by D. M. Pulley
Jimmy led her back down the hall to her bedroom. Alarm bells went off in her head as he settled down on the mattress next to her. She shrugged off the arm draping around her and slid away from him. “It’s okay. I’m fine.”
“I know.” He cracked a half smile and let his eyes circle her soccer trophies, lingering on her teddy bear. “We should probably get some sleep. Tomorrow’s gonna be rough.”
“Yeah. You’re probably right. I, uh . . .” She glanced around the room uncomfortably, searching for a place to put him.
“Hey. Don’t worry about me . . . I’ll go find a couch.”
She hugged her knees and glanced over at the window where Troy liked to crawl in. She got up and closed the curtains. The dead quiet outside reminded her how far away the nearest neighbors were. It would be easy for a crazed serial killer to break in without any of them hearing a thing. “I don’t know if I can sleep. It’s kind of creepy thinking someone could be out there.”
The hint of a smile pulled at his lips. “Do you want me to stay?”
“Yes . . . No. I don’t know.” Tears burned at the corners of her eyes again. “I just want to wake up. I want to wake up from this nightmare and for everything . . . to be okay.”
“Hey. I know.” He folded his arms around her. “None of this is your fault.”
She buried her head into his chest, despite her misgivings. The tears escaped in thin streams and then torrents. Her father. The racist brand someone had given him. How he’d loved her mother despite his parents. Despite his scar. Her mother’s car burning up in the crash. He’d been all alone. She’d left him alone. Jimmy was wrong. It was her fault. All the terrible guilt she’d been holding spilled out of her, soaking his shirt. She’d even been happy for a moment . . . thinking she was free. Ungrateful. Rotten. Whore.
Warm hands rubbed her back, then handed her some tissues from the side of the bed. “I’ll stay, okay?” He pulled back the covers and got in next to her. His wet shirt came off and dropped to the floor. “We’ll just sleep. Nothing funny, I promise.”
Her head felt both weighed down and lightened by her crying jag. The burning incense aroma of his skin filled in the empty spaces where her thoughts had washed out. She laid her head on his bare chest and let him wrap an arm around her. The heat of him warmed her shivering bones until her mind went blissfully blank.
“Just go to sleep, Kris. I got you.” He stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head. His voice faded away. “Nothin’s gonna happen, okay? Nobody’s gonna get you . . .”
CHAPTER 38
“Kritter? Wake up, girl.” A hand shook her shoulder. “We need to talk.”
Kris lurched up to see Deputy Sheriff Ben Weber standing over her in uniform. “Ben?” Her bleary eyes darted back down to the bed. Faint early morning light filtered in under her curtains, casting a pale glow onto her rumpled sheets. Jimmy was gone. She shook the sleep from her head, wondering if she’d been dreaming. But the empty spot next to her was still warm. “What are you doing here?”
“Got your message. I’m glad you finally came to your senses. I’ll go make you some tea.” He lumbered out of the room and into the hall.
Kris pulled herself out of bed and scanned the room. “Jimmy?” she whispered.
There was no answer. His tear-soaked Bob Marley T-shirt lay crumpled on the ground.
Out in the hall, Ben’s voice continued, “Awful sorry to barge in on you like this, but I’ve been worried sick about you, kiddo. I was headin’ out to Cleveland to arrest you and drag your butt back home.”
She forced her feet to the open door. “You were?”
His ruddy face looked haggard and pale as he nodded. “They finished the autopsy last night . . . They’re ruling it a homicide.”
“A homicide,” she repeated. She had known from the moment Ben had showed her the plastic bags filled with clothes, but the air still fell out of the room. They killed him.
“Hard to believe it could happen here.” Ben shook his head. “I’m so sorry, Kritter.”
She pressed her back to the wall, seeing the police schematic of a body cut limb from limb with red ink. All of her blood pulled back to her heart. “But the DNA test isn’t even in yet. Is it?”
“No.” Ben hesitated in the hall next to her father’s ransacked bedroom, oblivious to the mess she’d made. He pressed his lips into a pained line, then said, “I hate to say it, hon, but I put that test in to ease your mind, not because I believed it would make a damned bit of difference. The coroner already signed off on the ID after confirmation from me, Al’s boss at the train yard, and Mel . . . We need to get you down to the station to process the paperwork. Your dad doesn’t belong in that meat locker. He wanted to be cremated, right?”
His words registered in her ears out of order. Paperwork. Station. Meat locker . . . Homicide. A loud buzz hummed through her empty veins. Her legs dropped out from under her.
“I have to . . . I have to use the bathroom,” she choked out. Holding on to the wall, she found her way to the tiny tiled room and shut the door.
She turned on the water in the sink and sank down to her knees. He’s dead. Oh, God, he’s dead. Someone killed him. The thought swung in and out of her mind in slow motion, spiraling through her. Down, down, down.
She pressed her forehead to the cold floor tiles. The Nazi pictures in Madame Mimi’s tattoo book flipped through her field of vision along with the headlines in her father’s scrapbook. HEADLESS BODY FOUND.
It was another Torso Murder. That’s why he had the library books, she realized. He’d figured out the truth about them. That’s why they killed him.
Her eyes darted around the bathroom as she realized she had no proof of any of it. Ben wouldn’t understand about Madame Mimi. He’d call her a con artist. There was no possible way her father’s murder had anything to do with what had happened back in Cleveland sixty years ago. He wouldn’t understand about Jimmy. He’d think he was just a hoodlum. All he would see were his skin color and the drugs in his backpack.
Footsteps shook the floorboards from the kitchen back down the hallway. A knock hit the door. “Kritter, hon? I know this is tough, but we should just get this over with.” Ben’s voice filtered in from the other side of the hollow door.
“I—I’m not ready yet. Uh.” Jimmy. “Why don’t you go on without me? I’ll meet you there.”
“Don’t be silly, girl. I’m not letting you go in there alone. You hear?” She could hear Ben shift his weight and stifle an impatient sigh. “Take all the time you need. You want that tea?”
“No.” She wrenched open the door. “I don’t want tea! Can’t we . . . Do we have to do this today? It’s all so . . . rushed. I can’t even think straight right now.”
“C’mon. Let’s talk this through, kiddo.” He grabbed her by the hand and led her down the hall to the kitchen table. “I know it’s hard, don’t think I don’t. But this is what needs to be done.”
Kris sat down, trying to sort through the million voices chattering through her head. Pull yourself together, dammit! You know he’s right, Kris, her father bellowed at her. He was drowned out by the sound of the little girl inside her wailing for her father. They killed him!
Ben settled into the seat across from hers and picked up her hand. “Now what can I do to help?”
“I—I don’t know,” she whispered. They killed him. They killed him. “Who did it, Ben? Who are they?”
Ben’s shoulders sagged. “It’s an ongoing investigation, kiddo. I wish I knew.”
“But why? Why would they kill him? You must know something. You two were best friends. Did he owe somebody money? Did he get himself mixed up with something? Did he say anything to you?”
“No.” He shook his head, defeated. “I wish he had. Your dad wasn’t one to air his problems. He was private like that . . . We can talk about all this on the way.”
“Wait.” She held up her hand. “If somebody killed him, doesn’t that mean the killer is still out there? What if
. . .” She stopped short of telling him about the mark on her door. He’d put her under house arrest.
“Well, I didn’t want to say so out loud and worry you, but that’s one of the reasons I was ready to drag you back home. You shouldn’t be stuck in that city alone right now.”
Kris nodded, but the knot in her stomach tightened. “What about that man David Hohman? He came looking for Dad at Shirlene’s a while back. Mel gave me his card, but the address on it was wrong.” She explained her trip to the county archives and the missing files. “It seems like this Torso Killer has something to do with all this.”
“Now wait one damned minute.”
Ignoring him, she pushed herself up from the table and gathered the library books out of her backpack on the kitchen floor. Jimmy had left the scrapbook on the counter. She plopped them all down in front of Ben. “Look at all these books I found in his bedroom! Look at this scrapbook we found downstairs in his workshop! This can’t just be a coincidence.”
Ben’s eyes darted from the books on the table up to her face. He looked as though he’d just swallowed fire. “You went looking for him? Have you lost your damned mind? We don’t have time for these games! This is a police investigation! ”
Kris quaked at the look in his eyes but was too far gone to take any of it back. “He’s my dad! What else was I supposed to do? Don’t you think there’s some sort of connection with all of this? Who is David Hohman?”
He grabbed her wrist and squeezed. “Did you talk to this David character?”
“No.” She tried to pull her arm back but couldn’t. “Ben, you’re hurting me.”
He didn’t let go. “I need you to think real hard, Kris. Did you talk to this guy? Did you see him?”
She shook her head.
“Good.” He must’ve noticed the stricken look on her face and released his grip. “I’m sorry, Krit. You’re not the only one feeling the strain here.”
She took a step back from him. “I know. It’s just . . .”
“No. I shouldn’t have lost my temper. You don’t need that. I just never dreamed something like this . . .” He rubbed the anger from his face, and his shoulders slumped.
“I know.” And she did. Her eyes darted down the hall. Where’s Jimmy? she wondered, relieved he’d been smart enough to hide. Ben would’ve had a fit if he’d found a man in her bed, just on principle.
“Lookit. Let’s just get this over with. Okay?”
No. The feeling that something was very wrong itched up her spine. There was something she was missing. Something he wasn’t telling her. Her eyes fell on the scrapbook. “Did—uh—did my dad ever mention his suspicions to you that my mother . . . that it wasn’t an accident?”
“What?” Ben’s face went slack. “What are you talking about?”
“He put the articles about her in here.” She flipped open the scrapbook to the first page. “See? And then there’s nothing but murders after that. It’s like . . . he thought they were connected somehow.”
The color rose back up his neck as she talked. His eyes narrowed and flashed with an array of barely stifled emotions. Anger? Surprise? Utter exasperation? He wiped a hand across his face before she could decide. She could hear the strain in his voice as he carefully chose his words. “I can’t imagine how hard this all has been on you, kiddo. But you’re chasing ghosts. Your mother . . .” He stopped the next words with his teeth.
“What about her?” Kris leaned in to get Ben to look her in the eye. His face flushed again and he looked out the back window into the dormant cornfield instead.
“She was a good woman, but she messed up. And she messed up your dad pretty good too, her dyin’ like that. I don’t know what was going on with this book. And dammit, I don’t care.” He turned to her, no longer concealing his anger at her meddling. “What you really need to focus on is getting through this and leave the detective work to the police. Alright? This is a homicide investigation. Not a game.”
She forced herself to nod and held her tongue. Eighteen years of living with her father had taught her when to keep her thoughts to herself. They’d also taught her how to leverage being a helpless female. “I’m sure you’re right, Ben. Would it . . . would it be okay if I took a minute to pull myself together?” She let loose a few tears that had pooled behind her eyes. She glanced down the hallway to her room again and then to the basement door. Jimmy was still hiding somewhere, and the way Ben had reacted to her questions bothered her. She was in no rush to make her father’s death official. Even if it was the right thing to do. “I can’t go in there like this. I need to shower. I need some time. Can I meet you there in an hour?”
He appraised her up and down, debating with himself. “I don’t like leaving you here.”
“I need some time to process all of this,” she pleaded, turning her teary eyes up to his. “Please? I don’t . . . I really don’t want to cry in front of everyone.”
He squeezed her shoulder like an uncle would. “Okay. One hour.”
CHAPTER 39
Kris teetered on numb legs down the hall back to her bedroom once Ben’s cruiser pulled out of the driveway. She turned a circle in her room, stopping in front of her shotgun leaning up against the doorjamb. “What the hell am I going to do?”
“About what?” a voice whispered back.
She spun around to see Jimmy sliding out from under the bed, half-naked and covered in dust bunnies. “What the hell are you doing under there?” she asked. “Were you there the whole time?”
Jimmy brushed himself off and shrugged. “I heard the front door open. This is not a town where I wanna get caught in bed with a white girl. They’d probably string me up and burn a cross about it.”
She wanted to protest but couldn’t help but see his point. She could count the number of black people she knew in Cridersville on one hand. She supposed she’d feel nervous too. “Did he see you?”
“I don’t think so.” He picked his Bob Marley T-shirt up off the floor and pulled it on. Her tears hadn’t even left a mark. “So you goin’ down to the morgue?”
“I don’t know.” The morgue. Plastic bags of evidence were lined up on a table in her head, but this time they were filled with pieces of him. She shook her head and bit back another round of tears. “He’s . . . they say he’s . . .”
“I know . . . I heard him.” Jimmy’s eyes hurt for her.
“He didn’t believe me about the Torso Killer. He didn’t even listen. And now . . . maybe they’re still out there . . . And I can’t go home.” The red star painted over her door left no doubt. It wasn’t safe. “My life is over.”
Jimmy wrapped an arm around her and held her to his chest. “We’ll figure it out. You could stay here and take care of things for a while. I’ll hitch a ride back and find this David Hohman.”
The warm smell of him stopped the room from shaking. Despite all the red flags, she didn’t want him to leave. “But what if it isn’t him? What if he doesn’t know a thing about it?” She pulled away from Jimmy, frantic and lost. “What if we never know—”
A hard knock on the door cut her words short. “You expecting someone?” Jimmy whispered.
She shook her head.
A second later, the front door sprung open. “Kris?” a familiar voice called.
“Shit. I cannot believe he’s here,” she hissed.
“Who?” Jimmy whispered back.
“Oh, nobody. Just this guy I was supposed to marry.”
Troy’s voice boomed from inside the living room. “Kritter? You here?”
Jimmy nudged her.
“Yeah?” Her voice came out as a croak. She swallowed and called louder, “Yeah. I’ll be right out.”
Jimmy grabbed his backpack and planted a kiss on her cheek. “I better get the fuck out of here. You gonna be okay?”
“Yeah. He’s harmless. Don’t go. Just give me a minute to get rid of him.”
Troy was standing in her kitchen with his head in the fridge. He popped up at the sound of her
footsteps with one of her father’s beers in his hand.
“Uh. Hi. Troy,” she said, wiping her face clean of tears and other signs of weakness. “What are you doing here?”
“I saw your car out front and I figured you could use a friend.”
She glanced at the clock on the stove. “It’s 7:00 a.m.”
He shrugged and popped open the can of beer. “Ben gave me a ring. He didn’t think it’d be such a good idea you goin’ down to the morgue all by yourself. He asked me to come check on you.”
Ben must have radioed it in the second he left the house. That figures. “That was very sweet of you both, but I’m fine. I just need some time to get my head together. Alone.” She went to open the door for him to leave, but he caught her by the arm.
“Hey, it’s been a long time. I’ve been worried about you.” His blue eyes radiated genuine concern. “Aren’t we even friends anymore?”
Kris rolled her eyes and rubbed her forehead. They had never been friends. But she could tell he wasn’t going to leave without a long talk. Jimmy couldn’t hide in her closet forever. “Yeah. Sure. Just sit down and give me a minute . . . I just woke up.”
She waded back down the hall to the bathroom and turned on the water. With the stream running, she crept into her bedroom and shut the door.
“Jimmy?” she whispered.
There was no answer. Her curtain wafted up as a cool breeze cut through the room. The window was open and he’d gone. Just as well, she told herself, but her heart sank anyway. He’d left without even saying goodbye.
Kris slipped back down the hall to the bathroom and turned off the water. The house fell strangely silent. The wall clock ticked in the living room. The compressor of the refrigerator kicked on. She could feel Troy’s patience running out somewhere in the living room. It was just the two of them.
On her way back down the hall, glimpsing the mess of her father’s bedroom through the open slant of the door stopped her in her tracks. The sheets lay in a heap on the bed. Piles of clothes were scattered across the floor. Her mother’s picture was the only thing in its proper place on the nightstand. Her dark, smiling eyes watched Kris from behind the frame. Pins pulled back her curly black hair. Rachael Froehlich was beautiful. Kris picked up the frame and sank onto the bed, staring at the face of a woman she never knew. A woman that had killed herself drunk driving. She messed up. And she messed up your dad pretty good too.