THE KILLER WHO NAMED HIMSELF

Everyone in Vallejo knew what that gravel patch was for. It was a lovers' lane, the place where young couples went to park, sit in the dark, talk, and steal a few kisses away from their parents. It was a place where nothing bad ever seemed to happen.

David parked the family station wagon there, facing the gate, and the two of them sat together in the front seat.

Other drivers went past that night and noticed the car. Some saw a second car parked nearby. It was a cold, clear winter's night, and the road was quiet. As late as about ten past eleven, people driving by saw the couple still sitting there.

And then, between about five past and ten past eleven, someone walked up to that station wagon with a gun.

We don't know exactly what happened in those few minutes, because the only two people who could have told us didn't live to say. But the scene the police found later told its own story.

Shots had been fired into the car. One had gone through the back window, and another into the roof. It looks as if the gunman was trying to frighten the couple out of the car, or force them out of it.

Betty Lou got out of the passenger side and ran. David was shot once in the head at close range, just beside the car.

Betty Lou made it about nine metres before the gunman fired again. She was shot five times in the back, and fell dead on the gravel.

The gunman used a.22 calibre pistol, a small gun. Then he simply disappeared into the night.

A few minutes later, a woman driving along Lake Herman Road saw the bodies lying in her headlights. Terrified, she sped off towards Benicia to find help, and flagged down a police car.

When the officers reached the turnout, Betty Lou was already dead. David was still breathing, but only just. He was rushed to hospital, but died on the way.

It was just after eleven o'clock. The same hour Betty Lou had promised her father she'd be home.

Think about those two families that night. The Jensens, watching the clock as eleven came and went, getting cross, then worried. And then the knock on the door. Five days before Christmas.

The police were baffled. Nothing had been stolen. David's wallet was still in his pocket. Betty Lou hadn't been sexually assaulted. There had been no fight, no argument that anyone knew of, nothing that could explain why anyone would want two well-liked teenagers dead.

Detectives looked at the people around the couple. For a while, they wondered about a boy who'd been interested in Betty Lou, but he had an alibi, and he was quickly cleared. They tracked down the drivers who'd passed by that night, and took down what they'd seen. They examined the cartridge cases and the tyre tracks on the gravel. None of it led anywhere.

In the end, it looked like a senseless, random crime. Two young people in the wrong place at the wrong time, killed by a stranger for no reason anyone could understand. The case slowly went cold.

Nobody knew then that this was only the beginning. That whoever had walked up to that station wagon would come back, and that next time, he would want everyone to know it was him.

Seven months later, on the Fourth of July, a young waitress called Darlene Ferrin picked up a friend in her car and drove to another quiet parking spot, only a few kilometres away.

End of chapter one. 11 more chapters in the full book.