Time was running out.
March 11, 2009. So what? So I’m off to college to do who the hell cares? I’m going to glide my way through my final exams, party with a bunch of people who laugh while they call Jessica a slut and a whore. I keep checking my mother’s special hiding spot, keep finding that same letter, unsent.
My mom won’t even look at me these days.
My dad’s busy with class, his own damn interests.
Doesn’t even know his woman’s been making a fool of him. Serves him right. Here she is, still walking with a cane stuck to her hand. Her only passion in life gone, shut down by some nameless state bureaucrat. And the only girl I ever loved won’t talk to me.
So what?
So what?
Jessica found herself relating to the sentiment with accustomed ease.
What she wasn’t sure about was where this was all headed. She began to scan wildly, taking in as few words as possible as she skipped from entry to entry. Jumping ahead to June, picking the document two days after Jason Castle, Mr. Table Thirteen himself, was found mutilated in his own home.
It began with the same familiar words that had become a staple of Malik’s entries.
June 10, 2009. So what? So they’ve determined it was chloroform did him in. Easy entry. No witnesses. So the cops came by asking questions, so what? Jason Castle took away everything my mom had spent years building. I should have told the cops right there and then. Those two detectives, just casually knocking on our door, looking for eyewitnesses. I should have told them that bastard got what he deserved.
But if I had, they might have started to wonder.
Jessica saw the writing on the wall. Not just the spray-painted words of Angry Jonny, but the whole scene. Each and every movement. She pictured a door left unlocked, courtesy of Eli. He had snuck in first, hadn’t he? Used the copied key to enter the Castle household. Maybe an angry Malik had followed suit. Maybe just planning to sniff around, same as Eli. Get a sense of the power that came with creeping through the house of a man who didn’t know his fate rested in the hands of another.
She pictured Malik finding a pair of gloves in the garage. Taking the spray paint bottle. The wire used to tie Jason Castle to his chair. Rooting through his kitchen, looking for something sharp. Something that might serve his purpose. Still unsure what that purpose might be, but growing ever more certain of it as he walked up the steps. Opened the door to Castle’s room. Stood by his bed, watching him sleep.
But where was the chloroform in all that?
Maybe Eli had been lying right to the very end.
Could Malik have entered Jason Castle’s house, only to find his work done for him? The man who robbed his mother’s clinic of funding. Bound to a chair, eyes gouged out. Tongue severed. Maybe suggesting a horrifying way to get back at someone far more deserving. A man who had slept with his mother, then gone out of his way to destroy his girlfriend’s life?
Jessica scrolled down, clicking on a date leading up to Davenport’s attack.
June 25, 2009. I found the pictures. I found the pictures. Me. Pictures of me. I wonder if anyone would even believe it if I told them that was me. Is this the kind of thing Jessica had to go through with Glen Roberts? It’s just a boy. A six-year-old boy in a bath tub. Pictures, that’s all. Could be any kid, not like anyone else would know. But would I want them to?
I feel sick.
Remembering all of it now.
I know that bathroom. I know these memories.
I remember the two of them. Glen and Clarence.
Close my eyes, and it doesn’t change anything.
I’ve found the pictures. And I’m starting to get sick again. I’m scanning them now. God, just looking at myself. Naked. I’m six years old AND I’M NAKED. What else? What else did they do to me? What else did they do that all the happy pills and honor rolls on the planet won’t change?
I have to get these pictures back before anyone realizes they’re missing.
Oh my God.
What am I supposed to do?
Jessica was feeling sick herself.
The flavorless contents of her dinner began to claw their way out of her stomach. She fought them down. No good, wouldn’t do any good. Not when she was so close. Clutching her abdomen, she glanced up at the television. Saw Anthony Perkins handing Janet Leigh the key to cabin number one.
Mr. Norman Bates.
Too close.
Jessica took careful breaths, conscious of the microphone pressed to her chest.
She closed the entry, moved down to Malik’s next entry.
Dated two days after the attack on vice-principal Clarence Davenport.
June 29, 2009. I think I’ve done a bad, bad thing. I know I’ve done a bad, bad thing. And what’s worse is. What’s worse. There’s other people. If this is just the start, if I make myself believe this is just the start. Then what about the other people who have done my mother wrong? I can go to sleep, thinking there was just this one time. But can I wake up and ignore all the rest? I think, I really do think I’ve done a bad, bad thing.
After that, there were no more entries.
The rest of the summer too much for Malik’s fragile mind.
Jessica closed the file, backtracked.
Found herself confronted with two folders.
CHRONICLES and PICTURES.
She clicked on the latter.
Found a series of jpegs. Most of them pictures of her and Malik. Some of them just plain Jessica, taken during their salad days. She scrolled down, searching.
Found a folder labeled SCANS.
Double-clicked.
There, along with the original Angry Jonny letter, was every last letter sent to the Observer.
Just scans. No original paint files. A series of word documents, each one entitled NOTES, joined by a sequential date. She was about to click on the first one, when she spied a jpeg marked LETTER TO CLARENCE.
Jessica opened it, eyes darting.
This was the letter Malik had written about.
The affair between his mother and Clarence Davenport. It read like a breakup letter. Paragraph after paragraph of their most intimate moments. The usual talk about how he had been there while her husband busied himself with better things. The content made her ears burn. She couldn’t begin to imagine how Malik must have felt.
But it had turned out that Malik had a far worse history with Davenport.
She backtracked.
Scrolled down and found yet another folder.
This one simply marked with the letter X.
She opened it.
And there were the pictures.
Proof positive. Jessica had to force herself to open each one, every picture a graphic, nubile fingerprint. Baby Malik no more than six years old. Standing naked, ankle deep in a tub of water. Disoriented, confused. Full frontal against the flash of a camera, dimensions that looked to be those of an old Polaroid camera.
She closed the flash folder and dug her fists against her eyes.
Black hole within her widening, only now realizing its full potential for anger.
Malik had found Davenport’s stash. Found his pictures. Found out, flashed back. Woken up, broken free of his illusions. And then what? Jessica had beaten Carlton Walsh to a pulp for taking advantage of Dinah, a full-grown woman who had given her body in exchange for her niece.
Was there any limit to what Malik must have wanted to do to Davenport?
What he eventually did?
And once that demon was released? Why stop there?
Faced with his own monstrous act, why not go after Dr. Lazenby? The man responsible for his mother’s accident. Looking back, the one who started this whole chain of events. If it hadn’t been for that one intersection, that one crash, Malik’s mother would have never spent all those months trying to walk again. Davenport never would have been in the picture. She would have been around to fight for the clinics that had become her life’s wor
k, her one oasis of purity. The only victory she could have ever claimed against a world so vicious it turned people out in the streets, rewarded the guilty while punishing the innocent.
She never would have had an affair.
Maybe Malik would have never found those pictures.
Maybe he never would have met Jessica Kincaid.
Malik Council.
Better known as Angry Jonny.
“How you enjoying the movie?” Donahue asked.
Jessica had to pinch her cheeks, force a smile. “Just wish I had some popcorn.”
Up on the screen, Janet Leigh was sitting in the parlor with Anthony Perkins. Taxidermy birds staring down at them from all angles as they shared what had to be one of the most unsettling late-night snacks ever filmed.
“A boy’s best friend is his mother,” Donahue said, preempting the line seconds before the muted picture of Norman Bates had the chance to mouth it.
There was no doubt about that.
Jessica had it all before her.
Damning evidence that Malik was the one they were after. Not Jessica, not her aunt. She could end it all just by saying her thoughts out loud. Call off the sting. Tell Donahue that it was over. Pack it in, Malik is the one you’re all looking for. Malik is the reason there’s a team of policemen stuck in a van while I sit here pretending to watch a bygone classic.
But it wasn’t over.
Malik hadn’t stopped at Davenport, and Jessica could not bring herself to stop at this.
Not after all that she had been through.
Not with a raging storm outside, wind monsters beating at the windows. Urging her to go on, to let them feed. Everyone had gotten what they wanted from Angry Jonny. Castle, the fraud. Davenport, the child molester. Dr. Lazenby, the insurance puppet who must have had his fingers crossed on both hands the day he took the Hippocratic oath. Even Scott Stoppard would be sent to prison knowing he had taken his revenge on the man who had conned him and his wife into a house they could never hope to afford.
And then there were the others.
The Cult of Angry Jonny.
All the Angry Jonny wannabes taking to the streets. Dancing in the dark, reveling in the chaos. Living out their innermost fantasies while the rest of the world sat back and simply let it be.
It was her turn to take back her piece of the pie.
It was Jessica’s turn to be selfish.
Too late to turn back.
***
She was maybe a minute or so behind schedule.
Jessica rolled onto the floor. Guided by the black and white telecast, she crawled on all fours to her book bag. Took out the keys to room 214 and 323. Slipped them into her pocket. Scuttled her way to the door separating her room from Chaucer’s. Opened it and crawled next door.
Carrying the sounds of the movie along with her iPod.
Bearing in mind the acoustic effects of the bathroom tiles, she reached through the open door.
Grabbed hold of the waste basket and brought it into the darkened bedroom.
She glanced at the windows. Curtain’s still drawn, no way to let the outside in.
She removed the plastic lining and extracted her implements.
Fitted herself with a pair of vinyl gloves.
Slipped on the shoe covers.
Tucked her brown curls beneath a shower cap, then slipped on the face mask around her neck.
Took the wine key out of her pocket. Unsheathed the tiny, razor-sharp blade for practice.
Jessica reached into the plastic bag and pulled out the bottle of chloroform.
Slipped it into the oversized pocket of her oversized housekeeping pants.
Stood up and walked towards the door.
“Good scene coming up in a few minutes,” Jessica said softly. “This one moment made some real history.”
“You have no idea,” Donahue replied. “No idea how scary this is when all you can do is listen.”
Jessica could hardly believe it.
Far as Donahue was concerned, she was still in her room. Lying in bed, held rapt by the classic 1960’s horror flick. Even as she stood before the door to room 214, everyone listening must have thought the same. Captivated by what was next, even if they had all seen and heard it before.
The perfect alibi.
Jessica could see herself fulfilling the rest of her plan. Slipping out of Chaucer’s room. Heading down the hallway. Eyes downcast in her housekeeping uniform. Face hidden behind her mask, the color of her skin passing for that of a Venezuelan or Dominican. Unconcerned with anyone she might meet on the way; nobody paid any attention to domestics.
There she was, quietly sneaking up the stairs to the third floor. All the while, the movie in her breast pocket would just keep on playing, transmitted straight into the microphone clipped to her bra.
She saw herself standing before room 323.
Waiting for one of the most startling moments in cinematic history to happen.
Janet Leigh, stabbed in the shower by an unknown assailant.
Screams that could peel paint. Angry violin strings, notes clashing with every swing of the knife.
That would be the moment.
Jessica could see herself opening the door to Jerome Keanen’s room. Stealthily shutting the door behind her and shuffling to his bedside. President of Daedalus Incorporated, lying helplessly in the middle of an inebriated dream. Chloroform-soaked rage pressed against his lips and nose, maybe a reactionary struggle as he awoke, only to find himself falling back asleep. Let him twitch, let him cry out through Jessica’s gloved hands.
It would all be lost to the soundtrack as his body finally went limp.
Just a moment to wipe the spare key card free of prints, slipping it back into Jerome Keanen’s nightstand.
And then, Jessica would go to work.
Maybe offering a comment or two as she dug her blade through his eyelids.
Didn’t have to do such a clean job as Angry Jonny might have.
Cutting out his tongue, maybe leave it lying at the scene.
Smashing the bedside clock, ripping out the batteries and tossing them on the floor.
Making sure the investigating officers knew exactly what time it had all gone down.
Then it would be as simple as heading to the bathroom. Stripping off the gloves, tossing them into the wastebasket along with the weapon. Tying up the lining and heading for the door. Opening it with the aid of her shirt, no fingerprints to be found. Sneaking back downstairs; once again, another nameless chambermaid nobody would bother remembering.
Slipping back into Chaucer’s room.
Stripping away every last trace of evidence; the shoe covers, shower cap. Placing them in a plastic bag along with the wine key, chloroform and sullied gloves. Setting that bag on the bottom of the wastebasket, then covering it back up with the lining. Putting the wastebasket back in the bathroom. Knowing that when housekeeping came by the next day, they would simply dump everything into another, larger trash bag. One room out of a hundred, and which one of them was going to notice anything?
It was all garbage.
Just another fact. Something to be ignored.
After that, all Jessica would have to do was remove the duct tape from Chaucer’s door.
Shut it closed behind her.
Close her own door, sit back, and enjoy the rest of the movie.
Wait until it was clear Angry Jonny would not be showing up that evening.
Jessica’s destiny flashed before her eyes in a matter of seconds.
Still plenty of time left.
She raised her hand, vinyl stretching out over her fingers like a second skin, and placed it on the doorknob.
Ready and willing to follow through with Angry Jonny’s vision of a perfect world.
Chapter 72: Doomsday.
It was halfway to midnight.
The television was turned off.
Jessica sat on the edge of the bed in her swe
atpants and white tank top. Elbows on her knees. Hands shaking. Head bowed as she struggled to keep her breath steady. She opened her eyes, all alone in the dark save for a thin sliver of light from beneath the entrance. The windows rattled behind her, a strange wind turned urgent, howling to be let in.
Her earpiece began to emit a low whine, followed by Donahue’s voice. “It’s eleven-thirty. Standing by.”
“Standing by,” Jessica whispered.
“Don’t copy, Jessica. Say again?”
“All good up here.”
There was a full minute of radio silence before he replied. “Jessica, we’re starting to have some problems with the sound, here. I think the storm’s messing with the signal.”
Jessica nodded, hearing scattered gaps in the transmission. “Yeah, sounds like.”
“I had to pull our guys back from the tree line. We’ve still got our –” a massive gap this time, timing out near the end of Donahue’s sentence – “at the bar. But I don’t like how this is shaping up.”
“I’m still in it, Detective.”
“You say the word, Jessica. Anytime you like, and I’ll end this. Ain’t nobody going to think any less of you.”
“Don’t give a damn what anybody thinks. Now let me sleep.”
Jessica’s eyes slowly began to adjust. The minutes were inching along now, and it was time for her to put an end to her little stage play. She stood from the bed, weighed down by the presence of her own heart. Blood slowly filling her veins, her whole body reuniting with itself. Dull throb behind her eyes as she packed up what little was left.
Computer. High heels. Makeup kit. Black jeans and a white dress shirt. Keys to room 214 and 323 bundled up with the rest of the evidence, quietly resting at the bottom of the wastebasket in Chaucer’s bathroom.
Every last detail taken care of.
“Checking in,” Donahue whispered. “Quarter to twelve.”
“Steady as she goes.”
Jessica picked up the flash drive. Felt its contaminants seeping through her skin. Her own brief history with Malik embroiled in the dirty riddles of his childhood. A lifetime of lies, illogically summarized by the truest thing he had ever said to her.
People need their secrets.
But sadly, Jessica needed this to end. Between Malik’s flash drive and the case against Eli Messner, the police would be occupied for months. The combined headlines alone would be sure to exonerate Dinah in the court of public opinion. Get her working again, get the world off both their backs.