Phobia

by C. A. Shives

  “Make sure you leave us a forwarding address,” Tucker said. “Just in case something comes up.”

  “And why should I do anything for you?” Lochhead looked at Herne. “You told the news that all of The Healer’s victims were my patients. And you don’t even know if that’s true. I never confirmed it.”

  Herne heard Tucker’s exasperated sigh. He tried to stop the grin of pleasure that crossed his face. “The Healer’s victims were your patients. You know it. I know it.”

  “I’m leaving town before any more damage is done to my reputation. I should have left sooner.”

  “If you had been more cooperative in the beginning, we might have been able to protect your name,” Herne said. It wasn’t the truth, but he wanted to say it. Wanted Lochhead to feel some of the pressure that weighed on his shoulders. “We might have caught him.”

  “Bullshit,” Lochhead snarled. “Don’t blame your pathetic incompetence on me.”

  “Susan King said that her husband started seeing you last month,” Herne said. “So whoever’s reading your files has seen them recently. The Healer didn’t steal them a year or six months ago. He’s got access to everything current, too. We need to put a camera in here so we can find out if someone’s sneaking in and raiding your file cabinet. Since you don’t have any patients left, I don’t see how it would be a breach of confidentiality.”

  “What kind of business would I get if my patients found out I’ll share information with cops?” Lochhead said. “Some of my clients engage in illegal activities. They do drugs, sleep with prostitutes, embezzle money. They come to me only because I keep their secrets. Forget it. There’s a lot of confidential information in this office, and there’s no way I’m letting you fuckers have even the tiniest glimpse in here.”

  Herne leaned forward again, curling his upper lip in a snarl. “Look, asshole. I’ve had as much of your crap as I can stand. We both know you don’t give a damn about your patients. People are dying. Your patients are getting murdered. And the murderer is getting his information from you. If you don’t help us, and this guy kills another one of your patients, I’m going to come back here and beat the shit out of you with my bare hands.”

  “Harassing witnesses? That’s not exactly the way things are supposed to work.” Sergeant Frey of the Pennsylvania State Police stood in the doorway of Lochhead’s office. He leaned against the doorframe, his hands hanging casually by his side. Herne noticed Sarah Coyle staring at Frey, her large eyes wide. The sergeant favored her with a smile before returning his attention to Herne. “If we put a camera in here and a patient complains about it, a judge will throw it right out of court.”

  “No one would even keep an appointment with this bastard now,” Tucker said.

  “But it’s possible a patient might stroll through the door, right? Perhaps a very brave patient, or possibly someone who hasn’t yet heard the news.”

  “Everyone’s heard the fucking news,” Tucker snapped.

  “But we don’t know that for certain. And wouldn’t it be horrible if we caught the killer on film but couldn’t bring him to justice because the judge felt the video violated patient confidentiality? That would be just terrible. So it’s not going to happen.”

  “Do you have a better solution?” Tucker asked.

  “My men are checking with every person in this building right now. They’re interviewing all personnel who might have had access to this office. With some good, old-fashioned detective work, we’ll find out who’s been fingering the files.” As Frey turned to leave, he gave Sarah Coyle the full benefit of his charming grin. She giggled in response, a soft laugh that seemed incongruent with the hard angles of her face.

  Herne thought of Frey’s men questioning Travis Ginch, the janitor who hated cops. It was the one silver lining in an otherwise cloudy day.

  More cops. Not just town cops, but state police. The Healer saw them asking questions. Opening files. Chatting with business owners.

  One of the cops, the sergeant who seemed to be in charge, barked orders at underlings while he casually sipped coffee from a paper cup. His blue eyes were both intelligent and arrogant.

  The Healer wasn’t worried. He was smart. Smarter than the average cop. He’d left no trace to connect him with the crimes.

  The police didn’t frighten him.

  Except Artemis Herne.

  Unlike the other cops who walked briskly through the hallways, as if their quick steps gave credence to their authority, Herne walked with deliberate slowness.

  It reminded The Healer of an animal. An animal on the prowl.

  It was a job he had to do on his own. It was unethical. It was illegal. And, for a cop, it was grounds for dismissal.

  But I’m not a cop anymore, Herne thought. He’d kept quiet about his illegal search of Morales’ office. He planned to keep quiet about his next move, too. Herne was comfortable with keeping secrets.

  It was only eight o’clock when he slipped through the lobby of the office building and into the stairwell. Most folks had gone home for the day. The Sandwich Station was locked tight, its shelves gleaming and shiny in the evening sunlight, and the building felt empty.

  When he reached Lochhead’s floor, he eased down the hall, walking softly, knowing the acoustics of the old building caused even the tiniest sound to carry. It was always possible that someone was working late hours.

  He pulled out his tools when he reached Lochhead’s door and went to work on the lock. Herne felt the tumblers click in place in less than sixty seconds.

  The office felt warm, as if the thermostat had been turned up an extra notch or two. A faint scent of lemon furniture cleaner hung in the air. The shades were drawn, so Herne lingered in the pink and beige reception area. He wondered if The Healer had crept in, just like he was doing now. Did he find pleasure in opening the door to Lochhead’s office? Did he touch the desk where Sarah Coyle sat, her thin legs barely brushing against her office chair? Did he get excited by the idea of stroking Lochhead’s files and reading the intimate secrets of his patients?

  Herne glanced around the room, looking for the right spot to begin his business. The potted plant wouldn’t work. It was probably watered regularly. He needed a stationary item that rarely received close inspection.

  The waiting room offered few possibilities. It contained little more than some chairs, a coffee table, Sarah Coyle’s desk, and a small file cabinet. After a few moments of thought, Herne decided on the file cabinet.

  He opened the cabinet lock in just a few seconds and pulled out some file folders. Then he used his miniature drill, the type used by crafters and jewelers, to make a small hole in the cabinet wall. He taped the camera and its battery to the bottom of the cabinet. Herne accessed the building’s wireless Internet signal with the camera’s control panel. It was small, barely larger than a cell phone.

  The lens of the camera, the size of a pea, was on the end of a thick wire. Herne carefully ran the wire up the inside corner of the drawer. He was certain it would only be noticed under close scrutiny. And he had a feeling that neither Lochhead nor Sarah was the type of person to closely scrutinize anything.

  When he finished taping the camera in place, he returned the files to the cabinet. Herne felt confident that the camera would remain hidden until someone emptied the cabinet drawer.

  He bent down to examine his handiwork. The lens of the camera fitted snugly in the hole he had drilled and was almost unnoticeable. Its convex shape meant all but the far corners of the waiting room would be captured on film. If Morales was sneaking into Lochhead’s office—if anyone was reading Lochhead’s files—Herne would catch it on video.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “I’m leaving today,” Sarah Coyle said. She felt the tremors in her stomach. The deep wood and masculine undertones of her boss’s office had once filled her with warmth and love. Now, it only felt dark. It’s just nerves, she thought. I can do this.

  Lochhead’s mouth fell open. “What?”

  �
��Today is my last day working for you.” Her resignation letter, handwritten on a piece of plain white paper, fluttered from her thin hand and landed on his desk.

  “But I haven’t officially closed the office,” Lochhead said. The scowl on his face—angry and glowering—made him ugly to her. “I have at least another week’s worth of work. I need your help.”

  She struggled to keep her voice even. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But today is my last day.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  Because I can’t love you anymore, Sarah thought. Aloud she lied, “Because of The Healer. Because I’m worried that he might target me, too.”

  “You’re safe, Sarah. No one’s going to hurt you. The Healer only kills people with phobias. You don’t have any deep fears, right?” His grin, usually so charming, seemed to be the smile of man only moments away from vomiting.

  I fear that I’ll never stop loving you. I fear that I’ll never find someone to love me. I fear that every man in my life will leave me. She pushed those thoughts away. “It’s too dangerous,” she said.

  “How the hell am I going to get all this work done by myself?” Lochhead asked. No longer charming, red fury flushed his face.

  “I’m sorry, Peter,” Sarah said. I might have stayed if you had loved me the way I wanted. But you couldn’t do it, and I found someone who will.

  As she left the office, she dialed Sergeant Christopher Frey on her cell phone.

  Video feed from the camera was accessible through the Internet. Herne logged on each evening to view it in his home. Hours and hours of video. He watched as a tired cleaning woman watered flowers and dusted the tables. She never made a move toward Lochhead’s inner office.

  Herne’s evenings bled together, each one the same and indistinguishable from the one before. Progress on the case had stalled. The Healer’s Tuesday mailing had contained only a blurry photograph of King’s bloody mouth and the words, “To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.” Saxon reported that Bertrand Russell, a British philosopher, was responsible for the quotation, but the information led to no further clues.

  And they only had a few more days until Saturday. So as Tucker’s officers interviewed victims’ families and friends for the third time, Herne sat hunched at his kitchen table until his shoulders ached and his vision blurred, a glass of whiskey by his hand and cigarette smoke swirling in the air around his head. He simply watched the video feed of Lochhead’s office, his need to see The Healer appear on the monitor so great that he wondered if he could will the killer to materialize. Sometimes the phone would ring and he’d answer it, but he never took his eyes from the computer.

  Once the call was Lori Sims, asking for another interview. Herne declined, but he kept his tone friendly. “I might have another tip for you soon,” he said. “But I’ll call you. Stop calling me.”

  Usually the phone call was from Tucker. A furious, tired Tucker.

  “These fucking state cops,” Tucker said. “They have their fucking heads up their asses. They don’t know a goddamn thing about this town.”

  “What’s happening now?”

  “They’re hell bent that Skeeter is the killer. Can you fucking believe that? And good ol’ Mayor Harvey is going along with it. He keeps calling and insisting that I arrest Skeeter. I refuse to do it.”

  Skeeter. He was Hurricane’s only homeless person, and each day he wandered from one end of town to the other, carrying an army green backpack. His lanky frame always bent slightly to the side, as if he tried to keep one ear closer to the ground. No one knew his age—probably fifty-three or fifty-four—and no one knew where he’d come from. And, until a few years ago, everyone wanted him removed from the town.

  Skeeter was finally accepted in Hurricane the day he saved Ruth Snable’s life. A young Mennonite girl just blossoming into adolescence, Ruth possessed a face so beautiful that some men had considered tempting her to leave her faith. She’d been sent back to the house from the strawberry fields to fetch lemonade for her family. It was June, the peak of the harvest, and the family sold quarts of strawberries at their small roadside farm stand.

  Ruth was on her way to return to the fields with the lemonade when a pack of wild dogs ran toward her. They were silent, with teeth bared. She ran back to the house, but the dogs pounced as she reached the front porch.

  Skeeter, only a few yards down the road, saw the attack. Despite his looping, leaning gait he reached Ruth in a matter of seconds, and he beat at the dogs with his backpack, screaming the banshee song of a man possessed.

  The dogs ran off. Ruth, terrified and bloody, continued to scream in the corner, her face buried in her hands. Despite her Mennonite heritage, her face had been her vanity.

  So Skeeter earned his place among the folks of Hurricane. But it was a double-edged sword for Ruth, who carried the deep, ugly scars of the dog attack across her chin and left cheek. She had her life, a life the dogs would have taken if given the chance, yet she turned away from Skeeter whenever they passed each other.

  But he was always free to take his fill of Snable’s strawberries in the summer.

  “What makes them think Skeeter is our killer?” Herne asked, amused.

  “I don’t fucking know. Someone saw him hanging around Amanda’s house before she was killed. And there are rumors he was hanging around Charles Emmert’s place, too.”

  “Skeeter hangs around everywhere,” Herne said. “He has no place else to go.”

  “I fucking know that,” Tucker said. “But try telling that to these state dumbasses. They’ve got the poor guy in my office and they’re giving him the third degree. He doesn’t understand what’s going on. The guy’s a simpleton for Chrissake. He couldn’t organize murders like this even if he had a lifetime to plan. I’m not fucking arresting him. Either the state boys are arresting Skeeter themselves or I’m letting him go. Mayor Harvey can kiss my ass.”

  Herne hung up the phone and went back to his video feed, watching the fuzzy screen until he felt as if his eyeballs would bleed.

  The next night it was more of the same. Unrevealing video. Whiskey and smokes. And an angry call from Tucker. This time Tucker was ranting about Herne.

  “Where the fuck have you been?” Tucker asked. “We need to put our heads together. Figure out our next step. It’s almost fucking Saturday, and you know what that means.”

  Herne knew what it meant. But he couldn’t tell Tucker about the illegal video. He couldn’t enlist Tucker’s help to review the feed. It was on his shoulders alone. And he was starting to feel as if it was a wild goose chase.

  “I’m working on my own angle,” Herne said.

  “I know I’m no fucking big detective like you, Art. But do you think you could tell me what angle you’re pursuing? What the hell are you doing?”

  “It’s nothing. Just a possibility. I’m not going to waste your time with it unless it pans out.”

  “Are you fucking drinking again?” Tucker asked. “You better not be hitting the bottle. I swear to Christ, if I find out you’ve been wasting away these last few days…”

  “I’m not drinking,” Herne said, glancing at the empty glass by his hand. Well, not much, he thought.

  Finally, on Friday night, Herne saw movement on the video. New movement. Someone other than the tired cleaning woman. It was after hours, about eight o’clock, when Lochhead’s secretary walked through the door.

  Sarah Coyle wore her usual oversized skirt and blouse. Her thin, blond hair sat in a knot on the top of her head, and she pushed her thick glasses up her nose as she walked toward her desk.

  Herne straightened his back, watching the screen with renewed interest. It was the most action he’d seen in Lochhead’s office all week.

  She pushed aside the items on the desk—the pencil holder, some files, a paperweight—clearing a small space on its surface. Then she hopped up on the desk and crossed her legs, wearing an expectant expression.

  Herne sat back in his chair. It was barely possible that the person Sa
rah was awaiting was the killer, who used the secretary as a way to access Lochhead’s office and records.

  Then Sergeant Christopher Frey of the Pennsylvania State Police entered the office. He grinned when he saw Sarah. He moved toward her, arms outstretched, and cupped her flat breasts in his hands.

  Herne watched dispassionately as the two lovers enjoyed their tryst. Frey tried to remove Sarah’s clothing, but she insisted on wearing it. Instead, she pulled up her skirt to allow him access to her body. All the knobs and bumps of her knees were visible on her thin legs.

  When they finished, Frey dressed quickly. He didn’t kiss her before he left. He simply said a few words before walking out the door. She stayed behind to return order to her desk, moving everything back to its place on the surface. She glanced around the room one last time. As the camera caught her face, Herne saw her lips pressed into a grim line. Then she turned off the lights and walked out of the office.

  Herne sighed. So far his video surveillance had resulted in no new information.

  It had been startlingly easy. He wondered, not for the first time, if he had even begun to tap his potential genius.

  No one ever saw him. Like a phantom presence, he slipped in and out of his patients’ homes without leaving a trace.

  Of course, he did his homework. He knew when the neighbors went to work. He knew what time his patient was most likely to be alone. And he dressed and acted to blend in with the community. He was nothing more than another neighbor. Nondescript. Unremarkable.

  This time things had been a bit more complicated. The therapy had involved certain props that required careful transportation.

  The Healer felt a little thrill of pleasure as he closed his eyes and saw, in his mind, the face of his latest patient. The patient had struggled, of course. Like a child who has been forced to take a bitter medicine, his patients never understood that their brief moments of pain would lead to health. True health of both the body and the mind.