by Alex Jameson
“Good.”
“She also said that the cop, Connor, got my number from her. Sam… she knows. Sarah knows what you’re doing.”
He closed his eyes and sighed. “I was hoping to avoid that.”
“I know. I’m sorry. She… she thinks you’re working with the police, too.”
“Well, she’ll just have to keep thinking that for now.”
He wondered if the knowledge that Sam and Jake were out there, trying to avenge her son’s death, is what gave her the strength to get out of bed and return to work. He doubted it.
“I bet Connor put that in her head…”
“Oh, speaking of,” Lynn said. “There was one thing I forgot to mention when we talked last night. It doesn’t seem too important, but Connor told me that this guy, Harlan, has a stutter.”
Sam froze.
“What did you say?”
“He told me to tell you that this guy you’re after has a stutter.”
His blood ran cold.
He dropped the phone. It bounced off the carpet.
Jake sat up. “You okay, Sam?”
Lynn’s voice sounded small, far away. “Sam? Hello? Are you there, Sam?”
Jake picked up the phone, not taking his eyes off Sam. “You’re going to have to call him later, Lynn.” He hung up. “Sam, what is it?”
“Son of a bitch.” Short. Chubby. Bald. Bearded. With a stutter.
Tears stung his eyes.
“Son of a bitch!” Sam tore the lamp off the bedside table and hurled it against the wall. It shattered.
Jake ducked to avoid shrapnel. “Dude, what the hell?!”
“I… I saw him.” He looked up at Jake. His vision was blurry. “Jake, the guy has a stutter… I saw him. I talked to him. I sat right fucking next to him in a diner, and I… I… joked with him.”
“Hey, you don’t know that was the same guy—”
“It was in Arborton, Jake!” Sam was on his feet now. “The day after the murders!” He punched the wall that led to the bathroom. Plaster cracked and rained on the carpet. Pain shot up his hand. “Fuck!” He slumped to the floor, his back against the wall and his head in his hands. “He was right there. Right there. God, how could I be so stupid?”
Jake sat on the edge of the bed facing his brother. “Look at me, Sam. Look at me. There is no way you could have known that was him.”
“But I—”
“No way.”
Sam sighed and wiped his eyes.
Jake leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “Now I need you to think, real hard. Do you remember his face?”
Sam closed his eyes and recalled the diner. The smells. The greasy food. The TV over the bar. The guy seated next to him—egg yolk dribbling down his chin. “Yes. I remember.”
“And what did you talk to him about?”
Sam scoffed at himself. “Clowns. Of course we talked about clowns.”
“What did he say?”
“He said…” Sam rubbed his forehead, feeling the coarse scar and stitches. “He said something about the moon. He thinks the moon is making people, I don’t know, turn into these clowns. It was something like a Hunter’s moon—I remember that because I thought of Lynn.”
“Yeah, that sounds crazy, alright. What else? Did he say anything about himself?”
“He told me that he was like a building inspector or something from Tennessee—which was obviously a lie.” Sam had lied too, told the guy that he was on his way home to Kentucky.
“Was that it? Did you talk about anything else? Come on, there must have been something he said.”
“No… yes. There was something else. I brought up the Clown Killer…” Sam laughed bitterly at himself. “I brought up the Clown Killer to the Clown Killer. I called him a psycho. And he said something like, ‘Maybe he’s just trying to protect people.’” Sam shrugged. “That was it. That was all we talked about.”
“So we got a guy that thinks the moon is turning people into clowns, and that he’s protecting people by killing them. I’m no shrink, but it sounds like some sort of savior complex. Now, you said you had some sort of plan?”
Sam squeezed his eyes shut and grimaced. “I can’t believe I could be that stupid. He was right there—”
Jake leaned forward and stuck a finger in Sam’s face. “Now you listen to me. Are you going to sit here and be a weepy little bitch about something you couldn’t possibly have known? Because if so, I’ll leave your ass here and go find him myself. Or are you going to man the fuck up, get off the floor, and tell me your dumb plan?”
Sam blinked at him.
Someone knocked on the motel door. “Hey, everything alright in there? Neighbor heard a crash.” It was the clerk from the office.
“Uh, yeah, everything’s fine!” Jake called back. “I, uh, fell.”
“Alright, then.”
Jake pursed his lips, but couldn’t contain himself. He snorted and laughed. Sam shook his head and smiled.
“Help me up.” Jake grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet. “It is a dumb plan, by the way—”
“Dumb plan is better than no plan.”
“I had a dream last night that there was this, just massive gathering of clowns, in a big field at night. There must have been two, three hundred of them. And our guy was somewhere in the crowd. I was trying to find him. Every once in a while, I would hear a scream, or a yelp, and I would follow it—and find a dead clown, but no killer.”
“I’m not sure I’m following.”
“That was just the dream. The idea, though, is… what if we could bait him somehow? What if we could make a big gathering like that, and publicize it? He wouldn’t be able to resist, especially if he thinks this is all supernatural or something. He’d have to come. Right?”
“I don’t know. I think the more important question is, how would we do something like that?”
“We could start by putting in calls to news networks and radio stations and places like that. Lots of calls. Tell them that there’s supposed to be some big clown gathering at such-and-such time at such-and-such place. If they buy it, they air it. People see it. Other clowns will want in on it.”
“So our lie could create the gathering.” Jake stroked his chin. “We could post some stuff online. Get Lynn to make some calls for us. Sarah too, maybe. Whoever we can find.” He snapped his fingers. “When’s the full moon this month?”
“Not sure.” Sam grabbed the tablet and checked. “Already passed; it was on the sixteenth.”
“Bummer. I thought we could try to work that in there somehow. If the moon is mentioned, how could he stay away?”
“It’s a good idea; I just don’t know how we’d work it in.” Sam drummed his fingers against his leg. “What about the new moon?” Sam consulted the tablet again and smirked. “Jeez. It’s on the thirtieth.”
“So?”
“So, that’s Mischief Night.”
“Mischief Night? What, like when we used to go egging and TP-ing houses?”
“Yeah. That’s in three nights. Plenty of time to get the word out, right? And you know there’ll be chaos in the streets.”
Jake nodded. “I hadn’t even thought of that. Three days, though? He could have three more victims by then, maybe more, while we’re planning.”
“It’s all we’ve got. It’s better than just chasing him around blind. And if he knows it’s a new moon, he might see some significance in it.”
“Alright, then.” Jake sat and took the tablet from Sam. “We’ll need a place…”
CHAPTER 25
* * *
After learning the identity of Harlan Kidd, Agent Reidigger sent Cole on the first available flight back to North Carolina to investigate—to check out his place, search his storage unit, and question coworkers, who were still on the picket lines outside of Fischer-White. She rented a car at the airport; it wasn’t in their budget to have a car waiting. She preferred it that way, low-profile and low-key. She wasn’t as into the self-important aspects of
the job as some of the other agents. But the cloak-and-dagger espionage-type stuff… that was right up her alley.
It was dark out by the time she was on the highway headed toward Asheville. It dawned on her that she hadn’t taken her phone off airplane mode. Within a minute it rang.
“What the hell, Cole, I’ve been trying to reach you for an hour!” Reidigger practically shouted.
She sighed. She didn’t dislike Reidigger, but she didn’t care much for the man either. He was a consummate professional most of the time—almost to a fault. Not once did they ever have a personal conversation. She didn’t know if he was married, had kids, where he grew up; everything was about the job, always. He did have a penchant for losing his temper from time to time, which she had a hunch was how he ended up on creepy clown duty… likely shouting at the wrong superior.
“Sorry, sir,” she said patiently. “Flight was delayed; I just got in the car now.”
“Good, good. Then you’re available to tell me why the hell I’m getting information on the seventh victim from the news, and not a call on my cell phone!”
“I’m sure I don’t know, sir. I would imagine the police talked to the media.”
She allowed herself a small smile of satisfaction when she heard him huff on the other end of the line.
“I want you to call the home office,” he said, “again. Remind them that every police station in the country should know that if they have leads, if they have suspects, if they have findings, if they have evidence, if they have bodies, they need to call me. Not goddamn channel five!”
“Yes, sir. I’ll call them again.”
“Thank you.” He sighed and was quiet for a long moment—almost a full minute.
She waited.
“Truck driver, wearing a clown mask, was found in his rig outside a McDonald’s about halfway between Indianapolis and Dayton,” Reidigger explained. “Guy was stabbed four times in the throat with, who knows what. A small knife or a pair of scissors. Punctured his carotid. It would appear, from what I’m seeing, that our guy Harlan stashed his bloody clothes and made an escape wearing the victim’s jacket and pants.”
Cole shuddered a little. She’d dealt with murderers before, and she’d seen victims before. But this guy… this was something different. This wasn’t someone with a misguided sense of country or church; this was a psychopath.
“Should I head back to the airport?” she asked.
“No, stay your course. I’m going up to check it out. Just report back to me with whatever you find, and call the home office again.” He hung up.
***
“You sure you’re okay with doing this?” Sam stood in the parking lot of the motel, leaning against the old Buick and cradling the cell phone with his shoulder.
“Yes,” Lynn assured him. “Anything to help.”
He and Jake had been planning for most of the day, making some calls and scouring the internet. It was nearly sundown; his stomach rumbled. He hadn’t eaten anything since the donut that morning.
“It can’t come back around to you,” Sam worried.
“It won’t,” she said.
He smiled a rueful smile. “You’ve come a long way from ‘I never want to see you again.’”
Lynn had called him from a pay phone in Kingston to check in, and Sam had asked for a favor—a big one. She didn’t hesitate to agree.
“I just want you home safe.” She sniffed once. It was getting chilly out; he imagined her there, at the pay phone, hunching her shoulders and hugging her elbows like she did when she was cold. “I think I’m starting to realize something.”
“What’s that?”
“That who you were—the comfy job, the nice apartment, the quiet life—I don’t think that’s really who you are. I think this, here, is who you are.”
“Lynn—”
“No, it’s… it’s okay. You’re a protector. This is what you know. I don’t want to be the one responsible for pigeonholing you into being something you’re not. I think—I think I can be okay with it.”
He didn’t say anything for a while, mostly because she wasn’t wrong. He’d quit smoking more than three years earlier, when he and Lynn first started dating, but he desperately craved one now.
“I can’t believe I had him,” Sam said. “He was right there.” He’d told her about the diner experience, and his screw-up.
“You need to stop beating yourself up over that. You couldn’t have known then.”
“I know.”
The motel door opened and Jake filled the frame. His eyes were wide and he ushered Sam inside with a frantic wave of his hand.
“Uh, Lynn, I have to go. Touch base tomorrow, okay?” He hung up and headed into the room. “What’s up?”
Jake held the tablet out to him. “There was just another. Check it out.”
Sam scanned the article. A truck driver named John Bayliss, a father of three from Provo, Utah, was stabbed to death in his semi in a McDonald’s parking lot. He was wearing a clown mask.
“Jesus, this was only about an hour north of us,” Sam murmured. “Should we go check it out?”
Jake shook his head. “I don’t think there’s going to be anything for us to see. The scene of the murder was the cab of the truck. Freakin’ people, man—they called the media before they called the cops.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Wish I was. Did you get to the part about what the truck was hauling?”
“No…”
“The truck company was contracted by the distributor of a chain of seasonal Halloween stores. It was full of clown stuff—makeup and costumes and whatnot.”
Sam nodded slowly. “I’m picking up what you’re putting down. Where was the truck headed?”
“Not sure, but if our friend Harlan knew—”
“Then that’s where he’s probably going. Can you make some calls?”
***
Harlan Kidd’s home was most of the first floor and basement of a three-story house that had been converted into apartments. Agent Cole had no problems with the lock on the back door; she’d learned to pick basic knob locks when she was fourteen. She did a slow circuit around the entire place before she took out her cell phone and opened the voice recording app.
“Kitchen lights were left on. Cell phone was left on the counter, either powered down or battery died. Wallet with photo ID and credit cards was left on the dresser in the bedroom.”
There was a cordless phone mounted on the wall in the kitchen. She pressed the answering machine message button and recorded it.
“You’ve r-reached Har… Harlan. I’m afraid I c-can’t come to, to the phone r-right now…”
He went on to claim he had come down with mono and would be unavailable for several days.
“Seems our guy has a stutter,” she said into the recorder.
Otherwise there was nothing of note in the apartment. The bed was made; the place was pretty clean, fairly ordinary. Most of the furniture appeared to be well worn, likely inherited from his mother when she passed.
Cole knocked on the doors to the other two apartments in the building. Neither neighbor recalled seeing Harlan for several days, which wasn’t out of the ordinary; they only ever saw him leaving for or coming home from work. She headed back out to the rental car, a blue Chevy Malibu, when her phone rang.
“Agent Cole.”
“Hey, I ran that background check on Harlan Kidd like you asked. Took some time; guy is a serious nobody. No priors, no social media presence, not much of anything… so I took the liberty of dipping into his medical records. Turns out he was on amitriptyline and perphenazine—”
“Amitriptyline… an antidepressant?”
“Antidepressant, anti-anxiety, anti-agitation… The two are used in combination to treat several mental illnesses. According to his files, he had bouts of schizophrenia and mania, but was never formally diagnosed with either.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means either he
had a shady doctor, or his symptoms were too inconsistent for a specific diagnosis. There’s more, and this took a hell of a lot of digging. His shrink referenced some childhood trauma, something that happened to him when he was just a kid. It was all pen and paper back then, so it wasn’t easy to find, but apparently his parents took him to a doctor in New York once or twice, back in 1982.”
“He would have been, what, ten or eleven?”
“Right. Luckily the place is still open and kept all those old records. It took them a few hours to find it. The short version is, something happened to this guy when he was a kid, and he never talked about it. Ever. In fact, after it happened, he didn’t talk at all for almost a year.”
Cole sighed. “And when he did again, he had a stutter.”
“Yeah. How’d you know that?”
“Listen, I want you to keep digging. Try to find out what happened to him—”
“Cole, I’m not sure there’s anything to find.”
“Try anyway. I’ll report to Reidigger. I’m heading over to the plant where he worked to see if anyone is still on the picket lines I can talk to. If I find anything, I’ll let you know.”
She hung up and immediately called Reidigger.
“Tell me something good, Cole.”
She gave him the bad news first. She reported on her lack of findings at Harlan Kidd’s apartment, and then told him about the results of the background check on him.
“Hm. It doesn’t give us a whole lot of new information,” Reidigger said. “We already knew the guy was a head case.”
“Though I’m willing to bet whatever it was that happened to him had something to do with a clown,” Cole mused.
“Yeah. You know what? Change of plans. Call Grayson back and ask him to look into clown sightings and attacks from 1980 to 1982, specifically in the North Carolina area. I’m en route to the trucker’s murder site, but I’ll keep my phone on. Call me with any new info.”
“I will. Uh, sir?”
“Yeah?”
“Maybe it’s time to release his name to the media. We could have a lot more eyes and ears out there than just our own—”
