The Killing House

by Chris Mooney

  ‘A surgeon was, in fact, treating him.’

  ‘But not in a hospital.’

  ‘No. It was a … private setting.’

  She digested that for a moment. ‘That makes sense,’ she said. ‘When I removed the staples, I found something … well, interesting.’

  ‘Maggots.’

  Surprise bloomed on her face. ‘You’ve seen this sort of thing before?’

  ‘Upstairs, when I saw the wound and the way the tissue rippled, I suspected maggots since they consume necrotic and infected tissue. It’s an effective, low-cost method of cleaning an infected wound.’

  She nodded. ‘American doctors used this technique in the prison camps during the Second World War. They’d take the infected soldiers out to the latrine area and let flies lay their eggs inside the wounds. Then they’d cover them, and after the maggots ate the infected and dead tissue, you’d have clean and sterile wounds. Some hospitals still use the treatment today. Are you a doctor?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But clearly you have some sort of medical training.’

  ‘No. What else can you tell me?’

  She folded her arms across her chest. ‘Here’s what I don’t understand,’ she said, examining the tops of her shoes. ‘Using Lasix after a kidney removal is typical, as the drug stimulates kidney function and urine output. Patients who’ve had a kidney removed are susceptible to infection, so treatment with a wide-spectrum antibiotic is, again, typical. A surgeon or any other reasonably trained medical person would know not to administer Demerol to a patient who is clearly showing signs of septic shock – fever, an increased heart rate and tachypnea, which is rapid breathing. Administering Demerol or another type of narcotic to someone in this condition causes decreased blood pressure, which more often than not results in death. Is there anything else you can tell me?’

  ‘I’ve told you everything I know,’ Fletcher said. ‘Did he speak to you?’

  ‘No, and I don’t think he’ll be able to for some time. At the moment, he’s stabilized. After I stemmed the bleeding, I flushed the wound with sterile saline and drained off the puss with a surgical drain and a suction bulb, then packed it with sterile gauze and dressed it with a sterile dressing. Now we have to wait and see about the sepsis. I need to bring him to a hospital. I spoke with Mr Karim, and he’s going to make arrangements at Sloan-Kettering in Manhattan. I work there. We’re going to admit him under a false name. The paperwork will be fudged so no one will find him.’

  ‘When will you move him?’

  ‘In a few hours. He needs to rest, and Mr Karim needs some time to procure the documentation and work out a cover story.’

  ‘Thank you for your time and your efforts, Doctor.’

  Fletcher had turned to leave when she said, ‘Mr Karim is a good man. I met him while I was living in Brookline – that’s in Massachusetts. Three … men broke into my house. I was married with two children and pregnant with my third. They tied us up, and after they robbed us, one decided to come back.’ She brushed the hair blowing around her face and breathed deeply, holding it for a moment. ‘I still don’t know how I managed to survive.’

  ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’

  ‘The Boston police never caught the men responsible.’ She faced the sea, watching the wind bending the sea grass. ‘Mr Karim, however, believed he could find them. He seemed so … absolute in his resolve, that I said yes. When I asked him the cost for his services, he baulked. He said he provided pro bono assistance for victims of violence. Then he told me what had happened to his son, Jason.

  ‘Months passed, and then one day Mr Karim showed up and told me that justice had been served. That I wouldn’t have to live out the rest of my life wondering if those men would come back for me. To use his words, “The matter had been put to bed.” I wanted to know details but he refused to tell me anything – their names, how they had been found. He said it was for my own protection.’

  ‘I don’t mean to be rude, Doctor, but I must be leaving.’

  ‘When Mr Karim called and asked me to provide him with some discreet medical service, I was only too grateful to help. He didn’t tell me your name, just that he trusted you implicitly. Before he hung up, he mentioned you had worked for him on a number of occasions. You helped Mr Karim find the men who killed my family, didn’t you?’

  Fletcher did not reply.

  ‘He didn’t tell me anything, if that’s what you’re wondering,’ she said. ‘When I saw you walk into the room, I had this … sense that you recognized me despite the fact we’ve never met.’ A polite smile, and then she added, ‘I would have remembered meeting you.’

  Then her expression changed, her eyes cursed by the same look he had seen in all victims of violence: that damnable need to know what she’d done to invite this horror into her life. Why she had been chosen.

  ‘Tell me why,’ she said, hot-eyed. ‘Please.’

  Fletcher weighed the question on his cold scales. ‘Because they could,’ he said.

  ‘It has to be more than that.’

  ‘You lived in a nice home. They envied your possessions. You were available.’

  She stared at him, wanting more.

  He didn’t have anything else to give her.

  ‘Tell me they suffered,’ she said. ‘At least give me that.’

  All three men had died the same way: wrists and ankles manacled and left alone to rot in the decrepit and soggy earthen belly of an abandoned mineshaft where their screams couldn’t be heard. Would knowing the details help her heal, or curse her?

  ‘I can assure you, they suffered,’ he said.

  A moment passed. When he provided no further explanation, the woman nodded, then kept nodding, her head down at the last nod. She stared at the ground as though she had dropped something.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Please take care of yourself.’

  Fletcher got back behind the wheel of his car. The doctor continued to stare out at the water – a shell of a woman condemned to living in a grey-filtered daze, alone with a cemetery of memories and the ghosts of her loved ones whispering words she couldn’t understand.

  44

  Marcus De Luca had packed on a considerable amount of weight since the last time Marie had seen him. Short and stocky and cursed with a permanent five o’clock shadow, De Luca now looked like a former prizefighter who’d let himself go to pot. His shirt collar was unbuttoned to accommodate his multiple chins, and fat had crept into the thin, puffy and bruised skin beneath a pair of eyes that looked like raisins pressed into dough. He reeked of menthol cigarettes and dressed with the flair of an Italian mobster, complete with loafers with those god-awful tassels.

  Like William Jenner, De Luca was a former Baltimore cop. The two patrolmen had been partners once upon a time. They had served together and, ironically, were about to be buried together.

  At the moment, De Luca was sitting comfortably in the passenger’s seat of the Lincoln, mopping his brow with a handkerchief. They had just returned from setting fire to Gary Corrigan’s home. The former surgeon was now resting in the trunk, on top of the body bag holding William Jenner. De Luca had casually enquired about the second body bag. ‘Defective merchandise,’ Marie replied, suppressing a smile.

  She hit the garage-door opener and backed into the funeral home’s wide loading bay, parking next to the hearse. Marcus De Luca, ever the gentleman, offered to perform the heavy lifting.

  Marie held open the door leading to the funeral home’s basement level. Since the man had never set foot in there, she had to tell him where to go. ‘Take your first left and you’ll see the cremation unit.’

  Marie stripped out of her coat as she trailed him down the hall. She ducked into a room, threw her jacket over the back of a chair and grabbed an apron on her way out.

  ‘Which one?’ De Luca asked, nodding with his chin towards the three separate doors to the ovens.

  Marie unlatched the door to the first oven. De Luca swung the body bag off his shoulders and,
cradling it in his arms, squatted a little and slid it inside.

  ‘Push him all the way back,’ she said. ‘That’s it, just a bit further … Good. Thank you. Are you sure you wouldn’t like some help with the last one?’

  Marcus waved away the offer. He sucked in air, exhaling with a slight, crackling sound.

  ‘Put the other one in here,’ Marie said, and opened the door to the second oven. De Luca nodded and huffed his way back to the Lincoln.

  She unlatched the door to the third and last oven but didn’t open it.

  He came back with the body bag containing William Jenner slung over his shoulder. Since Jenner was considerably fatter, De Luca was grunting and sweating from the exertion.

  She grabbed an end of the bag, feeling Jenner’s thick ankles beneath the plastic, and placed them inside the oven’s entrance. Then she stepped aside to give De Luca some room.

  ‘Same as before,’ she said, moving behind him. ‘Push it all the way back.’

  De Luca ducked his head just underneath the oven’s door and gave the bag a good, hard push. Marie removed the concealed .38 snub-nose revolver from her trouser pocket, pressed it against the back of his head and fired.

  She threw herself up against his back, using her weight to pin him against the cremation unit as she dropped the gun on to the oven floor. With both hands she grabbed the man’s shirt collar and held him tight, his limbs jerking in protest and what was left of his head banging inside the oven as he bled out. She wondered if she’d have enough time for a quick shower. The funeral home had its own living quarters on the top floor; she and Brandon slept there during the week. A quick shower to wash away the smell of gunpowder, a change into something more comfortable and she would be on her way.

  Mr De Luca had stopped his death dance. She dragged him over to the remaining oven. Christ, he was heavy. Thank God she had to drag him only a few feet.

  Marie loaded him face first into the oven bay, gripping the back of his belt to keep him from falling out. Then she picked him up by the legs and pushed him inside. She was covered in sweat by the time she’d finished.

  And she was covered in blood. It was on her hands and forearms, smeared on her apron and nice shoes and splattered across the floor and along the cremation unit itself. She gathered her supplies, cleaned up and threw the bloody rags inside the oven. Then she stripped out of her apron and clothes, threw them inside, fired up the ovens and walked upstairs wearing nothing but her birthday suit.

  Showered and dressed in clean clothes, she headed back to the cremation unit. She smashed the bones and brushed out the ashes, collecting everything inside an ordinary plastic rubbish bag. The empty .38 gun cartridge went into her trouser pocket.

  Driving away in the Lincoln, Marie carefully paid attention to her side and rearview mirrors, searching to see if anyone was following her. She could feel the brass cartridge digging against her hip.

  She had left behind two empty gun cartridges in Colorado. Normally, she would have picked them up, but there hadn’t been time – and she assumed the blast would have scattered them to Kingdom Come. She wasn’t worried about fingerprints; she had worn gloves as she loaded the bullets. Still, police crime labs could do all sorts of new and tricky things with evidence.

  But the police weren’t involved – at least not yet. A cop wouldn’t have snuck into her house, tied up and then tortured Mr Corrigan. Someone else had done that. Someone had tortured Gary Corrigan for information before escaping with Nathan Santiago.

  There were only two plausible scenarios. Either the man she’d shot in Colorado had, through some miracle of God, survived and was hot on her tail, hell-bent on revenge; or maybe the man he worked for, Ali Karim, had done the deed himself. If the mysterious Colorado man was alive, maybe he was working together with his boss on some secret agenda to find and kill her.

  Then why didn’t he wait for me at the house? Why take Nathan Santiago and run? And how had he – they – found her house?

  She had no idea, not even a working theory. The lack of answers made her feel cold all over.

  Maybe Brandon was right. Maybe it was time to get out of Dodge while they still had time.

  Then her thoughts turned to James Weeks and any idea of leaving vanished.

  45

  Jimmy Weeks was thinking about water. When he wasn’t thinking about it, he was dreaming about it. The only thing he cared about right now was something cold to drink. Yes, it was crazy – bat-shit crazy, given his circumstances – but, for whatever reason, his mind had fixed on it, despite the terror of being locked away in the dark.

  Every once in a while he’d hear the big, steel door outside his cage swing open. A moment of darkness would follow and then he’d hear the click of a light switch and the bare bulb would expose the small room, with its concrete walls and floor. Erected on either side of him were two more cages, both empty.

  The woman who had pretended to be an FBI agent smiled every time she came to bring him food. The first time she visited, she gave him a plastic Wal-Mart bag holding someone else’s clothing: a pair of tight-fitting black sweatpants, wool socks and a big crimson sweatshirt that had the Harvard emblem printed on the front and a tear along the collar.

  The food was either hard dinner rolls or Wonder Bread smeared with peanut butter, a bottle of Gatorade or water. He had tried to speak to her, asking her questions, but she simply ignored him. She gave him his food, left and shut the door. There had been no showers, and he hadn’t brushed his teeth.

  She hadn’t hurt him or threatened him in any way – which made sense, because this was nothing more than a cut-and-dry kidnapping. Jimmy had seen enough movies and TV shows to know the procedure: the woman would keep him locked up in here until the time came to bring him to the drop-off point, where he would be traded for some gym bag stuffed full of cash. Do what he was told and everything would be fine.

  That inner voice kept disagreeing with him, and it spoke up again now: You’re wrong, Jimmy.

  No, he replied. No, I’m not.

  Let’s review some key facts, then. Let’s start with –

  No, I don’t want to –

  Fact number one: every time she comes in here, she’s not wearing a mask. Why would she let you see her face? If she lets you go, she knows the police are going to question you. She knows you’ve seen her all up close and personal. You can describe her from head to toe. You think she doesn’t know that?

  Shut up, please, just shut –

  And here’s fact number two: you’re not alone. You know what I’m talking about.

  Jimmy forced himself not to think about it, but his mind had this really shitty way of making him see things that he didn’t want to see. Every time the heavy door opened, he’d heard someone moaning, the sound near and yet far away at the same time – from a room close by, he thought.

  Not just one voice, Jimmy. Several. You’re not the only person here.

  He hugged his knees to his chest, swallowing.

  I know that scares the living shit out of you, but you know as well as I do this isn’t a kidnapping. A kidnapper wouldn’t lock you naked inside a goddamn dog crate – and then there’s the matter of that wound on your back. I don’t know what that’s about, and I’m not going to bullshit you and say I have the first clue as to what’s going on here, but there’s one thing I do know, and you need to hear it. And I’m going to keep repeating it until it sinks into your head.

  He jumped at the sound of the deadbolt sliding back.

  You’re going to have to find a way to kill this woman.

  A key was moving inside the lock.

  You need to escape from this place, Jimmy. If you don’t, you’re going to die a horrible death down here.

  46

  Fletcher reached Midtown Manhattan a few minutes shy of 7 a.m., dry-eyed and weary. A cold and milky predawn light had broken across the streets and buildings of Fifth Avenue, the setting of Edith Wharton’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Age of Innocence. The horse-dr
awn carriages that had once dominated this area over a century ago had been replaced by hustling delivery vans, taxis and limousines. Joggers, dog-walkers, and early risers off to work paced the streets, while doormen in garish uniforms poised like sentries guarded gold-plated gateways leading to luxury kingdoms owned by the new century’s robber barons.

  Karim lived and conducted his day-to-day business operations from inside a historic five-floor neo-Italian Renaissance mansion commissioned in 1922 by a wealthy German merchant and designed by one of the city’s most prominent architects at the time, C. P. H. Gilbert. Karim did not employ a doorman, driver, maid or chef. With the exception of Boyd Paulson – and now, the mercurial Emma White – Fletcher did not know the names of the employees who worked out of the man’s home. Every time Fletcher visited, Karim sent his people to the company’s main office in Downtown Manhattan.

  Snaking his way towards his destination, Fletcher saw a businessman step over a vagrant passed out in the middle of the pavement. A patrolman directing street traffic turned his back on a young woman repeatedly slapping her child. Seeing the common ugliness on display beyond the Jaguar’s tinted glass made him long for a hot shower, followed by an even longer, uninterrupted sleep.

  He turned left and drove up the short ramp leading to Karim’s private garage. The metal gate was closed. A pair of security cameras watched him.

  The gate rose a moment later and Fletcher entered an underground garage. Four high-end luxury vehicles were parked to the far left. Fletcher drove straight on and parked in a space near a set of concrete steps leading up to an elevator. Security cameras, each positioned in a corner, were fixed on the entire area. He knew they had been turned off, as Karim did not want any recorded video footage of a wanted fugitive entering his home.

  Fletcher traded his leather gloves for latex. He insisted on wearing them when visiting the man’s home. Netbook in hand, he removed the evidence bag from the trunk, stepped inside the elevator and pressed the button for the fourth floor. The doors closed and the ancient piece of machinery, one of the few items Karim had not replaced or updated, waited as if deciding whether or not it wanted to move. Finally, it rose, slowly and unsteadily, the gears creaking.