The Admirer Read online

  Summary

  A serial killer “makes” perfect women by amputating their legs. A troubled girl walks knowingly into the killer’s arms. An ambitious college president spirals toward madness.

  Helen Ivers is still reeling from her sister’s recent suicide when she takes a position as the president of Pittock College. The isolated campus seems like a good place to recover, but shortly after she arrives, two severed human legs are found bound to the train tracks. The local police explain away the gruesome occurrence, but Helen is convinced the police chief, and maybe the whole town, is covering for a killer.

  She embarks on her own investigation, but she begins to doubt herself as nightmares of her sister’s suicide become waking hallucinations and everyone discounts her fears. The only person who shares her apprehensions is a young professor whose aggressive sexual advances are as frightening and alluring as impending madness – a woman who is either Helen’s only ally or the killer.

  The Admirer

  The Admirer

  Karelia stetz-waters

  Sapphire Books

  Salinas, california

  The Admirer

  Copyright © 2013 by Karelia Stetz-Waters, All rights reserved.

  ISBN EPUB - 978-1-939062-43-7

  This is a work of fiction - names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without written permission of the publisher.

  Cover - Christine Svendsen

  Sapphire Books

  Salinas, CA 93912

  www.sapphirebooks.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Edition – December 2013

  Dedication

  For Fay

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to the P & C Committee – Paul Hawkwood, Terrance Millet, Chris Riseley, Robin Havenick, Rob Priewe, and Jane Walker – and to all my friends and colleagues at Linn Benton Community College, especially Liz Pearce and Scott McAleer who always keep me grounded. Thank you Maria Isabel Rodriguez for 25+ years of support and for being the world’s fastest reader. Thank you also to Kim Pippin, Jen Nery, Amanda Gallo, Lori Major, and Shannon Parrott for reading my work. Thank you to Linda Kay Silva for your friendship and guidance. Thank you to Chris Svendsen, Schileen, and everyone at Sapphire Books for helping make my dreams come true.

  Thank you to Opacity.us for preserving images of the Northampton State Hospital after which I modeled Pittock Asylum. Thank you also to the Willamette Writers. Thank you to Steve Fletcher. Thank you to the Albany Police Department’s Citizen’s Academy. Thank you to Robert Whitaker, author of Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill which I consulted frequently when writing Dysphoria. Thank you to the Calapooia Brewing Company where so many good ideas were hatched over a pint of Whitewater Wheat.

  Also, thank you to my parents, Elin and Albert Stetz, for supporting me and supporting my love of writing since I was a little girl. You gave me everything. And finally a big thank you to my wife, Fay Stetz-Waters for believing in me for so many years. I could not do it without you.

  Prologue

  He lowered the woman onto the rough gravel that bedded the train track just beyond the bridge. In the blue light of the forest before sunrise, her legs were almost as pale as her white underwear, paler where the scars twisted her thigh. Carrie stirred, the oxycodone slowing her speech.

  “Are you really mad at me?”

  He draped one of her legs over the train track and then the other, arranging them carefully.

  “No,” he whispered into her hair, as he withdrew a handful of long zip–ties from the pocket of his coat. “You know I love you.”

  The heat wave had broken, at least temporarily. A hurricane battered the eastern coast. Even in the Berkshires, the air had cooled and grown damp with imminent rain. His fingers slipped on the plastic straps.

  “I can see the stars,” Carrie murmured. Her eyes were closed. She was light years away, drifting through drug–induced dreams. “I can see Jupiter.”

  Listening carefully, he could hear the train approaching, not just the whistle but the rumble of wheels on metal rails. He wrapped one of the stiff, plastic bands beneath the rail and around Carrie’s calf then pulled, hard. She whimpered, but did not open her eyes.

  He felt a surge of arousal. He would love to watch her heal, love to watch the open wounds seal and harden into knots of scar tissue. Perfect. Complete. He stopped himself. Carrie would not heal. He had to focus. He had to remember. He could not let her heal. She had to die.

  He glanced down at the rails, silver in the moonlight, like a ladder crossing the low, concrete bridge and disappearing into the forest. In a way, this was everything she wanted. She’d been ready to do it when he met her, ready to sever her own legs right here on the Berkshire–Western in an attempt that would have cost her life.

  “I would have given you this.” He stroked his index finger across the top of her thigh. “We could have had everything.”

  In the distance, the light of the train flickered through the underbrush. He pulled the second tie tight.

  “And this is how you repay me? You expose me? Ridicule me to your support groups?”

  Carrie was unconscious now, but he could still hear her voice echoing in his head. I want us to be a normal couple. I want to tell everyone I love you.

  Angrily, he pressed his lips to Carrie’s. Then he unfolded the forest–green bed sheet he’d brought. He threw it over her like a shroud and stepped away. Standing in the shadow of the bridge, he checked his Movado. A single diamond gleamed in the face of the watch. The gold hands indicated 4:55 a.m. The train’s headlight flashed through the forest.

  When the train struck her, she rose for one exquisite moment. He saw her torso lift off the ground. Her back arched, her head flung back, her mouth opened so wide she ceased to be human. It was as if the roar of the train emanated from that mouth. Then she fell back to the ground. He felt the cool air on his skin. A few drops of rain hit his forehead. He unrolled the sleeves of his poplin shirt, shrugged on the blazer he’d hung on a tree, and smiled.

  Chapter One

  Helen Ivers straddled the man, thrusting her hips against him until her cervix battered the tip of his cock. She had already forgotten his name. Devon or maybe Taylor. It was one of those gender–neutral names yuppie parents gave their children so they could be self–actualized. Whatever the man’s name, his eyes were wide with a look of surprise. For all his vigor, young Devon had no idea what he was doing. He could not have been more than twenty–five. The girlfriend he mentioned—and then quickly forgot when Helen invited him to her hotel room—probably had sex with the lights off. Prone, in the dark, with the sheets pulled up to her waist, that was Helen’s guess. Poor girl.

  Helen had not bothered to turn off the television, let alone the lights. As they moved together, a 24–hour news channel played clips from the New England hurricane. Bodies floated out of a flooded Boston subway tunnel. Thugs shot a rescue worker in Jamaica Plain. Another tragedy. Helen leaned back, her hands on her heels, her pubic bone grinding the man’s body. The heat wave in Boston was breaking, but not before a gun fight erupted over nothing in a hot bar. “We are all on edge,” the bartender said. That was only blocks away from Helen’s room in the Boston Hilton. The man beneath her groaned.

  “That’s right,” Helen said. “Again.” She closed her eyes, tried to concentrate on his
lean, muscular body in order to forget.

  Without preamble, the news on the hurricane was interrupted. The station cut to a different reporter.

  “I’m here at Pittock College, a private college in the remote southwestern corner of the Berkshires, where a body was recently discovered…”

  Helen’s eyes flew open, her attention riveted.

  She dismounted the man just as quickly as she had mounted, separating their bodies with one swing of her leg. He let out an explosive moan. Helen turned up the television.

  “Shhh!” she said.

  “After police dismissed her student’s claims as a prank, theater professor, Adair Wilson, investigated further. What did you find, Ms. Wilson?”

  The camera cut to a woman with cropped, blonde hair. The professor glanced back and forth, as though scanning the space beyond the camera for something she could not see. When she spoke, her voice held none of the shrill self–consciousness of citizens unaccustomed to the television spotlight.

  “I believed Marcus,” she said quietly. “He said he saw something in the woods. I believed him.”

  “And what did you find when you went out?” the reporter asked.

  “I found a body,” the professor said. “Or… part of a body.” Her eyes found the camera, and, for a moment, Helen felt like the professor looked directly at her. “I found two human legs, tied to the train tracks.”

  The camera returned to the reporter’s lip-sticked smile.

  “Police confirm Professor Adair Wilson’s findings. Reports say the police found two human legs bound to the Berkshire–Western train tracks. The legs were apparently tied down with industrial–grade zip-ties. Police are saying that the legs were severed around 5:00 a.m. yesterday morning when the Berkshire–Western passed through Pittock. Crime scene investigators have been delayed by the hurricane. Police have secured the crime scene in anticipation of their arrival. Preliminary searches have not revealed the whereabouts of the rest of the body or the identity of the victim. Police are advising students and faculty at the small liberal arts college to stay out of the forest and avoid isolated parts of town and campus. If you have information about the crime…”

  Another tragedy, but this one is mine.

  Behind Helen, the man let out another cry of protest. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m sorry, Devon.”

  “It’s Flynn.”

  He looked hurt. Helen leaned across the bed and cupped his cheek in her hand. He had the shaggy, blond hair of a boy and a smattering of freckles across his nose.

  “You’re lovely. You really are.” She meant it, not that it mattered. She drew in her breath, feeling a sadness so heavy and tangible, it might pull her to the floor. Her sister’s face flashed before her eyes. Eliza!

  ****

  Helen strode into the bathroom and wiped herself with a tissue, then pulled on the pants of her black Armani suit, tucked in her blouse, straightened the lapels of her jacket, and smoothed her auburn hair. She glanced in the mirror. The face that greeted her was as hard as the diamond solitaire at her throat.

  “You’ll have to get dressed,” she told the young man. “I’m checking out.”

  “What happened?” he asked. His erection sagged. Goose bumps appeared on his arms.

  Helen furrowed her brow, as though the question was too obvious to comprehend. Then she nodded toward the television where the news reporter was interviewing a student.

  “I work there.”

  The man draped one arm over his eyes. “Do you have to go right now?”

  Helen was already halfway out the door, stepping into the quiet hallway. The Boston Hilton logo, an interlaced B and H, repeated in the pattern of the carpet, receding into a calico of blue and gray. Helen turned once before closing the door behind her.

  “Give my best to your girlfriend,” she said, shooting the man a half smile as she closed the door.

  Chapter Two

  In the hotel lobby, the predawn light mixed with the light from the chandeliers. Helen rang the bell at the front desk. A minute later, a sleepy man in hotel uniform appeared.

  “Checking out?” the clerk asked.

  Helen nodded.

  “Early flight?”

  “Just an early start. Do you have the Boston Herald?”

  The clerk handed Helen a copy. She scanned the headlines. She had not expected Pittock College to make the Herald, but she was still relieved to see that the front page remained preoccupied with the hurricane. She flipped through the local news section and the state news section. On an off chance that the editorial staff had a sick sense of humor, she also checked the education section. Nothing. She handed the paper back to the clerk.

  Loath to encounter Flynn in the lobby, Helen waited until she found her car in the parking garage before checking her voicemail. From where she sat in the driver’s seat of her Lexus, she could see across the open–air garage to the warehouse building next door. Around her, the early light made long shadows out of the vehicles. In the corner near the staircase, a figure darted behind a truck. Somewhere behind Helen, a car engine turned over and then sputtered to a halt.

  She tucked her Bluetooth into her ear and checked her unlisted, personal cell phone. The first message was from her friend Terri asking about the conference.

  “Let me guess,” he said. “They wanted to ‘re–envision their values statement.’ Please tell me you didn’t encourage them. And by the way, congratulations.” Helen had not talked to Terri since she accepted her position as president of Pittock College two months earlier. “I knew you would land on your feet. Screw Vandusen. If that school couldn’t appreciate what you did for them and understand what you were going through…” Terri paused. “Anyway, good luck at Pittock. Call me.”

  There were no other messages on her personal phone. The first messages on her campus voicemail were innocuous announcements from her secretary, Patrick. The New Hampshire Alumni Association had scheduled a fundraising dinner. An emeritus professor died. The Women Administrators Association wanted her to speak at their annual symposium. The next message was from the theater professor. Helen’s pulse quickened when she heard the voice.

  “President Ivers, I think something has happened on campus. One of my students… he thought he saw a body in the forest. Please call me.”

  The next two messages were also from the professor. Increasingly insistent, they explained the situation in more detail. The plea was always the same: call me. In a final message the professor said, “I found the body.” Her voice was bleak. “She’s dead. It’s horrible. Please call me before you talk to the police. There are things you need to know.”

  She tried to square the somber voice with what she knew of Wilson. Helen had met the entire faculty personally, but it had been difficult to get a read on Wilson. She was one of the younger faculty members, perpetually surrounded by a flock of students, usually laughing and jostling along with them. Once, Helen had glanced out her office window to see Wilson do a handstand, much to the delight of a surrounding crowd. Still, there was a seriousness about Wilson. Everyone Helen asked said they liked her, but were certain other faculty and staff members did not.

  There were no other messages, and that troubled Helen also. She dialed the provost’s number.

  “Helen, how are you?” Marshal Drummond, the provost of Pittock College said. Even through the static of a poor cell phone connection, his voice had the resonance of a grand piano. He was true New England aristocracy, and he hated Helen. She understood that.

  “I’m as good as could be expected under the circumstances,” she said.

  “What can I help you with?”

  “Have you seen the news?”

  There was a significant pause on Drummond’s end.

  “I presume you have,” Helen went on. “If not, you’ll want to go online as soon as we are through.”

  “I hope you’re not planning on charging back with the cavalry.” He had seen the news.

  “Of course I’m
driving back. A woman was murdered on our campus.”

  “Someone met an unfortunate end on state land, almost a mile from Pittock College,” Drummond corrected. “This is police business. Forgive my presumption, but if you cancel your engagements with the Boston alumni you’ll send a very clear message: we’re afraid. You’ll incite a panic.”

  A sparrow swooped into the garage and alighted on a van nearby. It stood motionless, a black silhouette against the growing daylight. Then it squawked, and a flock of identical black shapes swarmed in behind it, cutting the air like scythes.

  “We should be afraid,” Helen said. “Our students’ safety is at stake. Nothing matters more.”

  “At least give the police a day to rule out obvious explanations. The New England alumni are our primary source of funding after enrollment. Cancel your first visits with them, and we could lose thousands by the end of the quarter. You must establish a relationship.”

  It was a transparent ploy. If Drummond persuaded her to stay in Boston, then, whatever the police discovered, he could paint her as an ineffectual president. “You see,” he would say through layers of carefully veiled rhetoric, “this is what you get when you hire a young blood who can’t maintain a work-life balance.” He’d be quoting the reason she lost her last job. In Drummond’s world there was only work.

  She sighed.

  “Of course, I trust you entirely,” he said with overweening courtesy. “You probably saw things like this in Pittsburg all the time. But the alumni who hired you…” It was a dig. “They would be very disappointed if you didn’t at least pay them a visit to say thank you.”