped or rushed. And then what he had to say started to interest me, and I didn't want him to stop or hurry.

Then we looked at loose diamonds, hundreds of them. We looked at them with the naked eye and through a jeweler's loop, and I started to understand about the four C's: carat, clarity, color and cut. After careful consideration, I selected the diamond I wanted mounted as a solitaire on a simple platinum band.

"What size band?" Efraim asked.

I pulled a ring out of my pocket. "I borrowed this from my future bride's jewelry box. Sometimes she wears it on the third finger of her left hand."

He measured the ring with what looked like a pole from a children's game of ring toss and jotted down the size.

"What time can I pick up the ring tomorrow?" I said.

"First we must select the diamonds for the wedding band," he said. "They should compliment the solitaire."

Then he educated me about wedding bands. An hour later, I paid him, and he told me that I could pick up the engagement ring anytime after one o'clock in the afternoon the next day.

"The wedding band will not be ready for two weeks. I don't do that work myself anymore," he said.

I paid him, happily, and left.

While I was waiting for traffic to drive out of the parking lot next to Efraim's shop, I saw Leah drive by in her car. I honked but she didn't hear my horn, and I couldn't drive after her. I was stuck where I was by a long line of cars following her on Mill Avenue. Either the university or the workplaces in the area had just finished for the day. Probably both.

A pickup truck pulling a travel trailer drove by, and there was space behind the trailer, so I pulled out onto street. One of my pet peeves is following a truck or trailer that I can't see around, so at the first opportunity, I pulled around the trailer, but before I could pass the truck, the light just ahead turned red. I stopped at the crosswalk to the left of the pickup truck.

The Hummer had cooled off, so I adjusted the air conditioning. I had enough roaring in my ears from tinnitus without the roar of a car air conditioning turned up full blast.

Would Loni be happy with the engagement ring? I'd selected a two-carat, flawless, D or colorless, round brilliant cut diamond with strong blue florescence, and it was high in light performance. A four-claw prong setting would cradle the diamond, allowing light to enter from all angles, which would make the diamond appear larger and more brilliant. Efraim said it was the highest quality two-carat diamond he had in stock. He had some one-carat stones that matched the quality of diamond I selected, but nothing larger than one carat came close. I figured it would be dazzling mounted on the platinum band.

The pickup truck edged forward into the crosswalk. I glanced at the driver just as he slammed the heel of his right hand onto the steering wheel. I think he cursed, but a lip-reader I'm not. I was a mind reader, though, and he was within range, so I connected with him as I fiddled with the radio.

Fuckin' dirty, filthy squaw, he thought.

I felt like I'd just been doused in ice water. I spun my head and eyes toward the driver and took a close look at him.

Calm down, he told himself. The bitch made the light; you didn't. You know where she lives, and she was heading in that direction. And for a change, she's alone.

Because he was sitting, I couldn't estimate his height, but he was a clean-shaven white man with a long face and bushy eyebrows. I wished I'd taken a closer look at the photograph Leah had selected that represented the most likely stalker she'd seen.

The light turned green, and the pickup truck shot forward like it was in a drag race. Then it swerved into my lane. The following trailer would have hit the Hummer if I hadn't stepped on the brakes. I also lost my connection with the driver. With a 14- to 16-foot trailer behind the pickup, I was more than twenty feet from the driver. I couldn't switch lanes to move up next to the pickup and the driver again. Too many cars in the other lane.

Come to think of it, why was Leah alone? Greg had assigned David as her driver. I dug out my cell phone and hit speed-dial number two. Greg answered my call.

"I just saw Leah. She was alone," I said. "Why wasn't David with her?"

"He's sick, food poisoning, he thinks. I offered to assign Frank in David's place or drive her myself, but Leah is as careless about protection as you. Why are you out and about without a driver?"

"To arrange a surprise," I said. "Listen, I'm following a pickup truck that's pulling a travel trailer, and I think the pickup is following Leah. The driver is a clean-shaven white man with a long face and bushy eyebrows."

"You're kidding me," Greg said.

"Nope."

"Where are you?"

"On Mill Avenue in Tempe traveling south toward I-60. It must be the rush hour. The cars are bumper to bumper. I'm right behind the travel trailer. I don't know where Leah is now. I assume she'll turn onto I-60 and take the freeway to Gold Canyon and Refuge."

"Are you armed?"

"Got a pistol in the glove compartment," I said.

"All right. Frank and I are out the door. Don't do anything until we hook up with you. And stay on the phone."

"Can't. I'll call you back after I talk with Leah." I ended the call and dialed Leah's cell phone. Busy signal. I waited a minute and pushed redial.

"Hello," Leah said.

"Hi, it's Clint. Where are you?"

"On the way to my apartment. I need to pick up a few things. Then I'll drive to Refuge. Why?"

I told her about the pickup truck and trailer, described the driver and told her the thoughts I'd experienced while connected with him. "He might be the serial killer, Leah."

"I hope he is," Leah said, which should have surprised me but didn't. Leah wanted her life back.

"I'm directly behind him in my Hummer," I said. "Can you see the pickup and trailer?"

"No."

"Greg and Frank are on the way here, but it'll be almost an hour before they can connect with us. What do you want to do?" I said.

"How brave are you?"

"Not as brave as you," I said.

"Got a gun?"

"I do."

"Me, too. And I've been practicing like crazy at your shooting range. I'm tired of living in fear, Clint. Let's make sure he's the killer, and then let's take him," Leah said.

"Define take him," I said.

"Make a citizen's arrest. I'm also tired of hearing about Native American women getting raped and mutilated and murdered. If he resists, I'll blow him away. There he is. I see the pickup and trailer now. He's in the forth vehicle behind me."

She didn't take the turn off Mill for her home, Lawrence Anderson thought. The bitch is probably going to that fuckin' fortress in Gold Canyon. If she does and doesn't stop anywhere, I won't be able to take her today. Should've taken her in the parking lot at the university. Should've shoved my gun in her face and forced her into my home away from home. Should've tied her to the bed in the back and gagged her, and then driven away. Out in the desert somewhere. A lonely place where I can show her what a real white man is like, not like that namby-pamby piece of shit she's always with.

I'll fuck her, fuck her, and fuck her. Then beat her, beat on her until not even her mother would recognize her. And then I'll take her hair. Scalp her; add her scalp to my collection.

He slammed the heel of his hand on the steering wheel.

"The bitch is mine! Mine! And she's cheatin' on me, cheatin' on me like Lilly cheated on me. Filthy breed! Just like Lilly. A fuckin' breed whore. I'll show her! I'll show her."

Stop bitch! Stop somewhere. Anywhere. I don't care.

He didn't care. Not anymore. That was how it had become. And it hadn't started with Lilly. Lillian Heta. Not really. It started when he was a boy. With his mother. She liked girls, young girls. And boys, young boys. And she liked to watch young girls with young boys, any gender mix or number. The more the merrier as long as they were young. She directed them as if she were making pornographic movies, sometimes getting involved, sometimes becoming the star of the pretend film.

They lived on the rez then. His mother was still married to his father. His father didn't like young girls. He liked young boys. That Larry was his son didn't matter. He was handy. Sometimes his mother directed a pretend movie starring Larry and his father. Larry didn't mind. He liked it. They were kind and gentle and loving. That was before his parents were arrested and sent to prison and he was put in a foster home. He never saw or heard from either parent again.

He didn't like the foster home. The foster father who raped him wasn't kind or gentle or loving. He was brutal, a sadistic, angry man. That's when Larry's anger started. That's when Larry learned to hate. That's when Larry learned how to control others with physical force and mental abuse.

He ended up in a hospital, badly beaten with a torn rectum, and when he was released, they put him in a different foster home. And a little later, they moved him yet again. Nobody raped him, but he was beaten frequently until he grew large enough to stop the beatings. In the last foster home he occupied, he learned how to expel his anger. He used force and mental abuse to take care of his needs with two of the young girls in the home. He was smart about it, though, and got away with it. That was the thing about Larry. He was smart. Without effort, he did well in school, well enough to get an associate degree at a junior college and land a white-collar job. He was smart enough to stay out of trouble and, later, get an even better job, the job he had now.

He'd escaped the foster system, made something of himself, but he couldn't escape his early conditioning. Besides his mother, the first sex he had was with Native American girls, and he'd fixated on them as desirable sexual partners, using force if necessary. Or a little money. Then he met Lillian Heta. He loved Lilly. And he controlled her, controlled her in the ways he'd learned. He beat her and abused her mentally. He liked to bind her to have his way with her. She didn't mind. She liked it. She liked the ball gag, too. She didn't like the beatings, but she put up with them out of fear.

She was a breed, and she drank, and soon she didn't look young anymore. And she got fat. And she cheated on him, got so she'd have sex with anyone who would buy her some booze.

Larry didn't divorce her. He'd never married her. He just beat her until she couldn't walk and threw her out. Put her on the streets. He never saw her again.

Then one day while on the University of Arizona campus, he saw a beautiful, young Apache breed. Something happened inside him. She stimulated an urge he'd never felt. He followed her, and the more he followed her, the more he wanted her.

He put together his bag of tools: the trike, a pair of scissors, a ball gag, rope, ski mask and gloves. And condoms. Then he followed the Apache breed to her home and took her, controlled her like he'd been taught how to control others, and when he was finished with her he wasn't angry anymore. For a while.

"How about that?" Larry Sanderson said aloud. "I don't think the Indian Princess is going to take I-60. Maybe, just maybe..."

I couldn't be arrested. My fingerprints would tell the police that I'm a seventy-seven-year-old man. That's why I used a driver most of the time. That's why I didn't have a conceal-carry permit. Conceal-carry permits required fingerprints.

Ah, hell, life without risk wasn't worth living.

Besides, my weapon wouldn't be concealed. It would be in my hand. In plain sight. I took the pistol out of the glove compartment, checked it and set it on the passenger seat. Handy. I felt like Clint Eastwood playing Dirty Harry in a movie, except this was real life, unscripted and unpredictable.

"There's a strip shopping center on Baseline on the other side of I-60," Leah said.

"Which corner?" I said.

"Southwest. I'll pull in and park with a lot of vacant parking spaces around me to avoid innocent bystanders. Let's see if he follows me into the parking lot. If he does, I'll be cocked and locked, as Sarge says."

"And I'll follow him into the parking lot," I said. "Stay on the phone. If I get stuck at a light or can't follow him into the parking lot, don't stop."

"All right. I'm driving over I-60 now. We're going to finish this, Clint. You and me."

"Yes we are," I said. My palms started to sweat, and if I was nervous, Leah had to be just as nervous. Distract her and calm your nervous body at the same time. "Leah, I told Loni I couldn't grow old with her." Leah didn't respond, so I said, "We're getting married. A term contract, not the normal until-death-do-us-part contract. Twenty years. A reasonable term, all things considered. Then a divorce. And then I'll set up my demise as Clint Wilson and start over somewhere else under a new name. She wants to spend the best years of her life with me, Leah."

She didn't speak. I wished I were close enough to connect with her. Then she sniffed and said, "Dammit, you made me cry. Tears of happiness, Clint. No more loneliness for you, not for a long time. I was so happy for you, I cried." She paused. "There. I'm all right now."

"I'm driving over I-60 now," I said.

"He's edging closer. Only two vehicles between us now," she said.

"That's why I was in Tempe without a driver," I said. "I was picking out the diamond for Loni's engagement ring. You're the only one who knows, Leah, so don't ruin the surprise."

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