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I glanced again at the San Francisco crime-scene photos I’d gotten in. The photos showed two messy scenes that looked eerily similar to the ones I’d been at recently here in New York. The savagely murdered victims, both slashed around the neck, face, and eyes—and the excessive amount of blood deliberately splashed around the rooms.
I reviewed the case file of one of the victims, a thirty-year-old tech worker who had lived alone in an apartment not far from Fisherman’s Wharf. I flipped to a photo of her living room and noticed that lined up on her mantel were tiny figurines of ballerinas and musicians. Several were pushed to one side, then a gap, and then two more figurines. Interesting.
The separation between the two groups of figurines reminded me of the similar detail at Elaine Anastas’s apartment—those bloody bobbleheads.
Was there a connection?
Chapter 24
Daniel Ott realized the potential risk in stalking the young librarian who’d spoken to him in the computer room in the New York Public Library.
He had only recently killed Elaine, the intern. Normally he’d pause between victims. But he felt pressed to eliminate a witness who might be able to identify him in the future.
He decided achieving that goal outweighed the risk.
Ott was surprised not to have had an instant response to the email he’d sent. It was the most daring action he’d ever taken in relation to his hobby. Although he recognized the hypocrisy between creating a meticulous crime scene and then taunting the police in private and public ways, Ott couldn’t explain why he had done it. Maybe it was because they were too stupid to understand how clever he was.
He had already decided the librarian needed to go, so it was easy to forget the fact that he had rarely killed like this before, without preparing his crime-scene rituals and messages.
It hadn’t been difficult to figure out which door the library staff used to exit their shifts. He got lucky in spotting the young woman after only about twenty minutes of waiting near the door.
He followed her from the library. She seemed to be a cheerful, friendly young woman. Either that or she knew an inordinate number of people. She waved and nodded hello to dozens of people in the space of three blocks. She was wearing jeans and a plain blouse, nothing remarkable, so he had to keep her long, straight black hair constantly in sight.
Ott found that the longer he followed the girl, the more she intrigued him. He appreciated how she stopped to help an elderly man struggling to get his walker over a curb. She stayed with the man until he entered a McDonald’s halfway down the block.
Ott glanced around the street and didn’t see many pedestrians. A taxi whizzed by, none of the passengers paying any attention.
All he needed was a quiet moment when no one was around. Just a quick blade through the throat or the chest and then he could walk away.
He thought he’d found that opportunity when she stopped to make a phone call almost twenty minutes after he’d started following her from the library. From half a block away, Ott watched her pace back and forth across an alley. He felt his pulse quicken. He slipped a surgical glove over his right hand as he made his way along the sidewalk, reaching into his tool pouch to pull out the Gerber folding knife.
He’d already decided to step up behind her and slice her throat horizontally. She would make noise and her blood would spill onto the street, but he didn’t care what kind of mess he made if they were alone. The messier the better was his usual attitude anyway. He imagined she would just crawl into the alley and thrash around until she was dead. With luck, no one would even notice her body for a while.
He came close enough to hear her voice as she talked on the phone. The same voice she had used to reprimand him. He was almost sorry there wouldn’t be time for one of his dedicated rituals.
He zeroed in on her. The librarian was facing away from him, chatting away and not paying any attention to her surroundings. Perfect.
Just as he stepped into the alley, he heard more voices. Three men dressed in white we
re sitting on folding chairs behind a restaurant’s back exit. They were cooks, laughing and talking on a break.
All three men glanced up at him. He closed the knife and slipped it back into his pouch. Ott tried to alter his course and casually stepped back onto the sidewalk. He walked quickly out of their sight before he paused for a moment and took a breath.
About thirty seconds later, the young librarian strolled past him without paying any attention at all.
He had missed his best opportunity.
Chapter 25
Daniel Ott followed the young librarian another block until she turned and stepped into a Subway sandwich shop. The chain was the gold standard for people in a hurry or students without much money. Basic nutrition without a lot of flavor. It wasn’t the flashiest business plan, but they seemed to be doing okay.
Ott was a little confused about what to do next. After feeling his excitement rise when he thought he could reach the librarian in the alley, he had calmed down.
He stopped at the door and held it open for an elderly Indian woman. The hunched woman walked in a shuffling gait. She looked up and smiled a thank-you. He nodded and helped her inside.
Ott merged into the line, putting a couple of people between him and the librarian. He glanced up at a TV bolted to the wall, where his murders led a quick newsbreak.
He wasn’t the only one paying attention to the screen. Virtually everyone in line, including the hunched-over Indian woman, looked up at the newscaster. Ott waited to hear if his latest taunt had been discovered. There was coverage of Elaine Anastas’s recent murder but nothing about his messages—neither the ones he’d left at the scenes nor the one he’d sent via email.
