The Summer Man

by S. D. Perry

  John nodded. “It’s not uncommon after a sensational death in a small community. A lot of people get freaked-out.”

  “Is that a medical term?”

  He smiled and nodded again, his voice low. “Yep. Us therapists use it more than any other. Along with dysphoric and totally bugshit. Makes us sound like we know what we’re talking about.”

  Annie laughed. They picked up their menus, chatted about what they were going to order, moved on to local gossip for a moment or two—the big Victorians that had been rented out for the summer, the roadwork being done out by the lighthouse, the community theater.

  Tish showed up and took their orders. Annie went with the seafood bisque—a Le Poisson standard for her—and the salmon steak. More calories there than she needed, but she’d skimped on lunch. John opted for calamari and the pork medallions, and they went back to talking about the theater. Miranda Greene-Moreland’s open poetry night would be worth seeing. Dick Calvin, one of John’s neighbors, in fact, had proved to be the reading’s big hit last summer. The generally peevish old man—he was probably pushing eighty by now—was a retired ferryboat captain and had scared generations of Port Isley’s children with his perpetual scowl and curt manner. He had his house egged every Halloween. And he had surprised everyone with a short series of simple but lyrical odes to his late wife, Annelise, who’d apparently died when they’d both been in their twenties.

  Tish showed up with their appetizers and hurried away again.

  “I talked to him a month or so ago; he was out seeding his lawn,” John said. “He said he was planning to do it again this year. ‘If anyone’s fool enough to come listen, I guess I’m fool enough to go up again,’ he said.”

  “And the soul of a poet,” Annie said. She shook her head. “I’m definitely going, then.”

  “We could go together,” John said. He hesitated, smiling. “You know, if you want. If it’s…”

  “Applicable?”

  “Exactly.”

  She grinned back at him. “I don’t know, that’s practically a whole month from now. Longer. Kind of jumping into things with both feet, aren’t we?”

  “Maybe so,” he said. “Something to think about, though.”

  “Yeah, it is,” she said, feeling almost absurdly giddy. She couldn’t remember feeling so…so excited about a boy since about junior high. “And I will. I am.”

  John nodded, his gaze warm, and dug into his calamari.

  “Speaking of neighbors, have you met yours yet?” Annie asked. “The rental next door?” She spooned into the creamy bisque, brought up a tiny bay shrimp and part of a scallop. Heavenly.

  “No. He—or she—is a real hermit. Haven’t even seen him. Or her. Although I heard the car pull out late the other night. After midnight, in fact.”

  “Really,” Annie said. She took another taste of soup—and crunched into something.

  Crab shell or something, big, though. Frowning, she pulled the offending bit out of her mouth, looked at it, turned it around—

  “What is that?” John asked.

  Annie shook her head. It was semitranslucent, about the size and shape of a small fingernail…in fact, it was exactly the size and shape of a fingernail. A woman’s pinkie, maybe. A sliver of dark-red flesh clung to it.

  Tish was walking by, an empty tray in hand. Annie caught her gaze, still frowning.

  “Is everything all right?” Tish asked. She looked even more strained than before.

  “Something in my soup.” Annie held it out for the waitress to see before putting it on her napkin.

  “Part of an oyster shell, maybe? I’m so sorry. Let me get you a new bowl.”

  She scooped up the offending bisque, smiling apologetically at Annie. “Our usual chef isn’t working tonight.”

  “I thought the calamari was different,” John said. “Who’s on?”

  Tish’s smile became forced. “Mr. Truman.”

  Annie was surprised. “I didn’t know he cooked.”

  “None of us did,” Tish said. She seemed about to say something else but walked away instead, heading for the kitchen. John and Annie exchanged looks, Annie not at all sure that she wanted another serving of bisque. She looked at the thing that had been in her bowl, feeling a little queasy. Whatever it was, it really looked like a human fingernail. Really.

  From the kitchen, they heard a raised voice, angry, masculine. Tish came back out a beat later, her face red, carrying a new bowl. She looked like she was about to cry, but she managed a weak smile as she set it down in front of Annie.

  “Tish,” Annie started, not sure how to intervene, only sure that she needed to try. “Did he—was that Rick yelling at you? Mr. Truman, I mean?”

  Tish nodded, her eyes bright. Annie felt for her. “Is there anyone else back there?” she asked gently.

  Tish shook her head. She lowered her voice, leaned in, and spoke all in a rush. “He sent Randy home—the cook? And when Katie started asking about it, he sent her home, too. He said if she didn’t like how he ran things, she could just…she could go home, too.”

  The flush in her cheeks suggested that his language had been a bit more forceful. “He told me to stay out of the kitchen. Said if I wasn’t putting in an order or picking up, he didn’t want to see me. I wouldn’t say anything normally, I mean he’s my boss, but he’s—he’s kind of scaring me.”

  Annie had heard enough. “Go ahead and eat,” she said, nodding at John as she stood up. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  John started to stand also, but Annie waved him off. “I don’t want him to feel…overwhelmed. I just want to talk to him.”

  “I’m a good talker,” John said.

  Annie nodded. “I’m sure. But cold calamari is the worst. And I can handle this. I’m the law, remember?”

  She said it lightly but meant it. Rick was kind of a blustering jerk, but he was also on the town council; he toed the line. A few choice words from a PIPD officer—even one in a summer dress—would probably keep him from beating up on his waitresses, at least. Having John along wouldn’t help.

  Annie touched Tish on the arm. “Just keep out of the kitchen for a minute or three, OK?”

  Tish nodded uncertainly, then went off to attend to one of her neglected tables. Annie smiled at John—he looked as uncertain as Tish, but he smiled back at her—and walked to the kitchen door, already figuring how she’d handle it.

  Unofficial, like I’m just coming in to say hi to the chef, but firm, direct eye contact…

  She pushed the heavy swing door, and a clean and well-lit kitchen opened out in front of her—two massive stoves, an industrial grill, twin rows of counters, a walk-in refrigeration unit. The back wall opened to the right, but she couldn’t see what was there; prep area, probably, sinks and counters. A single piece of fish was on the grill, spitting and hissing, and there were several big pots steaming on the stove, but no one was in attendance.

  To her immediate right was a small room with a dishwasher in it, a massive steel unit with a stray hose attached, but no one operating it and no Rick. A hall ran off to the left, curving around the walk-in and out of sight. There was an office in back, she remembered; a few years ago, she’d taken a vandalism complaint from Sadie Truman there. Someone had broken one of the front windows.

  Prep area or office? Annie hesitated, thinking it might be better if she just waited—he’d have to come out for the fish, sooner or later—and heard a noise from the adjunct at the back of the kitchen. It sounded like a sigh and was followed by soft talking. A man’s voice, low and almost soothing in tone…Rick?

  Thought she said he was alone back here. Huh. Annie started for the adjunct, eager to get back to John. She liked that he hadn’t insisted on coming along; a lot of guys would have. It was a nice change, to meet someone mature enough to leave off with the whole macho thing. Or, even better—maybe he actually respected her opinion, and—

  The smell hit her. She slowed, maybe twenty feet from where the wall opened up, trying to pic
k apart the unusual and unpleasant scent that had suddenly drowned out good kitchen smells. Raw meat, perhaps, but thick and too heavy, like a butcher shop dumpster. Wasn’t one of the specials filet mignon? Or maybe it was the pork. Anyway, she was glad she hadn’t ordered it, if that was what it smelled like raw.

  “Mr. Truman?” she asked, walking forward again—

  —and then he was stepping around the corner of the adjunct, quickly covering the short space between them, crowding her back. His face was red and sweaty, his expression thunderous.

  “What are you doing here?” he barked. “This is a private business!”

  Flustered, Annie stepped back. “I’m—excuse me, I’m sorry, I just wanted to come back and…and talk for a minute. I realize you’re busy, but maybe we could go to your office…”

  She trailed off, looking at him. At the clean black apron he wore over a dark polo shirt that was positively stiff in places with unidentifiable stains. At the minute specks of—of something that spattered his face. Food? Mud?

  Blood?

  Alarms clanged in her head. Her gut gave a sharp, shuddering twist, her instincts informing her deeply, wordlessly to get out, get out.

  And there was another sound from the back, from where Rick had been. That sighing sound again, a pitiful, weak flutter of noise.

  Rick and Annie had both turned toward the sound. Now Rick looked at her again and smiled. A slow, wide, entirely unpleasant smile that made his face look rigid and inhuman. The flecks of dried matter on his skin stood out now that she really looked at him, red and bright under the fluorescent light. His hands were clenched.

  “I couldn’t wait,” he said. “I thought I could, but I couldn’t.”

  “Couldn’t wait for what?” She barely heard herself speak, her thoughts coming fast and hard, trying to organize, to make sense of all the pieces. Rick, spattered with blood, talking and acting like this, someone sighing…the thing in her bisque that looked like a fingernail.

  Gun’s in my purse. Vincent had been adamant that his people carry at all times; her .38 was in her lacy summer purse, which was at the table next to her chair, and she felt an intense burst of self-reproach for not even thinking of it until now.

  Call it in. Get out and get some backup, and keep talking, keep him talking. She slid back another step, very carefully. The lights were too bright, seeming to call attention to her retreat.

  Rick frowned, his expression darkening. “As if you didn’t know,” he said. “I’m sure all of you knew. He couldn’t have been the first, not the way—not the way she was taking it.”

  Not the way she was…Sadie? Annie had heard things, here and there, about Mrs. Truman and some of the young men she hired—and she worked not to let it show on her face, the way he was watching her…

  She backed up another step but also shifted to the left, trying to see around him to the hidden corner. “Who’s back there, Rick?” she asked.

  His eyes welled up, his shoulders sagging. “Anyway, it’s over,” he said. He seemed exhausted. He stared down at the floor, at his shoes, still but for the single tear that spilled over one blood-misted cheek.

  Annie stepped to the side again, keeping her gaze fixed on Rick. He didn’t have a weapon, but neither did she, and he was built like a truck. On the other hand, he seemed calmer now. Subdued. Maybe she should—

  “Help,” a sighing, plaintive voice called from the back, barely audible, miserable and shaking—and male. Not Sadie.

  Still watching Rick, Annie took two, three sidling steps left, shifting casually toward the back—and saw what was there, the picture startlingly clear and terrible, the overpowering smell of meat becoming an awareness of what had transpired.

  Like a scene in a movie, she thought, trying to fit a reality over what she was seeing. Her glance away from Rick turned into a long, wavering stare as she struggled to process, struggled not to vomit.

  A long counter ran the length of the kitchen’s back wall, the adjunct ending in a pair of heavy stainless steel sinks. There was a wide cutting block slanted toward one of the sinks, a fire exit in the corner—and blood everywhere. Splashed on the counters, trails of it drying on the sink fronts, on the floor. He’d made some attempt to clean up—there were diluted pink streams snaking around the floor drain, pink smears on the counters—but all that was scenery, a backdrop to the real horror. Great hunks of meat, some of it skinned and dressed, some of it still recognizable as human—a woman’s bare leg, sticking out of the sink; the flayed rib cage atop the butcher’s block, one shoulder and upper arm still attached, one small, flat breast hanging off like a limp sack—seemed to cover every available surface. On the small countertop to her right she saw a cutting board with a heap of hammered flesh circles laid out, a pile of minced garlic next to a long, dirty knife. A meat hammer was nearby. She saw a huge colander of peeled shrimp by what looked like a cross-section of a human thigh, the rounded, bloody bone and raw muscle tissue contrasting sharply with the pale skin still attached. And in the corner, tucked against the fire door, a person drawn up in a fetal position. A young man, his hands pressed to his groin. Fresh blood seeped from the red pool of his hands, from what seemed to be a thousand cuts along his bare arms and shoulders.

  “Help,” he whispered again, rolling his head toward her, longish stands of hair sticking to his battered and bloody face, and Annie took a step toward him, unable to deny him, kid’s dying, and with a terrible, guttural scream, Rick was striding at her, his hand flashing out to the cutting board, his face red and grinning once more.

  “Leave him alone!” he screamed, and Annie had ample time to realize she’d made a mistake before the knife he’d snatched up punctured her skin, her chest, her right lung. He drove it in with both hands, and the pain was bad, way beyond bad. Her whole body trembled with it, shock waves of it shuddering through her as her legs went away, and she fell to the floor. The knife ripped and tore as it left her, as her body weight and his grip on the knife’s handle fought for dominance; the knife won. She looked up, saw Rick, saw that he was weeping, saw her own blood dripping from his hands.

  “He fucked her,” Rick sobbed, but his tone was that of a petulant child. “He doesn’t get help.”

  Stabbed me. She gasped, tried to think—to cope with the pain long enough to understand the situation, to remember what to do, to breathe—and in a matter of seconds the black and bright darts of light that floated in front of her were joining together, making everything else irrelevant.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Bob was pouring his fourth drink of the night when the phone rang. It was his employee, Nancy Biggs, and she was almost frantic with the news; there had been a multiple murder at Le Poisson. She’d gotten a call from her brother’s wife, Mary, who went to church with a Leticia Barker’s aunt in Port Angeles—it was a drive for her sister-in-law, but she liked the minister there, Nancy explained breathlessly—and Leticia worked at Le Poisson, and was still there with the police because someone had gone crazy and stabbed the owners. Mary had gotten a call from the aunt, who’d heard it from her sister, Leticia’s mother, and Mary had called Nancy because of Nancy’s connection to the press—and Bob was going to go down there, right? Because he had to, it was big news, a murder spree in little Port Isley!

  He managed to get off the phone by promising to call her as soon as he learned more. After a second’s hesitation, he downed the shot of Old Crow—no hurt in getting himself fortified, at least a little—and was out the door in under three minutes, shoes to coat to keys.

  The last dregs of sunset illuminated the sky, making everything orange and strange as he drove down the hill. A cluster of local police cars, marked and plain, were badly parked in front of the restaurant, effectively blocking traffic. Maybe twenty or thirty people were gathered by the doors, talking, clustering, trying to see inside. Most appeared to be summer people. Local cop Ian Henderson blocked their way, his expression unusually grim.

  Bob parked two blocks away and hightailed it back, po
pping a mint as he walked, wondering how close the grapevine had gotten to the truth. Rick and Sadie Truman, stabbed? Good Christ, why? Granted, they were as well liked as any snobby rich couple in a small town. Rick was a blowhard and Sadie was uptight, but surely neither had inspired active hate.

  Or maybe they did, he thought, moving into the gathered watchers, searching for a familiar face. As many a noted author had liked to point out, small towns were full of secrets, of grudges harbored and loves unrequited. Of course, what Nancy had relayed to him could be entirely wrong, or backward. The way gossip got garbled after three or four or ten tellings, maybe Sadie and Rick had stabbed a customer. Bob couldn’t help a smirk at the thought; that seemed more likely, somehow. Maybe someone complained about the food. Or tried to skip out on their tab.

  He spotted a good source in the front line of the small crowd—Jason, talking on a cell phone—and edged toward him. Jamie owned the gas station by the high school, was a solid family man with a working brain, and he was also one hell of a gossip. Bits of conversation swirled around Bob as he started for Jamie; what he heard dried up the last of his smirk.

  “—in an ambulance, one of the guys said he probably wouldn’t survive, but—”

  “—you see him when they brought him out? There was so much blood on him, and that smile, it was just—”

  “—like that thing in Seattle last year, with that one couple? They were swingers or something, and they picked up this man who—”

  “—heard he killed one of the customers. And a policeman, I didn’t quite—”

  “Hey,” Jamie said, putting away his cell phone as Bob approached, his face pale above the collar of his dark dress shirt. “Crazy, huh?”

  “What have you heard?” Bob asked.

  “Not a lot,” Jamie said. “I just got here a few minutes ago. Deanne and I had reservations for eight. Mom’s with the kids. Anniversary. I just told her not to come. I’ll have to pick up something on the way home…”

  “Someone was killed?” Bob prompted him gently.