Painful Truths

by Brian Spangler

  “What is all that stuff?” Steve asked, picking through the top layer of the box. “You have a secret life as a hoarder that I don’t know about?”

  “Well . . .” I began, sighing at the sight of the junk. “That is about a year’s worth of school trips, Little League, and a shit-ton of day trips. I think our last vacation souvenirs might be in there too.”

  “So what is this?” Steve left my side to circle the box, his interest growing.

  My chest tightened and my heart went into my throat when Steve picked out the tip of my father’s old leather belt. Michael had been thorough. Too thorough. I’d hidden the belt beneath the driver’s-side seat, pushed it up into the metal springs to hide it. I must have stopped on the bridge over Neshaminy Creek a dozen times, intent on throwing it over the side. But intentions aren’t actions, and I could never bring myself to do it.

  Steve’s face filled with confusion as he tried to form his words. Finally he said, “It’s a man’s belt. But not one of mine.” He slipped the belt out of the box, spilling an old sippy cup and a bundle of fast-food napkins onto the floor in the process. But Steve ignored the mess he made, his interest locked.

  “You know, you’re gonna have to clean that up,” I warned, trying to sound funny as a way of hiding my panic. “Could be one of my father’s old belts. Snacks might have been playing in my mother’s moving boxes.”

  Steve lifted his chin and then nodded. My story sounded reasonable enough—and wasn’t too far from the truth. My mother had given me a few things recently, had dropped them off after the last of the winter snows cleared. I had watched her from our porch window, choosing to stay inside, choosing to stay hidden. She crept across our lawn, her shoes sticking in the sopping melt. I watched as she squinted toward our house, searching for any signs that I might be home. I didn’t give her any, though, stayed where I was—standing frozen and squeezing the carpet with my toes. She saw me through the glass, though. Or, I think she saw me. I didn’t dare move. She lifted her hand to wave but then gave up, looking defeated and hurt. After she’d dropped off a small bag of my things, she drove away. I hadn’t seen her since. Whenever Steve asked about why my mother hadn’t visited in a while, I’d tell him she was spending my father’s life insurance money, traveling and having fun. I actually had no idea what she was up to. For all I knew, she could have been strangling some senior while fucking his brains out in the bathroom stall of an IHOP during free pancake day. Frankly, I didn’t want to know. We were all better off not knowing.

  My heart cramped when Steve showed what had been buried shallow—like the men who’d succumbed to it. He paused, staring at the belt buckle’s metal design, his face puzzled and shocked. A ghostly memory had clearly made a sudden appearance.

  “I’ve seen this before,” he told me. His voice’s tone lifted with the curl of his mouth. I said nothing and didn’t move. He put the buckle in his palm, running the tip of his finger over the shape of its airplane wings. A flutter came into my belly and I tried to swallow, but the panic stayed tight in my throat. How many times had I moved my fingers the same way, felt the metal’s bumpy edges? I knew every scratch, every ding. The belt buckle’s face showed the passage of time like an aged warrior. The end of the belt dangled loose, swaying, pleading that I fish it through the buckle’s hinged ring. Steve traced the wings again.

  “There are a million belt buckles—” I began, but coughed dryly on my words. “And you’re saying you’ve seen that one before?”

  “I know this is going to sound crazy, but yes. This design. It’s unique—down to the scratches and chipped lines on the airplane wings,” he answered, his voice fading, his attention lost in the details. “I mean, after all this time . . . it’s just impossible, really.” Steve’s bemused smile filled his face with intrigue, a detective’s intrigue that I knew well. I suddenly felt scared.

  I gave him a blank stare, trying to dismiss his find as trivial. “Babe, it’s a belt, just a belt. My dad collected a ton of junk, and—”

  “It’s not just a belt,” he interrupted, raising his voice. I leaned back, frowning. “I mean, yes, it’s a belt. But it’s more than that.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, needing to know yet afraid to know.

  He stayed quiet, shaking his head and flipping the buckle over and then back. When he laughed, I nervously laughed with him, uncertain of why I felt the need to do so.

  “I’m sure this is from an old case.”

  “A case?”

  “Not just any case, but one of the station’s oldest. It was huge thirty years ago. We had to learn everything about it, study it. John and I spent weeks researching the design, thinking with the technology today, we’d be able to trace the buckle’s origin.”

  “You—” I began, my voice breaking again. “You and John studied a case about that?” I pointed to the buckle, my finger twitching. I shoved my hands together, rubbing them as if I’d caught a chill.

  “Hold this,” he said, shoving the buckle in my hands while ignoring my question. Instinctively, I wrapped the leather strap around my hand and made a fist. Steve strained to lift a box from atop his office shelves. He groaned, clutching at his leg.

  “Maybe you should take it easy,” I urged, hoping to persuade him.

  “It’ll pass,” he answered grimly. Then he added, “This is more important.”

  When he was in front of me again, he appeared with a small box between his hands—the corners soft and worn, the words “premium typing paper” faded along the sides.

  Steve has a secret box too, I thought and nearly laughed. Well, maybe not quite a secret box, but it wasn’t one I’d ever seen.

  “I haven’t looked at these in years. Shouldn’t even have this . . . Belongs at the station.” Steve plopped the box onto the table, sending a puff of dust into the air. I waved my hand as a tickle came to my nose. “Sorry about that.”

  He tilted the lid, opening the box to reveal a collection of old case files.

  How is it that I’ve overlooked it in my own house?

  “How old are those?” I asked. At one time, the folders had clearly been reddish-brown but had become pale, almost devoid of color. Their edges were fraying like cotton.

  “These are almost as old as we are. I really should give them back to Charlie—meant to give them back. Completely forgot about them.”

  “I’m sure he’ll understand,” I offered. “I can take them over for you. No problem.” Steve continued to ignore me as he sifted through the box. Finally, he found the file he wanted.

  “This one!” he exclaimed, picking a folder from the pile. And as he began to leaf through the photographs, a tremor shook my insides. I shivered and tried to hide my reaction by rubbing my hands together and dipping my chin as if to study the images. “Still cold?”

  “Just a bit of a chill,” I answered, lying. I wasn’t cold, though. I was staring into the faces of ghosts. Autopsy photos showed man after man, their blank faces sallow with death. I cleared my closing throat and asked, “Who are they?”

  “Dozens—” Steve began. He fanned out the photographs, dealing them over the desk like a deck of playing cards.

  I’d expected Polaroids or even color photos, but what he dealt in front of me were black-and-white headshots. The gray photo paper was turning yellow and the whites had become a burnt sienna; all the corners were curling. What was clear from the photographs was how each man had died. I saw strap marks on the skin on their necks and the torture of the buckle’s design—the wings of an airplane.

  “We’re too young to remember, but these murders are from one of the biggest unsolved cases this area—maybe the country—has ever seen. The truck stop killer.”

  “Truck stop killer?” I asked, pushing away one of the photographs. “Maybe I am too young to remember.”

  “That’s what we called it—that is, me and John—on account of what we found in our investigation. The papers never had a name for the cases, though, but had called out the string of mur
ders as being the work of a serial killer.”

  “Why truck stop?”

  Steve sifted through the files, producing a map as old as the box. He pointed out a set of red circles, the waxy markings chapped and flaking. “Look here,” he said, tapping at a stretch of intersecting roads. “And then here. What do you see?”

  I knew the answer. It had been thirty years, but I could still hear the truck stop’s air-hose bell and smell diesel fuel. I clenched my hands, tightening my grip on the belt. Steve waited patiently for a few seconds, then raised the map closer to me.

  “I don’t know what those are,” I answered, playing as if confused by what was on the map.

  “That’s okay,” he told me, sounding sympathetic. “Most miss it the first time. It’s the killer’s m.o.—modus operandi.”

  “I know what an m.o. is,” I snapped. He grinned, expecting my snarky response to his use of Latin.

  “I know you do,” he laughed, leaning into my shoulder. It scared me to see Steve with all the info on this case, but at the same time, I was seeing the man I married. He was excited and witty again, as though nothing had ever happened. “Men—all shapes and sizes and ages and nationalities—they had one thing in common. They were picked up at a truck stop. Can I take this?”

  “Take what?” I asked, slowly placing the belt on top of the desk. I almost expected the faces in the photographs to gasp or shudder at the sight of the murder weapon. But nothing happened. I held on to the belt a moment longer, thinking that any answer other than an affirmative one would raise questions. “It’s my dad’s . . . I mean, I guess it’s mine now. Take it.”

  “This is the belt,” Steve said, picking it up and turning it over in his hands. “And it’s a man’s belt.”

  “You said that already,” I reminded him. “From one of my father’s stupid collections.”

  “I know, but we’d always suspected a woman as the killer. Never a man.”

  “You think my father—”

  “No no, not your father . . .” Steve began, but paused before pulling the case file back together. “Who knows where or when he got this belt buckle. Could’ve been years after the murders took place.”

  “But you said a woman?” I asked, wanting to understand why they had considered a woman. Steve rocked his head back and forth like he sometimes did when uncertain about the answer.

  “Not sure we’ll ever really know, but there was some consistent—and quite compelling—evidence to suggest a woman.”

  “Like what?” I asked, leading him out, encouraging him to tell me more.

  “Semen,” he answered abruptly. I lifted my head, my brow furrowed. “All of the men were full of it.”

  I shook my head, unsure what he meant. “Full?”

  Steve fixed me a ya-know-what-I-mean expression, but I didn’t. “Some of it was left in the stem. Get it?” I stared blankly at him, so he continued with the explanation. “All of the men had ejaculated just before, or during, their death. Autopsy reports found semen in their ureters . . . their penis. The coroner reported the same in every case.”

  “And that is why a woman is suspected?”

  “Right,” he said, nodding. “The thinking has been that the men were picked up for sex and then killed during the act when they . . . well, ya know.”

  “Yeah. I get it,” I answered, waving my hand to let him off the hook. And as he placed the buckle in the box, the regret of not having thrown the evidence into Neshaminy Creek felt like a hot stone in my gut. A burning.

  How could I have held on to it?

  “Wait till Charlie gets a load of this,” Steve said, packing away the case. “Just sorry John isn’t around to see it.”

  You want to use it again, don’t you? I heard in my head.

  I jumped as if the voice was real. I heard the memory again and shut my eyes, shuddering. It was my mother’s. Her scolding voice, yelling at me the night I’d almost lost the belt. My mother had been right, though, I did want to use it again. But only because it would please her.

  FOUR

  THE MUSTY SMELL OF THE library overcame me, changing my mood. I didn’t want to leave behind the scent of trees and flowers and freshly cut grass. As much as I’d grown to love my new job, there was something about being in the library that day that just didn’t sit right with me. I wanted to be outside, to be in the sunlight, to do anything other than sit in front of a computer, surrounded by the dank smell of old books. That last part wasn’t exactly fair. Our library was the cleanest it could be. Not just clean, but spotless.

  The younger librarian—Becky, I think was her name—gave me a short wave, the sway of her earbud cords following the rhythm of her hips. She snapped her gum, picked up a book, and scanned its barcode. The computer replied with a soft beep, but I doubt she could hear that. The screen told her something, though, and she followed its instruction, dropping the book onto a cart and picked up another. She snapped her gum again—loud enough to echo. From the corner of my eye I caught Nerd popping his head up to watch her. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen him peering over his computer in her direction either. A memory of high school days with Katie, whispering about who was crushing on who, came to me in a warm flood. The feeling was nostalgic, and a small part of me envied Nerd—his youth, and pining away for love.

  I reached into my purse, slipping my finger through the new secret compartment I’d sewn into the side, and tapped the edge of the USB flash drive he’d given me. It was the key to our secret world. The red and green and yellow links we used to navigate the Deep Web weren’t keyed to just be accessible from the library’s computers—we could use the software from any computer. I realized that now. I also realized Nerd wanted to keep coming here for something else—or should I say, someone else. He liked Becky. She never noticed him, though. Not once since I’d been coming around had they spoken.

  “Hello again,” the older librarian said. She popped up from behind the counter, surprising me. I pulled my hand from my purse quickly, instinctively tucking my bag beneath my arm as if hiding gold from a pirate. She gave my quick motion a quirky stare and then dismissed it as she finished with a book.

  “Hello,” I answered under my breath. “I didn’t see you there.”

  “Oh, I’m around. I’m always around,” she answered while picking from a tall stack of books, moving a volume from one pile to another. She scanned it, opened the front and back covers, and leafed through the yellowing pages. “People are always stuffing crap in my books. But of course, she doesn’t check them. That’s why we split the sections. Drives me crazy.”

  “Uh-huh,” I answered, glancing over at Becky. The tinny sound of music came from her earbuds, the rhythm matching her sway. I shook my head, agreeing as a courtesy while the older librarian went on to complain some more about her younger colleague. Nerd’s gleaming eyes remained suspended above his computer monitor. His infatuation was almost comical.

  The older librarian finished with a book and addressed me more directly, “Now listen. I know you’ve been coming here to use the computers, searching for a job, but it’s been months. I have to ask—I’m obligated to ask—what is going on over there? Is it that Filthy Shades of—? I mean, is it porn?”

  I nearly choked and tried to hold in a laugh. I bit down on my lip and managed to compose myself by shifting my feet, straightening my top, and delaying my words until I was certain a titter wouldn’t spill out. The old librarian hung her chin out and pursed her lips as if sipping sour milk from a straw. The sight of her face was nearly as funny as her question. When the inner giggle settled, I answered with what I thought would sound the most reasonable.

  “We’re starting a business. I was looking for work, but then got to talking to that young man over there . . .” I pointed to Nerd and turned away in time to hide the smile on my face. “We’re exploring the feasibility of the idea now and researching the business prospects . . . very promising prospects.”

  “That is wonderful. And as they say, when life hand
s you lemons . . .” she said, nodding her approval.

  “Make lemonade,” I added quickly.

  “However, the use of the library computers . . .” she began to say, but stopped and seemed reluctant to finish.

  A surprise, I thought, considering her earlier porn accusation.

  “The library computers are available to the public—to everyone, see? Of course you can continue to use them, but if someone else is in need, please give them time with a computer.”

  “That’s fine,” I answered, agreeing in a tone that would convey I understood her concern. But more than that, it was clear to me, we needed to move on. We needed to work somewhere else. Whatever scheme Nerd had cooked up for cashing in our Bitcoin, we’d need to budget for a move, and soon. And hadn’t he said the same after working out of his garage, preparing the stun gun for Ghoul? I remembered him saying we needed a place with a workbench that didn’t include his father looming over his shoulder, curious about what he’d been doing.

  I peered in Nerd’s direction, inching away from the counter conversation, and again saw him duck down behind his computer. It wasn’t because of me, though. It was Becky. She was on the move, rolling a cart of books from behind the counter and heading in his direction. Another snap of her gum echoed, and I took that as my cue to follow her. I listened to the faint squeal of the cart’s wheels and the tinny song from her earbuds. Nerd popped up once, pitching his chin toward me as if to say hello, but I knew he was really checking on where Becky was. Adorable. A hint of envy stirred again, the longing to feel that potential. Even if it was just for a brief flirt, like the relief of a passing shower on a sweltering summer’s day.

  “We’ve got to move,” I announced without saying hello. I shot a glance back at the counter, feeling the old librarian’s stare. “And, I think we’ll have to move soon. I’m just not sure where.”

  “Porn?” Nerd asked.

  I laughed, clapping my hand over my mouth. “She asked you too?”