“That was loud and scary,” Zimmerman told me from the floor, where he had wisely dived and cowered, arms over his head. Adrienne had emptied my clip into his …
… his …
“Those are movie posters.”
“Not anymore.” From George, who had heroically thrown himself away from Zimmerman and taken refuge behind the couch in the hopes that Adrienne would kill the killer.
“Posters about movies about suicide.” The Bridge. The Hours. The Virgin Suicides. ’Night, Mother. The Name of the Rose. The Shawshank Redemption. Full Metal Jacket. Jonestown. Leaving Las Vegas. Shutter.
“I repeat: not anymore.” He still had his gun out, but he seemed to feel pretty good about Zimmerman’s nonthreatening vibe. “She’s a real Deadeye Dick when she wants to be. Now I know what Kristen Stewart would look like if someone plugged her in the bridge of her nose.” He paused and thought about it. “I never actually needed to know that.”
“ThreeFer,” I muttered while George took out his real handcuffs and put them on our real killer. “I should have smelled them on this.”
“Why? Their signatures are nothing alike.”
“Because we knew they were slithering around out there and we knew they’d be back and we knew they were obsessed with my sisters and me.”
“Jeez, put your ego in Park for a second.”
“They are.”
“They aren’t.”
“George: your ego’s the problem on this one. Look, I’m not bragging—”
“Excuse me?”
“One moment, Mr. Zimmerman. George, you think I like it?”
“You must.”
“I’m not proud of it, all right?”
“You guys? Please?”
“Zip it, Zimmerman, or I’ll stick your balls in your eyes. Not proud of it? Is that why you keep bringing it up?”
“‘Keep’? I haven’t mentioned them since they sent that letter a few weeks ago. Hmm. I should have been bringing them up more, if anything.”
“Oh, heeeere we go! If you—”
“Excuse me, Miss Adrienne—”
“I’m Cadence now, obviously,” I snapped at him.
“—but they’re here now.”
“What? ThreeFer?” George’s eyes bulged and I could actually see his knuckles whiten on the trigger. “Now?”
Well, hell. I should probably reload.
“They’re in my basement.”
“Of course they are. You’re a serial killer. Ergo, you have two other serial killers stashed in your basement. Let me guess: chest freezer?”
“Walk-in,” Zimmerman said modestly. “My daddy used to have a restaurant before he—”
“Killed himself?”
Zimmerman beamed. “Good guess.”
I had by now slid the second clip home, and stashed the empty one in my coat pocket. Zimmerman was safely cuffed. We had him walk us through the house until we’d checked every room but the basement. Then we did the first sensible thing since we’d left the BOFFO building: called Michaela.
chapter fifty-three
“Are you kidding me?” Emma Jan demanded. “ThreeFer got Sussudio started?”
“Yeah. We’re still not sure how they found each other—”
“Those types can smell each other,” she insisted, and I didn’t demur.
“—but they did. I guess Zimmerman grew up fixated on suicide because—”
“Don’t tell me. One or both of his parents killed themselves.”
“Yes. Anyway, he was always fixated—wait’ll you see his house—”
“There’s something freakier than the two dead triplet killers in his basement?”
“Oh yeah. Zimmerman’s a movie buff.” Adrienne’s reaction to his poster collection was why backup—or help, I guess, since we weren’t real—had shown up faster than we expected. All kinds of neighbors heard the shots and sensibly called 911. Anyone who tells you gunshots sound like fireworks and thus they didn’t bother calling the police has never heard gunshots, only fireworks.
Hours later, after the real cops were done processing the scene, after we’d given our statements and bewildered Lynn Rivers (“What do you mean, you’re not real? You’re standing here, aren’t you?”) and watched Zimmerman hauled away by bemused cops (“Thanks for coming and arresting me yourself, Cadence and Shiro and Adrienne. Let’s keep in touch, okay? You smell nice, by the way! Your partner is a horrible man!”), I finally remembered to call Emma Jan and fill her in on what had happened. Like all true fake law-enforcement agents, she was pissed she’d missed the fun.
“Stuck with all Paul’s paperwork,” she groaned, “Making sure he hadn’t set up any other working girls. He hasn’t, as far as we can tell, but still. He’s still zonked, by the way—what did Michaela say to him? You’re both horrible for not calling me earlier.”
I said nothing, but perhaps her friend Shiro would explain the next time they went to the range together.
(“Those two morons were on a pseudo-suicide mission because the stress had temporarily fractured their good sense. Cadence’s good sense; George is deficient. They did not call you because they know you have no ambivalence about your life; they did not call because you would not entertain a suicidal thought if someone stuck a gun in your ear. It could almost be considered a compliment. A stupid, thoughtless compliment.”)
Yeah, like that. Anyway …
“Zimmerman was plenty obsessed before two of the ThreeFer came along, but they got him drunk on the nobility of suicide, how it was a sacred calling and anyone who chickened out should be forced to keep their word, also known as ‘murdered.’ You know, just your everyday fixation. And get this—they let him practice on them.”
Emma Jan groaned. “Of course they did. And I bet he didn’t even warn you he had a couple of serial Popsicles waiting for you.”
(To arrest me for killing Wayne Seben, Rita McNamm, Carrie Cyrus, Wendy Dennison, Mike Perry, Sara Torp, Roger Phillips, and Mark Graham. Oh, and I almost forgot—)
“He tried.”
“Man. This job.”
I said nothing to that, either; I wasn’t sure how common knowledge about BOFFO’s disappearance (if something that was never real could disappear) was among our colleagues. Michaela seemed determined to pull a rabbit—or a fat wad of cash—out of a hat, and I believed if anyone could do it, she could. Whether or not I’d/we’d stay if she could was something else.
“You know, I’m here listening to this, and even after the weirdness we’ve seen, I’m amazed they let him practice on them. And it’s stupid that I’m amazed. I’m almost afraid to ask.”
“Well, they were definitely dead. Ah, shit…” George was waving me over. I’d gone to get the car so he wouldn’t have to walk up the block in the cold, and used the chance to call Emma Jan. I had to drop him back at BOFFO, pray we avoided Michaela for another day or so, run inside to tend to some personal business, then make one more stop on my way home. My way to bed, actually, because tonight I couldn’t sleep at Patrick’s house. After my next-to-last stop, it wouldn’t be home anymore. Hope there’s a Super 8 in the area. Hope the credit card company got my check! How long does it take to pay off a $5,000 balance if you keep paying the minimum? “I’ve gotta go. I’ll call you tomorrow and regale you, I promise.”
“You better. At least tell me if Shiro came—”
“It was Adrienne.”
“Damn it! How could you not bring m—”
I hung up. Nothing against her; I was just talked out. My brain was too crowded for conversation.
To think just hours earlier I’d been telling myself that in real life there aren’t scary cobwebby basements full of dead bodies killed in interesting ways. George was right. Shiro was right. I was an idiot.
Zimmerman’s basement wasn’t cobwebby, and it wasn’t gloomy or filled with rotting wood furniture. There was no rustling of vermin and nothing squeaked or creaked. It was very like he said it was: a room kept for stocking a restaurant, complete with
walk-in freezer.
The only things in the walk-in were Jeremy; his sister, Tracy; and several packets of sliders (cheddar and bacon, and mushroom and Swiss, and guess what I’m never having for lunch ever again?).
Tracy and Jeremy, now frozen treats in Ian Zimmerman’s dead father’s walk-in freezer. Michaela had executed their brother, the third of three. His name was Opus, and he was a former colleague of mine who had been operating under our noses. They’d managed to frame George convincingly
(“How could you dumb bitches fall for it?”
“They set you up to look like a depraved, vicious killer.”
“Oh.”)
and set things up so they could get away with their nasty crimes. (This may seem unbelievable, but the ThreeFer triplets liked to kill people in threes, then leave clues for the police written in their victims’ blood … weird, right?) Opus knew about my sisters, and discussed us with his siblings. The triplets, who survived a childhood much like (I imagine) George’s, decided that Shiro, Adrienne, and I would be the perfect spouses for Jeremy, Tracy, and Opus. Their crimes and framing George led up to the dramatic announcement that it had all been a sort of murderous dating game.
They did not take our scorn, refusal, and hysterical laughter well. Fortunately, before things got worse (which they always can, you know) Michaela showed up and let her gun do the talking. (This is not a criticism of Michaela or her gun!)
All that work, all that death, all that waste, to end up in the Zimmerman family freezer. Jeremy had been poisoned. No idea what he drank, but he’d died in terrible pain, if his tortured expression was any indication, and the acidic vomit around his mouth and down his neck had frozen in drips like points.
Tracy had let Zimmerman lock her in with her dead brother; she had frozen to death. I couldn’t tell if it had been days or weeks later—the ME would be able to figure it out—but Jeremy had died first, and his sister had died holding his frozen hand.
And smiling.
What were her last thoughts? What were his? I could only imagine, and thank God. I didn’t want to be able to ask them. I was glad they were dead, and I wasn’t sad I was glad. They had abandoned Opus to his death; they had fled knowing Michaela would kill him. Since then they had been a broken thing, a machine that would never again work right. Like something broken, they could never truly comprehend what had happened; they could never see their part in it.
Once, they tried to communicate their guilt and grief to me, but, like all true narcissists, they took no responsibility for the consequences of their cowardice.
Not quite a month ago, I’d gotten a letter.
Dearest Cadence, Shiro, and Adrienne,
How we have missed you! Life is simply not the same. We apologize for having to leave the party so soon this past summer; terribly rude.
You may recall that through your actions, you created a vacancy in our family. After giving it some thought, we have decided you are responsible for filling it. Any one of you will do. Or all of you! My. Wouldn’t that be an embarrassment of riches?
We are thrilled to see you working the June Boy Jobs; you do have experience in these matters … need we remind you just what kind? But we disapprove of JBJ’s agenda; our murders were puzzle pieces you eventually put together. JBJ’s murders are simply fuel for a blood-hungry malcontent.
We want only your happiness, ladies, and thus would like you to keep in mind that the trite clichés about the racial demographics of serial killers are not always cold truth.
If you don’t believe us, then look at the three of us! Oh. Excuse us. The two of us.
Stay in touch, won’t you, dears?
Because we intend to.
With all our love and respect,
Two of the ThreeFer
And then there were none. Which was fine with me.
chapter fifty-four
I dropped George in the parking garage; his adrenaline rush had long worn off and he was yawning and blinking. I knew he’d hit at least one Starbucks and Caribou Coffee on his way home, so I wasn’t worried about him dozing off. One of these days I would show up here
(maybe)
and see he’d mastered the coffee IV, and all that black gold could go surging straight into his bloodstream. A terrible thing, a wonderful thing.
I went inside to take care of some personal business; there were things to do before I could go face Patrick. I found a small empty conference room, took out my phone, and got to work.
I had calls waiting; that wasn’t a surprise. The other thing was. Three calls, and a video from Shiro? When had she recorded a video? She’d never done that before. I looked at the time and realized those were my missing six minutes. So she had left me a message right after Michaela had dropped her bomb, but before George and I had gotten Zimmerman and found Tracy and Jeremy.
I yawned and wished I was with George (something I almost never wished) to grab my own cup of coffee. It had been a busy day before we encountered Zimmerman, and by now news that Sussudio had been arrested (or, as the reporters had to put it, “the main suspect in the mysterious deaths of blah-blah-blah”) was out. So finding I had calls from Cathie, Patrick (two from Patrick), and Max Gallo wasn’t a surprise. The actual voice mails were, but for different reasons.
Cathie: “What’s up with you and my brother? Something weird’s going on. Yes, even for you. You say that all the time, y’know. Call me.”
Patrick: “Oh my God, please be okay. I saw on the news—okay, are you okay? Call me, okay? Look, I think this is a sign that you should definitely take some time off and just focus on yourself. And you’d get to spend more time with Pearl! Let’s talk about it when you get home. Please don’t be dead!”
Max: “Wow, you got him! Jesus, is there anything you can’t do? It’d be annoying if you weren’t so cute. Listen, if it’s not classified, would you please call me and tell me about it? I’m sure you kicked ass all over the place, but I’d love the actual deets and I’ve got some questions about his pathology. I bet one or both of his parents gave themselves The Big Sleep. God, so many questions. Maybe I can take you out for a cup of coffee? Not a date. Just to talk. I can’t believe you got him already! Congrats and I knew you’d get that fuck-o.”
Patrick: “Oh, I almost forgot, Pearl didn’t stealth poop today. I think. It’s a big house. Okay, ’bye.”
My phone chirped and I saw it was Cathie trying me again. Ah! A tinge of normalcy in the oddest weekend ever. I was as delighted as my fatigue would allow, and delighted to talk about anything besides serial murder, BOFFO’s nonexistence, or Max Gallo’s mesmerizing eyes.
“What’s going on with you and my brother?”
Anything besides that. Oh, hell, I’d just heard her voice mail; I should have been expecting it. But the habit of my friend was strong: she spoke the truth, always and unequivocally, without thinking twice, because if you think about what it’s okay to talk about, you’re not best friends anymore. We’d met at the mental hospital—Cathie had been an enthusiastic cutter—and knew each other before we had training bras. The truth rule had worked for a long time.
“I don’t know, Cath, and it’s driving me nuts. This is nothing against Patrick at all. He’s wonderful.”
“And I got the weirdest voice mail from George. ‘If you haven’t noticed, your idiot pal is switching and decompensating all over the place and it’s driving me up a goddamned tree, so be warned and also, what are you wearing right now? Don’t forget you want to paint my car, and I’m willing to be there, too. Do you have butt-crack black in your palette?’ Like that.”
I shuddered and apologized, for the thousandth time, for my partner.
“Never mind him, but I’m still painting the car. I’m not going near his butt crack, though. Are you really switching back and forth that fast? It’s you and Shiro and you and Shiro, right? And Adrienne hardly comes out at all?”
Of course she would have noticed. I should have realized she would. “Yeah. It’s weird but not scary. It’
s not even so much that we’re switching; it’s more like the barriers between us are getting softer. Like they were brick and now they’re smoke. Something. Shit, I don’t know. A lot’s happened in not much time.”
There was a long pause, and when Cathie spoke it was with an odd tentativeness I hadn’t heard often from her. She used that tone when she was realizing truth and speaking truth at the same time, no matter whom the truth could hurt.
“I’ve noticed lots of good changes in you. And I’d love to attribute them to my brother. But I think it’s more accurate to attribute them to you. I don’t think it’s as corny as falling in love. Maybe it’s deciding to please yourself first. Maybe … that’s what you should be doing more of. You put everything and everyone before yourself, Cadence, and you always have. It’s why you’re easy to love. But I think it’s also held you back for a long time. I think the changes are good. I think you need to keep doing what you’re doing. Regardless of the, uh, collateral damage.”
I blew out the breath I’d been holding, my knees gone so abruptly weak with relief I would have fallen if I weren’t in a chair. I could barely face the thought of breaking up with Patrick; knowing I would hurt my best friend had been an added torture. It wouldn’t have stopped me or changed my course, but it had been dreadful to think about. But Cathie thought I should. She was on my side. And I was foolish to think there was anywhere else she would be.
“That’s … thanks, Cathie. I know what it cost, saying that. I’m not sure why you did, but I’m grateful.”
I could hear her sad smile. “You know the rule. Unequivocal truth. Because if you stop to think about what it’s okay to talk about, you’re not best friends anymore.”
“I’ll … okay. I’ll call you later, all right?”
“Yeah. You’ve got pesky murder paperwork to do, huh?”
I had no idea. What paperwork did fake FBI agents have to fill out after they made a citizen’s arrest on a real killer and shot up his house but didn’t hurt anyone? “Sure.”