by Rick Murcer
She rose slowly from the bed and trudged to the porthole that gave the sun its only opportunity to visit. She squinted and closed the drape. The sunlight hurt her eyes, especially in the morning.
Her cabin immediately retreated into gray shadows that felt familiar, comfortable. The remaining, solitary source of light, spreading from the bathroom, stopped just short of her bed. But it was enough, for now. Darkness had evolved into a cloak of solitude that seemed to understand her, and she embraced it. She was all right with not being able to see well as long as no one else could catch sight of her, the real her. She couldn’t allow anyone else the opportunity to dig deep into her soul and expose her secrets. The dark helped her keep that promise.
A mother’s secrets.
Ethel felt for the creased sheet of paper hiding in the breast pocket of her flannel shirt. He had sent her a letter, after all of this time; he had at long last sent a letter. Her son had decided to contact her, no one else, just her.
The letter explained how he had been living a simple, discreet life in another part of the country and how he needed, and wanted, a new start. He missed her very much, but it was just too risky to call her. The letter said that he hoped he could trust her and would see her soon. He’d put $2,000.00 cash money in the envelope. She was to use the money to book a cruise, this cruise, so she would be able to see him.
After a moment, Ethel squeezed the letter and cursed the fact that she hadn’t brought her magnifying glass. Reading it again would reassure her, comfort her. Instead, she recalled that terrible trial and remembered those awful accusations and damned, barefaced lies. He wasn’t the terrible man they had accused him of being, and he simply couldn’t have hurt those women. Not like that, not like they said. She hadn’t raised a monster.
Licking parched lips, she became aware of the solemn doubt creeping from memories she hated to visit. Her only son hadn’t been like other children. There had been something within him. Something different. That thing, that persona, seemed to lie in wait until his brilliant emotions ran high. He would change. Not much, at first. Then…
There were times she thought it her imagination or perhaps side effects from medication she had been taking. That’s all. But deep down, she knew better, didn’t she?
Ethel released the subconscious grip on the front of her shirt. When he got like that, she had to lock him in that windowless basement until Bobby, the real Bobby, came back to her. Any mother would have.
A mother’s secrets.
NO!! Ethel Manis wouldn’t allow that kind of misshapen image of her son, her Bobby. She couldn’t allow it. No good mother would…and she had been a good mother. He had written her and paid for this cruise. Didn’t that prove her virtues?
Her son.
To touch that face one more time, to smell his hair, and to feel his strong hands was all she wanted.
This would be her last chance. The doctors said four to six months was all she had left, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. It didn’t seem right, but thinking about it only made things worse, and she had promised herself that she wouldn’t dwell on her remaining time. But it was hard, so hard, and this life had been short. There were…regrets.
She snorted. People were just flat out lying when they said they had no regrets. Bullshit. No one’s closet was empty. No one lived a life void of mistakes.
Waving her hands in rebellion, she chased away the last of her austere reflections.
The next day was all that mattered. Her boy would come. She smiled. God had answered her prayer. She was sure of it, and his visit was all she had.
That and a mother’s secrets.
CHAPTER-41
The gruesome crime scene photos were disturbing. Each one emitted an intonation of pure evil. Evil? Hell, evil would have to skip up a notch to match this.
Manny wondered if Peppercorn could really do this. The man had a hard time getting from A to B, and rape was a giant step from murder.
The pictures escalated the pain he felt for the unfortunate victims and their shocked families. His heart broke for the dead, but equally as much for their devastated loved ones. Each of them would feel it impossible to continue living. Like life had no meaning, no rhyme or reason. They would lay awake trying to get a handle on the senselessness of it all. Frustration would be their closest friend, and “why” was the only question that mattered. He knew, he’d been there.
His hand quivered ever so slightly as he continued. No one deserved to die like this. But it did the investigation absolutely no favors if he approached his role without checking his emotion.
He had run into his fair share of psychos over the years, but this unrestrained piece of shit’s creep show took the cake, won the grand prize.
After going through each one of the pictures, he flipped the file back to the beginning. The first time through was to see if he could collect a better feel for what was going through the perp’s mind. Just maybe he could develop some ideas that could help catch him before he killed again; and this lion would feed again.
Sophie and Detective Perez left to do what Agent Corner asked them to do. Manny also wanted a list of people who purchased excursion tickets to Trunk Bay. They were also going to snoop around the security check points near the boarding ramps and see if anyone could remember someone like the man he had noticed talking to Mike and Lexy and had seen in the casino.
The killer’s purpose, his reason, hadn’t become totally clear, but it was like he wanted to be noticed, to start some cat and mouse game. That was evident by displaying Liz’s body for the world to see. Narcissism was a common thread for men like this. They wanted to be noticed, appreciated. It fit.
And if it was the same man Manny saw talking to Mike and Lexy, and if he really wanted to hurt them, why didn’t he?
There was another, less obvious reason for his requests of the two women detectives; he wanted more time alone with the files. No distractions. No questions. Just he and the evidence.
Sophie had become more than familiar with the game and he hadn’t fooled her. In fact, he was beginning to realize just how hard it was to fool her. But she was willing to go along with him and see if any of the legwork led to a lead. If there was something, she would find it.
Louise and Barb left the William’s cabin to swing by Gavin and Stella’s suite. The three women were going to lay out on the Sun Deck and work on their tans. Translated, they were going to get out of their law enforcement husbands’ collective ways. They all knew the drill. Except this time it was on a cruise ship deep in the beautiful Caribbean. At least the women had that going for them.
Manny stood and stretched, cracking his shoulder in the process. He grimaced. Old football injuries got worse when the injured got older.
His nose suddenly honed in on what he had ignored for the last fifteen minutes. Room service had brought the two Rueben sandwiches Manny had ordered from the New York deli, and the inviting scent of corned beef, Thousand Island dressing, and sauerkraut harassed his groaning stomach. He had been concentrating on the file and had forgotten about the manna from heaven. He grabbed the sandwiches and walked out to the balcony.
The band was getting cranked up on the Lido Deck and the music flowed like smoke from a four-alarm blaze. He had almost forgotten how much he enjoyed steel drum music. Hot, Hot, Hot was one of the best island songs ever written.
Viewing the horizon past the other cruise ship in port reminded him of the travel videos that his sixth-grade teacher showed to the class so she could sneak from the darkened room and have a cigarette. The spectrum of blues was hypnotic.
Liz would’ve loved this. He could almost see her swaying to the bold sound of the band. Truth is she would never love anything again. Not on this earth, at least. There was something more than unfair about that. He suddenly wasn’t so hungry.
The air-conditioned cabin felt good as he came in from the heat and sat down. It was time for round two as he flipped open the FBI file and began to finger the appalling pictures and
neatly typed reports a second time. Much slower this time, studying each page with a renewed, deliberate purpose.
Every piece of evidence at each scene was marked and numbered with a yellow tab so it could be cataloged sequentially. It was that way for the Henkle and Maxwell murders, but not for where Liz’s body was found.
Alex and Agent Tucker would handle the Casnovsky’s room with great expertise, but lifeboat sixteen had been so compromised it may never give them anything to work with. Richardson and his staff, so far, had been a bad joke. They had even screwed up printing the photos of Liz’s body, and he would have to wait for Tucker’s report to see them. The paperwork was fairly detailed, but that was it for that file.
Part of Manny was relieved. Seeing her that way was bad enough, and he could wait to revisit that lair. Besides, he didn’t think there would be much variance between the three murders. This killer was just too organized.
He continued working his way through the set of crime scene photos. Each woman was viciously strangled with bare hands, just as Agent Corner had observed. The size of the deep, violent bruises around each of the murdered women’s necks confirmed it. Tucker had been right on that, too. He scrutinized the blurred bruising. The intense bite marks made the purple, horizontal striations harder to see, but they were there. It looked like four marks on one side of the throat and one on the other. He grabbed similar photos from Dot and Juanita and put them side-by-side. Although the quality of all the pictures wasn’t identical, the markings on each woman’s throat were generally the same. A thought struck him like a stinging slap on a cold winter’s morning.
These women were killed with one hand.
It would take a hell of a grip to kill an adult female with one hand. If his suspicions were true, then what was the killer doing with his other hand? Masturbation? Something else?
The strangulations of the women were part of the ritual, his ritual. An element of the process? The killer put the women under, and then took his sweet time to finish what he started. He had undressed them and neatly stacked their clothes. What was significant about that? Neat freak? His notion of gentlemanly behavior? He couldn’t have raped them right away. It would have taken a few minutes to undress them and fold the clothes. Did it take him awhile to awaken the one-eyed snake? Foreplay? He didn’t know for sure, but he reasoned he was close.
The killer’s out of control biting took savagery to a whole new level. Anger? Frustration? Power? Hatred? What made this asshole tick? And why biting?
It was becoming more difficult to leave Peppercorn out of the equation.
Agent Tucker had said he thought the victims could have been unconscious when they were killed, at least for much of the attack. That maybe this predator wanted peace and quiet. No resistance. But if that were true, why would he clip the fingernails of the victims? Did they wake up?
Manny continued to leaf through the files and reread the reports, taking note of the carefully placed position of the bodies. The tilt of each victim’s head. It was as if each woman were staring into the eyes of their killer. As if he wanted them to look at him. Lover’s eyes?
The truth struck him like those sudden revelations do. He needed them to wake up. He drugged them just enough so the sick son of a bitch could prepare for the final step.
My God!
When they came to, he murdered them slowly with purpose. The killer wanted to watch them die.
CHAPTER-42
The shade provided by the steel overhang running the circumference of the Sun Deck sheltered the killer like an iguana lounging under a palm. The glass of red rum punch felt cold in his hand as he crossed his long legs, watching the flurry of activity in the deck’s pool area. Preteen children and drunken adults splashed around in the briny, pristine water with no conscious perception of who should be acting older--and not really caring.
They are all idiots. Pimples on society’s ass. Pigs wallowing in the trough.
He hated them and despised their superficial pretense. They masqueraded at enjoying each other but, in the end, they really only cared about their own self-indulgent desires. At least he was honest. He knew what he was about and embraced it.
The Ocean Duchess was scheduled to leave Dominica in a few hours. That was good. The day’s work had been completed. A satisfied smile ranged across his face.
Don’t you just love it when a plan comes together?
The killer’s mind blazed with thoughts of the next step. It was perfect. Just like him. Today’s agenda was a critical cog, no doubt, but reaching Aruba would result in the culmination of his hard work.
He wondered if this was how all of the great composers and painters felt when they had finished the one creation they knew would capture the world’s imagination. He was the Rembrandt of death, the Monet of pain. He laughed out loud.
Damn, he loved being in control. This was the most exhilarating game he had ever played. Nothing had ever come close to this, not even at the prison. No one would see this for what it was, with the possible exception of Detective Williams, who was smarter than he remembered. But then again, he needed the detective to be.
The band started again and the music had a quivering life of its own. The killer even tapped his foot to the performer’s version of “Hot, Hot, Hot.”
“Not great, but it worked. I give it a seven.”
Slowly, he began to scan the deck. Back and forth. His head moved like a great white shark seeking the injured prey it knew was near.
A middle-aged woman with red hair wearing a black one-piece barely covering her 260-pounds waddled into his sightline and out again. He ignored her and continued his wait.
She would make her long-awaited entrance soon. He knew her patterns already and the next shining star of this production was like a dog salivating at the ring of a bell. He marveled at how people inadvertently trained themselves. Their subconscious responses to a particular set of circumstances never wavered. It happened every time. Freud may have been on to something, for an anal moron.
The blonde bombshell in a red thong bikini with large swaying breasts did a double take of him, but he wasn’t interested. Another time, perhaps. He had only one goal and she wasn’t it.
Finally, he saw what he wanted to see.
Standing in the sunlight on the opposite side of the kiddy pool was the leading lady of this play’s next scene, his next scene.
He knitted his brow. There was one small detail, a tiny distraction, that needed to be attended to by dinner and before the headline show went on, however, but that would be handled in due time. Distractions did have their place.
The unsuspecting young woman spoke to her friends with excited animation. She laughed without a care in world. She had no inkling of what was in store for her. No idea of how the last few hours of her life would play out, how things would change.
The killer inspected the group she was with and focused back on the woman. He stored her appealing body in his mind. Intense heat began to spread to his groin. He could hear his heart thumping in his chest as his unchecked imagination climbed the stairs of no-control.
Her skimpy Prada two-piece exposed her for the slut she was. Still, she was attractive and tonight’s task wouldn’t be too daunting--for him. He would enjoy this phase of his homework. Just like he had enjoyed them all.
Draining his drink, he rose from the deck chair and strolled directly toward the unsuspecting source of his attention, each step bringing him closer to her and the evening’s festivities.
The distinct fragrance of her coconut butter sun lotion rose to his nostrils as he moved closer.
“Excuse me,” he smoothed as he brushed against her. This was so amazing.
The Lansing woman with the piercing eyes and wide white smile responded. “Sorry. I guess I should get out of the aisle.”
“No problem, no problem at all. We’re all enjoying the time of our lives,” he answered, then strolled away whistling “Hot, Hot, Hot.”
CHAPTER-43
Lifeboa
t sixteen remained silent while Sophie stood motionless in front of it. Not that she expected a boat to speak, but she’d heard of stranger things. Nothing comforting would be rejected at this point.
The afternoon sun beat on the back of her neck like a blast furnace, but she didn’t care. The sullen numbness she felt couldn’t be dispatched. Not completely anyway. And forget ignoring the heinous one-two punch of guilt and denial. It was like being on the business end of a quick jab and a powerful upper-cut from Ali himself.
Why had she come here?
Clues? A glimpse of the killer because they always seemed to return to the scene? (Which she knew was almost never true.) Something the CSU had missed? That was what she told Christina Perez. But that wasn’t really the truth, was it?
First her friend Liz and now her freshly crowned ex-lover were dead. Never mind he just happened to be Liz’s husband. She shifted her feet and bowed her head as she blushed a convicting scarlet.
Liz had been her friend and even a confidant, the way women can be to others in their profession. The DA had helped her get through some rough times during her divorce and Sophie repaid her by bopping Liz’s husband.
Her head dropped even lower. “Some friend,” she whispered.
Putting yourself in the middle of an ill-advised love triangle was something you only read about in a romance novel. The experts were right. You never thought it could happen to you. But it had. She felt dirty. The kind of Hell-born dirt that bad girls never remembered and good girls never forgot.
She looked intently at the place where Liz’s bloodied arm had dangled the night before. The blood had been cleaned away, but the stain would, or could, never leave the deck of her guilt-ridden heart.
“Liz. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I can’t tell you why I was sleeping with your husband. It just…happened,” she confessed. “If you can hear me and can find it in your heart, I’m begging your forgiveness.”
