Phobia KDP

by Shives, C. A.

  He dropped his plate on the table with a clatter and paused the video. The office looked empty. But he was almost certain he had seen a quick flash on the computer monitor.

  He rewound the video, seeing the blurred shadow of a figure as it moved around the office. The shadow danced across the room, unrecognizable at a high speed.

  Herne stopped rewinding and began to play the video again.

  The man in the video moved quickly, as if he were familiar with the room. Herne recognized him. It was Robert Morales.

  Morales walked to the file cabinet and pulled a little black leather case from his pocket.

  Lock picks, Herne thought.

  For the first time in weeks, Herne’s grin was genuine.

  Soft strains of jazz music came from the office of Robert Morales. Herne stood outside the private investigator’s office—his nose just a few inches from the door—staring at the wood grain. Inside was the man who entered Lochhead’s office. The man who had rifled through Lochhead’s files. The man who had followed Saxon home.

  Herne hadn’t gone to Tucker. Not yet. He first had to find out the truth for himself.

  He didn’t bother to knock. He simply opened the door and entered, passing quickly through the waiting room.

  Robert Morales looked up when Herne walked into his office. He held a ham and cheese sandwich in his hands, and a slice of tomato slid out of it and landed on the folding table with a soft plop. A slideshow of expressions crossed Morales’ face. Curiosity. Recognition. Fear.

  Herne was gratified to see the fear.

  Morales sat straight in a cheap folding chair. “Can I help you?” he said. A bite of sandwich filled his mouth and his words were muffled.

  “Do you remember me?” Herne asked.

  Morales nodded. He swallowed his food with an audible gulp. “Yes.”

  “Do you have anything to tell me?”

  Morales paused. “No.”

  “Wrong answer,” Herne snarled. “I know you’ve been in Peter Lochhead’s office. I know you’ve seen his files.”

  “I… I…”

  Herne slammed his fist against the desk and leaned in close to Morales. He smelled onion and mayonnaise on the man’s breath.

  And fear. He smelled the fear, too.

  “How many people have you killed?” Herne asked. “How many people do you plan to kill?”

  “No one!” Morales said. “I swear. I didn’t kill anyone.”

  Herne changed tactics. “Why are you following cops?”

  “What?” Morales’ eyes darted back and forth as if looking for escape.

  “I saw you,” Herne growled. “You were following Lieutenant Saxon. You followed her home.”

  “I… I…”

  “How many people have you killed?” Herne shouted. “Who’s next on your list?”

  “No one.” Morales pleaded with his eyes. “I swear. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You were watching Amanda Todd. You watched her and you killed her.”

  “Yes. No. I didn’t kill her.”

  Herne stopped abruptly, towering over Morales. He couldn’t stop a grin from spreading across his face. This was the first morsel of satisfaction he’d felt during this case. Morales squirmed like a rat in a trap.

  In Herne’s trap.

  Herne noticed the private investigator’s fast and hard breathing. Morales’ eyes bulged wide. He held his hands up as if to ward off evil.

  He’s scared of me, Herne thought. He grinned again.

  The night made its presence known with darkness that spread like oil across the sky. He cowered beneath his lamps, his lips clamped together to keep the screams inside.

  Focus, he thought. Focus. He tried to concentrate on his next victim, the one who would be his most challenging patient yet. The others had mild fears. Their phobias altered their lives in only minor ways. But her fear, like his own, had affected her very existence.

  He wanted to heal her. Wanted to taste her fear and see the quivers of her frightened body. He closed his eyes and imagined the tears flowing down her cheeks, cleansing her of her terror.

  She would be his star patient. The one that proved he could heal anyone.

  Then he opened his eyes and saw the darkness outside his window, and another whimper escaped his lips.

  Find your strength, he thought as he closed his eyes again. Find your inner strength.

  But it was in the daytime that he found strength. It was the sunlight that fed his power.

  Just as it had the day he turned sixteen.

  His father, wearing pajama pants, had stood with his face in the refrigerator. The Healer snuck up behind him, wearing socks so that the skin of his feet wouldn’t create an audible slap against the vinyl floor. Bacon sizzled in his mother’s cast iron skillet, the grease coating the air. He heard her footsteps in the bedroom above as she started her daily chores.

  He grabbed the skillet from the stove—ignoring the heat of the handle that seared his flesh just like the crispy bacon inside the pan—and swung it at his father’s head.

  His father swayed and tumbled to the ground. He pushed himself to his hands and knees, his eyes unfocused. The Healer waited and watched.

  After a few moments his father’s eyes cleared, and his upper lip curled in a snarl. “Boy,” his father hissed, “you better drop that frying pan.” He pushed himself up with his hands, starting to get on his feet.

  The Healer swung the heavy skillet again.

  It grazed the side of his father’s jaw. He fell again and yelped at the pain. When he spoke, it sounded as if his mouth were full of marbles. “You’re dead, boy,” his father said.

  “What do you fear, Daddy?” The Healer said. “What is it that scares you?”

  He saw the flash of emotion in his father’s eyes. The emotion he’d hoped to see. “Is it death, Daddy? Is it death that you fear?”

  He swung the pan a final time, connecting solidly with his father’s head.

  The Healer went to his bedroom and retrieved five handheld spotlights, the kind used by hunters to find deer. Each battery-powered spotlight gave off the shine of ten million candles.

  He turned on the basement lights and opened the cellar door. For a moment his breath caught in his throat, a gasp of fear rising from his belly, but he pushed it down. I’ve done it, he thought. I’ve conquered my fear of the cellar.

  He carried the lights down the stairs, illuminating the space with the power of fifty million candles. Then he went back up to get a shovel and his father’s body.

  When he reached the top of the stairs, he saw his mother standing over his father’s body. She held his wrist in her hand, searching for a pulse. She dropped his arm when The Healer walked into the room.

  Even now he remembered the look in her eyes: a mix of terror and relief.

  Together they buried his father’s body in the cellar floor.

  He had conquered his fear of the cellar that day. He had earned his right to heal others. To help other people conquer their fears.

  It didn’t matter that darkness still had the power to hurt him.

  Herne sat in the seat meant for Morales’ clients, the folding metal chair flimsy beneath his bulk. The odor of onions from the private investigator’s sandwich hung in the office air.

  “Why were you watching Amanda Todd?” Herne asked.

  “She was a client of mine. She was a lawyer, you know? Sometimes she’d hire me to check someone out. I’d try to get some dirt on a witness or something. I wasn’t watching her, I swear. We’d always meet at her house. She didn’t want anyone to see me at her office.”

  “Do you have any type of documentation? Files? Paperwork? A contract?”

  Morales shook his head. “No. Amanda always wanted all the records. Most of the time the things she asked me to do were, well, a little bit on the wrong side of the law. She destroyed the paperwork after she paid me.”

  “And you gave her everything?” Herne already knew the answer to h
is question. But he wanted to gauge Morales’ honesty.

  The private investigator looked downward for a moment, fidgeting in his seat. “Well, I might have kept a few photographs,” he admitted.

  Herne said nothing. It was all plausible. But he still had more questions.

  “You were in Peter Lochhead’s office,” he said.

  Morales hung his head. “I wanted his bank account numbers and his credit card numbers.”

  A thief, Herne thought. A common thief. He felt a thread of despair weave through his gut, and he resisted the urge to stand and run out the door. He’d wasted time on the wrong suspect. Precious time.

  “You’re a thief,” Herne said.

  Morales pressed his palms against his forehead. “I needed the money to pay my lawyer. I’m in a custody battle with my ex-wife. She doesn’t want me to see my daughter.”

  “So you’re stealing money to pay a lawyer,” Herne said. “You won’t be able to see your daughter if you’re in a jail cell.”

  Morales looked up, tears in his eyes. “Are you a father, Mr. Herne?”

  A pang. A moment of regret. And then Herne steeled himself again. “No,” he replied.

  “Then you can’t understand the absolute horror of being yanked away from the only person you’ve ever really loved. I’m completely hollow without her. I would do anything to be with my daughter, Mr. Herne. Even if it means stealing from someone else.”

  A small stereo sat in the corner of the room, playing Muddy Waters.

  I know the pain of loss, Herne thought. I’ve got the market cornered on loss.

  He remained silent for a moment. Finally, he said, “I have to check on this.”

  For the first time, Morales looked him in the eyes. “Are you sure you want to do that?” he asked.

  Herne said nothing. He felt the balance shift, as if Morales had just laid four Aces on his full house.

  “They say you’re pretty good friends with the Chief of Police,” Morales said.

  Herne remained silent. He had an overwhelming urge to grab Morales’ head and smash it into the desk until the smug smile was wiped off his face.

  “If you drag me into this, they’re going to find out that I’ve been watching him, too,” Morales continued.

  “You’ve been watching Rex?” The words slipped out before Herne could stop them.

  “And his little vixen, that Lieutenant Saxon.”

  Herne jumped from his seat and grabbed Morales by the shirt collar. He pulled the private investigator out of his chair, his face so close that their noses almost brushed. “Why?” Herne demanded. “Why have you been following them?”

  Morales held up his hands, his bravado disappearing as he sputtered in protest. “Hey, get your hands off of me. I have rights. I have—”

  Herne pushed Morales against the wall and moved toward him, circumventing the desk with the slow step of a cat that’s ready to pounce. “If I have to ask again, I’m going to beat the answer out of you. Why were you following—”

  “His wife,” Morales gasped. “His wife.”

  Elizabeth. Herne felt his heart jump to his throat. Elizabeth had hired a private investigator to follow Tucker and Saxon.

  Herne gave Morales one last shove—the eruption of a man bursting with fury—and walked away. He didn’t have time to worry about his friends’ personal lives. He had a killer to catch.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  It was midnight. Too late. Too late for anything but a drink and a smoke. Herne needed to bury his guilt. His shame. He’d been watching the wrong suspect, and now The Healer would have another chance to take a victim.

  Herne poured himself two fingers of whiskey before flopping onto his recliner. As he tilted back the glass for his first sip, the doorbell rang.

  Sarah Coyle stood on his front porch, her skinny frame wrapped in a light summer jacket despite the muggy air of the night. The large handbag at her side appeared gigantic next to her arms, so thin they looked like nothing more than toothpicks attached to her body. She smelled of Ivory soap. Clean. Fresh. She pushed her thick glasses up her nose when he answered the door.

  “Mr. Herne?” she said. “I’m Sarah Coyle, the receptionist in Peter Lochhead’s office. Do you remember me?”

  “Of course. Come in, Miss Coyle.” Herne directed her through his small foyer and into the kitchen. A bottle of Jack Daniels sat on the counter, and he nodded to it. “Drink?” he asked.

  She hesitated, then nodded. “Why not?” she said.

  He poured her a drink and handed her the glass. She inspected the amber liquid with her small blue eyes before swallowing the contents in one big gulp. She held out the glass, and he poured the bottle again.

  She sipped her second drink as she wandered his kitchen, touching the counter and table and chairs with her fingertips, never meeting his eyes. She was so painfully thin, just like his little sister had been when they found her body, dead and limp, by the east bank of the Schuylkill River. Kimberly’s skinny limbs had shimmered with a rainbow of bruises. Some fresh and purple, others yellow with age. Her bastard boyfriend had been beating her for months.

  “I know it’s late,” Sarah said. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “You didn’t,” Herne said.

  “I don’t know why I’m here really,” she said. “I haven’t been myself lately. You see, Mr. Herne, I’m a woman in love.”

  Herne watched her with a steady gaze. The hum of his air-conditioner filled the silence.

  She let out a bitter laugh. “I guess I’m always a woman in love. In love with the wrong man. I loved Peter Lochhead, you know. I never told him, but I’m sure he knew it.”

  “But he didn’t love you,” Herne said.

  She flinched, looking down at her toes. “That’s right,” she said. “He didn’t love me. Neither did Christopher.”

  Sergeant Frey, Herne thought.

  “Christopher—Sergeant Christopher Frey—helped me realize that Peter wasn’t the right man for me. So I wanted to do something for him. Something special.”

  She reached into her handbag and pulled out a thick notebook bound with black leather. “This is Peter’s appointment book. I stole it from him.” She stroked the cover of the book with her thin finger. “Peter didn’t love me, so I took his appointment book for Christopher. It was going to be a surprise for Christopher. To help him solve The Healer case. But before I had a chance to give it to him, I found out Christopher didn’t love me, either.”

  She thrust the book at Herne. “I guess I’m giving it to you,” she said.

  Herne made no move to take it. He simply stood and watched Sarah.

  “I don’t expect you to love me, so you don’t have to worry about that,” she said. “I’ve read about you in the papers. They say you still love your wife. Maybe that’s why I’m giving it to you. Because I know you can’t love me. I just thought that if I gave the book to you instead of Christopher, maybe you would be the one to catch The Healer. And something like that—when one cop beats another one—that would hurt Christopher, wouldn’t it?”

  He took the appointment book. “Yes,” he said. “That would hurt him very much.”

  She shook her head. “This is crazy,” she said. “I don’t know what I’m doing. Thank you, Mr. Herne, for the drink.” She pulled her jacket around her shoulders, as if she felt a chill in his home.

  “You’re welcome,” he said.

  “You’ve helped me,” she said. “Really. This is like a cleansing process for me.”

  She turned and walked for the door. He followed her. As she reached the porch, she faced him again. “Goodbye,” she said.

  Herne heard it all in her voice. The despair. The longing. The hopelessness.

  “Goodbye,” he said.

  He closed the door firmly behind her.

  He had work to do.

  Herne looked through Lochhead’s scheduling book with a yellow highlighter pen, outlining each victim’s appointment. Many were marked only with the patien
t’s first initial and last name, making his task more difficult. Three hours passed before he finished a year of Lochhead’s schedule.

  A glass of whiskey sat, untouched, by his hand. Leftover pizza grew cold and thick with congealed grease on the table. Herne only focused on the book.

  As he highlighted the entries, he didn’t look for a pattern. Didn’t look for any type of clue. He just flipped through the pages one by one, making long marks in bright yellow ink.

  Once he finished, he closed the book. Then he closed his eyes.

  Empty your mind, he thought. Find the pattern.

  He opened his eyes and started flipping through the pages. On January fifth, Cheryl Brandt had a three o’clock appointment. Amanda Todd had been penciled in for three o’clock on March second. On the twentieth of June, Tom King’s appointment was scheduled at three o’clock.

  It wasn’t one hundred percent—Amanda Todd had a two o’clock appointment in February, and Cheryl Brandt was scheduled for nine o’clock in March—but it was enough to be solid in Herne’s mind.

  Herne picked up the phone and called Tucker.

  “Dammit, Art,” Tucker said into the phone. “It’s the fucking middle of the night. What the hell is going on?”

  “I have Lochhead’s appointment book.”

  There was a rustle of noise as Tucker shifted positions. Herne heard Elizabeth’s voice, groggy with sleep, in the background. For a fleeting moment he imagined her dark hair spread across a white pillow.

  “How the fuck did you get that?”

  “It just landed in my lap.”

  Silence met this statement. “It won’t be admissible in court,” Tucker said.

  “I know. But it’s the only lead we’ve had in a while.”

  “So what’s the news?”

  “All of The Healer’s victims had a three o’clock appointment with Lochhead.”

  “Three o’clock?” Tucker asked.

  “There must be something special about that time,” Herne said.

  “How many other people have three o’clock appointments?” Tucker asked.