Good Morning, Killer - April Smith [44]
“He said I shouldn’t get it dirty, it was a nice backpack, and picked it up and put it between us on the bench. I told him I didn’t care if it got dirty. He asked what was wrong. ‘I’m trying to score and that girl inside is being a bitch.’ ‘You’re trying to score what?’ he asked. ‘Weed. Do you have any?’ He laughed and lit a cigarette. ‘Let me tell you something that’s going to save your life,’ and told a story about a friend of his, a girl, who shot up heroin in the neck and died in his arms. I said that wasn’t me, and he said of course it wasn’t and pulled out this album and started showing me photographs. ‘That’s you,’ he said.”
The photos were not of the victim but of girls like her. Close in age, medium in stature, long hair, white. She reported that the shots looked professional, taken in parks or on the beach or posed with cars. All the subjects were clothed.
“He told me he’d seen a lot of girls and picked me out of the crowd right away. He said I could become a model, like the girls in the pictures. I shouldn’t even think about the kids in school. ‘They’re not fit to carry your purse.’ They were jealous of my talent. He used the word ‘talent.’ I was feeling better. He said he had pictures of me in the van. I said, ‘No way!’ He said yeah, he’d taken some candids and they really turned out great. The van was in a parking structure half a block away. I took my backpack and went with him. It didn’t seem like a big deal.”
The van was parked on the roof of parking structure number five. It was older, dark green, rear double doors. The victim was not able to identify the make. Most of the parking spaces were empty and there were no other pedestrians visible.
“I felt weird being alone up there with him. I was hoping someone would come out of the elevator, but I told myself that was stupid, just a reflex that gets drummed into your head. He was very polite. He went around to the driver’s side and unlocked the doors, and I climbed in on the passenger side. There was a camera bag on the front seat, so I put it on the floor.
“As soon as I was inside his whole thing changed. He yelled at me to get in the back. He scared the crap out of me just with his voice. I tried to open the door, but it was locked. Then he took out a gun. I never saw a real gun. I think I went into shock. He said, ‘Give me your money.’ I couldn’t open the zippers on the backpack fast enough, and he started screaming at me to hurry up. I started opening my wallet, the change spilled all over. ‘How much do you have?’ I said about ten dollars and my mother’s credit card for emergencies. He stuffed everything into the place where you put the CDs. He had a bunch of junk in there. Some wire, a roll of duct tape, some loose bullets and about three knives. I was totally freaked when I saw that stuff.
“He told me again to get into the back. I guess I expected some artsy thing since he was a photographer, but inside there were filthy mattresses on the floor and the windows were covered with black paper and there was like fishnet hanging. I was really, really scared. He had the gun to my head. I was crying. He said, ‘I’m going to kill you. If you do as I say, I’ll let you choose which way you die.’ I said, ‘Please don’t, please don’t,’ and said I could get a lot of money for him, but he said, ‘Take off your clothes.’ I took off my sweatshirt. I had to pull it up over my eyes, and I was sure he was going to shoot me. But then I could see him again, and he was right there looking at me, but it was like his face was a mask. He made me take off my T-shirt. I don’t wear a bra, so he started feeling my breasts. It was disgusting and it hurt. Then he told me to put my hands out, and I did, and he put these handcuffs on me and that was the worst. I felt like I was a slave. He said if I made any noise he’d kill me. He pushed me down on my back and knelt over me and unzipped his pants. I kept crying and saying, ‘Please don’t hurt me,’ but he sat