Bentley glanced at his hands. “I have this thing about touching things with my bare hands.”
“How come you want to play with me?”
“I thought it looked like fun.” Bentley walked into the house and closed the door behind him. “I love playing house; it’s one of my most favorite things to do.”
“Boys don’t like playing house.”
Bentley walked over to the table and squatted down so that his face was on the same level as Karen’s.
“I’m not like most boys. I like a lot of things that most boys don’t.”
“I saw you yesterday.”
Bentley nodded. “I’m your sister, Katie’s, friend. My name is Bentley.” He held out his hand. Karen shook it.
“I’m Karen, but how come you came in the back door yesterday?”
Bentley’s smile widened. “You saw that did you?”
Karen nodded. “Yeah, I thought it was weird. It looked like you came from Mr. Thompson’s yard.”
“I did,” Bentley said. “I came from his yard. I had to go out and take care of some business, so I came in the back door.”
“Okay,” Karen said. She still didn’t understand why the bald boy would have to come in the back door, but she’d learned that sometimes older people did and said things that she didn’t always understand and it was usually just best to agree with them.
“I heard you talking to your Daddy.”
Karen’s gaze shifted down to the table and her face flushed red. Bentley reached down and put a finger on her chin. He lifted her face up to look at him.
“You don’t need to be ashamed. I know what happened to your Daddy.”
“You do?”
“Yes, and I think that it’s perfectly natural to talk to him. You know my Mommy and Daddy both died.”
Karen’s face softened, the blush disappeared. “They did? That’s sad.”
“It was,” Bentley said. “It was really sad. I did a lot of things like this to stay close to them.”
“I like being out here,” Karen said. “Mommy says that Daddy’s always with me. He watches me. I feel like when I’m out here, he’s closest to me. I can feel him watching me.”
“You can?” Bentley’s voice was soft and docile. “That’s good. I think that’s just right, he is watching you.”
Karen smiled. “You think so too?”
“Sure. And you know what I think would make him even closer?”
Karen gazed at Bentley’s face with rapt attention. “What?”
“If you let me sit down instead of your bear. Then I could be your Daddy.”
Karen shook her head. Her gaze turned towards Mr. Snuggly. “But Mr. Snuggly is a good Daddy. My Daddy rescued him when I lost him once.”
Bentley nodded as if he knew the whole story. “I know and that’s a very good reason for Mr. Snuggly to be your Daddy, but I’m a real person. Mr. Snuggly is a very good guy to have around, but why don’t you just give me this one chance.”
Karen looked back at the bear. “I don’t know.”
“If you don’t like me as your Daddy then you can use Mr. Snuggly again. I promise.”
Karen turned back towards Bentley. His eyes were bright and alive, not like Mr. Snuggly. His eyes were just pieces of plastic.
“Well, okay, but only for a minute.”
Bentley stood up and walked to the chair. He picked up Mr. Snuggly and set him in a seated position on the floor.
The chair was small and Bentley’s knees came up to the top of the table. Karen looked over and smiled.
“Hello my darling,” Bentley said. “I’ve had a long day at work and some tea really would be nice.”
Karen smiled. Bentley was a much better Daddy. He talked back. Looking at him, she could almost see her real Daddy.
“Well, have some of this tea Daddy. It’ll make you feel all better.”
Bentley raised his cup and took a sip. “That is good tea, honey. Just seeing you again makes me feel better.”
“I’m glad,” Karen said.
Bentley leaned over the table. “You know that I love you Karen.”
“I love you too Daddy.”
“Do you know how I died Karen?”
Karen’s smiled faltered. Lines of confusion broke out on her face. “What?”
“How I died. I was killed, you know.”
“I don’t want to play anymore,” Karen said.
“Bentley killed me. I died like the fat little bastard I was. I died screaming.”
Karen’s eyes grew wide.
“Momm…”
Bentley lunged forward. The table fell over and his hand was on Karen’s mouth before she could finish her scream. They sprawled to the floor. Bentley landed on top; he wrapped his hand around Karen’s waist.
“You wanted to talk to me, sweetie,” he purred. “It’s Daddy. I just wanted to tell you what a filthy bastard I was and how I died like a fucking dog on the side of the road. How Bentley smashed my head in. How Bentley killed me, like he’s going to kill you and Mommy and Katie. He’s going to kill us all, then we’ll all be together.”
Karen bit at Bentley’s hand but his gloves stopped any damage that she might have done.
Bentley flung Karen on the ground, her head hit the floor and she shook it as if fighting off a bug.
“Don’t scream honey,” Bentley said. He pulled the knife out of his pocket. “Screaming only makes it worse. I screamed and it didn’t help me.”
“Daddy,” Karen whimpered. “Daddy are you there? Help me Daddy; make the bad man go away.”
Bentley leaned close; his face was mere inches from Karen’s. “I am your Daddy, Karen, and it’s time that we were together again.”
A siren sounded in the distance. Bentley felt his heart sink. Things had been going so well.
He reached down and placed the blade of the knife on Karen’s throat. “You’re lucky,” he said.
Karen breathed a sigh of relief. It was the last breath she would take. Bentley slashed the knife across her throat. Blood spewed out, some of it splattered on Bentley. He opened his mouth, like a child trying to catch some raindrops.
It was time to leave, he knew that, but he just couldn’t resist. He bent forward and caught some of the heavy flow. The blood on his tongue tasted pure, unharmed by the world. Bentley took a mouthful and swallowed it down. Then, he stood up and ran from the playhouse. He vaulted into Mr. Thompson’s yard and was gone.
Sheila ran for the back of the house, Katie followed her. The siren’s bleat had reached an earsplitting level, but neither of them paid any attention. Sheila bolted into the backyard, the playhouse door was open.
Katie looked down and saw a thin flow of red coming from it. She stopped. She wanted to call out to her mother, tell her not to go any further, but her throat seized. The tears had already begun to flow.
Sheila reached the door of the playhouse and looked in. Katie watched. Sheila just stood there for a second, her face in constant flux. Emotions ran through it too fast for Katie to discern any but the last one, pure misery.
“NOOOOOO!” Sheila screamed. Her voice rose to a level higher than the police car. “Oh, God, please God no!”
Sheila collapsed in front of the playhouse door. Katie stood where she was, even after the police officers ran around her and to her mother. They tried to move her away, but she pulled away from them.
On her hands and knees, tears pouring down her face, she tried to climb into the playhouse. That was when the world grew black around Katie and everything went away for a little while.
87.
Dunham sat on the couch in the living room. The room was alien to him and yet familiar. It looked like a thousand different houses that he’d been in before. He hadn’t gone to see the body. He hadn’t even asked, though they probably wouldn’t have let him. He’d seen too many bodies in his time as a Detective and he never missed it. And too many of them had been children as young or younger than this one.
“What do we do now C
hief?” Pappas asked. He stood by the chair, it seemed as if he didn’t like sitting if he could help it.
“I don’t know,” Dunham said. “I’d like to talk to the mother, but I’m sure those bastards out there aren’t going to let us.”
“They’re taking her in,” Rick said. His voice was calm, almost dismissive.
“They are?”
“Yeah, I heard Wilson tell them to get her into a car. They want her out of here.”
“Understandable. They can’t run an investigation with the family here can they?”
“He’s a serial killer,” Rick said.
Dunham turned and regarded the detective. “I know. Frank knew, before any of us.”
“How do we handle this? He’s killed one in our city, one in San Ignace and apparently one in San Stephan.”
“We’ll have to work together,” Dunham said. “I’ll tell you one thing. This bastard is coming back.”
“For what?”
“The other two,” Dunham said.
Rick snorted. “You think that any of us are gonna let him get to them?”
“He won’t care. He’ll come for them, and we’d better be ready.”
88.
Officer Graves was given the task of entering the initial report into the computer. In San Ignace, as in most other cities in California, unsolved murders of a serial nature had to be put into the computer immediately. Graves, a fairly skilled typist, still took nearly an hour to enter all the information. Part of the problem was that he had to stop every five minutes or so to walk away and get a drink of water.
The report, though written in the clinical language of an on the scene detective, was more graphic and horrible than anything he’d ever been asked to type up before.
He finally finished the last word and hit enter.
“Fucking done,” he muttered. He walked away from his desk and towards the bathroom. “And if I never have to type another report again, I’ll die a happy man.”
89.
Special Agent Conrad was sitting at his desk in Chicago when a window popped up on his computer.
Conrad stared at the window. His eyes glanced over it again and again, though his brain didn’t seem to want to compute the information.
The window was generated by the ViCAP system. ViCAP was the violent criminals’ apprehension program. It had been designed by the FBI in the 1980’s to help locate criminals that crossed state borders. The goal, was to help the local police force coordinate efforts to catch criminals whose out of state activities they would have otherwise been ignorant of.
The report that scrawled across his laptop was from San Ignace, California. Conrad remembered when San Ignace had sent a request for the program. It had been less than a year ago, and Conrad had received the order. He had thought it odd at the time. San Ignace was a small community with a low crime rate and there was no reason they needed access to the database.
Conrad had sent the program along, of course. The FBI did not turn down requests to cooperate. In truth, if more communities had subscribed to the program there would be a lot fewer unsolved murders.
The window could only mean one thing. Conrad scanned the entire report. It was packed, chock full of detailed information, but he kept coming back to a few key phrases.
Father killed two months ago.
Youngest daughter found dead today.
Suspect same in both murders.
Young man.
Bald.
Conrad’s eyes scanned the last word over and over again. It was nearly five minutes before he moved at all. Then, he sucked in a deep breath and let it out with a low whistle.
“Gotcha.”
He picked up his phone, Linda answered immediately.
“Yes, Agent Conrad?”
“Get me the next flight to L.A. Arrange for a car at the airport.”
“Yes sir.”
The line clicked over, Linda was already working her magic. Conrad read the report again.
“Are you getting sloppy, or desperate, or just unlucky?” He whispered at the screen. “Maybe you’re just toying with them. You’ve dealt with their kind before haven’t you? You think they have no idea what their doing.” Conrad sighed and looked at the name of the town again, San Ignace. “Hell, you’re probably right. But there’s one thing that even you don’t see coming. Me.”
The phone on his desk buzzed and Conrad picked it up. “Your flight leaves in two hours sir. Do you want me to call a taxi service?”
“No. Thank you Linda.”
90.
Sheila sat in the room. There was a long steel table in front of her and a large mirror on the wall. She had seen enough episodes of Law and Order and CSI to know what the mirror really was.
Katie was sitting next to her. Neither of them spoke. The room was cold. Katie had folded her legs underneath her and she was clutching her body with her arms.
They both looked at the mirror. Each could see the other reflected, but they weren’t really looking.
The door opened and a short man walked in. He was very short. Midget status loomed, but he probably had it beat by a few inches. His bald head reflected the florescent light from the ceiling. But he wasn’t bald like the boy. He had thin black hair that clung to the side of his head like shipmen on a sinking ship. His shirt bulged out at the stomach and his gait was really more wattle than walk.
“Ladies, I’d like to wish you my sincere condolences,” the man said as he walked around to the other side of the table and sat down. “I have a daughter of my own and I can’t imagine.” He looked into their faces, they were blank. There was no sorrow, no joy, not even any recognition that he had walked in.
“I’m Detective Wilson and I’d just like to get some statements from you.” He turned his attention to the younger of the two. “Katie, I know that you spoke with one of my men on the scene and I have his report here. I know this must be hard for the both of you, but I’d like to hear what you have to say again.”
“Do we have to do this now?” Sheila muttered. Her voice was flat, toneless.
“I’d like to get this out of the way as soon as possible, Mrs. Braddock. Not only will it help to move forward, but we find that in cases like this it’s usually best to talk to the families and soon as possible. Time has a way of changing things in our minds.”
Wilson offered a warm smile. Neither of the women responded.
“So to start.”
“I’d like to see Detective Miles,” Sheila said. She looked up for the first time and met Wilson’s gaze. “I’d really like him to be here for this.”
“Mrs. Braddock, I don’t think that Detective Miles is in any condition…”
“If you don’t bring him in here then I’m not saying a word.”
Wilson stared at Sheila for a long moment. “I’ll be back.” He stood up and walked from the room.
In the bullpen, Dunham sat with Pappas. Wilson walked up to the two. “She wants to talk to Miles.”
“He’s in the hospital,” Dunham said. “The man nearly died.”
“I don’t give a fuck,” Wilson said. “Did you see that girl?”
“No,” Dunham said.
“Well I did and I’m never gonna sleep again. Get him here anyway you have to.”
Dunham stood up. “Detective, I may not be a part of this precinct, but I am a superior officer and I believe that you need to watch your tone.”
“Oh, you do? If you fucks hadn’t screwed this up then that girl would still be alive.”
Dunham surged forward. He grabbed Wilson’s collar with his hand and twisted. Then, he thrust his face so close that they nearly kissed.
“Frank almost died trying to get our guy, so you watch what the fuck you say.”
Dunham held his posture for another second and then let the man go. Wilson pulled back and ran his hands down the front of his shirt.
“Fine. Have it your way. I’ll let the two of them go and we can talk to them later.”
Dunham raised
his hand. “We’ll get him here, somehow. You get them to start talking.”
91.
Wilson walked back into the room. “Detective Miles is on his way as we speak. While we wait for him, I’d like it if Katie could tell me about her friend.”
Katie turned to her mother; Sheila did not return the gaze. She looked back to Wilson. “He was nice. We were friends.”
“How long did you know him?”
“A couple weeks. He was a transfer to our school.”
“Do you know where he transferred from?”
“No.”
“Ever go over to his house?”
“No.”
“Did you ever talk to anyone else that knew him?”
“No.”
“So other than the fact that he was nice, what else did you know about Brandon?”
“Nothing,” Sheila said.
Katie turned. Her mother still wasn’t looking at her. Tears ran down Katie’s face.
“I…didn’t…know…he was…this.”
Wilson reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. “It’s okay, no one knew.”
Sheila shifted in her seat and said nothing.
“Your friend, Brenda. She went missing yesterday?”
“Yeah.”
“Where was Brandon when she left?”
“He was with me.”
“Okay. How long did he stay?”
“I don’t know, maybe half an hour. It would have been long enough for Brenda to get home.”
“Did he know where Brenda lived?”
“I don’t think so.”
The tears were running harder now.
“And he was with you the whole time?”
“Yeah…wait…no.”
Sheila finally turned to look at her daughter, but this time Katie’s eyes were directed at Wilson.
“He wasn’t?”
“No, when we first got to my house he went to the bathroom. I remember he was in there for a long time.”
“Would it have been long enough for him to get to Brenda?”
Beneath the Mask of Sanity Page 18
