Mr. Midnight

by Allan Leverone

  “Hello, Captain. Thanks for taking my call.”

  “Well, you made it sound pretty important. What’s going on?”

  “We’re investigating a homicide here, a very bad one. Another ‘Mr. Midnight’ killing. The victim has been dead just a few hours. It’s a young woman, probably a prostitute. She was stabbed, slashed, had her fingers broken and…”

  Miller hesitated on the other end of the line and Talmadge prompted him. “Yes?”

  The lieutenant took a deep breath and it sounded like he was working to keep a tremble out of his voice, but that seemed absurdly unlikely. The Boston Police Department investigated murders routinely. Bruce Miller had probably seen hundreds of victims during his career and had undoubtedly become detached and clinical when investigating murders years ago.

  Finally he continued, his voice subdued: “…and she had entire sections of skin stripped off her body. She was literally peeled like an apple. Someone’s into some seriously weird shit with a knife.”

  “Oh, God,” Talmadge muttered, not saying what she was thinking—that she was glad the nutcase had chosen Boston to go off in rather than Everett.

  “You and me both,” Miller agreed, a little more vigor returning to his voice. “But there’s more.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  “You should be. The suspect’s in the wind and our lead homicide investigator uncovered evidence that may indicate he isn’t finished yet.”

  “And?”

  “And he’s possibly headed in your direction.”

  Talmadge sighed and closed her eyes. “What sort of evidence?”

  “It’s a hastily written note that looks as though it may have been jotted down by our killer. It was found next to the body.”

  “And what does the note say?” Talmadge asked, a trace of frustration creeping into her voice. This Miller character couldn’t just come out with it, he had to string her along, make her ask a million questions. Officious prick.

  “It doesn’t really say anything. There’s just an address jotted down on the back of a piece of scrap paper—Seven Granite Circle.”

  “Ooookay…” Talmadge hesitated. Why did that street name sound familiar? She shrugged and continued, “I guess the obvious question would be, why did ‘Seven Granite Circle’ make you think of Everett and not somewhere else?”

  “Because there are only two communities in the entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts containing Granite streets, and—”

  “—and one of them is Everett,” Talmadge finished. She felt her stomach tighten as she suddenly remembered why the Granite Circle address rang a bell. One of her officers had been dispatched to that address a short while ago. A report from a neighbor concerned about a possible break-in.

  At 7 Granite Circle.

  Suddenly it became very important to get Lieutenant Miller off the phone and talk to dispatch. Her officer had walked straight into a nightmare.

  CHAPTER 45

  Milo frowned in frustration. What the hell was it with this bitch? She should have been nearly out of her mind with fear, crying and blubbering and begging for her life. He had had extensive experience torturing pretty young women—there weren’t many things in this life he was good at, but torture was definitely one of them—and the cycle of emotions undergone by his playthings was virtually always the same.

  First would come surprise. More like shock, really, as the realization struck them that this man was not the harmless person they thought he was. Surprise would be followed immediately by fear. It wasn’t quite terror; that would come later. Rather, it was more of a realization that things were spinning out of control and they knew everything was going wrong but did not yet realize just how wrong.

  After that would come resistance and a stubborn belief that if they worked hard enough at convincing him to let them go, he might change his plans and target a different girl. This was always the most entertaining part of the whole experience for Milo until the actual torture started. Some of the girls would beg and plead, others would act tough, putting up a brave front, displaying a belligerence they could not possibly feel. Some would sweet-talk him, coming on to him like a lover, as if maybe he was too stupid to see through the obvious ruse. He hated that, being treated like an idiot by a common streetwalker.

  Eventually, though, the girls always reached the breaking point. Often it was not until he started in on them with his knives and his pliers, but it always happened. They would break down and begin screaming (hence the all-important duct-tape gag) and babbling incoherently, unable due to fear and pain to manage a coherent sentence or even an intelligible word.

  The cycle was as regular as the tides in Boston Harbor. But this girl was different, which of course made him hate her even more but also—if he was being honest with himself, which he always tried to be—fear her just a little bit. It wasn’t a fear that she might overpower him and somehow escape. That was a complete impossibility, so unlikely as to be laughable.

  Rather, it was a twinge of concern, a vague notion that he might be unable to gauge her reactions properly and thus be ineffective in controlling her. With everything that had happened over the last few minutes, this clean-cut, innocent All-American beauty should have been well on her way to her inevitable nervous breakdown. And yet there she stood, clad only in bra and panties, clearly uncomfortable about her near-nakedness but standing ramrod-straight and looking him in the eye, determined not to let him get the upper hand.

  It was a ridiculous notion, of course. He already had the upper hand and was not about to relinquish it. But it did throw him off his game for just a moment. He reached behind his back, stroked the knife handle, comforted by its presence, excited he would be getting an opportunity to use it, and very soon now.

  He said, “Lie down on the couch,” and she stood there, gazing into the distance, as if just now realizing she had left the iron on or forgotten to put in the roast beef for dinner. Jesus, this bitch was annoying!

  “I said, get your pretty little ass onto the couch.” He raised his voice for emphasis and the woman came back from wherever she had gone, blinking hard and looking at him in surprise, almost like she had forgotten he was there. Again, annoying as hell.

  A tiny flicker of fear passed across her eyes and then she seemed to regain her composure and it disappeared. Not for long, Milo thought. Pretty soon it will be back for good. She eased into a sitting position on the threadbare couch, crossing her legs and folding her arms across her chest. She looked good, had a great figure, well-toned abs, smallish tits but very proportional, and long, lean, athletic legs. For a moment Milo wished he was like most men. He could have had a field day with this girl.

  But he wasn’t like most men. An attractive female form did nothing for him unless he was working it over with a knife or pliers, stabbing and slashing and ripping. Then, and only then, would he find himself getting hard. Then, and only then, would he be able to achieve sexual release.

  Of course, he had no intention of letting this girl in on that little secret. It had been his experience that the longer a playmate thought she was managing to avoid being raped, the easier she was to control and the longer she would remain compliant.

  He eyed her, seated demurely like a virgin on prom night. “That’s a good start,” he sneered. “Now, lie across the couch on your back.”

  The fear returned to her eyes, this time not just flickering across them but thundering into them like a runaway freight train. Milo felt a twinge in his groin as his body reacted to this demonstration of the power he held over his victim.

  The girl hesitated, just as she had done when instructed to strip, but after a moment she seemed to acknowledge the helplessness of her situation. She lifted her feet, knees still locked together, and swung them onto the plush cushions. Then she slid her upper body down along the couch-back, never taking her eyes off Milo’s, until finally arriving at the position he had intended, fully horizontal with her head propped up on the armrest.

  A smile spre
ad across his face and he pulled the long knife out of its makeshift scabbard at his back. He studied his victim like an artist pondering a blank canvas. An electric tension hung in the air. Milo could not see the older broad—she was behind him, still trussed up on her chair next to the unconscious hero who had tried to save the day—but nevertheless he knew she was trying to avert her eyes and failing. She didn’t want to watch but she had to, which added a nice little charge to the excitement he was already feeling.

  At last he stepped forward, knife held firmly in his right hand.

  And the girl said, “There’s something you should know.”

  CHAPTER 46

  Cait thought she had done a pretty good job of keeping herself together until the crazy bastard told her to lie down on the couch. That was when she thought the tenuous grip she had managed to maintain over her emotions might come crashing apart, like water rushing out of a smashed drinking glass.

  The thought of lying nearly naked, utterly exposed in front of this monster, was terrifying. It made no logical sense, of course. Realistically, she should have been just as frightened sitting on the couch with her legs crossed and her arms folded. None of that would provide her with the slightest protection if Milo decided to begin wielding his blade.

  But then, nothing that had happened since leaving Tampa made sense anyway. A simple trip up the East Coast to reunite with a long-lost parent had turned into a nightmare of the highest order. This whole experience was a tumble down the rabbit hole, a field trip to hell, an inexplicable descent into madness.

  So in a matter of seconds, when the lunatic grinned his greasy, terrible grin and told her that sitting on the couch wasn’t good enough, that she would have to uncurl her limbs and stretch out on her back, her body almost completely unclothed, Cait Connelly fully and unforgettably discovered the meaning of the phrase, “the last straw.” A roaring that only she could hear filled her ears and puffy black clouds bloomed in her vision and she thought for one awful moment that she was suffering a stroke and that she would either pass out from the debilitating fear or just freeze up and turn into a gibbering, drooling mental case.

  But again the thought of Kevin kept her going. His condition had not improved, he was still unconscious and taped to a chair, hanging on to life by a thread, blood slowly seeping out of him, still depending on her resourcefulness for whatever slim chance at survival he might have.

  She clamped down on her fear and forced the clouds away.

  Forced the roaring freight train out of her ears as well.

  Did the only thing she could think of that might buy her a little more time, although what good could possibly come from it, she had no idea.

  She started talking as he moved toward her, the bloodstained knife held in front of him in both hands like some religious icon. “There’s something you should know,” she said, and he stopped dead in his tracks and stood unmoving. He stared at her, seemingly flummoxed by this unexpected development. It was clearly not the reaction he had been expecting.

  “What are you talking about?” he said.

  Cait knew his indecision would not last long, so she pressed on, willing her voice to remain steady, making up her strategy as she went. “I’m your sister.”

  Milo shook his head and Cait wondered whether he was disagreeing with her statement or simply trying to process it. Maybe he was doing both. “What the fuck are you talking about, bitch?” he finally managed. “I don’t have a sister. I’m an only child, and thank God for that.”

  Cait wondered what he meant by the last part of that statement but continued on quickly, while she still had his attention and before he came to the conclusion talking was pointless. “You were adopted as a baby, weren’t you?” She was grasping at straws, trying desperately to recall the incredible story her mother had related to her, putting things together as she went, wondering as she talked whether she hoped it was all true or all a lie.

  Milo eyed her suspiciously. “Yes, I was adopted, so what? And how did you know that?”

  “I knew it,” Cait answered, her voice growing stronger and more confident, “because I was adopted, too. And I just learned the story of my history yesterday. I learned it from my real mother. The same woman who is your real mother. The woman sitting right over there.” She risked lifting her arm and pointing across the room at Victoria, hoping he wouldn’t interpret the movement as a threat and slash at her with the knife.

  He didn’t. He followed her motion dumbly, making a slow half-turn toward the frail older woman duct-taped to her own kitchen chair, her mangled hand still dripping blood slowly onto the floor. Victoria closed her eyes and hung her head before nodding slowly, a mute affirmation of Cait’s story.

  “You see things, don’t you?” she continued. “In your mind, I mean. You see things in your mind from other people’s perspective. You know things you couldn’t possibly know and it’s always been that way, ever since you were a very young boy. Am I right?”

  The man’s jaw had gone slack and his eyes glazed over. He still clung to the knife but it seemed to have been forgotten, at least for the time being. “I’ve always seen things,” he whispered. “I never understood it but I’ve always been able to see pictures, like mental movies, of things happening in other people’s lives. Sometimes it’s overwhelming, sometimes the visions just keep coming, one after another, they won’t stop for hours sometimes, and it’s just so fucking…exhausting…”

  Cait nodded, hoping to keep him talking, hoping against all reasonable hope that by beginning to forge a connection with him, however fragile and tenuous, he might see her as a human being rather than simply as a potential victim, and that in so doing she—and, hopefully, Victoria and Kevin as well—might somehow have a chance to escape this nightmare with their lives. “I’ve always had the ability as well,” she said gently. “I call those visions ‘Flickers,’ because they are like those old-time black-and-white movies that flicker up on the screen when you watch them.

  “Our mother didn’t want to give us up,” she continued. “I just found that out yesterday. It was the hardest decision she ever had to make; it literally tore her family apart. But she had no choice in the matter—” Cait stopped talking, suddenly realizing she had gone too far, remembering what Victoria had said about the history of fratricide among twins going back centuries in her family’s history, remembering what Victoria had said about her becoming a target should she ever be reunited with her brother. Suddenly she understood that he didn’t comprehend his burning hatred for her any better than she did.

  But the problem with making things up as you went was that you didn’t have time to plan ahead, and Cait immediately regretted her words, knowing they could logically lead only to one question in her brother’s psychotic mind: Why? Why had his mother cast him away? And the answer to that question would likely lead to a knife in the heart, not just for her but for Victoria as well and probably Kevin, just to round things out.

  She hurriedly tried to steer the conversation in another direction, desperate to get onto safer ground. “But it doesn’t matter,” she said. “Adoptive parents can be wonderful; they can treat you with love and respect just like biological parents. In fact, you could argue that if they were unable to have children of their own, they may appreciate the opportunity to raise kids even more than biological parents would.”

  Milo’s face hardened, and as he tightened his grip on the knife, Cait realized immediately she had said something wrong, had blundered into a taboo area. “Or,” he answered, “they might treat you like an object, a slave, an animal to be beaten and abused and tortured.”

  Milo took a menacing step forward and Cait shrank back, wishing she could disappear into the couch cushions. “How nice that you were given parents who treated you with ‘love and respect’”—he spoke in a falsetto voice filled with sugary sweetness, the anger behind the words spilling out despite his tone, or maybe because of it.

  “My parents never gave me a chance. They were well-respected
in the community, but at home my father was a monster, using his belt as a motivational tool, flaying my back until it bled for the smallest transgression, using a fork to gouge ridges into my skin if I took too long bringing the trash out to the curb.”

  Cait’s eyes widened in horror now as well as in fear. Milo’s anger seemed to be building on itself as he spoke, gaining momentum, taking on a life of its own. He was working himself into a rage, exactly what she was trying to avoid, and there was nothing she could do about it. “You want to see the ‘love and respect’ you seem to value so highly?”

  She stayed silent, afraid of saying the wrong thing again, and he continued. “Here’s an example of ‘love and respect.’” He pivoted suddenly, showing his back to Cait, and raised his shirttail. He was not wearing an undershirt, and Cait clamped a hand to her mouth in horror at the sight of his skin. Puckered scars criss-crossed his back, raised and angry, hundreds of them, tiny ridged welts, remnants of the torture he claimed to have received as a child. “My entire body is like this,” he said, “practically every square inch of skin that could be covered up to hide the evidence. My father was an animal, but he was also very careful.

  “So don’t sit there and try to tell me how wonderful it is that I was given up for adoption. I have no idea whether what you’re saying is true, whether that dried-up old bitch back there is my mother, but if she is, I consider her just as responsible for what happened to me as a child as my adoptive parents.

  “Now,” he said, dropping his shirt into place and turning slowly back toward the couch. “Any more bright ideas about how you’re going to soften me up so I won’t carve you like a Thanksgiving turkey?”

  Cait closed her eyes, breathing in short gasps, trying to control her burgeoning terror and mostly failing. There was nothing she could say to save them. Family meant nothing to this man. He had been broken beyond saving, maybe by his adoptive parents, maybe by genetics, but any connection she had hoped to forge with this lost but terrifyingly dangerous soul was turning out to be a pipe dream.