Chapter Twelve

 

“Thank you, Detective Starsky.  You’ve saved me a great deal of trouble.  I knew that stupid girl had it, but she refused to cooperate.”

 

Starsky felt the cold, hard steel of a gun barrel between his shoulder blades.

 

“Where’s Lynn?  What’ve you done with her?”

 

“She’s alive—for the moment¾bound and gagged in the trunk of my car.  Don’t worry, you’ll be with her soon.  Now, lay the locket on the desk and turn around slowly.”

 

His mind racing, Starsky did as he was told, then turned and came face-to-face with the man who’d murdered Hutch’s sister.

 

“Why?  Why’d you kill her, Goodwin?”

 

“Because I was in love with her,” he answered casually, as though his reason should be obvious. 

 

“You were in love with her?  That makes no sense.  If you loved her, how could you hurt her?”

 

“Because I gave her every opportunity to be with me—to love me like I loved her—and she rejected me.  After all those years of waiting, when she was finally free, she refused to be mine.”

 

Starsky’s mind reeled, stunned by this revelation.  The editor was one person the two detectives had never considered as a suspect. 

 

Goodwin’s voice softened, as he recounted the past seven years of his life.  “She was my student in a journalism class I was teaching at the community college.  First time I laid eyes on Karen, I fell in love with her.  She was so beautiful and gentle.  I wanted to get to know her better, but outside the classroom she barely gave me the time of day.  I told myself I could make her love me, though—it would just take time.”

 

Starsky listened quietly, hoping to keep the man talking until he could make his move.  Goodwin’s eyes glowed with madness, and his voice quivered as he recited the events that had led up to Karen’s death.

 

“Want to know something ironic?  I’m the one who introduced her to Craig.”  He chuckled, humorlessly.  “He was supposed to be my best friend.  And what’d he do?  Stole her right out from under my nose.  All those years they were married, I stood by and watched them together, and I wanted to kill him!”  His lip curled back, evilly contorting his features.  “So, I finally did.”

 

“You?  But he died in a plane crash.”

 

“That’s right.  And no one even suspected the truth.  When we went through flight school together to get our private pilot licenses, Craig was satisfied with just learning to fly.  But not me.  I made it my business to learn about the airplanes—how to do my own repairs.  I knew how to rig the plane, and it was much easier than you’d think.  They called it pilot error, but it wasn’t.”  A sadistic smile distorted his lips.  “I know, because I rigged the altimeter to make sure he’d misjudge his altitude.  Slammed that baby right into the side of the mountain.”  Goodwin laughed, imagining the small plane disintegrating upon impact.  “It was beautiful!”

 

Starsky now knew for certain that Goodwin was insane, and he’d have to play along if he and Lynn were going to make it out of this alive.  “I still don’t understand,” he stalled, inching his way back against the cluttered desk top.  “What was your plan?”

 

“I waited.  It was hard, but I waited.  Didn’t want the town to be suspicious.  I knew there’d be a lot of raised eyebrows if I made a move on Craig’s widow too fast—being his best friend and all.  So, I waited a respectable length of time to ask her out.”

 

Starsky watched the man’s features go rigid, his voice growing more virulent with each word.  “I asked her to the movies and dinner, and do you know what she told me? ‘Sorry, Brian, I just don’t think I can stand to be with another man yet.’  And, being a gentleman, I honored her wishes and waited some more.  I mean, I had waited seven years—what was another couple of weeks?  Right?”

 

“That was the right thing to do,” Starsky offered, humoring him.

 

“This wasn’t going to be some insignificant fling, you see.  I wanted her to be my wife.  But while I was ‘waiting,’ the little slut ran an ad in the personals—in my own newspaper—advertising for a man!” he ground out between clenched teeth.

 

“That’s why you killed her?”

 

“I didn’t want to.”  Goodwin’s face and voice morphed from angry, to pathetic and pleading.  “She...she forced me to.  Lynn took the order for the ad, so I didn’t know anything about it until I saw her having dinner with him.  I couldn’t believe she’d refuse me, then gone out with a...a...man she met through the newspaper!” he spat, his anger flaring to the surface again. 

 

“I called her the next day and threatened to tell her parents.  I told her I’d keep my mouth shut if she’d just go out with me.  When she came storming into my office an hour later and made a scene, I was thankful that the others had already gone home for the day.  I...I still thought I could persuade her to see things my way.”

 

“But she didn’t,” Starsky surmised.  “So you killed her here, then dumped her body in the woods.”  Starsky gradually eased back another inch—his hand behind his back, searching for something to use as a weapon.

 

“No...no...it wasn’t like that.  There was a struggle here, that’s true, and I guess that’s when the locket chain broke.  I didn’t mean for her to fall and hit her head, but she was knocked unconscious.  It was her own fault.”  Goodwin’s pleading eyes locked with Starsky’s.  “I...I didn’t know what to do.  I thought she was dead.  She looked so limp, and her face was so pale.  I took her out through the back and drove to her place to leave her body in the woods, so everyone would think it was an accident.  I even used her car and put her purse back in the house, then walked all the way back to town.  I didn’t know she was still breathing—”

 

“Why didn’t you take her to the emergency room?  They may’ve been able to do something!”  Starsky’s heart was pounding at the prospect that Karen could have been saved, that she’d still been alive—and Goodwin had done nothing to help her.

 

“I told you—I thought she was dead!”  Becoming more agitated as the story progressed, Goodwin’s voice grew louder.

 

“Take it easy,” Starsky coaxed, as his groping fingers finally closed around the hard, smooth glass of a paperweight.  “I can get you some help you.  They’ll understand why you did it.”

 

Goodwin’s eyes took on a haunted look, and he continued his dissertation as though Starsky had never spoken.  “I...I carried her into the woods and laid her in a nice grassy area.  She looked so beautiful, like an angel.  But then, she began to come to, and...and when she did, she started screaming and trying to get away from me.  She wouldn’t stop screaming!”  Goodwin squeezed his eyes tightly shut, remembering the last desperate moments of Karen’s life.

 

A sob caught in his throat, as he continued, “I...I threw her back to the ground and held her there, trying to reason with her, I told her I loved her, that I wanted us to be together.  She just kept crying and fighting me—screaming that she didn’t love me and she could never love a man like me.  She...she made me so angry!”  His voice climbed another decibel as his story neared the end.  “She wouldn’t shut up!  I begged her to stop, but she just wouldn’t listen!  Then, I wanted to hurt her, the way she’d hurt me, so I told her—I told her I’d killed Craig so we could be together.”

 

The look of madness quickly turned to uncontrollable rage.  “She slapped me and called me ‘a perverted piece of garbage,’ and said she’d rather be dead than spend the rest of her life with me!  Before I realized what I was doing, my hands were around her throat and I slammed her head to the ground!”  He paused momentarily, then continued in a quieter voice, “I...I heard her neck snap, and I knew she was dead.”

 

“Brian,” Starsky said softly, preparing to make his move.  “The coroner said she was raped.”

 

Closing his eyes, trying to blot out the images from his memory, Goodwin whispered, “That was after.  She was so beautiful.”  His eyes met Starsky’s, pleading for empathy.  “You have to understand, that was my only chance.  I didn’t want to hurt her, but she’d made me feel so worthless.  I didn’t think it mattered anymore...” Goodwin seemed to whither, weighed down by guilt and remorse, his vulnerability almost tangible.

 

Starsky felt the bile rise in his throat, realizing the extent of the man’s depravity.  He knew it was now or never.  Either he made his move, or he and Lynn were history.

 

With lightning speed, Starsky slammed the paperweight through the air, striking the man straight in the chest.  Goodwin stumbled back a step, and Starsky plunged headfirst into him, toppling them both to the floor.  Still clinging to the gun, Goodwin fought back with the ferocity of a caged badger, spurred on by the superhuman strength that only the insane seem to possess.  Starsky landed a hard right to the man’s jaw, causing him to reel.  Recovering immediately, Goodwin brought his knee up to catch the detective in the pit of his stomach.  The wind whooshing from his body, Starsky fell forward, pinning Goodwin beneath him, knocking the gun from the man’s grip.  Starsky scrambled off the prone man and crawled toward the gun, clawing desperately for the prize that had skittered just out of reach.  Realizing Starsky’s intent, Goodwin righted himself and seized the detective’s leg, preventing him from reaching his goal.  As Starsky struggled to break free, Goodwin’s other hand closed around the handle of an ornate, brass letter opener, left behind from the earlier struggle with Lynn Bradley.  Clutching the improvised weapon, Goodwin clambered after Starsky, pulling him up just short of the gun before raising the letter opener above his head and bringing it down in a deadly arc, burying it in the cop’s back. 

 

The thunderous explosion of a .357 Magnum drowned out Starsky’s surprised howl of pain.  He lurched forward, then collapsed face down on the floor.  His eyes turned toward the door where Hutch stood, gun in hand—the last image he saw before sinking into the oblivious refuge of unconsciousness.

 

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