by Dan Wells
What could I do? What could I tell him? I’d described the killer in vague terms as a large, dark shape that suggested neither Mr Crowley nor a demon. I’d described my own actions, hiding Mr Neblin’s body behind the Crowleys’ shed and hoping the killer didn’t find me. I’d described the sound the killer made that brought my mom out of the house to find me - a kind of strangled roar. These were things the police already knew, and they were virtually the only things I felt confident enough to reveal. Anything else would point back at me as a liar, or as a criminal in my own right.
What I needed to do was to find more details in the information I’d already given. If seeing the killer from my bedroom window was innocent, then suddenly remembering an extra detail - the style of coat he was wearing, maybe - should also be innocent. I needed something specific, so I got on the internet and looked up a few department store catalogues, browsing through men’s coats until I found a good one - thick and rugged, like a rancher’s coat, all straight lines and sturdy fabrics. It would look imposing on a large, shadowed figure, and had no bulges or hoods to make it distinctive; it should be entirely acceptable that I’d forgotten it until now.
Now all I had to do was tell Forman. I didn’t bother waiting; I just got in my car and drove straight to the police station.
‘Hey, John,’ said Stephanie the receptionist. I’d come in often enough since January that she, and many of the cops, knew me by sight, I didn’t know much about her because I did my best not to look; she was very attractive, and my rules against looking at women were just as strict with adults as they were with high-school girls.
‘Hey,’ I said. ‘Is Forman around?’
‘He is,’ she said. She spoke more slowly than normal, and her words trailed off a bit at the end. She was probably tired from the frenzy of activity over the weekend; normally she didn’t even come in on Sundays, but a corpse like this one was sure to mean a lot of extra hours. ‘He’s very busy,’ she said. ‘Do you need to talk to him?’
‘I do. He told me to contact him if I remembered anything new about the Clayton Killer case, and I did. I know you’re busy right now, but he said to come in as soon as I had anything new.’
‘Sure thing,’ said Stephanie. ‘Sign in.’ In my peripheral vision she picked up a phone and held it between her ear and her shoulder. One hand dialled while another one made a few clicks with her mouse. ‘Hello, Agent Forman. I have John Cleaver here to see you.’ Pause. ‘He says you asked him to come in. Apparently he remembered something important?’ She glanced up at me and I nodded. ‘Thank you, I’ll send him in.’ She hung up the phone and pointed at his door. ‘He’s only got a few minutes, but you can head on in.’
I thanked her and walked to his office in the old conference room just off the lobby. Forman looked up briefly when I entered, then dropped his eyes back down to the stack of papers in front of him. The conference table was still covered with files and folders, just like always.
‘Have a seat, John,’ he said. ‘You say you’ve got something new?’
‘I do,’ I said, sitting at the end of the table. ‘You seemed really anxious to hear anything I might remember, so I thought I’d better come in.’
Forman looked up and watched me for a second, his head cocked to the side. ‘I did,’ he said after a moment. ‘I did indeed. I was actually going to call you yesterday, but then we found this new body and things went all haywire.’
‘You were going to call me?’
‘A new avenue of enquiry has opened up in our investigation, but that can wait. What did you want to tell me?’
‘A new avenue of enquiry?’ I didn’t want to play my hand just yet, in case he was thoroughly unimpressed and sent me away; better to draw him out and try to learn as much as I could first.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘even before the new victim was found. That makes two solid leads just this weekend. You could say it’s been a great week - just please don’t say it in front of the victim’s family.’
‘So you’ve already identified the new victim?’
He smiled. ‘Just a tasteless joke. Thanks for not calling me on it.’
He paused, as if waiting for me to say something. I decided the easiest way to avoid suspicion was to ask the most obvious question.
‘Everyone’s saying the Clayton Killer’s back, because of where the body was found. Do you think it’s the same person?’
‘I don’t,’ he said, still watching me, ‘but I do think it’s someone who was involved in the earlier killings. Maybe not the Clayton Killer himself, but someone who knew him. Maybe someone who worked with him.’
‘Serial killers don’t usually have accomplices.’
‘Not usually,’ he said, ‘but it’s not completely unheard of. And a relationship between them doesn’t have to imply a close one, or even a good one. They could have been antagonists, or maybe rivals. It may be that the new killer is showing the old one how he would have done it better.’
I started to ask another question, but Forman cut me off.
‘Enough small talk,’ he said. ‘What have you got?’
I laid it out for him, hoping that a smooth flow of conversation might get him talking about the new victim again later. ‘The killer’s coat,’ I said. ‘He was wearing a big coat, like a workman’s coat. I can’t remember the colour, because it was so dark, but the outline was pretty recognisable.’ The real killer, Mr Crowley, didn’t actually have a coat like that, but I wasn’t trying to help the investigation - just build trust with Forman.
‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘What sparked this memory, if I may ask?’
I’d prepared for that question. ‘It was in a commercial - some people singing in big heavy coats in the middle of summer. I don’t remember what it was for, probably a cellphone or a truck or something, but as soon as I saw the coat on one of the guys it struck some kind of chord in my head, and I knew I’d seen it before.’
‘Interesting,’ said Forman. ‘So you’re saying the guy in the commercial is the Clayton Killer?’
What? ‘No, of course not; there’s probably a million coats like that,’ I said. ‘Of course I’m not saying that. But you asked what sparked the memory, and that was it.’ His comment worried me - it meant he probably wasn’t taking me seriously. Why not? Had I said something to tip him off that I was lying?
‘Yes, yes,’ he said, ‘I know. I’m just in an odd mood today, honestly; lack of sleep. Just forget about it.’ He swivelled in his chair and picked up a thick folder from a low table behind him. ‘Now we’ll be happy to follow up on that information, but first I wonder if you have a minute to discuss this other item?’ He swivelled back to face me, holding the folder.
I nodded warily. ‘The new avenue of enquiry.’
‘Exactly. You see, we’ve subpoenaed Dr Neblin’s case files.’
His expression was flat and passive, but his words hit me like a sledgehammer to the gut. Dr Neblin was the man who’d diagnosed me with Conduct Disorder, and one of the only three people in the world who knew about it; if they had his files, the confidentiality laws I’d been hiding behind for months had just evaporated. I can only imagine Forman’s surprise when he found out that a key witness in his case was also a sociopath.
‘There are a lot of interesting things in there,’ said Forman, setting down the folder and opening it carefully. ‘I wish we’d been able to pull this sooner.’
‘I’m kind of surprised it took this long,’ I said, trying to sound casual.
Forman nodded. ‘How much of this were you planning to tell us?’
‘Only the parts that have a bearing on this case,’ I said.
‘And how much is that?’
‘None of it.’
Forman looked at me unsmiling. ‘Dr Neblin was found dead across the street from your house. You were covered in his blood, though you claim you were trying to help him escape the Clayton Killer. That all seemed pretty believable, especially given that you were the one who called the police that night. But thi
s . . .’ He tapped the paper. ‘This changes everything.’
‘Now that I’m a sociopath I’m suddenly a suspect? Isn’t that some kind of disability discrimination?’
Forman smiled. ‘Yes, he does suggest that you may have sociopathic tendencies, but there’s a lot more than that in here. Neblin points out several major changes in your behaviour after the killings started last fall. Changes that could be read, in a certain light, as being common to the behavioural shift between a potential killer and a practising one.’
I wanted to protest immediately, to tell him I was not a killer, but I stopped. If I protested too much I’d look guilty. It might be better to go straight for the sarcastic approach.
‘You’ve got me,’ I said. ‘I killed Dr Neblin. With an axe. Dipped in poison.’
‘Very cute,’ he said, still unsmiling, ‘but no one is accusing you of killing Dr Neblin.’
‘Most people don’t use poison,’ I said, ignoring him, ‘because they think a big axe blade can do the job on its own. And they’re right, but I say they have no style.’
Forman shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands out. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Confessing,’ I said. ‘Isn’t that what you want?’
‘Dr Neblin wasn’t killed with an axe.’
‘Then it was a good thing I put that poison on there.’
Forman studied me, as if he was watching for something, or listening to something that only he could see or hear. After a moment he said, ‘Did you ever want to kill anyone?’
‘You’re going to have to arrest most of Clayton County if wanting to kill someone is suddenly a crime. They practically lynched one of the suspects, you know.’
‘I was there,’ he said, and an odd look came into his eyes. ‘Mobs can make people think and feel some pretty crazy things. Your case is different though, as I think you have to admit.’
‘I didn’t kill anybody,’ I said, trying to sound as casual as possible, like I was letting him in on a joke instead of protesting my innocence. ‘I’d be pretty stupid to come straight into the police station if I had.’ I knew as soon as I said it that it was a bad argument. Serial killers often involved themselves in their own investigations. Edward Kemper even volunteered at the police station, and was good friends with most of the cops on his case. I waited for Forman to call me on it, but he didn’t mention it.
‘What fascinates me the most,’ he said, almost to himself, ‘is that I didn’t see it earlier.’ He was furrowing his brow and scrunching up a corner of his mouth, which usually meant the person was confused. ‘I’m a criminal profiler, John - I identify sociopaths for a living. How were you able to hide it from me?’
Because of my rules, I thought. I don’t want to be a killer, so I have rules to help keep me just as normal as everyone else.
Well, normal on the surface. Somewhere inside, Mr Monster was just waiting for me to make a mistake. And so, it seemed, was Forman.
‘I’m not really a sociopath,’ I said, hiding behind the definition. ‘I have Conduct Disorder, which is much less developed. People my age almost never become serial killers.’
‘Almost never,’ he said, ‘but sometimes.’
‘I was in therapy to deal with it,’ I said. ‘I follow strict rules to help me avoid temptations. I’ve been completely open about my involvement in this case, and I’ve maintained contact with you, at every step of the way. I’m trying to be the good guy here, so don’t hold this one thing against me.’
Forman stared at me for a while, for much longer than I expected, then grabbed a notepad and started scribbling something on it.
‘Thanks for the tip about the killer’s coat,’ he said, then tore off the notepaper and handed it to me. It was a phone number. ‘If you remember anything else, you don’t need to bother coming in; just call.’
He was sending me away, and I still hadn’t learned much of anything about the new corpse. I thought about asking another question, but it was too dangerous. He was letting me go now without any further questions, which meant I might have convinced him I was innocent. There was no reason to rouse his suspicions again by asking questions about a corpse.
I took the note, nodded, and left.
‘How could you do this!’ Mom shouted, pacing back and forth in the living room. I was sitting on the couch, wishing I were somewhere else. ‘After everything we’ve done - after all the rules and the therapy and everything we do to help you fit in, now Agent Forman thinks you’re a suspect.’
‘Technically, therapy was the main culprit here,’ I said.
‘The main culprit was you,’ she said, stopping and staring at me sternly. ‘If you’d never gotten involved with this to begin with, the FBI wouldn’t even know who you were.’
‘I was trying to help,’ I said, for what seemed like the millionth time over the past five months. ‘Was I just supposed to sit there?’
‘Yes!’ she yelled. ‘Yes, you can just sit there - you don’t have to right every wrong you see, just like you don’t have to run out in the middle of the night so a killer can chase you home.’
So that’s what this was really about. She was afraid that I was going to chase another killer and get myself killed. How many fights had we had about this? I rolled my eyes and turned away.
‘Don’t you ignore me,’ she said. She walked around into my new field of view, her eyes wide and imploring. ‘I’m not asking you to never help - you know I want you to be a good person - I just want you to stay away from certain things. It’s one of our rules, even: “When you think about killing, think about something else”. Anything else. But don’t run out and get right in the middle of it!’ Her face fell and she grimaced. ‘I just - I can’t believe you did this.’
‘And I can’t believe you’re asking me to stand by while people get killed,’ I said.
‘That is not what this is about!’ she cried. ‘This is about staying out of trouble.’
‘Which is going to leave other people in trouble,’ I said. ‘I went outside that night to try to save our neighbours from a killer.’
‘And it was very brave, and it was very stupid. You don’t chase a killer for the same reason that you don’t run into a burning building.’
‘You just stand outside and listen to the screams?’
‘You call the police!’ she said. ‘You call the Fire Department, you call the paramedics; you let the people who know what they’re doing do their job.’
‘It was a monster, Mom, the police couldn’t have—’
‘John—’
‘You saw it!’ I screamed. ‘You saw it with your own eyes, so stop pretending it wasn’t real! It was a monster, with fangs and claws and I stopped it, and instead of a hero you’re treating me like I’m crazy!’
‘We don’t talk about that—’
‘Yes, we do.’ I felt a sharp pain every time she denied it, like a knife in my chest. The hole inside of me was growing wider, deeper, darker - the need to kill, unsated for so long, growing harder and harder to resist. ‘I can’t pretend it wasn’t real any more than I could sit here doing nothing while it killed everyone we know!’
‘We don’t know for sure—’
‘You saw it!’ I shouted again. My eyes felt hot. ‘You saw it! Please don’t say you didn’t; please don’t do this to me.’
She fell silent, now, gazing at me. Watching. Thinking.
The phone rang.
We stared at it. It rang again.
Mom picked it up. ‘Hello?’ She listened for a moment, shaking her head. ‘Just a minute,’ she said, then covered the mouthpiece and looked at me. ‘This discussion is not over,’ she said. ‘I’ll be right back so we can finish talking about this.’ She uncovered the phone and walked into her bedroom. ‘Just a moment, ma’am,’ she said, and closed the door.
I left immediately, struggling to sneak out quietly when all I really wanted to do was smash something. I ran to my car and started the engine, pulling out in a wide curve to head back out of our o
ne-way street. Mom was watching through the curtains, shouting something through the glass but not coming after me. Did she think I was running away, or did she know the real reason?
That I was leaving to stop myself from hurting her?
The roar of the engine was dark and hungry, like a beast breaking free of a cage. Mr Monster wanted to ram every car he passed; to run over every person he saw; to wrap the engine around every pole on every corner in town. I fought him back as I drove, keeping my hands steady and the speed low.
There were times when I needed to be alone, but more important that those were the times when I wanted to be alone - but knew it was a bad idea. Alone, on the shores of Freak Lake, lighting fires at the warehouse, hiding outside of someone’s window, I couldn’t trust myself. Not tonight. I needed other people, and I needed the ones who wouldn’t judge or threaten or condemn. What I needed was Dr Neblin, but he was gone for ever.
