He snorted and thought he sounded like a preacher giving himself a sermon. “Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust,” he said in a mock, deeply sonorous tone.
The Big Bad Wolf believed that he had perfectly blended his fictional worlds with reality. He was a killer in both. He considered himself equally a master of the real and the make-believe. To be so adept in both arenas fueled his excitement.
“Tick-tock, tick-tock. Clock is running, ladies,” he said to himself. He laughed a little, and wondered which would be ultimately more tantalizing: killing or writing about it. They were both wildly attractive.
His only lingering concern was exactly how to express Red Two’s death. This was the sort of challenging knot that all writers liked to undo, he thought. James Ellroy. L.A Confidential. He likes to tightly wind things into complicated scenarios, and then dance his way out with compelling language. And violence. Lots of violence. Can’t forget all that savagery he brings to the ending. The Wolf knew he had to make her final moments on the edge of the bridge seem as alive as the ones he was about to deliver to Red One and Red Three. His problem was he hadn’t been there. “Goddammit.” He had to make sure that readers knew that when Red Two threw herself into the dark waters below, it was his push that sent her.
“You know enough. You have the details. It’s just a matter of the right description,” he said. It was always reassuring to speak to himself in the second person.
He made a mental list: Panic: You know that. Doubt: You understand it. Fear: Well, who has a better handle on that than you? Bring them all together in Red Two’s mind, and there you have it.
He made a mental note to draw a bath when he returned home, immerse his head completely beneath the water, and try to duplicate the sensation of drowning. It won’t be the same. No black water and fierce currents pulling me under. But I’ll get just enough of a little piece of comprehension to make it work on the page.
Hold your breath. When you start to black out, you will know. That should do the trick.
Know about what you’re writing. Hemingway knew war. Dickens knew the British class system. Faulkner knew the South. All good fiction writers have a little journalist inside them.
He had pulled his car into a small dirt parking area adjacent to a wildlife preserve not far from Red One’s home. The preserve abutted the back end of her property. There was a hiking trail favored by local granola-and-boots types that led back into the forest and up a steep but manageable path to a hill that afforded fine views of the valley that he and all three Reds lived in. It was a popular spot. On a nice Sunday morning it was likely to be jammed with a dozen or more cars, and you could hear laughter penetrating the trees and scrub brush as people cheerfully made their way up and down the trail. But on weekdays, it was almost always empty, as few people wanted to take a hike, even a something-less-than-grueling one, after a long day at a boring job. This afternoon, there were only three cars in the lot, even though it was the weekend. The gray, overcast skies threatened rain soon, and the air was chilled deep enough that he could see his breath when he rolled down his window; higher elevations might see snow flurries. This concerned him. He did not want to leave tracks in frozen ground. Slick, damp mud would obscure his footprints. Mud that froze as the temperature plummeted would encase the patterns on his shoe soles almost as well as a plaster of Paris mold. He had read of more than one killer identified by a distinctive shoe print, and he was aware that even the most rural police force knew how to identify shoe prints and tire tracks.
He glanced around. He wanted to be certain that none of the few hikers saw him as he awkwardly changed from a cheap blue suit into jeans, fleece top, and waterproof shell, rapidly going from funeral attire to outdoors gear. He had to contort his body in the front seat of his car as he slid out of his pants, and he was reminded that he wasn’t getting any younger. His knees creaked and his back tightened, but it couldn’t be helped. He shucked off his wing-tip shoes and slid his feet into thick woolen socks and sturdy waterproof boots.
After changing, he double-checked his fake mustache and goatee in the rearview mirror, to make certain that it was still fixed to his face and hadn’t become ridiculously skewed when he’d slid into his turtleneck sweater.
He had once read-back in the days before security cameras and video monitoring systems-of a bank robber who never wore a mask to obscure his identity, but who routinely used some Hollywood makeup to place a savage fake scar on his face, extending from above the eyebrow and across the cheek to below the chin. Someone who truly understands the psychology of crime, the Wolf thought. Every time the police had asked the bank tellers and other witnesses for a description of the robber, they had all uniformly responded: “You can’t miss him because he’s got this damn big scar,” which they then described in great colorful detail. The fake scar was all they saw. Not his eyes or hair color, and not the shape of his cheekbones or the curve of his nose or the square of his chin. He had always liked that. People only see the obvious. Not the subtle, he told himself.
But subtle was the religion he worshiped.
Out of the trunk of his car, he took a common bright pink backpack purchased in a chain drugstore. Decorated with a prancing white unicorn, it was the sort favored by kindergarten girls. He also removed a knotty wooden hiking staff, around which he’d placed a rainbow-hued scarf that was a staple dress item for the local gay and lesbian community. He pulled a navy-blue knit cap emblazoned with the logo of the New England Patriots football team onto his head.
The Big Bad Wolf knew that all of these items taken together created an eccentric, incongruous package, one that, like the bank robber’s scar, would make him invisible to anyone he might happen upon in the forest. They will remember all the wrong things, he told himself.
In the pink backpack he had placed six items: a sandwich, a small flashlight, a thermos with coffee, a pair of night-vision binoculars just in case he decided to stay until after the sun set, a folding spyglass, and a copy of Audubon’s Birds of North America.
The book-which he’d never opened or bothered to read-was for anyone curious enough to stop him, such as a park ranger, although he doubted any would be up on the trails this afternoon. But it wasn’t a bald eagle or a white-tufted owl he actually intended to spy upon.
He started whistling again. A carefree happy tune. He glanced at his wristwatch. Timing is important, he reminded himself. He waited until the sweep hand hit 12, and then the Wolf started rapidly up the path toward the preserve, looking for the small notch in a trailside tree that he’d made in the trunk to mark a route down through the woods that stretched behind Red One’s home.
Trial run, he thought. Next time it wouldn’t be a child’s pink backpack and gay pride walking staff. The next time he would bring only his hunting knife.
He considered all that he had planned: Tuesday. An ordinary, run-of-the-mill day. The dull middle of the workweek. Nothing ever really special about Tuesdays.
Except, this Tuesday will be different.
He carefully counted the minutes it took him to wend his way through the thick tangle of woods. Later, he would count the hours until Tuesday evening.
Out the side door. Past the deli and the pizza shop. Duck through the walkway behind the parking lot. Keep your head down and walk fast.
Red Two hurried through the fading light of the late afternoon. It had started to drizzle again, and she hunched her shoulders forward and tucked her chin into her chest against the cold. She wore an old black baseball cap that was tattered and did little to conceal her mop of hair, but it was better than nothing. Some droplets formed on the bill.