Cold Blue Midnight

by Ed Gorman

  Maybe, she sometimes thought, maybe she'd been lucky to lose the first one to the rattlesnake and the vaccine. She did not have to watch as he grew up and turned against her… the way Peter and Doris had.

  Peter… dragging Jill Coffey into this place to live. Jill, who could barely contain her contempt for Evelyn and all she stood for. Who silently accused Evelyn of having over-protected her children. Who wanted to smirk every time Evelyn asked her to give up her photography career and live here with Peter and Doris. If she hadn't gone back to taking her inane pictures then Peter would never have been driven to killing those women.

  And now Doris…

  In the end, you were left alone, utterly alone, to face your own death and extinction.

  For years, Evelyn had felt that Doris would be there to comfort her, help her.

  But now she knew better…

  Well, when Doris came out of the sedative, Evelyn was going to have a little talk with her, remind Doris that she had better not take for granted that she was going to be part of Evelyn's will. A simple phone call to Arthur K. Halliwell could change all that.

  Evelyn amused herself with images of Doris trying to make her way in the world. There was nothing the girl could do to support herself; absolutely nothing.

  Knock.

  'Ma'am?'

  'I told you not to interrupt me.'

  'It's Doris, ma'am.'

  'What about her?'

  'I was walking by her room I think she might be waking up.'

  'Impossible. I gave her a triple dosage.'

  'Maybe you'd better check, ma'am.'

  'I can't even have a few minutes peace, can I?'

  'No, ma'am.'

  'I've worked so hard all my life and I can't even have a few minutes peace.'

  'No, ma'am. I'm sorry, ma'am.'

  'She'd damned well better be waking up or you're going to answer to me, girl.'

  'Yes, ma'am. I just thought'

  'Just get out of here and quit pestering me.'

  'Yes, ma'am.'

  Evelyn stood up, brittle bones hard at work beneath aged flesh.

  Oh yes, she'd have a few unpleasant surprises for Doris the next time they had a long conversation.

  She'd tell Doris to imagine herself in a McDonald's uniform asking some sweat-reeking black man if he'd like fries with his Big Mac…

  Let's just see how Doris likes that.

  ***

  The very first thing Rick did once they were inside the house, not more than three steps inside the house, was to take his.45 from his topcoat pocket and bring it down across the back of Adam's head.

  Adam always boasted how tough he was. Sure. As soon as the butt of the gun struck his head, he made a whimpering sound, tried to turn around to grab Rick, and then collapsed on the floor of the kitchen.

  Rick had hit him good and hard.

  Just the way he deserved, the unfaithful bastard.

  Rick reached down to take him by the collar of his coat. He was going to drag him downstairs. Wouldn't be any trouble carrying him Rick was actually quite strong but Adam would get nice and bruised (maybe even a little bloody) bumping down the stairs.

  And then the blackness overwhelmed him once again, this time with no warning, and then came the headache, like a broadsword cleaving his skull.

  Then the voice.

  The voice that was always inside him, lurking.

  He could never quite tell what the voice was saying. It spoke in this faint whisper. But whatever it said always upset Rick. And he wasn't even sure why.

  For some reason, he tried real hard not to think of what Adam had said that Rick was really this Peter Tappley.

  How could you be two people? Rick was Rick and Peter Tappley was Peter Tappley. Right?

  The headache got so bad that Peter gripped his head in his hands and staggered over to the shiny twin sinks and turned the cold water on full force.

  He put his head beneath the fall and began to massage the water into his head.

  He screamed.

  He could hear himself scream.

  That should shake up the little guy sitting inside his mind, the way he'd just screamed. Between the cold cold water and the scream, the little guy didn't have a chance.

  He'd never whisper to Rick again.

  Never.

  He whispered to Rick.

  He was still in there.

  Rick, enraged, slammed his head against the edge of the sink hard enough that he left a small dent.

  But he didn't even feel it, he was so intent on getting rid of the little man who whispered to him all the time.

  Bastard.

  Little bastard.

  I'll show you.

  And then the darkness was gone. And the headache.

  And he was left to feel the pain he had inflicted on himself when he'd slammed his head against the edge of the sink.

  He laughed about it. 'Real bright, Rick. Why don't you stick your tongue in an electrical outlet next time?'

  He was all right now. Just fine. He needed a couple aspirins, was all.

  And how did you get your headache, Mr Corday?

  Well, I pounded my head against the edge of the sink.

  I see, Mr Corday. Why don't you not do that for a few days and see if the headache goes away?

  It really was pretty funny.

  He stepped over the unconscious form of Adam Morrow and walked into the bathroom and got himself two buffered aspirin. The regular kind always gave him heartburn.

  He swallowed the aspirins and then walked back to the kitchen.

  All he thought about now was how sweet that axe-handle was going to feel in his hands.

  Yes indeedy.

  ***

  Daniel Ransom was a thing of beauty, scrubbed, shined, moussed, teased and polished to perfection. He was Hunk Among Hunks of the local news-teams and he was best buds with a certain Fitzsimmons in the DA's office and Mich had no doubt that it was that same Mr Fitzsimmons who had sicced Ransom on Mitch this late cold November afternoon.

  They were on the elevator, Ransom and his cameraman, and they were taping and Ransom, in his white trenchcoat with the collar up and his dark locks fashionably askew, said: 'You sound a little cavalier to me, if you'll forgive me saying so, Inspector.'

  'There were two little black girls killed in front of a school last week. Why aren't you asking me about them?'

  Daniel Ransom was programmed to look gorgeous, he was not programmed to think quickly. 'Well, you know'

  'Sure, I know, pretty-boy. Because those two little black girls don't matter to you or your moron station manager or all those stupid whores who peddle time for your station.

  You can't sell much advertising when two little black girls die. But let a rich white socialite die and you get all worked up.' He made a big thing of peering closely at Ransom's face. 'Your lipstick is crooked, you know that?'

  'Turn that fucking camera off!' Ransom snapped.

  "Hey, you asked me to say something on camera, and I did. So what're you so steamed up about?'

  'You could always lose your job, you know.'

  'So could you, sweetheart, if they ever make reporters take an IQ test.'

  They rode the rest of the floors in silence.

  When he stepped off the elevator, Mitch made sure that he trod painfully on the instep of the Hunk of Hunks.

  Cheating was what she was doing. If you were going to make cookies you should go out and get all the makings the flour, the brown sugar, the chocolate chips you should not buy one of those frozen dough dealies and slice it all up and pop it in the oven and pretend that you were making homemade cookies.

  But the smells were good and that's all that mattered this late and gloomy afternoon.

  Maybe they weren't as good as the smells of her mother's old kitchen but, Jill thought, they were close enough.

  She got out a festively-colored heating glove and extracted the cookie sheet from the oven.

  She set them on the stove and stood t
here with her eyes closed, imagining herself eight or nine again, and her mother inviting her into the kitchen to clean out the bowl with a big spoon. Jill had loved the taste of the uncooked cookie dough. Childhood was so sweet; you had no idea how sweet until you were in your thirties.

  She thought of Mitch and of how things were going to go well. She was sure of it now.

  It was all like one of those improbable romance movies of her youth. Cini coming forward, clearing Jill's name. Mitch and Jill marrying, say a year later. A kitchen very much like her mother's a few years later still and Jill's own daughter sampling some of the cookies Jill had made. It was all going to be so good, so very good.

  She wished Mitch were here now, holding her…

  Marcy wondered how long she could survive this way, naked, trussed, shivering in the cold of the basement.

  For the first hour or so, she'd been able to amuse herself with thoughts of all the great publicity this little turn of events would bring her.

  WOMAN PI FOILS KILLER

  That's how it would read in the respectable press, anyway. In the disreputable press it would probably be:

  NAKED GAL PI LURES KILLER

  The naked part would really freak her dad out, even though it hadn't been her fault.

  'A daughter of mine naked in some stranger's basement!' Imagine.

  But after several hours she quit thinking about publicity and her dad and started thinking about herself. For one thing, she was really getting cold. She was sneezing all the time now. And her throat was definitely raw. And she couldn't quit shivering.

  For another thing, the bare mattress on which she lay was starting to chafe her skin. No matter which way she moved, it scratched at her like a thousand tiny invisible fingers.

  She had wet herself twice. The first time she'd been ashamed and self-conscious. God, couldn't she hold it any longer than this?

  But the second time she made telepathic contact with her bladder and simply opened the floodgates.

  The only problem now was the smell.

  Pretty darn bad.

  But not bad enough, unfortunately, to cover up the other smell she'd noticed when she'd first stepped inside the house upstairs.

  By now, she knew that the stench emanated from the square wooden room at the far end of the basement. The door was ajar. The odor, even from here, was almost suffocating.

  By now, she also had a pretty good guess of what the smell was, too. She remembered reading something in her Crim courses about how human blood has this tart, steely smell even after you've tried to scrub it away.

  Blood. That was the smell. Whatever this Rick guy did with his victims, he did it in that room down there.

  The basement door at the top of the stairs opened.

  Rick came down but he wasn't alone.

  He was carrying somebody in his arms. This well-dressed, handsome guy. Rick wasn't even panting. He must be very strong, she thought.

  Rick looked over at her and said, 'Dammit, I forgot to get you a blanket. You're probably freezing, aren't you?'

  It was kind of strange, him being so solicitous and all, with an unconscious guy in his arms.

  'I'll take care of Adam here and then be right back.' He sounded like her next-door neighbor kibitzing over the backyard fence.

  Rick hefted Adam a little and started walking to the room at the other end of the basement.

  He eased the door open with his foot and then carried Adam inside.

  He was in there for maybe five minutes. Adam must have awakened because he started screaming. 'Help! Help!'

  'Shut up, you pussy! You wouldn't want all your little boyfriends to hear you yell like that, would you?'

  Then Adam was pleading. It was kind of sickening, actually, hearing somebody beg like that. 'Listen, Rick. Listen I'm sorry for how I've been lately. Listen to me, Rick listen to me! You're not well. You need to see Dr Milligan again. He'll tell you the truth about yourself, Rick. You're really Peter Tappley. You really are. Peter it used to be he couldn't kill anybody so he became Rick. Don't you understand that? But now it doesn't seem to matter. Both Rick and Peter can kill people.'

  Peter Tappley, she thought. Wasn't that the name of Jill Coffey's husband?

  But hadn't Peter Tappley been executed?

  Adam tried saying more but then she could hear him struggling against a gag being put over his mouth. Rick, or Peter, or whoever he was, had probably already tied his hands.

  'You've had this coming for a long time, Adam. A long, long time.'

  Then there were just the sounds of the basement. The relative silence was even weirder than the shouting had been.

  She wondered what Rick was doing.

  And then he was there, striding out of the room to say, 'I'll get you that blanket in a few minutes.'

  But she didn't pay much attention to his words.

  She was more interested in the long-handled axe he held casually in his right hand.

  Blood had splashed and splattered and spattered all over the axe-head and halfway up the handle.

  'I need to take care of Adam first.' He shook his head. 'He really has treated me like shit. I mean, if he'd been any kind of friend at all, I wouldn't be doing this. Did you ever have an unfaithful lover? It's real hard to deal with, believe me.' He shook his head again. 'I've lost fourteen pounds in the last month. I can't eat, I can't sleep. This is the only way left to deal with it.'

  Insane, she thought.

  Totally clinical.

  Did he expect her to respond to his monologue, or hadn't he noticed that she was gagged?

  'This won't take long.'

  He went back into the room, leaving the door ajar again.

  There was a scraping sound, as if Rick was moving stuff around, and then there were the faint useless sounds Adam made screaming into his gag.

  'I gave you every chance,' Rick said, sounding sad. 'If you'd been even a little bit honest with me-'

  More frantic screaming from Adam.

  By now, Rick was muttering. She couldn't make out his exact words.

  She tried not to think about the axe. How it would look as Rick held it over his head. Brought it downward. Sliced it into Adam's neck.

  A terrible sharp sound filled the basement.

  Edge of axe connecting with human neck.

  She thought of her grandpa beheading chickens back on the farm.

  Then Adam's head came rolling out through the open space between the door and the threshold.

  It was almost like an optical illusion. Human heads didn't really roll…

  But this one had.

  Rolled away from the chopping block and right out the door.

  Even in death, Adam was pretty good-looking. Except for the eyes, that is. The expression in the blue eyes conveyed all the terror and horror of his last moments.

  Adam's head sat there staring at her as if to say: 'Don't be so smug. You're next.'

  A white hand reached out and lifted Adam up by the hair. Blood and gore dripped from his cleaved neck, puddling on the floor below.

  'You can't even be faithful to your own body,' Rick said from behind the door.

  Silence again. Awareness of the scratchy mattress again (maybe it had bedbugs). The need to urinate again.

  What was Rick doing in there, anyway?

  Marcy sure wouldn't want to spend any more time with a beheaded corpse than she had to.

  But then, Marcy was Marcy and Rick was Rick.

  And then the scream came and she couldn't ever recall hearing a scream to match it. It came not just from the lungs and chest and throat of somebody; it came from his very essence, his soul, his entire being.

  She closed her eyes, hoping he would not scream again.

  The scream was worse than the sound of the axe severing the head.

  Please don't scream again, Rick. Please.

  ***

  He was down on his knees and he was gripping his head vise-like and he was Peter Tappley.

  i

 
am

  peter

  tappley

  i

  am

  not

  rick

  corday

  i

  am

  He opened his eyes.

  Basement.

  Cold concrete floor.

  Stench: blood and feces and urine.

  Man, handsome man, blond handsome man.

  Adam.

  In one corner sat Adam's head.

  His torso lay sprawled on the cold concrete floor, blood running from the shoulders into the drain.

  Blood feces urine.

  Adam's eyes watching him. i am peter tappley

  Then: mother.

  Then: execution.

  Then: Arthur K. Halliwell.

  Then: escape to Europe. Endless plastic surgery. Freedom.

  Then: darkness…

  and deep within him…

  a voice: i

  am

  rick

  corday

  Then: Adam explaining this to him.

  How sometimes he (Peter) was Rick… and how sometimes he (Rick) was Peter.

  Basement cold odors

  Then: mother

  mothermothermothermother

  MOTHER.

  ***

  Peter Tappley (or Rick Marcy wasn't sure now which to call him) came out carrying the axe.

  The axe dripped blood, the same blood that was all over Peter's hands and face.

  The blood of his friend Adam.

  She sat cowering on the mattress, trembling even more from her fear than from the cold.

  He was going to cut off her head, too.

  She closed her eyes.

  Sure, she was nothing but a big fraidy cat but she just couldn't deal with it.

  If he wanted to cut her head off, she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of watching him.

  Oh no.

  She was going to keep her eyes closed.

  His soles squeaked on the concrete floor because they were soaked in blood.

  Squeak squeak squeak.

  Coming closer.

  With his axe.

  Then the squeaking grew fainter.

  Fainter.

  She opened her eyes.

  All she could see was from the backs of his knees down to his bloody shoes.