A Garden of Vipers

by Jack Kerley

  “How about this lawyerish-looking guy, Preston? You know him?”

  If Walls glanced at the photo, it was a millisecond. He tried to hand it back.

  “Look again,” I said. “Longer.”

  Walls took a perfunctory second glance, seemed to be looking past the photo. He frowned.

  “What is it, Preston?”

  Walls tweezed the photo between his thumb and forefinger, like it was something he didn’t feel safe touching. The picture dropped in my hands.

  “Never seen him before. Gotta go, guys. Nice talking to you.”

  He walked us to the lobby and retreated behind his door. I heard it lock.

  We returned to the department. Harry started through the doorway, stopped abruptly, threw his arm in front of me, and nodded across the room at our cubicle. Pace Logan was sitting at Harry’s desk, leafing through papers. Harry moves fast and light when necessary, a second later was standing behind Logan.

  “Help you, Logan?”

  “Oh, shit. Nautilus. I was just—”

  I jogged up. Logan had Taneesha Franklin’s murder book in front of him, opened to the photo section.

  “Just what?”

  Logan went into defensive mode. “What’s it look like? I’m checking the book. I was at the scene, remember? First, if I recall. I got some spare time, thought I’d see how things were developing. That all right with you?”

  “You want to look at things, Logan, ask.”

  Logan stood, showed teeth. He jammed the book into Harry’s chest.

  “Fuck you, Nautilus. I didn’t know you owned the murder books. Guess I forgot to sign it out from King Dick.”

  I stepped between them before Harry did or said something that was momentarily gratifying but improvident in the longer run. Logan stormed back to his desk, the smell of tobacco in his wake. Harry blew out a long breath and we sat. I had my usual pile of call slips from strung-out snitches trying to peddle fiction, but a name stood out. Ms. Rudolnick had called. The message was “Nothing important, just checking.”

  I picked up my phone, called, kicking myself for not alerting her the moment we’d secured the files, good manners.

  “How are you, ma’am?”

  “I was just wondering, did the key work?”

  “Thank you, yes. Your son’s files are safe. No one else will ever see them.”

  “Are the files helpful?”

  “We’re still reviewing them. It’s a big job.”

  “Just find the person who caused my son’s death, sir.”

  “We will, ma’am. Thanks for checking.”

  “Certainly. Oh, by the way, sir?”

  “Yes?”

  “I had some wonderful moments yesterday. A delightful young friend of Bernie’s stopped by.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t trust many people, and I know there are all manner of scams directed at people my age, so I asked questions. He knew everything about Bernie: how his left eye fluttered when he got nervous, how he liked puns. Bernie had a very individual way of walking, fast, spinning on his heel to turn around. The young man mimicked Bernie’s walk and we both had a good laugh. It was refreshing, the best I’d felt in a long time. My young visitor had such wonderful things to say about my son.”

  “Who was this young man, Ms. Rudolnick?”

  “Frank Cloos. He’d worked with Bernie two years back, at the psychiatric wing of Mobile Regional Hospital. Bernie consulted there two days a week. Mr. Cloos had been an MHT, mental health technician.”

  “What did Mr. Cloos look like?”

  “About your size, I guess. Dark hair with a touch of red. Piercing eyes. A very good-looking young man.”

  “You said young?”

  “Mid-twenties, I’d guess. A mature bearing.”

  “What else did you talk about?”

  A pause. I heard the grandfather clock bonging in the distance.

  “That was a sad part. Mr. Cloos had been out of town for a while, business. He didn’t know about Bernie, couldn’t understand why his phone was disconnected. There aren’t any other Rudolnicks in the phone directory, so he came here.”

  “He didn’t know Bernie was deceased?”

  “It was the one moment I thought I’d made a mistake by letting him inside my house. When I told Mr. Cloos what happened, well, he seemed to disappear inside himself. He closed his eyes. His hands grabbed his pant legs, his knuckles turned white. It seemed like, like…”

  I heard her struggling for words.

  “What, Ms. Rudolnick?”

  “It was like he was being torn apart inside, ready to cry or scream or throw things. I was scared, but didn’t say a word, and it passed. Then he took my hand and asked questions. He was so concerned, so nice. Then I went to fetch some drinks and sweets and that’s when we talked about Bernie, the good things, the happy things. We talked for a half hour. Then he had to go. He said he’d be back next month, we’d go to dinner, talk longer.”

  “Did he tell you how to get in touch with him?” I held my breath.

  “Only that he’d call. We’d go to dinner somewhere nice, somewhere Bernie would have liked.”

  I resisted banging my head on the desk. When we hung up I called Mobile Regional and confirmed what I already knew: There was no record of a Frank Cloos ever having worked there. I called Ms. Rudolnick back, asked if I could send a fingerprint team to her house, pretty much knowing nothing would have been touched.

  I started for home a few minutes later, stopped by Sally Hargreaves’s desk on the way out.

  “How’s your progress with the rape and beating victim, the blind woman?”

  Sally nodded and shot a thumbs-up. “I’m feeling better about her, Carson. She’s tough, a survivor. She has one minor surgery coming up tomorrow, hopefully heads home by mid–next week. She’s using her hand again, too. It’s improving daily.”

  It stopped me. “What do you mean, using her hand?”

  “She had two fingers broken in the attack, another severely dislocated. The doctors were afraid there might be nerve damage, but apparently—”

  “You never mentioned the fingers.”

  Sally gave me a so what look. “They were the least of her injuries.”

  “Can I meet her, Sal? Talk to her?”

  “She’s recovering from horror, Carson. I’m not sure she should relive those moments. Why?”

  “I’ve got a dead girl who had broken fingers, torture, probably. Maybe it’s the same perp.”

  “Can you wait a bit? Let my victim get home, return to familiar surroundings, familiar routine?”

  “The perp’s a psycho. If he’s on the road I think he is, there’s another woman in his sights right now.”

  Sal closed her eyes and shook her head.

  “Carson…”

  “We’ve got no leads, Sal. The guy’s a cipher.”

  Sally frowned. Fumbled through her purse for her phone.

  “Let me make a call.”

  A half hour later we were sitting beside the bed of Karen Fairchild. She was petite and Caucasian, dark-haired, with a voice still husky from screaming and being choked. Her face was swathed in white bandages tinted pink at the edges with antibiotic cream. Despite her travails, she greeted me without apprehension, and I gathered Sally had both explained the reason for my visit and presented me in a kindly light.

  One of Ms. Fairchild’s hands was contained in a soft brace, the fingers supported. On the other hand, several fingertips were bandaged from nails tearing off as she’d defended herself. No traces of the perp’s blood or skin had been found beneath Ms. Fairchild’s nails, or anywhere on her body, and Forensics had determined Ms. Fairchild had been thoroughly bathed before being dropped—literally—at the hospital.

  Like the trip to the hospital, the bathing was anomalous, a moment of careful thought and organization in what the victim recalled as a night of psychotic mania in a barn.

  “It wasn’t a horse or cow barn,” she said, answering one of several
questions I’d asked. “It was probably an equipment barn.”

  “You can tell?” I asked.

  “It was part of my training at blind school, Detective Ryder. The teachers would bring us samples of dirt from an animal barn, and we’d have to differentiate it from a barn used for storing equipment.”

  “What’s that supposed to teach you?” I asked, amazed.

  The white ball of swaths and dressings laughed through the exposed mouth, jiggling the tubes tracking into her arm. I looked at Sal. She held a laugh tucked behind her hand.

  “Ouch, my leg,” I said.

  The pile of bandages smiled through lips still bruised and puffy from stitches.

  “Sorry, Detective. I grew up on a farm west of Movella, Mississippi, know a bit about them. I smelled grease, fertilizer, plain old dirt. Hay was around. But I didn’t smell any animals nearby. They have a strong odor, even from a distance. The more I think about it, I suspect the barn hadn’t been used in a while, years maybe. There was a smell of mold and decay, like the hay was old.”

  “And you don’t know how long you were held at the barn?”

  The laugh disappeared. “Time didn’t have any meaning that night.”

  “Do remember when your fingers were broken?”

  “It was very painful. It was when he was…on top of me. He had my hand clenched in his. While he was pushing he kept ordering me to say I loved him. I wasn’t saying it loud enough, and he kept bending my fingers farther and farther backward until I was screaming the words. I finally passed out.”

  “You woke up at the hospital.”

  “When I realized I was alive, I was amazed. He kept telling me I was going to die. Laughing as he said it.” She looked toward me and her lips pursed in question. “I’m not complaining, Detective Ryder. You’re excellent company. But aren’t you a homicide detective?”

  “My partner and I are also part of a special team, the Psychopathological and Sociopathological Investigative Team, and deal with very disturbed minds. I know it’s tough to tell us these things, but we learn from each story. It adds to our store of knowledge about such criminals.”

  She looked straight at me as if she had perfect vision and her eyes weren’t covered in gauze.

  “Then you’ve smelled it, Detective Ryder.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Smelled insanity.”

  “I never knew you could smell insanity.”

  Her voice tightened with the memory. “It’s a foul, ugly smell. I couldn’t smell it at first, when he was just talking to me, pleasant, almost reasonable. Then he started getting angry for no reason. That’s when I noticed the smell. It got stronger as he…handled his needs. Like smoke getting thicker.”

  “What’s it smell like?” Sal asked, her voice a whisper. “Insanity.”

  Karen Fairchild shook her white-swathed head.

  “There aren’t any words for it. You have to be there.”

  CHAPTER 25

  Lucas lay on the floor of his office, blinds drawn, absentmindedly watching his new television. He’d also bought a chair and desk at Staples. The TV sat on the desk with the volume low. The blond woman with the dead eyes and paste-on smile was gesturing at letters. It seemed she’d been gesturing at the stupid letters most of Lucas’s life. He wondered what she’d be like to fuck, figured she would be like some kind of appliance, like a toaster.

  “Bend over, hon, I need to set you on medium dark.”

  Lucas chuckled to himself and studied the televised puzzle. The answer on the board was a place name. Someone yapped about buying a letter. Lights flashed, letters turned. Four words, Lucas mused, letters numbering three, four, five, and eight.

  N□□ □□□□

  □□□□□ □X□□□N□□

  Lucas yawned, mumbled, “New York Stock Exchange.” The contestant didn’t see it, her mouth open like a cow’s.

  “Moronic bitch!” Lucas yelled. “Retard.”

  He caught himself. Closed his eyes. Saw a man with a button nose and lopsided grin running through a peaceful woods.

  Mumbled, “Sorry, Freddy.”

  Lucas drowsed through the other channels, wishing he had cable, but that took a more complete identity. They’d be watching carefully for him to create an identity.

  Lucas paused on a group of half-naked people shooting flaming arrows at a coconut, a commercial for another television show. He’d seen the show, people with various personality deficiencies dropped in a jungle and trying to outthink another group of the similarly afflicted.

  Everything was so stupid. But some of the women were hotties, one in particular, a blonde who wore a leather thong around her neck, like a collar. She always looked wet and sticky, like she was sweating honey.

  I’ll make you sweat, hon….

  Lucas masturbated into yesterday’s underwear, then stretched out on his sleeping bag, crossing his arms behind his head. He’d gone to a sporting goods store and bought a sleeping bag and an inflatable mattress. If, for some reason, he had to vacate quickly, the bag would be useful beneath a bridge or wherever he would hide.

  He couldn’t let it come to that. This was his game and he had to avoid mistakes. Like attending that damn funeral. But there were protocols to be observed. The Ritual of Condolence. The respect due one who has passed away.

  He owed Taneesha Franklin. She was an innocent.

  Lucas owed Dr. Rudolnick for many things, but not his life. The psychiatrist hadn’t blundered into the fire, but made it his choice. Granted, he’d not had much latitude in his choices. That was the way it had always worked.

  Lucas felt anger rising from deep in his groin, heating his belly. Felt his jaw clench, hands ball into fists.

  “The clouds, Lucas,” Rudolnick said from just behind Lucas’s ear. “Let the anger drift away on the clouds.”

  Lucas let the calm wash through him for several minutes. He stood and took his position behind his most important purchase, a Celestron C5 with the 1.25-inch, 10mm eyepiece, the best spotter’s scope in the sporting goods store, an optical marvel. It was dark in Racine Kincannon’s office, the lights off, a silver flask of whiskey on his desk. Lucas cranked the lens to a higher power. Saw a TV monitor on a credenza, a woman giving a guy head. A porn flick, Racine Kincannon at work.

  Crandell would be out on the streets, searching. A humiliated Crandell, not a pleasant thought. It might not be good to go out in the day, but Lucas crept down the back steps, got in his car, a simple Subaru Outback, two years old, bought with cash. He would have loved to keep one of the machines delivered to the Hooleys—or another from the fine selection in the Quonset hut—but the Subaru was anonymous. It had dealer tags, two more weeks before they expired.

  Lucas drove to a phone on the outside wall of a convenience store, hoping Racine had finished his business. Probably on the underside of his desk.

  “Hello, Race, long time no see.”

  Silence. Lucas smiled and wished he could make some reference to the porn flick.

  “How ya doin’, Lucas?” Racine finally said, a theatrical drawl in his voice covering his bewilderment. Just like Racine Kincannon, Lucas thought, always playing the good ol’ boy who somehow got stuck in a two-thousand-dollar suit.

  “I’m fine, Racine. Nice out here.”

  “Y’know, Lucas, you still got some treatment coming before you can, uh, get out.”

  Racine pretending Lucas had a bad case of bronchitis. “Another week of antibiotics and you’ll kick that little problem, son.”

  “Gee, I don’t believe parts of that, Race. The getting-out part especially.”

  “This is hard on all of us, Lucas. We should talk. Meet somewhere.”

  “I saw Crandell recently, you know.”

  The silence told Lucas that Racine hadn’t heard of the event at the funeral parlor. Excellent. Crandell didn’t boast of his failures, which was helpful to Lucas’s plan.

  “When was that, Lucas?” Racine said, a lousy re
ndition of blasé in his voice.

  “A couple days back. We spoke for a bit. He’s added a couple pounds, cut a couple inches off his hair, changed his cologne to something heavier. But it was the Crandell of old.”

  Silence. The weight, hair, and cologne information would verify that Lucas had indeed met Crandell. Lucas could almost hear the gears turning in Racine Kincannon’s head. Slowly, like they were coated with rust, but grinding nonetheless.

  Lucas said, “I guess the next question is, Why am I still here? You know Crandell’s success rate. I was asking myself that question. You know what I come up with, Racine?”

  “I got an idea or two,” Racine said, defensive.

  No you don’t, Race, Lucas thought. You’ve never had an idea in your life.

  “What are your ideas, Race?”

  “Why don’t you tell me yours,” Racine Kincannon suggested. “See if we’re on the same page.”

  Lucas gave it a moment of dramatic pause. “I think I’ve got you to thank, Racine. I think you maybe came to a realization. You always were the thinker.”

  Racine was blindsided. The silence again. Lucas said, “Did you hear me, Race? I said thanks. If you were a part of things, that is.”

  Finally, Racine Kincannon said, “We really should talk, Lucas. Maybe it doesn’t have to be like this. Sometimes things that look good one day don’t look so good the next, you got me?”

  “A lot of things look different out here, Racine. Maybe Crandell just screwed up. There were people around. But one second his hand is moving me to the car, the next minute I’m walking away. Coincidence, maybe. But if not, thanks, Racine. I’m thinking maybe you know the potency of a good alliance. Of course, the best alliance is where each partner is a specialist, right? Two talented people taking something to new heights.”

  “You said two partners, Lucas.”

  “Dos.”

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing. I’ll call later.”

  “Listen, Lucas, how about—”

  Lucas hung up the phone. That would do for now. He jumped in the Subaru and drove back to his insecurities business. He sat at the desk and aimed the Celestron at the office building. The worst thing he could see would be a meeting of all the brothers, Crandell included. That would be a disaster.