All the Dead Fathers

by David J. Walker

  “With the victim already dead,” she said, “so he couldn’t suffer any more, anyway. And maybe the killer’s in a hurry because it’s a public place and just slashes away, maybe to make a statement, and then takes off.”

  “Maybe, but they’re not the same.”

  “Even so,” Kirsten said, “there’s the stripping of both victims, and an expression of a certain … hostility, toward both.”

  Wardell shrugged. “I’d say so.”

  “If the killer was waiting at the rest stop he must have known Kanowski would stop. Maybe they were meeting there.”

  “Maybe,” Wardell said. “Or maybe the killer followed him there from somewhere. Or maybe they were two ships bumping in the night.”

  “He lived near Rockford, right? With … what, an aunt?” The sergeant lifted his cup and nodded, and Kirsten went on. “He was on the southbound side of the interstate, just inside Illinois and coming out of Wisconsin. So, possibly on his way home. Any idea where he’d been?”

  “You know I can’t share the fucking fruits of my investigation.” Wardell sipped at his coffee. “But it’s no secret Kanowski worked maintenance at a factory in Rockford, or that he clocked out at midnight the night he was killed.”

  “So he wasn’t coming home from a fishing trip.”

  “The body was found about five, and time of death was two to four hours prior.” Wardell stared at her. “If you go north on I-90, there’s a crummy late-night bar called Bunko’s and two twenty-four-hour adult book stores along the road. About twenty miles. On the Wisconsin side.”

  “And if I had a picture and I went to these establishments and showed it around?”

  “You might get nowhere,” Wardell said. “Or you might get lucky and find out he was at all three places that night. But no sign of anyone paying any attention to him. Like … stalking him or something.” Wardell crumpled a napkin into a ball and stuffed it in his empty cup. “I’m about out of sharing mode.”

  “Okay.” She paused. “But … Emmett Regan? Not yours, but you heard about it?”

  Wardell’s eyes widened a bit, as though surprised she already knew of the murder of the third man from the Sun-Times list. “Heard about it, yeah. Body found in his apartment early today. That’s all I know so far.”

  “Anything else I should know? I mean, before you’re fully out of ‘sharing mode’?”

  “Just this,” he said. “Another similarity between Minnesota and here—and Chicago, too, so far—is there’s not one fucking sliver of evidence tending to lead anywhere. This bad guy is—or all of them are—either very lucky or very smart.”

  “It’s one guy,” she said.

  Wardell checked his watch. “My wife’s gonna be pissed as hell, and I believe I’ve repaid whatever I owed Larry Candle … and then some.” He put his palms flat down on the table, hefted himself to his feet, and looked down at her. “You come highly recommended,” he said, “and not just by Larry Candle.”

  He took a piece of paper from his shirt pocket, unfolded it, and put it on the table. It was a photocopy of a picture of a man, head and shoulders. It had that wild, disheveled look of a police mug shot, and had obviously been copied from a newspaper. “That’s your victim,” Wardell said. “If you show this, don’t use my name. But I expect to hear about anything you turn up. Facts, impressions, anything at all.”

  “Count on it,” she said.

  He nodded, turned away, then turned back. “One more thing. If you’re thinking of tracing Kanowski’s steps over again? It’s too late tonight, so don’t even think about it. Especially Bunko’s—people get hurt there. I myself wouldn’t go near the place past midnight, not without backup.” He smiled. “And I’m … you know … less interesting-looking than you are.”

  13.

  When Wardell was gone Kirsten sat a few moments, staring down at the picture of Thomas Kanowski. Police don’t like to share information with non-police … even ex-police. But Wardell had shared with her. A lot. Sure, Larry Candle made the intro, and some cops spoke well of her, but that didn’t explain it. The explanation was that Wardell was working a homicide with no leads, and he wanted to solve it. He was reaching out, doing whatever he could that might bring in something. Whatever he’d heard about her was important, though, because it made him believe he could trust her, and that she might even be of help.

  And maybe she could, but how? The various police departments surely suspected by now that they were faced with a serial killer. They could call in an FBI profiler—if they could find one not working twenty-five hours a day on terrorism. They could assign forensic experts to analyze and compare the tiniest bits of evidence taken from the three scenes and the three victims. They could share information with each other and with a phone book full of federal, state, and county agencies and offices and databases—by computer, at the speed of light.

  They could do all that, assuming anybody cared enough. And even if they did, she’d be outside the loop—and no way Wardell or any other cop would get her inside.

  So?

  So, just as she’d told Dugan, to help Michael her focus shouldn’t be on identifying and apprehending the killer. Her job was protection. On the other hand, she’d be most effective if she could figure out which priest on that newspaper list was the next target. The eighteen had already been whittled down to fifteen. Was there a pattern?

  There certainly was a pattern in the sense that so far none of the victims had lived at Villa St. George. She had a copy of the list, but she hadn’t asked Michael which ones lived there and whether he knew where the others lived.

  What about a pattern regarding the type of abuse? The charge against Thomas Kanowski—denied, but proven in court—involved an eleven-year-old boy, almost certainly prepuberty and thus classic pedophilia. The charges against Stanley Immel—denied and not proven, although certainly possible—involved two young girls, probably both prepuberty and therefore pedophilia also. So what about Emmett Regan? Was it boys or girls? Pre- or post-? All of the above?

  Meanwhile, though, she was very close to the Kanowski crime scene and she had a photo to show. And what investigators do best is investigate, not read tea leaves. She slipped her bag over her shoulder and went out to her car. She had “a crummy late-night bar called Bunko’s and two twenty-four-hour adult book stores” to visit.

  Stepping out into the cool, damp night air, she felt around in her bag for her cell phone to call Dugan. But no, it was late. He might be asleep already. She dug out her car keys instead and hit the button to unlock the door, then stopped and stared. The Celica was parked right under a light in the lot. But something seemed—

  Damn! The right rear tire. Flat. How could it go flat just sitting there? Had some idiot asshole punk let the air out? She squatted down beside the wheel. The valve looked fine. And then she saw the hole, right in the wall of the deflated tire, near the metal rim. A puncture, like an ice pick would make.

  Her breath froze in her throat, and a bone-deep chill and a clammy sweat broke over her body simultaneously. She stood up and whirled around, looking in every direction, hand wrapped around the Colt .380 in her purse. The two clerks were clearly visible inside the doughnut shop, talking and giggling. A car passed by on the street, then another one going the other way. Otherwise, nothing.

  She pulled her raincoat close around her. Idiot asshole punk? Possibly. But the muscles tightening around her heart questioned that, said maybe it was someone who knew her. Maybe someone who had promised her HERE I COME. Someone who had called her and said nothing, then painted a blood-red target on her door.

  * * *

  She didn’t know how long she’d been standing there when a couple of sheriff’s officers pulled up in a squad car. Kirsten managed to stop them in their dash for coffee long enough for them to tell her about an all-night truck stop out near I-90. Not that she couldn’t change her own damn tire, but it was drizzling now and she wasn’t about to. She went inside and called.

  By the time a tow truck f
inally arrived the rain was pouring down. She finished her coffee and a second glazed doughnut—God only knew how many grams of fat—and watched out the window as a black man, in a yellow hat and slicker, changed her tire. He came inside, smiled, and said she could either pay him on the spot and go on her way, or follow him to the truck stop and buy a new tire.

  “I’ll buy a new one.”

  His smile widened. “That’s the smart thing. You don’t wanna be driving around without a spare. And you can’t fix the bad one, either. You run over a nail and I’ll put in a plug that’ll outlast the rest of the tire. But a hole in the sidewall? No way.”

  She figured anyone who could change a tire in five minutes in a hard cold rain and not lose his smile knew what he was talking about. She followed him, bought a new tire, and had them check the spare. She took the punctured one with her, too. This time, overreaction or not, she would go to Renfroe Laboratories … with the tire and the postcard both.

  By the time she filled her tank with gas and paid for everything, it was midnight and still raining, although now it was back to a drizzle again. She was dog-tired and emotionally drained, and hyped up on coffee. She was also ninety miles from home. She sat in the car and used the cell phone to call Dugan. It rang about five times and he finally picked up.

  “Is that you?” he said.

  “Your favorite wife,” she chirped. She could tell she’d woken him up, and she didn’t want him to lose more sleep than he had to. “Just called to say I’m way out in Rockford and I don’t feel like driving home in the rain, so I’m gonna find a motel and crash, and drive back in the morning. Everything’s fine. No problem. Don’t worry. See you tomor—”

  “Kirsten.”

  “What?” She didn’t like his tone.

  “You’re not telling me the truth.”

  “No, really. I’m in Rockford.” Chirping again. “I had a flat tire and it’s late and—”

  “Not about that. I mean about ‘everything’s fine’ and ‘no problem’ and the rest of that bubbly bullshit. What happened?”

  “Jesus,” she said, “aren’t I entitled to have a secret? Maybe I’ve taken a lover.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said. “I hope he hasn’t forgotten his Viagra. Now tell me, what’s going on?”

  “Okay, I give,” she said. “I had a scare, but it may have been all in my mind. Anyway, it’s over and no one’s hurt or anything. I’ll tell you about it, but tomorrow, all right? Honest. Right now I’m beat, and I’m gonna crash.”

  “Good. I believe you.”

  “And you’re not gonna worry, right? Because—”

  “G’night, Kirsten. See you tomorrow.”

  “Love you, too.” But he’d already hung up.

  * * *

  Kirsten meant what she’d said about calling it a day. She left the truck stop and drove around until she was certain there was no one following her and then went to a Holiday Inn. But when she got there she didn’t even go inside.

  Besides, she knew the real reason she didn’t feel like driving twenty miles north and showing Thomas Kanowski’s picture around wasn’t because she was tired. It was because she was nervous. No, make that afraid. Not of the clientele she might run into at a dingy bar and a couple of porno stores in the middle of the night, but afraid of something … some person … entirely unrelated.

  Unless her punctured tire was random vandalism—which she didn’t believe for a minute—someone must have been tailing her all day: from home to the train station, the Art Institute, Dugan’s office, the seminary, and all the way to Rockford. And she’d never spotted him. What bothered her even more than her carelessness, though, was that now she had been careful, and knew there was no one behind her … and still she wanted to hide away in a safe place. Which is why she had to go forward, tonight.

  Because she would not allow herself to be shut down by fear. Not tonight. Not ever.

  14.

  It was past midnight when Debra pulled into a motel south of Rockford. She paid cash and went to her room. By later that day, Wednesday, they might finally connect the three deaths and roll out the term “serial killer.” But there was such a difference between her and some psychotic, compulsive killer, one driven by secret voices or bizarre sexual urges.

  Debra heard no voices, and even if she did feel a deep, delicious stirring with each kill—all that blood, the torn flesh, who wouldn’t feel something?—hers was no compulsion. Hers was a free decision, made under Divine urging, to take action against evil, to even the scales for the terrible, secret suffering those priests had caused. And for Debra there was something else. Every dead priest led her closer to the bitch.

  * * *

  Debra knew she had God-given gifts that not many people had. Among them, she was able to distinguish between the significant and the incidental, and so knew where to keep her focus. For example, she had recently been distracted by thoughts of revenge against the one who’d so horribly slashed open her neck and face that long-ago night, but she put such thoughts aside. That one had been but an ignorant girl, acting out of mindless fear … and the damage she’d done had been repaired. Debra would maintain her priorities: dealing with the bad priests and the woman.

  Besides, God had shown again how he brought good out of evil, even out of the terrible wounds the ignorant girl had inflicted on Debra, and the disfiguring scars that followed. Deprived of medical attention, bleeding and in pain beyond measure, Debra had fled, and God had given her strength and wisdom. She made it to the compound in Sicily, where her great-uncle Umberto took her in. Umberto, her grandfather’s youngest brother. Even in his old age he was ruthless and maintained his hold on his family. Still, he was no match for Debra.

  Although secretly naming him la capra because he was a skinny, grotesque goat of a man, she’d quickly adapted to his perverse sexual desires. Umberto enjoyed her moans and gasps, no matter how artificial, reveling in her attention. She became his princess, and he made his servants cater to her. One of them, his driver, who also piloted his small plane, came to taking Debra on long drives in the country—“love drives,” they called them, filled with fierce pleasures of which there was no need to fabricate—and he even taught her how to fly the plane.

  Meanwhile la capra, filled with loathing for the greedy family that was anxiously waiting for him to die, was wildly generous to his newfound protégé, lavishing upon her large sums of money, all of which she wisely moved at once out of the country. And above all else, he helped her create her new self.

  Most of the plastic surgeons studied her snapshot and promised to restore her to her former beauty. Debra, however, wanted more. She interviewed surgeon after surgeon until she found the one whose computerized predictions most pleased her. He was flown down regularly to the little hospital near Umberto’s compound, bringing with him his staff and his specialized equipment.

  There had been so many painful procedures. First to remove the scarring from her neck and her face, and then to give her the new look she desired. She became the new Debra, unrecognizable to her foes, and able to carry on. After that was accomplished, and before Umberto’s paranoia could embrace her as well, she fled Sicily and came back home.

  * * *

  Yes, she’d been gifted, but being gifted was not enough. Debra knew that. One had to work hard, too. And she did. Her careful surveillance of Emmett Regan on Monday—before she’d helped him pay for his sins—had unexpectedly brought an answer to the problem of how to get close to the priest to come after Regan. She hoped she hadn’t squandered her opportunity by not acting at once. But again, action without careful planning was dangerous, so she’d spent Tuesday working out the possibilities.

  Even as she strategized, she kept up her surveillance of the bitch, and this brought its own rewards. The woman took her pervert priest uncle to visit her husband, and a new idea sprang up in Debra’s mind, one that beared nurturing. God was good. And then the trip to Rockford to meet with the sheriff … that verified the woman’s intent to seek t
o interfere, to insert herself into Debra’s world. God was very good.

  The punctured tire would keep the woman on edge, and tomorrow … priest number four. Already. Things were moving quickly.

  Now, though, she needed sleep.

  * * *

  But she couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t fair.

  Wide awake, Debra stared up at the ceiling in the dark. It was unfair that she had to lie there and relive an awful deed she had never intended. Unfair that she had to hear again the muffled whines and gasps, feel again the hopeless struggle for life, the writhing and jerking under her powerful hands. The sudden stillness.

  It wasn’t fair. She hadn’t wanted to kill him, even when he lunged at her. That was his nature, his instinct. It was easy now to think of more humane solutions, but all she could think of then was that someone would hear and come to investigate before she could finish her work with the miserable Father Immel. But the priest’s cute little dog—braver than the pervert himself—just wouldn’t stop barking. She’d had to do a bad thing.

  She consoled herself that out of every bad thing, even sadness and guilt, God drew something good. Always. She had run away in fear and abandoned her brother, Carlo, and God was using her flight to make her available to love Carlo back into wholeness. As a child she had been violated, over and over, and God was using her rage to make her into Lizzie Borden multiplied, taking the axe not to one, but to seven abusive fathers. Treating each of them according to His holy will.

  “You must treat each priest according to God’s holy will.” That’s what Sister Clare had said, that day way back in sixth grade when the other kids were complaining about the new priest, Father Lasorda, who was mean and sarcastic and smelled like ladies’ soap. But Debra, the only one who knew just how evil this priest really was, said nothing. She knew Sister Clare would never believe such a terrible thing. No one would believe her. Not her classmates, because her family was so rich and so powerful, and she was so pretty and so smart, and they were all terribly jealous and hated her. Not her mother, because … well … she just wouldn’t. And her father? He knew already, and he let it happen. So Debra had sat at her desk, wanting to scream out the truth but not able to.