SUSPENSE THRILLERS-A Boxed Set

by Billie Sue Mosiman

  Shadow raised the receiver to her ear, perplexed, wondering if something might be wrong at home with Charlene. She drew in her breath and said, “Hello?”

  “You're all I have left,” he said.

  His voice was unfamiliar and hushed and something else that she did not readily identify. Was it a little British?

  “Who is this?”

  “There are just the two of us now,” he said, “and I have to tell you something.”

  “You obviously have the wrong person. I don't know what you're talking about.” It must be a freak calling her. Who else knew her stage name and could ask for her at the Blue Boa besides Charlene, Mitch, and the clientele?

  “No, no.” Breathy. “You're the one, Shadow. My other side.”

  “Listen, I have to go . . .”

  “I killed another one tonight for you,” he said, rapidly now, tripping over the confession before she hung up on him.

  She gripped the phone until her hand hurt. She pressed it closer to her ear. “Who are you?” she whispered, turning her back to the hallway where other girls came and went behind the curtains.

  “I'm Son,” he said.

  “Sun?”

  “Male child of darkness and death. Also, Sun, bright as an avenging angel. And you are my Shadow.”

  “I'm hanging up now.”

  “That's all right. I'll be in touch.”

  The dial tone buzzed in her ear and she stood listening to it another few seconds to buy time to think, to rearrange her features before she turned to face anyone in the club.

  Sun? The opposite of shadow? The copycat killer? He knew about her, that she . . .

  He'd called her!

  A trembling bout overtook her limbs so that she had some difficulty hanging the black payphone receiver into the metal slot. Her legs threatened to wobble out from beneath and give up her weight to the floor. She held onto the wall, then turned.

  No one looked at her. No one knew she was alive.

  She stumbled down the hall to the dressing room and made it to her locker. She couldn't turn the tumblers on the lock. She pressed her forehead against the cool metal and shut her eyes.

  A toilet flushed. The stall door opened with a squeak from the hinges, and Mom said, “Whassa matter, girl, you feel faint?”

  Arms came around her and led her to the bench in front of the long mirror. She was lowered and steadied by big soft hands. “Want I should call Bruce or maybe a doctor?”

  She managed to shake her head. “No.” Small protest. Her control over everything, for walking, for talking, for coping with this new world, had deserted her.

  Sun? Child of . . . Son! Did he fancy himself son of Satan or something with that “child of darkness” remark? How did he know about her? Had he followed her, watched while . . . ?

  I killed another one tonight for you.

  Her mind clicked over and went far away. When she returned, Mom was on her knees staring up into her face. Mom's eyes were distressed. Deeply etched lines described the flesh around her mouth. “I think you ought to go on home, if you can drive yourself,” she said.

  “I'll be all right in a minute. I'm . . . sorry. I must be getting a . . . bug or something. I'll be able to drive. Will you tell Bruce for me?”

  All the way across the city the man's voice haunted and tormented her. She had to do something, but what?

  When she arrived home Charlene was in the kitchen, scrambling eggs. Shadow made her put the pan aside and sit with her at the kitchen table. “You look white as a sheet. What happened?”

  “He called me at the club tonight. That man.”

  “Who called you? What man?”

  Shadow raised her gaze until she stared into Charlene's frightened eyes. She'd debated telling her, but she had to. This would affect them both, she couldn't go on ignorant of the situation. “The copycat killer. He said he killed another one tonight.”

  “Oh God. Oh God!”

  “He knows I can't tell anyone, I can't ask for help. I don't know what he wants, Charlene. He talked to me like . . . a lover or something. Or like we're partners.”

  Charlene balled her fists on the table top. She began hitting the table with them, one at a time, taking turns with each fist. Shadow tried to reach out and stop the nerve-wracking noise, but Charlene jerked away and continued using her fists, now on her own knees.

  “We will go to jail forever or they'll put us to death,” Charlene said.

  “No we won't. I'll do something. I'll think of something . . .”

  “He knows who you are. He knows where you are. He probably even knows this place.”

  We don't know what he knows yet . . .”

  “He probably watches us through the windows, sees everything we do.”

  She continued pounding at her knees to punctuate her words. Shadow scooted her chair closer and grabbed the other woman's wrists, held them rigid. “Look at me.”

  Charlene looked and grew calmer. She stopped trying to free her hands.

  “I don't know yet what this means. I'll find a way out. You believe me, don't you?”

  Charlene began to nod her head, halted.

  “You have to believe in me or everything falls apart. I don't want to go to prison or back to a mental hospital. Neither do you. We wouldn't survive it. Not again. You know that, don't you?”

  Charlene nodded this time, tentatively.

  “He's like one of those men I killed. A sick pervert, a diseased sick crazy bastard with . . .”

  Charlene tore her gaze away and hung her head in a posture of one dropped into a great depression.

  “Charlene? You have to be strong to help me out of this.”

  “Will you stop?” Charlene asked. “Now, will you stop?”

  She knew she must. That what she'd done was insane, that it had jeopardized not only her freedom, her life, but her friend's life and freedom as well. She didn't have the right to bring Charlene into her mad zealous project when it meant possible incarceration or the death sentence. What had she done? Had her own unthinking madness been jolted from her by the madness of Son?

  “What have I done?” she asked.

  “Terrible things,” Charlene said, her voice as soft as a dove cooing. “Crazy things.”

  “Yes,” Shadow said, though not sure she believed it, any of it. She had been so sure, so strong in her resolve, so pure in her motives. Hadn't those despicable men needed to die? Hadn't they virtually asked for it? She remembered the rapist, the pedophile, the murderous racist . . .

  “I'm going to lie down now,” Charlene said, gently shaking loose her wrists from her friend's firm grasp.

  “Yes. All right. Of course. Get some rest.”

  Shadow sat in the kitchen all alone, listening to the air conditioning's low uniform growl venting from overhead, breathing in the scent of forgotten scrambled eggs cooling on the stove, and thought, I have to find him.

  I have to find him before he leads the police here.

  Thirty-Two

  Samson let a handful of dirt and pea-sized gravel sift through his forgers. He looked up at one of the crime scene team and said, “There was blood here.”

  He twisted around on his haunches to look toward the bulkhead. “He must have dumped the stained dirt in the water, trying to get rid of it. He used something to scoop it up.”

  They had found the body, the tire tracks, and striations in the dirt near those tire tracks. The removal of the dirt could mean the killer didn't want them to know the murder had taken place here. None of the others had as far as they knew.

  “Check this and I think you'll find some drops of blood he missed. It'll most likely belong to the victim, but we have to make sure. He stood, scuffed his hands together to clean them, and ambled toward where the body lay in an open body bag on a gurney ready for conveyance to the morgue. A cordon of police kept the media types at bay behind a crime scene rope. They wanted pictures of this.

  Samson gazed at the face of the dead man. It was obvious to anyone
familiar with the case that this death was an aberration from the normal MO. This man was young, in his twenties, whereas the other victims had been older. He didn't look like an ex-con or a wino and Samson would lay even money that he had nothing criminal on his record. He would bet the victim had been murdered here.

  He thought he knew the victim's identity. The desk at the downtown station had had calls for two days from a hysterical woman reporting her missing husband. Until now it had been treated as an abandonment—so many men walked off from their wives. But Samson felt in his gut this was the woman's missing spouse. She'd be called in to identify the body, if this body fit the description.

  Ignoring the racket of the crowd at the perimeter of the scene and the crime unit photographer and investigators, the local deputy who had sent word to HPD, the fisherman who had found the floater, Samson leaned closer, and noticed bruises on the man's neck just to the side of his windpipe. He must have been half strangled. But that wouldn't be the cause of death. Poison would. Had the killer held this man down by the throat to make him drink? If so, it threw out the theory that this time they might be looking for a female serial killer. There were not too many women strong enough to force a man weighing approximately one hundred and fifty-five pounds into imbibing a poisoned liquid.

  Samson stood again and turned for his car. He waded through the inquisitive onlookers and media types. Some reporters tried to get him to make a statement, but he waved them off like annoying flies. He started the car and switched on the air, hoping to get the stink of death out of his nostrils. The briny deep was not kind to a corpse.

  Back at the station, Dod broached him in the walkway between desks, blocking him from reaching his own desk. “Tell me about it,” Dod implored.

  “Another floater. What do you want to know?”

  “Will you start a task force now?”

  “Dod, you'll be the first I tell if I do.” He brushed past, but knew Dod followed right on his heels. Sudden anger surfaced and before Samson knew it, he had whipped around to face the other detective. “Don't you have your own cases? Can't you stay off my back even one goddamn minute?”

  Dod flinched and his face reddened. “I have plenty of cases,” he said. “It's just that my homicides are never quite as full of potential . . . media glory . . . as yours are.”

  “Well, now isn't that a fucking shame? Why didn't you try out for anchor man on the Channel Eleven news if you wanted to get your mug on television?”

  Dod did not retreat, but neither did he pursue the conversation. He stared hard at Samson, unmoving.

  Samson shrugged, swore again at the state of police work and the world in general, made it to his desk, and snatched up the phone. Someone had to call that woman with the missing husband. The sooner the floater was identified, the sooner Samson could find out his whereabouts two nights ago, the night the ME estimated he had died.

  If the woman had any information that could help him, he'd be hard-pressed not to leap around the bullpen like a lunatic high on PCP.

  Dod passed by the desk just as the woman answered the phone. From the corner of his eye Samson saw him wink.

  Now what the hell was that about?

  ~*~

  On his first foray into the hot, glimmering sexual milieu of the Montrose clubs, Detective Dodge took with him his girlfriend, Mona. It was a big mistake.

  “You really think I'm going to accompany you into stripper joints?” Mona's eyebrows rose so high they were lost beneath her shaggy bangs. “I'm not going in places where women dance naked and that's that.”

  So it was. He tried leading her into another club, one that didn't advertise women performers, and it turned out to be a leather bar. Mona's eyebrows ran for the border of her hairline again. “Out!” she hissed. “Take me out of here.”

  They tried a couple of more places, but Mona found something morally offensive about each one and finally she put down her feet on the sidewalk and would not move. “Take me home, Dod. I don't want to go on any of your undercover assignments ever again.”

  He had not realized what a prude Mona was, but his worst mistake had been not knowing the area, and stumbling into all the wrong places with her hanging from his arm.

  The second time he went fishing in Montrose, he went alone. He knew Samson's serial-murder cases down to the minutest detail. He knew this was where Samson was hunting for clues. He knew if he, Detective Dodge, found a lead and worked it and came close to solving the crimes before Samson, a promotion was almost certain. Brass wouldn't like the idea he'd gone out in the Lone Cowboy mode, or that he stepped over the line to intrude in another detective's investigation but, if he solved it, if he actually caught the killer, they'd forgive all that. His star would rise straight into the stratosphere.

  It was tricky. If he was caught prowling—interfering, they'd call it—in Samson's territory, he'd be reprimanded, and it would hurt his career. He had to stay out of Samson's way. He had to be very clever, more than a little manipulative, and as deceptive as a timber rattler lying among wood chips.

  He found that he rather liked the clubs. There was always talk about Detective Samson, how he hung out down here even before there was a connection with the floaters. Most of the men shrugged and said what the hell, he's single, let the guy alone. Dod was one of those few who, though he kept it to himself, thought Samson was just two shades over into the blue world. He didn't know what it was that was kinked about him, though he certainly did speculate, but there was something.

  He might have any kind of secret life. He might even be a frigging closet faggot for all Dod knew, though he pretty much doubted that. Or Samson might be into the S and M scene, which was a distinct possibility. Or he could even like to cross-dress or have the hots for transsexuals.

  It had to be something. And if Dod happened to ferret out the secret while hunting for the Gulf Water Killer (the unofficial nickname for Samson's case), wouldn't the police psychiatrist be interested in hearing that little bit of information?

  Dod smiled over his drink. He was doing Seven and Sevens while watching the women dance. He didn't drink all that often and he was feeling slightly woozy. Fuzzy around the old brain stem, he thought, better watch it.

  The place was called Chez Tigress and the girls weren't really girls, they were women, and not particularly pretty women. A dancer calling herself Babycakes was on stage, gyrating to a song by Extreme, but Dod wasn't too interested. He swung his head around to scan the crowd. It was late, closing in on midnight, and the hours, God, they were hell on him, but if he wanted a promotion . . .

  He caught a man looking at him from across the room and his gaze stopped in its tracks. He weighed the possibilities. Was this a come-on or was this something else that might help him? He gave a half-grin and glanced over the rest of the room. By the time his gaze had wandered back to the man, he saw that he was on his way across the floor toward him.

  Dod stood, wobbly, catching himself on the table edge, and swearing below his breath. He had to lay off the booze or he was going to be shitface drunk any minute now. No good, no good.

  “Hey,” Dod said.

  “Hello. You're a detective, right? Homicide, HPD?”

  Dod frowned and lowered his backside into the chair. He motioned the man into the chair opposite. “Who said? And what of it?”

  The man made himself comfortable, spreading his legs out from the table, leaning back in the chair. “The bartender knows when he's got a cop in the house. He told me.”

  “Which leads me to repeat: what of it?” Dod would not usually be so abrasive, not since he was down here to talk to the street and the regulars to glean information, but there was something goddamn cocky about the man across from him that he didn't like. At all.

  “I hear you've got some photos you've been showing around. I frequent Chez Tigress about three times a week. Maybe I can help.”

  Dod narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, maybe you can.” He pulled the photos from his jacket pocket and handed them over. Th
ey were copies from Samson's files. He'd had a friend at a photo shop copy them in one hour so he could slip them back in the files before they were missed. Samson ever found out he'd done that . . .

  The man slowly riffled through the photos. While he did so, Dod tried to size him up. What was his angle? How many people volunteered to help a cop? Precious goddamn few.

  The guy looked innocuous enough. Brown hair mostly covered by a black gimmee cap. An untrimmed, droopy mustache. Fat. He might sell insurance. Or real estate.

  Well, see anyone you know?”

  The photos were handed back. Dod inspected them, then grunted unconsciously. He never liked looking at those morgue shots. Gave him the creeps.

  “I don't recognize anyone.”

  “Well . . . thanks for trying anyway.” Dod held out his hand to shake so he could dismiss the stranger, but the other man leaned forward abruptly. Dod let his hand drift to the table.

  The man said in a low voice, “I know some people . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “. . . who might be able to help you.”

  “What people would that be?”

  “They hang out at the Blue Boa. You been there?”

  Dod tried to remember. Shit if he could keep the club names straight, especially after four Seven and Sevens. He slowly shook his head. “I don't know, I might have.”

  “Well, we could head over there now before the joint closes and I could introduce you. It's a girl. She has sharp eyes and a great memory. Knows just about everyone comes down here.”

  Dod felt a tiny thrill of excitement needling through the Seagram fog. This was what he had been hoping for. A break. Someone in the know. Someone who knew the regulars and might remember the faces. “You sure this is worth my time?” He wanted to be convinced, but there was still that indefinable something about the guy he hadn't quite latched onto yet and it nagged at him.

  Although Dod's record as a detective wasn't anywhere near as successful as Mitchell Samson's (he thought maybe that was the lieutenant's fault for not giving him the really difficult cases to crack), he had spent some time on the street as a patrolman. He didn't have the great hound dog instincts of a top-grade investigator—that's why he was always paired with better men, more experienced men, or he was put on the paperwork detail—but he still had his years on the force, and even without possessing finely honed instincts, he knew there was something off about this whole deal with the man at his table. He wanted to follow up any leads, but he had to be very careful while doing so.