by J. D. Barker
Another dead end.
Emory was lost out there, and they had nothing.
As Porter came upon his “secure” building, he found the door wide open and flapping in the wind. There was also a rather large pile of dog excrement steaming at the base of the steps, no doubt from the pit bull in 2C. He didn’t blame the dog, but he’d have no problem rubbing the owner’s chubby face it in if he were to find him alone outside. The entire building knew the guy let his dog do his business right outside in this very spot; they also knew the man never picked up after his dog.
Carmine Luppo.
The fifty-three-year-old former bathtub salesman sat around all day playing video games and only left the building long enough to cash his disability check, replenish his beef jerky stock, and coax his lovely dog to shit on the stoop.
Last month, six of his neighbors took shifts to try to catch him in the act, and yet he somehow slipped past all of them. He looked as if he weighed four hundred pounds—not exactly like a man who could move stealthily, but somehow that magic pile of dog shit appeared out of nowhere.
There was talk of installing a camera.
Porter suggested they buy the domain www.poopertv.com and stream the feed, maybe charge for advertising.
He slipped his key into his mailbox, pulled out the stack of envelopes, and quickly sifted through them. Three bills, a mailer for a dry cleaning service, and the TV Guide.
Porter threw away everything but the TV Guide. He loved TV Guide. He never watched television, didn’t need to—he got everything he needed from the magazine. As far as he was concerned, television had lost its luster when they canceled The Incredible Hulk in May of 1982. The three flights of stairs proved a little more difficult to ascend than they were to descend, and he found himself nearly out of breath when he finally reached his floor. Heather was vegan and swore if he changed his diet, he’d drop some weight and gain some energy. He figured she was right, but when he watched her eating a bean burger and sprouts while he put away good old-fashioned red meat he knew the vegan road was not one he’d meander down anytime soon. He’d sooner tote his growing gut than give up cow flesh. He’d come to terms with his decision, accepted the consequences. Hence, the bag in his hand containing two cold Big Macs and a large order of fries.
Through a feat of digital dexterity, he unlocked the apartment door and managed to get inside without dropping a single item. He set the McDonald’s bag down on the counter, peeled off his coat, and went into the bedroom.
The note from Heather sat on the side of the bed, where he’d left it the previous morning.
Went to get milk.
Porter lowered himself beside it and took a deep breath, then picked up his phone and dialed Heather. Her voice mail message played, followed by a beep.
“Hey, Button.” The words came out in a voice much weaker than he hoped. A lump grew in his throat. “It’s been a crazy day. I doubt I’ll get much sleep, but I’m going to try anyway. There’s this girl, Emory Connors. She needs me to find her. She’s only fifteen, Button. The Monkey Killer took her. Fucking bastard. That’s what Nash called about this morning. That’s why I left so—” The air left him. Tears welled up in his eyes, and he wiped them away with his shirtsleeve.
When the first sob hit, he tried to choke it down, but the next one was more insistent. Grown men weren’t supposed to cry. He wanted to stop, but a rush of emotion surged through his tired body. His stomach rolled and the tears came, soft at first, then louder, then louder still as he finally gave in, collapsing into his hands, the phone falling to his side.
43
Diary
Father was pleased with my packing skills.
When he arrived home about an hour earlier I was waiting outside, a baseball in my hand.
I didn’t particularly like baseball; I wasn’t really a fan of sports in general, but Father had taught me the importance of appearances and I fully intended to keep them up. Mother had me on lookout duty, and I couldn’t stand outside staring at the ground, now, could I? So, baseball it was. I tossed the ball in the air and caught it with my left hand, then my right, then my left again—an old pro having a grand old time.
I tried hard not to think of the picture. The image remained, though, every time I closed my eyes. Mother and Mrs. Carter, all naked and twisted together. I tossed the ball back up and began to count each catch—a little something to tie up my thoughts so they couldn’t linger on that image, the elephant in the room (or Mother’s pocket, unless she’d found a good hiding place).
When Father drove up, he gave me an appreciative nod and held up his hand. I threw the ball to him. His arm shot up and snatched it from the air with the skill of a major-leaguer. He spun the ball between his fingers and walked over to me. “Busy day today?”
Father often spoke in code, another trick he and I were practicing. We could conduct a complete conversation on one topic while knowing full well we were talking about something completely different.
“You know, a little of this and a little of that,” I said, trying not to smile.
Between blinks, my eyes darted to the Carters’ car and back again so quickly as to be practically imperceptible, but Father caught it. I could tell by the slight smirk edging his lips.
He turned to the sky. The sun was setting, preparing for the night’s slumber. “I think we’ve got the makings of a fine night, champ. I think I’ll ask if your mother wants to go for a little drive, a date night in the big city. Think you can keep an eye on the house while we’re gone?”
The words hiding between the lines were quite clear. Father was going to drive the Carters’ car somewhere and dispose of it. He needed Mother to follow him so he could get back home. He was going to trust me to monitor Mrs. Carter while they were gone.
“Sure thing, Father! You can count on me!”
He tossed the baseball back to me and ruffled my hair. “Ain’t that the truth?”
I watched him disappear into the house and emerge ten minutes later, with Mother on his heels. She gave me a worried glance as she walked past and got into the Carters’ car. The door slammed with a squeak. She adjusted the rearview mirror, her eyes peering back at me. Father was standing at his Porsche, twirling the key between his fingers. “Shouldn’t be gone too long, champ. Couple hours at the most. I’m afraid I grabbed your mother before she could get dinner going. Think you can rustle up a little something on your own?”
I nodded. Mother had baked a nice peach pie earlier in the day and set the tin out on the windowsill to cool. We also had peanut butter and jelly in the cupboard. I would be fine. “You two have fun!” I told him in my best adult voice.
He smiled, donned his favorite hat, and dropped down behind the wheel. The engine roared to life, and he eased out the driveway and down the street, disappearing over the hill at Baker Street. Mother didn’t follow at first. When I turned back to the Carters’ house, she hadn’t even started the car. She sat in the driver’s seat, her eyes fixed on me. She glared at me something fierce. It almost hurt. I’m not lying; it was as if tiny little laser beams shot from her eyes and burned at my skin. I tried to hold eye contact. Father had always told me it was important to hold eye contact no matter how uncomfortable a situation may be, but I couldn’t—I had to turn away. When I did, she started the Carters’ car, shifted into first with a grinding of gears, and rushed out down the road after Father.
The dust lingered in the air above the Carters’ driveway. The setting sun seemed to catch it just right, a shimmer above the gravel.
I dropped the baseball and went inside.
I could hear the banging before I passed through the kitchen doorway, a loud metal-on-metal clanging coming from the basement.
I reached for the knob, part of me expecting the basement door to be locked. It wasn’t, though; the brass knob turned and the door popped open. A steady clang, clang, clang echoed up from below.
I descended the steps.
Mrs. Carter was standing beside the bloods
tain on the floor. Somehow, she had wrapped her arm around the metal frame of the cot and was busy swinging it like a bat against the water pipe. Each swing was followed by a grunt; then she lowered the cot, swung it back to her side, and twisted back around, using her body weight to help propel the cot back again. Considering one wrist was still handcuffed to the water pipe and the other fastened to the side of cot, it was a wonder she didn’t break her arm.
As the cot slammed into the pipe, I saw the jolt rumble through her body; the vibration alone had to be painful.
If she saw me, she didn’t say anything. Her hair was askew, and sweat dripped down her forehead.
“The basement would flood, you know,” I pointed out. “If you were somehow able to break a big pipe like that, the water would probably fill up this basement inside of an hour, and there you’d be—chained to the pipe and the cot, bobbing along below the surface.”
She inhaled deeply and repositioned the cot, preparing to take another swing. “If I break the pipe, I’ll be able to slip the cuff off the end and get upstairs.”
“The pipe would rupture long before it would break clear through. Then all the water would come rushing out. It’s hard enough to swing the cot like that now. Can you imagine the difficulty gallons upon gallons of icy cold water rushing out at you would create? I’m not saying you’ve devised a bad plan. I just think it’s a little flawed, is all. Perhaps it needs a little more thinking through before you continue. You seem like you need to take a break anyway.”
She dropped the cot at her side. The handcuffs tugged at her wrist, threatening to pull her down, but she held firm. “You’re not going to try and stop me?”
I shrugged. “I kinda want to see what happens.”
She glared at me, her eyes red and glistening with tears. She was breathing hard. I couldn’t help but wonder how long she had been working at this little project. Mother had probably ignored her. I bet she’d been beating on that pipe for hours.
“So you don’t care if I die down here?”
I said nothing.
“If I drown or your parents kill me, it doesn’t matter to you? What did I do to deserve this? I didn’t hurt anyone. My husband beat me, remember?”
She plopped down on the edge of the cot, sulking.
It was funny. Although she was older than I, sometimes I caught glimpses of a much younger girl in her expressions and movements. Sometimes I spotted a girl much younger than I, one who was afraid and unsure, one who expected an adult (or a boy) to sweep in and save the day.
As an adult looking back on this moment, I now realize I’ve seen that same expression countless times. When someone is in trouble, they expect, they wait, for someone of authority to help them. I think it’s because that is how these things play out in the movies and on television. The hero always arrives at the last minute, foils the crime, and rescues those in distress from certain death as all other options are exhausted. The tears come after that, possibly a hug, followed by a commercial break before they wrap up the program.
Real life doesn’t work that way. I’ve seen more lives end than I can count, and they all seem to hold that same expectation at the end, their eyes glancing at the door, waiting for their savior to arrive. He doesn’t, though. In real life, the only true savior is oneself.
She had succeeded in chipping away the paint on the pipe, nothing more. Not even a dent. She had tried, though, and that is what I found to be important. The game got boring when they eventually gave up.
And she would give up. Eventually. They always do.
“If you let me go, I won’t say anything,” she said. “I promise I won’t. Simon was a bad man—he had it coming to him. Your parents did me a favor. They set me free. I owe them. They don’t have to worry about me. I promise. We can all walk away from this.”
“You broke the rules,” I said softly. “Unfortunately, there are consequences.”
“And how did I do that? By letting my husband beat me?”
“Better to consider why your husband beat you, don’t you think?”
Another tear fell from her eye and started down her cheek. She tried to wipe at it, but the cuffs held both her hands. She couldn’t reach her face.
Sitting on the edge of the cot, I pulled the handkerchief from my back pocket and blotted it away. She stared at me but said nothing.
“I found the picture.”
“What picture?”
“Oh, I think you know what picture.”
With that, the color left her face. “You’ve got to hide it.”
“Mother was with me; she has it now. I don’t know what she did with it.”
“Your father hasn’t seen it?”
“Not yet,” I told her. “But that doesn’t mean he won’t.”
“But you won’t tell him, right?”
I didn’t answer, which I guess gave her an answer.
“If he sees that picture, not only will he hurt me, he’ll go after your mother too. Is that what you want?”
Again, I said nothing.
44
Porter
Day 2 • 6:53 a.m.
When Porter arrived in the war room, Nash, Clair, and Watson were standing around one of the desks, staring at a laptop screen. Nash looked up and beckoned him over. “Get any sleep?”
“Couldn’t. You?”
He knew by their red, puffy eyes that none of them had. Porter dropped his coat at his own desk and walked over. “We get something?”
“Oh, we got something. We got a few somethings. Eisley’s girlfriend came through, for starters. Check this out.” He turned the laptop so it was facing Porter.
“Is that a head from Madam Tussauds wax museum?”
Watson pointed at the image. “She boiled the skull, then applied spacers to simulate muscle and tissue depth—twenty-one specific places—then used clay to fill in the mass. I’ve heard of forensic anthropologists reconstructing facial renders like this, but I’ve never seen it. It’s quite impressive. To do it so quickly . . . Eisley said she didn’t even start until last night.”
Porter frowned. “Wait, this is 4MK?”
Watson went on, oblivious. “She already had his hair. That wasn’t damaged nearly as bad as the face. Even his dental held up, so she had that too. Eye color was already known . . . I can’t imagine this is far off. I checked out her website, and she usually works with Native American skulls found at archeological dig sites—many more unknowns with those, a lot of guesswork. With this, she may be dead-on.”
“I think Watson has a hard-on for Eisley’s girlfriend,” Nash said.
Watson shot him a sideways glance. “I’m merely pointing out I believe this is an accurate representation of the Monkey Killer, one she created in record time, that’s all. The artistry and skill are amazing. You couldn’t get this kind of detail with a computer rendering. This kind of accuracy takes a special hand.”
“It skeeves me the fuck out,” Nash replied. “Looks like it’s watching you. Like one of those paintings where the eyes follow you around the room. Creepy.”
“Clair, I want you to get some pictures of this and hit all the cancer treatment centers we talked about yesterday. Between the drugs and this image, we may be able to ID him,” Porter said.
“Oh, we got more, big guy,” Clair told him. “While you slept in until all hours, the rest of us have been working.”
Porter glanced at his watch. “It’s not even seven.”
“You damn near wasted half the day.”
He rolled his eyes. “What else did you find?”
“Our vic from the Mulifax Building? He was Gunther Herbert, CFO for Talbot Enterprises, which includes the Talbot Estates Development, the Moorings, and about a dozen other ventures. His wife reported him missing five days ago. Left for work and never arrived. Eisley identified him about an hour ago. He also put time of death around five days too, so he was most likely snatched on his way to the office.”
“Did you tell the captain yet?”
; “There’s more, Sam,” Nash said. “Tell him, Clair-bear.”
Clair beamed. “The shoes dead guy number one was wearing when he kissed the bus? The prints Nash lifted came back from the lab with a match.”
“Who?”
Nash drummed his fingers on the edge of the desk. “Arthur Talbot.”
“Did you call me Clair-bear?”
Porter silenced Nash before he could respond. “The shoes belong to Talbot?”
“He seems like the kind of guy to buy fifteen-hundred-dollar shoes, right?”
“Why would 4MK be wearing Talbot’s shoes?”
“Same reason he took Talbot’s daughter. The man did something bad, and 4MK wants us to know. This is his last hurrah, his swan song. He doesn’t want us to drop the ball, so he’s lining everything up nice and neat for us,” Nash said. “Somehow he snagged Talbot’s shoes, stuffed some newspaper in them so they’d fit on his wee little feet, and put them on before stepping out into traffic.”
“Clair, try and get Hosman on the phone. Find out where he is on the financials. We need to speed this up,” Porter instructed.
Clair grabbed her cell phone off the desk and walked toward the corner of the room, dialing.
Porter turned to Watson. “Anything on the watch?”
Watson shook his head. “I showed my uncle a photo, but he said he needs to see the real thing to provide any real help. I tried to sign the watch out of evidence, but I was told they would only release it to you or Nash.”
Porter rolled his eyes. He really didn’t need department policy slowing him down right now. “When we’re done here, I’ll walk up there with you.”
“One other thing,” Nash said. “The feds want in on this case; the local field office has been calling all night. Emory is over twelve, and there’s no proof of interstate transport, so it’s our call.”