I yelled to Conner thirty yards up the beachfront, “Have you been up there yet?”
He walked slowly up the beach toward our group. “Nope. Lacy was frantic when I got here, and I’ve been looking for that little shit since. She won’t even let me wash the blood off her hands for Christ’s sake.”
I looked over my shoulder and saw Caitlin yelling into her cell phone. That’s it, load up the apology bus. Single file, please.
Lacy wanted me to help with the pug search, and I told her I’d be more than willing once I took a gander at her room. I walked back into the house. Caitlin and Alex were nipping at my heels while Conner was evidently stuck with doggy duty for the time being. The three of us made our way through the house and up the beige carpet stairs. I was two steps from the top when I heard Alex’s wispy voice state, “Walking upstairs, no sign of blood.”
I turned around and saw Alex speaking into the small metallic object. I’d been too preoccupied earlier to heed I’d allowed the enemy into the castle. Not allowed even, escorted. I yanked the tape recorder from her hand, pressed Stop, and watched the tape cease spinning. “I can’t let you up there, Alex. I don’t know what I was thinking even letting you come here tonight.”
I watched Alex until she was out of sight and put the tape recorder in my pocket. Caitlin and I continued up the stairway and into the hall. My heart was pounding in my throat and I blinked my dry eyes before taking the final steps into perdition.
I eased the door open, the door reverberating lightly off the oak trimming in the obscure blackness. I inhaled deeply, pulling every inch of the room in through my nostrils. My sister was a neat freak and the room usually reeked of Windex and ginger potpourri. Tonight it carried the acrid taste of blood, like biting on a penny. I flicked on the lights and my eyes converged on the bloody mess of limbs scattered on the once white down comforter.
Caitlin and I looked at each other in aversion. It was real.
I walked to the bed and saw, lying smack-dab in the middle of the carnage, our fugitive in question. Call off the search party. I plucked the seven pound scab from the carnage. Baxter awoke and did his best guard dog impression, three successive yelps.
Yeah, buddy. But where were you when this was happening?
I wrapped Baxter in an old T-shirt and walked into the hall where Alex was leaning backward on the top stair straining to hear. I handed the blood-caked-narcoleptic-guard pug to her and said, “Maybe you can help Lacy give this guy a bath.”
Alex took the pug, wrinkled her nose, and asked, “Is it bad?”
“Yes.”
She sensed this was the extent of her details and started down the steps holding Baxter like he was a canister of plutonium.
I walked back into the room and joined Caitlin next to the queen sized bed. I did a quick inventory of body parts and came up with twenty-one differentiated body segments. Then assembling the parts in my mind I came up with a compact, well-shaped woman, 5’6” to 5’8”, between 120 and 130 lbs. The woman’s head was facing down at the top left corner of the bed, her dirty blond hair matted down to her spongy red scalp. Caitlin and I met eyes and she asked, “You want me to?”
Yes. “No.”
I slowly turned the woman’s head over on the bed. It was similar to waiting for a carousel to come full circle with a sniper on it. The face was barely recognizable, painted red with blood. Her nose was smashed flat, her eye sockets pulpy black concaves, and her left cheek bone protruded her gaping mouth. I staggered two steps backwards and held myself up using Lacy’s ragged dresser, the air being sucked from my lungs like I was attached to a vacuum.
Caitlin asked, “Who is she?”
It took me a couple seconds to fight back the salmon swimming upstream in my esophagus. Through clenched teeth, I said, “Jennifer Peppers. I was engaged to her a couple years ago.”
I shook my head, my eyes falling on the wall opposite Lacy’s bed. It took me a couple seconds to realize what I was looking at. Or, more accurately, what was looking at me.
Caitlin followed my gaze and gasped, “Holy shit. Are those her eyes?”
Chapter 13
I took two steps toward the lifeless, vacant eyeballs protruding from Lacy’s wall.
I’m assuming the vast majority of you have never seen an eyeball when it isn’t resting peacefully in the socket. The shape of the human eye is elliptical, with all the wiring hanging out the back. They look like tiny squids, to be frank. Through each eye, a nail had been pounded expertly through the pupil, plastering the optic nerve and his relatives outward like rays emitting the sun.
Jennifer had these magnificent hazel eyes; taking on a tawny lemon hue one day and a metallic bronze another. Now her eyes hung in a copper limbo against their bloody landscape.
I followed the stare of the inanimate eyes to the mangled limbs piled high on the bed. I stated, “He wants us to know Jennifer watched her own death, watched her own life be taken from her.”
Caitlin said from somewhere, “Tristen Grayer with a twist.”
I nodded. This was certainly a new development.
I walked around the room for the next ten minutes, taking three rolls of mental photographs. Jennifer’s eyes had taken on a Mona Lisa quality, seeming to follow my every move within the small room. I’d seen my fair share of death as a homicide detective. Yet when it’s someone you knew personally, emotionally, sexually even, it’s different. I kept thinking it couldn’t be real. Jennifer Peppers couldn’t be dead. Tristen Grayer couldn’t be back.
I laughed at my naiveté. Tristen Grayer wasn’t back. He’d never left. He’d always been waiting in the shadows, lurking. Now, he’d struck at the heart of the castle, killing someone special from my past.
We made our way downstairs as two men dressed in white jackets with “Bangor Police Department” inscribed on their backs walked through the front door holding a collapsible gurney. A gurney? What did they think was up there? They needed a box. A big fucking box.
Caitlin directed them to Lacy’s room, and the two of us walked out onto the front porch. The fresh air took on a cleansing property, and I suddenly wished for a torrential downpour. Unfortunately, it hadn’t rained in about three weeks, and I surveyed my yellow lawn. There were six cop cars, three Bangor and three Penobscot County Sheriff parked in a semi-circle, their lights dancing on the grass up near the outskirts of the nearest oak where a band of onlookers had formed.
Through the kaleidoscope of lights, Alex appeared and walked up the drive. She wiped her hands on her pants and said, “Your sister just left with Conner. She wants you to call her and let her know where you’ll be staying the night.”
I hadn’t thought of this little nugget. I sure as hell couldn’t spend the night here. Come to think of it, I wasn’t sure if I could spend another night under the roof. Too much death. One woman gets killed? Hey, let’s get different drapes. Two women get killed? Hey, let’s get a different state.
Apparently, Caitlin had already contemplated my sleeping quandary and said, “You’re welcome to stay at my place. It’s only a block from Lacy and I’m sure she’ll want you nearby.”
Case open and shut, right? Wrong.
Alex did not concur with Caitlin’s analysis of my sleeping quarters and rebuked, “You know it’s only me in that big house. You’re welcome to crash in any of the guest bedrooms.” She added, “You have to drop me off anyhow.”
Caitlin didn’t seem pleased with this information and pointed to a group of four cops, “Oh, sweetie, I’m sure one of those nice gentlemen would be kind enough to drop you off.”
I told Alex I would drop her off but I needed to be near Lacy, and it would be best if I stayed at Caitlin’s. Speaking of which, Caitlin would have to play coroner for the next couple hours, and I asked her for a house key. She removed her key chain from her pocket and was attempting to expunge her house key when she asked, “Don’t you still have the key I gave you?”
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Yes, it was in my glove compartment thirty feet away. “No.”
Caitlin looked at me suspiciously. Alex looked at Caitlin suspiciously. I looked suspiciously at my feet.
Caitlin handed me the key and retreated into the house. Alex and I buckled into the Range Rover, and I navigated through the barrage of police cars. One of the police officers who’d tackled me threw me a salute and I saluted him back, only my hand was out the window and my thumb, pointer finger, ring finger, and pinky wouldn’t stand up.
Once on the frontage road, my curiosity overcame me. I asked Alex, “How did Caitlin know your name?”
She raised her thin eyebrows slightly, “I interviewed her for the book. I interviewed everybody involved with the case. Well, almost everybody.” She smirked. I dismissed this and said, “Caitlin never said anything about any interview. All she said was that she spent a week compiling her account of the events.”
“Yeah, with me.”
“When?”
“I’d say around the beginning of November.”
“Where?”
“MCM.”
What a coincidence, last November I’d been doing quite a bit of hanging out at Maine Coast Memorial hospital, albeit, I was in a coma. I was stunned and said, “Don’t tell me you interviewed her in my room?”
“I had to.” She looked like she wanted to stop there, but I think there was something in the small print of the X-chromosome contract. She added, “She wouldn’t leave your side.”
I thought about these last five words for the duration of the drive.
I pulled through Alex’s open gate and parked on her doorstep, her rosebush to be exact. She said meekly, “Can I have my tape recorder back?”
I’d forgotten I’d confiscated her tape recorder and extracted it from my pocket. I checked to make sure it was still off and handed it through the window. “Sorry I had to take it, but from my standpoint you’re the enemy.”
I watched Alex recede into the house, then drove to where I’d parked earlier, picked my bumper from its leaf burial, and threw it in the trunk. Making my way down her drive, I noticed her gate had taken the liberty of closing. I pulled up to the sensor box and the gate stubbornly played dumb. I hit the green intercom button and said, “Alex, could you open your gate?”
Alex’s voice broke the static, “Only if you promise to go sailing with me on Saturday.”
I was being optimistic in hoping the case—case being Tristen Grayer—would be in custody or dead by this point and said, “It’s a date.”
The gate creaked alive and I took the minute and a half to pick my passenger side mirror from her garden. I threw the mirror over my shoulder into the hatch turned car-part cemetery and slipped through the gate. This was my first chance to be alone, and all the emotions I’d felt at the crime scene came flooding back. There’s a dam built in my brain that separates all the good I’ve encountered in my life from the bad. Jennifer Pepper’s death was a lot of water to take on by an already unstable barricade. A large chunk of dam chipped off that ride home.
I ran through the visual pictures of the crime scene. The last shot of Jennifer’s eyes was nagging. In the past, Tristen had taken the women’s eyes as souvenirs. Why the sudden change? Boredom? Maybe, but doubtful. Tristen Grayer was a serial killer, but he didn’t fit the serial-killer mold. His killings were methodical and impulsive or, for lack of a better term, he killed with an organized spontaneity. Tristen Grayer was the ultimate paradox, a killing conundrum.
Tristen Grayer was scary as hell.
Chapter 14
I pulled up to Conner’s nondescript apartment complex. Conner opened the bottom floor apartment door as I was approaching and said, “Caitlin just called. I guess I owe you an apology.”
“You can take me out to dinner some time.”
Conner followed me into the living room where Lacy was listening to SportsCenter. I sat down on the arm of the tan love seat and put my hand on her shoulder, “You all right, kiddo?”
She ran her hands over Baxter’s small back. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t have been if you’d told me the truth. Thanks for keeping me in the dark. Really. I’m not being sarcastic. I can’t believe it. That poor girl.”
Not any poor girl. Jennifer Peppers had been Lacy’s beloved art teacher at Temple. Lacy had been the one to introduce us. I’d hoped this information would have surfaced by this juncture. I brushed a couple strands of hair off Lacy’s cheek and said, “It wasn’t just any girl. It was JP.”
Lacy gasped for air. “No. Not Jennifer. Oh my God. Jen.”
Conner’s voice shot in from the side of the room, “Who’s JP?”
I relayed the deceased’s relationship to both Lacy and myself and Conner said, “He’s gunning for you, Thomas.”
No, he was axing for me. Except I was still in one piece and I couldn’t say that much for Jennifer. I didn’t like where my thought process was headed and said, “I think you should get out of town for a while, Lace. Go visit some friends in Washington.”
Conner and I met eyes. He seconded, “That’s not a bad idea Lacy.”
Through a fit of sniffing she said, “I’m not going anywhere. The gallery opening is less than two weeks away and I still have a million things to do. I’m not going to let MS, my blindness, or some chump dictate how I live.”
I wouldn’t exactly refer to a man who just hacked some girl to bits and, more probably than not, raped her senseless as a chump. I thought it was in Lacy’s best interest to jump ship for a couple weeks but a large chunk of me was proud of her for standing her ground.
Conner motioned for the kitchen. He turned the faucet on and whispered, “Why don’t you call up a couple of your students and see if they want to do some extra credit.”
Why didn’t I think of that? In January, I’d been offered a job teaching a course at one of the local universities (seeing as how I was convalescing in a wheelchair and wouldn’t be chasing any criminals any time soon). There were five or six guys from my class who would die for any form of police work, even if it was as arbitrary as a stakeout.
Conner and I walked back into the living room and Lacy said, “Extra credit, huh? How about Caleb?”
Lacy’s hearing had more than made up for her lack of eyesight. Conner asked, “Who’s Caleb?
I decided to leave before the fireworks and kissed Lacy good-bye.
Caitlin only lived a short mile from Conner, and by the time I found a radio station not on a commercial break, I was turning onto her street.
Caitlin lived in a cookie cutter stucco house in a neighborhood that hadn’t existed this time last year. The only thing distinguishing each house from the next was the systematic bump of the last two digits in the address. I think you had to petition the homeowners’ association if you wanted to open a window. I crept down the brightly lit side street. 1238, 1240, 1242, 1244, ah, 1246.
I put the Range Rover in park and felt my cell phone vibrate in my hip pocket. I withdrew the phone and saw it was the good doctor. I flipped the phone open, “Yes, honey.”
“Honey? Oh, okay. I just wanted to call and tell you that I’m home. They’re taking the body to the Penobscot County Morgue. I tried to tell them this was connected to the Eight in October murders but they laughed it off.”
“I don’t think we need an autopsy to tell us the cause of death.”
“I still can’t believe this. I’m really sorry, Thomas.”
“Yeah, I’m numb. I need to get some sleep and deal with this in the morning.”
After a slight pause she said, “If you want to stay at Alex’s, that’s okay with me.”
Thanks, but you forgot to sign my permission slip. I didn’t like her checking up on me and said, “Are you sure? I guess I’ll just crash at Alex’s then. Although it seems all her guestrooms are under renovation and I’m gonna have to shack up with her.”
“Does
n’t she have any couches you could sleep on?” She only seemed slightly annoyed.
I ambled out of the car and started up Caitlin’s drive. “She said all her couches were contaminated.”
“Contaminated? With what?”
“Caterpillars.”
“Caterpillars? I don’t know how to tell you this Thomas, but I think she’s just trying to get you into bed. Hey, can you hold on one sec? Someone’s at my door.”
Caitlin opened the door, put the phone up to her mouth, and said, “You’re a dick.”
I walked past her, noticing the pair of plaid boxers and extra-large Supersonics tee she was wearing were both once possessions of mine. I walked into her compact kitchen, grabbed a bowl from the synthetic oak cabinet, and snagged the box of Lucky Charms (my Lucky Charms) from atop the fridge.
From the corner of my eye I could see Caitlin smirking and no doubt getting all warm and fuzzy. Men hate when women come into their house and act like they own the place. Women, on the other hand, find the act a smidgen beneath a marriage proposal. I had the distinct impression Caitlin’s ovaries were huddled together in her fallopian tube watching my every move like an episode of Sex in the City.
Damage control. I asked platonically, “Do you mind if I have a bowl of cereal?”
“Yes.”
Damn, a trap. “Well, I’m having one anyway.”
“Suit yourself.” She’d been sitting on the back of a blue leather couch and fell back disappearing from view.
I ate two bowls of cereal and read the Sunday comics. I laughed out loud at Foxtrot and Zits, and both times Caitlin’s head popped up like a periscope. I rinsed my bowl and put it in the dishwasher (I was a guest, remember) then walked into the downstairs bathroom. There was a small closet where Caitlin kept extra towels. I felt around the top shelf with my hand until my fingers found the edge of a Ziploc bag. The bag contained two disposable razors, a small can of shaving cream, a toothbrush, and a small tube of Aquafresh.
I stashed the kit and walked out of the bathroom. Caitlin patted the seat next to her, and I wasn’t interested in the repercussions if I sat on the floor. She said I looked tense and asked if I wanted a massage. I don’t think anyone in the history of the world has ever turned down a massage, and I wasn’t going to be the first.