He turned the corner and froze, startled to find a man in the living room as though he was the intruder. The man was tall and broad shouldered, mid thirties possibly Latino. He was reading a book next the small lamp. He didn't notice Jeremy at first, standing there in the door way, as he tried to figure out what to do. If he charged him he was sure the man would have time to struggle, which would wake up anybody who may be upstairs. He thought maybe throwing the hatchet at his skull would work but before he had a chance to make a decision the man looked up and found him there.
The awful recognition in the man’s eyes was enough to frighten Jeremy. That was the point of this costume after all. Fear... A tool. A purpose.
The next moment blurred by as the man lurched from the sofa and Jeremy's white mass moved to cut him off before he could make it into the hallway. Realizing he wasn't going to make it the man stopped on the far side of the coffee table. Jeremy went clockwise around it to get to him, the man went counter clockwise, then they reversed directions.
“Please, please don't,” the man pleaded and lifted his hands palms out in surrender realizing there was no escape.
Jeremy stepped onto the coffee table and brought the hatchet down hard into the top of the man's shoulder, breaking, he thought, the clavicle. The weight of the weapon caused the blade to sink deeper than Jeremy imagined it would; the girthy back end of it almost completely hidden in the man's body.
The hatchet was buried so tightly into his mark that the wound was corked up and bloodless. As the man fell to the ground he made a horrible crying- whining sound that reminded him of a dog his father hit with the car when he and Chris were very little.
His arm dangled at his side like a prosthetic limb torn lose from its bracing. He continued to whimper and Jeremy looked down at him marvelling that he was still alive. He pulled the hatchet loose from his shoulder and hefted it up and back down on top of him as routinely as one would chop firewood.
He axed him directly in the nose and gapped a perfect oval in the man's face like a horrible vertical mouth. The hatchet blade was lodged so tightly in the upper gums and teeth and piece of jaw direct below the nose that he hand to put his foot on the man's chest to get enough leverage the pry it loose again. As he withdrew it a awful shrill noise like the sound of a balloon being pinched at its opening while the hair screeches out of it followed and Jeremy cringed and prayed it was just that, air, or pressure somehow releasing from the skull and not some vocalized sound the man was somehow making as he passed.
He caught his breath, thankful that the xanex was doing its work, keeping his mind heavy and dull. The awful guilt and disparity he could deal with later but it was an indulgence he couldn't afford himself at the moment.
Wiping blood from where it was tickling the inside of one his nostrils he turned to leave, realizing suddenly, how noisy the incident was.
Standing there, not five feet from him, stupidly, was a young girl no older than seventeen or eighteen years old. She had long black hair which shined in the moon light and framed his mousy features. The curves of her slender body were clearly appealing under her grey flannel pyjamas. Even in her horror struck stupor she was still very lovely.
Jeremy moved towards her and still the only movement she made was an involuntary quivering of her bottom lip and her eyes blinking wildly as though her brain had short circuited and could no longer direct the electrical impulses to the parts of her body she intended.
He found himself very close to her now, something inside of him going dark against his will. Was this Mister's goal? To bring out something inside of him? Was he being ... groomed?
She began to shake her head back and forth now. A primordial response. Something inside of her saying, no, no, no, telling herself this couldn't be happening. This didn't computer with her framework of reality.
“No,” she whispered. “No”.
Her full teenage lips slowly parting and pursing together in what he perceived to be extreme slow motion. “No. No...no.”
Jeremy lost himself briefly in the strangeness of the moment but soon found his mental footing again and suddenly became re-aware of the weight of the hatchet in his hand. He lifted it a little and she looked down at it, her father's blood still dripping from it onto the tile.
And then in one perfectly perceptible moment Jeremy could see the flash of awful knowingness in her eyes. The one true moment, possibly ever, in which this young girl comprehended her mortality.
The girl opened her mouth and screamed. The sound was startling and shocking and shrill and perfect. He thought of Mary.
The hatchet arced high up over his head and came down on her pretty little face. Her legs buckled or she fainted just before the axe made contact which created a certain hot knife through butter effect. Her head, which still had the hatchet lodged into it was pulled back towards her spine, by the weight of it. Her slender arms criss crossed across her body and one leg and foot fell under her ass so she was sitting on the heel of it. She looked like a princess puppet whose strings had been suddenly cut.
After searching the house to make sure nobody was hiding in a closet somewhere he took out the knife and signed his work.
CHAPTER 19
“A monstrous act,” the judge had said. “A crime which would certainly would have been punishable by death was he a not a minor.”
And then the man who was on his side would say things and the man on the other side would say things, and there were a lot of disapproving looks in his direction. Confused and angry eyes, big words he didn't understand.
“The youth will be placed into juvenile detention until a time when he is of age and fit to be released back into the community.” The judge finally declared.
It was like he wasn't even there. Later two policemen came and collected him from the holding cells under the court house, cuffed him and put him in the back of a police car. They talked amongst themselves as they drove and once in awhile he would catch them glace at him in the mirror but never did they speak a word to him.
When they finally got to the Orange Country Juvenile hall Simon already understood what his new home was going to be like. Like the orphanage, only in some ways worst. When the door clanked shut he knew that when he left this place a piece of him would stay behind. That those walls would always somehow house a part of his soul even long after he was gone, if that day ever came.
It was early in the morning and his back was still stiff from sitting still in the back of the police car for so long. The police officers passed him along to two men inside who also looked like police officers but without the uniforms.
They then made him shower and rub his body in a white powder he was told was for fleas and lice. He felt that comfy kind of feeling that you have just after a bath or a shower, when your hair is still wet and you still smell like soap, though it was just a physical feeling like being itchy or hot, because that's not really how he felt on the inside at all. Inside he was terrified. He knew he couldn't be the worst of the kids in this place and far, far from the biggest. He could deal with that, he supposed he would have to but how would the kids react when they found out what he did? And it was not like he was about to tell them or anybody else why he did what he had done. They could think whatever they want he didn't care, as long as they didn't know the real reason he was there.
The guard leading him down the hall held onto a black canvas bag, the same bag his father had packed for him that day he left him at the orphanage. It contained everything Simon owned in the whole world. Some clothes, a pair of blue tennis shoes, a few pictures of his mother and father and of course his diary and notebooks. He wondered when he would be able to get them back and hoped nobody would read them. He would rather have them thrown out then read but he didn't want to ask any questions about them in case it made them curious about them.
“Here we are,” the guard said taking out a jingly ring of keys and opening a metal door which led into a large dark room as big as the gymnasium in his old grade school.<
br />
He looked up at the burly guard, waiting to be told what to do. The man was massive. They all were there and they seemed mean but at least they didn't seem scary like the priests. He was used to dealing with mean.
“Well, come on,” the guard said and led him inside the room and locked the door behind them.
The room was even larger than he thought. Rows and rows of bunk beds stretched into the darkness until he couldn't seem them anymore. Some of the young boys in the beds were awake and silently watched as the guard led Simon down the rows to one of the cots. Simon tried to read the boy’s faces as he passed. Did they mean him any harm? School was full of normal kids and look how that was. St. Joseph's was no better. He couldn't imagine they would be any kinder to him there.
He thought of his mother and how sad she would be to see him in a place like this. That in turn made him very, very sad. Before he knew it the tears were itching his eyes and his nose began to run. He couldn't cry just now, he couldn't. He knew that would be starting off on a very, very bad foot but he couldn't help it. The more he didn't want to cry, the stronger it made the urge until his face was hot and flushed and a sharp girly sob escaped from his throat.
Somewhere in the room a boy mocked crying.
“boo hoo, hooooooo.” the boy said and then some of the other kids laughed.
The guard spun around looking for the fake crier but Simon swore he could see a grin at the corner of the man's mouth.
“This is your cot.” The guard said, pointing to an upper bunk a million rows into the room. “Wake up is at seven. When you get up, make your bed and follow the line into the mess hall for breakfast.”
Then he handed Simon his bag of belongings and sharply turned on his heel and walked away until the darkness swallowed him up again.
The boy on the bottom bunk was awake. He was chubby and seemed to be sweating although the room was very chilly. Simon was painfully aware of the tears that still wet his face and wiped his cheeks dry with the back of his hand trying to seem as casual about it as possible.
'Smile at the world and the world smiles back' his mother had told him on many occasions but when he smiled at the boy he didn't smile back at all. If anything he frowned. He found himself thinking of Johnny and wondering if he would be ashamed that his best friend in the world had now found himself in a place like this.
Slipping his arm through either strap of the bag Simon carefully climbed the flimsy metal ladder up to the top bunk where he immediately laid down flat because nobody else was sitting up and he didn't want to stand out.
Trying to be as silent as possible he reached into the bag and fished around in it until his fingers found what felt like a photograph. He pulled it out and squinted at it.
Though it was too dark to see he knew it so intimately that there might as well be a spotlight shining on it. It was a picture taken on a random Sunday afternoon in June. It was the hottest day ever. So hot he didn't know it could even get that hot. His father had set up the sprinkler on their tiny lawn
and he had spent the day running through it and giggling. The picture was his of his mother eating a Popsicle and smiling at the camera the way she does like she hadn't seen you in months and missed you more then anything, even though you had been right there with her all along.
He wondered where his mother was at that very moment. He always wondered where she was. No matter what he was doing or where he was and even if he was distracted or writing or maybe even when he was asleep there was a kind of suspense in his heart which would only go away if he finally learned the truth.
He thought about how she would scoop him up in her arms kiss him on the cheek in the exact same spot every time, right above the cheekbone but below the temple. What he would give now to feel her lips on his face and smell her mom smell of flowery soap and clean blankets.
He kissed his own tiny fingers which he found were trembling and then pressed them to the spot above his cheek bone. Again the urge to cry came over him like a fever and as though he could sense it with some sort of bully magic, the kid who mocked him earlier, let out another fake cry.
“Boo- hoo. Waaaaaaaaaa,” and even more kids laughed this time.
Simon chocked back the tears and carefully slid the picture of his mother back into the bag.
He laid back on the lumpy mattress which couldn't be more than an inch thick and stared up at the ceiling until the lights snapped on in the morning and the other boys slowly started to get up and make their beds. He did the same, though it was difficult to do so from the shaky little ladder but he managed.
The boys were all lined up at the door leading out into the hall. Some of them were brushing their teeth and spitting into little paper cups and others leaned lazily against the wall apparently still asleep on their feet but nobody talked and not one of them even looked at him.
An old woman appeared at the door holding a clipboard and motioned for the boy at the front of the line to start walking and everyone followed him in a slow, sleepy line until they got to a door which had a sign over top of it that read: Mess Hall.
Breakfast was lumpy oatmeal and cold toast which the butter wouldn't melt on. Everyone ate in silence, nobody enjoyed it.
After breakfast they were allowed to go in groups of ten into the bathrooms to clean up and shower. Still nobody talked to him. He didn't mind. He had learned a long time ago no attention was much better than the wrong kind.
After a shower in the tiny stalls and getting dressed, they were lead to class which was taught by very old and angry man with the baldest head he had ever seen that sweated and glistened under the flickering florescent lights.
After class was lunch. After lunch was more class. After school were chores. Then two hours of free time which the boys spent reading or playing cards. And just like he expected, nobody really seemed like they wanted to befriend him, which for the first time suited him just fine because he didn't want to be friends with any of these kids anyways. He sat in a corner and wrote his notebook until diner. After diner were more chores, then clean up, then bed. And that's what life was in Orange County Juvenile hall. Breakfast, school, lunch, school, chores, sitting, dinner, chores, sleep. All day, all week, all month, all year.
CHAPTER 20
Jeremy woke to the sound of his cell phone beeping. It was a text from Costa, which read: New crime scene. Heading there now. Be there.
A second text followed with the address, though of course he already knew what the address was. He pulled himself from his office couch, brushed his teeth and freshened up with a bag of supplies he had picked up at the pharmacy the night before and went to get it over with. He couldn't avoid this twice. He stopped for coffee and gas along the way though. The less he had to be there the better. This was a tricky game that he was being forced to play, to say the least. Perhaps it was a grave mistake convincing them Mister was using others to do his killing, now that he had it would certainly raise questions if they ever learnt Mister had also taken Charlie. Though what choice did he have? Finding the link between Matherport and Mister was their best lead at that moment and if he had one advantage over Mister it was the resources of the bureau.
When he finally got there the street was taped off. Barriers had been erected to keep neighbours and traffic from approaching the house. A procession of emergency vehicles lined up and down the street. News crews came as close and they were permitted. He had to flash his credentials several times before being allowed into the house.
Costa met him at the door and pointed to a bootie box. Jeremy stepped into the little metal box one foot at a time and withdrew with protective booties over his shoe. They edged past the LAPD uniforms and into the main hallway. A small team of three crime scene investigators were busy cataloguing all the gruesome details. Somewhere a digital camera hummed and clicked. Rounding the corner towards the living room the smell of death singed Jeremy’s nostrils.
“Oh yeah.” Costa said suddenly remembering and handed him nose plugs. He gratefully accept
ed them and placed one in each nostril. He noted that neither Costa or Mathews and Green who were both standing in the dining room were wearing them. Tough cop bullshit, he thought to himself and moved to where he could get a view of the victims.
Father and Daughter lay not ten feet from each other right where he left them. Two tiny ponds of thick purplish blood pooled underneath them both and joined somewhere in the middle. Their DNA mingled together in some flash of poetic symbolism which Jeremy had to turn his gaze from to avoid falling into a melancholic dumbness.
Costa waved him over into the dining room where he now stood with Mathews and Moramarco.
“Do I really need to be here?” Jeremy asked.
“You squeamish Foster?” Mathews asked.
“Squeamish is not liking the texture of calamari. I would say not wanting to be here unless it was necessary is the healthy response.”
“I would think you would be use to this by now,” Moramarco said.
“I hope to never be use to this.”
“Lock it up,” Costa said. “I brought you along to work on the why. We will take care of the what.”
“I'll look around,” Jeremy said and made his way to the stairs. From the bottom step he could see the side door where he entered from the night before and was compelled to go there instead. He walked through the garage, the memory and the smells from the night before hitting him with a frustrating familiarity.
He made his way outside to where he had entered. On the ground outside the door, he could make out a foot print in a muddy patch of the lawn. He stepped into the imprint which, of course, was a perfect match.
“Are you supposed to be here?” A voice behind him said.
Jeremy quickly removed his foot and turned around. A black plain clothes cop, or possibly detective, with a badge hanging from his neck like bad jewellery stood at the entrance to the back yard with a suspicious look on his face.
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