by Andrew Mayne
We can’t place him at the Oyo property and say for sure that he infected Marcus. I can’t prove that he was anywhere other than the Butcher Creek crime scene, and it is too hard to conclude anything even from that video.
I’m in a difficult bind.
I close my eyes and think it through. Am I ready to catch him as he comes home and force a confession out of him? The last time I did that, I was prepared for it. But I suspect that Forrester won’t crack that easily.
Step one is stopping him. Having the FBI or local police knock on his door might be enough to do that. I might be able to arrange that by calling the FBI, saying that I’m him, and confessing. At the very least, that will get agents to come and talk to him.
Okay, that’s the plan unless I can think of a better one on the way back to the hotel. I hope I do, because it sucks.
I put the gun in my glove box, turn the ignition, and pull out of my covered spot. Once I’m clear of the trees, I turn on the headlights and pull onto the main road.
I’ve just begun driving down the main road when I see blue flashing lights behind me.
Seriously? Please don’t tell me that the FBI had me followed. Could I be that stupid?
I pull over to the side of the road, still adjacent to Forrester’s property, praying that Forrester doesn’t come home now. That would be embarrassing.
I put on my best “Did I do something wrong?” smile and roll down my window.
That deep-seated animal sense that’s buried in our brain is the first thing to tell me something is wrong.
The second is when I catch a glimpse of the silhouette of the man walking toward me in the headlights.
Third is the bullet that cracks through the air, shattering my car’s back window.
Fourth is the sharp pain in my shoulder when I raise my right arm to try to get my gun out of the glove box.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
COLLECTION
My head feels like a rag doll that’s been swung around by the hair. I don’t remember losing consciousness as much as fading as I tried to reach the gun. Right now, I’m seated and bouncing. My hands won’t move.
Someone is pushing me in a wheelchair. I raise my head to get a better look, but sharp pain keeps me from seeing who’s behind me.
“Don’t worry, I patched it up,” says a soothing voice behind me. “We missed the suprascapular nerve. It went right through, in fact. The bullet lodged itself in the clock. Funny thing. Wish it was analog . . . then it could have trapped the moment.”
I squint my eyes, trying to understand why the hospital feels . . . outside.
Fuck . . . I’m being pushed toward the barn in the back of Forrester’s property.
“Jekyll?” I say, still trying to put my world back together.
“Jekyll? No . . . Oh, is that your name for me? Oooh, clever. That would make the virus Hyde.” A hand musses up the hair on top of my head. “Clever, Theo. Clever! But not clever enough.”
He kneels next to me and rests his hands on my handcuffed arm and leans his chin casually on them. He’s in his fifties but looks boyish. His blue eyes are piercing. He has a strange charisma.
I recognize him as one of the phantom men I captured on surveillance of Butcher Creek. He could pass for a cop, a lawyer, a doctor, a pastor. But it’s the way he looks at me that makes him stand apart from his photograph. There’s an intelligence there, a raging fire of curiosity.
“The barn, Theo. I was hoping you’d go to the barn. But you didn’t. I sat there watching you, trying to understand why you didn’t bother looking there.”
I saw the barn, but I didn’t want to. It reminded me of something, something that’s still too painful to think about.
“Yes, your eyes just did that little dip where you visualize something. It’s not the same in everyone, you know. People with exceptionally high IQs like yours do it a little bit differently. It suggests that memories aren’t quite the same for you.”
Forrester returns to pushing me across the grass toward the barn. “I just realized what the barn must have reminded you of. It looks a lot like the Toy Man’s shed, doesn’t it? I bet you still think about all the horrible things that happened there.”
Forrester stops the wheelchair a few feet from the barn and walks in front of me. He’s dressed like a paramedic, with the exception of a gun in a holster at his side.
He looks down at the uniform. “Like it? You were a paramedic, too, weren’t you?”
I just stare at him, trying to figure out how I’m going to kill him.
“Oh, that look.” Forrester gives me a broad smile. “That’s something to behold, Theo. How long did it take you to become the man that would follow through on that emotion? Did it happen when Joe Vik was about to kill Jillian? Was it when you realized what Oyo Diallo really was? Is it right now?”
Forrester is not what I expected. His words sound sincere. The only way I can describe it is . . . bedside manner. He’s talking to me like I’m the raving maniac.
I pull at my restraints. Blinding pain shoots up my right arm.
Forrester leans forward and grabs my shoulder. “Stop it or you’ll tear the clot.”
I say my first words to him. “What the fuck did you shoot me for?”
“You’re a dangerous man, Theo. I hate violence . . . the physical kind.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a key ring.
“Right. Did you hate it when you killed Hall and Grehan?”
Forrester pauses and stares at the keys in his hands. He makes a strange gesture, a combination of a headshake and a shrug. “I had to get drunk to do that and then blackout drunk afterward.”
“Then why?”
He finds the key he’s looking for and puts it in a lock on the barn. After he slides open the door, he turns to me. “Theo, my friend, that is the question.”
He returns to the chair and pushes me into the dark interior. The only light is from the doorway.
Forrester shuts the door behind me, and we’re in total darkness.
I start to yank at my restraints and lower my head to smash into him if he comes close.
“Theo, relax. I’m not going to kill you. I mean, I know this looks pretty bad. You’re probably thinking about what Oyo did, and it’s not like that. Stop thrashing. If you open the wound again, you’ll bleed out and you’ll miss it.”
“Touch me and die,” I growl.
Forrester turns on a light. He’s sitting on a workbench in front of me. “Okay? Better? I’m not going to try to molest you. It’s not my thing. I mean, admittedly, I have a bit of a man crush on you.”
Who the hell is this guy?
“Right, now you’re thinking, ‘This guy is going to kill me. I have to get to the knife I hid in my whatever.’ Listen to me: It’s not going to happen. The me-killing-you part.” He looks me over, up and down. “I don’t think you can kill me from there, but Joe Vik made the same mistake . . . which, by the way, a couple things never added up about that. You don’t have to tell me, but your girlfriend killed him, right?”
I glare at him.
“Yeah, thought so. And it was pretty obvious to anyone who cared to look that you killed Oyo before he saw you.” He crosses his arms and nods. “Do you see why I’m the one who should be worried? You’re getting more expedient with dispatching people. I’ll be completely honest.” He points to his right knee. “Tingly as all hell because I’m nervous about you.”
My shoulder aches, and the more this asshole talks, the more I lose my urge to live. “What are you doing? Is this something like on television where you tell me why you did it?”
Forrester’s faces suddenly gets serious. “I wish I could, Theo. I wish I could. I have theories, but nothing that makes sense. I’ve even looked at MRIs of my brain, trying to find some explanation.” He shakes his head. “None. Hall and Grehan weren’t easy. I tried to convince myself that they were going to sell the Cain pathogen to the Russians. Oh, that’s my name for it, like—”
“Cain and
Abel,” I cut in. “I get it.”
Forrester smiles. “Right. Right. Anyway, I killed them because I wanted it. More of a greed thing, I guess.”
“Wanted it for what?”
He raises a hand. “I’m getting to that. I feel bad about killing them. Maybe not as bad as a normal person, but everything you see in movies about sociopaths is a lie. It’s a matter of degree. Sure, some of them feel absolutely nothing, but most feel something.”
“At least you know you’re a sociopath, right?”
“Think, Theo. How would an outsider judge you? I mean, if they really knew everything you’ve done . . . and some of the things I suspect you’ve done.”
“What’s your point? That you and I are a lot alike?”
“No,” he says almost wistfully. “We’re different.” He hops off the workbench. “Anyway, we don’t have much time. I wanted to show you this.”
He walks behind me and flips on a light, illuminating the interior of the small barn.
The shelves are filled with large glass jars, the kind you’d seen in circus freak shows containing two-headed goat fetuses. They’re covered in dust, so it’s hard to see inside.
Forrester pulls the one closest to him off the shelf. “Nineteen seventy-three. I’m nine years old and wake up in the middle of the night because the man across the street is yelling at his wife in the driveway. He punches her in the nose, red blood gushes over her nightgown, and he grabs her by the back of the head. He then starts smashing her head into the pavement. Over and over again. I pressed my little nose against the glass and just watched. I watched, Theo. I didn’t tell my parents. I didn’t call the police. I just watched.”
Forrester unscrews the lid to the jar. “The next day, after the cops came and took Mr. Merrick away and Mrs. Merrick to the morgue, I went across the street and found this.”
He turns the opening of the jar toward me, revealing a clump of preserved blonde hair with bloody skin attached.
“Messed up? Right? I never collected anything until then.” He replaces the lid, sets the jar back on the shelf, and pulls down another. “Less than a year later, I’m walking through some woods near my house and hear a sound like someone chopping a tree. I get a closer look and see some older boys with sticks striking something on the ground. When I get closer, they startle and run away.” He holds the jar up with two hands. “I won’t open it because I didn’t know how to preserve it, but it’s a cat. They beat the stray to death. I had more nightmares over that than about Mrs. Merrick.” He puts the jar back and takes down another. “When I was fifteen—”
“I don’t care.”
He stares at me.
“I really don’t care where this is going,” I say. “Is this your shitty one-man play of Making a Murderer? I don’t fucking care how you got to where you are. You’re a seriously fucked-up guy who used his talents to do some evil shit. I don’t care.”
Forrester tries to process this. “Theo, you’re in a very vulnerable position. Why would you say that?”
“I just assume you’re going to kill me. Why the hell do I have to go out watching you jerk off in front of me first?”
“Fine. Then do you want to talk about the virus? You must have questions.”
“Nope. I answered them all,” I reply, rolling my eyes.
“Okay, then. I thought you’d be more curious.”
“Nope. I’m not.”
Forrester takes the pistol from his holster and looks down at it. “The hardest thing was when Silja killed Eddie. I tried to convince myself she caught the Cain pathogen accidentally.” He glances at me. “But we know that’s not how it works.”
“Do not care,” I repeat. I seriously care, but I’m trying to get him to make physical contact with me. If he gets close enough, I might be able to kick him down and stomp on his head. It’s a long shot but all I have. I just need him closer . . .
Forrester’s giving me a sidelong glance. “You’re a hard man.”
“Why are you still talking?”
“Yes,” he replies, then pulls back the slide on the pistol. “Theo thinks he has all the answers, when the fun has only just begun.”
He raises the barrel, aims, and pulls the trigger.
I watch, dumbfounded, as Forrester fires the gun under his jaw and blood squirts out the side of his face, spraying the jars to his right. His body slumps sideways, hits the edge of the workbench, and falls onto the floor.
He makes a gasping gurgle. Blood trickles out of his mouth, and he starts to wheeze.
“Holy crap, you fucked up your own suicide!” I stare at his rising and lowering chest. Blood is pooling by his head, but it’s not enough to be from a brain injury. Instead, the bullet went in through his jaw and exited near his sinus. He may still die, but it won’t be a fast death.
Wheeze . . .
His eyes are open and looking around. He can’t seem to move his arms, because he’s in some kind of shock.
I shake my head in disbelief. “Seriously? I’ve got to go get you help now?”
Through gurgles of blood, he tells me to fuck off.
I saw a thousand different endings to this situation; this was not one of them.
I use my feet to propel my wheelchair back toward the barn door. Somehow, I’ll have to make it across the grass and to the street to get help—that’s if the dogs don’t wake up first.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
POINT-BLANK
I’m sitting in a bed in the Travis County hospital, explaining to three detectives and two FBI agents and Gallard, who drove all the way from DC, how I ended up in the middle of the highway, handcuffed to a wheelchair, while another man was bleeding out from a self-inflicted head wound.
I leave out the part about hacking up the bodies of Ukrainian hospital patients who didn’t pay their bill. There’s just no way to spin that.
With every breath, I wonder about the early symptoms of Hyde and how hard it would be for me to get an experimental dose of Remdesivir or Immucillin-A. Then I tell myself to relax. I’d need long-term exposure to Hyde or a massive dose that I’d feel right away.
I hope.
“And you have proof that this guy Forrester released the virus?” asks the FBI agent with the spiky gray hair. I forgot his name and simply think of him as Spike.
“It’s complicated,” I reply.
“We gather that. Okay. Well, he’s downstairs with a ventilator. Maybe when he’s ready to talk, or mumble, we can find out more. Of course, being in the state he is, we can’t formally ask him anything.”
One of the Travis County detectives speaks up. “I don’t think we’ll have a problem getting a warrant to search the premises by tomorrow. We’ll send a forensics team over then. You mentioned that he was married?”
“Yes. An Estonian woman. He implied that she murdered their son after she got infected. And I think he was trying to tell me that he infected her.”
“Methane probe?” asks the other detective.
“Yeah,” replies the first one. “Those deaths were never reported. Good chance the bodies are still on property.”
“He’ll have buried them deep,” I reply.
“Probably. Not like that Butcher Creek maniac.”
Gallard shoots me a sidelong glance. I pretend to be oblivious.
“Anyway,” continues the detective, “we’ll search the premises. We’ve got a really good cadaver dog, too. If we get him for the murder of the wife, you FBI guys might be able to build a case on the other stuff.”
“That’ll be fun,” says Spike. “I just don’t want another Ivins situation.” He turns to me. “No offense, but I want you as far away from the forensic part of this as possible.”
“Understood,” I reply.
Gallard is watching this without saying much. Something is clearly on his mind. I turn my head and wince to look at him. “What’s up?”
“Nothing. Nothing.” He shakes his head. “Every one of these is different in their own way, I guess.”
&n
bsp; “Spill it,” says Spike. “You never have a problem going off on tangents in the classroom.”
Gallard sighs. “I don’t know. It’s just . . . something isn’t sitting right about Forrester.”
“You think he’s the wrong guy?” I ask.
“Not at all. He’s guilty as sin, from where I’m standing. It’s just . . . what he said to you and then how he tried to end it right there. This man sounds like an incredibly narcissistic person.”
“But also a fan of mine,” I reply.
“Yeah, that may well be, but Mark David Chapman was a huge John Lennon fan, too. That didn’t end so well for Lennon. No offense, Theo, but I can’t understand why you’re alive.”
“I’ve wondered that many times.”
Gallard smiles. “Right, but I mean specifically in this case. He had you there in the chair. He had a gun and he decided to kill himself in front of you after you told him you weren’t interested in his life story. It almost sounds like a jilted lover committing suicide in front of their partner. The goal is to make them live with the guilt as a form of punishment.”
“I doubt I’m going to lose any sleep over this asshole,” I reply. “Maybe he was too arrogant to realize that.”
Gallard crosses his arms and stares up at the fluorescent lights. “Arrogance . . . that’s what this is about. And you never established any connection between Forrester and the victims?”
“I assumed they’d be random. That’s what I would do if I was testing the Hyde virus.”
“There’s a comforting thought,” mumbles Spike.
“It would be the most practical way to avoid detection,” I explain.
“Yes,” says Gallard. “That’s how Theo would do it. But Forrester is different. The fact that he tried to kill himself in front of you suggests that he sees himself as a kind of vigilante.”
“Wait. What? Against who?”
“You. He probably killed his wife because she killed their son—even though it was ultimately his fault. The other victims may not all have been random. And with you, I think he expected you to find him eventually. He was clearly looking forward to monologuing to you.”
