Dead In The Water (Rebecca Schwartz Mystery #4) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series)

again.
    “And that was it. After that, nothing but red rage.”
    I said, “That was it? You mean you don’t remember what happened next?”
    “Of course I remember. I meant that was it for her. What happened was, I slammed her up against the wall of the lab and tried like hell to choke her to death. But the bitch got away and jumped in the tank. She knew I can’t swim.
    “But by then the portal had opened. Sure it was the rage that made me slam her and try to choke her, but when I had my hands around her neck, something else kicked in, you know that? Something I wanted all my life and didn’t know how to get. Know what that was, my captive audience?”
    Even I couldn’t speak by this point.
    “Power. I finally felt power, came into my own power. I never knew what that felt like before. She was in the tank, scared to death… . You should have seen the look on her face. Warren Nowell had the power of life and death over Sadie Swedlow, and she knew it. Can you imagine what an exhilarating moment that was? I was really enjoying myself by this time. That’s what I meant about the killer instinct. We really do have one, you understand? We really have one. And mine had just kicked in.
    “She tried to scream, but she couldn’t. At least I think that’s what she was trying to do; she kept looking like she was trying to make sounds come out, but maybe I damaged her vocal cords or something. When she finally spoke, she whispered. She said, ‘Warren,’ in this little whispery, pleading way, and I knew exactly what to do. Apologize. I said, ‘Omigod, Sadie, I don’t know what came over me,’ and garbage like that, all the time taking off my coat and rolling up my sleeves. And I could tell she trusted me again. All those months of knowing one guy, it’s pretty hard to see him as another guy, I guess. She couldn’t know what had just happened to me—all she thought was, I got out of control and then I went back to normal.
    “The bottom line is, she let me try to help her out of the tank.”
    I spoke quickly to stop him going into the details. “You drowned her.”
    He nodded. “I drowned her. And then I tied her arm to the fence to hold her still while I got Marty’s jacket and letter opener, and you know the rest. Except for one thing—I put the pearl in Sadie’s hand and closed it. I thought I had it rigged so the hand wouldn’t open.
    “I thought the police theory would be that one of them stole it, the other found out, and they fought over it, but—” he paused, waxing philosophical “—it wasn’t to be. Anyway, all that, of course, was before I remembered Katy knew I knew about it. So I had to kill her, too.”
    “But I don’t see why you needed to get the pearl.”
    “Because Katy might have told someone I called. And if it were ever found in the tank, that someone just might remember. Now, of course, I can simply put it back in her house—I’ll get my mother to take me there on some pretext—and if anyone ever says anything, I’ll say they must be mistaken. I’m sure you see the problem—I can’t simply go on killing people at random on the off chance she might have told them. Though I don’t know about that maid of hers—”
    He was going to kill her, I knew it then. He was going to kill us and he was going to kill her next, and then he’d starting killing people at random, women, probably, and maybe he’d finally kill his mother and then call the cops the way Edmund Emil Kemper had done. Kemper, who was now doing a life sentence, had racked up ten victims, including his grandparents, before he’d worked up the courage to murder the one he was really mad at. And when he finally killed her, he took out another woman as well, bringing his total to twelve. But murder, apparently, wasn’t the whole point: he ground up his mother’s larynx in the garbage disposal.
    I don’t know why Kemper popped into my mind—maybe what Warren had said about not killing people at random. The way he said it belied the words. And then when he mentioned Yolie, I knew. I knew that I could blurt out that she didn’t know, that I knew she didn’t know, and it wouldn’t save her—he might even use my words as his rationalization.
    Warren yawned. Was the Seconal starting to work? He released Esperanza and then me, using me for his hostage. He took us into the bathroom and gave her the spear gun, making very sure to keep my body between his and the weapon.
    Despite old sayings about shooting fish