Shame

The twenty-year-old had been strangled outside her Del Mar apartment, but her body had been driven to the Anza-Borrego Desert, some two hours away. Elizabeth traced the distance on a map. San Diego County was larger than some states. Del Mar was in the north county on the beach, while Borrego was inland. What the two areas had in common was no witnesses and that forensics had come up empty at both locations.
    In the beginning, Gray Parker had taken the same pains to remain invisible, Elizabeth remembered. She had been the first big break in the case. The eyewitness. When he was finallycaptured, a year after their encounter, Elizabeth was still the only person who could definitively place Parker at a murder scene.
    Water under the bridge, Elizabeth tried to tell herself. She needed to direct all her attention to the current cases instead of getting mired in the past. All indications were that Lita Jennings had been taken from behind, surprised on the doorstep of her apartment after coming home from a study group. She had been subdued with a sleeper hold.
    Elizabeth knew the same hold had been used on Teresa Sanders, though she hadn’t been surprised in the same way. Apparently she had opened her front door to the murderer. The house had an elaborate alarm system, one she had deactivated at 8:37 a.m. According to her husband, Teresa would have looked through the peephole before opening the door. Investigators wondered if she had been expecting someone or if the murderer was someone she knew. It was also possible the murderer had been wearing a costume or disguise.
    Elizabeth knew that manual strangulation was usually a personal crime. It wasn’t the way in which a stranger usually killed, but the copycat aspects of the crimes didn’t rule out these women being unknown to the killer.
    No, Elizabeth decided. These women weren’t random victims.
    She was certain of that even without the evidence to back up her theory. You work with pitch, she thought, and it rubs off. She had studied the criminal mind until it had become second nature for her. Or maybe even first nature. Gray had warned her about that, yet had been all too willing to show her the way.
    He had surprised Elizabeth by agreeing to be interviewed, especially as he’d allowed the media very little access to him. Elizabeth had written him to say she was writing a book, and would like to do a series of interviews with him, and he had replied, “Come with your questions. I do not give lectures or a little charity. When I give, I give myself.”
    She hadn’t known it at the time, but he’d been quoting from Whitman’s “Song of Myself.”
    He was on Death Row at Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, Florida. Going there the first time frightened her; that was something that never changed. What Elizabeth remembered most about her first meeting with him was how she felt like a little girl wearing grown-up clothes.
    The guard closed the door of what everyone called “the lawyers’ room” behind her. She hadn’t thought she would be alone with him ever again. The officer had tried to reassure her that he’d be just outside, had pointed out where he would be watching. The interview room had glass on three sides to allow ample observation by both the security staff and personnel of the assistant superintendent of operations. The booth was soundproof so as to provide for lawyer-client confidentiality. She wondered if the prison officials, sitting at their nearby desks, would be able to hear her screams.
    Elizabeth felt claustrophobic. The room was small—too small. She could barely breathe and was afraid to meet Shame’s eyes. That was how the world knew him: Shame. He sat there calmly observing her. He was wearing the orange T-shirt that marked him as a Death Row inmate. Around his wrists were handcuffs. They seemed more of an inconvenience than something that could truly deter him from putting his hands around her neck.
    “I have no desire to hurt you,” he told her.
    His words didn’t reassure her. He didn’t say, “I am not going to hurt you.” She sat down anyway.
    She felt around in her bag. All fingers. The prison administration had refused to let her bring in a tape recorder, citing security concerns. What she had was a pad and a pen, a felt pen. Her ballpoint pen had also been deemed a security risk.
    If they were so worried about security, why hadn’t they stationed a guard in the room? No, two guards.
    Elizabeth looked at her watch.