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“And he’s now taking revenge for his own sexual abuse on predators today,” Annette said.
“Correct.”
“So we’ve got a middle-aged guy who was abused as a kid who is now finding sexual predators and killing them,” Annette said. “Those predators have bottlenecked as clients at Lancaster and Jordan.”
She looked briefly at Alex before turning back to Lane.
“You think it’s someone at Lancaster and Jordan? Is that the idea?”
“Maybe,” Lane said. “But so far we’ve only concentrated on homicides since twenty-thirteen. To paint a complete picture of this killer, I looked at the years before Alex’s family was killed and came across an interesting incident that occurred in nineteen eighty-one at a summer camp in the Appalachian Mountains.”
“A summer camp?” Alex asked.
“Yes. Camp Montague. What I found indicates that this killer has been at it for much longer than ten years.”
PART VI
The Profile of a Killer
“An object at rest.”
—Alex Armstrong
Camp Montague Appalachian Mountains
They hid in the darkness of the clearing behind Jerry Lolland’s cabin. Cicadas buzzed in rhythmic tones and blended into the night. Neither talked while they huddled close to the trunk of the large oak and tried to ignore the mosquitos. Eleven o’clock approached and Camp Montague finally settled for the night as the cabins, one by one, went dark. Mr. Lolland’s cabin stayed brightly lighted, however, and soon his screen door squeaked open. They watched from the darkness as he stood on the front porch and surveyed the camp, surely, they thought, deciding if it was safe to embark on his stalking. Would it be her cabin he went to tonight? She hoped so, but she knew there were others he preyed on. She knew this because Jerry had used a Polaroid camera to take photos of her while she was in various stages of undress. The click-shin sound the camera made when he pointed it at her and snapped the photos, as well as the sound of the film ejecting from the camera, sickened her when she thought of it.
“Ah, good girl,” Jerry had said the first time he’d photographed her. “Look how pretty you are.”
She’d barely been able to look at that first photo he showed her. She’d seen herself naked in the bathroom mirror, but that image existed only in her own mind, and it disappeared once she left the bathroom. The photo Mr. Lolland held had made her feel embarrassed and ashamed, knowing that it would never vanish like her reflection. When Mr. Lolland opened his dresser drawer to deposit the photograph inside, she’d seen the photos of his other victims. There were too many to count during her quick glance into the drawer—maybe ten, maybe fifteen. The kids in the photos were also naked, like her. She remembered them now as she hid in the woods and knew that tonight was not just retribution for what Mr. Lolland had done to her; it was reprisal for all his victims—past, present, and future.
They watched him walk from the front porch. He headed toward the middle of camp, to where her cabin stood. He would be surprised to find her bed empty, and they were counting on his anger to distract him when he came back. They hurried from the clearing and ran to the side of the cabin. Every counselor’s cabin was fitted with a natural gas source to fuel the barbecue grills that stood outside the screened porches. They scurried to the grill and crouched down.
“Watch him,” he said as he took the tools from his pocket.
She moved to the edge of the cabin and peered off into the distance, squinting her eyes as she watched Mr. Lolland disappear into the darkness of Camp Montague. They figured they had five minutes. But that was if he simply turned around and came back once he found her cabin empty. They were counting on Mr. Lolland taking an extra few minutes to look for her, checking the outhouse and then the main lodge.
She returned to the grill and took her spot next to him.
“He’s gone,” she said.
She watched him reach behind the barbecue grill until he found the gas line that ran from the cabin. He used the pliers they’d taken from the utility closet to twist the bolt that secured the gas line to the grill. It took a few seconds of forced effort until the bolt broke free, and then it turned easily. He spun the fitting until the line fell free from the grill, then stood and pulled the slack out of the line until it was stretched to its full length. It was just long enough to reach the window.
“It’s locked,” she said when she tried to open the window that led to Mr. Lolland’s bedroom. “I’ll go in and unlock it.”
“What if he comes back?”
“It won’t take me long,” she said, taking a hard swallow before speaking again. “I’ve been in there before.”
In a mad dash she skirted past him and cut around the corner, then scrambled up the front steps of the cabin—stairs she climbed for the first time weeks ago with Mr. Lolland’s firm grip on the back of her neck. The screen door squeaked now as she opened it and slid inside. She ran to the lone bedroom and tried to ignore the images and memories that littered her mind when she stepped foot inside the room—Jerry Lolland with his shirt off, exposing his bloated, hairy belly; the way his callused hands felt when he touched her; the sound of the Polaroid camera spitting out photos of her. She crossed the room quickly and twisted open the window lock. It had taken less than thirty seconds. She was back outside and around the corner of the cabin before they saw Mr. Lolland in the distance, walking back to his cabin.
“Hurry!” she said, placing her hand to the glass and pushing upward until the window was cracked open.
He handed her the gas line and she snuck it over the sill and into the cabin before closing the window again just as they heard Mr. Lolland climb the steps of the front porch. It was too dangerous to run back to the clearing, so they instead crouched below the window and tried to make themselves as small as possible.
The bedroom light clicked on and the glow fell onto the ground in front of them and spilled into the forest. They waited, barely breathing, for thirty minutes until the bedroom light went out. They waited thirty more before they contemplated moving. And thirty more after that until they were certain he was asleep.
He nodded at her and she reached to the red valve at the base of the cabin’s outer wall. She twisted the lever until it was parallel with the line, allowing gas to flow into Jerry Lolland’s cabin. They waited another moment and then crept away from the cabin and headed back into camp. She was too scared to sleep in her cabin for fear that Jerry would somehow escape their trap and come for her. Plus, she still had work to do, and for this last part of the plan she needed no accomplice.
