A funny, sad thing happened in Walter’s brain then. Until now, he had seen Maddie as a beautiful, wholesome country girl, some comfortable miles out of his dreary league. But, as he struggled with the notion that she possibly had any interest in a guy like him, Walter’s perception of her got stained. So far down in the dumps was his own self-image that, sometimes, positive treatment by others rebounded negatively back onto them, in Walter’s feeble mind.
He had fallen under the impression that the only pretty girls he could attract were trashy, redneck, party-girl types. For this situation to compute in his brain, then, something had to give, and give in a serious way. So, maybe Maddie wasn’t the spotless angel which he had previously thought her to be? It wasn’t a hard question for his subconscious to raise, either. How well did he really know her? She did have a great figure; he could bring to mind plenty of stocky alpha-male hicks who would love to show her a good time. And if she possibly had an interest in partying with some heavier recreational drugs, who else would she think to hook up with but Walter Boyd?
As Walter stacked a sack of feed onto a sack of scratch and, with a grunt, hoisted both over one shoulder, the nerves were already leaving, along with the voice in his head insisting that he had to ask Maddie out.
Jamie, if she had been there in Walter’s mind, surely would’ve illuminated this horrible mental catch. It was a catch-22 that would’ve made Groucho Marx proud: Walter didn’t care for the kinds of girls that would have any interest in him, essentially. Even if it meant tarnishing his mental image of a girl in order to maintain this depressing outlook.
Jamie wasn’t there in his head, however, and when Walter emerged from the murky warehouse, he deposited the bags onto the bed of Maddie’s truck and said flatly, “There you go.”
Maddie looked at Walter. Walter didn’t return the look.
“Okay,” she said, softly. “Thanks.”
She drove away. Walter went back to his straw seat.
• • •
Separated from the road by both the warehouse and the store itself, Walter didn’t see as Officer Corey sped past Kall’s Tractor Supply, his lights flashing silently.
Officer Corey had, minutes ago, received a call from Officer Eugene Everett on the other side of town. Eugene, who’d been out on patrol, had sounded quite sure that he’d stumbled across a significant find relevant to their investigation of the horrific murders.
Officer Corey zoomed across Sutherland in under ten minutes, salivating at the prospect of a development that could unravel some of the mystery, rather than deepen it even further—as had all the previous developments.
He scanned the old hayfield carefully as he followed the dirt road which paralleled it. Eugene had said it was at the far end of the field, and that’s exactly where Officer Corey saw it: a cluster of haphazardly abandoned cars on the fringes of the overgrown field, Eugene’s patrol car flashing nearby.
As rough as always with his own trusty patrol car, Officer Corey jerked the wheel when he came to an opening in the trees and stone wall that lined the field—originally for haying tractors—and splashed and slogged through a short muddy stretch. He plowed along, following Eugene’s tracks over the long, golden grass, most of which had folded over under its own dead weight.
He slid to a halt only feet from Eugene, who was leaning against his own cruiser.
Officer Corey pulled himself out, shut his door, and made for the cluster of cars.
“They have been here a little while,” he confirmed what Eugene had speculated over the radio. The cars were parked in a muddy area near the encroaching forest where the grass hadn’t come in as thickly. Officer Corey observed how most of the tire tracks leading up to their parent tires had been erased, presumably during the night of the rainstorm, two nights ago.
“I already ran all the plates,” Eugene spoke to Officer Corey’s backside. “The owner of the VW there matches up pretty well to Victim Number Four, just eyeballing the license on file.”
Officer Corey first picked out the small grey VW and then turned, “Show me.”
On the laptop inside Eugene’s cruiser, Officer Corey gravely looked over the digital license photo of the man to which the VW was registered. He didn’t enjoy recollecting details of the pale face her had seen hanging from Paul Stanley’s sap lines, but, “I think you’re right,” said Officer Corey. “Jonathan Southman? Have you looked to see if he was reported missing?”
“Yes, he was last night.”
Officer Corey nodded. “Good. I mean—at least we’re getting somewhere. Any other potential matches?”
“Tom . . . none of the other victims had faces.”
“Fuck.” It wasn’t frustration that made him curse. “Don’t remind me. I meant, as far as missing persons reports and car registrations goes.”
“Oh. No, I’m still working on that. I just radioed the detectives. They’ll be able to link up prints and DNA samples with the folks on the registrations.”
“Good.”
Officer Corey got back out of the car, and Eugene followed. They scanned the cluster of cars and, together, sighed.
“Four cars. Five dead, assuming we ever find Number Two,” breathed Eugene somberly.
“Five cars, actually: the jeep that hit Walter.”
Eugene nodded. “This has to be where it all went down. Paul’s and Doris’s houses are both about a mile from here, through the woods.”
Officer Corey stood silent, contemplating.
“So what the hell happened here, then?” asked Eugene. “The killer—somehow—lured them all out to this isolated field, in the middle of the stormy night . . . and . . . attacked?”
“Have you looked for signs of a struggle? Or restraints, like rope or duct tape? Or weapons?”
“Not thoroughly . . . but, nothing, so far. Everything’s pretty clean.”
“Blood?”
“If there is, the rain washed it all away. Not that I’m officially trained to collect evidence . . .”
“I know you’re good, Eugene. I remember the Westfield case.”
Officer Corey started back into the midst of the abandoned cars. His head turned from side to side, unsure where to begin. He then saw something. A lone set of tire tracks, closer to the forest than any of the parked cars, had not been washed flat by the rain. He walked over to them.
The tracks were strikingly deep—deepest where he now stood—and a wide splattering of dried mud surrounded and trailed behind them as they meandered off, swerving away into the heart of the field.
Officer Corey knew that only a high-torque vehicle with specialized off-roading tires could cut trenches likes these, yet still power out of them. The scenario fitting together in his head, he now looked towards the feet of the forest. There was a shallow stone wall that lined the softening edge of the old field. Many of the rocks were of a similar size and shape as a memorable one he had pulled off of the floor of a certain wrecked Jeep . . .
“So,” Eugene had walked up behind him, “this is where Number One set off on his joyride, huh?”
“Looks like it. The Lindsey Bridge is not far from here. Evidently he didn’t make it very far.”
“Not surprising.”
Thoughtful silence.
“I’m thinking,” began Officer Corey, “what if Number One didn’t hit Walter Boyd because he had lost control, or because he was trying to get his attention? What if he did it for the same reasons Number Three, our suspect, meant to attack Doris?”
“Being?”
“I told you all what he said. He wanted to free her from the ‘illusion’—the ‘prison’—that is life, or whatever the fuck he meant.”
“So what are you getting at?” Eugene’s eyes were narrowing.
“I’m just thinking, now . . . what if all these people were just as fucked-up as Number Three, and all of their injuries were self-inflicted? Occam’s Razor, right? Go with the simplest explanation. Like we were saying when there was just Number One. There’s no sign of confl
ict here . . . and can you realistically imagine one deranged man keeping in line four grown men as he marches them through the forest, bizarrely mutilating them along the way, all in one night? And what about the ostensibly self-inflicted bite marks on Victim Number Four?”
Eugene scratched his head, “Well, I guess it’s just really hard to conceive of not one, but five mind-bendingly deranged psychopaths . . .”
“Hey, it’s the Internet Age. Unique, like-minded people are connecting with each other like never before . . .”
Eugene laughed grimly, “That’s certainly a take on it.”
“Have you been online lately? Even before all this happened, I wouldn’t have been too surprised to learn of a crazed, masochistic suicide cult on there, somewhere in the depths of the wild-wild-web . . .”
“I suppose we should run full background checks once we ID all the victims—see if any of them have known suicidal tendencies . . . interview friends and family, too.”
“Yes. And let’s check their cars for drugs.”
“Hm,” said Eugene, pursing his lips. “Some heavy narcotics could go a long way to sway me of what you’re saying . . .”
“Hah. Speaking of, guess who Melisa invited over for dinner tonight?”
• • •
Walter caught a ride back to Nigel’s after work. He showered there, and then called Melisa, worried that she might’ve already called his home phone to no avail. She hadn’t, and after reminding her of his car situation (or lack thereof), Melisa offered to pick him up at Nigel’s around six.
“That’s so weird that you’re going to have dinner at Tom Corey’s,” Nigel muttered when Walter set the phone in its charger.
Walter laughed, “I think it was more of a token offer. I don’t know if she expected me to accept.”
“Why did you?”
“I thought it’d be funny.”
It was the kind of thing that Nigel had grown to expect Walter to say. It was becoming less and less true, here, though: Walter was eager to ask Officer Corey about the investigation.
Melisa pulled in at ten-past.
They said hello after Walter hopped into the front seat. As Melisa pulled away, she asked him how his day had been, Walter said it’d been fine, and then the rest of the drive was comprised of large blocks of awkward silence. Even Walter—usually immune to such social awkwardness—felt the faint tingling of real discomfort, and he found himself often focusing on the pleasant, clean smell of Melisa’s nice, new car.
The Corey’s house had been completed only five years ago—an infant in the scheme of the old town—but it was trying it’s hardest to fit in, fashioned to mimic an old colonial New England house. It was big, white, and boxy, with tall windows allowing light into tall rooms, and large doors leading out onto a wraparound porch.
Melisa pulled into the horseshoe driveway. They walked in silence along a neat stone walkway, between an assortment of well-groomed bushes around the house’s parameter, and up through the front door.
As Walter, per instruction, turned and slipped off his shoes near the door, Officer Corey’s voice greeted him from behind.
“Good, you’re here. We can eat. I’m starving.”
Walter turned back just in time to catch Officer Corey’s outstretched hand and shake it.
“Good to see you again, Mister Corey.”
“Yes, and much better circumstances this time, I’ll say.”
“Definitely.”
Tom Corey gestured for Walter to follow him into the house, in the direction Melisa had just gone, towards a scrumptious, savory smell. Walter, walking behind Officer Corey, idly marveled at how much more personable someone can seem when not in uniform.
“Melisa has got her signature meatloaf keeping warm in the oven, all ready to go.”
“Smells amazing,” said Walter as they went through a wide entranceway into a spacious—if somewhat barren—dining room.
“Here, sit,” said Officer Corey, pulling out a chair near one of the tall windows, which were enabling the light of a low sun to warm the room.
Walter sat and then so did Officer Corey. Moments later, Melisa came in and filled their plates with large, steaming servings of meatloaf and potatoes and gravy.
“Wow. If I knew this is how I’d be punished for ignoring a police officer’s instructions and sneaking off after him as he corners a homicidal lunatic, I’d have done it years ago.”
Melisa, taking her seat across from Walter, chuckled uncomfortably. Walter wished he hadn’t said anything.
“This is not about that,” Officer Corey said. “I’m still not happy about that. But, you went through a lot. You saw much worse than anyone should ever have to see. How are you getting along?”
Walter said convincingly—because it was true—“Honestly, as good as always.”
Officer Corey might’ve winced before he said, “Good.”
Officer Corey loaded his mouth with an impressive forkful of meatloaf. Once he managed to overpower it and bring it down, he turned to his wife, “Thank you, Mel. This is just what I needed after a long day.”
The opportunity came sooner than Walter had expected, and—with the most offhand tone he could muster—he pounced, “Long day? Anything doing with the investigation?”
Officer Corey nodded, “Yes, in fact.”
“Anything new?”
“Well,” and Officer Corey, never one to beat around the bush (or concern himself with big city terms like “due process” when it came to official criminal investigations), explained promptly what they had found earlier that day in the unused hayfield.
Walter eagerly tackled every detail and extracted Officer Corey’s best speculation. More succinctly than he had for Eugene, Officer Corey found himself outlining his new best theory, in which Sutherland had been the unlucky host of the final act of a suicide cult of before-now unprecedented lunacy. He said, with a glimmer of pride, how the detectives had responded favorably to his new theory, once they themselves had combed over the surprisingly innocuous ground zero and found no indication of coercion or physical struggle.
“Were there any traces of drugs in or around the cars?” Walter asked, before Officer Corey had even touched on this aspect of the theory.
“Yes. Well, no, not there, but the detectives said that the results of the blood work they were having done came back, and that there appeared to be some kind of . . . painkiller mixture in all their systems.”
“From the bottle you found in the Jeep?”
“That’s not clear.”
Walter was on the verge of saying something to the effect of, “I can’t imagine doing shit like that on downers,” but then didn’t, and instead he just nodded. It would be too obvious, he felt, that the sentiment came from first-hand experience.
It was true, at any rate. Every time Walter had had a chance to pop painkillers, he would invariably become something of a delirious slug—far removed from a rampaging madman. Alternately, if Officer Corey had said that they’d found heavy doses of a methamphetamine mixture in their systems, that probably would’ve sealed the deal in Walter’s head right there; convinced him of the validity of this new suicide cult theory.
As it was, at the end of the dinner, Walter left with some sense of a missing link, though he had zero idea what that link could be.
Chapter 6 – The Three-Scarred-Man
The next day, Walter couldn’t decide if his nagging discontent with Officer Corey’s theoretical scenario was real or just a subconscious invention. He was aware of his bias: Walter did not want the intrigue of the wild night to dry up anytime soon, and a sound explanation that initiated no further investigation was his worst-case scenario.
Walter hadn’t thought about it, not yet, but the truth was he had not drank a single alcoholic beverage or ingested any illicit substances—or generally done anything too reckless—since the fateful night. The thrill of the mystery had provided an adequate—if supremely unlikely—diversion from his usual methods of escaping his d
eep mental ruts.
Like most novice addicts, Walter was in denial of many things, one of them being that he’d been avoiding returning to his dreary abode, owing to the temptations he had stored in his fridge and, especially, in a Ziploc bag under his bedside drawer. Unfortunately, that day at work, Walter kept thinking about the path Officer Corey had started laying out, leading towards a clean resolution . . . which would allow the night, before too long, to fade into the background . . . The notion had Walter thinking, maybe it was getting to be time for him to return home . . . This notion was met with a mixture of dark yearning and nausea.
With these inklings of his normal, old life creeping back over him, it might not come as a surprise that Walter would try to invent kinks in the narrative that Officer Corey was pushing, to drag out the powerful mystery.
While Walter was unloading a heavy crate of fresh corn into the appropriate section of the local produce aisle, a man joined him in the otherwise empty aisle. He started walking towards Walter, a basket of groceries in hand, inspecting the fruit and vegetables on display.
Walter didn’t acknowledge the man—not beyond being aware of him in his peripheral vision—until he spoke, “Those look tasty.”
Walter looked up. The face that stared back at him was pale, frail, and lacking in expressive features, surrounded by long, unkempt brown hair. On the man’s left cheek there were three deep, narrow scars. A sudden mental flash to the man in the Jeep had Walter flinch: these facial marks obviously weren’t as fresh or as plentiful, but there still was something eerily familiar about them.
Walter now responded, “Yeah.”
“Didn’t your mom ever tell you it’s not polite to stare?”
It took Walter another dumb second to realize how conspicuously he had been ogling the man’s scars.
“Oh. I’m sorry. Sometimes I just don’t know what I’m doing . . .”
“You and everyone else, friend.”
Walter frowned as the man grabbed two corncobs and then moved on.
Five minutes later, Walter caught Kall Chansky on a down moment managing a checkout aisle.
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