What Doesn’t Kill Her

by Max Allan Collins

  “I know. I have access to the file. Sit. Please.”

  She did.

  He said, “Serial killers often keep souvenirs of their atrocities. Mementoes.”

  Her eyes disappeared into slits. “They’re evidence. Mark, Jesus, Mark, he must have some kind of horrible scrapbook, and monstrous as that is, that’s great!”

  “It… it is?”

  “Find that scrapbook, and you’ve found him.”

  “True. And that book, or maybe data file, will put him on death row.”

  They sat in silence for what felt like a very long time, to Mark at least. She was staring at her folded hands or maybe the tabletop. Anyway, not at him.

  Finally, still looking down, she said, “What David and Kay wouldn’t tell you? That I had told them?”

  “Yes?”

  “That’s the reason I reacted like that. When you tried to kiss me.”

  “Wh… what is?”

  Her eyes lifted from the table and they were clear and lovely with no sign of tears. As if telling him what tomorrow’s weather would be, she said, “He raped me.”

  Mark felt like he’d been struck a blow to his stomach, so hard a blow that the wind was knocked from him. His vision blurred, and he felt very sick.

  “Where,” he said softly, “is your…?”

  She pointed, and he ran, and he knelt over the stool and threw up the pizza and the cola. It came up hard and wrenching and he was still kneeling over the stool when she entered, flushed it for him, knelt by him, and slipped her arm around him, patting his shoulder. There there, there there.…

  She helped him to his feet and then slipped out and let him wash up. He threw water on his face, looked at himself in the mirror and saw an exhausted, emotion-ravaged wreck. You’re really showing her some great support, pal, he told himself, and toweled off his face.

  Then they were sitting at the table again. Now she was watching him until he was ready to speak.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “Did he do that to anyone else?”

  “Huh?”

  “Rape anyone else?”

  “Not… not that’s been reported.”

  “I never told anyone.”

  “I know.” You didn’t talk for ten years. “They didn’t examine you?”

  “I bathed and changed my clothes before the police came. A doctor looked at my bruises from the struggle, but that’s all.”

  “I’m so sorry, so sorry you went through that. All alone.”

  “Don’t start crying. If you cry, Mark, I’ll cry, and I don’t want to fucking cry. Get it?”

  He nodded.

  She was frowning. “I don’t understand why he did it to me.”

  “Power. Rape is about power.”

  “I know that! But I’m the only one, seems like, that he did it to. He killed my family. Power? He could have killed me at any time. How much power does one fucking asshole need?”

  “He… he wanted to own you, to show you that whether you lived or died was his decision.”

  She grinned at him. How could she grin? “Wonder why I was silent all those years? Why I haven’t talked to anyone about this until lately?”

  “Tell me.”

  “Because he said he wanted me to tell his story.”

  “Wanted…? His story?”

  “That’s right. Well, fuck him. That was my attitude, from that first night on. I wasn’t going to say anything about him—ever.”

  He frowned at her. “Why break your silence now?”

  “The Strongsville homicides. I saw it on the news. I knew it was him. I had to stop him.”

  “You had to… stop him?”

  “Yes. And I’ve let you and the support group in, because I don’t think I can find him on my own.”

  Mark was studying her. “And if you find him? What then?”

  “… Turn him over to the police.”

  It almost sounded like a question.

  He said, “I hope so. Because I can’t help you, if you’re looking for revenge.”

  “I want revenge, but I’ll settle for justice.”

  Mark put his hand on hers. She started to draw it away, then left it there. Their eyes were locked as he said, “Do I have to tell you how dangerous this individual is? You cannot deal with this yourself. Tell me you won’t try to deal with this yourself.”

  “I’m not. Who was it said, ‘I get by with a little help from my friends’?”

  “Stopping him is what’s important. Getting even… you can’t get even with a lunatic. You can only stop him.”

  She sighed. Nodded. “There is one other thing about that night.…”

  “Yes?”

  “When he was… done? He said some very weird shit to me.”

  “Weird how?”

  “ ‘Thou shalt not wear a garment of different sorts, as of woolen and linen together.’ ”

  “Deuteronomy 22:11,” Mark said.

  “You know the Bible?”

  “Some. Enough to recognize that’s not the King James version.”

  “No?”

  “King James uses the phrase ‘divers sorts’ instead of ‘different sorts’.”

  She was frowning. “What the hell does it mean?”

  Mark said, “What it means to us isn’t important. What it means to the killer, and his twisted take on it, could be vital.”

  “So… where do we go from here?”

  “If you’ll allow it, I’ll meet with you and your team. They can show me what they have, and maybe I can bend a few rules and share some of what I’ve learned.”

  Her half smile had a wry tinge. “Isn’t that better?”

  “Better?”

  “Than going behind my back?”

  “Much,” he said, and grinned at her. “It’s, uh… getting late. I really should go.…”

  He hoped she’d have a different opinion, but instead she just walked him to the door.

  “Trust me, Jordan. We’ll catch this SOB.”

  She smiled at him. “Pretty salty talk.”

  “Maybe you’re a bad influence on me,” he said, and as she closed the door on him and her own small smile, he found himself wishing she’d be a much worse influence than that.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “He kissed you?” Kara said, gawking at Jordan.

  “More like he tried,” Jordan said, shrugging. “I about knocked him on his ass, and that shut him down.”

  “You want him ‘shut down’?”

  “One thing I don’t need is a man in my life. There’s already a man in my life.”

  “A man in your life that you want to kill.” This time Kara shrugged. “Maybe there’s room for one you want to kiss.”

  Jordan shook her head. “No. Anyway… no.”

  “Anyway what?”

  She sighed. “I doubt he wants to even touch me now. After what I told him.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “… About what the intruder really did to me that night.”

  Kara leaned forward. “You told him?”

  She nodded. “And it made him sick.”

  Kara shook her head and the punky hair bounced. “He got sick because he cares about you. Not because you sicken him or some shit. Girl, you need to screw that head on tighter.”

  “Moot point.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t want to kiss him. I don’t want to fuck him either, okay? All he is to me is a resource.”

  “A resource. A very cute resource who brings you pizza and Coke.”

  “A resource who can help me nail the son of a bitch I’m after. Got a problem with that?”

  “No. I’m all over that, sweetie. I only wish I was out of this craphole so I could help you slice and dice the motherfucker.”

  Jordan smiled. “You are a good friend, Kara.”

  They bumped fists.

  Kara said, “So what now, honey?”

  “I told Mark he could stop by our little postgroup team meeting.”

>   “You think he will?”

  “Oh yeah. He’ll be there. He’s almost as fucked-up about this thing as I am.”

  Jordan was one of the last to arrive at the support group meeting, at its regular late Saturday morning slot, and she took the empty seat, next to Phillip. Typically, he wore the long-sleeved white shirt, tie, and cotton vest, shades of gray today except for the navy blue tie.

  Across the circle, David sat with Kay and Levi on either side. They each acknowledged her with a nod, but without a smile. Not even Kay smiled at her, and Kay would smile at anybody or anything.

  Were they mad at her?

  David and Kay had both talked to Mark, so they might know that she hadn’t shared with them that she’d already been talking to a CPD detective about the case, without cluing in the team.

  After Dr. Hurst called the meeting to order, the first speaker was a new member of the group, a woman who had been mugged on a bike path, her wounds so fresh she still sported the black eye and the swollen jaw earned for having the temerity to jog in a mugger’s wonderland.

  After the woman had told her tale, Jordan asked her—her name was Alice—if she would describe the two muggers. Everyone looked at Jordan curiously, but when the woman said the two men were African-American, and then went into a defensive, anxious spiel about not being racist, Jordan stopped listening. She’d only wanted to make sure this wasn’t that same pair of muggers from a few nights ago. If that had been the case, there might have been significance to it. But this was just more random violence in the minefield.

  Jordan paid scant attention throughout group, not offering anything else, caught up with thoughts about what she would do if she were ostracized from the team. She would continue her mission alone, of course, but she’d lack the insights and help of the others. Levi and his computer expertise would be especially missed. But she could always hire somebody, couldn’t she?

  As the meeting continued, no one else on the team participated and that only served to feed Jordan’s suspicions that they were displeased. Even Dr. Hurst seemed to notice their silence, but did nothing to draw them out, apparently content to let other voices be heard.

  Afterward, Dr. Hurst stopped Jordan near the door. “May I speak to you for a moment?”

  Jordan just nodded and they waited for the rest of the group to file out.

  When they were alone, Dr. Hurst asked, “You didn’t have much to say in group today, Jordan.”

  “Lot of people didn’t.”

  “You’ve spoken about your family these last few weeks and that’s such a fine start. I’d hoped you might continue to express yourself here in front of—”

  “I was just giving everybody else a chance to talk.”

  Hurst nodded. “Are you feeling better?”

  Jordan had called in sick for her recent one-on-one session with the doctor.

  “Just terrible cramps. You remember, Doctor. I have very hard periods.”

  “So I can expect you next week?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Jordan was losing time; she wanted to get to the coffee shop and talk to the team before Mark arrived.

  “You’re settling in to your new apartment?”

  “Yes. Nice. Very homey.”

  “And your college plans…?”

  Jordan was supposedly planning to start college next semester, but she had done nothing about it.

  “Haven’t decided which school yet,” Jordan said.

  “There are some nice local options.”

  “Can we talk it about at our session next week?”

  “Certainly. Would you like me to round up some pamphlets on your possible choices?”

  “That’d be great.”

  Then Jordan was out the door, moving quickly.

  When she walked from the hospital into blinding sunlight, she almost bumped into Phillip milling there, smoking.

  “Jordan, are you all right?” he asked, pitching the cigarette, his breathing painfully audible through his Phantom of the Opera nose. “I saw Hurst waylay you. She can be a pain sometimes… but she means well.”

  “Tell me about it. Anyway, thanks, Phillip, I’m fine. Walk with me?”

  They headed down the sidewalk toward the coffee shop.

  “Beautiful day,” he said. He was taller than her, his wispy brown hair tossed by the breeze.

  “Is it? Yeah, I guess it is.”

  “What are you worried about?”

  “I’m worried?”

  “Oh yes. I’m afraid it shows.”

  “Maybe I am… a little.”

  He smiled that ghastly smile, which she was actually getting used to. “It’s about Detective Pryor, isn’t it?”

  She smiled back, mildly. “So you’ve heard? Yes. I am worried. And yes, it’s about me not telling the group about my contact with… Detective Pryor.”

  Brown eyes twinkled mischievously in the ravaged face. “Why the hesitation before his name? Had you forgotten it?”

  “No.”

  “You went to school with him, didn’t you? Old boyfriend?”

  “Yes I went to school with him, no he wasn’t my boyfriend. Who told you, anyway?”

  “The detective mentioned it to both Kay and David. They don’t keep anything from the rest of us.”

  “Is that a dig, Phillip?”

  “Maybe just a tiny one. You’ve got to learn to trust again, Jordan. I speak from experience. After the senseless violence I endured, don’t you think I’ve had to grapple with that?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Anyway, you needn’t be concerned. Everyone in group… everyone on our little spin-off team… understands that we each have to deal with things in our own way. It took time for you to share with the group what happened to you and your family, didn’t it? We all understand. It will come. It will come.”

  She managed another smile. “Thank you, Phillip.”

  He shrugged. “Anyway, the detective has already helped, hasn’t he?”

  “He has?”

  “Well, yes. He gave David the name of a suspect that we’re already looking into.”

  Jordan wondered if that suspect was that gymnastics coach, Havoc. Great—Mark had provided them with a dead end to waste their time on. Jordan had already told him that Havoc wasn’t the intruder.

  “I must be getting paranoid,” she said, as they strolled, her reason for hurry gone. “When I walked into group this morning, nobody smiled at me, and I started thinking all kinds of weird shit.”

  “We all have a lot on our minds,” Phillip said, waving that off.

  The other three were already seated and waiting when she and Phillip entered and ordered their coffee at the counter. Mark was not here yet. Good.

  With cups in hand, they made their way to the high-top table in the crowded shop and took two of the three empty chairs, David on her right with Kay next to him, Levi on her left.

  Immediately the writer got into it. At least there was nothing accusatory in the way he said: “We know you must have a reason for not telling us that a CPD detective was going down the same road we are.”

  Gently, Levi said, “We’d just like you to tell us what that reason is.”

  Jordan said, providing the alibi she’d spent much of the morning preparing, “I was waiting till we had something concrete to give him. Something the police would have to believe.”

  Kay said, “But why keep his interest from us?”

  “Mark’s an old high school friend. He’s only able to look into this in his spare time. He has a sort of… impulsive side, and…”

  David, God bless him, bailed her out: “Mark is on a very short leash with his captain. If he makes a misstep, he could get pulled off of even this semi-official part-time investigation.”

  “Anyway,” she said, “I have to admit that… I’ve been alone for a long time. I was alone when I was at St. Dimpna’s, even with a thousand mental patients all around me. It’s not easy for me.”

  Kay leaned over to pat her hand
, and Jordan didn’t even mind. “Dear,” the older woman said, “it’s day at a time, step at a time, for all of us. We’re not accusing you. We’re just saying we’re your friends. You can trust us.”

  “Can we skip the group hug?” Levi asked. “Because we may have something, and we might as well dig in—”

  Levi was interrupted by Mark entering the shop without stopping to order anything, coming straight to the table and the waiting chair—Levi at his right, Phillip at his left. Jordan made introductions where needed, and after a brief exchange of pleasantries, David again took the role of spokesperson for the group.

  “Good to see you again, Detective Pryor, though what we have to share may or may not please you.”

  “Such as?”

  Levi said, “We think Basil Havoc may not be our man.”

  Mark just nodded—his demeanor, Jordan noted, was cool and professional. “I would agree.”

  Surprise widened eyes around the table.

  Kay asked, “Why?”

  “I’ll leave that to Jordan to tell you,” Mark said, and nodded at her with a businesslike smile.

  She nodded back, then addressed the team: “Last night, Detective Pryor showed me a picture of Havoc, on his phone? I recognized the man as my old gymnastics coach—anyway, he was briefly.”

  David frowned and said to the young detective, “Jesus, man, was that wise? If she ever has to pick him out of a lineup, you’ve poisoned the well!”

  “Beside the point,” Jordan said. “I saw the man who attacked my family… who attacked me… and it wasn’t Havoc.”

  “So anything you have to share,” Mark said, sighing, “I’ll appreciate. Because I’m feeling like I’m back to square one.”

  David said, “Maybe not. Levi and I thought you were on the right track with Havoc, but with the wrong approach.”

  Mark frowned. “How so?”

  “You were concentrating solely on Havoc, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Did you ever consider looking at anyone on his staff?”

  With a humorless half smirk, Mark admitted, “Not really. I’ve got a feeling you’re going to tell me I should have.”

  Nodding, Levi said, “There were four people who traveled with Havoc extensively. You were looking into two cases on the East Coast, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “I bring this up, because the National Gymnastics finals were in Boston, then Hartford, and there were family killings in Providence and the Bronx that coincide.”