WIDOW

by Billie Sue Mosiman

  “If you don't mind, of course. I have to get to work and she said they'd be over today. Someone needs to be here to let them in.”

  “I'm supposed to make cheese trays and serve coffee?”

  “C'mon, Mac, don't give me grief, all right? This is important to me.”

  “Seems like you're running a halfway house, all these strangers you keep taking in.”

  “That's not fair and you know it. You'll like Shadow. I mean Kay. Shadow's her stage name. I call her that most of the time though. I think everybody does.”

  “Oh, that sounds promising. Guess it's better than Big Bad Mama or Miss Melon Titties.”

  “Mac . . .”

  “Okay, okay, I'll be good. Who's this other character coming with her? And where do you want me to put them?”

  “Her friend's name is Charlene Brewster. She's an older woman, a friend of hers who helped her out of a bad situation once. She's kinda nice, cooks a good meal. Put her in the empty bedroom next to yours.”

  “And Shadow? She goes in your room, right?”

  “I have to spell these things out for you, Mac? You're being a pain in the ass, if you don't mind me saying so. I'm going to be late for my shift, this keeps up.”

  “Oh, go on, get outta here.” Mac waved him off. “I'll handle everything.”

  “You'll be good, you said.”

  “I will. I never seen a man so damned ready to take in strays, but I'll be good. I'll be nice and polite, but I am not hanging around after they get here, you understand? I have things I want to do.”

  Samson tried not to smile or he'd insult her. They both knew she had nothing to do at all, nothing but tramp the streets saying hello to all her old street-bum friends, collect empty aluminum cans, and stay out of the confinement of four walls as many hours of the day as possible. He shook his head, stooped to pet Pavlov. I’ll call later, see how you're getting on.”

  “You do that. I probably won't be here. Not after they're settled in.”

  “Fine. Thanks, Mac.” Samson touched her on the shoulder as he made for the door. He turned, snapping his fingers before he got there. “You need any cash?”

  She shook her head and strands of hair from the bun at the back of her head fell loose around her face. “I'm fine, don't worry about me. Now get out of here. You make me nervous.”

  Now he did grin. “I think I love you, Mac. See you later.”

  Mac stood in the kitchen frowning for all she was worth. “I'm mighty worried about him,” she said to the dog. “He don't act like he's got the sense of a turnip.”

  Pavlov flipped then looked up at her expectantly, his tongue hanging out.

  ~*~

  Son felt a prickle of uneasiness begin as he walked up the driveway. The house was dark. Usually there was a light shining in at least one of the rooms. He went directly up the front steps to the door. He couldn't see anything beyond the darkness inside. He circled the house warily, like a cat after prey, wondering why it felt so deserted. He came to the underground garage and saw Shadow's Toyota was missing.

  He would break into the house. If the crazy woman appeared or turned on a light, he'd stop, retreat. But something told him no one would hear him because no one was inside. It was empty. This would give him the opportunity to see how they lived.

  He tried the wooden door, turning the old metal doorknob. It was locked, of course. He turned, searched around the shelves in the garage and found a crowbar leaning in a cobwebby corner. He took it up and placed the wedge end between the doorframe and the door, near where the lock was located. He heaved outward and the door gave with a splintering crack. It swung open on noisy unoiled hinges. He paused, waiting for a light or a voice. When none came, he entered, the crowbar in his hand.

  Just inside the door he was confronted by a spiral iron staircase. He took it to the second floor, paused again, listening, letting his vision adjust to the interior gloom. He could hear the tiny tick-tick of feet scampering away somewhere in the darkness and imagined it was a mouse. He could smell the scent of chlorine from the swimming pool.

  An inner jitter forced him to call out, “Anybody here? Hey, anyone home?”

  No response. He was alone in the house. He crossed the catwalk, free to make as much noise as he wanted. He glanced down at the pool water. It was as serene and black as a satin sheet stretched tightly over a bed. He looked at the maze on the other side. Shook his head. From above it was just as strange and confusing as it appeared from outside.

  He came to the landing above the curving staircase that led to the white-tiled front entrance and the living room off to the right. It looked too neat and clean to have been a place humans inhabited. He turned on the landing, heading for Shadow's room. He had seen her take this hallway. He wanted to see where she kept the poison and where she slept.

  He wanted to touch the clothes hanging in her closet . . .

  He opened a door on an empty room where a cast iron bed stood. There were no sheets or covers or pillows. What could it mean? He looked quickly around. The dressing table and end tables were bare. He jerked open the closet door. Empty. The vacuum he had created by throwing open the door caused the hangers to dance together, rattling and tingling, wire against wire.

  He turned now, thinking he had made a mistake, this wasn't her room, after all. He went down the hall opening doors to empty rooms. He entered a great ballroom, turned on his heels, and trudged back down the hall where he had just come, crossed the landing, searched the other bedrooms on the other side.

  They were gone. They had moved out. He reached to the wall and flicked a light switch, uncaring now if anyone saw the lights in the mansion. Nothing happened. He flipped the switch twice, nearly ripping it off the wall. They had turned off the electricity.

  They had left him. Shadow knew who he was. She had discovered his identity. He knew it. Why else would she move them out?

  He hurried across the clanging catwalk, down the spiral staircase, the noise of his steps thundering in his head, and to the garage door. He closed it carefully. The wood of the door was old and warped from damp. It stayed closed, though now unlocked. No one would discover the broken lock for a while. He flung the crowbar across the packed dirt and hurried away from the house.

  ~*~

  Shadow saw him coming through the door. He did not wear the disguise.

  Her breath caught in her throat. She had left the gun in her purse in the dressing room locker. She felt paralyzed in the chair, unable to move fast enough to leave the table.

  He watched her face as he approached. He took the chair opposite and sat down casually. “You moved out,” he stated. “Why did you do that? You didn't think I'd hurt you, did you?”

  Shadow tried to swallow down the fine skim of fear that rose up her throat, stealing away her voice.

  He stared at her levelly, never blinking. She tried to look him in the eye, but involuntarily her gaze fell to the table and to her hands lying there motionless. “What do you want from me? I thought you were a nice man. I thought you liked to read and watch comedy movies. I thought you were . . .”

  His voice dropped to a small whisper. The girls weren't on stage yet and the DJ was playing a soft reggae tune by UB-40. “Were what? Another dumb guy you could get money from for nothing? A stupid, backward, lovesick Mr Lonelyhearts? I'll tell you what I want. I want you to participate with me. It's your turn. Don't you see how you're ruining everything?”

  “I never meant to . . .”

  “To turn into a killer? You were doing it for your own personal satisfaction, is that it? You think murder was something you could get away with and then quit, without anyone knowing or finding out? If I found out, how far behind me do you think your boyfriend is? Finding people like you and me is what he does for a living, for crying out loud. I'm the only friend you have left.”

  She still could not look at him.

  His tone changed from nagging and scornful to friendly cajoling, as if he were trying to convince a buddy to go out on
a fishing trip with him. “Shadow, you started it. I never start these things. You can't quit when you think the game gets rough. It's only now turning into something worth your time. I don't have to know why you started, that's not important.” He gestured with his hand, waving it away. “But you can't just stop now that you have me involved.”

  “I didn't ask you to kill anyone,” she hissed, leaning forward, suddenly furious. “This was none of your business! You're going to get me caught.”

  He smiled and she had to look away again, afraid of that smile, afraid of him and what he was and what he might do. “It's my only true business, Shadow. And I won't get you caught. Not if you do as I say.”

  “Do as you say! Who do you think you are? You must be insane . . .”

  “And you're not?”

  She pushed the chair away from the table, but before she stood she said, “You have to stop. You have to.”

  “Why did you move out of the Shoreville place? Where are you staying now? I can find out, you know.”

  “You're not listening to me. I said it's over, I don't even know how it began.”

  He peered at her. “Yes, you do. It began as it always does. You work it out very carefully, you lay all the plans, you think about it all the time, then you follow your plans to the letter. You clean up after yourself and you don't leave any clues behind. That was a stroke of genius to dump them naked in the bay. It does away nicely with fingerprints and hair and fiber samples that get left on the bodies by careless killers.”

  “You will stop,” she said.

  “No, I won't. I can't, not yet. It isn't time yet, but you wouldn't understand that, would you? Would you? If you don't continue, I'll do it for you.”

  “No.” She said it harshly and with all the command at her disposal.

  “Yes,” he said, standing from the table and turning his back to her to leave the club.

  She sat dumbfounded and shaking. Even if she'd had the gun with her, she couldn't have done anything differently. Son was not to be threatened, she understood that. Not in public. Not unless she knew exactly what she was doing and had the advantage. How long would it take him to discover she and Charlene had moved in with Mitch? How long would it take him to get her caught for murder?

  Thirty-Seven

  Shadow had slept very little. Every time she dozed off on Mitch's living room sofa, she jerked awake, alert to every creak in the house. Finally the sun rose and she woke again to the boxer licking her in the face. She pushed away his warm muzzle and sat up. Someone had put a cover over her as she tried to sleep. It might have been Charlene. Or even Mitch. He had been asleep in the bedroom when she came in from work last night. She hadn't wanted to disturb him so she had stretched out on the sofa.

  She found coffee in the kitchen and an old dented percolator. She made a pot and sat at the table drinking it, watching Pavlov race around Mitch's back yard. When Mitch finally woke and joined her, he noticed her uncharacteristic silence. She told him she did not feel well. It might be a touch of the flu or a cold virus. He tried to make her feel at home, taking her around to show her where things were, bringing coffee in a mug to the table for Charlene when she stumbled into the kitchen.

  Shadow was moved by how gentle he was with them, how accommodating. He probably loved her very much. It was too bad she had no time for his love, too bad it was doomed to end just as soon as he discovered she was the murderer they called the Gulf Water Killer. She had formed a psychic distance, a barrier beyond which she could not move toward him. She wondered if he knew yet, if he sensed her withdrawal even though she had moved into his house. She wondered if she would ever sleep with him again, ever hold him in her arms.

  She left for work early, soon after Mitch left for his shift at the precinct. Big Mac had also left the house, being almost as uncommunicative as Shadow. Charlene moped and complained. This wasn't the same as being on their own. When could they move out again? Would anything ever be the way it was?

  Shadow couldn't tell her. Events were spinning out of control, escalating into madness.

  As soon as she reached the Blue Boa, one of the girls told her there was a phone call. She went to the pay phone, wearily, feeling a thousand years old.

  “Will you do it?” he asked. “Have you thought over what I said and will you make the next move?”

  She shut her eyes. “No. I told you I wouldn't. I told you it was over.”

  “It may never be over,” he said. “If you want to see how it really should be done, meet me down at the pier of the house you just moved out of. I'll be there around midnight.”

  He hung up. She replaced the receiver and stood immobile, staring into the distance. Then she dropped a quarter into the slot and dialed Mitch's house. Charlene answered.

  “I'm meeting him at the Shoreville mansion.”

  “Who?”

  “Son. He just called. He wants me to be there.”

  “What are you going to do? Shadow? I don't want you to go.”

  “Don't be upset. I'm going to be all right. I have a gun.” She heard Charlene's intake of breath. “I have to stop him. I don't know any other way to free us.”

  In the dressing room she took her things out of the locker again. Mom said, “I thought you just got here.”

  “I did. But something came up, an emergency. I have to leave.”

  Once in the Toyota, she sat a minute before starting the car. Her hands were trembling. She waited for the bout to pass. She felt in her gym bag for the shape of the Smith and Wesson. Its hard contours comforted her. How difficult could it be to pull a trigger?

  Of the men she had killed, none had been as deserving of death as the Copycat. He had stepped into her life and made of it a madhouse. He wanted her to stop him. If he hadn't, he would never have told her where he would be and when he would be there. He knew she'd try to stop him, had counted on it. It was a form of suicide and he had to know it.

  He didn't want to kill anymore.

  He wanted to die. He wanted her to do it for him. She felt happy to oblige. It might end then. She might wipe the slate clean and start over.

  She sighed and turned the key in the ignition. It was a long drive back to where she had left behind the acts of judge, jury, and execution. If she were lucky, it would be her last trip.

  ~*~

  It was almost midnight when Samson thought to check the wall clock. He was off duty, but still working. He wanted to get home to Shadow, but this was the first break in the case since he had started working on it.

  Forensic had found a thumbprint on the handcuffs holding Dodge's hands behind his back. It was partial, but enough to indict the killer when they caught him. So far the check Samson had run hadn't turned up the print in the computer banks. It might belong to a killer who had never been caught for anything, never fingerprinted. That was the kind of bad luck they kept running into on this case. Small clues led to dead ends. It didn't exactly put Samson into a good mood.

  He was tired, his back ached, and from the reports he had been scanning on his desk, the reports turned in by his task force unit, nothing much was going right. The thumbprint was all they had. And that wasn't going to be of any help until they had a suspect in custody. Most days this was how police work went. He ran into blind alleys and turned in circles, helpless. Meanwhile the bodies kept washing into land.

  He glanced up at Dod's old empty desk area. They had taken away his personal things. His father had come for the articles, hefting the cardboard box close to his chest, tears shining bright in his eyes. Samson wanted to say something to him, but he couldn't get it out of his mouth.

  The desk was clear now, waiting for another detective to claim it. They wouldn't do that, out of respect for the dead, for a few months. Until then it would sit empty and forlorn across from Samson's desk in the bullpen, a reminder that this job could turn into a piece of shit right before your eyes.

  This job could get you killed.

  Samson heaved a great big tired-sounding sigh as he
closed the folders and turned off the power to his computer. Computers were rare, not all the men in the precinct had them. Samson had requested one for the case and it was sitting there one afternoon when he came to work. A note taped to the monitor read, “We need this back when you've finished. So are you finished yet?”

  Yeah, he thought. I know I don't get to keep the damned thing, you fucking jerks, think you're so funny. I keep it, everyone in here's going to clamor for one. The taxpayers say we can't afford it. They'd rather we beat the bushes the way we did twenty years ago than pay more taxes for updated equipment. Same old song, same old tune, the Bebop Big City Cop Blues.

  When Samson walked in the door at home, he was met by Shadow's friend. Charlene had the door open before he could get out his key. She looked wild with panic, hair flying haphazardly around her face, eyes blinking so rapidly she might be strung out on speed. “What's going on?” he wanted to know, his heart taking a downward slide. “Is it Shadow?” He thought she must be hurt. Nothing less could cause this kind of behavior in the older woman. She was a little crackers, but she wasn't completely weird the way she was now.

  “Yes, it's Shadow! She's gone back to the mansion!”

  He didn't understand. Why would she do that? “She moved back out?”

  “No, it's not that. You have to go out there and help her.”