The Screaming Room

by Thomas O'Callaghan

  “A honing blade?”

  “Shut up!”

  “A chain saw?”

  Angus looked to Margaret, disbelief in his eyes.

  “Did you kill her first? Then cut her up? I’ll bet that got you off.”

  Angus turned frustrated eyes on Driscoll.

  “I’m betting you kept a piece of her? A trophy. You like trophies, don’t you, boy?”

  “Just shut up!”

  “Did you bury it here? No, you wouldn’t do that. You’d want to touch it. To—”

  “Shut the fuck up!” he screamed, turning his weapon on his tormentor.

  Driscoll fired first, then Margaret. Without getting off a round, Angus collapsed on the floor, blood gushing from a gaping hole above his left eye, and from another in his chest.

  Cassie lunged for Angus’s gun. Margaret tackled her. She and the girl nearly rolled down the stairs. As her back crashed against the banister, causing her to lose her weapon, Margaret felt the barrel of Angus’s pistol against her stomach.

  “Drop your gun!” Cassie shouted at Driscoll, as she untangled herself from Margaret. Raising the pistol, she pressed it hard against Margaret’s temple. “Now!” she ordered.

  As Cassie attempted to stand, Margaret shoved an elbow into the girl’s ribcage, causing Cassie to fall into the lap of Mary Driscoll, who howled. But the gun had remained in Cassie’s hand. She thrust it into Mary’s mouth.

  “Don’t—”

  “Don’t what?” Cassie sneered at Driscoll. “You shot my brother.” Her gaze drifted toward Angus, while the muzzle of the Beretta pressed against Mary’s palate.

  “Cassie, you can still walk out of here,” said Margaret. “Why don’t you put the gun down?”

  “So you can shoot me, too?”

  Driscoll was certain it was Angus who had fired the gun. Its safety was engaged. His gut told him Cassie wouldn’t know anything about such things, so, he took a step forward. She did as he’d hoped. She squeezed the trigger. The gun didn’t fire, and while Margaret moved in to cuff her, Driscoll retrieved the Beretta, pressing a forearm against Cassie’s throat.

  “Please, let me go to my brother,” she pleaded.

  The two officers released their hold. Though cuffed behind her back, she threw herself on top of Angus and sobbed uncontrollably.

  Driscoll rushed to his sister, kissed the top of her head, and caressed her.

  “How’d I do?” asked Mary.

  “What?”

  “Did I get the part? Boy, these actors are good, aren’t they? Good-O! Will ya’ listen to her? She sounds like she’s really crying. Boy, oh boy! What a day!”

  Driscoll didn’t know what to think. “Mary, you just—”

  “Ssshh. I don’t think she’s done.”

  Margaret smiled at the sight of Driscoll gently rocking his sister in his arms, fully in touch with both her detestation and her sympathy for the twins. Doing an about-face, she descended the stairs, leaving the pair of siblings to experience their own multiplicity of emotions.

  Chapter 99

  It had been two weeks since the apprehension of the killer twins. Most of New York’s citizenry had turned their attention to a rash of fires that had spanned the last ten days. It was believed a serial arsonist was torching Catholic churches. In Queens, Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint Rita’s had been targeted, as was Saint Margaret Mary’s in Brooklyn. NYPD’s Arson/Explosion Squad was on high alert and had joined forces with the Bureau of Fire Investigation. Their probe, or lack of it, according to the Brooklyn Archdiocese, filled the headlines of both the Post and the Daily News.

  But Janet Huff didn’t have the luxury of kicking back and reading either paper. She was too busy with her own. Hers was not like the Post in any way. Nor was it even remotely similar to the News. Although there would be a legion of people who would challenge her, every word, every sentence, every paragraph that went into any one of her articles was thoroughly researched and its validity substantiated.

  When time allowed.

  More often than one would imagine, an exclusive was handed to her gratuitously. Often anonymously. Although what she now held in her hand appeared to be gifted from such a person, her instincts told her the offering would end up in the trash. The flash memory card had arrived this morning by mail. There was no letter attached. No note. Not even a Post-it. The manufacturer’s label had been partially removed. There was no return address on the small envelope, but the postmark said it’d been mailed from New York. The sender had managed to correctly spell the name of the paper, in red pencil no less, but that was not the case with her name. “Too Miss Jane Huffer” it read. Her donor was no rocket scientist.

  Sensing either a grade-schooler or a prankster was involved, she declared it trash and had her arm cocked to toss it. But from the corner of her eye she spotted what she believed to be the manufacturer’s logo on what remained of the label. If indeed it was, this had come from no elementary school digital. Whoever had purchased this one-inch square of blue plastic was into some very serious picture-taking.

  Rummaging through her drawer, she produced a plug-and-play, set it up on her computer, inserted the memory card, and took a peek.

  Chapter 100

  Margaret Aligante was with Driscoll inside the Lieutenant’s office. They were eagerly awaiting the results of a mission Thomlinson had taken on.

  The Lieutenant was aggravated. He was certain Malcolm Shewster orchestrated the attempt to kill the twins, which, had Thomlinson not intervened, would have likely killed them along with his sister, several NYPD officers, and a host of innocent citizens. Perhaps, him and Margaret as well. He’d been informed a grenade could be lobbed from three hundred feet; the range of the launcher exceeded a mile.

  His frustration involved the fact that Shewster would never be held accountable. Thankfully, because it had been interrupted, but exasperatingly because there was no irrefutable evidence to link the man to the crime. Crime Scene came up with nothing that placed the shooter, the utility transport vehicle, or Shewster on that rooftop or anywhere near it. Even if they had a tape of the probable phone conversation that set the assault in motion, Driscoll could produce no warrant to support the unauthorized tap.

  He also knew that Shewster had Angus believe he and Cassie, the pair with a list of felony murder and kidnapping charges pending, would be airlifted out of the country. Probably with his own sister in tow. Their phone conversation surely pointed that way. But that surveillance was also unauthorized and the event never took place!

  But the day wasn’t over.

  The only good news was that his sister thought she had been cast in a play throughout the entire ordeal. She was so intent on a good performance that she wet herself rather than asking Angus, the director, to take five. Thank you, Lord!

  The eight-by-ten photos of the frolicking Angus and the young Shewster woman shared the front pages of the Daily News, the Post, and (in an edited version) the New York Times and were spread across Driscoll’s desk.

  His attention was diverted toward them.

  “Angus’s tattoos don’t look so menacing in print,” Margaret said.

  “His eyes do. And they tell all. In contrast, look at the expression on Shewster. She looks to be having a hell of a time.”

  “It’s a syndicated story. My money says Shewster’s already hit every newsstand in a twenty-mile radius of his residence to purchase as many copies of the Los Angeles Times as the trunk of his Lincoln could hold.”

  “He’s in for a challenge with the other eight hundred and fifty thousand subscribers hailing from Grand Forks, North Dakota, on down into San Diego,” said Driscoll, eyeing six other graphic images that filled pages two and three of the Post.

  “If he put the phone on mute, turned off the intercom at the front gate, and slept in, he may have missed it.”

  “He’s in California, where anything’s possible. Maybe CNN will send a beach plane with a roaring engine over his compound with Angus and Gwennypoo lagging behin
d, their vivid copulation boldly displayed on one of those tacky streamers.”

  “What do we really know about Malcolm Shewster?” asked Margaret. “Who’s to say he doesn’t have a hidden chamber built under his house’s foundation or a panic room even Jodie Foster couldn’t break free from.”

  “What we do know is that he’s got at least one big secret. That says he’ll have a cluster of little ones. A man like Shewster doesn’t give away much. He’d have surely found a way to hold back some of his daughter’s inheritable traits. Believe me, he kept some of the deviant strain. Picture Malcolm Shewster, in his panic room, huddled like Saddam Hussein before they yanked his presidential ass out of his hole. Shewster’s eyes are riveted to the widescreen of a WiFi laptop, voyeuristically stalking Anna Nicole Smith, Pamela Anderson, and Jenna Jameson, when he happens upon a blogger who’s telling the world a mass communication missile, armed to disburse a payload of the tell-all photos, will soon make landfall on Shewster’s lawn. And if he misses that one, he’ll ultimately surf his way to YouTube, where he’ll likely catch a slideshow of the complete set of his daughter’s photos as the most downloaded.”

  “YouTube. Can you believe this generation? In a matter of seconds, the adventures of three buxom celebratantes, in Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and Lindsay Lohan, get an uninvited avenue where their interpretation of the word exposure is redefined forever. We’ve come a long way from Leave It to Beaver. Did you know that the most hits on the Internet for the last three months were from people obsessed with the weeklong club-hopping escapades of three sip-and-flash amigas marking the ‘Oops’ girl’s twenty-fifth birthday?”

  “Hollywood will soon release a new film,” said Driscoll. “They’ll call it Going Commando—The Twenty-first Century’s Response to Twentieth-Century Streakers.”

  “When I was in my twenties, skinny-dipping was the rage,” said Margaret. “But always in a very discreet and secluded area. Today, the chance of catching me outside my apartment without underwear is between negative three and zero. Even if the place were on fire!”

  Driscoll was grateful for the visuals. But since Margaret’s face had suddenly reddened, he refrained from voicing his gratitude. Time to change the subject, he thought, putting aside the newspapers.

  “I’m very proud of you, Margaret. I know this case wasn’t easy for you. I tried to give you as much of the responsibility as I thought you could handle but I got to tell you, you surprised me. Maybe I should send Elizabeth some little goodie from the first floor at Tiffany’s. I sense she helped you make it through what I suspect were some frightening tunnels.”

  “She’s good at what she does. I’m thinking of writing my checks payable to ‘Madam Therapist, Extraordinaire.’ What she’s managed to do in just four sessions is amazing. I’m beginning to realize the paths people take through life are diverse. And I’m also getting comfortable with the notion that it’s my choice which path I take. I see that the twins had a choice as well. What kept them victims was their vengefulness. I didn’t act out by taking an ax to my father, but they’ve made it clear that I could have. Realizing they let their past control their future, while I didn’t, helps me shed my victim’s cloak.”

  “That kind of progress in such a short amount of time is outstanding. Generally, people who haven’t gone through therapy have difficulty understanding that it’s a process, not a compass. It took me a long time to fully recognize that the key to changing how I felt was in my pocket. Elizabeth’s role was to help me find it, then teach me how to use it.”

  “That’s the cool part. It’s like discovering a part of my brain I never knew existed. It sort of gives me an outsider’s view. And I’m getting skilled at using it. Remember when I was first assigned to help track down these twin killers, and we were both in the dark about motive? When it was revealed they were seeking revenge for years of sexual and ego-flattening abuse, I felt like I’d been shot from a cannon. And all the demons of my past piled on to bite me when I landed. I’m happy to say that they’re gradually shrinking in number.”

  “You’re learning how to avoid inviting them into the present. That keeps them where they belong. In the past.”

  “I know I have you to thank big-time. Not just for encouraging me to see Elizabeth. You’ve been watching out for me throughout this entire investigation. I want you to know I could feel it. And one of these days I’m going to surprise the both of us by wrapping all of me around all of you and thank you like you’ve never been thanked before.”

  Wow, Driscoll thought, she really is using a part of her brain she’s never used before. And this kind of thank-you is sure to involve lots of other parts that have been neglected.

  “I’d like that, Margaret. Very much.”

  Silence settled as their eyes locked, slowing time.

  Just as Driscoll was coming out from behind his desk, intent on shortening the distance between himself and Margaret, Thomlinson’s face appeared at the door. The Groucho Marx bit he did with his eyebrows said he’d hit pay dirt.

  Chapter 101

  Malcolm Shewster had just finished breakfast. It was quiet and peaceful in his California mansion. The realization that the twins were no longer a threat thrilled him.

  Pushing his plate forward, he reached for the paper and donned his glasses, intent on losing himself in world news. That’s when his just-consumed Brie-and-onion omelet nearly came back up. He had to swallow hard to keep it from being propelled across the room. Anxious eyes scanned the syndicated story, avoiding contact with the eight-by-ten color photo emblazoned above the fold. His pulse raced as he noted there were more photos featured on page two. His knuckles whitened. Blood surged, giving his face a purplish hue. Slowly, he allowed his eyes to drift above the byline. What they saw caused them to widen.

  He examined the unmistakable likeness of his daughter. The image was blurred over both breasts and what he could only assume was a generous mound of pubic hair. Her lips were puckered. One eye was closed, suggesting a wink. Her body, which resembled the letter S, was straddling someone. And Shewster knew who that someone was. It shocked him to discover that what he could see of Angus’s body was completely covered with tattoos from below his neckline down. Some were hideous; others lascivious—all outlandish. What appeared on his daughter’s executioner’s face rattled him. Angus’s glare at his smiling Abigail spelled contempt.

  But what quickened his pulse and caused adrenaline to surge was the caption inscribed into the photo: “In twenty minutes, this female abnormality will be dead.”

  Rage filled him. He would not be held captive by a phantom photographer inside his own house. He was a resourceful man. He’d find a way out of this scandal. Warily, he turned the page, where he discovered a second, more demeaning, photograph. It featured his Abigail, clad only in a strap-on, feeding it to the mouth of a grotesquely disfigured, naked, and oddly shaped girl.

  But it was the inscription etched inside this photo that cut to the marrow. It caused him to do something he hadn’t done since childhood. He screamed. Then screamed again. And though both eyes were closed, these words helped themselves to his cornea: “That’s it, you wild little thing. Deep throat the sucker! Just like I did for Father.”

  Chapter 102

  Driscoll stood at the edge of the dock at Sullivan’s. The tide had gone out and the sun was beginning its descent behind a cluster of clouds.

  Aligante and Thomlinson had volunteered to stay behind and file the mountain of paperwork that the murder spree had generated.

  His city had shed its armor. Driscoll knew it would be a short-lived hiatus, but he allowed himself to be comforted by the sense of safety and restoration of order.

  Tomorrow, he’d return to his office early. He’d need extra time to prepare his formal request that Detective Second Grade Cedric Thomlinson be promoted to the rank of Detective First Grade. Cedric had found the fissure in Malcolm Shewster’s grand scheme. The fact that Shewster would not be tried in New York no longer troubled him. Because
of Thomlinson’s discovery, Shewster would surely be tried in a California court. It had taken him and Leticia an enormous amount of time to unearth the evidence that proved Gweneth Shewster died in New York City at the hands of two maniacal twins, and was buried in a grave that bore the name of a sister, Abigail, who existed only on paper.

  He had found a witness whom Shewster’s intimidation had silenced years ago. The man knew then, and knows now, that Gweneth Shewster’s California burial was staged.

  Spurred by the results of a painstaking exploration of every aspect of Gweneth Shewster’s death, Thomlinson sought to speak to one Giovanni Petrocelli. The detective wanted to know firsthand why Petrocelli had been dismissed from Richard J. Malone’s Funeral Home immediately after the “burial” of Gweneth Shewster.

  Giovanni Petrocelli was also a subscriber to the Los Angeles Times. After getting an eyeful, he was certain Shewster’s influence would take a huge hit and when Thomlinson reached out to him, he was happy to speak with an NYPD detective who was investigating Gweneth’s death. Petrocelli thought he’d carry what he knew to the grave. But the thing about vengeance was that it wasn’t mired by any statute of limitations.

  During Thomlinson’s exchange, Petrocelli not only told him that the casket which purportedly held the remains of Gweneth Shewster was a weighted coffin, he informed the detective where it was buried. A disinterment in California would support that, while an exhumation of Abigail’s body and an unaltered DNA analysis would further attest to it.

  Driscoll headed for Sullivan’s tavern to celebrate, albeit alone, making a mental note to buy Thomlinson a box of Cuban cigars. They’d say a louder thank-you than his duly earned promotion would.

  As the Lieutenant placed a twenty on the bar, he wondered what Giovanni Petrocelli, an embalmer’s assistant, considered a proper way to say thanks.