She eased her hand back out, and in it was a crumpled gray wash cloth speckled with mold.
Cary stomach dropped. Had he imagined the rat? The smell seemed to have completely disappeared. After Diana left the room shaking her head and chuckling softly, Cary cautiously peered into the cabinet. It was empty.
Chapter 5
Ten months later, The Brandie Killer was released. A few weeks before, Cary had seen the mock-up cover at Carousel's art department and was really impressed. His name, in brash red bold type, was at the top of the book. Underneath, in smaller print, it said: "the bestselling author of Vengeful Ghost." Beneath that was the cover art; a startlingly real oil painting that was the extreme close-up of a blonde girl's face with one masculine hand over her mouth and another holding a wickedly gleaming hunting knife to her throat. Her blue eyes were bulging with terror, and her tears looked so real Cary had touched the mock-up with his forefinger just to make sure it wasn't actually wet. At the very bottom was the title: The Brandie Killer. The artist had made the "l"s out of Brandie dolls standing back to back.
Upon release of the novel, Cary was sent on another book tour. He called Diana almost every day.
Even though she had not officially moved in with him, Diana was almost a permanent fixture at his house and she took wonderful care of Tweetie. In fact, Cary had to admit (if even only to himself), that he had become jealous of Diana because Tweetie had taken to her so completely. And Tweetie clearly preferred Diana's company to his own. She no longer sang when he was alone with her, but let Diana come over and it was like a Brahms symphony. Tweetie had also taken to biting at his finger whenever Cary tried to get her to perch on it, so he pretty much left her alone now. He wondered if she would be even more firmly attached to Diana when he returned from his book tour.
Cary had an eight-week tour without break. He would be going to countless bookstores for signings, local radio talk shows in all of the major cities, and of course television exposure was a must. Not many television shows had authors on any more--a sign of the times--but he would definitely be hitting the major daytimes and late-nights.
Cary had to admit he was impressed; Carousel had been telling the truth about spending some major dollars on publicity for The Brandie Killer. One night while he and Diana were cuddled up on the bed watching his new HD 3D flat-screen set, they had both been astounded when a commercial came on advertising his book. The cost to place an ad on network television had to be astronomical. The book, even prior to its release, had been touted in all of the major newspapers around the country. Before Cary left to go on his tour, Diana already had more than half a scrapbook crammed with clippings.
Just one week into his book-signing stint, a very strange thing happened.
Cary was sitting in an impossibly uncomfortable plastic chair in a chain bookstore in Dallas, Texas. A card table sat before him and a seemingly unending line of autograph hounds spiraled out from there. Of course, everyone wanted to talk with him for a moment or two, which tied up the line even more. This was the part of being a best-selling author Cary hated the most: meeting his public. He didn't like people much to begin with but was further distressed to find that most of his readers were teenage boys and middle-aged housewives, all just looking for a cheap thrill.
Cary had brought his laptop along on the tour and was determined to begin writing his next novel. The novel he really wanted to write. He was unsure of the subject matter as yet, but he knew he definitely wanted to write a moving, classic story. Maybe something along the lines of The Grapes of Wrath, but with a more intellectual slant. Perhaps he could write about the down-trodden revolutionaries of France. He'd been giving the matter considerable thought ever since the completion of his manuscript of The Brandie Killer.
But Cary couldn't think about it anymore at the moment. A rotund hausfrau in a wildly colored, flowery summer dress was waving her copy of The Brandie Killer in his face. "I just loved your book!" she gushed. She leaned in conspiratorially. "I know that sounds strange coming from a woman. I mean, most women are protesting it and all, but really, don't they know what non-fiction is? I mean, you're just making it all up!"
Cary nodded curtly, hoping to discourage further conversation. He poised his pen and looked up into the woman's shiny, eager face. He raised his eyebrows in question, still not speaking to her.
"Oh, my name's Fran," she supplied. "Just put 'to my friend Fran,' or something chummy like that." With her Southern accent, he pronounced the word "like" as "lake." Cary hated her.
Cary wrote, "To Fran," then signed his name in his neat, spidery script. Diana occasionally teased that he wrote just like an old lady. Cary didn't find the observation amusing in the least.
Fran giggled as he handed the hardcover back to her and clutched it to her ample bosom as she trotted away.
The next person in line was--surprise, surprise--a teenage boy. He wore black jeans, a black tee-shirt, jack boots and dark Ray Bans. His inky hair was slicked back and he wore the typically bored expression of a pseudo-sophisticated city youth.
The boy did not speak as he handed his copy of The Brandie Killer across the card table. Cary took the book from him, and when he looked down, he saw that the pinky nail on the boy's left hand was painted black. Kids today, Cary thought, who can figure them out?
"Your name?" he asked, addressing the boy as his pen hovered over the open book.
"Doesn't matter," the kid said in a bored monotone. "Just signing it would be okay."
Cary did so and handed the book back to the boy. He figured he could probably find the book on some internet auction site within the hour. The latter took it almost reluctantly. "Got somethin' for you," said the boy, reaching into his back pocket.
Cary was surprised to see that it was an Insta-Pic photo. He got lots of notes and fan letters on these tours, but never had he gotten a picture. Why would he want a picture of that ugly kid? The boy had given it to Cary face-down, and by the time Cary had righted it, the fan was gone.
When he turned it over to have a look, the photo literally sent shock waves through Cary's body. It depicted a half-dressed young woman sitting on a bed of pine needles and leaning lopsided with her back against the trunk of a thin tree. She had a ligature around her throat, and her eyes were rolled back in her head so that only a thin slash of sclera showed beneath the swollen lids. She looked dead. Sitting in her lap was a Brandie doll. Brandie was smiling and she wore a perfectly tailored cowboy outfit, complete with hat, holsters, boots and chaps.
"Excuse me, Mr. Boo-chard!" A middle-aged woman with shocking red hair was waving her book in his face.
Cary quickly jammed the photo underneath a stack of papers, hoping she had not seen it. He gave her a watery smile. "Hi, how are you today?"
"Better than you, obviously," the woman snorted, then smiled. "Been a long day, huh?" Cary nodded. "Well, I'll make it short. Just sign the book to Wilhemina Williams," she said in her twangy southern accent.
The last two hours passed in a blur for Cary. He willed himself to concentrate on what his readers had to say. Anything to keep his mind off that photograph.
Later, alone in his hotel room, Cary was able to give vent to his horrified thoughts. He sat in a chair by the window and examined the Insta-Pic. The girl was posed just like one of Rudolf Bonfiglio's victims. But the photo was dark and grainy; beyond what Cary had seen at first glance there was nothing else unusual about the photo. It had to be some kind of a sick joke. It couldn't be real.
Cary tried to remember what the kid had looked like. Aside from the dark clothing, shades and painted fingernail, there was nothing outstanding about the boy. He had pasty white skin festooned with zits, stood about five feet seven, and had a slight build. That could describe thousands of kids in Dallas alone. Cary tried to remember more details, just in case it turned out that the boy was a particularly warped fan or a stalker, but there really hadn't been any.
Cary turned the photo over. He gave a start. There was an inscription
on the back. How could he possibly have missed that before? It read: Compliments of your Ghost Writer.
What was that supposed to mean? He'd written his own books...or maybe it meant the girl in the photo really was dead--now a ghost. But no, that was just too horrible. It had to be a sick joke. Had to.
The ringing of the telephone jarred Cary almost out of the chair. He got up and glanced at the digital clock on the night stand. 8:54 P.M. He'd left the book store at five...that meant he'd been sitting staring at the photograph for over three hours and had completely forgotten to call Diana.
"Cary Bouchard," he announced sharply as he brought the receiver to his ear.
"I love you, too, honey," Diana said teasingly.
"Oh, sorry. I guess I'm just a little on edge."
"Why?"
He couldn't tell her about today. She was upset enough about the protesting, and whether the photo was just a prank or evidence of a copycat killing, he didn't want Diana--or anyone else for that matter--to know about it. Cary was still trying to convince himself it was nothing more than a sick gag. "I had another book-signing today. I was there for six hours straight, then tonight at midnight I have to go to some dinky little radio station to do a syndicated call-in show. I was just trying to get some sleep."
"Oh, I'm sorry to have woken you. I just thought you had said you were going to call me at seven tonight."
"Yeah, I think I did. Only one week into the tour and I'm already a basket case. I can't wait to get home."
"Have you been working on anything?" Diana asked, meaning his "serious" novel.
"No," he sighed heavily. "Been too tired." He paused, then asked, "What do you think of the French Revolution as the setting?"
"Kind of depressing, isn't it?"
"Was The Grapes of Wrath a light comedy? Was For Whom the Bell Tolls a happy-go-lucky story?" Cary found it difficult to keep the sarcasm from his voice. It seemed as though everyone, even his own scholarly girlfriend now, was trying to pigeonhole him. When he'd told Susan Montgomery of his idea just before he left, there was a long silence, then she had said, "Let's talk about this another time. Right now, I want to go over your schedule with you."
"No, of course not," Diana mumbled. Why had she even bothered to call? For the first few months everything had been going really well between her and Cary, but then he had begun to slip back into some of his old mannerisms. He had become increasingly pessimistic over the weeks until finally, his book had been released. Then he was happy for a while. He even bought a brand-new car. As the book tour approached and the protests began, Cary had begun to dread getting out on the road. He was full of self-reproach for not having written a single word on his Great American Novel in the twelve months since he had turned in his Brandie Killer manuscript. Diana was pretty sure she was in love with Cary, but she realized it had been smart to hang onto her own apartment.
"Look, I'd better go," Cary said. "I still need to take a nap before my radio gig."
"Good-bye," Diana said, but Cary had already disconnected.
Cary wiped the thin sheen of cold sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and lay on the bed, face-up. Try as he might, he could not get the image in that photograph out of his head. It looked so real, but it couldn't be. He wanted to burn it, tear it up, or throw it away at least, but something compelled him to keep it. It's only a prank, but just in case it's not, I'd better keep it for evidence.
Should he call the police? No, they wouldn't take me seriously. They'd probably think it's some crazy publicity stunt for my book.
Another hour passed, but Cary was unable to sleep. He got up and took a shower and changed into a fresh suit. It was hot and humid in Dallas, even late at night, so he decided to forego the jacket and stay in his shirt sleeves. It wasn't very presentable, he knew, but it was only radio. He could be wearing a gorilla suit and no one would know.
A car would be coming to pick him up at 11:30, and he would have to stay at the radio station for four hours. At least, he thought, tomorrow is just a traveling day.
The day after that he would be in California, which he hated, for the Al Jackson Show, which was broadcast live on television. Al Jackson was a loud-mouthed confrontational type whose sole mission in life, it seemed, was to humiliate his guests. His studio audience ate it up with a spoon. Cary wondered whose bright idea it had been to book him there. But the controversy surrounding his book had made for record sales and being on the Al Jackson Show would only fuel the fire.
On Wednesday morning Cary's flight arrived at LAX in Los Angeles. Cary frowned as he stood in the loading zone looking for his car and driver, which were supposed to have been provided by Al Jackson Productions. The sky was gray and hazy, and the oppressive smog stung his eyes. There was worse smog in other cities, but Los Angeles was a particularly gloomy town and the depressing feeling of being surrounded in concrete, asphalt, and squat, stucco buildings covered in graffiti seemed to permeate the air.
Finally, he spotted a dark-skinned Indian man holding a piece of paper that said "Cary B." on it and looking off in another direction. Cary closed the gap between them and introduced himself. The other man looked him up and down rather disrespectfully and nodded. "The car is this way," he said in a rather high, sing-song voice.
Cary followed the man, who did not take Cary's bags, to a late-model white Cadillac parked in the garage. Cary put his luggage in the back seat and got up front with the Indian man, who had still not introduced himself. Cary figured he was probably just some production assistant/gofer. No one he needed to know anyway.
After wending their way through various parking lots and slalom-like mazes, the car was on the streets of L.A. and then the freeway. Traffic was gridlocked with other people leaving the airport, but after a while it broke up and the Cadillac was cruising at 65 m.p.h. Cary had never gotten his new BMW up to that speed, not on the streets of New York City.
He kept planning on driving Diana out to visit her mother upstate, and maybe even spending a whole week in the country, but he'd never gotten around to it. He promised himself that he would just as soon as he got back from the tour. He needed a vacation. His frustration from being unable to come with any ideas for a new book had kept him awake several nights, and when he did sleep he was plagued with unsettling nightmares. During the day he was tired and cranky, and he knew he had been pushing Diana away, little by little.
That was the last thing he wanted. He wanted to marry her. He decided that once they'd had a vacation and once he had begun work on his new novel, he would ask her.
Cary was more upset than he let on about his inability to write. The creative flow that had literally gushed from him when he wrote Vengeful Ghost and The Brandie Killer was turned off like a tap. After two full months of not even being able to come up with a subject for his Great American Novel, Cary had secretly tried to write another horror story. He hated to do it, because although he liked the money and prestige that came with being a bestselling genre novelist, he still felt stigmatized by the whole thing. He knew he had much more to offer, but he hoped that maybe by writing a few chapters in a horror genre, he could open up the creative floodgate again.
It hadn't worked. If anything, he had even more difficulty mustering up the energy to try to write another stab-and-slab.
Cary had been exhausted ever since he had finished The Brandie Killer. Then the nightmares had gotten worse. He tried to keep up appearances for Diana, but when she wasn't there he would do nothing but lie in his bed all day long. He thanked God for his twice-weekly maid service because if he didn't have that, his immaculate, shining white home would have quickly begun to resemble a pig-sty. Sometimes he even found it a hardship to pick his clothes up off the floor after he'd undressed. It was very unlike him and Cary was puzzled and distressed by his own behavior; he had always been...well, anal-retentive. Even as a child he had always kept an immaculately clean bedroom at home and locker at school. He wondered, while fearing the answer, what was happening to him.
>
Cary gazed out the window of the Cadillac as the Indian drove wordlessly on. They exited the freeway and drove up Sunset Boulevard. There was graffiti on almost every building and the sidewalks were littered with trash--human and otherwise. Finally, the car came to a stop at a rather seedy looking hotel. But Cary knew any place on Sunset Boulevard, especially so close to Beverly Hills, couldn't be that cheap. The driver brought the Caddy to a gliding halt beneath the awning that jutted out over the entrance to the hotel.
"I have your key here," said the Indian, speaking for the second time in an hour. "And a note from Al." He handed Cary a long, plain white envelope and unlocked Cary's door by throwing a switch on his own door.
Cary got out and took his luggage from the backseat. He did not thank the man, nor did he say good-bye. He drove off without a backward glance.
Cary walked through the revolving glass door of the hotel and was relieved to see the place didn't look anything on the inside as the outside had suggested. It was a clean and spacious, if simple and gauchely furnished, place. Cary had to look around a bit to find the elevator, but when he did, the doors were standing open, as if waiting for him.
His suite was on the fourth floor. It was not a view room and certainly nothing to write home about, but it would do. He would be here for three days. The Al Jackson Show would be taping that afternoon, then he had two book-signings in Hollywood, the Tonight Show and a radio call-in program to do.
Cary set his bags down and picked up the telephone. He got the front desk. He told the young woman who answered that he had arrived and would be placing some phone calls. First, he rang Diana at work to let her know he'd arrived safely. She seemed happy to hear from him, but there was also a holding-back in her tone.
Cary took the cue. "I want to apologize for the way I've been acting lately," he said. "I know it's no excuse, but I haven't been sleeping well--as you know." On the nights she'd spent with him in his penthouse, he knew he'd tossed and turned and cried out in his sleep. She'd had to shake him awake on more than one occasion.
The Tragedy Man: A Serial Killer Thriller Page 9
