by Ray Garton
“I’m Sheriff Hurley. You called about someone screaming earlier?”
“Oh, yeah. Come on in.”
The man unlocked the screen door and opened it. Hurley crossed the porch and followed the man into the house.
It was dark in the living room, with only one lamp on at the end of the couch glowing a pale yellow, and the television running quietly, spreading its shimmer out over the floor. A woman sat on the couch, also in a robe. She held a glass of some amber beverage. Her blonde hair was mussed, as if she’d already been in bed for awhile.
Hurley turned to the man. “I need to know everything you heard, Mr.—?”
“Arden. David Arden. My wife Maxine.”
Hurley smiled. “Why don’t we sit down and get comfortable?”
“Yeah, sure,” Arden said, gesturing toward a wingback chair. Then he went to the couch and sat down at the other end from his wife.
“Now, what did you hear tonight, Mr. and Mrs. Arden?” Hurley asked.
“Maxine was already asleep, but I was lying awake in bed,” Arden said. “I heard this scream. Not a typical scream, because it wasn’t a woman. It was clearly the sound of someone in pain. I got up, went out on the porch and looked around.”
“See anything?”
“Not at first. I heard something, though. Somewhere out front, it came from the left—” He gestured with one hand. “—over by the corner of Magnolia and Manzanita.”
“What kind of sound was it?”
“Well, it’s hard to describe. Grunting? Movement? It was a combination of things. When I heard it, I knew something was happening just up the sidewalk. I left the porch and went out to the mailbox, looked up the sidewalk, and I saw this ... well, it was like ... somebody on the ground and—”
“It was a person?”
Arden frowned. “Of course. It took me awhile to figure out what I was seeing because it wasn’t much more than a silhouette, but I realized it was somebody lying on the sidewalk, and somebody else, somebody big, hunched down over him. Or her.”
“And you’re sure that what you saw was a person hunched over this body?”
He frowned again. “Well, yes. I mean, he was huge. Way too big to be an animal. Unless we’ve got some animals around here that I don’t know about.”
“Yes, you and me both,” Hurley said. “What did you do then?”
“I ran in the house and called you.”
Maxine took a couple swallows of her drink, then shook her head. “I can’t believe you went out there. What possessed you to actually ... do something for a change?” She was an attractive woman, but as she spoke, her face became ugly with a twisted, bitter expression.
“Why don’t you go to bed?” Arden said quietly.
“You woke me up, and I’m awake now,” she said. She took another drink.
“Is it possible for you to be awake and not drink?” Arden whispered harshly.
“Um, excuse me,” Hurley said, “but if I could just ask a few more questions, then I won’t bother you anymore.”
“I’m sorry, Sheriff,” Arden said.
“While you were out there, did you notice any cars parked on the street that aren’t normally there?”
“Cars?” Arden said, squinting a little. “Not that I remember. I wasn’t really paying any attention to the cars.”
“Was there anyone else around, maybe someone standing or walking nearby?”
Arden turned his head back and forth. “No. It was very quiet. This is a quiet neighborhood, especially late at night. It’s mostly families, some senior citizens. Not much going on after nine. Tonight was no different.”
“Actually, that’s the neighborhood my husband would like to live in,” Maxine said, “not the one we really live in. There are a lot of teenagers in this neighborhood, and right here on Magnolia, and they’re anything but quiet.”
“Maxine,” Arden said.
She leaned forward. “We’ve got pregnant teenagers on this street, we’ve got a registered sex offender a block over, a child molester.”
Through clenched teeth, Arden said quietly, “Maxine, will you just shut up and go to bed? Can’t we do this later?”
“Plenty of your deputies have been to this street time and again,” Maxine said to Hurley. “Mostly because of the teenagers, but once they came because Millie Pruitt, across the street and a few houses down, finally stabbed her abusive husband.” She sat back and turned to Arden. “Oh, yes, this is a quiet neighborhood. A great place to live.” Then she added, with a sneer in her voice, “And the best we can do.” She tipped her glass back and emptied it. She got up off the sofa and shuffled out of the room.
Arden’s head drooped for several seconds as he leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, hands locked together. Then he sat up and said, “Again, I’m sorry, Sheriff. You came on a bad night.”
Hurley hoped to finish the questions before Maxine came back and continued whatever domestic squabble was going on between them. “If we could get back to what you saw. This person who was hunched over the body on the sidewalk—was there anything distinctive about this person, anything at all?”
Arden frowned as he thought about it. Finally, he shook his head, “I can’t think of anything, except that it was somebody big. And maybe muscular. Well ... either muscular or fat, but ... well, I just didn’t get the sense that it was a fat person, you know what I mean?”
Hurley nodded.
“It didn’t move like a fat person.”
“How did it move?”
“Well, it didn’t move much at all,” Arden said with a shrug. “It kept making a ... well, this jerking-like motion, but with its head. I think. Like I said, it was just a silhouette. All I knew was, it didn’t look right, which is why I called you. Because it looked somehow ... violent. Also because that scream sounded like someone was hurt pretty bad.”
Hurley nodded, then stared at the floor for a little while. He was disappointed. He’d been hoping for something solid from David Arden. What he’d gotten so far didn’t add up to much. But it suggested one thing—George Purdy’s wild animal was most likely a person. A serial killer?
That’s just what I need, Hurley thought.
He stood and said, “All right, Mr. Arden.”
Arden stood, too.
“You’ll get a visit from one of my deputies in the next day or so. Tell them what you told me. And if you remember anything else, please tell the deputy, okay? Or—” He reached into his shirt pocket under his jacket and produced his card, which he handed to Arden. “—give me a call.”
“Will do,” Avery said, taking the card. He went to the front door and opened it.
Out on the porch, Hurley nodded to Arden and said, “My best to your wife.” Outside, he went along the sidewalk to the spot where the horribly mutilated body lay. Hurley walked over to George, who stood beside his SUV talking to a deputy.
“Well, our witness doesn’t help your animal theory any, George,” he said. He told George what Arden had said.
George frowned and said, “Too big to be an animal?”
“That’s what he said.”
“Then how do you explain that bit of fur I found? You wait and see, the lab will tell you what that fur came off of, and that will be your killer. It’s obvious your witness has his head up his ass.”
Hurley sighed as he looked in the direction of the Arden house. What was he to think? A witness told him a person had been hunched over the body, and the deputy coroner, and perhaps a tuft of fur, insisted it was the work of a savage animal. Whatever it was, apparently it had killed two people so far.
He hoped—he prayed—that it was an animal. Hurley did not want to have to deal with the kind of monstrous person who could do such a thing to a fellow human being.
20
Empty House, Empty Bed
Thursday
Hugh Crane sat in his car across the street from the house on Clauson shortly before noon on Thursday, waiting. He’d gone into the house as soon as he arrived
and spread a blanket he’d bought that day at Wal-Mart over the immaculately made bed. He did not want to leave behind any unseemly stains.
Emily almost had not let him out of the house. He’d mentioned going back to work that day, and she’d practically had a tantrum, so he’d decided to take one more day off. But he told her he wanted to go down to the office to pick up some files he needed to work on, and he promised not to be gone more than an hour.
“An hour?” she’d said as he shaved at the bathroom mirror, her arms wrapped around his waist, chin resting on his shoulder, breasts pressed against his back. She was warm against him. “Why so long? It doesn’t take an hour to get there and back.”
“Well, I’m sure people will ask about you. I’ll want to answer them, won’t I? Then I thought I’d stop and pick us up some fish and chips at Blue Cove for lunch.”
“Really? I’m not hungry, though.”
“You will be when lunchtime rolls around.”
“No, I mean, I haven’t been hungry. It’s like the ... like it killed my appetite.”
“You had a horrible experience, Emily. I really think you ought to call that counselor. Hey, that’s a good idea—why don’t you call her, have her come over while I’m gone. You two can talk.”
“I suppose I could do that.” Then, with a smile: “Or ... you could stay here and we could fuck some more.” She laughed.
Hugh smiled at her in the mirror and lowered the razor for a moment. “I must admit,” he said, “I’m a little surprised to find you so ... horny all of a sudden.”
“How do you know it’s sudden? Maybe I’ve been feeling this way for a long time and it just finally came out.”
“Have you?”
She giggled. “No, it was sudden. But I think it has something to do with wanting to get that ... that horrible man, that creature, out of my mind, to fill that space with something good, you know? I need you to erase all that.”
He nodded. “Okay. I’ve never heard of such a thing, but I guess it makes sense.” He continued shaving.
“But that’s not really the reason, either,” she said. “I ... I don’t know what brought this on. But it’s overpowering, Hugh. Last night, when I came out of that bathroom, I had to have you. It wasn’t just an urge, it was an all-consuming need. I had to have you. I think I would’ve gone insane if you’d pushed me away. And I need it again.” She reached down and grabbed his crotch.
He jumped a little and jerked the razor away from his throat. “Jeez, Emily, you trying to make me open a vein, here?”
“But I want it again,” she said, squeezing his penis rhythmically until it began to harden.
“But I just got dressed.”
“You’re turning down sex?”
“You’ve worn me out, Emily. My knees are still shaking. My penis is an exposed nerve.” He finished shaving, then bent down and washed off the remaining bits of cream. He turned off the faucet, then took a towel from its rack and scrubbed his face dry. He turned around to face her. “I’m pooped, Emily.”
That wasn’t very far from the truth. He wasn’t entirely sure he’d be any good for Vanessa—Emily had been relentless.
Emily had said goodbye to him with cloying reluctance.
He did not understand her horniness—it made no sense. Everything he’d read and heard about rape victims indicated that they were more likely to have trouble having sex after being violated. He’d heard nothing about increased libido after a rape—right after a rape. Besides that, Emily acted differently. Even back when they’d been having sex regularly, even before that when they couldn’t keep their hands off each other, she’d never been as vocal or as enthusiastic—as animalistic—in bed as she had been last night and today. She’d been a beast in bed, and the rest of the time she’d been positively manic. It was almost as if the rape had released something in her. But that didn’t make sense ... did it?
Hugh was tempted to talk to that counselor himself, just to ask her about it.
He saw movement in his rearview mirror and turned to it. Vanessa had just pulled up behind him. Hugh got out, put on his brightest Realtor smile, went back to her car, and opened the door for her.
“Am I late?” she said as she got out. She aimed her key ring at the black Chrysler 300 and locked it with a beep.
“A little, but that’s okay,” Hugh said.
They did not touch as they crossed the street and went up the front path to the door of the empty house that was up for sale.
“The owners of this house are in Barbados. They live in Seattle, but they had this place because they frequently made trips down here—for business, I think. Now they no longer need to make those trips, so they’re selling the place. They haven’t moved their stuff out yet.” He unlocked the lockbox on the doorknob, then unlocked the doorknob, and pushed the door in. He stepped back and gestured for her to enter.
Once inside, Hugh kicked the door closed, locked it, and pulled Vanessa to him, wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. They kissed as they began to undress each other there in the small tiled foyer. Once they’d found a rhythm, they began to head down the hall as they kissed and undressed. Hugh freed Vanessa’s breasts, put a hand on one, squeezed it, stroked it, then lifted it up as he bent down to put his mouth on it. He sucked the milk-chocolate nipple between his teeth and moved his tongue over it as they waltzed down the hall, sometimes bumping the walls.
He hadn’t been sure it would happen after all the sex he’d had with Emily, but sure enough, his penis was so hard it ached, and he moaned. Emily had behaved like an animal for awhile, now it was his turn. She no longer brought the animal out in him, even when she was in such high form as she’d been lately. But Vanessa did—she made his bones tremble with lust.
By the time they got to the master bedroom at the end of the hall, Hugh was in his undershorts and socks, while Vanessa wore nothing. Her curves were all bare, skin like alabaster traced here and there with thin, faint lines of the vaguest blue, some of which branched out into more lines. Her breasts curved gently, and Hugh could not get enough of them. He buried his face between them as they went to the bed.
He pushed her over backward onto the bed and Vanessa laughed. He straddled her closed legs, bent over and propped himself up on his elbow-locked arms. He lowered himself further and kissed her, sucking her tongue into his mouth. He kissed his way down her body, spending some more time with her breasts. Her skin was so smooth and soft against his recently-shaved cheeks, like the wings of a butterfly. She smelled of sweet spices and he inhaled her deeply. He got onto his knees beside the bed and stopped at the triangle of hair between her legs, hair that had been growing back ever since she’d shaved it. He opened her legs with his hands and pressed his tongue to her—she was already wet, as always.
They moved all over the bed as they took turns pleasuring each other, changed positions, moaned and cried out each other’s names. Hugh lost all track of time.
Finally, he was inside her. They moved together, slick with sweat, working together, building a rhythm, a tempo, that pounded slowly and relentlessly. Words gave way to grunts and hissing breaths and the wet slurp of sex organs engaging. Hugh stared down at Vanessa. His mind flash pictures of her round hips, her spread legs, and his penis pinning her beneath him.
When Hugh came, it felt like he physically exploded inside her—his shaft torn up down the middle and tattered on the end as he blew up inside her. At this moment, Hugh unknowingly sealed her fate. Without realizing it, with one fateful ejaculation, he doomed Vanessa to a horrible nightmare existence that he could not even dream about and would not believe in if he did.
And Vanessa laughed happily, embracing him as he came inside her.
21
The Pine County Rapist
It was going to be one of those nights. Andrea could tell by the way Jimmy came home from work. He was agitated, silent, and he paced around the house. It was dark by the time he got home. Dinner was ready for him on the table – meat loaf. The only
ones who made any sound at the table were the girls. Jimmy might as well be sitting there alone for all he noticed Andrea or the children.
He sat there, back stiff, eating his food, looking everywhere else but at her – no word for his wife, no smiles for his daughters. Like he was in the room alone.
Jimmy stood five feet, eight inches tall, black hair short and naturally curly. Andrea had thought he was so handsome the first time she’d seen him at a Fourth of July picnic. At the dance that night, he’d asked her to dance. After that, she’d followed him everywhere. She remembered running her fingers through those tight curls for the first time—so soft, like stroking a cloud. She also remembered passing her hands over his firm muscles for the first time. She hadn’t feared that strength back then.
When he was done eating, Jimmy got up from the table, went out to the living room, and turned on the TV. He surfed the channels, then he put the remote down and paced the living room for awhile. Then he went out to the garage and tinkered around for a little while. He could not settle on anything, seemed unable to be still, just to sit. That’s the way he always was on nights like this—silent, restless, as if a heated argument were going on inside his head.
They used to come every two or three months, these unsettled nights, but now they happened more often. Andrea had tried to suggest that they get him some help once, but he’d angrily changed the subject. She hadn’t pursued it.
So Andrea silently endured these long, slow nights of no talking, not even any yelling. She almost would’ve preferred that he be angry at her and shout at her and even hit her—almost. That was the only good thing about these dark nights—he did not hurt her. He was too involved in himself, so far inside himself he couldn’t see what was in front of him.
What’s he thinking about? Andrea wondered. Or whom is he thinking about? Maybe it’s another woman. Or maybe something is really wrong—something that could affect all of us. Are we broke? Is he sick? In trouble with the law?
