As The Twig Is Bent: A Matt Davis Mystery

by Perrone Jr. , Joe

  Matt seemed lost in thought, and so Valerie, without waiting for a reply, stripped off her apron, hung it on the refrigerator handle, and walked over to the aging stereo resting on its aluminum-framed stand. She fingered a stack of Frank Sinatra albums, and eventually selected September of My Years, which she carefully placed on the turntable. Most of their friends had progressed from records to cassettes to CDs, but Matt insisted that the best sound still came from a turntable. She switched on the receiver, and gently placed the needle in the wide starter groove at the outer edge of the record. In a second the familiar scratchy tones of the title song filled the room. Matt wasn’t always right, thought Valerie.

  Matt was still seated at the kitchen table, again poring over the autopsy report. He turned when he heard Sinatra begin to sing. With a smile, he placed the report on the table, slowly got up, and moved to the living room to join his wife. With a little bow at the waist, he looked at Valerie and said, “May I have this dance?”

  She blushed, and put her arms around his neck.

  They began to move slowly to the music. Matt inhaled the fragrance of Valerie’s perfume and sighed. It was Shalimar—his favorite. He kept her well supplied, and she never failed to wear it. Matt nuzzled Valerie’s neck with his chin, causing her to shiver slightly. After several more songs, she pulled away from her husband and looked him directly in the eye. “Hey, big boy. Don’t you have a bed in this place?”

  Matt laughed. Valerie’s question was a reference to their first date. On that occasion, he had been so shy that he had barely been able to kiss her. She had then asked the now-famous question, and the two of them had ended up making love, much to Matt’s surprise—and pleasure.

  Now, he accepted the question for what it appeared to be—an open invitation to lovemaking. Without a word, he took Valerie’s hand and led her to the small but cozy bedroom. He turned his back to her, unbuttoned his shirt, and removed it, tossing it haphazardly into the corner. His shoes followed suit, and finally his trousers. At the same time Matt was disrobing, Valerie was removing her dress and underclothing. She slid quietly beneath the covers. Matt walked around to the other side of the bed, and slipped in beside her.

  Valerie immediately turned and embraced her husband, kissing him hard on the lips. She was naked. Matt’s hand reached automatically for her left breast. It was a routine perfected through the three years or so of their marriage. Valerie moaned softly and pressed herself to him. Preliminaries were neither elaborate nor very necessary, and soon they were both fully aroused.

  Gently, Matt inserted himself and they began to move in unison. Caught up in the moment, Valerie whispered familiar words into her husband’s ear, while Sinatra continued to croon unheard in the other room. Soon, she felt the familiar warmth and tingling that signaled she was nearing orgasm. She gripped her husband tightly, and ground herself hard against him, moving faster and with more urgency. Together, they moved as one, in the timeless rhythm of love, until they both had attained the release they so desperately sought. Afterwards, they lay quietly in one another’s arms, their breathing shallow and quick, as they regained their strength. Presently, Valerie sensed a change in the rhythm of her husband’s breathing; it was slower—more deliberate. Val opened her eyes and looked at Matt’s face. He was fast asleep. She smiled. Sweet dreams my love. Had she know the nature of his fantasies she might not have been quite as pleased.

  ...Matt had been summoned to the scene of a murder. When he arrived, he found himself in his own apartment, only the walls were painted a violet color, and the ceilings were remarkably high. As he moved down the hallway toward the bedroom, the corridor narrowed progressively, until by the time he reached the end its walls were touching his shoulders. His entire being was filled with an inexplicable sense of dread. Archbishop Romero stood at the end of the passageway, wearing a long black gown. His face was shrunken and evil looking. He extended a bony hand, and beckoned Matt to follow him into the bedroom.

  The interior was bathed in a soft, golden light. There was a small bed, like in a dollhouse, positioned in the center of the room – and nothing else. Suddenly, Matt felt himself growing taller and taller. He and the archbishop stood side by side, looking down at the postage-stamp sized bed. His confusion grew and he turned to the cleric for enlightenment. The archbishop raised his hand and pointed a finger at the bed. Matt felt his body growing feathery light, and he began to fly over the bed, circling it like a hawk covering its prey.

  He swooped down, and was startled to discover Valerie, lying nude on its surface. She was dead. In silent agony, he turned back toward the archbishop, who stood alongside the bed, pointing an accusing finger in his direction. Romero began to laugh, louder and louder, until the sound was like cannon fire hitting Davis’s ears. It was deafening…

  Matt awoke with a start. His upper body was drenched with perspiration and his hands trembled violently. It was well past midnight. Faint traces of the nightmare still clung like cobwebs to his subconscious. The sky flashed with lightning, and a clap of thunder shook the apartment. Matt sat on the edge of the bed, his heart beating furiously, his breathing ragged. He listened to the sounds of the rain and occasional thunder outside the apartment. Valerie lay sleeping peacefully next to him, her slow even breathing in marked contrast to his own syncopated efforts. Thank God, she’s safe, he thought. With a smile he placed a hand on her rounded buttocks, and gently massaged the curve of her hip. Then he patted her behind softly and stood up. He dressed quietly, mindful not to wake her, and slipped out of the bedroom and into the kitchen.

  Soon, the kettle was steaming aggressively on the stove, a thin trail of steam disappearing into the air. Matt dumped some cocoa into a cup, filled it with boiling water and stirred it carefully, then topped the whole thing off with a squirt of whipped cream from a can. He rummaged through the cupboard, found a half-empty bag of Hershey-ets candy, and poured the contents into a small bowl. He looked at the kitchen clock. It was one-fifteen a.m. With the cup of hot chocolate in one hand and the bowl of candy in the other, he moved down the hallway to his study.

  Davis sat down at his fly tying bench. In front of him were the tools, hooks, and delicate materials germane to his hobby. He selected a tiny hook and clamped it into jaws of the Regal rotary vice that Valerie had bought him on their first wedding anniversary. It was the finest tool of its kind and he took great pride in using it.

  He decided to tie a gold-ribbed hare’s ear nymph. There were literally thousands of fly patterns to choose from, but this particular one was an old standard. A stack of instructional manuals lay undisturbed at the far corner of the worktable. He hardly needed them anymore. In the beginning, when he was first learning to tie, Matt had been forced to rely upon books to help him through the process. Now, he prided himself in his knowledge of the construction of the various patterns, and could make most of them without consultation.

  Working effortlessly, he had soon tied half a dozen of the tiny insect imitations, each an exact duplicate of the others. Consistency was what it was all about, he thought. As he finished each one, he used a small needle dipped in vinyl cement to carefully coat the wrappings of thread that made up the head of the fly. Then, he placed each one neatly in a row on a magnetic strip that he had affixed to his tying bench to let them dry.

  The apprehension that Matt felt upon waking from the nightmare had begun to dissipate. As the tension faded, so, too, did the memory of the details. He got up and moved to the hall closet, retrieving his notebook from his jacket pocket. He returned to the study, sat down at his desk, and removed a piece of paper from the drawer. He took a pen and wrote down the names of the three victims: Ida Simpson, Melina Spiros, and Cindy McKenzie. Next, he printed alongside each victim’s name her age, marital status, and race.

  Each was white, each was married, and each was about the same age – in her thirties. Then, he added the word “cheating” next to the first two names. Davis knew that that information was probably important, but exactly why was st
ill a mystery. Simpson’s lover had been in Atlantic City at the time of her murder, so, of course, that information had eliminated him. And Spiros’ killer could have been any one of perhaps a dozen casual pick-ups described by “helpful” neighbors. Only God Himself knew how many men she had been with. Naturally, the detectives were trying to track down anyone matching the various descriptions they had been given. Nevertheless, it was like looking for a needle in the proverbial haystack.

  All three husbands had been cleared initially by airtight alibis, and then through blood typing. Bob McKenzie, the most recent widower, decried any knowledge of infidelity by his wife. It was further proof that “husbands were always last to know.” Maybe she had been cheating? Perhaps that’s why she had gone to Confession for the first time in ten years? None of the husbands had had any reason to doubt the faithfulness of their spouses, and yet each of their wives was dead. Matt hoped he would learn something tomorrow when he met with Father Pete.

  He reached into the bowl of Hershey-ets and extracted a handful, popping just one into his mouth. Following his usual ritual, he allowed the warmth of his mouth to soften the chocolate within the hard candy shell. Then, he cracked the casing, and separated the morsel into two halves. Finally, using his tongue, he sucked out the chocolate from one half, then the other. He repeated the process until the bowl of candy was gone.

  With his candy “Jones” sated, Matt turned his attention once more to the piece of paper in front of him. He drew pictures of three hearts with the initials “J.C.” inside each of them. Then he added an additional set of initials—the victim’s own—to each drawing. He studied the sketch, trying to make sense of what he saw. It seemed too simple. Too damned simple, he thought. But, it couldn’t be that simple, could it? There had to be something he was missing—some connection. But what the hell was it?

  There was one other thing. All three women had belonged to the same church. Not much to go on, but maybe something. It reminded Davis of the famous “Rosary Murders” back in 1955. Seven nuns had been brutally raped and stabbed in Chicago. Each had had a set of rosary beads forced into her vagina. It turned out that the murderer had been a caretaker in a convent, rejected by a nun. Once he started killing, he couldn’t stop. The police had finally caught him by using a decoy. Davis guessed that that technique might prove useful at some point, but not until he had more to go on. Right now, he had nothing.

  He rubbed his eyes, yawned, and stretched his arms in the air. He was bone weary, tired of murders, and tired of the nightmares. He laid his head down on his desk, and closed his eyes. Soon, he was asleep, with images of fly-fishing for salmon filling he head. He was still dreaming when Valerie gently nudged him awake in the morning.

  CHAPTER 32

  Baltimore, Maryland

  By the age of fourteen, “little” John Curran had matured into a physically striking young man. His shoulders were wide, his hips narrow, his blue eyes alive with a kind of electricity that conveyed intelligence and wit. He was six feet, three-inches tall, and was the dominant figure in any room full of his peers. It was during this time that he became possessed by an uncontrollable temper. Perhaps it was the pubescent surge of Testosterone coursing through his system, or perhaps something entirely different. For no apparent reason, he would often pound other boys into submission in violent fits of rage. On several occasions, the police had to be called to the orphanage. Each time, Sister Francis was able to convince the officers not to arrest the teenager, but his reputation as a troublemaker was growing.

  Finally, one night, driven by a wild desire to experience every possible thrill that life had to offer, young John went too far. He convinced two other boys to sneak out of the orphanage. They “borrowed” a car and went for a high-speed joy ride, side swiping several vehicles in the process. The police apprehended the trio, but only after John had unsuccessfully tried to negotiate a corner at high speed and crashed into a parked car. After being treated for minor injuries, the two other boys were released to the care of the orphanage and returned to the home with Sister Francis. However, John—because of his previous scrapes with the law—was arrested and charged with grand larceny, albeit as a minor. After a hearing before a no-nonsense magistrate, he was sent to a state work farm for minors. He would remain there until he was sixteen.

  The day he left for the penal institution, Sister Francis paid him a farewell visit, and gave him a picture of her to remind him of the one that loved him. John Curran was to keep that photograph with him for the remainder of his life...

  CHAPTER 33

  7:56 p.m., Friday, April 14

  Rita Valdez was tired of being single. The affairs had been exciting, but ultimately not very fulfilling. She enjoyed the constant activity and diversity of her professional life, but abhorred her private one. In fact, she didn’t have one. She had an existence. She lived in a second-story apartment in an ancient tenement building on East 23rd Street. Not far from her residence sat the School of Visual Arts. During the day, longhaired students of each sex flooded the streets on their way to and from the avant-garde institution. After dark, a different class of pedestrians moved silently in the shadows, pursuing less altruistic forms of gratification. They had one thing in common: they were all young. Rita envied them their youth. Time was running out for her. If she didn’t marry soon, she’d end up an old maid.

  As she stood naked in front of the full-length mirror mounted on the back of her bedroom door and examined her figure. She ran her hands through her dark hair, then over her breasts, admiring their firmness. Pretty good. Not much sag—yet. Her hands roamed over her stomach, which was still fairly flat, then lightly touched the thick carpet of hair above her pubis. She licked her full lips and blew a kiss at her reflection. Then, she turned her back to the mirror and, looking over her shoulder, admired her buttocks. She smacked the firm skin with the palm of her hand. Thwack! Still tight, she thought. Her waist was getting a little thick, but she could disguise that deficiency with the right clothes. In all, it was a very sexy package.

  At her age, being good looking was a double-edged sword; sure, she could attract almost any man she wanted, but more often than not her steamy Latin looks scared away the ones she really wanted—the marrying ones.

  Recently, a friend of hers in Florida had married a man whom she had never seen in person, up until their wedding day. The two of them met in a Yahoo Internet chat room. They spoke to each other frequently on screen, graduated to phone conversations, eventually marrying after a six-month Internet romance. Not too traditional, she thought, but practical. Maybe she should try it herself. Hell, who did she think she was she kidding? She wasn’t even on the Internet yet. First chance I get, I’m getting connected.

  Rita entered the glass enclosure of her stall shower and turned the control knob towards hot. The hotter the better, she thought. When steam began to fill the limited space around her, she stepped under the hard-flowing water. Taking a disposable razor from the little suction cup holder, she quickly shaved first one leg, then the other. Satisfied with the results, she grabbed one of the many bottles of shampoo that she kept on the shelf opposite the glass door, and massaged a dollop of the thick liquid into her hair.

  She worked up a thick, full lather and then rinsed, allowing the soapy remains to run down her body. She picked up a bar of perfumed soap and began rubbing it slowly over every inch of her skin. She paid special attention to her private parts, letting her fingers penetrate the outer lips of her vagina, the middle finger of her right hand pressing against her clitoris. She loved to play with herself in the shower. No guilt, only pleasure. As her finger lingered on the engorged organ, she rubbed it in a circular motion, and felt it grow harder. She enjoyed the warm tingling sensation that spread throughout her loins.

  She closed her eyes and pictured an imaginary lover running his hands sensually over her body. For a moment, she envisioned Freitag—all six feet, four inches of him—standing close to her, pressing his body against her. Sometimes she found Chr
is extremely attractive, his raw physical power a real turn on. Yet, at other times, his boorish manners and ignorant speech were outright repugnant. She smiled and thought of Davis. Oh, to be sure, he wasn’t much to look at. But he had a certain kind of gentleness, and a mind like a steel trap. If only she could find someone who possessed the characteristics of both: Freitag’s raw sexuality and Davis’s warmth and intelligence.

  Her reverie was interrupted by the persistent ringing of her cell phone, lying on the vanity, beside the sink. She opened the shower door a crack and reached her hand out, groping along the Formica surface of the countertop until her fingers closed around the ringing object. She pressed the “speak” button and placed the instrument to her ear.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “Hey!” It was Jan, her best friend and bowling partner. “Are you almost ready?”

  “What time is it?” asked Rita.

  “Almost eight,” said Jan.

  “Shit!” said Rita. “I didn’t realize it was so late.”

  “Are you still in the shower?” asked Jan.

  Embarrassed at being found out, Rita lied, “Of course not. I’ll be ready in twenty minutes, okay?”

  “Sure,” replied Jan, “Just don’t be any later than that.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know,” said Rita. “Otherwise all the good ones will be gone.”

  “You got it!” laughed Jan.

  “I’ll meet you downstairs.”

  “Just hurry up!” said Jan.

  The two women hung up simultaneously. Rita finished rinsing and stepped onto the bathmat to dry her body. They had planned to “bar hop” along the Upper East Side. Rita was so worn out by the ongoing investigation that the evening’s plans had completely slipped her mind. She had been looking forward to lounging around the apartment and maybe just watching a little TV.