by Jean Rabe
“Did you call Tavio’s mother?”
Michael shook his head. “I told Otter we should wait, see what you found out from the police and call her then. No use having to talk to the damned old woman twice.”
“Don’t call her. I’ll go over and tell her in person.”
Michael looked surprised. “That would be nice, Miss O’Shea, but—”
A wail came from upstairs and was followed instantly by pounding feet—Jimmy’s.
Jimmy appeared at the top of the stairs and motioned wildly. “Boss, turn on the television. FOX. It’s about your ex-” Then he was gone, assumedly back to Otter’s room, and Michael rushed into the sitting room.
Bridget followed Michael, who had just clicked on the widescreen that hung above the fireplace. A few minutes after four, this was the early newscast’s lead story. Bridget had missed the first of it, but there was Tavio’s handsome face taking up half the screen, a black-and-white image from a newspaper society article.
“Single, affluent people in the New York City area are being targeted by a serial killer who extracts their hearts. Fifty-four-year-old Tavio Vãduva-Madera, the latest victim, was found dead by his housekeeper earlier today. Police initially refused to comment on the case, however a source in the coroner’s office confirmed that Madera was brutally killed when his chest was ripped open and his heart cut out. No sign of the heart or—”
Bridget sprinted from the room and up the stairs, nearly tripping on the carpet runner at the top and racing down the hall and into Otter’s room. The boy stood transfixed in front of a small television on the stand, Jimmy behind him.
“—a spokesman for the FBI admits authorities are looking for a serial killer, who profilers put between the age of thirty and fifty and who somehow charms single women and men into letting him into their homes. Madera is the second victim in New York City to fall prey to the killer this month. Three women were similarly killed in other states, going back to December, 2013; five in all solidly attributed to one slayer. But that might only be the tip of this bloody iceberg. And the FBI hints that the deaths could escalate.”
Tavio’s face disappeared to be replaced by four headshots which filled the screen then shrunk to take up half of it, allowing the anchor to be seen. The room spun and Bridget sagged onto the edge of the bed. Two of the women niggled at her memory. One was sixtyish with an ash colored bob; the other was young, with long blond hair and turquoise eyes.
Dear God. Her fingers gripped the coverlet. Those two women had stared out at her from picture frames in Elijah Stone’s apartment.
“New York City Police were trying to keep the nature of this latest murder under wraps,” the anchor continued, “in an effort not to panic the public. But FOX’s investigative team has uncovered enough to report on this grisly situation.”
Otter was crying, his shoulders shaking. He gulped in air and Bridget stared helplessly, the weight of the revelation anchoring her. Jimmy put a hand on Otter’s shoulder.
“Jaylee Carter, twenty-nine, a freelance travel writer,—” The blond woman with the turquoise eyes from Stone’s apartment was highlighted. “—was killed January second in her Brooklyn apartment. We reported on the case, but had not yet made the connection to serial slayings. The next image highlighted was the silver-haired woman from Stone’s apartment. “Martha Stone, sixty-nine, of Freehold, New Jersey, was killed earlier, December eleventh.” The reporter droned on about the additional two victims; both from a tiny resort town in Delaware, one slain in September, the other this past Christmas Eve.
“In all five cases, the hearts were not found at the scenes, and there is evidence the killer chewed on at least two of the women. FBI Spokesman Jane Tanis, admitted to our FOX team that the killings could stretch back to 2007 to include ritualistic murders still unsolved in Florida, Texas, California, and Washington state with enough factors in common to now raise suspicion they were committed by the same man. If that proves true, up to thirteen women, three men, and one boy ultimately may be traced to the serial killer, Tanis said.”
The image shifted again, showing the reporter that Bridget had seen in the lobby of Tavio’s condo, except the setting was outside the 7th Precinct. “Fox reporter Mark Ablee is live with Lieutenant Harold Grossman,” the anchor announced.
Grossman’s voice was measured, and he read from a card in his hands. “We discourage people in the New York area from inviting men they do not know into their homes. Further, if traveling alone, keep to well-lit, populated streets. People who have been approached by strangers are asked to report any suspicious behavior to police. If anyone has helpful information, contact our taskforce hotline.”
“We will have more on this breaking story at six and ten,” the anchor concluded.
The scene shifted to a factory fire in the Bronx.
Otter’s voice was a whisper. “Why didn’t I check on him? Dad might still be—”
Bridget numbly left the room. She should comfort her son, but how? There weren’t any words, and all the swirling notions centered selfishly.
How much was her life going to change because she now had a full-time son?
How could she hope to cope with Otter’s grief, which must be a hundred-fold what she was experiencing?
Should she contact a psychiatrist for the boy?
Find an expensive boarding school to get him out of the way? Maybe put him in some military prep school that would keep him so busy he couldn’t think about his father.
If Bridget kept him here, would she be forced to adjust her smuggling operations? Would she pull Otter into her dealings, welcome him into the “family business,” or could she manage to keep the boy out of it? She paused at the staircase and stared down at the collection of suitcases and duffels.
And how the hell could she be so selfish to dwell on just how all of this could affect her? She should think about Otter instead.
“Pissmires and spiders.” Bridget took a few steps down, intending to retrieve Otter’s things and take them to the boy’s room. Then she changed her mind. Michael could deal with it. She returned to the landing and instead took the staircase up. She needed a hot shower followed by a blessedly long subway ride with the ugly briefcase.
The monster was waiting for her in the bedroom, perched by the closet, the case next to it. The creature babbled again and oozed something even more foul-smelling than before.
“I get rid of you today,” she told the beast. “In just a little while, in fact. I’m done with you stinking up my life and oozing into my expensive shoes.”
The thing cocked its bulbous head, and the expression on its wide, warty face turned Bridget’s spine to an icicle. It raised a front leg; the image of a dog attempting to “shake hands” came to mind. The misshapen claws, up to what would be the wrist-joint, were crusted with dried blood.
Elijah Stone had been connected to two of the dead women … and this beast and the briefcase.
Bridget had been connected to Tavio … and now the monster and the briefcase.
The beast belched a sulfurous cloud and Bridget grabbed the bureau when the nausea hit.
She was staring at Tavio’s murderer.
The monstrous “serial killer” regarded her coolly and put down its leg. But it continued to babble shrilly.
***
Fifteen
Normally the subway relaxed Bridget. The train was her cocoon, comforting as a womb. Usually she could relegate the blathering of all the other riders to the background, the contemporary clamor spewing from radios, and let the sound of the car itself settle in, the squeaks and clacks and everything else a beat she imagined setting her heart in time to.
Clatter-clack-shuck-shuck-shuck-riders’ conversations—and then the horn would come, and a bell sounding from somewhere far off. Clatter-clack-shuck-shushhhhh.
The rhythm of the ride was often good for getting rid of headaches and drowning worries. Her feet firmly against the floor, every vibration pulsed up through her soles. Today the vi
brations seemed jarring.
Some of the riders in her car were texting; two looked at watches and tapped their feet as if that might provide the impetus to make the train go faster so they wouldn’t be late to wherever they were going; a couple bobbed their heads to tunes playing on their iPods. There was a lanky man with a radio around his neck that was so large and heavy-looking she imagined it was curving his spine. The gaunt woman across from him nervously twitched as if she were either claustrophobic or an addict coming down from a high.
During some rides Bridget could see an entire slice of New York City’s makeup inside a single subway car—all ages, races, rich, poor, religions—nuns fiddling with their rosary beads, Moonies selling jewelry, Muslims saying “There is no god but Allah,” and the atheists arguing that there is no god.
Some of the riders were tense today, a few obviously sad, a couple clearly joyful. There were beggars, a local politician, and a rail-thin beauty with a perfect face who was likely headed to somewhere in the fashion district. Many of the people closest to Bridget chattered seemingly without coming up for air, the noise mixing with the screetching, clicking, shushing sounds the train made, the horn punctuating everything.
Clatter-clack-shuck-shuck-shuck-riders’ conversations—and then the horn would come once more, and a bell sounding from somewhere far off. Clatter-clack-shuck-shushhhhh.
Bridget usually loved all of it, often arriving at a platform plenty early before her connection just to hear the train coming, the noise echoing off the walls of the tunnel and sounding like ghosts calling to each other. Then the crescendo of sound as one approached, the wind it created as it passed, the cacophony a symphonic tone poem she was comfortable with. Predictable clamor.
Clatter-clack-clack-shuck-shuck-schuck-conversation-shuck-schuck-conversation-a bell clanging-shuck-shuck-shuck-the demon babbling.
Today, Bridget didn’t love the symphony of the subway. Today, all the noises were magnified and making her head pound so hard she wondered if her skull might crack like an eggshell. The warring colognes of the riders mixed with the stench of the monster, and all of it settling on her tongue like wet cement.
The demon babbled louder still, perhaps thinking she couldn’t hear it.
The monster had splayed itself on the seat across from her … and bubbled and oozed and appeared to hungrily eye a teen in an ankle-length wool coat. The beastly thing sickened her. Stomach roiling and breathing shallowly, she worried that she might pass out.
It had most certainly killed her ex-husband, and who-knew-how-many people before that. And she had to get rid of it before it killed someone else connected to her … Otter, Dustin, Michael. Apparently no one but herself could see the damned thing. As jaded as New Yorkers were, they would have given the creature a wide berth if they knew it was among them. Or the brave among them would be taking pictures of it with their cell phones.
It prattled nonsensically, loud enough to be heard above the clattering and chattering.
“Shut the flying feck up!” Bridget gripped the sides of her head and leaned forward, chin between her knees. She tried to focus only on the subway car, her cocoon, which at the moment was miserably failing as a sanctuary.
Concentrate on the subway, she told herself. Think about the subway, not the demon.
There wasn’t a mile of the New York City subway system that she hadn’t traveled, and only needed to consult maps and schedules when they shut down certain routes for renovations. In Manhattan: Greenwich Village, Chelsea, Chinatown, downtown. In Queens: Sunnyside, Astoria, Long Island City, she could connect to all of them. The stops and lines were engraved in her memory, the sounds of the tunnels in the various sections a familiar favorite play list. To most of the eight million daily riders Bridget suspected the trains sounded pretty much the same, nearly entirely incomprehensible, the racket carried through distorted speakers. But when she listened closely, like she did to cherished classical music, the trains had different voices along the various routes, throatier, more powerful when it traveled from Hoyt to Lafayette to Franklin and Rockaway. Softer and almost lyrical from Steinway to Elmhurst to Woodhaven.
She couldn’t hone in on the voice of this train today. Too much noise. And the demon. Her head throbbed.
Concentrate on the subway.
The line from Bergen to Grand Army Plaza keened mournfully most times. The one she took in Fort Greene, from the stop on Fulton and up to Court House Square, where she’d change lines, usually had the richest tones. From there, moments ago, she changed trains and took the line that trundled up Fifty-Ninth, Sixty-Eighth, up to One Hundred and Sixteenth, before turning and cutting toward Hunts Point.
“Dear God, make it all shut up.” Bridget got off at the Elder Avenue stop and walked for a few blocks, hoping the cold wind would chase away the stench of the creature and being sorely disappointed on that account. At least the noise was more manageable.
Bridget sat the briefcase on the sidewalk outside her destination and looked up at the weathered sign hanging slightly askew above the door: Don’t Judge a Book.
She’d showered and managed to get here while the witch was still open. If Adiella Vãduva-Madera had heard about her son’s death the place would have been closed up tight. But Bridget suspected the old woman did not own a television and only occasionally read the New York Times. News, unless it involved this rundown and crime-riddled street, was sluggish to reach her. The police at the station had asked Bridget about “next of kin” to notify regarding Tavio’s death. She’d replied just Otter, plus some distant relatives in Mexico and Romania that she didn’t have addresses for. She’d never known Tavio’s father, who’d died twenty-five years ago. Adiella Vãduva-Madera? Bridget wished she had never met her.
The witch lived off the so-called grid and likely would not come up on any record search involving Tavio, who was an only child as far as Bridget knew. The witch didn’t have an address, other than this shop. Tavio once told her that his mother lived in various “arcane pits” she’d established in and under the city. The bookstore looked like a pit, Bridget decided.
For the entirety of Bridget’s time with Tavio, Adiella hadn’t approved of the marriage. The witch hadn’t bothered to show up to the fairy tale wedding Tavio orchestrated aboard a dinner cruise yacht. Adiella had made it clear she didn’t consider it a real union, since the ceremony wasn’t performed by a Catholic priest in a Catholic church; they’d had the yacht captain officiate. Too, Adiella detested Bridget’s association with the Westies and the smuggling business, regularly bringing up that she was a runaway without a proper family. Bridget simply was not good enough, a scamp and a thief not worthy of Tavio’s affections. Bridget recalled how Adiella took every opportunity to announce her displeasure, calling the “Irish guttersnipe” a soiled piece of fluff that Tavio should have steered clear of—too young, uneducated trash.
Otter had been Adiella’s weakness. Bridget’s pregnancy had been difficult, labor arduous; she almost died and the doctor strongly advised her against ever becoming pregnant again. Adiella had attended the birth of what might therefore be her only grandchild and had put in appearances thereafter at Christmas to give the boy books. Adiella got together with Tavio and Otter on the side—lunches at Tavio’s restaurant or other fine restaurants he wanted to sample, rare weekend trips where no doubt the witch’s acid tongue rode Bridget into the ground.
Nearly 5:30. There didn’t look to be any customers, so Bridget entered, briefcase in hand, reeking monster following her like a dutiful shepherd dog.
Adiella was behind the counter at the very back, reading a book. She looked up at Bridget, seeing through the shadows cast by the tall shelves and raising her lip. “What do you want?”
Bridget didn’t answer. She slowly walked toward the witch, floorboards softly groaning, stepped up to the counter, and sat the briefcase down. She didn’t want to deliver this news and was having second thoughts about not mentioning Adiella to the police. One of the officers could have come by a
nd told her about Tavio’s murder. But there was the matter of the briefcase, and so she needed to ask Adiella’s help.
Adiella’s eyes narrowed and fixed on Bridget’s, drifted to the briefcase and widened like a pug dog’s. In the span of a few heartbeats the witch’s demeanor changed, the defiance Bridget was used to seeing vanishing, something else creeping in. Did Adiella already know about Tavio?
No, the witch wouldn’t be sitting here if she knew.
“Your son is dead,” Bridget said. No preamble, no easing into it. She’d intended to remain hardhearted, but the witch withering before her eyes softened her.
Adiella had looked like a young woman when Bridget first entered, skin smooth and flawless, hair tucked up neatly in a bright red scarf that matched her tailored jacket. She always dressed well and decorated herself with pieces of designer jewelry—big hoop earrings and necklaces with large, colorful beads. Bridget likened Adiella to a strutting peacock.
Small, not even five feet, she appeared to shrivel further. “Dead? My Tavio?” She wailed long and high-pitched like a banshee. Shelves tottered, and Bridget felt the floor vibrate beneath her feet. The keening was painful, and Bridget slammed her teeth together.
Wrinkles danced across the backs of Adiella’s tiny hands and appeared at the edges of her instantly-rheumy eyes. Tears ran like rain down her cheeks. Her shoulders rounded and she stooped, gripping the counter to keep from slipping off her stool. The wailing stopped after a time and she appeared to fight for breath.
Bridget believed the witch was well more than a hundred years old and used spells to appear youthful. Maybe two hundred. Maybe three. Maybe she was immortal. But Adiella’s concentration on her appearance had been sapped with this horrid news, and so the decades flooded her features.
Bridget wasted no time giving her the details, including the part about Tavio’s heart having been ripped out. There was no kindness in her delivery, and yet she had to stop herself from reaching out a hand and touching Adiella.
