by Jack Ketchum
“Where’s she live?”
He told them. Schilling looked at Ed.
“New player,” he said. “We better go.”
Ray was sick of waiting. It was a long shot she’d see him out here anyway. He was wasting his fucking time. And a .38 wasn’t the same as a .22 in terms of stopping power. A .38 was truly mean. He’d seen that once tonight already. He spooned another snort of coke out of the small brown bottle and turned off the engine and cut the lights. Got out of the car and shut the door. He heard the girls pounding on the hood of the trunk. It didn’t annoy him. It amused him. The girls weren’t going anywhere. Nobody was going to hear them. There wasn’t a soul in sight. The girls were playing drums to his lead guitar, that was all.
He shouldered the rifle and as he climbed the steps kicked off the safety on the pistol. He reached for the gleaming polished doorknob. And turned it. And smiled.
Her father was talking in his sleep again. Kath closed the copy of Cosmo and tried to make out the words coming from his bedroom down the hall. There were times he spoke so clearly in his sleep it was startling. This wasn’t one of them. One night in their room in California she’d awakened to hear him say she’s what she is, she can’t help it and wondered who the she might be and if her mother was peopling his dream or if she herself was. This time all she heard was something like amoomphanawful but listened further just in case. It seemed important for some reason to have more clues about him now.
He was sleeping a lot the past few days. All the way home on the plane and then a long nap yesterday afternoon and tonight he’d said he wanted to lie down for an hour or so just after finishing Etta’s good roast chicken and here he was still sleeping. More than three hours later. Probably it was the tranquilizers. She wondered if all this sleep was good for him. If it was avoidance or healing or possibly some strange mix of both. She’d read a little psychology but mostly it was about sex. Not the loss of a loved one. Not death.
She listened a few moments longer and then went back to her magazine. The article was stupid. Something about the usefulness of keeping at least one rich boyfriend around for special parties and social occasions even if you were dating somebody else you liked better. As though most girls had either of these options. She was only half-reading it anyway. She’d found that no-brainers could be soothing sometimes plus she still was keyed to her father, to whether he’d speak again more clearly this time, and that was the reason that she heard the soft footsteps in the carpeted hallway and why she leapt out of bed.
Jackowitz took the call. It was Patrolman Shack on the line and he was calling from the living room of the Pye residence. He and Patrolman Hallan had Harold Pye with them and Pye was in a bad way. They’d been watching the motel through a pair of binoculars from their patrol car parked along a side street when Hallan saw him come running down the walkway from the house like the man had a pack of wolves at his heels, stumbling and off balance like the wolves had already halfway gutted him. They got out of the car and went to his aid.
He brought them up the hill and opened the door and they saw what they saw.
Pye had passed out on seeing her a second time and Hallan was working on him with an ice pack. They’d already called in an ambulance. And what Shack wanted to know right now was, once they got Pye off to the hospital, did they go back to staking out the motel or what?
Jackowitz said you bet you do. And you don’t seal up the place either. Leave the place just as it is, lights burning and everything. Go back to what you were doing on the off-chance the crazy little bastard decides to come home again.
And now he had to tell Schilling.
He’d left the force in Newark for a nice quiet town in the lakes district.
He thought that maybe there weren’t any nice quiet towns anymore with what was going on in this country. Maybe the days of nice quiet towns were over with.
So what he’d do was, he’d try to put a muzzle on this one at least temporarily.
“Get me Schilling,” he said.
She didn’t know how she knew it was him but she did and she hit him full speed in the chest with her shoulder and knocked him down flat to the carpet and when she saw what he was carrying, the pistol and the rifle on his back there was no further question but that his story was true and she hesitated because her father was in the next room vulnerable and asleep, and then thought no, it’s you he’s after, he doesn’t give a damn about your father, understood that in the certainty that she also understood his cowardice, that he would not make a move against her father unless he had to, unless her father woke, that he was fine if she just got out of there now and she leapt over him, over his legs sprawled beneath her as he whipped around and lunged for her, she could almost feel his hand claw for the loose shirttails billowing out behind her, could almost see it happen. And then she was past him running down the hall down the stairs and heard him hit the stairs too but she had the distance on him, she held the moment, he couldn’t run in those goddamn boots of his and if he didn’t shoot her right now this very second she was going to be out the door.
She grabbed hold of the handle and twisted and it was then she almost screamed, it was only the father upstairs sleeping in his room that kept her from screaming because Ray was smarter than she’d thought he was and the seconds she’d bought hitting him knocking him down were suddenly denied her.
He’d thrown the lock.
He’d locked the door behind him.
Locked them in.
She reached down and threw it to the open position but by then it was far too late and she knew it, the despair was already upon her and when she felt the cold steel of the pistol jab painfully into the back of her neck it had the force of inevitability behind it, the touch of a dark reckless god who it seemed had stalked her all her life.
“Gotcha,” he said.
His breath was rank with some kind of drug.
He reached around her and opened up the door.
She heard footsteps shuffle across the landing above and a muttered whaa? and he turned and fired even as she shoved him against the doorjamb and fired again and then the hand that held the gun arced toward her and the world went black.
Chapter Forty
Schilling/Ray
In all probability he’d killed Ed’s girlfriend. Jennifer Fitch too. Tonianne Primiano and Harry Griffith.
Now Pye’s mother.
Ed was right. He should have quit this job long ago. Taken half pension and retired. He’d been nothing but an accident waiting to happen and now the waiting was over and innocent people were paying for his arrogance and stupidity. The fact that he’d been correct about Pye and Steiner/Hanlon all along carried about as much weight for him now as a fly splattered across the windshield of his car and the results were a whole lot messier and worlds more important.
They hadn’t spoken a word to one another since Jackowitz’s call about Jane and Harold Pye. For the first time he could remember he hadn’t the slightest idea what Ed was thinking. In the past it had been easy to know, intuitive, the way it was with the best partners. Now he hadn’t a clue. He couldn’t read anything in the set of his face but anxiety.
Ed said he wasn’t to blame.
That was what he said.
They pulled into the Wallace driveway and saw that the lights were on inside.
“Wait here,” he said.
“Like hell.”
“You’re a civilian.”
“I just heard you deputize me.”
Schilling looked at him and nodded. They walked up the stairs to the porch and he rang the bell. No one answered. He ran again. And now he had a bad feeling about this one too.
He slipped a plastic Baggie on his hand and used the doorknob. They drew their weapons and walked inside.
The hall and living room were neat and tidy and practically empty of furniture, the home of some rich ascetic. They saw him on the landing right away. A big man in rumpled white shirt and trousers sitting propped against the wall, a long s
mear of blood against the white wall where he’d fallen. There was a dark hole in the man’s chest and the smear was the exit wound. He went up the stairs while Ed proceeded through the house making sure it was clear. The man’s eyes were blinking in tiny rapid flutters and he looked up at Schilling stupidly as though trying to figure what in hell had happened to him. His breath came in shallow gulps.
Schilling stepped over him and moved carefully down the hall. The first bedroom door was open and he looked inside half expecting to see yet another body. He checked the closet and under the bed. The girl’s room was empty and so was the bathroom. The second bedroom door was shut and he opened it and had a look around inside and the father’s room was empty too. He walked back to the man and crouched beside him.
“We’ll get you some help, sir. You hang in there.”
He’d seen a phone in the girl’s room so he used that to call first aid, who were having a helluva busy night and then Jackowitz and by the time he got back Ed had the man leaning against his shoulder and was tying a bath towel tight across the entry and exit wounds.
“How bad?”
“Guy’s in shock and he’s lost a lot of blood. The shot won’t kill him, the shot’s clean. The shock and the bleeding might though. You see the bullet there?”
He did. The bullet had passed through the guy and into the wall at just about the level of Schilling’s hairline. Which meant it had been fired from downstairs.
“Any sign of the girl?”
“Nothing.”
“Dammit. You know what this guy’s doing, Ed? This guy’s collecting.”
“Yeah. And we got to hope for two things. That he’s through with that part of it for now and that he wants to keep his collection intact awhile.”
“We’ll wait for first aid and then I want to head back to the station.”
“Tim Bess?”
“He’s all we’ve got.”
He was climbing through the northern hills where the houses and grounds got bigger and there was still raw acreage between them. He kept an eye on her in the seat beside him. When he saw her start to come around he parked the car by a low stone wall, took the keys out of the ignition and walked around to the passenger side. He made sure that the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was the Ladysmith pointed at her forehead.
“Slide over. You’re driving.”
“Fuck I am.” Her voice was thick. Like she needed a drink of water.
He smiled. “You’re gonna have a helluva lump on your head in the morning, Kath. You want another one? Slide over.”
She looked at him a moment, a look of hate and disgust that he didn’t like to see there but she did as she was told. He got in and handed her the keys. She started the car. He swatted at a gnat buzzing around his head. They were out in full force this year.
“Where to, Ray? Back to the campgrounds so you can dump the body?”
“What body?”
“My body.”
He smiled. “No campgrounds. You’ll know when we get there. Just drive the car.”
“Did you kill my father, Ray?”
“Maybe yes and maybe no. You won’t know either way unless you do what I tell you though, will you?”
“If you did then you better kill me. Or you’ll be watching your back the rest of your life. I swear it.”
“I don’t know what I’m gonna do with you yet, Kath. That’s my business. Your business is just to drive. Simple, right?”
He realized that he really didn’t know what he was going to do with her or with any of them for that matter. There was no particular plan. He had some ideas, sure. Of course he did. And he had a destination. That much he definitely did have. He guessed it was plenty for now. He felt happy as a kid again in the car with her and holding the Ladysmith on her—her driving away because he said so, understanding he’d gut-shoot her in half a second if she didn’t—only this kid also had an erection. He had the other two in the trunk and her not even suspecting they were there. This was really too cool. He felt like all of this was exactly as it ought to be. Like getting a song down exactly right and perfect.
Too bad Tim wasn’t around to appreciate it. He was a fucking artist and there was nobody around to see. He couldn’t be mad at Tim. Tim was just a guy like he was trying to get by, trying to get a little pussy now and then. He kinda missed Tim.
But Tim would just go sissy on him at this point like he had over those other girls and besides there was Jennifer tucked away in the trunk. He wouldn’t like that.
Tim and Jennifer. Tim and Jennifer fucking. Unbelievable.
What a world.
Chapter Forty-one
Jennifer
She was dying in there. They both were.
She wasn’t at all sure but that Sally Richardson wasn’t already dead. She hadn’t moved in the longest time and trying to shake her or talk to her got no response at all. Her throat felt so raw she could hardly talk anyway so she stopped trying.
She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t get a proper breath. The smell of gas fumes was like a hand clamped tight over her mouth and nose, like the fumes were inside her skin, invading every organ in her body. Her legs had cramped up bad earlier but now she couldn’t even feel them anymore. For a while her head had ached worse than she’d ever thought possible, so much pressure she’d thought it would burst. Now even that was gone. She fought constantly against the drowsiness.
Sleep would kill her.
She thought about the Griffiths. It wasn’t right. What had the Griffiths ever done to Ray? He hardly even knew them.
What had any of them ever done that was so awful?
To make him do this.
She saw Mrs. Griffith crawling. A bright trail of blood behind her.
And surrendered.
Perhaps it was that image that caused her to surrender. The old woman bleeding, dying, crawling toward the kitchen. Because this was better than what had happened to Mrs. Griffith. That was pain. This was just sleep.
She closed her eyes and the darkness fell and then lifted some unknowable time later into some other, brighter darkness that was the real dark and not the dark of sleep and she realized that her eyes were open and the trunk was open and she was breathing real air and pain hit her suddenly like blows from a hammer, a crack to her head and a crack to each of her legs and then descended into her belly and she turned her head and vomited into the dirty rusted hub of the spare tire.
She heard Sally Richmond coughing and vomiting too and stared up at him frowning outside the car, him standing with a gun in Katherine Wallace’s belly, stared up at the moon and stars that framed him, the brightness far beyond him huge and clear and open.
“Look at the mess you guys made! Shit.”
The pain didn’t matter. Neither head nor legs nor stomach. She actually welcomed the pain. She’d been wrong about Mrs. Griffith.
Pain meant you were still alive.
Chapter Forty-two
Sally/Ray
“You look like shit,” he said.
However she looked it was nothing to the way she felt. She’d never been so sick in her life. She had no idea where they were or how far they’d gone or how long they’d been driving. She had no idea where her brain had taken her in the interim, only that she was weak and sick and that her mouth tasted of vomit and gas fumes and under all that, horrified at what he’d done and scared of what he was still doing.
“Get the fuck out of there.”
She slung her legs one by one over the rim of the trunk and pushed up with her arms until her ass scraped over it and she was standing wobbling in front of him.
“You too, Jen.”
She heard Jennifer moving around behind her but didn’t look. Her attention was focused on the pistol he was shoving into this third girl’s stomach. It was the same one he’d shot Tonianne with. The girl was a stranger to her, extraordinarily pretty, wearing jeans and a man’s white shirt. She could see a livid welt on her forehead. The shirt was stained with dirt.
>
Who were these people and why was she, Sally, suddenly and out of nowhere with them? Because of a single argument in a parking lot?
And Tonianne? Shooting Tonianne? It defied understanding.
We think he kills people, Ed told her.
And he did.
She had better get straight. She had better be aware of everything any of them did if she was going to get through this.
The first thing was, where was she? She had to force herself to take her eyes off him and off the gun and take a look around.
They were parked on a narrow dirt road at the base of a hill. Off left on the car’s passenger side were deep thick woods as far in and up the hill and down along the road behind them as she could see. Off right what in the moonlight appeared to be a wide field of tall, long-untended grass. Beyond it, more woods. Leaves and branches in dark silhouette against the sky.
They were parked in the middle of nowhere.
She considered which would be worse, a run through the open field or a scramble through dense scrub and thicket. In each case a gun would be aimed at her back. Neither choice was a good one. She couldn’t afford to panic. Running wouldn’t work. She’d have to wait and see.
She heard a metallic rattle and turned back to Ray.
Something gleamed and dangled in his hand. He was holding it out to her. It took her a moment to realize he was offering her a pair of silver handcuffs but he was speaking to the new girl.
“Know where I got these, Kath?”
The new girl’s name was Kath. Kath and Jen. Who was she? Sal? Did everyone in this guy’s world have a diminutive?
“New York City, Kath. Times fucking Square. Remember our date at Tavern on the Green? Where you told me about your sorry sick fuck of a mother? And I told you about the worst thing I ever did? About trashing that house? ’Course I lied about that being the worst thing. But this is where it all happened! Right up there! That’s where I got my firepower. House right at the top of the next rise, you can’t make it out through the trees.”