Speak No Evil

by Allison Brennan

  Jason looked scared and was running fast, but Tommy and another kid caught up to him and tackled him right there on the sidewalk. His head hit with a dull whack on the cement and left a smear of blood. Red dripped down Jason’s face as one of the boys pulled him up and shook him back and forth so his head flopped.

  The big kids shouted bad words at Jason and pushed him down again, but Jason managed to jump up and run quickly back up the street. The bullies were surprised and raced after him, but Jason got inside his house before they caught up.

  He watched the bullies throw rocks at the door until Jason’s mother came out, a steak knife in hand, Jason at her side. She used some of the same bad words they’d used on her son.

  “Tommy, you touch my son one more time and I’ll cut off every one of your fingers, don’t you forget it!”

  The kids ran off, laughing.

  Jason’s mother slammed the door shut and the neighborhood became quiet. He was alone on the porch again. He wondered if his mother would protect him from bullies like Jason’s mom. He doubted it.

  A butterfly fluttered into the yard. It flew from one dying flower to another, searching for something it couldn’t find, its black-and-orange wings pumping up and down. When it finally landed on a wilted petunia near him, he leaned forward and captured the creature in his fist. It trembled against his closed hand, the insect’s little body moving frantically.

  The screen door slammed behind him and he jumped.

  “You can go back in now, kid,” the man said as he walked down the stairs.

  “When my daddy comes home he’s going to kill you.”

  The man laughed as he got into his truck and drove away.

  He pouted and thought about what Jason’s mom said. Maybe next time that man came over he could cut off all his fingers.

  Something caught his eye on the sidewalk where Jason had fallen. Curious, he crossed the dry lawn and squatted. On the rough surface of the cement a layer of skin and some blood dried in the summer sun. He pictured Jason’s bleeding face and the large scrape on the side of his head.

  Cool.

  Something moved in his hand. He looked at his closed fist, then opened it just a bit, a bug curled in his sweaty palm. He picked it up by a wing and it tried to fly away. Grabbing both the butterfly’s wings, one in each hand, he watched the legs and antennae frantically reaching out, trying to get away.

  He was fascinated by the struggle. So much movement, but it wasn’t getting anywhere.

  Slowly, he pulled the wings from the body of the bug. One came off clean, but the other tore. The dying bug fell to the sidewalk, its body jumping, squirming.

  He stared, fascinated and detached at the same time, until what remained of the butterfly stopped moving. It took several minutes. Peering closely, he realized it wasn’t dead. He pushed it with his finger; it jumped once, twice, then stopped.

  He brought the pieces of the butterfly into the kitchen to find an old jar to keep them in.

  The bug was not much more than dust twelve years later, but the old mayonnaise jar still rested on his nightstand.

  It had taken him nearly two hours to remove all traces of the slut from his bedroom. He wrinkled his nose in disgust. He hadn’t realized she’d be so messy. She’d shit in his bed and the smell was god-awful. Why’d she have to go do that? He’d taken her to the toilet several times a day.

  He’d bought the sheets and blanket especially for the weekend, so he stuffed them into a thirty-three-gallon trash bag. Heavy duty. What a joke. The slut had torn the first bag when she tried to get out—he’d needed to use three just to make sure she couldn’t break them.

  Every detail had been carefully planned. He washed her body, getting rid of any evidence of himself, though he’d taken great care all weekend. He wrapped her in the plastic bags so he could fully immerse himself in her death, at the last minute putting a blanket on top of her body.

  Then he laid on her, holding her tight. She bucked beneath him, her body fighting for air, to escape. For a long minute he lost himself in an odd state of hot ecstasy and cold fear.

  It really didn’t take that long for her to die. In fact, it was rather anticlimactic. After two days of taking her to the brink of death and back, trying to figure out what made her scream and what didn’t, her death was…boring.

  She died too quickly and he was left unsatisfied. It made him angry. Next time he needed to think of something else, maybe an airhole in the bag. Something he controlled. Or maybe he’d do it like the movie, except he’d wrap her in some sort of plastic wrap. Most of her, anyway. He’d think more about that. It would certainly keep her clean. And if she shit, it wouldn’t get all over everything.

  He’d watched all those forensics shows on television and he was paranoid about the cops finding him with all their tricks. Otherwise, he would have used his hands. He’d wanted to, just like the film. Squeeze, release, squeeze, release. Give her just enough air, then cut it off. Make it last. Much more satisfying. At least it looked more satisfying. He didn’t try it with the slut. He had wanted to, but it was safer his way. Keep a barrier between them. Minimize contact. The plastic wrap idea might work.

  He sprayed disinfectant around his room, scrubbed spots he could barely see, flipped his mattress. Put her clothes in the garbage bag along with the sheets.

  Safe. What would happen if he’d left his DNA on the body? The police had no reason to take samples of his blood or hair. Didn’t they need evidence? Something to connect him? At least that’s what he picked up from television. If they had his DNA, it wouldn’t do them any good unless they had other evidence against him. Then they’d need a warrant and all that stuff. He’d never been arrested, so it’s not like a computer would flash his name and address.

  At first reality had been so much better than his imagination, but then…it didn’t feel right. He must have done something wrong: when she’d died, he didn’t feel the rush of power he was so certain he’d feel.

  What could he have done different?

  With that thought in mind, he drove thirty miles and looked for a neighborhood that had Monday trash pickup. A quiet neighborhood where no one was out. He found a perfect one, where the trash cans were in an alley. He threw the sheets and clothes and everything the slut might have touched into a half-full garbage bin.

  He had thirty minutes to get to class, and the garbage truck had just rounded the corner.

  Perfect timing.

  TWO

  “GLUE.” Will shook his head. “I can’t believe the bastard glued her mouth shut, then did those things to her.”

  They’d parked near each other in the garage adjacent to the police station and walked inside together. It was close to eight, nearing shift change, and uniforms were coming in from patrol. Carina waved to a few of her friends, though when she’d made detective last year after ten years as a beat cop, some of the guys had given her the cold shoulder. Hell, not just the guys. The other women on the force were twice as bad.

  It was like starting from square one all over again.

  “He tortured her,” Carina said to Will. “Gluing her mouth shut, raping her, suffocating her. This guy is sick.”

  Will looked both ill and angry. “We need to run a search for similar crimes.” They sat down to start plugging information into the computer. Carina’s phone rang.

  “Kincaid,” she answered.

  “Dean Robertson here.” Dean was now in charge of Missing Persons, though when she first joined the force eleven years ago he’d been Carina’s training officer.

  “What’s up?”

  “Heard you found a Jane Doe this morning. She matches the description of a possible missing person.”

  “Possible?

  “I had a strange visit Saturday.”

  “Saturday? I thought the chief told you no more weekends.”

  He grunted. “You going to turn me in for working unclocked hours?”

  “Me? You said Friday, right?” Dean had been known to work off-the-
clock almost as many hours as his regular shift. Never married, he’d told Carina once over beers that he couldn’t not work. There are missing kids out there, Carina. Their parents deserve to know whether they’re dead or alive.

  Yeah. They did.

  Dean continued. “This guy comes in. Clean-cut, late thirties, maybe forty. Wanted to report a missing person. Female, eighteen. Matches the description of your Jane Doe. The desk sergeant took the information at first, then bumped it over to me when the guy got all huffy that we weren’t doing something right away.”

  “How long had she been missing?”

  “Less than twenty-four.”

  “His daughter?”

  “Nope.”

  “No?” She wrinkled her nose. “What’s his story?”

  “He claims they were friends. That he suspected someone was following her and had told her to watch herself. She hadn’t taken him seriously.”

  “Why’d he think she was missing?”

  “She didn’t go online Saturday.”

  “Online? As in, computer?”

  “Yep. That’s how they met—through a computer class at UCSD.” Concern laced Dean’s voice. “Something’s weird about this, and since the girl’s basic description matches your Jane Doe, I thought you might want to follow up with her family.”

  “And the guy?”

  “Steven Thomas. I’ll send up a folder with all the information.”

  “What’s the girl’s name?”

  “Angela Vance. Goes by Angie.”

  “Thanks Dean. I’ll let you know what happens.”

  Carina had just finished telling Will about the call when a secretary dropped Dean’s folder on her desk.

  She opened the folder. No photo. Angela “Angie” Vance, eighteen, blond hair, brown eyes, approximately five feet five inches tall, and 115 pounds. Her Jane Doe was five feet four and a half and 120. Angie was a freshman at UC San Diego with an undeclared major. She lived with her mother and grandmother downtown.

  “What’s wrong?” Will watched her closely.

  “What’s this Thomas guy’s interest in a girl half his age? He told Dean they were friends from school, but…”

  She logged onto the DMV database and pulled down Angie Vance’s driver’s license photo. She stared at the bright smile and short brown hair. Her vic had longer, blonder hair, but the photograph had been taken more than two years ago. Carina’s chest tightened. Women change their hair color all the time. The face matched their victim. She showed Will and he concurred. Angie Vance could be their vic.

  “I’ll run Thomas,” Will said.

  “Let’s do it from the road,” Carina said, jumping up and throwing her light-weight blazer over her black T-shirt. “I want to check out Angie Vance’s house and see if we can get a recent picture of her before we talk to her mother.”

  Angie lived in a small, postwar bungalow in North Park, an old neighborhood in Central San Diego. It was noon on Monday and Carina suspected no one would be home; she was wrong. Angie’s elderly grandmother directed them to Angie’s mother, Debbie, who was working as a waitress at Bud’s Diner near the highway. Grandma also supplied a recent photograph.

  During the short drive to the diner, Carina stared at the photo. It was of mother and daughter, both wearing burgundy sweaters that offset their fair skin. Debbie Vance had brown hair and Angie extensive blond highlights. The older woman had been pretty in her day, but in the picture she looked a little gray and worn, though happy. Her daughter was beautiful, with long shiny hair, curled for the photograph, eyes tastefully made up, and a warm and inviting smile.

  Now Angie was dead. Jane Doe and this pretty girl were one and the same. Carina closed her eyes, putting herself in Debbie Vance’s shoes. Knowing exactly how the woman would feel when told someone she loved was dead. While Carina was pleased to have a quick identification of the victim, she dreaded having to break a mother’s heart.

  The call on the radio confirmed it. The coroner ran Jane Doe’s fingerprints in the system. Nothing in the criminal database, but the Department of Motor Vehicles popped up with her driver’s license. Angela Vance.

  Bud’s Diner looked like a greasy spoon on the outside, but once they stepped through the doors the rich aroma of a real country breakfast—sweet syrup, salty potatoes, sizzling bacon—reminded Carina that she hadn’t eaten.

  “Take any table,” a waitress said as she poured coffee with one hand and put down a plate of butter-drenched waffles.

  “Is Mrs. Vance available?”

  The waitress looked up with a frown, but didn’t need to say anything.

  “I’m Debbie Vance.”

  Carina might not have recognized the short, chubby woman of about forty, her cherubic face bright from the heat of the kitchen. But the warm smile was the same as the photograph. Debbie Vance came around from behind the counter. “And you are?”

  “Detectives William Hooper and Carina Kincaid, San Diego Police Department,” Will said. “Is there a private area where we can talk?”

  Debbie Vance slowly nodded, her expression confused, her eyes asking questions she didn’t voice. Knowing something was wrong, but not wanting to ask for fear the question would bring a tragic answer.

  Carina remembered the feeling.

  “This way,” Mrs. Vance said tightly.

  She led them through the kitchen to a small, crowded office that had no door. She looked around for three chairs, but there was only one. No one sat.

  Carina asked, “Mrs. Vance, when was the last time you saw your daughter?”

  Her lip quivered. “Is something wrong with Angie?”

  Carina didn’t say anything, and Mrs. Vance continued in a rush, looking from Carina to Will. “Friday morning. I was leaving for work when she got up to go to classes. She goes to UCSD, you know. On full scholarship. She’s very smart, straight-As all through high school…”

  She took a deep breath. “She goes out with friends on the weekends, and I work early and go to bed early, so I don’t really keep tabs on her anymore. She’s eighteen, she’s a good girl, never got into drugs, I didn’t think I needed to watch—oh God.” Her voice cracked. “I heard her come in late Friday night, after one, but when I checked on her Saturday before I left for work, she was already gone.”

  Mrs. Vance searched their expression. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

  Mothers always know.

  Carina took her hand as Mrs. Vance sat heavily into the only chair. Will said in a quiet voice, “A body was found on the beach this morning that matches Angie’s description.”

  Mrs. Vance stared at them, shaking her head. She’d asked, but she didn’t want to hear. Carina didn’t blame her. No one wanted to hear when someone they loved and nurtured was dead. “No, I would know. It’s not Angie. You don’t know it’s her, right?”

  Carina didn’t tell her the DMV prints matched. It seemed too cold. Instead she said, “When you feel up to it, we’d like you to come down to confirm her identity.”

  “Right now. Right now. It’s not her.” She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, said, “What happened to the girl you found?”

  There was never an easy way to tell a parent their child was dead.

  “She was murdered, Mrs. Vance,” Carina said softly.

  “Someone killed her? On purpose? Who?”

  “We’re doing everything we can to find out,” Will said.

  The waitress with the waffles—her tag said Denise—pushed herself into the small room and Mrs. Vance turned to her, sobbing. “They think my Angie is dead.”

  The two women embraced and Carina steeled her emotions, willing herself not to remember the agony and pain of losing a loved one to violence. When the two women separated, she asked, “Mrs. Vance, does Angie have a close friend we can speak with? Maybe a boyfriend? Someone who might know where she went Friday night?”

  “That’s what happened,” Mrs. Vance said with a certainty that wasn’t as evident in her shaking hands as it was in her voice
. “She was with Abby and Jodi. They have an apartment near campus, she’s always staying there.” She scrawled the names and an address and phone number on the back of a guest ticket. “Maybe Kayla, but they’re not as close as Angie and Abby.”

  “What about her father?”

  Mrs. Vance shook her head. “Carl left years ago, when Angie was not much more than a baby. He—We don’t keep in touch anymore. He remarried and moved out of state. Doesn’t even remember to send Angie birthday c-cards.” Her words ended in a sob, which she swallowed back, putting a stoic expression on her face. Holding it together.

  “She’ll be back today, after class.” Denial.

  “Do you know her boyfriends?”

  “Angie wasn’t steady with anyone.”

  “She never talked about boyfriends with you?”

  “Yes, but not in detail. She doesn’t have a regular fellow. She’s too young for that, and that’s fine with me. I always tell her—” she stopped suddenly, looking lost.

  “Mrs. Vance?”

  She shook her head, gave them a half-smile. “I was just thinking. Everything is going to be okay. You’re wrong. The poor girl…she’s not Angie.”

  “Mrs. Vance, do you know Steve Thomas?”

  “The name sounds familiar,” she said. “I think she talked about him around Christmas. Or Thanksgiving. I think they went on a couple dates, but it wasn’t serious. Why?”

  Will evaded the question by asking about any other casual boyfriends. Mrs. Vance couldn’t think of any boys Angie had been seeing recently.

  Carina didn’t have any more questions, not right now. She knew she’d have to face Mrs. Vance again, at the funeral, possibly at the house collecting evidence, asking more questions. She certainly wasn’t looking forward to any of it.

  She would much rather interview suspects and witnesses than talk to the victim’s family.

  Will handed Debbie Vance a card with the coroner’s name and address. “If you can come by sometime today to identify the body, we would appreciate it. Just call this number and tell them you’re coming. They’ll have everything ready. You don’t even need to be in the same room, they’ll show you on a screen.”