“This is Detective Steven King,” Wendy introduces me in a tone of voice that makes me sound like a joke. I look at the mother and wonder if I could arrest her for making my name sound stupid. That seems like a crime. defamation of character, I think I could make that one stick for a while, hold her overnight, teach her not to introduce others. “Like the writer,” she adds, twisting the dagger in my side. I smile against the anger inside of me. One day I’ll get used to that.
“I already spoke with Detective Carson,” Rebecca says nervously.
“There’s been a development,” I tell her with as much caution as I can muster. “Mrs. Roberts, is there somewhere private we can talk? I’m not sure you want to hear this out in the open.” I say this, implying that Wendy’s neighbors have nothing better to do than stick their noses in her shit before they roll over and die, but what I really want is her kids out of here. No kid needs to hear that their father chopped off his hands with saws they had in their garage because he went on an armed robbery bender. Thankfully, Rebecca pushes one of her wavy, red locks out of her face and stares at me with a contorted look of confusion and fear. She can sense it. Most people can pick up the bad vibes I carry with me when I come to tell them that death’s claimed one of their loved ones.
“Mom, will you take the boys out for ice cream?” Rebecca asks.
“That sounds delicious.” Wendy can sense it too now and tries to put on a happy, brave face for the boys. This is the face that I’ve seen a lot of parents, a lot of grandparents, or aunts and uncles put on to try and save the innocence that they all know is about to come crashing down with the weight of reality behind it. This is the end of all things pure and lovely. This is the end of childhood. “What do you say, boys?”
“Yeah!” they scream in unison, gleefully oblivious to everything that’s happening around them.
As they vanish into the house, Wendy follows them, leaving her daughter with me on the porch. I look at her and size her up. She’s got a figure, but she’s still working off the weight she gained with the last boy, who looks to be over two years old. She’s still got the ass, but her legs aren’t as nice as they probably once were and her arms are still formless. She’s working on it though, that much is obvious. If she wasn’t, then she would look a whole lot different. She has a pretty face, the kind that reminds me of a porcelain doll. She’s got the whole red hair, pale skin look going on that so many like her have. It’s a beautiful look that none of them truly appreciate the fact that they were chosen to have it.
“Come on in,” she motions for me to follow her.
I hold the screen door as she enters the house and cross the threshold with her. The door closes behind me and I close the interior door as well. I follow her into the dining room where she sits down at the table and waits for me. Her eyes are very emotive and it makes me uncomfortable. I sit down across from her and clear my throat, trying to decide how exactly I want to cut this particular shit pie for her.
“Did you catch him?” she asks me with a quivering voice.
“No,” I shake my head and decide that the first move has been made. “We found your husband early this morning at your house.”
She looks at me with a petrified stare that catches the particular syntax choices that I have selected for my vernacular. She stares at me and reaches out to where her water bottle is sitting on the table. She quickly takes a drink and clears her throat before speaking. “What do you mean ‘found’ him?” she asks me, right on the money.
“We found him in your garage,” I answer. “Right now, all I can tell you is that it appears that your husband took his own life.”
“Appears?” she says for one single moment when her strength still remains. I can almost see the cracks webbing across her face, readying for her to shatter at any moment.
“Well, we’re not ruling out any options until we gather all of the facts,” I tell her.
That’s when she breaks. A single tear breaks free and runs down her cheek before her shoulders buckle and snap forward. Her hands launch to her face and she begins to cry. I was never any good at this part. I’m not supposed to reach out and touch her, comfort her, or console her in any way. When you try comforting the family, people are prone to making exaggerated promises. What’s best is just to sit back and let them get a grip before you continue. Sometimes it takes a few seconds, other times, it takes much longer and you have to encourage them back to reality. I let Rebecca cry and scream for several minutes until it looks like she’s getting a handle on it. I never like this. I hate watching people cry. These are the rewards that my job has to offer me. Everything in this job is sorrow and misery, everywhere. Yet I’ve stayed so many years.
“Why?” she asks after a second of silence, sniffing. I reach into my pocket and hand her a pack of Kleenex I stuffed into my jacket pocket before coming to speak with her. She takes it gratefully, buying me some time before I decide how to accurately phrase what I’m about to tell her. “Why would he do this?” she asks me.
“As you know,” I say calmly, “your husband went on a four day armed robbery spree. When we notified you, it seems that you left a note. It appears he seems to have read the note, saw no other option that was preferable to death, and went into the garage to take his life.”
“Oh my God,” she screams before wailing again. I let her continue to grieve over the fact that we live in a world where actions have consequences. You don’t just let your mentally unstable, violent husband know that you’re leaving him and that he’s going to jail. That’s where Rebecca screwed up. It sucks, but there it is. If this was a suicide, the person who is responsible for giving Chad time to think about killing himself is her. She could have left without the note and just let the cops show up and arrest him, but she needed to stick that particular dagger in him. She sniffs again and regains a bit of control over herself. “Why do you keep saying that it appears that way?” she asks me. A valid question.
I take a moment and pull out the pictures of Lola Maretti, Jenny Martinez, and Ted Martin and spread them out across the table. “I know this isn’t what you want to do at this moment, Mrs. Roberts,” I say to her in a strong voice, “but I need you to have a look at these three people. Their names are Lola Maretti, Jenny Martinez, and Ted Martin.” I tap to each corresponding picture. She hardly looks at them, too torn apart by her grief. “Do any of these people look familiar to you or have you heard your husband talk about anyone by one of their names before?”
She takes a moment and looks at the pictures, her face red, twisted with horror and grief, and covered in tears. She stares at them, looking at them with hardly any interest. She’s too awash in a million different emotions right now and I don’t hold that against her. I have time. While I’m doing this, Mendez and his legion of techs, forensics, and uniforms going over that house with everything they have. Even Mendez is part of the Owens cult now and we’re all pulling to find out whoever is behind this, but that takes time. I doubt that the coroner’s office has even gotten to Chad’s body yet. I look at Rebecca and wait patiently. She has no clue what kind of a manhunt there is out there for whoever did this to her husband. Sure he was scum, but he’s on the top of the victim list right now.
Finally, she shakes her head and pushes the pictures back to me. “I don’t recognize any of them,” she sniffs and shakes her head. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“I know,” I tell her. I’ve seen hundreds of people dealing with this and she’s actually holding up pretty well. She hasn’t flipped the table or fainted yet. I had one woman try to kill herself right in front of me after I told her that her fiancé had been killed in a shooting. That one definitely made the list of craziest days ever. “Did you ever hear your husband mention those names before?”
“No,” she shakes her head angrily. “Why? Who are these people?”
“They’re other suicides in the area recently,” I say after a moment of consideration. It’s breaking protocol, but fuck it. I don’t think I
can operate under this secret super spy shit anymore. I have to say it. I can’t just let a broken woman sit in limbo until we find out whether it was murder or if it wasn’t. I take a deep breath and look her in the eyes. “There’s a possibility that your husband was murdered,” I tell her.
“Why do you say that?” She looks at me with a scared look now.
“Did your husband have any enemies?” I ask her.
“No, not really,” she shakes her head. “There were some people at his job that he didn’t like, but no one who would want to kill him. I mean, we didn’t talk too much, the past year, but he would have told me if he felt like he was in danger. We weren’t that far apart. Why? What did he do?”
“Your husband left a note,” I tell her, picking up the pictures in front of her. “So did these three victims. The note was only two sentences and was particularly vague on why they decided to end their lives. This has led us to suspect that someone might have chosen these three victims and your husband as targets to stage as suicides. The nature of your husband’s death also leads us to believe that your husband might not have been the one who ended his life.”
“What happened to my husband?” Rebecca asks me with a very serious tone that shows that she means business. She’s tired of the games. She’s tired of me dancing around the questions. She wants me to answer the damn question. I give a heavy sigh. She wants the gory details.
“Your husband tied tourniquets around his elbows and knees,” I tell her. This is so wrong. This is going to get my ass fried if she freaks out and files a report, but she has a right to know. “He then preceded to dismember his feet and hands with various instruments found in your garage. He died of blood loss.”
Rebecca’s face contorts even more and I’m afraid that she’s going to unleash and eruption of screams and shrieks at what I’ve just told her but as her face begins to turn purple, she only lets out a wail and a horrific sound that I’ve honestly never heard before this day. I watch as she holds her hands to her mouth and sobs for a moment before she tries to regain her senses.
“Why would he do that?” she asks me.
“That’s what we want to know,” I tell her. “Your husband had a gun in his possession. We think that foul play might be involved because anyone in their right mind would have chosen a more humane method which they would end their suffering with.”
“What about the people he stole from?” she asks, hardly hearing a word I’ve said. “What if he stole from someone with like, I don’t know, mafia connections or something?”
“Unlikely,” I shake my head. “He appears to have been specifically targeted.”
“Oh my God.” She shakes her head. There’s snot running down to her lips now and I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve made the wrong decision by telling her. But in my moment of doubt, she reaches out to me with a trembling hand and I take it. She squeezes my hand tight, not even looking at me. She’s just staring off into the ether with her thoughts. “Thank you,” she says quietly. I look at her and nod to her.
“Do you have someone you’d like for me to call?” I ask her. When she shakes her head that she doesn’t, I understand completely. Outside, a squad car pulls up and I know that my reinforcements have arrived. “Mrs. Roberts, I’m going to find whoever did this to your husband and I’m going to make sure that he pays for what he’s done. I have a couple of officers outside who are going to come in and discuss details about what happens next. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she sniffs, trying to regain her senses. “Thank you. Thank you for telling me.”
“You’re welcome,” I tell her.
When the uniforms take over, I make my escape. I was right. It was another dead end, but that’s alright. I’m sure that Mendez and his team will find something, anything to send us in the right direction. I walk slowly out to the car, feeling heavy, like the heat and gravity of the planet has picked up. I give a deep sigh and look at the house. I hate days like this. They sort of just sink their claws in deep and refuse to let me go. I need a release. I need to detach for a moment and clear my head. I need out of the cesspool this case has become.
Sitting down in my car, I turn the key and feel the seat under me vibrate, and listen to the rumbling of the engine. I’m getting tired, but something tells me that the day is far from over. I’ve got a few hours though, until something comes up. I’ve got a little time to relax for a second, to give Mendez’s legions time to regroup and get back to me with something substantial. We need a win right now. We need something. Hell, I just need something.
17
Maretti, Martinez, and Martin, they all almost sound the same. But the only problem with that is that victim number four is Roberts. Maybe the killer works in sets. Maybe he kills off a bunch of people with the same root name and then decides to move on to the next one. Maybe Roberts is the planting of the flag in the sand, the declaration that this is his new kill set. Part of me wants to drive straight home and grab all of the files that Owens has collected and check the last names to see if there’s something to this. Maybe it’s all about last names. I should check it out. The only problem is, the green neon light casts its glow across the windshield and I look up at the sign and decide that I’m already here and I’m definitely in need of something. Besides, if the name thing doesn’t pan out, then I’ll just be pissed I rushed home and didn’t enjoy myself.
I look up at the sign. It’s written out right in front of me in mint neon. It’s called The Backseat, but underneath it is has Gentlemen’s Club written in cursive, trying to class the place up. There’s something about strippers that make them slightly more acceptable than whores, but in the end, I don’t see much of a difference. There’s a secret truth behind most strip clubs and that’s that they’re all fronts to showcase their true businesses, the fact that they whore themselves out with the safety of the club around them. Anyone gets too physical or rough, and the bouncers beat the shit out of you.
Stepping out of the car, I look at the handful of other cars that are in the parking lot, more lonely suckers looking for a good time. I’m not one of them. I’m worse. I’m the kind that comes here with a particular need in mind. I’m not one to hide behind deceptions and denials. I’m in need of a release and I intend on making that happen before Mendez gives me a call. I don’t plan on sticking around long, just long enough for me to get rid of my angst.
At the worst possible time, I have the desires. I have the urges to tend to. I have needs that come up and the frustration draws it out. All I can think of is Kendall Stein, especially her wearing that fantastic schoolgirl outfit. Those long legs stretching down from a short plaid skirt. I feel my desires starting to rise. I wanted to rip off her gown and start licking her nipples. Sure, she is a bit older than I’m used to, but I can’t help but want her. It really doesn’t matter how old a gorgeous woman is and it usually doesn’t matter what your preference is, stunning women are stunning. But when I really start to think about it, all I can think about is the blonde girl from the trailer park. She had the face of an angel and the body of a goddess. To have one night with her, no, just the few precious minutes that I have here now would be nice.
The bouncer at the door looks at me and nods to me. He has an easy job tonight. There’s hardly anyone here. This place is usually busier than it appears to be tonight. He opens the door and gives me another silent nod before I step into the gloomy, poorly lit entrance to the lounge. I look at the lady behind the desk who is one of about six girls that takes the rotation at the front desk. They’re the face of the business, bringing the men into the depths of The Backseat’s home. I look at her, all smiles behind her desk as she wears a summer dress that amply shows her augmented chest. I don’t find her very attractive, she’s too far out of my preferences and I don’t think that she really gives a shit about me. That’s the key to a good worker in this industry.
“Thank you for coming to The Backseat tonight,” she says to me as I approach her and hand her the five dollar entry
fee. It’s not much, but it’s enough for me to get a tiny little badge that distinguishes this place as a private club. I take the badge and stick it on my lapel as she continues smiling at me. “Are you having a nice day today?”
“Not exactly,” I say to her before walking through the curtained doorway where another bouncer is standing. He’s a tall, bald guy who doesn’t even look at me. He just pulls the curtain aside and lets me pass into the even darker gloom. The smoke machine is working on full power and it keeps the place looking hazy and dark, making it feel more private and larger. I feel isolated among the stiletto wearing waitresses who walk past me with only pasties on. They smile at me and welcome me, trying make me feel more comfortable. One of them touches my shoulder as I walk toward my table. There are three poles on illuminated stages where dancers are making love to the pole, barely clothed.
I take a seat near the back of the giant room, avoiding the eyes of the other patrons who are sitting mostly near the main platforms where the girls are flipping their hair and turning merrily. I’m not very attracted to any of them. They’re older women, and by older, I mean that they’re in their late twenties, early thirties. That’s the prime of the female body to most people. If a woman works long enough and hard enough on her body, then by her thirties, she should be a lean, killer, sex machine and she’ll look magnificent, but I’m not drawn to that usually. It’s the younger women, the innocent and the naïve. I like the look of bodies in their natural perfection.
There’s something about the fact that when we were primal creatures, we looked for women who were in their late teens and early twenties. Once upon a time, I would have been dead and so would everyone else who is my age. I don’t really know what it is about that which draws me to the late teenagers. They are the purest human form without labor or work or toiling. In the old days, their bodies would have been the highest level of achievement, without gyms or diets or any other sort of manipulation to help themselves. That’s what I find alluring.
The Monster Within Page 15
