Confession

by Carey Baldwin

  Faith went to the bathroom and returned with a box of Kleenex.

  “Thanks.” Jeremy blew into the tissue, then landed a nice shot into the trash.

  “What if there was a way I could help you remember more? Would you be willing to let me try to enhance your memory of that day?”

  “How?” He sounded more curious than frightened.

  “Hypnosis.” It had only a small chance of working to begin with, and unless Jeremy felt comfortable, there would be no way she could even get him under.

  “You can hypnotize me?” He grinned like a kid who’d just been given permission to play in the dirt. “Cool.”

  On the other hand, a motivated subject was a hypnotherapist’s dream. “Yeah. I guess it is kinda cool.”

  While Luke set up the recording equipment, Faith gave Jeremy more information on the small risks associated with hypnosis and reassured herself he was still comfortable proceeding.

  “Ready when you are.” Luke focused the camera, then motioned for Faith to sit facing Jeremy, her back to the camera.

  “I’m ready,” Jeremy said, looking Faith hard in the eyes as if he couldn’t wait and was trying to hypnotize himself already. “Are you going to swing a watch in front of me and say you’re getting sleepy, very very sleepy?”

  That made her smile in spite of her determination to stay neutral, professional. The technique was really quite simple, and hardly as glamorous as it was made out to be. “I’m afraid not. Clinical hypnosis isn’t the same as what you see in the movies or even in a Las Vegas show. It’s really not much more than a state of deep relaxation and heightened awareness. There’s nothing to be frightened of.” Fortunately, Jeremy didn’t seem a bit worried, at least about the idea of being put in a trance. “Let’s begin by having you close your eyes and imagine someplace safe and warm. Take your time and let me know when you’ve found that place.”

  The room wasn’t noise-­free, but with a little luck, the sound of cars buzzing by on the street could be used to some advantage. A constant hum like that might serve to cover up more distracting noises, like chatter in the hallway.

  A smile played across Jeremy’s face, suggesting he’d followed her instructions.

  “Where are you, Jeremy? Can you describe your safe place?”

  “I’m camping. I’m camping out in the woods with Kenny, and there’s this mountain stream.”

  “That’s good.” Very good. The fact that he’d brought Kenny into his safe place meant he was trying hard to help, and she could work with that mountain stream. “Do you hear the stream rushing by? Smell the must of the woods?”

  He nodded, still smiling. The buzzing of the cars had likely just turned to rushing water in Jeremy’s mind. She could almost hear that babbling stream herself. “Good. Now then, imagine your body is getting heavy, very heavy.”

  His body sank deeper into the chair.

  “Now your left arm is getting lighter. Imagine a balloon tied to your left hand.”

  Slowly his left arm started to lift off the armrest.

  Jeremy was proving an excellent subject. Less than five minutes later, she had him in a deep trance. “Good, Jeremy, you’re doing so well. Are you comfortable?”

  He nodded.

  “Is your friend Kenny still there with you?”

  Again, he nodded yes.

  “Ask Kenny if he’d like for you to remember the last time you saw him.”

  Jeremy’s chin tilted up. A few seconds passed, and then, “Yes. He wants me to remember. I want to remember.”

  “Good. Tell me about the last time, before today, that you saw Kenny. What are you doing?”

  “We’re at the mall. My mom dropped us off to get haircuts, but we don’t want haircuts.” He shook one hand like it was hot. “We just ran into two babes at Yo Yo Yum’s, that frozen-­yogurt place. Carmen and Jennifer. We even got their numbers.” A look of disappointment crossed his face. “They’re probably fake. Carmen and Jennifer just ditched us for two jocks.”

  “Their loss. What are you going to do now?”

  “Go to Chili’s.”

  “What do you order?” If he could remember a safe detail, that would be a good lead-­in to more troublesome memories.

  “Nachos. Loaded with jalapeños.” He swiped at his mouth and sipped his water. “Damn, those are hot.”

  “I bet. Do you need more water?”

  His brow drew down, and he crossed his arms over his chest. His chin jerked sharply to the right, and she thought he was about to come out of the trance, when suddenly he started talking, his head turning and nodding like he was speaking to another person. “I don’t like him, Kenny. He gives me the creeps. How’d he even know you play the guitar?”

  Jeremy fell silent again. Faith cast a glance back at Luke. His eyes were wide, his face rapt with attention.

  Jeremy leaned forward, resting one hand on his knee. “But how did he know, Kenny? You didn’t put an ad out or anything.”

  “Are you and Kenny still at Chili’s, Jeremy?”

  “No. Kenny just left. I told him that guy was bad news. I told him not to give that guy guitar lessons. You don’t let someone in your house who just shows up from nowhere with a guitar and offers you money for lessons.”

  Sensing motion behind her, Faith looked back at Luke. He scribbled something on a piece of paper and held it up.

  Good question.

  “You met this creepy guy at Ken’s house? On a different day? Before Chili’s? Before Carmen and Jennifer?”

  “Yeah. I was at Kenny’s place after school. His mom wasn’t home, and we were about to smoke some weed when this freak and his guitar show up. Says he heard Kenny knew how to stroke a guitar—­that’s exactly how he put it—­gave me the willies.”

  “What else do you remember?”

  “His guitar was maple, and all oiled up. Had a fancy rosewood fretboard. Had a sweet sound to it. Kenny took it off the guy and strummed it. Then he told the guy he’d do it—­give him lessons. But to come back a different day.” He shuddered. “Creepola.”

  “Besides the way the man talked about the guitar, do you remember anything else that bothered you about him? You seem to have a strong dislike for someone you’d never met before.”

  “His tattoos. One said Cookie, which is just plain stupid. The other was a green, no, a blue tiger. And the guy kept flexing his biceps and growling—­like he was the tiger. The way he kept eyeing Kenny, I knew he was a pervert. Perry the Pervert.”

  “Perry the Pervert?” Her fingers twitched, and her palms tingled. “Did he say his name was Perry, or did you just think that fit?”

  “Yeah. He said his name was Perry, but I added the pervert.” He smirked.

  “And you saw him again, at Chili’s?”

  “Yeah. I told Kenny not to go with him, but he didn’t listen. He left with Perry the Pervert. I looked through the window and saw them get into a truck. It was one of those landscaper’s truck with a tarp in the back.” His lip shivered. “Kenny got in the truck with Perry the Pervert and left me holding the check.”

  A tear rolled down the side of his cheek. “I don’t want to remember anymore.”

  “It’s okay, Jeremy. You’ve been a big help to Kenny, and to us. You can wake up anytime you’re ready.”

  Tears were streaming down Jeremy’s face now. “Kenny left me holding the check, and I went back home and cursed him. That night, I sent him a text that said: Asshole. I hope I never see you again.” His voice broke. “And I never did.”

  “Wake up, Jeremy.” She squeezed his knee firmly.

  Jeremy opened his eyes and looked at her, pure anguish written on his face.

  “I have to say, that was impressive.” Having finished packing up the camera equipment, Luke turned to Faith.

  “Thanks.” She twirled a long piece of her flame-­colored ha
ir, then pulled it between her teeth. Chewing her hair might be childish and innocent, but her body was anything but, and it was calling to him right now.

  He raked a hand through his hair and took a turn around the room. His brother’s life was on the line, and all he could think about was throwing Faith down on the bed for one more round before they hit the road.

  What a guy. “No, seriously. That was amazing the way you had Jeremy under so fast.” He’d been skeptical about the whole mumbo-­jumbo hypnosis deal, but it’d worked in a big way. Recorded on video, and also in his handwritten notes was a wealth of detail about the person of interest last seen with Kenny Stoddard—­right down to the color, location, and shape of the man’s highly unusual tattoos.

  Faith leaned forward, intent on her laptop screen. “What did Torpedo think?”

  He shrugged. “He says he’ll pass the information to the DA, but he’s not hopeful they’ll follow up on this Perry guy. They had a lot of the same information when they first interviewed Jeremy, before they lost it, but nothing ever turned up.”

  “Because they didn’t take Jeremy seriously. They were focused on him as their prime suspect and didn’t even look for Perry the Pervert.” She shot him a frustrated look and kicked the leg of the desk in a very uncharacteristic display.

  “Preaching to the choir here. I’m just the messenger. And it gets worse. Torpedo says he can’t alibi Dante out for any of the murders, and the cops can place him at an Amarillo Walmart buying a case of beer a week before Jeremy’s body was found in Lubbock. They’re convinced Dante’s the Saint. So if we want to find Perry, it’s on us. Unless we can connect Perry to some or all of the other murders, nobody is interested.”

  “What was Dante doing in Amarillo?”

  “Four years ago? Beats the hell out of me—­rodeo maybe, lot’s of folks come out for that, but one thing I do know: He didn’t kill Jeremy Jacobs while he was here . . . so let’s get going and connect Perry to another case.”

  “How are we going to connect the other murders to Perry the Pervert if we can’t even connect the murders to each other?”

  “You mean apart from the rosaries, the hog-­tying, and the shotgun blasts to the head.” He leaned against the wall and stuck his hands in his pockets.

  “Yes, there’s that.” She sighed. “But what you’ve just described is merely the killer’s MO. I’m talking about the victims themselves. What do Nancy, Kenny, William, and Linda have in common that made them targets? Maybe if we knew that, we’d know what connects them to Perry.”

  Faith had a way of seeing things he didn’t. He went to her and massaged her shoulders. “I like the way you think. I say we do what any PI worth his salt would do and sign on to Google.”

  She patted his hand in a disappointingly platonic way. “I’m in. Let’s start with Perry and those odd tattoos. Jeremy said Perry the Perv had a blue tiger tattooed on his . . . left biceps?”

  Luke checked his notes and nodded. “Right. I mean, yes, left—­left biceps.”

  He paced the room some more while Faith googled.

  “Oh, boy. Well this is very interesting.”

  “You got a hit for Perry and tattoos?”

  “Yep. But this may not be quite what we had in mind.”

  He waited.

  “Says here Russell Brand and Katy Perry have matching tattoos, and he’s having his removed—­had, I mean. This an old story.”

  “Google’s a wealth of information. Try again, would you please?” He cracked an imaginary whip in the air.

  “I already tried Perry, Nancy, William, Ken, Linda.”

  “And?”

  “Pulls up a Matlock episode.”

  He dropped onto the bed on his back and groaned.

  “C’mon. Don’t give up so fast. Why don’t you see if you’ve got the magic touch?”

  He rolled off the bed and came and leaned over her shoulder. Why did she smell so damn good all the time? They hadn’t been around flowers all day. He dropped a kiss on her neck, reached around her, and typed in Perry, short guy, black hair, blue tiger tattoo.

  The screen refreshed.

  She reached for his hand and squeezed.

  Then her head dropped. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I guess the police were right, Jeremy was fabricating the whole thing.” According to Google, the man Jeremy described was Perry Smith, one of two men who murdered a Kansas family called the Clutters back in 1959. The murders were the subject of a famous book by Truman Capote: In Cold Blood. A book most kids read for high-­school English.

  He pushed his hands in his pockets and blazed another path around the room. “We don’t know for sure that Jeremy borrowed his description from Capote’s book. Is there any way possible this could be the same Perry who killed the Clutter family?” He was reaching, he knew, but he didn’t want to let go of the only lead they had so easily.

  “Not possible.”

  His fist came down on the desk where Faith was set up. “I suppose that guy would be pretty old by now. Probably still in prison.”

  Faith nodded and typed something else into the computer. “Perry Smith would be in his eighties today. But that’s irrelevant.” She slammed the laptop closed. “Because he was executed by the state of Kansas in 1965.”

  TWENTY-­FIVE

  Thursday, August 15, 4:00 P.M.

  They’d be back home in Santa Fe by dark. Luke gunned the engine of his Spitfire and cast a sideways glance at Faith, riding shotgun. He wished Jeremy had waited until morning to come by the Starlight Motel. Luke had been picturing waking up with Faith in his arms since the first moment he saw her at his family’s gallery. But now that they’d concluded their business in Amarillo, there was little excuse to stay the night.

  A heaviness in his gut set in. Not only was he not going to wake up next to the woman of his dreams, but what had looked like a promising lead on the Santa Fe Saint had turned out to be a work of fiction. Quite literally. It seemed Jeremy Jacobs had lifted his entire description of the mysterious man last seen with Kenneth Stoddard from his high-­school English assignment. Perry the Pervert was quite obviously Perry Smith from the nonfiction novel, In Cold Blood. And Perry Smith couldn’t be the Santa Fe Saint unless he was setting upon his victims from beyond the grave.

  Jeremy had been so believable. Luke’s hopes had soared higher than they’d been since his brother’s arrest, then, with the click of a mouse, they’d been dashed to an all-­time low.

  Thanks, Google.

  At least he had Faith all to himself for the ride home. Nothing enhanced intimacy like being trapped together in a small vehicle for hours on end. There’s a reason chicks dig road trips.

  Faith was currently working her smart phone hard, but at least she wasn’t humming. One of the many little things he loved about Faith was that she rarely used her phone. It hardly beeped, buzzed, or played a tune to indicate an incoming call, and she kept her focus on the ­people in the room, not on her electronics. A path he tried to follow himself. As Chica’s due date grew near, however, things began to change. The texts between Faith and Tommy had become much more frequent. “Checking on Tommy and Chica?”

  “I tried, but no response. Now I’m downloading a book.”

  He gripped the steering wheel tighter. Faith would rather read on the trip home than talk to him, and he’d really been looking forward to all that small talk. What’s your favorite color? How old were you the first time you did it? Beer or champagne? “Anything special?” A nice romance wouldn’t be so bad. She could read it aloud, might put her in the mood.

  “In Cold Blood.” Then, reading the what’s-­the-­use look on his face perfectly, she added, “I’ve got sort of a hunch that Jeremy’s not entirely full of hot air. It’s been a long time, but I read this book in school, and my gut is telling me we’re missing something. I just wish I could remember the story clearly.” />
  “Maybe I could hypnotize you.”

  “Maybe I could read the book.”

  “My way’s more fun.”

  But she was already scrolling down the page. He didn’t understand ­people who read on their phones. He preferred the feel of a leather-­bound volume in his hand, the crisp smell of ink on paper. But what the hell, maybe he’d try it someday.

  A few miles of silence went by. He cleared his throat. He was tempted to hum. “Wanna read that book aloud? Maybe I might get a hunch, too.”

  Her response was a sharp intake of air, as if something was very wrong. He waited, but she said nothing, and time beat on making his own breathing accelerate—­maybe, just maybe something was right.

  Clutching her heart, she said at last. “I need a fast connection . . . fast.”

  He tried not to let his excitement show in his voice. His hopes had been dashed too recently. “What’s up?”

  “Just get me somewhere with wireless . . . and coffee would be good. I think I found something important.” She reached over and squeezed his thigh. “I think I figured out how the Saint has been choosing his victims.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Luke and Faith were crammed side by side into a half booth at Starbucks, laptop blazing. Hard to believe the connection between the victims was so simple, and yet so hard to recognize. Perry the Pervert was the key. If only the police had taken Jeremy Jacobs at his word all those years ago, maybe Kenneth Stoddard would’ve been the Saint’s last victim.

  “Here.” Faith’s low voice rang with urgency. I’ve created a document with the names and ages of the members of the Clutter family—­Perry Smith’s victims. Herb Clutter, age forty-­five, Bonnie Clutter, age forty-­four, Nancy Clutter, age sixteen, and Kenyon Clutter, age fifteen.”

  Luke scribbled down the info on a napkin to keep it within easy reach while she navigated to the Santa Fe Gazette. “And here are the names and ages of the Saint’s known victims: William Carmichael, age forty-­five; Linda Peabody, age forty-­four; Kenneth Stoddard, age fifteen, and Nancy Aberdeen, age sixteen.”