Phobia KDP

by Shives, C. A.

  He could smell the booze on his own body and breath. The odor seemed to seep from his skin. He grabbed at his head, fighting away the memories of his trip down the hole. His visions of pool tables, ashtrays, and painted women were blurred by shadows of smoke and an amber haze of whiskey.

  He swore that he’d never touch another drop of liquor again.

  It was a familiar promise. One he had broken many times in the past.

  Saxon walked into the office, glanced at the two men, and paused. She held two pieces of paper in her hand.

  “What is it?” Tucker snarled.

  “Another note from The Healer. And a photo.”

  She handed over the letter and laid the picture on the table. “Do the thing we fear, and the death of fear is certain,” Tucker read. “Saxon, find out what you can about that quotation.”

  They all looked at the photo. It showed nothing more than a rectangular pine box amid some wild ferns.

  “What the fuck is that?” Tucker asked.

  Herne felt his chest tighten. “A coffin,” he replied, his body so tense that his words were almost gasps.

  Tucker stared at his friend. “Jesus, you’re morbid.”

  Herne felt a flood of anger. “You brought this on me,” he said. “You brought me this case. Buried me in it. So don’t criticize me for becoming what you wanted.”

  “Don’t blame me for your fucked up issues,” Tucker said. “You have no one to blame but yourself.”

  No one to blame but yourself. Tucker was right. And Herne knew it. He alone carried the guilt and the responsibility of bad choices and wrong decisions.

  Herne sighed, his anger dissipating.

  “Fuck,” Tucker said, examining the photograph. “It is a coffin.”

  “A coffin in the woods,” Herne said. “Look at the trees in the background.”

  “We need volunteers,” Tucker said. “We’ve got to search the woods and mountains around here.”

  Sheila entered Tucker’s office wearing her usual outfit of pleated jeans and a floral blouse. “Betty Emmert just called to report her husband missing,” Sheila said. She ignored Herne, as if his appearance offended her. “She hasn’t seen him since Saturday morning.”

  Herne didn’t bother to look at Tucker. He simply walked out the door, knowing his friend was behind him.

  Morales sat behind the steering wheel of his SUV, holding a map in his hands so a passerby would think he was a lost motorist. He watched the woman leave through her front door, locking it securely behind her.

  She slid into her car and slowly left her driveway, carefully maneuvering the vehicle into the empty residential street. She didn’t even glance his way as she drove past him.

  He wasn’t going to follow her today. Instead, he was going to watch her empty house.

  It’s important to cover all your bases during surveillance, he thought to himself. I’ll just keep a watch to see what type of visitors she gets during the day.

  He dropped the map and reached for his coffee cup, preparing for a long morning.

  As he sipped the dark brew, he thought about Amanda Todd. The TV was full of news about her murder, and he’d watched every newscast intently. So far there was no mention of his Nissan. But he knew it was very likely that someone had spied his vehicle on her street. He should have been more careful, but he hadn’t realized the risks.

  Morales chewed on his bottom lip, ignoring his coffee as it grew cold. He wondered how much time he had before the big plainclothes cop started sniffing at his trail.

  Herne watched Betty Emmert silently. She carried a little extra weight around her middle, made noticeable by her ill-fitting shiny polyester blouse, an odd garment choice for a well-to-do retired woman. Her slick black hair, peppered with streaks of gray, had been pulled back from her face in a severe ponytail. It’s a look designed to repel men, Herne thought.

  They sat in her sleek, modern kitchen, where stainless steel appliances glinted in the sunlight. She offered coffee to Tucker and Herne, and they sipped the vile brew politely from their mugs. Herne tried to keep his face expressionless as the bitter liquid coated his tongue. She may have the latest appliances, Herne thought, but she can’t make a decent cup of coffee.

  “He left for an early round of golf with his buddies,” she said between sniffles. “The four of them get together for golf every Saturday.”

  “Why did you wait so long to report his disappearance?” Tucker asked. “It’s Tuesday.”

  Betty squared her shoulders and met Tucker’s stare. “I thought he was with his mistress.”

  “Your husband has a mistress?”

  She nodded, her eyes dry. “He’s had one for years. Before the kids were even out of the house.”

  “Do you know who she is?” Herne asked.

  Betty shook her head. “He could have more than one, I guess. Emmert enjoys a very active sex life. He used to constantly be at me, asking me to pleasure him.” She pursed her lips. “Frankly, I had no interest. It was my duty to give him children, which I fulfilled. I couldn’t stand his constant badgering for sex so I permitted him to take a mistress.”

  “Does he often leave for days without telling you?” Tucker asked.

  “No,” Betty admitted. “But sometimes he stays out all night without calling me. I don’t keep tabs on him. He’s never been away for this long, though.”

  “Does he have an address book? Something that might tell us the identity of his mistress?”

  She nodded and went to fetch a Rolodex, the round spindle packed with business cards and phone numbers. She handed it to Tucker when she returned.

  “Is it The Healer?” Betty’s eyes were wide with fear. The newspapers had already dubbed the killer his chosen name, and it had spread through town like an uncontrollable pandemic. “Did The Healer kill my husband?”

  Herne remained expressionless. “We don’t know, Mrs. Emmert,” he said. “It’s possible your husband is just fine and dandy. Maybe he’s been busy with his, ah, friends and just hasn’t had time to call.”

  “Have you seen anything out of the ordinary lately? Any strange cars or unusual people?” Tucker asked.

  Betty shook her head. “No,” she said cautiously. “But our house is set off the street and mostly surrounded by trees. I don’t see much of what goes on in the neighborhood.”

  “Have you noticed a silver SUV near your home?” Herne asked.

  Betty shook her head again. “No, nothing like that.”

  As they prepared to leave, Betty started crying again.

  “Despite what you gentlemen might think, I do love my husband,” she said. “I want him home.”

  Herne paused at the entrance to the Emmert’s house, his hand on the doorknob. “Out of curiosity, Mrs. Emmert, does your husband have any phobias or intense fears?”

  “Why, yes,” she answered. “Charles is a classic claustrophobic. He has an intense fear of tight spaces, like elevators. Once, when his SUV broke down, I went to pick him up in my Toyota Prius. He refused to get in the car. He called a limo service instead.”

  Claustrophobic. Herne thought about the photo The Healer had sent. The pine box in the middle of the woods. His heart thumped in his chest and he inhaled deeply, struggling for air, as he gripped his hands into fists to control the tremble of his fingers. Another murder. Another death.

  “Was he being treated for this phobia?” Tucker asked.

  “He’s been seeing Peter Lochhead, the therapist in town, for years. But as far as I can tell, he hasn’t made any progress.”

  Herne arrived at Lochhead’s office just as the psychologist was locking up for the day. Tucker had gone back to the police station to organize the volunteers for a search as Saxon followed up on Emmert’s Rolodex and golfing buddies.

  Herne wasn’t sure another visit with Lochhead would reveal any information. But, at the moment, he was their strongest lead.

  “I cannot share any information with you about my patients,” Lochhead said, his tone final.
The therapist glanced at the window. “I have an appointment I have to keep this evening, so if you could wrap this up quickly, I’d appreciate it.”

  “One of your patients has been killed. Another is missing. There’s a killer out there that calls himself The Healer. You can see why our attention has turned to you, Doctor.”

  “I have nothing to hide,” Lochhead said. “And harassing me won’t get you any information. I’m bound by my ethics to protect patient confidentiality.” His fingers twitched, and he juggled his car keys in his palm. “Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for me to close.”

  “You don’t work very late, do you?” Herne asked. “It’s only four o’clock.”

  “I find most people with psychological problems prefer to schedule their sessions during the day,” Lochhead replied. “By the time evening arrives, people start self-medicating with booze or drugs.” His stare seemed to penetrate Herne again, as if he knew the truth of Herne’s own addiction.

  Not a particularly amazing deduction, Herne thought. I smell like a brewery.

  “You leave this office empty for a lot of hours, especially hours when other businesses in this building are still open. Does anyone else have access to your files?”

  “Of course not. Not even my secretary sees the patient files. I keep them locked in a file cabinet.”

  “May I see the cabinet?” Herne asked.

  With a deep sigh Lochhead led the way to his inner office. Inside stood a plain locked metal file cabinet, available at any office supply store. A monkey with a nail file could have opened it.

  “Any other questions?” Lochhead asked.

  Herne shook his head. Then he fixed his gray eyes on Lochhead. “If Charles Emmert turns up dead and we could have saved him with your cooperation, you’ll have to live with the consequences,” he said.

  “You have no legal recourse,” Lochhead replied. “The law protects me in that case.”

  “I’m not talking about legal consequences,” Herne said. “I’m talking about the blood of a dead man on your hands. The kind of blood that never washes away.”

  Lochhead simply stood, his lips pressed tightly together, as Herne walked out of the office.

  Inside the elevator, Herne called Saxon on his cell phone. “This is a long shot,” he said, “but tell Miller and Johnson to check out anyone who might have access to Lochhead’s office and files. They need to do a background check on the secretary and the cleaning service. There might be a janitor or handyman here, too.” It’s probably useless, he thought. A man like The Healer—a man who planned so meticulously—would be unlikely to have a criminal record.

  “Does the chief know about this request?” she said. “I take orders from him.”

  “Do we have to go through this song and dance, Saxon? Trust me when I say that Rex is going to want this information, too.”

  There was silence on the other end. Herne almost spoke into the phone, wondering if the connection had been lost, when she said, “Okay. I’ll do it.”

  “Any news on that last quotation from The Healer?” Herne asked.

  Saxon exhaled a heavy sigh of annoyance, and Herne had to stop himself from an impatient remark. “Yes. It’s attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson.”

  “Maybe our man is a poet,” Herne said.

  He hung up his phone and, obeying the growl in his stomach, entered The Sandwich Station. His hangover had dissipated and his stomach was crying out for food. Herne couldn’t remember his last meal. He suspected it might have been a handful of peanuts at a downtown Carlisle bar.

  The clerk in The Sandwich Station was tidying the cold case. “I’m closing up, but I can get you something fast. How about today’s sandwich?” he asked when he saw Herne perusing the menu items.

  “What is it?” Herne asked.

  “Peppered goat cheese, sundried tomatoes, prosciutto, and baby greens on a baguette.”

  “Sounds great. I’ll take two.”

  Herne felt the clerk’s eyes on him as the man went through the motions of preparing the sandwiches. Herne met the curious glances of the clerk with a full stare. He’d been ogled a lot since The Healer case was splashed across the news, and he always responded to those surreptitious peeks with an open gaze.

  As the clerk wrapped the sandwiches in waxed paper, he said, “I read about you in the newspaper. You’re the investigator working on The Healer case, aren’t you?”

  Herne nodded.

  The clerk assessed Herne critically. “The picture in the paper makes you look younger.”

  “It’s an old photo,” Herne said, subconsciously rubbing his bald scalp with a calloused hand. His head had been shaved clean in the newspaper photo, too. But back then, fewer wrinkles had lined his face.

  “They say Amanda Todd was a patient of Dr. Lochhead. So she must have visited this building. How thrilling!”

  Herne wasn’t surprised to hear the hint of enthusiasm in the clerk’s voice. Certain types of individuals seemed to get excited by sensational crimes rather than frightened. It was a reaction Herne understood. A reaction he felt himself. “You never saw her in the building?” Herne asked.

  The clerk shook his head. “I guess she never bought a sandwich here. I take a thirty minute break after the lunch rush around three o’clock, but other than that I never leave the shop, so it’s not likely I would have passed her in the hallway.”

  “Too bad,” Herne said. “I think she was the type of person who would have ordered your sandwiches.”

  “You think so?” The clerk brightened. “Anyway, good luck catching her murderer. It’s scary to think we have a killer loose in Hurricane.”

  Yes, it’s scary, Herne thought as he carried his sandwich to the car. The wrenching of his gut—the same twisting pain that accompanied all of his homicide investigations—reminded him that fear was the emotion that drove him to hunt down murderers.

  Fear. And excitement.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Sadie and Champ, Buck Yarley’s prize bloodhounds, tugged at their leather leashes, urging him faster. Buck knew every tree of the woods—had started hunting in them at just six years old, when he’d been barely strong enough to handle a .30-06 rifle. The leaves and branches became his friends, offering the comfort of gentle movement while he waited for a deer to cross his path.

  These days, Buck was known in Hurricane mostly for his ability to track a wounded animal for miles. But it wasn’t his talent that gained him that recognition. It was the skill and persistence of his dogs. Now they tugged again at the leash, anxious to move his creaking knees through the woods. He heard the footsteps of other searchers walking across the leaves and twigs. Their voices seemed loud among the silent trees. He didn’t bother to look for deer. They’d already scattered and hid from the humans invading their home.

  Most of the other searchers were local firefighters and working men. Many were hunters like Buck, familiar with the woods and the culture of the trees. They moved with ease through the brush, their heavy boots treading solidly on the dirt and rocks.

  Buck knew they searched for a man named Charles Emmert. But when the Chief of Police said Emmert was “lost in the woods,” Buck noticed him swallow hard, like a man swallowing a lie.

  He didn’t know Emmert personally, though he’d seen him a time or two at Shady Hill Diner. To Buck, Emmert looked like the type of man who would have had no qualm about buying and selling the souls of the working men who now searched for him.

  Buck had ventured a good distance from the camp set up by some women, mostly wives of searchers, where they prepared iced tea and cold country ham sandwiches to revive the tired rescuers. His stomach rumbled with hunger, but Sadie urged him faster, her muzzle pressed to the ground and twitching at every odor that reached her sensitive nose. Champ threw back his head, his ears flopping on his back, and bayed long and hard. They had caught a scent.

  The man and two dogs moved through the trees quickly. Buck ignored the scratch of a branch across his check. It was nothing he
hadn’t before experienced. He wiped his forehead with his blue bandana, feeling the heat every time the sun’s rays filtered through the trees. The stifling air was an oppressive blanket, but the dogs continued to press forward.

  A woodsman with a natural instinct for his surroundings, Buck knew where the dogs were leading him. The clearing had been a favorite spot of his. More than once he had found a large doe and her fawns standing in the ferns.

  This time, however, there were no deer. Instead, a pine box sat in the clearing. For the first time in Buck’s life, he felt a sense of unease in the woods. He let the dogs move close to the box so they could inhale its scent. He allowed them to issue one more bay that echoed through the trees. Then he hurried back to the camp.

  Charles Emmert probably expected to be buried in a different type of casket, Herne thought, if a man like that ever thought about his own impending demise.

  Yellow police tape wrapped around the trees, and most of the searchers had been sent back to the camp. Fiona, the photographer, snapped a picture, her mouth pressed into a thin line. Her small body seemed dwarfed amid the trees. Herne was surprised to see tears in her eyes.

  He thought about reaching out to pat her shoulder. But instead he said, “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not used to this. Not used to death,” she said.

  “We can get another photographer if this makes you uncomfortable,” Tucker said, walking up to them.

  She shook her head, wispy strands of blond hair wrapping around her glasses. “No. I’ll do it. Someone has to. And maybe it’ll help.”

  Herne turned his attention away from the photographer and back to the centerpiece of the scene. There, amid a bed of ferns, rested the rectangular pine box. The same one photographed in The Healer’s last missive. The same one, Herne was certain, that acted as Charles Emmert’s coffin.