by David Beers
“He knows I’m worried about the fight at school, but not the extent of it.”
“He really knows nothing about your mot … excuse me, about Clara?”
“He knows she died. That’s it,” Lori said.
“That’s a lot to keep from him, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Lori said, looking to the window. “It is.”
“Do you think he would agree with you? Would he also think that your kids might have her tendencies?”
Lori laughed. “No way. If John brought home a skinned cat, Scott would thank him for dinner and get to work. He adores the kids. Thinks I worry too much as it is. If he knew about all this … Jesus, I don’t know what he’d think.” Lori smiled just thinking about it. How absurd he would think her, absolutely mad.
“Why wouldn’t he agree?”
She looked to him. “Scott doesn’t worry, about anything. If a nuclear bomb dropped on the city next to us, he wouldn’t even run to his car. It would be a leisurely stroll while he told us all to grab our bags.”
Dr. Vondi nodded, smiling. “I think it would be healthy to tell him what you’re thinking. He’s your husband and their father, his perspective is going to be very important for you.”
“No,” Lori said. “I can’t tell him this.”
15
Present Day
John ran through every action for what felt like the millionth time. He lost count, but then again, he truly didn’t care how many times he repeated the sequence of events in his mind. Not the murder. He had to move past that, because the tough part always began after. John knew what came with murders: investigations. The police would do their best to apprehend whoever murdered Paul S., and while John wouldn’t immediately be a suspect, he had to do everything he could to keep it that way.
It took three hours, in total, to make sure he was as safe as possible.
It started with him undressing the body. He stripped Paul naked, placing his clothes in a garbage bag that he pulled from his trunk. He tied the bag tight, put it inside a second bag, tied that, and then stuck all of it back in the trunk. Next he grabbed a large bottle of bleach then got in the car, backing it up ten feet. He kept the lights on, though he knew that was a risk. A bigger risk was not being able to see what he was doing to Paul’s body. If he got caught out here, then that was the luck of the draw, but if he got caught at home, his stupidity would be the culprit.
John carried the bleach back to the naked body and started dousing it. The liquid swam with the blood, dripping down to the ground below. The bleach rolled into Paul’s open eyes—no one at home to hurt, though. John, wearing gloves that he put on in the car, grabbed the dead man’s arm and turned him over on his stomach; he poured bleach across the dead man's pale skin.
From there, he went back to the car and grabbed the second bottle of bleach—this time pouring it around the body, killing any possible DNA he may have left when falling to his knees earlier. He picked up the shell casing and dropped it into his pocket.
Once finished, John moved to the driver’s side of the vehicle, killed the lights, then walked to the passenger’s side. If any of Paul’s DNA was found in the car, it could be explained away fairly easily—but he’d rather not have that happen. Cleaning any DNA from the car was more difficult because he couldn’t use a killing agent like bleach. With the overhead light on, John inspected the seats up and down. He used a cloth from the glove compartment to wipe down every possible thing, wanting to remove any fingerprints the man may have left.
And finally, with all of that done, John backed the vehicle all the way to the road, stopping just before he left the tree cover. He hiked back down the trail with a flashlight in hand. Starting where the body lay, he walked backwards, working his way to the car—looking for tracks and footprints, wiping them away with his shoe.
Finally, he got in his car and he pulled away.
He was almost home now, the time approaching two in the morning. He still saw no signs of Harry, and more than anything, he wanted that. If he didn’t see Harry again, he could get through this—hell, if he didn’t see Harry again for another five years (God, please another ten), he could at least make it through this episode. The cops wouldn’t find him. They never had before and this wouldn’t be any different. He just needed to remain calm, continue covering his tracks, and make things right with his family.
He could do that.
Nothing to it.
16
Present Day
Alan Tremock pulled his car to the side of the road. He put it in park and then reached for the energy drink in his cup holder. He took a sip, looking out of the front window at the other people already there. He saw men and women walking up and down the path leading to the lake, none of them paying him any mind. Most wore uniforms but a few had on plain clothes as he did.
“Five years,” he whispered, taking another sip. “Jesus-Fucking-Christ.”
He got out of the car, drink in hand, and slung his badge around his neck, the chain putting the actual star at about mid-stomach. No one looked at him as he got out; he figured to talk to anyone he would have to walk down the path, though he felt he knew what waited at the end.
“Detective Tremock?” the voice on the other end of the phone had said earlier this morning.
“Speaking.”
“You handled a murder on Lake Tribec five years ago, right?”
He had paused then, only for a second, but still enough for anyone to notice.
“Yes, me and my partner. Sorry, my partner and I.”
“I think you’re going to want to see this. I’m Officer Wendley and I’m down here at the lake, right on the boat path.”
He paused again. “Another murder?”
“Yes, unfortunately.”
Alan had looked at his watch and saw it read noon. “I can be there in a half hour.”
“We’ll be here,” the officer said.
And so they were.
Alan didn’t want to walk down the boat path because he feared what he might see. A naked body. A hole somewhere in the torso, meaning a slow death. He was scared bleach residue would cover the crime scene, making any evidence unusable. Alan Tremock was frightened, deeply so, that he would see a repeat of five years ago.
Afraid or not, he started walking the path, looking at the scenery around him. Not the scene, necessarily, because he didn’t care what the others walking the path did (as long as they didn’t mess with the scenery). He looked for broken twigs, branches, disrupted vegetation. He knew he wouldn’t find a single thing—not if the same guy did this—but he looked anyway, because when he got to the actual crime, bleach would reign supreme.
It took him a couple of minutes to make his way down to the lake, though he saw the crowd a hundred feet away. Twenty people or so, all of them looking at something different, hopefully doing their absolute best to not pollute any possible evidence.
And then, Alan arrived at a scene that looked identical to the one five years before. Everything the same except for the person lying face down in the dirt. Five years ago it had been Janet Hummel. Now, a man lay naked before him, his cheek in the dirt as his face looked left, staring intensely at something … though no one would ever be able to ask him what.
“Can I help you?” someone said to Alan’s right, but he didn’t look away from the body.
“Looking for Officer Wendley,” he said.
“Detective Tremock?”
Alan finally turned from the cadaver and found a short, hair-thinning man with his hand extended.
“Yes, unfortunately.” Alan shook his hand.
“I remembered another body was found down here a few years ago, so I had the office look it up, and found your name. This the same guy?”
Alan looked at the body to his right again. “Certainly appears so.”
“Glad to hear it. I really didn’t want to start working this. The smell of bleach alone tells me more than I want to know.”
Alan nodded, still looking at the dead man. “I�
�ve got to make a call, if you’ll excuse me for a minute,” he said.
“On my day off, Alan?” Susan said as she answered the phone.
“Wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
“We both know that’s not true. Remember last year?”
“This is different,” Alan said.
“Last year you called me on my day off to let me know the office was going in on the lottery and that if I wanted in, I should come to the office because you weren’t spotting me.” Susan smiled, remembering that she had sat in this very place as she answered the call, then remembered telling him to fuck off before hanging up.
Susan looked at the glass in front of her, small beads of water dripping down the outside.
She loved days like today, the unseasonably warm ones. February and the weather felt like a spring day. The sun shone perfectly down onto her porch, and a light breeze blew from time to time. Truly, she couldn’t have created a better day off.
“This is different,” he said and she heard that difference in each word he spoke. No joviality. No humor.
“What’s going on?” Susan sat up in her chair, pulling her feet down from their resting place on her table.
“Lake Tribec.”
“What about it?” she said.
“Another murder.”
“The same?”
A brief pause and then he answered. “Looks like it.”
“Jesus, Alan,” Susan said.
He didn’t respond. Susan was stunned. She hadn’t known Alan when the last murder happened, but she knew the aftermath. She knew—as best she could—his feelings about the whole damn thing.
“Are you going to stay on it?”
“The fuck do you think?” he said.
“Think Morone will let you stay on it?”
“Yeah.”
“And that’s a good idea?” she said.
“Look, I don’t have time to debate the merits. I wanted to let you know. I’ll be working this weekend.”
“You want me to come down?” she said, selfishly hoping he said no.
“It’ll be here on Monday. I just wanted you to know.”
“Okay, Alan. Thanks for calling. I’ll see you on Monday. Let me know if there’s anything I can do until then.”
“Sounds good.”
The call ended and she sat staring at her glass of water. That body wasn’t a good thing. Not in the normal “murder is immoral” type way, but this one specifically wasn’t good for Alan. She hadn’t worked the last Lake Tribec body, but no one could forget what happened, no one working in the Dallas Police Department anyway.
Maybe the same person wasn’t responsible. Maybe a copycat did this.
Susan really hoped so, because no one wanted to reopen the Lake Tribec case. No one wanted to go back down that road, least of all her—especially not with Alan leading.
Alan looked out at the lake, holding his phone at his side. He didn’t want to turn around. Truly, truly didn’t. He hadn’t wanted to do any of the things he’d done since he got the call at noon, but he did them all.
Alan certainly didn’t want to call his wife, and that’s one thing he wouldn’t do. Not yet. She deserved to know but he just didn’t have the stamina to put up with her protests yet. She would hate all of this more than he, because she knew what it would do—what it was already doing.
A few boats trolled lazily on the lake. People stood up and stared at the police presence, probably half hoping there’d been a repeat crime. Murder enthralled the public, and they chased the thrill with as much gusto as the Romans watched gladiators. They knew about what happened, surely, if they had lived here during the time it all went down.
“Motherfucker,” he said under his breath.
He put the phone back in his pocket and walked across the clearing to the path, the dead body just hidden from view by the trees surrounding it.
“What would you like us to do?” Wendley said, meeting him about five feet from the dead man.
“Any identification?”
“No, no clothes and no wallet found lying around.”
“He took them,” Alan said. “Have you been able to find any DNA at all?”
“Nothing. Not a thumb print. It’s all gone.”
“Yeah. You mind if I look at the body for a bit?”
“As far as I’m concerned, this is your crime scene,” Wendley said.
“Appreciate it,” Alan said, leaving the officer and walking over to the body.
He squatted down, trying not to touch anything, and looked to see if there might be something that the cameras wouldn’t pick up. You only had a couple hours at the scene with the actual body, and then everything else came from pictures. Maybe a video recording. Those things rarely picked up the intricacies, though. Somehow machines missed pieces that the human eye could catch. Or, probably more accurate, the human eye couldn’t catch them as it stared at a copy.
The smell of bleach filled his nose, strong as if he’d just walked into a freshly cleaned bathroom. The smell, of course, reminded him of the first time he knelt like this at Lake Tribec. Blonde hair had covered the woman’s eyes back then (Say her name, Alan. Janet.) but now he saw the brown iris of John Doe.
“Has anyone turned the body over?” Alan asked, raising his voice enough so that the people around him could hear.
“Not yet,” someone said.
“Mind if I do?”
A tech walked over but Alan didn’t look up. “Yeah, I’d say you’re good, we’ve looked over his back already.”
“Got any gloves?”
The tech held out two rubber gloves to him. Alan took them and slid both over his hands. His hands weren’t sweating yet, and that was good, because it would have made the gloves harder to put on. He didn’t need anything to be hard right now.
Alan reached to the body, feeling the soft flesh give underneath his fingertips. Bodies were fucking heavy, and Alan prepared himself for it. He moved closer, got his legs beneath him, and then lifted with his arms. He was careful, not wanting to either disrespect the dead or disrupt anything around the body. Slowly, he let it down, the head flopping to the left again, this time staring away from him. Dirt dotted the pale, slightly blue skin, and neither the victim’s arms nor legs did much bending. Rigor mortis had already set in.
Alan saw the bullet hole, just on the right side of the torso. Sure enough, the killer hadn’t wanted to hit the heart, causing John Doe to bleed out quickly. He wanted it to be slow, wanted to savor the moment. A single shot which looked like it entered the victim through the right lung. How long had he lain here trying to live? Wanting to breathe, but unable to suck enough air no matter how hard he tried?
This was the same guy, no doubt about it.
The Lake Tribec killer was back.
The cop killer.
17
Present Day
John woke up early and made breakfast. He put the toast, eggs, and hash browns on a serving tray and brought them into the bedroom, hoping that the smell didn’t wake the boys. He set the tray on the nightstand next to Diane, and then sat down on the bed, putting his arm over her curled body.
“Hey, honey,” he said.
She stirred a little but didn’t open her eyes.
“Diane, I made breakfast,” he whispered a bit louder, wanting to wake her up but not shock her.
“I smell it,” she whispered back. “Where were you last night?”
John knew this was coming but that didn’t make it any easier. Sometimes Harry stuck around for months, John able to fight his urges off longer than this time. Those were the real bad times. This one only lasted a week, maybe, so he wasn’t in nearly as much trouble. Still, this wouldn’t be easy.
“Praying.”
“Praying?” she said. She didn’t open her eyes.
“Yes. I needed to get my mind together.”
“I’m glad you could do that, John. Not sure if you noticed, but I didn’t even bother calling.”
He nodde
d, his hand lightly touching her leg. “Of course I noticed.”
“But it didn’t bother you, huh? Being away from your family all night? That was okay?”
“Babe, I wasn’t gone all night. I know I woke you up when I got into bed.”
“You were gone long enough,” she said, opening her eyes and turning on her back so that she stared at him. He saw the hurt and anger written across her face, both of them cutting to his heart. This was why he cried last night, unable to hold back the tears that flowed to the dark dirt around him. He cried because he knew this look was coming, because he betrayed her trust again, even if she didn’t know the extent of it.
“I’m here now,” he said. “I’m sorry. Whatever was happening to me, it’s done now. I can’t say God cured me of it, but He helped me find myself again.”
She stared, her eyes hard though he could tell she was on the verge of crying.
“What’s happening?” she said. “What’s going on with you?”
She wanted in. She always wanted in and he could never let her. She couldn’t see the whys behind all of this; he could never tell her what was happening, because then all this ended. The kids. Her. His whole life.
“Sometimes … I can’t handle the urge to drink. Sometimes it’s almost too strong.”
“Did you drink?”
“No,” he said.
“Then I don’t understand. You didn’t drink, so why do you get so distant? Why don’t you just talk to me about it?”
He nodded, looking away. Acting came in here. Always pretending to be someone that she could love. Always lying and yet keeping a string of truth running underneath the lie, making the whole thing believable.
“I guess I’m ashamed,” he said. “I don’t like talking about it because it’s my weakness. It’s why you deserve someone better, and bringing it up only shines the light right on it.”
“I did this a lot when we were younger, John, but I can’t keep it up. We have children now and you can’t not show up for dinner without telling me. You can’t stop communicating completely. We can’t handle it.”
