The Tower

by Gregg Hurwitz

  She looked down for a while, then turned and walked to the mirror. “Yes,” she admitted. “It was.”

  “That’s interesting,” Travers said.

  “Actually, I think it’s quite disturbing,” Darby said, cutting her off curtly with a smile.

  “No, I mean about how you responded to him masturbating. One of Allander’s elementary school teachers caught him masturbating and gave him a big lecture,” Travers said. “And a spanking, if memory serves.”

  “It does,” Thomas said. “He was quite upset about that. You’ve certainly done your digging, Ms. Travers.”

  Travers bit her lip. They were trying to build trust, and she had just made it seem as if the FBI was digging through all the family laundry. Which, of course, it was.

  Although Jade was irritated with Travers for her interruption, he realized that it was an important point. At an early age, Allander had received conflicting messages regarding his sexuality from two female authority figures. And his mother was more sexually open, less restrictive than the other. He was bound to be confused.

  “It’s okay,” Thomas said. “We know you have to pursue all avenues.” He chuckled though nothing was funny. “Actually, Allander always said he wanted to be a policeman when he grew up.”

  “Many killers go through periods where they’re infatuated with the police,” Jade said. “They’re attracted by the fact that cops have authority and power, and that they deal with death for a living. It’s quite a common interest.”

  “Not in our family,” Darby said. “Umm. No offense.”

  Jade smiled. “None taken.”

  “So there you have your incident,” Darby said in a rushed voice. “‘Beating-Off Boy Burns Furry Animal.’ But that was the last of that. Then we had the summer, those three days that stretched to a lifetime. And I’m sure you know the rest.”

  And they did. Allander had been kidnapped from a shopping mall, lured by one Vincent P. Grubbs into a blue van and taken to a filth-ridden motel where he’d been held for three days. The Columbus Motel. If those three days had seemed like a lifetime to the Atlasias, Jade could only guess what they had felt like to Allander.

  “What store were you in when you first realized you’d lost him?” Jade asked. It might have been a cruel question, but he wanted to gauge how they spoke about it—especially if he was going to ask the big question later.

  “Shoes. A shoe store,” Thomas said. “I was looking at a pair of brown tasseled shoes the fourth row up from the bottom and I fail to see the significance of this, Mr. Marlow.” His voice rose, ever so slightly.

  That was good. It gave Jade a chance to isolate Darby. If Allander had, in fact, raped or attempted to rape her, he wasn’t sure she would’ve told her husband. She was strong enough to have carried it around by herself to save Thomas the agony. Judging from their closeness, Jade would’ve bet she had told him, but it just wasn’t worth taking the chance.

  He would ask Darby, and he would ask her in private. Dr. Yung thought it was a gamble to pursue this point, but Jade felt it in his gut, and his gut had yet to be wrong.

  “Thomas, I can see this is hard for you. Perhaps I’d better speak to Darby alone,” Jade said.

  “Is that okay?” Travers asked.

  Thomas looked as if he’d just been betrayed. His face turned red as he fought for words. “I want to be by my wife’s side when she discusses our son. As you can see, it’s quite trying.”

  “I know it must be,” Jade said. “But I really think it’s better that I speak with her alone. Just for a minute.”

  Darby winked at Thomas. “I’ll be okay, love. Just for a minute.”

  The living room had a sliding glass door that opened onto the backyard. Thomas rose to his feet and went outside. The door slid behind him with an airtight thunk. Jade looked at Travers. “Alone, please.”

  She stared at him with calm fury, her mouth clamped shut so tightly that it distorted her entire face. She stood and exited. The door closed with a louder thunk.

  Jade rose and walked over to Darby. He rested his hand on her shoulder and she received it gracefully, as if it were an invitation to dance.

  “How do you know, Mr. Marlow?” she asked.

  Jade looked at her quietly before speaking. “I just pieced it together.”

  “If you’re that good, then God help my boy because that’s the best-hidden skeleton in California.” She was totally calm.

  “Do you really want God to help him?”

  “When I believe in God?” She nodded. “Sometimes. I think that’s the only thing Thomas will never forgive me for. My son was made who he is by the prisons, the psychologists. He can be salvaged.”

  She grasped Jade’s arm around his elbow, leaning for support.

  “When did he do it, Darby?”

  She tightened her grip on Jade, but her voice was unflinching. “He was seventeen. It was … before he fled from here.”

  “He couldn’t do it, could he?” Jade asked. “Allander.”

  For a moment, he thought she was going to faint. He could only imagine what memories were flashing through her mind. And how much they hurt.

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry. Your reasoning has failed you.”

  “He couldn’t finish then, could he?”

  “No, Mr. Marlow. He could not. He did not ejaculate. In me. Thomas came home and Allander fled.” Her jaw was squared, her eyes firm and courageous. “Thomas knows,” she said. “But I do appreciate your sensitivity.”

  They sort of laughed together ironically.

  Jade’s mind was racing. Allander had not ejaculated. And he had not killed his father. His Oedipal complex had yet to be fulfilled. He hadn’t had the courage to finish with either his mother or his father, and it had haunted him ever since. Now these killings were practice runs to get his courage up, to get him past his sexual insecurity. To get him ready to come home again.

  “Thank you, Darby,” Jade said. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d thanked someone. “You’re doing the right thing, helping me this way.”

  She blinked rapidly several times to keep the tears back. “There comes a time, I suppose, when you must let them go.”

  That’s right, Jade thought, Allander’s in my hands now.

  He remembered his agreement with Darby and felt a sudden claustrophobia. He’d have to deal with that when the time came.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I called for two more cars to watch the house. You’re very safe.”

  She smiled and waved him off. Then she went to the door and called Travers and Thomas back inside. As they were getting ready to leave, Jade turned to Thomas. “Do you mind if I use your bathroom?”

  Jade’s face looked back out of the small mirror above the toilet as he urinated. The bathroom was decorated with floral wallpaper, and carved seashell soaps adorned the marble sink’s counter. A wicker shelf protruded from above the towel rack by the sink, and it was cluttered with small, graceless figures that would have been out of place anywhere else—a twirling porcelain ballerina; the three monkeys of lore; a Rockwellesque doctor examining the ear of a freckle-faced youngster.

  As he leaned forward to flush the toilet, he was struck with a moment of insight. It was right there in front of him. He turned around and plucked the figure from the shelf, holding it to the light before sliding it into his pocket.

  He walked back into the living room, untucking his shirt slightly so that it would hang down over the bulge in his pocket. The Atlasias sat silently side by side, and they did not look up when Jade entered the room. He signaled Travers with a jerk of his head.

  Darby showed them to the front door. When she swung it open, she let out a startled cry. A photographer had jumped from his car onto the front walkway. No more than twenty yards from Darby, he raised the camera to his eye.

  Jade quickly stepped forward, blocking Travers from view. He slid his arm across Darby’s shoulders just as the photographer started shooting. Although Darby was too shocked
by the photographer to notice, it made him feel sleazy. It was a cheap move, but given the opportunity and the potential payoff, it was one he had to take.

  The photographer ran back to his car and hopped in, tossing the camera into the passenger seat. The car had been left running.

  Travers pushed past Jade just in time to see the car pull away. “Press?” she asked.

  Jade nodded. “Wouldn’t have gotten past the men if they hadn’t checked him out,” he said. He pointed to the black Oldsmobile across the street and the driver waved, then gave a frustrated shrug. “Not much they can do to stop them if they’re clean.”

  Travers shook her head. “Only two kinds of people need getaway cars,” she said. “Bank robbers and photographers.”

  Darby placed a hand on her chest to slow her breathing. “It’s okay,” she said. “Madonna and I, we’re used to it.”

  Travers laughed. “Well, thanks for your time.”

  Darby looked up and caught Jade’s eye. He was alone with her for an instant, alone in her private world. He could almost sense the depth of her pain in the slight wrinkles around her eyes.

  She mustered her strength and smiled.

  He smiled back.

  37

  IN the afternoon, Allander’s hunger pangs finally distracted him from his quiet reflections. Rising and stretching, he headed back to the main road. He whistled as he walked, enjoying the lightness of the sound and the freedom of the notes as they drifted on the wind.

  As he rounded a bend in the road, a large field spread before him to his left. He hopped the mossy wooden slats of the fence and made his way slowly through the field, skimming an open hand on top of the waving yellow foxtails. His feet sank slightly in the rich ground with each step. The far end of the field sloped up to the top of a little hill, and a farm-style house sat at its peak.

  Allander resumed whistling and headed for the house. He rapped the door with his knuckles. It was a large wooden door, with lines and ridges, worn with time and use. The sign posted along the country road had advertised a “learning school.”

  Allander imagined that the teacher lived and taught in the same house, for it had been described as a “residential school” on the map he had seen at the bus station. The door was opened by a homely, middle-aged woman who wore her hair pulled back neatly in a bun.

  “Hello. My car broke down and I was wondering if you would do me the great favor of allowing me to use your telephone.”

  She glanced down at him. She was a rather sturdy woman, and she stood with her arms crossed, pushed out from her chest by enormous breasts outlined like boulders beneath her apron.

  “Well, sure. I’m just getting dinner ready, but why don’t you come in and use the phone right down that hallway there.”

  Allander made a half bow, placing one hand on his stomach and extending his other hand open from his side. He nodded his head slightly. The gesture was meant to convey “thank you” and “you can trust me” and “I’m charming” all at the same time.

  The woman smiled in amusement and stepped back, opening the door the rest of the way to allow him to enter.

  Once in the car, after leaving Thomas and Darby, Jade told Travers of his private discussion with Darby, and of her secret. Though she tried not to show it, Travers was shaken by the story of the rape. When they arrived back at Jade’s house, they both began to read through the psychology books that Jade had taken out of the library.

  Travers shot Jade a look of annoyance when he began to chew on an ice cube. He, of course, didn’t notice.

  “What was the deal with that promise?” she asked. “Why did Darby tap your chest?”

  Jade shook his head dismissively.

  Sensing she wouldn’t get any more out of him, she turned back to Totem and Taboo, and they read in silence.

  “The style and location of the house suited him, I can tell you that,” Jade said after a while.

  “The whole castle on a hill thing going on? Family as royalty?”

  “That’s what I’m thinking. I’m betting he chooses another elevated house. Set apart from the others. And there’s all this”—Jade leaned closer, holding the book up to his nose—“errant prince-child complex shit.”

  “The prodigal son avenging himself upon the king and queen—”

  “—or mother and father,” they said together.

  Jade’s face clouded. “He’s like a fuckin’ plague descending on the house. Punishes the parents, then toys with the children like playthings.”

  “Do you think he’ll always kill the parents?”

  “If you’d like, you’re welcome to join me for dinner. Earl and the kids are at a baseball game, so they won’t be back until later. Earl always says there’s nothing like baseball at dusk, but I think …” Her voice droned on incessantly in the background, carrying through the house to Allander.

  He walked right past the antique phone on the little wooden table and began opening doors to the rooms off the hallway. He found the laundry room and leaned over the dryer to open a cabinet. A large iron sat back safely from the edge. Allander smiled as he removed it and began to wrap the cord around his wrist.

  “I thank you so much for your hospitality,” he called down the hallway as he walked toward the voice still emanating from the kitchen, the iron swinging freely at his side.

  Jade paused for a second, biting his cheek pensively. He grimaced as he ran his thumb across his bottom lip. He had come to trust Travers with more and more information.

  He rose to his feet. “I have something to show you.”

  The iron, matted with blood and tangles of hair, swung back and forth, still wrapped around Allander’s wrist. It dangled just above the floor as he peeled a piece of crisp skin off the turkey and dropped it into his mouth, savoring its rich flavor.

  He turned on the radio, and a Beethoven piano concerto, The Emperor, played loudly from unseen speakers.

  The woman’s arm protruded from around the corner of a large cooking block situated in the middle of the kitchen. Thin, dark hair stood out against the forearm, and the wrist wore a gold watch. It ticked, and Allander took comfort in its consistency.

  He stepped around the corner of the block to admire the rest of the body. The face was severely battered. Allander thought he could discern the distinct shape of the iron from the indentations in the forehead and right cheek. One of his swipes had missed the head and punctured one of the generous breasts, but it bled far less than the other wounds.

  A pool of blood drained from her head and ran along the seam where the floor met the cooking block. Allander waved his hand to the music as he bent over, delicately dipping his index finger into the blood like a paintbrush.

  Jade returned to the room with the small wood carving he had stolen from the Atlasias’ bathroom. The detail on it was extraordinary, the solid chunk of wood transformed to a lifelike rendering. From the etched initials and date on the bottom, Jade knew that Allander had carved it, and had done so when he was only fourteen. Already, it showed the hand of an imaginative thinker.

  Jade set it down on top of Allander’s sketch of the sets of hands. The carving showed three monkeys sitting side by side, blended together at the midsection. The first one covered his eyes, the second his ears, and the third his mouth. Their hands matched those in the drawing perfectly—one set facing each other, one set pointing at each other, and a solitary hand angled up at forty-five degrees. The three monkeys looked as if they knew a great secret. As if they spied someone stalking you, lurking in shadows behind your back.

  An ideal symbol for repression. Allander’s own parody of the Freudian process.

  “Oh my god!” Travers exclaimed. “See no evil, hear no evil—”

  Allander stood before the large pane of glass that provided most of the light for the modestly decorated family room. His finger was covered in blood, and it ran down his forearm, dripping off his elbow.

  He stood back and admired his lettering. “SNE.” Same initials, diff
erent meaning. Speak no evil. Not much risk of that happening.

  In the kitchen, the woman’s mouth drooled profusely, spilling blood onto the wooden floor. It leaked from the hole where her tongue had once been.

  Allander felt no sexual desire for her. The killing was easy, so the thrill it brought was lessened. Her screams brought ecstasy, of course, as did the sound of her body being battered. But without the sexual challenge, it just wasn’t the same. He’d be moving on soon, moving on to the real object of his desires.

  But she was an educator; she had the hypocrisy written thickly across her face. He detested educators who spewed forth nonsense. He had warned little Leah about them too. They talked just to hear themselves speak, but they feared the truth like all others. Well, he had stopped her tongue at last.

  He finished his lettering and wiped his hand on his shirt. Then he went into the kitchen, stepped over the woman’s body, and fixed himself a drink. After taking care of the body and the floor, he found himself a clean shirt in a drawer and put it on. Heading back to the front of the house, he pulled a large wooden chair around to face the front door, and began his wait for Earl and the kids to return home.

  38

  JADE continued to chew ice. It helped to keep him focused. He cooled himself by running the cup across his forehead occasionally, enjoying the drops of water that rolled down his face.

  “You want something to drink?” he asked Travers. He got up, peeling his bare back from the couch.

  “Sure. Iced tea?”

  “Water.”

  “Water’s fine.”

  She heard the shoveling of ice cubes and sighed. She didn’t know how much more ice crunching she could endure.

  “We’re at a standstill,” she said when he returned.

  “What are you talking about? We just figured out his pattern, what he’s doing.”

  “Yeah, but how does that help us in catching him? In stopping him?”