Then again, what he’d always fantasized, what he really wanted, was the sacrificial virgin, the woman whose whole life had been lived for the moment Bill would deflower her, and whose whole existence would be justified by death immediately following. A flower buds, grows, gains secret and wondrous beauty, and then, from the moment it opens it is dying. That’s a fact. From the moment the flower opens, it is a burden to the plant, pulling moisture and nutrients away from the needy buds. Once opened, the flower’s only true purpose is to crumble, to give off its pollen, its seed, and the sooner it swoons and snaps from its stem, petals falling from its heart, the sooner its legacy is secured and its life given meaning only in retrospect.
And this woman, this hooker, Carol Miller, she was the first who seemed to know that. She seemed not so much to be accepting her destiny as welcoming it. Yes, she knew about the flowers, she knew about sacrifice, and she was honored that she, of all people, had been chosen.
Bill was certain of it.
He reached under a floor mat and pulled out a dagger, grasped it tight. It was really just a kitchen knife, and it would go back to being a kitchen knife by light of day—in fact it would go back into Bill and Cheryl’s kitchen—but right now it was a mythical dagger transformed for extraordinary purpose. It had the blood of the ancients on its blade, the hand sweat of the holiest of holy men on its grip, the symbol of all knowledge and all power erupting into Bill’s palm, there to be felt but never seen.
Carol Miller watched her killer approach. He’d opened his jumpsuit, and his penis was engorged, leading him toward her. She was beyond hope, beyond fear. Somehow, everything that was happening was everything that she’d always expected. This was why she’d long sought the numbness of the drug, but now she was numb even without it.
Bill Suff knelt down between Carol’s legs. “I’m going to take the gag out of your mouth so long as you promise not to scream,” he said, “otherwise I’ll have to hurt you.”
Carol knew she was dead, but she didn’t want any more pain—she nodded agreement with her eyes, and Bill removed the shirt from her mouth. She was too dry to swallow, but she gave a dry cough. Bill looked down, reached down and positioned himself to enter her, the head of his penis against her folds.
“Never before and never again,” he intoned the heavens, and, in one thrust, forced himself inside her as his hand came up holding the dagger, plunging it down square into her chest where it hit bone and bounced angrily away.
She would have screamed in agony but he didn’t give her the chance—before she could inhale to scream, his one hand grabbed her throat and closed like a vise while the other drove the knife down four more times through her ribs, her sternum, until he felt the comforting tension, stretch, and pop as the blade pierced Carol Miller’s heart and killed her, leaving her eyes wide open. Now the killer bent forward, careful not to let his chest rub against the rivulets of blood which were pouring in all directions from Carol’s chest, and he licked her lips, kissed her. Then he sat back, pulled the knife out of her chest, pulled himself out of her, stood up, looked down at her, and decided to wrap her undershirt over her face.
For the next several minutes, Bill cleaned up the scene and packed everything away, walking around Carol like she was just another rock in the garden. Finally, he pulled up the plastic tarp around her and hefted her into the back of his rig. The blue liquid light was just about faded out, and the stars winked from their canopy. Down below, there were just a few lights still on in Elsinore. Bill checked the time—it was late, later than he planned. Cheryl would be home by now and his alibi might be iffy.
Suddenly, he had an idea that flushed him with excitement: He wouldn’t dump the body tonight. He’d keep it in the rig—take it home with him, take it to work tomorrow, and then get rid of it tomorrow night. That would really be something—to go through the day acting normal when you knew you had the corpse of a dead girl in your rig. He’d have a hard-on all day long. And the police would get all screwed up trying to figure out time of death. Bill would create a perfect alibi for himself for tomorrow and make it look like the girl died then, when Bill couldn’t’ve done it.
That would be the final equation for Carol Miller.
When Bill got home, Cheryl was asleep on the sofa. This was the first time after a killing that he really wanted to fuck the girl he was living with, but he stopped himself. So long as Cheryl was underage, he had to maintain his discipline.
Bill went into his bedroom and jerked off. At one point he thought he saw Cheryl’s shadow standing by the door, but he wasn’t sure. Afterwards, he found he couldn’t sleep. He crept out to his rig half a dozen times or more between then and morning, making sure that Carol’s body was hidden from view. Cheryl woke up at Bill’s peregrinations, asked him what was going on, what was the rumpus, and he told her his allergies were acting up and he was going outside to sneeze. He actually thought she believed him, but the truth was she just didn’t mind his lies.
Early on the morning of February 8, 1990, a migrant worker found the body of Carol Lynn Miller in a grapefruit grove in Rubidoux by Lake Elsinore. She was naked, lying on her back, laid out evenly, legs spread, her black cotton undershirt draped at an angle across her face, a sort of exotic harem veil, with one eye covered and the other open and exposed. She’d been dead at least all night and maybe another full day, too. Her lower lip was crunched and folded down and there was some lividity in her face, so she’d spent her first hours after death in a different position than she was found, maybe with her head bent under or curled up.
Some paint chips were found on her skin—just a few, blue and white and clear layers of lacquer, just like chips found on Darla Ferguson, the most recent victim of the Riverside Prostitute Killer prior to Carol. These were the only two victims ever found with paint chips.
There were conflicting stories as to when Carol had last been seen alive. The John said she’d slept under his porch on Monday the 5th, but in fact Monday was the 6th. A dealer said he’d seen Carol on the street the night of Tuesday the 6th, but of course Tuesday was really the 7th.
Nobody keeps dates straight anymore.
Bill claimed to have worked late one night and gone to the hospital for an allergy shot on another night, and records bore him out. Cheryl said she was home with Bill both nights after work.
When bodies are left outside, you can determine time of death by maggots if you have to. Literally the moment you die, carrion flies land on you, feed on your cells as the dead cell walls burst and ooze their juices, and then the flies lay eggs. And the eggs hatch maggots after only a few hours, a set number of hours varying only between the different types of flies. Then the maggots turn into adult flies over the course of the next few hours, and these flies have a nosh and lay eggs and start the process all over again. Along the way, other flies land and lay eggs, so your corpse is pretty quickly a multigener-ational breeding ground, and you can accurately backdate to time of death just by counting up the generations buzzing around.
Unfortunately, no one bothered to run a maggot check on Carol Miller, so there was no way to prove when she died. Had Bill Suff been charged with only her murder, he would have walked. No evidence placed him anywhere near her, not then, not ever.
Nonetheless, Carol Miller helped Bill earn the death penalty.