by Dianne Emley
“You were at a crossroads. Baby or career? It was too late for an abortion, so you made up a story about having to care for a sick grandmother out-of-state and took a leave of absence. The baby problem gone, the illicit affair buried, you went on to a stellar career.”
Vining saw him tremble as his excitement fed off Gilroy’s fear. His fluffy cheeks were steadily flushed now and he was breathing through his mouth.
“You became a real hero, Mother. An inspiration to women everywhere. Look at Betsy Gilroy! See what she accomplished! Look at the heights we women can reach!”
He waved the knife in front of Gilroy, like an artist facing his canvas, waiting for the muse to direct him where he should apply the paintbrush next.
“You had all the time in the world for polishing the brass stars on your collar, but you couldn’t give the time of day to your first-born son. I spent a lot of time and money to find you. Remember the gift I’d bought just for you? Pearls and your birthstone. It was a simulated sapphire, but it was all I could afford then.”
He darted the knife toward Gilroy, who jerked back. He picked up the pearl necklace with the knife blade.
“When you finally agreed to meet me, you at first looked at me like I was the abortion you wished you’d had. I was the last person you wanted to see in your little village where you were hot stuff. The heir apparent to the top cop. I was your dirty little secret incarnate. Then you came around and were polite and pleasant and said all the right things, political animal that you are. You looked thrilled to receive my little gift.
“For a time, I deluded myself into thinking that you were being motherly toward me. You even helped get me a security job at the Rose City shopping center. You found me a place to stay in the Joseph’s guest cottage. For my part, I honored your wish to keep our true relationship a secret. I honored your wish until you betrayed me. It was a small betrayal, but aren’t they always the most cutting?
“You gave my humble gift— the pearl necklace with the sapphire— to your beloved Cookie. I had no choice but to respond. To hurt you like you’d hurt me. Cookie probably confessed to you that she’d lost the necklace.”
He put on a falsetto voice. “Silly me. How could I have been so careless? Can you forgive me, Betsy?”
His voice returned to normal. “I’m sure you told her not to worry, while secretly you were glad to be rid of it. How could you have known that I had stolen it from Cookie’s apartment, and I forced her to put it on before—” He lunged his face menacingly close to Gilroy’s. “I slit her throat.”
Vining saw spray from his mouth fly onto Gilroy, who flinched and pressed her eyes closed.
“I destroyed her, your sweet, little Cookie-Ookie.” He picked up the necklace from Gilroy’s chest and drew his fingers along it as he spoke.
“She’d gone out with her girlfriends. They were drinking and laughing. Cookie had parked away from the others, down a dark street. ‘Don’t worry about me, girls. I’m a cop.’ They’d all had a big laugh and Cookie walked away, almost right into my arms. Imagine her surprise when I grabbed her from behind and put my hand over her mouth. ‘Hello, Cookie. Remember me?’ She thought she was a tiger, but …” He shrugged.
The fire and fight that Gilroy had shown earlier was slipping away. She seemed resigned to her fate.
As absorbed as Vining was by this perverted family tale, one question above all others nagged her. Why was she here?
Persons stroked Gilroy’s necklace as he continued to talk. His voice had a chilling, affectless monotone that hinted at the churning passions beneath. “I put her into her own car and drove it to the Foothill Museum, where she always met him. That night, though, she had a date with me.”
His plan had been to rape Cookie and to disappear. To leave town and the mother who didn’t want him, never to return. He’d left his truck where he’d abducted Cookie, planning to walk back to get it later. At the barn, he’d set the scene with the Coleman lantern and the patchwork quilt Cookie had used during her trysts with her boyfriend. He’d had her strip off her clothes and then he’d tied her wrists and ankles. Completing the scene, he’d slipped the pearl necklace over her head. Cookie had seemed passive as she lay on the quilt. Everything was ready. Everything except … him. He was a limp noodle.
His impotent fumbling roused Cookie from her stupor. Her notorious sharp tongue unleashed a barrage of insults to his manhood. She wouldn’t stop, even when he strung her up by her ankles, thinking he’d show her a thing or two. Surprisingly, that got him going. The more afraid she was, the more excited he became. Her talking now got in the way, so he took duct tape from the duffel he’d thrown into her car and used it to silence her. He gave her a good shove and watched her swing upside down as he stroked himself, her terrified eyes sending him to new heights of excitement. Then he had a wicked idea. It excited him even more. He took out the folding knife that he’d used to cut the rope and slowly moved toward Cookie, savoring every second of her horror.
But Tanner’s fun had been interrupted by that idiot caretaker who’d jumped screaming from his hiding place. Tanner had fled into the woods, covered in blood. After the handyman had gone back inside the cabin, Tanner had again crept into the barn. He’d finally achieved release at Cookie’s expense, but the victory was Pyrrhic. As he picked up Cookie’s blood-splattered blouse to keep as a souvenir he vowed that next time, he would get it right. Still, he’d learned an important lesson: Murder was an aphrodisiac.
He let out a small moan and bit his lower lip as he replayed Cookie’s murder in his mind. “Until I killed Cookie, I didn’t realize how pleasurable— how satisfying— the act would be. It went beyond my wildest dreams. It set my life on a new path. It touched a part of me that I thought might exist, but had never experienced. It was a deity of delight.”
He cackled and looked at Vining for approval of his attempt to be cute.
She gave him a weak smile and nod.
His eyes had brightened while recounting his moment of epiphany but they darkened again. “You knew I murdered Cookie, didn’t you, Mother?”
She shook her head and made muffled protestations.
“Yes, you did.”
She continued to express denial.
“Then why did you take the necklace off Cookie’s body? I made Cookie wear it as a message to you. When you took it, you were telling me, ‘I understand.’”
Gilroy shook her head, frowning gravely.
“When you and that lame-brained sergeant were the first to arrive and he had to run outside to puke, that gave you just enough time to take the necklace. You threw it into the woods. You probably thought it was simple luck that it was never found. But I was still there, hiding. I wasn’t going to miss any of the fun. I picked up the necklace that you threw away and it’s served as my inspiration ever since. I wore it during the whole walk back to my truck, covered in Cookie’s blood, laughing and laughing. See, Mother, that was the night you became my accomplice. Didn’t you?”
Gilroy persisted in shaking her head and protesting from behind her duct-taped lips.
“You’ve been my accomplice ever since. By railroading Axel Hol-comb, you showed me how a pro covers up a murder.” He shouted, “Admit it!”
He was blocking Vining’s view when she heard Gilroy’s muffled protests turn into a muffled scream.
When he moved away, Vining saw a Z carved into Gilroy’s other cheek. Blood dripped onto the other side of her blouse. She was breathing hard through her nose. Her forehead glistened with perspiration.
Persons admired this new wound, the tip of his pink tongue poking between his lips. He touched the cut and put his finger into his mouth, wrapping his lips around it as he pulled it out. The bulge in his pants was undeniable.
“Didn’t it happen just like that, Mother?”
Gilroy still feebly protested while staring at his hand that still held the knife, wondering where it would land next.
Without warning, he slammed the knife onto the counter and bega
n half unbuttoning and half tearing at his shirt buttons. He yanked off his tie and threw it to the ground, followed by the shirt.
Vining and Gilroy both looked in horror at the many small wounds, both fresh and scarred-over, that covered his pasty-white, overhanging belly. There was a tuft of hair on his chest between his flabby pectorals and pink nipples. He grabbed the knife and cut his abdomen.
Vining was so startled, she rocked the chair backward, the legs scuttling against the wood-plank floor, almost toppling over.
Persons looked down at the damage he’d inflicted, and then closed his eyes with obvious relief. Surprisingly, his skin color improved. His face wasn’t as bright red as it had been before. Blood ran down his belly onto his pants and dripped onto the floor. He touched the blood and held up his hand as if to admire it.
Reaching his bloody hand into the duffel bag, he took out a roll of paper towels. He tore off a sheet, folded it into a square, and slapped it against the wound, making it look like a perverse shaving nick.
Taking one of the champagne flutes from the island, he filled it with water from the sink there and drank it down. He seemed eerily calmer and had recovered the disturbing boyishness he’d shown earlier.
He reached inside his black bag of tricks and took out another handgun—a .45. He stuck it beneath his belt, where it made an indentation against his flabby, blood-streaked belly.
He held his hand over the open box of knives, as if trying to decide upon a bonbon from an assortment. He reached in and pulled out the butcher knife. He ran his thumb over the blade. Again, he found the edge wanting and began to hone it against the steel. He took no notice that the blood-soaked paper towel had fallen off and blood was dribbling everywhere.
He again rounded the island, but this time, he went to Vining.
The knife blade flashed as he twisted and turned it in front of her face. “This is such a fine instrument.” Picking up the rag, he moistened it with more gasoline and cleaned the knife before setting it down.
“Officer Vining, I’m going to untie you, but you have to promise to be a good girl. Bad girls get punished. Just ask Mother.” He shot a mischievous glance at Gilroy
He loosened the cords that bound Vining’s feet to the chair. He began to peel the duct tape from her mouth, using more care than he’d shown with Gilroy.
“Stand up,” he ordered. He unlocked her handcuffs.
She brought her hands front and rubbed her wrists.
Using the rag to pick up the freshly sharpened butcher knife, he presented it to her and said, “Kill her. Kill Betsy Gilroy.”
FIFTY-TWO
VINING’S ROLE WAS NOW CLEAR. EVERY POLICEWOMAN HE’D MURDERED or had attempted to murder had stood in for the one he couldn’t bring himself to kill— his mother.
He sat in the chair she’d vacated, holding the .45 aimed at her. He slid his fingers beneath the butt of the Taser in the holster that painfully dug into the mound of fat that billowed over the top of his belt. He stood, took out the Taser, and set it on the island. Using the paring knife, he periodically made more small cuts in his abdomen. He stuck folded squares of paper towels on them from the roll by his feet. The paper towels weren’t doing the job.
Vining wondered, the way he was bleeding, if he would lose enough blood to pass out or even die. She tentatively held her grandmother’s butcher knife, without conviction.
“Go ahead, Officer Vining,” he goaded.
Vining looked at Gilroy, who seemed unaffected by this development. Vining decided she was either shell-shocked or didn’t fear she’d actually do what Persons wanted.
He raised his eyebrows as if something had just become clear. “A knife’s not your style? Then pick another weapon. Pick another room in the house. Remember that old board game called Clue? We’ll make our own game of Clue. Officer Vining killed Betsy Gilroy in the study with the candlestick.”
He again laughed like a castrated hyena.
Vining toyed with the butcher knife. “What did you do to my grandmother?”
He pressed his lips together, making his cheeks puff out. “Nothing. She was snoring like a locomotive in bed when I left.”
She was inclined to believe him, thinking he would have bragged about killing the old lady. She hoped.
“Your plan is to make it look like I killed Chief Gilroy and you weren’t even here.”
“Exactamundo.”
“But your blood is getting all over.”
He laughed, “Yeah,” as he looked down at himself. “I’m a mess. Doesn’t matter. They’re going to find a murder committed by a cop with emotional problems who spilled gasoline all over and set the house on fire before she shot herself. They’re not going to analyze buckets of blood.”
“Why do you cut yourself like that?” She knew about cutters, but thought it was the domain of disturbed teenaged girls.
“You mean, like this?” He flicked the paring knife against his arm the same way he might flick off a fly. He shuddered as he observed the fresh wound. “It hurts, but it feels good, too. It relaxes me.”
As revolting as she found this behavior, she egged him on. If he cut himself enough and she waited long enough …
“Tanner … May I call you Tanner?”
“Please do.”
“Tanner, you say cutting calms you, but I think it excites you too, maybe a little.”
“It’s not about the blood. The blood’s a by-product. It’s about the metal against flesh. It’s the opening up. It opens up and you see something new. You release something bad. It’s like the chaff that comes away from the wheat.” He pulled off a soaked paper towel and gingerly probed a fresh wound, making it bleed anew. “See. Look how much is there beneath the skin. I don’t really like guns. There’s no art in firing a gun. You can’t control a bullet like you can a knife. I’m talking about for the finer work I do.”
She leaned against the island and set the butcher knife on top. Guns were her weapons of choice in all situations. Her two guns were inches from her fingers. Could she reach them before he could shoot her? She doubted it.
“I’m confused, Tanner, because you used a gun to kill Scrappy.” She’d sensed his hand in Scrappy’s murder since she’d first seen the China Dog 187 tag. She was fishing now and hoped he’d bite. He did.
His expression changed to disdain. “Scrappy. That wasn’t art. That was extermination.”
“Why did you kill him?”
“He tried to blackmail me.”
“Over what?”
He turned his ice-blue eyes on her and said matter-of-factly, “You. Those arrow guys started showing up across the street from where I work. Scrappy was the one there at night. My boss told us security guards to keep an eye on them. To go over there and chat them up. See if we could find out what they were up to. He thought they were planning on robbing the company. Steal all their organic face cream, or something.
“So, each night I went over and me and Scrappy had a chat. We got kinda friendly. He talked about how much he hated this Chinese guy he worked for and how much he hated cops. Somehow your name came up. He talked about how you used to pay him for information. He had the hots for you. Your name came up a couple of times. Maybe I brought it up. One night, he had that drawing of me that was in the papers and demanded money.”
He made a rude noise. “Stupid beaner junkie. I told him I’d give him money. Drugs, too. Whatever he wanted. I gave him a place and a time and told him to come alone.” He beamed, showing those small teeth. “Easy as pie.”
Vining nodded. “And you painted the China Dog tag to make it look like it involved his boss, Marvin Li.”
“Precisely. It worked, didn’t it? The cops landed on that slope gimp like flies on manure.”
“You sent us in the wrong direction, that’s for sure.” She grinned.
He grinned back. The blood from the wound on his arm that he hadn’t bothered to blot dripped onto the floor.
Vining thought it looked like the deepest one yet. “Tanner,
I’m so glad we have this chance to talk. There’s so much I want to ask you.”
“We have time.” He sat back down.
“Tell me something. You didn’t use a knife to kill Marilu Feathers. You used a gun.”
He turned up his lips, dwelling on the memory. “Marilu. If I had it to do over again, I would have chosen a knife.”
“You didn’t have the chance to touch her like you did Cookie and Johnna Alwin, and certainly weren’t able to hold her like you held me.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gilroy maneuvering her feet. The chief was wearing slip-on shoes. If she could get her feet out of them, she might be able to slide from the cord that bound her ankles.
“Remember how tightly you held me, Tanner?” Vining moved to stand in front of him, blocking his view. “How excited you were? I remember.”
He gave her a look that was so replete with sexual longing, it was all she could do to keep from gagging.
He squirmed in the chair. He had a goofy expression on his face that she interpreted as a perverted come-hither look.
She went on, giving Gilroy time to keep working her feet free. “Remember my blood gushing all over your yellow shirt? Flowing from my neck and down your chest onto that pretty yellow shirt. And you kept that shirt. Did you touch yourself while playing with it? I bet you did. Tell me about it. Don’t leave out any details.”
He inhaled a wavering breath and lost his aim with the .45 when his wrist dropped as he became distracted. “You’d better slow down.”
“Why, Tanner? Why should I slow down?”
“Because I told you to.”
“But why? All that blood….” Vining lowered her voice seductively. “You held me so tight. I knew what you wanted. I felt you, so hard against me.” She wondered if this was how it felt to be a phone-sex operator.
He made another quick cut on his arm. It was also deep, and bled furiously. His tone of voice changed. “I don’t want to talk about that.” He stood, covered in blood, and again aimed the .45 at her. “I’m in charge here. Not you.”
