At the Stroke of Madness

by Alex Kava

  He was the little boy again, excited and anxious, as if bringing his show-and-tell projects to share with her. Each one more hideous than the next and threatening to make her vomit, though there couldn’t possibly be anything left inside her stomach. She tried not to think about the blobs as pieces of human beings. She tried not to think about the fact that he had taken them from their owners.

  He was showing her something in a large jar with a white lid. She refused to look closely, not allowing her eyes to focus on what appeared to be a dirty yellow glob of fatty tissue.

  “This one was a surprise,” he told her, holding it up at her eye level. “I knew an alcoholic’s liver would look abnormal but this…” He was smiling and explaining it as if it were a prize he had won in some competition. “They say a normal liver has the same texture and color as calf’s liver. You know, like you can buy at the supermarket. Actually, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to eat calf’s liver. That’s just gross.” He turned the jar slowly around as if giving her a full view. “See, the alcohol causes that discoloration.”

  He got up to put the jar on one of the top shelves, and Joan hoped the presentation was over. He came back, stopping at the food tray. Oh, dear God, she couldn’t handle him force-feeding her again. She simply couldn’t survive another spoonful. But he left the bowl and picked up the brown paper bag that he had brought in with him on the tray. He sat down beside her and took another jar out of the bag. It looked like an ordinary twelve-ounce jelly jar. But it didn’t look like jelly. The liquid was clear, like in the other jars. And like the other jars, something was floating inside.

  “This is my newest acquisition,” he told her, twirling it in front of her. Then he finally held it still and so close to her face that she couldn’t avoid recognizing the two floating, bright blue eyeballs. “Amazing, isn’t it, that these couldn’t see except with really thick glasses.”

  CHAPTER 53

  It was after midnight.

  He threw the mop in the corner, only getting angrier when it started an avalanche of gardening tools. He emptied the bucket down the floor drain, holding his breath while he sprayed at the vomit, yellow mucuslike chunks that looked all too familiar from a childhood of buckets kept by his bedside. He was tired of her being sick all the time.

  Yes, he had planned it. Yes, he had wanted her to be sick. He wanted her to see how much control he had over her. He wanted it and yet it still repulsed him. He should have made her clean up her own mess. Clean it up like his mother had made him clean up his messes.

  He should have been feeling strong and in control, especially with his newest acquisition. Instead, his own stomach ached despite gagging down half a bottle of the chalky crap. That stupid so-called medicine promised to prevent his nausea. He could no longer count on it. Why didn’t it work? Why was everything and everyone working against him?

  He wanted Joan Begley to see, to understand what control he had. He wanted her weak and helpless. It had worked all those years for his mother. She had maintained control, first over his father and then over him. Why couldn’t it work for him? But he hated the mess. Hated, hated, hated it!

  He grabbed a meat cleaver from the workbench and slammed it into the wooden surface. Raised it and sent it into the wood again. Another chop. Another and another.

  He shoved the meat cleaver aside. The wooden bench had plenty of cuts and slits, splinters and raw wounds from other angry bouts. It had been his father’s workbench and had been pristine until the day he died. Yet he had taken his father’s precious workbench, his workshop, his escape, and turned it into his own escape. And it had been an excellent escape. The only place he allowed his true emotions to come out. It had become his secret vault, protecting and absorbing and withstanding all the hurt, the pain, the anger, as well as the feeling of victory and sometimes even providing him with a sense of control.

  He turned and leaned his back against the bench, allowing himself to take in the sights and smells of the magic workshop. The smells he loved: fresh sawdust, gasoline and WD-40—remnants of his father’s hideaway and smells that reminded him of his father—were, unfortunately, long ago replaced by the smells of his own escape: caked blood, rotting bits of flesh, formaldehyde, ammonia and now vomit. The only one of that list that bothered him, that repulsed him, was the smell of vomit.

  He admired his father’s collection of tools, a strange and dazzling assortment hanging on the wall by pegs and hooks in organized rows. He had added the old meat hooks, boning knives and meat cleavers that now hung next to crescent wrenches, pry bars and hacksaws. Otherwise, he kept the wall of tools exactly the way his father had left it, paying tribute to the painstaking organization by cleaning and replacing the items after each use. So, too, had he kept the handy vises attached to the workbench in the same spots, along with the bone saw and the huge roll of white butcher-block paper resting in its own contraption with a sleek metal blade, sharp enough to slide through the paper with only the slightest touch of the fingertips.

  In the corner was an old, battered chest-size freezer, gray scratches in the enamel like wounds and a low, constant hum that sounded like a cat purring. It had also been his father’s, used back then for premium cuts of meat and trout or bass from infrequent fishing trips. After his father’s death, he began using it as his first container, before he knew how to preserve his treasures. Quickly it filled up. Now it was one of several, with one next door and another at the house.

  The shelves on the back wall were his addition, too, as were the vials, mason and jelly jars, crocks, glass tubes, plastic containers, fish tanks and wide-mouth bottles. All were immaculately clean, waiting to store his prizes. Even the cheap, store-bought pickle jars sparkled, not a trace of their brand labels left to block the view.

  The top shelf held his own proud assortment of tools, shiny scalpels, X-Acto knives and blades, forceps, stainless steel probes and basins in different sizes and shapes. Most he had stolen one by one from work so that they wouldn’t be missed.

  Yes, he was proud of his workshop. Here, he felt in control. Despite the smell of her vomit turning his stomach, here, he never got sick. This was where he cut out other people’s pain, their abnormalities, their deformities, their bragging rights, and kept them for himself.

  All through his childhood his sickness had been so obscure. He could never point to a bum leg or heart defect or a precious tumor and say, “See, this is what makes me sick to my stomach.” Had he been able to do so, they wouldn’t have dared to doubt him, to whisper about him in hospital corners, to suggest he “get counseling.”

  They wouldn’t have dared to laugh at him and point and snicker when he asked to be dismissed from class. They wouldn’t have dared to call him weak and silly. If only he had had one cancerous tumor, one deformed limb to point to, they wouldn’t have dared call him anything but brave and strong, a little soldier instead of a whiny brat.

  These people with their claims to pain made him angry, made him jealous, made him crazy with envy. They could complain all they wanted and no one told them to buck up and shut up. And they didn’t even realize the priceless treasures they possessed. Fools. All of them fools.

  And so he cut them, slicing out that which made them different, made them special, that which gave them the right to complain and brag. He cut out their prizes and made them his own. It gave him power. It gave him control.

  That’s what he needed to do with Joan Begley. He needed to do exactly as he set out to do in the beginning. That was the only way he could gain control over her. But what would he use?

  He examined the tools and scratched at his jaw. He wasn’t even sure what it was that Joan possessed. Where would a hormone deficiency be located? Was it in the pituitary gland? That would be on the underside of the brain. He might need a drill and the bone saw. Or perhaps it was the thyroid gland, which would be a simple slit of the throat. Although, it could be one of the adrenal glands. Where the hell were they located? Somewhere over the kidneys, perhaps? He grabbed the il
lustrated medical dictionary off the top shelf and began flipping pages.

  As he browsed the index, his fidgeting fingers found a boning knife, the curved blade razor sharp. And suddenly, he found himself hoping it was the thyroid. In fact, he thought he remembered her mentioning the thyroid. Yes, that would be good. After cleaning up her vomit over and over again, he wouldn’t mind slitting Joan Begley’s throat.

  CHAPTER 54

  Thursday, September 18

  “You don’t have to fix breakfast for me, Mr. Racine,” Maggie said, but her mouth was already watering from the aroma of hash browns and sausage sizzling in one skillet while Luc prepared another with scrambled eggs.

  “No, no, I want to. God! I miss this.” He splashed some milk and fresh ground pepper into the scrambled eggs, stirring and flipping with the expertise of a short-order cook. “I don’t get to do this anymore. I don’t trust myself to shut off the stove.” He glanced back at her. “I’m only telling you so you’ll keep an eye on things and make sure that I don’t leave something on. Would you do that, please?”

  He kept his back to her. Maggie knew it was not an easy thing for him to ask. She wondered if that was the real reason he wouldn’t let her call Julia. Did his daughter know that he was deteriorating?

  “Sure. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “Nope. Got the table all set.” He looked around. “Maybe some orange juice. I noticed your friend brought some last night.” He opened one cupboard door, then another and one more before grabbing two glasses to hand to her. This time he couldn’t hide the slight flush of embarrassment. “I think he likes you.”

  “What?”

  “The professor, he likes you.”

  This time she felt a slight flush. She found the juice and poured. “We’re working on a case together. That’s all.”

  “What? You don’t like him?” He glanced at her over his shoulder.

  “No, I didn’t say that. It’s just that I guess I haven’t thought about him that way.”

  “Why not? He’s a handsome young man. I noticed you’re unattached.”

  “I don’t know why not. I’m just…I’m not…” She realized that she sounded like some tongue-tied teenager. She wasn’t sure why she thought she needed to explain it to him. “I’m not looking right now. My divorce was just finalized. I’m not ready to start another relationship.”

  “Oh, okay.” He glanced back at her. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to stick my nose in your business.” He started cleaning the counter. “I like you. You remind me of Julia. I guess I miss her.”

  “I was thinking about that, Mr. Racine. I think—”

  “I wish you’d call me Luc.”

  “Okay, but I was thinking maybe you should call Julia. I think she would like to know. Actually, I’d feel better if she knew.”

  He was putting away what he didn’t use, sliding the egg carton back into the refrigerator and wrapping up the leftover sausage.

  Maggie stopped him. “Where did you get this?” She pointed to the sausage he rolled tight into the white butcher-block paper.

  “This? It’s scrapple. I think they call it that because it’s made from pork scraps,” he said, misunderstanding what she meant and unwrapping the sausage to show her. “My wife was from Philadelphia. That’s where they have the best. This stuff always reminds me of her. Partly why I named my best buddy Scrapple.” He glanced down at the dog who, as if on cue, sat up to beg for a piece of his namesake. “Can’t find it around here, though.” Luc continued wrapping the sausage. “Last winter I had Steve Earlman make it for me out of some pork shoulder. He did a pretty good job, too. I think you’ll like it.”

  Maggie wondered if Luc knew they had found Steve at the quarry. He had been to the site enough times he may have heard the rumors. Maybe he couldn’t remember. Once again, she was reminded of that white paper that kept showing up. What was she missing?

  “Luc, what did they do with the butcher shop when Steve passed away? Didn’t he have any sons or daughters to keep the shop open?”

  He scooped up hash browns, sausage and scrambled eggs, dividing the bounty between their two plates. It looked wonderful and she followed him to the table, bringing their juice.

  “No, Steve never married. A nice guy, too.” He pulled out a chair for her, waiting for her to get comfortable before he took his place. “It was sad to see the shop close. I remember hearing that someone bought all the equipment at the estate sale. I thought maybe whoever it was would keep the shop open or start a new one, but I guess not.”

  “Do you remember who bought all the equipment?”

  Luc stared at her, his forehead furrowed in thought, the frustration playing in his eyes. “I should know that.”

  “It’s okay if you can’t remember. I was just curious.”

  “No, I should know. It was somebody I know.”

  Maggie’s cell phone started ringing from the other room and Scrapple, who had taken his begging place under the table, now began to bark.

  “Scrapple, that’s enough. Hush.”

  “Excuse me. I need to get that,” Maggie said as she hunted for her jacket, following the sound of the ringing. Finally. “Maggie O’Dell.”

  “O’Dell, it’s Watermeier. I’m at Hubbard Park, the West Peak. We found something. I think you’ll want to see this.”

  CHAPTER 55

  Adam Bonzado pulled the Polaroids from his shirt pocket. He took another long, studied look, then slipped them back into the pocket. It probably wasn’t a good idea to have the photos out while he rummaged the shelves of the local hardware store.

  He was trying to get Maggie O’Dell off his mind. It didn’t help matters that he still felt like a complete bonehead. First the soup incident and then waking her and Racine up last night. Not only waking them up but scaring them. Although Maggie didn’t look that scared behind the barrel of her Smith & Wesson. He smiled at the memory. He liked that she could take care of herself. He didn’t like having her almost blow off his head, though.

  Sometimes he worried that his mother was right. That he spent too much time with skeletons and not enough time with real people. His students, according to his mother, didn’t count.

  “Why can’t you go out like normal boys,” his mother usually began her lecture that included something about dating nice girls. “You don’t even go to a ball game with your brothers anymore.”

  But he liked his work. Why should he have to make excuses about that? And besides, most women were immediately turned off when they learned what he did for a living. No, the truth was he hadn’t wanted anyone else after Kate. He buried himself in his work instead. It took his mind off that empty void.

  So here he was again, burying himself in work to get his mind off Maggie O’Dell. What better way to do that than at a hardware store armed with a handful of Polaroids and a mission to add to his tools-of-death list.

  Dr. Stolz had given him Polaroids of the victims’ head wounds, all administered to the back top of the skull. Even the young man’s skull Adam had in the lab, as well as the one he had plucked from the boiling pot at Luc Racine’s, seemed to have been dealt similar deathblows.

  He went down the aisle of hand tools, searching, paying close attention to the end of each tool. Ball-peen hammer, no. Bolt cutter, no. Then there were pliers. Adam scratched his jaw, always amazed at the assortment. You had your long-nose locking pliers, jaw, diagonal, duckbill, slip joint, Arc joint, groove joint.

  Jesus! Forget pliers.

  Drive sockets: metric or standard. Screwdrivers: Phillips, slotted or torx. Wrenches: crescent, adjustable or pipe. The bolt clamp looked promising or maybe even the steel bar clamp. Woodworker’s vise, no. Level, no.

  “Hey, a mini hacksaw,” he said, picking up the contraption. “For all those hard-to-reach joints when you’re in the middle of dismembering a body.”

  “Can I help you, sir?” A clerk appeared at the end of the aisle.

  Adam immediately put the mini hacksaw back as if he had be
en caught. He wondered if the clerk had heard him. The kid looked like he spent more time down in his family’s basement rec room than in his dad’s garage. In fact, he looked like he belonged in an electronics department, selling Game Boys and DVD players, not drills or circular saws, let alone hand tools.

  “Is there something in particular you’re looking for, sir?”

  “Yeah, but it’s one of those things that I’ll know when I see it. You know what I mean?”

  The clerk stared at him. No, he didn’t know what he meant. “Like for a special project or something?”

  Adam smiled. He wondered what the kid would do if he told him about his tools-of-death list. Or better yet, if he showed him the Polaroids and asked him to help find the tool that cracked open the skull and left that triangle mark. Instead, he said, “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

  “Okay, then. Let me know if you change your mind.”

  “Thanks, I will.”

  Adam started down the next aisle. This one was full of bars. Yes, this was more like it. There were pry bars of every shape and size. Some of forged steel construction, others with black oxide coating to prevent rust. He read the labels below each: “easy, comfortable rubber grip” and “lowprofile claw for more leverage.” There was one called a “gorilla bar.” Another, the “wonder bar.” An I-beam, a double-end nail puller, a gooseneck and a wrecking bar. This was crazy.

  Then he saw it. The angle looked right. The size looked right. He slipped out the Polaroids again for a quick glance. Yes, this was it. The end of the double-end nail-pulling pry bar looked like the impressions left in the skulls.

  Adam picked up the pry bar and turned it in his hands, examining it at every angle and getting the feel of it. It weighed more than it looked. He tried to hold it the way he imagined the killer had held it up over his head. He tried to imagine how he would swing it. It wouldn’t require much force. A bit of a twist and the heavy, hooked end could crack a skull quite nicely.