The door-frame was swelling, splintering, dilating, the contractions coming faster and faster now. My brain was swimming with images. And that incredible tympani pounding, pounding.
Right then I remembered what was so significant about April 11th.
The due date.
"NO!!"
The door burst open.
Something that was neither solid nor smoke, neither human nor animal, leapt out of that room.
I instinctively ducked.
The shimmering black entity roared past me and penetrated the opposite wall with the force of a nuclear shock wave. The entire building shuddered, and I caught one quick glimpse of the thing before it was absorbed into the surface of ancient floral wallpaper, then expelled through the outer skin of the house like a geyser of antimatter.
It was worse than my darkest fantasy, worse than my bleakest nightmare.
I careened backward down the stairs and landed on the small of my back, the pain shooting up my spine.
It was as though someone had thrown a switch. The noises stopped, the house settling, the smell dissipating. Even the temperature seemed to abruptly return to normal.
For a moment I had to fight for my breath, but soon I was breathing freely again.
At the top of the stairs, the door hung limply on broken hinges.
The house was silent again.
I was alive — that was about all I could say. I had survived the due date.
I lay there in the dark for a while, staring at the ceiling, trying to get the image of that thing out of my mind. I'm not a spiritual man, not especially deep, but at that moment I knew I had done something wrong.
Evil.
Eventually I got up, hobbled down the stairs, and walked out of the house.
I walked and walked that night, through the indigo country darkness, until I was lost and alone…
…devastated by the knowledge that — for the brief time I was earmarked to be a father — I could not avoid the mistake all bad parents make.
The unleashing of another damaged progeny into the world.
V. NOIR
"The dead of midnight is the noon of thought."
- Anna Barbauld
MAMA
Detective Third-Grade Gene Kilgallon stands alone in a still life from hell.
He wears rubber surgical gloves on his delicate, powdered hands.
He has cotton booties over his Armani loafers.
He writes notes in his spiral-bound, his handwriting forming tight little rows of dark blue ballpoint.
He records observations about the scene: 4:37 AM, Sunday, August 16th, a male Caucasian in his mid thirties slumped over a trundle bed in the corner of a low-rent shotgun shack, apparent cause of death either massive blood loss from apparent lacerations or asphyxiation from apparent ligature marks, depending upon the causes of lividity in the neck and facial areas (ME to determine time of death).
The detective makes precise notes about the blood patterns on the walls of this one-room cabin in which he is standing, the dark smudges indicating a struggle, the dark arterial spray across the refrigerator in the corner, fanning out along the wall, suggesting overkill, suggesting the perp might have known the victim, suggesting a possible grudge-killing.
Kilgallon takes deep breaths between each entry. The writing helps him concentrate, helps him focus on the fresh crime scene, helps him ignore his natural tendency toward over-reaction, toward emotional involvement, toward repulsion. A diminutive man with narrow, intelligent eyes, oversized ears, and razor-groomed black hair, Kilgallon is dressed in his customary double-breasted Brooks Brothers suit, crisp shirt and silk tie. He believes in order and neatness.
Sometimes he hears his mama's shrill voice in the back of his mind, admonishing him for being careless.
He pauses from his writing and takes a good long look at the scene.
The overriding feeling now is one of disappointment.
Only a few moments ago, Kilgallon had thought he had stumbled upon the handiwork of the Red River Killer, a notorious serial murderer whom the Stinson Homicide Squad (in cooperation with the local field office of the FBI) had been hunting for months. What a coup that would have been! A junior detective like Kilgallon, only thirty-two years old and fresh from patrol, still in the fifth month of his sixth-month probationary period, sent out on a simple errand to interview a night watchman at a remote forest preserve: Discovering the latest victim of the Red River Killer.
What a break!
But now... all Kilgallon sees is chaos.
He sees the broken glass strewn around the cabin, and the cardboard cylinder of corn meal lying on the floor, its dust blossoming across cracked linoleum. He sees the overturned chairs, the bloody arc on the mattress ticking, the imprint of a belt buckle on the headboard, and the drip patterns beneath the body indicating the victim was moved, perhaps post-mortem.
This is not the work of the Red River killer.
Kilgallon knows all too well the Red River killer's signature. Kilgallon had studied the Behavioral Science Unit's memos as though cramming for a final exam: The Red River's fetishistic attention to clean-up, the freshly scrubbed surfaces, the faint residue of cleaning fluid, the blood-soaked refuse neatly bagged and stacked near the door, and the corpse stripped and wiped and disinfected and wrapped like a choice cut of meat prepared for the holiday larder.
Victims of the Red River killer are always posed in tidy bundles.
Detective Kilgallon closes his eyes amid the carnage and tries to ignore The Smell.
The Smell is a grappling hook striking the detective's skull, sinking into his nasal passages, burning cold-hot, ammonia rot. That coppery, salty, alkaline spoor. The smell of the abattoir, the charnel house. The smell which Kilgallon will never get used to.
Kilgallon's hands are oily with perspiration in their rubber gloves now.
His heart is hammering harder than ever.
Now you just calm right down this instant, Eugene, and you get your head straight. You're a Kilgallon, and no Kilgallon is going to let some slaughterhouse scene get the best of them. Do you hear me, Eugene?
Kilgallon swallows air and tries to breathe through the sound of Mama's hard, cold voice.
And that's when he hears the noise.
— clink! —
It comes from outside, just beyond the fog bank of shadows encircling the cabin, and the abruptness of it — an almost jittery quality to the sound — stiffens Kilgallon's spine like a lightning rod.
Somebody is coming. But it's not a uniform, and it's not an ME, and it's not forensics. It can't be. Kilgallon only called in the scene a couple of minutes ago. There is no conceivable way that the team could get here that quickly. Plus, the sound doesn't have that casual, authoritative stride of a badge or an emergency tech. It's an awkward sound, jagged, nervous. Like a tentative footstep accidentally kicking a bottle across the gravel of the narrow drive.
Somebody approaching the cabin.
Kilgallon seizes up for a moment.
There are so many options here, the synapses firing and crackling in Kilgallon's mind, the lessons resonating from his Academy days. He could draw his side arm, storming the front door, shouting orders at this unexpected visitor: Freeze, buddy! — Hands up! — Do it now or suffer the consequences! Or he could call out from where he is standing, call out to the anonymous guest: Police! — Stay back, please! — This is a crime scene! Or he could play it hard and fast, grabbing something like a lamp or a stray dish, hurling the object through the front window to surprise the mysterious oncoming figure, then maybe dive back toward the rear door with gun blazing like something from a Mickey Spillane novel.
But for myriad reasons too complex and convoluted to sort out, Kilgallon decides — within the span of an instant — to do none of the above.
He decides to go with his instinct.
He decides to wait, hide, and see what happens.
The footsteps are coming up the cement steps now, scuffling toward the
front door.
Move, Eugene! Move! You idiot! You useless, good-for-nothing little boy! —
Kilgallon backs away from the body, his cotton booties allowing him to maneuver silently backward. He whirls around toward the shadows without making much noise, and he scans the back wall, his gaze sweeping across the prehistoric gingham curtains, stained Formica counters, congealed sauce pans, frantically searching for a nook or a cranny or a piece of furniture or anything behind which to hide. He can hear the footsteps outside the shack, scuttling across the porch, pausing outside the front door.
Then the sound of something jiggling in the latch.
Kilgallon finds a large plastic trash barrel on the far side of the kitchenette, pushed into the corner, half immersed in shadows, filled to the brim with rotting garbage.
He ducks behind it just as the sound of the door coming open pierces the silence.
At this point, several things happen at once, overloading Kilgallon's brain. He sees the figure entering the cabin, and he realizes it's a woman — a woman, for God's sake — and he notices that she's carrying something that looks like a small tree in a burlap pot.
Kilgallon assumes this is a coworker, a gardener, or a groundskeeper.
Then he stops thinking about anything else because there is a foreign object lying in a sticky puddle of gore next to the corpse.
His notebook.
He must have dropped it when he heard the footsteps approaching.
Now Kilgallon's throat tightens with panic, a boa constrictor wrapping around his sternum, squeezing, squeezing, heartbeats pulsing in his ears, the ghostly voice of his stern, judgmental mother rising up in his brain: What in God's name are you doing, Eugene, hiding like a naughty little boy? You're a policeman, for God's sake. You belong here. Pull yourself together, boy! You must question this woman, you must do it this instant!
The dry, loveless rasp of the matriarch is a diamond drill now, boring through Kilgallon's psyche, just as it has done for years, but stronger now, stronger than ever, because Kilgallon is hiding in the shadows, metamorphosing into a lonely little boy, cowering in the cellar, avoiding his mother's terrible icy gaze, hiding things from her, hiding his report card, hiding the frayed cuffs on his Catholic school uniform, hiding the scuffs and scratches on his little Buster Brown shoes.
Across the cabin, the unexpected visitor takes a few steps toward the carnage, then pauses.
A shaft of yellow light catches her face, and Kilgallon feels himself turning to stone. He recognizes her. He recognizes that deeply lined face, those folds of leathery skin crinkled up around pale blue eyes. She's an apparition in the dimly lit cabin, an avatar straight out of Kilgallon's dreams. A stocky little bulldog of a woman in her late fifties, dressed in a faded sweater, stretch slacks and crepe soled nurse's shoes, standing motionless for endless moments, holding her potted tree sapling, staring at the tendrils of dried blood. Her shoulders slump. Head cocks at an odd angle.
Then she gets the most bizarre expression on her face — a mixture of sadness, frustration, and exhaustion.
Kilgallon cannot move. Crouched in the shadows behind the garbage barrel, blood vibrating with terror, bent legs numb with pain, he remembers where he saw her last. A videotape flickering in the dust motes of Lieutenant Withers' office. A series of interviews conducted by task force people. Earlier in the year, the Feds had narrowed the list of suspects in the Red River killings down to one: A thirty-three year old, white, unemployed welder named Tommy Earl Spence. Spence had disappeared six months ago, but the Feds had managed to dig up the boy's mother, dragging her down to the local precinct house for questioning. The little pug-nosed gal had sat sphinx-like in the fluorescent gaze of her interrogators, grunting mono-syllabic answers, sucking on a Viceroy. Her weathered face had betrayed nothing. It was like questioning a cinder block.
Now: Tonight: This very instant: That same pug-nosed woman is standing in the middle of the murder scene.
Tommy Earl Spence's mother.
Kilgallon watches in awe as the woman sets her potted tree on the floor. She sighs. She doesn't seem especially horrified, or repulsed, or even shaken. Just sad and frustrated. And weary. And the more Kilgallon stares, the more he realizes that the potted tree is not a potted tree at all. It is a large, brown, plastic bucket filled with a mop, a broom, a squeegee, and cleaning supplies. And the more Kilgallon watches, the more he realizes that Tommy Earl Spence's mother did not come here tonight to plant a tree or even consult with a friend on the proper amount of nitrogen additives to use in her mulch.
She came here for another purpose altogether.
She came here to clean up the mess.
Kilgallon gawks at her.
The pug-faced woman opens a plastic garbage bag, then begins whisking up all the fallen items into a dust pan and emptying them into the bag. She turns her attention to the fallen chairs, turning them upright and tucking them into their proper places. She sweeps up the debris and discards it. Then she tends to the body. Kilgallon feels his head buzzing with wasps, his stomach twisting. It doesn't matter that this insane lady is ruining his scene. What matters is that Kilgallon cannot move. He cannot budge. His numbed, bent legs are cast in granite. He is watching the final fragment of the puzzle-box clicking into place, the origins of the Red River's signature — the freshly scrubbed surfaces, the faint residue of cleaning fluid, the blood-soaked refuse neatly bagged and stacked near the door — and all Kilgallon can do is huddle in the shadows as still as a stone behind the garbage barrel.
Look at you! You worthless man! What a hideous excuse for a son!
Kilgallon silently cringes at the voice in his brain, but he keeps watching.
He cannot stop watching.
He cannot stop.
The lady is moving the corpse now, grunting at the unexpected weight, dragging blood-slick boot-heels across the linoleum to the opposite side of the room. She sits the corpse upright against the baseboard like a doll, then wipes the blood residue from its purple-veined alabaster flesh with moist towelettes. She even pulls a small skein of thread from the sleeve of her sweater and does a quick patch job on the torn shirt. Kilgallon is entranced, frozen with dread.
Then the woman tackles the blood.
Kilgallon starts to panic because the woman is on her hands and knees now, scrubbing the tile near the foot of the bed, scrubbing a sticky constellation of blood droplets, and her right knee is only centimeters away from Kilgallon's notebook. Kilgallon wills his hand to move. Slowly. Inside his suit coat, around the beavertail grip of his Ruger Speed-Six. He slowly pulls the gun from its holster and takes a deep, silent breath. He can't understand what's happening to him. He doesn't want to aim his gun at the woman. He doesn't even want to move. He cannot tear his gaze from her busy routine. So meticulous.
So protective.
At last, the lady finishes scrubbing all the trouble areas, paying little attention to the notebook, and finally rises to her feet. She carries the bucket over to the sink, rinses the scrub brush and runs water into the bucket. Kilgallon watches as she starts mopping. She mops with extra care and precision, mopping the pooled blood from the tiles, the spatters from the walls, the smudges from the baseboards, the stains from the front of the refrigerator, even the droplets under the bed. Then she empties the mop water, sets the bucket down and walks over to the notebook.
Kilgallon's blood freezes in his veins.
It happens so quickly, so nonchalantly, that Kilgallon barely has a chance to suck in a breath. The lady bends down, snatches up the notebook, then carries it over to the garbage barrel— the same garbage barrel behind which Kilgallon now cowers, bug-eyed, paralyzed, breath frozen in his lungs. The two strangers are close enough to smell each other's breath now, but the odd angle of the light and the overflowing trash bin block the old woman's view.
She tosses the notebook into the trash.
Their eyes meet.
Kilgallon springs to his feet, his gun coming up involuntarily. "Stinson City Pol
ice —!"
"Oh —" the woman starts with a jerk, her hand shielding her face.
"— don't —"
"— oh my —"
"— don't move —" Kilgallon's Ruger is vibrating softly in his trembling hands.
"Please," the woman says with a shudder, her feral eyes averted, gazing down at the scrubbed tiles. "I didn't mean to upset any —"
"Mrs. Spence?" Kilgallon's heart is thumping in his neck, in his ears.
The woman looks up, fixing her icy blue eyes on him, her expression changing like clay hardening in time-lapse. The lines around her eyes deepen, her lips stretching thin and bloodless. She realizes that Kilgallon is one of the hunters, one of the stalkers stalking her son. Her entire posture changes, her back straightens, her chin juts heroically. She looks him square in the eyes. "You know I did this, don't you," she murmurs softly. "I did this terrible thing."
"Mrs. Spence —"
"It was me," she says a tad more forcefully. Lying through her clenched teeth.
"Alright, Mrs. Spence —"
"All of it, all of it."
"I understand —"
"Me —"
"Alright —" Kilgallon tries to swallow but his throat is seizing up, his stomach ratcheting tighter and tighter. He can see the woman's hands pulling in tight against her paunchy belly, her fingers pink and psoriatic from decades of dishwashing. Something inside Kilgallon is breaking, a hairline fracture fissuring, cracking open. His eyes are welling up, and he has to blink to see through the tears.
The woman is wringing her hands now. "Such a terrible thing I've done... "
There is a long, agonizing pause.
"Go," Kilgallon murmurs, trying to keep his voice as steady as possible.
The woman looks up at him, alarmed at first, then confused, frightened.
"Go, now," Kilgallon says softly. He puts his gun back in its holster.
"But —"
"GO!"
The woman starts backing toward the door, her gaze still locked onto Kilgallon, her lips moving slightly, no words coming out. She slowly grabs her bucket, her mops, her dust pan, then pauses to scoop up her brush — all the while keeping her eyes on Kilgallon. When she finally reaches the front door, she pauses. Bites her lip. Blinks. And for a moment it looks as though she might say something else, but instead she kneels down and wipes a stray droplet of blood with her sleeve.
Blood Samples Page 17
