by Blake Banner
I drove to the hospital. My head was aching, and the squeak and thud of the windshield wipers was like a cruel and unusual torture involving a fork, a chalkboard, and a troll with a hammer. I left the car in the parking lot and ran through the rain to the shelter of the entrance. I rode the elevator, wiping rainwater from my hair with my hands.
There was a cop sitting outside her door. I asked him if anybody had been to see her. He shook his head. “Not a soul, Detective.”
I wondered briefly about her parents, her family.
Dehan was awake when I went in. She still looked pale and pasty, but at least she didn’t look dead anymore. She gave me a feeble smile, and I sat down.
“I still don’t remember anything.”
I shook my head. “That’s not why I’m here.”
“Why are you here?”
I shrugged. “I’m going to pick up a couple of hookers, and I thought I’d drop in and let you know.”
She gave her head a small shake. “I don’t want any. I’m trying to give them up.”
“Anyone you want me to call? Anything you want me to bring over?”
She blinked a slow blink. “I’ll be back at work tomorrow.”
“Let’s play that one by ear.”
I stayed a while till her eyes closed, and then I stepped out. I shut the door and stood thinking. The cop looked up at me. “Don’t let anybody in to see her except her doctor and the nurses. And whoever goes in, go in with them. I don’t want her left alone with anyone—I don’t care if it’s the second coming of Mother Theresa. Got it?”
“You got it, Detective.”
Back in my car, I called Peter’s hookers, Zeta and Cherry Tipple. I told them I was a friend of Pete’s and I wanted to meet them at the usual place on Jackson Avenue.
“How much is this party going to cost me?” I asked Cherry.
“Seein’ as you’s a friend of Pete’s, we can give you a special price, honey.”
“How special is special?”
“Two hundred an hour, fo’ each of us luscious ladies.”
I laughed. “You better be worth it.”
“You won’t have no complaints ’bout us, mistah.”
“You come prepared. I’m into the same shit as Pete.”
“No problem, big boy. See you in an hour.”
I arrived early. The captain had arranged for the lock to be fixed. I dumped my coat on the dining table and stood looking at the room. It was hard to imagine how anybody could get aroused in a soulless, desolate place like that. I sat down by his DVD collection and worked my way through them. They were mostly bondage and domination. Not so much sinister as sad.
Twenty minutes later, the doorbell rang, and I went to let them in. Zeta was a tall, peroxide blonde making a brave, if misguided, attempt to look ten years younger than she was. What she was was forty and extensively renovated, with some of her original features, but not many. Cherry Tipple was buxom and dark. Her features were all original and plentiful, and once upon a time she’d had a pretty face, but life and people had turned it sour.
They pretended to admire me. I winked at them and told them to go ahead into the living room. I locked the door and followed them.
“Sit down.” I gestured to the chairs, and as they sat I placed four hundred bucks on the coffee table. “This will take less than an hour.”
Cherry said, “Already I’m not liking this.”
I dropped onto the sofa and showed her the key. “The door is locked, Cherry. I’m a cop. And I need to ask you a couple of questions about Pete.”
They looked at each other. Zeta said, “Pete? Who’s Pete?”
“Pete may be a man who abducts hookers, kills them, and dismembers them, and then distributes bits of them all over the country.” I pointed at the black window, speckled with dreary, orange raindrops. “Right now, as far as the world out there is concerned, I am just a John and you girls are showing me a good time. I’m happy for it to stay that way. But I need you to do me this favor. Do it, and you walk out of here with four hundred bucks, and maybe you help put a son of a bitch away who preys on ladies like yourselves.”
They looked like I might have got through to them. I showed them the picture of Pete. “This your man?” They nodded. “What’s his taste? What does he like?”
They looked at each other and giggled. Zeta said, “I put a collar ’round his neck and lead him around the room on all fours, while Cherry smacks his ass with a ping-pong bat.”
I frowned. “That’s it?”
Cherry shrugged. “A few variations sometimes, but that’s basically it. Sometimes I ride his ass!”
They screamed with laughter.
“And that takes two hours?”
They both sighed. “You’d be amazed.”
“Does he ever try to hurt you?”
“You kidding?” It was Cherry again. “I’d taser the motherfocker and stamp on his balls! No, he likes to be dominated. That’s it. It don’t go beyond that. And when we’s finished, every time we have to listen to the fockin’ little lecture about how we could be doing something so much better with our lives. One of these days, I swear! I am going to say to him, ‘Yo! Motherfocker! How much money you make in the last hour? Coz I made two hundred bucks leading a stupid asshole around the floor on his hands and knees while he got his sorry ass whipped!’”
I drummed my fingers on the arm of the chair for a while. Finally, I said, “The money is all yours, ladies. You have a profitable evening.” Cherry smiled as she picked up the cash.
“You sure you don’t want something, sugar? You’re all paid up.”
“I’m good, thanks.”
“Suit yourself.”
“Be safe.”
I let them out and watched them scuttle away into the shiny, wet darkness. I stood staring at my car. The windows looked real black. I thought of the unknown girl, the skull and the arms. I thought of her parents again. For them, until they were tracked down and informed of her death, she would be both dead and alive. Why did that thought keep haunting me? The thought that somehow it wasn’t real until you knew.
And suddenly I thought I knew.
TWENTY-THREE
It was still dark. The only sound was the wet, desultory tap of raindrops on the windowsill and on the leaves of the trees outside. I turned my head and looked at the clock. The luminous green numbers seemed to be carved out of the blackness.
5:45.
The door bell made me jump physically. It jarred my senses, stopped, and then jangled them again. I slipped out of bed, grabbed my piece, and ran silently down the stairs. I could see a silhouette through the frosted glass panel, backlit by the amber streetlight.
I moved to the side of the door, reached over, turned the handle, and yanked it open. Then thrust my automatic through the gap.
Into Dehan’s face.
She grinned.
“Morning, Stone.”
“What the hell… do you know what time it is? Why are you not…?”
She stepped in, closed the door, kissed me on the cheek, and said, “Thank you.” She moved toward the kitchen talking over her shoulder. “I slept like a babe. I woke up at half four and started getting flashes. I remember bits and pieces. I thought you’d want to know.”
“At five forty-five in the morning?”
She was opening the coffee pot and glanced at the clock on the fridge. “It’s five to six. Man up, Detective. Have a shower, you’ll feel better.”
I showered and dressed and came down to the now familiar bacon, eggs, toast, and coffee. I sat.
“You know, normally, I have a piece of toast and a cup of coffee.”
“My grandmother would not approve.” She put the plate in front of me. “One of my uncles said to her one day, ‘Mammy, I’m gonna die!’ She said, ‘You’ll die, but foist you’ll eat!’”
I laughed. “Your paternal grandmother, I assume.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So—” I stuffed bacon in my mouth and spoke a
round it. “—tell me whachou wemembah.”
She looked disapproving and raised an eyebrow at me. “I got a call while I was in the observation room.”
“Can you remember who from?”
“It was a woman.”
I froze. Then smiled.
She went on. “She said she had vital information regarding the case of the two arms. She said she was right outside. She didn’t want to come in because her life would be in danger if anybody saw her. She wanted me to go down to the deli on the corner.
“I got about halfway there. You know there’s an exit from the parking lot on the left. A van came out and pulled up. It was dark. The driver beckoned me. Next thing I felt a brick wall hit my head, and that’s all I remember.”
“Do you remember waking up at any point?”
She nodded. “Twice. The first time I was on a mattress in the back of a van. I was cuffed to a rail. There was a night-light burning, and there was a camera mounted on a bracket near the ceiling, watching me. About five minutes after that, the light went out. I heard the side door open, felt a sharp jab, and I went out.
“The second time I woke up and I was bound hand and foot. I couldn’t see anything, and I was lying on a concrete floor. I knew that couldn’t be good. Shortly after that, I heard the hiss of gas, started to feel ill, and passed out.”
I had finished mopping up the egg with the toast and was sitting back, sipping coffee, watching her in the dim light of the dawn.
I told her about Zak and about David, and about finding her pendant at Peter’s place, and his prints on the duct tape. She listened carefully and thought about it. “So the woman is his wife.” I didn’t say anything, and she shrugged. “Obedient to the last, huh?”
I nodded. “That she is.”
“Did you get a confession?”
“He swears he is being framed by the cops just so we can clear up an old case. His lawyer knows he’s going down, but he won’t accept it.”
She was pensive for a bit. “It would be good to get a confession.” She shrugged. “We have no idea how many girls he killed. How many moms and dads are there out there, wondering…? It would be good to give them closure.”
Closure.
The word sat there staring at me. “Not closure.”
“Not closure?”
“No. Aperture. I’ll tell you what we need. We need to open the box.”
“What are you talking about, Stone?”
I stood and started collecting up the plates and the cups.
“I keep getting this nagging feeling.” I carried them to the sink, then turned and rested my ass against the side to look at her. “This guy, he may be an asshole and he may have a below-average IQ, but he has a genius for making everything seem like something it’s not. His whole thing seems to be, so long as you don’t know the answer—the truth—everything is possible. It is time to open the box.”
“What box? And how are you going to open it?”
“I need a couple of hours’ research on the computer, and then a little help from my friends.”
We got to the station house at eight and went straight down to the cells. Peter was awake. He had a breakfast tray in front of him, but he hadn’t touched it. He looked drawn and pale. He watched us with sullen eyes as we stepped in.
“What do you want now? To gloat?”
“Detective Dehan has started to remember.”
He laughed a sour, twisted laugh and said, “Oh, I get it, now the evidence against me will be incontrovertible. Not only have you got manufactured fingerprints, now you have the eyewitness account of the victim!”
“Come on, Peter. We’re going to talk to your wife.”
He stared at me, and there was real hatred in his face. “You plan to destroy me completely. Not only the rest of my life in prison, but you are going to tell her my little secret. Can you leave me nothing?”
“Come on.”
He stood. I cuffed him and we led him up the stairs. He looked surprised as we stepped out into the early-morning drizzle.
“Where are you taking me?”
“I told you.”
“You’re not bringing her here?”
“Nope.”
He and Dehan climbed in the back, and we drove through the damp hiss of the traffic, along the Bruckner Expressway to Revere Avenue. I kept my eye on him in the mirror. He looked anxious and fretful. I pulled up in front of his house, and he and Dehan got out. We stood a moment in the spitting rain. I could see Bob and his wife looking out the window at us. Then Pete’s door opened, and his wife stood there, staring, waiting.
I walked over to her and climbed the stairs. “Mrs. Smith. May I have the keys to your garage?”
“To the garage?”
“Yes, Mrs. Smith, to your garage.”
She walked away, into the kitchen, and came back a moment later with two keys on a ring. She handed them to me. “What are you going to do with Peter?”
I didn’t answer. I took the keys, and Peter and Dehan followed me down the side of the house. I unlocked the garage and hauled up the door. I looked back at Dehan. Across the road I could see that Bob and his wife had come out onto the porch.
I walked inside and scoured every surface. Peter said, “What are you looking for?”
His wife joined us, her hands clenched in front of her. She didn’t look at her husband. I studied her face for a couple of seconds. It struck me that she had the same look of sick anxiety that he had. “You know, I keep going over in my mind what happened that night, twelve years ago. If only there had been a witness, somebody like David. Because David has an eidetic memory. What is commonly known as a photographic memory. Then it struck me. When Detective Dehan and I first came here, we had a chat with your neighbor, Mr. Luff, and he told us his wife not only has what he described as an elephantine memory, but she notices things.”
Peter swallowed. “And what do you think she noticed…?”
I smiled. “Oh, I think she noticed who turned up with a couple of arms in a plastic garbage bag. I think she noticed all sorts of interesting things. In fact, as they’re here, why don’t we go over and have a chat with them?”
The wet crunch of our feet made a strange echo in the early-morning street as we crossed the road.
“Good morning, Mr. Luff. Mrs. Luff. I wonder if we could take just a few minutes of your time?”
Bob was staring at Peter with an odd frown on his face. Then he switched to me and said, “Of course! Come in. I’ll get chairs…”
Mrs. Luff ushered us in. She looked satisfied that we had at last accepted her invitation to tea. “Now come in, come in!” She pinched her lips and shook her head. “Peter! Jenny! What a mess! What a situation! Sit, sit, I’ll make tea. Bob, chairs. Come on!”
Dehan and Mrs. Smith sat on the sofa. I sat in an armchair, and Peter sat in the other. Bob came scuttling in with two more chairs while his wife bustled efficiently in the kitchen. Peter’s eyes were shiny, and he kept swallowing. Jennifer was fiddling with the hem of her blue cardigan and looked like she might be sick.
Bob helped his wife bring in the tray, and between them they poured and distributed tea. Peter was looking at us like we had all gone insane. Maybe he was right. The setup had something of the Mad Hatter’s tea party about it.
Mrs. Luff said, “You took the children to your sister’s, Jenny?”
Jennifer nodded.
Mrs. Luff nodded back. “It was the only thing to do. They’ll be okay there. She’ll look after them.”
Bob cleared his throat. “So, how do you think we can help you, Detective Stone?”
I sipped my tea. It was perfect. I set the cup down on the table and sighed while I organized my thoughts.
“It has been a fascinating and challenging case. Definitely not run-of-the-mill. I will admit, and Detective Dehan will back me up on this, I think, that we made a fundamental mistake, right at the start, that set us on the wrong course. It was almost catastrophic, and almost cost Detective Dehan he
r life.”
Mrs. Luff tutted. “You were very lucky to have Detective Stone.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “The mistake we made was to call in one of the bureau’s profilers and set about seeking a serial killer who fit the classic profile.” I glanced at Peter. His eyes were like two needles with which he was trying to pin me to the chair. “Somebody who was methodical, meticulous, narcissistic, domineering…”
I glanced at Jennifer. She was staring hard at the hem of her cardigan, and I could see her lower lip curling.
“But our killer was a very different kind of man. He had what I described to Detective Dehan as a special kind of genius.”
Bob and Mrs. Luff were both staring, engrossed. This was not how they had expected to spend the morning. I could see Peter’s chest rising and falling. His face was flushed. I went on.
“His special genius was—is—to make everything seem to be what it is not. I first realized this when he sent us a photograph showing his supposed next victim. But in fact, he had reversed the photograph and the victim was not the woman who was highlighted in the picture, but the one concealed in the foreground.”
Bob and Mrs. Luff nodded in perfect unison. Peter had turned to stare at Dehan. I went on.
“And he kept drawing my attention to a clock, advising me that time was passing. So I rushed to Detective Dehan’s side. But again, it was an illusion. The abduction was timed for later, when I had relaxed my guard. All along…” I stood and walked to the window, to look out at Peter’s house. “All along, this killer’s aim has been to cast suspicion on other people—other people, all connected by just one thing. The lockups.”
I turned and set my ass on the windowsill. I shook my head, as though I still couldn’t work it out.
“It was when I realized that his genius lay in inverting things to make them look like the opposite of what they were that things started to drop into place. He had never made a mistake. Zak, like most people, believed that paper does not hold a fingerprint. But this guy knew that it did, and every note I received from him was as pure as the driven snow. So I was surprised when he started making careless mistakes.” I glanced at Peter. He and Jennifer were staring hard at each other. “Of course, the bureau profiler had told us that sometimes careful, organized killers will grow overconfident with successive, successful kills and start to make mistakes.”
